Quote from Zaloga's book Armored Thunderbolt

I was reading" Armored Thunderbolt- the US Army Sherman in World War II" by Steven Zaloga and I came across this interesting statement that he makes about German opinions of American Infantry-

"German officers complained about the poor quality of American infantry because they would not fight without tanks, would not fight at night and depended too much on artillery fire support. German war memoirs constantly lament Allied airpower as though it was somehow unchivalrous and unfair to plague the heroic landser and panzermann with this impersonal menace. The German commanders did not comprehend that they were facing a more modern military machine that placed greater emphasis on firepower and industrial prowess to dominate the battlefield and therefore depended less on the traditional combat arms."

This sounds reasonable to me but I would be interested in hearing what others think.

 

Interesting quote, I think. In 1940 the Germans were unfair with their blitzkrieg and Air supremacy, and now faced the problem themselves. The US soldier´s morale however might not have been the best though as I believe many were not really "aware why they were fighting in Europe". That might have "upset" the Germans as they could not understand this.

Just a couple of thoughts on this...

 

There's a bit of truth to both sides. Green American divisions go to the ground quickly and dislikes close combat, something many American officers freely admitted. But the Americans really excelled in combined-arms tactics, especially using their tanks and artillery to full advantage in an assault. German infantry division is lucky to have a company of StuGs and whatever artillery they had, mostly captured Russian and French pieces. The Americans almost always bring a full tank battalion and TOT capable artillery to a fight and yes, they would fighter-bomb the hell out of anything that moved.

There is a lot to be said about the superb quality of German infantry but by 1944, they were being outmatched by an army that was just much better armed and versed in combined-arms tactics.

 

Chariot Whiskey

First let me say I agree with what Triple C wrote, but would like to expound upon it.

First of all combat is not about fighting fair, a smart army fights towards it's strengths and tries to minimize it's weaknesses. The US had excellent artillery, large quantities of it, most times, large quantities of ammunition and they could put on target, and rapidly. They also had plenty of good, quality air support. Why not use it?

As for the quality of the American Infantryman, that varied from unit to unit and the time period in question. Early on Regular Divisions tended to be better than National Guard Divisions. It wasn't the quality of the personnel it was the quality of the officer and NCO leadership. As combat experience was gained the leadership quality gap tended to close somewhat. As the war progressed the quality of the individual infantry soldier tended to drop because of US Army personnel and replacement policy and because the pool of highly qualified, motivated recruits was diminishing. Early in the war you had people that wanted to fight enlisting, or being drafted. By late war as the manpower pool shrank, smaller and smaller percentages of those entering the service wanted to be there or were highly motivated to do their duty.

Military History Online - US Army in World War II

"Unfortunately, the poor initial planning Army-wide was exacerbated by the general replacement policy in effect. Simply put, once a soldier was separated from his unit by wounds or illness, there was little chance of him returning to that unit. Instead, he was sent to a replacement depot, a repple-depple in Army slang. From the depot he would then be reassigned as needed to whatever unit had a shortfall in his particular MOS (military occupation specialty). This meant that a soldier could spend months of training, forming close bonds with comrades, the basis for unit cohesion, and then in his first day of combat could be separated from them, never to fight with them again. This system of individual replacement caused many soldiers to disguise illness and wounds so they could stay with their units. Other soldiers, in hospital, went AWOL (absent-without-leave) so as to rejoin their units. It wasn't until 1945 that the individual replacement system was modified to allow a majority of sick and wounded soldiers to rejoin their unit after recovering.

At the other end of the replacement pipeline, replacements were trained by replacement centers (or stripped from divisions), shipped as anonymous replacement increments to a theater of war, and held at the repple-depple until needed by units. These men were military orphans with little esprit de corps and no cohesion. Many thought of themselves as replaceable parts in the giant army "machine," or as rounds of ammunition. The sole virtue of this system was that it allowed divisions to stay in near continuous combat for days on end, theoretically without eroding their numerical strength. As casualties left, replacements came in. However, the reality became that replacements came in, and with no combat experience and no one in their new unit looking out for them (the "I don't know him and don't want to know him, he's only gonna be a casualty" syndrome), they quickly became casualties.

