historical command changes

[morvael]

Harrybanana, I just wish you could read that book. The author is more eloquent than me. He is an Israeli military historian, so he should be more in the US camp than German camp, yet the numbers he provide and the observations he makes are really convincing (me at least) that it was not just a myth created by captured Wehrmacht generals. Of course he never says German army was better in every aspect, it was not. US Army did a lot of things right, considering they had to build a huge army from scratch in just a few years. Simply, they required and valued a different set of skills, and put their best men in different positions than the Germans. As the author says, the Germans focused (even partially subconsciously) "on the quality to the detriment of all else". It wasn't an army that could win war of attrition, so that's why it failed. Comparing the number of soldiers, guns, tanks, aircraft, expended fuel and ammunition, I can't believe they would hold for so long (and further sufferings of all humanity in the process) if they haven't a single aspect above the average when compared to other armies. Please, read the book. It's not expensive.

Yes, morale and experience also represent NCOs and junior officers. But I think these two plus leader ratings are the only thing that prevent German army from being steamrolled, as all these affect CV, and in this game this decides the battles. Of course, this is a game and has to be balanced to give semi-historical results. If (an example only, I'm not saying this is true for WitW or WitE2) the supply system would give Allies too much replacements and supplies per turn, their units would have an advantage that didn't exist in reality. This would have to be matched with even greater quality gap between the Germans and Allies, that also didn't exist in reality. It's always hard to get these things right in a game, where half or third of the numbers are taken from imagination and validated through testing, because historical data in such detail does not exist. So there is always the risk the differences are exaggerated compared to real life. I'm afraid we have to live with that.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: XXXCorps

...

It's a rant but I stand by what I say. This is a fantastic game but I wish it reflected actuality a bit more. The Axis (in the game) still seem to better at everything because they were born in Germany whereas the old lumpen Brits and Yanks are just fumbling through...

...

This stuff needs to be approached again with a fresh mindset. Let me say it again:


THE ALLIES WON.

I agree with some of your points. The use of German commander's post event reports has heavily influenced a lot of received wisdom (and its even worse for the Soviet-German element to the war). I don't think this is true of the WiTx sequence of games but I can think of some SPI era games that were essentially based purely on this self-serving narrative.

The problem I think is in looking at WiTW in isolation. I don't think the Allies won. The Germans clearly lost but that is a different point. I think the Allies enabled a Soviet victory. Without the Allies its just about possible the Soviets would have won in any case, without the Soviets its very hard to envisage a (non-nuclear) means by which the Allies could have won.

My logic to this position is in terms of territorial grab, who held Berlin and also who inflicted the losses that crippled the German army.

So the question becomes, if the Soviet war is effectively removed, can/could the Allies do better than they did? I think that is the core to the victory debate in WiTW. Now I've lost Berlin as the Germans in a PBEM so it is quite possible to see an utter and complete collapse of the Reich even with just the Western Allies as the active force [8D].

[loki100]

Just to elaborate some more ... but at the risk of raising questions of research methods and how to explore the historical record.

We have a major problem in interpreting the reasons why WW2 ended as it did. It was a (fortunately) unique event and it ended in a very particular way. So any theorising as to why is hampered (fortunately) by that uniqueness. In the main explanatory chains tend to encompass relatively hard concepts (like Germany's relative industrial weakness, that the Wehrmacht was not organised for attritional war etc etc) and try to take account of major errors by all the opponents.

There is a similar problem when looking at causes etc of major revolutions in modern states. By this I mean events that triggered a fundamental shift of the economic system and of who was in power - not disputes between a ruling elite or changes imposed by an external power (such as the Soviet conquest of eastern Europe in 44-45). Conventionally we are left with three of these (France 1789, Russia 1917, China 1949) and it makes theorising as to why these happened very complex.

To provide a bit of context to what I'm saying. Our conventional reading of the Soviet 1945 offensives in Poland and Germany is that they struck across the Vistula in Jan, reached the Oder and ran out of supplies etc in part due to bypassed German resistance, in part due to the wrecked state of the transport system and in part as supplies etc were diverted to Hungary due to the German offensive there. By mid-April, the Soviets had built up and took Berlin by early May.

Now the first edition of Chuikov's memoires contradicts some of this. They were published in the late-Kruschev era when substantive criticism of Stalin was acceptable. He 'rewrote' them shortly after Kruschev's fall to fit the new orthodoxy.

What he implies is there was no military/supply reason to pause on the Oder. The German forces covering Berlin were battered, Poland's infrastructure was relatively intact. Stalin made a choice. In effect, he was by then sure the Allies couldn't reach Berlin, so diverted Soviet effort into the Danube region as part of grabbing territory. He only returned to an interest in finishing the war once this was accomplished and he got a bit worried at the Allies crossing the Rhine.

