So are German forces "better" on average?

[Praetori]

Wonder who they practiced on first, when developing their bone reapair techniques? Remember their Pilots had very good cold weather immersion gear after they studied real people freezing to death in tanks of icy water!

I have no idea. I'm pretty sure the technique was looked at during WW1 though so probably some poor schmucks from the trenches.

[Vark]

Look at the letters from Germans soldiers trapped in the pocket at Stalingrad still believing Hitler knew what he was doing. As a teacher, I don't think you can overplay the role the German education system played in creating and sustaining this this immature devotional attitude.

I was just reading "Hollow Victory" where some captured Germans are being escorted back through Allied lines. At first the GI's are amazed at the Germans arrogance, how they would eventually win due to their superior martial spirit, new weapons etc. After their jeep has passed rows of tanks, SPG's, batteries of guns and fields full of supplies, the Germans were very quiet, finally realising the forces they confronted.

Alot of friendly post-war accounts (now the West Germans were the good guys) played on the narrative of, 'we knew the war was lost, and Hitler was mad, but brotherhood of arms kept us fighting'. The more I read the more I wonder, how many soldiers actually believed they would triumph in the end, look at diary entries and letters written by German soldiers before and during the initial phases of Wacht Am Rhine, they believed it, scary.

[pamak_1970]

My 2 cents

I will talk only about a certain thing I see emerging often in this thread.

People often try to “quantify” quality by examining casualty rates. “X inflicted more casualties on his opponent than Y did, therefore X demonstrated higher quality”. I have dozens of objections regarding this type of logic. I will mention just two of them

First, one obvious question is the appropriate yardstick we should use. Should we talk simply about the casualty ratio or should we talk about “casualties inflicted per fighter”? I am not familiar with the official historical numbers so I will use hypothetical ones. Say 100,000 Germans in Normandy inflicted 10,000 casualties on Allies and 200,000 Allies inflicted 20,000 casualties on Germans.

If somebody tallies the total number and uses the ratio of Allied to German casualties, he will conclude that German casualties were double compared to Allied ones. But does this imply any quality advantage on behalf of the Allies?

Someone else may use another yardstick implying different results. Say we examine “casualties inflicted on enemy per friendly fighter”. In the above example 100,000 German fighters were responsible for the 10,000 Allied casualties and 200,000 Allied fighters were responsible for the 20,000 German casualties. In other words, the number of casualties inflicted on the other side per fighter is equal for both sides implying equal “quality”.

My second objection is more complex to describe so I will use an analogy to make my point.Let’s use another type of “fight” say a war game like combat mission. We all know that a digital army commanded by an experienced human player has more “quality” compared to the one controlled by the PC. Here is one case you might want to consider.

Let’s assume that statistics show that when you play a certain scenario against computer, you manage to get a victory by annihilating your opponent after suffering X casualties on average. Say that you want to gather similar statistics for a slightly modified version of the same scenario. Everything will be the same, except that you start the game with double the amount of forces you had originally.

Isn’t it a reasonable expectation to see better results in the form of suffering fewer casualties on average till the end of the game? Does this mean that somehow your quality as a player improved or that the AI became worse?

by the way my screen name is pamak1970 but for some reason the system didn't let me in. Perhaps because it was an old account? I haven't posted here for quite sometime. So i created a new one

[Magpie_Oz]

Yes I see where you are coming from Pamak and from my perspective the notion of looking at simple casualties figures is not a good method of determining relative prowess on the battlefield, however as there is no real tangible way of determining whether the "Germans were better on average" we have to look at indirect means.

My logic runs that if the German Army was considerably better in the field than the Allies, in spite all of the NGS and Air Support, they would have inflicted far greater casualties than they did as they had considerable advantages in terms of being on the defensive, in highly defensible terrain that they had occupied and fortified for 4 years.

[pamak_1970]

My logic runs that if the German Army was considerably better in the field than the Allies, in spite all of the NGS and Air Support, they would have inflicted far greater casualties than they did as they had considerable advantages in terms of being on the defensive, in highly defensible terrain that they had occupied and fortified for 4 years.

