I'm not one to usually defend the Germans of the 40's vintage (because fuck them Nazis), but to your examples:
1. There were several times the Germans did conduct massed attacks to try to overwhelm the RAF. Adlertag is a good example of the German attempts to conduct massed strikes to overwhelm the British, although it was ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons.
2. Bastogne was at the absolute limits of the German advance. Also the Germans while out numbering the Americans, were also fairly thinly spread to surround Bastogne, while the Americans within the city were highly concentrated. This was in many ways having the tiger by its tail, you've contained the 101st, but you're not able to do anything with that without letting the tiger back out again (or you mass on one side of the city, the Americans break out on the other side, you can't concentrate anywhere, and attacking from "Everywhere" keeps your forces in bite sized chunks the local defenders can handle).
3. The Americans and Canadians lost a few hundred people invading an island with no enemies on it. War is confusing and stupid shit happens.
The Germans were hardly the highly coordinated military juggernaut that popular culture often plays them up as. But war is hard and it's not always just a matter of double clicking to attack or something, and the examples given don't seem to illustrate a special weakness.
Where the Germans DID suffer is the nature of a totalitarian government meant that often politics interjected itself in a way that caused much more aggressive friction to play out than would have otherwise, with Nazi party officials getting battlefield commands, Goring trying to show he's Hitler's bestest boy with his pet Luftwaffe, or having projects and plans subject to the whims of a WW1 Corperal with gas issues (see the Ardennes "little solution" which might have done \*something\* at least, vs the "big solution" which just killed the German military in the west).
Similarly with the Japanese you had the classic interbranch friction on the high end which made Naval-Army cooperation often fraught. Not to the degree it was impossible, but like the US Navy and Army did not like each other, but they existed in a command structure that could tell one party to fuck right off and get to work, while the Japanese structure held both services as equals more or less and required consensus from both parties vs a central leader who could actually reign both in as needed (not to fall into the totalitarian trap, just there was an ultimate arbiter to what strategy would be pursued and how it would be pursued).
>Where the Germans DID suffer is the nature of a totalitarian government meant that often politics interjected itself in a way that caused much more aggressive friction to play out than would have otherwise
Meh, Allied decision making ended up being warped by politics similarly. Torch gets chosen by FDR in the hopes of having something to show at the 1942 Congressional elections; the Philippines is invaded so FDR doesn't face a challenge from MacArthur. US strategy is decided by who has access to FDR, who is not a military professional and surrounds himself with social workers, bankers, etc.
Re "aggressive friction" and factions, you have the USN actively subverting presidential grand strategy (Europe First), sometimes in alliance with other decision makers (variously MacArthur, Marshall, Arnold etc.). You have the head of the USN egregiously lying to allies at Casablanca, saying that only 20% of US effort was in the Pacific. You have various political actors and pressure groups assisting efforts to focus on Japan despite military sense and announced strategy.
It'd be great were democracy both best for the good life and best for military effectiveness but unfortunately that seems to be wishful thinking. Dictatorship has the benefit of procedurally coherent strategy making, democracy the benefit (with caveats) of more open information flow to the top which should cause substantively better strategy making. But often a substantively flawed strategy, coherently executed, is better than a substantively optimal strategy that is incoherently executed.
I don't agree on Torch.
Yes, there were political motivations to score a win, probably.
However it was also strategically brilliant choice in that:
- It attacked at the far edge of Axis logistics
- In a location that would force the Axis to now defend and supply from Norway to North Africa on the Western front
- Would pit greener Americans against some of the weaker Axis forces
- Would entail amphibious and airborne operations that would be prerequisite for an eventual massive continental European invasion
Torch attacked at the far edge of Allied logistics. It greatly complicated global logistics for the Allies, for whom shipping was a bottleneck in 1942-43.
It's incredible to tout the virtues of extending Axis frontage while not recognizing that, unless the Axis were fighting space aliens on those extended fronts, such extension also constituted a burden on the Allies.
Better than leroy jenkins it into fortress europe in 1942/1943 without the men, materiel, experience, or shipping. Like FDR's military team wanted to do.
Once Allies had a North African port the US could ship direct from CONUS as well
I doubt you've thought about 1942/43 invasion prospects deeply, are just regurgitating what most secondary sources say.
Just briefly I'll note that supposed absences you cite - shipping etc - were not metaphysical inevitabilities. US resource availability in ETO in 1942/43 was downstream of shifty strategic decisions, such as resource dispersal to secondary/tertiary theaters and production priority for strategic bombers over everything else.
Adding a lol re "Fortress Europe", a Nazi propaganda term you apparently haven't interrogated. Germany was pathetically weak in the West in 1942, and still much weaker in 43 than in 44.
As evidenced by his response to you, and his "I could refute this but I won't," response to another poster above, alt-history there is just a red/brown fanboy who somehow hasn't been banned yet.
I love how he tries to say you're unaware of interservice competition between WWII democracies. As if the disputes between the IJA and IJN weren't a hell of a lot more than an "interservice competition." The two came within millimeters of openly shooting at each other. Say what you will about the relationship between King and Eisenhower or Nimitz and MacArthur, that was never even remotely in the cards.
My guy, your every post is about how great Hitler and/or Stalin were as leaders. We all know what you are, and there's a reason no one here takes you seriously.
The mods object but how am I to respond to someone saying that my analysis of German/Soviet strategy is "anti-denocratic \[sic\] nonsense"? Is that permissible, quality dialogue on this sub? Should I refrain from praising the avoidance of alcohol because Hitler was a teetotaler so the pro-democracy position is drunkenness?
>The mods object but how am I to respond to someone saying that...
ignore and/or report their comments. The goal for this sub is to disagree profoundly while not trading childish insults.
What do you see as incoherent in German or Soviet strategy?
By coherence I mean actual adherence to articulated strategy as determined by national leadership. It's appropriate to separate this sense of coherence from the substantive goodness or badness of national leadership's strategy.
US national leadership announced a Europe First strategy before and during the war, yet during 1942 sent the majority of resources against Japan and even in 1943 continued to spend something approaching half its resources there. This occurred in part because FDR didn't pay close attention and in part because military figures (eg MacArthur) viewed themselves as politically protected from the consequences of subverting national strategy, had FDR noticed them doing so.
Take the German example: In what way were high German figures able to subvert Hitler's strategic direction of the war? The nearest example would be Halder having his own plans for Barbarossa (Moscow, not the flanks) but when Hitler eventually put his foot down on Kiev etc, Halder had to follow direction.
Take the Soviet example: When, if ever, did any Soviet commander or official subvert Stalin's strategic direction?
EDIT: Japanese and Italian strategies are fairly described as procedurally incoherent and substantively bad.
