What about Marshall Foch - Supreme Allied Commander in the First World War? He was French and, as I recall, the allies won that little scuffle.
Yes M’Lord but THE ALLIESwon that little scuffle as you say, not the French on their own.
ESTILICON: Well the Germans tried to beat Britain…and failed.
CAPT. PHART: Quite correct, the US didn’t invent logistics in WW2 it was much earlier, around 1862 I believe
Those ME threads and the black and white vision people are attractive targets... cant hold myself unfortunately.
As for Napoleon it wasnt only speed foraging and therefore fresh pastures… but a good amount of planning. Corps going thru different planned roads meant they avoided long lines of troops and wagons getting slowed down… and helped foraging efforts. Routes were planned before… depots were created in several expected advance routes.
Like you said... speed was Napolean's forte... plus superb cavalry giving excelent inteligence. Concentration of Force at the last moment and voila ! Local superiority every time.
In Spain the British destroyed all supplies thru areas where the french were going to advance… Wellington figured out pretty well how the French operated. I have been trying to get my hands on a Supply related book… will do it eventually.
I am astonished that “Patton” and “logistics” are associated in the same sentence.
There is no historical evidence that Patton had more than the sketchiest understanding of logistics.
The Roman Legion(s) at the start of a campaign carried three days supply on their persons and wagons.
Stopped, encamped, foraged and replenished with three more days supply, then resumed the march.
But an understanding of the importance of logistics predated the Romans. No person or country in recent history deserves to be given credit for discovering that.
My point being that the leader was French - DreadCthulhu was implying that French generals have some sort of “war losing” gene, which is bullshit - Foch was the leader of the winning side.
Foch made quite an effort to lose thou… the french army was nearly mutinous in several moments. 
Excellent points, Rashak Mani, the 1805 campaign and the march to Ulm being the textbook example of road net planning, and pre-ordering of bread/biscuit rations.
Alan Owes Bess, I agree but the book deals with lack of logistical planning too! Actually Patton was just a little bit (not much) smarter than people gave him credit fror, and he was quick to realise that the allied logistical planners for Normandy had allowed so much contingency to creep into their supply assumptions that Patton quickly realised he could keep going longer and faster with less than anyone up the chain of command appreciated. Mind you the road net in France was a gift to his style of warfare.
After the Battle of the Bulge the Allies discovered intelligence that showed them that the Germany had calaculated they could run an Armoured Division for a day on the daily book ration of the US Command Group!!!
After that Patton refused to see the G3 (is it - logistic in the US Army) at all on the assumption he could do pretty much what he wanted on whatever turned up.
To be fair with the french we should start bashing post Rome Italians… they basically botched loads of wars… including with Ethiopia.
I think Patton and some americans saw that if they lost momentum and allowed the Germans some time to regroup that they would be toast… US tanks were no match to germans… lack of experience of US troops as compared to Germans. So his pushing ahead was very correct I agree…
The Battle of the Bulge was what happened when Germans took the initiative.
The “Cannon Ball” (i think this is how it was called) supply chain of trucks going on 24/7 really allowed the Americans enough supplies do have more freedom and speed.
Now changing a bit the direction... since many here seem a bit more informed than I on certain subjects. I am a big fan of the Napoleonic Era games and history in general. I noticed that the Russians despite everything have always had good to excelent general right into WWII. (WWI maybe not.) Kutusov and other Russians were better than most Austrian and Prussian Generals. (Except Charles and Blucher).
During World War II the Soviets/Russia had Zhukov and many other top notch generals. In other periods even thou not as many bright generals existed... considering the irregular russian troops and technology they did excelent command work.
Is this a loopsided assesment of mine ? Why did they despite their backwardness have top notch or better generals ... or good generals in quantaty ?Hitler massively underestimated Russian resistance . He really did believe that the USSR would cave in after a few months.
And wasnt what success the Germans had in 1941 (reaching the suburbs of Moscow) largely due to Soviet incompetence?
I suspect it is something to do with the fact that they were very open to officers of other nations joining there Army and they were smart enough to allow them to be promoted more on their merits than other nations did with their imports. Large numbers of their staff officers were German, who did some of the best staff work at least on the Napoleonic Wars.
I am not so familiar I’m afriad with other periods, or rather more modern periods, to know whether this willingness to learn from others continued. But the shared technology schools in Russian with the Germans before WWII might be additional evidence that they did?
