Wartgamer
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4. “Barbarossa” – war with USSR – campaign
3.30 am, 22 June, 1941
Front-line 995 miles + 620 miles on Finnish boarder
Sooner expand to 1,490 miles in length and 600 miles in depth
German Army amounting ¾ of its field strength
End-1941, USSR losses: (about twenty encirclements) 3,000,000 (3,500,000) captured, 4,000,000 dead, 14,287 tanks, 25,212 guns including:
July, Bialystok-Minsk pocket: 324,000 men, 3,332 tanks, 1,809 artillery pieces captured/destroyed;
July, Smolensk pocket: 310,000 prisoners, 3,205 tanks, 3,120 guns captured/destroyed;
August, Rolsavl: 38,000 prisoners (18,000 later), 250 tanks, 359 guns captured/destroyed;
August, Kiev: 103,000 prisoners, 317 tanks, 1,100 guns captured/destroyed;
August, Kiev, battle is over: 665,000 prisoners, 884 tanks, 3,178 guns captured/destroyed;
October, Bryansk-Vyazma pocket: 673,000 prisoners, 1,242 tanks, 5,412 guns captured/destroyed;
Beginning-November, front-line is 50 miles far from Moscow
By mid-November – 16 miles from Moscow
German losses
By July 31, 1941
213,301 casualties (15% total invasion forces), 863 tanks (25% of total invasion number)
Motor transport lost about 50% (regarding “bad” roads)
November (estimation by OKH (German Headquarter)
101 divisions = 65 full strength divisions
17 panzer divisions = 6 full strength
Combat power of 136 invasion divisions = 83
Croup Army Center required 31 supply trains / 16 provided
Example, Guderian: one panzer corps of 600 tanks established had 50 left
Total losses by end-November (starting June 22, 1941)
743,112 (not counting sick) men = 23.12% of average total strength of 3,200,000
Example, On Eastern Front Army (Moscow direction) is short of 340,000 = 50% of fighting strength of infantry
At home only 33,000 men available
50% of load-carrying vehicles runs
out of 500,000 trucks 150,000 lost, 275,000 need repair
December 1941 - March 1942
256,000 dead and 350,000 sick (frozen)
55,000 motor vehicles, 1,800 tanks, 140 heavy guns, 10,000 machine-guns
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Dullness! Unlaid readily, Jason's Story. Figures. His droniness continues.
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I thought Standard Oil started the whole thing by giving the Germans leaded-gas?
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Yes Jason is indulging himself in mystical hindsight.Originally posted by A.E.B:JasonC
You are of course viewing the entire picture backwards - starting in 1945 and working backward to 1939 to see what Germany should have done.
Try viewing it forwards.
The fact is that German planners in 1940 could not forsee the eventual demands of 1942.
You are assuming that they should have been planning for the worst case scenario of a war of attrition in the East.
But at the same time there was start of the bomber war, the battle of the Atlantic, the need to rescue Italy, Yugolsavia, Greece, Crete and North Africa.
Should Germany ramp up U-boat production to starve Britain? Should they build larger bombers? The current tank forces seem adequate against the British, so are heavier tanks and bigger guns needed? How about an aircraft carrier to protect the Tirpitz? These Jet Aircraft have a lot of teething problems, should we invest the resources to make them work or build more ME109F2s? How about this nuclear thingy, should we pump resources into heavy water and try to make a theoretical bomb?
With hindsite we know what Germany needed to do, but once the initial surprise wore off, Germany now had to react to its enemies moves.
So why built ten new panzer divisions to invade Russia in 1940 if your planners don't think you need them? Why not build 100 U-Boats and the Graf Zeppelin instead? Or heavy bombers to level Britain?
Germany had limited industrial output and limited resources. Hence what was build was what they though would win the war in 1941, not what was needed to stave of defeat in 1944.
