This is a difficult question to answer, so I'm going to try and break it down into two sections and try to address them as best as I can.

Q1- American soldiers didn't shout or give battle cries in contrast to 'X'- I'm sceptical of this. First, combat is a very vocal experience-soldiers struggle to communicate orders set by their section/squad leader who is designating targets, rate of fire and how they are going to attack a particular objective.

'German small unit offensive actions were characterised by incessant talking and shouting...such chatter was, in fact, an effective means of dispelling individual loneliness and heightening group cohesion.'(1) This served to reassure each other during the assault, co-ordinating action at the section/squad level. The Russians were equally noisy in the assault, but for a rather different and more tragic reason.

'Again and again they swept up against the German positions with their Unnerving cries of 'Urra'- companies, battalions, regiments. The picture was one that made German troops' imagination boggle. the soviets were charging on a broad front, in an almost endless-seeming solid line, their arms linked. Behind, them, a second, a third and a forth line abreast.(2)'

As far as the Brits go, their training emphasised the important of communication during the early stages of battle.

'The section commander assumes control. He asserts his authority, ordering the section to make for suitable cover e.g. 'LINE THAT BANK' or 'FOLLOW ME.'' (Author's emphasis)(3)

As far as battle cries go, I've a feeling that demonstrating that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his sternum with a bayonet would lead to a certain amount of screaming by both parties. I would imagine that American soldiers would react naturally.

To conclude, shouting is a key part of combat as it serves to exercise leadership, communicate orders, reassure soldiers on the 'loneliness of the battlefield' as well as basic fear and stress articulation.

Q2- German soldiers were uneasy because of this-German soldiers held a low opinion of American troops for a variety of reasons.

'Sergeant Heinz Hickman of the Luftwaffe parachute division said: 'We had no great respect whatever for the American soldier.' Colonel kauffmann of Panzer Lehr remarked wryly that 'the Americans started not too early in the morning, they liked a bit too much comfort.''(4)

The Germans were generally depreciative of all allied infantry, though they afforded significant respect-and fear-to both American tactical airpower and British artillery. This opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt however as the Germans were not innocent bystanders in all this, and often encouraged such attitudes in their soldiers, 'German sources worked to a different agenda, either attempting to bolster morale during the war, or rationalise the ultimate defeat of the heer and the SS after the event.'(5) By denigrating enemy infantry capabilities they were able to claim they were only defeated due to the unskilled application of overwhelming material. While this is significant academically, on the battlefield the Germans only expressed contempt.

Summary/ TL;DR Communication is an integral part of battle due to a variety of reasons, and it is improbable that Americans failed to appreciate the opportunities communication afforded. It is equally implausible that German soldiers would be unnevered by silent American infantry when they held little regard for them.

(1) English, J.A. and Gudmundsson, B.I., On infantry, (Westport, Praeger, 1994), p115

(2)Report from German field observers near Zelva, 1941, quoted in Carell, P., Hitler moves east, trans. Ewald Osers, (Boston, Little brown & Co., 1964), p49-50

(3) War Office, Infantry Field Training, (London, War Office, 1944), p54

(4) Hastings, M., Overlord, (London, Pan books ltd, 1984), p229

(5) Buckley, J., British armour in the Normandy campaign, (London, Frank Cass, 2004), p8

I don't know about the army, but the early American Navy made an impression on the Royal Navy. The British gunners were well trained, but noisy. The gundeck was noisy and in close combat could easily be heard from other ships. Everybody was shouting order and responses, crew and officers. The British sailors who fought the first American frigates were unnerved by the eerily silent American gundeck, from which only the solitary voice of the officer giving the firing orders could be heard.

If the Royal Navy took naval discipline and training to a new level, the Americans did it again. This Yankee naval discipline came in the form of dry ship (no grog) and silent gun crews.

See Whipple, A.B.C 'The Frigates', The Seafarers, Time-Life Books (New Jersey, 1978). It is part of a series, and in 'The Frigates' (pretty sure it isn't 'The Cutters' ... my Dad has the books) Whipple has quite a few interesting things to say about the early American Navy. Along with their silence, the Brits were astonished and dismayed by the savageness of the American cannons. The Americans had inferior iron and foundries, producing inferior cannons ... so they made them BIG instead. The British weren't initially worried because they thought their cannons' accuracy would make up for lower firepower, plus they didn't really think the large cannon balls would make a significant difference in damage. However, they were wrong. In some of the early confrontations between the first US frigates and their British counterparts, the Brits got decisively thumped. Serious casualties. It was NOT what the Brits were expecting. (It kind of sounded like the Brits thought they would only need to LOOK at the US frigates and they'd fall apart.)

How did the Americans beat the Brits at naval discipline? Whereas the Brits dragooned people into the Navy, the Americans actually paid quite a handsome wage.

