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

I read a half-joking description of the major combatant's of the ETO (western only) once as follows:

"If you encounter a unit you can't identify, fire one round over their heads so it won't hit anyone.
"If the response is a fusillade of rapid, precise rifle fire, they're British.
"If the response is a s**tstorm of machine-gun fire, they're German.
"If they throw down their arms and surrender, they're Italian.
"And if nothing happens for five minutes and then your position is obliterated by support artillery or an airstrike, they're American."
 
We're comparing quality, we're not discussing the actual situation on the ground that occurred in WW2 which was the product of strategic and material factors. When you compare the quality of one particular versus another, you don't make the argument "Well even if X is better than Y, two Ys are better than X". The discussion about quality looks at who is the most capable in ideal conditions. If you matched up a German Field Army versus an American, the German wins, the same at divisional to platoon level.

Sigh. Look at the example I proposed. On one given day at Arracourt, the Germans attacked in the fog, which negated air support, which is something that the proponents of this hypothetical, "ideal" German "quality" superiority always complain about for 1944 (while conveniently forgetting who had air support over battlefields in 1939, or 1940, or 1941). Guess what? Another poster says it's no good, because on the previous day and on the next day there was no fog, thus there were US fighter bombers, thus the fight was unfair for the poor Germans. Glossing over the fact that the day the German Panzerbrigade was beaten was that foggy day.

By this sort of reasoning, naturally, no actual, actually happened fight will ever satisfy everybody. Somebody will come up with some unevening factor.

Thus we're left with the so-called "ideal" comparisons, essentially not based on actual historical performance - which is a way of nobilitating one's own preconceptions and prejudices. Which, in the majority of cases, are in favor of the mythical abilities of the German army.
 
I read a half-joking description of the major combatant's of the ETO (western only) once as follows:

"If you encounter a unit you can't identify, fire one round over their heads so it won't hit anyone.
"If the response is a fusillade of rapid, precise rifle fire, they're British.

The British Infantrymans usual load of rifle ammo was only 50 rounds but he would carry 2 to 4 Bren magazines depending on what other weaponry he was carrying. The underlined part should be a fusillade of rapid, precise BREN gun fire

The BREN Gun was the sections main weapon and the riflemen were ammo carriers and protectors. A (1944 period) 10 man Rifle section would have 400 rounds in 5 round clips for the rifles and 1,000 rounds in 25 BREN gun magazines
http://www.karkeeweb.com/patterns/1937/pics/equipment_carriers/basic_pouches/html/1944_viii.html
 
In terms of the national resource base and available weapons and gear, the results achieved by the Finnish military are in a league of their own. We can cite particular examples - the "motti" battles of the Winter War, the general success of the Air Force and AA defence against the Soviet air campaign, the showing of Nenonen's artillery arm, the radio/signals intelligence under Hallamaa, the ability of the Navy and coastal artillery to protect the coasts and Finnish foreign trade... There's no branch of the Finnish military that performed badly in terms of resources and expectations, all results range from good to excellent.

That said - Finland had a lot of luck during the war, the kind of luck that was unavailable to many other nations, especially the smaller ones between Germany and USSR. While the Finnish soldiers (and Lottas) did what they could, there was a lot that happened due to happy contingency to save Finland in WWII. Even with essentially as good a military showing in the war, it would not have taken many butterflies to see Finland get occupied by Soviet troops in the end of it all and becoming a part of the Communist bloc for decades.

Good points there. Obviously the army fought on its "own" ground - rather different from most battlefield terrains but still with amazing efficiency and discipline. A very vicious army and resistance if there ever was one - and one that persuaded even victorious Stalin to refrain from trying a post-war occupation (as Paasikivi offered him a reasonable deal - though if he thought he could easily take it all, Paasikivi could have offered him whatever and it wouldn't have mattered). But, yes, luck was also involved - we were not standing between Berlin and the Red Army and there were not many times when Stalin wasn't much more preoccupied about issues somewhere else). Still, even with luck it needed very strong political structures and an exceedingly effective army to take advantage of that luck.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Max Hastings in his D-Day book remarks that the individual German units under NCO were far more flexible and aggressive than the Allied counterparts. Ironically the delegation of responsibility was in part due to one A.Hitler's experience of war at the bottom of the hierarchy. Individually they could be brilliant, but it's team work that counts.

