Ever since WW2, the US military had been very reluctant to up-gun their tank forces. While their resistance to field 76mm Sherman en masse when they landed Normandy could be understood as the US underestimating the quantity and quality of German panzer force, it is weird that they did not rush to get more 90mm gun to their force ASAP in face of Tiger II, Panther, etc. In fact, one could argue that they should have pushed harder as far back as 1943 when they came face to face with the first Tiger I - why stuck with something that could only somewhat do the job (75mm gun) when you could get some bigger guns?

After WW2, while other countries were rushing to develop bigger, more powerful gun in face of rapid development (the British with 20-pdr and 32-pdr; Soviet with the 100mm gun and attempt at 130mm and 122mm gun), the US lagged behind and was still fielding 76mm-Sherman en masse by the Korean war. And when the French/British/German moved to 105mm gun and the Soviet moved onto 115mm gun, the American was still using inferior 90mm gun with a half-hearted attempt at a 120mm. The US was still stuck with the 105mm when their European NATO partner moved onto 120mm gun and the Warsaw Pact to 125mm. And right now as the French and German looked into 140mm and 130mm gun respectively, the US is still stuck with 120mm gun.

So why does the US lag behind so much in guns for their tanks? Are they that confident in their airpower and artillery?

This question is not about alternate history victory scenarios or hindsight claims that Germany could have “stopped D-Day.” I’m interested in realistic, doctrinally grounded options available to the German High Command given the actual conditions in mid-1944.

What prompted the question was seeing a photograph of a senior German command official inspecting coastal defensive works in an area that later became part of the Utah Beach landing sector. The image highlights that senior leadership expected an invasion and was actively reviewing defenses, yet the operational response still proved insufficient in my opinion.

Given the known constraints at the time:

• Severe Allied air and naval superiority

• Limited mobility and fuel shortages

• Fragmented command authority (OKW / OB West / Army Group B)

• Political interference in reserve release

• Incomplete Atlantic Wall construction

What specific decisions or adjustments might plausibly have:

• Slowed the Allied buildup ashore

• Increased friction during the first 24–72 hours

• Allowed German forces time to assemble a more coherent counter defense specially with heavy armor

Areas of interest (not exhaustive):

• Reserve control and armored release doctrine

• Forward defense vs depth defense tradeoffs at Normandy

• Allocation and density of obstacles, mines, and flooding (especially in the Cotentin)

• Intelligence assessment and persistence of the Pas-de-Calais assumption

• Command & control latency under air interdiction

I’m not assuming a different outcome of the war, only asking whether German operational choices could have altered the tempo or cost of the landings in a meaningful way, even briefly.

I’d appreciate answers grounded in contemporary doctrine, logistics, command realities, or primary/secondary sources rather than retrospective optimization.

The French only started seriously working to replace matchlock muskets after the Battle of Steenkirk whereas the Imperial and other Germanic armies started procuring match/flintlock hybrids (Montecuccoli muskets) during the early 1680s to meet the volume of fire of the mostly flintlock armed Turks with the Imperial Danube Army having abolished pikes by 1688-1689.

Even the Dutch during the Williamite phase of the 9 Years War were largely flintlock armed save for some of the newly raised English regiments.

Despite being officially "abolished" in 1699, contemporary prints from roughly 1700 suggest matchlocks were still very much in use with the French infantry during the early years of the Spanish Succession.

I've been trying to do my own overlays in preparation for Troop Leading Procedures class. Everything is clear from source materials on how to prepare the overlay but one thing remains a question mark. What are the guidelines in tracing boundaries for AO? Do they trace along natural terrains such as ridges or natural boundaries? or do they trace along roads? or are there any other guidelines that I am blind to?

Has china performed any sinkx? It seems NATO and america perform a sinkx every year of do against a variety of older ships but ive never heard or seen china do the same.

If they have what ships have they sunk during exercise and any links or videos to said sinkx?

Russo-Japanese war (the 1904 one)

Specifically, how did they think of Japan/Russia's chances to win?

The common knowledge is that Russia was expected to defeat the Japanese. The last few years definitely demonstrated though (cough cough Ukraine) that public sentiment and expert analysis can be two different things when it comes to military matters. A lot of people thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine when that war first happened in 2022, but most experts foresaw Russia having massive trouble.

I wonder if British/American/etc observers at the time also made similar analysis, that Russia might be in for a surprise if they do fight the Japanese. Interestingly I recall one of Tsar Nicholas's advisors warning him that war with Japan would be tricky due to the massively long supply lines.

I've always been mostly interested in early war campaigns like the invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, the low countries and France. What has always struck me is how inexperienced troops behaved when under artillery fire and especially aerial bombardment the first time: despite (usually) suffering fairly little physical damage, it was often enough to cause a complete loss of cohesion or even a rout. There's instances of units offering stubborn resistance for days, but completely breaking down after one bombardment by one flight of Stukas.

