German superiority, myth or fact?

Actually the main delay in the operational introduction of the Me-262 was due to the unreliability of the engines bc of shortage of strategic material. In the end it was accepted in service when turbine life reached 25 hours, with an absolute max of 35. Thus even without Hitler bomber order it could not have been deployed much earlier. Unreliability caused many losses due to accidents. Reliability problems plagued also early P-80s, but the US was in no need to rush them into service.

 

I don´t know if you read this awhile ago....

During the summer of 1943, a sixth-order excitation caused several turbine-blade failures. Franz resorted to asking a professional musician to stroke the blades with a violin bow and use his trained musical ear to determine the ringing natural frequency. The air ministry, however, was getting increasingly impatient and scheduled a conference in December 1943. Bentele attended the conference and listened to the numerous arguments pertaining to material defects, grain size, and manufacturing tolerances.

When his turn came, Bentele told the assembled group that the culprits were the six combustor cans and the three struts of the jet nozzle housing after the turbine. These induced forced excitation on the turbine rotor blades where a sixth-order resonance occurred with the blade-bending frequency in the upper speed range. The predominance of the sixth-order excitation was due to the six combustor cans (undisturbed by the 36 nozzles) and the second harmonic of the three struts downstream from the rotor. In the 004A engine, this resonance was above the operating speed range, but in the 004B it had slipped because of the slightly higher turbine speed and the higher turbine temperatures. The problem was solved by raising the blade's natural frequency—increasing blade taper, shortening the blades by 1 millimeter, and reducing the operating speed of the engine from 9,000 to 8,700 rpm

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It is true the engine´s lifetime was clearly shorter but I read the engine could carry on even if the diesel had some leaves in it. However, the Hitler plan of making a bomber of the Me-262 delayed the plane from being in combat use for one year.

The other problem was that during landing the plane was vulnerable and Mustangs were close to the airfields ready to shoot any landing me-262´s. That is why they had to have FW-190´s covering the landing phase.

 

I found that fact in an article by Meher-Homji from 1997, the abstract is here: The Development of the Junkers Jumo 004B—The World’s First Production Turbojet | J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power | ASME Digital Collection
Unfortunately the PDF is too large to upload. As you wrote, the resonance problem was solved in Dec 43, and according to the article mass production of the engine started in early 1944. I cannot see how the engine could have been produced earlier if it wasn't ready. Indeed the first operational Me-262 were fighter-bombers, but they had capacity for air combat. Without Hitler interference the 262 could have been deployed from the onset as a dedicated fighter with pilots trained on that role. And maybe more 262 would have become operational. I doubt however that it would have made a decisive difference.

 

Hitler's decision had a minimal impact on the Me-262. Goering's decision in February, 1940 to stop development of jet engines, because the war would be over by 1941, had a much greater impact on development & production.

 

I have always wondered about Goering. He was a very intelligent man, but it seems he rarely did his due diligence when it came to his job...Talked a big game, but then didn't follow through on his part.

 

He was addicted to morphine because of an old wound. That may be a reason for his erratic behavior. After he was captured by the Allies and forced to quit morphine he impressed his captors with his intelligence and lucidity.

 

It was Friday, November 26, 1943. A carefully arranged collection of the Third Reich’s most advanced weapons stood ready—almost—to be demonstrated to Hitler. The location was the German military airfield at Insterburg in East Prussia.

Traveling to Insterburg from Berlin with his leader aboard a Junkers Ju-52 tri-motor transport plane, Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring hoped his orders to set up an impressive display had been followed to the letter.

Wunderwaffen: Hermann Göring & the Messerschmitt Me-262 - Warfare History Network

One observer commented that Göring looked “like a child with a new toy” as he prepared to claim credit for Germany’s recent scientific advances. The Führer was especially interested in a new jet aircraft called the Messerschmitt Me-262, the reason for his “merriment.” Today Göring would be certain the Me-262 was showcased to good advantage. This was his chance, he believed, to restore his on-again, off-again status in good standing with the Führer. It was also a grand opportunity to outshine his rival, Field Marshal Erhard Milch, who held the title of Air Inspector General.

It did not help that an Me-262 took off as part of the demonstration, flamed out, and had to limp back to the runway for a dead-stick landing with pilot Fritz Wendel at the controls. Hitler appeared impatient as a second Me-262, with Gerd Lindner in the cockpit, took off with its imperfect Jumo 004 turbojet engines howling, circled over the visitors, and flew overhead with no apparent flaw. This was the moment when Hitler’s face changed and his eyes brightened.

Hitler had had a question in mind ever since he learned about the new weapons. Now, he posed the question not to Göring but to the ever servile Messerschmitt. The pair walked side by side. “Tell me,” Hitler said. “Is this aircraft able to carry bombs?”

