Simple enough question- provoking discussion

What do you understand the term "Blitzkrieg" to mean?

I would define Blitzkrieg as the German assault against the Low Countries and France in 1940.

Was there any other such Blitzkrieg at any time in history?

 

Linguistically, I understand blitzkrieg as its literal translation - lightning war.

Operationally, I think you can reasonably apply it to almost any assault characterised by deeply penetrating armoured thrusts supported by all-arms coordination.

 

So by definition a Blitzkrieg is always successful?

 

Not always. It didn't work in Russia in 1941, principally because of mis-allocation of those armored thrusts. The vast size of Russia didn't help either. Blitzkrieg works better against an army without limitless room to maneuver.

 

As the question is 'what do you understand'....I'll give my own personal view ( as the term 'blitzkrieg' is widely misused even today in the media, for instance ).

To me, it characterizes the German assaults in 1939/40 ( so I'd add Poland to France and the Low Countries ). As Greenjacket says, armoured thrusts supported - in particular - by aircraft.

To me, there was also a political/propoganda/morale dimension, too. The attacks were delivered against less-well-prepared forces and required a collapse of will in order to succeed. The German forces appeared stronger than they actually were.

I agree that Barbarossa would seem to fit the bill - but to me, it's on too large a scale. And the 'Blitz' on Britain was probably the first example of media misuse of the term.

It stuck, though - my Mum still calls it the 'Blitz'......

 

Interesting question..

The Germans themselves did not call the new tactics Blitzkrieg, did they? It was the press that invented the term (?) and thus it seems it would only be usable for the operation in Poland, and the campaign in West 1940. Or Balkans 1941.

Anyone know when the German attack was called Blitzkrieg for the first time??

 

In contemporary British newspapers, I think. I could probably trawl up the name of the journalist that coined the term, but his name escapes me at the moment.

Also agree about the importance of the psychological aspect - one need only think of a Stuka's 'Jericho' siren to see how important it was to create terror in both soldiers and civilians.

 

I tend to think of blitzkrieg as a strategic concept of using surprise and/or concentrated forces to relatively rapidly collapse the military and political resistance of an enemy nation, by deep maneuvers into the unprepared rear areas. The key concept for me is the fact that the country is to be utterly defeated by these maneuvers.

As such Poland, the Low countries, France and the Balkans are of the successful variety. The Soviet Union is the main contender for halting an attempted blitzkrieg.

I would not call Bagration (for example) a blitzkrieg as such, having a more reasonable operational success in mind rather than knocking the enemy out of the war.

 

Could Market Garden be included as a Blitzkrieg?

If it had succeeded?

Does the term "Blitzkrieg Tactics" have any meaning?

 

I completely agree on both meanings, although I'd say 'deeply penetrating armoured thrusts' mustn't necessarily be armoured. I regard the Japanese expansion in Asia of 1941-1942 as the 'Eastern Blitzkrieg', and even if armoured units were well-used, they did not play the decisive rôle. For that matter, we could count the Mongolian invasions of the Middle Age as true 'lighting' thrusts and battles.

Not necessarily. The greatest of the German Blitzkriegs was very successful in the beginning (the most successful of them all, in fact) but it failed miserably in the end, probably because the strategic objectives (or the lack of) didn't completely match with the Blitzkrieg tactics.

I absolutely agree with this definition.

Maybe it could be a Blitzschlacht perhaps? But I think that if we regard 'Operation Bagration' as a battle in which Blitzkrieg tactics were the rule, then it is not only one of the greatest examples of Blitzkrieg. It is in fact the perfect proof that the Red Army not only learned everything from the German Blitzkrieg, but actually perfectioned it and overcame almost all its flaws.

In the case of Germany, its war machine was designed because and exclusively for Blitzkrieg. It was its war-winning method and the only method available. But it was intended for short wars against inferior enemies. Germany could launch a too-agressive Blitzkrieg which could defeat almost anything, but they couldn't launch successive Blitzkriegs nor mantain one for too long. In 1943, 1944 and 1945 the Red Army completely overcame this and taught the Germans what a real Blitzkrieg was.

 

If we consider the speed of advance the essence of Blitzkrieg then Germany, Russia, The US and the British forces all could do it. At Ruhr 1945 the US forces and in Jan 1945 the Red Army probably even advanced faster than the Wehrmacht ever??!

The one thing I´d like to think is that with Wehrmacht in Blitzkrieg the co-operation was with Luftwaffe wheras the Red Army had its weight on the artillery use. Correct me if you think I´m wrong but I think we´ve all read how the Russian artillery combs the ground meter by meter leaving no stone unturned...

 

Indeed, Kai, but as we discussed in another thread ("Most effective air force", I think), the Red Air Force focused entirely on achieving local but complete air supremacy over critical sectors and then turned its full strenght and numbers into ground support. The Red Air Force was almost entirely a tactical air force, not strategic. I think the achievements of the 1939-1942 Luftwaffe were overshadowed by the new Red Air Force.

 

Funnily, I looked on my shelves a book called "Blitzkrieg". By chance beside it is another book titled "Why The Germans Lose at War". I found the irony delightful

What is Blitzkrieg? We can say this is a combination of several ingredients.

Lightning speed, keeping the opponent paralysed by your speed and surprise. Keep him guessing while you run for indirect objectives while avoiding his forces proper, so you won't be delayed, leaving resistance foci for follow-up forces.

Schock & Awe. Speed, quick communications, initiative, indirect objectives, manoeuvre on a narrow front, ambiguity on objectives to keep the enemy guessing and on the wrong foot, etc.

This was the recipe that was used by the Germans in France 1940, which had the precious help of a developed road network. When the roads failed as in Russland, "Blitzkrieg war kaput". You run out of steam, you're dead in the water.

Other good examples can be the Soviet Manchurian campaign (minus the roads, but with plenty of bad terrain expertise), Patton's mad dash, the Six-Day War, the two offensives in Iraq, UN's and US' 12 years later.

 

Another trick the Red army used alot was that the troops/tanks that got through the lines just kept on going and doing as much damage as possible. More or less suicide missions but these actions drew alot of German forces to look for them and were thus quite successful in causing damage to the enemy. Don´t remeber any other army in WW2 would have used this tactics??

 

Humm, that's a bit simplistic to me. They were running for deeper objectives, to sit upon when reached.

Ideally you would have the PBI (all right, All-Arms, combinig PBI, extra artillery assets, normal and assault - SU, and support tank units - KV and JS) opening a hole and then the exploitation group (a dedicated, tank-heavy large unit which should not even take part in the actual breakthrough action) would be inserted and run like a wet cat for the deep objective. This could be some strategic objective, such as a communications node or a river crossing.

Later this was refined in the Operational Manoeuvre Group theory.

Ura!!!