Posts made by Derek

Myth 3: The Tank was the key invention that made Blitzkrieg possible

Some people in this forum often accuse me of hating the tank, because I often write long-winded posts about how the value of tanks has been vastly overstated. This is another one of them, so if you prefer to cling to your imagined notions of the tank then you should probably bury your head in the sand and ignore this post altogether.

However, the vast majority of people understand that the reality of war can be very different from the simple perception of war. And this section at long last defines what the tank’s role truly was in the “Blitzkrieg” doctrine.

Let’s step back to France 1940. We have the German army on one side, and the British, French, Belgian, and Dutch army on the other. We have already established that both sides have tanks. So the question becomes: what was the difference between these two forces, beside the fact that the British and French were criminally backward with their static warfare doctrine? (as opposed to the German, Russian, and American doctrines which all incorporated mobile warfare)

The answer is simple: The British and French tanks were, for the most part, made to operate as part of larger infantry formations. Despite the British / French tanks being capable of moving at 20 kilometers per hour, they were forced to operate with infantry forces who marched at 20 kilometers per day, squandering any speed advantage that they had.

Meanwhile, the German tanks were allowed to operate independently. Despite having only a handful of Panzer Divisions, these Panzer Divisions were not made to march alongside the rest of the infantry-based army. Thus, the German army had a small, specialized force which could rapidly deploy at a much faster pace than the infantry, allowing them to rapidly encircle the British and French forces before they could react (because again, the British/French tanks were limited to marching pace), resulting in the forced evacuation of the BEF and the best of the French army units at Dunkirk.

Thus, it becomes easy to see that the decisive, war-winning difference between a Panzer Division and a French/British Division is operational mobility - which is the ability to move large bodies of men on the battlefield at a pace much faster than the enemy.
[Sidebar: Note that this is different from “strategic” mobility, which is the ability to transfer large bodies of troops using railroads or merchant ships over large distances. High levels of strategic mobility were already available in the First World War, which was defined by railroads.

It is also different from “vehicle top speed”, which is really little more than “tactical mobility”. Getting a single tank to move 45kph is one thing. Moving three hundred tanks and its supporting elements over a hundred kilometers in a few hours without resort to rail or merchant transport is another thing entirely]

So does this finally present an airtight example of the tank’s war-winning qualities? Unfortunately, no, as it is often forgotten that the Panzer Division was not an all-tank formation. It is instead part of a combined arms formation, for the German Army - like all competent militaries - recognized that different arms were needed to succeed in combat.

Indeed, a quick look at the Panzer Division’s organization would show that it has a substantial infantry component, which would proportionately grow larger and larger as the war progress. Because at the tactical level, an all-tank force simply made no sense. Such a force was easily defeated by massed anti-tank guns, as the ATGs were easily concealed and could often rain fire on the armor without fear of retaliation. To drive away the ATG crews, infantry and artillery were needed.

Thus, to have a successful mobile army, you needed to be able to move everything at the rate of 20 kilometers per hour. Not just your tanks, but also your infantry and your artillery, and the ammunition and fuel needed to keep them fighting. Otherwise, your unsupported tanks will simply be picked off. And to move these supporting forces, you need to fully utilize that invention I mentioned earlier: The internal combustion engine.

Apart from tanks, the diesel and gasoline engine powers an enormous variety of transport vehicles, most notably the truck. These vehicles are not sexy. They are generally unarmed. But if you want your tanks to fight with infantry and artillery support, then you must rely on trucks and other transports to carry them for you.

And by 1944, the Allied armies had come to realize and finally embrace this concept. The United States, in particular, fully motorized all of its infantry Divisions. This was why US “Infantry” Divisions were racing alongside US “Armor” Division to the German border in 1944 - because you actually don’t need the tank in order to create a highly mobile army. The tank is certainly useful in a wide variety of roles - particularly infantry support - but working on its own it could still not force a decision.

Myth 4: Only Germany Mastered “Blitzkrieg”

Now that we’ve established what “Blitzkrieg” actually is, it’s now time to move on to the other myths and misconceptions about it. In particular, there’s this very annoying brain bug that has come up in recent years, that claims the Allied armies of 1944 were incompetents who simply overcame German tactical skill with overwhelming numbers. Hence the frequent claims of “One Panther lost for every five Shermans”, and other nonsense lies.

The reality of 1944 was completely different. In fact, it was almost a complete reversal of the situation of 1940.

