"The US Army’s World War II Tank-Destroyers: Waste of Time " Topic
74 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
Please use the Complaint button (!) to report problems on the forums.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the WWII Discussion Message Board
Areas of InterestWorld War Two on the Land
Featured Hobby News Article
Featured Recent Link
Featured Ruleset
Featured Showcase Article72 riflemen join our forces!
Featured Workbench Article
Featured Profile ArticleThe Editor is invited to tour the factory of Simtac, a U.S. manufacturer of figures in nearly all periods, scales, and genres.
Featured Book Review
|
Pages: 1 2
Blutarski | 26 Oct 2017 7:42 a.m. PST |
Don't conflate decisions taken under duress with bad overall doctrine. There were often no realistic alternatives. B |
Fred Cartwright | 26 Oct 2017 10:05 a.m. PST |
1942 We see significant upgrades, both Panzer III and IV get a major armour/firepower boost, yet they start to perform less effectively and they are less successful.1943 Is the last hurrah. One last headlong charge at the fortifications around Prokhorovka and it's the downward slope. 1944-1945, the Panzers are at their strongest, but despite all the extra armour and firepower they fail to turn the tide. This is where I think people get it wrong. It is not about the power of the Panzer divisions it is about the lack of offensive power of German infantry divisions. It was the German infantry that ripped huge holes in the enemy front lines through which the Panzers poured in 1939, 40 and 41. The Panzers might have closed the pockets, but it was the German infantry that did the heavy lifting when it came to destroying them. The story of 1941is all about the German infantry who, quite frankly, performed extraordinary feats, but at enormous cost. The German infantry divisions were bled white in Russia. While the German infantry remained good they never lost, after it declined they never won. Apart from a few isolated incidents the German infantry was a spent force by 1943, but one only has to look at the tough fight 1st FJD handed out at Casino to see what a well trained, veteran infantry formation could deliver. A dozen more like that in Normandy in 1944 and it might have turned out differently. By contrast the German Panzers were not a spent force by 1943. Summer of ‘44 marks the real down turn for German armour. Most divisions were hollow shells of their former glory by the Autumn. Having better equipped Panzer divisions at Kursk is irrelevant. You don't send your exploitation troops into a fight for fixed defences, well not if you want to win that is. It is an infantry fight supported by artillery, as much as you can muster, and by assault guns or heavy tanks (what the KV1, JSII, Stug, British I Tanks were designed for). What do we see at Kursk. Models infantry divisions are unable to tear a hole in the Soviet defences for the Panzers to exploit and they lose heavily in the process. Manstein uses his Panzers to make the breach, but they are unable to keep up the momentum, losing too much, too early to achieve a clean breakthrough against a Soviet defence in great depth. The German's simply didn't have the combat power to win such a fight by 1943. The only sensible option was not to fight as Guderian said. |
Fred Cartwright | 26 Oct 2017 10:12 a.m. PST |
Guderian pushed so hard, for months, to rebuild the panzer divisions. Yet in the German OOBs I can't think of a case I have seen of a standard panzer division going into Citadelle with more than 120 tanks and StuGs, even though most were authorized 160+ tanks. Guderian is somewhat erratic on new formations. Railing against it in Panzer Leader, yet it is he that forms Panzer Lehr and supports the formation of 25th PD. |
Patrick R | 26 Oct 2017 3:23 p.m. PST |
For those who may have been reading this, shaking your head, thinking "Hold on, this doesn't add up …" You have to understand that the question is not "How they hell did the Allies defeat such a massively powerful army which had the best Generals, the best soldiers, the best equipment and came this close to defeat the rest of the world ?" The real question is "How the hell did an army that was hemorrhaging since 1940, received a near crippling blow in the winter of 1941, and again in 1942 and it didn't get any better after that, actually get this far and hold out this long against the combined might of three superpowers that completely outclassed it in terms of resources and manpower ?" |
Deadles | 26 Oct 2017 3:48 p.m. PST |
Patrick R, I think your post is very good and especially the comment about Panzers being cavalry. And the other good point you make is indeed how the Germans lasted as long as the did. I think part of the answer is the allies took a long time to get into gear and hadn't thought much past breaking out of Normandy (and also wasted resources in Italy whose terrain favoured the defender). The Soviets also needed time to get back into shape but never had the overall coordination to be able to pull a 1940 or 1941 style blitzkreig. The Soviets were also spread out from Finland to Caucasus. They probably could've got to Berlin quicker if they focused on that objective. But there was an empire to be created so that meant consolidating control over Romania, Hungary etc etc. Fred, Also agree with your point about the German infantry. Infantry backed by tanks and ample artillery were still the optimum way of smashing through an enemy position. The Panzer divisions were too fragile for this kind of thing – they had too few infantry, too little in the way of artillery and the vast majority of tanks weren't optimised for punching through heavily defended lines The great German advantage in 1939-41 was ability to operate rapidly before the enemy deployed a coherent in depth defensive line as well as advantages in overall strategy and communication (something the French didn't have in 1940). |
mkenny | 26 Oct 2017 3:58 p.m. PST |
Defeat was inevitable in 1943. It was obviously inevitable to all by 1944. That the German kept fighting to 1945 is not a sign of great military prowess but rather proof that her leaders and Generals were insane. The error is to think the war was not decided until May 1945. That was the date the corpse stopped twitching. The mortal blow was dealt long before that date. |
Mark 1 | 26 Oct 2017 6:16 p.m. PST |
Defeat was inevitable in 1943. It was obviously inevitable to all by 1944. … The error is to think the war was not decided until May 1945. That was the date the corpse stopped twitching. The mortal blow was dealt long before that date. MKenny I like your conclusion. But while I agree that defeat was inevitable in 1943, I don't believe it was VISIBLY inevitable until perhaps August of 1944. I think we can apply hindsight on several issues, that make it clear to us, now, that it was inevitable in 1943. It was not reasonable to expect German leadership to have that same visibility. "How the hell did an army that was hemorrhaging since 1940, received a near crippling blow in the winter of 1941, and again in 1942 … hold out this long? I can't quite roll with this narrative. A crippling blow in the winter of 1941? The Germans? The best numbers I've seen place total German losses on the Eastern Front, from June 1941 through March of 1942 (so not only the winter but the whole campaign in the east through the end of the winter) at a little more than 1 million killed, wounded, and missing in action. Another half a million perhaps were evacuated from the combat areas due to illness (including frostbite). The Soviet military casualties in that same time frame come to about 6.3 million killed, wounded, missing, or ill. And you suggest that