How Did the American Soldier Stack Up Against the Enemy in WWII?

Great Debates
81

To be fair, the problem US Shermans had with German tanks was partly doctrinal. US Army doctrine was to fight enemy tanks with “tank destroyers,” an up-gunned tank-like vehicle used mostly from ambush, not tanks – true tanks were for advancing through enemy defenses (which, by definition, were not tank-heavy, since the Germans concentrated their tanks into offensive striking columns). So the Shermans were not really expected to fight tanks…according to the high-level planners.

It’s sort of analogous to the situation with battlecruisers, which had been designed for a particular use (hunting weaker ships) but looked like battleships, so they were put into the line of battle against battleships. Tanks looked like the right thing to fight other tanks – the first thing any infantry commander would probably do when German tanks arrived is get on the radio and ask, “Where are OUR tanks?” – and they were available in large numbers, so they were repeatedly called on to face the German armor. And, not unlike the battlecruisers, losses were heavy.

A Sherman is actually better than a Tiger…for certain uses, like driving cross-country really fast. But the Germans built their late-war tanks specifically to fight other armor, and the Americans did not, so in tank-vs-tank situations, individual American tanks (and their unfortunate crews) were at a significant disadvantage.

The tank destroyer concept was pretty much an American experiment and was more-or-less abandoned pretty quickly after the war. While it seems dumb, remember a lot of countries tried novel approaches in different areas, and some of those paid off…the price of experimentation in tactics and weapons is “sometimes they don’t work well.”

edit: to clarify, other nations had tank-destroyer-like vehicles (assault guns and the like) but were not married to the concept in the way the US was; they were used much like regular tanks.

82

Don’t disagree with anything you said…in fact, it goes along with my point in the anecdote. Remember, though that this was a German tanker speaking, and he was looking at it from the straight up comparison of the perceived value of his single Tiger verse a single Sherman. Someone could have pointed out to him that the US made something like 50,000 Sherman tanks while the Germans only managed 1500 Tigers, but I suspect the point would be lost on him. :slight_smile:

83

That and the Tiger usually didn’t work. A Tiger being worked on in a garage isn’t nearly as effective as the Sherman that’s actually out there killing your infantry.

Straight up comparisons between Tigers and Shermans are one of the weirdest, most pointless WWII discussions ever. It’s very much akin to saying that Bismarck was a better battleship than King George V, and therefore the German navy was in some way better than the Royal Navy. Who gives a crap when Bismarck was one of only two of its kind, thereby making it an exercise in futility?

84

I suspect that if you squared off a ca. 1944 US line infantry company vs. a ca. 1944 German line infantry company without external support, the Germans would win, although it would be a bloody affair on both sides.

Typically, the Germans had extremely well disciplined troops, superb NCOs and junior officers. ISTR reading that German officer training was, even up to the end of the war, longer and more thorough than US officer training (“90 day wonders”). Combine this with a well developed small unit tactical doctrine and an extreme emphasis on initiative and leadership, and you get extremely effective infantry.

German equipment wasn’t necessarily any better, and in most cases, was inferior to the Allied equivalents. The average German infantryman was still armed with a Mauser 98, similar to the one his father would have carried in WWI. About the only places that the Germans had an advantage over the Allies in infantry equipment were in the light machine gun role, where the Germans fielded the MG34 and MG42, at an unheard of rate of 2 per squad, and in personal anti-tank weapons, where the Panzerfaust was considerably more effective than the Bazooka that the US forces used.

Beyond that, the difference in culture and upbringing would have played a role for the individual soldier. Where the American soldiers would have likely been willing to do his duty, the Germans likely had a much larger ideological bent to why he was fighting- against Bolshevism, for Germany, and after mid-1943 or so, to keep the Russians and Allies out of Germany itself.

Ultimately though, if you have 4x the number of companies that are 65% as good as the enemy’s, you’ll still steamroll him, and that’s what happened.

85

Fallschirmjäger, although they also used the term luftlande.

86

Heh, the USA built itself up from a small force (our army in 1939 was smaller than Portugal’s) to a 8 million man force. So the training that new officers and NCOs got was rushed. Having siad that, the US Army had NCOs that were usually more resourceful than their German counterparts. My late uncle (combat veteran of WWII-Italy and France) noted that German units were often ineffective-once their officers were killed.

