The first quote was about Russia, the second was about how the Germans didn't conduct a Transportation Plan level wrecking of infrastructure for months ahead of the ground campaign, and final one was that they did attack infrastructure during the operation, just not to the level that the Allies did in 1944 in the run up to the invasion so were able to cope with the issues their bombing caused because it wasn't as extensive.
Since the USSR and Germany were at peace, and the USSR supplying Germany with lots of useful items and the mud season was occurring bombing the USSR was going to hurt Germany more than the USSR. A better example is France, no bombings before 10 May, but then mainly airfields, remembering part of the German plan was to have allied mobile forces advance into Belgium, then hinder their withdrawal. In any case the 1940 allies made little use of rail for military movement.
Part of logistical planning is to also avoid wrecking that which you will need to advance and containing attacks to that which is necessary to conduct operations.
The allies pre Overlord assumed Germany would keep control of most of France for months to come. Having worked out how much harder it was to land troops from the sea versus railing them the allies did not want a working northern French rail system, and that was before putting in a safety margin if there were storms or the Mulberries did not perform, or unloading was hindered by air attack or mining and so on.
Also to avoid overextending yourselves logistically, especially when you could also simply seize at low cost a major port and the waterway that services it, in pursuit of a logistically unsustainable military operation, which is what the Allies did in NWE in 1944 and suffered the consequences as a result.
21st Army Group had already grounded combat troops to use their transport, and were breaking up others or sending them back to Britain, the supply situation and number of allied troops at Antwerp were limited, as both banks of the river had to be cleared the Antwerp forces were needed to both hold the port, the front line was in the suburbs, as well as try and clear the north bank, with its bottlenecks, while the mostly Canadian forces roped off everything along the coast and concentrated on clearing the south bank, remembering 15th Army was still quite strong with intact units, it had the option of withdrawing to the north bank.
My entire point though hinges on the narrative that the Allies were fantastic at logistics and the Germans sucked, which the historical record doesn't support, especially with the NWE campaign of 1944. Barbarossa wasn't the logistical disaster that it is often portrayed as, though it did cause considerable issues, which compounded with Hitler's serious operational/strategic mistakes.
21st Army Group command included the people who had advanced across North Africa, they made few operational mistakes compared with the US and the French rail lines mostly going through Paris did not run the way the Army Group advanced. Clearing the channel ports was better. Barbarossa was a supply disaster given the many weather related casualties in the winter and before that the original supply plan.
Could have started AFTER the invasion or really during the beginning, rather than wreck it beforehand.
Ever worked out the size of the allied bomb lift versus the size of the French rail system? Or that the allies did little damage to the southern French rail system? The idea of starting even just before the invasion, beyond the obvious of telling the Germans to be on special alert, is that using air power to disrupt a big rail system was a new idea, no one knew if it could be done or the best way to do it. Experience was needed. The debate about bombing bridges for example, whether the heavy bombers could or should contribute. Wrecking the northern part of the system was considered necessary and most of it would remain in German hands for months to come as the allies did not expect to do a pursuit, so damage was not going to be a problem.
The final Overlord Supply plan assumed the Germans would fall back using the river lines as defences, requiring a build up to cross the rivers. It is interesting to note how the plan, with its steady 1918 like daily advance and neatly marked maps with "here by D+x" has become some sort of measurement of the Normandy Campaign, at least partly due it being a reason in the push to remove Montgomery. The saying no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy but the territorial advances in the Overlord supply plan apparently should have, at least to D+50 or so. Followed by the disconnect of how the planned D+365 line was reached around D+90.
The D+25 line I have says the US have St Malo and Rennes, with the border with second army being at Alencon, with the line then running slightly beyond Argentan to Lisieux to the channel. From what I can see that would mean US forces holding about twice the front of the Commonwealth forces. This expands to something like 4 times the frontage on D+35 as Brittany is cut off, the assumed US front on D+50 was Brest, the Loire to around Tours and then North to 2nd Army, the US front line reduces to 3 times the Commonwealth front on D+60 with Brittany taken and the line then running along the Loire from St Nazaire to Tours then about straight to the channel at the mouth of the Seine.