It was now the Allies that had highly mobile armies, while the German army was still limited to a handful of Panzer Divisions. Allied generalship by this point was also much better, with many Generals being leading proponents of mobile warfare (Patton, Zhukov). The German general staff meanwhile, had been gutted. Its leaders were being forced into retirement (Manstein, Guderian) or suicide (Rommel), and Hitler kept insisting on patently insane static warfare statics like his ill-fated “Festungs”.

And the results actually reflected this. 1944 was not a year when the Allies suffered defeats at the hands of mythical Panthers and Tigers. It was in fact a year of utterly catastrophic losses for the German Army.

In the East, an entire Army Group vanished after the Soviets launched “Operation Bagration”, which saw the Russian armor and motorized units cutting into the German rear and annihilating three entire armies (worse than Stalingrad).

In the West, the bulk of seven Panzer Divisions and many other Divisions were crushed when the Western Allies performed a smaller mass encirclement at Falaise. The defeats were so crushing that they essentially equalled Germany’s dazzling advances in 1939 and 1940.

While Allies still suffered losses, what’s important to realize is that when two armies achieve the same level of technology and firepower, heavy losses are inevitable. There is no “magic solution” to reduce casualties once the other side becomes as mobile as you, and their tactics and strategy are no longer incompetent. In fact, German “blitzkrieg” had already failed in 1943, highlighted by that supposed mother of all tank battles: Kursk.

Popular history likes to depict Kursk as a massed, swirling tank battle. It was actually anything but except for very specific portions. Instead, it was simply vindication for the Red Army, who now showed that they had learned their lessons. As shown in the paper here:
http://usacac.army.m…ubs/glantz2.pdf

The Red Army of Kursk was no longer the plodding army that kept finding entire armies surrounded and wiped out by the nimble Panzers before they knew what was happening. It had now learned to create defensive positions manned by combined-arms formations, supported by mobile reserves that could quickly move up to counter any sudden German movements.

This new, improved Red Army defeated the cream of the German Panzer forces, which never recovered despite attempts to make them “better” by introducing “technically superior” tanks like the Panther and Tiger. But the introduction of these super-tanks actually only accelerated the rot, because the Panther and Tigers were mechanically unreliable and had little operational mobility - the very key to the success of the original Panzer Divisions.

This is why, despite all the myth-making, the kill rate of the Panzer forces actually declined by 1944, and they were completely unable to prevent the disasters of Bagration and Falaise.

Myth 5: Blitzkrieg as the Way of the Future

Finally, it’s worth noting that the myths of blitzkrieg had a profoundly negative effect on the development of modern day armies, and this resulted in two superpowers getting humbled.

The standard narrative of the modern “mechanized” army is as follows: The Second World War proved beyond a doubt that the tank was a war-winner. Hence, the super powers created vast armies of mechanized forces, centered around the tank, which was supported by other armored vehicles.

This narrative falls apart when we consider that the tank wasn’t a war-winner on its own. It still needed help from infantry and artillery. Moreover, what’s important to realize is that the mechanized army was not the child of the tank. It was instead the child of the atomic bomb.

The real reason why the US and Soviet armies went all-mechanized was because they both believed that any war between them would become a nuclear war. In a nuclear environment, foot infantry are too vulnerable to atomic weapons to be useful. Only tanks and other armored units have any chance of surviving in an environment full of radiation and poison gas.

Unfortunately, mechanized armies are profoundly unsuited for anything but an all-out war in the North German Plains. Tanks cannot operate well in most environments, like jungles and mountains. The infantry component of mechanized units is also too few to establish proper area control.

And this is really the major reason why both the United States (in Vietnam) and the Soviet Union (in Afghanistan) found themselves humbled by Third-World militaries during the Cold War. Infantry - armed only with light anti-tank weapons - can persist against enemies armed with tanks and other heavier vehicles that have insufficient staying power due to their paucity of infantry. Fighting “regular” or “irregular” opponents - who do not possess vast armories of tanks - require different weapons to fight.

In summary, much of what is known about Blitzkrieg is a myth. They were born out of dangerous misunderstandings and outright attempts to deflect blame. It was simply the application of mobile combat doctrines (mastered by the Germans thanks to their staff college, ignored by the British and French due to their myopia), which was supplemented by the power of the internal combustion engine which conferred greater operational mobility to tank and motorized infantry/artillery forces.

More importantly, it was not, and never was, a be-all end-all doctrine that rendered all other forms of combat obsolete. All the warring powers in fact were able to rapidly implement it, with the Allies implementing it in a superior fashion.

