"from viewers like you" ... a lesson in combined armor & infantry warfare ...

p.b.s. is really two broadcast organizations, one operating in daylight to perform the usual indoctrination of leftist boobs, and the other toiling away in the wee hours of the night for us insomniacs and reasonably calculated to portray historical truths, unblemished by doctrinaire cant.

the following, paid for, "from viewers like you."

thus it was last night at about 3.30 a.m. that i watched a most informative program on the wwii battle for stalingrad, taking place over a 7 month period from the summer of 1942 until the surrender of the german 6th army in early 1943.  the defeat of the germans at stalingrad blunted the german advance into russian, and marked the beginning of their grudging and brutal retreat back into germany.

stalingrad lies on the eastern banks of the volga, and was a vital pivot whose capture might have allowed the germans access into the great oil fields, and bread basket, of the southern caucuses.  to the west of stalingrad lay the great crescent of the river don, which served to focus and concentrate the attacking german armies before the city.  it both concentrated german strength before the city, while at the same time exposing it to flanking attack from across its banks, and to the great pincer encirclement which doomed the 6th army to capture.

but, i am not concerned this day with great strategic issues, rather with an essential observation about the tactics of armored warfare, specifically dealing with tank battle.  my observations have to do with the nature of tank battle as we may again witness it in the middle east in warfare between israel and her arab/muslim enemies.

the program last night on p.b.s. was based upon recent access to the russian military archives of the battle, by military historians.  this access to both german and russian archives revealed several very interesting aspects of the battle.

a military historian reminded us that at this point in wwii the main battle tanks were not quite yet the behemoths that technology and the stress of battle would bring at the end of the war, and that the german panzers and even the russian t-34 (getting its first great introduction to battle at stanlingrad) were equipped with canons in the 65 to 75mm range.

and, that tank battles took place at ranges from 250 to 300 meters or so.

and, that because the t-34's armor was more or less impervious to the guns of the german armor, that german tactics to combat the russian tank involved german infantry swarming tanks, disabling them at close distance, and then mounting them to kill the crews by the use of hand grenades and explosives.

keep in mind, that russian tanks were supported by infantry, often times riding on the back of the tanks into battle, and that russian tanks fairly bristled with machine guns.

i do not know about you, but i can think of far more pleasant ways to wile away my day than fighting through tanks and infantry simply to have the chance to clamber up onto the top of a disabled soviet tank so that i could kill its crew at close quarters.

if you will but consider this for a moment, you will have to conclude that this sort of tomfoolery would have required the fairly coordinated efforts of german tanks & tank killers to try and kill the soviet tanks that they could, while also killing enough russian infantry protecting the tanks at close quarter, to enable german infantry to close on the then unsupported russian tanks.

not my idea of beer & dogs at an afternoon's barbecue.

the main thesis of last night's program was that hitler's grand strategy of trying to conquer the caucus by diverting the german 4th army, comprised of tanks and other armor, to the south and to the caucus, leaving the 6th army without army as it attacked stalingrad, led directly to the defeat of the 6th army.

in other words, by separating the armor from its infantry support, and depriving the infantry the heavy punch of its armored spear tip, hitler decreased the battlefield and operational capacity of both infantry and armor.

stated another way, the efficacy of armored attack is greatly increased when supporting infantry are present to protect armor from the combined force attack of armor and infantry, and the efficacy of infantry is greatly increased when it has armor to protect it.

this may seem obvious.  and, indeed it is, for in the battle array of modern armies one seldom sees armored attack unsupported either by infantry cover, or by massive and unchallenged air superiority using helicopters and close order air attack.

most of the great armies of the world accept this as doctrine, and understand the vulnerability of armor that does not operate under the cover of small arms and small artillery fire to interdict attacking infantry.  tanks are incredible weapons, especially against other tanks.  but, consider this.  it makes very poor "battlefield economics" and use of materiel, to shoot opposing infantry with tank rounds, and even the most formidable tank runs out of ammo pretty quickly in the presence of massed infantry.  and, then, they are helpless if they cannot run.

everybody sees this.

except israel.

i have written often of the one great limitation that israeli battle doctrine presents in fights with its arab foes, and that is the reluctance of israel to expose its infantry to battlefield casualty.  in short, israel will not allow its infantry to enter into infantry battle in which it will sustain heavy casualties.

what this equates to is a reluctance on the part of israel to kill arabs in numbers to make battle unpalatable to arab war fighters.  in essence, every time pan arabia goes to back against israel, it does so in a demographic sense, for free, and without lasting consequence.

look at it this way.

the arabs are subsidized to the hilt in the acquisition of military hardware.  those who wish to woe them to be proxy warriors give them tanks, artillery and airplanes for little or nothing.  there is no cost involved at all.  the proof of this assertion is easy, and quite obvious for anyone with a brain in his or her head, and a willingness to use it.  and, it is this easy.--  point to one arab nation that has an armaments industry capable of making a main battle tank, or an artillery piece.  (when saddam hussein was building the super gun to bombard israel, he gave the game away, because he was ordering the cannon barrels for the damned thing in england.  the cannon barrel guys, after they had been paid, simply called up english intel, and the plot was outed.)  or, for that matter, any of the implements of war, down to the lowly truck.

they spend a little oil money.  that's it.

they go to war.  israel destroys the hardware, and a few odd pilots and tank crews.

and, the war is over, and israel stops killing people.  just at that point where they might sustain infantry casualties.

as a consequence, the war cost the arabs nothing of any value, in a real economic sense.

and israel still has a very untested and not very effective infantry.

hezbollah & southern lebanon.

