British Unit with low Exp

[Andy Mac]

4th Indian Div as the first Indian Army Div raised has 3 Bdes
 
5th
7th and
11th Indian Bdes
 
5th Bde normally had 2 Indian to 1 Brit Bn it varied a lot as bns ,moved around a lot but it was normal to have 1 Brit Bn.
7th Bde had the 1st Royal Sussex Regt under command as its Brit Bn for most of the war
11th Bde had Queens own Camerons as its Brit Bn
 
In general as an early formed Div it had and maintained the 6:3 ration of Indian rto Brit Bns

[Caractacus]

Andy - this is great stuff - thanks!

[Dixie]

ORIGINAL: Caractacus

OK, first of all I wish the juvenile 'my sub's better than your sub' guys would bugger off and start their own thread.
Grateful for any responses on that [:)]

From Page 1, post 1 [;)]

Or with low naval skills. With high standards of naval tradition/training and in war since 1939 all british warships should be better in exp than USN. British navy officers should be far better than what they are in game.

This thread has actually been far more sensible than a lot on the forums, no name-calling yet. [:D] Someone raises something that they think is an issue with Brit leaders/ships having low ratings, and somewhere along the line someone starts feeling that the USN is being attacked...

[Andy Mac]

Basically 4th and 5th Divisions and later 8th and 10th Indian Divs and 31st Armoured Div were sent overseas and were reasonably well trained and equipped with quality decreasing over time.
 
(31st Div had almost no tanks etc etc0
 
This is the overseas force.
 
A second force call it the forward deployed force was
 
17th Indian Div (under training for ME service)
9th and 11th Indian Divs
 
These troops in general were not well trained but had a few British Bns but by no means the full 6:3 ratio. They were the troops that faced the first shock of the Japanese advance.
 
A third tranche that consists of the later formed Divs
 
7th, 14th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, 25th , 26th, 36th, 34th and 44th Indian Para
 
Mostly these Divs were under strenght at the start of the war in the Easy some are on COIN duties (19th) some are garrisoning Ceylon (34th) but they are moslty cadres
 
A 4th tranche were LOC Divs 2nd, 6th, 12th, 21st these units controlled rear area LOC troops and were not really combat troops.
 
A last tranche are the frontier Divs Waziristan, Peshawar and Punjab Divs these units guarded the NW frontier and often had units rotated into them for seasoning or for a rest

[Caractacus]

Brillaint, brilliant, brilliant. Thanks Andy. I'm going to sit and digest it all with a cuppa tomorrow after work [:)]

[Chijohnaok2]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Most of those Divison EUBanana is referring to are the county coastal Divs or training Divs etc etc actually the British more than most of the other armies tried to keep fighting Divs up to strength.

Even going as far as cannibalising veteran Divs to keep others up to strength one of the few things the British were good at - more so than any other army a British Div after mid 42 tended to be at full strength and reserves were found to keep it at full strength - I think they actually landed Divisons over strength with a replacement draft landing alongside the invasion forces to enable assault Divs to keep goimg at full strength.

I think but dont know that the US did the same - The germans kept reducing the strength of their Divs to the stage where a Wehrmacht Div was about the size and support of a US RCT or a British Bde Gp in strenght

I recall reading that even early on in the war, the Wehrmacht would simply split an existig Panzer in half and call the result 2 Panzer divisions. No new tanks to bring them up to their prior strength, just making 2 divisions out of one throught slight of hand.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Caractacus
[edit - I've just realised, much later, - I meant SS as in Nazis, not SS for submarines! - P Hausser was head of the Waffen SS!].

Oh, OK.



I'll just go shoot myself now. [:(]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Not to beat a dead horse, but the quote below is yours. I took it as a sideswipe that you said "and lived to tell the tale." Look up how Morton and USS Wahoo died, and perhaps you'll understand this ex-submariner's pique.

OK.

Well, it wasn't intended as a sideswipe, so if you took any offence, I'm sorry. It only was intended to compare performance. Wahoo is the benchmark of just what excellence in Allied submarines means - hence why Mush has skill 90 no doubt, he was the acknowledged top man.

