WI:Most Efficient WWII Germany

Michele, I think we'll have to agree to disagree, since I'm not convincing you, and you aren't convncing me.
 
Well, I think Raising taxes somewhat is probably the safest of the above ideas--maybe throw in large scale Nationalization and Privatization of Jewish owned businesses to create a revenue stream. Perhaps that's a direction to explore--Untermensch assets are seized and auctioned at discount to raise money to pay for the military industrial complex.

Arms sales to pro-Axis governments still seems like a good idea--it would increase efficiency through economics of scale, while getting at least some level of funding. The gains to Germany are probably incremental instead of decisive, but even if Italy or Finland only buy a handful the resultant cash flows are going to be needed.

Cutting the Siegfried line's funding at least partially would probably be a good move.

The Lynchpin of my strategy, though, is German investment in R&D that recoups the original investment and more. Germany invested in "Wunderwaffen" that had little real return even in the most successful cases and mostly were a cash sink in the worst ones. What about a more grounded R&D system that focused on refinements and evolutionary designs rather than far-out weapons with little chance of success. (Granted, this means no German nuke, but that wasn't coming soon anyhow.)

Instead of Tiger Tanks, Germany starts producing body armor and assualt rifles. Instead of Rockets, it creates its own radar stations and computers. This might mean that Germany has no clue that nuclear weapons are coming or that the allies are reading their codes, but this kind of preference for short bets in R&D rather than longshots would probably play heavily to Germany's advantage--at least until the nukes start coming.

Germany, though, is going to need a brilliant guy in charge of its economy to get this to work--Perhaps Schacht serves in this role instead of being fired and later locked in a concentration camp?

As for cost cutting in the army, perhaps Germany uses an Israeli system to force its entire population to serve in the army--if manpower becomes a problem, Hitler can decide that Aryan women will beat the daylights out of Slavic men.

How badly ASB is this?

1. But the Jewish-owned assets _were_ poured into the German economy. That's no what-if. As far as voluntary emigration went, depending on the wealth of the individual and the time of departure, variable proportions would go into the state coffers and into the pockets of private citizens through unfair deals (if you are not allowed to carry away more than a given sum, the buyer of your house _knows_ you ar forced to sell off). Once more radical measures were applied, most went to the state. Of course it would be more efficient if everything went into the state coffers from day one, but if so, once again you make the rest of Germans less happy, since they don't get those lucrative deals, just like you do by raising the taxes. Part of the money you make will need to go to strengthening the Gestapo.

2. As to arms sales, as mentioned that would be curtailing the German own rearmament, and I tell you that you can rule Italy out. They assessed a Czech 38 and decided to go with the Italian M11 (!!), they delayed the production of license-built German aircraft engines until well into the war, etc. So who's left? Hungary, Finland? Puny economies that will certainly not make a great contribution, even assuming they decide to spend more on armaments and they also decide to spend in Germany. Romania was French-friendly until 1940 and bought there. Czechoslovakia and Sweden were exporters, not importers of armaments.

3. As mentioned, cutting the Westwall is a risk. It can be taken, of course, Hitler was great for taking risks.

4. Different decisions as to R&D might be good. Assault rifles were indeed produced by Germany in WWII, and there is nothing really preventing them from starting earlier. Rockets, per se, are very good, it's the guided versions that aren't very useful. Body armor is a bad choice, I really don't see why you suggest that.

5. Having the German women serve, even just voluntarily in auxiliary roles like they did to a certain extent late in the war, can be done. However, here we see the contradiction in Hitler's ideas and needs. On the one hand he wanted to work for the 1,000-year Reich, and in that perspective, he was obsessed with things like population growth and natality – which meant women must do what men could and can not. On the other hand, the only possible victory in the war he embarked for comes from a short war, a KO punch struck while the opponent is still taking off his coat. One would need to find a solution to that contradiction, in order to have Luftwaffe Helferinnen early in the war (I'm not even thinking about combat service).
 
Isn't it funny how when anybody gets massacred in an argument, they fall back on the "agree to disagree" gambit. Riain, Michele has slaughtered you, be a man and admit it by conceding the argument.

