The Brits invented the Panzerdivision? (feat. Panzermuseum)
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- So, when I was talking to Ralf Raths (Director of the Panzermuseum Munster) about Panzerdivisions, he noted that the British actually invented the Panzerdivision long before the Germans. So, let's hear what he has to say on this and some other matters.
Special thanks to vonKickass for thumbnail design improvements.
Referenced Videos:
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Panzer Tactics -„Blitzkrieg“ Years - • Panzer Tactics - "Blit...
Panzergrenadier & Motorized Division - • Panzergrenadier-Divisi...
Why were the Wehrmacht logistics so bad? - • Why were Wehrmacht Log...
Soviet Logistics in WW2 - • Soviet Logistics in Wo...
German Artillery Tactics in WW2 - • German Artillery Tacti...
Comparison of a Panzer, Infantry and Motorized Division - • Comparison German Infa...
Why Ghost Division? - • Why Ghost Division? Wh...
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» SOURCES «
Töppel, Roman: Kursk 1943. The Greatest Battle of the Second World War. Helion: Warwick, UK: 2018.
Wettstein, Adrian E.: Die Wehrmacht im Stadtkampf 1939-1943. Ferdinand Schöningh: Paderborn, 2014.
Kavalerchik, Boris: The Tanks of Operation Barbarossa. Soviet versus German Armour on the Eastern Front. Pen & Sword Military: Barnsley, UK, 2018
Pöhlmann, Markus: Der Panzer und die Mechanisierung des Krieges: Eine deutsche Geschichte 1890 bis 1945. Ferdinand Schöningh: Paderborn, 2016.
Next you'll be telling me the Brits invented the Tank!
Hate to tell you this
Well, they did not. The idea is quite old and it is always gradual so I would not say that we can give that to any single nation because several nations contributed (Dutch built the first vehicle with all-wheel drive for example) but the first vehicle design that could be counted as a modern tank was invented by Austrian engineer Burstyn.
The kuk military leadership was too dumb to see the potential though and so there was no prototype built but later reproductions following the original plans showed that this design was already superior to anything any of the war parties had during WWI. The design was from 1911.
Burstyn was inspired by another Austrian vehicle he saw in 1905 and which was already built as a prototype, the first armoured vehicle that could go through rough terrain and had a turret. It was again leadership that halted this project by Austro-Daimler because the Emperor refused to sign the contract due to a horse being spooked during a demonstration of the vehicle so the Emperor thought it was useless for military purposes...
So if it weren't for incompetent leadership, the Austrians could have been the first country to both have an armoured vehicle with wheels as well as the first modern day tank.
@mxt mxt Yes, as I said, it can't be attributed to a single nation hence why I specified a model that would be considered a modern tank and not those monstrosities being found in WWI. :D
The French had very advanced tanks especially between the wars, they just did not use them properly and lost against the early German tanks which were technically not as good.
In war it is the same as in love, equipment does not matter as much as what you can do with it. ;)
@Britannia OP was talking about inventing, not producing en masse and using so the point still stands.
Ah Ralf Raths. My favourite future bond villain.
We're going to need a white cat and a couple of henchmen...
The Great Depression meant no money for everything. Spending cuts to the military were severe and the British Army was hit the most. The British loved the RN and the new RAF was essential for defense. The old school Generals took the opportunity get rid of these impotent tank advocates. In 1940 the German army issued it's officers with a Michelin guide to France. It had the location of every petrol/gas station, food store, restaurant etc as well as a map with the location of every military and civilian petrol/gas storage complex. The German had done their homework.
The Brits were actually the least strapped for cash at the war's beginning, unemployment peaked in 1932 and steadily fell from there. For Britain the Depression was relatively mild because they kept their legendary stiff upper lips on and weathered the storm rather than panic and break everything like the French, the Italians, the Spanish, the Germans, and the Americans. They did neglect the army somewhat but they did start the war with one of the best equipped armies of the 1939-1940 era.
6:45 That was literally the reason why the Soviets changed their armored forces' structure in late 1941: they found after the experiences of Dubno/Brody, Raiseinai, Smolensk and Uman that their armored corps were just too tank-heavy.
British rightfully abandon the idea. They are an island it was smart to focus on Navy and Airforce. Where as Germany was a mainland European continent, tanks and planes were much more important than Navy.
Fun Fact:. Independent suspension for tanks was created by an American but was rejected by the US yet the Soviets and Germans both purchased it.
Neither of them bought the Christie suspension, The Soviet-Union just nicked without ever paying a dime it and the Germans never bothered with Christie suspension as they made use of amongst others torsion bar suspension.
