Gamerman01 wrote:
I’d be interested to hear analysis on USA troop performance in Europe (or any other country, just specifying USA because they had the 2 very different campaigns a world apart)
In late 1942, American troops invaded Algeria. The result was a battle between the Americans and the French. The two sides soon negotiated a peace treaty. But before they did, America achieved a 2.5-to-1 exchange ratio against the French. As you pointed out, an exchange ratio is not necessarily a good measurement of infantry effectiveness. If one side (such as the United States) happens to have an overwhelming advantage in air power, equipment, and numbers, one would expect such a nation to achieve a favorable ratio.
In 1943, the U.S. and Britain invaded Italy. In the opinion of the U.S. military officer who performed the study I’d mentioned earlier, that combat represented the best example of American and British soldiers going up against Germans. However, he pointed out that the German force in Italy was relatively small, that it was a reserve force, and that as such it did not have the same equipment as a front line force of equal size might have had. Also, a significant percentage of its soldiers had been sent there for rest and recovery (recovery from battle wounds, for example). Based on his analysis of Anglo-American performance against this force, the author of the study concluded that American soldiers were 80 - 100% as combat-effective as the Germans, and that the British were 50% as combat-effective. (Elsewhere, he acknowledged the possibility that he’d overestimated American soldiers’ combat-effectiveness.)
In the Soviet Union there was a strong dislike for Stalin. When Hitler invaded, he found that a significant percentage of the population was willing to join the German Army, so that they could fight against communism. One would think that the logical place for these volunteers would be on the eastern front, against communism. However, in 1944 Germany was experiencing a dramatic troop shortage, and needed to quickly transfer soldiers to its western front to prepare against American and British invasion. Many of its best western front soldiers were placed in Calais, because that is where the Germans expected the blow to land. On most of the Normandy beachheads, American and British soldiers faced mostly Russians. Only at Omaha did the Allies face actual German soldiers. Hence the phrase “Bloody Omaha.” The U.S. lost 3000 men at Omaha, in exchange for 1200 Germans. On the one hand, the Americans enjoyed air supremacy, the benefit of battleship bombardments, far more weapons and equipment than the Germans, and a 5:1 numerical advantage over the German defenders. On the other hand, the Germans had the advantage of being the defender, and the advantage of having had time to prepare their defenses. The analysis of the Italian campaign probably provides a more accurate picture of relative combat effectiveness than does this one isolated battle.
During the initial phases of the Battle of the Bulge, bad weather prevented the Allies from receiving much benefit from their air supremacy. That’s useful, because we want ground battles, without the complicating factor of one side pummeling the other side from the air. The Battle of the Bulge was useful in another way as well, because it consisted of both attacks and counterattacks. Over the course of the battle each side was given opportunities to be on offense and on defense.
Many of Germany’s best soldiers were sent to the Battle of the Bulge. However, that battle occurred in late 1944. By that point, Germany was running very low on “best soldiers” it could send. To fill out its numbers, many of the German soldiers in that battle were old men or boys. A number of infantry divisions were poorly equipped. Germany’s tanks in that battle were often immobilized due to its fuel shortages. The exchange ratio in that battle was approximately 1:1.
The Battle of Berlin began just three months after the Battle of the Bulge. While no American troops were involved in the Battle of Berlin, that battle nevertheless illustrates the types of problems the German military faced at the time.
The German defences were mainly led by Helmuth Weidling and consisted of several depleted, badly equipped, and disorganised Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, the latter of which included many SS foreign volunteers, as well as poorly trained Volkssturm and Hitler Youth members.
The Volkssturm consisted almost entirely of old men and children; while the Hitler Youth was of course children. The Soviets experienced 81,000 losses in the Battle of Berlin; as compared to about 95,000 losses for Germany. Just two years earlier, the usual exchange ratio between Germany and the U.S.S.R. had been 3:1 in Germany’s favor. The fact that the Soviets later attained–and even slightly exceeded–a 1:1 ratio is one of several pieces of evidence which demonstrate Germany had reached the very end of its strength.
I’m less familiar with the Pacific war than I am the European war. That said, I know that during the early stages of the war between the U.S. and Japan, Japanese military doctrine called for the bulk of their defenses to be placed on or near beaches. That doctrine made them vulnerable to shore bombardment and attack from the air, and was a significant factor in the favorable exchange ratios American forces obtained. Late in the war, a maverick Japanese army officer used a different approach. His defenses on or near beaches were light. Once his beachhead defenses had been conquered, the Americans assumed that since the shell had been cracked, the whole defensive structure for that island would crumble. Instead of that, the Japanese officer and his men conducted a long and effective defensive campaign from the interior of the island. They used natural and artificial tunnels, caves, mountains, etc. Their plan was to hold out as long as possible while inflicting the maximum possible damage on the enemy.
However, it’s difficult to translate that one battle into an overall comparison between Japanese and American soldiers’ combat-effectiveness. The Japanese had the natural advantages of being on defense, and the island in question had a physical structure very, very well-suited to defense.