Well, I think Raising taxes somewhat is probably the safest of the above ideas--maybe throw in large scale Nationalization and Privatization of Jewish owned businesses to create a revenue stream. Perhaps that's a direction to explore--Untermensch assets are seized and auctioned at discount to raise money to pay for the military industrial complex.

As others have pointed out, this was pretty much done so its already included in the existing data. There's very little else to use for this process. However, a different cut on it would be not to do this. The process involved a lot of economic disruption which has a cost all of its own and its possible to argue that cost penalty could have been avoided had the Germans not gone in for this process. However, not doing it would require a fundamental change in Nazi ideology and that takes us into ASB territory.

Arms sales to pro-Axis governments still seems like a good idea--it would increase efficiency through economics of scale, while getting at least some level of funding. The gains to Germany are probably incremental instead of decisive, but even if Italy or Finland only buy a handful the resultant cash flows are going to be needed.

It requires major armaments sales to make any significant difference to the economic scene and I just don't see the customers for adequate quantities. I think the problem is that you're back-tracking today's situation where there are a small number of primary suppliers and a large number of customers to the late 1930s. The problem is that it was a totally different situation back then. Most countries could build a substantial proportion of their own requirements and the ones that couldn't were pretty insignificant in the broader scheme of things. Their orders were equally insignificant. For example, today Australia is talking about purchasing 100 F-35s at around USD85 million each for a total uf US$8.5 billion dollars. Go back to the late 1930s and orders of 100 aircraft from another country are pretty rare (the huge French orders for American aircraft stand out simply because they were so unusual); orders of a dozen or so aircraft (at around US$50,000 each) were much more common. Even allowing for the difference in currency values, that's still three orders of magnitude difference in total value; buying 12 Me-109s is about US$8 million in today's money converting by the gasoline index). Also, back in 1939, a lot of countries were primary arms producers; for example the Thais built their own aircraft (the Boripatra bomber); it may not have been up to much but they built it.

Finally, arms exports consume raw materials in their country of production. In effect, they exchange raw materials for foreign currency. So, if raw materials are the major constraint (as Michele has so ably demonstrated) export orders take place to the detriment of production for home use. A major export order in 1938 will mean a significant weakening of the home forces in 1939. Taking that one step further, since Germany was importing its raw materials so the total process is this

Production step converts money to raw materials for product
Sales step converts product to money

The asmount of money gained isn't the value of the equipment exported, its the value added in the production process, a lot less than the unit cost of the equipment sold.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that exporting military equipment isn't going to help.

Cutting the Siegfried line's funding at least partially would probably be a good move.

Only if one knows what is going to happen in 1940 four years before the fact. Without that knowledge, the West Wall is an essential piece of engineering. Looking at things with the eyes of the times, the most likely result of 1940 will be a deadlocked front like that of 1914-1918 and in that case, the West Wall is essential engineering. The West Wall expenditure is very much like that on an insurance policy; if you know, beyond any doubt, that you're not going to have a car accident or your house is not going to burn down next year, then money spent on insurance is wasted. On the other hand if you don't have insurance and you have a major capital loss, then you're in deep doo-doo.

The Lynchpin of my strategy, though, is German investment in R&D that recoups the original investment and more. Germany invested in "Wunderwaffen" that had little real return even in the most successful cases and mostly were a cash sink in the worst ones. What about a more grounded R&D system that focused on refinements and evolutionary designs rather than far-out weapons with little chance of success. (Granted, this means no German nuke, but that wasn't coming soon anyhow.)

The only real problem here is one rarely knows what is going to be the result of a specific R&D line. The wunderwaffe investment was a post 1939 phenomenom so it really doesn't affect the point at issue here. That doesn't mean that I disagree with your basic point, the so-called wunderwaffe (actually they were nothing of the sort) were a total waste of resources. I just don't see that cutting back on R&D would have been helpful in the time period in question. In fact, the reverse could be the case; in the early 1940s, Germany did cut back heavily on the R&D side of things in favor of concentrating on things that would be available for a "short war" so I don;t see there is flexibility here for a resources transfer that would have made any difference.

Instead of Tiger Tanks, Germany starts producing body armor and assault rifles.

