Most important resources of World War 2

Okay I want to see what would have been the most important resource by both sides in the second world war. IMO I think oil was the important resource in the war. Now I could be wrong, but its importance was far higher on the scale than any other resource of the war. With abundant oil the British/American bombers were able to deliver devastating bombing runs in German-occupied Europe, and the shortage of oil is what had hurt especially of the German war machine. I believe the war could have been a stalemate had the Axis had an access to oil on the same scale just as the Allies had. Now I know that there are lots of resources that play parts when conducting war, but I feel as if the shortage of oil had hurt the axis more than any other shortage of any other resource they had.

What do you think were important resources the Axis were lacking? Please be specific and state why.

 

Oil/Fuel certainly keeps units mobile, though a large portion of the German War Machine was horse-powered (the four legged kind). I would think that Steel would be a pretty big one too - wooden planes just don't last as long, and pretty much everything ever made during WW2 had steel in it. I can't imagine what a shortage of steel would have done to any of the combatants.

 

Seems steel and oil are interdependent, you cannot move most steel weapon systems without oil, at least efficiently I believe the Germans made synthetic oil and fuels from coal but do not know the %.

Aluminum was critical in the airfleets, when means bauxite and the electricity to make it into aluminum.

Electricity is a giant resource. It too has to be "transported"

Coal, though to a lesser degree is still important..

Lots of metals to make alloys. Obviously lessor items and certainly important

 

Most have been mentioned.

Rubber; tires, masks, gaskets, etc.

Tungsten, Titanium, Nickel, Cobalt, Molybdenum; important for engines (especially jets), artillery pieces, AP shells, etc. For use in alloys or alone. Shortage of these materials really hurt the German research and development of new improved engines.

Men; a shortfall of approximately 10 million adult men.

Not so certain that the lack of German oil was so limiting; most of Germany's energy production was coal based. Sure it was a scarce resource, but I'm not sure that wallowing in it would've made so much difference. Most of German transportation was Rail- (coal again) or Horse- based.

And then there is the Strategic shoe shortage;

 

Call me old school but I think human resource was quite significant. Sure, oil is important to run machines but who's going to run them? Oil certainly wasn't going to help Germany with its pilot shortage nor was it much help in late November at the battle of Moscow.

Eitherway, I'll take food over oil as well. Was it not Napoleon who said: "an army marches on its stomach"? Germany along with others did a lot marching. Sure it's a different era but good luck fighting in the East without human resources or the grain and wheat from Ukraine to feed them.

 

I cannot agree with you more.

 

If we're considering other than what might be called industrial resources, I'd kind of side with Slon and say quite possibly 'blood', and maybe 'brains'.
Grain/food's a good one too. The push for Soviet breadbaskets wasn't all about removing the untermensch.

On the more strategic materials side, and if initial infrastructure is a resource in this context, then from my own interests Germany's lack of pre-war industrialisation was quite a missing factor for them. 'The arsenal of democracy' had a technological and structural head start in growing so massive, and certainly provided the places to apply whatever other resources were useful.


I quite like this sort of question. Even though we all know one resource doesn't/can't stand on it's own. It provokes more thought about how everything fits together.

 

Through Ukraine was also the way to Caucasus rich with oil.

 

Indeed it was, but it really only came as an afterthought, once it was clear Moscow was too big a bite, as a kind of consolation prize. Very peculiar it was, as the POL was claimed to be necessary, yet apparently wasn't, as they actually fought for nearly three more years without it....

 

Food, Steel and POL are important; but, I'm going with good old fashioned Gold and Silver.

The products and raw materials that are already processed are pretty much free for the taking; however, once those products are consumed you either have to move on or process / produce more. Once you get into the occupation, production phase of the advance you have to pay for things. Germany didn't get a "free ride" east.

In the US the biggest contractor during the war was the Morrison Knudsen Company who were the solidifying company for the consortium known as Contractors Pacific Naval Air Bases (CPNAB). Their projects were well established before the war and once Japan bombed Pearl Harbor the contract pricing increased exponentially.

 

That and to cut Moscow from the supplies of oil. That's why Germans wanted to capture Baku.

 

Indeed. the book I read: "Building for War" went into quite a bit of detail about whether standard worker's compensation insurance should cover the civilian contractors who were captured by the Japanese. The Social Security Administration had to step up after an act of congress (literally). I think Morrison Knudsen and Mutual of Omaha both sent bills to the Emperor after the war.

