Soviets invade the allies during operation downfall.
- Thread starter Pauh the federalist
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"Insufficient"? Was there some famine in 1940 I'm unaware of? The USSR was practically feeding all of occupied Europe in 1940 with mass exports to Germany and was avoiding starvation at home so I don't see any basis to claim that the 1940 food production figures are insufficient. Now whether 50% of the 1940 figure is insufficient something that we're still hashing out.
inferior tanks? Weren't the late war Soviet tanks superior to just about everyone else's?
History Learner
Banned
It's very important to your argument because if only three plants are working, then the Siberian plant cannot possibly be online.
No idea, although it seems to have been non-military purposes like the British plants.
It cannot, as between June of 1941 and May of 1945 the Soviets consumed 4.481 million tons of AV Gas of both high and low octane ratings, for an average yearly consumption of 1.114 million tons. No years are provided, so it's likely consumption was far greater in later years given the change in the composition of the Soviet military. As for those plants in Germany, only two were active and they were not producing military grade products; nevermind the fact they'd likely be destroyed before the Soviets could get to them.
I have the Osjerski book, it's available online in PDF format. I checked both "Siberia", "Fuel" and "aviation gasoline" as search terms and the only thing I could find is thus:
I've already cited that upthread:
I also literally just cited that the Americans were still providing 40% of the food consumed by the Red Army into the Summer of 1945.
Taking that at face value, remind he how this ineptness is supposed to be magically handwaved?
....because the Americans kept the Red Army fed. As for the civilians, mass starvation occurred during the war years, particularly in 1942-1944.
No, I did not admit that at all and you definitely knew that because I put it in both italics and bold:
I specifically say in just the Baltics and Ukraine alone, there was nearly as many Anti-Soviet partisans as the Germans had to face in the entirety of their Soviet conquests. I know English is your first language, so there is no other way besides willful maliciousness or failing to read my post you've could've confused this. As for the Air units, given we've yet to see any evidence the Soviets were self sufficient in AV gas, that alone knocks them out.
Then why did you specifically say Bagration? You're also making assumptions about what had been transferred or demobilized out by that Summer. For one very prominent example of why you should not take German performance as the basis of Anglo-American performance:
American tankers meanwhile:
History Learner
Banned
The T-34/85 is considered technically equal to everything the Germans had in 1944 but still had a 4:1 disadvantage to the Germans.
Okay, you’ve lost me. Why would whether three German plants working, which aren’t even the plants which were dismantled to provide for the Siberian plant as it’s obvious those wouldn’t be working because they’ve been dismantled, have any impact on whether the Siberian plant is working?
According to your posted page, it was actually serving both civilian and military purposes.
Oh, so your either goalpost shifting or have completely failed to comprehend the actual topic at hand. Because here we were talking exclusively about high-octane avgas which is the actual thing the Soviets were supposedly short of, not low-octane avgas of which the Soviets already could produce more then enough of. Even in 1942, the low point of Soviet production of avgas, the Soviets were able to produce 684,000 tons of such fuel. That’s almost twice the average annual consumption of low-octane avgas. Overall the Soviets produced 917,000 tons of all types of Avgas in that year, so if we take that figure, add the million tons the Siberian plant produces and WHAMMO: just shy of 2 million total tons of avgas production annually, about 900,000 tons more then consumed annually and this is before we factor the lend-lease refineries (which didn't start to come online until 1943) or the other German plants the Soviets could choose to restart production with. There's a reason everyone goes "the US supplied the Soviets with 50% of their high-octane avgas!" and not "the US supplied the Soviets with 50% of their total avgas!" when talking about the US contribution to Soviet aviation fuel supplies.
Whether they were producing military grade products matters less then the fact they could. As to whether they’d be destroyed by retreating WAllied forces... well, it’s possible. It’s also possible that the speed and shock of the Soviet assault renders them with not enough time to do it or it might not occur to them to do so until it’s too late. Could go either way.
