How to prepare Luftwaffe for Barbarossa if accurate intel on Soviet forces?

[Koopernic]

They could try mobilising for war 100% which historically they didn't do until 1942/43. German military strategy as far as the Soviet Union was concerned was based on kicking in a door and hoping the building falls down.

I'm no big fan of Adam Tooze but he did totally bust up the myth that the Germans weren't mobilised for war as fast as say the British or that they didn't mobilise till 1942. One of the reasons for this myth is that Germany produced 80% of its own food and Britain 50%. This meant a significant proportion of the German workforce, often women, had to be employed in agriculture. The big upswing in production in 1942 and 1943, the so called 'armaments miracle' was not the result of the new armaments minister Albert Speer's genius nor of mobilisation. It was the result of carefully planed investments in factories, tooling, automation and mass production that kicked in. All done by plodding engineers and technocrats.

Germany in 1941 had a Labour shortage. There wasn't enough workers to do night shifts in factories.

 

[Koopernic]

Would any of the Ural bomber still be adequate in 1941?

The Ju 89 evolved into the Ju 90 transport (not much change same cross section) which became the Ju 90B which became Ju 290. That ended up as the pressurised Ju 290B with a 10,000m operational ceiling And a speed over 330mph.

The Ju 89 could have evolved into a Ju 189 or Ju 289 directly. Likewise the Dornier Do 19. These aircaft would have remained viable throughout the war.

Obviously they both needed an aerodynamic clean up, the Ju 89 to get rid of its junkers double flaps and modern engines such as DB601/DB605.

Repeated evolutionary modifications needed to keep these aircraft viable would forstall really serious mass production but should be good for 100 / month that had been planed for the He 177.

The He 177 free of the dive bombing requirement and coupled engines should have just about been flying its first missions around Barbarossa.

 

[Admiral Beez]

This goes to the heart of the whole thing. Let Mussolini fight alone in Africa and Greece and Italy may lose and change sides very quickly. Hitler could forget any thought of attacking UK and attack Malta and Crete immediately but that is an admission that he isn't ready for war and wont impress anyone to join his Axis.

True, but it does give Hitler the chance to concentrate all forces for an earlier launch of Barbarossa, perhaps in May 1941. In early 1941 the British are in no state to invade Germany from Greece. WW2 for the Germans has one goal, defeat the USSR, seize the lands and resources. Everything else, from Sealion, North Africa and Malta is a distraction from this goal. Defeat the USSR before Christmas 1941 and it doesn't matter if Italy changes sides - my guess upon seeing the Soviets get smashed to hell, is a terrified Italy declares itself neutral.

 

[tomo pauk]

...
Germany in 1941 had a Labour shortage. There wasn't enough workers to do night shifts in factories.

Not just in 1941.
Germany have had such a disproportion in machine tools vs. workforce that a lot of factories were working in just one shift.

 

[pbehn]

Not just in 1941.
Germany have had such a disproportion in machine tools vs. workforce that a lot of factories were working in just one shift.

As you do in peacetime.

 

[pbehn]

I'm no big fan of Adam Tooze but he did totally bust up the myth that the Germans weren't mobilised for war as fast as say the British or that they didn't mobilise till 1942. One of the reasons for this myth is that Germany produced 80% of its own food and Britain 50%. This meant a significant proportion of the German workforce, often women, had to be employed in agriculture. The big upswing in production in 1942 and 1943, the so called 'armaments miracle' was not the result of the new armaments minister Albert Speer's genius nor of mobilisation. It was the result of carefully planed investments in factories, tooling, automation and mass production that kicked in. All done by plodding engineers and technocrats.

Germany in 1941 had a Labour shortage. There wasn't enough workers to do night shifts in factories.

The British were building those factories or having them built between 1938 and 1941. They didn't have a shortage of workers, they couldn't have otherwise they wouldn't have sent millions of men and women to death camps, would they?

 

[tomo pauk]

As you do in peacetime.

As you also do in wartime if there is no surplus of the workforce needed to form additional shift or two.

 

[pbehn]

As you also do in wartime if there is no surplus of the workforce needed to form additional shift or two.

You close down all areas of the economy that are not needed, like holiday resorts, luxury item producers, toy makers, cafes hotels etc etc etc. Germany instead rounded up people to be killed.

 

[Admiral Beez]

They (the Germans) didn't have a shortage of workers, they couldn't have otherwise they wouldn't have sent millions of men and women to death camps, would they?

They wouldn't be Nazis if they didn't. But death camps, and slave labour for that matter were more a post-Barbarossa thing. Given this, I don't see how either can impact Luftwaffe preparation for Barbarossa.

This being an aviation forum, my goal in the OP was to introduce a discussion how how the RLM and Luftwaffe can be better prepared for Barbarossa.

