War is an industrial / logistical / oil effort.

German soldiers and officers were head and shoulders better than anyone else.

They lost because they ran out of bullets and gas.

America could always keep its men supplied no matter what, unlike all the other combatants.

America could replace lost men, supplies, material and weapons, Germany and Japan could not.

At the end of the day the best soldier in the world just becomes a defenseless target when he runs out of ammo / gas.

WW2 was a war over oil, without it, you lose, with it you win.

The main reason the Luftwaffe replacements sucked in the latter part of the war was was they didn't have the gas to train them properly.

The German army often had adequate numbers of tanks to attack, but only the gas for a handful to counter attack.  Many times they didn't even have enough gas to retreat, so the tanks were so often blown up in place by their own crews.

The US could afford to field a second rate man in the armed forces.  At the end of the day with American industrial capacity and energy independence it basically couldn't lose.

While US lend lease was critical to the war in the east, the best army in the world ran out of bullets and gas before the Soviets ran out of men.

Geography helped.  The Mediterranean and Adriatic were small, local lakes compared to the expanses of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

Apparently Rommel had a lot of good to say for the Italian troops under his command after he inherited them from the Italian high command.

Leads me to believe that the smaller units were decent enough, but suffered from the traditional shitty upper echelon Italian incompetence.

Doctrine also played a big part in effectiveness of troops of differing nations. I remember a bit of dialog from the "Gunner Asch" series of WWII novels, written by a former German artillery officer who'd fought in the war (IIRC). The scene took place deep inside a patch of forest. Asch's commander was worried the Americans would find them, but Asch assured him that they were completely safe so long as they stayed inside the woods, as the Americans fought the war exclusively on good roads.

I only mention it as it gives a hint as to how the Germans thought about it.

The SOF aspect of WW2 is probably the area I'm least familiar with. Aside from the British raids into Norway I can't say I know a whole lot about Special Ops missions in WW2.

There's  a good book, "There's A War to be Won", by Geoffrey Perret, US Army-centric, that has a chapter titled "The Tip of the Spear" on Army SOF, e.g. FSSF, Airborne, Rangers.  

I highly recommend the book.  

Per capita?

The italians pretty much invented modern under sea warfare, with a hat tip to the brits as well.

 
Send me a PM with your address.  I'll send you a great book to get you started.

For internetz satisfaction of curiosity, start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael

ADM McRaven wrote a decent book about historic raids WWII:

Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice

He wrote about glider assault in Belgium, the Italians in Alexandia, Mussolini rescue, etc.

I'm talking about this one. (see below).  Less academic history and more story telling history, kind of in the Keegan style.   I enjoyed it, it was a quick, fun read.

 The Finns thought 1 Finn was equal to 10 Russians. The problem was there so often being that 11th Russian.

I'm not fully versed in the Winter or Continuation Wars. That said, I recently read a very well researched book, written by an English language speaker who also speaks Finnish and German.

The Germans who served in Finland were very impressed by the Finns.  To the extent where they conveyed that they thought the Finns were better Infantry than they (the Germans) were.  A pretty significant admission from a professional military who at the time were were not historically known for low self esteem.

Follow the plan of attack regardless of the changed situation on the ground is not my idea of competent, and Japanese guys did it a lot. On the other hand, maybe we wouldn't even know John Basilone's name if the Japs fought differently.

I don't buy this at all.  Like saying so and so is the greatest MMA fighter even,  even though opponents are bigger, stronger, faster, better stamina. And then coming to find out the fan fave's technique isn't that good either.

If you actually break down any truly successful German campaign early in the war, when their peace time built military machine was still intact,  they possessed the same advantages the Allies had that you're holding against them.
Logistically superior, they had their machine set more efficient for war. And yet they made a ton of major strategic and tactical errors in every campaign and the best they ever did was against unprepared enemies who'd mobilized late and werent even mentally prepared for war yet.

WW2 wasn't about purely national resources,
It was about implementing the measures necessary to maximize them. Germans started the war and were the last you truly mobilize their economy.  That is their fuck up. They fucked up production, going for exotic over practical and they paid. They dumped a ton of time and money into stupid super weapons like the vengeance weapons and they paid for it. Don't for a heartbeat blame the Luftwaffe issues on just oil, they made a shit load of bad decisions. The Heer, they fucked up all the time tactically. During the Bulge an entire German armor advance was halted and turned back by a single US Army recon platoon with infantry organic weapons only.

