To Hardu, in regards to the german army of WW1 being beter than

Top 17. Mar 21, 2000 10:23 AM

» Easycola - About Russian's "if"-offensive, Tarku...

Yes, you definitely have point there as long we look things from material perspective.

BUT, how come Russians weren't successful against Finland? Clarifications: I don't take Russian action anything like successful, when they didn't manage to conquer Finland. And, Yes, that would have been happened if that would have been the real goal, but it should have been done with those recourses also what was directed to do the "job" in first place.

One must always remember, that offensive warfare takes recourses and it is action which takes several months, especially when talking about this If-then-topic. That BT-reference was a bit too funny, but OK, I got the point smile . Also, flak-88 was utilized in those times (when viewing this issue from desert warfare aspect, Rommel's success and 88 was major improvement to antitank capability). Although Barbarossa's arena was pretty much open terrain (nothing like compared to Winterwar or Continuation War scenery, forests and forests and more forests and lakes). So, when talking about Russians knocking on Berlin gates with few weeks or even months, well, forget that idea. Not that it would have been impossible, IF there would have been enough resources to run that scenery, but it takes time. And that air superior thing, well, forget that idea, when Finnish aces with Brewster simply slaughtered Russian plains. And that because Russians pilots were so poorly trained, not because plains were poor! It have been seen many times that as long staff is poorly trained, even good stuff could not cover the holes, if I may say so.

-- posted by Easycola

Top 18. Mar 21, 2000 10:50 AM

» Tarkin - yes

You're absolutely right, but you forget that there was 1.5 year between Finnish operation and Barbarossa, and during this time the Soviet military potential increased A LOT. As I've said the mobilization started in August 1939. And I truly believe that Stalin would reach Berlin in few weeks. There was nothing that could stop this power, it would be a total Blitzkrieg (as you should know it was first used by Zhukov against the Japanese, not by Guderian and others).
In 1939/40 the soldiers were fresh whereas two years later they had two years of experience. 8.000 planes, at least 24.000 tanks. Who could resist that? And how? Even with we consider that Wehrmacht would not retreat in panic. As I've said the Luftwaffe would be destroyed in few hours (in Finland it was WINTER). Of course the war could take more IF Hitler hadn't destroyed his fortifications (which he did almost stimulteanosly with Stalin), and hadn't placed his troops at the border. As far as I remember one of Soviet armies placed on 21st June 1941 was a direct danger to Berlin. The retreat of Wehrmacht would be the same catastrophe as the retreat of RKKA. Of course if Hitler would spend two years on building up fortifications, the war would take much longer, but it would defenatly end with Soviet victory.

-- posted by Tarkin

Top 19. Mar 21, 2000 1:52 PM

» Easycola - Tarkin, about air warfare...

"You're absolutely right, but you forget that there was 1.5 year between Finnish operation and Barbarossa, and during this time the Soviet military potential increased A LOT."

No, I didn't forget as I stated the references to Continuation war as well. But, yes, military potential increased dramatically, but still there were enormous amount of poor tactics after, you can read it from Continuation War history.
And as I said, there have been many well know examples about using overwhelming forces poorly. This poor tactic usage DIDN'T change by lot in Continuation War, especially when we are talking about air warfare between Finland and Soviet forces (1941-44).

I find this link rather "neutral" (which is almost impossible, when talking about history of war smile ) when looking after observation points about aerial fight on Finnish "soil".

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/fintac-5.htm
(Bardon, there is rather heavy image at start, so be patience, if you decide to visit smile )

Also, look out that "Conclusion" part from that site.

I find it rather curious that Soviet forces didn't "learn" much about Finnish airwarfare tactics, but never the less, Soviet forces did learn very well lessons from Winter war and used those tactics also when Barbarossa was going on (especially winter between 1941-42).

Have to say, that I believe that if Soviet forces could have been "learning" art's of war by better way in generally (there are several good tactics maneuvers from Soviet side as well, but there were certainly place for improvement, MAJOR improvement), Germany would have been "slaughtered" eventually. Time table is rather different issue then...

Looking forward eagerly... smile

-- posted by Easycola

Top 20. Mar 23, 2000 6:15 AM

» Hardu - No wreckers and the MG 34

The main reason why the Red Army would not have reached Berlin in 1941 is that the roads along which the BTs were supposed to race would be clogged with broken-down BTs and the soft shoulders heaped with the bodies of Red Army infantry mowed down byMG 34s.

My appreciation is based on the performance of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 - which was abysmal.

The Red Army, to my limited knowlegde, had no wreckers or ARVs in 1941. It was a cummunist organization - meaning it had no idea of what maintence is about !

It would, from a purely professional point of view, have been extremely interesting to see just how the German Army at the peak of its power would have handled being attacked by a WW1 army. I imagine we would be looking at loss ratios between the Germans and the Russians in excess of 1 to 15 ! It took the Red Army three years and 10.million (?) dead plus a quarter of U.S. war production to defeat the Germans.

