Russian war economy & attrition vulnerabilities

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Spook:

(OT: BTW, Michael, you ever hear from Chris Genna? No luck on my end.)

Not a peep. I may try again. He may not be at that job anymore, or he might be temporarily away, or they might be having problems with their e-mail what with this new virus going around. I know I've been getting about a hundred posts a day, so their mailbox could easily have been flooded and they just dumped our messages along with the crap.

Michael

[JasonC]

The idea of significant air interference with Russian logistics is not feasible. The distances are too long, the target set too huge, German air too limited, and especially German logistic ability to support such a campaign completely inadequate.

You'd need masses of bombers operating with fighter cover from bases very far forward. All early, bang, ready in July and August from deep inside Russia - otherwise you don't reach far enough before the move is mostly done.

What is supposed to bring them their POL, the bomb tonnage, their spare parts? The Germans didn't manage to get coats to the infantry because of backlogs at the rail guage changeover points. Guderian couldn't get motor oil for a few scores of tanks at the Dnepr.

There is no way a significant air arm could have been supplied beyond the rail guage changeover points. From behind them, fighter ranges are way too short to operate over the Russian interior. The Russians had plenty of fighters, so escorts would be essential if you go deep.

As for the idea of better treatment for the Ukraine, of course it would have helped. But a government acting that way wouldn't have attacked in the first place. Incidentally, German extractions from the Ukraine barely reached the level of pre-war exports from the Ukraine to Germany. They sent a million men with guns to take by force what they got in peacetime for a few cameras.

Ukrainians died in massive numbers through famine, because production collapsed under the harshness of the occupation. All the ruthlessness in the world only got out what higher, peaceful production had given up voluntarily as surplus, in exchange for industrial goods exported by Germany. By using force instead of trade they killed a lot of people, but profited nothing.

As for my basic point about Russian vulnerability to a better attritionist performance from the Germans, I was not thinking of air force razzle dazzle or political wishes that the existing government would never even contemplate. I was instead thinking of the entirely unforced error on the German side, of postponing full economic mobilization until after Stalingrad (with a few half measures after Moscow).

In August army equipment plants were being withdrawn from production to free up resources for U-boats. The German rear planning had "victory disease" overconfidence in a major way. There is no reason the production increases in tanks later achieved, could not have been accelerated a year or even two full years, if the decision to mobilize had been made at the time of the invasion or of the invasion decision (~6 months prior again), instead of only being grudgingly conceeded after the hope of quick victory faded.

Similarly on the manpower side, the Germans pulled out rear area stops after the disasters of the summer of 1944, that enabled them to repair the collapse of AG Center and all of OB West, and hold at the Vistula and German border in the west for the rest of the year. That manpower would have made far more of a difference in the Dnepr bend battles and before Bagration, than they possibly could make after.

Operationally, a defensive posture sooner, with adequate mobile reserves playing "linebacker", could have stopped Russian offensives and made them expensive affairs. That happened in Mars, when there were half a dozen mobile divisions available to stop the attack. It didn't happen in Uranus, because the armor had been sent to the Caucasus or ground up in city fighting. Not to mention there would have been twice the AFVs to go around had industry been mobilized sooner.

So, if Germany had gone in *prepared* for a long war - even if they *hoped* for a quick win - and ready to wage one, Russia would have been in *serious* trouble. Without the need to gamble in 1941, Typhoon could have been called off sooner, with less overextension.

It would have had more "wind" behind it anyway, if the replacement stream were "on" instead of off. But not needing to win in one season, they could have gone over to the defensive after the mud, or after one short offensive in the freeze period to gain the positions desired for the winter.

Then rebuild in the winter, again with the reinforcement stream set to "on". In 1942, an attritionist strategy would not have gone after the Caucasus side show or a prestige objective lkike Stalingrad, looking for some roundabout way to win through resource deprivation or morale collapse. Instead the 42 campaign would have been directed at destroying Russian armies, e.g. by attacking toward Voronezh, or breaking off the Russian left wing, etc.

