Defence of the Reich

[parsifal]

Im not convinced that Rumanaia as it existed in 1944 was not part of the "Balkan Camapaign". We have a Soviet view on Geography for the purposes of classifying their campaigns as different to the way we in the west classify the Balkans. Without hesitation, or even being prepared to think about it, we reject the Soviet view and adopt the narrow western europoean view. We dont know by what criteria Groehler defined the Balkan campaign. We would need to get access to his research documents to answer that. The Balkans as a region is a narrowly defined area of land, yet as a concept is a concept that is a moving feast. it has at times included many countries no longer considered part of the Balkans. I tend to think or would like to think that Groehler was not as specific as we are attempting as to what the Balkans actually were. I think in fact that Groehler was relying on Soviet and Germans records and that he may well have been referrng to the Soviet concept rather than our own

 

[Jenisch]

parsifal, the number of acft employed by the Soviets you have given includes aircraft avaliable to operations or just in the inventory? I ask this because IIRC there's a significative difference in what the VVS had and what the VVS could fly in combat, and by the numbers you have given it looks like is what the Soviets had in total.

If I find the info about the number of operational VVS planes, I will post it.

 

[Milosh]

If that is so parsifal then why does Groehler have 'Italy and Balkans' in the 'West'? He should only have 'Italy'. Then there is the fact that Groehler had a pro Soviet bias.

 

[parsifal]

I dont know. I do note that Caldwell also questions Groehlers grouping of the balkan losses to the west. And Caldwell is anything but pro-Soviet. As a point of clarification, we are relying on Groehler, via Caldwell, which probably means the source is no longer a "pro soviet source". Dont suppose you have a copy of groehlers work that has not been re-interpreted by any chance. ive certainly never seen one

 

[Jenisch]

Parfisal, what is your source that 60% of the LW losses occured in the EF?

 

[parsifal]

Parfisal, what is your source that 60% of the LW losses occured in the EF?

My overative imagination unfortunately. For some reason I had convinced myself in my own mind that Groehler had stated as much in his dissertation. According to Caldwells interpretation of those figures only about 29% of losses were on the eastern front.

Now, there are still some caveats about that. At this minute we only have Caldwells interpretation of groehler, not Groehler. Still, and to be fair, Caldwell is a good source in his own right.

Secondly however, and this is harder to accept, Groehler has some rather strange ways of categorising things, like attributing losses in the Balkans in 1944 to the Allies. that seems very odd to me, and its what weve been haggling over over the last couple of pages.

Finally, not all sources agree completely, or even substanitally with Groehler, though his research is considered the best . some, like Ellis seem to paint a completely different story, and in particular Groehler does not seem to include the significant losses incurred by the minor allies, who provided a substantial contribution of aircraft on the eastern front.

 

[Jenisch]

You said that because the Eastern Front drained so much of the LW (which is not confirmed), then a peace in the East would allow Germany to stop the bombing. This is at least contestable.

The Wages of Destruction, page 124:

With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the grow-ing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste.

Page 410:

The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bearcomparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing.But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was not untypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energysupplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and itsWestern European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mentionits domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now hadto supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at least5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher thanGermany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw Franceback into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 Francewas reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In aneconomy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects weredramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was avail-able to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to themilitary planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy.In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for themotor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronicshortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots,due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing itssoldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made them-selves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at itsBrandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lackedthe petrol necessary to check the fuel pumps of vehicles coming off theassembly line. A special allocation of 104 cubic metres of fuel had to bearranged by the Wehrmacht's economic office so as to ensure that therewere no further interruptions

In my opinion, it was more easy Germany have a peace in the West to win in the East than vice versa. Also, it's necessary to define what "win" is. Perhaps the West could not have occupied Germany, but certainly they would weaken it to a point where it would pose a minimal treat to their interests (it was the objective of their envolvement in the war!).

 

[parsifal]

Hi Jenisch

I suggested that the best way of defending Germany wsa to "shorten her fronts". But she also had to do that in such a way as to not give away territory too easily. I just think there was more possibility of a truce with the russians than there was with the west. Not that there was ever much chance of either.

Its just that if we are talking "vital interests", the allies made their "vital interests" the unconditional surrender of Germany, and never really showed any signs of deviating from that Russia too made unconditional surrender by Germanya pre-requisite of peace. However the Soviets showed faint signs that they might back away from that so it follows that the greatest possibilitieis rest with a truce on the eastern front as oppsed to the other fronts.

