# 1935 Germany. Why horse drawn artillery and supply wagons?



## davebender (May 17, 2014)

Army artillery draft horse team normally consists of six animals.
RM 1,350 average Heer horse price during 1930s. 
Six horse team costs RM 8,100. Plus harness and so forth.
1930s Germany was not self sufficient in horse fodder. About 30% was imported.
Horses require about 9kg of fodder per day even when not working. Also require veterinary service and other periodic maintenance whether working or not.

Simple full track tractor such as Hanomag WD50 costs about RM 5,000. So does 3 ton Opel Blitz truck.

16 March 1935. German Army begins expansion to 36 divisions.

Why did Heer chose to procure artillery and supply wagon horse teams rather then less expensive artillery tractors and 3 ton trucks?


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## Airframes (May 18, 2014)

Who knows? Maybe they thought they were 'good enough' and less trouble?
Contrary to 'popular opinion', the German Armed forces, particularly Heer, relied heavily on horse (or other animal) drawn transport throughout WW2, with only the immediate 'front line' elements being partly or fully mechanised, and then only First, or forward echelon elements.
This was perhaps even more the case towards the end of the war in Europe, when fuel shortages really started to affect things. A photo, taken in 1944, comes to mind, showing a Luftwaffe crew bus being towed by oxen, to get the pilots to the airfield - from JG26 if memory serves me - which was not an isolated incident.


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## davebender (May 18, 2014)

Somebody does. That's why I asked the question. 

1935 military spending bill presented to Reichstag would have explanations for the various purchases.


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## parsifal (May 18, 2014)

one possibility is attrition. Even in peacetime, there was a wastage of vehicles annually, and i doubt German industry was able to provide replacements quickly enough. During the war, Germany built around 320000 trucks, give or take. Thats an annual production rate of around 60000 vehicles per annum. production before 1939, that is, before the rationalisation plan, was less than that. according to Victor Madej ("The German Motorization Myth"), German truck production 1934-9 was 220000 of which 80000 were allocated to the armed forces (all four services. the heer and the SS received about 60% of all truck allocations, so in effect the two armies received around 50000 trucks 1934-9. The German economy would have taken a massive hit if all truck production was allocated to the army, and according to Madej, German industry, until the (partial) implementation of the Snell plan was incapable of much rapid increase in output. 

With only 80000 trucks built, and an average yearly wastage rate of around 20% even in peacetime, Germany would never be able to have more than about 10-15 divisions fully motorized. a British Infantry Division was one such beast, and needed around 2500 vehicles under direct command to do so, and around another 2500 for a typical supply chain of corps and army level assets to support it. The overwhelming majority of truck are there for resupply of the artillery weapons, accounting for well over 70% of the supply demands of the division, even in periods of light engagement, in heavy engagement, you better pray you have a good stockpile of ammunition close to the front....

Lets say the germans opt for a slightly less lavish Truck TOE. pick a number, say 3000 trucks per division. That means with a park of 50000 vehicles, you could motorize and keep supplied a total of 16 divs. If you elect to motorize only the artillery component, and want to keep it supplied, you might stretch that out to 25 divs. that number is just insufficient to do what germany needed done.

After war broke out, a significant proportion of german industry freed up by the rationalisation program, was needed to be diverted to other areas of german industry. over 70% of the German factory space used for motor vehicle production was converted to the production of other items such as tank components, aircraft engines and the like. Theere really wasnt much spare capacity to divert back to truck production, without other areas of the war effort taking abig hoit again


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## The Basket (May 18, 2014)

Trucks need rubber oil and other imported raw material. 
So not using them is good idea.

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## vikingBerserker (May 18, 2014)

It could very well have jast been a carry over as a number of armies still used horses and mules during this time. Plus if you already have them why not use them.


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## Airframes (May 18, 2014)

And if they break down completely, they can be eaten - which was, of course, done.


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## tyrodtom (May 18, 2014)

I think the price that you've got that they paid for horses to be a little high.

1300 RM would be about $300-350, or almost half of what the average car cost in the USA at the time.

I do remember what working horses cost in the USA in the late 50's, early 60s. That's just working horses. plow horses, etc. not thoroughbreds. We bought them for $250-$350 then, and that's when new low priced cars were $1500- $2000.
I spent a spring plowing small gardens with a mule, so I do recall what horses and mules cost then in my part of the world. It's hard to believe work horses were going for that much 20 years earlier in Europe.

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## davebender (May 18, 2014)

Historical data suggests otherwise.

*Opelwerk Brandenburg.* 
Built during 1935 for RM 14 million.
.....About the price for one 1930s German navy destroyer. 
.....You could build 14 Opelwerk Brandenburg size factories for the price of KM Bismarck.
Designed to produce 25,000 3 ton trucks per year. In fact the factory achieved 27,000 trucks per year prior to 1939.

Opelwerk Brandenburg produced vehicles mostly for civilian use. Prior to 1940 less then 20% were military variants. 

Maultier variant of Opel Blitz truck (tracks ILO rear wheels) cost about RM 11,000. Vehicle was sometimes used as tractor for 10.5cm light howitzer. Not quite as capable as proper but more expensive (~RM 20,000) Sd.Kfz.11 3 ton tractor. However it was vastly more capable then a team of 6 draft horses.








If 1935 Germany wanted more artillery tractors or 3 ton trucks they could have funded factory construction for a tiny fraction of total military budget. Just cut one of the 30 navy Zerstorer ordered prior to WWII.


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## GrauGeist (May 18, 2014)

It's just not that easy to start tossing factories up here and there and start producing all sorts of things.

You have to have a customer for the product, that customer needs the money to purchase the product.

You have to have the money to pay all the factory workers, the suppliers, the light bill and so on.

The world economy in the 1930's was not doing all that well...

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## davebender (May 19, 2014)

No but it's a lot easier then tossing up battleships, heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers. It's all a matter of national priorities.

For comparison purposes...
1930s Soviet economy was far worse then 1935 Germany yet they built a massive military industrial complex which included 3 medium tank factories and one heavy tank factory. German Army didn't allocate funding for their first medium tank factory until fall of 1939 and didn't begin large scale truck purchases before 1940.


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## parsifal (May 19, 2014)

there are still problems with this kind of thinking. 

Firstly, its not just a matter of money, though that is an important consideration. the skills and equipment needed to build motor vehicles are different to those needed for shipbuilding. It takes time, a lot of time to put into effect structural changes like this, as the germans found out historically. they resolved or intended to rationalise and improve outputs of their motor vehicle industry from 1936, just after the time period you suggest. there were no subatantive changes until 1939, and then only with limited application. As it was, germany with the second most powerful economy in the world overall, still only managed to build 10% the numbers of the US and about half that of Britain. Even Canada out produced her. aqnd this was after the implementation of the plan designed to at least double outputs (which it pretty much did, eventually) 

Secondly, even in Germany car manufacturing was still very much a case of private venture capital, rather than state control. Getting the rationalization plan, despite the best efforts of the transport ministry took from 1936 to just prior to the outbreak of the war to get agreement on. You cannot just wave the magic wand in 1935 to make these changes. it was beyond the capacity of government intervention to achieve this at that time. 

So industrial capacity and capability are one thing. It simply was not there in 1935.

The second thing is that a motorization plan carries with it a quid pro quo. if germany abandons her naval construction programs from 1935 (which in 1935 did not include battleships or cruisers....it was destroyers, followed by a few submarines), then one can expect similar adjustments in the build programs of her rivals. Poland, france, Russia, even britain, can all be expected to rectify some of the glaring faults in their land armies as well. Its newtonian, for every action, expect an equal reaction.


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## tyrodtom (May 19, 2014)

When you buy a new horse, you don't have to buy a new harness, wagon, nor all the infrastructure to support those horses if you already have it.

Where if they switched 100% to motor vehicles they would have needed many more mechanics, and train those mechanics, and all the infrastructure to support those motor vehicles.

They were trying to get the best use out of what they already had.

The decision they made were probably not the best they could have made, long range, the 3rd Reich's history is full of bad decisions.

So what's new?


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## nuuumannn (May 20, 2014)

> Why did Heer chose to procure artillery and supply wagon horse teams rather then less expensive artillery tractors and 3 ton trucks?



Timing is one reason why there weren't more vehicles. The German army didn't have all the vehicles necessary to carry everything. It's foolhardy to presume that the Germans were actually fully prepared for the conflict they embarked on.


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## davebender (May 20, 2014)

1935 Heer was expanding. They didn't already have equipment for new divisions. Everything had to be procured from scratch. That includes horses, horse equipment and horse drawn supply wagons.

One source states that Germany procured 25,000 horses from Hungary for RM 1,000 each. At that price a 6 draft horse team costs RM 6,000 plus horse equipment. Even this lower price is more expensive then Opel Blitz 3 ton trucks. That's before we consider cost of horse barns (army trucks are normally parked outdoors) and horse drawn wagons.

Difficult to make an economic argument in favor of 1935 German horse drawn transport. So why did it happen?


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## GrauGeist (May 20, 2014)

davebender said:


> So why did it happen?


One word:

oil


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## parsifal (May 20, 2014)

davebender said:


> 1935 Heer was expanding. They didn't already have equipment for new divisions. Everything had to be procured from scratch. That includes horses, horse equipment and horse drawn supply wagons.
> 
> One source states that Germany procured 25,000 horses from Hungary for RM 1,000 each. At that price a 6 draft horse team costs RM 6,000 plus horse equipment. Even this lower price is more expensive then Opel Blitz 3 ton trucks. That's before we consider cost of horse barns (army trucks are normally parked outdoors) and horse drawn wagons.
> 
> Difficult to make an economic argument in favor of 1935 German horse drawn transport. So why did it happen?



