Who here wants the German's to win? I have not seen a single person to indicate they wanted that.
German fuel situation and what to improve on it, 2.0
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Who here wants the German's to win? I have not seen a single person to indicate they wanted that.
yellownose
Airman
- 25
- May 17, 2023
DerAdlerIstGelandet
That's a very unamerican thing to say
33k in the air
Nowhere did I say that in 1944 Germany still had a chance to win the war. I said if Germany would have had a domestic oil production like in 1955 (!), the world would look different. You can draw up various scenarios.
But here I was reacting to you asking "How exactly does the western front get to millions of U.S. casualties?". Well, by being more sucessful on the battlefield. Remember that "casualties" doesn't mean "soldiers killed".
Speaking about "soldiers killed" G Geoffrey Sinclair posted Krivosheev's numbers for Red Army-soldiers killed. In this case I would recommend reading the Wikipedia-article on the soviet casualties of WW2, it features Krivosheev's estimates as "settled science", but further down in the article you will read that a lot of Russian historians criticize these numbers. The disparity is off the charts. As an example, a short quote:
- In 1990, General I. A. Gerasimov published information from the Russian Military Archives database that put losses at 16.2 million enlisted men and 1.2 million officers. Korol also cited historian-archivist Iu. Geller who put losses at 46 million, including military dead of 23 million.[86] and A.N. Mertsalov's estimate of 14 million military dead based on documents in the Russian Military Archives.
A sidenote: the "losses" of 46 million include "children not born because of the war". But:
If the Russians can't figure this out, I also can't. But as I already mentioned, the soviet census of 1959 only counted 38,4% male population among the wartime generation, and Russian demographers estimate that the USSR lost (without "babys not born") about 20 million men and 6,6 million women. Krivosheev himself writes that 73,3% of the tank force was lost. Considering this and that around 34,476,700 served in the Red Army overall, I find 8,660,000 dead very hard to believe. It seems to be a very emotional topic in Russia.
I am not familiar with the japanese ideology in WW2, but I doubt Hirohito was more fanatical than Hitler. The whole idea of bringing a country to it's knees by killing it's civilians falls on it's face when you have people in charge that believe that the bigger the sacrifice, the healthier it is for the future of a nation, because a nations needs heros, myths and martyrers. The terror bombings made Hitler angry and waste ressources on the V1 and V2-programms, but in no way did he ever consider surrender.
Anyhow, I think I said everything. There were a lot of very interesting replys that I didn't react to, I don't agree with everything, but overall the discussion was very informative.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 784
- Sep 30, 2021
The article only lists the US Merchant Marine deaths. Germans ran out of supply capacity in 1942, which is not the same as running out of fuel. The 15,000 aircraft strength Luftwaffe is supposed to consume 60% of 2 years of world oil supply, if this consumption were true there is no way the USAAF and RAF could have reached their wartime strengths. Try 60% of world aviation fuel production in a peacetime situation.
Post Munch Hitler wanted a 5 fold increase in Luftwaffe size by 1942, which would push it to around the 15,000 front line strength, Williamson Murray notes this would consume 85% of world aviation fuel and cost the entire German 1933 to 1939 military budget.
Germany did not turn to synthetic oil production, it assumed reliance on it, with origins in the need for fuel in WWI. Leuna began operations in 1927. Check out Hell's Cartel by Diarmuid Jeffreys. Standard Oil bought the synthetic oil patents because in the 1920's no one knew how much oil the world had, but did know there was plenty of coal. Standard also bought the synthetic rubber patents, useful in WWII, remember at the time the British had a near monopoly on world natural rubber supply, cue picture of unimpressed USA.
The Auschwich fuel etc. plants were effectively never completed, they mainly functioned as ways to kill prisoners, something the I.G. Farben people were well aware of.
The German army 52 mobile out of 322 total divisions figure is 16.1%, counting the marines and remembering a US infantry division needed attached truck units to fully motorise, the US had 16 armoured divisions out of 96, 16.7%. As much as everyone knows about tanks the leg infantry were still the main force of the army.
Everyone where possible railed their AFV around. The US military bought around 850,000 2.5 tons trucks, about a third of total truck purchases, not 800,000 trucks total.
Operation Tidal Wave destroyed the reserve refining capacity at Ploesti, the defenders reacted by putting in a pipeline connecting all the refineries together to move crude as required. In any case Germany alone had more refining capacity than required, so crude was shipped out by rail or the Danube. The additional refining capacity is one reason the Heer did not have a fuel crisis until later than the Luftwaffe, the loss of Romanian oil was the big blow to the Heer.
The third wave at Perl Harbor idea returns, run the numbers and see how little effect the tonnage of under 100 naval strike aircraft would have had on just the oil tanks, against a fully alert defence system, including fighters.
Apparently building oil pipelines is very effective in Anti Submarine Warfare. The US wartime pipelines were needed to free the tankers to move much more oil overseas, and cope with the tanker losses in 1942, the allied tanker fleet took until around the end of 1943 to recover to early 1942 levels, and that had a real impact on allied capabilities.
From Carey Sublette on Nuclear weapons. Shipment for a third bomb core for use against Japan began shipment (but was recalled before leaving Los Alamos) on 11 August 1945, before the Japanese surrender. A fourth core might have been available before the end of the month. There were a couple of thousand tons of unprocessed ore on hand, and Canadian mines were going in to production, so that nothing could have interrupted U.S. supply.
