“...while filing false reports for Moscow.”
I watched some youtube last night about the USA’s use of battlefield reports during WWII. It was probably AI, but it sounded reasonable.
The Germans beat us terribly at Kassarene (sp?) Pass, but a month(?) later the same US troops beat the Germans. The Germans couldn’t understand. The video said that information was gathered and distributed so quickly so that all of the US troops got the new information on tactics. Even privates could submit action reports on what they saw - what worked and what didn’t.
The video said that the Germans would file false reports to avoid demotions and the ire of Hitler.
I’ll chime in a little bit to agree with you. The Germans were top down focused. And we were spongie... We absorbed our Intel and put it to go use. A private or Sgt could point out a weakness. And they were taken seriously.
One historian said it took 1.7 US lives to kill one German soldier during the war and that included all the germans killed in the massive allied bombing campaign.
The battle of Kasserine Pass? The problem was General Fredendall. He singlehandedly lost the battle with scattered deployments which could not be covered by artillery and lacked mutual support. He stayed in his bunker way behind enemy lines and refused to listen to his subordinates.
Once he was relieved of command those problems went away. While the Germans may very well have filed false reports during the war(especially later)- in the field the officers were trained and expected to use their own initiative and at that time in the war thry had a lot more experience than the American. What they lacked was among other things, was enough artillery. So, especially early in the war, an experienced German commander and officers would be just as capable and likely of changing tactics as American ones.
Privates filing after action reports? 😀 . OK. That would be something along the lines of - Hey Sarge! those Krauts that surprised us were using those irrigation ditches along the road for coverage whole time. Privates did not write up reports unless it was a very atypical situation and usually meant an investigation with a possible court martial was expected.(e.g. an officer had to shoot one of his own men for turning on him.)
I agree with your assessment that you were likely taken in by an AI generated falsehood.
The Kasserine Pass fiasco was a leadership problem. Lloyd Fredendall was an incompetent general who led from the rear and was utterly clueless about how to position his troops and equipment. General George Patton whipped those same troops into shape, properly led them and defeated the Germans the following month at El Guettar.