it was the German army that continued on after taking crippling losses? And again in the winter of 1942? The Germans? Presuming this means Stalingrad, again the best numbers I've seen indicate that the Germans lost about 400,000 killed, wounded, and missing. (Total axis casualties were substantially higher, in the range of 750,000, as the Italians, Romanians and Hungarians each suffered more than 100,000 casualties, but it is the German armed forces we are discussing.) The Russians suffered more than 1.1 million casualties killed, wounded, or missing in those same Stalingrad battles. And that was the minority of their losses in that period (for example Operation Mars cost the Russians almost as many casualties as the Germans had at Stalingrad). In both cases, "winter of 1941" and "winter of 1942", the Russians suffered 3-4x the casualties that the Germans suffered. Are we really to ponder how the Germans were the ones to continue on after these "crippling blows"? …hold out against the combined might of three superpowers that completely outclassed it in terms of resources and manpower ?" Germany was the second largest economy in the world in 1938 -- second only to the U.S. The German economy was larger than the Soviet economy, and was substantially larger than the British economy. Add to that by 1942 Germany had the combined industrial might of almost all of continental Europe under its control. Germany had not only the economic resources and civilian manpower doing their bidding, but also the military resources of Romania, Italy, Hungary, and Finland fighting on their side, and they drew workers and some combat troops from the Balkans, the Baltic states, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and even Spain. In that same year the population under Stalin's control was about 1/3rd less than what it had been at the start of the war. The British had a "contemptible little army" by continental standards. The entire British army could have been swallowed up in just one of the encirclements that happened multiple times per year on the Eastern Front. And the Americans? The US Army was smaller than Portugal's army in 1938. Too small to even count as a contemptible little army. And all that American industrial might managed to produce a total of 6 medium tanks before 1940, and the French, even as desperate as they were for hardware, were not willing to use the American tanks if they could be produced in numbers! And if Germany was to assume America would somehow overcome those deficiencies, show me any time in history, prior to 1943 (or after 1945), that any nation anywhere had ever transported and supported an army on the other side of an ocean that was big enough to matter in the calculations of the Germans in WW2. So no, I can't get with the narrative of the Germans remarkably holding out from 1940 against three superpowers who dominated them in economic and military might. What I do see is the second largest economic block in the world being so grossly mismanaged that it turned the most professional and capable army in the world into a serial disaster machine. Defeat was indeed inevitable under those conditions. But those conditions were not inevitable. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Lion in the Stars | 26 Oct 2017 7:58 p.m. PST |
If you hear somebody claim that static defenses were obsolete by WWII, it's probably coming from their colon. Quite true. The German start-of-war plan was to have the fighting over before the hellacious defenses-in-depth of WW1 could be built. For that matter, it seems that the defense is in the advantage again, looking at Russian operations since 2008. Small attacks to clear out threats to the defensive position, all intended to give advantage in the negotiations after the fighting.
If mobility is your main weapon, how do you mobile a fortification ? You either take it by force or isolate it and starve it out.If you're going to take it by force your tanks become a support weapon to the infantry and must face prepared defenses where the enemy has done everything they can to channel your tanks into killing zones where they are easy prey for anti-tank weapons. You can try to isolate it but good defensive positions are hard to turn. Stalingrad was sitting on a river, El Alamein was anchored by the sea and the Quattara depression. Again denial of mobility. Tobruk could be resupplied by sea. Kursk was layer upon layer of defensive works backed up by ample reserves to drive back the enemy. It was a textbook WWI battle fought with tanks and oddly enough the tanks didn't plow straight through them as somehow they should have done by all conventional wisdom. I'm reasonably sure that Kursk and Stalingrad could have been isolated and ignored. Critical objective should have been Moscow, because that was (and still is) the rail hub. All rails lead to Moscow! |
Patrick R | 27 Oct 2017 1:41 a.m. PST |
The conventional wisdom is that the Germany army grabbed the Soviets by the nose in 1941, slapped them around, kicked them in the toches and wiped the floor with them with just two fingers, while whistling Erika. With barely mentionable losses and millions of dead Soviets the Germans were in sight of the Kremlin when winter came and everything ground to a halt just as the Soviets threw their last reserves into the battle, but Hitler's landsers stood fast and broke the ill conceived Soviet last ditch offensive. "Operation Barbarossa exacted a huge toll on the German army with more men killed in July 1941 than in any other month of the war until December 1942." Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Before Barbarossa the Germans could account for around 100 Soviet Divisions, but estimated they might have as many as 150. They believed that the Soviets could at the very best raise another 50 underquipped divisions. According to Glantz, they ended up raising over 820 division equivalents … The German army had around 400,000 trained reserves in June 1941, by October, they were facing a deficit of some 350,000 men. Their reserves were simply gobbled up, forcing them to improvise and shifting troops around to make up for this shortfall. German high command estimated on June 20th 1941 that they had 136 divisions available for general operations, 8 suitable for offensive operations after rest, 19 were suited for limited offensive operations, 22 fully suited for defense and 24 suited for limited defensive operations. By March 30th 1942 they were down to 8 divisions suited for general operations, 3 needed a rest and refit, 47 were suitable for limited offensive operations, 73 fully suited for defense and 29 were only suitable for limited defense. If you tally up the losses suffered by the German army during Barbarossa versus the number of men available the losses seem minor, but given that all armies, even the German army has a logistical tail for every soldier on the front, this means that losses among the front line troops are quite heavy. The Germans are starting to lose their experienced soldiers. The problem is not that the losses seem minor compared to the massive Soviet losses, the Germans fail to absorb them while the Soviets do and only get stronger over time, the Germans only get weaker, despite a mix of crippling blows and a number of resurgences, most notably the last push just before Kursk puts them at their strongest since Barbarossa. Why don't the Germans mention these critical losses in their memoirs ? In their eyes they were doing exceptionally well. Last time they were taking these kind of casualties they were losing them trying to get a molehill three yards away at Verdun. Now they were in sight of Moscow, surely the swift kick had brought down the