Worse, the planning factors for replacements by branch were badly out of kilter. The original War Department replacement-planning factor for infantry was 64.3 percent of total casualties. Following continued pleas from Europe the factor was raised to 70.3 percent in April 1944. However, the fighting in Normandy soon showed that this was still much too low. By mid July the ETO estimate was that 90 percent of total casualties occurred in the infantry. Infantry divisions saw 100 percent losses in rifle strength in the two months after D-Day. The lack of Infantry replacements soon approached near disastrous proportions. For example, on 8 December 1944 the Third Army was short 11,000 infantrymen. This was only about four percent of the Third Army's total strength, but was the equivalent of fifty-five rifle companies - the rifle strength of two infantry divisions - or close to fifteen percent of the infantry combat power of the Third Army.

The Infantry further suffered from the Army's personnel policy, which allocated the most highly qualified and intelligent people to specialist arms (Airborne, Ranger, Artillery, Armor, and Engineers). The Infantry was filled with men who had scored lowest on the AGCT (the Army General Classification Test) - an intelligence and aptitude test and those who had not held a skilled job in civilian life. The elimination of the ASTP (the Army Specialized Training program), which allowed selected enlisted men to gain a college education while deferring induction into the Army and the reduction of specialized troop units (especially antiaircraft) had remedied matters to some degree by the end of 1944. Nevertheless, mediocre motivation and low intelligence continued to plague the Infantry.

Intense combat and heavy losses in 1943 meant that in 1944 many divisions still in the United States were stripped of trained men to build up the replacement pool. Some divisions were stripped of available manpower a second time later in 1944. This in turn affected the training cycle of the divisions, causing some to deploy late and requiring most to have some problems with their initial combat deployment. Four armor, one airborne, and seventeen infantry divisions (nearly one-quarter of the total formed) were eventually subject to large scale stripping of men (nearly all of the other divisions in training also had smaller numbers of personnel stripped out prior to deployment). Fourteen of the seventeen infantry divisions were stripped twice. The aggregate affect was tremendous the 69th Infantry Division lost 1,336 officers and 22,235 men, nearly enough personnel to form two divisions."

Even with all these problems they still managed to fight and more often than not win against their German opponents.

You also have to take into account what unit the German Officer, making the statement, was with. If it was an elite German Unit and a mediocre US unit they were fighting, sure that's the opinion they would have. Most German units were not however, elite. If one of these average or mediocre German units, ran up against one of the better US units, I am sure the German Officers perspective would be different.
It's all about perspective. I remember when I was in the Marine Corps the first time I ever had interaction with a US Army unit, was during a big training exercise against the 101st Airborne. I couldn't believe that they were one of the better US Army units. After the first time I served alongside a unit from one of our allies I realized how good the 101st had been compared to these guys. The first time I served around Israelis was in Beruit. I expected them to be supermen based upon their reputation, I found them to be mediocre (and it was one of their better units), we could have thrashed them easily any day of the week. It's just that their Arab opponents weren't really that good. I had two more chances to serve with them when I was in the Army and my opinion hasn't changed but, I came to appreciate how good our US Army units were in relation. When I was serving in an Army Special Forces unit I was of the opinion that we were the best in the world at what we did, I served around a bunch of Rangers and was really impressed with their professionalism, discipline and motivation. Then I served around some Australian SAS and found out what really hard men were like. As good as we were IMHO they were better. So you see there is no easy answer to your question, generalities are invariably wrong and every force has a wide range of quality from poor to outstanding.

 

Great post, really informative. I do find some American divisions that under-performed in several occasions, but they do tend to improve over time. From what I understand, the Americans in ETO during WWII did not train for assault against fixed fortifications. Tactics and procedures were improvised on the fly through (deadly, deadly!) trial and error. This presumably impressed on the Germans who were manning the West Wall with "foot and stomach" divisions.

Another issue to keep in mind, as Price pointed out, the US Amry leadership was not very experienced either. In 1939 , America's army was smaller than Poland's. Most of those 90 divisions they raised were created rapidly fielded when they were needed, without the benefit of instutional knowledge on how to fight. Divisions raised during late war like 84th, 95th and 99th all performed very well in combat indicating inadequate training at the beginning.

Seasoned divisions were much tougher and on occassion surprised the Germans.