Different resource consumption lines. By the way, body armor as we know it today didn't and couldn't exist in the late 1930s, the materials needed simply didn't exist and nobody knew they could exist. It is true that the USAAF issued its bomber crews with flak jackets, but these were years later, very heavy, very clumsy and only suited for use by people who were not moving around. The first real use of body armor was in the Korean War and it was only effective against small, low-velocity fragments. It was Vietnam before protective armor was actually of great tactical value. By the way, what made modern body armor feasible was the shift to intermediate power rifle rounds like the 5.56x45mm or 7.62x39mm that reduced the threat level. In 1939, pretty much everybody was shooting full-power rifle rounds and they'll go through even a modern set of body armor (a 7.62x54R AP round will go right through modern armor even with interceptor plates - as quite a few of our people found out in Iraq.)

As to assault rifles, I don't see they could have arrived any earlier than they did, the development rate is set by too many other factors. Finally, the research for Tiger tanks isn't a set-aside item, its a part of tank R&D in general. So you can't just cut it. Otherwise, the Germany Army will go into Russia in 1941 with Pz-IIIs and Pz-IVs and no hope of anything better. The inevitable result of that will be 1944 seeing the Russians liberate Germany all the way to the Rhine.

Instead of Rockets, it creates its own radar stations and computers.

The Germans had radar and had no idea computers as you're describing them existed. They didn't until the early 1960s. So your forst proposal is what happened, your second isn't possible.

This might mean that Germany has no clue that nuclear weapons are coming or that the allies are reading their codes, but this kind of preference for short bets in R&D rather than longshots would probably play heavily to Germany's advantage--at least until the nukes start coming.

These aren't short-shots as you call them, they're just as long as the ones the Germans did try to pull. They're different long shots I agree but still long ones.

Germany, though, is going to need a brilliant guy in charge of its economy to get this to work--Perhaps Schacht serves in this role instead of being fired and later locked in a concentration camp?

They had one. It doesn't change the basic situation.

As for cost cutting in the army, perhaps Germany uses an Israeli system to force its entire population to serve in the army--if manpower becomes a problem, Hitler can decide that Aryan women will beat the daylights out of Slavic men.

But who then runs industry? Or works in it? Who grows food? or drives the logistics system? The Israeli system is fine if you're going to have a war that lasts a couple of weeks at the outside. Beyond that its national suicide. As for the women idea, if it came to pitching German women against Russian women I know who my money is on and the losers speak German. Anyway, you really want to take Russian front casualties hitting the people who will be bearing the next generation? Quite apart from the fact that tossing women into the front line runs right against Nazi ideology and doing so means a complete change in the way the Party thinks. Not really plausible on any great scale.

Having said that, some German women did fight in the front line in the last days of 1945 (Beevor's book mentions them as does Eriksson's Road to Berlin). They did very badly and essentially got killed for nothing.

How badly ASB is this?

Very badly I fear. The ASBs (lazy little beasts) are rustling their wings in concern at the amount of work involved.
 
Part of the problem with German wartime production was the lack of focus.
They needed to standardize and limit the number of individual designs in production.
A fewer standard types of motor vehicles for example would have faciliatated production and logistics.
Also, some of their design are considered 'over engineered' and overly complex. Had they developed and produced equipment that was easy to manufacture, that had good endurance in the field, and was easy to maintain by front line troops they would have been in a better position.
They tried too hard to trump quantity with quality, but still lost the numbers game.
It seems that prior to Speer becoming Armaments Minister, the production of military hardware was not well organized. It is interesting to note that during the 1943-44 period (when Allied bombing was peaking) the levels of AFV production was hitting peak numbers.
Another thing, the German military relied heavily on captured material. Just about every one of the Heeres/Volks Artillery Korps had 1 or 2 detachments with 152 & 122mm russian guns for example. If you look at the actual weapons used in the field, there were significant numbers of captured weapons in use in just about every type of formation - further complicating the logisitics chain and introducing more inefficiency.
Panzer units were motorized but the Infantry divisions relied heavily on horse drawn capacity. It is doubtful even under the best of circumstances that Germany could have fielded a fully motorized army.
Would it have made a difference if Germany had captured some of the Russian armaments factories and used them for their own purposes.
Regarding naval issues, most German surface warships had significant flaws (the destroyers had unreliable boilers) and had exceptionally large crews.
Mass production appeared in the naval sector with the Type XXI u-boats that were built in sections.
In any situation, Germany had serious limitations. They had limited resources (particularly oil) that limited their activities. Their production facilities were within range of Allied strategic bombers, while the US remained untouched - and had tremendous nature resources to draw on) As an aside - consider what the situation would have been had the US had to maintain the same level of air defence (fighters, flak, shelters, etc) and ground security as the German's did.
 
