Evaluating The Armies And Generals Of 1914

[Ken Estes]

No, but you don't really care about being accurate.

[Tony Evans]

How odd.

 

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Concise_History_of_the_U.S._Air_Force/Flexible_Response_and_Vietnam

Oddly enough, upon reading the article, one discovers that it is an executive summary of the operational history of the Air Force in Vietnam. The only reference to Flexible Response in the actual body text:

After the [Cuban Missile Crisis], won through a third alternative, a naval blockade referred to as a "quarantine," Kennedy hastened to adopt the "flexible response" as America's new war-planning doctrine. SIOP-63 introduced the potential for limited nuclear war, while preserving the possibility of an all-out countervalue strike.

 

Even while the SAC-dominated Air Force eagerly adopted the Eisenhower administration's New Look structure, it also maintained forward-based units in Japan, Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and elsewhere on the Pacific rim. With almost 1,000 aircraft in place, these units came under the command of the Hawaii-headquartered Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), which replaced FEAF as the air component of the Navy-led Pacific Command in 1957.

 

By 1957 the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) had built up an even larger forward presence to bolster NATO. With more than 2,000 assigned aircraft of all types (not including SAC bombers also deployed in theater), USAFE's network of 32 primary installations stretched from England to Saudi Arabia. Reflecting NATO's "sword and shield" policy, USAFE focused on nuclear strike and air defense roles. By the time of the Berlin crisis of 1961, the command had shrank in size, but it was quickly reinforced by the largest deployment of tactical aircraft since World War II. After the crisis eased, USAFE began a 20-year effort to improve its conventional capabilities in line with the flexible response strategy, which NATO officially adopted in 1967.

Nowhere in the article is it suggested, much less asserted, that Vietnam was a "field laboratory" for Flexible Response.

[Tony Evans]

No, but you don't really care about being accurate.

 

Which?

 

The mitrailleuse? The Reffye, which was the one adopted by the French Army, weighed 750 lb, with an 1135 lb carriage, for an all-up weight of 1885 lb, not counting the ammunition limber. This was almost the same weight as the bronze, rifled 86mm guns that the French used at the time. So perhaps you don't mean that they had the size and mobility of artillery. Do we suppose they would have been used like modern machine guns, at firefight range? That would have been an interesting contest -- a six gun battery, firing 600 rounds per minute, all 36 crewmen necessarily standing up, against an infantry battalion of say 800 men, lying prone, firing (let's be generous and go with only half the manual-specified rate of fire for the Dreyse) 4000 rounds per minute.

 

The constancy of war in Europe in the later pre-Modern and early Modern age? Might be a shock to the people who were there:

 

16th Century

17th Century

18th Century

19th Century

 

Or perhaps you mean the genesis of linear tactics? Maurice's reforms were based on Renaissance re-readings of the military classics of Rome and Greece. The Classical Greeks had linear formations of 8, 12, and 16 man files. The Romans had linear formations of 8 or 10 man files. One of the things taken away from that was the adoption of more linear battlefield formations, both within the fighting units, and within the army as a whole. As previously stated, Maurice started with a 10 man file in pike and shot units. As the 17th Century progressed, this was reduced to an 8 man and then a 6 man file, with corresponding increases in battalion frontage. It is reported that at Leutzen, in 1632, Swedish battalions had 6 men in each file, while the Imperials had 7 men per file. These were on battalion strengths of approximately 500 for the Swedish, giving approximately 80 files per battalion, and 1,000 for the Imperials, giving approximately 140 files per battalion. That's pretty darn linear, dontcha think?

 

With the introduction of the flintlock, which corrected some of the worst usability and reliability problems of the matchlock, files of musketeers could be compressed to normal, rather than extended interval (because getting your powder ignited by a spark from your neighbor's smoldering match was no longer a risk), and the file could be shortened to 3-4 men (because the flintlock was more reliable and the compression of interval put just as many musketeers on the same frontage).

 

WRT pike and shot tactics in general, they were developed strictly in the laboratory of war, first by the Spanish Tercios and German Lansknechts during the Italian Wars, and then copied by everybody trying to compete.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Tony Evans

[rohala]

As significant as is the story of assault fire tactics and the machine gun in 1918, it remains equally so for the British aimed rifle fire that astonished the Germans in 1914, and that resulted from their contacts with Boer troops who had used such fire in similar defensive situations.

