decisive battle debate

The production burden is entirely irrelevant, as that was not the original supposition. You stated, they had no use of more trucks.

You have not shown, that the increased logistical burden of more trucks would outweigh the advantages of freeing up manpower, and speedier translocation of supplies. You have repeatedly ignored, the logistical burden that horses produce, which is far from trivial. You have willingly ignored the fact that the limiting factor on the advances in 1941, does not seem to have been the fuel reserves. Not even Tooze suggests that.

You say more trucks would require more fuel (correct), but then make this endearing leap of faith without a shred of evidence, and in complete opposition to what logic dictates, that the advantages provided by the trucks (time, manpower, economy of effort, how ever you decide to measure) would be completely "anulled" by the needs of more fuel, spare parts, and mechanics.

It must be a mystery to you why people ever buy trucks. Apparently, the point of owning one for it's ability to transport goods is absolutely moot, as it's capacity to transport is consumed entirely by spare parts, fuel and mechanics.

Face it. You're wrong. The Germans needed and wanted more trucks. The fact they put up with such a large hodgepodge of various types, and the concommitant logistic nightmare that created in and of itself, showed just how desperate they were for motorised transport of all kinds.

 

Because soviet trucks run on turnips.

 

You know damn well that there were mighty logistical loggerheads. If you don't then you bloody well should.

Indeed, it is "possible" but that's not what you stated originally. You stated categorically, they had no use of more trucks, which is not a "possibility". So far, you've failed to back up your statement with proof, and now you are just exploring what might possibly be. In which case, you also have to admit the possibility, that the opposite is true: they could've used more trucks.

Furthermore, the 10-1 ratio applies whether you are electing to transport more goods, or just the same amount goods, over the same period of time, but with a commiserate manpower savings!!!

I don't think I've ever meet someone who'd argue that the Wehrmacht didn't need more manpower...

 

More trucks = more logistical loggerheads .

 

1) A strawman :the point is that there is no correlation between the amount of trucks and victory /defeat :this has been proved in 1940,1941,1944,and as such the claim that with more trucks,the Germans would have more chances to win ,is wrong .

2)That's why I am saying that the Germans had nothing to gain if the Ostheer had more trucks

3)The Argument is NOT if the WM could use more trucks,but,if more trucks would give the Ostheer more chances to win : and the answer is NO .

 

More pancakes = more democracy in the world.

Hey, it's not quite working the way you seem to think. You actually have to prove your statement.

 

1) No, you stated clearly, that they had no use of more trucks.

I've not stated one way or another, that it would lead to victory or not. Therefore, you are trying to construct a strawman, not I.

2) And I'm still arguing, it would free up more men. Men the Wehrmacht sorely needed.

3) False. I was arguing against your original premise, which dismissed out of hand, the need for more trucks, in a very shallow and off-hand manner, as is your usual wont. Secondly, the answer you give is only IYNSHO. Other's might and possibly do disagree. That has yet to be proven. Firstly, one needs to examine if they could use more trucks. Given how close run it was that Stalin was hours away from fleeing from the city, it is open to debate. It is not a matter of whether the USSR had the physical means to continue the fight, but whether it's leadership had the stomach for it, in those desperate days in October.

 

After the war,the defeated German generals started a succesful propaganda offensive to explain =excuse their defeat ,as losers always do .The director of the campaign was Halder .

The campaign was started by the copycat duo Guderian/Hart,joined later by Manstein,Raus,the whole gang .

First,they blamed the winter,saying that without winter ,they would have won .Nonsense of course:Russia has not the climate of Florida,besides they aready failed in the summer.
Than,it was the fault of the mud : the same nonsense.
Than,it was Hitler (very useful a dead dictator)
Other scape-goats were the Reichsbahn (the railways),civilians are always useful as scape-goats.,or Fremde Heere Ost,or traitors(the ideal scape-goats).

Note that this is not limited to the Germans :after the failure of Market Garden,scape-goats were easily found :traitors as Prince Bernhard and Kingkong.

