As one factor helping to explain German Army effectiveness in WWII it's fine.  Training, doctrine, leadership, etc, are all important factors.  A comparison of German and US replacement policies is instructive.  Even comparing squad tactics can be illuminating.  

It should also be considered that the judgment that German soldiers were 20 to 30% superior to allied troops was arrived at by a study of the Italian campaign where the allies had overwhelming air, naval, and logistical superiority.  When one looks at the history of that campaign, and in my view the recent work of Atkinson glosses over it, the allies mostly operated at a level far below the Germans on every level.  A careful study of the French corp during the 4th battle of Casino is instructive in how one might operate on the tactical and operational level in the mountains vs how the allies normally operated.  

At the institutional level, the Versailles Treaty unintentionally strengthened the future Wehrmacht by limiting its manpower to 100,000.  Because of this restriction,  the personnel selection became highly selective.  In essence, a mere 100,000 men army could be trained under higher standard to become cadres -- upon expansion (which eventually took place), these men could be promoted to lead new formations.

 

Cultural factor also played a factor.  More so than most of their opponents, in Germany at that time, military service was considered as a higher-calling, carrying considerable prestige and honor.  Attitude towards the aftermath of WW1 also played a part -- the military still believed in 'Greater Germany', the Versailles was an insult to the nation, and so on.  You basically have the necessary ingredients to nurture and grow ultra-nationalism.

 

Other things the Reichswehr have done pretty well was in studying WW1 experiences.  Compared to the Allies, the Germans studied it more thoroughly and paid particular attention to leadership and unit cohesion.  In terms of tactical training, perhaps the most significant difference between the Germans and their opponents was the concept of 'mission and objectives' instead of 'order'.  It was up to the subordinates to come up with how to achieve mission objectives defined by their superiors, instead of the superiors merely dispatching detailed orders to their subordinates.

 

But at the end, German qualitative superiority was not enough once they stumbled into a total war.  An Allied and a Russian combat leader was more easily replaceable than their German counterpart.  The peculiar characteristics of German war economy was no match for more rationally managed and resourceful Allied and Russian counterparts.

I read the Fighting Power book back in the 1980's. It was in the Camp Pendleton Library.It was the first book I had read on this subject and I was, perhaps, too impressed by it. We Marines, of course, felt ourselves to be a cut above the run-of-the-mill Army soldiers.

 

A book that tends to support its arguments, not explicitly but by assumption, is Death Ground, by Daniel P. Bolger. He states that the more rigorous and realistic training in the post Vietnam War Army made up a deficit of agressive, coordinated infantry attacks.

 

An interesting counterpoint to its arguments can be found in When The Odds Were Even, by Keith E. Bonn. He chronicles 1944 operations in the Vosges mountains by the US 7th Army. He states that air power was not a factor because of terrain and weather, that numbers of US and German troops were about equal, and that the 7th Army was at the end of the US supply chain and so its logistical superiority was attenuated. All these factors not withstanding, the US 7th Army won decisively. 

 

Fighting Power makes a compelling argument for its thesis, but it is not the only word on this subject.

 

Have you got an ISBN on that?

 

I am dubious. Partly because of the difficulty of maintaining the Kameradenshaft through the second battle much less the war - look at loss rates in UK county regiments and US National Guard (or Japanese units) units all of which should have the same cohesion (or the USMC) partly because of the more recent info on the proportions of non Germans fighting for the German army. I am thinking of Beevor's numbers on the Hiwis.

 

Also I always got the idea that german superiority was at the operational and small unit leadership level. Certainly the method of officer selection was more oriented to good small unit combat leaders and operationally they were better at fighting battles early in the war - they notably lost all of them in the second half of the war.

 

Of course the 100 vs 100 men reminds of the old joke.

 

sad looking panzer man looking at his beer while on leave and the barman says -' why so glum. Is it not true that one Panther or Tiger is worth four Shermans?'

 

'Its true' 

 

'so why be sad?'

 

'what about the fifth Sherman?

 

 

 

 

 

They're still on my desk from the last post. I guess I'm not obsessive about the German "clean desk" management ethos...

 

When The Odds Were Even, Keith E. Bonn, ISBN 0-375-47611-5

Death Ground, Daniel P. Bolger, ISBN 0-89141-830-X

Bonns book has some holes.

 

There are, of course, scattered references to the fact that the German army had been at war continuously since the autumn of 1939, and indeed even that it had been engaged against the Red Army for three years before Allied troops ever set foot on Western Europe. In fact, however, there is no recognition that the Red Army had simply gutted the Wehrmacht in those three years of bitter fighting. Indeed, the reverse is true---Bonn and his cohorts purposefully lead the reader to the inference that the United States and German armies were somehow fighting on equal terms from June 1944 to the end of the war. Conveniently left out of the story is the fact, for example, that since the beginning of 1942 the German army had never been capable of replenishing the personnel losses sustained in the East,

 

 

 

 

As has been previously observed, an essential part of Bonn's methodology is to rely not upon German records, but upon contemporary U.S. Army intelligence reports, for evidence about the constitution of German units in the Vosges campaign. This is well demonstrated by his treatment of the so-called 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division, also purportedly subordinate to LXIV.Armeekorps. Noting that it included remnants of a variety of units, including men from the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, Bonn observes that its major subordinate units were Volks-Grenadier-Regiment 726 and 736. In fact, there is no evidence that 716.Volks-Grenadier-Division ever existed. There was, instead, a 716.Infanterie-Division in the German order of battle during the Vosges campaign, whose principal maneuver elements were Grenadier-Regiment 726 and 736. 716.Infanterie-Division had been formed as an occupation division in 1941, and was virtually annihilated in the Normandy fighting. It was reorganized in August 1944. At that time, the companies of Grenadier-Regiment 726 possessed a total of 14 machine guns and no infantry support or anti-tank guns. At the same time, the companies of Grenadier-Regiment 736 managed 12 machine guns, no infantry support guns, and a single 75mm PAK 40 anti-tank weapon. Likewise, the division's Artillerie-Regiment 1716 had no guns. At the beginning of November 1944, 716.Infanterie-Division absorbed troops from no less than 17 different battalions and 9 different regiments and companies. It is no wonder that American intelligence officers, upon whose reports Bonn relies for his information, produced incorrect information about 716.Infanterie-Division, since most of the captured Germans interviewed by them probably had no real idea of the identity of the division to which they belonged. Even Bonn admits that this disparate collection of Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and over-aged troops "received only rudimentary infantry combat training",  http://www.militaryhistoryonli...

It would appear Crevald arrived at near the same percentage figure as Dupuy.

 

Here's some interesting allied airpower data from Dupuys book.

 

 

 the study results showed that Allied success was only assured (with some exceptions) where their overall power superiority was very great. In cases where the power ratio favored the Allies only marginally, the Germans were usually successful. In situations where the power ratio suggested an indeterminate outcome, the Germans were invariably the "winner", just as they were when the ratio was in their favor.(78)

 

Dupuy and his colleagues found that if the air component had been removed from these 45 engagements, a German success would have been either predictable or very likely in 20-24 of them. Put another way, in this subset of 45 engagements, "airpower provided the margin which provided victory or prevented defeat" in at least 44% (perhaps as high as 53%) of Allied successes and inconclusive engagements.(84)

http://www.militaryhistoryonli...