German superiority, myth or fact?

TiredOldSoldier wrote:

That was part of the question, the other part is why so many people today think that everything the German's produced was superior to anything the allies produced. I really respect your opinion and would like your input on this aspect of the question.

Well said, and I agree these were some of the crucial factors. They exhibited these early on but less and less as the war progressed. Why? I think formerjughead touched on it when he posted:

You are correct, I gave a false impression by incorrectly phrasing my statement. I don't know exactly how to phrase it, perhaps you can help me.
Example: The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is a senior officer in a high placed billet. He is however junior to Centcom, which is junior to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So if the Joint Chiefs (like the German General Staff) were planning an operation and the plan adopted came from the Commander of Forces in Afghanistan, while a senior commander he is one of the junior commanders involved. Now I'm even more confused.

You are correct, Hitler personally selected the plan. He liked it's audacity, it's boldness. He was involved in the planning and pushed so that von Manstein's idea became reality.

I don't usually use Wikipedia as a source, but I think this article is a good summary of what I've read on the subject:
http://www.ww2f.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=43597

Fair enough, we can agree to disagree. I would however like to revisit this topic with you later on in the thread where we can get down to investigating specifics.

Very good point. My thoughts. The Germans tried out their theories, adapted those that didn't work and refined those that did. They incorporated their lessons into future planning, training and doctrine.
The Soviet experience was mixed. They did see the usefullness of ground support aircraft and developed the IL-2 Sturmovik as a direct result of their observations. They also created tank brigades but were not really convinced of their usefullness because of the nature of the fighting. When the tank brigades were used in the invasion of Poland it was a near disaster, lack of training and poor planning led to extremely poor performance. Here the Soviets attributed the cause to the terrain they operated in and attributed German success to the flatter terrain they encountered. They drew the wrong lessons, they broke up their tank brigades and redistributed their tanks to their infantry divisions. Then you have Stalin, the generals may have felt one way but what Stalin directed was what came into being. He also didn't properly deploy or train up his forces for fear of provoking an attack by Hitler. One of the good things he did was when he purged the military he didn't kill all those he purged. He sent them to concentration camps. When he needed them, he released them and they provided just enough leadership to allow the Soviets to hang on until they could build a proficient army.
The Italians, I really don't know. I'm really not very well read on 20th century Italian military forces. It's one of those things that I've never really been able to get into. Now Rome that's a different story, I'm fascinated with them from their founding through he Byzantine Empire.

wikingII, welcome, and good post. Your last point is something I hadn't considered. How much did overconfidence lead to Germany's downfall?

Vinny Maru, some good thoughts!

 

1) about the tanks :I amnot sure that the Germans would have done better in 1940 with Tigers instead of PzwI and PzwII
2)about the battle ships :any comparison between the Bismarck and an American battle-ship,is very difficult,because they did not fight against each other .
3) about the submarines :any comparison between German and US submarines is also difficult,because the Japanese anti-submarine warfare measures were very primitive in comparison with the Allied ones.

 

All 3 are good points, they would have done better with a few Pz IV lange to deal with the allied "heavies" (but not the overweight H model). Tigers and Panthers built to pre war quality standards would have been very nice, the actual machines would probably have suffered 50% losses to mecanical breakdowns before reaching the channel. As Matildas and B1bis were not paragons of reliability either it could lead to a final confrontation of armored divisions with no tanks !!

Back to the main topic, I think the reasons for the German successes were the following in no particular order:
- More balanced combined arms formations that could operate independently. Allied armoured units were tank heavy and had to rely on infantry and artillery support from other formations that were not trained for tank cooperation.
- A more modern approach to command and control, the German decision cycle was a lot shorter than the allied one.
- High initiative and aggressiveness, not always a good thing but against an enemy slow to react it was devastating.
- Much better air support, the difference in number of bombers does not tell the whole story, the Germans essentially trained for ground support while a lot of allied planes were "strategic bombing" units of little use over the battlefield. In addition to that the Germans had very good AA support for the time that reduced even more the effectiveness of the allied planes. The luftwaffe allowed the panzers to do without heavy artillery, something the allies didn't believe possible.
- Commanders with a better grasp of what modern forces could do and willing to take risks. Operations like the invasion of Norway, the airdrops on Holland and even the attack trough the Ardennes were risky.

