Skill at arms and military competence

A few years ago I was reading a Russian blog on WWII, who's link escapes me. The author was briefly going over the preparations both Germany and the Soviet Union had made prior to the onset of Operation Barbarossa. Various figures were cited, including the abysmal readiness of the Red Army's fleet of tanks and aircraft, and the poor quality of the recently mobilized Soviet conscripts that would seem find themselves facing the German onslaught. Suffice to say, the Red Army was not ready for war on June 22, 1941.

Ironically though, neither was Germany. Despite being on the verge of launching the largest invasion in human history, the Ostheer was faced with a crippling problem; it didn't have enough fuel to do its job. Seven months prior to the invasion the Wehrmacht's chief logistical staff had identified a glaring weakness in Germany's plan; the Wehrmacht didn't have enough trucks and fuel to support the invasion's goals. The Ostheer, they predicted, would advance some 700 miles east, before shortages of fuel and spare parts would grind the Panzers and motorized troops to a halt and they would have to wait for the rest of the army, which was marching alongside the horses that Germany needed for 60-70% of her invasion force, to catch up. After that the Ostheer would be reduced to lunges; short gasps of advancement before they ran out of fuel again and would have to wait for the supplies to move forward. By the time the Germans reached Moscow, they'd be operating on the end of a very overextended supply line, and badly under supplied. In this exposed state the Germans would be vulnerable to Soviet counterattack, with disastrous results possible.

This was brought to the attention of Franz Halder, the Chief of Staff of the Army High Command, who's reply was that the Ostheer would make use of captured French and Polish trucks. When it was pointed out that this was not sufficient to cover Germany's lack of motor transport, the concerns were dismissed. In the middle of planning German senior leadership simply ignored a glaring weakness in their armed forces and elected to go ahead with Barbarossa anyways. As it turned out, the statisticians were right. By the time the Germans reached the outskirts of Moscow they were on the brink of total collapse of their supply lines, and the winter Soviet counter-offensives delivered a crushing blow outside Moscow.

There are various reasons for why Halder decided to ignore the glaring problem facing the Germans. Jonathan M. House laid out a rather simple explanation by pointing out that the German General Staff, while capable of producing exceptionally skilled Generals, routinely underestimated the significance of logistics and intelligence in preference for operations. Thus while the Germans possessed very skilled soldiers, leaders both at the junior and senior level, and robust training programs, fundamentally fought in a war machine that failed to grasp the hallmarks of industrial war, logistics, manufacturing, numbers, and strategy. As Max Hastings in his book "Inferno" succinctly put it, "The Germans were very good at fighting battles and not so good at fighting wars".

We all know what happened in the war the Germans fought. A year after failing in Barbarossa, the Germans launched essentially the same thing: a massive operation who's requirements were beyond what the Germans were capable of meeting. Having suffered 800,000 casualties in Barbarossa, the Axis was forced to protect German flanks with hundreds of thousands of Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian troops, none of whom had the firepower to handle the increasingly tank heavy Soviet Armies. Case Blue ended with disaster at Stalingrad and the loss of hundreds of thousands of more Axis troops. Less than a year later the Germans would repeat their mistakes, attacking the Soviet forces at Kursk, where they were blunted by Soviet defenses. Never again would they regain the initiative, and a year alter the Soviets would deliver a crushing blow in Operation Bagration. A year later the war would be over.

Dr. Robert Citino pointed out one of the fundamental problems of the Wehrmacht was their refusal to adapt to changing circumstances. Despite clear inclinations that their method of warfare was not working, the Germans continued to employ maneuver warfare and rely on their mechanized forces as their decisive arm, despite their increasingly dwindling supply of fuel and the failure of their industry to match their competitors.

At the end of his blog post, the author quoted a Russian military saying I found interesting; "War is not won by the most competent, but by the least incompetent". I thought it was funny, in line with other maxims like Murphy's Laws ("Tracers work both ways", among others) but the more I studied military history the more I have come to realize that's an very accurate way of putting it.

Wasn’t “Barbarossa” commenced over the objections of senior staff of the German military?

“I know more than the generals” sort of thing?

War is ultimately a very pragmatic affair. Mistakes, inefficiency, and errors get punished and exploited very strongly, and when you make a mistake that doesn’t cost you, you count yourself lucky. There’s a lot that goes into war these days, but one thing you hear above all is technology. The new aircraft that is so stealthy it will revolutionize airpower. The new cruise missile that moves five times faster than the speed of sound, the new rifle that is even more accurate than before.
Technology absolutely plays a vital part in military affairs, but it is not the silver bullet that some have assumed it is. The other day I was in a debate with another user on this forum regarding the role of technology in warfare. To be fair to my opponent, in several instances he cited historical fact and even produced sources, both scholarly and personal, to back up his assertions. A chief point of his argument was the importance of technology, and how it had determined the outcome of several recent conflicts. At one point I brought up the Russo-Georgia War, to which he replied with

jmotivator said:

Good golly are you bad at this. Georgia and Russia were fighting with essentially the same equipment in 2008 and, if anything, Russia had the technological advantage since they were fielding the latest arms and armor produced by Russia while Georgia was armed with old Soviet cast-offs. :doh

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But this actually isn’t true.

