Defeat of the Luftwaffe

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

This thread has the remainder of this day to get back on topic, which is about the "Defeat of the Luftwaffe", or it will be closed.

Any more talk that is not about the defeat of the Luftwaffe will have this thread closed.

Do all parties understand?

 

[michaelmaltby]

On topic ..... the "Defeat of the Luftwaffe":



MM

(I do not discount the big US radials but this is iconic - from Hurricane Spits to Lancasters, Mosquitos and Mustangs.) Merlins over Berlin

 

[tomo pauk]

If I say 'splendid engine', that would be an understatement.

 

[Jenisch]

On topic ..... the "Defeat of the Luftwaffe":



MM

(I do not discount the big US radials but this is iconic - from Hurricane Spits to Lancasters and Mustangs.)

BTW, someone has a link with diagrams for WWII engines? I like to know the components but have dificulty to identify them, particularly in the acessory box.

 

[tomo pauk]

Here is the link for the manual for 2-stage Merlins:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/rr-merlin-2-stage-manual-30711.html

 

[Jenisch]

If the 860hp MS 460s engine had of matched the outuput of the 1100 or 1170hp DB601 the gap in performance might have been minimal.

The D.520 was a respectable machine for 1940. But like you said, the French would need some more time to produce more units. They also had the D.530 planned version with a 1,400 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin or a 1,800 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y.

I have great interest in the French military, and no need to mention it was really a shame for the Allies they had been defeated so quickly.

 

[stona]

no I'm not saying that but I am saying the actual aerial Battle of Britain did not play the part of saving the UK its purported to have done , it was a very much needed propoganda victory of which there had been very few . The Germans could not have crossed the channel , with or without the intervention of RN

B
The British mainland did not have to be invaded to take Britain out of the war and I never said it did. I don't believe that the Wermacht could have mounted an invasion in 1940.
Had the RAF not fought and won the BoB a situation would have arisen where as London burned changes would have occurred in the coalition government followed by a treaty with Germany allowing her a freehand in Europe. That's all she wanted,to pursue her true ideological war in the East.
The BoB was far more than a propaganda victory for the British,it kept us in the war. It was also a defeat for the Luftwaffe however the numbers get spun today. It was the first time it had failed to achieve its objectives. It may have suffered heavy casualties during the Polish campaign and the BoF but German troops still marched up the Champs Elysee. They never marched down The Mall and the sacrifice of the men and women from around the world who served with the RAF at that crucial time has a lot to do with it.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Jenisch]

Had the Germans managed to destroy the RAF, they would be free to attack industrial targets, and perhaps more importantly: suffocate Britain attacking the convoys.

 

[drgondog]

Had the Germans managed to destroy the RAF, they would be free to attack industrial targets, and perhaps more importantly: suffocate Britain attacking the convoys.

This is the thesis I support the most. Airpower attacking inbound shipping from ports outward, unfettered mine laying, complete access to key aircraft, oil storage and power should be a winning formula to force Britain out of the war.

In addition RN under constant harrassment which would hinder operations to curtail U Boat operations.

 

[Jenisch]

This is the thesis I support the most. Airpower attacking inbound shipping from ports outward, unfettered mine laying, complete access to key aircraft, oil storage and power should be a winning formula to force Britain out of the war.

In addition RN under constant harrassment which would hinder operations to curtail U Boat operations.

BTW, there's a book from 2010 called Operation Sea Lion: A Joint Critical Analysis, that seems interesting.

Description:

Three U.S. officers -- one from the Air Force, one from the Army, and one from the Navy -- met at the Joint Forces Staff College to argue that a truly "joint" approach could have produced success for Hitler in Operation Sea Lion, the proposed invasion of England in 1940.
Military history contains many lessons from which the warfighting doctrine of the individual services, as well as joint doctrine, is derived. World War II stands as one of the major contributors of valuable lessons learned. From a joint and combined warfighting perspective, Germany's planning and preparatory military actions to the invasion of Great Britain after the fall of France are instructive. Their plan, called Operation SEA LION by the Germans, was never carried out, as certain prerequisite conditions were never achieved, and Hitler elected to move on to other operations. But Germany could have been successful in invading and, if necessary, occupying Great Britain had they exercised joint and combined operations to achieve better unity of effort within the German military, remained focused on key British operational centers of gravity, and exploited the capabilities of friendly nations such as Spain, Italy, and the Vichy government of France

I didn't find any reviews from it, anyone already read?

