Earlier or Later WWII: Better or Worse?

[Keffler]

Do you have a reference that 17 pounders regularly had trouble with aiming the first few times? I mean, the American system would presumably have comparable muzzle velocity to the British one because they're both giving the same kind of "push" to the same sized round to get the same speed out... if anything, the Brit one would have higher velocity due to longer barrel on the same pressure...

And if you want a wrecked bunker? This is the way to do it.
http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/articles/avre.html

Anyway. Clearly it's possible to have a long gun that fires both good HE and good AP.

I'm about to lecture about firing tables and different muzzle velocities for different charge loaded direct fire projectiles? Uhm... nope.

The ballistics of a direct fire projectile depend mostly on the projectile mass and the shove forces behind that projectile that the charge imparts.

The closer you can match the shell body and mass of a high explosive shell and the kinetic slug (bullet) of a HV gun, the better ballistic match you can get for a constant charge. You don't have to fiddle with two sets of aiming reticules or stadii to lay the gun.

If you fiddle around and have to use two different gunsights through the same scope, well the point is that your zeros will be off for one of them. Has to be. Just plain old optics.

Anyway, a flatter trajectory means exactly what it says. Less divergence and drop. The American gun actually has a lower MV than the British for the AP shot; but its HE MV is more closely matched to the 3' AP shot, so its trajectories were FLATTER than the British HE. If only marginally so.

And you will note that the British sabot at long range is considered rather inaccurate-by the British? That was the third firing table and a third set of aim reticules and stadii for the 17 pounder.

A Churchill dustbin? I don't think that works too well when the other guy is waiting with a panzer-fist. One in the demolition charge and that tank is scrap and the crew burned hamburger. Been known to happen.

 

[Keffler]

You keep repeating that line - they walked - as if that is supposed to impress me.
It doesn't, because I'm not saying that the Germans didn't walk for the most part. I'm saying that the strategic mobility of their most important units - their Panzer divisions, and the Panzer armies formed around them - depended on motorization. And that, without that mobility, specifically of their most important units, the Germans would not have been able to execute sickle-cut, and they would not have been able to mount the huge encirclements of 1941.


You're also saying the Maginot line thing as though that was a failure of the Line. It wasn't; it was precisely the point. The Maginot line was intended to ensure that the battles took place in Belgium, not in France.

If you will read what I said about the Maginot line? I said the Germans masked it and walked around the north end.

As for point two? Panzers cannot hold ground, nor can they outrun their infantry. That's straight from Guderian.

Another thing you might want to remember...

Human beings out-march horses and machines.

Over the long haul, infantry can out-march cavalry.

And when we speak of trucks, it is even more ridiculous for while the horse crops down ten pounds of fodder every eight hours and turned up lame after a week's march that truck just guzzled 100 kilograms of diesel and threw a rod becoming an instant 2399 kg paperweight after only twenty hours on the so-called Russian road. What about the private in the truck? He walks for the next week and covers 140-280 kilometers. Six weeks in? 840-1680 kilometers. How far is Moscow? Figure 1800 kilometers from Berlin.

The infantry can get there. It's the machines and the horses who fail.

 

[Saphroneth]

If you will read what I said about the Maginot line? I said the Germans masked it and walked around the north end.

As for point two? Panzers cannot hold ground, nor can they outrun their infantry. That's straight from Guderian.

Another thing you might want to remember...

Human beings out-march horses and machines.

Over the long haul, infantry can out-march cavalry.

And when we speak of trucks, it is even more ridiculous for while the horse crops down ten pounds of fodder every eight hours and turned up lame after a week's march that truck just guzzled 100 kilograms of diesel and threw a rod becoming an instant 2399 kg paperweight after only twenty hours on the so-called Russian road. What about the private in the truck? He walks for the next week and covers 140-280 kilometers. Six weeks in? 840-1680 kilometers. How far is Moscow? Figure 1800 kilometers from Berlin.

The infantry can get there. It's the machines and the horses who fail.

Oh, for the love of pete...
Please state what I was actually saying. I was NOT saying that, absent any kind of combat whatsoever, a German soldier couldn't walk from Berlin to Moscow.

Are you aware of why they have lorried infantry in the first place?

 

[CalBear]

Not sure about the practicality of the G1. Not going to do any better than the Char B did against the Stuka.



