Guns vs Armour

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

I am down at the sharp end...

Hardly. You're some dude sitting at a terminal.

FWIW even if one goes past the literal, how many Sherman or M10 crews went out and measured their armour with calipers? The Sherman tank crews I've read about pretty much threw as much concrete, log, sandbag, spare track, or sheet armour on their tanks as possible thinking it "wasn't enough."

Come to think of it, I've never seen M10s with a similar treatment. Could it be they didn't feel they needed it?

I doubt many sharp-enders had much access to statistical data; those that did probably thought little of it.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

If you are "at the sharp end", how is this in any way relevant to a discussion to the tactical usage of Second World War Armoured Fighting Vehicles? Why mention it?

Where I've seen such comments before it's from people trying to gain some ex cathedra advantage.

Talking to an admittedly limited number of soldiers and reading a greater number of first-hand accounts, the tendency seems to be based on threat rather than armour thickness. As in X weapon can hurt us, Y weapon cannot. It seems to be a reasonable way of defining protection.

If you were to define both the M4 Medium and the M10 and M36 tank destroyers against the typical weapons of the Wehrmacht at the time, they come out pretty equal. Both are overmatched by the standard German AT and tank gun - the 75mmL48 - and horridly overmatched by the 75mmL70 and 88mm guns. Both are largely resistant to 50mm and lighter AT guns from the front and less so from the side. So the armour protection is roughly equal against typical adversaries.

While they are at no great disadvantage when fighting German AFVs when compared to Shermans in terms of armour, they have as good or better guns, so stand a better chance at hurting the opposition.

Where they are not as good is when they are used against enemies other than tanks (EOTT?). No coax or bow machine guns means that they cannot suppress or otherwise brass up enemy infantry and the open top means that plunging small arms fire, or small arms fire from a higher elevation, can wreak havoc on the crew, whilst airbursts from artillery or Flak in the ground role can put shrapnel into the fighting compartment and mortars can drop whole rounds in. In this it is not the thickness, or lack thereof, of the armour that it has that is the problem, but rather the armour that it doesn't have, specifically a roof. The lack of MGs that can be fired from under armour hurts its utility as a multi-role vehicle

Tank destroyers then have a very specialised role, at which they are particularly adept, but are too specialised to be successful in a multi-purpose army.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

Interesting that in among the largest concentration of German armour ever that the TD's fired 85% HE/15%ap.

Not really so interesting when you consider a good 75% of that concentration was deployed opposite the Commonwealth armies for most of the campaign in Normandy.

[Corvidae]

Thankyou flamingknives.

I realy mean that.

Have a beer.

[Tero]

Originally posted by JonS:

Originally posted by michael kenny:

Broad themes that assert the armour of an M10 is 'not much less' than a comparable M4 do not seem to be based on reality.

* In literal terms, the M10 has less armour than the M4. n people grok that.

* In practical terms, the difference is irrelevant. n-1 people grok that.

The difference is irrelevant. What was relevant and all important to the tank crews was the fact the "proper" tanks were denied for a long time the proper assets (76mm/90mm gun + hot ammo) they needed to combat the enemy armour in a meaningful manner.

The US TD doctrine was an utter failure because it put tanks and the TD in a position where both were in a disadvantage because neither could act properly in the main battle tank role. The German and the Soviet TD doctrine relied on most (all ?) models fielding the same gun (75/76/85/88 mm) which standardized the arsenal and levelled the playing field for all vehicles regardless of the design specification vis-a-vis the doctrinal purpose of the vehicle.

You make the TD kill rate into a huge issue when the focus should be concentrated in the tank loss rate which the TD's were doctrinally supposed to prevent.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Hardly. You're some dude sitting at a terminal.

I was contrasting the 'broad overview' being used by others when I was more interested in dealing with the nitty gritty of the vehicles and their crews i.e. the sharp end.

The Sherman tank crews I've read about pretty much threw as much concrete, log, sandbag, spare track, or sheet armour on their tanks as possible thinking it "wasn't enough."

Come to think of it, I've never seen M10s with a similar treatment. Could it be they didn't feel they needed it?

It was done.

I doubt many sharp-enders had much access to statistical data; those that did probably thought little of it.

I agree and I am not a great fan of statistics. However they are useful for setting an upper limit for losses. You then know the rate of overclaiming.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

If you are "at the sharp end", how is this in any way relevant to a discussion to the tactical usage of Second World War Armoured Fighting Vehicles? Why mention it?

Where I've seen such comments before it's from people trying to gain some ex cathedra advantage.

I am not trying to assert any superior position and was simply contrasting the broad overview taken by others to my concern with the actual men and machines. I said I was at the sharp end because that is the area I am most concerned with. I was not at the top (broad view) looking down. I was at the bottom (sharp end) looking up.

This is also why I noticed the claim that TD's were about as equally armoured as the M4. I know what overmatching is and realise its implications. That will not change the fact that one vehicle had roughly half the hull armour of the other.

I also mentioned the lack of an MG and open turret as being a problem but others said it was not a weakness

[flamingknives]

To me, when someone says that they are "at the sharp end", this means that they are actually in action. If they were looking at the sharp end, or concerned with the detail, then I would draw the distinction that you're making.

"Roughly half the hull armour" is all very well, but it has no bearing against the tactical reality.

As a comparison, consider people hiding behind two armour steel plates. One is 6mm thick, the other is 12mm thick. If they are being shot at by someone with 7.62mm AP, then there is a huge difference. You wouldn't catch me hiding behind the 6mm plate, that's for sure.

If, however, they are being fired upon by a .50cal HMG, then you wouldn't find me behind either, as the .50cal can defeat both.

