@SuperbattleshipYamato Yeah I get you 100%. Alternate History is a niche interest in the first place so finding other people willing to go down the rabbit hole is always tough.
The myth of blitzkrieg
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Interesting, but not being given the context for this, I am viewing it as some sort of smarter-than-you contrarian hit-piece.
That said, I agree with 50% or more of what is said, but maybe not how it is said.
Did you write this Uncrustable, or was it someone else on World of Tanks?
I would say that some of the “myths” are well founded, particularly of the German tanks themselves. In general, they were much more formidable than Allied tanks (outside of the T-34/76) and given equal numbers or a fair distribution, the Germans would win a given tank battle pretty handily using Pz V and Pz VI. Allied superior numbers did play a role, in an overall sense, in that by 1943, Germany was on the defensive and being outfought at nearly every turn. It is impossible to effect blitzkrieg while holding your ground or retreating, but also difficult to do so when your resources are limited or actively being limited by the enemy. Blitzkrieg is an offensive tactic and the Germans had the advantage of surprise, preparation and inertia in 1939 - 1942 to sustain blitzkrieg. By the end of 1942, all of the ideal blitzkrieg qualities shifted to the Allies, due to German strategic losses and relinquishing of initiative.
I first learned about the Russian use of “blitzkrieg” a few years back in my Japan and WWII class in college (best class I ever took!). That was a bit of an eye opener that I had never heard about before and anyone who claims to be a World War II history-buff ought to know. The Russians definitely mastered the tactics before Germany did. The Soviet - Japanese border conflicts of the late 1930s showed this (especially Khalkhin Gol), but it was even more amazing with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm). Some of the statistics on this battle are just insane. Obviously, the Soviets were the true masters. Makes what Germany did look like child’s play.
To effectively fight a blitzkrieg style war, you do need combined mobile arms (infantry, land and air), some element of initial surprise and an industrial base proportional to your scope of battle. After recovering from the shock of 1941, the Soviets had that. The US had it all along, it was just a matter of getting across two oceans to implement it. Germany obviously had it at first, but could not sustain it for that long without perhaps reaching certain goals, which they ultimately fell short of.
The tank is a very effective weapon, when properly utilized, and an important part of blitzkrieg. So I don’t understand why this person has the need to “rail” against it; it just seems like doubling down on an opinion that draws some heat. He’s right that it won’t win a war, or even a battle, on its own, but who argues that it would? Seems like the real problem he has is with the “popular culture” impressions of how great tanks are. If so, I suggest he go educate some boobs on the street.
I do agree, and have thought this for some time, that the tank is less useful today than it was certainly in the Second World War and Korea, but maybe even Vietnam. That is for two reasons, 1) for the past 50 years, with the exception of the Gulf War, Western nations have been fighting non-conventional warfare. This equates to traditional armies in expeditionary format vs. under-developed, but fluid, guerrilla forces with non-standard tactics. 2) The advent of the all weather attack aircraft with laser guided munitions.
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This might be less obviously than the second reason, but it is just as problematic, both for tanks and whatever might pass for “blitzkrieg” these days. Tanks, while initially created as infantry support vehicles, evolved into something a little grander as tank vs tank combat arose in WWII. The tanks most countries have in service today, including the US, were designed as MBTs for tank vs tank combat. Cold War style. Though still an imposing sight to a bunch of terrorists I am sure, an Abrams is not as effective against a bunch of guys running around with RPGs and bombs in their pockets as it would be against a Soviet made T-80. Tanks aside, blitzkrieg falters today because the lines of battle are less defined, enemies are not wearing standard uniforms and there are no enemy armies, in the traditional sense. There is also no scope of territory to take and even if you have taken some, the enemy may very well still be among you. Tanks cannot react fast enough in such an environment.
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I do not know what tactics the military has to minimize this threat, but it seems like the days of open plain tank on tank combat is gone. An exposed tank is a dead tank with the state of air warfare. They might be able to survive a little longer in urban or forested environments, but how effective can a MBT be in those situations?
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I’ve been linking to this book around here for years. “The Blitzkrieg Myth.”
It’s been awhile since I read it but I’m fairly certain the myths are at least cribbed from that book if not quoted verbatim.
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Great post LHoffman. James Dunnigan’s book How to Make War has a good chapter on tanks which discusses what they can and cannot do, and the environments for which they are and are not suited. They’re at their best in flat, open terrain where they can operate like ships at sea, but in most other places (such as rubble-strewn urban areas) they have to crawl forward under the protection of infantrymen (who are more nimble and can see better what’s around them). Dunnigan quotes a US Marine Corps expression that says “Hunting tanks is fun and easy,” something that was also demonstrated by Soviet troops in WWII when they had the opportunity to do things like tossing satchel charges onto the backs of German Panzers.
I think it’s also Dunnigan’s book (or another source with which I’m confusing it) which makes the point that when fundamentally new technologies appear on the battlefield, this sometimes creates a situation in which the side against which it’s used is initially placed at a disadvantage. In short, sharp campaigns, this can be decisive. Over time, however, the surprise wears off, countermeasures (both in terms of weapons and tactics) are developed, and the novel technology soon becomes just one more standard part of a nation’s arsenal. The best commanders develop, on the strength of battle experience, a clear-headed appreciation of the optimal way of using the technology, which often means fitting it into a combined-arms approach to warfare. We saw this happen in the 20th century with tanks and with aircraft, and on the naval side of things the Battle of the Atlantic provides all sorts of examples too – for instance the acoustic torpedo, which gave the Allies a nasty surprise when the Germans started using it, but which they soon neutralized by developing decoy noisemakers.