Finally, myths of blitzkrieg should cease to serve as the basis for modern doctrine. In fact, given that virtually all states who possess tanks and mechanized armies also own nuclear weapons, it is unlikely we will ever see such wars of mass maneuver ever again; and the ability to fight other forms of war become more paramount.

I had to share this…
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/198175-mythbusters-blitzkrieg-decoded/
Blue is my favorite part

In most pop history shows, the standard narrative for blitzkrieg is more or less the following:

The German Army, geared for world conquest under Hitler, uses new weapons like the tank and bomber to rapidly defeat enemies that do not have them. The result is that the Germans nearly conquer all of Europe.

While the last part has some merit (Germany did succeed in conquering most of Europe), this explanation again falls into the standard pop-history trap of thinking “New technology leads to new victories!”.

In reality, new technology very rarely achieves a decision on its own. It can only come about by bringing together many other elements, and this article seeks to peel away the myths surrounding blitzkrieg so that people have a greater understanding of what it was, what were its origins, and how instrumental the tank truly was (or wasn’t) in its success.

Myth 1: Tanks Beat Enemies without Tanks

The most simplistic version of the Blitzkrieg myth likes to portray the Allies as helpless before the power of the tank and aircraft. Because the Germans had tanks while the Allies didn’t, the Germans won.

But that’s simply untrue, because the Allies actually had plenty of tanks for both France 1940 and Barbarossa in 1941. In fact, most estimates show that the Allies had more tanks than the Germans. And many of these Allied tanks were technically superior to German armor in both armor and firepower - two stats that pop history shows love bandying about as the supreme determinants of battlefield victory (which does not pan out in reality).

In fact, pure tank vs tank battles between the Germans and Allies often left the Germans broken and defeated. One famous instance is the battle at Stonne, wherein a single Char B tank of the French army destroyed around a dozen German Panzers that had no support.

As a result, many have attempted to expand on this explanation. They provide reasons like the Germans having “better organization and doctrine”, and other similar tangents.

However, the problem with most of these “explanations” is that they are very generalized motherhood statements which do not go into the specifics of why the Germans were successful. If they did, they would come to a very quick conclusion:

The Germans never actually developed any new doctrine called Blitzkrieg.

Myth 2: The Germans Invented an all-new “Blitzkrieg” Doctrine

Shocking, but true: Blitzkrieg is almost never mentioned in any of the official German war manuals prior to the outbreak of war; to the point that someone who tried counting could only find two instances of the word being used in all of Germany’s military literature. And no, “Achtung Panzer” (which was published by Guderian for consumption by the public; not as an official manual stating German army doctrine) does not count.

Instead, a quick look at how “blitzkrieg” works would reveal that the genesis of the doctrine lies not with any new technological development, but with the sustained work of the one German institution that is most responsible for that nation’s considerable wartime success: The German Staff College, or the Kriegsakademie.

Dating from the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, graduation from this institution was a virtual requirement to achieve high rank in the German Army. It was created with the specific intent of creating a corps of officers with a greater understanding of war, which could then beat opposing armies through superior generalship. And as it turns out, the key to superior generalship rested on one factor:

The ability to write a train schedule.

Well, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration on my part. However, much of the Staff College’s curriculum was in fact devoted to the art of wargaming and writing war plans. Students were given hypothetical scenarios (i.e. “Germany finds itself at war with France and Russia”) and were tasked to create “solutions” to these conflicts (i.e. the Schlieffen Plan, which calls for a six-week war against France followed by a transfer of the victorious forces to the East to defeat Russia).

And the abiding “innovation” of the Staff College is that students were not allowed to simply put forth any plan based simply on imagination. They actually had to prove that their plans were feasible by showing detailed troops movements based on known operational realities, with very high levels of detail. For instance, it is a known operational reality that a Corps can advance no more than 20 kilometers on foot per day. No amount of screaming or begging will change this. Thus, if your plan involves the troops marching 40 kilometers per day, then it is clearly an impossible plan which will require re-working. Similarly, you need to account for details like the fact that two trains cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If your “plan” requires trains piling up at a station that can’t hold that many trains, then it’s back to the drawing board for you.

Thanks to this, the Germans won the Franco-Prussian War, where their troop deployments ran relatively smoothly while the French army degenerated into chaos. The Germans also very nearly won the First World War in its opening weeks by capturing Paris, if not for a glaring flaw in the Schlieffen plan that went uncorrected. Meanwhile, in the East, mobile campaigning allowed the Germans to defeat the Russians outright in the First World War 1, an elusive goal that had actually defeated countless would-be masters of Europe, from Napoleon to Hitler.

