Doctrine: British Failures

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Urmel
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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#16

Post by Urmel » 20 May 2015, 14:24

Tom from Cornwall wrote:MakN,

While I generally agree with much in your post, I think the description of 22 Armd Bde action at El Gubi is overly dramatized:
22nd Armoured Brigade lead a headlong charge without support and got mauled by Italian A/Tk guns during Crusader.
There was much more to this action than the popular image of the yeomanry getting the sniff of fox blood and simply charging...they actually engaged Italian tanks that day too... 8O
I don't think it's overly dramatised. The question is in any case not what they fought, but how they did it. Doctrinal failures were:

1) failure to establish a balanced combined arms-force.
2) failure to carry out appropriate rec. prior to the attack
3) failure to concentrate strike force in the attack
4) failure to utilise even the small infantry/artillery contingents during the fight
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#17

Post by Gooner1 » 20 May 2015, 15:54

Urmel wrote:Primarily I-tanks though?
7th Armoured Divisions main task in the early phases of Compass was to screen the Italian camps to prevent reinforcement or retreat and to lead the pursuit.
Their moment of glory came at Beda Fomm. Though whether there they were practicing combined arms or just ably fighting their own battles I dunno.


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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#18

Post by MarkN » 21 May 2015, 13:34

Hello Tom,
Tom from Cornwall wrote: While I generally agree with much in your post, I think the description of 22 Armd Bde action at El Gubi is overly dramatized ...they actually engaged Italian tanks that day too...
They did indeed engage Italian tanks. However, that doesn't mitigate the reality that it was completely unsupported tank charge by 22 Armd Bde.
Tom from Cornwall wrote: In addition, the remark that:
If Brigade Groups have to be used they are not really economical nor are their staff and communications normally adequate to deal with the additional troops required to make them function.
is only a statement of the facts as they were on the ground at the time.
I tend to disagree. I think it was more an excuse than a reality. Remember, it follows para. 2 which clearly states the opinion that the brigade (not the brigade group) is preferred formation. Which, was how 22 Armd Bde lined up later that year - despite the establishment providing it with a motor battalion!

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#19

Post by MarkN » 21 May 2015, 13:50

Hello Sheldrake,
Sheldrake wrote: Sure, mixing the armour and the infantry together sounds great, but it calls for really high quality junior officers trained in combined arms and capable of thinking two levels up. The British did not have the products of the kreigsacademie. Instead they had subalterns whose training had equipped they to lead a platoon/troop of theoir own arm, with a focus on its internal economy. The British Army could not compete with the Germans at this game. They had to frustrate the Germans and force them to fight a series of controlled battles and drawing on controlled concentrated firepower.
Your point about the quality and training of junior officers is bang on the mark. British doctrine assumed that only when you reached the level of Major General did an officer have sufficient intellectual capacity (process of weeding out the less gifted) and experience (long service) to cope with the combined arms battle. But was it the chicken or the egg which came first? Was it true that the average subultern was so intellectually challenged and unable to cope that doctrine and training was written to mitigate and conform, or did the doctrine come first at the expense of gifted subulterns unable to shine? Personally, I tend towards the latter and it being a product of the 'wegimental' system.

Thus the British certainly did do combined arms. But they only did it from divisional level upwards. Whereas the Germans did it as far down as the company group. And this continued deep into the war.

When Montgomery took over the 8th Army, this didn't change. He didn't push combined arms and command responsibility and decision-making down the chain to the brigade and battalion commanders. If anything, he shifted it up to corps commanders and himself. El Alamain was not fought by combined armed company or battalion battlegroups, was it? As you point out, the role of divisional CRA was strengthened, not diluted.

The reasons why performance improved from El Alamain onwards was down to the quality of brigade and above commanders being superior (across the board) then earlier. These slots were now being filled by officers who had performed well commanding formations in combat, rather than those who had been promted for being good peacetime officers.

