British Army Doctrine and Training in WW2

[Colin Williams]

Over the years the British Army of WW2 has come under harsh criticism for a perceived failure to develop and implement consistent doctrines and for allowing the quality of training to vary greatly by leaving the bulk of it to individual units. Recently, I came across evidence that suggests a different story. In the excerpts below, a former Captain in the 1st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps, a regular battalion in an elite infantry regiment, describes the character of his former commanding officer, Lt. Colonel John Hope, DSO MC, who, despite being the only non-regular officer to command a regular battalion of the KRRC and working in the unusual combat environment of the North African desert, taught this younger officer the key elements of successful leadership in the best tradition of the regular British Army. http://www.tamburlane.co.uk/resources/JPW_ITALY.PDF

 

We join the story in 1945, about the time the 1st KRRC crossed the Po in the final Italian offensive.

 

"I remember...when I commanded a platoon in B company under Major John Hope. The latter in 1945 was now commanding the Battalion, admired, respected and loved by all. He was the only non-regular officer to have command of a regular Battalion of the 60th in the War, and had started as a Second Lieutenant in 1940 in the early days in the Egyptian desert, and had done every job in the Battalion."

 

"23rd April, St. George's Day, was a sad day for us all. At the west end of Casumaro, John Hope was shot through the back by a German sniper...In Giles Mills's moving tribute in the 'Annals', 'Lt. Col. J.C. Hope represented, even to the most newly joined, the 1st Battalion itself...his warm sense of fun and Christian leadership were to be badly missed in the peace after the approaching victory.'"

 

"I personally missed him hugely, and still do, and feel lucky I was in his B Company from the moment I joined the 1st Battalion at Himeimat in Egypt before the Battle of El Alamein. He was a continuing influence and inspiration to me, far and away the most outstanding personality of my war-time experience. When I took over my platoon in 1942 John Hope gave me no injunctions on tactics, man-management or other military matters. He assumed I was reasonably competent until proved otherwise! But in my first few weeks and later he gave me several pieces of idosyncratic but wise personal advice. The first was that I should learn to play bridge!...But I failed him and have never been able to count cards...The next thing John Hope encouraged me to do was smoke a pipe...Then John Hope said, out of the blue, 'you must join a good London Club. I will put you up for the Travellers.'...Finally John Hope said, when I was appointed Adjutant by Lt. Col. Lyon Corbett Winder at Tmimi, Cyrenaica in 1943, after Tunis: 'I think you must grow a moustache!' I tried, and it lasted a few months, but it was so wispy and insignificant that I felt that the riflemen laughed at it, so I shaved it off.."

 

"When he went on Python leave from Boufarik, after four years overseas, John Hope typically took a lot of time to visit families of riflemen and officers who had been killed, and he also took the trouble to have lunch with my father..."

 

So there you have the long-overlooked essence of British Army doctrine in WW2 -

 

1. Learn to play bridge

2. Smoke a pipe

3. Join a good London Club

4. Grow a moustache

 

Take care of these critical items, let the tactics and weaponry issues work themselves out, and the Boche will be knocked for six in no time!

[rmgill]

Of course at the Platoon level, the real leadership was the Sgts and Cpls who knew their business. The CSM (Company Sgt Major would of course be the one to take young privates under his wing and help him handle the tricky bits). Of course, a youn subaltern should have gone through Sandhurst, so the basics should be quite clear.

 

I think Danger UXB is a funny if macabre example. A good NCO who knows his business and an officer who's in some ways MORE expendable than the NCO who works for him.

 

Seriously though, the training manuals of the time which I have read through seem to have very clear details on the basics of infantry combat. The signals manuals are also quite developed. Where you get into sticky bits is how everyone is supposed to work with Armor and light armor. The pamphlets for the Armored Forces operations, especially Armored Car and Recce Squadrons are quite light in rules and very strong on rough ideas of what you should be doing. They're still very light on material, iirc, the main Armored Recce pamphlet being 20 pages or so. I guess given that they were very early on in the development of such things, you did sort of have to work by the seat of your pants. Compare this to the inch thick manuals that came out of Fort Knox which was developed with M2 Combat Cars as the working models....

[KingSargent]

I have read lesson plans and accounts of British Army training in the 1930s, and it was first-rate.

 

Unfortunately it went no higher than the bn and dealt with maintaining Civil Order among the "Wogs." If you wanted (or even if you didn't) to know what to do when a pretty Indian girl emptied her chamberpot on your head, you were taught the proper reaction to this efficiently.

