WW2 Documents, Myths and Facts

Wars are won at the Strategic level. The allies and the soviets were on the ball on this one. However, other things points out to operational art at the tactical and operational levels- basically the W.Allied armies aren't aggressive, effective, or ambitious enough. Basically the West Front armies and airpower may have needed a different configuration and doctrine other than variations of 'methodical' battle. It would be an attempt to replicate blitzkrieg, although in West. Allied terms.

Part of your response I feel the need to speak on. The Allies and Soviets were not really "On the Ball". Let me explain:
Italy -> Allies continually lost much more resources because of the Germans ability to enact a defensive war on their terms. Allied solution? Land further up the coast. This achieved little success for months because the German ability to contain the landing zones. By wars end the Allies had yet to break out of Italy into southern Europe. While yes they lost the "WAR" the Germans had managed to stand firm within Italy against allies who were "On the Ball".
France -> Most initial Allied success was because of thier ability to war from the air. Without Air Power the war in France would have lasted significantly longer thus who knows what it would have looked like. The Air power was not due to Strategic Level but due to Resource Level and Technical Level. The P-51, Typhoon, Spitfires not only out numbered German Aircraft but they were replaceable and often had more technical advantages.
Russia -> Russia is a bit harder. Strategically Both sides were in the equal. The difference was that Russia had much more resources at thier dispolesl coupled with the fact that they had intel. Intel wins more wars than "Plans". Furthermore, German had good strategies through out the war but were hampered by military structure (Hitler in command etc.).

My point being: Wars are not won on the strategic level. Battles are won on the backs of the men whom fight it and the War is won on the backs of the home front whom continue to support and supply the needs of war. As Ike said "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."

There is a difference. The Germans running on "a razors edge" were doing it against the '41 Soviet Army and the US and Brits were moving against the Germans. It is one thing to go up against an opponent that has already proven to be operationally, tactically and strategically deficient and quite another to attack an opponent that has already proven operational and tactical competence and assume or presume they are no longer that incapable.

Even in Case Blue the Soviets, while they had losses, their losses weren't what they had been. They were becoming more adept and losses, while still losses, were progressively less costly. I think that their biggest "take" was 75,000 was seen as a disappointment rather than an accomplishment.

The Allies did try a "fast" redoubling of the penetration idea in Market Garden. And Market Garden was actually a pretty near thing. But they managed to drop an airborne division in such a way that there was 2 Pz divisions between it and the objective. Had they known perhaps it would have been done differently, or the resources gone to Patton, or the 1st Airborne dropped south of the bridge, or if the landings had taken place with less prep but when the Germans were more disorganized, or, or...

I do know landings south of the Arnhem bridge were possible, which would have meant they could have reached the bridge in brigade strength, and would have been closer to the rest of the division and to resupply from dropzones. I don't know if that would have been enough to hold it until relieved, though the one battalion that made it did manage to hold the bridge for several days.

Once Market Garden fails and it was too late to keep the initiative on Patton's front it just doesn't make sense for the allies to take the risks IF THEY DON'T HAVE TO.

I think you are seeing it as a football game a bit. The whole German war was a giant gamble against a superior coalition that fell apart in 1941', and the rest was just them trying to figure out how to avoid total defeat. (which was pretty damn interesting in its own right)

True, the German military weakness was a tendency to be hyperaggressive and execute operations on a razor edge. You can see this from the small unit up to the grand strategic level. It's madness. But it was also a double edged sword.

Case Blue actually had many encirclements- just nothing compared to Barbarossa or Typhoon phase I. The biggest one was the encirclement at Kalach (up to 75,000)and the early ones in the caucasus. The real effect was the rapid gain of territory with the panzer drives, which caused the soviet armies to retreat and lose much of their stores and equipment making them much less effective in future ops. The irony is that the pre-Case Blue encirclements (up to 230,000) and surgical ops were more successful at reducing the soviet oob.

