Military Strategy and Tactics During WWII

At that time, the officers of the oecumenic supply felt that the greatest danger to the estate would be the coming of a twain front struggle with Russia and France. The head of the General Staff at the time was Alfred von Schlieffen who created a plan to grip with such an eventuality. The Schlieffen Plan called for Germany to sacrifice ground for time against the Russians spell delivering a hammer blow and quick defeat to the French, wherefore shifting east to deal with the Russians. The original plan contained oft room for flexibility depending on the situation, and was to be used completely in the case of a two front war. over the next two decades, however, the original plan was tinkered with to the extent that it became two inflexible and the only plan for military action, whether a two front war was probable or not (Dupuy, 1977).

When war appeared imminent in 1914, Germany launched the Schlieffen Plan, guaranteeing the two front war that it may yet have avoided, and executed it badly, failing to knock stunned the French quickly. During the inter-war period, German veterans of the Great War discussed and lamented their rigid tenderness to the plan, realizing that they had forgotten the essential rule of flexibility in strategy and tactics. Among these men were Adolf Hitler, and the requirement for flexibility took hold in him in ways that were to lead to both victory and defeat for his nation in the next war.

By November, the Germans had advanced thousands of miles. Leningrad was under siege, Moscow was in sight, and the Caucasus Mountains had been reached. However, the Murmansk supply line had not been cut, and the brutal Russian winter was setting in (Dupuy & Dupuy, 1970, 1079-80). The German troops had accomplished the greatest sustained nervous in the history of warfare, killing or capturing over 3 gazillion Soviet troops. However, the Germans had wooly-minded nearly a million casualties of their own and the Red Army still totalled over 4 million men (Kennedy, 1989, 349). Further, the Germans were nowa twenty-four hour periods fighting on terce fronts (Britain, the Mediterranean - including North Africa, and Russia) while the Soviets could concentrate all their compel on one front.

The German goals had not been met, and Russian attention in the Ural mountains continued to crank out war equipage out of reach of the Luftwaffe bombers. As the Germans retreated before the Russian counteroffensive, their troops freezing to death in their summer uniforms, the lost five weeks in the Balkans haunted them.

The Germans had been ejected from Africa and much of Russia, but they well-kept control over most of Europe proper. Still, the end was near. Germany was now expending more material than they could replace, while the U.S. industrial elevator car was coming fully into play: throughout 1943 and 1944, American plants were roily out an astounding one warship a day and one airplane every five minutes (Kennedy, 1989, 355). Nonetheless, no one expected Germany to surrender. Its leaders had to urge victory or death, since they were well aware of the horrific crimes that they had committed. Fortress Europa would have to be stormed and taken by force.

Clausewitz, C.V. (1984). On war. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and pricking Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

The weakened state of Britain provided an appealing target. If Britain could be knocked from combat completely,
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