And once you commit resources to produce ceratin items, those resources are often hard to redeploy. Even factories producing one model of tank suffered delays and reduced production when switched to another model. Hence a torpedo factory could suddenly start pumping out tanks.
Germany had limited industrial resources to commit, and in 1940 had to make strategic choices on where to invest those resources.
You believe the Germans suffered from an excess of pride, of a stupidity born of ideology and maybe "victors syndrome". This may be true.
I suspect that instead Germany did what it always did - stick to the plan and concentrate on what is needed now, not what might be needed in 1944 to fend of tanks and planes that don't exist now.
German planners thought they would be choosing their estates in the Urkraine in 1943, not that they would be fighting for their lives in a war of production that they knew they couldn't win.
Maybe the true visionaries of WWII were those American Army officers who pre-war realised that the coming war would be one of production, not super men and super weapons. They at least got it right.
A.E.B
The realistic decision point would have been after Dec 41. The Germans not only had thier tit stuck in a wringer (Russia) but now had the US coming into the war.
To think that the Germans could magically get 1943 or 1944 levels of production happening in 1942 is silly. Speer only took over in 42 and had to not onlyy feed a large conflict, but increase production also.
1942 production of aircraft (besides Stukas) was not that much greater than 1941. German tank designs were in a state of change. Prolonged use of existing tanks placed a parts strain on any production increase.
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Yes please relieve us of your anal semantics.
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The Operational Art of Retreat? Also, don't forget the scorched earth policy. The Soviets were playing hardball.
Could the Germans have really stopped the movement of that industry? They did not have a bomber fleet that would reach that far? Blitzkrieg could only move so fast also.
One of the things to keep in mind about fuel is that it is not just production, but alos distribution.
The US, beyond argument THE POL king, had problems keeping its motorized divisions supplied with fuel once they were moving. In some cases (Anvil), they were lucky and captured German aviation fuel (runs great in tanks) and also diesel (not sure if they could use it).
[ June 02, 2005, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=16
Germany reached a critical point when it decided to continue attacking England. It could have negotiated after the Fall of France. But it did not seal its own fate till it attacked the Soviet Union. THAT is when it started to lose the war.</a> From 1939 to 1941, Germany used her now well refined Blitzkrieg tactics to conquer Poland, Denmark, Norway, the BeNeLux nations, France, the Balkan, and so on. The end goal was to obtain a German victory through the utilization of the minimum quantities of men, materials and supplies as possible, and in the shortest time. This worked quite well in the early years of WWII. If there was a chance to win the war, it was most probable during the summer and fall of 1941 provided that the existing resources were not squandered or misused.But in 1941, the Germans came up against a proverbial brick wall - their summer and fall offensive against the Soviet Union stalled. The winter season arrived with bitterly cold temperatures. Interestingly, on 16 August 1941, General Keitel and the Wehrmachts-Waffenämter agreed that Germany reduce its military production efforts in the fall of 1941. Both were so sure that Germany had defeated the Soviet Union, and Hitler concurred. Then came November and December of 1941. In short, the Germans had not adequately prepared for an extended winter campaign. One of the negative consequences was that many Wehrmacht infantrymen and tankers suffered accordingly (of note is that the Luftwaffe and the KM had sent proper winter clothing to most of their troops in the east).
In the end, Germany’s excellent military leadership and her many technical advantages were not enough to overcome the economic advantages of her enemies. From the very beginning, Germany should have been able to exploit many of her economic and technology advantages far more optimally. Placing Herman Göring in charge of domestic economic planning was not the wisest of selections either. While Albert Speer did achieve some very impressive production increases in 1943, 1944 and 1945 (he became Armaments Minister on 18 February 1942, replacing Fritz Todt), the German efforts were essentially a day late and a dollar short.
Germany lost the Second World War not because of any single military action, she lost it primarily to a war of economic and human attrition.
Germany was like a very good middle weight fighter taking on a pretty bad heavy weight fighter (SU). The heavy weight could stick it out and get better.