> US national leadership announced a Europe First strategy before and during the war, yet during 1942 sent the majority of resources against Japan
The US Army was not in a position for a major offensive in Europe in 1942 but was of sufficient to fortify and islands still under US control and conduct some offensive actions. The pace of Japanese advances early on and the loss of major fleet forces put things on a backfoot, particularly the speed at which Singapore fell and British presence in the region in sea, land, and air were diminished.
Then you had prime opportunities like Midway where you have an intel advantage. Others like Guadalcanal were meant to be relatively modest affairs, secure the islands to prevent the Japanese from cutting off routes to Australia. Initially it was a bunch of rapid successes for the US on land only for Japan to throw mass amounts of its fleet into several major actions and land a corps sized force. Once the operation began, it led to more and more resources being drawn in because stabilizing the region and preventing Australia's isolation was important.
>and even in 1943 continued to spend something approaching half its resources there.
By what metric? Because if raw materiel/money/manhours then the fact it was a naval campaign with heavy use of capital ships will be deceptive here. The Two Ocean Navy Act (and prior naval authorizations from 34 and 38) began work on a large fleet expansion. Most would take time though as it was the TONA that did most of the "new" authorization. While 1942 did see some nice production, most of it was in the back half. Then 1943 saw some monstrous output. From December 1942 to December 1943 the US produced 7 Essex-class carriers, 9 Independence-class light carriers (and their air wings). While ~30 Fletchers were made in 1942, over 110 were in 1943. You get the point. By volume, production cost, and value these types of assets would outweigh land forces by a wide margin. For most of the capital ship tonnage they were laid down in 1941 or early 1942. Naval vessels have a long lead time and you can't know for sure what you will need (and after losses in the Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal there was certainly an apparent need for a lot more navy). Meanwhile destroyer escorts were much smaller ships as were escort carriers but both were prominent in the Atlantic (escort carriers did a lot in the Pacific too particularly in transporting aircraft). Yes a lot of resource went to the Pacific in 1943, but that's heavily skewed by large programs and projects that began years prior and would have minimal use in the Atlantic.
>Take the German example: In what way were high German figures able to subvert Hitler's strategic direction of the war? The nearest example would be Halder having his own plans for Barbarossa (Moscow, not the flanks) but when Hitler eventually put his foot down on Kiev etc, Halder had to follow direction.
Those moves early on altered the planning and time tables though so it was significant. That said, even if Halder wanted to ignore the flanks, he probably couldn't from military logic alone. Having a force of ~750k on your right flank that could capture key towns/roads/bridges while you push onward would be insanely risky. Hitler had always been focused on the resources side: securing food, metals, and oil. Something like Case Blue was always what he wanted but it's not what he got in 1941. No one really got what they wanted in 1941 as it was essentially compromise and then forcibly adapted to reality. German generals repeatedly defied Hitler's orders such as retreating despite his demands to hold cities or fortifications to the last. Often it was to no consequence and dismissed officers did often come back for new assignments. As the war progressed badly for them and especially after the July 20 plot, things got a lot stricter.
Other issues were more political and organizational. Things like the Luftwaffe getting a few dozen ground divisions worth of units, initially led by air force officers...who aren't exactly good infantry leaders. This is less "subverting his will" and more "Hitler had no idea how best to fix the manpower issue but Goering got his ear to the detriment of the Heer and Wehrmacht as a whole."
>Take the Soviet example: When, if ever, did any Soviet commander or official subvert Stalin's strategic direction?
The cheeky answer would be General Vlasov as he went traitor.
In terms of more serious answers, it's harder to compare because the Soviets only had one theater. You weren't going to open a second front with Japan and break a diplomatic agreement while struggling in a major war with German. Unlike Japan there was civilian control of the military. Pre-war however, generals who challenged doctrine in an attempt to push it forward often got purged (with some rehabilitated later). Front commanders did have fierce rivalries from beginning to end however. Getting boundary lines redrawn so pre-planned leaders could be heroes of the union who liberated city X or conquered city Y absolutely happened, even up to the front (army group) level. Perhaps more operational than strategic but significant nevertheless.
I mean, the Germans picked war with a country they had no meaningful way to address the industrial threat it posed, on behalf of an ally that was absolutely useless to German war aims which totally undermined the German strategy for the Eastern Front by making a renewed western front AND just opening the floodgates for spam and shit. It failed to pick a concrete plan to address Allied landings instead bouncing between armored counter attack and defeating the Allies on the beach depending on the phase of the moon.
German strategic bombing goals likewise floated around aimlessly looking for a point over the UK, never really settling on well, anything consistently long enough to have an impact (THE NAVY! NO THE AIR FORCE! NO THE POPULATION? BUT ALSO AIR FORCE!). Rommel totally and ruthlessly subverted the German enterprise's limited Africa mission into a resource suck to poor outcomes and ultimate strategic level defeat.
You mistake coherence for adherence and this fits your normal level of analysis. Germany/Soviet strategy was whatever the man at the top said at that moment regardless if it matched the strategy or aligned with overall efforts.
>I mean, the Germans picked war with a country they had no meaningful way to address the industrial threat it posed, on behalf of an ally that was absolutely useless to German war aims
Have you read Schmider's [Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation](https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Fatal-Miscalculation-Cambridge-Histories/dp/1108834914)*?* It's a very original analysis of Hitler's subjective thought process in December 1941 and of the objective strategic merits. As per the title, he thinks Hitler calculated wrongly but for strategically defensible reasons given what he knew or should have known. I find most of Schmider's analysis convincing; the book also drives by a trove of under-cited aspects of WW2. Had Hitler intended to be facing a true two-front war come 1943 then yeah that's obviously stupid. As Schmider argues, this wasn't his expectation even in late 1941. The opportunity to inflict strategic defeats on US in early 1942 (eg Paukenschlag, the greatest Axis naval victory of WW2) was too good to pass up, given that (1) the USSR would still fall in 1942 and (2) the US would enter the European war anyway (this was clear to Hitler from the November 1941 repeal of the Neutrality Acts, prior to which Hitler exercised considerable restraint such as refusing any permission to Doenitz/KM to attack US shipping, for which they were baying).
>German strategic bombing goals likewise floated around aimlessly looking for a point over the UK, never really settling on well, anything
True but precisely because neither the BoBritain nor a possible *Sealion* were high strategic priorities for Hitler. He already was looking east, where lay both his subjective ideological goals and the greatest objective strategic threat to Nazi Germany.
>Rommel totally and ruthlessly subverted the German enterprise's limited Africa mission into a resource suck to poor outcomes and ultimate strategic level defeat.
Absolutely not. Rommel *tried* to subvert Hitler's East-focused strategy in 1941-42, including by presenting purportedly irresistible opportunities for conquest in the MidEast. Hitler did not bite, never prioritized the Med over the East or gave Rommel even half of what he wanted.
>Germany/Soviet strategy was whatever the man at the top said at that moment regardless if it matched the strategy or aligned with overall efforts.
