German fuel situation and what to improve on it, 2.0

[33k in the air]

At the time that the German government decided to table the research in the areas related to fission and a possible A-bomb, they had been following a dead end for ~3 years. They would have had to realize this and redirect their research into areas that they had not yet thought of. In effect, in accounting terms the Germans were in the red, and in scientific terms were pursuing the wrong rabbit down a dead end rabbit hole. And the Germans had (at best) about 1/3 the effective manpower and industrial capacity of the Allies.

Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction — The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy says this about the German atomic bomb program (p.510):

What Fromm had in mind was the extraordinary work of a group of physicists who theorized that the energy contained in the elementary particles of matter might provide both a boundless source of power and a potentially war-winning explosive device. Fromm, as the head of the German army weapons office, was fully apprised of the project's potential, but considered it long-term. The army's time horizons were now shorter and Fromm thus looked to transfer the project to the civilian sector. After months of organizational argument, in the summer of 1942 the physicists made a major presentation to an audience including Albert Speer. All present were impressed with the extraordinary potential of the scheme, but, when pressed, Werner Heisenberg and his colleagues confirmed Fromm's view that an atomic bomb was a long-term proposition. The project would come to fruition in two or three years' time at the earliest and would require a huge investment. Given Germany's situation in 1941 that made it an irrelevance. What the leadership of the Third Reich was looking for was a decisive success on the Eastern Front in the coming summer.

With hindsight it is clear that the decision made by Speer and his colleagues was essentially correct. Even working with virtually limitless resources, the Americans did not manage to complete a viable atomic weapon in time for it to be used against Germany. But the eagerness with which the Western Allies seized on the atomic bomb at precisely the same moment that it was deprioritized in Germany is yet more evidence of the gulf that separated the industrial and technical resources of the two sides.

 

[yellownose]

33k in the air

"And it was the winter war which made the Germans think the Soviets would not last long"

Do you have a source for that? I never came across this claim before, sure it was an embarrassement, but to my knowledge the German leadership compared it more to WW1 and when the winter hit Napoleon's campaign.

I hope you don't buy into this nonsense that "The Germans didn't know Russia they din know it was cold huhuh". They were their neighbors for 800 years, and two million Germans lived there. Among the National Socialist leadership you had quite a lot of Germans from the former Russian Empire, like Alfred Rosenberg. They knew this country very well, just no the extend of the armament and their maps were outdated. Add to it that, as I said above, the German military intelligence agency worked for the allies, and you have a recipe for chaos.

But without the western allies, the soviets probably might not have lasted long. But this is not a forum about land warfare. Just to reiterate one thing that I said above and is related to the topic of this website: one of the objectives of the air war over Germany was to draw aircraft and pilots from the eastern front to the defense in the west to give the soviets some relief. That's not my theory, this is from the US chief of staff George C. Marshall. This worked, the Germans only lost less than 18% of their air force on the eastern front, if my numbers are correct, more than half of their budget went into the air force&air defense, and they had to focus on fighter production and convert bombers into fighters.

"How exactly does the western front get to millions of U.S. casualties?"

Haha, this must be a 'Murrican. How about the same way as in WW1. The same way how it happened in the USSR.

The discussion started with me bringing up that after WW2 the Germans found a lot of oil in their own country, which evolved into a discussion about how much oil made/would have made a difference, in case you didn't follow it.

We are talking about a scenario where they have enough oil, ok?

"Except that WWII was a battle between industrialized nation-states engaged in total war. Industrialized nation-states have a vast production capacity which makes it a war of attrition on an enormous scale."

Just stop it with the "more stuff = win". It is just wrong.

There are things in war that don't change. I wrote "what is really important is 1) a grand strategy, 2) the tactics, 3) the operational competence, 4) morale, 5) equipment, production, ressources, 6) flexibility and ingenuity." This has been the case in all wars, from antiquity to today. Didn't matter whether they fought with laser-guided missiles or pokey sticks. Remember: Afghanistan. Vietnam. You don't win by just outproducing the enemy. All the fancy hardware won't fight on it's own.

"They thought they were ahead of everyone else"

When you invent something and students from all over the world travel to your universities to learn about that stuff, you are objectively ahead of everyone else. Like I said, the nuclear bomb was given a low priority, and the German scientists weren't ardent Nazis.

"and, when looking at the enormous resources involved in such a project and realizing they didn't have enough to do it and fight the war, figured probably no one else could do it either"

Who said that? I hope you don't make stuff up.

"The U.S. spent roughly $3 billion developing the atomic bomb during the war. It spent a similar amount developing the VT fuse. Developing the B-29 also cost about as much. The U.S. had that much available in resources to devote to such projects, while still spending an enormous amount fighting the war — the strategic bombing campaign over Europe cost about $30 billion."

Oh, cheap. Germany spend 266 billion on the military during the war. Btw, I never said Germany was close to building a nuclear bomb. I said that the nuclear bomb might not have had the effect that most people immediately think I would have had.


Edit: here is what I meant:

Are Nuclear Weapons 100 times Less Effective Than Supposed? | NextBigFuture.com

Herman Kahn points out in Appendix III of his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War that if the severe damage radius of a nuclear explosion is R and the missile

www.nextbigfuture.com

in 1950, the Top Secret British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report SA/16 (HO225/16 in the UK National Archives), 'The number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on Great Britain and Germany', concluded: During the last war a total of 1,300,000 tons were dropped on Germany by the Strategic Air Forces. If there were no increase in aiming accuracy, then to achieve the same amount of material damage (to houses, industrial and transportational targets, etc.) would have required the use of over 300 atomic bombs together with some 500,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs for targets too small to warrant the use of an atomic bomb… the total of 300,000 civilian air raid deaths in Germany could have been caused by about 80 atomic bombs delivered with the accuracy of last war area attacks, or by about 20 atomic bombs accurately placed at the centres of large German cities…'

 

[Shortround6]

How you go from millions causalities in WW I to lower numbers in WW II???

How about forget this nonsense and most of the other crap that killed millions of men in WW I.
Walking fire where the automatic rifleman fired a short burst from hip (hitting nothing) every time his left foot came down. Was supposed to keep the enemy troops hiding in their trench. Fortunately the war ended before they killed thousands if not millions more.

Like the ingenuity you already mentioned.
You know like the development of tanks?
Instead of bayonet charges into dug-in machine guns.

When you invent something and students from all over the world travel to your universities to learn about that stuff

Well, maybe not universities but a number of Germans were employed by American aircraft makers in the 1930s to learn about all metal construction.

The Germans simply could not make the number of guns, shells, tanks, planes and other stuff they needed to take on the Western Allies.
They may very well have been more effective man for man (although that varied a bit as the end of the war approached) But the Allies were also learning/adapting.
The Americans were also willing to trade tanks for lower infantry casualties. That is what infantry support tanks do.

 

[33k in the air]

Do you have a source for that? I never came across this claim before, sure it was an embarrassement, but to my knowledge the German leadership compared it more to WW1 and when the winter hit Napoleon's campaign.

Hitler himself is famously quoted as saying about attacking the Soviet Union, "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down." The Soviet lackluster performance against the greatly outnumbered Finns fed into that perception.

