WW2 - Were German forces tactically more competent than their Allied counterparts

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Kovax

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Thats logistics, not strategy. You think generals dilberatly plan not to have that as a strategy?.

Thats a tactic.
…..
I would think the 4:1 numerical odds had something to do with it.
Making plans to insure that you have the 4:1 advantage in men, equipment, and supplies there where you need them is a part of strategy, not tactics, but admittedly only a part of it. Granted, having them there for a specific reason would certainly help....

Getting 4:1 odds in the general area is the result of strategy, what you do with those odds is tactics. Again, you're correct that merely achieving the tactical advantage is only one aspect of strategy, but it's an important one.

I already pointed out about denying the enemy the ability to do the same, which can be taken at either a tactical or a strategic level. We didn't bomb Germany in WWII just to "kill Germans", but to deny the productive capacity of those cities to the war effort, so they couldn't achieve tactical superiority. Where you place your tactical efforts is a strategic matter, which can be conducted at the operational or grand strategy level.

I concede that my descriptions were incomplete, but not "wrong".
 

Prussian Havoc

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...So my question to the forum is...was Germany really better tactical operations* than the allies?...
"Better Tactical Operations" ~ I retired not all that long ago from the military. And this particular topic is not new to me.

There is a momentum that builds in a Military that is resourced, blooded (Spanish Civil War) and positioned for War.

That momentum expresses itself across an impressive swath of a Nation's Military Industrial Complex.

"Better Tactical Operations" can most definitely result when a Military is resourced, blooded and positioned for War.

Though as soon as that Military goes to War, it drives changes, refinement and optimization in not just the Militaries it faces on the Battlefield but also in those Militaries which it may ace one day soon.

So while "Better Tactical Operations" may result initially and for quite some time, eventually such an advantage can be eroded over time, both as other Militaries advance and as Key Losses negatively impact previously ubiquitous advantage.


So yes, my answer to you is that Germany did indeed possess "Better Tactical Operations" initially... an advantage it first came to share as other Militaries earned differently nuanced but basically the same effect of "Better Tactical Operations." And then due to attrition, Germany came to lose its capability for "Better Tactical Operations."

At least that is how I see it. :bow:
 

Chepicoro

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One side of the debate can not distinguish between different levels of war... Tactical, operational, strategic, and grand strategic, and is not an innocent question the author of the thread is defined by himself as communist and adore Stalin... Everyone has the right to have heroes, but certainly his perspective is biased.

About the question, it was already answered by different authors with different methods. Every mathematical model I have seen offer slightly different results but all results are on the same direction.

The Germans on units the size of brigade or larger were on average superior or more effective than their enemies at least until the end of 1944... The data was already given by Holmes.

Before I used to upload images, scan from books or pdfs in my power... In a friendly environment I will do that without problems, but this is not the case... Anyway in all the thread only Holmes bothers to present sources to back his posts.

If someone is interested in studies about military effectiveness we can exchange documents if you have something of interest to me, contact me if that is the case.
 

Gerle

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Yeah Sandhurst has obviously seen better days.
 

L'Afrique

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Incorrect.


Germans usually having in the range of 3 to 4 wounded for every one killed, while the allies tend to have 4 to 5 wounded for every one killed, any light wound and returned to duty from Div aid stations acounts for German underreporting of casualties, that last point, returned to duty from Div Stations,was pointed out by Zitterling decades ago. This was not corrected for he HERO, but was for later QJM (Quantified Judgement Model) and the currecnt TNDM (Tactical Numberical Deterministic Model) modelleling after 1976. Along with other, refinments, the Axis forces ion Italy have increased their CEV rating in comparison to Allied, up to 1.4. to 1.5 from 1.2 to 1.3.

Defensive posture is the same for both sides a value around 1.5 being the outcome of defensive posture on expected casualty infliction rates at Bttn level actions and no there were not more deaths on the defensive side.

Dupoy uses Combat effetciviness values (CEV) measured in terms of casualty exchanges, terrain held or lost, and mission accomplishment, training and so on. Capture rates are built into the model and used to compare with other Theatre databases. The number of instances when posture of attacking or defending is built into the model so as to understand the effects of posture on outcomes.

