What if Hitler doesn't overexpand the German army?

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Rubicon

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The German army will perform better if raw replacements are reinforcing existing formations rather then creating new ones, the formations will suffer less losses, cause more casualties and be more resilient.
If you want some examples of this just look up the 352. Infanterie-Division at Omaha beach with 50% veterans and compare it to the 709. Infanterie-Division (bod.) at Utah. While not a perfect comparison it is a marked differance in the German abilities.
 

Deleted member 1487

The German army will perform better if raw replacements are reinforcing existing formations rather then creating new ones, the formations will suffer less losses, cause more casualties and be more resilient.
If you want some examples of this just look up the 352. Infanterie-Division at Omaha beach with 50% veterans and compare it to the 709. Infanterie-Division (bod.) at Utah. While not a perfect comparison it is a marked differance in the German abilities.
The division had pretty severe challenges anyway, with major shortfalls in NCOs and really low quality manpower. I think only 50% of the officers were veterans, not 50% of the division:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/germandef.html
 

Wendigo

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Wasn't a significant portion of the troops defending the Atlantic Wall made up of Hiwis and Soviet POWs of various nationalities?
 

Redbeard

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Nigel Askey's "Operation Barbarossa, the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis and Military Simulation" probably is the most comprehensive work on Barbarossa. But anyway you really don't get the impression that the expanded Divisions were that weak and from memory I think Askey claim that the new Panzer Divisions were better than the old. But no matter if you agree in his conclusions or not, his work is a treasurebox of data. He has detailed TOEs for ALL Divisions taking part in Barbarossa! Yummy!
 

Deleted member 1487

Wasn't a significant portion of the troops defending the Atlantic Wall made up of Hiwis and Soviet POWs of various nationalities?
A fair bit were, the 709. division Rubicon mentioned was, but did fight reasonably well all things considered. It is actually probably more embarrassing that the US fought so poorly relative to the much weaker German forces. Of course most of the US forces were Green themselves.

Nigel Askey's "Operation Barbarossa, the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis and Military Simulation" probably is the most comprehensive work on Barbarossa. But anyway you really don't get the impression that the expanded Divisions were that weak and from memory I think Askey claim that the new Panzer Divisions were better than the old. But no matter if you agree in his conclusions or not, his work is a treasurebox of data. He has detailed TOEs for ALL Divisions taking part in Barbarossa! Yummy!
I wasn't talking about the expanded forces before Barbarossa, I was referencing the units built during Barbarossa and after that deprived the army units fighting in Russia of replacements of both men and equipment (though the replacements that were getting to the field army were actually pretty poorly trained assuming they had any training at all). The forces that Askey is referring to are the units built up for Barbarossa. The 'new' Panzer divisions were built from cutting existing Panzer divisions in half and giving half the tanks and personnel to the new divisions, effectively meaning all the 'new' Panzer units were veterans from existing divisions, though now all were half the size of their 1940 version. The new infantry divisions built from after the Fall of France to the start of Barbarossa were of uneven quality and training and few of the reforms for infantry divisions from lessons learned in France had been applied due to the need to prepare for the biggest campaign in history.
But that book series is unbelievably detailed and high quality.
 

Redbeard

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A fair bit were, the 709. division Rubicon mentioned was, but did fight reasonably well all things considered. It is actually probably more embarrassing that the US fought so poorly relative to the much weaker German forces. Of course most of the US forces were Green themselves.


I wasn't talking about the expanded forces before Barbarossa, I was referencing the units built during Barbarossa and after that deprived the army units fighting in Russia of replacements of both men and equipment (though the replacements that were getting to the field army were actually pretty poorly trained assuming they had any training at all). The forces that Askey is referring to are the units built up for Barbarossa. The 'new' Panzer divisions were built from cutting existing Panzer divisions in half and giving half the tanks and personnel to the new divisions, effectively meaning all the 'new' Panzer units were veterans from existing divisions, though now all were half the size of their 1940 version. The new infantry divisions built from after the Fall of France to the start of Barbarossa were of uneven quality and training and few of the reforms for infantry divisions from lessons learned in France had been applied due to the need to prepare for the biggest campaign in history.
But that book series is unbelievably detailed and high quality.