whole rotten edifice. They know the Red Army has been annihilated and this is their last gasp. By 1942 Hitler sets his sights on the south and the oil reserves. And again the advance seems amazing, but some people are starting to get doubts. One German officer remarks "Die Russen kämpfen mit dem Raum." They fight using space. Not only that, but in what is usually discribed as a mostly unopposed offensive towards the Caucasus is one where the Red Army doesn't spend a single day not on the offensive and is trying to stop German movement all the way, but still fails. The major difference with 1941 is that Soviet formations now learn to move and avoid capture much more easily. Russian casualties remain very high, but it's costing the German army precious troops. By the time they take Stalingrad they are relying on allies to cover their flanks only to end up being surrounded themselves. Remember this is all being fought despite a serious lack of transport. Even before Barbarossa, the Reichsbahn is undermanned and cannot provide enough stock and equipment to move the required troops. Not to mention that the Soviets used a different railway gauge. The shortfall in trucks means that many had to perform extra duties, putting extra strain on the equipment resulting in faster wear and tear that didn't exactly solve the problem, the logistics problem is never solved and ends up being the death spiral of the German army since it means that it must make choices where to attack rather than plan according to their needs, this becomes a critical factor. To many it is utterly incomprehensible than an army that was so thoroughly trounced like the Red Army could still put up a fight, let alone come back from the brink of defeat and end up taking Berlin. When you heard that in 1945 a few Panthers take out an entire armoured tank regiment that is cresting a hill and is silhouetted so that they can be picked off one by one. Late 1944 a German officer reports that Russian bodies are piled up to waste high in front of his machineguns. Another German officer examining prisoners notes that the vast majority of them are "Mongols" and the remainder are either old men or boys. May 1942 sees around 5.6 million Red Army troops on the front lines. Internal troops and Far East (not all of them reserves) 5 million. The Red Army is quite simply ginormous. It takes massive losses and keeps on going because it has yet to commit its full strength. But in the Summer of 1944 the Germans lose almost their entire Army Group Centre (four armies are wiped away) and the Soviets launch not one offensive, but eleven major ones, several of them at the same time, with many more smaller ones to secure flanks and mop up operations. At no point from the start of Operation Barbarossa are the Germans ever that ambitious, let alone successful. And it still takes a significant effort to take Berlin. Barbarossa succeeds beyond one's wildest dreams, despite losses that are never made up, they fundamentally weaken the Germans that follow up operations face major inherent weaknesses, all this exacerbated by a fundamental lack of a coherent grand strategy in favour of a somewhat variable opportunistic one, splint between the want for economic plunder and a hunt for an increasingly elusive enemy. The Germans going all the way to Stalingrad is the equivalent of a person running a marathon while suffering from a major compound leg fracture. They cross the finish line, but end up in hospital and that leg will never get right again. |
Patrick R | 27 Oct 2017 2:56 a.m. PST |
Germany was the second largest economy in the world in 1938 -- second only to the U.S. The German economy was larger than the Soviet economy, and was substantially larger than the British economy. Here is another way of looking at the facts. It uses two factors : GDP and Per Capita Income. Germany's GDP and Per Capita Income is the second highest in the world in 1939. This means Germany is a powerful economic nation that can afford to spend a large amount of money and has an affluent, well educated population that can support a technologically advanced military. Britain has a much lower GDP and Per Capita Income so it has fewer means at its disposal. France is trailing it with similar numbers. Add up the factors and the advantage is in the Franco-British camp. This means that their combined economies are stronger and therefore should in theory outlast that of Germany in the long run. If you factor in the British Empire, the Germans appear significantly outgunned in terms of GDP, but the Per Capita gain is negligible because the vast majority of the British Empire is resource rich, but boasts a very poor population. These people have limited access to education and technology. To put it bluntly the British Empire is strong economically, but on average their troops are "cannon fodder" not in the pejorative sense, but when compared to armies like the Germans where it's much easier to implement technology as a force multiplier. In practice countries like Australia and to a lesser degree Canada were better off than the vast majority of India, but they struggled to get a really decent industrial output going. Same thing for the Soviet Union, good GDP, but low Per Capita. USA has a massive GDP and their Per Capita makes a mockery of Germany's. All three Combined they vastly outstrip Germany in GDP and have on average a lower Per Capita, but the spread is very different with high peaks for the Britain and the US, middling for the Soviets, Canada and Australia, dramatically low for India. Another factor is what percentage of the GDP is used on military expenditure. That's where we find that Germany isn't really breaking the bank from 1939 to roughly 1942. It's almost business as usual, especially when the GDP is propped up by the looting of occupied countries. Around 1943 we see a steady rise right until 1944 where it slows down a tad, but still rises until 1945 and then suddenly drops. In comparison the British are already ahead of the Germans in 1940 in what amount of their GDP goes to the war effort and remains higher than the German effort. The Soviet curve is interesting in that they are already spending huge resources on their military and this goes up significantly during the war, making all others pale in comparison. The Soviets have a certain industrial and manpower potential, but they end up being the most efficient of all, not only spending the most of their GDP, but also making sure every resource is used efficiently. So the low Per Capita which is a rough indicator of the population's industrial and technological potential is used far better than the German effort. USA ? They throw money and bright minds at the problem like there is no tomorrow. If you think the Germans were a technological wonder then you make a mistake in thinking the "Arsenal of Democracy" is just lots of guns, planes and tanks. It's the world's most powerful economy making full use of its industrial capacity and not only that it produces no just a large army, but a system, for lack of a better word. This system is a mix of doctrine, logistics and actual military might. Where other nations maintain an army, the US has to build one from scratch and they do it like they would build the newest Cadillac. It's not an army, it's a war machine. It's industrial output, it's building a logistical train that can carry vast amounts of men and equipment across an ocean and deliver an army of citizen soldiers that didn't exist three years before. This is a whole different world to the old Prussian Aristocracy getting down to their core business every few years, marvel at the shiny new toys and then proceed to wage war as they have been bred and educated to do so. Going back to the GDP when you look at the potential of the three major allies combined versus that of Germany, Japan and Italy, it's so unfair it's not even funny. And then there is the natural resource factor I haven't even touched upon which in the case of Germany and especially Japan is pretty much the reason they went to war in the first place. Even if there is a massive disparity in GDP the resource gap is the one that should seal the fate of the Axis powers in the long term. Without better access to resources they simply cannot sustain a prolonged war effort before collapsing. And make no mistake, Germany performs exceptionally well, despite not really investing it's potential in the war effort, not really having a great access to resources, not really having a logistical system that can stand the strain, suffering casualties they can not really afford to lose in the long term, all this compounded by not really having a stable and sane leadership or even a decent plan that lasts longer than der Fuhrer's latest whims … This perspective should make the "They came so close to winning" idea quite nuanced at best. |