Maybe you didn't comprehend what I was saying? I’ll emphasize some keywords you appear to have missed:
I've already cited that upthread:
I also literally just cited that the Americans were still providing 40% of the food consumed by the Red Army into the Summer of 1945.
Great. But again: not reached pre-war levels of production =! not enough to feed everyone. 40% of the food the Red Army soldiers were consuming came from lend-lease =! 40% of the food needed to not starve to death. In fact, the 40% figure was a decrease from the previous year, which by your logic apparent appears to mean the Soviets should have been dropping dead (or at least exhibiting signs of starvation) all over the place from this 10% drop in calories.
Whether they do or do not do so IATL is at best only partially relevant to my point which is that if the Soviets had enough food to feed people who didn't matter to their military-industrial system but through incompetence or malice did not, then clearly it shows they have enough to feed those who do matter and we know they did their best to prioritize feeding those people.
But it was gone by late-1944, as your own sources reveal, despite a decline in lend-lease food availability, as your sources also reveal.
Yeah, yeah, your lying through your teeth as anyone can tell reading that line where the wording shows your comparing anti-Soviet partisans in the Baltics and Ukraine to anti-German partisans in the Baltics and Ukraine. Because otherwise, your particularly lying through your teeth given the actual figure of the number of partisans the Germans had to face:
And this is without taking into account the hundreds of thousands of partisans who operated against the Germans in Poland and the Balkans...
Because I was using it as a useful catch-all for the Eastern Front in the summer of 1944. Then again, as one who does try to be precise with my terminology I guess I should know better then to use "catch-alls" so casuallies. Sorry about that.
And no, I'm not making assumptions. Multiple books I've read have talked about the intended mass transfer of US airpower to the Pacific by the time of Olympic. They were to provide the basis for air raids as large as 2,000 heavy bombers in one go. As for land forces, existing US Army literature on the subject is quite clear. Plans for Olympic called for the transfer of 2 armored divisions and 13 infantry divisions, while the release of more then 1.1 million men represents the reduction of the equivalent of some 22 divisions, or about 1/3rd of the entire US ground army in Europe. Assuming the Brits demobbed at the same rate, more then half the WAllied armies in Europe would have gone home by November 1945. What’s worse, the effects of demobilization upon these forces combat readiness outpaced the decline in paper strength and was noted to be biting really deep right about at the time the Soviets IATL are supposed to attack.
-History of Personnel Demobilization, Pg 266
At least the German formations in 1944 were coherent military formations and not a mob of replacements! Also, as per the OP, the Soviets are attacking when the US is engaged in Downfall so the Soviets would be attacking in late-fall/early-winter of '45, so I don't why you keep going to summer...
I like how one article is simply talking about Soviet AFV losses across the entire timespan of 1944 to all causes under all conditions and presenting it as the kill ratio solely against German AFVs while the latter only examines specific incidents and breaks the ratios down by conditions and cause. It neatly demonstrates the level of dishonesty at work here, highlighting how you massaged the numbers to be as favorable to the WAllies as possible by picking dissimilar articles with dissimilar numbers, and reaffirms Mark Twains old saw about lies and statistics. If this were a honest comparison, then what you would do is, say, take the 11,500 AFV losses the US and UK suffered during the Northwest European Campaign in June 6 1944-May 15 1945 and compare them to German AFV losses on the same front in the same timeframe. Now, I'll be frank: German AFV losses for 1945 are simply not available, at least not what I can find, so we're going to have to go for the next best thing and look at their losses throughout 1944. Don't worry, I'll subtract Eastern Front losses since I have a source for that!
