Max Hastings

There were also 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions plus 1st SS Leibstandarte Panzer Division in addition to regular Wehrmact panzer units facing British around Caen.

 

What annoyed me most in Armageddon was Hasting's usual adoration of everything about German military comes back with vengeance. His usual dismissal and downplay of Allied military performance too is all there to see. One would think that if Hitler did not meddle at all Germans would easily triumph over Allies while reading Armegeddon. It is as if this was a game and Allies cheated with unsportsmenlike superiorty with materials and men and air power.

 

8and 10 SS were only committed at the end of june (and,they were feeble),while on 1 june,the commander of the LSS declared that she was not einsatzbereit =not fit,not operational,at the end of the month,se still was short of some 5000 men .

 

The key problem with Hastings is that he has a taxonomy of military performance that is not based on any real understanding of the production of fighting power and the distinct operational methods developed by the various combatants. In essence it goes Germans, Americans, Canadians finally the British. He argues that because the British and Americans conducted operations that were predicated on firepower and logistics that they were in some way more inferior to the Germans. This is just not so. If anything this operational methods was more sophisticated as it required greater integration of various operational constituents to achieve the desired affect. The Germans from the First World War through the Second World War had little understanding the operational and strategic levels of war and woefully underperformed in this respect. A good work on this, albeit dealing with the German Spring Offensive of 1918, is David Zabecki's The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in the Operational Level of War (2006). Many of Zabecki's observations can be transposed on to the German Army of the Second World War.

Ross

 

Let's see here, where to start? Well, I'll go this way:

1. Tactical competence: I've read several German veterans of Normandy state that in many cases if the Americans had just got off the roads they could have easily outflanked the Germans because they didn't have enough men to form a continuous line. British vets have lamented their unimaginative tactics. It wasn't just Hastings who has said this but he opened the door. Basically, the Allies expected that high explosives would make up for any tactical deficiencies. Shells and bombs have their limitations. The US airborne troops when put into the line seem to do much better than their regular infantry counterparts. British infantry, though brave hardly did any better than regular US infantry despite taking heavy losses. Finally, the Canadians got the ball rolling using new tactics and broke through to meet the Americans around Falaise. Hastings makes the point that overall the Germans reacted faster than the Allies and had more on the ball at regimental level and below. At this time it was probably mostly true with the exceptions being a few very top notch Allied units and very poor German ones.

2. The German forward defense strategy: True, it exposed the Germans to ship gunfire and lots of tactical air. However, what choice did they have? Had they retreated into the interior, exposing themselves to being surrounded by the much more mobile allies, they would just have a much longer line to defend with the same number of troops-as another poster here pointed out. In the mid-20th century rivers were hardly the barrier that they once were. They could have been crossed easily by using artillery, airpower and airborne troops to isolate the crossing points combined with modern engineering technology.

3. As Hastings pointed out, the Allies did a fantastic job of getting ashore. After that, they stumbled. In fact, as Hastings again says, they really didn't have much of plan except to go inland. The hedgerows were identified but nothing was planned ahead of time to defeat them.

4. The British/Commonwealth eventually DID have most of the good German divisions against them. Early on, they only had the 15th PZ which at that time wasn't a horribly good division. There were some opportunities lost there too. Even though they had better terrain they had a hard time getting really going until late in the campaign the Canadians came up with their night attacks in mass that finally did the trick. The Americans had against them only part of Panzer Lehr and some paratroop units combined with some fragments of divisions. Had we realized it, there were plenty of opportunity for infiltration tactics.

Conclusion: Hasting's observation were mostly on the mark. Six months later it was a whole different story with the Americans especially using the lessons learned. The British still had problems but I think its manpower problems contributed to that.

 

You mean : early on,they only had the 21Pz ?

 

Perhaps you have never seen the Allied accounts of the way the SS men simply attacked them frontally and were mown down in large numbers?
Normandy was a very small area and there was no possibility of outflanking anyone.
I fear you also labour under the impression that the Allies had to fight exactly the same way as the Germans and it was cheating/cowardly/unimaginative of them not to waste means lives and instead pound the Germans to bits with their superior firepower.
This factor was a deliberate Allied tactic worked out in advance of the invasion and was far from something brought in at the last minute to make up for 'shortcomings'.

 

Hastings does not know enough to make such a claim. I do not regard him as a serious historian and he publishes coffe table books for those with a mild interest in the subject. He makes several factual errors in this Overlord book and it has dated badly.
It is laughable to claim Montgomery of all people fetched up on the beaches with no idea what he was going to do next.
Hastings made have had a better case if he concentrated on the deviations from the D-Day plan rather than what actually happened. The campaign would have been very different if CHASTITY had gone ahead and Bradley kept to the plan to drive east rather than into the German rear.

