CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

 

INTRODUCTION: DEFEAT AS A BASIS FOR LEARNING

  • Auftragstaktik and Battlefield performance
  • In Search of Excellence

 

COMMAND CONCEPT

  • Introduction
  • The First World War
  • Changing the game
  • The philosophy of chaos
  • The tank offensive in reality
  • Reconnaissance in force
  • Cooperation as weapon
  • The British doctrine
  • Time for change: the arrival of Montgomery
  • The Allied doctrine: Befehlstaktik and brute force
  • The reality of the battlefield: Sicily 1943 and Normandy 1944
  • The absence of an American doctrine
  • The reality of the battlefield: Monte Cassino 1944
  • The concert of the fight.
  • Get the whips out!

 

STRUCTURE, VERBUNDENE WAFFEN AND KAMPFGRUPPEN

  • Verbundene Waffen: cooperation between units
  • Kampfgruppen
  • Unity in command
  • The reality of the battlefield: Arnhem, September 1944
  • Composition of a Kampfgruppen
  • The British Army
  • The American army: cooperation by incidence
  • The reality of the battlefield: the liberation of the son in law of Patton
  • A ‘School of Thought’: the German General Stab (General Staff)
  • The British army: an army without a knowledge system
  • Erfahrungsberichte: the learning organisation

 

LEADERSHIP 

  • Auftragstaktik as leading principle
  • Non-commissioned officers and officers of the Prussian/German army
  • The British officer/NCO training
  • The American officers’ training
  • British officers, NCOs and leadership style: rigidity as guidelines

 

MEN, TEAMS AND TRAINING

  • New round, new chances
  • Recruitment, selection and the psychological dimensions of warfare
  • Recruitment, selection and training in the British Army
  • Training in the American army
  • Teambuilding (Kampfgemeinschaft)
  • Wehrkreis and the rotation system
  • The American replacement system
  • The reality of the battlefield: the fight for the Hürtgen forest, November 1944
  • Discipline (Innere Führung)
  • Regeneration of units, the German way

 

SHARED VALUES, MORALE

  • The German army
  • The British army
  • The American army

 

THE REALITY OF THE BATTLEFIELD: OVERLOON 1944

  • Introduction
  • 30th September 1944: from ‘Thunder run’ to ‘Blood run’
  • 4th October 1944: Flak against Sherman tanks
  • October 12th 1944: the Fire roller or ‘Creeping Barrage’ 
  • October 14: the choreography of the fight
  • October 16:crossing the Loobeek
  • Evaluation

 

REFLECTION AND CONCLUSIONS