[ June 02, 2005, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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I do not believe that Germany could have ramped up as fast as Jason is guessing.
They could have ramped up all sorts of vehile/plane production but ramping up all the fuel needs for those items would not be as easy.
Germany did ramp up production in the long run but at the expense of spares. They clearly made a mistake there also.
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The Germans wait till 44 to learn that diesel is easy to manufacture?
15. Effects of Fuel Shortagesa. When the amount of gasoline and oil was cut down by the bombing offensive against the oil industry, economies were instituted to save as much fuel as possible. Some was saved by the use of trailers. When a shortage of trailers appeared, trucks were joined together as tractors and trucks. By economies such as this, savings of fuel up to 50 percent were effected.
b. Up to mid-1944, only 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles were converted monthly to substitute fuels. The increasing bombing of synthetic oil plants caused the rate of conversion to be stepped up, but the effectiveness of such a conversion program was hindered by scarcity of conversion units and, to a large extent, by the amount of work entailed in installation. The minimum time needed to install a truck generator was 300 hours.
c. Finally, it was decided to use as much diesel fule as possible since it was easier to produce than gasoline. As early as 1 July 1944, Klockern-Humboldt-Deutz, Ulm, received orders from the Main Committee to increase its production facilities for diesel motors to the point where it could produce diesel motors for all RSOs, in addition to 2,000 to 3,000 per month to replace gasoline motors in other types of trucks. In late 1944, German technical experts were developing diesel motors that could be used in all trucks and half-tracks.
[ June 01, 2005, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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The Germans did ramp up weapons production for the invasion of the Soviet Union. But amazingly, they cut back on production in late 41!
Clearly they believed in another short term application of the Blitz that would produce another victory quickly.
They cut back on MG, rifle and mortar production in particular.
Clearly the Germans were going for a short term war with the Soviets.But this comes back to the short war question. If Germany had knocked the USSR out of the war in 1941 or 1942, all of the above was unnecessary. If you think you can win quickly, why trash your own industrial and agricultural base if you don't have to. Then you have time to properly exploit the resources of captured regions, install the needed roads and railways and ports.A better goal would be the securing of the breadbasket of Russia, capturing/denying oil to the Soviets and restricting any imports from outside sources.
The Germans should have concentrated all antishipping efforts from the Allies to the Soviets. Since they could not bomb factories in the US and England, sinking ships was just as good. The Germans should have got the Japanese to attack the Soviets and deny any supply from the Allies also.
The German air attack on England (with its loss of pilots/planes) was stupid. They should have either finished off England or not bothered attacking them after the fall of France. In reality, they could not do it and it would not have been worth it. They just wasted resources. By attacking the SU, they just put themselves into another multifront situation that would spell thier own doom.
[ June 01, 2005, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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You think he has any friends?
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Perhaps if the French had as much space/bad weather as the Soviets 'enjoy', they too could have had some options.Napoleon has a line: In war morale is to all other things as three is to one. I can't argue with that. Better morale - a belief by the fighters and the people behind their fighters that their cause was just and achievable - really helps when you are up against a more competent military than your own.If the French had an industrial Giant like the US supplying it, it may have also faired better/longer.
Napolean should talk to the US troops that fought in the Hurtgen forest perhaps? They had great morale initially, but were worn down by bad terrain, second rate troops (with lots of ammo for the tubes) and many realities that Mr. 3:1 did not dream about.
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According to this source the Allies sent 59% of the Aviation (high octane) fuel. The Soviets were quite capable of supplying thier own automotive fuel needs (97.5%). You probably are not grasping that fact. It is very clear if you bothered to read the link provided. Evidently, they needed aviation fuel. More than likely, it is harder to process than lower ocatne gasoline or diesel.
Aviation Fuel
thousands of tons (includes Allied deliveries)
1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Total %
889 1269 912 1007 1334 1017 4396
Allied Deliveries 2586 59
Soviet Production 1810 41
Trucks: They did recieve many trucks. They even used captured trucks also. They needed trucks. What dont you grasp?
