Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

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Sheldrake
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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#181

Post by Sheldrake » 16 Jul 2016, 02:15

histan wrote: Battles and campaigns are won or lost. There are winners and losers.
I agree wholeheartedly with your post, but these sentences triggered a couple of thoughts.

On the surface that is hardly a contentious statement. But who decides who has won and who has lost? There certainly isn't HERO computer and set of umpires. There are lots of battles where both sides claim victory, or occasionally, admit defeat. Throughout history the beaten side has been the side which gives up first, regardless of casualties.

For all of the efficiency of the German army in Normandy, its commanders knew they could not win the campaign, as can be read in their reports. The German army may have been more efficient in close battle, but they could not replace their casualties or supply their troops with artillery ammunition. Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#182

Post by Richard Anderson » 16 Jul 2016, 06:25

histan wrote:Where in my post did I say that the British Army was "better"? I think "better" is a meaningless concept.
I would not take anything to heart from that poster. He specializes in made up data and in returning to making things up when his data is shown to be faulty. Then blames his lack of research and analytical capabilities on an "Anglo-Saxon conspiracy". I suspect he believes he is being stabbed in the back. :lol:
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?
Indeed, and yet as Sheldrake has ably pointed out, in battle...and sometimes in wars, the "winner" and "loser" is someties difficult to define and often the definition is arbitrary. So who "won" the Yom Kippur War? There is a strong argument to be made that Egypt won and Israel and Syria lost. Or Quatre Bras and Ligny? One was at best a french-Allied draw, but the other was a smashing French victory. But so what, St. Helena was the only future Napoleon had after those victorys. And so on, the point of the Vietnam War is not that the North "won", but rather the US didn't win, while the North didn't lose.

Cheers to my Anglo-Saxon co-conspirators. Brexit and Trump are just our subtle trap to ensnare the non-Anglo world with our insidious machinations. :thumbsup:
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#183

Post by Guaporense » 16 Jul 2016, 07:33

David Thompson wrote:Everybody -- Drop the personal remarks and insinuations about other posters and restrict yourselves to discussing the topic.
The "topic" was already discussed and its outcome was decided many years ago.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#184

Post by Guaporense » 16 Jul 2016, 08:41

Sheldrake wrote:The German army may have been more efficient in close battle, but they could not replace their casualties or supply their troops with artillery ammunition. Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
Whats your source that artillery did not have ammunition?
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#185

Post by Sheldrake » 16 Jul 2016, 09:38

Guaporense wrote:
Sheldrake wrote:The German army may have been more efficient in close battle, but they could not replace their casualties or supply their troops with artillery ammunition. Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
Whats your source that artillery did not have ammunition?
For practical purposes the Germans did not have artillery ammunition on the scale necessary to fight a battle of material like the Normandy campaign. Sure, the Germans could horde a few rounds for desperate moments. Many of the German artillery pieces were captured Italian or soviet pieces for which there was little ammunition available. Their ammunition was stored in a centralised depot. The German self inflicted shortage of motor transport, combined with allied air attacks on transportation meant that 7th Army and Panzer Group West were chronically short of supplies.

Example #1 The 352nd infantry division defending the Bayeux sector had fired almost all its artillery ammunition by noon 6th June. At that point their guns closest to Omaha beach were hitched up to their horses and pulled back. This is one under played reason for the eventual success of the assault.

Example #2 . Eberbach reported that when he took over Panzer Group West in earl;y July he ordered ARKO II SS Panzer Corps to prepare an artillery strike to hit back at the British. II SS Panzer Corps carefully assembled 2,500 rounds and fired it at British positions SW of Caen in a half hour of hate. The British response was a counter battery bombardment estimated by the Germans to be 22,500 rounds in about ten minutes. The eight guns of a single British or Canadian battery would frequently fire over 2,500 rounds in a day.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#186

Post by Gorque » 16 Jul 2016, 15:43

Sheldrake wrote:
histan wrote: Battles and campaigns are won or lost. There are winners and losers.
I agree wholeheartedly with your post, but these sentences triggered a couple of thoughts.

On the surface that is hardly a contentious statement. But who decides who has won and who has lost? There certainly isn't HERO computer and set of umpires. There are lots of battles where both sides claim victory, or occasionally, admit defeat. Throughout history the beaten side has been the side which gives up first, regardless of casualties.

For all of the efficiency of the German army in Normandy, its commanders knew they could not win the campaign, as can be read in their reports. The German army may have been more efficient in close battle, but they could not replace their casualties or supply their troops with artillery ammunition. Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
Hi Sheldrake:

A very thought provoking posting by you which recalled Joseph Johnston's expertly handled delaying actions during his retreat towards Atlanta against the larger forces led by Sherman. At the end of the day Sherman held the field, but Johnston not only bought more time but also lengthened Sherman's resupply line, thereby forcing Sherman to dedicate more men to defend it.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#187

Post by Sheldrake » 16 Jul 2016, 19:07

Gorque wrote:
Sheldrake wrote:
histan wrote: Battles and campaigns are won or lost. There are winners and losers.
I agree wholeheartedly with your post, but these sentences triggered a couple of thoughts.

