Seriously?
This has become way too personal.
Why don't we discuss what we mean about "Set piece battle" or "logistical preparation?"
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Seriously?
This has become way too personal.
Why don't we discuss what we mean about "Set piece battle" or "logistical preparation?"
What are you talking about?
Edit.
Checking ignored content, and saw Zinegata.
I forget why I began ignoring him, but every time I read one of his posts he reminds me why he is there.
Carry on.
Last edited:
Essentially yes - the concept of the 'decisive battle'. It is about taking a tactical action and using it to instantiate a strategic advantage. There is little point t in fighting a tactical action unless operational planning can turn it to a strategic advantage. The addage that the you can lose 99 battles provided you win the 100th.
The point I wanted to make was that, the concept of a set piece battle is a pop-history misnomer. It was always about fighting the battle that would allow yourself to turn the tactical victory to strategic advantage. Alamein, Caen/Normandy, Imphal/Kohima. All of these battles defeated the opposing forces and then advanced as far as was logistically possible.
A Set Piece, or Pitched, Battle is one where the commander makes all his decisions before the engagement. Picking the battlefield, placing his units carefully in their precise locations, having time to deliberate and plan before the battle begins. Think El Alamein.
It’s opposite is a Meeting Engagement. All units are in motion, chaos rules the battlefield. The two forces are in proximity of one another but their knowledge of the others position is ill defined. The commander must be up front and have brilliant tactical recon in place to understand the fluid battlefield situation in order to focus his forces into position to overwhelm the enemy locally. Think Patton in France, always moving, never stopping, until Bradley turned off his fuel supply.
Of course, one can lead to the other very quickly. Gettysburg starts as a meeting engagement, but as the battle grows it quickly evolved into a set piece affair.
None of these battles led to a real strategic advantage bar Normandy and that was basically an US affair with British help. I cant think of any land battle solely fought by the UK in ww2 which had a strategic effect.
To be fair to the brits (or rather, their indian subjects), Burma counts for checking Japanese advance.
You mean Imphal and Kohima ? The Japanese commander thought he can defend the border better from there. It was a Japanese blunder and the Japanese didnt want to advance further anyway.
The result was the unecessary blunting of some of the best Japanese divisions. Of course the British did a great job repeling them.
In the year before the British tried to retake Burma several times with laughable predictable operations and got always a bloody nose from the Japanese.
However the strategic effect in 1945 of Japan having Burma or not or having those divisions in or not is close to zero.
Every division not in North China or Japan is lost anyway at this point.
Last edited:
The defense of the Suez Canal was strategic.
But if you change that to no British ground offensive had a strategic effect, I am with you.
Monty in Italy is a perfect example. He plopped down in front of the Germans in his plodding style.
Patton used the back mountain roads and goat paths revealed to him by Sicilian mafiosi under the tag General Mafia, using contacts provided by Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello, and flanked the Germans all the way to Messina.
Well yes indeed.
Not throwing the towel also had an strategic effect of course.
The battle of Burma was lost by an American using British and Chinese troops in 1942. The strategic effect of the loss of Burma was that it kept China from ever being able to become anything but a sponge holding Japanese troops in place. Had the British or the Chinese stood their ground and not let themselves be bullied into putting their troops in position for a counter offensive, the Japanese wouldn't have been able to defeat them in southern Burma in March and April, North Burma might have held. (Remember the Allies only had to avoid losing before May, then the monsoon would shut all movement down)
North Burma holding in 1942 changes the entire war in Asia.
1. The Hump airlift becomes much easier and much less expensive. The pilots would be flying the Low Hump from the get go. This means less losses, less attrition, less advanced planes being needed, higher volumes of supplies going through.
2. This then makes the 1943 counteroffensive much easier. Instead of attacking over the Arakan mountains, the Allies would have been attacking from Mandalay south into the river valleys.
3. If Burma is cleared in 1943-1944, Allied aid to China goes way, way up and China is in a much better position in 1944 than it was historically. Rather than operation IChi-Go knocking out China's armies, China would be preparing for Operation Carbonado in 1944.
Last edited:
I disagree here with all three. Alamein .Saw German force in the western desert destroyed and the land reconquered. It also saw the first time Germany had a tactical defeat turn into a strategic defeat. I am not sure how the 'western desert' does not form a strategic theatre.
In Normandy, the battles saw the defeat of German forces and paved the way for the reconquest of France and Belgium.
In Imphal and Kohima, it was the largest defeat of Japanese forces to that time, and completely destroyed Japan's ability to defend Burma. Again, tactical victory to strategic defeat.
I am not claiming that Britain was 'the best', or that they did these alone. I am trying to explain to Zinegata that his perception of 'set piece' battles is overly simplistic. They tend to be described as set piece battles due to the meticulous planning that was put into them, but that is an overly sinpliatic description. What they really were was the concept of tactical-operational-strategic synergy ... That is tactical operations provide local victories, operational planning is the concept of turning tactical victory to strategic advantage.
I frequently read that Germany was good at the 'tactical and operational level, but failed at the strategic level. Operational level planning/operations are about taking tactical operations and making them strategically relevent and this is something that was at the core of British doctrine during the latter stages of ww1 and into ww2. The thesis 'colossal cracks by Stephen Hart' gives a very nice albeit laboured introduction to this.
