Oil campaign chronology of World War II

[Milosh]

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (European War) (anesi.com)

 

[Stig1207]

Full report Oil Division Final Report

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Full report Oil Division Final Report

Nice find, its a shame that they only scanned the cover in colour, as a lot of the diagrams inside are coloured, but its still nice that the whole
thing is basically online.

It looks like if the war had carried on another couple of years that the Germans might have been able to insulate themselves from air raids on oil production.

 

[Milosh]

Full report Oil Division Final Report

Can't view it.

 

[Stig1207]

Can't view it.

Link to the site USSBS-Europe

 

[Milosh]

Link to the site USSBS-Europe

Still no joy.

 

[Stig1207]

You can't access the site or is it just the report(s) on the site?

 

[Milosh]

You can't access the site or is it just the report(s) on the site?

The Reports.

cherry blossom was so kind as to send me the report. Thank You.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The Red Army would not have advanced at a fraction of the rate it did if the German armies Armour had of had the fuel to conduct advances and manoeuvres. The Wehrmacht was often so deficient in fuel unable to move its panzers for weeks at a time or conduct offensives or advances. It would need to wait weeks to accumulate the fuel required. During the Soviet invasion of East Prussia Each German Tank had only 2.5 loads of fuel. That's not even enough to retreat let alone exploit any opportunities or Soviet Weaknesses.

I would go so far as to say that without the allied oil (and transport campaign) the Soviets would have been contained another year. To that we might add that maybe half of the 20,000 8.8cm FLAK 37 guns in Germany as part of air defences could have been on the eastern front dug in to stop the Soviet Armour.

The figure of 20,000 flak guns in Germany includes light and medium guns.

According to Hooton in his book Eagle in Flames. As of June 1944:

Light and Medium 14,276
Heavy
8.8 cm 6,941
10.5 cm 1,490
12.8 cm 324

Let's assume that all these guns could have been used at the Russian front .

First of all, the rate of wastage was much higher at the front. 7000 guns in Germany were not the equivalent of 7000 guns at the Russian front. Guns at the front were often destroyed or abandoned, whereas a flak gun defending Germany was rarely destroyed. In addition, loss of territory often resulted in the loss of hundreds of guns at a time, examples being Stalingrad and North Africa.

Ignoring that for the moment, a major problem would be providing the mobility required. For each gun a complex and expensive towing vehicle (e.g. Sd.Kfz. 7) must be manufactured. This a very large vehicle with mechanicals similar to a light tank (it had a variant of the Maybach 6 powering the PzKpfw II). Approximately 14,000 Sd.Kfz. 7 were produced so adding 7,000 would have been a major increase in production imposing a substantial burden on German industry. Other programs would suffer. Adding such a large number of these vehicles would bring additional problems to the front lines, as they must be maintained in the field and fuel must be provided.

This brings up the whole question of logistics. Meeting the needs of a gun emplaced in Germany was obviously far, far simpler than providing ammunition, fuel, spare parts and, very importantly, food to a gun at the end of a long and tenuous supply chain in Russia.

Finally, manpower. Some have claimed that something like the equivalent of 35 divisions were tied up defending the Reich. This is not true, serving in a flak unit was a part time job for most. The majority of the men, women and school boys serving flak units in Germany were not front-line capable troops.

Donald Nijboer notes the following in German Flak Defences vs Allied Heavy Bombers 1942--45:

"In the autumn of 1944, the Flakwaffe was assigned 1,110,900 personnel – a formidable number by any measure. A closer look reveals that 448,700 of that number, or 40 per cent, were non Luftwaffe personnel consisting of 220,000 Home Guard, Labor Service and high school boys, 128,000 female auxiliaries and 98,000 foreign volunteers and PoWs. Of the regular Luftwaffe service personnel, 21 per cent were between the ages of 39 and 45 and 35 per cent were older, or had been declared medically unfit for frontline duty."

Doing the math, out of the 1.1 million Flakwaffe personnel, 291,000 were fit for front line duties and this would include the personnel already assigned to the fronts.

