Germans doomed to failure

If the Germans had more resources in september 1941,they would have defeated the Red Army (as they did,without these extra resources),and the result would be the same :in november again a stable frontline (with a 5.6 million Red Army);while I never have denied the importance of logistics,I object that better German logistics could decide the result,which,again,sigh,mainly was dependant from the amount of men and material the SU could send to the front .For the whole of 1941,the Germans could send 0.5 million men to replace the losses,and these were till september already :0.5 million (as you are posting on AHF,you can find them back on "German casualties in Barbarossa 1941")and from september till december ,again 0.5 million ,the SU,on the other hand,was becoming stronger(notwithstanding the enormous losses),and ,there was NOTHING,Germany could do against this trend .
And if you were replacing this German army by a US style one,the result would be the SAME.

 

If the general forum consences is that Germany's only prospect for victory lay in a short violent campaign of 'shock and awe' than a smaller 'US' style of army that had greater levels of mobile troops would seem to offer a better chance of making this plan work rather than an leg infantry army spending all summer marching to Moscow.

 

The road system was non-existant in many parts of Russia. This was a major problem. The Germans orgainzed a number of grossraumtransport (large supply columns) based on primarily trucks. Literally, thousands of trucks were swallowed up in these units and they became absolutely critical to supplying the advancing German armies in lieu of a working rail system. Because they had insufficent trucks they also started orgainzing horse drawn columns to supplement the motor vehicle ones. Now, a thought experiment.

We have two scenarios: In both we have a transport column operating with 1000 trucks to begin with. On a good paved road the column can transport 3000 tons of supplies a day for x distance. On a good graded gravel or dirt road the column can transport 2500 tons of supplies a day for x distance. On a poor dirt track it can transport 1000 tons per day for x distance.
On good roads the trucks have a service life of 10 "units." On good graded dirt roads they will last 6.5 units. On poor unimproved roads they last just 3 units.
In the first version we have the trucks operating with good engineering support in Russia such that they travel mostly on decently graded roads that are sometimes gravelled and have good drainage. Ruts and such are regularly graded out by engineers. Thus, the unit moves 2.5 Kt of supplies per day x distance forward the trucks will last 6 units or more. Let's just say for the example this equates to 20 trucks lost per day to various causes.
In the second version we have trucks operating on unimproved tracks with minimal engineering support, as the Germans actually did. Now the same unit delivers only 40% as much supplies each day to the same distance forward 1/2.5 and their trucks wear out twice as fast. Or, they lose 40 trucks per day Thus, after just 25 days of operation the unit has suffered 100% of its vehicles having broken down at least once where the supported unit still has 500 runners. Now, of course, there is a law of diminishing return at work so neither unit is actually at these strenghts and the second really does have some running vehicles still but, you can see just how disasterous the lack of decent roads became in theory and reality for the Germans.

Now, suppose I pull 100 trucks out of the later unit and replace them with 100 various vehicles that do civil engineering tasks allowing the road to be upgraded to a improved dirt road. All of a sudden the 900 truck column is more efficient than the 1000 one it replaced. Not only that but the truck loss rate drops precipitiously. This means I have more trucks and can more likely maintain a larger fleet of trucks in service.

This is what was happening in Russia to the Wehrmacht. Their lack of civil engineering capacity cascaded onto their logistics system eating it from the inside out. So, what started out as a brittle and marginal system rapidly fell apart simply because the roads and rail system could not be maintained at a sustainable level of adequicy.

Yes, the Wehrmacht really needed railroads. But, with too few railway engineers, these units lacking mechanization and, being composed of mostly low grade and often poorly trained troops the rail system was not repaired with any great efficency.

As for surviving the Russian mud and winter one only has to look to the US Army in Alaska or Iceland to see that indeed a mechanized army can survive in such conditions and not only survive but do far better in such conditions than a non-mechanized one. In both cases the US was able to more rapidly construct viable shelter in such conditions (availability of construction machinery, sawmills, etc., made construction of all-weather buildings quick and possible).

So, while a mechanized army might not have advanced further or faster than the semi-mechanized Germans, or even a largely non-mechanized army, they would have had the advantage of arriving at the end of the journey in far better condition for combat operations in any weather and in particular poor weather than their less mechanized counterparts.