87

One disadvantage the US coupled itself with is a national arrogance in the leadership which refused to accept advice or direction from its own allies until it suffered losses that need not have occurred.
Result was that the war probably cost more US lives than it need have, and allowed the Russians to make greater inroads than they might - this might well have has a political impact had the allies taken more ground, despite agreements at Tehran, and Yalta

Example - convoys, the British had been using them for years, in two such wars as a major instrument in protecting supply lines, what did US naval commanders do? Refused to implement a proper escort or convoy system around its own coast, leading to U-Boat ‘happy time’, and all this because they refused to trust or accept British advice - they were wilfully ignorant and went out of their way to stay ignorant.

You can also same about the US tank doctrine, despite plenty of evidence about the need for heavy tanks, US army commander refused to allow first the development and then the deployment of US heavy tanks, in fact it took the death of one particularly obstinate US commander to clear the logjam - whilst the immense success of US artillery, air power and supply lines won out, it could have been so much easier.

How about the general attack ordered on German lines by Eisenhower? Montgomery has plenty of critics but the fact is, Monty’s statement that an attack everywhere results in weakness everywhere was true then, and its true now, in fact the application of focused power - the foundations of German tactics - and Montgomery’s mantra is very much the military strategy of the US today.

Whilst that general attack did have the effect of spreading out the war and using up German reserves, this had not been the original philosophy behind it, it was just a fortunate side effect.It also slowed down the advance - had this not been done then forces would have been much more concentrated and this would have allowed artillery and air power to be even more effective than it was.

The diversion of forces to invade Southern France was effective in terms of gaining land, but it was not strategic land, Given the supply situation in the rush toward Belgium, it would have been better to keep the momentum on that front going - this could have speeded up the advance enough to prevent the gathering of German armour for the Battle of the Bulge.

As for the fighting units themselves, US arty was way ahead of the Germans, it wasn’t even close, the way it was organised to fire all available pieces on specific targets was something the Germans never achieved, nor did they achieve the firing rates of the US or British units.

The German integration between close support arty, anti-tank units and machine guns was better than the Western allies, but they were frequently operating from prepared positions, and that will give an advantage every time.

The fact that their military was hampered in its one crucially effective operational tool (- that of flexibility of movement - )was down to Hitler himself and is a major strike against them. Even in this aspect, the code breakers took advantage by learning to fight Hitler, rather than the German Generals in such a way they could control the initiative - knowing how to make your enemy react in a way you can predict and control is a huge advantage.

Its a mixed bunch when comparing the merits of the protagonists, skill and bravery are all very well but you take what you have and make best use of it, be it material or numbers of men in the field - if you don’t need to count every round, if efficiency is not a concern, then all that matters is efficacy.

88

True as far as it goes, but not unique to the US – every nation in the war was like that. Only the fact that Britain’s manpower and resources were nearing exhaustion brought the British to bow to American pressure and give up such harebrained, man-killing projects as attacking Germany through Yugoslavia, the so-called “soft underbelly.” And just try to tell Stalin that Operation Barbarossa is about to hit him!

IMHO, that’s more a specific problem of allowing the perceived best interests of the US Navy to trump those of the country as a whole. I specifically blame Admiral King, although others probably deserve a share of the blame too, for opposing convoy and for not releasing destroyers to Atlantic service, because he strongly felt that only fleet action in the Pacific offered the sort of glory the Navy sought in decisive battle à la Alfred Thayer Mahan.

King’s influence on policy (probably abetted by that of other naval bigwigs about whom I am ignorant, but he can’t have been the only one) by itself was strong enough to hamper US participation in the war against the U-boats even without some perceived national tendency toward bullheadedness.

While I agree with most of the rest of what you’ve said here, I want to echo this part. I’ve been considering bringing up the US artillery advantage, but you put it essentially the way I understand it. It was the organization (and the distributed authority to call in fire missions) of US artillery that made it superb in that war; the Germans were quite impressed with the fire they received, and mistook it for vast numbers of guns, not recognizing the secret lay in organizational flexibility.

89

The biggest advantage the American soldier had in that war was this:

He usually showed up to the battle, in the right place, on time, with a whole bunch of his brothers-in-arms next to him. Their guns worked most of the time. Their boots kept water out most of the time. Their uniforms were warmer than the enemy’s most of the time. They had ammunition. They had food. If they were short on either, or they were injured, they could retreat and be resupplied quickly.

Gen. (later Pres.) Eisenhower included the GMC and Studebaker 6x6 2 1/2 ton trucks on his list of best weapons of WWII.

