Jump to content

Buffalo Soldiers' Assault on the Gothic Line


V

Recommended Posts

OK...throat clearing noises...well, maybe I was stretching a point a bit for the sake of an argumentative contrast, but here's what I meant about "a certain operational brilliance" for Hitler (who, by the way, in the past I've nominated for the "Worst Military Commander of WWII," in a thread I started, so I'm not exactly an advocate of the guy as a military genius).

What I meant was that Hitler did have a certain flair for launching surprise offensives that gained a lot of early ground and threw the defenders off balance. There are many examples of this which I'm sure all our readers will recall--the Barbarossa offensive, the offensive against the south-Russian oil fields, the 1944 Ardennes offensive. All of these attacks acheived early gains. All, ultimately, met with defeat, in part because they neglected the other elements of attack planning such as logistics and an awareness of what the enemy can do to retaliate, etc.

I think, overall, he was a downright rotten military leader, but he did have that flair which Ike lacked. My point is that despite Ike's lack of said flair, I'd take him every time if chosing a person to fill his job. Ultimately, judgment and steady understanding of the real capabilities of one's own and the enemies forces matter more, esp. on the strategic level, than "operational brilliance."

Maybe "operational flair" would have been a better term to describe Hitler, since true brilliance would imply that the offensive were destined for more lasting success. One of Hitler's lasting flaws was a tendency to underestimate the capacity of the enemy--a mistake that Ike rarely made. His support of the Transportation plan, for example, showed his wary and accurate estimation of the German capacity for counterattack. So did his insistence on a broad front strategy. He didn't want his breakthrough columns encircled and destroyed by German counterattack. That's why he wanted a firm southern flank and the logistical support of good Mediteranean ports and thus insisted that Dragoon be carried out. And he accurately assessed the strength of the Ardennes offensive when Bradley was ready to dismiss it. In general, Hitler underestimated the capacity of his opponent and Ike never did. That's one of the big reasons why he won.

[ February 08, 2004, 10:03 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think if I were forced to give a quick summation of Hitler, I'd say that he was an amateur whose operations often gained early success (and then ultimately failed) because his enemies were of the view that no one in their right minds would try such an insane thing. But of course, Hitler was not in his right mind. Churchill somewhere comments that one of the advantages of madness is SURPRISE.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

rune is a complete putz and if I ever meet him I'm going to punch him in the face until he squeals.

No, not really, but let us examine CombinedArms' statement:

What I meant was that Hitler did have a certain flair for launching surprise offensives that gained a lot of early ground and threw the defenders off balance. [/QB]
I just did the same thing. An unprovoked and unexpected attack. If it was for real, what would the likely result be? A banning from the forum, and quite possibly a serious ass kicking if rune, Madmatt, or the other BFCers ever got their hands on me in real life and wanted to be bothered.

Launching surprise offensives incapable of being sustained is not a skill, sorry.

Your example of the Bulge - it was a last gasp with little to no chance of success; even amidst the early successes against outclassed green US divisions, small tactical victories - a blown bridge here, a crossroads town held there - conspired to exacerbate the German's main problems - fuel and supplies.

I could get 10 men together, equip ourselves with .303 hunting rifles, and invade Colorado tomorrow. It would be a brilliant plan on paper because no one would be expecting us. It should not get me labelled "operationally brilliant" however.

A better strategy (short of surrendering unconditionally, which would have been the best one) would have been to withdraw behind the Rhine, or fight a withdrawing action to the Rhine - not using up all available resources in a really dumb attempt to egg Providence on and split the western Allies in two. As if a couple German tanks on the Antwerp docks would have made the British and Americans declare war on each other.

Hitler's brilliance may have extended to Sedan, though it certainly didn't seem to extend to Dunkirk. I'd have to reread Cooper to see who was really responsible for the armoured thrust through Northern France; there was a lot of resistance among the German High Command and I seem to recall Hitler was rather wafflish about the whole affair.

[ March 05, 2004, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by Andreas:

Manstein was, and Halder then adopted it. Hitler realised the potential of going for Sedan, but not of going through it. That was hardly rocket science, since Sedan had been the target in other wars.

I would hazard a claim that French incompetence was equally responsible for German victory in northern France than any real revolutionary-level "brilliance" on the part of one Adolf Hitler.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's sad, but instructive, how you manage to work your pickup lines into every day conversation and get equal mileage out of them. It's a pity Italian girls are more well read than Canadian ones; I can't ever see myself using that one here. :( A girl on the elevator this morning apparently didn't even know what "satin" was much less whom Friesner might be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by rune:

Bringing this one back to life. Just completed a scenario based on fighting around the Gothic Line, 26 Dec 1944, featuring the Buffalo Soldiers. Let me know if you are interested in testing it.

Rune

I'd be happy to test it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back to the original topic of the post, contrary to the picture painted by the magazine article, the fact of the matter is the 92nd Division was a unit that did not function well in combat due to racial tensions. The white officers despised their posting and the African American soldiers knew it and suffered from low morale because of it. The African American soldiers were treated poorly and nothing was expected of them from their leadership, so it was no suprise that they had a less than stellar performance. The reality is certainly different than the rosy picture painted by the article in the WWII magazine.

Below is some text providing a different view of the performance of the 92nd:

"In Italy, the 92nd Division was placed under the command of Major General Edward M. Almond, an avowed racist. Almond despised his men believing them incapable of learning the duties of combat soldiers, training was perfunctory at best. Officers, who were mostly white, took their cue from General Almond and ignored many of their fundamental duties. In it's first engagements, the division appeared to confirm his fears, making little headway with heavy losses. The division was then reorganized in March and recommitted along the Ligurian coast, again with little effect. Post war studies of the use of African-American combat troops confirmed however that most of the divisions problems could be directly associated with poor training, poor leadership, and neglect of troops in the field.

The experience of the 93rd Division in the PTO was similar. It was split up and served mostly as labor parties on various Pacific islands. It suffered only 138 combat casualties however, losses to disease were severe."

Here is a link to the offical U.S. Army analysis of the 92nd:

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/11-4/chapter19.htm#b1

Look for the words "Bowed Before Massa"

[ March 05, 2004, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Keith ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See also Lucian Truscot's memoir for more on this, Command Missions, I think it's called. Though he doesn't acknowlege racism among his officers (probably wasn't aware of it in 5th Army HQ), he does fully acknowlege the hardships of second-class citizenship that most blacks came from. He had the more steadfast soldiers culled from the earlier engagements and formed a unit from them. However, they didn't perform much better in combat, and, his job being to push the Germans out of Italy and not address homefront social injustices, he removed the blacks to rear area duties.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...