Customer Reviews

Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 (Contributions in Military Studies)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a pretty expensive book but its well worth reading and owning if you are a serious student of World War II. To a serious student, its a well known fact that the quality of the German army was much higher then our's. We had quantity in terms of material while they had quality in terms of men. Much of this had a lot to do with difference of training, troop assignments and relationship between each other. The author explained this in a clearest way, why the Germans were able to maintained that quality in the mist of defeats while Americans were not able to catch up even while we were winning. I think what will amazed any reader is how well the German military actually took care of their troops - in terms of support and morale. Fighting against the Hollywood image mode, the author make it clear that the German army was actually bit more caring then the American army in the way they treated their soldiers. How the Germans maintained their esprit de corps will be an eye-opening reading experience, even for American WWII veteran who may wished that they were also treated as such. Author compared the two armies putting out the pros and cons of their methods. But book clearly show that the best army always don't win the war and quality of troops, never how high, cannot win victories if everything were stack against them. There is a lesson to be learned here even today as our highly trained and high tech army cannot secured a defeated nation. This book belonged in every World War II reader's library and it should be reread every couple of years. Don't let the price scare you.

The book assumes that the German army performed better in WW2 than the United States Forces. It tries to workout why. Despite the fact that one would expect that an authoritarian country like Germany would have a system of blind obedience the opposite was the case. The key to how their army worked was the devolution of authority. Commanders would be given a general objective but they could pursue it as they liked. Individual initiative was encouraged, as was audacity. The United States on the other hand was the country of Taylorism. A management culture that did not trust those lower down in the hierarchy and broke work down into simple components and expected blind obedience.

To make matters worse the techniques of allocating recruits in the United States Army was based on previous work experience. Those with any qualification or training were placed in army jobs that were similar to those they had in civilian employment. This meant that those going to rifle divisions were the most poorly educated and problematic recruits.

The replacement policy and training of officers also created issues with the development of a team structure. Officers in the United States army were not allowed to fraternize with enlisted men. (They had separate facilities and were seen as remote by their men.) German officers lived with their men and developed close ties to them. The German's also tried to base their units on geographic areas. This was so that soldiers would have a shared history and ethos. Replacements came into units not as individuals but as groups of men who had trained together and built up bonds with each other.

Part of the problem of course was that the United States army was more or less built from scratch. It was expanded from a few thousand men prior to the war within a short time to some millions. The German's had a longer military history that went back a long way. One of the strengths of Creveld's book is that he shows that the German's looked with care at the performance of the army in the First World War. A good deal of the organisational structure was developed to deal with earlier problems.

All in all a good book although probably a bit dry for the general reader. One also wonders if the use of the Taylor model was not sensible in the circumstances. The United States did not have the time to train up officers in combat and the model they adopted worked. Admittedly with armies that outnumbered their opponents and had air and naval support.

This book starts by noting about the empirical evidence and research done by Dupuy and others about the fighting power of the German army. He notes that in engagements in 1943 and 1944 the German army inflicted about 50% more casualties per soldier engaged than the allies, in other words, that the German forces were much more effective fighting organizations than allied formations. The author sets the question: How they managed to maintain such superior fighting power? And uses the rest of the book to gather evidence.

He compares the status of the army to the rest of the society, and shows that the German army enjoyed a higher social status than the American army, that meant that the German army could draw over the cream of society, while the US army drew mostly from the lower/less educated classes. Also, selection processes were more strict in the German armed forces than in the American, selecting only the most apt for the job. And even in 1944, the basic training of the German soldier was a bit longer than for the American soldier.

The problems of the US replacement system are analyzed: The US army replaced soldiers individually, putting men in the middle of the battle without any training experience with the soldiers in his unit. This resulted from ignoring the important psychological aspect of war. As result, American divisions with a lot of replacements started suffering higher casualties than fresher units. The German divisions by contrast, replaced their men by battalions of 500 men that trained together and went together to the front.