Stalin said that “quantity has a quality all its own”. Americans often managed to have that quantity at the battlefield and not somewhere else on the way.

90

That’s completely contrary to everything I’ve heard and read about the German army, and I think your late uncles anecdote, while I’m sure he thought it was true, basically shows his own bias. Not to slight your late uncle or anything, but being there didn’t always give the clearest picture of what was actually going on, and being emotionally engaged means that you sometimes have blinders on about the enemy, especially when friends and buddies are being killed around you.

From everything I’ve read, the Germans excelled especially at small unit tactics, with NCOs and officers being excellent soldiers…and even your regular soldiers being excellent on a man for man basis. What you are describing better illustrates the standard Russian formation, actually…a heavy reliance on officers, and generally lower quality NCOs and troops who weren’t as able to lead if the officers went down (this is a huge generalization btw, as the Soviets did have very gifted NCOs in many cases, who did extremely well), mainly because of how the Russian army was organized and the tactics they used.

91

Will Turner: You didn’t beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I’d kill you.
Jack Sparrow: That’s not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it?

I’ve read accounts similar to ralph’s uncle. I don’t remember the author (might have been Ambrose again) but one book argued that the US G.I.s were more adaptable then their German counterparts. The reasoning was that the Germans were better drilled for the task at hand but had a harder time thinking outside the box.

As evidence the author pointed to the G.I’s response to the hedgerows. After an initial bloody experience they learned to adapt, with one solution being to weld steel bars to the front of tanks to allow them to create new openings for flanking maneuvers. He argued that there were no such examples by the Germans.

92

Did the author ever fight in the German army? How would he even know?

There’s a reason the German word “Aufstragstaktik” is the term of art for mission-oriented leadership - in other words, giving soldiers the freedom to make decisions on their own to achieve goals. It was a German invention and it was one of the defining traits of the German soldier.

It is worth noting German platoons were usually commanded by NCOs; platoon command is, and was, an officer’s role in any Allied army. That’s because the Germans had excellent NCOs and placed trust in them.

93

That really is contrary to how things were; fluidity and adaptability were things the Germans were noted for during the war. An officer or NCO was expected to show initiative in carrying out and understand the intent of his superiors orders rather than simply doing as told; the concept of Auftragstaktik (loosely ‘mission-oriented tactics’) goes back to 19th century Prussia.

That’s not much to hang your hat on; being on the defensive in Normandy this wasn’t as much a problem for the Germans as it was for the Allies. That the hedgerows came as such a rude shock to the Allies and so little thought had been put into the difficulties they would present beforehand doesn’t speak well for the forethought of the Allies and is a common criticism. As a bit of an aside, this is why I don’t much care for Ambrose; he tends to be more a cheerleader than an impartial historian.

ETA: On preview beaten to the punch a bit, but there you go.

94

Your point about the hedgerows provides real insight, though, into why the difference was perceived the way it was. The Germans had “no such examples” of plowing through hedgerows because they had no reason to do that and by that time were running pretty short of tanks. To suggest there are no other examples of German innovation or operational-level initiative in WWII is to more or less admit one has never, ever, ever read a history of the Second World War.

The side on the offensive will naturally seem to be doing more, because they’re the ones who are tasked with the job of maneuver. The Germans played it out logically; conversely, when they were the ones on the attack, they practically wrote the book on modern maneuver warfare.

I suspect, too, that much of this “Germans as order-following goons” image is stuff people have learned solely from movies. Like the… um.. remarkable claim that Americans have a long and glorious history of guerrilla warfare, which I suspect comes from video games and lousy movies, the idea of the German soldier as a robot is well reinforced by Indiana Jones films and more or less every war movie, as well as every history of the war that looks at the STRATEGIC level of the war, a level which in fairness is resplendent with innumerable examples of Hitler’s rigid stupidity and his drooling minions, like Keitel, going along for the ride. But at the tactical and operational levels, as one can find in any decent and detailed history of the war, the Germans were the most doctrinally advanced army in the war, full stop. They were ferocious, clever and sensationally dangerous opponents and the fact is they were beaten only when they were overwhelmed and when their strategic position was betrayed by the stupidity of their head of state.

95

That’s the second time you’ve seen fit to ridicule my contention in post 52 that American soldiers have a history of training and engaging in guerilla tactics and individual initiave. (nothing was said about a “long & glorious history”). I chose to let the first one slide but I’m calling BS on this one.

