Would the german have been better off concentrating on just the PZ IV ?

[Hannibal]

Part of the fun of playing the germans is the large varity of german tanks than were produced in .A lot of different tanks are fun to use on a computer must must have been hell to supply .If the germans had just concentrated on the pz IV would they have been able to make 50,000 of them instead of 8,000 of them 5,000 panthers, 1,500 tigers 400 King Tigers . My figures are not exact .Was the german industry if focused able to churn out the producion figures the US and Russians did by concentrating on the T-34 and Sherman ? So would the germans of been better of with more but not as potent tanks ?

[ January 19, 2003, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Hannibal ]

[easytarget]

Since the industrial capacity of the U.S. at the time was greater than Italy, Japan and Germany combined, it would of made little difference what the Germans focused on (short of a nuclear weapon).

[Xipe]

Also, since the germans didn't have the vast manpower resources that the allies had maybe it made sense with better and more expensive tanks?

American production at it's height, AFAIR, was about 25% of the global war production.

[Redwolf]

There are several aspects here:

1) today we know that the Pz IV in its final stages was sufficient to battle every widely available allied tank to the war's end. The Germans at the time couldn't know what the Allies were planning and they couldn't predict how long the war would have taken. Imagine Overlord failing and the Eastern Front defended with less stupid stand-and-die orders. The war could easily go for more years.

2) the Germans didn't only have shortages of tanks, but also of good tank crews. If you are short on good crews, it make sense to give each available good crew the best weapon available.

3) The Panther wasn't that much more expensive. I don't have the number's handy, but overall people underestimate that the more modern and more capable AFVs are too a good part a result of further developed production methods and streamlining. For example, a Tiger II was only minimally more expensive than a Tiger 1, although much more capable. Thinking in CM prices is extremly misleading. Furthermore, the final stages of tank planning in Germany were calling for new Tigers and Panthers which were built on many common parts and coule be produced in interchangable environments. This is obviously a useful step toward higher production and may have outgrown the advantages of producing the simpler Pz IV if the war continued.

[Hannibal]

Considering germany conquered most of europe they did a bad job of using their production resoures .I think they went to a full wartime economy sometime in 1942 .I think the panther was a logical jump to make when the germans meet the t-34 .I think the germans watsed their time with the tiger,king kiger ,stum tiger ,nashorn elefant .Every time you set up a factory to produce a new tank that factory goes of line .ew

[CombinedArms]

A focus on just the PzIV and Panther might have been a good decision--but would that have made a difference? With the Allies producing 40,000 plus Shermans and 40,000 plus T-34s, a few thousand more PzIVs and Panthers might not have had much effect. To be competitive, they really needed, say, 40,000 PzIV and Stugs and 20,000 Panthers and that was a production level they couldn't achieve, due to factors including overall size of economy, Allied bombing, and structural problems with the productivity sector.

Plus the Allied production lines were getting geared up for a new generation of tanks including the IS-3, Comet, Pershing, etc., that would have quickly diminished the German's quality edge if they let their own production planning stagnate. The Allies were able to develop this new generation of tanks without limiting the massive production of T-34s and Shermans. The Germans needed to make more than 8,000 PzIVs and 5,000 Panthers (if those are the right numbers), but they didn't find a way. Also, they needed fuel to run them, but by late '44, they didn't have that.

[ January 19, 2003, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[JasonC]

Was Germany capable of the higher rate of production? Yes. The proof is that it reached the necessary higher rate of production. To match Russia, at least - the most important tank production match up. German tank output did not peak until the summer of 1944. The rate of overall AFV production at that point basically matched the rate of AFV production by the Russians.

Germany produced less than half as many AFVs as the Russians, because overall production is an integral of the rate over the time, and they were only at their top rate briefly in 1944. Whereas Russian production more or less hit its peak level in 1942 (in number of tanks produced, not everything, mind), and remained on that plateau longer.

German industrial potential was as high as Russia's before the invasion. Germany had advanced notice of the intention to attack, by at least six months. Russia lost areas containing 40% of her industrial production to the invasion itself, while Germany was essentially unscathed on the home front until 1944 (earlier bombing did little, and tank output continued to rise into mid 1944).

Think of the initial production rate as so low it is effectively zero. The final production rate is essentially the same. The Russian one goes "on" almost like a step function. The German rate goes up on a ramp, approximately a diagonal. The "triangle" of the German production then has half the area of the "rectangle" of Russian production. That is essentially where the 102,500 vs. 45,000 AFV output totals for Russian vs. Germany came from.

