OTL history question: How effective were 'bite and hold' tactics during WWI?

How effective were 'bite and hold' tactics during WWI and could someone point me to some examples?
 

trurle

Banned
Generally ineffective - because of artillery. Holding a small position against a massed counter-attack while your own troops are deprived from reinforcements and supply by artillery barrage over former no-men-land - was a generally losing proposition, at least on Western front. It was one of the reasons why the fighting has stalled for so long.
 

hipper

Banned
How effective were 'bite and hold' tactics during WWI and could someone point me to some examples?
There a very good wiki article about the battle of messines which is a good example of bite and hold tactics.

Regards

Hipper
 
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BEF 'bite and hold' attacks where a moderate or better success was achieved include:

14 July and 25 September 1916 on the Somme
The first couple days at Arras, 1917, including Vimy Ridge
Messines, June 1917
Menin Road, 20 September 1917
Polygon Wood, 26 September 1917
Broodseinde, 4 October 1917
The first two days at Cambrai, October 1917
Hamel, 4 July 1917
 

Deleted member 1487

Ok, how plausible would it be for the allies using 'bite and hold' to push into Germany?
Bite and hold was a very tactical form of battle would wouldn't put the Allies into German until the 1920s due to the very nature of its slow grind through the enemy defenses with heavy firepower and a lot of time consuming preparations
 

hipper

Banned
Ok, how plausible would it be for the allies using 'bite and hold' to push into Germany?
Late 1918 after the morale of the German armies were destroyed. The allies used sophisticated combined arms tactics and no German line could hold against them but open warfare as opposed to trench warfare did not break out till October.

Montgomery used bite and hold tactics in Normandy 1944 quite successfully.
 

hipper

Banned
Bite and hold was a very tactical form of battle would wouldn't put the Allies into German until the 1920s due to the very nature of its slow grind through the enemy defenses with heavy firepower and a lot of time consuming preparations

a series of " bite and hold" offensives breaking through German defensive lines forced first withdrawal then open warfare by October
1918

allied offensives in 1918 used material superiority and tactical sophistication to achieve results
 

Deleted member 1487

a series of " bite and hold" offensives breaking through German defensive lines forced first withdrawal then open warfare by October
1918

allied offensives in 1918 used material superiority and tactical sophistication to achieve results
Only after the German offensives basically broke the German army. So it wasn't bite and hold that broke through the German defenses, it was attrition and the collapse of morale from the Germans attacking themselves to death and then trying to defend unfortified bulges they punched into Allied lines. Without that bite and hold alone will not achieve victory quickly, it will just be a long, hard, costly slog.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Generally ineffective - because of artillery. Holding a small position against a massed counter-attack while your own troops are deprived from reinforcements and supply by artillery barrage over former no-men-land - was a generally losing proposition, at least on Western front.
Bite And Hold was precisely designed to deal with that problem.

Bite And Hold is to launch a small offensive to seize a pre-designated area and then barrage the area outside it to prevent massed counter-attacks. Since the stopping point is preplanned you can plan the "preventative barrage" before you attack and trigger it as soon as it's needed, meaning you then have your assault force safe-ish from counterattack and they can thus set up their newly acquired trenches.
 
Quite. The original tactical problem as on the Somme was that the British would launch a major offensive with huge artillery preparation and plans to break through. The troops would (largely) get across no-man's land and take the German first line of trenches, but start to struggle with the German second line and get hit by a massive german counter-attack supported by artillery. Note that the above is a dream target for British artillery, but that because communications between the men in the front of the attack and their artillery is non-existient until manportable radios become available some decades later they don't get any support. By and large the Germans win the counterattack and the British are forced to withdraw - indeed, this was one of the biggest reasons for the much-derided huge loads they had to carry on the attack across no-man's land - the initial attack with the exception of places like Beaumont Hamel wasn't too bad, it was holding the ground afterwards that was horrendous: for that you need as much weaponry and as many sandbags/entrenching tools as you can carry.
The shift to bite-and-hold changed this dynamic massively and for the better. Instead of trying to break through the lines and win a major victory, the British troops instead took a chunk out of the German lines and would then be protected by a curtain barrage while they incorporate the newly captured positions into their own lines. This took the Germans a surprisingly long time to adapt to (one of the reasons the casualty ratios in late 1916 and 1917 are so even - the Germans would often counterattack straight into pre-planned British barrages), and made an enormous improvement to the prospects of holding a newly captured position.

One other factor which needs to be considered: the range of artillery in the era was actually really, really short - one of the big reasons the German offensives in spring 1918 stumbled to a halt was that they outran their artillery support. Limiting your penetration depth to a maximum of about a mile means that you never outrun your artillery and they can continue to fully support you. This is also incidentally the reason for the much-derided obsession with "straightening the line" among WW1 generals - the artillery techniques available at the time could only really lay down straight barrages with any effectiveness, so failing to pinch out small salients means you can't get fully effective artillery support.
 
I consider 'bite and hold' to be the response to the earlier attempts to attempt a breakthrough and open warfare/pursuit. Bite and Hold exchanges the aim of deep penetration on a narrow front leading to exploitation and pursuit (in the dreams of the planners) with a shallow penetration on a wide front, so wide in fact that the middle of the penetration is out of range of enfilading artillery fire and therefore somewhat secure. Ideally a bite and hold should not be reinforced for an immediate further advance but further bite and hold offensives mounted on their flanks, so that an advance is maintained over a wide front. If enough of these sorts of operations can be mounted then after a while open warfare is the result because of the lack of tough defensive systems in the way of the advancing army.
 
Bite and hold is an attritional tactic. It doesn't let the attacker break through or force the opponent into open country, but it does let him inflict casualties proportionate to those he suffers. Under some circumstances it can allow him to even seize commanding terrain (if, for instance, a ridge line is close behind the enemy's front); but even then, the terrain seized can only really be used to enhance further attritional attacks.

It may not seem very imaginative, and it may seem like nothing but a brute force approach. But it was exactly what the British needed under the peculiar circumstances of the Western Front.

Of course, it is questionable whether it would have had much impact were the Germans not in such bad shape overall by this point in the war.
 
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