Now the trucks :it is the same nonsense to say that with more trucks,the Germans would have had more chance to win(see what happened in 1940,1941,1944):did the Ostheer need more trucks in 1941? Yes,but only,if "more trucks" would have benefited the Ostheer substantially,and,this was not the case AND if a substantially increase of MT was possible,which it was not .

You don't need what you can't have and what will not benefit you .Do I need a yacht ? No : I can't afford one and if I had one,it would not be of any use .

The discussion about the trucks is on the same level as the discussions on general winter and general mud.

For Barbarossa as it was conceived,the Germans did need more trucks:the Germans were convinced (rightfully) that with the existing stock of MT they could dfeat the standing Soviet force,if that was not enough,the war was lost .Talking about the fall of Moscow (as in post 267) is not correct,as there is no proof at all that with more trucks,Moscow would have fallen,and there also are no proofs that the fall of Moscow would result in the collaps of the Soviet Union .
The whole key period was august : the SU had to collaps in august,otherwise the war was lost . It did not collaps,and this was not the fault of a shortage of trucks,the Red Army was even stronger in august than on 22 june .

 

It's Christmas time. Let's relax a little bit, all together.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y[/media]

 

Aahhh......good old Monty Python...

 

It doesn't mean peasants are backward, but that country was largely agricultural and lacked broader industrial base. Also level of literacy and let alone technical literacy needed for mechanised warfare was lamentably low. Soviets did indeed build large quantities of tractors but it was because in case of war those factories were convertable to tank factories and anyway tractors were diverted to the army as soon the war started.

 

Ljad how can you argue that a horse bound unit is more mobile then trucks???? If that is true why not eliminate tanks altogether. No one is saying the Germans could have taken Moscow with more trucks, but that the lack of motor transports hurt the German army. The lack of motorized infantry meant the tanks were stuck longer in place and could not disengage and assist the regular infantry. An example of what motorized support means, is the Soviets went as far in one month in 1944 as the Germans did in two in 1941.

 

This makes utterly no sense whatsoever.

You have not yet shown in the least, in spite of your oft-repeated claims, that more trucks wouldn't benefit the Wehrmacht. If not, please show how not.

When you say there were no possibility to "substantially increase MT" so categorically, you must produce evidence as to how that is not possible. In other words, to actually reach that conclusion, you should try to actually see where there is an opportunity to build more trucks, and find none. I fear, however, you have made no such effort, and are merely parroting some imagined wisdom.

Your statement "You don't need what you can't have" sounds like a very interesting, if somewhat repugnant, philosophy. Perhaps you should tell that to the millions of people in need of clean water, or the children unable to attend school.

You still have not shown that there was no benefit to be gained by having more trucks.

Whether you'd like a yacht or not is entirely irrelevant. The fact that you cannot even imagine how a yacht may be of use to you shows your lack of imagination, not that a yacht is useless. You probably don't need a yacht, though, if that is what you are trying to say.

Furthermore you are saying, that if by some strange event, the leadership of the USSR collapsed in October, the war would still have been lost for the Germans in October? Please explain this gem. Or no wait. This is where you get off claiming that the entire war was a foregone conclusion, and that everything that happened was pre-ordained, and nothing anyone could do at any time at all could change anything.

I'd really like to know, two things; "What catalyst occurred, that made Stalin change his mind in mid-October and not flee Moscow?", and "Why do you even bother participating in these threads?"

 

No one is able to calculate how many trucks would be needed in the ATL to replace the 570000 horses the Ostheer had in the OTL ,thus ,those who claim that the Germans would do better without the horses,should first answer this insoluble problem .

In certain cases,it would be a very bad thing to replace horses by trucks : the mountain divisions needed horses,without horses,they were useless.

Also, I like to know how the Germans would be able to build sufficient trucks to replace the 570000 horses :in 1940,the WM received 38420 trucks,this is including the LW and the KM .

To say that the replacement of the horses would result in an additional manpower is a false argument,because it is assuming that the men who were in the OTL taking care of the horses ,were useless and were doing nothing useful,what is wrong :these men were parts of the units in the OTL and would be parts of the units in the ATL,thus,no additional manpower .

