Assaulting anti-Tank/Infantry guns

[abneo3sierra]

Good discussion here guys. And yes, German tactical thinking stressed mobility over firepower if there was to be a choice of the two, and always stressed the attack, even in situations such as above where it was less than optimal.

JasonC, in your "reporting the order as unreasonable.." you would probably be correct, but you probably would not have remained in command, and the order would be carried out regardless by your replacement. Rarely in history are commanders given the tools they want or need, in nearly every case you do what you are ordered, with the pieces you have, and fill in the blanks with them, much as you were stating about Rommel elsewhere.

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[abneo3sierra]

Yes, but pretty true. Seriously, there never would be a battle if every commander waited till the situation was right. It never gets "right" and as you said above, it can get a lot worse, so, if ordered to take a town in, say, a day, and you decide it is not optimal, and wait, you can wind up in a situation much as v. Paulus at Stalingrad, and by the time you have what you think you need, the enemy will likely have more as well.

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[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Adam1:

I meant Jason's most recent... He knows what counts as analysis and that wasn't it.

Gotcha.

Just posted this on another thread, quote by Patton, always has been very true "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."

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[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Adam1:

I don't know that I agree with that either.

Yeah, tough call, and a lot of people dont, which is why there are so many different theories on warfare. I mostly agree with it, although you could make it sound better by changing the words, just on the fact that any time you spend waiting to improve the odds, if your enemy is any good at all, they will be making their own position better anyway.

[DavidFields]

The reason we know Patton, and still quote him, though, is not necessarily because he was right--but because his superiors wanted someone who thought that way in command.

He told people what he believed--and was reasonably competent in acting with that belief. Other people thought differently. As Supreme Commander, one then picks the right attitude, hopefully, for the desired result.

It gets complex, I think, when high level decisions are made in order to keep the home front motivated--even if not tactically/strategically sound. Needs to be done....?

Could the Germans, for instance, have fought a grinding, slow-moving invasion of the Soviet Union? Keeping supply lines, therefore, shorter, and the weather better, and fighting in areas where the population would be more sympathetic. Inducing the Red Army to attack, and then destroying any unit that did so. Targeting then, the Army, rather than territory, and trying to induce a WW-1 type of collapse in their enemy.

Or would that strategy have been precluded by what the German people had come to expect after Poland and France?

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

The reason we know Patton, and still quote him, though, is not necessarily because he was right--but because his superiors wanted someone who thought that way in command.

He told people what he believed--and was reasonably competent in acting with that belief. Other people thought differently. As Supreme Commander, one then picks the right attitude, hopefully, for the desired result.

It gets complex, I think, when high level decisions are made in order to keep the home front motivated--even if not tactically/strategically sound. Needs to be done....?

Could the Germans, for instance, have fought a grinding, slow-moving invasion of the Soviet Union? Keeping supply lines, therefore, shorter, and the weather better, and fighting in areas where the population would be more sympathetic. Inducing the Red Army to attack, and then destroying any unit that did so. Targeting then, the Army, rather than territory, and trying to induce a WW-1 type of collapse in their enemy.

Or would that strategy have been precluded by what the German people had come to expect after Poland and France?

The German tactics in Barbarossa were mostly following their own long tradition, not really any correlation to Weiss, etc. I think Blau was their first variation from tradition. Most of the High Command wanted to shorten their lines and take a "breather" before they advanced in Blau, to allow them to somewhat make up heavy losses over the winter.

As it turned out, they were probably correct, but even understrength the early part of Blau was extremely successful, v. Paulus had, early on, a chance to take a nearly undefended Stalingrad with part of XIV PzK. By the time he reacted however, the city was defended much more strongly. Again, in the days before the encirclement of 6.Army he had a chance to counterattack, an attack that if done, right then, would have almost certainly destroyed or neutralised the northern portion of the coming "pincer" and again, he delayed, to get more information and to await orders that, by the time they arrived, were too late. The primary mistake the Germans made was to put what was in many instances almost a tactical level of command, in Hitler's hands, contrary to the doctrine Germany and Prussia had fought by for nearly 200 years at that point, which had always stressed the independence of the on site commander, to use his own judgment to determine the best method to achieve the objectives given to him.

