So are German forces "better" on average?

[undead reindeer cavalry]

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.

that's exactly because of the staff. earlier someone commented that Germans had been preparing defences for 4 years, but that's not the case. similarly it was up to the staff how to position the panzer divisions and so forth. it was also up to the staff to consider the initial actions after the landings and by a great extended the latter ones as well.

even if they can't do something smart, like redo the "backhand blow" after they recognize what the situation is around mid June, the way they run the operations is still their call.

So the Germans were in a perpetual state of confusion the entire campaign.

lol yeah, even corps level staffs often don't know what whole divisions are doing or where actually they are. the way they use the units is clumsy and, uhh, confused. it's the same every case. it's systematic failure. just like summer 1941.

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 corps & higher staffs don't organize a single good attack. they just waste the mostly excellent tactical units in confused useless attacks on meaningless tiny objectives. when they try to do something bigger everything falls apart. and in the end there is even no need for Germans to make a single unfavorable attack in the terrain once the situation becomes clear. they failed to adapt and make things work and instead wasted the excellent tactical level material.

The difference is the Allies had lots and lots of practice to figure out how to attack through the terrain, the Germans almost none.

it's not about the terrain. the result is similar mess when the terrain is different (for example consider Arracourt or the non-bocage areas in Normandy).

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.

imagine if they started doing it mid June.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

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.

on June 7th Putot was attacked by a single infantry battalion of 12th SS. the Canadian battalion defending Putot was encircled and routed. Putot was then attacked by 24th Lancers (a British cavalry regiment). then the tanks of the 24th withdrew. then another Canandian battalion, supported by a company of tanks, attacked Putot. because the German battalion had no AT assets, and had just experienced an attack by a tank regiment, they had to withdraw from Putot.

the Canadian battalion originally defending Putot suffered 265 losses. the other Canadian battalion that retook Putot lost 125 men. the German battalion that attacked, took and then withdrew from Putot lost 98 men.

you count which side had superior forces in the battle, and what the odds of the attack were and what the the results look like from that perspective.

i know this initial battle is not what you are after, but i don't have time to deal with the later battles properly at the moment.

[Sergei]

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

In a sense, it was - had England been, say, 500 km away from the French coast, Allied fighter bombers wouldn't have been such an issue. And had the Normandy coast not been surrounded by water, the Allied naval fleets couldn't have bombarded the defenders so effectively.

In the end, though, it's a question of how big an industrial muscle you have to support your fronts - if we only looked at how good the armed forces were on average, it's clear who are the greatest military power in the world. Vatican. With one elite company (and the support of God), the Pope should be able to put the world under his iron heeled boot.

It still doesn't make it worthless to try to determine who had the better training, better doctrines, etc. but it becomes unclear because at times of trouble, standards of training will have to go down, doctrines become ignored or there isn't time to look for more suitable doctrines for the situation, etc. There are many ways to look at the matter, but no way for a final word. Germany started the war in 1939 as a military superpower, and ended it with unconditional surrender, occupied by four Allied armies. Soviet Union executed most of her officers in the 1930's, got beaten in 1939 by pesky Finns and in, but by 1945 had the most powerful army in the world. What does that mean? Well, nothing. It's history, you can't expect it to make sense in a way that can be put into a single sentence.

[pagskier]

on June 7th Putot was attacked by a single infantry battalion of 12th SS. .

I think he means Bretteville-Norrey-Putot

German were def. better conducted on the front than there allied counter part in june... as the war advance Western allied gained experience. 12 SS did some major mistake also on june 7th even if they had experienced leaders but they were still green troop overall and I think if you analyse the battle vs the canadian you can see some noob mistake from them too. (I can't tell wich one right now I forgot)

I say german had better material for the most part, more experience leader in June-July. But at the end W allied had more material and man and finally gained there experience through hell

[Waycool]

This is a very interesting article about these two formations blooded in Normandy.

Cardonville was a very interesting battle.

http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%203/issue%201/Haller%20-%20The%20Defeat%20of%20the%2012th%20SS%207-10%20June%201944.pdf

[pagskier]

Cool I'm looking forward for those scenarios in the next modules

that's what I'm looking for!

[JasonC]

Since a lot of people seem to be pulling things out of their posteriors on this thread, I thought I'd provide a few facts to be spun away merrily.