I hope you don't buy into this nonsense that "The Germans didn't know Russia they din know it was cold huhuh". They were their neighbors for 800 years, and two million Germans lived there. Among the National Socialist leadership you had quite a lot of Germans from the former Russian Empire, like Alfred Rosenberg. They knew this country very well, just no the extend of the armament and their maps were outdated. Add to it that, as I said above, the German military intelligence agency worked for the allies, and you have a recipe for chaos.

The Germans suffered from what the Japanese called 'victory disease,' or put more simply, overconfidence. The rapid fall of Poland, followed by rapid fall of the Western European nations, gave them a false sense of superiority. Their only setback was failing in the Battle of Britain, but even so, Britain was contained on its island and unable to intervene directly on the continent.

The fact is the logistical support for Barbarossa was wholly insufficient because the Germans were overconfident. They expected the Soviets to fall within months, and made no contingency plans should that not happen. Hence why winter clothing was not readily available when it was needed — the Soviets were supposed to have been defeated by then. The initial assault contained only about 30% more tanks than were used in the attack against Western Europe while attacking a land area some twenty times larger. This is not a good force-to-space ratio for long-term success.

Haha, this must be a 'Murrican. How about the same way as in WW1. The same way how it happened in the USSR.

I'm not an American.

We are talking about a scenario where they have enough oil, ok?

Having plenty of oil means little if your opponent is outproducing you in war materials two or three to one, has enough oil to fuel all that equipment, and has the ability to replace its losses faster than you can.

Just stop it with the "more stuff = win". It is just wrong.

Total war between industrialized nation-states is an entirely different matter than a Roman army fighting the Carthaginians.

When you invent something and students from all over the world travel to your universities to learn about that stuff, you are objectively ahead of everyone else. Like I said, the nuclear bomb was given a low priority, and the German scientists weren't ardent Nazis.

Who said that? I hope you don't make stuff up.

See post #121 and the quote from The Wages of Destruction.

If the Germans didn't have the spare resources to fight the near-term war and develop the long-term atomic bomb, the tendency to view the enemy's weaknesses as being similar of one's own would likely make them think other nations couldn't either. Both Britain and Germany independently developed chaff (window in British parlance), yet both refrained from using it for some time for fear of revealing the technology to the other side. — they assumed the other side hadn't yet developed yet. The U.S. put the German electricity supply low on the target list because it thought the German electrical network had similar redundancies as its own — in reality, the German network was vulnerable, and a sustained effort against it was feared.

in 1950, the Top Secret British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report SA/16 (HO225/16 in the UK National Archives), 'The number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on Great Britain and Germany', concluded: During the last war a total of 1,300,000 tons were dropped on Germany by the Strategic Air Forces. If there were no increase in aiming accuracy, then to achieve the same amount of material damage (to houses, industrial and transportational targets, etc.) would have required the use of over 300 atomic bombs together with some 500,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs for targets too small to warrant the use of an atomic bomb… the total of 300,000 civilian air raid deaths in Germany could have been caused by about 80 atomic bombs delivered with the accuracy of last war area attacks, or by about 20 atomic bombs accurately placed at the centres of large German cities…'

Japan, a nation even more stubbornly determined to not surrender, only received two atomic bomb attacks before, along with other pressures, giving up the fight. The idea that Germany would require dozens or more of atomic bombs before surrendering is silliness. Once Stuttgart and Leipzig, or Hamburg and Berlin, go up in mushroom clouds, with other cities looking at a similar fate with little to no way to definitively prevent it, the capacity to resist vanishes quickly. It's an entirely different scale of power.

 

[z42]

This is just ONE factor. Imagine them being able to train their pilots better and more of them being in the air. What makes you think that "Germany could have only won if the allies would have let them"? Stop underestimating the Wehrmacht.

It's easy to look at the politics of your country (assuming you live in what could broadly be characterized as a modern Western liberal democracy) and be frustrated by the lack of progress, just a bunch of talking heads yapping endlessly about vacuous stuff and nothing happening. And how much more efficient it would be in a country where the supreme leader snaps his fingers and shit happens, dammit! But the efficiency of totalitarian states turn out to be more a myth than reality. While corruption exists in democracies, and in some cases is a very serious problem, in totalitarian states corruption is the entire name of the game. You get stuff done by currying favors with politically well-connected people. And totalitarian leaders solidify their grip on power by playing various factions against each other. And this spreads like a cancer throughout society, destroying whatever efficiency advantage the totalitarian state may have by not having empty-headed politicians producing nothing but hot air.

The Wehrmacht 1944 was never fully operational because of the severe fuel shortage, and low morale because of the lack of air support.

Low morale because everyone who wasn't a total Nazi clown blinded by ideology could see they were losing, and badly?

These atom bombs were probably very expensive and time consuming to produce. They would have to transport them by ship, unless they produce them in Britain, and a lot of them would get lost at sea.

If Germany would have managed to hold out longer, using atom bombs in Europe might have been a real possibility in autumn 1945. And by that time the Allies had long since decisively won the battle of the Atlantic, and the u-boat threat was a small shadow of what it once was. Further, atom bombs wouldn't be transported by a lumbering cargo ship, but by fast and well armored heavy cruisers or battleships, which would be a lot harder to sink by a u-boat.

Ok, three times? That is not a coincidence.

Perhaps some of those pilots realized that, gee, we're actually the baddies?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

 

[33k in the air]

This is just ONE factor. Imagine them being able to train their pilots better and more of them being in the air.

You need the available manpower to do that. But that manpower is also required by the other military branches, as well as by the civilian economy to gather the resources and produce the munitions.

I don't think the American public would have accepted such losses.

Hence the American military tendency to substitute firepower for manpower. And the U.S. produced a hell of a lot of firepower.

The western allies ability to build bombers and willingness to waste them also wasn't unlimited.

Those bombers smashed the German transportation network, which eventually led to the paralysis of the German economy. The attack on oil also played a vital role. Then there were the target systems not attacked to a large degree historically but which, had they been, could have also played a vital role: aircraft engines, chemicals, and electricity generation.

Prolonging the war could have made the German army an even better fighting force.

The same is true for the Allies. The U.S., for instance, had plenty military equipment on order which was cancelled as the war was winding down. If the war isn't winding down, that equipment gets built, everything from P-80s to Essex-class carriers to JB-2 buzz bombs, along with more of the gear already in use.

The Luftwaffe was about to limit their production on the Bf109, Me262, the Ta152, the Do335, and the Ar234. I might have forgotten one. But these were formidable aircraft, and they wouldn't be rendered obsolete that fast.

A change made too late to be of much use. If we grant them the foresight to make that change earlier, then we also get to give the Allies similar foresight, correcting missteps they might have made.

At sea the Germans were in a similar situation. They had just developed the Type XXI and XXII-submarine. These submarines were advanced enough for the French to use them until 1969 and Western Germany until 1982. Both the US and the USSR build submarines that were heavily influenced by them. They were also relatively inexpensive to make, compared to the other types.

