Thread: Eastern Front, WWI.

the germans in the early stages of the war lacked a proper infantry gun to suport stormtropers operations , they used the 37mm sturmkanonone made by krupp in a sturmabteilung made up by two combat enginers companies but suffered severe losses in minor attacks.
this lead to the development of the infanterie geschuts (infantry support ) a 7.62mm cut-down field guns captured from the russians.
as for tactics my undestanding is that they were tested and improved at Isonzo
and Cambrai offensive.
the number of available stormtroopers had never bean quite enogh for a major offensive to develop in ww1.

Just as there are factions in any organization, senior officers in the German Army could be regarded as 'easterners' or 'westerners'.

Successes such as Tannenberg in the East and failures like the Marne and Verdun in the West led to Ludendorff and Hindenburg taking over the army from Moltke and Falkenhayn. Gamblers' instincts came with them, and when their prestige let them essentially take over the running of the entire German state, their U-boat strategy not only failed to defeat Britain but brought the US into the war as well.

Tactically, an artilleryman named Bruchmuller developed German predictive shooting, using aerial photography to dispense with the usual ranging shots. The aim would not be to destroy targets (as the British found, too difficult a task against prepared defenders even with a week of unprecedented intensity of bombardment) but to suppress return fire and interdict the arrival of enemy reserves. Both Bruchmuller and Oskar Hutier (the victor of Riga) were brought across by Ludendorff for the 1918 offensive in the West.

In January of that year, every officer down to battalion commander level was given a manual called The Attack In Position Warfare that tried to put together the lessons learned at Riga, Caporetto and Cambrai. Light machine guns and mortars were issued to the dwindling number of divisions thought capable of being converted to storm tactics. Aircraft numbers were now 2,600.

Unfortunately, Ludendorff was still sceptical about the Allied enthusiasm for tanks, and versus the 100,000 rubber-tyred trucks the Allies had, possessed only 23,000 vehicles riding on steel wheels. If 'successful' the spearheads were not only going to have to advance beyond friendly artillery range, but couldn't be resupplied.

More ominously, in a strategy reminiscent later on of Kursk or the Battle of the Bulge, there were clear schwerpunkts - directions of attack - that after identifying, the defender could simply lay his reserves in the path until the attacks were blunted with heavy casualties.

This was precisely what Foch did calmly to the Spring Offensives (even as his British allies panicked), which in the opinion of David Stevenson, probably finished the Great War a year earlier.

It is sometimes argued that the German military learned and refined infiltration tactics specifically the use of Stosstruppen in the East. But what are the broader operational implications of warfare on the Eastern Front?

The change in infantry tactics was an evolution overtime on the western front. Germany formed ad hoc units on the western front before the used them in Riga. Stormtroop units saw action in Verdun. France also changed up their squads and platoons around LMGs, GLs and hand grenades back in 1916. Saying Germany learned and refined it on the Eastern Front excuses why the British got rocked in the Micheal Offensives.

[Hides from British members]

Originally Posted by troung

Saying Germany learned and refined it on the Eastern Front excuses why the British got rocked in the Micheal Offensives.

The Germans chose their attack sector wisely, Truong. The overall British commander Douglas Haig was a cavalryman by trade who was ill-suited to the realities of position warfare.

The general at the front itself was Hubert Gough, another cavalryman, a favourite of Haig's, and his army had not yet properly adopted the Defence In Depth technique that the other Allied sectors had implemented.

One of the two men had to be sacked for the failing, and how often it is in business or warfare that the subordinate ends up getting the blame! :-(

IIRC units on the Eastern Front sent officers/NCOs to learn those storm trooper tactics and then bring them back to use over there.

What about war making at the operational level? Was the Eastern Front operations distinct in their conduct when compared to the Western Front?