Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

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Germanicus Nero
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#16

Post by Germanicus Nero » 30 Oct 2014, 12:57

I once talked to the father of a friend of mine, who was a child in Normandy during the fighting.

Jean-Claude told me that during the Nazi occupation, the countryside was "devoid of troops". People on farms were allowed to move around. The German soldiers behaved very correctly. Many could speak French, and they had a respect for our culture and landscape that was totally absent when the Americans arrived. Once the Yanks hit town, they simply flattened everything..."

The level of support enjoyed by Allied servicemen in France was lavish. Each infantry division had many tubes of artillery it could call on. There was artillery also at the Corps level, and the Army level. Because of the fluid nature of the fighting, bombardments, while intense, did not keep the artillery long enough in the same location to achieve the sustained storms of steel that were a feature of the Great War.

The "Cab Rank" system of calling in air support was fine tuned through the entire campaign, and perfected by the Rhine Crossings. The Allies began operation 'Overlord' with over 14,000 aircraft directly available for close support work, and for interdiction and prescision targets like bridges, or road junctions.

The British were the only power to have infantry with a demonstrated reluctance to incur casuaties on a grand scale. But everywhere, it was the long logistical tails of these divisions that were sucking away manpower from the line and into the rear areas of the Service Corps. For every one American G.I. on the line needed 24 people to put him there, and to attend to him if he was wounded. The attitude of the Americans was different, too. During the Battle of the Bulge, German soldiers were amazed by the flippancy with which Americans abandoned vehicles and equipment. One German was heard to say that 'there must be as many trucks in the American Army as they have people!" In the German Army, it was a punishable offence to abandon equipment. These Americans had an industrialized attitude to their equipment. "Plenty more where that came from!"

It is these realities that caused less people to be involved in actual combat than ever before. The industrialization of warfare had reached a zenith as the machines started to do the work of massed infantry from the last war. Contrast the Soviets, who put every man that they could find up front, still using massed infantry assaults right up to Berlin, and had little in the way of permanent logistics for infantry. Their towed and self propelled artillery and rockets were grouped into Corps level megaliths that took up most of the tracked vehicles just to supply it with ammunition. Their divisional artillery relied much on mortars, something that could be moved quickly, and the bits and pieces on a panje cart or sled.

The Anglo-Americans were fighting warfare at the cutting edge. Not for them the need for many rifles, when your people have automatic weapons, many machine guns with transport, and the issuance of the excellent .50 calibre machine guns like popcorn machines.

"When the Americans arrived, they simply flattened everything."

Art
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#17

Post by Art » 01 Nov 2014, 23:31

Leutnant Von Historian wrote: Well in division scale( not small unit scale) the American divisional and German divisional structure is very different one and another. The American division focused its most of it troops numerically in the supporting unit.
I wouldn't say this. 2/3 of personnel authorized for the US infantry division of that period were in infantry regiments:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF08/a01.htm
Which was more than a typical German infantry division (most reduced to 7 infantry battalions as opposed to 9 battalions in American divisions) had. IMO American divisional organization was quite compact and economical. The other thing is that the American Army had massive amount of non-divisional troops which strongly changed proportion of combat to support elements.


Leutnant Von Historian
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#18

Post by Leutnant Von Historian » 06 Nov 2014, 15:36

I was talking about the rifleman.

Delta Tank
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#19

Post by Delta Tank » 06 Nov 2014, 16:32

Germanicus Nero,
For every one American G.I. on the line needed 24 people to put him there, and to attend to him if he was wounded. The attitude of the Americans was different, too.
Do you have a source for this? Are you stating that these 24 people were all in the military or does this count factory workers, farmers, etc. I have seen figures like this before and when you do the math, you suddenly find out that it ain't so. So, if we added up all the combat soldiers, infantry, armor, tank destroyer, reconnaissance, artillery, etc and multiple that by 24 what would be the answer?

Mike

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#20

Post by Delta Tank » 07 Nov 2014, 13:51

Germanicus Nero wrote:The long logistical tail of the Allied war effort is well known.

Are you trying to be funny?

This site seems to crawl with people wanting sources they have no interest in. They just do it to be 'cool' and look intelligent.

Are you one of these people?

