Guns vs Armour II

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

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

Gearing up for total war economy means mass mobilization of workforce. Women were not included into the workforce early on. In 1944 they were.

you are simply wrong. already in 1939 the percentage of women working in Germany was higher than it ever got in UK.</font>

[MikeyD]

Nazi fundamentalists wanted to keep their women home breeding fat aryan babies for the coming hegemony of the super-race. Funny how they could be squeemish on the concept of 'working women' while working little children to death in slave labor camps. V-2 rocket could've no doubt been produced very successfully using a home-grown 'Rosie the riveter' workforce. But they elected to pursue the brutality of slave labor out of sheer perversity.

[Guest Mike]

A gold cross for having 8 kids.

[Tero]

Originally posted by bitchen frizzy:

How is domestic consumption relevant to this question at all?

Beats me.

I (and others here) are arguing that their standards were wrong. I see no reason not to fault the mentality behind the decisionmaking as well as the decisions. They freely decided to conduct a two-front war. It was not forced on them. So if they didn't plan for it, didn't prepare for it, then went to war anyway then that's a damning indictment of their decisionmaking, is it not?

Agreed. But the point is all that is hindsight 20-20 and firmly based in the outsiders POV on the situation as they saw it. Yes, they were stupid to start the war on two fronts AND not to mobilize for total war.

But total war was not their original intention and between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa (possibly as far as deglaring war on USA and failure to take Moscow) the situation as seen from the German POV as not being serious enough to warrant going to total war footing. Up to that point they had picked the fights and while it is painfully obvious to us now they were in over their heads their chosen POV and MO did not give them that overall interpretation of the facts at hand.

You are the one that introduced a distinction between political and military decisionmaking into this argument, and presented it as an excuse for German failure to fully mobilize. Why did you do that, if you understand that such distinctions don't really exist?

Jason thinks it was the manouverism which dictated the German actions when deciding the economical issues. That disregards the fundamental axiom of war being the extention of politics by other means. The goals and the objectives were chosen by the political leadership and all the actions taken were in sync with the political guidelines and not with the military realities.

I'm not niggling over rates of increase and so forth. The central question is whether Germany fully mobilized and prepared for war with the Soviet Union.

Not just against USSR. When the West campaign was left unfinished the preparations were done according to projections that the British could not mount an attack inside a certain timeframe and in that timeframe the Red Army would be beaten. When the Eastern campaing dragged on the total war mobilization was the only option. Only, by that time the enemies were too numerous and the production increase rate (coupled with the man power attrition) too slow to be able to meet the demands.

I'm not clear what point you're trying to make with the comparison to the U.S. Are you arguing the political infeasibility of ramping up the German war economy on par with the U.S. increase?

Yes. Hitler had promised the German people an easy, short and victorious war. Total war footing too early would have destabilized the regime.

Roosevelt could not coerse the US people (political leadership) to commit to an armed conflict abroad. He used the startagem of helping out the British through Lend-Lease which enabled the preparation of the US production for war footing before the country was actually at war.

You are able to diss the British, if you wish. Go right ahead. It's not relevant to the dissing of the Germans, though.

Yes it is if you claim the use of stocks instead of steady flow straight from the production line is somehow the wrong approach just because.

If the Germans could not feasibly prepare for a two-front war against a larger opponent, then their decision to go to war anyway is faulty.

I agree totally. Hitler started by playing chicken with the Western leaders and ended up butting heads with pretty much everybody simultaneously.

If they could have done better at preparation for what they knew would be a life-or-death fight, and didn't prepare, then their decision not to fully mobilize was faulty. Faulty decisionmaking: that's the premise.

Yes. But the decision was politically motivated. The startegists had determined the extent of preparations and stocks needed to sustain the war effort and that was why the Germans did not make the decision to go to total war footing until everybody else had already gone to total war footing.

[pamak1970]

I decided to put these comments on a seperate post since they are more about cold war doctrine

Yes, exactly. Advances with an intact defender ahead of the attack are slow, sometimes only a couple of miles a day, sometimes five miles a day. Not 30 or 50 miles a day.

