Shock troopers or assault troopers are formations created to lead an attack. They are often better trained and equipped than other infantry and expected to take heavy casualties even in successful operations.
"Shock troop" is a calque, a loose translation of the German word Stoßtrupp (literally "push squad").[1] Assault troopers are typically organized for mobility with the intention that they will penetrate enemy defenses and attack into the enemy's vulnerable rear areas. Any specialized, elite unit formed to fight an engagement via overwhelming assault (usually) would be considered shock troops, as opposed to "special forces" or commando-style units (intended mostly for covert operations). However, both types of units could fight behind enemy lines, by surprise if required.
Although the term "shock troops" became popular in the 20th century, the concept is not new, and Western European armies in past centuries called them the forlorn hope. Presently, the term is rarely used, as the strategic concepts behind it have become standard contemporary military thinking.
Before 1914
In 375 BC, under the command of the younger Pelopidas, the Theban Sacred Band was united as a single unit of shock troops. Their main function was to cripple the enemy by engaging and killing the enemy's best men and leaders in battle.
Grenadiers originated as specialized assault soldiers for siege operations. First established with a distinct role in the mid- to late-17th century, grenadier units would throw grenades and storm breaches, while leading the forefront of a breakthrough. Even after abandoning the use of the original black-powder grenade, armies retained the grenadier companies and regiments as specialist assault troops.
During the Paraguayan War (1864–1870), in which Paraguay fought against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, the Paraguayans deployed shock troops (composed of a mixture of dismounted cavalry and fit men who could row and swim) armed with sabres, cutlasses, knives, bayonets, pistols, and hand grenades. They attacked small fortified positions and boarded Brazilian river steamers.[3]
During the First World War, many combatants faced the deadlock of trench warfare. On the Western Front in 1915, the Germans formed a specialized unit called the Rohr Battalion to develop assault tactics. During the Brusilov Offensive of 1916, the Russian general Aleksei Brusilov developed and implemented the idea of shock troops to attack weak points along the Austrian lines to affect a breakthrough, which the main Russian Army could then exploit. The Russian Army had also formed hunter commando units in 1886 and used them in World War I to protect against ambushes, to perform reconnaissance and for low-intensity fights in no-man's-land.[4]
The von Hutier tactics (infiltration tactics) called for special infantry assault units to be detached from the main lines and sent to infiltrate enemy lines, supported by shorter and sharper (than usual for WWI) artillery fire missions targeting both the enemy front and rear, bypassing and avoiding what enemy strong points they could, and engaging to their best advantage when and where they were forced to, leaving decisive engagement against bypassed units to following heavier infantry. The primary goal of these detached units was to infiltrate the enemy's lines and break their cohesion as much as possible. These formations became known as Stoßtruppen, or shock troops, and the tactics they pioneered were the basis of post-WWI infantry tactics, such as the development of fire teams.
Notwithstanding the postwar status of the Storm Troopers in German service,[clarification needed] the same sort of tactical doctrine was widely espoused in British and French service in late 1917 and 1918, with variable results. The British Army standard training manual for platoon tactics, SS 143, was used from February 1917 onwards and contained much of what was standard for German shock troops.[5] US forces were trained in tactics by surviving French cadre from chasseur units, and were trained to use French Chauchat light machine guns and rifle grenades.[citation needed]
During the Second World War, the Red Army of the Soviet Union deployed five shock armies (Russian: ударные армии – singular: Russian: ударная армия) between 1941 and 1945. Many of the units, which spearheaded the Soviet offensives on the Eastern Front from the Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943) to the Battle of Berlin (1945), were shock armies. Shock armies had high proportions of infantry, engineers, and field artillery, but with less emphasis on operational mobility and sustainability. Soviet shock armies were characterized by a higher allocation of army-level artillery units to break German defense positions by weight of fire, and often had heavy tank regiments or heavy self-propelled gun regiments to add additional direct fire-support. Once a shock army had made a breach in an enemy tactical position, more mobile units such as tank and mechanized corps would insert themselves through the shock army's positions with the mission of penetrating deep into the enemy rear area. By the end of the war, though, Soviet guards armies typically enjoyed superior artillery support to that of the shock armies.
Shock armies were instrumental in the execution of deep operation (also known as Soviet deep battle – Russian: Глубокая операция, glubokaya operatsiya). The central composition of the deep operation was the shock army, each acting either in cooperation with each other or independently as part of a strategic front operation. Several shock armies would be subordinated to a strategic front.
A Soviet ad hoc combat group was a mixed-arms unit of about 80 men in assault groups of six to eight men, closely supported by field artillery. These tactical units were able to apply the tactics of house-to-house fighting that the Soviets had been forced to develop and refine at each Festungsstadt (fortress city) they had encountered from Stalingrad to Berlin.[6]
The Yugoslav Partisans also established "shock" units during World War II, commencing in February 1942. These initially formed as company- and battalion-sized units, and later grew into brigades.
In or amongst the German armed forces, large armies such as the Waffen-SS received training with the best gear and weapons, primarily used to hit weak points. The Waffen-SS also served as a heavy unit. Used to smash well-armed and -equipped armies on the Eastern Front, the Waffen-SS lost its efficacy after Kursk (1943), but nevertheless later fought in many theaters and played a role in the Battle of the Bulge (1944–1945).
