Wi: British blitzkrieg

Deleted member 1487

hms malta said:
What pods would be needed to have Britain come up with armoured warfare before ww2?
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What do you mean by armored warfare? The Brits were at the forefront of development in the 1920s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Mechanized_Force
https://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-S...7659&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=blitzkrieg+story
The Germans extensively studied British developments (among others).
https://www.amazon.com/Path-Blitzkr...F8&qid=1503677624&sr=1-10&keywords=blitzkrieg
The above are good starting sources on the history of armor doctrine development.
The Great Depression and lack of funding was a major problem for the British and French development of their armored forces (the latter also had serious issues with doctrine as well).
Here is a thread about the British continuing to develop their armored doctrine:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-experimental-mechanized-force-continues.171269/

The rub of course is the funding issue. The Germans were advantaged by having a regime that bankrupted the country to finance military expansion and supported their doctrinal development efforts, while the British government cut military funding severely and only belatedly started ramping it back up, but by then they had developed a rather flawed doctrine due to the lack of continued exercises, which led to tank heavy special brigades.

Unless you can find some way to keep funding up for the EMF and protect it from reactionary forces within the British military command looking for an excuse to cancel the project, I'm not sure that you can prevent the British from falling behind. Structural forces were against them maintaining their cutting edge position in armor doctrine development.
 

Deleted member 1487

Ak-84 said:
I believe it was called the 100 days.
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Not really Blitzkrieg/operational penetration. Just regular methodical battle with tanks. The German line in 1918 retreated in good order and inflicted more casualties on the Allies than they took leaving PoWs aside:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive
If anything that offensive and it's lessons were the basis of French doctrine in the interwar period, rather than German style maneuver warfare or Soviet style Deep Battle.
 

Deleted member 1487

calvinhobbesliker said:
That's a rather significant thing to leave aside...
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Sure, but at the time the German army's morale was broken by the failed 'peace offensive' so were deserting en masse at any opportunity. Despite that the German army retreated in relatively good order and inflicted over 1 million casualties in the process, which is part of the reason that the 'Stabbed in the Back Myth' was able to be created after WW1, but not after WW2. The prisoner hauls were mostly not coming from encirclement battles, just the steady attritional grind back to the border, while the significant pocket engagements were not the creation of the Allies, but rather of H-L demanding the Germans hold the bulges they had acquired in their offensives, like at Amiens, with serious results:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)
Ludendorff had largely shattered his armies in this offensives, then expected what as left to be able to hold major unfortified bulges against superior enemy numbers and firepower.

Anyway the point was that the 1918 100 days offensive was operationally not a maneuver style offensive, it was a methodical, set piece series of attrition battles that relied on heavily superior numbers and firepower to repeatedly break defensive lines, which the Germans were able to fall back on in good order, not exploit deeply into the rear and encircle German armies like at say Falaise in 1944 or the Ruhr Pocket in 1945 (which was impossible given the technology of the day); what encirclements happened happened early on and were the result of Ludendorff demanding bulges be held at all cost as he had a nervous breakdown from the failure of his last ditch offensive.

So saying that was Blitzkrieg is misunderstanding what happened in 1918 and the difference between it and maneuver warfare.
 

calvinhobbesliker

I think the stabbed in the back myth is more because the German leaders lied to their people and their people believed them because given wartime propaganda, that was the only logical possibility.
 

Deleted member 1487

calvinhobbesliker said:
I think the stabbed in the back myth is more because the German leaders lied to their people and their people believed them because given wartime propaganda, that was the only logical possibility.
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That was certainly part of it, but the reason it was able to be believed was because the German armies were able to march home intact, if somewhat decimated in the literal sense of the word, with a negotiated armistice. Elements of the public were willing to believe because of that fact, despite all the obvious nonsense in the timeline of the myth (that the Revolution in Germany came before the German army was defeated in the field for instance). Despite wartime propaganda the majority of the public understood it was a myth due to the reality of what actually happened being exposed by the Allied victory and occupation, it was just that some elements of the public wanted or needed to believe in the 'fake news' of the era.
 