The differences also involved the focus of the respective armed forces: While the Germans focused on operations the American doctrine focused on the logistics of maintaining material superiority. Since the US was the largest industrial economy in the world, they could always count on their superior material resources for any conflict that they participated. This meant that their military organization focused on coordinating these vast material resources into an effective front.

The conclusion is that the Germans developed such high fighting power because of their needs: Always facing powerful foes in their borders (France and Russia), and in the event of a major war, always under the risk of severe numerical inferiority (with happened in both world wars) in the event of a multi-front war, they had to make more with less: They had to maximize the military effectiveness of their resources to compensate for their lack of material superiority. The Americans in the other hand, without any powerful neighbors (Canada and Mexico) and traditionally isolated from the rest of the world, hardly maintained a level of military mobilization near the level of European powers and in the case of war, always fought on the side with superior resources (both in terms of men and 'materiel'). Hence, their military never had to develop fighting power: They didn't need to maximize the effectiveness of their military resources, since they had always several times more resources than the enemy.

Working by numbers vs working by character. That would be the short version of this book on the difference between the US Army in WWII vs the German Army.
This was the first book on military history that I read in which not a shot is fired! In this book you'll find no description of battles, operations or campaigns, it is all about the methods by which these two armies have recruited their soldiers, determined their abilities, trained them, led them, fed them, rewarded them, treated them when wounded.
There is a significant difference between the German Army going for quality, leadership, comradeship, forging a bond between soldiers in a unit and giving the commanders freedom in the way they execute their missions ('auftragstactiek')on the one hand and the American Army using mass. Mass in firepower, mass in numbers, masses of statistics, treating their soldiers like well produced pieces of interchangeable equipment with little thought for the individual qualities of the soldier. This caused a lot of human wastage in units and has (according to Van Creveld) lengthened the war somewhat.
In the German Army it forged a bond between soldiers that held even against the onslaught of 1943 - 1945 on the Eastern Front and later in the West, where German kept on fighting beyond all hope of winning the war or even winning a reasonable peace. But that fighting quality came at a price and Van Creveld mentions that price explicitly. For the German soldier it didn't matter for what cause he fought, it made formidable soldiers without much of a conscience.

The book is highly recommend for students of military history, but also for any modern manager who has more trust in the statistical data on his employees than in the quality, character and mission oriented freedom of work in his employees.

Bas

Martin van Creveld's "Fighting Power" is an in-depth comparison of the United States and German armies during World War II. He looks at such factors as national character, doctrine, command principles, organization, administration, maintenance, leadership, and more and how the two forces compare. The author concludes his work with overall reflection of what work and what did not and how this might effect future military forces.

A fascinating read full of data and insightful analysis. The work has been extensively researched and is well written with detailed references. This is military analysis at it's best, thorough, intelligent and perceptive. Many areas are examined from maintenance of combat efficiency to the role of national character. If one wishes to have a greater understanding of the factors in war that contribute to great soldiery and why the German army's fighting power was unparalleled in the 20th century, read this book.

Now there are many American historians who's sensibilities are irritated by this work. They claim the conclusions and propositions are false. But Americans are an arrogant lot, I still remember the shouts of USA!, USA!, at the LA games of 84 even though the Soviets and East Germans were not there. It is impossible for the American mind (not all Americans but most) to accept they are second best at anything, they are brainwashed and conditioned in this myth of "American exceptionalism" from birth.

So they come up with all types of nonsense to discredit this book, some even twist the statistics to such a point to PROVE that the GI was better. But all this criticism evaporates on an objective analysis and I recommend that others read Max Hasting's Overlord and Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War by historian John Ellis. These works clearly show that German fighting supremacy remained in 44 and it was largely overwhelming force and air power that defeated the Germans. Even when they were tremendously weakened from losses on the Eastern Front.


I asked the question, if the Germans were not better man to man on a tactical and operational level, why did it take a massive assortment of POWERFUL nations to beat them? Why did WW1 and WW2 last so long when they were fighting so many enemies? And why did the Allies have to built up a massive superiority in men and machines to prevail?

