decisive battle debate

What a load of poppycock.

This statement is just so blatantly stupid it wins it's own special award.



Without the imagination of other people where exactly do you think you would be today?

I'll tell you, because you obviously really are lacking in imagination.

You'd be sitting under a tree in Africa eating fruit. And that's a fact.

 

The historic truck production values proves nothing beyond that they wanted more trucks, as they kept on increasing the number of trucks. It says nothing about production capacity, or bottlenecks in production.

Without examining in far greater detail the entire campaign than would fit in a post, or even most threads, your questions cannot answered briefly. Therefore, as your original sentiment "They didn't need nor could use more trucks" is shown to be entirely biased. You basically do not know.

There are severe limitations in comparing North Africa to Russia, which you should, again, well know. North Africa had no railway at all. North African campaign was basically bound to the coast.

How then do you accommodate "breakthrough forces then move through the enemy's depths, bypassing centres of resistence, and focusing instead on acting as giant pincers to encircle wide swathes of the enemy." Breakthrough is thus NOT secondary, nor do they occur "when the enemy is destroyed" (or there would be no need to encircle).

 

It is not true that NA had no railway at all : Montgomery had a railway in Egypt and after Alamein Australian troops were extending the railway .The fact remains that Montgomery,with more motorised forces, was advancing at a speed which was not much higher than the speed of the Ostheer,and,this,while the axis resistance was almost meaningless,something which did not happen in Russia .After 6 weeks,the Red Army was not defeated : in august the Germans lost 200000 men,losses which crippled them for ever .

 

I suspect it will take several posts to respond to all the nonsence posted by LJAd since my last post. PLS accept my apology for that. I'll try not to repeat those errors already highlighted by others.

Because trucks are much more efficient than horses. That covers civilian transport as well as military transport. The Autobahns weren't designed for horse transport were they? It's also clear that speed was a very falued asset to the German military. So the trucks would have been of utiltiy in both the civilian economy and to the militray no matter what happened in the out years. Of course little of this is all that relevant to the issues we originally took with your ludicrous pronouncements.

????? Did you really mean to say that?

It's obvious that it means more skills in those areas as far as civilians are concerned. However you can teach a person to drive in a few hours if it takes that long and a mechanic can be trained in a few weeks. Mechanics don't have to be the mental equivalant of Einstein or Hawkings either; average or even somewhat below average is good enough in most cases. Incidently where did the 40,000 number come from?

 

That is closer to the truth than most of your opinions. However it's clear from the historical record that the Soviets couldn't do it forever. Indeed the status of Soviet forces at the end of the war is pretty conclusive in that regard. They had reached the point where no more blood could be squeezed from that turnip. A more rational German prosecution of the war post August of 41 may have been able to bring the Soviets to that point much earlier while the Germans maintained signifiant fighting power.

Has someone been stating he should have been? Or is this just another straw man to deflect attention away from your other untenable positons?

Not really. The allies had a serious choke point in regards to logistics that the Germans never faced in the east. I'm also not sure that "Ivan never was on the run" is accurate either.

I find this highly unlikely.

NO.

Some food for horses was availble in the SU. Grain didn't seem to be in great supply from what I've read and there was considerable demand for it elsewhere as well. Then of course it also has to be collected and distributed. Your implication that it was easier to support horses than trucks is at this point very questionable. Horses do have the advantage that when they die they are a potential food source but it's not a good thing if that's what your troopers are thinking.

Not really avoided as the first is largly irrelevant to the discussion at hand and the second is at best very questionable.

If it was relevant this would be a good point although it's pretty easy to figure out a number of areas where the Wehrmacht could cut back to make up for this. It's also not clear it's completely accurate as devoting more effort to truck production might have had significant positive impacts on the economy in general and possibly brought in more foreign exchange.

You are ignoring the fact that if the trucks replace horses then there is a considerable amount of goods (fodder and such) that will not need to be moved. Indeed from the studies I've seen even on fairly short trips trucks don't need as much self support cargo as horses. The longer the distance the greater the advantage of trucks.

 

You are ignoring the fact that if trucks replace horses,then there is a considerable amount of FUEL and spare parts that will have to be moved from Germany and even from France .

 

1)Trucks were not using the Autobahn to go from the West to the East,neither did tanks .They used railways,even in 1962 at the Cuba crisis,a US armoured division was moving to Florida by train .

2) Yes :the German plan was to defeat the Red Army in a short battle during the summer between the border and the DD line,the PzD and motorised divisions would not advance east of the DD line,after the defeat of the Red Army,light divisions (without tanks and heavy artillery) would,using the railways,move to the AA line and later to the Urals .Tanks and trucks never would it make to the AA line .The fact that the war continued east of the DD line and that the tanks and trucks had to go farther to the east,meant that the German plan had failed .