IMO the downfall of the German war machine was combat fatigue, even leaving aside the big unknown (Pevarin), the German system kept most units in the line indefinetly, though it did give regular leave to individuals. This led to units becomming progressively more fatigued as the war progressed, and uncertain supplies and replacemets due to bad logistcs aggravated the issue.
Nazi ideology, that had beneffitted combat effectiveness by increasing troop self confidence during the early short campaigns, was incapable of understanding the soldier's need of R&R so in the USSR the units were often litterally fought to exaustion leaving them vulnerable to counterattacks by fresh enemy reserves, by 1943 most Infantry formations had little offensive capability and most attacks were entirely left to the motorized formations that mad up less than 25% of the army.

 

TiredOldSoldier,
I only have one thing to say about you last post.
Bravo, well done!

 

Unpreparedness and also poor doctrine. The French in particuar had a terrible military doctrine that they operated under. The British likewise had more than a few serious doctrinal and structurial problems in their military as well. Numerically, the British and French outnumbered the Germans in most areas yet, they were unable to take any advantage of this due to their poor doctrines and command skills. Thus, the Germans won in 1940.
In Russia the same is true. The Red Army was woefully unprepared in terms of training and doctrine to handle the Germans. Most units in June 1941 had horrible maintenance levels on equipment. What did run or work often lacked fuel or ammunition. Unit commanders had little idea how to coordinate their efforts. The Red Army could and did fight just as the French and British had. But, the Germans simply ran rings around them in terms of initiative and cohesiveness. To exaggerate some: The Germans fought as an army the Russians fought as a mob.

The German designs were good for a war in Europe. They were not so good for a war in Russia or North Africa or elsewhere. The US in particuar had to design vehicles to work anywhere in the world. The Russians could focus their designs to the particular conditions of Russia to the exclusion of other places.
Once the war started the German AFV effort became one of improvisation almost as much as improvisation became the norm in their entire war effort. Their first generation of Panzerjäger were simply to take some obsolete or obsolesent tank chassis and plop a big gun on top. Their next generation grew armor but still remained largely the same sort of improvised gun platform.
In actual tanks without the Czech Pz 35 and 38 the Germans would have been in desperate straights for gun tanks right up through France. Their own production was woefully inadequite. The Czech tanks added initially 3 panzer divisions (a half their number in Poland) and were still making up a third of their forces in France.
The Germans were also hit in the half track department. Their choice of those exquisitely engineered lubricated pin, roller bearing track with overlapped suspension systems were excellent but horribly expensive and time consuming to produce. The results were hardly worth the effort. As a result production remained low and later in the war much of it had to be eliminated with little to replace it due to lack of foresight.

The one area of aircraft technology that Germany clearly had a lead in was high speed trans-sonic airframe and airfoil research. They were unable to translate this into a real advantage however.
In virtually no other area did the Germans really outperform the Allies substancially, if at all. A few Allied areas of advantage: Pressurization. Although the Germans started out with more research in this area the British and US proceeded to design and build far better high altitude aircraft and ones using pressure cabins than the Germans. Airframe materials: The US in particular got alot better at building very high strength airframes using superior materials.
In terms of pilots by 1943 there is no comparison. The Germans are turning out too few and those they do qualify have a fraction of the flying time the average Allied pilot is getting in training. The USAAF also picked up from the USN deflection shooting training and was teaching it to their pilots by that time. This is another big combat advantage. Better actual tactics have also been worked out for a number of mission profiles.
The British and Russians likewise are training large numbers of pilots. For the Russians it is more often equipment than skill that is at fault for their losses.

The Germans by 1943 had no advantage whatsoever in jet engine technology. Both the US and Britain had caught up in that field entirely and were surpassing the Germans in it. By 1944 both were ahead of the Germans in that field and opening their lead.
The Germans only advantage in this was that they had already done the high speed airframe and airfoil research to give their late war jets higher top speeds. The British and US were just getting into this field in a big way and were about five years behind the Germans.
Had they had such technology, the US and British likely would have fielded transonic (say mach .9 to .95) aircraft by late 1944. Both the Meteor and P-59 suffered from lack of knowledge on the part of Allied aircraft engineers on transonic flight regiemes.

Not only do the Allies have a commanding lead in this area but, once again, without captured capacity the Germans would have been hit far worse. They relied heavily on French manufacturers for electronics equipment and on the Dutch Philips company for advanced tubes.

