Here’s an interesting passage from ‘The Fifth Army In March 1918′, by W. Shaw Sparrow, published in 1921:

“Note carefully this fact about storm troops; it is very important. The British Higher Command had copied many things from German warfare, but they had not copied what our foes regarded as the most valuable agency in their attacks – the energetic use of storm companies and divisions: men specially brave and trained, and proud of themselves. Their purpose was twofold: not merely to storm and to be physically fit for grave stress and strain, but also to be seen by the masses behind them and to inspire emulation, as officers do by leading and showing the way. They were ordered to go on and on till they encountered a line of resistance; and then, after sending up white lights, were to strive hard to hold firmly till the masses arrived, or enough men had made their way by threes and fours to their support. They obeyed this planned routine, and our officers – who hate can’t as much as they like pluck – admire the German storm troops.”

In the use of storm troops there are some disadvantages, no doubt, since they are the cream of a nation’s bravery; and most British and French officers believe – and the French have employed storm troops – that the cream should be kept in the milk. But we are dealing here with German actions. Our enemies had a faith in storm troops that increased, partly because they wished to avoid excessive losses among young levies and their officers; it is also true to say that better soldiers than the German storm divisions (sic) did not appear during the war.

Ludendorff, when regretting his half-success in the Lys valley, which followed the events of March 1918, places among the causes the fact that his men were not storm troops. It is quite probable that if we had employed special assault companies and divisions, the losses among our invaluable sub lieutenants would have been less wasteful and heart-searching. Germany began to lose too many officers as soon as her armies were reduced by attrition to a militia recently trained. In every period of the war the Allied casualties were too high, too extravagant, while the German were not; and hence the question of storm troops is certain to be restudied by historians.”

I would add to this interesting assessment that, although the British did not use storm troop units dedicated as such, many units took it upon themselves to emulate German storm troop tactics. The respected military historian Paddy Griffith has called the celebrated British front-line officer Charles Carrington “an enthusiastic British ‘storm-troop officer’ (who) could report his battles in very similar terms to (Ernst) Junger’s, both in the heady success of surrounding and capturing 200 enemy at a stroke and in the cold depression of suffering eighty casualties in a single instant.

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Take a look at Junger’s ‘Storm of Steel’. If anything, the techniques of trench raids were developed simultaneously by the Allies and the Germans in 1917-18, although I would argue that the Germans clearly were in the lead as far as training and establishing dedicated units for such purposes.

Paddy Griffith writes that “The modern reader should certainly beware of claims that German tactics on the Western Front were demonstrably superior to those of the allies, since this was not in fact the case. On the contrary, it was the allies who had far more experience of mounting both trench raids and massed attacks, together with much deeper reserves of technology in support. By 1917-18 they had raised their technique to just as high a level as the Germans, and in many respects rather higher.”

Whilst there is undoubtedly some truth in what Griffith writes, I don’t think it’s the whole story, and is somewhat less than entirely fair to German innovations in this area of tactical development.

Also note the unusual equipment Germans utilized for such endeavors, and the allies had no comparable items in issue.( examples: issuing carbines to storm troops, specially designed grenade bags, flash hiders for their kar98a carbines, man portable flame throwers to name some).

Paddy Griffith writes of Ernst Junger – generally assumed to have been a ‘storm trooper’ – that, “He was not in technical terms really a true ‘storm trooper’ at all, since he stayed with the same line regiment (73rd Hanoverian Fusilier Regt.) throughout hostilities and rose to command a line company which fought alongside the regimental ‘storm’ company without being part of it…..On several occasions he participated in attack training that was clearly influenced by the latest developments in raiding technique that had been made by the specialist storm battalions, and in July 1917 he himself led the training of the regimental storm troop. In January 1918 he admired Ludendorff’s ‘ marvelously clear scheme of training’ which was intended to spread at least the general lines of storm tactics throughout the army.”