OK. BTW one of Askey's main points is that the Wehrmacht could have utilsed existing stocks/resources much better after the start of Barbarossa and that the main fault probably was the planning not expecting the campaign go beyond 1941.

The new PzDiv were not just the old ones expanded, but had a much higher portion of "real" tanks. Ie. PZIII-IV or Pz 38 as opposed to Pz I-II. But apart from that the concept of Building new units around a core of veterans from old units is surprisingly effective. I once saw some studies on this, and sadly I don't recall the exact conclusion, but from memory it said that just 20% veterans usually would make a significant difference.

The Infantry Divisions built from fall of France to Barbarossa indeed were of varying quality, but from Askey's TOEs most appear to be suitable for major combat. Anyway, compared to the usual Soviet Division of 1941-42 the German Divisions are cornucopias of equipment, men and supplies. We often instinctively compare to a Wallied Division of late WWII but obviously that isn't relevant for Barbarossa. Again Askey has some were interesting observations - here about supply distribution efficiency (SDE). Not surprisingly he can document that the Wehrmacht hardly ever reached a 100% SDE, but the average SDE of Soviet units during Barbarossa was only a fraction of the Wehrmacht! So even if German logistics never excelled compared to the Wallied champions - during Barbarossa they were one-eyed rulers in the Kingdom of the blind!
 

Deleted member 1487

OK. BTW one of Askey's main points is that the Wehrmacht could have utilsed existing stocks/resources much better after the start of Barbarossa and that the main fault probably was the planning not expecting the campaign go beyond 1941.
What does he suggest specifically?

The new PzDiv were not just the old ones expanded, but had a much higher portion of "real" tanks. Ie. PZIII-IV or Pz 38 as opposed to Pz I-II. But apart from that the concept of Building new units around a core of veterans from old units is surprisingly effective. I once saw some studies on this, and sadly I don't recall the exact conclusion, but from memory it said that just 20% veterans usually would make a significant difference.
I didn't say they were the old ones expanded, they were half of the old ones split in half. There were 4 Panzer battalions in the old Panzer divisions and 2 were taken away and used to make new Panzer divisions as a reduced number of Panzer battalions, half the size of the old ones:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1940PzDiv-vs-1941PzDiv.pdf
It is not surprising that veterans make a difference. Having gone through just part of ROTC in college having been paired up with older members of the unit made a big difference getting the Freshman and Sophmores up to speed. Plus if you read "the Forgotten Soldier", which may or not be true, did make have the 1 veteran from the 1941 (and earlier) campaigns in their squad keep everyone alive a lot longer than they should have had they not had that wisdom. There were numerous episodes where that guy's experience saved everyone's life. That was 1 guy out of 9 or so. That is also the rationale behind having an experienced, respected NCO corps actually running things, so that even green officers can't screw things up too badly.

The Infantry Divisions built from fall of France to Barbarossa indeed were of varying quality, but from Askey's TOEs most appear to be suitable for major combat. Anyway, compared to the usual Soviet Division of 1941-42 the German Divisions are cornucopias of equipment, men and supplies. We often instinctively compare to a Wallied Division of late WWII but obviously that isn't relevant for Barbarossa. Again Askey has some were interesting observations - here about supply distribution efficiency (SDE). Not surprisingly he can document that the Wehrmacht hardly ever reached a 100% SDE, but the average SDE of Soviet units during Barbarossa was only a fraction of the Wehrmacht! So even if German logistics never excelled compared to the Wallied champions - during Barbarossa they were one-eyed rulers in the Kingdom of the blind!
Certainly compared to the Soviets all the combat divisions that were used in Barbarossa were of funcitonal quality. All combat capabilities are relative to the opponent. Obsessednuker in another thread (or maybe even another forum) made the point that German losses in the early phases of Operation Taifun would have made them combat ineffective by modern US definitions...but he failed to understand that was relative and that the 'combat ineffective' German divisions post- Vyazma pocket then proceeded to effectively destroy 100% fresh pre-war Soviet infantry divisions with full TOE and personnel on the road to Moscow. Logistics and mud stopped them more than the combat resistance they faced.
 