You mentioned intel.They had it early on,  especially just pre-war when they knew all enemy weaknesses. During the war they had thr Black Code advantage and even then Rommel couldn't destroy the British. The rest the Abwehr and later SS intelligence wasn't bad either. Crypto is part of military, they didnt prioritize it and it cost them.

They attacked well early on because they'd trained for years, their enemies eye barely prepped, they were high on meth, they had all the advantages. That didn't work though, they weren't strong enough to win that fight They chose to focus on designing their military on winning the short decisive war and by the time a war if attrition was a certainty they were too far behind the USSR and USA, both emphasizing a war of maneuver through attrition. They could have done it too early on,  they chose not to, just like they chose to emphasize machine guns over arty.

We hail them for their stamina in defense. Pretty easy while fighting from defenses built by slave labor while officers threaten to send your family back home to a concentration camp if you don't fight hard enough, while policy from the commander in chief is no different from Stalin's "not one step back" order.

Name the campaign the Germans showed this supposed brilliance in war. I bet at the same time their enemy was at their weakest.

I think you're kind of missing my point.  I'm talking about small units, specifically avoiding the Operational and Strategic picture.

"When the Odds Were Even" is a myth, IMO.  They were never even.  At least not by the time the US entered the war in more than sideshow capacity (Africa, Sicily were sideshows) and certainly not by the time the Soviets had recovered from the reverses in 41.

Again, limit to the small unit level.  US Army Infantry organization during the war, especially at squad level: Dildos.

The German Army ground forces, at company level, were formidable.  They had learned the lesson of WWI and cast aside the Imperial German super NCO ranks and promoted (largely) on competence grounds.

At company level and below, IMO, they were much better (when intact, or enough to be so without being combat ineffective with casualties) than they were at higher levels.

They did have quirks, detrimental ones.

Look past the macro level, which is often discussed.

At the micro level, for example, German field hygiene was terrible.  They lost completely or had sidelined by sick call troops due to sickness and disease that was an aberration and not the norm, especially in the British and US Armies.

Anyway, I'm not focusing on the big picture, but the smaller one.

The Italians also did pretty well against the British in East Africa until a change in strategy made them shift from offensive to defensive operations, after that the British put the screws to them and wound up coming up with the first large (although often overlooked) Allied victory in a campaign in WWII.

You're totally right about the differences between the WWI Italian Army and the WWII Italian Army. My great-grandfather fought on the Austro-Hungarian front in WWI and they did as well as anyone else did in trench warfare, from what I've been told he was a very tough man and took pride in his service even though it did interrupt his time in the US (came here in 1912 to work on a farm, got drafted in '14, fought, came back in '19 with his wife and my oldest great-uncle, bought a farm and all became citizens) and he was pretty annoyed about that. All his sons served in the US Army (and in my grandpa's case Army Air Force) in WWII, and 3 of them fought in Sicily and Italy in Ranger and Infantry units, they were unimpressed with the performance of the Italians especially considering the things their dad told them about his experience in WWI.

Gunner Asch, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. /Obi-Wan

I read those books when I was in like Jr. High or High School, they were pretty damn good as I recall but I haven't read them since because I could never find them. The ones I originally read were from the local public library. Hans Hellmut Kirst was the author and he indeed was an officer in the Wehrmacht in WWII, I do still have one of his books, The Night of the Generals. Good book, fairly good movie too.

As for the woods thing, he was partially correct, for quite a while US Army doctrine for fighting in forests was pretty much: Don't.

I apologize for tone, my dog had a fucking asthma attack just as i started writing,  had to stop and deal with that, so was pissed off afterwards.

I understand what you're saying,  will type out a real reply tomorrow.

If it's small unit vs small unit, give me the USMC and I'll take on any krauts that wanna fight.

We're good.  I love you man.  (No homo)

They did that because they had nothing for organic comms on the attack (aside from whistles and flares etc), same as the Russians. No comms means you stick to the plan and execute it since you have no other option. The entire IJA was technologically primitive as fuck compared to US. When you look at their campaigns in China it was a wholly different story since that was a near peer adversary. Furthermore, they had the same problem as the Germans, their early war army was pretty good in terms of officers/leaders, but by the end of the war the IJA was shit due to casualties and seppuku.

