Which army was the most qualitatively superior between the Allies and Nazi Germany?

Deleted member 1487

We're discussing the quality of each military, which means we are using equal numbers and resources to ascertain who was individually superior. This thread is talking about the army, not the airforce. You keep trying to change the circumstances of the comparison because we both know that in an equal fair fight, the Americans lose every time.
US army air corps was part of the army. Just sayin'.
 
We're discussing the quality of each military, which means we are using equal numbers and resources to ascertain who was individually superior. This thread is talking about the army, not the airforce. You keep trying to change the circumstances of the comparison because we both know that in an equal fair fight, the Americans lose every time.

Ah yes, I forgot. Because the ARMY Air Force wasn't part of the army...

And no, we are not supposed to use equal numbers or resources, nothing in the OP states or even implies that. Things like numbers and resources must be considered because militaries are built based on reality, not on this Magical Christmas Land where apparently equipment never breaks down, supplies are never disrupted, etc.

You are trying to ignore the most important factors, logistical capability, reliability, etc.

Sure, if you assume everything goes absolutely perfectly the Nazis win. But in anything even SLIGHTLY resembling reality the Allies win every time.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Depends on the time frame. From 1939 to 1943, with armed forces as they existed at the time, Germany likely had greater capacity to wage a land war than any other single nation on the planet.

1944 and 45 was led by the Soviet Union, though with the United States possessing a superior latent capability basically since the 1860's.
 
My old Defense, Security, & National Intelligence professor had been a company officer in the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in the Second World War, and, it was generally understood, in the OSS as it became the CIA afterwards; he had acquired a bride during the Occupation (one of the Countesses von Kielmansegg) and thus an in-law in General Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg.* To this in-law, he attributed the following answer, when asked what the Bundeswehr would most wish for in another war: "British uniforms; American rations; Soviet weapons; ... and the Italians on the other side this time."

YMMV, but it's a judgement from a Wehrmacht staff officer turned Bundeswehr general officer, so....

_____
* He was von Fritsch's nephew.
 
Don't think the miltary bought any Tommy guns until 1939.

In spite of the BARs effectiveness, the most immediate solution to the ambush problem in what became known as the “Second Nicaraguan Campaign” was the Thompson submachine gun. Developed during World War I as a “trench broom” by a retired Army Ordnance officer, Brig. Gen. John Taliaferro Thompson, the “Tommy Gun” fired the standard .45 ACP pistol cartridge from either a 50-round drum or a 20-round “stick” magazine. Marines were well acquainted with the new gun by that time as they were using it to guard the U.S. Mail in 1926, shortly before shipping out to Nicaragua and China with Thompsons in 1927. Marine Gen. Richard M. Cutts had designed its familiar muzzle brake—the “Cutts Compensator.” Moreover, Marines had been testing and evaluating the submachine gun and its early 100-round magazine at Quantico in the early 1920s. The Thompson gun proved to be an invaluable asset in the Nicaraguan jungle, and was usually carried by a non-commissioned officer at the “point” of a Marine patrol or a combined force of Marines and native constabulary.


Although the Thompson submachine gun was often employed by Marine patrols throughout northern Nicaragua, perhaps its most constant use in that country was with Company M of the Nicaraguan Guardia. The officer commanding Company M was none other than “Chesty” Puller, arguably one of the most well-known Marines of all time, who was ably assisted by his second in command, “Ironman” Lee. Company M (for “Mobile”) had been formed to take the fight directly to the rebels by means of continual and aggressive patrolling, and, with most of the command being native Indians from northern Nicaragua, they succeeded. While the standard shoulder arm for all of the native constabularies was the .30 Army Krag rifle, several of Company M’s men were issued Thompson submachine guns, as well as BARs, M1903 Springfield rifles equipped with rifle grenades and, as recounted earlier, Lewis guns. Although Puller apparently preferred the BAR to the Thompson, both were used to great effect in the scores of fighting contacts that Company M had with the Sandinistas.

https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2013/1/23/guns-of-the-banana-wars-part-two/
 
The Americans actually have an Air Force that can respond.

