Nemo121
Posts: 5821
Joined: 2/6/2004
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Hartwig,
"Isn't pre-empt, dislocate and disrupt" the essence of manoeuvre warfare. Well, yes but that doesn't mean that people use their mobile forces that way.
Blitzkrieg,
It always struck me that the differences between Blitzkrieg and Deep Battle are both theoretical and practical. What I mean by this is that while Blitzkrieg talked a strategic layer it really ended up getting bogged down in the operational zone when it met moderate to significant resistance.
Theoretically the largest difference I see is that doctrinally speaking the armoured force was often expected to both create the breach and exploit the breach in blitzkrieg whereas in Deep Battle the breaching and exploitation operations were viewed as combat operations so tactically different that in the early to mid-1930s the Soviets designed completely different classes of tanks for the breaching and exploitation phases ( actually, at one stage they also differentiated between the operational exploitation and strategic exploitation forces ). Why did they design different tank styles ( the BT series vs the tankettes vs the land battleships like the T-28, T35 etc ) for the different tasks? Well, we need to look at their view of battlefield problems as tactical-technical issues wherein the tactical problems could be best solved by designing equipment with the appropriate technical characteristics.
E.g. Need an airplane for Close Air Support ( CAS ) in the full face of enemy FlAK in the tactical zone. Well, you'll need something which is highly survivable, tough and capable of both dive-bombing and more traditional firing passes. It should also be relatively small so as not to be too easily targetted. Hey presto they designed the Ilyusha/Bark. Need an airplane for the more traditional air interdiction role into the operational depth in which case precision may be more important but you definitely need more range, more speed and a higher operational ceiling and you end up with the Peshka/Buck.
Same thing for tanks. The T35s, T28, KV-1 and 2 were definitely designed only for the breaching role, not the exploitation role while BTs and T-34s were clearly designed for the exploitation role.
Anyways, bottom line is that once your exploitation force is also the designated breaching force the odds of it getting bogged down in the breaching battle, tangling with operational reserves and generally moving too slowly to exploit into the enemy strategic depth are very high. US FMs and historical experience all clearly highlight this as one of the major dangers of the transition from breaching to exploitation. With Deep Battle and the echeloning of the attack there's a clear desire to separate the breaching and exploitation phases and forces from eachother ( obviously enemy action may prevent this but at least it isn't a case of friendly action preventing it as frequently occured in Blitzkrieg ) and so there was less likelihood for the attack to get bogged down if properly prepared. I think thats a very significant difference since both doctrines arose out of the recognition that even stosstruppen tactics and the artillery doctrine of Durchburchmueller still didn't allow the 1918 German offensive in the West to advance at a rate consistent with a strategic breakthrough and so judging them on their basis to achieve strategically decisive breakthroughs is, IMO, the best way to judge them.
Crackaces,
Prokaryotes for the win!!! 
Cribtop,
Before answering that it is essential to just outline the importance of echeloning.
Echeloning not only ensures that forces have clear objectives but also ensures that you can maintain a rapid operational tempo without the lengthy pauses which often occur. Think of it this way.... Instead of hitting Midway Island with 8 divisions, leaving 1 behind to hold Midway, and then moving with 7 Divisions to take Johnson after re-organising for a couple of weeks on Midway and then moving on from Johnson to invade HIlo and Kona with 6 divisions after another 2 week operational pause - giving the enemy about 8 weeks ( allowing 4 weeks for operational pauses and another 4 weeks for travel and combat ) in which to gather forces and so on and so forth - why not just hit Midway with a single division supported by all of the aerial support available as the rest of the amphibious TFs and CVs sweep past on the way to Johnson where they land one division in the next week ( this time supported by naval bombers basing out of Midway ). As the division lands and takes Johnson Island the other 6 sweep on to Hilo and Kona and land there. The idea is that it moves so quickly that the Americans cannot redeploy to stop it in time.
This would best be envisioned as three echelons of forces. One for Midway, one for Johnson and one for Hawaii. Of course given the huge "gaps" in the front afforded by the Pacific one could easily argue that the best application of Deep Battle here would be simply to drop troops, ships and planes into Hilo/Kona directly in order to neutralise Pearl Harbour and dislocate the positions at Midway, French Frigate Shoals and Johnson Island rendering them all untenable and no longer any threat to IJN SLOCs. But that's a discussion for a different example.
