[WarInEur] RE: WarInEur Digest, Vol 40, Issue 29

[Chuck Sutherland]

 >Wardall Clark wrote:
 >Steve's post reiterates a very important point about military 
deployments,while commanders are
 >supposed to think in terms of worse case scenarios, the most sucessful 
battles come either when
 >one side secretly divines the other sides intentions, or the other 
side makes a false assumption that
 >what is impossible for it is also impossible for the opposing side.
 >======================================================================
 >I am reminded of a difference in armored philosophies that was 
resolved in in 1940-41.
 >The allies and Soviets had more tanks, but they were dispersed amidst 
non-motorized infantry companies.
 >A brigade or division with such a TOE can defend itself fairly well 
when terrain permits, but without fully
 >mechanized battalions it lacks mobility to fight a war of maneuver.
 >=============================================================================

It also lacked the ability to truely use combined arms methods, had it 
the mobility it still would have been weakened by the
lack of one asset of another that the Panzer force had.

 >The hexes in WIE are so big that we tend to think of maneuver in terms 
of breakouts, retreats and
 >and movement to combat. However, what is normally involved in 
mechanized modern combat is the
 >shifting of battalions within the battle area. One reason the Axis 
units have such high combat ratings is
 >to reflect the skills of the unit commanders and sub-unit commanders 
at this form of "mobile warfare"
 >==============================================================================
Also Radio and other equipment that allowed better coordination of forces.

 >However, once all the battalions of a unit are fully mechanized, new 
operational level possibilities emerge.
 >Brigade sized units can pass through the gaps between enemy formations 
into rear areas. Furthermore,
 >If enough such brigades are bunched together, they can completely 
overrun a front line position creating
 >a hole through which other brigades or even whole divisions may pass.
 >==============================================================================
Not unless the troops have been trained properly in combined arms 
penetration tactics to exploit the fears of the enemy
sees that armor force deep into their rear as a very real threat. Its 
not just massing troops, its having the right combined
arms balance and command control that allows the exploitation of the 
current situation at hand. Its about mobility and
doctrine. The Germans had both early on, the allied air force took away 
much of the mobility and or matched that mobility
later in the war as the Germans got slower and the allies faster.


 >Steve's point is this, if an Avalon Hill player (locking Zones of 
Control, forced combat and movement a
 >after combat only for victorious units) was in charge of France and 
Belgium in his first WIE game,
 >then his units will quite probably move and stack in ways that invite 
deep armored penetrations. What looks
 >like a quite adequate defense (i.e. units stacked in mutual support) 
is actually something of a sieve against
 >a mainly mechanized attacking force. I know, because I made this 
mistake many times when I first switched
 >game systems. What looked smart given my experience with AH's Anzio 
turned out to be disastrous.
 >===================================================================================

And I would submit that had the leadership in the upper end even 
understood blitzkrieg they still would not have been able to
stop the Germans simply because the front line troops had not idea how 
to even fight tanks. Had they used the right force levels
at the right locations they still would have lost, simply because they 
did not know the combined arms tactical truths.