I'm not making a claim about which version is right or wrong. Just trying to offer one reason why interpreting what we see as the final events of the war is so complex. Its why I am very tolerant of the problems in coming up with a victory schedule in WiTW. If we assume that Chuikov was right, the Soviets would have taken Berlin in Feb 45, Austria, western Hungary and most of the Czech Republich would have ended up outside the immediate military control of either side ... etc.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Harrybanana, I just wish you could read that book. The author is more eloquent than me. He is an Israeli military historian, so he should be more in the US camp than German camp, yet the numbers he provide and the observations he makes are really convincing (me at least) that it was not just a myth created by captured Wehrmacht generals. Of course he never says German army was better in every aspect, it was not. US Army did a lot of things right, considering they had to build a huge army from scratch in just a few years. Simply, they required and valued a different set of skills, and put their best men in different positions than the Germans. As the author says, the Germans focused (even partially subconsciously) "on the quality to the detriment of all else". It wasn't an army that could win war of attrition, so that's why it failed. Comparing the number of soldiers, guns, tanks, aircraft, expended fuel and ammunition, I can't believe they would hold for so long (and further sufferings of all humanity in the process) if they haven't a single aspect above the average when compared to other armies. Please, read the book. It's not expensive.

Yes, morale and experience also represent NCOs and junior officers. But I think these two plus leader ratings are the only thing that prevent German army from being steamrolled, as all these affect CV, and in this game this decides the battles. Of course, this is a game and has to be balanced to give semi-historical results. If (an example only, I'm not saying this is true for WitW or WitE2) the supply system would give Allies too much replacements and supplies per turn, their units would have an advantage that didn't exist in reality. This would have to be matched with even greater quality gap between the Germans and Allies, that also didn't exist in reality. It's always hard to get these things right in a game, where half or third of the numbers are taken from imagination and validated through testing, because historical data in such detail does not exist. So there is always the risk the differences are exaggerated compared to real life. I'm afraid we have to live with that.

I will read this book when I get the chance, probably my next holiday. But I did read a similar book (forget the title or author) years ago. But even assuming you are correct that the German NCO and junior officers of all their units (not just the SS, Panzer or Para) were superior to the British, American and Canadians right up until wars end, I still disagree that this should give them a boost to their leader ratings in addition to higher morale and experience.

If the Germans were given superior leaders for "game balancing" than I believe this has been overdone. My gaming experience may be different than others, but I have certainly not seen the Germans getting steamrolled. Just the opposite in fact as it seems to be too easy for the Germans (at least in a EF Off game) to prevent the Allies from capturing all of the cities they historically captured.

[HexHead]

I'm not a big fan of getting overly involved in a historical discussion on the main forum, but it does happen because we're modelling something historical.

Has anyone here read A Genius for War: The German General Staff 1870 - 1945? Excellent book, could be out of print, written in the '70s or early '80s.

The author was involved in US Army Command and General Staff examinations of the record in Europe in WWII. To paraphrase from the foreword - "One of the reasons I wrote this book was that in engagement after engagement, at regimental, battalion and company levels, the Germans won, or stalemated the Allies, in engagements where, 'on paper', they should have lost."

The Germans invented the General Staff. Their system for training and educating officers was superb. In essence, their junior officers were excellent, and not in a small part because of the leadership by senior officers - who led according to their experience and skills engendered by their officer development (i. e., the staff system).

There was also a book published about four or five years ago, an examination of the war in general - the author felt that, everything else being equal (boy, there's a caveat for you), the German soldier was probably the best among the major combatants.

As Bill Mauldin wrote in his wartime book, Up Front, the GI will call him a lousy kraut, a stinking Hun, a no good SOB - but no one says he isn't good.

Whether the game is an acceptable model is another point - so far, in my limited playing, I'm not seeing supermen. The Axis units do seem to be stubborn, very stubborn, indeed. Unrealistically so? I don't know, but I don't think so.

[Harrybanana]

Just one example, can it truly be said that Lothar Rendulic was a better commander than Brian Horrocks? Apparently so as the game rates Rendulic Morale:8, Initiative:7, Admin:8, Mech:7, Inf:8. Meanwhile Horrocks has ratings of 7,6,6,5 and 6. So Rendulic is 1 or 2 points higher in every category.

I'll shut up now.

