CM:Normandy - Bocage?

[Jacksy]

No, but I dislike fish and chips. Does that count?

You obviously have no taste then;)

[Michael Emrys]

For not having an air force, it's surprising that they still lost nearly 90 000 airplanes over the course of war.

That was rather careless of them wasn't it? What happened, did they get tossed out with the weekend papers or something?

Michael

[Sergei]

That was rather careless of them wasn't it? What happened, did they get tossed out with the weekend papers or something?

Michael

Maybe the Red Army habit of giving men vodka rations before they went into battle had something to do with it?

[Sgt Joch]

Blaming Monty for a lack of British replacements in late 44 is a stretch since he had no control over that policy.

By late 44, all combatants were having trouble finding replacements, especially for infantry units. In part, this was a structural issue. The British Army still had an obsolecent system where replacements were raised at a regimental level, fine when you fighting Zulus, but hopelessly inadequate once large scale ground fighting broke out. When casualties turned out to be higher than expected, this replacement system broke down and they had to resort to expedients, such as breaking up other infantry units to find trained replacements.

This was not just a British problem, the Canadian Army, which had seen relatively little fighting before sicily, was already running out of trained volonteers by the end of august. The change required to allow draftees to be sent into combat caused a major political crisis back home.

The german system, where each division raised and trained their own replacements, also turned out to be totally useless in 44-45 and german divisions, once they entered combat, were quickly ground down.

The only army which had a well designed system was the U.S. Army. A lot of people have complained about the flaws of the U.S. replacement depot concept, but it had the big advantage of being able to bring U.S. combat units back up to full strength in the shortest time and was the only system designed to cope with large scale attrition warfare.

[Smaragdadler]

...

The only army which had a well designed system was the U.S. Army. A lot of people have complained about the flaws of the U.S. replacement depot concept, but it had the big advantage of being able to bring U.S. combat units back up to full strength in the shortest time and was the only system designed to cope with large scale attrition warfare.

...as far as I understand the u.s. system was maybe good on paper but proved to be 'fatal' later on in the Hürtgen.

...The Americans were not used to fighting in the forest and their training at home

did not prepare them for what they would face. They had not been taught about fighting

in the woods: things like hugging a tree instead of diving for the ground when artillery

was coming your way. By the end of October a five-page report was issued to the troops,

which explained how to fight in the woods, but there should have been more training.

The new troops that were coming into the forest were often replacing casualties. Instead

of whole units being replaced, individuals were added to units, as they were needed. This

was a very unproductive practice.

My partner and I were assigned to the extreme left flank as an outpost there. By

now it was dark and we took turns on watch. When dawn arrived, we discovered that we

and the GIs in the adjacent hole had been left alone—evidently the company had moved

out and forgotten us. Replacements meant so little that we were never really integrated

into the unit with the rapid turnover in squads and platoons from the terrific casualties

being sustained in the Huertgen.

Soldier Jerry Alexis

The problems with training and replacements were not specific to the Huertgen

Forest, but the whole war. However, they were a factor in the high casualty rates.

...

How and why so many wonderful young people were sacrificed and for what purpose poses an interesting question. It has been said that the battle for the Hurtgen Forest was based on a plan that was grossly, even criminally stupid. There does not appear to be any arguments to the contrary. The statement that, "The months-long battle of the Hurtgen Forest was a loser that our top brass never seemed to want to talk about" seems to say it all. Who can be blamed? Probably no one, or everyone who had anything to do with its planning. Headquarters personnel from battalion on up to Corps and Army found themselves good billets and seldom strayed near the front. Of course there were notable exceptions, but in general the American officers handing down the orders to attack and assigning the objectives had no idea what it was like at the front. Combat veterans said that only on the rarest of occasions was any officer above the rank of captain or officer from the staff were ever seen.