Same as above, too late to make a difference. Note that the development of the Type XXI was a direct reaction to the U-boat losses they sustained — the Type VII had clearly become wholly insufficient to prosecute the naval war in the face of large numbers of Allied escort vessels, Allied anti-submarine aircraft, and the development of anti-submarine weaponry such as the Hedgehog.

 

[Shortround6]

I would note that even the Americans had to allocate steel and steel production months in advance. You not only need steel for gun barrels and shells and tanks but for factory frame work, rebar for concrete, railroad rail and wheels and even for river barges.
One of the changes in the allowable lead used in 100/130 fuel was supposed to have saved enough steel for a new refinery to make one of the aromatic additives to allow for the construction of 15 destroyer hulls. Destroyers used a different grade of steel than freighters.

There are no RAF '46 or USAAF '46 Web sites to compete with the Luft '46 websites.

From Joe Baugher's website.
"The initial production version of the Shooting Star, the P-80A, was ordered on April 4, 1944, when a Letter Contract for two batches of 500 aircraft was issued. In June of 1945, 2500 additional P-80As were ordered. However, following V-J Day this second contract was cancelled in its entirety and the first contract was cut back to 917 aircraft."

"On January 19, 1945, North American Aviation had been awarded a contract to produce one thousand P-80As in its Dallas plant. The designation given to these license-produced Shooting Stars was P-80N. However, this contract was cancelled shortly after V-E Day, and no P-80Ns were ever completed."

"The first P-80A was accepted by the AAF in February of 1945, and the last was delivered in December 1946. "

From Wiki on the M-26.

Produced	November 1944 – October 1945
No. built	2,202

The Steamroller was coming.

The British were gearing up too.

Edit. The British completed 1200 Comet tanks in May of 1945. They were producing them faster than they could issue them. I would imagine that had the war continued they would have kept up the rate of production. Production started in Nov 1944 so it was just under 200 a month.
The British jets were coming along also.

 

[33k in the air]

There are no RAF '46 or USAAF '46 Web sites to compete with the Luft '46 websites.

From Joe Baugher's website.
"The initial production version of the Shooting Star, the P-80A, was ordered on April 4, 1944, when a Letter Contract for two batches of 500 aircraft was issued. In June of 1945, 2500 additional P-80As were ordered. However, following V-J Day this second contract was cancelled in its entirety and the first contract was cut back to 917 aircraft."

"On January 19, 1945, North American Aviation had been awarded a contract to produce one thousand P-80As in its Dallas plant. The designation given to these license-produced Shooting Stars was P-80N. However, this contract was cancelled shortly after V-E Day, and no P-80Ns were ever completed."

"The first P-80A was accepted by the AAF in February of 1945, and the last was delivered in December 1946. "

Well, in terms of aircraft in the pipeline, there was the Hawker Tempest II (first flight 28 June 1943), Hawker Tempest VI (9 May 1944), Avro Lincoln (9 June 1944), and the De Havilland Hornet (28 July 1944).

 

[BarnOwlLover]

And for the Americans, there was also the P-47M/N, XP-72, P-51H/L/M, the XP-82/P-82B, and that was prop planes. The FJ Fury and F-86's and F-84's development might have gotten sped up if it was felt necessary or was viable.

 

[marathag]

Before August 1939 the US had no real clue that an A-bomb could be developed. The only reason that the US managed to do what it did re the Manhattan Project is due to the combined knowledge of the scientists that had fled Germany and other countries in Europe, along with the research the British had done, and the US manpower & industrial capacity

Theory was the cheap part of the Atomic Bomb

Engineering was the expensive part
OAK RIDGE (Total) $1,188,352,000 63%
—K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant $512,166,000 27%
—Y-12 Electromagnetic Plant $477,631,000 25%
—Clinton Engineer Works, HQ and central utilities $155,951,000 8%
—Clinton Laboratories $26,932,000 1%
—S-50 Thermal Diffusion Plant $15,672,000 1%
HANFORD ENGINEER WORKS $390,124,000 21%
SPECIAL OPERATING MATERIALS $103,369,000 5%
LOS ALAMOS PROJECT $74,055,000 4%
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT $69,681,000 4%
GOVERNMENT OVERHEAD $37,255,000 2%
HEAVY WATER PLANTS $26,768,000 1%

especially when the US didn't know what the best method for enrichment would be, so did all of them

 

[marathag]

The Steamroller was coming.

US started cutting back on Tank production in 1944, before D-Day.

 

[Shortround6]

US started cutting back on Tank production in 1944, before D-Day.

And if they had problems or German resistance was stiffer?
The factories were there, the workers were there (mostly), they were playing around with the "mix" (tanks/TDs/SP guns, specialty vehicles).

The Allies often planned a year or two into the future and still got surprised at times.
The Allies got two of the M40/M43 self-propelled guns into service by VE day, by the end of the war they had built 311 out of a planned 600 units.

The M12s was an older version on M3 hull/chassis and using older guns.

The US may have over produced the M4 tank in 1943. But they had enough to meet the needs, and the production capacity to make more.
The Germans, even with more fuel, did not.
And the Americans and British were shifting to newer, more capably designs.






A lot of planes stopped production in 1944 for example.

 

[EwenS]

Late 1943 saw a rationalisation of M4 production, with the number of factories involved cut back from 10 to just 3 as well as all sorts of changes to the models produced. The M4A4 model for example was discontinued as new production in Sept 1943. And one of those factories had 40-50% of its output going to the USSR as Lend Lease in 1944/45.

The tank losses suffered by the US Army in NWE in the summer of 1944 were far higher than expected. One result was that the remanufacturing programme for Shermans originally sent to training units stateside, which was initially applied to the M4A2/A4 from late 1943 to keep Britain and the Commonwealth supplied with 75mm gun tanks in 1944, was extended to M4/A1/A3 from about Aug 1944 to meet the expected US Army demand for tanks in 1945.

In Dec 1944 Britain supplied several hundred Shermans of a number of models from its reserves to bolster US Army tank numbers during the Battle of the Bulge.

So it is clear that the new production cutbacks in late 1943 created problems for the US Army in late 1944.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

I am not familiar with how nuclear weapons developed and how fast you could produce them, but "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" didn't cause more damage than the firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden or Tokio. These were not the nuclear weapons of the cold war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still two densely populated cities. These bombs did not turn these cities into Chernobyl.

Nuclear weapons, Bomber Command managed to create about 4 fire storms during the war, nuclear weapons reliably create city destroying events, add the higher casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in part due to an unwarned population, think of how productive the economy becomes if everyone needs to take shelter from single or small formations of enemy bombers or just aircraft in the area. Arthur Harris reported 370 attacks on 70 German urban areas, pre war population of around 22,800,000, resulted in 49% of the urban area destroyed, Hamburg listed as 75% destroyed, Dresden 59%.