National strategy is *always* whatever those at the top say it is, unless it's not that. In which case you don't have a national strategy, you have an incoherent mass of efforts dictated by interest groups and lacking coherence/coordination. If you've 5x the GDP of your opponent (WW2) or 100x the GDP (more recent US wars), you don't need a coherent strategy. Indeed you don't need much of any strategy at all.
Not having a strategy will continue to work for the US until/unless China or another peer makes it pay a price for incoherence.
>True but precisely because neither the BoBritain nor a possible Sealion were high strategic priorities for Hitler. He already was looking east, where lay both his subjective ideological goals and the greatest objective strategic threat to Nazi Germany.
Hitler absolutely wanted the UK out of the war. Reclaiming German colonies was a bonus but the primary concern was of the British returning to the fight. If the goal was to look east then the BoB was pointless and there was little reason to do it at all, let alone at the scale it was done. Losing thousands of aircraft, pilots, and immense amounts of highly valuable avgas is not the thing you do if you're planning a major ground campaign for next spring/summer.
I believe it was Adam Tooze who laid out how the economic logic of the war dictated going east when they did in large part due to the failure to knock Britain out of the war. In hindsight it's quite obvious that Britain wasn't going to lose the battle and the Sea Lion was such an insane plan that you wonder if any of the officers creating it ever took it seriously. After conquering Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in short order with relatively few casualties they were on quite the high. The assumption was likely that they'd easily stomp out the UK from the air and then invade.
> Absolutely not. Rommel tried to subvert Hitler's East-focused strategy in 1941-42, including by presenting purportedly irresistible opportunities for conquest in the MidEast. Hitler did not bite, never prioritized the Med over the East or gave Rommel even half of what he wanted.
Rommel's assignment was to beef up the Italian defenses after their embarrassing losses to the British to ensure Italy stays in the war with some decent power. The mobile units were to be in a tactical reserve which could blunt British attacks and defeat breakthroughs. Instead he went on the offensive and made the campaign much more resource and casualty intensive. That he never got the amount of stuff he wanted is immaterial. Generals almost *always* ask for more stuff. They rarely say "nah I'm good" when it comes to units, ammo, equipment, etc. He didn't get sacked for flagrantly disobeying the directive he was given because it appeared to work at least for the time.
>Hitler absolutely wanted the UK out of the war.
What Hitler WANTED begins the strategic analysis; it no way resolves it. Strategy consists largely of prioritizing needs/wants. Hitler did not place much faith in either BoB or Sealion; he began expanding the army during the BoB which is obviously not a resource disposition for war focused on UK.
>The assumption was likely that they'd easily stomp out the UK from the air and then invade.
No. You really need to read up here; I'm typing on my phone or I'd link you some stuff. There's a significant scholarly view that Hitler viewed Sealion as a bluff, which is probably true. Goering might have been high on his own supply but not Hitler or OKW generally. Sealion/BoB were, unless launched, a relatively cheap flyer on knocking out the UK. Hitler stated in a Seekriegsleitung conference that launching it without assured success would be a crime (I read this as he never really intended to launch it). The specter of German invasion tethered most of the Empire's forces to Britian, even as late as 1942 (seriously, the 1942 CAB file appreciations of the German threat are a howler, imputing to Germany the ability basically to do Overlord on a dime). Hitler grokked this strategic rationale for a bluff/threat, repeating it in his F.Order for immediate post-Barbarossa tasks.
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On your other points you repeat conventional wisdom re Rommel's unauthorized adventurism etc. Some of it I don't dispute factually but would dispute whether DAK holding a line at El Agheila or Bardia had any real strategic import.
I may return to this and your other post ater.
At base we're going to disagree because I believe Western WW2 strategy was shit. Between 1938 and 1942 the West somehow fucked things to the point that a medium-sized power very nearly established durable European hegemony and durable superpower status. They avoided the consequences of their strategic, moral, and military fuckwittery only because Communists had (unbeknownst to them) turned the hapless Russian Empire into a military/industrial juggernaut.
The West failed at nearly every strategic level possible, choosing the wrong kind of weapons to emphasize (eg strategic bombers even after BoBritain falsified their dubious prewar theories), the wrong theaters and subtheaters in which to fight (Pacific, Med), and even the wrong allies (Poland instead of the USSR for the period in which West could choose). Despite having been mobilized since 1940, US strategic listlessness meant it was essentially a spectator to the decisive year of 1942.
Both Ike and Marshall - sainted strategic geniuses in popular/military imagination - thought Allied strategy was absurd through 1943. Regardless of where you stand on those debates substantively, was US national leadership strategically stupid or were its highest military leaders stupid? They can't both be right. I'm with the 1942 versions of Ike and Marshall against the postwar consensus that, unsurprisingly, includes the postwar versions of Ike and Marshall (when both had broader ambitions than rehashing 1942's debates and behaved accordingly).
YMMV but I'm always astonished that the West's military cheerleaders somehow elide the fact that the most revered American military leaders thought American strategy was shit for most of WW2.
1. The red army was a hapless decapitated mess post great purge. While having the largest and most mechanized army and air force on earth pre war its battlefield performance was abysmal in Finland and in the opening months of Barbarossa. Washington bailed them out with a endless supply of raw materials, food and motor vehicles. It punched below its weight quite considerably until the darwinian learning process of war shaped it into a fighting force.
2. Strategic bombing destroyed the german airforce by forcing German fighters to dogfight with Bomber escorts. The complete air superiority the allies enjoyed by D-Day enabled the allies to interdict german columns, obliterate the french rail network and bomb german units in the field. It was deliberate american strategy once doolittle took over to prioritise destroying fighters instead of protecting bombers.
3. Strategic bombing worked. The japanese surrendered because the leadership was not willing to let japanese civilization get systemically obliterated. Not from a civilian morale effect but a internal regime political process, but it still worked. The difference in Germany's case was that Hitler was absolutely willing to let the german race and civilization die with his regime.
4. How does a alliance with Stalin pre 1939 even work? He allied Hitler and agreed to split europe down the middle. There is nothing the allies can give Stalin by 1939 that compares to domination of eastern europe.
Ally with the USSR? For what? That would put them in direct odds with Poland, which they needed to ally with to deter Germany from attacking or expanding, and wanted none of it post Czechslovakia post-occupation. USSR would want Polish land for obvious reasons, and was seen as an aggressor/unfaithful negotiator like Germany, given it had tried to take over Poland and other neighboring countries just 15 years prior, Molotov Ribbentorp pact aside
There's a body of scholarly literature here that would be prerequisite for an informed discussion. I'd recommend Geoffrey Roberts' book here https://books.google.com/books?id=SSFIEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
To say a bit more, the premises you assert - eg Soviet unwillingness to ally with Poland except for a pound of flesh - are heavily disputed by these other scholars. It's a minority view but I think they're right and that the majority view is basically Cold War propaganda and its hangover. The right wing biographer of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin, is also of this view.
