Tag British Army

More on the QJM/TNDM Italian Battles

Troops of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division advance inland on Red Beach, Salerno, Italy, 1943. [ibiblio/U.S. Center for Military History]

[The article below is reprinted from December 1998 edition of The International TNDM Newsletter.]

More on the QJM/TNDM Italian Battles
by Richard C. Anderson, Jr.

In regard to Niklas Zetterling’s article and Christopher Lawrence’s response (Newsletter Volume 1, Number 6) [and Christopher Lawrence’s 2018 addendum] I would like to add a few observations of my own. Recently I have had occasion to revisit the Allied and German records for Italy in general and for the Battle of Salerno in particular. What I found is relevant in both an analytical and an historical sense.

The Salerno Order of Battle

The first and most evident observation that I was able to make of the Allied and German Order of Battle for the Salerno engagements was that it was incorrect. The following observations all relate to the table found on page 25 of Volume 1, Number 6.

The divisional totals are misleading. The U.S. had one infantry division (the 36th) and two-thirds of a second (the 45th, minus the 180th RCT [Regimental Combat Team] and one battalion of the 157th Infantry) available during the major stages of the battle (9-15 September 1943). The 82nd Airborne Division was represented solely by elements of two parachute infantry regiments that were dropped as emergency reinforcements on 13-14 September. The British 7th Armored Division did not begin to arrive until 15-16 September and was not fully closed in the beachhead until 18-19 September.

The German situation was more complicated. Only a single panzer division, the 16th, under the command of the LXXVI Panzer Corps was present on 9 September. On 10 September elements of the Hermann Goring Parachute Panzer Division, with elements of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division under tactical command, began arriving from the vicinity of Naples. Major elements of the Herman Goring Division (with its subordinated elements of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division) were in place and had relieved elements of the 16th Panzer Division opposing the British beaches by 11 September. At the same time the 29th Panzergrenandier Division began arriving from Calabria and took up positions opposite the U.S. 36th Divisions in and south of Altavilla, again relieving elements of the 16th Panzer Division. By 11-12 September the German forces in the northern sector of the beachhead were under the command of the XIV Panzer Corps (Herman Goring Division (-), elements of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division and elements of the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division), while the LXXVI Panzer Corps commanded the 16th Panzer Division, 29th Panzergrenadier Division, and elements of the 26th Panzer Division. Unfortunately for the Germans the 16th Panzer Division’s zone was split by the boundary between the XIV and LXXVI Corps, both of whom appear to have had operational control over different elements of the division. Needless to say, the German command and control problems in this action were tremendous.[1]

The artillery totals given in the table are almost inexplicable. The numbers of SP [self-propelled] 75mm howitzers is a bit fuzzy, inasmuch as this was a non-standardized weapon on a half-track chassis. It was allocated to the infantry regimental cannon company (6 tubes) and was also issued to tank and tank destroyer battalions as a stopgap until purpose-designed systems could be brought into production. The 105mm SP was also present on a half-track chassis in the regimental cannon company (2 tubes) and on a full-track chassis in the armored field artillery battalion (18 tubes). The towed 105mm artillery was present in the five field artillery battalions present of the 36th and 45th divisions and in a single non-divisional battalion assigned to the VI Corps. The 155mm howitzers were only present in the two divisional field artillery battalions, the general support artillery assigned to the VI Corps, the 36th Field Artillery Regiment, did not arrive until 16 September. No 155mm gun battalions landed in Italy until October 1943. The U.S. artillery figures should approximately be as follows:

75mm Howitzer (SP)

2 per infantry battalion

28

6 per tank battalion

12

Total

40
105mm Howitzer (SP)

2 per infantry regiment

10

1 armored FA battalion[2]

18

5 divisional FA battalions

60

1 non-divisional FA battalion

12

Total

100
155mm Howitzer

2 divisional FA battalions

24
3″ Tank Destroyer

3 battalions

108

Thus, the U.S. artillery strength is approximately 272 versus 525 as given in the chart.