Also: apparently 1930 Me262 were produced, but only 1433 were taken into Luftwaffe-service. Most of them were destroyed or damaged in transport, usually by allied aircraft who at that time could roam free. Only 100 were operational at a time, 232 were lost to enemy fire, 727 lost in accidents, and according to most sources I found only 100 were shot down. Inexperienced pilots were a major problem. The lack of fuel did not only keep the Me262 on the ground, in prevented adequate training. And apparently the R4M-rockets were very effective against bombers. In Ziegler's "Hitler's Jet Plane: The ME 262 Story" you can read that on march 18, 1945, 6 Me262 engaged 1221 bombers and 632 escort fighters. During the battle, the Me262's launched 144 R4M-rockets. Result was that 25 bombers were lost, for just 2 Me262. Now imagine what 60 would have caused, and this happening more often.

Actual US bomber losses on 18 March 1945 were 13 MIA and 15 category E according to Roger Freeman, total 28, 2 B-24, rest B-17, the 24 losses I have the cause for have 7 to fighter (mostly jet), 5 battle damage, 11 flak, 1 collision, once again someone is giving the total loss figure without noting causes. 37 Me262 in the air and most made intercept, JG7 lost 5 aircraft including 2 that collided with each other, known claims 11 B-17 and 3 P-51. When it came to the Me262 experienced pilots were the main problem, they were used to roughly handling the throttles, new pilots initially did better, by March 1945 the veterans were learning better.

The Wehrmacht 1944 was never fully operational because of the severe fuel shortage, and low morale because of the lack of air support.

If German oil output was higher pre war then the German economy would be more oil based, requiring a higher level of fuel to operate, think of diesel powered fishing boats instead of wind or coal as a simple example, the increased need for rubber for tyres, the US Synthetic rubber program was I believe bigger or at least comparable to the Manhattan project. The US only managed to make a small cut in its civil fuel use in WWII which was commendable given the major increase in economic activity, to a first approximation US military fuel consumption came from increased output. Look at Romanian fuel consumption as another example. Other problems include the higher the octane the less per barrel. The military can only squeeze the civilian economy so far before it becomes counter productive.

To mid 1944 no German operation was fuel constrained at the strategic level, and late 1944 for the army, there were inevitable local shortages. Italian Naval operations could have usefully done with more fuel. More fuel supply pre war gives the possibility of more mobile forces being created and therefore a better quality army if the funds can be found. As the US found truck supply beyond 200 miles does not work, you need working rail links, in late 1941 the Germans could try one last offensive to end the war in the east by taking Moscow or remain around their rail heads, where the supply system could better cope with demands like winter clothing. However as the original plan was fighting ends before winter there was going to be a clothing problem, the US had this in 1944, the allied advance went further than planned, into colder areas in Germany instead of around half way across France. Failure to knock out the USSR in 1941 means Britain has another year to prepare defences, Dowdings' 60 odd day and night fighter squadrons in 1940 had grown to 83 in October 1941.

In mid 1940 the Luftwaffe could use captured aircraft to provide the hardware for major expansion of the training system, historically it took until 1943 for day fighter pilots to graduate in the numbers needed to handle the Battle of Britain losses. The trouble was to find instructors. The 1940 fighting showed the Luftwaffe needed to become larger, this was ignored even as it became clear the USSR was going to be invaded. Assuming expansion the Luftwaffe would have to cut the average experience in its combat units for Barbarossa to provide instructors, given it took a year to train a pilot for example and it would not change the outcome of Barbarossa.

Germany's war ability was declining as the 19th century coal/iron gave way to steel, light metals and oil as vital supplies. Capture of the French Bauxite deposits etc., along with rigging occupied country's currency exchange rates, and charging security/occupation fees, often in kind like food, removed key financial constraints from German production. One short cut everyone tried was to reduce maintenance and keep older equipment like locomotives in service for longer. By 1944/45 that had reached its limits, Britain was drafting men into the coal mines, many preferred the infantry. Add pest control and irrigation system neglect as problems for growing food.

Finance, the Nazis embraced deficit spending, plus off the books loans, to create the 1930's German military, German standards of living were still below the late 1920's and stayed there. It meant in 1940 the German government spent more money in loan repayments and interest than on the war. Despite all the stimulus in numeric terms the Germans in the second half of the 1930's were building about as many aircraft as the depression mired US industry, though the German types were on average heavier and more sophisticated. In the middle/late 1930's the Royal Navy thought total cost of ownership of a naval aircraft over its 5 year life was 11,500 pounds per year, or about 5 to 6 aircraft to a J class destroyer. Ark Royal with its 72 aircraft around 1,308,000 pounds a year over its 20 year lifetime, a Nelson class battleship was 706,800 pounds a year over its 25 year lifetime.

Medium tanks cost around the same as a fighter as a first approximation, then comes running costs. WO 169/3861 (Eighth Army), a document from the G(AFV) Branch dated 'End Sept.' [1942] headed "Tank Overhaul Programme." It gives the overhaul mileage limit/annual mileage rate/time in workshops for overhaul (weeks) as:

Crusader 1200 / 3000 / 8
Valentine 2500 / 3000 / 8
Matilda 1000 / 3000 / 8
Stuart 3500 / 3000 / 4
Grant 1500 / 3000 / 8

Which firstly shows how few miles per year the tanks were expected to do, and the distance they could travel before they needed a major overhaul. You would expect the time between overhauls to be at least basically related to the great "reliability" tag. And indeed looking at the above the Stuart became the Honey, and the Valentine has a good reputation for reliability. Lots of tanks soak up lots of money.

As Germany was at full employment in 1939 the mobilisation caused economic problems, as over 4 million were called up, the civil work force dropped by about 3.5 million, even after another 0.9 million foreigners/PoW were used.

The Germans drafted plenty of non Germans into the military and into the civil workforce. As the official figures count working family members in the agriculture sector, German women in the work force went from 14.6 to 14.9 million 1939 to 1944, men went from 24.5 to 13.5 million, foreign/PoW 0.3 to 7.5 million, so the work force shrank and as the war went on the conditions for foreigners deteriorated and so did their productivity.

Food, the 5 WWII famines, Greece, Holland, Bengal, China, Indo China. The US cut rations to its ETO non combat personnel in early 1945 and extended the cut to the rest after VE day. Putting economies back together again proved hard, Italy had plenty of problems even after a year to allied control. Allied relief supplies to The European Theatre of Operations, long tons, by quarter, excluding liquid fuels,

Q2/44 727 (In other words 6 to 30 June 1944)
Q3/44 157,639
Q4/44 588,968
Q1/45 1,359,657
Q2/45 2,336,556
Q3/45 2,211,080

Total 6,654,627 long tons, in addition a further 6,853,313 long tons was sent to the Mediterranean in the same time period. Overall the mix was roughly 50:50 food:coal, with England supplying more coal and the US more food, all up the US supplied 6,788,765 tons, England 6,098,902 tons and Canada 620,273 tons.

If the fighting in Europe continues into late 1945 expect famine in German controlled areas and real problems in allied ones without some meaningful changes to food supply. Norway was having problems for example as the Germans were exporting most to all of its fish catch. Japan had people starve to death in its 1945/46 winter and received food aid from the US in 1946. To obtain V-2 fuel seed potatoes were used to make alcohol.

This lack of morale led to millions of them surrendering without a fight. The western allies took about 7-8 million POWs between the landing in Normandy and the 8th of may 1945, the soviets 2-3 million. Imagine these 10 millon men putting up a real fight. You probably would have had Verdun/Somme instead of the Falaise Pocket.