Simple commonsense free of bias, confirms Creveld and others belief and their final assessment.

Yes,... some people cannot handle the truth, and I finish this review with what the great historian Liddel Hart said of German performance in WW1:

" Finally, whatever be the verdict of history on her policy, unstinted tribute is due to the incomparable endurance and skill with which Germany more than held her own for four years against superior numbers- an epic of military and human achievement."


Addition:

I suggest critics of this work read the following: (Mythos revisited: American Historians and German Fighting Power in the Second World War by Thomas E. Nutter) . Google it.



Some gems from this work in regards to AMERICAN officers criticisms of the belief of "German fighting power superiority":

That they met on equal terms:

"Of the steady destruction of the German army Mansoor says nearly nothing. Instead, like Bonn and Doubler, Mansoor paints a picture in which the German and American armies contesting in Western Europe in 1944-1945 did so on an equal basis. That this was not the case is manifest from all of the available evidence, as Mansoor undoubtedly knew when he wrote The GI Offensive in Europe. If it is to be argued, as Mansoor and his "school" have done, that the U.S. army of 1944-1945 was at least the equal of its German foe, then it is reasonable to inquire how it arrived at such a status of equality. Had the U.S. army lost 73 divisions in the year before its trial of arms in Western Europe? Where was its Stalingrad? Its Alamein? Unless Mansoor and his ilk answer these questions, they cannot equate the U.S. army to the Heer. "



"While these numbers relating to losses of German army officers are indicative of the crisis that confronted the Allies' principal enemy in Western Europe, they do not really begin to describe that crisis in any meaningful way. During the nine-month period 22 June 1941 to 31 March 1942, the Ostheer absorbed 567,461 casualties from sickness and frostbite, and 1,082,690 casualties from fighting, for a total of 1,650,151 casualties. Over the same period, the army in the East received a total of 814,600 replacements and recuperated soldiers. For this period, then, the Ostheer suffered 835,551 losses that were not replaced. The personnel situation of the Ostheer improved somewhat over the next two months; in April 1942 it took 108,450 casualties (including 60,291 killed), and received 121,400 replacements, while in the following month it absorbed 134,230 casualties (including 74,700 killed) as against 158,900 replacements received.[236] The effects of such losses on the army were, as one might expect, deleterious and not long in coming. Whereas in June 1941, 134 out of 209 divisions (64%) were classified as fit for any offensive action, at the end of March 1942 only 8 out of 162 divisions (5%) were ranked in this category.[237] The situation for the army only worsened with the coming of the Kursk offensive and its aftermath. In July 1943 it suffered 215,100 casualties, as against 92,100 replacements; in August 1943, 262,300 losses against 79,000 replacements; in September 1943, 231,700 losses against 127,000 replacements; in October 1943, 198,400 losses against 121,000 replacements; and in November 1943, 87,800 losses against 100,400 replacements.[238] Overall, the strength of the Ostheer decreased from 3,300,000 men in June 1941 to 2,200,000 men in July 1944".


"During the whole of the United States' involvement in World War II (roughly three and a half years) a total of 16,353,659 military personnel were drafted or volunteered for service. The number of men killed in action totaled 292,131 (Army/Army Air Force 234,874; Navy 36,950; Marines 19,733; Coast Guard 574); 671,278 men (Army/Army Air Force 565,861; Navy 37,778; Marines 67,207; Coast Guard 432) were wounded in action. American forces thus suffered 963,409 total casualties against the Axis.[228] During the six-month period July through December 1941, the German Ostheer suffered 767,938 casualties, including 167,354 men killed in action, and 600,584 men wounded.[229] In this six-month period, then, the German Ostheer alone suffered 0.797% of the total casualties incurred by all United States armed forces in over three and a half years of war. Breaking the numbers down still further, German dead for the period in question amounted to 0.573% of the total American dead for the entire war; the number of German wounded represented 0.895% of the total number of American wounded in all of World War II '".