The British Army was a significant source of horses for the re-equipping heer in the lead up to war. They sold their horses to the germans for about 30 pounbds each including the traces and harness. Roughly in todays money thats about $7000 each in todays money.

Frankly, I dont believe the hungarian claim. most likley its a conversion of some sort into modern currency equivalents. at 1000 RM per animal, exclusive of gear, thats the equivalent of about 1million RM in a today equivalent, or $250000 roughly speaking. Maybe they paid that much for all the horses, or maybe the horses were stud breeding stock. But that is equivalent to a top line race horse in todays money. If the heer paid that mu


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## Juha (May 20, 2014)

It happened mostly because Germany was at that time fairly agrarian country and the farms were not widely mechanised, so they rely much on horses. Farmhands had used to work with horse, not to drive tractors and lorries. When a mass army based on drafted reservists was mobilized it rely much on the equipment drafted from a civil society and in society like Germany that means much of horse drawn vehicles.


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## parsifal (May 20, 2014)

Juha said:


> It happened mostly because Germany was at that time fairly agrarian country and the farms were not widely mechanised, so they rely much on horses. Farmhands had used to work with horse, not to drive tractors and lorries. When a mass army based on drafted reservists was mobilized it rely much on the equipment drafted from a civil society and in society like Germany that means much of horse drawn vehicles.



Maybe, but mostly because they lacked the capacity for various reasons to fully mechanise their army. Mechanising the artillery arm effectively means you are going 80% of the way to motorising the army, and the german motor industry lacked even that capability in 1936. they still lacked it in 1939, and still lacked it in 1944. there is a pattern emerging here, in case anyone has missed the point, it was beyond the reach of german industry to motorise its 500 or so divisions that it raised, and beyond its reach to even motorise the artillery cpmponents of those divisions. The nearest the German army came to a motorised army was 1939-40, when the numbers of divisions was still within peacetime projections and allowances, and before the really vicious attrition began to bite, but even then, it was not a true motorised army, and never could be (not realistically at least). So bad was the attrition in the German truck pool, that by 1943 even mobile defence of the front was impossible. Mansteins defence was a pipe dream gentelemen, after stalingrad, there was no escape, or retreat before the russian storm. Germany could no longer move large parts of her army without incurring significant attritional losses. Losses in transport, both horse drawn and motorised was very severe. the standard Infantry division had gone to war with about 5500 horses and about 800 MT attached. By 1943, this number had slumped to around 200 vehicles and under 2000 horses per division. The German army had lost its biggest advantage.....its mobility in the previoous 2 years of copntinuous combat.


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## Juha (May 20, 2014)

Wholly motorising a WWII mass army was impossible, even USA couldn't do that. Britain mechanized fair part of its European army just before WWII, but it was a small army. Even in 1944 British Armoured divisions had only one armoured infantry battalion, carried on US supplied armoured half-tracks, rest of the division's infantry was truck borne much a same as in WM, In WM at that time a few PzDivs has 2 armoured infantry battalions but most had one battalion or only one coy of armoured infantry. But at least they could rely on domestically produces armoured half-tracks not imported ones as the GB. That only shows that a fully mechanized mass army was at that time beyond the capacity of European countries.


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## parsifal (May 20, 2014)

Mechanising, as opposed to motorizing isnt the issue. Mechanization was a nice to have luxury whereas motorization in modern warfare was a necessity.

Even today, few armies are fully mechanized. The Bundeswehr had it as an equipment objective, but never really achieved it. 

During the war, the US and British armies came closest to getting their armies on wheels, moreover they largely negated the need for tracks by giving their vehicles good levels of off road mobility.

none of this is the issue. The issue is whether the Germans had the capacity or the potential to motorise their artillery parks. they never even came close to that. 

You are wrong incidentally on the size of the British Army. Sure, if you count divisions you come up with a figure of just 32 divisions. However what is missed here is the size of the divisional slice. During the Normandy campaign, the divisions committed had an average slice of well over 50000 men per division. Compare that to an average of about 12000, or less for a german division, and the equivalent of those 32 divisions is about 120 german divisions. Moreover, 1/3 of the Indiann army was essentially british, though this was lost as the war progressed, and the indian Army was nearly 35 divisions by the end of 1942. The Australians were 14 divisions, the New Zealanders , 2 divisions, the South Africans a further 3 divs, the Canadians 10 divs. there were perhaps 6 colonial divs, which until the end of 1941 werre all more or less exclusively equipped with British, home produced or canadian equipment. it is simply untrue or misinformation to suggest the british had a smaller or minute p[robelm. It was slightly smaller than the german issue. But they made sure their pro duction bases were far more sound than the germans, and it showed in their outputs of vehicles, about 450000 IIRC.


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## Juha (May 20, 2014)

Hello Parsifal
firstly I missed the logic of comparing the GB divisional slice in Normandy to the average size of the German div in Normandy at the beginning of June 44. I cannot remember the size of German divisional slice in Normandy, maybe 25. - 30.000 men.
secondly, yes, US and Commonwealth divs in ETO in 44-45 came closest of being fully motorized but even them were not fully motorized. And in armoured divs lorry borne infantry wasn't good enough that's why in US armored divs all infantry battalions were armoured, in other words were equipped with armoured personel carriers as were a couple of German PzDivs. And frankly British army was small when compared to German and Soviet armies with hundreds of divs. even if their "tails" were were smaller than those of Commonwealth divs.


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## parsifal (May 21, 2014)

Juha said:


> Hello Parsifal
> firstly I missed the logic of comparing the GB divisional slice in Normandy to the average size of the German div in Normandy at the beginning of June 44. I cannot remember the size of German divisional slice in Normandy, maybe 25. - 30.000 men.
> secondly, yes, US and Commonwealth divs in ETO in 44-45 came closest of being fully motorized but even them were not fully motorized. And in armoured divs lorry borne infantry wasn't good enough that's why in US armored divs all infantry battalions were armoured, in other words were equipped with armoured personel carriers as were a couple of German PzDivs. And frankly British army was small when compared to German and Soviet armies with hundreds of divs. even if their "tails" were were smaller than those of Commonwealth divs.



nope, not correct, because once again you are counting divisions and only considering the British army. thats akin to assesing the Roman army and not considering the auxiliaries who were not roman citizens but did most of the fighting for them. it is essentially a eurocentric way of looking at the british and the relationship they shared with their dominion partners. they need to be considered as a one unit, though this did fray at the edges in WWII from an operational pov. we arent considering operational issues, we are considering simply mnanpower and equipment levels and on that basis it is valid, indeed, esentiual, to consider the British and dominions as a singlke entity. you are counting divisions again and not looking at manpower levels. The British and its dominionsd fielded one of the largest ground armies of the entire war, easily eclipsing the American effort and very nearly matching the german manpower levels put into uniform. and most of these had some level of motorization, certainly much greater than achieved in the heer. 

In September 1939, the british army had a total of 892,697 officers and men in both the full-time regular army and part-time Territorial Army. The regular army could muster 224,000 men, who were supported by a reserve of 173,700 men. In April 1939, an additional 34,500 men had been conscripted into the regular army and had only completed their basic training on the eve of war. The regular army was built around 30 cavalry or armoured regiments and 140 infantry battalions.The Territorial Army numbered 438,100, with a reserve of around 20,750 men. This force comprised 29 yeomanry regiments (eight of which were still to be fully mechanized), 12 tank and 232 infantry battalions. 
Conscription was introduced in early 1939, with the Military Training Act of 27 April 1939. Initially, the Act required all men aged 20 and 21 to take six months' military training. On the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 was rushed through Parliament. This extended the liability to military service to all fit men between 20–23. The age group was increased as the war continued, ultimately applying to all fit men between the ages of 18–41 as manpower shortages became acute.
By the end of 1939, the Army's strength had risen to 1.1 million men, by June 1940 it stood at 1.65 million men, and had further increased to 2.2 million men by the following June. Wehrmacht at this time was about 3.5 million men from memory. The size of the Army peaked in June 1945, at 3.5. 
The contribution of the Indian Army is often overlooked, but is critical in understanding the significant role played by the british and commonwealth forces. Almost 3 million Indians and british served in the army.

The contribution of the Australians amounted to nearly 1 million men.

The Canadians contriburted nearly 2 million men.

The remainder of the commonwealth and dominions and empire contributed approximately 1 million men under arms, all of them more or less motorised. If you add up the numbers of troops nominally under British control, not just the British Army (and British industry was responsible initially for equipping all of them, along with home country production), you get a figure of around 10 million men. Concidering the peak strength of the Wehrmacht was about 11 million men, the manpower differences are not that great.


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## Juha (May 21, 2014)

Its depends on the PoV, if we want to know what was possible to an European Great Power in early 40s IMHO its better to take an Eurocentric view than an imperial view. It is true that part of British war production went to support Commonwealth armies and Allies but on the other hand it received massive help from USA which IIRC overshadowed that what Germany got from their conquered neighbours, especially if we take into consideration the quality. And IIRC at least Canada relied heavily on its domestic production in its army’s motor park, even Indian army could rely partly on domestic car and lorry production, I cannot recall how it was in ANZ armies. 
Some 18+ million served actively in the WM 1939-45, of course the Heer was only one part of the WM but just after Stalingrad/Caucasus catastrophe, so just after very heavy losses, especially in the Heer and before the fully mobilization, there were 4,9 million men in the Heer incl. Ersatzheer out of 8 million men in the VM. And one must to remember that the vast majority of the German AA troops (of which there were many) belonged to the LW when in the British system the vast majority of the AA troops belonged to the Army. Clearly the full motorization was out of question because of lack of industrial resources and because there would not have been enough POL for such a vast motor park. Of course germens could have done better by fully mobilizing earlier, better allocating resources, earlier and more thorough standardization and more fully utilizing the production facilities in the conquered countries. But as I wrote earlier, conscript mass armies didn’t operate in a vacuum but were products of their societies. That a country which still had a large agricultural sector based on horse power produced a mass army which in great extend relied on horses wasn’t very surprising.