Between 20 and 22 atomic weapons would have been available in 1945, and production for the first 11 months of 1946 would have been 110-120 weapons. We know this since the production figures for fissile material are available for this period (1041 kg cumulative production of U-235, 396.8 kg of plutonium).
Napoleon found Germany a simple place to invade. After that the German military went through significant changes and created system that was much better at finding and using better ideas. There has always been a shifting balance between the power of defence and offence and remember WWI on the eastern front saw a lot of movement, in the west the rail system meant troops could be sent from long distances to plug gaps. In WWII the Heer understood decision times had to be improved to match the faster speeds of motorised troops, for much of the war it could take action much faster than opponents. In the east this was compounded by the Red Army's lack of radios, try fighter combat without a radio versus a force that has them, tanks similar, stories of Germans dropping in behind formations and working their way up to the leaders. The German system was brilliant at tactical and grand tactical, and way behind in strategic, including logistics, not surprising given the geographical situation, lots of possible enemies close by.
Using the USSBS German Avgas consumption by the military in the second half of 1941 was over 100,000 tons per month on average, from around 140,000 tons in July to 80,000 tons in December and above production from March to November. Military petrol consumption was over 150,000 tons per month on average, from around 250,000 tons in June to 110,000 in November.
Add the navy and Keitel is calling for a doubling of fuel, even if it is 50% more the trouble is the number of military machines requiring fuel was rapidly declining, by the end of 1941 the Luftwaffe bomber force would be half strength, half of which were operational, the 16 panzer divisions in Army Groups North and Centre reported as of 22 December they had 385 operational tanks between them. The Heer tank repair system was return to depot in Germany for overhaul. The supply system could not do this, attempts to ship the spare parts etc. ran into supply capacity problems plus all the problems of suddenly changing the system. No amount of extra fuel was going to overcome the problems of how mechanically fragile tanks and aircraft were and are. If the spare parts supply was excellent and the mechanics available the panzer divisions mentioned earlier had another 780 tanks on strength. So a better working rail and repair system would double to triple the available armour and probably similar for other vehicles. Then again the Luftwaffe usually had spare parts problems even in Germany.
Luftwaffe training times were superior to the RAF to sometime in 1942, fell behind the western allies in 1943 and became about half the time 1943/44 and more significantly a third to a fifth on operational types. It became worse from mid 1944 on. Part of this was fuel but most to mid 1944 was due to the losses being taken, including aircraft, remember the early Luftwaffe idea was the fourth Gruppe in each Geschwader was operational training and attrition in the east was low enough flying there could substitute for final training in theory.
The fate of the Luftwaffe was largely sealed by the failure to learn the lessons of the Battle of Britain, going east in 1941 accelerated that. To have a bigger Luftwaffe plus panzertruppen in 1940 requires more money pre war, not more fuel.
All sides came up with better designs during the war, along with some really bad ones, picking out the best of one side without noting the failures does not help. The Tiger tank was not a quick to produce item, the Panther seems to have been cheaper than the Panzer IV, the V-1 highly cost effective, the V-2 a near total waste. Implying the situation in late 1944 into 1945 applies to earlier time periods destroys the claims. There was a lot of waste in the early war aircraft production system, including senior pilots being able to ask for custom fittings.
As of 1939 no one, including the US, believed it could make as much stuff as it did, (25,000 planes a year? madness!) everyone agreed it could make more than most, but of what quality and quantity was another matter. To back off for a moment, after the US Civil War you can arrange the evidence to believe the USA military was about as good as Iraq in the Gulf Wars, the US had only fought lesser powers in short fights and by the time they arrived in 1918 the Germans were beaten, the US did not have to face a "proper" European military so it could not. We know now the reality, the people in 1939 did not.
Hitler ordered scorched earth for Germany, the master race idea meant winning wars proved you were the superior, Germany had failed and failed him, so it deserved destruction. It then becomes how much a rapidly starving military system and population as of the second half of 1945 agreed to keep resisting. Ending up with Stalin in charge was a good reason to keep fighting, while admittedly with more people in harm's way the US Army under Eisenhower reported more casualties in March 1945 than July 1944, and more in April 1945 than June 1944. Against this the prisoner take of over 370,000 in April 1945 was more than the 338,000 taken June to October 1944 inclusive. Not sure how the prisoner statistics count the very large number of Wehrmacht personnel who were patients in the medical system when it fell into allied hands.
No I posted General Halder's report on German casualties and Krivosheev's figures for prisoners taken by the USSR. The US Army in the ETO reports 552,117 casualties June 1944 to May 1945. So you want to increase the effectiveness of the German resistance by at least 4 times. By the way 100% of the German tank force was lost, similar for aircraft. I have never tallied the percentage of aircraft in the RAF or USAAF lost in the war but it will be large, similar for their tank forces. Like all statistics be sure about what is being counted.
The Japanese super cabinet, the "Big Six" split in half from early 1945 over whether to continue the war, no one changed their votes, by custom the Emperor did not speak at the meetings, but at the key meeting the Foreign Minister asked for an opinion, which was for peace, and the people present obeyed though parts of the army tried its usual armed rebellion.
yellownose
Airman
- 25
- May 17, 2023
G
Geoffrey Sinclair
Just a short message, you bring up some numbers that need "fact checking".
