Considering AWB's mildly unhealthy obsession with armoured vehicles it comes as a mild surprise to discover AWB has never actually had a detailed look at the famous 'Plan 1919' for massed armoured offensives.
For those also not up on their background reading, a nice link can be found HERE
As can be seen, no level of epic epicness has been held back by Mr Fuller in this plan and, contrary to what AWB used to think, this is not a suggestion for new tactics, but a grand war winning masterstroke of a plan all in one go. For those not able to read the link here is a brief summary:
- Find about 5000 tanks
- Select a 90 mile section of front and 'by the inducement of visible preparations' invite four or five German armies to set up in this area.
- Without warning, unleash fleets of a tank type yet to be invented that will drive top speed some 20miles into the rear areas to disrupt the various German HQs whilst bombing anything that moves with the airforce.
- Then, once confusion has set in, have the rest of the Allied armies, with massive tank support, attack over a 50 mile front.
- Advance 20miles a day for seven days.
- Crush enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women
- Win war
- Receive Knighthood
Pretty straightforward really, why didn't people think of that in September 1914?
Ignoring for a fact just how a barbarian like Conan actually managed to get a word like lamentation into his casual day to day vocabulary, why have very few people ever sat back and considered that Fuller was ever so slightly barking mad?
Let's have a quick look at some of the more important points here shall we?
First up, this plan calls for some 5000 tanks. As these are just the numbers envisioned for combat, you can probably assume the staff doing the more detailed planning would probably request a tad more to allow for training as well as replacements to maintain the tempo of a seven day advance. Let us say an extra 10% for want of a number to give us 5500.
Now to give us a bit of an idea, British tank production during the entire war was roughly 150 MkIs, 50 MkIIs, 50 MkIIIs, 1220 MkIVs, 400 MkVs, 1 MkVII and 200 Medium A 'Whippets', or about 2100 or so. Now while Plan 1919 was considered to be an Allied offensive and some of the production was to be shared by the French and Americans, that is still a mildly large amount of tanks to be built in the 12 months between when Fuller wrote his first proposal to the time when one assumes the attacks were going to go in.
Okay, a production problem. No doubt the wheels of industry can provide so let us move on.
Next, a 90 mile section of front. To give a sense of scale the BEF sector of the front in 1918 before the August offensives was about 50 miles, so when one talks about a 90 mile section of the Western Front, they are effectively saying 'most of it'.
Not in itself that stupid a sense of scale, but needs to be taken in context with the claims that Fuller is the father of 'Blitzkrieg'. Now in Fuller's defence, 'Blitzkrieg' is such a vaguely defined concept that some historians dispute it even existed as a stand alone tactic, but in general (vague) terms it is accepted to involve punching deep into the enemies rear areas with mechanised forces on a narrow front using speed and firepower... not advancing with your entire army in a 90 mile wide mass.
Anyway, Fuller is aiming big as you don't get to hear lamentations by aiming small. What is interesting is the casual assumption that the Germans will politely agree to form up on their side of the field, an, one assumes, then do nothing while these 5000 medium and heavy tanks set up.
Now before we get too far ahead, we need to have a basic look at just what was a 'trench line' at this stage of the war.
This is a slightly tricky subject as each major nation had a different style of digging in that of course evolved as the war went on. In general terms in about 1916 the German lines were relatively shallow but densely held. The down side to this is this placed large amounts of troops on the front where they ran the realistic risk of being grown down and destroyed by massed artillery. German defensive tactics (again generalising) evolved to having less troops in the front and having more available to counter attack. As a result the positions started becoming very deep. As in 9 or so miles deep.
They weren't constant wall to wall pill boxes and endless barbed wire and during the 100 Days Allied troops discovered that once you were in the defensive belt, there was actually a reasonable amount of room to tactically move around and British cavalry, despite expectations, managed to use their mobility to get out of the way of anything that had too much firepower and were surprisingly successful.
Which brings us nicely to another point. If equipped with a fast reliable tank like the planned Medium D (the new design that was going to do the surprise breakthroughs) then an armoured force could possibly be rather effective rampaging round inside this defensive belt, IF such a tank existed.
Hard truth was it didn't in 1918. It didn't in 1919 despite the best hopes of designers and truth be told, probably didn't really exist in 1939 either. Fuller's plan envisioned these Mediums driving flat out for about 2 hours to cover the 20 miles or so to trash the German HQs and mechanically, even before we allow for the fact people might be shooting at them as well, tanks could not do that in this period.
Remember these Mediums in the HQ hunting parties were to do so without warning, which we assume involves no pre bombardment and only the airforces for support. One assumes that Fuller was working on the idea that their speed would just allow them to run straight over the front line and be deep into the rear before anyone noticed.
Maybe just SLIGHTLY optimistic.
Remember this is a plan put forward in 1918 for next years offensive. Also remember there would be fighting, probably with tanks, in the remainder of the year and both sides were going to learn from this. Also remember stage 2 of the master plan involves encouraging the Germans to commit to this area of the front.
Is it not logical to assume the Germans may start constructing anti tank defenses as part of their overall defensive belt? Fuller allows no infantry in these HQ Hunter groups so if the Germans started to evolve their tactics into creating mini 'tank proof' fortresses in the towns and villages (and fighting in November 1917 implies that is exactly what they would do) then Fuller's Mediums might be in trouble.
Another interesting logic point is that Fuller, in describing the destruction his HQ Hunters and air support are going to be doing, specifically requests communications are to be spared. Once the chaos starts he wants the reports to be transmitted freely up and down the front for morale reasons. However since his plan is to remove the HQs, one does mildly wonder just who is going to be actually passing on all these messages of panic.