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## tyrodtom (May 21, 2014)

The Wehrmacht started WW2 with approximately 1/2 million horses, and ended the war with 1.2 million. 

Those numbers by themselves should explain why the German army bought horses at the beginning of WW2, they had no means of building enough trucks, nor the fuel to keep them running, and the situation got worse as the war continued.

Quoting what they were paying for generic horses is meaningless without including what kind of horses they were. Work horses, cavalry horses, and the breed stock for each are going to have radically different prices. 
And then there the horses the higher ranking officers love to ride in the parades, though I would think those would be private purchases.

With sound breeding stock, and a barn, in effect you have a horse factory.


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## parsifal (May 21, 2014)

> Its depends on the PoV, if we want to know what was possible to an European Great Power in early 40s IMHO its better to take an Eurocentric view than an imperial view. It is true that part of British war production went to support Commonwealth armies and Allies but on the other hand it received massive help from USA which IIRC overshadowed that what Germany got from their conquered neighbours




Under lend Lease the commonwealth nations received a total of 280000 trucks of US manufacture, but under the reverse lend lease arrangements, almost 100000 vehicles of Commonwealth manufacture, were supplied to US forces. Overwhelmingly these vehiocles were from Canadian sources, which produced over a million vehicles during the war, many of which were ordered by the US army. Net benefit therefore to the Commonwealth was therefore to the tune of 180000 vehicles.

Germany received or captured about 150000 vehicles from a number of non-german. The French supplied nearly 60000 trucks from new and the Dutch Belgians and italians all provided some level of motor vehicles from their production. Vast quantities of captured vehicles were pressed into service for the wehrmacht during the war. This was a major source of supply for the embattled german Army and probably what allowed it to continue its offensive after 1941. 7000 vehicles from italian sources were supplied to Rommel in North Africa. Another source of supply for the wehrmacht were the increasingly draconian comb outs of their civilian stocks of MT. This hurt their economy, but it at least kept the heer moving 

The difference between what the british received from Lend Lease and what the germans acquired from their various foreign sources was about 30000 units difference. thats virtually nothing to talk about. 



> , especially if we take into consideration the quality. And IIRC at least Canada relied heavily on its domestic production in its army’s motor park, even Indian army could rely partly on domestic car and lorry production, I cannot recall how it was in ANZ armies.



Unquestionably some of the captured equipment and the foreign manufactured items were too lightly built to withstand the rigours of military service. more imporatnly, the multiplicity of types kept serviceability rates fairly low for the Germans. 

Canada was a major exporter of vehicles, producing about 1 million trucks during the war. India and the Eastern Bloc (including Australia) were very minor, about 40000 truck produced, mostly from prefabricated components 




> Some 18+ million served actively in the WM 1939-45, of course the Heer was only one part of the WM but just after Stalingrad/Caucasus catastrophe, so just after very heavy losses, especially in the Heer and before the fully mobilization, there were 4,9 million men in the Heer incl. Ersatzheer out of 8 million men in the VM. And one must to remember that the vast majority of the German AA troops (of which there were many) belonged to the LW when in the British system the vast majority of the AA troops belonged to the Army.




This is playing with the figures. I suspect that you are relying on a source that "double counts" men wounded, discharged, and then reassigned or enlisted as the war progressed. The most authoritative source for German manpower levels is Victor Madejs The Gerrman Replacement Army 1939-45. in the preface to the book it states "this book details the full order of battle of the german Army in WWII. It relies on the details of two US intelligenmce reports produced at the end of the war, plus the definitive Wehrmacht German Army Order of Battle. i consider thisa book to be the best single volume English language study into German mobilzation. German armed forces mobilzation was nowhere near what you are claimimg as their manning levels. Table I of the book addresses the cumulative manpower inductions for the German armed forces, and also includes a breakdown in manning levels by service branch. 

Manning levels, including those lost released, killed or discharged were as follows (in millions)

12/39: 4.2
6/40 6.2
6/41 7.9
6/42 9.4
6/43 11.2
6/44 12.4
4/45 13.7

However these figures are in no way comparable to the figures I posted for the British Army, because these are a cululative total for all services, whereas i only posted peak manning levels for the British Army at elected dates. if we want to compare apples to apples, we have to also look at the peak manning levels for the heer at roughly the same dates. Fortunately Madej has those figures as well, and they show the following

For the heer +SS

12/39: 2.7
6/40 3.8
6/41 3.9
6/42 4.1
6/43 4.3
6/44 4.5
4/45 3.7

In comparsion to the British Army, the German army peaked at manning levels much earlier, but was never greatly larger than the British Army + the dominions. i dont have the full manning levels of all the dominions at every point in the war, but for the Australians for example, they peaked in early 1943 at 890000. the Indian army peaked in 1944, I expect the canadians probably peaked in early 1944. but there really isnt that much difference in the manning levels of the Germans on one hand, and the manning levels of Britain and her dominions on the other. 




> Clearly the full motorization was out of question because of lack of industrial resources and because there would not have been enough POL for such a vast motor park. Of course germens could have done better by fully mobilizing earlier, better allocating resources, earlier and more thorough standardization and more fully utilizing the production facilities in the conquered countries. But as I wrote earlier, conscript mass armies didn’t operate in a vacuum but were products of their societies. That a country which still had a large agricultural sector based on horse power produced a mass army which in great extend relied on horses wasn’t very surprising.



I pretty much concur with your conclusions and observations here, but I question that Germany was primarily an agrarian society. It was the most industrialised country except the US, and had the highest standard of education of any nation in Europe. it was not nearly as "agrarian" as the dominion nations, including Canada, and yet these nations out motorised their armies by a country mile. I have serious doubts that being and "agraian nation had much to do with it at all, though i concede thats just opinion. I think it simply came down to an issue of availability, of both POLs and vehicles. The German economy was never a strong vehcile manufacturing nation, and this is something you just cant pull oput of your back pocket with the sanp of fingers and the wave of the wand.


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## Juha (May 21, 2014)

Hello Parsifal
thanks for the vehicle figures.



parsifal said:


> ...This is playing with the figures. I suspect that you are relying on a source that "double counts" men wounded, discharged, and then reassigned or enlisted as the war progressed. The most authoritative source for German manpower levels is Victor Madejs The Gerrman Replacement Army 1939-45. in the preface to the book it states "this book details the full order of battle of the german Army in WWII. It relies on the details of two US intelligenmce reports produced at the end of the war, plus the definitive Wehrmacht German Army Order of Battle. i consider thisa book to be the best single volume English language study into German mobilzation. German armed forces mobilzation was nowhere near what you are claimimg as their manning levels. Table I of the book addresses the cumulative manpower inductions for the German armed forces, and also includes a breakdown in manning levels by service branch.
> 
> Manning levels, including those lost released, killed or discharged were as follows (in millions)
> 
> ...



The 18+ million is from German Wiki and is cumulative but the early 43 situation is from the official history Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg vol 8 (2007) and so authoritative.






parsifal said:


> I pretty much concur with your conclusions and observations here, but I question that Germany was primarily an agrarian society. It was the most industrialised country except the US, and had the highest standard of education of any nation in Europe. it was not nearly as "agrarian" as the dominion nations, including Canada, and yet these nations out motorised their armies by a country mile. I have serious doubts that being and "agraian nation had much to do with it at all, though i concede thats just opinion. I think it simply came down to an issue of availability, of both POLs and vehicles. The German economy was never a strong vehcile manufacturing nation, and this is something you just cant pull oput of your back pocket with the sanp of fingers and the wave of the wand.



I didn't claim that Germany was a primarily agrarian nation in 1939 simply noted the fact that substantially larger part of its population earned living in agriculture than in GB at that time and that its agriculture was largely still not mechanized at that time.


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## mikewint (May 21, 2014)

I believe that the answer has already been given by Dave: Germany lacked natural oil resources and was thus forced to rely heavily on synthetic oil and gasoline which were expensive and always in short supply. As a consequence only roughly 20% of the Wehrmacht was made up of mobile Panzer and mechanized divisions.
Second, the roads and mud tracks were not friendly to mechanized forces.
Third, infrastructure (horse/animal) At the beginning of WWII Germany had well over 500,000 military horses thus all of the necessary infrastructure for their care, feeding, handling, usage, etc. were already in place. The average soldier was also well familiar with the horse and its care so no special technical training was required.
Fourth, the horse appeared to be a cheap reliable source of transportation that could “fuel” itself on free grass via grazing. A dead truck was scrap but a dead horse was food.
Fifth, horses lost for whatever reason could be replaced “in the field” as horses were used on farms by both France and Russia. German stud farms in Prussia were not bombing targets and thus continued to supply horses while German industry was severely crippled by bombing. The result is that the Wehrmacht increased its horse population throughout the war averaging over one million.
Now the horse reality was quite different and the Wehrmacht’s reliance on horses was a crippling one. As has already been pointed out, the cost of feeding, grooming, and caring for horses is/was staggering. Horses required grain on a daily basis and their ability to work/survive rapidly deteriorated if fed only grass. Fodder made up a major part of supply trains. “Healthy as a horse” is an oxymoron. Even under moderate conditions horses rapidly became unfit after a week or two and replacements needed time to learn to work with the older horses. Horses could haul equipment a maximum of 20 miles (18-19km) per day at best whereas trucks could do 20 times that distance.
At Stalingrad the Wehrmacht, unable to feed their horses and sent them to the rear. Thus when the 6th Army was enveloped they were cut-off from their horses and were unable to move heavy equipment. In the Demyansk Pocket feeding the 20,000 trapped horses required airlifting fodder reducing space for other supplies.