No. I think just US ETO Prisoner take, Jun-44 21,195, Jul-44 69,309, Aug-44 80,015, Sep-44 119,374, Oct-44 48,216, Nov-44 77,945, Dec-44 57,447, Jan-45 51,071, Feb-45 81,238, Mar-45 371,861, Apr-45 1,878,898, May-45 2,623,798. The US ETO lost around 57,500 men captured.

Try Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century by Colonel General Krivosheev for the Red Army's idea of the figures.

PoWs taken by the USSR, 1941 10,602, Jan to Jun 1942 6,683, Jul to Dec 1942 172,143, Jan to Jun 1943 364,881, Jul to Dec 1943 77,742, Jan to Jun 1944 256,415, Jul to Dec 1944 948,530, Jan to Apr 1945 1,305,344, 1 to 8 May 1945 634,950

Total 3,777,290, composed of 2,389,560 Germans, 156,682 Austrians, 513,767 Hungarians, 201,800 Romanians, 48,957 Italians, 2,377 Finns, with the remaining 464,147 made up of French, Slovaks, Czechs, Bulgarians, Spanish, "etc.".

It notes some 450,000 Germans, 54,700 Hungarians and 40,000 Romanians died in captivity. The table that footnotes the deaths in captivity gives a figure of 182,000 PoWs from men from Austria, Sudeten German, natives of Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg serving in the Wehrmacht. Note the figures do not include men taken prisoner post 8 May 1945.

Most of the millions of people captured were done so in the final 2 months of the war.

I don't think the American public would have accepted such losses. And sorry, I don't see the American military as this epic fighting force, their wars since 1945 don't indicate that at all.

The dead of the US civil war are estimated at 2% of the population, 620,000 men, which is a marker for what the US could sustain, it is similar to WWI+WWII, and in the 19th century there were higher disease tolls as well.

These atom bombs were probably very expensive and time consuming to produce. They would have to transport them by ship, unless they produce them in Britain, and a lot of them would get lost at sea.

According to the USN the allies lost 51 merchant ships to submarines January to April 1945, Rohwer notes at least 10 of these in the Arctic. Both the USN and RN had cruisers able to do 30 knot voyages US to UK.

Post war tests of the type XXI U-boats showed up a number of problems, including build quality and optimistic diving depths

They also had just executed people like Canaris, his co-conspirators, and about 2000 other suspected traitors, spies, resistance members or whatever you want to call them. Canaris was the chief of the German military intelligence service Abwehr and a British agent.

Canaris was anti Nazi, passed plenty, or allowed plenty, of information to the allies, but not a foreign agent.

A fun topic to research is how often German aircraft with new technology accidentally landed on British airfields, totally undamaged, so that the British can study them. When the British were having trouble with the new Fw190, a pilot accidentally landed his fresh-out-of-the-box Fw190 on a British airfield. The British could then study it's design, strengths, weaknesses.

And allied aircaft did the same, usual errors along with radio beacon interference, I think at least one trans Atlantic B-17/24 flew to Europe for example. The Fw190 arrival was 23 June 1942, second arrival on 17 April 1943, third on 20 May, fourth on 20 June

Now maybe this can happen by accident, but in case of the Lichtenstein-radar, it clear what was going on there:

In April 1943 a Ju 88 C-6 equipped with a FuG 202 B / C had landed in England,
On April 28, 1944, a Bf 110 with the registration C9+EN with the Lichtenstein SN-2 radar landed at Dübendorf Airport in Switzerland

On 13 July 1944 the improved version of the SN-2 fell into Allied hands after a fully equipped Ju 88 G-1 accidentally landed at RAF Woodbridge in south-east England

Ok, three times? That is not a coincidence. For more of these look up "Oslo Report" for example.

Ju88C in May 43 was a defection. The Bf110G landed in Switzerland on 15 March 1944, tested by the Swiss, their report says it was the older set, not SN-2. The British were working on the new radar wavelength in May 44 from things like gun camera footage of shoot downs, and knew from their own night fighters the Germans had changed wavelengths, the Ju88G landed in error July 1944, when the allies had a reasonable handle on SN-2 wavelength but how good the Flensburg (Monica) and Naxos (H2X) homers were was unknown. Before that signals interception had revealed the Germans were tracking IFF and H2S at least but not enough for action to be taken. See R.V. Jones

Oslo report was a comprehensive report on German military research and development.

General Halder, German Army in the east cumulative casualty figures to
06-Nov-41 6,017 officers and 139,164 men killed, 496 officers and 28,355 men missing, 15,919 officers and 496,157 men wounded
10-Dec-41 6,827 officers and 155,972 men killed, 562 officers and 31,922 men missing, 18,229 officers and 561,575 men wounded
10-Jan-42 7,337 officers and 173,455 men killed, 674 officers and 38,611 men missing, 19,564 officers and 628,325 men wounded
10-Feb-42 7,872 officers and 191,276 men killed, 729 officers and 43,730 men missing, 21,130 officers and 681,236 men wounded
10-Mar-42 8,456 officers and 210,595 men killed, 805 officers and 47,954 men missing, 22,551 officers and 750,634 men wounded
31-Mar-42 8,827 officers and 223,553 men killed, 855 officers and 51,665 men missing, 23,541 officers and 799,389 men wounded

In the first 4.5 months to 6 November around 686,000 casualties, in the slightly longer time period 7 November to 31 March 1942 422,000 casualties, plenty of winter casualties, plenty of casualties before winter. In 1941 a near all German force attacked all across the front, in 1942 half the front was kept quiet and 4 axis allied armies were deployed. The Luftwaffe largely gave up interdiction to do battlefield support given the weakness of the ground troops. The Heer was in trouble from 1942 onwards maintaining unit strength.

The Red Army performance moving into Poland and the winter war gave it a poor reputation, overall not as bad as Hitler chose to believe but bad enough.

US Jet fighter orders, the J program, approved June 1943,
500 P-80A, contract AC-2527
K program approved June 1944
500 P-80A, contract AC-2527
3000 P-80A contract AC-8388
1000 P-80N contract AC-7717
25 YP-84 and 75 P-84 contract AC-7687
As of end April 1945, 1,000 P-80A on formal contracts, the rest of the jets on approved letter contracts.

The air forces played a fundamental part in ensuring ground combat in WWII was more mobile, apart from the combat effect and the much bigger size of the air forces compared with WWI, the need for large AA defences well to the rear of the front line, back to the factories, meant less manpower available for the front line.

 

[yellownose]

I can't catch up with all the new postings. I did not expect such a lively discussion. There is no way how I can reply to everyone. I might try, but - listen guys, I posted a link to an article written by an US navy officer, specialized in "Navy Petroleum related strategy & issues"; it describes how much the lack of oil hampered the Wehrmacht on all levels. It took me about an hour to dig up the declassified report from the British intelligence about the effectiveness of the nuclear bombs that the British were building in 1950, and I also provided statistics.

