[WarInEur] RE: WarInEur Digest, Vol 34, Issue 3

[Wardall Clark]

>On May 3, 2007, at 9:00 AM, warineur-request at mailman.halisp.net wrote:
>
> > The loss of the Dnepr line  showed that the soviets could bounce a
> > river with ease, but against that, it must be allowed, that the Gerrmans
> > were in extremis, and particularly hard put to creating a defensive
> > position to enable any sort of effective opposition.


The Dneiper had the potential to be a formidible barrier as the West Bank 
was high and the east bank was flat.   However, its very formidibility 
worked more against the Germans than the pursueing russians.  In order to 
salvage as much equipment as possible Field Marshal Von Manstein tried to 
cross at the bridges then spread out to defend ithe banks between them.  In 
real life this creates logistical nightmares in getting units into place 10 
or more miles from the surviving bridges iwhen the enemy is in hot pursuit,  
as was the case at the time. He and his subcommanders succeeded in keeping 
his army Group intact, a remarkable feat given the situation, but totally 
failed to utilize the river itself as a defensive obstacle.
   The Soviet tactics described below of crossing wherever they were 
unopposed with infantry worked to make the German operational plan a very 
bad idea. The Soviets quickly created a mass of such pockets in the Kiev 
area and effectively outflanked every downstream german unit once they had 
consoldidated the pockets.
     It is just an opinion, but Army Group South's collosal failure to form 
a coherent Dneiper defense line after its up-to-then brilliant commander had 
counseled Hitler that his forces should fall back to the river is probably 
the reason why Von Manstein was relieved in early 1944 and never reinstated 
anywhere again.
>Soviet practice was to try very hard to grab multiple bridgeheads
>over the next riverline BEFORE they were defended, dig in, build up
>slowly and then attack out of them in conjunction with the mother of
>all artillery barrages from the east bank.  Opposed river crossings,
>per se, were avoided, though several earlier bad experiences
>demonstrated why.
>

In WIE, there is no need/advantage to funnel units through bridge or ferry 
hexes. Supply and railroad repair is funned through the rear area RR bridge 
hexes but even armor is barely slowed down by the crossing. On the other 
hand, every unit except artillery is half strength when attacking across a 
river hexside.
   What we do find in WIE is that the combination of rivers and ZOC or 
Interdiction hinders out of supply armored units as the cost to cross 
becomes 4 hexes making it impossible to get accross on the run. (at least 
until the mechanized phase.)  However, when a unit has a movement rate of 8 
or more, one extra point to cross a river doesn't matter very often.

Talk of declaring the Seine, Rhine, Danube, Oder, Po, Dnepper, and Volga 
different from all other rivers, actually misses the point.  For most of 
their lengths, The Thames and Seine rivers present little military obstacle 
to movement because of a surplus of bridges and Ferry's .  Certain sections 
of these and other rivers run a lot faster than others. Any current above 
4MP makes it dangerous to swim and vastly complicates rafting operations. 
(The beaching point may be out of artillary range from the jumping off point 
requiring preposition of supporting weaponry.)
      To some extent this explains why Patton crossed the upper Rhine 
without a bridge and yet a few days later Montgomery dropped paratroops to 
support an amphibous operation several hundred miles downstream.  In between 
them was the Remagan Bridge which ultimately supported the 9th and 1st US 
Army in a drive to the Elbe.
If I understand correctly,  the Axis eventually did knock out the original 
RR bridge, but by that time the Americans had heavy equipment on both sides 
of the river and so could quickly build as many pontoon replacements as were 
needed. The capture of the bridge forced major defense of a section of the 
river which the Germans did not anticipate a need to defend and so their 
resources proved completely inadequate to the task of defending the Rhine as 
a whole.
    In Crusade in Europe, Eisenhower argued that once the Allies had 
demonstrated the ability to penetrate the Seigfried line, the Germans would 
have been better off Militarily by abandoning the Rhineland and defending on 
the east bank of the Rhine rather than allowing their army to be decimated 
in defending the West bank. So clearly his staff felt that the Rhine 
represented a more significant water obstacle than any previous river such 
as the Meuse.


    In Fortress Europa, the tactical Air units temporarily make rivers hard 
to cross when they specifially target the bridge points.  Armored units in 
particular are stymied. Which makes sense since that can't use boats nearly 
as readily as the lighter units can,
       What WIE probably needs is a third type of river. Right now we have 
uncrossable estuaries,which are techically coastal extensions,  and river 
boundary lines between hexes. What the map would need would be a second 
color to that indicates that that crossing sections of the Rhine or Volga 
with military equipment requires a ferry capacity of some kind whereas 
pontoons suffice for the Moselle and much of the Seine or Oder.


Bob

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