So, the outproduction of Germany by Russia in tanks came down to economic mobilization for total war, and focus on tanks as the decisive production factor in that war. Germany got the drop on Russia by 6 months and took 40% of her industry, from the same initial industrial potential, and still lost the race.

The reason is Germany simply wasn't racing. They did not fully mobilize the economy until after the defeat at Stalingrad - although during 1942, after the battle of Moscow, production started to ramp up. In August of 1941, after the initial successes in the invasion, plants were already being switched from army orders to other tasks. There was tremendous overconfidence in German economic planning. They gambled on quick, cheap victories.

This showed up in tank production, in the delay in settling on a basic type. The extra time was used to field improved types. The Russians took the best all around tank they had on the day of the invasion, the T-34, and built gobs of them, totalling mobilizing the economy for that one task. The Germans spent the period from mid 1941 to early 1943 developing Tigers and Panthers.

When an economy is totally mobilized, there is a benefit and a cost. The benefit is that production of the few items it is planned to build can be increased enourmously. The cost is that the economy loses flexibility dramatically. It can't rapidly adapt to changes in desired output. There is no slack. All raw materials are consigned to production of the key end items, or their feedstocks and production facilities.

Development is not seriously more expensive than production of an existing model, and the improved model tanks, while more expensive, are not seriously so. Tigers cost twice what Panzer IVs did, Panthers only 1/4 to 1/3 more. But development takes time.

The Germans did not have an adequate vehicle on the day they planned the invasion of Russia. Maximum AFV output would have been achieved if they had taken the best thing they had that day and decided to gear the entire economy to make as many of them as possible, as soon as possible. They still needed improvements, but reasonably foreseeable ones.

The "sweet spot" would have been to design Pz IV longs and StuG longs (with, it would have been found empirically, 80mm front armor) as soon as the invasion was contemplated, and then to have built those in vast quantities as soon as they became available. They might have shown up in early 1942 that way. And their production rate could have matched that of T-34s.

You have to imagine a German force in the fall of 1942, before the Stalingrad counterattack, with 5,000 additional long 75 AFVs. By the time of Kursk and its Russian counteroffensive aftermath, no Panthers or Tigers, but 15,000 additional long 75 AFVs. Certainly it would have been far more effective than the handfuls of advanced types fielded by either date, when the decisive battles were fought.

Building out on Pz IIIs and short IVs would not have worked, obviously. The Russians had to upgun the T-34, and improve its (turret) armor, before the war was out, too. But waiting 18 months until after Stalingrad for total mobilization, while it allowed the extra development time for the Tiger and Panther, lost the production battle.

Not the cost of their construction nor of their design, but the delay, was ruinous. It's cause can be put down to overconfidence. The Germans did not plan for a total war, a war of attrition and production schedules, against Russia. They gambled on a rapid victory, as they had achieved in previous campaigns.

They kept the economy flexible and unstrained, for a number of reasons. One was to keep the war popular at home by minimizing domestic hardships. The 1942 civilian standard of living was as high as at the outbreak of the war - only long term construction had been diverted to immediate armaments. Another was keeping the flexibility to switch from tank and ammunition production to planes and bombs, or subs and torpedos, etc.

In practice, the same inability to settle on a definite type and ramp its production afflicted the other arms as well. Speer made some headway preventing this in the case of the Luftwaffe, concentrating on production of Me-109s and FW-190s. But there was still a wide proliferation of types. Same with subs, where the type VII boats might have been ramped, but instead they continued to dribble out IXs to XXIs.

But that was all derivative of the original decision to fight Russia without fully mobilizing the economy for a war of attrition. Once they lost the time, it could not be made up by focusing on Pz IVs or what have you. So they sought technological magic bullets, hoping quality could outweigh quantity.

They lost the option to have quantity instead, or in addition (vis a vis Russia, that is), between the begining of 1941 when the decision was made to attack Russia, and the begining of 1943 when they realized (after Stalingrad) they had no choice but to fight a total war. It was undoubtedly the single greatest "unforced" strategic error of the war.