Now, if the enemy force has a mixture of .50cal (which will perforate either plate with ease) and 7.62 ball (which can penetrate neither plate), then it's entirely reasonable to note that they provide equal protection. I don't think that anyone is disputing the millimetre thickness of armour. However, in the given situation, the difference is not relevant.

The lack of MG and open turret is only a problem if the vehicle is used as a tank, which it isn't. When used as a tank destroyer, it's not much of a handicap, but more of an advantage (better observation)

Corvidae: beer disagrees with me, but I appreciate the sentiment.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

"Roughly half the hull armour" is all very well, but it has no bearing against the tactical reality.

This is not something critical to the debate. What prompted me to show the actual armour thickness on the M4 v M10 was a statement that the TD's were 'heavilly armoured' and 'about as well armoured as a medium tank' That and an assertion that the US lost less tanks than the Germans from Normandy to The Bulge convinced me the poster was not quite as well briefed as he thought he was. When I pointed this out then that is when the roof fell in!

The TD concept was not a success for a number of reasons, many of which are laid out in Gabel.

The distinction between 'not a successful concept' as opposed to 'not a successful vehicle' seems to confuse many.

[flamingknives]

This is not something critical to the debate. What prompted me to show the actual armour thickness on the M4 v M10 was a statement that the TD's were 'heavilly armoured' and 'about as well armoured as a medium tank'

Against the Germans, it was about as well armoured as a medium tank. There are few to no German weapons that can harm a Tank Destroyer that cannot also harm a Medium tank.

The TD concept wasn't successful? Not sure some round here would agree. Perhaps using them as tanks wasn't successful, but that's not really the concept.

[pamak1970]

I've read the manuals, sorry. They studiously avoid admitting that defense happens. It is presented as an anomoly, something that might occasionally be forced on a few subelements of the army while others are attacking. They then falsify the description of defensive tactics to avoid imputing strengths to it that their offensive doctrine pretends do not exist, and even just to avoid lessons that turn around when your stance does. E.g. they can't bring themselves to say reserves must move to the enemy's strength, because the attack doctrine is to hit weakness.

I have read the manuals also ,including French ones of 1920s.

We obviously interpreter things differently.

Defence is not an anomaly.You can not attack everywhere.Attack and defence go as a pair .

There is nothing wrong with attacking enemy’s weakness ,on the contrary that is the most sensible thing to do.

Still even then, manuals for example might declare the counterattack at the flanks of a penetration but they also declare the necessity to stop or slow it down at least temporary.Otherwise a counterattack against the flank of a penetration that is free to go even deeper in defence territory is risky for the defender as well.

A doctrine that stammers when it speaks of defense cannot teach men how to attack either, because it cannot realistically describe what the opponent is trying to accomplish or how. Instead the opponent envisioned by the attack doctrine is a passive cartoon with his power all upfront and online and all his rear areas vulnerable and full of high value targets that cause paralysis and victory without fighting if they are dislocated.

I disagree.

An advocate of the type of doctrine I describe may very well apply the same principles for conducting a defence and there is nothing that can prevent him from assuming that the enemy may apply similar approach as a defender.

If there are cases of underestimations of the enemy,it is the fault of personal beliefs or general culture,not a fault of doctrine.

I also believe that rear areas are vulnerable and full of high value targets and destruction of this area does cause paralysis.

I've read the manuals, and yes they do. They claim that being on the offensive in itself has decisive moral effects - which is straight out of the blue pants school that lost a million frenchmen in a month in 1914.

"you can seize initiative only when you attack"

The word "ambush" concisely refutes that ideological bromide. Of course you can seize the initiative when you defend. You can also be smart, anticipate the enemy, get inside his decision loop, paralyze him, cause blind panic etc. None of the special virtues claimed exclusively for the offensive stance by maneuver theorists is actually exclusive to the offensive stance. It is sheer slander, that's all.

Nor is "the initiative" a "prerequirement"(sic) for victory. Plenty of battles in history have been won decisively simply by shooting down the attackers to the point where they came apart in rout, from Knightsbridge to Fredericksburg to New Orleans to Agincourt. It is an ideological dogma and not an observation, and it isn't true.

Misinterpretation again.

Being on the offensive itself does not bring decisive moral effects.

The decisive moral effects come when the offensive strikes fast and successfully deep in the enemy territory

A successful defence does not produce such decisive results, except in small tactical level where numbers are relative few and morale can be affected overall for the whole unit after a short time of sustaining casualties.

The above is also relative when you talk about ambush and the decisive results it might have for initiative or victory, you actually shift the whole subject from the operationa field to small tactical one.

You can not have decisive results by staging an ambush of operational dimensions, trying to kill your enemy firing from your superior defensive positions.

Russians had plenty of time and warning waiting for the Germans to attack at Kursk but things are different in the operational level .You are not a platoon waiting ,ambushing and destroying an enemy one in a short period of time.

Defence has to be linked with aggression in order to gain decisive results.

You give examples of the past forgetting that the vast majority of losses in most battles ,was during the pursue .

The bowmen in Angicourt used swords to attack the flanks of the men at arms and shift the battle in favor of their side. The defender had at some point to shift on offence to gain a decisive victory.

Germans were stopped in front of Leningrand by a successful defence but the disaster for them was in Stalingrand and it was not cause of the successful defence of the city itself.It was cause of the attacks that isolated them.

I gave you also the examples of Patton and Bulge or Normandy and Falaise or Kursk and so on.

This is something which is accepted by both maneuverists and atritionists and it should not be really part of this conversation.

You seem to confuse some concepts thinking that some people claim that someone can not expect to win by assuming an operational defensive posture since they believe that only offence brings decisive victory ,while actually you can certainly do so and combine an operational defensive posture with aggressive attacks.