No offense, I accept your apology, and offer one of my own if I have elements of USN sub-fanboyism. Ever since I sat astride a Mk-14 at age four, while "Santa" (who had Subic Bay tats and smelled of diesel oil) gave me my Christmas present in the forward TR of USS Bluegill, have I been in love with the boats. That was my Dad's; mine was considerably more comfy.

Again, no hard fellings taken or intended.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Again, no hard fellings taken or intended.

Well, thank god for that.



[:)]

[Wirraway_Ace]

Over the past six months, I sat down and read Shore's three volume "Bloody Shambles", Winton's Forgotten Fleet, Bayly's "Forgotten Armies", Allen's "Burma, The Longest War" and Slim's "Defeat into Victory". I highly recommend all these except the Bayly book which was still an interesting read.

A couple of observations:

For a nation that had been at war for more than 2 years, the level of professionalism throughout the British forces in Asia was shockingly low.

The starting experience levels for the British forces vis a vis the Japanese seem appropriate. The performance of the Army in Malaya and Burma during 42 was a true embarrassment at every level from the individual soldier to the Corps commanders. If anything, these units gain experience too fast. Throughout 1943, the Army's performance was very nearly as bad.

The RAF also did not distinguish itself. Even though there were a number of Battle of Britain veterans in the various squadrons, the overall conduct of air war during the first year of the war (when that experience should have been critical) seemed to lack sophistication.

The RN's experience vis a vis the IJN is very hard to judge. It essentially fled and did not offer battle again until the IJN was but a shadow of its former self.


Bottom line: While the shortages of modern equipment and a thinning of the leadership talent pool in British Asia were understandable, the overall lack of a wartime mindset, professionalism and sophisticated staff processes, which should have been the benefit of two years of war, were still surprising. The developers seem to have been able to reflect these weaknesses in low experience and generally low leadership values.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


Look up how Morton and USS Wahoo died, and perhaps you'll understand this ex-submariner's pique.

I was not aware it is known how Mush and his boat were lost?

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: d0mbo
And there i was thinking the dutch sub captains (all 4 of them) were the best in the world.......

Heh.

211 British submarines fought in WW2. Thats not really the point, though, is it.

The USS Wahoo sank 15 ships in WW2. But HMS Truant sank 15 ships in WW2 as well (and lived to tell the tale). Mush Morton has naval skill 90, the guy on board Truant has 60. In fact, nobody in the entire RN submarine arm has naval skill 90. Or even 80, for that matter.

That is the point.

While I am not necessarily a Mush Morton fan, I am not sure you are being fair in your use of descriptive statistics. Morton's kills on Wahoo were in a very short period of time. Haggard on Truant sank 10 ships in over two years of patrols. Mush sank approximately twice as many in half the time. A 4 times greater rate. Against the same opponent, Haggard on Truant sank 2 japanese vessels in more than 7 months of patrols. Mush on Wahoo did rather better...

[mariandavid]

WirrawayAce: It is very easy to forget that although Britain had been at war for two plus years its units in the Far East had not. The problem being that, due to the acute lack of shipping, there was virtually no movement of experienced and battle-trained officers and men from west to east until well after the Japanese declared war. There was a constant movement the other way, not just of units but of drafts upon units. For example the British battalions in Burma (you will know this from Allen's book) had lost about one third (in the case of the Gloustershire Regiment over one-half of its senior cadre) and were therefore notably less effective than would normally be expected.
 
Their performance was also very variable - some of the ex frontier police battalions in Burma and the Argylls in Malaya did exceptionally well - others were a disaster, such as the Hyderabad State battalion that shot its colonel!  My judgement would be that on average the British, Indian and Dominion Army performance equated to that of the United States Army in late 1941 and the first half of 1942 - that is very poor with a few glorious exceptions. I suspect that the US performance increased somewhat more quickly in the next few months, if only because of superior training facilities.
 
As for the RAF: To be perfectly honest (and I have read Shore's books) I cannot detect any major difference in sophistication between the RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and the USAAF in 1942. The only time they fought side by side (in Rangoon with the AVG and a few RAF units) the performance seems broadly comparable. Sophistication in tactics only came with the widespread introduction of mobile radar sets.
 
