AHC: Fix American Overspecialization during WW2

TFSmith121

Banned
Actually, you're dead wrong. Sorry.

When I used the term scrap, what I was referring to was not quality, as some of these divisions actually turned out to be very effective (like the 99th and 94th Divisions), but rather how they were composed.

There were, at least to my knowledge, 3 main types of US Infantry Divisions in the ETO. There were peacetime formations that may not have had their prior personnel but had their structure and training programs and these were quite good most of the time. There were activated National Guard Units, some of which were quite good (like the 28th, 29th, 30th, 45th) and some of which were not (90th and in the Pacific, the 32nd). Combat situations often dictated these things, of course. But then you get to the divisions created in the expansion to a larger army needed to prosecute the war. These were the "scrap" forces I was talking about. They were composed of an amalgamation of transport, supply, anti-air, anti-tank, quartermaster, HQ, and other support personnel who simply were in abundance and could be made into quick infantry units. Individual replacements made up a large majority of these units, and combat experience was lacking. These units were literally scrapped together using unassigned or extra personnel and had little of the same cohesion of the other divisions.

Actually, you're dead wrong. Sorry.;)

All US combat divisions were formed using a very rational and thoughtful doctrine; the press of events, however, required infantry replacements/fillers - at times, especially in the ETO in the winter of 1944-45 - to be drawn from other than infantry branch, but the alternative would have been to start writing off combat divisions.

I would suggest reading:

The Organization of Ground Combat Troops by Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley; and

The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops by Palmer, Wiley, and Keast, which are both available here for free:

http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/ww2-agf.html

They both go into great detail on exactly how the AUS raised its combat divisions and support elements in 1940-43 and sustained them in action in 1941-45 (which is basically summed up by Carl, above); the reality is there were basically three "groups" of US Army divisions, as follows:

Regular formations, in existence and at peacetime or cadre strength, before the 1940 mobilization;
National Guard formations, ditto, and activated for federal service in 1940-41;
and wartime formations, activated in 1942-43.

It is worth noting that the numerical designations of said formations, dating to WW I, were in set blocks, as per:

1st-25th - RA;
26th-45th - NG;
all others - "wartime"

The RA and NG formations were brought up to strength with Selective Service personnel in 1940-41, and were cadreed in 1942 for the new wartime formations formed that year, some of which were cadreed in turn for the formations formed in 1943. The six USMC divisions followed roughly similar patterns.

As Carl said, the largest single factors in the abilities of any of the US formations upon their introduction to battle had to do with:

a) the quality of their cadre;
b) how many times they were cadreed for new formations;
c) how much training time between the final cadreeing and rebuilding and then introduction to combat.

In many ways, the divisions raised in 1942-43 actually were among the best performers in 1944-45, largely because they had more training and shakedown time than the prewar divisions (regular and NG), some of which were committed to combat absent the most basic support elements; sending the 32nd Division into action in Papua in 1942-43 absent any significant field artillery is probably the most egregious example.

Best,
 
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Now, there are various decisions that could have been made to alleviate some of that brutal truth, but given the strategic realities the Allies faced in the summer and autumn of 1944, the individual replacement policy was absolutely the best option for the Allied war effort. If it had not been in place, it is quite likely the Allies would have met the Soviets somewhere west of the Elbe ... and it might have dragged out to 1946.

I think you're over-stating the case here.

The US Army does not seem to have been as casualty conscious as the British and certainly racked up unnecessary combat losses eg Huertgen Forest, and other cases where the favoured wide front attacks made little progress. In addition the US also seemed to have a higher level of non-combat losses eg trench foot, and all of these losses were concentrated in the front-line infantry.

Fix some of these problems, and taking units out of the line for short periods to refit would probably make little difference to the progress of the campaign while reducing overall losses.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The AUS fought 1944-45 knowing the Germans were losing

I think you're over-stating the case here. The US Army does not seem to have been as casualty conscious as the British and certainly racked up unnecessary combat losses eg Huertgen Forest, and other cases where the favoured wide front attacks made little progress. In addition the US also seemed to have a higher level of non-combat losses eg trench foot, and all of these losses were concentrated in the front-line infantry. Fix some of these problems, and taking units out of the line for short periods to refit would probably make little difference to the progress of the campaign while reducing overall losses.