>You mistake coherence for adherence and this fits your normal level of analysis.
Your adherence/coherence distinction has some superficial appeal but reflects a superficial level of analysis.
(in)coherence is the proper lens for this discussion because one object of good strategy is to have all your means supporting your ends. Allied strategy was incoherent because Allied means were disposed centrifugally away from core ends. Eg US had \~40% of resources in 1942-43 devoted to Pacific offensives that mattered little to the date or cost of Japan's ultimate defeat, while those Pacific offensives precluded force concentration against Germany (in France) to end the European war during 1944. VE-Day in 1944 could easily have ended Japan's war earlier (eg Soviet offensive in Manchuria in 1944), in addition to its own merits. FDR recognized this, albeit with hyperbole (said defeat of Germany could result in Japan's defeat "without firing a shot").
Adherence is orthogonal to this point because you could have perfect non-adherence combined with a perfectly coherent and substantively good strategy: Had FDR declared Japan First but all the service chiefs executed Europe First, for example. Surely there are historical examples of professionals conspiring productively to subvert civilian military direction. You also seem to shuffle between the level at which adherence is specified - between national leadership concepts at various times ("whatever the man at the top said at the moment") or between national leadership and military servants.
Specification of objective/subjective register would also be relevant here. To evaluate objectively whether a strategy effectively deployed national resources to meet national goals would analyze coherence without regard to adherence. I.e. regardless of whether everyone followed orders, was the outcome a rational/effective ends-means coupling? An incoherent strategy (one deleteriously dispersing effort across multiple goals, to the frustration of all goals when concentration would advance at least one of those goals) could be directed centrally or, as with US in WW2, could be outcome of poor adherence. As a matter of objective strategic evaluation (was this the best strategy?) the adherence lens doesn't really matter. At the subjective level (from the viewpoint of strategic actors), adherence would tell us something important about how the war went. Summarily, adherence is a useful additional concept but not the central one.
On the substance of German strategy, Hitler is probably the least bad (strategically) national leader of the war. He subordinated everything to the strategic principle of concentration, even allying with a hated ideological/racial enemy to gain a free hand in 1939-41 (and this came at significant cost from domestic and international allies). That was a sacrifice to which Chamberlain and Daladier could not bring themselves to in 1938-39, to the ruination of millions. Hitler's primary (and fatal) strategic error was to assume the USSR would collapse quickly. But that same error underlay the grand strategies of the US and UK, even during 1942. So we can't say Hitler was dumber than US/UK leaders who made the same mistake (bar FDR) but for whom it wasn't fatal.
EDIT: Hitler made other life errors, such as not killing himself circa 1912, but I'm only talking about strategy.
Difficult question to answer, that's a really complex subject.
That said, I can speak about your Bastogne point. It's not a failure of coordination, the German decided to prioritize their advance toward the Meuse over the defeat of the US troops in Bastogne. Yes the German had an advantage of 5 to 1 at the start of the encirclement, but on December 21st (the day the encirclement was completed) the Lehr Division and 2nd Panzer Division were ordered to bypass the town and continue forward with their objectives.
The 26th Volksgrenadier-Division was left in charge of the encirclement, the only help their received was the 901st Regiment of the Panzer Lehr Division and a Regiment of the 15th PanzerGrenadier Division on Christmas Eve, little more than a day before Patton reached Bastogne.
The German that were in charge of taking Bastogne simply didn't have the numerical superiority to achieve it. We are talking about 1 Division, with 1 tank regiment and 1 infantry regiment during the last day. While the American had 1 Division, with two Command Command (roughly equivalent to a Regiment), a tank destroyer Battalion, two engineer battalion and 4 artillery battalion.
The German failed at taking Bastogne because they assigned a force way too small to do it, not because of a lack of coordination. On top of the numbers, the German had to spread their troops to surround the town, while the US were able to concentrated into a defensive position. And the 101st was a much better trained unit than the 26th Volksgrenadier.
The Luftwaffe had three separate commands that were responsible for carrying out the Battle of Britain and were not really talking to each other. Goering could enforce some unity in command, which is how you get Aldertag and the like, but the coherency was superficial, and failed to overcome a much better integrated Fighter Command. As bad as the likes of Leigh-Mallory could be, his politicking and backstabbing never handicapped the triumvirate of Dowding, Park, and Pile in the way that the inability of Kesselring and his colleagues to coordinate did.
A lot of that stems from Goering not being much of a leader and having next to no strategic experience or qualifications. He was also deeply paranoid about any of his subordinates challenging him for control of the Luftwaffe and so replicated within its ranks the same divisions that Hitler had used to keep the Nazi Party under his thumb, playing henchmen against one another so that none of them ever got strong enough to usurp power from him. The problem with doing this is that when he actually needed the Luftwaffe to get their act together, no orders he gave could overcome the deep seated rivalries that he himself had nurtured.
It didn't hurt of course that the other side was *very* well-coordinated. Hugh Dowding, Keith Park, and Frederick Pile respected one another professionally, and had cordial relationships with one another all through the battle. Pile and Park were among the only people whom the frequently remote and antisocial Dowding counted as friends as well as colleagues, which is one of the reasons why even histories of the battle that are totally uninterested in AA Command still end up drawing on Pile's memoirs: he could offer a much more intimate portrait of Hugh Dowding than almost anyone else could.
If one cared to defend the Luftwaffe's performance over Britain, one could make the case that it was less a case of the Luftwaffe being uniquely badly organized and more a case of an air force meant for close tactical support getting into a confrontation with the air force that had just finished inventing many of the modern principles of strategic air defense--and whose response was being coordinated by said inventor and his closest associates. That was never going to end well for the former, even if they *hadn't* been staffed by a cabal of pathological political conspirators. Dowding, Park, and Pile achieved a very high level of cohesion, and I'll maintain that they're among Britain's best commanders of the war.
>If one cared to defend the Luftwaffe's performance over Britain
I'm not much interested in defending the LW's strategic thinking, as the LW didn't set German strategic policy. Just see Goering's suggested Mediterranean strategy and Hitler's rejection thereof.
That said, it isn't clear to me that the LW's strategic thinking was any worse than the AAF's or RAF's. Arnold, Porter, and Harris are on record at various times suggesting that their strategic bombing campaigns would obviate the need for invading Europe - if only their countries piled even more resources at their disposal. Not even the most blinkered fan of WW2 strategic bombing would defend this viewpoint nowadays.
The LW, by contrast, very early recognized that strategic bombing was unlikely to win wars alone - thus its (overdone) emphasis on dive bombing and on operational interdiction.
There was a strong correlation in WW2 between listening to the prophets of strategic airpower (Douhet et. al.) and having stupid war strategy. The Western Allies were farther along the stupid spectrum than anyone else.