Enemy Prisoner of War Capture Rate Study, Phase I & II

In the study we did do a direct comparison between US performance in Italy versus Ardennes. This is summarized below:

-----------------------Ardennes------Italy

US Successful Attack
--Number of Cases------28------------22
--Percent Success------68% ----------59%
--Lowest Ratio---------1.15 ---------1.67
--Highest Ratio--------7.83 ---------4.25
--Average Ratio--------2.24 ---------2.50

US Failed Attack
--Number of Cases------13 -----------15
--Lowest Ratio --------1.23 ---------0.72
--Highest Ratio -------2.24 ---------4.28
--Average Ratio -------1.57 ---------2.52

German Successful Attack
--Number of Cases -----11 -----------5
--Percent Success -----37% ----------29%
--Lowest Ratio --------1.05 ---------1.53
--Highest Ratio -------9.14 ---------5.12
--Average Ratio -------3.92 ---------2.21

German Failed Attack
--Number of Cases------19------------12
--Lowest Ratio--------0.34 ----------0.73
--Highest Ratio ------2.40 ----------5.87
--Average Ratio ------1.17 ----------1.87

Here is a master thesis showing how to apply the model.
https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/23101/quantifiedjudgme00cian.pdf;sequence=1

AFV Crew Training US 13 weeks, German 24 weeks.

Officer training

The importance of leadership skills is obvious in most careers, never mind in the field of warfare where the costs of losing are so high for a nation. No matter how individually skilled the soldiers are, and no matter how well they co-operate as a team, they must be directed by a competent leader if they are to win battles and campaigns, much less a war. Different societys have different expectations on just how much payoff is provided by competent leaders, though. The ancient greeks believed that an army of sheep (led by a lion) was better than an army of lions (led by a sheep). Most nations throughout history weren't quite so optimistic. That question aside, how do we judge which army has the better leadership caste? In order to answer this, we need to know the difference in how both armys selected and trained their officers, and how that impacted their ability to lead men on the battlefield. The biggest distinction between the germans and the americans is how their men received a commission. In the german army, a candidate would be forced to prove his worth as an NCO before he could hope to receive officer training. In the U.S. army, a candidate was able to go straight to officer training after completing basic. The consequences of this should be fairly obvious. Working alongside the enlisted men allowed the candidates to better understand their mindset, and to judge how a leaders actions affected the rank and file. Moreover, this practise meant that all the ranks have been through the grind of field duty (with no shortcuts allowed), and that officers owe their rank to the simple fact that they are a better soldier than the rest. That strengthened the cohesion between officers and enlisted men.

In total, the german candidate underwent 4-6 months of NCO training, followed by 2 months of service at the front. This enabled the school to see how they performed under pressure, before the men were offered or denied a commission (as a fahnenjunker). Thats an entire layer of preparation american candidates never had the opportunity to undergo! {N2} By the time officer training began, they were already behind the germans in a number of critical areas like navigation, flanking maneuvers, using supporting weapons, adjusting artillery fire, etc. More important was the structure of the courses themselves. Germans learned to think on their feet and find solutions in hopeless circumstances. They were encouraged to challenge the instructors when given imprecise answers. Americans dealt with map exercises rather than field problems, and long written orders instead of brief verbal commands. Their thoughts were disregarded by the instructors, who reinforced the importance of sticking with a 'school solution.' The german would have spent 8 weeks at a kriegsschule and 12-16 weeks at a truppenschule, while the american would spend 4 weeks at a preparatory school and 13 weeks at officer candidate school. Not surprisingly, this resulted in huge differences between how they led men in the field, which is best summarised by Jörg Muth: “American observers before the war failed to recognise upfront leadership as a decisive peculiarity of german combat excellence. German units often were provided with leadership in the most desperate and crucial situations, which enabled them to either attack or defend against heavy odds.”

Conclusion: The disparity in competence between german and american officers is huge. By the time they finished officer training, the german leutnants had a superior grasp of battle tactics, leadership skills, and a more aggressive command style. Its unsurprising that the american 2nd lieutenants (the so-called '90 day wonders') were often at a monumental disadvantage in combat.





