Reassessment of Italian Combat Prowess

[Michael Emrys]

I think it is essential that we get Free French—including colonial forces—at some point, whether in a module or a pack. Apparently the Poles are already in.

Michael

[LukeFF]

The 1944 men get Panthers and Tigers and Me-262s.

The Luftwaffe had hardly any Me 262s in 1944. The ones they had at that time were plagued by landing gear failures and / or were wasted in low-level ground attacks (e.g., KG 51). The Me 262 only really got going in air-to-air operations in early 1945 with JG 7, and that only really lasted until April 10, aka the day of the "great jet massacre."

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Yup. II SS Pz Korps (with 9th and 10th SS Pz Divs). They arrived just in time to stuff EPSOM, but stuffed themselves in the process.

To be fair to them Normandy was only their second magor acton, their first being in Russia in April 1944 at Buczacz and Tarnopol and they did not perform well there either (see In the Firestorm of the Last Year of the War by Helmut Tieke)

However many units did not do very well in their first battle. The reformed Herman Goering Division at Gelafor instance, But they did rather well later. And II SS did not do all that badly in Epsom though their performance was not great either.

[JasonC]

See? Complete agreement on the actual point comes with buckets of snide and resentment - that is called resistence in the world of psych. In the case of JonS, we can safely ascribe much of that to his just being an *******, but then we knew that. Others continue trying to maintain that anyhow, at least the men were better, grumble grumble.

The Germans lost the decisive battles of the war from the peak of their strength, facing allies many times stronger than they were. Their own strength peaked in late 1943 in some areas, and as late as early 1944 in others. They were not getting weaker continually due to combat attrition, but stronger, as more and better weapons plus their own replacement stream finally flowing more than covered their losses. In the air those may have been about in balance as early as the fall of 1943, and definitely broke downward in the period Feb to Apr 1944. On the ground the break came in the summer of 1944, with the massive defeats of Bagration, the fall of France, and (a lesser matter) the breakouts in Italy that captured Rome etc.

[Bastables]

See? Complete agreement on the actual point comes with buckets of snide and resentment - that is called resistence in the world of psych. In the case of JonS, we can safely ascribe much of that to his just being an *******, but then we knew that. Others continue trying to maintain that anyhow, at least the men were better, grumble grumble.

The Germans lost the decisive battles of the war from the peak of their strength, facing allies many times stronger than they were. Their own strength peaked in late 1943 in some areas, and as late as early 1944 in others. They were not getting weaker continually due to combat attrition, but stronger, as more and better weapons plus their own replacement stream finally flowing more than covered their losses. In the air those may have been about in balance as early as the fall of 1943, and definitely broke downward in the period Feb to Apr 1944. On the ground the break came in the summer of 1944, with the massive defeats of Bagration, the fall of France, and (a lesser matter) the breakouts in Italy that captured Rome etc.

JonS is correct as usual. Indicators that the German army had grown weaker in 1944 can be easily be seen in the de motorisation that occurred with infantry divisions. OKW thought that the short fall could be made up with the rail network, that was subsequently cut by the USAAF and RAF.

Inclusion of soviet artillery pieces without adequate ammunition stocks as there were not enough native guns nor the stocks or capability to properly supply dissimilar soviet calibers or. Having to widen the pool to conscript people previously excluded from service aka ear and stomach units, "elderly" and teenagers.

PIV's now having hand cranked turrets. Poorer quality/brittle armour being accepted for frontal plates (resulting in Panther's having 85mm glacis to make up for the loss of protection from 80mm "good" quality plate, but adding weight). PIV's/Jdpz 38 formally reliable now having final drive failures at similar 200km to the "overloaded" Panther due to poor quality metals being used in the final drives/transmission.

Just look at 109's (G14/10/6AS) late in the war with their DB engines leaking oil onto the grass and concrete that did not occur in the older E's and F.

[Michael Emrys]

"The shortage of German officers remained chronic throughout the war, despite efforts to speed up the commissioning process. Other battalion and staff functions, such as supply, signal, medical, intelligence, maintenance, and administrative were staffed by noncommissioned officers who had attended special schools to qualify them for these assignments. A surgeon was also authorized, but was not technically considered part of the battalions leadership staff, although he held officer’s rank.

