Achtung Panzer: Nomonhan/Khalkhin Gol

Technopiper... By assuming the defensive, you are giving up your own freedom of action, and granting the enemy the freedom of action.

Excellent statement and could not agree more.

I also love the BT-7. Speed, armor, firepower, I'd always pick speed and the freedom that comes with it. Not that it will always prevail, it's just the way I prefer to fight.

Was not the whole Italian Campaign pretty much fought this way by the Axis forces with all of the Gothic line, Gustav Line and the many more defensive lines they prepared and look what happened in the end... "they lost". Neutral

They lost through no faults of their own. They were fighting against impossible odds which as the war progressed became worse and worse. That's the story of the Wehrmacht from summer 1943 until May 1945 . A superb army being misused and bled dry in a lost cause by an idiotic dictator whose stubbornness was only equalled by his callousness.

The great sample of the defence was Mannerheim line. Soviets in September 39 captured half Poland, but Commie's appetite was too big and then decided to capture Finland and... bumped into defence line.
Soviet lost ~0.5 mln (or may be more, who cares?), but didn't manage to conquer the small country. As result Soviet later got a blockade of Leningrad.

PS
Do u know what was the first town on 22 June 1941, which was bombed by the Soviet aggressors?
It was Helsinki.

frinik... A superb army being misused and bled dry in a lost cause by an idiotic dictator whose stubbornness was only equalled by his callousness.

Unbelievable, but true and it is hard to say, but... I fully agree with your statement. LoL

The Italian Campaign was used more by the Allies for bleeding the German war machine, than it was for gaining territory from the Germans. Although from airbases in Italy the Allies could strike deep into Axis territory. Also it was providing a testing or proving ground for the next big stepping stone of the war, the D-Day invasion of Europe.

lockie... The great sample of the defence was Mannerheim line.

One of the more over looked aspect of the defenses of the "Mannerheim line". Was that the Finish army had placed part of it's army in front of the defensive line to damage and slow down any advances by the Soviet army before they struck the Mannerheim line.

More or less the Finnish army could ambush the Soviet units attacking the line and give them a good shaking up and rattle their bones even before the Soviet forces could even reach and attack the Finnish defenses of the Mannerheim line.

Sort of a...  "Static defense" working hand in hand with a "Mobile offense".  

A web site that has some very good information concerning the Winter War.

Finnish "by the book" tactics

http://www.winterwar.com/Tactics/FINtactics.htm

Finnish antitank units and tactics

http://www.winterwar.com/Tactics/FINatTactics.htm

Quote...  

After Marshal Mannerheim requested opinions and suggestions about the general use of Finnish AT, Major General L.Oesch, Chief of General Staff, noted that the Finnish AT-capability of the troops defending the Mannerheim Line (main resistance line) in the Karelian Isthmus was inadequate.

It was Oesch's opinion that the Soviet tanks couldn't be destroyed in front of the line, and the bulk would be able to penetrate the defenses.

Oesch pointed out that the main objective was to separate the tanks from the following infantry in front of the line. The tanks should be allowed to advance over the first strongpoints and trenches into the defenses.

These penetrated tanks should be attacked relentlessly by AT-teams and AT-platoons using close combat AT-weapons regardless of the terrain (as it's relatively difficult to closely observe the surrounding battlefield from within the tank, tanks are vulnerable to close defense AT-teams without friendly infantry nearby).

Mannerheim approved this as the general directive to be used in the Karelian Isthmus, and it proved out to be effective.

An interesting story concerning the Finnish troops letting the Soviet tanks roll over their foxholes before the Finn's attacked the Soviet tanks.

From the actions in Summa, on 19 December 1939, as described by the commander of JR 15 Lt.Col Ilmari Karhu.
I've tried to translate the text as exact as possible.
(The notes in (parentheses) are my additions, meant to clarify some points.)

"In the afternoon the (Soviet) attack was repeated with even more strength. Reports from different directions told that nearly 100 tanks were in the Summa-village. Our AT-guns were still stunned by the morning attack. The tanks were roaming virtually free within our lines, as our bombers (meaning "bomber units") couldn't get close to the tanks in broad daylight, in the open terrain.

The men were just laying flat in their foxholes and waiting for the dusk. The tanks were firing at the trenches and the bunkers.

The situation was oppressive. Could the infantry stay in the positions letting the tanks pass and stopping the enemy infantry, as was ordered (see: the general directive).

The first attack reached the support line. It was of course manned, but it's AT-defense was very weak.

The time passed slowly. Wild rumors were going round.

Finally it grew dusk. The evening came. The midnight came. The support line was still intact. Some tanks immobilized by mines were in front of it. But how was it with the main defense line?

Reports were arriving. The enemy infantry hadn't been able to follow the tanks inside our defenses.

At dusk the "bombers" could approach the tanks. The tank busting began. Some twenty were destroyed and the rest withdrew. The attack had been beaten back. The troops in this sector were reassured that the tanks weren't invulnerable. Confidence among the troops grew."