AND

On selective perception:

"Brown also complains that Dupuy's analysis unfairly skews the results in favor of the Germans because in most instances studied the Americans are the attacker. In so doing, he falls back on the contention that "[T]raditional rules of the thumb, verified by experience as planning factors and still taught at command general staff colleges, assert that one needs a three-to-one advantage in effective combat power--not necessarily numbers of troops--at the point of decision to overcome a defender in prepared positions." In so doing, Brown ignores the fact that in Numbers, Prediction, and War Dupuy called into question this "rule of the thumb"; presumably, Brown ignores Dupuy's criticism of this time honored theory simply because it was made by Dupuy. In this connection it is also worth mentioning that both Bonn and Mansoor, while eager to point out that the German army was on the defensive during most of 1944-1945, ignore the fact that the U.S. army had the benefit of being on the defensive when the German army scored successes during the Ardennes offensive and the Operation Nordwind offensive. Brown's "traditional rule of thumb" seems to be a rather malleable concept".




AND

That materiel advantage was irrelevant:

"Mansoor's claims that the German army faced by the Western Allies in Normandy had combat veterans (including "solid non-commissioned officers") in command of the majority of its units beg the question, as those assertions fail to take into account the decimation of the force that had brought about such a "seasoned" officer corps. His argument that the German army facing the Allies in the West was armed with "technologically advanced" weaponry is also deceptive. In 1944 Germany produced 19,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. In that year the United States alone produced 17,565 such vehicles; the figures for that year for Britain and the USSR were 4,600 and 28,963 respectively. Over the entire course of the war Germany produced a total of 674,280 machine-guns, as against 4,744,484 such weapons turned out by the Allies.[240] Mansoor (like Bonn, Doubler and Brown) may contend that the defeat of the German army in the West was due more to the skill, tenacity and bravery of the common American soldier than it was to the ability of the Allies to utterly swamp their foe with men and materiel; such an argument, however, fails utterly to comprehend the reality of the Second World War in Europe".

AND

American self-absorption:

"Finally, Brown concludes his book by opining that American G.I.s "won World War II...because, man for man and unit for unit, they were tougher than their adversaries."[302] Leaving aside the fact that this statement ignores the contribution--in the case of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming contribution--made by American's allies to the defeat of Nazism, this statement remains unproven by Brown, Bonn, Mansoor and Doubler, and will remain unproven until they or their followers desist from treating the German army and the U.S. army as equally matched, and devote study to the men and units that made up each of them. "

Now the Soviets who lost 27 million dead and inflicted 80% of the military casualties on the Germans did not win the war, the GI did!!!! And British, Canadians and others had no role either.

The truth is that half the German troops in Western Europe in 44 were old men by military standards or young boys and many divisions were burnt out. Why?, because the Soviets had killed wounded or captured much of Germany's seasoned veterans by this stage. And even after D-day 66% of the German army was still engaging the Soviets. They do not mention the vast logistical superiority that the American had, or that the Germans through allied air interdiction had to operate on supplies that were hopelessly inadequate, and they also don't mention the very poor tactical operational situations they were put in by Hitler's mismanagement, which made them far more vulnerable. Additionally, they neglect to mention the French Resistance, which by 1943 was causing the Germans many causalities and strain behind the lines and that the Allies had the tremendous advantage of air reconnaissance and firepower support . The Allies also had a massive advantage in the life blood of modern war, fuel, I could go on and on but I will not. Because I believe I have made my point.

Yes these American historians are A grade, no bias whatsoever....ha ha

Just one final thing, I know from experience that people will answer, if the Germans are so good why did they lose? First of all, wars are lost largely at the highest level of leadership, the strategic and grand strategic. Fighting power is really in reference to the tactical and the operational level.

It is not the simple German soldier's fault that at the highest level of leadership, there was incompetence. Both the Kaiser and Hitler, through stupidity and arrogance, engaged too may enemies, at the wrong time and at the wrong place.

