Armor concentrations - the dense concentration of strong firepower, the high mobility, and the survivability of rapidly advancing

large groups of tanks were far more than anything seen before it in any ground battlefield in history. It made Cavalry totally obsolete, and made infantry quite helpless in an open battlefield unless they were massively equipped with efficient anti-tank weapons which were developed only in response to Blitzkrieg and really matured only near the end of World War 2. The German tank units were highly trained. Many of them were considered elite units and provided the best soldiers and commanders. The German tanks were the first really efficient battle tanks. In addition to tanks, there were mechanized infantry units which allowed the infantry to advance together with the tanks, providing them better protection from enemy infantry and anti-tank units where they were more vulnerable to it. When infantry fighting vehicles were not available, the infantry used to simply ride over the tanks. Massive precise air support - the effective precision destructiveness made possible by precise aerial bombardment left common artillery far behind. Artillery was also too slow to follow the rapidly advancing tank groups. So in addition to ordinary artillery, the German military was aided by a very large number of Stuka dive bombers which could quickly and efficiently destroy the enemy obstacles in the tanks path (artillery units, fortifications, infantry concentrations, bridges, convoys, etc). Paratroopers were another type of air support, which could be used were key targets had to be quickly captured, not destroyed. One of their common tasks in Blitzkrieg was capturing key bridges, in order to prevent the enemy from destroying them, and allow the advancing tanks to reach them and rapidly cross without delay. Radio - while the French High Command in 1940 was not even equipped with radio, it was radio communications in each tank each aircraft and each unit which allowed the German commanders to control their forces so effectively, and to utilize their air support so destructively and efficiently. Radio allowed German Blitzkrieg commanders to rapidly advance with their forces, see the battlefield with their eyes, not just on the map, and achieve much greater control of the situation and much better use their forces. Radio also enabled the German senior commanders to efficiently control huge mobile forces, more than ever before in history, allowing large scale cooperation and effective unity of command. Flexibility - the German armor commander didn't have to follow a particular road or path. Their tactical freedom, provided by their superior mobility and quick response air support, allowed them to rapidly advance along the path of least resistance, much like water do in a flood, or to produce one, with the superior firepower of their tank guns and air support. This also allowed them to press on with little casualties, allowing them to maintain their thrust and effectiveness and advance further. Initiative and surprise - the sheer speed and power of rapidly advancing forces and heavy bombardment in its territory, especially when it comes without warning, can easily shock every enemy. Persisting with that is even more devastating, and that's what the Germans did. They rapidly encircled massive enemy forces, cut supply lines, and made other large units collapse and lose their morale.

Simplicity - there was nothing complex in Blitzkrieg. It was a simple tactic made possible thanks to revolutionary modern weapons which made this type of warfare possible - the tank, the aircraft, and the radio. As with many other weapons and tactics, it could be greatly intensified with quality, and indeed with Cavalry-spirit commanders like Guderian and Rommel, with highly trained or combat experienced soldiers, and with excellent weapons as the Panzer IV and the Stuka dive bomber, the Germans were able to achieve amazing victories with Blitzkrieg. Later during the war the Germans were eventually matched by equal armor commanders like Patton and Zhukov. Their tanks were outclassed by the Russian T-34 which was perhaps the best tank in World War 2. And the Stuka dive bomber was matched by superb tactical support aircraft like the Russian Il-2 Sturmovik which was the most armored aircraft in World War 2, and later by a new breed of American and British multi-role fighter-bombers. Air superiority - is a supporting element, but a critical one. If the enemy has it, Blitzkrieg becomes impossible, as Rommel and other German commanders found out later during the war. Logistics - is another critical supporting element which the Germans neglected, and it was the element which eventually crippled their military. A relatively short-range and short-time Blitzkrieg in good weather, as the invasions of Poland, France, Yugoslavia and Greece were, is one thing, and the Germans excelled there. But when they invaded Russia in 1941, the logistical needs they knew before were dwarfed by Russia's huge distances, terribly bad roads, and extreme winter conditions. Instead of so many horses and not enough trucks, the German military greatly needed many tracked vehicles capable of keeping with the tanks, moving both infantry and supplies, but they had much too few of them. Air supply by a fleet of cargo planes could also be helpful, but the Germans lost many of them in their airborne invasion of Crete, and lost many more in an arrogant and futile attempt to air-supply a whole army encircled in Stalingrad instead of allowing it to retreat. In addition to the classic logistic problem of supplying a moving army with large quantities of food water and ammunition, the tanks also required large amounts of fuel and spare parts, and this problem greatly intensified for the Germans as the war progressed and crippled their armor. Later German tanks, the Tiger and King Tiger, were very technically complex and consumed much more fuel than the earlier Panzers, and so many of them were stuck or even lost because of technical faults and lack of fuel, not by enemy fire. So Blitzkrieg demanded not just tanks but also that they will be highly reliable, have long range, and be properly accompanied by a following mobile fleet of support vehicles of all types. The Germans neglected that less glorious side of war and paid heavily for that. At the later stages of the war the Russian army improved its mobile logistical support so much that its tank units could advance hundreds of miles almost non-stop, sometimes even refueling on the move, and of course relying on the very high technical reliability and simplicity of their vehicles.