A vet's unflinching account of service in the 104th Reg. 26th Inf. Div.

[John Kettler]

Have run through a gamut of emotions in reading the latest batch of entries (pages) here, and after being up for over 24 hours straight, am most grateful for some things which made me laugh out loud.

The P17 rifle is a new one on me, I'm glad some of you liked my unplanned book intro, have no idea what someone else thought was wrong with it, having freshly reviewed it for grammar and syntax, and would particularly like to comment on what the troops are told, leadership, and certain aspects of the Grant.

I can confirm, based on repeated discussions with my now retired from the Army brother, that the Army either can't be bothered to inform the troops or deliberately chooses not to. Nor is it necessary to invoke relative exotica such as own DU exposure and experimental anthrax vaccines. Let's talk real level of threat knowledge in the troops covering the Inter German Border who would've fought the Covering Force Battle while REFORGER was underway. These were troops my Army planning studies showed were expected to take 50% losses. My brother was a Bradley VC then. Date is circa 1985.

TOW2 briefing: "If you see one of these, you're going to war." Not exactly the "This will kill this target, under these conditions, from this angle" kind of target specific data, is it?

Soviet DU: zero awareness

Soviet tandem HEAT warheads: zero awareness

Superiority of most Soviet armor to available U.S. weapons: minor level of awareness.

Ability of small Soviet HEAT round to penetrate

vanilla M1's armor array frontally: looked ill.

This is but a representative sampling of how vital military information was not in the hands of those who'd be the first in battle--some four decades after the problem we're discussing from WW II!

Now, let's look at the combat leadership issue again. Leaders lead, epitomized in the infantry's officer's credo "Follow me!" which, I believe is also the primary combat order in the IDF. Men will march to hell and back for a man who genuinely cares for and takes care of his men, but I've also seen the study on the effects of sleep deprivation.

An Army rifle platoon, sleep deprived for 24 hours, is still 80% as effective as a rested one in its primary combat tasks. By contrast, the same study found that the platoon leader, doing the kinds of decision making he's expected to do, drops to 25% efficiency when forced to go 24 hours without sleep. This has belatedly forced the Army, in recent years, to institute a kind of culture change, to reeducate officers that being macho and going without needed sleep was crippling their performance and potentially getting them and their men killed in consequence. This study, though, was done in the 1980s.

Turning now to the Grant, while I grant (intentional pun) that in gunpower it was indeed superior to all but a handful of German tanks in North Africa and in protection was a massive leap over the British cruiser tanks, that is by no means the whole story. For one, the AP shell for the gun was woefully inadequate, ISTR from a defective fuze which caused detonation on impact, rather than after penetration through the armor. Then Major Jarrett, who was U.S. military liaison to the British and the guy who sent back most of the German goodies now at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, literally risked life and limb with some others to correct this deficiency. How? By chucking German AP shells in a lathe and machining down the driving bands until the shells fit into the casings designed for the Grant. Did I mention that the fuze on the German shell was spin armed?

So, a very good gun was provided with usable AP shell only because of a timely intervention by a brave man. Once the AP ammo situation was resolved, at least well enough to fix the problem

in time for the debut battles, there still remained a problem with the high leverage HE shell, which apparently lacked effective graze action. Jarrett and his men apparently handled that by using fuzes from stocks of French 75 ammo in Syria, I believe. Only after these two vital issues were addressed was the Grant even proximally ready for combat. The gun could kill just about any German tank head on at impressive ranges, a huge improvement to be sure, but the real breakthrough was that for the first time, the British had a means of effectively dealing, via HE shellbursts, with the previously all but immune German gun lines and in particular the 88. The sponson mounted 75 not only had direct fire sights but also artillery type ones, as did the Sherman, allowing HE fire to be brought down thousands of yards away by applying burst on target techniques.

The armor was riveted, and the deficiencies of this approach soon became apparent

when men became casualties from nonpenetrating hits which broke rivets loose and sent them whizzing about inside. This is exactly the same thing which happened to the Italians in their riveted tanks early in the war, but was masked by armor overmatch later on.

If we look at the silhouette, we find the Germans

aghast that the U.S. could even produce such an abortion of a tank. Their nickname for it, the

"skyscraper on tracks" says it all, and there were serious complaints from Allied crews about how exposed they were when hulldown for the 75.