As to the cost of doing business, the often-quoted sum of $107,000 to produce the 16,000 shells to bring down a bomber is based on the following table:

As can been seen the data is cherry picked by using the data for the worst performing gun, although it must be said that it was by far the most numerous.

The table below is very interesting as it shows how much more effective the guns would have been had the Germans made the switch to the much superior time and contact fuse. This fuse could have been put into production in 1943 but for Albert Speer's obsession with numbers, at least according to the author.

In any event, the cost of $107,000 is money well spent compared to the cost of a bomber. The basic airframe cost was $150,000-200,000 to which 30 to 50% would be added at the aircraft modification centres plus the government furnished equipment such as engines and electronics plus the fuel and munitions that go up in smoke. You're talking at least five to one pay-out. As investments go it's a no brainer.

All this without including the human cost. Every American bomber shot down represents 3 dead and airmen and 7 POWs. The cost of training a bomber crew was huge.

Note that for every bomber shot down by flak something like 30 were damaged, some beyond repair, with dead or wounded crewman. The damage done to the bombers also benefited the fighters by disrupting the bomber formations. Flak damage was the leading cause of straggling and stragglers were meat for the fighters. More than half of the B-17s lost for, January to June 1944 were stragglers.

Finally, Flak had a tremendous effect on bombing accuracy. Not only did it disrupt the concentration of the crews, it forced bombers to fly at much higher altitudes. If the 8th AF had been able to bomb from 7,000 ft the Norden bombsight would have come much closer to its fabled pickle barrel accuracy.

 

[pbehn]

The figure of 20,000 flak guns in Germany includes light and medium guns.

According to Hooton in his book Eagle in Flames. As of June 1944:

Light and Medium 14,276
Heavy
8.8 cm 6,941
10.5 cm 1,490
12.8 cm 324

Let's assume that all these guns could have been used at the Russian front .

First of all, the rate of wastage was much higher at the front. 7000 guns in Germany were not the equivalent of 7000 guns at the Russian front. Guns at the front were often destroyed or abandoned, whereas a flak gun defending Germany was rarely destroyed. In addition, loss of territory often resulted in the loss of hundreds of guns at a time, examples being Stalingrad and North Africa.

Ignoring that for the moment, a major problem would be providing the mobility required. For each gun a complex and expensive towing vehicle (e.g. Sd.Kfz. 7) must be manufactured. This a very large vehicle with mechanicals similar to a light tank (it had a variant of the Maybach 6 powering the PzKpfw II). Approximately 14,000 Sd.Kfz. 7 were produced so adding 7,000 would have been a major increase in production imposing a substantial burden on German industry. Other programs would suffer. Adding such a large number of these vehicles would bring additional problems to the front lines, as they must be maintained in the field and fuel must be provided.

This brings up the whole question of logistics. Meeting the needs of a gun emplaced in Germany was obviously far, far simpler than providing ammunition, fuel, spare parts and, very importantly, food to a gun at the end of a long and tenuous supply chain in Russia.

Finally, manpower. Some have claimed that something like the equivalent of 35 divisions were tied up defending the Reich. This is not true, serving in a flak unit was a part time job for most. The majority of the men, women and school boys serving flak units in Germany were not front-line capable troops.

Donald Nijboer notes the following in German Flak Defences vs Allied Heavy Bombers 1942--45:

"In the autumn of 1944, the Flakwaffe was assigned 1,110,900 personnel – a formidable number by any measure. A closer look reveals that 448,700 of that number, or 40 per cent, were non Luftwaffe personnel consisting of 220,000 Home Guard, Labor Service and high school boys, 128,000 female auxiliaries and 98,000 foreign volunteers and PoWs. Of the regular Luftwaffe service personnel, 21 per cent were between the ages of 39 and 45 and 35 per cent were older, or had been declared medically unfit for frontline duty."

Doing the math, out of the 1.1 million Flakwaffe personnel, 291,000 were fit for front line duties and this would include the personnel already assigned to the fronts.

As to the cost of doing business, the often-quoted sum of $107,000 to produce the 16,000 shells to bring down a bomber is based on the following table:


View attachment 612557


As can been seen the data is cherry picked by using the data for the worst performing gun, although it must be said that it was by far the most numerous.

