The most strange unit in game: Grenedier

[jimbob27]

But it was no longer used in direct assault. Maybe for movement and skirmiches and ambushes but not against, say, a tank.

Aye.... but in poland they kinda had to. The stories of polish cavalry charging tanks are all myths, but the polish army did perform several very sucessful cavalry charges against the main german attack force.
The german tanks didn't show up until a day or two later, so the cavalry were attacking heavy guns and infantry. There are photos of a battlefield strewn with dead polish horses and disabled german tanks... however they were from 2 different battles. The polish drove the germans back for a day or two with their cavalry, until the german tanks arrived and forced them to retreat.

Remember...in 1939, to most countries tanks were still seen as a bit of a novelty.

 

[Nestorius]

Poles also defeated the Russian invasion in the 1920's with cavalry.

 

[SmokeyD]

The Poles would have likely done a lot better against the Germans (though still lost in relatively short order) had the Soviets not invaded simultaneously as per the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

 

[majk-iii]

-yep... simply too much at once to handle.

 

[Chamaedrys]

The Poles would have likely done a lot better against the Germans (though still lost in relatively short order) had the Soviets not invaded simultaneously as per the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Well, the Poles would have had a chance if their French and British allies had helped them.

 

[SmokeyD]

That, too. How unfortunate that the French (technically and numerercially superior to the Germans at that point in the war) were too afraid to go on the offensive without British support, and the British were frantically trying to rearm themselves after 20 years of willful ignorance concerning the necessity of a powerful military when one is the premier power in the world.

 

[N3pomuk]

that was called the Phoney war, because one general or the other thought that the germans would never circumvent the maginot line through belgium (as they had done already in WWI)

I agree that lancers are missing and should replace the ormal Cavalry, as has been said normaly they dismounted before fighting with guns, because once you loose the power of the charge, cavalry is more vulnerable and easly distroyed by infantry. After all lancers lived to see battles against heavy machine guns and dragoons were relativly short lived.
cheers

 

[SmokeyD]

that was called the Phoney war, because one general or the other thought that the germans would never circumvent the maginot line through belgium (as they had done already in WWI)

It was called the Phoney War because the British and French did sweet **** all in the months between the declaration of war in 1939 and the invasion of France in 1940. But yeah, the Maginot Line thing was pretty stupid.

 

[Breunor]

Well, the Poles would have had a chance if their French and British allies had helped them.

Sigh, sorry I don't agree here Chamaedrys, certainly not in terms of ability to affect the outcome from a material standpoint.

The French ability to pursue offensive war was limited. Indeed, France's army and doctrine was based on defense. That is why the Maginot line was built. When preparing war plans, they were relying on the Belgian and perhaps Dutch army to close the army strength gap, and their main plan was the Dyle plan. Using this, France would be supplemented by 20 divisions or so from Belgium and some from Holland.

If you look on paper, France had a lot of tanks of good quality, but they weren't really capable of offensive warfare. Their tanks weren't built into divisions, but were scattered as infantry support. More important, the army was green (all were), but was imbued with a defensive mentality. They ddin't want to move beyond artillery range. They hadn't learned the German offensive doctrine and couldn't have executed it in 1939. France was thinking in terms of WWI, wehre offensives were dificult without overwhelming superiority. Without a doctrine of using tanks and planes, an offensive would have been WWI 'like'.

Poland fought very well, but they were simply overwhelmed. There defensive plans were based on defending a smaller border. Once Germany took over Czechoslovakia, their border was enormous. It was late in the game -- perhaps a purely objective defense of pulling back to Warsaw would have been more successful, but it isn't hard to understand that Poland tried to defend the bulk of their country. Their war plans, devised many years earlier, were based on having Czechoslovakia still independent.

Guderian's breakthrough in the North was really decisive. He got into trouble once, but it was tough for Poland to defend such a large border. Of course, they hadn't dealt with a blitz doctrine, and the combined tanks under a skilled commander with initiative like Guderain was very hard to stop.

The Russian back-stab hurt, but Germany had them pretty much beaten by that time. Don't take this as an indictment of the Polish military or troops, but the Germans were stronger with new tactics, more resources, and generally better equipment.

Given the speed of Poland's fall, an attack by France is hard to predict. Wargaming shows that they really couldn't have done much -- not with their offensive deficiencies. However, would Germany have reacted with a troop reduction? That is, we can wargame, but we don't know how the real life commanders would act. So, an attack by France may have ahd psychological impacts, but from a purely military standpoint, Poland was overmatched.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Chamaedrys]

@Breunor: I see that you are well informed aubout military history. In fact the Polish army was inferior in tactics and military equipment. And the dicision to defend the borders instead of going back to an easier defendable position in central poland make it even worse.
But I still think that the Western Allies did the biggest mistake of all times as they dicided not to attack.
At this time, the German Forces were not prepared for the great war. They used about 2/3 of their ammounition in the Polish campaign.
The 'Westwall' ( a system of forts at the western border) was mostly propaganda. The Allies could easyly break trough and conquer the import heavy industries at the saar river and the chemical industries at Ludwigshafen
(import industrial area just next to the French border). I will not speculate if they would reached the rhine or not, but they had a chance to end the war bevor it begins and they don't used it.

 

[Crighton]

Actually the mistake came many years prior when they began to let the restrictions of the Versailles treaty go uninforced, depending on how far you want to take that thought it could go back as far as defaulting on reparations payments etc, but I would mark it at the remiliterization of the western provinces (treaty violation there), not to mention the sudetenland in checkoslovakia which military was considerably much more defensible than Poland.

