Priorities: Armor, Infantry Weapons and Air Power

[CaptHawkeye]

No they didn't. The French built powerful armored forces that were superior to those of the Germans.

Really? Name one French Armored Division. Note: Division, not Brigade or Regiment because those were the biggest formations of armor the French Army had. Having lots of small dispersed formations worked real well for them didn't it?

Once Germany attacked Belgium and the Netherlands, they immediately advanced to meet the enemy. In doing so, they allowed their most powerful forces to be encircled by an attack launched further south. If they had sat on the narrow border between the Channel and the Maginot line with entrenched AT guns it is unlikely that there would have been a general collapse, and much weaker armoured forces (even "low" armored provides 1,800 tanks, while "medium" that I am advocating provides larger and more powerful armoured forces than the Germans in 1940) could have plugged any local breakthrough.

Oh sure if we get the French a crystal ball that tells them precisely when and where the enemy will attack then yes you can build an Army with nothing but anti-tank weapons. Shit you might as well just order every man to dig a big hole since you seem to just know exactly where the tanks are going roll.

This assumes of course, the attacker will remain completely oblivious to your defensive preparations and will go "fuck it" and attack right into them instead of doing what the Germans *actually did* and simply having their mobile formations attack somewhere else on the front. Your front line can't be strong everywhere otherwise you're so extraordinarily rich that attacking you never would have entered the mind of a modestly competent invader.

On the Eastern Front, anti-tank guns were much more cost effective in terms of resources per tank destroyed than armored forces were.

The cost will mean nothing if those weapons don't defeat the attack. I'm not saying it isn't true that anti-tank weapons are cost effective. It's just that you're taking an awful risk with them because they're either very inflexible or very ineffective and building enough of them to fix either of those problems is so expensive you might as well just build some tanks.

Armored forces are only worthwhile if their speed can be exploited to encircle large numbers of enemy troops, ie. they are primarily an offensive weapon. But in this scenario, like France in WWII, it does not seem that we are strong enough to take an offensive stance.

The Allies used their armored divisions in a predominantly defensive role and while hardly ideal for the job (or any job for that matter) they still had a tendency to kill very many Germans and destroy many vehicles. Schwerpunkt is not the only philosophy for the employment of armor though, see: Deep Battle Strategy. The value of armor has less to do with speed and more to do with the fact that Armored Divisions are just so damn hard to kill.

Given the population and stated wealth of the country though building Armored Divisions is not beyond this country and since even Czechoslovakia could build some decent tanks it probably isn't beyond this nation to build some too. All that really matters is that they're concentrated properly so it's not like you even have to build that many.

[energiewende]

The multiquote has got out of hand, so I'm only going to respond to what I think are the key points:

I'm pretty sure you're making the wrong trade here. Infantry don't need to be all that great individually if they are well supported, and you're trying to beef up the infantry by cutting that support. A soldier with an improved rifle/squad level support weapon/mortar is still worse off than one with better air coverage and armored support. Plus, giving up ~3,000 air craft, your dive bombers (one of the few types of aircraft that can effect a battle on the ground in this era), and your heavy bombers (also useful as troop/supply carriers), is just a bad trade.

How can you justify trading that much air power for slightly better standard rifles, some squad automatics, and very slightly better anti-tank weapons when you have to give over control of the skies to do so? Or do you really think a few thousand AA guns can defend so much as to make 4,000 (because let's face it, 1,000 early model I-16's won't do very much anyway) redundant?

By WWII (and actually by late WWI) infantry tactics were centred around mobile machineguns. Losing those is a huge problem. But the main reason the infantry weapons are good is the AT weapons - infantry goes from being a flimsy tripwire to a real obstacle for armor that can be only slowly dislodged. If it gives me towed AT (the OP is ambiguous) then I put infantry weapons at the top, otherwise, medium.

As for aircraft, there isn't a lot of evidence they lived up to their promise. It was very difficult to hit anything with the guidance of the time and even minimal opposition would break up attacks and make this almost impossible. If the enemy has a huge air force that can operate with absolute impunity then perhaps they could be a problem - but that's more or less what the allies had in 1944 and 1945 and did not seem to eliminate the need for ground combat. The 'low' airforce combined with thousands of self propelled AA guns will deny that impunity, and while it may not protect our cities it seems that strategic bombing was even less effective than tactical bombing.

Cost effective only really matters if you're lacking in industry. A nation able to crank out ~12,000 armed and armored vehicles in 'months' can hardly be said to be lacking in industry. Thus they can just shuffle some production around and focus on cheaper lightly armed tank destroyers if fully armored T-34's are too much of a resource hog. They could even start to strip AA guns off of tanks and use them as anti-tank assets (this also happened in WWII if you might recall).

