German superiority, myth or fact?

What did i do?It makes plenty of contributions................

 

Actually before your edit, you had it right; "what did i (sic) do?" The answer is not enough. This isn't a "chat room" or "bulletin board" where you just pop in a one-liner and leave for others to respond.

In this FORUM, and as such you may be expected to contribute something. Either be stimulated to read more, or research more yourself, or come up with unique ideas and then defend them after posting them.

Honest questions aren't discouraged, but one-liners are a waste of time and bandwidth. As an example; "o o well', what does that mean? And to whom are you addressing it?

That is it, my personal spouting off is done, and you may find yourself largely ignored if you don't contribute more to the FORUM.

 

The H-Net guy, like others from the Dupuy Institute that I have had this discussion with over the years, basically have to concede that Dupuy's theory has alot of mathematical problems. Their counter claim is the basic idea is solid despite the math problems.
I have also had this discussion with Tom Nutter over his article when he first published it on MilitaryHistoryOnline.com. I would say that John Sloan Brown (Draftee Division) missed the point focusing on the details of the QJM rather than its results methods.

Basically, Dupuy misses the point. He takes a Clauswitzian approach to warfare. That is, he focuses on firepower. But he does not apply it to the other two sides of the "triangle" that makes up warfare: Motion and Cohesion.
Without a component to apply the QJM over time it is like trying to pick the winner of a battle using a still photograph rather than a motion picture of it. He also has no component in the QJM for orgainzation, command, communications or, any of the other human factors that go into warfare.
In fact, he either ignores the human factors as irrelevant or uncalculable or just doesn't have them even present. On pg 33 of NP&W Dupuy lists in figure 3-1 the Verifable Effects Factors Quantified Judgement Model or, as he puts it the "Combat Variables" of war. Communications and organization are not even listed.

This is a HUGE problem. What you find looking at battles over time is that small amounts of resistance equal huge amounts of slowing the advance rate. That collapse of the human factors play an expotential role in the failure of an army in the field. These are expotential variables that effect the outcome in sum.

In looking at the German performance in WW 2 what you find is that they were masters of improvisation and tenatious. That doesn't mean they performed well on the battlefield. More often than not, when faced with well orgainzed and reasonably led enemies they lost. But, they made the fight hard. Where they did well was against poorly orgainzed and led troops. They ran circles around them.

Does that make them better than their opponets? Hardly.

I'll add this tidbit. Roughly 80% of the German military was composed of leg infantry divisions. Yet, before 1942 these divisions with the rare exception failed to achieve victory on the offensive. Against the Western Allies from post 1940 on they failed to achieve a single victory against their enemy equivalents with just one exception: The 106th vs the 18th and 162nd VG in the Ardennes.
That is a dismal record of success by any measure. Yet, the QJM has virtually no battles included in its verification database where German infantry divisions were on the offensive and just a few where they were defending. Virtually all the battles included are between panzer or panzergrenadier divisions and a relatively represenative slice of British and US divisions mostly leg infantry.

If we accept Dupuy's conclusions then the very best the Wehrmacht has going up against average British and US units can only manage a slightly better than parity record what would that record look like for the rest of the Wehrmacht?

 

I second that. Please add a bit more to the discussion and less hyperbole and gratituity.

 

Blitzkrieg was not a doctrine. The phrase was filtered from a speech from one ball Hitler. He would strike like lightning.

The thought of quick victories has been with us since Gork decided to hit Gook with a pointed stick rather than his fist.

All nations aspire to be home before chrismas in their wars.

The operational level of thinking for the Germans have centered around the Vernichtungsgedanke (destruction thought) and the Kesselslacht (cauldron battle).

In effect pierce the line, push through and encircle a mass of the enemy, and destroy them.

Von Clausewitz talks about this in Vom Kriege. Blood is the price of victory etc.

A fundamental issue with this operational concept of the germans is that it is ATTRITIONAL thinking. All the flamboyant manouvre is to encircle and destroy the enemy through battle.

The new breed of operational thinkers such as Guderian and dare I say Felix Steiner were more inline with the pure manouvre thought. Fight to manouvre, force the enemy to surrender.

The France 1940 Campaign had good manouvre elements, in particular the first phase Fall Gelb. It did not end in the fashion they hoped since the Dunkirk Kessel was able to escape. That was the flaw in the plan. Allowing the Allies to end up at the sea dominated by the RN was a poor decision. Pushing forces to the sea to isolate the allies on land would have resulted in a bloodless victory. Mass surrender.

Fall Rot the second phase of the French campaign was more attritional oriented and the German losses on the latter stages prove just that.

What would plague the Germans throughout the entire war was the clash of doctrinal thinking Atrittion vs Manouvre.

The plan for Barbarossa show this and the execution of it proves this.