... body armor as we know it today didn't and couldn't exist in the late 1930s, the materials needed simply didn't exist and nobody knew they could exist. It is true that the USAAF issued its bomber crews with flak jackets, but these were years later, very heavy, very clumsy and only suited for use by people who were not moving around. The first real use of body armor was in the Korean War and it was only effective against small, low-velocity fragments. It was Vietnam before protective armor was actually of great tactical value. By the way, what made modern body armor feasible was the shift to intermediate power rifle rounds like the 5.56x45mm or 7.62x39mm that reduced the threat level. In 1939, pretty much everybody was shooting full-power rifle rounds and they'll go through even a modern set of body armor (a 7.62x54R AP round will go right through modern armor even with interceptor plates - as quite a few of our people found out in Iraq.)

As to assault rifles, I don't see they could have arrived any earlier than they did, the development rate is set by too many other factors.

I agree with everything else you post, but on these two points I'd like to add:

1. I believe that one of the reasons of the current prevalence of body armor is something that has less to do with tactical considerations than with the attitude of some of the nations mainly using it with regard to KIAs and WIAs. Even today, body armor can't prevent all injuries, the main killer remains what it was in WWII: HE fragmentation and concussion - which hurts you even if you wear body armor. However, today's body armor is reasonably effective in preventing _lethal_ injuries. And some of the countries mainly using it have public opinions that are more sensitive to KIAs than most public opinions back in WWII. And they also can afford costs and resource allocation for field hospitals, medevac, veterans' hospitals, post-traumatic treatment, pensions etc., to the tune of amounts that a cold-eyed WWII leader (read Hitler) would have considered outlandish. Prosthetic limbs - let's say nobody wants them, but if unavoidable, better a 2008 design than a 1939 one.

2. I don't understand why you say that the development of an assault rifle couldn't be completed earlier. The gun we all have in mind is of course the StG 44, actually already available in 1943. A normal open-bolt design, it did not rely on any major scientific or tech breakthrough (it was based on the Czech ZB 26 MG, from which even the Bren was developed), it just hit a workable compromise between the automatic rifle and the submachinegun. And as we know, its development was delayed by bureaucratic infighting within the Third Reich. I think it could have easily been worked out by 1941, after some experience in the first war years had shown the advantage of automatic fire below the squad MG level but also the shortcomings of SMGs.
 
I believe that one of the reasons of the current prevalence of body armor is something that has less to do with tactical considerations than with the attitude of some of the nations mainly using it with regard to KIAs and WIAs. Even today, body armor can't prevent all injuries, the main killer remains what it was in WWII: HE fragmentation and concussion - which hurts you even if you wear body armor. However, today's body armor is reasonably effective in preventing _lethal_ injuries. And some of the countries mainly using it have public opinions that are more sensitive to KIAs than most public opinions back in WWII. And they also can afford costs and resource allocation for field hospitals, medevac, veterans' hospitals, post-traumatic treatment, pensions etc., to the tune of amounts that a cold-eyed WWII leader (read Hitler) would have considered outlandish. Prosthetic limbs - let's say nobody wants them, but if unavoidable, better a 2008 design than a 1939 one.


I'd agree with pretty much all of that. Even if we could give 1939 troops 2008 style body armor, it's effects are going to be on the margin rather than fundamental. The implication of body armor is we get a lot more very badly mangled people who are still alive; combine that with modern medical treatment and a high proportion of the casualties survive. I think in 1939, all that would happen is that the body armor would mean that people who would have died instantly get mangled and the lack of 2008 medical treatment means the mangled people die later. Overall effect, very little.