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## davebender (May 21, 2014)

> Mechanising the artillery arm effectively means you are going 80% of the way to motorising the army


,

1930s German infantry division required 4,000 to 6,000 horses. Providing each division with 100 tractors for towing artillery and transporting ammunition would replace only 600 of those horses.


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## mikewint (May 21, 2014)

Dur the 1930s as Germany began its massive build-up certain facts remained: Germany did not have a large number of people familiar with or know how to drive a car or truck (The United States had 1:5 ratio of cars to people, while the ratio in Germany was 1:89, the poorest ratio of Western Europe except for Italy). Extensive programs were put in place to train drivers during this period but the fact remained, Germany did not have a population conducive to the creation of a large motorised or mechanised force. This was further exacerbated by the fact that the German industry was incapable of providing the vehicles and fuel requisite to the creation of a modern, fully motorised force. Given these circumstances, horses had to be used for transportation.
The US Army on the other hand, with large quantities of oil and its massive manufacturing base went the motorized route with not a single horse in Europe. The Pacific was a different story and remote units still used the horse

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## Juha (May 21, 2014)

Re Messages # 28 30; Very well put, Mike.
Even 20% was too high percentage for Pz and Mechanized divs later in the war on 1 July 43 there were 23 Pz and 21½ PzGr Divs in German armed forces out of the total of 276 divs and 1 June 44 31 Pz and 16½ PzGr Divs out of the total of 285.


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## vikingBerserker (May 21, 2014)

I am pretty sure I remember reading the US 10th Mountain Division used horses and mules in Northern Italy.


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## parsifal (May 21, 2014)

davebender said:


> ,
> 
> 1930s German infantry division required 4,000 to 6,000 horses. Providing each division with 100 tractors for towing artillery and transporting ammunition would replace only 600 of those horses.




Except then you are left worse off, because your logisitic tail is still horse drawn and completely unable to keep up and completely inadequate for most resupply operations.

The French tried a similar experiement to this shortcut and with their DLCs and these formations proved to be unworkable and innefficient. 

The horses are there to haul supplies, and the artillery arm genenerally accounts for about 80% of supply requirements in even periods of light engagement


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## Juha (May 21, 2014)

vikingBerserker said:


> I am pretty sure I remember reading the US 10th Mountain Division used horses and mules in Northern Italy.



Not sure on horses but mules yes.


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## davebender (May 21, 2014)

Horse fodder required more BEF tonnage then any other supply category during WWI. I doubt things had changed much with WWII era horse transport. 

German Army horses required an average of 9kg of fodder per day whether they do any work or not. Artillery tractors require fuel only when operated. Infantry division artillery is stationary most of the time so fuel requirement for 100 artillery tractors shouldn't amount to much.


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## vikingBerserker (May 21, 2014)

Juha said:


> Not sure on horses but mules yes.



Not the original source I remember reading, but it does show the data.
Office of Medical History

The horses and mules were acquired locally and the chart below (Average Mean Strength) excludes around 10k that were captured and used [from above link].







One advantage horses and mules have, they are awesome 4x4 vehicles.

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## parsifal (May 21, 2014)

davebender said:


> Horse fodder required more BEF tonnage then any other supply category during WWI. I doubt things had changed much with WWII era horse transport.
> 
> German Army horses required an average of 9kg of fodder per day whether they do any work or not. Artillery tractors require fuel only when operated. Infantry division artillery is stationary most of the time so fuel requirement for 100 artillery tractors shouldn't amount to much.



I dont disagree that horse drawn transport had inherent inefficiencies, but you are wrong about the peak supply demands for a division. it was ammunition always that was the limiting factor and the dominant supply demand. Ive got the average supply requirements of the german Infantry Division 1941 and I think your fodder demands are about right, but placing it as the main supply demand is fundamentally wrong.

providing transport just for the artillery component of the division does not solve this problem and in fact makes things worse. Being able to move around the teeth component of the division, in this case its artillery component, was the least important aspect of motorization. If you can move your weapons around efficiently, but not your supply, you are at minimum not deriving maximum benefit from the MT, and probably are worse off than if you dont motorize the artillery park. The tendency for commanders, once the heat of battle starts, is to move these assets around quickly, which will strain the supply train and tend to increase ammunition demands for longer. There will be longer periods when the division is at a disadvantage because of its logistics difficulties.

Historically the germans motorised some of its artillery for the Infantry, but overwhelmingly the 800 or so trucks attached to an early wave division were allocated to the supply train. if any elements of the division were motorised, it was firstly the command elements, followed by the ATG components followed by the AAA components of the division. If the division was moving, it might use its MT assets to speed up the movement of other elements, but usually as the division was advancing the MT was busy stockpiling supplies in forward areas for easier access once the division became engaged. During normal or heavy periods of engagements, the job of MT elements was universally to keep the guns supplied. 100 additional ammunition tracors will make no difference to that basic situation, for a divisinal sized formation. During periods of heavy engagement, typically for the artillary battalions attached, the maximum ammunition consumption was between 500 and 1000 tons per hour, but typically about 150 tons per hour. The fodder demands of the division, about 140 tons per day (or week, im operating from memory) are of no significant relevance to the problem. You need rapid ammunition lift capacity for your guns, not mobility, and you dont need to worry about the fodder issue. You need to invest a minimum of an additional 2-3000 additional MT per Div to make any significant difference to the overall hitting power and flexibility of the Divisional guns , and that mostly means overhauling its logistics systems from horse dependance to truck borne supply.


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## DonL (May 21, 2014)

I have here some problems with the calculation and your number of tons per hour posted.

A normal german Infantry Artillerie-Regiment had 3 light Abteilungen with 12 guns each (10,5cm) and one heavy Abteilung with 12 guns (15cm).
In summary 48 guns per Artillerie-Regiment, 3/4 10,5cm and 1/4 15cm.

The average shell for the 10,5cm was 15kg and for the 15cm 43,5kg.



> During periods of heavy engagement, typically for the artillary battalions attached, the maximum ammunition consumption was between 500 and 1000 tons per hour, but typically about 150 tons per hour.



At 1000 tons per hour every gun would have to shoot around 1000 shells per hour. (1000 x 15kg = 15 tons x 36 = 540 tons plus 1000 x 43,5kg = 43,5 tons x 12 = 522 tons.) In summary 48000 shells in one hour?
At 500 tons it would be around 500 shells for each gun per hour. Still 24000 shells in one hour.I haven't read of any such engagements.

The 150 tons per hour is to me a realistic calculation for engagements which means 166 shells for each 10,5cm gun and 115 shells for each 15cm gun per hour.


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## GrauGeist (May 21, 2014)

davebender said:


> Artillery tractors require fuel only when operated.


They needed fuel to operate, they also required oil for the differentials/gearboxes. They needed constant lubrication for bearings (especially the track idlers) and joints, etc.
They required mechanical maintenance per so many hours of operation, transmissions, clutches, engines. They needed new radiators when they got punctured, they needed hoses, fuel lines, wiring repair and so on...

And more often than not, they needed a team of horses to help them get unstuck


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## mikewint (May 21, 2014)

And at times horses to unstuck the horses

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## tyrodtom (May 21, 2014)

DonL ,I think those weights you weights you give for the 10.5 cm and 15 cm are just for the projectile, the complete round weight would be about 50% higher.

I think when someone says they shot 210 tons of shells, they're talking about the weight of munitions they went thru, not how much they actually put in the air.


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## tyrodtom (May 21, 2014)

double post


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## vikingBerserker (May 21, 2014)

IIRC Hitler was not expecting full war until 45. It could just be a case of having other priorities and thinking they had more time.


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## Shortround6 (May 21, 2014)

There is no doubt that trucks are better than horses *IF*

You can actually build the number of trucks needed. 

You can supply the trucks with fuel.

You can maintain the trucks.

You can 'crew' the trucks. 

The advantages of trucks had been figured out by more than a few armies _before_ WW I. British for one paid a 'subsidy' to commercial operators to use suitable trucks to be 'mobilized" in event of war. Of course if you mobilize too many commercial trucks your domestic transportation system craps out. 

Military men had figured out the fodder problem back in Napoleons time (if not before) you can only advance so far before the horses are eating the entire payload of the wagons.

Germany's problem with motorization were many. 

#1 was they simply didn't have the factories to produce the needed vehicles. 

This page on Wiki is fairly illuminating as far as the US goes. 

U.S. Automobile Production Figures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1937 Plymouth was the #3 car maker in the United States and built in one year 95% of the _total_ number of military trucks produced by _ALL_ of the Axis nations for the _entire_ war. Granted the Plymouths were NOT military trucks but it gives perspective. 

You can wave magic wands about and talk about funding or money spent on the XXX program but it takes several years to build and equip factories and train workers. You can't build trucks very well in shipyards. Each nation only had machine tool industries of certain sizes and it was the machine tool industry that limited the number and types of factories that could be built. You can put up all the empty buildings you want ( subject to structural steel and concrete limits) but you need machinery to put in them. 
Yes you can expand the machine tool and factory equipment industry but now we are talking about a 2 or 3 generation factory building scheme. Lathe company "A" only delivers 75% of it's production to truck company "D" while 25% of it's production goes to it's own new expansion plant (Plant "B") which will _start_ delivering machine tools to truck plant "G" in two years time? and so on.

