Combat Effectiveness: Of German Soldiers vs the Allies and the M4 Sherman vs the Tiger
Combat Effectiveness: Of German Soldiers vs the Allies and the M4 Sherman vs the Tiger
Addressed
by author Steven Zaloga in his book Armored Thunderbolt, the M4
Sherman is compared against the German Tiger Tank. The American Sherman
tank has for many years been considered to be radically inferior to the German
tanks of the later war period, especially the Panther and Tiger. It
supposedly cost the US Army five Shermans for every Panther or Tiger they were
able to knock out, and US tankers went to war in “death traps” which couldn’t
hold their own against German armor.
Questions, questions, questions…
So how accurate was this image?
Was the Sherman really so inferior to German armor, and if so, why?
Why were these issues not addressed by the US, which had both the largest and the most powerful, and in many ways the most innovative economy on the planet?
There are other aspects of this question to consider as well. Even if the Sherman was markedly inferior to German tanks, did it have other virtues that were more obvious at the operational or strategic level, perhaps?
Were there non-combat or logistical reasons why the Sherman, despite its known weaknesses, remained the preferred tank of the American army?
And what about the rest of US armor?
How did the various light tanks, tank destroyers, self-propelled artillery, and infantry transports compare to those of the Germans?
What about the strengths and weaknesses of German armor relative to the Allies?
One of the enduring images to come
out of the Second World War is that of the German soldier as an exceptionally
effective fighting man. In part, this image seems to have come from the
British army, which considered itself to be a first-class fighting
force. Since the Germans almost completely dominated the British in the
fighting during the first three years of the war, the British reasoned that the
Germans must be even better at fighting than they were. In general, the
only soldiers the British considered to be their equals or superiors were the
Germans. Was there any truth to this concept?
Another source for the idea of
Germans as superior soldiers includes their performance on the Eastern Front,
where right up to the end of the war they inflicted disproportionately large
losses on the Red Army. By extension, after the war and in the early
stages of the Cold War, it became common to revere the German’s fighting
abilities and look to them as examples, since they were now our allies for the
anticipated clash with the Communist hordes. Since the Germans had (apparently)
come very close to defeating the Soviet Union with a much smaller army, they
must therefore be very good soldiers.
In contrast, the combat performance
of the US Army during the war was, until fairly recently, considered to be less
than ideal. This concept drew on a variety of sources – the tiny size of
the pre-war US Army and the massive expansion during the war was thought to
have created an army of civilians who weren’t interested in fighting, only in
getting the war over and going home. US tactical doctrine was thought to
be defective, especially in some areas such as the employment of
armor. American soldiers were assumed to rely on firepower at the expense
of tactical finesse. And the Infantry in the US Army was on the very bottom
of the priority list for draftees, since all the technical branches, including
the Air Force, artillery, engineers, etc., had first call on intelligent and
qualified inductees. This meant that the actual combat infantry units got
the “dregs” of the draft – the inductees that no one else wanted.
More recent scholarship has begun to
address this issue, some of which has produced claims that in fact the US
soldier was every bit the equal of his German counterpart, and even better in
some situations. This is essentially Doubler’s primary argument in Closing
With the Enemy. In the interests of full disclosure, it should be
pointed out that Doubler is, in addition to being a professional historian, a
retired US Army / National Guard infantry officer, which might have influenced
his perspective on the issue.
So how convincing do you find his
argument? Were Americans as good as, or even better soldiers than the
Germans? Or was it the other way around? And if you want to include
the Brits in your analysis as well, that is fine. What evidence do you
feel supports your position? It is important to note that statements like
“America won the war” do not qualify as evidence that American soldiers were
better than German ones. The USSR won the war as well – in fact, a very
strong case can be made that it was the USSR that won the war against Germany,
with some help from America and England, rather than the other way around, as
most Americans assume the case to be. And yet despite winning the war, and
without any implied criticism of the bravery of Soviet soldiers, the loss
ratios of German to Soviet soldiers seems to imply that, at least on a tactical
level, the Germans outperformed the Soviets by a wide margin, right up to the
end of the war in most cases.