Cost effectiveness is king in any zero sum game, like war. It doesn't matter that 12,000 whatevers is "a lot" if the enemy can build 40,000, which is even lotserer.

I would think Israel might disagree with you [that tanks are primarily an offensive weapon]

Israel has always adopted an offensive posture, because it is a tiny country with no strategic depth. If the battle doesn't take place on the enemy's ground Israel has lost. That's why the Yom Kippur War shook them enough to make them give concessions, even though they defeated and encircled the Egyptian attack and had a clear road to Cairo at the time of the ceasefire.

This is debatably false. While the French tanks were better armored and armed, the one man turrets, lack of radios, and general lack of useful mobility (the heavy tanks were so slow as to force the light tanks to either advance alone or slow down and ride at the same speed as the Chars) meant that the German force, for all the flaws it had, was by far the more useful force.

...

So your choices for what to pick in the planning stage revolve around you knowing exactly where you need to setup your fixed assets? The French tired exactly this is guessed ever so slightly wrong after being faked out by planted intel. What makes you better equiped to make the right call when faced with the same imperfect intelligence that the French high command had access to?

Really? Name one French Armored Division. Note: Division, not Brigade or Regiment because those were the biggest formations of armor the French Army had. Having lots of small dispersed formations worked real well for them didn't it?

The French had three armoured divisions called "Light Mechanised Divisions", into which they organised almost a thousand tanks and armoured cars. Two of these divisions, an entire mechanized corps, advanced into Belgium where they met two German Panzer divisions. The German advance was stopped with roughly equal losses. This Corps and the third division in the Netherlands were then encircled and destroyed by the German attack at Sedan which was opposed by a weak reserve division. Most were not destroyed in battle - they were forced to abandon their vehicles because they could not be embarked on ships from the port facilities available.

The Battle of France wasn't won by superior tanks or superior numbers of tanks or even superior organisation of tanks, but rather by good positioning defeating bad positioning. If you put a DLM at Sedan the Germans lose. But the Germans also lose if you put a battery of AT guns on that road, or even a solid infantry division with bazookas.

The Allies used their armored divisions in a predominantly defensive role

When? The allies used big armored formations in three broad situations:

1. In the Battle of France, where they charged them as far forward as possible to be encircled and destroyed.
2. In the North African desert, where the British opened the campaign by using mechanised forces to inflict an even more humiliating rout on the Italians than they had just suffered at the hands of the Germans.
3. After D-Day, when they drove from Normandy to the Rhine in a matter of months.

Perhaps you think the Soviets were advocates of the defensive armor doctrine?!

[CaptHawkeye]

Two of these divisions, an entire mechanized corps, advanced into Belgium where they met two German Panzer divisions. The German advance was stopped with roughly equal losses.

So with this in mind how did you come to the conclusion that a nation is better off digging in lots of anti-tank weapons and troops instead of investing in mobile formations? Your own link actually states on page 4 that none of the French Armored Divisions were comparable to a Panzer Division in strength. Yet despite being fundamentally broken French Mechanized divisions often fought quite well.

The Battle of France wasn't won by superior tanks or superior numbers of tanks or even superior organisation of tanks, but rather by good positioning defeating bad positioning. If you put a DLM at Sedan the Germans lose. But the Germans also lose if you put a battery of AT guns on that road, or even a solid infantry division with bazookas.

They lose even harder if you put the French 7th Army and all its tanks there. That's what i'm trying to get at here. Relying on infantry to hold enemy armor back even in the defensively favorable terrain of the Ardennes didn't help. Of course their was so much wrong with the French Army from top to bottom and the 9th Army was certainly the least competent to handle that sort of thing. That's the point though. Planning defensively, IE: to avoid defeat, actually entails more risk in this era than less.

Don't overrate the effectiveness of infantry anti-tank weapons either. They're useful for point defense and can help blunt an assault but no concentration of infantry anti-tank weapons ever stopped an offensive. NATO didn't even hope for that with far better anti-tank weapons 30 years later for defending Europe. As always with the right terrain, weather, positioning of the planets etc, who's to say? But it's asking a lot of infantry to completely stop anything bigger than a Regiment with self defense weapons.

When? The allies used big armored formations in three broad situations:

1. In the Battle of France, where they charged them as far forward as possible to be encircled and destroyed.

Bad leadership did not make those units a bad idea.

2. In the North African desert, where the British opened the campaign by using mechanised forces to inflict an even more humiliating rout on the Italians than they had just suffered at the hands of the Germans.