And,than,there are some additional "small" problems as : how to transport all these additional trucks to the east before 22 june,without alarming the Soviet intelligence ,how would the Reichsbahn be able to transport additional goods:maybe by transporting less supplies ?And,the fuel :the 600000 MT of the OTL consumed in july daily 30000 ton of fuel:howwould the Germans be able to transport more oil to the east ?

And,why would more trucks benefit the Germans in the summer ? The Ostheer did what it could and what Rastenburg expected that it would do : the Soviet standing forces were eliminated,with more trucks,the result would be the same .In the OTL(with 600000 trucks) the Germans captured (at 31 july) 813000 POW,would they have more POW in the ATL,if they used more trucks ?

Would the Germans go faster with more trucks ? Would they go farther ?

Victory or defeat in the east laid in the hands of the Soviets,something the Germans knew :it depended on the following :would on 22 june the Soviets accept the battle and go west ? If not,Barbarossa was a failure. Would the Soviet leadership collaps in the early summer? If not,Germany had lost,because no collaps would result in a mass economic and military mobilisation on a scale Germany could only dream and Germany could never match .

 

1944 is not 1941:more trucks would mean that theoretically more men could go faster,but,this does not mean that a PzD could go faster : the problem was that the PzD had not enough infantry:more trucks does not mean that more men would be available :empty trucks are not very useful .Besides,the fact that a Kessel would be eliminate faster,would not solve the problem,it would only delay the problem : after this Kessel would follow an other,..The only possibility for the Germans was to motorize the whole Ostheer,and this was out of the question :no army in WWii was fully motorized :even in 1944 most allied soldiers were marching on foot ,and a "motorised unit" is as a convoy : the speed is determined by the slowest element

 

Stalin decided to remain in Moscow,because Zhukow had told him that Moscow would not fall or be encircled .It is not the opposite : Moscow was not saved because Stalin remained in the city .

Besides

1) The encirclment of Moscow does not mean the fall of the city

2) The fall of Moscow does not mean the collaps of the SU .

 

This is questionable in the sense that it is ignoring why the Soviets were advancing in that period (Bagration) and the reason is that the German AGC had collapsed .

it is also ignoring the fact that eventually,the Soviets had to stop/were blocked .

Would the Soviets have gone not so far if they had less trucks ?

What was more important than the motorised support was the possibility for the Soviets to "make advance" the railroads at the speed of the advance nly the railroads could supply the advancing units,not trucks .
As the motorised units were advancing,the distance for the trucks would become bigger and bigger,and at a certain moment,the limit would be reached and the advance would be stopped (as happened in the autumn of 1944 to the allied forces ).

In the long run it is impossible to supply an advancing army by trucks,this is an iron law which is still applying today ,and the more you are motorising your army,the greater will be the supply needs and the bigger the problems .

 

Problem is far from "insoluble". But I'm not surprised at your supposition that it is, given your lack of imagination.

No one even remotely suggested that all the horses be removed from the entire army. You really are lacking in reading skills. There were only a handful of mountain divisions.

No, you aren't really interested in how they could produce more, because you've already produced a "fact" from your limited imagination stating that they "couldn't". Just because you fail to see how it could be done, is not proof that it couldn't be. Firstly, you have to identify any potential or real bottlenecks affecting truck production. Which you haven't identified. Stating how many were received in 1940 does very little in the way of indicating how many could've been produced.

If it takes 4 people and 4 horses an entire day to transport 2 tons of goods from the supply depot 30 km's away, or 2 people, in a truck 2 hours, you're still claiming there is no gain by using trucks... If the panzers are waiting for infantry and/or fuel to arrive, there is no time to be saved... yeah right. An infantry division requires approx 100 tons supply per day. That's 200 people, 200 horses all day, to cover 30 kms. Then they need to miraculously get back in time to start over the next day. Which they can't, so you really need 400 people and 400 horses. Or 50 people in 25 2-ton trucks, shuttling backwards and forwards. You tell me which is more efficient? Wait, don't tell me, you can't imagine what other tasks, 350 men could be assigned to...

It's obvious to some, but apparently not to you, that the force-multiplying effect of transporting goods and men faster, as well as using fewer men to actually transport said goods, is an issue and of itself.