Now, there are two sources I've seen that gives total German AFV losses in 1944. The first is Waffen und Geheimwaffen des Deutschen Heeres: 1933- 1945, which gives a figure of 12,613 AFVs for 1944. The other is FMS P-059 - German Tank Strength and Loss Statistics, which gives a figure of 11,916. We'll go with the upper figure for now. It's worth keeping in mind though: the German criteria for what counts as a "loss" is much, much, much higher then for the WAllies or Soviets. Now to subtract the Eastern Front figure from that: the only source I've ever seen is from here. And it shows that the Germans lost 9,575 AFVs in the East in 1944*. 12,613-9,575=3,038. Now I could say that 11,500 US+UK AFVs/3,038 results in a 3.78:1 loss ratio in the Germans favor, worse then what even your T-34 article but then the obvious objection arises: but that's the losses for the Germans against in only six months of 1944 in Northwest Europe (well, not entirely but more on that at the end) compared to the 11 months of 1944-1945 for the WAllies. Why of course! How silly of me. So then what we should do is break that down to the daily loss ratio. June 6th 1944 to May 15th 1945 is 343 days, which gives the Anglo-Americans a loss rate of 33.5 AFVs a day. By comparison, June 6 1944 to December 31 1944 is 208 days, giving the Germans a loss ratio of 14.6 AFVs a day. 33.5/14.6=2.3. The kill ratio between the WAllies and the Germans is therefore 2.3:1 in the Germans favor, only marginally better for the WAllies then the Soviets. And this was with the WAllies at their prime, not the demobilizing mob present by November/December '45.
Of course, this includes German AFV losses in Italy throughout the year (that's the "more on that at the end") while excluding the WAllies losses there, so this ratio is actually more favorable to the WAllies then might otherwise be the case.
But of course, I don't put much stock in any of these figures. Why? Because as this entire spiel is designed to expose, all trying to cite loss ratios does is wind up with the kind of chicanery you just attempted and hence I maintain that using them to prove anything means fuck all.
*I guess this would be the moment where I should observe that taking the T-34 article claims about Soviet AFV losses at face value (and how interesting it gives no figure for German AFV losses to do their own math), this gives the Germans a kill ratio about 0.5 less favorable then the article claims, making the difference between WAllies and Soviet a mere 0.2 which I recall might be below the threshold of statistical significance in difference (maybe? Memories fuzzy) but again: kill ratios, meaning, fuck all.
PS: I'll probably reply to your post over on the 1945-1950 airpower thread tomorrow. I've got a class to teach and I'm already only getting 5 hours due to telling people their wrong on the internet.
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if war continued into 1948-49, could someone make prediction, who would win in T34 vs IS-3 engagement on 1500m?
FBKampfer
Banned
No actually, the T-34/85's 85mm was markedly inferior to the US M1 76mm, and leagues behind the 90mm.
The M4 also had superior turret armor, optical magnification, optical clarity, rate of fire, gun depression, and better serviceability and producability.
The IS-2 had rather poor armor penetration, being roughly on par with the US 90 mm, 17lber, and Kwk 42 L/70. It also had horrible rate of fire, and suffered from the same shortcomings of the T-38/85 relative to the M26 Pershing.
The IS-2 was actually only armored about as well as the Panther or M26 from the front.
It was effectively a turreted assault gun.
The IS3 was somewhat more dangerous due to the improved armor, but it's gun depression was even worse, and shared the same flaws as the IS2.
Immediately post war, Soviet tank armies would have gotten their asses handed to them even worse than when fighting the Germans.
Zen9
Banned
The chief problem the Germans had in the war against the USSR is they lacked sufficient rail to move supplies up to their forces. This also effects Soviet supply the other way.
I suspect East Germany was the limit of their abilities anyway.
Attempting to push further west will overstretch their logistic tail and open them up to various pincer manoeuvres.
Furthermore it's not a given that conquored/liberated territories are going to remain quiescent if the West can get supplies to them.....
I suspect East Germany was the limit of their abilities anyway.
Attempting to push further west will overstretch their logistic tail and open them up to various pincer manoeuvres.
Furthermore it's not a given that conquored/liberated territories are going to remain quiescent if the West can get supplies to them.....
History Learner
Banned
Because the source quite clearly says none of the others were operational and is talking about 1946. If said Siberian facility was operational, I'd think it'd warrant a mention.