The British artillery figures are also suspect. Each of the British divisions present, the 46th and 56th, had three regiments (battalions in U.S. parlance) of 25-pounder gun-howitzers for a total of 72 per division. There is no evidence of the presence of the British 3-inch howitzer, except possibly on a tank chassis in the support tank role attached to the tank troop headquarters of the armor regiment (battalion) attached to the X Corps (possibly 8 tubes). The X Corps had a single medium regiment (battalion) attached with either 4.5 inch guns or 5.5 inch gun-howitzers or a mixture of the two (16 tubes). The British did not have any 7.2 inch howitzers or 155mm guns at Salerno. I do not know where the figure for British 75mm howitzers is from, although it is possible that some may have been present with the corps armored car regiment.

Thus the British artillery strength is approximately 168 versus 321 as given in the chart.

The German artillery types are highly suspect. As Niklas Zetterling deduced, there was no German corps or army artillery present at Salemo. Neither the XIV or LXXVI Corps had Heeres (army) artillery attached. The two battalions of the 7lst Nebelwerfer regiment and one battery of 170mm guns (previously attached to the 15th Panzergrenadier Division) were all out of action, refurbishing and replenishing equipment in the vicinity of Naples. However, U.S. intelligence sources located 42 Italian coastal gun positions, including three 149mm (not 132mm) railway guns defending the beaches. These positions were taken over by German personnel on the night before the invasion. That they fired at all in the circumstances is a comment on the professionalism of the German Army. The remaining German artillery available was with the divisional elements that arrived to defend against the invasion forces. The following artillery strengths are known for the German forces at Salerno:

16th Panzer Division (as of 3 September):

14 75mm infantry support howitzers
11 150mm SP infantry support howitzers
10 105mm howitzers
8 105mm SP howitzers
4 105mm guns
8 150mm howitzers
5 150mm SP howitzers
5 88mm AA guns

26th Panzer Division (as of 12 September):

15 75mm infantry support howitzers
12 150mm infantry support howitzers
6 105mm SP howitzers
12 105mm howitzers
10 150mm SP howitzers
4 150mm howitzers

Herman Goring Parachute Panzer Division (as of 13 September):

6-8 75mm infantry support howitzers
8 150mm infantry support howitzers
24 105mm howitzers
12 105mm SP howitzers
4 105mm guns
8 150mrn howitzers
6 150mm SP howitzers
6 150mm multiple rocket launchers
12 88mm AA guns

29th Panzergrenadier Division

106 artillery pieces (types unknown)

15th Panzergrenadier Division (elements):

10-12 105mm howitzers

3d Panzergrenadier Division

6 150mm infantry support howitzers

Non-divisional:

501st Army Flak Battalion (probably 20mm and 37mm AA only)
I/49th Flak Battalion (probably 8 88mm AA guns)

Thus, German artillery strength is about 342 tubes versus 394 as given in the chart.[3]

Armor strengths are equally suspect for both the Allied and German forces. It should be noted however, that the original QJM database considered wheeled armored cars to be the equivalent of a light tank.

Only two U.S. armor battalions were assigned to the initial invasion force, with a total of 108 medium and 34 light tanks. The British X Corps had a single armor regiment (battalion) assigned with approximately 67 medium and 10 light tanks. Thus, the Allies had some 175 medium tanks versus 488 as given in the chart and 44 light tanks versus 236 (including an unknown number of armored cars) as given in the chart.

German armor strength was as follows (operational/in repair as of the date given):

16th Panzer Division (8 September):

7/0 Panzer III flamethrower tanks
12/0 Panzer IV short
86/6 Panzer IV long
37/3 assault guns

29th Panzergrenadier Division (1 September):

32/5 assault guns
17/4 SP antitank
3/0 Panzer III

26th Panzer Division (5 September):

11/? assault guns
10/? Panzer III

Herman Goering Parachute Panzer Division (7 September):

5/? Panzer IV short
11/? Panzer IV long
5/? Panzer III long
1/? Panzer III 75mm
21/? assault guns
3/? SP antitank

15th Panzergrenadier Division (8 September):

6/? Panzer IV long
18/? assault guns

Total 285/18 medium tanks, SP anti-tank, and assault guns. This number actually agrees very well with the 290 medium tanks given in the chart. I have not looked closely at the number of German armored cars but suspect that it is fairly close to that given in the charts.

In general it appears that the original QJM Database got the numbers of major items of equipment right for the Germans, even if it flubbed on the details. On the other hand, the numbers and details are highly suspect for the Allied major items of equipment. Just as a first order “guestimate” I would say that this probably reduces the German CEV to some extent; however, missing from the formula is the Allied naval gunfire support which, although negligible in impact in the initial stages of the battle, had a strong influence on the later stages of the battle.

