WW2: Fewer divisions better?

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Deleted member 1487

Alright, coming across some info recently about the efficacy of horse transports (hint: it is 80% less efficient than truck transport due to extra supplies needed for horses and their pulling abilities), in WW2 were fewer divisions better because they allowed for more concentration of scarce trucks/supplies? The British and Americans went with the 'less is more' philosophy so that they could have fully motorized/mechanized divisions and larger air forces, which the Germans and Soviets went with very large armies with limited and concentrated motorization/mechanization. The Soviets arguably showed that more divisions aren't necessarily bad, even if they were smaller, perhaps out of necessity due to the size of the front. The Germans seem to have gotten the worst of both worlds, having too many divisions they couldn't properly equipment/supply/man and not enough mobile divisions to meet needs, which sucked up the striking power of the army. Post-war when refounded they went for a smaller army with total mechanization.

So is the issue that fewer divisions are actually better or just not having more than you can support in general, with quantity 'having a quality all it's own' (plus a constant reserve due to having more all the time, even if low quality)? Arguably having lots of low quality divisions enabled the Soviets to absorb and wear down the higher quality and more brittle German divisions after all.
 
Surely it's better to have no more than you can adequately support, train, and equip. Numbers do indeed provide advantages, but if you can't get them where they need to be and they can't do anything useful once they get there then you might as well not have bothered.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I actually think the Wallies, the Germans and the Soviets each made the choices being best for them.

A Wallies type army wouldn't make any sense on the Eastern Front, for a start because it wouldn't be able to cover the Eastern Front. And even if you imagined it was possible to build all the motor vehicles needed it would be even harder to keep them supplied with fuel and spares. The Germans and Soviets also had a very large available pool of horses.

And for the Wallies it would be outright silly to include the extra complexity of horses when you were going to fight in NW Europe with its dense road network. The British army also well before WWII had concluded, that mechanisation in British agriculture had replaced so many horses, that the British Army already for that reason had to be mechanised. I'm not aware of how many horses could be "mobilised" in USA by 1940, but transporting them across the Atlantic would appear a challenge of its own.

Anyway, this is not necessarily a question of horses or not. Both the German and the Soviet armies had the majority of their supplies carried by mechanised transport, but the horses added capacity that wouldn't have been available otherwise, and in the last few miles to the front units the horse proved quite effective, especially where roads were few and lousy and the weather worse.

On a regular paved way a column of 2,5 tons trucks will by far outperform anything you could think up with horses. But when it comes to bringing out supplies to 6th Company at the front line in the moor a horse team hauling a waggon with one ton of supplies is quite supperior.
 
It depends how far you are from railheads/ports At el Alamein or Normandy number of troops is the important factor, at El agheila or after crossing the Seine divisions were left behind because there wasn't enough transport. There's a balance that depends on the theatre. more transport and fewer troops makes a break out/through less likely, but makes it likely a break out will lead to a greater advance before the enemy can regroup. The optimal balance in Italy was probably different from the desert, the Eastern Front or France, and probably also depended on whether an army was attacking or defending and whether a country had command of the air (making it easier to move troops around and so increasing the value of fewer more mobile forces against larger less mobile forces).

After WW2 greater unit firepower as well as better intelligence and communications lead to greater mechanisation, which was aided by smaller forces with more time to add equipment (in WW2 it wasn't possible to wait ten years to produce sufficient APCs etc to fully mechanise, after WW2 it was).
 

Deleted member 1487

I actually think the Wallies, the Germans and the Soviets each made the choices being best for them.
The Germans clearly fielded many more divisions than they could appropriately support. The Wallies arguably could/should have fielded more divisions, while the Soviets arguably fielded more than was needed and could have done better with fewer.

A Wallies type army wouldn't make any sense on the Eastern Front, for a start because it wouldn't be able to cover the Eastern Front. And even if you imagined it was possible to build all the motor vehicles needed it would be even harder to keep them supplied with fuel and spares. The Germans and Soviets also had a very large available pool of horses.
Again, that is arguable. The Soviets had a much much larger pool of horses than anyone but the US IIRC, while the Germans had way too few and hadn't recovered from WW1 and only were able to handle it due to taking over Europe's and part of Russia's population of horses. They decimated that population in the war too. Also a horse supplied division is 80% less efficient than a truck supplied one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II#Horse_logistics
 
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Redbeard

Banned
The Germans clearly fielded many more divisions than they could appropriately support. The Wallies arguably could/should have fielded more divisions, while the Soviets arguably fielded more than was needed and could have done better with fewer.

According to what standard?

The German concept newer meant to have a Division supplied the way it was meant to in the Wallied armies, but rather to raise and "grind" the Division down with what it had at the start and then start all over again, with whatever would be available. In a Wallied context that was absolutely horrible, but had the Germans tried to run the Wehrmacht like how the British or US Army was run, they would have lost the war many years before, And had the British or Americans tried to play Wehrmacht, they would have fared as bad.
 