There is the old joke that when the RAF Typhoons flew overhead, the Germans took cover, and when FW-190s rarely appeared, the Brits would take cover.

But when the P-47s were near, Everyone took cover
 

CalBear

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The Red Army was the master of urban warfare, both defensive AND offensive. The U.S. was okay, but the basic idea of "well, let's just sit here and drop 8" artillery on it until it stops making noise" had it limitations (it would not, as an example, have worked in Berlin).

Japanese amphibious doctrine is, based on evidence, exceptionally weak. This is despite having both specially trained SNLF troops AND the Daihatsu landing craft (first specifically designed landing craft with a bow mounted ramp). All one need do is review the IJA/IJN "plan" for the landing on Midway (much less the idiot's banquet that was Wake) to see that, even at the highest staff levels, they were making %^%# up as they went. U.S. doctrine in 1942 was not much more advanced, but there was, at least, actual planning and attempts to coordinate operations between ship/shore/air as early as Guadalcanal (stressing attempts).

The Finns were, obviously, lucky insofar as it served Stalin's interests to leave most of the country free, but as far as combat, the Finnish force tended to make their own luck.

One of the difficulties in comparing the major players is that WW II was almost entirely driven by technology and logistics. The side with the better state of supply nearly always won, be it in the jungle, the Western Desert, the Steppe or the Western European plain. The only time this could be serious altered was when one side had made the technological leapfrog over the opponent. One of the biggest reasons for the utter massacre of the Imperial Japanese forces was that they started the war playing a decent hand, but played virtually the exact same cards through August of 1945. The A6M was good, if flawed, light fighter in 1941, by 1945 it was hopelessly obsolete (the USN having gone through three full generations of fighter aircraft (F2A/F4F>F6F>F4U-4), with a fourth (F7F/F8F) & fifth (FR Fireball/FH Phantom) on the horizon and the USAAF having done nearly the same .The same went for IJA personal and crew served weapons and armor, even the vast torpedo tech advantage that the IJN had begun the war with had evaporated by fall of 1944 with the American torpedoes being vastly more reliable, and in the case of the Mark 13 air dropped weapon being improved to a point that the engagement envelope for the weapon exceeded the performance envelope of every aircraft capable of carrying the weapon into battle (drops were made from has high as 7K feet with the torpedoes observed to track "hot, straight and normal" and the Mark 13 could be deployed at speed exceeding 400 knots). The same sort of scenario can be seen with the Reich, although the Nazi regime was able to, in many areas, keep pace, even surpass the Allied efforts (in some cases desperation provided considerable operational freedom to experiment).
 
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At it's peak the German army was pretty much broken and unable to counter battery fire due to the lack of ammo as a result of the strategic air campaign.

Which does not at all change the fact that those select Soviet specialist formations showed levels of flexibility almost as good as the Germans had at their peak years in impromptu fires. Of course, I must reemphasize that the specialist formations/units were a select number (many of them guards) that represented the crème (and hence a distinct minority) of Soviet artillery forces, so they did not remotely represent the average.

That's the problem right there, difference in terms. I'm not counting direct fire weapons as part of artillery, meaning indirect fire artillery. If we count direct fire support weapons, then aren't tank guns artillery? They are cannons and even AT guns can and were used for direct fire support.

No, because tank cannons and AT guns usually lacked the same degree of range (which can matter even in direct-fire artillery), caliber size, shell types, and so-on. And in any case I am also talking indirect fire weapons as well. If tank cannons alone were enough to deal with those kinds of strongpoints, the mechanized armies since 1939 would not have seen it necessary to attach mortar platoons to tank battalions or cross-attach howitzer batteries to tank heavy task forces. A 1941 panzer division didn't have those 24 105mm and 12 150mm howitzers for giggles. A hasty AT defense doesn't take a whole lot of time to setup either: you can pull something like the AT weapons platoon of a battalion off the road march and form a reasonable kill sack with them in a few minutes. Properly emplaced, with keyhole lines-of-sight, the only unit that can engage them is the unit being fired upon (potentially from two or more directions) at which point the remaining tanks have the unenviable choice of either backing off and (potentially) letting the ambushers escape another 10km up the road to repeat the process or (potentially) blundering into a truly heavy AT matrix and getting decisively finished.