 

It was simply unfortunate that this excellent training was of minimal use fighting Germans in NWE and Africa.

 

 

BTW, I recall a story told by some US officers who observed in amazement as British subalterns simply wandered around their base observing while the NCOs did all the work. The USians asked a Brit NCO, "Do your officers ever DO anything?"

The NCO looked them in the eye and said, "Well, Sir, when the time comes they show us how to die."

[Colin Williams]

Of course at the Platoon level, the real leadership was the Sgts and Cpls who knew their business. The CSM (Company Sgt Major would of course be the one to take young privates under his wing and help him handle the tricky bits). Of course, a youn subaltern should have gone through Sandhurst, so the basics should be quite clear.

 

 

Interestingly, Sandhurst seems to have been focused on the "gentleman leader" aspect also. This is from Bill Bellamy's "Troop Leader", an account of his joining up and later service with the 8th Hussars in NW Europe.

 

"Later I passed my Commissions Board and was posted to Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet. It was August 1942...looking back on it all, we learned very little of technical or tactical value...I put my heart into it and undoubtedly left Sandhurst with a more informed and adult approach to problems and their solution...I learned a lot while I was at Sandhurst, but perhaps the most important lesson of all was that to fail in duty was a dishonor to yourself, your comrades, your regiment and your country. In fact, if the chips were down, then the lives of your soldiers were more valuable than your own. It follows that what some may consider as bravery is in fact the enactment of this philosophy of duty."

[rmgill]

So was the real training very much at the NCO teaching the subaltern how to do his job?

[KingSargent]

So was the real training very much at the NCO teaching the subaltern how to do his job?

Not really. The subaltern didn't HAVE a job. He was an Assistant Company CO, most times before WW1 without a fixed unit of his own. If he got a 'command' it was a detachment the CO sent him to supervise when he couldn't do it himself or wanted the subaltern to get some practical experience. The actual assigned platoon commander was an NCO. The NCO knew all the nuts and bolts of soldiering and he could teach them to the LT if the LT was interested, but in many units the 'nitty-gritty' was considered beneath 'Gentlemen,' who were supposed to lead the troops in the direction the CO pointed them while the NCOs did the work.

[67th Tigers]

So was the real training very much at the NCO teaching the subaltern how to do his job?

 

No, the Pl Comd was either a Lt, 2Lt or WO3 (Pl Sgt Maj). In the field they commanded the Pl. In barracks, the Sgt took over the Pl.

 

It's a difference I don't think existed in the US at the time, the Pl Comd's responsibilities were tactical, the Pl Sgts were administrative.

[philgollin]

Seriously though, the training manuals of the time which I have read through seem to have very clear details on the basics of infantry combat. The signals manuals are also quite developed. Where you get into sticky bits is how everyone is supposed to work with Armor and light armor. The pamphlets for the Armored Forces operations, especially Armored Car and Recce Squadrons are quite light in rules and very strong on rough ideas of what you should be doing. They're still very light on material, iirc, the main Armored Recce pamphlet being 20 pages or so. I guess given that they were very early on in the development of such things, you did sort of have to work by the seat of your pants. Compare this to the inch thick manuals that came out of Fort Knox which was developed with M2 Combat Cars as the working models....

 

(Warning, I know much more about the Royal Navy situation, but there is a certain amount of similarities across the services)

 

The British WW2 Instruction, handbooks, manuals, etc.. varied greatly across all arms of all services.

 

IN GENERAL, simple drill books, etc. were meant to be "gospel", standard manuals were guides for the well informed and were part of fuller training courses which produced specialists and handbooks, etc... were "good" or "best" practice. As such they were what were general taught (but with the time-lag inherent in the fast moving situation of the war often changes were introduced by some sort of unit instruction (for instance in the Royal Navy you had Admiralty Confidential Fleet Orders, individual Fleets had their own Confidential or standing orders and even individual units had their own orders).

 

They were not, IN GENERAL, to be regarded as hard and fast "doctrine". It varied, but in general the various senior officers could adopt fully, or adapt, or supersede the standard handbook practice as they saw fit (as long as their superiors either aproved or were not aware).

 

Obviously newly arrived/trained troops or officers had been taught the "standard" way, but when officers or specialists went off to their various short or long courses they might well come back with the latest thinking which might, or might not, be incorporated in amendments at some future date.

 

AT LEAST IN THE NAVY, the spreading of the very latest techniques in such things as R.D.F./Radar was a severe problem in a service which was introducing new equipment as fast as it could be produced. The official handbooks and recommended useage instructions lagged well behind.

 

.

