Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart Quote

[BritinBritain]

That Rommel was losing fuel,equipment and supplies that he could not afford to lose is not a serious argument for remaining at Tobruk and adopting a defensive strategy : with such a strategy you can't win . Besides,by remaining defensive he also would lose fuel,equipment and supplies he could not afford to lose .
.

I never mentioned anything about Tobruk, those are your words not mine.

We disagree fundamentally : logistic problems do not cause defeats or failures, but are caused by defeats or failures .

You are saying logistic failures or problems do not cause defeats or failures? :lol:

Without proper logistic control to resupply fuel, replacement of soft skinned and armoured vehicles as well as personnel lost, any campaign is doomed to fail.

You obviously have never been employed with military logistics, otherwise you would not make such stupid statements

I'm not going to even try to debate with you, you do not know what you are talking about, and because quite frankly you're an idiot.

As someone said to me "You cannot convince an idiot he's wrong"

 

[lljadw]

SIGH
Barbarossa failed in the Summer of 1941, NOT because of logistic problems ,the logistic problems after the Summer were the result of the failure of Barbarossa .
If Barbarossa had succeeded in the Summer, there would be no logistic problems in the Autumn .
Market Garden did not fail because of logistic problems, but because of the resistance from the Germans .
One is defeated by the opponent, not because of logistic problems .
Saying that it was because of logistic problems,is trying to deny that the opponent was better, stronger .
Overlord succeeded : NOT because the Germans had logistic problems .

 

[MontyB]

SIGH
Barbarossa failed in the Summer of 1941, NOT because of logistic problems ,the logistic problems after the Summer were the result of the failure of Barbarossa .
If Barbarossa had succeeded in the Summer, there would be no logistic problems in the Autumn .
Market Garden did not fail because of logistic problems, but because of the resistance from the Germans .
One is defeated by the opponent, not because of logistic problems .
Saying that it was because of logistic problems,is trying to deny that the opponent was better, stronger .
Overlord succeeded : NOT because the Germans had logistic problems .

You provide a rather double sided argument Barbarossa may have succeeded had the Germans been able to:
A. Replace all it's losses from the Balkans/Greek campaigns.
B. Been able to fully supply front line troops during the Russian winter offensive of 1941 thus limiting it's success.

Operation Overlord may well have gone completely differently had German units been properly trained, fully equipped with first grade weapons and been at full strength backed by a functioning Luftwaffe however the Allies focused on disrupting troop movements, replacement material and supplies for months prior to D-Day, had logistics not been important why would they have bothered?

Essentially the counterpoint is that an opponent can be better if the other side is under equipped.

I will give you an obligatory quote:

You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.

—General Dwight D. Eisenhower

And a link because reading is fun.

https://www.heritage.org/military-s...essays/logistics-the-lifeblood-military-power

 

[lljadw]

You provide a rather double sided argument Barbarossa may have succeeded had the Germans been able to:
A. Replace all it's losses from the Balkans/Greek campaigns.
B. Been able to fully supply front line troops during the Russian winter offensive of 1941 thus limiting it's success.

Operation Overlord may well have gone completely differently had German units been properly trained, fully equipped with first grade weapons and been at full strength backed by a functioning Luftwaffe however the Allies focused on disrupting troop movements, replacement material and supplies for months prior to D-Day, had logistics not been important why would they have bothered?

Essentially the counterpoint is that an opponent can be better if the other side is under equipped.

I will give you an obligatory quote:



And a link because reading is fun.

https://www.heritage.org/military-s...essays/logistics-the-lifeblood-military-power

Second reply ( the first disappeared suddenly :-x:-x)
I stick to my point that logistic problems are the result, not the cause of a failure/a defeat : the cause of a failure/defeat is the enemy .
For Stalingrad : the encirclment of 6 Army was not caused by supply problems .
If the Soviets had collapsed, there would be no supply problems .
For Barbarossa : its failure in the Summer at the border (thus no supply problems ) was caused by the willingness of the Soviet soldier to fight and to die .
For the Soviet winter offensive : its failure was caused by the willingness of the German soldier to fight and to die .
For Market Harden : its failure was caused by the willingness of the German soldiers to fight and to die ,not by what did Montgomery (something that is still claimed since 1945 by journalists living between Seattle and Augusta )
It was the same for the failure of Patton in August 1944.
It was the same for Compass.
It was the same for Bagration : the Soviets were not in Berlin in September 1944 ,because of the willingness of the German soldier to fight and to die .
It was the same for Dunkirk : the evacuation was possible because of the willingness of the British and Allied soldiers to fight and to die , not because of Hitler's interference .
And about Overlord : if the Germans were that strong that a landing would fail, there would be no landing in Normandy, but elsewhere .
For the Pacific : if the Japanese had surrendered/deserted on day one at Okinawa, the fighting would be over .
The use of logistical problems to explain a failure/defeat is nothing less than the refusal to admit that one was defeated by the enemy .
US have failed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not because of logistical problems .

