Editing Blitzkrieg (section)

==Limitations and countermeasures==
===Environment===
The concepts associated with the term ''blitzkrieg'' (deep penetrations by armor, large encirclements, and combined arms attacks) were largely dependent upon terrain and weather conditions. Wherever the ability for rapid movement across "tank country" was not possible, armored penetrations often were avoided or resulted in failure. The terrain would ideally be flat, firm, unobstructed by natural barriers or fortifications, and interspersed with roads and railways. If it were instead hilly, wooded, marshy, or urban, armor would be vulnerable to infantry in close-quarters combat and unable to break out at full speed.{{Citation needed|date=November 2018}} Additionally, units could be halted by mud ([[thaw (weather)|thawing]] along the Eastern Front regularly slowed both sides) or extreme snow. Operation Barbarossa helped confirm that armor effectiveness and the requisite aerial support depended on weather and terrain.{{sfn|Winters|2001|pp=89–96}} The disadvantages of terrain could be nullified if surprise was achieved over the enemy by an attack in areas that had been considered natural obstacles, as occurred during the Battle of France in which the main German offensive went through the Ardennes.{{sfn|Winters|2001|pp=47–61}} Since the French thought that the Ardennes unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, the area was left with only light defences, which were quickly overrun by the ''Wehrmacht''. The Germans quickly advanced through the forest and knocked down the trees that the French had thought would impede them.{{sfn|Frieser|2005|pp=137–144}}

===Air superiority===
[[File:Hawker Typhoon ExCC.jpg|thumb|alt=A British designed single engine ground attack aircraft equipped with cannon and rockets|The [[Hawker Typhoon]], especially when armed with eight [[RP-3]] rockets, posed a threat to German armour and motor vehicles during [[Operation Overlord]] in 1944.]]
The influence of air forces over forces on the ground changed significantly over the course of the Second World War. Early German successes were conducted when Allied aircraft could not make a significant impact on the battlefield. In May 1940, there was near parity in numbers of aircraft between the ''Luftwaffe'' and the Allies, but the ''Luftwaffe'' had been developed to support Germany's ground forces, had liaison officers with the mobile formations and operated a higher number of sorties per aircraft.{{sfn|Boyne|2002|p=233}} In addition, the Germans' air parity or superiority allowed the unencumbered movement of ground forces, their unhindered assembly into concentrated attack formations, aerial reconnaissance, aerial resupply of fast moving formations and close air support at the point of attack.{{Citation needed|date=August 2015}} The Allied air forces had no close air support aircraft, training or doctrine.{{sfn|Boyne|2002|p=233}} The Allies flew 434 French and 160 British sorties a day but methods of attacking ground targets had yet to be developed and so Allied aircraft caused negligible damage. Against the Allies' 600 sorties, the ''Luftwaffe'' on average flew 1,500 sorties a day.{{sfn|Dildy|2014|p=36}}

On 13 May, ''Fliegerkorps'' VIII flew 1,000 sorties in support of the crossing of the Meuse. The following day the Allies made repeated attempts to destroy the German pontoon bridges, but German fighter aircraft, ground fire and ''Luftwaffe'' flak batteries with the panzer forces destroyed 56 percent of the attacking Allied aircraft, and the bridges remained intact.{{sfn|Terraine|1998|pp=133–135}}

Allied air superiority became a significant hindrance to German operations during the later years of the war. By June 1944, the Western Allies had the complete control of the air over the battlefield, and their fighter-bomber aircraft were very effective at attacking ground forces. On D-Day, the Allies flew 14,500 sorties over the battlefield area alone, not including sorties flown over Northwestern Europe. Against them the ''Luftwaffe'' flew some 300 sorties on 6 June. Though German fighter presence over Normandy increased over the next days and weeks, it never approached the numbers that the Allies commanded. Fighter-bomber attacks on German formations made movement during daylight almost impossible.