In “The Tanks of August” by Ruslan Pukhov, it’s laid clear that Georgian forces were in fact, better armed than their Ossetian and Russian counterparts.

“In addition to buying new weapons, several big upgrade programs have been rolled out under the Saakashvili government. The largest of them include the upgrade of the Georgian fleet of T-72 tanks to the T-72-SIM-1 specification, developed by Israeli’s Elbit Systems…All these upgrades made the Georgian T-72’s superior to the tanks of Georgia’s former autonomies and other nations of the Caucasus, as well as to any tanks Russia’s North Caucasus military district could deploy in 2008.” Page 27

Meanwhile, the Russian Armed Forces opposing the Georgians had to make do with:

“But for all their experience of real combat, the District’s units had to make do with old and obsolete equipment. The prospect of an armed conflict with Georgia did not really change the situation. The District lacked any first-class heavy weapons. The most advances tanks it could field were the slightly upgrades versions of the T-72s, scattered in small numbers across several tank units. None of these units had any T-80 or T-90 tanks. The 42nd Motorized Rifle Division was given woefully obsolete T-62s, which were still useable for counterinsurgency operations, but completely inadequate in any confrontation with a serious adversary. Motorized infantry was in no better condition. Apart from the BMP-2 and BTR-80 vehicles, which are themselves fairly aged, it was still heavily reliant on the ancient BMP-1 and MT-LB.” Page 40.

When Georgia invaded it’s forces failed to make any significant progress, and shortly after encountering Russian forces the Georgians were routed from South Ossetia. Despite being better armed than the Russian and South Ossetian forces they encountered, the Georgians largely fell apart under Russian attack and they were forced to withdraw in poor cohesion. The war ended with an undisputed Russian victory. For all the money poured into the Georgian Army by Saakashvili, his forces failed to perform well once they engaged a well trained and experienced fighting force, despite the better status of their weaponry.

No amount of military hardware and technology can ultimately overcome military incompetence. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, they did so by making use of a 1941 British Staff exercise of a hypothetical attack to seize Khuzestan and it’s oil fields. The Iraqi General staff modified this plan (it had been envisioned for a single British division), but relied heavily on the calculations of the British exercise, which had been made forty years prior, long before the Iranian Revolution, the establishment of Ba’athist Iraq, the invention of the fighter jet, and the birth of most of the Iraqi and Iranian soldiers that would take part in the offensive.

The ground invasion did poorly. Despite facing virtually minimal resistance, the Iraqi Army of 2,750 tanks, 1,400 artillery pieces, and 4,000 APCs advanced all of 8 kilometers. Despite facing an Iranian Army that had just 500 operational tanks, 300 artillery pieces, and by this point was composed largely of border guards, militant students, and law enforcement, the Iraqis managed to advance just 65 kilometers into Iran within two weeks. Iraqi forces were hampered by their own actions.

When encountering any kind of resistance, no matter how light, the Iraqis would promptly halt their advance, order engineers to begin digging defensive positions, and then unleash a mass barrage of tank fire, mortars, machineguns, and artillery. When reaching urban areas like Dezful, Khorramshahr, Ahvaz, and Abadan the Iraqis made no attempt to seize control of or capture these cities, even encircle them, opting instead to dig in on the outskirts and wait for their artillery to soften up the Iranian defenses; even when they were minimal or nonexistent.

“The one exception to this rule was Khorramshahr, where the Iraqis were determined to take the city. They eventually did so, but it took four weeks of combat, 8,ooo casualties, and the loss of over 100 tanks and APCs to Iranian infantry equipped with small arms, light antitank weapons, and Molotov cocktails.58 As a result, Khorramshahr was the only city Iraq captured while it failed to secure any number of other towns and cities that were critical communications nodes, transportation junctions, population centers, garrisons, or defensive positions.”

Kenneth M. Pollack. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

The Iraqis would repeat this poor tactical performance throughout the Iran-Iraq War. In 1991, when facing the vastly better armed and trained Coalition forces the Iraqis did even poorer. Iraq’s entire strategy fell to the assumption that if Iraqi forces could inflict enough losses on the Coalition, they would eventually decide Kuwait wasn’t worth the cost and withdraw.

This ended up failing. Iraqi forces were unable to inflict any serious casualties on the Coalition forces; and in their attempt they continued to show virtually no tactical common sense.