So, while the Germans were never going to fully mechanize their military their lack of such basic equipment in mechanized construction as bulldozers and dump trucks in even limited numbers was a gross error. Their lack of civil engineering capacity multiplied problems in other areas negatively. It cost them far more in non-combat losses of equipment and manpower they could ill-afford than having put some of their existing mechanization into civil engineering.

 

An interesting post.

 

agreed

 

Good post TA and one must bear in mind the automotive based culture of the US which meant a large industry back home supporting this type of army along ,and very importantly at that, with the fact that alot of US Army soldiers knew how to work on vehicles.

 

IMO allocating a higher proportion of "grade A" recruits to the support units like the US, and a corresponding amount of heavy equipment that could only be produced at the expense of AFVs as they used a lot of the same production facilities, could have diluted the effectiveness at the "sharp end" considerably, having a well supplied 3M Army that can't achieve a breaktrough is not going to help you much. The Germans, correctly from their point of view, put everything they could at the "sharp end" because they needed it there, a quick victory was theiir only chance as they could not possibly win an attrition contest. Had they had some logistics genius, capable of organizing better the considerable resources they had ..... but that's unlikely as their system would inevitably draw the better officers towards the more combat oriented roles.
There was the possiblity of some small changes with big impacts, one exapmple is railroad engineers, Germany had an extensive RR network and so had a large base of trained people to draw on but only fielded a very small amount of those critical RR engineer units, probably most of the rest were "wasted" as infantrymen, but giving RR construction priority required a "we are in for the long run" mentality, and that was not what they were planning for, by the time they realized they needed the specialists getting them back would require a huge effort.

 

And just look where the rail roads were used as well. It seems somebody was more or less doing inside sabotage to the Army´s supply system. And this continued later on:

"German authorities began to deport Jews from the Greater German Reich in October 1941, while the construction of the killing centers was still in the planning stage. Between October 15, 1941, and November 4, 1941, German authorities deported 20,000 Jews to the Lodz ghetto. Between November 8, 1941, and October 1942, German authorities deported approximately 49,000 Jews from the Greater German Reich to Riga, Minsk, Kovno, and Raasiku, all in the Reich Commissariat Ostland (German-occupied Belorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia)."

Deportations to Killing Centers

 

very interesting post,..although I remain sceptical on the possibility of bulldozers,etc to repair and maintain "roads" in eastern europe .

 

A provocative translation (or an insulting strawman):could one replace quantity by quality ?
IMHO,in this case : NO,one of the reasons being:in september 1944,there were (in Western Europe) some 40 divisions for 500 km,in june 1941,one should have 'same style ' 40 divisions for ...1500 km .

 

This is intended as a polite forum, so no insult was intended or desired. Quality vs Quantity has been an age old debate and both have merit. It seems that Germany's 1941 invasion plan was based upon the need to win a quick war against a large army deployed over an equally large area. That being the case speed and mobility would seem to be essential to any chance of success in a quick campaign. Does that mean an exact replica of the US 1944 army, no. Something between what they did deploy and something a little smaller and more mobile might work. Germany does not have to place a combat unit in front of every soviet one if their initial attack is disruptive enough to paralyze the soviet command structure. Germany did paralyze the soviet command in the summer of '41, but lacked enough mobile troops to do all they hoped to do in the time they had before the Soviets were able to stabelize the front and the onset of winter.

 

A very old thread on tank-net discussed the advantages of military motorization. It turned out that, surprisingly, the average rate of advance of Napoleonic armies and WWII mechanized forces are not very different in terms of campaign aggregates. The average rate of movement throughout a campaign was pretty close to identical. Furthermore, since no combat element in a standard establishment US infantry division had trucks, the touted motorization of American infantry formations actually couldn't move faster than the German counterpart; they all had to walk.

The real advantage of motorization is staying power. Trucks and prime movers could sustain combat power over long distances by hauling heavy guns, ammunition and food to the front even if it was hundreds of kilos from the nearest supply depot. A leg unit could walk just as far, but it would not have much combat power left to do real fighting.