The table below is very interesting as it shows how much more effective the guns would have been had the Germans made the switch to the much superior time and contact fuse. This fuse could have been put into production in 1943 but for Albert Speer's obsession with numbers, at least according to the author.

In any event, the cost of $107,000 is money well spent compared to the cost of a bomber. The basic airframe cost was $150,000-200,000 to which 30 to 50% would be added at the aircraft modification centres plus the government furnished equipment such as engines and electronics plus the fuel and munitions that go up in smoke. You're talking at least five to one pay-out. As investments go it's a no brainer.

All this without including the human cost. Every American bomber shot down represents 3 dead and airmen and 7 POWs. The cost of training a bomber crew was huge.

Note that for every bomber shot down by flak something like 30 were damaged, some beyond repair, with dead or wounded crewman. The damage done to the bombers also benefited the fighters by disrupting the bomber formations. Flak damage was the leading cause of straggling and stragglers were meat for the fighters. More than half of the B-17s lost for, January to June 1944 were stragglers.

Finally, Flak had a tremendous effect on bombing accuracy. Not only did it disrupt the concentration of the crews, it forced bombers to fly at much higher altitudes. If the 8th AF had been able to bomb from 7,000 ft the Norden bombsight would have come much closer to its fabled pickle barrel accuracy.

Great information but for me the important thing is that ground flak never dissuaded either the USAF or RAF from attacking targets, to protect what they had by ground fire needed a huge increase in what they had, everywhere they had an important asset or city.

 

[Koopernic]

The figure of 20,000 flak guns in Germany includes light and medium guns.

According to Hooton in his book Eagle in Flames. As of June 1944:

Light and Medium 14,276
Heavy
8.8 cm 6,941
10.5 cm 1,490
12.8 cm 324

Let's assume that all these guns could have been used at the Russian front .

First of all, the rate of wastage was much higher at the front. 7000 guns in Germany were not the equivalent of 7000 guns at the Russian front. Guns at the front were often destroyed or abandoned, whereas a flak gun defending Germany was rarely destroyed. In addition, loss of territory often resulted in the loss of hundreds of guns at a time, examples being Stalingrad and North Africa.

Ignoring that for the moment, a major problem would be providing the mobility required. For each gun a complex and expensive towing vehicle (e.g. Sd.Kfz. 7) must be manufactured. This a very large vehicle with mechanicals similar to a light tank (it had a variant of the Maybach 6 powering the PzKpfw II). Approximately 14,000 Sd.Kfz. 7 were produced so adding 7,000 would have been a major increase in production imposing a substantial burden on German industry. Other programs would suffer. Adding such a large number of these vehicles would bring additional problems to the front lines, as they must be maintained in the field and fuel must be provided.

This brings up the whole question of logistics. Meeting the needs of a gun emplaced in Germany was obviously far, far simpler than providing ammunition, fuel, spare parts and, very importantly, food to a gun at the end of a long and tenuous supply chain in Russia.

Finally, manpower. Some have claimed that something like the equivalent of 35 divisions were tied up defending the Reich. This is not true, serving in a flak unit was a part time job for most. The majority of the men, women and school boys serving flak units in Germany were not front-line capable troops.

Donald Nijboer notes the following in German Flak Defences vs Allied Heavy Bombers 1942--45:

"In the autumn of 1944, the Flakwaffe was assigned 1,110,900 personnel – a formidable number by any measure. A closer look reveals that 448,700 of that number, or 40 per cent, were non Luftwaffe personnel consisting of 220,000 Home Guard, Labor Service and high school boys, 128,000 female auxiliaries and 98,000 foreign volunteers and PoWs. Of the regular Luftwaffe service personnel, 21 per cent were between the ages of 39 and 45 and 35 per cent were older, or had been declared medically unfit for frontline duty."

Doing the math, out of the 1.1 million Flakwaffe personnel, 291,000 were fit for front line duties and this would include the personnel already assigned to the fronts.

As to the cost of doing business, the often-quoted sum of $107,000 to produce the 16,000 shells to bring down a bomber is based on the following table:


View attachment 612557


As can been seen the data is cherry picked by using the data for the worst performing gun, although it must be said that it was by far the most numerous.