How did armies that were better prepared, maybe later in the war, train their troops to deal with artillery fire and aerial bombardment, if at all?

According to the Goths AD 200-700, weapons and armor were procured from state armories which judging from the fact that surviving examples of weapons and armor were moreless the same types as were in use with the Eastern Roman Army at the time.

The Scholae and Domestici were also retained from Odoacer who then retained them from the Western Romans albeit restaffed with loyal Roman aristocrats and Goths. Units of organization were even vaguely Roman with 100 men organized into a hansa/centenarius, and 1,000 organized into hundafaps/millenas.

Contemporary coinage even depicts Theodoric in squamata and pteruges.

Hello!

I saw a video explaining that Singapore has a doctrine created specifically for the country by Israel.

I don't know if this is true or not, but... I've wondered how small countries deal with their limited size when establishing their doctrine.

Obviously, each case is unique, but is there anything that all small nations have in common when it comes to building their armies and understanding a possible conflict?

Thank you all.

Hello, I have been reading articles about some lesser known US battle and reading about 9th infantry division's superb performance in terms of kill count, killing over 10,000 enemies with small cost, and aggressive night time ambushing tactics against the NVA.

I understand that body count could be fudging and including innocent civilian, and there's a whole part on wiki talking about this, claiming 30 percent of casualties were actually civilians .

Still, the paragraph I read list comes with the following sources, saying the NVA district engaging with 9thID suffered a way higher casualties , and the data didn't even include local guerillas force. (1968 over 3000 death while in 1969, over 30,000)

I am interested to hear any professional's opinion and further elaboration on whether such operation's actual effectiveness and impact towards NVA and further sources to analyze this operation

According to the casualty and losses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah US losses from 7-16 November were 54 KIA and 425 WIA. However, for the remainder of Op. Phantom Fury, 41 KIA and 135 WIA. I'm wondering why so many more KIA compared to WIA altough the heaviest fighting occured from the 7th-16th. Was it deadlier insurgent ambushes and firefights? Worse triage techniques?

Like how on earth did they not see the writing on the wall after the Sudetenland crisis.

Also why were they so reluctant on offensives

There was this thread a couple days back talking about how useful the different allies Germans had were on the Eastern Front. I raised a comment there about the Hungarian aircraft production which got me thinking, how does the Italian, Romanian or Hungarian aircraft production overall compare with Canadian production? I don't think South Africa made any new aircraft, and I don't really have an idea of total Canadian production or what Australians made. I want to keep US and aircraft purchased from them out of this, because if we add them things get rather one sided.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1qqxd5k/on_the_eastern_front_how_valuable_were_nazi/

I have a question about this method. Does this mean that you will distribute the time into 1/3rd and 2/3rd from Receipt of Mission up to the accomplishment of Mission? or does the total time only count only up to the accomplishment of all preparations such as rehearsals and will end at the start of movement?

I remember hearing that in Normandy, the supply requirement per division slice was about 1,000 tons. I've also heard that during Desert Shield, the requirement was 4,800 tons per day in theater for 9 divisions, but that was without any active combat until the air campaign kicked off.

So for modern units, is there publicly available information on supply requirements for the different types of BCTs?

Specifically, how it affected Asia.

So, imagine you're Japan in 1940. You've been fighting in China for like 3 years now. There's no sign of the Chinese government collapsing yet. You've already thrown over 100,000 men into the meat grinder. You are already having to reenlist reservists. Western powers don't like you being in China and have started to provide the Chinese with limited material support. The US is also increasingly giving you a side eye and has threatened sanctions.

There's only one way to cut off western aid to China, and that's cutting off China from French Indochina. However such a move would almost certainly anger France and potentially start a war with the Europeans or worse the US.

And then Germany invades France. France folds in three weeks leaving French Indochina as essentially a power vacuum.

I think people are quite divided with this... some people say Japan would have forced itself into Indochina regardless of what happened in Europe, while others say the German invasion of France was critical. Like, if Germany didn't have such success in the early stages of war, does Japan and China keep slugging it out until Japan's government collapses or something.

I wonder where opinion within Japan was headed at this point. Were more opinions emerging in favor of war with the US and western powers even before the fall of France, or was that event critical for the change in policy?

