WW2 Documents, Myths and Facts

Professionals refer to careerists that were in the military for many years.

If you refer your statement to "carrerist" only than it´s pretty "normal" for every army that standards differ in peace and wartimes.

Overall, I don't think I need to prove that the Heer suffered from shortages of officers/ncos- it's pretty much well covered from any operational history of a battle circa mid 43-45' (you see the order of battle, and there are significant shortages in the divisions) and reading of ooB de-evolution (continuous cuts), which actually tracks the strategic situation. The army took millions of casualties, and many of these were in its leadership ranks. Personnel casualties up to 50,000 per division for the war. There is data on this, and the german style of command lead to high losses. Also, there was a tendency to split leadership to form more and more units, with caused further dilution.

Here is an example of GD's officer turnovers at the regimental level. (it was only a brigade-sized regiment before 1942) At lower levels it is much higher. :

http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/commanders.htm

Overall, I don't think I need to prove that the Heer suffered from shortages of officers/ncos- (...)

No, that is pretty clear.

(...)Also, there was a tendency to split leadership to form more and more units, with caused further dilution.

That´s why I asked you, if you know some interesting sources on this topic that may give an overview on "german education and trainig of officers at military academies" and could show german attempts to solve this problem during wartime.

Something I don't see mentioned above is that the Germans seem to have a deep commitment to the counter-attack, to the point that it was ridiculously predictable. And seeing as the British had certainly learned this from the experiences in North Africa, they always tried to prepare for the counter-attack that they knew was coming.

So even if it's true that an aggressive attacking strategy does not automatically mean higher losses, a claim I agree with, being overly predictable in launching counter-attacks with scratch forces against a position that is expecting you to do exactly that, might.

While training of officers are important I don't think that is the most important. The most important is overall formation training to develop large-scale skills.

With the Germans, I think you should grab yourself every German unit history you can and read them cover to cover. (My favorite is PzK GD, Spaeter). I did so and developed many views on how the german war machine worked. The problem with these topics is that academics skim over them (I am limited to english sources, you should have less trouble). A good source is Jentz, Panzertruppen I/II.

The trends are pretty similar: Good investment in formation training in 40-42. A crop of divisions get good formation training for OP Citadel (2-3 months).

Afterwards, the strategic situation is so terrible that there is no time, ammo, or fuel for much formation training at all and standards become quite erratic, problematic and sloppy. eg. The battle of normandy- almost all of the mobile units would have been considered undeployable by early standards, but the OKW put 5 out of 10 as ready for offense in June 44'. Battle of the Bulge: None of those mobile divisions were considered deployable by early standards.

That´s why I asked you, if you know some interesting sources on this topic that may give an overview on "german education and trainig of officers at military academies" and could show german attempts to solve this problem during wartime.

The point of a rapid counter-attack (the RKKA did this as well) was to hit the attacking force on their weak points before they consolidated 100% and force them on the defensive in order to buy time in order to consolidate one's own defense on the new lines.

By not attacking, one courts with allowing the enemy to have free room to maneuver and chose their place of the next follow-up attack. The very act of counterattacks forces the enemy to defend.

It is not always a bad thing even if the counterattack losses may be higher than the defender's. The best case scenario is a total rout of the newly arrived enemy force.

Something I don't see mentioned above is that the Germans seem to have a deep commitment to the counter-attack, to the point that it was ridiculously predictable. And seeing as the British had certainly learned this from the experiences in North Africa, they always tried to prepare for the counter-attack that they knew was coming.

So even if it's true that an aggressive attacking strategy does not automatically mean higher losses, a claim I agree with, being overly predictable in launching counter-attacks with scratch forces against a position that is expecting you to do exactly that, might.

I wasn't saying counter-attacks were a bad thing in themselves; they can certainly be useful. But anything that you do to the point of predictability gives your opponent and edge.

I'm saying their reliance on it was predictable, and well understood. On top of this, the forces available for a counter-attack may themselves be disorganised, or weakened, by the initial attack, and throwing them back in against an enemy that has now dug in to receive them can inflict losses on assets that had escaped the initial onslaught.

It doesn't give the opponent an edge if the benefits overweigh the costs, which was in fact most often the case in WW2. Frontal attack or not, the short term losses are usually not the most important issue. The most important issue is to derail the enemy plan and prevent a penetration or a breakthrough, and then a rout or an encirclement. If there is no counterattack, you risk the front collapsing by handing over the initiative. Then you'd lose everything.

The issue is not loss ratios but survival of the overall group.