Germany was not in the same situation as UK, let alone like USA. German armies needed to crush France in shortest time, with Poland being more of a roadblock, or a major practice for the French job. UK decided, upon the ww1 experience, that waging an expensive & offensive 'technical' war + blockade is actually cheaper on the long run, while counting on France and sea working as defense vs. Germany. Being a rich country, their decision looked sound.
USA was like UK on steroids. Thus Germany was left with need for big airforce and big army, while having the Navy that will challenge UK in half a decade. Sounds great, but needed plenty of money and more time, Germany was short on both.
 

Deleted member 1487

According to what standard?
Results. There were situations where more divisions could have helped the Wallies, while in the Soviet case it could have meant better supply and concentration of quality manpower/firepower.

The German concept newer meant to have a Division supplied the way it was meant to in the Wallied armies, but rather to raise and "grind" the Division down with what it had at the start and then start all over again, with whatever would be available. In a Wallied context that was absolutely horrible, but had the Germans tried to run the Wehrmacht like how the British or US Army was run, they would have lost the war many years before, And had the British or Americans tried to play Wehrmacht, they would have fared as bad.
The German practice, not sure it was a concept other than Hitler's demand, was extremely wasteful of manpower and equipment.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ler-doesnt-overexpand-the-german-army.402301/

I'd argue the Germans would have done better with the Wallied practice.
 

Deleted member 1487

US Horse and Mule population
1915
26,493,000
1920
25,199,552
1925
22,081,520
1930
18,885,856
1935
16,676,000
1940
13,931,531
According to my wiki-link Germany started with 500k and mobilized over 1 million or so during WW2. The US had so much more potential if they wanted.
 

Deleted member 1487

how much do SPGs alleviate logistic burden for German side?
Not sure, but I found an interesting perspective on that; due to the lack of reliability of WW2 German AFV chassis (i.e. tanks, not half tracks) later in the war for a variety of reasons (the SP artillery on a tank chassis only showed up in 1943), they had to have 6 guns instead of 4 in a battery because 2 were always laid up due to mechanical issues. Hermann Balck wanted to use only towed guns in his divisions, towed by fully tracked prime movers (IIRC RSOs) because if the mover suffered mechanical issues then the gun isn't also disabled/left behind/laid up in the mechanic's shop as with SP artillery.
So using a prime mover with towed artillery would probably be 80% or so more efficient than a horse towed gun (move further, not require the same kind of rest, won't die/be out of permanent commission due to mechanical issues nearly as long, won't use as much supply like oil/fuel as a horse requiring vets and fodder, etc.) or at least that was the number I can find calculated by Alfred von Schell.
 
how much do SPGs alleviate logistic burden for German side?

Not sure, but I found an interesting perspective on that; due to the lack of reliability of WW2 German AFV chassis (i.e. tanks, not half tracks) later in the war for a variety of reasons (the SP artillery on a tank chassis only showed up in 1943), they had to have 6 guns instead of 4 in a battery because 2 were always laid up due to mechanical issues. Hermann Balck wanted to use only towed guns in his divisions, towed by fully tracked prime movers (IIRC RSOs) because if the mover suffered mechanical issues then the gun isn't also disabled/left behind/laid up in the mechanic's shop as with SP artillery.
So using a prime mover with towed artillery would probably be 80% or so more efficient than a horse towed gun

RSO appears only after they are waste deep in USSR? with unanticipated problems ... SPGs might look like good idea prior to that?

looking at (relative) ineffectiveness of their divisions from another angle, if they had been equipped with anti-tank rifle grenades (per a prior thread) how would that affect logistics? that they are not using ever bigger guns to deal with Soviet tanks.
 
I think the other consideration is having an efficient method of replacing both manpower and equipment within a given army for each Division

My knowledge on the subject is admittidly sketchy but the Wallies late war seemed to have the ability to keep the actual Divisions and Corps 'at the front' and push men and equipment too them rather than say having to withdraw the unit out of the main combat area and reconstitute it.

There are exceptions ie very late war for example the British 50th 'TT' Division was broken up late war (with a fairly large number of Veterens sent back to the UK to take up training posts) and the British found it necessary to turn gunners into infantrymen (pre- normandy casaulty expectations among fighting arms not being accurate - ie Infantry losses were far heavier while other combat arms where much lighter)

This might be a nature of the wallied armies operating 'overseas' and by necessity having a robust logistics capable of supporting this method!

Also not all divisions are created equally - wallied Divisions tended to be larger in terms of manpower, transport, tanks and guns etc enabling them to absorb greater combat losses and being a more powerful unit.

My understanding of the German method was units withered on the vine while fresh divisions were created and a 'decimated' unit would be pulled out of the line (pre Normandy for example Panzer units were sent to France to be rebuilt and train with new tanks) - Often the surviving veterens of a given Division would be sent to a 'Shadow' Division (Training unit) and that unit would be 'rebadged' with the legacy units name and honors etc.
 

hipper

Banned
Alright, coming across some info recently about the efficacy of horse transports (hint: it is 80% less efficient than truck transport due to extra supplies needed for horses and their pulling abilities), in WW2 were fewer divisions better because they allowed for more concentration of scarce trucks/supplies? The British and Americans went with the 'less is more' philosophy so that they could have fully motorized/mechanized divisions and larger air forces, which the Germans and Soviets went with very large armies with limited and concentrated motorization/mechanization. The Soviets arguably showed that more divisions aren't necessarily bad, even if they were smaller, perhaps out of necessity due to the size of the front. The Germans seem to have gotten the worst of both worlds, having too many divisions they couldn't properly equipment/supply/man and not enough mobile divisions to meet needs, which sucked up the striking power of the army. Post-war when refounded they went for a smaller army with total mechanization.