The Pz 38t was not the most numerous tank at all:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfeldzug#Deutsche_Panzer
The Pz II, III, and IV all outnumbered the 38t in service. Also the 35 and 38t were only 'superior' in terms of armament, which was inadequate in any event. The planned upgrade of the Pz IV to the 50mm gun pre-1940 would have potentially offset improved French tanks; the 38t was set to be replaced anyway, it was an old model, they just built them for lack of enough Pz III and IV models in 1940.

The Char G1 was going to have a 75mm gun that would have put a round straight through the front plate of every German tank of the era. The Char B1 bis was already invulnerable to every tank gun the Heer had in the field in 1940 (Rommel used his 88s to stop it because nothing else had a prayer).

Of course the tank will not be better against the Stuka (which wasn't really that terrific of an aircraft if it had to fly in opposed airspace, being meat on the table for any fighter that stumbled across it), that is where a much more robust French Air Force, not to mention a larger, better fitted RAF come into play.

The Heer decided to push forward the 50mm gun for the Pz. IV after they found it difficult to impossible to defeat the armor of the Matilda and B1 bis not before the Battle of France. German tanks were not the best in the world at that point in time, they were, if anything, third best, maybe even 4th (and only able to hold that position because the Czechs had been removed from the game). Heer armored tactics were superior, but its tracks were not.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Because I noticed some things you neglected to point out;

In 1936, the Soviet Union had begun work on an extensive series of fortifications, known as the "Stalin Line", to protect the USSR along a line from the Baltic to the northern side of the Pripet Marshes. In 1941, the Stalin Line had become a formidable obstacle to an invader, though it was by no means continuous, but after the USSR's seizure of new territories to the west the Stalin Line stood well east of the Soviet Union's new borders. Stalin insisted that the Red Army leave their existing fortifications, move up to the new border, and dig in there. He felt that the advantages of extra geographic space outweighed the loss of the fortified line.

Which the Germans marched around, as they had the Maginot Line, by the way. This time they went south.

Actually, they overran the portions of the line which were either dismantled (something you leave out of your account) or unmanned. The portions of the line which were manned held up the Germans considerably and inflicted substantial losses.

Your basic assertion is that the far weaker German army of 1939, with less troops, vehicles, logistics, experience, and just overall resources then in 1941 and attacking the Soviet Union when it's forces are better deployed in far better fortifications and doing so in a far more predictable manner (one axis of attack instead of three) will somehow be more successful.

The logic does not follow.

As for point two? Panzers cannot hold ground, nor can they outrun their infantry.

Except they did. Repeatedly. It was a major problem and caused constant delays. Had the Soviets not been in such a state of confusion they probably would have been better able to exploit it. They certainly did later on

 

[MattII]

I am aware of the '39 tests with FRENCH supplied guns. The proof is that the cannon did not see widespread RAF introduction until '42. Please explain how manufacturing lines were set up the feed jam issues were magically solved and the conversion from drum to belt feed as well as the Spitfire universal wing happen miraculously in 9 months?

Because if you're not in a fight for your very existence, you can throw a lot more resources into development.

It did not happen and it will not happen I think. Just to convert the Spitfire production over to a universal weapon mount wing adaptation took almost a year, and that was only after the Hispano was sorted out, sort of. So 1942 is the earliest large scale in service.

That's OTL, with aircraft needed on at least 2 fronts. Give it another 9 months, and you're going to see the problems sorted before production is needed.

I'll take the BoB as a point in favor of my observation about the cannon. If it HAD been ready, you would have seen it far more in the BoB than the Browning 303s, so desperate was the need for bomber killing.

Nice subject switch, I was talking about the cavity magnetron there.

Were those the models with the AEC petrol engine? Because that engine did not work too well as I remember. And again the tank was not really ready until early 41, BoF, BoB were not going to change this outcome at all.

Except they will, because if you don't have any tanks, you produce anything you can, whereas if you have plenty of tanks you can move onto producing the next model without too much worry.

Again I think and suggest that it takes time to do these things right. It's like saying the Americans could magically field an all Sherman 76 force by D-day or that they could have sent Pershings to France by August '44.

Except its not, because these things were just coming ready when France fell, and that really did set things back.

Same with the BoB and the Hispano. The Brownings were there, they apparently got the job done at the time, and it was certainly not the time to gamble on something still plagued with bugs. The air ministry said later on the cannon, when we get a breather. I believe they were right to do so.