Just like the bumper sticker: "Cash, Grass or Gas Nobody Rides for Free"

 

Interesting point. I believe this was demonstrated by the drive east, the race for oil along with sustainability.

 

Indeed they were, and yet they were still investing in massive synthetic oil plants. In spite of that, Hitler stated;

"If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must end this war."

Already in March 1941 (prior to, and in anticipation of Barbarossa), General der Infanterie Georg Thomas, head of the War Economy and Armaments Office, had warned both Goring and Keitel in a detailed report that stocks would be exhausted by late October.From that time onwards, he argued, it would no longer be possible to offset the significant shortage of oil. The only possibility of alleviating the desperate shortage in the event of a protracted war was for Germany to exploit Soviet oil production. 'It is crucial', Thomas insisted,

...to seize quickly and exploit the Caucasus oilfields, at least the areas around Maikop and Grozny. In oilfields that have not been completely destroyed, it will take about a month to resume production,
and another month for its transport; the areas concerned will have to have been seized by us by no later than the end of the second month of operation: this includes transport facilities (tankers on the Black Sea, an operational route from Odessa to Przemysl on a Russian gauge so as to take advantage of Russian stocks of tank wagons). If this is not successful, we must expect the most serious repercussions, with unpredictable consequences for military operations after 1.9.[1941] and for the survival of the economy.

Walter Funk (Minister for Economics) noted in June 1941, that the civilian economy was already at 18% of peacetime consumption.

Later, when the war with Russia was engaged, at the end of August '41 Generalmajor Wagner (The Army's Quartermaster General) concluded that even with the most stringent of rationing that by the beginning of 1942 oil supplies would be exhausted, and "..new oilfields would have to be captured."

The situation only got worse as the autumn and winter weather increased consumption; supplies intended to last for 100 km, were only sufficing for 20-30 km in muddy conditions. Further exacerbated by Railroad inadequacies and logjams.


Marshal Timoshenko in a secret speech to the Supreme Defence Council in Moscow on the German capture of Rostov in '41;

"...that is obviously a grave disappointment for us, but it by no means disrupts our grand strategy Germany would gain accommodation [that is, shelter from the cruel Russian winter], but that alone will not win the war. The only thing that matters is oil. As we remember, Germany kept harping on her own urgent oil problems in her economic bargaining with us from 1939 to 1941. So we have to do all we can (a) to make Germany increase her oil consumption, and (b) to keep the German armies out of the Caucasus."



Alarmingly there was no way for Germany to extract sufficient quantities of Russian oil, even if had they been captured intact. The German estimate was 10,000 tons a month.... It simply could not be transported.

Yet, when planning the forthcoming campaign, both Hitler and the German High Command placed considerable emphasis on the need to advance on the Caucasus oilfields so rapidly that the Soviets would not have time to destroy the oil wells and refineries permanently. Earlier experiences from '41 led to the creation of the Oil Brigade Caucasus, 10,794 men that were to move in behind the front and immediately set to work to rescue the oil fields.The issues of refinement and transportation was never properly addressed.

In fact, despite the total failure of the 1942 campaign, events in 1943 actually led to a slight improvement in the oil situation. First, when Italy defected from the Axis in September it ceased to be a drain on Germany's near-exhausted reserves. Secondly, when German forces in Italy responded to this defection and rapidly disarmed their former allies they captured surprisingly large stocks of oil. Thirdly, Germany's synthetic fuel industry, not yet targeted by Allied bombers, reached a production peak.

What do we know of Russian oil?

Because of the crisis of '42, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer the main forces of oil-workers and oil enterprises of Baku to the regions of Volga, Ural Mountains, Kazakhstan and Central Asia for the enforcement of the oil extraction there. In October, 1942, more than ten thousand oil workers left for these eastern regions. All the nine drilling offices, oil-expedition and oil-construction trusts as well as various other enterprises with their staffs were transferred to an area near Kuybishev, (Russia Federation in Tartarstan near the Ural Mountains north of Kazakhstan). This city soon came to be known as "the Second Baku".

The Bakuis in the region of Povolzhye increased the fuel extraction in "Kinelneft" trust that first year by 66% and by 42% in entire region of Kuybishev. As a result, five new oil and gas fields were discovered and huge oil refinery construction projects were undertaken, including the first pipe line between Kuybishev and Buturslan was built that same year.

tldr; The Germans wanted oil, Stockpiles were gone, they were living hand-to-mouth, they hoped beyond what was reasonable that the Baku oilfields would save them, yet possession would not have changed the German situation. The Russians had more than adequate stocks to continue fighting for a very long time.