Is it true that Germans had better strategies than Allies?

[Jon G.]

The German 120 mm mortar was based on a Soviet design as far as I know. In turn, the Soviet 120 mm mortar may owe something to the French m. 1937 Brandt 120 mm mortar - so if the Allies had suffered from caliber envy, they need not have looked very far for a suitable design to mass produce.

I think the more varied weapons available to German battalion commanders (i.e. 120 mm mortars and/or infantry guns) reflects that German lower-level commanders had more firepower immediately on hand, but rather less called-in artillery and tactical air support than the Allies did. Of course, that has nothing to do with who had the best 'strategies'

[DanD84]

Well, someone told me that Germans had better equiptment and strategies than Allied nations..

And I have no idea about the strategies that were better than Allies.. ( I can't get much books here so.. -_-;; )

Can anyone tell me the example about this?

Tks.

Best, Jaan

Well, this is my first post, I hope it is a good one =) I would say that the Germans:

1. Were more prepared earlier on than the Allies, so the Allies had to catch up more in things like equipment. One thing that is certain, is that the Germans would have done a lot better focusing on a few good things instead of lots of things that used the same resources (tank destroyers, tigers and stuff like that competing with more useful versions of more common tanks). The Germans were eventually buried in an avalance of Allied equipment and could ill afford playing around with exotic versions of equipment.
2. Some equipment was better than others for both sides, it depends on what you are looking at.
3. The key thing isn't whether your tank is better than mine but whether I can produce 10x as many as you can.
4. The Germans had good tactical and operational art. In fact, many aspects of it are present to this day in the US Army (things like personal initiative, training, planning and the like).
5. The strategy used in WW II was a hopelessly lost cause. A 3-front war is never a good idea (USSR, Western Front, the Med). We can look at the u-boot strategy and see that a larger investment here would have had larger dividends. We can see that the Battle of Britian ended the day the Germans started bombing London instead of focusing more heavily on air fields. We can see the progress of planning and how downhill it went by Barbarossa with a rather silly set of objectives for opening a new front.

[golgo152001]

Don't forget the men.
If the 6th army that disappeared in stalingrad had been in Normandy beaches, the history could have been very different. It was a mistake to elaborate strategies without thinking about the "real" abilities of the men.

[Magicana]

Don't forget the men.
If the 6th army that disappeared in stalingrad had been in Normandy beaches, the history could have been very different. It was a mistake to elaborate strategies without thinking about the "real" abilities of the men.

Very true, but the end result would still be the same. Just the spread of communism going further into Europe after the war.

[[email protected]]

"It is today's common sense that German equipments were not necessarily better than the Allies'(Britain and France). For example, German tanks' gunns were below 37mm"

What about the 88 mm gun of the Tiger Tanks (1943) ?

A.K+

[Gothard]

German Strategy - Good or bad depending on how you view it was effective in the early war years because it was universally applied. Around mid -1940 that began to change, by fall 41 the change was complete. Going into 1942 a trend set in, officers who could improvise were rapidly promoted over officers who followed established procedure regardless of tactical skill. THis was the Strategic course the Germans followed throughout the rest of the war. After Summer 1943 and continuing to fall 1944 the tacticians and manuever officers were phased out.