And with nine more months the bugs will be mostly worked out.

Now please stop being a little German fanboy, and give the allies their due, because they had thought of these things, and would have got them in earlier than OTL without the complete screw-up that was the fall of France.

 

[Keffler]

Oh, for the love of pete...
Please state what I was actually saying. I was NOT saying that, absent any kind of combat whatsoever, a German soldier couldn't walk from Berlin to Moscow.

Are you aware of why they have lorried infantry in the first place?

He did. Paul Haupenthal. Not Moscow, but Stalingrad. How do I know this? I KNOW him. Uncle.

Lorried infantry in COMBAT (Properly mechanized infantry) was a WW II concept limited to those motorized divisions that either were armored divisions or were attached infantry formations to armored divisions who were part of an armored corps. Properly speaking, you don't even see that concept in the West until the Canadians invent it.

Jumping onto a spare truck and riding up to the fight is NOT being lorried in combat.

 

[Keffler]

Actually, they overran the portions of the line which were either dismantled (something you leave out of your account) or unmanned. The portions of the line which were manned held up the Germans considerably and inflicted substantial losses.

Your basic assertion is that the far weaker German army of 1939, with less troops, vehicles, logistics, experience, and just overall resources then in 1941 and attacking the Soviet Union when it's forces are better deployed in far better fortifications and doing so in a far more predictable manner (one axis of attack instead of three) will somehow be more successful.

The logic does not follow.

Except that your premise is faulty.

Consider...

Russians were not in better shape in 1939. No-T-34, no competitive fighters, no partial Zhukov reforms in effect, Politicals everywhere. Stalin Line was not ready, (in some places they just had stakes for where emplacements were to go.)

And Stalin? You really have no idea how screwed up the Red Army was. Nobody (and I include myself in this.) in the West to this day, understands how fouled up Stalinist Russia was.

Except they did. Repeatedly. It was a major problem and caused constant delays. Had the Soviets not been in such a state of confusion they probably would have been better able to exploit it. They certainly did later on

Is that so? Remember Kursk? This is Russia at work when they supposedly on the ball.

In a nutshell a single German division destroyed the equivalent of a Soviet tank army. The Russians lost their local operational reserve; the REAR formation you use when you exploit a successful mobile defense; 650 tanks, most KVs or T-34s, when the Russians had air, terrain, artillery, and numerical superiority in the 3-1 or better range and were on DEFENSE.

The Germans attacked.

 

[Keffler]

Because if you're not in a fight for your very existence, you can throw a lot more resources into development.

That's OTL, with aircraft needed on at least 2 fronts. Give it another 9 months, and you're going to see the problems sorted before production is needed.

Nice subject switch, I was talking about the cavity magnetron there.

I addressed that too. There the holdup is not metal and factory floor space but applied physics. Even today RADAR is not well understood. It takes years to work all the bugs out, and then you will find that light (that's what radio is) does funny things depending at what frequency you shine it. The cavity magnetron simply allowed you to see in the X-bands. How it will be exploited successfully takes the RAF until 1944. So even if you can invent it before the man actually thinks of the idea. it won't be ready.

Except they will, because if you don't have any tanks, you produce anything you can, whereas if you have plenty of tanks you can move onto producing the next model without too much worry.

Is that so?

Quote:

"The war office was concerned by the size of the turret, which only allowed two men to operate in it, as they would have preferred a three-man turret to allow the commander to be fully discharged from other tasks. But by 1939, the war was looming at the backstage of European affairs, and the design was finally approved in a stroke by april, in exchange to fast delivery scheduling. Vickers prepared itself in the meantime for an order which came out at the end of 1939 with absolute priority, asking for the first deliveries in may 1940. However, by this month, the first -and only- prototype was on trials. Meanwhile, the evacuation of Dunkirk left Great Britain devoided of any heavy equipments. Mass Production started without a pilot or pre-production serie, under the denomination of Tank, Infantry, Mark III. Design :

The general layout was straithforward, with a clear compartimentation in three sections, the driver, fighting and engine compartments. The transmission was short, directly connected to the drive sprockets at the rear, keeping the hull as low as possible. The driver was located at the front center, with all the steering levers and clutch which actioned control rods running through the entire lenght of the hull to the rear gearbox. The driver had good peripherical vision through a direct vision port and two periscopes. Access was possible through two hatches (one per side), and a small escape hatch behind his seat. The early two-man turret had a cylindrical shape, made of rolled plates, with a squared bulkhead protecting the mantlet at the front and a short rear basket. The gun was positioned just between the gunner (left) and the commander (right), which also loaded it. When the new turret was introduced with the Mark III, the commander was relocated further back. The manufacturers included the original Vickers-Armstrng factory, Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Co, Metropolitan-Cammell (in three plants), and Canadian Pacific Railway (Angus Shops, Montréal) for Canada."