Attacking units can concentrate their forces often by double. When they defend, they need to defend on a broad front. Forcing units on the defense compels them to defend their flanks and spread out their forces. This disorganizes them from their attack configuration. Also, it chips away their vitality and puts their plans off schedule even if they beat off an attack.

The alternative is to "hope" that the attacking opponent is going to "impale" themselves on the spikes of your defense rather than to follow up on the previous successful attack and exploit your weaknesses. If one is in a powerful fortified zone, rigid defense can be applicable but most frontage in WW2 were much weaker.

There are many reasons to maintain the counterattack policy: heer/soviets weren't stupid- just saying. Generally speaking the best the Germans 43-45(and Soviets in 41-42') could often do was to slow down retreats, prevent routs/encirclements, and buy time until larger scale counter-operation forces are set up in the rear.

Can't believe i read myself through here. The original post itself is biased as fuck, but the comments also.
Only 1 out of 20 points in the OP is a fact(if not less). Also are the comments, both sides.

The alternative is to "hope" that the attacking opponent is going to "impale" themselves on the spikes of your defense rather than to follow up on the previous successful attack and exploit your weaknesses. If one is in a powerful fortified zone, rigid defense can be applicable but most frontage in WW2 were much weaker.

You still seem to be missing my point. I'm not making a generalised, principled criticism of the counter-attack; I'm saying that if your doctrine is predictable to this degree, then the defender does in fact know just where to defend, because that's always the place it most recently attacked: it knows exactly where to place its spikes. Nor is this a "rigid" defence; it's a very flexible one, in which you establish a defensive position on top of every advance, but then strip it down and move it to the next position you take.

Frex, cribbing from Wikipedia....

Despite growing misgivings about the effectiveness of immediate counter-attacks, Kurt Meyer ordered the SS to retake Carpiquet.[24] Units from the 1st SS-Panzer Division prepared to counter-attack Carpiquet from Francqueville with tanks, artillery, mortars and infantry.[27]...
Shortly after midnight, the first of the SS counter-attacks began and although thirteen tanks had been lost the previous day, the 10th Canadian Armoured Regiment and the mortars of the Cameron Highlanders, defeated the attack and inflicted many casualties...
...the 1st SS-Panzer Division (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), which counter-attacked on 5 July, lost c. 20 tanks.

So, they lost 13 tanks in the defence of the initial attack, and a further 20 tanks in the failed counter-attack. Arguably they would have been better off not launching that counter-attack at all, and maintaining some kind of force-in-being that could intimidate further allied advances.

I actually think he got the point.
If anything, the Germans presumed to a point that the Allies would do what they would have done in a similar situation (and which IMHO in hindsight would have been the sound thing to do), ie. immediately exploit into the enemy rear to reap operational rewards from tactical success, and more often then not, they could not believe their luck that the Allies chose not to do so, as they could have shortened the campaign drastically on multiple occasions during Normandy. Anyways, localised counterattacks were meant to prevent this. In German tactical thinking btw. there was a great difference between "Gegenstoß", ie., a localised, spoilling counterthrust with whatever reserves could be marshaled ad hoc, which is indeed something the Germans performed fairly regularly, and a deliberate "Gegenangriff", ie. a proper, supported counterattack, which was fairly rare.

-snip-

Thank ya!

No, I follow. The problem is the alternative to counterattack policy (which is actually a form of defense) was generally much worse in both east and west fronts. This wasn't WW1 anymore- the attacker had wings, and usually the defender did not.

The losses are immaterial- the idea is to derail the offensive operation, and prevent catastrophe by robbing the enemy of their finite forward momentum. It is a longer term view. Even a soft frontal attack that involves exchange of small arms fire and mortar fire only (fixing attack) accomplishes something.

You still seem to be missing my point. I'm not making a generalised, principled criticism of the counter-attack; I'm saying that if your doctrine is predictable to this degree, then the defender does in fact know just where to defend, because that's always the place it most recently attacked: it knows exactly where to place its spikes. Nor is this a "rigid" defence; it's a very flexible one, in which you establish a defensive position on top of every advance, but then strip it down and move it to the next position you take.

This is however, idealistic- elastic defense requires much in the way of mobility and troop strength which neither the germans or the soviets possessed in abundance on their typical frontage. Armored and mot. Infantry divisions can do this well, the typical 1/3 or 1/2 strength infantry (effectively static) divisions in 1944, missing most of their horses and vehicles..? not so much. Soviet Rifle units were similarly immobile for most of the war. The Germans had to base most of their defense around strongpoints and counterattacks while elastic defense were practiced sparingly, and mostly by the mobile divisions.

