Motor transport in the German army

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I know they made 4x4's, but they were a small percentage of total production. Just look at all the film/pics on the Russian front. There are always a long string of 2wd trucks being dragged along by either tanks or haltracks.
 
The 4WD Opel Blitz didn't even enter mass production until a year after Britain and France declared war. Production never caught up with demand. Why do you think most German Army transport consisted of draft horses?

However the 4WD Opel Blitz was the standard German military truck. Most other vehicles were emergency substitutes.
 
It may have been what they wanted as their "standard military truck", but the truth is that the majority of German MT was ex-civilian and foreign acquisitions. Thats the whole point.....German preparations in their motor pools were attrocious, and despite your claims they couldnt do any better....the difference between a proper military vehicle, produced from say 1937, and the hopeless menagerie of lash ups that they ended up taking to war is a BIG reason for the ultimate german failure.

And i dont know where you are going by claiming that the majority of german transport was motor transport and not horse drawn. A 1940 "type" Infantry Division which outnumbered the motorized formations by more than 8:1 had 800 motor vehicles attached and over 6400 draft animals attached. By late 1943, the number of motor vehicles per div on the eastern front had sunk to less than 200 for an infantry Div, and the numbers of draft animals were down to 2000 or less. Manpower for a "type" division had dropped from 15500 to around 11000 but the supply services and artillery components....the areas where MT and horse transport were most needed, had remained pretty static. Supply requirements for an infantry Div engaged but not heavily so, had hardly moved at an average of 1900 tons per day. But with 25% of the MT and about 35% of the horses German Infantry no longer possessed anywhere near the mobility that they had in 1939-40.
 
The German Army started WW II with several million draft horses. There was never any real intention to motorize the entire army. Germany simply didn't have the resources to do so. But of it's opponents only the US and British Commonwealth did have the resources. The British Commonwealth could do so from two angles, a more developed motor industry and and a smaller army. But even the British Commonwealth depended on a lot of help from the US motor industry.

In a list from March of 1940 there are 483 different bus, truck, tractor, marine and industrial gasoline engines on offer by American companies, that is gasoline and does not include diesels. It also does not include aircraft engines. The Hercules company alone had 49 different engines from a 56cu in 2 cylinder of 13hp to a 935 cu in 6 cylinder of 198hp.
In 1940 just the top eight car makers turned out 1,993,200 cars.
Back in 1929 before the depression the top eight manufactures put out over 4 million cars.

Germany managed to increase truck production 263% from 1934 to 1939 but that means only just under 102,000 trucks in 1939 to go with about 250,000 cars. Germany could have waited two years and made 300,000 trucks each year and still not had enough to equip 100 divisions of foot infantry with a full complement of trucks to haul supplies and artillery let alone try to carry troops. By 1941 Germany had over 200 divisions. The Russian were no better. Even 400,000 trucks is a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of 250-300 divisions.
 
From what I've read the 1942-43 German military inventory on vehicles was ~ ¾ million vehicles; with the lift capacity increasing from ¾ million tons in 1942 to 1.35 million tons in 1943-44. They never had more than ¾ million horses and most of the time around ½ million horse. Wagons were much fewer maybe 1/3 million carts with maybe ¼ million tons lift capacity at the peaks and by the end of the war , they also had about ¼ million bicycles.

Having said this the German railway system employed at least ½ million freight cars through out most of the war and was responsible for transport well over ¾ of all tonnage through out Germany industry and war material to the fronts.
 
Lets see if I can sum up German motor transport in WW2:
They didn't have anywhere near as many as they needed.
About 90% of what they had was probably unfit for true military service, because it wasn't all-wheel-drive, unless it was moving things up and down paved roads which in combat are many times few and far between.

Does that about cover it?
 
"... Does that about cover it? "

Yes and no -- you are omitting the most disturbing factor, that Hitler and his inner circle didn't know the limitations of what they had, and were over-optimistic about the outcome of their endeavor(s).

It is very similar to the irony of Barbarossa - going into Russia without any provision for winter weather clothing. Stalin (it is claimed) did not believe leaked intelligence about Barbarossa because his Comintern agents in Europe could detect no "run" on furs. Stalin couldn't imagine winter war without fur (and such - eg - felt).

You also need to acknowledge the superb use of rail that German planners made. They didn't believe they needed trucks in the quantities and quality that the US, Britain and the Commonwealth understood.