Would Russia have had the resources to just laugh all that off and still be a steamrolling monster in 43-44? Against twice the German tank fleet? No. You can't win by attrition while taking 5 to 1 losses, when your depth is only 2 to 1. The Russians got through the period of their worst loss rates with winning chances alive, only because the German replacement rate was practically zero over that same period.

Why? Overconfidence. Victory disease. Trying to win on the cheap. Military gambling. Too much faith in superior technique, not enough emphasis on being prepared for the downside and on sheer numerical strength.

I hope this is interesting.

[Jim Boggs]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I hope this is interesting.

Interesting and fascinating. This Thread is like a little jewel hidden away in the corner.

Bravo Gentlemen!

[Spook]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Yeah, sources are a problem. I just went back over the relevant thread in shwwwii to see if any hard figures were quoted or references given and couldn't find much. The arguments I found most compelling there, and have paraphrased here, were by Louis Capdebosc. If you aren't already familiar with that newsgroup you might check it out. John D. Salt posts there from time to time.

I think it's past due of me to visit there (heard of that NG earlier), so I'll have to do that soon, thanks.

As to Genna, you may well have pegged it about the e-mail. It's a bit like "Waiting for Godot." I've also tried calling his office on occasion too, which I've gotten his message voice, but no more.

[Spook]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The idea of significant air interference with Russian logistics is not feasible. The distances are too long, the target set too huge, German air too limited, and especially German logistic ability to support such a campaign completely inadequate.

You'd need masses of bombers operating with fighter cover from bases very far forward. All early, bang, ready in July and August from deep inside Russia - otherwise you don't reach far enough before the move is mostly done.

What is supposed to bring them their POL, the bomb tonnage, their spare parts? The Germans didn't manage to get coats to the infantry because of backlogs at the rail guage changeover points. Guderian couldn't get motor oil for a few scores of tanks at the Dnepr.

There is no way a significant air arm could have been supplied beyond the rail guage changeover points. From behind them, fighter ranges are way too short to operate over the Russian interior. The Russians had plenty of fighters, so escorts would be essential if you go deep.

I anticipated this to be the East Front Luftwaffe's circumstance, and this really leads to an unspoken point of mine earlier.

Recognizing it to be a matter of degrees, I'm not arguing as that the German's standing on the East Front hinged mainly on the air war. However, I would still hold that the German's inabilities to project a strategic air campaign against the Soviets --- at the least, against the rail net, especially the Moscow hub -- made it more difficult to isolate the Soviets on the East Front from industrial replacements, reinforcements, and Lend Lease supplies. Which, in the strategic long-run, slowly undercut the German position.

Could the Germans have sufficiently countered in defensive measures to consolidate the 1941 gains? Possible, with much earlier German "tooling up" for attritional war as noted by you earlier. But it would've also helped to keep the Soviets from regaining their strategic "wits" where possible.

[Other Means]

if i may venture a toe into these deep waters...i think it possible that if the Germans had treated the areas captured during the offensive better, Stalin would have been a lot more wary of taking "Bonus soliders" from these areas.

[Spook]

Well, Michael, I tracked down and subscribed to the noted soc-wwii NG, thanks for mentioning it earlier. Yes, many interesting historical topics to be mined in there.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Spook:

Recognizing it to be a matter of degrees, I'm not arguing as that the German's standing on the East Front hinged mainly on the air war. However, I would still hold that the German's inabilities to project a strategic air campaign against the Soviets --- at the least, against the rail net, especially the Moscow hub -- made it more difficult to isolate the Soviets on the East Front from industrial replacements, reinforcements, and Lend Lease supplies. Which, in the strategic long-run, slowly undercut the German position.

Well, sure. But what would they have had to have given up to be able to build a strategic air force capable of all those things? Germany, and specifically German industry was capable of only doing so much. That happened to be a fair amount, but still less than several of the other combatants.

