The Blitz myth?

[athlete]

Well, I think that it's a an accepted historical fact that Britain and France declared war on Germany, so what about it isn't correct?

Oh, the good vs evil thing? Well, that is a profound debate; one not really worth engaging in in these forums, and one that inevitably ends in emotional rants.

My only point would be that I'm not talking about what was discovered long after we declared war on Germany, but the reasons we went to war in the first place.

[ June 03, 2005, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: athlete ]

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by von Churov:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Moon:

Let me open the windows, it's gettng hot in here... If it gets any hotter, I might have to shut and lock the door...

Martin

Sorry Moon,

I'll be cool.

I just don't like when someone underestimates other peoples knowledge, and starts rating books and arguments at will.

Just don't lock anything.

Thank U! </font>

[Wartgamer]

The development of the United States Armed Forces of 1941-1945

______________________________________________________________

Years Officers Men Total

______________________________________________________________

1941 99.536 1.341.482 1.460.998

1942 206.422 2.867.762 3.074.184

1943 579.576 6.413.526 6.993.102

1944 776.980 7.215.888 7.992.868

1945 991.663 7.374.710 8.266.373

The US did have the luck to start arming before being attacked. Notice that it still needed some time to get 'major-power' manpower under arms.

[Sabot3]

You can write a thousand doctrine books based on the thoughts of a hundred great minds, it really doesn't matter if you can't do the following:

1) encourage your troops at all levels but particularly the leaders at battalion level and below to believe in that doctrine and to use it; and

2) create an atmosphere that encourages and rewards the use of that doctrine during training and operations.

No matter what they did or didn't do, the Germans appear to have developed an understanding of their doctrine and a spirit of initiative in their commanders that percolated down through the ranks. That level of understanding and initiative came to the forefront once the battles turned fluid. German troops appear to have been generally less reliant on orders from higher command then their Allied brethern and it helped them take advantage of the opportunities inherent in a breakthough.

There has been a ton of writing on this subject in professional military circles and I won't go into it here. If you want to replicate this effect in CM then you have to as a minimum, institute more complex command and control parameters and increase or decrease the reaction time to orders for troops of various nationalities.

... and then try to find an opponent to play anything other than German before late '42 or early '43

I think one of the best examples of the conversion of doctrine into reality is the way the US Forces force doctrine to be used, tested and further developed at the National Training Centres. Troops live doctrine, they make it work, they just don't talk about it. No matter what the German High Command thought, the soldiers on the ground, particularly the combat leaders understood the doctrine and had been trained to use it. They overcame the inertia from above.

[Wartgamer]

The Germans found out in Poland that they would outstrip ammunition production when fighting a blitzkrieg type war. Ammunition consumption of artillery shells in particular would use many times what the current artillery shell production was producing.

http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/GermAmmoPoland.html

105mm was used 7.33 times the produced level, 150mm 4 times and most other ammunition types were also used at greater rates than production was supplying at the time.

The Germans clearly must have realized that ammunition was what was needed to sustain blitzkrieg type war. 1940 and 1941 tube production rates had been increased (but were actually at the same levels those two years). But ammunition production was many times 1939 production levels.

As an example...105mm in thousands

105mm leFH 18 and 18/40*

1939 2112.1

1940 10,948.7

1941 3551.7

1942 18,459.8

1943 29,440.6

1944 38,055.7

1945 3226.4

The Germans clearly stockpiled 105mm during 1940 but reduce the rate during 1941. German rates increase thereafter.

It appears that the Germans did ramp up ammunition production pre-1941 while keeping certain weapons production at a 'steady' rate. They apparently increased artillery production of 105mm and 150mm artillery in 1940. They kept the same rate in 1941 though. It would seem that the Germans believed they were either deficient in field artillery or that it was a very decisive arm that needed to be increased.

http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/SovWarProd.html

German mortar ammunition mysteriously decreases. This could be the drop off from reduced use of 50mm mortars but it would seem odd that 81mm mortar rounds would not be consumed at near artillery rates.