While Stalin was a tyrant he was no fool. He would not have attacked Germany unless the German army was in trouble somewhere else.

-- posted by Hardu

Top 21. Mar 23, 2000 9:36 AM

» Easycola - Yep Hardu, we are talking about...

.."coffin for seven brothers" smile

Well prepared is always half win situation and I very strongly doubt that Russian's were on that kind of situation 1941. Well, it take about 50 years for Russian's to admit that they started Winter War (say by Jeltsin) after all, OFFICIALLY. Before that were another truth for Russian people, who did believe that, is whole another case then...From that view point I take these M-day preferences reliability as much doubtful it could be. Of course, it would be nice to check out those sources for Icebreaker-book generally, any obvious miss believes (like Winter War preferences)...

-- posted by Easycola

Top 22. Mar 23, 2000 11:43 AM

» Tarkin - of course hardu

Of course hardu, there would be such losses difference (I say 1:7 or 1:10), but the Germans would be totally destroyed in first few days of war! Don't you understand it? Wehrmacht was in similar situation as RKKA in 1941, the troops were unable to retreat, the bridges were demined, the ammo was laying on the ground, the airplanes would be destroyed in first day of war (by bombings), the retreat would be panical, only that the Soviets had a place to retreat, and Wehrmacht didn't! Of course Stalin was no fool, but he had a dream, and he wanted to create SUSE. It wasn't a coinsidence, that all "patriotic" songs were written in 1940/41 before Hitler's invasion, and that all newspapers were talking about the upcoming war. Even the official propaganda, said at the beginning of 1941: "We will increase the number of republics in USSR."
And one small errate, the Soviet losses in the war are about 20-30 million citizens, including 12-15 million soldiers including few million killed in camps. F.ex. only one Leningrad battle (it took 900 days but who cares?), caused 1 million civilian victims (4 times more than all American losses during the entire war including Pacific war).

-- posted by Tarkin

Top 23. Mar 29, 2000 6:08 AM

» Hardu - No surprise attack possible.

The Germans, whatever their faulty strategic intelligence, did have very accurate tactical/operational intelligence of Red Army/Air Force deployment. They also had an operational radar system - and local commanders taught to use their own initiative. The infantry was trained for mobile combat, not positional defence. It had the same realtionship to the spade as the U.S. Marines (you don't dig in, ou move forward).

Regardless of how it was deployed, the disruption of the Red Army in the opening weeks of Barbarossa was due to a total breakdown in command and control. I can't envisage a Red Army on the offensive in July performing any better.

While armies deployed for attack are vulnerable to
attack, expecially interdiction and counterbattery fire, they are not bunched up within 10 miles of the FEBA. They do have ready reserves and are typically supported by second echelon forces. Mechanized formations are deployed in depth.

While fortifications and obstacles aid in the defence, they do not make the defender immune. It was not the absence of barbed wire at frontier that destroyed the Red Army, it was its inability to mount counterattacks.

-- posted by Hardu

Top 24. Mar 10, 2003 11:57 PM

» AnchoritSybarite - A Basic Misapprehension

In response to message posted by LBK935:

Hardu and Neutral, you both base a lot of your discussion on your appraisal of Germany's execution of the Schlieffen Plan. Unfortunately you both suffer from a basic albeit common misunderstanding.
From the time vonSchlieffen postulated his famous plan to spare Germany from the disaster of having to fight a 2 front war versus France and Russia, by quickly defeating France and then turning on the "stronger" opponent-Russia until the date of it implementation an entire generation of German officers had grown accustumed to viewing the "plan" as the magic bullet.
The plan itself called for the passage of part of the German Army through Belgium to execute an enormous flank attack the object of which was to place a force in the rear of Paris sufficient to destroy any French defenses and allow the envelopment of Paris itself and to do this within the grace period allowed by the more rapid Geman mobilization to complete this task before turning the confront the approaching Russians. Furthermore this was not to be a penetration by a single Army but rather a broad front attack with each army mutually supporting the others. All this again on a rigid timetable. A wonderful plan--ON PAPER.
The fly in the ointment--logistics. At the time Germany was the unquestioned master of this new art, and Schlieffen one of the best. What Schlieffen's descendents never bothered to confront was that logistically the plan was unworkable even under the most optimal conditions. Given transportation techniques of the day the numbers of men and amounts of material needed to fulfil their stated requirements could not be met. Schlieffen himself admitted this himself. In essence his plan was a wish list--wouldn't it be great if....

