Yet Another Germans do better WWII WI

I realize that everyone on these forums is probably sick of these already, but I looked and couldn't find a thread for this specific possibility. What if, around the time the Germans start to think seriously about invading the USSR (mid 1940, wasn't it?), the high command had ordered as many of their factories as possible to switch to producing rail cars fitted to the Soviet gauge? Assume, for the sake of argument, that they achieve the same surprise as OTL. How many could be produced, and what effect would this have on the logistics of Barbarossa? In particular, I would be interested in the opinions of ObsessedNuker and Wiking.
 
Your probably actually best off roping someone with knowledge about the rail car industry in here to determine how feasible the manufacturing part is. Taking a stab in the dark on my part, I rather doubt Germany could re-gear their relevant factories to produce enough new rail cars... especially seeing as how those rail cars would be useless on Germany's domestic net and become slowly more and more useless in Russia as the rail gauge is converted. Converting the gauges on locomotive engines, on the other hand, is apparently outright impossible.

Looking at it in a logistical sense, it likely does the same thing as the OTL use of captured Soviet rolling stock did: create tremendous logistical bottlenecks at the transfer points from the German to Russian gauges. Martin Van Crewald devotes an entire chapter in Supply War to the logistical clusterfuck that Barbarossa was and had quite a bit to say about this...

Supplying War said:
Russian tracks with captured rolling-stock had to be used, and it soon became clear that the transfer-points (Umschlagstellen) from German to Russian trains formed the bottleneck of the entire logistic system. Thus, heavy congestion occurred at Eydtkau as early as 30 June. Three days later, the situation at the railway transfer point of Schaulen was said to be 'catastrophic', to the point that the shock wave went all the way up the military heirarchy until the reached Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the army, himself. Nevertheless, the station of Schaulen was again blocked on 11 July. Instead of the regulation 3 hours, it was found that unloading the trains took 12, 24, and even 80 hours, hopelessly congesting the stations and making it impossible to utilize more than a fraction of the capacity of those lines that were in use. So great was the confusion that whole trains were being 'lost', some never to reappear again.

Further more, there are still substantial issues that can't be solved by just changing the gauge on the rail cars. A great example is the fact that Soviet water and coaling stations were much more widely dispersed then in German, as Soviet engines were built to go longer distances before having to coal and refuel. When one factors in that many of the coaling and watering stations that existed as it was destroyed by the Soviets as they retreated, this led to German train engines constantly running out of coal and water midway between these stations even once the rail lines were converted. Dealing with this ahead of time would require the design and manufacture of an entirely new train engine that could handle the distances completely from scratch specifically just for the invasion of Russia. One wonders what kind of snarls that would create in the German locomotive manufacturing industry...

And this is just one of the additional examples. Crewald has legions of them.
 
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Wow, thanks for the swift and informative reply.

Firstly, I would like to say that I agree that, in the best case, this would be a massive hassle. The only other idea I had was that could the Germans, perhaps, have studied a Soviet rail car that came across the border as part of the German-Soviet trade that went on before 22 June and tried to reverse-engineer it? I'm not a WW2 expert like you are, so please understand if that is really stupid.

Regarding the use of captured stock OTL, are you saying that the problems were so massive that the Germans would have been better off not using it at all? I was under the impression, though, that the Soviets destroyed most of it as they retreated and that the bulk of supplies had to be carried by either horse-drawn cart or truck up from the rail heads, and it was this situation that caused such massive screw-ups. Also, wouldn't the bottlenecks be somewhat alleviated, the more trains there were to transfer to?
 
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BlondieBC

Banned
If you want better RR transport in 1941, there is an easier way. The Germans were so confident of victory, the RR workers got a work schedule closer to peace time hours than war hours. Have the RR workers work like soldiers, and not take holidays and weekends off, and you get a much faster conversion of the RR to German gauge.
 
Wow, thanks for the swift and informative reply.

No problem.

Firstly, I would like to say that I agree that, in the best case, this would be a massive hassle. The only other idea I had was that could the Germans, perhaps, have studied a Soviet rail car that came across the border as part of the German-Soviet trade that went on before 22 June and tried to reverse-engineer it? I'm not a WW2 expert like you are, so please understand if that is really stupid.
It's no problem. But the Germans wouldn't need to study any Soviet rail cars to know that Soviet track gauge was different. This was one of the reasons OKH emphasized the capture of rolling stock and rapid conversion of rail lines. And then were subsequently annoyed when the fact that German panzer divisions were unwilling to curtail their rate-of-advances to go train hunting which then combined with the fact that the panzers operated over regular roads meant they rarely intersected with Soviet railroads and this left large numbers of Soviet troops that still had to be cleared off of the rail lines before they could be converted. To quote Crewald: "This, then, was one result of the attempt to conduct a campaign with the technical means of one age and keep it supplied with those of another."

Also: while I (and Wiking, although I can't speak for him) probably are indeed really knowledgeable with WW2, I would hesitate to call ourselves "experts". Lacking the truly scholarly background and academic access to archival material, we'll probably never be anything more then really talented amateurs.

Regarding the use of captured stock OTL, are you saying that the problems were so massive that the Germans would have been better off not using it at all? I was under the impression, though, that the Soviets destroyed most of it as they retreated and that the bulk of supplies had to be carried by either horse-drawn cart or truck up from the rail heads, and it was this situation that caused such massive screw-ups.
Yes and no. The Soviets destroyed what they could, but the Germans still captured some rolling stock nonetheless. One problem though is that the German forces were roadb

As to whether the Germans would have been better off not using it at all: it was pretty much their only option. The panzers moved so fast in the summer portion of the campaign that truck based supply from the rail heads became almost impossible because the rail lines were so distant. This was a major reason why they spent so long sitting just east of Smolensk for so long: there were simply not enough supplies getting through to keep up offensive operations.

Also, wouldn't the bottlenecks be somewhat alleviated, the more trains there were to transfer to?
The issue is less one of trains and more one of infrastructure. The issues with rail conversion, the nature of Soviet railroads, and innumerable other little quirks and oddities* meant there just wasn't enough rail space for the Germans to get the supplies they needed.

*To use another Crewald quote:

[This bit follows a very long list of infrastructure issues] Concerned above all with restoring the greatest possible length of tracks and bridges, the Eisenbahntruppe frequently paid no attention to such vital matters as access to quays, workshops, and engine sheds, the need to supply locomotives with coal, or even the elementary fact that one double line can carry more than two single ones. All this meant that, though General Gercke might fix the number of trains to be run each day at 48 and 24 for the two kinds of lines respectively, his figures remained largely theoretical and could never be approached in practice.
 
Very interesting- it appears that the problems run a lot deeper than I thought. What is really remarkable, when you combine the high command's paying great attention to the issue with BlondieBC's point about the workers getting weekends and holidays off(!) and the Crewald quote regarding the Eisenbahntruppe's sloppiness, is the picture of complete incompetence and ineptitude that emerges. It is the absolute opposite of everything that one generally associates with Germany and its armed forces.
 
It is the absolute opposite of everything that one generally associates with Germany and its armed forces.

"War is not won by the most competent side, but the least incompetent." :p

A lot of myths got built up about the Wehrmacht as a result of it's early successes and great tactical ability. These myths tended to ignore the fact that they were not so stellar when it came to strategy, operational art, logistics, military intelligence, and pretty most every other bit of military science that is pretty important to waging a war that lasts longer then a couple of months. Which is partly why they intended Barbarossa to only last a couple of months in the first place.

When one considers all of this, what is startling isn't that the Germans lost but that they got so far before losing.
 
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