Fully Mechanized Nazi Army

burmafrd

Banned
Every time someone talks about what Germany COULD have done to win, I would always ask them: just about every other possibility requires germany to have more OIL then they did- where would they get it from?
Especially the heavy grade stuff that is virtually impossible to synthesize.
 
Even if oil would have been avaialable in sufficient quantity, which is doubtful, largescale motorisation on the eastern front probably would be of limited value - there simply wouldn't be roads for all those motorvehicles.

I would rather recommend investment/trianing in quickly laying and/or retracking railroad. I imagine something like teams of railroad workers advancing along/on the conquered railroadline, and then each are assigned a section to retrack. If a team of 50 men can retrack say 1km each day then ten teams simultaneoulsy working on each their section of the line would be able to complete 10km line each day, which means that Moscow can be reached before winter, if the army advance that far. An alternative would be to build locomotives and cars with wide track suspension in large numbers - but it would be difficult to keep secret and even more difficult to explain!

Besides retracking of existing main lines there should be an elaborate capacity to lay light field railroad from main railroad heads. If Infantry Divisional supplypoints could be reached before Moscow in late 1941, then the frontline could easily be supplied by horsecarts. That would make a huge difference in the battle of Moscow and probably the war.
From a certain point in late 1941 the German armed forces did convert all the railway lines they captured from the wider Russian gauge to the standard gauge in OTL. At the beginning of Barbarossa, however, there were orders to convert only one track of dual-track lines. This made it necessary to build passing-loops for both gauges, an effort that would not have been neccessary if all tracks had been converted from the start. A few month later, there was an order to convert all tracks, but only to certain line, East of this line the Russian gauge was to be retained. This also caused a lot of unneccessary effort, because now ramps had to be built, where the freight could be re-loaded from a standard gauge to a Russian gauge train. Finally, as mentioned above, there was the order to convert all captured lines to the standard gauge. It probably would have made the transport situation a little less difficult if this order had been given right from the start.
 
Redbeard, I don't expect Germany to match the USA, nor do I expect them to get rid of horses, or replace railways. What I do expect is, since their industrial base was 40% larger than Britian's in 1938 and 70-80% in 1941 that Germany produce about 60% more trucks than Britain, that would be about 770,000 trucks during the war, or about double of OTL. OR!!! Since Britian's army was about 55% of it's armed forces strength, and Germany's was about 80% Germany should have put a greater proportion of it's larger industrial base into land forces equipment, so this should push truck production up further, (in lieu of a German need for Corvettes, landing craft, escort carriers etc) perhaps to One Million trucks throughout the war, or triple OTL. In such a scenario deisel is mandatory to stretch oil consumption as far as possible.

With double or triple the trucks available to Germany (in theory, it would never happen, but for argument's sake since it brings Germany into line with the UK and US industrial performance) a number of options become open to Germany. More Mot. inf. divs can be formed, to push infrantry up with the panzers, more support can be given to the Pz. divs and an array of other transport shortfalls within the 1941-2 Wehrmacht could be addressed. But mainly Barbarossa could be launched earlier, the mobile spearheads could be made much stronger even if they don't go any deeper, and the handful of km to Moscow could be achieved before winter.

The answer to Germany's problems do not lie with more horses, it lies with more trucks. If they had more horses we'd be talking about the shortfall in fodder supply, and how horse feed took up so much rail capacity even through the rains had stalled all movement, etc.
 
snip Granted i you had a larger industrialpool you could get rid of the horses, but then again horses are not that bad, they doesnt need fuel except oats, they can withstand the weather pretty good, they can multiply themself easlily and they can handle the mud.

A reasonably efficient factory can build 25 to 50 trucks a day (I'm talking European factory not GM or Studebaker) it takes at least 18 months to build a draft horse. If you put it in service sooner than this it will break down and die. Horses hauling heavy freight wagons and artillery do not handle mud well, and beyond a certain radius they eat more tons than they transport. Read Shelby Foote's history of the western campaigns of the US civil war to get a really accurate idea of the problems of supply by horse transport.

I agree that Germany's real solution would be more emphasis on converting and extending the rail net.
 