I don't understand why you say that the development of an assault rifle couldn't be completed earlier. The gun we all have in mind is of course the StG 44, actually already available in 1943. A normal open-bolt design, it did not rely on any major scientific or tech breakthrough (it was based on the Czech ZB 26 MG, from which even the Bren was developed), it just hit a workable compromise between the automatic rifle and the submachinegun. And as we know, its development was delayed by bureaucratic infighting within the Third Reich. I think it could have easily been worked out by 1941, after some experience in the first war years had shown the advantage of automatic fire below the squad MG level but also the shortcomings of SMGs.

I wasn't thinking about technically, more operationally and from a production engineering viewpoint. Operationally, the need for an intermediate step between the rifle and SMG wasn't really obvious until serious fighting started. Then, there's the conceptual problems of concern over ammunition consumption (which also affected the US and the Garand), fire discipline and maintaining the new weapons. Production engineering is simply the difference between the old bolt-action Mauser with its handful of working parts and a much more complex assault rifle. It's a lot more work to make an assault rifle and a lot more effort to keep it clean and functional. As far as I know, its pretty much impossible to break a Mauser short of stuffing it under a tank tread and even then the thing can survive. There's just that much more to break in an StG-44

Assuming that we could bring the StG-44 forward a couple of years, say late 1942 for widescale issue, I can't honestly see it making that much difference. US and UK experts who examined the StG-44 weren't very complimentary about it, Wikipedia has this to say

The StG44's receiver was made of heavy stamped and welded steel as were other contemporary arms such as the MP40 and MG42. This made for a fairly heavy rifle, especially one firing an intermediate-power cartridge. Difficulties with fabrication, the need to use available non-priority steels, and the exigencies of war resulted in a heavy receiver. U.S. military intelligence criticized the weight of the weapon along with the inclusion of the fully automatic feature which it considered "ineffectual for all practical purposes." The British were also critical saying that the receiver could be bent and the bolt locked up by the mere act of knocking a leaning rifle onto a hard floor.

Even if it had been all it was supposed to be, rifles just weren't a decisive weapon in WW2. Artillery was the big killer and SMGs were just as effective as an StG-44 when it came to block fighting
 
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Even if it had been all it was supposed to be, rifles just weren't a decisive weapon in WW2. Artillery was the big killer and SMGs were just as effective as an StG-44 when it came to block fighting

Well, yes. I never said it would be a war-winning weapon. I said it could have been fielded earlier.
As to its being badly designed and faulty, yes. The same can be said of the Sten or the "Grease gun" or plenty of other automatic weapons the soldiers greatly preferred to just about any well designed, fully reliable bolt-action rifle.
 
Michele, I think we'll have to agree to disagree, since I'm not convincing you, and you aren't convncing me.

Can I try to help? There seem to be two entangled issues. Firstly, was the German economy at full stretch with military related production over 1940-42 and secondly could German have substantially increased its output of aircraft, tanks and guns over 1940-42. The answer is yes to both questions. Tooze argues that Hitler expected to fight a decisive battle against the Anglo-Americans in 1943-44 and planned a huge expansion of production to fight that battle. Thus while Britain and Russia were producing equipment at the maximum possible rate in 1941-42 (and production would actually fall later as factories wore out), Germany was producing new factories and synthetic oil plants etc. The effect is that Germany produced more steel than Russia but fewer tanks. This might have been a rational strategy if Hitler had not attacked Russia but, with hindsight, does not win prizes for intelligence. If Germany had followed British and Russian priorities, it probably would not have reached 1944 levels in 1942 because the factories were not constructed (although Tooze does argue that bombing, especially the attacks on the Ruhr, did substantially reduce output) but it would have had many more tanks outside Moscow or at Stalingrad.

More obviously inefficient is the crazy murder of millions of Jews and Russian prisoners when you have a serious labour shortage.

There are also detailed inefficiencies but these were not unique to Germany. Perhaps, they should be in another post.
 
Can I try to help? There seem to be two entangled issues. Firstly, was the German economy at full stretch with military related production over 1940-42 and secondly could German have substantially increased its output of aircraft, tanks and guns over 1940-42. The answer is yes to both questions.

