For PanzerJaeger, comparing the armies of WW2

**KarlXII** · 05-16-2008, 04:52

As Panzer has said, this thread is for comparing the Allied Armies and the Wermacht. I did this in order to keep the topic funneled into a thread, and not off topic in the other one.

Debate away.

**KrooK** · 05-16-2008, 08:49

Ok but before we start we should divide it on historical periods. Its hard to compare army from 1939/1940 with army from 1944.

**Kagemusha** · 05-16-2008, 12:17

In order to throw fuel to the fire. I would claim that Finnish army was the most mobile and manouvarable WWII army from the armies that were not motorized. Both in offense and defense, the Finnish doctrine was to use speed and mobile warfare to defeat the better armed and motorized enemy. From that, exellent example is that during the major offenses of the SU in end of both Winter and Continuation war, not even a single battalion size units were not cut of surrounded nor surrendered to Soviets.
In offensive. The Finnish doctrine was to avoid enemy strong points and surpass them, while attacking the second and behind support troops, with large flanking moves, by that the main enemy forces only had two options, either to dig in and get surrounded by Finnish or start retreating, which allowed the Finnish to attack them while on a move.
In defense, the doctrine was that it was better to loose land then men in operational scale, usually the attacking enemy was lured into exhausting its striking force to a long distance with rapid tactical withdrawals, delaying actions and when the enemy was spread along a large area and lost the weight of its attack, Finnish would counter attack the spread enemy forces with smaller and larger individual task forces from surprising directions, while aiming to cut of the attacking force completely from the main enemy supporting area and defeat it, which is called "motti" tactics.

Battle of Suomussalmi is a classic example of Finnish mobile defense:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...uomussalmi.jpg

**CountArach** · 05-16-2008, 12:45

Phear the mighty Australian army!

**Decker** · 05-16-2008, 22:05

I have a question then.

Can anybody tell me the difference between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army when both invaded Poland? I've always been curious about this.

**PanzerJaeger** · 05-16-2008, 22:51

Originally Posted by KrooK

Ok but before we start we should divide it on historical periods. Its hard to compare army from 1939/1940 with army from 1944.

Early/Mid/Late?

For the Germans, I would say they were strongest in the early and later war. The Blitz was of course deadly in the begining, but towards the mid-war period the allies, especially the Russians, were figuring out how to defeat it. The German military of late '43 to the end was an extremely powerful fighting force, with new advanced tanks and weaponry, and the refinement of the Kampfgruppe. Of course, the absolute numerical superiority of the allies muted that.

As for Hill 262, it is not a good comparison of Polish and German forces. While it did show the bravery and fighting spirit of the Poles, it is hard to say that the Germans were anywhere near their normal capability. Hitler had just single-handedly destroyed the Western front by ordering them into an insane assault and they were trying to get out of the pocket as fast as possible.

Originally Posted by Kagemusha

In order to throw fuel to the fire. I would claim that Finnish army was the most mobile and manouvarable WWII army from the armies that were not motorized.

IMO, the Finns were far better at fighting than many of the major powers.

**rotorgun** · 05-16-2008, 23:29

To the Allies, the main reasons for the early success of the Whermacht over the blundering Allied armies were not appearant at first. Although all the main players (France, Russia, and The United Kingdom) all had "Combined Arms" forces, it was their doctrine which not as well developed. In addition, the Germans made much better use of radio technology, for it was in the area of communications that they made the various arms work as a team. In all fairness, their early war AFVs were not really that superior to the allied vehicles. It was the way they were utilised that increased their effectivness.

As for the Allied and Axis minor countries, they were in much more dire straits. Hidebound to outdated tactics with largely infantry armies, poorly equipped and out-maneuvered (Finns excepeted, with the Soviets providing a bad example of combined arms tactics) by a much more mobile thinking force.

It's not that the German High Command was so much behind the new ideas either. Many commanders, Von Rundstedt for one, were very skeptical about the effectiveness of the Panzer Divisions. They were constantly worried about the risks taken by the practitioners of the new doctrine of exposing the flanks of the armored thrusts as they went deep into the enemy backfield. The vunerability of the flanks of the Schwerpunkt to armored counter-thrusts didn't occur to the Russians until late 1942 and early 1943, proving that they had indeed begun to learn the lessons of a mobile armored warfare. As Napoleon said "Beware of fighting you enemy too often for he will learn your tactics"

**KrooK** · 05-17-2008, 00:56

As for Hill 262, it is not a good comparison of Polish and German forces. While it did show the bravery and fighting spirit of the Poles, it is hard to say that the Germans were anywhere near their normal capability.

I can't agree. Its just a myth that polish army was worse trained that German. France developed that myth because they didn't uderstood blitzkrieg. It was just technological advantage of German army and more planes. In the moment when German lost advantage into air, blitzkrieg broke down.

I think hill 262 is good example to compare armies. On the one hand elite of German units ( I claim II SS coprs as elite), on the other elite of Polish units - 1st Armoured division (heavy type). No one had real air support ( I mean planes that attacked enemy positions) during that battle and both sides had tanks. Decisive appeared to be soldiers skill and low rank commander's orders.
I can't agree with opinion that Germans had to fight into not normal conditions. Its wasn't normal that polish tank division had to defend instead of attacking.