As the commander in chief Hitler bore the greatest responsibility for Germany's defeat. But there is a conspiracy after the war among German generals to lay everything on him, this simply isn't correct. Manstein, for example, said that he advised that the 6th Army should break out of Stalingrad in November 1942, when in fact record showed that it was Hitler who wanted the 6th to break out and Manstein who claimed that a relief attempt was possible. The fact is the 6th Army was doomed no matter what that Germans did at that point. The blame on Germany's defeat lies squarely on the entire German general staff, with Hitler taking the greatest responsibility. With Hitler's absence after the war, however, the facts were distorted. Historians like Liddell Hart (I grew up on his books), who made a name by presenting the war through the German general's perspective, was greatly responsible for promoting that view.

One author that I trust is David Glantz. He was a colonel of military intelligence during the Cold War, knows Russian and has access to declassified Russian archives. He has a critical eye when it comes to treating sources and I consider him level-headed and reliable. (Liddell Hart was head over heels for the German generals) He claimed, for example, that Hitler's "no retreat" orders sometimes hurt the war efforts badly, but sometimes helped saving entire armies. Hitler made mistakes just like Zhukov, Stalin, or Eisenhower. It's just that circimstances did not permit Germany to recover from these mistakes.

Davis Glantz's intelligence background gives him a sensitivity of political factors in the presentation of history, and an understanding of the criminal's mind. His books are very dry (Liddell Hart's book were wonderfully easy to read). But I respect him for being very impassionate and staying aloof from the subject like a scientist. I've found that this presentation by him helps greatly before reading: https://youtu.be/7Clz27nghIg

Granted indeed to much blame has been conveniently heaped on the Fuerher in the loss of WW2.Another one who contributed to that myth on the German side was Paul Carell whose series of books on the war in the East from a German perspective became classics(I read them all).His real name was Karl Paul Schmidt. He was a member of the SS and was responsible for the creation of the very well done propaganda magazine Signal. He blamed the defeat in the East on Hitler and eulogized von Manstein and other generals in his successful books.

However it's true that Hitler's constant meddling and insistence of refusing to yield ground and refusal to shorten defensive lines led to complete groups being denied to breakthrough when surrounded by Soviet offensives with disastrous results in 1944 in particular. Had Hitler given his generals free reign like Stalin did with his after 1942 would probably have led to Germany postponing defeat by another 18 months in the East.

frinik... Had Hitler given his generals free reign like Stalin did with his after 1942 would probably have led to Germany postponing defeat by another 18 months in the East.

Agree, as the Allies were not going to back down from anything but a full defeat of Germany after two World Wars.

And even with all the German super weapons, if they were up and running and if there was a German win at Kursk and Stalingrad. The clock was ticking and time was against Germany. There was no way that Germany industrial production could out produce that of the combined Allied industries.

woofiedog wrote:
And even with all the German super weapons, if they were up and running and if there was a German win at Kursk and Stalingrad. The clock was ticking and time was against Germany.  There was no way that Germany industrial production could out produce that of the combined Allied industries.

Could not agree more. Germany lost the war in September 1939.
Though, to be honest, nobody knew it was beginning of the WW2. Hitler supposed to get "Danzig corridor", but instead "corridor" he got two fronts: current West and future East.

MMMMMM not so sure. Germany almost won WWI. Defeating the Russians/Bolsheviks in 1918 but not soon enough to shift all resources to the Western Front to crush the French which were bled dry and whose armies had mutinied in 1917.

In WW2 had Hitler not stopped his attack at Dunkirk and allowed the British army to escape in June 1940 and not start the war against the SU until he had defeated the UK completely( through an invasion or defeat in the air and on the sea which came very close in 1941 then Germany could have won the war. The US would not have intervened and the war against the SU- if it happened - would have been very different without the Allies convoys coming to rescue Stalin's hide in 1942-44.

The Soviets lost more tanks (99 000) than they produced during the war and it's only thanks to the massive US and British aid that they were able to field armour divisions against the Germans in 1942-43.

More examples of the defense having a decided advantage are obviously the Western Front in WWI and the siege of Khe Sanh in Viet Nam. In both cases the attackers kept obstinately attacking fixed positions that favored the defense and paid the price in blood and failure.

In the former the generals had not come to terms with the fact that changes in technology in the form of barbed wire, machine guns and artillery trumped elan. In the latter the North Vietnamese thought to repeat Dien Bien Phu but disregarded the firepower that the Americans could bring to bear that the French could not.

Again, attackers don't always win. It all depends on circumstances, just as you would expect.

I forgot the Huertgen forest as another example. One of the bloodiest campaign ever undertaken by the US army in Europe.

frinik wrote:I forgot the Huertgen forest as another example. One of the bloodiest campaign ever undertaken by the US army in Europe.

Yes. Another fine example of butting your head against a brick wall instead of walking around it.