 

[Siegfried]

Can you give some more details about it?

Such events qare naturally overplayed by one side (Goebells certainly did) and completely dismissed by the other (As some Polish histories do). The Bromberg Massacre (300 is the low end 700 the high end) is sometimes explained in terms of Polish Officers shooting into the air to restore order, another is that these civilians (of a variety of documentate ages and genders) suddenly became non uniformed insurgents, another is that they carried Swastika arm bands (which would make them legal combatents incidently) or that they were mistaken for paratroopers without uniform.

All of these explanations I think would sound ludicrous to most folks.

http://www.deutsche-und-polen.de/_/them ... morde.html
Tidied up Machine translation:

"During the first days of the war, some thousands of ethnic Germans were killed by Poles in the chaos of the withdrawal as well as on the basis of nothing but suspicion. \the crimes later justified the anti-Polish measures of the German occupation power in Poland.

Murderous Assaults and Alibi for the Policies of Destruction

Immediately on the outbreak of the Second World War, "suspicious" ethnic Germans were interned and conveyed to the interior of the country. Many of them got caught up in the Polish retreat and perished, in part they were shot. In Bromberg and other localities with a German population, Germans were shot on the basis of extremely dubious accusations such as espionage, firing on Polish troops and suchlike,which for the most part rested on rumours and denunciations. In total, around 6,000 ethnic Germans died during the hostilieis between the Wehrmacht and the Polish Army. When members of the Polish armed forces and those killed for example by German bombing are deducted, there remain 4-5,000 Germans slain by Poles in the excitement of the first days of the war.

Soon after the investigation of the official numbers of victims, the dimension of the crime was multiplied tenfold in Hitler's command. The alleged 58,000 victims of the "September murders" and the "Bromberg bloody Sunday" served in the following period as justification for the systematically destructive occupation policies of Hitler Germany."

This is in the fairly politically correct language of modern Europe.

The disenfranchisment of Germans in Poland between the wars is documented by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas ; in "A terrible revenge" and "nemisis at Potsdam. These documents actually available in their thousands as ethnic Germans filed protests with the Legaue of nations.

I should point out that in the the 1930s in the Ukrainian part of Poland "Galacia" ethnic organisations were banned, and in 1930's the military and police carried out a number of pacification campaigns, which led to many arrests, widespread brutality and intimidation, and destruction of property. In 1930's Polish authorities promoted, sometimes by force, the conversion of the Orthodox to the Roman Catholicism (so-called Union) and seized hundreds of Orthodox churches for closure, destruction, or transfer to the Roman Catholic Church.

Polish nationalism was a very potent and agressive force in the 1930's and its many minorities had good reason to be in fear.

A summary of what really happened is given here on the tightly moderated axis history forum:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=42829&start=120

I would like to add that I have no problem with Poles or Poland, they deserve a place of their own and self determination and it is good to see them in new Europe. It is understandable that they were ardent. Poland was heir to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and that entity was made of of many ethnicities who had been there for 1000-1500 years or more. Many of the Germans expelled after WW2 would have been descended from "Old Prussians" a non Germanic non Slavic. Baltic peoples that had adopted German as their language. When the Post war Polsih governments expelled these Germans, killing tens if not hundreds of thousands they were expelling the original inhabitants.

 

[parsifal]

Yes, it does. The Gross domestic product is much more comprehensive way to measure actual production that to take the numbers of very very few cherry picked items. If you can't understand this simple fact there's no reason to continue this.

GDP is not a measure of military output. Its a measure of the national income, and econimic activity. To translate that into how much bang for your buck you get, you have to get your hands dirty and look at the actual outputs You usually have to use representative sampling because we dont have complete numbers of outputs. But in all the critical areas the Russians outproduced the Germans, even though they had less GDP.

The problem with your methodology, and why it is a complete misrepresentation of military outputs is that it fails to take into account systemic innefficiencies, production bottlenecks shortages and unit cvosts for german production. These were all very bad in the German procurement machine and madfe their high GDP (a measure of wealth not a measure of production. Something you seem to have a lot of trouble with.

This is a clear contradiction

.


No.ts a clear indication that you dont know the difference between GDP and military output, and either cant, or wont 9more likely the latter) understand the inneficiencies in the German procurement sytem that made thei economy innefficient

What is really stupid is to take "certain categories" and use that to arrive to overall conclusions about the "outproducing". When there's absolutely no need to do that, when the graph clearly shows the overall production.