Mark 1 | 27 Oct 2017 1:51 p.m. PST |
Patrick R: Very well reasoned and written! When one looks at the fuller picture, it does indeed nuance the impression of who almost won, or who "could have won if only …" The whole "the one thing that made / would have made the difference" perspective, which is so attractive to amateur analysts, is overwhelmed by the sheer number and magnitude of issues that were actually addressed by the different players in the history of that time. It is this larger context that I find so compelling as I study and try to understand the history of the WW2 period. One can look at armor and gunpower and ask why the Germans could manage a Panther while the Americans could only manage a Sherman. Or one can look at the 10,000+ questions that had to be answered, and answered well, to create an army from nearly nothing, and then send it 5,000 miles away, and do a better job supporting it through prolonged, intense combat than your opponent, who had already spent a decade building a highly professional army with fully trained and developed logistics infrastructure that only needed to span 1/10th the distance (and no oceans). In the end, the question of whether the tank was a Panther or a Sherman pales in significance to the question of whether you can build a multi-million man army and support it to the other side of the world. The issues that are so often suggested as "givens" really were never "given". Stalin controlled a SMALLER population than Hitler in the critical timeframe in which the Red Army turned the tide of the war. Yes, the Soviets spent men like water. But this was because they made all the decisions needed to create a larger army, from a smaller population base. Not because they were given unlimited manpower. And yes the Soviets spent tanks like water. But this was because they made all of the decisions needed to out-built the Germans 3-to-1, 4-to-1 and even 5-to-1 on tanks. Not because they had an unlimited industrial base. Yes the Americans could and would bring a full-strength company of Shermans, while calling down a battalion of 155mm guns and a flight of P-47s all onto a single Tiger tank. But this was because they made all of the decisions needed to create quick-response instantly-scalable combat support, and to out-build and out-ship materials, and out-tech and out-train support troops, and so out-support the Germans. It's not because American supply was a "given". Germany performs exceptionally well, despite not really investing it's potential in the war effort, not really having a great access to resources, not really having a logistical system that can stand the strain, suffering casualties they can not really afford to lose in the long term… But that's the point, isn't it? Germany does not perform exceptionally well. They fail miserably at investing their potential in the war effort. They fail miserably at securing and retaining access to resources that were within their reach. They fail miserably at building and rationalizing their supply and logistics systems. And they fail miserably at using the human resources available to them to preserve and expand the capabilities of the forces they have in the field. … all this compounded by not really having a stable and sane leadership or even a decent plan that lasts longer than der Fuhrer's latest whims … Having angry amateurs running your government is almost always a bad idea. Yet it is an attractive idea to disgruntled masses. It was not unique to Germany in the inter-war period, but rather is the basis of populist movements that have cropped up many places in world politics over the last 200+ years. Fortunately, the angry amateurs that came to power in Germany were particularly dogmatic and "intuitive", and adverse to learning. Stalin learned, and his decision making improved during the war. Hitler did not learn, and his decision making declined during the war. But in truth, it was the decisions made in 1938 – 1942, before most would suggest that Hitler's "genius" failed him, that the most important decisions, the decisions that could have changed the course of the war, were not taken. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Fred Cartwright | 27 Oct 2017 4:12 p.m. PST |
Mark I am not sure I agree with your nice neat analaysis. I think a lot of what happened was by happy accident, not deliberate design. The Red Army had been a huge force for years it wasn't something new that the Soviet leadership dreamt up in response to war. The same applies to tanks. Prior to 1941 the Russians had built more tanks than the combined total for every other nation on Earth. The US had the advantage of seeing the way the war went and planning accordingly. It is no brainier really. By 1941 it is clear that modern war needs lots of tanks, guns and aircraft. US has none of these, therefore have to build factories to make them. They know where they are going to fight and that they have to ship everything there to do so. With no legacy designs clogging up production lines they could start with designs that were state of the art in 1941, which proved upgradable enough to last the war. They also had the advantage of a secure base and ample natural resources. The US didn't have to fight for anything, worry about mass bombing attacks or invasion. As a result the US was able to put their full resources into offensive power projection. By contrast look at the amount of resources Germany plowed into air defence. It consumed significant proportion of artillery and aircraft production and the fuel, manpower and ammunition to support it. That translates to a significant advantage to the US. The Germans, not just Hitler and his cronies, also wanted a new way to wage war. Industrialised, attritional warfare had not worked well for them in WW1. In any attritional war scenario Germany was destined to lose again as there was no way they could match Britain, France and The Soviet Union in the long haul, let alone the US. They were also hampered by their axis partners, which with the exception of Romanian oil, brought nothing to the table in terms of natural resources or industrial capacity. Quite the opposite they were a constant drain. The Germans had to win big and they had to win fast. They came close in 1941. Once they didn't it was all over. Anything they did after that would only have prolonged the war by months, but the likely outcome of that is Germany is the recipient of the first atomic bomb rather than Japan. |
Mark 1 | 27 Oct 2017 8:04 p.m. PST |