Comment anyone, or build on this?
Rashak Mani. you mentioned “…the “Cannon Ball” (i think this is how it was called) supply chain of trucks going on 24/7 really allowed the Americans enough supplies do have more freedom and speed.”.
I think you are referring to the Red Ball Express. This was actually a bit of a disaster, a last minute botched together response to Patton’s famous plea, that his “…men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas!!”
It thoroughly dislocated the ZOC and stripped units of all their transport. Also as maintainance and driver sleep was neglected the number of accidents and breakdowns soared. Pattons neglect of his communications and supply people, whilst good operationally in the pursuit, was done in a way that encouraged a breakdown of discipline and let to officers in Patton’s Army literaly stealing supplies going elsewhere, and diverting supplies to his own troops.
The whole history of the Allied logistical support to the invasion of France and Germany is a very interesting subject. I am almost tempted to start a great debate on the pros and cons of the Broad Front strategy of Gen Eisenhower. I am in the camp that believes an opportunity to finish the War in 1944 was thrown away.
nicky You have to remember that Stalin had purged his army of most high ranking officers because of his fear of that officer corps undermining his authority.
This in itself was the reason why the German army was able to advance so fast deep into Russia, lack of suitable leadership.
It was only later that Stalin realising his mistake began to re-instate leaders such as Zhukov that the tide began to turn against Germany, that and General Winter of course.
Red Ball Express !! Yup that one…
I read some stories from those in it… and that they were mostly black drivers too. It did seem a mess. Quite surprised it was a “bit of a disaster”. Not that I know much about it.
Still it does show the capacity americans had in motor transport and supplies. I hardly think the germans could pull off something similar. As for the Broad Front I am sure its “controversial”… but taken Americas bigger numbers vs German professionalism… a broad front lended itself more to Americans numbers.
Naturally finishing the war might have been better… but I am not sure in 1944 the Germans were beaten up enough for sucessful Allied breakthrus…
This isn’t a very good characterization of the situation by the time of the landings in France in 1944 and the advance through France and later Germany in 44-45. While the great majority of US and other Western Allied troops hadn’t seen action before being committed to the front lines at this time, they were fairly well trained, and the general level of competence and experience of German troops had been continuously declining as a result of the severe casualties they were experiencing on the Eastern front. While Germany did a remarkable job of maintaining a decent pool of junior leadership and was able to keep its premiere units (generally, the ‘named’ regular divisions, the premiere SS divisions, and to a lesser degree panzer units in general) at a fairly high level of competence, the rank and file infantry divisions grew weaker and weaker. In 1943 there was a reorganization of most infantry divisions from a 9 battalion establishment down to a 6 battalion establishment, though this was usually as much a paper reshuffling as an actual change in strength as most infantry divisions were already running severely under strength. Many of the infantry divisions in France in 1944 even had a battalion of Osttruppen (former Soviet POWs) as part of their establishment, who proved to be of very dubious value and loyalty; many surrendered en masse at the first opportunity to do so. After the horrific manpower losses at Normandy, the Germans did the best they could to bring the divisions back up to strength by using the young, the old, and those previously disqualified from front line service, which speaks volumes of their ability to weather crisis by any means, but also of the desperate straights they were at by that point.
With regards to tanks, while one for one the Sherman was outclassed by the Tiger and the Panther, a Sherman was more likely to run into a StuG-III or a Pz-IV, which it was the equal of. Additionally, though they had their weaknesses (poor armor protection and an open top), Allied tank destroyers were very good and had guns powerful enough to regularly deal with the heavier German tanks, as did a portion of the Sherman’s upgunned with a high velocity 76mm gun or the British 17-pounder. The small number of late war Sherman Jumbos even had armor protection the equal of or superior to the heavier German vehicles. The Western Allies also had the advantages of having much greater amounts of armor than the Germans, and complete and total dominance of the skies.
The Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge) was a last desperate gasp of the Germans. Even with a long preparation, they had problems amassing enough supplies for the offensive, and even worse problems moving the supplies forward to their troops as they advanced, especially after the weather cleared and the Allies were able to pummel their supply lines from the air. Fuel shortages were particularly acute. The Ardennes didn’t stand any more real of a chance of altering the situation facing Germany than the last desperate gasp in the East in the form of the counterattack at Budapest in early 1945 did.