In actual fact the plan did unravel for just these reasons. Supply restrictions kept tightening the axis of the german attack so that eventually the great right hook struck not behind Paris but in front of it. And the armis which were supposed to be mutually supporting lost contact with each other.
Now for the irony. If the General Staff had paid just a little more attention to the transportation revolution and either developed a motorised supply capability or a unit devoted to quick track laying their logistical problems would have evaporated.
Irony number two: the criticism leveled at vonMoltke Jr. were unwarranted inasmuch as more troops would have only made the situation worse.
Irony number three: the almost religiuous belief in the plan led to decision making based on the rigid timetable of the plan and not to the actual state of affairs. First when the seperate Armies began to lose contact with each other they slowed their advances so as to ramain in contact rather than to achieve their goals. This is significant because the FRENCH DEFENSE WAS LESS FORMIDABLE THAN THE PLAN SAID IT WOULD BE. Second regarding the timetable itself, the great attack was called off by a junior staff officer on a tour of inspection. This officer having met with all of the Army Staffs realised that the goals of the plan had not been met and on his own authority ordered a halt in place because the plan called for the decisive battle to have already been fought and for troops in France to begin heading East to meet the Rusian advance. To me the great question is whether without this halt would the French have been able to rally for their stand at the Marne.

-- posted by AnchoritSybarite

Top 25. Mar 29, 2003 2:39 AM

» AnchoritSybarite - Correcting the misconception that...

von Moltke's incompentent meddling with the great Schlieffen's Plan precipitated the failure of the great offensive in 1914. While it is true that he did shift troops away from the right wing as well as further weakening the right in a paniced response to the unexpectedly rapid Russian advance in the East, it is an utter canard that this materially affected the outcome in the West. The proof lies not in an appreciation of the strategy which is elegant nor in tactics but rather in the underappreciated science of logistics.

To understand the dilema, one has to understand the problem facing Germany. They were terrified of the prospect of a two front war against France and Russia. Schlieffen's concept was that to prevail Germany would have to rapidly use it's advantage in rapid mobilization to concentrate against one enemy and defeat them before turning to face the other. Question: who to face first? "Obviously" the weaker foe--France.
The problem of defeating France was a known quantity. The short common border between the two offered a paucity of approaches by an attacker and the advantage of fewer points to defend. To overcome this geographical disability, Schlieffen proposed flanking the French defense by going through Belgium which obviously could not and would not actively defend its territory against the obvious superiority of Germany.

The next step would be the general advance of mutually supporting Armies to prevent concentration against the far right wing which with its massive power would proceed to pass behind Paris where it would win a decisive victory against a confused and disorganised French Army and with Paris isolated bring about a capitulation.

The Plan requires 3 things. First that the final result would be the complete isolation of Paris. Secondly that the schwerpunkt (decisive battle) be joined with forces sufficient to crush the enemy. And finally that all this occur within a rigid timetable. France must be crushed in time to turn and deal with the much stronger Russian foe.

A generation of German officer grew up revering the great Schlieffen's plan as revealed wisdom. It also unfortunately fostered an atmosphere of unquestioned acceptance. They failed to realize that the "Plan" was in essence an excercise in wishful thinking. Schlieffen was a supply officer, his expertise was in logistics. And given the German Army's expertise in this science which they had almost single-handedly invented, it is even more ironic that no-one expressed the evident fact that the Plant would not and could not succeed. The plan required a blivet to succeed. I trust that you are familiar with that old cavalry term: a one pound bag filled with two pounds of manure.

Put succinctly the number of troops required by the Plan to fight the final battle could not pass through the bottleneck of the extreme right flank and cover the required distance according to the timetable. It was a physical impossibility.
As the plan unfolded logistical problems caused the progressive constriction of advance by all of the armies. The field commanders were faced with the dillemma of whether to continue to be mutually supportive or follow the dictates of the plan. Thus the "fatal" shortened right hook.

If you will read Tuchman's great "Guns of August" you will discover the ironic circumstance of a German colonel on a tour of inspection for the General Staff who upon discovering that the advance was behind schedule and that the route being taken was not proceeding to a point BEHIND Paris on his own authority ordered a halt to the advance. Despite the fact that the French had to this point not offered serious resistance and that there was no prospect of future resistance, he concluded that the attack was a failure and shoudl be terminated.
The supreme irony was that all points of the plan were seriously flawed. The Germans did not need the numbers of troops the plan envisioned. They did not need to reach behind Paris to accomplish their aims. And they had more time than they expected. Nevertheless the halt in place allwed the French enough breathing room to organise the great defense at the Battle of the Marne.

Bye the bye, regarding the specific topic of which German Army was superior. I have only one comment to make. The Geman Army in 1918 despite having relative ease during the war cracked rather easily. The German Army of WWII fought literally until the one ramining German soldier fighting against the Russians backed up to the back of the one remaining soldier fighting the Americans. When they each had no more room to retreat, then and only then did they capitulate.

-- posted by AnchoritSybarite