[Colin Williams]

Not really. The subaltern didn't HAVE a job. He was an Assistant Company CO, most times before WW1 without a fixed unit of his own. If he got a 'command' it was a detachment the CO sent him to supervise when he couldn't do it himself or wanted the subaltern to get some practical experience. The actual assigned platoon commander was an NCO. The NCO knew all the nuts and bolts of soldiering and he could teach them to the LT if the LT was interested, but in many units the 'nitty-gritty' was considered beneath 'Gentlemen,' who were supposed to lead the troops in the direction the CO pointed them while the NCOs did the work.

 

Not really. As 67th mentions, the Lt would typically command a platoon. The second in command of a company was a Captain. In the tanks, taking Bill Bellamy's case in the 8th Hussars as an example, a Lt would command a troop of tanks. Of course, that doesn't mean the NCOs and enlisted men weren't expected to watch out for the young officers. Bellamy had a couple of interesting encounters in this regard -

 

In 1943, on arriving in Benghazi in route to join the regiment in Egypt -

 

"As we left the aircraft we were met by the toughest, most bronzed trooper that I ever encountered. He was wearing the MM. He got out of his jeep, looked us both up and down two or three times, then said 'Cor, f____g schoolboys now.'"

 

Then, in 1944, being assigned to command the A squadron echelon for the Normandy invasion,

 

"To my horror, I found that the 15cwt truck allocated to me was driven by the same trooper who had greeted me when we arrived in Benghazi, Tpr Bob Weir MM. He saluted me most respectfully and then said, 'A little f____r like you needs protection. I'll look after you.' And to be fair, he did that, until he had an altercation with a military policeman just before the invasion and was thrown out of the regiment. Having served his sentence, he came out to the Tank Reinforcement Unit (RFU), but the regiment refused to have him back, and later he collected a DCM for extraordinary bravery while serving with the 5th Dragoon Guards."

[67th Tigers]

Not really. As 67th mentions, the Lt would typically command a platoon. The second in command of a company was a Captain. In the tanks, taking Bill Bellamy's case in the 8th Hussars as an example, a Lt would command a troop of tanks. Of course, that doesn't mean the NCOs and enlisted men weren't expected to watch out for the young officers. Bellamy had a couple of interesting encounters in this regard -

 

The best subaltern's book is Jary's 18 Platoon, which is the standard book used at the sausage factory to teach young subalterns how to be subalterns. I would recommend it in a heartbeat as the book to come out of that war (so would my old OC, CSM and CQMS, although the 2I/C and other Pl Comds were proper gentlemen types in my old Coy).

 

His platoon is an interesting case, for the most part the leadership elm of 18 pl was the Pl Comd, the Pl Sgt had command of a section, and the only remaining Cpl had command of the other (they were hit so hard the Pl was consolidated into 2 sections for most of the war, a google showed he had 17 R&F, 1 Cpl, 1 Sgt and himself on taking over, 12 of the riflemen were combat replacements arriving shortly before him).

 

One thing that is interesting about Jary is that he concluded the Infantry Battle School had it all wrong....

[WRW]

Not really. As 67th mentions, the Lt would typically command a platoon. The second in command of a company was a Captain. In the tanks, taking Bill Bellamy's case in the 8th Hussars as an example, a Lt would command a troop of tanks. Of course, that doesn't mean the NCOs and enlisted men weren't expected to watch out for the young officers. Bellamy had a couple of interesting encounters in this regard -

 

In 1943, on arriving in Benghazi in route to join the regiment in Egypt -

 

"As we left the aircraft we were met by the toughest, most bronzed trooper that I ever encountered. He was wearing the MM. He got out of his jeep, looked us both up and down two or three times, then said 'Cor, f____g schoolboys now.'"

 

Then, in 1944, being assigned to command the A squadron echelon for the Normandy invasion,

 

"To my horror, I found that the 15cwt truck allocated to me was driven by the same trooper who had greeted me when we arrived in Benghazi, Tpr Bob Weir MM. He saluted me most respectfully and then said, 'A little f____r like you needs protection. I'll look after you.' And to be fair, he did that, until he had an altercation with a military policeman just before the invasion and was thrown out of the regiment. Having served his sentence, he came out to the Tank Reinforcement Unit (RFU), but the regiment refused to have him back, and later he collected a DCM for extraordinary bravery while serving with the 5th Dragoon Guards."