I am not trying to be funny!!! I think your statistic of 24 people to keep one GI in the front line needs to be defined more clearly. Are all these 24 people in the military? Or does this include the farmer in Iowa growing corn and raising hogs? I am really cool, trust me! I am also extremely intelligent, I retired at the tender age of 41 and my wife has a really good job!! Yes, I am a "kept man"!! Now since you are a new guy on this Forum, it is common if someone states a "fact" another member can ask for the source so it can be checked, read in context, evaluated, etc. If you can't remember where you read it, just state that and we will all move on. I did do some math on this "fact", So, 61 US divisions in the ETO at the end of the war, use 9,000 combat soldiers (infantry, armor, tank destroyer, artillerymen, etc. I believe if you add in all of these units, 9k is low) So, 9,000 combat soldiers per division times 61 divisions times 24 people to keep them in the line you arrive at 13,176,000.

So, your source please.

Mike

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#21

Post by David Thompson » 08 Nov 2014, 06:18

An off-topic and insulting post from Germanicus Nero was removed by this moderator - DT.

Art
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#22

Post by Art » 08 Nov 2014, 18:25

Leutnant Von Historian wrote:I was talking about the rifleman.
It doesn't seem to me that there was such a huge difference between German and US divisional organization. US infantry division was authorized 27 rifle companies each with 9 rifle squads each with 12 men:
http://www.militaryresearch.org/7-17%2026Feb44.pdf
Total 2916 men in rifle squads.
Typical German division had 21 rifle companies, each with 9 squads each with 9 men:
http://www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn131n1mai44.htm
Total 1701 men in rifle squads. Plus some small recon elements. So American division had more riflemen, although the division itself was somewhat larger.

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Sheldrake
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#23

Post by Sheldrake » 08 Nov 2014, 20:44

Art is correct. The US infantry Division was deliberately modelled on the German infantry division. The Western allies did not have a numerical advantage over the Germans on the Western front. Their advantage was in material, not all of which was visible.

The Allies had a lot more tanks and aircraft, which can all be counted. Less visible was the vast superiority in supplied, especially ammunition and fuel. Allied artillery ten to a hundred times as many artillery rounds as the Germans. By late 1944 the German qualitative advantage had been eroded. Allied units had learned from their experiences in Italy and France.

Many WW2 battles involved relatively small groups of soldiers. WW1 demonstrated that packing the firing line did not increased casualties rather than firepower. Artillery dominated, infantry occupied.

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bronk7
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#24

Post by bronk7 » 09 Nov 2014, 01:22

Delta Tank wrote:Germanicus Nero,
For every one American G.I. on the line needed 24 people to put him there, and to attend to him if he was wounded. The attitude of the Americans was different, too.
Do you have a source for this? Are you stating that these 24 people were all in the military or does this count factory workers, farmers, etc. I have seen figures like this before and when you do the math, you suddenly find out that it ain't so. So, if we added up all the combat soldiers, infantry, armor, tank destroyer, reconnaissance, artillery, etc and multiple that by 24 what would be the answer?

Mike
Delta I think it is just 24 ''combat'' people for every ''''fighting'' man....every arty/TDs/armor,etc unit had a ''tail''<>communications,supply unit,drivers,<>soldiers that didn't actually fight..I'm sure it means for the actual soldier pulling the trigger there are 24 soldiers in the tail....

Art
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#25

Post by Art » 09 Nov 2014, 18:31

Sheldrake wrote:Art is correct. The US infantry Division was deliberately modelled on the German infantry division. The Western allies did not have a numerical advantage over the Germans on the Western front.
If you talk about all sorts of personnel then they had it for sure. By the VE day the US Army alone (not counting French and Commonwealth forces) deployed more than 3 million men in the Western Europe. Which was considerably more than the German Wehrmacht ever had there by the most liberal count. See, for example, this topic:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=76052
But, yes, German and American armies were different things organizationally, which makes it somewhat difficult to compare them in equivalent terms.

Gary Kennedy
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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#26

Post by Gary Kennedy » 09 Nov 2014, 22:13

There is a somewhat superficial similarity between the 1939 German Inf Div and the 1942 US Inf Div. Both had a small Recce element, an Engr Bn (3 Coys) and an Arty Regt (each with three 105mm and one 155 armed Bns, each with twelve guns per Bn). Each type of Inf Regt had a Cannon Coy (six light and two heavy pieces), an Atk Coy (each with twelve 37-mm weapons) and three Inf Bns (each with a Wpns Coy of eight HMGs and six 81-mm mortars, and three Rifle Coys, each with three light mortars, two MGs and nine Rifle Squads, each with an automatic weapon).