Both points are very true, but the German army when it invaded Russia was also at the height of its own competence. In addition to the decimation of the Soviet officer corps during the purges that has been noted, a lot of the incompetence early on flowed directly from Stalin himself. Stalin had voluminous amounts of intelligence telling him that Hitler was going to attack, some of it even pinpointing the exact day the invasion would take place. He disregarded the intelligence, choosing to believe in his own theory that Hitler was making a demonstration of force and was only going to make demands for concessions from Stalin. The result was that the Russian forces were taken completely aback by the offensive. Many of his early war decisions worked to the detriment of the Soviet position as well, allowing large numbers of troops to be pocketed and captured in the summer and fall of 1941. His decision to turn the winter 1941-42 offensive into a front wide general offensive diluted the effort by spreading it too wide, and he made several bad choices in spring 1942 which allowed the 2nd Shock Army (under Vlasov) to be pocketed and destroyed at Volkhov and a much larger force to be similarly pocketed and destroyed at Kharkov in the south. Stalin seems to have learned later to allow Stavka to control smaller decisions and not to interfere in them himself. Hitler, on the other hand, grew increasingly more meddling in affairs that usually led to their detriment.
Dissonance… I agree German standards had fallen. Still green US troops thou well trained… were well … green no ? It wasnt as unbalanced as might have been a year o two before thou. As for US tanks… Shermans were plentiful true. Still they were more used as infantry support and less as Armoured Divisions. So massive breakthrus and blitzkrieg style war was out of the question ? So 1944 final victory wasnt feasible…
In the end it was american airpower that made it hard for germans to regroup… resupply… go on the offensive or anything in large scale. This allowed for the US to usually take the initiative and dictate the rythm of the war. Its no good having a much better tank if your gonna get shot by planes… or you dont have supplies. We still see the US heavily emphasizing Airpower until this day… much due of course to the technology edge… but even in Gulf War I we saw a “policy” of blasting away mostly with airpower.
The hatred to france and all it’s inhabitants is clearly getting out control, at least in this boards. Remember the American Revolution, and if you want to speak of both WW, remember that they were the only ones in the German’s path. In both Wars Britain would have lost if it weren’t for a geographical detail, America doesn’t really count, they were never threatened by the germans, they were too far away and were actually protected by the British Navy. Remember that next time you use that big brush to paint our frenchies friends.
I repeat my earlier point, Germany was doomed from the moment they attacked the Soviet Union, they were too weak too defeat all it’s enemies. The moment they failed to achieve their quick victory thanks to the Russian winter (and to an smaller extent the Soviet Army), they lost the war. From that point onward the issue was how long they could survive. They fought bravely, sometimes making idiotic decissions, and sometimes genious ones. The end result would have always been the same
Well, the general rule was that green US and other Western Allied units took heavy casualties in the bockage at Normandy in their first actions, but generally performed pretty well after they had been bleed into the realities of combat. It was a pattern that followed what happened to Allied units in the year or two before in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Going back to the issue of economics and logistics, the US was able to produce enough Shermans and ship them oversea for them to be used both in armored divisions and in direct infantry support on a scale that Germany was never able to do itself. By December 1944, 17 armored divisions had been raised, along with 65 separate tank battalions. As there were 66 infantry divisions, the general rule that was followed was that each infantry division had a separate tank battalion more or less permanently assigned to it, along with one or sometimes two separate tank destroyer battalions. This degree of armored support was only achieved by the Germans in Panzergrenadier divisions; most of the infantry divisions had to do without anything like this level of armored support, if they had any at all. Once the German lines finally broke at Normandy in August 1944, the race across France was quite rapid. I’m generally of the belief that victory in 1944 wasn’t possible, though this has a lot to do with logistics as well. Particularly damaging was the failure to secure Antwerp and the sea approaches to it in a timely manner, which meant that supplies had to continue to be unloaded at Normandy and driven across France for longer than they otherwise would have needed to.
What really prevented the Germans from going on the offensive in the West successfully had at least as much, if not more, to do with the casualties they were taking in the East as with the airpower of the Western Allies. The Eastern front was truly where the war was won and lost for Germany.
I made some sarcastic remarks against the French and I am not american… but its a “historical” fact that except for Napoleon the french have a poor military record… or at least that view is widely talked of among arm chair generals.
Yet there are a few rabid french hating americans in this board… ture
Well vizinho, the french also saved Europe by defeating the “muslim hordes” in Poiters. Another example of the french “poor military record”