written by: tyler gibson november 2014 · 2016. 5. 4. · though the german tanks were “superior...

Blitzkrieg as a Strategic Tactic

Written by: Tyler Gibson

November 2014

Blitzkrieg, which means ‘Lightening Warfare’ in German, was the name given to the

tactic of an attacking force utilising powerful spearheads of “concentrated armour

and mechanized forces, backed up by close air support”1, to rapidly break through an

enemy’s defensive line at several places, to create confusion in the enemy’s territory

and to encircle and destroy enemy forces.

The origins of Blitzkrieg “lay in the static deadlock prevalent on the Western Front

during the years 1915-1917”2. In the Spring of 1918, the German Army in an attempt

to defeat the Western Allies before the troops and equipment from the United States

could arrive in Europe, attempted an ambitious offensive which would involve elite

troops using infiltration tactics. They planned to use the elite storm trooper units to

infiltrate and bypass the enemy frontline units and leave them to be engaged by the

follow up forces. This would leave the storm troopers free to “disrupt the enemy

supply lines, headquarters and artillery emplacements, as well as to quickly take

territory”3. The use of this tactic meant that by the end of the First World War “the

essential ingredients of blitzkrieg were already present on the battlefield…with the

Germans contributing the art of infiltration and shock…and the allies introduced the

tank”4.

During the post war years, many countries experimented on how to best employ the

tank. The main proponent of armoured warfare in these years was John Fuller, who

influenced the works of Heinz Guderian, Percy Hobart, Charles de Gaulle and

1 Clark, L. Kursk: The Greatest Battle: Eastern Front 1943 p.22

2 Messenger, C. The Art of Blitzkrieg (Ian Allan Ltd, London, 1991) p.10

3 Simpson, A. The Evolution of Victory: British Battles of the Western Front,

1914-1918 (Tom Donovan, 1995) p.117-188 4 Messenger, C. Blitzkrieg p.31

Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Basil Liddell Hart among others. But it was the work of

Heinz Guderian which had the greatest effect, convincing Adolf Hitler of the merits of

separate armoured forces and led to the adoption of armoured warfare by Germany,

whereas other Western Armies still saw the tank as a support for the infantry.

During the early years of the Second World War, the German Armed Forces

repeatedly achieved great success when employing Blitzkrieg against first Poland,

then the low countries and then even against the British and French Armies in France.

They achieved these stunning successes even though the German Armed Forces

“enjoyed no significant superiority in numbers of Divisions…and were actually

inferior in numbers of tanks”5. But crucially, the allied tanks were “scattered by

battalions…for World War One style infantry support…German armour was gathered

together”6. By grouping their armoured forces into specialised forces, it gave the

German armies the power to break through the allied lines, and cause confusion

amongst the allied armies. Which would then allow the following up infantry the time

to consolidate the gains before the allied armies could launch effective counter

attacks.

However, towards the end of the Second World War, the Germans found that

Blitzkrieg was becoming less and less effective. This is in part due to Blitzkrieg

losing its surprise effect, to the Allies employing different tactics against the

Blitzkrieg, as well as developing more and more efficient anti tank guns and more

heavily armoured and armed tanks to counter the German panzers.

5 Gabel, C.R. Seek, Strike, and Destroy: US Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in WW2

p.8 6 Gabel, C.R. Seek, Strike and Destroy p.8

The Blitzkrieg tactic was “designed to pierce a deep system of defence at several

points…by armoured columns…covered by dive bombers and supported by

motor-borne infantry”7. And once through the defences “one column would converge

upon the other, to envelope a section of the defence, which would then be mopped

up by infantry”8. For this to be achieved, the spearheads needed to be powerful

enough to achieve the initial breakthrough, but also quick enough to exploit the

advantage that they had gained before the enemy had a chance to react.

Heinz Guderian, who was very influential in the creation of the Blitzkrieg tactic had

impressed upon Hitler for the need of a separate armoured force, and had even

convinced General Beck of the need for a separate tank force, with Beck stating that

“if tanks are too closely tied to the infantry, they lose the advantage of their speed and

are liable to be knocked by the defence”9. The surprise and speed of the Blitzkrieg

was the vital factor which made it so appealing to Adolf Hitler and his generals, with

the horrors of trench warfare still fresh in their minds. But another factor also made

Blitzkrieg appeal to the Germans. This factor, was the logistical problem. “Hitler

doubted that any state, Germany included, could stockpile enough raw materials and

munitions for more than a years worth of modern war”10

, because of this, “Blitzkrieg

became not just an attraction, but a necessity”11

. Due to this, the Germans placed the

“mailed fist of the Panzer Corps…and the thunderbolt of the Luftwaffe…in

development …and had been given priority over the remainder of the wehrmacht”12

.

