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the ultimate weapon , 1940

Discussion in 'Tank Warfare of World War 2' started by jeaguer, Nov 3, 2007.

  1. jeaguer

    jeaguer New Member

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    True but my point was that as soon as the commander lost sight ( or sound ) of his advancing troops , the command system relied on courriers , riders , motorbikes , carrier pigeons , flares etc.. etc..none of them very rapid or efficient

    attacks were not motorized , the battle lasted a day usually in sight of the commanders and direct control could be , somehow maintained
    To make my point by example , cavalry once launched was usually out of control for the rest of the battle ,
    Time and time again during WW1 attacking troops were isolated from their lines by broken ground at the end of their offensive , head quartes having no clue as to their fate often for hours
    When tanks came on the Spanish battlefield , the noise, lack of radios and reduced visibility mean that they were very difficult to control once lauched
    they could only perform simple manoeuvres .

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  2. Roel

    Roel New Member

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    True, but note that the situations you describe were not all that typical in history. Cavalry is always the exceptional unit which by virtue of its speed and mobility always outruns control by the general; during WW1, armies had gotten so large that the general in charge was far removed from the battlefield itself. However, in many professional armies in history, control was actually maintained during battle by way of signals the troops had been trained to respond to. As long as the general could see his troops and they could see him, control existed and tactics could be employed.

    Visibility was therefore always an important element of generalship - something we would regard as rather silly thanks to the skirmisher tactics invented in Napoleonic times, in which sharpshooters would try to deliberately pick off the officers in a formation.
     
  3. jeaguer

    jeaguer New Member

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    We take it so much for granted now that it's difficult to imagine how it could be done before ,
    in truth often enough it was a shamble ,most armies could only perform simple manoeuvres , something as simple as an about face by a division would see units hopelessly tangled if not done right
    Witch is my point that blitzkrieg was a qualitative change ,
    For the first time the battle was strictly controlled in real time , even over the horizon , all arms being employed by the local commander as needed when needed where needed , the smaller tactical unit cease to be the batallion and become the company , the rigid ordering of unit is less important that their impact ,
    Napoleon with his concept of Dynamic pressure could sometimes do it because his soldiers and officers were supremely competent to the point were instructions and communications were superfluous ,
    so could R.E. Lee on a good day in early 63

    for their hapless opponents it's like if they had much more soldiers when in fact they only had much more soldiers at the place where it mattered

    The blitzkrieg was a technological revolution
    it was the precursor of today's total awareness battlefield where individual soldiers and vehicles are pinpointed , their individual status can be queried at any level of the chain of command and if expedient given fresh instructions , including maps and data


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  4. majorwoody10

    majorwoody10 New Member

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    plus they learned to make that kool cheese with all those pike holes by endless drill and training .
     

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