Since the earliest days of organized warfare, the appearance of the enemy on the flanks or rear has often been enough to destroy entire armies. Once a few individuals or units are overcome with panic and flee, their more stouthearted comrades are left with exposed flanks; some of these may then flee in turn, creating a cascading breakdown of cohesion and morale as the army’s position becomes less tenable. Or, as more often happens, an army routs from the rear, leaving the forward echelons feeling exposed. Discipline and training can mitigate this, but so long as a threat from the rear is credible, it exerts tremendous
A lot of these are about C3 networks. The French one in 1940 was deeply shaky and was disrupted both at the tactical and operational level while the German one was excellent. There's an interesting underresearched thing there - why did the BEF have all the No.19 radios it needed and the French were reliant on a civilian phone net that was shit until a massive state development programme as late as the 1970s? Similarly, the Matilda IIs and Valentines that went to Moscow in 1941 were all fitted with either 19 or both 19 and the rearlink whose number I've forgotten in a radio-poor Soviet army.
Gamelin apparently didn't even want radios collocated with his headquarters, didn't think the front would move fast enough for anything but couriers/landlines to be enough. But it was also the orders process itself - the divisional commander at Sedan wasted a ton of time trying to get positive confirmation of his orders for the counterattack, which ended up being the exact actions that were discussed in advance.
The British were somewhat better both technically and procedurally, but only marginally - iirc their radios had a high failure rate, contributing to the disjointed attack at Arras.
A lot of these are about C3 networks. The French one in 1940 was deeply shaky and was disrupted both at the tactical and operational level while the German one was excellent. There's an interesting underresearched thing there - why did the BEF have all the No.19 radios it needed and the French were reliant on a civilian phone net that was shit until a massive state development programme as late as the 1970s? Similarly, the Matilda IIs and Valentines that went to Moscow in 1941 were all fitted with either 19 or both 19 and the rearlink whose number I've forgotten in a radio-poor Soviet army.
Gamelin apparently didn't even want radios collocated with his headquarters, didn't think the front would move fast enough for anything but couriers/landlines to be enough. But it was also the orders process itself - the divisional commander at Sedan wasted a ton of time trying to get positive confirmation of his orders for the counterattack, which ended up being the exact actions that were discussed in advance.
The British were somewhat better both technically and procedurally, but only marginally - iirc their radios had a high failure rate, contributing to the disjointed attack at Arras.
Brilliant.
Always have reserves.
That's a hugely comprehensive article, thank you.
Did you consider posting the essays as downloadable PDFs? That would be helpful.