Could Germany have won if they had decided it differently? They would certainly have been in a stronger position against Russia. Whether they would have beaten just Russia, one can debate. Seems to me pretty likely, from all I know of the matter. Would they still have lost to US production once that entered, or to A-bombs delivered by US airpower? One can debate that too (jets e.g, but then the Brits had jets - the Meteor - on the way also). Seems to me pretty likely again, that they would still have lost eventually.

Hypotheticals are just hypotheticals. That they could have produced vastly more AFVs had they mobilized the economy sooner, is clear. That they would have been modified III and IV chassis vehicles rather than Tigers and Panthers seems likely, since the mobilization would have had to occur before those types were finished.

I hope this is interesting.

[ January 19, 2003, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[mididoctors]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Since the industrial capacity of the U.S. at the time was greater than Italy, Japan and Germany combined, it would of made little difference what the Germans focused on (short of a nuclear weapon).

yes I tend to agree with the above statement

however I like a "what if" so for the sake of an argument

few questions and thoughts

German War inustry was a slow starter.....

better management may have increased there chances.....?

dumping the tigers etc and concentrating on the mk IV..? probably viable from a tactical point of view up until mid 44,,,,, advance in allied tank design would necessitate something better..but like all what ifs it fails if you assume the other side does not change its behaviour.....

the real question is

HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS THE TIGER/PANTHER TO GERMAN DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE 1943-45

OR you could ask....if you replaced all the panthers and tigers one to one with PZ IVs how much quicker would the Germans lost the war?

Would SS panzer divs at Kharkov 43 (mainsteins back hand) really done any worse equiped with PZ IVs? i doubt there would be that much a different outcome? but later in the war the changes in peformance would accelerate the differences in what if history compared with reality.

hard to quantify......

perhaps game communitys like this are a good place to start to find an answer....

My gut feeling is the most significant German AFV is the STUG III 75Long barrel (L48?)

You need a meaningful ratio of a PZ IV worth compared with a tiger and a panther and that value mapped against oppostion AFVs....

could german industry make 50000 PZ IVs...even if expensive tank design was dropped.....

Unlikley knowing the NAZI regime.. if they could have russian tank superioty would have disappeared...I doubt German could support logistical such a tank force...The germans had a large number of Warplanes in 1945 sitting on the ground.

Work out in manpower and POL assets the maximum number of battle tanks the Germans could support in the feild and you may be closer to an answer...

if the figure is much bigger than max/average german battle strength..concentrating on a "cheaper" design may have made sense.....

if the figure is roughly the same then better tanks make sense......

you may need to plot this as a average of German available strength as max strength is meaningless if your force oscilates in strength

wildly.....what was german TANK POWER as in the number of AFV HOURS in the field!

broadly speaking they should have made 2000 type xxI U-boats and 2000 me262s to be in with a shout..and as easytarget suggests they would still have been nuked......

Boris

London

[mididoctors]

In practice, the same inability to settle on a definite type and ramp its production afflicted the other arms as well. Speer made some headway preventing this in the case of the Luftwaffe, concentrating on production of Me-109s and FW-190s. But there was still a wide proliferation of types. Same with subs, where the type VII boats might have been ramped, but instead they continued to dribble out IXs to XXIs..[/QB]

This is the Only area i disagree with the accepted notion that technical advances where useless in the face of numerical superioty..... the german U-Boat arm did not suffer from a lack of U-boats 1943 on but essentialy they lacked a credable u-boat at all......in all the arenas of conflict in WW2 the atlantic was the most technical driven with superiroty going to those who coul field a credable force of technically superior vessels

A decent commitment to U-Boat production earlier in the war would have been meaningful

with type VIIs but once centrmetric radar was developed only a true submersable would surfice(read type XXI)..... IF the German stratergy had concentrated a Large part of the early war economy into U-Boats the war may have had a very different character indeed. I feel this is the area that produces the biggest WW2 what if.

And yes the I did find your post intresting and informative

[B.B.Toys]

HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS THE TIGER/PANTHER TO GERMAN DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE 1943-45

OR you could ask....if you replaced all the panthers and tigers one to one with PZ IVs how much quicker would the Germans lost the war?

Would SS panzer divs at Kharkov 43 (mainsteins back hand) really done any worse equiped with PZ IVs? i doubt there would be that much a different outcome? but later in the war the changes in peformance would accelerate the differences in what if history compared with reality.

Tiger Is did not see action in the Battle of Kharkov due to adverse road conditions; never got to the fight. No Panthers either of course. The SS Panzer divisions used Pz IIIs, IVs, StuGIIIs and various SPGs in the counteroffensive and did rather well. But then they didn't have to slug it out with T34/85s or IS2s either.

