How much did BMT affect unit performance in world war 2?

[ray245]

The reason for asking this question is in part influenced by my enlistment in the army as a conscript. I was wondering if there has been any studies on the effectiveness of military training for units fighting in the second world war.

It is frustrating to hear sweeping statement about how the average American riflemen is said to have been much better trained as compared to their axis counterpart. So I was wondering if there is any works that have researched into the effectiveness of training for soldiers during the second world war?

If there is similar works that focus on different time period, I'll be happy to read them as well.

[Mr Bean]

Wait, who's saying the average American rifleman was better trained than their Axis Counterpart?
Let me sum up the training with a simple statement.
All armies in World War 2 contained conscripts, all Armies in World War 2 contained elite units.

Match unbloodied soldiers of the US 101st Airborne in 1943 against the harden veterans of the Italian, 185th Folgore Parachute division and you'll see how well American training balances against years of combat experience and very high esprit de-corps. Compare the soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer division against the US 1st Armored and it depends on what year you compare the two but in most years the 1st Armored holds the edge because there are no new 16-17 year olds fresh from the Hitler Youth being used to fill out the ranks of the 1st Armored.

When asking the question "average" it depends on who's the one doing the averaging. The Germany Army in 1944 was in a far worse state than in 1939 due to the losses of 1943.

[ray245]

What about the unit performance on a much smaller and tactical level, like a company for instance? Is there any kind of information that would allow us to understand how did the amount of time and resources provided to train new recruits have an impact on their performance in battle?

[Zinegata]

The primary effect of training is to improve the physical conditioning of the troops, and to familiarize themselves with their assigned weapons systems. Longer training times doesn't necessarily result in better marksmen or small-unit commanders - much of training is often spent on simple physical activities like marching up and down a mountain.

Beyond that, having actual, practical knowledge from the battlefield is more important than textbook training. The US for instance had an excellent program for training airmen, as they rotated veterans from the frontline to serve as instructors. By contrast, the Tank Destroyer crewmen were largely taught from textbooks on the "Tank Destroyer Doctrine"... which proved to be almost useless on the battlefield. As a result, Tank Destroyer battalions had to learn "on the go", and taught themselves to serve as ersatz tanks and even self-propelled artillery because that ended up as their main role in the war.

[Mr Bean]

What about the unit performance on a much smaller and tactical level, like a company for instance? Is there any kind of information that would allow us to understand how did the amount of time and resources provided to train new recruits have an impact on their performance in battle?

That's the thing, unit performance is dependent on equipment, leadership, training and REMF. Leadership is leadership to a large extent but varies between armies as ranks vary between army's as for example Japanese NCO's had much less flexibility than those in American units, but that's do to institutional training not inherent deficiencies. The other factors are highly variable between armies since equipment varied so widely between Armies. To compare say the American and Japanese units in the Pacific. The Japanese were often very well lead and for them very well equipped with an excellent single bolt action rifle, light mortars decent light machine guns and serviceable grenades. Problem was the American soldiers were equipped with an excellent semi auto rifle, access to just as good and heavier mortars, good machine guns as well as sub-machine guns and grenades good enough we still use similar models to this day. So not only was the equipment as good or better than what the Japanese had, they also were able to fight the Japanese at superior odds for long years.

[Zinegata]

Not to mention that US units were usually well fed and supplied, while the Japanese were forced to march on just a few cups of rice and a daikon raddish. Harsh Japanese training made up for this slightly, but it can't really overcome the basic fact that soldiers need a specific level of food intake to remain at peak performance.

[Sea Skimmer]

A lot of American divisions ended up very well trained on paper because they spent two years or more doing nothing but waiting for the later phases of the Pacific and European offensives to open up. But training is no replacement for experience, and precisely because so many US units did not see action early, it was difficult to distribute experienced officers and men to units before they went into battle a whole. Nothing can substitute for being under enemy fire. The Germans did so well in part because Spain and Poland, plus intensive studies of what went wrong in WW1 gave them more institutional experience in the officer corps then the western allies. Russia could have learned a lot from Spain but Stalin killed off all the officers and the remaining ones drew many poor conclusions. Japan learned how to fight China... tried to fight the US like it was China. That fell apart the moment they hit first class US troops; instead of poorly trained poorly equipped colonial units.