To say it blunt, most people have only a vague understanding of strategy. Strategy is not a simple matter of scale or size. The strategic effect of Germany denying your western desert is zero. Especially if they cant reach Suez anyway. If anything the whole Africa campaign was a German strategic blunder since it bound much needed troops, equipment and logistics needed elsewhere at an unimportant theater. Hitler was right in saying its just a sideshow but for a sideshow he kept considerable resources there.Mostly for political reasons (Italy)
Burma had no strategic influence regarding the war against Japan regardless what happens there in 1945. Even if the Japanese troops in Burma had managed to destroy the whole British army, conquer India move their way to Europe and invade Britain Japan would have lost the war and surrendered.(maybe a few weeks later true) On the flip side if the Queen had appeard and killed them all with a roundhouse kick Japan would have not surrendered a day earlier. Burma was important for Britis hpolitical reasosons an despecially Singapore of course.
Nothing the British army did in ww2 had a real strategic effect bar not surrendering.
Mind you also nothing the German army did in ww2 had a real strategic effect. The defeat of France might be debatable tho.
One of the most important strategic German victories was the occupation of Norway for example. It however did not bring Germany closer to wining the war but prevented losing it faster.
The only Japanese strategic victory was defeating the US carrier forces and establish carrier supremacy in the pacific in 1942. Sadly for them they couldnt utilize that sucess and it was wasted.
Every other Japanese strategy did not suceed
Totally agree.
The most strategic decision of the war was the British carrying on the war against Germany alone, despite all odds.
If Britain had rolled over, then Russia would have been dropped in the fryer with no support whatsoever and almost certainly would have caved without the lifelines of Murmansk and Persia keeping her in the game. Western Europe might still be speaking German as its dominant language.
I am not convinced that Russia would have been defeated but it makes things easier for Nazy Germany for sure.
So yay Britain, thanks for not surrendering. Speaking German isnt bad but growing up in a Nazi country certainly is.
Too true.
As you well know, I love Germany historically. It is the language of the holy trinity of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.
And, perhaps you have noticed (as I have a bit of a track record on this score), I have rather strong feelings about the Nazi party and am no fan.
The flow of military equipment into Murmansk was not the key element. It was things like trucks, radios, and most importantly, FOOD, (Spam, in particular, according to direct quotes from Stalin himself) that helped keep Russia in the game.
France would have been left with a light garrison because there was no threat of invasion as there were no forward bases to operate from. No Greek distraction. There would be no strategic bombing campaign, no tie up of aircraft and an entire army of personnel to clear away the rubble, and the full might of the German Army would have been shoved up Russia's ass unhindered.
The British convoy system, and the Battle of the Atlantic, keeping the Murmansk lines open and making Hitler watch over his shoulder in France WAS a strategic success.
The British counter-intelligence system - SOE, run by Intrepid - setting Europe ablaze and keeping the Germans busy in many places WAS a phenomenal strategic success.
The bombing campaign WAS a strategic success. (Right, Easy-Kill)
The British ground campaign, not so much. Defensively, yes; offensively, no.
If hear this statement so often. And every time I am completely confused as it seems to to be talking about some alternate universe:
- Britain didn't fight alone. The naval and economic power of the Empire was behind it.
- The odds were always in Britain's favor. Short of a sequence of miracles in which Germany manages a landing and somehow defeats the Royal Navy, Britain was never under threat of defeat.
Fair enough. But, usually, when Britain is discussed in this context it includes the Empire; when England is mentioned it is the Home Islands. Not a hard and fast rule, but I think I tend to think along those lines. (My apologies to my Scottish brethren)
The question I would ask back is this, 'was Britain's decision to fight Germany one of the easiest decisions of the war?'.
We want to discuss best and worst 'commanders' of the war? Let's discuss commanders in chief.
Imagine if Edward VIII, a known Nazi sympathizer, was still on the throne along with that bitch of his who was receiving flowers daily from Ribbentropp. And Churchill had been 'quieted' by extralegal means that the known Nazi's in England were by special operations units?
Why was Churchill on point? He was part of the same esoteric tradition put Hitler in power and could read between the lines of what was coming. There is a reason Hess flew to England to negotiate a peace. But his loyalty was to Britain, in teh manner of John Churchill, and he spoke up loud and long, warning people of the true brutality they had in store for them regardless of the criticism heaped upon him for doing it.
So, yes, in hindsight Britain standing firm is a no brainer; just like removing Edward from the throne and replacing him with his brother by any means necessary was a no brainer for the British people. Thank God. But, the 'what if' - an alliance between Hitler and Britain that might have been according to some potential timelines - is rather frightening to contemplate.
To be fair by that definition Barbarossa was the greatest strategic success of the German war; they destroyed the Russian army in place and then destroyed half of Russia's fighting ability. That the other half was still a relevant threat isn't the same as a strategic failure.
Or, in other words, I disagree with your definition of strategic; the combination of El Alamein, Torch, and Husky was strategic (freeing up the logistics chain through the Mediterranean and incidentally also knocking out Italy), but none of those three operational successes was a strategic success by itself. The German invasion of Western Europe in 1940 was a strategic success (knocking out the western front, i.e. France and support) with a two-stage operational success underpinning it (Fall Rot and Fall Gelb), but neither of them alone would have been - you could pin all the strategic success on the last part (i.e. Husky and Rot) but that seems unfair.