Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

[Mori]

Oh, and you certainly know that all DEFE 2 files are for free download on the TNA site. These are all the Ultra intercepts enough to be passed on to SHAEF and other field commanders.

No need for a cage anymore

[Michael Kenny]

this is pretty much obvious to an impartial observer who has done some reading on WW2.

Yes but what do you believe?

But anybody who has some knowledge of the history of WW1 and WW2 .

Again you refer to other people. Why not tell us what you(a devoted believer) think?

people ignorant of history

And now when you get to your own classification you forget to give an opinion!!

[Richard Anderson]

Finaly, G-2 of Allied units sometimes reproduce captured German documents, but I must admit I looked at many and found fewer than 10 with quantified data on strength or losses.

Interesting, I had a feeling we needed to look more at ULTRA, but as I said they were just being declassified when we worked with them, so major restrictions were still in place. Thanks! Makes me want to get back to Archives II.

[histan]

An impartial reader who has done some reading on WWI and WW2 knows that Germany lost both of them and that the German Army was comprehensively defeated by the British Army in 1918. They also know that 6 Army was surrounded and defeated at Stalingrad, that a German Army Group was forced to surrender in North Africa, that the Russians destroyed an Army Group in 1944, that the allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and within three months had comprehensively defeated the German army in the West and had reached the German border. Finally, they know that Berlin was captured by the Russians and that Germany unconditionally surrendered.

One problem is that the Germans were incredibly bad at strategy.
For example Barbarrossa is one example given in AJP-5 Allied Joint Doctrine for Operational-level Planning. For those interested this is the quote
"Operation BARBAROSSA – Soviet Union 1941
The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 represents a classic failure to balance ends, ways and means. The German strategic objective was to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union (the end) through a short, yet decisive, campaign (the way). Overconfidence and poor intelligence, however, led to fundamentally miscalculating the resources (the means). There was no significant economic mobilisation and force levels, comparable to those committed to the invasion of France, were deemed adequate. The assumption that the Soviets could only deploy some 300 divisions proved flawed. In fact, they had managed to raise 600 by December 1941. At the same time, indecision as to the Soviet’s centre of gravity (eventually agreed as Moscow) led to constant changes in the German concept of operations. As a result, despite losing nearly five million men in 1941, the Soviet Union
retained the capacity to continue the war."

As usual, the losers cry in their beer an talk about "performance" while the winners toast their victory with champagne.

Regards

John

[Michael Kenny]

I always think of this Brian Clough moment just after he won his 1st European Cup IN 1979. The reporters were telling him the Malmo manager (Malmo were beaten 1-0) was claiming his team were more skilfull footballers that they 'won' the match because they played much better than Forest (Clough's team),
Clough said:

''I congratulate the Malmo manager on his moral victory. I will just have to console myself with the cup''!

[Richard Anderson]

Note the posters usual trick of excluding the huge numbers of German POWs in order to make the numbers match his uber-soldier fantasy.

he's been playing the game that "prisoners aren't really casualties" for years now.

[Richard Anderson]

Oh, and you certainly know that all DEFE 2 files are for free download on the TNA site. These are all the Ultra intercepts enough to be passed on to SHAEF and other field commanders.

No need for a cage anymore

Yes indeed, thanks, but time...

[Richard Anderson]

Errata: 44,974 bloody casualties, so that yields 202% "per capita bloody casualty infliction rate", similar to the data on the 78 engagements in Italy and France.

No it doesn't, because you haven't the faintest smidgen of a clue what the "per capita bloody casualty infliction rate" (WTFTI) was. You know what the total casualties as given in NPW was. Which include KIA, WIA, and MIA.

[Richard Anderson]

Unfortunately, they chose to call this parameter "Combat Efficiency" - sorry Richard but it is a stupid name.

I agree, which is why neither I or anyone at HERO/DMSi?TDI ever called it any such thing.

CEV was "Combat Effectiveness Variable" or "Combat Effectiveness Value" (Trevor spoke of both, but usually just "CEV" was used). I am not responsible for what those who have no idea what the actual history was say.

[David Thompson]

Everybody -- Drop the personal remarks and insinuations about other posters and restrict yourselves to discussing the topic.

[Mori]

Oh, and you certainly know that all DEFE 2 files are for free download on the TNA site.

I kept mentioning DEFE 2 while the right reference is DEFE 3.

They were made public in the 1970's, and that's what Benett and Hinsley use in their books (Benett, Ultra in the West, 1979 ; Hinsley, British Intelligence in the 2 WW, first volume in 1979).

As far as I understand, the HW51 series were made public some years later. They include the raw intercepts, while DEFE 3 are the messages interesting enough to be sent to field commanders. DEFE 3 are therefore a fraction of the sum - but if you're curious enough to get them from TNA site, you will see they're a pretty thick fraction.

[Guaporense]

An impartial reader who has done some reading on WWI and WW2 knows that Germany lost both of them and that the German Army was comprehensively defeated by the British Army in 1918. They also know that 6 Army was surrounded and defeated at Stalingrad, that a German Army Group was forced to surrender in North Africa, that the Russians destroyed an Army Group in 1944, that the allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and within three months had comprehensively defeated the German army in the West and had reached the German border. Finally, they know that Berlin was captured by the Russians and that Germany unconditionally surrendered.