American/British complaints of logistics problems and the British manpower crisis actually pale compared to German problems in 41' and 42'. As early late august 1941, the German mobile forces could only get their strength up to 50-75% maximum in all categories provided a two week refitting period. Their actual strength was around 50% in armor and vehicles operable. By mid-Oct 1941, for instance, the Germans had only 13% of their vehicle fleet still running and were typically getting only 40-60% of the minimum supplies they needed to sustain the offensive. And they were just starting Operation Typhoon!! Then in two weeks, the Vyzama/Bryansk pockets are closed with over a million into the prisoner hauls or dead.

Wars are won at the Strategic level. The allies and the soviets were on the ball on this one. However, other things points out to operational art at the tactical and operational levels- basically the W.Allied armies aren't aggressive, effective, or ambitious enough. Basically the West Front armies and airpower may have needed a different configuration and doctrine other than variations of 'methodical' battle. It would be an attempt to replicate blitzkrieg, although in West. Allied terms. In 1940 you have Rommel's 7.Pz taking 94,000 British and French prisoners before the armistice using german methods. The others did nearly as good in France and in Russia 41'.

Well, Doomturtle the things you are pointing out are at the operational and tactical level. At the 'strategic' level I am talking about the big view- economics, manpower, force generation, strategic positioning, raw materials, etc.

A partial disadvantage of the US/UK/CW is the sensitivity to human losses. A totalitarian state didn't run the country. They get reported quickly in democracies by the press, so a nothing situation like Ortona gets reported as the 'Canadian Stalingrad'. The military is in the end controlled by civilians. The buildup of the US Army reflected the nature of American society. Something like Blitzkrieg would be a hard sell.

Italy -> Allies continually lost much more resources because of the Germans ability to enact a defensive war on their terms. Allied solution? Land further up the coast. This achieved little success for months because the German ability to contain the landing zones. By wars end the Allies had yet to break out of Italy into southern Europe. While yes they lost the "WAR" the Germans had managed to stand firm within Italy against allies who were "On the Ball".

Oh, I believe Anzio was well executed up to the point of the landing. After that it failed due to a surfeit of caution. There was so little resistance they thought there was a trap to be sprung. I think Patton would have done better than Clark.

If you were going to choose a front to defend, could you have chosen a better place than Italy? There are only hills and mountains and there is no room for strategic maneuver. It is a defensive dream. It is probably one situation were massed airborne landings might have worked.... but where would you land them? There is a reason it took so much longer than the rest of Europe to unite it.

Well, Doomturtle the things you are pointing out are at the operational and tactical level. At the 'strategic' level I am talking about the big view- economics, manpower, force generation, strategic positioning, raw materials, etc.

A partial disadvantage of the US/UK/CW is the sensitivity to human losses. A totalitarian state didn't run the country. They get reported quickly in democracies by the press, so a nothing situation like Ortona gets reported as the 'Canadian Stalingrad'. The military is in the end controlled by civilians. The buildup of the US Army reflected the nature of American society. Something like Blitzkrieg would be a hard sell.

Likewise the mass mobilization of the whole economy is something the totalitarian and democratic regimes on the defensive were able to accomplish easily whilst the autocratic regime was not. The Germans were still felt the need to provide largesse for the German population. Compare that to the US where all auto production was ceased the day after Pearl Harbor, not just to rearm but to conserve resources for the war effort. Democracies are quite capable of handling losses so long as the purpose is clear they have confidence in the leadership.

Well, Doomturtle the things you are pointing out are at the operational and tactical level. At the 'strategic' level I am talking about the big view- economics, manpower, force generation, strategic positioning, raw materials, etc.

A partial disadvantage of the US/UK/CW is the sensitivity to human losses. A totalitarian state didn't run the country. They get reported quickly in democracies by the press, so a nothing situation like Ortona gets reported as the 'Canadian Stalingrad'. The military is in the end controlled by civilians. The buildup of the US Army reflected the nature of American society. Something like Blitzkrieg would be a hard sell.