How to transport goods east? Are you serious? Do you think the horses all walked there? Ever seen how much space 4 horses take, including their fodder and caregivers on a transport? Soviet Intelligence was already alarmed, but Stalin did not believe, which you well know. 625000 horses consumed in excess of 35000 tons of fodder daily, fodder which was transported, as was fuel. Unsurprising, fuel was also captured.



Horses need to eat, regardless of if they are put to use; consider the horses in the Demyansk pocket: the supply of fodder for the horses consumed a substantial amount of the air supply delivered to the pocket.

Unable to supply sufficient fodder to the horses in Stalingrad, most of the horses were withdrawn to the rear, well prior to the encirclement, leaving artillery to be man-handled.

We don't know if they could've achieved more with more trucks or not until we examine in detail the campaign from a logistical perspective, which you are failing to do categorically, because you are dismissing the possibility out of hand. IMO, it is only a closed, unimaginative mind that is so dismissive.

Soviet leadership could've collapsed in October as well, which is not "early summer". Something happened, or someone said something, that made Stalin stay.

"... the forces available to the German army for breakthrough and operational level exploitation were relatively small."

"As early as mid July 1941, Barbarossa began to degenerate into increasingly ad-hoc offensive surges, followed by enforced pauses to resupply and wait for non-mechanised forces to catch up."

"... the consequent pauses provided opportunities for the enemy to regroup and counter-attack."

All quotes from
- Christopher Tuck "Understanding Land Warfare"

 

We need no imagination,imagination is for people who replace facts by dreams .

German truck production (source : USSBS)

1940: 63296

1941: 62400

1942 :81279

1943:109085

I agree with the quotes from Tuck,but not with your conclusions that the situation could have been better for the Germans,if they used more trucks and less horses .
With the existing truck production,it was imposible to give the Ostheer a level of motorisation which would result in a faster advance .

2 exemples :

In the OTL (=a combination of horses and MT) the motorised units of the Ostheer arived after a month at Smolensk (620 km)= a daily advance of 21 km

OTOH,after Alamein ,the 8th Army (more motorised than the Germans in 1941) advanced and arrived at Tripoli on 23 january (= a distance of 1900 km in 80 days) =a daily advance of 24 km (one will note that it took the allies another 4 months to finish the war in NA)

Now,the following questions (for both cases)


would the Ostheer /8th Army with more MT have arrived earlier at Smolensk/Tripoli,and if yes,what would have been the impact on the outcome of the campaign?

would they have arrived at the same moment,but with more men ?

would they have advanced farther (50 km east of Smolensk/50 km west of Tripoli) and,if yes ,what would have been the impact on the campaign?

In both cases,the aim was not to advance,but to destroy the enemy forces :at Alamein,this was done in a battle of attrition,in Russia this was done by (partially) a battle of encirclment .If the enemy forces were destroyed,the pursuit/breaktrough would be no problem,even with less motorized forces .:with less motorized forces,Montgomery still would arrive at Tripoli,because the oopsing enemy forces were destroyed,with more motorised force,the Ostheer still would fail,because the opposing forces were not destroyed .

Breakthrough and pursuit are secundary,they happen automatically if the enemy is destroyed .

 

But if the use of trucks frees up more men in the entire Wehrmacht, then you could conveniently, and supposedly find more men to accompany the Panzers...You wouldn't need to motorise the entire Wehrmacht. To state the Germans could not use more motorised divisions is an obvious fallacy. Otherwise, why did they spend so much effort trying to motorise more as the war went on? According to you, they should never have motorised at all. They would've done just as well with an entirely horse-drawn army. After all, according to you they got to Rostov in 1918 without motorisation, they could do the same in '41.

You have a strange perception of a delayed problem... Eliminating "kessels" faster does not "delay" a problem. It exacerbates the issue for the Soviet command. The soviet's could not call up reserves faster than what they were already doing. By mid-October, Zhukov reported the Stavka reserves were basically all gone. But at this precise moment, when Zhukov and Beria were most concerned, and almost everyone in Moscow was trying to flee, and orders where given to shoot looters on sight, suddenly Stalin mans up and decides to stay. It's very, very peculiar.