Were the very best British and American troops equal to the very best German troops

jonsnow

It has widely been accepted that the german army produced on average far greater numbers of far superior troops than the western allies.Most serious military historians such as Max Hastings or Carlo D,Este accept this as a given.However I was wondering do boardsies think that the western armies produced small amounts of elite troops that were of the same calibre as the best the german army had to offer!.For example was the famous easy company of the 101st band of brothers fame or the Pointe Du Hoc rangers or the SAS as good as the best german troops the Third Reich could produce.What do people think!!.

Victor

Something like 1% of Russian men born in 1923 survived to 1945. There was great thinning of numbers.

For the Germans, they generally had technical, manoeuvre and equipment superiority over the Russians at the start of the war. This let German soldiers to become experienced against inferior forces, which gradually improved. So while some German tank aces had hundreds of kills, they were against inferior forces.

By 1944-45, the vast majority of German forces (except perhaps the Home Guard and youth forces) had substantial experience. Sure, they were good, but after 6-9* years of war, that is to be expected.

Meanwhile, the forces they were up against were often green/trained, with a backbone that had 1-6 years experience. Before D-Day, the big difference in the west was that the Allies gained their experience in relatively safe situations, where they were taking on the Germans and Italians on relatively small fronts in non-critical areas. The great advantage they had though was superiority in the amount of equipment and other resources available, which could be produced in areas mostly out of the reach of Axis attacks.

While the story told in Band of Brothers (book and TV, slight differences) does tell the story of skilled and experienced force, you have to remember that by the end of the war in Europe (less than a year after D-Day), half or more of them were dead. This compares to 5-10% losses overall for the Americans.

Also note the difference between the likes of Winters and Nixon. Winters is the efficient killing machine who sees that he has to kill people and while not quite relishing it, sees the task and gets on with it. Meanwhile Nixon is the alcoholic who admits he had never fired a shot in anger for the duration of the war. Its estimated that 1-2% of soldiers killed more than half the enemy.

A company of SAS would probably beat a company of experienced Wehrmacht infantry in a stand up fight. They would beat a battalion though. The trick though was that the same company split into 4-man teams could tie down anything from a regiment to a light division.

So its rather difficult to decide who was "best", simply because they weren't tested in the same scenarios again the same enemy.

* Including those that fought in the Spanish Civil War.

citizen_p

well there was good and bad in every unit, but with the combat experience, weapons, the german infantry had a distinct advantage in italy and france. they lacked air supiriority though


found these
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD298786&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
combat effectivness of invasion of crete compared to iwo jima...
mainly about casualtys etc... full of formula.
mainly focus on page 3 and 10

and the good one, long though
about german heavy panzer divisions
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA415948&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Victor

I imagine many of them were machine gunners and tank gunners.

Stovepipe

Hi there,
The greatest killers of soldiers were artillery, air attack and tank attack. The percentage of soldiers, throughout history, who actually engage their enemy at visual ranges, ie; close enough to use small arms is small.The proportion of those who actually fire is even smaller. I think it was Hugh McManners who quotes American research on this phenomenon. It has been recorded that many soldiers, even when in direct combat, do not fire their weapons and their natural instinct is to take cover, unless they are in absolute threat of death or injury from enemies close at hand. That's why armies have to train hard to inculcate enough aggression to compel soldiers to fire without hesitation.Special Forces soldiers, who, by their nature, are aggressive types,tend to have much higher kill rates than their "ordinary" infantry counterparts, as they get up close and personal with their enemies more often.
regards
Stovepipe

Victor

Oh, one more thing. The Germans seriously frowned on "behind the lines" type operations, considering all special forces to be spies. So there is a further inability to compare.

Stovepipe

Hi there,
Not true.They had their own Brandenburg Commandos.You are probably thinking of Hitler's infamous Kommando Order, where he ordered the execution of any SF people caught behind German lines, even if in uniform.

Apart from that, the average German soldier was trained under a much harder disciplinary code than those applied to British or US forces.The death penalty existed for the ordinary German soldier, as well as much feared military prisons or punishment units. There were severe punishments for crimes against civilians, such as looting and rape.Field punishments such as immediate execution by shooting or hanging, given to alleged deserters, were routine, especially in the final year of the war.
German units were expected to fight to destruction, either to their enemy or themselves, to win the battle.
regards
Stovepipe

gizmo555

Victor wrote: »

I imagine many of them were machine gunners . . .

Like this guy, for example.

