Bad ideas in war

[HansMustermann]

I'll start this out with the WW2 British idea that German paratroopers could just land in Central Park, and who's gonna stop them?

Well...

1. The German paratrooper units had been depleted in the invasion of Crete. They had won, but they took serious losses that were never replenished. Sure, Germany conscripted more soldiers, but they tended to go to just about any unit except paratroopers. Even when they devised a paratrooper weapon like the FG-42 (Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 = "paratrooper rifle 42") it only got issued in limited numbers in 1943 and beyond, way after the Battle Of Britain, and really, still the number of paratroopers they had was really just to tick the box that they had any at all.

2. MORE IMPORTANTLY, you have to undertstand how German paratroopers worked AT ALL. Seriously, it's counter-intuitive.

You may have seen in stuff like Band Of Brothers how the allies jumped with their weapons attached to themselves in various bags and all.

The Germans didn't.

The Germans jumped with just a pistol on themselves, while the rest of their weapons (not just heavy equipment, but even rifles or SMGs) dropped separately. After you landed, you had to scramble towards WTH place you saw a parachute fall and search for your equipment. (Sounds dumb, and IS dumb, but nobody said the Nazis were geniuses)

So, yeah, if they paradropped in Central Park, they'd have just about a Luger or Mauser C96 between every second or so of them, while even their basic rifles dropped in, say, Peckham or Camden

The Londoners among you will understand the problem, but for everyone else, imagine your rifles and ammo dropping a couple miles away in an urban jungle, AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE. Literally.

The whole German paratrooper doctrine was devised for open fields, not urban jungle.

Would "Dad's army" of old reserve guards be able to take them on? <BLEEP!> even a couple of angry cop precincts could


Feel free to add your own mis-conceptions in wars in any era.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Was that a bad idea?

Paratrooper aren't Space Marines - everything they carry beyond the bare essentials reduces their chances to make the drop safely and quickly.

 

[HansMustermann]

Having paratroopers and the evolution of their doctrines? No, of course it's not a bad idea. By all means, it would be a worse idea to ignore that,

Have a whole scare that they could land in Central Park and conquer the whole of Britain... well... I dunno... maybe it was a bit UNINFORMED, is all I'm saying

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Any kind of Superweapon is a waste of resources in an actual war (though it might be useful diplomatically to avoid war).

The V-1 and V-2 cost orders of magnitude more for the destruction they caused than bombers would have.

 

[HansMustermann]

Good call there, my good fellow. THOSE were a real negative balance in the war.

 

[Darat]

Having paratroopers and the evolution of their doctrines? No, of course it's not a bad idea. By all means, it would be a worse idea to ignore that,

Have a whole scare that they could land in Central Park and conquer the whole of Britain... well... I dunno... maybe it was a bit UNINFORMED, is all I'm saying

As far as I am aware Central Park is in New York? And New York is not in Britian.

 

[HansMustermann]

As far as I am aware Central Park is in New York? And New York is not in Britian.

https://londonist.com/london/great-outdoors/london-has-a-central-park-in-fact-it-has-four

 

[theprestige]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time, it was probably a lot more plausible, especially to outsiders. It was always possible that the Germans would reconstitute a paratrooper unit in secret, applying the lessons learned and optimized for this kind of operation.

Maybe they didn't because of Dad's Army making the risk of failure just a little too high.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, obviously. I mean, one of our all time disagreements seem to stem from your thinking that I'm proposing that humans do random dumb stuff. They don't. They have REASONS for taking a decisions or reaching a conclusion. Maybe not sound ones, maybe not valid ones, maybe not even sane ones, but they're reasons nonetheless. Any time someone reached the conclusion "Y" it must have seemed to them that there is an "X" where "X ==> Y".

And yes, the frog... err... fog of war plays into the "sound" part too. That's why I said "maybe it was a bit UNINFORMED" rather than, say, "bloody <bleep>ing stupid", ya know?

 

[Wudang]

Maybe it was PR. It's much more acceptable to say they're there to protect against German paratroopers than to keep the roads clear of panicking and/or fleeing civilians to allow the regular army freedom of movement. Idle speculation.

