British Unit with low Exp

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dixie

Ah yes, one must assume that the Italian war effort was entirely third rate when compared to any other power. After all there aren't any Italian foanboys around to upset. [:'(]

The same flaccid Italian ASW efforts that sank 16 RN subs, more than twice that of the Germans. And the Italians stopped playing earlier [:D]

Comparing ultra-flaccid German ASW to flaccid Italian ASW doesn't quite make your point. Perhaps those 16 were a result of poor RN sub-driving rather than Italian mastery? [:)] (Please note smiley.)

As for Morton's sinking being under kill-or-be-killed conditions, that's normally the way that war works. I'm assuming from your post that the IJN were fantastic at ASW making sinkings against them much harder than against any other navies....

Morton went into ultra-shallow water, without charts, with terrible torpedoes, and accomplished his mission. He didn't have to; no one would have berated him if he'd reconned the harbor from outside and reported traffic flow. My point wasn't that Japanese ASW was great--it wasn't, compared to USN or RN--but that Morton was and is due the 90 rating the game gives him. Big Brass Ones he had. I can state from personal knowlege that, sixty years later, he is still spoken of reverently in the US Silent Service.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy


It might still be a little difference to face more or less the whole Wehrmacht on the Western front than to face 2.000 Japanese soldiers in the beginning of Guadalcanal when you land 14.000 troops there. Comparing strategic level with tactic level is tricky IMO.

Well, yes, but it's also a bit shorter trip across the English Channel than from New Zealand to the Canal.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder
As to the supposed lack of preparedness of the British for the forthcoming war is just another myth. They had been preparing for war since at least 1937 in the economic sphere and militarily as well.

Yeah, but they hadn't been prepared for France folding after four weeks. That changed absolutely everything.

The quality of the lower grades was generally good but the top brass were mostly part of an old boys network.

Quite. The pheasant hunting brigade.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Well, yes, but it's also a bit shorter trip across the English Channel than from New Zealand to the Canal.

It's a long way from Guadalcanal to Tokyo as well... sauce for the goose and all.

Or for that matter, London to Alexandria.

[sprior]

Frankly the sheer ineptitude of the British army officer corps couldn't be better demonstrated than at Dunkirk!

Why, what happened at Dunkirk to demonstrate this?

[Andy Mac]

Dunkirk was actually well handled the rear guard fell back while the evacuation was underway.
 
No question Gort was over his head as BEF commander, Barker failed as well but Alanbrooke did well as did Alexander and Montgomery got most of his Div out intact.
 
As with all armies some failed some succeeded when they first met real war.
 
Having allies collapse all around you and fighting under a hostile sky facing Blitzkrieg for the first time I dont see the BEF's retreat to Dunkirk as an example of ineptitude except possibly at the very top and even then despite his lack of grip Gort made ultimately the bravest decision he could to cut and head for home.
 
Martells attack at Arras, Montgomeies night manouver to cover the BEF's flank, Alan Brooke holding the perimeter and the general way they withdrew were all actually good - doesnt disguise the fact that they were defeated but they didnt break and fall apart so leadership couldnt have been all that bad. (lets not forget that the BEF had about 10 combat Divs and 1 Tank Bde) the Germans had over 140 Divs incl 10 Armoured Divs
 
The bulk of the allied force was reliant on the French the BEF was one Army among what about 8 French Armies ??
 
