Superior troops or bad stats?

You often hear the statement that German troops in WW2 were the best, and that statement is often backed up by the statistic that on average they inflicted 50% greater casualties on their opponants.

I never really thought to question this until yesterday, when I was reading a book on the Normandy Campaign and it stated that in the first 8 months the German Army (including SS) lost 1,500,000 men either dead or capured. Which is roughly the same figure as the total military casualties for the British and Americans combined, for all services for the entire war on all fronts.

Which got me thinking. How were the '50% greater' stats worked out? Is it simply a case of 'total Allied ETO casualties / total German casualties'? I would hope not, because I'm really very sure that the ratio would vary hugely depending on which year and which front you were looking at.

Another statistic that would be very interesting to see is that of POW's - from 1944 onwards roughly 2 Germans were surrendering to the Western Allies for every German killed (in the East that figure was the other way round) which does not say a great deal for the fighting quality of the Germans...

There is a whole feast of other 'playing with stats' points to be made here, but I will lay off, in the hope that what I have said will stimulate some discussion and maybe the answers to my questions will be given.

One caveat - no discussing 'unit type x vs unit type y'

 

Russia

The ruskies blow all the figures away as they suffered really huge losses against the germans as to them the life of an individual meant little.

I bet if you seperated all the eastern front figures out the losses would be more realistic.

FNG

 

The Japanese were suburb soldiers that rarely surrendered as we all know, but no one gives them enough credit.

 

Hmmm... suprisingly little debate so far. I thought this would be more controversial.

Ok, so, I will now go out on a limb and state my belief that America had a favourable loss ratio against Germany. Think about it - by the time America became seriously involved in the ground war (1943) they were amply & adequately equipped and supported, had learnt the lessons of the last 4 years of war, and were facing an enemy who were essentially always retreating, without adequate support, of increasingly patchy quality, and without any real reserves. Plus, in general* during the NW European Campaign the bulk of the better German units were engaged in a grinding match with the British, while the Americans made the breakout.

* Note 'in general' - This happened during the Normandy campaign and also before the Rhine Crossing (if the book I am reading at the mo is correct ), and is certainly not a coment to disparage the American Army, who certainly did their fair share of hard fighting, and did it damn well.

 

statistics are completly misleading and can not be used as a way of saying which troops were better.

Firstly the allies were essentially on the assault from late 43 onwards and the germans on the retreat. Assaulting units will generally suffer higher casulties regardless of troop quality because they are attacking a prepared defensive line, have a higher troop density and are forced to get out their fox holes into the line of fire.

furthermore the germans were prevented from withdrawing in order due to high command which meant that they suffered huge innapropiate losses like at Falaise.

FNG

 

I agree, which is one of the reasons that I started this topic. That statistic is so often trotted out to show how 'superior' the Germans were, yet their losses post D-Day were huge compared to the Allies.

 

Actually Soviet veterans of manjurian campaign (operation august storm) speak aboit "Samurais" with quite some respect ( as one put it: " they were all "smertniks"" ( smert means death) i.e. they fought to the death quite similar to soviet "ni shyagu nazad" = not one step back.

 

When including POWs, the offensive part will always have the statistical advantage. Look at Fall Weiß, Fall Gelb and especially Unternehmen Barbarossa: Germany took literally million of prisoners, while obviously having very few soldiers captured themselves. Later in the war, this changed sides.

If one wants to compare the efficiency, one should rather compare the number of cacualties compared to the total number of soldiers, and the number of POWs to the total number of cacualties. Generally speaking, despite the logistical problems which might arise, a captured enemy soldier is better than a dead one, because of the potential intelligence benefits.

 

what was the largest Japanese force to surrender during II? Also they had fewer men fighting the Americans then the Germans did.

I also dont understand how the defending army's during II usually lost more, such as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, and the 250,000 Germans/Italians that surrendered in N. Africa.

 

Because as long as the offensive is succesful, the enemy will be driven back, and a lot of the defender's force will either be killed or captured after being encircled.

 

Island defence is a nightmare as there is no line of retreat or resupply.

Basically once the island is attacked you either win or lose everyone.

FNG

 

Well, the western allies could be stretched for soldiers, especially in canada late '44, but we never had to "scrape the bottom of the barrel" like the germans did. So, we could keep sending pretty decent soldiers over there. They were also heavily supported and equipped with superior air power, which was really shown in the Falaise pocket.