[flamingknives]

IIRC, the Panther is actually cheaper than the PzIV. It is undoubtedly a superior battlefield tank.

[-E]

Originally posted by redwolf:

1) today we know that the Pz IV in its final stages was sufficient to battle every widely available allied tank to the war's end.

Would somebody tell CMBB that please? *grin*

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by -E:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

1) today we know that the Pz IV in its final stages was sufficient to battle every widely available allied tank to the war's end.

Would somebody tell CMBB that please? *grin*</font>

[Andreas]

Well, this thread says that the whole 'Germany did not really get into gear until 1944' is just a widely held myth that does not stand up to inspection of the actual numbers. Instead it looks more like a steady increase topping in 1944.

Discuss

[Spook]

The central fallacy, to the question type of of "Would more of a specific weapon had mattered in WWII's outcome?", is that it puts far too much on one weapon system as deciding the course of WWII.

How then would one do a comparison like the following: "If Germany could've produced more Mark IV tanks, or more Type XXI subs, or an actual strategic bomber force, what should it have made?"

No one weapon system alone was going to turn around Germany's fortunes in a war of attrition and of resource limitations. Sure, there could've been more Mk IV's cranked out, but what if the fuel production couldn't keep pace? What if infantry manpower was still too limited to support the added tanks for combined arms tactics? What if transport to support the logistics for the tanks similarly remained in a bind?

CombinedArms touched earlier on the note of Allied strategic bombing. To which JasonC has noted in addition that the Allied bombing IN SUM didn't do very much PHYSICAL damage to the German industries in specific until 1944. However, the overall pressure of the Combined Bomber Offensive still chainlinked in many other ways than just hitting specific factories. Efforts and logistics were consumed to disperse the industries, or in some cases, move them underground. Anti-aircraft artillery was built up and manned in counter, thus siphoning manpower, guns, and ammunition that otherwise could've been applied on the front. And many German aircraft and pilots that could've instead stayed on the East Front to provide air cover & support were also shifted over to homeland defense.

And all of this is just the Allied side of the "strategic air equation." The coin could flip around and show that Germany, lacking a comparable strategic air force, couldn't "impede" on UK or USSR production in a similar way.

Of course, one must understand that air power alone did not dominate the strategic flow of events. But when provided as an example like above, it gives larger perspective that the strategic situation depended on much more than X number of some given weapon produced.

The recent "Kursk" thread, at times, fell into a similar trap too. While some very informative commentary was given there, the thread at times SEEMED to focus on the notion as that the means of German victory hung mainly on the balance of available German tank strength. But less comparable discussion is given if German infantry manpower had sufficient strength to keep pressing on with the tanks after ten days of fighting.

Now, JasonC did hit the nail on the head concerning German strategic chances in one regard. The German industry had not yet been "tapped" to the extent of its capabilities in the earlier war years, and this indeed impacted on the entire German war machine's ability to sustain an attritional war. But the "tooling up" had to go much farther than just tank production, and some war resources like fuel would always remain a precious, limited commodity. By mid-1944, when the US & British bomber forces went after oil production and rail lines in a focused way, the German industries couldn't cope regardless of the level of physical damage to same.

[BigMik1]

True, you have to figure in airpower in this thread. With the Allies bombing the industry of Germany, plus it's oil production, Germany was not going to be able to produce tanks at a pace neccesary as the war dragged on. Even if they focused on the PZ IV only.

BigMik1

[Bastables]

Originally posted by mididoctors:

dumping the tigers etc and concentrating on the mk IV..? probably viable from a tactical point of view up until mid 44,,,,, advance in allied tank design would necessitate something better..but like all what ifs it fails if you assume the other side does not change its behaviour.....

the real question is

HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS THE TIGER/PANTHER TO GERMAN DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE 1943-45

OR you could ask....if you replaced all the panthers and tigers one to one with PZ IVs how much quicker would the Germans lost the war?

Would SS panzer divs at Kharkov 43 (mainsteins back hand) really done any worse equiped with PZ IVs? i doubt there would be that much a different outcome? but later in the war the changes in peformance would accelerate the differences in what if history compared with reality.