3) Talking about ludicrous ,that's ludicrous ; to become a good and experienced truck driver who would not land in the canal the first day he was driving in the east,months would be needed,or even years ; an iron law is that you become an experienced driver and ceases to be a public danger,only after driving 100000 km .

 

If all you are doing is adding trucks then it depends on what the choke points are. If you are replacing some horses with trucks then the above assumption becomes demonstrably false in short order.

There was no straw man that I could see.

Really? Where have you shown that? There is clearly a correlation of victory and superior logistical support from what I've seen especially in any protracted campaign. Even if you pronouncement was correct it wouldn't prove the last point your pronounce. As I suggested before read up on logic.

As I've said before just because you have said something doesn't mean that it is correct and repeating it doesn't do anything to improve the chances that it is correct.

Your answer is "no". It is not well supported and indeed appears counter factual in spite of your pronouncements.

A couple of observations.
1) Just because something is propaganda doesn't mean that it is false.
2) Losers don't always mount such campaigns.

It is hardly nonsence but it's also not really what our objections to your statments have been either. You have by the way not shown that more trucks wouldn't have made a substantial benefit to the Ostheer mearly stated it any number of times. You have also done nothing to show that an increase was not possible.

Wrong you can indeed need what you can't have. Many people have died due to the lack of medical care or medicine which they clearly needed.

Again this is not a fact but a questionable opinion on your part.

 

Since no one except you has been arguing for a complete replacement of horses with trucks why should they? By the way how many horses do they have once you subtract the cavalry units? In any case the problem is not insoluable. Indeed we know that a truck is at least 16 times as efficient as a horse from up thread in post 232 since that doesn't take into account movement of fodder and food and rest time for the horses the number is likely considerably larger but it's not a bad starting point. It should also be pointed out that many of those horses could also have been utilized on German farms so there are hardly going to waste.

??? Did you think at all when you wrote that? It makes no such assumption at all. What it does assume is that the horse handlers would be freeded up for assignment to other tasks which is effectivly a gain in manpower.

To answer your last question first probably as well as there would likely have been more material and infrastructure capture and in better condition.

Very likely. And likely they would be in better shape at the beginning of August as well.

Who won in the east was determined not just by the Soviets but by the Germans and to some extent by the various allies and their actions as well. Like most of your pronouncements/opinions the above paragraph is hardly supported by fact or logic although you have stated most of it before. Indeed many times. We've yet to see a strong arguement though.

Railroads indeed were critical but trucks were as well. How else do the supplies actually get to the unit is a reasonable amount of time. A force supplied by horses reaches it's log support limit much faster than one supplied by trucks.

Sort of but not really. Supplying an army by truck becomes less efficient the longer the distance from the source of supply. Railroads and ports effectivly more the source of supply forward. However the same is true of horses and wagons but the point of diminishing returns is hit much sooner. Also as OIF demonstrated if you have enough trucks that supply line can be pretty long especially when you consider the amount of supplies a modern armored force consumes.

 

In 1937 there were only 321000 trucks in Germany ,of which only 103000 could be useful for the WM (source : Lexikon der WM,Bestand Kraftfahrzeuge der WM,P 1),this number was increased to 450000 in 1939( = 7.5 trucks per 1000 inhabitants,it was for the US in 1940 5 million trucks for 130 million inhabitants = 38 per 1000 inhabitants ).The reason was that there was no need for more trucks,and that trucks were not economical :it was cheaper to transport heavy goods by railway .And this was why the truck production was that low .Trucks also were only occasionally used (as cars),which had as result that most drivers were inexperienced .

Other points : the life expectancy of a horse in the war was 4 years,for a truck : ONE year (source ferde der Wehrmacht P 2).

: the more your army is motorized,the more supplies it needs,thus :the more trucks you are using,the more spare parts and fuel these trucks are needing (NA is a typical exemple) .

:after the big battle in the summer,the role of the PzD and motorised units would be over,and there would be no logistical problems ,which were caused by the commitment of the motorised/Panzer divisions .

 

That victory /defeat in the East laid in the hands of the Soviets,is a historical fact proved by what Halder was mentionning in his diary .

 

No I'm not. Might point quite clearly was that while there is an additional burden due to the above it is more than offset by the burden of moving fodder alone. I do agree the fuel was not abundant in Nazi Germany but then neither were food grains.

Again with the straw man. The Autobahns were designed for motor traffic, there was clearly a reason that they were considered worth building, the US system modeled after them clearly had huge economic benefits even though the military aspects were significant in its inception. Again I've acknowledge that over longer distances trains are more efficient especially if they are already in existance. However you still need to move supplies from the railhead to the units/front. Note please that if they had to move their tanks very far in a tactical or operational movement the Germans often used trucks to move the tanks. So as typical you bring up irrelevant points in defence of the indefenceable.

