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Lessons for Lebanon from the Gran Chaco War and Spanish Civil War, part 2- Gordon Housworth [ 9/27/2006 - 01:37 ] # Part 1 Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
I see the war in Spain as a likely model for future fractionalized combat in which there are many disparate groups that will not tidily line up, and that much effort will be required to understand each and then reach out to these groups in what may best be described as a 'herding cats' coalition: The Spanish Civil War pitted two odd coalitions against each other.
The split was essentially between the left and the right sides of the
Spanish political spectrum, but many parties on each side of the
conflict hated or feared other parts of their coalition. The
Nationalist were a coalition of groups on the right side of the
spectrum. That coalition contained Fascists, monarchists, old-line
conservatives, many people who feared a communist or anarchist takeover
of Spain, and many people who just happened to be in areas taken over
by the Nationalists at the start of the revolt. The Republican side was
primarily the left side of the political spectrum. It consisted of
Socialists, Communists, Trotskyites, adherents of something called
Anarcho-Syndicalism, and a lot of people who simply felt that the
Republicans were the legitimately elected government of Spain.
The war started after the parties that became the core of the Republicans won a hotly contested election. The parties of the right never really accepted their defeat, and they became more and more radical in their opposition to the government as political violence spiraled out of control after the election. The Nationalists tried a coup on July 17-18 of 1936. That coup succeeded in Spanish Morocco and several parts of Spain. It failed in Madrid and several other major cities. Spain divided into a set of untidy enclaves, with the Republic controlling Basque country in northern Spain, the eastern coast of Spain, and a large part of Central Spain. The Nationalists controlled northwestern Spain, part of Central Spain and an enclave in southern Spain. Little pockets of territory held by the ‘wrong’ side were sprinkled on both sides of the line. I find it very interesting that Germany advised both the losing side in the Americas and the winning side in Spain, i.e., Germany did not possess invincibility, failed to learn or value key lessons from Chaco, and misapplied key lessons from Spain. Oppenheimer is one of the few to holistically discuss the lessons learned during Operation Magic Fire, 1936-1939, but ultimately misapplied, in which the Condor Legion (German military units sent to assist the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War) tested "air warfare doctrine and equipment in military action, [learning] much in the way of strategy, tactics, logistics, and operations." Oppenheimer fulfills a much overlooked mission by showing "the Spanish War provided ambiguous benefits to the nascent Luftwaffe. [That while] the Condor Legion [proved] an invaluable training and testing opportunity, the lessons it taught were occasionally interpreted erroneously." Lessons learned in Spain propelled the Luftwaffe through the early stages of WW II, but failed it in its latter stages: In
the concrete realm of day-to-day operations, the Spanish War furnished
a mother lode of knowledge, although at time; this knowledge was
misapplied. The combat experience gained by Condor Legion pilots was
invaluable particularly because many of these pilots became
instructional officers in pilot training schools in Germany. The pilots
also learned the importance of detailed maps, the benefits from rapid,
positive target identification and the need for adequate radio
communications. As a catalyst for the development of technology, the
conflict emphasized the value of weather forecasting. radio directional
systems, [the] use of pathfinder aircraft, and incendiary flares for
effective night bombing. With regard to aircraft. Spain was a very
helpful testing ground and incubator. [Biplanes demonstrated
obsolescence] as a fighter when matched against the Russian monoplanes
and fruitfully exchanged that role for one of close ground
support... During the course of 1937, the Bf109 fighter, the Ju87 Stuka
dive bomber and the He111 and the Do17 bombers were introduced in Spain
and all showed their value as combat aircraft.
The
mistakes engendered by the Spanish War, more than the successes,
indicate the difficulty in drawing general conclusions from an unusual
and specific conflict. Because Legion bomber squadrons rarely
encountered much opposition after the Nationalists attained air
supremacy, the introduction of the He111 fast bomber suggested
incorrectly that bombers required only a light armor and little fighter
protection. The high command mistakenly believed that bombers could
rely on speed alone to penetrate the enemy's defenses. Berlin failed to
perceive that even high performance, well-armed bombers in mass
formation could not protect themselves against detetmined fighter
opposition, particularly dluring daytime missions. This oversight
caused the Luftwaffe to neglect the coordination of fighter and bomber
development. After realizing that bombers needed fighter escorts. the
Luftwaffe command discovered that their fighters lacked the range to
protect the bombers during the missions. A similar nearsighted
rationale approved of the concept of an all-purpose aircraft for
strategic and tactical operations. Indeed, Hitler demanded that heavy,
multi-engined bombers possess both a strategic and dive bombing
capability. The resulting hybrid aircraft, the Ju88, was unable to
carry out either mission properly. The success of the 88mm flak guns in
Spain suggested that flak cannons wete the best weapon for air defense,
and that therefore little attention need be paid to a fighter defense
system to protect Germany. The horrific losses inflicted on Germany by
USAF and RAF bombers attest to the inaccuracy of this belief. The most
valuable lessons taught in the laboratory of the Spanish War was the
tactical concept of combat operational doctrine. The Spanish experience
established within the Luftwaffe the belief in close ground support
tactics as the preeminent and foremost task of the German air force.
This belief produced both the Luftwaffe's most spectacular success in
Poland and later contributed to the Third Reich's utter defeat...
Over four years, the Luftwaffe
showed the world air power unexcelled. The essense of its strategy was
air superiority. Without superiority in the air, troops could not be
easily transported, motorized ground units could not move rapidly,
enemy troop concentrations could not he disrupted, and enemy
fortifications and communications could not he destroyed. When the Luftwaffe
failed to attain air superiority, as at Dunkirk, it failed to win. The
lessons learned in Spain, and enlarged and elaborated in the succeeding
European campaigns, were faithfully though not always correctly
applied. After the fall of France, the Luftwaffe's neglect of heavy bombers, long-range fighters and radar manifested itself. The British began to outproduce the Luftwaffe,
and the Russian quagmire swallowed entire squadrons. There can be no
question that the Spanish Civil War decisively affected the development
of LuftwaffeLuftwaffe rendered indispensable assistance in the triumphs over Germany's enemies. At the same time, the Luftwaffe's
deceptively easy victories hid the seeds of its defeat. Although this
defeat was a long time in coming, often masked by brilliant German
inventions and innovations, come it did. Like the air forces it had
helped vanquish, the Luftwaffe too learned defeat.
Germany and the USSR made financial bonanzas from Spain that helped to accelerate their rearmament programs. Spain divided Western states "while giving the Soviet Union an opportunity to portray itself as the only active opponent of fascism," a position that "drew many opponents of fascism in the west toward communist parties." Overlooking Chaco, Spain was widely seen as the "first conflict between reasonably modern armies since World War I" and so drove protagonists and bystanders alike to draw lessons that took them into WW II with varying degrees of success. McNerney submits a tall order for the US to achieve necessary preconditions for innovation to meet 4GW threats:
It is cold comfort that McNerney sees the "prognosis for U.S. military innovation today [as] questionable [but not] impossible." Military Innovation in Times of Conflict--Is It Too Risky? The Spanish Civil War: Lessons Learned and Not Learned by the Great Powers InfoT Public Strategic Risk Public Terrorism Public |
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