Do not forget the tendencies of both allied and axis nations to only show certain parts of the stories. To a degree there needs to be a sense of reality but at the same time a sensitiveness. America learned the hard way with war coverage of Vietnam being tooo raw for a generation that had seen the "Romanticized" version of war.

I may be reading your post wrong as you may be referring to 'operations' when you write 'strategic'.

The Soviet union was briefly at risk in Oct. 1941- but even this was uncertain & speculative. AGC broke down logistically after the Vyzama/Bryansk pockets. There was little punch left. The problem was that it was not in the means of the German economy to rebuild the Wehrmacht (a strategic asset) to anywhere near the same offensive ability ever again. 1942 was only a partial rebuild. The secondary fronts started to siphon a great deal.

The Soviet situation was basically continuous improvement with vast force generation, which was spent quite lavishly as well.

Russia -> Russia is a bit harder. Strategically Both sides were in the equal. The difference was that Russia had much more resources at thier dispolesl coupled with the fact that they had intel. Intel wins more wars than "Plans". Furthermore, German had good strategies through out the war but were hampered by military structure (Hitler in command etc.)

Compare that to the US where all auto production was ceased the day after Pearl Harbor, not just to rearm but to conserve resources for the war effort. Democracies are quite capable of handling losses so long as the purpose is clear they have confidence in the leadership.

The design of US combat systems, besides material availability, reflects a great deal of risk aversion. The training of US officers also reflects this- pretty much a logistics/accountant/engineering sort of approach. At the operational level, there is a sensitivity to short term casualties that you don't see in the totalitarians. In the area of field mobilization, far too few infantry divisions were mobilized and sent into the ETO. There were, on the other hand, too many armored divisions. The infantry divisions were very densely equipped/supplied compared to the infantry of the Germans in Barbarossa or the Soviets in Bagration 44'.

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No offense, but I these assumptions of yours are completely not those that I hold (about the comparative ability of 41' RKKA , 42' RKKA and the Germans in 44'). The ability of the RKKA was not as low as you portray and the ability of the Germans in 44' was not as high as you portray. The ability of the Germans in 41' and 42' are higher than you portray.

There is a difference. The Germans running on "a razors edge" were doing it against the '41 Soviet Army and the US and Brits were moving against the Germans. It is one thing to go up against an opponent that has already proven to be operationally, tactically and strategically deficient and quite another to attack an opponent that has already proven operational and tactical competence and assume or presume they are no longer that incapable

............Case Blue is in part the counter argument to the whole "encirclement" argument. By Case Blue there just weren't the kind of successful massed encirclements of Soviets. The Soviets had a few more months of experience under them and were much more successful at avoiding that kind of devastation. Likewise the Germans were aware of the dangers, having done it so many times to others. They fought tooth and nail to unplug the Poles who were threatening to close the Falaise pocket and hold it open long enough to allow at least the troops if not the material to escape.

I would take issue with you on this: I fully accept the Germans knew the danger of encirclement. But in this instance, I want to suggest that it was the Aliies who shot themselves in the foot. (Blue on Blue).

From Beevor ('D-Day:the Battle for Normandy') (pp 428-430 paperback) -

Troops of the Polish Armoured Division...were over to the left of the Northants Yeomanry, awaiting their turn to advance. Similarly, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division had moved forward to the West of the Falaise road and halted.There then followed another 'friendly fire' disaster, as the main American bombing force arrived.

Formations of over 500 B-17 began to attack six target areas across the front. German sources claim that their flak hit one of the lead bombers,which dropped its load short and that others followed suit. A British Artillery officer watching also saw the flak break up the bomber formation. 'Other aircraft could not find their target and dropped their bombs behind Allied lines causing many casualties', he wrote. A doctor who had to deal with the casualties recorded in his diary: "The American air force has a bad reputation. They are just as likely to mass bomb our own lines as the Jerries - numerous Canadian and Polish casuaities as a result.'