I still think that a truce in the east would have substantially altered the situation in the west...in the air and on the ground. To say otherwise is to say that the Soviets were inconsequential to the outcome. I think that is a fundamentally wrong statement. Neither do i thjink that the Soviets alone could win the war. The allied victory was just that....an allied victory. I think that proportionatly the allies made greater effort in the air, whilst on the ground the Soviets made the greatest contribution. However, in both areas (ie in the air and on the ground) both west and east made critical contributions to victory.

 

[Jenisch]

I still think that a truce in the east would have substantially altered the situation in the west...in the air and on the ground. To say otherwise is to say that the Soviets were inconsequential to the outcome.

The Germans would not sign peace with the Soviets unless they retained most of the rich regions of the country (and had the Caucasus). Germany was in no condition to trade with the Soviets As for the Soviets, with the US and Britain having Germany as common enemy, they would not have reason to reach a deal like this with Hitler, which BTW, would condemn the country in short time.

 

[Jenisch]

The logic of the German war effort: The Wages of Destruction, page 452:

However optimistic the Wehrmacht may have been in the assessment of its own capacities, the sheer size of the task facing them in the Soviet Union could not be denied. Most fundamentally, the Germans were grossly outnumbered. Even allowing for the unreliability of Stalinist statistics, the population of the Soviet Union cannot have been less than 170 million in 1941. The population of Germany was less than half that: 83.76 million people in 1939. Though the German army that invaded the Soviet Union probably outnumbered the Red Army troops stationed in the western sectors, the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists. From the outset, therefore, it was clear that the Wehrmacht must not be sucked into a battle of attrition. And this imbalance of manpower was compounded by the enormous expanse of Soviet territory and the sheer impassability of the terrain. If the Red Army were able to withdraw in good order this would present Germany with insuperable problems. If on the other hand the coherence of the Soviet force could be broken, then the difficulty of maintaining communications would hamper their efforts to restore coherence no less than it impeded the German advance. Everything depended on deciding the battle, as in France, in the first weeks of the campaign. This was the assumption on which Barbarossa was premised. A massive central thrust towards Moscow, accompanied by flanking encirclements of the Soviet forces trapped in the north and south, would allow the Red Army to be broken on the Dnieper-Dvina river line within 500 kilometres of the Polish-German border. The Dnieper-Dvina river line was critical because beyond that point logistical constraints on the German army were binding. These limitations on Germany's new style of 'Blitzkrieg' had not been obvious in 1940, because the depth of operations required by Manstein's encircling blow (Sichelschnitt) had never exceeded a few hundred kilometres. The entire operation could therefore be supplied by trucks shuttling back and forth from the German border. On the basis of their experience in France, the Wehrmacht's logistical staff calculated that the efficient total range for trucks was 600 kilometres, giving an operational depth of 300. Beyond that point the trucks themselves used up so much of the fuel they were carrying that they became inefficient as a means of transport. Given the vast distances encountered in the Soviet Union, an operational depth of 300 kilometres was absurdly restrictive. To extend the range of the logistical system, the Wehrmachtt therefore split its motor pool into two segments. One set of trucks would move forward with the Panzer units and would ferry fuel and ammunition from intermediate dumps that would be resupplied by the main fleet operating from the borders of the General Government. By this expedient, it was hoped that the initial logistical range could be extended to 500 kilometres. By happy chance, this coincided exactly with the Dnieper-Dvina line. Haider, the army's chief of staff, was clearly aware of the fundamental importance of this constraint. In his diary at the end of January 1941 he noted that the success of Barbarossa depended on speed. 'Speed! No stops! Do not wait for railway! Do everything with motor vehicles.' There must be 'no hold ups', 'that aloneguarantees victory'. If serious fighting were to extend beyond this initial phase of the assault, it was clear from the outset that the Wehrmacht's problems would progressively multiply. If the Red Army escaped destruction onthe Dnieper-Dvina river line, the Wehrmacht would not be able to engage in hot pursuit, because it would first need to replenish its supply bases closer to the front line. After that, all operations would ultimately depend on the capacity of the Soviet railway system and the speed with which the Wehrmacht could build up forward supply bases to support Germany itself. Most German freight transport in the 1940s was accomplished by rail. For short distances, the horse was still essential in both town and countryside. Of course, the German motor vehicle industry might have been coaxed into producing more trucks. But the basic constraint on the use of motor vehicles in wartime Europe was not the supply of vehicles, but the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber. As we have seen, the fuel shortage by the end of 1941 was expected to be so severe that the Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorization as a way of reducing its dependence on scarce oil. Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would crack under the impact of the first decisive blow. It was hoped that, like the French, the Soviet forces would disintegrate, allowing them to be finished off in a series of encirclement battles. In the second phase of the operation, the German army would advance towards Moscow against disorganized opposition, precipitating the political collapse of Stalin's regime. In World War I it had taken almost four years for the combined forces of Austria and Imperial Germany to bring about the final disintegration of the Tsarist army. The assumption was clearly that the Communist regime was weaker and that the initial blow struck by the Wehrmacht would be far more dramatic. The racist assumptions built into this axiom of German planning are obvious. It was not, however, devoid of all rationality. Expressed most succinctly in terms of per capita GDP, there was a major developmental difference between Germany and the Soviet Union. According to the best modern estimates, German per capita GDP was two and a half times that in the Soviet Union in 1940. On this basis there was good reason to think that the huge quantitative advantage apparently enjoyed by the Red Army would turn out to be illusory. The far greater organizational capacity of theWehrmacht, the superior quality of its equipment and the greater training of its soldiers would carry the day. After all, this was the army tha thad defeated the combined forces of France, the British Expeditionary Force, Belgium and the Netherlands in six weeks. By launching its army against the Soviet Union, rather than prosecuting a direct air and sea assault on Britain and its backers in the United States, the Third Reich was not making an irrational strategic choice. It was deploying its best weapon against what still appeared to be the 'weakest link in the chain'.Not that the Germans were oblivious to the modernization of the Soviet Union since World War I. As the Wehrmacht's own economic staff well knew, Stalin's Five Year Plans had substantially transformed the geography of the Soviet economy. According to credible Western estimates we now believe that Stalin's regime increased total industrial output by 2.6 times between 1928 and 1940, and armaments outputgrew by vastly more. In their haste to industrialize, the Soviet planners had placed a large amount of investment in Western economic zones vulnerable to the German onslaught. But as the planners in Berlin fully understood, the First Five Year Plan of 1928-32 had established a new Soviet industrial base, safely to the east of the Urals, which had the capacity to sustain a self-sufficient population of at least 40 million people. Even if an invader managed to overrun a large part of the western Soviet Union, war production could continue at new industrial centres, such as the gigantic engineering works at Sverdlovsk. Overall,Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial. In 1939 the German steel association put the Soviet Union well ahead of Great Britain, in third place behind the United States and Germany, with an annualoutput of 18 million tons of steel, compared to Germany's 23.3 million tons. And on paper at least the Red Army was a formidable force.Throughout the spring of 1941 Franz Haider recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stocks of tanks and aircraft. Hitler knew that the Soviets had modern aircraft and 'mammoth' tanks with normous guns. But he comforted himself with the fact that most of the Red Army's equipment was obsolete. On the assumption that the Wehrmacht would be able to achieve a massed concentration at strategicpoints he was happy to predict that the Soviets would 'crumple under the massive impact of our tanks and planes'. No one, however, could deny the sheer vastness of the Soviet Union, and this alone made Barbarossa into a daunting proposition. Beneath the thick layer of hubris and optimism that surrounded the planning forBarbarossa, there were those in Berlin who expressed severe misgivings from the start. The doubts, interestingly, were of two kinds. There were at least some officers who questioned the feasibility of the operation itself. Significantly these included Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group Centre, to whom fell the awesome task of crushing the main body of the Red Army en route to Moscow. By the end of January 1941, Bock was so concerned about the scale of the mission assigned to his army group that he forced Haider, the chief of army staff, to concede that there was a distinct possibility that the Red Army might escape beyond the Dnieper-Dvina line. What wouldhappen in this eventuality was the key question. One of the earliest wargames done to test the Barbarossa plan concluded that unless both the destruction of the Red Army and the capture of Moscow could be accomplished within a matter of months, Germany would face a 'long-drawn-out war, beyond the capacity of the German armed forces towage'.

 

[Jenisch]

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of Nazi War economy, page 430:

In line with their confident expectation of aspeedy and decisive victory, the Third Reich calibrated its attack on theSoviet Union so that as many resources as possible could be freed at the earliest possible opportunity for the ongoing struggle with Britain and its backers in the United States.