Could it be because over half the tank was in plain sight? Nor do I think it exactly kosher to say that the Grant's only a few inches taller than the Sherman, while at the same time knowing full well that there's a considerable difference in presented area as well. As a target, the Grant is a towering slab of armor, atop which rests a small low turret. The Sherman is a much shorter slab, surmounted by a larger and taller turret. When it's hulldown, there's not much to shoot at.

Oh, while it's true that the Char B1 bis did indeed have a sponson mounted 75, the invoker of it fails to mention all of the following: sponson height (French tank much lower), gun velocity (Grant had a high velocity 75mm gun compared to the French tank) and the fact that the Grant had a gyrostabilizer, allowing reasonably effective moving fire while on relatively level ground, while the French tank had none. Thus, the comparisons are dubious at best.

Likewise, invoking StuGs and the StuGlike Semovente da 75 also involves dubious logic, seeing as how both vehicles sit markedly lower than the sponson mount on the Grant, which is halfway up the superstructure above the tracks, and in the case of the French tank, the sponson isn't even above the level of the tracks.

Had this Allied Wunderwaffe been commited straight to battle, it doubtless would not have enjoyed the reputation it earned in reality. How good can a tank be when armed with unreliable AP projectiles and HE shells lacking key features?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Dorosh]

True enough, John, as far as visible area when hull down, but doesn't the fact that the M4 came out very quickly afterwards kind of belie the impression that the US Army or industry ever considered the M3 Lee to be a war winner? Stopgaps are just that. They didn't mobilize industry until after Pearl Harbor. Nor could they in the political climate of the day - and it isn't like President Roosevelt didn't want to. The blame goes on selfish American taxpayers and voters. I guess the insensitive, ignorant assholes were more concerned about ending the Great Depression in their own country than they were about fighting Europe's battles for them halfway around the world.

[John Kettler]

If any of you happens to have or has access to the old Avalon Hill wargame Tobruk, you may not realize it, but that game is in fact a full blown OR study of the weapons of the period, conducted by a professional military OR specialist. An immense amount of research went into modeling weapon performance in the game.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

I'm well aware that the Grant/Lee was a stopgap measure until Shermans could be fielded. I was discussing German reaction to what looked to them

like a giant backward step on several levels of design, as well as tactical issues perceived by them and some of Allied tank crews.

As for preparedness for war, planning for transitioning industry to war production began years before the war was declared, which is how we were able to do what we did in the "miracle of production." Should further note that we were supplying weapons in production quantities well before the war began for the U.S. and that according to the CFR's own internal documents, quoted in Sklar, Ed. TRILATERALISM, the U.S. saw the war not as a fight against Naziism and Fascism, but as the perfect opportunity to seize control of global markets once dominated by friend and foe alike, going on to state that U.S. entry into the war was to be delayed until our allies were so spent they'd be in no position to challenge us economically in the postwar global marketplace. The document correctly noted that were this to get out, it would be a huge propaganda victory from the Germans and would undermine efforts to get people to unwittingly do our bidding. It was after this and as a deliberate blind that Roosevelt, a CFR type himself, delivered his famous "Freedoms" speech.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Tero]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

But so what?

Goes to the allegations made about the US army copying and manufacturing foreign equipment. Or lack thereof.

(ie if it ain't broke, don't fix it)

Agreed. But it does not make the fact that they were based on foreign designs go away.

As for the "British helmets" you don't know what you're talking about (they weren't British, and they weren't used in combat outside the early battles in the Pacific).

British design. Agreed on the use but the British design was nonetheless used.

The Enfield Rifle was used in training and only because M-1 Garands couldn't be made fast enough. The Marines used the Springfield early on out of necessity.

No contest. But that still does not make the claim about US infantry using foreign based equipment any less valid.

The Bazooka most certainly did not go without improvement for 20 years, as improved models were fielded in 1945 and again in the Korean War.

AFAIK it was also used in Vietnam.

But what was the replacement for it during that 20-odd years ? In case of WWIII how would the US infantry been able to take on the newer breed of Soviet tanks before LAW was introduced ?

Personal equipment was well designed except for the lack of a decent small pack; I've owned complete sets of German, American and CW equipment - the German stuff was rickety and held together impermanently by hooks rather than buckling securely together.

There was a reason for the design specks being so different. Like that those rickety hooks made it easier to remove and add items as needed.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Tero:

Goes to the allegations made about the US army copying and manufacturing foreign equipment. Or lack thereof.