I didn't say that they always used their armor defensively. In fact they almost never intended to, but usually found themselves using Armored Divisions defensively more out of circumstance than practice. The fact that these formations were often introduced to a defense indicated rather strongly I think the flaws in relying on Infantry to withstand an assault from armor.

3. After D-Day, when they drove from Normandy to the Rhine in a matter of months.

So what's your point?

Perhaps you think the Soviets were advocates of the defensive armor doctrine?!

Nope, but they did just that at Kursk. In fact Soviet Deep Battle theory literally emphasizes avoidance of defensive postures because in the age of Tank Armies casualties are multiplied by a defensive stance not minimized.

[Simon_Jester]

Any nation with decent artillery SHOULD be able to begin turning out effective AT guns. They're not really that different from normal artillery guns, and are if anything simpler to operate because they are direct-fire weapons. The only really interesting trick in making good AT guns is to have effective armor-piercing ammunition, and it's strongly implied that anyone with good tanks has those in this scenario.

The only thing that really concerns me about "low" small arms quality is the relative dearth of machine guns

I presume the tanks would have at least a couple machine gun emplacements. How practical would it be to use them in a squad-supporting role?

Quite practical. This is one of those hidden contradictions you get a lot in a Zor thread of this kind.

Bombing doesn't win wars unless you have nukes or guided munitions, so from a modern view point denying the enemy the sky is better than having a few extra bombers laying around.

Massive bombing, as done by nations with four-digit numbers of four-engine bombers, is actually very significant in a WWII environment, because it can level entire urban areas, or cripple a nation whose economy has key vulnerabilities (e.g. Germany and oil).

On the other hand, countering such a thing with air defense is if anything more expensive than the offensive bomber arm was in the first place, because of the sheer volume of interceptors and guns you need to inflict attritional losses on the enemy bombers.

You really don't need towed AT guns if the enemy states have anything less than equal quality tanks. Plus, you could make turret less T-34 troop carriers that give each squad a radio and 2 machine guns (they come with the tank), while turning the gun into a field artillery piece and keeping extra turrets as spares. This is, of course, assuming you couldn't use the industry for anything more efficient. You can also strip MG's from some fighters/bombers and make them into a recon wing.

Using a T-34 chassis as a troop carrier is very very excessive for the World War Two era; I'd be happier using the tooling and production line for some obsolete tank my army stopped building years ago.

Also, manned AA guns are next to worthless against a concentrated attack from the air as it turns out. If it was any different carriers never would have taken off as fixed AA would have been more than enough to keep a fleet safe.

I wrote papers on this in college; flak actually makes a rather significant difference. The main effects:

Land-based flak forces enemy planes to fly higher and faster to survive, which means that their bombing accuracy is greatly reduced. Virtual attrition in action- your actions force the enemy to fly more sorties to destroy a given target, which means that their bomber force now fights as if it were a smaller, weaker force... and the increased number of sorties mean exposing their bombers to more risk for a longer time to accomplish the same goal.

Land-based flak also damages enemy planes rather frequently. It rarely actually shoots one down by itself in dramatic fashion. But flak damage leads to a lot of bombers ultimately crashing at a later time, or having to fly at lower altitude or reduced speed and becoming prey for enemy fighters after losing the protection of their own escorts and comrades. Also, damaged planes have to be repaired at base, which further reduces the enemy's ability to put sorties on target.

[Jub]

Any nation with decent artillery SHOULD be able to begin turning out effective AT guns. They're not really that different from normal artillery guns, and are if anything simpler to operate because they are direct-fire weapons. The only really interesting trick in making good AT guns is to have effective armor-piercing ammunition, and it's strongly implied that anyone with good tanks has those in this scenario.

Or you could be like the Russians and just make massive HE rounds that blow the turrets off of tanks and crush fortifications.

Bombing doesn't win wars unless you have nukes or guided munitions, so from a modern view point denying the enemy the sky is better than having a few extra bombers laying around.

Massive bombing, as done by nations with four-digit numbers of four-engine bombers, is actually very significant in a WWII environment, because it can level entire urban areas, or cripple a nation whose economy has key vulnerabilities (e.g. Germany and oil).

On the other hand, countering such a thing with air defense is if anything more expensive than the offensive bomber arm was in the first place, because of the sheer volume of interceptors and guns you need to inflict attritional losses on the enemy bombers.

It can be effective, but I'm always iffy on how effective saturation bombings would have worked against a foe that still had an effective air force. I just can't shake the feeling that if the battle of Britain hadn't happened Germany wouldn't have suffered near the same level of damage from allied bombings.