Use of guerilla tactics in the American revolution:
Wikipedia article on American’s guerilla tacts and their effectiveness

See further articles on Francis Marion, Morgan’s riflemen, Nathanael Greene, Ethan Allen, et. al. No one should make the claim that guerilla tactics were entirely responsible for the Americans’ success against a powerful enemy, but to deny their use and effectiveness, or to deride it as fantasy shows a serious ignorance of history.

Another author states:

Guerilla warfare in the American Civil War:
Wikipedia again

Another voice

Once again, guerilla tactics did not win the war, but won numerous battles. No one can deny their use (by American Soldiers) nor their effectiveness.

And let us not forget the American Indian Wars conducted intermittently for nearly three hundred years on the American frontier. Would you care to make the contention that guerilla warfare tactics were not used (by both sides) during this ongoing conflict? I didn’t think you would.

I’ll point out that the basic question in the OP was “How did the American soldier stack up against the enemy in WW2”? I pointed out one important difference vis-a-vis the Japanese and cited a direct source from a veteran of the Philipine action - the American history of training soldiers in guerilla tactics and individual initiave. Your dismissal of this as “fantasy” is simply wrong.
SS

96

To allude to American Independence era guerilla tactics in the context of the OP is simply ludicrous - its also worth noting that even during the war of independence, most of the protagonists on both sides were English, so it would be far more true to talk of turncoat guerilla tactics, but still completely irrelevant to the discussion here.

No matter the quality if individual units, brigades or divisions, the German cannot match up. If the German soldier was out numbered, or under supplied or overwhelmed by air power, lack of food or poor leadership decision making, this was entirely intentional - this is the nature of total warfare.

We bombed their cities, we starved them, destroyed their industries, fuel supplies, road and rail networks. This was never intended to have Allied soldiers fighting on even terms, this is poor tactics, you fight to win, its not a sport.

97

Yes, it would be ludicrous to make a direct comparison. I did no such thing. In post 52, as noted, I gave evidence of one important difference between American soldiers and Japanese soldiers in WW2 - a direct answer to the question posed in the OP. That difference being the American military’s propensity for encouraging individual initiative and unconventional fighting methods.

I then closed the post with a more general (and gratuitious) observation that use of unconventional or “guerilla” tactics was a long-held tradition in American military history, dating back to the Revolutionary War period. For some reason another poster chose to ridicule that statement, calling it “fantasy” and stating that “American soldiers have almost no history of guerilla fighting”. This was so obviously incorrect that I felt compelled to provide a rebuttal.

I agree, it’s irrelevant. It’s also mostly incorrect. While it may be true that most protagonists on the the American were technically British subjects, the American colonies had been established for over 150 years by the time of the Revolution. The majority of the colonial army were American-born, had never set foot in England, and had minimal ties there.
SS

98

This discussion reminds me of one of the last parts of Band of Brothers. They are driving up the Autobahn and German soldiers are walking the opposite way in the median, into captivity. One of the Easy Company guys stands and starts shouting at an officer, but really to all the Germans “What were you thinking…” and goes on to list the American Companies that produced war materials. This IMO is the crux of the issue, you don’t fight American Soldiers man to man, you fight the the most powerful Nation in the World and all of it’s Industry. Even today with all the changes that have happened, American Defense spending is more than the next 12 Nations combined and most of those are allies. Going up against the US is a very bad idea today same as it was in '41, you might have better individual troops but you will be hard pressed to make enough stuff to keep up with us, so in the end you lose.

Oh and one more thing, we tend to be determined just ask OBL

Please don’t mistake the above post as a ringing endorsement of US foreign policy, it is not.

Capt

99

But how were guerrilla tactics a factor for or against American soldiers in WWII? Guerrilla warfare is when the fighters fade in with the local population and are living off the land. Where were American soldiers doing this in WWII? Where were American soldiers fighting people doing this in WWII? The Americans always fought as regular uniformed military units with regular supply lines not as partisan bands and the Germans and Japanese they fought against did the same.

100

This, and it was not a new situation. As far back as the American Civil War, had the British gone to the aid of the Confederacy, the US could have made a good fight of it, and thirty years later the British might’ve lost. Well, after production had ramped up and we got our noses bloodied a couple times. After all, Gatling, Maxim, Lewis, Hotchkiss, and Browning were all Americans and just needed a reason and a market to stay here developing their machine guns.