Sure, but the criticisms just seem to be reaching in some cases, as discussed below.

Agreed. But it does not make the fact that they were based on foreign designs go away.

And then the US Army gets lambasted for not adopting the 17-pdr due to the "not developed here" school of thought, so they can't win, right? I don't see what is so troubling about "foreign" designs. The British used the Bren Gun which was Czech, Canada used Brit-designed weapons (mostly built in Canada), the Germans used the Czech 38(t) tank and the Russian 76.2mm ATG on the Marder for just two examples, the Soviets used Shermans (and Grants!!) and a whole list of American, British, Canadian designed/built vehicles. Everyone did it. They had to.

British design. Agreed on the use but the British design was nonetheless used.

But only briefly, until replaced by the superior M1, which was retained into the 1980s (and into the 1990s by the Canadian Army, incidentally; I was the last one in my regiment to have his replaced by kevlar).

No contest. But that still does not make the claim about US infantry using foreign based equipment any less valid.

See above. I would have thought using the best design possible should trump national considerations; not sure why it is an indictment to use "foreign" stuff off the shelf.

AFAIK it was also used in Vietnam.

But what was the replacement for it during that 20-odd years ? In case of WWIII how would the US infantry been able to take on the newer breed of Soviet tanks before LAW was introduced ?

Not sure what this has to do with 1941-45? Recoilless guns, I suspect - Canada used the 106mm in the 1970s and 80s, but I think the US had them well before that? More battle tanks and mech formations? Doctrine?

There was a reason for the design specks being so different. Like that those rickety hooks made it easier to remove and add items as needed.

I don't think so, honestly. The hooks and eyes on the US pistol belt and cartridge belts were quite flexible, too, so I don't think there was much to choose from between them. The German water bottle and mess tin were designed to fit on either the bread bag or the assault pack; in the former configuration they beat against the metal gas mask canister and clanked together. It wasn't a great system. The US pack was kind of mickey mouse, also, and the "meat can" mess tin I think was unwieldy. I don't know as much about US equipment and am too lazy to pull out my references, but my impression was the US stuff was better - at any rate, both designs were perpetuated post war - though the Germans were primarily perpetuated by the East Germans (NVA) who weren't known especially for lavish spending on military textiles. But I think that is a subject that could be hotly debated between a pair of equipment grogs with axes to grind. I don't particularly have one to grind on either side; both armies seem to have done well with their choices. My personal preference having worn both would be the US stuff, but I've obviously not served operationally with either.

[Tero]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Tero - fine let us start with your picked example of his picked example, the Grant.

I did not pick it initially. Actually.

First, it was known and planned as a stopgap measure from the very begining, while waiting for the Shermans to be finished.

....Gee, did anybody else in the course of the war mount a gun turretless to get a larger gun to fit on an existing hull?

Agreed. The M3 design is right there with its contemprory, the Italian M11-39.

Gee, it is a good thing the StuG, Jagdpanzer, Hetzer, Jadgpanther, Semovente, SU-76, 85, 100, 122, 152 etc didn't have that problem.

These models did not have that ~1,5 meter hull/turret extension over the sponson.

He complains the front isn't sloped enough. The least sloped plates are more so than the front of a StuG (or any other German tank before the Panther in mid 1943), and about half the area is sloped at 45 degrees.

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/usa/tanks_medium/m3.html

The sloped bit is indeed half the area. If you discount the sponson.

It is too tall - true enough, at 10 foot 3 it is a whole 6 inches taller than a Panther or a Sherman.

What about the height of each model in hull down position ?

It was still the best tank on the field at the time it reached the field, and equal to the average on the German side by the time it was withdrawn.

It was the best US tank at the time, I'll give you that.

Then the claim is either that there was no innovation in the infantry or that all the innovation was in the air force.

That meant that a vast effort went into producing, improving and researching airplanes.

Actually.

In the infantry, bazookas. No they were not left without improvement for 20 years - before the end of the war there were also 57mm and 75mm shoulder mount recoilless rifles, and 105mm jeep mounted ones postwar, and 3.5 inch bazookas in Korea (which were copied from schrecks, copied from zooks). Which is not 20 years.

And the replacement for the bazooka was introduced when ?