“Setting aside the superior performance of Western equipment over Iraq's largely Soviet arsenal, Iraqi units simply could not fight at the same levels of effectiveness as the British, French, and especially American soldiers and officers who made up the core of the Coalition's military forces. Iraqi tactical commanders were inflexible and incapable of adequately responding to the constant maneuvering, deception, and speed of their adversary. Time and again, the response of Iraqi units to being surprised or outflanked was either to do nothing, to keep doing what they were already doing, or to flee. Only rarely did Iraqi junior officers try to devise quick responses to unforeseen developments.”

Kenneth M. Pollack. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

In fact the only aspect of the Iraqi plan that worked was the sacrifice of the Republican Guard against VII Corps, which bought just enough time for the bulk of the Iraqi Army to retreat from Kuwait, sans their heavy equipment. This was a small blessing in light of the annihilation the Republican Guard suffered.

Iraqi performance did not get any better in the years following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Despite more than a decade of training and military aid, the Iraqi Army performed exceptionally poorly against ISIS in 2014, with three divisions collapsing around Mosul in the wake of ISIS’s offensive, only for the terrorist organization to be stopped outside Baghdad by overwhelming American and allied air power. Despite being armed with American weapons, tanks, and plenty of fire support, the performance of the Iraqi army once more left a lot to be desired.

Like the Georgians in 2008, the Iraqi Army in 1980 and 2014 proved that firepower and technology simply cannot overcome an army deficient in skill and training, and when facing off against an enemy better motivated and led, the results are likely to be disastrous. In 2014 the Ukrainian patchwork of volunteer battalions and national guard units were smashed by Russian forces that managed to elude NATO satellite recon. At Ashod in 1948 Israeli’s armed with Molotov cocktails and two ancient 65mm AT guns defeated a numerical superior Egyptian force armed with tanks and air support. In the second Congo War the Rwandans, an army without heavy weapons, managed to decimate Angolan and Zimbabewan forces despite both armies possessing aircraft, heavy artillery, tanks. Technology and money simply cannot will your way to military competence.

If the French put up more of a fight, it would've saved millions of lives and shortened the war considerably.


As it was, the quick downfall of France at the start of WWII gave the Nazis overwhelming confidence which got them to trouble in Russia. Their confidence didn't reflect their abilities.

No oil for one. They thought they'd just grab Russia's oil fields and go on from there.

America had 75% of the world's oil at the time.

Rexedgar said:

Wasn’t “Barbarossa” commenced over the objections of senior staff of the German military?

“I know more than the generals” sort of thing?

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That was a claim of German generals after WWII ended, but it doesn't appear to actually be true. Those that were in a position to protest, like Franz Halder, didn't, and those that did were largely not in a position to really do anything about it. The consensus among German generals was that the Soviets were weak and would be crushed rather easily, even if someone of them found the task daunting.

swing_voter said:

If the French put up more of a fight, it would've saved millions of lives and shortened the war considerably.

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France was doomed by poor strategic planning, not because they didn't put up a fight. Most figures put their casualties at nearly 100,000 killed in just six weeks of fighting. That's an insanely high attrition rate for any army to suffer, and unlike the Soviets the French had no reserves to cover their losses.

Jredbaron96 said:

France was doomed by poor strategic planning, not because they didn't put up a fight. Most figures put their casualties at nearly 100,000 killed in just six weeks of fighting. That's an insanely high attrition rate for any army to suffer, and unlike the Soviets the French had no reserves to cover their losses.

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There is a common theory that had the French reacted to the German incursion into the Rhineland, fully three years before WW2 kicked off, they would have backed down and at least postponed the war.

Jredbaron96 said:

Dr. Robert Citino pointed out one of the fundamental problems of the Wehrmacht was their refusal to adapt to changing circumstances. Despite clear inclinations that their method of warfare was not working, the Germans continued to employ maneuver warfare and rely on their mechanized forces as their decisive arm, despite their increasingly dwindling supply of fuel and the failure of their industry to match their competitors.

At the end of his blog post, the author quoted a Russian military saying I found interesting; "War is not won by the most competent, but by the least incompetent". I thought it was funny, in line with other maxims like Murphy's Laws ("Tracers work both ways", among others) but the more I studied military history the more I have come to realize that's an very accurate way of putting it.

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Interesting, I wonder if tracers could be made that burn in the Infrared, and could only be seen by side that knew that is what you were doing?

Ironically, logistics remains a huge shortcoming of the Russian military 70 years after Operation Barbarossa.

Rexedgar said:

There is a common theory that had the French reacted to the German incursion into the Rhineland, fully three years before WW2 kicked off, they would have backed down and at least postponed the war.

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Quite possibly, unfortunately in 1936 Hitler had given the French very little reason to really oppose him outright.

Rexedgar said:

Wasn’t “Barbarossa” commenced over the objections of senior staff of the German military?

