Showing posts with label campaigns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label campaigns. Show all posts
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Monday, May 18, 2020
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Mapping WW2 in Europe
World War I - summary of the "Great War" - GeHi > .
Interbellum, WW2, and aftermath:
From post-WW1 humiliation to defeat of nationalist belligerence in WW2 > .
World War II in Europe: Every Day > .
42 maps that explain World War II - Vox:
Changing the Map of Europe Back to 1914 - AcCe > .
Changing the Map of Europe Back to 1933 - AcCe > .
The Cold War - summary of main stages of conflict - GeHi > .
42 maps that explain World War II - Vox:
Changing the Map of Europe Back to 1914 - AcCe > .
Changing the Map of Europe Back to 1933 - AcCe > .
The Cold War - summary of main stages of conflict - GeHi > .
Monday, May 11, 2020
Monday, November 25, 2019
Friday, November 1, 2019
40-7-10 Battle of Britain Begins
How RAF Prepared For Luftwaffe's Offensive | Battle Of Britain | Timeline > .
Radar developments > .
Bizarre Origins of Radar Technology - Time > .
Battle of Britain and Artie Holmes' Hurricane - HiGu > .
Radar developments > .
Bizarre Origins of Radar Technology - Time > .
Battle of Britain and Artie Holmes' Hurricane - HiGu > .
13 Hours That Saved Britain > .
Battle of Britain 3 | Their Finest Hour (WW2 Doc) - Time > .
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The British officially recognise the battle's duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as The Blitz, that lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. German historians do not accept this subdivision and regard the Luftschlacht um England (Air Battle for England) as a single campaign lasting from July 1940 to June 1941, including the Blitz.Battle of Britain 3 | Their Finest Hour (WW2 Doc) - Time > .
The Kanalkampf (Channel fight) was the German term for air operations by the Luftwaffe against the British Royal Air Force (RAF) over the English Channel in July 1940. The air operations over the channel began the Battle of Britain during the Second World War. By 25 June, the Allies had been defeated in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Britain rejected peace overtures and on 16 July, Adolf Hitler issued Directive 16 to the Wehrmacht (German armed forces), ordering preparations for the invasion of Britain, under the codename Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sea Lion).
The Germans needed air superiority over southern England before the invasion and the Luftwaffe was to destroy the RAF, assume command of the skies and protect the cross-channel invasion from the Royal Navy. To engage RAF Fighter Command, the Luftwaffe attacked convoys in the English Channel. ... British and German writers and historians acknowledge that air battles were fought over the Channel between the Battle of France and Battle of Britain; deliberate German attacks against British coastal targets and convoys began on 4 July. During the Kanalkampf, the Luftwaffe received modest support from shore artillery and the E-Boats of the Kriegsmarine (German navy).
Fighter Command could not protect adequately the convoys; the Germans sank several British and neutral ships and shot down a considerable number of British fighters. The Royal Navy was forced to suspend the sailing of large convoys in Channel waters and close it to ocean-going vessels until more protection could be arranged, which took several weeks. On 1 August, Hitler issued Directive 17, extending Luftwaffe operations to the British mainland and RAF-related targets and on Adlertag (Eagle Day, 13 August) the main air offensive against the RAF began. The Kanalkampf had drawn out Fighter Command as intended and convoy attacks continued for several more days. Both sides had suffered losses but the Luftwaffe failed to inflict a decisive defeat on Fighter Command and the RAF; the Luftwaffe had yet to gain air superiority for Operation Sea Lion.
Directive 17, August 1, 1940, Battle of Britain, Full text .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Adolf_Hitler%27s_directives .
ASV AI RDF ..
Battle of Britain & RDF ..
Blitz ..
Bomb Sight Site ..
40-6-1 Dunkirk - June 1 1940
Dunkirk, Dynamo, Little Ships - anth >> .
40-6-8 Dunkirk evacuation completed - never surrender > .
40-6-15 Italy declares war, Paris falls, Ariel begins > .
40-6-22 Soviets invade Baltic, RMS Lancastria sunk, Petain surrenders > .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lancastria .
40-6-25 Operation Ariel ends > .
40-6-29 Canada takes refugees, threat to Britain imminent > .
