Germany with another "military doctrines" in WWII.

[Michele]

Losing a classic Panzer Division isn't the hardship some think it is, as Armored spearheads still need infantry to hold open logics lines.

Sure. And I see your point about quickness in reaction and flexibility in command. Unfortunately, I still see two problems:

- yes, the SA might want to use the radios. And their commanders might want to decide quickly. That still means having good radiomen trained (manning a radio was much more a work of art back then), and good officers trained. The SA aren't the organization to surely deliver such well trained men.

- and more on the tanks: yes, they need the infantry to come on and keep the lines open, but part of that quickness also depends on actually moving. That's probably why the OP also wanted some motorized infantry (save that does not go well with his other requests). Even assuming the Germans are fast in taking decisions, if they then move at the same speed of the French...

Should not that many US Infantry Divisions had as many AFVs attached as German Panzer Divisions.

Yes, the issue is not having tanks, or how many tanks you have. The issue is the overall speed of the whole formation. If you have the infantry advancing on foot, the tanks will either out run them - and probably fall, unsupported, into a tank trap - or slow down to the infantry's pace. Standard French tactics and also typical early British tactics with Infantry Tanks. But you don't get deep penetration and fast exploitation that way.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

It boils down to a lot more than that. A bunch of thugs with radios are a bunch of thugs with radios not professional soldiers. You have to know how to deploy men, how to supply them, how to get them to follow orders and to understand what orders you give them, tactics, operations, maintenance, and a hundred other things. Speed certainly helps but it isn't everything.

Quite. You need not just the radios, but also the skill to adequately employ and maintain them.

Losing a classic Panzer Division isn't the hardship some think it is, as Armored spearheads still need infantry to hold open logics lines.

The panzer divisions represent the best equipped and trained forces the Germans have available to them. Without them, the Germans offensive capability falls to WW1 levels.

Should not that many US Infantry Divisions had as many AFVs attached as German Panzer Divisions.

In 1944, maybe. In 1941, a panzer division would certainly have far more AFVs.

 

[Johnrankins]

Quite. You need not just the radios, but also the skill to adequately employ and maintain them.

Yes, along with everything else you need to do. Radios don't help if you can't read a map. You can't go to hill #345 if you can't find it on the map. It does you no good if, when you get there, your rifle jams because you didn't maintain it, or you are outmaneuvered because the French know tactics and how to follow orders and you do not. With radios you can gather your mob quicker but it is still just a mob.A professional army will cut through them in no time. Soldiers are trained for a reason. If it was that easy countries would just hand out rifles and radios and spare themselves the great expense of training soldiers.

 

[jmc247]

Yes, along with everything else you need to do. Radios don't help if you can't read a map. You can't go to hill #345 if you can't find it on the map. It does you no good if, when you get there, your rifle jams because you didn't maintain it, or you are outmaneuvered because the French know tactics and how to follow orders and you do not. With radios you can gather your mob quicker but it is still just a mob.A professional army will cut through them in no time. Soldiers are trained for a reason. If it was that easy countries would just hand out rifles and radios and spare themselves the great expense of training soldiers.

Figuring out where the heck you are, where your opponent is and the path to outmaneuver your opponent was a much more complicated affair back then. And, yes it required maps, maps everywhere and the various parts of an army had to work as a collective which required a high level of coordination and planning.

Spoiler

 

[Johnrankins]

Figuring out where the heck you are, where your opponent is and the path to outmaneuver your opponent was a much more complicated affair back then. And, yes it required maps, maps everywhere and the various parts of an army had to work as a collective which required a high level of coordination and planning.

Yep, it takes more than rifles and radios to make up a ww2 army.

 

[marathag]

It boils down to a lot more than that. A bunch of thugs with radios are a bunch of thugs with radios not professional soldiers. You have to know how to deploy men, how to supply them, how to get them to follow orders and to understand what orders you give them, tactics, operations, maintenance, and a hundred other things. Speed certainly helps but it isn't everything.

That's why I used N.B. Forrest's famous line. A brutal thug with no formal military training saw value in scouting, intelligence and logistics to operate they way he did.