On the surface that is hardly a contentious statement. But who decides who has won and who has lost? There certainly isn't HERO computer and set of umpires. There are lots of battles where both sides claim victory, or occasionally, admit defeat. Throughout history the beaten side has been the side which gives up first, regardless of casualties.

For all of the efficiency of the German army in Normandy, its commanders knew they could not win the campaign, as can be read in their reports. The German army may have been more efficient in close battle, but they could not replace their casualties or supply their troops with artillery ammunition. Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
Hi Sheldrake:

A very thought provoking posting by you which recalled Joseph Johnston's expertly handled delaying actions during his retreat towards Atlanta against the larger forces led by Sherman. At the end of the day Sherman held the field, but Johnston not only bought more time but also lengthened Sherman's resupply line, thereby forcing Sherman to dedicate more men to defend it.
...and was sacked for being too defensive. His more aggressive replacement, Hood fought a big battle - and lost Atlanta. There is a parallel. The Allies were expecting the Germans to fall back to the Seine and Loire, giving up ground rather than trade casualties, leaving them with an autumn campaign in France. But like Hood the Germans fought for every inch of Normandy - and had lost it all by 31 August.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#188

Post by David Thompson » 16 Jul 2016, 21:09

Guaporense -- You wrote (at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p2027235), quoting my thread warning:
David Thompson wrote:Everybody -- Drop the personal remarks and insinuations about other posters and restrict yourselves to discussing the topic.
The "topic" was already discussed and its outcome was decided many years ago.
Whether or not that is true, we require posters to be civil and on topic.

A churlish post from Guaporense, and a now unnecessary reply by Richard Anderson, were removed by this moderator - DT.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#189

Post by Mori » 16 Jul 2016, 22:56

Sheldrake wrote: Many of the German artillery pieces were captured Italian or soviet pieces for which there was little ammunition available.
This assumption should be quantified, and I'm not sure whether anyone has ever made the proper count: was the % of guns were from old French/Russian/Italian stocks significant, ie >20%? Was ammunition supply for these guns really worse than for German guns? (Some ammunitions types were identical or similar enough to German guns; some industrial facilities could still manufacture shells in captured France etc.).

I have often read that guns captured from French and Russian armies were a liability because of lack of ammunition or spare parts. This is repeated in German memoirs over and over, from Normandy to the Elbe. What's strange is you read this in Normandy accounts, in Siegfried Line accounts (autumn 44), in Rhineland accounts (up to March 1945), like there was a continuous supply of new captured guns, or like Germans gave priority to these guns when retreating to the East...

It sounds a bit like the Siegfried Line. German memoirs usually describe their fortifications as utterly useless, "only good to protect against the weather". One typical illustration are the obsolete AT guns, with bunker openings too small to accomodate larger, modern guns. One scholar studied the point, and realized that expanding the opening did not require to destroy the building; that 7-10 days of work were enough to upgrade bunkers; but that, from September 1944 to January 1945, Germans failed to make the effort in 75% of the bunkers. Most probably because field commanders at army and army group level did not believe in the Siegfried Line to start with - and made their belief self-fulfilling.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#190

Post by Sheldrake » 17 Jul 2016, 00:55

Mori wrote:
Sheldrake wrote: Many of the German artillery pieces were captured Italian or soviet pieces for which there was little ammunition available.
This assumption should be quantified, and I'm not sure whether anyone has ever made the proper count: was the % of guns were from old French/Russian/Italian stocks significant, ie >20%? Was ammunition supply for these guns really worse than for German guns? (Some ammunitions types were identical or similar enough to German guns; some industrial facilities could still manufacture shells in captured France etc.).

I have often read that guns captured from French and Russian armies were a liability because of lack of ammunition or spare parts. This is repeated in German memoirs over and over, from Normandy to the Elbe. What's strange is you read this in Normandy accounts, in Siegfried Line accounts (autumn 44), in Rhineland accounts (up to March 1945), like there was a continuous supply of new captured guns, or like Germans gave priority to these guns when retreating to the East...

