Fighting Power of the Wehrmacht
in comparison to US Army 1939-1945

Fighting power of the Wehrmacht

According to calculations by the US Army the results of the battles in World War II were only possible, when the soldiers of the Wehrmacht - man for man and unit for unit - were 20 to 30 percent more effective then was the British and American forces they faced.

Picture: the last cigarette before an assault during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

Extrapolating the individual soldiers against each other - and although the Wehrmacht was far lower in numbers - so the German troops that faced British and American troops under all combat conditions (for assaults with the usual factor of 1.0 - in the defense in carefully selected positions with view by a factor of 1.3 - in prepared defense positions 1.5 - in fortified defense positions by a factor of 1.6) cause approximately 50 percent higher losses than they suffer.
This was accessible whether the Germans were in attack or defense, if they were locally in place with higher numbers or - what was the rule - in lower numbers, if they had air cover or not, whether they had won the battle or lost at the end.

Even in the bitter years of defetats on the Russian front, the German combat effectiveness superiority over the Russians was even more pronounced. In the early days of the campaign in the east, one German division could take up with three Russian divisions of comparable strength and power. And, theoretically, under favorable defense conditions one German division could stand against no less than seven comparable Russian divisions.
In 1944 this superiority was still about 2:1, and one German soldier at the front caused an average loss of 7.78 Russians for one German. These figures need to adapted to the fact that the Wehrmacht in 1944 was almost always in the defense, had a relatively higher mobility and at this time the German weapons were better than the weapons of the Russians. But even if you take into account these considerations, the ratio for the infliction of losses was more than 4:1 and the German fighting power in battle was - man by man - about more than 50% better.

Moreover, from the available figures you could see, that the performance of the Polish army in 1939 was statistically better than the Russians in the later course of the war. In addition, the Poles suffered - unlike the Russians - under the disadvantage of limited space for retreats, and that they were attacked by the Russians in the back, although they had a non-aggression pact with them. If we assumes that the Poles were defending mostly and the defender has a advantage of 1.3, 100 Poles caused the Wehrmacht 0.4 losses per day. At the same time 100 Germans costs the Polish 1.52 casaulties. This results in the infliction of causalties a German superiority and of almost 4:1, and on the basis of other statistical surveys from WW2 the fighting power superiority was almost 2:1 for the Wehrmacht.

The difference between the referred effectiveness at the beginning of this report (20-30% in the West, more than 50% in the East) and inflicted losses (50% in the West, 400% in the East because of the additional thoughtless mass aussaults) is probably explained by the more improved equipment of the Wehrmacht (especially the Panther against the Sherman tank, 88 mm AA guns, rocket launchers, assault rifles, Panzerfaust and the MG42 machine guns which is still in use today) and has nothing to do with the fighting power of the individual soldiers or the individual units.

The fact that major strategic mistakes were done by Hitler and his high command have not been interfered with this conclusion. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht fought unabated on for many years after all real hope for the 'final victory' in World War II was gone. Even in April 1945 the German units fought on unabated everywhere where the local tactical situation was at all bearable, so an Allied intelligence report for this month.

The main causes of the superior fighting power of the Wehrmacht

It can not lead to the inclination for wars, because since 1776 the U.S. were involved in 13 wars over a total period of more than 38 years - Prussia, the German Empire and Germany over the same period a total of 14 wars lasting total of about 29 years.

The social status of the military:

The officers and soldiers career in the German Reich until the end of the Second World War had a much higher social status and attracted more qualified applicants than this was the case in the United States.

Commanding principles:

The German commandingp principles until the present is the 'order tactics', which means that the commander is commanding to his subordinates what they have to do, but not the way they have to do it (a principle against which the self-declared 'greatest war leader of all times' - Adolf Hitler - regularly broke on the strategic level).
In the US Army there was a tendency to anticipate every possible situation in detail and order for everything in detail, and the view that war is a kind of 'industrial management'.

Proportion of combat troops

These are the actually fighting troops.

In 1945 each division of the Wehrmacht required about 50% less auxiliary troops as a U.S. division (ie 20,380 men per 9,985 soldiers division strength, with the U.S. Army 43,400 men per 13,400 soldiers division strength).
Ie the proportion of actual fighting troops in the Wehrmacht was much higher than in the U.S. Army.

Training of soldiers

The duration of basic training in the Wehrmacht was different. In 1938 it took's 16 weeks for infantrymen, 1940 only eight weeks, 16 weeks in 1943, and in 1944 from 12 to 14 weeks.
For the armored troops the basic training lasted 21 weeks during the entire war, although it occurred since 1944 that recruits had to be participate in combat units after 16 weeks if necessary.

Picture: Wehrmacht soldiers in training in 1940. A photo of the grandfather of the author of this werbsite.

For comparison, the basic training in the U.S. Army until 1943 was at just 13 weeks. This was later increased to 17 weeks, but by pressure for the preparations for the invasion in the Normandy again had to be reduced to 13 weeks.
Tank crews received a training from 17 weeks, but in January 1945 this had to be shortened to 15 weeks.
The average loss rate of a U.S. infantry regiment in World War II was 100 percent after three months of uninterrupted combat missions.

A more important difference is that German divisions were formed with personnel from the same part of the country (all replacements were provided by a certain military district) and replacements were send by march battalions from already together trained recruits.
With the U.S. Army there were no 'regional' divisions and all new recruits were individually spread over various combat troops and not together with the comrades with whom they had made the training. In many cases the GI's didn't knew the other mens in their unit - with whom they have to fight and propably to die - not even by name.

In the Wehrmacht there was always the most qualified personnel (both physically and mentally) - especially for the officers - with the fighting forces.
With the U.S. Army - including officers - it was the other way around: the best men were with the so-called 'support troops' (supply, administration, etc.). This was due to the fact that the training in America was already led by the 'support troops', which picked out the best personnel for thereselfs - and these men in turn were mostly happy not to be burned with the front-line troops.

Germand divisions or elements of them were mostly regularly removed from the front for resting, refreshment and refitting.
With the US Army every soldier in Europe had to fight on until he was either dead, injured, sick or a 'psychiatric case'. For this reason - and because of the laxer punishment - the number of 'psychiatric cases' and the unauthorized removal of soldiers or numbers of desertions was a much hugher problem in the U.S. Army than in the Wehrmacht. This problem resulted from the limited shipping space, the months-long journey times because of the vast distances to America and the ever-acute lack of 'battle-worthy front pigs' in the US Army in Europe.

Casualties

In the French campaign of 1940 were 21.9 percent of the casualties kills. This figure rose to 22.9 percent during the Russian campaign. Out of 100 wounded in the campaign in France 85 (83 in the summer of 1941, 77 in the winter of 1941) could be expected to return to service.

Picture: The bitter end of hundreds of thousands soldiers of the Wehrmacht in a mass grave.

Between 7.9 percent (France 1940) and 12.2 percent (Russia in January 1942) of the wounded died.
With the U.S. Army this proportion was only 4.5 percent and 64 percent of the wounded returned to any type of service.

KIA

Awards

45 percent of all awards in the U.S. Army were issued only to officers and were often awarded for achievements outside the battlefield - opposit to the practice in the Wehrmacht.

Death sentences