LOVE it when you do interviews with Ralf Raths. Always very informative!
Reading about British defence between the wars can be very frustrating (as a Brit, anyway!) but it always has to be remembered that there was only so much money to go around and that keeping a stable economy and society were also vitally important. Britain remained a functioning liberal democracy, even through the Great Depression, and that was partly because the economy wasn't 'overheated' by massive spending on armaments.
When the force isn't fully motorized or mechanized but use horses... Is it then Equestrianized? :)
I sense a disturbance in the force... as if a million wehrboos cried out in terror
Even the French with their extremely centralised static defence based doctrin saw the need for a mobile armoured force. They called theirs Armoured Cavalry I believe.
What the Wermacht did first was successfully utilize such a force in combat.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Good
Nahh no crying just took an idea and made it superior. That's celebrating.
@@SouthParkCows88 the bargaining stage has set on with incredible rapidity
Brits invented the tank division and the Brit Politicians screwed them out of it. That noise is British fan boys crying.
Another excellent video Professor Kast & Director Raths. The Brits built the world first true tanks it makes sense for them to attempt to integrate it into its own core unit but Germany did it so much better. Director Raths mentioned Guderian & that for me to thinking if you might do a video on General Model like you did with Guderian & Rommel for us. Thanks, MHV your content is always thought provoking & educational. Doing these videos with Königstiger is quite pleasantly distracting. I want to touch one...
@mxt mxt And they also made first real true tank with engine on back, one rotating turret etc Renault Ft-17
Thanx, always interesting and informative.
Good arguments made by Ralf Raths. I'd like to add a few thoughts:
- the real worth of the Panzerdivision is not only the mechanization and thus speed and flexibility but also the operational independence (kinda side-mentioned by Raths). This is what made the Manstein-plan work in the first place (and the not-engagement of the French Air Force)
- do not understimate the importance of the Luftwaffe in combined arms warfare; without it the "Stoßkraft" of a PzDiv is greatly diminished (as seen from mid 1943 onwards)
- one could the debate the definition of the word "invention"; since there was a lot of debate going on in the German Military Literature at the time where Lidell Hart, Fuller and DeGaulle were discussed (also the influence of Eimannsberger "Der Kampfwagenkrieg")
- many of the ideas above could not be put into practice because of the Versailles Treaty restrictions (there not enough tanks and infantry in Kama)
As always, please keep up the good work, love your videos!
"not-engagement of the French Air Force" ? What is this?
@@RouGeZH Sorry, that was bad phrasing. What I meant is that the German tanks could proceed through the narrow Ardennes without really being contested by the Armée de L'Air. I do not know the detailed reasons for this but it may be disorganization, technical problems or outdated tactics (or mix of those).
Thanks, guys! Really interesting.
With all the supplies needed for the army i do wonder how large an effect the danish food production had on the length of the war.
I would very much like to see a video on what was involved in relocating a panzer division. We read a lot about panzer divisions being moved from the eastern to the western fronts and vice versa but it would be good to get an idea as to what was involved in making the move.
Vladimir Triandafillov was the author of two fundamental military doctrine works: Scale of the operations of modern armies, published in 1926 and Characteristics of the operations of the modern armies, published in 1929. In these two works, he elaborated his deep operationstheory about the future warfare. The objective of a "deep operation" was to attack the enemy simultaneously throughout the depth of his ground force to induce a catastrophic failure in his defensive system. Highly mobile formations would then exploit this failure by breaking into the deep rear of the enemy and destroying his ability to rebuild his defenses.
they are huge and they are almost never fully filled up and usually classified as only partially ready for offensive operation
Well here is something I hadn't expected seeing...
The German General Staff would have been more impressed if their SP artillery and FO's had radios as standard. Just like radios made tanks more effective, it's even more true for artillery. More often than not they can't see what they're shooting at and need immediate feed back to correct the fall of shot in order to hit what they're shooting at. Otherwise they've just plowing up some farmers field with HE.
Good point with the logistics. there is a concept of the german civilprotection named BR 500. the idea is to support 500 personal of civilprotection of all 'branches'. Thing is the hole system require something like 200 personal to run.
Forget about that _Si vis pacem para bellum,_ we just would not get involved in any major war in the decade to come!
It _does_ look stupid from today's perspective, but look at us now! The West cut all military spending after the collapse of USSR (that's where I grew up), and I can totally understand that, countries wanted to spend money on what seemed to be more pressing issues, so why not cut those supposedly mandatory expenses of 2% for NATO participants? Some got to 1,5%, some to 1,2%, I've heard one NATO country got as low as 0,8% for defence budget. Even my own country never reached 2% margin, despite having a direct border with Russia. So... given all this, British and French governments of 1920s and 1930s do not look all that stupid.