I don't understand how you come to this conclusion. What is the yardstick you use for the appropriate level of casualties a superior in quality force can inflict on another under the conditions in ETO 1944?

I don't say that Germans were superior. I just try to understand how you came to this conclusion.

I do understand that defense gives a serious advantage to them at the tactical level. On the other hand, most of casualties come because of operational reasons, not tactical. It is operational breakthroughs and exploitations which create hundreds of thousands of prisoners and captured material, even minor damaged ones which under different circumstances (stable front) could be repaired and return to the battlefield.

So although it is true that Germans were favored by the terrain and their posture at the tactical level, it is also true that Allies being on the offensive operationally and managing to win, registered hundreds of thousands of German prisoners and hundreds of German tanks in their books as a result of it.

But the question remains. Someone may argue that this operational victory came because of numbers and that Germans were actually better in quality and someone else may argue that there was parity or American supremacy in both quantity and quality.

Here is an interesting example.

Germans in Alamein are behind a fortified line with secured flanks and lose suffering huge casualties, dozens of thousands as prisoners (most of them are captured during the retreat) and hundreds of tanks which they couldn't evacuate and repair during the retreat. They had never experienced such a high level of casualties although they had been on the offensive before and even staged failed attacks like during the first battle of Alamein. If they suffered an alarming high rate of personnel losses when they were on the offensive, they simply had the freedom to stop the action and when their tank force had experienced comparable loss of equipment before, it was a matter of a short time to repair the vast majority and put them back to action but they simply didn't have this freedom when they lost the defensive battle in El Alamein.

Many argue that British won this operational victory in the last battle of Alamein, not because of their superior quality but because of their superior numbers and although DAK had a big tactical advantage because of its posture it didn't change the fact that Germans lost many people and equipment (more that the attacking British) as a result of their operational defeat and not as a result of their inferior quality. So did Germans there suffer huge losses because of the superior quality of British soldier, or was it a matter of brute force?

The above case is not some type of anomaly. British had a similar experience earlier in Gazala where they were on the defensive and were forced to retreat suffering huge losses too.

[Battlefront.com]

Certainly there is no easy answer. Which is why when someone says The Germans Are Tactically Superior™ my first instinct is to pounce on it because a) it's not a fact and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it is not true. At least not true as some sort of generalized reality. Just like the worn out "Americans don't know how to fight, but they do know how to kill with TNT" is really boring.

The truth is all of this stuff is true to some degree, false to some degree. Most of it comes down to an individual comparison between two specific samples. Saying the Germans had the best equipment and pointing to the 21st PzDiv should get people giggling, for example. Pointing at Ostbatallion and "Stomach Battalions" and saying the Germans had tactically superior soldiers is also going to get chuckles. So people shouldn't make such silly, broad based claims.

What I can say, though, is trends can be examined and trends matter. It's a fact that as the war went on the trend of the German army was a decline in quality of its average soldier. Only the most ill informed person out there would try to argue against that. So the logical thing for someone to do, then, is to argue that the average German soldier, though on the decline, was better stuff than the average American soldier. You know, sorta like how an average Belgian Beer kicks the snot out of any Anheuser Busch beer It's a tempting straw to grasp onto, but it doesn't hold up to the facts of how the American forces fought at different times in the war.

Plus, we all know that if the Germans had material superiority in 1944 they wouldn't be calling themselves cowardly, inept foot soldiers. We know this as a fact because they thought very highly of themselves in 1939 through 1941 when they had material superiority advantages over their adversaries.

Steve

Steve

[pamak_1970]

We know this as a fact because they thought very highly of themselves in 1939 through 1941 when they had material superiority advantages over their adversaries.

I agree with what you said except the above quote. I don't think Germans had a material superiority in France 1940 or Africa 1941. In fact part of the credit they got as a military machine was their ability to fight and win impressive victories during these years against stronger opponents in material terms.

