Need some info on a strategic level

[Robert Olesen]

In my campaign I have tables specifying die roll modifiers for availability of forces, ammunition and replacements (men and equipment) for different nationalities throughout the east front campaign.

I have some knowledge of the campaign, but not as much as I'd like. For example, I assumed that the Germans had diffculty getting supplies through to the front for most of the east front campaign, except for the summer offensives, but I really don't know.

Another detail I'm a bit unsure of is whether Kursk was in the central or southern region.

I'd appreciate some info on the subject, or some references.

At the moment, my campaign covers German and Soviet forces in the Southern region, but I'd like to extend it to other regions and other nationalities (Finland is the most obvious).

[Snorri]

Well the supply was actually even more "unstable" then you think. For example "42south" in early march new equipment, and even long-barreled IVs arrived. "Cholm" (interesting, read about it!) was supplied "successfully" by air..(maybe a reason, some thought this would work in stalingrad too..?)..in wintertimes!! this doesn`t help, sure, you have to look close to the battle you want to deploy.. and also, at strongpoints of either off./def. get most of the division`s/corp`s shells(..not only the artillery)

[Robert Olesen]

Hmm, I'm actually looking for the big picture, not individual battles. I'd like my campaign to simulate the logistical problems that existed with proper national and regional differences.

For example, I have a feeling that the Germans must have had rather big problems keeping their front line units up to strength, simply because of the distances involved, coupled with partisan activity and (later) bombing of factories and supply lines. Similarly for German personnel, and I expect that their quality to steadily declined during the war.

I'm not so sure about Soviet equipment. I have a feeling that they produced quite a lot, but perhaps not until late in the war? They needed Lend-lease, which suggests to me that they lacked equipment early on. And their troops were presumably in plenty supply all along but with terrible quality.

That's basically what I have learned from general reading about the east front war. And it has been a while since I got into this tiopic the last time.

[**YK2**]

day

[Robert Olesen]

Originally posted by YK2:

day

:confused:

[JasonC]

"I assumed that the Germans had diffculty getting supplies through to the front for most of the east front campaign, except for the summer offensives"

No not really. They only had supply problems (1) in the first 3 winters, (2) immediately (like, 1 month) after long, rapid advances, (3) in the fall of 1942 at the extreme edge of the southern region, due to distances and limited infrastructure in the area, (4) immediately (again, like 1 month) after the start of major Russian offensives.

The German rail system was in general excellent, and could move essentially any quantity of supplies they had to move. Partisan activity could disrupt it temporarily by making a "big push", but at the cost of a lot of partisans getting caught by the security force. That one accounts for (4).

As for (2), the problem was the delay in switching over sections of track from German gauge to Russian, or capturing enough rolling stock of Russian gauge to use their sections of the lines. And there was always a dump transhipment problem, where the line switched from one to the other, or where trucks took over from rail.

As for (3), the problem was that road supply had to be used, because the rail net wasn't dense enough in southeastern Russia, and the distances were so long it could not all be switched over to German gauge even where it was. Truck supply was limited, and burned as fuel a lot of the weight the trucks could carry.

As for the winter supply problems, they weren't simply due to the weather, though that had a lot to do with it in the first, 1941 case. (Vehicles broke down, oil turned to glue, engines froze solid). Rather, the basic problem was that the front was being patched together in the midst of a long retreat, with high losses in equipment as well as men, forward dumps overrun etc. The whole rear area support system had to be rebuilt, at the same time they were trying to move men forward to form a line, get the forward men back to avoid encirclement, etc. It was just too much at once, in each of the first 3 winters. Later on they were much closer to their bases of supply and these problems were not encountered.

As for Russians, more on them below.

"whether Kursk was in the central or southern region."