The first step down the road to this disaster can be traced to the following order:

COMBAT UNITS ARE AUTHORIZED TO BASE DAILY REPLACEMENT REQUISITIONS ON ANTICIPATED LOSSES FORTY EIGHT HOURS IN ADVANCE TO EXPEDITE DELIVERY OF REPLACEMENTS. TO AVOID BUILDING UP OVERSTRENGTH, ESTIMATES SHOULD BE MADE WITH CARE. SIGNED EISENHOWER.

This order was based on the necessity of providing replacements for battle losses in time to insure that the initiative would not be lost in battle situations where the enemy was on the run but might recover if replacements were not quickly available. Unfortunately, the order enabled inept staff officers to bring in replacements at such a fast pace that companies and even divisions could take tremendous losses that only could be acceptable because of this replacement policy. The officers making these decisions were never close enough to the front lines to be in danger themselves so they were always around to continue to make more costly mistakes.

At the Hurtgen Forest battle, it was Generals Bradley and General Hodges who were responsible for these costly mistakes. They used this procedure but failed to put into place any checks to determine if this policy could be causing excessive loss of troops. This was the weakness of the plan and unfortunately, no one ever bothered to check it out. The blame for this catastrophe was a failure of the generals at the highest levels. The officers from the level of captain down to freshly commissioned lieutenants and enlisted men from sergeants down to the newest recruits, performed and died with such courage that all Americans should be forever proud of them. Taking the time to read this account and consider its implications might diminish the possibility of this type of disaster happening again. Then again, maybe not.

[JonS]

The British Army still had an obsolecent system where replacements were raised at a regimental level, fine when you fighting Zulus, but hopelessly inadequate once large scale ground fighting broke out. When casualties turned out to be higher than expected, this replacement system broke down and they had to resort to expedients, such as breaking up other infantry units to find trained replacements.

That's not really true for 1944 - by that stage the British had more-or-less abandoned strict regimental segregation for replacements, and in fact new recruits were specifically enlisted into ... eh, I forget the name now, but it wasn't a named regiment specifically so that men could be sent anywhere. Also, there was a awful lot of cross posting of personnel who who badged one way or another.

The replacement system didn't 'break down' in Normandy, at least not in any unexpected way. It was known long before D-Day that units and indeed whole divisions would have to be broken up to provide replacements for the others. This was due to the known absolute lack of suitable manpower, not anything unexpected as a result of losses in Normandy. On the other hand, the scale of the losses in Normandy did advance the need to break up units by several weeks or months compared to the plan.

Jon

[JonS]

...as far as I understand the u.s. system was maybe good on paper but proved to be 'fatal' later on in the Hürtgen.

The US system was great for keeping units up to strength, but terrible for enhancing or even maintaining unit cohesion.

[JonS]

You just reminded me of Belton Cooper mentioning the U.S. having BAD problems with the unexpectedly high tanker casualty rate. Replacement Shermans were soon going into action with three man crews or less(!), or augmented by some clueless private pulled out of the infantry and stuck in the turret. Sound like things were getting tough for all concerned by the time autumn arrived in France.

Mike,

I've read Cooper too, and I suspect that that nugget about the undermanned Shermans is due to either a mis-reading of Cooper, or Cooper not being terribly clear in what he was talking about.

[aside]I'm not terribly impressed with Cooper's book - he is mostly ok when he stays in his lane, but too often he wanders off and opines about stuff well outside his paygrade as if his opinion were fact[/aside]

As I recall, there is a fairly memorable bit in Cooper's book where he's delivering a batch of Shermans with scratch crews to frontline units during the advance in August/September, and they end up in a bit of a battle. The thing to remember here is that Cooper is a repair wonk delivering repaired vehicles in an unexpected contact. He is not in a frontline unit going into a deliberate attack.

His comments about undermanned tanks need to be viewed in that light - for simply delivering tanks you could quite happily get away with a crew of two; a commander and a driver. For moving a hull from point to point you really don't need much else (in a similar vein, heavy bombers were routinely moved from place to place with scratch crews of two or three - there was really no need to have anybody in the gun turrets)

Jon

[MikeyD]

I had the same feeling about the book ('Death Traps' for those who don't know), myself. Seemed like a moderately decent article stretched and stretched until it filled a book. I cringed when he referred to the "Christie" suspensioned... Pershing? the sort of goofs that were common in early '70s hobby articles, pre Hunnicutt and Zaloga.

