German infantry tactics

[Vark]

Thought this was of interest as it shows the dispersion of a German section/squad in an assault, the use of smoke and the correct role of the LMG. I wonder will CM2 ever come close to representing the different tactics of the nationalities?

http://www.realmilitaryflix.com/public/250.cfm?sd=56

[JasonC]

Except they are completely making it up...

[sonar]

I remember reading an account from Italy I think, where the soldier(Brit/U.S?) said that the German squad in the action, kept in verbal contact throughout the engagement, shouting commands, target sightings and such. The point he stressed, was that the germans did this to a much greater degree than his own men did during combat.

[JasonC]

Shouting orders is believable. Splitting into 3s, pretending that a couple of bolt action rifles can constitute a base of fire, successive men flopping down in the open in the exact same position to fire a few times, repositioning MGs right out in the open, everyone throwing 40 grenades at one dinky MG position already abandoned, bayonet charges from 25 meters - is all the purest deskbound fantasy.

There are only about 3 accurate things in it. A German squad is led by an experienced sergeant who gives the tactical orders (check, whose isn't? In other news, water remains wet). A German squad uses an MG as its base of fire (check, though sometimes its two. What else would the dang thing be for?). Germans who close with an enemy position eliminate it with grenades (check, been true since WW I).

Everything else in that video, is hogwash.

[sonar]

Just pointing out an observed difference, not backing up the claims in the video.

[Dietrich]

Rather than two small groups moving on opposite flanks, many shots in the video make it look more like separate soldiers moving piecemeal toward the objective.

Accordig to all that I've read of German squad-level tactics, the squad leader (which isn't necessarily a "sergeant"; he could be as low-ranked as a senior private) would either lead the squad as a complete unit in the assault -- with the LMG firing from the hip while on the move -- or would remain more or less beside the machine-gunner (as usual) to direct the squad's prime firepower.

Assuming that this video was made as early as, say, 1940, would the change in US Army small-unit philosophy effected by the relatively high volume of fire provided by M1 Garand have taken effect? It seems that they're forgetting that even a dozen bolt-action rifles can't hope to match the firepower of as many semi-auto rifles, let alone a single high-rate-of-fire MG like the MG34/42. The video suggests the US Army thought that German riflemen fired their own weapons more frequently than they actually tended to.

Seems to me a bit misleading that the video early on states that the objective is the position of "an Allied light machine-gun team whose job it is to delay the advance of a German infantry platoon", but then only a squad's worth of German infantry are shown in the film. Would a lone squad attack an LMG position, or would it -- presuming that it's the point squad -- rather wait for the rest of the platoon, so they could attack with one or two squads providing suppressive fire while one or two squads maneuvered to attack from the flank?

And when charging through the smoke (presumably to actually storm the enemy position), they don't have bayonets fixed.

[Sergei]

The video information states that it was made in 1944. There'd been plenty of experience about Germans by then.

[Dietrich]

The video states ten men in a squad, but hadn't the Germans switched to a 9-man Gruppe in standard infantry units by 1944? (I understand that squads in Fallschirmjäger, Pionier, and other infantry units were not necessarily of the same size as squads in Grenadier/Fusilier units.)

[JasonC]

Dietrich - it is too hopeless to merit serious comment. But no, the firepower of M-1s has nothing to do with any of it.

In case nobody noticed, the firepower of riflemen, all of them combined, is miniscule on the WW II battlefield. Aimed pinning effects from fire and some enemy heads-down can be expected, that is the most one can say.

70% of all losses are coming from shells, with 50% or more of that indirect fire. The direct fire stuff is split between tanks (most of it), cannons, and grenades up close. Bullets causing losses are almost all coming from the machineguns, both the infantry's and those on tanks, and SMGs a portion of the remainder. A realistic figure for infantry losses to rifle fire is 5% of those hit, maybe 10% at the outside. Over the entire war, the worst anyone experiences is 3/4 hit by anything. That means the average rifleman had something like a 4-8% chance of hitting anyone over his entire service career, which lasted literally years for some of them and something like a year and change as a weighted average.