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#20

Post by MarkN » 21 May 2015, 13:53

Gooner1 wrote: Their moment of glory came at Beda Fomm. Though whether there they were practicing combined arms or just ably fighting their own battles I dunno.
Arguably, a combined arms effort. However, not by design but by 'fortunate' circumstance. Coombe force was not a carefully thought through task based force, it was a conglomeration of whatever was avaialble that could move quickly.

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#21

Post by Urmel » 21 May 2015, 15:28

MarkN wrote:
Tom from Cornwall wrote: In addition, the remark that:
If Brigade Groups have to be used they are not really economical nor are their staff and communications normally adequate to deal with the additional troops required to make them function.
is only a statement of the facts as they were on the ground at the time.
I tend to disagree. I think it was more an excuse than a reality. Remember, it follows para. 2 which clearly states the opinion that the brigade (not the brigade group) is preferred formation. Which, was how 22 Armd Bde lined up later that year - despite the establishment providing it with a motor battalion!
That's not correct, they had a (weak) Motor Rifle Coy (97 men, 5/20/72) attached. The 'mixed column' of 22 Armoured Brigade consisted of:

[*]'B' Coy 2 K.R.R.C.
[*]'C' Bty 4 R.H.A.
[*]'C' Bty Northumberland Hussars (A/Tk)
[*]'A' Trp 3 Bty 1 L.A.A. Rgt. (joined later than the others)
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#22

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 21 May 2015, 20:42

Urmel,
I don't think it's overly dramatised. The question is in any case not what they fought, but how they did it. Doctrinal failures were:

1) failure to establish a balanced combined arms-force.
2) failure to carry out appropriate rec. prior to the attack
3) failure to concentrate strike force in the attack
4) failure to utilise even the small infantry/artillery contingents during the fight
Personally, I think (1) is a bit harsh for a brigade entering it's first combat - they went into action with the establishment that was assigned to them, it would have been very hard for Scott-Cockburn to say "give me more infantry and artillery or I'll resign".

(2) is fair, although only a small component of the Brigade was committed to the first attack (not a massed tank charge as some assert).

(3) I'm not sure of the details enough to comment here.

(4) Is also fair.

But this does not mean that 22nd Armoured Brigade launched a massed "tank charge" as is often asserted, for example consider 3 CLY WD:
19 November 1941
At 0830 hrs Lieut. S.W. PEEL arrived with orders from Bde to move forward to the original battle position and at 0908 hrs the Regiment was ordered to go on to BIR DUEDAR 432362 when [sic: where?] it took up battle positions and remained until 1340 hrs. The Regiment was then ordered to get in touch with, and move up on the right of 2 R.G.H., who were reported heavily engaged round Pt. 181 423369. It advanced with A Sqn leading, C right, and B left, but finding no sign of 2 R.G.H. at Pt. 181 continued towards BIR EL GUBI.

At 1500 hrs the leading Tp. of A Squadron (2nd/Lt. A.R. LINDSAY) reported five M.13 tanks in the area 421372 and Lieut.Col. R.K. JAGO ordered Major G.G.L. WILLIS commanding ‘A’ Sqn to attack. The strength of ‘A’ Sqn was at this time 13 tanks. Two tanks under 2nd/Lts. A.W. Henderson and P. Hargreaves were sent up on the left to draw the enemy's fire, and Mr. Lindsay was ordered by Major WILLIS to attack from the right. Supporting fire was given by Major WILLIS from his Sqn. H.Q. at about 1000 yards. The action was completely successful, all five tanks being knocked out by Mr. Lindsay's tp - and then set on fire. 25 prisoners were taken from the tanks and sent back under scout car escort together with 22 infantry and artillery prisoners.

During this action ‘C’ Sqn had been ordered to move up on the right of ‘A’ Sqn, and ‘B’ Sqn, consisting of five tanks under Major GODSON, Capt. VAUGHAN, Lieut. J.C. HOLCROFT, Sgt GREGORY and Sgt MEDLAR, to remain in a hull-down position 1500 yards behind ‘A’ Sqn, to observe the left flank of the Regiment and to watch for 2 R.G.H.