Can you please explain to me how soap and butter is a military purpose? Sure, they get used in rations, but for the purposes of what we are talking about it's a no.
Given we don't have yearly breakdowns of the high octane AV gas consumption, I'm attempting to establish a baseline. As I specifically said, it was likely in later years of the war high octane was consumed more regularly as the Soviets developed modernized forces.
They're too far in the Allied zone for that too work, and far too many Western troops are in the way in 1945.
There are easier ways of you admitting you were deliberately misinterpreting your citation.
I've literally provided direct citations to the contrary, naming the source, providing the page numbers in many cases and/or screen-shooting the relevant text.
Gee, I wonder what the difference between IOTL 1945 and ATL 1945? Perhaps that around three million RKKA troops can't be returned to the fields and they've just lost 40% of their rations.
No, and I've provided that specific citation twice now so there's no excuse at this point to make such a claim; deaths began to recede at the end of 1944 while Lend Lease rations remained high as a portion of RKKA diets.
Scourge of the Russian Partisans
A fair point, if we include the Yugoslavs.
You're making assumptions; for one, if the Allies are invading Japan, there is limited demobilization going on, nor does this answer the question of how drawn down Allied air and armored is.
You mean said German formations that were using kids, old men, re-purposed Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine personnel to name a few examples? Non-motorized, lacking artillery ammunition and fuel, without readily available air support?
This would be a valid tactic if the T-34 article doesn't make this point:
And if the Sherman article didn't go over other engagements besides just Sherman vs Panther.
The Soviet rail system in any parts of the USSR where fighting had occurred was in really bad shape, and was sustained as the Soviets advanced only by rails, locomotives, and rolling stock from LL. This also sustained and expanded the rail system in the unoccupied areas where there was damage from German bombing and capacity issues even in undamaged sections. In order to logistically sustain advances the rail systems as the Red Army advanced needed to be repaired, and this was a significant problem as the Germans were quite good at trashing these as they retreated. Add to that at some point moving west you run in to the problem of the different rail gauges between the Soviet gauge and standard European - so need need different rolling stock or wheelsets and the cranes etc to move loaded boxcars/flat cars from one set of wheels to another, and you need a whole fleet of different locomotives. As the Red Army moved beyond the 1939 borders the Germans and allies worked to either destroy or move west the rolling stock and especially locomotives. Even before things like planned destruction and combat damage, the roads in Eastern Europe were poor at best.
Logistics, logistics, logistics. By 1945 the Allies have the ports of Western Europe in good shape, the rail systems significantly repaired and pretty much all the locomotives and rolling stock (and rails, and communications equipment, etc) they need to make them run well and are repairing things as they advanced in to Germany. Once the fighting stops this gets even better. Roads in Western Europe, decent by 1940s standards, are being repaired/upgraded as needed. Lastly the Soviet Navy has essentially zero capability to disrupt the flow of supplies from the western hemisphere to Europe. If the USSR, as posited, no longer has an agreement to declare war against Japan, then the flow of LL that continued to the USSR after May of 1945 will dry up rather rapidly, and by late summer/fall 1945 when OLYMPIC might go off anything in transit has long ago stopped. Sure the USSR will have some LL items stockpiled, and may be making some Studebaker spare parts, but this will be used up fairly quickly.
Given the very tenuous logistic string the USSR forces would be operating on as they move west from demarcation lines in 1945, throwing the US/UK off the continent and getting to the channel is very dubious. Even without the atomic bomb the Allies will be more than capable of trashing the transportation lifeline to Soviet front line troops once they recover from the initial blow. B-29s and Lancasters will do a number on Soviet oil production facilities and those in Romania. With a conventional campaign going on in Japan and the plan for CORONET the USA won't be cutting back so much on war production, and those production rates and training programs can be ramped back up quickly.
In a no atomic bomb world, the USSR would be much smarter to wait until the USA and UK had completely demobilized, shifted to peacetime mode. Also this interval allows for more repair of Soviet infrastructure and some level of integration of the captured countries.
