The projection of sea-based ground forces onto land.
Amphibious warfare was more widely conducted in World War II than in any
previous conflict and on a greater scale than ever before or since.
Involving all aspects of naval and military operations— from
mine warfare to air and ground combat—amphibious operations are the most
complex and risky of all military endeavors. The basic principles had been
established in World War I and the postwar period, but the lessons were largely
ignored by most military leaders except those in the Soviet Union, the U.S.
Marine Corps (USMC), and Germany’s Landungspionieren (Landing Pioneers). The
Royal Navy concluded that the British Gallipoli operation had demonstrated a
successful amphibious assault was impossible in modern war.
Soviet landings and most Allied commando raids were
tactical-level operations against limited objectives, although some had a
strategic impact (capturing German codes, radars, and so on).
Amphibious operations also fall into four types: raids, assaults,
evacuations, and administrative (noncombat) landings. The first of these is the
most dangerous since it generally occurs in an area of enemy superiority and
involves elements of both an assault and an evacuation. An administrative
landing is the safest, being conducted in a benign environment with no enemy
ground, air, or naval forces present. Assaults and evacuations face varying
levels of risk, depending on the defender’s strength and support.
The phases of amphibious operations evolved as the war
progressed. In 1939 the German army was the only service to recognize the need
to rehearse landings and procedures for a specific landing. By 1943, every
major military leader realized the necessity to practice for a specific
landing. Then, as today, amphibious operations were broken down into five
phases: (1) planning, (2) embarkation, (3) rehearsal, (4) movement to the
objective area, and (5) the assault. Soviet doctrine added a sixth phase, the
landing of the follow-on army forces.
The Soviet Union had a specialized amphibious force of naval
infantry at war’s start, but they lacked equipment and training. They were
expected to land on the beach using ships’ boats or other improvised transport.
Soviet doctrine called for naval infantry to conduct amphibious raids and
support the army’s landing by seizing and holding the beachhead while
conventional forces disembarked behind them. Although this approach economized
on the number of troops requiring specialized amphibious assault training, it
proved costly in combat, as any delays in the follow-on landing left the naval
infantry dangerously exposed to counterattack. As a result, Soviet naval
infantry suffered heavy casualties in their amphibious assaults but one can
argue they led the Allied way in these operations. On 23 September 1941, the
Soviet Black Sea Fleet conducted the Allies’ first amphibious assault, when
Captain Sergei Gorshkov landed a naval infantry regiment against the coastal
flanks of the Romanian army besieging Odessa. The action eliminated the
Romanian threat to the city’s harbor. In fact, amphibious raids and assaults
figured prominently in Soviet naval operations along Germany’s Black and Arctic
Sea flanks, with the Soviets conducting more than 150 amphibious raids and
assaults during the war.
amphibious operations were critical to the Allied war
effort. They enabled the Soviets to threaten the Axis powers’ extreme flanks
throughout the Eastern Campaign. Thus the Soviets were able to divert Axis
forces away from the front and facilitate Soviet offensive efforts in the war’s
final two years.
References Achkasov, V. I., and N. B. Pavlovich. Soviet
Naval Operations in the Great Patriotic War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
Press, 1981. Ruge, Friedrich. The Soviets as Naval Opponents, 1941–1945.
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979.
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