Is there a German source for this claim? If anything prior to WW1 the effectiveness of rifle fire had been exaggerated. The British experience in the Boer war is less relevant than the experience of the Russo-Japanese war and its lessons. The same is true to a certain extent for the Balkan wars.

[Ken Estes]

 

As significant as is the story of assault fire tactics and the machine gun in 1918, it remains equally so for the British aimed rifle fire that astonished the Germans in 1914, and that resulted from their contacts with Boer troops who had used such fire in similar defensive situations.

Is there a German source for this claim? If anything prior to WW1 the effectiveness of rifle fire had been exaggerated. The British experience in the Boer war is less relevant than the experience of the Russo-Japanese war and its lessons. The same is true to a certain extent for the Balkan wars.

 

A German source? Well, I suppose, but when I can find the time.

 

In the meantime, I'd suggest that you consider the quality of musketry in almost any long-term service British army compared to a contemporary conscript army.

 

And the wars you cite, plus the Italian campaign against the Ottomans in 1911, were ignored in the main by the major armies of the day that considered them merely colonial conflicts of little worth in reference to continental warfare. This was in spite of many useful reports by western observers in each case, although the navies certainly took notice of Tsushima.

 

Don't confuse me with Evans, who hangs around shotgunning topics in search of gotcha material and apparently IOT advance himself to unknown people as somehow 'well-read' in uncertain topics.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Ken Estes

[ScottBrim]

 

How odd.

 

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Concise_History_of_the_U.S._Air_Force/Flexible_Response_and_Vietnam

Nowhere in the article is it suggested, much less asserted, that Vietnam was a "field laboratory" for Flexible Response.

 

Flexible Response, as viewed by General Maxwell Taylor and his coterie of like-thinking US Army acolytes -- the same people who were pushed aside in the mid-1950s by Eisenhower's New Look when the army was downsized in favor of spending more money on the USAF and the Strategic Air Command -- was thought by General Taylor to be just as applicable to conventional warfare as it was to strategic nuclear warfare.

 

His thoughts on that score are documented in his 1959 book, The Uncertain Trumpet, a first edition copy of which I have on my bookshelf.

 

It is clear in the recently released USAF histories of the period that General Taylor's theories as to how Flexible Response could be applied to conventional warfare -- the same theories Taylor had espoused in his 1959 book -- were being pushed by the US Army in the early 1960's as an alternative to the USAF/USN's common position that we should either 1) win fast and win big in Vietnam using whatever it took, or else 2) we should get out. In the early 1960's, the newly installed Kennedy Administration bought the concept of a gradually measured escalation in Vietnam as pushed by General Taylor and by the US Army. We know what the results were of that decision.

 

I'll get more into this later in the week after some other priorities now being pushed on me by Household Financial Control are finished.

Edited September 2, 2014 by ScottBrim

[Junior FO]

...

 

Edited September 22, 2024 by Junior FO

[Murph]

Looking at the German side, you had Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria as an Army commander (good? bad? indifferent?), the Crown Prince as an Army commander (same question) Albrecht, Duke of Wurttenberg, Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Arnim (Daddy of the 6th army commander at Stalingrad). Plus there was General Manfred von Richtofen (cousin of the Red Baron).

[Tony Evans]

 

It is clear in the recently released USAF histories of the period that General Taylor's theories as to how Flexible Response could be applied to conventional warfare -- the same theories Taylor had espoused in his 1959 book -- were being pushed by the US Army in the early 1960's as an alternative to the USAF/USN's common position that we should either 1) win fast and win big in Vietnam using whatever it took, or else 2) we should get out. In the early 1960's, the newly installed Kennedy Administration bought the concept of a gradually measured escalation in Vietnam as pushed by General Taylor and by the US Army. We know what the results were of that decision.

 

 

That's a curious thesis, given what we know about US war aims in Vietnam, which weren't to win, just to keep the lid on.

[DougRichards]

 

No, but you don't really care about being accurate.

 

Which?