 

[pbehn]

They wouldn't be Nazis if they didn't. But death camps, and slave labour for that matter were more a post-Barbarossa thing. Given this, I don't see how either can impact Luftwaffe preparation for Barbarossa.

This being an aviation forum, my goal in the OP was to introduce a discussion how how the RLM and Luftwaffe can be better prepared for Barbarossa.

They established ghettos in Poland almost straight after they took over. I understand that the discussion is about being better prepared for Barbarossa but some are pretending there was a labour shortage after invading Poland Netherlands France Belgium and Norway there was no labour shortage apart from the one they chose to have

 

[tomo pauk]

You close down all areas of the economy that are not needed, like holiday resorts, luxury item producers, toy makers, cafes hotels etc etc etc. Germany instead rounded up people to be killed.

German handling of population is a topic of it's own, as is their biting off more than they could've chewed.

 

[pbehn]

German handling of population is a topic of it's own, as is their biting off more than they could've chewed.

I know but referring to the table in this link, Germany was out produced in aircraft (by numbers) by Russia throughout the war 1939-45, by UK until 1943 and by USA from 1940. They decided to go to war and they needed to have the tools to do it, which means starting in 1936 to produce twice as many and better designs as they historically did at least. It is the same for tanks and other fighting vehicles.


World War II aircraft production - Wikipedia

 

[tomo pauk]

I know but referring to the table in this link, Germany was out produced in aircraft (by numbers) by Russia throughout the war 1939-45, by UK until 1943 and by USA from 1940. They decided to go to war and they needed to have the tools to do it, which means starting in 1936 to produce twice as many and better designs as they historically did at least. It is the same for tanks and other fighting vehicles.


World War II aircraft production - Wikipedia

Topic for another thread?

 

[bdefen]

Interesting minor note I've read about was the lack of standardization of basic fittings - nuts, bolts, bearings, tubing, you name it - across the entire spectrum of Germany's otherwise sophisticated and innovative war machines. A new model meant a practically entire new set of parts particular to it, and thus another complication in manufacturing and parts supply. The Russians, perhaps to their disadvantage at times, had a far simpler array of standardized parts for their equipment.

Another factor, IMHO, was Germany's significant reliance on horses. At least 2/3 of the Wehrmacht moved by horse or foot. Not as troubling when beating up on relatively small countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, but when the acreage got massive, like the Soviet Union, it was fairly limiting. (And yes, the horses proved somewhat valuable when dealing with oceans of mud.) Sadly, one of the final advantages of the horses was the fact that when rations got short (like at Stalingrad) they could be eaten.

Great books about the German reliance on horses:

 

[pbehn]

Topic for another thread?

Could be but in terms of the thread topic by 1941 Hitler was moving to not needing "intel". His successes in Poland Belgium Netherlands Norway and France followed by gaining control of the Balkans just by flexing his muscles led him to believe numbers didn't matter. Germany defeated other airforces by rapid advances over running airfields and destroying more on the ground than in the air. As far as I know there was no actual plan to invade UK until the fall of France just a political intent and the first mutterings about invading Russia were around the same time.

 

[tomo pauk]

Could be but in terms of the thread topic by 1941 Hitler was moving to not needing "intel". His successes in Poland Belgium Netherlands Norway and France followed by gaining control of the Balkans just by flexing his muscles led him to believe numbers didn't matter. Germany defeated other airforces by rapid advances over running airfields and destroying more on the ground than in the air. As far as I know there was no actual plan to invade UK until the fall of France and the first mutterings about invading Russia were around the same time.

Germany's succes betwen Poland and France and further at Balkans showed that numbers do matter.

 

[TheMadPenguin]

Only Bulgaria would agree to that, the rest have no reason to fight Greece.

Reasons:
Roumania: to keep English bases out of reach of Ploesti.
Hungary: to recoup territory lost in 1918 (Croatia, Dalmatia, and Serbia), gain sea access, then to keep Brits and Greeks out of reach.

 

[Koopernic]

The British were building those factories or having them built between 1938 and 1941. They didn't have a shortage of workers, they couldn't have otherwise they wouldn't have sent millions of men and women to death camps, would they?

I suggest you simply recuse yourself from talking about this as you know more falsehoods than correct info about it. You seem to hijack a thread with this stuff when an argument isn't going the way you want it?
Reductio ad Hitlerum


If you want to inform yourself perhaps read:
Arming the Luftwaffe by Daniel Uziel.
as it covers the use of impressed and forced labour.

1 I can talk about the millions of Indians and Bangladeshis Churchill and Cherwell Lindeman Britain starved to death during WW2 because they as imperialists controlled the foreign exchange and food supply of Indian and put English people first. When put to the test Britain, Cherwell, Churchill did exactly the same thing as the Nazis or the Communist Russians did to the Ukrainians. Food for their own people first. It certainly helped Britain win the war.

