I am familiar with Dupoy's work and he does cherry pick some specific examples for his comparisons.
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Incorrect.
It is well known (and I can dig out some papers when I am not on my phone), that British/American and German casualty reporting methodologies were somewhat different, with the allies having a far better medical care procedure. Thus, lighter injuries were recorded as a casualty, leading to higher casualty rates. Many of these soldiers would spend a short period convalescing and then returning to their unit. Furthermore, Germany was on the defensive for much of their war against the western allies, and defence generally favours the defender (albeit with a higher death rate than elsewhere). Yo could of course look at 'deaths', but there are similar skews, or POWs or ...
Germans usually having in the range of 3 to 4 wounded for every one killed, while the allies tend to have 4 to 5 wounded for every one killed, any light wound and returned to duty from Div aid stations acounts for German underreporting of casualties, that last point, returned to duty from Div Stations,was pointed out by Zitterling decades ago. This was not corrected for he HERO, but was for later QJM (Quantified Judgement Model) and the currecnt TNDM (Tactical Numberical Deterministic Model) modelleling after 1976. Along with other, refinments, the Axis forces ion Italy have increased their CEV rating in comparison to Allied, up to 1.4. to 1.5 from 1.2 to 1.3.
Defensive posture is the same for both sides a value around 1.5 being the outcome of defensive posture on expected casualty infliction rates at Bttn level actions and no there were not more deaths on the defensive side.
Dupoy uses Combat effetciviness values (CEV) measured in terms of casualty exchanges, terrain held or lost, and mission accomplishment, training and so on. Capture rates are built into the model and used to compare with other Theatre databases. The number of instances when posture of attacking or defending is built into the model so as to understand the effects of posture on outcomes.
Enemy Prisoner of War Capture Rate Study, Phase I & II
In the study we did do a direct comparison between US performance in Italy versus Ardennes. This is summarized below:
-----------------------Ardennes------Italy
US Successful Attack
--Number of Cases------28------------22
--Percent Success------68% ----------59%
--Lowest Ratio---------1.15 ---------1.67
--Highest Ratio--------7.83 ---------4.25
--Average Ratio--------2.24 ---------2.50
US Failed Attack
--Number of Cases------13 -----------15
--Lowest Ratio --------1.23 ---------0.72
--Highest Ratio -------2.24 ---------4.28
--Average Ratio -------1.57 ---------2.52
German Successful Attack
--Number of Cases -----11 -----------5
--Percent Success -----37% ----------29%
--Lowest Ratio --------1.05 ---------1.53
--Highest Ratio -------9.14 ---------5.12
--Average Ratio -------3.92 ---------2.21
German Failed Attack
--Number of Cases------19------------12
--Lowest Ratio--------0.34 ----------0.73
--Highest Ratio ------2.40 ----------5.87
--Average Ratio ------1.17 ----------1.87
Here is a master thesis showing how to apply the model.
https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/23101/quantifiedjudgme00cian.pdf;sequence=1
AFV Crew Training US 13 weeks, German 24 weeks.
Officer training
The importance of leadership skills is obvious in most careers, never mind in the field of warfare where the
costs of losing are so high for a nation. No matter how individually skilled the soldiers are, and no matter how well they co-operate as a team, they must be directed by a competent leader if they are to win battles and campaigns, much less a war. Different societys have different expectations on just how much payoff is provided by competent leaders, though. The ancient greeks believed that an army of sheep (led by a lion) was better than an army of lions (led by a sheep). Most nations throughout history weren't quite so optimistic. That question aside, how do we judge which army has the better leadership caste? In order to answer this, we need to know the difference in how both armys selected and trained their officers, and how that impacted their ability to lead men on the battlefield. The biggest distinction between the germans and the americans is how their men received a commission. In the german army, a candidate would be forced to prove his worth as an NCO before he could hope to receive officer training. In the U.S. army, a candidate was able to go straight to officer training after completing basic. The consequences of this should be fairly obvious. Working alongside the enlisted men allowed the candidates to better understand their mindset, and to judge how a leaders actions affected the rank and file. Moreover, this practise meant that all the ranks have been through the grind of field duty (with no shortcuts allowed), and that officers owe their rank to the simple fact that they are a better soldier than the rest. That strengthened the cohesion between officers and enlisted men.
In total, the german candidate underwent 4-6 months of NCO training, followed by 2 months of service at the front. This enabled the school to see how they performed under pressure, before the men were offered or denied a commission (as a fahnenjunker). Thats an entire layer of preparation american candidates never had the opportunity to undergo!
{N2} By the time officer training began, they were already behind the germans in a number of critical areas like navigation, flanking maneuvers, using supporting weapons, adjusting artillery fire, etc. More important was the structure of the courses themselves. Germans learned to think on their feet and find solutions in hopeless circumstances. They were encouraged to challenge the instructors when given imprecise answers. Americans dealt with map exercises rather than field problems, and long written orders instead of brief verbal commands. Their thoughts were disregarded by the instructors, who reinforced the importance of sticking with a 'school solution.' The german would have spent 8 weeks at a kriegsschule and 12-16 weeks at a truppenschule, while the american would spend 4 weeks at a preparatory school and 13 weeks at officer candidate school. Not surprisingly, this resulted in huge differences between how they led men in the field, which is best summarised by Jörg Muth: “American observers before the war failed to recognise upfront leadership as a decisive peculiarity of german combat excellence. German units often were provided with leadership in the most desperate and crucial situations, which enabled them to either attack or defend against heavy odds.”
Conclusion: The disparity in competence between german and american officers is huge. By the time they finished officer training, the german leutnants had a superior grasp of battle tactics, leadership skills, and a more aggressive command style. Its unsurprising that the american 2nd lieutenants (the so-called '90 day wonders') were often at a monumental disadvantage in combat.
However, the main problem here is that you are confusing casualty rates with tactical competence. I have no doubt that if we were to focus purely on successful artillery strikes as a measure of tactical success, the British (whose civilian army tactics traded soldier capacity with artillery capacity)..
Aparantly your incorrect when you claim to be familiar with Dupoys work, mission success at a casualty rate in your favour is tacticle competence. Mission failure at a casualty rate in your openents favour is tacticle failure. The main problem here is you dont know what your posting about. Strategy is concerned with how to succede regardless of either outcome.
But again, if strategy is the combination of successful tactical actions, why was Germany so strategically inept? If theytwere tactucally and opwrationally superior then strategic success should have naturally followed. What you have shown here is a number with limited critical analysis. I was hoping that some of the knowledgable people on here might share case studies as opposed to just sharing an opinion..
Your uniformed opinion is noted, again. I have given you where the case studies that shown German tactical superiority are derived from in imprical form.
You disagree with the methodolgy, showing concerns that were adressed decades ago, but present none to counter what is used the world over, in the Mil education of officers in the present..
Strategy is not the combination of outcomes of tactical actions. Your inability to grasp the difference between strategy and tactics, in part, is whats causing your problem. Tactics are short term, strategy is long term. The prior is undertaken by lower levels of military, the latter by higher levels of command, success at one is not dependent on success at the other.
US lost a war in Asia, by winning every battle while inflicting a higher casualty rate in tacticle situations. Japan scorred a significant tacticle success at PH, which strategicly turned out to be a disaster as it motivated the USA to fight a war of revenge that includded use of nukes on them, clearly you have not read Luttwalk work on this.
Also, I have no doubt that the German army of 1914 was the most effective military of the time, but by 1918 it had become a shadow of its former self and arguably, the civilian armies which rose to strength in 1917 were far more effective than they had been.
Covered in Dupoys book, you ought to at least read it first.