 

Well the Germans had probably the best infantry in the world at the point of the war. Those who survived that long (everyone was in for the duration, remember - no year-long tours as in Vietnam) tended to get very good. They also passed on their hard-won experiences to the new troops, giving them a better opportunity to survive for a while in battle. After D-Day the Germans had a few revolutionary weapons the allies could not match (Tiger 1 and 2 tanks, mp-44 sturmgewehr assault rifle, ME -262 fighter). But the luftwaffe was a broken shell by 1944, and never regained air superiority, even temporarily, after D-day.

The German commanders may have grumbled (sour grapes, you know) but the fact is war is war. World war 2 was total war and a struggle for the survival and liberation of many nations, chivalry may have played a part as to methods of fighting (to initiate the use of poison gas, or not, to treat prisoners according to the Geneva conventions, or not) but there was absolutely no place for chivalry in the grand strategy. At Yalta Stalin wanted Germany dismembered and broken up into several areas each ruled by the allies, the Germans would be subjects not citizens. Roosevelt and Churchill refused this idea but the point is that the allies were willing to use any means to defeat Germany, even the atomic bomb: the fact is that Germany was FIRST on the atomic bomb target list. Only delays in its production, and Germany's surrender in april, prevented the a-bomb from being dropped on Germany rather then Japan.

 

Often times I don't think the average Landser in 1944 was better than his American counter part. True, American units were unblooded and had no tactical experience. But they had properly trained infantry whereas for the German army, a lot of the German soldiers were barely trained emergency replacements and draftees from Hitler Jungend, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. I wager most of the Volksgrenadiers couldn't out shoot a GI if he tried to by the Battle of the Bulge.Their "veteran" divisions had been wiped out multiple times. I think what really mattered was the quality of German officers at all levels and the surviving NCOs.

The German ability to impart combat effectiveness to green divisions by transplanting a skeleton HQ was truly amazing.

 

I saw an analysis some time ago which looked at the officer quality between the RA and the NG. I forget all that went into it but the general conclusion was that the prewar NG officers actually tended to be a bit better than the RA officers. The latter may have been weeded out a bit faster though once the war started.

 

Come to think about it, some of the best units were National Guards. 29th, 30th and 45th comes to mind.

 

The German method of creating Kampfgruppen i.e. instantly creating battle groups incl infantry,tanks men and flak etc seems to have been one huge factor where the German troops were often getting if not victory over the enemy then often getting the front balanced.

 

German view:

On Helmut Ritgen´s " Memoirs of a panzer Lehr officer":

" The British allowed junior commanders too little iniative.Co-operation of the all-arms-team left much to be desired.The shortage of armored transports and combat vehicles for the infantry and artillery observers led to heavy losses from enemy fire and very high casualties during attacks.The British tanks were either tied to the tempo of the infantry attacking on foot, or were separated from them.They suffered corresponding losses and, in spite of bravery of their crews, achieved relatively minor successes in relation to their number."

" The British seldom succeeded in detecting the positions of German panzers prior to attack. Single outpost panzers were often sufficient in alerting the companies located under cover further to the rear.Thus, time for vehicle maintenance and crew rest was available."

"Electronic intelligence often revealed British intentions and respective warnings could be issued within a short period of time.Thus surprise and losses could be avoided."

"..wherever they were able to stand for any time was due only to British fighting methods and equipment."


According to Helmut Ritgen the US had very well co-ordinated their tank-artillery-planes-soldiers , but they still did not how to fight in the Bocage. As well he claims that by the middle of July at St.Lo, the Panzer Lehr was totally wasted, and the US could have driven through them, but the US tactics were " from 1918 " and the idea was to wear them all down.The US troops did not even try to push through, just trying to cause as many casualties as possible. So it took another week before "Cobra" was started

 

Excellent post!

US First Army's "Lessons Learned" transcribed a captured German officer's interrogation and he said that there were many times his unit was hammered so hard by the American artillery that he thought, "This is it. If their infantry push we're done for". Oddly the American infantry did not show up and so they reinforced his piece of the front in time to beat off the untimely infantry assaults...

 

There is a common tendency to equate the divisions of 1944 which had the NG numbers with the NG units of 1940. The connection is tenneous. Some perssonell of 1940 did remain in those, a few more in those which were not sent overseas until 1944. over the long haul the NG divisions were throughlly 'turned over in personnel by the end of 1942.