You really don't need towed AT guns if the enemy states have anything less than equal quality tanks. Plus, you could make turret less T-34 troop carriers that give each squad a radio and 2 machine guns (they come with the tank), while turning the gun into a field artillery piece and keeping extra turrets as spares. This is, of course, assuming you couldn't use the industry for anything more efficient. You can also strip MG's from some fighters/bombers and make them into a recon wing.

Using a T-34 chassis as a troop carrier is very very excessive for the World War Two era; I'd be happier using the tooling and production line for some obsolete tank my army stopped building years ago.

Agreed, I was just going with strictly what we knew from the RAR.

Also, manned AA guns are next to worthless against a concentrated attack from the air as it turns out. If it was any different carriers never would have taken off as fixed AA would have been more than enough to keep a fleet safe.

I wrote papers on this in college; flak actually makes a rather significant difference. The main effects:

Land-based flak forces enemy planes to fly higher and faster to survive, which means that their bombing accuracy is greatly reduced. Virtual attrition in action- your actions force the enemy to fly more sorties to destroy a given target, which means that their bomber force now fights as if it were a smaller, weaker force... and the increased number of sorties mean exposing their bombers to more risk for a longer time to accomplish the same goal.

Land-based flak also damages enemy planes rather frequently. It rarely actually shoots one down by itself in dramatic fashion. But flak damage leads to a lot of bombers ultimately crashing at a later time, or having to fly at lower altitude or reduced speed and becoming prey for enemy fighters after losing the protection of their own escorts and comrades. Also, damaged planes have to be repaired at base, which further reduces the enemy's ability to put sorties on target.

True, but it still didn't actually keep the allied bombers away from Berlin or prevent them from destroying key industrial centers. It definitely has an effect, but it's one best made to work with a strong air force. Thus I still think a Tanks/Air/Infantry priority is the best because flak and some obsolete fighters will be far less effect at their job than the infantry will be at theirs.

[Simon_Jester]

Any nation with decent artillery SHOULD be able to begin turning out effective AT guns. They're not really that different from normal artillery guns, and are if anything simpler to operate because they are direct-fire weapons. The only really interesting trick in making good AT guns is to have effective armor-piercing ammunition, and it's strongly implied that anyone with good tanks has those in this scenario.

Or you could be like the Russians and just make massive HE rounds that blow the turrets off of tanks and crush fortifications.

This has serious disadvantages. Large-caliber guns are bulkier. That's bad for towed AT guns that have to be served by infantry. And it means you need heavier, pricier vehicles to use them in tank destroyers. Also, the amount of ammunition you can carry in a given vehicle scales roughly with the inverse square of the caliber: double the caliber and you reduce ammunition capacity to one quarter what it used to be.

Increased gun caliber comes with costs, which is the main reason typical tank weights escalated from 15-20 tons to 45-55 over the course of five years of war.

It can be effective, but I'm always iffy on how effective saturation bombings would have worked against a foe that still had an effective air force. I just can't shake the feeling that if the battle of Britain hadn't happened Germany wouldn't have suffered near the same level of damage from allied bombings.

The Battle of Britain didn't break the Luftwaffe as an effective fighting force.

Now, it's true that mass aerial bombing is less effective against a competent air defense network. But it also inflicts losses on the defending fighters (which have to tangle with your escorts, and deal with enemy planes attacking their airbases). And should your fighter force be worn down by other factors, it will quickly start wrecking your ability to fight properly.

Agreed, I was just going with strictly what we knew from the RAR.

Any vaguely realistic country will have such tooling kicking around- obsolete tanks that are now being used as the basis for tank destroyers, self-propelled guns, and the like.

True, but it still didn't actually keep the allied bombers away from Berlin or prevent them from destroying key industrial centers.

By that argument, nothing will. You have to remember that fighter-versus-bomber combat, on the scale of WWII aircraft production, is attritional. Your objective is to inflict, say, 5% losses on the enemy air force with each mission they fly, so that their fighting power is gradually ground away to nothing as bombers are shot down faster than they can be produced. Under no circumstances is it realistic to expect the air defense network to stop ALL of a serious bomber raid. Most of those bombers will get through, unless the enemy's bomber doctrine or equipment is badly behind the curve.

Attritional strategy is especially true when, unlike the real life US, the enemy's centers of production are theoretically vulnerable to YOUR air attacks. That makes it more practical to fight a war of attrition, because the enemy can't use their unimpaired production to beat down your impaired production.