"since the attacker has the initiative, he will most likely acheive a local force superiority"

Temporarily, yes this is true, that is why there are screens for warning time and reserves etc. As all the cases under discussion show, however, that local odds doesn't last very long - reserves simply counter-maneuver - and achieving local odds by physical concentration also creates its own vunerabilities (multiples the effects of area weapons, of obstacles, of logistic bottlenecks, etc).

Obviously I am not saying that each attack is going to be victorious .

As to the warning time ,let’s not forget that most of the times it is the interpretation that it is difficult,not the gathering of information and not forget that air intediction will disrupt the timetable of defence even if it does not isolate the battlefield.

Since the defender does not know which attack is the main one and which one is just a faint or supporting one ,it is difficult for him to decide with confidence about his counteractions.

French had indications and warning about Mech movement in Ardennes but they thought that this was actually a German deception ,so eventually the defender will cancel the initial odds but it is far from obvious that he will succeed in doing that before the attacker achieves a decisive advantage.

If the battlefield was transparent ,maybe the defence had better chances but during fog of war ,it is the offence that benefits more from the situation.

False. If successive defensive battles move the global odds ratio of remaining effectives to 10 to 1 in his favor, he is going to win. If they break the enemy in dissolving rout, he is going to win. If after a period of defensive successes he chooses to attack here and there, not even seeking breakthrough but merely grinding through the enemy forces broad front with a pure attrition strategy, he can also win.

Yes he might win but if you build a doctrine which forces you to win successive battles in a raw in order to win and choose it compare to one that needs only a single one ,then you do not make a rational choice,especially if you have a smaller army.

And if you choose an approach of actually attacking in order to kill all enemies instead of

attacking in order to defeat them ,then again it is not a rational approach.

In victorious battles, the amount of people captured as prisoners cause of successful attacks that penetrated the rear and were not directly aimed towards them ,is much more than the amount of actuall kills.

As to making the enemy rout (which actually applies in small tactical level) ,you need to exploit it by pursuing him,otherwise he will regroup and will be ready to fight you again another day.

In operational terms however the enemy corps or army does not simply attack mindless till they collapse and route.

It is instructive to see Rommel’s case in Afrika where frequently he continued the offensive to the point of finding himself with very limited resources and 20 or 30 operational tanks but as long as British could not assume the offensive and press bold and hard ,it was a matter of stopping the attack and let time regroup and regain his strength or even retreat controlling the pace of operations until he regained strength to strike again.

Anyone notice how he can't bring himself to admit that offensive action can be a cause of loss?

Again misinterpretation.

I did not say that.

An offensive action can bring someone to decicive defeat as long as the enemy is ready to take advantage of it by shifting to offence.

Again we are talking here about operational art and I showed You that decisive victories from any side was a product of attacks at operational level, from Stalingrand to Bulge.

We have many cases of attacks stopped by successful defence but the attacker did not collapse cause of that , since it did not have to retreat hastly abandoning massive equipment or seeing the bulk of his no motorized , in dozens of thousands become prisoners of war.

Weapons much improved since WW II, especially smart weapon tech, which drastically raises the importance of firepower and drastically reduces the survivability of armor in particular, compared to WW II conditions. Much as machineguns made riflemen vulnerable in WW I, multiple smart weapon platforms make armor vulnerable. Witness forces as large as those used at Kursk reduced to scrap metal in less than a week (Iraq I, etc). Would losses against the much better equipped and trained Russians have been higher? Certainly. But there is every reason to believe the tank killers that smashes acres of T-72s then would have sold themselves for lots of smashed T-72s in Europe, too.

The usual attitude of the crowd that was convinced after Yom Kippur that the guided antitank weapon put an end to the tank warfare.

They were wrong to assume the end of the tank era,cause they fail to see the changes in a broad form.

You do have more firepower and guided antitank weapons but you also have better armor protection, more dispersion , more intergration of combined arms warfare and suppresion .They forget that modern firepower does not kill more easily the attacker,,it suppress also more easily the defender and that ultimately limits the effectiveness of these weapons or affect both offence and defence

So the antitank weapon were not really the machine gun of wwi.

Farthermore the casualty rates and tank rate of destruction during Arab Israel wars were comparable with loss rates of wwii inspite of the more lethal weapons.

Since some might want to challenge it ,I give the sourse.

Table 13-3 Dupuy, understanding war.

In fact according to Dupuy , historically speaking ,although lethality of weapons increase, casualty rates during battles decrease cause among others dispersion for both attacker and defender grows much more steep than lethality of weapons .

He does mention that there are arguments for supporting the modern type of conventional war will have a higher rate of casualties but they are not supported by historical data.

Now I am not going to see Iraq as a useful case for any observation.It is like using the German attack in Poland or Greece to talk about the attrition levels during wwii,not to mention that one of the main ojectives of coalition force, the destruction of Republican guard was not completed.It was achieved partially and there is much critisism about that in modern literature .

Also, it is much more sensible to backpeddle and attrite those numbers while flying in new forces to meet their equipment, planning on the whole thing being a long attrition fight, than it is to imagine a 1 to 5 counterattack driving across eastern Germany etc. It is completely silly to expect that would have worked in any way shape matter form etc. But the Wehrmacht envy maneuverists were so offensive minded they actually planned such a charge.

Bakpeddle for how long?

You do not have vast area behind you like Russians did in wwii.

The operational depth is more shallow, plus you have a modern enviroment of 24/7 operations day and night,plus you have to figure out how to maintain combat effectiveness of the limited forces you have there for a considerable amount of time under constant stress.

How long do you think even a 100% intact ACR can be combat worthy ,before sleep deprivation

and fatigue make their presence against constantly new Soviet formations.