The prolonged war was a result of a totalitarian system in action.
MILLIONS of people perished when the war was lost as the front froze in 1941.

As for difficuleties in lasting in a prolonged war the germans failed to adjust to it.

The British went to "total war" in 1940, exploiting all of their resources. Ending up with a 50 year debt to the US.

The Germans went on full war economy in 1943.


The hell of a fight issue is of no importance. The tactical level, small units up to say regiments doesn't decide the war.

The Operational level, from divisions to Armies is more important.

The Strategic, Army groups and theatre is the most important.

Take the Strategic level. The Germans shifted their goals alot on this level. Efficently ruling out the gains already made. The advance on Moscow show this clearly.


I can give the Germans credit all day. I think I already have on this and other threads.

BUT I cannot agree on the notion that the Germans were superior.

 

because the Germans were weakener than the opponents,they tried to avoid a war of attrition,by operational warfare;but,in a total war,operational warfare has its limits:it can't be decisive,although there are still a lot of operationalists

 

TA, I'm curious about the above-noted contention.

What about-
Axis victories in North Africa- Tobruk, First battle of El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, etc?

And given that the Allies didn't land in Normandy 'till '44, by which point the Germans were already in relatively bad shape... Does that not color the "no victory against western allies" issue?

 

A bit off there. The British for instance ramped up their rearming significantly after Chekoslavakia was annexed. By the time of the BOB for instance they were building a lot more planes than Germany. The whole Chain Home system also was put into operation during that period I believe. Both France and Britain along with others made substantial orders for arms from the US during this period as well didn't they? As for the US the orders for many of the ships that helped win the war in the Pacific were let in 38 and 39. During 44 the US actually started scaling back weapons production.

 

PM Chamberlain increased production in 38-39, but not to the extent that I would call it a rearmament.

The regular army was still understrength in men and materiel in 1940, and the Territorials was even worse off. As as side note one of the criticisms on the decisions to raise more TA divs by the PM was that the industry was not geared up to produce enough weaponry.

I hope you will agree on that the rearmament of the Allies was not comparable to Germanys programs since 1933.

 

The battles you list was conducted by Panzer or Panzer Grenadier divisions, mostly against vanilla infantry.

Re read TA's post and you will see what he meant.

 

As a devil's advocate might we return to an apple to apple comparison: Model/Time .

Me 109 B/C : 1937, 1938, vs What? Ms 406, Polikapov I 16, Hurricane, Curtiss?

Me 109E vs Spitfire II

Me 109 F/G and FW 190 … till Spitfire IX

FW 190 D , Ta 152 vs P 51 D, Tempest, Spitfire XVIII …

Do 335 vs … what? … In early 1940 Herman Göring ordered the cancellation of all projects wich would not be completed within a year or so. There is a What if … Do P.59 in 1941?

Panzer IV: 1936 , 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 vs … what? t 34 - 1941, KV - 1.

Bazooka vs Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck ...

Garand vs Sturmgewehr 44... Hitler delayed it.

M 262: The Allies countered its potential effectiveness in the air by relentlessly attacking the aircraft on the ground, or while they were taking off or landing. Maintenance during the deteriorating war situation and a lack of fuel also reduced the effectiveness of the aircraft as a fighting force.

The Vampire and F- 80 arrived one year later.

The lack of strategic materials caused the delay with the Jumo 004. It was impossible to produce it with the correct alloys, so it had to be re-designed. The alloys were employed in the type XX U boats. It was stupid, the Me 262 was far more needed, wasn’t it?

Nukes: The Nazis had three lines of investigation, to weigh that none was successful, Von Ardene developed the separation of uranium 235 enriched by a technique of centrifuge uranium hexafluoride. Far more efficient than others … A nightmare scenario: Someone gets assassinate Adolf in 1939, Nazis did not invade Poland, there is no money for the Manhattan Project and by the methods of Von Ardenne and Nikolaus Riehl the Nazis are the first to get "the bomb".

Apple to apple the myth of German technical superiority holds just one year. Or fail miserably (electronics, ULTRA, logistics).


Perhaps the biggest advantage of the Allies was under the command of Nazi Germany was a gang of degenerates into a system inherently sick.

The competition between factions of power in Nazi Germany was the cause that had three-way nuclear research in a country on the brink of collapse.

Nazi research had some unexpected problems: Oslo Report, or the lack of physical motivation of the nuclear program "do not worry (to his wife) when we get near to get " the bomb " we would have lost the war.

 

I feel in the early stages of the war they were superior in alot of categories but this was not the case after 1943.

