I never talked about extensive demobilization. Germany certainly isn't going to end their "loot and exploit" slave economy.
But we are talking about a scenario where the shooting stops for a year and a half. With a lot of fresh 18 year olds and with pool of Volksdeutsche eligible to be drafted into the Wehrmacht or SS, we would certainly see a certain ammount of demobilization of crucial skilled workers and scientists.
phased replacement of some mobilized skilled workers and scientists != demobilization
The Germans certainly wouldn't sit on their hands during a ceasefire. They would take measures to alleviate their (skilled) labour shortages. Straw maning me into saying that the Germans would "demobilize " isn't changing that.
Eh, given that their "skilled" labour supply still practiced in a industrial environment inferior to mass production compared to those of American and Soviet and had developed their skills as part of that environment... it isn't really much of a use, now is it? As I said before, the German problem wasn't the skill of their labour, it was both much more physical (resource shortages), structural (more old fashioned forms of factory production), and organizational (Nazis party institutional chaos).
You postulate that the Soviets would be able to produce 350k additional trucks if production would have continued unimpeded. There might have been some factors that would have slowed down production, so it seems feasible to assume that this number might have been undershot.
In a few other area's I can see there being some undershooting, sure. However, I don't see anything that would slow down truck production in 1941 compared to 1941 absent a German invasion.
Lets assume that the Soviets manage to produce around 300k additional trucks, given the problems in a planned economy run by a crazed paranoid sociopath this seems like a healthy pessimistic estimate.
Then add the 270K trucks* the Soviets had in 1941 that they don't lose to the Germans in 1941-43 this time around and the additional 220K which the Soviets planned (and did) mobilize from the civilian economy in the event of war.
*Technically, the Soviets lost nearly 23,000 more then that in 1941-43, but seeing as they had only 270,000 to start with that'd overlap with their vastly shrunken domestic production, losses among the lend-lease, and the 220K mobilized I mentioned above.
Your numbers of course ignore that the American trucks were far superior to anything the Soviets could have produced. Especially the 200k delievered Studebaker trucks. So the actual growth in logistical capabilties isn't really reflected by the numbers you post.
Kinda? While American trucks were superior to the Soviets in stuff like reliability and handling and off-road performance, to say they were
far superior is a willful exaggeration. Soviet trucks still proved up to the job of hauling artillery and supplies around, making up a bare majority (some 59%,if my memory holds correctly) of the Red Army's truck park even at the end of the war. The difference is not liable to be noticeable on the macro level. This is ignoring, of course, that truck vehicles which were cancelled or delayed IOTL by the invasion, like the Zil-15 and Gaz-51, would be able to go into production in significant quantities.
Taking into account the hypothetical growth of the Soviet army between 41 and 43 it seems to me that there certainly would be more trucks and mobility but not to the degree that a simple comparison of (partly hypothetical) truck numbers would indicate.
The 6.5 million man Red Army of OTL which had vanquished Germany in 1945 was supported on the back of 664,455 motor vehicles according to the
GATVU (Main Automobile Directorate), of which some 481,000 were general purpose cargo transports of some description and of those were . IATL, they have 790,000 trucks mobilized (570,000 trucks unmobilized). While the trucks are inferior on some factors to some degree, that's a tactical issue and not an operational one.It's worth noting that even in 1945 the GAVTU reported that their vehicle park made up only 80% of what their TO&Es required (although, the fact that many of their rifle divisions were heavily undermanned probably made that moot). That puts Soviet TO&Es as requiring some 600,000 trucks. In other words, without an invasion but with mobilization for an offensive war, the Soviets will have 190,000 trucks
in excess of their OTL 1945 requirements. Even without mobilization, they would have some ~95% of requirements. This is grossly superior to the situation in June 1941, when the standing truck park of 270,000 constituted only 45% of their calculated requirements.
Now lets take the changed strategic situation into account:
Instead of having the cream of the crop of the Wehrmacht freezing to death or being encircled/smashed along a ridiculously overextended front, the Soviets have to face them in Poland.
I certainly don't expect the Soviets to achieve a rapid breakthrough or anything like that. It's gonna be a attritional grind along the frontier, but that still favors the Soviets in the end given their larger (and, on average, younger) manpower pool, better access to resources, better organized (and IATL, undamaged and expanded) industry, etc. etc.
The Luftwaffe would not sustain the losses it did IOTL due to bad weather and constant rebasing. Instead it would defend a comparatively small area that by this point probably would be litered with ground based aa.
Sure, but by the same token 1943 the VVS would also have well-established bases and air defense by the border, along with modern aircraft comparable to it's 1944-45 gear. The Yak-3, for example, can go into production by 1942 without the initial program getting canned by the invasion like it was in late-'41 only to be revived two years later. Just as importantly, Soviet high quality aviation gas production will have expanded by hundreds of thousands of tons and it's aircraft industries would be boosted by the retention of 50% of it's aluminum production that was historically lost until 1945 and then an additional 70,000 tons on top of that from the completion of the facility in the northern Urals whose construction was delayed so badly that the first production didn't take place until April 1944. The only real uncertain thing there is how Soviet pilot training would evolve over the next two years.
Then there is the rail conversion issue and assorted problems.
The Soviets proved a lot better at this then the Germans even before lend-lease started showing up, I don't see what "problem" it would be.
And technological issues where the Soviet industry struggled in certain high tech areas.
Struggled so much they managed to compete with not only the Germans, but also the Americans and British for the next 30 odd years.
I mean sure, there probably are going to be areas where the Soviets may improve but not as much as they would have with lend-lease. Radios for example. On the whole, without a devastating invasion but also without lend-lease, Soviet industry is liable to be just better off period in some areas, better off quantitatively (but not qualitatively) in others, and held back in yet others yet still better off then they were in 1941. I really doubt they won't have anything that won't manage to do the job though, which is all they need.
Let me just say that the promised German technology imports imho are unlikely to happen. The Greater German Reich never really planned to fullfill its commercial agreements.
Because OTL it was going to invade in 1941. If it isn't going to invade it's going to have to pony up, less Stalin turn off the tap as his confidence in the Red Army starts to revive.
Taking all of this into account it seems to me that saying the Soviets would be ready to invade the Reich in 1943 is the same hybris that made the Germans think they were ready for Barbarossa in 1941.
Too anybody who hasn't bothered to research the Soviet industrial, armament, and reformation efforts that were underway in 1941 before the Germans invaded, sure. There was all sorts of stuff that was in development in 1941 that would have borne fruit later in the year or in 1942 but had to be ditched because the Germans invaded. Some of the stuff did anyways, but in much more limited forms then might have been. One example of this is actually the quality of the personnel: the majority of the draftees born in 1924-1927 would have finished the 7 or even 9 years schools by 1942. The effect was felt even OTL and with a training regime uninterrupted by German invasion, the improvement would be even more massive. The annual intake without the German invasion and occupation of the country would also be larger in 1942-43: 3 million yearly instead of the 2 million it was reduced too IOTL.