***
war and social upheaval: World War II -- land campaigns tactics
World War II Tactics: Land Warfare
Figure 1.--Military accounts of World War II focus on the tank and militry historians endlessly debate the relative merits of the different tanks. In fact, Barbarossa failed not because of the strength of German armour, but because the Wehrmacht did not have the logistical capability needed to support its Blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviet Union nor the industrial capacity needed to build it. And the NAZI Empire was demolished in 1944 by Soviet and Anglo-American armies fully equipped with unglamerous, but sturdy American-built trucks delivered under Lend Lease. Here a Russian boy seeking food in a photograph taken by a German soldier in 1941. We think these are German trucks. Perhaps readers will know more. This boy may be raggedly dressed, but he is dressed warmer than the Whermacht soldiers surging toward Moscow. At the time the Wehrmacht had adequate supplies of winter clothing, but the desperately needed winter uniforms were sitting in wearhouses in the Reich and because of logistical problems not on the way to the soldiers that needed it. The ensuing defeat before Moscow and massive losses would doom the NAZI war effort.
World War II tactics reflected the development of mew weapon systems. They also varied in the differeht theaters. The European theater fought over relatively flat terraine was dominated by what came to be known as Blitzkrieg. It was the Germans who first conceptualized and employed how to most effectively use the new weapons systems (especially tanks and aircraft) developed during World War I. German commanders srtuggling to explain why they lost World war I, conceived of an innovative method of effectively employing the new weapons, a combined arms tactic which has come to be known as Blitzkrieg. In many was Blitzkrrieg involved employing the new weapons in the historically aggresive tactics and high mobility of the Prussian Army. The NAZIs seemed to have believed that racial superiority meant that Germany would be able to create the most poweful weapons. We are not sure Hitler believed this, but his strategy was to divide potential adversaries and striking before his targets were prepared for war. Unfortunately his failure to defeat Britain and the Soviet Union meant that major industrial powers had the time to develop weapons that could match the Germans. And the entry of the United Srtates into the War meant that the enemies Hitler created had had the industrial capacity to produce weapons in quanties beyond the capability of Germany, beyond rge capacity Germany could only dream of building. But it was not just tanks that were needed for mobile warfare, it was other tracked vehicles and the prosaic truck. Blitzkrieg not only involved panzers to pierce the enemy front line. Tanks after the early Blitzkrieg victories proved vulnerable. Infantry weapons were developed allowing a single infantryman or pair to destroy a rtank. Tanks thus needed infantry soldiers to protect them as well as to exploit the gaps opened in the enemy line. And the infantry as well as tanks needed supplies that had to move as rapidly as panzers. The achelies heel of the Wehrmacht was that 1) it was not fully motorized and 2) Germany lacked domestic petroleum resources. The Wehrmacht did not have the trucks needed to fill the logiistical demand of Blitzkrieg. This weakness was not immediately apparent in the short early campaigns conducted on relatively small areas. This changed dramatically with the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941) and the declaration of war on the United States (December 1941). Barbarossa was Hitler's supreme gamble and it failed largely because of the Whermacht's logistical weaknesses. It was Germany's undefeated adversaries that had the industrial capacity to build both armored vehicles and trucks in huge numbers. The United States not only supplied vehiches in large numbers to its own military, but to its Allies as well. While the Wehrmacht did not have the mobility needed for Blitzkrrieg against an adequately prepared abn armed opponent, the armies fielded by the Allies did. The Soviets were not impressed with American tanks, but they were with American trucks. The NAZIs at the beginning of 1944 still held much of Europe, but the fully mobilized Allied armies in the east and west by the end of the year with the mobility provided by the American trucks not only liberated the occupied territories, but brought the war to the borders of the Reich. In Asia tactics were different. This was in part because The Pacific War was primarily a series of relatively small amphibious operations. The fightingin China and Burma was more conventional, but the teraine and indusrtrial capacity of major participants (China and Japan) resulted in tactics fundamentally different than in Europe. The war did end with a European-style Soviet Blitzkrieg in Japanese held Manchuria.