What do you think is the rate of arrival of American reinforcements coming from US compared to Soviet ones coming in central Europe from Soviet union?

Just look at the amount of time it took for Americans to build a big force during gulf war in peaceful conditions.

As a last what is the problem with the Germans trying to defend their country against a Soviet invasion?

You ignore political enviroment.

Why would Germans want to be a NATO member ,when your proposition is to let the country overrrun by Soviets so that NATO can earn time ?

"It is Goering's fault". Utter rot. Also, you simultaneously say that the US should have had an offensive doctrine against the Warsaw Pact, and that the latter with numbers and initiative would have had air superiority.

No, it is one of the reasons though.

Another problem is the difference of level of mechanization between Allies and Germans.

Another problem was the fuel supply situation and so on…

How many horses did Allies use compared to Germans?

Also, the German doctrine failed in Russia where the Russians lacked air supremacy. Reserves in depth and global odds are quite sufficient to stop it. So is greater mobility and odds edge as seen in the west. It stopped working as soon as enemy defensive doctrine improved.

Actually in the East many argue that the doctrine did not really apply as it should partially cause of Hitlers interfierence and belief in defending ground instead of going for a more mobile defence.

It is similar with the argument you use when you say that French lost not because of superity of German doctrine but cause they did mistakes.

Anyway I can agree that there are cases of so much difference in numbers and great operational depth ,that you can not expect victory under any doctrine ,including the German one and the German attack against Russia can be such a case but it is difficult to be sure about those things no matter if you talk about the German collapse in East or the French collapse in west.

It means that the German belief that attrition processes could be avoided and wars won without total war odds issues mattering decisively, was faulty. And that only an overall attrition context (the acknowledgement that odds do matter, and that annihilation battle is the way to decision) and a doctrine able to both attack and defend, is remotely sound.

The German belief was justified against a similar size opponent in France and failed against Soviets.

So, it was partially true or fault.

However it would be totally crazy for the Germans to count on victory based on attrition .

They were not big enough, they did not have a navy strong enough ,they could not maintain their supply communications battling the English Navy ,nor access to most oil supplies of the world and they had also the experience of WWI where it showed obviously that they simply could not win during the type of war you propose.

Actually German strategic production was fully equal to Russian, in 1944

Instead of going to statistics and data ,it is better to start with a simple question to make our life easier.

Do you agree that Germans could not achieve the strategic production of Soviets trying to win an attrition type of war, even if they had chosed to build less sophisticated equipment?

Do you agree that they had less population?I point here the fact that no matter how many tanks you produce ,you still need crews to operate them ?

Why did the Germans fail to match Russian production, when they had all of Europe as their base, and their own pre-war industrial output fully equalled Russian prewar output, and they moreover occupied 40% of Russians pre-war industrial areas by output, as well as millions of her population etc? Because they had victory disease and believed an overly aggressive doctrine that told them they could avoid attrition and win despite odds.

Partially true what you say, but certainly not the only reason.

Partially cause of the British Navy ,partially cause of strategic bombing,partially cause of limited access to critical resources including oil of middle East (or Caucasus which seemed very attractive for Hitler).

Similar resons except strategic bombing , were present in wwi when the German economy again could not match the allies.

Which was caused by the prior collapse of German fielded armor strength to 33% of what had originally been sent, due to attrition processes, and of trench infantry strength in the US sector, likewise. Breakthroughs follow from successful attrition fighting, not the other way around

Breakthrough can happen even if there is not an attrition process .You can mass assets and achieve local superiority instead of trying to achieve this by gradually reducing the defender .

The Germans as you say saw their armor destroyed during attrition fights with allies.

So why you blaim their doctrine when they try to avoid attrition ?

They know that they are too few compared to allies to accept such type of war.

Yes once they occur, they are also a cause of further material loss. The driver of that further material loss is the decline of remaining armor strength below the levels needed to stop attacks by reserve commitment.

They actually cause a much more material and personel loss (prisoners) than the actual attrition during a battle where there is no breakthrough.

As to the driver of the breakthrough which is the decline of remaining tanks, you speak from your point of view which does apply for the kind of war you talk about.

However for the opposite side, the driver for a breakthrough is the rate of arrival of tanks in the area of interest.

You can not say that one is wrong or the other is right.

However for a smaller force or country , the second approach is the only choice they have.

In the specific case of Normandy, this was also aided by a disasterously stupid use of what German armor did remain at the time of the breakout. That disasterously stupid use of the remaining armor was dictated by Germany's overly aggressive doctrine on the use of armor. Instead of using the Mortain force as a "linebacker" trying to contain the US breakout to the east (letting them have Brittany, say, but screening a withdrawal to the Seine), it was plunged into an overly ambitious counterpunching offensive mission. Which predictably failed, and also positioned that remaining armor at the far end of the Falaise sack, instead of outside it or near its eastern exit.

The Germans either had to concede defeat or go for an overly ambitious offensive operation .

It is easy for historians to predict during the aftermath.

If Germans were defeated in the Ardennes against France , everybody would point how stupid they were to choose such a difficult ground for their armor force.

First of all, when you judge a certain military leader , you have to know the pieces of information he possessed at that time.Do not judge someone by comparing the TOE of forces that actually fought.

Things that are obvious to armchair generals in the aftermath are not so during the fog of war in real situations.

I do not know how close enough was the estimation by the German high command of the overall armor forces of allies in Normandy.

If the overall allied armored force was underestimated, I could see a ground for having hopes for victory in Mortain assuming that the the allied armor had shifted to south.

This type of information needs more than finding a TOE.

Can you give me the intelligence estimation by the German stuff officers before the Mortain attack?