 

[MontyB]

The problem is that you seem to be denying that logistics problems affect operational capability, if Allied forces had landed on D-Day without ammunition they wouldn't have got off the beaches no matter how many of them were prepared to die for the cause.

 

[BritinBritain]

Without a proper logistic system in place any battle/campaign will fail drastically. I am wondering if lljadw has ever served in the military, if he had he wouldn't make such ridiculous statements.

 

[MontyB]

Without a proper logistic system in place any battle/campaign will fail drastically. I am wondering if lljadw has ever served in the military, if he had he wouldn't make such ridiculous statements.

To be honest I think the problem is in the wording, once again I think he is partially right but misses the overall picture in that all of the aspects we all have spoken about are part of an intertwined system.
Having the greatest logistical capabilities in the world doesn't matter if the troops aren't going to fight and being the best troops in the world doesn't help if they aren't supplied.
The period from 1943 until D-Day in Western Europe was almost entirely devoted to degrading the Germans ability to fight, the entire bomber war was aimed at destroying the infrastructure and manufacturing Germany needed to carry on it war effort, the u-boat war was focused on war material not warships, killing the enemy was not the priority, killing it's ability and desire to fight the war was the aim.
Essentially the largest and longest sea and air battles of WW2 were all about logistics.

 

[BritinBritain]

To be honest I think the problem is in the wording, once again I think he is partially right but misses the overall picture in that all of the aspects we all have spoken about are part of an intertwined system.
Having the greatest logistical capabilities in the world doesn't matter if the troops aren't going to fight and being the best troops in the world doesn't help if they aren't supplied.
The period from 1943 until D-Day in Western Europe was almost entirely devoted to degrading the Germans ability to fight, the entire bomber war was aimed at destroying the infrastructure and manufacturing Germany needed to carry on it war effort, the u-boat war was focused on war material not warships, killing the enemy was not the priority, killing it's ability and desire to fight the war was the aim.
Essentially the largest and longest sea and air battles of WW2 were all about logistics.

The bomber campaign of Bomber Command and the USAAF could not have been carried out without without the logistically supply of aircraft spare parts, fuel, ordnance to destroy German war material capability as well as the humble potato to feed personnel. Without logistics the military cannot fight. I really cannot understand why he cannot grasp this fact

 

[lljadw]

To be honest I think the problem is in the wording, once again I think he is partially right but misses the overall picture in that all of the aspects we all have spoken about are part of an intertwined system.
Having the greatest logistical capabilities in the world doesn't matter if the troops aren't going to fight and being the best troops in the world doesn't help if they aren't supplied.
The period from 1943 until D-Day in Western Europe was almost entirely devoted to degrading the Germans ability to fight, the entire bomber war was aimed at destroying the infrastructure and manufacturing Germany needed to carry on it war effort, the u-boat war was focused on war material not warships, killing the enemy was not the priority, killing it's ability and desire to fight the war was the aim.
Essentially the largest and longest sea and air battles of WW2 were all about logistics.

It depends on what you are calling logistics .
The U Boat War had no chance at all to win .the aim of the U Boat war was not only to destroy war material,but also food deliveries for the British civilians .Focusing on war material was senseless as Britain had everything ( except oil ) that was needed to fight,focusing on the civilians had also no chance to succeed ,as Britain agriculture was able to feed the population without import of foreign food .
I have also two objections on what you are saying about the air war :
1 The period from 1943 until D-Day : this is not correct ,as the air attacks continued .
2 It is also not so that the air attacks had as aim only what you say : their aim was also to break the moral of the civilians,which was considered by Harris as the only way to force Germany to give up : the attacks on Hamburg and Berlin (the latter failed ) had as aim to finish the war without a landing in Normandy .
The result was that BC failed as did the U Boats : it failed to destroy the moral of the civilians , and the results of the attacks on the German infrastructure are very questionable .The German war production (tanks, aircraft ) increased til the end .But, it is dubious and unproven that without the air attacks,the German war production would have increased even more .More bombers, more U Boats would not have more results .
Thus, notwithstanding the big amount of manpower, fuel, raw materials that was used for the U Boat war and for the attacks on the German cities, the results were that British/German civilians did not succumb.
Too much importance has been given on logistics and the role of moral has been neglected .
Italy (always scorned by British historians ) gave up in September 1943,not because of logistics, but because morale was broken .But Italy did not give up in December 1940 when during Compass Wavell captured half of Libya ,and it was because of this that Libya was saved, not because Churchill /Wavell stopped Compass to go to Greece .
Barbarossa failed in the Summer of 1941, not because of German logistics, but because the Soviet soldier continued to fight .
Bradley and Patton did not go to Berlin in September 1944, not because Patton had no fuel ( there is always fuel ) but because the average German soldier stopped to run away and decided to fight and if needed to die .
If the Germans had collapsed, Patton would have no logistic problems . It is the same for all failed military operations .
It is not enough to have more supplies ,there is always the enemy : you can only defeat the enemy when he gives up .
The use of logistic problems to explain a defeat is mostly an excuse ,by the front commanders,to blame some one else and to save their reputation .
The Americans still blame Monty for the defeat of Market Garden ( the underlying reason is that Monty had not the right to be arrogant, this was reserved to Patton ) ,but the real culprit was not Monty, but Model : it was Model and the average German soldier who defeated MG. Not logistics .
Why did Germany give up in November 1918 ? Not because of logistic problems, but because the morale of the civilians and military had collapsed .