The Germans sent 2200 full AFVs to Normandy. Between 50 and 200 were left by the end of August at the westwall.

The US lost 982 mediums in the same period, and the Brits (including Canadians and Poles etc) lost 1190.

The ratio of tank losses was thus around 1.15 to 1, slight edge to the Germans, over the whole fight. The US also lost around 275 light tanks (most in the race across France), and I haven't found the Brit figures for their lights. At the outside the ratio might rise to 1.33 to 1 if you count all light tank losses and the Brit ones are comparable; Germans used few lights in Normandy (some captured French types early etc).

The Allies lost 209,000 men in the battle, while the Germans appear to have lost 293,000. An additional 83,000 Germans from the field army were bottled up in the port fortresses, along with 140,000 others (naval personnel, service and fortress garrisons, etc).

On the most generous accounting to the Germans, the manpower losses ran 1.4 to 1 favor the Allies; on the most stringent, more like 2 to 2.5 to 1 against them. Large portions of these were prisoners - first big haul of those came when Cherbourg fell in late June, and there was also a huge bag (around 90,000) for Falaise.

The idea that the Germans were inflicting considerably higher losses in either tanks or men than they were taking, is simply false. They may have in the defensive portions of the fighting when the line was holding, but they paid it all back with interest when the line broke and their position came apart.

By any conceivable measure, the German army in Normandy was resoundingly defeated.

Yes it faced an enemy superior in overall odds and in firepower arms. No it didn't inflict outsized losses on that superior enemy. That did happen as a rule in the east against the Russians, clear to the end of the war. It did not happen as a rule or overall in the west against the better equipped and supplied western Allies. Who yes had more to work with, but also traded basically at even odds, and cleaned the Germans' clock as a result.

[Waycool]

Who yes had more to work with, but also traded basically at even odds, and cleaned the Germans' clock as a result.

Hear hear!

[Dietrich]

My two cents:

So are German forces "better" on average?

Only if... aw, hell, this thread has already gone into overtime; and I'd rather spend my time at something other than continuing to pummel a deceased equine animal.

<wry sarcasm> If ever the Germans won (or, if one prefers, "didn't lose") a battle, it was either because the opposing troops were inept or because the Germans had material superiority. Any idea of the Germans being generally "superior" in any way and against any foe is just an "echo" from post-war interrogations of German officers with regard to their fighting the Soviets. </wry sarcasm>

[Sgt Schultz]

General Patton, General Montgomery and General Zhukov did not win WWII.

General Motors won WWII.

*

[purpheart23]

General Patton, General Montgomery and General Zhukov did not win WWII.

General Motors won WWII.

*

Well played Sir.

[Stagler]

As a professional military historian I can say that this topic has been bantered over for my past half decade in higher study. What I would recommend is reading Allan Millet and Williamson Murray's Military Effectiveness, Volume 3.

As is so oft said, history is what we make it, so its really up to oneself to look into the topic and then form their own educated conclusion.

[purpheart23]

Oh hai stag. I look forward to discussing this subject over freshly roasted shermans. Cheers mate.

[Magpie_Oz]

General Patton, General Montgomery and General Zhukov did not win WWII.

General Motors won WWII.

*

Oh no it didn't

From the Wikipedia on GM:

"General Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles, and aircraft during World War II for both Allied and Axis customers. By the spring of 1939, the German Government had assumed day-to-day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them. During the war, the U.S. auto companies continued to be concerned Nazi Germany would nationalize American-owned factories.

Nevertheless, while General Motors has claimed its German (Opel) operations were outside its control during World War II, this assertion appears to be contradicted by available evidence. General Motors was not just a car company that happened to have factories in Germany; GM management from the top down had extensive connections with the Nazi Party, both on a business and personal level. During the war Opel's Brandenburg facilities produced bombers JU-88, trucks, land mines and torpedo detonators for Nazi Germany. During the war years GM declared it had abandoned its Nazi subsidiary, and took a complete tax write-off because of which they have received tax reduction of "approximately $22.7 million" or about $285 billion in 21st-century money. After the war GM collected some $33 million in "war reparations" because the Allies had bombed its German facilities for which they have earlier declared complete tax write-off and received tax reduction."

ahhh corporate pragmatism at its best

[sburke]

Oh no it didn't

From the Wikipedia on GM:

"General Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles, and aircraft during World War II for both Allied and Axis customers. By the spring of 1939, the German Government had assumed day-to-day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them. During the war, the U.S. auto companies continued to be concerned Nazi Germany would nationalize American-owned factories.