The one relative weakness that has not been considered here is the abominable performance of USN torpedo planes. Not I hasten to add because of lack of competance or bravery on the part of the aircrews but rather the utterly incomprehensible incompetance of the men responsible for designing the torpedoes they carried. I am reading "Midway: Dauntless Victory" by Peter C Smith and he relates that when 105 torpedos were dropped in carefully controlled tests in perfect conditions 36% ran cold, 20% sank, 20% ran the wrong way and 18% did not keep the right depth. Only 31% performed properly. What is truly staggering is that this test was carried out in 1943!!!! All this seems to have been covered up, easier since they had finally got the Mk. XIII working properly in mid 1945.

[Mark Weston]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

<snip>

Bottom line: While the shortages of modern equipment and a thinning of the leadership talent pool in British Asia were understandable, the overall lack of a wartime mindset, professionalism and sophisticated staff processes, which should have been the benefit of two years of war, were still surprising. The developers seem to have been able to reflect these weaknesses in low experience and generally low leadership values.

When you try to expand your army from six divisions to sixty while simultaneously fighting a war you face an insuperable problem. You now need ten times as many officers and senior NCOs as you did pre-war, but where the hell are they going to come from? You can start training junior officers in as large numbers as you like, but all your senior unit COs and staff officers will be coming from the pool with pre-war training and experience. That means that every pre-war officer is guaranteed a job, no matter how useless or incompetent. War exposes large swathes of incompetent, inflexible and careerist officers in every army, but how can you sack them when you have no-one to take their places? The best you can do is move them sideways into staff and second echelon jobs where at least they're not getting men killed. But that's not going to do much for the quality of your staff-work or your logistics. And hey, if you have a large empire that needs to be garrisoned, but most of which is a long way from the fighting, then that's an ideal place to dump all the failures who you don't want anywhere near the front lines.

Ideally your regular army can provide both cadres for new units and a learning environment for new recruits. Except that there's a war on, and your allies need help now. So your best sources of experience and leadership end up on the front line being atrited away in combat while you've only just started training their replacements.

Sometimes it's a wonder to me that the British army performed as well as it did, never mind asking why it was sometimes as bad as it was.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
Against the same opponent, Haggard on Truant sank 2 japanese vessels in more than 7 months of patrols. Mush on Wahoo did rather better...

"Against the same opponent" - unfortunately in the Far East British submarines operated in the Strait of Malacca up to Singapore, in the Bay of Bengal, and off the western coast of Sumatra.

Just how many Japanese ships do you think were there to be sunk? [&:] Not exactly target rich waters. Absolute comparison is very difficult due to the very different circumstances of their deployments. Still, I think if you look at the records of British submarines in the ETO they were certainly not numpties. The Med is not ideal 'terrain' for subs, especially big subs, visible from the air when submerged in the clear, shallow waters.

It's probably more relevant in game than it was IRL, because in game we all know that USN torpedoes dont work in 1942. I know Truant has working torps and so she's at the front line in the target rich waters. This is also why Mush is on board an S-boat (which historically seemed to have done almost nothing, mainly as they were falling apart!) while the modern ships like USS Gato get the cautious commanders until 1943.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

WirrawayAce: It is very easy to forget that although Britain had been at war for two plus years its units in the Far East had not. The problem being that, due to the acute lack of shipping, there was virtually no movement of experienced and battle-trained officers and men from west to east until well after the Japanese declared war. There was a constant movement the other way, not just of units but of drafts upon units. For example the British battalions in Burma (you will know this from Allen's book) had lost about one third (in the case of the Gloustershire Regiment over one-half of its senior cadre) and were therefore notably less effective than would normally be expected.

Their performance was also very variable - some of the ex frontier police battalions in Burma and the Argylls in Malaya did exceptionally well - others were a disaster, such as the Hyderabad State battalion that shot its colonel!  My judgement would be that on average the British, Indian and Dominion Army performance equated to that of the United States Army in late 1941 and the first half of 1942 - that is very poor with a few glorious exceptions. I suspect that the US performance increased somewhat more quickly in the next few months, if only because of superior training facilities.

