Marshall's Personnel Failures

[rcocean]

All balanced out by Eisenhower.

The unnecessary casualties from the Battle of Hürtgen Forest left the US Army bleed white for infantry replacements world wide.

Yes. According, to the US History, SWPA got about 10% of the Infantry replacements from May 1944-April 1945. Over 115,000 infantry replacements were sent to ETO in March/April 1945. Very few of them saw combat. The ETO ended the war with Replacement Depots overflowing with recruits.

[LineDoggie]

The US Army had ~8,270,000 men in 1945. Of course, that included the USAAF. How many of those were generals?

Presently the US Army has ~475,000 and ~300 generals,
and the USAF has ~330,000 men and ~300 general officers.
Together: ~600 generals and ~800,000 men.....


.....In the Army (including the USAF) during World War II, there was one general officer for every 6,382 enlisted. In 2011, there was one for every 1,519...in the Army alone, the Air Force is HIGHER.

Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork, pork, pork...we love Pork! :roll:

Don't forget that each Flag Officer has a Staff, Commissoned Aides, Personal Assistant NCO(Valet), Buildings, Aircraft, & Vehicles at their disposal also.

Many of the 1Star billets could be filled with lesser ranks

The Army today has a Brigadier who's sole responsibility is "Green" Projects on Army bases. A Competent CWO-3 could do that job

[Delta Tank]

The US Army had ~8,270,000 men in 1945. Of course, that included the USAAF. How many of those were generals?

Presently the US Army has ~475,000 and ~300 generals,
and the USAF has ~330,000 men and ~300 general officers.
Together: ~600 generals and ~800,000 men.....


.....In the Army (including the USAF) during World War II, there was one general officer for every 6,382 enlisted. In 2011, there was one for every 1,519...in the Army alone, the Air Force is HIGHER.

Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork, pork, pork...we love Pork! :roll:

Don't forget that each Flag Officer has a Staff, Commissoned Aides, Personal Assistant NCO(Valet), Buildings, Aircraft, & Vehicles at their disposal also.

Many of the 1Star billets could be filled with lesser ranks

The Army today has a Brigadier who's sole responsibility is "Green" Projects on Army bases. A Competent CWO-3 could do that job

That is not true! I was an aide to a division commander and he was also the post commander. He had a civilian secretary, me a commissioned officer aide, a driver, and an enlisted aide (valet and cook). The brigadier generals had a enlisted secretary, an commissioned officer aide and a driver, no enlisted aide. One and two star generals at the Pentagon have nothing! Yes, I have friends that were generals at the Pentagon and they were on their own. Now, I do believe that once you make three star general you do get an enlisted aide and a commissioned officer aide and office staff. But, I will check and get back to you, still have one buddy on active duty, three star, commander, I will ask him. Aircraft at their disposal, for official use only, not for personal use, and based on availability, but most fly commercial air.

Mike

[steverodgers801]

There were two basic mistakes the US made planning for the war in Europe, the first was forgetting that infantry units needs replacements well beyond the other branches, an adjustment was made but it took time. The other was partly beyond Marshalls control and that army was the bottom of the barrel for men assignments. The air force got its pick first and then the navy. What he had control over and did adjust for later was not giving the infantry enough quality leaders. One measure was to reassign most men from the AA units and send them for infantry training, he also had other areas combed for capable men and sent to infantry. The biggest limit on US forces was the need to fight Japan at the same time. The US could have matched the SU in terms of divisions if so many men had not been fighting in the pacific

[Delta Tank]

There were two basic mistakes the US made planning for the war in Europe, the first was forgetting that infantry units needs replacements well beyond the other branches, an adjustment was made but it took time. The other was partly beyond Marshalls control and that army was the bottom of the barrel for men assignments. The air force got its pick first and then the navy. What he had control over and did adjust for later was not giving the infantry enough quality leaders. One measure was to reassign most men from the AA units and send them for infantry training, he also had other areas combed for capable men and sent to infantry. The biggest limit on US forces was the need to fight Japan at the same time. The US could have matched the SU in terms of divisions if so many men had not been fighting in the pacific

Well, I do not disagree with what you wrote, but we had the LARGEST NAVY in the world, in fact IIRC it was larger than all other navies combined. And I believe we also had the LARGEST AIR FORCE in the wold and the LARGEST MARINE CORPS. The army not so much! If the Marine Corps would of been in the Army instead of 6 divisions we would of had 20 divisions (USMC 485,000).
Quality wise there were other problems and I will have to look the up and post, but it is in the book that has the reports from the Chief of Staff to the President, can't remember the title.