While the German military can be blamed to some extent for failure at the strategic level in WW1. This cannot be said of WW2, Beck the leader of the German Army opposed Hitler's desire, believing it would lead to destruction, he was removed. The rest of the General Staff in general and even Goring had profound misgivings about embarking on war in 39. It was Hitler who pushed it through. So much of the strategic failures in WW2 cannot really be laid at the military. If left to them there would have probably been no war, certainly not on the scale that it went to. And there probably as well would have not been a second front, which proved fatal.

CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING:
"How Hitler Lost the War", a DVD available at Amazon.

Now I am not saving the Germans were perfect at the operational and tactical level. They are human like everyone else. They made mistakes and at times were incompetent as well. But it is the average performance that is referred to, that on average they performed better than the Allies at the tactical and operational level. Not always but most of the time.

The German soldier cannot be blamed for incompetence at the highest level of leadership, and they cannot certainly be blamed for the irrational military decisions that were made by Hitler.

Lets make an analogy, say you have a brilliant advertising executive in a large company. He is the best in the country at his work, promotion. Yet the organization he works for fails and collapses due in large part to an incompetent CEO at financial management. Does this distract from executive's skill or ability?, no, he had no control over this situation. He was still the best at his particular trade. And that is what is relevant when one analyzes his ability.

Now you can see what the German military is capable of when it is lead by an able individual at supreme command, when you examine Bismarck and his success.

The current literature is full of complaints concerning van Crevald's comparision of the US and German Armies in WW2.

Personally I think many of his points are valid,specifically those regarding training and unit cohesion. Clearly the "Repple Depple" system was devised by an idiot in the US who had never heard a shot fired for any reason.

The problem with van Creveld's book is simply contectual relevance. What might have been true in 1943 was no longer true in 1944.

Van Creveld is quite adept at luring the unwary into agreement with his argument. Unfortunately for him, at the end of the day he is exposed as a charleton.

Should you not believe me and there isn't any reason you should, check the dates of van Creveld's references specifically those from the US Army and their evaluation of troop competence.

What you will find is that van Creveld has tailored his references to his ideological viewpoint.

The book is worth reading simply because at a given time the German method was superior to that of the Americans.

I do think it behooves anyone who considers themselves a cognosenti of military affairs to read this book.

James Good

Well written account of the impossibility of Germany to win WWII, and yet how near Germany came despite the many advantages the Allies had and the errors the Germans made. It supports the 'Germany was defeated by materiel' theory rather then the 'Allies did good and beat the Germans because they fought better than the Germans' theory. Recommended.

The author must not be a military man. Even a buck sergeant knows that armies on the defense will inflict more casualties than they receive. Quality of soldier aside, a defensive army will simply sustain fewer casualties when two technically matched forces collide in battle. Moreover, the German Army was a battle hardened force meeting basically raw recruits in the US Army. However, the US Army quickly got its feet under it after mid 1944 and rapidly lost even its advantage in warfighting skills. It had widely inferior equipment except for isolated pieces. Even their vaunted jets were an inferior piece of technology whose limited range made it a sitting duck against the massed air forces of its enemies. Allied air forces didn't have to fight the ME262 they just waited and shot it down as it was trying to land at the few airfields it could operate from. By late 1944, German troops were virtually uable to sustain an offense due to widespread battle fatigue. Defensively they were still stellar but even badly fatigued armies can mount vigorous defenses if they know the only other option is death. For example, German forces facing the western armies fought way less vigorously than those on the Eastern Front. German soldiers were fighting on their territory and could rely on the local populace for sustainance. Their transport system was 50 years behind the times and could not sustain its chosen tactical methods. Oh heck with it, this book simply doesn't address the real tactical and strategic factors that created the factors the author points to as reason for his conclusions.

i cannot even begin to express how bad this book is.