The Germans had three grades of tungsten carbide. Krupp's subsidiary, Hartzmetallzentrall, was the sole supplier and controlled who got how much. In the US suppliers were graded into the Buick system of 15 grades and there was a massive increase in production.

Induction heating was rare in German industry. In the US it became widespread as a heat treating means for small parts and for spot retreat of products.

Production line techniques were not widely used in Germany due to their labor union and meister system of skilled craftsmen that resisted it.

In terms of mechaized construction equipment it was non-existant in the German military.

More later....

 

Thank you for the excellent post Mr. Gardner.
For a number of years when reading up on WWII topics I've had the feeling that the German military and it's equipment really didn't possess the superiority attributed to it. If they did, many of the things that happened historically really didn't make sense, logically. However supposition and logic don't constitute proof. Many knowledgeable members of this forum, YOU in particular, have provided the specific data and information, or pointed me towards the the proper relevant sources that proved what I theorized. Thank you and the others, you're a fine group of people.
As I said in an earlier post with TiredOldSoldier, I'd like to re-visit the training issue later on.

 

i think we are forgetting something here, The StG44: world's first Assault Rifle, a decent combination of good mag capacity, decent fire rate, available selective fire mode, excellent accuracy, and the power of a KAR 98K

 

That has been discussed.

http://www.ww2f.com/small-arms-edged-weapons/42346-stg-44-best-infantrymans-rifle-war.html

It wasn't some massive revolution in technology nor a war winner.

 

Was reading over this thread, and it's a damn interesting discussion. I'm just getting back into reading and research, so bear with me- but I did think of a couple points. Maybe they'll even be worthwhile!

The above point refers to the Japanese, but could also refer to the Germans. It may be a bit of semantics, but being "more proficient than their opponents at that point in time"- isn't that essentially another way to say "superior", in military terms?

The early German victories were certainly due to a number of factors, a large one being the shortcomings of their initial opponents. But taking advantage of said shortcomings, and using them as part of a comparison- I would think that would more or less result in the German forces being "superior".

An "inherent superiority"- probably not, as that would speak to some concrete, permanent advantage. But in terms of the battles and campaigns at the time and place they were fought... seems hard to argue German superiority.

And even later in the war... while the Germans were usually on the losing end by that point, they were also often heavily outnumbered and encountering massive logistical issues. So in an overall sense, the allies were entirely superior- but if boiled down to an individual troop/equipment level, seems the picture gets a bit murkier. Some of the German formations performed some out standing defensive actions against vastly superior forces- so on an individual level, seems the defending Germans deserve a rather high regard in terms of military proficiency.


On the tanks... I would think again that this is something that has to be broken down further. If we (again) dismiss numbers and look at things on a one-to-one basis, I would make a claim to a fair bit of German superiority in terms of armor. In a sense it's a false comparison, as one does need to look at the whole picture.

But if the allies have a massive logistical advantage, and hence can field more armor and vehicles, and keep said armor and vehicles repaired, supplied, and crewed- does that necessarily mean they are technologically better?
From what I'd think... German guns, optics, and armor seemed better than most. Communication equipment- better than the Russians, equivalent to the Americans and British. Mobility... there's the general loss, with the Americans, British, and Russians having more mobile armor and vehicles- though not by too much.
Given what I recall from posting previously, I'd be VERY interested to hear what Mr. Gardner has to say about those bits.
(Hopefully I didn't miss him already making said points in this thread- had to read yesterday and re-skim today!)

Probably just rambling, but figured I'd throw some thoughts in on this one. It's an interesting discussion with some good points made all around.

Cheers!

 

All of this depens a lot on the time frame. "Guns" depends on what you are talking about. For heavy AA guns the US 5"/38 has a claim on top honors. Battleship main guns - Japan is the winner. Smaller AA guns depends a lot on when and if you are including guns and ammo or just guns. Artillery - my impression is that US and British guns were equal to or superior to the German ones. LMG - Germans have that one. HMG - "Ma Duce", etc.
Armor - at the start of the war German plate armor was pretty close to if not the top in most catagories. By late war however it was getting pretty poor although this was more a quality control problem than technology. Or is quality control a technology.