Ok, we will probably disagree on this one to some extent. I found the British performance in Malaya, through Burma and in Arakan well into 1943 generally appalling. The US Army seemed to develop an adequate level of competence quickly and the Marines consistently performed at a high level.

As for the RAF: To be perfectly honest (and I have read Shore's books) I cannot detect any major difference in sophistication between the RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and the USAAF in 1942. The only time they fought side by side (in Rangoon with the AVG and a few RAF units) the performance seems broadly comparable. Sophistication in tactics only came with the widespread introduction of mobile radar sets.

I agree with you; however I found the similiar performance surprising considering the RAF as a whole had two years of wartime experience to draw on.

The one relative weakness that has not been considered here is the abominable performance of USN torpedo planes. Not I hasten to add because of lack of competance or bravery on the part of the aircrews but rather the utterly incomprehensible incompetance of the men responsible for designing the torpedoes they carried. I am reading "Midway: Dauntless Victory" by Peter C Smith and he relates that when 105 torpedos were dropped in carefully controlled tests in perfect conditions 36% ran cold, 20% sank, 20% ran the wrong way and 18% did not keep the right depth. Only 31% performed properly. What is truly staggering is that this test was carried out in 1943!!!! All this seems to have been covered up, easier since they had finally got the Mk. XIII working properly in mid 1945.

The story of BUORD and the Mk 14 is a classic in organizational disfunction. The air launched torpedo was little better. It would have been a tragedy for the USN; however, the SBD with 1,000 lb bombs proved an adequate weapon system to defeat their enemy.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Mark Weston

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

<snip>

Bottom line: While the shortages of modern equipment and a thinning of the leadership talent pool in British Asia were understandable, the overall lack of a wartime mindset, professionalism and sophisticated staff processes, which should have been the benefit of two years of war, were still surprising. The developers seem to have been able to reflect these weaknesses in low experience and generally low leadership values.

When you try to expand your army from six divisions to sixty while simultaneously fighting a war you face an insuperable problem. You now need ten times as many officers and senior NCOs as you did pre-war, but where the hell are they going to come from? You can start training junior officers in as large numbers as you like, but all your senior unit COs and staff officers will be coming from the pool with pre-war training and experience. That means that every pre-war officer is guaranteed a job, no matter how useless or incompetent. War exposes large swathes of incompetent, inflexible and careerist officers in every army, but how can you sack them when you have no-one to take their places? The best you can do is move them sideways into staff and second echelon jobs where at least they're not getting men killed. But that's not going to do much for the quality of your staff-work or your logistics. And hey, if you have a large empire that needs to be garrisoned, but most of which is a long way from the fighting, then that's an ideal place to dump all the failures who you don't want anywhere near the front lines.

Ideally your regular army can provide both cadres for new units and a learning environment for new recruits. Except that there's a war on, and your allies need help now. So your best sources of experience and leadership end up on the front line being atrited away in combat while you've only just started training their replacements.

Sometimes it's a wonder to me that the British army performed as well as it did, never mind asking why it was sometimes as bad as it was.

I don't disagree with you, except...it had been two years by the time the invasion of Malaya came and the Army was still being significantly outfought in Arakan through 1943! Nearly 4 years into the war from Britain's perspective.

[vinnie71]

The British land forces never really performed that well in the war, especially when facing a first class army. This was mainly due to the rather poor officers that they had, and a rather long time they took learning their lessons. What is also amazing is the fact that though they were essentially campaigning on home ground (they had been in India and surrounding lands for more than a century), the army always found it difficult to campaign in the area. Fact is that the Indian army was geared for a stand up fight even though the bulk of the campaigns were fought over broken country or jungle.
&nbsp;
Another fact is that they lacked co-ordination between the different arms. Infantry/artillery co-ordination was basic (despite WWI experience) while armour/infantry was nonexistant. It took them far longer to take the approach of co-ordinating all their forces (possibly the first glimpse of it was actually Alamein). Again one must point the finger at the rather poor officer material the army had, for in small actions (such as commando raids), the British could still excel, and yet in big battles they had major operational snafus.
&nbsp;
Frankly, one must compare her to America in this respect. The US was capable of assembling a huge military force which could go toe to toe with the major opponents it faced, passing through a painful experience or two but actually fielding a decent land force by '43. That had nothing to do with greater resources, training facilities etc. The truth was that the US geared up and not only created a viable fighting force (in terms of military hardware and numbers) but also a decent officer corps. The latter was a real accomplishment for an army that pre-war was quite small.

