WWII doctrines

[Brian]

Originally posted by JonS:

So, it would seem that a lack of aggression would seem to have been at least part of the reason so many were fired. Of course, 'aggression' isn't an intrinsically 'bad' thing for a soldier to have.How commanders who don't have to face the enemy display it, though, is a bit more problematic.

Regards

JonS

You do appear to have had an enjoyable afternoon, Jon. BTW, the excerpts you sent were interesting.

This appears to support my contention. Perhaps Jason might like to reply (hopefully without using too much bandwidth).

[Tarquelne]

The US army of WW II was not designed for maneuver arms razzle dazzle.

I may have missed it in the barrage of (informative) words, but in case Jason didn't explicitly say it: The above goes a long way toward explaining the US Army's "failure" to upgun the tanks. It simply had other priorities.

Also: From my first game of CM I gained a new appreciation for the Sherman - those fast turrets! Am I correct in thinking that increasing the gun size makes fast turret rotation considerably more difficult?

[ June 15, 2002, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Brian:

[QB]

Which contention would that be?

[Brian]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

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

This appears to support my contention.

Which contention would that be? </font>

[Tarquelne]

That my impression that US commanders were being sacked for lack of aggressive spirit, was correct, Tarqulene.

Ok, just makeing sure you weren't refering to:

the US commanders were attempting to force their infantry forwards, through the use of what appears to be almost pure willpower, rather than a proper understanding of the conditions facing them.

"Force forwards.... pure willpower"

The statement could be easily (mis?)understood as a criticism of extreme aggression on the part of the US commanders, not too little.

[Enoch]

In regards to the US Army's use on night attacks I now that when Terry Allen took over command of the 104th Division he spent a lot of time training them in night fighting. He used that training to good effect when the 104th was deployed. Now if you are speaking of night fighting in Normandy, than I can't offer much on that.

One other question, were tripod mounted Brens a gadget or technological innovation?

[JasonC]

Tarq - on tank guns (I can't believe this has to be discussed again but apparently every thread that mentions Americans must rehash it for some unknown reason), no, it was not because the army as a whole was insufficiently maneuverist that they didn't put 76mm guns in Shermans after Tunisia.

They didn't because their doctrine was tanks don't fight tanks, they exploit. Which was a maneuverist doctrine, though a naive one typical of early war armor thinking (cavalry influenced in particular). Which was incidentally exactly the same reason the German ordnance office gave for putting 50L42s in Pz IIIs instead of the 50L60 requested after France. The US went through the same doctrinal hurdles and delays as the Germans (underarmed light tanks, exploitation doctrine, slowness to uparmor, seperate TDs-PAK front doctrine, upgunning before redesign of chassis, etc). They just went through them 2 1/2 years later due to late entry.

They later put in the US 76mm because its energy was thought high enough to KO the existing threats. They did not understand shatter gap. Without shatter gap behavior, it would have been an adequate gun. With shatter gap behavior, it was only adequate with sufficient supplies of tungsten ammo.

Of course they should have upgunned to 76mm after Tunisia, and found the ammunition need before Normandy. They should have fought the war in France in easy eights with tungsten. Pershings later on would have been gravy (though a better engine would have been nice there, too).

For that matter, the light tanks should all have been Chaffees, or upgunned ones with 76mm. You thus arrive at the conclusion that the US should have fought WW II with the armor it deployed and developed for the Korean war - E8s, Pattons, and Walker Bulldogs.

Of course the Germans should have had Pz IV Gs right after the fall of France, and cats by the first winter in Russia. They didn't either. Pretty meaningless stuff, these coulda-woulda-shouldas.

The point is that no, it was not the firepower focus of overall army doctrine that slowed upgunning. It was the immaturity (institutional, of course - not developed enough, hashed out enough) of the alternative maneuverist school of thought within the US army. Patton was easily the most maneuverist senior commander in the army, and he believed the "tanks exploit, avoiding enemy tanks" doctrine down to his boots. He was a former cavalryman.

A while back Brian asked if I didn't consider it some sort of slight to say an army was fixated on gadgets. I spoke of tools, technical means, and machinery, along with a penchant for reaching for a bigger hammer. I did not do so to be complimentary or to be insulting - I did so to be accurate.

