How to look at the blitzkrieg and the Great Depth dialectically?

Both the blitzkrieg and the theory of great depth are products of the advent of the mechanized era, and they are two sides of the same coin, and they cannot be viewed dialectically. Both Blitzkrieg and Great Depth Assault Theory are part of offensive strategy in the mechanized age. Blitzkrieg is not just the art of commanding armored forces, it actually involves military, political, economic, and political aspects.

Its main idea is that by concentrating all forces to destroy the enemy, mobilizing at high speed, it is necessary to transfer the forces of the whole country (including economic, military, material, spiritual preparations, and many other preparations) to the wartime track before the war. Quickly gather forces and strike a surprise blow to the enemy. Purely from the point of view of military strength, the blitzkrieg concentrates as many forces as possible on the front line, giving the enemy the most violent blows, intending to cause confusion to the enemy, so as to achieve the goal of quickly destroying the enemy's defense system, and at the same time, once the breakthrough is successful, it often adopts a pincer offensive, with the first purpose of destroying the enemy's living forces, and fights encirclement and annihilation battles in the depth of the enemy, such as the Battle of Kiev and several other large-scale encirclement and annihilation battles.

The emphasis is on the advantage of attacking and the rapid destruction of the enemy's living forces, and the emphasis is on the swift and resolute use of tactical means. The theory of large-depth assault emphasizes the collapse of the enemy's defense line by carrying out multi-point (multiple narrow frontal) multi-wave breakthroughs on a wide front, and at the same time, quickly penetrating into the enemy's depth, cutting off the enemy's supplies, occupying transportation hubs and political centers, seizing airfields, destroying command and communication centers, etc., emphasizing the defeat of the enemy's war potential and the realization of strategic goals. The theory of large-depth defense was actually born out of Ludendorff's "elastic defense" in World War I, that is, emphasizing the role of reserves, requiring reserves to gather the front line and quickly organize a new line of defense, resist step by step, and seek opportunities to annihilate the enemy.

From the perspective of national strategy, it is to ensure the effective existence of national forces, to afford losses, to consume them, and to win counterattacks. Not much. Generally speaking, in the era of mechanization, the theory of great depth and the theory of blitzkrieg, as the best military ideas, embodied Sun Tzu's operational principle of "those who are good at defending should hide under the nine earths, and those who are good at attacking should move above the nine heavens" and achieved good tactical results.

Compared with the two countries on the Eastern Front that broke out in World War II after licking their own blood in World War I, France on the Western Front can be described as extremely sad, believing in the offensive cult under the technical conditions of the superiority of defense in World War I, and only daring to hide behind the turtle shell when speed is king when the era of mechanization in World War II arrived, and was defeated in the war, losing face, I don't know how Napoleon was resurrected, thinking about the heroic posture of one enemy and six and then looking at the children and grandchildren, how do you feel? <>

Blitzkrieg is a way of fighting in which troops with high mobility capability bully troops with low mobility capabilities, relying on the advantage of mobility capabilities to fight slowly with speed. I don't care too much about issues like exposing flanks, anyway, the opponent is slow and can't catch these loopholes. Great Depth is the way for a High Mobility Army to fight a High Mobility Army, because the opponent also has a High Mobility and has the ability to seize the loopholes when you attack and launch a deadly counterattack, so the Great Depth Attack will appear more stable and more conservative.

To use the example of war, when the German army attacked France, it bypassed Maginot, did it expose its flanks in the process? Of course, it was exposed, but the French army was a low-mobility force, and it could not grasp such a loophole, and if it was caught hard, it might be taken advantage of by the opponent with high mobility to attack the weakness exposed when they counterattacked. So the Germans could bypass Maginot.

When they arrived at Kursk, knowing that the Soviet troops in Kursk were ready for defense, why didn't the Germans bypass it? This is because the Soviet army in Kursk is also a highly mobile force, and if you dare to go around and expose your flank, it will really have the ability to hit your flank. So it's not that I don't want to go around, it's that I really don't dare to go around, I can't go around.

Common points: 1. The theory is similar, whether it is the "Theory of the Great Depth Campaign" published by the Soviet Union (in which the full text of the statement on the history of the Great Depth is quoted from Ichelson's 1965 "Journal of Military History") in the Soviet Union**), or the "Memoirs of Guderian", they all clearly admit and point out that the source of the theory comes from the Englishman Fuller, and Guderian also points out the contribution of the Englishman Lidhardt (which may be related to his good relationship with Hart), Second, the direction of change is similar, and they all hope to avoid abandoning the past form of World War I, that is, the difficult mode of fighting in which a single person captures the enemy's defense base point, which consumes extremely much strength, and re-transforms positional warfare into a war of movement.

3. The form of campaign tactics is similar, whether it is a breakthrough of multiple echelons under the full depth suppression of the great depth proposition, or a pincer breakthrough of the blitzkrieg, they all advocate the rapid concentration of armored forces, a rapid breakthrough in the enemy's weak defensive area, a sharp knife force directly forward to disintegrate the enemy's reserves, and follow-up troops to reinforce and expand the results from the breakthrough to outflank and annihilate the enemy. The French school of thought summed up the two kinds of military thinking as a "paralyzing strategy." Fourth, the principle of combined combat is similar, and they both hope to take the armored force as the core, comprehensively apply the forces of the air force, infantry, and artillery, and attack the opponent in a composite manner.

The blitzkrieg was incomplete and served the executive plan under the German strategic system at that time, which was also related to the fact that Germany was disarmed after the war and was not further summarized and developed. 2. From the point of view of its impact on actual warfare, the blitzkrieg was revolutionary in nature and successfully broke the old combat style, while the theory of great depth was limited by the political and military environment of the Soviet Union and was not applied at the beginning of the war, but gradually gained attention with the development of the war.

Third, the expectations and objectives are different, and the great depth is to solve the problems of conducting a campaign of annihilation, overcoming the continuous front, and breaking through in depth in the whole campaign under the overall war situation. Blitzkrieg focuses on creating a sudden apex of power, directing the campaign deep into the enemy's depth and quickly paralyzing the opponent, destroying the opponent's reinforcement system to avoid falling into a total war. <>

Mobility on the battlefield is number one. The initiative is always in your own hands. Offense is the goal.

Very simple blitzkrieg is to make a clear breakthrough before the war, concentrate all technical weapons, open the breakthrough at all costs, and then the tank troops drive straight in, forcibly encircle, and after the encirclement, hand over to the follow-up infantry to destroy one by one.

To put it simply, it is a traditional detour-encirclement, where all tanks are concentrated in the spearhead, and the large depth is led by infantry units (with some tanks and a large number of artillery) to test the opponent's front, open the gap, and then throw the tank troops into pursuit.

A typical representative is the Battle of Kursk.

Moder on the northern line used a big depth play similar to Maozi, but suffered heavy losses, and Manshuai, who advanced slowly on the southern line, was 6 outfits, and Maozi's 5ta was basically disabled three days later.