Hopefully, with a little more research and time, we will be able to go back and revalidate these engagements. In the meantime I hope that this has clarified some of the questions raised about the Italian QJM Database.

NOTES

[1] Exacerbating the German command and control problems was the fact that the Tenth Army, which was in overall command of the XIV Panzer Corps and LXXVI Panzer Corps, had only been in existence for about six weeks. The army’s signal regiment was only partly organized and its quartermaster services were almost nonexistent.

[2] Arrived 13 September, 1 battery in action 13-15 September.

[3] However, the number given for the 29th Panzergrenadier Division appears to be suspiciously high and is not well defined. Hopefully further research may clarify the status of this division.

‘Evett’s Rates’: British War Office Wastage Tables

Stretcher bearers of the East Surrey Regiment, with a Churchill tank of the North Irish Horse in the background, during the attack on Longstop Hill, Tunisia, 23 April 1943. [Imperial War Museum/Wikimedia]

A friend of TDI queried us recently about a reference in Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 to a British casualty estimation methodology known as “Evett’s Rates.” There are few references to Evett’s Rates online, but as it happens, TDI did find out some details about them for a study on casualty estimation. [1]

British Army staff officers during World War II and the 1950s used a set of look-up tables which listed expected monthly losses in percentage of strength for various arms under various combat conditions. The origin of the tables is not known, but they were officially updated twice, in 1942 by a committee chaired by Major General Evett, and in 1951-1955 by the Army Operations Research Group (AORG).[2]

The methodology was based on staff predictions of one of three levels of operational activity, “Intense,” “Normal,” and “Quiet.” These could be applied to an entire theater, or to individual divisions. The three levels were defined the same way for both the Evett Committee and AORG rates:

The rates were broken down by arm and rank, and included battle and nonbattle casualties.

Rates of Personnel Wastage Including Both Battle and Non-battle Casualties According to the Evett Committee of 1942. (Percent per 30 days).

The Evett Committee rates were criticized during and after the war. After British forces suffered twice the anticipated casualties at Anzio, the British 21st Army Group applied a “double intense rate” which was twice the Evett Committee figure and intended to apply to assaults. When this led to overestimates of casualties in Normandy, the double intense rate was discarded.

From 1951 to 1955, AORG undertook a study of casualty rates in World War II. Its analysis was based on casualty data from the following campaigns:

  • Northwest Europe, 1944
    • 6-30 June – Beachhead offensive
    • 1 July-1 September – Containment and breakout
    • 1 October-30 December – Semi-static phase
    • 9 February to 6 May – Rhine crossing and final phase
  • Italy, 1944
    • January to December – Fighting a relatively equal enemy in difficult country. Warfare often static.
    • January to February (Anzio) – Beachhead held against severe and well-conducted enemy counter-attacks.
  • North Africa, 1943
    • 14 March-13 May – final assault
  • Northwest Europe, 1940
    • 10 May-2 June – Withdrawal of BEF
  • Burma, 1944-45

From the first four cases, the AORG study calculated two sets of battle casualty rates as percentage of strength per 30 days. “Overall” rates included KIA, WIA, C/MIA. “Apparent rates” included these categories but subtracted troops returning to duty. AORG recommended that “overall” rates be used for the first three months of a campaign.

The Burma campaign data was evaluated differently. The analysts defined a “force wastage” category which included KIA, C/MIA, evacuees from outside the force operating area and base hospitals, and DNBI deaths. “Dead wastage” included KIA, C/MIA, DNBI dead, and those discharged from the Army as a result of injuries.

The AORG study concluded that the Evett Committee underestimated intense loss rates for infantry and armor during periods of very hard fighting and overestimated casualty rates for other arms. It recommended that if only one brigade in a division was engaged, two-thirds of the intense rate should be applied, if two brigades were engaged the intense rate should be applied, and if all brigades were engaged then the intense rate should be doubled. It also recommended that 2% extra casualties per month should be added to all the rates for all activities should the forces encounter heavy enemy air activity.[1]

The AORG study rates were as follows:

Recommended AORG Rates of Personnel Wastage. (Percent per 30 days).