After 1943 (particularly during and after the invasion of Italy), specialist British units, such as the Commandos and certain detachments of the Special Air Service were used as shock troops against well dug in or elite German forces. Again, both forces would be used in similar roles after the Allies crossed the Rhine, serving as a vanguard for British forces.
After World War II
The demands of infantry fighting in the Second World War erased much of the romance of shock troops, particularly when any well-trained infantry was capable of the same tactics, especially in a formal assault on a well-defended objective. The Soviets retained the term shock (although the term can also be translated as strike) as a designation for armies involved in assaulting the enemy's operational depth as part of Soviet deep battle doctrine.
Mechanized infantry are infantry units equipped with armored personnel carriers (APCs) or infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) for transport and combat.
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. It became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914.
A charge is an offensive maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in a decisive close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of many battles throughout history. Modern charges usually involve small groups of fireteams equipped with weapons with a high rate of fire and striking against individual defensive positions, instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line.
In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. Soldiers take the initiative to identify enemy weak points and choose their own routes, targets, moments and methods of attack; this requires a high degree of skill and training, and can be supplemented by special equipment and weaponry to give them more local combat options.
The 2nd Cavalry Regiment, also known as the 2nd Dragoons, is an active Stryker infantry and cavalry regiment of the United States Army. The Second Cavalry Regiment is a unit of the United States Army Europe and Africa, with its garrison at the Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany. It can trace its lineage back to the early part of the 19th century.
Stormtroopers were specialist infantry soldiers of the German Army. In the last years of World War I, Stoßtruppen were trained to use infiltration tactics – part of the Germans' improved method of attack on enemy trenches. The German Empire entered the war certain that the conflict would be won in the course of great military campaigns, thus relegating results obtained during individual clashes to the background; consequently the best officers, concentrated in the German General Staff, placed their attention on maneuver warfare and the rational exploitation of railways, rather than concentrating on the conduct of battles: this attitude gave a direct contribution to operational victories of Germany in Russia, Romania, Serbia and Italy, but it resulted in failure in the West. Thus the German officers on the Western Front found themselves in need of resolving the static situation caused by trench warfare on the battlefield.
The Battle of Komarów, or the Zamość Ring, was one of the most important battles of the Polish-Soviet War. It took place between 20 August and 2 September 1920, near the village of Komarowo near Zamość. It was the last large battle in Europe in which cavalry was used as such and not as mounted infantry.
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The Battle of Narva was a World War II military campaign, lasting from 2 February to 10 August 1944, in which the German Army Detachment "Narwa" and the Soviet Leningrad Front fought for possession of the strategically important Narva Isthmus.
The Battle of Tannenberg Line or the Battle of the Blue Hills was a military engagement between the German Army Detachment Narwa and the Soviet Leningrad Front. They fought for the strategically important Narva Isthmus from 25 July–10 August 1944. The battle was fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. The strategic aim of the Soviet Estonian Operation was to reoccupy Estonia as a favorable base for the invasions of Finland and East Prussia. Waffen-SS forces included 24 volunteer infantry battalions from the SS Division Nordland, the SS Division Langemarck, the SS Division Nederland, and the Walloon Legion. Roughly half of the infantry consisted of the personnel of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. The German force of 22,250 men held off 136,830 Soviet troops. As the Soviet forces were constantly reinforced, their overall casualties are estimated by Estonian historian Mart Laar to be 170,000 dead and wounded.
In military history, the German term Kampfgruppe can refer to a combat formation of any kind, but most usually to that employed by the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II and, to a lesser extent, of the German Empire in World War I.
Deep operation, also known as Soviet Deep Battle, was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a tenet that emphasized destroying, suppressing or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact but also throughout the depth of the battlefield.
Infantry tactics are the combination of military concepts and methods used by infantry to achieve tactical objectives during combat. The role of the infantry on the battlefield is, typically, to close with and engage the enemy, and hold territorial objectives; infantry tactics are the means by which this is achieved. Infantry commonly makes up the largest proportion of an army's fighting strength, and consequently often suffers the heaviest casualties. Throughout history, infantrymen have sought to minimise their losses in both attack and defence through effective tactics.
The Battle of Mărăști was one of the main battles to take place on Romanian soil in World War I. It was fought between 22 July and 1 August 1917, and was an offensive operation of the Romanian and Russian armies intended to encircle and destroy the German 9th Army. The operation was planned to occur in tandem with the Nămoloasa offensive; however, this operation was abandoned before it began.
The types of military forces in the Napoleonic Wars represented the unique tactical use of distinct military units, or their origin within different European regions. By and large the military forces during the period had not changed significantly from those of the 18th century, although their employment would differ significantly.
Harald Nugiseks was an Waffen-Oberscharführer (Sergeant) in World War II, who served in the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS of the Waffen-SS. Nugiseks is also one of the four Estonian soldiers who received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
This is a sub-article to Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive and Battle of Narva.
This is a sub-article to Battle of Narva (1944).
This is a sub-article to Battle of Narva (1944).
The Fallschirmjäger were the paratrooper branch of the German Luftwaffe before and during World War II. They were the first paratroopers to be committed in large-scale airborne operations. Throughout World War II, the commander of the branch was Kurt Student.
References
↑ Although the German word Stoß is occasionally used to translate 'shock' or allude to a shock-like event, as in Erdstoß (seismic wave), in this case stoß derives directly from the verb stoßen (to push), referring to the original task of the Stoßtruppen, known in German as vorstoßen (roughly: to carry the attack forward, to penetrate the enemy lines).
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