Germany develops mass production pre-1930's

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The German infantry relied heavy on horses right up to the end of the war. (was this due to lack of material or shortages in fuel?)
Compare this with the typical allied divison of 1944 with total mechanization.
The use of captured equipment was a reflection in the shortfall in production.
Lacking vehicles of their own, the Germans were forced to introduce captured units.
Many ID's had large amounts of ex-Russian artillery.
With each new wave (formation cycle) the German ID's used larger and larger amounts of capture equipment to complete their TOE.

Also, Germany had to supply arms to it's allies. They started the war in poor shape - not really capable of waging 'modern' warfare.

Had Germany been able to achieve some of the production levels they reached toward the end of the war, they would have been in substantially better shape.
 
Couple of brief observations from work.

Numbers of tanks is not as important as emphasis. Soviet and American produce ostensibly one tank each as their dominant chassie. From this as many variants were based on. So atleast 3/4 of there production was one type. This allowed hugh economy of scale benifits. In some cases manhours resources and cost was cut in half. This alllowed specialist AFVs to be funded without unduely impacting over all production numbers. It also eased spareparts production and supply, not an easy thing to dismiss.

No WW-II army needed more than three chassies [Light medium and heavy]...and in many ways the advance of technology through the war made last years medium tank , this years light tank and this years light tank, next years medium....OK I exagerate but you get the idea. Also many tanks development cost lots of money that could be better spent on more production. I suspect R&D investment was similar to production expeditures in amount.

Germans ended up with wagon drawn infantry divisions due to Hitlers meddleing in prewar transtional doctrine. THis was established to allow most rapid build up of defensive force through as much explotation of civilian industries. The plan was to duplicate WW-I [~ 75-100 divisions by wartime including mobilization and 40-50 reserve brigades for occupatiojn] and then to motorize/mechanize the entire force for transition to offensive forces.

Hitler hyjacked the process since he wanted as many occupation trroops as possible and he firmly believed the allies were no match for racially superior German troops no matter what they were armed with....also he was convinced they would not have to repeat WW-I and fight US/UK /Russia & france at the same time. He knew better:D

So instead of rearming the expanded the division base. In the budget, expenditure on personnel dominated over armaments purchase , which at most amounted to about 15% of budget. Bigger armies are not nessearily better force.
 

Redbeard

Banned
The German infantry relied heavy on horses right up to the end of the war. (was this due to lack of material or shortages in fuel?)
Compare this with the typical allied divison of 1944 with total mechanization.
The use of captured equipment was a reflection in the shortfall in production.
Lacking vehicles of their own, the Germans were forced to introduce captured units.
Many ID's had large amounts of ex-Russian artillery.
With each new wave (formation cycle) the German ID's used larger and larger amounts of capture equipment to complete their TOE.

Also, Germany had to supply arms to it's allies. They started the war in poor shape - not really capable of waging 'modern' warfare.

Had Germany been able to achieve some of the production levels they reached toward the end of the war, they would have been in substantially better shape.

Even if the Germans had been able to build the number of motor vehicles needed to keep 150+ Divisions running (US had 100 Divisions, the IDs not even fully motorised) I actually think it would have been a bad investment for an invasion of Russia. By early 1940s Russian infrastructure simply wasn't suited for large numbers of motorvehicles. A mainly horse drawn army supplemented by motor vehicles and not at least railway probably was the best balance. And even if the roads had been there I don't see where the Germans should get the fuel.

The best logistic investment for Barabrossa would have been in more railway troops and big scale breeding of the small tough Russian horses capable of thriving in the Russian climate and landscape.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Even if the Germans had been able to build the number of motor vehicles needed to keep 150+ Divisions running (US had 100 Divisions, the IDs not even fully motorised) I actually think it would have been a bad investment for an invasion of Russia. By early 1940s Russian infrastructure simply wasn't suited for large numbers of motorvehicles. A mainly horse drawn army supplemented by motor vehicles and not at least railway probably was the best balance. And even if the roads had been there I don't see where the Germans should get the fuel.

The best logistic investment for Barabrossa would have been in more railway troops and big scale breeding of the small tough Russian horses capable of thriving in the Russian climate and landscape.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

Definately agree about the railway troops , it is an investment that would have paid off handsome dividents from Smolensk on. However I would note that prewar strategy envisaged a stockpiling of fuel to about 1.5 million tons prior to any major campaign and this was never achieved , while even a modest diversion of fuel from civilian to military could have stockpiled an additional 1 million tons by mid 1941. As it was the stockpile was only at 0.5 million tons of gasoline in mid 1941. I read that consumption was estimated at 250,000 tons per month but when they got into the poor russian road network this was revamped to a need of 330,000 tons per month. Historically the Germans consumed 260,000 tons in July but fell off 200-180,000 tons per month after that. So if they had an additional million tons consumed over 6 months that would have boosted the monthly consumption by around 150,000 tons to the 330,000 tons.

This was based on the 140 divisions employing 550,000 vehicles ~ 3000 . I'm told the biggest draw back was the channeling of fuel to the front lines. As in the desert , without rail lines to ferry fuel using coal [something germany was self sufficent in] they could not hope to project enough force to take moscow. Such critisims is suspect since the same people told the allies in 1944 that a drive across France into Germany was impossible based on the logistical in the aftermath of the debacle at Normandy....and yet they did it any way. Far to much attention is paid to what some people think can or cannot be done from the POV of logistics.


BTW USA run 100 divisions at full strength , Germans rarely run their divisions at more than 2/3 to 3/4 strength and often fought at 1/2 strength.
 
The US Inf. Div's were not motoized at all they were able to move there troops by Truck by getting transportation units to move them.
 
Agree, and apparently continued to develop until the last minuttes of the war. Wonder if the scientists did that because they didn't have a clue about how the war was going, or becuase they didn't dare anything else, or did they really believe that the war still wasn't lost? Or perhaps they just didn't know what else to do?
It's actually a 2-way street. German scientists didn't know what the military needed, & the military didn't know how to tell them, nor did the militrary know, or ask, what science could do for them. Contrast Britain. IMO, it's also one reason German weaps were "Cadillac quality": the factory was treating them like civilian/peacetime goods, not wartime.
 

Markus

Banned
As I've pointed out , Hitler in 1936 gambled on a limited war economy that was only geared to produce enough armaments for the Wehrmacht conducting campaigns lasting months.

Exactly! In 39 Hitler was sure the UK and France would NOT delacre war. Hence no need to plan for a major war. In 1940 France- considred the No.1 land power- had fallen within weeks. Hence no need to plan for a long war against what was considred by the whole world a colossus on clay feet.


To this I would add the German Method of a few technicians building a tank, starting from the ground up in a bay, and assembling the parts, with quite some milling and persuading being done. This method is very slow, and makes each machine indiviual, rather than the interchangeable part mantra that the US followed.

Initially that was done on purpose. The german military decided against mass production by car manufacturers, because Germany had not made tanks for some time and they wanted a manufacturer that could change the design in case parts of it did not work as planned.
 
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