 

well,one could argue that the rearmament of the allies was bigger that the one of Germany,but that would be useless.
In 1933 :Germany had to start from nothing(no army,navynairforce,no armament industry);in 1939:it had an army and airforce suitable for short campaigns only(no reserves) and no navy ;broadly speakinf ,it was not that strong as in 1914.
Britain and France had (together) in 1933:a big army,a big navy,a big airforce;in 1939 :they had a big army,navy and airforce (quantitatively as good as the Germans,and quantitatively bigger),but,Britain had other commitments ,and their strategy was defensive,to avoid losses as in WWI(Passendale).
Thus,the comparison is not that easy.What should one count ? Money?but how to compare RM with £ and Francs ? THe structure of the armed forces ? Britain (as imperial power)was emphasizing the navy and (believing in the Douhet doctrine) was spending money on AirDefense,Germany(as a landpower) was spending money on an army and an air force with as role,cooperation with the army .
Thus,one can choose,what one will emphasize.

 

So the Germans were intelligent enough to find strategic mismatches and you are holding that against them?

 

That isn't the point of my post. Dupuy in his conclusions says the German army all of it as a whole was about 20% better man-for-man than the British or US armies. Yet, his database ignores roughly 80% of the units in that army in favor of the very best 20%.

As for the "no victory" statement that was applied to leg infantry formations. Vanilla infantry divisions not panzergrenadier or panzer formations that got the best troops and equipment.

 

That's simply not true, The norwegian campaign for example didn't involve any panzers units above a (weak) batallion. Sebastopol would be another case in or, if you allow for elite leg units, Crete where the Germans outfought a similar number of Commonwealth troops (larger if you count the Greek forces present). If you look at the French campaign AG A had only 3 panzers, and two were reassigned south during the battle, facing the BEF, the heavily mechanized French 1st Army and the French 7th Army (with one DLC) plus the whole of the Belgian and Dutch forces, are you telling me those 3 divisions did all the work? There were no Panzers with 11th Army attacking from Rumania at the beginning of Barbarossa nor in Northern Finland (SS Nord was officially motorized but can hardly be called elite) but the Germans still advanced a lot.
Pre 1942 German infantry divisions were an offensive force to be reckoned with. After the 1942 reorganization the six/seven batallion infantry division became an essentially defensive formation with a lot of firepower but little mobility and too low rifle count for protracted offensive operations, pitting them offensively against nine batallion allied units with plenty of support is not going to work and was not often attempted with good reason. A reinforced US infantry division resembled a contemporary panzergrenadier or army panzer a lot more than a German infantry units so the match up is correct. My impression is that British units tended to have less support elements attached but I can't recall many engagements of German infantry attacking against commonwealth units in division strength, after 1942 offensive operations were usually assigned to the motorized forces and Rommel didn't use 164 ID in an offensive role, IIRC there were no panzers at Dieppe, the battle was over before they got there.

 

TOS Weserubung is a poor example. The units of the Heer did not impress in any actions where the Luftwaffe did not play a major role. At Hegra 201 men and one woman Held firm until early May. They were not defeated by regular german infantry or the Gebirgsjaegers, or the Luftwaffe. They surrendered as part of the southern Norway group.

The British 148 TA brigade was nearly without any heavy equipment (Norwegians were shocked wen they went ashore in Åndalsnes) and they did not break before the Luftwaffe pounded their positions.

The Gebirgsjaegers was thrown off Lapphaugen by a single Coy of the Alta Bn of IR 16.
The Germans where driven out of Narvik and into the mountains in the border of Sweden. The general withdrawal of the Allies saved the germans.

rant over

I will agree with you that the German leg infantry did have successes. But not rooted in German superiority, but as a result of well integrated combined arms operations.

The campaign on Crimea is a good example. As you say vanilla infantry was the ground force. But the Germans were second to none with CAS in the first part of the war.

 

No. Breathe through your nose.

The battles that you claim prove german superiority are loopsided ones.

A bit like the germans complaining about the matrielslacht when the tables are turned.

The notion of fighting loopsided is good form. Fighting a fair fight is stupid and cost a lot of deaths, but when claiming superiority it hardly serves as a good basis.

(And in this case it is a tactical mismatch not a strategic one.)

 

I'm generalizing. Of course, the Germans had other elite / well trained and equipped units than just their mechanized divisions. Fallschirmjäger, Grebs and, such. But, it still remains that the bulk of their army was reservists and draftees in leg infantry formations. Worse, as the war drug on these units deteriorated in both the quantity and quality of everything assigned to them. Second line divisions got those infamous "stomach" battalions of troops with medical ailments like ulcers that would normally have kept them out of the service. Over age and under age troops were inducted.
Across the board training length, quality and, scope was decreased. It was rare that a German division got to train as a whole in exercises. Few German soldiers got more than a basic familiarization on their weapons in training.... The ammunition couldn't be found or wasted for more. At the same time US troops, for example, were firing literally thousands of rounds in training. They became experts with their weapons.

So, even if you apply something like the QJM to the whole of the German army you would find their fighting power degraded considerably when you start mixing in these average leg infantry formations.