Europe is governed by traitors these days.
@@aquilatempestate9527 Edgy
ehm but NATO still has a combined spending of several times of every potential enemy. There simply is no Soviet union around anymore and neather china or russia have the same kind of power. Just look at a military funding statistic around the world. The US spends more on military then the next 9 countries combines, of which most are allies and Nato member.............
@@noobster4779 Or how about America having one of their highest defense budgets since WW2 with no enemy whatsoever. That needs to be cut by 90%.
honestly this should give us reason to think that our modern governments are stupid
I always thought it was funny that after the war the British were surprised to discover that the Germans had been inspired by the books and theories of the English officers Capt. Liddell-Hart and General Fuller. How different things might have been if the British army had appreciated these gentlemen as much as the Germans did.
They did. British armour was fairly successful in France.
Not really, fuller and Liddell Hart were a) listened to a lot which is why the experimental unit was created and b) way overestimated the power of the tank. Fuller especially is one of the reasons British doctrine was all wrong in the early part of the war with massively tank heavy units. Liddell Hart in the meantime decided Britain could rely on air power to win the next war. The guys who actually ran the experimental unit were much closer to actual combined arms than the self publicising Hart and fuller.
@@DoddyIshamel I guess I didn't make my point very clear. It's unfortunate that the early British theory of combined arms units/breakthrough and encirclement strategy, that helped lead to the German blitzkrieg strategy, was not followed by the Allies during the war. Instead the western Allies followed an advance on broad front strategy, having chosen to assume less risk at the expense of more cost in men and materials. As the Blitz/Schwerpunkt strategy had worked so well for the Germans and is still much looked to by modern Armies, and the Brit's had the theory available to them in the 1930's, had they chosen to make it doctrine things might have gone a lot different.
@@MrRlg2010 I think you are mixing up strategic and operational concerns here. The British doctrine of concentrating firepower to achieve a breakthrough and then sending through mobile tank units to exploit it is to all intents and purposes identical to German theory. On an operational level the British mobile units were too light on infantry and artillery (and too inflexible command structure) but that is because they listened to Fuller and Hobart (who was backed by Hart) rather than the guys who had actually ran the EMF. The British would have moved to combined arms by ignoring Fuller, not paying more attention to him.
Fuller was a loon who was advocating tank only armies (yes seriously) and Liddel Hart was in the "the bomber will always get through and cities will be totally destroyed within the first hours of the war" school of thought. Both were hideously wrong and indeed part of the British problem in North Africa was they abandoned the combined arms that gave them their greatest series of victories ever in 1918 and tried a much more tank heavy approach. With unfortunate consequences for the British
Hmm no notification from yesterday so just now seeing it.
See Battle of Cambrai and even more pointedly Battle of Hamel for specific details.....
Ralf where are you on your youtube channel
are the black lateral bars blocking people that walked into the scene?
yes
Didn't yo have the heat wave in Munster Berge we other lower saxons suffered from or had fun with?
Or is it a video from april.
December
"Sometimes you even have horse parts in panzer divisions"
Dirty bastards.
Yuck!
2 of my history heroes
One of the things that has made the US military so scary for many possible opponents since the second world war. US military arts has broken the logistical train of US units down to a repeatable science due to it being entirely expeditionary in nature. Everyone from Corps staff & down KNOWS that everything that they will use from dry socks/toilet paper to munitions stocks for sustained arty use at divisional/Corps level has to be moved up to tens of thousands of miles to supply them. BUT, I do think that it might have finally been taken a little to far, to the point that breaking your opponent's will & capability to resist has almost fallen to the wayside. A lot of staff officers are not as focused on the mission of their units & how best to accomplish the tasks assigned to them. "War-fighting" is a skill that is slowly being relearned at the staff & command schools for US ground formations now, while the hard numbers logistics is being placed in the proper position as the support element that it is.
What are the two shells next to the tank? Are those different 88mm shells?
I believe those are high explosive and armour piercing rounds
HE in yellow, APCBC in black.
First armored division? IMO, no. Very important milestone,yes.
I am very glad to hear both of you discussing this topic. Keep up the good work.
The chieftan had done videos on the armoured doctrine developments of all major powers, and the EMF was absolutely an armoured brigade according to what he quoted there.
It did have tankettes standing in for heavier units due to lack of funding, yes, but it was intended as a mobile armoured spearhead zo affect breakthroughs.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 That and the fact that it was a temporary unit.