Your graph shows nothing of the sort. Assuming it is correct (not a given) it is a measure of national wealth. Between the national income and the machines on the ground ther is the procurement machine, and its here that the Germans were grossly innefficient. The only way we can realistically measure outputs is to look at what they received, and since we do not have a complete list, have to content ourdelves with a selective list. however since the war was largely won or lost by items susch as the numbers of tanks, guns, vehicles aircrafrt and ships produced, the germans must have been really dumb in their production choices, since they were outproduced in nearly all those categories (just to use your figures about subs, which appear low I might add....in the first year of the war, from September 1939 through to the end of 1940, the Germans produced a further 40 or so subs, to the Russian 200+. In 1941 the Germans began to overtake the Russians in sub production, but subs dont win wars on land either)

.

I'll get back to you on that.

Don5t bother, unless you can provide verifiable sources

BS

Right back at you sugar

I have give you the evidence, you just can't or are unwilling to comprehend it. And thanks for the warning, I'm really impressed.

Err no you havent. GDP is not a measure of military output, its a measure of national wealth. Germans might be good at making cheese or beert, they may be less good at manufacturing vehicles (for example. if its vehicles you need for war, and not beer or cheese, and you are operating in a bubble (ie a blockade) your beer and cheese making ability isnt going to help you much

 

[Jenisch]

Parsifal, I already told him to compare with today's reality, it's the same: Russia produces more armaments than Germany, despite it's inferior GDP.

However, I would like to present something I found about the bombing and the German economy:

Buckley argues the German war economy did indeed expand significantly following Albert Speer's appointment as Reichsminister of Armaments, "but it is spurious to argue that because production increased then bombing had no real impact". But the bombing offensive did do serious damage to German production levels. German tank and aircraft production, though reached new records in production levels in 1944, was in particular one-third lower than planned.[17] In fact, German aircraft production for 1945 was planned at 80,000, "which gives an idea of direction Erhard Milch and the German planners were pushing", "unhindered by Allied bombing German production would have risen far higher".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II

No doubt that the Soviets had a superior economy than Germany in the critical years of the war, but the peak of Soviet aircraft production was 40,000 in '44. Maybe in that period the Soviets were already starting to desacelerate their war economy like the US, but even so it's the double of the Soviet production, and we know the German GDP was higher. Perhaps our friend wants to tell us that the Germans had more potential than the Soviets, which I'm in doubt.

 

[Siegfried]

Come on man even Canada made more military trucks then Germany by 800K to 500k

Canada's contribution was very significant. I believe most commonwealth APC came out of Canada. Canada specialised in certain classes of weapon. And there you have a critical allied advantage. Production in Canada and the USA was free from air attack. Whole classes of weapons that were luxuries for the axis could be made there.

And of course we tend to treat WW2 as a UK and latter US only affair. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sth Africa and many other commonwealth countries were there from the begining even before Japans attack on Britain in the far year: including India.

As soon as Long range aircraft, irrespective or radar, Huffduff or Enigma decrypts became available the jig was up for u-boats Unless they could opperate surfaced most of the time they were just to slow to intercept a convoy.

 

[Siegfried]

The D.520 was a respectable machine for 1940. But like you said, the French would need some more time to produce more units. They also had the D.530 planned version with a 1,400 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin or a 1,800 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y.

I have great interest in the French military, and no need to mention it was really a shame for the Allies they had been defeated so quickly.

I think you mean the Hispano-Suiza 12Z

The MS 406 had a speed of 303 mph on 860hp.

Using a cube root law I get the following increases in speed for the MS 406
Merlin on 87 octane 1030hp (1030/860)^0.333 = 1.06 or 321 mph
Merlin on 100/130 octane 1260hp (1260/860)^0.333 = 1.13 or 342 mph.
DB601A on 87 octane 1100hp (1100/860)^0.333 = 1.085 or 328mph (about the same for early Allison)
DB601A1a on 87 octane 1170hp (1170/860)^0.333 = 1.1 = 335mph

The MS 406 was available in quantity, it just had too weak an engine to make it fully competitive.

With the latter 940hp HS12Y the speed might have been (940/860)^0.333 = 1.03 or 312 mph.