In short, the Germans kept winning because they simply out-maneuvered their opponents, thanks to the excellent training of their officers who understood the realities of moving large bodies of fighting men. Why rely on the mythical qualities of the German soldier, when sound deployment schedules will ensure that you have four Corps in a crucial sector, while the enemy only has two? (which happened at Mons 1914, where the Germans pushed back the “experienced” and “battle-hardened” British regulars)

This did not change greatly in 1940 or even 1941, as during this time the vast majority of the German army remained a foot-slogging army. On average there were only a mere 20 Panzer Divisions, as opposed to over a hundred infantry Divisions whose composition, mobility, and equipment were little different from the German Divisions of 1918. Even then, the Panzers were still operating under the same general principles, only this time they could move at 20 kilometers per hour instead of twenty miles per day (More on this in Part 2).

That this myth has persisted for so long owes in large part due to the effort of the Western military establishment (particularly the British and French) to deflect blame from their own negligence. Both the British and French armies of 1939 insisted that trench warfare was the future of warfare, despite the fact that the trench war of 1915-17 was an anamoly even in the context of the Great War. Rather than admit that they failed to do their homework and study the great battles of maneuver in the Eastern Front, or even of the prelimenary battles like the Schlieffen Offensive of 1914, Western militaries instead simply used the “But they had shiny new weapons!” excuse.

Interestingly, the Soviet Union actually developed a doctrine prior to the Second World War known as “Deep Battle”, and this doctrine fully embraced the idea that war would involve maneuvering vast bodies of men over entire fronts. Unsurprisingly, this doctrine was developed by men who fought on the Eastern Front of World War 1, and knew first hand that the British and French were silly in their insistence on static trench warfare. Had Stalin not committed some monumental acts of stupidity (purging his officers, including the chief architect of “Deep Battle”), the Red Army armed with the Deep Battle Doctrine could have given the Germans a run for their money in 1941.

Similarly, the United States never really bought into the idea of static warfare, as the greatest conflict fought on the North American continent (the Civil War) featured great battles of maneuver, especially in the Western theater where Grant and Sherman made their reputation, which helps account for the speed of American advances in 1944 after the Cobra breakout.

In part 2 of this article, I’ll now go over to the actual effect of technology in the Second World War. And contrary to popular belief, what truly changed that war is not the tank or the airplane, albeit both are ultimately children of the real war-changing invention of the Second World War:

The internal combustion engine.

Thoughts?

@Uncrustable:

Omw
I’m sure glad you 2 are not the game developers lol

I imagine the mech inf represents a mechanized division
Distinct from an infantry or armored division
I believe USA calls it an armored Calvalry division however

A division is a large military unit (10000-30000 soldiers) capable of independent operations due to it’s self sustaining role and it’s range of combat personal and suitable combat support forces
Infantry division
Mechanized division (armored Calvalry)
Armored division
Artillery division
**Anti aircraft division

Capable of independent operations
Due to…combat support forces**
An anti aircraft division does not need to be towed around by a mechanized division lol
It’s perfectly capable of moving itself

Here is an AAA units at the opposite of the Spectrum (there is some posts in this thread about AAA topics):
@Uncrustable:

2. Enhanced AAA. AAA now acts as a normal unit outside of AA rolls. They no longer are restricted to non combat moves and attack/defend at 1/1. No changes to AA rolls. AA rolls are defense only (# of dice rolled does not change from OOB) AAA price remains OOB.

I feel so special =]
Personally I feel classic style AA guns to make more sense from a realism standpoint. While being simpler and more poweful.
An AA Gun represents a territory wide network of radar and guns. Thus it cannot move during combat.
Global 1939 uses this version I believe.
It also reduces clutter on the game board that the new AAA sculpts caused.
I would argue make it an immovable facility with the same rules as bases. It can be SBR’d and is destroyed instead of damaged. Got this from 1939 too

@LHoffman:

@Young:

Will the next 300 be worth a theater ticket?

Nope. “300” was sort of revolutionary when it came out, but the genre has been re-used and bastardized enough in the interim that I doubt the next movie will be as great. That tends to be the case with sequels that were not planned in the first place.

So you already have an opinion on a movie that youve never watched ? :P
Seems legit…

THE LEGO MOVIE……
IS AWESOME!!!

When it comes to movies, it seems the ‘cool’ thing to hate on almost everything. I dont get it, everyone wants to be a pessimist.

I loved both the Hobbits…they are much slower than LOTH ofcourse, but the book is much slower aswell. And i cant wait for the finale.