Except its not, because these things were just coming ready when France fell, and that really did set things back.

And with nine more months the bugs will be mostly worked out.

But the bugs weren't worked out.

Now please stop being a little German fanboy, and give the allies their due, because they had thought of these things, and would have got them in earlier than OTL without the complete screw-up that was the fall of France.

I'm quoting history at you, and you accuse me of being a German fan-boy?

If you don't like the history, then posit a possible plausible change.

I'm not happy that the Americans took an early 1930s lead in radar, threw it away, or that they had their torpedo crisis or that they ran a whole series of naval exercises in the '30s about carrier warfare and still could not match Japanese performance until 1944, or that they chased off Christie (tanks, not the man who screwed up their torpedoes.), or that they worshipped Browning so much that they refused to consider the Holek brothers or Ruger or Johnson, that they muffed the army carbine (Williams) they ginned up and missed out on a genuine assault rifle, that their industrial miracles myths hide the Liberty ship program disasters, the P-38 program disaster, the B-29 program disaster-the mismanaged hyper-engine program or that a country that was the world leader in turbo-superchargers, as soon as its engineers saw a Whittle engine could not build a better one until 1955 when Pratt and Whitney finally figured out the two stage axial flow turbofan, a full 15 years after Lockheed made its first stab at one?

All of which happened and all which cannot be changed at the time, or hand-waved into different results by wishing it were so, when I know the reasons why it could not be so.

I presume that when I tell you that the Germans are not going to field SAMS or that the Japanese balloons could be shown at the time (statistics) to never be practical, or that the Russian manpower cohorts for callup were exhausted in February of 1945, and their war effort was on fumes, these are things that can be handwaved away too? .

 

[Saphroneth]

I'm quoting history at you, and you accuse me of being a German fan-boy?

When you say that the German infantry could march to Moscow in a month and a half, then yes you're being a German fan boy. Specifically, you're using a road march speed in light kit and extrapolating it to all-terrain in full battle gear.
Guess what? Lorried infantry doesn't just mean the infantry are carried by lorry. It means all their supplies and heavy equipment are motorized, so they don't have to drag a fucking anti tank gun by themselves.

 

[Keffler]

When you say that the German infantry could march to Moscow in a month and a half, then yes you're being a German fan boy. Specifically, you're using a road march speed in light kit and extrapolating it to all-terrain in full battle gear.
Guess what? Lorried infantry doesn't just mean the infantry are carried by lorry. It means all their supplies and heavy equipment are motorized, so they don't have to drag a fucking anti tank gun by themselves.

Not what I said. I said that they marched about 15 to 40 kilometers a day in FULL kit.

When I tell you that they can march to Moscow in 6 weeks I'll let you know. (More like 6 months.)

It all comes down to weather anyway; because the Russian army sure was not getting it done. Not at all. Not in 1941. Not even at Moscow.

And it was the weather that stopped the machines. The men? Still moving.

 

[Saphroneth]

He walks for the next week and covers 140-280 kilometers. Six weeks in? 840-1680 kilometers. How far is Moscow? Figure 1800 kilometers from Berlin.

Ta-da. If you meant something else, you did a piss-poor job of saying it.

 

[Keffler]

Ta-da. If you meant something else, you did a piss-poor job of saying it.

Do you understand the difference between gedankenexperiment to prove a point and the real point? Fighting and then processing millions of
Russian prisoners (8 million by war's end!) will interrupt a steady march.

Let me know and I will explicate. Also do not try to make this about the man. I expect you to be able to understand the concept without invoking spurious 'literalism.'

As to the last, you still have not explained why WW II infantry spent most of their time marching instead of riding or proved that they did not.

