German a/c production

[Milosh]

from the USSBS

Data for other a/c types
Aircraft Industry Report Exhibits

 

[fastmongrel]

Thanks for that Milosh very interesting. One thing I spotted that interested me the Fieseler factory at Kassel produced its last 109s in June 41 then apparently didnt produce another S/E fighter till it produced a single FW190 in May 42. Was this factory building another aircraft during this time or was that how long it took to change a factory over from building one type to another completely different type.

 

[Milosh]

from the link

List of some aircraft that were produced under license in Fieseler include:

Fieseler Fi 2 Sport Aircraft (pre ww2)
Fieseler Fi 5 Sports and trainer (pre ww2)
Fieseler Fi 98, fighter aircraft, biplane (pre ww2)
Fieseler Fi 167 torpedo bomber, reconnaissance (early ww2)
Fieseler Fi 156 (Fieseler Storch) STOL, reconnaissance (1936-1943)
Messerschmitt ME 109 (Bf 109)
Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (start 1943)
Fieseler Fi-103, the V1 flying bomb engines, (Buzz Bomb) (1944-1945)

Fieseler Werke Kassel

I wouldn't doubt it took almost a year to convert.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool, thanks for posting!

 

[Milosh]

Exhibit IV
Make-up of Working Force: German Aircraft Companies
October 1944

Percentages of German, Foreign and Prison Workers in Each Plant
Listed in order of size or working force. Includes reported sub-contractors)

Exhibit V
Index of Utilization of Manpower in American and German Industries

I wonder if there is any correlation between the efficiency and the number of non German workers (48%).

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

That does not surprise me about the comparison between the US and German aircraft industries. The Germans were not very efficient at all when it came to war time production.

What would interest me would be a comparison between the US and the other allied nations. Obviously the US will be more efficient, but it would be interesting to see an accurate comparison.

 

[BombTaxi]

I was very surprised to see that efficiency in US plants flat-lined for 12 months. I know that individual plants would have been making innovations in that period, but that suggests that some plants were also becoming less efficient , producing a net stagnation.

BTW, do you have any key as to how efficiency was calculated? I'm guessing it's an expression of man-hours per standardised production 'unit'?

 

[Milosh]

I was very surprised to see that efficiency in US plants flat-lined for 12 months. I know that individual plants would have been making innovations in that period, but that suggests that some plants were also becoming less efficient , producing a net stagnation.

BTW, do you have any key as to how efficiency was calculated? I'm guessing it's an expression of man-hours per standardised production 'unit'?

See the link posted in post#1.

 

[Njaco]

Milosh, is it possible to extend that beyond July '44? IIRC German aircraft production really increased dramatically by Sept. '44. Wonder how that compares to others.

 

[Milosh]

Milosh, is it possible to extend that beyond July '44? IIRC German aircraft production really increased dramatically by Sept. '44. Wonder how that compares to others.

Njaco, not really possible as the data was compiled ~60 years ago.

Sept 1944 seems to be the peak of a/c production from a quick glance at other tables and graphs.

This graph (Exhibit I-E) from the link shows actual s-e a/c production:

See 'Exhibit II - Summary of Official German Aircraft Production Programs' for some 1945 production.

Found this data on the 12 O'clock High board, post #28 Bf109 Neubau 1/44 to 3/45 - Page 3 - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

Monthly 109 'new built' production from Jan 1944 to March 1945:

932, 715, 804, 100, 1065, 1230, 1043, 1374, 1718, 1793, 1558, 1147, 1221, 876, 716

Sept 1944 in bold

'Detailed breakdown - by model, by month Exhibit VI-B' is for bombers and fighters.

 

[tail end charlie]

What would interest me would be a comparison between the US and the other allied nations. Obviously the US will be more efficient, but it would be interesting to see an accurate comparison.

It will always be difficult to evaluate efficiency there are many ways to define it.

I remember watching "The World at War" stating that many German troops didnt have winter clothing for the eastern front in the winter of 1941. It seems to me many German planners didnt realise it had a war on until the end of 1941. Until 1941 they were doing well in the Atlantic and inflicting losses on the RAF over France America wasnt yet formally in the war and on land wars with the blitzkreig they had always swept everything before them. For the Russians they had to re locate huge parts of their industry and also bring their designs up to date while suffering massive losses. Below are figures for RAF fighter production which just replaced losses at the hight of the battle. So far as the tank battle in the east one German commander remarked that if they had known how many tanks the Russians could field after losing so many they would never have invaded in the first place.

Does anyone know if, when the USAAF temorarily stopped massed raids over Germany in 1943 whether German high command thought they had won or whether they felt the raids would return? It seems to me if the Germans had upped production of fighters much earlier things would have been much different



MONTHLY OUTPUT OF FIGHTER AIRCRAFT
JUNE - OCTOBER 1940 MONTH PLANNED ACTUAL DIFFERENCE
JUNE 1.164 /1,163 -1
JULY 1.061/ 1,110 +49
AUGUST 1,143 /1,087 -56
SEPTEMBER 1,195/ 908 -287
OCTOBER 1,218 /917 -301

The table below indicates the number of fighter aircraft available to squadrons for operations:

AIRCRAFT AVAILABLE FOR OPERATIONS MONTH DAY TOTAL AIRCRAFT AVAILABLE
JUNE 22 565
29 587
JULY 6 644
13 666
20 658
27 651
AUGUST 3 708
10 749
17 704
24 758
31 764
SEPTEMBER 7 746
14 725
21 715
28 732
OCTOBER 5 734
12 735
19 734
26 747
NOVEMBER 2 721

Source for both tables: Wood Dempster "The Narrow Margin" 1961

 

[Glider]

One thing that has always confused me was the lack of production in France. Whatever you may think of some of the 1940 aircraft types produced in France they did have a large aviation industry. Germany didn't seem to make much use of its production capability outside a small number of second line aircraft.