[Sgt Joch]

That's not really true for 1944 - by that stage the British had more-or-less abandoned strict regimental segregation for replacements, and in fact new recruits were specifically enlisted into ... eh, I forget the name now, but it wasn't a named regiment specifically so that men could be sent anywhere. Also, there was a awful lot of cross posting of personnel who who badged one way or another.

I have always had trouble with the British Army. There always seems to be an "official" method and the way "things are done", which only the brits seem to understand.

It is like the fine distinction that supporting TAC Air and Armour are not "..under the command of.." but "..act in conjunction with.." infantry units...I mean, who is in charge?

[Sergei]

The Freemasons. Duh.

[JonS]

It is like the fine distinction that supporting TAC Air and Armour are not "..under the command of.." but "..act in conjunction with.." infantry units...I mean, who is in charge?

Oh, all armies have command statuses (statai?) - TACON, TACOM, Under Command For Movement, OPCON, OPCOM, etc. It's actually reasonably important to have that stuff clear and understood (by the participants, at least - granted it's highly confusing for observers) Link

But yeah, the Brits do tend to be a little less than rigid in their application of doctrine (By design, be it added)

[Battlefront.com]

I have a very detailed study, commissioned by the US Army, comparing the German and Soviet replacements systems during the war. It's about 2" thick, so dropping it on your bare toes is not recommended even though it is soft cover I find the logistics of war FASCINATING!

I've also read very in-depth studies of the US Army replacement system. It didn't work, plain and simple. If it did the US military would still be using it today. It's frigged around with a couple of systems since WW2 and most of them sucked as well. Then the Army finally got wise and fully embraced the concept of "unit cohesion". There's still some problems, of course, but from what I gather it functions quite well these days.

The primary flaw of the US replacement system is that it didn't work The unit cohesion problem was a massive part of that. Units were given no specific time to get to know each other. Units that were in the rear, or in quiet sectors, might have overcome those problems. However, all too often this wasn't the case because there was no formal doctrine for regaining cohesion. In the front lines... forget about it. The vets saw the greenhorns as liabilities and that often got the replacements killed/wounded very quickly. Trust wasn't there and a long memory of new guys who got it quickly reinforced the notion that getting to know the new guys was a bad idea (emotionally). So it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The second problem was that the replacement system allowed units to remain at the front far longer than was good for the unit as a whole. The bean counters thought that as long as a unit was up to strength then it should stay at the front. Studies proved, conclusively, that after about 30 days (IIRC) of continued contact with the enemy that combat performance would start to drop off. As time went on the unit basically ceased to be combat effective even if at full strength!

Another problem was that a US Army soldier was a US Army soldier, not a soldier from New Mexico or Florida or Texas. It's part of the American psyche that "we're all one nation" and it has a lot of benefits. The problem, though, is that there are pretty real cultural, religious, and linguistic differences between the various parts of the US. If units had time to get to know each other as soldiers then these differences wouldn't likely be major issues. But when you are a Squad of 10 guys who have been together for a while and 2 replacements come in from areas nobody can relate to, that got added to the psychological barriers to bonding. The benefit, of course, was that recruitment, training, and placement was vastly simplified and extremely flexible. (NOTE! There were four National Guard Divisions, which I believe did keep their own separate replacement pools in addition to tapping into the national system. Not 100% sure about that though).

The irony was that the replacement system was specifically designed to keep units in the field without withdrawing them. So in a sense the system worked as designed according to one concept, but failed to produce the intended results. The military could scoop up draftees from all over the country, run them through unified training programs, ship them overseas en mas, hold them in reserve without regard to individuality (just specialization), then parcel them out like cigarettes and chocolate. Very efficient from a logistics standpoint, detrimental in terms of maximizing military potential and minimizing casualties.