 

[MontyB]

Again I think this is a battle of semantics rather than a disagreement, what you say is true however that doesn't make the counter argument wrong either.
Market Garden is an interesting argument in that the plan was dubious from the beginning, ignored intelligence and it seemed to entirely underestimate the German soldiers will and capacity to fight all issues that I think can be attributed to Montgomery but on the other side of the coin it damn near worked.

I would argue that the Italians never had the will to fight and I would use both their attempted assault on southern France and Greece in 1940 as proof as both campaigns were abject failures, hell the Greeks had to pretty much form an army to fight them and still kicked the crap out of them.

In the end this has become a bit of a "which came first the chicken or the egg" battle as I think they are two sides of the same coin, a modern military requires a robust logistics system to keep it going but all the material in the world won't help if you don't have a force prepared to use it.

 

[lljadw]

Again I think this is a battle of semantics rather than a disagreement, what you say is true however that doesn't make the counter argument wrong either.
Market Garden is an interesting argument in that the plan was dubious from the beginning, ignored intelligence and it seemed to entirely underestimate the German soldiers will and capacity to fight all issues that I think can be attributed to Montgomery but on the other side of the coin it damn near worked.

I would argue that the Italians never had the will to fight and I would use both their attempted assault on southern France and Greece in 1940 as proof as both campaigns were abject failures, hell the Greeks had to pretty much form an army to fight them and still kicked the crap out of them.

In the end this has become a bit of a "which came first the chicken or the egg" battle as I think they are two sides of the same coin, a modern military requires a robust logistics system to keep it going but all the material in the world won't help if you don't have a force prepared to use it.

About MG : it could only succeed if the Germans decided to give up.Thus one can not blame Montgomery to found MG on this assumption .With the small forces available, the success of MG depended on the Germans .
About the Italians : they had also successes : the Ariete division took POW a whole British brigade and the Italian fleet succeeded to the end to supply the Axis forces in North Africa .

 

[lljadw]

I find it questionable to label the Italian attack in South East France in June 1940 as an abject failure,or even as a failure : failure depends on the aim .And the aim of the attack was not to capture Paris, Lyon or Marseille : the aim was political : Italy needed some fighting and a few thousands of deaths to participate on the negotiations after Briton's surrender .

After WWI ,Italy wanted to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean,at the cost of Britain and France . This could only happen by war. The problem was that Italy could not win such a war . It needed an ally :Germany .Thus,it had to wait on a war between France + Britain against Germany and becoming a German ally at the right moment = when Germany was winning .But a DOW was not sufficient : Germany would expect Italy to fight and to have losses , not to win:Germany was convinced that it could win on its own . But if Italy wanted to have Malta, Egypt, Corsica, Nizza,it had to fight ,as Hitler said one year before to the Hungarians : if you want to eat, you must help in the kitchen .
In June 1940 Italy could only fight against France, an offensive against Egypt could not happen before the winter .And the only place where the Italian Army could fight against France was on the border with France, an attack against Tunisia in June was also not possible .
Thus ,that Italy was not advancing and conquered only a few square km of French territory was not very relevant ;what was relevant was
that Italy had fought and lost a few thousand of deaths .
And even if the attack was a failure, this does not mean that the Italians did not want to fight : Barbarossa was a failure, MG was a failure, the air attacks on Berlin at the end of 1943 were failures,,the U Boat war was a failure,the Battle of Britain was a failure, but that does not prove that the Germans and the British did not want to fight .