Characterizing the US army circa Normandy as reliant on poor bloody infantry and willpower simply strikes me as completely innaccurate. They were heavily reliant on fire support - whether you think that a good thing or a bad thing.

What examples lead to the impression in the first place? An amphibious landing relies heavily on infantry. The shock, the surprise! They support with every type of plane and ship, but planes and ships do not splash ashore. They isolate the beaches with airborne landings but that does not take the beaches themselves. They support with swimming tanks but many of them swamp before reaching the shore, others hit mines or are KOed by PAK. Others do operate along the beach, but not enough to make much difference.

What else? A drive through hedgerow country over 2-3 weeks relies heavily on infantry as the advancing maneuver arm. The shock, the surprise! Of course normal fighting in hedgerow country is always conducted by large armor columns. When Panzer Lehr attacks in such terrain and loses half its armor in half a day without result, the commander notices that Panthers aren't much use in terrain with 200 yard maximum LOS lines. But if the guys who have to attack through it for 2-3 weeks rely on infantry to advance, why it must be some bee in their bonnet that infantry and willpower triumphs over all.

I already presented strong evidence that the reality of those 2-3 weeks was precisely what you'd expect from the army's prior doctrine. They relied heavily on fire support. The succeeded in the end because they threw 5-10 times as many artillery shells at the Germans as the Germans could throw back at them. They traded artillery shells for German infantry, and even at a prodiguous exhange rate the Germans ran out of infantry along the attacked frontage before they ran out of shells.

That is what the Germans who were in command at the time say. It is what US doctrine was based on beforehand. Whether that doctrine was stupid or sensible, it was the operating mechanism. In case everybody forgot, the whole subject came up due to one throw away line at the end of a long post of mine about US WW II doctrine. Whose whole point was the importance of fire support and reliance on it in US WW II doctrine.

I really sometimes wonder if any of you are bothering to read the stuff I write here. You all make quips about how long it is and seem to think that amounts to an argument. I've given you the short and pithy version a hundred times over by now ("The US army of WW II was heavily dependent on fire support"), if you haven't groked it is not due to anything on my side.

"But does that mean gadgets or ungadgets? That is the question!" No, that is not the question, it is just a distraction. If you call reliance on fire support reliance on technical means and machinery, fine. If you call it contempt for technical means and machinery fine. I don't give a tuppenny darn what you call things. If you notice that it is *true* that the US army of WW II relied on fire support, then you are agreeing not disagreeing. You can change the terms around and paint them blue if you like and it won't rise to a disagreement, because it is just semantics.

But if you claim that the US army of WW II relied on poor bloody infantry and willpower instead on fire support, then you *are* disagreeing. And to my mind, Brian has been saying exactly that. He brought up poor bloody infantry after my argument about fire support, and in response to a post basically agreeing with my previous comments.

So, to me Brian's job is rather steeper than anything he has yet offered. He should be trying to show how the US army of WW II, specifically in Normandy, did *not* rely on fire support and could care less about it. How it expected everything from infantry willpower and nothing from mountains of HE.

He should be regaling us with shell rationing schemes, with commanders upbraiding their subordinates for "waste" of ammunition, denouncing firepower for l'arme blanche. He should give us not Brits contempuous of reliance on "the guns", but 1944 Americans contempuous of it. He should give us German AARs that note the uncanny silence accompanying American infantry advances, which so typically relied simply on the poor bloody infantry and sheer willpower. Has hasn't because he can't. They aren't there.

"Oh, they relied on the poor bloody infantry *and* on superior fire support." Um, if they relied on superior fire support, then the poor bloody infantry was not expected to advance on sheer willpower. They were expected to advance in an assymmetric fight in which the defenders were heavily outshot.

But that is exactly the picture of US doctrine I gave back on page *1*. And unless Brian is disagreeing with that picture, he isn't saying much of anything. If he is disagreeing with it, he has to show (not insinuate, *show*) that it is fundamentally wrong.

I submit that he can't, simply because it isn't.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"Oh, they relied on the poor bloody infantry *and* on superior fire support." Um, if they relied on superior fire support, then the poor bloody infantry was not expected to advance on sheer willpower.