Caen, a D-Day objective was fully secured by Goodwood on D+43, St Lo, due to be captured by around D+7 was captured on D+43, Avranches the objective for D+19 was captured on D+55.
There would be a steady advance, uncovering a steady amount of railways, roads, bridges and ports per day. The railway repair plans included all bridges down, needing 90% new bridging, 75% of track destroyed, which meant 55% would need new ties and rails. A detailed plan was made for the rail to Rennes, which would take three months. There were 5 engineer service regiments assigned to rail repair. It was known the Germans had a rail demolition vehicle that broke the ties and automatically dropped explosive charges at intervals to destroy tracks. Ports would be back in service in around 3 days after capture. The ports would be opened, that is take their first ship even if not at 100% pre war capacity, after capture and repair as follows, Isigny D+11, Cherbourg D+12, Grandchamp D+15 St Vaast D+16, Barfleur D+20, Granville D+26, St Malo D+27, Brest D+53, Quiberon Bay D+54, Lorient D+57. Note Cherbourg was mainly a passenger port, it was number 22 on the ranking of French Ports, cargo capacity at 900 tons/day pre war.
The US had no railway bridging repair equipment and intended to use British equipment. When they arrived on the continent they found the German equipment better than the British, and the plant that made it was the Hadir works in Luxembourg. Since this fell relatively quickly into US hands, in October 1944, the rubber stamps came out to certify the new US rail bridge repair equipment. Some 90% of bridges reconstructed used the Hadir beams, some 50,000 tons of steel I beams were made at the plant.
The US did much better in 1945, things like,
As part of the POL support each US army has a fuel pipeline laid across the Rhine after it advances beyond the river, bulk shipments are put into the line on the west bank and drawn again from the east bank end point. This enables bulk shipments without straining bridge capacity, since POL is around 1/3 supply tonnage. These stand alone systems are connected as soon as possible to the lines from the ports. The "Major System" fuel pipelines from the ports terminate at Maastricht (north), Thionville (middle) and Saaralbe (South). The speed of the advance after crossing the Rhine is so great no advanced depots can be created until after the pursuit slows down, this is at least post 12th April.
On 29th March round the clock work starts on the railway bridge at Wesel, 2 engineer general service regiments, a construction battalion and other units begin work. Careful planning has been needed to assemble the required materials including naval craft and steel beams up to 92 feet long and 3 feet deep, and 100 foot pilings, using roads that can take such long loads by if necessary demolishing obstacles. The Rhine is large enough to justify a flood prediction service. The rail bridge is 23 span 1,753 feet long across the Rhine plus a 6 span 463 feet structure across the Lippe.
In Sicily the US Army learnt beach head supply units did not work to support an army, a proper supply system had to be landed as well. Prior to late July 1944 the biggest field force the US had to supply was the army in Italy. It had to move up to Army Group size, then 2 Army Group size August/September 1944.
Certainly some of it helped, but there were heaps of problems with all sorts of logistics that had nothing to do with the bombed French infrastructure if you check out that book review I linked about Allied logistics.
The fundamental allied situation in August/September 1944 was the lack of port capacity, even 21st Army Group was landing about half its supply requirements, the trucks could help clear the ports or haul supplies to the front. The US compounded its problems through inexperience and the way it set up its supply system.
Given the circumstances wasn't that lucky, it was a massive blunder not to immediately clear the Scheldt, which has been my major point.
The Germans had good defensive terrain on both banks, the allied forces in the area were operating with limited supplies. It was the reverse of Alamein, if the Germans took Alexandria all their supply problems were solved but they really needed the port to supply the assault to take it.
Certainly the trans-Atlantic shipping was superb as was the Mediterranean situation.
It took until mid 1943 for the US Army to work out and put in place a standard set of mandatory labels for cargo, what was in it and who it was for, standard manifests followed in 1944. The failure to do this in 1942 had caused considerable angst. In mid 1942 an example given was one ship 30% of the cargo had no markings, 25% no addressee and just general description, e.g. Quartermaster. This was compounded by the lack of shipping, resulting in loading ships to capacity with what was on the docks, and the shortage of army equipment, leading to piecemeal arrivals of equipment on the docks. In September 1942 the equipment of 1 infantry regiment was sent to England split up between 55 ships.