No the Russians did not "go full automatic", they fielded millions of bolt action 5 shot Mosin Nagants. Yes they also fielded PPsh in quantity, the US fielded tommy and grease guns in quantity.

The diffence being the Red Army used the subs in the front line, the US Army in the rear echelon.

The US also fielded 20 round clip fed carbines, and fully equipped the bulk of the force with semi autos. Which was innovation by any standard.

The US army was the only one which could do that due to its industrial capacity. It was not uniquely innovative however since other armies started fielding semiautos at the same time the Garand was conceived.

Small arms ammo was also improved.

The ammo issue is a matter of taste.

The US also fielded WP in quantity for all sorts of weapons,

That may be unique.

fielded rifled mortars,

Not unique

fielded AT rifle grenades fired from semi auto,

Semi-auto is a redundant qualifier in this statement. AFAIK others had these items too.

innovated endlessly in airborne operations,

Now you are letting your imagination drift...

Been reading Ambrose have we ?

fielded pack howitzers air mobile and mountain packed,

And nobody else did ?

in air-ground liason,

Concept copied from the Germans.

in organic air assets in the IDs spotting for artillery,

Granted.

in artillery fire direction (TOTs)

HAH ! Even the low tech Finnish arty managed that.

and equipment (VT),

Could be done with timed fuses too.

in radar detection of enemy batteries,

Already during WWII ? That is news to me.

in walkie talkies (nobody else had anything comparable).

That is true.

They also supplied independent armor battalions and SP TD battalions and armored cavalry to every infantry division,

Stripping the regular armour of the 76mm guns and "hot" ammo in the process.

all of them innovations or equippage on a scale the Germans could only dream about.

The thing is the Germans dreamed them first, they just lacked the means to implement them.

Ask a German if he would willingly swap artilleries with the Americans.

No need to. "When the Americans fire EVERYBODY ducks"

The places the Americans actually lagged were small unit tactics, night fighting, discipline issues (as in it was always loose and the tight asses this guy is bothered about, his "bullies", weren't a hundredth as mean as they needed to be), and replacement practices (by individual rather than cohort with cadre).

He is not finding important matters to highlight possible improvements, he is cherry picking minutae for spin value (he simply thinks the Grant looks silly e.g., or that calling equipment WW I era and old sounds like a plausible indictment). Why? Because he is a crabby git, that's why, trying to send up a pompous atmosphere he despised and taking out his dislike of the war as an event on those who in objective fact kept his sorry ass from being blown to smithereens.

IMO he is expressing his POV to contrast the flag waiving exultation of "ingenious citizen soldier army" who admit only "Yes, we had a few minor problems but we overcame them through our own being such cleverly ingenious breed" without actually going through what the actual problems were. The fact that infantry tactics was called "minor tactics" speaks volumes about how highly it was ranked at the time.

[ December 21, 2006, 04:17 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Sure, but the criticisms just seem to be reaching in some cases, as discussed below.

As if there has not been any sweeping oversimplyfied generalizing statements made on this very forum.

Having said that the claim is not without merit from the grunt POV.

And then the US Army gets lambasted for not adopting the 17-pdr due to the "not developed here" school of thought, so they can't win, right?

Of course not ! The way the managed to botch up the MG42 changeover what do you expect ?

I don't see what is so troubling about "foreign" designs.... Everyone did it. They had to.

Perhaps the guy grew weary of the contemporary hype (which bypasses such trivial facts like the origin of some designs) about the ingenious citizen army as it clearly ran contrary to his experiences.

But only briefly, until replaced by the superior M1, which was retained into the 1980s .

I would not be surprised if that M1 was copied from the Red Army helmet.

I would have thought using the best design possible should trump national considerations; not sure why it is an indictment to use "foreign" stuff off the shelf.

In his experience the off the shelf stuff was far from being the best in use at the time.

Not sure what this has to do with 1941-45?

It has to do with the infantry AT capability and how it was improved over the years.

Recoilless guns, I suspect - Canada used the 106mm in the 1970s and 80s, but I think the US had them well before that? More battle tanks and mech formations? Doctrine?

Most likely. That left the US infantry to its own devices design wise. Not that it mattered much in the post-war years but other armies took the infantry portable AT more seriously than the US.

But I think that is a subject that could be hotly debated between a pair of equipment grogs with axes to grind. I don't particularly have one to grind on either side; both armies seem to have done well with their choices.