Subsequently, shortages soon developed in food, fuel and ammunition and severely hampered the German defenders. German vehicle crews and even flak units experienced great difficulty moving during daylight.{{Efn|The historian H.P. Willmott wrote, "Many examples of the experiences and losses suffered by German formations moving up to the front are well known. Panzer Lehr, for instance, on 7 June alone lost 84 half-tracks, prime movers and self propelled guns, 40 fuel bowsers, 90 soft-skinned vehicles and five tanks as it made its way from Le Mans to Caen.{{sfn|Willmott|1984|pp=89, 94}}}} Indeed, the final German offensive operation in the west, [[Operation Wacht am Rhein]], was planned to take place during poor weather to minimise interference by Allied aircraft. Under those conditions, it was difficult for German commanders to employ the "armored idea", if at all.{{Citation needed|date=August 2015}}

===Counter-tactics===
{{Unreferenced section|date=December 2021}}
Blitzkrieg is vulnerable to an enemy that is robust enough to weather the shock of the attack and does not panic at the idea of enemy formations in its rear area. That is especially true if the attacking formation lacks the reserve to keep funnelling forces into the spearhead or the mobility to provide infantry, artillery and supplies into the attack. If the defender can hold the shoulders of the breach, it has the opportunity to counter-attack into the flank of the attacker and potentially to cut it off the van, as what happened to [[Joachim Peiper#Battle of the Bulge|Kampfgruppe Peiper]] in the Ardennes.

During the Battle of France in 1940, the [[4th Armored Division (France, 1940)|4th Armoured Division]] (Major-General Charles de Gaulle) and elements of the 1st Army Tank Brigade [[British Expeditionary Force (World War II)|(British Expeditionary Force)]] made probing attacks on the German flank and pushed into the rear of the advancing armored columns at times. That may have been a reason for Hitler to call a halt to the German advance. Those attacks combined with [[Maxime Weygand]]'s [[hedgehog tactic]] would become the major basis for responding to blitzkrieg attacks in the future. [[Defence in depth|Deployment in depth]], or permitting enemy or "shoulders" of a penetration, was essential to channelling the enemy attack; artillery, properly employed at the shoulders, could take a heavy toll on attackers. Allied forces in 1940 lacked the experience to develop those strategies successfully, which resulted in the French armistice with heavy losses, but those strategies characterized later Allied operations.

At the [[Battle of Kursk]], the Red Army used a combination of defence in great depth, extensive minefields and tenacious defense of breakthrough shoulders. In that way, they depleted German combat power even as German forces advanced.{{citation needed|date= July 2013 |reason= invalid ref: Holmes not found in bibliography}} The reverse can be seen in the Russian summer offensive of 1944, [[Operation Bagration]], which resulted in the destruction of Army Group Center. German attempts to weather the storm and fight out of encirclements failed because of the Soviets' ability to continue to feed armored units into the attack, maintain the mobility and strength of the offensive and arrive in force deep in the rear areas faster than the Germans could regroup.{{Citation needed|date=November 2018}}

===Logistics===
Although effective in quick campaigns against Poland and France, mobile operations could not be sustained by Germany in later years. Strategies based on maneuver have the inherent danger of the attacking force overextending its [[supply line]]s and can be defeated by a determined foe who is willing and able to sacrifice territory for time in which to regroup and rearm, as the Soviets did on the Eastern Front, as opposed to, for example, the Dutch, who had no territory to sacrifice. Tank and vehicle production was a constant problem for Germany. Indeed, late in the war, many panzer "divisions" had no more than a few dozen tanks.{{sfn|Simpkin|2000|p=34}}

As the end of the war approached, Germany also experienced critical shortages in [[fuel]] and [[ammunition]] stocks as a result of Anglo-American [[strategic bombing]] and blockade. Although the production of ''Luftwaffe'' fighter aircraft continued, they could not fly because of lack of fuel. What fuel there was went to panzer divisions, and even then, they could not operate normally. Of the [[Tiger I|Tiger]] tanks lost against the US Army, nearly half of them were abandoned for lack of fuel.{{sfn|Winchester|2002|pp=18–25}}