Good thread so far

MM
 
Thought this link to Spielbergers book might be intersting

Militarfahrzeuge - German Softskinned Vehicles of WW2

Prior to 1943, Germany was producing roughly 50000 trucks of various kinds per year. According to the USSBS the Germans were seriously underutilizing their limited capacity to produce MT. Quite a number of factories were hived off to produce other things, like aircraft components and bits for tanks. Not all of these vehicles could be sent to the military, about 15000 vehicles per year were needed for civilian purposes, and another 9000 were needed for use by foreign nations. That left around 25000 vehicles per year for entry into the German Armed forces. However, up until June 1941 attrition from the heers (Im not even looking at the other services) ran at about 5000 vehicles lost per month, and of these a consistent 80% were written off for noncombat reasons....they simply wore out, crashed, etc.

Up until Barbarossa , the Heer managed to maintain its mobility by some very desperate measures. They acquired a lot of captured vehicles in France and other parts of Europe (including many vehicles from the BEF, left behind on the Dunkirk Beaches) and received about 40000 trucks of foreign manufacture (mostly French types). Over 100000 civilian vehicles were commandeered for the Army. This allowed the army to enter russia with more or less a ful complement of vehicles, though the quality of the park was patchy. The Germans entered Russia with about 600000 vehicles

Thereafter the rot set in..... attrition rates increased by approximately 2.5 times, to roughly 12000 vehicles per month. There were no other expedients that the Germans could draw on, and in the critical years of 1942 and 1943, German truck production remained around the 50000 mark. From memory production in 1942 ran at about 48000 units, whilst in 1943 production increased to 52000 units. This was nowhere near enough to meet all demands, and as germany started to suffer defeats in the field, her losses in trucks shot up alarmingly. In the first four months of 1944, German truck losses amounted to 109000 vehicles. They produced 111000 trucks for the whole of 1944. The army reached a peak strength of 9.5 million men in mid 1943, but the numbers of divisions just kept exploding. These losses, inadequate production, and explosion of numbers, crushed the mobility issue for the Germans. Adding to all these problems was a relatively low servicieability rate....brought about by the multiplicity of types and their relative fragility

Two things needed to be done to address this. The Germans needed to utilize their full automotive capacity. According to the USSBS actual production never exceeded about 70% of productive capacity. The Germans had to stop wasting their money building Tiger Panther tanks, and put up with amore modest AFV program, so that their Infantry could retain mobility. They also had to adopt a rationalization program 2-3 years beforeee they did, and settle on simplified, sturdy types, much as the Russians had done. If they had done that, attrition rates would have been lower and servicieability ratews increased.

Individually, ther were some quite good types designed in Germany, but there were never enough, and too little central contraol and planning put into the production system. The German auto industry was allowed to run with far too much autonomy to be considered efficient

There are a lot of good comments about this issue in Halders Diary as well. He was a good staff officer, if a little conservative, and he knew the poor condition of the German MT arm, and how badly it was rupturing.
 
There is also the flip side of this on requirements.

If 75-80% of the German Army is never going to be fully motorized what is the level of mobility required for heavy guns/equipment?

What percentage of the French Army was fully (or even partially) motorized?

While the British army managed to be fully motorized by 1939 even if the entire commonwealth wasn't, how big was the British army in comparison to the German army at the time?

What percentage of the Soviet army was motorized in 1939? or in 1941?

And using what kind of trucks?

Could the Germans have done better?
Yes, a lot better, but I am not sure how much practical difference is was going to make.

But only the US was really in a position to field a Fully motorized army that would approach or exceed the size of the Germany army and that took until 1944/45. Even 400,000 trucks to Russia is not going to motorize 400 Russian divisions even if they are smaller than western divisions.
 
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Despite highly ballyhooed emphasis on employment of mechanized forces and on rapid movement, the bulk of German combat divisions were horse drawn throughout World War II. Early in the war it was the common belief of the American public that the German Siegfrieds of Hitler's Blitz rode forth to battle on swift tanks and motor vehicles. But the notion of the mechanized might of the German Wehrmacht was largely a glamorized myth born in the fertile brains of newspapermen. Actually, the lowly horse played a most important part in enabling the German Army to move about Europe.