The Germans would not have the resources to motorize 300 divisions

Right...

I mean the British had about 25 divisions and the Americans 30 divisions
early in the war and the were the only fully motorized forces on the planet.

...wrong. They were motorized in the sense that they had no horses, i.e. their artillery and supplies were moved by integral divisional motor vehicles. But the _infantry_ divisions of those two armies still had infantrymen marching, unless they benefited from non-divisional transportation means (rail cars or corps/army trucks).
 
You cannot do that comparision, the only powers that were fully motorized were England and the US, England had 25 divisions and US had 50 divisions, Germany had about 300, there is no way that one could motorize that amount, and besides the Opeltrucks were worthless compared to the American ones. One other thing horses are not that worthless, they reproduce, they live on oats, they can handle a certain amount of cold, and they have less problems with mud, Believe me I know, my uncle is a farmer which owns a lot of forrest and there is no one suited better for the forrest than the horse.
 
Every time someone talks about what Germany COULD have done to win, I would always ask them: just about every other possibility requires germany to have more OIL then they did- where would they get it from?
Especially the heavy grade stuff that is virtually impossible to synthesize.

There is one possibility not touched on here in terms of where the oil could come from.

Hitler could have chosen a different invasion strategy for barbarossa. Instead of going straight east he could've chosen an invasion route that took the Germans through the Caucuses.

This route had its logistical problems but would have offered a chance to capture all the oil in the area (Persia, and the Soviet oil-producing regions in the same area)

It would've had the dual benefit of supplying the Germans with more oil while at the same time denying it to the Soviets.

I'm oversimplifying this a LOT so before anyone denounces this as idiotic....it was John Keegan who came up with this idea, read his short essay on the subject before coming to any conclusions.

However, regardless of how much oil they had I agree with the comments above - the basic problem was Hitler, his ambitions would have always outran whatever resources his military had.
 
Fantastic, I have answered the same question twice, I am sorry for that, I must have been drunk the first time around, and I mean that literally.
 
Horses were still better in some terrains than cars, I doubt that the infrastructure of rural Germany would allow for vehicles to come in high density.

The best scenario I can see is Volkswagen signing a deal with the German government allowing the production of some of it's vehicles for military purposes. This will greatly stimulate the economy, there would not be as great of an economic issue.

However the need for oil might force Germany to ally with Russia, but since they were communist I doubt that would happen. I wounder if oil was discovered in the middle east yet.

The other option is Texas oil, shipping would be a lot tougher but this would strengthen Germany's ties to America. This would have to happen before Pearl Harbour or else Germany would have to sever ties with Japan. Otherwise satisfactory oil would be implausible.
 
The best scenario I can see is Volkswagen signing a deal with the German government allowing the production of some of it's vehicles for military purposes. This will greatly stimulate the economy, there would not be as great of an economic issue.

And this would differ from OTL exactly how? You know who built the German equivalent of the jeep, i.e. the Kübelwagen.
 
There is one possibility not touched on here in terms of where the oil could come from.

Hitler could have chosen a different invasion strategy for barbarossa. Instead of going straight east he could've chosen an invasion route that took the Germans through the Caucuses. ...
The problem is that the Germans will have to secure a left flank so large, even the entire Wehrmacht can't adequately defend it. The Soviets can mass an attack force, and cut off the German attack where ever they want. This encirclement would make Stalingrad look like a small setback.
 
Gathering winter fuel?

His problems would have been greater after the invasion of Soviet Russia. As others have mentioned there was the problem of obtaining enought fuel particularly after American oil supplied via the Trans-Siberian railway was cut off. The mechanised unit would have had problems with the Russian winter and would have become bogged down in the thaw. Even with no invasion of Russia, the Royal Navy was making inroads into Germany's supply lines in the Mediterranean
 
Horses require vets and blacksmiths and you have to not only feed them but rest them and generally take care of them..

It would be interesting to compare what was necessary to maintain one 4 horse team vs 1 deuce and a half truck.

Of course the deuce can go a lot faster and that is pretty critical.

But you are forgetting one thing you do with a horse you can not with a truck . You can eat it and the German Army did eat a lot of horse meat.
 
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