[morvael]

Discussing and comparing specific leader ratings is even more controversial subject than discussing average leader ratings per side [:)]

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Discussing and comparing specific leader ratings is even more controversial subject than discussing average leader ratings per side [:)]

Controversial yes, pointless yes (as I doubt they will be changed), but inappropriate I don't think so.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

[:)]

[morvael]

Sure, I guess ratings are based on personal opinions and knowledge of the person that entered them to the database a long time ago (I don't know who that was). I don't think there is a way to objectively assess and score hundreds of leaders when it's just a tiny part of the data required to build this game. Reading hundreds of biographies, contemporary opinions, scoring them for posts held during war and peace (I have one such book that tried to prove in this way vast gap in skills between Russian and Polish generals in the war of 1831), and results they got in real combat, would be a project requiring as much effort as creating this whole game, I think [:)]

[EwaldvonKleist]

I have only limited knowledge about western WW2 front, but i am sure the author morveal mentioned, called Martin van Creveld, had. His study "Kampfkraft" respectively "Fighting Power" is really worth the read.
According to him there were a lot of things which were superior in Wehrmacht compared to US army when it comes to the institution of the army: Organisation, system of punishment and reward, medicine/psychology system, self-thinking subordinates, training of staff, distribution of the best officers, institutional cohesion of units (german units still continued to fight even after enormous losses).
This is information you will not get from reading after action reports from single platoon commanders. In contrast, you need to compare a lot of numbers and have to go to boring archives with endless colums of data. I am sure Creveld did this.
((((This is another interesting topic to discussion: If a commander writes in his memories about "heavy ressistance" or "massive losses", i think this is completely useless if there is not statistical proof. If a unit lost 5% of its TOE some people see this as heavy casualties, eastern front commanders will probably laugh about this...))))
So according to crefeld, we obviously have a german army which archieves higher fighting power when having equal ressources to other armies (US Army included) of WW2. I dont know how WITW mechanics exactly work, but until there is a "fighting power multiplicator per soldier depending on the nation" giving this bonus to the leaders instead sounds very reasonable for me.
Don't get me wrong: The only thing i want to say is that german army was better organised, therefore archieved more with the same than their counterparts! Only because of the different design of the institution "army".

[morvael]

Yes, it's the same book I mentioned. It also shows downsides of German army and upsides of US army, it's not one-sided. The advantages of the German army simply made it more efficient in combat, but other aspects were lacking and the price paid was high (Ger: best men go to infantry, lead from the front, get medals, die from sniper fire; US: best men go to rear services, army is well supplied, get medals, morale of frontline troops led by less able men plummets down).

[EwaldvonKleist]

The book is of course balanced and shows downsides too.
Major philosophy of Wehrmacht was to focus on the fighting soldier, its needs and the leadership. This means decentralisation and focus on tactical brilliance.
US Army approach was to see the army as a very big machine which has to be controlled by collecting data and automatize/centralize its analysis.
So german army is good in front line fighting and maneuvering.
US Army is good in logistics and shooting/bombing enemy with its organisation allowing for a kind of industrialized war.
Both systems have advantages, german one however was a bit more ressource-effective i think.

[HexHead]

Let's not forget that even as late as 1944, something like 60% of Wehrmacht transport was horses.

Let's see, let's take a look at the US Army by mid-war, late war:

* Artillery out the wazoo - good artillery, too, and plenty of it, arguably the single strongest asset for US ground forces; let's not forget the L5 spotting planes either, they did a tremendous job.

* Only army in the world in the 1940s that had a semi-automatic rifle as general issue. I wonder how many Axis soldiers, in the ETO and PTO, got hit with a slug from an M-1 Garand (i.e., 'bang, bang, bang') while they were cocking their bolt?

* Only army in the world that was completely motorized - that's a fact.

So, who was resource effective? Also, for all of their leadership qualities, the German approach could still be a bit too rigid - on June 6, 1944, a Panzer formation drew to within three miles of the beaches. The CO wanted orders and didn't go any farther. As one historian remarked, no American officer would've done that. Throughout the history of the US Army, individual initiative by officers of all grades has been emphasized.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: HexHead

Let's not forget that even as late as 1944, something like 60% of Wehrmacht transport was horses.

Let's see, let's take a look at the US Army by mid-war, late war:

* Artillery out the wazoo - good artillery, too, and plenty of it, arguably the single strongest asset for US ground forces; let's not forget the L5 spotting planes either, they did a tremendous job.

Yes, my dad was a US FO in France 44-45 and flew over 30 missions in a spotter plane. US artillery was good, and that is factored in the game by rules that bring more of it into battles in support.