There are numerous examples that depict how rapidly these battalions lost their combat effectiveness when key leaders were killed or wounded at the initial stages of an attack. Although each battalion still had several officers distributed throughout the line companies who could technically fill the shoes of their fallen commanders, these men often lacked tactical acumen or the necessary experience required to handle large units. Unless the division concerned could quickly assign a Hauptmann or Major from its Fuhrerreserve (leader’s reserve) to take over such a leaderless battalion, the record shows that these units tended to disintigrate rapidly, often resulting in mass surrenders even when only lightly attacked by Allied units. This tendency only worsened as the war drew toward its end."

Even in the first half of 1944 the majority of your German infantry divisions on the Eastern Front were, on average, at somewhere between 30% and 60% strength. The German divisions in France were mostly the best of the best because Hitler felt that if he could defeat the invasion he would have time to then deal with the Soviets afterwards since he thought it would be unlikely for the Allies to attempt a second invasion very quickly after the first one failed. So yeah, you would have some very experienced soldiers in the mix and those individuals were very effective. Once that one individual went down though, those Luftwaffe Flak NCOs with their little infantryman's leadership handbook just weren't up to the challenge. So German units in 1944 tended to be very fragile. In contrast, the 1940 edition German army would continue to function effectively if a key leader went down.

So, if you are under the illusion that every German unit in 1944 was fully staffed with steely eyed veterans who had been in combat since 1939 then you are fooling yourself and you need to do a little research. The Germans of 1944 didn't forget how to fight. The Germans of 1944 had units that had a few men who were highly experienced and effective who were trying to keep a much more numerous group of barely trained draftees who may or may not be very motivated from getting themselves killed before the war ended.

There is another sense in which the German divisions of 1944 were more brittle than their 1940 equivalents. Quoting from Unit Organizations of World War II by David Myers, we find that:

The TO&E for the German infantry division of 1940 contained 17,200 men.

The TO&E for its 1944 equivalent contained 12,352 men.

That's a reduction of over 28%. Significantly, nearly all those cuts came out of the rifle and engineering battalions, the guys on the front line who were most likely to take casualties when the shooting started. Yes, they were better armed with more automatic weapons and the companies had traded in their 50 mm mortars for 81 mm, so their firepower had if anything increased...as long as they were up to strength. But that meant that each casualty meant a larger percentage loss to that firepower. It also meant that it was that much harder to cover the same amount of frontage. Ultimately, it also meant that the divisional artillery, which is where the bulk of the division's firepower resided, was that much more vulnerable to attack and destruction, since it was customarily horse drawn and could not displace as rapidly as motorized artillery.

Overall, I would agree with Jason's position that the big change between 1940 and 1944 was not so much that the German army became weaker or inept during the interval, but that the Allies improved by leaps and bounds. However, an honest appraisal requires that we recognized that in key areas it had been hurt and hurt badly by five years of unceasing war and attrition. It had gotten stronger in some areas, but not enough to make up for all that it had lost. And certainly not enough to make up for its enemies' improvements in nearly all areas.

Michael

[JasonC]

Michael - asked and answered. The army was not smaller, it was larger. Yes there were fewer men in a division - there were also lots more divisions. The result was more artillery support and other heavy weapons per front line rifleman, not the reverse.

Notice how everyone first agreed the point was obvious and trivial, and now one page later are still striving to maintain it is false, instead?

[JasonC]

Amplifying remarks - Michael tries to leave the impression that the German army in some average sense was 28% weaker in 1944 than in 1940 - but this is emphatically not the case. The total manpower in the armed services, all branches, was 6.6 million in 1940 but 12.24 million in 1944.

The field Heer showed a smaller expansion it is true, only 10%, but the replacement army was larger, the Waffen SS grew half a million men, the Luftwaffe grew by a smaller amount but was manning fewer planes by the second half of the year, and more FJ ground divisions. The field force, excluding replacement army, navy, non combatants in rear services, Organization Todt, etc may have increased only about 50% rather than nearly double (field Heer plus Waffen SS, plus a bit for some Luftwaffe ground), but it was most definitely larger, not smaller, in 1944 than in 1940.