Horse traction was also much more complicated than 6 horses per gun team or wagon. 6 horses was about the _minimum_ pre-war for a team. 8 horses were preferred for even medium artillery and the bigger weapons went for more horses or broke the the gun into two loads even with 8 or 12 horse teams. 
You then had at least 3 categories of horses. Calvary horses were almost useless for load towing. The big draft horses were actually not able to stand up to bad weather as well as some smaller breeds. 

A lot of European countries between the wars were a strange mix of industry and agriculture to modern eyes. There were very heavily industrialized regions and some regions with little industry. In the heavy industrialized areas the vast majority of workers either walked/biked to work or used street cars/trams/buses. Factory workers and their families rarely had cars. The rural/agricultural areas also rarely had money for cars/trucks. The plow horses often pulled the wagon to market. 

There were farm trucks and tractors but they were much less common than they would be even in the 1950s/60s. 

The Germans had also learned a lesson in WW I when they mobilized _TOO MANY_ horses form the agricultural sector and helped cause the food shortages of WW I on the home front.

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## parsifal (May 21, 2014)

regarding my post 37, ive misquoted the article I was referring to. sorry folks. 

Im referring to an article co-written by Alo nofi, Jim Dunnigan and Richard berg back in 1982 on supply issues. it states that a german Infantry Division 1943 pattern (12000 men, 4000 horses and 600 trucks) carried a basic 5 day supply load which weighed 1902 tons. this was broken down to fuel 207 tons 10.4%, food 108 tons 5.2%, fodder 248 tons 14.9% and ammunition 1339 tons or 69.5% of the basic load out.

The food and fodder elements never really changed, whatever the overall status of the division. Fuel and POLs could fluctuate greatly. The standard 5 day load out was on the basis the division was not moving. If it started to move it was really only carrying a single load out of fuel, that is, a one day supply. thats on the basis of a 30 kilometre rate of advance per day. The average consumption of fuels for the divisions vehicles when moving or engaged, was about 100 tons per day, or 700 tons per week. 

Ammunition expeditures are highly variable, but there are at least some theoretical planning figures given for different states of activity. For defensive operations or small scale probing attacks, the standard 2as 2-300 tons per day of ammunition. For standfard assaults the figures rose to 420 tons per day, whilst in heavy combat the consumption rate for the division was based on 502 tons per day. These are just for the artillery components, not small arms or the like. 

nofi states 'artillery was the chief source of firepower for the division, but in order to be effective, consumed enormous amounts of ammunition. For example, a 3 minute barrage by a 105mm bn (12 guns) would consume 9.4 tons. At the higher level, the infantry artillery (36 105mm howitzers and 12 150mm howitzers would expend 45 tons per hour while covering a deployment, 131 tons per hour for a prepratory fire against an enemy position, 92 tons for a frontal assault, Spoiling fire was planned at the rate of 97 tons per hour. these figures are 'planning' expenditure rates. The point is that by far the chief logistics iss for the division was artillery ammunition".

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## davebender (May 22, 2014)

That doesn't explain the purchase of draft horses rather then artillery tractors. Both cost money.


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## parsifal (May 22, 2014)

but one is available and the other not. that explains just about everything you need to know


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## pbehn (May 22, 2014)

didnt everyone have horses and cattle, I would have thought the military just took them with some compensation when they were needed?


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## vikingBerserker (May 22, 2014)

The Allies certainly did


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## parsifal (May 22, 2014)

yes, but what is at issue is whether germany has the capacity to motorize the artillery components of its divisions. 

There are some issues to consider

How many vehicles needed to motorise (and keep supplied) the artillery. it has been suggested only 100 vehicles w per division are needed. I disagree with that because 100 vehicles does not take into account the elevated supply requirements of a motorised artillery abt. a more realistic estimate to motorise and keep supplied the artillery component of each division is 2-3000 vehicles

What would be required production wise within german industry. it has been suggested that it would simply be a matter of not spending the money on horses and this could then be spent on vehicles. There are enormous problems with this assumption. historically germany never came close to being able to fully motorise its Infantry formations. It took years to rationalise the German motor vehicle industry, and even then it was far from complete. Germany simply lacked the capacity to do what is suggested

It has been suggested that germany was a nation of goat herders incapable of driving trucks. I completely reject that as a valid reason for not motorising its army. Germany was a highly urbanised, highly educated nation that showed in spades during the wqar that it couold motorise and mechanise. What it lacked was the industrial and production capability to achieve that across the board


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## GrauGeist (May 22, 2014)

Technically, speaking, the United States had a far larger agricultural area than Germany (and several other nations combined) at the time, so the assumption that since there were open fields and grazing cattle dictating a horse-drawn German military doesn't fly...


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## DonL (May 22, 2014)

parsifal said:


> yes, but what is at issue is whether germany has the capacity to motorize the artillery components of its divisions.
> 
> There are some issues to consider
> 
> ...



I don't disagree, but to my opinion the supply is the duty of the trucks, Maultier and RSO and not of the Sd Kfz 6-11, which were the prime mover of the artillery.
And I think the half trucks Sd Kfz 6-11 and Sd Kfz 250/251 of the german army were successful and advanced and roughly 45750 Sd Kfz 6-11 were produced. So the main problem was not to have enough prime mover for the artillery, but the trucks, Maultier and RSO for the supply.

I think the production capacity of trucks are the shadow of the german automotive industry and the half trucks are the light.


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## Shortround6 (May 22, 2014)

Huh? 

The US had by far the largest motor vehicle industry of the time and by far the highest per capita number of motor vehicles. 

for instance from wiki : "There were no specific plants for the Model B. It rolled side by side with the V-8 off the line. In 1932, Ford Motor Company had 32 plants in the USA, one in Canada, seven in Europe (one for Fordson tractor production only), four in Central and South America, and one in Turkey and Japan."

Of the 7 plants in Europe only one was in Germany. 

Not all factories were the same size (production capability) and in some of the European counties it may have been a desire to get around import duties or import restrictions as much as a real need for increased production. Did Ford _really_ need factories in Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and England in addition to Germany? 

Total acres plowed/tilled by animal traction is rather irrelevant compared to percentage of acres plowed/tilled or percentage of farmers with motor vehicles. If you draft 100 farm boys from the US in 1939 how many of then will have worked with tractors, trucks or cars vs drafting 100 German farm boys in 1939? 
The Germans were trying and as part of the Hitler Youth training programs there were Hitler Youth motorized units which expanded from 3,000 members in 1933 to 102,000 members in 1938. Typical instruction for such members included 80 hours of driving time and 105 hours of mechanical training. After this the NSSK took over training. Between 1933 and 1939 the NSSK trained 187,000 drivers for the Army. 

A German Army _infantry_ division in 1939 might have around 940 motor vehicles, 450-530 motorcycles and over 5,000 horses. Many of the horses were pulling carts/light wagons that required only one or two horses. These figures are for divisions that were involved in the Attack on Poland. 2nd class divisions, garrison or fortification divisions would have lower ( in some cases much lower) motor vehicle counts.

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## Juha (May 23, 2014)

GrauGeist said:


> Technically, speaking, the United States had a far larger agricultural area than Germany (and several other nations combined) at the time, so the assumption that since there were open fields and grazing cattle dictating a horse-drawn German military doesn't fly...



As SR6 already wrote, it didn't matter how large the agricultural area was but how large slice of the population worked on farms and whether they worked they with tractors or with horses. Finland had rather small agricultural area in 39 but was very agrarian society with very low mechanication state in the farms, most of which were very small and our artillery, even medium artillery, depended mostly on drafted work horses during the wars.


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## Juha (May 23, 2014)

Hello Parsifal
in your message #45, did you mean 9120 men or what was the exact manpower of the referred WH div?

And did nofi use the term "infantry artillery" when talking on the normal field artillery? German divs had besides the normal field artillery regiment also heavy and light infantry guns (150mm and 75mm) in its infantry regiments' heavy weapons coys. Later at least partly replaced by heavy mortars (120mm)


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## DonL (May 23, 2014)

Here is a reference in german language to the equipment and men power of the not motorized german Infantry divisions.

Lexikon der Wehrmacht - Infanterie-Divisionen

If we look at the first wave which included the active soldiers with only a smal part of reservists, we can see that the german Inf Div.
had.

Lexikon der Wehrmacht

around 17734 men
Horses 4842
Horse drawn vehicles Fahrzeuge 919
PKW/cars 394
Trucks and artillery first mover (Sd. Kfz) 615 
Armoured vehicles 3 
Motorbikes 527

The rate of horse drawn vehicles and motorized vehicles was equal at the second and four wave Divisions, only the twenty divisions of the third wave divisions, which were Landwehr divisons and planed to operate at the occupied countries France; Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway etc. had a significant drop at the rate of motorized vehicles.

The weak point at all not motorized german Infantry divisions was 

Supply sevices with

Staff divisionsn supply operator with
*8 truck-	platoons each (30 t)*
truck-platoon for operating fluids (25 cbm)
repair shop company (mot)
supply company (mot)

The 8 truck platoons of the initial equipment couldn't to no time be reequiped the whole war and were in major replaced by horse drawn vehicles.


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## Shortround6 (May 23, 2014)

Here is a diagram for a 4 gun battery pre war;







It is way more than just 24 horses to pull the guns. It is a total of 153 horses _just_ at the battery level. 

Add in the vehicles (wagons) at upper echelon level/s and the number of vehicles, horses, and men needed for an artillery regiment and supply train are staggering. Motor vehicles would have been a great benefit *IF* they could have been supplied. 

The Germans simply didn't have a motor vehicle industry large enough to supply their needs. The wastage of vehicles in military service (even without combat losses) is much, much higher than normal commercial use. Lets also remember than many vehicles of the 1930s and early 40s had much, much, shorter service lives than modern vehicles. The Flat head Ford V-8 engine was commonly overhauled ( rebuilt, including re-boring and new bearings) around 20-30,000 miles in _civilian_ use. Not dessert or Russian steppe conditions.