The hedgerow problem was not allowed for because they did not expect to fight in Normandy. Simple really.

 

What problems were those?
I know of none and would welcome any new information?

 

I don't really wish to get involved in a firefight, but I must say that having read many accounts of D-Day, I've never seen any comment that the Allies 'did not expect to fight in Normandy'. Quite the opposite, in fact..........

 

I think what kenny means is Allies expected phased withdrawals from Germans to more defensible lines in rear in towards middle of France. Once their lines were extended and their reserves or counter attack formations exhausted that would remain only logical option. Instead Germans continued to resist in Normandy even after 1st US Army broke through in Avranches and 3rd US Army under command of Patton got their rear. Constant grinding attrition battles against Commonwealth armies around Caen and 1st US Army at Cherbourg and St. Lo wasted whatever aces Germans had. Coupled with a possible US envelopment in August their counter attack attempt in Mortain and resisting in Normandy until third week of August was suicide. It is like they waited until last moments to pull their chestnuts out of fire but lost most of them or overcooked most of them. General Blummeritt chief of Staff for Kluge summarized best to Lidell Hart after the war : "We assumed British advance would be slow and US advance would be dispersed lacking of focus. It did not turn out that way. Our commanders who expected to have time to retreat a suitable defence line at rear found out that those lines were already overwhelmed by Patton."

No doubt that Allied armies seemed amateurs compared to German veterans skilled since 1939. But I would say that amateurishness was a part of military culture of Allies. You couldn't do without it. They were fresh. Free to experiment. Unlike Germans who were scrapping bottom of barrel , sending Volksturm remains and tired of a six year of constant conflict with intense brutal ground warfare. Even British who were exhausting their manpower reserves (actually they were not. Just RAF and Home Front units were soaking a lot of unnecessary manpower ) and forced to disband two divisions during European Theater of Operations between 1944-45 (59th Infantry in August , veteran 50th Infantry Division disbanded in December 1944) were constantly in search for new novel ways to decrease their losses , to speed up , to take the fight to enemy....Another British misfortune after September 1944 was they were fighting on a terrain which was suitable best for defence. Dutch-German frontier area is broken by canals , rivers and full of woods. It is a heaven for small scale unit defence against an adversary who is not accustomed to small unit initiative or taking its time , avoiding casaulties and forced to attack frontal. Besides main weight of German resources was concretrated against 21st Army Group in left flank of Allied front becasuse they were the closest proximity to Ruhr after Operation Market Garden. 1st Parachute Army , 15th German Army , 25th German Army all fighting to hold Lower Rhine region in middle of thaw winter season of 1944-45 season on a favorable ground. Actually same story in Normandy repreated all over again in larger scale during Rhine battles. British and Canadians pulled main weight of enemy and pinned it down around Netherlands /Belgium /Germany frontier on Lower Rhine region , allowing Bradley's 12th Army Group to break through on a much favorable ground to armored attack warfare around Eiffel Reigion against much weaker German resistance.

 

Look at the Phase lines.





They expected to be well inland by D+17 (June 23) and did not reach it until the start of August.

 

I think a more accurate description would be that they never expected to fight in the bocage region of Normandy. Normandy is a large department of France. The debate over phase lines has been distorted by Monty's memoirs and his enlargement that everything went according to plan. Similarly, measuring lines on a map is not a useful metric to use in order to measure military effectiveness. At the strategic level, the allies expected to reach outskirts of Paris by D+90, they reached it on D+74. By this measurement, the allies were more effective than they planned for.

It is also erroneous to measure one countries operational method by the standard of another, which many historians, both academic and popular, are guilty of doing. Hasting's is a good case of this. There were numerous factors that led the British, and the Americans, to adopt a firepower and logistically based operational method, which ultimately helped win the war. Even Soviet deep battle theory is firepower relaint. Actually, had the Soviet's developed a more effective logistics system then their advances of 1944 may have been even more spectacular. From the British perspective, morale and manpower were one of the key issues that affected this. Another was command and leadership style. Careful reading of British doctrine, be FSR or the RAF's or RN's War Manuals, in each of the services makes it clear that leadership,morale and unit cohesion, rather than doctrine, were the centre piece in the production of fighting power. When the British recognised the potential fragility of the morale of the men deployed on the ground, Montgomery and other senior commanders sought to develop an operational method that developed fighting power that achieved objectives. Even Slim's so-called manoeuvre based campaign in Burma were predicated on firepower. He just had a better touch than Monty with armour. There is some truth that at the smallest unit level the Germans were better than the British, however, this was of little use if it could not be translated into operational or strategic effectiveness. Ironically, by ignoring this lesson, NATO developed a fetishism for German defensive tactics in the hope that they could forestall any Soviet advance during the early to mid-Cold War. It would take serious study of the operational level, and recognition that not all methods are the same, in the 1980s to overcome that problem.