in the last war israel had great difficulty in using its armor against dug in positions & bunkers defended by hezbollah.  the reasons go back to the battle of stalingrad.

israeli tanks and tank crews were protected very ineffectually by israeli infantry, and it made it exceedingly difficult for armor to proceed against the dug in forces of hezbollah.  it made israeli armor, some of the absolute best in the world, almost helpless, because it exposed israeli tanks to the same "infantry swarm" that the germans used against the t-34's in wwii.

i am a little old pudgy gray haired guy in milton freewater, oregon as i was during the last war.  same vantage.  same chair.  same computer.  how in the sam hell do i say these things with such assurance?  well, it is quite easy, and quite obvious (as almost all logic is if a premises is accepted or proved.)

and that is, in the last war, as in all wars, israel experienced almost no infantry casualties.  and, it is quite a simple proof, and it goes like this.  if israel were not sustaining infantry casualties, then the israeli infantry was not committed to battle, especially against dug in fortifications, and especially not in close order battle in support of its armor and tanks.

it is as simple and irrefutable as that.

so, comes the next war, egged on by the iranian mullahs and their aspirations for nuclear weapons and foreign policy hegemony in the middle east and the indian ocean.  sort of  a "persia" shall rise again nostalgia thing, coupled with the various insanities inflicted upon the dumb bastards by islam.  persian ambitions, islamic delusion, and hatred of all things israeli and jewish make such a war inevitable.

and, endlessly repeatable.

unless israel learns the lessons of wwii, and somehow summons the will to commit its infantry to battle in order to make its armor and tank corps function as they should.  and, unless israel summons the will to kill its enemies, so that war stings.

now, if israel does not integrate infantry with armored attack, and by that i mean infantry on foot and riding on the backs of tanks, and not being hauled around in trucks from one safe haven to another, then israel will experience needless damage and destruction to its tanks and armor, and it will experience immense frustration in moving through static fortification to get at the enemy tank and armored formations it seeks to destroy.

now, if israel does not commit its infantry to battle, to kill in immense numbers and to utilize its armor in coordinated thrusts to kill immense numbers, than we shall simply see a repeat of these internecine wars with arab armies, again and again.  and, again.

this is historical proof that i preach.

in wars, you must kill your enemy until you take the glory of fight out of him.  you must make the bullet and the bayonet sting, so that your enemy suffers from his aggressions and thirst for war, so that he is dissuaded from further conflict.  or, if this cannot be done, (and, given the demographics of arabia, and the blood lusts of islam, this may not be possible), then you must kill him in sufficient numbers so that his ability to wage future war is gravely impaired, both in men and materiel.)

for, the history of war teaches one irreducible and unpleasant truth.  you must kill your enemies soldiers.  one at a time, if you eschew nukes.  and, the only way this is to be done is by infantry.  and, to do this, your infantry must be close enough to the enemy that he is capable of striking back.

this is why, if you are to minimize casualties to your own troops, (and you owe them that, don't you), you must engage in such warfare viciously and enthusiastically.  there should be no such thing as a fair fight, when it comes to killing.  (you owe that to your troops, don't you?)

this lesson, i fear, the israeli's refuse to adopt.

war in the middle east may never end.  but, it is guaranteed to never end, if israel never wages it.

john jay @  11.23.2011

Comments

[GM Roper]

So far the Israeli's have succeeded only because the Arabs are so much more stupid. Let us pray it stays that way.

[john jay]

george:

no prayer necessary for that.

it seems an ordained condition.

period.

john jay

[PacRim Jim]

Outflank dug-in positions.
Result?
No more dug-in positions.

[bob]

Is it not possible that Israel's population is too small to sustain combined arms warfare? In which case, its tactics can only be defensive and must focus on defeating the highly mobile armor and aircraft of its enemies, and abandoning any attempt to over run the enemy. Of course, this means the Lebanon invasion was doomed to failure.

[john jay]

israel:

yes, israel is a bit small to sustain combined arms warfare, or to occupy an enemy.

that is a different question, to my mind, however, than the issues discussed in my post.

i do not advocate either prolonged warfare nor occupation. i simply advocate the effective use of infantry and armor, which israel most certainly has, in the most effective tactical and strategic way possible. and, that means, integrated their use, so that infantry supports armor, and armor is available to help the infantry.

it is as simply as that.

it gets down to a gruesome simplicity. if you are gonna loose 3 soldiers, it is better that it be three infantrymen, as opposed to a three man crew along with a main battle tank.

both events are tragedies. it is silly to make it a tragedy accompanied by profligate loss of strategic material and weapons.

john jay

[john jay]

bob:

sorry. i meant "bob" when i wrote the salutation to "israel."

john

[john jay]

pac rim jim:

yes, maneuver is to be preferred.

sometimes you cannot do that. sometimes you just have to take the position.

it's best to know how to do it. and, to do it efficiently. war is not a brawl, you know, it is a science.

and, requires proficiency.

john jay

[Callmelennie]

You're not 100% clear on the role the Don River played in Germany's debacle. The Don River did provide a tremendous amount of protection from a flank attack; until winter arrived and it froze solid. Then it offers no protection. That's key to understanding the German fortunes and misfortunes in 1942.

They were able to concentrate forces to assault The Caucasus and Stalingrad because the Don bend protected their northern flank; and so the "Don flank" was manned by substandard divisions from Germany's allies.

Once Germany stalled out on it's offensive goals, they found themselves way overextended, and when the Don froze, this matter turned critical. The Red Army went through the Don defenses like tissue paper and the rest is history. The critical error was Germany inability to conceive that a large river like the Don could freeze solid.

[john jay]

callmelennie:

very interesting.

i'd never heard of this angle before.

john jay