Did the Germans have the equivalnt of the "walki talki"? Does design for mass production, reliability , and repairability constitute a technology. By the end of the war the Soviets were using a lot of western Radios. British and US EW also seems to have been well ahead of the Germans for the most part (is this included in communications?).

US built 4 wheel drive trucks had a pretty large mobility advantage over most if not all others from what I've read. Tanks I'll agree pretty much a wash but some of the allied designs were simpler. Again is a design which is easier to build, more reliable, and easier to repair a superior design? Is it superior technology?

It's also a matter of where the technology is. Late in the war the allies didn't try to field too much that was really advanced. No reason too. However what was in their labs was often ahead of the Germans. On the otherhand there wasn't much distinction between the lab and the field near the end of the war for the Germans. The allies also seemed to be able to quickly exploit captured German technology. The US for instance was mass producing a copy of the V-1 about 6 months after one was captured.

 

I missed this earlier and it brings up a number of intersting questions/points.

In particular what is superior technology? I would say that the Long Lance did exipbit superior technology. However I'm not at all sure a good case can be made for it being a superior weapon in WWII. It would have been superior in it's intended purpose of disabling opposing battleships but the only time(s?) it got a good shot at this it failed. By going to 24" and such a long range it cut down the number of torpedoes that could have been carried. The long range also tended to get used with resulting P(H) that were very poor. Then there were the friendly fire problems. There was also it's tendency to detonate (at least early on) well before it reached it's target. The very source of it's technological superiority also made it a dangerouse weapon to carry as a number of Japanese cruisers discovered.
The Zero I agree doesn't seem to show any sort of technological superiority although it was a design master piece. The question is was it a superior weapon? Judgeing by the yard stick of how well it performed vs the F4F I'm not sure much of a case can be made for it.

This like many of the "best" or "superior" threads seems to be floundering somewhat due to different (and unspecified) defintions of key words and concepts.

 

CrazyD

Not rambling at all, some very thought provoking points you brought up.

That makes two of us.

More true on the eastern front than on the western front. On the western front from 1944 onward, at the tactical/operational level, I can think of few instances where the Germans exhibited more than simple parity. In the few cases where they exhibited superiority you can easily find as many other cases where the Allied forces demonstrated tactical superiority.
On the strategic level the allies did continue to produce troops of an acceptable level of skill to make good most of their losses. The Germans could not replace theirs with more than ill trained and ill equipped personnel and even those in inadequate numbers.

I don't think so. Let me explain with an example I've witnessed many times. You have two battalions in the same regiment. One is trained up for a deployment the other is at it's home base on dwell time. The two battalions have similar personnel, the same basic and advanced training, weapons, equipment, tactical doctrine, etc. The trained up battalion would clean the dwelling battalions clock if they were to go head to head. Not because one was inherently superior to the other because basically they are exactly the same. One however, has undergone a period of intense training preparing for deployment, so that units individual troops are at that time more proficient. Their units are more coordinated and their command and control is smoother. In other words they are more proficient. I don't know that one battalion is superior to the other but the trained up one will perform in a superior manner.
Brad your thoughts on this, please, I know you went through similar deployment cycles to me. Your observations would be appreciated.

 

It seems like I am picking on Price today and I assure you that is not the case; but, I have to chime in: technology can be innovative and not be superior depending on it's implementation.

Case in point the Zero had phenominal range and excellent performance; the achilles heal was the lack of self sealing fuel tanks.

Germany had the "Elefant" which on paper should have obliterated everything on the battlefield, it just couldn't rotate the turret or get out of it's own way in a hurry.

 

Excellent point re: timeframe. That's essentially what I was referring to in terms of breaking down further the info on who had the superior armor. Seems something that depends highly on what and when.

If you're talking early war- the Germans likely had inferior tanks, but much better doctrine and organization for their use.

Mid war- I'd say Germans had the best tanks, late 42-late 44. Ish.

Late war... wash. Germans might have had the best tanks one-on-one, but they could rarely field them in any manner that would result in such a favorable matchup.

And to clarify the guns comment- I was referring to the guns used on armored fighting vehicles. I should have noted that more clearly.

Excellent point. My narrow focus on tanks doesn't include other vehicles and equipment like trucks, other transport, mobile repair facilities, etc. And in those areas, I'd say the Germans often lost out, due in part to the complexity vs. ease of maintenance you note.