No "on the other hand" about it, the way to have an intact force remaining in front of an attack is to not stand forward too rigidly. And the way to be broken through inside 48 hours, after which the attacker can indeed get 30 to 50 mile per day rates of unopposed advance, is to "hold at all costs" all up, online.

An intact defender maybe a one that wants to hold ground or one that wants to delay or one that wants to counterattack or whatever.You might have an intact platoon or an intact company trying to delay an enemy battalion.We can not make such gross generalizations about the capacity of a defender to delay

In addition, you started about covering forces that delay the Soviets.Now you seem to talk about forces that actually are part of the main line of defence since you seem to refer about historical examples that describe such cases.

If you want to see an enemy to advance a couple of miles a day,then you have to confront him in major defensive battle with a reasonable combat ratio.

Delay operations by covering forces do not force an enemy to so low rates of advance.The force is much weaker and becomes even more weak when the force is split between elements that start to withdraw and elements that keep contact covering the withdrawal.The frontage is much wider, the distance from superior commands limits the support it gets and the need to start withdrawal before there is a decisive engagement against much superior troops ,limits the time of actual fight.The relative low combat strength of the delaying units , does not force the opponent to spend time to gather and synchronize a big amount of force.

Sure there is delay,sure you deploy obstacles although organic enginner support is not sufficient enough for extensive work along the front and if you attach higher level enginner support you degrade the capabilities for the preparation of the main force defence.

Anyway, neither historical data neither norms desccribed in current operations manuals and guides about staff planning data point to such small rates of advance.

The intelligence-preparation of the battlefield manual is a good start for this subject.

Why does it work this way? Well, attackers seek breakthrough by concentration at chosen points. In other areas they are screening or conducting holding attacks, only. A defender dead set on holding all ground will see all the places those are defeated as great triumphs, and wish to retain them. To retain them he will leave many forces opposite the thin attack areas, and thus retain most of his initial line. This counts as "standing too far forward too rigidily".

......

Then, act the second, at one or two of his points of chosen concentration, the attacker gets some sort of force past the defenders in that areas, annihilating some and simply driving past others on either flank - because those are "standing too far forward too rigidly".

Again you seem to see the battlefield as too transparent and it is one of the main reasons you underestimate initiative.The defender does not leave many forces oposite the thin attack areas cause he is stupid.

It is the fog of war that forces him to do that.I will put it in more detail.

First of all The attacker does not just stage a faint attack.Speaking about Nato and Soviet doctrine there is a main attack and a secondary or supporting attack in addition of any other deceptive operations.That concept apply to most level of commands from battalion to corps.Speaking about corps let say level, the secondary attack will not have of course a deep echelonment and it will not be able to cut through the whole depth of defence.Still even if it penetrates through only the first line battalions defence without acheiving breakthough , it is still accheives the objective of keeping the opponent commander uncertain about the direction of the main attack and the commitment of reserves there.

Now the brigade or divisional reserves of the defence engage the forces of the first wave of the secondary attack.Similar level reserves engange the forces of the first wave of the main attack in a neighbour command .The defender corps commander up to that time is still unable to decide about the enemy intentions and still reluctant to commit his reserves.After some time he gets reports about difficulties in one sector to hold the offence,while the other sector may report that he threw enemy offence back.

This is the first time he gains siginificant indications about enemy intentions.The penetration in the main sector already exists and batallion and brigade level defences have already been breached .

The divisional reserve will try to hold the offence in the main sector until the arrival of the corps level reserves denying the offence a breakthrough.For the defence and according to manuals in direct contrast of what you beleive,they try to lure the offence to places of high density of fire.These places must combine obstacles for increasing the time for the attacker to cross them and direct and indirect fire.This kill zone or fire sack can only be effective when it is located inside the defence zone and not forward of it.This is what will permit the defender to maximize the use of all his weapons along the whole depth and inflict major attrition.

Sometimes the defender is eager to give ground or maneuver his forces around this predetermined kill zone (since there is no time to arrange such things and deployment of weapons during the heat of the battle.

Now the attacker might be a victim of this kill zone, or he might avoid it , or he might be able to pay the cost and still advance.In any case, the point is that if attacker bypass some defending units in modern warfare ,it is partially exactly because the latter does not try to hold some line on the ground as you imagine.It is a combination of defence that in some places holds ground while in others gives ground willingly and the combined effect is to lead the offence on ground of choice.Still this ground will be inside the defensive zone with defending units around it combining their firepower towards it.

