"WW II Battlefield Understanding" Topic

I am most interested in the period 1600 through 1865, but I get interested in WW II occasionally. I have trouble visualizing a WW II battlefield as compared to a SYW, Napoleonic or ACW battlefield. Would someone be able to help me understand a land battle in western Europe in WW II 1944-45, please?

Typically, it is going to be an 'empty' battlefield. Not very much in sight except for the fast exposure of a silhouette or a vehicle at far range. You may see tracers or explosions.

Now on the occasion you do see a large group of men assaulting a position such at Normandy, casualties are hideous.

Perhaps, if you have some more specific questions, that would help to narrow the responses down, since WWII land combat is a very broad subject, on which literally volumes have been written.

As Mako says, you may want to narrow things down a little first.

Are you curious about an infantry platoon? A full battalion? An entire battle?

It's an almost endless topic so help us help you :)

Narrow down a bit what sort of unit and how many men you are looking at and we can help you out a bit better.

Likewise, are you thinking what it looks like from the view of a soldier, on the gaming table or something third?

Cheers!

Try this, based on a real engagement in which the author was involved. It gives all the flavour of down and dirty combined arms at basic level, and, is a jolly good read to boot.

Battle – Normandy 1944: Life and Death in the Heat of Combat by Kenneth Macksey

link

WW2 battlefields are HUGE by comparison. Battle of the Bulge covered hundreds of square miles. It's not a meeting of armies on a "field" maybe 4 or 5 miles across. Plus, battles take days not hours.

So the term battlefield is really misleading.

You could use the same Battlefield, just know that what a Corps covered in 1815 is now a Regiment or Brigade. Think Tank companies instead of Cavalry Divisions.

I have used the same terrain for Naploeonics and WW-II, 2x2 Corps (1809) or a US Combat Command vs a Panzer Grendiaer BN with some tanks (Command Decision).

Thank you for the info. I was not sure what exactly to ask. The answers have helped me understand the WW II battlefield. I could understand D-Day and pacific island landings. They seem to be similar to the limited size of Gettysburg or a Austerlitz, the battle of the Bulge evidently would be seen as a very sparse skirmish line regarding infantry.
Thank you for the help.

I think a lot of it has to do with the type battle. Is it a recon, recon in force, meeting engagement, formal attack, infantry heavy, tank heavy?

Where is it? Russia? North Africa? Italy? France? South Pacific? Island? Atoll? Open terrain? Closed terrain?

I suggest you pick a battle location and what kind of units you want to field, and then post your question agqain.

Lots of battle reports here to give an understanding how some have visualised it. Depends on the game (and scale) you want to play. Skirmish needs lots of terrain for cover, mass tank battles not so much, but then you need smaller minis or a huge table or it just becomes a slugfest where the best dice win.

link

Perhaps in terms of visualisation, if you compare eyewitness accountsfrom say, napoleonic battles with WWII then you would appreciate the differences.

An account from 1813 might have the writer describing massed troop Movements of thousands of soldiers across a field culminating in an assault witnessed from several hundred yards away,with both opposing armies in view.
a similar WWII perspective would involve seeing a few (but rarely all together), men from the witness' subunit (probably a platoon of 30 men) being subjected to very rapid and violent artillery fire for perhaps a few minutes at a time, and very occasional views of possible enemy movement, usually at some distance.
soldiers in WWII spent a lot (most) of their time hiding, something less common in previous centuries.

While technically, during the Bulge, US forces were spread out very thinly, in what was considered to be "a rest area", with a very stable front, you'll find that the defenders weren't as spread out as it may seem.

The troops, units, divisions still need to maintain operational cohesion, so they would be grouped together as terrain, and numbers permit.

Defenders need to hold a long line of terrain.

Attackers try to take advantage of that by attacking in concentrations to give them very high attacker to defender ratios, in order to quickly overcome the defenders.

Generally, a minimum of a 3:1 advantage of attacker to defender is needed for a successful attack. That ratio increases to 5:1 – 10:1 in built-up areas, like villages, towns, and cities, where the terrain aids the defender.

Where possible, each side will attempt to press their advantage against their opponents, and to cut them off from their logistical support and lines of communication, so they can't get more ammo, food, fuel, etc. If you can do that, it's possible to cripple your opponent.

In WWII, you'll see both sides attempting to outmaneuver each other, at the squad level, to the division/army/corps level, in order to achieve the above advantage, so they can defeat their opponent.

I hope that helps.

that concentration of 3:1 has remained fairly constant for centuries, its the range at which that concentration occurs which increased dramatically from the mid 19century onwards, which is directly proportional to the increase in weapon range (and power) leading to the enormous dispersal by the mid 20 century.

In the earlier periods you mentioned, the smallest unit of maneuver was the battalion/regiment under the direction of a brigade or division commander. In WW2 it was the platoon or even the section (squad) under the direction of a company commander (with a radio or phone link to lots of artillery, usually).

The vastly increased firepower necessitated the dispersal of men and units, which made coordination difficult. Higher commanders could seldom see more than maybe a battalion (at best) in action all at once. I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people here who can tell you the average frontage held by a division at various times/places during the War. But I'm guessing that a division's front in WW2 would cover an area the size of the average large battlefield of the horse and musket era (Gettysburg, for instance, or Waterloo).

indeed, 5 to 10km would not be uncommon for a divisional defensive frontage in WWII, sometimes in extreme circumstances in Russia German divisions had 100k to cover

The empty battlefield is a phrase often associated with modern warfare.
If they can see you they can call artillery on you, shred you with machine gun fire or maybe even hit you with rifle fire.
So troops spent their time hiding in holes or sneaking about.

Let's see, if you are facing the Russians, the entire landscape around you has just volcanoed into the atmosphere with the detonation of hundreds of 140mm Katyusha rocket strikes. You pretty much see the bottom of your trench as you press your face into the dirt with your mouth open and hands over your ears so that the overpressure from the blast waves dont' suck your brains out your earholes. You probably have a mouthful of dirt or whatever is in the bottom of your trench. When the Katyusha's stop, your first look over the lip of the trench reveals aa human wave assault of Siberians hopped up on vodka, screaming "Uraah!" which means "Blood!"
You need to pull back the arming bolt on your MG while checking to see if your exit route behind you is still open.

Thank you, all! This has been very enlightening! It appears that when my brother & me & friends were playing Combat , the TV program, we were playing WW II battle pretty accurately. I had a Thompson.

Battles are realy quite small. They use lots of troops. The aim is always to break through to the less defended areas and do lots of damage. To do that you need a corridor in WWII of about 3000m wide. That is the real effort. You will need to demonstrate over a larger area so that the enemy can't just pull off troops to fight in the main area. That "push" needs to have a good road so you can get supplies when you break through and lots of kit to guard the road once you are through. Wide flanking movements aren't that big. Moving a tank off road through hedges and ditches is slow work and gives the enemy time to redeploy. Minly the forces go down roads to deply only at the last minute except in exceptional circumstances.

I still think Combat is a valuable research tool……(well, maybe not..but I think most of the rule writers out there do)