BibliographyCHAPTER VIIIMotor Vehicle Assembly
and Delivery
In the manufacture of motor vehicles American methods of mass production have achieved quantitative results unequaled by any other industrial power. This industrial potential, a valuable asset in mechanized warfare, the United States shared with its Allies through lend-lease. To the Soviet Union through 20 September 1945 went 409,526 lend-lease trucks of United States origin. Some idea of the extent to which the United States shared its output with the USSR may be gained from figures of its production of military trucks during the war years. Total output during the peak year of 1943 was 648,404 military trucks. The trucks sent to Russia were thus the equivalent of seven and a half months of United States output at the highest annual rate achieved during the war years. It has been estimated that the lend-lease trucks received by the USSR from the United States represented two years and seven months of the prewar capacity of the less highly developed Soviet motor industry. American trucks therefore bulked large as an addition to Russian production capacity. Nearly 45 percent of these American trucks reached the USSR via the Persian Corridor. Of these, 88 percent were assembled in the American-operated plants at Andimeshk and Khorramshahr from March 1942 through April 1945.1
Beaumont, Joan. Harrison, Mark. Accounting For War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defense Burden, 1941-1945
Ibid. Soviet Planning in Peace and War Jones.
Sokolov, B. V. "The Role of Lend-Lease in Soviet Military Efforts, 1941-1945"; Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, Sept. 94
Trucks
http://www.army.mil/CMH-pg/books/wwii/persian/chapter08.htm
[ May 30, 2005, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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3 inch mortar is using WP. I compared 25 pdr. to 2 inch because they are both non-WP type smoke.
3 inch mortar WP is clearly inferior (just compare weight of bombs and assume similar % filling) to 2 inch mortar smoke.
I would say both types of smoke are under modeled to one degree or another.
In addition, the amount of dust/'smoke' generated by larger HE shells is under modeled. TNT generates a large cloud of black 'smoke' in addition to dust.
[ May 30, 2005, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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Again, we are talking ideal conditions.WO 32/10577 Tactical employment of smokeThis table gives "No. to produce 500 yards screen in 10 m.p.h. wind on a cloudy day. On a bright sunnyday or with low or high winds, expenditure of ammunition may have to be appreciably increased."The general thought is that non-WP smoke is modeled wrong. For some reason, 2 inch mortars are the oft quoted proof.
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It says 2 minutes emission. Not 5 minutes. Further bombs would have to be fired to maintain it to 5 minutes. Unless in a defensive position, this would rapidly use up a foot units smoke bombs.
2 inch mortar:
9 bombs times 2 pounds is 18 pounds times 30% filling is 5.4 pounds filling.
25 pdr:
2 rounds is 50 pounds times 7% filling is 3.5 pounds filling
Rough math but there is nothing special about 2 inch mortar smoke.
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The 'Myth of the Blitz' was no more than an 'All-In' using mobile warfare against an enemy for the first time. It worked against the Poles and the French and defeated these nations. It was not a myth but a unique employment of weapons to maximize effectiveness.
It worked primarily because it accomplished exactly what it needed to do; it defeated the enemy before they learned the technique itself, or a reasonable defense against it.
The Germans learned from Poland that consumption of material would outstrip production. They knew that any further attacks had to be quick and decisive. They had to also benefit in some way from winning the next nation. Raw materials, food, coal, etc. were the payoff if the German Reich was to benefit from attacking nations.
The land-based 'blitz' technique failed against England. Airpower could not really 'blitz' and the Germans got a bloody nose. 'Blitzing' in the desert was just grinding sand.
The German 'blitz' into the SU was clearly the biggest mistake of WWII. It created an enemy with ample room to absorb the shock of initial losses, gain allies that would support her, and turn the Germans own weapon against it with an even more capable method of attacking.