That is your assertion. Logic demands proof. I gave you the math why it is/was not so, and you have yet to come up with a single valid reason to support your thesis.

So I cheerfully await your attempt.

 

[Saphroneth]

Do you understand the difference between gedankenexperiment to prove a point and the real point? Fighting and then processing millions of
Russian prisoners (8 million by war's end!) will interrupt a steady march.

Let me know and I will explicate. Also do not try to make this about the man. I expect you to be able to understand the concept without invoking spurious 'literalism.'

As to the last, you still have not explained why WW II infantry spent most of their time marching instead of riding or proved that they did not.

That is your assertion. Logic demands proof. I gave you the math why it is/was not so, and you have yet to come up with a single valid reason to support your thesis.

So I cheerfully await your attempt.

Let's go back to my original claim, shall we?

I'm not saying that the Germans didn't walk for the most part. I'm saying that the strategic mobility of their most important units - their Panzer divisions, and the Panzer armies formed around them - depended on motorization. And that, without that mobility, specifically of their most important units, the Germans would not have been able to execute sickle-cut, and they would not have been able to mount the huge encirclements of 1941.

And - yes, marching is fine, you can walk at that kind of speed. What about the artillery, the ammunition? The logistics?
If the Russians need trucks, so too the Germans - and more so, because they don't have a rail network in the battle area to start with.

As I recall, the panzer spearheads were the motorized bits - they used lots and lots of captured British and French tanks, hence why they had motorized divisions. The advance rates of the Panzer divisions are not possible on a horse drawn infantry division.
You seem to be just assuming that the Germans are supermen.

So no, at no point do I say that the divisions didn't mostly walk. I say that their logistics were motorized, that the advance rates were not possible on a horse drawn division, that their strategic mobility depended on motorization.
Because if you want to carry an artillery piece and a three-day ammunition load out and provisions for a platoon, you have four choices. Horse and cart, train, motor vehicle, or carry it by foot.

The first one is what most of the Wehrmacht did.
The second they can't do on the attack because the Russian gauge is different.
The third one is what the Panzer spearheads did.
The fourth one leads to an advance rate of fuck-all.



Are we clear now? Can you stop straw-manning me?

 

[Keffler]

Let's go back to my original claim, shall we?

[Omitted for space.]

So no, at no point do I say that the divisions didn't mostly walk. I say that their logistics were motorized, that the advance rates were not possible on a horse drawn division, that their strategic mobility depended on motorization.
Because if you want to carry an artillery piece and a three-day ammunition load out and provisions for a platoon, you have four choices. Horse and cart, train, motor vehicle, or carry it by foot.

The first one is what most of the Wehrmacht did.
The second they can't do on the attack because the Russian gauge is different.
The third one is what the Panzer spearheads did.
The fourth one leads to an advance rate of fuck-all.

Are we clear now? Can you stop straw-manning me?

To be clear, you need to read what I know.

And to be abundantly clear I remind you that I told you that the Russians had no railroad network either. The Germans destroyed it or overran it.

And you might be surprised... by what else I know.

Since annexing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Soviet Union embarked on a program to convert all of the existing standard gauge lines of the Baltic States over to wide gauge. While a few key lines were converted (mostly in Lithuania and Latvia), the Soviets were slow to covert all of them over. By the time of the German invasion in 1941, much gauge conversion work still had to be done by the Soviet Union. This was a fortunate factor for the Germans in the north as they thus had fewer rail lines to convert in the Baltics.

Germany did not posses enough qualified personnel to manage the Soviet rail system effectively. She would have to supplement her forces with local nationals.

All of these points above were the primary factors which the Germans had to tackle if they wished for success in their invasion bid.

For the attack on the Soviet Union, three Feldeisenbahndirektionen (FBD) (Military Railway Administrations) were established during the spring of 1941. These three FBD's would serve as the main supply life-lines of the German invasion forces. The newly created entities were FBD 1, FBD, 2 and FBD 3. Each contained a full compliment of administrative personnel, repair facilities and construction works.

FBD 1 was quickly withdrawn and used for the Balkan campaign before Barbarossa began. FBD 4 was hastily erected in June of 1941 in Danzig as a replacement for FBD 1. FBD 2 was created during the month of April, 1941, in Dresden. Within a month, the staff was relocated to Warsaw. FBD 3 was initially headquartered in Warsaw, then relocated to Cracow. During the spring of 1942, the FBD were redesignated as "Feldeisenbahnkommando" (FEKdo) (Field Railway Command). This designation was retained until the end of the war. Later; four Haupteisenbahndirektion(en) were established in Dniepropetrovsk, Kiev, Minsk and Riga.