Personally I´d say they relied on neither. Is not Air Superiority a bit under-mentioned in this thread? And I am not so much talking about TacAir: I´d call Carpet Bombing and, even more importantly, Interdiction the decisive factor.

Certainly willpower has absolutely nothing to do with those, but I wouldn´t call Carpet Bombing 'fire support', either. To destroy a division from above you do not need any infantry at all, so you are not, technically, 'supporting' anybody.

And Interdiction: This is what most Germans agree did them in. German Doctrine definitely relied on mobility, and this mobility, and often even the ability to timely receive existing supply and replacements, was denied them by Interdiction. If it comes down to any one thing, I´d say Air Interdiction won the campaign.

This is irrelevant to CMBO, of course, but if we are talking about irl, then 'fire support' is not quite the whole story, and 'willpower' is, of course, hilarious.

[ June 15, 2002, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[JasonC]

No, the explanation that "it was all Goering's fault" and it was all air superiority does not jive with the facts. Explanations are not optional musings or blame games. They must account for the specific evidence. Which includes the Germans holding successful in some conditions and fronts, and failing in other, later ones. Explanations that do not track such variations make incorrect predictions about what to expect.

Certainly air superiority helped the Allies enourmously in Normandy. But it helped on both parts of the front, repeatedly and continuously. It cannot explain the breakthrough in Cobra and the non-breakthroughs in Goodwood and Totalize and the push to St. Lo and a half dozen others. Yes, Lehr was pounded by strategic air in Cobra. The defenders in front of Caen were clobbered by strategic air several times, but they still defeated the British breakthrough attempts.

What was different in the American sector in July was that the Germans ran out of front line infantry. The Cobra breakthrough was not at all an automatic consequence of flying level bombers over the breakthrough sector. In fact it took a whole infantry corps 2 days to pick their way through the debris and the remaining German defenders to make a real hole, before the US armor could shake itself free.

And they never would have had even that opportunity if the Germans still had infantry in the line, instead of a depleted Lehr, which never had more than 5 battalions worth of infantry to begin with, and had more like half of that left at the time of Cobra. The infantry-poor armor was already the front line. In the British sector, similar attempts to use strategic air did stun the front line defenders, but armor and unsuppressed PAK and FLAK farther back was quite able to stop the assault.

The breakthrough was not made possible by the traditional maneuverist formula of suppressing the whole depth of a basically intact enemy defense for a short period of time. That was tried repeatedly, and failed. It was made possible by grinding through all the defender's reserves, until the front was so thinly held that it could not withstand a firepower supported attack by three infantry divisions against one depleted armor division.

The attrition phase from early July to Cobra was not some mistake or failure. It is what made the breakthrough possible. The Germans had first to be outlasted, run out of reserves. As long as they still had reserves, they stopped every breakthrough attempt successfully, American sector or British, with air power or not.

Early on the attackers barely even had odds, as entire panzer corps intervened to stop some British offensives. By the time of Goodwood, nearly the same time as Cobra, the Brits definitely had odds as well as airpower, but it did not suffice. The Germans still had enough.

In front of the Americans by late July they did not. Not because nothing had been sent - the Germans did not make a regular practice throughout the whole campaign of trying to stop entire infantry corps with single depleted Panzer divisions. They held the Americans in early July because they still had infantry, in bulk - half a dozen divisions of it. They no longer held them in late July because they no longer had such infantry forces in front of them.

What attrited them in infantry was not the spectacular but merely occasional interventions of massive numbers of planes. It was the constant wastage from artillery supported infantry probing. In armor, on the British front, repeated breakthrough attempts accounted for half the German armor in theater, over time. But a fraction was still able to stop Goodwood.

Nor was the victory due to Germans never reaching the front because of interdiction by tac-air. They did reach the front. The victory was not achieved by racing the Germans to the breakout point and getting there first with the most, because 2 Panzer was slow getting tanks to Caumont or whatever. That played out in June. You might argue that tac air delaying arrivals helped prevent immediate counterattack by the Germans in the first week or so, certainly. But it did not cause successful breakout.