The US/Allies also developed a mobile method of using brute force against an already over-stretched Germany and collapsed the Third Reich under logistical pressure.
Mobile Warfare replaced any 'blitzing' after 1943. All combatants had settled into using AFV in rougly similar practice and there were no more nation-toppling without brutal combat.
[ May 30, 2005, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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..Almost forgot to mention the truck/jeep factor...
Clearly, the Soviet response to the 'Blitz' (Operation Art of War) would not have been possible without Allied pipeline of transport resources (rail/aviation-fuel/trucks).Even more important than the AFVs were the jeeps and trucks supplied by the West. Soviet trucks were copies of U.S. 1930-era designs and lacked the cross-country abilities of the modern vehicles given by the Americans. The U.S. alone gave some 151,000 1 1/2 ton and 201,000 2 1/2 ton trucks. The table below compares Soviet production of trucks with Lend-Lease deliveries, in thousands:Year 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Total
Soviet Production 62 35 49.2 60.6 74.7 281.5
Allied Deliveries 409.5
Grand Total 691
Allied Proportion 59.3%
Note: Figures for 1941 are for the second half of the year only.
On May 1, 1945 Lend-Lease vehicles comprised 32.8% of the Red Army's vehicle park. 9.1% were captured vehicles and 58.1% were domestically built. I can only explain the disparity between the Lend-Lease deliveries and the figures for May 1945 by suggesting that most of the Allied trucks were sent to the front where they were lost to enemy action while the Soviet trucks spent their time relatively safe in the rear because of their poor cross-country abilities.
These trucks enabled the Soviets to mount the offensives that evicted the Nazis from their territory and took Berlin. Without them they would have had to divert tank production to the manufacture of trucks. Undoubtedly this would have prolonged the war in the East, but not changed the outcome.
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I believe its true that the US supplied the SU with 60% of its aviation fuel. In other words, high octane refined gasoline. The SU had refining capabilities (and resources) and supplied its own diesal (and other fuels) it seems.
The SU probably could not have had half the working air force without US support. Sorties consume vast quantities of fuel.
http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/SovLendLease.html
I imagine that the US supplied diesal tank and TD to the soviets. The US made shermans with both diesal and gas engines. US trucks also ran on gasoline so they would have needed a source of lower octane gas. The US did just send truck chassis in some cases so I suppose that the soviets could have assembled diesal trucks.
It appears that the US supplied the SU with great quantities of rail equipment including locomotives, rails, cars. On the eastern front, rail was a major method of moving equipment. Between fueling half the Soviet airforce and supplying the majority of rail equipment; the Allied shipments to the SU decided the eastern front theater. If the Germans could have limited this pipeline of material better, they would have had some chance of winning on the eastern front.
Clearly the German inability to stop the Allied supply line to the SU was a major factor in its losing WWII.
[ May 30, 2005, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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The Germans had to 'blitz' for a simple reason...
Early in the war, when the 'blitz' worked, it had to work. If France could have put up a longer lasting defense, and other nations supported her at this point, then WWII would not have spread like it did. If most of the effort put into the maginot line was put into something as simple as mobile antitank guns and AA guns, 10's of million of people would not have died. A prolonged war against france would have rapidly depleted the German war stocks, and not having the ability to ramp up quickly, they would have been stopped from making the error of attacking the Soviets.Wartime Germany was a chemical empire built on coal, air, and water. Eighty-four and a half percent of her aviation fuel, 85 percent of her motor gasoline, all but a fraction of 1 percent of her rubber, 100 percent of the concentrated nitric acid, basic component of all military explosives, and 99 percent of her equally important methanol were synthesized from these fundamental raw materials.Until the later thirties, most of Germany's liquid fuels were imported-she produced only a third of her 1936 liquid fuel requirements (Figure 1). Then extremely ambitious synthetic oil and war chemicals programs were started. Germany's military and economic planners were so convinced that this program could be completed and maintained without enemy interference that they went to war with reserves stocks equal to only:
3.1 months' war needs for aviation gasoline,
1.9 months' war needs for motor gasoline,
1.8 months' war needs for tetraethyl lead,
2 months' war needs for nitrogen satisfactory for explosives, and
2.4 months' war needs for rubber.