Logistics, logistics, logistics. By 1945 the Allies have the ports of Western Europe in good shape, the rail systems significantly repaired and pretty much all the locomotives and rolling stock (and rails, and communications equipment, etc) they need to make them run well and are repairing things as they advanced in to Germany. Once the fighting stops this gets even better. Roads in Western Europe, decent by 1940s standards, are being repaired/upgraded as needed. Lastly the Soviet Navy has essentially zero capability to disrupt the flow of supplies from the western hemisphere to Europe. If the USSR, as posited, no longer has an agreement to declare war against Japan, then the flow of LL that continued to the USSR after May of 1945 will dry up rather rapidly, and by late summer/fall 1945 when OLYMPIC might go off anything in transit has long ago stopped. Sure the USSR will have some LL items stockpiled, and may be making some Studebaker spare parts, but this will be used up fairly quickly.
Given the very tenuous logistic string the USSR forces would be operating on as they move west from demarcation lines in 1945, throwing the US/UK off the continent and getting to the channel is very dubious. Even without the atomic bomb the Allies will be more than capable of trashing the transportation lifeline to Soviet front line troops once they recover from the initial blow. B-29s and Lancasters will do a number on Soviet oil production facilities and those in Romania. With a conventional campaign going on in Japan and the plan for CORONET the USA won't be cutting back so much on war production, and those production rates and training programs can be ramped back up quickly.
In a no atomic bomb world, the USSR would be much smarter to wait until the USA and UK had completely demobilized, shifted to peacetime mode. Also this interval allows for more repair of Soviet infrastructure and some level of integration of the captured countries.
Stalin gets a bullet in the back of the head. Even he had limits to his power - something he knew well.
Huh? Your source identifies your source does identify five plants in the Soviet zone that were continuing operation in the aftermath of the war: the Leuna, Bohlen, Zeitz, the Sudetenland Plant at Brux, and Schwarzheide. So that's four plants which we know for certain will be working and producing for the Soviets, at least until WAllied bombers can redeploy from the Pacific in sufficient numbers. The only other plant specified to be in the Soviet zone* it says did not resume production was at Lutzendorf.
*There are six plants it says did not resume operation, but it leaves unclear which zones those plants were in.
That's just what you think though. It's just as likely the authors didn't think it warranted a mention or that they don't have any more of an idea then we do. There's nothing in there about why those other plants which weren't in operation... well, weren't in operation so clearly the authors either don't know or don't think that matters.
Huh? The source doesn't identify Schwarzheide plant as one of the ones producing soap and butter. According to your source it "produced gasoline for military and civilian purposes". "Gasoline" is a vague phrase though and it could encompass any number of petroleum products that both military and civilians use. Those were the "Gewerkschaft Plants at Castrop-Raustel and Krup-Treibstoffwerk in Wanne-Eickel in the British zone". Even then, there's nothing in the source to indicate those are the only things those two plants could produce.
Oh, I have no doubt that high-octane consumption, and probably consumption overall, was higher in the late war then 750,000 tons and lower in the early war. I just recognize that between the Siberian plants and the domestic production it seems to have achieved in '43-'45 (more on this momentarily), the Soviets likely have enough slack to handle it. Soviet production of high-octane avgas was 317,000 in 1941 and 228,000 in 1942 for a total of 545,000 tons. Lend-lease shipment of high octane gas was 1.2 million tons. That's 1.7 million tons put together. With a consumption of nearly 3 million tons over the course of the war, that leaves 1,300,000 tons of domestic production for 1943-'45, which works out to 433,000 tons annually. Although technically, domestic production for 1945 would be crammed into the first 4 months before the war ends so IDK there. Combined with the Siberian Plant, that gives a total productive capacity of 1.433 million tons of high-octane avgas production.
Assuming the same almost 90% increase for the production of high-octane avgas from 1942 to 1943/44 also holds true for low-octane avgas, then Soviet production of that would have increased from 684,000 to nearly 1.3 million.