 

[HansMustermann]

Hmmm... now that's an interesting idea... I know they did stuff like move useless Covenanter tanks around just for the public morale boost (and really, the whole German "vengeance weapon" thing was about propaganda value, rather than expected effectiveness.) I haven't seen any sources that account for that initial German invasion scare being for propaganda reason, including stuff like the memoirs of Churchill himself, but... hmm... yeah, I can see your point... that COULD work...

 

[Wudang]

It might have been for the Guards morale as well. "We're training to fight elite German paratroopers" sounds a lot better (and carries better bragging rights in the pub) than "We're training to keep you civilians from getting in real soldiers way". It's how some martial arts clubs keep the punters students enrolled.

 

[HansMustermann]

Hmmm... true... true... you definitely have a point there. I had never thought of it from that angle (nor apparently any historians I've read), but it definitely makes a certain kind of sense. Thanks for opening my eyes to the psychological aspect of it all.

 

[Mojo]

As far as I am aware Central Park is in New York? And New York is not in Britian.

Has anyone told Susan Hall?

 

[sackett]

What are the dates for all this? Crete was taken in May 1941. By then, the looming invasion of Britain didn't loom nearly as high as the previous year.

Also, before WW2, the power of airborne troops was untested and much exaggerated. The nazis almost lost in Crete due to the lightness and vulnerability of their version of paratroops. (You could almost say that they didn't win at all, except for poor old Freyberg losing.)

But I agree with Ike Eisenhower: I do not believe in the airborne division.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, some airborne divisions were better than others. I screwed up the timeline for Crete, my bad -- even though the UK paranoia wouldn't stop until later when Barbarossa started -- but as you say, it proved that the German version of paratroopers wasn't very good even when they were allowed to basically <bleep> off and actually find their equipment first. Which would not be the case if they paradropped in London even at UK's most vulnerable point.

 

[Andy_Ross]

German paratroops couldn't jump with any equipment due to the method of attaching the parachute.
It was fixed to a harness at one point low on the back, almost the hips, landing was awkward even without equipment.

British and US paratroops were suspended on a harness from each shoulder and had an equipment bag that they jumped with attached low on the harness.
It was let go on the way down to hang on a strap so it hit the ground first and the weight wasn't carried in to the actual landing.

In addition equipment canisters similar to the German type were also used to carry extra heavy equipment and ammunition.


The FG was an impressive weapon, it was designed to be a personal rifle and a light machine gun and could be fired from a closed or open bolt.
They were very expensive and complicated to make and were not put in to mass production after the first couple of batches.

Ian at Forgotten Weapons likes them, he's a done a number of videos on them over the years.
Here's an 'overview'

 

[theprestige]

Well, obviously. I mean, one of our all time disagreements seem to stem from your thinking that I'm proposing that humans do random dumb stuff. They don't. They have REASONS for taking a decisions or reaching a conclusion. Maybe not sound ones, maybe not valid ones, maybe not even sane ones, but they're reasons nonetheless. Any time someone reached the conclusion "Y" it must have seemed to them that there is an "X" where "X ==> Y".

And yes, the frog... err... fog of war plays into the "sound" part too. That's why I said "maybe it was a bit UNINFORMED" rather than, say, "bloody <bleep>ing stupid", ya know?

I'm not saying you think people do random dumb stuff. I'm saying you often discount the distinct possibilities that it wasn't dumb in the context they were reasoning from, in order to frame a narrative where we can all agree it was actually a dumb thing to do.

Except we can't all agree, be we don't all discount the context, and some of us can easily imagine extenuating circumstances that redeem what at first glance appears to be a dumb choice.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm not saying you think people do random dumb stuff. I'm saying you often discount the distinct possibilities that it wasn't dumb in the context they were reasoning from, in order to frame a narrative where we can all agree it was actually a dumb thing to do.

Except we can't all agree, be we don't all discount the context, and some of us can easily imagine extenuating circumstances that redeem what at first glance appears to be a dumb choice.