Just the numbers of German prisoners of war in June 1945. I quote from "Eisenhower And The German POWs", published by the Eisenhower Foundation and Stephen E. Ambrose as a reaction to "Other Losses" by Baque. On page 5, Günther Bischof and Stephen Ambrose write:
"Eisenhower had anticipated capturing 3 million German soldiers on the continent. The actual total was as many as ca. 5 million in American hands in June (7,6 million in allied hands in north-western Europe alone, not counting the 1,4 million in Allied hands in Italy). "
On page 141 Rüdiger Overmans writes "Drafted into the Wehrmacht (including Waffen-SS): 17,893,200. Wounded and sick in military hospitals: 700,000. Discharged for employment in weapons industry: ca. 2,000,000. Permanently unfit for service: 438,000. Discharged for miscellaneous reasons: 1,630,000. Dead up unti Nov. 30 1944: 1,911,000. Missing or POW: 1,714,000. Wehrmacht, including Waffen-SS, as of May 1, 1945: 7,590,000"
Page 144: "Number of German Prisoners Of War:
USSR: 3,155,000
Yugoslavia: 194,000
USA: 3,800,000
Britain: 3,700,000
France: 245,000
Total: 11,094,000"
Later hundred thousands of prisoners would be shipped around.
The reason why I brought up the numbers of POWs taken was that Germany still had a substantial force. So "how would they have quadrupled the US losses" - by putting up a fight.
You bring up a lot of interesting info, but for the discussion here a lot of it is minutiae, and if you start arguing over details, you tend to lose the thread. Here's the thing: look at the resumee of the author of the defense.info article. Sorry, I don't have any reason not to believe him, just as I don't have any reason not to believe Keitel, or the branch of the British intelligence agency that write the report I copied.
One thing about picking and chosing from historians: in 2014 I read another WW2-book, and the foreword said that "thusfar, 750,000 books have been written about WW2". So now we should be at a million. Why are there so many books about the "best documented war in history"? Historians tend to correct, contradict, or debunk each other. Recently I read "Hitler - Only The World Was Enough" by brandan Simms. This book was hyped up, but for me this is thusfar the dumbest Hitler biography I have read. This is a typical case of a late born historian picking and choosing from things Hitler said, that he supposedly said secretly, privately, according to somebody, and from "documents" of dubious origin, like the table talks. Interestingly at the same time Sean McMeekin's "Stalin's War" was published, and both books describe a totally different war. Both scenarios can't exist in the same world.
When it comes to making a choice who to believe, then I prefer those that actually lived through WW2. The WW2 "documents" that are stored in the archives around the world are probably billions of sheets of paper in various languages. No historian can read them all. But those that have lived through that times can close the gaps with their experience. They also understand the mindset of that time. Somebody who was born 30 or 40 years later will never understand the time as a contemporary. "Somebody wrote" - who? A historian? What's his background. Other than some degree in history, which is not an impressive feat. I say this as somebody who has studied history.
I don't know why you bring up the "Nero order", but it is 100% nonsense, probably made up by Albert Speer. Nothing of that is mentioned in Hitler testament, which is confirmed as 100% authentic:
The "master race" were neither Germans nor "blond people", but Aryans. Aryans are what anglo-saxons call "white people". The idea of a white "master race" came from the British, who observed in India that the people in the upper castes tend to look white and those in the lower castes dark, and it was exacerbated by the fact that in 1900 the whole world was ruled by white people. There were various romanticizations of it. As far as I know no prominent Nazi ever claimed that Germans are a seperate "master race". "Master race" is often confused with "Übermensch", which is a nietzschean concept and has nothing to do with race.
Untermensch on the other hand is not a nietzschean term. It was coined by Lothrop Stoddard.
In Hitler's testament you will also find the Clausewitz's belief I described in his own words. I did not make this up, you can read it yourself.
Btw, we are talking about oil here.
Just the numbers of German prisoners of war in June 1945. I quote from "Eisenhower And The German POWs", published by the Eisenhower Foundation and Stephen E. Ambrose as a reaction to "Other Losses" by Baque. On page 5, Günther Bischof and Stephen Ambrose write:
"Eisenhower had anticipated capturing 3 million German soldiers on the continent. The actual total was as many as ca. 5 million in American hands in June (7,6 million in allied hands in north-western Europe alone, not counting the 1,4 million in Allied hands in Italy). "
On page 141 Rüdiger Overmans writes "Drafted into the Wehrmacht (including Waffen-SS): 17,893,200. Wounded and sick in military hospitals: 700,000. Discharged for employment in weapons industry: ca. 2,000,000. Permanently unfit for service: 438,000. Discharged for miscellaneous reasons: 1,630,000. Dead up unti Nov. 30 1944: 1,911,000. Missing or POW: 1,714,000. Wehrmacht, including Waffen-SS, as of May 1, 1945: 7,590,000"
Page 144: "Number of German Prisoners Of War:
USSR: 3,155,000
Yugoslavia: 194,000
USA: 3,800,000
Britain: 3,700,000
France: 245,000
Total: 11,094,000"
Later hundred thousands of prisoners would be shipped around.
The reason why I brought up the numbers of POWs taken was that Germany still had a substantial force. So "how would they have quadrupled the US losses" - by putting up a fight.
You bring up a lot of interesting info, but for the discussion here a lot of it is minutiae, and if you start arguing over details, you tend to lose the thread. Here's the thing: look at the resumee of the author of the defense.info article. Sorry, I don't have any reason not to believe him, just as I don't have any reason not to believe Keitel, or the branch of the British intelligence agency that write the report I copied.