You do not have to believe me. I get it, you don't know who I am, I could be just a nerd who likes to play World Of Tanks or whatever. But if you don't believe those that actually build nuclear bombs, then there is little I can still do. It would have not been "The Day After" for Germany. The full report also indicates that in 1950 nuclear bombs were not mass producible. I am not a nuclear physicist, but I believe those that actually were building them.


I try to make my point clearer.
Why was the German military so effective against enemies that outnumbered and outgunned them? The origin lies in the Prussian military. If you know the wartime rhetoric of the allies in WW2, you might have noticed that "Prussian militarism" was mentioned probably as much as a threat to them as Hitler, and after the war, Prussia was wiped off the map. It did not only ceased to exist as a state, it ceased to exist as a culture and an ethincity.

Prussia was originally a very small state at the border of Russia. They had to learn how to defeat larger armies and countries, and they very sucessfully did so and created an outstanding military culture, which after 1871 turned into all of Germany's military culture. So how do you defeat larger armies? You focus on individual quality, pace, manouverability, and the element of surprise. You basically do the same a boxer does who has to face a much larger opponent. You don't just trade punches. The claim that "whatever the Romans or Napoleon did doesn't matter" is nonsense. Things like "defeat in detail" or encirclements are STILL used in modern wars to win battles and have been used since antiquity. What made Hannibal win the battle of Cannae still wins battles today. If you think WW1-style trench warfare was made impossible by modern weapons, well, take a look at Ukraine or research the Iraq/Iran-war.
So now you have the reason why the Germans were not impressed by an enemy that brought more men and stuff to the party.

Then I reiterate in 1941 Keitel wrote that the Wehrmacht would require 400,000 tons of fuel more to run at full strength. In that year they consumed 9,997,051 tons, so 400,000 x 12 = 4,800,000, so the demand was for 14,8 million tons. This means even in 41/42, when they still thought they were winning, they only had 67% of the oil they needed to run at full capacity. This lead to cut backs, so pilots and tanks drivers got less training hours, aircraft only flew when absolutely necessary, and horses were used instead of trucks. Horses are slower, they need food, veterinarians, they can die of diseases and a single bullet. Once they are dead they are harder to replace than a truck, because mommy horse and daddy horse have to fall in love first.

So the thought experiment now is what IF the germans would not have been hampered by their lack of oil? Ideally, one could imagine that the land army moves faster since they can use trucks instead of horse carriages, the pilots get the same amout of training as their American counterparts (350 hours instead of 150, and we are not even talking about 1945 where new pilots only received a few hours in a f*** glider), and they could keep their aircraft in the sky longer - don't you think in that case they might have been more successful?

And since the Luftwaffe was - despite everything - still a formidable air force, an even better Luftwaffe might have maintained controll over the air space. So this is the idea here.

Let's go back to production. What the Germans tried to do was to 1) build weapons that were highly effective & quick to produce like the Panzerfaust 150/250, the MG 45 or the Sturmgewehr, or 3) build equipment that was of such high quality (or effectiveness in a combat situation) that one unit would be worth several units of the enemy. So statistically the Me262 would, once they had figured out the right tactics, destroy multiple enemy aircraft before it would be shot down. They knew very well that there was no way to outproduce the allies, which is why they didn't even try. They were going for "more bang for the buck".

I think that at the end of the war the Germans found the right mix for what they were aiming for. These were all weapons that were already in production, but they could not send them to the front, because at that time allied aircraft were roaming free above Germany, shooting at everything that moved.

But nukes.
Another thing to consider about the use of the nuclear bomb, beside what I already mentioned: Hitler had to die before Germany would surrender. I don't think a 21 kiloton bomb would have made Hitler shoot himself. The bombing of Dresden didn't do it. Hitler thought that it didn't matter how much Germany gets destroyed or how many Germans die, for him houses could be rebuild and new generations born, and nothing of this would matter IF the nation survived; and for a nation to survive a great sacrifice would be better than a cowardly surrender, because the sacrifice would turn into a myth that would inspire new generations. He had this from Von Clausewitz.


-----

But, I knew from the beginning that my scenario is unlikely for another reason, and G Geoffrey Sinclair has figured it out:

If German oil output was higher pre war then the German economy would be more oil based"

Yes. Right! I also think that the synthetic fuel production would have been neglected. Another problem is that the majority of the German oil fields is very close to the western or northern border, so they would be very vulnerable for air strikes.

Fantastic posting btw..

 

[33k in the air]

The claim that "whatever the Romans or Napoleon did doesn't matter" is nonsense. Things like "defeat in detail" or encirclements are STILL used in modern wars to win battles and have been used since antiquity. What made Hannibal win the battle of Cannae still wins battles today. If you think WW1-style trench warfare was made impossible by modern weapons, well, take a look at Ukraine or research the Iraq/Iran-war.

You're talking of battles. We're talking about wars. It's quite simple: if your enemy can replace losses in battles faster than you can, you lose in the long run. All wars are wars of attrition. General Lee during the American Civil War was able to defeat Union forces in detail many times (aided by overly cautious Union generalship) . But in the end it didn't matter: the Union was able to replace its losses and keep fighting (along with getting more aggressive generalship). The Confederacy was not in the same position.

So the thought experiment now is what IF the germans would not have been hampered by their lack of oil? . . . the pilots get the same amout of training as their American counterparts (350 hours instead of 150, and we are not even talking about 1945 where new pilots only received a few hours in a f*** glider), and they could keep their aircraft in the sky longer - don't you think in that case they might have been more successful?

You're overlooking the manpower issue. You are also overlooking that training those new pilots requires rotating out of combat your veteran pilots to act as instructors, as that combat experience is vital in teaching new crews what to do and what to expect. That is something Germany (and the Japanese) never did historically because it could not afford to do so as it had to make up the losses from fighting on multiple fronts.

And since the Luftwaffe was - despite everything - still a formidable air force, an even better Luftwaffe might have maintained controll over the air space. So this is the idea here.

Again, historically, the Luftwaffe was able to inflict losses on U.S. aircraft proportional to the number of sorties up through April 1944. It is after that point that Luftwaffe effectiveness drops markedly. The rapidly increasing size of American aerial forces, combined with more aggressive fighter tactics, resulted in losses that the Luftwaffe could not easily make up. Training time was cut because it had to get fighter pilots into aircraft to fill the empty slots. Then when the aviation fuel shortage came along later in the year, that only compounded the training issue.

Let's go back to production. What the Germans tried to do was to 1) build weapons that were highly effective & quick to produce like the Panzerfaust 150/250, the MG 45 or the Sturmgewehr, or 3) build equipment that was of such high quality (or effectiveness in a combat situation) that one unit would be worth several units of the enemy. So statistically the Me262 would, once they had figured out the right tactics, destroy multiple enemy aircraft before it would be shot down.

It also spent vast sums and resources on the V-2, something which was technologically revolutionary but militarily useless. It also wasted precious resources on other projects which were of dubious military value.

More Me 262s won't help much if for every Me 262 they are facing three P-80s and two Meteors.

They knew very well that there was no way to outproduce the allies, which is why they didn't even try. They were going for "more bang for the buck".

As the Soviets remarked, quantity has a quality all its own.