Also I will grant that IMO the USMC officer corps was better than the US army as well.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out

Much appreciated. PM on the way.

US Army 92G's.   No one compares

Japanese company commanders were horrible. Probably the worst.  They couldn't do basic things like sync fire and maneuver in a he attack; Japanese army were great in the defense, but that was a willingness to dig and sacrifice.


Germans were probably the best, most of the time. A function of a militarized culture, a large pol of candidates, a willingness to recruit from the ranks, and IIRC the officer training program was longer and more thorough.

Man for man, the best company commanders across the whole army were almost definitely the Australians.  The issue is unless you are familiar with the New Guinea campaign it gets little press. They had high standards and did a good job of a talent-based commissioning system.

I'm interested to hear more about this.  Is that in reference to tactical or technical knowledge, or a mix of both?

I admittedly don't know much about historical artillery stuff.

This. There is a reason why we directly copied a lot of the stuff the Germans were doing after WW2. Everything from machine guns/machine gunnery to general staff composition.

We can talk squad platoon company but WWII was a combined arms fight and the Germans just weren't good at it compared to their enemies. They were better early on than their opponents ONLY because not a single one was really ready for war. Once they got their shit together almost everyone was annihilating Germans on a 1v1 scale. Even the Soviets, who constantly catch a well deserve bad rap, were often defeating German units at a 1v1 level (though nearly always taking more casualties, but the Soviets didn't care about them).

Let's look at years everyone was at a near parity. '41 against the Soviets was bullshit, their senior leadership was a mess, their units were strung out all over the place, they were basically Kessel bait. But what about for Case Blue and Stalingrad, when did the German company excel in that campaign? What about at Kursk? El Alamein wasn't a side show, it was a massive battle and held the entire fate of North Africa (and possible access to the Middle East)? What about the fighting in St Lo?

The German squad of WWII wasn't some scientifically engineered unit that stemmed from the MG34, it was based on the WWI organization with a single machine gun (the MG08/15) augmenting the squad's firepower because they couldn't produce enough SMGs and the bolt actions sucked. For WWII they prioritized MGs not because "Super tactics!" but because it was easier to hide their manufacture from Versaille Treaty stipulations than mortars and arty. They almost never did any of the fire and maneuver tactics shown on the famous Youtube OSS video besides for very small attacks of no real consequence. Tagging them with that battle drill is like stating the US Army fights according to Battle Drill 1A even though that shit is never used in real combat.

All German company level infantry attacks were supported by Panzers or were secondary objective, Panzergrenadiers who dismounted right before an objective that was being hit by supporting arms while they were often still supported directly by tanks. Standard infantry was rarely even in the same grid zone designator of a mobile war, they were too slow to do anything besides support offensives later on. When they did fight they weren't maneuvering LMGs with squads leapfrogging forward, with NCOs with binos calmly picking out targets for their highly skilled machine gunners. They were plastering enemy defenses with arty, rockets, and mortars as they rushed through mine fields, barbed wire, ditches, to get through the defensive engagement areas/kill zones as fast as possible to avoid enemy fire support, the real killer, not small arms. The fire and maneuver leapfrog bullshit doesn't work in real combat when comms are non-existent, leaders are getting hit every second, and allowing entire squads to stop forward movement to go prone to return fire means the assault stalls at the same time its being nailed by mortars and arty from the defender. Countless senior brass on all sides, German, Soviet, American, all said the same thing over and over again during WWII, men who stop advancing to fire their weapons will not get up unless somebody physically pulls them to their feet, which means a leader standing up, motionless, which means they get deaded. This video is the reality of what happens in combat when people take cover or go prone during an attack:


German Wehrmacht hype is ridiculous. Worse is the US Army's obsession with it, while shitting on their own forefathers who actually did a pretty kick ass job (especially considering the limitations placed on them through recruitment issues). A lot of this filtered down from Depuy who had a major hard on for German war machine (based a lot in being in one of the worst Army divisions in the war, had he been in the 1st ID his opinion would have been a bit different). He restructured the US Army with German centric doctrine when he was running TRADOC. But as smart, capable, and experienced that man was, he was biased big time and he never looked at any of the negatives that are associated with the tactics and doctrine of fire and maneuver. There is a time and place for infantry platoons and squads to be supporting themselves, but that time in MCO is actually rare. They just don't have the ability, which is what the Germans found out by '43, when most of the best of their long standing infantry NCOs were dead. The Germans focused on overly complex tactics that didn't work well in real combat, for these tactics they needed highly trained leaders that they couldn't support, they needed overly cumbersome weapons that slowed them down, they needed air support they couldn't provide, tanks they couldn't manufacture the right type of, and it all required a level of coordination that wasn't possible without the radios they never prioritized or wanted.