 

 

 

my understanding is that the pip guys were there to learn = how could they do anything else - the NCOs very often had as much experience as they had years

[KingSargent]

AT LEAST IN THE NAVY, the spreading of the very latest techniques in such things as R.D.F./Radar was a severe problem in a service which was introducing new equipment as fast as it could be produced. The official handbooks and recommended useage instructions lagged well behind.

 

.

Even so, the RN was the most professional of the services.

 

The Army was professional, but at what turned out to the wrong profession.

 

The RAF clung grimly to its amateur status throughout.

[BillB]

Even so, the RN was the most professional of the services.

 

The Army was professional, but at what turned out to the wrong profession.

 

The RAF clung grimly to its amateur status throughout.

Would you care to clarify the bolded bit, King?

 

BillB

[KingSargent]

Would you care to clarify the bolded bit, King?

 

BillB

Sure. As I mentioned earlier, the British Army (because they mostly obeyed their MP masters) was well trained and quite proficient as an Imperial Police Force.

 

And BECAUSE they had obeyed their masters and neglected training and doctrine and equipment development for Continental Warfare prior to 1939, they sucked at it. Well, they were worse than the Germans anyway.

 

Given that the British Army had ended WW1 with the best training and the best doctrine of any of the combatants, I have no hesitation in believing they could have maintained their lead had they not been sent off to Police The Empaah by their Masters in Whitehall (? - if Whitehall was where their masters hung out. I get confused.)

[BillB]

Sure. As I mentioned earlier, the British Army (because they mostly obeyed their MP masters) was well trained and quite proficient as an Imperial Police Force.

 

And BECAUSE they had obeyed their masters and neglected training and doctrine and equipment development for Continental Warfare prior to 1939, they sucked at it. Well, they were worse than the Germans anyway.

 

Given that the British Army had ended WW1 with the best training and the best doctrine of any of the combatants, I have no hesitation in believing they could have maintained their lead had they not been sent off to Police The Empaah by their Masters in Whitehall (? - if Whitehall was where their masters hung out. I get confused.)

It was not necessarily anything to do with their MP/Whitehall masters holding the purse strings post WW1, a view which is strongly based on hindsight post WW2 IMO. There is a much stronger argument to say it was actually merely a reversion to type and need. The British had a long standing antipathy to land ops on the continent (I know they dabbled but only as a perceived necessity), their maritime circumstances always put the Army second fiddle to the RN, and apart from its beginnings in the ECW the BA's deployment had always been overwhelmingly connected to what can be categorised as imperial activity - even the 1745! You can therefore argue that the activities of the BA in the inter-war period were actually the long established norm, and the stuff between 1914-1918 was the anomaly, which actually makes the BA's performance in WW1 and WW2 more praiseworthy rather than less given the high level of flexibility it required to change tack. More on that below.

 

You also appear to a disciple of the hoary old line that Imperial Policing was "the play of children" and thus not really relevant to what we would call high intensity ops today. This is a common fallacy, which I assume comes from interpreting the word "policing" in a certain way. In fact Imperial Policing required tactical, operational and logistic training and expertise of a very high order and a great deal of flexibility too, factors that have a huge bearing on "real" warfare and can be traced back long before 1914. Consider Sir Garney Wolsley's expedition to Dahomey in the 1880s, the deployment of steam traction engines to South Africa in the Boer War and the speed with which the Royal Engineers established an air unit in c.1909, for example. There are even better examples in the inter-war period. The BA were moving large numbers of troops, equipment and supplies by air around a decade before anyone else (just under for the Soviets, well over for the Germans), including casevac and supplying large scale ops with air drops using parachutes. I'd actually argue that the BA's reputation for first-class soldiering up to the battalion/brigade level sprngs from this concentration on the nitty gritty end of soldiering then and since. The performance of the British troops in the Falklands, for example, was largely down to the cohesion and small unit expetise gained in Northern Ireland, which was in turn merely a domestic take on Imperial Policing. The down side is of course that the BA tends to be found wanting when required to scale things up but even then it can be argued that this is actually no worse than anyone else, just the same process from the opposite end of the spectrum - I'd argue that WW1 German Stosstruppen and Hutier tactics are a good example of this, with an army used to working on the macro being obliged to pay more attention to the bread-and-butter micro that large scale peacetime conscription could not properly impart.