In fact, T.N. Dupuy, a retired Army
officer, produced a mathematical model, the QJMA / TNDM, which he claimed to be
able to function as a reasonably accurate predictor of military encounters, and
one that also indicated that, on a man for man basis, a German soldier was
roughly 2.5 times as effective in combat as a Soviet soldier, and about 1.5
times as effective as an American or British one. It must be stated that
evaluating combat effectiveness is a very tricky task, as it is (Dupuy aside)
very hard to quantify, and there are an immense amount of variables to
consider. Dupuy’s model is immensely complicated, and requires a vast
amount of data to be plugged into it before it can even begin to be
used. But it must be pointed out that if this data is available for a given
battle, then the model is in fact very accurate in predicting results that
match up quite accurately with the actual historical outcome.
I would also like you to consider
some elements of German and American military doctrine, to see what effect, if
any, these might have on the relative combat capability of their respective
soldiers.
One key area where US and German
doctrine differed significantly was the focus on the unit. American
doctrine saw the unit, such as a division, as being paramount, and considered individual
soldiers to be interchangeable parts that served the unit. This mindset
was, in many ways, modeled after the American industrial business model, since
America, prior to the Second World War, had few permanent (and no large)
regular units. American soldiers went through basic and advanced training
as individuals, and only joined their unit on the completion of this training.
German military thinking, in
contrast, saw the unit as the means by which soldiers leaned their trade and
fought. German soldiers did undergo basic training in much the same way
American ones did, but having complete the basics, they then joined their unit
for advanced training, which both integrated the soldier into the unit he would
be fighting with, and gave him the benefit of receiving instruction from
veteran soldiers, often with considerable combat experience. Further
contributing to unit cohesion, German units were usually built up from recruits
from the same basic geographical region – a concept that harkens back to the
older practice of the long service professional regiments that made up the
early gunpowder armies. The closest equivalent to such units were some
Guard units, which were composed of smaller local units from neighboring
states.
The differing emphasis on the unit –
the unit is all, the soldier is an interchangeable part in the American army,
and the unit is the home for the soldier in the German, had a crucial impact on
how the two armies fought and controlled replacements. In the German army,
units were often fought to the point of almost total destruction. They
would then, if at all possible, be pulled from the front line and be sent to
the rear to be rebuilt as a unit. This process was aided by the fact that
each division would maintain a “replacement” battalion back in its home region
that served as the means to integrate new recruits and wounded vets back into
the parent unit.
Some German divisions, especially
the crucial Panzer divisions, were destroyed several times and rebuilt from the
ground up, and yet the brand new unit performed as well as the original had
done, due largely to the influence of the veterans in the replacement elements,
and the fact that the unit reformed as a whole.
American divisions, by contrast,
were maintained in or near the front line more or less constantly, at least in
Europe. To keep the division at full strength, individual replacements
(the interchangeable parts) would be fed into the unit while it was in the
line. This was highly stressful for the replacements, who knew no one, and
had no idea what to expect, other than they were being sent into a highly
dangerous environment. The vets usually wanted nothing to do with the
newbies, as the rookies were likely to make dumb mistakes that would get themselves
and anyone nearby killed. This method of doing business actually inflated
US combat casualty rates in many cases.
This American policy also created a situation where combat units left in the
line long enough could suffer horrendous casualty rates, and yet appear to be
full strength according to the TO&E. Some US infantry units, such as
the 1st and 29th Infantry divisions, both of which came
ashore on D-Day, had suffered over 200% casualties by VE day, 11 months
later. Those numbers are actually far worse that they might seem, as
virtually all those casualties came from the rifle companies and combat support
elements, such as the engineers, heavy weapons, medical staff, etc. Some
rifle companies in those divisions suffered more than 600% casualties in those
11 months.
It is hard to escape the idea that
this policy of replacements in the US Army had a seriously negative impact on
the combat effectiveness of the soldiers. What do you think of the policy
and its effects? Was it the best one available to the US Army? If
not, what other policy might have been implemented, since it was hardly
practical to ship whole divisions back to the States in order to integrate new
troops.
This replacement issue is one
example of how a certain practice that might not, on first glance, have any
effect on combat effectiveness, can actually have a major effect. Are
there other areas where this might be the case, either positively or
negatively?