Redbeard

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What does he suggest specifically?


I didn't say they were the old ones expanded, they were half of the old ones split in half. There were 4 Panzer battalions in the old Panzer divisions and 2 were taken away and used to make new Panzer divisions as a reduced number of Panzer battalions, half the size of the old ones:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1940PzDiv-vs-1941PzDiv.pdf
It is not surprising that veterans make a difference. Having gone through just part of ROTC in college having been paired up with older members of the unit made a big difference getting the Freshman and Sophmores up to speed. Plus if you read "the Forgotten Soldier", which may or not be true, did make have the 1 veteran from the 1941 (and earlier) campaigns in their squad keep everyone alive a lot longer than they should have had they not had that wisdom. There were numerous episodes where that guy's experience saved everyone's life. That was 1 guy out of 9 or so. That is also the rationale behind having an experienced, respected NCO corps actually running things, so that even green officers can't screw things up too badly.


Certainly compared to the Soviets all the combat divisions that were used in Barbarossa were of funcitonal quality. All combat capabilities are relative to the opponent. Obsessednuker in another thread (or maybe even another forum) made the point that German losses in the early phases of Operation Taifun would have made them combat ineffective by modern US definitions...but he failed to understand that was relative and that the 'combat ineffective' German divisions post- Vyazma pocket then proceeded to effectively destroy 100% fresh pre-war Soviet infantry divisions with full TOE and personnel on the road to Moscow. Logistics and mud stopped them more than the combat resistance they faced.

I'm (far) away from my books right now, but Askey goes into detail about not only German stocks of materiel in existence but not made available for Barbarossa, but also about un-mobilised resources by 1941 (like trucks). For instance I recall he wonders why most of the available StuG IIIs were not deployed in Barbarossa (a few hundred) and he points to the potential of "robbing" trucks in the occupied countries being far from exhausted by Barbarossa. Again the reason probably was the expectation of a short campaign and preserving production capacity in the occupied areas.
 

Deleted member 1487

I'm (far) away from my books right now, but Askey goes into detail about not only German stocks of materiel in existence but not made available for Barbarossa, but also about un-mobilised resources by 1941 (like trucks). For instance I recall he wonders why most of the available StuG IIIs were not deployed in Barbarossa (a few hundred) and he points to the potential of "robbing" trucks in the occupied countries being far from exhausted by Barbarossa. Again the reason probably was the expectation of a short campaign and preserving production capacity in the occupied areas.
Thanks for the info. If you get the time and access to the books could you post what he suggests? I'd be curious to hear the details.
 
Obsessednuker in another thread (or maybe even another forum) made the point that German losses in the early phases of Operation Taifun would have made them combat ineffective by modern US definitions...but he failed to understand that was relative and that the 'combat ineffective' German divisions post- Vyazma pocket then proceeded to effectively destroy 100% fresh pre-war Soviet infantry divisions with full TOE and personnel on the road to Moscow.

What? The Soviet formations which were deployed post Vyazma-Bryansk on the road to Moscow held the line handily and utterly butchered the Germans in the subsequent counter-offensive. It was only after they advanced forward over the desolate wasteland the previous months fighting had left that they (and the freshly raised formations deployed in November) ran into trouble.

Logistics and mud stopped them more than the combat resistance they faced.

A comfortable myth which continues to ignore an essential reality that logistics and inclement weather represents no obstacle if the enemy is incapable of putting up adequate combat resistance.