When i dont like a movie, i dont rant about it and those who took part in making it. I understand that there are plenty of movies out there, and im happy that there is enough variety for people to choose from. You will love some and you will hate some.
I hated Gravity, i thought it was shallow and sexist, but many people loved it. To each his/her own.

PA has very little micro. But it is early.
They are releasing a big update sometime this week that is going to add units and overhaul current balance. Along with unit teleporters and UI changes/additions
PA price will be 40USD on release. DRM free, and will include a boxed version.

Adjacency bonus in supcom added no strategic depth IMO. It added complexity for no reason.
There were no options, you either new how they worked and used them, or didn’t and lost. Period. It was very unituitive and a detriment to the game. Regardless of how good it may sound on paper, it was very poorly implemented and the devs made a wise decision to not include them in future games.

I will admit that supcom2 release was rushed, but most if not almost all of the complaints: reasons people disliked it were adjusted:changed not long after release in patches.
It is not fair to criticize the devs for this, the same as it is not fair to criticize LH for the flaws in 1914. I doubt any good dev wants to rush a release at the expense of quality.

Idk if you’ve played PA or not, but its the most frantic/fast paced and overwhelming of the series in my opinion. Though it does get off to slow start currently (that is going to change very soon according to the devs)

Il never get the incessant hate on supcom 2. It was a different game, meant to be played differently. Mainly faster paced, simpler and quicker games.
I applaud them for not further milking a cash cow, and venturing into some different mechanics and styles, but they got burned at the stake for it :P

My biggest beef with supcom was its overly high spec requirements, i couldnt play anything bigger than 1v1s on the same rig i could play 4v4 starcratII matches and 5v5 sins matches on.
It was also a little too neat/clean looking and organized for my taste. less of the crazed over the top destruction and mass chaos that was TA.
Supcom was also overly complex for no reason in alot of ways (can i say adjacency bonus lol) many buildings and units are simply tierI teirII and III, and almost all early game units are completely worthless halfway into the game.

PA returns the series to its roots, simpler with more chaos. Early game units useful throughout…and oh yeah it will support up to 40 players in a single match!

@Young:

@Uncrustable:

Cruisers @ 10 IPCs  :-D

The way I read that is… for the same amount of resources it takes to build a Fighter, you can also build a large war ship.

Fighter is still better even at 10 IPCs
I think you overthink things too much ;)

Or just play/support the next game in the series started by Total Annihilation (followed by supcom)….Planetary Annihilation

http://www.uberent.com/pa/

My biggest problem with supcom is 3v3 and up always becomes a turtle fest in almost all games, anyhow PA is more similar to TA but even more epic!
Check it out sometime

Same devs as TA, supcom, C&C gens zero hour and now PA…(pretty epic resume there…)
It is in open beta right now, so keep that in mind.

Cruisers @ 10 IPCs  :-D

Just a quick troll post…why has this not been moved to house rules along with all the others …

:wink:

This is not meant to be FFA, neither would I have any interest in FFA
Allies and Russia vs Euro Axis and Japan

That is pretty complex

I think with cruisers at 10, OOB subs are best

oh i see, thanks !

@jim010:

Great customer service.  They didn’t need to do this.  I am getting my pieces and extra chips in a couple weeks now.

Merry Christmas!

They didn’t need to short us in the first place. Charge highest price of any A&A game, for a game that almost is unplayable OOB. Yes they did need to do this, and it is why they are doing it.

;)

Hopefully they have learned from this mistake.

USA turn 3, Japan just declared war on UK and ANZAC.
USA declares war on Japan and attacks Japanese transports in SZ19 (Off Okinawa) with a single bomber from Hawaii.

Would there be any reason that USA would not be allowed to land said bomber in Russian controlled Amur?
I ask because tripleA refuses the move to Amur, but not the attack on the SZ.
Pretty sure its just a bug, but want to make sure.

What would be your setup changes flash?

Your china idea seems interesting but I worry it would just complicate the game for little impact. Plus require additional playing peices. It should be playable OOB

Seems some good work, but with classic tech dice rules i doubt anyone going to buy much tech. You are most likely going to waste 5 IPCs.

This is really the main problem with tech in A&A, not trees or other techs.

No offense this is good work, but tech will still be worthless in most games.

Seeing as its 2 different rulesets and 2 different setups, isnt 2 different FAQs needed?

Combining them doesnt seem to serve any purpose, if im playing the origional G40 and i have a question, then i post here. If im playing 2nd edition i ask my questions in the 2nd edition FAQ.