I think that at the end of the war the Germans found the right mix for what they were aiming for. These were all weapons that were already in production, but they could not send them to the front, because at that time allied aircraft were roaming free above Germany, shooting at everything that moved.

It is hard to move resources to the factory, and the product of the factories to the front, when your rail lines are cut, your marshalling yards are inoperative, and the locomotives short of coal, the result of the Transportation Plan.

Another thing to consider about the use of the nuclear bomb, beside what I already mentioned: Hitler had to die before Germany would surrender. I don't think a 21 kiloton bomb would have made Hitler shoot himself. The bombing of Dresden didn't do it. Hitler thought that it didn't matter how much Germany gets destroyed or how many Germans die, for him houses could be rebuild and new generations born, and nothing of this would matter IF the nation survived; and for a nation to survive a great sacrifice would be better than a cowardly surrender, because the sacrifice would turn into a myth that would inspire new generations. He had this from Von Clausewitz.

Japan was even more fanatically resistant. It nevertheless surrendered after two atomic bombings (admittedly other pressures contributed, and there was an attempted coup to prevent the surrender message from being broadcast).

Yes. Right! I also think that the synthetic fuel production would have been neglected. Another problem is that the majority of the German oil fields is very close to the western or northern border, so they would be very vulnerable for air strikes.

Let's say more oil is available. That means Germany can become a more mechanized military. Does it have the capacity to produce enough trucks to use in that mechanized military?

Even if oil was no longer a vulnerable node in the German economy due to increased oil production, it is still vulnerable in other areas. Knock out a few key chemical factories, and Germany does not have the chemicals needed for explosives and gunpowder production. Knock out German electrical generation, and there is nothing to power the factories. Hit aircraft and vehicle engine production, and it does not matter how many airframes or chassis are built.

For every measure there is a countermeasure. If the Germans are sufficient in fuel, other target nodes get moved up in priority.

 

[thunderbird]

Amazing the number if people who want Nazis to win WWII. Mindboggling.

 

[tomo pauk]

Amazing the number if people who want Nazis to win WWII. Mindboggling.

Can you list them?

 

[SaparotRob]

Nuclear weapons, Bomber Command managed to create about 4 fire storms during the war, nuclear weapons reliably create city destroying events, add the higher casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in part due to an unwarned population, think of how productive the economy becomes if everyone needs to take shelter from single or small formations of enemy bombers or just aircraft in the area. Arthur Harris reported 370 attacks on 70 German urban areas, pre war population of around 22,800,000, resulted in 49% of the urban area destroyed, Hamburg listed as 75% destroyed, Dresden 59%.


Actual US bomber losses on 18 March 1945 were 13 MIA and 15 category E according to Roger Freeman, total 28, 2 B-24, rest B-17, the 24 losses I have the cause for have 7 to fighter (mostly jet), 5 battle damage, 11 flak, 1 collision, once again someone is giving the total loss figure without noting causes. 37 Me262 in the air and most made intercept, JG7 lost 5 aircraft including 2 that collided with each other, known claims 11 B-17 and 3 P-51. When it came to the Me262 experienced pilots were the main problem, they were used to roughly handling the throttles, new pilots initially did better, by March 1945 the veterans were learning better.


If German oil output was higher pre war then the German economy would be more oil based, requiring a higher level of fuel to operate, think of diesel powered fishing boats instead of wind or coal as a simple example, the increased need for rubber for tyres, the US Synthetic rubber program was I believe bigger or at least comparable to the Manhattan project. The US only managed to make a small cut in its civil fuel use in WWII which was commendable given the major increase in economic activity, to a first approximation US military fuel consumption came from increased output. Look at Romanian fuel consumption as another example. Other problems include the higher the octane the less per barrel. The military can only squeeze the civilian economy so far before it becomes counter productive.

To mid 1944 no German operation was fuel constrained at the strategic level, and late 1944 for the army, there were inevitable local shortages. Italian Naval operations could have usefully done with more fuel. More fuel supply pre war gives the possibility of more mobile forces being created and therefore a better quality army if the funds can be found. As the US found truck supply beyond 200 miles does not work, you need working rail links, in late 1941 the Germans could try one last offensive to end the war in the east by taking Moscow or remain around their rail heads, where the supply system could better cope with demands like winter clothing. However as the original plan was fighting ends before winter there was going to be a clothing problem, the US had this in 1944, the allied advance went further than planned, into colder areas in Germany instead of around half way across France. Failure to knock out the USSR in 1941 means Britain has another year to prepare defences, Dowdings' 60 odd day and night fighter squadrons in 1940 had grown to 83 in October 1941.

In mid 1940 the Luftwaffe could use captured aircraft to provide the hardware for major expansion of the training system, historically it took until 1943 for day fighter pilots to graduate in the numbers needed to handle the Battle of Britain losses. The trouble was to find instructors. The 1940 fighting showed the Luftwaffe needed to become larger, this was ignored even as it became clear the USSR was going to be invaded. Assuming expansion the Luftwaffe would have to cut the average experience in its combat units for Barbarossa to provide instructors, given it took a year to train a pilot for example and it would not change the outcome of Barbarossa.

Germany's war ability was declining as the 19th century coal/iron gave way to steel, light metals and oil as vital supplies. Capture of the French Bauxite deposits etc., along with rigging occupied country's currency exchange rates, and charging security/occupation fees, often in kind like food, removed key financial constraints from German production. One short cut everyone tried was to reduce maintenance and keep older equipment like locomotives in service for longer. By 1944/45 that had reached its limits, Britain was drafting men into the coal mines, many preferred the infantry. Add pest control and irrigation system neglect as problems for growing food.

Finance, the Nazis embraced deficit spending, plus off the books loans, to create the 1930's German military, German standards of living were still below the late 1920's and stayed there. It meant in 1940 the German government spent more money in loan repayments and interest than on the war. Despite all the stimulus in numeric terms the Germans in the second half of the 1930's were building about as many aircraft as the depression mired US industry, though the German types were on average heavier and more sophisticated. In the middle/late 1930's the Royal Navy thought total cost of ownership of a naval aircraft over its 5 year life was 11,500 pounds per year, or about 5 to 6 aircraft to a J class destroyer. Ark Royal with its 72 aircraft around 1,308,000 pounds a year over its 20 year lifetime, a Nelson class battleship was 706,800 pounds a year over its 25 year lifetime.

Medium tanks cost around the same as a fighter as a first approximation, then comes running costs. WO 169/3861 (Eighth Army), a document from the G(AFV) Branch dated 'End Sept.' [1942] headed "Tank Overhaul Programme." It gives the overhaul mileage limit/annual mileage rate/time in workshops for overhaul (weeks) as:

Crusader 1200 / 3000 / 8
Valentine 2500 / 3000 / 8
Matilda 1000 / 3000 / 8
Stuart 3500 / 3000 / 4
Grant 1500 / 3000 / 8

Which firstly shows how few miles per year the tanks were expected to do, and the distance they could travel before they needed a major overhaul. You would expect the time between overhauls to be at least basically related to the great "reliability" tag. And indeed looking at the above the Stuart became the Honey, and the Valentine has a good reputation for reliability. Lots of tanks soak up lots of money.