Alternately you could look at the example I gave of the invasion of India. The first echelon pins the enemy forces on the Burma/India border, another echelon conducts the operational breach by landing amphibiously behind the defenders at the Burma frontier - this echelon holds the operational reserves in place at Calcutta by besieging it, dislocates the enemy front line by moving into its rear and unleashes an Operational Manoeuvre Group into the enemy's strategic depth ( this would be the third echelon which is landed across the same beaches as the 2nd echelon but with a very different mission ). Lastly, the combination of KB and amphibious shipping threatens operations into the enemy's strategic depth - this would be somewhat analogous to threatening an Inchon style landing and/or having a strategic paradrop capability.
So, echelons keep the mission clear, keep the tempo up and and avoid operational pauses whilst operational and strategic elements pin the enemy's operational and strategic reserves as you progress through their operational and strategic depth.
So, how do you defeat a Deep Battle offensive?
First things first, when facing most players here you simply aren't going to be facing anything resembling a Deep Battle. Even if they want to strike strategic targets you are likely to find them picking operational objectives and labelling them strategic level objectives or just getting bogged down in the operational level. If they do actually pick strategic objectives and maintain the discipline not to mis-allocate forces then you've got to ask yourself how many players here actually pin operationally important forces and strategic reserves at the same time as fighting the tactical battle.
PzB tries a fair bit of strategic raiding but even there he is raiding the SLOCs across the Pacific not the strategic forming up bases of the Allied behemoth. It is much easier for the Allies as they have 4-engined bombers capable of true strategic reach but even there you rarely see them undertaking focused, targeted missions designed to pin strategic reserves at the same time as twin-engined bombers pin the operational reserves and single-engined attack planes ( plus CVs ) + shipping pin everything in the tactical zone to make the jobs of the army and marines easy.
With all of that said I think that if you are trying to defend against anyone attacking you it is a good idea to create threats throughout the entire depth of his force. If you look at the recent battle in my AAR in which the Allies invaded Ishigaki and Miyako Jima in mid-October 1945 you can see that those invasions were brought about by my seizing the initiative at the beginning of the scenario and launching a hugely costly invasion of Okinawa ( cost me about 200 ships due to the massive CD defences, aerial defences and the tiny size of most of the surviving Japanese xAKLs ( 170 to 800 tons ) which allowed a single hit to obliterate them ). Why did I launch that invasion? Simple, I wanted three things:
1. To push the Allied fighter fields back to the Phillipines protecting my production centres from fighter sweeps - why? I have many fighters I can use in the anti-bomber role but many of them are utter pigs in the air which would be hacked down in droves by P-51s and P-47s sweeping. So, I need to push the fighters back so they can't sweep me so I can establish and maintain multi-hundred fighter CAPs over my main centres of production.
2. To create a trap for the Allies in which they'd have to commit the USN into combat on my terms in order to relieve the pressure on their trapped troops ( about 1500 AV ) at Naha. If the Allies landed elsewhere on the Okinawa/Phillipines axis then my plan was to stalemate them, take Naha and then turn those other islands into big POW camps begging for rescue just like Naha.... and rinse and repeat.
3. To buy time. The more time the Allies spend fighting on the periphery the better for me. That's protecting my critical vulnerability on the Home Islands for as long as possible.
Now, if you look at what happened over the past few days the Allies dropped about 6 division equivalents at Ishigaki and Miyako Jima. I think they wanted those islands to help create a "chain" to provide fighter and bomber bases from which they could support their troops at Naha and prevent me resupplying or reinforcing my troops at Naga. I might be wrong as my opponent hasn't told me his plans obviously
I stalemated him tactically by flying in troops and sacrificing the necessary bombers to reduce his AV while I was building the AV up to allow my ground troops to hold ( in the first phase ) and then begin pushing back ( the second phase which, hopefully, brings about the third phase - the Allied rescue/reinforcement push ).
Operationally my operational naval reserves ( MTBs, mini-subs, coastal subs, Shinyos etc ) which had been lurking all around the region from Formosa to China to Amami Oshima moved into position and, together with the DDs and CLs of the IJN strategic reserve ( operating from the Home Islands and ready to cover either the Okinawa or Kuriles axis depending on where the Allies came first ) overnight disrupted the landings moving so many TFs out of position that the next day my aerial strategic reserves combined with the operational kamikaze reserve ( I didn't commit the strategic kamikaze reserve since I wanted to protect against being hit by two major operations at the same time and with the IJN strategic reserve commited here I needed the kami strategic reserve available to strengthen the aerial operational reserve in the Kuriles if they became active at the same time ) were able to inflict serious losses on enemy CVs and CVLs forcing a wholesale retreat from the operational zone.