Southern. Central refers to the area around Moscow, roughly from Tver to Bryansk and Orel. It includes Smolensk and Minsk, "white Russia", through to Poland and the north German plain late in the war. It was the responsibility of Army Group Center on the German side. It also coincides with a significant terrain division - it is a region of forest, populated areas (a more urban, less farmland, pattern of settlement), and scattered lakes. Whereas the southern region is open steppe, much more limited tree cover, with such as there is mostly confined to low lying areas along rivers and streams. Kursk was definitely steppe terrain. Orel is roughly where the dividing line between the two is in terrain terms, with forests north of it and open country south.

"the Germans must have had rather big problems keeping their front line units up to strength, simply because of the distances involved, coupled with partisan activity and (later) bombing of factories"

No not really, not for those reasons anyway. First on the last of them - production of armaments continue to climb until the summer to early fall of 1944, despite bombing. The Germans were late to throw the full strength of their economy exclusively to armaments production, compared to the other powers.

In 1941, losses weren't all that high, but by the end of the year field strength was lower than at the outset, because they thought they about had it won and weren't planning on a continual stream of replacements being necessary. Tank production was running low 3 digits per month. The army got weaker in a year of the most lopsided victories, simply because production was practically zero, still.

After the first winter in front of Moscow they knew they had a long fight on their hands, but the reaction on the production side was modest. They rebuilt strength lost in the winter during the spring lull (for the mud), and by late spring they were as strong as they'd been in 1941. They won the late spring and early summer battles handily, with losses low. Basically strength was holding steady, with the moderately higher replacement rate geared up after the first winter keeping pace with still low loss rates.

But it was Stalingrad that was the real wake up call. They lost a quarter of a million Germans and at least as many again of Axis minor allies in a few months. And they found out where Russian production strength had gone in the meantime - the Russians had rebuilt their 1941 losses during 1942, even while retreating and losing men, because their production rate was already on the ceiling and (unlike 1941) they managed to keep their losses lower than the production rate. The Germans responded by finally going to full economic mobilization.

The Russians had a head start, but not an advantage in overall production capacity. The Germans caught their production rate by 1944, and weren't too far behind in 1943. The problem is, the Russians had built up an edge in field strength in the meantime, and it didn't go away.

The German loss rates climbed along with their production. The period from the end of Stalingrad to the begining of Kursk was basically the last time the Germans got stronger in absolute terms. But they went from stable to "churn" after that - high losses, high replacements. Manpower quality was starting to decline and men had been left in the line too long, but weapon tech was getting better.

Then in the summer of 1944 the bottom fell out. The Germans lost Army Group Center to the Russians and France to the US and Brits in the space of a few months. They met the crisis by scrapping the bottom of the manpower barrel, transfers from air, navy, rear area personnel, and workers in industries previously considered too important to draft them away from. Production peaked as a result and headed down (the Luftwaffe gave up trying to hold even the air over Germany), and training periods were cut drastically. But they got enough green infantry out into the field to stop the Allies before they got into Germany.

After that point it was fighting on in absolute scarcity, but not until then. The last six months of the war were fought on a logistical and manpower quality shoestring. They didn't have enough gas and they were using 16 year old boys. They had high tech heavy weapons but not many of them, and floods of cheap items like fausts, MPs, mines - more than they had men to use effectively. A few choice units still had good equipment - but even they didn't have enough gas. Divisions sometimes had to pick which battalion to move today.

"I'm not so sure about Soviet equipment. I have a feeling that they produced quite a lot, but perhaps not until late in the war?"

No, they produced a lot right from the begining, but especially from the start of 1942 on, after getting through the disruptive first 6 months when half the country was being occupied and millions of men were getting drafted and captured. The Russians lost an army as big as the one they had on the day of the invasion in just the first 6 months. But their army was as big at the end of those 6 months as it had been at the begining, because they drafted and organized as many men as they lost. They only had 1/3rd as many tanks, though. A better mix of models - the bulk of the pre-war "lights" were lost in just the first 2 months, let alone the first 6.

