WW2: Fewer divisions better?

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Deleted member 1487

This is a bit off topic, but still germane I think. I have seen numerous photos of abandoned, damaged and destroyed Soviet equipment, artillery, wagons, soft skinned vehicles and armor, especially from the early phase of Barbarossa. Did the Germans attempt to utilize those vehicles in a systematic way? The gain in trucks alone should have been huge, yet I am unsure of just how, or if, they dealt with them. The impression I have gotten in my reading is that early in the campaign, much Soviet equipment was simply left to rot, whereas if it had been utilized, it could have at least partially equipped German units and decreased their dependency upon horses.
They were utilized.
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/captured-foreign-equipment-registry.htm
https://www.tankograd.com/cms/website.php?id=/en/soviet-spezial/Soviet-Trucks-of-WW2.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=T...v=onepage&q=soviet trucks german army&f=false
 

Redbeard

Banned
Except the issue here is the Heer did have the fuel and motor vehicles and wasted a not insignificant proportion of both supporting the horse parks. Take your 1,000 motor vehicle division, that has somewhere in the region of 5,000-5,500 horses consuming 50-60 tonnes of oats and hay daily as against perhaps 20 tonnes of fuel and a tonne of lubricants for the motor vehicles, while the men of the division might consume roughly fifty tonnes of food per diem*. Another way of putting that is two of the division's 30 tonne capacity supply columns are being used to transport almost solely supplies for the horses.

Yet another way of looking at it is that a resting Panzer Division in Russia was estimated as requiring 30 tons (I think short tons considering the source) daily while inactive, Infantry division required 80 tons daily in the same posture. See Section IV. of the below:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Germany/HB/HB-6.html

I think a better question would be, were enough of the infantry divisions engaged to a sufficient degree to justify their numbers or could a suitable mix of smaller number part-motorised/horse drawn divisions and a larger number of fully motorised infantry divisions been able to handle the burden? The gain of the latter organisation being in the larger pool of trained replacement men and horses, together with more equipment being held as replacements for losses and a lower overall logistics requirement.

*it should be noted that measuring human food by weight alone can give widely variable figure given the huge variety and preparations of foodstuffs humans consume


Excuse me, but where do you see: "Except the issue here is the Heer did have the fuel and motor vehicles and wasted a not insignificant proportion of both supporting the horse parks".

Yes Heer had a significant number of motor vehicles, hundreds of thousands - and deployed them. And as they also had access to huge sources of horses and fodder and manpower to handle them, they utilised these resources to significantly reinforce the combat capacity provided by the available motor vehicles, fuel and spares etc.

The Germans did NOT have the option of transforming horses and fodder into motor vehicles and fuel but of combining the available resources. It is a similar story about the Pz 38 production line in Czeckoslovakia. The Pz 38 soon became obsolete but its production lines couldn't handle heavier and more modern vehicles. So instead of bitching over the lacking Panthers from the Skoda Works they produced Marders and Hetzers instead. They were no where as good as a Panther, but way better than Pz 38s or nothing!

The 50 tons in difference between the daily needs of a Panzer Division and a semi-motorised InfDiv is NOT significant for the logistic system, which was dimensioned to keep a Division in combat supplied with 300 tons a day ( a US or British 500 tons a day!), and where at least some of the horse fodder can be raised locally practically nothing for the motor vehicles can. And anyway, even if it was a tedious job to fodder all those stupid and vicious horses - shooting and eating them all would not bring about one single truck or jerrycan of fuel. BTW I think you overestimate the daily oats need of resting horses. I've anyway seen figures about half as much as yours.

If I could mention a PoD to strengthen the Wehrmacht (although I suppose I shouldn't, but at least it's too late to do harm :) ) it should be: Buy a lot of those little ugly Russian peasants horses pre 1941 and fund a huge breeding programme!

And if the Wehrmacht somehow meet a fairy out in the Schwarzwald and she offers 50 extra heavy trucks incl. fuel and spares pr. Division I would utilise them for hauling the Divisional artillery. Just one of the battalions being motorised would significantly increase the combat power of the already motorised parts of the Inf Div (Pioneer, Reece and AT battalions plus regimental AT companies and sometimes also the Inf Gun companies). But it wouldn't just be any truck. Please note that the tracked artillery tractors the Red Army used rarely could move an artillery piece faster than a man could walk!
 