What did? Attrition. The Germans no longer had enough front line infantry strength to hold the line in the American sector. They had the strength to do so on 3 July, holding easily at the first U.S. assault south. They got more infantry (and armor - Lehr) between 3 July and 25 July, tac air or not. But they did not have enough infantry by 25 July. Because it had been ground to powder during the July attrition fighting.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

If it comes down to any one thing, I´d say Air Interdiction won the campaign.

I would disagree with this statement simply on the basis of my belief that wasn't any one thing that decisively won the campaign. You would be quite right in saying that tactical airpower employed in the battlefield and deep interdiction role was an important, perhaps even essential ingredient to victory for the Allies. But it was not the only one, and probably was not the primary one.

It gets talked about a lot because as you say, the Germans talked about it quite a lot, especially after the war. But it would be good to reflect on why they did so: what is the psychology that lay behind such behavior? For one thing, it was the element that was most dramatically absent from their own armory at this point in the war, and it was known how useful it was earlier on. It's lack was sorely felt. Secondly, for the troops on the ground, and most especially their officers, it shifts any possible blame for defeat to an element that was completely beyond their control. This not only protects them from third party critics, but guards their own self-esteem as soldiers.

If the Luftwaffe had had anything like equal representation over the Normandy battlefield, it would have made the job of the Allied armies at least an order of magnitude more difficult. Which is why the Allied commanders were at such pains to defeat it before the invasion. But even granting an initial equality at the beginning, it is clear for many reasons that the Allied air forces would have eventually (and probably fairly quickly) have gained ascendency and matters would have proceeded more or less as has come down to us.

On the other hand, having aerial supremacy would have counted for nothing if the Alllied armies could not have successfully discharged their task of coming to grips with the German army, inflicting heavy casualties upon it, and eventually stretching it beyond its breaking point. The after-action investigating teams who reported on the effectiveness of airpower in Normandy have made it quite clear that airpower alone could not have accomplished that.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

One more thing. Scanning this thread, the thought occurs to me that the Transatlantic Essay-Writing Contest is alive and well!

Michael

[ June 15, 2002, 05:09 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[JasonC]

Rummaging through gerob's Normandy OOB for the Germans, I can offer the following additional analysis to support my picture of the fighting.

I went through the formations and counted reductions in infantry battalions in formations fighting in the US sector in July. I excluded losses incurred in June where those could be ascertained, and those after the breakout.

It is not possible to isolate exact losses or reductions in combat rating for every formation, and there is a lot of cross-attaching going on, especially for burnt out units.

E.g. 352 was reduced very early, but still used as a command HQ with elements of 5 other divisions subordinated. By the time of Cobra it had gone through 16 battalions, all fought out.

When I can't be sure I estimate. I also used the German strength report categories counting "strong" as full strength, middling as 2/3rds, weak as 1/3rd. I counted "fought out" as zero, though 1/10th might be more accurate, and because of it my estimate could easily by off by 5-10%.

With all those provisos stated, it seems the reduction in effective infantry battalions on the American sector in July, pre-Cobra, was around 60-65 battalions. It might be as low as 50 or has high as 70, but 60-65 is the best guess.

About 3 battalions per day on average, over the three weeks of attrition fighting in the hedgerows. Infantry divisions varied from 6 to 10 battalion equivalents, while mobile divisions varied from 5 to 7-8.

When Lehr was hit, 2 of its 5 organic infantry type battalions were already rated "fought out" and the other 3 were rated "destroyed". Before the bombing. 5 battalion remnants from other formations were cross attached to give it any effective infantry, apparently in not much better shape.

The effective reduction in infantry strength in the American sector in July is comparable to the size of the entire infantry force standing in front of them when the offensive opened on 3 July. By the time of the breakout, they were holding back a dozen divisions with burnt out remnants, under 100 men per battalion.

For what it is worth.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by JasonC:

What did? Attrition.

Jason, I fully agree with your general idea that, over time, attrition won. But why did it win? It only won, imo, because interdiction kept the Germans in place (operationally pinned them).

Without CAS and Interdiction two things could have happened:

A) An early Counterattack could have succeeeded in demolishing one or more bridgeheads; in that case Eisenhower would probably have thrown in the towel.

