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Nations produce all sorts of prototype weapons that are not placed into mass production. He-100 and Fw-187 fighter aircraft. Ju-288 bomber aircraft. Panzer VIII (Maus) super- heavy tanks etc.
The 10.5cm SP "Wespe" and 15cm SP "Hummel" were conventional in layout and worked well. So is the modern day 155mm SP PzH2000. The Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm Kanone/21 cm Mörser was a complete departure from other German Army SP artillery designs. Makes me wonder if this design would have been serious considered for mass production.
These figures on vehicle movements are fine and valid, if you have 1 or 10 vehicles moving across the same piece of road, But we are talking about the movement of thousands of vehicles, more or less at the same time, and using roads not designed for that amount of traffic and not in sufficient density to handle it at anywhere near that speed.
The truck speed has virtually nothing to do with it, especially on ther eastern front. trhe critical issue are, as shortround says it depends on the condition of the roads. Even more important, it depends on the density of the roads, and given that road densities in the Soviet Union are very low you are going to be attempting to put a lot of vehicles along very few, and very poor road systems.
A German Infantry Division consisted of 800 vehicles directly attached, and about 6500 draught animals. If supported by a Corps and Army logisitcs net, you can double all of those numbers. For unsealed roads, if you put many more than about 2000 vehicles per day over the surface, the road surface will rapidly deteriorate especially if you have had some recent rain on the surface. And Soviet roads were not properly constructed, so tended to fall apart even quicker than that. Roads with deteriorating surfaces may, or may not be usable, but assuming they are, you might get and average speed of 2-5km/h over them if you are lucky. moreover, if you want to preserve the surface, you certainly wont be allowing military vehicles to race over them at 60km/h. If you have tracked vehicles, or hard axelled vehicles, you tear up the road system even quicker. The average life expectancy of a standard unsealed road is about 2000 vehicle trips, using light commercial and domestic vehicles only. Rigid trucks above 3T tare cause about 5 times the amount of damage as a standard automobile. (How do I know all this....part of my job is to design roads...i do it for a living)
In a big city like say Sydney, NSW, there are four or 5 major arterial roads, each providing 4 or 5 lanes of traffic, on fully sealed, fully controlled road systems. On average, during peak hour traffic, there are about 40000 vehicles per hour travelling on these 20-25 lanes of traffic. The average speed on those roads on a typical day is just 8kmh. Now, if you have a military situation in Russia, the average frontage held by each division might be 1 Div every 15km. In Russia, the density of intercity arterials is far less than in western Europe....even today its only about 1 arterial per 50km (roughly) Say the Soviets are attacking along a 300km front. That means you are trying to get 20 divisions, with over 30000 vehicles and about 100000 horses along maybe 6 unsealed roads that are not properly controlled. Add a shower of rain, or a wrecked bridge or two, or some partisans, or some Soviet air interdiction. How do you think your 60 km/h is looking now?????
In fact the US army did a lot of research about advance and retreat rates during and after the war. I will dig it out for you, if you still think the Germanb army could move enmasse at even 15km/h. under conditions of retreat, and not take heavy losses. In fact the movement rates for an unmotorized army in a situation similar to the one I just described is, on average, about 20km per day, whilst for a motorised force that remains engaged, but undertaking a retreat is about 30-40km per day. Like I said, I will dig these figures out if I can find them.
No-one in wwII could retreat at 60kmh and retain their force structure intact. Its the stuff that fantasy is made of I am afraid. I think, from memoruy, the best rate of advance on a sustained basis was 250 km, in a week,(or about 30km in a day) achieved in 1941 during Barbarossa, and that resulted in the near destruction of the rRd Army at that time, as well as a massive breakdown rate for the wehrmacht. we havent even started yhet to look at breakdown rates
60kmh under retreat conditions....give me a break!!!!!!