Neither the RKKA/Heer counterattacked frontally all the time-flank attacks were preferred if possible. You seem to be taking a worst case scenario and spreading it out. Also, the counterattacks were often pre-planned and practiced beforehand by the defenders. In the West Front, the allied air supremacy severely fragmented the mobility of the Germans and their ability to not only move, but perform concentrated attacks of substance.

You keep trying to explain the virtues and utility of counter-attacking to me. I have not suggested it has none; only that PREDICTABILITY definitely has flaws. Moreover, what I have described is nothing like an elastic defence; it's more akin to the Roman practice of building a small fort at the end of each day's march.

You claim German counter-attacks were "often" rehearsed; but the counter-attack on Carpiquet occurred no more than 24 hours later; they probably couldn't even have conducted any recon, let alone mocked up models and assault courses or whatever, even assuming they could concentrate troops so rapidly that they had the time to spare.

The only way this makes sense is if the counter-attack is assumed to be aimed at an enemy that is still disorganised from the previous day's fighting. But if you are being so predictable that the enemy already knows to prepare for this specific thing, that isn't likely.

I think the mistunderstanding here is that Squippy insists that the German counterattacks were very predictable, which they were not, according to coh2player, and I think I have to agree on this.

To be clear, are we referring to Counterattacks on the scale of Unternehmen Lüttich or smaller, tactical counterattacks, such as quickly counterattacking a hill that has been lost?

The reason why is I don't believe that the operational level warfare is being seen on the same page. What you are saying is just mobile/elastic defense to me.

Counterattacks were made- both the predictable and unpredictable, large and small. The essence is in operational level warfare. You seem to think that predictable counterattacks are necessarily bad and unpredictable are necessary good. On the Eastern Front, the Axis lost Barbarossa largely due to months of counterattacks, many of them quite predictable. They were forced on the defense, particularly at Smolensk and expended their capability defending themselves rather than continuing a next blitzkrieg push towards Moscow.

Using cherry picked examples (12.SS HJ) of last 11 months of WW2- the defeat of a grossly outmatched enemy- are not a good way to gauge a six-year doctrine. In west I believe that there was no particular issue with their counterattacks; they slowed down allied momentum and stopped them from achieving more than they did.

Here are two good sources:

Standing Fast: German defense doctrine- The Germans used strongpoints and counterattacks

Soviet Operational Art: In pursuit of deep battle- The soviets used echeloned defenses plus counterattacks in their defense doctrine.

Both-although there were substantial differences.

Of interest though is the differences in counterattacks generally involved. Along the broad front, the Germans tend to use small forces of proven men- (their best company or battalion reinforced with some heavy weapons or a regimental battlegroup) and halt immediately if it didn't go through. In their big counterattacks, these were generally infrequent and planned, using a force several times larger. The counteroffensives in the West were generally quite small and anemic compared to those in the East (which often involved up to 1-2 armies plus up to a thousand aircraft)

The soviets on the other hand tended to use a much larger portion of their force in reactive counterattacks, and their attacks were often quite ambitious and used mass to push their way through to consolidate. Their big ones were even larger than the german- even at Army Group (Group of Fronts) scale. They used a lot of fixing counterattacks, designed to draw reserves away from points of main effort.

To be clear, are we referring to Counterattacks on the scale of Unternehmen Lüttich or smaller, tactical counterattacks, such as quickly counterattacking a hill that has been lost?

Having gotten a minor in German Military History (Majored in computer programming ) The key to note is that Armor was almost never deployed in single entities but rather in formations. These formations and tactics made for a higher degree of the success rather than the individual tank "Stats". Having a high velocity 75mm gun on a panther ment nothing had the German Optics not been good enough to allow for the tank crew to engage at ranges exceeding Russian/American ranges and using the 75mm to its fullest capabilities.

I am genuinely curious as to what university in the states offers a minor in "german military history" to programming undergrads.

To be clear, are we referring to Counterattacks on the scale of Unternehmen Lüttich or smaller, tactical counterattacks, such as quickly counterattacking a hill that has been lost?

I'm primarily referring to the tactical and operational levels; the lag time involved in the movements depicted by big arrows on maps means that the distinction between attack and counter-attack is rather thin.

As for predictability, I recall one author - although I can;t provide the source as it was a library book - remarking that the allies prepared for "the inevitable* German counter-attack", with the asterisked footnote reading, as I remember, "When writing history it is generally unwise to use the word "inevitable", except when referring to German counter-attacks."

Even if they didn't do it 100 percent of the time, they did it often enough that at the top of every allied officer's To Do list was "prepare to receive counter-attack".