Mechanized Units in WW1?

I'm not too keen on the Eastern Front of the first World War, but with the rather level fighting ground there, why were more mechanized units not used here?

I say "more" but as I said, I'm not too informed (if anyone can point me in the right direction for more material that would be great!). Just thinking that, the original 'tanks' showed up in the Western theater late in the war as a means to break the trench stalemate. Why not faster movement over ground that is suited to it, such as that of Eastern Europe?

This may have led to an earlier interest in such instruments of war on a wider scale (as opposed to being concentrated in Nazi Germany). Of course, were this the case... Nazi Germany may well never have existed.

Just wondering what you all thought of the reasons behind this failure, other than the fact that trucks and such at the time weren't really sophisticated enough to bounce around on a battlefield.
 
For one thing tanks back then were not fast. If you want a fast fighting force you had to go with cavalry, which unfortunately was no match for machine guns. WW1 tans were actually far better suited to the Western Front, because they could storm straight through the trenches. On the Eastern Front they would've been too slow to cover enough ground (and there wouldn't have been enough)

As to some sources, I can't really give you any since my knowledge on the subject has come from a multitude of different places all mixed up into the big picture. The result is that I know a lot about a lot of things but I can't back up my claims.:(
 
Not tanks, per se, I was simply alluding to them because they were the sole high-profile motorized unit used.

Though I think some motorcycles and armored cars were used, they were not used en masse.

My idea came from "What if Rommel was a Field Marshal in WW1?" but with some of the same basic strategic knowledge of things related to mechanized command. Nutty, of course, but it laid the groundwork for the thought process.

That led to this: Germans fighting two-front war, never a good thing, right? Anglo-French causing them a hurt in the Somme and such, and Ruskies got the numbers in the East. The Germans have to be... what is it, innovative. They start throwing things together to save lives and allow for a smaller force to counter a larger force, and though the cavalry is an obvious choice, they didn't have the horse numbers. Something thinks to throw a squad in a truck and go... they start grabbing all the trucks they see, and motorcycles and such.

This would also call into question another resource, gasoline and oil products, but the Germans were good at organization and supply, they could figure it out. The problem would be availability. That's a bit of a stretch, all together, but there it is.

Any takers?
 

MrP

Banned
A greater pre-war uptake of armoured cars will do fine. I have that happen in Pou le Coeur, leading to Austro-Hungarian and Russian armoured car units duking it out. Given the size of the front, and the exhaustion experienced by A-H scouting cavalry at the start of the war, armoured cars certainly can't do any worse. ;) The most obvious problem I can think of with using trucks is that it decreases the number available for supplying infantry and artillery units engaged in heavy fighting, on the stereotypical Western Front of trench lines, say. As you say, this is no bother for the Russians, but would be a growing problem for Germany, who experienced, despite dismounting her Western Front cavalry quite rapidly, serious shortages of horses, which were essential for agriculture as well as military purposes.

I'm sorry to speak so generally, but I have only read general comments on the problem. Sadly lacking in specifics, I'm afraid. Nonetheless, I can imagine a couple of divisions being assembled composed of, say, a cavalry brigade, a brigade of Jaegers or bicycle troops, and a few score armoured cars or trucks. The technology is there, certainly. There is a problem with fuel consumption, since common sense says it will be higher for units operating far from railheads against enemy armies than for those trucks engaged in delivering supplies to units on the Western Front.
 

MrP

Banned
Shouldnt this thread be in the after 1900 section?

I dunno; in that forum one'd only have 14 years to get up to speed. Here one has a few more. Not knowing enough about the internal combustion engine, I can't say how vital that is.
 
In my Operation Unicorn story I am having the Germans experiment a notch more with motorized warfare. Part of my justification for this is the CP retains the Galician oil fields in Nov 1914 making their oil supply better. There is a small increaase in the use of armored cars incl. Fall Einhorn their most ambitious project so far has been the Motorized Heavy Artillery Brigade which is as its name says is a collection of guns (ranging from 15cm exnaval guns to 30.5cm howitzers) towed by motor vehicles. In transit this unit is vulnerable and so is screened by cavalry divisions. It was used to take Kovno in Operation Fulcrum.
 
As several members have already remarked, WWI tanks were slow and often unreliable. They would be too cumbersome and ineffective for the much more mobile Eastern Theater of the war.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Tanks were invented and introduced as a device to cross and attack trenches on the western front, and in frustration over traditional tactics and doctrines not being capable of that.

On the eastern front traditional doctrines worked much better and the motivation for new doctrines and weapon systems thus was much less prominent. On behalf of experiences in WWI and in the Russian Civil War the Red Army in the interwar years relied much on large scale cavalry units.

That doesn't exclude the introduction of armoured/mechanised units, as was also shown by OTL Red Army development, where large scale armoured units for deep cavalry like operations were introduced before any other major army.