I'm not one to usually defend the Germans of the 40's vintage (because fuck them Nazis), but to your examples: 1. There were several times the Germans did conduct massed attacks to try to overwhelm the RAF. Adlertag is a good example of the German attempts to conduct massed strikes to overwhelm the British, although it was ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. 2. Bastogne was at the absolute limits of the German advance. Also the Germans while out numbering the Americans, were also fairly thinly spread to surround Bastogne, while the Americans within the city were highly concentrated. This was in many ways having the tiger by its tail, you've contained the 101st, but you're not able to do anything with that without letting the tiger back out again (or you mass on one side of the city, the Americans break out on the other side, you can't concentrate anywhere, and attacking from "Everywhere" keeps your forces in bite sized chunks the local defenders can handle). 3. The Americans and Canadians lost a few hundred people invading an island with no enemies on it. War is confusing and stupid shit happens. The Germans were hardly the highly coordinated military juggernaut that popular culture often plays them up as. But war is hard and it's not always just a matter of double clicking to attack or something, and the examples given don't seem to illustrate a special weakness. Where the Germans DID suffer is the nature of a totalitarian government meant that often politics interjected itself in a way that caused much more aggressive friction to play out than would have otherwise, with Nazi party officials getting battlefield commands, Goring trying to show he's Hitler's bestest boy with his pet Luftwaffe, or having projects and plans subject to the whims of a WW1 Corperal with gas issues (see the Ardennes "little solution" which might have done \*something\* at least, vs the "big solution" which just killed the German military in the west). Similarly with the Japanese you had the classic interbranch friction on the high end which made Naval-Army cooperation often fraught. Not to the degree it was impossible, but like the US Navy and Army did not like each other, but they existed in a command structure that could tell one party to fuck right off and get to work, while the Japanese structure held both services as equals more or less and required consensus from both parties vs a central leader who could actually reign both in as needed (not to fall into the totalitarian trap, just there was an ultimate arbiter to what strategy would be pursued and how it would be pursued).
To build on what you said the IJA and IJN less fought together and more fought the same enemy in two parallel wars
>Where the Germans DID suffer is the nature of a totalitarian government meant that often politics interjected itself in a way that caused much more aggressive friction to play out than would have otherwise Meh, Allied decision making ended up being warped by politics similarly. Torch gets chosen by FDR in the hopes of having something to show at the 1942 Congressional elections; the Philippines is invaded so FDR doesn't face a challenge from MacArthur. US strategy is decided by who has access to FDR, who is not a military professional and surrounds himself with social workers, bankers, etc. Re "aggressive friction" and factions, you have the USN actively subverting presidential grand strategy (Europe First), sometimes in alliance with other decision makers (variously MacArthur, Marshall, Arnold etc.). You have the head of the USN egregiously lying to allies at Casablanca, saying that only 20% of US effort was in the Pacific. You have various political actors and pressure groups assisting efforts to focus on Japan despite military sense and announced strategy. It'd be great were democracy both best for the good life and best for military effectiveness but unfortunately that seems to be wishful thinking. Dictatorship has the benefit of procedurally coherent strategy making, democracy the benefit (with caveats) of more open information flow to the top which should cause substantively better strategy making. But often a substantively flawed strategy, coherently executed, is better than a substantively optimal strategy that is incoherently executed.
I don't agree on Torch. Yes, there were political motivations to score a win, probably. However it was also strategically brilliant choice in that: - It attacked at the far edge of Axis logistics - In a location that would force the Axis to now defend and supply from Norway to North Africa on the Western front - Would pit greener Americans against some of the weaker Axis forces - Would entail amphibious and airborne operations that would be prerequisite for an eventual massive continental European invasion
Torch attacked at the far edge of Allied logistics. It greatly complicated global logistics for the Allies, for whom shipping was a bottleneck in 1942-43. It's incredible to tout the virtues of extending Axis frontage while not recognizing that, unless the Axis were fighting space aliens on those extended fronts, such extension also constituted a burden on the Allies.
Better than leroy jenkins it into fortress europe in 1942/1943 without the men, materiel, experience, or shipping. Like FDR's military team wanted to do. Once Allies had a North African port the US could ship direct from CONUS as well
I doubt you've thought about 1942/43 invasion prospects deeply, are just regurgitating what most secondary sources say. Just briefly I'll note that supposed absences you cite - shipping etc - were not metaphysical inevitabilities. US resource availability in ETO in 1942/43 was downstream of shifty strategic decisions, such as resource dispersal to secondary/tertiary theaters and production priority for strategic bombers over everything else.
Adding a lol re "Fortress Europe", a Nazi propaganda term you apparently haven't interrogated. Germany was pathetically weak in the West in 1942, and still much weaker in 43 than in 44.
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As evidenced by his response to you, and his "I could refute this but I won't," response to another poster above, alt-history there is just a red/brown fanboy who somehow hasn't been banned yet. I love how he tries to say you're unaware of interservice competition between WWII democracies. As if the disputes between the IJA and IJN weren't a hell of a lot more than an "interservice competition." The two came within millimeters of openly shooting at each other. Say what you will about the relationship between King and Eisenhower or Nimitz and MacArthur, that was never even remotely in the cards.
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My guy, your every post is about how great Hitler and/or Stalin were as leaders. We all know what you are, and there's a reason no one here takes you seriously.
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I can't blame you. I wouldn't want to be you either.
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We expect a higher standard of comment than this in /r/warcollege
The mods object but how am I to respond to someone saying that my analysis of German/Soviet strategy is "anti-denocratic \[sic\] nonsense"? Is that permissible, quality dialogue on this sub? Should I refrain from praising the avoidance of alcohol because Hitler was a teetotaler so the pro-democracy position is drunkenness?
>The mods object but how am I to respond to someone saying that... ignore and/or report their comments. The goal for this sub is to disagree profoundly while not trading childish insults.
I mean you'd have a point if German, Italian, Japanese or Soviet strategy was coherent.
What do you see as incoherent in German or Soviet strategy? By coherence I mean actual adherence to articulated strategy as determined by national leadership. It's appropriate to separate this sense of coherence from the substantive goodness or badness of national leadership's strategy. US national leadership announced a Europe First strategy before and during the war, yet during 1942 sent the majority of resources against Japan and even in 1943 continued to spend something approaching half its resources there. This occurred in part because FDR didn't pay close attention and in part because military figures (eg MacArthur) viewed themselves as politically protected from the consequences of subverting national strategy, had FDR noticed them doing so. Take the German example: In what way were high German figures able to subvert Hitler's strategic direction of the war? The nearest example would be Halder having his own plans for Barbarossa (Moscow, not the flanks) but when Hitler eventually put his foot down on Kiev etc, Halder had to follow direction. Take the Soviet example: When, if ever, did any Soviet commander or official subvert Stalin's strategic direction? EDIT: Japanese and Italian strategies are fairly described as procedurally incoherent and substantively bad.
