Hi Qvist,
While it is true that British officers almost certainly had far longer training than most German officers by 1944, what they mostly lacked was combat experience. Indeed, by 1944 some reckon that the British Army formations in the UK preparing for the invasion of the continent suffered from over training and staleness, resulting in a rather formulaic approach on the field of battle.
By contrast, I would guess that that by 1944 the Germans had tens of times as many officers with combat experience as the British and this combat experience was often of longer duration. I personally think that one reason why the German Army remained competitive so late in the war was that field experience was so generalised in it that its lessons had filtered down not only to the forces in Western Europe in 1944 but even to remote, second line units.
Most telling were probably the German advantages at the higher leadership levels, where everyone was not only a pre-war regular soldier within the German General Staff tradition, but had had five years of campaign experience by 1944.
I would suggest that both Germany's initial successes over 1939-41 and the Anglo-American success in Normandy were dependent on a relatively small number of long standing formations. In 1939-40 only the German pre-war mechanised divisions and the active infantry divisions of Welle 1 were highly proficient. They made the breakthroughs and led the exploitation. At least half the German Army followed in their wake, rarely being exposed to severe combat and therefore not having its frailties exposed.
Only a very small proportion of the Anglo-American divisions used in the early stages of the invasion of Normandy (though not, I think, the first wave) had previous combat experience. One of the impressive things is how the Americans were able to bring unaclimatised new divisions straight to the front from the USA later in the campaign. As an institution, the bulk of the US Army had to learn by experience in 1944-45 what the German Army as an institution had had to learn by the most brutal natural selection on the Eastern Front over 1941-44.
The German Army started from a very small base in 1933, but so did the British and particularly the Americans. (I wouldn't be surprised if the US Army was then smaller in proportion to the national population than the Versaillers-restricted Reichswehr was. Anyone know?) However, the German Army began its expansion several years earlier than the British and half a decade before the Americans did rather less whole heartedly. Furthermore, in Germany the Army was more dominant amongst the services than it was amongst the Anglo-Saxon powers.
I remain continually impressed by how, despite all handicaps, even peripheral, second line and ad hoc German Army formations continued to be significant obstacles to all the Allies until very near the end of the war. I think it says a lot for the professional expertise at the top and national character at the bottom.
Cheers,
Sid.
How significant was D-day in the grand scope of WW2??
Moderator: sniper1shot
Hi Sid
I have no problem with the basic point that the German army continued to fight at a high level of proficiency. What proportion of German officers had combat experience compared to their British counterparts is hard to say without the sort of systematic study for which I for one have no adequate basis. However, if the German proportion considerably exceeded the British, it should be borne in mind that this was certainly much less the case in the West than generally, given that the majority of German divisions in OB West had never seen combat and had for a long time had its personell regularly plundered.
There are also a few things you have not considered here as far as the German side is concerned.
The wide combat experience it had also resulted in very large numbers of German combat officers becoming killed, captured or wounded to the point of being incapable of further service. As with the men, the mounting casualty rates meant that an increasing proportion of officers were a) newly trained or b) transferred from non-combat positions. I would question your point that combat experience generally filtered down also to second line formations. In an army suffering a chronic shortage of qualified and experienced officers in its combat elements (complaints of which is increasingly in evidence as the war progresses), such officers do not generally end up in such places. On the contrary, there was a constant pressure to transfer men and officers from all other parts of the army to the combat formations, with both age and qualitative requirements being steadily degraded. This almost certainly led not only to deteriorating standards among officers in the active combat units, but even more so among those remote, second-line units whose most able officers were being continually siphoned off. "A German officer with meaningful combat experience in a remote second-line unit" is practically an oxymoron.
Quantitatively speaking; on 1 November 1944, the Field Army had a total of some 122,000 officers (of whom 71,000 were in the East), and a shortfall of 25,900.
In the ten-day Heeresarzt report up to 10 October 44, the total Feldheer officer losses since 220641 stood at 31,629 killed, 92,700 wounded and 25,644 missing, which means that the officer losses in that period somewhat exceeded the remaining strength of the Field Army officer corps. For the Field Army as a whole, the cumulative losses were roughly equal to the remaining strength.