I'll freely admit that I'm an arrogant ass... err... let's leave the whole rest of it off, lest I annoy the mods again... but I'm open to learning new things and changing my mind. If you can tell me what I failed to consider, that determined that doctrine or decision -- like, say, Andy_Ross just did -- I'm open to reconsidering my previous viewpoint. But just telling me baselessly that I shouldn't hold that kind of a... err... you know, that kind of opinion, for no other reason I can discern than that you think I generally shouldn't, is not going to move me much.

I mean, at a fundamental level, it's even less convincing than the fundie apologetics. At least most of those can point at some apology as to why they think I'm wrong. OK, it's invariably unsound or invalid, but at least they try. You, with all due respect, aren't usually even doing that, you're telling me it's not nice of me to make that judgment.

Which, honestly, no offence intended, is such weak sauce, it might as well be water

 

[HansMustermann]

The FG was an impressive weapon, it was designed to be a personal rifle and a light machine gun and could be fired from a closed or open bolt.
They were very expensive and complicated to make and were not put in to mass production after the first couple of batches.

Oh, I'm actually very familiar with the FG-42, and I will agree with all you said about it. I'm not much into weapons PER SE, but you can't be into history without running all the time into MILITARY history, which means everything from the ancient khopesh to modern G36 (and its... debated performance in the Middle East.)

My point was merely that, impressive as it might be, it was only first issued to paratroopers in 1943. Which, as I hope you will agree, is well past the point that the UK was worried about a German invasion. Indeed, I believe at that point they were invading themselves. (E.g., Operation Torch at the end of 1942.)

That's you brits, I guess. Never give up, keep fighting back to the end and then some. From Normandy to the Napoleonic Wars to the Falklands.

You guys are kinda like in ye olde Tubthumping music:

I get knocked down, but I get up again,
you're never gonna keep me down!​

Plus, technically advanced as the FG-42 may have been, there were too few paratroopers with one to pose a threat at any time.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Oh, I'm actually very familiar with the FG-42, and I will agree with all you said about it. I'm not much into weapons PER SE, but you can't be into history without running all the time into MILITARY history, which means everything from the ancient khopesh to modern G36 (and its... debated performance in the Middle East.)

My point was merely that, impressive as it might be, it was only first issued to paratroopers in 1943. Which, as I hope you will agree, is well past the point that the UK was worried about a German invasion. Indeed, I believe at that point they were invading themselves. (E.g., Operation Torch at the end of 1942.)

That's you brits, I guess. Never give up, keep fighting back to the end and then some. From Normandy to the Napoleonic Wars to the Falklands.

You guys are kinda like in ye olde Tubthumping music:

I get knocked down, but I get up again,
you're never gonna keep me down!​

Plus, technically advanced as the FG-42 may have been, there were too few paratroopers with one to pose a threat at any time.

It's a result of the fragmented German supply and command system. There were several independent organisations ordering weapons and development rather than one central system. The Navy, Army, Air Force and SS all had their won separate supply systems for separate weapons and equipment. Lots of duplicated effort and delay.

Need a paratrooper weapon in a hurry? Start from scratch to develop a complicated and expensive gun just for their use.
Contrast with the British. There was a huge shortage of sub machine guns and the available Thompson was expensive. So the Sten was designed in a week to use minimal parts, be mass produced by general engineering companies and use existing 9mm German ammunition. Everyone got one, including the Paras, their needs were taken in o consideration and the Mk2 version onwards could be packed in to a very small space and reassembled very quickly. and they were made by the million. Not the best but they worked and were cheap.

 

[theprestige]

Any kind of Superweapon is a waste of resources in an actual war (though it might be useful diplomatically to avoid war).

The V-1 and V-2 cost orders of magnitude more for the destruction they caused than bombers would have.

Turns out ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are extremely valuable in war. As are nukes. JDAMs are an absolute game changer. Stealth bombers are an absolute game changer. Helicopters are an absolute game changer.

On the other hand, developing weapons without the necessary resources or know how is probably never the play, if you're planning to go to wage war on the strength of those weapons.

Main battle tanks are absolutely a super weapon that makes a difference on the battlefield. Moscow's T-14 "Armata" is a waste of resources.

 

[HansMustermann]

@Andy_Ross
Yeah, the democratic countries were definitely more adept at picking solutions that offered the best bang per buck (or even worked at all), than the kleptocracy of the 3rd reich (or later the USSR) and contracts being awarded just to keep the industialists or oligarchs in line.