40-6-8 Dunkirk evacuation completed - never surrender > .
40-6-15 Italy declares war, Paris falls, Ariel begins > .
40-6-22 Soviets invade Baltic, RMS Lancastria sunk, Petain surrenders > .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lancastria .
40-6-25 Operation Ariel ends > .
40-6-29 Canada takes refugees, threat to Britain imminent > .
39-11-30 Soviets invade Finland 40-3-13
Talvisota - The Winter War > .
Winter War 1939-1940 - The Setup DOCUMENTARY > .
Finnish Ski Troops of the Winter War (1939) 1/2 - Invicta > .
23-12-23 Why Poland is Divided - Present Past > .
Friday, September 27, 2019
Battle of Britain & RDF
Battle of Britain and Artie Holmes' Hurricane - HiGu > .
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
D-Day innovations
Lies and Deceptions that made D-Day possible - IWM > .
Analog & Digital Computing ↠
1. TIDE-PREDICTION MACHINE
4. 'HOBART'S FUNNIES' AND AVRES
Crocodiles, Donald Duck, Landing Craft ..
Hobart's Funnies ..
These unusual vehicles played an important role on D-Day and throughout the Battle of Normandy. The failed raid at Dieppe in August 1942 exposed how difficult it was to land armoured vehicles during an amphibious invasion and to break through German coastal defences with insufficient armoured support. As a result, armoured vehicles were designed to perform specialist tasks and reinforce ground troops on D-Day. These vehicles were nicknamed 'Hobart's Funnies' after their inventor, Major-General Sir Percy Hobart. They include the Duplex Drive (DD) 'swimming' tank; the 'Crocodile' flamethrower tank and the 'Crab' mine-clearing flail tank. Although the Funnies had been used in simulation and training exercises, they had not been tested in combat until D-Day. Modified vehicles known as AVREs (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineer) were created by adding specialised devices to tanks. One example, the 'bobbin' carpet layer tank, laid reinforced matting on sandy beaches so other vehicles could drive across the soft surface.
When Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was put in charge of German defences in Normandy, he believed that any invasion would come at high tide, when the beachhead was at its narrowest and troops would be vulnerable to German fire for the shortest period of time. He therefore devised a series of obstacles adapted for use under water that would be completely concealed during mid and high tides. The jagged edges of iron 'hedgehogs', pictured above, could tear through the bottom of landing craft. Some were rigged with explosives that would detonate on impact. Round, flat land mines (called 'teller mines' after the German word for 'plate') were attached to wooden posts wedged into the sand and would explode when they came into contact with landing craft. Inland, Rommel also designed a network of large posts fixed vertically into the ground that prevented gliders from landing in open areas. These defences were nicknamed 'Rommel's Asparagus'.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/7-clever-innovations-used-on-d-day .
44-6-6 D-Day landings - AFPU ..
Logistics of D-Day ..
1. TIDE-PREDICTION MACHINE
In 1942, British mathematician Arthur Thomas Doodson had begun working on existing models of tide-prediction machines - essentially mechanised calculators that could reveal tidal patterns. In 1944, using his specially modified machine >, Doodson identified the exact time the landings should take place (H-Hour) and that D-Day should fall between 5 and 7 June.
The development of specialised landing craft had begun early in the war. D-Day vessels ranged from tiny Assault Landing Craft to huge Landing Ships. Other landing craft were fitted with guns or rockets. There was even a 'Landing Barge, Kitchen'. Equipment could be brought directly onto the beaches, providing a short-term solution to the problem of securing the harbours and ports needed for the immediate build-up of men and materiel.
Horsa gliders were first produced in 1942 and made significant contributions to airborne assaults throughout the latter part of the Second World War. On D-Day, these gliders were used on an unprecedented scale to transport troops and supplies to Normandy. They were towed by transport or bomber aircraft before gliding into the landing zone, where supplies could be retrieved. Gliders transported heavier equipment that could not be delivered via parachute drops or when using larger transport aircraft was not possible. The hinged nose and removable tail section allowed cargo to be unloaded relatively easily without damaging the overall structure. But gliders were flimsy – constructed mainly of wood and fabric – and were difficult to operate. They would often violently break apart on landing, especially during improvised or crash landings.4. 'HOBART'S FUNNIES' AND AVRES
Crocodiles, Donald Duck, Landing Craft ..
