Tigers from HELL

[Bigduke6]

So why the Germans were successful both in France and up to late 1942 in the Soviet Union with inferior tanks?

I would say, because the Germans had an excellent tactical doctrine and a well-trained force, while the opposing armies had close to no idea on how to conduct a modern mobile war.

(It is possible of course to argue the Soviets technically HAD a mobile warfare doctrine superior to the Germans in 1941, but what with purges and political mayhem the Red Army even if they technically had the mobile warfare textbooks they weren't capable of executing it when the Germans attacked.)

The trap I think the Germans fell into is that after the successes of the 1940 and 1941 campaigns, they concluded their army was world-beating and that the opposition could never come up with a counter, and further that the key to their success was tactical skill backed with efficient weaponry.

This might well be excusable, after all how many armies have overrun Europe and a sizable chunk of Russia in the course of a couple of years, ever? Add in Nazi racial doctrine and their whole military is set up to believe that, indeed, they have an awesome military the likes of which the world has never seen, superior in equipment, training, combat experience, spiffy uniforms, you name it they're better, etc. etc.

When they had their first major defeats, basically at El Alamein and Stalingrad, the German military had to consider: Maybe the previous two years of successes were a fluke? Or maybe El Alamein and Stalingrad were flukes aided and abetted by superior Allied material?

The Germans military - again probably very understandably - failed that test, they concluded those defeats were outliers, and that battlefield superiority would guarantee ultimate victory in the war. They then applied their resources, even more, towards keeping the German military system as tactically capable as possible.

In hindsight we can see this was a disastrous and foolhardy decision. In fact both the Anglo-Saxon forces and the Red forces developed effective counters to German tactical skill. True the Germans remained competent in regimental-level battles, but so what if the Allies could overrun entire provinces and wipe multiple divisions off the German order of battle, in a matter of a few weeks?

The Germans remained capable of winning small chosen battles right up to the end of the war, they retained technical superiority in tanks from about 1943 onward. The Allies, meanwhile, occupied Germany.

There are those who might see an object lesson in all this for the US, whose military for some 20 years now has advertised itself as an awesome super high-tech world-beating force, while producing a very mixed record in the actual wars it has fought.

[dan/california]

The U.S. problem has more to do with our idiotic inability to deal these places after we have conquered them.

Grave confusion, at the very highest political level, over the actual long term goals doesn't help.

[Praetori]

And remind you of the United States the perfect example - regardless of 19th century nativism and know-nothingism, regardless of 20th century racist extreme-right groups - of how varied can be the People of a Federal Nation and reach at the same time cultural, economical, scientific, technological and military hegemony (the tales about it being dead are grossly exaggerated and serve to its current diplomacy).

Well it's grossly OT but this thread has gone haywire anyhow.

The US had a long and bloody war of liberation, the near extinction of the native population and a pretty gruesome civil war before becoming what it is today.

And it still firebombed cities and dropped two nukes on densely populated areas. To this day I've not heard of a single US serviceman/woman or officer being extradited/charged for warcrimes by the international community. Simply because like most western powers the US have yet to be at the mercy of the "winning side".

War is simply terrible no matter how justified and almost every nation has had it's fair share of atrocities, against or by.

The Germans remained capable of winning small chosen battles right up to the end of the war, they retained technical superiority in tanks from about 1943 onward.

A quite interesting statement I once read. Though the exact book eludes me.

But In 1940 the Germans had inferior and lighter armor and still prevailed vs the French and Brits.

In '41 they had nothing that could match the KV or T-34 and still won most engagements against them.

In 43-44 and onward they had heavier tanks than most of their opponents and got beaten.

The German tactical doctrines didn't benefit from heavy tanks as much as it could have. Compare the campaigns in Norway and the Crete with the rest of the theaters.

Little or no armor but the tactics still applied and were successful because of the distributed decision-making and force concentration where it was deemed most useful.

Larger heavier armor formations doesn't make a difference if you're hitting the enemy where he's strongest.

The German army of 1940 or 41 would probably never have attacked at Kursk if it had been up to them but simply attacked somewhere else where the odds were better.

[MikeyD]

So why the Germans were successful both in France and...

Armies in the initial attack often have an advantage. They know the battle is coming, they know when and where and can position their logistical resources to maximum effect. They can pretty much guarantee a local superiority of forces which most of the time is all that is needed to succeed. Its like if you were to sucker-punch someone on the street. Landing that first blow says nothing about your relative pugilistic abilities. Its how things work out after the first punch is thrown that's more telling.