In all other areas, strategy, technology, logistics and training the Western Allies were far superior and the Soviets were marginally superior due to a lesser educated fighting force and a hierarchic command that did not worry about great losses.

At the beginning of the War maybe the German kill ratio was 2:1 but I am guessing by the end that had reversed into something like 5:1 Allied Advantage
 

hipper

Banned
I think the most impressive performance by an army in WW2 was the Australian, the defence of Tobruk in march 1941 was I think the first strategic victory against a german army (it prevented an invasion of Egypt in 1941) the Australians were freshly trained troops in their first action supported in a superlative feat of combined arms by British cruiser tanks and towed artillery. (Not a phrase you often hear)

The Australians were also responsible for the first defeat of the Japanese at Milne bay which included some of the same troops present at Tobruk.

To be clear this was one Australian division and a 1/2 regiment of tanks, against two german and one Italian Division. Without the benifit of air support. The Germans had abundant air suppport. Ironically it was the Italian forces who made the most headway against the Australians..


cheers Hipper.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
At the beginning of the War maybe the German kill ratio was 2:1 but I am guessing by the end that had reversed into something like 5:1 Allied Advantage

Its really situational. The Germans tended to get themselves into untenable positions late in the war due to stupid no retreat orders. This resulted in Armies or entire army groups being cut off and surrendering, collapsing, or being annihilated in place, which led to relatively high losses. Though this is more due to strategic missteps than lack of cooperation or lack of skill. Generally if a German formation disintegrated, the whole front was pretty fucked, and anyone else would have collapsed just as fast, or faster in the same circumstances.

However, individual German units tended to fight like absolute hell, inflicting at least proportional casualties up until the point of collapsing. Hell, against the Soviets at Kursk, they managed to inflict four times their own losses while attacking.

The Germans were no pushovers.
 
For overall quality? The Germans, beyond question, from Day 1 to VE Day: 100 Germans, even in May 1945, were rougly equal to 110 or 120 U.S. or British troops, based on operations research analysis of effectiveness.
 
For overall quality? The Germans, beyond question, from Day 1 to VE Day: 100 Germans, even in May 1945, were rougly equal to 110 or 120 U.S. or British troops, based on operations research analysis of effectiveness.

Sources please, as the casualty ratios for May 1945 are somewhat one-sided.
 
Sources please, as the casualty ratios for May 1945 are somewhat one-sided.

I've seen that before, it's from a post-war US Army study IIRC. The main reason was the Germans had better unit integrity because they rotated whole units in and out of action while US sent green troops into veteran units at the front as individual replacement. It's not about individual ability but how they worked as a team.
 
Van Creefeld's book mentioned in an earlier post has a lot of data on this.

It's on my bookshelf;).

He takes his information from Dupuy's Numbers, Predictions and War (also on my bookshelf). The US Army did a detailed review of Dupuy's numbers in the mid 80s and found 'anomalous data', and there is not enough information in Dupuy's published works to independently recreate his results.

You can certainly make a strong qualitative case for German Army out-performance, but the evidence is not there for claiming a specific quantitative superiority.
 

Redbeard

Banned
It's on my bookshelf;).

He takes his information from Dupuy's Numbers, Predictions and War (also on my bookshelf). The US Army did a detailed review of Dupuy's numbers in the mid 80s and found 'anomalous data', and there is not enough information in Dupuy's published works to independently recreate his results.

You can certainly make a strong qualitative case for German Army out-performance, but the evidence is not there for claiming a specific quantitative superiority.

Basically agree, expressing such things in numbers is extremely tricky. Often the real process behind is: "Tell me what result you want and I will make a calculation that fits!" I have a MA in Political Science, so that is basically what my trade is :)

I still think van Creefeld has some very interesting and valid points about fighting power and the difference in how the US and German system worked. The irony is however that one of his strongest critiques of the US system is how it tries to put everything in numbers - and that is what he does himself. Put perhaps he is just being realistic in how you should address the American market ;)
 