By the way, in some ways the US Army
still handles replacements in the same fashion today as it did in World War II and has ever since. This wasn’t a major problem in Korea, where the front
lines were almost totally stable for extended periods of time, but it did have
a major impact in Vietnam, especially combined with the mandated limits on how
long a combat tour of duty could be during that war. In Iraq, the Army
rotated entire units in and out of the country, but that is at least in part
due to the much smaller size of the present-day army.
Another impact on perceived combat effectiveness
can be military doctrine. For example, in the German army, it was standard
practice to launch an immediate counterattack, with whatever was available,
any time a German unit was pushed off of an objective they were
defending. Since everyone knew that this was going to happen, it gave the
Germans a very fast reaction time, and often caught inexperienced opponents off
guard, sometimes repeatedly. However, if the enemy knew that the Germans
would do this – and they were very consistent about it – then it became
possible to turn the tables on them and prepare an ambush for the inevitable
counterattack.
Another aspect to consider on this
issue is the fact that, in almost all of clashes between US and German forces,
American troops were attacking and German troops defending. Major German
attacks on American troops were fairly rare – Kasserine, Anzio, Mortain, and
the Bulge are about all on the list. And for at least one of those,
Mortain, we knew from Ultra (yet another non-combat factor that could influence
combat results) exactly where and when the attack would occur, making it
relatively easy to shift sufficient forces to block it.
A question often discussed with reference to the Armies and Soldiers who fought and ided during the Second World War is who do you think was more effective in combat – the Germans, the Americans (or maybe a write-in for the Brits) or was it too close to call? You can concentrate on various aspects of this topic – armor, infantry, or other factors, and look at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
A destroyed M4 Sherman.
Steven Zaloga’s final sentence in his 2008 book, Armored Thunderbolt, nicely sums up his
findings on the mainstay of the Allied Armored divisions that faced the German
armored might; the Tiger and Panther main battle tanks. “The Sherman [tank] was
not the best tank of World War II, but it was good enough.”[1]
And it was indeed. The German Army, Heer, had a leg up on the Allies as they prepared to face the cream of the German Army; the Panzer and Panzer Grenadier divisions spread out across North Africa, West and East Europe and along the Russian frontier.
The Germans had several things going for them in 1939 to
1942. In fact, they had many years prior with which to firstly, understand the
writings of J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Lidell Hart. Their theories of armored
warfare was rigorously studied by the German Army in the 1920s and 1930s. And a
student of their works, and a theorist in his own right, was none other than
Heinz Guderian, the father of the Panzer division.
Guderian immediately saw the tank as an instrument to
provide significant maneuver, when massed, and to be used to rapidly penetrate
the enemy’s rear and sow havoc. His experiments with early German tanks was of
tremendous benefit. All German tanks would be fitted with radios in order to
communicate. In addition, tanks (armor) was to be ‘massed’ for a concentration
of power and mobility. The German General Staff, which had been comprised of a
great number of Cavalry officers, understood ‘maneuver.’ It was the critical
thing that eluded the Germans in World War I as they attempted to implement the
tenets and ideals of von Molkte and von Schliefen.
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had the unfortunate
task of engaging the German Army in 1939-1940 and this they did, along with the
French, whose own armor incidentally, outnumbered the German armor almost by a
ratio of 2.5:1. The British and French, however, dispersed their armor and used
tanks to support infantry. The great German break out from the Ardennes, however,
was accomplished by concentrated armor to the front, with their infantry
straggling along in the rear.
Tactics, doctrine, and leadership were the recipe for German successes early on. German tanks, in fact, were inferior to their French adversaries and the BEF hardly brought any along. So the early days, of rapid combined arms penetration of the Allied rear, saw the collapse of the French and British defense of the Low Countries and ultimately, France.