Your idea of defence when you try to apply power in front of the position ready to fall back when enemy apporaches, is not defence.It is delay which certainly does not attrit attacker as much as a defence and certainly permit him to advance much more rapidly . You use a much smaller portion of available fire (since you are afraid that you will be too rigid forward if you let the atacker come too close, you do not fire against him from multiple directions and you are ready to evacuate positions when attacker comes too close "forward" .

Now if you feel that your artillery will be able by itself to anihillate the enemy in front of your position preventing your force from a risky close engagement , i will give you some numbers from calculations used during wargaming by staff.

150mm+ 24 tubes with icm/dpicm against an enemy Soviet motorzed unit in obstacle.Fire is planned , bmp vehicle are high pay off targets .The enemy was detected in the predicted Named area of interest.

Result is 4 bmps per 15 minutes.

Needless to say that all these tubes are unavaliable for some time after this fire mission which will actually be less than 15 minutes.

So now we are during a situation where the attacker has acheived penetration inside battalion and brigade defensive areabut he has not acheived breakthough yet to start an exploitation.

The duration of the battle is a few hours up until now.The national training center ,if i recall right estimates an average duration of the main battle at brigade level at 3.5 hours.

The battle between security elements is seperate of the above .

This is a good indication also of how difficult it is for friendly units of near sectors to disengage and fall back so that they will not find themselves too far forward against a penetration during a main battle .

For a regimental type force of example, the time nessesary for passing from an assembly area to column ready to march is more than an hour.

For transition from defence where you have disembarked and set materials all over the place ,the nessesary time is much more.

Counting also the fact that an order for retreat will have to come from a superior HQ ,counting the lag of time for the superior HQ to monitor the developments since forward leaders will be occupied with directing their battle instead of giving updates every few minutes,not to mention damaged phonelines ,EW or leaders KIA and needing a replacement and so on, we can see that retreat must actually start before even the start of the main battle (for some logistical elements al least ) or during the very early stages.

So now we are talking about a delay operation again,not deliberate defence.

Returning to our previous example ,the defender

simply does not have the option to order a massive withdrawal expecting to do it without lossing a significant amount of forces.

Not to mention here that withdrawals of such level,division and above are executed during night to minimize the impact of enemy airforce against thousands of convoys marching in column plus they need specific time consuming requirements before the start of such major movements.

According to one map excersize, time nessesary to deploy traffic regulation posts and redirect antiair assets to deploy in such a manner to cover the road net and especially choke points, was 3 hours for a tank division movement.

Now under these conditions, the defender either tries to establish a new line of defence at a local level to contain the penetration , either tries to push it back .

The first option supposely setting all hopes to the superiority of defence ,is problematic.

For every km of penetration the defender is obliged to set a front to oppose farther advance, and flanks left and right to oppose flanking or envelopment of neighbour commands.Trying to establish such arrangements during combat is extremely difficult .Neighbour commands need to coordinate.Try to do this in a electronic warfare enviroment, between commands that operate in different nets ,that do not have (at least for the cold war period) ability to send electronicaly pictures and maps with coordination lines and graphics and so on.In addition when you command a regiment or brigade you need sufficient time to distribute commands , meet person to person with subordinates for close coordination and study of maps plus give subordinates sufficient time to issue their orders to lower echelons.

In addition breach of battalion level defence or brigade means that hills and observations posts crucial for directing artillery near the front has already been lost.The artillery of the attacker starts to gain advantages in addition of its numerical superiority since it gains better observation and of course against a standing defender ,observed fire is adequate enough and does the job very well.Preplanned fire is mostly important when you seek surprise and when you want to kill a moving target where you do not have enough time for corrections and the like.The attacker of course has to commit forces for the sides of the penetration ,but against a passive defender who does not understand the importance of counterattacking ,he has many options.For example he can just set a screen towards the defender and turn 90 degrees left and right with the remaining of his force.He can have the time to advance artillery to be under coverage for farther operations and of course time to reorganize the attacking force of the first waves which will be scattered all over the place by then .