Different armies trained for much different small unit tactics, so going to small scale just makes things more difficult without making specific match ups. Some traiing was simply different, such as handling of rifle and machine gun sections. Other training was simply more advanced procedures then what others could do; this was particularly the case in US and British artillery fire direction methods. The Germans never mastered control of call fire with units larger then a single battery per observer, while by 1943 you had US units coordinating the fire of entire Army artillery forces onto a single target. Japan was even worse; they struggled to control unplanned fire at all. A lot of this was related to a lack of communications equipment, making it impossible for the more poorly equipped axis units to 'learn' the required tactics no matter how long they fought.

[Thanas]

The Germans did so well in part because Spain and Poland, plus intensive studies of what went wrong in WW1 gave them more institutional experience in the officer corps then the western allies.

Hmmm. I am not doubting this, but I am interested in the latter part - to my knowledge the Reichswehr personal cap was not lifted until after Hitler took power - how much institutional experience/studies can be done with an army that is less than one tenth of eventual wartime strength?

Also, can you elaborate a bit more on the studies done? My (admitedly basic) knowledge only refers to the training manuals and books like Infanterie greift an but that is about it.

[Mr Bean]

Hmmm. I am not doubting this, but I am interested in the latter part - to my knowledge the Reichswehr personal cap was not lifted until after Hitler took power - how much institutional experience/studies can be done with an army that is less than one tenth of eventual wartime strength?

Also, can you elaborate a bit more on the studies done? My (admitedly basic) knowledge only refers to the training manuals and books like Infanterie greift an but that is about it.

This was covered in my instruction back in college but per my memory the post WWI studies done by Hans von Seeckt between wars was one of the most total and ruthless post wars studies by any Army in any period of history laying bare exactly where the Germans had screwed up and spitballing ideas around on how to fix things. The studies he had authored or did him self were that notable for being ruthless to those involved and meticulously complete in all factors. The studies are still mostly in German (Not an issue for you) except for the few I've seen translated into English and not available online anywhere but you can find in any decent war college or related university library. Looking for documents attached to Seeckts name is the best way to locate his work on the subject during the interwar years which was nothing short of excellent considering what he had to work with.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmmm. I am not doubting this, but I am interested in the latter part - to my knowledge the Reichswehr personal cap was not lifted until after Hitler took power - how much institutional experience/studies can be done with an army that is less than one tenth of eventual wartime strength?

The Reichswehr simply lied and trained enlisted men as officers without commissioning them and got fairly good at simulating large scale battles with small numbers of men and wooden weapons. It also kept secret records on the officers it did have and as soon as Hitler came to power many of them were trained and experienced enough to be promoted three or four grades at once. Even had the allies been more aggressive in the later years at enforcing the treaty, it was pretty near impossible to detect this sort of thing, especially when the USSR was helping out with secret training programs. The same was done with NCOs.

After that. 1933 to 1939 was enough time to train several more classes of officer, each much larger then the last. It was barely enough time to make this all work, but Hitler’s decision to expand German armed forces on the basis of a wartime mobilization rather then anything like normal peacetime expansion went along with it perfectly. Germany really gained a step up on everyone; but it was really only about a two to three year window of advantage that it really added up to be.

Also, can you elaborate a bit more on the studies done? My (admitedly basic) knowledge only refers to the training manuals and books like Infanterie greift an but that is about it.

Yeah I can, but not right now, going out the door. Books by people like Guderian were the start of it, in part, simply by publicizing the idea that the tactics of WW1 had failed and something radically new was required. Far more often in the western allies people looked at WW1 as having gone fairly well at the end, and that only evolutionary improvements were required. The truth was somewhere in-between.