Rommel's Infantry Attacks

[Luca]

Have You reed this book? I find it inspiring both from a military and a wargaming point of view. It seemd that Rommel managed to get out from every difficult and compromising situation with incredible ease with the help of his ingenuity, the confidence he had in his well prepared troops and the attention paid to recoinnesance, entrenching works and carefull praparation of every aspect of the operations.

One thing that the GHQ rules lack to rappresent is the stealth movement of the troops. Rommel with the cover of woods, gollays, valleys, managed to close to 200 yards or even less to the enemy position before launching the attack. I'll try to represent this on my wargame board. Obviously this will work just for the infantry, but every one knows that one the biggest advantages of the infantry over other elements of an army is Its possibility to move stealthy and silently.

bye!

[dougeagle]

Cool.
I've read or heard from somewhere, not too sure where , that even today his battle tactics are still being used, especially when Rommel was in North Africa commanding the DAK forces.

I could be wrong, but that is what I've heard...or read...

[Luca]

The book I'm referring to is about his 1#WW experiences. Many have studied his aggressive and problem solving approac to tactical situation, included Patton who knew every single word of the book.
For example he was used to pin the enemy with machine gun fire before launching the attack, wich departed from one flank and was directed to the center of the enemy line of defence. Seconds before the assaulting team attacked, the machine guns stopped to fire on the center and delivered the fire on the flanks to seal the area of the attack and avoiding to hit their foes. The men run untill the enemy started to fire, so they hitted the dirt and advanced using cover of terrein. When they were close to granade distance, they rushed with great impetum and captured the position, and immediatly dug in waiting for the counterattack and called the rest of group to exploit the gain. This was just one of his simple, resolute and aggressive methods.
I warmly raccomend its reading.

[Brian-Edmonton]

The book I'm referring to is about his 1#WW experiences. Many have studied his aggressive and problem solving approac to tactical situation, included Patton who knew every single word of the book.
For example he was used to pin the enemy with machine gun fire before launching the attack, wich departed from one flank and was directed to the center of the enemy line of defence. Seconds before the assaulting team attacked, the machine guns stopped to fire on the center and delivered the fire on the flanks to seal the area of the attack and avoiding to hit their foes. The men run untill the enemy started to fire, so they hitted the dirt and advanced using cover of terrein. When they were close to granade distance, they rushed with great impetum and captured the position, and immediatly dug in waiting for the counterattack and called the rest of group to exploit the gain. This was just one of his simple, resolute and aggressive methods.
I warmly raccomend its reading.

I've read his book and found it a great read and insight to a great leader. 2 of the main battle techniques are dig in quickly and move and move fast. A lot of people as of late are beginning to put him down and play down his skills and image but personally I still think he was one of the best commanders of the war and highly recomend his book.

Brian