Anyway, the point of the video is to dispel some of the myths surrounding German armored doctrine, not to create discussions about the size of divisions.
Military theorists J. F. C. Fuller 1926 the Foundations of the Science of War
I love listening to Europeans talking about WWII. Scholagladiatoria, Skallagrim, MAHV, and so many others. I just love the accent combined with the information.
Asterix by the Brits. Yes - they invented the tanks!
Wait what
Mechanised vs Motorised what is the difference?
Horse drawn is *not* motorised. The difference is in the vehicles used. Motorised infantry are mounted in soft skinned vehicles (trucks, cars, jeeps et al.), whilst mechanised infantry are in armoured personnel carriers (in ww2, these include the Anglo-Australian "Kangaroos", and the German Sd. Kfz. 251 "Hanomag").
mechanized means with tracks or at least half-tracks for the combat units. Motorized means trucks, cars, jeeps, etc.
Wenn zwei Deutsche Englisch miteinander reden 😀😍
Dumm nur, wenn nicht alle, die deutsch sprechen, auch Deutsche sind. Putin kann deutsch und ist keiner. Und von den 2 hier muss auch nicht jeder Deutscher sein ...
Man kann jetzt natürlich auch Argumentieren, dass Bernhard als Österreicher kein Deutscher ist .
What annoys me is that combined arms doctrine is simply a mechanization of basic cavalry doctrine. All the European armies knew how cavalry worked -- the Americans only were familiar with light cavalry -- but why it took everyone so long to include the equivalent of dragoons and horse artillery along with light and heavy horse, is a mystery to me.
The answer is the cost. In the future someone will say something similar about outfitting all infantry with exoskeletons. Its such an obvious advantage, and solves so many problems. We do have the technology for it, it's just too unreliable and expensive.
Its the same with mechanized troops and such at the time. The cost to outfit a fully mechanized army and give them the equipment to properly use these tactics at the time was very high, unaffordable even for the richest nations.
Italy had developed a form of blitzkrieg in the 30s, it's just they could barely afford to outfit even a single division to use these tactics by the end of the 30s, even after making tons of compromises to make it cheaper, and ending up with tanks that were outdated by the time they had built enough to actually use.
@@lobsterbark I take your point, but the UK army was essentially motorized as early as 1940 -- though not mechanized. For them it seems to have more to do with doctrine.
Just because one person invents so ething it doesn't mean that the next person won't make it better. A good example of this is the development of the steam engine.
That's what we Brits do though; we invent a thing, and then someone else makes it better and sells it back to us (or in the case of sport, beats us for the rest of time).
Lindy has wit and charm he is English except from not drinking tea whats not to like
I kept thinking he was a priest. They seem to have similar personalities or... mannerisms maybe.
Biggest Anime plot twist
So they actually said the British actually DIDNT create it? BEcause they looked into the concept, played with it... and REJECTED IT!
How is that creating it?
Because they invented it and than thought it was useless.
They didn't create it they came up with the concept, a what if. That's what they created a what if.
SouthParkCows88 the brits are pretty good at that aren’t they there fantastic at creating concepts not so much with actually making it work
Well I mean I guess the brits came up with the idea first just the Germans actually got it working first
@@Patriotic_Brit So, the Soviets should be considered the first to land on the moon? They made it there first, crashed of course and failed, but they made it...
Come on...
we invented basically everything... quite lucky we didn't invent fascism eh?
next video: the Swiss actually invented the nuke
Well, no. The Hungarians did.
I need no channel youtube! Actually it was a German scientist named Otto Hahn who discovered nuclear fission witch was used in all early nuclear weapons
Difference between the Brits and Germans? Brits invent the jet engine....the Germans use it (Me262, etc). The Brits invent the tank and pz div ....and the Germans use it in the form of Blitzkrieg.......etc,etc,etc......it is not knowledge but the application of knowledge that is considered "wisdom".......lol....the Brits talk and the Germans do!
Well, in order for Britain to test combined arms warfare with tanks before the Germans, they'd need to declare war on someone first. Why would they even want to do that? And who would they declare war on?
Similarly, the Germans started using jet aircraft out of sheer desperation. They were losing badly by 1944 and instead of focusing resources to improve existing military equipment or better yet, reducing inefficiencies and wastage in their industries, they decided to create "wunderwaffen" in a delusional attempt to wipe out all opposition in one fell swoop.
Brits love taking credit for ideas others put into action. P.S. Imagine that beast w/100 grenadiers rushing your position.
Well that's what an idea is dimwit... the theory before the practice. Smh.
Isnt this a video of a German talking about how they created the idea, not a Brit? And as the previous commentor stated, thats what an idea is?