It is interesting to note the bashing the British get in the historiography of WW2. Constantly we read, in the popular histories, how the average Tommy did not have the metal of his US or German contemporary. This is especially true in the works of Max Hastings. He started this trend in his work Overlord and has more recently expanded this criticism in Armageddon. A book which IMHO should be used as nothing more than a doorstop as it adds nothing to the debate on combat effectiveness in WW2.
However, there has more recently been a shift in this trend, similar to the shift in the views of British performance of WW1. Stephen Hart has written that British reliance on firepower was not borne out of the fact that British units did not have the metal for the fight but much rather it was a political decision to conserve casualties. It must be remembered that by 1944 the British Army, especially it's infantry, was facing a severe manpower shortage. Therefore, Hart has argued that it was natural for the British to rely on what they had the most of i.e. firepower. The method which Montgomery used was universally known as 'Colossal Cracks' in which he used to use massive amounts of firepower in order to breach the enemies’ front line and cause a breakthrough. While orthodox historians would argue that this was caused by Monty's WW1 experience what they have tended to neglect what I mentioned earlier the political factors. Not only was Britain facing this issue but it also did not wish its Allies to know the extent of the problem and therefore make them more of a minority than they were arguably becoming by 1944.
Both Timothy Harrison - Place and David French have looked at the British Army's training methods in order to analyse their combat effectiveness. In their analyses they have tended to conclude that British problem in the North - West European Campaign were not caused by a lack of metal but a misunderstanding of the experiences gained in the war so far. The experience of the desert had shown British analysts that in, for example, armoured formations infantry and armour found it difficult to operate together and therefore, should be separated. Hence the problems found during the early stages of the Normandy Campaign, most notable Operations Perch and Goodwood. It was the misinterpretations of lessons not combat effectiveness that led to the early losses in Europe. However, as both historians have noticed this was soon solved in the army unlike in the US army. Eventually the Armoured Divisions started operating in battle groups and combined infantry, armour and artillery in an effective combat team.
However, while the US Army made use of its Combat Commands these eventually became ad - hoc brigade style commands and US commands were more resistant to British Commanders to give up the units that had been assigned to command. This was probably the fault of McNair for not integrating all necessary support arms within the divisions. Thus, when units such as TD's were attached combat commands became dependent on them and therefore, rigid in its structure.
In terms of British armour, John Buckley has recently completed a study into its effectiveness in the Normandy campaign. While, he follows a similar line to the authors mentioned above in terms of operating procedure he does make one very important point which tends to, IMHO, destroy the arguments of Hastings et al. That is in attack German units tended to suffer just as high casualties as there British counterparts. Therefore, the traditional argument that the British suffered high casualties because of in competency can not be applied because the Germans suffered just as high casualties as the British. For example, when 10SS transferred to the American front for the Mortain counter - attack they suffered somewhere in the region of 90% casualties in their armour.
Just my two cents.
Bibliography:
Buckley, John, British Armour in the Normandy Campaign (Abingdon: Frank Cass, 2004)
French, David, Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany, 1919-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Harrison – Place, Timothy, Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-day (London: Frank Cass, 2000)
Hart, Stephen, Montgomery and Colossal Cracks: The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945 (Westview: Greenwood Press, 2000)
Ross