The Germans also made quite a stockpile of 37mm ammunition during 1940. Ten times what was produced during 1939. More than 1941 and 1942 put together. Production of 37mm guns in 1940 was only twice of the 1939. This also shows that the Germans were focusing on ammunition production pre-Russia.

Regarding: Jason's rose-colored glasses mystical hindsight assumption about the Germans possibly getting 1943 or 1944 levels of production in 1940....

Question: Could they really have done that AND increase POL supplies AND get all the trained crews needed? It would have taken time and given the Soviets time to fortify the border AND finish ammunition factories (which the Soviets knew were in short supply).

Blitzkrieg is as much about time (lightening fast) as anything else. The Germans applied it against someone that had time and space. The early 'success' in Russia was at a price with very little gain. Clearly by November the Germans were losing the Blitzkrieg machine due to losses/breakdowns/etc. They went all out and it did them in. In retrospect, they should have realized that multiple-blitzkriegs were needed since they would not knock off the Soviets in one go. Blitzkrieg as a Strategic solution failed when applied to the invasion of the Soviet Union.

[ June 04, 2005, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by athlete:

Well, I think that it's a an accepted historical fact that Britain and France declared war on Germany, so what about it isn't correct?

Oh dear. Try reading a book on the subject, rather than regurgitating the nonsense you've read on an IHR website or similar.

Originally posted by athlete:

Oh, the good vs evil thing? Well, that is a profound debate; one not really worth engaging in in these forums, and one that inevitably ends in emotional rants.

There's really not much profundity required to see Nazism as evil. Plenty of people tumbled to the fact long before September 1939. Unfortunately some people don't quite seem to have got the message yet.

John.

[roqf77]

well okay that is a point.but beeing padantic britain and france did declare war on germany. britain on 11am 3rd september 1939 and the french at 12. Although germany did preempt it by the actions over austria checkoslovakia(as it was then) and poland. and not all nazi's were evil. that is a little bit of a stereotype.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by roqf77:

well okay that is a point.but beeing padantic

If you're going to be pedantic, it's important to be accurate.

Originally posted by roqf77:

britain and france did declare war on germany. britain on 11am 3rd september 1939 and the french at 12.

A state of war was considered to have come about due to the German failure to respond to the ultimatum in a diplomatic note. There was not actually a document headed "Declaration of war" anywhere.

The Germans were fighting from September 1st. The Allied declaration of war did not occur until two days later. The fact that Germany failed to declare war on Britain and France while taking aggressive action certain to trigger a war hardly makes Germany the injured party.

Originally posted by roqf77:

Although germany did preempt it by the actions over austria checkoslovakia(as it was then) and poland. and not all nazi's were evil. that is a little bit of a stereotype.

Again, accuracy is important to the aspiring pedant. I said "Nazism", not individual Nazis. Are you suggesting that Nazism, as a doctrine, is not evil?

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

[ June 06, 2005, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Bigduke6]

Centurion55,

Maybe I'm missing something, but the NTC trains high-paced all-arms combat against a similar force in a desert environment, right? I mean, the last I heard all that U.S. taxpayer money gets spent at NTC to train U.S. battalions and brigades to defeat the OPFOR, who are sort of Super Soviets in the Desert.

Considering the insurgency-type conflicts the U.S. military is involved in right now (Afghanistan and Iraq) it would seem to me the NTC and the doctrine it espouses are, big picture, about as germane as the Stegasaurus.

Sure in 1991 and 2003 when the Americans overran Iraq the guys at NTC could say "See what a great job we did, look how skilled our pupils are?"

But now? I dunno, but it seems to me training up a bunch of American kids at the NTC and then plopping them into a guerilla war with heavy Islamic overtones is not exactly great combat preparation. Riding back seat in a police cruiser in a really tough urban neighborhood in someplace like Oakland or LA, would be better combat training, IMO.

Yes I am aware there is a pretend Arab village the U.S. military practices urban operations in. That's better, but hardly the main focus of U.S. combat unit training.

My point is, of course, the terms of wars sometimes change, and if the military doctrine doesn't keep up with that, you can have problems. Not always, but the possibility exists.