That's one of the tactical problems artillery is supposed to solve for tanks.

Indirect fire support from towed guns generally did not participate in the major mobile advances; having read enough accounts of the 'classic' campaigns of 1939-42 towed artillery didn't really weigh in except during breakthrough fighting,

Then you clearly have not read them closely enough. When Guderian forced the Meuse on May 1st, he had 141 artillery tubes at his disposal. The 1st Panzer Division had the 8 artillery battalions supporting of its crossing. The only reason the Luftwaffe was necessary to tip the balance was because the French had even more artillery then the Germans (174 pieces) and more ammunition. But had the French no artillery (and indeed, much of the Luftwaffe's effort went into suppressing the French artillery so as to allow the German guns to operate more freely), the aircraft would hardly have been necessary.

Depends on the situation and if artillery has had time to deploy.

Generally at least one battery was deployed and available.

Usually for mobile units in WW2 warfare prior to the advent of SP artillery air support did the work of suppressing enemy artillery.

If that had been the case, a lot of offensives would have bogged down much more rapidly then they did as there were many times when air support was simply unavailable for whatever reason. On average, the weather grounded air power for 1 in every 3 days of a campaign. Even beyond that, there were generally not enough aircraft (especially for the Germans who ran with a much smaller aircraft inventory then the other major powers) to cover all of the spearheads. And even with on the ground observers, aircraft could have serious issues identifying enemy positions.

It was unusual for motorized artillery to be in a situation during the maneuver phase of an operation to be able to have the time to deploy and range in against enemy artillery on the offensive.

No, it was quite usual. What was unusual is that the preponderance of motorized artillery in a formation were up ahead close enough to provide support. But generally enough were up front to give adequate support. The point when not enough were up front tended to councide with the point where the opposition began to rally and logistics began to strangle an advance anyways.

What you describe above is a textbook idea of how combined arms is supposed to function, but prior to SP artillery being available artillery getting into action to support and offensive move by tank or motorized infantry during maneuver was relatively rare and relied more on air support, which could more frequently get into action more quickly.

They ran those exercises with only towed arty available as well. Same result. Hell, in at least one of the exercises I recall (a 2013 Canadian one) the guys with the tanks were also granted air supremacy. It didn't alter the dynamic at all.

I don't think you really understand WW2 if you think the Germans were behind the West and Finns in terms of tactical flexibility.

While I don't know about the Finns, but it's a matter of historical fact that German artillery flexibility was inferior to the Americans. Nothing measures relative flexibility better then the minimum time between the first call and first firing while retaining similar accuracy. For the Germans this was 12 minutes,. For the Anglo-Americans, this time was 2 minutes.

The reason for this was organizational, specifically the fire control methodology. In the German army, the forward observer was tied to his artillery battalion (which was the standard base firing unit for the Germans, splitting up an artillery battalion into batteries and placing batteries under an line battalion is the exception justified only when the line battalion has an independent mission (for example, flank protection) or when the terrain does not permit unified fire control) whenever it moved. When the batteries sets up, the forward observer moves forward to his Observation Post (OP). When he gets there the distance and angle to the batteries are carefully measured. When the observer sees a target of opportunity, he rings up the battery's fire control and gives them an estimate of the range and angle to the target from the OP. The fire control officers use logarithm tables and adding machines to do the trigonometry to convert the two angles and distances to one angle and distance, and to correct for wind, humidity, powder characteristics, etc. Each gun is adjusted so as to attempt to hit the same rough spot (a converged sheaf).

Before Dunkirk, the British used the same methods as the Germans. After Dunkirk, the British changed their fire control methods. By giving every FO a good map and a truck to haul a radio, they separated the direct tie between the FO and his battery and allowed more than one battalion to be called in by a single FO. More importantly, the map, which was gridded off in 1km intervals, was used directly in figuring out how to aim the guns... a simple right-triangle calculation was all that was necessary. The British system was less accurate as no time was spent in individually aiming the guns so the sheaf was never converged. The British felt they could get more guns on target faster compensated for this though.