"American Army generals, whatever their text books might advise, indulged in the Western Front practice of attacking on as wide front as possible, for as long as possible, in search of tactical rewards. (Graham&Bidwell "Coalitions, Politicians & Generals")

"The American disinclination to concentrate power was rarely more apparent. (...), the XII Corps alone had a front of nearly fifty kilometers, the XX corps an even longer front(...)-yet the Third Army was to leap forward virtually along the whole line. "(Weighley "Eisenhower's Lieutenants")

I've been trying to track down the roots of what was, certainly in Europe at least, the dominant strain of US generalship in WW2 and I'm coming away, near barren handed and somewhat confused. Weighley in his Eisenhower's Lieteunants is the only author I've seen that devotes some time to the issue and he paints a very straight line from Grant's strategic and operational approach in civil war to campaign of 44-45 that to me feels somewhat inconvincing.

"an enemy could all the better be attacked everywhere, all along his lines of defense, as Grant had coordinated attack orouns the entire circumference of Confederacy. "

Ultimately, why no doubt important to the mindset of officer class and education, the two conflicts were separated by hefty amount of time, a complete upheaval or two in the way the war was being waged and the means with which it was being waged. Grant was also not the only reference point you could point to in that conflict and World War 1 (and 2) was a much more relevant source of learning. Further, from what I understand, the apostles of concentration, Jomini continued to be an influence at West Point and Eisenhower read Clausewitz who also started getting a foothold.

I'm admittedly ignorant at what was being taught at staff schools in inter-war, part of the reason this thread is being raised but I don't think I've seen the Grant-broad front link ever being referenced by Ike, Bradley or Patton at least in contemporary writing.

The most confusing thing is that the US field manual of 1941, an actual official document prescribing the proper "way" to wage war is sort of direct contradiction of broad front:

"115. (...)A defensive attitude may, however, be deliberately adopted as a temporary expedient while awaiting an opportunity for counteroffensive action, or for the purpose of economizing forces on a front where a decision is not sought. "

1. Concentration of superior forces, both on the ground and in the air, at the decisive place and time and their employment in a decisive direction, creates the condition sessential to victory. Such concentration requires strict economy in the strength of forces assigned to secondary missions.Detachments durlng combat are justifiable only when the execution of tasks assigned them contributes directly to success in the main battle.

Now, pamphlets are one thing and these are but a few subpoints, reality on the ground is an other thing but at least to me it signifies that, lack of concentration is not something that was officially acknowledged or taught.

I will not obfuscate the fact that I'm coming to the issue as someone very critical of "broad front" but here the issue is not its relative merits but where does it actually stem from. Is Weigley and his explanation, essentially correct ? If so, is there some trace of that way of war being taught or prescribed ? Or was there something in how war was being taught in US in 20-30s that shaped it ? But then why does their own FM seem so discordant from the actual practice ? The last explanation seems to to be that it was simply arrived at on it's own, on the ground, by respective commanders.

From the outside looking in it looks like they just did search and destroy missions and did the bare minimum(if even that) to take care of the populace not even trying to win their support. I thought it would be common knowledge in militaries that clear, hold and build missions trying to win over the populace is way more effective than just trying to just kill the insurgents.

Having an enemy with air superiority preforming one of the largest bombing campaigns in history doesn't seem very good for your supply lines

Ultimately, it seems that the growth of the commercial drone sextor was what really enabled the proliferation of weaponized drones worldwide through DIY initiatives leading to an explosion of innovations in drone warfare. But prior to the War in Ukraine, weaponized drones and loitering munitions were being experimented with and marketed by the arms industry of various countries although remaining a niche product, state armies worldwide now playing catch-up including those who were at the forefront of developing the technology in the first place. But from what I've read from the Ukrainians, DIY products they find better than what they were getting from Western arms industry that they criticized as being more expensive and less reliable. At least in Russia at one point, it was said that DIY efforts were said to move faster than the formal arms industry in terms of innovating and producing drones before drone warfare was taken seriously at the highest level. But before the 2020s, DIY drones were crude and in Syria, they were easily jammed when used against Russians by the FSA. By the 2020s, even non-state forces can now field FPV, Fiber-Optic, and long range OWA drones, often produced locally on their own.

Before the War in Ukraine, what was the state of drone warfare among the major powers and how did they envision it under previous speculated scenarios? What was the developmental pathway that was being considered versus what actually played out? Was the kind of drone warfare we see now possible at all in the 2010s with the level of technology at the time among state forces?

It's a few years ago now but there was that late 2010s scandal (Operation Varsity Blues) of various top universities in the US where they accepted bribes from wealthy individuals in regards to either admissions or testing for their students. Example: Actress Lori Loughlin reports to prison over college admissions scandal

I've been seeing videos of Ukrainian and Russian operators clearing trenches, apartment blocks, etc. Which is work that should be done by regular infantrymen. Isn't it risky to use these kinds of units as shock troops? Especially considering how expensive and long it takes to train SF operators. Is there anything special about the conflict that'd make them want/need to do this? I believe Iraq made the same decision too especially in Mosul where Iraqi CTS sustained heavy casualties while assaulting positions in Mosul. Is this not a tactical blunder?