According to Frieser up until Barbarossa Germany conducted a war of movement or Bewegungskrieg as blitzkrieg did not exist.
According to Frieser up until Barbarossa Germany conducted a war of movement or Bewegungskrieg as blitzkrieg did not exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg#Controversy
This is a partial quote from his book.
Because time, in the long run, worked against Germany, there was really only the chance of starting out on a flight forward, putting all the money on one card, and overrunning the enemy by a surprise attack. But the German command shied away precisely from this kind of venturesome undertaking, mindful of the trauma of the Schlieffen plan that had failed during World War I..The campaign in the west thus was not a planned campaign of conquest. Instead, it was an operational act of despair to get out of a desperate strategic situation. What is called "blitzkrieg thinking" did not develop until after the campaign in the west. It was not the cause but rather the consequence of the victory. Something that, in May 1940, had come off successfully to everyone's surprise, was now to serve the implementation of Hitler's visions of conquest in the form of the secret of success."
So does this mean that in a fight, if I throw a jab but do not know it is called a 'jab', that I did not throw a jab? The author simply seems to be saying that the same tactics employed against Poland and France were those used later in the war against Yugoslavia and the USSR. The main difference being that they had a name for it and had experience enough with it to have developed it into an actual, bona fide doctrine.
Also, what seems to be the crux of the problem originally brought up in this post is something I have noticed myself after many, many games: If you are doing well, the AI compensates by stacking the deck against you. What I mean by this is demonstrated well by the original post. Japan (human player) was kicking the hell out of the USSR in the East, so the AI compensated by ensuring that Germany (AI) would grossly underperform in the West; a relative rarity for German AI before late 1942 in every game I have played.
Similarly, If Ibegin to do well playing as the UK, the USSR and the USA (controlled by the AI) suddenly become less than useless. Or if I play as Germany and am doing well, the Italians become a hunderance to me, as do the Japanese, and suddenly the USA, the UK, and even the minor Allied nations seem much more capable of pulling off coordinated attacks and invasions, and seem to have little difficulty chewing through my AI controlled 'allies'.
This observance has become so common I have actually tested its predicitve power and so far it has been 100% accurate. I can tell you how well certain nations controlled by the AI will perform based on which nation the human player selects - every single time. It is only a matter of degree. Sometimes the AI controlled nations aligned opposite of the nation the human player has chosen will perform incredibly well, sometimes they just will perform noticeably better than they do in games when the human player controls a nation that would be allied with (or at least friendly to) them. But they ALWAYS perform better when they are aligned against a human player.
The only exception I have noticed is when playing as Germany. There are times when an AI controlled Japan or Italy seem to do well, but it is only superficial and of extremely limited benefit to me. Japan is able to annex China and control southeast Asia and the Pacific, but has never then joined me against the SU. Instead, they DoW on the Allies, or on the USA and I find myself fighting a war with the USA in very short order (I would hardly classify Japan's apparent success as a help to me in these cases).
Similarly, if Italy does well in the Med, the Middle East, and in Africa, it will suddenly become useless. It's as if the AI has a limited objective set for Italy that, once reached, Italy begins to shift aimlessly in the wind. I have watched them (controlled by the AI) chew up the UK in Africa and the Middle East, making almost to India, then suddenly turn into shiftless retards roaming about at random and losing all sense of their former success. They either become useless, declare war on the US themselves, or have their fortunes slowly reversed by an extremely weakened UK. (This has happened to me twice when playing as Germany. In one game I watched Italy go from a formidable AI controlled ally to an inept punching bag for the minor Allied nations and a severely weakened UK. I had successfully taken the British Island as Germany in 1940, allied with Nat Spain who sealed of the Med in the west at Gibraltar, and Italy had sealed the Med in the east at Suez. By the end of 1942 Italy controlled nearly all of Africa, the entire Med, the Middle East, and with some help from me had even annexed S. Africa. Additionally, Belgium and the Netherlands were both annexed (thanks to Japan kicking some ass over in the Pacific).
Italy was on the doorsteps of India with (if IRC) around 130 IC, 110 divisions and a mostly intact navy of well over 100 vessels. The UK, on the other hand, had only around 35 IC, fewer than 20 divisions, a skeleton airforce, and an outdated navy scattered across the globe in small, ineffective fleets. Then, around the beginning of 1943, I watched Italy slowly get picked apart by Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and a suddenly revitalized, superman version of the UK. If I hadn't intervened by assuming military control of Italy in 1944, I have little doubt they would have been reduced to less than what they began with in the 1936 scenario. Truly incredible. (And BTW, the USA never got involved - Japan seemed content after locking up southeast Asia and the Pacific and then just sat idle. I managed to get a bitter peace with the SU after holding well over a third of their territory and reducing their army to rubbish (around 20 or so understrength, disorganized units and no air force at all).
Still, I had to do everything myself. Japan's success only helped as far as completely eliminating the Netherlands (hardly a game-changer), and Italy needed quite a bit of my assistance to maintain its modest effectiveness. Again, if the human player does well, the best strategy the AI seems to have is to stack the deck against him by truly making it a "one nation against all others" affair.