This meant that when the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 it was

7 Falls, C. The Second World War: A Short History (Methuen and Co Ltd, London,

1948) p.51 8 Falls, C. The Second World War. p.51

9 Messenger, C. Blitzkrieg p.80



12 Messenger. C. Blitzkrieg p.84

“essentially two armies, one small modernised army based on tanks and trucks…and a

vast old fashioned army…reliant on rail and horse”13

. The German forces did manage

to assemble “600,000 vehicles…many of them for the Panzer Armies…the rest of the

Army had to make do with 700,000 horses”14

. The priority given to the panzer armies

in terms of trucks and other supply vehicles over the rest of the army, had the effect of

allowing the panzers to break through defences and keep moving. But at the same

time, by relegating the rest of the army, which was needed just as much as the panzer

forces, to mainly horse drawn supplies meant that when the panzers did achieve the

breakthrough, its supporting forces were usually too far behind the panzers to allow

the panzers to carry on the momentum. Thus, while it helped achieve the success of

the Blitzkrieg at the beginning of the war, it would have a detrimental effect on the

effectiveness of Blitzkrieg in the later years of World War 2.

When blitzkrieg was first used against the Western Allies, the Germans achieved

stunning successes with it. The differences in the way that the Allies and the Germans

used the tank, as well as the fact that the British and French believed that static

defence, similar to the trenches used in the First World War, would be prevalent in

this war as well. However, when the British and American armies landed in Western

Europe on D-Day, the tables had turned on the Germans. What the Germans had

enjoyed in France 1940, overwhelming air superiority, now resided with the allies.

This meant that German attacks “in daylight were futile in view of the overwhelming

allied air superiority”15

.The allied aircraft “paralysed all movements by day…and

13

Overy, R. Why the Allies Won p.264 14


Mellenthin F.W.V. Panzer Battles (University of Oklahoma Press, 1982) p.384

very difficult at night”16

As tanks are “large and extremely noisy…and difficult to

conceal from the air”17

, any German counter offensive in the West had to be

conducted when the allied aircraft were grounded. An example of this is the Battle of

Arracourt and the Battle of Chateau Salins. The Germans had planned these

offensives at times that the allied aircraft would be grounded due to fog. But even

though the German tanks were “superior to the American Sherman tanks…the enemy

had very strong artillery and anti tank support”18

. This held the Germans up until the

fogs cleared and the “fighter bombers swarmed down on the panzers…11th

panzer

brigade was virtually destroyed”19

. By the time of Hitler’s last gamble on the Western

Front, Germany had “lacked two essential elements for blitzkrieg…air superiority and

sufficient fuel stocks”20

. This meant that, when Hitler launched the Ardennes

Offensive in 1944, even though it was in the same place were he launched the

invasion of France in 1940, the results would be very different.

In 1940, the Germans faced the weak French armies in a sector that was thought to be

impassable by tanks. But by 1944, even though the sector was the same and only

defended by four American infantry divisions, the situation had changed. “Model’s

forces had fewer troops…lacked air superiority…and was up against an experienced

and strong enemy”21

. When the panzers did break through, unlike the French armies

in 1940, the Americans “ instead of panicking…fought on in isolated pockets”22

. This

meant that “as the panzer divisions began to run out of fuel…the following up

16

Liddel Hart. B.H. The Other Side of the Hill (Cassell and Company) p.286 17

Rottman G.L. World War II- Infantry Anti Tank Tactics p.6-7 18

Mellenthin F.W.V Panzer Battles p.377 19

Mellenthin F.W.V. Panzer Battles p.378 20

Messenger. C. Blitzkrieg p.242 21


Messenger. C. Blitzkrieg p.240

infantry became involved in reducing the American pockets…unable to support the

panzers”23

. Thus, this meant that the panzers had lost, first their air superiority, which

was vital for blitzkrieg to be successful and secondly, they had lost their supporting

infantry, so they could not defend the territory that they had captured.