It would have been nice (only from Hitler's point of view, I hasten to add!) for instance, to have begun the war with three or four times as many U-boats and then gone on to double those numbers. A blockade of that magnitude might have forced Britain out of the war by 1942, if not earlier with a resultant freeing of ground and air forces for employment in the east.

But Germany wasn't realistically capable of building that either. They could have improved their position and made the war harder on the Allies, but I don't see them conquering all.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Spook:

Well, Michael, I tracked down and subscribed to the noted soc-wwii NG, thanks for mentioning it earlier. Yes, many interesting historical topics to be mined in there.

Speaking of mines, tread carefully there. As usual the occasional nut case turns up, such as the guy who thinks Pearl Harbor was faked by the US, which at least shows originality. Also suggest you read the FAQ carefully before trying to post as some of the rules are a bit tricky. They are also enforced in a capricious manner by the moderators, which gets my goat. But yes, there are some great discussions in there and some of the posters are very well informed indeed. I've learned a lot in the three or four years I've been reading it.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Incidentally, German extractions from the Ukraine barely reached the level of pre-war exports from the Ukraine to Germany. They sent a million men with guns to take by force what they got in peacetime for a few cameras.

In addition to huge quantities of grain, oil, aluminum, and other strategic materials received directly from the USSR between the signing of Ribbentrop-Molotov and the opening of Barbarossa, by attacking, the Germans had to forego materials shipped from Japan over the Trans-Siberian railway. Reading Ronald Lewin's The American Magic last night, I came across some interesting numbers.

Until the invasion of Russia there was a viable overland route, along which the volume of traffic was certainly so large that it would not be easy to replace. From no less a source than the Chief Customs Bureau of the USSR we know that during the first five months of 1941 the following commodities—212,366 tons in all—were transferred to Germany via the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Japan, Manchuria, and occupied China: 14,270 tons of rubber and rubber wares, 180,187 tons of oils and fats, 9,361 tons of foodstuffs, 3,461 tons of minerals, 1,107 tons of chemicals and drugs.

Michael

[Spook]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

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

Recognizing it to be a matter of degrees, I'm not arguing as that the German's standing on the East Front hinged mainly on the air war. However, I would still hold that the German's inabilities to project a strategic air campaign against the Soviets --- at the least, against the rail net, especially the Moscow hub -- made it more difficult to isolate the Soviets on the East Front from industrial replacements, reinforcements, and Lend Lease supplies. Which, in the strategic long-run, slowly undercut the German position.

Well, sure. But what would they have had to have given up to be able to build a strategic air force capable of all those things? Germany, and specifically German industry was capable of only doing so much. That happened to be a fair amount, but still less than several of the other combatants.

</font>

[JasonC]

On German air power, there is nothing wrong with the Ju-88. The He-111 left something to be desired in terms of speed, and the Do-17 left something to be desired in terms of bomb load. But the idea that only B-24s count as bombers is just not true.

People look at the listed maximum loads and assume the ratio of tonnage delivered would be like those, but that is not how it works. Most B-17s and B-24s going deep over Germany carried only 4,000 lbs of bombs. They needed to stay light for fuel purposes. Against shorter range targets, even the B-26s carried twice that, you didn't need 4 engines. The extra thing the heavies gave the western air fleets was mostly strike range.

To be effective with mediums of the quality the Germans had, you just had to be reasonably close to the target. Then the bomb load was perfectly adequate. One Ju-88 could carry 360 fragmentation bombs (e.g. for an airfield target) or incidenaries (for a city or industrial target).

What failed in the BoB was the fighter cover - the fighters didn't not have much range and could not keep masses of Brit ones off the bombers for long. The Brits were still hurting as long as the target set was mostly airfields - though pilots rather than planes was their bottleneck.

