Motorised army - the cheapest way

[Redbeard]

Few armies in WWII became fully motorised, and the cost involved in providing the 1000+ (2000) motor vehicles for fully motorising an Infantry Division would be overwhelming.

Next the attrition when the unit start to move and in combat would be tremendous.

In that context advanced and complicated vehicles with all wheel drive etc. would IMHO really be a pitty, but inspired from another thread I came to think of the cheapest available motor vehicles - the Ford T and A.

When production of the Ford T stopped in 1929 it was sold for 360 US $ - so for 1000 $ you would have an infantry squad fully motorised in vehicles with a reasonable terrain capacity, and which could usually be repaired with very simple means. It would appear like a Ford T could fulfill most of the functions at a much lower cost.

I know the Soviets a licensed produced Ford AA trucks as a major motor vehicle, but didn't that also work OK. A Ford A was sold for 500$ in the 1930s and assuming that you would get the AA version at about the same price you could motorise the infantry squad with two Ford AAs and again a cost of 1000 $. Besides the Ford AA could carry a useful 1,5 tons, so it would be a good bid for the main hauler of supplies.

BTW a jeep cost 1280 $ and a Studebaker 1700 $.

 

[TonyA]

Blast from the past...remember passing up an opportunity to buy a beautiful 1957 T-Bird because the owner wanted nearly $2000 for it...sigh

 

[sloreck]

The Ford model T was quite cheap, the A not quite so much. The problem is that these autos were totally unsuitable for most off road work, and not designed to carry heavy loads on totally unimproved ground. With rear wheel drive and narrow tires, especially on the T with serious mud or snow they are not going anywhere quickly. You could also save money by using deer rifles and shotguns rather than weapons built for military specifications and conditions.

 

[Oldbill]

I think the Fords are the way to go. If you MUST have all wheel drive, get some Marmon Harrington stuff and convert some of your vehicles, enough for your Recon units. The other problem you will face is getting towing vehicles which can go fast enough to keep up with the trucks. You'll need large tractors for your artillery units, and some for armored recovery etc etc. This is doable, but your going to have to think it through pretty carefully.

 

[marathag]

The Ford model T was quite cheap, the A not quite so much. The problem is that these autos were totally unsuitable for most off road work, and not designed to carry heavy loads on totally unimproved ground. With rear wheel drive and narrow tires, especially on the T with serious mud or snow they are not going anywhere quickly.

T had 20HP, it wasn't going very quickly on an Interstate.

But they did do well on unimproved roads

But if you wanted flotation....

But narrow tires and high ground clearance does get you thru mud or snow, down to solid ground where traction could be had

 

[Driftless]

An idea probably borrowed from Adolphe Kegresse:

The skis on snow were probably more effective - by comparison - than the skinny, non-driving front tires would have been in mud; if you follow my twisted logic.

 

[steamboy]

I've also seen/heard/read that model T's are exhausting to drive by our standards and were bastards to drive.

as is seen here in an amusing way.

 

[Driftless]

Another early alternative was the scout car version from FWD (shown on a field test for the US Army):

FWD produced 20,000 units of a comparable truck version of this layout for the WW1 US Army.

 

[Cook]

If you want to talk about motorised infantry, don't discuss cars, discuss trucks.

 

[yulzari]

The logistics and cost of mass horse forage, care and remounts for losses caused Britain to have a mechanised army by WW2. One can point to occasional anomalies but the British Army was mechanised by 1939. Not in the APC/IFV modern sense but transport was by lorry not horse. Still mules in the mountains though. My father had mules for his signals unit in Italy in 1944. The German army found transporting forage and sourcing leather for their principally horse based system a constant issue all through the war.

 

[Cook]

The logistics and cost of mass horse forage, care and remounts for losses caused Britain to have a mechanised army by WW2.

Just the opposite; the British army was fully motorised because it was small; unlike the German and French armies, the British could afford the significantly higher costs and logistics issues associated with motorised transportation as opposed to relying on a mixture of horse drawn transport, trucks and rail transportation as the French and Germans largely did. The British were fitting out less than a dozen infantry divisions, while Germany had 84 infantry divisions in the West in 1940 (with another 42 in reserve), and the French 89. The advantages of motorisation were readily apparent to all prior to the war, even the French, but the costs were prohibitive except in limited numbers.

 

[Driftless]

The cost of conversion from equine transport to mechanize was undoubtedly high. Some of the interwar desire to maintain equines as a prime transport was the conservative "use what you know"; in spite of the increasing list of problems. Napoleon's (either one) cavalry and baggage train never had to face machine guns, land mines, barbed wire, poison gas, and of course aerial attack.

 

[yulzari]

Yes the 1939 British army was small and the best use had to be made of what there was but there was no attempt to revert to horse transport as the numbers of divisions rose. The new divisions rode to war on lorries and thank you Canada for making very many of them.

Horses need huge volumes of forage which impacts upon food production for people. The forage is a high bulk low value good so uses much of itself in transporting it by horse to the horses. I have seen quoted, but not the original source, that fully half the British cross Channel transport of WW1 was forage. One lorry as a tanker can fill a mechanised battalion's lorries. One lorry load of forage will barely feed one Company's horses on a restricted diet. British remounts would have to come from abroad and the transport of horses at sea in quantity in good condition is a very specialised affair needing experienced staff and ship fitting. The losses in WW1 and the South African War demonstrate this is was no mean task. Continental forces have the advantage of their remounts requiring only rail travel or self transport, both of which are routine for normal horse work. In Britain horse transport by 1939 had vastly reduced at home as motor vehicles had become the norm for road transport and importing tractors from Canada and the USA was a priority to switch production away from horse feed to human food as well as to increase food production generally and make up for farm workers called up.

