Luckily history also tells us that the bad guys are equally unprepared. War, especially big ones, end up proving the old Mike Tyson quote: "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." The opening stages of wars are always a bunch of wild haymakers as each side punches and gets punched in the mouth. Then it's a race to learn and adapt via new tactics, new leadership, and new capabilities to what actually happened.I agree with Pags, you're never really prepared. Especially if you assume your enemy has been staring at your weaknesses.
The goal is to have in place prior to conflict a system that will rapidly learn and respond. Assuming you survive day one, of course.
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NEWS If War Comes, Will the U.S. Navy Be Prepared?
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So extrapolating that out a bit - historically an interesting aspect of prospective conflict with the Soviets was that doctrinally they were much more constrained, at least tactically, by things like GCI and training that focused less on a strong foundation and encouraged creativity in practice, and more on strong adherence to command and control, etc... did that or would that have extended out to the strategic? Is there a sense they would have been more or less able to adapt as you point out above? How about the Chinese? I think we've covered the significant gap in industrial capacity (i.e. shipbuilding specifically) in other threads, and we understand that over the last several decades they have been very disciplined in sticking to a timetable of fleshing out military capes, but doctrinally I wonder how well they pivot and adapt in the months following Day One. /blanket acknowledgement that if this question approaches anything sensitive, would desire to stay away from that.
No idea as to how well the PLAN will adapt. Adaptability/flexibility/initiative has traditionally been an American strong point but it also usually takes a lot of people getting fired/killed to make the necessary change happen. See USN surface tactics at Ironbottom Sound; machine guns, arty, barbed wire, and helmets in WWI to name a few.
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Which bad guys? The Germans I'd say were extremely prepared for WW II and they weren't launching any haymakers when they started. And had they not made some of the major mistakes they did, might well have been impossible to oust from Western Europe and much of Eastern Europe.
I'd disagree. Germany was ready for a war against Poland but weren't ready for war against France or the UK. It just so happens that the UK and FR were even less ready. The German generals were concerned about the invasion of France and about the fact that losses from Poland had not been replaced. Germany was also not ready for the UK not surrendering nor for Barbarossa.
I will say one thing about the Chinese, and this is likely a reflection of the old religious systems, but they don’t panic that much. The video embedded in this story shows some rather calm people trapped in a flooding rail car. I doubt you’d see that kind of calm with Americans.
My experience is mostly sweating it out through the gate on the way home from the golf course…but I digress…
I don't think it was so much that they were not prepared as they were under-prepared, which I'd say is a bit different, and even then that was more in terms of supply as tactically, they were very prepared. But in comparison to everyone else at the time, both supply-wise and tactically, they were very well-prepared I'd say. If they were ill-prepared, they'd have been throwing wild haymakers in the same way that the U.S., British, and Soviets were in the initial fights, but instead they very much knew what they were doing and they had the equipment to do it and were causing tremendous bloodshed. Their undoing was more in terms of being weak at the operational level of war and arrogance on the part of the military high command (the generals all blamed Hitler after the war but historians have found that is way overly-simplistic, Hitler was not the dunce he is made out to be). It took the U.S., U.K., and the Soviets some time to really get their act together and then it took an unimaginably high number of deaths (anywhere from 25-40 million on the Soviet side alone) and the combined efforts of the U.S., U.K., and the Soviets to defeat them. Keep in mind also that in the early parts of the war, from the perspective of the U.S., U.K., and Soviets, the Germans seem VERY prepared. It's only in hindsight that we know that wasn't the case. The militaries of both the U.S. and U.K. both thought the Soviet Union was kaput.
So I mean while there are a huge amount of ways that the Germans needed to be better prepared, I don't look at Germany under Hitler and see how it matches up with your original quote:
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The Germans were substantially under-prepared and the OKW told Hitler they could sweep up Europe but would need a long break to rebuild their logistics base. Germany’s power rested solely on boot leather as Hitler had a massive 315 infantry divisions (supplemented by a further 18 SS divisions) none of which had any real motorized elements, That alone is a shocking weakness and only one of the many missing pieces to Hitler’s war machine.
My original statement was a generalization and now we've zeroed in on a specific case. Also I don't think we have mutual agreement as to what constitutes a wild haymaker. To me, most of the early war in Europe was wild German sucker punches against more unprepared countries. Their lack of preparedness caught up with them during the Battle of Britain and they were totally unable to execute Sea Lion if they had secured air superiority over the UK. They were also unprepared for a long war and full mobilization and economic dedication to a war time economy. They were famously unprepared for Barbarossa logistically (no cold wx plan, no plan for moving supplies) and tactically in cases like the "surprise" appearance of KV-1s and T-34s.
Tactically they certainly knew what they were doing. But they were unprepared for the war they ended up with. Which is good for us.
Without a full review of the totality of history I'd say the most prepared army was the Imperial German Army of WWI. But even then their plans and assumptions were bullshit and they ended up in a long war as opposed to being home before the leaves fell in 1914.
I was going to include a discussion of Germany's lack of mechanization but decided to not dive that deep. But since you brought it up it was also a factor I'd consider especially since their whole doctrine was maneuver warfare but they lacked the capability to execute maneuver warfare. Band of Brothers sums it up pretty well when Webster is yelling at the German POWs about, "fucking horses!" while the 101st rides in a truck into Germany.
Oddly enough the “best” (or most prepared) army in the opening days of WWII was that of France. Fantastic defenses (except for that one little weakness), superior armor and anti-armor, and a well-trained army. They were undermined by morale (too many had a dad either dead or damaged by WWI) and a rather sad Air Force. They were beaten by a lack of tactical vision and too many bad assumptions (can anyone say Ardennes!).
Yes I am aware of the fact that the German war machine was actually mostly horse-drawn. I wouldn't say that was shocking however because horse-drawn militaries were still very much in use then. The Soviet military at the time was mostly horse-drawn as well and so were the Japanese I believe. Only the British and American militaries were fully mechanized. Part of the reason for Germany was their lack of oil. They had barely enough fuel to supply the vehicles they had.
Well it is a specific case but it constitutes one of the most major of the major wars in history which was why I was curious. The thing is though that if it had not been for some major mistakes on their part, the outcome of the war still might have been very different (Stalingrad and Kursk were two titanic mistakes).
One major lesson these wars give IMO is never make assumptions about your opponent:
WWI: "No major war will happen and if it does, it'll last a few weeks at most."
WWII: "The Germans can't go through the Ardennes, the terrain is too difficult." "The Japanese can't launch torpedos into Pearl Harbor, the water is too shallow."
Dien Bien Phu: "The locals can't put artillery in the surrounding mountains, as they don't have any and even if they did, they'd never be able to move it up there."
Vietnam: "The era of dogfighting is over, planes only need missiles."
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