Ergo, it was a rare rifleman and a rare engagement, when any of them hit anything. They were mostly spectators and targets of much more powerful weapons.

[Sergei]

The video states ten men in a squad, but hadn't the Germans switched to a 9-man Gruppe in standard infantry units by 1944? (I understand that squads in Fallschirmjäger, Pionier, and other infantry units were not necessarily of the same size as squads in Grenadier/Fusilier units.)

You're assuming that the people who made the film had an effing clue. Judging by the quality of the said film that assumption is far too generous. I think they knew that Germany was a place behind seas and there was a war with them, but anything beyond that remains to be proven. They may well have had outdated literature or conflicting sources and no one with real knowledge participating in the project. It may have been slapped together by a small, uninformed crew when some Committee decided that the armed forces needed a total 4½ hours of educational films for showing to recruits, or something, and at that point they only had 4 hours ready. It should not be seen as a sum of Allied knowledge about Wehrmacht at that time.

[Dietrich]

JasonC - I concur with your statements. (I have not pored over extensive tables, but I was aware that artillery was the casualty-inflicting weapon in WW2.) However, what I actually wrote was [italics added for clarification] "the change in US Army small-unit philosophy effected by the relatively high volume of fire provided by M1 Garand" -- rather than "the amount of casualty-inflicting done by the M1 Garand". By "philosophy", I mean the fact that the US Army developed the M1 Garand in the first place and used the older (and fairly inefficient) Browning Automatic Rifle to serve in the support role at the squad level. In other words, I was wondering if the rifle usage in the film was a reflection of US Army personnel looking at Wehrmacht tactics through the lens (so to speak) of their own ideas about rifle employment.

Sergei - True. And I have seen more realistic and more relevant contemporaneous US-made films pertaining to Wehrmacht tactics and equipment than the one linked above.

[JasonC]

Dietrich - I gotcha, that's a fair point and guess. Although M1s like any rifle had only tiny firepower in the grand scheme of things, that isn't what the men doing force planning and doctrin development thought, or at any rate were going to emphasize.

By the way, I rather disagree with the "fairly inefficient" comment about the BAR. It was fine for its job. I'd rather have a 155mm howitzer, but a BAR is at least a weapon, where single shot pop guns (at least in average hands) frankly aren't.

[jtcm]

What is this movie, in fact ? OSS training movie, from 1944 ? Did they get a bunch of people in German uniforms to perform "German tactics" ? Or could this be a captured, and redubbed, German training or propaganda movie of e.g. 1940 ?

[Dietrich]

A couple things (admittedly little things) which to me indicate that this is not a German training film circa 1940 redubbed by the OSS:

- In almost all shots, the Kar 98k-armed men hold their rifles in their

left

hand. As can be confirmed simply by looking at contemporary photographs, German riflemen held their rifles in their

right

hand; that's what they were trained to do.

- The whistle which the "German" squad leader blows has the sound of an American signal whistle. The German

Signalpfeifer

had a sound more like that of (in the words of one observer) "a robin being castrated". (This can be clearly heard in a 1944 Luftwaffe High Command sniper training film, which can be found fairly easily on YouTube.) Also, the whistle is attached to his tunic by a fine metal chain. A German NCO would have his signal attached with a lanyard of braided fabric.

JasonC - Regarding the BAR, I stand corrected. What I should have written (so as to be more clear) was "relatively ineffecient", that is, ineffecient compared to the MG34/42. And yes, I admit to being a fan of high-rate-of-fire belt-fed MGs like the MG34/42, but I also understand the reasons why many think that they are quite overrated and that their reputation owes more to Teutophilic propaganda than to real-world effectiveness.

[Sergei]

What is this movie, in fact ? OSS training movie, from 1944 ? Did they get a bunch of people in German uniforms to perform "German tactics" ?

See here: