Surfaces and Gaps, American Tradition/German Inovation?

[Tiger]

He wasn't talking about Americans copying Blitzkreig he was saying that America Didn't copy combined arms from the German use of it from WWII to present day operations. I think his last staement is a bit confusing :

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The development of the AirLand Battle doctrine of the 80's is just another permutation of an American tradition. NOT a German innovation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It seems to infer that it was an American idea. Probably just the way it was written as "American tradition".

If I misunderstood then I apologize, however I still stand by the last paragraph that you dismissed. You did say that America entered the war with combined arms already in place, and said this can't be disputed. My choice of opening statement was ill-chosen, I'll agree. Instead of saying "As far as America being the forerunner and first to use combined arms, I disagree", it should have been more in line with your quote of yours I had just used and said "....America did not enter WWII using combined arms warfare" In any case, it could also be argued that America had almost 3 years to study what Germany had done with combined arms at the beginning of the war. You're right, these can not be suddenly implemented and I give the example of the US Army's reluctance to create a seperate tank arm that there was not therefore a long tradition of combined arms usage in America. If so why was there this strong resistance to change?

Don't get so discouraged ScoutPL, if someone like me misinterprets, point it out and move on.

regards,

-john

[CavScout]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tiger:

If I misunderstood then I apologize, however I still stand by the last paragraph that you dismissed. You did say that America entered the war with combined arms already in place, and said this can't be disputed. My choice of opening statement was ill-chosen, I'll agree. Instead of saying "As far as America being the forerunner and first to use combined arms, I disagree", it should have been more in line with your quote of yours I had just used and said "....America did not enter WWII using combined arms warfare" In any case, it could also be argued that America had almost 3 years to study what Germany had done with combined arms at the beginning of the war. You're right, these can not be suddenly implemented and I give the example of the US Army's reluctance to create a seperate tank arm that there was not therefore a long tradition of combined arms usage in America. If so why was there this strong resistance to change?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This point is a red herring. All nations suffered from inter-service rivalries. The Germans were not immune from such interferance from old-time officers.

"The doctrines and desires of the panzer experts were at first so poorly recieved that operations were hampered by inter-clique rivalries. When it happened in Poland and France, the situation was saved because the Allies were so befuddled it really didn't matter. When it happened in Russia, however, such squabling contributed significantly to the defeat suffered in front of Moscow."--John Desch, The 1941 German Army/The 19944-45 U.S. Army: A comparative analysis of two forces in their primes. <u>HITLER'S ARMY: The Evolution and Structure of German Forces, 1933-1945</u>.

If one gets down to it, calling the Germany military a "combined arms" force is almost silly. While we all remeber the Panzers and mechanized forces the truthis the MAJORITY of the German military was leg infantry and relied heavily on HORSES! How can one say the US copied the Germans in this?

[This message has been edited by CavScout (edited 10-12-2000).]

[ScoutPL]

"At the level of divisions and smaller, US units certainly looked for weaker areas to push through...but the overall American strategy was certainly not to break the German lines by a single concentrated thrust."

Go to the US Army's Center for Military History Website and read the source material they have posted there on the Normandy Breackout (Operation Cobra). I think you will find it proves my point rather well. Classic Penetration/Exploitation.

"it should have been more in line with your quote of yours I had just used and said "....America did not enter WWII using combined arms warfare" In any case, it could also be argued that America had almost 3 years to study what Germany had done with combined arms at the beginning of the war. You're right, these can not be suddenly implemented and I give the example of the US Army's reluctance to create a seperate tank arm that there was not therefore a long tradition of combined arms usage in America. If so why was there this strong resistance to change?"