[JasonC]

Count the brilliant professional German general officers sacked for their role in the successes of 1941 and 1942, pre Uranus. Then tell me again about successes and general's discretion. German command got dumber as the war progressed for the simplest possible reason - they fired the men who knew what they were doing, for yes men martinets who overpromised and feigned optimism.

If wanting to go faster made you go faster, people would keep on wanting to go faster until they won the war yesterday. It doesn't. If being willing to accept a few more causalties today for more decisive offensive results worked, martinets willing to spend other men's blood liberally from the safety of their headquarters would not be lacking, the casualties would be paid, and the war would be won yesterday.

But wishes are not horses. In reality, ordering subordinates to push harder, push harder, without any real understanding of the factors that make tactical opportunity or break it, results with depressing uniformity in endless rows of graves, but does not increase the speed of anything one iota. It is folly, the dumbest hard perennial in war.

There can be times when speed is tactically important and useful, times when the enemy is detected out of position, achieved surprise, times when causing confusion is tactically beneficial and deeply inserted forces will cause it. But you can't will them up because they'd fit a largely plan, or because you want them to exist. You can't make them by hitting a gas pedal and dying faster. If an enemy is in position and alert and knows what he is doing, and your plan is "charge", then you will get slaughtered, every time.

[abneo3sierra]

I definitely agree with your first point. Blau was the first operation after they fired the generals and Hitler took a more "personal" role, and , though initially quite successful, was a disaster in the end that was never recovered from.

As for the lead from the rear, however, most German field grade commanders from Korps downwards, led from the front.

Edit: as for your last paragraph, 200 odd years of mostly victories by German/Prussian armies would argue against that, tactically speaking, while the last two wars being lost, are not in themselves a corroboration of that statement either. The Germans, and Prussians, historically always felt attack was the primary tool of warfare. Their country was not capable of winning protracted fights, where the enemy was always going to outnumber them, they relied on Bewegungskrieg to deal a fast, annihilating victory. Men such as Frederick the Elector, v, Moltke, and more recently, Rommel and Guderian..these officers were the most aggressive, and were leading from the front. The ..as you put it..rear echelon m>>ers, were the ones preaching slow, steady.. Just to put the proper light on this.

[ April 15, 2008, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: abneo3sierra ]

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[JasonC]

abneo - tell Blucher and Falkenhayn. The German military tradition is larger than the cartoon version - it includes offensive minded attritionists and careful attritionists, not just maneuverist icons. Also, thinking attack important is not the same as worshipping modern maneuverism.

Yes lots of German generals were fired after the 1941 campaign. Some where fired for the 1942 one not bagging enough prisoners e.g. von Bock, who arguably had more to do with the successes of both years than anyone above him.

Adam - pound sand.

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[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by JasonC:

abneo - tell Blucher and Falkenhayn. The German military tradition is larger than the cartoon version - it includes offensive minded attritionists and careful attritionists, not just maneuverist icons. Also, thinking attack important is not the same as worshipping modern maneuverism.

Yes lots of German generals were fired after the 1941 campaign. Some where fired for the 1942 one not bagging enough prisoners e.g. von Bock, who arguably had more to do with the successes of both years than anyone above him.

Adam - pound sand.

Not sure what the cartoon version is. I do have 30-40 old German textbooks and papers from their Kriegsakademie off the record that you may be interested in, family heirlooms that make it very clear what the German way of war expected of it's generals, right or wrong.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

heh, talk about pearls and swine. Adam, if you are interested in the basics of various theories there are plenty of free articles discussing them online. just google it up.

the point about smaller scale units not having the big picture is a bit moot, since even on the largest scale the picture is far from clear.

all things being equal, it's of course better to follow the pull.

sometimes rushing is a sound approach - a method of countering the strenghts or utilizing the weaknesses of the opponent.