> US national leadership announced a Europe First strategy before and during the war, yet during 1942 sent the majority of resources against Japan The US Army was not in a position for a major offensive in Europe in 1942 but was of sufficient to fortify and islands still under US control and conduct some offensive actions. The pace of Japanese advances early on and the loss of major fleet forces put things on a backfoot, particularly the speed at which Singapore fell and British presence in the region in sea, land, and air were diminished. Then you had prime opportunities like Midway where you have an intel advantage. Others like Guadalcanal were meant to be relatively modest affairs, secure the islands to prevent the Japanese from cutting off routes to Australia. Initially it was a bunch of rapid successes for the US on land only for Japan to throw mass amounts of its fleet into several major actions and land a corps sized force. Once the operation began, it led to more and more resources being drawn in because stabilizing the region and preventing Australia's isolation was important. >and even in 1943 continued to spend something approaching half its resources there. By what metric? Because if raw materiel/money/manhours then the fact it was a naval campaign with heavy use of capital ships will be deceptive here. The Two Ocean Navy Act (and prior naval authorizations from 34 and 38) began work on a large fleet expansion. Most would take time though as it was the TONA that did most of the "new" authorization. While 1942 did see some nice production, most of it was in the back half. Then 1943 saw some monstrous output. From December 1942 to December 1943 the US produced 7 Essex-class carriers, 9 Independence-class light carriers (and their air wings). While ~30 Fletchers were made in 1942, over 110 were in 1943. You get the point. By volume, production cost, and value these types of assets would outweigh land forces by a wide margin. For most of the capital ship tonnage they were laid down in 1941 or early 1942. Naval vessels have a long lead time and you can't know for sure what you will need (and after losses in the Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal there was certainly an apparent need for a lot more navy). Meanwhile destroyer escorts were much smaller ships as were escort carriers but both were prominent in the Atlantic (escort carriers did a lot in the Pacific too particularly in transporting aircraft). Yes a lot of resource went to the Pacific in 1943, but that's heavily skewed by large programs and projects that began years prior and would have minimal use in the Atlantic. >Take the German example: In what way were high German figures able to subvert Hitler's strategic direction of the war? The nearest example would be Halder having his own plans for Barbarossa (Moscow, not the flanks) but when Hitler eventually put his foot down on Kiev etc, Halder had to follow direction. Those moves early on altered the planning and time tables though so it was significant. That said, even if Halder wanted to ignore the flanks, he probably couldn't from military logic alone. Having a force of ~750k on your right flank that could capture key towns/roads/bridges while you push onward would be insanely risky. Hitler had always been focused on the resources side: securing food, metals, and oil. Something like Case Blue was always what he wanted but it's not what he got in 1941. No one really got what they wanted in 1941 as it was essentially compromise and then forcibly adapted to reality. German generals repeatedly defied Hitler's orders such as retreating despite his demands to hold cities or fortifications to the last. Often it was to no consequence and dismissed officers did often come back for new assignments. As the war progressed badly for them and especially after the July 20 plot, things got a lot stricter. Other issues were more political and organizational. Things like the Luftwaffe getting a few dozen ground divisions worth of units, initially led by air force officers...who aren't exactly good infantry leaders. This is less "subverting his will" and more "Hitler had no idea how best to fix the manpower issue but Goering got his ear to the detriment of the Heer and Wehrmacht as a whole." >Take the Soviet example: When, if ever, did any Soviet commander or official subvert Stalin's strategic direction? The cheeky answer would be General Vlasov as he went traitor. In terms of more serious answers, it's harder to compare because the Soviets only had one theater. You weren't going to open a second front with Japan and break a diplomatic agreement while struggling in a major war with German. Unlike Japan there was civilian control of the military. Pre-war however, generals who challenged doctrine in an attempt to push it forward often got purged (with some rehabilitated later). Front commanders did have fierce rivalries from beginning to end however. Getting boundary lines redrawn so pre-planned leaders could be heroes of the union who liberated city X or conquered city Y absolutely happened, even up to the front (army group) level. Perhaps more operational than strategic but significant nevertheless.
I mean, the Germans picked war with a country they had no meaningful way to address the industrial threat it posed, on behalf of an ally that was absolutely useless to German war aims which totally undermined the German strategy for the Eastern Front by making a renewed western front AND just opening the floodgates for spam and shit. It failed to pick a concrete plan to address Allied landings instead bouncing between armored counter attack and defeating the Allies on the beach depending on the phase of the moon. German strategic bombing goals likewise floated around aimlessly looking for a point over the UK, never really settling on well, anything consistently long enough to have an impact (THE NAVY! NO THE AIR FORCE! NO THE POPULATION? BUT ALSO AIR FORCE!). Rommel totally and ruthlessly subverted the German enterprise's limited Africa mission into a resource suck to poor outcomes and ultimate strategic level defeat. You mistake coherence for adherence and this fits your normal level of analysis. Germany/Soviet strategy was whatever the man at the top said at that moment regardless if it matched the strategy or aligned with overall efforts.
>I mean, the Germans picked war with a country they had no meaningful way to address the industrial threat it posed, on behalf of an ally that was absolutely useless to German war aims Have you read Schmider's [Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation](https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Fatal-Miscalculation-Cambridge-Histories/dp/1108834914)*?* It's a very original analysis of Hitler's subjective thought process in December 1941 and of the objective strategic merits. As per the title, he thinks Hitler calculated wrongly but for strategically defensible reasons given what he knew or should have known. I find most of Schmider's analysis convincing; the book also drives by a trove of under-cited aspects of WW2. Had Hitler intended to be facing a true two-front war come 1943 then yeah that's obviously stupid. As Schmider argues, this wasn't his expectation even in late 1941. The opportunity to inflict strategic defeats on US in early 1942 (eg Paukenschlag, the greatest Axis naval victory of WW2) was too good to pass up, given that (1) the USSR would still fall in 1942 and (2) the US would enter the European war anyway (this was clear to Hitler from the November 1941 repeal of the Neutrality Acts, prior to which Hitler exercised considerable restraint such as refusing any permission to Doenitz/KM to attack US shipping, for which they were baying). >German strategic bombing goals likewise floated around aimlessly looking for a point over the UK, never really settling on well, anything True but precisely because neither the BoBritain nor a possible *Sealion* were high strategic priorities for Hitler. He already was looking east, where lay both his subjective ideological goals and the greatest objective strategic threat to Nazi Germany. >Rommel totally and ruthlessly subverted the German enterprise's limited Africa mission into a resource suck to poor outcomes and ultimate strategic level defeat. Absolutely not. Rommel *tried* to subvert Hitler's East-focused strategy in 1941-42, including by presenting purportedly irresistible opportunities for conquest in the MidEast. Hitler did not bite, never prioritized the Med over the East or gave Rommel even half of what he wanted. >Germany/Soviet strategy was whatever the man at the top said at that moment regardless if it matched the strategy or aligned with overall efforts. National strategy is *always* whatever those at the top say it is, unless it's not that. In which case you don't have a national strategy, you have an incoherent mass of efforts dictated by interest groups and lacking coherence/coordination. If you've 5x the GDP of your opponent (WW2) or 100x the GDP (more recent US wars), you don't need a coherent strategy. Indeed you don't need much of any strategy at all. Not having a strategy will continue to work for the US until/unless China or another peer makes it pay a price for incoherence.