This, in short, means that the German army lost officers at a slightly higher rate than it lost men, which again means that an average German officer was about as likely to have had previous combat experience as an average German soldier. Quite simply, the German officer corps were subject to essentially the same attritional pressures as the German army in general. The general effects of this process, for the officer corps at least as much as for the army as a whole, were a qualitative decline on the personnell side and certainly a decline in the proportion of men who had both previous combat experience and were fundamentally qualified for field command compared to what had been the case in 1940 or 1941. The sort of combat experience the German army had in 1943/44 rather frequently tended to leave those who were subjected to it in no position to profit further from it. With the much higher turnover rate, the practical result of all this campaigning was on the whole a less experienced, well-trained and capable officer corps, not a more experienced and better one.
cheers
I have no problem with the basic point that the German army continued to fight at a high level of proficiency. What proportion of German officers had combat experience compared to their British counterparts is hard to say without the sort of systematic study for which I for one have no adequate basis. However, if the German proportion considerably exceeded the British, it should be borne in mind that this was certainly much less the case in the West than generally, given that the majority of German divisions in OB West had never seen combat and had for a long time had its personell regularly plundered.
There are also a few things you have not considered here as far as the German side is concerned.
The wide combat experience it had also resulted in very large numbers of German combat officers becoming killed, captured or wounded to the point of being incapable of further service. As with the men, the mounting casualty rates meant that an increasing proportion of officers were a) newly trained or b) transferred from non-combat positions. I would question your point that combat experience generally filtered down also to second line formations. In an army suffering a chronic shortage of qualified and experienced officers in its combat elements (complaints of which is increasingly in evidence as the war progresses), such officers do not generally end up in such places. On the contrary, there was a constant pressure to transfer men and officers from all other parts of the army to the combat formations, with both age and qualitative requirements being steadily degraded. This almost certainly led not only to deteriorating standards among officers in the active combat units, but even more so among those remote, second-line units whose most able officers were being continually siphoned off. "A German officer with meaningful combat experience in a remote second-line unit" is practically an oxymoron.
Quantitatively speaking; on 1 November 1944, the Field Army had a total of some 122,000 officers (of whom 71,000 were in the East), and a shortfall of 25,900.
In the ten-day Heeresarzt report up to 10 October 44, the total Feldheer officer losses since 220641 stood at 31,629 killed, 92,700 wounded and 25,644 missing, which means that the officer losses in that period somewhat exceeded the remaining strength of the Field Army officer corps. For the Field Army as a whole, the cumulative losses were roughly equal to the remaining strength.
This, in short, means that the German army lost officers at a slightly higher rate than it lost men, which again means that an average German officer was about as likely to have had previous combat experience as an average German soldier. Quite simply, the German officer corps were subject to essentially the same attritional pressures as the German army in general. The general effects of this process, for the officer corps at least as much as for the army as a whole, were a qualitative decline on the personnell side and certainly a decline in the proportion of men who had both previous combat experience and were fundamentally qualified for field command compared to what had been the case in 1940 or 1941. The sort of combat experience the German army had in 1943/44 rather frequently tended to leave those who were subjected to it in no position to profit further from it. With the much higher turnover rate, the practical result of all this campaigning was on the whole a less experienced, well-trained and capable officer corps, not a more experienced and better one.
cheers
Last edited by Qvist on Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
A couple of things could invalidate this:Qvist wrote:....
This, in short, means that the German army lost officers at a slightly higher rate than it lost men, which again means that an average German officer was about as likely to have had previous combat experience as an average German soldier. ...
1) If the Germans had a system for promoting significant numbers of nco's to officers. If such a system was in place almost all nco's so promoted would be combat vetrans. I don't know if the Germans had such a system or not.
2) if the casualty rate of inexperianced officers was higher than inexperianced soldiers. I can see reasons for this happening although I don't know if it did. In particular I can see the portion of combat experianced officers in higher ranks increasing with time.
Hi lw,
1) True, in principle at least. It did happen that NCOs were selected for enrolment in officer training (though not, as far as I know, directly promoted). But given that these were the sort of NCOs who were already filling junior command posts in the field units, this didn't increase the overall level of experience - the gain on the lieutenant side equals the loss on the platoon sergeant side, arguably a no less important segment from a leadership point of view. The NCO situation was no more favorable than the officer situation.