One problem is that the Germans were incredibly bad at strategy.
For example Barbarrossa is one example given in AJP-5 Allied Joint Doctrine for Operational-level Planning. For those interested this is the quote
"Operation BARBAROSSA – Soviet Union 1941
The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 represents a classic failure to balance ends, ways and means. The German strategic objective was to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union (the end) through a short, yet decisive, campaign (the way). Overconfidence and poor intelligence, however, led to fundamentally miscalculating the resources (the means). There was no significant economic mobilisation and force levels, comparable to those committed to the invasion of France, were deemed adequate. The assumption that the Soviets could only deploy some 300 divisions proved flawed. In fact, they had managed to raise 600 by December 1941. At the same time, indecision as to the Soviet’s centre of gravity (eventually agreed as Moscow) led to constant changes in the German concept of operations. As a result, despite losing nearly five million men in 1941, the Soviet Union retained the capacity to continue the war."

As usual, the losers cry in their beer an talk about "performance" while the winners toast their victory with champagne.

Regards

John

Let's see, user named John from England, claims "German Army was comprehensively defeated by the British Army in 1918", of course ignoring the fact that British casualties were only aprox. 30% of the Entente casualties in 1918. Then, claims it's better because "they won", well, North Vietnam defeated the US a couple of decades after, nobody claims that the North Vietnamese armed forces were superior in any way.

The Failure of Barbarossa, by the way, it's pretty complex thing in many senses. Nobody expected the Soviet Union to be so resilient and that makes it an important historical fact, since what makes history are events that are not predictable.

Anyway, this talk is futile. There is no way of discussing things involving national chauvinism: People are just unable to see things rationally and already go out to insult a non-Anglo Saxon on a personal level just because he does not share their super biased Anglo-Saxon perspective on world history. It's a sign of incredible arrogance and disrespect.

[Michael Kenny]

The Failure of Barbarossa, by the way, it's pretty complex thing in many senses. Nobody expected the Soviet Union to be so resilient and that makes it an important historical fact, since what makes history are events that are not predictable.

Not complex at all. As Hitler himself said the Soviet people/soldiers showed they had greater 'will' than the Germans. They could take punishment and then bounce back. In laymans terms a better Army.

Anyway, this talk is futile..

Correct. Debating with anyone who wants to exclude German POWs from any casualty count is a textbook exercise in futility.

[histan]

Where in my post did I say that the British Army was "better"? I think "better" is a meaningless concept.

Battles and campaigns are won or lost. There are winners and losers. It is pointless to try to prove that the losers were "better" than the winners. In order to understand and learn lessons from battles it is important to understand how and why the winners won and how and why the losers lost. Output measures can help in some cases but in other cases don't help at all. For example how does the fact that the Britain lost more tonnage of shipping in the Falklands War than Argentina help me understand the outcome of the conflict. How does the obsession with casualties help me understand why the Germans were so comprehensively defeated in the Normandy campaign?

Finally imagine Hitler's response if at a military briefing one of the staff officers said - "We have lost the battle and our forces are in retreat but, mein Führer, the casualty figures clearly show that we were the better soldiers."

Regards

John

PS Thanks Richard for the correction, I should have guessed that you would have had effectiveness in there somewhere.

[Sheldrake]

I am now going to make some statements based on a limited understanding of the modelling and I am sure Richard will correct the mistakes I am likely to make.

The modelling was an attempt understand those factors that contribute to achieving success in battle. Their are some inputs, such as numbers of men, artillery pieces, tanks, etc that can be quantified. Physical effects resulting from "fires" can be mathematically modelled and some external factors such as terrain can be taken into account. Once some of these relationships had been determined then an attempt could be made to predict battle outcomes (effectively who should win). When this modelling was applied to some battles between German and American formations the model did not correctly predict the actual outcome. The Germans were successful when the modelling suggested that they shouldn't have been.

Interesting but not necessarily a total surprise to the modellers.

Battles are a combination of manoeuvre, physical effects, and psychological effects.

Combat Power is made up of a combination of Manpower (which has both a quantitative and a qualitative component), Equipment (which also has both a quantitative and a qualitative component), and Training (both individual skills training - which might also be covered under manpower quality - but more importantly collective training - which impacts on collective performance) which is turned into Combat Effectiveness by Leadership.

Many of these factors are difficult to quantify but have a significant impact on Combat Effectiveness.

So, if you put Division A whose units have been together for some time and who have trained together at all levels (Brigade/Regiment, Battalion, etc) and who have been in combat before (battle experience both individually and collectively) against division B whose units have not been together for long and have undertaken little collective training and for whom this is their first time in combat then Division A could overcome a quantitative superiority enjoyed by Division B. That is Division A would achieve an outcome not predicted by the quantitative modelling alone.

To represent this (and other factors) the modellers introduced another term into the model that would allow the model to predict the actual outcome.

This is more than just a "fiddle factor" but a genuine attempt to represent these factors that are difficult to quantify and model.

Unfortunately, they chose to call this parameter "Combat Efficiency" - sorry Richard but it is a stupid name.

This factor has been misused to suggest that the Germans were "better soldiers" than the US, British, and Canadians which is not what it says at all.

The single fudge factor is a simplistic model: a best fit line through very complex data.

Warfare is an art as well as a science. There are conceptual and moral components to military power that cannot be easily fitted into the model. Yes it is possible to put a fudge factor for tactical formations such as a division versus a division. German training and drills gave them an edge in tactics.

But it isn't the whole story. The moral component - the will to win, is assumed to be balanced in favour of the totalitarian regimes, and subsumed within the fudge factor. But it has historically been key. The Turks fought much harder than expected at Gallipolli, attributed to their success in turning back the naval attempt to force the Dardenelles.

German strategic flaws - the weakness in the conceptual component meant that on the really big scale the German under performed. Rommel in North Africa is the perfect example of German tactical excellence and strategic incompetence, but a similar pattern can be seen in Normandy.