VERY well put on that last point. I'd agree with that just bout 100%. That again speaks to the idea I note about breaking things down further. Things like that- time, place, usage, etc.- can make it very hard to make any wide generalizations about WW2.

Also speaks to the quality of the discussion USMCPrice has spurred with his original post/idea!

Cheers!

 

Hmm, good stuff. I would mostly agree... mostly.

For one thing- by that point in the war, you're entirely correct about general parity between most of the German and US troops- but I'd say a lot of that was due to the "practice" the US had accumulated up to that point. Time and place, as lwd and I are going on about.
So at that point, yes, there was a good deal of parity- but at that time and place, I'd say said parity was due to US practice and the condition of the German forces by then. In an overall, large-scale comparison- I would think it might still tilt towards the Germans.

As far as examples- the best I can immediately come up with would be the German defence during Market Garden.
Maybe Antwerp as well?

On the semantics of "more proficient" vs. "superior", for anyone reading what is becoming a lot of quotes!

Understood, and an interesting example of semantics; the exact meaning of what each of us means by "superior" or "proficient".

However, as good an example as that is- and it's a good one- can it really be applied to a comparison of the Germans vs. other armies in WW2? Based on the widely disparate amounts and styles of training, battlefield experience, etc- don't we almost have to go with the idea of "proficiency" over "superiority", as the former might be the only really measurable metric?

Good lord, I had forgotten how interesting some of the discussions here can get!

Cheers!

 

You're tempting me to stray off topic, FJH- the Ferdinand/Elefant was one of the vehicles I studied a pretty good amount!

I would say that said vehicle would likely be NOT a good example to hold up in this discussion, as it was essentially an unintended accident, due to Porsche starting construction on hulls for Tigers before being awarded the contract for said tanks- which they weren't, and for good reason. Rather a unique circumstance!

While I can see the idea of something that looked good on paper not being good in execution- in the case of this vehicle, even the Germans saw that, despite their propensity for complex designs!

Cheers!

 

Which clarifies another point. I wasn't sure if you were talking tanks or plate steel and assumed the latter....
In part due to my interest in naval warfare I suspect. This comes up a lot in places like the Kbismarck forum.

 

Indeed- I was talking the former, just tanks. One of the things I focused a lot of study on- armored fighting vehicles.

And since that's a subject that I still know a decent amount about without brushing up or reading new material, it is one of the few areas I figured I could use to further break down the "details" of a certain aspect of the superiority discussion.

 

That is an extreme example; but, it is indemic of the German and Japanese approach, and it illustrates quite well the German propensity to deploy equipment based on "Superior technology".

70 Ton behemoth with an 88mm gun that can engage targets over 2 miles away. Impressive in concept and lacking in function, I am sure that it scared the hell out of the first crews that saw them....when in fact they were easily out manuvered and defeated.

If you find a better example of German Myth being superceeded by fact I'd like to see it.

 

Before late 1942 German superiority was doctrine and tactics, but their organization was not geared for protracted war, after 1942 the German attempted a "quality over quantity" approach as it was obvious by then they could not win a quanity race.

This gave the allies a few nasty surprises, like Tigers, Panthers, StG 44s and Me 262s though only the first had any significance beyond the tactical level. they also had some "conventional" masterpieces like the Flak 36, MG 42, Pak 40 and Fw 190 that turned out to be effective force multipliers for a while and were relatively easy to mass produce.

This, together with the fact that they kept on fighting despite the bad odds in the later part of the war contributed to the creation of the "German mith", another probable cause was the British propaganda habit of, in the case of Germany, exalting the beaten enemies, to indirectly exalt their own performance "they were really tough but we were better".

IMO the truth was a lot different, German production had considerable QA issues from 1943 onwards and the attempt to create "superior" weapons often resulted in overcomplex ones that were difficult to debug and mantain properly, it's probably true that the distance from the lab to the field was much shorter in Germany and this crated both an shock for the troops facing the "monster out of the lab" with previous generation weapons and frustration for the Germans when the monster eventualy broke down at the most inappropriate time. They also never managed to produce good successors for some critical weapons like the Ju 88, Ju 52 or Le FH 18 field artillery that were getting long in the tooth by 1943.

Motorization (actually lack of) would require a thread by itself, it probably made little sense to go for a massive truck production programme when there wasn't going to be enough fuel for them.