PS As a solid product of the Commonwealth and with many maritime ancestors, it pains me to admit this about the Yankees, but the fact is: they kicked ass. (With their three (count them: three) frigates ...) Anyway, that's the Navy ... whether this 'silent discipline' made it to the Army in WWII, I don't know, but there are obvious parallels in this unusual warring behaviour.

Hey there! Excellent question!

I am unsure about the Americans during World War II, but what I can put into perspective is the Canadians during World War I. The Canadian efforts during the First World War are quite shocking, and I have argued that they were the most monstrous and brutal during the war.

It is without a doubt that the German's had been uneasy in battles against the Canadians, as it was during World War I where the Canadian Expeditionary Force had been nicknamed Strumtruppen (or Storm Troopers). This had come to pass because Canadians were a versatile bunch, and employed tactics revolving around rapid, efficient, punishing attacks that were on many occasions both successful and barbaric. German's had believed that the Canadians were no better than a band of mercenaries fighting for the British, and that the Canadian's were a group of brutes, or grunts. As the war progressed the German's had viewed the Canadian infantry as a horde of savages, and in some respects it was certainly justified.

Obviously atrocities had been carried out by every participant nation in the war; however, some of what the Canadians had committed during the war is truly shocking. Some sources indicate that in certain Canadian trenches the soldiers lined the walls with the bones of German soldiers, and had carried German bones and merchandise on their person. It was common for Canadian soldiers to loot German corpses, taking everything of value. For this Canadian's had become known as not only savage mercenaries, but looters and trophy-men as well.

The story had only evolved from there, because as German's caught word of the questionable Canadian tactics they had begun treating prisoners of war, and potential prisoners of war, poorly. Not extremely poorly, but just simply poorly. Again, every side had committed atrocities, and had treated prisoners of war poorly, however what surfaces more-so than any other faction is the horrors of the Canadian narrative, especially in regards to their violence towards German soldiers, and the horrible treatment of prisoners.

Violence by the Canadian Corps escalated every year with killings of surrendered German soldiers and German prisoners rising. Canadians had been 'one-uping' the atrocities committed, with every Canadian death meant the violence towards German's would escalate even further. It would seem that the Canadians turned up the violence towards German's ten fold for every reaction the German's had towards Canadians.

There were several motivations for why the Canadians had escalated the violence to inhuman levels, and I can not point to one specifically to be the catalyst. One event that motivated the hatred towards the German's had been the belief of the Crucifixion of the Canadian soldier, which likely never happened but was propagandised by the government and used to mould the Canadian infantry's ideas towards the German's. Other reasons simply revolve around the desire for revenge killings.

Nonetheless, the German's did not like the Canadian offensive at all during the First World War. Although the atrocities committed by the Canadians were only done by a small percentage of the C.E.F., German's soldiers had feared encountering the Canadians because if victory was not absolutely guaranteed life as a prisoner in the Canadian Corps certainly was not. Fighting the Canadian's meant certain death for the German's in many cases, and for that reason German's were uneasy when fighting them. What I find interesting is that today Canadian's are so incredibly proud of the accomplishments of our ancestors in World War I, but most choose to ignore, or educate themselves on, our darkest hours as well.

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Sources:

Tim Cook, "The Politics of Surrender: Canadian Soldiers and the Killing of Prisoners in the Great War,"Journal of Military History, vol. 70 no. 2 (2006).

Tim Cook, "'Tokens of Fritz': Canadian Soldiers and the Art of Souveneering in the Great War," War & Society. vol. 30 no. 3 (2012).

Brian K. Feltman, "Tolerance As a Crime? The British Treatment of German Prisoners of War on the Western Front, 1914-1918," War in History.vol. 17 no. 4 (2010)

Heather Jones, "The German Spring Reprisals of 1917: Prisoners of War and the Violence of the Western Front," German History. vol. 26 no. 3 (2008)

Niall Ferguson, “The Pity of War,” (New York: Basic Books, 1999)

Simon Constantine, "War of Words: Bridging the Language Divide in the Great War," War in History. vol. 18 no. 4 (2011)

Edit: There are sources from my research that I excluded that mainly address POW's and camps in the other nations. Also, I only went over my submission once, so I apologise for my grammar and punctuation!! :)

Hey guys, I see there's a lot of interest so I'll do my best to try to remember more context. When I posted initially I couldn't well remember if the French and Russians were mentioned in whatever it was I read, so I threw them in just because they were the other nations whose troops Germans would've been most familiar fighting against, but now that I've had more time to search my brain I don't think they were mentioned.

I'm going back at least 16 years to my undergrad years, as I'm pretty sure this was from a course I took on 20th century conflict. I'm 90% certain it was from a source handout on WW2 about the North African theatre, and it was talking about how, after having gotten used to British pipes/horns/drums the Germans were somewhat unnerved by these strange American troops who fought comparatively quietly.