Armor vs Firepower

It is as Kai-Petri has said, the captured guns went where they were needed.

You think that the Panzer Lehr was the only German unit using captured Soviet artillery at Normandy? Guess again.

 

No I know that many used them along with French stuff. Also in Africa, which is stupid (eg. 76mm guns).

I also know that Germans were desperatly short of men and stuff. However this is no explaination to me.
Let´s take the guns (152mm perhaps), the German guns are 150mm in this class. Roughly the same.

Take 2 units that each need say 24 of these guns - one in the east one in the west. German guns are made in the Ruhr, which is way nearer to France.
So you send the 24 captured guns far to the west, while a unit in the east get´s 24 German guns ? The unit in the east should get the 152mm captured guns, the unit in the west the German made 150mm. If you keep that pattern, you also don´t need to send any 152mm shells to the west (or other spare parts)....cause any unit there has 150mm guns. In east they have a mixture of 150 and 152 guns. So you can plan to distribute spares for both guns in east, but do not need to care about the west for 152mm.
For French captured stuff, this stays where it was captured........but some of the French weapons were also in the east (lol)

Do I make clear what I mean now? There is a certain number of stuff that can be given to units (which is a given, except you are able to crank production up) - but how you distribute it - in a clever or stupid way? Note transportation capacity was as short as weapons and men.

 

One thing, the Germans often shipped captured weapons back to Germany for modifications before reissuing them to their own troops; this was done with the 76mm field guns to adapt them for antitank use. I would still agree that if you have a relatively small number of a particular weapon, using them all on one front would simplify logistics and maintenance.

 

Germans read to much "on war" by Clausewitz, but the book "on logistics" was missing in their library (therefore useless like Mein Kampf was there)

 

I recall the Germans were in big trouble with repairing for example trucks as they were all from all over the occupied territory. Also i the beginning the Germans sent the tanks back to germany for repairs, the on-site repair teams became available only later in war.

The Finnish volunteers went to pick up trucks from Paris before starting their trip to southern Russia.

 

As always, it is your opinion...

But, let's look at it another way, shall we?

The Germans capture a large stock of Soviet artillery, and a good bit of ammunition. For example, 1,200 152mm artillery pieces plus 1.7 million rounds of ammunition. Sound like a lot, right. German claims make it sound even better, the 1.7 million rounds is good for about a 9 month supply of ammunition. However, that is based on the expectation that the piece will only use 2,000 rounds per year - 167 shells expended per month...Seems a little low given the level of combat on the Eastern Front.

Would it not be better to send these guns to an area where the combat level is much less intense...Say, France...Which will give you time to convert some of your industrial base over to the production of Soviet Artillery shells? As opposed to continuing to use them on the Eastern Front where they will rapidly run out of captured ammunition, thus remaining idle until new quantities can be captured/produced. As it was, the Germans did not begin production of Soviet ammunition for the 122mm and 152mm until 1943. The Germans began production of the 76mm Soviet shell a year earlier,in 1942, but they had also captured far more of the 76mm pieces. Also, being in a less combat intensive area, the captured guns will need far less spares.

So, no, I do not see your way as being "clever." In fact, I see it as being the direct opposite of clever.

 

@ Takao: Interesting info, well guess both our views have some merrit

 

Your method although logical, seems to have a few slight flaws. It is easy to say what you mentioned above in retrospect, but during 1941 the Germans didn't know that the war would last for so long, they though they could lightning warfare their way through the USSR in a few months. Seeing how they captured so many equipment and ammo in the opening weeks of the campaign, they probably thought they could continue capturing a steady stream of ammo and weaponry. And remember, the Germans did advance pretty far into the USSR within a few weeks, by the time they realized they couldn't rely on capturing to replenish their stocks, they were probably already too deep in Russian territory to send the Soviet equipment back the France with all the partisans and sabotage not to mention the difference in Russian and Germans train width gauge. But this is my own opinion, feel free to find any flaws in it.

 

Yes, but the number of captured guns I have provided was for July-December, 1941. By December, 1941, the war had already lasted far longer than the Germans had expected.