Backhand Blow West: Given no Allied Air Superiority, what kept the Germans from retreating intact, then counterattacking the Allied advance once the latter had outrun their own artillery, consequences being entirely open to speculation?

[ June 15, 2002, 05:52 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

If the Luftwaffe had had anything like equal representation over the Normandy battlefield, it would have made the job of the Allied armies at least an order of magnitude more difficult. Which is why the Allied commanders were at such pains to defeat it before the invasion. But even granting an initial equality at the beginning, it is clear for many reasons that the Allied air forces would have eventually (and probably fairly quickly) have gained ascendency and matters would have proceeded more or less as has come down to us.

I´d say, in that case the Invasion would have been about as risky as Sealion, and would therefore never have been tried.

And what gave you the idea the Luftwaffe was defeated before the Invasion? The French Theater was never allocated any much Luftwaffe, neither before the Invasion nor after. Most of the Luftwaffe was tied to the Eastern Front, otherwise Russians would have marched through Berlin in 1944. What could be spared from the East was used in Italy or over the Reich to defend against Strategic Bombers. In the end I´d say the Luftwaffe lost most of their planes over Russia/Eastern Europe, so I fail to see, in this case, the role of Allied Commanders.

Anyways, in WWII, the side with Air Superiority over a given Theatre won every Campaign; I cannot think of a single exception; perhaps there is one, but my memory fails me here. I don´t know why the -correct- doctrine that the Air Force is the most important arm has fallen into disgrace lately, given the overwhelming evidence in its favour, from Normandy to the Israeli-Arab Wars to Iraq to Afghanistan.

[ June 15, 2002, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[Determinant]

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

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

[qb]

What did? Attrition.

Jason, I fully agree with your general idea that, over time, attrition won. But why did it win? It only won, imo, because interdiction kept the Germans in place (operationally pinned them).

</font>

[Hedgehog]

"Tanks were fitted with hedgerow cutters, and extensively used to support the infantry - but with limited success..."

Limited success???? I'd have to say they were a HUGE success. I'll use the accounts of Belton Cooper as evidence to support my assertions.

"The comparison between this operation and the operations in the bocage country, south of

airel, was astonishing. Previously, it had taken twelve days to penetrate 8 miles. Including the operation around Viller-Fossard, our total tank losses had been eithty-seven. In the first phase of Operation Cobra, from the morning of July 26 through July 28, the division moved forward seventeen miles to Coutances with the loss of only 2 tanks.

The lessons were straightforward. The hedge choppers, although we had fewer than half of those ordered, allowed the tanks to break through the hedgerows at a number of points simultaneously with out forewarning the Germans."

Sorry I cringe when the importance of having 2 oversized armor divisions (the 2nd and 3rd)tanks' "uncorked" is marginalized. Bypassing the German kill zones with the use of hedge cutters allowed both the U.S. infantry and armor to move out. It was still slow going till they got out of the hedges, but much more rapid than without them. Could this be the key differnce between the sucsess of Cobra vs. Goodwood? A distinct possiblility.

I would still need to see more hard data on the amount of troops in each sector and exactly how many hedge cutters the Brits and Canadians had installed before the Goodwood Operation.

Coopers book is: Death Traps The survival of an american armored division in WWII/ Belton Y. Cooper. Published by Presido Press, Inc Printed 2001. Copywrite 1998

I've read other accounts that pretty much state the same thing, but this is the only book I have handy to quote from.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Determinant:

Oh yes, there was: See my point above. They could have retreated and fought the kind of mobile battle they preferred to fight anyway. This would have negated a large part of the Allied firepower advantage, because artillery is slowww, and in a fluid environment 'fireplans' tend to fall apart. Air Interdiction is what kept the German side from fighting a maneuver war, and was the critical requirement to enable attrition. The Allied strategy as such was attritional, and well fitted to the situation. Concerning these two points I perfectly agree with Jason.

[ June 15, 2002, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

[JasonC]

Hedgehog - they didn't break out and start making tons of miles per day because they had hedgecutters. They broke out and started making tons of miles a day because there were no Germans left in front of them. That is when the armor was "unleashed" as you put it (and more like 4-5 ADs, not just 2).