As to the essential question in the OP: it probably doesn't make much difference in 1941, unless the Germans want to order them to walk all the way to the front so as to not clog up precious rail/train and truck space. Wouldn't really have the means to supply them out there either. For 1942, it certainly means the Wehrmacht's formations individually are stronger but having fewer formations overall might means the extra-strength just gets dispersed over a larger area, although I'm not at all sure on that. Have to re-check the number of divisions in the East in mid-1942 as opposed to mid-1941 before I can say more on that.

The entire idea is, however, predicated on the idea of the war against the Soviets lasting past-1941 or indeed past the first few months of a German invasion... too which any German general prior to about August 1941 would laugh in your face if you suggested it to them.

EDIT: Okay, about the difference between the number of German divisions in 1942 vs 1941 is around a half-dozen, which doesn't strike me as significant when it comes to just holding the line and probably can be made up for by the fact the individual divisions are stronger. So yeah, definitely an improvement.
 
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Deleted member 1487

What? The Soviet formations which were deployed post Vyazma-Bryansk on the road to Moscow held the line handily and utterly butchered the Germans in the subsequent counter-offensive. It was only after they advanced forward over the desolate wasteland the previous months fighting had left that they (and the freshly raised formations deployed in November) ran into trouble.
Not really the 32nd Rifle Division was slaughtered and suffered over 60% casualties and had to be withdrawn from the line, despite being a fresh pre-war formation with full TOE and OOB. The Germans were shoving the Soviets back and inflicting disproportionate losses on them despite having severe supply problems. The mud eventually became too bad and they had to accept an operational pause to allow supply to resume by which time sufficient Soviet reinforcements were brought up to man the line, but even in November they were getting shoved back. It was the weather and supply troubles that prevented the Soviets from getting slaughtered wholesale.

A comfortable myth which continues to ignore an essential reality that logistics and inclement weather represents no obstacle if the enemy is incapable of putting up adequate combat resistance.
You can't advance if you don't have food, water, fuel, etc. It is a break on the advance, which becomes extremely serious against even minimal resistance. Maneuver is then far more difficult, while ammo has to be rationed heavily. That did in the German advance in October.

As to the essential question in the OP: it probably doesn't make much difference in 1941, unless the Germans want to order them to walk all the way to the front so as to not clog up precious rail/train and truck space. Wouldn't really have the means to supply them out there either. For 1942, it certainly means the Wehrmacht's formations individually are stronger but having fewer formations overall might means the extra-strength just gets dispersed over a larger area, although I'm not at all sure on that. Have to re-check the number of divisions in the East in mid-1942 as opposed to mid-1941 before I can say more on that.

The entire idea is, however, predicated on the idea of the war against the Soviets lasting past-1941 or indeed past the first few months of a German invasion... too which any German general prior to about August 1941 would laugh in your face if you suggested it to them.

EDIT: Okay, about the difference between the number of German divisions in 1942 vs 1941 is around a half-dozen, which doesn't strike me as significant when it comes to just holding the line and probably can be made up for by the fact the individual divisions are stronger. So yeah, definitely an improvement.
Replacements did actually walk to the front in several cases, but even as late as September the entire 2nd and 5th Panzer divisions were able to be brought to the front near Smolensk from Germany after rebuilding most of the campaign. But yes probably not that much of a difference in 1941, but beyond it when it would matter. In early 1942 for instance the divisions of AG-North in many cases were down to 6 battalions each due to losses and were only sufficient to hold the line. Not building the 4x 300s number divisions in 1941 would mean each non-formed division would bring 3 AG-North divisions up to full strength in manpower and equipment. 4 divisions then could have revived 12. The equipment and manpower from the 4 various Panzer divisions set up in 1941, 22nd-25th, would have at least revived 8 existing Panzer divisions on top of the ones rebuilt over the Spring of 1942. There were 8 divisions built between January-March 1942 that were used in the East of the 300s series divisions, which would have been enough equipment and manpower to at least revive 24 divisions reduced to 6 battalions. So 36 infantry and 8 Panzer divisions more than IOTL could have been built back up by not forming those 12 300s series infantry divisions and those 4 new Panzer divisions from December 1941-March 1942.
http://www.axishistory.com/axis-nat...er-unsorted/3423-the-german-mobilization-1942

Reviving 12 AG-North divisions would have opened up a ton of options, including Operation Moorbrand to clip off the Pogostye salient without the need for any new divisions, as the 18th army divisions were mostly reduced strength by 1/3rd. That then frees up a lot more manpower for other operations in that sector.