I do agree that Britain differed from France and Germany in it's needs and infrastructure and this helped drive (no pun intended) towards a mechanised army. In the overall scheme of things it was the cheapest and best answer to the transport and logistics of the British army. The point is simply that it was mechanised by 1939 and remained so throughout the war. Similarly the US army dropped it's horse transport for it's foreign expeditionary forces in the fourth year of the war. The French army in 1944/5 was also mechanised but that was due it it manning what would have been US divisions otherwise. France in 1939/40 and Germany throughout the war simply did not have the capacity to mechanise more than key units but they would have if they could and photographs of German lorries in Russia are an extraordinary collection of home, foreign requisitioned and captured vehicles which was a maintenance nightmare just to move away from horses. Thus you have the strategic limit in that campaign of the few rail lines. Had they been purely horse transported the horses would have eaten the forage not that far into Russia. Demonstrated by Napoleon's army losing it's horses in Russia as the retreating Russians burned the forage that would have been taken by the advancing French. The Germans would have mechanised if they could but their situation made it impossible. Just as the GMC truck has been proposed as the war winning item in the Red army's inventory, the horse could be proposed as the war losing item in the German. Without lend-lease lorries the Red army would have had the reverse position to the Germans as they began to advance east. Even so I have met veterans of the Red army infantry who walked to Berlin.

Tactics win battles, command and control win short wars and logistics win long ones.

 

[Cook]

In the overall scheme of things it was the cheapest and best answer to the transport and logistics of the British army.

And again, no it wasn't. Motor transportation was more expensive and required a longer logistics train, all the way to Texas and Saudi Arabia in fact. The British could do so because they could afford to and because they had the access to the logistics, as could the United States and later the Soviet Union - on the backs of American supplied Lend Lease vehicles. Germany could not; they simply did not have the industrial capacity to manufacture enough trucks to fully motorise their army, nor did they have the petroleum to supply them with, nor could they have afforded to in any respect.

there was no attempt to revert to horse transport as the numbers of divisions rose.

That is an idiotic argument to make. The British could afford to equip their army steadily, only a small section of it was actually fighting between 1940 and 1944; British and American manufacturing was able to produce the required vehicles, and Britain, despite Lend Lease, racked up a debt that took decades to pay off.

 

[Tonrich]

I had read once that one of the main issues with European motorized divisions was the inability of the normal soldier to maintenance and repair breakdowns. I believe it was something like only 5% of the average soldiers (not in the maintenance area) had any idea how to work on engines or trucks in general. Plus German designs tended to be over engineered and difficult to work on by the average layman. Conversely in the American Army 65 to 75% of it's soldiers could do normal maintenance of the vehicles it was operating. Plus the engineering was typically simple and easily learned by the operator. It was one of the USA's greatest "hidden" weapons was when driving into battle the majority of the unit arrived ready to fight. As opposed to a German division that say had to move 50 miles into a battle you would see 15 to 25% of it's vehicles strung out waiting for a repair group.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Just the opposite; the British army was fully motorised because it was small; unlike the German and French armies, the British could afford the significantly higher costs and logistics issues associated with motorised transportation as opposed to relying on a mixture of horse drawn transport, trucks and rail transportation as the French and Germans largely did. The British were fitting out less than a dozen infantry divisions, while Germany had 84 infantry divisions in the West in 1940 (with another 42 in reserve), and the French 89. The advantages of motorisation were readily apparent to all prior to the war, even the French, but the costs were prohibitive except in limited numbers.

I've got some information from the interwar British Army Estimates that show that a motorised field artillery battery was cheaper to operate than a horsed one and this was when they were still using Dragon tracked artillery tractors based on tanks. IIRC the increase in the capital cost was more than offset by the reduction in the personnel costs, i.e. more men were needed to look after the horses than were required to maintain the trucks.

OTOH it also showed that MT companies of the RASC were more expensive than HT companies, but it didn't say if they had the same carrying capacity. My guess is that one lorry could make more trips than a wagon of the same capacity.

Including the TA the interwar British Army was about 20 divisions. Are bigger armies large enough to enjoy the advantages of economies of scale? That is the R&D cost of specialised military vehicles is spread over a much larger number of units and the larger number of units produced allows mass production methods to be used reducing the production cost? Or is that only feasible for countries that maintain massive armies in peacetime like the former USSR.

 

[Oldbill]

US Army wagons were, IIRC, rated as carrying about three tons. Obviously however, loading them this heavily will increase the strain on the teams pulling them. It also doesn't take into account the difference in speed, even a heavily laden, slow moving WWI truck will be moving faster than a heavily laden, WWI wagon.

 

[wietze]

and a complication to add, pre-ww2 many countries had mobilisation subsidy schemes. where companies could by truck of a certain design with a govt subsidy under condition that in case of war the truck would go to the army truck pool

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I'm not sure what it proves either way, but IIRC from Liddell Hart's history of the RTR either Carden or Martel intended that his tankette, which was built with commercially available parts, would be cheap enough for one infantry battalion mounted in them to be double the cost of an ordinary infantry battalion.

 

[duckie]

You also could try the Dutch approch. They had enough trucks for peace time and had stored Tardo units for the requisitioned civilian trucks.

the Tardo units changed a 4x2 truck in an 6x4 truck.