The Canadian and Polish troops which found themselves under attack from their own side rapidly threw yellow smoke grenades to mark their positions. But due to an appalling case of bad liaison between ground and air forces, the Americans were using yellow markers for their bombing. As a result, 315 Canadians and Poles were killed or wounded.The Poles, with considerable self-restraint, described the incident as " unfortunate support given by own aircraft". But the blow in morale and confusion were to slow the second phase of Simonds' offensive, with fatal effect. The bombing itself had achieved nothing save to handicap the subsequent advance. With the benefit of hindsight, Simonds should have done without it altogether so as to have maintained momentum. .....rather than halting them to wait for the bombers

I would take issue with you on this: I fully accept the Germans knew the danger of encircelement. But in this instance, I want to suggest that it was the Aliies who shot themselves in the foot. (Blue on Blue).

From Beevor ('D-Day:the Battle for Normandy') (pp 428-430 paperback) -

I am not sure on what day that happened. First I am hearing of it.

I was speaking of the battles around Mont Ormel on August 19th-21st.

http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-closing-the-falaise-pocket.htm

aahh.. OK

The incident described was on 08 August.

Yes, GFM von Bock was fired due to disputes and the lack of massive victories. The march of AGA/AGB was mostly of them taking a succession of 10,000 there, 30,000 here, etc. On the Soviet side, it reflected what they learned in Barbarossa: to combat the blitzkrieg, they had to leave behind defensive rearguards/use massed Tank armies/tank corps to lead suicidal attacks to slow down the Germans so the effected armies could escape the cauldron. It also helped a great deal that the Germans were only able to outfit one Army group (AGS into AGA/AGB), and not three...for the offensive. So there were fewer units leaping forward, and no dangerous Panzergruppe commands.

Even in Case Blue the Soviets, while they had losses, their losses weren't what they had been. They were becoming more adept and losses, while still losses, were progressively less costly. I think that their biggest "take" was 75,000 was seen as a disappointment rather than an accomplishments.

With encirclements, the key requirements are:

1. air supremacy

2. tactical mobility (the units conducting the encirclement must have enough supplies and be of sufficient fighting quality)

3. enough infantry divisions. Encirclements, as you can imagine, require a great many infantry. The units conducting the encirclement cannot be that different in size compared to the ones that are trapped inside.

4. Armored or mot. infantry divisions to close the pocket, and then used to police the inner and outer encirclement ring. Those inside will attempt to mass their remaining strength into one fist, and try to break out somewhere. The enemy will attempt to attack the outer encirclement ring to save those that are trapped inside.

5. A great deal of command skill and guts by all soldiers involved.

What is notable is that mini-encirclements of enemy regimental/brigade sized units can be done routinely at the corps and divisional level, as well.

Have to be brief here, so just two things that has not been touched upon, correct me if I am wrong, could not read the thread carefully:
As for Case Blue, one of the major "organic" reasons why the Germans failed to generate encirclements in a similar fashion as they did during Barbarossa certainly included the growing demechanisation of their infantry divisions with a corresponding lack of mobility and an overall denigration of their quality. The RKKA obviously took a major hit during Barbarossa and Typhoon, but so did the Wehrmacht, and the style of warfare emphasized by the latter did have greater requirements on overall troop quality.

As for manpower economy, Blitzkrieg, sensitivity to casualties etc:
"Blitzkrieg" as an operational approach(and I really don't like that term, Bewegungskrieg would be both more authentic and descriptive), while indeed seemingly aggressive and overly risk-affine in its approach is actually borne out of the strategic concern of conserving both manpower and material, not in the least because of the realisation that Germany could never hope to win an attritional campaign against its major antagonists, an axiom that both the first and the second great hate certainly confirmed.

The planning for Case Blue resembled a mixture of damaged egos (Halder and von Bock) and 11th hour revisions that greatly expanded the agenda to a very unrealistic degree.