spkaca

wiking said:
Why do you think that?
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Can't speak for pdf27 but the linked article contains the following telling quote:
"Mechanization would, in short, supply the speed and fire power that the foot-borne Sturmtruppen had lacked."
To which my comment is, not with 1919 technology it wouldn't. The vehicles would surely have broken down or run out of fuel before they could achieve and maintain the kind of deep penetrations that Blitzkrieg would require. Instead, the Allies would most likely have had to revert to the iterative attritional methods of 1918 rather than creating a successful example of a new operational paradigm.
I should add that if you want British blitzkrieg-style operations a better contender would be the conquest of Palestine in 1918 - using horses not tanks to achieve deep penetrations and encirclements.
 

Wolf of Badenoch

Donor
Surely the missing elements are effective command and control - which implies better radios than were available ITL and use of tactical aircraft - the Luftwaffe perhaps went too far in this direction and therefore dedicated too much of their treasure for twin engined bombers and the JU 87 to the detriment of four engined bombers?
 

Deleted member 1487

Wolf of Badenoch said:
Surely the missing elements are effective command and control - which implies better radios than were available ITL and use of tactical aircraft - the Luftwaffe perhaps went too far in this direction and therefore dedicated too much of their treasure for twin engined bombers and the JU 87 to the detriment of four engined bombers?
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Given the state of 4 engine bomber development at the time, it made no sense to deprive the twin/single engine bombers for them. The thing is in WW2 the Germans, really Udet, botched the He177 project even though the Germans built nearly 1200 of them, plus hundreds of Fw200s and dozens of Ju290s. Making the He177 dive bomb with those coupled engines was a recipe for disaster. In 1940 though a 4 engine wouldn't really have added much and would have taken away from the need for faster, smaller bombers during the operational/tactical fighting in France.
 

Deleted member 1487

spkaca said:
Can't speak for pdf27 but the linked article contains the following telling quote:
"Mechanization would, in short, supply the speed and fire power that the foot-borne Sturmtruppen had lacked."
To which my comment is, not with 1919 technology it wouldn't. The vehicles would surely have broken down or run out of fuel before they could achieve and maintain the kind of deep penetrations that Blitzkrieg would require. Instead, the Allies would most likely have had to revert to the iterative attritional methods of 1918 rather than creating a successful example of a new operational paradigm.
I should add that if you want British blitzkrieg-style operations a better contender would be the conquest of Palestine in 1918 - using horses not tanks to achieve deep penetrations and encirclements.
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Depends on their access to trucks and armored cars. Might work actually.
 

Cryhavoc101

Against a Peer or near Peer opponent Blitzkrieg does not work except in extreme situations - combined arms on the other hand will (so long as the attacking side has logistics and numbers) - this is where the British initially failed in WW2

In fact for most of the War it was the Combined arms approach that the Germans used not 'Blitzkrieg' and early war this was against opponents who did not practice it or in the part of the British initially did it badly due to the 'Trade Unions' within the army who generally worked poorly with each other.

One of the issues for the British army was its small size (the then Regular modern British army in the 30s) of only 5 Divisions and its commanders where initially older men

When we look at the German army we see younger men taking higher command earlier due to the army being completely rebuilt during the 30s and expanding rapidly (and effectively developing through necessity a more meritocratic environment and being less hidebound) allowing change to happen faster - in the US Army the First thing Marshall (who had a hell of a first week in charge -Sept 1st 1939) does is fire all but 1 of the existing US Army generals (that 1 being the much loved MacArthur) and had the foresight to promote relatively junior Commanders and this includes young Eisenhower. This was through observations of Pershing who ultimately had to fire all of his Generals during WW1 - Marshall thought he would save time!

So for this level of change to be able to happen for the British we also have to have a higher turnover of commanding officers - which is difficult in peacetime in what is essentially a very small army starved of funding and dare I say it opportunity and the expansion when it came was largely during wartime.

That being said the survival of the EAF / EMF into a Standing Brigade in the early 30s and probably a Regular Division later on would have paid dividends to the way in which the British organised themselves by the outbreak of war and would have resulted in a less 'trade unionised' army with more commanders and units having worked with each other.