How the book is written:
Van Creveld's first order of business is to define what fighting power is; " . . . in brief, is defined as the sum total of mental qualities that make armies fight." Creveld then goes to use various victories of the German army such as the victory over France and Poland even while it was basically unprepared for war, with inferior equipment, and other successes even while numerically outnumbered, sometimes dramatically so. Even in defeat, the German Army was formidable, having taken only 5 months to reach Moscow, it took the Russia two-and-a-half years to be driven back to its starting point buy a then immeasurably superior foe.

Not only that but the German's although retreating, seemed almost victorious in defeat . . . " not disintegrate[ing], not frag[ing] its officers, even though its units were decimated, the Allies had ULTRA, and despite this continued to exist and resist.

Van Creveld makes much of a study by Clonel Trevor N. Dpuy U.S. Army, which according to van Cleveld, indicates that the soldiers of the German Army were 20% more effective in combat than U.S. Army soldiers.

Finally, Creveld uses an analysis of 78 engagements between U.S. Army and British forces to demonstrate that in every battle the outcome in casualties were an almost identical 1.5 casualties for British and American forces to every 1 casualty for German forces.

Thus, having convincingly demonstrated that the German Army was superior in a way demonstrable in a solid empirical way (or so van Cleveld thinks), his subsequent chapters examines in detail how such remarkable fighting power was achieved.

Criticism: van Cleveld celebrates victories over France and Poland and as if they were great victories against worthy opponents. In fact, France and Poland were pathetically ill prepared for war with Germany. While Germany had tested their doctrinal soundness in the Spanish Civil war, both France and Poland were using doctrine that was profoundly and fatal flawed. This goes to prove only that an army with good equipment like the French army is worthless unless the soldier who use it are skilled. It is true that some French equipment was actually superior to German Army equipment like the French tanks, but their armoured doctrine was unsound and their armour easy defeated.

It is also true that as Germany brought new weapons on line, like the superb Panther tank, arguably the best medium tank in the war, the German army was much better equipped in certain ways than the U.S. Army with its vanilla M4 medium tank.

Van Cleveld's comparison of the advance to Moscow in 5 months to the time needed by the Russians to push them back to their starting point is absurd. Russia army corp. was decimated by Stalin's purge of almost half of all battalion and over staff officers. In other words, one half of all Russian units were commanded by incompetent commanders . . . brave yes. But untrained and unprepared as anyone could be to command. It took the commanders at least two years to learn how to fight at the level they commanded. At any rate, van Cleverd is supposed to be comparing the U.S. Army to the German Army, not the Russian army, so the argument is irrelevant.

Van Cleverd makes a big deal about the Allies having ULTRA. Well . . . ya. The German Army had a very effective intelligence service too. The fact is that the German Army captured the code books and frequency tables from the British during the Normandy invasion and could listen in on ALL local communications and knew where and when every British attack was going to occur.

Regarding the study by Dupuy, van Cleverd fails to mention that this study is extremely controversial in its conclusions. As a matter of fact, Dupuy's study and van Cleverd's book have instigated a backlash in the military history community which as spawned a series of books which revive the reputation of the U.S. Army as the equal of the German Army . . . that is, once the U.S. Army had suffered at the hands of the more experienced German Army. Even Rommel stated after the German Army was defeated and ejected from Africa that the U.S. Army learned tactical lessons very fast, and by the time they took over Africa they were equal to the German Army they faced.

Yet there is no doubt that un-seasoned U.S. Army troops were not the equal of seasoned German troops as was soon evident in Sicily, Italy and Normandy when inexperienced U.S. Army troops encountered German troops.

It is interesting to point out that another U.S. Army officer who made adjustments to Dupuy's data achieved results which indicated that it was the U.S. Army that was the superior of the two armies. This officer contended that certain parameters in the equation regarding the effects of artillery, and effects of being on the defensive, etc., were overstated by Dupuy thus skewing his results.

Finally, but not least, van Cleverd's 78 engagements include 28 actions with the British Army and considering that this is supposedly a comparison between the U.S. Army and the German Army, this is at best misleading and at worst subversive. This type of skewing the so called facts occurs continually throughout this book which I will point out as I go through the different chapters.