Nevertheless, while General Motors has claimed its German (Opel) operations were outside its control during World War II, this assertion appears to be contradicted by available evidence. General Motors was not just a car company that happened to have factories in Germany; GM management from the top down had extensive connections with the Nazi Party, both on a business and personal level. During the war Opel's Brandenburg facilities produced bombers JU-88, trucks, land mines and torpedo detonators for Nazi Germany. During the war years GM declared it had abandoned its Nazi subsidiary, and took a complete tax write-off because of which they have received tax reduction of "approximately $22.7 million" or about $285 billion in 21st-century money. After the war GM collected some $33 million in "war reparations" because the Allies had bombed its German facilities for which they have earlier declared complete tax write-off and received tax reduction."

ahhh corporate pragmatism at its best

sometimes ignorance really is bliss

[Magpie_Oz]

OK I won't bring up Kodak, Seimens, Bayer, Hugo Boss, Ford, Chase Bank, Standard Oil, Coca-Cola, IBM and Random house

[sburke]

OK I won't bring up Kodak, Seimens, Bayer, Hugo Boss, Ford, Chase Bank, Standard Oil, Coca-Cola, IBM and Random house

Not Coca Cola, not the people who taught the world to sing in perfect harmony!! You cruel cynical monster!

[JSj]

The Germans sent 2200 full AFVs to Normandy. Between 50 and 200 were left by the end of August at the westwall.

The US lost 982 mediums in the same period, and the Brits (including Canadians and Poles etc) lost 1190

Only 1 in 4 of the allied AFV:s were American medium tanks. No exact numbers exist for total allied AFV losses, but including tank destroyers, and using the American mediums as a basis, they most likely lost around 4,000. German losses (also including TD:s), were, as you noted, around 2,000. That's a 1:2 ratio. If you then consider that only 1 in 5 German losses were combat losses, most were from lack of fuel when they retreated, it's clear that the German AFV losses in actual combat were much lower.

[LongLeftFlank]

Great, it seems the "IBM Caused the Holocaust" "America Created Bin Laden" "There Is No Evil Arising In The World Since 1623 That Cannot Somehow Be Laid At America's Door" crowd is now boarding the train.

[JasonC]

Wrong JSj. I have included the TD losses. And by the way, they were miniscule. The US lost only about 70 TDs up to the Cobra breakout - all of 6 M-18 Hellcats, the rest M-10s. Numbers do exist for Allied AFV losses and I gave them to you. The idea that the allies lost 4000 AFVs in Normandy is false - it stems from the usual error of taking German kill *claims* as actual kills. As soon as the same and correct standard of own side loss reporting is applied, any outscoring disappears.

And this is not a one time anomoly. The US also trades evenly with German armor in the Lorraine fighting (green Panzer brigades ring any bells? Arracourt?) The US also trades evenly with German armor in the Bulge period. And in the Nordwind period. Panthers did not outscore average US armor either. US TDs outscored both US tanks and the average German AFV. Yes Virginia, you read that correctly, the supposedly "failed" TDs (who were underemployed through primary mission success) beat the average, and did so pretty dramatically.

German armor did not outperform allied armor in the west. The best that can be said for it is that the Brits committed several fearsome stuff ups in the Normandy period in set piece attacks.

A prime reason for this apparently unintuitive result is that German armor doctrine was overly aggressive, and the operational circumstances of German armor use were frequently nonsensical as a result. Glorious death rides abounded, sensible use of the available equipment, not so much.

Panzer Lehr, already reduced to about 50% strength from fighting on the British front, counterattacked straight into an oncoming entire US corps in early July. It lost about half its remaining armor in a day.

When 2nd Armored broke out in Cobra, it fought through elements of half a dozen German divisions within the first 72 hours, including several panzer. Cleaned their clocks royally.