Then we can talk about either stupidity or simply wrong judgment .

Second , for the Germans ,if they could not hold allies and win victory in a much smaller front in Normandy with more restrictive terrain and less ports available,,how exactly they were going to do so by establishing a front all along France.?

If trying to throw allies back in the sea ,meant that they had to gumble, then they had to do so.

It is no coincidence that around this time ,we have the plot against Hitler.Everybody knew that it was either victory in Normandy or defeat .A retreat was not an option .

They could not win victory in France during wwi and they could not expect to do so during wwii with much more particiaption of Americans and Soviets approaching from East.

That this piece of wanton stupidity is advanced as supposed evidence in favor of an offensive minded doctrine, because gosh, when they retreated they lost stuff so you can't ever even think about retreat or you will lose stuff, is the epitome of ideological folly, and exactly the criminal stupidity that led to that misuse in the first place.

LOL, actually the above paragraph is a clear example of the gross misunderstanding you have.

An offensive doctrine does not exclude retreat.It incorporates together with defence as a tool that can prepare the ground for a successful attack and surprise.

The retreat is not making you “lose stuff” as long as you control the tempo which is closely linked with initiative.

Now imagine men who think that was are in charge in central Germany an a breakthrough looms. Are they going to sensibly slide what reserves remain in front of the breakout in a defensive stance, buying time for other units to pull back and reforger units to arrive? Or are they going to gamble on some offensive deathride just like Mortain

Buy some time?

You mean until the bulk of the American forces come inside Europe?

How much time is that ?

This is relative of what I said before about the lack of operational depth, slow arrival of reinforcements from the other side of Atlantic and inferior number of defenders against multiple enemy divisions coming in waves

The Americans did not think about Mortain for countering such type of threat.

They were thinking of Manstein and the third battle of Kharkov and they were certainly ready to retreat not because they could buy time for the US reinforcements to arrive (they just did not have such space for such big amount of time), but for stretching the enemy and make him more vulnerable to an attack that could produce an operational victory and restore the ground they lost temporary.

Such type of operational impact for the Soviets, could save them the necessary time .

Losing entire tank armies without gaining anything is an operational consequence. But the comment reveals the ground gain focus underlying the whole thought, lightly masked by the mystical importance of "the initiative". If the attacker merely throws away his army but does not lose ground, he is not thought to have lost anything. Ground is conceived as the index of victory, and forces irrelevant and replacable means. This is dumb and always has been dumb. An attrition focus is however the only analytical frame in which the much greater importance of fielded force strength over irrelevant issues of ground control, is readily apparent.

I am Confused with the way you see things

Yes I say that you force opponent to lose entire armies and often with low cost ,if you mix defence with an operational offence.

That is how the German army was lost in Stalingrand.

Just executing a successful defence does not produce decisive victories.That is why Leningrand did not become Stalingrand for Germans, First and second Alamein did not make Rommel collapse and so on.

This is cause of the ability of the atacker and basic intelligence to stall the attack before he is depleted .Then he regroups, reorganizes , retrieves and fixes his equipment and at the end his losses are much lower than you really think.

Yes, during a period of long time, with successive defensive victories against a smaller opponent ,you might attrit him to the point of admitting defeat or collapse, but this way is much more difficult since it requires more time, a smaller opponent and a string of successful operations while you often risk to be knocked out by your opponent in a single blow, if he is aggressive enough. .This type of warfare is certainly not the favored one for the smaller side or even one which combats an enemy of similar size.

The right thing to do when Cobra succeeds is to retreat to the Seine, with the armor on the outer, southern wing, fighting withdrawal stance, to buy time for the infantry heavy components to get back across the river. Then blow all the bridges and reform a line. Evacuate the Biscay area at the same time.

…………and then lose in a wwi style,establishing a front of trenches along the whole France!

The right thing also for Germans was to not create marching armored columns of dozens of miles among the narrow roads of Ardennes.

It is easy for you knowing the results to decide what is stupid and what is not.

In reality it is not like that.

[ January 03, 2007, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[pamak1970]

continuing the previous post

This is obvious, it was obvious at the time, any professionally competent officer should have seen and urged it

No.

Proffresional officers realized that it was either fighting and beating Allies in Normandy or defeat.

Maybe cause they had some experience from wwi which you seem to ignore.

Since actually that is what they got, this is hardly credible

It is very credible considering that the approach you defend made them lost wwi .At least their approach paid them on many occasions during wwii .

If he has a properly balanced doctrine and two legs, maybe, but you just finished saying that unless he attacks he has no hope, so if he stalls the attack he is admitting defeat, because there is no way he can win unless he can keep up the attack.

Unless you are not American or English, I can not really understand how you say these things when you read my comments.

Yes, I said that attack brings the victory.

If you do not attack ,it does not mean that you have lost or admit defeat.That is only in your mind.

What does mean is that for various reasons, you are not capable yet to go for the kill blow .

In front of Nancy, a German commander who continued reckless negative odds attacks until 90% of his force was gone, was formally reprimanded for "lack of offensive spirit" because he went over to the defensive with 30 AFVs left.

First of all I do not know the details ,so for example I do not know how much aware the German commanders were of reckless negative odds.

Second Rommel was pursuing the British with similar attrition levels of his AFVs.

The number of tanks he had when he arrived in Alamein for the first time were a few dozens .

So I am not eager to talk about stupidity on behalf of German officers by seeing the above numbers.

If they thought That the enemy side was also on the edge of collapse , it might make absolutely sense to remove an officer for lack of offensive spirit when he goes to the defence having 30 AFV left.

