Captain Willy Rohr and the Birth of StormtroopTactics

Major Willy Rohr, Late War

By Dave Shunk

[By late 1914] the German Army identified the fact that the traditional equipment of the infantryman, the rifle with fixed bayonet, was unsuited to the conditions of trench warfare. The rapidity with which this problem was understood and the steps made to correct it, through the development of alternative weapons and tactics, indicates strongly that communication from the frontline troops to the higher command was very close. How German Captain Willy Rohr then changed infantry tactics, weapons and doctrine within the World War One German Army is a remarkable story. 

He succeeded in his task as a result of the German Army’s ideas of operational adaptability, mission command and decentralized authority. [Modern U.S. Army Field Manual 3-0 describes the challenge Captain Rohr faced:]  

Decentralized operations place a premium on disciplined, confident small units that can integrate joint capabilities and fight together as combined arms teams. Leaders must prepare their units to fight and adapt under conditions of uncertainty and, during the conduct of operations, must also ensure moral conduct and make critical time-sensitive decisions under pressure. Conducting effective decentralized operations will require a high degree of unit cohesion developed through tough, realistic training and shared operational experience. 

World War One began in July 1914 but by year’s end the war of maneuver ended in the West and trenches extended along the entire European front. The tactical problem was simple—how to take trenches without unacceptable losses to the attacker. The Germans had three advantages to solve the problem: a decentralized command structure dating back to 1806, mission command orders which  inherently pushed trust down to the lowest levels, and a history of accepting new ideas. 

In 1915 the German Army needed fast tactical innovation and adaptation. The German General Staff turned to combat veteran and pioneer (engineer) named Captain Willy Rohr. As soon as he took over command of the assault detachment Rohr began a period of rapid evaluation of ideas and equipment. In this he cooperated closely with Captain Reddemann, commander of the experimental flamethrower unit. In only a few weeks these two officers developed the Strossstuppgedanke (assault squad concept), which was to remain the basis of German infantry tactics for 30 years.

Captain Rohr assumed command in August 1915 and never looked back. He immediately began experiments on the front line with new weapons, tactics and techniques. Innovative and adaptation flowed from his unit, other combat veterans like Captain Reddemann attached to the unit, and Rohr’s creative mind. The following describes the new weapons and equipment developed by his unit.

1. Flamethrowers: Flamethrowers were among the first new weapons tested. Captain Rohr turned to another combat seasoned officer for his expertise.  A  Landwehr captain and Leipzig fireman, Reddemann, inspired by accounts of flame throwing weapons used in the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, Reddemann had begun conducting field exercises with simulated flamethrowers in 1907. By 1915 he a developed a backpack model, with a crew of two men. The chief tactical effect of the flamethrower was the fear that it inspired in the hearts of enemy soldiers. The first use occurred in February 1915 northwest of Verdun near Malancourt, France. The attack began with the flamethrowers spitting 40-meter-long streams of burning oil in the French position. Even though most had not been burned by the oil, the defenders were too shocked to react when the German infantry attacked.

Storm Trooper Grenade Specialist

2. Infantry Assault Weapons: Captain Rohr also tested lightweight cannon, grenades, machine pistols, mortars, and lightweight machine guns. Captain Rohr looked for these weapons to restore firepower with maneuver. The essential elements of the tactics that Rohr developed in the course of these experiments were (1) the replacement of the advance in skirmish lines with the surprise assault of squad-sized storms troops (Sturmtruppen or Stosstruppen), (2) the use of supporting arms (machine guns, infantry guns, trench mortars, indirect artillery, flamethrowers) coordinated at the lowest possible level to suppress the enemy during the attack, and (3) the clearing of trenches by—rolling them up—with troops armed with hand grenades. Recognizing the inadequacy of indirect fire artillery Rohr emphasized the importance of organic heavy weapons, Truppwaffen (squad weapons), within infantry units. While indirect fire was still essential for general suppression, the squad weapons enabled particular targets to be engaged with speed and precision. Their presence restored firepower to the infantry and so filled the gap in capabilities caused by the eclipse of the rifle.

3. Uniforms: Body Armor and Helmets. Not to be forgotten were the less than useful prewar uniforms. The assault unit designed their own uniforms based on their combat experiences and future needs. Not all items proved useful to the troops. Body armor did not match up with Captain Rohr’s ideas of speed of maneuver. . . Captain Rohr discarded body armor. Speed and violence of execution were far better protection than metal armor. The only piece of armor he adopted for all operations was the coal scuttle helmet (Stahlhelm) that was later to become the trademark of the German soldier of both world wars.  Captain Rohr‘s men had also substituted ankle boots and puttees for their 1866-pattern leather jackboots. The stormtroopers had also started sewing leather patches on their elbows and knees—shielding their most vulnerable joints from the wear and tear of crawling. 