“I know more than the generals” sort of thing?

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OMG, no...lol. The generals had zero objections to invading Russia. It was the invasion of France and Belgium they objected to.

apdst said:

OMG, no...lol. The generals had zero objections to invading Russia. It was the invasion of France and Belgium they objected to.

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Constitutional and civil law and history? Triple threat?

Should have spent more time in English, imo!

Rexedgar said:

Constitutional and civil law and history? Triple threat?

Should have spent more time in English, imo!

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You sure do hate being wrong all the time...lol

Spelling words is useless if you can't combine them to absorb information. It appears you spent too much time in English class...lol

Rogue Valley said:

Ironically, logistics remains a huge shortcoming of the Russian military 70 years after Operation Barbarossa.

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It all boils down to doctrine really. And even to this day, the Russians are mostly using a variant of the "Warsaw Pact" model.

Which predominantly states that the army operates almost exclusively on it's own on the ground, with most supplies brought in on the ground. And being very careful to never outrun it's terrestrial logistics train. Generally to operate in jumps, then to pause as it adapts to the longer supply line, then to jump forward again. Normally in 200-500 mile leaps.

They have never trusted air supply or relying upon local captured supplies in combat, having seen that fail many times, in both WWII and afterwards. So it is not so much of a "shortcoming", as part of their overall strategy. Better to operate slower but with secure logistics support, than to move fast and outrun it.

Of course, they have also for this reason never invested heavily in air supply. But their ground supply capabilities are impressive.

Rogue Valley said:

Ironically, logistics remains a huge shortcoming of the Russian military 70 years after Operation Barbarossa.

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Oozlefinch sort of gets it, but for a better explanation:

The Soviets assumed that in the event of a shooting war with NATO their front line divisions would be rendered combat ineffective within a few days, and therefore attempting to push supplies down all the way down to the tactical echelons was ultimately a waste of resources. This was based on reports from the Aarab-Israeli Wars, in particular the Yom Kippur War that showed how fast front line units would suffer attrition and deplete their stockpiles of ammunition and fuel. So Soviet divisions, while beefed up with weaponry and hardware were short on actual logistical support. A Motor Rifle Regiment for example of 2,500 men had less than a hundred men to handle it's logistics, and a Motor Rifle Division of hundreds of armored vehicles had just a few hundred men assigned to handle their supplies.

The Soviets instead concentrated their logistical elements at the corps and army levels, that would just be pushed out as the second wave of divisions moved forward. It was assumed by that point that forward most Soviet divisions simply wouldn't exist at that point, and what was left would just be absorbed by the follow up echelons. So the Soviets were geared towards ensuring everyone had what they needed for Zero Hour, less so for subsequent days until the next echelon struck. It's not a bad mindset, and there's a decent chunk of evidence to suggest its an economical idea even if NATO felt differently.

Russia has limited air logistic capability. The Kremlin of today mostly depends on its 'naval auxiliary fleet' which consists of old cargo/container/ro-ro ships (~12) purchased from Turkey to supply its military forces in Syria (the Syrian Express). The Kazan-60 is a refurbished refrigerated vessel. This supply chain entails loading the ships at Novorossiysk, plying the Black Sea and perhaps picking up additional pallets at Constanta or Varna, crawling through the Dardanelles, and then proceeding to dock at Alexandria before turning off AIS and making a dash for Tartus. This supply chain works (at a snails pace) for supplying its forces in Syria, but it wouldn't work so well against an adversary with air/naval offensive capabilities. This is why Moscow confines itself to bullying the near-abroad - Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, etc.

A common argument I've seen thrown around here is that an army that fights a lot of wars or has been involved in long conflicts must inevitably be skilled.

In reality this isn't really true; the Syrians and Egyptians never really improved despite their repeated conflicts with Israel, Iraq showed only strategic level, not tactical, improvement after eight years of war with Iran, and in this case we see that the Syrian Arab Army hasn't really shown much improvement since the start of the Syrian Civil War.

Rogue Valley said:

Russia has limited air logistic capability.

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That is because they never had to. Their entire doctrine is in fighting enemies they border on the ground, so having a large air mobility capability was never a major concern.

They still have a rather large airlift capability however, of well over 400 aircraft (not counting what they could take from the nation flag carrier Aeroflot (an additional 250 aircraft).

The US is actually rather unique in this, because being an "island nation" with commitments with both the UN and NATO, they have had to create a huge airlift capability to replace her shrunken sealift capability. What the US once sent by boat, they now plan on sending with aircraft. Only the largest of equipment (tanks, large number of vehicles, etc) go by ship. Most other equipment is airlifted now.

But Russia is the #2 nation in the world when it comes to military airlift capacity, so it is hardly "limited". That really only applies when comparing it to that of the US. But their land logistics capability is probably the top in the world. That is something the US has not really had to worry about for decades.