The AUS fought the 1944 campaigns knowing the Germans were losing, and so fought aggressively; fewer US units in the line, or in immediate (corps or army level) reserve means the line has to be shortened somewhere, because the Allies just did not have the numbers...

The British, who had all of 10 combat-ready divisions (Guards, 7th, 11th Armoured; 6th Airborne; 3rd, 15th, 43rd, 49th, 51st, 53rd infantry) left in northwestern Europe by the winter of 1944-45, certainly couldn't make up the difference.

Neither could the French, who had eight divisions (1st, 2nd, 5th Armored; 1st Mot., 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th) with four more (1st, 10th, 14th, 27th) being raised or on second-line duties; the Canadians had 3 (4th Armoured; 2nd, 3rd) and the Polish Army had one (1st Armoured). The total in the 21st AG (British, Canadian, and Polish) was 14. The 12 French divisions, of course, were equipped and (largely) sustained in action by the US.

In contrast, the US had the following combat divisions in northwestern Europe by the end of 1944:

Armored - 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th (12);
Infantry - 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 17th Airborne, 26th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 35th, 44th, 66th, 69th, 75th, 76th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 82nd Airborne, 83rd, 84th, 87th, 90th, 94th, 95th, 99th, 100th, 101st Airborne, 102nd, 103rd, 104th, 106th (34);
total - 45 of the 71 Allied combat divisions in northwestern Europe by the end of the year were AUS.

Pick any percentage of Allied divisions you wish to be rotated "out" between June, 1944, and January, 1945; still looks rather difficult to see how the Allied momentum could have been sustained absent full commitment of (essentially) the entire available US OOB in NW Europe.

Best,
 
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I think you're over-stating the case here.

The US Army does not seem to have been as casualty conscious as the British and certainly racked up unnecessary combat losses eg Huertgen Forest, and other cases where the favoured wide front attacks made little progress. In addition the US also seemed to have a higher level of non-combat losses eg trench foot, and all of these losses were concentrated in the front-line infantry.

Fix some of these problems, and taking units out of the line for short periods to refit would probably make little difference to the progress of the campaign while reducing overall losses.

The US Army seems to think otherwise:
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-Victory/USA-Victory-5.html


Perhaps the most serious deficiency of the Victory Plan was that it made no provision for replacements. Wedemeyer's focus on the relationship between total available manpower and complete field divisions ignored the need to procure, train, and assign replacements for combat losses. The Victory Plan contains no mention of replacements, but no other staff element seems to have considered the problem either, as evidenced by the lack of an adequate replacement system at the start of World War II. Nor was there any single agency of the War Department General Staff responsible for providing replacements.

Not until 29 January 1942 did the War Department realize that replacements presented a new problem to solve. The chief of the planning branch, G-1, wrote a memorandum recommending that "some thought should be given to the subject of establishing a rapid and direct method of supplying . . . replacements to our oversea forces."

It is arguable that the basic mobilization estimate assumed that soldiers, once equipped and trained, could be used either in new units or as replacements, so further distinction was unnecessary. Furthermore, it is possible to view this as another oversight attributable to the flawed division slice figure.

With a total of 215 divisions, the Army might have devised a unit replacement system, substituting or replacing one division for another on a regular cycle, thereby keeping closely knit combat units together. As mobilization progressed, however, WPD planners realized that they would be able to create far fewer divisions than Wedemeyer had expected. Administration and War department officials interpreted that development as a manpower shortage, although such a perception was far from correct. The manpower existed; it was the flawed allocation formula that caused the shortfalls.

The Army's inability of field sufficient divisions to rotate soldiers by unit forced it to an individual replacement system. Commanders had to use every division to the utmost, partially because the continuing shipping shortage made deployment of new divisions to overseas theaters very slow. During periods of heavy combat, the regiments of an infantry division characteristically suffered about 100 percent casualties every three months. Individual replacements filled those losses, and the problem of training these new soldiers to survive in combat kept committed divisions at the point of individual training, rather than unit training, throughout the war. As a consequence, U.S. divisions, plagued by a chronically high turnover of infantry riflemen, experienced decreased combat efficiency after their first series of combat actions.