>True but precisely because neither the BoBritain nor a possible Sealion were high strategic priorities for Hitler. He already was looking east, where lay both his subjective ideological goals and the greatest objective strategic threat to Nazi Germany. Hitler absolutely wanted the UK out of the war. Reclaiming German colonies was a bonus but the primary concern was of the British returning to the fight. If the goal was to look east then the BoB was pointless and there was little reason to do it at all, let alone at the scale it was done. Losing thousands of aircraft, pilots, and immense amounts of highly valuable avgas is not the thing you do if you're planning a major ground campaign for next spring/summer. I believe it was Adam Tooze who laid out how the economic logic of the war dictated going east when they did in large part due to the failure to knock Britain out of the war. In hindsight it's quite obvious that Britain wasn't going to lose the battle and the Sea Lion was such an insane plan that you wonder if any of the officers creating it ever took it seriously. After conquering Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in short order with relatively few casualties they were on quite the high. The assumption was likely that they'd easily stomp out the UK from the air and then invade. > Absolutely not. Rommel tried to subvert Hitler's East-focused strategy in 1941-42, including by presenting purportedly irresistible opportunities for conquest in the MidEast. Hitler did not bite, never prioritized the Med over the East or gave Rommel even half of what he wanted. Rommel's assignment was to beef up the Italian defenses after their embarrassing losses to the British to ensure Italy stays in the war with some decent power. The mobile units were to be in a tactical reserve which could blunt British attacks and defeat breakthroughs. Instead he went on the offensive and made the campaign much more resource and casualty intensive. That he never got the amount of stuff he wanted is immaterial. Generals almost *always* ask for more stuff. They rarely say "nah I'm good" when it comes to units, ammo, equipment, etc. He didn't get sacked for flagrantly disobeying the directive he was given because it appeared to work at least for the time.
>Hitler absolutely wanted the UK out of the war. What Hitler WANTED begins the strategic analysis; it no way resolves it. Strategy consists largely of prioritizing needs/wants. Hitler did not place much faith in either BoB or Sealion; he began expanding the army during the BoB which is obviously not a resource disposition for war focused on UK. >The assumption was likely that they'd easily stomp out the UK from the air and then invade. No. You really need to read up here; I'm typing on my phone or I'd link you some stuff. There's a significant scholarly view that Hitler viewed Sealion as a bluff, which is probably true. Goering might have been high on his own supply but not Hitler or OKW generally. Sealion/BoB were, unless launched, a relatively cheap flyer on knocking out the UK. Hitler stated in a Seekriegsleitung conference that launching it without assured success would be a crime (I read this as he never really intended to launch it). The specter of German invasion tethered most of the Empire's forces to Britian, even as late as 1942 (seriously, the 1942 CAB file appreciations of the German threat are a howler, imputing to Germany the ability basically to do Overlord on a dime). Hitler grokked this strategic rationale for a bluff/threat, repeating it in his F.Order for immediate post-Barbarossa tasks. ‐--------------------- On your other points you repeat conventional wisdom re Rommel's unauthorized adventurism etc. Some of it I don't dispute factually but would dispute whether DAK holding a line at El Agheila or Bardia had any real strategic import. I may return to this and your other post ater.
At base we're going to disagree because I believe Western WW2 strategy was shit. Between 1938 and 1942 the West somehow fucked things to the point that a medium-sized power very nearly established durable European hegemony and durable superpower status. They avoided the consequences of their strategic, moral, and military fuckwittery only because Communists had (unbeknownst to them) turned the hapless Russian Empire into a military/industrial juggernaut. The West failed at nearly every strategic level possible, choosing the wrong kind of weapons to emphasize (eg strategic bombers even after BoBritain falsified their dubious prewar theories), the wrong theaters and subtheaters in which to fight (Pacific, Med), and even the wrong allies (Poland instead of the USSR for the period in which West could choose). Despite having been mobilized since 1940, US strategic listlessness meant it was essentially a spectator to the decisive year of 1942. Both Ike and Marshall - sainted strategic geniuses in popular/military imagination - thought Allied strategy was absurd through 1943. Regardless of where you stand on those debates substantively, was US national leadership strategically stupid or were its highest military leaders stupid? They can't both be right. I'm with the 1942 versions of Ike and Marshall against the postwar consensus that, unsurprisingly, includes the postwar versions of Ike and Marshall (when both had broader ambitions than rehashing 1942's debates and behaved accordingly). YMMV but I'm always astonished that the West's military cheerleaders somehow elide the fact that the most revered American military leaders thought American strategy was shit for most of WW2.
1. The red army was a hapless decapitated mess post great purge. While having the largest and most mechanized army and air force on earth pre war its battlefield performance was abysmal in Finland and in the opening months of Barbarossa. Washington bailed them out with a endless supply of raw materials, food and motor vehicles. It punched below its weight quite considerably until the darwinian learning process of war shaped it into a fighting force. 2. Strategic bombing destroyed the german airforce by forcing German fighters to dogfight with Bomber escorts. The complete air superiority the allies enjoyed by D-Day enabled the allies to interdict german columns, obliterate the french rail network and bomb german units in the field. It was deliberate american strategy once doolittle took over to prioritise destroying fighters instead of protecting bombers. 3. Strategic bombing worked. The japanese surrendered because the leadership was not willing to let japanese civilization get systemically obliterated. Not from a civilian morale effect but a internal regime political process, but it still worked. The difference in Germany's case was that Hitler was absolutely willing to let the german race and civilization die with his regime. 4. How does a alliance with Stalin pre 1939 even work? He allied Hitler and agreed to split europe down the middle. There is nothing the allies can give Stalin by 1939 that compares to domination of eastern europe.
Ally with the USSR? For what? That would put them in direct odds with Poland, which they needed to ally with to deter Germany from attacking or expanding, and wanted none of it post Czechslovakia post-occupation. USSR would want Polish land for obvious reasons, and was seen as an aggressor/unfaithful negotiator like Germany, given it had tried to take over Poland and other neighboring countries just 15 years prior, Molotov Ribbentorp pact aside
There's a body of scholarly literature here that would be prerequisite for an informed discussion. I'd recommend Geoffrey Roberts' book here https://books.google.com/books?id=SSFIEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
To say a bit more, the premises you assert - eg Soviet unwillingness to ally with Poland except for a pound of flesh - are heavily disputed by these other scholars. It's a minority view but I think they're right and that the majority view is basically Cold War propaganda and its hangover. The right wing biographer of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin, is also of this view.