The Germans, on the other hand, would regularly withdraw units to consolidate them and integrate whole replacement formations which were organically drawn from the same region as the unit receiving them. Of course this system had it's own problems, but it is one of the reasons the Germans had generally good unit cohesion even through the end of the war. Massive losses also meant that the German system had to break with the local unit recruiting method and use a more national system at times. But they tried, as best as they could, to keep the units themselves regionally based even if a Regiment from x place now had a Battalion from y place instead.

It's been years since I looked into this stuff in detail, so I might have some things a bit rough around the edges.

Steve

[Secondbrooks]

Problem the way i've read about it (which is somewhat) is that you need to have disciplined troops which's officers understands value of training. Discipline because other ways there will be rebellion when men (battle-hardened veterans) don't get change to just sleep, eat and fart, but they have to freaking train. And training needs to be underlined, bolded, quoted in red color and written with big font for superiors to understand it's worth.

When that is established even week used in training seemed to have great effects for cohesion and performance of the new guys. Some units, which had possibility and mind-set for it, did that even at times when they needed to be ready to counterattack.

I just wonder did Germans really be able to maintain their system where you had units withdrawn and getting replacement and train with them. As most book i've read abotu german soldiers seems to state that they spent long times in front lines, men were starting to break down mentally (over 60 days in front is what brings these drawbacks if i recall), even at start of campaign in east when things basically should have been okay. Somehow i get feeling that we discuss about Germans we easily take examples from how things worked at best, which means armored divisions and such. Units which spent lots of time out side contact to enemy.

Infantry Divisions may have had similar replacement policy in the end as US had, when you get replacements sent them to front as soon as possible, because there wasn't much options to do it differently. Unit wasn't going to come behind from front lines in a long time.

Sure fundamently things are different, atleast Germans tried to pullback units behind sooner and were aware of the existing problem, but in practice things generally went quite simillary. Infact i'm rather sure that Mannstein told to Hitler that replacements for infantry regiments don't get soon enough into their units, but understrenght troops are thrown into battle and then they get replacements in middle of the battle. Higher casualties as result.

[Dietrich]

The Germans, on the other hand, would regularly withdraw units to consolidate them and integrate whole replacement formations which were organically drawn from the same region as the unit receiving them. Of course this system had it's own problems

What were some of those problems? I'm genuinely curious, because I'm in the research phase for a novel I plan to write about a German infantryman on the Eastern Front between July and December 1941. I've found some info about the German replacement system, but I haven't yet found much elucidation about its problems.

[Sgt Joch]

The problem with the german system is that it did not work in practice, under the conditions which existed at the front in 44-45. Divisions would remain in the front lines without replacements until they were basically destroyed. In fact, the Germans were already having problems in 41 after the Eastern Front became a meat grinder.

For example, look at the 352nd infantry division which defended Normandy. It was raised in early 44 from the Hannoverian region of germany. It was built around a nucleus of veteran officers and NCOs with the rest of the forces being made up of 17-18 year old recruits. It had a "Replacement" battalion in Normandy where replacements newly arrived from Germany were integrated into the combat units and a Divisional Replacement Depot back home which raised and trained replacements before sending them to the front. Once the fighting in Normandy started, it became nearly impossible for the depot back home to send replacements up to the front in Normandy because of Allied air superiority and the "Replacement" battalion was quickly committed to combat as a unit. As a result, the 352nd was basically destroyed in june-july, fighting from the beaches down to St-Lo.

Steve has pointed out the problems with the U.S. system. The ideal system would be one where Divisions were regularly pulled out of combat, so replacements could be integrated into the units, before the Division went back into the line. In fact, under early war plans, the U.S. army was supposed to create 213 divisions, which could have made this possible. However, it quickly became apparent that 89 divisions was all that was practical given the fact that the U.S was fighting 2 wars at the same time and also had to build up a Navy and an Air Force. Under the circumstances, the U.S. replacement system was the only practical solution if Divisions were to have the required manpower to fight the German and Japanese Army at the same time for extended periods.