It should finally be pointed out that these figures assume VVS/VPO were living hand-to-mouth in terms of yearly avgas supply yet there is nothing in the literature which suggests this was the case, although on the other hand I've never seen any figures for a stockpile which would give us an idea of what sort of surplus (if any) the Soviets managed over their intake. So the above production figure represents something of a minimum for Soviet domestic plants. In any case, absent the annual average, we don't really have any baseline. It is also, obviously, still excluding those four German plants still in operation.
An assumption, not a fact. It's possible that the WAllies are able to demolish the plants before the Soviets might fight their way through. It's also possible that they do tear through the WAllied armies with such speed that their sitting in the plants before their demolished. The two western plants your source mention are located in adjacent cities just under 270 kilometers from the border with the Soviet zone. Depending on how well the Soviets do, they might be there in six months... or two weeks!
There are easier ways of you trying to dodge you admitting you were misinterpreting what I actually said.
No. The source provided that 40% figure. But if Soviet soldiers rations drop 40% and that figure isn't low enough to cause starvation, then so what?
Nothing, really. Production in 1945 was the same as in 1944, which took place with the Red Army mobilized to the degree it was. And you've still yet to demonstrate that a 40% loss would result in mass starvation.
Yes, you've given a source, its just what that citation actually says isn't what your saying it says. It says starvation had virtually disappeared in late-1944 and lend-lease rations dropped 10%.
Your sources are largely in line with mine: a 70,000 figure rising to a 125,000 makes it easy to see it making. A 150,000 partisans in Belarus (so as many in a single region as were operating against the USSR in two regions a year or two later) is well within a total of 500,000 in the Soviet Union. Yet the Germans still were more crippled by their own lack of resources and inability to cope with the logistical environment, issues which don't apply to the Soviets in the short/medium-term, then they were these partisans. So why should we take seriously the claim that a smaller number of partisans will suddenly act several orders of magnitude more effectively against the USSR?
Well, the number of partisans within Poland are likely smaller then they were against the Germans as well. The Home Army was still around, of course, but the Germans had ripped it's heart out in the Uprising so it was weaker then it was against the Germans.
"Limited" in the sense that their confined outside of the Pacific, yes. I don't see why they'd be any different within Europe though, not with the political pressures at home now that the war is over. Any troops who were demobilized IOTL but aren't IATL would be in the Pacific.
You mean said German formations which actually knew they were at war and dug into heavy fortifications and with extremely large cores of still well-motivated, experienced troops who weren't too busy celebrating the good life with the locals to let their soldiering skills go completely to waste?
No, it still is a valid point, as your transparent dodging of the rest of my post indicates: it's still cherrypicking a report that only studies a limited number of engagements between Shermans and the Germans and then comparing it to a article who uses total number of T-34s losses versus total number of German tank losses... only for it to not give the total number of German tank losses and when we do look at the total number of German tank losses, it's claim still turns out to be an overestimate (the actual rate is 3:1). In any case, we can do the same for the Sherman as well: the Anglo-Americans lost 7,062 Shermans in the Northwest European Campaign, the Germans lost 6,271, of which 4,438 were suffered in the East, which means 1,833 were lost in the Northwestern European Campaign (and Italy). Again, applying the same math in terms of days as before:
20.5 Shermans per day.
8.8 German tanks per day.
So according to these numbers, the Sherman suffered 2.3 losses for every German tank lost, only slightly better then the T-34.
History Learner
Banned
My bad on forgetting about this.
The timing is the matter, the screenshot shows only one was active in the Soviet zone in 1945/1946. I'm willing to concede on this though if you've got citations.
Sure, but neither of us have managed to find a citation yet about the plant in the first place.
We were talking about the British plants, of which both were "producing oils and waves from fatty acids". You're right there's nothing in the source that says they can't be used for military production, but there's also nothing to say they could be either; entirely likely they could be converted for low octane fuels, but that's useless for modern fighters of the time.
Actually I asked Art over on AHF and this is what he has:
As stated, this is both low and high octane fuels production.