The 1941 story on the Russian side was plenty of everything but none of the men trained and not much of the stuff terribly good. Everybody is green or conscript, but there are flocks of them to replace everything lost. The army is not getting bigger. It is getting greener. It is also getting less mechanized, more infantry heavy. The bigger guns are scarce. Even 76mm guns aren't everywhere, and outside of MGs, 45mm ATGs, 76mm guns, and 82mm mortars, nobody is seeing much of anything in the way of heavy weapons. There is no air support.

That is what they go into 1942 with, and they don't do terribly well because of it. But they also have T-34 production in high gear by then. They try some early offensives with those (spring and early summer of 1942), but they get nowhere. They have no combined arms or decent tank doctrine, it is mostly still an infantry army, and still green as grass. In the 1942 retreat they lose enough men that the ranks stay green despite battle experience, and enough equipment that they aren't really getting better armed.

That changes in the late fall of 1942, after the front stabilizes. They have time to build up reserves of tanks and heavy arty. The stuff they are getting at this point is as good as what the Germans have, in mix better even. While the Stalingrad defenders themselves get ground to powder, the rest of the army gets enough experience without too high losses that they are learning. Men with ability and lucky enough to survive are going up the ranks like rockets in the course of 1942. By late in the year, leadership is miles better than at the start of the year, or than at the start of the war for that matter. They learn a last few valuable lessons about combined arms fighting in the course of the Stalingrad campaign, and its immediate aftermath (of overreach, counterattack, etc).

After that they keep getting tons from the factories, while losing stuff at gradually diminishing rates. Starting from very high - a situation of "churn" around the time of Kursk e.g. Quality of the armor they are getting does not appreciably improve until 1944, though. The German stuff passes them in quality in 1943 and maintains a moderate lead, but not an expanding one, after that. They are a year behind the Germans in tech, but they are a year ahead of them in mass output. It is enough.

Lend lease helps the Russians on the industry side, to produce or field or supply their own weapons. (Explosives, railroad equipment, food, trucks). The weapon systems themselves they got from the west weren't terribly important, weren't appreciably better than the stuff they made at home, and were dwarfed in quantity by the home made stuff. (E.g. the Russians made 12 times as many tanks at home as they got through LL).

The modest supplimental equipment helped in 1942 in particular, recovering from the 1941 losses and getting the army heavier and more mechanized again. Mostly, though, the Allies sent the stuff because the Russians could use it on the Germans and they couldn't yet. It does not at all mean the Russians didn't have their own, that their own stuff sucked, or anything like that.

Oh, a PS about Russian logistics, getting stuff up to the front line units. It went as flurry and lull, based on how far the front was from the intact portion of the Russian rail network and the dumps built up at the forward edge of that. If the front has been stable for a few months, or right before a large offensive, the Russians would have plenty of ammo and the like.

But after a large move of the front, stuff would be relatively scarce. And twice as scarce if that move was towards the Germans, because that kind of move meant using the recently recaptured (and therefore wrecked) part of the rail net. After an advance of several hundred miles, the stuff getting through to the front line units would fit in an eye dropper. Only the mech units would be getting much of anything (trucked), and mostly they'd be concentrating on gas.

The other units had horse drawn supply systems that only worked between a working railroad and a not too distant front line. There could be plenty of stuff in Russian hands, but that doesn't mean it could get to the men who needed it. Unless they were relatively close to where the front line had been 2-3 months ago.

I hope this helps.

[ April 20, 2003, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Robert Olesen]

Thanks, Jason, that was excellent. Much appreciated.

I guess your comments can be summed up to conclude that in a campaign of my scale (ca. 1 battle per month), keeping track if which equipment is replaced is an unnecessary complication. The exception could be when you get a battle in the same month (just to add spice).

The same goes to a large extent for ammunition allocation, though it might be interesting to use that to give a feel for the tight spots as it is simpler to implement and use than equipment replacement.

[ April 21, 2003, 04:02 AM: Message edited by: Robert Olesen ]