 

The mitrailleuse? The Reffye, which was the one adopted by the French Army, weighed 750 lb, with an 1135 lb carriage, for an all-up weight of 1885 lb, not counting the ammunition limber. This was almost the same weight as the bronze, rifled 86mm guns that the French used at the time. So perhaps you don't mean that they had the size and mobility of artillery. Do we suppose they would have been used like modern machine guns, at firefight range? That would have been an interesting contest -- a six gun battery, firing 600 rounds per minute, all 36 crewmen necessarily standing up, against an infantry battalion of say 800 men, lying prone, firing (let's be generous and go with only half the manual-specified rate of fire for the Dreyse) 4000 rounds per minute.

 

The constancy of war in Europe in the later pre-Modern and early Modern age? Might be a shock to the people who were there:

 

16th Century

17th Century

18th Century

19th Century

 

Or perhaps you mean the genesis of linear tactics? Maurice's reforms were based on Renaissance re-readings of the military classics of Rome and Greece. The Classical Greeks had linear formations of 8, 12, and 16 man files. The Romans had linear formations of 8 or 10 man files. One of the things taken away from that was the adoption of more linear battlefield formations, both within the fighting units, and within the army as a whole. As previously stated, Maurice started with a 10 man file in pike and shot units. As the 17th Century progressed, this was reduced to an 8 man and then a 6 man file, with corresponding increases in battalion frontage. It is reported that at Leutzen, in 1632, Swedish battalions had 6 men in each file, while the Imperials had 7 men per file. These were on battalion strengths of approximately 500 for the Swedish, giving approximately 80 files per battalion, and 1,000 for the Imperials, giving approximately 140 files per battalion. That's pretty darn linear, dontcha think?

 

With the introduction of the flintlock, which corrected some of the worst usability and reliability problems of the matchlock, files of musketeers could be compressed to normal, rather than extended interval (because getting your powder ignited by a spark from your neighbor's smoldering match was no longer a risk), and the file could be shortened to 3-4 men (because the flintlock was more reliable and the compression of interval put just as many musketeers on the same frontage).

 

WRT pike and shot tactics in general, they were developed strictly in the laboratory of war, first by the Spanish Tercios and German Lansknechts during the Italian Wars, and then copied by everybody trying to compete.

 

 

Hence the theory of 'the empty battlefield'

[Rich]

 

Looking at the German side, you had ...Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Arnim (Daddy of the 6th army commander at Stalingrad). Plus there was General Manfred von Richtofen (cousin of the Red Baron).

 

Minor corrections.

 

General der Infanterie Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Arnim was the father of Generalleutnant Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Arnim, who was commander of 116. Infanterie-Division at Stalingrad. Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus was commander of 6. Armee at Stalingrad.

 

General der Kavallerie Karl Ernst Manfred Freiherr von Richtofen was the great uncle of Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen, not his cousin. Manfred Albrecht was the cousin of Generalfeldmarshall Wolfram Freherr von Richtofen and the brother of Oberleutnant Lothar-Siegfried Freiherr von Richtofen.

 

The von Kleist's are worse...

[Ken Estes]

 

As significant as is the story of assault fire tactics and the machine gun in 1918, it remains equally so for the British aimed rifle fire that astonished the Germans in 1914, and that resulted from their contacts with Boer troops who had used such fire in similar defensive situations.

Is there a German source for this claim? If anything prior to WW1 the effectiveness of rifle fire had been exaggerated. The British experience in the Boer war is less relevant than the experience of the Russo-Japanese war and its lessons. The same is true to a certain extent for the Balkan wars.

 

 

Not much to show you.

 

The classic statement is in Cuttwell, Hist of Grt War, (Oxford, 1936, 2d ed). On the British II Corps at Mons:

 

The resolute and repeated attacks in massed formation, and the great superiority both in number and weight of the enemy artillery; the astonishingly rapid and accurate fire of our infantry, which made the Germans state that we possessed twenty-eight machine-guns per battalion insteadof two; the skillfull tactical handling of small bodies especially in covering retirement -- all became commonplaces of the campaign. Kluck was greatly impressed by the expeditionary force and spoke of it to British officers after the war in the most generous terms as 'an incomparable army.' [pp. 21-22]

 

I have no equivalent in German, but the official history does remark upon the British Army no longer being taken for granted in the war as a result of this engagement. Otherwise there is no detail except for the borrowing of field guns as noted earlier.

 

....