Hobart's Funnies ..
These unusual vehicles played an important role on D-Day and throughout the Battle of Normandy. The failed raid at Dieppe in August 1942 exposed how difficult it was to land armoured vehicles during an amphibious invasion and to break through German coastal defences with insufficient armoured support. As a result, armoured vehicles were designed to perform specialist tasks and reinforce ground troops on D-Day. These vehicles were nicknamed 'Hobart's Funnies' after their inventor, Major-General Sir Percy Hobart. They include the Duplex Drive (DD) 'swimming' tank; the 'Crocodile' flamethrower tank and the 'Crab' mine-clearing flail tank. Although the Funnies had been used in simulation and training exercises, they had not been tested in combat until D-Day. Modified vehicles known as AVREs (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineer) were created by adding specialised devices to tanks. One example, the 'bobbin' carpet layer tank, laid reinforced matting on sandy beaches so other vehicles could drive across the soft surface.
5. MULBERRY HARBOURS
Mulberry Harbours ..
Mulberry Harbours ..
Mulberry Harbours WW2: Disaster at Dieppe led to D-Day success - IWM > .
After D-Day, the Allies needed to continually build up reinforcements of men and supplies in Normandy to sustain the invasion's momentum. Previous experience taught the Allies hard but important lessons about the need to secure harbours and ports - harbours to provide protection from bad weather and rough seas, and ports to provide a place to ferry men and cargo. The planners responsible for 'Overlord' proposed creating two artificial harbours - codenamed 'Mulberries' - by sinking outdated ships ('Corncobs') and large concrete structures ('Phoenixes'). Adding floating roadways and piers (codenamed 'Whales') would allow them to use the beachhead as an improvised port.
After D-Day, the Allies needed to continually build up reinforcements of men and supplies in Normandy to sustain the invasion's momentum. Previous experience taught the Allies hard but important lessons about the need to secure harbours and ports - harbours to provide protection from bad weather and rough seas, and ports to provide a place to ferry men and cargo. The planners responsible for 'Overlord' proposed creating two artificial harbours - codenamed 'Mulberries' - by sinking outdated ships ('Corncobs') and large concrete structures ('Phoenixes'). Adding floating roadways and piers (codenamed 'Whales') would allow them to use the beachhead as an improvised port.
6. PLUTO
PLUTO - short for 'pipeline under the ocean' - supplied petrol from Britain to Europe via an underwater network of flexible pipes. It gave the Allied forces access to enough petrol to fuel aircraft and vehicles and to sustain the momentum of their advance. Two PLUTO pipelines ran from the Isle of Wight to Port-en-Bessin - the linkup point between Omaha and Gold beaches. Another pipeline was added later, running from Dungeness on the Kent coast to Boulogne in France, and the PLUTO network continued to expand as the Allies advanced across Europe. The 3-inch-wide pipeline was wound around giant floating spools called 'conundrums' - like the one in this photograph - and then unrolled across the Channel.When Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was put in charge of German defences in Normandy, he believed that any invasion would come at high tide, when the beachhead was at its narrowest and troops would be vulnerable to German fire for the shortest period of time. He therefore devised a series of obstacles adapted for use under water that would be completely concealed during mid and high tides. The jagged edges of iron 'hedgehogs', pictured above, could tear through the bottom of landing craft. Some were rigged with explosives that would detonate on impact. Round, flat land mines (called 'teller mines' after the German word for 'plate') were attached to wooden posts wedged into the sand and would explode when they came into contact with landing craft. Inland, Rommel also designed a network of large posts fixed vertically into the ground that prevented gliders from landing in open areas. These defences were nicknamed 'Rommel's Asparagus'.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/7-clever-innovations-used-on-d-day .
44-6-6 D-Day landings - AFPU ..
Logistics of D-Day ..
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Logistics of D-Day
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D-Day Logistics - Why Did The Allies Pick Normandy? > .
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Schlieffen Plan (1905)
The Schlieffen Plan - And Why It Failed - tgw > .
Schlieffen Plan (1905) ..