Prussia was a rather poor principality in northetn Germany, but became important because of its well drilled army. An essential element of Prussiam military doctrine was speed, mobility, and responsiveness to commnd. [Citino] And when German was united under the Prussian monarchy,the Prussian tradition became the core of the new Imperial German Army. When Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the Germn Army to attack France through Belgium, he had confidence that he was setting the strongest army of Europe in motion. And like the old Prussian Army, its tactical doctine was based on speed and mobility butressed by the industrial power of a unified Germany. Unfortuntely for the Germans, they were stopped at the Marne and a war of attritiin with the Allies and the entrance of the United States in the War resulted in a shattering defeat. In the inter-War era, the German military analized their defeat and developed fusing together the old Prussian dictrine of speed and mobilkity with modern weaponry, including rapid-fire wapons, tanks, and aircraft. The result was Blitzkrieg, a term coined by German military planners and popularized by western journalists. Blitzkrieg is essentilly the tactical doctine of modern combined arms warfare, fusing together mechanize warfare with tank at the tip of the speer supported by high performnce air craft providing close air support. Important here were reconnaisance (recon) forces. [Edwards]
It is no accident that it was the Germans who conceived of Blitzkrieg. It was esentially the long- established Prussiam military dictrine with rthe additioin of modern weapons. They were vitgal to find a fix enemny positions as well as to direct fire support. This is why field radios were a vital part of Germany iparions and included in tganks as well as aircraft. The ideawas to break through the fron and incircle fron line forces through vast pinzer micemrnts. It was developed by the Germans and eventually adopted by those countries (America, Britain, and the Soviet Union) that were able to survive the German assaults and had the industrial capacity to build modern weapons. And it took the British, Soviets, and Americns time to absorb the tactical dotrine with which the Germans began the War.
World War II tactics reflected the development of mew weapon systems. They also varied in the differeht theaters. The European theater fought over relatively flat terraine was dominated by what came to be known as Blitzkrieg. It was the Germans who first conceptualized and employed how to most effectively use the new weapons systems (especially tanks and aircraft) developed during World War I. German commanders srtuggling to explain why they lost World war I, conceived of an innovative method of effectively employing the new weapons, a combined arms tactic which has come to be known as Blitzkrieg. In many was Blitzkrrieg involved employing the new weapons in the historically aggresive tactics and high mobility of the Prussian Army. The NAZIs seemed to have believed that racial superiority meant that Germany would be able to create the most poweful weapons. We are not sure Hitler believed this, but his strategy was to divide potential adversaries and striking before his targets were prepared for war. Unfortunately his failure to defeat Britain and the Soviet Union meant that major industrial powers had the time to develop weapons that could match the Germans. And the entry of the United Srtates into the War meant that the enemies Hitler created had had the industrial capacity to produce weapons in quanties beyond the capability of Germany, beyond rge capacity Germany could only dream of building. But it was not just tanks that were needed for mobile warfare, it was other tracked vehicles and the prosaic truck. Blitzkrieg not only involved panzers to pierce the enemy front line. Tanks after the early Blitzkrieg victories proved vulnerable. Infantry weapons were developed allowing a single infantryman or pair to destroy a rtank. Tanks thus needed infantry soldiers to protect them as well as to exploit the gaps opened in the enemy line. And the infantry as well as tanks needed supplies that had to move as rapidly as panzers. The achelies heel of the Wehrmacht was that 1) it was not fully motorized and 2) Germany lacked domestic petroleum resources. The Wehrmacht did not have the trucks needed to fill the logiistical demand of Blitzkrieg. This weakness was not immediately apparent in the short early campaigns conducted on relatively small areas. This changed dramatically with the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941) and the declaration of war on the United States (December 1941). Barbarossa was Hitler's supreme gamble and it failed largely because of the Whermacht's logistical weaknesses. It was Germany's undefeated adversaries that had the industrial capacity to build both armored vehicles and trucks in huge numbers. The United States not only supplied vehiches in large numbers to its own military, but to its Allies as well. While the Wehrmacht did not have the mobility needed for Blitzkrrieg against an adequately prepared abn armed opponent, the armies fielded by the Allies did. The Soviets were not impressed with American tanks, but they were with American trucks. The NAZIs at the beginning of 1944 still held much of Europe, but the fully mobilized Allied armies in the east and west by the end of the year with the mobility provided by the American trucks not only liberated the occupied territories, but brought the war to the borders of the Reich. In Asia tactics were different. This was in part because The Pacific War was primarily a series of relatively small amphibious operations. The fightingin China and Burma was more conventional, but the teraine and indusrtrial capacity of major participants (China and Japan) resulted in tactics fundamentally different than in Europe. The war did end with a European-style Soviet Blitzkrieg in Japanese held Manchuria.
Sources
Citino, Robert M. The German Way of War: From the Thirty Year's War to the Third Reich (University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, 2005), 428p.
Edwards, Robert. Scouts Out: A History of German Armored Reconaisance Units in World War II (2014), 528p.
Griffith, Paddy. World War II Desert Tactics (Osprey Publishing: 2008), 64p.
