Identification of, and, control of access to resources...same as always.Originally Posted by JMA
Back in the day you guys wore fancy plate armor, carried swords, and struck terror into the serfs as you rode by on your way to jousting tournaments to ceremoniously fight over raw commodities (primarily) agricultural (primarily), industrial (not much), and intellectual (some) bounty. And those damn high tech crossbows were bad form, ya?
Today it's still about fights over raw commodities, agricultural, industrial, and intellectual bounty...we just don't carry swords.......and the fields of battle are no longer limited to just combatants
Sapere Aude
Here's a list
Which ones were the "raw cannon fodder divisions" that were "chewed up" ?
2nd Armored
3rd Armored
5th Armored
7th Armored
8th Armored
2nd Infantry
8th Infantry
28th Infantry
29th Infantry
30th Infantry
35th Infantry
78th Infantry
79th Infantry
83rd Infantry
84th Infantry
95th Infantry
102nd Infantry
104th Infantry
Show and Tell Facts Time.
Regards
Mike
I might be misunderstanding what is implied by your use of ‘full equipped,’ but the Allies had logistics issues of their own on the way to the Rhine.
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
Yes you are... compared to what the Germans had to make do with at that time.
...but when we 'rode' into battle back then there was no confusion about who we were and what we were and what our mission was.Identification of, and, control of access to resources...same as always.
Back in the day you guys wore fancy plate armor, carried swords, and struck terror into the serfs as you rode by on your way to jousting tournaments to ceremoniously fight over raw commodities (primarily) agricultural (primarily), industrial (not much), and intellectual (some) bounty. And those damn high tech crossbows were bad form, ya?
Today it's still about fights over raw commodities, agricultural, industrial, and intellectual bounty...we just don't carry swords...
I'm sure the Brits will be encouraged to hear this
All other things *not* being equal.
I’ll give you that if you’ll give me that zee Germans did have the defensive advantage. The drive to the Rhine was about rooting them out, not facing them in pitched battle.
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
The insufficient German fuel production was crashed to about 10% of its former output during that period and German truck productions had been smaller than truck losses for three years in a row by mid-'44...
You do understand that the fully motorised Western allies took six months in 1944 to reconquer against the numerically inferior shambles of an army what the Germans had conquered in 1940 against a numerically equal opponent in six weeks, having only a 15% motorised force?
This doesn't even take into account the 10:1 versus 1:1 air power ratios and multiplied overall air power effectiveness.
There's little doubt that given the circumstances, the Allied advance through France was slow.
Last edited by Fuchs; 03-11-2012 at 08:24 PM.
Soliders *know* how to read a map and what it means with respect to the area and systems they are to work within. That hasn't changed, and i suspect that i don't need to remind you to review a map of current and past operations in order to refresh those hard-won insights.
Soldiers *are not* swayed by the ephemeral twaddle spewed by chicken-hawk-draft-dodging-patron-seeking or Kantian-dreaming-draft-dodging-patron-seeking politicians of whatever nation.
Sword, deed, and then word...or something like that.
Sapere Aude
It still seems like apples and oranges to me.
If the two are compared, is the implication that had the Allies been less heavily motorized they would have proceeded more quickly? But can you really compare the two? Apart from the seasons, the French forces and the BEF evacuated to fight another day. The Germans didn’t have that option. This has to have had a bearing on how long things took to shake out.
My main point is not to argue that the Allies were as skilled and artful as the Germans. I don’t know enough to make or judge a nuanced argument about that, anyway. But I do feel like I know enough to be skeptical about attributing any American success solely to superior resources. If holding the keys to Ali Baba’s cave were a guarantee of victory Man United and the New York Yankees would win the championship every year and the Taliban would be a historical footnote.
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
Dunkirk and Falaise were comparable.
The greater difference is that the Allies did not keep devaluing defensive lines with turning movements because their spearheads did not advance so daringly.
The German army did not allow the French to re-establish an uninterrupted front for weeks, while the Allies did so in 1944. The range till culminating point of attack was surprisingly short for the UK/US forces of 1944.
This is a bit astonishing since the motorised Allies had more than enough fast (technically) forces for the necessary moves and they also had almost inexhaustible air support (flying arty and supply) for their spearheads.
There was a dispute between Rommel and von Rundstedt in early '44 about whether to fight an invasion at the coastline or to do so in manoeuvre warfare. Von Rundstedt believed in the German superiority in the latter, Rommel saw the only chance in an even thicker version of his El Alamein defence.
It appears as if Rundstedt judged the operational warfare qualities correctly, but Rommel judged the relative material strength correctly (both being partially correct appears to be a decent explanation for the disagreement of two largely competent men).