You can see all the details here -

http://www.wehrmachtbericht.com/page14.php

The fielded force peak may have come in the last part of 1943 rather than the early part of 1944, but it is right around then and right around level for that whole period, as replacement stream and losses were basically in balance over that stretch. 10/43 to 3/44 losses were 1.2 million, replacements were 1.12 million in the field army in that period, and the SS was expanding by 150,000 men over the year 1943 to 1944. Basically right around level, over that period. In overall armed forces, 1944 is the peak year and clearly so, for the field force the peak is a bit earlier - the most that can be said.

The army was definitely not stronger in the early war than in the late war, purely numerically, let alone accounting for improved equipment.

As for the comments about manpower quality, they are premature for the period in question. Yes the Germans pulled out the stops in response to the losses of the summer of 1944, and from that date on they were using lower quality manpower in addition to the usual drafts etc. (They also just shifted men out of the beaten navy and from the air force to FJ divisions, and squeezed the replacement army channel - but the last also meant shorter training times etc). But before then, in late 1943 to early 1944, the new units forming got excellent manpower. Not all of them and there were some Ost battalions etc, sure. But 9SS, 10SS, 12SS, and 17SS are all formed from green manpower in that period and didn't exactly get the bottom of the barrel - the same can be said of many of the new FJ divisions, which vastly outperformed the earlier set of LW Field formations. The VG divisions formed that summer gave a good account of themselves at the westwall, even after most of the manpower "stops" were pulled.

The army was larger, and that meant reaching for more sources of manpower certainly, but through the first third of 1944 at least, it included quality sources, enough to form new units that the western allies pretended were "crack", when in fact they were greener than the average Allied division they were facing, but fought well anyway. Those are not signs of having reached the bottom of the manpower barrel. Such signs are eventually seen - Volksturm at the westwall, the greenest divisions in the Bulge - but those are the fall of 1944 and later, not a year earlier.

[dieseltaylor]

I am having thoughts that semantics is being a bugbear. Weaker and stronger are relative terms and if used in terms of fighting value is different from the amount of men in an Army or combined arm force totals. I would have thought pound for pound the German 1940 division being 40% stronger in manpower than a 1944 division [in the unlikely event it was at full strength] had a longer capacity to keep fighting against its foes of that era.

Just out of curiosity Jason I was wondering how far the German Army was extended in 1944 compared to 1940. The force in Norway had risen to 370,000 by 1944. Denmark had seven divisions pre D-Day. I have no figures for the Balkans but I know 40,000 were on the Aegean islands just before the retreat from Greece. The garrison figures for the Balkans and France pre-invasion are no doubt significant also.

You say " The total manpower in the armed services, all branches, was 6.6 million in 1940 but 12.24 million in 1944. " but is it really fair to count 2.3m non-combatants?

Essentially I am suggesting that numbers alone do not prove that an army is more potent. If it is diffused across Europe its overall practical fighting value is lower. I am ignoring also the draining effects of supplying troops over vast areas.

[Wicky]

Funnily enough just reading in readiness for MG 'It Never Snows in September' Pg 213

Enthammer (German prisoner) befriended the English corporal tasked with guarding them. Conversing freely, he discovered he was a student from London with a lively sense of humour. 'The Jerries have developed a new tank with a crew of a 1,000,' he said. 'Impossible!' retorted Enthammer. 'Oh yes,' he replied . 'One man steers it, another commands it, the gunner fires it, and the other 997 push it!'

[Sgt Joch]

See? Complete agreement on the actual point comes with buckets of snide and resentment - that is called resistence in the world of psych. In the case of JonS, we can safely ascribe much of that to his just being an *******, but then we knew that. Others continue trying to maintain that anyhow, at least the men were better, grumble grumble.

watch your language.

[Apocal]

You say " The total manpower in the armed services, all branches, was 6.6 million in 1940 but 12.24 million in 1944. " but is it really fair to count 2.3m non-combatants?

Presumably those same non-combatants contributed towards the first total.

Essentially I am suggesting that numbers alone do not prove that an army is more potent. If it is diffused across Europe its overall practical fighting value is lower. I am ignoring also the draining effects of supplying troops over vast areas.

No one is arguing purely numbers. And the Germans of 1940 (well, mid-1941) still had most of Europe, parts of the Med and North Africa to keep supplied.