Boris

London[/QB]

You have to remember that at Kar,kov 42 The PIV held the technical edge over the T-34/76. Long 7,5cm that could kill at 1500m, three man turret, superior optics and radios put it ahead of the game during 42. This edge only increased as armour was added to the front hull during 43 and is reflected in the superior kill ratios even during Kursk. The PIV H/J no longer held this edge versus T34-85s with its excellent high velocity gun, the Panther did.

The Panther replaced the PIII on several production lines, replacing the PIII with more PIV lines would still have cost the same amount of time in setting up tooling and production lines at MAN, DB and MHN but with a AFV that had already reached the end of its development potential. By 1944 they would have had to replace the PIV with another design as the Russian pulled ahead with the T-34-85 and development of PaK/KwK 40 proof IS AFV.

Another simplistic look at how technical developments influence kill ratios is the continued deployment of Medium-low altitude Fw190s A and 109s G-6 versus High altitude Bombers and fighters of USAAF. In spite of climbing production rates that have the 109 as second only to the IL2 as the most produced aircraft ever the Luftwaffe was hacked from the sky percicily because R&D into High altitude fighters was curtailed. By the time high altitude DB 605 and Junker engines were being jammed into the airframes the Luftwaffe and it’s cadre of Aces had been burnt out.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Bastables:

By the time high altitude DB 605 and Junker engines were being jammed into the airframes the Luftwaffe and it’s cadre of Aces had been burnt out.

BTW, does anyone know of a good book about the Allied defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1944? Most of what I've read is pretty general. What I'd like to see is some good stats and analysis of the impact of the P-51 escorted raids on the Luftwaffe's fighter arm. How many fighters and pilots did they lose? How did this compare to earlier eras of the war, etc? Was this particular phase especially crippling, or was it just the last straw in a long process of attrition?

[ January 19, 2003, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Spook]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

BTW, does anyone know of a good book about the Allied defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1944? Most of what I've read is pretty general. What I'd like to see is some good stats and analysis of the impact of the P-51 escorted raids on the Luftwaffe's fighter arm. How many fighters and pilots did they lose? How did this compare to earlier eras of the war, etc? Was this particular phase especially crippling, or was it just the last straw in a long process of attrition?

If you can latch onto a copy of Roger Freeman's "The Mighty Eighth," Combined Arms, that would be one source looking at the effect of one strategic air force. Or, the out-of-print "Mighty Eighth War Diary" will detail each mission as well as losses & kills during same. The latter book is harder to find, however (usually in specialty military bookstores), and thus will carry a bit more of a price tag.

This doesn't consider the added losses to the RAF, the US 9th, 12th, & 15th Air Forces, and the Soviet air forces, of course. A more far-reaching source for this, looking instead from the German perspective of all air campaigns and their effect, is "Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933-45" by Williamson Murray.

I tend to regard the effect of P-51 escort in 1944-45 on a "last straw" basis. Prior attrition took a greater sum toll (P-51's accounted for just less than 5,000 air kills in the ETO/MTO), but the presence of the P-51's along with the other fighters pressed the Luftwaffe into the "air superiority battle" that was considered critical to win before the Normandy invasion.

[ January 19, 2003, 10:17 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

[JasonC]

On the "myth" of only tooling up by 1944, yes the German output goes up diagonally throughout, hitting the top rate only in mid 1944. But compare the Russian curve. It reaches the same level in 1942, and stays there. And that is where the extra hordes of Russian AFVs came from. The slowly rising diagonal is what dickering around looks like. The jump to the ceiling then staying on it you see in Russian AFV production is what full economic mobilization looks like. Russia had no greater industrial potential than Germany on the day of the invasion. And its economy was interfered with far more - by the invasion. They still did it.

One fellow says that Germany couldn't interfer with UK and USSR production because it didn't have a strategic air force. But it did interfer with the production of both, without one. It interfered with UK production by sinking millions of tons of shipping. It interfered with USSR production by occupying a third of the country, in population and industrial terms. Those were at least as forceful interventions in those economies by military force, as strategic air was in Germany's. Especially if you look at the period before 1944.

The air offensive did little to Germany before 1944, because the Luftwaffe was still strong and the Allies lacked long range fighters to escort daylight raids into Germany, and to tangle with the German fighters directly. The US sent unescorted raids deep into Germany in 1943 and got their heads handed to them. It turned out B-17s and B-24s were not immune to fighters.