They tried putting in the armor several times before that and each time failed. The Brits tried with armor numerous times and each time failed (and they didn't even have hedgerows to worry about - instead they had German tanks to worry about). The independent armor battalions supporting US infantry in the hedgerows tried supporting them, and helped only somewhat.

Many of these had hedgecutters. The biggest problem the hedges presented to the tanks was not that they could not get through them. It was that crawling over them meant one guy with a panzerfaust on the other side and the tank was dead.

This doesn't ordinarily happen to tanks because their weapons vastly outrange panzerfausts. In hedgerows, the maximum LOS is 200 yards and the LOS forward when you are crossing a hedgerow is 10 yards or less. That was the problem. Hedgerows are not good tank country, even with clippers.

[JasonC]

Austrian Strategist - I look at it quite differently. I ask, what would the Germans need to have held in Normandy? And to me the answer can be calculated, as a matter of attrition strategy. And the answer is they needed (and did not remotely have) 1000 AFVs per month, 100,000 trained infantry replacements per month, and regular arrival of half a million tons of ammunition and supplies per month. With that, they could have held.

The Germans had the *stock* to create a front in Normandy. They sent enough in one-off terms. But they did not create the *flow* to *sustain* that front. Arguably they could not have done so because the eastern front was such a bottomless maw there was no hope of anything like the above requirements being met.

That is my military judgment of the situation. Which is not an historical "what if". As Umberto Eco once noted, hypothetical counterfactuals are always true - the premise is false so anything follows. Instead, it is meant to be like a staff analysis of a military problem. Which illustrates the relevant military variables in play. And thus allows that bit of history to show its lessons for other similar ones.

Deducing from Normandy that if I get air superiority I will always get breakthrough would be false. Deducing from Normandy that is I attack with 2:1 odds I will always win in the end would be false. But deducing from Normandy that 20-25 divisions in combat against a logistically superior opponent may need the equivalent of 4 divisions of replacements *a week* (1 armored and 3 infantry) to sustain such combat indefinitely, that kind of lesson has a prayer of generalizing to other situations.

This was not the only campaign the Germans fought were distinctions between a sufficient stock and a necessary flow tripped them up. The force sent to Normandy was adequate - stock. The stream wasn't. The force that attacked Russian was adequate - stock. The stream wasn't. They reckoned correctly the huge losses they could inflict on the existing Russian fielded force - stock. They vastly underestimated how much they would face in new forces per unit time - flow.

In a way, all of the hopes of winning wars on the cheap by superior razzle dazzle are a faith placed in a one-off, existing force, stock relationship. The enemy won't last long enough for flow considerations to matter. Total economic mobilization will not be necessary. The war will be decided by existing arms at the moment of outbreak and especially by how they are used from the standing start. Instead of industrial capacity, total war, economic mobilization, the volume of armaments production.

The notions of politicians (war decisions, surprise, existing forces) and of operation minded officers are supposed to matter; the daily concerns of economists and attrition-logistic minded officers aren't supposed to have time to matter. It does not always work out that way. Indeed, it might be said that it only works out that way in exceptional cases.

[JasonC]

As for the location of the Luftwaffe, it was not in the east, it was over Germany. The German air force in the east was relatively small throughout the war (meaning formations of planes typically number in the hundreds, not the thousands) due primarily to the primitive infrastructure of the area at the time and difficulties supplying and maintaining large fleets of aircraft there, at the end of very long supply links.

The bulk of the German air force were fighters defending Germany proper from the combined US day and UK night air offensive. The Luftwaffe peaked in early 1944 and was already in decline by D-Day. The turning point was the introduction of long range escort fighters in day missions over Germany, and increased practice of fighter sweeps.

The Germans fielded few aircraft in France because most of the country was in easy range of such fighter sweeps (meaning Spitfire and Typhoons and P-47s even without drop tanks), which they could not contest effectively, because they were so heavily outnumbered. They instead chose to fight over central Germany, where the number of long range escorting Allied fighters was still relatively limited, and their engagement time once they dropped tanks was limited as well.

