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Sto caricando le informazioni... Hell in Hürtgen Forest: The Ordeal and Triumph of an American Infantry Regiment (2001)di Robert Sterling Rush
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. The author has a mission here, and it's not so much to write about the battle of the Hurtgen Forest, though you get enough of that through the lens of the experiences of the 22nd Infantry Regiment in this battle. The core of the book is really about the nuances of the procurement and replacement of personnel in combat units, as one might expect from an author who was a one-time command sergeant major in the U.S. Army. This means that Rush has issues with most of the theorists of men under fire (Marshall, van Creveld, Bartov, and Janowitz, etc.; but particularly van Creveld) and how units maintain cohesion under stress. In the end, Rush comes to the conclusion that it's not social ties, ideology, or training so much as having enough skilled cadres at the small-unit level that keeps a formation viable in combat. When those individuals are gone that unit is pretty much finished; barring coercion. If this story isn't grim enough, Rush essentially finishes his analysis by musing on exercises he participated in, and where his unit was held to be decimated. The question being where will the fairly small modern U.S. Army find the necessary replacements if locked into another meat-grinder campaign of attrition, and whether it will be reduced to amalgamating decimated unit after decimated unit until annihilation sets in; much as happened to the original cadre of the 22nd Infantry in Hurtgen and their opposite numbers in the German military. Rather prescient, considering this book was probably essentially done before the current U.S. adventure in Iraq was merely a gleam in the eyes of certain political activists. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Appartiene alle SerieModern War Studies (2001)
Some of the most brutally intense infantry combat in World War II occurred within Germany's Hurtgen Forest. Focusing on the bitterly fought battle between the American 22d Infantry Regiment and elements of the German LXXIV Korps around Grosshau, Rush chronicles small-unit combat at its most extreme and shows why, despite enormous losses, the Americans persevered in the Hurtgenwald "meat grinder".On 16 November 1944, the 22d Infantry entered the Hurtgen Forest as part of the U.S. Army's drive to cross the Roer River. During the next eighteen days, the 22d suffered more than 2,800 casualties -- or about 86 percent of its normal strength of about 3,250 officers and men. After three days of fighting, the regiment had lost all three battalion commanders. After seven days, rifle company strengths stood at 50 percent and by battle's end each had suffered nearly 140 percent casualties.Despite these horrendous losses, the 22d Regiment survived and fought on, due in part to army personnel policies that ensured that unit strengths remained high even during extreme combat. Previously wounded soldiers returned to their units and new replacements, green to battle, arrived to follow the remaining battle-hardened cadre.The German units in the Hurtgenwald suffered the same horrendous attrition, with one telling difference. German replacement policy detracted from rather than enhanced German combat effectiveness. Organizations had high paper strength but low manpower, and commanders consolidated decimated units time after time until these ever-dwindling bands of soldiers disappeared forever: killed, wounded, captured, or surrendered. The performance of American and German forces during thisharrowing eighteen days of combat was largely a product of their respective backgrounds, training, and organization.Rush's work underscores both the horrors of combat and the resiliency of American organizations. While honori Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)940.54213551History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- Military History Of World War II Campaigns and battles by theatre European theatre Germany & Central EuropeClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Organizationally there are two issues. Although transient, the first is that a unit with combat experience had a significant initial advantage over ones without, no matter how well trained the latter. Second was the way in which combat losses were replaced - or not replaced – which made a great difference in combat effectiveness over the long term. A good replacement system enabled leaders at regiment and divisional level to learn the battlefield and the enemy before their unit had become ineffective though losses.
In the Hürtgenwald, the extraordinarily high casualties caused the ‘band of brothers’ type cohesion that effectively explains cohesion under most circumstances to disappear from squads and platoons. Nevertheless, there was some type of bond between soldiers, or the 22d Infantry Regiment would not have kept moving forward after the fifth day. This cohesion was situational in nature and imposed by circumstances and surroundings more so than by long-term association. It was this second type that was most prevalent in the Hürtgenwald.
The primary difference between U.S. and German units was that through constantly arriving replacements as well as returning casuals, U.S. infantry continued at more or less a constant strength, and remained organizationally sound. The 22d’s tenacity during the battle depended on the cohesiveness of the officers and enlisted men who had trained together in the United States and around whom the new replacements coalesced.
Conversely, the German divisions, time after time shrank to almost nothing, their staffs and specialists brought out of the line, the infantry units refilled with replacements and returned to combat after a month or possibly even less. However, the replacement system could not sustain the organization’s fighting strength and the typical infantry organization collapsed under the strain of heavy combat—although through accounting wizardry the paper strength remained acceptable. ( )