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"21st Pz Division French tanks" Topic


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Beaumap23 Jun 2014 2:33 a.m. PST

What a great thread! the best of TMP – informational, collaborative, no petulant outbursts. I have found it REALLY helpful, as I finish constructing several several 20mm scale units from 21st PD and associated units; units that I am seeking to make historical, match 2,000 point in FoW, AND come out at 1/10 ratio!

Jemima Fawr26 Jun 2014 10:40 a.m. PST

Just reading Kortenhaus; he mentions that the French tanks were removed before D-Day and says that they were later used for anti-partisan duties on the Eastern Front. He also mentions unidentified elements of the division being shipped by rail to Hungary between 1943 and June 1944, so perhaps that's where the French panzers went?

Personal logo Legion 4 Supporting Member of TMP27 Jun 2014 8:42 a.m. PST

You have to admit, the Germans were very good at using, converting and/or re-purposing captured equipment …

Jemima Fawr27 Jun 2014 8:47 a.m. PST

They certainly were – nothing knowingly thrown away and even when a tank became absolutely redundant, they'd stick the turret on a bunker or a train and use the hull for some other purpose.

zoneofcontrol27 Jun 2014 6:58 p.m. PST

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle in its earliest form.

Old Smokie30 Jun 2014 2:20 a.m. PST

@ Beaumap, its a pity it can't be like this all the time

@ R Mark Davies thanks for that thumbs up, now wondering what unidentified elements of the division were shipped by rail to Hungary between 1943 and June 1944

Murvihill30 Jun 2014 9:59 a.m. PST

the Germans were good at recycling out of necessity. If they had put their tank factories on three shifts in 1939 the world would be a different place right now.

Lewisgunner30 Jun 2014 11:30 a.m. PST

The Germans got some things right, some wrong. It was apparently far easier and quicker to change an engine on an Me 109 than on a Spitfire. As to tanks, they made a big mistake in not creating a simplified MarkIF, perhaps based on the design that was created to incorporate the lessons of the T34 and having this or something similar manufactured by Italy , Hungary and Rumania. One of the Germans great weaknesses was their allies, the italians had poor tanks in the Desert, the Italians, Hungarians an Rumanians poor tanks in the USSR. Had these allies been better equipped then Hitler would have disposed of a population more nearly equal to Russia's and armed to cope with Russian weaponry.
Unfortunately the German attitude to other axis nations was too contemptuous.

Flecktarn30 Jun 2014 12:39 p.m. PST

Lewisgunner,

You make an interesting and accurate point about Nazi Germany's attitude to its allies. However, in terms of tanks at least, supplying the German military was beyond the capability of the domestic and captured production capacity, let alone attempting to fully equip the other Axis nations with the best equipment.

Remember also that Romania, Hungary and Italy did not have the capability in terms of either capacity or technology to produce large numbers of modern tanks.

A very good study of the relationship between Germany and Romania in WW2, and the problems of supplying the Romanian army with decent equipment can be found in "Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-45" by Mark Axworthy.

Jurgen

Lewisgunner01 Jul 2014 3:42 a.m. PST

We agree Jurgen, but the point. I was making was that Germany needed to set up manufacture of tanks in its allies. The Italians, Hungarians and Romanians all produced tanks and were capable of producing to a German pattern, say a MarkIV , simplified suitably. However, what Germany wanted was money for product and that was shortsighted. Its a bit like the present conundrum in the EU whereby Germany lends the money to buy German goods to Mediterranean nations, then has to bail them out when they cannot pay back . The Situation was the same in WW2. The US, by contrast, bankrolled its bankrupt ally, Britain with deals such as Lease Lend and generous sharing of technology by both sides.
Hitler lost the war in the East. Had he won there then no cross channel invasion was likely to succeed. He lost because he ran out of men and the big reservoir of men was in his allies. but as we agree, if they could not hold a section of front because they lacked kit and guns then they simply exposed the German troops to being surrounded.
What was needed was a generous sharing of technology in a common cause, but the n I rather doubt that Hitler saw the Axis as a common cause, rather just another resource to be exploited.

We might also look at why the Germans did not get The French producers to make tanks in numbers for them, once they had decided that the tanks themselves were not up to Heer requirements.
Roy

Flecktarn01 Jul 2014 4:06 a.m. PST

Roy,

Part of the problem was indeed that the Nazi leadership saw the Axis partners as mere resources of men and materials and insisted on payment for everything. Part of the reason for this was that Hitler was indebted to German industry for their support of him in the 1930s and could not demand that they forego profits by sharing technology for no payment.

However, while Romania, Italy and Hungary produced tanks of their own, they lacked the technological capability to upgrade production quality and quantity sufficiently to produce even a simplified Mark IV in any useful numbers.

In addition, the Western Allied bombing of German manufacturing sites meant that the German machine tool industry could not have provided the equipment that was needed for production in those countries, let alone in Germany.

As for producing tanks in France, again it is down to timescales and the shortage of machine tools; in order to produce Mark IVs, for example, you need a production line and that, in turn, needs all the machine tools required to produce Mark IVs. Given the hugely inefficient German manufacturing sector during the Nazi period and the effect of bombing, those tools were never going to be available in large enough numbers.

In addition, Germany and the Axis lacked access to some of the essential ingredients for high quality armour such as chromium and vanadium, so increasing output was again a huge problem.

The key problem for the Nazis (apart from the fact that they were Nazis) was that they launched a war in 1941 that needed to be won quickly before they ran out of resources, but which dragged on for nearly 4 more years.

Jurgen

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