This is not to say that if you don't win outright you should throw small-unit efficiency out the window, some things in war appear to be more or less eternal.

But, shifting sematic gears loudly and with painful sematic grinding, I think the analogy holds: the Germans started out with a hell of a doctrine great at winning battles, but ultimately not so hot for winning the war.

Which brings me right back to - and my apologies to those of you that are already groaning in anticipation - an inherent imperfection in Clauswitzian theory: sometimes, perhaps even rarely, gearing towards the destruction of the the enemy military is not the way to win the war.

Sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, you can focus on the other guy's military and if you beat it, you win. But the more your side has the ability to prevail consistently on the battlefied, the more the opposition is going to look for ways to beat you off the battlefield. You ignore that reality to your peril. It is very hard indeed to dictate how your opponent thinks.

The real Soviet victory against Blitzkrieg, it seems to me, was its ability to keep the great bulk of the militarily-significant part of its population out of German hands by sending it east by railroad. Retrospect shows us that once they achieved that, German East Front victory became almost impossible bar even worse Red Army ineptitude than in 1941.

Nobody forced the German military to believe the fabric of Russia society would come apart in the first months of effective blitzkrieg. Every one, from Hitler on down, thought the Soviets lacked the will, intelligence, industrial capacity, and boots-on-the-ground patriotism to last any length of time against the Reich, and the German military doctrine of Blitzkrieg.

Very unfortunately for the Germans, the Soviets turned out not to be neanderthal untermenschen yearning for liberation from the Communist yoke they were supposed to be, but - whoops! :eek: opponents quite as ruthless as the Germans themselves. What's more, those darn Reds turned out to be far more willing to learn than the Master Race. :confused:

By late 1942 the Soviet military doctrine was producting strategic results superior to German doctrine. By mid 1944 Red military doctrine was producing operational results comparable with the best days of German Blitzkrieg itself. By early Spring 1945 it was very difficult indeed to find an average German unit tactically superior to an average Red Army unit.

All that time, as the situation got worse and worse and worse, the German officer corps kept true to their doctrine, and kept on trying to crank out high-efficiency units with good small tactics skills. They remained true to their doctrine right up until the end.

The German army started out World War Two by promoting initiative, small-unit competence, combined arms, and all that good stuff, and look what it got them. A couple of years of spiffy victories, then stagnation, and then disastrous defeat and loss of every single political objective they went to war for, and a whole bunch more besides.

And afterwards, all the survivors spent the rest of their lives telling each other "Our doctrine was good, we were superior on the battlefield, as soldiers we were miles ahead of our opponents. Drat those Allies for undermining our wonderful doctrine by defeating us! :mad: "

Now that's loyalty to a doctrine. Perhaps a better term would be "blind faith".

My opinion, the point to a military is to win wars, not to rack up a record of battelfield prowess. Sometimes those are two different things. Militaries are honor-bound to protect the best interests of a society - that's why they exist. The moment the members of that military begin acting against the better interests of that society - which is usually not easy to figure out - those people in the military are technically violating their oath.

Militaries that always put "How do we win the battle?" over "How do we win the war?" can set themselves and the societies they are protecting for a pretty big fall, sometimes. (I would bring in a mess of post WW2 examples here but that makes some readers of this forum mad. )

Anyway, somehow, I doubt the colonels and generals running the NTC have taken to heart the object lesson of the German army's ulitimately disastrous loyalty to Blitzkrieg doctrine. Last I heard, the main teaching point in the Mojave is still "fight outnumbered and win."

Originally posted by Centurion55:

You can write a thousand doctrine books based on the thoughts of a hundred great minds, it really doesn't matter if you can't do the following:

1) encourage your troops at all levels but particularly the leaders at battalion level and below to believe in that doctrine and to use it; and

2) create an atmosphere that encourages and rewards the use of that doctrine during training and operations.

No matter what they did or didn't do, the Germans appear to have developed an understanding of their doctrine and a spirit of initiative in their commanders that percolated down through the ranks. That level of understanding and initiative came to the forefront once the battles turned fluid. German troops appear to have been generally less reliant on orders from higher command then their Allied brethern and it helped them take advantage of the opportunities inherent in a breakthough.