Messerschmitt was clearly uncomfortable and seems to have improvised with his quick answer. “Yes, my Führer. It can carry for sure a 250-kilogram bomb, perhaps two of them.”

No one involved in the design of the Me-262 had ever considered such a thing.

“Well!” Hitler beamed. “Nobody ever thought of this!” He was certainly right on that point. “This is the Blitz bomber I have been requesting for years.” Another listener heard Hitler used the word Schnellbomber, or fast bomber, a concept that had been on his mind for some time.

It was the right moment for Messerschmitt to say, “This aircraft is a fighter my Führer. It has the potential to reinforce our command of the air over the Reich.”

But Messerschmitt said nothing.

“No one thought of this,” the Führer repeated. “I’m going to order that this 262 be used exclusively as a Blitz bomber, and you, Messerschmitt, have to make all the necessary preparations to make this feasible.”

Hitler’s fixation on using the Me-262 to carry bombs may have delayed the jet’s entering service, but technical glitches with its jet engines were probably equally responsible. Galland believed that if the Me-262 could have been gotten into battle a year earlier (its first combat mission was on July 25, 1944), it would have swept the skies of Allied bombers and forced a postponement of Overlord.

Me-262: Harbinger of a New Era

The Luftwaffe accepted its first 16 preproduction Me-262A-0s, which had been waiting for engines, between April 18 and 29, 1944, and at the end of that month Erprobungskommando 262 was formed at Lechfeld, Bavaria, commanded by Captain Werner Thierfelder. As they gained experience, the test unit’s pilots wrote an operating manual for the Me-262A-1a Schwalbe (swallow) fighter.

On May 23, Hitler summoned Göring, Milch, Galland, Albert Speer and other officials to Berchtesgaden to discuss fighter production. When Milch’s report touched on the Me-262, Hitler interrupted him: “I thought the 262 was coming as a high-speed bomber? How many of the 262s already manufactured can carry bombs?”

“None, Mein Führer,” Milch replied. “The Me-262 is being manufactured exclusively as a fighter aircraft.” There was an awkward silence, then Milch added that extensive design changes would be necessary to convert the jet into a bomber, and even then it would not be able to carry more than 500 kilograms.

“Never mind!” Hitler exclaimed. “I wanted only one 250-kilo bomb.” Losing his composure, he demanded precise weight statistics on the fighter’s armor, guns and ammunition. “Who pays the slightest attention to the orders I give?” he railed. “I gave an unqualified order, and left nobody in any doubt that the aircraft was to be equipped as a fighter-bomber.” His confidence in Milch shattered, Hitler thereafter progressively stripped him of his authority, while making Göring personally responsible for implementing the blitz bomber program.

On May 27, a still-furious Führer ordered that the Me-262 be regarded strictly as a fighter-bomber. He allowed fighter testing to continue a few days later, but insisted that the first operational units be equipped with the bomber. Messerschmitt responded by mounting two pylons, each capable of carrying a 250-kg bomb, under the nose of the 10th prototype, and fitting an extra 132-gallon fuel tank in the rear fuselage. To compensate for their weight, two of the nose cannons and most of the cockpit armor plating were removed.
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If I recall correctly Hitler agreed ( in early 1944?) to a scale of one fighter bomber: one fighter.However as they had Arado Ar 234 fighter bomber production at the same time it seems weird he wanted to make Me-262 a bomber as well.

 

Another thing that puzzles me is the casualty rate on the Eastern front in 1943-44. According to many in the crucial period between Kursk and the spring of 1944 the Germans inflicted 4-5 losses on the Soviets for each of their own, both in men and tanks. Considering replacement availability, production, and the fact that in the above period the great majority of German field units were deployed in the East one could think that the Soviets were actually losing the attrition battle. This is theoretically not impossible. The siphoning of forces to the West in preparation for the Anglo-American landings and operational factors may have made possible the great Soviet victories in the summer 1944 and prevented the Germans to reach a stalemate. But another possibility is that there is something wrong with casualty statistics and assessment. Soviet losses have been thoroughly studied by Krivosheyev, who is generally well regarded but has been accused by some to underestimate Soviet figures. On the German side, Overmans claims that their losses are much higher than usually reported because German records are incomplete and unreliable, and many MIA and prisoners are not included in OKW figures. He has been in turn criticized for basing his figures on extrapolations. However it seems that a lot of casualty studies and statistics are based on extrapolations, and there is a great overall uncertainty. Clearly this problem should be solved if we want to evaluate the accuracy of analysis based on the QJM and the TNDM.