Redbeard

Banned


A very relevant extract from Nigel Askeys comprehensive works. You of course might question conclusions, I think Askey some time takes the "put everything into a formula" too far, but I'm always impressed by his documentation - and he even appears to have had anormal life incl. family and career besides all this!
 
Excuse me, but where do you see: "Except the issue here is the Heer did have the fuel and motor vehicles and wasted a not insignificant proportion of both supporting the horse parks".

Despite that you repeatedly restate that fodder was found locally the actual experience of numerous division commands was that in fact such local supplies were too widely scattered to be recovered in the time they were in situ. This of course assumes the men could be spared. In addition it assumes that the division was not engaged in marching which could potentially involve a considerable portion of the strength for up to ten hours daily.

Yes Heer had a significant number of motor vehicles, hundreds of thousands - and deployed them. And as they also had access to huge sources of horses and fodder and manpower to handle them, they utilised these resources to significantly reinforce the combat capacity provided by the available motor vehicles, fuel and spares etc.

The question here is in fact did having a large number of horse dependent divisions enhance Heer combat power or merely the number of warm bodies requiring supply? An infantry division has a considerably smaller road march than a motorised one not merely is a motorised formation significantly faster on the move which cancels out its greater road space requirement but it also has greater endurance. Horses per German manuals could sustainably cover perhaps 30km ever other day compared with 50km+ per day of a road marching mechanised formation. Yes you could push the horses harder but at the price of killing them and the Germans can bring forwards only 330 standard or 220 heavy horses per 55 car supply railway train. A railway transport sortie that is not bringing forwards food, fodder, fuel, ammunition or replacement equipment.

The Germans did NOT have the option of transforming horses and fodder into motor vehicles and fuel but of combining the available resources. It is a similar story about the Pz 38 production line in Czeckoslovakia. The Pz 38 soon became obsolete but its production lines couldn't handle heavier and more modern vehicles. So instead of bitching over the lacking Panthers from the Skoda Works they produced Marders and Hetzers instead. They were no where as good as a Panther, but way better than Pz 38s or nothing!

The 50 tons in difference between the daily needs of a Panzer Division and a semi-motorised InfDiv is NOT significant for the logistic system, which was dimensioned to keep a Division in combat supplied with 300 tons a day ( a US or British 500 tons a day!), and where at least some of the horse fodder can be raised locally practically nothing for the motor vehicles can. And anyway, even if it was a tedious job to fodder all those stupid and vicious horses - shooting and eating them all would not bring about one single truck or jerrycan of fuel. BTW I think you overestimate the daily oats need of resting horses. I've anyway seen figures about half as much as yours.

The issue is not in changing horses into trucks but rather extending German resources in both. I mean what were horses not at the front being used for? Apart from farming of course and the supply of food in wartime is helpful both to morale and efficiency. Yet there was another point that has been raised above in that the German Army was burning its motor pool faster than German industry could replace losses even without nasty people shooting at them. Saving wear and tear on the existing motor columns by not having bring forwards fodder for the horse divisions or even supplies of food and uniforms for quite so many men may (and this is one of the key arguments under investigation) have preserved more trucks as operable for those instances when the system needed to surge to full capacity (and given reported shortages of munitions it seems that frequently full capacity was not in fact equal to required needs across the front.

If I could mention a PoD to strengthen the Wehrmacht (although I suppose I shouldn't, but at least it's too late to do harm :) ) it should be: Buy a lot of those little ugly Russian peasants horses pre 1941 and fund a huge breeding programme!

Well then you need to demonstrate the cost benefits of such an idea.

And if the Wehrmacht somehow meet a fairy out in the Schwarzwald and she offers 50 extra heavy trucks incl. fuel and spares pr. Division I would utilise them for hauling the Divisional artillery. Just one of the battalions being motorised would significantly increase the combat power of the already motorised parts of the Inf Div (Pioneer, Reece and AT battalions plus regimental AT companies and sometimes also the Inf Gun companies). But it wouldn't just be any truck. Please note that the tracked artillery tractors the Red Army used rarely could move an artillery piece faster than a man could walk!

Save the point being the question that started this is converting a larger force of horse drawn divisions to smaller force of motorised divisions a net gain in combat effectiveness or too great a loss in distributed combat power? By what factor does the ability of motor/mechanised forces to concentrate at the points of decision outweigh the extra numbers brought forwards and given tactical transport by horses? To what extent did the Heer and especially I would suppose the Ostheer need distributed combat power over concentrated combat power?
 