As cavscout pointed out I think the reluctance to create a seperate tank arm (if there really was such a thing) can be attributed to service rivalry between the Infantry and Cavalry and budget constraints. I would point to the actual development and tank design itself as an indicator of how the US viewed armor/combined arms. Germany and Britain both designed and manufactured 1000's of tanks specifically designed for infantry support. None of them even vaguely resemble the capabilities of a Sherman, other then they were all tracked. From the very beginning the US was looking for a tank that was fast, mobile, and powerful. The M3 Grant was an even bigger concession to speed being a sort of scout vehicle/tank destroyer hybrid. I would also recommend studying the US Army's TD program. It sole purpose was to destory enemy armor, allowing the tank units to focus solely on offensive power. The american proficiency with artillery and air support (comparatively speaking) is well documented. The techniques developed by the artillery branch in conjunction with the infantry took years to put together. Once again, impossible to put it all together between Poland/France and the Torch landings. Doctrine is the very basic philosphies an army operates on. It cant be changed mid-stride. It took the army close to a decade to get everyone on board the AirLand Battle train, in peacetime! The premises of combined arms warfare were there and were being practiced in the Louisiana wargames of the thirties. The doctrine didnt have a fancy name, it wasnt flaunted as a historical breakthrough, but it was there. It was tweaked and perfected and by the time 1942 rolled around this massive american army that sudddenly sprung up from no where was ready to go forward and do battle and used combined arms warfare successfully against the "experts." Notice i havent used the term "maneuver warfare." In strict military parlance the two terms are totally seperate and would require another discussion to sort out.

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ScoutPL:

I would like to put up a post and not have it misconstrued and twisted around into an argument I never made. But then I'm prone to wishful thinking...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are a number of different issues here, which can lead to confusion; I don't think anyone, especially me, is trying to attack you in any way.

Some of the discussion does not distinguish between the use of maneuver warfare, strategy of the indirect approach, combined arms, and their uses in modern and WW2 combat.All of these issues are related, but they are not equivalent.

If one considers the more general issue of the genesis of maneuver warfare, which dats back to Sun-Tzu, through Hannibal, past Napoleon,Stonewall Jackson, R. E. Lee, Liddell-Hart and Guderian, to name only a few,the discussion can get pretty convoluted.

It seems to me that the main issue for this discussion (as given in your title for the thread) is the origin of the ideas of maneuver warfare as used in combined arms combat in WW2, best exemplified by the German Blitzkrieg.

There is little doubt that Fuller and Liddle-Hart and De Gaulle, who are generally credited with putting forward the ideas of maneuver warfare in terms of modern combined arms warfare, owed a lot to their forebears including some American Civil War Generals and others, but there is also no doubt at all that their ideas were not adopted by the British and the French until after the German Blitzkrieg.It was the Germans who recognized the promise of those ideas and who translated them into the practical tactics that we know.The Soviets had also developed somewhat similar ideas, but the Stalin purges of the thirties killed the most brilliant developers of those ideas, and early in the war, the Soviets did not have the overall means to coordinate such attacks successfully.

So when some people disagree with your statement about US influence on this question, they (or at least I) are speaking only of the IMPLEMENTATION of the surfaces and gaps theory to modern warfare concerning the combined use of tanks, artillery, infantry and other weapons.

I don't have my books here, but I will give quotations from American experts showing that the US military (with the exception of the Marines) at least until very recently did not have a doctrine corresponding to pitting strength against weakness in the sense of the indirect approach, but rather in the spirit of Clausewitz, which is mostly incompatible with this approach.

From my own experience, when one starts a thread that is expected to be a bit controversial, he should expect a hot but mostly civilized discussion, but the nature of forums is such that there will always be a few people who get impatient and who lapse into what can be construed as personal attacks. It is difficult to resist responding to every such attack (I speak from experience), but it is probably best to ignore them and to respond only to those that keep the discussion on an intellectual level.

Henri

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CavScout:

I guess I ask again what do people mean when they say "maneuver warfare"? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is a good question, and whole books have been written about it; essentially it is the use of fire and movement to disrupt, dislocate, and destroy the enemy. In involves something called the "Boyd cycle", where one opponent forces the opponent to react faster than he is able to, which often leads to his position falling apart of itself (dislocation). It usually involves the so-called "indirect approach", which for example involves attacking an enemy's supply lines or rear areas in order to make his front-line troops unable to fight effectively.

In its modern form, it usually involves finding weak spots in enemy lines, breaking through there with deep armor penetrations behind enemy lines creating havoc by threatening weak but important units such as headquarters, artillery batteries and supplies, not to mention the threat of surrounding and isolating front-line units.