Having few divisions, but more supply units behind them actually makes them easier to supply in 1942, which is probably when they would start showing up. As the new divisions I'm suggesting don't get formed started forming in December 1941, there really doesn't need to be a special understanding that the war will go on longer than initially planned (that would be the increased flow of equipment earlier in the campaign), just different decisions about what to do with reserves in November-December 1941 when choosing either to form new divisions or not. In terms of Panzer divisions that would need to be made earlier, so perhaps some of them are formed, but not all.
 
Not really the 32nd Rifle Division was slaughtered and suffered over 60% casualties and had to be withdrawn from the line, despite being a fresh pre-war formation with full TOE and OOB.

Yeah, it had suffered 60% casualties... by January. In October and November, it successfully held the line and it participated in the December. Meanwhile, mist of Army Group Center dropped from ~80-90% of its strength at the start of Typhoon to less then 50% by the start of December.

The Germans were shoving the Soviets back and inflicting disproportionate losses on them despite having severe supply problems.

The Soviets suffered ~114,000 losses in Operation Typhoon outside of the Vyaa-Bryansk encirclements. The Germans suffered ~150,000 losses after the first two weeks of the operation. If a near 1.5:1 loss ratio in the Soviets favor is "disproportionate", then you have some strange ideas of what that means.

The mud eventually became too bad and they had to accept an operational pause to allow supply to resume by which time sufficient Soviet reinforcements were brought up to man the line,

'That's the myth. The reality is that the operational pause was forced upon the Germans by enemy resistance.

You can't advance if you don't have food, water, fuel, etc.

Lack of adequate enemy resistance means advancing is just a matter of taking a small portion of your forces that you can support and route marching to the objective. The results of offensive action is always determined by enemy opposition first and all other considerations second.

Replacements did actually walk to the front in several cases,

Doubtful they were in much condition to do anything after that trip.

but even as late as September the entire 2nd and 5th Panzer divisions were able to be brought to the front near Smolensk from Germany after rebuilding most of the campaign. But yes probably not that much of a difference in 1941, but beyond it when it would matter.

Yeah, I can see it.

Having few divisions, but more supply units behind them actually makes them easier to supply in 1942, which is probably when they would start showing up.

Well, the individual divisions demanding more supplies owing to their greater strength also means you need more supply units. But frankly, the issue wasn't how many supply units by itself. Considered in a vacuum, the issue was Germans had enough transport assets in quantitative terms. It was the infrastructure they had to travel across, the organization they answered too, and their equipments qualitative failings that did them in.

As the new divisions I'm suggesting don't get formed started forming in December 1941,

Eh? No it wasn't. All the decisions in that regard had been made before Barbarossa kicked off. It was done with the belief that

BTW: the expansion of panzer divisions from 10 to 20 was actually a good idea as the dispersal of armored strength meant that the ratio of tanks to infantry, artillery, and divisional sustainment became quite right. Prior to that, the Panzers OOB were too tank heavy. The attempt to go for 30 definitely was misguided, even though it made sense to the Germans at the time.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Thanks for the info. If you get the time and access to the books could you post what he suggests? I'd be curious to hear the details.

It is a bit overwhelming to extract data from the three volumes and almost 1500 pages, but here are some from Volume IIb, p 110:

Total number of motor vehicles in occupied countries by 1939 (of which trucks):

France 2.251.300 (467.800)
Belgium 233.782 (77.852)
Denmark 162.497 (43.540)
Luxemburg 10.680 (3.434)
Norway 99.377 (36.397)
Netherlands 160.000 (50.000)
Poland 135.000 (45.000)

Total 3.053.000 motor vehicles of which 724.000 trucks.