Als am frühen Nachmittag der Irrtum, der zum Haltebefehl Klucks geführt hatte, erwiesen war und nunmehr mit einiger Sicherheit feststand, dass sich die Hauptmacht der Briten direkt südwärts der Front der 1. Armee befand, befahl das AOK 1 dem rechts an das IX. AK anschließenden III. AK, in Richtung auf St. Ghislain und Jemappes gegen den Mons-Condé-Kanal vorzugehen. Die beiden aus brandenburgischen Kerntruppen der preußischen Armee zusammengesetzten Divisionen dieses Korps mussten dabei eine mehr als einen Kilometer breite, nahezu deckungslose Niederung überwinden und anschließend in den Kampf um die wenigen unzerstörten Kanalübergänge gegen einen „zähen, fast unsichtbaren Feind“ eintreten. Eine Brigade der 5. ID konnte Tertre stürmen, blieb aber südlich davon in dem von der Südseite des Kanals kommenden Gewehr- und Maschinengewehrfeuer liegen; eine andere Brigade konnte nach hartem Kampf am späten Nachmittag bei Wasmuël den Kanal überschreiten und den Ort gegen 20 Uhr nehmen. Nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit gelang auch bei der Eisenbahnbrücke südwestlich von Tertre die Überwindung des Kanals. Die direkt gegenüber von Jemappes angreifende 6. ID kam zunächst gegen das Feuer der in den Häusern dieses Industrieortes verschanzten Verteidiger nicht voran. Am späten Nachmittag konnte jedoch eine überraschend vorbrechende, aus Nahdistanz durch Feldgeschütze unterstützte Kampfgruppe eine Brücke sichern. Über diese stürmte die Division den Ort und stieß noch am Abend in südlicher Richtung auf Frameries vor.

....

 

Reichsarchiv (Hrsg.), Die Grenzschlachten im Westen (Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, Band 1), Berlin 1925, S. 429, 495.

 

 

The official history is, of course, that compiled by the General Staff after the war, when it was outlawed and operated as the Truppenamt. The history was not made to academic standards and largely self serving in scope and content. The destruction of most of the German military archives for this period in the last bombings of Potsdam make it difficult to research. This is why the work of Gerhard Ritter and others remained essential for so long.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Ken Estes

[Murph]

You are correct, I made the error while Googling while really tired. Thanks for the corrections.

 

 

Looking at the German side, you had ...Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Arnim (Daddy of the 6th army commander at Stalingrad). Plus there was General Manfred von Richtofen (cousin of the Red Baron).

 

Minor corrections.

 

General der Infanterie Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Arnim was the father of Generalleutnant Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Arnim, who was commander of 116. Infanterie-Division at Stalingrad. Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus was commander of 6. Armee at Stalingrad.

 

General der Kavallerie Karl Ernst Manfred Freiherr von Richtofen was the great uncle of Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen, not his cousin. Manfred Albrecht was the cousin of Generalfeldmarshall Wolfram Freherr von Richtofen and the brother of Oberleutnant Lothar-Siegfried Freiherr von Richtofen.

 

The von Kleist's are worse...

 

[Panzermann]

doublette oops

Edited September 10, 2014 by Panzermann

[Panzermann]

 

 

I hate those kinds of restrictions websites have. So much for the internet.

I still would quite happily beat to death the fucker who invented 'regions' on DVDs, I so I know what you mean.

That is what those noname DVD players from hong Kong are for. Basically ignoring region codes.

 

And for this "wrong country" inconvenience , one uses a proxy server in the respective country to deceive the video server. There are various ways to utilise those like browser add on, manually adjusting your operating system or installing a little tool to do this.

 

 

And now back to grading the Generals of the Great War. Hoping to learn something from the discussion here.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Panzermann

[Colin Williams]

Not sure about the bit about Vimy mate, but I'm still interested in any details of practical schemes to do this, and why it was considered such a bad thing post-Boer War. I'm not aware of Canadians getting the short end of the stick in South Africa any more than home-grown troops, altho I'll give you there was no apparent shortage of short end going around. Not trying to b obtuse, am genuinely curious as I hear this stuff about the Brits deliberately using its Dominion troops as cannon-fodder but I've yet to come across a clear-cut unambiguous example despite looking quite hard which is why it looks like post-event political nation building stuff for home consumption to me.