Mike

[OpanaPointer]

The 90-Division Gamble
by Maurice Matloff

[Carl Schwamberger]

If the Marine Corps would of been in the Army instead of 6 divisions we would of had 20 divisions (USMC 485,000) ...

11 Divisions if the 44,000 man division slice ratio is applied. Tho one might seperate the USMC Air Wings & apply them to Army Air Forces strength & reduce the number of ground divisions accordingly.

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
The American Army was far less tolerant of failure and quicker to assume that their organisation contained, somewhere someone with more talent who could step into the shows of those that failed. Lucas was not that bad as a corps commander, but Truscott was much better. The fact that every US Commander was looking over their shoulder tended to make them far more ruthless in driving their men than their British opposite numbers. That is a mentality which came from the top....

Reading through a dozen or more bios of US Army generals of WWII I was struck by the demanding regime the older WWI officers put them through. A sort of endless 'staff hell'. Its as if the senior officers left over from the Great War recognized the deficiencies in US Army staff training & experience & determined it would never happen again. At every moment during their turns at staff positions the officers were slammed with continual tasks & were rigorously judged in their ability to plan, organize, and execute every task given, from repainting the curbs to a division size amphib exercise. (In 1938 Mark Clark as a Major in the 3rd Div G3 did the grunt work in preparing & executing the first significant Army amphib exercise in eight years.) The US Regular Army of the interwar years had zero funds for keeping a single extra officer. The non performers were ruthlessly cut as they rose through the company & field grades. Whatever their abilities at tactics or strategy, combat & politics, they were very good at operations from planning through final execution.

When the US Army mobilized Marshal was a through at purging the senior officer ranks as Stalin was. Of the 90,000 odd Regular Army, Reserve Army, & National Guard officers on the rolls in 1939 over 20% were out of uniform at the end of 1941 & maybe 50,000 were still in a position of any importance by 1943. Over 75% of the RA, Res, & NG Generals departed active service by 1942.

[Sheldrake]

There were two basic mistakes the US made planning for the war in Europe, the first was forgetting that infantry units needs replacements well beyond the other branches, an adjustment was made but it took time. The other was partly beyond Marshalls control and that army was the bottom of the barrel for men assignments. The air force got its pick first and then the navy. What he had control over and did adjust for later was not giving the infantry enough quality leaders. One measure was to reassign most men from the AA units and send them for infantry training, he also had other areas combed for capable men and sent to infantry. The biggest limit on US forces was the need to fight Japan at the same time. The US could have matched the SU in terms of divisions if so many men had not been fighting in the pacific

Good points.

The level of infantry casualties was unexpected, by both the British and US Armies. In some ways this should not have been a surprise as they are roughly similar to those experienced in comparable operations in the First World War, waged with similar weapons.

The second point, about the low priority given to infantry in the call for manpower may be related. There was a view, possibly wishful thinking, that tanks and aircraft meant that the infantry led battles of attrition could be avoided. Infantry were downgrated to the arm that mopped up after the tanks.

[Richard Anderson]

Good points.

The level of infantry casualties was unexpected, by both the British and US Armies. In some ways this should not have been a surprise as they are roughly similar to those experienced in comparable operations in the First World War, waged with similar weapons.

The second point, about the low priority given to infantry in the call for manpower may be related. There was a view, possibly wishful thinking, that tanks and aircraft meant that the infantry led battles of attrition could be avoided. Infantry were downgrated to the arm that mopped up after the tanks.