Fred – I don't think my analysis is "nice and neat" at all. I think it is rather a bit of a sloppy mess. If it looks like I am suggesting all was done according to some clean master plan, I have misrepresented my case. My view of the period is that it was a crush of decisions, a tsunami of crises. There were several characters (largely unsung by popular history) who were foresighted enough to prepare, at least to some extent, for the tsunami before it washed over them. But more interesting perhaps is the questioning and learning demonstrated by both American and Russian decision makers on several fronts -- the determination not to repeat patters of failure, but instead to turn events towards favorable results over time. It is hard to retain openness to learning while you rise up through most organizations -- even more so if the organization is particularly large, and more so again if it is based on rigid command structures (like almost any military). Industrialised, attritional warfare had not worked well for them in WW1. In any attritional war scenario Germany was destined to lose again as there was no way they could match Britain, France and The Soviet Union in the long haul, let alone the US. They were also hampered by their axis partners, which with the exception of Romanian oil, brought nothing to the table in terms of natural resources or industrial capacity. In WW1 the US had no legacy designs clogging up production lines and could start with designs that were state-of-the-art. They had years to observe and prepare before becoming involved. They also had advantage of secure base and ample natural resources. Yet when it entered the war, the US was a drain on allied industrial capacity. The US Army that was raised in 1917 was able to provide it's own uniforms, but needed modern artillery, aircraft and tanks, most of which were supplied by the French, and rifles, many of which were supplied by the British, and machine guns, which were supplied by both. And when they arrived in France they needed food and ammunition, most of which again was supplied by the French. We may want to say that many of the key US decisions should have been no brainers, but they were clearly not no brainers for the US in WW1. Given the thousands upon thousands of documents produced and distributed from the hundreds and hundreds of planning councils and meetings in 1939, 1940 and 1941 I find it hard to believe that it was a no brainer for the US in WW2 either. In 1940 Italy had the 3rd largest tank force in the world, all domestically produced. The Italians also produced a surface navy that was more than twice the size of Germany's. Italian made combat aircraft were being exported to 6 – 8 nations. In 1940 Austrian and Czech factories supplied modern artillery and anti-tank guns used by 5 nations. In 1939 – 40 Czech factories built about 1/3 of the medium tanks the Germans required, as well as 1/2 of the tanks Romania required. French factories built the other 1/2 of Romania's tanks. By 1942 all of these industries, including the French economy, were in Germany's hands, not the Allies'. I find it hard to believe all of these nations "brought nothing to the table" in terms of industrial capacity. In 1942 the most highly developed parts of the Soviet Union were in Germany's hands, including both the industrial heartland and the agricultural "bread basket". In 1942 Germany had the opportunity of choking off Russia's sources of petroleum, and even potentially taking it for Germany's own uses. In 1942 the Germans had no greater worry about mass bombing attacks, and plowed no greater resources into air defense, than the British or the Russians. The US (and to a lesser extent the British), on the other hand, had to build enormous merchant fleets, and navies to protect the merchants from the very economical German U-Boats. The US, for example, built more than a HUNDRED aircraft carriers during WW2. And the US put planes, with highly trained pilots, on them! Just imagine how much resource went into that. Germany, on the other hand, built exactly none. Started a couple, but never bothered to finish them. How many of those planes, from all those carriers, flew in the critical battles on the Eastern Front in 1942? That was where the war had to be won, and could have been lost. If anyone needed to win now, not later, it was the Soviets in 1942. And for 10 out of the 12 months of 1942, the US had exactly no ground troops in contact with German forces, and the British had such a small force in contact that, at least in terms of manpower, it would have been little more than a rounding error to Germany's force calculations. There were more Romanian, Italian and Hungarian soldiers fighting for the Axis cause in Europe in 1942, than there were British troops in combat for the Allied cause. More even than there would be of American and Canadian soldiers fighting for the Allied cause in Europe by 1944. And yet, by the end of 1942 the war turned. We can say, with hindsight, that Germany's loss became inevitable by early 1943 at the latest, perhaps by mid- to late-1942. You presume that the US behavior was easily derived. Then why didn't Germany behave that way? Why didn't Germany rationalize production, turning French industry to focus on a few select excellent and proven truck designs, while Austria turned out masses of excellent artillery and rifles, with Czechoslovakia cranking out personnel carriers and prime-movers, allowing the Italians to focus on enough naval construction to dominate the Med, and enough bomber and transport aircraft to support all the European axis partners, all driven by excellent German motors, while Germany built the tanks and first-line fighter planes it, and it's allies, needed to keep the offensives going? Why not? Because it wasn't a no-brainer at all. Who could imagine a British army equipped with American tanks, protected by American fighter planes using British-designed engines? Or a Russian army fed by American canned foods, carried in American trucks, by way of British merchant convoys protected by Canadian escorts using British asdic and American radar? No. All we take for granted should be examined and questioned. You can't understand WW2 if you assume the result and work your way backwards. FDR and Marshall didn't have the luxury of saying "what are the obvious things to do now, in 1940, to ensure we get to history's actual 1945 result?" Anything they did after that would only have prolonged the war by months, but the likely outcome of that is Germany is the recipient of the first atomic bomb rather than Japan. While I agree with your closing comment, that anything Germany did to prolong the war would ultimately have resulted in atomic incineration of at least a few German urban centers, I again rebel at the idea that that result was somehow foretold and/or inevitable. Germany in 1940 had every bit as much, if not more, ability to develop an A-bomb as the US. Again by 1942 or early 43 the issue had turned, and we can look back now and say it was inevitable that the German effort would fail while the American effort would succeed. But that was not somehow foretold or preordained. It came about because of the decision making -- good decision making in the US, and flawed decision-making in Germany. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Lion in the Stars | 27 Oct 2017 9:17 p.m. PST |
As regards the atomic bomb, the US had the advantage to have the space and finances to try EVERY route to get one. The Germans didn't. Also, I'm reminded of the old line about how when the Americans threatened to build hundreds of airplanes a year in 1939, Europe laughed. But when the Americans build tens of thousands of airplanes a year in the 1940s, Europe wept.