From 1500 hrs wireless touch was lost with ‘B’ Sqn. This Sqn advanced from hull-down position to reconnoitre and was engaged by heavy anti-tank gunfire from the fort at BIR EL GUBI. Almost at once Major GODSON's tank was hit and the track blown off. The tank continued to fire for a while and was then hit on the turret and silenced, Major GODSON and his operator both being wounded.
Immediately after this Mr. HOLCROFT's tank, which had gone further forward was hit on the turret at close range and all the occupants (Mr HOLCROFT, Tpr MAMMEN and Cpl DIXON) killed, except the driver, who brought the tank out of action. Sgt. HANSFORD and Cpl REDDISH treated Major GODSON's wounds under fire and evacuated him from his tank. He was brought out of battle by a tank of 2 R.G.H. In the meantime Capt. VAUGHAN's and Sgt. MEDLAR's tanks were hit by anti-tank gunfire.

At 1650 the Regiment received orders to encircle GUBI and accordingly rallied at Pt. 181 423369. ‘B’ Sqn was still silent and did not come to the rallying point. The Regiment advanced to 42037 and deployed facing West. Visibility was becoming bad and at 1750 orders were received to close leaguer in the area 424375.
This seems far from the much repeated claim of a brigade tank charge; unsupported yes, charge no! 8O

Regards

Tom

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#23

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 21 May 2015, 21:04

Incidentally, it seems that 22nd Armoured Brigade learned quickly about the utility of artillery support, this is from the WD of C Bty, 4 RHA:
20 November 1941
Bty went into action at first light with O.P. in observation at GUBI. Moved EAST in support of 4 [sic] Armd Bde, who were heavily engaged with German tks, A Tp under comd 3 CLY and B Tp under comd 4 CLY. The Bty took up positions near GABR SALEH and towards dusk dropped into action facing N.E. Two O.Ps went forward with the tks. A Tp shot up and dispersed small enemy coln.
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Tom

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#24

Post by Urmel » 21 May 2015, 21:39

Hi Tom

1) isn't the fault of the Brigade (although Scott-Cockburn could have queried why he was given such paltry support), but still a doctrinal failure.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#25

Post by Sheldrake » 22 May 2015, 01:30

MarkN wrote:Hello Sheldrake,
Sheldrake wrote: Sure, mixing the armour and the infantry together sounds great, but it calls for really high quality junior officers trained in combined arms and capable of thinking two levels up. The British did not have the products of the kreigsacademie. Instead they had subalterns whose training had equipped they to lead a platoon/troop of theoir own arm, with a focus on its internal economy. The British Army could not compete with the Germans at this game. They had to frustrate the Germans and force them to fight a series of controlled battles and drawing on controlled concentrated firepower.
Your point about the quality and training of junior officers is bang on the mark. British doctrine assumed that only when you reached the level of Major General did an officer have sufficient intellectual capacity (process of weeding out the less gifted) and experience (long service) to cope with the combined arms battle. But was it the chicken or the egg which came first? Was it true that the average subultern was so intellectually challenged and unable to cope that doctrine and training was written to mitigate and conform, or did the doctrine come first at the expense of gifted subulterns unable to shine? Personally, I tend towards the latter and it being a product of the 'wegimental' system.

Thus the British certainly did do combined arms. But they only did it from divisional level upwards. Whereas the Germans did it as far down as the company group. And this continued deep into the war.

When Montgomery took over the 8th Army, this didn't change. He didn't push combined arms and command responsibility and decision-making down the chain to the brigade and battalion commanders. If anything, he shifted it up to corps commanders and himself. El Alamain was not fought by combined armed company or battalion battlegroups, was it? As you point out, the role of divisional CRA was strengthened, not diluted.