The Wehrmacht by June 1941 had a total of 828.000 motor vehicles (excl. motor cycles) in its inventory of which about 600.000 were deployed for Barbarossa. A part of these were commandeered from the occupied countries, but obviously there would have to be a large part still left in the occupied countries. The total German losses until June 1941 was 95.000 motor vehicles of which about 48.000 were trucks. In 1940 alone however Germany produced 87.000 trucks with an average payload of 2,4 tons. Of these 13.126 were exported(!) but 15.531 were delivered from occupied countries. (p111). The export vehicles from 1940 alone would provide 2,5 ton trucks for more than 20 1st wave Divisions!

As I understand it from Askey the main part of "commandeered" motor vehicles by June 1941 were former military vehicles from the armies of the occupied countries. From what I know the widespread commandeering of civilian vehicles only came later but it would anyway appear that an earlier "high level of commandeering" would make motor vehicles available for something like another Wehrmacht! This would of course influence production in the occupied countries, but if you acknowledge the need for a greater motorisation to win the war that would be a small price compared to loosing the war.

Fuel for all these truck probably would be the biggest challenge however. BTW Askey points out that in the Infantry Divisions which are so often being labeled as "horse drawn" half the logistic lift capacity came from motor vehicles. In total the units deployed for Barbarossa had 625.000 horses.

Another "funny" fact is that the Wehrmacht by mid 1941 had 224.000 troops deployed on motorcycles. The production of motorcycles declined however from 116.081 in 1940 to 33.733 in 1943 (p 114), but at least I wonder if it would have been wiser to motorise infantry on motorcycles with sidecars (3 men each) instead of in trucks?
 

Deleted member 1487

Yeah, it had suffered 60% casualties... by January. In October and November, it successfully held the line and it participated in the December. Meanwhile, mist of Army Group Center dropped from ~80-90% of its strength at the start of Typhoon to less then 50% by the start of December.
Forcyzk might have got that wrong then, but I cannot find more information about the 32nd other than they were driven back and fought on through November.

Got a source on the drop of AG-North strength by that much? Considering how many casualties they inflicted, that is still probably 1/3rd or less than what the Soviets took between October-December.

The Soviets suffered ~114,000 losses in Operation Typhoon outside of the Vyaa-Bryansk encirclements. The Germans suffered ~150,000 losses after the first two weeks of the operation. If a near 1.5:1 loss ratio in the Soviets favor is "disproportionate", then you have some strange ideas of what that means.
You can't leave out the 1 million casualties taken in the pocket battles on the Soviet side considering that is where the majority of German losses were suffered as they were still liquidating part of the pockets to the last week of October. Where are you numbers for the Soviet losses coming from and over what period? I'm sensing number fuckery again. Just like when you made all sorts of ridiculous claims about how many losses a Soviet unit of 40 tanks inflicted in our last argument.

'That's the myth. The reality is that the operational pause was forced upon the Germans by enemy resistance.
Bullshit it was forced by logistics, which was caused by mud in October until the frost. I know you know better than that.

Lack of adequate enemy resistance means advancing is just a matter of taking a small portion of your forces that you can support and route marching to the objective. The results of offensive action is always determined by enemy opposition first and all other considerations second.
If the weather/ground is bad enough you cannot move at all and there is a limit to what you can supply even without resistance. It is completely bullshit to claim that weather doesn't matter, it is a combination of factors, because even minimal resistance can stop a force who's logistics are crippled by weather/mud that would have otherwise squished them in normal weather.

Doubtful they were in much condition to do anything after that trip.
Without having to fight a 10-15 day march is hardly disabling, especially as the invasion force did it while fighting and they were still good for fighting to the gates of Moscow.