The Schlieffen Plan was a name given after WW1 to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a war-winning offensive against the French Third Republic. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium rather than across the common border. After losing WW1, German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers described the plan as a blueprint for victory. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914). German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by meddling with it out of timidity.
In February 1891, Alfred von Schlieffen was appointed to the post of Chief of the Großer Generalstab (Great General Staff), the professional head of the Kaiserheer (Deutsches Heer [German Army]). The post had lost influence to rival institutions in the German state because of the machinations of Alfred von Waldersee (8 April 1832 – 5 March 1904), who had held the post from 1888 to 1891 and had tried to use his position as a political stepping stone. Schlieffen was seen as a safe choice, being junior, anonymous outside the General Staff and with few interests outside the army. Other governing institutions gained power at the expense of the General Staff and Schlieffen had no following in the army or state. The fragmented and antagonistic character of German state institutions made the development of a grand strategy most difficult, because no institutional body co-ordinated foreign, domestic and war policies. The General Staff planned in a political vacuum and Schlieffen's weak position was exacerbated by his narrow military view.
In the army, organisation and theory had no obvious link with war planning and institutional responsibilities overlapped. The General Staff devised deployment plans and its chief became de facto Commander-in-Chief in war but in peace, command was vested in the commanders of the twenty army corps districts. The corps district commanders were independent of the General Staff Chief and trained soldiers according to their own devices. The federal system of government in the German empire included ministries of war in the constituent states, which controlled the forming and equipping of units, command and promotions. The system was inherently competitive and became more so after the Waldersee period, with the likelihood of another Volkskrieg, a war of the nation in arms, rather than the few European wars fought by small professional armies after 1815. Schlieffen concentrated on matters he could influence and pressed for increases in the size of the army and the adoption of new weapons. A big army would create more choices about how to fight a war and better weapons would make the army more formidable. Mobile heavy artillery could offset numerical inferiority against a Franco–Russian coalition and smash quickly fortified places. Schlieffen tried to make the army more operationally capable so that it was better than its potential enemies and could achieve a decisive victory.
Schlieffen continued the practice of staff rides (Stabs-Reise) tours of territory where military operations might take place and war games, to teach techniques to command a mass conscript army. The new national armies were so huge that battles would be spread over a much greater space than in the past and Schlieffen expected that army corps would fight Teilschlachten (battle segments) equivalent to the tactical engagements of smaller dynastic armies. Teilschlachten could occur anywhere, as corps and armies closed with the opposing army and became a Gesamtschlacht (complete battle), in which the significance of the battle segments would be determined by the plan of the commander in chief, who would give operational orders to the corps,
Deployment plans, 1892–1893 to 1905–1906: In his war contingency plans from 1892 to 1906, Schlieffen faced the difficulty that the French could not be forced to fight a decisive battle quickly enough for German forces to be transferred to the east against the Russians to fight a war on two fronts, one-front-at-a-time. Driving out the French from their frontier fortifications would be a slow and costly process that Schlieffen preferred to avoid by a flanking movement through Luxembourg and Belgium. In 1893, this was judged impractical because of a lack of manpower and mobile heavy artillery. In 1899, Schlieffen added the manoeuvre to German war plans, as a possibility, if the French pursued a defensive strategy. The German army was more powerful and by 1905, after the Russian defeat in Manchuria, Schlieffen judged the army to be formidable enough to make the northern flanking manoeuvre the basis of a war plan against France alone.
In 1905, Schlieffen wrote that the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), had shown that the power of Russian army had been overestimated and that it would not recover quickly from the defeat. Schlieffen could contemplate leaving only a small force in the east and in 1905, wrote War against France which was taken up by his successor, Moltke (the Younger) and became the concept of the main German war plan from 1906–1914. Most of the German army would assemble in the west and the main force would be on the right (northern) wing. An offensive in the north through Belgium and the Netherlands would lead to an invasion of France and a decisive victory. Even with the windfall of the Russian defeat in the Far East in 1905 and belief in the superiority of German military thinking, Schlieffen had reservations about the strategy. Research published by Gerhard Ritter (1956, English edition in 1958) showed that the memorandum went through six drafts. Schlieffen considered other possibilities in 1905, using war games to model a Russian invasion of eastern Germany against a smaller German army.