Meanwhile the defender reserves will wait somewhere to oppose the farther advance .He will be defeated exactly the way French were defeated in Sedan!!

The other option is to counterattack exactly when the first wave is mostly weak using the divisional reserve.

and we continue with your next comment

This sets off act the third, whose logic is parallel pursuit. That is the Russian term for the race for the defender's rear that commences as soon as any force it through the defender's tactical zone. Which will be lost by default if the defenders are "standing too far forward too rigidly".

At this point, act the fourth, the ground loving defender, unwilling to relinquish his precious ground holding victories at all of the points the attacker didn't bother to hit him anyway, tries to retrieve the situation in the one or two other embarrasing areas, by "seizing the initiative" (in his own mind - actually, gambling in denial). He scrapes together what he can and tries to cut off the penetrations from their flanks, feeling all maneuveree and clever that he isn't just fighting them head on. But the attackers have all their depth behind the break-ins by now, and the result is a brawl between the defenders' only reserves and the attackers 2nd or 3rd echelon, while his 1st or 1st and 2nd combined, keep playing parallel pursuit

First of all the counterattack force is close coordinated with the rest of the blocking force.Second the counterattack might be appropiate in many cases to be launched head on.An example is when the attacker shifts his main effort 90 degrees left or right for exploitation.

Third the first wave can not do both penetration,breakthrough and exploitation without major reorganization.In the mean time, retreatng elements of the defender also reorganize.

The parallel pursue is a technique of exploitation trying to cut off retreating units.It is not relevant with this discussion.

Fourth the brawl between defender's only reserves is actually in favor of thedefender if these reserves are local.They will buy time for teh higgher ecelon reserves to come.

If the brawl is between the last reserves of the defender, then in the worst situation they buy time for other less maneuverable units and artillery to start retreat.

If the most maneuverable units of the defender ,jump back cause they feel they are too forward to the most maneuverable forces of the attacker, then a lot of the units which are less maeuverable for the defender will be in trouble.

If the defender's reserve do not retreat and just wait to defend ,then they have to overextend to cover every possible direction of the potentional exploitation force and on ground which will not have the extensive preparations of the tactical defence which was penetrated,which is a sure way of failure .

If you beleive that the less maneuverable units would have already be retreated before the start of the attack or sooo after, then again you do not talk about defence but about delay operations

Not the way to defend. The way to defend is, screen where he screens and mass where he masses.

The irony is that this is basically what the defender is trying to do according to the established doctrine and this is the debate of attritionists against maneuverists.

However both accept that attack is the only method for bringing decisive results.The best possible thing with this type of defence can do is to stall an attack and according to your opinion win the war if the opponent continously losses battles through out the war as an attacker.

However,If there was transparency and instant reaction that woud be indeed the safest way but neither of these exists and it is interesting that according to a historical database by the dupuy institute of hundreds of battles, 75% of them are won by the attacker and for modern wars the percentage is even more.

The reason of course of such a difference is that the attacker would not start a fight if he did not feel that he had better chances to win which among others includes mass concentration.

Everybody backpeddles to stay tolerably on line

only in delay operations were you use the high mech force .In defence when you use your whole force and set out everything from ammo to wires, you have differnt levels of mobility to have everybody backpeddle.

In addition,everybody backpeddles quite well when things are prearranged,again a sign of delay operations.

During defence such a backpeddle for some of the defending units at lower levels is possible only when the enemy is driven towards your preselected engagement area inside your defensive zone,following an action you anticipated.

Coordination and specific details for such movements,like start times and so on will be prearranged and rehearshed.

If on the other hand you are forced for some reason to deviate from such scedules, for example when the enemy is simply too strong for you to destroy inside your zone ,or for whatever other reason , things are much more difficult.

For a higher level, say division or ACR, the frontage is so big that there is no meaning to talk about units backpeddlee to retain some form of line.

Geographical features that help the defender will not be in some form of a geometric line.

A battalion in one place in a favorite position might already be 1 km up or backwards compared to the neighbour one even without any type of penetration.

The next most advantageous position might also differ in distance and time nessesary to jump to the next available position might also differ which also means that some times coordination reasons might force different times of departures from the initial line.