There's over two million Allied personnel and it's just two plants well behind the lines. There is no question that the Allies won't be able to trash them if needed, even if we take two weeks as the timetable.
Because Hunger and War directly states the loss of that would mean it's impossible to feed the Red Army.
I did, literally on the last page even:
No, actually it says it had begun to recede but had not disappeared.
No, it actually doesn't as the 70,000 figure is for the entirety of the USSR in 1941, 125,000 in 1942 in the entirety of the USSR and then, ultimately, 150,000 behind the lines in 1944 at a time when Moscow was directly inserting formations behind the line. Seems awfully randomly for there to be 500,000 partisans at once when the number was essentially the same for both 1942 and 1944 while the Germans lost large amounts of territory in 1943.
As for the Soviets, they literally face exactly the same issues as the Germans; Soviet production is nowhere near enough to sustain their own logistical needs.
Probably.
We're assuming a Soviet attack comes sometime in the second half of 1945; mass demobilizations and transport home only became a thing in July. With WWII still raging, the disorganized mob that troops in the ETO became after the Japanese surrender simply isn't going to occur.
You mean the same Germans using old men and young boys with no recent combat experience?
It's not a limited number of engagements, it's actually an exhaustive study the Army did in 1954 to examine how best to absorb lessons from WWII in terms of combat performance. As for the rate, it seems you've confused AFVs with tanks; for tanks its 4:1 but for AFVs on total it's 3:1 as noted. Either way, if the Americans are maintaining a positive kill count against the Germans while the Germans were maintaining a 3:1 against the Soviets, that speaks volumes.
I literally just cited the U.S. Army study which shows otherwise.
marathag
Banned
Yes, and no.
JS III is on paper, an awesome tank.
Raw stats don't really point out the terrible ergonomics, poor outside vision( no commander's cupola) slow load time for the main gun, and a bit than two dozen rounds, with more than half of them HE, and over stressed transmission and engine.
Their main use was in shooting at Hungarian protesters, as the the ones that Egypt got(modified to take care of some of the above shortcomings) played pretty much no role in combat either.
Except it doesn't say that? It only says this about those plants: "Three other plants in their zone, at Leuna, Bohlen, Zeitz, and the Sudetenland plant at Brux (Most), which the Soviets gave to Czechoslovakia, continued with coal and tar hydrogenation, and, after modification, refined petroleum into the early 1960s. " The only timestamp there is when the plants ceased production. The reality is that the only timestamps we have there are: (A) when the plants closed ("the 1960s"), (B) a temporary interruption of production at the Leuna facility ("1947"), and (C) a point at which the two plants in the British zone were known to be operational ("as of February 1946"). There's no indication of when precisely besides the vague phrase "after the war".
The only plants it gives any timestamps for being operational are the two British ones. Even then, it says that they were in operation "as of 1946", which leaves open the possibility they were placed back into operation earlier.
Thus leaving it something of an open question.
I'd imagine that the Germans had used them to, but then the Germans were in a position where they needed every last drop of fuel they could get.
So a 1.334 million ton minimum upper limit of 1.344 million production capacity, based on the 1944 figures. Lower then I expected. Possibly the proportion of high-octane avgas production increased and low-octane avgas declined? He doesn't have figures for the immediate post-war economy (1946-1950)?
Also, running the site through google translate and navigating over to the agricultural section is netting me some interesting numbers and gives a pretty clear indication that the agricultural recovery of '44-'45 was not just limited to grain.
EDIT: Oh, sweet. Table 13 is on the avgas supply. Stockpile figures, about 910,000 tons in '45, finally...
Sure, there were over two million Axis personnel in 1944, yet the Soviets still managed to achieve those ROAs. And there's very much question of whether the WAllies would be able to trash them, although these questions heavily hinge on fundamental unknowables: will the WAllies necessity and accord the relevant priority to destroying the plants? How fast do the WAllies recognize said necessity of destroying the plants? By the time they do recognize, is there still enough time to arrange for the transportation of explosives and demolition specialists and for them to plant and detonate the explosives? And no, it's two named plants behind the lines. The total number of plants indicated are 21. It names 11 of them, of which 2 are identified as in the western zone. That leaves another 10 synthetic fuel plants of unknown location and productive capabilities out there.