 

[HansMustermann]

OK, different topic.

I have before criticized German generals like Halder or even the famous Rommel for not understanding strategic goals. Like, Halder overriding Hitler's orders and going for a random line through Russia (that included going after Moscow instead of the Caucasus oil fields) or Rommel started a push towards the Suez Canal even though the Brits had closed it on their own (to not risk the raids of the Italian Navy) and his only actual strategic goal was only to keep Italy from dropping out of the war.

Some months ago I was listening to an actual historian (dumbly I can't remember who), who said something along the lines that Germany didn't have a strategic thinking school in WW2, they only had operational-level thinking. Like, at best their planning is at the level of

1. Win this OPERATION.
2. ???
3. Miracle happens here.
4. WIN!!!

Not in those exact word, but no planning actually got above the level of operational.

And everything clicked in for me. They had moved from WW1 tactical thinking (which already explains WW1), to interwar operational thinking. Literally nobody (in the military) than Hitler actually planned around strategic objectives, nor around achieving them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Hitler was good. He was a psychopath and one of the most evil people ever. I'm just saying that his military was even worse at understanding what is the POINT of thrusting in a particular direction, they only ever learned HOW to do it.

 

[Craig4]

I've been listening to the "We Have Ways of Making you Talk" podcast and they're doing a big thing in the lead up to the 80th anniversary of D-Day. What comes across is that the Germans didn't have bad ideas, they just didn't have ideas at all.

The Allies have this in-depth phased planning to restrict mobility leading up to the invasion, attack key points to prepare the battle-space and convert the beachheads into a lodgement. The Germans had one idea, "Push them Back Into the Sea". There's no evidence of thought about how you do that other than grab troops go hit allies where you find them. They waste effort fighting airborne troops and throw units piecemeal into the battle. It's funny that the country that came up with the concept of the schwerpunkt seems to have put no thought into where that schwerpunkt might be in Normandy.

 

[Wudang]

Not in those exact word, but no planning actually got above the level of operational.

And everything clicked in for me. They had moved from WW1 tactical thinking (which already explains WW1), to interwar operational thinking. Literally nobody (in the military) than Hitler actually planned around strategic objectives, nor around achieving them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Hitler was good. He was a psychopath and one of the most evil people ever. I'm just saying that his military was even worse at understanding what is the POINT of thrusting in a particular direction, they only ever learned HOW to do it.

Could this be a consequence of the German idea of "general staff"? As I understand it (not a historian) the general staff were experts in how to operate an army effectively. The goals came from above. Many of those setting the goals were rank amateurs and often could not even visualise what the goal was. This is a pattern I have seen in IT several times, "We don't know what we want but we need it tomorrow" etc

 

[Andy_Ross]

I've been listening to the "We Have Ways of Making you Talk" podcast and they're doing a big thing in the lead up to the 80th anniversary of D-Day. What comes across is that the Germans didn't have bad ideas, they just didn't have ideas at all.

The Allies have this in-depth phased planning to restrict mobility leading up to the invasion, attack key points to prepare the battle-space and convert the beachheads into a lodgement. The Germans had one idea, "Push them Back Into the Sea". There's no evidence of thought about how you do that other than grab troops go hit allies where you find them. They waste effort fighting airborne troops and throw units piecemeal into the battle. It's funny that the country that came up with the concept of the schwerpunkt seems to have put no thought into where that schwerpunkt might be in Normandy.

They were also convinced it was a diversion from the real invasion that would land further north because they wouldn't have landed in Normandy, their assessment was based on their own limited amphibious capability.

They held back a lot of divisions waiting for this real attack. It was more than a week before it was decided that maybe the Normandy landings were actually the main invasion.

 

[sackett]

I keep repeating a phrase: "The aimlessness of fascism."
(In my head, of course; mustn't ramble out loud, makes people think I'm getting old.) But the idea that action is better than thinking appeals to the adolescent nihilism "that lies at the heart of fascism." I think that the mental crudity, the shiftlessness, of the colored shirt boys quite explains their ultimate failure.