[JasonC]

dt - as I mentioned, the field army (including Waffen SS and ground FJ forces) increased about 50% rather than 100%, since the replacement army, navy, and non combatant forces (including Organization Todt e.g.) also grew. But the field forces are not weaker after 4 years of war -they are 50% stronger.

As for their spread, it isn't geography, it is enemies. They are not fighting the little sisters of the poor anymore, one at a time. They are fighting the Red Army at its height, the western Allies near their height, massive western air power, etc.

That is the whole point. The Germans were stronger right round the table, not just in this or that suit. But the allies were stronger and by a much larger margin. I also agreed earlier that the Germans were weaker than they could have been had not the Russians been chewing their backside for 3 years - clearly, the German force could have been even larger and fresher as well as better equipped, without that.

But the losses the Russians were putting on them over that stretch were *not* greater than their own replacement stream. Any more than the hurt the Germans put on the Russians in 1941-2 meant the Russians "had to be" weaker in 1943-4 - no, because the Russians replacement stream from mobilization etc was bigger than their loses. The Russians didn't get stronger in most of 1941, but did in 1942 despite losses inflicted, and improved in quality and mix in 1943, again despite losses. Similarly, the Germans more than covered their eastern front losses and were stronger, not weaker, in late 1943 to early 1944, than earlier in the war.

The Russian attrition kept them from building a much larger force, fine. It was 50% larger numerically despite those losses, however, so that attrition slowed its rate of growth, but did not actually weaken it outright. The field forces, not rear area and reserve stuff.

I realize there are plenty of people who resist this proposition or would consider it news, but it is the plain fact. The Germans were not weakening in 1942-3, they were strengthening, as they finally got around to totally mobilizing both their war production (tanks, aircraft etc ramp clear to mid 1944) and their manpower (rear area stops not pulled out completely until the summer of 1944). The Germans were exerting themselves more. But they were covering their losses.

The thing is, the Allies not only covered theirs too, but multiplied in number, fronts, and especially in efficiency. The Luftwaffe lost those battles of early 1944 not because they were numerically weaker than they had been in late 1943, for instance, but because the US air force threw literally *four times* as many planes at them in early 1944, as in the summer of 1943. More of them fighters with longer range, too. The Germans were not incapable of sending a fleet of 1500 AFVs to Normandy, with 9 strong mobile divisions, to contain the allies. They were not incapable of meeting Bagration with a shift from AG South that inflicted more losses on the attacking Russians than they lost themselves in that operation.

But they were not able to replace the loss of 25 divisions each in Bagration and France in the space of a couple of months, and Allied strength just kept increasing, as more western Allies got ashore and the Russians made good their own 1944 losses with a 1944 replacement stream augmented by recruits from liberated territory etc. The breakdown in German absolute strength happens that late - that is the point. And what causes it is not gradual weakening of their own (German) force, but huge increments to allied strength and quality, and the amount of that strength brought to bear at once (where the opening of the main ETO western front is quite important and not an afterthought).

If you like, the writing was already on the wall in 1943, because Russian quality was improving, the initiative was gone, and there was no prospect of stopping the western Allies when they did join the ground fight. That the air war would be lost was likewise basically in the production schedules and German pilot attrition rates at that point. The U-boat war was lost in the spring of 1943, and with it any prospect of keeping American ground power from being brought to bear eventually.

I am not saying the war was *decided* in 1944 - it was decided earlier than that, in calendar 1943 basically. But that decision, in those senses, came before the actual break lower in German combat power. That didn't happen until 1944 - air first in the spring, and ground in the summer. And it didn't break lower then because they were slowly weakened or tired - it broke lower because the allies hit it with a wrecking ball.

FWIW...

[JonS]

Presumably those same non-combatants contributed towards the first total.

There weren't too many Hiwis in the 1940 Heer.

[Apocal]

There weren't too many Hiwis in the 1940 Heer.

Weren't the majority of Hiwis in some combatant capacity? Or am I misremembering?

[Sgt Joch]

Weren't the majority of Hiwis in some combatant capacity? Or am I misremembering?

IIRC correctly, most Hiwis were Russian POWs/civilians. They were used in a support capacity to free up German troops, so although they were technically troops, they were not combat troops.