So going by year 1939 -1940 Innovators, risk takers led the charge on the battlefield.
1940 -1941 You saw serious dilution of officer quality as more and more unfit officers made their way up the ranks. Uniformity of command as practiced by the general staff and individual initiative became obsolete as more and more unqualified officers abused the latitude given them. This became strikingly clear in winter 1941 as German officers at the highest levels of command took it upon themselves to order withdrawals and were sacked. Then net effect was to grossly reverse the same tactical tendencies that won them the great victories of 39-40.
Going into 41-42 you had officers that followed orders blindly regardless of cost. This policy reseulted in demyansk, rzhev, stalingrad etc.. battles that were fought outside the realm of sound military principle. The generals involved were ruthless, ambitious and resourceful.
42-43 saw a rise in Competent leadership as Hitler began to lose confidence in himself and trust more responsibility to his leadership. Stalingrad was the key - Generals like Manstein, Balck, Senger, Kempf, Von Kleist, Mackensen, Ruoff, Mieth, Bittrich, Eicke were given a free hand and the effect was dramatic. About mid 43 Hitler got his confidence back and the 41-42 group of officers slowly trickled back in. Tactics went downhill yet again.
43-44 saw the loss of the germans ability to manuever and the removal of the last of the really talented leadership. . After this it was simply a matter of trying to plug holes. Some small tactical successes... Heinrici mostly but for the most part local wins not linked to any tactical doctrine.

[Andreas]

I have alway understood the Germans employing various mortars down to smaller and smaller units, giving the local comanders more control over them. If you look on paper, on interesting stat is that German mortars appear to have shorter range, but in fact many of them are using a "slow" round that is subsonic, so you don't hear anything before the shell hits. Making them more useful in small unit actions in ambushes.

It does not appear to be slower. It is. Or rather, was. I looked MVs up for you - the German mortars had a lower muzzle velocity, but the UK 3" was still subsonic. Now, you got it the wrong way round - for a supersonic round you don't hear anything before it explodes next to you. Why? Easy, because it travels faster than the sound it made when it was fired or makes while it flies. A subsonic round gives you the chance to get into cover, because you will hear it before it comes to you.

The 120mm mortars are probably going to be used in place of the IG because they are much easier to produce and have in quantities, than if for no other reason. I don't hav ethe price of the leIG, but even a small simple weapon like the Pak 36 costs something like 6,000 RM (5730 from see Panzerworld), vs 1,200 RM for the 12cm Gr.W 42.

Producing pointed sticks instead would have been even cheaper. Of course, they did not do that. Which leads me to think that they chose a weapon that was:

a) significantly more destructive, at roughly the same weight
b) less capable by not being able to cover a small part of the mission spectrum of the IG18 and
c) managed to do this for less cost

That appears like a good trade-off to me, but it is far more complex than 'they changed because it was cheaper'.

As far as battalion mortars and the like, I would suppose the main reason for the Western allies to be envious of the 120mm mortar, for which there is not an allied equivilent.

There isn't even a German equivalent, since it was not a battalion, but a regimental mortar.

The US 107 is a good wepaon, but similar to the 10 cm nebelwerfer are not issue to combat troops, but rather to lay smoke.

I suggest studying what these guys actually did, instead of looking at their unit designation. Rich Anderson's article linked in the next post is a good start.

There is also the sawed off 8.1cm mortars the germans issued to some smaller units, which gives more useful throw weight then a 50 or 60 mm.

Some units. Very few is my guess, few enough to not make a blind bit of difference even on the tactical level. It was a special production for the parachutists. Less than 1,600 appear to have been built in 1944, while just short of 20,000 standard versions were built in that year. Source: lexikon der wehrmacht

It has always been my imprssion the US really just uses them as small unit organic artillery, rather then more up close and personnal. Much of that may not be as much doctrine on intention as it is Gemran units being thrown into battlegroups and ad hoc defenses.

Unsurprisingly, mortars are meant to be small unit organic artillery. Also in the Wehrmacht. Could you also outline what 'up close and personal' is supposed to mean? Dropping the baseplate on the enemy soldier's foot?

US units generally used the 105 mm guns (which where not issued to all units) to provide extra batteries of guns, and they where rarely used over open sights (although in the pacific even medium artillery was used over open sights at times).

I never said they were issued to all units. I said that they were in the regimental cannon companies. If you have information on which regiments did not have them, step right up.

US troops abondoned the 57 mm AT guns and usually where used as rifle platoons, although some contnued to serve, but they mostly used a shrapnel shot rather then a true HE round, at least according to Norm MacDonald (Time for Trumpets, when refrering to AT units in the battle of the bulge).