And the Germans most certainly did go after the rail targets in Russia. Airfields were the main target in the first week - they destroyed 2000 Russian planes on the ground. After that rail was the number one target. It was done in support of the army, certainly, but not front line fire missions. They were mostly trying to cut off retreat routes, to isolate pockets sooner.

Cutting up all the bridges was not, however, the idea, since the Germans needed those themselves if they were to get anywhere after they took the ground. Rail marshalling yards and rolling stock were the principle communications targets. The road net in Russian was limited, so when they did "armed recce" it mostly turned into a locomotive hunt.

But rail nets are not an easy target because of the ease of repairs. Partisans regularly cut up the German controlled lines inside Russia n literally thousands of places per month, but the Germans kept the lines open and freight moving. With occasional disruptions to be sure. The main German rail problem was, nevertheless, shortages of rolling stock using the Russian track width.

The Russian rail net performed incredible feats in the first year of the war. Loadings rose 50% despite loss of 40% of the line length and something like 20% of the rolling stock captured. And those loadings were used efficiently enough to supply the existing army until it died, raise mobilize and deploy another one just as large, move 25 divisions from the far east to Moscow, and move practically an industrial nation out of the path of the Germans to the Urals, 600 miles beyond the farthest point they reached or more. (Russia is big).

You weren't going to stop that with 700 medium bombers and 300 ground attack aircraft. Which had other things to do. The Russian air force had 15,000 planes on the day of the invasion, though only a fraction of them were modern types. There were 2,000 airfield sites in the western USSR alone; though they only used a portion at any given time. (I said Russia is big).

Russia outproduced Germany in aircraft, on its own, and some of its types were as good as the best the Germans had (late Yaks, Las, and MiGs, and the IL-2 of course). Their operational tempo and command and coordination were primitive by western or even by German standards, but it is not like the Germans would have had any more luck on unescorted raids deep into the Russian interior than unescorted US bombers had over Scweinfurt.

It is all side show frankly. The war was decided on the ground. The clash of the armies was the main thing, and the Germans had the edge in doctrine and tactics. That edge eroded over time but at the tactical scale remained sizeable even into 1944. What they didn't have was numbers. But that was largely self-inflicted in the first year and a half.

They weren't outnumbered in raw industrial potential or peak tank production rate. They matched Russian on both counts. They just didn't use all of it until 1944, being slow to fully mobilize and concentrate on weapons production, particularly for the land war. They were outnumbered in manpower depth, but not by all that much when you consider the areas taken from the Russians and all the minor allies helping the Germans. Certainly by far less than the ratio of losses they were racking up in 1941 and 1942.

What happened is the Germans gambled on only their own long suits mattering. They did not protect themselves on the downside by also trying to be as strong as possible in the Russian long suits. Each side had to adapt to the other's strengths in the course of the war. If you could minimize the other's strength by coming close to matching him in his strong suit, then your own could "tell", but until you did your own could not prove decisive.

The Russians were learning modern combined arms, use of armor, and the operational art. Reasonably well on the first two counts, outstandingly well on the last. The Germans eventually mobilized their economy and made full use of their manpower - but much slower. Not until the summer of 1944, really. Since the Russians had learned their lessons easily a year sooner, that wasn't remotely enough.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Spook:

But to really have a chance, it all boils back to if German industry and manpower could have been marshalled sooner and more earnestly in 1941-42 than was the case.

Much sooner than that IMO. Hitler ordered that armaments production be slacked off after the fall of France and even the disbandment of army formations to allow the soldiers to return to industry. A lot of production was going into consumer goods. Apparently Hitler and the Nazis were never completely confident that the German populace was solidly behind them and needed to be bribed with luxury goods.

A large proportion of armaments production had also been shifted to the creation of a blue water navy, at the expense of the army again. AIUI, the German mills were capable of producing so many tons of armor steel per month and what went into ships didn't go into tanks. I'm not sure exacly what's involved here as I would have assumed that the production of large plates for ships would be produced in different mills from those used to produce the smaller plates and castings used for tanks. But in any event, the availability of high quality steel was finite and this would also effect production of guns of all types.