Ross

 

Thanks Von.

 

As far as I have read 21pz was the only panzer div that was relatively on the scene on D-Day. Hitler Jugend started trickling in shortly after, but the 21st was there as a (more or less) whole division.

 

They had a general plan, certainly. However, Monty didn't get to Caen on D-day, for quite some time actually. The hedgerows held up the Americans. The hedgerows were identified and there were hedgerows in England. Training could have been done. Perhaps then the hedgerow cutters could have been thought of earlier. Several heavy bomber missions were called in trying to break the deadlock. Certainly firepower (high explosives) are important in any major battle, thhe heavy bomber missions in a tactical role was a confession of tactical impasse. Eisenhower et al were getting really frustrated. These are the facts. The Germans shifted their Tiger and other Pz units from crisis point to crisis point, making it seem there were more of them than really were. etc. etc.

I agree that one of the problems the SS units had was trying to use East front tactics against the Western Allies. Didn't work. Savage determined attacks often resulted in Soviet units retreating. British units were a whole different story. There was the case where HJ Div. threw unsupported panthers against the British. Lost a bunch of panthers. Everybody had to learn from the situation, the Germans seemed to learn quicker. The Americans were probably good learners too.

Most American divisions weren't trained in infiltration tactics. The fact that the US airborne forces were able to gain ground faster than regular units points to a deficiency in American training of regular infantry divisions.

All this had been remarked upon by other authors besides Hastings.

It is a fact that the Allies got to Paris before they had planned. However, I put that down to Hitler's insistence on the Mortaine counter-attack and not going with a general phased withdrawal. The Germans then could have saved at least the main parts of quite few divisions, some of which were destroyed in their entirety. That counter-attack was the best thing that could have happened to the Allies.

Concluding, I feel Hastings had some good points and while he, nor any historian, are perfect I feel some of his major conclusions are correct.

 

So they battle was lost because of German mistakes rather than anything the Allies did?

The main thing that stands out in all your posts so far is the way you unquestionably accept the German view of the fighting.
By that I mean you believe the Allies should have fought in a way that the Germans had a decent chance of winning and the fact they did it another way is seen as a form of 'cheating' that resulted in an 'unfair' victory.
Clear your head and look it in in a simple winner or loser way. Who did better not who could have done it better another way.
Montgomery had a system. He knew the German strengths and he knew the German weakness. He engineered the battlefield so that he always had the advantage.This perfectly reasonable stance is now seen as bad form by many and they believe he should have carefully matched his forces to that of the Germans and had a 'fair fight' to decide who was the better General.

 

Been out of town for a few days so haven't been able to respond. However, m Kenny, you seem to have a knack for putting words in my mouth. Your comment about me believing that "...the Allies should have fought in a way that the Germans had a decent chance of winning..." takes the cake. Every armed force in time of war relies on firepower. I think it is not unfair to say that the Allies, especially the British, sometimes put an OVER-RELIANCE on firepower. While there certainly isn't anything wrong about using firepower to save friendly lives, total dependence on high explosives to defeat the enemy is a tactical error. It's worse on your troops morale when massive amounts of firepower are used and then the results aren't up to expectations. Troops then become over-cautious and the end results are more casualties than there needed to be. Allied troops needed more options in their tactical "play-book". Hasting's point that while the end result was going to be the same no matter what, we could have done it with less casualties on our side is valid and is agreed to by several other authors. Simply put, the Germans did more with less.

"So they battle was lost because of German mistakes rather than what the Allies did?" The main mistake the Germans made was somehow contriving to simultaneously fight the three largest powers on the planet. How about next time you read what I actually said and if you're not sure what I mean, ask. I'll certainly try to restate it in a better way. Enough said.

 

I strongly refute such a claim. For it to stand you will have to show that the US used a measurably inferior quantity of firepower. Please provide examples.

 

What the German did was lose because they used less. It isn't a quality that should be admired but an example of how bad they planned their actions. In short you are following the German post-war excuse making industry by accepting the only/main reason they lost was because of the numbers. This version of history is full of brilliant tactical victories where individual Tiger tanks knock out entire armoured Division but inexplicably always end up retreating.
They invade Russia in July 1941. They stopped advancing at Kursk in July 1943. They ended up surrendering in April 1945. I make that roughly 2 years each way.