Page 431:

The significance of the Blitzkrieg strategy adopted in 1940-41 was not that it allowed the overall level of mobilization to be kept to a minimum, but that it allowed the German war effort to be split into two parts. The factories producing for the army directed their efforts towards providing the equipment for a swift, motorized Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the rest of the German military-industrial complex began to gird itself for the aerial confrontation with Britain and America.


Page 440:

From the start of 1941, the Luftwaffe in particular was focusing its attention as much on the continuation of the war against Britain and the United States as it was on Barbarossa. Hitler himself set the tone with his address to the commanders-in-chief at Berchtesgadenon 9 January 1941. Treating the defeat of the Soviet Union as a foregone conclusion, Hitler sketched a future of boundless possibilities, in which Germany would wage a 'battle of the continents', by which he clearly meant a war with the United States.

To secure this future of globalpower, German armaments strategy in 1941 needed to be directed as much towards investment in future capacity as towards current pro-duction. In the prelude to Barbarossa, therefore, the army, the Fou rYear Plan and the Luftwaffe all engaged in substantial investment drives. Coming on top of the expansion programmes set in motion in 1938 and the more targeted investment triggered by the Fuehrer's ammunitionprogramme of early 1940, the result was an investment boom, the likeof which had never before been seen by German industry.

As far as the German army was concerned, the chief priorities weretanks and explosives. Despite the enormous scale of operation Barba-rossa, the German army shared the view that the ultimate militaryenemies of the Third Reich were Britain and the United States.

I think that is a fundamentally wrong statement.

It's not.

Neither do i thjink that the Soviets alone could win the war. The allied victory was just that....an allied victory.

It was a joint victory. However, unless you alterate the reality to reach your point (that the Germans and Soviets could have signed peace), this is not realistic. I presented evidence that Germany was already suffering from fuel shortages before the Barbarossa. After that, the problems only became worse. Germany had only one alternative: defeat the Soviet Union in a quick war. When this was not achived and war was declared in the US, Germany's fate was sealed. And even if they did defeated the Soviets in the timeframe they expected, it would still not necessarily give Germany what the Nazis expected. They were extracting far less from the conquered Soviet territories than expected, while the Soviets were ready to sabotate the oil wells in the Caucasus (and the Allies had contingency plans to bomb them). The Axis hopes relied more in their enemies than in themselfs.

I think that proportionatly the allies made greater effort in the air, whilst on the ground the Soviets made the greatest contribution. However, in both areas (ie in the air and on the ground) both west and east made critical contributions to victory.

To the war end in the historical timeframe? Yes. To the war end with a German surrender or unconditional surreder? Not necessarily.

 

[parsifal]

You have got to be kidding in claiming the allies did more on the ground than the Soviets. 80% of german casualties, and a corresponding amount of hardware, were lost on the eastern Front. The allies only became involved in the latter part of the main fighting on the ground, and involved in 1 major campaign (disregarding Italy for a minute) compared to the long continuous fighting that occurred between Germany and the Soviets 1942-5. The lions share of credit on the ground lies with the Soviets. That is not to deny the critical support provided by the allied land armies.It also does not detract or challenge the central role played by the allies in the air, and at sea. As i said, the allied victory was just that, an allied victory, in which all the plyers had a hand in the victory. To assume however that the allies could win, without the help or assistance of the soiets is near delusional.

If not for the sustained Soviet operations on the eastern front that completely sapped the German strengths and reserves , and lost them valuable territories and experienced personnel, the Germans facing the allies in 1944, would have been unbeatable. Certainly on the ground, and arguably in the air as well. And Germany would have had the resources to develop such programs such as their jet fighters and terror weapons properly, whilst the allies would not.

And misusing Wages Of Destruction is a bit outrageous as well. The author does not imply in any way that the Soviets were irrelevat to the result. In faxct he is at pains to demonstrate the german miscalculation of DSoviet importance and capability...esentially he is saying the germans underestimated the russiansds, not that the russians were superfluous to victory.

 

[Shortround6]

I think you under estimate the potential of the United States. We did a number of things wrong in WWII in hindsight but American Factories were just hitting their stride in 1944. The course of the war would have been much different and longer without the Russians but Ger.any had no real hope once the US got in the war.