The Americans used a refined version of the British system that returned accuracy to the system without abandoning the rapidity. An officer heading the American Fire Control Center sifted through all the calls for help and deciding how much to assign to each target, given the observer, the probable target, and the ammunition restrictions. Then the Fire Control Centers used a set of clear protractors and rulers already corrected for wind, powder, etc, so converging the sheaf was possible as with the German system.

As I alluded to at the start of this post, only the best of Soviet artillery forces used the German system and even then only late in the war. Everyone else pretty much defaulted to either pre-plotted fire (or a adjustment of pre-plotted fire using transfers) if possible or direct fire if not.
 
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How many countries had US industrial resources and only 100 divisions? If the USSR and Germany had only 100 US sized divisions they could have supported their army units in the field just as well within the European theater.

Logistics, like politics, are always art of possible and behind successes not usually attributed to logistics. For example, the Finnish famed forest fighting skills were largely based on the fact, that due to logging operations Finnish officers knew how to operate a large scale operations rapidly in deep forests throughout the year. In case of war, one replaced logs with military supplies, basically, to keep the story short.

It seems you're not really understanding how Luftwaffe CAS worked; generally it was not used against previously known targets, it hit targets of opportunity as they appeared as picked out by airborne or ground forward observers. The Meuse as a pre-planned strike target was an exception for CAS actually.
http://www.simhq.com/_air9/air_276c.html
http://www.simhq.com/_air9/air_276d.html

CAS was a very blunt instrument before GPS and presicion weapon capable of being used against large targets which were distinguishable either by marker (WP etc.) or clear geographic features (eg. village at crossroads). The response time was also poor, friendly fire usual and it was not usable in bad weather conditions. CAS was a sledgehammer useful in many situations at schwerpunkt when trying to solve divisional problems. Indirect fire, when used US, UK or Finnish ways, was a surgical knife capable of solving platoon-company-battalion problems extremely quickly and flexibly. However, if trying to break through fortified line one needed a large scale logistics operation to bring up artillery and shells, then CAS was at it's own as like in Meuse.

I don't think you really understand WW2 if you think the Germans were behind the West and Finns in terms of tactical flexibility. Finnish experience with German units was extremely limited and to sorts of units that were fighting in their sector were mostly light infantry without a strong artillery arm or focus on such. It should be noted too that the Soviets basically copied German WW1 artillery doctrine and elaborated on it, cribbing Bruchmüller's artillery concepts from his books that were published post-war.

No, for the reasons ObsessedNuker already cited. Response time was poor, flexibility unknown due to slaved FO's, accuracy bad. As for general flexibility Finns had high regards for Germany and any educated officer understood of fighting in your home turf and fighting in an unknown terrain. After all, Finns ran into unknown conditions themselves in farthest north both in 1941 and 1944-1945.
 
As far as the UK and amphibious warfare, while the LST was a derivative of a UK design, the reality is that during the 1930s the UK had a very small effort in the development of amphibious doctrine and equipment. Not none but very small and very underfunded. During the war the first UK amphibious assault was TORCH (the landings in Norway were transports/administrative landings not assaults). The grid showing the UK as a leader in this field early on in the war is really not supportable.

Torch was proceeded by Operation Ironclad:

Following many reconnaissance missions by the SAAF, the first wave of the British 29th Infantry Brigade and No. 5 Commando landed in assault craft on 5 May 1942, follow-up waves were by two brigades of the 5th Infantry Division and Royal Marines. All were carried ashore by landing craft to Courrier Bay and Ambararata Bay, just west of the major port of Diego Suarez (later known as Antsiranana), at the northern tip of Madagascar.

Operation Jubilee:

The raid took place on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. Armoured support was provided by the 14th Army Tank Regiment (The Calgary Regiment (Tank)) with 58 of the new Churchill tanks, to be delivered using the new landing craft tank (LCT).

and the even earlier but unsuccessful Operation Menace in 1940:

Also in the afternoon, an attempt was made to set Free French troops ashore on a beach at Rufisque, to the south-east of Dakar.
 