Anyway, yes the Germans did themselves no favors by not putting production on a more rational footing much earlier and also realizing that this war was not going to be a walkover, but a life or death struggle that would demand everything they could come up with.

Michael

[Frunze]

An excellent thread. Especially bringing into focus the human cost of turning back Barbarossa. Churchill commented that no other regime could have survived it...but then again it was, in large part, the Kremlin's early mistakes that made the sacrifice and suffering necessary.

Originally posted by JasonC:

As for the idea of better treatment for the Ukraine, of course it would have helped. But a government acting that way wouldn't have attacked in the first place.

Yes, exactly. If they were not Nazis, the war would have been politically impossible (or at least unsustainable, others had tried to attack the USSR earlier.) As they were Nazis, there's no point in expecting them to act like they weren't.

Emrys makes some good points on this as well. A "kinder, gentler" invasion is a bit oxymoronic and not always so practical even when someone actually intends to do it.

Originally posted by JasonC:

2. The almost throw-away line in the article about women's contribution to the rear effort rings true. They doubled their available labor force almost immediately. The Germans were ridiculously slow on this score.

Yes. Kinder, kuche, kirche. But as you pointed out, a different government....

Women probably kept Soviet agriculture from collapsing more than it did, as well. And a significant number served in noncombat military and AA jobs. The smaller number in combat was significant as a signal: if women can do that, you better not object to a woman driving that truck.

Originally posted by JasonC:

1. It really is amazing that the whole rail network didn't break down completely between June 41 and January 42.

The Civil War experience may have been useful here. The railroads nearly did collapse then - mostly from a shortage of functioning locomotives.

Originally posted by JasonC:

My estimates of various tribes in the war period -

Kazaks 3-5m

Krygiz 1m

Turkmen 1-2m

Uzbeks 4-5m

Tajiks 1-2m

Tatars 1-2m

Baskirs 1-2m

Churash 1m

Other Urgic 1m

Other Turkic 1m

Yakut, other Siberian less than 1m

I think you're leaving out the Caucasus here. Georgian, Armenian, "mountaineers" etc. And Azeris/Azerbaijanis unless they're under "other Turkic", which would seem low in that case... And of course when you say "non-Russian" you're leaving out European non-Russian, but that wasn't in the question.

I'm not arguing with your overall conclusion on this, though.

[Frunze]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I'm not sure exacly what's involved here as I would have assumed that the production of large plates for ships would be produced in different mills from those used to produce the smaller plates and castings used for tanks.

Dunno, it would be rolled and cut differently but a blast furnace is a blast furnace.

[Jim Boggs]

A question if you please.

The transfer of Soviet industry to the East, as has been pointed out in this Thread, was a monumental undertaking.

Was this a plan as you go, ad hoc type of operation or were there pre-war plans in effect to account for this contingency?

[Keke]

Originally posted by Jim Boggs:

Was this a plan as you go, ad hoc type of operation or were there pre-war plans in effect to account for this contingency?

This doesn't help you much (which serves you right :mad: ) but Barbarossa was plan as you go, ad hoc type of operation with no proper pre-war plans, and based on false intelligence about the Red Army strength. Now that is not a very healthy combination (and there is something seriously wrong with that).

[JasonC]

Frunze - yes I left out the Caucasus. I only listed central Asians or Siberians, those that might conceivably fit the "mongol horde" propaganda stereotype under discussion.

On evacuation, there was no pre-war plan. It began as an attempt to save critical war plants in a few key areas, spread, and quickly became a systematic, centrally directed effort. There was, understandably, a lot of demand push - people wanted to get out of the way of the invasion. The authorities had to approve or deny flight, in effect. It was all controlled by railroad passes.