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Redbeard

Banned
Despite that you repeatedly restate that fodder was found locally the actual experience of numerous division commands was that in fact such local supplies were too widely scattered to be recovered in the time they were in situ. This of course assumes the men could be spared. In addition it assumes that the division was not engaged in marching which could potentially involve a considerable portion of the strength for up to ten hours daily.
Some of the horse fodder and even some of the horse can be acquired locally, practically none of the fuel, trucks and spares can.

The question here is in fact did having a large number of horse dependent divisions enhance Heer combat power or merely the number of warm bodies requiring supply? An infantry division has a considerably smaller road march than a motorised one not merely is a motorised formation significantly faster on the move which cancels out its greater road space requirement but it also has greater endurance. Horses per German manuals could sustainably cover perhaps 30km ever other day compared with 50km+ per day of a road marching mechanised formation. Yes you could push the horses harder but at the price of killing them and the Germans can bring forwards only 330 standard or 220 heavy horses per 55 car supply railway train. A railway transport sortie that is not bringing forwards food, fodder, fuel, ammunition or replacement equipment.

But again, unless we're introducing ASB like PoDs of a hugely increased pre war programme of increased production of trucks and synthetic fuel deleting the horses will not bring about any extra units. And if we concentrate the available motor vehicles in motorised Divisions you will not have the number of Divisions needed to engage an object as big as the USSR. The manoeuvre units are necessary to win, but you still need fire units to fill in between and these could only be raised in the necessary number by utilising horses. BTW a fully motorised unit necessarily wasn't faster on Russian roads/tracks than a less motorised and the extra wear on motor vehicles on bad roads makes the motorised unit extra expensive.


The issue is not in changing horses into trucks but rather extending German resources in both. I mean what were horses not at the front being used for? Apart from farming of course and the supply of food in wartime is helpful both to moral and efficiency. Yet there was another point that has been raised above in that the German Army was burning its motor pool faster than German industry could replace losses even without nasty people shooting at them. Saving wear and tear on the existing motor columns by not having bring forwards fodder for the horse divisions or even supplies of food and uniforms for quite so many men may (and this is one of the key arguments under investigation) have preserved more trucks as operable for those instances when the system needed to surge to full capacity (and given reported shortages of munitions it seems that frequently full capacity was not in fact equal to required needs across the front.

In WWI Germany seriously suffered from manpower and horses being drawn away from the agriculture. Germany was starving by 1918. That wasn't the case in WWII, Labour being provided by various degrees of force and horses from breeding programmes and access to horses in the occupied territories. You couldn't raise any more trucks or fuel from the occupied areas. And anyway fodder wasn't the major logistic commodity in a WWII unit - artillery ammo was.



Well then you need to demonstrate the cost benefits of such an idea.

The little Russian horses were impressively resilient to the Russian climate and could work on less quality food than the big and beautiful German draught horses.


Save the point being the question that started this is converting a larger force of horse drawn divisions to smaller force of motorised divisions a net gain in combat effectiveness or too great a loss in distributed combat power? By what factor does the ability of motor/mechanised forces to concentrate at the points of decision outweigh the extra numbers brought forwards and given tactical transport by horses? To what extent did the Heer and especially I would suppose the Ostheer need distributed combat power over concentrated combat power?

See above, but to elaborate - you can't just choose between distributed combat power and concentrated combat power - you need to balance, and both need a certain minimum. If you can't distribute everywhere it is needed (3000 km and already thinly covered) it is game out and if you once you have distributed have nothing left to concentrate it will be game over a little later. So before I go to bed (have a long day tomorrow) I will claim once more: deleting the horses and concentrating the available motor vehicles in a smaller number of fully motorised Divisions simply wouldn't produce an army big enough to do the job.

Might also be why the Red Army never went for total motorisation but rather a huge number of relatively small Divisions bristling with guns and horses and very few trucks. And the trucks available were mainly used for bringing forward artillery ammo.
 

Askey is a bit off, as the GMC 2.5 ton was better than all the German trucks in the War, in reliability and mobility, as well as parts commonality
Yes, th Nazis were in better logistical shape than the 1941 USSR, but compared to the US, that three way comparison is like Mike Tyson vs two bums fighting

Swapping out the Nazis mix of trucks( I have a list of the types, its a long list, available on request) for a single type of 6x6 that were not bothered by desert or mud or winter conditions would have been decisive in October onwards
Then Askey doesn't bring up of how much horse drawn transport is effectively wasted by the supply requirements for the horses themselves.
 