Agreed. Suffice it to say the gits assesment of his gear is his own based on his own experiences and have to be taken as such.

[John Kettler]

I found and fixed the grammatical hobgoblin in the footwear sentence. Somehow I managed to overlook (from being up all night?) the fact that I used the plural pronoun "them" in reference to "footwear" when I should've used "it."

Regards,

John Kettler

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Tero:

Originally posted by JasonC:

The US also fielded 20 round clip fed carbines, and fully equipped the bulk of the force with semi autos. Which was innovation by any standard.

The US army was the only one which could do that due to its industrial capacity. It was not uniquely innovative however since other armies started fielding semiautos at the same time the Garand was conceived.

Or even before -

Simonov automatic rifle - 35-65,000 delivered 1936-1940, 15 round magazine

Tokarev autmomatic rifles - over 1 million delivered until 1945

[jBrereton]

Originally posted by JasonC:

fielded rifled mortars

As did the Germans and to a small extent, the Russians (although they were crap IIRC)

innovated endlessly in airborne operations

Although not so much as the Russians, who not only were the first army to form a proper airborne regiment, but also created the system of deep battle, which was tremendously revolutionary for the time.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jBrereton:

Although not so much as the Russians, who not only were the first army to form a proper airborne regiment,

Sorry, and did what with it, exactly?

No kudos for being first. Everything that the Germans were doing that was so allegedly "revolutionary" in 1939 was stuff the Canadians were doing routinely in 1918 - including tank-infantry co-operation, wireless sets in infantry units, fire and movement at the squad level. Brits and ANZACS were doing it too. Didn't mean anything in 1940 unfortunately.

So saying the Russians had the first paratroopers really doesn't mean anything when discussing the types of things Jason is laying out. What did they do with their paratroopers, and how does that compare to the western Allies' use of airborne forces?

[michael kenny]

Try this

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/104-13/104-13.HTM

[Guest Mike]

No don't!! the author says he knows nothing about Soviet Airborne ops and then goes on to pose some reasons why they may never have happened in any numbers - which is an odd way toaccount forhis ignorance!!

Instead look at this 1946 article on Soviet paratroopers - it is more about the men themselves than ops, but still provides more info than the one above!

[Bigduke6]

The commonly-accepted (Erickson) POV is that, prior to the war, the Soviets created more paratrooper units earlier, and thought more about their use on the operational level, earlier, than any one else.

Limited Soviet actual use of airborne troops during the war, the traditional "pro-airborne" arguement goes, was because of a long list of situational factors, among them lack of transport aircraft, need for trained infantry elsewhere, the speed Red ground forces moved at, etc.

Frequently - and SO's Intelligence Bulletin link is a good example - the history of Soviet airborne operations makes its way into the English-speaking world via enthusiasts of airborne operations, quite often paratroopers themselves.

From what I have read in the Soviet histories, the Soviets were a lot less impressed with airborne operations than the Western enthusiastists. If you look at the volume of literature, there is plenty of writing on amphibious assaults, which is kind of strange when you consider the Soviet Union was hardly a WW2 naval power. But on airborne operations? Little to none.

Things like the evacuation of Odessa, the supply runs to Sevastopol, the landings in Novorossisk and Kronstadt, the flank landings in the Baltic post-Bargatian, even all those attempts to grab Pechenga/Pentsamo on the North Cape - all those operations seem to be well-documented and officially sanctioned as part of standard Soviet war history.

Airborne operations were not. They typically are glossed over, and when mentioned in any detail generally serve as examples of operational gambits that didn't work.

Since the Soviet histories are at the same time if anything energetic about reporting the bravery etc. of Airborne troops fighting as standard infantry, like at Kursk, it's hard to say there was a organizational bias against Airborne troops per se. But against airborne operations, you bet.

My opinion, what happened is that the Soviets went into the war with a very sophisticated airborne doctrine on paper, which fit very well indeed with the operational theories developed by Frunze and Triandifillov, which by June 1941 also were doctrine and also on paper.

And of course, since this was the Soviet Union, there could be a massive distance between what was on paper and what was the reality.

So, like most everything else at the beginning of the war, Soviet airborne operations initially did not work. I think that the Soviets dealt with the problem of how much or little to go airborne pretty much as they dealt with any other aspect of their military doctrine, once the war got going. They started small, and if it didn't work they tried it again a few more times and then often as not they chucked it.