 

I also disagree that the British sucked at "continental ops" or were that much worse than the Germans, if at all. Much of what happened in France in 1940 was due to circumstances outside the BA's control. Arras showed that the capabilites from 1918 were still present, albeit in a much reduced form - they even had Martel controlling the tanks from an unarmoured vehicle, just like Rommel - and O'Connor's successful Operation COMPASS is an even better example. Also, let's not run away with the idea that the Hitler-era Heer was officered solely by Panzer/Blitzkrieg zealots. I think I'm on safe ground saying that many if not a majority saw the Blitzkrieg thing as merely a new wrinkle to assist the existing way of doing business rather than an all-conquering revolutionary advance in its own right. After all, auftragstaktik is still auftragstaktik in 1870, 1914 or 1939, internal combustion and tanks just allow the troops to cover more ground faster. Even that poster-child Rommel was an infantryman and only jumped on the Panzer bandwagon because he thought it was a quicker route for the greater glory of Erwin Rommel, not because he had a Damascene conversion or anything...

 

So there!

 

Oh, and getting back to the original topic, I'm digging around for some stuff about BA officer selection and training.

 

BillB

[baboon6]

This is an interesting link: Military Training in the British Army 1940-44 by Timothy Harrison Place

 

http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&ct=re...p7Nw_HYKyRQnGNw

 

EDIT:

 

Quite a bit here about War Office Selection Boards, there was quite a bit of resistance in a lot of the army to their introduction:

 

http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&ct=re...bpkvwNw67_JdIkQ

Edited March 22, 2008 by baboon6

[KingSargent]

It was not necessarily anything to do with their MP/Whitehall masters holding the purse strings post WW1, a view which is strongly based on hindsight post WW2 IMO. There is a much stronger argument to say it was actually merely a reversion to type and need. The British had a long standing antipathy to land ops on the continent (I know they dabbled but only as a perceived necessity), their maritime circumstances always put the Army second fiddle to the RN, and apart from its beginnings in the ECW the BA's deployment had always been overwhelmingly connected to what can be categorised as imperial activity - even the 1745! You can therefore argue that the activities of the BA in the inter-war period were actually the long established norm, and the stuff between 1914-1918 was the anomaly, which actually makes the BA's performance in WW1 and WW2 more praiseworthy rather than less given the high level of flexibility it required to change tack. More on that below.

Agreed, but the "There'll NEVER be another BEF!" 'guidance' emanating from Whitehall definitely IMNSHO handicapped the BA in preparing for Continental War. The difference between Continental War and Imperial Warfare/Policing had become much greater since the appearance of new technologies. The "Ould BA" never had to make that much of a change to switch between the two modes.

 

You also appear to a disciple of the hoary old line that Imperial Policing was "the play of children" and thus not really relevant to what we would call high intensity ops today. This is a common fallacy, which I assume comes from interpreting the word "policing" in a certain way. In fact Imperial Policing required tactical, operational and logistic training and expertise of a very high order and a great deal of flexibility too, factors that have a huge bearing on "real" warfare and can be traced back long before 1914. Consider Sir Garney Wolsley's expedition to Dahomey in the 1880s, the deployment of steam traction engines to South Africa in the Boer War and the speed with which the Royal Engineers established an air unit in c.1909, for example. There are even better examples in the inter-war period. The BA were moving large numbers of troops, equipment and supplies by air around a decade before anyone else (just under for the Soviets, well over for the Germans), including casevac and supplying large scale ops with air drops using parachutes. I'd actually argue that the BA's reputation for first-class soldiering up to the battalion/brigade level sprngs from this concentration on the nitty gritty end of soldiering then and since. The performance of the British troops in the Falklands, for example, was largely down to the cohesion and small unit expetise gained in Northern Ireland, which was in turn merely a domestic take on Imperial Policing. The down side is of course that the BA tends to be found wanting when required to scale things up but even then it can be argued that this is actually no worse than anyone else, just the same process from the opposite end of the spectrum - I'd argue that WW1 German Stosstruppen and Hutier tactics are a good example of this, with an army used to working on the macro being obliged to pay more attention to the bread-and-butter micro that large scale peacetime conscription could not properly impart.

Once again you misread my thoughts. I am pretty familiar with the 19th Century British Imperial campaigns, and they were quite well done usually, if a trifle dependent on "muddling through." Elphinstone aside the generalship was of a high order, and the troops did as well as the troops always do (better than the generals often enough, as appears to be British habit ).

I SAID that the British did a fine job in the Imperial Warfare/Policing business, but they DID neglect Continental War which was no longer a mere difference in where one sent the troops.