[mariandavid]

Trying to avoid turning this into a 'who is best' dialogue but I must challenge some of Offworlders highly questionable assumptions:
""The British land forces never really performed that well in the war, especially when facing a first class army""
&nbsp;
Considered opinion (ie not my own) is that in 1940 the British and German infantry were comparable, British artillery was superior and British armour despicable. It is also true to say that the US Army itself never faced a 'first-class enemy' - as evidenced by the fact that it only engaged one full-strength panzer division in the whole war (the 2nd Panzer in Normandy). This is not a criticism simply a reminder that comparisons are tricky.
&nbsp;
""Infantry/artillery co-ordination was basic""
&nbsp;
In fact it was the best of any nation and its systems were copied by the United States Army after Korea. The key here was that its forward observers&nbsp;(regardless of rank) could&nbsp;order not merely request&nbsp;a fire mission. This avoided the debate and time wasting found in the US&nbsp;fire control centre system.
&nbsp;
"while armour/infantry was nonexistant"
&nbsp;
True if oversimplified. The lack of co-operation was between tanks and motorised infantry in the attack and this problem was not solved until after Normandy. That between tanks and marching infantry was exemplary from the start - as an example note the attack by the combined 1st Tank Brigade and the 50th Infantry Division at Arras in 1940 - the one that gave the SS and Rommel a severe fright! Note that the US Army had precisely the same co-ordination problem at Kasserine Pass as late as 1943.
&nbsp;
""rather poor officers that they had""
&nbsp;
This is a truly objectionable and unsubstantiated statement - and I know no evidence&nbsp;and no source that can credibly suggest that there was any serious distinction between the officer corps of America and Britain. In truth the weakest officer part of any army was the '90 day wonder' system introduced by the USA later in the war to make up for errors in forecasting officer losses. There are several quotations of Canadian troops expressing sorrow and pity for neighbouring American units ordered into battle knowing that their&nbsp;officers had no comprehension of how to lead
&nbsp;
The trouble in this sort of comparisom is that if fails to compare situations. Some (I for one) would agree with the perception that&nbsp;the USA case can be summed up by saying that it&nbsp;produced ""the best soldiers, but the worst army"" among the allies. By this I mean that its magnificent qualities were mucked up by organisational dictats: such as its small size (contrary to Offworlders statement it was tiny in terms of&nbsp;number of divisions&nbsp;versus national population - the smallest in the war); its truly abominable replacement system;some very serious weapon weaknesses, again created by men safely housed in Washington who prized quantity over everything.
&nbsp;
Now I feel better!!!
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

I agree with you; however I found the similiar performance surprising considering the RAF as a whole had two years of wartime experience to draw on.

The sprinking of veterans sent to the FarEast in some ways actually made the RAF experience worse because it was a classic example of the "wrong" experience for the wrong enemy. RAF vets were used to having the edge in turning maneuvers over their primary adveraries (the Germans). When they came up primary against the Ki-27 and Ki-43, they were not only rudely shocked to find the dynamic reversed but worse.....the enemy was fully capable of sticking it to them. (and did along with most others in early 42)

RAF preformance in Burma 43-45 was puzzling and continues to be debated to this day. A RAF 'troubleshooter' sent to investigate the Hurricane problem vs. the Type 1 concluded that tactics and training were at the root of the problem....an assertation that was hotly disputed by the local RAF commanders. Ultimately the RAF and USAAF overwhelmed the JAAF by sheer level of resources in that theater.