Were the Germans better? In 1939 (and this whole exercise is rather ‘academic’) the Germans were indeed. The German Army, reborn of the ashes of World War I, had trained harder, were more agile, more lethal, and far better led. The Heer inculcated all of its soldiers with firstly, an ‘all arms approach’ to conflict. That is, all soldiers were rigorously trained in the fundamentals of combined arms tactics and operations. Secondly, mission orders were used to rapidly communicate ‘commanders intent,’ eg Aufragstaktik (in today’s U.S. Army doctrine: Mission Command) As for equipment, the Germans also had an appreciation for close air support concentrated at the ‘Schwerpunkt,’ or center of gravity/decisive point. A further point of note is that the general purpose machine gun (GPMG), MG-39/MG-42 were down at the squad level. U.S. and British doctrine had GPMGs at the Platoon level. In other words, the Germans having a healthy appreciation for firepower, placed the greatest number of casualty producing weapons down inside their rifle squads.
1942 saw ‘Operation Torch’ and the U.S. baptism of fire in North Africa. The battle of Kasserine Pass, however humiliating to the U.S. forces involved, served as a wake-up call for the entire U.S. Army and its early efforts facing the veteran German Army.
That the German Army was a first-class foe, cannot be denied. But a fuller appreciation must be viewed from the lens of time. In 1940, the entire Wehrmacht was undoubtedly the very best Armed Forces in the world. In 1941, the very best of the Wehrmacht then pushed east into Russia. And early on in late 1941 the Germans held all of Europe, Norway, North Africa, and vast stretches of Russia. But 1942 was different year. And the Allies learned quickly. And perhaps, the most important lesson the Allies learned, was that it was far too late to create an Army in the image of the German Army but rather, to leverage the Allies strengths.
A destroyed Tiger in Belgium 1944.
Attrition was something the Wehrmacht, in those pre-war years, had not planned on. There was healthy debate and a hand wave with respect to the Oberkommando Wehrmacht (OKW) preparation for a lengthy war but no real preparations had been made. The rapidity with which Poland fell, however, halted any further discussions of a long war. In fact, they had very much hoped to avoid a long, protracted, war of attrition. And then they invaded Russia.
For this forum, it is too lengthy to get into the details on why exactly the Wehrmacht was indeed, the premier fighting force of the Second World War. The preeminent scholar and historian, Max Hastings states in a Washington Post article from 1985:
The inescapable truth is that Hitler's Wehrmacht was the
outstanding fighting force of World War II, one of the greatest in history. For
many years after 1945, this seemed painful to concede publicly, partly for
nationalistic reasons, partly also because the Nazi legions were fighting for
one of the most obnoxious regimes of all time.[2]
For a various host or reasons were the Germans better. They had amends to make from the loss in the Great War. They had studied better, fully understood technology and firepower down at the tactical level. And they approached the operational arts with an offensive and combined arms mindset. But more importantly, they were not risk or casualty adverse.
Max Hastings goes on in his artilce, to remind us all of what Col Trevor Depuy provided in his post-war analysis:
"On a
man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at
about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and
American troops under all circumstances (emphasis in original). This was true
when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local
numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were outnumbered,
when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when
they lost."[3]
The Panzerkampfwagen MK IV, late series Mark
By July 1943, after the Battle of Kursk, the Germans had lost the initiative. North Africa was lost. The Allies had landed in Italy, and the Russians were on the long slow road west. As the Allies prepared for a major landing on the European continent, they had time to assemble the requisite forces. And numerous armored divisions had been formed. The M4 Sherman was selected as the Allied tank to be used in the conquest of German held Europe.
US Army Ordnance Corps failed to focus on the main gun but did, at least, concentrate on simple durability. The Sherman was rugged, easily maintained, and ultimately, quite simple to produce. When used with proper doctrine, in an all arms attack, it was good enough, as Zaloga states. When coupled with Hawker Typhoon and Republic P-47s, a combined arms attack against the Germans was unstoppable.
But was the Sherman the equal of the Tiger? Heavens no! Nor was it the equal of the Panther. But it was the equal of the far more numerous Panzerkampfwagen and thus, it did the job.
The most ubiquitous Allied tank, the M4 Sherman in the attack, Germany 1945.
[1]
Zaloga, Steven, Armored Thunderbolt: The
U.S. Army Sherman in World War II, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg: 2008 p.
330
[2] Hastings, Max, “Their
Wehrmacht Was Better Than Our Army”, The Washington Post, 5 May, 1985, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4-4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0b96f00c9148 accessed on 14 November 2018
[3]
Ibid.
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