I do wonder if the RAF would still view dive bombing sneeringly as 'drop altitude bombing'! Or maybe CAS and such like would be the task of Army air corps units? Anyway I digress.
 

25or6to4

Wolf of Badenoch said:
Surely the missing elements are effective command and control - which implies better radios than were available ITL and use of tactical aircraft - the Luftwaffe perhaps went too far in this direction and therefore dedicated too much of their treasure for twin engined bombers and the JU 87 to the detriment of four engined bombers?
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Yes, but also the reason Blitzkrieg was able to happen at all was because of auftragstaktik, but don't take my word for it. Here is a quote regarding v. Mellenthin

Throughout the discussions it was clear that both the German generals considered the individuality of the Gernman fighting man - his freedom to take initiative and the system which engendered these policies and attitudes - to be the key to superlative German performance.
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And if you want an example of the opposite of this and why it can really mess up a military. If we look at these quotes about the Iraqi military we get an idea of what this entails in the opposite case.

The army's loyalty to Hussein is enforced by a code that imposes death for failure, with one sadly blundering general executed by the dictator himself in the early days of the Iran-Iraq War.
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The Iraqi way of war discouraged initiative and independent thinking, especially at the tactical level... In combat, Iraqi field commanders gave their units carefully scripted battle drills consisting of rehearsed tasks that did not depend on high levels of initiative.
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Omnipresent secret police, routine officer purges, and an overly centralized command structure ensured that Iraqi senior officers followed orders but suppressed any initiative the officers might have taken. Junior officers lacked the confidence in themselves and their organizations. Fearing harsh punishment for failure, they also displayed little flexibility in the absence of orders. It was a command system that fostered personal mistrust and organizational incompetence.
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The Soviets suffered from similar problems as this during WWII. A second theme emerges also with the Soviets with the breakdown of command and control, which was a reason for defeat if we pick a battle like Dubno as a case study as you have mentioned. To a lesser extent T&OE or KTsN, the combined arms structure of the German armor units was a factor (everyone knows the story of the 88mm flak gun being used as a anti-tank gun in German armored units)

And even the Germans themselves weren't completely immune to it. Looking at the details of the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, it becomes apparent that it was a race against time just like when France was being defeated years prior, and even with the late war Germans there were still communication delays in the case of Joachim Peiper's battle group due entirely to red tape in dealing with the German high command. The race to Dunkirk of course as mentioned is also an example of the problem red tape can pose when conducting armor offensive missions.

It is also a reason why the Israelis were able to win in war

Israeli commanders at the tactical level made many decisions at critical points in the fighting that turned the tide of battle to their favor. This was possible because leaders were leading from the front and had the authority to use their own initiative to make decisions without asking for permission to do so. The Israeli decision cycle was much faster than the centralized decision cycle the Arab small-unit leaderrs had to work under.
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They were able to dictate the tempo at which the battle was fought whereas their enemies were not.
 

pdf27

spkaca said:
Can't speak for pdf27 but the linked article contains the following telling quote:
"Mechanization would, in short, supply the speed and fire power that the foot-borne Sturmtruppen had lacked."
To which my comment is, not with 1919 technology it wouldn't. The vehicles would surely have broken down or run out of fuel before they could achieve and maintain the kind of deep penetrations that Blitzkrieg would require. Instead, the Allies would most likely have had to revert to the iterative attritional methods of 1918 rather than creating a successful example of a new operational paradigm.
I should add that if you want British blitzkrieg-style operations a better contender would be the conquest of Palestine in 1918 - using horses not tanks to achieve deep penetrations and encirclements.
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Agreed - which is why I said it would be a flop. Fuller really wasn't as big a genius as he thought he was...
 

Deleted member 1487

pdf27 said:
Agreed - which is why I said it would be a flop. Fuller really wasn't as big a genius as he thought he was...
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The thing is the German army of 1919 would not be nearly as strong as the 1918 army was, so it might have a chance.
Though Fuller was always more a forward thinking theoretician than a great field officer. His theory did seriously influence the Germans for WW2.
 
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