Because Hunger and War directly states the loss of that would mean it's impossible to feed the Red Army.
I did, literally on the last page even:
It's pretty clearly saying that the Red Army couldn't have been fed based on the food production of 1942 and 1943, but it still says nothing about whether it could have been fed on the food production of 1944/45.
It says it had disappeared by December 1944 "as a factor which influenced workers health" (Pg 320), at least in the factory it was using to illustrate. If that factory is representative of the whole of the Soviet Union, and the book indicates they were studying that factory precisely it because it is ("while we could have chosen several Urals factories, the value of No.63 is that it allows us to tracethe progression of days lost to starvation on a month-by-month basis over the course of 1943 and 1944", pg 319) then clearly starvation had disappeared by 1945.
It specifically says the 150,000 figure is for Belarus in black and white:
I'm not sure in what world "in Belorussia" becomes "in the entire occupied USSR". I could see a decline from '43 to '44 but on the order of 350,000? Despite that sections of Ukraine (or Eastern Poland, depending on your perspective) and the Baltic States remained to be cleared?
And we all know that the Germans instantly collapsed into nothingness once the war began and didn't, oh say, overrun Poland, the Low Countries, France, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, large swathes of the USSR, and achieve deep advances into the North African desert before finally running out of steam and even then took an additional three years and millions of lives to defeat...
Per the OP, we are presuming the Soviets attack during Operation Downfall. That means an attack in the winter of 1945-46. Again, we have nothing to indicate that the ETO demobilization will not proceed as per OTL... and OTL to indicate it will, given that even you just admitted that the relevant program began in July, a full-month-and-a-half before the Japanese surrender when there was no indication that WW2 was going to be over before even 1946 much less the autumn of 1945.
I'm discussing mid-1944, not late-1944. While there were old men and young boys with no recent combat experience, there were also still massive numbers of experienced veterans in these formations as well who were well-motivated, disciplined, and hard fighting and only perished when the Soviets and, to a lesser extent, WAllies ripped them to shreds and inflicted massive losses upon them in their summer offensive operations.
Uh, yes it is. The article very specifically identified the number of engagements studied, involving only two US armored formations, and makes it absolutely clear that it is examining a limited number of engagements. Even the timeframe was limited:
So unless you are also claiming that the Third and Fourth Armored Divisions were the only two armored divisions* in the entire Allied Expeditionary Force to see action against the Germans and that their actions only constitute 98 engagements which only occurred between August and December 1944, and all that would be a positively astonishing claim requiring a exorbitant amount of evidence and very little evidence to disprove, the report is quite clearly studying a limited number of engagements in a limited number of instances during a limited timeframe.
*Or Armored anything, really.
No, no I did not. Here is the post where I compare number of Sherman's lost vs number of German tanks lost:
And here's the earlier post where I compare number of WAllied AFVs lost with number of German AFVs lost:
So unless you exist in a universe where the 1,833=3,038, it's pretty clear I removed German AFVs which weren't tanks when making the calculation comparing Sherman losses against German tanks.
No, you cited a US Army study which gives a bunch of numbers that mean nothing anything more then my numbers do. Lies, damn lies, and all that...
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Yes, under the normal circumstances this would be the case but with a severe rationing it provided enough food for survival (and perhaps even somewhat more). Of course, it should be remembered that both in agriculture and industry the able-bodied men had been massively replaced by the women and even teenagers.
How many carriers and strategic bombers are needed to keep Japan contained? The rest can be used against the USSR, sending the flat tops to the Atlantic and using their planes from land bases, if there's a need for more planes. 100 carriers, with from 30 to 100 planes each, even if some are Wildcats, is a formidable addition--well over 3000 combat aircraft.