 

[Breunor]

@Breunor: I see that you are well informed aubout military history. In fact the Polish army was inferior in tactics and military equipment. And the dicision to defend the borders instead of going back to an easier defendable position in central poland make it even worse.
But I still think that the Western Allies did the biggest mistake of all times as they decided not to attack.
At this time, the German Forces were not prepared for the great war. They used about 2/3 of their ammounition in the Polish campaign.
The 'Westwall' ( a system of forts at the western border) was mostly propaganda. The Allies could easyly break trough and conquer the import heavy industries at the saar river and the chemical industries at Ludwigshafen
(import industrial area just next to the French border). I will not speculate if they would reached the rhine or not, but they had a chance to end the war bevor it begins and they don't used it.

Thanks for the nice comments Chamaedrys!

Yeah, the Westwall was useless essentially in 1939 (besides propoganda value). I just want to caution people that the French army in 1939 was simply not capable of offensive action. If you look at the material, and what Germany had, yes they were. But wars aren't all about what is on the TOE and equipment -- they didn't have an offensive doctrine that worked. In the unlikely case the French army ordered them to attack, (they actually fired on the WestWall and did nothing), they would have advanced with flanks fully covered, converting rail as they went, waiting for supplies, etc. Offensives more than defensive warfare take doctrine -- the French didn't have it.

Don't forget that the French army was TOTALLY devoted to the offensive and they almost lost the war because of the horrible 1914 offensive (hitting right when the Germans were flanking them). NOTHING was going to get them to attack in WWII. Of course, this has nothing to do with the statement that they SHOULD have attacked, except that the passive attitude had pervaded the army which becomes a self-fulfilling hypothesis.

If we say, 'if the French army understood the military situation, understood how offensive warfare worked in 1939, understood the weakness of the German army at that point, knew how to reallocate their tanks into divisions, and massed their airforce, and had commanders who knew how to exploit these kinds of situations, they could have hurt Germany very badly.' This is likely true -- but the French army was not in that state. In my opinion, a commander ordering a French offensive in 1939, given the actual state of the army and its command and doctrine, would see them crawl and accomplish little. The commander would pull his/her hair out, tell them to take initiative, but it wouldn't work.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[naterator]

Cavalry survived till a lot later than ww1

maybe, but i doubt it was ever used effectively against a modern army. i don't count delaying total annihilation by a few days success, sorry poland. (id do like kazmir pulaski, though. some of my best friends are poles)

 

[Crighton]

I think the last successfull cavalry charge of the modern era was by the australian light infantry towards the tail end of WW1 against the Turks, I could be wrong but it would interesting to get info about it

 

[MilesGregarius]

The Poles get most of the press, but the last regimental cavalry charge was by the Italians. The Savoia Regiment successfully charged 2000 Red Army troops near the River Don in August, 1942. It's not often you get to talk about Italian victories in WWII.

 

[Harrier]

Sigh, sorry I don't agree here Chamaedrys, certainly not in terms of ability to affect the outcome from a material standpoint.

I am not an expert but I have read/seen several reports from military historians - that state the French/British were stronger than the Germans on the western front during the initial few months and should have attacked when war was declared. They should not have waited several months until the Germans acted. The delay gave the Germans time to reposition their armies and plan their offensive campaign.

 

[A Silly Goose]

Of course, one has to keep in mind that these sorts of discussions about history are done so with the gift of hindsight.

Afterall, the only country that knew anything about how to fight a war of attrition, before WWI, was the USA; and that was only because the Civil War was the first real war of attrition. As such, it's only natural that Europe--a continent accustomed to Napoleanic warfare--would perform the way it did in the face of a new breed of war.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I am not an expert but I have read/seen several reports from military historians - that state the French/British were stronger than the Germans on the western front during the initial few months and should have attacked when war was declared. They should not have waited several months until the Germans acted. The delay gave the Germans time to reposition their armies and plan their offensive campaign.

France alone had a larger military than Germany in 1939. That wasn't the problem, however. The real problem was that, where as losing WWI had left the Germans raging mad and looking for a fight, winning (more accurately, surviving) it had left France, and to a lesser extent England, simply exhausted. They lacked the morale to pose a credible offensive threat. This accounts for France's subsequent collapse in 1940 even more than Germany's tactical innovations.

That said, if France had had the wherewithal to make a thrust into the Rhineland in the first weeks of September, it would have greatly improved France's (and Britain's) tactical situation, maybe even ending the war before it really got started. However if it had been capable of such, France would have put up a better fight when Germany did drive west.

It's doubtful anything France or Britain did could have saved Poland, though they certainly could have done more to help themselves.

 

[SmokeyD]

Tactically, neither the French nor the British were ready for modern war. While they technically may have possesed larger armies and more military hardware, it wasn't deployed in such away to effectively combat blitzkreig, or even wage war the offensive. The crippling effects of World War I, and the reluctance of the two nations to acknowledge the threat of global war thereafter didn't help a whole lot either.

 

[Harrier]

Tactically, neither the French nor the British were ready for modern war. While they technically may have possesed larger armies and more military hardware, it wasn't deployed in such away to effectively combat blitzkreig, or even wage war the offensive. The crippling effects of World War I, and the reluctance of the two nations to acknowledge the threat of global war thereafter didn't help a whole lot either.

I do not know about the French, but the British certainly were not ready for modern warfare as they had reduced the armed services after WW1. A stupid mistake the British politicians make even today.

But as Milesgregarius stated the French had enough troops and combined with the smaller British expeditionary force - they may have been able to overwhelm the Germans. Particulary as the Germans did not expect Britain/France to declare war.

But ASillyGoose is correct - as far as numerical values etc. is concerned, it is all hindsight - somethink the people involved did not have.