In a staff ride during the summer, Schlieffen tested a hypothetical invasion of France by most of the German army and three possible French responses; the French were defeated in each but then Schlieffen proposed a French counter-envelopment of the German right wing by a new army. At the end of the year, Schlieffen played a war game of a two-front war, in which the German army was evenly divided and defended against invasions by the French and Russians, where victory first occurred in the east. Schlieffen was open-minded about a defensive strategy and the political advantages of the Entente being the aggressor, not just the "military technician" portrayed by Ritter. The variety of the 1905 war games show that Schlieffen took account of circumstances; if the French attacked Metz and Strasbourg, the decisive battle would be fought in Lorraine. Ritter wrote that invasion was a means to an end not an end in itself, as did Terence Zuber in 1999 and the early 2000s. In the strategic circumstances of 1905, with the Russian army and the Tsarist state in turmoil after the defeat in Manchuria, the French would not risk open warfare; the Germans would have to force them out of the border fortress zone. The studies in 1905 demonstrated that this was best achieved by a big flanking manoeuvre through the Netherlands and Belgium.
Schlieffen's thinking was adopted as Aufmarsch I (Deployment [Plan] I) in 1905 (later called Aufmarsch I West) of a Franco-German war, in which Russia was assumed to be neutral and Italy and Austria-Hungary were German allies. "[Schlieffen] did not think that the French would necessarily adopt a defensive strategy" in such a war, even though their troops would be outnumbered but this was their best option and the assumption became the theme of his analysis. In Aufmarsch I, Germany would have to attack to win such a war, which entailed all of the German army being deployed on the German–Belgian border to invade France through the southern Netherlands province of Limburg, Belgium and Luxembourg. The deployment plan assumed that Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops would defend Alsace-Lorraine (Elsaß-Lothringen).
Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, Denkschrift "Krieg gegen Frankreich" [Schlieffen-Plan], Dezember 1905.
In the army, organisation and theory had no obvious link with war planning and institutional responsibilities overlapped. The General Staff devised deployment plans and its chief became de facto Commander-in-Chief in war but in peace, command was vested in the commanders of the twenty army corps districts. The corps district commanders were independent of the General Staff Chief and trained soldiers according to their own devices. The federal system of government in the German empire included ministries of war in the constituent states, which controlled the forming and equipping of units, command and promotions. The system was inherently competitive and became more so after the Waldersee period, with the likelihood of another Volkskrieg, a war of the nation in arms, rather than the few European wars fought by small professional armies after 1815. Schlieffen concentrated on matters he could influence and pressed for increases in the size of the army and the adoption of new weapons. A big army would create more choices about how to fight a war and better weapons would make the army more formidable. Mobile heavy artillery could offset numerical inferiority against a Franco–Russian coalition and smash quickly fortified places. Schlieffen tried to make the army more operationally capable so that it was better than its potential enemies and could achieve a decisive victory.
Schlieffen continued the practice of staff rides (Stabs-Reise) tours of territory where military operations might take place and war games, to teach techniques to command a mass conscript army. The new national armies were so huge that battles would be spread over a much greater space than in the past and Schlieffen expected that army corps would fight Teilschlachten (battle segments) equivalent to the tactical engagements of smaller dynastic armies. Teilschlachten could occur anywhere, as corps and armies closed with the opposing army and became a Gesamtschlacht (complete battle), in which the significance of the battle segments would be determined by the plan of the commander in chief, who would give operational orders to the corps,
The success of battle today depends more on conceptual coherence than on territorial proximity. Thus, one battle might be fought in order to secure victory on another battlefield.in the former manner to battalions and regiments. War against France (1905), the memorandum later known as the "Schlieffen Plan", was a strategy for a war of extraordinarily big battles, in which corps commanders would be independent in how they fought, provided that it was according to the intent of the commander in chief. The commander led the complete battle, like commanders in the Napoleonic Wars. The war plans of the commander in chief were intended to organise haphazard encounter battles to make "the sum of these battles was more than the sum of the parts".