Indeed, but in a sense the problem was they were trying to key off of what they considered similar experience "in comparable operations in the First World War". We traced this problem in one study attempting to derive how the modern US Army staff officers field manual casualty estimation figures were derived, which turned out to be a very interesting exercise. Fundamentally, up to 1940 the US Army used a casualty methodology for replacement planning purposes directly derived from experience in World War I. Percentages were adjusted according to the size and composition of the force, the intensity of the operation, and so forth. The problem was, when the Armored Force was created in June 1940 it made all the calculations obsolete...the derived percentages from the Tank Corps strength and losses in the Great War were seen to have no applicability at all to the future (Tank Corps troops made up something like 1% of the force and its casualty were a fractional percentage of the total loss). Similar problems were foreseen for calculating Army Air Force casualties. The end result was they simply made some broad assumptions based on pulling numbers out of the air. They assumed that since it was expected that roughly 18% or so of divisions were to be armored then the armored force would incur 18% or so of the casualties, which was horribly flawed (BTW, I am being lazy and don't have source access so I am pulling the percentages out of the air too).

The result was that replacement planning for infantry was underestimated by roughly 20%. Then add on top of that the decision was made to close the replacement training system early on in order to funnel more troops from the limited manpower pool to activating units. Another reasonable assumption - we aren't at war so we don't need replacements until we enter combat. Great, until decisions get made to get troops into combat as early as possible, they incur casualties, but there are no replacements, so units mobilizing get raided for replacements, so they need to retrain, so they can't get into combat to take up the slack...and on top of that collapsing house of cards, the estimates of the type of replacement personnel are out of whack too. One error kept on compounding and by the time the Replacement Training Centers were reestablished (in 1943 IIRC) it was effectively too late - the personnel intakes for replacements was small compared to the requirement, the demand remained high, and the numbers kept getting readjusted. It was simply too finely tuned a system that allowed for no slack.

In the end, the solution was mass reallocation and retraining of manpower. The AA Command and CA Command were drastically downsized at home and in theater, with all excess personnel retrained as infantry. Same for other "luxuries" like the ASTP, but one major sticking point was allowing AGF access to personnel otherwise allocated to AAF or ASF, which led to huge turf battles in the Army bureaucracy. The last huge hurdle was deciding to allow Blacks into combat in other than segregated battalion-size or larger units. And even there it was allowing segregated Black infantry platoons in existing "white" units. But that wasn't until January 1945, when it was almost irrelevant to the outcome.

[steverodgers801]

JCH LEE conned Marshall into forcing Ike to give a division or so worth of men to guard supply point, Ike was not very happy about it.

[Delta Tank]

JCH LEE conned Marshall into forcing Ike to give a division or so worth of men to guard supply point, Ike was not very happy about it.

IIRC that is not true. The French eventually took over those duties and the Americans were sent through Infantry refresher training and used as replacements and there was only a regiment or so, just infantry no supporting arms. It is in I believe Ruppenthal Vol II. Or in Supreme Command.

Mike

[Richard Anderson]

JCH LEE conned Marshall into forcing Ike to give a division or so worth of men to guard supply point, Ike was not very happy about it.

The separate Infantry Regiments were used for that purpose. In the ETO the prominent ones were the 3d, 29th, 65th, 118th, and 156th. A couple - the 3d, 29th, and 118th had been used to garrison Newfoundland, Iceland, and Northern England early on. Most of them arrived fairly late in the campaign...the 65th went to the Maritime Alps and 7th Army, working occasionally with the 442d, which came via the MTO. They were mostly engaged in front line service. The 3d, 29th, 118th, and 156th went to Europe in the fall and early winter. The 156th was used as headquarters and installations guards, as well as PW guards. The 3d, 29th, and 118th were used to secure various COMZ routes and the 29th and 118th became fairly heavily engaged in the Ardennes. The 29th in particular did good service helping to secure the Meuse River line and fighting Panzer Lehr at Rochefort.

J.C.H. Lee did not "con" Marshall or Ike into doing anything.

[Delta Tank]

To all,

I would think that providing security for LOCs would be a doctrinal issue, written in a field manual before the war.

Mike

[Sheldrake]

To all,

I would think that providing security for LOCs would be a doctrinal issue, written in a field manual before the war.

Mike

It was a real issue, given that the allies were operating in "liberated " territory lacking police and other security forces. Even without the threat of enemy commandos or sympathizers, there were enough deserters, partisans and desperate locals to need troops to protect the supply lines from theft.