 

[marshall]

Such events qare naturally overplayed by one side (Goebells certainly did) and completely dismissed by the other (As some Polish histories do). The Bromberg Massacre (300 is the low end 700 the high end) is sometimes explained in terms of Polish Officers shooting into the air to restore order, another is that these civilians (of a variety of documentate ages and genders) suddenly became non uniformed insurgents, another is that they carried Swastika arm bands (which would make them legal combatents incidently) or that they were mistaken for paratroopers without uniform.

All of these explanations I think would sound ludicrous to most folks.

http://www.deutsche-und-polen.de/_/them ... morde.html
Tidied up Machine translation:

"During the first days of the war, some thousands of ethnic Germans were killed by Poles in the chaos of the withdrawal as well as on the basis of nothing but suspicion. \the crimes later justified the anti-Polish measures of the German occupation power in Poland.

Murderous Assaults and Alibi for the Policies of Destruction

Immediately on the outbreak of the Second World War, "suspicious" ethnic Germans were interned and conveyed to the interior of the country. Many of them got caught up in the Polish retreat and perished, in part they were shot. In Bromberg and other localities with a German population, Germans were shot on the basis of extremely dubious accusations such as espionage, firing on Polish troops and suchlike,which for the most part rested on rumours and denunciations. In total, around 6,000 ethnic Germans died during the hostilieis between the Wehrmacht and the Polish Army. When members of the Polish armed forces and those killed for example by German bombing are deducted, there remain 4-5,000 Germans slain by Poles in the excitement of the first days of the war.

Soon after the investigation of the official numbers of victims, the dimension of the crime was multiplied tenfold in Hitler's command. The alleged 58,000 victims of the "September murders" and the "Bromberg bloody Sunday" served in the following period as justification for the systematically destructive occupation policies of Hitler Germany."

This is in the fairly politically correct language of modern Europe.

The disenfranchisment of Germans in Poland between the wars is documented by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas ; in "A terrible revenge" and "nemisis at Potsdam. These documents actually available in their thousands as ethnic Germans filed protests with the Legaue of nations.

I should point out that in the the 1930s in the Ukrainian part of Poland "Galacia" ethnic organisations were banned, and in 1930's the military and police carried out a number of pacification campaigns, which led to many arrests, widespread brutality and intimidation, and destruction of property. In 1930's Polish authorities promoted, sometimes by force, the conversion of the Orthodox to the Roman Catholicism (so-called Union) and seized hundreds of Orthodox churches for closure, destruction, or transfer to the Roman Catholic Church.

Polish nationalism was a very potent and agressive force in the 1930's and its many minorities had good reason to be in fear.

A summary of what really happened is given here on the tightly moderated axis history forum:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Polish brutality against ethnic German civillians in WW2

I would like to add that I have no problem with Poles or Poland, they deserve a place of their own and self determination and it is good to see them in new Europe. It is understandable that they were ardent. Poland was heir to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and that entity was made of of many ethnicities who had been there for 1000-1500 years or more. Many of the Germans expelled after WW2 would have been descended from "Old Prussians" a non Germanic non Slavic. Baltic peoples that had adopted German as their language. When the Post war Polsih governments expelled these Germans, killing tens if not hundreds of thousands they were expelling the original inhabitants.

Your first link is "error 404".

More about these events can be found here Bloody Sunday (1939) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I know it's only wiki but at least it shows both perspectives.

I don't want to say that Poles didn't do anything wrong before or during or after the ww2 (becasue they did) but it's funny how you point out what Poles did wrong and state that the atrocities were started by Polish soldiers and you don't say what at that times was happening in Germany or Soviet Union, where for example concentration camps were established many years before the start of the war. I would say it's called propaganda.

I agree that there were atrocities in Poland but it's good to look on the matters with (or from - don't know which version is correct) a broad perspective and don't forget what else was happening in Europe then.


Sorry for the OT mods, won't happen again.

 

[parsifal]

Parsifal, I already told him to compare with today's reality, it's the same: Russia produces more armaments than Germany, despite it's inferior GDP.

I know but the response was to me. I didnt want to leave this man in any doubt as to what my opinion was

However, I would like to present something I found about the bombing and the German economy:

Buckley argues the German war economy did indeed expand significantly following Albert Speer's appointment as Reichsminister of Armaments, "but it is spurious to argue that because production increased then bombing had no real impact". But the bombing offensive did do serious damage to German production levels. German tank and aircraft production, though reached new records in production levels in 1944, was in particular one-third lower than planned.[17] In fact, German aircraft production for 1945 was planned at 80,000, "which gives an idea of direction Erhard Milch and the German planners were pushing", "unhindered by Allied bombing German production would have risen far higher"

.