In practice, you also have to note that U.S. Divisions were not in continuous combat from june 44 to may 45. Divisions were pulled out of the line from time to time and there were extended periods where little or no major combat was taking place which gave replacements some time to be integrated into their units.

[Sgt Joch]

Another issue, although this relates more to conditions on the frontline in 44-45, is what happens to specialist troops.

All infantry Divisions typically are made up of only one-third infantry men, the rest being various support units like artillery, engineers, supply, etc. Infantry typically suffers about 90% of the combat losses.

Under the U.S. system, since the infantry losses are replenished as required, support units rarely had to go into combat.

In German divisions however, since they had trouble getting replacements, it was not unusual that after a few weeks of combat, artillerymen, engineers and other support staff, would fight as infantry resulting, inevitably in the loss of valuable specialists.

[jcmil]

On a similar note to the German replacements dilemma was Hitlers obsession with elite formations (Stag-beetles being a case in point )

One has to question the logic of formations such as Lehr which used up the most qualified teachers in one mass instead of spreading the expertise poool though-out the units needing men. Once gone who was left to help the green troops....

& as an aside, I am beginning to really look forward to this game!

[Michael Emrys]

One has to question the logic of formations such as Lehr which used up the most qualified teachers in one mass instead of spreading the expertise poool though-out the units needing men. Once gone who was left to help the green troops....

That's what happens when you are losing a war and desperate. Things tend to go from bad to worse, often very quickly. The same thing happened to the Luftwaffe teaching schools.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Well said. Another significant problem was that some areas had an easier time raising recruits than others. If Division X from Wehrkreis A got hit really hard, and was currently tapped out for replacements, it could be very difficult to fill the empty slots.

A related problem was that the slots weren't generic, rather they were quite specific. If Division X lost 32 NCOs, and they had only 21 trained and ready to go, then they would be short 11 NCOs. This could mean positions were left vacant or staffed by under qualified or ill suited replacements (dragging an out of shape desk Feldwebel out to the front might look good on paper, buuuuuuut....). Yet at the same time Division X is undergoing problems with staffing, over at Wehrkreis B they might have 52 NCOs ready to go and no immediate need for them. In the US system this sort of problem didn't happen because the field units drew from a single source.

The "elite" units of the German Army, the Navy, and the Airforce didn't have to worry about such problems. Their personnel were drawn from all over Germany and, often, conquered nations. While they still had the same "unit replacement" system, at least they didn't have artificial demographic problems. On top of that they got to hand pick their own replacements towards the end of the war, which put further strains on the "regular" units.

Partly due to these problems, and partly due to heavy losses, the Germans dramatically reduced the size of their support elements and gave lower levels of leadership much larger areas of responsibility. For example, by 1944 only one rifle platoon per company had an officer in it. The other two were staffed by NCOs. And not very senior ones either! This meant that when a platoon was wiped out they had to come up with far fewer highly trained individuals compared to basic infantry types.

As supply lines shortened and long range offensive actions became a thing of the past, the smaller logistics elements were not a big problem for the Germans. Or at least they were less of a problem than the HUGE logistics elements of the Americans and, decreasingly as the war went on, British.

Back to the flaws in the American system...

The raw American recruits were treated like cattle and they felt like cattle. The long transit times between the US and the front also meant a lot of time "off the job". Therefore, the quality of the recruits getting to the front was way below par. Which reinforced the frontline units' poor opinion of them, which caused them to not bond, which allowed for higher casualties, which reinforced the poor opinion, which caused them to not bond, etc., etc. Sometime after Normandy, I forget when, this problem became very apparent and a massive effort was made to get the recruits back into shape before sending them to the front. The effort apparently paid off.

Steve

[Yair Iny]

Out of curiosity, and this being the CMSF forum , how do replacements work today in the US military? Is there a golden median between the two approaches presented above? Do you think the way it is done today would still produce good results in a long drawn, high casualty war? Hope I'm not too OT...