As is well known, Heeresgruppe Nord (HGrN) was assigned to fight on the northern wing of the invasion front. Heeresgruppe Mitte (HGrM) formed the middle wing and Heeresgruppe Sued (HGrS) was in the south. All three were ordered to penetrate as far as they could and seize key Soviet railheads and bridges intact. Regretfully for the Germans, with a number of exceptions, the Soviets were able to destroy nearly every bridge the Germans needed as the Soviet forces retreated eastwards.

In the north, if Leningrad were to be seized, then all of the rail lines feeding into that city had first to be cut. (The Germans did not even think of the possibility that the Soviets could build a rail line over the ice in the winter to feed supplies into the besieged city - they thought that if the rail lines were cut, then the city would have to starve itself into submission.) However, before the Germans could begin their siege of the Leningrad metropolis, they had to get there as quickly as possible. For HGrN, the Germans were able to supplement the rail transportation network with sea-borne transportation and to a lesser degree, vehicular transportation modes as a result of the excellent maritime and road networks in existence in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Thus, fewer rail units would be needed in the north in the earlier days, the "surplus" could then be redirected towards the other two invasion groups.

The winter of 1941/1942 placed the German military transportation system into a most difficult predicament. By 01 January 1942, the German rail system was nearly paralyzed - nearly! Fortunately, as for example with HGrN, the Germans were able to finish most of their gauge conversion efforts to such a degree that it was still possible to send supplies from Germany all the way to the Leningrad front on one track system. During these harsh winter months, the German conversion and supply shipment efforts could not have been as successful as they were had it not been for the willing assistance of former Estonian and Latvian railway personnel. They provided the Germans with invaluable service and technical expertise; doing so primarily because they were just liberated from the holocaust of the first Soviet occupation and did not wish to see the Soviets return any time soon. Interestingly, the Soviet Air Force, the VVS, was strangely inactive in the Leningrad region during these critical months (though they did attack Estonia once). Had they been more aggressive, they could have played havoc with the German rail network in German rear areas.

The following gives an indication as to how quickly German railway repair forces were able to make a destroyed line operable again:

11 July 1941 - 4th Pz Group reaches Porkhov;
18 July 1941 - 1st DRG train arrives same
23 August 1941 - 4th Pz Group reaches Luga;
23 August 1941 - as above
08 August 1941 - 16th Armee reaches Staraya Russa;
29 September 1941 - as above

1942: The winter of 1941/1942 was one of the coldest on record in European Russia. From a military perspective, the severe weather conditions essentially neutralized all of Germany's transportation system advantages all along the eastern front. Although the German rail network also suffered severely due to the extreme winter temperatures, it was also the one supply system which was able to continue operating day and night (albeit with great difficulty). As of 12 December 1941, the German military authorities banned home leave for all troops in Russia. Every soldier was needed on the eastern front so as to avoid a defeat of epic proportions.

The severe winter of 1941/1942 also placed into question many of Germany's military and technological advantages over their Soviet foe. As with many other German technologies, German locomotives contained greater quantities of precision made parts than their Soviet counterparts. Due to the cold, these delicate parts often froze up or became inoperable during the winter of 1941/1942. Even German "winterized" locomotives broke down in the east - a winter in Russia is not the same as a winter in Germany.

One consequence of this was that in the east, only 20% of all of Germany's "winterized" locomotives were operationally available in late 1941. In total, between 70-80% of all German locomotives deployed on the eastern front became inoperable. Conversely, Soviet (and ex-Imperial Russian) locomotives seemed to be in their natural element during the winter months. The situation improved quite a bit when the Germans borrowed a page from Soviet construction techniques - they removed all of the precision parts and basically ran stripped down locomotives until the severe weather receded.

For example, in February of 1942, only eight military supply trains per day ran from Brest to Minsk to Smolensk. Between January and February of 1942, only 19 military supply trains per day could be dispatched from Germany/Poland to serve the needs of the entire German Army on the eastern front. During January of 1942, HGrN needed 30 trainloads of supply a day just to maintain minimum capabilities. Due to the cold, barely 10 trains a day could be dispatched. The rail system nearly broke down fully - nearly!