On the other hand i understand that you can't congratulate yourself for the big encirclements and casualties inflicted on Soviets during the first stages of their campaign in 1941 and at the same time blaim lack of fuel or lack of spare parts or aerial superiority for their defeats in France in 1944. Soviets had also similar problems in 1941

[Macisle]

Just a thought off the top of my head:

It's safe to say that the US ground forces are far superior to the Syrians in CMSF. But how would the battles go if you did the following:

1. Not allow the US any air power, but instead give that quality of air power to the Syrians in great abundance.

2. Give the Syrians a massive artillery support advantage.

3. Give the Syrians and very heavy numbers advantage.

I don't have a horse in the race as far as the thread goes, but the above occurred to me as an interesting thought to get feedback on. There is no way you could say that the US is not a superior force pound for pound, but what would happen if red air and artillery was decimating their Abrams and other key assets and the enemy was coming at them with a huge numbers advantage?

I'd say it's more than possible to be a superior ground force pound for pound and still lose every battle, if the enemy has the air, artillery and a numbers advantage (but again, I'm not saying the Germans were actually better.)

[Michael Emrys]

I don't think Germans had a material superiority in France 1940 or Africa 1941.

It seems to me that that statement flies in the face of reality in several important areas. A comprehensive comparison would take more time and effort than I am willing to expend on this discussion, but just to take a few examples:

In 1940, all the German tanks had radios and at least the Pz. III and IV had better ergonomic layout than their Allied equivalents. In the desert in 1941, those same types were more reliable mechanically and had marginally better guns and armor than their British equivalents. It is generally believed that the Luftwaffe fielded better planes on both occasions. In some other areas the Allies were a bit better off or equal, but again in some others the Germans held the winning cards.

All that said, I feel that material quality counted for little compared to the German superiority in doctrine, training and organization, particularly staff work. But to claim that they enjoyed no material superiority at all is, well, poppycock.

Michael

[Wodin]

Really can't take anything written in letters home especially with regards to Stalingrad other than trying to keep their families spirits up and not letting them know the full situation...because when Goering made that speach about the Stalingrad Sacrifice on the radio it went doen like a ton of bricks...infact of all the soldiers in the wermacht they were probably the ones who thought the war was over at the time...plus it was the brink of their first massive defeat.....

From what I've read about Stalingrad (best book I've read is Island of Fire by Jason Marks) it didn't strike me that the soldiers though Hitler was infamable, especially after the attempted relief failed...As for the higher command in Stalingrad a fair few realised the War was lost and all they could hope for was a stalemate....Generals like Seydlitz who in my eyes was one of the only Generals to talk sense at that terrible time...always had a fasination with Seydlitz for some reason.

[Secondbrooks]

Here is an interesting example.

Germans in Alamein are behind a fortified line with secured flanks and lose suffering huge casualties, dozens of thousands as prisoners (most of them are captured during the retreat) and hundreds of tanks which they couldn't evacuate and repair during the retreat. They had never experienced such a high level of casualties although they had been on the offensive before and even staged failed attacks like during the first battle of Alamein. If they suffered an alarming high rate of personnel losses when they were on the offensive, they simply had the freedom to stop the action and when their tank force had experienced comparable loss of equipment before, it was a matter of a short time to repair the vast majority and put them back to action but they simply didn't have this freedom when they lost the defensive battle in El Alamein.

Many argue that British won this operational victory in the last battle of Alamein, not because of their superior quality but because of their superior numbers and although DAK had a big tactical advantage because of its posture it didn't change the fact that Germans lost many people and equipment (more that the attacking British) as a result of their operational defeat and not as a result of their inferior quality. So did Germans there suffer huge losses because of the superior quality of British soldier, or was it a matter of brute force?

The above case is not some type of anomaly. British had a similar experience earlier in Gazala where they were on the defensive and were forced to retreat suffering huge losses too.

One thing i've been told time after time again is that German Army, as most Armies of that time, practiced mostly offence. France might be one of the few which were focusing on defending. I've read some accounts from Eastern Front that Germans atleast at start (late -41, early -42) often were somewhat poor at setting up defensive perimeters... Well i'm pretty sure Germans had most of their lessons learned by -44 in area of defending, atleast defensive instructions based on experience they gave to us at -43 were good but which our boneheads ignored based on their own outdated experience from -39 and -40.