 

I also disagree that the British sucked at "continental ops" or were that much worse than the Germans, if at all. Much of what happened in France in 1940 was due to circumstances outside the BA's control. Arras showed that the capabilites from 1918 were still present, albeit in a much reduced form - they even had Martel controlling the tanks from an unarmoured vehicle, just like Rommel - and O'Connor's successful Operation COMPASS is an even better example. Also, let's not run away with the idea that the Hitler-era Heer was officered solely by Panzer/Blitzkrieg zealots. I think I'm on safe ground saying that many if not a majority saw the Blitzkrieg thing as merely a new wrinkle to assist the existing way of doing business rather than an all-conquering revolutionary advance in its own right. After all, auftragstaktik is still auftragstaktik in 1870, 1914 or 1939, internal combustion and tanks just allow the troops to cover more ground faster. Even that poster-child Rommel was an infantryman and only jumped on the Panzer bandwagon because he thought it was a quicker route for the greater glory of Erwin Rommel, not because he had a Damascene conversion or anything...

Oh come ON, Bill! Take off your Anglophilic "the Brits can do no wrong" blinkers and THINK about what you just said. Taken in order:

 

1] Arras was a minor operation because the planned major operation was totally FUBARed. Mostly by the French to be sure, but I can find no instances of British officers tugging on their braces and exclaiming, "To Hell with the Bloody French, let's get this sorted out!" Martel attacked with a brigade because the divisions that were supposed to be there didn't make it.

 

2] COMPASS was an operation against the ITALIANS, not the Germans. Furthermore it was done largely by the Tank Corps mavericks who had been hiding in Egypt pretending to be learning how to use tanks in Imperial War when they were in fact planning and training for Continental War. The first thing O'Connor did when the Germans showed up was get captured. Which was too damned bad, he had a grasp of Mobile Warfare generally lacking (even in Germany) at the time.

 

3. The Germans didn't HAVE to be all "Panzer buffs," their infantry generally outperformed anybody else's before 1944. The CW infantry did very well in North Africa - albeit largely in comparison to the non-RTR tankers - but they generally had advantages of numbers, position, and supply at the point of contact too.

 

4] BTW I am far from being a Guiding Light of the Rommel Fan Club, so cutting him down only gets nods from me. Even if they are sometimes nods of "You think I didn't already KNOW this?" exasperation.

 

I cud og on nad no, but you'd thnk I was trolling. Well actually I am trolling with you, but I am fishing for intelligent discourse .

 

So there!

And :P right back atcha!

 

Oh, and getting back to the original topic, I'm digging around for some stuff about BA officer selection and training.

I await your findings with bated breath.... Seriously.

[swerve]

...

Given that the British Army had ended WW1 with the best training and the best doctrine of any of the combatants, I have no hesitation in believing they could have maintained their lead had they not been sent off to Police The Empaah by their Masters in Whitehall (? - if Whitehall was where their masters hung out. I get confused.)

 

Yeah, Whitehall. Now called the Old War Office Building, since the MoD moved to its current building between Whitehall and the river (strolled through its garden yesterday ).

[lastdingo]

Given that the British Army had ended WW1 with the best training and the best doctrine of any of the combatants, I have no hesitation in believing they could have maintained their lead had they not been sent off to Police The Empaah by their Masters in Whitehall (? - if Whitehall was where their masters hung out. I get confused.)

 

I don't see that as given.

 

armor: correct, albeit still embryonic

 

infantry: incorrect, Germany was ahead both in defensive (elastic defense with far back HKL) and offensive operations (infiltration by small elements) doctrine

 

artillery: very doubtful, as Bruchmüller's methods/the German 'Arko' science/art of artillery were state-of-the-art

 

I'm not sure on training, although training isn't worth much if it teaches inferior doctrine.

[BillB]

I don't see that as given.

 

armor: correct, albeit still embryonic

 

infantry: incorrect, Germany was ahead both in defensive (elastic defense with far back HKL) and offensive operations (infiltration by small elements) doctrine

Disagree with that, not least because you haven't mentioned quality; the German infantry were pretty poor in Op MICHAEL and thereafter. I'd also argue that the British switch to defended locales instead of a continuous line in 1918 was similar in essence to the German elastic defence, and would have worked in a similar manner had it been finished and had 21 March not been foggy. I also think that the fact that Operation MICHAEL and its follow ups failed to achieve a breakthrough strongly suggests that British practices were sufficiently elastic in any case. I also think that the German Stosstrupp/Hutier thing is vastly overrated - again MICHAEL provides a clear example of its relative ineffectiveness. Folk seem to forget that it was a very low-level tactic, not a development on the operational or strategic level. You can have as many Stosstruppen sneaking about as you like, but they are not much use without properly functioning and efficient back-up, and the evidence suggests that in this regard the Germans were no better than anyone else and prolly worse than some. Besides, the French were doing this in 1916, and while I'm not a fan of Paddy Griffiths I think his work about British Battle Tactics shows that this was not totally unknown in the BA either. If the WW1 BA infantry battalion War Diaries I've looked at are anything to go by, then there were no flies on Brit infantry. By 1918 they were organising and launching large scale attacks from scratch at very short notice; similar or even smaller scale operations earlier in the war had taken weeks of prep.

