The shortcomings of the German Army in WW2

[DingBat]

Sorry, what I meant was German industry didn't really go over to a war economy until later in the war.

Once Speer and Guderian organized the war industry Germany actually came close to matching the Soviet Unions output of AFV's, etc. Unfortunately, there was still Britain and the U.S. to think about.

/bruce

 

[knowltok3]

One major shortcoming that you missed was the lack of initiative that the Germans had. D-Day is the clearest example of this, but the fear to take a chance without direct orders to do so had to have had more of an effect than just costing the Germans their best chance to repel the allied invasion of France.

 

[DingBat]

Well, I would call that, as did the Germans themselves, the "grit" of war. It's also not so much a shortcoming of the German armed forces as it is the organization of OKH. Neither the commander responsible for the invasion defence (Rommel) nor the overall commander in the west (Rundstedt) had complete control of the armored reserves.

The D-Day situation was also caused by a simple lack of experience in many of the senior German commanders. To that point in the war they'd never experienced the kind of tactical air support the western allies were capable of. Rommel had and he warned them about the problems of concentrating armor where the enemy has air superiority. But, up til then, German doctrine was not to fritter away strength in dribs and drabs and that's what they fell back on.

So, I guess, you could also say that the German high command became less flexible as the war progressed.

Overall though, I would characterize the Germans as consistently showing MORE initiative than commanders in any other army. They were the master of the counterattack, rarely passing up an opportunity to spoil an enemies advance.

/bruce

 

[knowltok3]

I have read that it wasn't so much lack of experience of senior officers, but their lack in general. They were almost all off at a wargames excersise. The mid level officers are who were too afraid to act. The German comander in charge of the panzers close to Omaha knew where to go, what to do, and had the tools to do it. The one thing he lacked was the permission to do it.

 

[DingBat]

Yes, and it went even further than that. They were specifically ordered NOT to do anything until cleared for action by a higher command.

I think I see where you're going with this. An American division commander might likely say "to hell with orders" and move to engage anyway. Obedience to higher authority was perhaps more deeply ingrained in German commanders. This natural tendency was probably strengthened by examples made of other officers who bucked OKH (Hitler): early retirement or worse.

I don't know if I would call that lack of initiative...

/bruce

 

[Sayhueque]

Does anyone know what is the synthetic oil that the Germans produced when they lost their oilfields?

It's made out of coal AFAIK.


My own perception, the fact that the High Command was inept in military terms (they were all politicians) was a great shortcoming that reflected in the battlefield. The lack of authorisation for division and battallion level commanders to pursue initiative on times like D-Day meant that time was lost whilst politicians debated in Berlin the course of action and that, by the time the orders came, the units were routed, or on the run, or already fighting.

 

[DingBat]

I see a few people are hanging a lot on the German "failure" to commit their Panzer divisions on D-Day.

Since that was their plan, it is valid to say that the Germans failed to accomplish their goals. However, this ignores the question of whether the Germans had any chance for success in the first place.

Part of the reason that the Allies had so much trouble breaking out of Normandy (the allies actually reach all Overlord objectives well before schedule) was the terrain. Couple this with the fact that most of the German effort was against the eastern beaches (which also were cleared very quickly) and it's very debatable whether the Panzer divisions would have been able to push the allies back let alone drive them into the sea.

All in all, the defensive deployment of the Panzer divisions yielded much better results than any attack would have. Most of the German leaders of this time had little experience of what allied tactical air power could do. The days of concentrated Panzer division operations were over in the west.

/bruce

 

[Case]

One of the lesons of WW2 is that properly supported amphibious landings are almost impossible to stop. During the Invasion of Sicily the Germans managed to counterattack with armour, and drove to with sighte of the Invasion beaches only to be smashed by naval gunfire.

Likewise, the limited German counterattack on D-Day by the 21st Panzer division was smashed by Allied aircraft and naval gunfire.

Also, one of the reasons that the Normandy campaign took so long was that the Allies didn't expect the Germans to fight so hard for it. Following the 'Cobra' breakout and collapse of the German army in France, the Allies managed to beat their pre-invasion timetable for the liberation of France.

 

[DingBat]

Originally posted by Case
One of the lesons of WW2 is that properly supported amphibious landings are almost impossible to stop. During the Invasion of Sicily the Germans managed to counterattack with armour, and drove to with sighte of the Invasion beaches only to be smashed by naval gunfire.

Likewise, the limited German counterattack on D-Day by the 21st Panzer division was smashed by Allied aircraft and naval gunfire.

Also, one of the reasons that the Normandy campaign took so long was that the Allies didn't expect the Germans to fight so hard for it. Following the 'Cobra' breakout and collapse of the German army in France, the Allies managed to beat their pre-invasion timetable for the liberation of France.

Good point, but the reason that amphibious landings were impossible to stop basically boils down to air supremacy. If the Germans had had it, these landings would have turned out quite differently.

/bruce

 

[Case]

Originally posted by DingBat


Good point, but the reason that amphibious landings were impossible to stop basically boils down to air supremacy. If the Germans had had it, these landings would have turned out quite differently.

/bruce

Good point, but the Allies wouldn't have invaded if they hadn't had air supremacy

AFAIK, there were three unsucessful large scale amphibious landings in WW2: As you point out, air supremacy played an important role in two of the three.

Dieppe: Failed because the Canadians were landed right in front of the German strongpoints, and their armour was unable to support them. This happened despite of relative RAF air supremacy.

Wake Island: Failed largely due to the guts of the US Marine garrison. They managed to drive off the inital Japanese invasion force using a handfull of small calibre guns and a few Wildcat fighters.

Milne Bay: This Japanese invasion failed in the face of Australian air supremicy and the sheer fighing qualities of the veteran Australians that the Japanese faced (at the height of the battle the Aussie airfields were so close to the front line that the P-40 fighters were in action before they had time to retract their undercarriage!)

Some people would also count Marine bloodbaths such as Tarawa as failures. Again, the heavy casualties here were the result of landing troops right in front of Japanese strongpoints without sufficant armoured support. The same also applies to Omaha Beach, but this was probably an overall Allied victory as the beach was secure by nightfall.

 

[Graeme the mad]

German TACTICS were not the main reason for their loss in the war. Their tactics were generally very good even when they lost.
The mainshortcomigns of the German army is its overall strategy. Most importantly the decison to invade USSR without taking UK - if thye had taken the UK i am 100% certain they would have won the war.
Similarly the battle of the bulge was a horrendous mistake and too little support was given to Italy and the African campaigns

 

[omichyron]

German tactics were often hampered in the East by Hitler's refusal to lose any ground. This forbade strategic withdrawals. Incidentally, Stalin's orders were very much the same in this way. It seems that both failed to realize just how vast the distances were in Russia and how important mobility was to armored forces.

As for the German military itself, I would say that it was simply not up to the tasks it was presented with. Defeating France was easy because the objectives were all relatively close to Germany, so the initial French blunders could be exploited, leaving the allies no time in which to turn things around. Russia's initial deployment was certainly as incompetent as France's, however Russia was given time to mobilize and put up serious resistance. When a tactical victory was possible, the Germans capitalized on it. When, however, Hitler's orders and the great distances involved prevented one, the Germans simply were unable to win the resulting slugfest because they had too few resources, poor supply lines, and not enough troops to hold such a long front. Plus they really screwed up at Kirsk by waiting for their newest tanks. I would say it was probably more decisive than Stalingrad, considering their heavy dependancy on mechanized forces and losses in that area.