Originally posted by Angus
+Well, it was the British kicking the Italians out of N-Africa
I'll try to find some more.....
My fault, I meant when fielded AGAINST GERMANS, of course
Originally posted by AKSWulfe
Size matters when the leadership is of somewhat equal value. However, when a country already knows it's going to war (germany) vs countries that aren't really anticipating it until it happens (allies)... then it's a moot point of "size" unless they are all on the same front prepared for the onslaught.
Bassically you're saying nothing to back your own point, SW...
Germany was as little ready for WWII as could be France. It lacked numbers, was in the middle of a drastic expansion which was causing none of its divisions having their designed strenght, and a myriad of other problems attached with such a massive growth of force.
one of those, was the unbattleworthiness that a big % of the german Panzerwaffe had. Many of Germany's armored assets when hte war started were PzI and IIs wich where never really meant to be other thing as training tanks.
It's significative that the most numerous tanks in the german armory were czech and not german...even at that point germany when WWII started was far from being ready for the war, or at least far from being a force which could really be fielded against, for instance, teh french army.
That was on the paper, of course...because then it was shown that the excellence of their commanders and teh magnific tactical training and doctrine of the panzerwaffe more than compensated for the lack of numbers and quality of the german armor.
But fact remains that in 3-9-1939 Germany was as little prepared for a war as was France or England. In fact, it can be argued that it was LESS prepared.
The Germans used armor as infantry support as well.
No, no no no...SW...you're wrong in this....German armor used as infantry support was based on armored SP howitzers (assault guns) for direct fire, such as StuGIIIs, and the like.
Those were vehicles designed ESPECIFICALLY for that role. Such was their degree of independence from the Panzer divisions, that they were crewed by ARTILLERY men, not by Panzerwaffe crews, and organized in independent support battalions. They formed a whole INDEPENDENT branch of the Wehrmacht than he Panzerwaffe...and in fact they were, in the end used ALL THE WAY ROUND...that is...while German Panzers (tanks) were rarely, if ever, deployed as infantry support, Assault guns were many times used AS TANKS because the shortage of tanks in the German inventory when the war was drawing to a close..
In contrast, most of the french tanks (almost 80%) were used in that role and a whole family of british tanks (the whole "infantry tank" bunch) were designed for that role...
so, well, in this point you are confusing German assault guns with tanks. I insist, Germans never used tanks in infantry support roles while the allies strongly did it.
Yes, but the tactics and the size of their armies were built around a quick war that would be over in a year or two...
no... again I repeat the "no".
You must understand, again, that "Blitzkrieg" was an OPERATIONAL concept. Operational level is the one between tactical and strategic levels. Operational level is designed to WIN BATTLES to destroy the enemy forces in an armed clash.
Tactics have nothing to do with this. German army was the best fit one for the tactical level because they were TRAINED to be. The tactical expertize shown by the german panzercrews were unmatched in the whole of WWII (ask wittman ,or Barkmann)
Strategically talking, Germany focused the war as a series of fast-executed large-sized Blitzkrieg operations. France fell that way. The Balkans fell that way. Russia almost fell that way.
The fact that Germany lost the war had more to do with the stupidity of Hitler messing into the operations.
1- he blewed it during barbarossa when he demanded guderian to assist destroying the kiev pocket, thus denying the Wehrmacht the ability to attack moscow before winter.
2- he blewed it again when he designed Case Blue and divided the forces in two. He blewed it once more when he stopped the drive on Stalingrad to send the 4th panzer army towards the south for no real purpose. Stalingrad could've fell in the weeks of july when it was defended by a couple of russian batallions. Instead the battle wasnt started until a month and a half later, when a whole army was into the city.
3- He blewed it repeatedly when he refused to give his armies permission to retreat from lose-lose situations such as Stalingrad
...etc
those all are Hitler's blunders at the OPERATIONAL level wich had resonance in the STRATEGIC level...however, Hitler also blewed it BIGTIME because the German economy didn't move into war-economy until 1943...and that was because the lack of foresight by him.