And decision speed is primary. After all, a Sergeant in motion is of more use than a lieutenant thinking things over.

Would this SA army be as good as the OTL setup?
No. Bet they woukd still be far better than what the French and Polish had going on.

When you are reacting, you aren't acting they other guy is pulling your strings, limiting the choices available.

 

[marathag]

Sure. And I see your point about quickness in reaction and flexibility in command. Unfortunately, I still see two problems:

- yes, the SA might want to use the radios. And their commanders might want to decide quickly. That still means having good radiomen trained (manning a radio was much more a work of art back then), and good officers trained. The SA aren't the organization to surely deliver such well trained men.

- and more on the tanks: yes, they need the infantry to come on and keep the lines open, but part of that quickness also depends on actually moving. That's probably why the OP also wanted some motorized infantry (save that does not go well with his other requests). Even assuming the Germans are fast in taking decisions, if they then move at the same speed of the French...



Yes, the issue is not having tanks, or how many tanks you have. The issue is the overall speed of the whole formation. If you have the infantry advancing on foot, the tanks will either out run them - and probably fall, unsupported, into a tank trap - or slow down to the infantry's pace. Standard French tactics and also typical early British tactics with Infantry Tanks. But you don't get deep penetration and fast exploitation that way.

Pretty much no one in WWII got to the 'nobody walks' Divisional assault, excepting the 83rd ID, the Ragtag Circus that liberated everything with wheels for their dash towards Berlin.

 

[marathag]

Figuring out where the heck you are, where your opponent is and the path to outmaneuver your opponent was a much more complicated affair back then. And, yes it required maps, maps everywhere and the various parts of an army had to work as a collective which required a high level of coordination and planning.

British had all that in 1940. Except where the German were, was the missing piece that got them ending up at Dunkirk.

They were far more motorized than the German. Had superior Artillery integration, even.

Didn't help, their decision loop timing was greater than the Germans. So kept reacting to old intelligence, and things just got worse and worse as the French Formations fell apart.

 

[marathag]

In 1944, maybe. In 1941, a panzer division would certainly have far more AFVs.

Vs a 1941 US formation, certainly. They didn't even have enough tanks to fully outfit 1AD and 2AD.

And the German marched pretty far in WWI, with almost zero mechanization.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Vs a 1941 US formation, certainly. They didn't even have enough tanks to fully outfit 1AD and 2AD.

Nah, versus a 1944 infantry division too a 1941 panzer division would have more armor. Now solely looking at the divisional TO&E, this is blatantly obvious since American infantry divisions did not have any organic armor until the post-war period. What the US did, and was rather typical for the various major nations, was to form independent tank and tank destroyer battalions and then attach them to various infantry division. The usual standard was one tank battalion and/or independent tank destroyer attached. Assuming we're looking at a infantry division which has both, that's 59 medium tanks, 18 light tanks, and 36 tank destroyers for a total of 113 AFVs. By comparison, a 1941 German panzer divisions organic TO&E called for 190 AFVs. Just before Kursk in 1943, roughly the last time the bulk of the panzerwaffe would reach their authorized strength according to their TO&Es, that figure had increased to 217 AFVs.

And the German marched pretty far in WWI, with almost zero mechanization.

Yet not remotely as far as they got in WW2.

In any case, the thorough purging of the German professional corps required to successfully subordinate, never mind replace it, with the SA would wreck it's command and control as thoroughly as it would wreck everything else that made the German military so tactically proficient in the early stages of the war. So it's a red-herring to begin with.

 

[Johnrankins]

That's why I used N.B. Forrest's famous line. A brutal thug with no formal military training saw value in scouting, intelligence and logistics to operate they way he did.

And decision speed is primary. After all, a Sergeant in motion is of more use than a lieutenant thinking things over.

Would this SA army be as good as the OTL setup?
No. Bet they woukd still be far better than what the French and Polish had going on.

When you are reacting, you aren't acting they other guy is pulling your strings, limiting the choices available.