At the same time as the enemy forces in the operational zone were being forced to fall back to their strategic base ( Manilla and the Phillipines ) and I could see enemy CV TFs forming up at Manilla in order to move out and cover the escaping and heavily damaged CVs, BBs etc I focused Ki-264 and long-range kamikaze missions on those strategic reserves as they moved up.
So, over the 2nd and 3rd days of the battle we had tactical aerial and naval strikes going in to help hold the islands, the commitment of operational and strategic aerial and naval reserves against the fleeing USN TFs and also some strikes against the enemy strategic reserves mobilising from Manilla. In addition I had both operational and strategic reserves of ground troops earmarked for both air transport and naval transport ( either by FT TF or amphibious TF ) ready to respond to landings along the Ishigaki island chain and so over the last 3 days I've landed 3 Bdes of troops onto those two islands with more troops on the way.
So, while it wasn't a perfect defence against deep battle, primarily because I don't have forces with the necessary technical-tactical characteristics ( the 1500 to 2,000 4-engined bombers the US has in this scenario would come in very handy right now for obliterating Manilla and pushing his strategic hubs back from what one could argue is actually a deep-operational position to a truly deep strategic position ) it was fought by Japan with clear operational and strategic reserves in the aerial, kamikaze, naval and ground components and an attempt to disrupt the enemy's meshing together of their strategic, operational and tactical zones. I think that if you look at the USN on the first day of the battle the IJAAF and IJNAF were relatively ineffective because the USN was undisrupted. However, once their operational covering forces were disrupted gaps opened up and over the next two days they were forced into retreat and strategic reserves mobilised to rescue them. When this was seen strikes went in to prevent this strategic reserve arriving in a timely manner.
So, the Japanese defence clearly echeloned itself, had clear objectives which were helped by the phasing of the echelons and tried, at all times, to engage all enemy elements at all depths simultaneously in order to disrupt them and, through that disruption, create the openings required to destroy them. If you don't disrupt them throughout their whole depth it is just far too easy for the operational grouping to come to the rescue of the enemy's tactical grouping and the strategic grouping to come to the rescue of the operational grouping. You've got to disrupt them all at the same time so that they can't act as bulwarks for other groups which are disrupted. Obviously IF Japan had enough strength this is precisely when I'd unleash 20 CVs into the area between Formosa and the Phillipines, destroying the enemy's operational zone naval forces and tempting their strategic reserve into battle. I'd then run away with my CVs using the remaining MTBs and DDs to disrupt the enemy CV TFs whilst commiting my kamis and night torpedo squadrons in order to inflict more damage on the enemy's strategic reserve. As my CVs ran away they'd link up with amphibious forces and escort them to take the next strategically important target I have. But in 1945 my navy is outnumbered by about 15 or 20 to 1 in terms of combat power so those sorts of grand attacks through breaches aren't possible anymore. I just have to attrit him to death. Still, the principles are, I think, being somewhat followed. It is MUCH easier if you are the Allies though as they have far more planes and ground troops ( and to some extent ships ) technically-tactically suitable for employment into the enemy's strategic depth.
< Message edited by Nemo121 -- 10/8/2011 9:13:29 PM >
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John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
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RE: Operation Market Garden - 
. I'd be looking for something PBEMable for that reason. I did see something interesting on my searches tonight though as I looked for a wargame covering the area.... HPS has wargames covering the theatre in 1985 - Fulda Gap '85, North German Plain '85 and Danube '85 which, when combined ( as they can be ) in a single game cover the entire theatre ( 
NATO had the mission to get to Reforger points and the WP had to prevent this in order to win. WP would deploy Gas, which allowed a 4 column shift on the CRT turn #1, 2 columns on turn #2 and one column thereafter. So the game was to get as many forces in contact and then use gas watching the whole front collapse. No need to stack to get 3-1 and it was all a bit of timing to get everything in contact at once then ..." shock and awe .." 
That deployment agaisnt a tatical surprise scenario I understand changed with the Clinton era .... 
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