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in an equal fair fight, the Americans lose every time.

The topic isn't a knightly tournament. It's war. In war you don't seek an equal fair fight. You seek the circumstances in which ideally you destroy your enemy without losing even one of your men. If we're judging armies, then if an army manages to force its enemy to fight on unequal, unfair terms, and wins thanks to that, that's the best army.

Now look up the armor battle of Arracourt. No US air support there on the crucial days. Superior German tanks, Panthers, versus the classic and often maligned mainstay, the Sherman. Guess who won.
 

Deleted member 1487

The topic isn't a knightly tournament. It's war. In war you don't seek an equal fair fight. You seek the circumstances in which ideally you destroy your enemy without losing even one of your men. If we're judging armies, then if an army manages to force its enemy to fight on unequal, unfair terms, and wins thanks to that, that's the best army.

Now look up the armor battle of Arracourt. No US air support there on the crucial days. Superior German tanks, Panthers, versus the classic and often maligned mainstay, the Sherman. Guess who won.
Arracourt is a bad example, because there was actually air support, plus the Germans were basically untrained armor units without recon elements, so they walked into multiple ambushes thanks to fog, lack of recon elements, lack of experience and training, etc.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt
The 11th Panzer Division, while battle-experienced, was badly in need of tanks, having lost most of its complement in earlier fighting; conversely, the two panzer brigades had the newest Panther tanks and fresh crews, but had virtually no battle experience, and insufficient training. The need to quickly respond to the sudden advance of the 4th Armored, as well as inadequate fuel supplies, had left the crews with shortened training schedules and little proficiency in tactical maneuvering in large-scale, combined arms operations.[4]

In close air support U.S. forces enjoyed an overwhelming advantage. Earlier sorties by U.S. fighter bombers caused some German panzer units to fail to arrive in time for the battle, as they were preemptively damaged or destroyed in separate encounters with other Allied forces.[6]

However, while shielding the German advance from air observation and attack, the weather also handicapped the 5th Panzer Army. Poor visibility combined with a lack of motorized scouting and reconnaissance units in the new "Panzer Army" formations prevented German armored forces from properly coordinating their attack, which soon degenerated into a disjointed series of intermittent thrusts.[3]

Poor tactical deployment of the German tanks soon exposed their weaker side armor to Shermans which flanked and knocked out 11 panzers using the fog as cover. As 5th Panzer Army was not equipped with integral scouting units, the Germans were forced to advance blindly against the Americans, whose positions were shrouded in thick morning fog.[3]

The fog that had allowed German forces tactical surprise and protection from U.S. air attack also negated the superior range of their tank guns.[3]

On 21 September, with skies clearing, P-47 Thunderbolts of the 405th Fighter Group, 84th Fighter Wing of the U.S. XIX Tactical Air Command were able to begin a relentless series of attacks on German ground forces.[12] In addition to missions of opportunity flown by XIX TAC fighter-bombers, CCA was able to call in tactical air strikes against German panzer concentrations.[3] The 4th Armored's close relationship with the USAAF's XIX TAC and mastery of ground-air tactical coordination was a significant factor in destroying the offensive capability of the German armored formations.[13]

By 24 September, most of the fighting had moved to Château-Salins, where a fierce attack by the 559th Volksgrenadier Division of the German First Army nearly overwhelmed 4th Armored's Combat Command B, before being routed by U.S. fighter-bombers.[3]

The Fifth Panzer Army, by now reduced to only 25 Panther tanks, pressed its attacks unsuccessfully for three more days, until clearing weather and increased American air activity forced the Germans to suspend their counter-offensive altogether and begin a retreat towards the German frontier.[3]

Saying the Panther was some sort of trump card is like saying the T-34 meant the Soviets should have won. The reality is by late 1944 the German army was largely a shell of itself and was tossing in anything it had into combat regardless of preparedness and hoping for the best, much like the Soviets in 1941.
 