The German high command then had the bright idea of taking practically every AFV left in theater still in running order, and pushing them to the far end of the forming sack, in a death ride for Mortain trying to cut the US corridor to the sea. They failed entirely with the lost of about 50 AFVs, and were then hopelessly out of position to escape the Falaise pocket. Many were abandoned trying.

Fresh green panzer brigades with magnificant equipment (full strength Panther battalions e.g.) were thrown independently into the onrushing US 3rd Army in the Lorraine and annihilated in a day each. 3rd Army burped politely and continued on. One such brigade had the ignominy of having its entire Panther battalion destroyed, along with half its Panzer IV battalion, by a single French combat command in a single day.

At Arracourt, US TDs outscored Panthers in close range knife fighting in fog. "Why were the Panthers fighting in fog?" It beat trying to fight in broad daylight with a hundred P-47s flying this way and that. Outranging the enemy 1500 meters to 400 meters in lethal range doesn't help a whole heck of a lot if you can never fight in conditions of that visibility.

In the Bulge, Peiper threw away a super powered armored KG out of sheer arrogant contempt for the pedestrian US engineers, infantry, and paras cutting every bridge around him until he was immobilized.

12SS threw away about as much slightly to the north attacking into massed corps level artillery fires and several battalions of TDs, some with 90mm guns.

2nd Panzer got eviscerated by 2nd Armored at Celles, Panthers losing to Shermans, because they were strung out, poorly deployed, unsupported by air and artillery while 2nd Armored coordinated such support superbly, etc.

Know when German armor attacking US forces did great and broke through, in the entire war? Kasserine in Tunisia when the US forces were completely green, and the first week of the Bulge on the most overloaded sectors where they had 5 to 1 odds and up. That's it. Whole war. Every other armor attack in the west against US forces was a fiasco.

It is not like there were so many we can't count them and go through them one by one. I have.

[JSj]

Wrong JSj. I have included the TD losses. And by the way, they were miniscule. The US lost only about 70 TDs up to the Cobra breakout - all of 6 M-18 Hellcats, the rest M-10s. Numbers do exist for Allied AFV losses and I gave them to you. The idea that the allies lost 4000 AFVs in Normandy is false - it stems from the usual error of taking German kill *claims* as actual kills.

And where do they exist? I just read a study by someone that were using all available sources and records, and they claim only accurate data for lost medium tanks exist.

BTW, the Germans had a tendency to underestimate rather than overestimate enemy losses. Their claims are usually very accurate, or even slightly lower than the numbers found in allied records.

What did the allies do with their TD:s if what you claim is correct? They had more TD:s than medium tanks, but still lost thousands of mediums and only 70 TD:s?

[silverstars]

Great, it seems the "IBM Caused the Holocaust" "America Created Bin Laden" "There Is No Evil Arising In The World Since 1623 That Cannot Somehow Be Laid At America's Door" crowd is now boarding the train.

This is part of the reason I'm almost happy China is going to surpass us economically. That way the naysayers will actually have a brutal, dogmatic government to lay their qualms upon instead of us being the "go-to Guys".

Also, are you an American living in Canada? Or you just a very understanding Canadian?

[sburke]

Great, it seems the "IBM Caused the Holocaust" "America Created Bin Laden" "There Is No Evil Arising In The World Since 1623 That Cannot Somehow Be Laid At America's Door" crowd is now boarding the train.

Now now, recognizing that International corporations rarely consider the national interests of any country before their own profit margins is not the same as trying to blame America for anything. The way I read the previous statement about General Motors was that they ran businesses in Germany until we went to war, then took a tax write off for loss of the business. The bit about collecting the reparations for the damaged facilities - now that you have to give them some credit for in terms of underhanded dealing. Actually not a particularly surprising tale and one that can likely be repeated in dozens of wars in dozens of countries by corporations and governments everywhere.

Want to see something really twisted - read the section on WW2 on the wiki page for Siemens. Imagine a Nazi party member making a concerted effort to stop the rape of Nanking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens

Another good one - Giap turned in a competitor in the Vietnamese independence movement to French Security forces in Shanghai.

We humans are a strange complicated group.

[Battlefront.com]

Time to close this one up. It's long past the 300 post tradition and it could probably wind on for the next 40 years with no end in sight. We've had a good discussion, but there's nothing to be gained by continuing it.

Steve