One thing about picking and chosing from historians: in 2014 I read another WW2-book, and the foreword said that "thusfar, 750,000 books have been written about WW2". So now we should be at a million. Why are there so many books about the "best documented war in history"? Historians tend to correct, contradict, or debunk each other. Recently I read "Hitler - Only The World Was Enough" by brandan Simms. This book was hyped up, but for me this is thusfar the dumbest Hitler biography I have read. This is a typical case of a late born historian picking and choosing from things Hitler said, that he supposedly said secretly, privately, according to somebody, and from "documents" of dubious origin, like the table talks. Interestingly at the same time Sean McMeekin's "Stalin's War" was published, and both books describe a totally different war. Both scenarios can't exist in the same world.
When it comes to making a choice who to believe, then I prefer those that actually lived through WW2. The WW2 "documents" that are stored in the archives around the world are probably billions of sheets of paper in various languages. No historian can read them all. But those that have lived through that times can close the gaps with their experience. They also understand the mindset of that time. Somebody who was born 30 or 40 years later will never understand the time as a contemporary. "Somebody wrote" - who? A historian? What's his background. Other than some degree in history, which is not an impressive feat. I say this as somebody who has studied history.
I don't know why you bring up the "Nero order", but it is 100% nonsense, probably made up by Albert Speer. Nothing of that is mentioned in Hitler testament, which is confirmed as 100% authentic:
The "master race" were neither Germans nor "blond people", but Aryans. Aryans are what anglo-saxons call "white people". The idea of a white "master race" came from the British, who observed in India that the people in the upper castes tend to look white and those in the lower castes dark, and it was exacerbated by the fact that in 1900 the whole world was ruled by white people. There were various romanticizations of it. As far as I know no prominent Nazi ever claimed that Germans are a seperate "master race". "Master race" is often confused with "Übermensch", which is a nietzschean concept and has nothing to do with race.
Untermensch on the other hand is not a nietzschean term. It was coined by Lothrop Stoddard.
In Hitler's testament you will also find the Clausewitz's belief I described in his own words. I did not make this up, you can read it yourself.
Btw, we are talking about oil here.
wiking85
Staff Sergeant
Pretty simple, have them discover Matzen and Schoonebeek oil fields before or early in the war. Combined they had a peak output of something like 4.5 million tons of oil per year.
The issue with mining more coal was lack of food due to the blockade of Europe. The Germans noted that worker productivity in those heavy labor jobs fell directly due to calorie intact going down. All the coal in the world isn't going to help without sufficient labor or labor fed well enough to work hard. And of course you need some method to convert it to useful fuel if it won't be burned as is. Steam power add ons for motor vehicles takes resources and things were already quite zero-sum.
At the margins perhaps using more wood in aircraft pre-war to lower fuel consumption and increase speed? Perhaps they figure out densified wood production?
New densified wood is as strong as steel
ENGINEERS at the University of Maryland have developed a way to make wood more than ten times stronger, creating a low-cost and lightweight alternative to most metals and alloys.
www.thechemicalengineer.com
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I've seen it elsewhere and I tune it out. I have not seen it here.
To which extent was German coal production mechanized before/during WWII? A quick look on wikipedia suggests bucket wheel excavators have been around since the 1920'ies, which surely beats guys with shovels for open pit lignite mining. I suspect for these power/weight isn't a massive issue, so they could have built them steam powered, thus saving the oh-so-precious liquid fuel.
At the margins perhaps using more wood in aircraft pre-war to lower fuel consumption and increase speed? Perhaps they figure out densified wood production?
New densified wood is as strong as steel
ENGINEERS at the University of Maryland have developed a way to make wood more than ten times stronger, creating a low-cost and lightweight alternative to most metals and alloys.www.thechemicalengineer.com
The Mosquito is of course the stellar example of wood composite construction of the day. My understanding is that weight-wise it was about the same as an equivalent plane built from aluminum. So yes, no particular reason why Germany couldn't have developed this technology back then either.
I'll reiterate my previous statement in this thread, that 'dieselization' of Wehrmacht was an opportunity they missed. Diesels of that era were around 30-40%(?) more efficient than spark ignition engines, so with that one change (assuming volumes would have been the same), that would mean they would have been at something close to 90% of full operational capacity. And it's not only about needing 30% less fuel overall, it also means your logistics chain needs to transport 30% less fuel. So you need fewer tanker ships, barges, railcars, trucks etc. as well.
And yes, it's true that you can't willy-nilly change the carbon chain length of petroleum. Or well, nowadays you can, to an extent, but it still takes a lot of capital and energy cost to run those FCC's and whatnot. However, diesel engines tend to be much less picky about the fuel than SI engines, and they can use fuel with a quite varying carbon chain length, particularly in an emergency, and the refinery processing is much simpler (see e.g. the NATO plans about running everything on JP-8). Pretty much the basic fractional distillation is all that is needed. Compare with the processes needed to make gasoline with decent octane in this image from wikipedia. Note that the treatment for kerosene and diesel in that picture is about desulphurization, which wasn't a concern back in WWII. Fractional distillation is all you need.
Attachments
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,232
- Jan 31, 2021
It wasn't the Emperor, it was the mentality of the Japanese military, particularly the Army. It was fanatical, and routinely fought to the death rather than surrender. Indeed, surrender was considered dishonourable, and death preferable. It was quite prepared to expend the lives of millions of Japanese citizens to repel any U.S. invasion of the homeland.