 

But non motorized forces could, at least partly, "live off the land" while motorized forces need a steady supply of POL even for non combat operations. A fully motorized force of the size required by the Eastern front would eat up a huge amount of POL. A rough model of the differences would not be too complicated, after all we can estimate how much fuel/fodder per day is required per "transport unit" (truck or wagon), how many kilos can each carry and how far each they can move each day. Harder would be to guess how much fodder could come "off the land" without needing the rail leg at all. IMO such a model may show that at one point the rail capacity becomes the bottleneck, and that this will happen sooner with fully motorized forces. It may also show that the limit of the non rail leg of the supply chain is very similar as the less efficient horses compensate this by requiring less "carried" fodder while a truck will need to carry all required fuel.
IMO the big disadvantage of horses is the slow speed, but for an advancing army that's possibly less important than the capability to field repair wagons while trucks lacking the right spares need to be abbandoned. One often overlooked fact it that the Germans made extensive use of air transport to supply the spearheads, especially for POL, this partly compensated for the average slow speed of wagons by getting critical supplies up front really fast.

 

valid point,but,with less manpower,the Germans would have difficulty to close the rings in the encirclment battles :they already had problems ,a lot of Soviet troops escaped ,ex . at Kiew .

 

I think one is still overestimating what trucks could do and ,underestimating the railways .In Eastern europe,with few decent roads,the utility of trucks was limited,they only were useful for short distances.
About the railways :nothing could replace railways (even not in Western Europe),but,due to the difference in gauge,it was as if the Germans were entering a country without railways .(More information can be found on "the German railways in WWII")There was a shortage of everything:coal (Russian coal could not be used),wood,water,......The German advance depended (a o.) from the ability of the Germans to repair the railways .
Now,about the motorized and armoured divisions :how would the be moved to the front ? Of course ,by railway (even during the Cuba crisis,a US AD was moved to Florida,..by railway);tanks cannot cover big distances .It is evident that a MD or AD would demand more
rolling stock than an ID ne fully equipped 1942 PD was demanding 60 to 70 trains to move

 

Guys someone suggested living off the land to some degree but doesn't that mean the Army has to keep on the move? Furthermore on horses versus trucks remember that a idled truck isn't eating any fuel whereas a horse needs food or water regardless of wether or not there's any fighting going on.

 

True but the Germas were advancing pretty fast alnost all the time in 1941. And even motor vehicles cannot be left idle for more than a few days without a serious risk of not being available when needed, even without going into the "dog are my homework/mice ate my wiring" story of 22Pz a Stalingrad. Unsupported technology is possibly a worse choice than a low tech approach that can be repaired by the average soldier. AFAIK water was not usually an issue in the USSR, fodder and especially protecting the horses from the extreme winter cold was. The Soviets often used their cavalry as a deep raiding force in preference to motorized troops as it was "operationally" more mobile.

 

from a post on AHF (taken from Panzerlexicon):
from a transporttrain on average 8OO tons in total were calculated,which means 400 tons supplies after subtraction of locomotive and wagon weights .
In november 1941,shortly before the crisis in front of Moscow,the following figures are given:
Daily trains needed for normal supplies
AGN :20 (=8000 ton)
AGC :32 (=12800 ton)
AGS:22 (=8800 ton)
for the whole eastern front :74 trains (29600 ton) daily.=2220 trains monthly
did arrive :
september :2093
october :1860
november:1701
december:1643
january (1942):1420
I think we can conclude that it was impossible for trucks to replace the railway as transportation system .
About the assumption that motorized,armoured troops could advance faster than infantery,the problem is that motorized and armoured units were demanding more rolling stock(70 trains for a AD,35 for a ID),thus the advance of the motorized and armoured units was depending on the ability of the Germans to repair the Russian railways,to advance the railheads,etc.etc.
Thus,in fine,all depended on the railways.

 

website having issues? won't allow me to paste anything.

 

Having above posts in mind it seems that the way of movement was vital. For sure the motorized army of Germans had an advantage but the limited railway system and the problems of the trucks (mechanical problems, lack of spare parts, many types of motors, Rasputitza..etc.) made the motorized advantage to be lost slow-slow.
I'm thinking now that when we spoke about motorized army our mind is going to 'wheels', trucks, cars. I'm thinking that maybe it was a mistake that Germans did not emphasize to 'caterpillars'. Maybe the situation for them would be better if their vehicles(all of them) had caterpillars instead of wheels.