Now seperate question should the BEF have been that exposed - why wasnt 1st Armoured Div deployed to France rather than a single Armoured bde why why why lots of questions but the fact is the british alonecould not have stopped the fall of france
e
Andy
 
 

[Wirraway_Ace]

Dunkirk as a symbol was a disaster. Dunkirk as a military operation was very well executed.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

I keep brooding over this experience issue and have become convinced (at least to my satisfaction!) that the difficulty is that increase is linear in AE - and I honestly cannot see any alternative. Take the Indian Army - I agree that in 1943 many of its units would have no better than a 40+ level, however a mere six months later their performance would equate to a level of 60-70 at the very least. The problem is that one cannot simulate the dramatic change that could take place given the right circumstances: In this case take the best general you have from his division and put him in charge of training (this is Savory, for some better known as the definitive historian of the British side of the 7 Years War - an intellectual as well as a practical soldier); turn two entire combat units into training divisions (the 14th and Burma); take over vast chunks of western Bengal for training; ruthlessly purge your combat units of unsuitable soldiers and send them where they may do some good; develop a deep, practical and intensive training regime and rotate all battalions through it. Do all this with complete and unquestioned authority and things change in a hurry.

So in answer to the very first post. If you take a below average Indian unit and start it with an efficiency of 10-15 and train it without a break for over two years then you get it to the point it should be at. It didn't happen that way but I guess the system requires it.

I think there was a general improvement in the British forces in India throughout 43 due to the organizational and training changes and more combat. Its just in 43, the Japanese divisions in Arakan were still better. The Japanese then bled their three experienced divisions white at Imphal, and the skill relationship between the two forces flipped quite quickly. I think the game models this pretty well.

For me, the lesson learned is to do everything to train the Commonwealth forces in India to the highest possible level before committing them to fight a veteran IJA formation in anything like an equal fight.

[Andy Mac]

Yes and no I think the Arakan attack was a fiasco from the top more than anything else
 
You have a Corps tghat has planned and trained for the battle and what does the army commander do he decides to cut the Corps out fo the fight and direct the battle froman Army HQ through a Div HQ that was controlling about 10 Bdes
 
maybe a more flexible army like the Wehrmacht could have managed it but the Indian Army of late 42/early 43 wasnt able to do it.
 
IMO Irwin screwed the pooch on that one.
 
Also the lessons learned fromt eh fall of Burma had not had time to pass through the army and for the training exercises and learning to be brough on board.
 
IMO 1st Arakan was if anything worse than the fall of Burma - they wasted what few trained troops they had and further destroyed the confidence of the Army by breaking all of the strengths of the British/indian Army and not learning enough fromt he Burma campaign

[Andy Mac]

There is an excellent book that I rate very highly called Pheonix from the Flames by Dan Marsden that covers the retraining the Indian Army had to go through after the blows it took and how it was patrolling and the steady Indianisation of the Army that finally made the difference as there were nto enough quality junior leaders available from British sources so trainign Indian platoon and company leaders was vital as it is junior officers that make the real difference in Jungle warfare

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Frank

Now get real, gentlemen!

Neither the German nor the Japanese nor the Italians had any ASW abilities to speak of.

It is interesting to read the after action reports from the Japanese amphibious operations in the DEI. The Asiatic sub captains were very impressed with the skill the IJN escorts demonstrated. Reading Hara's "Japanese Destroyer Captain" is also an eye openner to those who believe the IJN had no ASW capabilities to speak of. The primary difference, it appears to me, is that the Allied ASW got more capable faster than the Axis subs developed and the Allied subs got more capable faster than the Axis ASW. Made the campaigns in the Atlantic and Pacific very one-sided by 43.

People trying to minimize the British subs´achievements should just compare the plain size of the Med with the Pacific to get some impression about the problems British, Italian and German subs had to fight with in the Med.

I don't follow your logic here.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Yes and no I think the Arakan attack was a fiasco from the top more than anything else

You have a Corps tghat has planned and trained for the battle and what does the army commander do he decides to cut the Corps out fo the fight and direct the battle froman Army HQ through a Div HQ that was controlling about 10 Bdes

maybe a more flexible army like the Wehrmacht could have managed it but the Indian Army of late 42/early 43 wasnt able to do it.

IMO Irwin screwed the pooch on that one.

Also the lessons learned fromt eh fall of Burma had not had time to pass through the army and for the training exercises and learning to be brough on board.