The table below is very interesting as it shows how much more effective the guns would have been had the Germans made the switch to the much superior time and contact fuse. This fuse could have been put into production in 1943 but for Albert Speer's obsession with numbers, at least according to the author.

In any event, the cost of $107,000 is money well spent compared to the cost of a bomber. The basic airframe cost was $150,000-200,000 to which 30 to 50% would be added at the aircraft modification centres plus the government furnished equipment such as engines and electronics plus the fuel and munitions that go up in smoke. You're talking at least five to one pay-out. As investments go it's a no brainer.

All this without including the human cost. Every American bomber shot down represents 3 dead and airmen and 7 POWs. The cost of training a bomber crew was huge.

Note that for every bomber shot down by flak something like 30 were damaged, some beyond repair, with dead or wounded crewman. The damage done to the bombers also benefited the fighters by disrupting the bomber formations. Flak damage was the leading cause of straggling and stragglers were meat for the fighters. More than half of the B-17s lost for, January to June 1944 were stragglers.

Finally, Flak had a tremendous effect on bombing accuracy. Not only did it disrupt the concentration of the crews, it forced bombers to fly at much higher altitudes. If the 8th AF had been able to bomb from 7,000 ft the Norden bombsight would have come much closer to its fabled pickle barrel accuracy.

Interesting information


III Fligerkorps during the Normandy Battle (presumably June 6th to July 25th when the cobra breakout began) was equipped with about 144 x 8.8cm guns. Despite its role being anti aircraft and being starved of ammunition, it managed the following:

Air Craft shot down 462
Tanks destroyed 92 (12 of these were by Panzerfaust by soldiers of the corps)
Armoured Cars destroyed 14

The III Fligerkorps was not deployed to defend against tanks but nevertheless destroyed about 80 tanks with AT 144 guns over 6 weeks. Some maths suggests 100 guns were destroying 40 tanks/month on average while primarily being deployed to defend against aircraft. (more if you count that troops were using Panzerfaust). T

The other thing to consider is that although the 7.5cm PAK 40 was a better gun than the 8.8cm FLAK 37 at destroying tanks is that vastly more 7.5cm PAK 40 could have been produced and operated had the FLAK guns not been needed. Furthermore guns such as the high velocity 7.5cm PAK 42 (essentially the same gun as the 7.5cm kwK 42 of the Panther tank) could also have been produced and manned in lieu of the FLAK 37, FLAK 42 and of course there was the high velocity 8.8cm PAK 43.

The 8.8cm FLAK, when deployed to the front, also had a significant secondary role not only in defence against armour but in artillery counter fire being able to produce FLAK bursts above artillery units and infantry.

Either way the FLAK defence of Germany against allied bombers was costly and would have supplied a lot of manpower and weapons to effect the Soviet advance.
III. Flak-Korps (archive.org)

The double fuse (nose contact plus timed burst) was reckoned 3-4 times more effective against bombers in formation and 2.4 times against individual bombers so they Germans clearly missed an opportunity.

Interestingly the cold cathode shock hardened vacuum tubes the Germans developed for planned to use in proximity fuses their FLAK shells could be used in two ways: in the form of an electrostatic proximity fuse or in the form of an electronically programable timer fuse that could be programmed in the barrel or during transfer. The circuits I've seen of the electrostatic proximity fuse incorporated a nose contact backup fuse and no doubt so would the timer versions. It would be relatively easy to make a triple fuse (electrostatic, programmed time and nose contact). I'm sure they had thought of it already.

I did come across a poster once who said his father had been in a Waffen SS artillery unit and claimed his unit had been given and used an anti personnel proximity fuse in the last 8 weeks of the war that left the ground deeply pock marked. (The electrostatic proximity fuse had less range than the allied radar fuse and may have detonated only a meter above ground, so this makes sense)

 

[Zipper730]

Nice find, its a shame that they only scanned the cover in colour, as a lot of the diagrams inside are coloured, but its still nice that the whole thing is basically online.

It looks like if the war had carried on another couple of years that the Germans might have been able to insulate themselves from air raids on oil production.