2) Yes, this is axiomatic, but it does not fundamentally alter the effect of greatly increased turnover. Firstly, higher losses also means higher losses among experienced men. Secondly, the larger the extent to which a unit consists of inferior personell, the more dependent it becomes on its dwindling core of experienced men, and the more vulnerable to losses among them. You do have a point in that the higher command levels were obviously much less affected by attrition than field officers, and in this regard the previous years of large scale campaigning must have constituted an advantage, I agree.
cheers
1) True, in principle at least. It did happen that NCOs were selected for enrolment in officer training (though not, as far as I know, directly promoted). But given that these were the sort of NCOs who were already filling junior command posts in the field units, this didn't increase the overall level of experience - the gain on the lieutenant side equals the loss on the platoon sergeant side, arguably a no less important segment from a leadership point of view. The NCO situation was no more favorable than the officer situation.
2) Yes, this is axiomatic, but it does not fundamentally alter the effect of greatly increased turnover. Firstly, higher losses also means higher losses among experienced men. Secondly, the larger the extent to which a unit consists of inferior personell, the more dependent it becomes on its dwindling core of experienced men, and the more vulnerable to losses among them. You do have a point in that the higher command levels were obviously much less affected by attrition than field officers, and in this regard the previous years of large scale campaigning must have constituted an advantage, I agree.
cheers
-
sid guttridge
- on "time out"
- Posts: 8055
- Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2002 4:54 am
Hi Qvist,
My point was not about individual officers, but about the German Army as an institution. The lessons of combat are not simply passed on by the transfer of officers and men, but by adapting training to the requirements of war. The German Army seems to have started the war with a sound infantry doctrine born of its late WWI experience and presumably refined it further during WWII.
Certainly front line units on the Eastern Front as early as 1941 complained of the quality of their replacements, but at that stage the German field army was probably at its relative peak, having had a mass of men under arms for several year, considerable combat experience and low casualties before June 1940.
Even German divisions which had languished in secondary theatres remained obstacles to the Allies late in the war. Almost all the Balkan formations found themselves integrated into the battle front by late 1944. Similarly all the reserve divisions on all fronts were as well. The divisions annihilated at Stalingrad were the majority of those that occupied Italy only six months later. Volksgrenadier divisions were stamped out of the ground in very large number from July 1944 and, according to the Dupuy institute, were still competitive with Anglo-American divisions of longer standing and greater materel resources.
I personally feel that the remarkable thing about the German ground forces is not so much the elite mechanised formations but the resilience of the mass of the infantry formations. This may, of course, reflect on the limitations of their opponents, but I feel sure that better professional expertise at the top of the Army and the cohesive, disciplined nature of wider German society, must have been significant factors in giving them a fighting chance.
Cheers,
Sid.
My point was not about individual officers, but about the German Army as an institution. The lessons of combat are not simply passed on by the transfer of officers and men, but by adapting training to the requirements of war. The German Army seems to have started the war with a sound infantry doctrine born of its late WWI experience and presumably refined it further during WWII.
Certainly front line units on the Eastern Front as early as 1941 complained of the quality of their replacements, but at that stage the German field army was probably at its relative peak, having had a mass of men under arms for several year, considerable combat experience and low casualties before June 1940.
Even German divisions which had languished in secondary theatres remained obstacles to the Allies late in the war. Almost all the Balkan formations found themselves integrated into the battle front by late 1944. Similarly all the reserve divisions on all fronts were as well. The divisions annihilated at Stalingrad were the majority of those that occupied Italy only six months later. Volksgrenadier divisions were stamped out of the ground in very large number from July 1944 and, according to the Dupuy institute, were still competitive with Anglo-American divisions of longer standing and greater materel resources.
I personally feel that the remarkable thing about the German ground forces is not so much the elite mechanised formations but the resilience of the mass of the infantry formations. This may, of course, reflect on the limitations of their opponents, but I feel sure that better professional expertise at the top of the Army and the cohesive, disciplined nature of wider German society, must have been significant factors in giving them a fighting chance.
Cheers,
Sid.
Well, my point was about the German army as an institution too. And if your point isn't that three years of warfare in the East all in all rendered the Field Army a more effective and capable force in 1944 than it had been in 1940 or 1941, I'm afraid you'll have to clarify for me exactly what your point is?My point was not about individual officers, but about the German Army as an institution. The lessons of combat are not simply passed on by the transfer of officers and men, but by adapting training to the requirements of war. The German Army seems to have started the war with a sound infantry doctrine born of its late WWI experience and presumably refined it further during WWII.
Yes they did, and rightly so, as towards to the end of the year they consisted in many cases of men and officers who had been scrounged from various establishments elsewhere without any meaningful preparation for field service. And?Certainly front line units on the Eastern Front as early as 1941 complained of the quality of their replacements, but at that stage the German field army was probably at its relative peak, having had a mass of men under arms for several year, considerable combat experience and low casualties before June 1940.