There has been a ton of writing on this subject in professional military circles and I won't go into it here. If you want to replicate this effect in CM then you have to as a minimum, institute more complex command and control parameters and increase or decrease the reaction time to orders for troops of various nationalities.

... and then try to find an opponent to play anything other than German before late '42 or early '43

I think one of the best examples of the conversion of doctrine into reality is the way the US Forces force doctrine to be used, tested and further developed at the National Training Centres. Troops live doctrine, they make it work, they just don't talk about it. No matter what the German High Command thought, the soldiers on the ground, particularly the combat leaders understood the doctrine and had been trained to use it. They overcame the inertia from above.

[Sabot3]

Bigduke6 you seem to have missed my point. What I'm trying to get across is that the Germans actually got their people at the pointy end to use the combined arms breakthrough doctrine that made them so successful. How did they do that? A lot of it was very through leadership training and creation of an atmosphere at lower levels at least that encouraged people to use their initiative. This is how you take doctrine from the theoretical and turn it into something practical.

As to how well NTC pertains to Afghanistan or a city in Iraq, I agree. If you want to see a better example of an training centre addressing those scenarios, visit JRTC in Ft.Polk. My point on the NTC's is that they provide a training environment where doctrine is forced to be applied in order to win (along with good basic soldier skills). Not only do the troops there meet a highly trained enemy who fights to win, they are set into scenarios that challenge them to use the doctrine and tactics that they have been taught and to continually fine tune it.

"Blitzkreig" itself as a concept is less important to me than the fact that a country's armed forces was able to come up with a way to encourage their leaders and soldiers to master it.

That in itself is no small feat.

[Bigduke6]

Centurian,

If you will forgive the analogy, what's the good of spending the resources and pushing a doctrine making the pointy end of your military razor- sharp, if a scintillating flurry of surgically precise stabs won't win you the war?

The Soviet Union suffered the worst military defeats in history, and still came back to obliterate the German army and the German nation country besides. That tells me two things: (1) The German battle-winning doctrine worked and (2) that doctrine was the wrong approach to the goal of defeating the Soviets.

Maybe there was no right way, but from what I can tell the German general staff seemed to believe the Soviet society would come apart at the seams as soon as the German army destroyed the Red Army. The second part of that equation happened, but the first part, well, not.

Sure we can cut the German General Staff some slack - they had to stand up to Hitler's personality (not easy) they had years of matchless victories all over Europe under their belts (hey, we must be doing something right) and Goebbels was pitching a pretty convincing line about how Germans were a master race, and Russians basically animals. (Ivan drinks like a fish and is too stupid to manage modern war, and his officers are worse.)

You underestimate your opponent to your risk. If your miscalculations are really off, then your "subhuman" opponent may well think up an effective way to win the war, while you keep the faith to your military doctrine which looks great, but doesn't produce war-winning results.

[Wartgamer]

One of the reasons the Soviets could 'ramp' production of tanks up so quickly was that they started the war with a chassis design which could take them through the war.

The German 'mixed-fleet' had just one chassis that could marginally supply thier MBT needs through the war. This being the Panzer IV. Since they could not instantly convert all tank factories to start making Panzer IV in 1941 (They would not start making Panzer IV 'longs' till 1942), it makes no sense to ramp up production of Panzer IVs.

The best the Germans could have done in 1940-1941 was concentrate on Panzer III L60 and supply it with AP40 ammo. In battles where they could mass and get even odds with T34s, they could prevail.

The Germans decided in 1942 to stick with multiple chassis and '42 was the year of the Marder till Panzer IVs and StuGIII with long guns came along. Panzer IIIs were never built in great numbers. They did soldier on even till 1943.

But the Soviets had a tank chassis that could not only swamp the Germans in 1941-1943, but also be improved AND mass produced with a 3 man turret with a 85mm gun in 44-45.

The German tank fleets were dependant on parts/repair to keep up running numbers. The Soviets could keep up running numbers with replacements as well as fixing vehciles. They could do so due to concentration on one tank chassis also.