If anyone has further details on the origins and activities of the Evett Committee and AORG, we would be very interested in finding out more on this subject.

NOTES

[1] This post is adapted from The Dupuy Institute, Casualty Estimation Methodologies Study, Interim Report (May 2005) (Altarum) (pp. 51-53).

[2] Rowland Goodman and Hugh Richardson. “Casualty Estimation in Open and Guerrilla Warfare.” (London: Directorate of Science (Land), U.K. Ministry of Defence, June 1995.), Appendix A.

Command and Combat Effectiveness: The Case of the British 51st Highland Division

Soldiers of the British 51st Highland Division take cover in bocage in Normandy, 1944. [Daily Record (UK)]

While Trevor Dupuy’s concept of combat effectiveness has been considered controversial by some, he was hardly the only one to observe that throughout history, some military forces have fought more successfully on the battlefield than others. While the sources of victory and defeat in battle remain a fertile, yet understudied topic, there is a growing literature on the topic of military effectiveness in the fields of strategic and security studies.

Anthony King, a professor in War Studies at the University of Warwick, has published an outstanding article in the most recent edition of British Journal of Military History, “Why did 51st Highland Division Fail? A case-study in command and combat effectiveness.” In it, he examined military command and combat effectiveness through the experience of the British 51st Highland Division in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Most usefully, King developed a definition of military command that clarifies its relationship to combat effectiveness: “The function of a commander is to maximise combat power by defining achievable missions and, then, orchestrating subordinates into a cohesive whole committed to mission accomplishment.”

Defining Military Command

In order to analyze the relationship between command and combat effectiveness, King sought to “define the concept of command and to specify its relationship to management and leadership.” The construct he developed drew upon the work of Peter Drucker, an Austrian-born American business consultant and writer who is considered by many to be “the founder of modern management.” From Drucker, King distilled a definition of the function and process of military command: “command always consists of three elements: mission definition, mission management and mission motivation.”

As King explained, “When command is understood in this way, its connection to combat effectiveness begins to become clear.”

[C]ommand is an institutional solution to an organizational problem; it generates cohesion in a formation. Specifically, by uniting decision-making authority in one person and one role, a large military force is able to unite subordinate units, whose troops are not co-present with each other and who, in most cases, do not know each other. Crucially, the combat effectiveness of a formation, as a formation, is substantially dependent upon the ability of its commander to synchronise its disparate efforts in order to generate collective effects. Skillful command has a galvanising influence on a military force; by orchestrating the activities of subordinate units and motivating troops, command is able to create a level of combat power, which supervenes the capabilities of each of the parts. A well-commanded force has properties, which exceed those of its constituent units, fighting alone.

It is through the orchestration, synchronization, and motivation of effort, King concluded, that “command and combat effectiveness are immediately connected. Command fuses a formation together and increases its determination to fulfil its missions.”

Assessing the Combat Effectiveness of the 51st Division

The rest of King’s article is a detailed assessment of the combat effectiveness of the 51st Highland Division in Normandy in June and July 1944 using this military command construct. Observers at the time noted a decline in the division’s combat performance, which had been graded quite highly in North Africa and Sicily. The one obvious difference was the replacement of Major General Douglas Wimberley with Major General Charles Bullen-Smith in August 1943. After concluding that the 51st Division was no longer battleworthy, the commander of the British 21st Army Group, General Bernard Montgomery personally relieved Bullen-Smith in late July 1944.

In reviewing Bullen-Smith’s performance, King concluded that

Although a number of factors contributed to the struggles of the Highland Division in Normandy, there is little doubt that the shortcomings of its commander, Major General Charles Bullen-Smith, were the critical factor. Charles Bullen-Smith failed to fulfill the three essential functions required of a commander… Bullen-Smith’s inadequacies are highly suggestive of a direct relationship between command and combat effectiveness; they demonstrate how command can augment or undermine combat performance.

King’s approach to military studies once again demonstrates the relevance of multi-disciplinary analysis based on solid historical research. His military command model should prove to be a very useful tool for analyzing the elements of combat effectiveness and assessing combat power. Along with Dr. Jonathan Fennell’s work on measuring morale, among others, it appears that good progress is being made on the study of human factors in combat and military operations, at least in the British academic community (even if Tom Ricks thinks otherwise).