And the FG42 was a flawed conception from Tag Nummer Ein.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It would be wrong to say that efforts of the Japanese Navy to attack the US West Coast were meaningless.

It brought us the cinematic masterpiece that is 1941.

 

[catsmate]

German paratroops couldn't jump with any equipment due to the method of attaching the parachute. It was fixed to a harness at one point low on the back, almost the hips, landing was awkward even without equipment.

British and US paratroops were suspended on a harness from each shoulder and had an equipment bag that they jumped with attached low on the harness.
It was let go on the way down to hang on a strap so it hit the ground first and the weight wasn't carried in to the actual landing.

In addition equipment canisters similar to the German type were also used to carry extra heavy equipment and ammunition.


The FG was an impressive weapon, it was designed to be a personal rifle and a light machine gun and could be fired from a closed or open bolt.
They were very expensive and complicated to make and were not put in to mass production after the first couple of batches.

Ian at Forgotten Weapons likes them, he's a done a number of videos on them over the years.
Here's an 'overview'

I remember that from The Eagle Has Landed

 

[catsmate]

I keep repeating a phrase: "The aimlessness of fascism."
(In my head, of course; mustn't ramble out loud, makes people think I'm getting old.) But the idea that action is better than thinking appeals to the adolescent nihilism "that lies at the heart of fascism." I think that the mental crudity, the shiftlessness, of the colored shirt boys quite explains their ultimate failure.

And the FG42 was a flawed conception from Tag Nummer Ein.

As a weapon it was no worse than the FAL or M14.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As a weapon it was no worse than the FAL or M14.

It was well made and designed but over complicated and expensive, It's magazine had problems.

M14 was just a Grand with a detachable box magazine, it suffered from production problems and some issues with quality control.

FAL is what the M14 should have been.

Neither the N14 or the FAL are equivalents of the FG, they were 'standard' full power battle rifles, FG was an early assault rifle, it used sn intermediate cartridge. M1 Carbine has more in common with it as obviously do the later war German Sturmgewehr and Russian SKS (but not the AK, at the time it was developed as a replacement sub machine gun only later moving to the assault rifle role, the SKS was the assault rifle)

 

[zooterkin]

They were also convinced it was a diversion from the real invasion that would land further north because they wouldn't have landed in Normandy, their assessment was based on their own limited amphibious capability.

They held back a lot of divisions waiting for this real attack. It was more than a week before it was decided that maybe the Normandy landings were actually the main invasion.

Convinced partly by Operation Bodyguard, of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard

 

[catsmate]

It was well made and designed but over complicated and expensive, It's magazine had problems.

M14 was just a Grand with a detachable box magazine, it suffered from production problems and some issues with quality control.

FAL is what the M14 should have been.

Neither the N14 or the FAL are equivalents of the FG, they were 'standard' full power battle rifles, FG was an early assault rifle, it used sn intermediate cartridge. M1 Carbine has more in common with it as obviously do the later war German Sturmgewehr and Russian SKS (but not the AK, at the time it was developed as a replacement sub machine gun only later moving to the assault rifle role, the SKS was the assault rifle)

The FG-42 fired the 7.92×57mm round, not the later Kurz round, which was somewhat more powerful than the 7.62x54mm NATO. They were all rather difficult to control in automatic fire.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Convinced partly by Operation Bodyguard, of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard

And the information fed to them via their own spies and agents rounded up and 'turned' in Operation Double Cross.

 

[zooterkin]

And the information fed to them via their own spies and agents rounded up and 'turned' in Operation Double Cross.

Indeed, one of the many operations covered by Operation Bodyguard.

 

[jimbob]

Some pretty bad naval ideas in this recent video by Drachifenel

 

[Andy_Ross]

The FG-42 fired the 7.92×57mm round, not the later Kurz round, which was somewhat more powerful than the 7.62x54mm NATO. They were all rather difficult to control in automatic fire.

Yes, don't know why I said it ha an intermediate cartridge.

My argument still stands though, it was an early attempt at an assault rifle in concept.

 

[William Parcher]

M14 was just a Grand

I think that's spelled Garand.

 

[bruto]

I am really surprised, given the crowd here, that this has not been thrown in yet!