Which is nice but irrelevant.

???? Where in the world did you get that. I doubt most of the truck drivers in todays US army have driven that many miles in trucks. Do you make these things up as you go along or are you refering to the Onion or something similar?

What does it actually say? I rather doubt it stated as above.

Sources please. I'd like to see one that states trucks were not economical. It may be cheaper to move items by railroad in some cases but you still have to move them from the railhead to the final destiantion and from the initial point to the railhead for that matter. In other cases even with heavy goods it's simply going to be cheaper to move them by truck or even wagon. Germany during that period was hardly a market economy state planning had a considerable impact. Do you have utilization rates for trucks during that period?

That really doesn't sound like it matches up with http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=30733&start=75 where it mentions that there were ~750,000 horses in June of 41 and ~2,800,000 in service between that time and the end of the war with total losses of ~1,560,000 or ~30,000 per month. Given the hodge podge of trucks the Germans used I can see the life expetency being fairly short. They even had a fair number of British trucks, good luck getting spare parts for those. Note that greatr production could have meant even greater standardization (i.e. leave the odd vehicles in the civilian economy) which would also have increased the life time of the trucks.

How many times have we stated that this simply isn't the case. An army based on horse drawn wagons requires more supplies both by cube and by weight than one based on trucks. North Africa is not a very good example at all in regards to this issue by the way.

???? If you dive much deeper into your fantasy world perhaps you'll loose all contact with the real world and "deprive" us of your inanities.

Not really. Inspite of the many times you have stated it.

 

Which is it? Either the trucks were "not needed, and not economical", or there were more trucks needed, and therefore they produced more between 1937 and 1939. Because you can't have it both ways. Seeing as how they actually did not just increase the number of trucks in society, but also produced more trucks in 1939 than 1937, I'd say the the former statement is hogwash. I'd hazard a guess and say they were sorely needed, but there was limited capital to invest, which is another matter entirely. There had never been a big push to sell trucks to farmers, as occurred in the 20's in the US, until the Nazis took power in 1933, and removed taxation on motor vehicles.

How quickly can a new generation of horses be bred? The gestation period of a horse is 11 months...

In 1937 Ford Werke exported 10,000 vehicles of a total production of 40,000 at their Cologne plant, in Germany. Ford Werke was fourth in the German car market sales, after Opel, DKW, and Mercedes, and second in trucks after Opel.

Even today, it is cheaper to transport goods by railway in many, many places. This does not preclude the use of trucks. You can't lay railway lines all throughout a city, nor to every farm and field.

 

Suddenly, you're an advocate of Halder? Seriously? Anyone else mentoins Halder and you threadcrap like it was going out of fashion.

In other words 1) not a fact, (diaries are not repositories for Facts, but opinions, thoughts, and musings) 2) not proven (although the thoughts, musings and opinions are certainly Halder's own).

 

LJad your argument that because Germany was limited in its truck production capacity means that trucks would not be better is one of the worse I have ever seen. More horses mean more wagons, more harnesses, more horse shoes. A horse has a limited travel distance and speed and once a horse has gone its travel distance for the day its done. The limits a truck has is no different then the limits a horse has, the difference is a truck can keep going and is not required to stop and rest. A truck can also carry far more then a single horse wagon can.

 

Good point. If you have two drivers you can effectivly get two travel days per day out of a truck thus we should consider 32:1 to be a base ratio rather than 16:1 for the horse:truck replacement numbers.

 

truck and car losses on 31 july : 11699

replacements from Germany : 2357

booty : 794

losses of horses on 31 july : 18846

replacements from Germany :7002
booty : 14389

Conclusions : it was easier to replace horses than trucks and it was easier to find in the occuped parts of the SU horses than trucks,which should be obvious to every one,giving the economic situation in the SU,it was also easier for the RB to send horses to the east than trucks (ratio was 1/3 )

 

Your argument is not correct : it is not because a truck was technologically more advanced than a horse that to use more trucks instead of horses was a good solution.It would be the same to say that if the Germans had Tigers in 1940,Tihers would have given better results than PzI or II,or that in 1940,jets would be better than the classic aircraft .

Besides:to say that a truck was not required to stop and rest,is not correct .

 

Germany was a country of small cities,small farms and small factories .Why should the owner of a small factory buy a truck ? What he needed was transported to the city by the railway and from the railway station it was transported by horse and carriage to the factory over a distance of a few km. Thus,why buy a truck who would drive maybe 1000 km a year?And if there was a problem with the truck,where would he find the next garage ?

In 1958,when my father bought a car (a Ford) the garage was 15 km away at Ypres .

When I was young,it was exceptional to see a truck in the city,because there was no need to transport goods over distances of 20 km or more by truck ,there were no factories and what was needed was transported by the railway or by cargo ships who were moved by horses .