IMO 1st Arakan was if anything worse than the fall of Burma - they wasted what few trained troops they had and further destroyed the confidence of the Army by breaking all of the strengths of the British/indian Army and not learning enough fromt he Burma campaign

I agree that it was a fiasco in terms of command and control and the futile attacks against the Japanese positions were a waste; however, I was thinking of the defense of the Admin Box, and the emergence of air resupply and the use of artillery in what 20 years later would be the US fire base in viet nam.

[Andy Mac]

Ah that was the second Arakan campaign in 1944 I am refering the 1st Arakan campaign above
 
The one you are refering to was the XV Corps attack commanded by Christison

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Ah that was the second Arakan campaign in 1944 I am refering the 1st Arakan campaign above

The one you are refering to was the XV Corps attack commanded by Christison

Yes, you are right. I thought it was the tail end of 43. However, would you disagree with the concept that the British forces in India were progressively getting better ( a linear upward trend similiar to the AE training model) through 43 and into 44, and it was the loss of so many veteran IJA troops at Imphal that caused the dramatic swing in the relative performance of the armies?

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana
British Army leadership was poor, the rest of the situation was pretty good though. At least such is the impression I get reading German accounts of fighting the British Army. von Mellenthin's book on the subject says endlessly how 8th Army was much better equipped than the German/Italian forces, and how British logistics in particular was far superior.

Of course, with Ritchie in charge one might say it was all rather moot.

The 8th Army had some big advantages in the logistics department. At their back was the largest oil reserve on Earth and the best developed region in the northern half of the continent. As the Germans moved east, the British had shorter and shorter supply lines.

On the other hand, Rommel was faced with ever increasing supply lines. His supply ships were subject to attack en route, more than the British supply ships sailing the long way around to Egypt. Once supply was landed in Tripoli, they had a long trek on a single, poor quality road by truck to the front. By El Alamein, something like 80% of his fuel was being consumed moving it to the front.

I have read a criticism of Rommel that he was an outstanding division commander, but as a corps commander he fell down in his understanding of logistics. A division commander doesn't have to worry about the logistics of supply, but a theater commander does. The British realized that Rommel needed Tobruk to shorten his overland supply lines, but Rommel himself didn't realize it until it was too late.

It's also differences in thinking between a naval and continental power, a port is always an important thing to hold for a naval power, but a continental power general might tend to think that trapping troops in a port is a pocket that can be dealt with later.

The Germans made the same mistake at Dunkirk. For the Germans, the British were trapped and isolated, for the British, having their army trapped in Dunkirk was an escape hatch.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
The serious problem in Asia is that the British officers stationed there tended to cling to the old "colonial system" of caste and rank to the determent of morale and cohesion. This problem in Asia was much more pronounced than say in the Western Desert. In Singapore in December of 1941, there were strict barriers between regular army officers and the white Indian officers who were treated as inferior. A native Indian officer could not be served in any officers club or stay in a hotel with whites. (or ride in the same train car for that matter). British regular army officers treated Austailian officers even worse-looking upon them as rank amatuers. An Australian officer's uniform could a get one denied service in a first class restaurant or hotel. This caste sytem carried on into the ranks as well with Australian troops and native ally troops getting very poor treatment over the white enlisted men-who themselves were not a happy or well treated lot. Indian troops were more often used for manual labor and the Indian ranks and officer corps were rife with Nationalist sentiment and hatred for the colonial system that they were being forced to defend. British colonial society has grown rotten and the ills of that society had thoroughly infected the Allied forces. It was an nasty stew of discontent and resentment and goes well towards explaining why 80,000 Allied soldiers were severly butt whipped by 40,000 Japanese.

Discontented colonials became 5th columnists before the war. When the Japanese invaded Malaya, they had very accurate descriptions of the disposition of Commonwealth troops due to discontented colonials selling out. There was a somewhat famous case of a half Indian - half British officer who gave quite a bit of intelligence to the Japanese. He wasn't caught until after hostilities started.