It sounds a bit like the Siegfried Line. German memoirs usually describe their fortifications as utterly useless, "only good to protect against the weather". One typical illustration are the obsolete AT guns, with bunker openings too small to accomodate larger, modern guns. One scholar studied the point, and realized that expanding the opening did not require to destroy the building; that 7-10 days of work were enough to upgrade bunkers; but that, from September 1944 to January 1945, Germans failed to make the effort in 75% of the bunkers. Most probably because field commanders at army and army group level did not believe in the Siegfried Line to start with - and made their belief self-fulfilling.
The quote is repeated because it is true. I quantified this in a previous post. The Germans on a best effort fired 2,500 rounds on one day on what they thought was the main battlefield. The British and Canadian 21st Army Group replied with 22,500 rounds as an immediate response and were firing 100,000 artillery rounds a day for the middle ten days of July 1944. The British so outmatched the German guns that the main counter bombardment effort effort switched to locating and countering counter mortars.
Academics have also demonstrated that the Germans suffered from shortages of ammunition and fuel. http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse. ... &user=&pw=

The problem with equipping your army with captured equipment is that you complicate your logistics. 7th Army had a nonsensical range of artillery firing incompatible ammunition. German 75mm, 88mm, three sorts of 105mm 150mm 170mm French 75mm, two sorts of 155mm, Italian 149mm Russian 76mm, 122mm guns and howitzers and 152mm. The divisional artillery of the 716 , Thirteen ammunition types. These good on paper with the propaganda Atlantic Wall, but without adequate artillery ammunition stocks in the right place and transport to move it it is just so much scrap metal bluff. The more types of ammunition you need, the harder it is to have the right ammunition in the right place! Of course the Germans suffered shortages of ammunition.

This is a summry of the German artillery by division
3 para Div - Mix of German 105mm howitzes and recoiless rifles in one 12 gun Bn
5 Para German light FH 105mm
16 Lw - Russian 76,2mm & 122mm
77 ID mx of 88mm pak 43/41 & 105mm
84 ID mx 88mm flak 18 & flak 36 LH 105mm & SH 150mm
85 ID mx 88mm flak 18 & flak 36 LH 105mm & SH 150mm
89 ID ??
91 Luft Lande 10.5mm mountain howitzers - incompatable with other 105mm rounds
243 ID Russian 76.2mm &122mm guns and 122mm howitzers
265 ID Russian 76.2 mm and 122mm guns and 122mm howitzers
266 ID Russian 76.2mm guns & 122mm Howitzers and French 155mm howitzers
271 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
272 ID German 105mm and 150mm howitzers
275 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
276 ID??
277ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
326 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and russian 122mm guns and howitzers
331 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and French 155mm howitzers
343 ID Russian 76.2mm guns French 100mm and 155mm howitzers
346 ID Russian 76.2mm guns & 122mm Howitzers and French 155mm howitzers
352 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
353 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
363 ID German 75mm IG 150mm IG 105mm and 150mm howitzers
708 ID Russian 76.2mm guns and 122mm howitzers and French 105 mm howitzers
709 ID Russian 76.2mm guns, Czech 100mm Howitzers French 105mm guns and 155 mm howitzers
711 ID Russian 76.2mm guns, and French 155 mm howitzers
716 ID Czech 100mm Howitzers and French 155 mm howitzers

The army artillery was
Art bde 704 German 21 cnm morser, 17cm K 18 gun sturm Pz IV
SS Art abt 101German 21 cm morser 18 & 17 cm K18
Art abt 456 German 88mm & russian 122 & 152
Art abt 456 Russian 122 guns & 152mm gun how
Art abt 460 Russian 122 guns and 152mm gun how
Art abt 555 Russian 122 how
Art bty 625 German 17cm guns
Art Abt 628 German 21 cmm Morser
Art Abt 763 German 17cm guns
Art abt 989 Russian 122 how
Art abt 992 Russian 152 gun how
Art abt 1151 Russian 122 how
Art abt 1151 Italian 14.9cm how
Art abt 1193 Italian 14.9cm how
Art abt 1194 Italian 14.9cm how
Art abt 1198 Italian 14.9cm how

And there is the coastal artillery...

The Panzer Divisions were mainly equipped with German artillery - apart from 21 Pz Div which had a mixture of German and Russian guns

Most of these formations drew on 7th Army for their logistics until the end of July. The four army battalions supplied with Italian artillery were raised in the South of France and may have relied on Italian munisions factories in Northern Italy. I could not find the exact location of the ammunition deport in France, but from memory it is somewhere East of Paris where it could supply 7th and 15th Army. There was only one twin track railway into Normandy, and that under attack from allied aircraft. There was an acute shortage of B Vehicles, and many of these were a hodge-podge of French and Italian vehicles. Infantry divisions were mainly reliant on horse transport. Keeping these troops supplied with the right ammunition was a dogs breakfast of a job for the logistic staff of 7th Army.

The US had 75mm, 90mm 105mm, 155mm and 203mm. The British used US 75mm, 105mm and 155mm and their own 25Pounder, 3.7" 4.5" 5.5" and 7.2" Each national army, with a larger artillery park that that of 7th Army had between five and seven artillery equipment types - and the British got rid of the 75mm airborne and 105mm SP guns by the end of August.