The Brits had more success with mass night bombingof city sized targets. But you can't hit a target as small as a factory at night, with WW II bombing technologoes, except by the scatter of luck. The German night fighter force became more effective, but the Brits retained a lead in radar and especially intel that let them continue to operate. They certainly were not able to reduce production of German aircraft, which was at that time their primary target.

The defeat of the Luftwaffe did not come until early 1944. Escort fighters showed up in strength, and engaged the German air force directly. That did clear the skies - first over the periphery as the Luftwaffe was forced back to defending their own airbases over Germany, and eventually over Germany itself - and let bombers through in daylight. Bombers operating at will in daylight then did eventually find and hit the oil target set hard enough to run the Germans out of av-gas, and create serious shortages of all POL.

But the causal chain there is "fighters in superior numbers get bombers through which reduces POL". Not "bombers reduce POL which wins economically". And did not happen until 1944.

As for hypotheticals about other bottlenecks, the proof they were surmountable is that they were surmounted. The Germans kept a serious force in the field into the fall of 1944, under Allied air supremacy and after enourmous losses in the field. They weren't going to run out of feedstocks, infantry, crews, etc in 1942 just because they had more tanks. They didn't run out of them until years later.

And no, they weren't short of tank crews compared to tanks. Of veterans maybe. The western allies actually did have more tanks than they could man with trained people; the Germans certainly did not. It was tanks that were scarce. They had 50 odd mobile divisions running around, equipped in all other areas, but often making do with as few as 30 tanks.

The only interesting potential additional bottleneck mentioned so far is POL. Yes, a larger tank fleet early would have meant a significant increase in overall POL needs. But I think one that could have been handled, and that would have been only temporary. I'll explain why I think so.

First off, POL only became a disaster after the western air forces blew up the av gas plants. Understand, Germany was running the war on synthetic oil, made from coal. Germany had coal in abundance. The greatest bottleneck in the process were the limited number of refining plants that could produce the highest octane fuels. Av gas was the critical application of the highest octane fuels - you can't get a slower burning, heavier diesel engine to make up for a less potent fuel, if the engine has to fly. It is much easier to get high octane fuels from natural oil than from coal. That was the importance of sources of natural oil, like Rumania.

Now, could they have met the higher POL demand involved in a bigger tank fleet in 41-42? They successfully fueled the existing tank fleet for two years longer than that. They also successfully fueled the entire Luftwaffe through early 1944. They might have run things closer to the edge in 42 than they did - but as close as they ran things in the first half of 1944? That seems quite unlikely. And success via more tanks in 41-42 would have paid off in POL terms. There is a lot of oil in Russia. If you take Russia out in 42, you get a big "POL dividend" in 43 and after.

As for the comment about type VII boats and type XXIs, yes the type XXI was a much better submarine. It was also available far too late to do any good. The battle of the Atlantic was tech intensive, yes, but a better U-boat would not have won it. The techs that mattered were radar, long range shore based ASW, escort carriers, and intel successes. Ultra had far more to do with it than any deficiencies of the VII. Ultra plus centimeter radar in scads of planes, was going to shut the U-boats down, once all of it arrived.

But the Germans scored their biggest successes with the least improved boats, and when they had only about 60 of the things. The cost involved to have 300 VIIs instead of 60 would have been tiny. Quantity early when the other guy is vunerable is much better than quality late when he isn't. You don't just "get there with the mostest", you get there *first*.

On the operational military side, German commanders understood that and acted on it. On the economic side they did not. In fact, they treated success at its operational military use as a way to get away with ignoring its importance in the field of production. They used quick operational victories to avoid full economic mobilization, instead of using quick economic mobilization to produce operational victories. It was an overconfident gamble, and did not work.

[ January 19, 2003, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Maj Soshtokovich]

As a Eastern Front (minor) historian the best bet would have been to USE the T 34 and put a Pz IV gun on it ( with motorised rotation). Or use the design etc etc....

I think it was Guderian and Rechenue ( commander of the 6th Army before Von Paulus)that said as much.

As for winning the war. What IF German developed 4-500 Me 262's.. What also if they used nerve agent in D Day.

[Redwolf]

Speaking of T-34s in German use:

What would haven happend if Germany set on Diesel engines halfway early in the way? Imagine the battle of the Bulge with diesel-powered medium tanks in the spearheads.

Were the German trucks gasonline-powered?

[JasonC]

On the importance of mobilization speed, just look at the issue this way and its critical importance becomes obvious. The Russians go from producing 250 tanks a month in 1940 to producing 2000 tanks a month in 1942. That shows how fast a mobilization ought to be possible.