This, btw, is somewhat on topic; it shows that combat participation / motivation / small unit leadership issues were probably not the main issue back in the '44 French campaign. The key failures can be described with operational-level terminology.
Expand on this please
It's quite simple. The advancing forces were not able to prevent that the defenders re-established an effective defence (defence with little to no further loss of terrain in the short term) shortly after the old defence was broken.
The Germans penetrated at Sedan, broke through tough reserves on some elevated terrain a few kilometres later (Stonne etc) and then didn't allow the French to re-establish a new defensive line until hundreds of kilometres farther west.
It was like a boxer who forces his opponent to stumble backwards for 10, 20 metres, not allowing him to regain his balance and stiffer defensive posture earlier. The German culminating point of attack was quite far.
On the defence in 1944 they merely made a step or two backwards before they regained their balance, all the while their opponent was technically fast enough to run circles around them (keep in mind the German troops did not only lack motorisation and fuel; they were also largely unable to march in daylight due to allied air supremacy!).
Small unit performance was certainly an enabler, but the real fault laid on the operational level, the grand tactics about the employment of divisions and battlegroups / combat teams. The British were way too timid and the Americans didn't exactly exploit the full potential of their internal combustion engines either.
My limited knowledge of WW2 military history leads me to understand that the Allied commanders in Europe were pretty squirrely about utilizing CAS. Is that a correct understanding on my part?
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
Some of them were, while others weren't. In some cases it came down to technological issues (air-ground coordination wasn't always that spiffy), in others it came down to issues identifying targets. In many cases what's viewed as CAS was really defined by the Air Corps as battlefield interdiction and thus might not come under the direct control of the ground commander. Often it came down to individual personalities. Patton, for example, had a good relationship with his Air Corps people (Weyland in particular, who used techniques developed by Quesada for First Army).
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Dunno what "squirrely" means, but they for sure used their bombers and fighter-bombers well for interdiction.
The availability of CAS (in air power per division) exceeded what the Heer enjoyed in 99.9% of its campaigning. The only comparable massing of CAS happened in May 1940 at Sedan on one day; a pre-planned attack sequence.
Armoured spearheads detach from supply lanes (which wouldn't be secure anyway) by design. They need to do so in order to be quick.
This in turn means their ammunition is rather scarce and they are extremely grateful for 'flying artillery' (CAS) in cases when they need to break (instead of circumvent) some stiff resistance deep in hostile territory.
The Luftwaffe was never really good at this and had only sporadic moments of success in it (which get exaggerated a lot). The Allies had at least the tools for it in excess; range, payload, numbers, radio tech.
Some of the Allied divisions had fighter-bombers on patrol overhead during their advance in autumn. The best a German division had on station in their offensive campaigns was a spotter plane. Te attack aircraft took off, cruised, searched, spotted, attacked, returned, landed - rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. No time (or fuel) for CAS patrols.
The Luftwaffe at least had some doctrine to deal with CAS and a history of it going back to World War I. The AAC was making a great deal of theirs up on the fly (so to speak) and had to deal with a level of institutional hostility to the entire concept. Where US CAS was good it could be very good, but it was not so much a matter of accepted and applied doctrine. Interdiction was better simply because it was closer to what many within the AAC thought they should be doing anyway: bombing behind the lines to stop production and break will. That made it easier to support and (within the internal political AAC situation) justify. CAS was much more developed, IMO, in the Pacific. But that was an entirely different situation.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
The Luftwaffe had a doctrine for CAS? That eluded me so far.
They had miniscule numbers of Hs 123 for CAS, near-useless Hs 126 spotter planes (later Fi 156) and the Ju 87 B (later D).
The Ju 87 was used for interdiction. It smashed the rail network, trains, march columns - very rarely did they intervene in actual battles. Ground troops had no compatible radios. There was no ground spotter system in place, arty spotters had no clue about air power.
I didn't even find any indication that Luftwaffe field divisions were any better in air/ground cooperation than army divisions!
The Luftwaffe CAS doctrine was basically to lay out some flags on the ground to tell the Ju 87's to bomb someone else.
CAS only really began with Fw 190Fs in 1943 and the small number of Hs 129 when attack air power (and the fast divisions) turned into firefighters against crisis situations on the Eastern Front and away from facilitating grand operational moves.
If you look at Luftwaffe doctrine from 1936, they certainly had some. They also had a very detailed system developed as early as 1917. Doesn't mean it was always used, and they did make some very poor aircraft design decisions, but the thought process was certainly there prior to 1940.
And they certainly had more extant than the AAC did.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
1936? Prior to the Spanish Civil War? Why do you take that seriously?
Doesn't matter, I will look it up sometime. They surely did not pay much attention to CAS, though.
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