Aparantly your incorrect when you claim to be familiar with Dupoys work, mission success at a casualty rate in your favour is tacticle competence. Mission failure at a casualty rate in your openents favour is tacticle failure. The main problem here is you dont know what your posting about. Strategy is concerned with how to succede regardless of either outcome.



Your uniformed opinion is noted, again. I have given you where the case studies that shown German tactical superiority are derived from in imprical form.
You disagree with the methodolgy, showing concerns that were adressed decades ago, but present none to counter what is used the world over, in the Mil education of officers in the present..

Strategy is not the combination of outcomes of tactical actions. Your inability to grasp the difference between strategy and tactics, in part, is whats causing your problem. Tactics are short term, strategy is long term. The prior is undertaken by lower levels of military, the latter by higher levels of command, success at one is not dependent on success at the other.
US lost a war in Asia, by winning every battle while inflicting a higher casualty rate in tacticle situations. Japan scorred a significant tacticle success at PH, which strategicly turned out to be a disaster as it motivated the USA to fight a war of revenge that includded use of nukes on them, clearly you have not read Luttwalk work on this.



Covered in Dupoys book, you ought to at least read it first.

frickin lol, i read through the civil war thread and saw your posts

now you do the exact same thing in another one

if only Napoleon or Hannibal had had someone around to quote mathematical models at them, right? they coulda done it.

MUH MODELS

I AM TACTICLOL GENIOUS

I READ BOOK AND PALY VIDEO GAEM

I KNOW WAR YOU KNOT UNINFORMED
 

Henry IX

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How do you propose to answer the question of 'what works better' if you do not have an analytical model to actually process complex data with? Before you rubbish well established techniques for analysing combat results you really need to come up with an alternative methodology, or at least establish the methodological flaws with the method presented. Do not imply make ad-hominem and straw man attacks.

Without a doubt, if any general of the past had access to modern analytical techniques they could have improved their battlefield performance. That is the benefit of hindsight and history - I don't have to make the same mistakes. Napoleon studied the campaigns of the Romans in great detail to try to learn from them, so he certainly appreciated that studying military history makes one a better commander.

Why do you reject a well documented and widely accepted methodology for establishing the answer to questions like "were the German forces more tactically competent then their allied counterparts?"
 

Holmes

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frickin lol, i read through the civil war thread and saw your posts

now you do the exact same thing in another one

Yes indeed, being accurate in two threads is always nice to see. Maths is a usefull tool to help understand why things turn out the way they did, in the past, and thus be able to do better in the present.
if only Napoleon or Hannibal had had someone around to quote mathematical models at them, right? they coulda done it.

Both generals in their time achieved tactical superiority over their oponents. Both haveave been studdied to understand how this was so.
MUH MODELS

I AM TACTICLOL GENIOUS

I READ BOOK AND PALY VIDEO GAEM

I KNOW WAR YOU KNOT UNINFORMED

Thanks for that insight into your thought process.
 

Easy-Kill

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Why do you reject a well documented and widely accepted methodology for establishing the answer to questions like "were the German forces more tactically competent then their allied counterparts?"
I'm not answering for @L'Afrique, however the dupuy model certainly has its flaws that are well appreciated and accepted, particularly in modern operational analysis domains. Specifically, the data that the system chose to build its models on was limited by both operational scenario and formations involved, where the Germans were elite and principally defensive, while the US (5TH army iirc) was far from elite and had its own failings.

A model is only ever as good as the data that the model is trained on.
 

Arilou

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I suspect the "answer" is that the difference between tactical and strategic layers is a chimaera: Tactical proficiency is going to be based on all sorts of strategic factors.
 

Henry IX

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I'm not answering for @L'Afrique, however the dupuy model certainly has its flaws that are well appreciated and accepted, particularly in modern operational analysis domains. Specifically, the data that the system chose to build its models on was limited by both operational scenario and formations involved, where the Germans were elite and principally defensive, while the US (5TH army iirc) was far from elite and had its own failings.

A model is only ever as good as the data that the model is trained on.

And that is exactly the sort of answer that is part of a productive debate. I personally have far too little knowledge or understanding of the details of this sort of combat simulation to make any useful contribution. Thank you.