Quote:
Originally Posted by Dowly
@Skybird
I just find it hard to understand what it would accomplish. Especially in an
amphibious assault situation where you really want to get a bridgehead up ASAP.
Sending in green troops to do such an important task seems a bit silly to me, that's all.  |
Even green troops gets somethings accomplished while being slaughtered - winning some ground.
Also, the argument was, it is to be considered that soldiers knowing by experience what hell lies ahead of them, maybe will hesitate or at least be less "enthusiastic" in the meaning of that they will not blindly run forward to gain that ground before they fall. Allied Command seemed to have had little illussions about how difficult it would be to even get a hold on the beach - the last thing it wanted was sacrificing its experienced veterans for nothing, with nothing but greenhorns coming after them that the tired Germans also would find easier to battle off, then.
Or in other wars in history, it was about sacrificing just slave units whose recruitment you did not had to pay anyway, in order to save soldiers whose pensions you would need to pay if they got killed or wounded and into whose training you had invested, or to save the gold for arrows being shot - "Arrows cost money! Sent in the Irish instead!" should have been said by Edward Longshanks in one battle. Soviet battle drill - the three wave drill - also included that: the lead attack should have been led by tanks of older age and quality, with the better ojnes coming after them, so not to loose them in the first wave already. The replaceable lower quality tanks were expected to do as much damage to NATOP defences as they could before they died. I think T-62 were expected to be able to not be able to get off more than 3 shots before NATO would have killed them, T-72 I think were expected to get off just 10 shots. Were they had T-80s available already, they probably would have not been found in the first wave. Better to have NATO wasting its ammo on lower units that would not have a big chnace of survival anyway.
You have that often in wars of all eras until WWII: first you send in expendable formations to cause initial confusion and as much damage to the enemy as possible, and when you have lost these, then you go after what has remained of the enemy with your real solid troops that are harder to replace: they cost more, are more effective, and will do even more damage then since the enemy already got affected by the first attack. Empires using troops of subjugated provinces who owed them tributes and contingents of fighters, also did so: they sent these foreign troops first and allowed them to be sacrificed and got a certain amount of damage and exhaustion to the enemy, and saved their own people for later.
Of course, since WWII Western nations consider it to be uncivilised and unacceptable to even consider such decisions. Well, it IS uncivilised - all war is. And that's why the West' new sentiment is not shared by all other players on this globe. But I am absolutely certain that sometimes such logic decides military decisions of Western nations even today. For example you do not expose a high value unit to a forward recce mission with very high risk involved if you can also send another unit abler to accomplish the task with less costs in case it gets detected and killed. And such assessments - high value assets versus replaceable assets - are being made today, still, you can bet money on that.
Maybe the mere bigger scale of own bloodtoll in battles of WWII is what irritates you, I think. But the military logic that you question in the example of Normandy you probably even have used yourself - in games.
You see, it may not be nice - but different to what you think it makes VERY MUCH sense indeed, especially when you expect devastating losses of your own forces. Sacrifice the cheap ones first to benefit from whatever they are able to achieve, THEN send in your better units. Do not sacrifice your better units first, having their achievements spoiled by the more inexpereinced or weaker units of the follow-on attacks.