Deleted member 1487

I've seen that before, it's from a post-war US Army study IIRC. The main reason was the Germans had better unit integrity because they rotated whole units in and out of action while US sent green troops into veteran units at the front as individual replacement. It's not about individual ability but how they worked as a team.
In theory that was how the system was supposed to work. It did not operate like that given the level of casualties the Wehrmacht faced. More often than not the training units that were supposed to be used to rotate out veterans and integrate new recruits and train them just became another reserve tossed into battle long before they had developed the skills they were supposed to. It was a great idea, perhaps the best of a bad series of options in terms of working in replacements, but the realities of high intensity combat and losses meant it could not function as designed. Instead something like the rotation of divisions to rebuild from the ground up ended up being worked out, which was taking this system to it's logical conclusion; rather than applying it at the regimental/battalion level it instead was used for entire divisions. Ultimately that ended up being incredibly wasteful of manpower, as vets, rather than getting supported in the field, fought until the divisions was wrecked and only then given the replacements it needed. Also due to Hitler's insistence on building new divisions from the moment Barbarossa started rather than keeping veteran existing divisions up to strength, wasted huge potential on creating a bunch of redundant divisions and giving them the latest equipment to compensate for lack of experience, rather than keeping veteran units with experience up to strength with the latest equipment and new recruits, who could learn from vets and survive longer. So instead you ended up with a lot of rear area guys without infantry training or equipment doing the job of infantry due to the shortage of infantry caused by new manpower being used to make new divisions and duplicate rear area personnel jobs, when such jobs were already filled in divisions that lacked infantry. So you ended up with a bunch of divisions without sufficient infantry that then had to rely on supply personnel without infantry to supply to become infantry, a job for which they were not trained. In practice the German system developed a ton of flaws to satisfy Hitler's demands at the organizational level
 
Sources please, as the casualty ratios for May 1945 are somewhat one-sided.
That's what Dupuy concluded in Numbers, Predictions, & War: operational effectiveness was greater to the end. (Did he say "May '45"? I don't recall; maybe not.)
 
That's what Dupuy concluded in Numbers, Predictions, & War: operational effectiveness was greater to the end. (Did he say "May '45"? I don't recall; maybe not.)

He certainly didn't say 1945. The reason he focussed on Italy 1943 was that there were reasonable German records available. German Army records from mid 1944 onwards are pretty poor as record-keeping suffers when your armies are being annihilated. Dupuy also didn't have access to Soviet records, so his conclusions about the Eastern Front are doubtful - he was relying on German estimates of Soviet strength and casualties.

There are a lot of issues with his approach in 1943 Italy, but even a summary of them would be a massive post.
 
Russian proverb says that "a company of experienced soldiers is worth more than a battalion of inexperienced".
Germans gained first experience in Spain and then Belgium, Netherlands, France, North Africa, Balkans ... Allies did not have experienced combat units, and this is one of the reasons.
P.S. Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and I hope i will enjoy spending time with you
 
There are a lot of factors in unit effectiveness, which is what you should look at rather than individual effectiveness (ie: is a soldier of X army better than a soldier of Y army). An example of this is in 1942 you could say "Japanese naval aviators are much better than American naval aviators", in 1944 you'd draw the opposite conclusion. Given the difference in the levels of training and experience of these two groups in 1942 and 1944 neither comparison is useful.

You start with the training of the soldier, and add experience both personal and in contact with veterans. Add in the quality of leadership in the NCO and officer corps at all levels. Throw in quality of equipment (and adequacy of things like food and ammunition). Finally add a very important element - morale, as Napoleon noted this (in his view) is 3x as important as the "physical". Are the troops going from defeat to defeat or are they marching from success to success? WHY are they fighting? Are the fighting "to make the world safe for democracy", fighting for revenge, fighting to prevent the perceived total destruction of their country and perhaps their families, are they personally convinced that their death in battle results in a guarantee of a heroic/glorious afterlife? All of these are important and none of them are fixed, take someone from time A and country X and someone from time B and time Y and train and equip them the same and put them in the same situation they will probably perform the same, put them in different wars and you may see a significant disparity in performance.

IMHO it makes more sense to look at systems. Which systems produced the best results, and which were most efficient in doing so with the resources they had at hand.
 
No training can replace the experience of a real battle. I agree that the morale is a very important factor, but ultimately it all comes down to "stay alive and kill the enemies". Take an example of Germany's attack on the USSR. Each Red Army soldier defended his family, his city and his country, and the Germans attacked another state. Morale is on the side of the Red Army but Germans had success because of combat experience.
In the initial fighting Germans had 1.5 times lower consumption of ammunition, mines, grenades and they were victorious because they worked smartly (thanks to experience).
 
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