Well, the individual divisions demanding more supplies owing to their greater strength also means you need more supply units. But frankly, the issue wasn't how many supply units by itself. Considered in a vacuum, the issue was Germans had enough transport assets in quantitative terms. It was the infrastructure they had to travel across, the organization they answered too, and their equipments qualitative failings that did them in.
Again I'm talking about 1942 when the rail situation was dramatically improved compared to 1941. But if we go that route replacing the broken down trucks with replacement equipment would have a major effect in sustaining forces near the front. Allocating more manpower to improving rail bottlenecks would help too even if not all the necessary equipment is available to bring it up to better standards. Until winter the issue wasn't the quality of the equipment in those conditions, it was more the wear and tear and the weather, as well as issues with rail supply. There were a ton of factors working together to undermine the invasion and it is amazing it got as far as it did. A testament to how weak Soviet resistance was by that point.

Eh? No it wasn't. All the decisions in that regard had been made before Barbarossa kicked off. It was done with the belief that
I assume you mean the pre-Barbarossa expansion, I didn't mean that, I mean the units formed after Barbarossa kicked off, which would be the IIRC 17th wave that started forming in December 1941. There were two more waves in early 1942 the 18th and 19th waves. That was 12 infantry divisions between December 1941-March 1942.
The 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Panzer divisions were all ordered during Barbarossa, the 24th being the converted from the 1st Cavalry division late in Barbarossa, right before Typhoon. The 25th Panzer was formed in Norway and wasn't initially more than a regiment or brigade potentially for an invasion of Sweden that never materialized and was again formed in 1941. Turns out in May 1941, so that would be still formed despite the POD I'm discussing, the 22nd-24th though wouldn't.

BTW: the expansion of panzer divisions from 10 to 20 was actually a good idea as the dispersal of armored strength meant that the ratio of tanks to infantry, artillery, and divisional sustainment became quite right. Prior to that, the Panzers OOB were too tank heavy. The attempt to go for 30 definitely was misguided, even though it made sense to the Germans at the time.
I'm not arguing with the forming of the 10 additional divisions before Barbarossa, just the number beyond 21. The 21st Panzer was effectively just a renamed 5th light division, so that was already formed in all but name before Barbarossa. The 25th Panzer also was formed in May 1941 for a potential operation in Sweden that never was needed, so later upgraded to a full division. That would still probably happen. That then leaves 22 Panzer divisions by the end of 1941 and I don't think they needed more than that really.


Another "funny" fact is that the Wehrmacht by mid 1941 had 224.000 troops deployed on motorcycles. The production of motorcycles declined however from 116.081 in 1940 to 33.733 in 1943 (p 114), but at least I wonder if it would have been wiser to motorise infantry on motorcycles with sidecars (3 men each) instead of in trucks?
I did see his point about how important motorcycles with sidecars were to German mobility, as they held 3 men plus their equipment. Trucks are IMHO better for multiple purposes like moving supplies, equipment, casualties, etc. that motorcycles couldn't. They probably would have been useful for bringing up reserves and taking walking wounded back. I do know they were pretty good for scouting, which the units on them tended to be used for. Looking at the Kubelwagen though I'm thinking that was probably a better investment than the side car motorcycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Kübelwagen

Ironically it seems the US and USSR ripped off the German motorcycle design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_R75
 
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My first thought is; if the men used in the new divisions are used as replacements, then the low quality conscripts will be used in what we might regard as the better German units & therfore lower the overall quality of the existing units.
 

Deleted member 1487

My first thought is; if the men used in the new divisions are used as replacements, then the low quality conscripts will be used in what we might regard as the better German units & therfore lower the overall quality of the existing units.
I'm talking about bringing up the regular units to full strength and get the most of out new recruits by pairing them with veterans. That's the best way to turn regular recruits into the most effective soldiers possible, reduce overall losses by imparting experience, and having experienced divisions more combat effective by having the full complement of men and equipment. In time veterans won't be made worse by exposure to new recruits, but new recruits will be more likely to make it to be veterans by having direct contact with veterans in their own unit, rather than having a totally green division that needs to learn on the job together.
 