Since the doctrine teaches that only the attacker can win and that loss of the initiative is catastrophic, any situation in which the initiative seems like it might be lost is formally believed by the doctrine to be a "desparate situation". Thus, whenever its adherents see a transition to the defensive coming, they gamble instead.

In your mind. As I said before you can not attack just because you want to.There must be certain conditions and if these conditions do not apply ,or if you need time to prepare them ,you certainly accept defence as a way to buy time or even conserve forces that you will mass in another sector.

By the way, I did not say that loss of initiative is catastrophic.

I said it is not adequate but it is a prerequirement for a decisive victory.

The latter implies that when you lose it ,it does not mean that you are defeated.

Yes, but that just removes his odds and makes an even odds fight ahead of both side's screened main bodies.

The odds are not just part of number of units opposing each other.

It is also a matter of supporting assets, from electronic warfare, to engineer and air support or artillery.

Also, when a ACR has to screen a huge area in front of a corps sector and the enemy advanced units aim to penetrate the screen at any point ,they can certainly achieve odds favorite to them to the location they choose to penetrate

He will therefore press behind his recon screen regardless, and do so hard, along his chosen main avenues. The defender then only needs to show weakness along some of these, by choice, and channel the attack by obstacles and terrain and where ground is given first, to lead said main body to his chosen kill sack.

The defender's advance force has to cover a very big area , the defender forces as a whole will certainly have less support at first from higher command since the axis of the main advance or attack will not be clear, plus his advantage in preparing terrain and restricting mobility for the attacker by obstacles and so on will not give him a greater mobility since the enemy air intediction as a product of an initial air superiority over a certain battlefield during the time the attacker choose ,

will isolate the battlefield or at least restrict the mobility of defenders reinforcements.

If you choose to describe the defensive actions with the certainty of achieving their objectives as described in manuals, I will do the same for the offensive side to point that it is really pointless to repeat paragraphs from manuals in order to support attack or offense.

At least we might agree that it is not so easy to concentrate fire as many believe by reading just manuals but without knowing anything about common survey.

In adiition ,of course observed fire is not affected by such things but try to give directions towards multiple batteries (with what equipment and direct links between those units and the observer?) without knowing which fire corresponds to which battery and against a rapidly advanced armored force.

Good luck!!

[ January 03, 2007, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

There are few to no German weapons that can harm a Tank Destroyer that cannot also harm a Medium tank.

Hand grenade, rifle grenade, small arms fire, splinters and debris from exploding shells.

The TD concept wasn't successful? Not sure some round here would agree. Perhaps using them as tanks wasn't successful, but that's not really the concept.

The concept entailed tanks did not act as TD's. And that is where the main fault laid.

[Tero]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

The lack of MG and open turret is only a problem if the vehicle is used as a tank, which it isn't. When used as a tank destroyer, it's not much of a handicap, but more of an advantage (better observation)

In close terrain with enemy lurking around you really think it is wise to start exposing the crew to any number of hazards to get better observation (given the doctrine called for outmanouvering the enemy through superior mobility and flank/rear shots) ?

[John Kettler]

michael kenny,

The top M10 pic is terrific and would make a fabulous model subject, especially since I've never seen one before with a hedgerow cutter.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

Germany could readily have beaten Russia with an attrition strategy. The US, if in, would have been harder in the long run, but victory in Russia was the only way to deal with that anyway.

Germany could have beaten Russia with an attrition strategy because you can't lose an attrition war to 2 to 1 odds when you are racking up 3 and 5 to 1 kill ratios in all combat stances. Not if you are trying and using your odds as much as the enemy is. (Consider, the US stalemated China in Korea simply by establishing a 10 to 1 exchange ratio through superior firepower arms).

And the only reason Germany was outproduced in tanks by Russia alone, was that it did not use an attrition strategy, did not mobilize its economy for war the instant it decided to attack Russia, but instead gambled recklessly on odds not mattering.

Germany's industrial potential fully equaled Russia's, not counting Russian material losses in the first year. And Germany received as much from exploiting occupied Europe as Russia received in lend lease. Germany was outnumbered in manpower depth, but by less than 2 to 1. It also had numerous minor allies for manpower depth, and knocked out a third of Russia's manpower base on the first year, by losses and occupation of territory.

If Germany had mobilized as soon as it attacked, its tanks available by the time of Stalingrad would have been at least double what it actually had to that date.

Indeed, German relative strength fell during a period in which is was inflicting 10 to 1 losses on the Russians. Which can only happen, and did only happen, because there was no German replacement and reinforcement strength to speak of. The side losing the 1 didn't replace even that 1 - more like 1/2. While the side losing the 10 replaced it all, basically.

Russia did not have 20 times the production capacity or manpower depth of Germany. Germany just didn't use her industry or her depth until she had to. Precisely because they believed the nonsense you are preaching. It is in fact the error that lost them the war.

It is dumb not to plan on and prepare for a long war of attrition. If you can't win such a war, you shouldn't start the fight in the first place. And if you can win such a war, you can happily take the benefits of a cheaper victory of enemy mistakes or cluelessness drop one in your lap. The downside is purely to civilian side costs, and are vastly outweighed by the downside of getting into a long war of attrition without being prepared for it.

The illusion of cheap and easy victory over forces one fears are superior in the long run, is just that, an illusion.

As for the claim that being on the defensive will eventually lose you the war to some single enemy offensive, I deny that any competent force is vulnerable to that outcome. With a competent force that understands defensive principles, there is no risk of a defeat without prior attrition loss.

The Germans confused the results of specific enemy weaknesses in their first few campaigns, with a special virtue of their own doctrine. It did not have one. As an example, Russian command actions in 1941 would have entirely sufficed to stop the attack if their mech arm had been ready for prime time (purely tactically and CSS, C3 terms, not operational direction), and had performed even half as well tactically as comparable German side forces. They were not.