Forrest was an exception, not the rule. Also, the men he was fighting were barely trained themselves, at least at the start. Early ACW soldiers had little training. They were rushed into the field ASAP. After you survive that period you have learned enough that you can carry on against soldiers with more formal training. After all, you have figured out much of what they will learn on your own.

The French Army, on the other hand, was trained. They at least knew how to read maps, how to follow orders, how to manuever in a fight and so on.

You are pulling their strings if you know what you are doing and if you aren't trained it is unlikely you do. Being there first is not going to help if you are a muddled mess when you get there , which is likely.

 

[James Ricker]

It would end the same as it did in our timeline. The Allies had Superior numbers in all categories it would still become a war of attrition. Focusing on Panzers was probably the best thing to Germans could do with Allied air superiority and a huge numerical advantage an infantry.

 

[Johnrankins]

It would end the same as it did in our timeline. The Allies had Superior numbers in all categories it would still become a war of attrition. Focusing on Panzers was probably the best thing to Germans could do with Allied air superiority and a huge numerical advantage an infantry.

Only much, much quicker.

 

[King Augeas]

Let's say that Hitler has it's way with the SA, the wehrmacht is not created and the SA becomes the german army while SA men is given posts to replace the purged wehrmacht.

How much of a catastrophe the german war effort would be?

This is vaguely along those lines...

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Thugs with access to a radio command net will still do better than the French 'Professionals' with Motorcycle Messengers.

....

Actually no. I was paid to do this sort of thing for 20+ years. Radios are just hardware & are useless without the software, the procedures, the doctrines, the skills to use them correctly. The ability to compose on the spur of the moment a coherent concise message requires more than a bit of practice & monitoring multiple messages a hour from each of several radios, keeping a coherent view of the situation the messages paint, and responding with appropriate guidance down and reports up is a skill acquired with considerable practice and experience. From the battalion up it requires the commander be served by a well trained & skilled staff functioning as a team. This applies weather you use radios, telephones, messengers, signal flags, whatever. Unless this SA dominated army trained to the same standards & with similar doctrines as the Reichwehr established 1920-1933 its going to fail however many radios it has.

...
Getting inside their Enemies Decision Loop is what won things in 1939 and 1940.
...

& accomplishing that requires rigorus training. An unpleasant fact is, that to do all these fancy tricks of maneuver & OODA & speed, you first have to be able to do the ordinary pedestrian things so well you don't have to think about them. Endless disciplined drill at tedious boring tasks are the enabler that allows a commander & his staff, and everyone else in the unit, to pay attention to the situation, observe & decide with rapidity. If your people are not trained to trouble shoot their MG or radio, or truck, or cannon, & service those literally in their sleep, its a waste of time to think about OODA loops. You just have a third rate unit that can't fight well.

 

[Blue cat]

This is very similar question to my 'Guderian Goes Into Plastics' thread. That is the Reichswehr/Wehermacht do not develop the massed armor as a stratigic or operational weapon.

This does not exclude the other doctrines of rapidity of decision and manuver or attack.

This is an interesting question

 

[Blue cat]

I could see the artillery developing further along the line the French, US, and Brits followed.

Maybe they also take their development of rocket artillery a bit further and have a greater ability to supplement their conventional artillery fire with massed rocket fire ?

 

[trash80]

One thing to note about the SA is that a lot of the early members were former soldiers so they would have some basis in military discipline if these older members were in the chain of command by 1940.

 

[Blue cat]

It makes a very big difference in command and control. The Heer was a professional military, the SA was a bunch of barely trained thugs given guns. The only reason for Hitler to go with the SA is he fears the reliability of the army politically and is worried about a military coup. Real military training and the SA really don't go together. They are a political army meant to keep Hitler in power not a professional military organization capable of fighting wars.

Presumably Hitler would have realized that without a real army it might be challenging to invade their neighbours ? I can sort of envision a set of circumstances where Hitler might choose the SA over the Heer, I just don't see him launching wars of conquest until the SA has been transformed into something resembling a real army.

 

[Post]

And decision speed is primary. After all, a Sergeant in motion is of more use than a lieutenant thinking things over.

Only if he's going in the right direction.