British Army vs. Wehrmacht

Really? Wow, what happened to the tenacity of Brit troops? After all, there are many Germans who went from Russia to North Africa to Normandy. And I would rather have fought an entire war on the Allied side than have been a German in Russia for three months.

 

Desert Rats- 7th Armored division


The division formed one of the follow up formations in Normandy. After the invasion the 7th Armoured Division was assigned to clear routes to and then attacking Caen. Its performances in Normandy and the rest of France did not match those of its earlier campaigns. Due to these performances, which were deemed poor by higher command, Major-General Erskine was relieved of command in early August along with Brigadier Hinde, Commander, Royal Artillery Mews and over 100 other men and officers.[5] The division's lackluster performance continued after the change of command, and three months later, in November 1944, Erskine's replacement, Major-General G.L. Verney, was himself relieved after he "was unable to cure the division's bad habits well enough to satisfy Montgomery and [Lieutenant-General Miles] Dempsey."[6]
No doubt the division suffered from collective and cumulative battle fatigue. As Verney put it, with some prescience: "There is no doubt that familiarity with war does not make one more courageous. One becomes cunning, and from cunning to cowardice is but a short step."[7]




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Armoured_Division_(United_Kingdom)#Northern_Europe

 

It's a funny thing I think, appraising combat performance on the battlefield. Take the Italians in North Africa. Some would say unremarkable, but then you go do your research and you find individually they fought with great courage and elan, as quoted.
But then you consider the materiel available and quickly realise that it doesn't matter what county is running around with the crappy equipment the Italians had to face down what the British had (albeit even they weren't equipped all too well either), and you realise, "well those tanks just don't stand up to that standard field gun, and those ancient field guns would be lucky to penetrate a tin plate let alone a British tank."
You start to see just a bunch of men doing the best they can with what they've got.

The German respect for Australian troops just has to be from the two repelled attacks on Tobruk in 1941. Well it's not like they had a lot of choice with the sea to their backs and all, and hell they were lucky with those caves. But anyway they were quickly relieved by Indian troops under a British flag, who garrisoned the place so the Aussies could be moved elsewhere.

Once again I determinedly believe Rommel or any German report citing Australian tenacity was merely making a note of the uniforms they saw. Nobody really cares where someone is from when the bullets start flying, and anyone will surprise or sadden you.

 

it wasnt so much lack of tenacity. the whole german army were pretty much in the same boat the british however had 7th armoured in combat from the beggining of the desert war against the italians right thru ejecting axis from n africa then they invaded sicily and italy then they were pulled out to uk and discovered a huge british army full of men that had been sitting on their backsides while the 7th and a few other divisions spent years fighting in the sand and this caused huge resentment. if this british army had also spent years in combat there would be no problem however i can fully appreciate how they felt .. " why is it always us that do the fighting ? whats wrong with these 20 divisions in the uk that have enjoyed the comforts of home while we have been fighting in africa for years ? "

yet THEY were expected to go straight into combat again leaving fresh divisions in the uk with all the women and comfort of home .. think about it ! i would be ready to mutiny ! or at least do what i could to preserve my life and i think the shock at villers bocage caused alot of them to think "f*** this !"

 

In the 1930's and 40's "fully motorized" meant that they made minimum use of horse-drawn vehicles and not much more!

I dont know about horses in the British army but i have read many accounts of horse-drawn transport in the Wehrmacht. The cavalry was very slow to go away and the Poles did use cavalry units to fight the Germans in 1939, of course, to little effect. While every other army quickly discarded cavalry units during WW2, well into the war the Germans had over a million horses in its inventory to pull artillery and other things. Like every army throughout history they had limited resources - and Germany did not have the time, labor or materials to produce everything Hitler and his Generals and Admirals wanted (until the invasion of Poland, Raeder had planned that the Kriegsmarine ship building program would complete in 1950).
Like Rumsfeld said so adroitly, you go to war with the army that you have and this is what the Germans did. Many people who were there have described the atmosphere of the time - there were no parades, no oompah bands or cheering crowds in Germany as in 1914, just an ominous new reality that another world war had begun.) In every first hand account from the German side, the preponderance of horses are always mentioned. The Panzers forged ahead and smashed the enemy tanks and heavy guns - the landser and artillery trudged behind on foot or by horse-drawn transport. Once things turned against the Germans at least they had some horsemeat for a while!

 

The British could not have any horse units.British most of her wars ww1 and ww2 was fought over in europe land,not on British soil,to hard to transport live animals over the sea!
Briton as an Island focus on her navy and Air force,British army was medium cause there was more use for Briton for having huge R/N and R/A/F.

Germany as a join up country needed a huge army to protect germany and invade the emeny.
Germany had no need for Huge navy or airforce,the war was intened to only be in european land and only fighting other european countries. (I am talking about ww1 and ww2 era,not today modern era)

 

Actually to considerable effect.

Not really. The Soviets used massive numbers right up to the end. The Italians also had cavalry units engaged in combat until late in the war.

 

The British managed to transport cav units to Crimea during the Crimean war and used them in France during WWI.

 

As Iwd pointed out Heidi, the British most certainly did transport "live animals" over the sea. And they had done so for centuries, as well as in WW1. By WW2 the day of the cavalry was drawing to a close, but some nations still used the horse extensively (Germany and the USSR), even Italy had two or three cavalry units still fighting on the eastern front in WW2.