The spring thaw of 1942 was often just as bad as the winter had been. Severe floods frequently damaged or took out key bridges. While German rear-area and German construction troops were able to repair the weather caused damage relatively quickly, in the long run, this too slowed the German supply network to a dismal crawl during these spring months.

Despite the many setbacks attributed to the harsh winter, administratively and physically, the DR and the WH continued to expand and establish suitable standard gauge secondary trunk lines leading up to the front lines. By 01 February 1942, the following standard gauge rail supply and transportation network existed going towards the front lines:

Haupteisenbahndirektion (HBD) (HGr Nord) in Riga, Latvia - 17 secondary lines
Feldeisenbahndirektion (FBD) Nr. 4 in Pskov, Russia - 14 secondary lines
Haupteisenbahndirektion (HBD) (HGr. Mitte) in Minsk, Byelorussia - 23 secondary lines
Feldeisenbahndirektion (FBD) Nr. 2 in Smolensk, Russia - 10 secondary lines
Haupteisenbahndirektion (HBD) (HGr. Sued) in Kiev, the Ukraine - 21 secondary lines
Haupteisenbahndirektion (HBD) (HGr. Ost) in Poltava, the Ukraine - 12 secondary lines
Feldeisenbahndirektion (FBD) Nr. 3 in Poltava, the Ukraine - 8 secondary lines (cont.to read at link.)

 

[Saphroneth]

Okay then. What did the German units in the panzer armies use to carry their supplies around from their rail heads?

(Say - 1. Panzerarmee, which was formed of III, XIV and XLVIII Army Corps, which were between them formed of five panzer and four motorized divisions.)

 

[MattII]

I addressed that too. There the holdup is not metal and factory floor space but applied physics. Even today RADAR is not well understood. It takes years to work all the bugs out, and then you will find that light (that's what radio is) does funny things depending at what frequency you shine it. The cavity magnetron simply allowed you to see in the X-bands. How it will be exploited successfully takes the RAF until 1944. So even if you can invent it before the man actually thinks of the idea. it won't be ready.

Actually, they were about to test a prototype CM equipped radar in May 1940.

Is that so?

Quote:

"The war office was concerned by the size of the turret, which only allowed two men to operate in it, as they would have preferred a three-man turret to allow the commander to be fully discharged from other tasks. But by 1939, the war was looming at the backstage of European affairs, and the design was finally approved in a stroke by april, in exchange to fast delivery scheduling. Vickers prepared itself in the meantime for an order which came out at the end of 1939 with absolute priority, asking for the first deliveries in may 1940. However, by this month, the first -and only- prototype was on trials. Meanwhile, the evacuation of Dunkirk left Great Britain devoided of any heavy equipments. Mass Production started without a pilot or pre-production serie, under the denomination of Tank, Infantry, Mark III.

I see the words, 'by this month, the first -and only- prototype was on trials'. That's the thing see, with an extra nine months, they get three months to tweak the design, and six months to produce it before any crisis hits.

But the bugs weren't worked out.

Yes, because there was a desperate need for fighters in the 'right-here-right-now' sense, which kind of limited the ability to test it dues to lack of both reserve aircraft and pilots.

I'm quoting history at you, and you accuse me of being a German fan-boy?

Yes, you're quoting history, which is now irrelevant as events in this TL do not happen as in OTL.

If you don't like the history, then posit a possible plausible change.

If you want to examine history, then examine it from a neutral point of view, not a German-fanboy one. The fact is, at least two systems were being tested or were due to be in May 1940, and so with a delayed war, they would have been tested, analysed, improved, and then put into production.

I presume that when I tell you that the Germans are not going to field SAMS or that the Japanese balloons could be shown at the time (statistics) to never be practical, or that the Russian manpower cohorts for callup were exhausted in February of 1945, and their war effort was on fumes, these are things that can be handwaved away too? .

Okay, you posit three issue. On the first (SAMs), yes it's doubtful they could have made them work, but not impossible. On the second (balloons), yes, those will never work, the weather just doesn't work the right way. On the third (manpower), that's an extremely debatable point, OTL they were running out due to the incredible losses on 1941/2, but if the invasion happens only in 1942, then its quite possible that the Soviets have a new, better officer corps, and they'll definitely have a lot of T-34Ms, plus who knows what sort of aircraft, all of which will add up to a harder fight, and thus quite possibly, fewer casualties and less fallback, all of which will mean a better, less bloody advance later.