As colonial powers went, the British were better than most at how they treated their subjects, but that's mostly because the other powers were horrible. It's little wonder that the European colonial system died a violent death soon after the war ended.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: BigBadWolf

Well, today we know Germans couldn't hope to invade Britain, with all the historical data we have, but how much of that was known to the British in WW2?

I think it was pretty clear even to the British that invasion was a remote possibility after the BoB. Even during the BoB they knew that it would be difficult since Germany didn't have any purpose built invasion craft. Recon showed that Germany was collecting together every barge in occupied Europe for the invasion, which could move troops, but would leave them vulnerable.

Countries usually prepare for the worst case scenario of foreign invasion, even if the chances are remote. In the 1930s the US was developing war plans for an invasion from England.

There is also a morale factor. Even if attack is remote, the civilian population's morale is better when they see some kind of protective presence. My father got a six month deferment so he could finish his second year of college before going into the Army. He was in Los Angeles and he said he saw USAAF fighters flying over the city on an almost daily basis. It made him feel safer knowing they were there. It wasn't until he was in the USAAF that he realized those guys were fresh out of training and barely knew one end of the plane from the other.

The West Coast was heavily populated with training bases. Part of the concentration was due to the milder weather in much of the region, and the more sparsely populated countryside meant cheap land to build bases on, but there was also probably a PR reason for all the bases. The civilian populations felt safer seeing all those war planes overhead.

For purposes of civilian morale, the British had to make a show of defending England, even as the odds of an invasion got smaller and smaller.

Bill

[mariandavid]

I would question one aspect of Andy's account of the disaster that was the First Arakan. I agree with all the rest. Expanding on the abominable command problems involved - Slim the corps commander was not allowed by the army commander to move his headquarters forward to take the load of the unfortunate 14th Division commander! He seemed to hate Slim (this by the way for Outlander is a genuine example of class problems - Irwin the elitist despising Slim the ex-private!) and as a result poor old Irwin had to handle the 10 brigades without help.
 
What I would add (and it reflects very badly on the Indian army) was that the whole thing collapsed when a brigade was overrun by IJA soldiers, coming out of dense jungle and with heavy weapons. It was so bad that the brigadier was killed (or tortured to death depending on the story) and the entire formation fled - shattering the morale of all they came across. It was this episode that produced the 'fear of jungle fighting' issue and why it was necessary to propagandise loundly the very limited achievements of the first Chindit expedition.
 
""" However, would you disagree with the concept that the British forces in India were progressively getting better ( a linear upward trend similiar to the AE training model) through 43 and into 44, and it was the loss of so many veteran IJA troops at Imphal that caused the dramatic swing in the relative performance of the armies?"""
 
Not sure what Andy would say to Wirraway's question but I for one do not subscribe to ideas like this. It is the same argument as '"The Russians (or Americans or Montgomery or whatever) won in 1944 because the Germans had lost their best men in 1943". Although the combat CW/Marauder/African losses in 1943-1944 were less that those of the Japanese they were still very significant. For example at Kohima the 31st (?) IJA Division lost about 15,000 men, but in turn inflicted over 10,000 casualties on the British 2nd and Indian 7th Divisions.  

[crsutton]

.

[Feinder]

I highly recommend reading "Forgotten Armies, The Fall of British Asia 1941-45" by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper.

I own it. I've read it.

While everything you say is certainly true CRSutton (and this post isn't actually a response to you, but more towards the general readership of this thread), I would say that those factors you bring up would affect a units "morale" score, more than experience. True, they wouldn't have the experience of veteran North African Division. But it all really amounts to how the little numbers (morale, fatigue, experience, etc) interact with each other in the game.

You can substitute cohesion for morale, or espre de corp for exp, or whatever. The names and the values themselves are subjective (and in reality the ~labels~ become irrelevent). The real question becomes is, "Does the aggregate of the numbers (regardless of what label they're given: morale, exp, etc), produce a realistic representation of the capabilities and constraints of the unit this is being represented?"

-F-