Unpleasant consequences developed immediately. Unit cohesion suffered, as well-established small unit bonds disintegrated. Veterans were slow to accept, trust, and integrate individual replacements into their teams. Infantry soldiers also quickly realized that injury was the only relief from battle. Morale declined, and combat efficiency along with morale. Cases of combat neurosis multiplied.

Tired soldiers were more easily wounded, killed, and captured because their fatigue induced laxity and carelessness. "The stream of replacement," Army Ground Forces concluded in 1946, "thus flowed into somewhat leaky vessels." Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, commanding Sixth Army Group, stated the problem more graphically when he wrote to Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair in 1944 that

"It has been demonstrated here that divisions should not be left in the line longer than 30 to 40 days in an active theater. If you do this . . . They get careless, and there are tremendous sick rates and casualty rates. Everybody should know this. The result is that you feed replacements into a machine in the line, and it is like throwing good money after bad. Your replacement system is bound to break down, as it has done in this theater."

In the end, the ground force was just large enough for the war the Army had to fight. All of the Army Ground Forces were committed to battle by May 1945. A total of 96 percent of all tactical troops was in overseas theaters. The Army dispatched the last of its new divisions from the United States in February 1945, some three months before V-E Day. No new units were training or forming at home, and only limited replacements in training remained in the United States. There was not strategic reserve of any sort and, as Army Ground Forces noted,

This may be interpreted either as remarkably accurate planning of the minimum forces required or a s a fairly narrow escape from disagreeable eventualities--winning by the skin of the teeth.

The conclusion is that by 1944 the real struggle was not further manpower mobilization, but simply maintaining the 90-division Army. The Selective Service System scraped the bottom of the conscription barrel and still could not meet the need.

At the time of the Battle of the Bulge, for example, reception stations were generating around 53,000 men a month, while losses in the European theater alone were running 90,000 men a month.

Thus the erroneous division slice figure of 1941 caused a series of problems, in this case probably compounded by the fact that War Plans division did not take the replacement issue into account in its early planning. The most reasonable perspective is that the replacement system per se was within the purview of the Victory Plan only insofar as Wedemeyer concluded that his estimate provided enough divisions for a rational and orderly unit replacement system.

The dearth of infantry replacements in the fall of 1944 is not an error attributable to his basic planning. In any event, the offsetting errors of the Victory Plan provided an answer to the problem. Eisenhower's staff found a manpower reservoir in the superfluous antiaircraft artillery and tank destroyer battalions available in the theater of operations.
 

Not until 29 January 1942 did the War Department realize that replacements presented a new problem to solve. The chief of the planning branch, G-1, wrote a memorandum recommending that "some thought should be given to the subject of establishing a rapid and direct method of supplying . . . replacements to our oversea forces."

This January 1942 date is more or less when the Army Ground Forces was being established. After the DoW in December marshal requested and Roosevelt approved the implementation of a existing plan for reorganizing the Army ground and air components. This allowed Marshal to clear away some severe organizational problems that went back into the 19th Century, and correct deficiencies that had been revealed during the 1940-41 mobilization period. In simplist terms the Army in the continental US became three parts; the Army Ground Forces (AGF), Army Air Forces (AAF or USAAF as is often the usage), and Army Service Forces (ASF).

The "new problem" was actually one that had existed since the post Great War mobilization plans were first written in the early 1920s. It was new to AGF as that HQ & staff had existed only a few weeks. Pre DoW Marshal had been forced to leave that question aside due to a combination of political in fighting over who controlled what in the War Dept (the post DoW reorg settled all that nicely), and the overwhelming problem of creating a army first.

Eisenhower's staff found a manpower reservoir in the superfluous antiaircraft artillery and tank destroyer battalions available in the theater of operations.

AGF found others by breaking up the dozen independent infantry regiments, combing out training commands in the US. Terminating one of the officer/college training programs, squabbling with the Navy Dept over the allocation of conscripts. Accepting "Negros" & Asians, on large scale would have helped, but a large number of senior leaders thought them unfit for any military service & discouraged the War Dept from accepting those numbers.
 
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Would creating another 6-10 'regular' divisions in Europe be possible and would it allow rotation to absorb replacements? By 'regular' I mean not Airborne or Marines that get rest periods between combat.