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## DonL (May 23, 2014)

@ shortaround6, I read in your diagram 1.1.1945, so do you realy think this was the reality of the first equipment at the war beginning 1939/1940?


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## Shortround6 (May 23, 2014)

I believe (but could be wrong) that the list of numbers under the 1.1.1945 date are the reduced establishment for 1945. And as we all know, what was listed on paper was _not_ always what units in the field had.


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## DonL (May 23, 2014)

Do you have any source about a normal US Infantry Division like my posted german link,

with men strenghts, how many weapons, which weapons, trucks, artillery first mover etc.?

Weapons of a not motorized german Infantry Division:

Weapons:
roundabout 3700 pistols
roundabout 13 000 rifles
312 submachine guns
90 bazookas
435 light machine guns
110 heavy machine guns
12 AA 2 cm
84 light motars (5 cm)
54 heavy motars (8,1 cm)
75 ATG 3,7 cm
20 light infantry guns 7,5 cm
6 heavy Infantry guns 15 cm
36 light howitzer 10,5 cm
12 heavy howitzer 15 cm
9 flame thrower
3 armored scout cars


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## Shortround6 (May 23, 2014)

This website may help even if not "official".

Index


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## parsifal (May 23, 2014)

Juha said:


> Hello Parsifal
> in your message #45, did you mean 9120 men or what was the exact manpower of the referred WH div?
> 
> And did nofi use the term "infantry artillery" when talking on the normal field artillery? German divs had besides the normal field artillery regiment also heavy and light infantry guns (150mm and 75mm) in its infantry regiments' heavy weapons coys. Later at least partly replaced by heavy mortars (120mm)




It was yet another massive typo on my part. Have the flu at the moment.

For the record it was meant to read as follows

(12000 men, 4000 horses and 600 trucks) 


I dont think he was referring or taking into account the supporting Infantry Guns or mortars supporting each regiment. Just looking purely at the artillery components of the div....that is the separate the artillery regiment. He does not include the ATG components either

A German division, in combat was an awesomely powerful unit, but it needed firepower and mobility to generate that. Firepower is generated by supply, and supply is provided by vehicles, lots of em. Being cross country and being good all terrain vehicles is an advantage, but simply being on wheels was by far the most important element to the equation.


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## parsifal (May 23, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> This website may help even if not "official".
> 
> Index




Hi SR, 

For the US TOE, I believe one of the best references is Shelby Stanton Order Of Battle US Army WWII. 

As at 1.1.44, the division was surprisingly light on in terms of motorization. Just roughly, the TOE of the late '43 division, I count 830 trucks attached. However Stanton is at pains to point out that the US system differed from the British in that they tended to centailose and control their MT assets at corps and higher levels far more so than in the British system .

There are 12 different ToEs listed for Infantry Bn TOEs, they are somewhat similar to each other, but its difficult to give a typical manning level. ive also got a book by David Myers, titled Unit organizations of WWII which gives a brief rundown of what was happening, but concentrates on the schematic layouts. It also includes a representation of the US infantry Div in 1944. 

It says in the blurb about US Infantry"the US army centralised its heavy artillery to higher echelons and pooled the majority of its transport also at those higher level. Transport needs vould be attached on an as required basis". it also lists 830 vehicles directly attached, with nearly 50% (some 351 vehicles), being attached directly to the 2479 strong, 54 gun artillery regiment of the division. 56 MT were allocated to the Engineer Bn, The 767 strong TD unit had 115 vehicles attached, suggesting to me they wanted the unit to be able to operate at a moments notice as an independent formation.


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## Shortround6 (May 23, 2014)

That sounds about right. 
I would note that even battalion or regimental weapons required considerable back up in unit ammunition trains.
For instance pre-war (1940) US infantry battalion ammunition loads for the 81 mm mortar as given as 100 rounds on the prime mover, 50 rounds on the unit (battalion) ammunition train and 150 rounds on the train of a higher echelon unit for a total of 300 rounds per 81 mm mortar. Other ammo _totals_ were 220 rounds per 60mm mortar, 300 rounds per 37mm AT gun, 2800 rounds per "antitank machine gun" (.50 cal Browning). 6000 rounds per M1919 .30 cal Browning LMG and 8250 rounds per M1917 .30 cal HMG. 

In 1940 the "deuce and half" and the 3/4 ton trucks had yet to be standardized and the standard military trucks were 1 1/2 ton and 1/2 ton models. The capacity of these trucks, with _no other_ load and without overloading were respectively, 37,500 rounds and 12,500 rounds of belted .30 cal ammo ( ammo packaged for rifles and automatic rifles reduced capacity a bit), 9,000 and 3,000 of .50 cal ammo in belts, 810 and 270 rounds of 60mm mortar ammunition. 300 and 100 rounds of 81mm mortar ammunition and 600 and 200 rounds of 37mm AT gun ammo. 
People can talk about man packed/carried 81mm mortars (and they were in difficult terrain) but obviously some sort of transport was needed for even the Battalion "infantry" weapons ammo supply if they were to keep firing for more than a few minutes. 
Please note that _each_ 81mm mortar might require _two_ 1/2 ton trucks ( or a single 1 1/2 ton) to carry the weapon/crew/first 100 rounds. 
The shift to 3/4 ton weapons carriers made things easier. but you still need two extra trucks per 6 tube platoon to carry extra ammo at the mortar platoon level (if they kept to the 50 per tube on separate vehicles) and three 1 1/2 ton or two 2 1/2 ton trucks at regiment or divisional level to carry the rest of the 300 rounds per tube, and even at 3 rounds per minute 300 rounds won't last two hours. Granted the 81mm is the worst case among the Battalion weapons but a single water cooled Browning can use up the contents of a 1/2 ton truck in 62.5 minutes firing at 200 rpm (water permitting). While hours long machine gun barrages _may_ have a been a thing of the past how many miles form the supply dump/point/rail head do you want to be without trucks or wagons?


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## fastmongrel (May 24, 2014)

Pre war German vehicle designs tended to be over specified which cant have helped. US and British trucks were usually just lightly modified civilian vehicles rather than specially designed for military service. 4x4, long travel suspension and multi range gearboxes are very nice but do you really need them when you need sturdy reliable vehicles to move supplies from the rail head to near the front line. The German army needed more Opel Blitz type vehicles and fewer of the bewildering variety of cargo carriers it was stuck with.


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## Juha (May 24, 2014)

Hello Parsifal
thanks for the correction. IMHO 1943 div info is important because after the massive losses in the East during winter 41/42 the Welle ToEs were rather meaningless because they were unattainable to most of divs participating fighting, 1943 ToE was an attempt to standardize a ToE which was hoped to be attainable even if in reality active divs were usually rather badly understrenght.


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## Juha (May 24, 2014)

Hello Fastmongrel
IMHO what Heer really needed on the Eastern Front were just robush 4x4 or 6x6 lorries with powerful enough engines. In the west 4 x2 or 6x4 lorries were usually fine also the French lorries but not good enough in Russia bacause of its the poor roads and sparse roadnet.


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## stona (May 24, 2014)

In 1932 two teams of horses (four animals) plus harness and 'covers' (I don't know what that is) cost $227 according to the accounts of one Nebraska farmer. I'd call that about $50 per working horse. 
Since RM 1 was roughly equivalent to $4 US I can't see how six horses could have cost around RM 8,000. Even if horses were much more expensive in Europe than the US a few years later (and there is no reason why they should be orders of magnitude higher) the figures just don't make sense.
Where do they come from?
Cheers
Steve


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## tyrodtom (May 24, 2014)

stona said:


> In 1932 two teams of horses (four animals) plus harness and 'covers' (I don't know what that is) cost $227 according to the accounts of one Nebraska farmer. I'd call that about $50 per working horse.
> Since RM 1 was roughly equivalent to $4 US I can't see how six horses could have cost around RM 8,000. Even if horses were much more expensive in Europe than the US a few years later (and there is no reason why they should be orders of magnitude higher) the figures just don't make sense.
> Where do they come from?
> Cheers
> Steve



Those horse prices are more in line with what I was familiar with in the USA in the late 50s, and early 60s, accounting for inflation over 20-30 years.

But you've got the exchange rate backward, I think it's 4 RM to 1 US dollar.


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## davebender (May 24, 2014)

So were Ford and Opel 3 ton trucks which formed the backbone of Heer motorized transport.


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## stona (May 24, 2014)

tyrodtom said:


> Those horse prices are more in line with what I was familiar with in the USA in the late 50s, and early 60s, accounting for inflation over 20-30 years.
> 
> But you've got the exchange rate backward, I think it's 4 RM to 1 US dollar.



Yes I did...ooops. Also by the mid 1930s it was closer to 2.5 RM to the dollar.

I still can't believe that a horse cost around RM 1300 or over $500 ! I think someone is out by a factor of ten 

It's important because part of the argument is that horses were more expensive than motorised vehicles and I don't think that was the case.

Cheers

Steve


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## fastmongrel (May 24, 2014)

davebender said:


> So were Ford and Opel 3 ton trucks which formed the backbone of Heer motorized transport.



Yes but there were too many types of vehicle I mean did the Heer need all those different sizes of 1/2 track did they really need so many types of truck.


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## GrauGeist (May 24, 2014)

The Opel Maultier was a great innovation, merging the standard truck with a light tank chassis, giving it much better mobility.

As far as variety goes, the U.S. military employed a wide variety of vehicles. Unfortunately, the Jeep and the 2 1/2 ton "duece and a half" captured most of the attention.