The economic direction of the war at first tried to use the existing central planning agencies but those were quickly found to need strengthening. Army planners were added and senior party bureaucrats put in charge to give orders more "pull". The most intricate part of the dance was undoubtedly getting the raw materials to the factories re-established in entirely new locations.

They used the occasion to rationalize transport problems, locating the plants much closer to their raw materials sources. So when they decided to plop down factory A somewhere in the Urals they put it next to whatever mining city provided their primary materials, or equidistant between 2-3 sources, etc. In peacetime plants tend to be created near their labor supply not their raw material supply. In this special case the labor was voluntarily mobile, because they didn't want to be overrun by the Germans where they were.

On German steel and economic constraints, they were not primarily set by trade offs between the armed services. They were set by trade offs between the armed forces as a whole and the civilian economy, and between immediate output of weapons and munitions against much longer term investment in plant and infrastructure. The steel was going not into warships but into buildings, bridges, railroads, locomotives, industrial machinery, etc.

In 1939, the portion of overall industrial output going to basic industry was 21%, construction another 23%, and other investment goods 18%. 62% of the output was thus dedicated to long term goals. Only 9% was going to immediate armaments output.

After the outbreak of the war that about doubled to 16% by 1941. But that year basic industry still took 25%, construction 13%, and other investment goods still 18%. Consumer goods were essentially untouched at 28% vs. 29% pre war. Essentially the construction budget was cut in half to double the armaments budget.

There were necessarily shifts within this limited budget, so that e.g. in the 4th quarter of 1941 army weapons output actually fell to only 63% of the peak hit the prior summer. They thought they'd already have Moscow and wanted military industry focused on air and naval output against the UK.

By 1944 40% of all industrial output was just armaments. Construction was down to 6% and other investments 11%. Both basic industry and civilian goods took smaller cuts, together providing about 10%. The civilian side saw only a 1/4 fall from pre-war levels even in 1944, while future oriented investment was cut drastically.

The first gear up for war, funded out of modest cuts in construction spending, was basically over by the 2nd quarter of 1940 and was focused mostly on ammunition. They made enough to replenish stocks they were expending in Poland and France. They refused to touch civilian expenditure and kept long term goals basically on track. Spending on basic industry actually increased, particularly pushing to complete synthetic oil and rubber industries (also aluminum and explosives) needed for wartime autarky after foreign trade declined.

After Moscow construction was hit again and further increases in basic industry stopped. Civilian expenditure remained basically unaffected, down only about 10%. Within armaments output the new increment from outside went to major weapon systems rather than just ammo, allowing an increase in tank production e.g.

After Stalingrad the portion going to armaments alone doubles, up 40% in each of 43 and 44. Investment and civilian life take the hit in 43, basic industry is also being starved in 44 and the curtailment of long term investment becomes almost absolute. Understand, every one of those categories includes scads of projects dear to the heart of every minor potentate within the Reich.

This is what mobilization means - absolute focus on immediate output of weapons and ammunition, to the exclusion of all other purposes and especially all longer term goals. The Germans simply did not make that decision until after Stalingrad, trying to make do with half measures after Moscow and the failure in the first season. They wanted to win on the cheap, without disrupting the long term development of the economy. They gambled, overconfidently, on winning without straining every muscle to do so.

Only when it became clear that the issue was not how fast or clean a win might be achieved but instead a fight for survival, did they pull out the stops, cancel all grandious long term plans of every domestic political actor and economic sector, and put everything under the absolute command of one planning center focused entirely on immediate armaments output.

Even afterwards there were gaps. Goering ran his own empire. So did Himmler. Many of the Gauleiters tried to. Organization Todt practically had independent foreign policy relations with each of them, negotiating over how much labor manpower would be used for projects related to each, in return for exactly what.

