Reddit reviews Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918

Their tactics were better than decent. The Germans, Brits and French all developed effective tactics for seizing enemy trenches pretty quickly. That wasn't the problem. The problem is, how do you seize the first enemy line of trenches and hold it while you're under artillery fire and enemy infantry counter attack? You don't have effective radios and artillery is constantly cutting the phone lines you are able to lay. Signaling is difficult because of terrain, weather conditions, smoke created by fires and the fact that if you're visible enough to be seen by your support then you're also probably visible enough to be seen by the enemy. Even if the enemy doesn't counterattack immediately (which they would), how do you get to the second line of trenches under said conditions? How do you coordinate supporting fires and reinforcements when there is quite literally a wall of flying steel (barrage means wall/barricade in French, which is where the term comes from) between you and your start point?

The main issue was that the offensive technologies (communications, motorized vehicles, light supporting weapons, aerial weapons) hadn't caught up to the defense technologies (barbed wire, concrete pillboxes, heavy machine guns, massed artillery, rail-borne reinforcements). Even if you successfully seized line after line of trench, the enemy could always dig in behind their last line and pour in reinforcements via rail faster than you could break through. With all that said, strategically the allies were idiotic. Continuing to attack fortified German positions again and again and again with very little to show for it is just bad strategic judgement.

I've posted these links before, but if you'd like to educate yourself on WW1 infantry tactics/battle:

Stormtrooper Tactics

Infantry in Battle

To Conquer Hell

Infantry Attacks

Storm of Steel

PS. I know you can find the second one for free on the internet.

German perspective

Infantry Attacks by Erwin Rommel
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The best personal account of the war I have read. Not as well-written as Junger's book (that is also very good btw) but good for the many detailed descriptions, including sketches he made right after the events, of tactical battles he was in. Not so much about troops freezing in trenches and having no food, although there is some about that, but a lot of insight in how a small-unit officer had to act in combat and how much more was going on in battles than the stereotypical massed assaults.

Conduct of the War

Command or Control? Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies 1888-1918 by Martin Samuels (1996)
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Very detailed analysis with good examples highlighting differences in doctrine and training before and during the war. A bit heavy, but it explains many things, and good analysis of what happened in a few battles and why.

Stormtroop Tactics - Innovation in the German Army 1914-1918 by Bruce I Gudmundsson (1995)
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Not only about the stormtroopers, but also German (infantry) tactics in general and how they evolved. It starts out with a description of a German attack in 1940, and then goes back to 1914 to explain in detail how the tactics used in 1940 evolved.

Dynamics of Doctrine, by Timothy T Lupfer
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This is also a description of how German stormtroop tactics evolved, but much shorter. It is worth to mention because it is available as a free PDF, and good enough that you will find it quoted in books now and then. I prefer the Gudmundsson book, but this isn't a bad (free) introduction to the topic as I remember it (was several years since I read it).

Specific Battles

Loos 1915 by Nick Lloyd (2008)
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Very good and detailed description of the battle. Of all the books on typical BEF trench battles I read this is the one I liked the best.

Operation Albion: The German Conquest of the Baltic Islands by Michael B. Barrett (2008)
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Amazing operation. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, amphibious assaults in the war, and it is barely ever mentioned (I had never heard about it to be honest before someone on a forum mentioned this book). It is not only the details about the many battles on land and at sea that took place, but the book also has a lot of the tragedy of the disintegrating Russian units. Much of the book is based on researching previously closed Russian/Soviet archives and I hope we will see more fascinating books on things that happened on the eastern front we never heard about.