The reasons why performance improved from El Alamain onwards was down to the quality of brigade and above commanders being superior (across the board) then earlier. These slots were now being filled by officers who had performed well commanding formations in combat, rather than those who had been promted for being good peacetime officers.
Thanks for your appreciative words, but I would not wish you to extrapolate from my comments about the initial training of young officers means that there was no attempt at combined arms tactics below divisional level. A lot of young officers learned pretty quickly, as the career path of Captain (acting brigadier) M J Carver suggests. You would expect a switched on major to have a bit of a clue The British approach to dosctrine was in practice rather pragmatic with local commanders having a lot of latitude. Is doctrine the stuff that is taught, but ignboired, or what is pracitced, but not documented?

John(?) Buckley has written some interesting material about British Armour in Normandy. Given the chance to practice formations did practice co-operation at quite low levels. The British Armoured Divisions in Normandy could, and did operate as battle-groups. 7th were very keen and paired armoured and infantry battalions. Roberts in 1 armd was keener on keeping the brgades as mainly armour and mainly infantry. The Guards invented the idea of common cap badge company /squadron groups with command by a committee of two with the terrain dictatign who whould be the lead. (Believe it or not this command by committee was still in vogue in the 1980s)

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#26

Post by Attrition » 27 Jul 2015, 01:24

One battalion of Matildas?

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#27

Post by Attrition » 29 Jul 2015, 09:41

ClintHardware wrote:Looking at the very good Sidi Rezegh paper and then the 22nd Guards Bde report downloads in their respective topics on this forum I am wondering about the accuracy of attributing blanket assumptions of the British Army failing to fight using combined arms.

The 22nd Gds Bde report shows that there were failings in an attack by groups of all arms but they did begin the attack with all arms intending to support each other and largely did. Contact with the enemy of course changes the best and worst laid plans. The need for combined arms fighting is fairly obvious by 1941. There is the amazing failure of the 23rd Armd Bde attack on the 22nd July 1942 which seems madness and inexcusable at first sight but are their not German failures for example Medenine in 1943?

My question is are we right to make cover-all statements about doctrine? Most of the British problems seem to be technical limitations, for example: infantry talking to tank commanders whilst under fire but the Germans had those problems sometimes too e.g. 14th April 1941 Tobruk. Is it not more logically a question of having to fight with what you have to hand on any given day or night?

In many ways the RASC led the mechanisation of soft-skinned vehicles for the British Army and they had various interwar experiences of operations which honed their preparations in all theatres and they adapted as they went because they had a good starting point. They had a doctrine but did not call it that. The soft-skinned motorisation of the British Army allowed combined arms to follow. I think Liddell-Hart does not use the word doctrine in The Tanks but his description of the 1934 1st Tank Brigade's intended attack via the Ardennes into a German attack against France is an example of combined arms intentions six years before the 10th May 1940.

I am open to this criticism and I am not going to defend the British Army; my interest is in the question: can we make the attribution every time about there being a lack of a realisation of a need for combined arms in the field? I am not sure we can.

I remember Michael Reynolds a retired soldier and historian criticising the British in Normandy 1944 for not using reverse slope positions as though they were just plain stupid even after five years of war because a reverse slope is clearly good cover etc. Its obvious isn't it? However, I later saw veterans stating that they were doing so where the vegetation was too thick to be able to make use of a reverse slope which they clearly would have preferred to do. I mention this 1944 example because are we making a similar mistake to bang on about a British lack of a doctrine regardless of whether or not the British were using the word and were also apparently fighting when they could in a combined arms fashion?

Theories are dangerous when they don't always apply. However, they are just great for publishers to make profits with. Any thoughts?
It seems to me to be a hangover from the 70s when the British were blamed for having soldiers who thought they were citizens with rights, industry which couldn't build things which worked and management which couldn't think beyond the next liquid lunch. There was also an element of rehabilitating the German army, since it was becoming more important to US interests as the West German economy grew. In England, "Doctrine" (theory for slow learners) was imported from the US as a heuristic device, which explained why the Germans were ubersoldiers who superbly managed to lose two world wars and get their country devastated, partitioned and turned into a protectorate.

I was rather surprised about fifteen years ago to read of the alternative view, that the British were too ambitious to fall back on a limited menu of battle drills (for example), when they had an army organised more for colonial repression in divers terrains and climates, which led to an emphasis on pragmatism rather than formulae. Just goes to show how easy it is to fall into bad habits by uncritically reading polemic as if it's history.