But forget about an 8-fold rise in two years, and instead just move the existing German production curve one year to the left, throwing out 1941 and adding an additional year like 1944 at the end of the series, with no further increase. That is, in 1941 the Germans reach their own 1942 level of output, in 1942 they reach their 1943 level, and they get to their 1944 level of output by 1943, and hold it there. Since they knew about the invasion at the begining of 1941, this means mobilization takes them 3 years instead of the Russian's 2, despite not being invaded and knowing the invasion will happen first.

What happens to the fleet strengths with that one year bump to the left? Suppose for a second you leave the losses the same as they were, ignoring feedback on loss rates as a first approximation. Then the German fleet gets -

2450 additional AFVs by the end of 1941. The fleet goes up 3K for the year, instead of basically holding steady. Meanwhile, the Russians take their big bath as they lose the pre-war fleet of lights, and their new production hasn't yet arrived to make good their losses.

5600 additional AFVs (on top of the previous) during calendar 1942. By the time of the Stalingrad counterattack, the German AFV fleet is more than *twice* what it actually was. Think the flanks would have been so thin with twice as much armor to go around?

If the war continues, and additional 7000 AFVs, on top of the previous, in calendar 1943. The fleet is more than 10,000 AFVs larger at the time of Kursk, and 15,000 AFVs larger - 3 times its historical size - by the end of the year. The Germans would not have been outnumbered in AFVs either at Kursk or in its aftermath.

The war would have looked very different indeed. All with just one year faster economic mobilization, still with a slower ramp than the Russians actually achieved, and all with production numbers the Germans actually hit - just in each case, the figure they hit the following year.

They not only get more tanks, they get them early when they matter the most - in time for the decisive battles, the Stalingrad to Dnepr battles. Of course, this exact effect of a higher integral from faster mobilization delivering "first", is what gave the Russians the numbers that made that period decisive, in the real deal.

The Russian AFV fleet expanded by nearly 10K AFVs in the course of 1942. If the Germans had been able to match that, the war would have looked quite different. And they could have, if they had simply been one year faster going up their own historical ramp. But they weren't.

I hope this is interesting.

[Spook]

Originally posted by JasonC:

One fellow says that Germany couldn't interfer with UK and USSR production because it didn't have a strategic air force. But it did interfer with the production of both, without one. It interfered with UK production by sinking millions of tons of shipping. It interfered with USSR production by occupying a third of the country, in population and industrial terms. Those were at least as forceful interventions in those economies by military force, as strategic air was in Germany's. Especially if you look at the period before 1944.

Yes, the invasion "impeded" Soviet industry, but many Soviet industries still were successfully dismantled, moved to the Urals, and set up there instead. What then of overall Soviet production during the critical time of the East Front if these could have been attacked too? Speculative, of course, but valid speculation with all else.

The Brits had more success with mass night bombingof city sized targets. But you can't hit a target as small as a factory at night, with WW II bombing technologoes, except by the scatter of luck. The German night fighter force became more effective, but the Brits retained a lead in radar and especially intel that let them continue to operate. They certainly were not able to reduce production of German aircraft, which was at that time their primary target.

Not quite correct. As you noted, the RAF Bomber Command focus prior to 1944 was to impede industry the indirect way by targeting cities. If it hit the factories, all the better, but "disrupting" production by targeting civilian homes was the more tangible (if overoptimistic) expectation. But bomb-marking techniques, even at night, had progressed such that "point" targets could be hit too. The pre-Normandy rail campaign is one such example, and the RAF contributed to bombing the synthetic oil refineries too with a measure of success.

The British desired aircraft production targets very early in the war, but after the results of 1941, had long since shifted focus. Communications (rail), oil, and the continuance of city-bombing were rather more the primaries of Bomber Command targeting in the last year.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

First off, POL only became a disaster after the western air forces blew up the av gas plants. Understand, Germany was running the war on synthetic oil, made from coal.

Anyone have the figures for the share of Romanian oil vs. synthetic oil in the German war economy? Jason seems to forget the effect of the little known event called Iassy-Kishinyev Operation in August 1944 which knocked Romania out of the war, and with it the Ploesti oilfields. While the oilfields at this time probably no longer were at the height of production, due to being in Allied bomber range, in 1942 they certainly were not.