I will state now that I am convinced that van Cleverd wilfully uses the manipulation of statistics to mislead the reader to support his ill conceived thesis. Whenever he gets the chance, as you will see, he will point to the U.S. Army's supposed material advantages to excuse any successes by the U.S. Army and point to German Army failings as actual strengths; or van Cleverd will make statements that are on their face, actually ridiculous such as the claim by Cleverd that the German Army never became disorganized and fled as a mob which they clearly did in the Falaise Pocket. Van Cleverd also manipulates his data as the strategic and tactical defeat of Romel's Africa corps at Alem Halfa as reported by Walker, Ronald (1967) in "The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-1945 in which German Army casualties were almost double that of the British and New Zealand forces illustrates. In this battle the German Army took almost twice as many casualties as the British.

The frequent unequivocal statements by von Creveld is what makes problems for his thesis. For him to state explicitly that moral NEVER broke down, that unit cohesion NEVER broke down is to invite criticism. And weaken his arguments.

Much better if he would speak in equivocal terms about certain stages of the war for certainly, by January 1945 the German Army had disintegrated to the point that it was not at all comparable to its combat state just before the invasion of Poland, say. I don't know how anyone can argue against this.

Most of the rest of the chapter are devoted to discussing doctrine as developed by the German and US Army. Predictably, Creveld finds in favour of the German army under all circumstances even when he admits there is little or no data on the issue such as recovery rates for casualties in the German army. But Creveld makes the grave mistake of confusing doctrine with performance in the field. An army can have superb doctrine but if it is not carried out, it is useless. That is what happened to the German army.

A good example of that is the replacement system Creveld is so high on in the German army. Well, by the winter of 1942, this replacement system was already broken. Adelbert Holl writes in "An Infantryman in Stalingrad," writes "Inexperience had cost this young man his life. Replacements with only eight weeks experience in the army . . . [were being sent as replacements]. This was unacceptable." Holl was an officer in charge of a platoon, and later a captain in charge of a company at Stalingrad.

So, in 1942, the German army was ignoring its own doctrine regarding the training of replacements. It was only to get worse. Later in the war, scratch units were gathered together from any soldier wandering away from the front. This unit was then put into the front line as a combat unit. Now that is unit cohesion for you. Further, violating there own doctrine of unit cohesion, they introduced prisoners into units such as fortress units guarding the Normandy coast. So in those units there may be a Polish soldier, captured who was forced to fight as a German soldier guarded him in action.

Of course, these "slave" soldiers were very bad soldiers and deserted at the first opportunity. So in this way, Creveld uses the written doctrine which sounds fine, but ignores the reality of what commanders were doing in the field. Worse still, is the fact that this information is easily available to any one taking a few minute to find out. It seems he either doesn't want to know the facts, ignores the facts, or is just lazy and doesn't research the facts.

This is a great example of how statistics can be used to argue for a conclusion that is fatally flawed. Unfortunately, some readers can be convinced by such garbage . . . thus the inexplicably high ratings by some of this book. The gullibility displayed is absolutely astonishing. They've been sold the Brooklyn Bridge of military history BS. One writer terms these people as having "Wermarch P***s envy."

Do I recommend this book? Only if you want an example of the worst of history. Otherwise, forget it.

BTW, I broke one of my rules about review and entered into a "debate" with someone who wrote a comment. I avoid doing this at all other times. So, I deleted my comments. I do this because, as happened in this case, there was no way that the person who left the comment was open to any reasonable discussion. And I don't have time or the inclination for such BS.

Take the comments for what they are worth!

If you want a fair discussion of the development of the U.S. Army, and a fair comparison between the U.S. Army and the German Army consider the books Closing With the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945 (Modern War Studies), The Gi Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945 (Modern War Studies), and When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944-January 1945.

These book evaluate in an OBJECTIVE way the strength and weaknesses of both the U.S. Army and the German Army.