Along with those, the American M3 halftrack was about as well known as the SdKfz series vehicles.


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## Shortround6 (May 24, 2014)

fastmongrel said:


> US and British trucks were usually just lightly modified civilian vehicles rather than specially designed for military service. 4x4, long travel suspension and multi range gearboxes are very nice but do you really need them when you need sturdy reliable vehicles to move supplies from the rail head to near the front line. The German army needed more Opel Blitz type vehicles and fewer of the bewildering variety of cargo carriers it was stuck with.



The US actually used both types to a considerable extent. There were a considerable number of lightly modified civilian vehicles used by the US military but they were often used on or between US bases (in the US) or as air field vehicles or specialty vehicles ( fire fighting, fuel trucks, repair shop trucks, etc.) The "tactical" trucks were designed as such even if the design was a bit cruder than some peoples military trucks. Multi range gear boxes were fairly common at the time and for many years after in order to get small engines to move large vehicles. The US had _on average_ a lower rail density than western Europe and depended more on truck transport and long distance truck transport at that. The US also had NO TAX on engine size or cylinder bore and supported larger engines in general that the European nations. 
Also do not confuse a commercial style cab on a military chassis with a commercial truck. Quite a few US trucks built in 1940-42 used commercial style or type cabs (lots of hardtops) before switching to the canvas roof military style cabs. Fenders often started as compound curve commercial fenders before changing to military style fenders ( they already had the stamping dies for the commercial style body work. Why not keep using it. these were NOT hand beaten body panels, A large hydraulic press turned flat sheet stock into compound curved fenders in seconds.


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## swampyankee (May 25, 2014)

The Basket said:


> Trucks need rubber oil and other imported raw material.
> So not using them is good idea.



Germany couldn't supply enough horses; they had to steal<-<-<-<-<- requisition them from occupied countries, especially France.


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## stona (May 25, 2014)

How effective or useful might motorised transport be on a continent where, once outside the major conurbations, anywhere from 60% to 90+% of roads were unpaved? The Wermacht was heading east where the upper figure would be more appropriate. Horses might actually be a better option in some cases.
Cheers
Steve


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## swampyankee (May 25, 2014)

Europe was probably more heavily paved than the US and was certainly more heavily paved than Africa, and the two most motorized armies operated in those two areas.


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## stona (May 25, 2014)

swampyankee said:


> Europe was probably more heavily paved than the US and was certainly more heavily paved than Africa, and the two most motorized armies operated in those two areas.



Europe was not more heavily paved than the US, particularly once you leave the industrial regions of the three western powers. The industrial infrastructure of Europe operated by rail and to a lesser extent, but still significant in the 1930s, canals and rivers. Almost all Europe's major cities are on a navigable river. Even today watching the barges butt up the Rhine from a decent vantage point like Lorelei is quite a sight 

As the Wermacht advanced into Eastern Europe the complaints turned from dust to mud. The former did bad things to internal combustion engines and the latter stopped most untracked motorised vehicles from operating at all. Neither are a problem on paved roads.

The motorised armies in Africa only operated in a thin strip of coastal land on which was suitable for the operation of their vehicles. They certainly didn't operate 'in Africa' generally.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (May 25, 2014)

It also took a while for some countries to figure out how to _drive_ in North Africa.

like sand tires





worked in mud too 

a 9:00 x 13 wheel tire vs the "commercial" 6:00 x 16. Some Humbers were also 4 wheel drive. 

"converting" _large_ numbers of trucks/cars to 4/6 wheel drive is not as easy as it sounds. The extra axle and steerable driven wheels are a problem as you need extra gear cutting equipment. Many times car or truck factories in peace time had purchased axles differentials from outside suppliers so expansion of production, while done, was often not done smoothly. 

While 2-3 ton trucks are a considerable help bigger trucks can lower the burden considerably. The US also used tens of thousands of tractor trailer rigs and tens of thousands of larger than 2-3 ton trucks. 

The Red Ball Express for example used hundreds of 4-5 tractors pulling 25ft 10 ton trailers among the fleet of trucks used. 

The 'ton' rating of US Military trucks was the _off road_ load rating. On road was roughly doubled. Granted some supplies are denser than others and you sometimes can't fit 5 tons of item XXX in the truck bed


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## parsifal (May 25, 2014)

Having better off-road capability is always a bonus, but not if it interferes with the overall numbers of vehicles being produced. This really didnt matter too much for the allies, who had spare production. they could afford to dabble with special modification and four wheel drives and the like, and still have more vehicles than they needed, 

Not so for the Germans. i think that having tracked trucks, four wheel drive trucks, half tracks, or any other kind of fancy tgruck like vehicles is really just adding to the problem, because it reduces the overall supply of vehicles. They are just pointless fripperies from the german perspective. What they needed was numbers, and a lesser number of different types to keep serviceability rates up. These types needed to be simplified and made relaiable rather than fancy. This was perhaps the biggest single killer for the germans. They messed about with their rationalization plan until it was too late, then in the mad scramble, accepted just about any vehicle that could move, from a range of sources. The result was fairly predicable. At the first big challenge, most of it broke down and spares and maintenance became a nightmare for them.

What the germans really needed, was to implement their snell Plan earlier than they did, reduce the number of types to a manageable number, simplify and strengthen design and do what they could to expand production....perhaps exempt the auto industry from the mass drafts that wrecked a lot of their industries. 

Roads were bad in Russia, but in Summer they were good enough for two wheeled drive transport to do the job. but with the vehicle park they possessed they suffered high attrition rates for a whole range of reasons. i am reasonably sure that when the russians started their counteroffensives, using mostly the 400000 odd US pattern trucks supplied to them, they did not suffer the same level of breakdown rates that plagued the German offensives.


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## stona (May 25, 2014)

Reliability was an issue outside the military.
In the US there were many New Deal farm deals on offer to encourage people to buy and use tractors rather than traditional horse power. Unreliability was one of the reasons most commonly cited against doing so. People are also naturally more comfortable with the familiar, though by this time more than 1 in 10 Americans was driving a car. 
Cheers
Steve


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## GrauGeist (May 25, 2014)

Also, in the years leading up to WWII, the U.S. was crippled by the "Great Depression" where few people could afford the luxury of a new tractor (or vehicle) and even those that could, in some cases were devastated by the Dust Bowl of the midwest.


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## stona (May 25, 2014)

True. You have to think like someone in the 1930s. The internal combustion engine, as driving a 'horseless carriage' was still only a generation old. many of the people making decisions in the 1930s would have been adults before the first commercially produced automobiles had taken to what passed for roads in those days. The model T Ford was launched in about 1910 IIRC.
Cheers
Steve


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## vikingBerserker (May 25, 2014)

Plus traditions in the military do change every so slowly.


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## Shortround6 (May 25, 2014)

Cavalry traditions are one thing. Logistics are another. There are darn few lyric poems or songs about the glories of moving the supply train/baggage train along  

The horse artillery may have gone gallantly into action even in 1914 but the traditions of the siege artillery (often pulled by oxen in earlier times) had NO breif with galloping into action, firing a few shots at a decisive point or time and galloping off again. 

The British, French _and_ Germans had ALL used mechanized traction in WW I. Mechanized meaning any form of mechanical traction although this picture shows both meanings;







Both tracks _and_ *no* internal combustion engine 

And a more conventional artillery tractor






back to steam?






The advantages were rather well known by the 1930s. The problem was how fast you could convert the _existing plant_( number of men knowledgable about horses, hose barns, farms, pastures, veterinary corp, horse hospitals and fodder, harness, wagon supply chain over to a a motor vehicle plant ( drivers, mechanics, garages, parts warehouses, gas,oil and tire supplies, etc) with peace time budgets it take years to make the change.


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## parsifal (May 25, 2014)

Motorisation might have had some resistance in the back roads of bavaria, but the germans were at the cutting edge of the technology by the 1920s, and would have fully embraced it in their military had they the means to do it. 

A good analogy in todays terms is our experiences with computers . Motor vehicles were starting to impact on society by about 1900. By 1935, motor veheicles were deeply embedded in western society. Computers began to make an impact on society in the late '70s and early '80s. its not even 40 years later, and yet we can hardly imagine our world without them. Motor vehicles were having a similar effect 1900-1935. 

After WWI, the german army embraced motorisation at least on a theoretical basis. They established an entire department dedicated to achieving motorisation within the army, and from that department came men like Guderian. 

The Germans, the ones that mattered, embraced the motor vehicle heartily. Hitler wanted motor vehicle ownership to be aa reality in every german household, and i believe germans accepted that notion enthusiastically. Like all armies of the time, there was some resistance in the military, but the army were keenly aware that it was their largely horsedrawn baggage train that had failed them in 1914, and with that experience to motivate them, no serious resistance to motorisation was ever put forward. 

The germans retained horse drawn transport as a major element, because they had no choice other than to accept it. There just was not the strength in their motor vehicle industry to have the mass army that they needed, and put it all on wheels/tracks. Once war brok out, like all the major proteagonists, the germans utilised significant amounts of their motor vehicle industry to augment other production programs, like AFV production, aero engines, and artillery components. They made the mistake of over mobilising which sucked out large numbers of skilled workers and pout them into the army. The french made a similar error, the British not as bad.


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## vikingBerserker (May 25, 2014)

I was amazed to the extent horses were used in WW1. Torch posted a link (below) that stated 8 million horses were killed during the war. Does anybody know how many were just used in WW2?

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/off-topic-misc/ww1-part-2-animals-40868.html#post1128406


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## GrauGeist (May 25, 2014)

I read a while back that an estimated 6 million horses perished between German and Red Russian forces during WWII.