Another reason why the blitzkrieg failed in the latter years against the Western

Armies, is because the Western Allies were better equipped to deal with blitzkrieg,

and, as a result, make blitzkrieg less effective than it had been at the beginning of the

war. At the beginning of World War Two, allied tanks had been designed to support

infantry, and as a result, were lightly armed and armoured, and often equipped with

little more than a machine gun or light cannon. By the time the allied forces had

invaded France, the British and American main tank was now the M-4 Sherman tank.

The Sherman’s “combination of firepower, protection and mobility…outmatched the

German tanks in Africa”24

. This meant that the German‘s now had to play catch up,

and any tanks that they developed had to be bigger and more expensive. Added to the

fact that the Germans preferred “technical sophistication to turning out large

quantities of standard weapons”25

meant that the new German tanks, the Panthers and

Tigers included, were “were very good, but very expensive in terms of manpower,

time and materials”26

. This meant that, while the German tanks outmatched the early

western allied tanks, the new allied tanks, along with tank-busting planes, were more

than a match for the German tanks, even the heavily armoured tanks, and as a result,

the Western Allies had neutralised a large portion of blitzkrieg rendering the tactic

obsolete on the Western Front. And, as a result of the lack of numbers of German

tanks, the numerical superiority of the arguably inferior allied tanks and the

23


Stone. J. The Tank Debate (Kings College, London 2000) p.66 25

Overy, R. Why the Allies Won p.249

overwhelming allied air forces. Even the heavily armoured and armed Tigers,

Panthers and even King Tigers became “tools of defence…mobile anti tank

platforms…to blunt enemy armoured attacks”27

As Guderian concluded “German

superiority in the field of armour had been overturned”28

. Though on the western front

this was not because of allied superiority in tanks quality, but rather German

deficiencies in opting against an “easy to maintain and produce”29

tank and deciding

to produce “large, technically complex tanks of very great weight”30

.

On the Eastern Front however, the Soviets used these factors, as well as a more

traditional tactic, one which the French had tried against blitzkrieg, but managed to

achieve a result and crushed the German blitzkrieg.

At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, like on the Western Front, the Germans

achieved stunning successes when using blitzkrieg, managing to capture millions of

Soviet soldiers, and blitzkrieg “looked like it would carry everything before it”31

.

However, when the Germans attempted blitzkrieg at a key turning point in the war,

the Soviets were ready and had plenty of time to prepare.

By the time of the Battle of Kursk in 1943, the Germans had lost the initiative on the

Eastern Front. Hitler had decided to concentrate his offensive “on a great

city…resorting to siege warfare…where the Germans forfeited their advantages in

mobile warfare”32

. By 1943, Hitler had decided that a new offensive in the East

26



Stone. J. The Tank Debate p.65 29

Overy, R Why the Allies Won p.266 30


Mellenthin F.W.V. Panzer Battles p.185 32

Mellenthim F.W.V. Panzer Battles p.193

should be attempted and had selected the Kursk salient as the location.

However, the Soviet command had anticipated the German offensive and had

“fortified likely sectors…built several lines of resistance…studded with minefields”33

.

The Soviets also built large amounts of tanks and infantry reserves around the Kursk

salient in case of a German breakthrough. However, Hitler waited and waited to

launch the Kursk offensive, wanting to build up the German forces, but he “refused to

recognise that the longer he waited, the more armour the Soviets would

have…particularly as their tank output exceeded that of Germany”34

.

Around the Kursk Salient, the Soviets relied on the ‘defence in depth’ concept. This

revolved around building defences any miles deep, to allow them to contain an attack

on the defences, rather than trying to stop the attack after it breaches the defence. As a

result, the Soviet defenders constructed extensive fortifications, including “anti tank

strong points and minefields”35

. Soviet troops dug more than “3000 miles of trenches,

laid 400,000 mines…used ditches fitted with dragons teeth…and flooded the ground

in front of the panzers”36

, and if these failed to stop the panzers the Soviets had the

“famous Llyushin ll-2 Sturmovik dive bomber…with 37mm tank busting

cannon…and new PTAB anti tank bomb”37

, as well as possessing the T-34, a tank

considered to be “the finest tank in the world”38

. As a result, “Kursk was the very

negation of blitzkrieg…Russian defences…lack of surprise…had given the panzer

formations no chance to work up momentum to achieve their objective”39

. This meant

33

Mellenthin F.W.V Panzer Battles p.263 34

Manstein E.V. Lost Victories (Methuen and Colder 1948) p.447 35

Messenger, C. The Art of Blitzkrieg p.207 36

Overy. R. Why the Allies Won p.108 37


Liddell Hart. B.H. The Other Side of the Hill (Cassell and Company Ltd, 1948) p.230 39

Messenger. C. The Art of Blitzkrieg p.209

that Kursk became a battle for attrition, which Hitler had hoped that by using

blitzkrieg would be avoided.

