I think the Germans might have stood a chance if they melted down the Panzer Is and used the steel to either make more trucks to carry infantry or more Panzer IIs and IIIs. They probably stopped making Panzer IIs in 1939 and made nothing but Panzer IIIs at that point. The Panzer Is were completely useless and the Panzer IIs becoming obsolete.
DBWI AHC: France Surrenders in the Great European War
- Thread starter Johnrankins
- Start date
The first was designed as a training tank and used in combat out of a shortage of other models. The second was intended as a scout tank to screen the flanks and poke ahead of the Mk III & Mk IV, and as a chassis for a commanders tank. Again it was present in to high a portion as production of the III & IV had not reached the target numbers for ten Pz Divisions. I agree, they were useless when used as battle tanks.
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I realize that but there Panzer Is were worse than useless, they just got slaughtered. Better to make trucks out of the steel, shortage of tanks or not. I realize the IIs were mainly for scouting but they either were used wrong or they were so deficient overall they were of limited use. Sometimes obsolete equipment is worse than none.
A big problem with the French army was the retention of Gamelin as chief a couple years to long. The guy had a powerful political base & managed to avoid retirement at the expected moment. The Allied victory in the summer of 1940 obscures some deep flaws in the French army that were the work of Gamelin. Reynaud was able to replace Gamelin, & a lot of other old crocks during the May & June battles. Perhaps had Reynaud not been able to overcome Gamelins political support he & his marshals could have screwed the pooch & lost the campaign/war later in July or August?
Or add supplementary armor to the III & IV. Both had very inferior side armor to the French tanks. The Germans learned the hard way they could not expose their flanks to the French tanks, even those with the older model 37mm guns. Being flanked by the French 47mm AT or the British 2lbr was instant defeat for the German 'battle tanks'.
True enough, but the Panzer Is and IIs fared even worse. Of course the lack of infantry support due to France's overwhelming artillery support really hurt as well.
Yeah, the superiority of the cannon over the tanks was well proven in these battle. That the seven tank divisions of Kleists armored group had exactly two independant medium or heavy artillery battalions to support three armored corps says a lot.
I'm looking at some proposed designs made by the Germans, they had an idea for a lowbody assault gun that'd be a replacement for the Marder. They called it the Sturmgeschutz III. Looks interesting too:
Yeah, they only made a single prototype model, shown here in Leipzig's War Museum, but still looks interesting.
The only issue is that it needs the Panzer III chassis (Unlike the Marder, which used Panzer II frames), and they needed them to fight the tanks... even though things like the Char B1s and the Matilda Tank laughed their asses off at the IIIs and could only be blown by AA-guns of all things.
This reinforces that it wasn't the engineers (not fully anyway) that were at fault for the Nazis botching. It shows that administration and quality control was rubbish; see throwing valuable training vehicles into war with their best teachers because idiots. See also making a close air support vehicle that even the Soviets refused to use (helped that the Sturmovik, for all of its flaws, actually could take some beating before going down). Seriously, what imbecile gives a short barrel cannon to what turned out to be a good tank-hunter? Why the fuck did they decide to make said tank hunter the infantry tank and vice versa? Did Hitler himself sit down high on speed and picked what each one would do? It's seeming to me kind of likely.
Yeah, they only made a single prototype model, shown here in Leipzig's War Museum, but still looks interesting.
The only issue is that it needs the Panzer III chassis (Unlike the Marder, which used Panzer II frames), and they needed them to fight the tanks... even though things like the Char B1s and the Matilda Tank laughed their asses off at the IIIs and could only be blown by AA-guns of all things.
This reinforces that it wasn't the engineers (not fully anyway) that were at fault for the Nazis botching. It shows that administration and quality control was rubbish; see throwing valuable training vehicles into war with their best teachers because idiots. See also making a close air support vehicle that even the Soviets refused to use (helped that the Sturmovik, for all of its flaws, actually could take some beating before going down). Seriously, what imbecile gives a short barrel cannon to what turned out to be a good tank-hunter? Why the fuck did they decide to make said tank hunter the infantry tank and vice versa? Did Hitler himself sit down high on speed and picked what each one would do? It's seeming to me kind of likely.