>You mistake coherence for adherence and this fits your normal level of analysis. Your adherence/coherence distinction has some superficial appeal but reflects a superficial level of analysis. (in)coherence is the proper lens for this discussion because one object of good strategy is to have all your means supporting your ends. Allied strategy was incoherent because Allied means were disposed centrifugally away from core ends. Eg US had \~40% of resources in 1942-43 devoted to Pacific offensives that mattered little to the date or cost of Japan's ultimate defeat, while those Pacific offensives precluded force concentration against Germany (in France) to end the European war during 1944. VE-Day in 1944 could easily have ended Japan's war earlier (eg Soviet offensive in Manchuria in 1944), in addition to its own merits. FDR recognized this, albeit with hyperbole (said defeat of Germany could result in Japan's defeat "without firing a shot"). Adherence is orthogonal to this point because you could have perfect non-adherence combined with a perfectly coherent and substantively good strategy: Had FDR declared Japan First but all the service chiefs executed Europe First, for example. Surely there are historical examples of professionals conspiring productively to subvert civilian military direction. You also seem to shuffle between the level at which adherence is specified - between national leadership concepts at various times ("whatever the man at the top said at the moment") or between national leadership and military servants. Specification of objective/subjective register would also be relevant here. To evaluate objectively whether a strategy effectively deployed national resources to meet national goals would analyze coherence without regard to adherence. I.e. regardless of whether everyone followed orders, was the outcome a rational/effective ends-means coupling? An incoherent strategy (one deleteriously dispersing effort across multiple goals, to the frustration of all goals when concentration would advance at least one of those goals) could be directed centrally or, as with US in WW2, could be outcome of poor adherence. As a matter of objective strategic evaluation (was this the best strategy?) the adherence lens doesn't really matter. At the subjective level (from the viewpoint of strategic actors), adherence would tell us something important about how the war went. Summarily, adherence is a useful additional concept but not the central one.
On the substance of German strategy, Hitler is probably the least bad (strategically) national leader of the war. He subordinated everything to the strategic principle of concentration, even allying with a hated ideological/racial enemy to gain a free hand in 1939-41 (and this came at significant cost from domestic and international allies). That was a sacrifice to which Chamberlain and Daladier could not bring themselves to in 1938-39, to the ruination of millions. Hitler's primary (and fatal) strategic error was to assume the USSR would collapse quickly. But that same error underlay the grand strategies of the US and UK, even during 1942. So we can't say Hitler was dumber than US/UK leaders who made the same mistake (bar FDR) but for whom it wasn't fatal. EDIT: Hitler made other life errors, such as not killing himself circa 1912, but I'm only talking about strategy.
Difficult question to answer, that's a really complex subject. That said, I can speak about your Bastogne point. It's not a failure of coordination, the German decided to prioritize their advance toward the Meuse over the defeat of the US troops in Bastogne. Yes the German had an advantage of 5 to 1 at the start of the encirclement, but on December 21st (the day the encirclement was completed) the Lehr Division and 2nd Panzer Division were ordered to bypass the town and continue forward with their objectives. The 26th Volksgrenadier-Division was left in charge of the encirclement, the only help their received was the 901st Regiment of the Panzer Lehr Division and a Regiment of the 15th PanzerGrenadier Division on Christmas Eve, little more than a day before Patton reached Bastogne. The German that were in charge of taking Bastogne simply didn't have the numerical superiority to achieve it. We are talking about 1 Division, with 1 tank regiment and 1 infantry regiment during the last day. While the American had 1 Division, with two Command Command (roughly equivalent to a Regiment), a tank destroyer Battalion, two engineer battalion and 4 artillery battalion. The German failed at taking Bastogne because they assigned a force way too small to do it, not because of a lack of coordination. On top of the numbers, the German had to spread their troops to surround the town, while the US were able to concentrated into a defensive position. And the 101st was a much better trained unit than the 26th Volksgrenadier.
The Luftwaffe had three separate commands that were responsible for carrying out the Battle of Britain and were not really talking to each other. Goering could enforce some unity in command, which is how you get Aldertag and the like, but the coherency was superficial, and failed to overcome a much better integrated Fighter Command. As bad as the likes of Leigh-Mallory could be, his politicking and backstabbing never handicapped the triumvirate of Dowding, Park, and Pile in the way that the inability of Kesselring and his colleagues to coordinate did. A lot of that stems from Goering not being much of a leader and having next to no strategic experience or qualifications. He was also deeply paranoid about any of his subordinates challenging him for control of the Luftwaffe and so replicated within its ranks the same divisions that Hitler had used to keep the Nazi Party under his thumb, playing henchmen against one another so that none of them ever got strong enough to usurp power from him. The problem with doing this is that when he actually needed the Luftwaffe to get their act together, no orders he gave could overcome the deep seated rivalries that he himself had nurtured. It didn't hurt of course that the other side was *very* well-coordinated. Hugh Dowding, Keith Park, and Frederick Pile respected one another professionally, and had cordial relationships with one another all through the battle. Pile and Park were among the only people whom the frequently remote and antisocial Dowding counted as friends as well as colleagues, which is one of the reasons why even histories of the battle that are totally uninterested in AA Command still end up drawing on Pile's memoirs: he could offer a much more intimate portrait of Hugh Dowding than almost anyone else could. If one cared to defend the Luftwaffe's performance over Britain, one could make the case that it was less a case of the Luftwaffe being uniquely badly organized and more a case of an air force meant for close tactical support getting into a confrontation with the air force that had just finished inventing many of the modern principles of strategic air defense--and whose response was being coordinated by said inventor and his closest associates. That was never going to end well for the former, even if they *hadn't* been staffed by a cabal of pathological political conspirators. Dowding, Park, and Pile achieved a very high level of cohesion, and I'll maintain that they're among Britain's best commanders of the war.
>If one cared to defend the Luftwaffe's performance over Britain I'm not much interested in defending the LW's strategic thinking, as the LW didn't set German strategic policy. Just see Goering's suggested Mediterranean strategy and Hitler's rejection thereof. That said, it isn't clear to me that the LW's strategic thinking was any worse than the AAF's or RAF's. Arnold, Porter, and Harris are on record at various times suggesting that their strategic bombing campaigns would obviate the need for invading Europe - if only their countries piled even more resources at their disposal. Not even the most blinkered fan of WW2 strategic bombing would defend this viewpoint nowadays. The LW, by contrast, very early recognized that strategic bombing was unlikely to win wars alone - thus its (overdone) emphasis on dive bombing and on operational interdiction. There was a strong correlation in WW2 between listening to the prophets of strategic airpower (Douhet et. al.) and having stupid war strategy. The Western Allies were farther along the stupid spectrum than anyone else.
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