Ive read buckleyand concur with his conclusions, though there is debate in many sources as to the extent of the bombing campaign. some sources attribute the bombers as affecting the german economy by as much a 50%. you have to factor in the lost production, wrecked facilities and resources expended on air defence. The allies spent 12% of their military potential on the bombing campaigns (not including the B-29s and AS-Bombs). In return they either destroyed, caused diversion of resources or prevented production from ever being oftheir total potential.

No doubt that the Soviets had a superior economy than Germany in the critical years of the war, but the peak of Soviet aircraft production was 40,000 in '44. Maybe in that period the Soviets were already starting to desacelerate their war economy like the US, but even so it's the double of the Soviet production, and we know the German GDP was higher. Perhaps our friend wants to tell us that the Germans had more potential than the Soviets, which I'm in doubt

.

Maybe, but not relevant to the reasons for the defeat of the Lw either

 

[Jenisch]

Maybe, but not relevant to the reasons for the defeat of the Lw either

Yeah. I don't support the view of the Germans as doomed since the start only by the industrial numbers of the Allies. You simply don't start a war you have sure that gonna lost. Quiet the opposite.

And Parsifal, have you already read Why the Allies Won, by Richard Overy? Very good book in my view, I just don't agree much with him about the argumentation that Democracy was saved by the Communism.

 

[Hoju2k]

GDP is not a measure of military output. Its a measure of the national income, and econimic activity. To translate that into how much bang for your buck you get, you have to get your hands dirty and look at the actual outputs You usually have to use representative sampling because we dont have complete numbers of outputs. But in all the critical areas the Russians outproduced the Germans, even though they had less GDP.

GDP def: "Gross domestic product (GDP) refers to the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a given period.".
I never said that GDP is measuring military production. I can't see the value in trying to calculate that, because all production and services, military or not, are necessary and contributing during times of war.
Now, since you are so big in "military output", please tell me exactly what items are included here? Surely there's much more than tanks, trucks, aircraft, guns and mortars.
"Critical areas": Are you the one defining what those are, or there some actual reference here?

The problem with your methodology, and why it is a complete misrepresentation of military outputs is that it fails to take into account systemic innefficiencies, production bottlenecks shortages and unit cvosts for german production. These were all very bad in the German procurement machine and madfe their high GDP (a measure of wealth not a measure of production. Something you seem to have a lot of trouble with.

Pure speculation on your part. There were inefficiencies everywhere, show me how it was worse in Germany. And please, with some actual sources. I'm tired to read your long, reference-less posts.

.

No.ts a clear indication that you dont know the difference between GDP and military output, and either cant, or wont 9more likely the latter) understand the inneficiencies in the German procurement sytem that made thei economy innefficient

What is clear here is that you are talking out of your a$$.

(just to use your figures about subs, which appear low I might add....in the first year of the war, from September 1939 through to the end of 1940, the Germans produced a further 40 or so subs, to the Russian 200+. In 1941 the Germans began to overtake the Russians in sub production, but subs dont win wars on land either

)

Oh they appear low to you? Well, how about to substantiate the numbers you gave before?
In 1940 the Germans produced 50 submarines, plus 18 in 1939 (I don't know how many before the war), and no, the Soviets did not make 200+ submarines in that time, they had 212 on hand by June 1941.

.

Don5t bother, unless you can provide verifiable sources

Hey, why not? empty talking is working for you...
But, here you are:

"The Soviet production of exposives and powder was much smaller then German one, overall capacity of chemical industry being the principal bottleneck. The most reliable figures I've seen are from I.Vernidub's book - 505 thousands tons of TNT and other individual exposives and 399,8 thousands of smokeless powder produced during the war" (Check Art's post here: Axis History Forum • View topic - USSR artillery shell production

For the Germans, it was 1595 thousands tons for explosives, and 2405 thousand for the powder, only for the 1940-44 period. See here: Appendix D. Strategic Air Attack on the Powder and Explosives Industries

Right back at you sugar

So, you are not gonna back up your claim? shocker...but since I'm not like you:
"The Russians laid more land mines around Kursk than the entire wartime production by the Germans. ". Yeah sure, the soviets laid approx. one million mines (both AT and AP) in both fronts of the salient (Mine and countermine operations in the Battle of Kursk), this could be compared to the production of some models of German mines: more than three millions for the Riegelmine 43, or 5+ millions of the Holzmine 42, just to name a few (see: Mines Flamethrowers)
As I said, BS.