Anyway I think that polish army from western front was one of the best from allies. Relatively small (about 100.000 men) but with extremely high morale (no problem with deserters), count from high trained weterans (Poland, France, Battle of Britain, Atlantic, North Sea Conwoys, North Africa, Mediterran Sea, Italy, France) and with good commanders ( Maczek, Anders) - probably the only ones who really understood blitzkrieg (example - Italian campaign 1945 and chasing Germans after Falaise. Poles fought into places where rest failed - like capture of Monte Cassino or support given remainings of british 1st paratrooper division near Arnhem (without sacrifice of polish Paratrooper Brigade 100% of brits would be killed or imprisoned). I think that there were no army similar to that one - especially if we are talking about morale. And of course we had bear soldier.

On the other hand lets talk about bad army. How about Japanese army?
They were good when enemies did not know how to fight against them. They got some luck too (Singapoore) but in the moment when they had to face normal army with good equipment - they were all loosing due to archaic tactic and bad weapon (Japanese tanks were terrible). Example could be Guadalcanal and Japanese assaults - just a waste of men. In addition weakness of high command (lets be fair - their generals were idiots) and terrible war crimes commited by soldiers (Burma, China, Philippines) with full approval of their commanders.

By describing Japanese army I don't mean Fleet - there situation was not the same.

**Kagemusha** · 05-17-2008, 02:17

I would like to raise a point. Finnish army lost about generation of men during WWII(largest conscription percent of any side fighting in WWII), Our forces are remembered from winter war. Now in the end of winter war Finnish army was exhausted, look at the end of continuation war as we call it, now the Soviets didint suffer anymore from the self created problems like in winter war, last 8(eight) battles during summer 1944,resulted in decesive Finnish victories,against mostly Soviet guard´s armies, which couldnt be stopped anywhere else?Why did this happen? And also after the Moscow peace treaty,the German army in Lappland was driven away by basically Finnnish conscripts that had not even seen fighting much at all before it?Can somebody please rationalize why things happened like they happened? London and Helsinki are the two capitals , from the countries that fought iin Western Europe that were not conquered during WWII.

**KarlXII** · 05-17-2008, 06:12

Originally Posted by KrooK

I can't agree. Its just a myth that polish army was worse trained that German. France developed that myth because they didn't uderstood blitzkrieg. It was just technological advantage of German army and more planes. In the moment when German lost advantage into air, blitzkrieg broke down.

I think hill 262 is good example to compare armies. On the one hand elite of German units ( I claim II SS coprs as elite), on the other elite of Polish units - 1st Armoured division (heavy type). No one had real air support ( I mean planes that attacked enemy positions) during that battle and both sides had tanks. Decisive appeared to be soldiers skill and low rank commander's orders.
I can't agree with opinion that Germans had to fight into not normal conditions. Its wasn't normal that polish tank division had to defend instead of attacking.

Anyway I think that polish army from western front was one of the best from allies. Relatively small (about 100.000 men) but with extremely high morale (no problem with deserters), count from high trained weterans (Poland, France, Battle of Britain, Atlantic, North Sea Conwoys, North Africa, Mediterran Sea, Italy, France) and with good commanders ( Maczek, Anders) - probably the only ones who really understood blitzkrieg (example - Italian campaign 1945 and chasing Germans after Falaise. Poles fought into places where rest failed - like capture of Monte Cassino or support given remainings of british 1st paratrooper division near Arnhem (without sacrifice of polish Paratrooper Brigade 100% of brits would be killed or imprisoned). I think that there were no army similar to that one - especially if we are talking about morale. And of course we had bear soldier.

On the other hand lets talk about bad army. How about Japanese army?
They were good when enemies did not know how to fight against them. They got some luck too (Singapoore) but in the moment when they had to face normal army with good equipment - they were all loosing due to archaic tactic and bad weapon (Japanese tanks were terrible). Example could be Guadalcanal and Japanese assaults - just a waste of men. In addition weakness of high command (lets be fair - their generals were idiots) and terrible war crimes commited by soldiers (Burma, China, Philippines) with full approval of their commanders.

By describing Japanese army I don't mean Fleet - there situation was not the same.

I think you're giving the Poles to much credit. The German army of 1944 was understrenghted, demoralized, and losing on all fronts. This wasn't because of brave Polish fighters, this was because of a prolonged conflict that stretched resources.

I think that there were no army similar to that one

No. Polish troops were eager to fight, and they fought well. But they fought against a dieing enemy. Its like fighting a dieing pitbull. It has a nasty bite, but thats the only one it'll be able to take. Hill 262 was the final nail in the coffin, and the reason the Germans waved repeatedly against FIXED ENTRENCHED positions is because they knew that.

I believe the Finns are deserving of being the best army of WW2. Standing up to the largest country, and encircling and destroying two of its divisions deserves recognition.

**Conradus** · 05-17-2008, 15:33

Originally Posted by KrooK

On the other hand lets talk about bad army. How about Japanese army?

The Japanese did have the highest morale imo in the entire war. Of course that didn't really help them in the end.

I'd have to say that the German army probably was the best of the entire WWII. They managed to conquer most of Europe in under 3 years. It's only logical that they lost, given the sheer amount of men and industrial power massed against them, and the stupidity of Hitler and other german commanders during the latter part of the war.

The Finns of course deserve an honourable mention.