 

[pdf27]

And when we speak of trucks, it is even more ridiculous for while the horse crops down ten pounds of fodder every eight hours and turned up lame after a week's march that truck just guzzled 100 kilograms of diesel and threw a rod becoming an instant 2399 kg paperweight after only twenty hours on the so-called Russian road. What about the private in the truck? He walks for the next week and covers 140-280 kilometers. Six weeks in? 840-1680 kilometers. How far is Moscow? Figure 1800 kilometers from Berlin.

The infantry can get there. It's the machines and the horses who fail.

The Infantry can get there if somebody else does the logistics for them.

Marching along with your rifle, webbing, ammunition, bergen, etc. is pretty easy - I've done it more than once, and covering the ground in the absence of opposition isn't too hard. The problem comes with resupply, particularly for the support weapons (themselves far heavier than a mere rifle). 400 rounds of link or a couple of mortar bombs is the most you can expect an infantryman to carry any distance in addition to their own load and still be able to fight (or indeed be anything but porters).

Similarly, it's a physical impossibility to carry enough food for 1000 km in a backpack (the arctic and antarctic explorers who do those distances use sledges), so as you put it they "foraged" for it. You perhaps ought to be a little clearer what you mean here - the Wehrmacht stole the food from the local inhabitants, leaving them without enough to survive through to the next harvest. That's a war crime, and one carried out as deliberate policy and planned from the earliest stages of Barbarossa simply because the Germans could not deliver enough food to the advancing troops. Millions of Soviet civilians starved to death as a result.

So yes, the German Army did march on foot to the gates of Moscow. They did so with a lot of logistical support to keep the supplies of ammunition and spare parts flowing, and by committing war crimes on a vast scale to ease the burden on their logistics. You'll have to excuse me if I find their achievement less impressive in that light.

They're also hardly alone in doing things like this - the most recent example is probably the Paras and Marines in the Falklands. They certainly walked into battle themselves, by and large, but their supplies and support weapons travelled by helicopter (and but for Atlantic Conveyor, they would have too). Without dedicating a large part of your force (after any distance, most of it) as porters then any advance on foot needs either external resupply or will simply grind to a halt after a hundred miles or so, less if heavily opposed.

 

[CalBear]

Neither did the Russians. And seriously, do you know how far 60,000 trucks go as logistics lift? Can we do a little math?

A German 1941 division marches and fights on about 300 tonnes a day. That is mostly ammunition and fuel, because the 1941 Germans tended to forage like Russians, only more efficiently.

So you would assume a lift per truck of about 2 tonnes per day? But supply is a conveyor process to and fro. In most armies you have one unloading one coming and one returning, so to get that 2 tonnes you need 3 trucks.
Round up and functionally call it 0.7 tonnes per truck as carriage efficiency. Now how many German division equivalents did the Wehrmacht throw east? 300 or so. That q's out to about 90,000 tonnes. Figure about 128,600 trucks in the rotation. And that is without any troop carrying capacity at all. So even if the Germans used 60,000 British and French lorries, you must come to the inescapable conclusion, that the infantry marched. And that is what they did. Because the trucks not only had to carry ammunition and fuel for the troops, but all the fodder for the half million or so horses the Germans used in Barbarossa and the Luftwaffe supplies and some of the extracurricular political activities the Germans engaged in Russia such as the mass transfer of enemy populations.

And let us not count the Italians, Rumanians, Hungarians and other allies that relied on German logistics trains too.

The German foot soldier, like his British and American counterpart, was the last on the list of things to be lorried about. He could walk.

" extracurricular political activities the Germans engaged in Russia such as the mass transfer of enemy populations"

Are you kidding me?

MASS MURDER =/= political activities

Folks who attempt to whitewash genocide are revolting

Y'all chose the wrong site for this kind of crap.

We divorce you.

To Coventry with you.

 

[MattII]

I'd like to say that was a nice end to three pages of drivel, but to hear the fool whitewashing genocide... Still, maybe be can now get on with some actual debating, rather than having to argue against every single word of his Germanophile rubbish.