When the germans were at their best they inflicted much more casulaties. The battle of france is a good example of this. Don't forget that they faced the casualty prone russians who were accustumed to losing thousands of soldiers a day.

 

Statistics are deceiving, and it really depends what you consider a 'casualty', and how you word it.

For instance, if you consider a POW to be a casualty, then yes, the Germans suffered more casualties in Normandy/Western Europe than the Allies did... If you then choose to say 'the Germans suffered 1,500,000 dead or captured, you handily omit the fact that only about ~120,000 of them were dead, and the rest of the 1,500,000 were captured... The highest estimates for German dead on the Western Front never exceed ~280,000... Why this dispartiy between dead and captured? Well, there are plenty of records of German soldiers fleeing the East to get into the allied prisons, so I imagine this is the reason... The Germans were perfectly happy to surrender to the allies, not so much to the Soviets... But in terms of dead/wounded inflicted (and not POW's captured), the Germans did most likely still have a better trade off against the allies.

Also, the statistics for the "casualty prone" Soviets are likewise decieving... Of the ten million military Soviet dead, over 4 million were POW's who had been starved/executed... Only about 6 million were 'battle-dead'... The Germans, on the other hand, were incredibly fearful of falling into Soviet captivity, I saw a documentary which said that 90% of German dead/captured were dead, compared to some incredibly low percentage against the Allies, where imprisonment was often desired... Thus you get the Wermacht fighting to the last man on the Eastern front, and surrendering in droves on the Western Front...

 

i think we have to consider that the germans after normandy faced the us anglo forces without any air support whatsoever and were unable to use the roads in daylight, this is a no small handicap ...

 

The other thing to consider is deaths etc compared to the size of your armed forces, and the size of the forces involved in an operation.

For example, if Unit X and Unit Y both suffer z casualties, but Unit X is twice the size of Unit Y...

And just to prove it can be fun - Technically, Germany suffered 100% casualties in WW2, but that is taking statistic-fiddling to a whole new level.

 

The 50% greater is for small unit actions, i.e. infantry v infantry. In casualties from air attack and artillery, due to the Allies greater amounts and more effective use of, German casualties would be greater.
So while German units would often inflict more casualties per man than the Allies, the casualties they suffered from various types of bombardment (the main cause of casualties on the battlefield, by the way) would cause their total casualties to be much greater

In the East the war was a war without pity, it was either kill or be killed.

 

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The stats in the east are somewhat misleading due to the first year .
there was millions of Russians loses , dead or prisoners until the spring mud of 42 , afterward the Russian loses steadily decrease ,
the tactics promoted loosing tanks , preferably to men , as the british did at El Alamein and in Normandy during the Epson , Goodwood pushes .. If you loose one hundred tanks , it's only ~ 300 men rather than 10,000 ( that's why tanks exist )

It was still horrendously expensive , with some wholesale butchery but during the great battle of the summer 44 ( Bagration ) the Russians inflicted on the Germans more loses that they suffered during an offensive

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Ah, thanks for the explanation.

There is still some room for statistic fiddling... After all, does it take account of which side was attacking and which was defending (in terms of Germany vs. Western Allies it will be overwhelmingly one-sided in that respect)? Does it split up theatres and dates? Does it take account of terrain? And how many small unit actions were there that had no involvement from some support mechanism, air or artillery or armour?

 

One more thing what nobody mention.By the 44,German army lost major of good expirience troops in Eastern front (imagine only Leningrad) ,so new troops was full of older mans and hitlerJungen kids,so it was not best quality troops.Allso moral droped rapidly coz Germany was pushed back and homeland was devastated by heawy bombing.Short of supplys ,food,gasoline,other material allso had they role,and western allys had good supplys and logistics,air superiority,etc.

U cant compare German army on the 39-41 and 44-45. That UK was not island,it will be crushed by germany in 2-4 weeks.

 

You can't say that the troops of 44 were worse than those of 40 due to their age and experience.

Germany employed huge numbers of divisions yet the main focus is always on their mechanized Panzer and unique SS units. However they had significant numbers of infantry units whose training, moral and equipment was no better or worse than the UK, French and Italian especially as a lot of these were of none German nationals.

Plus whilst troop quality went down when units are reinforced, the NCO's would be gaining valuble experience to pass on and bolster the green recruits.

A blooded but reinforced unit would probably be as good as a green but highly trained fresh unit, as there is a limit to what you can train without seeing real action

FNG