You can't blame the wehrmacht for the strategic blunders of his chief of state...
As for the "one instance", do you remember that group of allied soldiers that held off a German company and prevented them from getting to (shoot I forget... it was in N. Africa) in Africa? I can't remember what the battle was called- but it delayed them long enough to allow the allies to defeat Rommell's forces- in one battle (not the entire campaign).
If you're talking about Knightsbridge, it waS FREE FRENCH troops who were the heros of the day.
Oh, and BTW, they didn't allow the allies to defeat rommels forces...because just 2 weeks later Tobruk fell and the whole british 8th army had to run back to Egypt
.
anyway I'm talking about bigger scale here. We're talking about the army commanders ability to wage an operative-scale action of war. Knightsbridge was an example of what bravery and fanatism can do when defending in a tactical battle...but that says nothing about the quality of the british generals
Possibly better lead, but wouldn't this come back to the tactics employed?
not really because the tactics used by the german commanders during WWII were many...Blitzkrieg during the 2 first years of war and then many different types of defensive warfare you can imagine -From static defence lines as the ones in italy, to mobile delayement actions such s the ones seen in Russia...the degree of mastery the german commanders showed during WWII in MANY different roles (not just operational level Blitzkrieg) is enormous.
No way you can be sure the wehrmacht was the only army capable of handing the Red Army their bellybutton in the initial year or two of the war... it was the exact same thing they used against France.
Ahem...SW...France was attacked in May'40...that is 8 months after the war had started...
However, I AM damned sure that the wehrmacht was the only army capable of handling the red army that way. We can compare how the other armies did during WWII:
Red Army:
Their way of waging an offensive was to send an artillery storm ,and then to send more men than bullets had their enemy until they caused a rupture.
Then they send a whole tank army -held in reserve up to that same moment- into the rupture point with orders to drive as deep as possible towards a concerted point, then to stop there until replenished and follow further orders.
This is NOT compatible with a blitzkrieg, and is not by many reasons, one of them -the biggest of them- is that it required an unnaceptable ammount of loses for any other nation other than the USSR
Another one is that the Red army had NO flexibility whatsoever, in none of the 3 war levels. NOONE would act on their initiative...in contrast German Panzerwaffe commanders were highly intuitive and self-sefficient, acting many times on their own before receiving orders from the high command...and that was the reason why the german advance into russia was as fast and successful as was (at least in hte central and northern sectors).
The lack of flexibility in the russian command was incredibl,e to the point that, during the kharkov offensive of July-august 1943, a single tank platoon of 4 tigers destroyed more than 150 T-34s because they were coming ALL THE TIME by the same axis of advance...any half-stupid commander would've changed it to avoid the known enemy, but not the russians, who had to be EXPLICITLY told to do it other way.
In other words, russians had bravery, lots of soldiers and weapons...but their command ranks were incapable of using that strenght in another way different than a juggernaut.
Great Britain:
Well, the commander thought to be the better British general during WWII was Montgomery. That says it all
USA:
The US army (1944 standards)... That's the only one I can see doing a similar role as the germans did in barbarossa, but more because sheer numbers than because their skill as commanders.
The only american units which performed as good as, or better than, their german panzer counterparts were the ones led by Patton...and I'm sure that if the rupture during "Cobra" operation had been done by other army than Patton's 3rd army, then France would've lasted quite more to fall than what it did.
There was NO other american operationally-able commander as Patton was...he had the same skill, recklessy and initiative as a german panzerwaffe commander...but he was the ONLY one who had such level of expertize...and the germans had several of them during Barbarossa (guderian, Hoth, Manstein, to name just three)...the other commanders were capable, but no match for the german panzerwaffe commanders.
So, in my own analysis I still think the only army able to conduct a barbarossa-like operation, with the force correlation in existane
in 1941, was the German wehrmacht.