The Panzer units in Case Blue were generally pretty good although reduced a bit. There were also fresh ones like 23.Pz and 24.Pz. The infantry divisions were brought back up to 80% mobility. The replacements were undertrained, but there were still substantial veterans among the divisions so it was not that big of a deal. Among other issues is the logistics infrastructure was simply not as good as in the prior year, and many shortages occurred & more so than in Barbarossa. The phased assault patterns (Blau I, II, III) was designed partially to build up the confidence of the troops with a string of easy victories.

A crucial weakness was the dispersion of effort, which became extreme by changes in plans. The panzer korps were not organized into a panzergruppe HQ and were deployed into different axis' of advance. This made their progress much slower and much more problematic once they ran into opposition that they wanted to envelope. Anyway, the Blau plan did not live up to expectations.

The Blitzkrieg, war of maneuver, whatever one wants to call it requires a specific approach to organization and combat practices. Essentially it requires lots of light infantry along with mobile forces and all need to have an extremely aggressive/fearless leadership style. Short-term losses have the possibility of being quite significant, and if the gambit fails, it will be for naught.

With Overlord (alternate history mode here) literally the infantry battalions would need to be doubled but riding on the same asset base.

Interesting post. Explain RKKA tank losses is like trying to explain economic crises...there are at least a dozen or two big reasons, and it's hard to do a valuation of each.

I think:

#1. Command culture and tactics employed- More frequently attacking, very aggressive use of tanks, insensitive to losses, lack of combined arms coordination, and tendency to use tanks to boast attacking infantry in penny packets.
#2. Formation organization and logistics- RKKA armored units were very bare bones and with little service and combat support for most of the war. The 43'-45' mech. corps was closer to western models, but there were few of them.
#3. Accounting- RKKA wrote-off tanks quickly, the Germans on the other hand loathe to write off tanks unless it was a total loss.
#4. Encirclements of 1941 and 1942- lots of tanks captured- probably over 20,000.

These four probably explain most of it.

4: Lack of training for the crews.
5: Lack of infantry support in the early tank brigades.
6: Poor composition in tank brigades 1941-42. (When T-70, T-26s, T-34 and KVs all belonged to the same unit.)
7. Complete breakdown in command and control 1941.
8. Lack of reconnaissance, didn't become better until 1943.
9. Tanks lacking proper vision for commanders, fixed in T-34 with late model 1943 turrets.
10. Commanders acting as gunners on the most common tank.
11. Not having any hope of air superiority until summer of '43.
12. Poor operational art and poor tactics.
13. Mistakes, ooh all the mistakes. Mitigated quite a lot when they learnt how to fight. (3rd phase of the war in Soviet historiography.)
14. Difference in what counts as a lost tank. - (Cannot stress this enough. A German tank sent to factory for complete overhaul is repaired. A soviet tank sent to the factory for overhaul is lost and then produced again.)
15.All of the above. (ok maybe not #2. ) =

Interesting post. Explain RKKA tank losses is like trying to explain economic crises...there are at least a dozen or two big reasons, and it's hard to do a valuation of each.

I think:

#1. Command culture and tactics employed- More frequently attacking, very aggressive use of tanks, insensitive to losses, lack of combined arms coordination, and tendency to use tanks to boast attacking infantry in penny packets.
#2. Formation organization and logistics- RKKA armored units were very bare bones and with little service and combat support for most of the war. The 43'-45' mech. corps was closer to western models, but there were few of them.
#3. Accounting- RKKA wrote-off tanks quickly, the Germans on the other hand loathe to write off tanks unless it was a total loss.
#4. Encirclements of 1941 and 1942- lots of tanks captured- probably over 20,000.

These four probably explain most of it.

Agreed.
I was just trying to flesh out someone saying that Soviet tank losses 'only' had 3 explanations.

Though I do not fully agree with a single line in your #1. "very aggressive use of tanks".

While it is true losses where caused by always attacking, I do not agree that it is because of the "aggressiveness" in it self. But rather the lack of proper recon, proper support, coordination, composition of forces and logistical supply during advances by tank forces that caused the losses.