4. The Assault Squad:  Capt Rohr’s unit now had new weapons and uniforms but the big question remained—how to use all this in combat? He had a new answer–throw away the linear-based organizations in use since Napoleon and try a new combat infantry organization called the assault squad.

Individuals within the German army had experimented on a local level with squads of infantry attacking across no man’s land. Captain Rohr took the basic concept of a maneuver squad and quickly developed the new organization into an innovative force, the assault squad. What distinguished Rohr‘s techniques from the prewar German tactical doctrine was the organization of attack forces in small groups deployed in depth, instead of advancing in a broad firing line, and the arming of individual infantry soldiers with various types of weapons, instead of the standard issue rifle.

Since the individual infantryman was no longer required to participate in the battle for fire superiority, infantry formations and equipment were remodeled. Whereas the prewar emphasis had been on firepower, the new emphasis was on assault power.  Rohr called these section sized units Strosstruppen or Sturmtruppen (assault squads)  Each squad consisted of eight men and an NCO. This proved the most effective size both for command purposes and for best use of the terrain. . . This squad provided flexibility of maneuver and control, specialized weapons, and quick response to the changing conditions. The assault squad gave the on-scene infantry commander the optimum in flexibility of maneuver and combat power.

5. Tactics. After the development of the uniforms, weapons, and assault squad one more key item to match the innovative organization —new tactics. Rohr developed new tactics which depended on decentralized command for the infantry commander to choose where to attack the enemy, operational adaptability to organize the assault squad as the mission dictated, and mission orders for maximum freedom in tactics to accomplish the mission. The solution came to be known as infiltration tactics.

Dispersed and irregular character of moving swarms (as opposed to well defined line abreast formations) permit infiltrators to blend against irregular and changing terrain features as they push forward. Small units exploiting tactical dispersion in a focused way—rather than large formations abiding by the Principle of Concentration—penetrate adversary to generate many non-cooperative (or isolated) centers of gravity as basis to magnify friction, paralyze effort, and bring about adversary collapse. The flexibility of infiltration tactics allowed the infantry commander to use terrain, supporting artillery, and/or gas to close with the enemy. The infantry forces then selected which trench segment to attack based on real time reconnaissance. The heavy weapons and the offensive firepower within the squad made a local fire storm which over whelmed an isolated trench area. The infiltration tactics sought out a weak point to assault.

Captain Rohr’s assault tactics contained a basic attack flow that consisted of three waves. The three waves were done in sequence to fight for intelligence; the on scene commander acted on the intelligence and used his initiative to attack where necessary. The first wave was an infantry probe (from the accompanying division) . . . to identify enemy positions [for the storm companies]. Two hundred and fifty meters behind, the elite storm companies and flamethrower section, with additional [division] infantry support, attempted to penetrate the enemy zones by pushing through weak areas to envelop enemy positions. Supporting these efforts was the third wave, about 150 meters behind, which contained the storm battalion's heavy weapons. This third wave provided fire to support the forward movement of the storm companies and to protect the flanks of the penetrations.

One of Rohr's Units After a Successful Operation

Once the infiltration made a penetration into a weak point in the enemy trenches the German assault squads used indirect or flank attacks. This greatly aided in collapsing enemy resistance and widening the breakthrough gap. The penetrating force turned at an angle from the main direction of advance and assaulted the flanks and rear of enemy forces on either side, in order to widen the gap created. German instructions ordered units to breakthrough and roll up (aufrollen) from the flanks and to take the strong points by envelopment. 

On 12 October 1915 Capt Rohr led his men into combat with the new ideas put into action. The new Stosstruppen squads and infiltration tactics overran and rolled up the French trenches they attacked in the Vosges Mountains. Gone were the days of old linear infantry tactics. At 5:29 that evening, six large flamethrowers opened fire on the French forward trench. From behind each flamethrower, a squad-sized stormtroop followed the jets of burning oil into a designated portion of the enemy trench, systematically clearing that section of trench with hand grenades. Lessons learned and refinements were immediately applied to the organization, tactics and weapons by Captain Rohr. Highly successful combat tests occurred again in January 1916 and later during the Battle of Verdun, where Rohr's troops performed 70 missions..

Rohr would personally command one of the new Sturm battalions for the remainder of the war and his unit would fight in  innumerable  operations, suffering heavy casualties.  His methodology, however, would have a much broader impact on the war, contributing to the successes of the Central Powers at Riga, Caporetto, and the Ludendorff spring offensives of 1918. He was retained by the post-Versailles German Army but found that his particular tactical genius had no application. He resigned in frustration and went into banking in Lübeck, where he died in 1930.

Source: Excerpted from "Army Capstone Concept & the Genesis of German World War One Assault Squad & Infiltration Tactics—The Historical Linkage," Small Wars Journal, by Dave Shunk, 3 August 2010.