Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Learning in War Summary: exhausted French and British, Battle of Britain, US bloodbath Message-ID: <9863@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 3 Oct 89 13:05:44 GMT References: <27529@amdcad.AMD.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: University of Southampton, UK Lines: 34 Approved: military@att.att.com From: tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) In article <27529@amdcad.AMD.COM>, cew@venera.isi.edu writes: > other was a German change in infantry tactics. Instead of days and days of > artillery followed by mass movement of troops, they used a short artillery > barrage followed by a rather quick advance of what they called "shock troops." > (From what I read, these tactics worked rather well and Germany would likely > have won the war if it were not for the arrival of large numbers of fresh > American troops to stiffen the line of the exhausted French and British.) > What became blitzkrieg was a combination of shock troops, armor and aircraft. Doesn't the effectiveness of blitzkrieg depend on the superiority of the attacking forces in quality/number - it works well enough initially, but not against a hardened, well-equipped enemy (which was lacking in Europe in 39/40). By the time the US got round to entering the war Europe was occupied, but hadn't the Germans already started their decline by deciding to invade Russia? Blitzkrieg didn't help them much there ... And why wasn't the concept of blitzkrieg applied to aerial attacks on England by the Germans - instead they lost the Battle of Britain by overstretching vast unprotected bomber squadrons. More speedy raids on fighter airfields would have worked wonders, but Hitler sent his bombers "over the top" to bomb London and they were cut to shreds. Surely little was learnt from WWI or blitzkrieg there? Also, what lessons were learnt from the early war years when the Americans were later being carved up in the Japanese island conflicts, where it seemed that the battles more resembled the bloodbath of WWI? Tim.