[JonS]

Weren't the majority of Hiwis in some combatant capacity? Or am I misremembering?

It is my understanding that the Hiwis were - as SgtJ notes - in support roles. See: Wiki article

... for supplementary service (drivers, cooks, hospital attendants, ammunition carriers, messengers, sappers, etc.).

However, you do raise a good point, because in addition to the Hiwis there were loads of Russian combatant troops too. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?

[Redwolf]

There is another sense in which the German divisions of 1944 were more brittle than their 1940 equivalents. Quoting from Unit Organizations of World War II by David Myers, we find that:

The TO&E for the German infantry division of 1940 contained 17,200 men.

The TO&E for its 1944 equivalent contained 12,352 men.

You can easily interpret that data as the army becoming stronger (man for man).

[Michael Emrys]

You can easily interpret that data as the army becoming stronger (man for man).

I already covered that. But to repeat: yes, the average firepower per man increased. But that meant that every casualty took away a higher percentage of the total firepower, making as stated the formation somewhat more brittle, i.e., less able to sustain battle casualties.

Michael

[Redwolf]

I already covered that. But to repeat: yes, the average firepower per man increased. But that meant that every casualty took away a higher percentage of the total firepower, making as stated the formation somewhat more brittle, i.e., less able to sustain battle casualties.

It's still a tradeoff that an army can make without you being able to say that it is proof that the army got stronger or weaker.

[dieseltaylor]

Surely stronger and weaker is still semantics at play. A 1940 Division is stronger in manpower but weaker in firepower than a 1944 division. How well in theory one would perform against the other might then be a matter of terrain and mission.

As it happens the more useful view is how well would they perform against their enemies at that date. I have no doubt that the average 1940 German Division was much more effective than Allied divisions, and that in 1944 the average German division was not.

I do not see how it can be argued any other way. The technology gap had been eroded and then gone to the Allies. The power in the air was now allied rather than Stuka heaven. Manpower and production wise the Allies were ahead. Germany vis a vis its opponents divisions was on a loser.

Saying the German army was 100% bigger in manpower in 1944 is not proof of effectiveness. As I have pointed out that much larger army was spread over most of Europe so if you start stripping out the garrisons and the huge amount of troops in the logistical arm and guarding the lines the actual fighting value - as in number of combat troops available for action might not be hugely different.

Its rather like Napoleon controlling Europe. Much bigger army than the UK but the UK under Wellington could land and beat all the armies sent him again and again. Of course Napoleon had a hugest most powerful army but the inability to put it into the Spanish field other than in chunk sized pieces showed that its what you can put where that is important.

[JonS]

To move off on a related and hopefully more productive tangent, I've recently started reading Stephen Biddle's Military Power. His thesis - put simplistically - appears to be that traditional models of military power are based on either simple mass ("God is on the side of the big battalions") or simple technology ("New stuff beats old stuff"), or on whether the overal state of military power is offense- or defence-dominant. But both of these models are inadequate - they famously and very publically failed to predict the outcome of the 1991 Gulf War, and even worse they predict opposite outcomes to each other. Biddle proposes that the missing piece from these models is what he terms 'employment', which speaks to the way forces are employed, rather than just what forces are employed, and he goes further in saying that the way is more important than the what.

Anyway, I'm only part way through so far, but I have some questions for the forum:

1) has anyone else read it?

1b) what did you think of it. Is it plausible? Is it usable?

2) given that this book is almost a decade old now, has there been any related work in this area - an elaboration of Biddle's thesis, a refutation of it, anything? Or did it apparently sink without a trace.

Regards

Jon

Edit: I found a review by van Creveld. he doesn't think much of it

I'm a bit further in to this - I'm in the midst of the case studies now, and it's an enlightening read, full of 'a-ha!' moments.

Curiously, it turns out to have more to do with this thread than I would have thought. Jason appears to be hanging his hat on two main points:

1) more is better. An army of 12M is better than an army of 6M.

2) newer is better. Panthers beat PzIIs.