Time and Numbers were the antidote to Blitzkrieg.

[ June 06, 2005, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[athlete]

A state of war was considered to have come about due to the German failure to respond to the ultimatum in a diplomatic note. There was not actually a document headed "Declaration of war" anywhere.

The Germans were fighting from September 1st. The Allied declaration of war did not occur until two days later. The fact that Germany failed to declare war on Britain and France while taking aggressive action certain to trigger a war hardly makes Germany the injured party.

No, the ToV made them the injured party. I've read enough; enough to know that Poland's position as it related to the isolation of East Prussia was unreasonable. The ultimatum from Eng and France didn't come until after Germany resorted to a military action to secure what ought to have been granted by the Polish or perhaps the LoN. The war started because the Germans (it so happened to be the Nazis...remember that the re-armament of Germany was well underway before the Nazis took over), took back everything they had unjustly been forced to concede at the end of the first war.

Eng and France were simply appalled that Germany would simply take what they felt they deserved (much like France did 20 years earlier), because they could. i.e. parts of Czech, Austria and now the Danzig corridor

No longer did the threat of attack concern the German people because they had spent the last 20ish years doing what needed to be done to break free of oppression enforced by the threat of military action.

And so, when the Polish government said, "no, you can't have your land back so that you have reasonable access to a significant portion of your population", and spurred on by reported atrocities occuring against Germans in West Prussia, Germany simply went in and got it back. Of course they kicked the crap outta Poland...you don't HALF-ATTACK a sovereign country...especially when it's "allies" start beating the war drums and it's leaders are alleging the ability to over-run you in 3 days. You take it out.

Let's look at a modern analogy...

Iraq. But for Britain, (and the rest of the 'coalition of the willing'), most of the western world was strongly against the US invasion of Iraq...much like much of the western world was against Germany's invasion of Poland (except I might add, the US who remained conspicuously neutral). The big difference is that the Germans had a legitimate greivance. The U.S. government on the other hand either were (at best) ill-informed about the presense of WMD, or (at worst) lying through their collective teeth.

Of course, as is always the case, history is written by the victors. So NOW, the issue was Sadam's oppressive rule over his people and the U.S. fancies itself liberators.

In contrast, the Germans lost, so NOW the issue is all about their treatment of the Jews, Russians, POWs etc...of course we all know that nobody was aware of what was going on, and certainly not of the scale until June 44, or at best Dec of 41...2 years after Eng and France declared war.

Again, the conversation about good vs. evil in historical context is, in my mind, much better debated (by me anyway) verbally since it would be important to convey my opinion completely without truncating it in a forum...lest I be labelled a Nazi, racist or pro-Hitler fanatic....we've already seen evidence that this is the path some would take... suffice it to say I think of it as a sort of chicken and egg conversation; that if someone came to me and said, "those guys are persecuting me, and I think my family and I are in danger", I probably would opt NOT to slam the door in their face and then point a finger 6 years later at 'the evil guys'.

[ June 06, 2005, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: athlete ]

[throwdjohn]

it is very easy to question the motives and politics of our ancestors. The fact remains that nazism is BAD, eveil if you will. It was a system which not only killed millions for their genetic heritage, it killed millions of its own citizens for speaking out against it. So how were the nazis ok? they were not, and while i may not be the ww2 grog you are due to my youth, i can recognize the nazis as the definition of eveil in the 20th century AT LEAST. nazi loving dip**** bastard, do you need to US to kick you in the balls AGAIN? with help from limeys and canucks AGAIN? some people get off on pissing others off

[JonS]

Originally posted by athlete:

No, the ToV made them [the Germans] the injured party.

BwhahahahaHAHAHAHA!!! Of course it feckin did. It was supposed to. They were the bad people, remember? They started a war, and lost badly. So, using the ToV as a pants reason to rearm, they started another one. And lost even worse.

Some people (generally in the plural sense, and in this case also the singular) just don't - or can't - learn.