|
Mark 1 | 27 Oct 2017 9:41 p.m. PST |
As regards the atomic bomb, the US had the advantage to have the space and finances to try EVERY route to get one.The Germans didn't. Every route? OK, you've got my attention. I am not aware of any number of alternative concepts of nuclear energy release that were pursued by the American efforts. Not saying there weren't many, just saying I don't know of them. Could you elaborate a bit? Space and finances certainly mattered. And I won't deny the space issue in particular. Europe is, after all, a rather small place. But to the finances, the primary reason that the U.S. atomic effort had the finances it needed was that the U.S. administration chose to finance the effort. The German government did not make that same choice. It did finance dozens, no hundreds, of fanciful experiments of design and thought. But nuclear physics was "Jewish science", and by 1941 was never going to be funded by the Nazis to the levels needed to produce a workable weapon. But that level was not necessarily the level of the "Manhattan Project". It might well have been possible to achieve usable results with greater economy. The U.S., for example, simultaneously pursued both the Little Boy uranium gun, and the Fat Man plutomium implosion mechanisms. The uranium gun design was considered so simple that it was never even tested, except of course on Hiroshima. Who's to say that a program which only did one of the two designs, the one that was the simplest with the highest confidence of success, would not have led to sufficient success at substantially lower cost. Also, I'm reminded of the old line about how when the Americans threatened to build hundreds of airplanes a year in 1939, Europe laughed. But when the Americans build tens of thousands of airplanes a year in the 1940s, Europe wept. And when the British and French purchasing commissions saw the U.S. M2 Medium tank prototypes in early 1940, they probably alternately laughed and wept as well. By mid-1940 the Brits were proposing that the U.S. build one of their designs. The Canadians, of course, proceeded with this notion, building many thousands of Valentine tanks. Imagine how ETO would have looked in 1944 if the U.S. had taken that same decision. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Fred Cartwright | 28 Oct 2017 4:47 a.m. PST |
We may want to say that many of the key US decisions should have been no brainers, but they were clearly not no brainers for the US in WW1. I think that depends on when you plan to go to war. My reading is that Roosevelt was gearing up for war, long before Pearl Harbour. There was going to be war with Japan at the very least, despite the prevailing US public opinion. You presume that the US behavior was easily derived. Then why didn't Germany behave that way? Why didn't Germany rationalize production, turning French industry to focus on a few select excellent and proven truck designs, while Austria turned out masses of excellent artillery and rifles, with Czechoslovakia cranking out personnel carriers and prime-movers, allowing the Italians to focus on enough naval construction to dominate the Med, and enough bomber and transport aircraft to support all the European axis partners, all driven by excellent German motors, while Germany built the tanks and first-line fighter planes it, and it's allies, needed to keep the offensives going? Why not? Because it wasn't a no-brainer at all. I think there are a number of factors here. Let us start with the Italians. The large Italian tank Force was a legacy of early Italian rearmament. In 1940 they didn't have the industrial or economic capacity to replace it, or contribute anything significant to their allies. As for the navy, yes they built one, but it spent most of its time in port, because they didn't have the oil for them. The Germans couldn't give them much as they were scrabbling round for whatever stocks they could lay their hands on. Your argument also assumes that the Germans could control what Italy produced. I think Il Duce may have had something to say about that. As for the additional industrial capacity captured by the axis that basically amounts to the French factories. It would have taken a minimum of a year to get those converted to produce German designs, so unlikely to see anything before autumn/winter 41. As for Soviet industrial capacity, the Soviets stripped most of the factories ahead of the German advance. You can't produce much with an empty factory building! Even if they had been captured intact it takes time to set those factories up to produce your own designs. Yes they captured the bread basket of Russia, but the ‘41 harvest was burnt/already harvested before the Germans got to it, so nothing there until summer ‘42. Yes the axis allies supplied significant numbers of troops for the Eastern Front, but even there they were as much a burden as a help. Read the story of CSIR and how they had to rely on the Germans for transport and supply. But the real clincher is oil. By the end of ‘41 the Germans were already experiencing problems. They had exhausted all their prewar stocks and they didn't have enough capacity under their control to meet all their needs, plus those of their allies, who also had no oil. So where is the fuel going to come from to run all these extra tanks, planes and trucks? You assume it is all about production, because that is what the US did to win. Germany's problem was not industrial capacity, but the raw materials to run it. The dash for oil in ‘42 was already too late. Even if they had taken the fields and held them, which is unlikely, it would have been a year or more before they could have got any oil at all from them. As for the air defence question, I can't agree there. There were significant numbers of fighter Gruppen in the West by ‘42 and the production of night fighters and AA guns was ramping up. Germans were also investing a lot of resources into building a radar chain for EW. As for the A bomb my understanding is the Germans were persuing a course that was a dead end and would have not resulted in a workable bomb. |
Fred Cartwright | 28 Oct 2017 5:24 a.m. PST |
Just to be clear I am not saying the Germans couldn't have made better decisions. They certainly could. My reading is that the key decision failures were prewar. A modest increase in the number of tanks available in 1941 to replace losses in Barbarossa could have turned the tide in Russia. A bigger U boat fleet at the start of the war that could have overwhelmed British convoys would have been their best bet for knocking Britain out. All of these failures happened before the US entered the war. |
Fred Cartwright | 28 Oct 2017 6:39 a.m. PST |
Realised I didn't mention Czech tank production. Largely a one off windfall. You are confusing having produced a lot of tanks with being able to produce a lot of tanks. Having said that Czech tank production doubled in 1940and doubles again in ‘41, suggesting they were utilising the factories about as well as they could. |
badger22 | 28 Oct 2017 7:35 a.m. PST |