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The topic isn't a knightly tournament. It's war. In war you don't seek an equal fair fight. You seek the circumstances in which ideally you destroy your enemy without losing even one of your men. If we're judging armies, then if an army manages to force its enemy to fight on unequal, unfair terms, and wins thanks to that, that's the best army.
This thread, as far as I understand it, is about discussing quality in the abstract, not about who beat whom in unequal situations.

Now look up the armor battle of Arracourt. No US air support there on the crucial days. Superior German tanks, Panthers, versus the classic and often maligned mainstay, the Sherman. Guess who won.
As often seemed to happen in the latter half of the war, the Germans for some reason kept giving new gear to fresh formations whilst handing out whatever scraps were left to the veteran units.
Arracourt was a case of (mostly) rookies who hadn't even finished basic training being thrust into a battle in difficult conditions.

Almost every time this happened, the rookie formations, whether they were French, British, Soviet, Japanese, or yes, even German, usually lost.
 
Arracourt is not typical for the reasons stated. The battle between the 12 Armoured Division and the 10 SS Panzers in the otherwise ill-fated Nordwind offensive is more instructive. Here were two veteran formations with good leadership, and in this battle the Germans prevailed. The best German units maintained an edge in small-unit leadership and tactics to the end, but even the Germans accepted that the doctrine, equipment and utilisation of artillery by the western Allies was better. This can be seen in the Battle of the Bulge for example, where the proficiency of the American artillery was augmented by the introduction of the proximity fuse. The German divisions which had a cadre of veterans still showed their tactical skill, but the clumsy attacks of less experienced SS and Volksgrenadier divisions were roughly handled.
 
My old Defense, Security, & National Intelligence professor had been a company officer in the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in the Second World War, and, it was generally understood, in the OSS as it became the CIA afterwards; he had acquired a bride during the Occupation (one of the Countesses von Kielmansegg) and thus an in-law in General Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg.* To this in-law, he attributed the following answer, when asked what the Bundeswehr would most wish for in another war: "British uniforms; American rations; Soviet weapons; ... and the Italians on the other side this time."

YMMV, but it's a judgement from a Wehrmacht staff officer turned Bundeswehr general officer, so....

_____
* He was von Fritsch's nephew.

If we're quoting?

"If I had Canadian soldiers, American technology, and British officers, I could rule the world." - Winston Churchill
 
If we're quoting?

"If I had Canadian soldiers, American technology, and British officers, I could rule the world." - Winston Churchill

How about an army circa 1942 with...

American officers for infantry and armor units for battalion level and above, British officers for companies and platoons
Italian tanks supported by a handful of Finnish BT-42 assault guns
German G5 officers (civil relations)
French command structure and flexibility
German artillery units with Japanese field pieces
Soviet logistics officers with soviet trucks, backed by some Italian logistics officers
Japanese rations

Above there could be an aerial shield composed of Finnish Myrsky fighters, He-177 bombers and Douglas Devastators
 
How about an army circa 1942 with...

American officers for infantry and armor units for battalion level and above, British officers for companies and platoons
Italian tanks supported by a handful of Finnish BT-42 assault guns
German G5 officers (civil relations)
French command structure and flexibility
German artillery units with Japanese field pieces
Soviet logistics officers with soviet trucks, backed by some Italian logistics officers
Japanese rations

Above there could be an aerial shield composed of Finnish Myrsky fighters, He-177 bombers and Douglas Devastators
As always, it depends what they're going up against :p
 
The German divisions which had a cadre of veterans still showed their tactical skill, but the clumsy attacks of less experienced SS and Volksgrenadier divisions were roughly handled.

Examples please of successful German attacks against the western allies from mid 1942 onwards.

There are relatively few, and most involve German concentration of forces at the point of attack.
 
Examples please of successful German attacks against the western allies from mid 1942 onwards.

There are relatively few, and most involve German concentration of forces at the point of attack.

The particular engagement I am referring to in Nordwind is the battle around Herrlisheim (Jan 16-19 1945). 10.SS. Panzer divsion destroyed US 43rd Tank Battalion and 17th Armored Infantry Battalion of the US 12th Armored division. The German victory was not due to concentration of forces, but because the 10 SS Panzer was a more effective unit than equivalent Allied formations.
 
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