[pamak1970]

The war against U-boats was conducted in the most scientific and attritionist manner

It turns out the u-boats biggest weakness was their low submerged speed, which meant their chances of ever spotting convoys let alone catching them or setting up well coordinated group attacks, to overwhelm their escorts, depended critically on the boats spending most of their sortie time running at 15-20 knots on the surface, not 5 knots underwater. Planes forced them to dive. Once slowed, they were vulnerable to HK groups if and only if there was a decent, recent spotting report already, and they had been submerged the whole time since (if they could get "up" again soon, the area they could reach was too big to find them). It turns out the u-boats biggest weakness was their low submerged speed, which meant their chances of ever spotting convoys let alone catching them or setting up well coordinated group attacks, to overwhelm their escorts, depended critically on the boats spending most of their sortie time running at 15-20 knots on the surface, not 5 knots underwater. Planes forced them to dive. Once slowed, they were vulnerable to HK groups if and only if there was a decent, recent spotting report already, and they had been submerged the whole time since (if they could get "up" again soon, the area they could reach was too big to find them).

Convoys became less vulnerable when they were able to sail faster than the enemy u-boats, and u-boats became weaker when their slower underwater speed gave the enemy better chances to locate and destroy them.

So the speed factor in maneuvering is close related to the outcome of that battle.

Now if the above led to more kills, it does not follow that it is an "attritionist method".

Notice also that Allies did not restrict themselves to the defense. They seized the initiative by aggressively hunting and attacking the enemy submarines. They did not plan to win the Atlantic war by counting on the "superiority of defence" , destroying u-boats during convoy attacks.

I believe your statement comes from your belief that "Allies went for the kill" ,therefore their method is attrition-based.

I will not agree with this point of view.

Maneuverists may often discuss ways to avoid costly battles, but this does not mean that this is going to be the case always.

Maneuverists will certainly go for the kill at some point or another. They just explore ways to make the impact of this kill as heavy as possible.

If Allies were able to maneuver against the U-boat bases in French coasts for example, they could certainly try this option instead of hunting them one by one, but during the most crucial phase of the Atlantic war,they just did not have this option.

The fact that this option was not available, does not make them attritionists.

They seem to be fully aware of the benefits of speed and attack.

P.s

A few air raids against such naval bases is not really the maneuver we are talking about,like an artillery bombardment in enemy's rear has nothing to do with maneuver if it is not combined with other arms

[ April 16, 2008, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

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[undead reindeer cavalry]

Adam1,

usually people with exceptional talent in abstract thinking have trouble in transmitting their observations to other people. most of the other guys simply do not observe that the abstract layer exist at all, and for them it's more than odd that the other fellow is so stuck up with his strange unpractical opinions and principles. for this other fellow however the quest for purity and perfection of principles is the more essential and interesting part. he doesn't really care about practical issues. for him the practical issues are just data from which to derive further enrichment of the abstract layer. though, this doesn't mean that he wouldn't get good kicks from seeing the abstract principles manifest themselves on the practical level of things. he doesn't really care about the T-34, but he enjoys the T-34 when it embodies some abstract princple -- e.g. economical production and thus strength in numbers.

as for your examples, i don't know how relevant they are. of course if A gives better results than B, then A is to be chosen - no need to mess theories or doctrines into it. the careful attritionist is more than happy to sacrifice 10 men if by doing so the enemy will lose 20. in all battles there is the bigger picture for which the smaller components are more or less sacrificing themselves. it's inherent to warfare.

what comes to your question of how one can speed up advance or deal with seemingly reckless order, there are at least a couple of typical responses.

to speed up advance you can simply order your units to attack again (typically units do only hour or two of active combat per day, if even that). if you have reserves you can commit them to the attack. if you have units doing partial or full flank protection you can commit them to the attack. if terrain makes your support arms less effective you can transform them to direct attack forces, same goes to specialist units like recon and such. if your attack was previously broken into multiple thrusts, you can combine them into a single thrust on the sector that holds most potential for you. you can narrow down your attack sector. you can ask for some additional forces. you can try to better coordinate your actions with your neighboring units. and so forth.

what comes to reckless orders from superiors, a common solution was to adjust the order when you pass it to your subordinates. e.g. you receive an order for full attack, but you order your subordinates to just probe.

[JasonC]

I believe your statement comes from your belief that "Allies went for the kill"

Wrong. It comes from the whole strategy being directed by detailed statistical analysis of convoy losses rates and u-boats sinkings, along with theoretical math about search radii and interception probability etc. First learn what operations research is, and what it did in the battle of the Atlantic, and then try to address my point with mere exterior bromide and slogans.