Perhaps. There was a slowdown of sending fresh division to the ETO in the second half of 1944. First the invasion Date was set back from 1 May to 1 June, then the sixty days of attritional warfare in Normandy made the existing shipping schedule unworkable. Ammunition was more important than new units that could not fit ashore. After that the transportation problem in France & Belgium meant fresh units could not be supplied in the advance east wards. By November the US 6th & 12th Army Groups were short 2-4 infantry divisions from the scheduled number.

Add in a couple corps worth left behind to besiege the German held ports. It is on paper possible a additional 6-10 infantry divisions could have been on the battle front in latter 1944, if the original expectations for the ETO had borne out. Of course the original expectations did not have the Rhine river crossed and Germany capitulating until 1946. So, that planning, reaching back Wedermyers V plans, was a failure as well. Germany was beaten a year ahead of schedule. That's difficult to explain if you accept all the arguments for the inferiority of the Allied militaries and superiority of the Axis or German forces.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, there are a few issues:

Would creating another 6-10 'regular' divisions in Europe be possible and would it allow rotation to absorb replacements? By 'regular' I mean not Airborne or Marines that get rest periods between combat.

Well, there are a few issues:

1) The US forces sent to the ETO in 1943-45 were pretty much expedited, once the go-ahead for OVERLORD was finally given;
2) These movements depended on the basic realities of shipping and the need to improve or build facilities, first in the UK and then France and then Belgium, of course; it's not like OVERLORD wasn't the top priority in 1943 and afterward;
3) Along with the movement of US forces to Europe for the campaigns in NW Europe, the Allies were fighting an army group-sized campaign in Italy, which demanded shipping and service forces that had not been planned for in the 1940-42 mobilization - one of the results of this was the conversion of the 2nd Cavalry Division (Version II) to service units;
4) Similarly, the USAAF forces in the ETO included twice as many operational air forces (8th, 9th, 12th, and 15th) then had been envisioned, and those forces required a large amount of shipping and service units as wel;
6) The US was also re-equipping the French armed forces in the Med and North Africa, including eight combat divisions, a tactical air force, and most of the French Navy - all of which took shipping, etc.

Basically, the British army was a wasting asset from 1944 onward; the Canadians and Poles were split between NW Europe and the Med; the French, although their forces were envisioned as doubling in size from 8 to 16 divisions in 1944-45 using liberated manpower, could only get a total of 12 divisions into action by VE Day because of shortfalls in cadre; the Italians, Indians, South Africans, New Zealanders, and Brazilians were all needed in the Med to replace the US and French forces withdrawn for the NW Europe campaign vis ANVIL/DRAGOON.

The only other "reservoir" of course were the US and Allied forces in the Pacific, and given the scale of the fighting in the Central and Western Pacific, the AUS and USMC divisions that went west in 1942-44 were needed there, and there were very significant political reasons the Australian and Indian forces (not still in the Med) were needed in the Pacific and Asia.

The only way to free up additional ground forces for the NW Europe campaigns would have been to reduce the commitments elsewhere (Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, Pacific) and the time frame for those decisions was 1941-42, not 1943-44; anytime after the last quarter of 1942 was really too late.

Best,
 
Anyone for the obvious no Lesley McNair option?

And you would replace him with who, exactly? Mistakes were certainly made on his watch, but the individual replacement system wasn't one of them. That was decided by George Marshall. Considering the magnitude of the challenge he faced, and the very real limitations on his personal authority (the War Department actually made many if not most of the key decisions regarding the mobilization of US Army ground forces), McNair actually did quite well.
 
Perhaps. There was a slowdown of sending fresh division to the ETO in the second half of 1944. First the invasion Date was set back from 1 May to 1 June, then the sixty days of attritional warfare in Normandy made the existing shipping schedule unworkable. Ammunition was more important than new units that could not fit ashore. After that the transportation problem in France & Belgium meant fresh units could not be supplied in the advance east wards. By November the US 6th & 12th Army Groups were short 2-4 infantry divisions from the scheduled number.

Not sure I agree with this - Ruppenthal Vol 2 p 281 - Theatre build-up D+150 Planned 34, actual 41 divisions.
 
The AUS fought the 1944 campaigns knowing the Germans were losing, and so fought aggressively; fewer US units in the line, or in immediate (corps or army level) reserve means the line has to be shortened somewhere, because the Allies just did not have the numbers...


total - 45 of the 71 Allied combat divisions in northwestern Europe by the end of the year were AUS.

Up to a point...

