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IronDuke_slith -> RE: Test Question (6/21/2010 11:43:50 PM)
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american doctrine advocated a very attritional style of getting to grips with the enemy's main body and kicking it until it was dead
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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
The doctrine was partially based on application of superior firepower to attrite the enemy and cause a knockout blow. The doctrine was not suitable for prolonged fairly static combat operations, because attritional battles automatically hurt the Americans more than the Germans in terms of the quality of their forces.
Why? In 1944, the German manpower barrel was in real trouble. They had largely static forces to act as a tripwire and mobile formations to act as the Fire Brigade. Committing the Fire Brigades with offensive action and then attriting them would never hurt the Americans as it would the Germans. American formations improve after D-Day whereas the quality of German forces steadily declined. The americans could afford the losses, the Germans couldn't.
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A 90 division army fighting both in the Pacific and in Africa/Europe was not well suited to, say, Soviet style attritional warfare.
But it didn't need to be. The American replacement system provided a steady stream of replacements.
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But this was the essence of German operational method. They threw an Army group over the dirt tracks of the Ardennes in 1940 and won Modern history's most stunning victory. Most people criticise him for his slow, methodical pace, but then seem to criticise him when he goes for broke as well.
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The operations are not really comparable.
-The Germans knew there were only 2 Belgian divisions in the Ardennes and that they would both be rendered combat ineffective in a day or two. They guessed the French would not intervene quickly enough, but that would have brought the grand total up to only 5, or 6 if the second Ardense Jagers division is included. Facing those 2 to 6 divisions were around 24 German divisions.
I'm getting a little lost here. The point of the German advance was not to cross the Ardennes, but strike the Meuse. Therefore, the French 2nd Army and a lot more besides would have to dealt with before very long. They also planned to force the Meuse by assault crossing, whereas the British planned to drive across the bridges, which they did in many cases on the way to Arnhem.
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-The Ardennes didn't have only dirt tracks, there were several good roads as well as railroads, supplies could also come from the North after the forces in or around the fortresses of Liege and Namur had been defeated/contained. Market Garden had little to no alternatives for "Hell's Highway".
German traffic was backed up halfway across Germany. The roads were so good that the various Divisions got in each other's way attempting to get off some of the roads assigned to them and several "good roads" is hardly the point if you want to move an Army Group over them.
Ultimately, Monty attempted the most audacious Allied operation of the war. It was arguably the most audacious operation of the war. My point was that those that give Monty a hard time for being cautious, reflect on MG's failure, not on the fact it was the most incautious Allied effort of the 20th century. You can't have it both ways.
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I once said this but then someone told me how fast Eighth Army moved and I was forced to retract.
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I meant "cautious" as in: many Germans got away (forcing Monty to keep fighting them over and over, although to his credit he could not be lured into a slow methodical battle not of his choosing, he handled the German counterattacks before the Mareth Line very well), not "cautious" as in: slow.
In which case we can characterise Patton;s breakout as cautious since the only forces captured were generally those penned up in coastal fortresses who did their utmost to become entrapped. Most of the armoured units mauled at Falaise reformed during the mircale in the west after a fighting retreat across the Seine.
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But what was good strategy? Monty and Bradley fought within their respective operational methods. Neither Commander had the Officer corp, doctrine or operational method to fight like Germans so fought the way they knew how. Fighting like Germans would have risked everything, because the Germans fought like Germans better than the Allies would have done, so "Blitzkrieg" (I hate that word) like encirclements would have often cost more than their standard methodology.
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The Allies greatest advantages were mobility in terms of their total transport pool and firepower. They chose to fight in Italy with a motorised/mechanised force (the problem was especially bad with Commonwealth forces, still equipped for mobile "desert" warfare) and one of the most densely forested areas of Europe. The closing stages of the war in Europe (the battles in Germany proper) showed what Allied mobility could achieve.
It showed (as Patton did in Sicily) what could be achieved when only the odd machine gun nest or 14 yr old with a grenade was standing in the way. Anyone could manouver in such circumstances. The Italians overran large tracts of desert in those sort of circumstances.
Before that, the Allies slugged their way through Notmandy, fought a broad front advance to the borders of the Reich then everything collapsed. Arguably, the Ruhr was an operational encirclement, but then everything was over bar the shouting at that point. At Falaise, the Allies demonstrated that real manouver warfare was simply not in their makeup.
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Well, it was certainly an issue for Monty as he was disbanding divisions in early 45 to flesh out the other formations. Besides, Arnhem really only used the strategic reserve. two thirds of which was American so it was a risk that didn't have much impact on the general manpower issues he faced.
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It also matters which forces were used, in this case paratroopers that could've been used for speeding up the advance into Germany.
They were. We dropped thousands of them during the Rhine crossing.
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The small number of US divisions meant that the paratroopers had to be used as regular infantry after the battle.
That wasn't Monty's fault and you can't criticise him for using them as they were originally designed to be used.
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The battle for Crete had a small impact on the German manpower pool, but it was significant because most of the casualties were well trained paratroopers and their transports (which had already taken a serious beating during the operations around Rotterdam and the Hague).
It was significant because it convinced Hitler paratroopers were not a strategic, or perhaps even operational weapon.
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I have been avoiding answering this out of respect for our coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but it would be difficult to tell 'European Allied' veterans of the early stages of the war that they had not been involved in 'serious combat'. It would be possible to give examples, but this is not a time for comparing current operations with the past.
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The argument concerned how much more combat experience the British had than the Americans. I could compare the initial battles in 1940 with some other WWII operations that showed similarities to current operations too, like the battles in the Ardennes in 1944/1945 and the battle for Stalingrad. Combat becomes more intense if you're located in enemy territory 24/7. In early war battles, forces might fight for a day or two and spend the rest of the week relocating and fighting some rearguard actions.
The British campaigns in Belgium/France and Greece (with the exception of the beginning of the battle for Crete) were not always combat heavy for all units involved in the operation. In both cases, the forces fought for a while and staged an organized withdrawal with rearguard actions. The majority of the battles in the desert were skirmishes, the war was more about mobility than hitting the enemy head on. If you'd count the combat experience of the average British soldier in 1939-1942, most of them would not have been involved in a month of serious combat (30 days which the soldier spend mostly fighting). I'm not saying there was no serious combat at all, I'm saying that the difference in terms of combat experience between British and American forces didn't amount to 3 years which some historians would like you to believe.
Not my argument, but given only a handful of US Divisions saw action in the Med and when they did get involved, would have suffered combat at about the same rate Allied units had been experiencing since 1939, I don't see the argument. Combat experience is about assimilating battle experience as much as blooding troops. In WWI Pershing ignored all advice and Americans paid for that arrogance when they first went into action. By 1943/44, Britain had a lot of bad experiences and lessons to draw upon. They may well have sounded high handed to proud American warriors, but it was Brits who developed specialised armour for Normandy, added bigger guns to the Shermans and successfully argued for a later rather than earlier D-Day.
Regards,
ID
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