[pamak1970]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I believe your statement comes from your belief that "Allies went for the kill"

Wrong. It comes from the whole strategy being directed by detailed statistical analysis of convoy losses rates and u-boats sinkings, along with theoretical math about search radii and interception probability etc.

If you had half the knowledge you claim you do about operations research, you would have known that OR is used regardless of the strategy used and the theory of maneuver or attrition behind it .

It does not follow that using OR makes you attritionist.

OR was used for example during the cold war to assist military even during periods when aggressive counterattacks and rapid maneuvers were part of the NATO plans

First learn what operations research is, and what it did in the battle of the Atlantic, and then try to address my point with mere exterior bromide and slogans.

First try to read a few more monographs about OR, assuming that you are already expert in math, and then you are welcome to claim your expertise in that subject

[ April 17, 2008, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

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[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

A division "here" may need to be "spent" for a victory "there".

This guy is saying otherwise and when the obvious questions come up he just slanders ("Let's all go over the top shouting "huzzah" and pretend that is faster", isn't used because it doesn't work, and higher ups too clueless to know that are kept out of the loop if necessary.) and restates his opinion. That is when he is not exaggerating.

It bugs me a lot.

i am not JasonC, but i think you are simply misreading him and confusing two different things.

doing a profitable A for B trade, or higher level goal overriding lower level interests, has nothing as such to do with doctrines or theories.

as i see it, the question is most of all about different methods of execution and the principles behind them.

the question is not should i trade A for B, but how do i trade A for B. how do i execute that demanding order to take village X.

[pamak1970]

doing a profitable A for B trade, or higher level goal overriding lower level interests, has nothing as such to do with doctrines or theories.

You never have a 100% confidence about what will turn out to be profitable and what not. The "fog of war" is always present, so I agree with you that doctrines and theories have nothing to do with "doing a profitable A over B trade".

They have to do with the way you deal with the uncertainty of war.

For example,people who are willing to sacrifice firepower for acheiving higher tempo of maneuver, count on the fact that they will still be able to gain the advantage . What type of advantage?

Faster means you become less predictable. Faster means you create more "fog" for the enemy to penetrate. Faster means you gain the initiative and having the enemy react, means you have better chances to get a better picture of the battlefield than he is and it is this thing that can pay off and help you direct your efforts in the most efficient way.

A Database (at dupuy institute i think) of battles (tactcal level) through out history show that the attacker enjoys a rate of success of around 70%.For modern battles with faster tempo of operations it is even more.

That is because 70% of the times the attacker's estimations of the situation on hand, turned to be correct. The attacker CHOSE to attack exactly because he was calculating and expecting that he had some type of advantage. Otherwise he would not attack at all.

You can not explain the above higher rate of attacker's success, by saying that defenders through out history were led by leaders of lower quality. It is not that they were "stupid". It is the fact that reacting is more demanding than acting. That is what made them seem "stupid" in the eyes of armchair generals.

Notice here that when i am talking about the fog of war, i am talking about operational and above levels ,because at a small level a unit may still have the advantage of defence, knowing the terrain much better than the enemy, establishing outposts and so on.

However this will be unimportant if sound higher echelon decisions, force it to fight against big odds and this is exactly what happened in most cases of successful attacks.

On a broader scale,the decisive results are going to come from decisions of higher commands and at this level, things are much more "foggy" for the side which is not fast enough to gain the initiative.

There are very few books which give details about the process and delay of dissemination of information during operations.

Outside of technical studies, a very good book is "a time of trumpets" about the battle of the bulge.

It gives a balanced picture of the events through all layers of command from small units to the higher commmand.

A careful reading reveals that although artillery bombardment started around 7 am (if i recall well), Bradley gets the news about the German offensive around 5:30 P.m (again if i recall well) and allies are still not sure if this is a major offensive justifying release of operational reserves or if it is just a limited one, trying to disrupt the preparations for the incoming Allied offensive action towards Germany .

The book is really good because it gives you the information to study the perception of the situation through all layers of Allied command, from battalion Hqs to regimental division corps army army group and so on. It is just that i do not recall specific times for those cases, but they are there for anybody interested.

More technical reports are published by RAND corporation.

In one of them study groups gathered communication reports from many live training exercises at the National training center.