Anyways one statistical thing i've noticed is that when talking about casualties in ww2 it often goes so that attacker has 1 guy KIA/MIA when it looses 3 WIAs. On defending side it's 3 guys KIA/MIA to 1 WIA. This when attacker is successful. However exceptions i know in this rule are such where attacker's speed of advance was just about 10 km per day, so defender had enough time to react to attacker's moves by pulling back. Usually, by my knowledge, such slow movement of front-line also means terrain which doesn't favor fast moving mechanical warfare, so escaping usually is possible even in grim looking situations but heavy equipement such as artillery has to left behind due successful encirclement attempts. In areas like eastern front or North Africa thing seems to be bit more different and amount of prisoners and captured equipment are high on successful offence.

[pamak_1970]

In 1940, all the German tanks had radios and at least the Pz. III and IV had better ergonomic layout than their Allied equivalents. In the desert in 1941, those same types were more reliable mechanically and had marginally better guns and armor than their British equivalents. It is generally believed that the Luftwaffe fielded better planes on both occasions. In some other areas the Allies were a bit better off or equal, but again in some others the Germans held the winning cards.

All that said, I feel that material quality counted for little compared to the German superiority in doctrine, training and organization, particularly staff work. But to claim that they enjoyed no material superiority at all is, well, poppycock.

I agree partially. Yes they had radios while French didn't but i see this as a quality issue not quantity. I used the term material advantage implying quantity, but i agree that in France and in Russia there was a German material advantage in many areas but not because of strict numbers.

On the other hand even these material quality advantages were close related to the different doctrine and Germans should take credit for it.

French decided to go with thicker and bigger armor. Their doctrine counted on this type of "quality". Germans used a different approach.

In Africa things are more complicated. First the superior German "reliability" maybe related to superior German doctrine. Their evacuation and maintenance procedures were certainly better at that time. The qualitative advantage regarding tanks used didn't favor Germans all the time. During certain months they had an advantage but other times british employed comparable equipment. And then of course we shouldn't forget the quality of Italian machinery which was low.

I don't know if the german airforce was simply better in North Africa. RAF proved a worthy opponent during the airbattle over England. They had good equipment and pilots.

[pamak_1970]

and because i want to avoid changing the subject to arguments about the material situation in other theaters of war, i just want to point that my main objection to what battlefront stated is that the material disparity in ETO 1944 is not comparable to that of France 1940 or North Africa 1941. That's all

[pamak_1970]

In areas like eastern front or North Africa thing seems to be bit more different and amount of prisoners and captured equipment are high on successful offence.

The same is true in France with plenty of space to maneuver, an excellent road network and good weather conditions (compared to eastern front at least). Operational level exploitations produced excellent results for the winner. It happened in 1940 and in 1944.

Italy on the other hand was different.

[Michael Emrys]

In Africa things are more complicated. First the superior German "reliability" maybe related to superior German doctrine. Their evacuation and maintenance procedures were certainly better at that time.

I think we are talking about different things here. I was referring to the tendency of many British tanks to break down on the way to the battlefield or on it. Many historians have commented that the Stuart was the first really reliable tank they had in the theater. That may be an exaggeration, but if so it appears to be an exaggeration of a genuine dilemma.

Michael

[undead reindeer cavalry]

usually the attacker has advantage in large scale actions, if competent. this competence in managing offensive operations is one field that IMO shows clear patterns of nationalistic differences in ETO.

i find it striking how German staffs are unable to execute large scale offensive operations in ETO. if you look at the initial push against the landings, the counter to Cobra, actions around Arracourt, Bulge etc, they all show unability to coordinate or even just control the forces, and the practiced principles are not very sound. the end result is uncoordinated, badly prepared, piecemeal attacks, far too often with single-arms forces, that are defeated by lesser numbers & lesser quality.

if you look at the offensives and then replace German unit names with Russian ones and change dates by three years, you could as well be reading about the Soviet offensive operations of 1941/2. including cowardly yes-men who give senseless orders, only so that the high command would not think they lack determination and loyalty.

it's hard to escape the conclusion that German staffs, and thus ultimately German commanders, at corps and above level, performed by average below the norm in offensive operations. this probably tells of doctrinal weakness under the circumstances & unability to improvise and adjust.

perhaps this is racist, but i think it's hard to escape the facts.