It definitely has an effect, but it's one best made to work with a strong air force. Thus I still think a Tanks/Air/Infantry priority is the best because flak and some obsolete fighters will be far less effect at their job than the infantry will be at theirs.

I don't disagree; the fact that most of the infantry's supporting arms (especially artillery) are guaranteed to be good takes the sting out of poorly equipped infantry. As long as the infantry are well disciplined and have good artillery, they should be all right.

The ONLY thing I worry about is the lack of infantry automatic weapons, and that's patchable.

[Jub]

This has serious disadvantages. Large-caliber guns are bulkier. That's bad for towed AT guns that have to be served by infantry. And it means you need heavier, pricier vehicles to use them in tank destroyers. Also, the amount of ammunition you can carry in a given vehicle scales roughly with the inverse square of the caliber: double the caliber and you reduce ammunition capacity to one quarter what it used to be.

Increased gun caliber comes with costs, which is the main reason typical tank weights escalated from 15-20 tons to 45-55 over the course of five years of war.

Oh yeah, these massive heavy guns with slow loading ammo are by no means perfect. They did serve a role though and they also go to show that you don't need dedicated anti-tank guns if you can build decent artillery. Obviously proper anti-tanks guns and rounds would be better though.

The Battle of Britain didn't break the Luftwaffe as an effective fighting force.

Now, it's true that mass aerial bombing is less effective against a competent air defense network. But it also inflicts losses on the defending fighters (which have to tangle with your escorts, and deal with enemy planes attacking their airbases). And should your fighter force be worn down by other factors, it will quickly start wrecking your ability to fight properly.

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By that argument, nothing will. You have to remember that fighter-versus-bomber combat, on the scale of WWII aircraft production, is attritional. Your objective is to inflict, say, 5% losses on the enemy air force with each mission they fly, so that their fighting power is gradually ground away to nothing as bombers are shot down faster than they can be produced. Under no circumstances is it realistic to expect the air defense network to stop ALL of a serious bomber raid. Most of those bombers will get through, unless the enemy's bomber doctrine or equipment is badly behind the curve.

Attritional strategy is especially true when, unlike the real life US, the enemy's centers of production are theoretically vulnerable to YOUR air attacks. That makes it more practical to fight a war of attrition, because the enemy can't use their unimpaired production to beat down your impaired production.

I could have sworn that the Battle of Britain cost the Luftwaffe enough planes and experienced pilots that it was never close to the same level of threat afterwards. Though doing some quick searching online it seems that there is a fair bit of debate as to how true this actually was. Still, it doesn't much matter in this scenario as two roughly equal powers should, barring poor luck or ill advised tactics, inflict roughly equal losses on one another. The side that manages to hit the more important targets will likely end up being the one to come out ahead.

Think of the air force a bit more, say the enemy states both have air forces that are equal to full priority and your ally has given their air force second billing to something else. Do you come out more ahead by focusing on your armor where you're going to have the advantage and trying to make a rapid advance against the enemy, or would you rather be closer to parity in the air and at best equal on the ground? In other words does an Air/Tanks/Infantry alliance beat a Tanks/Air/Infantry alliance assuming that all countries have militaries based on the choices in the OP?

[Zwinmar]

With the proper doctrine and terrain infantry can beat tanks or aircraft, however, it will not be a quick victory as it requires guerrilla tactics.

As far as this scenario it comes down to logistics: do we have effectively unlimited fuel for the tanks/planes?

[Simon_Jester]

Oh yeah, these massive heavy guns with slow loading ammo are by no means perfect. They did serve a role though and they also go to show that you don't need dedicated anti-tank guns if you can build decent artillery. Obviously proper anti-tanks guns and rounds would be better though.

I don't think medium artillery is really a good substitute for antitank guns- it can do the job, sort of, but it doesn't really fill the same role in a satisfactory way.

[Jub]

Oh yeah, these massive heavy guns with slow loading ammo are by no means perfect. They did serve a role though and they also go to show that you don't need dedicated anti-tank guns if you can build decent artillery. Obviously proper anti-tanks guns and rounds would be better though.

I don't think medium artillery is really a good substitute for antitank guns- it can do the job, sort of, but it doesn't really fill the same role in a satisfactory way.

Medium artillery, not really, when you start to re-purpose AA guns and point heavy artillery at armor things start to work better. Besides, that's only an issue if the enemy has top of the line tanks. If they end up with Panzer III equivalents then medium artillery starts to do the job a bit more effectively. Of course if you can build modern tanks, you can build modern anti-tank ammo and modern anti-tank guns anyway so using artillery in such a way is just a stop gap.