If I could mention a PoD to strengthen the Wehrmacht (although I suppose I shouldn't, but at least it's too late to do harm :) ) it should be: Buy a lot of those little ugly Russian peasants horses pre 1941 and fund a huge breeding programme!

No, rather than waste iron on millions of horseshoes, build these coal/coke fired steam wagons instead
Sentinal_ani01.jpg
 

Deleted member 1487

Askey is a bit off, as the GMC 2.5 ton was better than all the German trucks in the War, in reliability and mobility, as well as parts commonality
Yes, th Nazis were in better logistical shape than the 1941 USSR, but compared to the US, that three way comparison is like Mike Tyson vs two bums fighting

Swapping out the Nazis mix of trucks( I have a list of the types, its a long list, available on request) for a single type of 6x6 that were not bothered by desert or mud or winter conditions would have been decisive in October onwards
Then Askey doesn't bring up of how much horse drawn transport is effectively wasted by the supply requirements for the horses themselves.
Not sure that you can actually say that the GMC was better than everything the Germans had. The US trucks were certainly much more available and much more standardized, but the Opel Blitz and MB L3000 were a match for it.
 
Not sure that you can actually say that the GMC was better than everything the Germans had. The US trucks were certainly much more available and much more standardized, but the Opel Blitz and MB L3000 were a match for it.

Many were RWD only. The Opel and Ford Cologne trucks were based off of lighter duty GM and US Ford designs, but the main trouble was the lack of standardization, even in tire and wheel sizing
 

Deleted member 1487

Many were RWD only. The Opel and Ford Cologne trucks were based off of lighter duty GM and US Ford designs, but the main trouble was the lack of standardization, even in tire and wheel sizing
I'll certainly grant you to standardization issue; many German military models were AWD.
 
I'm skeptical of Askey and some of his conclusions. Perhaps it is a reaction to his writing style, as it seems to imply he is far more brilliant than others and why didn't they see what he see's when it is so obvious? In other words, he writes much more like a gamer than a serious historian. His conclusions on the T34 were jarring, and I am left wondering what he missed in that evaluation, to me, it doesn't add up somehow. I need to find some good academic level reviews of his work before I plunk down the money.
 
I'll certainly grant you to standardization issue; many German military models were AWD.
Many were RWD only. The Opel and Ford Cologne trucks were based off of lighter duty GM and US Ford designs, but the main trouble was the lack of standardization, even in tire and wheel sizing

How good was parts interchangeability in the German trucks? Could you simply draw a new carburetor from supply and install it, or did it have to be handfitted? Parts can be for a specific vehicle and purpose on that vehicle, but that doesn't mean each one will fit as easily as it should. On US vehicles and gear this was SOP. On other nations? I am unsure.
 

Deleted member 1487

How good was parts interchangeability in the German trucks? Could you simply draw a new carburetor from supply and install it, or did it have to be handfitted? Parts can be for a specific vehicle and purpose on that vehicle, but that doesn't mean each one will fit as easily as it should. On US vehicles and gear this was SOP. On other nations? I am unsure.
Opel and another brand (cannot remember the name right now) were US designs and apparently were so related to US spec that US forces were able to repair captured German trucks using American issue spare parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Blitz
The medium-weight versions originally were equipped with a flathead 68 HP petrol engine coming from the 1930 GM Buick Marquette, replaced in 1937 with a modern overhead valve 75 HP straight-six engine also used in Opel Admiral passenger cars. This engine was very similar to Chevrolet engines from the same period, to the point that disabled Blitzes abandoned by fleeing Germans could be easily put back into operation by advancing Allies using Chevy/GMC and Bedford parts.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Askey is a bit off, as the GMC 2.5 ton was better than all the German trucks in the War, in reliability and mobility, as well as parts commonality
Yes, th Nazis were in better logistical shape than the 1941 USSR, but compared to the US, that three way comparison is like Mike Tyson vs two bums fighting

Swapping out the Nazis mix of trucks( I have a list of the types, its a long list, available on request) for a single type of 6x6 that were not bothered by desert or mud or winter conditions would have been decisive in October onwards
Then Askey doesn't bring up of how much horse drawn transport is effectively wasted by the supply requirements for the horses themselves.