 

THat was his personality - not far removed from our current prime minister

 

The main problem with Overmans assumptions are that his main assumption, that wartime OKW casualty reporting were grossly inaccurate, are not supported by his own extrapolations, which actually closely follow the actual OKW casualty reporting (including Nachmeldungen and other updates that Overmans was apparently not aware of). Another problematic assumption on Overmans's part is that demographic changes over ten years were all caused by unrecorded losses in essentially one year.

Not really.

 

I agree with much of your assessment. However we still need to reconcile the rough parity in technology with the extraordinary difficulty that the rest of the world had defeating Nazi Germany, a country which had been largely demilitarised and had chronic economic weakness in the 1920s.

The examples you cited were largely from the physical component of military power. There are two others to consider, the conceptual and the spiritual or moral components.

The Germans had an advantage in tactical and operational level manouvre. This stems from the dead Prussian'd dictum that war is inherently chaotic. While British and Americans thought that commanders could impose their will on the battlefield the Germans thought this was impossible and futile. The best that could be hoped for was for subordinates to use their initiative. As a consequence the Germans educated and trained junior commanders thoroughly and developed the concept of mission command/ auftragstatik, and prized initiative to a far higher degree than in other armies. This was not easy for other armies to replicate as it was built into the German state. Bismarck's educational initiatives created a class of educated technicians that provided a pool of intelligent NCOs. German training resulted in Junior officers and NCOs who were trained to think like battlaion commanders. British one pip wonders and US 90 day Lootenants struggled to learn how to command a platoon. German officer cadets were trained to command a battalion. They had learned about platoon command as prospective NCOs In a fast moving battle the Germans were always capable of giving all but the best allied troops a bloody nose.

The NAZI regime also managed to mobilise the will of the German nation. Men fought for Hitler until almost the very end. Hitler's men never cracked like the Kaisers. Studies of contemporary letters and diaries suggest that by and large the population bought into German war aims and had faith in the Fuhrer, again until almost the very end.

 

I only recently realized you are the author of the books under your signature
It feels almost presumptuous to argue with you, but I fear we have to "agree to disagree" here, to an extent. There are so many discrepancies, disagreements and assumptions when it comes to numbers in WW2 (and warfare in general), looking at different sources and at books written by professional historians, that it seems hard to be sure about the accuracy of figures for a lot of battles - or about their interpretation (look for instance at Glantz criticism of the conclusions of Zetterling and Frankson about Kursk). If you are a military analyst and professional historian of course you have the legitimate right to take a specific stand. From the point of view of an amateur like me in such cases probably a suspension of judgement is more prudent. But that doesn't mean I cannot make questions or express my ideas or educated (I hope ) guesses in this forum.

I cannot state that Overmans is right. He is however one of the main experts about German casualties in the war, and I don't have any reason to think that he has an ideological bias that leads him to inflate his figures (like I don't see any reason to think that Dupuy has a pro-German bias). And he is not the only one to state that, at least towards the end of the war, German reports and records were unreliable and incomplete. Of course the reliability of Allied statistics should not be taken for granted either. We already know that Soviet official statistics were very biased. And it isn't necessary that the data (not only about casualties, but also about manpower, equipment etc) are grossly inaccurate to present a problem. Even modest inaccuracies could affect the results of a purely quantitative research method - even if the method itself was flawless.

 

That's why they are there. Not just because I happen to like them.

Not presumptuous at all, everyone argues with me - I even argue with me - and disagreement is fine, but it needs to be a reasoned disagreement.

However, in this case we are not talking about "different sources" or "books written by" historians - professional or otherwise (most are amateurs, take my word for it, writing history doesn't pay, so don't try to make a career of it).

Most of the "discrepancies, disagreements and assumptions" in my experience tend to be a result of a lack of basic understanding of the records used. The poster child for what can happen in that case is James Bacque and "Other Losses". I personally know the history of that wonderful little conspiracy theory, because I knew the Archivist who worked with Bacque and explained to him exactly what "Other Losses" meant in the context of U.S. Army records. Bacque chose to ignore the explanation and spin a hare-brained conspiracy theory.

Glantz criticizing Zetterling and Frankson is different, since that is a question of interpretation and evaluation of the results of the battle, not the numbers driving - in part - that interpretation.

Thanks for acknowledging my right to take a stand. You certainly have the right to do the same, but I also have the right to poke holes in your argument - when I can.

Overmans is a retired Oberstleutnant in the Bundeswehr, with a doctorate in history, but based his conclusions not on a thorough study of the German military personnel and casualty records, but by a statistical analysis of the death cards. It is not truly a historical study, but a statistical study. Niklas pointed out many of the flaws inherent in that methodology, I can send you his critique if you are not familiar with it.

No, Overmans did not "inflate" his figures, but his methodology may very well have.