[Vark]

Don't forget the German still launched aggressive armoured counter-attacks against advancing Allied spearheads well after they were practically feasible. Such predictable tactics could only hope to interupt an advance, often at a high price in men and materials. Once the advance resumed, or other advances continued the Germans had less materials to counter them.

As for the German tanks being technically superior, maybe true on paper, but in reality, over-engineered, unreliable guzzlers of scarce POL was not what was needed.

[sburke]

Wow, what a thread. I wonder what topics it hasn't touched already

Anyways, I quote JonS remark, because it's really one of the issues that has led historiography to draw highly misleading accounts of certain episodes of the war. Such as the Prokhorovka battle. Here's a quite recent book - which has some problems, regarding readability and maps - by the curator of the Kursk memorial:

Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative

V. Zamulin

Went to take a look at this and came across this as a reviewer. Nice recommendation, thanks BletchleyGeek. I think I know my next book purchase.

"Zamulin's fresh new book on Kursk represents the best of recent Russian scholarship on the war and is as close to definitive as possible."-- David M. Glantz

[BletchleyGeek]

Went to take a look at this and came across this as a reviewer. Nice recommendation, thanks BletchleyGeek. I think I know my next book purchase.

"Zamulin's fresh new book on Kursk represents the best of recent Russian scholarship on the war and is as close to definitive as possible."-- David M. Glantz

You welcome, sburke. I you feel like discussing the book - and the portrayal of the battle in computer or board-based wargaming - I just started a discussion over at comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical about it.

I hope you aren't dissapointed by it If so I'll gladly get a copy of the CW module for you to compensate

[Linus R]

Good afternoon. New to this site. I'm trying to find the totenkopf division deployment my father was in that over ran Odessa Russia in 1942. Not sure if it was the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd division. Hope someone on this site can direct me onto the correct division. Also would like to know the direction this division went as it was driving further into Russia. Thank you.

[Vanir Ausf B]

"Totenkopf" refers specifically to the 3rd SS Panzergrenadier division. I suspect they were driving east at the time

[HARI SELDON]

Just follow the trail of massacared villages.

[John Kettler]

Linus R,

Welcome aboard!

What a remarkable first post, not least because you said your father, not your grandfather, fought with Totenkopf in 1942! Presuming he was 18 then, he would've been 76 in the year 2000, and an even 100 this year. Though you have but one post so far, you may well be the most senior CM player we have.

Regards,

John Kettler

[BletchleyGeek]

Totenkopf never fought in Ukraine in the 1941-1942 period.

It was assigned to Army Group North and fought its way across Lithuania and Latvia, until getting bogged down in the fighting for the Demjansk region, to the south east of Lake Peipus. It was encircled during the Red Army winter counteroffensives fighting in what was to be known as the Demjansk Pocket. Totenkopf wasn't extricated from there until the late Spring of 1942, after losing about an 80% of its effectives.

After that it was sent to France to refit and rebuild, and wasn't back into Russia until February 1943, where it took part in the famous Von Manstein's backhand blow at Kharkov. It then took part in the initial stages of the Kursk offensive, being then quickly re-deployed further south, to bolster the 8th German Army at the Mius, and suffering horrific casualties there and during the long retreat towards the Dnepr river. In the Winter of 1943-44 it took part in the also infamous relief effort of the German forces encircled at Korsun, and in the less famous but not less hard-fought fighting withdrawal of 1st Panzer Armee in the early Spring of 1944.

After that it fought alongside GrossDeutschland in twarting the Soviet offensives on present day Moldavia, and by August 1944 it was deployed to central Poland playing a great role in defeating Soviet attempts to capture Warsaw. Then it was used as part of the crazy attempt to relieve the surrounded Budapest garrison attacking through the forests and marshes around Lake Balaton, and practically destroyed while later falling back to cover Vienna.

The last I know about it is that several of its units found its way into the western parts of the Czech republic, where they surrendered to the forward elements of the US forces.

Indeed, the quite distinguished feats of arms above are tainted by well-documented war crimes. I find it also a very peculiar unit, in the sense that their senior commanders have struck several historians - including George M. Nipe - as being extremely unimaginative tacticians, that used their division as a rather blunt 'shock' force, squandering the lives of their troops in useless frontal attacks.