So is the issue that fewer divisions are actually better or just not having more than you can support in general, with quantity 'having a quality all it's own' (plus a constant reserve due to having more all the time, even if low quality)? Arguably having lots of low quality divisions enabled the Soviets to absorb and wear down the higher quality and more brittle German divisions after all.

Germany lacked the fuel required for a larger mechanised Force, they made very good use of their mechanised forces but larger mechanised forces would require vastly increased fuel supplies.
 
Could Germany have supported a larger number of logistical vehicles? Their factories were hard pressed manufacturing aircraft, submarines and afv's, was there any spare capacity for soft skinned vehicles? Also IIRC they had an almost constant shortage of fuel, the only supply being from Ploesti or from coal extraction. Any increase in the number of vehicles requiring fuel might have been unsupportable.
 
Germany lacked the fuel required for a larger mechanised Force, they made very good use of their mechanised forces but larger mechanised forces would require vastly increased fuel supplies.

Actually this is one area where I think Wiking may be on to something. Not that it will win the war for Germany by amazing flipflop but unlike a lot of other proposals it helps. Essentially you accept that there will be no change to the total mechanisation of the Heer rather you reduce, say about 50 horse drawn infantry divisions and replace with say about 10 extra motorised infantry divisions. You still have the men, the guns and the horses and about half the motor vehicles of the stricken 40 divisions as reserves in the Ersatz Heer command structure that can be used to keep the operational divisions up to strength.

Off the top of my head early war you would thus still have 68 horse drawn divisions for flank, line of communications coverage but the Panzer Armee portion of the Heer would now have some 15 motorised infantry divisions (+ 2 Waffen SS equivalents and 1 essentially mechanised cavalry division) supporting the 10 panzer divisions (of which 4 had formerly been Leichte aka Light Divisions). It would still be likely the number of horse drawn divisions would continue to increase if the war progressed in a recognisably similar fashion as they can hold down garrison duties more economically and of course the flanks etc grow massively assuming Germany still launches into Russia. However assuming the Soviet campaign progresses in a historically similar fashion if the Heer rather than disguising the increasing shortage of infantry by keeping two regiment (as opposed to the original three rifle regiment format) divisions in action they fold them into motorised divisions they could have potentially made better use of the resulting smaller number of divisions and kept the in service forces closer to establishment strength at any given point in the war.
 
Actually this is one area where I think Wiking may be on to something. Not that it will win the war for Germany by amazing flipflop but unlike a lot of other proposals it helps. Essentially you accept that there will be no change to the total mechanisation of the Heer rather you reduce, say about 50 horse drawn infantry divisions and replace with say about 10 extra motorised infantry divisions. You still have the men, the guns and the horses and about half the motor vehicles of the stricken 40 divisions as reserves in the Ersatz Heer command structure that can be used to keep the operational divisions up to strength.

Off the top of my head early war you would thus still have 68 horse drawn divisions for flank, line of communications coverage but the Panzer Armee portion of the Heer would now have some 15 motorised infantry divisions (+ 2 Waffen SS equivalents and 1 essentially mechanised cavalry division) supporting the 10 panzer divisions (of which 4 had formerly been Leichte aka Light Divisions). It would still be likely the number of horse drawn divisions would continue to increase if the war progressed in a recognisably similar fashion as they can hold down garrison duties more economically and of course the flanks etc grow massively assuming Germany still launches into Russia. However assuming the Soviet campaign progresses in a historically similar fashion if the Heer rather than disguising the increasing shortage of infantry by keeping two regiment (as opposed to the original three rifle regiment format) divisions in action they fold them into motorised divisions they could have potentially made better use of the resulting smaller number of divisions and kept the in service forces closer to establishment strength at any given point in the war.

Especially as you consider that many divisions even at the start of the Barbarossa Campaign were not at full strength/TOE and these units were often incapable of handling combat ops

My personal opinion is that it would be better to break up the weaker non mobile formations and as you say keep the full strength Divisions up to strength and being more capable of combat operations.

Perhaps turn those broken down units into shadow training divisions that provide replacements to the combat divisions

And at the same time if possible (and I am semi quoting Manstien I think) stop the private armies (SS and LW field divisions) as these robbed the heer of thousands of quality soldiers - and in the case of the SS took heavy losses when they should not have and in the case of the LW field division took heavy losses due to a lack of 'tribal knowledge and experiance'.

Again he writes that a the quality of troops in many of these 'private army' units were of high quality and therefore 'robbed' the heer of many potential NCOs and Officers
 
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