 

artillery: very doubtful, as Bruchmüller's methods/the German 'Arko' science/art of artillery were state-of-the-art

Not doubtful at all. AIUI German fire control and flexibility were not especially good, there are a fair few examples of this at Verdun IIRC, and thus under virtually static conditions. By my reckoning British arty was the most advanced in the world by 1918, and this lead was carried over to WW2, when IIRC the Germans themselves frequently acknowledged the fact. That wasn't a post-1939 development, it was a direct carry over from WW1.

 

I'm not sure on training, although training isn't worth much if it teaches inferior doctrine.

I'm not sure why people keep looking for doctrines with ref to the BA, given that the term and necessary admin were not officially acknowledged or emplaced until the late 1990s IIRC. If the BA had a "doctrine", it was taking care of the basics that were applicable across the board and working out the larger/more complex stuff as and when necessary.

 

BillB

[BillB]

KingSargent wrote:

Oh come ON, Bill! Take off your Anglophilic "the Brits can do no wrong" blinkers and THINK about what you just said.

Quite frankly King, I'm insulted by that. I thought about it quite hard before putting fingers to keyboard (rather harder than you too given much of your rather hackneyed and dare I say predictable response), and I strongly resent the implication that I play those kind of childish games. As I was, incidentally, by Stuart's assertion elsewhere that I have nothing good to say about the RAF. As you well know do not wear blinkers of any type. I merely tell it as I see it based on the evidence and *more importantly* from as objective a standpoint as I can humanly achieve, irrespective of my personal feelings, preferences, prejudices, patriotism etc etc etc. I thought that ought to have been clear by now, but apparently not.

 

BillB

[KingSargent]

Quite frankly King, I'm insulted by that. I thought about it quite hard before putting fingers to keyboard (rather harder than you too given much of your rather hackneyed and dare I say predictable response), and I strongly resent the implication that I play those kind of childish games. As I was, incidentally, by Stuart's assertion elsewhere that I have nothing good to say about the RAF. As you well know do not wear blinkers of any type. I merely tell it as I see it based on the evidence and *more importantly* from as objective a standpoint as I can humanly achieve, irrespective of my personal feelings, preferences, prejudices, patriotism etc etc etc. I thought that ought to have been clear by now, but apparently not.

 

BillB

I most humbly beg your pardon for insulting you.

 

I know very well that you are NOT of the "God Is An Englishman" school, which is why I was astonished when YOU dragged out "hackneyed and dare I say predictable response"s.

 

BTW, you did not address the substance of my objections.

1] Arras proves the BA could perform well in battle in 1940 at brigade level.

1a] It also is a pretty good indicator that the BA couldn't get the troops planned for the battle TO the battle. Even given the French traffic FUBARs, the British were just as FUBARed (Hard not to be when one is in France, of course).

 

2] COMPASS proves nothing vis-a-vis British vs. Germans.

 

3] Most scholars give run-of-the-mill German infantry an edge over Allied infantry of any nation given a level playing field. And German infantry practiced "Foot Blizkriegs" (if I may) in 1870, 1914, and 1939-42. It was only the trenches of WW1 that slowed them down.

 

4] Okay if insulted YOU with "Anglophilic," how about crediting me with the sense not to be in bed with the Rommel Was God bunch?

 

Can you PLEASE stop jumping to the conclusion that I will automatically make an Anglophobic remark to any question? I really would like to discuss this seriously.

 

Thanx for making it unnecessary for me to set Lastdingo straight. We could probably have said it in chorus...

[lastdingo]

@BillB;

 

My assessments of German vs. British doctrine quality concerning infantry and artillery stem directly from German AND English-language sources, like for example Gudmundsson (among many others). I have never seen English or even German sources stating that the British were superior to Germans in anything else than details like a few months advance in sound ranging and the like.

 

Judging on basis of the available literature (I certainly consumed a significant share, maybe one meter of desk width on WW1), it was like that:

The British were not as advanced as Germans in infantry/artillery tactics. The last survivors of WWI are dead, so there's nothing but literature to analyze about the question.