By late 1943, when the Soviets had gained the initiative decisively, it was clear that the way to beat the Germans was with major ground offensives, and that airborne operations had little role in those offensives.

The degree to which this was because airborne operations are just a dumb idea, or Soviets too dumb to manage airborne operations, is any one's guess. Maybe lack of constricting terrain on the East Front, combined with scale of forces involved, would have reduced to the margins the usefulness of any airborne troops, in any operation, on a front that size. Maybe all of the above.

But for whatever reason, the Soviets clearly and decisively rejected "the airborne concept" as a major element of their wartime doctrine.

Alternatively, what worked tended to get more resources and development, and if it was a really good idea the Soviets seemed to accept few limits as to how far they would push an aspect of their doctrine.

The classic example is of course the armored breakthrough formation, which as the war progressed got progressively larger, so that by the war's end the Soviets had a doctrine - not something they figured out on the fly as a one-time thing but an died-in-the-wool SOP - for the introduction of multiple tank armies into a breakthrough sector as part of a operation controlled by a front.

So though one can say the Soviets stayed true throughout the war to Frunze's concepts about deep battle, broad mechanization, and attacks focusing on destablizing not so much the line as the rear echelon, airborne troops absolutely were not a part of that system as put into effect by the Red Army.

So, I would guess that the inevitable Soviet response to Michael's question "What did the Soviets ever do with airborne?" would be "Everything they needed to."

The Soviet experience during World War Two was, hands down, that airborne forces are wasteful of resources and do not produce results in proportion with the cost of maintaining an airborne arm. The war moves too fast, they found, for the maintenance of large-scale airborne forces to be worthwhile.

This is not just Commie pinko propaganda BTW, Field Marshal Slim said the exact same thing.

[JonS]

Good post.

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

This is not just Commie pinko propaganda BTW, Field Marshal Slim said the exact same thing.

Yeah, but Slim was British, and he listened to the BBC, so he was pretty much a Commie pinko anyway.

[serious]Could you point me at some of his writings about airborne forces? I would have thought that his adventures in Burma would have made him quite keen on the idea. I know he wasn't all that impressed with the Chindits, etc, but his advance south through Burma in 1945 - not to mention the defence of Imphal/Kohima in 1944 - was greatly faclitated by air mobility, and the capture of Rangoon was carried out, more-or-less, by a rinky dink airborne op.

Granted that airmobile isn't the same as airborne, but they are very close cousins.[/serious]

Cheers

Jon

[ December 27, 2006, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[jBrereton]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

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

Although not so much as the Russians, who not only were the first army to form a proper airborne regiment,

Sorry, and did what with it, exactly?</font>

[Guest Mike]

When you think of it the Soviets in 1943 did Airborne ops on the same scale as the germans had in 1940-41 - they dropped 3 brigades on 1 occasion (ie a division), a brigade or more at least once, and multiple drops of smaller numbers.

The Fallschirmjaeger were more spectacular and we know a lot more about them, but they were no more active and were ultimately used as elite infantry in the same manner as the Soviet paratroopers seem to have been.

That they didn't do nearly as well takes nothing away from them being just as active, or even more so than their more famous opponents.

[Bigduke6]

JonS - I strongly recommend you read From Defeat to Victory (I may have the wording a bit off, but that's generally the title), which is Slim's memoire of what he did in China/Burma.

It's a fascinating and generally unknown campaign, and IMO as a WW2 general officer account Slim's version of events is unmatched. It is the most honest general officer account I know of, any war, any nation.

Slim up front says he made mistakes, and at various points throughout the text he makes it crystal clear to the reader "Here is where Slim the general erred, where he came short of being a great captain."

None of von Manstein's self-serving "I had no idea what those Einsatztruppen were doing in my Panzerkorps' rear area to the Jews, and frankly all those Soviet victories were Hitler's fault."

None of Montgomery's "At this point in the war I was right this way, and at that point in the war I was right that way, and of course at that particularly critical point in the war I was absolutely right and things would have been much better if every one had just listened to me."

None of Zhukov's "Well, we suffered some casualties but our soldiers thought that was just fine because after all they were true Communists killing Fascist invaders, and the plan worked so obviously the Red Army command did its job just fine as well."

Slim is straight-up. He thinks the truth is more important than canting history a particular way.