[athlete]

Originally posted by throwdjohn:

So how were the nazis ok? nazi loving dip**** bastard, do you need to US to kick you in the balls AGAIN? with help from limeys and canucks AGAIN? some people get off on pissing others off

Yes, see, this is exactly why the debate is less then useful in the forums. heheh.

BwhahahahaHAHAHAHA!!! Of course it feckin did. It was supposed to. They were the bad people, remember? They started a war, and lost badly. So, using the ToV as a pants reason to rearm, they started another one. And lost even worse.

Actually, they didn't start WWI, they came to the aid of an ally (like the Brits and French did in Poland), and they didn't surrender, they agreed to an armistice. Only after they disarmed did the terms of the ToV get brought forth.

Anyway, hardly the focal subject of this thread.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by athlete:

Actually, they didn't start WWI, they came to the aid of an ally (like the Brits and French did in Poland), and they didn't surrender, they agreed to an armistice. Only after they disarmed did the terms of the ToV get brought forth.

Anyway, hardly the focal subject of this thread.

All of which may be true, but none of which changes the fact that in order to redress these conditions, Germany adopted a totalitarian government (willingly or unwillingly is irrelevant but that was a matter of individual choice), and their erstwhile Leader embarked on the systematic genocide of an entire category of peoples numbering in the millions. Whatever reasons Germany may have felt they legitimately had for starting the war, all of that is overshadowed by her repressive style of government, the slave labour program which she instituted, uprooting literally millions of citizens, and the genocide of from 10 to 12 million people more.

Had Hitler not committed these acts against humanity, quite possibly history would view him and his regime quite differently.

But as it is, who could really care that the people of East Prussia felt disenfranchised, or that Germany felt wrongly blamed for starting the First World War? None of that justifies the slave labour program or the concentration camps in the least. And nor does that change the quite correct attitude that the Germans were the "bad guys" last time around.

[Sivodsi]

From blitzkrieg to genocide, gentlemanly lectures to abusive diatribes, arrogance, ignorance and wisdom in spades; the full gamut of human experience in a single thread.

Thanks everyone for the show. I have a much clearer idea now than when I first posted about what the 'blitzkreig' was all about.

If there's nothing but abuse left we can either have it shut down or leave it to creep down the page and into the archives.

[athlete]

...and likewise, nothing justifies the wholesale starvation of Germans during an extreme economic depression exasberated by the terms of the ToV, persecution and execution of German nationals reported to the LoN as early as April of 1939, etc...like I said, there is so much more to this debate then we are likely to cover in these forums.

[ June 07, 2005, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: athlete ]

[Andreas]

Do we really have to listen to this barely contained neo-nazi claptrap?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Do we really have to listen to this barely contained neo-nazi claptrap?

Sorry - had no idea he was so far gone. I much prefer my Nazis raving, not sounding sane. Shan't feed him any more.

[athlete]

Well, like I said, it's tough to convey the full opinion without either actively debating it, or writing an enormous book. I certainly wouldn't presume to try and undo 60 years of propoganda in a few choice sentences and so I've edited my post.

As for the neo-nazi thing? No, I condemn genocide, I have no personal issues with any ethnic or religous group...quite the contrary. I'm more focussed on the decision to go to war in 1939. I think it was a bad call. End of rant.

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

Winston Churchill

[ June 07, 2005, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: athlete ]

[Abbott]

From my readings of Guderian, Hans von Luck and Rommel, I believe the German military produced and possessed many effective and far thinking officers. They employed some very efficient grand tactics and carried the day on many occasions. If you wish to call it Blitz.. Or anything else it was certainly effective for it's day. R.I.P. to all of the brave and not so brave and yes that includes the fine German soldiers of the day who suffered as many others throughout history have, from the shortsighted greed of their leaders.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Abbott:

From my readings of Guderian, Hans von Luck and Rommel, I believe the German military produced and possessed many effective and far thinking officers. They employed some very efficient grand tactics and carried the day on many occasions. If you wish to call it Blitz.. Or anything else it was certainly effective for it's day. R.I.P. to all of the brave and not so brave and yes that includes the fine German soldiers of the day who suffered as many others throughout history have, from the shortsighted greed of their leaders.

What exactly are "grand tactics"?