The result was although the equipment was in England for the US troops already in England allocated to Torch some of the equipment had to be sent a second or even third time because it became lost somewhere in England. Mainly thanks to inadequate markings with help from an inexperienced supply system in England.
As part of the new labelling system cargo was inspected before it was allowed onto the US ports and sent back unless it was clearly labelled. The final label codes were no less than 5 groups of ID letters and numbers, 1) the port of destination, 2) the priority, 3) the type of cargo, 4) identification as part of a group of containers, 5) shipping ID, from address, requisition drawn against. As an example, BOBO-A-ORDII-GT3-A302RA3.
Sailing notification cables also started to be sent direct, not through Washington which meant a minimisation of the previously all too common problem of the ship arriving before or about the same time as the manifest arrived in England. In January 1943 only 40% of manifests made it to England in time, during May 1943 it was raised to 91%. Convoys from the US were broken up and ships routed to the "best" port, which required cargo knowledge a few days before arrival, to arrange for the relevant berth and trains to clear the cargo. For example a convoy from the US to England, in March 1944, 18 full and 24 part ship Army cargoes (1,500 vehicles on wheels, 200 cased, 200 aircraft and gliders, 50,000 tons of supplies). Eight days to discharge, 75 trains using 10,000 cars to clear, plus some road transport, these land movements also generated the need for 27 trains with 8,000 cars for things like inter depot movements and railway supplies.
Though in all cases they learned a ton on the job rather than entering into it perfect. I wouldn't say they were superior in practice overall, but they were just as good as the best of the Axis.
If you drop the sea part of the equation and use 1944 you can make this comparison for the US, otherwise show the German use of things like fuel pipelines under rivers to free bridge capacity.
In NWE however the Allies made a ton of logistical mistakes despite lots of previous experience in other theaters, which is what makes it all so inexcusable.
So which other theatres did the US support Army Groups landing and entering intense combats? Or do pursuit operations? Or support troops more than a few tens of miles from the ports? When German resistance collapsed in August 1944 the allied supply system suddenly needed lots more supplies as did the civil populations the allies freed, and a working rail system required lots of coal, coal required workers and pit props, German PoWs were used in the French mines. The original Overlord plan assumed like 1918 the mines would be deliberately flooded before the Germans left.
I'm not claiming any of the Axis were paragons of virtue regarding logistics, but they weren't morons as often portrayed and the Allies hardly uniformly skilled either. At seas of course the Allies had the massive skillset for it, since their entire existence, either at peace or war, depended on shipping. Inland things changed considerably.
It is interesting how few US Army units did operations before June 1944, the MTO had peaked at 9 divisions in July 1943, then 3 sent to England, replaced by 3 new divisions in 1944 but one was the never to see combat 2nd Cavalry, by end 1943 there were 13 divisions in the Pacific but that included the Hawaii garrison for example. By end June 1944 the US had 13 divisions in France, 23 end August (after the 2 airborne were withdrawn to England), plus the French units, 46 divisions by end December 1944, including 2 airborne.
21st Army Group made few of the operational level mistakes the US army made post Normandy, whether it could clear the approaches to Antwerp in a timely manner is quite debatable given strength and supply limits, the latter would require shifting US truck lift plus giving priority to opening rail lines the Army Group could use. The British had lent 3rd Army some truck companies for a time as part of the break out, and there was a special run to move US Supplies as part of Market Garden. On 21st September Von Rundstedt considers his forces to be the equivalent of 21 Volksgrenadier and 6 to 7 Panzer divisions. In other words close to a 1 to 1 ratio with the allied forces operating on the front line, using a HQ count.
As the shipping congestion increased, until the end of August, ships are selectively unloaded, leaving many in a partially loaded state as effectively floating magazines. Washington strongly objects to the build up of shipping and as a result some of the partially unloaded ships are returned to the US.