His analysis thus appears to be based on the traditional models of military power, the ones that gave us rules of thumb like "the attacker needs 3:1". Biddle argues, quite compellingly, that those traditional models are balls. They aren't wrong, exactly, but since they're only true and useful over a very narrow range they're useless for either an explaining or predicting real battles.*

In a highly simplified form, Biddle is arguing that how forces are used is far more important that what the forces actually consist of. Intuitively, we know this is true, and we even refer to it explicitly to explain some facet or unusual outcome. The French in 1940, for example, had more and better tanks than the Germans, and the Anglo-French airforces were stronger than the German airforce. But the Wehrmacht ran rings around everybody anyway because they used their stuff - employed their stuff - far better. GOODWOOD in July 1944, for a second example, should have been a walk over for the British. They had far more stuff than the Germans, and average British tech used during GOODWOOD was some two years newer than the average German tech. Using either the force model or the technology model the British should have snotted the Germans. But we all know what actually happened, and we all have a reasonable sense of why. Biddle's employment model puts some formal rigour around that 'why', to tease out the important variables.

To get back to this thread, Biddle is arguing that counting noses and equating that to 'strength' is largely a worthless exercise. He is also arguing that the specific technology used doesn't really matter either.** So far, I'm tending to agree with him.

Jon

* If all else is equal, then yes: more beats less, and/or newer beats older. The only problem is that all else is never equal.

** within reasonable bounds. MGs vs spears gets you an Omdurman. Mind you, it can also get you an Isandlwana. Employment really does matter.

[costard]

Jon, isn't "how forces are used" a function of leadership? Leadership problems in the US forces were addressed following the North Africa campaign (i.e the President toured and sacked). The Brits were keen to hang their hat on anything remotely successful (which is how they got Monty) and Stalin had the purges of the 30's and the follow-up to Barbarossa to prune. Hitler, on the other hand, had a force that was committed by their oath and pragmatic in their dealings with the party (the un-pragmatic were soon done away with, and not to mention the level of feeling within the officer corps that led to multiple assassination attempts). It is interesting that the US came out of WW2 with management skills that are still to be matched elsewhere in the world (and on the decline for twenty years now).

[Sublime]

I disagree Costard. The US has made plenty of grand strategy mistakes in the past 20 years but I think all in all the US has a fantastic record of management, civil and military in times of crisis. For every Katrina, theres a Sandy. Both Gulf Wars were stunning successes, though of course the insurgency following GW 2 not so much. Same with Afghanistan. However in over a decade of combat in the middle east the US has managed to keep public opinion largely on their side (domestically), keep insanely favorable kill ratios, and force their will on opposing forces. We also got Bin Laden and half of his cronies as well as Qaddafi and those jerks.

No - you can't say it's been a pure decline for 20 years - whose to say the US was doing things way better in the 70s or 80s for example? If I think of a contemporary power going into Afghanistan, or Chechnya, or other places, I dont see it being pulled off the way the US managed to. Even if we're only talking about while the troops are in country, not whether the puppet regime we install stays in power.

[costard]

Sublime, decline doesn't mean you've hit a point where you're worse than anyone else. It might mean that there is a trend that needs to be reversed. I believe the US has such an enormous resource in it's populace that it still has about half a generation (15 years) to go before it exhausts it (and with so little being put back into the infrastructure and systems that husband that resource...) - but on the current trend it'll get there soon enough and we'll be lucky if we're left with stagnation as a result.

To go to decline from such an outstanding success? I think that if we have a look at our myths we'll find that there has been a creep into the grey area - natural behaviour for the curious, those that are most likely to lend novel observations to the sum of human experience - and a discovery of the "wrong".

WW2 was supported in the US by a populace that watched newsreels for a glimpse of their relatives, that saw the death of their relatives. The populace supported that war even though they were informed of the reality of the outcome (for many). The modern populace is so far removed from that understanding of the costs of waging war (with the unhappy exception of the Yugoslav, Bosnian, Yemeni, Sri Lankan, Chechen, Egyptian, Israeli - the list just goes on and on) - how the **** can this be gauged as a "success"? If the time-line for success is as negotiable as "how about this then?", why don't we consider the possibility that the populace can respond to the idea that "globalisation means that you're competing with an Indian (that lower caste, black skinned, hungry, energetic and, above all, capable dude) for the wage that presently buys your food and shelter and clothing". I don't see that the average US citizen has benefitted from the strategies imposed by their leadership over the last twenty years, I don't believe that husbanding disaster is a way to avoid it.