But there were as many differences as well, not least being the fact the German Div had relatively little motor transport and the US had absolutely no horse transport, while the US had more 37-mm atk guns dotted around the Inf, Engr and Arty Bns. The 1941 German Inf Div changed the issue of MGs to the Inf Bns, and from 142 onwards began a long series of reductions to all areas, while the 1943 US Inf Div gave up a good amount of MT and rejigged certain areas of firepower (rationalised atk gun issue with the 57-mm and brought in 105-mm weapons for the Cannon Coys). Also the US attached Atk/AA units, while the German ones were integral.

The figure of how many men it took to support one rifleman in the field is an interesting one, and a very base calculation of 24 per rifleman gives a total of almost 70,000 for a US Inf Div with a foxhole strength of 2916 (assuming Rifle Squads only, though a lot of others could be counted). Allowing for say 50 Divs (which doesn't take into account differences for Armd and Abn Divs) gets a very rough figure of 3,500,000 personnel; to those with the figures for total US personnel in the ETO (excluding MTO and PTO) in their heads, does that sound feasible? My interest is in the lower reaches of unit organisation so I won't comment :)

Gary

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#27

Post by Delta Tank » 10 Nov 2014, 00:29

Gary,

On 8 May 1945, the US Army had 61 divisions in the ETO. I am not sure how many were in the MTO, but we had 89 divisions, and all saw combat but one, an airborne division, can't remember the number (lucky 13??) So, 88 division times 2916 times 24 equals 6,158,592. But, your number does not include tanks, anti-tank, mortars, artillery, combat engineers, etc, which you explained above, but if you use 6,000 per division, which I still think is low, you get 12,672,000. So, almost no one is left to be in the Army Air Forces. And that figure of 12,672,000 exceeds the authorized Army ground strength. I have heard figures like this before, 75 people to keep one F-15 in the air. . .really??? How so? It is never explained.

Mike

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#28

Post by Gary Kennedy » 10 Nov 2014, 02:19

And it's really important to know just how those figures are calculated to understand what they mean. There are various interpretations of who even 'counts' as frontline strength; members of the Rifle Squads/Sections are definite, for me I count Pl HQ as well, then do you count all the MG related personnel, and what about mortarmen, those for the light mortars likely yes, but what about the medium and heavy crews who would be sited further back? British & CW have oddities like Carrier Pls as well to account for. The other similar calculation that comes to mind is how many personnel to care for one soldier evacuated from the frontline (I think I've heard 7 or 8 quoted in the past, but again it's understanding the context).

I recently found some German figures which refer to a grabenstarke (excuse the spelling), which I think translates roughly as 'trench strength', or foxhole strength. These seem to count all the members of the Rifle Pls, less wagon or vehicle drivers, all the direct crews of the MG and 8-cm mortar teams (again excluding drivers or horse handlers), and seemingly excluding all AFV crewmen, who would no doubt be expected to stay out of trenches where possible.

Re the US ETO, I have it down as 42 Inf, 15 Armd and 4 Abn Divs in the ETO as of May45, with the 'unlucky' 13th Abn never being deployed as a combat formation, so 61 Divs sound right to me. MTO varies as some transferred to the ETO, but 8 Divs up to Jun44, dropping to 5 by Aug44, then up to 7 by Jan45 (including 1 Armd and 1 Mtn Divs). PTO I have as 21 Divs all told (19 Inf, 1 Cav and 1 Abn) for the Army, plus 6 USMC Divs. I know the tail outnumbered the teeth, but I'm thinking 24 to 1 is a very high estimate!

Gary

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#29

Post by Delta Tank » 10 Nov 2014, 03:07

Gary,

In 1974 I got a $2,500 Combat Arms Enlistment Bonus from the US Army to join the Field Artillery, so that establishes my baseline. Infantry (includes mortars,machine-gunners, anti-tank), Armor (which includes recce/cav) Tank Destroyer, Artillery, and whatever I missed. These guys were all actively involved in pulling triggers and jerking lanyards to kill or wound the enemy.

Mike

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Re: Seems the margin of victory was very small in the ETO.

#30

Post by bronk7 » 10 Nov 2014, 14:24

I would bet they are not counting any arty units as front line trigger men ...probably not Air forces as well.....don't they mean 'tip of the spear' men??

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