The perpetrator of maneuver warfare is really fighting his enemy's MIND, where the most effective disruption and dislocation ideally takes place.

In the Blitzkrieg, when the French began to see German units racing behind their supposedly invincible front lines, they became totally disoriented and unable to make the fast decisions that the situation warranted (Boyd cycle), with the result that their whole military establishment collapsed upon itself in total confusion. Only De Gaulle among the French understood what was going on, but he did not have the resources to act efficiently to restore the situation.The French High Command, feet stuck in the cement of obsolete military ideas, might as well have been on another planet. The British at that time were not much better.None of the Allies had a doctrine in place to practice or counter this kind of warfare, and the Germans went through them like a dose of salts.

Henri

[CavScout]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Henri:

That is a good question, and whole books have been written about it; essentially it is the use of fire and movement to disrupt, dislocate, and destroy the enemy. In involves something called the "Boyd cycle", where one opponent forces the opponent to react faster than he is able to, which often leads to his position falling apart of itself (dislocation). It usually involves the so-called "indirect approach", which for example involves attacking an enemy's supply lines or rear areas in order to make his front-line troops unable to fight effectively.

In its modern form, it usually involves finding weak spots in enemy lines, breaking through there with deep armor penetrations behind enemy lines creating havoc by threatening weak but important units such as headquarters, artillery batteries and supplies, not to mention the threat of surrounding and isolating front-line units.

The perpetrator of maneuver warfare is really fighting his enemy's MIND, where the most effective disruption and dislocation ideally takes place.

In the Blitzkrieg, when the French began to see German units racing behind their supposedly invincible front lines, they became totally disoriented and unable to make the fast decisions that the situation warranted (Boyd cycle), with the result that their whole military establishment collapsed upon itself in total confusion. Only De Gaulle among the French understood what was going on, but he did not have the resources to act efficiently to restore the situation.The French High Command, feet stuck in the cement of obsolete military ideas, might as well have been on another planet. The British at that time were not much better.None of the Allies had a doctrine in place to practice or counter this kind of warfare, and the Germans went through them like a dose of salts.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've always prefered Employment of forces on the battlefield through movement in combination with fire, or fire potential, to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy in order to accomplish the mission.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Scout PL: I have no problem with your characterization of COBRA as a classic penetration/exploitation maneuver; also, because there is, AFAIK, no official definition of Blitzkrieg, there may be no reason not to call COBRA a Blitzkrieg.

But that's not how I understand Blitzkrieg (and perhaps I should try to stop using that work...but I can't think of anything better). Blitzkrieg, IMO, is a *strategic* concept wherein an entire army concentrates its forces for a decisive armored breakthrough. So France 1940 would be a Blitzkrieg, but Barbarossa would not be because Hitler attacked broadly across 1000's of miles with three roughly equivalent forces. In some ways Barbarossa was an anti-Blitzkrieg, at least the part in August '41 where Hitler weakened Army Group Center to support Army Group South.

It's this sort of concentration of theater forces for a decisive breakthrough in one location that the Allies did not do in France. And of course if the Allies had wanted to pursue a "concentration" strategy, the most logical way to have done so would not have been in a big sweep that takes your most powerful forces through south and central france, ending up Saarland and the Vosges; the most logical Blitzkrieg-style approach would be to go almost due east from the beaches, through Belgium and perhaps Holland, ending up in the Ruhr, which would pretty much end Germany's warmaking power right there.

Of course, to do *this,* you would either need to have the British take the lead (they had the easternmost beaches) with the Americans as a sort of junior partner (as Chester Wilmot wanted), or the Americans would have had to have landed at the easternmost beaches in the first place.

I don't particularly beleive that the Allies *should* have pursued a concentrated strategy -- it is, after all, quite risky to have a decisive battle with large numbers of inexperienced troops.

However, at the operational level, the Americans very frequently employed penetration/exploitation/envelopment type attacks; these were generally successful except that the Germans were very good at escaping just before the trap closed. Which mean that the Americans got the real estate, but German units kept escaping to fight again (albeit with fewer and fewer supplies).