— Schlieffen, 1909
Deployment plans, 1892–1893 to 1905–1906: In his war contingency plans from 1892 to 1906, Schlieffen faced the difficulty that the French could not be forced to fight a decisive battle quickly enough for German forces to be transferred to the east against the Russians to fight a war on two fronts, one-front-at-a-time. Driving out the French from their frontier fortifications would be a slow and costly process that Schlieffen preferred to avoid by a flanking movement through Luxembourg and Belgium. In 1893, this was judged impractical because of a lack of manpower and mobile heavy artillery. In 1899, Schlieffen added the manoeuvre to German war plans, as a possibility, if the French pursued a defensive strategy. The German army was more powerful and by 1905, after the Russian defeat in Manchuria, Schlieffen judged the army to be formidable enough to make the northern flanking manoeuvre the basis of a war plan against France alone.
In 1905, Schlieffen wrote that the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), had shown that the power of Russian army had been overestimated and that it would not recover quickly from the defeat. Schlieffen could contemplate leaving only a small force in the east and in 1905, wrote War against France which was taken up by his successor, Moltke (the Younger) and became the concept of the main German war plan from 1906–1914. Most of the German army would assemble in the west and the main force would be on the right (northern) wing. An offensive in the north through Belgium and the Netherlands would lead to an invasion of France and a decisive victory. Even with the windfall of the Russian defeat in the Far East in 1905 and belief in the superiority of German military thinking, Schlieffen had reservations about the strategy. Research published by Gerhard Ritter (1956, English edition in 1958) showed that the memorandum went through six drafts. Schlieffen considered other possibilities in 1905, using war games to model a Russian invasion of eastern Germany against a smaller German army.
In a staff ride during the summer, Schlieffen tested a hypothetical invasion of France by most of the German army and three possible French responses; the French were defeated in each but then Schlieffen proposed a French counter-envelopment of the German right wing by a new army. At the end of the year, Schlieffen played a war game of a two-front war, in which the German army was evenly divided and defended against invasions by the French and Russians, where victory first occurred in the east. Schlieffen was open-minded about a defensive strategy and the political advantages of the Entente being the aggressor, not just the "military technician" portrayed by Ritter. The variety of the 1905 war games show that Schlieffen took account of circumstances; if the French attacked Metz and Strasbourg, the decisive battle would be fought in Lorraine. Ritter wrote that invasion was a means to an end not an end in itself, as did Terence Zuber in 1999 and the early 2000s. In the strategic circumstances of 1905, with the Russian army and the Tsarist state in turmoil after the defeat in Manchuria, the French would not risk open warfare; the Germans would have to force them out of the border fortress zone. The studies in 1905 demonstrated that this was best achieved by a big flanking manoeuvre through the Netherlands and Belgium.
Schlieffen's thinking was adopted as Aufmarsch I (Deployment [Plan] I) in 1905 (later called Aufmarsch I West) of a Franco-German war, in which Russia was assumed to be neutral and Italy and Austria-Hungary were German allies. "[Schlieffen] did not think that the French would necessarily adopt a defensive strategy" in such a war, even though their troops would be outnumbered but this was their best option and the assumption became the theme of his analysis. In Aufmarsch I, Germany would have to attack to win such a war, which entailed all of the German army being deployed on the German–Belgian border to invade France through the southern Netherlands province of Limburg, Belgium and Luxembourg. The deployment plan assumed that Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops would defend Alsace-Lorraine (Elsaß-Lothringen).
...
Post-war writing by senior German officers like Hermann von Kuhl, Gerhard Tappen, Wilhelm Groener and the Reichsarchiv historians led by the former Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant-Colonel) Wolfgang Förster, managed to establish a commonly accepted narrative that Moltke the Younger failed to follow the blueprint devised by Schlieffen and condemned the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare. It was not German strategic miscalculation that denied Germany the quick, decisive conflict it should have been. In 1956, Gerhard Ritter published Der Schlieffenplan: Kritik eines Mythos (The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth), which began a period of revision, when the details of the supposed Schlieffen Plan were subjected to scrutiny and contextualisation. Treating the plan as a blueprint was rejected, because this was contrary to the tradition of Prussian war planning established by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, in which military operations were considered to be inherently unpredictable. Mobilisation and deployment plans were essential but campaign plans were pointless; rather than attempting to dictate to subordinate commanders, the commander gave the intent of the operation and subordinates achieved it through Auftragstaktik (mission-type tactics).