That name is Charles, not Norm. As for abandoning the 57mm AT - when and where did that happen? In any case, the reason could have been the same as the reason for the disbanding of the UK's LAA regiments - i.e. not that there was an issue with the weapon, but that there was a need for infantry, and an absence of a specific thread. I have never heard of a Shrapnel round, and could not find anything on it on Tony William's site. http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Molins.htm In any case, I was talking of the UK, not the US.

I was also unde rht impression that for a long period of itme the AT units did not have HE rounds for the 57 mm. I suspect that the units would scrounge them up, but do they have enough of them.

An HE round was introduced later in the war. I have no idea how many rounds were produced.

Also, I doubt the allies ever would get into using any of those as much as they would the prefered direct fire weapon, the tank.

Of course, when a UK/US infantry battalion commander was faced with a pesky bunker or blockhaus, he would just wait until Corps sends an independent armoured battalion to his support, instead of using the weapons at his disposal to deal with it. Because we all know that all UK/US commanders everywhere lacked initiative all the time during the war.

Not muhc point in any of the other methods if you have one.

Yes. So what if you don't?

It has always been my impression that Mainstrein's meeting (1936?) where he suggest the StuG, he really sees them replacing the leIG and sIG with an AFV, although I have nothing to back that up.

Maybe. So what?

Your post is primarily a collection of unverified facts and outright errors.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

The German 120 mm mortar was based on a Soviet design as far as I know. In turn, the Soviet 120 mm mortar may owe something to the French m. 1937 Brandt 120 mm mortar - so if the Allies had suffered from caliber envy, they need not have looked very far for a suitable design to mass produce.

It is clear that the 120mm mortar (regardless of who came up with it) is one of the most successful weapon designs coming out of WW2. I was interested to be able to have a good look at one (and get it explained by a crewman) at the 14 July parade last year in Paris. The design has entered service with a number of armies after the war, and continues to soldier on in the Bundeswehr, and presumably the Russian Army and former Warsaw Pact countries.

I think the more varied weapons available to German battalion commanders (i.e. 120 mm mortars and/or infantry guns) reflects that German lower-level commanders had more firepower immediately on hand, but rather less called-in artillery and tactical air support than the Allies did. Of course, that has nothing to do with who had the best 'strategies'

As I pointed out above, the 120mm and IG weapon systems were not battalion weapons in infantry battalions (they were in some specialised formations, primarily the Recce battalions, which started the war with a 3-gun platoon of IG18s), they were regimental weapons in infantry regiments. The reason for this is probably mobility and supply. These weapons would have necessitated giving the battalions much more of a supply train and prime mover assets that they were not supposed to have, and this would have increased the overhead in the battalion. This is less of a problem in a divisional asset battalion such as recce, which is fully mobile in any case, and can rely on divisional trains.

The main reason an infantry battalion commander would have had permanent control over them would have been if it had been impossible for the weapon to effectively cover more than his direct frontage. Which may easily have been the case numerous times in the east, later in the war. This would however be less the case for the 120mm mortar, or indeed the sIG33, both of which had decent range, compared to the IG18.

Contrary to what has been claimed, there is no hard and fast rule on how devolved control of support assets down furthest. The UK and US kept the platoon mortar, while the Germans and Soviets lost it during the war. Some German company formations (but only a small part, AFAIK0, gained a medium mortar section instead, but my guess is that this was instead of, not additional to, battalion mortars. German and US battalions had weapons companies with MMGs/HMGs and medium mortars, and in the German case, doctrine at least in 1941 was to not devolve control further down than battalion if that could be avoided, in order to keep the ability to concentrate firepower. UK battalions had medium mortars, flamethrowers and AT guns, the latter two weapons the US and Germans would not necessarily have as part of standard TO&E, AFAIK. Red Army, well I'd rather not get into who had what when. German regiments had cannon companies and AT companies. US regiments had cannon companies and AT companies too. UK Brigades were surprisingly weak in this regard, but they could rely on much more central artillery than the other two (72 guns instead of 48). German and UK corps formations had independent assault gun and SP-AT battalions. In the US, these were pretty permanently assigned at divisional level.