In contrast, in the US the government formed a planning board and doled out strategic materials with one hand and fat contracts with the other. Anybody who helped would be filthy rich, but later, not right now. Right now everything goes into armaments. The economy responded so well the war was largely funded out of economic growth taking place during the war itself. There was a boom in military construction in 1942 for necessary plant, after which that fell off drastically and all available resources just went through the existing machinery as fast as possible. Kaboom, 300,000 aircraft and 20 million tons of shipping.

Logistics was not Germany's long suit, and not just because of the scale of her industry compared to her whole list of enemies. Direction of it was nothing like as rational as it was in the other powers.

P.S. economic stats from Alan S. Milward, War Economy and Society 1939-1945

[ October 04, 2003, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Frunze]

Originally posted by JasonC:

On evacuation, there was no pre-war plan.

That would be an "unforced error" as you put it, then. Russia had to relocate (less) industry during WWI*, and had always needed to trade space for time until its forces could be mobilized from throughout its vast spaces, so the need for such a plan was easily foreseeable.

(Mostly from the Baltic and Poland. Workforces were relocated along with the factories.)

[Jim Boggs]

Thanks JasonC for sharing that.

I am actually amazed that a government considered very rigid and structured could pull off a stunt like that (re-locate heavy industry) in the face of an invasion and military needs for the rail lines.

I would have to believe that authority had to be delegated to an unheard of degree!

From my very limited reading, I was of the impression that Goebbels ran the homefront during the war. Didn't he make a highly publicised Total War speech at some point? It was my understanding that Goebbels was one of the earliest proponents of Total War.

[JasonC]

Goebbels was only in charge of propaganda. Of "morale" on the "home front", perhaps. But not economic organization. That was run by Fritz Todt until his death in a plane crash early in 1942, then by Albert Speer. Their position was formally called "Reich minister for armaments" (or "munitions", in some translations).

Goebbels did give speeches on the transition to total war after Stalingrad, mostly to excuse past failures and to defend the measures against the charge they resembled communism. Liberally sprinkling with bloodthirsty Jew baiting and deliberately stoked class resentments. The German people can face the whole truth - it's all them darn Joos yada yada.

[JasonC]

As for pulling off the relocation stunt, it is the sort of task centralization is good at, actually. Too much decentralization and it would have dissolved into chaos. There are lots of interlocking pieces that must fit etc.

No, the problem centralized economic direction generally fails on is incentives, including incentives on the directors as well as the directed. Also the related problem of control measures meant to induce compliance, actually being turned to other ends. In this particular situation, those weren't huge problems.

The Germans solved the micro-incentive problem on the bottom end of the scale - sitting still was a recipe for death or slavery. Gee, I get up and move about vigorously, what a surprise.

The practical control measures were food rationing and railway passes. The daily ration wasn't really enough to live on unless you were a soldier or worked in an armaments related industry, or had relatives who did who could share. So, another incentive to get with the program - it was the only way to get enough to eat, short of growing potatos yourself in your own backyard.

As for the railway passes, you could get clear of the combat zone and avoid being overrun, in practice, only if you got on an eastbound train. You would be let onto an eastbound train if you were part of a re-settlement plan. Otherwise, your choices were join up; get a rifle and head for the swamps (as partisan or brigand); stay put and lick German boots; or the ever popular "drop dead".

So people wanted "in" to the resettlement scheme. You didn't have to round them up and make them. They'd come to the railway stations on their own; it took guards to keep them from climbing onto the boxcars to stow-away east. Well, bring a paper saying your plant is critical to the war effort and here is the equipment and you can have your own boxcar. "Where do I get one of those?" "See the planners". "Who?" "Ask someone in the Party." Not hard.

Are the people running the re-settlement going to use the whole occasion for themselves? They can if they want, but it won't help if they screw it up and could easily get them shot. When it is just a matter of needing any decision, the one provided by some staff technocrat will fly as easily as any other.

In peacetime the rigidity of such power in the hands of minor functionaries stems from them being unwilling to do anything unless it, or a bribe, helps them out in "payment", but doing nothing would only help the Germans kill them all, in this case.