[JonS]

For example, by 1944 only one rifle platoon per company had an officer in it. The other two were staffed by NCOs. And not very senior ones either! This meant that when a platoon was wiped out they had to come up with far fewer highly trained individuals compared to basic infantry types.

I thought that was a design decision made-by/forced-on the Germans during the massive expansion of the Army during the 1930's and early 40's?

[Battlefront.com]

Yair Iny,

Out of curiosity, and this being the CMSF forum , how do replacements work today in the US military? Is there a golden median between the two approaches presented above? Do you think the way it is done today would still produce good results in a long drawn, high casualty war? Hope I'm not too OT...

The current US replacement system is quite flexible and it seems that there are different methods for the different circumstances. It's also been undergoing a lot of change in the last 10 years or so, as well as since the end of the conscript military of Vietnam. But I'm not all that strong on the details. I do know that individual replacements are a regular event. I don't know what happens when the bulk of a platoon, like with the 173rd, gets taken out of action.

Oh, and that was ANOTHER problem with the WW2 American model. When a soldier was wounded (with any significant injury) he would go back into the general replacement pool and NOT back to his unit. It was so bad that soldiers would not seek treatment for wounds because they didn't want to leave their units. Even more extreme were soldiers who went AWOL from their new units and made their way back to their original unit. From what I've read there was an unwritten understanding between seasoned commanders to either look the other way or to actively cover it up. They recognized that the highest expression of loyalty was a soldier who would risk imprisonment so he could get to the front with his buddies. Definitely not something any good commander would frown upon.

JonS,

I thought that was a design decision made-by/forced-on the Germans during the massive expansion of the Army during the 1930's and early 40's?

It started then, for sure, but it got worse as the war ground on. I'd have to consult my early war TO&E, but I'm pretty sure the reduction in officers was formalized with the 1943 reorganization. There were other major changes as well, such as dramatic headcount reductions in all sorts of units including principle combat elements.

An interesting note is that German tank companies supposedly had 4 platoons of 5 tanks in 1944. The 4th platoon was supposed to be a ready reserve of crews, not a unit with tanks assigned to it. Yet in Normandy most of the Panzer Divisions there did, in fact, have enough tanks on hand to equip their 4th platoons. With the confusion, speed, and devastation of German units in Normandy the 4th platoons were used as regular combat units. So when a tank crew member was taken out of action, there was no immediate source of replacement on paper. In reality there were enough tanks knocked out or broken down that crewing didn't seem to be much of a problem, but I'm sure many of the crews were thrown together and therefore weren't "cohesive".

The infantry had the same problem. IIRC each infantry regiment had a replacement battalion assigned to it. Each battalion within the regiment had one replacement company of that battalion assigned to it. Again, it kept strong ties between the front and the rear. But the confusion, losses, and dire situations the Germans found them in meant a lot of these battalions were pressed into service as their own fighting units. This was allowed, and even planned for, under German doctrine, however it was always seen as a temporary measure done on an exceptional basis. On the Eastern Front it often became defacto SOP every time the Soviets launched a major offensive, as was the case on the Western Front.

The BIG problem with this is that they are basically just riflemen since they were expected to replace crews, not weaponry (that came from a separate system). Which basically meant they fought without heavy weapons. Definitely not optimal! On the Eastern Front it was a very big problem because they had that problem AND they were often used for fighting partisans instead of training.

Well, as anybody can tell... I do find the logistics of war very interesting

Steve

[Chad Harrison]

So, now that we have Steve in here, can we get a comment on the original question to this thread?

Any new details to share on bocage for CM:Normandy?

Thanks

Chad

[Michael Emrys]

I thought that was a design decision made-by/forced-on the Germans during the massive expansion of the Army during the 1930's and early 40's?

Steve knows more about that than I, but I do know that the '41 campaign resulted in horrendous casualties among company grade officers, so the policy would have been forced on them at that time regardless of what the practice was before then.

Michael