As Germany was at full employment in 1939 the mobilisation caused economic problems, as over 4 million were called up, the civil work force dropped by about 3.5 million, even after another 0.9 million foreigners/PoW were used.

The Germans drafted plenty of non Germans into the military and into the civil workforce. As the official figures count working family members in the agriculture sector, German women in the work force went from 14.6 to 14.9 million 1939 to 1944, men went from 24.5 to 13.5 million, foreign/PoW 0.3 to 7.5 million, so the work force shrank and as the war went on the conditions for foreigners deteriorated and so did their productivity.

Food, the 5 WWII famines, Greece, Holland, Bengal, China, Indo China. The US cut rations to its ETO non combat personnel in early 1945 and extended the cut to the rest after VE day. Putting economies back together again proved hard, Italy had plenty of problems even after a year to allied control. Allied relief supplies to The European Theatre of Operations, long tons, by quarter, excluding liquid fuels,

Q2/44 727 (In other words 6 to 30 June 1944)
Q3/44 157,639
Q4/44 588,968
Q1/45 1,359,657
Q2/45 2,336,556
Q3/45 2,211,080

Total 6,654,627 long tons, in addition a further 6,853,313 long tons was sent to the Mediterranean in the same time period. Overall the mix was roughly 50:50 food:coal, with England supplying more coal and the US more food, all up the US supplied 6,788,765 tons, England 6,098,902 tons and Canada 620,273 tons.

If the fighting in Europe continues into late 1945 expect famine in German controlled areas and real problems in allied ones without some meaningful changes to food supply. Norway was having problems for example as the Germans were exporting most to all of its fish catch. Japan had people starve to death in its 1945/46 winter and received food aid from the US in 1946. To obtain V-2 fuel seed potatoes were used to make alcohol.


No. I think just US ETO Prisoner take, Jun-44 21,195, Jul-44 69,309, Aug-44 80,015, Sep-44 119,374, Oct-44 48,216, Nov-44 77,945, Dec-44 57,447, Jan-45 51,071, Feb-45 81,238, Mar-45 371,861, Apr-45 1,878,898, May-45 2,623,798. The US ETO lost around 57,500 men captured.

Try Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century by Colonel General Krivosheev for the Red Army's idea of the figures.

PoWs taken by the USSR, 1941 10,602, Jan to Jun 1942 6,683, Jul to Dec 1942 172,143, Jan to Jun 1943 364,881, Jul to Dec 1943 77,742, Jan to Jun 1944 256,415, Jul to Dec 1944 948,530, Jan to Apr 1945 1,305,344, 1 to 8 May 1945 634,950

Total 3,777,290, composed of 2,389,560 Germans, 156,682 Austrians, 513,767 Hungarians, 201,800 Romanians, 48,957 Italians, 2,377 Finns, with the remaining 464,147 made up of French, Slovaks, Czechs, Bulgarians, Spanish, "etc.".

It notes some 450,000 Germans, 54,700 Hungarians and 40,000 Romanians died in captivity. The table that footnotes the deaths in captivity gives a figure of 182,000 PoWs from men from Austria, Sudeten German, natives of Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg serving in the Wehrmacht. Note the figures do not include men taken prisoner post 8 May 1945.

Most of the millions of people captured were done so in the final 2 months of the war.


The dead of the US civil war are estimated at 2% of the population, 620,000 men, which is a marker for what the US could sustain, it is similar to WWI+WWII, and in the 19th century there were higher disease tolls as well.


According to the USN the allies lost 51 merchant ships to submarines January to April 1945, Rohwer notes at least 10 of these in the Arctic. Both the USN and RN had cruisers able to do 30 knot voyages US to UK.

Post war tests of the type XXI U-boats showed up a number of problems, including build quality and optimistic diving depths

Canaris was anti Nazi, passed plenty, or allowed plenty, of information to the allies, but not a foreign agent.


And allied aircaft did the same, usual errors along with radio beacon interference, I think at least one trans Atlantic B-17/24 flew to Europe for example. The Fw190 arrival was 23 June 1942, second arrival on 17 April 1943, third on 20 May, fourth on 20 June

Ju88C in May 43 was a defection. The Bf110G landed in Switzerland on 15 March 1944, tested by the Swiss, their report says it was the older set, not SN-2. The British were working on the new radar wavelength in May 44 from things like gun camera footage of shoot downs, and knew from their own night fighters the Germans had changed wavelengths, the Ju88G landed in error July 1944, when the allies had a reasonable handle on SN-2 wavelength but how good the Flensburg (Monica) and Naxos (H2X) homers were was unknown. Before that signals interception had revealed the Germans were tracking IFF and H2S at least but not enough for action to be taken. See R.V. Jones

Oslo report was a comprehensive report on German military research and development.

General Halder, German Army in the east cumulative casualty figures to
06-Nov-41 6,017 officers and 139,164 men killed, 496 officers and 28,355 men missing, 15,919 officers and 496,157 men wounded
10-Dec-41 6,827 officers and 155,972 men killed, 562 officers and 31,922 men missing, 18,229 officers and 561,575 men wounded
10-Jan-42 7,337 officers and 173,455 men killed, 674 officers and 38,611 men missing, 19,564 officers and 628,325 men wounded
10-Feb-42 7,872 officers and 191,276 men killed, 729 officers and 43,730 men missing, 21,130 officers and 681,236 men wounded
10-Mar-42 8,456 officers and 210,595 men killed, 805 officers and 47,954 men missing, 22,551 officers and 750,634 men wounded
31-Mar-42 8,827 officers and 223,553 men killed, 855 officers and 51,665 men missing, 23,541 officers and 799,389 men wounded

In the first 4.5 months to 6 November around 686,000 casualties, in the slightly longer time period 7 November to 31 March 1942 422,000 casualties, plenty of winter casualties, plenty of casualties before winter. In 1941 a near all German force attacked all across the front, in 1942 half the front was kept quiet and 4 axis allied armies were deployed. The Luftwaffe largely gave up interdiction to do battlefield support given the weakness of the ground troops. The Heer was in trouble from 1942 onwards maintaining unit strength.

The Red Army performance moving into Poland and the winter war gave it a poor reputation, overall not as bad as Hitler chose to believe but bad enough.

US Jet fighter orders, the J program, approved June 1943,
500 P-80A, contract AC-2527
K program approved June 1944
500 P-80A, contract AC-2527
3000 P-80A contract AC-8388
1000 P-80N contract AC-7717
25 YP-84 and 75 P-84 contract AC-7687
As of end April 1945, 1,000 P-80A on formal contracts, the rest of the jets on approved letter contracts.

The air forces played a fundamental part in ensuring ground combat in WWII was more mobile, apart from the combat effect and the much bigger size of the air forces compared with WWI, the need for large AA defences well to the rear of the front line, back to the factories, meant less manpower available for the front line.

That was a very informative post. The bacon was for the effort of a your reasoned, cogent reply.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Haha, this must be a 'Murrican.

And you can try and get your point across without being an ass. Knock it off with the snide and snarky comments.