So the phrase that everybody backpeddless to stay in some form of line is much more difficult than you imagine.

[ January 16, 2007, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[pamak1970]

Abatis and mines and blown bridges delaying everywhere

and everyone,including your covering force or your reserve which find a blown bridge cause of a general command "destroy the bridge!!s"

These things do not happen and it is this detail that often helped attacker capture bridges acheiving surprise.

To deal with all that, he has to deploy. He has to get out of column, off the road. He has to send infantry ahead to scout, or conduct several iterations of recon escalation over several roadblocks and then pick one to hit. All of which keep him from getting as many miles a day as he would, with nobody left in front of him. Which will be the predictable consequence of trying to hold too rigidly everywhere

Registered arty, arty delivered bomblet mines, blown bridges, blown trees, etc. The maneuver elements are doing ambush and fall back drills, which they should know how to do in their sleep. (All the ACRs did).

Sure, again classic delay and an expected rate of advance for Soviets double the one expected during normal defence according to planning factors taught in military stuff schools.

How about if I don't have any main forces, just a sea of covering force skirmishers layer after layer deep?

You double his expected rate of advance .You preserve your forces,not risking engagement that can lead to high amount of casualties but at the cost of not being able to inflict also high amount of casualties for the attacker during a long lasting battle..

Actual numbers for the advancing force are higher,compared to yours but this is half of the story.

If the initial ratio is 3 to 1 this means that casualty ratio should also be 3 to 1 in order to maintain the original ratio.

In addition, absolute numbers are important.The casualty ratio is meaningless if 3 to 1 is translated to an overall low casualty level for both sides.You do not project enough power in terms of force or time commitment to slow his advance.

You can not have everything.You can not expect to play safe not risking your force, backpeddle to safety farther back and not being rigid too farward, expecting that such type of fight will slow him down to the level you imagine considering the few hundred KM of operational depth that Europe offers you.

If the war remained conventional, in the long run the US would win it. It led a bloc with 10 times the economic potential of the Warsaw Pact, better tech, and a vastly larger population. Even if portions of the last were subjugated, it would not change the ultimate outcome. Only nukes might, really. Which is probably why it didn't need to be tested, in the event.

Part of the US dominance though was the acceptance of global responsibilites as one of the superpowers of that time.When you have an ideological war between US and Soviet Union and when you want to project influence to the most part of the world,which leads to establishment of pro US parties, capitalist economies,friendly markets and ultimately profit ,then you can not project yourself as someone that is not reliable.

If the US attitude was that "i am sorry, we stay safe on the other side of the Atlantic trying to win a war of attrition in the long run", i am pretty sure that the Soviet influence would be much more stronger through out the world and i doubt if Soviets would have collapsed under those circumstances.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Does that include the million hairdressers?

it includes the whole female workforce for both nations. the notion that Germans wouldn't have mobilized females for workforce comes largely from the fact that a great number of German females were already a part of the workforce before the war begun and thus there were less unemployed females to mobilize to begin with. in 1939 women made 37.4% of the labour force in Germany, and 48.8% by 1943. the British peak figure is that of 1943 which is 36.4%. the German female workforce was also redistributed during the mobilization from consumer sectors to direct war industries.

When?

the transition took place 1939-41. in 1939 the number of females working in consumer industry is more than twice that of working in heavy industry. by 1942 the numbers are equal and by 1943 the numbers for heavy industry are greater than those of consumer industry.

this is from http://www.feldgrau.com/econo.html

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />In terms of human resources, Germany should have increased the hours of a workday to way beyond a regular “9-5” day early in the war. Women were not considered as a serious alternative work force until late in the war either. In 1939, German industries utilized 2.62 million women. In July of 1944, German industries still only utilized 2.67 million women. This average was maintained from 1939 to 1944.

</font>

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Nazi fundamentalists wanted to keep their women home breeding fat aryan babies for the coming hegemony of the super-race. Funny how they could be squeemish on the concept of 'working women' while working little children to death in slave labor camps. V-2 rocket could've no doubt been produced very successfully using a home-grown 'Rosie the riveter' workforce. But they elected to pursue the brutality of slave labor out of sheer perversity.

a good example of the absurdity of the myth.