Alternatively up to 30 September, 26 US divisions had seen combat, which together with 16 in 21st Army Group, and the French divisions in 6th Army Group had effectively destroyed the German forces in France and pushed them back to the German border.

Between 30 September and 31 December the nature of the war changed - there were few territorial gains, there were less US Army battle casualties in the last 3 months of 1944 than up to 30 September, although US Army forces on the continent increased by 46%.
 
And you would replace him with who, exactly? Mistakes were certainly made on his watch, but the individual replacement system wasn't one of them. That was decided by George Marshall. Considering the magnitude of the challenge he faced, and the very real limitations on his personal authority (the War Department actually made many if not most of the key decisions regarding the mobilization of US Army ground forces), McNair actually did quite well.

Devers amy have paid more attention early on to the potiential problem, but its difficult to judge from remarks in a few reports and requests or memoranda. Not sure if he'd ever have been considered at the end of 1941. He may have been on the short list of replacements for McNair in 1944, but was choosen for 6th AG instead. Kruger was never seriously considered for AGF, but he had a reputation for paying attention to what problems lay over the horizon, and when in the S Pacific he seems to have anticipated the problem & fought a losing battle with MacAurther over solutions.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The flip side is the British had to break up 50th and 59th divisions

Up to a point...Alternatively up to 30 September, 26 US divisions had seen combat, which together with 16 in 21st Army Group, and the French divisions in 6th Army Group had effectively destroyed the German forces in France and pushed them back to the German border. Between 30 September and 31 December the nature of the war changed - there were few territorial gains, there were less US Army battle casualties in the last 3 months of 1944 than up to 30 September, although US Army forces on the continent increased by 46%.

The flip side is the British had to break up 50th and 59th divisions for replacements in NW Europe, 1st Airborne was wrecked after MARKET-GARDEN, and (in the Med) the 1st Armoured Division had been broken up for the same reason.

Likewise, the British had to continually integrate what had been independent brigades (in NW Europe and the Med) into existing divisions to keep the divisions in action.

The British were bleeding out, the Canadians were static (at best), and the imperial forces in the Med (Indians, New Zealanders, and South Africans) were equally limited, largely for political and demographic reasons at "home." Same for the Brazilians, of course.

The only sources of growth in the Allied orders of battle were a) the AUS, nd b) liberated manpower; the problem with b) was finding the cadre and organizational/training time to convert the personnel available under the various LMPs into formations that could take their place in the line against the Germans.

And the problems sketched under b) above were experienced by the French, Italians, Poles, and the Belgians, so it was systemic.

Best,
 
I'm not arguing against the idea that the British Army had a manpower problem (although what has the 52nd Division done to annoy you;)), or that the liberated countries needed time to build up their forces.

What I doubt is your earlier claim that without the individual replacement policy the war might have dragged on until 1946.

The Allies had managed to destroy German forces in Normandy with c35 divisions. The interesting question is whether the US Army made the best use of the build up in the number of divisions September - December 1944, or wasted some of its effort, and what part replacement ( or reinforcement:D) policy played in that.

My view is that the limited WWI institutional experience had an impact in a lack of focus on the care of the front line troops covering a whole range of issues - level of trench foot casualties, hot food for the frontline, winter uniforms, unnecessary casualties caused by pressing unsuccessful attacks, right up to Huertgen Forest campaign. Perhaps it could be argued that it was not overspecialisation that was the issue, but a lack of focus on the poor bloody infantry.
 
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My view is that the limited WWI institutional experience had an impact in a lack of focus on the care of the front line troops covering a whole range of issues - level of trench foot casualties, hot food for the frontline, winter uniforms, unnecessary casualties caused by pressing unsuccessful attacks, right up to Huertgen Forest campaign. Perhaps it could be argued that it was not overspecialisation that was the issue, but a lack of focus on the poor bloody infantry.

I blame Congress :D Had mobilization planning been adaquately funded at least in the 1920s a lot of those problems would have been considered, studied, and solutions tested. not just the question of casualty replacement, but tough problems like industrial managment, weapons development, or doctrine choices. This would have required funding several hundred additional officer & clerical slots for the War Plans Division and the USN equivalent, plus funds for some large scale testing. With the attention the US Army would have been much more likely to have a much better replacement system in place by 1942, along with a number of other things.
 
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