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I am not the author
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Isn’t calling it the “Myth of Blitzkreig” a bit like calling it the “Myth of WWII”?
WWII didn’t really get it’s name until well into / after the conflict if I am not mistaken? And many other names were considered.
Britons also considered the German attack “The Blitz” and I think that’s where the term “Blitz Kreig” comes from. Less of a doctorine, and more of a description of the events that were going on. With nations and cities falling quickly/daily.
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It was meant to be provocative, so he can sign a book deal latter based on other “discovery’s” only the the fringe would find comfort in. Young writers often pull that scam to make them stand out from other writers. He made his points and now he can sleep comfortably.
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@Uncrustable:
In fact, given that virtually all states who possess tanks and mechanized armies also own nuclear weapons, it is unlikely we will ever see such wars of mass maneuver ever again; and the ability to fight other forms of war become more paramount.
This is an exaggeration - my country for sure has tanks and mechanized armies and does not have nuclear weapons and the number of states with nuclear weapons (USA, UK, France, Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan) is a minority considering the rest of the countries in the world.
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@Uncrustable:
In fact, given that virtually all states who possess tanks and mechanized armies also own nuclear weapons, it is unlikely we will ever see such wars of mass maneuver ever again; and the ability to fight other forms of war become more paramount.
This is an exaggeration - my country for sure has tanks and mechanized armies and does not have nuclear weapons and the number of states with nuclear weapons (USA, UK, France, Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan) is a minority considering the rest of the countries in the world.
True. And given the extreme reticence to use those weapons shown throughout the past 60 years, I would think it more than likely that a relatively self-contained tank battle would not be good enough reason to use them anyway. Even for small scale tactical nukes.
Just Tomahawk or drone attack the SAM sites in the vicinity then send in the A-10s and Apaches for the slaughter.
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Isn’t calling it the “Myth of Blitzkreig” a bit like calling it the “Myth of WWII”? WWII didn’t really get it’s name until well into / after the conflict if I am not mistaken? And many other names were considered. Britons also considered the German attack “The Blitz” and I think that’s where the term “Blitz Kreig” comes from. Less of a doctorine, and more of a description of the events that were going on. With nations and cities falling quickly/daily.
I saw an American newsreel about the invasion of Poland in which the narrator says “World War II has begun!” The 1914-1918 war was already known as “The World War”, and in the summer of 1939 Chamberlain had warned that a German violation of Polish neutrality would ignite a general conflagration, so it didn’t require a lot of time or imagination for the term WWII to be invented. As for Blitzkrieg, I seem to recall that the term was invented by the British (possibly even by a British newspaper) to describe the fast-moving invasion of Poland. The term “the Blitz” to describe the bombing of London a year later was then derived from Blitzkrieg.
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I saw an American newsreel about the invasion of Poland in which the narrator says “World War II has begun!”
Hang on… so before England and France or Germany even fired a shot at each other, and Russia/USA/Japan were at peace, the Americans were already calling it WW2???
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Isn’t calling it the “Myth of Blitzkreig” a bit like calling it the “Myth of WWII”?
Not really. I think the myth is that Germany created some heretofore unknown form of warfare which to some degree is factual but isn’t ever really challenged. It is also factual the Germans did not have particularly greater mechanization at the start of the war or that they created something from scratch and without parallel. Speedy victory has been advocated since Sun Tzu. The challenge is not to the facts of the war but to the interpretation.
It is fair to say that for many “Blitzkrieg” is used without much definition and with little nuance and to cover a wide variety of tactics and doctrine that might be better broken down and more carefully classified. What happens to the interpretation of the early war when you do that?
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I saw an American newsreel about the invasion of Poland in which the narrator says “World War II has begun!”
Hang on… so before England and France or Germany even fired a shot at each other, and Russia/USA/Japan were at peace, the Americans were already calling it WW2???
I said the newsreel was about the invasion of Poland (the campaign lasted six weeks), not about September 1st 1939. Britain and France declared war on September 3, which automatically brought in their respective empires, and within a few days the self-governing Dominions of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada had done the same too. So it was pretty much a world war by the end of the first week, which is probably the timeframe in which the newsreel was made (I can’t recall its details). Besides, people like H.G. Wells had been predicting another world war since as far back as 1933, so there’s nothing surprising about the phrases “World War II” or “Second World War”.
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Not really. I think the myth is that Germany created some heretofore unknown form of warfare which to some degree is factual but isn’t ever really challenged. It is also factual the Germans did not have particularly greater mechanization at the start of the war or that they created something from scratch and without parallel.
Although some people do believe that the fast-moving, mechanized, combined-arms tactics which Germany used in 1939 and 1940 were a German invention that sprang out of nowhere, historians have been pointing out for decades that the basic theory of armoured warfare had been worked out on paper in the 1920s and 1930s by individuals like Fuller, Liddell-Hart, de Gaulle and Guderian. The Soviets were also early believers in armoured warfare, as illustrated by the fact that they snapped up Christie’s design for a torsion-bar tank suspension after the Americans had failed to show much interest in his invention. It later showed up on the T-34.
Germany had fewer tanks than the French and British in 1940, and its Panzer I and Panzer II tanks were decidedly lightweight compared to some of the Allied tanks, but one area where Germany was ahead was in the use of radio for the command and control of armoured forces. Germany had the same advantage in Russia in 1941, but the Soviets subsequently shaped up and started equiping their own tanks with radios.
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Germany also massed their tanks, while French spread it out along the line…till it was too little, too late at Arras.
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