re: WWII buffs: let's talk about Germany's biggest strategic blunder

The war was lost when Hitler was unable to defeat the UK in the Battle of Britain.

You can also go back to the Evacuation of Dunkirk. If Germany had been able to capture the BEF, things may have been different.

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Keeping Spain on the sidelines was key to the eventual German defeat, and was a major diplomatic coup for the allies.

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I'm currently re reading Ziemke's work "Moscow to Stalingrad" from the Army Historical Series.

In the segment regarding Finland, Ziemke's research makes a couple of things clear.

During the 1941 months between July and late November, the USA was a neutral power, but, was involved in sending military and economic aid to the Soviet Union via the port of Murmansk, which is near Finland. While still neutral, the USA threatened Finland with a warning that any obstruction of that US aid would wreck US Fin relations. At about that time, Britain declared war on Finland.

After the USA entered the war, Britain and the US continued very intense diplomatic threats and pressure to "persuade" Finland to limit its war effort against the Soviet Union.

My point is this, we can logically deduce that Spain and Franco were both under the same kind of diplomatic pressure from the UK and US. Spain's geographical location was much more exposed to UK and US air/naval forces than was Finland's.

Add to the above the fact that there's some evidence that the German Abwehr Intelligence Service, headed by Canaris, might have been playing a double game to keep Spain neutral. Canaris and other Abwehr figures were quite anti-Hitler/Anti-Nazi.

It might have been tough to bring Spain in as a German ally no matter what Hitler's diplomacy could muster.

Germany's biggest strategic blunder was Economic. Germany's military had great breadth in that it contained a diverse variety of very competent combat arms that practiced effective combined arms tactics. The problem was that this quality breadth lacked DEPTH. It lacked depth in that it possessed insufficient capacity for sustained total war.

There were not enough of these great war weapons and trained troops to sustain anything but a short war. Not only that, but, German industry wasn't mobilized for maximum war production effort until after Albert Speer became Minister of Armaments. Speer took that position around the time of the Battle of Stalingrad.

So, that's my 2 cents. Good thread.

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When they invaded Poland, much of the German artillery was horse-drawn.

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This remained the case throughout the entire conflict.

Except for the armor and motorized divisions, the German field artillery arm was horse drawn for the entire war.

This is part of the "lack of depth" blunder to which I refer. If Germany had developed sufficient economic preparation for total war, it would have equipped ALL field artillery with motor vehicle assets, and the capacity to sustain those assets.

That would have helped the foot-marching German infantry divisions immensely.

As is often the case with poor outcomes, Hitler's biggest blunder was his focus on the emotional rather than the rational. That is to say, he cared more about his racist ideologies than a cogent strategic approach to winning a war.

For example, when you are fighting a two front war, why waste finite resources (including human capital) on transporting and murdering a group of people that did not impact the war effort?

Additionally, he did not go total war nor use a strategically sound military approach against the British. Why? He viewed them as Germanic offspring and therefore unworthy of his cleansing efforts. Hitler knew the Brits came from Germany originally and this was more important to him than the necessity to defeat the Western threat before obliterating the Slavic Rus to capture living space.

When you are in a war, resources, strategy and tactics of a country must be concentrated on achieving victory at the expense of anything else, including ridiculous romantic notions of cultural superiority. It's downright foolish to do otherwise, as the best way to advance that superiority is to win victory and then deal with the genocide in the aftermath if that's what you care about.

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Dragging the US into the war and invading the Soviet Union were their two biggest blunders.

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Through much of 1941 before Hitler declared war in December, the USA was not only providing economic and military aid to the UK and the Soviet Union, but was also waging naval war at sea against German naval vessels.

In no way shape or manner could US activities during that time be accurately said to be "neutral."

Champagne, if you could post up a recommended reading list I would be hugely grateful.

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This remained the case throughout the entire conflict.

Except for the armor and motorized divisions, the German field artillery arm was horse drawn for the entire war.

This is part of the "lack of depth" blunder to which I refer. If Germany had developed sufficient economic preparation for total war, it would have equipped ALL field artillery with motor vehicle assets, and the capacity to sustain those assets.

That would have helped the foot-marching German infantry divisions immensely.