Of course the answer is yes to the second question too; the point is to the expense of what. If we focus on tanks and on the construciton of new plants, then we should remember that they were needed for the new tank models, for instance.
Not only the additional tanks in 1942 wouldn't be at 1944 numerical levels; they would also be, as already mentioned, mostly Pz IIIs and a few Pz IVs.
 
Well, yes. I never said it would be a war-winning weapon. I said it could have been fielded earlier.

Point taken and conceded. :)

As to its being badly designed and faulty, yes. The same can be said of the Sten or the "Grease gun" or plenty of other automatic weapons the soldiers greatly preferred to just about any well designed, fully reliable bolt-action rifle.

Again true, although it should be noted that both the Sten and the Grease gun were designed to be cheap and easy to produce, with pretty much everything else subordinated to that single aim. The seriously unfortunate aspects of the Sten in particular (especially its tendancy to fire on full automatic when dropped, something that made the dropper more than a little unpopular with what was left of his platoon) were known disadvantages and accepted as the price of a weapon that could be churned out quickly by unskilled workmen in simple machine shops.

In comparison, the StG-44 was intended as a standard rifle, its complexity and manufacturing requirements should have produced a much more reliable weapon. A better comparison would be with the American M1 and M2 carbines that fulfilled a very similar "intermediate" role (in their cases as a pistol replacement). It's an interesting coincidence that the StG-44 weighs as many kilograms as the M2 weighs pounds (5.22 kilograms as opposed to 5.2 pounds). The M1's production standards were much higher than those of the StG-44 and the selective-fire M2 filled pretty much the same role as the German weapon, its main disadvantage being the underpowered round. That was actually being addressed in 1944 with a much-improved .30 carbine round being developed but it never went anywhere.

It's anamusing thought but had the Germans turned up with StG-44s in large numbers from, say, 1942 onwards, we'd probably have seen the U.S. M2 with the improved .30 carbine round appearing much sooner with interesting effects on post-war small arms development
 
Quantity and quality

Not only the additional tanks in 1942 wouldn't be at 1944 numerical levels; they would also be, as already mentioned, mostly Pz IIIs and a few Pz IVs.

The first significant use of Tigers in Russia was at Kharkov in February 1943 and by then the war was lost. There was no simple linkage of new factories with new weapons. For example, the new Nibelungenwerk (associated with Mauthausen concentration camp) was the largest producer of Pz IVs after late 1942 while Tigers were produced in pre-existing plants.

To try to work out possible Pz-IV production in 1941, we note that Krupp-Gruson produced 785 out of 3,013 Pz-IVs in 1943 (they produce all the 467 in 1941). Vomag produced 816 in 1943 in a plant converted from truck and bus production but I do not know how much investment was required. About 800 Pz-IV chassis for other roles were also produced but I do not know this output by factories (later anti-aircraft tanks came from Krupp-Gruson).

The situation for Pz-III production was simpler as 5,435 chassis were produced in pre-existing plants in 1943 compared to 2,213 in 1941. However, tank production fell from 1,673 to 377 as the Pz-III was considered obsolete.

Thus I am confident that Pz-III and Pz-IV production could have been doubled easily and perhaps increased three fold by simply allocating materials and labour without building more factories. Not 1944 levels but enough to ensure rising numbers during 1941.

The next obvious inefficiency to remove is the weak armament of both tanks. Guderian was fully aware by June 1940 that the guns were inadequate to destroy French Char-Bs or British Matildas. Shortly afterwards he began to suspect the existance of heavy Soviet tanks. However, he could not persuade the ordinance office to fit the high velocity guns required (which existed as anti-tank guns requiring only limited adaptations). Following the time scale for Pz-IV from a November 1941 decision to March 1942 production and July 1942 use of the Pz-IV Ausf. F-2, a July 1940 decision would have allowed deployment of tanks capable of matching the T-34 from the start of Barbarossa.
 
Germany was already geared up for a war economy by 1936, as much as is possible in peace - something like 25% of GDP on war efforts.

And Syracuse University DESERVES to be invaded by Germany!! :D:D:D
10% actually -- See Ritschl, "Deficit Spending in the Nazi Recovery."
 
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