Looking at the UA war, I see reports that both Russian and Ukrainian SF units are being used on the front line. That strikes me as both improper use and exceedingly wasteful. Am I wrong in saying that the recent focus on SF was a LIC artefact and that in HIC you should spend your tax dollars much more on Line units, whih are also much cheaper?

graylion said:

Looking at the UA war, I see reports that both Russian and Ukrainian SF units are being used on the front line. That strikes me as both improper use and exceedingly wasteful. Am I wrong in saying that the recent focus on SF was a LIC artefact and that in HIC you should spend your tax dollars much more on Line units, whih are also much cheaper?

Well you certaily have a point in the focus on SF being a GWOT (LIC and COIN) thing.
But the use of SF on the frontline in UA is not for a lack of line units per se. Its about a lack of reliable and quality line units. The training level that has been concidered adequate or even "elite" during the Cold War era simply doesn't cut it anymore in a modern environment.
This doesn't mean all units need to be SF but the average training level needs to be much better and really adress the current problems. It seems certain things need to be relearned not only by the soldiers but by the leaders and entire branches. How to disperse, how to camouflage, how to behave under air threat are just some examples. The thing that seems to have been forgotten and is needed the most seems to be entrenching and field fortifications. Sweat saves blood and all these things. Things that would have been concidered basics at least since WW1 and up to '01.

What Schnuersi said, plus what does SF mean? For example, US Army Rangers are SOF, but their training for Direct Action would make them useful for creating holes in trench lines. 

What effective troops on the modern battlefield need to do is far more than WW2. And back then, it was observed that it takes way more to be effective than in the "three shots and then steel" days. And those leaders would complain about the difficulties of getting higher performing troops for certain combat missions.

Farmplinker said:

What effective troops on the modern battlefield need to do is far more than WW2. And back then, it was observed that it takes way more to be effective than in the "three shots and then steel" days. And those leaders would complain about the difficulties of getting higher performing troops for certain combat missions.

During WW2 it has been found out by that not every infantry man is up to the task of being a mechanised infantry man. The mechanised environment is more complex, faster moving, constant change in adittion to more complex exquipment. For the leaders of mechanised infantry this has been concidered a real problem. The quality and training required to be an effective leader of a mechanised combat element (regardless if infantry or other branches) has been very difficult to achieve.

It also should be mentioned that the quality of troops of all participants of WW2 varied quite a lot from unit or formation to another. The major parts would not be concidered well trained by modern standarts. This is why its allways the same formations showing up at the focal points. The large majority of any army back in the day has been suitable to hold ground and occupy territory if no major resistance or offensive was aimed at them. Once this happened some of the reliable, elite formations had to be rushed to relieve them or pick up the pieces. Depending on how fast they could get there.

Farmplinker said:

What Schnuersi said, plus what does SF mean? For example, US Army Rangers are SOF, but their training for Direct Action would make them useful for creating holes in trench lines. 

Good point. Anglosphere seems to consider Jaeger SF, whereas Germany AFAIK doesn't. I was thinking of the use of Spetznaz as line units in UA.

schnuersi said:

It also should be mentioned that the quality of troops of all participants of WW2 varied quite a lot from unit or formation to another.

The performance of particular units also varied over time. Typically, a unit entering close combat for the first time was not very effective. After a few engagements they got better with experience. A few more times and they hit peak effectiveness. After that, they realised that the longer they engaged in close combat the greater the probability that they  would be killed, so they started to become cautious and less effective again. Ironically, the final stages of a war could reveal that the troops on the winning side became increasingly reluctant to fight, because they really, really just wanted to get home safely. No-one wanted to be the last man killed.

There was an example (this is from memory, so I'm not certain of the details) in the British Army of a famed unit (might have been the 7th Armoured) which performed exceptionally well in North Africa. When D-Day was being planned, they were given a prominent role. But when they heard about this, there was very nearly a mutiny. They felt that they had done their bit and taken more risks than most, so now it should be someone else's turn.

As far as national differences were concerned, there seems to be a lot of evidence that German troops were remarkably resilient. In Italy, they fought long and hard, despite the Allies having air supremacy - very unusual. And toward the end of the war, a popular saying was reputedly "the peace is going to be terrible, so we might as well enjoy the war".

autogun said:

When D-Day was being planned, they were given a prominent role. But when they heard about this, there was very nearly a mutiny. They felt that they had done their bit and taken more risks than most, so now it should be someone else's turn.

Absolutely understandable. This is one of the big sins of leadership: punishing the performers.
I would be seriously pissed too.

autogun said:

"the peace is going to be terrible, so we might as well enjoy the war"

The German soldiers of WW2 knew how bad it would be once they lost because they had experienced it first had from '18 onwards.
This is only one piece of the puzzle though. The way things have been organised in the German army since befor WW1 has been in a way to get best performance out of units by making sure they have intrinsic motivation. This worked extremly well.

schnuersi said:

The way things have been organised in the German army since befor WW1 has been in a way to get best performance out of units by making sure they have intrinsic motivation. This worked extremly well.

can you elaborate?

schnuersi said:

This is one of the big sins of leadership: punishing the performers.

They are not "punishing" the performers.  They are making the best use of their assets.

The goal is to win the battle, not to see that "someone else has their turn" at taking risk.

The U.S. Infantry Journal of 1944 and 1945 has several pieces about German motivation, pointing out the attitude of young German soldiers being quite different from older soldiers. 

One very prominent was that Hitler had not started WW2, but Germany was simply defending itself. I can attest to this attitude from personal experience. I knew a former paratrooper, taken prisoner in Cherbourg at the age of nineteen, who even in the late 20th century was convinced  that Hitler simply defended Germany from imminent attack.

Another prominent feature was the trust in Hitlers and Germanys superiority to be finally able to defeat Germany's enemies. Many were convinced that the Allies would in the end join Germany in its fight against the Soviets. 

Fear to be killed anyway, if surrendering, also obviously  played an important role.  

Those views by German soldiers may seem very strange to us today. But from the sources I know, not only, but including my father and a number of others who were soldiers in WW2, I consider the appraisals published in Infantry Journal as quite realistic.