But it was the minefields which caused the most confusion. The minefields at Kursk

“achieved densities of 1700 anti personnel and 1500 anti tank mines per kilometre of

front”40

, and on one front, the “1000 anti tank mines accounted for the destruction or

disabling of 17 out of 40 German tanks which took part in the initial assault”41

.

The German command were committing the “same mistake as the previous

year…first Stalingrad…now the fortress of Kursk”42

. The German High Command

could think of “nothing better than to fling our magnificent panzer divisions against

Kursk”43

denying the panzers the advantages which made them so deadly in the first

place, their speed and mobility. This, along with the Soviet defensive tactics, limited

the effectiveness of the German blitzkrieg. The blitzkrieg relied on having wide, open

spaces, where they could bring their mobility into play and bypass enemy units and

defensive line to get into the enemy heartlands, but on the vast open space of Soviet

Russia, the open space actually helped the Soviets to the determent of the Germans. It

allowed the Soviets to simply fall back and regroup, or even allowed them to form

new armies and also rebuild their factories in territory where the German armoured

columns simply could not reach. To put simply, the German blitzkrieg “could triumph

against…weakened countries such as France…but Stalin’s Russia was quite different”

44. The Soviet Union, was just too big in size, “the terrain too difficult and Russian

40

Glantz D.M. Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943 (1986) P.22 41

Glantz, D.M. Soviet Defensive Tactics p.22 42

Mellenthin. F.W.V Panzer Battles p.264 43

Mellenthin. F.W.V Panzer Battles p.264 44

Fugate, B.I. Operation Barbarossa- Strategy and Tactics on the Eastern Front 1941 p.305

countermeasures too effective”45

for blitzkrieg to succeed in Russia.

The German blitzkrieg, when used correctly promised very much, as it proved at the

beginning of the war. However, as the Allies faced blitzkrieg on multiple occasions,

the surprise factor was lost. This allowed the Allies to develop counters, such as

‘defence in depth’ or overwhelming air superiority to use against blitzkrieg. As the

Germans found out in Kursk, extensive use of mines and minefields are “to be

regarded as an enemy of an extremely dangerous order”46

for tank warfare. And when

blitzkrieg was used on the Western Front in the later stages, it was found to be an

hopelessly obsolete tactic in the face of overwhelming Anglo-American airpower. It

even got to the stage that late in the war, infantry carrying anti tank weapons, such as

a bazooka or PIAT (projector infantry anti tank) rifle had turned the “infantry versus

tank balance…in favour of the infantryman”47

. An infantryman, when armed with a

“panzerfaust, PIAT or bazooka could at close range, defeat any tank”48

. The counter

measures to armoured warfare, and indirectly, to stop blitzkrieg, “fortified lines, anti

tank mines…the bazooka were designed to spell the end of armoured forces”49

,

actually limited the effectiveness of blitzkrieg, but as the Ardennes Offensive of 1944,

otherwise known as the Battle of the Bulge showed, the German blitzkrieg, when the

correct parameters were present, was still an effective tactic and one that could still

achieve some success, but due to the inferiority of the German position, it could not

fully be exploited.

45

Fugate, B.I. Operation Barbarossa p.307

46 Guderian H. Achtung- Panzer! (Cassell and Company, London 1999) p.178

47 World War II- Infantry Tactics (2), Company and Battalion p.41

48 Knight. C. Running the Gauntlet - Force Protection for Tactical Penetration in MOUT p.8

Blitzkrieg started out as a tactic whereby “protracted battles, massive troop

movements…and other difficulties encountered by the Germans in World War One”50

could be avoided, and, until the war turned into a true world war, with the

involvement of America, Japan, the Soviet Union and others, it largely succeeded in

this aim, and if it wasn’t for “Hitler losing the strategic sense…and the military losing

the initiative”51

,it might have given the Germans more of a hope in winning the

Second World War.

49

Kent. B.D. The Future of the Tank p.8 50

Gukeisen. T.B. The Operational Art of Blitzkrieg: Its Strengths and Weaknesses in system

perspective p.35 51

Gukeisen. T.B. The Operational Art of Blitzkrieg p. 34

written by: tyler gibson november 2014 · 2016. 5. 4. · though the german tanks were “superior...

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