To have such units operational in WWI we first need someone at the top recognising the need. That probably requires some very expensive lessons in a previous war and/or time. Next we need more time for technology to mature. The lumbering tanks of OTL WWI were unreliable enough, if we now also need them to go fast and deep (away from maintenance facilities) I think armoured units would be eaten up by breakdowns before achieving anything near a deep penetration - leaving cavalry and horse artillery the better solution - yet.

But back to the western front APCs might have been a good idea, but even more so self-propelled artillery. The main problems of an attcak arose when the attackers went out of range of their own initial artillery positions. Self propelled artillery might have changed that equation.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
In my Operation Unicorn story I am having the Germans experiment a notch more with motorized warfare. Part of my justification for this is the CP retains the Galician oil fields in Nov 1914 making their oil supply better. There is a small increaase in the use of armored cars incl. Fall Einhorn their most ambitious project so far has been the Motorized Heavy Artillery Brigade which is as its name says is a collection of guns (ranging from 15cm exnaval guns to 30.5cm howitzers) towed by motor vehicles. In transit this unit is vulnerable and so is screened by cavalry divisions. It was used to take Kovno in Operation Fulcrum.

Once you get past Poland though you're going to have a lot of road problems. I have a hard time believing any WWI army would have the ability to maintain large motorized formations in the terrain and weather of Russia. It would probably be hard anywhere.
 
The Russian Empire wasn't as heavily industrialized as Western Europe was during WWI. The landscape of the area you're talking about is flat...and marshy. The primitive trucks, armored cars, and any first generation tanks would be bogged down for much of the year in many areas. There was also a lack of suitable roads in the reigon, at the time. The tech just wasn't advanced enough at the time, nor was it avalable to the combatants on the Eastern Front in any useful numbers. Change one of those factors and maybe you would get more mechinized battles between Russian-German/Austrian forces.
 
Russian Empire hadn't tanks (there were some experimental vehicles, but that was all), as well as Austria-Hungary. German Empire had tanks in significant quantities only in the last year of WWI, but Eastern front collapsed in late 1917 already, so why would Germans bother with high-tech offensive against crumbling enemy, having big problems at the Western front?
 
The History of Armored Warfare

1863 – A munitions factory south of Atlanta is recorded as constructing a battery of, “Mobile Guns.” But due to a large-scale fire the factory and its warehouse was destroyed. Only one picture of an unmanned Mobile Gun exists, and the order from some obscure general requesting a field gun that could travel almost ahead of soldiers.

In the picture a 10 pound Parrott Rifle has been mounted on a large wooden cart. It has been recorded that the first two were pulled by a pair of draft horses, while the third was adorned with a large steam engine (considered unreliable).

The first two guns were captured by Union forces and dismantled. While the third was lost in a river when its engine unexpectedly broke down and was swept against the rocks.

1871 – Though the Franco-Prussian war did not last long (Though it certainly must have seemed long for the soldiers that fought it) the French did attempt to create some sort of armored vehicle. Only a obscure note exists and the two diary entries of a eye witness.

Apparently the vehicle was similar to the one created by Confederate engineers eight years beforehand. A single breech-loaded cannon had been mounted upon a carriage lathered with sheet metal. It was driven by two large steam engineers and followed by an entourage of engineers and crewmen, who could not fit inside the vehicle.

It was large and cumbersome, and I was able to witness it in a field outside of Paris. But it moved at a brisk pace until it fell into a ditch and was ruined forever. Before that it fired but once. Its cannon sounded like any other but I saw it was a dreadful pain to reload and I suspect that the crew would have been shot to pieces before they could have loaded their piece.


What was interesting was that when fired upon by my platoon of riflemen all but one bullet harmlessly smacked against the metal before falling to the ground. The one that did not was stuck in the plating and had to be dislodged with a bayonet.


My opinion is that if this new toy could be perfected it would be in the best interest of the Empire to pursue creating these machines, for I am certain they will be the future of warfare.



Kinda just sprung into my mind. Enjoy if you would.
 
I don't think mechanised units, Armoured cars, troop carrying halftracks, trucks, motorbikes, 'jeeps' would have much more than a marginal effect on the Eastern front than IOTL. German tactics until 1916; attrition artillery barrage and advance of 100 or so miles were very effective and well suited to the limits of warfare at the time. Maybe some mech units could have captured some Russian guns or conducted some minor encirclments but I doubt they'd do much more than that.
 
Thank you everyone that didn't get bogged down on the tanks and tanks alone, sheesh!

I was mostly wondering about a wider usage of troop-carrying trucks, but as that question seems to be answered...

And yes, I did mean for it to be in the Post: 1900 section. Sorry for the mistake.
 
On the eastern front traditional doctrines worked much better and the motivation for new doctrines and weapon systems thus was much less prominent.

Well the Brusilov Offensive seemed plenty new. Even the germans copyed some of it.
 
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