Of course US logistic capacity was second none, it had to be when fighting across two oceans and actually having the industrial capacity to back that up. In that context US doctrines and organisation were created for exactly that situation and did well so. But had the US Army for some reason been confronted with a Barbarossa like task it would have had to do a lot very differently - and a lot more German-like. Of course the extra resources ought to have meant differences, but even in the OTL set-up the TOEs had to be changed in 1943 by reducing numbers of motor vehicles and all through the war US infantry units were foot marching (but could draw of the general pool of trucks for long distance transportation). But it would appear like the Wehrmacht had more motorised infantry in 1941 than the US Army had in 1944!

Another issue is the connection between doctrines and logistics. US and British doctrines had their focus on firepower rather than manoeuvre. This probably reduced British and US casualties but also meant that a British or US Division typically required close to double the amount of supplies (mainly arty ammo) in combat compared to a German. I seriously doubt if you, even with the US resources could keep 200 Divisions supplied in the OTL firepower doctrine on a Eastern Front infrastructure.

Anyway, each army was organised according to its task and available resources and should mainly be judged in that context, and not on how another army performed a different job with different resources.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I'm skeptical of Askey and some of his conclusions. Perhaps it is a reaction to his writing style, as it seems to imply he is far more brilliant than others and why didn't they see what he see's when it is so obvious? In other words, he writes much more like a gamer than a serious historian. His conclusions on the T34 were jarring, and I am left wondering what he missed in that evaluation, to me, it doesn't add up somehow. I need to find some good academic level reviews of his work before I plunk down the money.

Yes, his "agenda" sometimes outshine his product, but I think that is rather normal, even in so-called serious research - Askey just "shine" in an unusal direction. His data appear not only overwhelming in numbers, but also appear well documented in references etc. You could say that he to a large degree use secondary sources, ie quoting the tables or data found by another researcher, but combining them to put new light and refreshing conclusions - even if you can't follow all the conclusions.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Not sure that you can actually say that the GMC was better than everything the Germans had. The US trucks were certainly much more available and much more standardized, but the Opel Blitz and MB L3000 were a match for it.
Do we have data on cost?

I found out that a GMC 2,5 ton truck was rated at 1700 $ and a Jeep at 1100 $. That would appear cheap for the first and expensive for the second. I haven't found cost data on German trucks but in other categories of materiel US often was 2-3 times more expensive - no matter if you count in currency or man hours.
 

Deleted member 1487

Do we have data on cost?

I found out that a GMC 2,5 ton truck was rated at 1700 $ and a Jeep at 1100 $. That would appear cheap for the first and expensive for the second. I haven't found cost data on German trucks but in other categories of materiel US often was 2-3 times more expensive - no matter if you count in currency or man hours.
Nope. Not yet at least.
 
Of course US logistic capacity was second none, it had to be when fighting across two oceans and actually having the industrial capacity to back that up. In that context US doctrines and organisation were created for exactly that situation and did well so. But had the US Army for some reason been confronted with a Barbarossa like task it would have had to do a lot very differently - and a lot more German-like. Of course the extra resources ought to have meant differences, but even in the OTL set-up the TOEs had to be changed in 1943 by reducing numbers of motor vehicles and all through the war US infantry units were foot marching (but could draw of the general pool of trucks for long distance transportation). But it would appear like the Wehrmacht had more motorised infantry in 1941 than the US Army had in 1944!

Another issue is the connection between doctrines and logistics. US and British doctrines had their focus on firepower rather than manoeuvre. This probably reduced British and US casualties but also meant that a British or US Division typically required close to double the amount of supplies (mainly arty ammo) in combat compared to a German. I seriously doubt if you, even with the US resources could keep 200 Divisions supplied in the OTL firepower doctrine on a Eastern Front infrastructure.

Anyway, each army was organised according to its task and available resources and should mainly be judged in that context, and not on how another army performed a different job with different resources.

But in the spirit of this thread it has to be said that those 73 Divisions (49 Infantry, 20 Armoured and 4 Paratrooper) that Ike commanded in 1945 were division for division stronger in terms of manpower, vehicles, AFVs and guns than their Soviet and German equivilents. So each one could have more effectviely covered a greater frontage than the equivilent German or Soviet unit.
 
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