Public opinion to the contrary, so great was the dependence of the Nazi Blitzkrieg upon the horse that the numerical strength of German Army horses maintained during the entire war period averaged around 1,100,000. Of the 322 German Army and SS divisions extant in November 1943, only 52 were armored or motorized. Of the November 1944 total of 264 combat divisions, only 42 were armored or motorized. The great bulk of the German combat strength—the old-type infantry divisions—marched into battle on foot, with their weapons and supply trains propelled almost entirely by four-legged horsepower. The light and mountain divisions had an even greater proportion of animals, and the cavalry divisions were naturally mainly dependent on the horse.

The old-type German infantry division had approximately 5,300 horses, 1,100 horse-drawn vehicles, 950 motor vehicles, and 430 motorcycles. In 1943, due to the great difficulties in supply and upkeep of motor vehicles in the wide stretches of the Eastern Front, the allotment to divisions in that theater was reduced to approximately 400 motor vehicles and 400 motorcycles, and the number of horses was increased to some 6,300. The 1944-type divisions had about 4,600 horses, 1,400 horse-drawn vehicles, 600 motor vehicles, and 150 motorcycles.

The only fully motorized unit in the old-type infantry division was the antitank battalion. Most of the divisional supply trains were horse drawn, motor vehicles being used chiefly to transport fuel and for the workshop company. A far greater degree of motorization existed among German GHQ troops, the supply units of which were mostly motorized. Motorization of GHQ troops was to a large degree a necessity, since these units included such types of outfits as heavy artillery, for which horse draft would have been a practical impossibility. These motorized GHQ units were assigned to armies, corps, and divisions as originally required.
 
The British Auto industry produced over 400000 trucks to germany's 320000. On top of that the Canadians produced about 800000 vehicles did thay not. From memory the US produced about 2 million trucks. The difference betwen commonwealth/British production (at least in numbers) and US production is significant, but not as bad as the US/German relationship.

In terms of numbers, nearly all British and Commonwealth divisions were motorized. There were actually more CW divisions fileded than there were US: 32 British (not counting the Home static Divs), 15 Australian, 35 Indian, 8 or9 Canadian (4 remaining at home), 3 NZ, 5 SA (I think), 3 British equipped Polish Divs, and the equvalent of 1 additional division of exiles. There were also 4 West and east African Divs raised as well as the Palstinian and Jewish formation. Altogether, about 110 Infantry formations (not including airborne). I'm not suggesting these forces could replace the Americans in any way.....they were far too vulnerable to losses to say that, but neither is it accurate to claim the US army was the only motorized, or even the largest motorized force that was fielded by the allies. It was the largest force of a single nationality, but the CW generally would fight as a single force
 
mikewint said:
Despite highly ballyhooed emphasis on employment of mechanized forces and on rapid movement, the bulk of German combat divisions were horse drawn throughout World War II............ .
Click to expand...

I encourage you that If you are going to use some one else's work, you need to acknowledge this with sources.

German Horse Cavalry and Transport, U.S. Intelligence Bulletin, March 1946 (Lone Sentry)

This is a 1946 US Army bulletin and is hardly the most reliable source.

According to DiNardo [Mechanized Juggernaut] , the stock of German horses started around 600,000 raising to about 3/4 million for Barbarossa after that figures are incomplete. The million plus figure may refer to the entire Wehrmacht and not the Heer or the number at the end of the war when vehicle stocks plummeted and as many horses and Oxen were used as possible. It seems that 3/4 of the population of horses in eastern Europe/western Russia [>15 million] were consumed as part of the war effort , as well as the axis armies. German population of vehicles was over 3 million at the start of the war and was reduced to something like 1/3 million by the end of the war. Many of these were taken up by the Wehrmacht to replace operational losses.

Hobby
 
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I am not trying to discredit the British or Commonwealth contribution but some of the Commonwealth forces were tied down in the far east where they bore more of the weight against the Japanese than the Americans did for a number of years (if not the entire war as far as infantry goes).
The Canadian production was quite amazing but it was also somewhat limited in scope. few vehicles over the 3 ton category being built. Larger trucks were obtained from the US. The potential of both the US and Canadian production was staggering to people used to pre war figures. The US QMC accepted in June of 1942 62,258 trucks of all kinds. This total was supposedly 16,000 more than the total production of 1939 and 1940 put together.

Comparisons can get tricky because some figures are for trucks, some are for motor vehicles and some are for military transport vehicles, which could include half-tracks, motorcycles and even buses.

