Deleted member 1487
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Reading about the two systems they seems remarkably similar in methodology in that they rely on a lot of staff planning and sophisticated preparations and systemic logic, just from different angles; Soviet Deep Battle is more focused on the offensive, French Methodical Battle on the defensive. They took their experiences of WW1 and just honed them into a methodical doctrine of top down command-push with little flexibility, but very sophisticated methodology. The Soviets were able to survive until they could use their to greatest effect due to their virtually unlimited space and manpower relative to the enemy, plus of course Lend-Lease supply, while the French had too little space, external supply, and prepared units to survive the initial German onslaught. Had they survived and continued it would seem to me that they would have developed a Soviet-style attack doctrine of the Soviet shock armies to break their opponents in depth with artillery, air power, and armor (Red God of War style), using material to minimize losses in a methodical advance until they could exploit with a highly organized and somewhat inflexible advance schedule.
Soviet tactics though were worse than the professional French army due to having sustained such horrific casualties early on and being unable to get enough breathing room to really train up a sophisticated tactical element or accumulate enough survivors with experience to really avoid the losses caused by the inflexibility of the operational methodical doctrine until the last year of the war (or so). I doubt the French would have developed something as far reaching in terms of exploitation as the Soviets due to their lack of space and casualty averseness and lack of material relative to their main enemy to sustain it, but the elements to me seem quite similar even if the expression of it was somewhat different due to experience/opportunity.
Thoughts?
Reading about the two systems they seems remarkably similar in methodology in that they rely on a lot of staff planning and sophisticated preparations and systemic logic, just from different angles; Soviet Deep Battle is more focused on the offensive, French Methodical Battle on the defensive. They took their experiences of WW1 and just honed them into a methodical doctrine of top down command-push with little flexibility, but very sophisticated methodology. The Soviets were able to survive until they could use their to greatest effect due to their virtually unlimited space and manpower relative to the enemy, plus of course Lend-Lease supply, while the French had too little space, external supply, and prepared units to survive the initial German onslaught. Had they survived and continued it would seem to me that they would have developed a Soviet-style attack doctrine of the Soviet shock armies to break their opponents in depth with artillery, air power, and armor (Red God of War style), using material to minimize losses in a methodical advance until they could exploit with a highly organized and somewhat inflexible advance schedule.
Soviet tactics though were worse than the professional French army due to having sustained such horrific casualties early on and being unable to get enough breathing room to really train up a sophisticated tactical element or accumulate enough survivors with experience to really avoid the losses caused by the inflexibility of the operational methodical doctrine until the last year of the war (or so). I doubt the French would have developed something as far reaching in terms of exploitation as the Soviets due to their lack of space and casualty averseness and lack of material relative to their main enemy to sustain it, but the elements to me seem quite similar even if the expression of it was somewhat different due to experience/opportunity.
Thoughts?