The thing about artillery is that the weapon is the shell and not the equipment that fires it. It is an industrial process that starts with the factory and ends with rounds on the ground.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#191

Post by stg 44 » 19 Jul 2016, 17:59

Sheldrake wrote:Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
That wasn't logistical incompetence, that was just the reality of fighting in an environment where the enemy totally controls the air and has thousands of bombers destroying your supply lines. In terms of strategy it was certainly Hitler's constant expansion of the war that doomed Germany to a war against the 3 great world powers that was unwinnable, but that isn't the fault of commanders on the ground thrust into a terrible, unwinnable situation.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#192

Post by Sheldrake » 19 Jul 2016, 18:07

stg 44 wrote:
Sheldrake wrote:Should we marvel at German combat efficiency or boggle at their logistic incompetence and strategy?
That wasn't logistical incompetence, that was just the reality of fighting in an environment where the enemy totally controls the air and has thousands of bombers destroying your supply lines. In terms of strategy it was certainly Hitler's constant expansion of the war that doomed Germany to a war against the 3 great world powers that was unwinnable, but that isn't the fault of commanders on the ground thrust into a terrible, unwinnable situation.
Utter nonsense.

The Germans gambled on fighting a short war, and were unwilling to place any priority on the mechanical transport they needed to support their army. None of the formation s in Normandy had its full establishment of motor vehicles and their horse drawn transport was described by one army commander as useless.

The supply system in Normandy was made worse by 1) the decision to command half of the invasion front with an "Army Gruppe" lacking the communications, supply columns and rear area control services. 2) The lack of co-ordination between the Army, Navy and air force to pool motor transport. Much of this can be placed at Hitler's divide and rule, but the professional officers involved should share the blame for the pigs breakfast of german C2 in the West.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#193

Post by stg 44 » 19 Jul 2016, 18:21

Sheldrake wrote: Utter nonsense.

The Germans gambled on fighting a short war, and were unwilling to place any priority on the mechanical transport they needed to support their army. None of the formation s in Normandy had its full establishment of motor vehicles and their horse drawn transport was described by one army commander as useless.

The supply system in Normandy was made worse by 1) the decision to command half of the invasion front with an "Army Gruppe" lacking the communications, supply columns and rear area control services. 2) The lack of co-ordination between the Army, Navy and air force to pool motor transport. Much of this can be placed at Hitler's divide and rule, but the professional officers involved should share the blame for the pigs breakfast of german C2 in the West.
Actually they didn't. Hitler blundered into war in 1939 and then anticipated a long war and was surprised when the conflict with France ended quickly. Later of course he gambled on a short war with Russia, but by late 1941 it was clear that the war was going to go long. In terms of truck production Germany had limited resources to make them and didn't organize effectively early in the war. By 1942 when they finally got on to organizing somewhat properly bombing was stepping up and that had a serious negative impact on truck production in 1943-44, blunting the major planned increase in output. By Normandy in 1944 strategic bombing was having a serious impact on output in all sorts of categories of necessary equipment, including trucks, and it was only getting worse. That isn't so much a failure of production planning or military logistics, that is the reality of fighting the US, which was capable of throwing thousands of strategic bombers against your LoC and factories. By December 1944 there were 6000 strategic bombers just with the USAAF operating in Europe.

The supply system in Normandy was just driven by what they could get their hands on in the face of the Allied bombing against their transport and interdiction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Plan

You're probably right that the lack of unity between the army, navy, and air force on the German side was a major problem that Hitler was never willing to really address, but it was a minor part of the overall logistics problem, which was mostly a function of the effectiveness of Allied strategic attacks on rail communications and German factories and fuel production preventing them from producing more trucks and being able to fuel them. On top of that were the literally thousands of fighter bombers chewing up anything moving in daylight,especially supply columns. Before Normandy even happened the Germans were on their last legs and it was just a matter of time until they imploded.

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#194

Post by Michael Kenny » 19 Jul 2016, 18:46

Destroying your ability to manufacture, power and transport (for example) 5000 tanks is not as sexy as SS Officer munchausen's 5th KC for his 200th tank kill but it sure does win wars.
The Germans were not handicapped by a lack of resources but by their inability to provide enough forces to protect her industrial base from Allied destruction. It was not an accident they were resource-poor. It was imposed on Germany by a superior 'Army'

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Re: Relative combat efficiency - Normandy 1944

#195

Post by Sheldrake » 19 Jul 2016, 23:37

It was a German choice not allied bombing which reduced military production in 1940-41 and squandered logistic resources on the final solution rather.

It was a German choice to produce an army with a high teeth to tail ratio, but failed to provide it with the logistic support for the operations they chose to start.

Rommel, the poster boy for German tactical excellence epitomises their logistic incompetence - and in command of the defences of North West Europe.

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