For instance the US military acquired over 82,000 full tracked commercial type tractors (bulldozers) during the war.
 
"... The Canadian production was quite amazing but it was also somewhat limited in scope."

That is a fair observation. The bulk of production being CMP (Canadian Military Pattern) Ford and GMC trucks coming from just 2 plants. Walkerville, Ontario and Oshawa, Ontario. But the ramp-up started in 1939.

A lot of value added came from fully equipped truck bodies - eg - communications trucks (Northern Electric aka Nortel), and machine shop bodies, (Chrysler Canada). Like this:

http://www.o5m6.de/gm_c60x.html

MM
 
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It was limited in scope but that was the point design a limited range of chassis which could be fitted with whatever body required set up the production lines and then churn them out by the hundred thousand. I think Canada greatest contribution to the war effort was its magnificent production lines and Canada more than pulled its weight. Unfortunately the humdrum world of production doesnt win medals but it should have done without Canadas production things could have been very hard for the British Commonwealth and Empire forces
 
I agree completely fastmongrel. If you boil down the german problem, their biggest single problem was the low output, but following close behind, was the high attrition they suffered. they suffered high attrition mostly because of the vast numbers of different types, folowed by the relative frailty of the types they put into service. Not all of them...some were very good actually, but a big proportion of them were just not up to the stresses they were placed under....reult was a high wastage rate.
 
And another thing....Petrol.

How much fuel are these trucks using? Horse doesnt need gas and that is a good point.
 
No, but horses cvonsume fodder, which increases the average daily supply consumption of the division by 3-500 tons per day, depending on local feed availability. A 1939 type Div consumed 1900 tons per day of which about 250 tons was fodder. That was calculated for central european conditions, in the desert or the frozen steppe, or when the Div was under constant operational pressure, this requirement went up considerably
 

In relation to these itemized points;

a) The overwhelming majority of German MT was used for supply haulage, but since the overwhelming consumption of supply was by the artillery component the majority of MT (and Draft animals as well) was linked to the artillery. A 1940 pattern Infantry Bn in the heer had 850 men, each with 11 MT and 177 DA attached. The aretillery regt had 2874 0A attached, and the supply section, servicing the entire Div had 2874 DA attached. Each Infantry regt had about 45 MT and about 600 DA attached

b) French Regular Infantry Divs were motorized to a very simlar extent as the frontline German Infantry Div of 1940. However they also had 10 motorized Infantry divs, with around 2000 vehicles attached. Ther were 63 Infantry Divs in the French Army, plus these 10 motorized formations. If we assume similar rates of mechanization for the french leg Infantry as existed for the german leg infantry, then overall, the french army was at a higher level of motorization.

An Italian Infantry Div has a much lower standard of motorization. It had a total manpower strength of 12624 men. each Infantry Regiment had 3332 men, with 33MT and 220 DA attached. There weere two Inf Regts. A third CCNN Infantry Regt was often attached, 1356 men, 8MT and 202 DAs. The Artillery Regt was 2769 men, with 896 DAs. A further Heavy Mortar Bn was usually also attached with 529 men, 19MT and 80 DA. AT company 229 men, 10MT and 76 DA. Engineer Company 206 men, 10MT. Supply echelon 39 MT ? DA.

c) British Army was the only fully motorized army in 1939 (US army of 1939 was slightly better in motorization to the french Army ( according to Shelby Stantons book on the US Army). It was much smaller than the german Army, but this is misleading. Each British infantry Div had well over 2000 vehicles, but behind this was an LOC 9line Of Communication) element, that greatly expanded. The often quoted TOE figure of 15000 men per British Infantry Div is actually increased to over 55000 men per Div with the LOC elments included. These LOCs were not part of the Corps support structure....this again added about 35000 men, all fully motorized. If we were accurately compare the level of motorization in the british army, to that of the german Army, we would need to multiply the number of Divs by roughly 3, since the MT per Div is not 2000 per Div, but about 6000 per Div with the LOC troops included. That means, in comparable terms, the British fielded in 1940, the equivalent of 30 fully motorized Divs, if measured in comparable terms to those of their opponents.

d) Soviet motorization in 1941 was quite low, but they did have a large number of so-called motorized divs. I have some details somewhere, and will try and dig the material out soon.
 
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