(July 4, 2016 at 6:46 am)abaris Wrote:

(July 4, 2016 at 6:41 am)Gawdzilla Wrote: The Germans used millions of horses in WWII, according to what I've read.

Ten percent motorized, to be clear. The rest was on foot, horseback or waggon.

Ach! Alles klar. Sehr gutt.

(July 3, 2016 at 12:34 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Hey, Polish cavalry attacked the German in 1939.

It was ineffective.

But in WWI you still had that old Imperial age bullshit going on.  It took trench warfare to stomp that out of humanity.

The idea that Polish cavalry was ineffective was largely a myth created by Nazi propoganda. For one thing cavalry never charged tanks, that wasn't their job (they carried anti-tank rifles but those guns were too big and powerful to be fired from anything other than a stationary position), and as the link shows most of their work was either to break up infantry formations in delaying actions or counterattacks, or to ensure capture of routing enemies.

Like the rest of the Polish armed forces in 1939, they performed as well as could be expected given the circumstances.

(July 3, 2016 at 4:03 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Also, the German style of armored warfare is not as invincible against the French style of warfare as one might
Think.  The main thing that allowed the Germans to achieve the swift victory was still the fact that the Germans found a pass around the French army where the French were confident there was an impenetrable natural barrier.  Had the Germans not found the pass, and then gambled everything, literally at the last moment, on using this pass, the attack against the Low Countries and France would likely ended up much like the operation citedel in Ukraine in 1943, with German panzers bashing their own heads in against strong layered defenses, failing to achieve any sort of break through on a scale that can overwhelm French reserves.

Interestingly enough, the French armed forces ran wargames in the Ardennes in 1938 which showed that a tank breakthrough through that area could be completed within three days, the actual German breakthrough took 57 hours.

(July 3, 2016 at 8:27 pm)Minimalist Wrote: How much did technology change between 1870 and 1815? 

How much has it changed between 1870 and today?

Big one I can think of off hand was rifled barrels. Made a huge difference in small arms. Artillery massively improved as well, not alone with rifling but with all other technical improvements. In fact it was the Crimean campaign which showed how outdated the Napoleonic era cannon had become, and the response to that failing lead to the Armstrong gun which is considered the first truly modern artillery.

(July 4, 2016 at 7:37 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 4:03 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Also, the German style of armored warfare is not as invincible against the French style of warfare as one might
Think.  The main thing that allowed the Germans to achieve the swift victory was still the fact that the Germans found a pass around the French army where the French were confident there was an impenetrable natural barrier.  Had the Germans not found the pass, and then gambled everything, literally at the last moment, on using this pass, the attack against the Low Countries and France would likely ended up much like the operation citedel in Ukraine in 1943, with German panzers bashing their own heads in against strong layered defenses, failing to achieve any sort of break through on a scale that can overwhelm French reserves.

Interestingly enough, the French armed forces ran wargames in the Ardennes in 1938 which showed that a tank breakthrough through that area could be completed within three days, the actual German breakthrough took 57 hours.

Yeah, and prior to the battle of midway, the planning staff of the Japanese combined fleet wargamed the upcoming operation, and achieved a result almost exactly the same as how battle actually turned out.  But the operation went ahead without any change anyway, because the operational staff has never yet had one of their major operations fail.   The result was Japan lost 4 of her 6 fleet carriers, just like the pre-battle planning wargames said.

I guess even worse then not learning from the last war, and even worse than not anticipating the conditions of the next war, is to have done both but went ahead and done really stupid things anyway.

(July 4, 2016 at 7:37 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 4:03 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Also, the German style of armored warfare is not as invincible against the French style of warfare as one might
Think.  The main thing that allowed the Germans to achieve the swift victory was still the fact that the Germans found a pass around the French army where the French were confident there was an impenetrable natural barrier.  Had the Germans not found the pass, and then gambled everything, literally at the last moment, on using this pass, the attack against the Low Countries and France would likely ended up much like the operation citedel in Ukraine in 1943, with German panzers bashing their own heads in against strong layered defenses, failing to achieve any sort of break through on a scale that can overwhelm French reserves.

Interestingly enough, the French armed forces ran wargames in the Ardennes in 1938 which showed that a tank breakthrough through that area could be completed within three days, the actual German breakthrough took 57 hours.

Yeah. The forests were impenetrable. But they had these things called "roads". Not sure the French knew about these "roads", but the Germans did.

(July 4, 2016 at 7:48 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 8:27 pm)Minimalist Wrote: How much did technology change between 1870 and 1815? 

How much has it changed between 1870 and today?

Big one I can think of off hand was rifled barrels. Made a huge difference in small arms. Artillery massively improved as well, not alone with rifling but with all other technical improvements. In fact it was the Crimean campaign which showed how outdated the Napoleonic era cannon had become, and the response to that failing lead to the Armstrong gun which is considered the first truly modern artillery.

Rifles were used in the American Revolution. Their main drawback was they were slower loading than the smooth-bores. Higher accuracy, slower rate of fire. For comparison, the last command before "Fire" for the smooth-bore firing line was "Level!", not "Aim". Nobody knew where the slug was going anyway, so why bother.

(July 4, 2016 at 8:53 am)Gawdzilla Wrote:

(July 4, 2016 at 7:37 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: Interestingly enough, the French armed forces ran wargames in the Ardennes in 1938 which showed that a tank breakthrough through that area could be completed within three days, the actual German breakthrough took 57 hours.

Yeah. The forests were impenetrable. But they had these things called "roads". Not sure the French knew about these "roads", but the Germans did.

It's not as simple as knowing whether there are roads.   It takes one good quality road to support just a single Corp on the offensive.  A major land offensive would involve hundreds of thousands of vehicles.  Tracked vehicles like tanks quickly tear up most roads. So requirement for supporting an mechanized offensive is even higher.  The French didn't believe the number and quality of roads in the Ardennes were sufficient to support more than a couple of division.

One thing the Germans really were exceptionally good at during WWII was organizing effective improvisation. The Germans did organized a logistic miracle to get the vehicles through the Ardennes. Even so, they ran a colossal risk because for 3 days, the created an enormous traffic jam inside the Ardennes. If the French airforce attacked the jam, the Ardennes offensive would in all likelihood have failed.

(July 4, 2016 at 9:07 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: It's not as simple as knowing whether there are roads.   It takes one good quality road to support just a single Corp on the offensive.  A major land offensive would involve hundreds of thousands of vehicles.  Tracked vehicles like tanks quickly tear up most roads.  So requirement for supporting an mechanized offensive is even higher.  The French didn't believe the number and quality of roads in the Ardennes were sufficient to support more than a couple of division.

German veterans went on record calling it the biggest traffic jam in history.

The German success was not so much a German victory but a French failure. Since this was yet another instance where the troops were extremely vulnerable to airstrikes that didn't happen.

Well, French failure to attack German concentration in the Ardennes was more of intelligence failure.  

The Germans also committed numerous critical intelligence failures that led to spectacular tactical disasters during the war.  In fact, on the eastern front, starting from fall of 1942, the Germans would make a habit out of failure to notice massive Soviet build ups preparatory to deep flanking or penetration maneuvers comparable to the German thrust through the Ardennes, leading to German defeats on a scale comparable to French defeat 1940 in terms of troops encircled or shattered, and equipment lost.