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That's not surprising since the Wehrmacht had few combat aircraft or motor vehicles during 1939. By 1941 German military production had increased enough to cause fuel shortages. Those shortages should have been predictable.
I don't know about motor vehicles but your staement is incorrect regarding combat aircraft.
In 1939 the luftwaffe had 2,916 combat aircraft,out of the 2,950 "authorised" (98.9%).
In June 1941 it had slightly more,3,451 (81.6% of the 4,228 authorised)
Your claim that the defeat of Germany does not lie on fuel shortages is based upon the assumption that as actual strength of the Luftwaffe did not match authorized strength and so their fuel consumption would have been below planed. [/I]
The appalling operational ready rates are harder to explain but must be at least partly due to a lack of preparation for a long conflict,a lack of spare parts,personnel,facilities for example. Also a lot of poor or muddled planning. Yet another reason that Germany lost the war.
...4 Removed nearly 4 million ethnic Sudden Germans from the bordering Germany, forced them into Czechoslovakia, a country with 20% the population of Germany but almost its area where due to gerrymandering not one single ethnic German was ever elected to federal parliament...)
Perhaps its worth considering that the Luftwaffe bombing of the aviation engine and machine tool industry in and around Coventry may have helped delay the Napier Sabre to such an extent that it was limited in production due to its unreliability. (eg they punched rather than machined sleeve valves)
.One of the achievements of the Hitler since taking office in 1934 to 1939 was an increase in automobile production from 44,000 per year to 250,000 year. That is no chump change, the Germans certainly knew how to design and produce motor cars and trucks
The expansion is somewhat belated in comparison to the US however its worth considering that Germans invented the Otto cycle (4 stroke engine), invented the Diesel, invented high speed diesel injection (Robert Bosch) and invented the automobile (Daimler) and the high speed 4 stroke they even invented the woman driver when Emma Daimler had an argument with Gotlieb and took their child in the car to her mother.
True, i agree, but this approach does not completely address the needs of the modern mobile battles being advocated prewar....to make that work the germans needed an efficient SUSTAINABLE truck pool to sustain the concept of mobile warfare. in the end, the german efforts in this area failed completely.Germany had a dense network of rail for urban and interurban transport and so was not reliant on the automobile.
Its why Hitler came to power, he was the only politician that was effective.
Every German Democratically elected Chancellor was completely rejected and humiliated by the allies and France. The one prior to Hitler had rotten vegetables thrown at him in 1932 when he came back from his failed mission in France, which is why he lost.
The Luftwaffe strength being less than authorised is obviously due to production shortfalls,production was not covering losses,another one of the many reasons that Germany lost the war.
In 1939 Germany produced 1,856 fighters and 2,877 bombers. In 1941 it produced 3,732 fighters and 4,350 bombers. Despite this increase in production it started operations in 1942 with less aircraft than it had in 1940. Another thread might discuss who was to blame. Much responsibility lies with Udet but Goering,Jeschonnek and many others must shoulder some of the responsibility too.
The appalling operational ready rates are harder to explain but must be at least partly due to a lack of preparation for a long conflict,a lack of spare parts,personnel,facilities for example. Also a lot of poor or muddled planning. Yet another reason that Germany lost the war.
I also implied that the fact that Germany had far less combat aircraft in commission by 1942 than in 1939 (unlike her Western adversaries,don't know about the USSR without checking) was a factor in her eventual defeat and it certainly was.
I was interested to see how much importation was reduced by the (principally) British blockade. A reduction of 5 million barrels must have hurt.I often see it argued that the blockade had a minimal effect on the German war effort.
....to make that work the germans needed an efficient SUSTAINABLE truck pool to sustain the concept of mobile warfare. in the end, the german efforts in this area failed completely.
It took Germany 3 weeks to defeat France and throw Britain of the Continent.
German planning was almost perfect.
There was no equivalent of the British civilian repair units.
Aircraft were entrained and sent hundreds of miles back to repair facilities. Poor planning.
am sure you agree that the British enjoyed advantages because they had very different position. After Britain ground troop left the continent, they were always fighting from their own bases in England, which meant that civillian infrastructure was natural available for repairs. That's an advantage of retreat and falling back to your own center of operation.
It is only natural that the Germans did not found nearby 'German civillian repair' units in France, Yugoslavia, Africa, Russia etc.
