Effect of 250 extra JU52s on Barbarossa

POD:
Lets say Italy does not invade Greece
OR
Germans concentrate on taking one airfield
OR
British evacuate before Germans attack (Rommel has taken Tobruk or something).

But regardless Crete does not happen as in OTL and 250 JU 52s are thus preserved for Barbarossa.

Often the Germans were restricted and divisions left idle simply by an inability to truck supply (fuel mainly) from the railheads forward to where the advancing panzer divisions were. In this TL the extra Ju52s are used for supply.

The math of how much extra supply could be brought forward.

250 planes x4000 lbs of cargo capacity = 1000000 pounds / (2000 lbs per ton) = 500 extra tons a day of supply (mostly fuel, some ammo).

Typical armored German division use is 300 tons daily average, 700 tons heavy fighting, 30 tons inactive.

There isn't heavy fighting every day and even a division inactive due to lack of fuel was eating OTL. So I am assuming two panzer divisions extra could be kept fighting and advancing daily in the forward spearheads over the course of the campaign.

The effect of this during the exploitation phase of Typhoon for example, where the Germans were reduced to using small panzer battle groups and keeping whole panzer divisions idle seems large.

Opinions?
 
Yeah, you are keeping a division in action. Anything over that goes to corps overhead or keeping the forward airfields operating.

A few other things to ponder.

Operating attrition reduces the available a few percent weekly, after three months the actual delivered daily is ten percent or more lower.

Weather starts deteriorating in September. The overcast and rain of the autum weather will more than halve delivery.

Delivering aggressively forward runs up combat casualties.
 
undoubtedly it would be of great benefit. have also seen analysis that a long range transport would have helped more since it could have reached from say, Berlin to Stalingrad?

maybe some combination of more surviving JU-52s and some long range transport (JU-252 or SM.82?) would be best?
 

Deleted member 1487

The math of how much extra supply could be brought forward.

250 planes x4000 lbs of cargo capacity = 1000000 pounds / (2000 lbs per ton) = 500 extra tons a day of supply (mostly fuel, some ammo).

Typical armored German division use is 300 tons daily average, 700 tons heavy fighting, 30 tons inactive.

There isn't heavy fighting every day and even a division inactive due to lack of fuel was eating OTL. So I am assuming two panzer divisions extra could be kept fighting and advancing daily in the forward spearheads over the course of the campaign.

The effect of this during the exploitation phase of Typhoon for example, where the Germans were reduced to using small panzer battle groups and keeping whole panzer divisions idle seems large.

Opinions?
Those numbers are only for full strength, all vehicles operational and fighting, divisions. I don't know where they got those numbers, but given that when the Ju52s would actually be necessary supply use would be quite a bit lower due to equipment losses, maintenance issues, and casualties. So that means that the usefulness of those extra Ju52s is then even more important as time goes on, because they can supply a greater number of weaker units. Not only that, if those units are getting some ground supply and the Ju52s are a supplement they'd be able to bring forward quite a bit for a lot of units that really need it. The only issue is that air delivered supplies need special packaging, which, depending on how deep the Ju52s' forward operating bases are, means they need to be flown in specially from Germany to then be flown to forward units since train supply to air bases in Russia competed with army supply lines.
 
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