What was wrong with the US Army's platoon and squad organization? Did we really need an LMG at the squad level? Most infantry tasks conducted in the war show they didn't, our tactics didn't require it. The US Army squad wasn't perfect but it worked. The only limitation was weapons related, not skill. Our version of the bazooka sucked and we didn't field a proper LMG that we could have put under control platoon leadership where it belongs (like the Germans did in their '44 reorganization for infantry units armed with StG44). Our squads performed exceptionally well, especially considering the fuck fuck games Army played when it came to selecting quality officer and enlisted, they still beat the fuck out of the Germans in nearly every battle they fought. I really challenge you to present evidence to the contrary in the form of an actual engagement. When did the German company own the US Army company?

Nearly everything the Germans did against the US was defensive based. However, they did attack us numerous times and when they did the US Army ALWAYS kicked the shit out of them, minus one small hiccup at Kasserine Pass. And yet we hold them to such high esteem because they managed to hold us back at a attacker/defender ratio often of 1/1. If they were that good we wouldn't have broke their asses off every week. If they were that good every counterattack we'd have been pushed back and broken, the same way they were pushed back and broken throughout the entire war.

WWII was that the army of "good enough" was better than the army of "great," especially when "great" only worked when the enemy were at their worst. We did "good enough" great. The Germans weren't even good at being "great."

For the same reason the Army went to all Black Berets. Because it was the "good idea" of a single general.

We did the research pre-war to have super accurate plotting boards that made our shit super accurate. We had more radios to control fires, with dedicated forward observer (with radios) pushed all the way down to the platoon level for infantry, whereas Germans were lucky to have one radio at all at the company level and a dedicated fire support radio at the battalion level (Soviets often had none below regiment or battalion, hence their reliance on mass fires). We emphasized production and quality, our shit was made well, accurate, reliable, easy to make. Our rounds were of much higher quality control than the slave labor shit the Germans were using. We put some of our best people into arty in spite of other combat arms branches were they could have been needed. We had better manufacturing capabilities than the German. We had a better supply system, so even though a shell fired in France had to cross the US, then cross the Atlantic, then cross through Europe, we could do it better and more reliably than the Germans because we put more an emphasis on logistics.

All this because the US recognized pre-war that whomever had better fires would win the war. The Germans didn't come to this conclusion and they paid for that mistake. Who gives a fuck about 7.92mm LMGs when their opposing counterpart is a 105mm howitzer?

I would generally agree with this. There's no doubt that the German army early in WWII was very good. It is difficult to gauge them vs the US mainly because we always brought with us a metric F-ton of air support AND the western front was the proverbial side show compared to Germany vs USSR on top of the logistical advantages that come into play in 1944 and on. If we had been fighting the bulk of the Wehrmacht maybe things would be different. In any case, it's ridiculous for the US to bow down to the WWII German Army. Rommel himself said that the US was good. IIRC the quote he told Manfred was something like, "Americans are good at war, because they have no interest in tradition and worthless theories". Kraut propaganda and kraut worship after the war tells us that the german army was super trendy and ahead of it's time in every way and it's just not true. There was, from Day 1, a LOT of organizational resistance to the modernization of the kraut army. Sure, you had guys like Manstein and Rommel etc. getting support from Adolph and lots of good press (very deserved, they were damned good), but for every one of them there were a dozen crusty old Prussian generals that were the proverbial stick in the WWI era mud. Rommel faced a lot of this resistance and appreciated that the Americans had less
of that kind of baggage. The US fighting man with his nose to the dirt, at least at the time, didn't give a crap what tradition, he was gonna do what worked.

Another thing worth considering, even though we're talking tactics, is the position that upper leadership PUT those company-level guys in. The Kraut army never ever should have been fighting street to street in big cities. When they went mobile with big/bold tank attacks and counter attacks, they slaughtered the russians. Crazy high kill ratios. When they slogged it out in cities they lost their biggest advantage while chasing propaganda headlines for Hitler. The armored units of the kraut army, ON THE MOVE, were pretty exceptional for their day. It wasn't their fault that some clowns at the top often took that advantage away from them.