In writings from the 1970s, Martin van Creveld, John Keegan, Hew Strachan and others, studied the practical aspects of an invasion of France through Belgium and Luxembourg. They judged that the physical constraints of German, Belgian and French railways and the Belgian and northern French road networks made it impossible to move enough troops far enough and fast enough for them to fight a decisive battle if the French retreated from the frontier. Most of the pre-1914 planning of the German General Staff was secret and the documents were destroyed when deployment plans were superseded each April. The bombing of Potsdam in April 1945 destroyed the Prussian army archive and only incomplete records and other documents survived. Some records turned up after the fall of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), making an outline of German war planning possible for the first time, proving wrong much post-1918 writing.
In the 2000s, a document, RH61/v.96, was discovered in the trove inherited from the GDR, which had been used in a 1930s study of pre-war German General Staff war planning. Inferences that Schlieffen's war planning was solely offensive were found to have been made by extrapolating his writings and speeches on tactics into grand strategy. From a 1999 article in War in History and in Inventing the Schlieffen Plan (2002) to The Real German War Plan, 1906–1914 (2011), Terence Zuber engaged in a debate with Terence Holmes, Annika Mombauer, Robert Foley, Gerhard Gross, Holger Herwig and others. Zuber proposed that the Schlieffen Plan was a myth concocted in the 1920s by partial writers, intent on exculpating themselves and proving that German war planning did not cause WW1, a view which was supported by Hew Strachan.
In writings from the 1970s, Martin van Creveld, John Keegan, Hew Strachan and others, studied the practical aspects of an invasion of France through Belgium and Luxembourg. They judged that the physical constraints of German, Belgian and French railways and the Belgian and northern French road networks made it impossible to move enough troops far enough and fast enough for them to fight a decisive battle if the French retreated from the frontier. Most of the pre-1914 planning of the German General Staff was secret and the documents were destroyed when deployment plans were superseded each April. The bombing of Potsdam in April 1945 destroyed the Prussian army archive and only incomplete records and other documents survived. Some records turned up after the fall of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), making an outline of German war planning possible for the first time, proving wrong much post-1918 writing.
In the 2000s, a document, RH61/v.96, was discovered in the trove inherited from the GDR, which had been used in a 1930s study of pre-war German General Staff war planning. Inferences that Schlieffen's war planning was solely offensive were found to have been made by extrapolating his writings and speeches on tactics into grand strategy. From a 1999 article in War in History and in Inventing the Schlieffen Plan (2002) to The Real German War Plan, 1906–1914 (2011), Terence Zuber engaged in a debate with Terence Holmes, Annika Mombauer, Robert Foley, Gerhard Gross, Holger Herwig and others. Zuber proposed that the Schlieffen Plan was a myth concocted in the 1920s by partial writers, intent on exculpating themselves and proving that German war planning did not cause WW1, a view which was supported by Hew Strachan.
Sun Tzu et al
Part I) Self-Directed Warfare 1) Declare War on Your Enemies 2) Do Not Fight the Last War 3) Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind 4) Create a Sense of Urgency & Desperation Part II) Organizational (Team) Warfare 5) Avoid The Snare of Groupthink 6) Segment Your Forces 7) Transform Your War into a Crusade Part III) Defensive Warfare 8) Pick Your Battles 9) Turn the Tables 10) Create a Threatening Presence 11) Trade Space for Time Part IV) Offensive Warfare 12) Lose The Battles But Win The War 13) Know Your Enemy 14) Overwhelm Resistance With Speed and Suddenness 15) Control the Dynamic 16) Hit Them Where it Hurts 17) Defeat Them in Detail 18) Expose and Attack Your Enemy's Soft Flank 19) Envelop The Enemy 20) Maneuver Them Into Weakness 21) Negotiate While Advancing 22) Know How To End Things Part V) Unconventional (Dirty) War 23) Weave a Seamless Blend of Fact and Fiction 24) Take The Line of Least Expectation 25) Occupy the Moral High Ground 26) Deny Them Targets 27) Seem to Work for the Interests of Others 28) Give Your Rivals Enough Rope To Hang Themselves 29) Take Small Bites 30) Penetrate Their Minds 31) Destroy From Within 32) Dominate While Seeming to Submit 33) The Chain Reaction Strategy
Art of War throughout history > .