Even after two atomic bombings, a Soviet declaration of war and attack into Manchuria, and continued American bombing, the Japanese cabinet was still deadlocked on the matter of surrender. That's how fanatical some in the Imperial Japanese Army were in fighting to the last man. It took the unprecedented step of the Emperor breaking the tie in favour of surrender to settle it. And even then there was an attempted coup by some Army members to prevent the surrender message from being broadcast.
Reducing Horses in Agriculture and elsewhere, frees up around 1/3 of the acreage used for Fodder to be repurposed for Food crops.Pretty simple, have them discover Matzen and Schoonebeek oil fields before or early in the war. Combined they had a peak output of something like 4.5 million tons of oil per year.
The issue with mining more coal was lack of food due to the blockade of Europe. The Germans noted that worker productivity in those heavy labor jobs fell directly due to calorie intact going down. All the coal in the world isn't going to help without sufficient labor or labor fed well enough to work hard. And of course you need some method to convert it to useful fuel if it won't be burned as is. Steam power add ons for motor vehicles takes resources and things were already quite zero-sum.
At the margins perhaps using more wood in aircraft pre-war to lower fuel consumption and increase speed? Perhaps they figure out densified wood production?
New densified wood is as strong as steel
ENGINEERS at the University of Maryland have developed a way to make wood more than ten times stronger, creating a low-cost and lightweight alternative to most metals and alloys.www.thechemicalengineer.com
Then, as I posted above, the Germans didn't avail themselves of the surface mining tech, available before the War in US and UK, till well after the War ended and West Germany was onto recovery.
The Germans were two generations behind the USA in Agriculture at at least that in coal mining , and it didn't have to be that way.
For Wooden Aircraft, US Company, the Haskelite Corporation, could have licensed the Duramold process before the War, or the very similar Aeromold process from the O.M. Timm Aircraft Company
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,232
- Jan 31, 2021
And if the enemy is stronger, you increase the strength of your own forces in response. Action and reaction, measure and countermeasure. If we grant the Germans oil it didn't have, then why can't we grant the Allies the idea to systematically hit the German transportation network sooner? Or prioritize long-range escort fighters sooner? Wars involve many interrelated factors; you can't just change one thing and nothing else since, as mentioned, one is always studying what the enemy is doing.
And granting the Germans oil it didn't have does not change the underlying fact it was significantly behind the Allies in manpower and economic capability. German was fighting an uphill battle from the start. More oil for the Germans might have caused the Allies more casualties, and dragged the war out longer, but the end result would not have changed.
Approximate 1939 populations:
086.76 million = Greater Germany
047.76 million = Britain
168.52 million = Soviet Union
131.03 million = United States
The Germans are outnumbered 4 to 1 in total manpower. The four Commonwealth nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa add another 30.07 million, raising the ratio to 4.35 to 1.
In terms of military production, GDP, and steel production, from The Wages of Destruction (p.675):
The Soviets alone outproduced Germany in all categories except for major naval vessels. Its steel production was 12.7% below Germany's in 1939 and 32.5% lower in 1944, but the Soviets had the advantage of its steel being needed to fight on only one front whereas Germany's was required on three fronts (Eastern, Western, and North Africa/Italy).
The U.S. in 1939 produced nearly 2.6 times more steel than did Germany, and in 1944, it produced over 3.3 times more.
This is the hard uphill battle Germany had. Granting it more oil does not remove this.
.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 784
- Sep 30, 2021
Whenever I see an opening line like that, with none of the data I presented refuted I know I am inconveniently correct. And there is no fact checking, instead extension of the prisoner take numbers into the post war period, when they were no longer classified as PoW.
So 7,590,000 in the Wehrmacht on 1 May 1945, and the western allies end up with 9 million prisoners, remembering they shipped many earlier prisoners to North America, where to the extra 1,400 personnel come from?
The short version of what the German strength in Ob. West was. Two data points exist for 1 March:
Müller-Hillebrand, "Ration Strength in the West", 1 March 1944, Heer: 806,927 , SS and Police: 85,230 , Foreign volunteers, mainly Eastern troops: 61,439 , Allies: 13,631, Luftwaffe: 337,140 , Kriegsmarine: 96,084 , Wehrmachtgefolge: 145,611 , Total: 1,546,062
and
MGFA, "Ration Strength Report Heeresgruppe B", 1 March 1944, Heer: 865,180, Luftwaffe: 326,350, Marine: 102,180, SS and Police: 102,610, Sonstige: 91,110, Wehrmachtgefolge: 157,210 , Total: 1,644,640
The two are actually likely the same, but probably differ in what units they count.
Strategische Lage im Frühjahr 1944, Jodl, Vortrag 5.5.1944, (referenced to BAMA, N69/18) gives a figure of 1,873,000 as of 5 May 1944 (probably for circa 30 April/1 May 1944). That indicates a two-month growth of roughly 229,000 to 327,000. Given there were no major withdrawals of troops in May, or losses, and some accessions, it seems likely the strength as of 1 June was somewhere in the range of 1.9-million...and likely considerably more.