 

[parsifal]

"Gross domestic product (GDP) refers to the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a given period.".

In other wordws, a measure of national income or activity

I never said that GDP is measuring military production. I can't see the value in trying to calculate that, because all production and services, military or not, are necessary and contributing during times of war

What you said was an unsubstantiated rebuttal of me. i sad that in terms of military production the USSR (and later we also discussed the British), outproduced the germans in all the vital areas of military production. You said, in your reply that the Germans outproduced the Russians and then attempted to say that GDP was a measure of military outputs. You still are.

Now, since you are so big in "military output", please tell me exactly what items are included here? Surely there's much more than tanks, trucks, aircraft, guns and mortars.

Im not going to do that. i know it, as every other thinking person in this tforum does as well. Never givfe a troll oxygen. Why dont you give us your definition einstein

"Critical areas": Are you the one defining what those are, or there some actual reference here?

There is a definition for it....go find it troll

Pure speculation on your part. There were inefficiencies everywhere, show me how it was worse in Germany. And please, with some actual sources.

.

Do some reading, I would suggest for you the wages of destruction and How the allies won. You might also look aty Ellis (Brute Force). and of course you might want to interpret the GDP stuff you yourself posted. German military production was lower yet they had more money to spend....wonder why?????

I'm tired to read your long, reference-less posts.

Well, if you are tired of them, dont read them, and dont respond to them

What is clear here is that you are talking out of your a$$.

)


R U sure about that

Oh they appear low to you? Well, how about to substantiate the numbers you gave before?

I can substantiate them , try looking at something like conways as a general reference or similar

In 1940 the Germans produced 50 submarines, plus 18 in 1939 (I don't know how many before the war),

Err no, incorrect. "Producing" for naval warships means at what point they were commissioned. From 1933 to August 1939, the KM commissioned 57 boats, from September '39 through to December 1940, the German commissioned a further 35 Boats. Thats a total of 92 boats commissioned.

and no, the Soviets did not make 200+ submarines in that time, they had 212 on hand by June 1941.

In that same time frame (1933-40) the Red Navy commissioned 283 new submarines.

Hey, why not? empty talking is working for you...
But, here you are:

"The Soviet production of exposives and powder was much smaller then German one, overall capacity of chemical industry being the principal bottleneck. The most reliable figures I've seen are from I.Vernidub's book - 505 thousands tons of TNT and other individual exposives and 399,8 thousands of smokeless powder produced during the war" (Check Art's post here: Axis History Forum • View topic - USSR artillery shell production

So, let me get this straight. you have come in here, guns blazing, shooting your mouth off on eht ebasis of what? A thread of another forum, which gives an unsubstantiated listing of ammunition production. Its a start, I will grant you that, but ou have not built your house on rock foundations here, more like quicksand . I dont accept these figures. they are unsubstantiated claims made in another forum

For the Germans, it was 1595 thousands tons for explosives, and 2405 thousand for the powder, only for the 1940-44 period. See here: Appendix D. Strategic Air Attack on the Powder and Explosives Industries

Another unsubstantiated source. its a start I agree, and better than what I have,, but hardly a solid foundation on which to mount such a spirite attack. You are either stupid or brave....i cant work out which. I'll go the safe money and assume stupid for the time being

So, you are not gonna back up your claim? shocker...but since I'm not like you:
"The Russians laid more land mines around Kursk than the entire wartime production by the Germans. ". Yeah sure, the soviets laid approx. one million mines (both AT and AP) in both fronts of the salient (Mine and countermine operations in the Battle of Kursk), this could be compared to the production of some models of German mines: more than three millions for the Riegelmine 43, or 5+ millions of the Holzmine 42, just to name a few (see: Mines Flamethrowers)

A good source, so I have to concede the point I guess. However, dont know where you got the figure of 1 million. More like 4million according to my source ("claws of the bear)

As I said, BS.

In this case, it looks like it,, though makes no difference to the larger argument we are having.....what percentage of your precious GDP do you think was spent on mine production....1%, 2%??? Given that the US built over 250 subs in WWII representing less than 2% of their military expenditures what percentage can 10 or even 20 million mines be of the german military expenditures. I would suggest miniscule