They actually counted the duration (in minutes!) of stituation reports, SPOT reports, transmission of orders , and so on and they published the results.

The result was that for events that lasted for about two hours, the battalion Hqs gathered a total of few minutes of transimissions related to reporting the developing situation. the battalion commander had to relocate closer to the actions in order to direct operations, however the battalion HQ could not do that and unfortunately it is its communication equipment which was necessary to relay information to the brigade. So although the commander had a decend picture of the battlefield, the unit which was responsible for pushing information higher, was lagging significantly in getting a decent picture of the events.

There were many reasons for this lack of reports.

Electronic warfare was not the crucial one.

It was something else, which is well described in another book about Yom Kippur war.

When a general kept interfiering asking for updates, a colonel replied to him " General if you keep asking more questions, soon there will be noone left to answer them!). The platton and company leaders had such workload ,they just could not have enough time to give reports to the back.

Whenever they did, the duration of communication was short and totally inadequate.

In higher levels things are even more confusing Intelligence officers of lower echelons have to make a judgment about the portion of information which is crucial enough to tie valuable communication equipment and time for transmission.

Misunderstandings of the original information or the need to summarize reports from lower levels make things even more confusing, even if radios or telephones are working properly and you get reports.

The above book about the battle of the bulge has some fascinating cases of this.

Of course all these things apply to the attacker as well, however the crucial difference is that he does not react. He chooses the time and place where he will strike with a considerable proportion of his force. We are talking again about operational level, when even as a defender you are able to spot a concentration ,you still have hard time to understand intentions and if or where it will be applied .

So it is not easy to do from the early stage a counter concentration of your forces opposite of the attacking ones.

You have to decide about that after the enemy strikes and the faster the enemy acts the more unpredictable he becomes and the more difficult for the defence to predict the time and place of counter concentration (attritional approach). In addition the attacker will try to make sure that this decision is going to be even harder.

He will do faint attacks, or ones with limited objective trying to lure your reserves away from his main effort and so on.

He will try to use interdiction to delay operational reserves. The attacker has the advantage of knowing about his intentions and which routes are essensial for his mission, and which ones need to be interdicted to create delays to enemy unit trying to approach

The defender, has first to correctly estimate or learn about the direction and routes of enemy advance. Air assets are just too limited to try to interdict all possible lines of communications

Does this mean that faster or attacking is always better than slower or defending?

Of course not. Countless examples of attackers crashed or fast moving units becoming too weak and disorganized to be effective, but this is not the point.

The attacker is still able through out history to win 70% of the tactical battles.

Now if someone says that wars through out history are won in general by the bigger side, he is right. This does not though invalidate maneuver theory.

If the bigger side is able to win 70% of the tactical battles by moving faster,taking the initiative and attacking as often as possible,they are still going to win much more efficiently than by winning 30% of the battles.

For those who do not get it, the crucial phrase is "as often as possible". You do not take the initiative and attack simply because you want to.

It comes after "reading the battlefield" which is again related with the fog of war issues. The thing is that you should not be afraid to get the initiative and attack if you think is is justified ,regardless of the uncertainty. History shows that the chances are in your side and uncertainty actually benefits you more than your opponent.

[ April 18, 2008, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[pamak1970]

Wrong. It comes from the whole strategy being directed by detailed statistical analysis of convoy losses rates and u-boats sinkings, along with theoretical math about search radii and interception probability etc.

Care to explain why "theoritical math and interception probability" can not be applied for the air recon missions of a Tank Corp under maneuver theory?

Or why you can not use "statistical analysis" to analyze results and draw conclusions you can apply in maneuver theory?

By the way, - it is detection probability linked to the search radius- the interception probability is something different. A portion of detections will become actual interceptions and the calculation of this ,uses other parameters.

Scientists always work in a systematic matter and they produce results in various fields which certainly impact military decisions at all levels.

The field can be Operations Research, engineering or electonics developing of a new tank or radar, or testing and analyzing and producing data about penetration of armor and so on.

The fact that all these can affect military decisions is irrelevant to the doctrine used by the military.

You can use a new tank model, or the penetration data to estimate optimum engagement ranges under any type of doctrine.

The fact that all these came from a systematic scientific procedure ,is also irrelevant and does not make you attritionist.

[ April 18, 2008, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]