Using individual reports and estimations for Wehrmacht strength as of 1 June we can also derive an estimate that would constitute the lower range of possibility. Thus, the possible total strength of Heer, Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe, Kriegesmarine, Organization Todt (including RAD and NSKK) and Osttruppen personnel in OB.West as of 1 June and reinforcements and replacements to 23 July 1944 were:
Heer ~ 765,000 (est. 1 June)/728,000 (24 July)
SS ~ 75,563 plus reinforcements of 36,479 for a total of 112,042 committed
Luftwaffe Fallschirm-Armee ~ 39,476 plus reinforcements of 12,031 for a total of 51,507 committed
Luftwaffe Flak-Einheiten, including III Flak-Korps and other battalions ~ 94,444
Luftwaffe Flieger-Einheiten ~ 120,000
LuftwaffeBoden-Einheiten ~ 80,000-90,000
Kriegesmarine ~ 100,000
OT/RAD/NSKK ~ 70-90,000
HiWi and Ostruppen ~ 67,000
Again, the major differences are likely due to an under count of those troops assigned to the Militärbefehlshaberen, but it seems unlikely that the total was much less than 1.6-million...and even that requires the disappearance of some 300,000 men. Note that the 880,000 figure given as of 1 June included Waffen-SS and Luftwaffe ground troops in Ob.West (OKH/Gen.St.d.H./Org.Abt. Nr. I/18941/44 g.Kdos. v.7.9.44, NARA RG242, T78, R414) from which we can derive a Heer estimate of the same date of about 765,000. Even after losses, by 1 July with the appearance of II SS Panzerkorps the strength in Ob. West could not have been much less than the 1.6-1.9 million range, but by the end of July was probably falling into the lower range of 1.6-million.
Assuming no increase in firepower to cause 4 times the casualties requires 4 times the manpower, so 6 to 7 million soldiers, based on the total count of OB West. Wonder weapons with twice the effect, 3 to 3.5 million, except the big killer was artillery and no much better German artillery was on the way. Of course people understand a WWII military had lots of people in them who did not fight and were not well trained to fight, but since the idea is to count ration strength so be it. With that many personnel in the west it should make things much easier for the Red Army.
Good to know you want me to go away.
I post a list of problems with the report, a reply comes 3 hours later ignoring the problems, So if 15,000 aircraft did really need 2 years of world oil supply how did the USAAF and RAF individually operate those sorts of numbers, 4 plus years of world oil production which meant around 5 years of allied controlled production, each year? Personally I prefer the economics presented by Williamson Murray.
So when did Leuna open? Why is Standard Oil buying the synthetic oil patents not about worries about oil reserves? What were the numbers of mobile and non mobile divisions in the Heer and US Army? Why is the US War Production Board report wrong about US truck numbers? Why is the raid report on Ploesti incorrect? Have you noticed the difference in IJN casualties between the first and second waves of the Pearl Harbor attack? How about the number of US fighters available to meet a third wave using the working radar network? The size of the IJN strike aircraft bomb loads? What are your figures for tanker losses and gains in 1942/43? How does "both of these pipelines greatly reduced the number of German submarine attacks" actually work?
Since you have checked this out to decide the report is credible what were your results?
As for Keitel what is the break down between the various arms of the Wehrmacht, how does having more fuel help the maintenance situation? And how do the Heer tank status and Luftwaffe aircraft status reports fit in with the idea of more fuel, versus more spare parts, replacements and mechanics?
Perhaps it would be good then to note almost none of the people you are quoting nor yourself satisfy your criteria, meantime I am quoting contemporary documents..
The Germans were doing scorched earth as they retreated, including in Germany. Then comes what happened in the final days, were the routine orders continued but largely not done (like the orders to destroy Paris), a special order was issued but ignored, a special order was blocked by Speer, no special order was issued. Your idea of proof is nothing in the final testament, which means only things mentioned in that document actually existed or happened. Hitler is considered to have written that comprehensively, do not consult other sources.
And the majority of those as defined by the Nazis were German speakers once you take out Britain.
Nazi Racism
Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race: Creating the Master Race
Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
The literal translations,
Herrenrasse = "race consisting of masters/rulers." not "superior race"
Herrenvolk = "people consisting of masters/rulers"
The English version when Hitler is involved tends to the master race idea.
The Nazis were not original haters, that is one of the major problems now, the hatreds are still around, plus Nazi ideology was what Hitler needed it to be at a given time, Japanese receiving a carve out from orientals for example. The Nazis mirrored much of (then recent) western society of the time in terms of who was allowed/liked and why.
One of the ways to show people being people is to read the accounts of western travellers to other western countries, colonies etc. when they encounter a local population group being discriminated against, the many writings of how the travellers did not do such discrimination against this group, therefore the travellers and the system they came from are superior. During the war the British reacted quite strongly against US skin colour racism, while still thinking Britain had a right or obligation to rule places like India. Since the various isms are considered bad they have various not invented here stories.
You devoted an entire message without mentioning it, coming up with criteria for credibility which you and most of the sources you quote fail.
Still of the opinion about how U-boats would interdict nuclear weapons making it to Europe? What about the number of such weapons potentially available in 1945? What are the training hours of Luftwaffe versus western allied 1940 to 1943? Still trying to claim I posted Red Army killed figures?
To mid 1944 for the Luftwaffe and later for the Heer the German military was not strategically constrained by fuel production, the supply system broke first, things like Luftwaffe pilot training were driven by the need to expand the fighter force and losses taken, the training system took a large hit every time the Luftwaffe used mass air transport and even more so when the crews involved were lost. No amount of extra fuel was going to get all the broken down machines in the east in late 1941 working again. The Italian navy could certainly use more fuel, the economy would also benefit to some degree assuming vehicles were available.