As to airborne operations, during the main narrative he makes periodic parenthetical references to his regular line troops - particularly uneducated Indians fighting not for democracy but pay - managing airbone (well, more exactly airlanding) operations supposedly that only ueber elite troops are capable of.

At the end of the book there is a final remarks section where Slim politely but firmly explodes the myth that elite infantry units are a good idea.

Well, at least he convinced me.

In any case, read the book, you won't regret it.

[JonS]

I have. You're right: I didn't.

Your point bout specialist infantry forces is well taken. Still, I maintain that he thought highly of airborne and airmobile forces, all the more so after his own experiences both before and during the war.

From 'Afterthoughts':

A feature of our airborne operations and movements was that the troops employed were not of some special kind. No soldiers of the Fourteenth Army were taught to believe there was anything mystic, strange, or unusual about air movements or maintenance; to them, of whatever race, these were normal administrative methods. The only exception was parachute jumping. I would, if I had had the aircraft available for practice, have made it an ordinary part of, at least, every infantryman's training. The incidence of serious injury is, I should think, no higher among soldier parachutists than among soldier motorcyclists. Unfortunately, the lack of training aircraft prevented our using parachutists on a large scale, but even so we were undoubtedly the most air minded army that ever existed. We had to be.

Further on he makes a partial exemption to his blanket ban on special infantry forces for airborne units (though that is based mainly on a lack of facilities to train jumpers, not on any belief that jumpers are inherently special).

I just went back to your original point, and realise I've read more into it than you probably meant. You're right that ...

... [slim thought that] airborne forces are wasteful of resources and do not produce results in proportion with the cost of maintaining an airborne arm. The war moves too fast, [he] found, for the maintenance of large-scale airborne forces to be worthwhile.

On the other hand, he did think that the capabilities brought to the table by airborne, and especially airmobile, ops (as distinct from airborne/airmobile forces) are far too useful to be discarded.

Regards

Jon

P.S. "Defeat into Victory". You might also be interested in "Slim, the Standard Bearer". I haven't read it yet, except for snippets on Google Books while looking for something else, but it looks pretty good.

P.P.S. One of the points that Slim makes about special infantry forces is that they expect to be relieved after fairly short time in the line, which adds to their wastefulness. That reminds me of a conversation I had with an Irish Guardsman some years ago. During Op MARKET GARDEN the Irish Guards finally got through and linked up with the paras, at which point one of the paras turned on one of the Guardsmen and demanded "Where have you been? We've been here over a week!" To which the Guardsman retorted "Quit flapping yer gums. We've been going for over two months."

[ December 28, 2006, 01:41 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Bigduke6]

JohnS,

Thanks for the book tip. Sorry to recommend you a book you've already read.

I think we're on the same sheet of music here, so to speak, but just to clarify what I think Slim and the Soviets had in common was that neither was so in love with parachute operations, that they saw the need to maintain specialist parachute formations which got committed to battle only after all the stuff paratroopers demand before they will fight - meticulous planning, training time, great intelligence, plenty of air, full strength units, first draw on manpower and supplies, blah blah blah.

I'm not trying to argue Slim opposed air operations or air support to ground operations; in a lot of ways, obviously, he wrote the book.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Sorry to recommend you a book you've already read.

Not at all, it is a great read, and I meant to put a smiley after the first line of my last post but the interweb gremlins ate the first draft before I could post, and it got lost in the re-write

Also, I greatly enjoyed your characterisations of other senior commanders writings

Jon

P.S. last night - on your prompting - I re-read all of 'Afterthoughts', one of the sub-headings in that chapter is 'The Japanese', which in turn contains a passage on the Japanese High Command as he experienced it in Burma. He talks about their extreme determination but lack of flexibility, and also their great physical courage but utter failing in terms of moral courage. As I was reading it, it struck as a fairly accurate description of the German high command too.

[ December 28, 2006, 11:50 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[JasonC]

Sorry, but that bit is incoherent.

You can't pretend Slim and the Russians agree on the subject. The Russians maintained a large specialist airborne infantry arm, and then practically never used it for airborne or airmobile ops. They therefore incur Slim's blame on both scores - they took the resources and then they didn't use air mobility.

Slim is transparently claiming the air mobility is so highly useful it should be expected of everybody, and that the resources of specialized units should not be drawn off (in part because he doesn't want the ordinary units thinking they can't move by air if they don't have special training or a special unit name). The Russians did the opposite.

