BLITZKRIEG
Blitzkrieg is a method of warfare whereby an attacking force spearheaded by a dense concentration of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defense by short, fast, powerful attacks and then dislocates the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them.
Blitzkrieg refers to German tactical and operational strategies in the first half of the second World War. The word, meaning "lightning war," is associated with a series of quick and decisive short battles to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy before it can fully mobilize. The tactical meaning of blitzkrieg involves a coordinated military effort by tanks, mobilized infantry, artillery, and aircraft, to overwhelm an enemy and break through its lines. German military official Heinz Guderian was probably the first to fully develop and advocate the principles associated with blitzkrieg.
As used by Germany, blitzkrieg had considerable psychological, or "terror" elements, such as the noise-making sirens on dive-bombers to affect the morale of enemy forces.
THE USE OF THE BLITZKRIEG STRATEGY IN WORLD WAR II
Despite the term blitzkrieg being coined by journalists during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, historians Matthew Cooper and J. P. Harris have written that German operations during it were consistent with traditional methods. The Wehrmacht strategy was more in line with Vernichtungsgedanken a focus on envelopment to create pockets in broad-front annihilation. Panzer forces were dispersed among the three German concentrations with little emphasis on independent use, being used to create or destroy close pockets of Polish forces and seize operational-depth terrain in support of the largely un-motorized infantry which followed. However, historian Basil Liddell Hart argues that "Poland was a full demonstration of the Blitzkrieg theory."
Germany launched an offensive against France and also attacked the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940. The Netherlands and Belgium were overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively. The French-fortified Maginot Line and the main body the Allied forces which had moved into Belgium were circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region, mistakenly perceived by Allied planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armored vehicles. As a result, the bulk of the Allied armies found themselves trapped in an encirclement and were beaten. The majority were taken prisoner, whilst over 300,000, mostly British and French, were evacuated from the continent at Dunkirk by early June, although abandoning almost all of their equipment. Eventually, the French army collapsed after less than two months of fighting.
Use of armored forces was crucial for both sides on the Eastern Front. Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, involved a number of breakthroughs and encirclements by motorized forces. The Germans conquered large areas of the Soviet Union but their failure to destroy the Red Army before the winter of 1941 was a strategic failure that made German tactical superiority and territorial gains irrelevant. In the summer of 1942, Germany launched another offensive in the southern USSR against Stalingrad and the Caucasus, the Soviets again lost tremendous amounts of territory, only to counter-attack once more during winter. German gains were ultimately limited by Hitler diverting forces from the attack on Stalingrad and driving towards the Caucasus oilfields simultaneously. The Wehrmacht became overstretched, although winning operationally, it could not inflict a decisive defeat as the durability of the Soviet Union's manpower, resources, industrial base and aid from the Western Allies began to take effect. In July 1943 the Wehrmacht conducted Operation Zitadelle (Citadel) against a salient at Kursk that was heavily defended by Soviet troops. Soviet defensive tactics were by now hugely improved, particularly in the use of artillery and air support.
Historians disagree over when the blitzkrieg phase of World War II in Europe ended. Some assert that Operation Citadel was planned and intended to be a blitzkrieg operation. Many of the German participants who wrote about the operation after the war make no mention of blitzkrieg in their accounts. In 2000, Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson characterized only the southern pincer of the German offensive as a "classical blitzkrieg attack." Pier Battistelli wrote that the operational planning marked a change in German offensive thinking away from blitzkrieg and that more priority was given to brute force and fire power than to speed and maneuver.
Although effective in the early periods of the war, blitzkrieg strategy could not sustained by Germany in later years. Tank and vehicle production was a constant problem for Germany. As the end of the war approached, Germany also experienced critical shortages in fuel and ammunition stocks as a result of Allied strategic bombing and blockades.
German armed forces in Russia, June 1942
The classic characteristic of what is commonly known as "blitzkrieg" is a highly mobile form of infantry and armor, working in combined arms.