BTW Germans thought their positions & posture was disadvantageous in Normandy.

[JSj]

I hardly think you can blame the German staffs for the faliure of the German large scale attacks in the ETO. By this time, the Germans were so outmatched that any large scale attack had no chance of succeding. The allied airpower obliterated any attempt to maneuver with any substantial forces.

Hitler insisted on the counterattack after Cobra, even though the German commanders told him it was impossible. The forces were too depleted after the Normandy fighting, and there was no chance of any success. They wanted to retreat beyond the Seine to avoind being trapped. Hitler forced them to attack anyway, the offensive naturally failed, and many German troops were as a result trapped in the Falaise pocket.

Even when the Germans managed to gather enough forces to gain a temporary local superiority (like during the battle of the Bulge, where they had to attack under cover of bad weather to avoid the allied air) the allies could eventually throw in their massive resources to counter and defeat the attack. After the weather cleared the German offensive in the Ardennes was doomed. They also were running out of supplies.

The Generals in charge of the forces and the staff officers of course knew all this, and they opposed pretty much every one of these failed attacks, but Hitler insisted on them, and replaced anyone who refused to carry out his orders.

[pamak_1970]

I think we are talking about different things here. I was referring to the tendency of many British tanks to break down on the way to the battlefield or on it. Many historians have commented that the Stuart was the first really reliable tank they had in the theater. That may be an exaggeration, but if so it appears to be an exaggeration of a genuine dilemma.

Michael

I think what happened was that british were using the same type of argument Germans used when they suffered high casualties in tanks. "we lost many because of break downs and we were forced to abandon them".

I don't say that it is not possible to have more reliable and less reliable tanks. But it is interesting to note that when Germans had also numerous breakdowns but were winning, this didn't pass into the bibliography. It became an issue only when they started losing battles. In other words when you are a winner, it is a given that you will experience many breakdowns during operations and marches. When you are the loser, you feel the need to point this given fact

Depending on what level you read an event, you will see that books examining operational victories talk about swift panzer maneuvers which was true. But if you go to micro-level and especially to armor repair bibliography, you see high amounts of breakdown during long marches. But most of them were minor ones quickly repaired and rejoined the unit when the last halted for a few hours for reorganization and refueling after a long march.

When you read stuff like "our division didn't lose many tanks during the 100 km march", it doesn't mean they didn't have numerous breakdowns. It means that whatever brokedown was quickly repaired and joined the following attack.

I can't post online some of the stuff i have, but i can post something which is already online to make comparisons.

It is a study from RAND

"The Impact of Equipment

Availability and Reliability

on Mission Outcomes"

This is about modern tanks which are much more reliable. Although most of the study is about the construction of a computer model, the hard data they use come from national training center statistics where US units execute long road marches.

here is the link. You can download the pdf file for free

http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB423.html

Go to page 31 and notice the bar graph which expresses the availability of equipment if breakdowns during a march of 50 and 100 km is taken in consideration. The percentage of vehicles becoming unavailable because of breakdowns is big. Try to imagine now the situation in wwii

[Battlefront.com]

i find it striking how German staffs are unable to execute large scale offensive operations in ETO. if you look at the initial push against the landings, the counter to Cobra, actions around Arracourt, Bulge etc, they all show unability to coordinate or even just control the forces, and the practiced principles are not very sound. the end result is uncoordinated, badly prepared, piecemeal attacks, far too often with single-arms forces, that are defeated by lesser numbers & lesser quality.

I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that the Germans were caught VERY unprepared to fight in Normandy against any force of any size, not to mention a huge one that was capable of hitting lines of communications pretty much any time it wanted to. So the Germans were in a perpetual state of confusion the entire campaign. The Allies, because they had many advantages and were on the attack, had less confusion.