Most were mobilized in the 1940 under the emergency war powers acts made law after the collapse of France in 1940. The remaining NG units went into Federal service in early 1941. Almost imeadatly there was a constant turnover in personnel. Medically unfit men were routinely being discharged as well as those who developed family hardships. As training programs got underway a new stream of departures begain as the incompetent were weeded out. Between mid 1940 & early 1942 approximatly 60% of the general officers were discharged from service due to health, age, or abillity. This included a large number of NG generals. Perhaps 80% of those departed. Age problems extended down into the lower ranks. A IG inspector responsible for a a survey of personell files found 22% of the NG Lieutenants were over 40. The few of those who were still fit for service were soon promoted or converted to specialty NCO/warrant officer ranks & the majority discharged.

As the training hit full stride in 1941 a large number of officers and NCOs were removed from their units & sent to specialty schools. Part were returned to their original regiment or division, but just as many were sent to newly formed divisions as cadre. That continued through the war. Every regiment was subjected to drafts of officers and NCOs to be sent onto new units. Their replacements were usually much less senior in time in service and experience, and usually a rank lower, although there were exceptions.

The reorganization from the 1920s 'Square' division organization to the new triangular organization, and the new 1942 reorganization further turned over the old NG personnel.

The astute division commanders found it to their advantage to remove several aspects of the old NG divisions. Bradley was appointed commander of the 28th Div in June 1942. Its NG commander had departed in November 1941 when he won a by election for the Pennsylvania govenorship. The Regular Army officer who replaced him was unable to cope with the divs problems & was removed after six months. Bradleys first important action was to throughly rotate all NCOs between company and battalions to break up the the old boy network. Then he pointedly court martialed several NCOs for insubordination and discinplinary offences. A second problem Bradley noted was the wholesale departure of the top quality NCOs for commissioning as officers. A significant portion of the NG NCOs had enough college or university education to qualify for OCS. During 1941 that had stripped the NG divisions of their potientially best NCOs. A remedial NCO training program was required for the NG divisions to correct this.

While the NG divisions of early 1944 still retained a fair number of the old hands, enough to retain their regional character, at least half their men were volunteers, Regular Army & Army reserve officers, or draftees. They had also been through several training cycles since their mobilization in 1940/41.

 

It's safe to say most German officers did comprehend what they were facing, but what were they to do about it? All there was to be done was to obey orders and fight however was possible. The Fuerhrer did not query his field grade officers before making another senseless and futile tactical decision, and it was hitler alone, from 1942 on, who controlled the entire Germany military, even down to the smallest detail.

A german soldier who fought in the Battle of the Bulge was quoted: "We came across some American casualties. their boots and uniforms were brand new, and their packs and pockets were stuffed with food, chocolates and cigarettes. I looked at my own uniform: in tatters, and my own boots: worn threadbare with holes in the soles. My own pack was empty of food except for a few crumbs. I realized then we would lose the war."

The Germans man for man, outfought almost every other unit they came up against in world war 2. Careful postwar analysis showed that one german soldier was as effective as 2 or 3 allied soldiers, and 5 Russians. this was largely due to superior leadership by the Germans, and this is why the war took so long to end - the Germans had studied their WW1 experience, planned carefully and tended not to repeat mistakes. inititiative by junior officers was not only encouraged, it was required.

Also German officers, especially junior officers, were expected to lead from up front. Historically the most effective armies in history, from the ancient Romans to today, have all insisted on this practice - which is very hard on junior officers, who take high casualties - but the only way for an individual unit to be really effective. No commander can get a clear idea of what his unit is facing from a tent 10 miles behind the lines - a common allied practice.

German leaders were also more carefully trained, for a longer time, then leaders in other armies. As Dunnigan says in How to Make war: "...German NCO's (seargeants) received longer training - 6 months - than American junior officers (the famous '90 day wonders'".
The Germans had learned that it was better to have a smaller pool of very competent leaders, than many more mediocre ones.

And fundamentally, historic German cultural qualities of thoroughness, stoicism, loyalty, ingenuity, and devotion to the Fatherland already lent themselves admirably to war.