Once this has happened and the brains of the German armies have been removed (Fuller allows 5 Mediums for each German Divisional HQ and 20 for Corps and Army level HQs), the rest of the Allied armies were to attack across the 90 mile front in four separate thrusts each about 10 to 12 mile wide with the aim of cutting out the 10 mile or so chucks of German front between these four thrusts that is now completely out of command, unable to react and ready to collapse. Fuller mentions pinning them if required with artillery, which is never a completely foolish tactic, assuming you have enough artillery to go around after making all these new tanks of course which is a point we will get back to in closing.
Arms other then tanks are not we regarded by Fuller. 'Infantry on their feet will be next to useless,' and will need their own mechanical transport, which although it is not mentioned, may mean armoured personal carriers. Just add them to the 5500 tanks we need then shall we? Their role is basically to make sure the rear and new captured areas stay rear and captured while the Mediums advance off into the east watching their enemies driven before them.
Cavalry is described as useful, but only for the first few days as after that all their mounts will be dead. Spoken like a true tank man really as the results during the 100 Days proved this wrong and in many cases the horses were delayed by being attached to the slower moving armour. However since having a friendly unit perform much better then expected is always a good thing we will skip over the further horse based discussion and go straight to aircraft.
Aircraft in Fuller's brave new battlefield are cast in the role of replacement cavalry. They, as well as maintaining air superiority one assumes although it is not mentioned, will zip between the armoured units, transferring messages and commanders, scouting around providing close tactical fire support for the armour and bring supplies. While supplying from the air was used during WW1, the scale of supplying entire armoured thrusts, as opposed to dropping fresh machine gun ammo to advanced infantry units, does start to excite the imagination. Given the relatively small useful payload of your average period biplane, it is probably safe to say that to provide useful fuel, ammo and water (those radiators aren't going to top up themselves) for a single tank would require 4 to 5 aircraft. Now since the total HQ Hunters group, which would be the units most likely needing air resupply, includes some 790 tanks, even allowing for flying multiple sorties a day you are going to be needing about 2000 aircraft JUST to supply these tanks. If we are expected to supply the other 880 heavy tanks in the first assault wave then does that mean another 2000 supply aircraft? Plus another 2000 to supply the 880 heavy tanks in the second assault wave? Fuller asks for 90 battalions of tanks but wants aircraft to run messages between the unit commanders. Even at one aircraft per battalion that is another 90 planes and that is before the pure fighters and tactical bombers and the ones that are doing the deep recon, the contact patrols and spotting for the guns. True, the RAF apparently according to Wikipedia had some 20,000 aircraft when is was formed from the RFC and the RNAS. However, as the RFC is listed as 150 squadrons and the RNAS 17 (21?) and each of these squadrons was not 100 aircraft strong, it is probably safe to say that 'aircraft owned' compared to 'aircraft in operational service' were two completely different things and the 170 or so squadron RAF was unlikely to have been big enough to support this 1919 in the way intended without a significant upgrade.
Which sort of brings us nicely to the main argument that Fuller was just a tad loopy in his grand dream. Just exactly HOW much resources are we needing here?
That is some 5000 plus tanks, enough artillery to achieve sufficient density over a 90 mile front and maybe 7500 aircraft. That is a lot of stuff. So either your plan is completely unrealistic as the Allied industries would never be able to support that sort of rapid growth, or, if they could, then effectively any remotely conservative attack plan with that sort of massive material support is going to be successful anyway. Even if one was to lose half the assaulting tank force each day from combat and breakdowns (a not unrealistic assumption given the vehicles of the day), on day 4 you are still attacking with more armour then Cambrai.
Fuller, in short, was a dreamer and a dreamer with broad generalisations. He assumed his 1919 tanks would be magnificent new machines of impressive performance. He claimed motorised supply could operate without roads or rail. He wrote off the other service arms and assumed defensive tactics and weapons would not develop to counter his babies. Unfortunately for him very little of that ended up being true.
History has been kind to him over his 1919 plans. Actually considering how chummy he was with the British Union of Fascists between the wars it might be said that history has been kind to him over a few other things as well. He is claimed to be a visionary who lead the stuffy horse and musket era oldies into the 20th century, yet the concept of raiding deep into the enemies rear areas and forcing them to retreat or otherwise react without actually bringing them to battle is nothing new. He compares his ideas for HQ Hunting (which, just to clarify, is a AWB's term, not his) are heavily compared to shooting a man in the head instead of slowly giving him cuts. An interesting visual if one ignores they fact that unlike a man, an army can continue to thrash around violently after a bullet between the eyes as well as, if given time, having the ability of growing a new head. Considering Fuller intended full RAF support for his Mediums it may have been a better metaphor to have the bombers throw sand in the eyes and kept the Mediums for the more useful task of throwing their arms around the man's legs and pulling him to the ground.
Fuller was also one of the prime supporters for the all tank army. Visionary yes and looking ahead from the available tech into what could be happening in the future.
Pity then he was actually wrong and pure anything formations end up being significantly weaker then a combined arms group.
He was wrong as well on how the other arms could continue to advance on the then current battlefield. Tanks were used during the August offensives that gave the 'Black Day' of the German Army, but those numbers soon plunged as mechanical support was unable to keep up with damage and breakdown. It was the older service arms that did the bulk of the advancing in the 100 Days and it was the 100 Days that ended up convincing the Germans there was no coming back. Plan 1919 was never tested because the largely non tank armies Fuller believed were unable to advance had forced victory in 1918. Had the Germans held on through the winter it is extremely unlikely production of the Allies could have filled Fuller's Christmas wish list and while the renewed spring offensives in 1919 would have involved tanks, the simply logistical realities involved would have probably meant the grand plan owed more to the lessons of Amiens then the dreams of Fuller.
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