Fellow forum member Rich Anderson has written a very informative article on the organisation of the US Army in WW2, which contains a lot of information on organisation. Recommended reading.

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ww ... ction.aspx

All the best

Andreas

[Steve Wilcox]

As far as battalion mortars and the like, I would suppose the main reason for the Western allies to be envious of the 120mm mortar, for which there is not an allied equivilent.

There isn't even a German equivalent, since it was not a battalion, but a regimental mortar.

I was under the impression 12cm mortars were used in the late-war German regular infantry battalions, although lack of availablity seemed to be an issue:

"The overall structure of the original Battalion had changed slightly. Some units fielded the new Heavy Mortar Platoon while the medium mortars and heavy machine guns were broken into units providing direct Company support and general Battalion assets."

"Medium Mortar Platoon - the 8 cm mortar became increasingly important in the German Army as the war progressed. For a time, it was thought the new 12 cm mortar would take the place of the Medium Mortar Platoon, which would be broken up and redeployed at the rate of two tubes per Rifle Company. In reality, many units retained their Medium Platoon and issued additional 8 cm weapons to the Rifle Companies. When these were subsequently withdrawn a second Medium Platoon was often established, unless and until 12 cm weapons were received. As a result, a Battalion could possess as many as twelve 8 cm mortars."

"Heavy Mortar Platoon - the Germans had encountered a new threat on the Eastern Front, the Red Army's 120 mm mortar. They were suitably impressed and copied the weapon for German use. It was effectively a light artillery piece, and required a notably high concentration of motor transport to move. The Platoon served four tubes, each with a massive range of almost 6000 m. Production never met demand, and as mentioned above the Platoon was often armed with 8 cm mortars instead."

From Gary Kennedy's German infantry battalion article at:
http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/Ger ... ier_ba.htm

"Both German and American rifle battalions included a heavy weapons company (schwere Grenadierkompanie in German), consisting of heavy machine guns and mortars." Page 94 of Beyond the Beachhead by Joseph Balkowski

"The German heavy weapons company usually had four 120mm and six 81mm mortars; the 120s were sometimes replaced by another six 81s." Page 95, op. cit.

FWIW.

[Andreas]

I have come across the same article before. My guess is that is the US Army 'Handbook of German Forces' March 1945 edition, which is a wartime intel assessment, not a German TO&E document. In short, I don't buy it. I would be interested in his sources, and indeed on the frequency of 12cm mortars in battalion heavy weapons companies as opposed to regimental cannon companies.

To give you an example, IIRC from Zetterling's Normandy OOB, 6. Fallschirmjägerregiment had 40 81mm and 9 120mm mortars.

It is quite possible that some German battalion at some point had them - it is even possible that by 1945 they were in the battalion TO&E (I doubt it, and will check). But that still does not make them battalion mortars. Just check total production numbers and that should be quite clear. According to Lexikon der Wehrmacht, total production in 43, 44 and 45 was 8,461 of the 12cm, and 51,717 of the 81mm GrW34 in the same period (there were another 1,500 or so of the para variety with short barrels). For the 12cm GrW, add captured Red Army ones taken into service as GrW 378(r). It is nowhere near enough to ensure supply of the weapon to every German infantry battalion.

Balkowski is just confirming what I said before in his first quote. The second one, I would guess we are going back to the Handbook again, and my previous comment applies.

All the best

Andreas

[Steve Wilcox]

That's cool, and you could be totally right. But if they are in the battalion TO&E late in the war, doesn't that make them battalion mortars regardless of how short of them they were? Couldn't they be classed as both battalion mortars and regimental mortars, depending on where they were in the TO&E, similar to the 8cm being used as both company and battalion mortars depending on the time period and TO&E, or am I just crazy?