Germany never recovered from this precarious position, and throughout the war her oil stocks, particularly critical items like aviation and motor gasolines, were so tight that her whole military effort would have collapsed like a pricked balloon in three or four months had her oil supply been dried up.
http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/images/ussbs/fuelpro.jpg
If Germany's fuel production could have been attacked earlier in the war, it would have saved many Soviet lives. Given the fact that the Germans were tight on fuel from the beginning, its startling that the industry was not identified and destroyed earlier.
[ May 30, 2005, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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Did 2 inch mortars have some uber smoke fillings? They probably had the same fillings as many non-WP smoke shells. Except less.
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WP does not burn for as long as a scenario. So you are imagining too much. Friendlies can enter the smoke screen within minutes.
Non-WP smoke will make a tank crew bail out. It is sucked into the crew compartment (by fans) and makes operating the vehicle impossible. A field expedient is to take two smoke grenades and tie them together. This is then thrown over the vehicle.
WP burning particles can be sucked into the engine compartment by the powerful fans and destroy wires/hoses/radiators/fuel/etc.
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This is Charles comment..1999
At the moment we're leaning away from modeling white phosphorous (WP) separate from "regular" smoke. The reason is mostly that we want to keep the user interface from getting too complicated.I don't think that US artillery fired WP in the indirect fire mode (what in CM would be "off map" artillery). But someone please correct me on that if I'm wrong.
My understanding is that WP was fired most often by tanks in direct-fire mode. I'd rather not have separate orders and separate ammo tracking for smoke and WP rounds, so we might give slightly different behaviors to smoke rounds fired from American tanks (like a chance to cause fires).
Charles
I'm not sure I'd want to bother including WP as an off-map mortar (or artillery) round because I think such use was infrequent (though I could be wrong about that so let me know if you come across differing evidence). The case you cite was 4.2" mortars, which were intended as "chemical mortars" and therefore more likely to use WP than anyone else, but 4.2" mortars were pretty rare. Also, the attack you described seems quite similar in effect to a conventional high-explosive attack in terms of the damage caused. In fact it's entirely likely that the 4.2" mortars used WP because, being "chemical mortars", they had no little or no high-explosive on hand.I'm also familiar with a few cases of Shermans firing WP at heavy tanks and tricking them into bailing out. But this isn't the kind of thing that can reasonably simulated in a game like CM, because it was a very rare occurrence. It's not as if Panther crews were bailing out of tanks all over the Western front due to WP hits, so I don't want to encourage "one in a million" tactics which are unrepresentative of typical combat.
However, it appears the use of WP from direct-fire ordnance, especially tanks, against enemy infantry was fairly common. So I'm struggling with a way to include WP without overburdening the ammo supply/display/user-interface in the game.
I'm wondering what everyone thinks. Would it be reasonable to implement Combat Mission so that American tanks (and maybe tank destroyers) always use WP instead of conventional smoke? It would be easy to include WP "for real" if I don't have to worry about units carrying both WP and conventional smoke at the same time. If it's one or the other, I can put it into the game. But is this acceptably realistic?
Charles
The Blitz myth?
in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
Posted
1940 total = 3,381
PzKw-I – 1,062 + 243 (command tank)
PzKw-II – 1,086
PzKw-III - 329
PzKw-IV – 380
143 PzKw 35(t) + 238 PzKw 38(t) Czech tanks
Even if the Germans could mystically know to increase production in 1940 like Jason says, would they also mystically know that many of the designs were obsolete and useless?
Would they mystically know that they should concentrate only on the Panzer IIIL60?