Stovepipe wrote: »

Apart from that, the average German soldier was trained under a much harder disciplinary code than those applied to British or US forces.The death penalty existed for the ordinary German soldier, as well as much feared military prisons or punishment units. There were severe punishments for crimes against civilians, such as looting and rape.Field punishments such as immediate execution by shooting or hanging, given to alleged deserters, were routine, especially in the final year of the war.
German units were expected to fight to destruction, either to their enemy or themselves, to win the battle.

Beevor makes a similar point in "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy". He notes that there is a limit to how hard soldiers in the armies of liberal democracies can be pushed, compared to those on the side of totalitarian dictatorships threatened with the possibility of the kinds of draconian field punishments you describe. (Of course, in this respect the poor Soviet infantryman had it just as bad. I strongly recommend Catherine Merridale's "Ivan's War" for a great account of the experience of the ordinary Russian solider in WW2. Easily comparable to Beevor at his best.)

Morlar

I think there are a lot of factors that contributed to the effectiveness of the German soldier pre 1945.

Among the factors you can not ignore would be their vast levels of WWI experience and also their proud military tradition in general. Generations of this, bismarck, frederick the great etc bred into the youth would produce determined and motivated soldiers more so than countries where decadent cafe existensialist philosophers were all the rage.

The fact that they had the vast country of Russia to one side (where a brutal expansionist totalitarian regime held power) psychologically this gave them a determination to succed which they needed.

Other contributory factors in my view would be a generally promoted outdoors lifestyle, encouraged by the party through the hj, dj, RAD etc all these organisations thrived on healthy outdoors living working, marching and eating etc all in tune with nature and so on. The more decadent lifestyles were frowned upon in general. Before anyone says it yes Goerring & rudel etc were drug user/addict but among the party ranks & wehrmacht it was deeply frowned upon.

I think some of the success would be attributable to the discipline but it would be too easy to place that element out of proportion. Also when people are facing death getting them to do something contrary to their safety out of fear of some future possible repurcussion would be a challenge. Many times throughout the war the non national german army elements crumbled (ie the romanians in the german army on the eastern front) while the german national elements held firm despite having equivalent disciplinary regimes.

Their leaders led from the front and were recruited on their ability not their family contacts.

I think another factor that helped them was their willingness to adopt new tactics, as an example camouflage patterns of the SS, as well as endless equipment variation. Being a dictatorship where many elements had conflicting and contradictory orders, or, where several people would be hired for the same job was a massive drawback but in other ways being effectively a dictatorship also streamlined many things, including armaments manufacture, industry, food & oil supply etc this dictatorship style leadership would also be an advantage the German army had in my view compared to the western allies.

At most stages of the war & in most theatres they were better equipped than their opposition too which is another major factor.

airvan

I remember a veteran of the recent Balkans wars telling of how an officer had to threaten to shoot some of his men in order to get them to open fire on the enemy. In another incident where friendly forces fired on each other for twenty minutes. There was only one minor wound because for the most part everyone got as low at they could and if they fired at all it was by raising their weapon and firing unaimed in the general direction of the 'enemy'.

Good training can improve that but apparently you never know who will fight and who will cower until the bullets start flying.

It wasn't just fear or ideology that made the Germans better than the equivalent allied soldier. Ironically Junior officers and NCOs and even ordinary soldier was trained and expected to think for themselves and not wait for orders. This allowed them to be much more flexible. They were also trained to be very aggressive and counter attack rather than go defensive.

Morlar

airvan wrote: »

I remember a veteran of the recent Balkans wars telling of how an officer had to threaten to shoot some of his men in order to get them to open fire on the enemy. In another incident where friendly forces fired on each other for twenty minutes. There was only one minor wound because for the most part everyone got as low at they could and if they fired at all it was by raising their weapon and firing unaimed in the general direction of the 'enemy'.

I believe this is a known phenomenon, discovered by senior military among soldiers in battle in Vietnam if I recall correctly. Many first time soldiers will NOT fire to kill. They will presume other soldiers will do it and have an inate reluctance to take another human life based on their engrained moral upbringing that is very hard to overcome.

gizmo555

Morlar wrote: »

I believe this is a known phenomenon, discovered by senior military among soldiers in battle in Vietnam if I recall correctly. Many first time soldiers will NOT fire to kill. They will presume other soldiers will do it and have an inate reluctance to take another human life based on their engrained moral upbringing that is very hard to overcome.

I'm acquainted with a German war veteran who was wounded in the legs in 1944 by an American soldier. He is certain that the American fired low because his unit was new to combat - had they been a bit more battle hardened, he is sure he would have been killed outright.

kowloon

I think WWII statistics (if I remember correctly) hover around 7-13% for losses to small arms with the bulk being from crew served MGs. This isn't just due to the efficacy of these weapons but the psychological advantage of fighting in a crew as opposed to as an individual.