Mark the multiple ways to make a bomb is about how you separate the isotopes that will go bang from those that dont. There where a number of theory's about the proper method. High schools physics was a long time ago, but one of those methods was called gaseous diffusion, but damned if I can remember how it works. Another method used centrifuges but again I dot remember how it actually worked. And in the end it didnt matter, both of those methods wound up working. I think there where also a couple that didnt work. Owen |
Blutarski | 28 Oct 2017 8:26 a.m. PST |
Discussion has wandered far from TDs, but here we are. I would submit that the greatest failure of German strategic planning rested in its lack of appreciation for US industrial potential and Roosevelt's desire to lead the USA into the war. This speaks not only to ultimate involvement of US armed forces, but also to the wider effects of the Lend-Lease program – especially upon Soviet military capabilities. Lend-Lease effectively fed the Soviet armed forces and everyone is aware of "the trucks". Less well known is that the US delivered a tonnage of steel equivalent to something on the order of 70,000 T34s, provided most of the rails and locomotives to maintain and expand the Soviet rail network, supplied almost all the high-octane aviation fuel (plus considerable quantities of tetraethyl lead anti-knock compounds), and something on the order of half the explosives and propellant consumed by the USSR during the war. This says nothing about the fact that all the Soviet manpower not required to produce this vast amount of materiel became available for active service fighting at the front. Others may disagree, but my "back of the napkin" estimate is that Lend-Lease probably doubled the effective strength of the Soviet armed forces. B |
mkenny | 28 Oct 2017 9:29 a.m. PST |
provided most of the rails and locomotives to maintain and expand the Soviet rail network, Only going to deal with 1 point because these claims have been exposed many times before but still get repeated: In June 1941 The USSR had c 30,000+ Locomotives and over 500,000 rail-cars. LL provided c 1200 locos and 11,000 railcars The LL Locos did not start getting shipped until early 1944 The Soviet Union was not dependent on LL Locos and rail cars. |
Blutarski | 28 Oct 2017 10:00 a.m. PST |
Please read post again ….. "maintain and expand". Thanks for your interest, however. B |
Lion in the Stars | 28 Oct 2017 7:44 p.m. PST |
Every route? OK, you've got my attention. I am not aware of any number of alternative concepts of nuclear energy release that were pursued by the American efforts. Not saying there weren't many, just saying I don't know of them. Could you elaborate a bit? A little. Remember, Uranium-238, the massively more common isotope (something like 99% of 'refined' uranium), isn't really fissionable. At least not without a lot of help (like a bajillion neutrons from another nuclear bomb). So you need to refine the uranium, there were three different theories for how to do that. Today, we just use centrifuges and lots of them to separate Uranium hefaflouride gas by weight. The other two methods are far less efficient. Now that you have fissionable uranium, you can either make it into bombs directly or put it into reactors to make plutonium. Plutonium has a much smaller critical mass, so you could make smaller bombs. Considering that the original nuclear bombs were ~10,000lbs, smaller/lighter bombs are rather important to actually be able to deliver them. There were a lot of ideas about how to get a working reactor. Some of them involved needing Heavy Water (Deuterium Dioxide), which was desired because of it's enhanced ability to moderate neutrons in the reactor. The Allies spent a lot of time interfering with the German heavy-water production to delay their nuclear reactors. Oh, and there are two different bomb designs to choose between. The US discovered that plutonium doesn't like the simple gun-type implosion (Thin Man/Little Boy bombs), but that's another discussion. TL;DR: The US used 3 different ways to enrich uranium (only one of which we use today), built several different reactor types to manufacture plutonium (only one of which we use today), and built 3 different bomb designs (only two of which worked). That's at least 18 (and I think more like 54) different routes to working bombs, and only one of them really works for actual industrial production of nuclear weapons. And I'm skipping over all the other inventions we had to come up with in the process just to make things work. Like Teflon, which was discovered in 1938 and patented in 1941, essentially for use in the uranium centrifuges. Uranium hexaflouride is brutally corrosive, eating the bearings and organic lubricants used. |
Patrick R | 29 Oct 2017 4:18 a.m. PST |
There are two theories that help to explain the dynamics of WWII. The first is the Selectorate theory which examines the importance of those who are required for any leader, be they democratically elected, a monarch or a dictator to gain power and remain in power. This is the Selectorate, in democracies this tends to be a broad base, essentially the voters. So to be elected a democratic leader needs to pay attention to his electorate by means of such things as favourable conditions for them to prosper, public works, health coverage, education etc. Dictators have a much smaller selectorate usually reduced to factors like the army, police, the guy running your Swiss bank account etc. The general population doesn't figure into this and when it occasionally does, it's either due to some ideological belief or a personality disorder. To put it bluntly an "efficient" dictator by definition is a bad person because they have to reward only a small fraction of the population to such a level they remain beholden to the leader, but not enough that they remain complacent. Because money only flows to a small selectorate and hardly any to the actual military, bureaucracy etc, anyone who has a rifle or a rubber stamp can effectively set up a roadblock and start to check every car down to the last detail until people start waving money around to be let through without being checked, while the bureaucrat can withhold that precious paper until somebody starts to pay up to expedite the system. There is no benefit for the dictator to remove corruption from the system as this would only set the important selectorate against him, as opposed to the useless population. Militaries in dictatorships are usually a way to reward your selectorate with cushy jobs and for a portion of the population to make a decent living. Without a proper structure, ideology and somebody pushing troops around to actually perform, such militaries are essentially weak, even though they are massive in size. Democracies on the other hand usually must involve their citizens and either don't try too hard for fear of "damaging the goods" or they go all the way because losing is not in the interest of the leader and his selectorate. This explains why Arab nations despite having every advantage failed to defeat Israel. The money spent on the military mostly went to "paying off" soldiers who were not motivated to get themselves killed. The Israeli soldier had no real monetary benefit, but realized that his entire way of life and that of his nation was the in the balance. Another theory is that of Democratic Capital. The idea being that