 

The 1918 problems of the German army can easily be explained by a look at the physical exhaustion (KIA, WIA, POW, insufficient nutrition), mental exhaustion (too many experienced combat days exhausted the surviving infantrymen), inequality of supply volume, disadvantageous numerical situation (infantry, artillery, aircraft) and tanks.

 

Stormtroop tactics were also of course only tactics, a tactic that allowed to take light and medium fortifications much faster and with much less support requirements than the British. There's nothing "infantry" above tactics, as operations had to be combined arms, there couldn't be an "infantry operational art" or "infantry strategy".

 

 

"...the British switch to defended locales instead of a continuous line in 1918 was similar in essence to the German elastic defence, and would have worked in a similar manner had it been finished and had 21 March not been foggy."

Backslope defenses and elastic defense tactics were German standard in 1917 and were tested many times, whereas you mention that the British adopted something like that in as late as 1918 and didn't succeed? It's quite obvious who was ahead of whom.

 

 

"Not doubtful at all. AIUI German fire control and flexibility were not especially good, there are a fair few examples of this at Verdun IIRC, and thus under virtually static conditions. By my reckoning British arty was the most advanced in the world by 1918, and this lead was carried over to WW2, when IIRC the Germans themselves frequently acknowledged the fact."

 

1) Verdun was 1916, Bruchmüller arrived in Western front in 1918, was dominant on Eastern front in 1917. WW1 was NOT just Western front.

And everyone's artillery was imperfect by 1916, the German one was certainly not bad at that time as it had to economize on ammunition and had a comparably good share of effective howitzers that were not so common in allied armies of 1914-1915.

2) I never read anywhere that Germans were impressed by British artillery in WW2. Never ever. Not in several dozen WW2 books that I read in both German and English. Source please. They liked captured 25pdrs, that's all. They were impressed by the sheer volume (not accuracy) of Russian and American artillery (plus Russian mortars).

I wonder if you read German books on the subject as well, or just English ones. It's a safe bet to expect some bias in the own countries' literature.

 

"I'm not sure why people keep looking for doctrines with ref to the BA, given that the term and necessary admin were not officially acknowledged or emplaced until the late 1990s IIRC."

 

I talked about "doctrine" because TODAY lots of English speakers use that word (it's not in use here) and because it's in the title, wiseacre.

[67th Tigers]

@BillB;

 

My assessments of German vs. British doctrine quality concerning infantry and artillery stem directly from German AND English-language sources, like for example Gudmundsson (among many others). I have never seen English or even German sources stating that the British were superior to Germans in anything else than details like a few months advance in sound ranging and the like.

 

Not looking hard then...

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0300066635/

[capt_starlight]

Of course, a youn subaltern should have gone through Sandhurst, so the basics should be quite clear.

 

Very unlikely that a young subaltern would have gone through RMC Sandhurst by 1942. A modified (much modified) Sandhurst syllabus would have been taught at the various OCTU's created at the commencement of the war to take potential officers (either from the ranks or from civvie street). In 1939 the RMC and RMA Woolwich closed the RMC becoming 161 OCTU (Inf) and in 1942 161 OCTU (Inf) moved from Sandhurst to Mons Barracks, Aldershot. 161 OCTU (Inf) would have trained a minuscule number of the officers required by the British Army in WW2.

 

I think Danger UXB is a funny if macabre example. A good NCO who knows his business and an officer who's in some ways MORE expendable than the NCO who works for him.

 

Officers were available - SGTs and good "spade men" were not. Anyway - they were RE.

 

Seriously though, the training manuals of the time which I have read through seem to have very clear details on the basics of infantry combat. The signals manuals are also quite developed. Where you get into sticky bits is how everyone is supposed to work with Armor and light armor. The pamphlets for the Armored Forces operations, especially Armored Car and Recce Squadrons are quite light in rules and very strong on rough ideas of what you should be doing. They're still very light on material, iirc, the main Armored Recce pamphlet being 20 pages or so. I guess given that they were very early on in the development of such things, you did sort of have to work by the seat of your pants. Compare this to the inch thick manuals that came out of Fort Knox which was developed with M2 Combat Cars as the working models....

 

Combined arms was always a weakness in the British Army as training was devolved to the Battalion commander in the main. There are a couple of good books on the matter of training the British Army:

 

Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany, 1919-1945 by David French

 

and

 

Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-day (Military History & Policy) by Tim Harrison Place

 

 

Where the British were probably the best in the world was in artillery (arising from their experience in the Great War) and the best book to date on that is still:

 

Fire Power: The British Army - Weapons and Theories of War, 1904-1945 by Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham