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    Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940: Operational Art
    Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940: Operational Art
    Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940: Operational Art
    Ebook81 pages56 minutes

    Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940: Operational Art

    By Major Rick S. Richardson

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    The objective of this study is to determine if the German “blitzkrieg” and Fall Gelb of 1940 were an expression of operational art. Despite the mythology surrounding Fall Gelb, the campaign does not constitute a major breakthrough in operational art by the Germans. Fall Gelb was not an expression of operational art. This conclusion is based upon an analysis using the approaches posed by U.S. Army and joint doctrine, Dr. James Schneider and Dr. Shimon Naveh.

    The purpose of this study is to examine more closely what is meant by “operational art” and to use those contemporary insights to re-examine German military operations in France in May 1940, Fall Gelb. Fall Gelb was chosen because it is a campaign that is frequently studied and often used and abused to illustrate various points relating to military operations. The study of the Fall Gelb campaign offers a glimpse of past operations through the lens of contemporary thought. That study provides the contemporary military professional an opportunity to improve his understanding of operational art through the study of a historical campaign.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLucknow Books
    Release dateNov 6, 2015
    ISBN9781786250773
    Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940: Operational Art

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      Book preview

      Fall Gelb And The German Blitzkrieg Of 1940 - Major Rick S. Richardson

      Gelb.

      Chapter 1 — Introduction

      Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed.{1} — Sun Tzu

      Emergence of Operational Art

      The concept of operational art arose during the late 1800s. The early military theorists Clausewitz and Jomini did not use the term. In fact, the term carried no special significance prior to the twentieth century. When it was used the term referred to the organization of supplies and marches.{2} The history of operational art reveals that it emerged as a consequence of changes in classical strategy that were brought about through the evolution of warfare. This evolution was the product of a series of changes to the fundamental nature of warfare in latter part of the nineteenth century. Advances in weapon lethality, transportation, communications, and the raising and organization of field armies altered the conduct of war. Those advances forced adaptation to both the enhanced military capabilities and the complexity born of the new changes.

      In a paper titled Vulcan’s Anvil: The American Civil War and the Emergence of Operational Art, Dr. Schneider further described the specific origins of operational art. Dr. Schneider explained that classical strategy had held for hundreds of years that decisive military action occurred when armies came together in a dense mass on a single point within a theater of operations. During the American Civil war that pattern of military operations changed as a new manner of warfare emerged. Technological advances allowed armies to conduct dispersed maneuvers, which in turn expanded and emptied the battlefield. The increased lethality of modern weapons, such as the breech-loading rifle, and quick-firing artillery, caused soldiers to disperse to avoid the effects of these weapons. This dispersion created the empty battlefield. The dispersion of forces combined with advanced transportation and communications means propelled the emergence of large field armies that could effectively use distributed maneuver.{3} Because of these changes, a gap developed between tactics which tended to produce concentric maneuver in search of a battle at a decisive point and strategy which tended to define war aims divorced from tactics. That gap in classical theory represented a large intellectual void that needed to be filled. The physical changes in the conduct of war were the prerequisites for operations at a level beyond tactics, but not quite strategy, and thus the art of linking strategy to tactics was born. The U.S. Army has labeled the art of linking strategy to tactics, operational art. The following table compares classical strategy to operational art.{4}

      The Issue

      Historians have spilled a large amount of ink arguing the significance of the German western campaign of 1940 and the notion of warfare labeled blitzkrieg. The fall of France has been used and abused to illustrate various points relating to military operations. Any study of Fall Gelb, Case Yellow, must sort out the exaggerated claims from reality in order to make an objective assessment of the significance of German operations in contemporary terms. Given all of the intellectual passion associated with studies of Fall Gelb there needs to be a framework to make an objective assessment. To make an objective assessment criteria must be established that are independent of previous portrayals of the 1940 campaign. Thus, to objectively assess the importance of the blitzkrieg, the blitzkrieg must be analyzed using criteria derived from a modern understanding of operational art. There are three distinctive approaches to operational art. One way to approach the problem is to use contemporary doctrine as a yardstick. Contemporary doctrine approaches the issue by using simple definitions and lists to describe the essential elements of operational art. Another approach is that taken by Dr. James Schneider from the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies. Schneider’s approach seeks to describe the phenomena associated with the practice of Operation Art. Schneider breaks down operational art into key attributes necessary for the practice of Operational Art. A third approach to the issue is that used by Dr. Shimon Naveh, an Israeli military theorist. Naveh’s approach focuses on describing the cognitive process he identifies as operational art. These approaches to the subject

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