Uhm, this was necessary because Wehrmacht Heer tended to advanced hundreds of miles into enemy territories and the owners forgot to prepare these territories with sufficient repair facilities to the advancing enemy... Seriously, I am not certain what alternative you see to sending seriously damaged aircraft back to Germany. Building an aircraft factory (years..) just to repair planes in Russia sounds like a good idea to you? Getting aircraft mechanics from German factories to frontline sounds like a good idea to you?
How did the British solve this overseas in North Africa, Far East? I am quite sure they were forced to adopt the same procedure, when far from England industrie.
"6 Repair and Salvage Unit RAAF (6 RSU) was established at Mt. Druitt in New South Wales on 10 April 1944. It was initially sharing facilities with 18 Repair and Salvage Unit, but took over the shared facilities when 18 RSU started to move out on about 26 July 1944.
One of the first tasks for 6 RSU was to recover a Beaufort bomber from Mascot airfield and relocate it to 5 Aircraft Depot at Wagga. This may have been Beaufort, A9-585, which crashed at Mascot at some time in July 1944. 6 RSU also undertook the relocation of 6 main-planes and and three fuselages for Wackett Trainers from the Newcastle Aero Club. They also carried out 240 hour services on Boomerang aircraft.
Sqn/Ldr V.H. Johns became the Commanding Officer of 6 RSU on 4 July 1944. He was replaced by Sqn/Ldr P.J. Allen on 1 November 1944.
Ainslie Sharpe's father was a member of 6 RSU. From his papers it appears that he was transferred to 6 RSU on 7 August 1944 and did a Liberator course from 15 September 1944 to 6 October 1944 at the Mobile Technical Inst. Section at Tocumwal. This meant that he was not with 6 RSU from its inception, but from the time that it was taking over the facilities of 18 RSU. He was a Warrant Officer. His leave record states (under Leave in Lieu) that he started HLI Tropical Leave on 21 February 1945, which probably means he was in one of the main party of 300 men who left Mt Druitt on 9 February 1945.
On 13 December 1944, Flight Lieutenant R.H. Barnes and the first 45 personnel of 6 RSU boarded a train headed for Fenton airfield in the Northern Territory. They arrived at Fenton on 27 December 1944.
6 RSU's Unit Stores were loaded on to SS Helga Moller at Circular Quay in Sydney, enroute to Darwin accompanied by Flying Officer B.V. McAuley and 11 airmen. They arrived in Darwin on 15 February 1945.
The largest body of 300 personnel left Mt. Druitt by train on 9 February 1945, arriving at Fenton on 21 February 1945. The rear party of 40 personnel, led by Flight Lieutenant P.J. Willington left Mt. Druitt on 14 February 1945 and arrived at Fenton on 23 February 1945.
6 RSU carried out maintenance on B-24 Liberators at Fenton and carried out the salvage of crashed aircraft in the region.
Members of the unit severely bogged a Weapons Carrier in a location about 12 miles east of Adelaide River on 30 March 1945 while trying to salvage a B-25 Mitchell bomber. They were forced to return to Fenton on horse back. They recovered the Weapons Carrier on 2 April 1945.
Sqn/Ldr A.J. Brown became the Commanding Officer of 6 RSU on 27 May 1945.
It was decided to relocate 6 RSU to Morotai. They travelled to Darwin via 51 Mile Camp and boarded the ship "Luis Arguello" on about 17 June 1945. They arrived at Morotai on 30 June 1945. F/Lt Barnes and F/Lt Willington and 49 airmen went ashore to prepare the camp for the main body of men which came ashore on the 1 July 1945.
Sqn/Ldr J. Hearnden became the Commanding Officer of 6 RSU on 19 August 1945."
I think the re-education camps or the gulag was the usual Soviet solution for poor performance. The German solution might be to fire you, which would make you eligible to be drafted, and off to the east front.In some nations there are "political' considerations. AS in a factory manager being asked how many aircraft, tanks or trucks 'his' factory produced that month. A number very closely looked at and failure to meet quota could mean demotion and/or transfer, perhaps to a "re-education camp"? A much more seldom asked question is "how many spare parts did you make this month?"
The US could screw up on occasion too. The US planners only allocated 20% spares for the Merlin powered P-40s in North Africa. The British broke down several hundred of their Merlin engines to provide spare parts.