Sun Tzu - Art of War - Logistics - tb >> .
The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Eu >> .
Sun Tzu - Art of War - Logistics - tb >> .
The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Eu >> .
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html .
https://suntzusaid.com/ .
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html .
https://suntzusaid.com/ .
> Strategy >>
The Art of War
Laying Plans
https://suntzusaid.com/book/1
The Art of War
Laying Plans
https://suntzusaid.com/book/1
1 Laying Plans | The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Animated)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpJbOVIUGc
Waging War
https://suntzusaid.com/book/2
Attack by Stratagem
https://suntzusaid.com/book/2
Tactical Dispositions
https://suntzusaid.com/book/4
Energy
https://suntzusaid.com/book/5
Weak Points and Strong
https://suntzusaid.com/book/6
Maneuvering
https://suntzusaid.com/book/7
Variation in Tactics
https://suntzusaid.com/book/8
The Army on the March
https://suntzusaid.com/book/9
Terrain
https://suntzusaid.com/book/10
The Nine Situations
https://suntzusaid.com/book/11
The Attack by Fire
https://suntzusaid.com/book/12
The Use of Spies
https://suntzusaid.com/book/13
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Animated with Examples) - Eudaimonia >> .
Sun Tzu - Art of War - Logistics >> .
https://suntzusaid.com/book/2
Attack by Stratagem
https://suntzusaid.com/book/2
Tactical Dispositions
https://suntzusaid.com/book/4
Energy
https://suntzusaid.com/book/5
Weak Points and Strong
https://suntzusaid.com/book/6
Maneuvering
https://suntzusaid.com/book/7
Variation in Tactics
https://suntzusaid.com/book/8
The Army on the March
https://suntzusaid.com/book/9
Terrain
https://suntzusaid.com/book/10
The Nine Situations
https://suntzusaid.com/book/11
The Attack by Fire
https://suntzusaid.com/book/12
The Use of Spies
https://suntzusaid.com/book/13
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Animated with Examples) - Eudaimonia >> .
Sun Tzu - Art of War - Logistics >> .
Geostrategic Projection
European Geostrategic Projection ..Friday, July 26, 2019
Churchill Chiefs of Staff
Winston Churchill with his chiefs of staff in the garden of No. 10 Downing Street on the day Germany surrendered to the Allies, 7 May 1945.
Friday, May 24, 2019
European: Market Garden 17-25 September 1944
Red Devils of Arnhem - British Gliders Shot at by SS (1944) > .
A Bridge Too Far - Nijmegen Frogmen Attack - mfp > .
Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, planned primarily by Generals Brereton and Williams of the USAAF. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. The objective was to create a 64 mi (103 km) salient into German territory with a foothold over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by seizing a series of nine bridges by Airborne forces with land forces swiftly following moving over the bridges. The operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, creating a 60 mi (97 km) salient into German-held territory limiting V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed, however, to secure a foothold over the Rhine, halting at the river.
Market Garden consisted of two sub operations:
Market - an airborne assault to seize key bridges; laying a carpet of airborne troops.
Garden - a ground attack moving over the seized bridges creating the salient.
The attack was the largest airborne operation up to that point in World War II.
European: Battle of Aachen 44-10-2_21
.Aachen 1944 - America's Mini Stalingrad > .
The Battle of Aachen was a major combat action of World War II, fought by American and German forces in and around Aachen, Germany, between 2-21 October 1944. The city had been incorporated into the Siegfried Line, the main defensive network on Germany's western border; the Allies had hoped to capture it quickly and advance into the industrialized Ruhr Basin. Although most of Aachen's civilian population was evacuated before the battle began, much of the city was destroyed and both sides suffered heavy losses. It was one of the largest urban battles fought by U.S. forces in World War II, and the first city on German soil to be captured by the Allies. The battle ended with a German surrender, but their tenacious defense significantly disrupted Allied plans for the advance into Germany.
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sī vīs pācem, parā bellum
igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...