It would be interesting to know what would have happened if after the pincer move that 'swallowed' Ukraine Hitler had promoted Manstein and said "I'm putting you in command of the Eastern Front. I will do everything i can to get you max resources. Your job is to kill russians and make them surrender...by whatever means you see fit." Undoubtably Manstein would not have wasted his troops to nearly such a degree. A guy like him knows that a well planned fall-back / counterattack can be much more effective than a "fight to the last man for that piece of dirt over there" strategy.

uhhh, kinda. The west WAS a sideshow and the Army Air Corps did a HELL of a job destroying kraut vehicles / logistics by the time we finally land in France. As you said, there never is a fair fight, but US / Brit Navy + US / Brit Air force + US / Brit / Canadian etc. army vs the second tier of the germany army that can't move without getting bombed isn't even in the same time zone as 'even'. If the german tank armies had been able to move at will, Normandy would have been much much more difficult. I'm not saying we don't still win the day, I'm just saying that once again the krauts had their big advantage taken away from them by things outside the company commander's control, so it's not surprising that we kicked the crap out of them in a lot of these battles.

Quite correct, especially on the Radios. No one really truly appreciates how far ahead the US was in Radio technology and what an absurd force multiplier that is against people that lack radios in the number and overall quality that the US had. Coupled with good artillery doctrine it was decisive IMO (One of the few good doctrines the US had IMO)

Mr Brown is correct here IMO. Steinhab is maybe half right. The Allies had overwhelming support on the western front that made their job vastly easier, and yet they still had serious problems advancing against the "sideshow" part of the Wehrmacht, which by 44 was pretty much composed of the leftovers of Germany, mostly conscripted old men and children (yes even a whole SS division of them). So tactically and operationally speaking the allies left something to be desired in the original context of the question of who was better at the company level. Of course they still won, much for the same reason as the Soviets, quantity has a quality all its own.

if the German commanders were so great why were they so afraid of and susceptible to Adolph Hitler?

Infantry captains rarely interact with their national command authority. 

Because they didn't see him the way you do. They saw him in the context of a man who took a downtrodden nation to greatness. Maybe they looked at him the same way you look at the current president? But I'm assuming alot of your politics and I'm not trying to equate him to Adolph.

what was it I read a while ago? something along the line of true Commanders/Generals are less concerned with tactics and more concerned with logistics/supplies.

In movies POTUS speaks to them in the field and tells them
To "take the shot" etc etc

Pretty much entirely correct. Running a war on the strategic level (big generals) and an operational level (generals/colonels) is a totally different game than what Lt. Total Dumbass and Cpt. Sorta knows what he's doing are worried about.

A good account of the "Company Commander" level of war is If You Survive by George Wilson.

He went in at D Day + 14 and fought till the end. 

Explicit about the meat grinder that attacking entrenched Wermacht resulted in.

At some points he commanded "Companys" of 15 green recruits.

German tactical leadership was unsurpassed followed by American leaders. As others have already mentioned, US artillery and air power greatly assisted in our dominance.

If you read much history about Hitler's interactions with generals you'll find that he was more than just an angry corporal and a politician. There were hardcore career military men that were not afraid of death that chose to try to convince AH that he was wrong about something and to advocate for their position, and they buckled under his force of will in the cases in which he refused to alter course. He's one of the worst people in history, but his personal vigor when dealing with people was basically his 'superpower' and probably had to be seen to be believed.

The single best general belongs to the Soviet. Georgy Zhukov stopped Army Group North in Leningrad and push backed Army Group Center in Moscow. Army Group Center barely survived Georgy Zhukov counter attack. If Army Group had fallen in Moscow both Army Group North and South would have been encircled. Germany lost the Eastern Front in the battle of Moscow not Starlingrad. Starlingrad was Germany last attempt to force Starlin to the peace table which is a fantasy because Starlin was a bat crazy psycho. 

QFT

Germany is so fucking over-rated.

Which side was Dick Winters on?

I think so too.

They kicked the hell out of a bunch of countries who did everything in their power to avoid a war which every indicator suggested was inevitable. Essentially, Germany beat the hell out of a bunch of pussies. As soon as they ran into some pissed off opposition they came apart at the seams.

The British invented modern day Special Operations via the "Commandos" in WW2.