As for imagining that it was sensible to continue to attack with 30 AFVs, it was certainly not in the case described, and it was obvious at the time. Study September in Lorraine if you doubt it.

Nor was pushing to the El Alamein position with a handful of remaining AFVs a glorious accomplishment. It was an error, and led directly to defeat of German forces in North Africa. Only a silly focus on ground control can fail to see this. DAK was vastly stronger 1000 miles nearer its own bases, there was no chance of winning a build up there, and there was never any prospect whatsoever of 30 tanks conquering all of Egypt.

You said you do not find instances of operational consequences to merely defeating the enemy's attack. Once Rommel lost the last stages of the Kasserine attack, what was the operational consequence? (No, build up afterward cannot retrieve it, it can only build the endgame PW bag).

You declare in theory that the offensive requires specific prior conditions, and then excuse gambling and continuing to attack with shoestring forces, which clearly violate those prior conditions. You declare there is nothing wrong with accepting loss of the initiative and defending, regarding it as temporary, and then proclaim that holding at the Seine is impossible.

As for WW I lessons, WW I was won by attrition, and the lesson is that attrition is perfectly decisive. Russia was knocked out of WW I by attrition. It is true Germany lacked the manpower to beat the US as well as the end (bringing it in had been an "own goal" caused by military gambling in the form of the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign). It is also true that her army basically came apart due to the losses taken in the 1918 offensives, which were gambles on knock-out blow victory and as such unsound.

In WW II, tech was different and available exchange rates considerably more favorable, particularly in Russia. Capital was important as well as manpower in both wars, in the first for shells mostly, in the second for tanks. Germany was not inferior to Russia in that respect in either war. In WW II, it also had the considerable benefit of France being out, Italy being on its side instead of the enemy's, England being off the continent and able to engage only with tiny forces by land. And at the time of the attack on Russia, the US was not in, either.

They not only gambled in the attack on Russia, they did so without really knowing they were gambling. They thought it would be easy - "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will fall to the ground". And their early successes reinforced this delusion. When in should have evaporated in front of Moscow, half the command was sacked, instead of admitting and adapting to it realistically.

This is not a record to emulate.

Russia and the US saw from day 1 that the war would be a long one decided by attrition processes. This wasn't just a choice, or a guess, it was correct. It was correct because it was sound and professional, rather than a species of gambling and overconfidence. The gamblers told themselves they were genuises every time they avoiding rolling "7". But the bankers beat the tar out of them; the bank always wins.

You cannot improve your military situtation by playing let's pretend. Let's pretend everything I do will work and the enemy will makes scores of huge unforced errors - it not a sound strategy. It is a good way to win a few operations (which is all Germany ever won) and lose the war. Every one of their supposedly decisive penetrating victories was a merely operational success in a long war of attrition.

Nor is it possible to achieve breakthrough against a competent enemy by mere concentration, without first laying the groundwork for it in attrition battle. Incompetent enemies, sure. Attitrion methods kill them too. Maneuver methods might be helpful force multipliers and exchange rate boosters against incompetent enemies, and even against sound ones after you have enough edge from other methods. But precisely what they are not is a strategy alternative to, or substitute for, a focus on global odds and exchange ratios. Every calculation based on that belief proved a delusion, in both wars and in every one since.

As for the claim that Germany had no chance in a long war of attrition because of material shortages, it does not stand examination, especially in light of the actual production accomplishments of 1944, the manpower actually fielded, the 25000 AFVs, despite much heavier bombing than anything they had to worry about in 1941-1943.

The German economy was not oil based, it was coal based. So was the rail transport system. Oil was needed for vehicle fuel only, for military vehicles in particular. It was produced in adequate quantities synthetically from coal feedstocks, and in a way that was easy to disperse and to ramp, for all fuels except av-gas.

Av-gas depended on Rumanian imports and on the output of a few large hydrogenation plants, but the Allies never figured out the special importance or vulnerability of the latter. And only hit them, pretty much by running through all kinds of targets, in mid 1944.

Had Germany been winning in Russia, moreover, the Rumanian source would have been secure. (The air raids there never seriously disrupted output for any length of time etc). If they won there completely in 1942-3, Baku would have been available, although transport difficulties would have kept the use of that low for 6 to 12 months, minimum.

Basically, though, the German economy was not resource limited - it readily substituted for scarce goods, though at an economic cost (forgone coal and investment in synthetic plant etc). But it also wasn't output limited - as late as mid 1942, only about 40% of total steel output was going to the entire war program.

That is why e.g. AFV production was able to quadruple by mid 1944, despite bombing and more workers transfered out to the military etc. The Germans simply did not fully mobilized the economy for war, because their strategy was to win without odds mattering - so they scaled output to cover losses, pretty much. They did increase production after the battle of Moscow, but not by much and not anything like the total mobilization the US and Russia performed as a matter of course. After Stalingrad, they saw it would be a war of attrition and pull out the remaining stops.

(Actually, in manpower terms, they still had plenty of stops in until the simultaneously collapse of OB West and AG Center - they then held at the German borders by pulling those, too. That got them infantry but was also the proximate cause of economic output peaking).

As for the importance of modern firepower, it does not turn just on ATGMs, it turns on the smart weapon revolution generally, and other advances in firepower arms, communications, mobility for all force types, etc. Tanks no longer possess the near invulnerability to massed indirect fires they had in WW II, etc. (Even then, it broke combined arms etc).

Sure dispersion may reduce specific lethality, but it does so at the cost of making local concentration less effective.