2 We can go back to the Genocide of the Irish when over 50% of the British Army was stationed in Ireland, the regiments locations have been tracked and recorded. They made sure that the Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oats, Butter, Sheep, Beef was taken from Irish and taken to Britain and that they starved rather than some London Banker miss out. If the Constabulary didn't manage to take away the food, the Militia came in and if they failed the British Army Came in and they never failed. I note the Prussian empire never starved its Polish Lithuanian subjects when they had a Potato Blight. All so that banks could get paid and Britain could industrialise.

3 We can also perhaps mention the that in order to expand their diamond, gold and mineral interests the British decided to take control of South Africa, displace the Governments the Afrikaaner people had chosen and dealt with local resistance by putting Women, children, grandparents in concentration camps feeding them of poor food lacking in vitamins and freshness. Fish an rice. Photographs of typhus victims there looks like something out of Bergen Belsen only there was no excuse of knocked out water, electricity, sewage and food distribution.

The anger felt by Dutch and Germans to these crimes in South Africa is one of the factors that caused bad feelings and cynicism and helped trigger World War 1

All of these crimes made Britain powerful and wealthy.

Shall I bring these things up every time we discuss something? Certainly I can the Bangladeshi/Indian famine? I'm not going to though.

I should point out there were 4000 people in concentration camps prior to WW2 and most of them were there for short sentences for essentially political speech crimes. Forced labour was not a big component of the early war years.

Companies like Junkers used no slave labour.

Heinkel had the fortune or misfortune of being near a Russian POW camp who were hired out the prisoners to Heinkel. The poor souls were underfed couldn't perform and the soviets would have executed them if they got back to the USSR.

Certainly you can talk about these things and should be but there is a way of doing it not with generalisations, sweeping statements and rhetoric.

I think it was in Arming the Luftwaffe by Daniel Uziel that he noted that big factories often had a concentration cam attached in which the German workers themselves were sentenced. He notes and secretary at Daimler Benz who suffered this for 2 weeks for her attitude.

 

[Glider]

I suggest you simply recuse yourself from talking about this as you know more falsehoods than correct info about it. You seem to hijack a thread with this nazi stuff when an argument isn't going your way.
Reductio ad Hitlerum


If you want to inform yourself perhaps read:
Arming the Luftwaffe by Daniel Uziel.
as it covers the use of impressed and forced labour.

1 I can talk about the millions of Indians and Bangladeshis Churchill and Cherwell Lindeman Britain starved to death during WW2 because they as imperialists controlled the foreign exchange and food supply of Indian and put English people first. When put to the test Britain, Cherwell, Churchill did exactly the same thing as the Nazis or the Communist Russians did to the Ukrainians. Food for their own people first. It certainly helped Britain win the war.

2 We can go back to the Genocide of the Irish when over 50% of the British Army was stationed in Ireland, the regiments locations have been tracked and recorded. They made sure that the Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oats, Butter, Sheep, Beef was taken from Irish and taken to Britain and that they starved rather than some London Banker miss out. If the Constabulary didn't manage to take away the food, the Militia came in and if they failed the British Army Came in and they never failed. I note the Prussian empire never starved its Polish Lithuanian subjects when they had a Potato Blight. All so that banks could get paid and Britain could industrialise.

3 We can also perhaps mention the that in order to expand their diamond, gold and mineral interests the British decided to take control of South Africa, displace the Governments the Afrikaaner people had chosen and dealt with local resistance by putting Women, children, grandparents in concentration camps feeding them of poor food lacking in vitamins and freshness. Fish an rice. Photographs of typhus victims there looks like something out of Bergen Belsen only there was no excuse of knocked out water, electricity, sewage and food distribution.

The anger felt by Dutch and Germans to these crimes in South Africa is one of the factors that caused bad feelings and cynicism and helped trigger World War 1

All of these crimes made Britain powerful and wealthy.

Shall I bring these things up every time we discuss something? Certainly I can the Bangladeshi/Indian famine? I'm not going to though.

I should point out there were 4000 people in concentration camps prior to WW2 and most of them were there for short sentences for essentially political speech crimes. Forced labour was not a big component of the early war years.

Companies like Junkers used no slave labour.

Heinkel had the fortune or misfortune of being near a Russian POW camp who were hired out the prisoners to Heinkel. The poor souls were underfed couldn't perform and the soviets would have executed them if they got back to the USSR.

Certainly you can talk about these things but there is a way of doing it not with generalisations, sweeping statements and rhetoric.

Nothing like a neutral unbiased view of things. Can I suggest we get back to aviation

 

[Koopernic]

Nothing like a neutral unbiased view of things. Can I suggest we get back to aviation

Fine by me