[Andreas]

I thought this argument would come, and it is a valid question. Thanks for asking it, because it made me research the matter again.

I had a quick look into Nafziger (not the most reliable source, but the only one I have easily accessible), but I finally found the info on the Neuer Art structure I had been looking for on Lexikon der Wehrmacht:

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Zus ... -35W-R.htm

So, from this it is clear that I was wrong in the organisational structure, and that the planned structure for the Neuer Art 44 divisions foresaw the use of the sGrW in infantry battalions. I would however still maintain (and Nafziger seems to confirm that in e.g. the description of the summer 1944 divisions of the 29. Welle) that there simply were not enough of the sGrW to go around. There is also a serious discrepancy in terms of ammunition production volume, with production of 8cm rounds being >10x that of 12cm rounds. Production numbers of the sGrW are roughly similar to those of the light IG in the versions 18, 37, and 42. An indication of this problem is in my view that the 32. Welle divisions and the overall structure for the divisions Neuer Art 45 abandoned the sGrW in the infantry battalion. It foresaw infantry guns instead. I would also doubt that happened to a large degree.

Considering this, despite the planned TO&E restructuring, I still think it would be misleading to call the sGrW a battalion mortar, since in reality few would have served in that way.

All the best

Andreas

[Steve Wilcox]

Thanks for the info and the link.

[peteratwar]

The Germans were very good at strategic and tactical levels. At tactical levels probably better than any Allied army.

Where they lost out was they had no-one who could handle Grand Strategy whereby the war was fought on a Global basis. The Allies did learn this to a reasonable extent. Alanbrooke was good, as was possibly Marshall at this level.

[Jim Eagle Feather]

Had Germany faced just England or just Russia it could have defeated them. Against only Britain Germany would have won fairly easily. Hitler did not really try the invasion, and according to what he said later he did not want to invade England because he'd have had to feed it (since Britain got so much of its food by sea). Of course He would have lost a great many men taking it, but compared to what he lost in Russia - it would have been very cheap. The Brits did not catch on to the real nature of Blitzkrieg until Monty got to Africa. So once Panzers and Rommel reached British soil in 1940 it would have been a done deal for the British defeat. Of course the Brit's Home Fleet would have caused trouble but there are ways Germany could have dealt with this. Fact is Hitler stated in his 2nd book he did not want to defeat Britain under any circumstances.

As for Russia, take away British and American aid - allow Germany to concentrate all her forces on Russia - take away the Bulkan and Greece sideshow that the Brits helped to stage against Italy - causing Hitler to put off his invasion of Russia by at least one entire month - and you have a Russia likely pushed back to the Urals. Hitler could have won in Russia anyway, had he just sent winter supplies to his troops. Or, failing that, had he stopped his forces in November 1941and had them dig in and build a fortified line with a defense in depth. This could have withstood what Russia had to throw at the Germans in winter. The following Spring the Germans would have been strong enough to not only cross the Volga near Stalingrad (Avoiding that Verdun to starve it from the east bank of the Volga) but Germany could also have made the short jump to throw Stalin out of Moscow and roll the Russians back to the Urals.

As for Germany against the USA - without a base in Europe the USA would unlikely have been able to ever land on German soil. Perhaps they could have met in North Africa if Germany had access to the Mediterranean and no trouble from the Brits. I suppose we'd have to throw in the Italians into the mix for German access reasons. In that scenario Germany would have won because all it would need to do is hold out until the US population grew tired of war and gave up. Unless Germany had done something really terrible to America, like shelling New York - America would only sustain a war for a short time. Germans on the other hand were willing to fight for Hitler - it appears - right up until Germany was totally occupied.

Can holes be poked through all my speculations? Sure. As anyone knows, battle plans all last until the first bullets are fired. And such speculations are only fictional battle plans.

But I didn't create these topics...