As for the specifics of the cold war central front, reforger involved doubling the NATO force on a time scale of 6 weeks, with significant new forces reaching theater by week 2. This was made possible by prepositioning equipment. Remember, NATO was vastly superior in overall military capacity, it was only the standing force that was kept smaller, for economic and social reasons. So it was easy to field the capital of twice the force, and fly the men to the weapons when needed.

Of course the stream coming by ship would take more like 2-3 months to arrive, and would grow in volume over time. That is quite sufficient - nothing the Russians could do in so short a time could end the war in their favor, even including conquering west Germany or that and France. That didn't win Germany anything lasting in WW II either. In the end, this (and also of course nukes, and the air match up etc) were no doubt why the Warsaw Pact was fully deterred.

Every war against a major power risks becoming, and most actually do become, long wars of attrition. A military doctrine that does not squarely face this fact is unsound. Wishing it were not so is not facing it, and hoping there is a way around it is not a way around it. If you are fully prepared for it to be so, plan on it, and are ready to win anyway (and avoid fights you can't win under those conditions), then if short and inexpensive wars fall into your lap, well and good. But you will be ready if, as is likely, they do not. If, on the other hand, you gambled on short and inexpensive wars against powers you believe you cannot defeat in long wars of attrition, the predictable, observed, and catastrophic typical consequence is not short and inexpensive victories in non-attrition wars, but long and agonising defeats in attrition wars for which your nation, force, and doctrine are utterly unprepared.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Germany could readily have beaten Russia with an attrition strategy. . .........

See how this theory was tested at Dupuy

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000015.html

[MikeyD]

Nice summation of Germany's chances, JasonC. I've been reading what-if 'counterfactual' histories for fun lately. Its valuable to look back and see which bad/good decisions produced what bad/good results.

I think Germany's dominant flaw was that its Eastern Front campaign, unlike its Blitz into France, wasn't political but cultural. The openly stated long-term Nazi goal was literal anihillation and enslavement of the Slavic races and recolonization of the soon-to-be depopulated east with blonde haired nordic types! This does not provide your oppponent with an honorable out. He cannot throw in the towel after having been bested in a 'fair fight' like France or Belgium or Norway. He's left with no option but to fight and fight and fight irregardless of cost.

At the start of Barbarossa many initially welcomed German troops as liberators. One could imagine a string of stabile quisling governments happily trading with Western Europe following an armistice. When it became apparent that the 'traditional rules' of Great Power politics weren't being followed in the Nazi occupation, then the 'traditional rules' measuring the cost of military defeat went out the window too. In order to properly 'win 'a war you're obliged to allow your opponent some glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel as an alternative to continuing the struggle.

We seem to be drifting from the original Guns vs Armor topic slightly

[JonS]

This is illuminating.

Gabel, page 67-68

… the tank destroyer’s defects originated […] with the identification of mission […]. The U.S. Army’s mission in World War II was overwhelmingly offensive in nature, but the very existence of a major antitank program implied a war in which the enemy held the initiative. Logically, this suggested that if the Army successfully pursued its mission, the tank destroyers would have little to do, and if the tank destroyers were fully engaged, the Army as a whole would be failing in its mission.

Paraphrasing: If you aren’t attacking you’re losing. We will never allow the enemy to have the initiative. Structure your force accordingly.

Remember that Gabel’s paper was written circa 1985, in the midst of the doctrinal debate about how to counter the Warsaw Pact in the Fulda Gap.

[Corvidae]

Everybody knows the whole war was won by the Aztec sacred guard brigades from Aztechlan.

Its just so obvious.

everything else is just failure to maintain a sufficient alcohol level.

[michael kenny]

originaly posted by JasonC

In front of Nancy, a German commander who continued reckless negative odds attacks until 90% of his force was gone, was formally reprimanded for "lack of offensive spirit" because he went over to the defensive with 30 AFVs left.

reply by Pamak1970

First of all I do not know the details

The engagement is known as Arracourt. I presume it is about the arguments between Blaskowitz and Mantueuffel and the subsequent blame game when the attack failed. Blaskowitz was replaced by Balck but I have seen no reference to a formal reprimand.

The original statement so loosely worded that it could be about any number of the Lorraine encounters. Because of this ambiguity my reply is a provisional one and could be altered when more precise information is forthcoming.

These 'reckless negative odds' efforts ended Eisenhower's hopes of an early end to the war. German resistance was so strong that The Allies consolidated before continuing the advance. Germany gained another 7 months.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

These 'reckless negative odds' efforts ended Eisenhower's hopes of an early end to the war. German resistance was so strong that The Allies consolidated before continuing the advance. Germany gained another 7 months.

I thought it had more to do with the allied supply problems, and Ike's decision to give Monty a larger share of that scarce resource ahead of Patton, even though the latter was 100 miles nearer to the Rhine and in far better terrain.

[John Kettler]

Here's a great period account of life on the sharp end--TDs at Anzio, with some action described which would be right at home in CMAK!

http://www.lonesentry.com/brassingoff/index.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[PanzerMiller]

Thanks, John, for another good read.

"Close support assault gun"..."tie-in with divisional artillery"..."close support fire for tanks"...according to this article, TDs can do everything!

It is interesting to study some of the later statements regarding the TD battalion's frustration with the high command's percepeption of TD as defensive weapon. Those at "the sharp end" clearly felt differently.

Keep it coming, John!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by michael kenny:

These 'reckless negative odds' efforts ended Eisenhower's hopes of an early end to the war. German resistance was so strong that The Allies consolidated before continuing the advance. Germany gained another 7 months.

I thought it had more to do with the allied supply problems, and Ike's decision to give Monty a larger share of that scarce resource ahead of Patton, even though the latter was 100 miles nearer to the Rhine and in far better terrain. </font>