By D-Day the Luftwaffe as a whole was outnumbered by each of the Russian, British, and US air forces seperately, and by all of them combined was outnumbered something like 5 to 1. By the fall the Luftwaffe was practically destroyed, as the plants needed to refine aviation fuel were all destroyed from the air. There was a brief and limited resurgence at the end of 1944, as poor weather limited Allied bombing from November on and measures to disperse aviation fuel and fighter production had some effect.

[Austrian Strategist]

Jason,

Your analysis is flawless as far as it goes. No real disagreement here. However, if we take this one step farther, Germany couldn´t have won a war of attrition against Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the Commonwealth combined. But it is easy to see that, in this case, a purely economic analysis simply doesn´t apply.

I say that, in 1944, without CAS and Interdiction, the Allies couldn´t have forced Germany to fight a war of attrition in the first place. There is always the possibility of the Invasion being crushed decisively, either at the beaches or in the interior of France after a voluntary -but intact- German withdrawal from Normandy. This is what you would do in a wargame. Retreat, then turn and hit the advancing pursuers. In such a situation, veteran Panzer Divisions would have counted for more than allied HE gun superiority.

[Brian]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />That my impression that US commanders were being sacked for lack of aggressive spirit, was correct, Tarqulene.

Ok, just makeing sure you weren't refering to:

the US commanders were attempting to force their infantry forwards, through the use of what appears to be almost pure willpower, rather than a proper understanding of the conditions facing them.

"Force forwards.... pure willpower"

The statement could be easily (mis?)understood as a criticism of extreme aggression on the part of the US commanders, not too little.</font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

They could have retreated and fought the kind of mobile battle they preferred to fight anyway.

A couple of decades ago I was pondering why the Germans didn't do exactly that, and I came up with a different answer than your own.

It is nearly always to the defender's advantage to keep frontage to a minimum, especially a defender who is outnumbered. Wide frontage gives the attacker more room to deploy his superior numbers and to choose among the options to concentrate his forces and achieve an even greater local superiority.

Once the front in Normandy opened, there was no place for the German army to go but back to the Westwall and the Rhine. An earlier, voluntary withdrawal would no doubt have been more orderly. But keep in mind when proferring a "Backhand Slap" that save for the Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions the Alllied forces had much greater mobilitiy (and even the German mechanized forces were slightly less mobile than their Allied equivalents, even when they had a reliable and sufficient flow of fuel, which they would not even without air interdiction). It would be the German horse-drawn artillery that would be in difficulties, not the Allied (which was fully motorized even when not self-propelled). A mobile battle in the open ground of central France is the last thing the Wehrmacht wants. This becomes even more true once the Dragoon forces start thundering up the Rhône Valley.

Michael

[ June 15, 2002, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[JasonC]

To Austrian strategist - Bear with me because I will get to the larger point you are trying to make, which I am sympathetic to. But first I have some quibbles about the examples.

Germany certainly did have the raw potential to take on the Allies of 1939. The UK had only about half potential of Germany, and France only half as much as the UK. France and Poland did have large standing armies, but not logistical depth behind them.

Yes, dealing with them in sequence (including the minor powers on your list) improved the odds. The Polish campaign could still have been concluded rapidly even by attrition methods, however, without serious consequences for the German army.

That France was unwilling to attack while that was going on was not due to any superiority of stock and operational methods. Actually, France was deterred by the prospect of attrition warfare. Her leaders were well aware they lacked the economic depth of Germany.

The UK did not change that in the short run, because her continental army was small, and her economy needed to sustain a huge navy and vunerable sea lanes, while also trying to catch up with Germany in the air. The economy of the UK certainly mattered - for the air in particular. But yes, Germany could potentially have defeated all of them, even without the mobile warfare revolution. As long as Russia and the US stayed out, that is.

Germany would have needed to mobilize her economy for war. In the event, they didn't do that until after Stalingrad, though they got started around the time of the battle of Moscow. When fully mobilized, Germany matched the output of Russia, despite allied bombing. Russia produced so many more tanks because she hit her peak rate of production in 1942 and stayed at that high plateau (more or less). While Germany didn't get there until 1944.

The height of the peaks were the same. Weapons delivered is an integral, though - that height achieve for how long. And that is where Russia exceeded Germany, despite Germany having the drop on her. The advantage of total mobilization was discarded out of overconfidence in 1941.