As an example from the two naval threads running; the US commissioned at least 8 Essex class carriers in 1945/6. Canceled four more and completed one in 1950. Throw in what they were doing with 3 other classes of aircraft carriers and it an be seen that an avalanche of equipment could show up in 1945/46 that the Germans had no hope of stopping. The US was slowing down production of certain weapons types even in 1944.

As far as history goes the Russian people certainly did more than their share and suffered accordingly. They were instramental in the way things did play out but that was not the only way things could have gone.

 

[parsifal]

maybe eventually, the US might have acquired the strength and experience to take on the German army whilst the germans remained at their peak efficiency. And we ought not underestimate the economic strength of the US.

However, what is being overlooked in this are the qualitative differences. Im known around these parts for my pro-allied opinions, but i am realistic enough to know when we would be licked. I think it was the Dupuy institure that determined that at its peak the each German soldier needed about 2.5-3.0 US soldiers just to contain him, and around twice that number to undertake efective offensive action. The german army at it peak stood at around 10m men. If they were all deployed into the west, with all of the efficiency of the 1942 wehrmacht, you would need an American army of around 30-60 million men to contain that and drive the germans back. They had nowhere near that capacity. The 1942 program for the US Army was around 200 divs, and the force structure about 15 million men (from memory). in the finish tha program was halved to about 100 divs. As it stood, the US army struggled as most of the fighting was done by relatively few .....about 30 divs, of the more experienceed units. Units were forced to keep fighting long after they were burnt out, because the US Army simply lacked the depth (and never would acquire that depth) to use all its formations raised in the offense. And thats historical, when Dupuy reckons the Germans were only worth about 1.31 allied soldiers per German, and the majority of its 9million men were locked in a struggle against the Soviets.

And we still have not factored into account the effect that losing 30-60 million men would have on the domestic production, or the increased shipping demands.

Its a total myth to expect the US to be able to defeat the Germans without the help of the Russians.

 

[gjs238]

But how does Germany go from considering "partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht" and not being able to collect milk from rural farmers to being unconquerable?

 

[Jenisch]

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ic1-3.html

... As a basis for estimating the munitions and shipping that the Army would need, the Army planners calculated on an ultimate Army strength of 8,795,658 men with "approximately 215 Divisions." Of the over 8,000,000 men, about 2,000,000 were to be allotted to the Army Air Forces. ...

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ic2-5.html
Then goes on to say:

Meanwhile, the progress of the war on the Soviet front and the prospective air bombardment over the European continent still left uncertain, at the end of 1942, the Army's ultimate size as well as the number of combat divisions necessary to win the war. It was still difficult to predict with exactitude the casualty rates to be expected and the amount of reserve strength needed to be built up. Postponement of the plan to launch a major cross-Channel operation made the need of mobilizing a large U.S. ground Army less immediate. Instead, greater emphasis was to be placed on first developing U.S. airpower. Given the anticipated limitations in shipping, it appeared at the end of 1942 that the projected deployment of a huge air force


--113--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


overseas by the end of 1944 would definitely restrict the number of divisions that could be sent overseas by that time. It was clearly undesirable to withdraw men from industry and agriculture too long before they could actually be employed in military operations. Allowing a year to train a division, the mobilization of much more than a hundred divisions by the end of 1943 appeared to be premature. In late 1942, moreover, procurement plans for the armed services for 1943, particularly for the Army ground program, were revised downward by the JCS in response to a War Production Board recommendation. All these limiting factors pointed to the need for scaling down previous long-range calculations, as well as for effecting economies in manpower within the Army.21
The process of reducing earlier long-range estimates, begun on the War Department and joint planning levels toward the end of 1942, was clearly reflected in the approved Army Troop Basis for 1943, circulated by G-3 in January of that year.22 This troop basis set the mobilization program for 1943 at 100 divisions. It called for a total Army strength of 8,208,000, a figure previously approved by the President. This troop basis marked the turning point in War Department and joint Army-Navy calculations. In place of limited objectives that would be greatly exceeded in time, these estimates were approaching the ultimate ceiling strengths of the Army.

Soon, however, the War Department began to foresee difficulties in meeting even the 100-division goal. At the beginning of 1943 divisions were moving overseas much less rapidly than had been anticipated. With ground units accumulating in the United States, the activation schedule for divisions was slowed down. The modification of the procurement program sharply curtailed production of both housing and equipment for U.S. troops in training. The decision to arm French troops with weapons of U.S. manufacture threatened to cut still further into equipment available for the U.S. forces. As a result, War Department authorities were greatly concerned by the spring of 1943 over the question of a balanced mobilization for the remainder of the year.