It. Would be interesting to see the total amount of horses (and mules) used by all countries in all theaters.


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## parsifal (May 26, 2014)

wiki estimates 8 million horses perished as combat casualties during the war


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## GrauGeist (May 26, 2014)

parsifal said:


> wiki estimates 8 million horses perished as combat casualties during the war


Does it say how many perished on the Eastern Front?

That entire conflict, start to finish, was a meat grinder for both men and animal.


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## parsifal (May 26, 2014)

no, but it does say that the germans employed 2.75 million horses, which was the largest contingent of any combatant. The Russians are thought to be around the 2 million mark. in '39 thye US still had 0.5 million on the books, as did the French in '39


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## yulzari (May 26, 2014)

The British army went to a higher level of motorisation pre war than any other and thanks must be passed to Canada whose transport vehicles enabled this to continue. The contribution of the USA motor industry to the Soviet army is well recognised but it was the Canadian motor industry that moved the Commonwealth in Europe and North Africa. Thank you chaps and chapesses from far off exotic Canadia (surely that is where Canadians come from?)


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## vikingBerserker (May 26, 2014)

I would have thought Russia used horses far more than Germany.


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## parsifal (May 26, 2014)

vikingBerserker said:


> I would have thought Russia used horses far more than Germany.



so would i, but it is plausible at least. Russian formation were almost completely devoid of a supply tail which meant a 9000 strong Infantry Division with 3/4 the numbers of men, had manpower had about 1/3 the horses. moreover, the Russians never really had an intermediate logisitic tail....divisions would load up on supplies from a railhead, go into battle, fight until the ammunition ran out, then either wait for the rail head to move forward, or walk back to the supply head and get more supply for another go. This decrease their efficiency enormously, but it also decrease their supply problems.


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## davebender (May 26, 2014)

German half track = Maultier. Is that what you mean or are you referring to 3/4 track vehicles which as far as I know were unique to German service?

*Half Track vs 3/4 track for dummies. * 
Side view of vehicle makes the difference obvious.

Opel Maultier Half Track.





U.S. M3 Half Track.





Sd.Kfz.251 3/4 Track APC. Note track length in contact with ground compared to above vehicles (especially USA M3).


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## swampyankee (May 26, 2014)

I've read that the US Army decided to move to motorized transport because it _reduced_ the overall logistic burden vs horses, although the US Army did use pack animals (mules, at least) in some areas. Do remember that you've got to feed the horses and muck out their enclosures whether or not they're being used. As an aside, the number I've read is that each draft horse requires five times the weight of food and water, per day, as does a soldier, and horses are probably fussier in their dietary needs than are people. Rarely is it that a human being dies of a form of colic, like intestinal torsion. 

So, those 5,000 horses in a German infantry division required as much food and water as 25,000 soldiers. Of course, the German Army was planning on operating in areas where those supplies could be taken, so they wouldn't have to ship them in.


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## fastmongrel (May 26, 2014)

davebender said:


> German half track = Maultier. Is that what you mean or are you referring to 3/4 track vehicles which as far as I know were unique to German service?



Half Track doesnt refer to the length of the track. I checked with a couple of lads I know who are heavily involved in the classic military vehicle scene, they then checked with another lad who owns several German and US vehicles including a Kettenkrad it stands for Half Tracked/Half Wheeled.


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## Shortround6 (May 26, 2014)

swampyankee said:


> I've read that the US Army decided to move to motorized transport because it _reduced_ the overall logistic burden vs horses, although the US Army did use pack animals (mules, at least) in some areas. Do remember that you've got to feed the horses and muck out their enclosures whether or not they're being used. As an aside, the number I've read is that each draft horse requires five times the weight of food and water, per day, as does a soldier, and horses are probably fussier in their dietary needs than are people. Rarely is it that a human being dies of a form of colic, like intestinal torsion.
> 
> So, those 5,000 horses in a German infantry division required as much food and water as 25,000 soldiers. Of course, the German Army was planning on operating in areas where those supplies could be taken, so they wouldn't have to ship them in.



Most armies knew that in the 1920s and early 30s. The problems came in trying to A.) pry money out of the treasury in peacetime in any ONE year (governments rarely look at costs over a 5 or 10 year period) to buy a large number of trucks and supporting infrastructure. B.) when the fertilizer hit the oscillating air handler, there was often not enough time (or money) to tool up enough factories ( or workers) to build the needed number of trucks in the time needed.


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## GrauGeist (May 26, 2014)

davebender said:


> German half track = Maultier. Is that what you mean or are you referring to 3/4 track vehicles which as far as I know were unique to German service?
> 
> *Half Track vs 3/4 track for dummies. *
> Side view of vehicle makes the difference obvious.
> ...


Then by your calculations, the U.S. M3 is a 1/4 track...


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## Shortround6 (May 26, 2014)

Hmmm, The Kfz 11 and KfZ 250 both had 6 road wheels and are 3/4 tracks?

the Kfz 10 had 5 road wheels and the armored Kfz 251 had only four road wheels,

a 5/8s track or 11/16ths track? 

Early Kfz 6 and Kfz 7s used 4 road wheels per side and later changed to a longer track assembly with 6 road wheels, did they change from 1/2 or 5/8ths tracked vehicles to 3/4 tracked vehicles?

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## swampyankee (May 26, 2014)

parsifal said:


> no, but it does say that the germans employed 2.75 million horses, which was the largest contingent of any combatant. The Russians are thought to be around the 2 million mark. in '39 thye US still had 0.5 million on the books, as did the French in '39



I remember reading that the Soviet Army, before WW2 started, was trying to motorize its transport, possibly just because they felt it was part of the cult of socialist modernism.

As an aside, one of my high school teachers served in the US Army's horse cavalry before WW2. If I recall, his commanding officer was some guy named Patton.


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## fastmongrel (May 27, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> a 5/8s track or 11/16ths track?



Shouldnt that be a 0.625 track or 0.686 track.


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## Juha (May 27, 2014)

Finns lost 7.200 horses during the Winter War (30.11.39 - 13.3.40) and 15.000 during the Continuation War (25.6.41 - 4.9.44), one of which was the horse of my father's homefarm, (or more exactly that of my great-uncle and my great-father) which was badly wounded in shell-fire and put to death. They got one war-booty ex-Soviet horse as a compensation.

The Finnish InfDiv had 15 000 men, 3500 horses and only 100 motorvehicles.

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## tomo pauk (May 27, 2014)

Shortround6 said:


> Most armies knew that in the 1920s and early 30s. The problems came in trying to A.) pry money out of the treasury in peacetime in any ONE year (governments rarely look at costs over a 5 or 10 year period) to buy a large number of trucks and supporting infrastructure. B.) *when the fertilizer hit the oscillating air handler*, there was often not enough time (or money) to tool up enough factories ( or workers) to build the needed number of trucks in the time needed.



Took me a short while to understand the bolded part


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## Shortround6 (May 27, 2014)

As a hint to what was going on in WW I a book on war time use of the "Caterpiller tractor" (a brand name) built by Holt manufacturing and other during WW I for military use show the US government received 2081 assorted Holt tractors, the British got 1051, the French got 370 and the Russian got 80. The US government also received 4689 10 ton and under tractors built under Holt patent license and under Holt supervision. Company's working with Holt included Reo, Maxwell, Federal, Interstate and Chandler. 
Some of the tractors enclosed the engine in an armored box although the driver was in the open. 

The benefits/advantages of mechanical traction were well known. The cost of equipping a _large_ army with mechanical transport was also very high and needed to be phased in over a number of years. With the peace movements of the 1920s and the up and down economy very little was spent on armed forces for a number of years. Throw in the great depression and most countries didn't start spending money to modernize/re-equip (aside form small experimental projects) until the mid to late 30s.


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## davebender (May 27, 2014)

This is getting ridiculous. 

I am simply attempting to determine whether the comment about too many different types of German partially tracked vehicles concerned purpose built combat vehicles such as Sd.Kfz.7 or cargo trucks with tracks ILO rear wheels (i.e. Maultier).


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## fastmongrel (May 27, 2014)

davebender said:


> This is getting ridiculous.
> 
> I am simply attempting to determine whether the comment about too many different types of German partially tracked vehicles concerned purpose built combat vehicles such as Sd.Kfz.7 or cargo trucks with tracks ILO rear wheels (i.e. Maultier).



Sd.Kfz.7 was in no conceivable way a combat vehicle it was designed as a medium motor towing vehicle.


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## parsifal (May 27, 2014)

davebender said:


> This is getting ridiculous.
> 
> I am simply attempting to determine whether the comment about too many different types of German partially tracked vehicles concerned purpose built combat vehicles such as Sd.Kfz.7 or cargo trucks with tracks ILO rear wheels (i.e. Maultier).




They are roughing you up a litle, but thenyou are making some pretty bullish claims. 

There is a certain commonality in the types in that they use the same or simlar chassis, and factory space workers and raw materials used for the production of this tracked vehicle will be at the expense of producing a greater number of simple 2WD trucks. and it adds to the multiplicity of types which in turn affects serviceability and attrition rates.

this is not a combat type. Its a soft skinned support vehicle designed to do the same job as a regular truck, except that it has off road capability. in effect, i will grant you that this vehicle might end up in the firing line than a truck not able to go where it can, but I dont think that this means this is a vehiclke designed to be pout in harms way


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## Shortround6 (May 28, 2014)

davebender said:


> This is getting ridiculous.



What was ridiculous was:

"Half Track vs 3/4 track for dummies." and the following pictures which had nothing to do with " the comment about too many different types of German partially tracked vehicles concerned purpose built combat vehicles such as Sd.Kfz.7 or cargo trucks with tracks ILO rear wheels"


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