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I think we're basically in agreement here. As I recall, Hitler's original time-table called for war in 1941 or 1942. He got ahead of himself, and the German forces were not completely ready for what turned out to be a massive multi-front war.

Everybody interested in the German invasion of the Soviet Union should read two books by Earl Ziemke that he wrote for the Army Historical Series.

The books are:

Moscow to Stalingrad

Stalingrad to Berlin

These books were written years ago, and, COL David Glantz's much newer research provides more insight into the the Soviet side. So, I also have to recommend Glantz's "When Titans Clashed".

But, Ziemke's works focus on the German perspective, so, Glantz's work nicely complete's the picture.

So, I recommend three books out of the thousands written on the Russo German war of 41 - 45. AND these three books are easily accessible.

PS I don't get the downvotes for Darth Vader. Why downvote somebody for being intensely interested in the military history of WW2? It's not like he's going to steal our girlfriends with that stuff.

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German field artillery arm was horse drawn for the entire war.

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Um, not necessarily. They had plenty of artillery pulled by half tracks, etc. Although there was widespread use of horse drawn equipment, that statement is misleading. The most prevalent artillery piece was the 88, and no horse was going to pull that...

I said that, except for armor and motorized units, the German field artillery was mostly horse drawn throughout the war. They never completely motorized their field artillery arm in the infantry divisions.

That is a great photo of a heavy 150mm German howizter. Also, a great photo of an 88mm gun in North Africa.

Most of the German field artillery arm was composed of lighter guns, such as 105mm.

They tried very hard to motorize as much field artillery as possible, but failed largely because they lacked the industrial capacity to do so. In any event, this effort began in mid-war. German doctrine for 39 to 41 was to have horse drawn field artillery in the infantry divisions.

Compare and contrast the British Expeditionary Force infantry divisions in 1940, which were totally motorized, including all field artillery -- in 1940.

But you are correct, there were many vehicle towed Germany artillery pieces in WW2.

Here's a post from a guy named SASH on the Axis History Forum. He seems to know his stuff on this topic:

" As a general rule German infantry divisions used a lot of horse flesh to haul everything from supplies to artillery pieces, as there never were enough motor vehicles to go around, and the German vehicle park was literally a quartermaster's nightmare (someone noted that there were some 3000 different types of vehicle in German service by 1942).

Infantry and cavalry artillery units also towed their guns with horses, unless they (and this for infantry divisions) were Panzer Grenadier units, which used motorized guns (towed by semi-track vehicles generally, with some trucks, raupenschleper etc... thrown in).

The horse drawn weapons were the 7.5cm leFK-18 (cav. units only, and was not a particularly widely used piece); the 10.5cm leFH-16; the 10.5cm leFH-18 and its variants the leFH-18M, and sometimes the later leFH-18/40; the 10cm sK-18 was sometimes a horse drawn item, but most seem to have been vehicle towed; the old 15cm sFH-13 Lang and sFH-13/02 were horse drawn guns. And last, but not least, the 15cm sFH-18, which was built in both horse drawn and vehicle towed versions, as well as the rare 15cm sFH-36 (only some 200 or so were ever built, due to its use of expensive strategic alloys), which was designed to be towed in one load by draught animals.

Both the 10cm sK-18 and the 15cm sFH-18 had to be broken down into two loads for horse draught. Most German horse drawn artillery pieces had steel tired wheels (most leFH-18Ms seem to have had a wood artillery wheel with solid rubber tires, however), whereas the vehicle towed guns were fitted with solid rubber tires.

The really heavy guns were all vehicle towed (the 15cm K-16, 15cm K-18, 15cm K-39, 17cm K-18 in Mörser Lafette, the 21cm Lange Mörser M-1916, the 21cm Mörser 18, the 21cm K-38, the extremely rare 24cm K L/46, the 24cm K-3 etc...) but in emergencies some may have been shifted by horses when vehicles were scarce."

And finally something from Wiki:

" Infantry and horse-drawn artillery formed the bulk of the German Army throughout the war; only one-fifth of the Army belonged to mobile panzer and mechanized divisions.

Each German infantry division employed thousands of horses and thousands of men taking care of them. Despite losses of horses to enemy action, exposure and disease, Germany maintained a steady supply of work and saddle horses until 1945. "