Now Im not as knowledgeable in the 'micro' side of things of the war (what units moved where, tactical ideas, OOBs, how operations where conducted.) as I am of the macro side of things. (Politics, doctrine, industrial buildup, morale in the army as a whole etc. )
But I was under the impression that aggressiveness with tank forces are thought to yield less losses than caution of advance?
The so called 'Blitzkrieg' being the classical example of the idea. Show Spoiler

So I don't disagree with you, I just believe that simply saying aggressiveness is an oversimplification that might give people the impression that aggressive use of armour is a poor choice.
(Well yes it is if you don't have recon, support, composition, logistics etc, )

I just like to touch briefly on the previous discussion about Fall Blau, and the perceived notion that the RKKA had learned by this time to avoid German encirclement.
I got the impression from your discussion that the falling back from the Don defensive position was a thought out way to avoid the same disasters as the previous summer, and the lack of encirclement can be explained in part by the Soviets learning how to defend against a German offensive.

Well remember Order 227 is a direct result of these retreats. The retreats where not authorized and I believe the lack of encirclements lie more in the reduced capabilities of the Germans, you guys have already explained that very well, than operational considerations of the Soviets.

The complete abandonment of Rostov-na-Don and the fact that Stalingrad had little to no defences when the Germans approached I think goes well to show that again in 1942, as in 1941, the Germans managed to route the Soviet defences and advance into the operational depth.

The RKKA armor was not as well supported because they didn't want to fight like the Panzertruppen did. The Panzer divisions were very expensive and time consuming to raise or truly rebuild and train with tactical airpower. Also, a steep investment in training infrastructure like the panzer schools. It took between 6 months to 1 year to raise them properly after assembling all the components including trained manpower & specialists. In contrast the soviets made concessions, by designing cheap and quickly built/rejuvenated formations like the tank corps and tank brigades. Naturally, they could not be as tactically sophisticated as they avoided so many development costs and equipment purchases.

I believe it can be said that Red Army armor was used to strike in circumstances where the panzertruppen, operating under a more decentralized doctrine would not. The top-down nature of RKKA orders and their rigid attack orders reflected this.

The breakthough set-piece techniques resulted in RKKA armor being used as a 'battering ram' so to speak, and losses were high as a result.

Soviet attack patterns emphasize quantity of attacks, rather than 'quality'- as well.

These retreats were evident from before Case Blue even started. During Case Blue preliminaries (trying to win a good assembly area), AGS executed 'Wilhelm' and 'Fredicus II'. Instead of capturing entire armies he only got 20,000, and then 30,000 prisoners. von Bock notes in his war diary that the 'Red Army had learned'.

Compared to June 1941, besides weaker logistics AGS had only 75% of the manpower. However, their airpower was better than in 1941 (Luftflotte II with 1,600 aircraft, and capable of 1400 sorties a day a peak strength).

Order 227 was indeed as a result of these retreats and rearguard actions- they succeeded from escaping annihilation but there was nowhere left to escape to, from now on.

Actually, there was serious combat for 4.PzA and 6.AOK as they approached Stalingrad. The Great Bend of the Don had several armies and they had to eliminate them or push them back before they reached the Stalingrad defense ring.

These battles, including some heavy armor combat attritioned both armies significantly enough. German panzer operable strengths were around 50-35% per division by the time they reached the city. Infantry was down to around 50-70%.

Well remember Order 227 is a direct result of these retreats. The retreats where not authorized and I believe the lack of encirclements lie more in the reduced capabilities of the Germans, you guys have already explained that very well, than operational considerations of the Soviets.

The complete abandonment of Rostov-na-Don and the fact that Stalingrad had little to no defences when the Germans approached I think goes well to show that again in 1942, as in 1941, the Germans managed to route the Soviet defences and advance into the operational depth.

This article is full of holes, lacks sources, and seems more appropriate for high school than academic discussion.

Nor should this game be confused as being at all realistic.