 

BillB

I used to be skeptical about this also until I read a book on the WW2 North African campaign (can't remember which one) in which the author contrasted the experience of the independent Dominion forces with the Indian Army units, which could be deployed as the British wished without resistance. Basically the Indian divisions were scattered and decimated through the period from Gazala to 1st Alamein.

[MiloMorai]

Did he really say this?

 

David Lloyd George, referred to the Canadian Corps as the “shock army of the British Empire.”

[T19]

I have heard similar reports from a number of sources over the years

[baboon6]

 

Not sure about the bit about Vimy mate, but I'm still interested in any details of practical schemes to do this, and why it was considered such a bad thing post-Boer War. I'm not aware of Canadians getting the short end of the stick in South Africa any more than home-grown troops, altho I'll give you there was no apparent shortage of short end going around. Not trying to b obtuse, am genuinely curious as I hear this stuff about the Brits deliberately using its Dominion troops as cannon-fodder but I've yet to come across a clear-cut unambiguous example despite looking quite hard which is why it looks like post-event political nation building stuff for home consumption to me.

 

BillB

 

I used to be skeptical about this also until I read a book on the WW2 North African campaign (can't remember which one) in which the author contrasted the experience of the independent Dominion forces with the Indian Army units, which could be deployed as the British wished without resistance. Basically the Indian divisions were scattered and decimated through the period from Gazala to 1st Alamein.

In fairness so were many British units....the New Zealanders were cut-off at Minqar Qaim but managed to break out...and South Africa lost almost a whole division at Tobruk...not a good time for anyone.

 

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Egyp-c11.html#name-001096-mention

 

 

http://www.academia.edu/2644030/The_greatest_military_reversal_of_South_African_arms_The_fall_of_Tobruk_1942_an_avoidable_blunder_or_an_inevitable_disaster

[Archie Pellagio]

Did he really say this?

 

David Lloyd George, referred to the Canadian Corps as the “shock army of the British Empire.”

 

I've always considered it in the same basket as Rommel's oft quoted "Give me two divisions of New Zealanders/Australians (depending on who's telling the story) and I'll conquer the world!" or Teufel Hunde for Marines and all those sort of quotes.

[BillB]

 

Not sure about the bit about Vimy mate, but I'm still interested in any details of practical schemes to do this, and why it was considered such a bad thing post-Boer War. I'm not aware of Canadians getting the short end of the stick in South Africa any more than home-grown troops, altho I'll give you there was no apparent shortage of short end going around. Not trying to b obtuse, am genuinely curious as I hear this stuff about the Brits deliberately using its Dominion troops as cannon-fodder but I've yet to come across a clear-cut unambiguous example despite looking quite hard which is why it looks like post-event political nation building stuff for home consumption to me.

 

BillB

I used to be skeptical about this also until I read a book on the WW2 North African campaign (can't remember which one) in which the author contrasted the experience of the independent Dominion forces with the Indian Army units, which could be deployed as the British wished without resistance. Basically the Indian divisions were scattered and decimated through the period from Gazala to 1st Alamein.

 

Well I wouldn't have been at all surprised given the prevailing attitude toward non-white troops at that time. However, I believe only three Indian Army Divisions served in the Western Desert between 1939 and 1943 and only two at any one time and so there wasn't much scope for being scattered and decimated. Plus from what I can see the decimating was spread pretty evenly across the British and CW formations in those actions too, so I'm still looking.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Did he really say this?

 

David Lloyd George, referred to the Canadian Corps as the “shock army of the British Empire.”

Well it is Lloyd George, so the chances are he was fibbing if he actually did say it...

 

Personally I'd go with Archie's take in Post #12.

 

BillB

[MiloMorai]

From 'War Memoirs of David Lloyd George', v.6 London; Ivor Nicholson & George Watson 1936

 

"The Canadians played a part of such distinction (during the 1916 battle of the Somme) that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line, they prepared for the worst."

[BillB]

From 'War Memoirs of David Lloyd George', v.6 London; Ivor Nicholson & George Watson 1936

 

"The Canadians played a part of such distinction (during the 1916 battle of the Somme) that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line, they prepared for the worst."

So he said it twenty years after the event in a self-serving memoir then.

 

BillB

[Ken Estes]

never mind

Edited September 20, 2014 by Ken Estes