I'm looking at some proposed designs made by the Germans, they had an idea for a lowbody assault gun that'd be a replacement for the Marder. They called it the Sturmgeschutz III. Looks interesting too:
Yeah, they only made a single prototype model, shown here in Leipzig's War Museum, but still looks interesting.
The only issue is that it needs the Panzer III chassis (Unlike the Marder, which used Panzer II frames), and they needed them to fight the tanks... even though things like the Char B1s and the Matilda Tank laughed their asses off at the IIIs and could only be blown by AA-guns of all things.
This reinforces that it wasn't the engineers (not fully anyway) that were at fault for the Nazis botching. It shows that administration and quality control was rubbish; see throwing valuable training vehicles into war with their best teachers because idiots. See also making a close air support vehicle that even the Soviets refused to use (helped that the Sturmovik, for all of its flaws, actually could take some beating before going down). Seriously, what imbecile gives a short barrel cannon to what turned out to be a good tank-hunter? Why the fuck did they decide to make said tank hunter the infantry tank and vice versa? Did Hitler himself sit down high on speed and picked what each one would do? It's seeming to me kind of likely.
You could say it shows if your plan is to conquer all Europe it isn't the smartest thing in the world to make a corporeal your commander in chief.
It's more like "don't let the layman tell the experts how to do their job". Seriously, the concepts the Germans had were good; the Soviets had a similar usage of armor and vehicles in Manchuria and to a lesser degree Iran that managed to stretch their influence far in Asia. The UK even did something like the Stug with later revisions of their Universal Carrier idea. The Knave was able to be retrofitted for a variety of roles due to modular design; the assault gun variant being pretty similar with the exception of a higher profile.
If they kept their gear a bit simpler, had a bit more boom to go with the clank, and had some honest to god ground attack craft, the Germans wouldn't have pulled another 1914.
Well it wouldn't have mattered if the commander in chief was a corporeal if he kept his nose out of the military but when he actively tries to run it? If he was very good at military affairs they would have promoted him to officer or at least senior non-com.
I'm looking at some proposed designs made by the Germans, they had an idea for a lowbody assault gun that'd be a replacement for the Marder. They called it the Sturmgeschutz III. Looks interesting too:
Yeah, they only made a single prototype model, shown here in Leipzig's War Museum, but still looks interesting.
The only issue is that it needs the Panzer III chassis (Unlike the Marder, which used Panzer II frames), and they needed them to fight the tanks... even though things like the Char B1s and the Matilda Tank laughed their asses off at the IIIs and could only be blown by AA-guns of all things.
This reinforces that it wasn't the engineers (not fully anyway) that were at fault for the Nazis botching. It shows that administration and quality control was rubbish; see throwing valuable training vehicles into war with their best teachers because idiots. See also making a close air support vehicle that even the Soviets refused to use (helped that the Sturmovik, for all of its flaws, actually could take some beating before going down). Seriously, what imbecile gives a short barrel cannon to what turned out to be a good tank-hunter? Why the fuck did they decide to make said tank hunter the infantry tank and vice versa? Did Hitler himself sit down high on speed and picked what each one would do? It's seeming to me kind of likely.
Your source is not good. Five test models were built in 1937. None of those are known to exist. Roughly thirty StGIII A models were available for the May 1940 battles & were in separate support battlaions. Some were assigned to the motorized rifle divisions. At least one was separate and supported a infantry corps. Approx 300 B models were built 1940-41. I am unsure how many were operating for the summer 1940 battles. Possiblly less than half the total. All of these were armed with the same 75mm L24 cannon used by the PZ IV & filled a somewhat similar support role.
The vehicle in the photograph is one of the later models that had a long 75mm gun. That was fielded in 1942 when Germany was collapsing.
Note: The crews of the PzIV & the StGIII were trained to do indirect long range fire. The conditions in the vehicle made the RoF slow, but they were a very stable base. The small 75mm projectile was a little obsolete compared to the 105mm caliber artillery. They were occasionally used this way when the battles became static.
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Huh, you sure you're not confusing it with one of these?
The Hetzers were a sort of stop-gap between what was supposed to be the Stug III and the Marder IIs that I know saw combat in France and the Low Countries. They were made out of the Czech tanks produced by Skoda Works and in similar batch amounts to what you listed. The big difference between the two was the Hetzer was a bit weaker armored, being based on the Ltz 38, and had a higher standing profile than the Stug.
Seriously, they really focused way too hard on making mobile arty and AT guns; useful in later years, but it stiffed them of a lot of needed gear due to administrative inefficiencies.
The Hetzers were a sort of stop-gap between what was supposed to be the Stug III and the Marder IIs that I know saw combat in France and the Low Countries. They were made out of the Czech tanks produced by Skoda Works and in similar batch amounts to what you listed. The big difference between the two was the Hetzer was a bit weaker armored, being based on the Ltz 38, and had a higher standing profile than the Stug.
Seriously, they really focused way too hard on making mobile arty and AT guns; useful in later years, but it stiffed them of a lot of needed gear due to administrative inefficiencies.
Huh, you sure you're not confusing it with one of these?
The Hetzers were a sort of stop-gap between what was supposed to be the Stug III and the Marder IIs that I know saw combat in France and the Low Countries. They were made out of the Czech tanks produced by Skoda Works and in similar batch amounts to what you listed. The big difference between the two was the Hetzer was a bit weaker armored, being based on the Ltz 38, and had a higher standing profile than the Stug.
Seriously, they really focused way too hard on making mobile arty and AT guns; useful in later years, but it stiffed them of a lot of needed gear due to administrative inefficiencies.
Here modernization hurt them. Trading more towed artillery for few more modern mobile artillery would have helped. It is so hard to keep the balance right between modernization and numbers.
They really should've put some of the budget wasted in self-propelled guns into designing a competent bomber, a competent close air support platform, or as you mentioned some more standard Arty. The last one even had the bonus of not needing fuel unless they were truck towed. Unlike the other major powers, especially the USSR, Germany lacked the materials for that type of warfare on such a grand scale. That and they probably should've used their 8.8 cm flak gun earlier on; it was a good support gun that would've complimented their idea.
At least for the 1939 & the summer 1940 campaign the German air support was better than anyone else's. As you say it lacked a through system for close support. Some of the air liaison teams with the corps & division HQ did implement some ad hoc efforts at directing tactical air strikes. As it was the air support was what the US Army called "Strike" aviation. That is large scale bombing of the enemy ground forces (including airbases) but not close in precision attacks just a few hundred meters from the supported ground units. A example of this sort of 'strike' operation would be the air attacks on the Belgian army north of Liege on 11 May, or on the French 55th Division Infantry @ Sedan. Both attacks were made by 300+ bombers on the defense, & executed several hours in advance of the ground attack. Another example was the attack on Rotterdam 16th May that was to shock the Dutch defenders in the city into capitulation.
For close in tactical air support you have to go to places like the NW Frontier of India, the French in their part of the Rif War, or the US in Nicaragua circa 1929-1932. In those campaigns there were no strategic or 'operational' targets. Just some infantry in small arms range of the the supported forces. For whatever reason the RAF & French air force did not translate that experience into their 1940 operations against the Germans. Neither were they much good at the sort of strike operations they Germans ran that summer. It wa July before the French and British air attacks began to hurt the Germans, and autum before they reached their full potential.
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We also have to give credit to the French soldier, It wasn't just Germany's mistakes that did it in but the stubbornness of the average Frenchman. One French town (I forget which) changed hands five times in the course of three days. The Germans drove them out , then they came back and then the Germans drove them out again etc. It was incredible. It was a small time battle so it isn't well known but even small battles can show French stubbornness.
They should have also remembered how good the French were with their own artillery. They killed enough Germans in the Great War with artillery you would have thought the Germans would have learned that lessen and put more training into artillery suppression. French artillery just slaughtered them.
The French were so deadly with their artillery primarily because they studied and learned how to shift it rapidly between points and assigned semi-strict roles that gave some NCO initiative, a tactic they mastered by the mid 30s. Also helped that they produced one of the best mobile support weapons of the mid to late 20th century; the Brandt Mortar. That gave their foot troops a shit ton of ordinance that they could lob at their enemies while happily using the well designed rail lines to rapidly shift troops and equipment forward. They knew their stuff when it came to power projection, even if their early air forces were kind of naff.
True and unlike the Germans they had a lot of guns and shells. Like you said two independant medium or heavy artillery battalions to support three armored corps says a lot.