As a member from the Axis forum pointed out:

There were three things that appear to limit the size of the US Army.

1) Transport over seas. This seems to have been one of the biggest but given time would go away.
2) Equipment shortages. Mobilization of troops was slowed to conform to delivery of equipment. This also would go away over time and faster if the aid to the Soviets was kept for internal use.
3) Support requirements were greater than expected. This would have meant that the 200 division force was likely not reachable but something well in excess of 100 would ultimately be.

What Parfisal is forgoting is that the US and Britain did not planned to give up in case Hitler defeated the Soviet Union (it's also needed do define how this "victory" would occur). Parfisal is working with the historical timeframe to claim that while the Anglo-Americans planners did not work with the idea of finish the war in 1944-45.

 

[Jenisch]

Other thing is the belief that the Soviet Union was critical to the defeat of the LW (i.e the Western Allies would not be able to defeat the LW without it). Parfisal, you need to provide evidence for that.

http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm

This link provides evidence just on the contrary: the LW fighter force was mostly destroyed in the West. The USAAF defeated the LW in the first 6 months of '44. Why they would not be able to continue fighting it for more time if it was larger? Lack of pilots? Lack of fighers? Lack of bombers? No. Also, after Japan was contained, there would be no hurry to launch offensives in the Pacific and more aircraft could be sent to Europe. I suspect that even the B-29 could have been sent to Europe if necessary. By the wars end, there were more than 2000 B-29s in the Pacific. As can be seen, the Germans themselfs recognized the overhelming US potential.


Also:

If there was no war in the east, the situation would not change, not from an economic point of view: what the Germans stealed from the East was (compared to their needs and consumption) marginal, not from a military point of view: there still would be a big part of the army and the LW be tied on the eastern border. The Soviets could have re-started the war at any time. Also, Parfisal is desconsiderating what I already posted:

The Wages of Destruction, page 124:

With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the grow-ing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste.
Page 410:

The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bearcomparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing.But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was not untypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energysupplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and itsWestern European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mentionits domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now hadto supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at least5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher thanGermany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw Franceback into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 Francewas reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In aneconomy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects weredramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was avail-able to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to themilitary planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy.In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for themotor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronicshortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots,due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing itssoldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made them-selves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at itsBrandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lackedthe petrol necessary

Conclusion: Germany did not have conditions to face the US and Britain in attrition war unless it had the necessary resources, and they could only come to the USSR. And the USSR would not simply give them to Germany and Germany did not have conditions to acquire them from the USSR. Germany did not stood a chance. A peace with the USSR that not give Germany vast resources was out of question, so this would not allow Germany to stop the Allied bombing and conquer of air supremacy.

 

[Readie]

As a member from the Axis forum pointed out:[/B]

There were three things that appear to limit the size of the US Army.

1) Transport over seas. This seems to have been one of the biggest but given time would go away.
2) Equipment shortages. Mobilization of troops was slowed to conform to delivery of equipment. This also would go away over time and faster if the aid to the Soviets was kept for internal use.
3) Support requirements were greater than expected. This would have meant that the 200 division force was likely not reachable but something well in excess of 100 would ultimately be.

What Parfisal is forgoting is that the US and Britain did not planned to give up in case Hitler defeated the Soviet Union (it's also needed do define how this "victory" would occur). Parfisal is working with the historical timeframe to claim that while the Anglo-Americans planners did not work with the idea of finish the war in 1944-45.

Axis forum?

Don't you people ever give up trying to rewrite history...

John

 

[Jenisch]

Axis forum?

Don't you people ever give up trying to rewrite history...

John

We have some great discussions there. If you think we are wrong, then provide evidence. I already provided evidence using an acclaimed work of Adam Tooze, an individual which also likes to "rewrite history".

 

[Readie]

We have some great discussions there. If you think we are wrong, then provide evidence. I already provided evidence using an acclaimed work of Adam Tooze, an individual which also likes to "rewrite history".

I'm not arguing about the discussion Jenisch but, I have to admit I find the revisionist axis theories almost laughable...
As for an 'axis forum'...people never learn do they.