Until the late war period the new units were built on a base of veterans skimmed off existing units. The Volks Grenadier units fielded in late 1944 were a example of the first large scale fielding of units without substansive veteran cadres. The static or fortress divisions that begain coming into existance in 1942 had a smaller veteran cadre thn sought for the field formations. Even in 1939 the second & third wave reserve units called up received a levy of fully trained cadres from the standing units, some ten to fifteen percent of the total cadre in the unit. Siegfried Knappe in his autobiography describes his roles as one of these cadres sent to a newly mobilized unit.

Bottom line is for the first three years very few new units were fielded without a significant experienced cadre included. Through 1943 & 44 there was still a effort to provide veteran cadres to new formations.
 
If anyone has a chart of when Germany formed divisions that would be helpful to know when material was available.

War in the East by James Dunnigan has many such lovely charts (copyright 1977). Section V on p126-152 is about this very subject.
The German field army including all sub-organizations totalled 7.2 million in 1941, and 9.1 million in 1944 (p133).
Page 137-153 are chuck-full of the charts you are requesting.

I'm not very technical. I can scan the chapter, but wouldn't know how to load that here. Please advise?

I think, largely based on my reading of this excellent book, that the change in end result of the war would have been very big. Not enough to win the war, but perhaps enough to extend it by 3-6 months. If that happened many butterflies occur. Truman might have considered dropping the first atom bomb on Germany.

Germany did have the advantage of having trained officers and NCOs to be adaptive and to take initiative on their own. So this likely compensated for force org mistakes somewhat.
 

Deleted member 1487

Until the late war period the new units were built on a base of veterans skimmed off existing units. The Volks Grenadier units fielded in late 1944 were a example of the first large scale fielding of units without substansive veteran cadres. The static or fortress divisions that begain coming into existance in 1942 had a smaller veteran cadre thn sought for the field formations. Even in 1939 the second & third wave reserve units called up received a levy of fully trained cadres from the standing units, some ten to fifteen percent of the total cadre in the unit. Siegfried Knappe in his autobiography describes his roles as one of these cadres sent to a newly mobilized unit.

Bottom line is for the first three years very few new units were fielded without a significant experienced cadre included. Through 1943 & 44 there was still a effort to provide veteran cadres to new formations.
Was that the case with the late 1941-early 1942 infantry divisions of the 300 series? AFIAK those were not unless they were taking in recovered wounded personnel. Barbarossa/the Soviet winter offensive in that period didn't allow for a skimming. Also adding in a relatively smaller amount of recruits to a veteran division is much more effective in disseminating experience than having a smaller veteran base to wrap a much larger number of green recruits around, while leaving veteran units understrength and equipped.

The situation for pre-Barbarossa expansion divisions seems to have been different to that 17th-19th waves of infantry divisions. Perhaps not, I don't know for sure. It would go to explain the reason for the good performance of the post-1940/pre-Barbarossa new divisions during the Russian campaign. I know later in the war some units got experienced troops as part of their expansion, like the 12th SS, but other ones like the Luffwaffe field divisions that I mentioned did not.

War in the East by James Dunnigan has many such lovely charts (copyright 1977). Section V on p126-152 is about this very subject.
The German field army including all sub-organizations totalled 7.2 million in 1941, and 9.1 million in 1944 (p133).
Page 137-153 are chuck-full of the charts you are requesting.

I'm not very technical. I can scan the chapter, but wouldn't know how to load that here. Please advise?

I think, largely based on my reading of this excellent book, that the change in end result of the war would have been very big. Not enough to win the war, but perhaps enough to extend it by 3-6 months. If that happened many butterflies occur. Truman might have considered dropping the first atom bomb on Germany.

Germany did have the advantage of having trained officers and NCOs to be adaptive and to take initiative on their own. So this likely compensated for force org mistakes somewhat.
If you scan the individual pages you can attach them page by page via clicking the 'upload a file' button below when you are posting a new message. If you want to PM me I'll give you my email so you can send me to the scanned chapter in PDF form.
 
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