[Spook]

Originally posted by JasonC:

On German air power, there is nothing wrong with the Ju-88. The He-111 left something to be desired in terms of speed, and the Do-17 left something to be desired in terms of bomb load. But the idea that only B-24s count as bombers is just not true.

People look at the listed maximum loads and assume the ratio of tonnage delivered would be like those, but that is not how it works. Most B-17s and B-24s going deep over Germany carried only 4,000 lbs of bombs. They needed to stay light for fuel purposes. Against shorter range targets, even the B-26s carried twice that, you didn't need 4 engines. The extra thing the heavies gave the western air fleets was mostly strike range.

To be effective with mediums of the quality the Germans had, you just had to be reasonably close to the target. Then the bomb load was perfectly adequate. One Ju-88 could carry 360 fragmentation bombs (e.g. for an airfield target) or incidenaries (for a city or industrial target).

What failed in the BoB was the fighter cover - the fighters didn't not have much range and could not keep masses of Brit ones off the bombers for long. The Brits were still hurting as long as the target set was mostly airfields - though pilots rather than planes was their bottleneck.

And the Germans most certainly did go after the rail targets in Russia. Airfields were the main target in the first week - they destroyed 2000 Russian planes on the ground. After that rail was the number one target. It was done in support of the army, certainly, but not front line fire missions. They were mostly trying to cut off retreat routes, to isolate pockets sooner.

Cutting up all the bridges was not, however, the idea, since the Germans needed those themselves if they were to get anywhere after they took the ground. Rail marshalling yards and rolling stock were the principle communications targets. The road net in Russian was limited, so when they did "armed recce" it mostly turned into a locomotive hunt.

Duly noted, Jason, but the above was not the premise I was suggesting earlier. Rather, I pondered on if, during the later "static" situation in front of Moscow, the German bombers (when strength and supplies were sufficiently on hand) could have attempted a concentrated anti-rail campaign in the Moscow vicinity (including nearby bridging, given that Moscow was a critical hub to the remaining rail net still in Soviet hands. Or, if such an effort would have had some measureable effect, like in 1942.

But as you note below:

But rail nets are not an easy target because of the ease of repairs. Partisans regularly cut up the German controlled lines inside Russia n literally thousands of places per month, but the Germans kept the lines open and freight moving. With occasional disruptions to be sure. The main German rail problem was, nevertheless, shortages of rolling stock using the Russian track width.

To this has to be added for consideration the sum German bomber aircraft as could have supported such a campaign, as well as the depth of Soviet air defenses to rebut it.

Again, I don't see the post-blitz air situation in north/central Russia often discussed, but at present, I do suspect that the German bomber forces were still not of sufficient strength in 1942 to bring about an effective strategic anti-rail campaign in the Moscow region.

[Gaylord Focker]

On the Ju-88 i'm glad to see not everyone shrugged it off as a light weight barely significant bomber. What i would like to make note of is that it also performed well in the anti-shipping role as well, which is key if you ask me considering the Royal Navy was the best in the world at the time.

That is all i have to add for now as many made some fine posts here. It's a shame i didn't find this thread earlier, but better late then never!

[Keke]

Originally posted by JasonC:

As for the railway passes, you could get clear of the combat zone and avoid being overrun, in practice, only if you got on an eastbound train. You would be let onto an eastbound train if you were part of a re-settlement plan. Otherwise, your choices were join up; get a rifle and head for the swamps (as partisan or brigand); stay put and lick German boots; or the ever popular "drop dead".

How many percent of the population didn't go east and didn't "head for the swamps"? FE I know that many Ukrainians were hoping that Germans would close down hated kolkhozes, but that didn't happen (kolkhozes were harnessed by the German economy instead).

When it comes to re-settlement plans, I think Soviets were quite good at it after training with various ethnical minorities...not forgetting deportation of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Ukranians, Balts, Moldavians and Bessarabians in 1939-41.