No, I know for sure the late war German records were unreliable and incomplete, but I also have little confidence that Overmans methodology works. Allied statistics? With few exceptions they are very accurate. Part of it depends on what kind of accuracy you need. Personnel accounting is difficult in a dynamic system like a military at war. The main problem is reconciliation of wounded and MIA over time, but fundamentally a casualty is a casualty and can be pretty accurately assessed within the framework of an engagement.

Soviet statistics are not biased, but they do have their own problems. A staff officer falsifying information in reports was virtually a guaranteed way to the gulag, a penal battalion, or outright execution. Same in the Wehrmacht. Bureaucratic totalitarian systems like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are highly intolerant of that kind of thing.

All that being said, yes, we did find discrepancies in some early engagements in the Italian campaign data set. Some tended to skew towards lowering the performance of the British 46th and 56th Infantry Division, but at the same time the errors tended to over-emphasize the combat power potential of the German forces. In other words, the British performed better, but the Germans were also weaker than originally assessed, so it was pretty much a wash.

 

But that was exactly what I thought at the beginning

Well, I meant by academic standards. If I were a dude with the hobby of physics without qualifications and credentials it would make little sense to take a stand on, say, Superstring Theory and dispute the findings of real physicists. That doesn't mean that professional scientists are always right or that they aren't biased. Far from it, as I wrote in a previous post.

As I said I cannot judge Overmans and his methodology. I have seen some of Zetterling rebuttals discussed on the Axis History Forum (I'm not a member but I read their threads). I would certainly be grateful If you can send me the complete file.

Then we don't disagree here...

I meant the official figures released by the Soviet government, not the actual military records. Before the opening of archives with the fall of the USSR many Western historians used those "official" data. Even Glantz mentions the "old" figures of 2700 German vs 3300 Soviet tanks for Zitadelle in When Titans Clashed, which I find it rather surprising as it was published in 1995.

I'd think so too. I have however read that in some totalitarian or authoritarian regimes officers tend to hide their failures to the superiors. According to Pollack in Arabs at War this was quite common in Arab armies. I don't know if this applies to casualty reports too or if this phenomenon occurred in the German and Soviet armies.

Do you know how the Wehrmacht recorded the hiwis and other foreign personnel who fought in German units (not in separate units like the Ostbattalions)? Were they included in the unit rosters and in the casualty reports? If yes it was from the beginning or only from a certain date? I have read that in German small infantry units of Army Group Center up to 10% of the soldiers were hiwis at the beginning of Bagration.

 

Do I need to change my signature block to make it more obvious?

Academic standards are a crutch. Academic standards enabled Stephen Ambrose to crank out plagiarized near fiction for decades. Academic standards usually are determined by how far an academic has to reach from his comfy chair to find his favorite book...and yes, in retirement I am pointing that finger at myself as well, but then I have an excuse, I am 2,800 miles away from NARA II now rather than 28 miles.

Send me a PM with your email address.

Not at all.

Colonel Glantz was moderately astounded when we briefed the KDB to him in c. 1998. However, while he has always been adept at digging out the "real" Soviet figures - it was his job after all - the really problematic understanding was of the German sources, which were always readily available.

Well, yes, but what I am talking about are the actual staff reports and figures. Concealing them was a no-no, but glossing over them, like Zhukov and others constantly did was more or less accepted so long as they produced results.

HiWi were always a separate line item in reports, both in terms of strength and casualties.HiWi's were an integral part of the German organization from about mid 1943, but they were part of the Tross - the baggage train - and not the fechtende Truppen - the combat troops - and were always counted separately. Osttruppen also were counted separately as a unit and within the unit the "German" and "foreign" elements were counted separately. That held true even after the Osttruppen in the West were theoretically integrated into "German" regiments. After all, they couldn't mix good Germans with others...

 

I got Mueller-Hillebrand "Das Heer 1933-45" vol 3 from the library. At the end of the volume he reports German military casualties from 1.9.1939 to 30.4.1945 based on records:

Tote........................................................................2 230 324
Vermißte und Kriegsgefangene ................................ 2 870 404
Ständig Verwundete............................................... 1 750 000
Untauglich entlassen..................................................560 144
Fahenflüchtige..............................................................2 600

He concludes however that the actual number of deaths was higher than suggested by those figures:
Unter Berücksichtigung aller vorstehenden Umstände dürften die Gesamtverluste an militärischen personal vohl an die Zahl von vier Millionen Toter fast heranreichen und damit annähernd doppelt so hoch sein als diejenigen des ersten Veltkrieges.(p. 263)

My translation:
Taking all of the above into account, the total losses of military personnel are likely to almost approach the figure of four million deaths and so nearly twice as high as those of the First World War.

 

Don't be afraid to argue with Historians or physicists...Both make conclusions based on imperfect or incomplete data...Both tend to have little imagination (something Einstein lamented) - Something which helps when drawing conclusions.