Once Germany attacked Russia, the economic-attrition-total war odds were against her. They weren't before that. And the damage to the Russian economy due to the invasion was so extensive at the end of 1941, that just before US entry the sides were at approximate parity in overall potential. In total war terms, that is. The Germans weren't using theirs fully, but they could match the half-occupied economy of Russia plus that of the UK, combined.

US entry made the odds in total war insurmountable, certainly. Unless Russia had been defeated before that could be brought to bear, that was it, in the long run.

But all of that is one big digression. I agree that the Germans had a better chance in a mobile defense than in a static one, because a static one played into Allied logistical strength. But the Germans didn't have the forces to hold so long a front in June 1944. They would have had to pull out the stops later pulled out in August and September, that made the stand at the west wall possible.

Although it is not commonly realised, those changes are the principle cause of the German economy peaking out and going into decline in the second half of 1944. The reason is labor was diverted from the civilian economy, even from job categories jealously protected until then. Personnel were also diverted from the Luftwaffe, which meant giving up any realistic hope of holding out there.

So there is something of a catch-22 here. To get the men to hold a line as long as the Seine, you need to round up everyone possible in the rear areas. And that means conceeding the air war (perhaps inevitable at that point anyway), and tipping the economy downward. If you simultaneously need the big fall armies, a strong air force to enable your mobility to count, and a full economy to supply both, then you just hit the manpower "budget constraint" wall. You can have any one of those by shifting men from the other two. But you can't have all three - not enough manpower.

It remains true that your way of looking at it shows a manner in which allied airpower was indirectly important. It prevented the Germans from conducting a mobile defense. Rommel's dictum that the invasion had to be stopped at the water's edge was based on his experience of trying to operate under enemy air superiority in North Africa (especially Tunisia). The general staff had at first thought a mobile defense in the interior would be more promising.

It is doubtful the German army would have been allowed to conduct such a defense by the political leadership, even if conditions had otherwise been favorable to it (e.g. a better situation in the air). Manstein wasn't allowed to conduct a mobile defense in the Dnepr bend, where no obstacles of enemy air power interferred. Guderian and other's suggestions to shorten the line in the east, near the Polish border, in fortifications and with mobile reserves, likewise went unheeded.

Because they involved giving up ground, which was verbotten (probably because an undercurrent of defeatism was the greatest fear of the political leadership, even just psychologically, let alone for its possible political ramifications). In the stuff about the push to St. Lo, Seventh Army doesn't have the authorization to withdraw 3 miles to prevent divisions from being destroyed. In that atmosphere, the Seine line was not going to happen (short of being forced).

I half agree, then. Yes, air made a theoretical mobile defense harder. And a mobile defense might have avoided the Allies' longest suits, logistical superiority and overall odds. The other things you'd need to get such a defense to work weren't available - any more than my 1000 AFVs and 100,000 trained infantrymen a month were. Either way would have worked better than what actually happened, if its conditions could be fufilled (or even approximated).

Notice, if the pull back in the east had been allowed, AG center might not have been destroyed during the Normandy battle. It would have been a lot easier to get even half of my support goals fufilled, that way. In the real deal, they didn't even come close. Because until the Normandy front collapsed, almost everything in the way of new tank production and replacements went east.

Good stuff. Shows some of the interrelations of the problem, which is a good "drill" for thinking about strategy. Thanks to Austrian Strategist for bringing it up.

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

But keep in mind when proferring a "Backhand Slap" that save for the Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions the Alllied forces had much greater mobility ...

Yyyyes. If you look at it from the viewpoint of technical equipment, that is certainly true.

But don´t forget that the troops opposing Rommel in North Africa were all -unlike the Germans- motorized at least, and therefore, in the strictly material sense, more mobile than Rommel´s. However, they didn´t have the doctrine, leadership and experience to make actual use of that theoretical advantage.

The same might, quite possibly, have been true in July or August, 1944. Without Air Interdiction, and having nothing much to loose strategically, the Germans could have gambled on this, and even reasonably, because the attrition method used against them was foolproof. They couldn´t win a war of attrition, Jason is right on the money about this.