A more powerful WWI German tank force

[Julian]

I disagree they def had the capability all was needed was the initiative. In ASIP, Colonel Bauer and several other innovative German officers provide this. And it's provided one of the longest lasting TL's in this thread. Winner of a Turtledove as well. But you're entitled to your opinion though. I still disagree.Anyway I think A Shift In Priorities' premise best answers the OP.

Except the most advanced tanks developed by the end of the first world war only had speeds of at most 15km/hour over flat terrain, even slower in France, and operational limits of at max 100 kilometers. This is far too little to achieve operational level encirclement of entire armies. And even if an "encirclement" could be achieved the tanks would have far outrun their infantry support, leaving them vulnerable to destruction. British troops would have have no trouble escaping from the extremely porous encirclement; even during the second world war it was extremely difficult to keep encircled troops trapped even under the best of circumstances. Plus British and French tanks were more numerous by several hundred vehicles. And not only that, by the German offensive in 1918 had no chance of real success anyways; German forces outran their own supply lines very quickly, dooming their advance long term.

Achieving succesful armored encirclement is an extremely complex art which the Germans, whether or not they had better or more tanks, simply lacked the skill, material, and supplies to pull off.

 

[unprincipled peter]

how does a slow tank outrun it's infantry support? the common argument is that the early tank can't keep up. Any tank that can outrun it's support is a potent tank.

 

[NothingNow]

how does a slow tank outrun it's infantry support? the common argument is that the early tank can't keep up. Any tank that can outrun it's support is a potent tank.

Well, infantry on good ground can only march thirty miles a day. In something like France c.1917-8 that drops to a good ten miles in a day, if they're not under fire.

Plus, there's the mud. On bad ground, it's really easy for a tank to outpace infantry.

 

[Julian]

how does a slow tank outrun it's infantry support? the common argument is that the early tank can't keep up. Any tank that can outrun it's support is a potent tank.

Because if the tank is advancing ahead to form an encirclement the infantry will be stuck destroying enemy strong points and dealing with bypassed infantry, which will take hours, if not days.

 

[rast]

A more powerful WWI German tank force certainly was possible, but required some serious shifts in priority when compared to OTL.
In my timeline, I used LTC Max Bauer as a vehicle for these shifts. Bauer was very influential with Ludendorff - and he was the one who decided about resource allocation and priorities for the home industries. IOTL, Bauer was a sworn enemy of tanks in 1917 - and only changed his mind in 1918. In August 1918, he was given command of the German tank construction programme, which under his guidance within few weeks increased to a projected number of 4,000 LKII light tanks and 400 heavy Oberschlesien tanks for 1919, half of this numbers to be available by the end of March 1919. Obviously, this came too late.
In my TL, Bauer becomes interested in tank construction early on, in May of 1917, in a conversation with Joseph Vollmer, the chief construction engineer of the A7V tank, who by that time had already started work on the LK series of light tanks.
Bauer didn't want tanks (seen as mobile machine gun pits in these days) but field guns accompanying the infantry assault. This is what he gets in my TL. (IOTL, even the LKII tanks of 1918 had to be equipped with tow hook for dragging guns along - on Bauer's insistence.)
I have Captain Rohr, CO of Assault Bn No 5, develop the tactics for the use of these assault guns. In 1918, Rohr was no longer leading the development of assault infantry tactics, this had now gone to Jäger-Sturm-Bn No 3, but he still was the foremost expert for testing and evaluating new technical equipment for the army.
Rohr, in my TL, comes up with a concept that is advanced beyond mere accompanying. Groups of assault guns speed ahead in order to neutralise the enemy guns, while other groups advance together with the assault infantry. - Advancing to and neutralising the enemy artillery line also was the objective for the conventional German all arms assault (without tanks) IOTL, so no big change in doctrine, only the means to achieve it suddenly are much more powerful.
As to the capability of tanks/assault guns to advance into enemy territory, my assault guns are modelled on the LK tank designed by Vollmer, which was superior in all aspects to the British Medium A, the Whippet. And the Whippet is generally praised as THE exploitation tank of the Great War. Only that my assault guns carry 7.7-cm field guns, while the Whippets only had machine guns. I've given them penetration ranges of about 30 km/combat day, which is in accordance with what Whippets and LKIIs could do IOTL.

 

[Julian]

Oh I'm not doubting the feasibility of your changes, I doubt your conclusion that they would lead to a significant British defeat and the encirclement and destruction of large forces.

 

[unprincipled peter]

Nothing Now/Julian

neither of you addressed the common complaint about the early tank. The usual argument is that it's too slow and can't keep up. Nothing Now argues that the infantry is too slow and the tank will outpace it. Julian argues that it's tactics that hold the infantry back, which leaves the tank going on ahead. WW2 shows the doctrine of tank and infantry interdepedancy. WW2 tanks are much faster/capable than anything in WWI. Why then is the inefficient tank of WWI going to outpace the infantry? I can accept the notion that tactics wouldn't have evolved til put into actual use, but not that the mechanics of tanks would be too fast. As history has shown, there's never too fast. there's only doctrine that doesn't match the speed.

 

[ANARCHY_4_ALL]

Oh I'm not doubting the feasibility of your changes, I doubt your conclusion that they would lead to a significant British defeat and the encirclement and destruction of large forces.

Thank you, rast, you summed that up far better than I could. Anyway, Julian, how do you say that. rast, clearly just told you how they could.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Thank you, rast, you summed that up far better than I could. Anyway, Julian, how do you say that. rast, clearly just told you how they could.

Julian can read just as well as you and he is an expert on the OstFront of WW2, so when he talks about encirclement he knows of what he speaks.

 

[Devolved]

The Germans didn't develop tanks because they didn't have a use for them.

The German army knew how to punch through trenches without tanks.
They seemed to be able to do it often enough between March and June 1918. They were able to advance in the East and the Balkans when they wanted to.

Also the Germans went onto the strategic defensive in the West in 1915. Their plan was to let the Entente get torn to pieces on barbed wire until they gave up and signed a favourable peace.

This plan worked fairly well at first. The point is that there was no use for a slow armoured vehicle capable of advancing through trenches if you were the German army in WW1.

 

[Mikestone8]

All that proves is the author is immune to criticism, and that there are lots of Germany lovers on the forum

I think we can do without the ad hominems.

I don't doubt there are some on this forum with pro-German leanings, but my impression is that there are also quite a few who refuse to believe in a CP victory any year, whether 1914, 1917, 1918 or otherwise. This attitude probably reaches its apogee in discussion of the FBotM. If he read some of those, poor old Joffre could end up wondering why he bothered to fight it at all, since the Germans would have had to turn back anyway <g>. However, I think most of us soon learn to detect such attitudes on the part of contributors, and make allowance for them.