Pre war expansion is a money issue, the Nazis were pushing limits there and the foreign exchange problems are given as a contributing reason for the occupation of Austria then Czechoslovakia and the attack on Poland.
a) Truck production could not cope with the losses in France (indeed had not replaced the losses in Poland by May 1940).
b) The French campaign cost around 25% of the Luftwaffe and 33% of the tank force.
c) The campaign cost around 160,000 casualties
d) The tank force needed a better gun on more tanks.
Now calculate a campaign in the east which lasts two or three times as long, assuming the same casualty rates.
a) Trucks become a precious commodity.
b) 50 to 75% of aircraft and 66 to 100% tank losses (based on initial strengths)
c) 320,000 to 480,000 casualties (out of 3,200,000)
A 1944 British armoured division required 1,000 British gallons per mile, so a 25 mile movement is 25,000 gallons, around 83 tons, or enough to fill 11 to 12 Lancasters. Imperial (British) gallons in 1 long ton, 100 octane avgas 315, other grade avgas and motor spirit (petroleum/gasoline) 300, Diesel 259, marine diesel 250, RN oil fuel 238.
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,232
- Jan 31, 2021
That coal is also needed in other areas: to power the locomotives and the railways; to generate electricity; to produce steel; to heat the homes of the citizens. Any coal diverted to synthetic fuel production is coal not available for other purposes.
Germany had a coal problem. This is examined in The Wages of Destruction, pages 413–418.
I'm specifically talking about this thread.
yellownose
Airman
- 25
- May 17, 2023
DerAdlerIstGelandet
I don't care if you are a moderator. I haven't insulted anyone and nobody feels insulted. If you want to ban me because you are on a power-trip, go ahead, I'll be fine.
G Geoffrey Sinclair
Ok, listen: at this point you are not arguing with me, but with my sources. Strangely one of your sources is Müller-Hildebrand. If you look at the bottom of the first screenshot I posted, you will read that Overmans' source for the number of 7,580,000 in may 45 is also Müller-Hildebrand. How is that possible? Not all of these soldiers were at the front, many were reserves in northern Germany, Bohemia, or they were in other countries.
I find your post very confusing. I don't know if english is your first language, it is not mine, maybe this is where the problems come from. And no, what I meant was not that I want you to "go away", I meant I don't want to go too far off topic and argue about details. I try to stay on topic and keep it short. I don't have the time and patience to go over everything.
I understand the Nazi ideology very well, I disagree with you, but I don't want to go over that here. This is a thread about a "what if"-scenario, it's about the oil problem which was undoubtably there, I don't want to have a discussion about propaganda or the origins of race theory. This is off topic and it doesn't matter for our "what if"-scenario. If you want to know how many German soldiers were Nazis: according to british intelligence reports, about 5% were active Nazis, 20% passive (they kind of liked NS-Germany, but were critical of their government), 15% were passive anti-nazis, and 5% active anti-nazis. The rest was just looking out for themselves and their families. Of course it depends on the units, Fallschirmjäger and SS were more pro-Hitler. So it doesn't matter.
There also was no "scorched earth"-policy in Germany. Hitler's order to destroy Paris was probably made up by Dietrich Von Choltitz, just as the Nero Befehl was made up by Speer. After the war many wanted to be "the guy who secretly resisted". Read the testament. Hitler wants the Germans to continue fighting, nothing he writes indicates what you said. The problem here is: your ideas are based on hear-say by people who after the war wanted to show themselves in a good light, Hitler's testament though exists in written form.
"Inconveniently correct" doesn't exist for me. I am here to learn, and not to teach. I am glad when somebody refutes my arguments, so I can expand my knowledge. You did a pretty good job in your first post, after that - not so much.
"except the big killer was artillery"
Let's say "shrapnel/explosives". In WW1, which was the great artillery-war, around 60% of all casualties were caused by artillery, according to German, British, and Australian field hospital-reports, and this goes for the entirety of the war. Between 1915 and mid 1917 it was higher because there the only aim of all powers was to bomb the enemy out of existance, from mid 1917 you had different tactics (because it didn't work) and there was more movement. In 1918 you had a war of movement again. For example, in "Battle casualties: Incidence, mortality, and logistic considerations" (1952), Beebe and DeBakey provide US field hospital statistics for late 1918, when the US military participated in the "Hundred Days Offense". Here only 22,4% were caused by artillery. Note that in the years 1915 and 1916, where artillery caused up to 75% of all casualties at the western front, there were less artillery guns. Here a breakdown of the German production of the leFH and the FK:
1915: 1561 FK, 1096 leFH
1916: 1776 FK, 1458 leFH
1917: 3026 FK, 1978 leFH
1918: 9026 FK, 2479 leFH
Source: Robert Weyrauch, "Waffen und Munitionswesen. Die deutsche Kriegswirtschaft im Bereich der Heeresverwaltung 1914-1918 (1922)"
And this is also for
33k in the air
: more guns does NOT necessarily equal more impact. If you want the US-stats for artillery(or shrapnel/explosives)-casualties in WW2, also according to Beebe and DeBakey: 58,5% in the mediterranean theater between January and June 1944 (page 131), 60,2% after D-Day and the final assault on Germany. (Page 129)
I do not have the statistics for German casualties for sharpnel/explosives-wounds, but they are most likely way higher because of bombers, tanks and the very effective US-artillery with the proximity fuze and forward observers.