The second reason I see is that when the Germans attacked they faced the same problems the Allies did when they were on the attack. The terrain favors the defender and standard maneuver tactics simply don't work. The difference is the Allies had lots and lots of practice to figure out how to attack through the terrain, the Germans almost none. Even with all this experience, the Allies were only just starting to get the hang of it when they managed to get out of the hedgerows. Then it switched to a more traditional maneuver battle and the Germans were too worn out and shell shocked to respond aggressively. They DID execute an amazingly good withdrawal though, of course aided by Allied supply line problems.

Steve

[dan/california]

This has been brought up before, but Normandy was largely a battle of attrition. The Germans just ran out of more or less everything, including bodies.

Too a large extent the battle was lost by their complete inability to interdict either the Mid Atlantic convoy routes or the English Channel. The German forces in Normandy fought reasonably well, but were just eroded away.

And whatever forces and supplies the Germans could send west had to get to the front under relentless air attack. Locomotives for instance were one the best targets for fighter planes. They can't dodge at all, and can barely hide either.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

I hardly think you can blame the German staffs for the faliure of the German large scale attacks in the ETO.

they, as an organization, is what did run the show. the organization, chain of command or whatever one wants to call it, was clearly broken and unable to execute offensives of corps size or larger.

By this time, the Germans were so outmatched that any large scale attack had no chance of succeding.

i don't buy that. the tactical units on their hands were of excellent quality and in sufficient numbers. they simply failed to play their cards well.

The allied airpower obliterated any attempt to maneuver with any substantial forces.

i can't think of any single case where that happened.

Hitler insisted on the counterattack after Cobra, even though the German commanders told him it was impossible. The forces were too depleted after the Normandy fighting, and there was no chance of any success. They wanted to retreat beyond the Seine to avoind being trapped. Hitler forced them to attack anyway, the offensive naturally failed, and many German troops were as a result trapped in the Falaise pocket.

no matter what the chances for success, the counterattack was poorly executed.

Even when the Germans managed to gather enough forces to gain a temporary local superiority (like during the battle of the Bulge, where they had to attack under cover of bad weather to avoid the allied air) the allies could eventually throw in their massive resources to counter and defeat the attack. After the weather cleared the German offensive in the Ardennes was doomed. They also were running out of supplies.

again, ignoring the potential effect of the operation, the planning and execution was of poor quality.

The Generals in charge of the forces and the staff officers of course knew all this, and they opposed pretty much every one of these failed attacks, but Hitler insisted on them, and replaced anyone who refused to carry out his orders.

yes yes, but just because Rundstedt says he hates the idea of Bulge, it doesn't any less mean that the planning and execution of the offensive would not have been far from effective.

[dan/california]

If the plot to kill Hitler had succeeded a rational General staff would have sent every thing to the east and tried to minimize the amount of German territory taken by the Russians. They should have done everything possible to lose in the West and hold in the east. The Americans simply would not have sacked Berlin in the same fashion the Russians did.

[ChrisND]

If the plot to kill Hitler had succeeded a rational General staff would have sent every thing to the east and tried to minimize the amount of German territory taken by the Russians. They should have done everything possible to lose in the West and hold in the east. The Americans simply would not have sacked Berlin in the same fashion the Russians did.

That might make for an interesting hypothetical game.

[Sgt Joch]

Tactically, even when the Germans had superiority, they did not succeed.

A good example is the defence of Putot-en-bassin and Bretteville by the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade on june 7-10. They were attacked by the 12th SS Panzer division, but by employing proper defensive positions backed up by AT guns and pre-registered artillery, the 7th Bde stopped all the attacks cold.

The 12th commander, Kurt Meyer, later admitted he had underestimated the canadians, employing tactics that had worked on the Ostfront (basically charging his tanks at the canadian positions) but that were useless against well trained troops.

[zukkov]

remember, the US was defeated by the duchy of grand fenwick, so how good could we be? :-p