What Slim did counts as innovation in airmobile operations.

MacArthur made similarly wide scale use of airmobile ops in SW Asia, New Guinea to Philippines etc. With rather more parachute drops to secure airfields etc.

As for the Russians, they tried the large scale chute drops but they were fiascos - the forces were passive from disorganization after they landed and were easily cut up. They jumped with little in the way of arty or AT ability, failed to form up well etc. They simply did not master the subject.

The Russians also had plenty of operational occasions to want chutes, had they had a truly effective operational scale ability. Crossing from the Kuban to the Crimea, the fight in Courland, the passes of the Carpathians, defended major river barriers like the Dnepr (where they actually tried it in 43) etc.

There are also pure what ifs e.g. in the late war Balkans that might have simply accelerated the war (a drop near Belgrade supported by Tito well before the armor arrives etc). Or some near pockets the Germans were able to escape from that might have been sealed by a well timed airborne insertion (the same might have been done at Falaise had the allies been quicker).

As for the idea that all generals are self aggrandizing prima donnas, let's just say those types arrange to get press but it is not universal. Ridgeway wasn't one, notably. Nor Nimitz, Marshall, Ike, Bradley, Vasilevsky, Vatutin, Rokossovsky etc.

[ December 28, 2006, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Guest Mike]

Glantz offers an in depth analysis of Soviet Airborne ops in WW2 here .

It's a 30mb pdf download tho...so recommended only for the dedicated!!

Basically his conclusion is that the Soviets lacked the means for successful large scale airborne operations - both in leadership and technical areas. His thrust is mainly about how they used their WW2 experiences poast war, but the detail is still fascinating.

[Bigduke6]

Jason,

Slim I think would have indicted Soviet airborne doctrine, but I also think he would have approved of how the Soviets abandoned major airborne operations once they figured out how to beat the Germans. The airborne formations in the Red Army, mostly, did what infantry is supposed to do: fought. Often, Soviet airborne infantry was airborne only in name: they had neither trained for jumping out of airplanes nor particularly expected to do it any time soon.

I say the proof is in the pudding: during the latter portion of the war, when the Soviets had enough resources to give airborne operations a serious try, they decided the resources were better used elsewhere.

This is the basis of my contention Slim and the Soviets alike saw specialist airborne formations as essentially wasteful - although admittedly prior to the war the Soviets were badly infected with the "airborne bug." But they got over it.

My point here is obviously to contrast that approach - parachute operations are not worth making a big deal about - to the prevailing approach in ETO, where it is arguable maintaining more than a Corps of airborne-capable infantry harmed the war effort. IMO a most of the paratroopers in the three U.S. and single British airborne divisions should have been in the line, mostly as NCOs or officers.

As to generals self-serving and not, I haven't read Nimitz and Vatutin (Did Vatutin write a memoire? I didn't know that) but the rest I have.

As as far as I am concerned those recollections useful though they are are not comparable to Slim. The difference is Slim's approach: He is not just recording what he did for the record, but informing the reader of his thought processes prior to decisions, and frankly admitting exactly where and how he made operational and strategic mistakes - for the whole book front to back.

To my mind this is unique for a general officer account from World War Two. Off the top of my head I would criticize Ike and Bradley for periodic economy with the truth.

The specific example that comes to my mind is Bradley's claim that, post war, "he got lucky in the stock market" and so secured personal wealth independent of his government job.

Yeah right. A guy as connected as Bradley, at the very top of the U.S. establishment, in 1950s America, "gets lucky" on the stock market. I don't believe it, not for a minute. If that doesn't smell of insider trading then Enron is a safe investment these days.

I point this out not to denegrate Bradley as a general. I think he was underrated and it's a real shame his concern for the average GI didn't penetrate to all members of the U.S. officer Corps. But to me the throwaway line on the stock market is an example of how Bradley's recollections have much less the ring of truth, and more the feel of a powerful American political figure setting out his version of events, than Slim's.

I gained similar impressions from Ike although I can't cite you any examples off the top of my head.

The Soviets, obviously, are Soviet and even the best of their memoires need a grain of salt about the size of Mount Elbruz.

Slim, in contrast, seems to go out of his way to write down the good and the bad so that the reader can learn from it.

[ December 29, 2006, 05:34 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]