Does anyone know why this was the case or have I got my thoughts totally wrong. Any ideas or information would be appreciated.

It just seems to be a missed opportunity

 

[parsifal]

according to overy, german economic planning before the war was a model of economic efficiency. They way they grafted Austrian and Czech production into the german production system was a model for efficiency. The way they went about systematically stripping out the production systems of the occupied terrritories after the war broke out was the reverse. Generally factories were stripped out of their machine tools, dies and the like, to be shipped off to germany for storage, pending the set up of new factories in germany itself. This was in line with German policy at the time, basically Germany was intended to be the industrial powerhouse of europe, with other nations providing raw materials and labour to support the german economy.

This basic approach was further promoted by the crackpot economic theories of the Nazis. They pegged the value of the RM artificailally low to encourage exports from Germany. However imports from the occupied zones were purchased at artificailly low proices....the Germans therby deriving the benefits of an artificailly low exchange rate on the one hand, and excessive price controls on the other.

Only where Germany had to deal with truly independant nations in trade were the weaknesses of the german economy exposed. Countries like Sweden, Turkey and Spain made a fortune dealing with Germany. They got top dollar for their exports to germany and received german exports very cheaply as well

 

[Glider]

Thanks for that, it explains a lot and was fortunate for the allied forces. With large factories complete with a fully trained and experienced trained workforce, they may well have mad a significant difference.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... One thing that has always confused me was the lack of production in France. Whatever you may think of some of the 1940 aircraft types produced in France they did have a large aviation industry. Germany didn't seem to make much use of its production capability outside a small number of second line aircraft.

Does anyone know why this was the case or have I got my thoughts totally wrong. Any ideas or information would be appreciated.

It just seems to be a missed opportunity."

Glider - a month or two ago on an earlier 'aircraft production' thread, I got corrected on my post by a writer who suggested that I read "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze. It is an economic history of the Third Reich.

I bought it and read it - not an easy read but well worthwhile. On French aircraft production (and production generally in the occupied countries, Tooze cites pre-war productivity numbers against wartime numbers. Drastic fall in all productivity (and NOT because machine tools were shipped out). Of all occupied countries only NORWAY manages to maintain output - and THAT was mainly ore, I'm guessing.

The POLITICS of Nazis production was/is intriguing. Speer - for example - liked and ran the V Weapons program because it made great propaganda and made him look good . Edouard Milch (sp ??) ran aircraft production. And it was HIS genius (not Speer's) ** that was responsible for the increase in German aircraft production 1943-44. (According to Tooze)

MM

** Wikipedia reference

"... In 1943 Albert Speer took over from Milch, and things immediately improved. Production reached their highest levels in 1943 and 1944, and though Speer introduced the same measures of self-regulation that he had introduced in other areas of industry, and tried to take credit for the so called Armanents Miracle, contemporary German statistics show that the real reason for increased production were measures and investments made by Milch and his staff in 1941 and 1942. "

 

[parsifal]

so why did production in the occupied territories more or less collapse overnight if it weasnt sytematically, and as a matter of policy stripped of its productive means. I guess it could partially be answered by raw materials shortages, but this can at best only be pushed forward as a partial answer.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Workers weren't thrilled at co-operating with their Nazis masters. Remember that in France the unions were all Communist. In Holland and Denmark the Nazis were stripping foodstuffs to compensate for the almost total failure of German agriculture. In those kind of environments people put themselves first, understandably

MM

 

[parsifal]

Fair enough, perhaps there was not the wholesale looting of the occupied territories after all, though that seems odd to say the least, but I still think the artificial exchange rates and price pegging had a lot to do with it

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... the artificial exchange rates and price pegging had a lot to do with it".

Tooze documents the "phony-baloney" economics of the Third Reich very clearly. In 1939 Germany was basically broke - as a result of massive rearmament spending that started in 1933 and escalated. Agriculture was a disaster - and had been since Bismark's time. We have an image of a "prosperous" Germany under the Nazis - but all economic activity was taking money from one pocket and putting it in another .

And because the economic basis of the Nazis was "flawed" - to say the least - everything had "unexpected" consequences.

For example: Kystallenoche (?) - thousands of expensive Jewish plate glass windows had to be replaced from Belgium with scarce HARD CURRENCY. The quest for self-sufficiency in oil led to the development of synthetic petroleum at high prices per barrel at a time of economic depression (worldwide) when real oil was CHEAP. CHEAP, CHEAP.

After reading Tooze I am more amazed than ever that the Nazis hung on until 1945.

MM

 

[Njaco]

Don't know if this helps with the conversation but this is from "The WWII Data Book" by John Ellis.....