That thing looks like it'd be very hard to take out. Nuclear bombs would do it, but would a couple tall-boys or grand-slams be adequate?

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The Red Army would not have advanced at a fraction of the rate it did if the German armies Armour had of had the fuel to conduct advances and manoeuvres. The Wehrmacht was often so deficient in fuel unable to move its panzers for weeks at a time or conduct offensives or advances. It would need to wait weeks to accumulate the fuel required. During the Soviet invasion of East Prussia Each German Tank had only 2.5 loads of fuel. That's not even enough to retreat let alone exploit any opportunities or Soviet Weaknesses.

I would go so far as to say that without the allied oil (and transport campaign) the Soviets would have been contained another year. To that we might add that maybe half of the 20,000 8.8cm FLAK 37 guns in Germany as part of air defences could have been on the eastern front dug in to stop the Soviet Armour.

The reality is that the Oil Campaign was too late to influence the biggest Soviet advances of the war. As can be seen in the USSB Graph below the oil campaign did not have any effect on the Wehrmacht's motor gasoline consumption until September 1944. Gasoline production had been reduced but the Germans were using their reserves to stop the hemorrhaging on the Eastern Front. In fact, in August the Wehrmacht's consumption reached its highest peak since the heady days of the invasion of Russia. I have annotated the graph with a red line delineating the August peak.

In the time the oil campaign started and finally took effect in the field the Soviets launched and concluded Operation Bagration, which is generally acknowledged to be the greatest defeat the German army ever suffered. It was known for many years in the West simply as "The Destruction of Army Group Center". Three entire Armies were shattered, 30 Divisions outright disappeared. The front line moved 250 miles.

The following interactive map shows very clearly the enormous gains made by the Soviet Union before the oil campaign had an impact. Start the video at 4.30 which marks the start of the offensive the Soviets began after the battle of Kursk (July 12) and stop it at 5.40 marking the end of Bagration (August 19). The front line moved hundreds of miles back to where Germany started operation the invasion of the Soviet Union.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

This is probably the most important single report (the "Final Report") on this theme, you can sometimes find early versions of it online (I think Fisher Tropsch has a pdf somewhere ?)

If nobody has a copy they can share, or knows the FT link, I`ll have a think if I can upload it to my website, it has 152 pages.

View attachment 610176

View attachment 610183

A while ago I painstakingly downloaded the individual pages and combined them. I though I had posted this once before. Some pages my be missing.

The charts are not in color so if you could reproduce them they could be substituted.
Also, who ever did the original scans did not unfold the folding pages so they are not reproduced correctly.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The German electric power situation was in fact in a precarious condition from the beginning of the war and became more precarious as the war progressed; this fact is confirmed by statements of a large number of German officials, by confidential memoranda of the National Load Dispatcher, and secret minutes of the Central Planning Committee. Fears that their extreme vulnerability would be discovered were fully discussed in these minutes.

The destruction of five large generating stations in Germany would have caused a capacity loss of 1.8 million kw. or 8 percent of the total capacity, both public and private. The destruction of 45 plants of 100,000 kw. or larger would have caused a loss of about 8,000,000 kw. or almost 40 percent, and the destruction of a total of 95 plants of 50,000 kw. or larger would have eliminated over one-half of the entire generating capacity of the country.

The shortage was sufficiently critical so that any considerable loss of output would have directly affected essential war production, and the destruction of any substantial amount would have had serious results.
Major Strategical Flaw of World War 2: Failure to Target Germany's Electrical Power Grid | History Forum (historum.com)

AWDP-1 in fact listed Electric Power first in its list of targets.

 

[Dimlee]

In the time the oil campaign started and finally took effect in the field the Soviets launched and concluded Operation Bagration, which is generally acknowledged to be the greatest defeat the German army ever suffered. It was known for many years in the West simply as "The Destruction of Army Group Center". Three entire Armies were shattered, 30 Divisions outright disappeared.

Just to note that Bagration was a very costly success for the Soviet Union. Manpower reserves were not limitless. It was hardly a coincidence that the conscription age was lowered by 1-2 years in October 1944.
I assume that without the oil campaign, Wehrmacht could be more successive after the Bagration, in the defences and counter-offensives.