* Only army in the world in the 1940s that had a semi-automatic rifle as general issue. I wonder how many Axis soldiers, in the ETO and PTO, got hit with a slug from an M-1 Garand (i.e., 'bang, bang, bang') while they were cocking their bolt

Yes, that fact is in the game as well, but remember, Germans had a great LMG, and my father was hit by both a bullet (of unknown origin) in Normandy and an artillery round from German artillery when he was 5 miles into Germany in Sept 44 (near Wallendorf).

* Only army in the world that was completely motorized - that's a fact.

Well, yes and no. The infantry had to walk, unless they were temporarily motorized (which could be done, but not always). Sure, their guns and equipment had trucks, but they weren't fully motorized.

So, who was resource effective? Also, for all of their leadership qualities, the German approach could still be a bit too rigid - on June 6, 1944, a Panzer formation drew to within three miles of the beaches. The CO wanted orders and didn't go any farther. As one historian remarked, no American officer would've done that. Throughout the history of the US Army, individual initiative by officers of all grades has been emphasized.

In total, we stand by our ratings, although I appreciate that half the fun of playing a wargame is arguing about the facts versus the game.

[HexHead]

I wasn't really getting into game modelling, more addressing a poster and trying to get certain things on the record.

The US Army was wholly motorized, in the sense that all transport was such. And 'straight legs' rode, where practicable or needed. Any hardly any animal transport - there was some, here and there, now and again, particularly in Italy - still tough to out-do a mule in mountains or rough terrain.

The Germans essentially invented the assault rifle, but they should've done it in 1936, they were too little, too late. Excellent machine gun, though - MG42.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Germans made of course tactical mistakes. Do you have a source for your 3 mile to beach thesis? (no offense, i just want to read about it).

Let's not forget that even as late as 1944, something like 60% of Wehrmacht transport was horses.

Let's see, let's take a look at the US Army by mid-war, late war:

* Artillery out the wazoo - good artillery, too, and plenty of it, arguably the single strongest asset for US ground forces; let's not forget the L5 spotting planes either, they did a tremendous job.

* Only army in the world in the 1940s that had a semi-automatic rifle as general issue. I wonder how many Axis soldiers, in the ETO and PTO, got hit with a slug from an M-1 Garand (i.e., 'bang, bang, bang') while they were cocking their bolt?

* Only army in the world that was completely motorized - that's a fact.

So, who was resource effective? Also, for all of their leadership qualities, the German approach could still be a bit too rigid - on June 6, 1944, a Panzer formation drew to within three miles of the beaches. The CO wanted orders and didn't go any farther. As one historian remarked, no American officer would've done that. Throughout the history of the US Army, individual initiative by officers of all grades has been emphasized.

I never questioned the effectivity of US weapons. I only stated that germans would have used them better.
Give german Wehrmacht and US Army the same number of everything (fuel, trucks, rifles, tanks, planes) and put them on a mirrored terrain and Wehrmacht will win most tactical battles because better in generating fighting power with the ressources on hand.
Give them both the historical numbers and add some idiotic leadership by high command and western allies will win.


I don't own WITW so i don't know about game details or details of any leaders. I just like to discuss history [:)]

[EwaldvonKleist]

Btw german army was a master of the "Auftragstaktik" "order tactics" in english??? and subordinates showed a lot of self initiative, sometimes ignoring their subordinates (France 1940, Barbarossa for example). Hitler himself often ignored this recipe for success when giving orders directly to divisions or overruling his professionals.

[HexHead]

I don't own WITW so i don't know about game details or details of any leaders. I just like to discuss history

So do I, but I try to eschew involved historical discussions on the main forums of wargame sites. There's a separate forum for those discussions, as such.

But I don't know about the Wehrmacht winning most tactical battles, per above. The historical record tends to show they did much better in 1943-1945 than they 'should' have. I think the average German soldier was probably the best for six years, but not by leaps and bounds. As an American, and US Army veteran, do not overlook the esprit de corps of the American fighting man. Not to mention the fine traditions of the British - and I would be willing to hazard that the Free French, properly equipped, were well led and gave more than a good account of themselves; they had every motivation in the world.

That said, open a thread on the History sub-forum and I'll discuss the wider topic with you.

[EwaldvonKleist]

I rould really like to discuss this with you and others! Please just show me the way to the history sub forum. I so far failed to find it. Did you mean general discussion?

[Steelers708]

ORIGINAL: HexHead
The Germans essentially invented the assault rifle, but they should've done it in 1936, they were too little, too late. Excellent machine gun, though - MG42.

That's a bit of a moot point as I'm sure they would have preferred to have the Panther tank and Me262 in 1936 also, the list is endless as to what they should've done sooner or instead off.