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#28

Post by Don Juan » 29 Jul 2015, 11:01

Attrition wrote: It seems to me to be a hangover from the 70s when the British were blamed for having soldiers who thought they were citizens with rights, industry which couldn't build things which worked and management which couldn't think beyond the next liquid lunch. There was also an element of rehabilitating the German army, since it was becoming more important to US interests as the West German economy grew. In England, "Doctrine" (theory for slow learners) was imported from the US as a heuristic device, which explained why the Germans were ubersoldiers who superbly managed to lose two world wars and get their country devastated, partitioned and turned into a protectorate.
I think another important aspect in the over-rating of the Germans is that it was a means by which the post-war generations could overcome the massive inferiority complex they felt towards the War Generation, whose achievements they could never match. It's interesting that lots of diverse but thematically-related phenomena appear from the mid-60's onwards - a lot of backwards-looking anti-war sentiment ("Oh! What A Lovely War" etc.), denigration of the British Army's role during the War (e.g. Barnett's "The Desert Generals"), a sudden yearning for cars made by the former Axis Powers, even things like the Hell's Angels wearing stahlhelms and Iron Crosses.

I do think that a lot of this was the baby-boomers attempting to justify their essential uselessness, and to me it's no surprise that it has taken another couple of generations to pass before a more balanced view has been restored.
"The demonstration, as a demonstration, was a failure. The sunshield would not fit the tank. Altogether it was rather typically Middle Easty."
- 7th Armoured Brigade War Diary, 30th August 1941

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#29

Post by Sheldrake » 29 Jul 2015, 14:08

@ Don Juan and attrition

I don't think the perception of British inferiority to the Germans was a post war invention. The defeat in France in 1940 followed by debacles across the globe led to a lopt of soul searching. Read Denis Forman's "To Reason Why" and Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern approach to get a flavour of the perception of amateurishness. Read the Bartholomew Committee report. It is indisputable that the Army did not think it was performing well and looked widely for solutions. It accepted advice from veterans from the Spanish Civil War. Infantry and artillery tactics were restructured quiet radically.If everyone was happy with their performance there would have been no drive for the private armies such as the SAS etc. There was a lot of dissatisfaction.

By the end of the war the immediate party line was that the Germans were mindless automata only capable of uttering achtung and arrggh compared to the brave british tommies - the Commando magazine approach. The official histories endorsed those in command at the end. The critical comments resurface in the mid 1960s with a range opr academics and writers chanmpionng German military prowess and critical of allied competence, attributing success to numbers and resources. (See the Dupuys, Max Hastings john Ellis etc) Alongside thsi there has been the debate about indirect approach and the relative merit of the pre war armour theories - and whether you loved or loathed Montgomery. Liddell Hart and his ideas spanned the wars. Correli Barnett weighed in with the Desert generals.

Where these debates emerged into the more general public debate political and economic commentators have selectively referred to WW2 to support a call for their politicla pitch. Correlli Barnett's hostoricl works, good though some might bee are merely an adjunct to a political argument that Britian has gone to the dogs over a century through the malign influence of Methodist liberals, muscular Christian doo gooders and socialists. Exhibit A and B being British wartime performance. (I think this is a fair summary of Audit of War)

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Re: Doctrine: British Failures

#30

Post by Attrition » 29 Jul 2015, 15:15

I forgot that they lost the World cup too. ;O)

There was a peculiarly English emphasis on the inferiority of 1940s working-class youth and the deleterious effects of the Welfare State on the moral fibre of their descendants, particularly the entitlement culture that led us to believe we had a right not to be hungry or ill. Of course that was before the Weimar spring was ended by the gleichschaltung that began in the late 70s.

[That the early defeats were a shock isn't the point I'm making, it's that it led to a narrative of failure and decline and writing which claimed that it continued after 1945 and was then projected backwards by polemicists, (particularly in the 70s).]

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