Well, and what exactly does this tell us? The Stalingrad divisions, incidentally, all drew on four-digit personell cores from the old divisions, as did for the most part the VGD formed in 1944.Even German divisions which had languished in secondary theatres remained obstacles to the Allies late in the war. Almost all the Balkan formations found themselves integrated into the battle front by late 1944. Similarly all the reserve divisions on all fronts were as well. The divisions annihilated at Stalingrad were the majority of those that occupied Italy only six months later. Volksgrenadier divisions were stamped out of the ground in very large number from July 1944 and, according to the Dupuy institute, were still competitive with Anglo-American divisions of longer standing and greater materel resources.
Quite possibly, but the continuing ability of the German Army to function as an effective combat force is as said not in question.I personally feel that the remarkable thing about the German ground forces is not so much the elite mechanised formations but the resilience of the mass of the infantry formations. This may, of course, reflect on the limitations of their opponents, but I feel sure that better professional expertise at the top of the Army and the cohesive, disciplined nature of wider German society, must have been significant factors in giving them a fighting chance.
cheers
I suspect this is actually a bit of an understatement. Even at the hightest ranks NCOs have a pretty high exposure in combat. They indeed proably had a slightly higher rate of loss than private soldiers. If this is true then promoting them to officers while it may help the army makes the NCO situration even worse. You basically can't promote them to a save NCO postion so you have normal drain, combat, drain, and the drain from promtions to officer. Given the importance of NCOs in the German army this can't have been good.Qvist wrote:.... But given that these were the sort of NCOs who were already filling junior command posts in the field units, this didn't increase the overall level of experience - the gain on the lieutenant side equals the loss on the platoon sergeant side, arguably a no less important segment from a leadership point of view. The NCO situation was no more favorable than the officer situation.
....
It may also have had something to do with the fact that they were on the defensive. If you look at other places and times similar performances are not uncommon although the duration of the German effort may be exceptional. For instance the WWI armies held to gether pretty well inspite of massive losses. After the initial panic the Soviet armies also held together pretty well.sid guttridge wrote:......
I personally feel that the remarkable thing about the German ground forces is not so much the elite mechanised formations but the resilience of the mass of the infantry formations. This may, of course, reflect on the limitations of their opponents, but I feel sure that better professional expertise at the top of the Army and the cohesive, disciplined nature of wider German society, must have been significant factors in giving them a fighting chance.....
-
sid guttridge
- on "time out"
- Posts: 8055
- Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2002 4:54 am
Hi Qvist,
My point, as expressed earlier, was that "I personally think that one reason why the German Army remained competitive so late in the war was that field experience was so generalised in it that its lessons had filtered down not only to the forces in Western Europe in 1944 but even to remote, second line units."
And what?
What that tells us is that the German Army was extremely resilient and even its soft underbelly was a challenge for the Allies. I rather doubt that equivalent Allied security, reserve, replacemnent, etc. formations would have proved so handy at the front. Just as Northern Ireland kept the British Army sharp for nearly three decades, I suspect that occupation duties did much the same for the second line German divisions employed on them.
Yup, about 10% of the resurrected Stalingrad divisions consisted of men on leave or otherwise outside the encircled area in late November. My point remains unaltered. Within only about six months of their annihilation, divisions lost at Stalingrad formed the bulk of the forces that occupied Italy. One might also add that some divisions lost at Tunis had been resurrected even quicker for service in southern Italy.
Cheers,
Sid.
My point, as expressed earlier, was that "I personally think that one reason why the German Army remained competitive so late in the war was that field experience was so generalised in it that its lessons had filtered down not only to the forces in Western Europe in 1944 but even to remote, second line units."
And what?
What that tells us is that the German Army was extremely resilient and even its soft underbelly was a challenge for the Allies. I rather doubt that equivalent Allied security, reserve, replacemnent, etc. formations would have proved so handy at the front. Just as Northern Ireland kept the British Army sharp for nearly three decades, I suspect that occupation duties did much the same for the second line German divisions employed on them.
Yup, about 10% of the resurrected Stalingrad divisions consisted of men on leave or otherwise outside the encircled area in late November. My point remains unaltered. Within only about six months of their annihilation, divisions lost at Stalingrad formed the bulk of the forces that occupied Italy. One might also add that some divisions lost at Tunis had been resurrected even quicker for service in southern Italy.
Cheers,
Sid.