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Blitzkrieg - How's that work?

Garrison said:
And the Allies went along with it because it sounded a lot better to be beaten by superior firepower and tactics than their own ineptitude. Has to be remembered that the attack through the Ardennes was a huge gamble by the Germans. It could, and probably should, have failed in a dozen different ways. A little more initiative and energy on the part of the French High Command in 1940 and Germany is screwed.
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No, not 'screwed', there was still the 'main' attack coming down through Holland and Belgium.
Belgium would still have surrendered the fighting there wasn't effected by the Ardennes offensive ad the British flank would still be open.
 
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Even if France had enough warning it would have been a stretch for them to get enough men and machines to the front.

They could have slowed the German advance some.
 
They had lots of men and machines at 'the front'. Where they didn't have them was at 'the side'.
As in the later 'Ardennes Offensive' against the US the attack came away from the main 'front' and at a location between two areas of command.
Once a year had been made separating adjacent commands and disrupting communications it was hard to stop.
 
"Ou est la masse de manouvre, Churchill demanded ("Where's the strategic reserve"), only to be glumly answered by the French Chief of General Staff, General Gamelin, "Aucune" ("There is none".).



- That's how it worked.
 
8enotto said:
It also helped that Germany had the most capable armed forces in the world in land warfare in 1938-1940.
Everyone else was understaffed and using small numbers of interwar designs not fully battle tested.
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This isn't exactly true, the french had more and better tanks than the germans at the start of WWII for example. Poorer doctrine to use them but the actual tanks were better.
 
Also, I would like to point out that one nation had figured out a doctrine which, in pure theory, could have been a counter to Blitzkrieg. That nation being... Italy. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Their doctrine was the "war of rapid decision", and part of that was basically avoiding that the enemy moves within your decision flow.

It being Italy, well, we know that it didn't work worth anything. But they had the basic idea before even Poland.
 
Earlier in the thread it was suggested that the German infantry tactics and training were 'the best'.
What is interesting is that the British tactics and training were very similar.
Like the German infantry the machine Gun (n the British case the Bren) was the main firepower of a section. Every man in a section was trained in it's use and all the men in the section were considered as 'interchangeable' for duties on the gun.
In addition, each man carried ammunition for it.
1937 pattern webbing included two large front pouches that contained in one, two loaded magazines and in the other a grenade and a bandolier of 50 rounds for re-loading Bren magazines. His own rifle ammunition was carried in a disposable bandolier that held 50 rounds in 5 round chargers.
In effect each man was carrying more ammo for the Bren than he was for his own rifle.
Previously an infantry man carried 120 rounds in 5 round chargers just for his rifle in pouches on the webbing.

British methods were in a way better than the German system where ammo for the 'Universal Machine Gun' was carried in metal cans by two men and only the actual machine gunner was fully trained in using and maintaining the weapon.
 
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I thought the main difference was NCO training.
The Germans (via the Prussian military tradition, usually dating to the reconstruction of the army after 1806) allowed more freedom of action from their NCOs than other European armies...apparently.

I didn't think the actual tactics etc were significantly different, both having learnt similar lessons from WW1.
 
I have also been told that the Germans were involved in the Spanish Civil war, then invading Poland. These taught the Germans how to fight in the battle of France. The British and French had not had similar experience.
 
Tolls said:
I thought the main difference was NCO training.
The Germans (via the Prussian military tradition, usually dating to the reconstruction of the army after 1806) allowed more freedom of action from their NCOs than other European armies...apparently.

I didn't think the actual tactics etc were significantly different, both having learnt similar lessons from WW1.
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That would be mistaken then, certainly for the British Army at least.
 
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rjh01 said:
I have also been told that the Germans were involved in the Spanish Civil war, then invading Poland. These taught the Germans how to fight in the battle of France. The British and French had not had similar experience.
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There weren't many actual German ground troops involved in the SCW and fighting in Poland while useful only involved a portion of the army and didn't last long.

Both Germany and the British learned lessons from the 'trench raiding' tactics and use of the LMG and sub machine gun in 1918.
Both armies placed the LMG as the primary firepower of the infantry squad putting the rifle in to a secondary role (Hence the British infantryman carrying only 50 rounds for himself and 120 rounds for the Bren.
 
Despite the name of the Channel the 'British Muzzle Loader' has some very good video on how weapons and tactics changed from WW1 to WW".
Here is a very good video that goes in to the detail of the way webbing and personal kit changes reflected the shift in tactics and weapons between the wars.

 
Captain_Swoop said:
That would be mistaken then, certainly for the British Army at least.
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It was something I read rather a long time ago.
I did wonder how dated it was.

I don't remember Holmes giving the idea much credence in Tommy.

ETA: And I'll watch that vid later when I get the chance.
Ta!
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
Despite the name of the Channel the 'British Muzzle Loader' has some very good video on how weapons and tactics changed from WW1 to WW".
Here is a very good video that goes in to the detail of the way webbing and personal kit changes reflected the shift in tactics and weapons between the wars.

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That channel also has some good videos on how Commonwealth soldiers were trained to shoot, etc from 1840 on up, with an emphasis on the British Army in Canada and the Canadian Militia.

And for you complete Anglophiles, he does do some crossover videos with "Bloke on the Range."
 
The pair of them have done a number of vids on 'Musketry of the Second World War where they go through the British training manuals on the rsnge.
Starting with basic marksmanship snd moving on to Close Quarter Battle and 'Snap' shooting.
They show how training and tactics evolved as the war went on.
CQB training is interesting, firing on the move, targets of opportunity etc and 'firing from the hip' with a rifle.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkOVIw4NSWVIbei3yq1kp38-_bEBQfpOC
 
Captain_Swoop said:
There weren't many actual German ground troops involved in the SCW and fighting in Poland while useful only involved a portion of the army and didn't last long.

Both Germany and the British learned lessons from the 'trench raiding' tactics and use of the LMG and sub machine gun in 1918.
Both armies placed the LMG as the primary firepower of the infantry squad putting the rifle in to a secondary role (Hence the British infantryman carrying only 50 rounds for himself and 120 rounds for the Bren.
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So what, if any, lessons did the French and Americans learn?
 
Poland may not have given every German soldier extra experience, but it was thoroughly studied by HQ and caused some revision of doctrine and organization. E.g., the Panzer divisions in Poland were a lot heavier on the tanks and lighter on the infantry and support part. After Poland this ratio was pretty much turned on its head.

I mention that specifically, because if you look at the organization of a British tank division as late as Africa, it mirrors a pre-Poland German one, not a post-Poland one.

Look, I'm not saying that British soldiers were bad individually, or even at regiment level. But doctrines and organization get revised as new experience is available. Germany got that experience early, Britain not yet. As they got more data about how it works on the front line, they too came up with better stuff. But before France that wasn't the case.
 
Fundamental problem with Blitzkrieg is that required a fairly tight set of constraints to work. It needed to be executed over a relatively short distance, so as to allow logistics to catch up and even in France this proved difficult. It needed a high grade infrastructure to allow for swift movement and it needed some barrier to pin the enemy against to finish them. When they had this in France it worked, in the USSR against an enemy that could trade space for time and the infrastructure was utterly inadequate it was basically wishful thinking on the part of the Germans to believe they could crush the Red Army before the Wehrmacht outran their supply lines.
 
The BAR was a poor substitute for a proper LMG. I was designed in WW1 to provide advancing troops with 'walking fire' not as a universal machine gun.
 
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