Now some more about the effectiveness of weapons. The US military adopted the M1 Garand because they found out that a semi-automatic rifle is 2,5 times more effective than a bolt action rifle. Soldiers were ordered to shoot for 4 minutes at a target which was 25 yards away. Soldiers with an M1 Garand fired on average 689 times and hit 576 times (83,6%), and soldiers with a Springfield 364 times and scored 246 times (67,58%).
Then the German soldiers also called for a semi-automatic rifle. But there was a problem: at that time the Germans were concerned about ammunition. The problem was the lack of ferrous metals. A soldier with a semi-automatic rifle was more likely to hit a target, but he would also spend more ammunition. They neither were able to produce enough brass nor lead to provide the infantry with a semi-automatic rifle AND machine guns with a rate of fire on 1000rpm. So they put the emphasis on marksmanship. Over time they worked on "sparstofffreie Munition" (spare-material free ammunition): steel cases and sintered iron-core projectives. The projectiles worked well. The steel case-ammuniton was not usable in self-loading firearms, because they would cause jams. So at first the steel case-ammo was only given to soldiers with bolt action-rifles, the machine gunners got the brass cases. At the end of the war they gave the steel cases a wax coating similar to the ammunition for the Petersen rifle. The trick is that when the shot was fired the heat would melt the wax, this would lubricate the chamber and assist in case extraction. It worked very well.
ALL cartridges for the Sturmgewehr/MP 44 from 1944 on were waxed steel case, sintered iron-cartidges, and for just about 425,000 MP-44, they produced 822,000,000 cartridges, which is a lot of firepower. So they could crank out more ammo like (explentive). I don't know how much more effective an assault rifle is compared to a semi-auto like the Garand, but the fact that all militaries use assault rifles and not full power semi-auto-rifles now indicates that they are much more effective. Less recoil, you can carry more ammo, and you have the full auto-option. They also learned to mass produce the probably best firearm of the war, the FG 42, with the same methods, stampings, all the unnecessary stuff gone.
You get it. They had a lot figured out.
A major problem was morale. A lot of German soldiers thought "they have tanks that drive, we don't, they have aircraft, we don't, this sucks, let's surrender". I studied history and something which is a combination of sociology, political science and economics, so I tend to always look at the human factor. I am not an engineer, for me a firearm or a machine is a tool. An army with a low morale but top tier weaponry will lose against an army with worse weapons but a great morale. There are many stories of German tankers who were hiding their tanks because they were afraid of getting a bomb on their roof as soon as they revealed their position. So there you go, tanks and airplanes also have a psychological effect. The mass surrender and also the lack of the "fanaticism" that Hitler imagined is a result of the lack of morale, and this saved American and British lives.
Now I lost my train of thought. This is why I don't like to write long postings about details. El grande moderatore will probably ban me now anyway.
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,232
- Jan 31, 2021
Again, as the Soviets correctly observed, quantity has a quality all its own. The Allies had quantity (and often quality too).
Yes, that's why they spent a vast amount of resources and money on the V-2. Whoops, wait, that was effort spent on a militarily useless program. (At least the V-1 program was cheap in comparison, if also militarily pointless except perhaps as a political pressure diversion.)
Germany figured out some things too late, and in any event, it would not have overcome the large production hole it found itself in from the start.
Yes, the important of air power and gaining air superiority. The Allies went heavily into air power, particularly strategic bombing by the British and Americans, a resource-intensive effort. Unless the Germans could consistently shoot down 4 Allied aircraft to every 1 it lost, it was not going to overcome a greater than 4 to 1 disadvantage in combat aircraft production.
I'm on no power trip, nor do I have a desire to ban you. However, I will do my job as a moderator and inform you that snide comments from a high horse will not fly. Don't make a problem where there shouldn't be one. Understood?
Insulting comments like that are not necessary. Get off the high horse and chill out.
Its obvious you like to provoke. Let's not do this. This is an otherwise very good discussion, and I have no desire to ban anyone.
Shortround6
Major General
This actually true.
However what causes the impact were the shells not the guns.
200 guns with 100 shells per day is 20,000 rounds per day.
100 guns with 200 shells per day is 20,000 rounds per day.
granted you have replace/repair the smaller number of guns more often.
I believe I mentioned the British consumption of 5.5 ammo in NW Europe before, over 2.6 million shells. Which allowing for 65lbs per shell (80lb shell, 12lb HE and fuse?) comes up to 75,400 long tons of steel in shells. Rounding down a bit of on both the actually number shells and rounding down on the number of tons.
That is roughly the amount of steel you need for 1500 Panther tanks or perhaps 100 (?) Type VII U-Boats.
Now this was for just the 5.5 in guns and does not count the
25pdr. (shells fired were well into the millions)
any 4.5s ?
the 7.2in Howitzers.
Any lend lease 105 howitzers (M7)s (?)
Any lend lease 155 howitzers
Any lend lease 155 guns
Any lend lease 8in howitzers. (?)
Any 3.7in AA guns
Any other odds and sods.
This doesn't count the British controlled guns in Italy and obviously doesn't count the shells fired by the American Armies in France and Italy.
Germans were firing off incredible amounts of ammo from AA guns.
Artillery was changing during the war let alone from WW I.
AS far as getting rid of the horses (even 30%) from German agriculture. Good idea, if you can get the tractors and trucks.
Since the Germans could not built enough trucks (of any type) for the army this seems like a non-starter.
If you want to replace even a fraction of the several million horses you need several hundred thousand vehicles. US built about 12 times the number of jeeps compared to the German Kubelwagens.
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