TerrorFirmer

The German infantryman was for the most part completely different to his western allied counterparts. But that's attributable to the regime and its iron grip on every aspect of culture and national development on even possible level since the early 1930's. You have to separate that into several distinct classes - strategic ability, bravery, equipment, and so on. The Germans and Russians were most similar in terms of bravery; Russia initially hopeless outmatched in terms of strategic and tactical flair and equipment however. Then you had Germany and Anglo-American soldiers; German soldiers being far braver and self sacrificing, though by the stage in the war at which they encountered the American-Anglo soldier, themselves hopelessly outmatched in terms of equipment.

You have to remember that by 1944, the vast bulk of German armies were in the east, and many of those in the west were under strength, under equipped and contained a great many reserves and recruits. In some months in the late 44/early 45 campaigns against the west wall, literally 10% of German armor was dedicated to the army groups in the west. Quite impossible for any infantry based force to show their true worth or potential with such grossly inadequate support forces, support forces in such a large theater being a requisite for any kind of victory. By the end of the War, Models Army Group for example, were trapped en masses, without armour, air support, artillery, and ended up surrendering in numbers larger than those of Stalingrad, having had absolutely no decisive input whatsoever despite numbering about 350,000. It's very difficult in such a conflict to simply boil it down to such a base level. The Wehrmacht in 1944 - in the west at any rate - was a shadow of its former self.

Max Hastings Armageddon is a very good book for this very topic. He generally found that the average American soldier was no match for his German counterpart, was unwilling to make the same sacrifices or take the same risks, but had the comfort of being able to rely on firepower to overcome any such occurrences or obstacle.

Of course, you have to remember too, that by 1944, the German army, on it's own (save for Finland, hungary, etc, whose contributions were minute in comparison to each of the big allied nations), was fighting in Italy, Russia, France, against the combined armies of American, England, Russia and several other smaller balkan/latin/etc states that changed sides/declared war. That they fought such a war for so long is, and under the leadership of a lunatic like Hitler, under round the clock bombing, quite frankly, a miracle and a testament to their ability to wage war.

Mahatma coat

Where would people rate the Japanese Soldiers in all this?????

marcsignal

I posted some private pics of a Wehrmacht vet I know from Munich called Jacob Neuss here a while ago. He served in France and later Russia. I remember him telling me, that he only killed one man he knew about, a Russian. He was moving, as part of his unit, through a Russian town and turned a corner to meet this Russian coming towards him, less than 20 feet away. They both scrambled to fire in panic, and Jacob Neuss got off a burst of an MP40 which hit the Russian.

He said, that even to this day, it still sometimes wakes him at night, and that every time that happens, he prays for that man he killed.

I'm going to visit him in Munich next month.

.

BlaasForRafa

marcsignal wrote: »

I posted some private pics of a Wehrmacht vet I know from Munich called Jacob Neuss here a while ago. He served in France and later Russia. I remember him telling me, that he only killed one man he knew about, a Russian. He was moving, as part of his unit, through a Russian town and turned a corner to meet this Russian coming towards him, less than 20 feet away. They both scrambled to fire in panic, and Jacob Neuss got off a burst of an MP40 which hit the Russian.

He said, that even to this day, it still sometimes wakes him at night, and that every time that happens, he prays for that man he killed.

I'm going to visit him in Munich next month.

.

Its always interesting to hear first hand accounts of what happened, especially accounts from german or russian sources. Theres a few pictures of Mr Neuss on a half track, was he part of a motorized division?

marcsignal

I got a phone call from Munich today to tell me Jacob Neuss died yesterday.
He was aged 90.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Theres a few pictures of Mr Neuss on a half track, was he part of a motorized division?

Yes BlaasForRafa, he was part of the 25 Panzer Grenadier Div.

Jacob Neuss R.I.P.

Morlar

marcsignal wrote: »

I got a phone call from Munich today to tell me Jacob Neuss died yesterday.
He was aged 90.



Yes BlaasForRafa, he was part of the 25 Panzer Grenadier Div.

Jacob Neuss R.I.P.

Sad to hear. RIP

BlaasForRafa

marcsignal wrote: »

I got a phone call from Munich today to tell me Jacob Neuss died yesterday.
He was aged 90.



Yes BlaasForRafa, he was part of the 25 Panzer Grenadier Div.

Jacob Neuss R.I.P.

sorry to hear that, RIP Mr. Neuss

TerrorFirmer

Thanks for the information marcsignal. Very interesting, and I'm very grateful for your efforts in providing so much personal information.