democracies with a liberal economy, freedom of thought, scientific research and education can generate a huge advantage against dictatorships where often everything is directed by the leadership more often on a strictly needful basis or to entertain whatever hobby or obsession the dictator and/or underlings may have. Dictatorships that succeed to a democracy can often use this capital to give themselves a boost, but it is often squandered over time because good dictatorships are usually very good at plundering itself to the sole benefit of a small elite. How does this translate ? Nazi Germany is based on the democratic capital accrued by the German empire and the Weimar republic. Germany under the Kaisers was remarkably democratic and liberal allowing it to build a strong economy and build a steady, well educated population. The early nazi movement is like many other such post Great War ideologies a mix of nationalist romanticism and a desire to change society, left and right find common ground, hence the "socialist" part of the name, but this is quickly undermined by the authoritarians who start to add anti communist, anti democratic and racial elements to the mix. The nazis never really abandon their goal to improve the lot of the Germans. When the putsch and the idea that everyone would rise up and follow their banner was an utter failure they simply used the democratic selectorate to gain power and immediately boarded up that door behind them. Hitler was ironically a very bad dictator. He completely underestimated how popular the nazis were and how far the German people could be pushed, trying to spare them. At the same time he intends to use his army and go to war. Good dictators prey on the weak and those they can bully into submission. Bad dictators try to pick fights and go on wars of conquest running the risk of bumping into one that is tougher than they are. So Hitler gains power using a broad selectorate, but very cleverly converts it into an tiny selectorate, does very well at keeping them fighting among themselves thus making himself invualuable as the final arbiter in all matters, he uses the democratic capital of Germany, mostly its advanced industry, to build a massive, well trained army and starts to gobble up weaker nations. He then completely loses sight of the bigger picture and embarks on a political and ideological adventure where his character flaws only make things worse. Stalin. If he hasn't read the dictator's handbook, he definitely wrote most of it. He has an tiny winning selectorate, while the rest of the nominal selectorate is utterly interchangeable. Stalin's power is based almost entirely on his secret police and people like Beria. Everybody else from farmer and factory worker to member of the politburo is here today, but may well be gone tomorrow. Although the nation had very little democratic capital to start with, its ideology does generate just enough, combined with a relatively well-aimed industrialization policy to improve itself. But as a dictatorship the system is highly inefficient, corruption is rampant and targets are only achieved by delivering shoddy end products or outright lies. The military is huge, but not very strong and particularly motivated. A huge effort was spent in creating tanks and planes, but the system can't produce enough spare parts and cannot deliver them to the units that need them. Just before the war Stalin pretty much removes the top of the army, leaving only junior leaders and ineffective people in charge. Where Hitler has a relatively strong, modern state thrown in his lap, Stalin has created a system that has achieved a considerable level of industrialization, but only because the country has been beaten to a pulp in doing so. Stalin has no delusions that he is in any way beholden to raise the standard of living of the population if it is counter to losing his total control. It is a nominal part of the communist ideology and is only done so because it helps to reinforce the grip of the system on people by giving them enough benefits that they not conclude that a regime chance is now inevitable. But because the Russians have always been up poverty creek without a paddle, even minor improvements are better than none. The system offers greater rewards by joining the party and you can try to move up, but you run the risk of being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and never seen again. When it comes down to war Germany has a big head start, it has a modern, motivated army and the leadership believes that France and Britain are serious threats while the USSR is just another weak nation that can easily be annexed or defeated like Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries. Oddly enough France collapses far quicker than anyone would have thought. The British empire is the only real threat to Germany, but with her land army defeated and Germany not really looking to challenge her on the seas, they therefore turn to the USSR. Germany bleeds democratic capital, replacing it with clientelism and fills the coffers of industrial moguls in return for their industrial output, both for weapons and personal goods to keep the population fat and happy. All this financed by plunder and by unilaterally stopping payments on the massive loans the nazis accrued before the war to pay for public works and expanding their military. Stalin goes into survival mode and is smart enough to realize he is not a military genius. He grudgingly adopts a very pragmatic position of loosening his crushing grip just enough to give his generals and army the room to win the war. Without democratic capital the USSR becomes highly efficient at maximizing its industrial output and coming up with excellent high tech conceived, low tech built designs. And what they lack will be made up by the close alliance with their new democratic allies. Stalin is a good dictator because he doesn't try to stick to an ideology or has his personal flaws cloud his judgement. Germany finally falls into the trap of becoming a classic inefficient dictatorship where money is spent on a small elite that promises to keep the leader in power, but that money isn't used as wisely as the Soviets. They become vanity projects, designer dreams without much real connection to reality. The leader becomes increasingly erratic, fails to separate reality from ideology, believing he is an infallible genius. The British are very concerned with their selectorate and know that to demand another sacrifice of a generation will never go down well. It takes some effort to prod the British population into accepting that they are once again at war, but at the same time the leadership sets the goal to spare the men as much as possible. This is done in two ways, find as many allies as possible and avoid a direct confrontation with Germany where they are at their strongest. Solid democracies become more resilient the more you threaten them, that's why Britain is so effective at rallying the USA to her cause and is able to recognize that Stalin is the lesser evil. The British are maybe beaten in France, but threaten the British Isles and those few will kick back and talk of fighting in beaches, fields, hills and streets is not a vain boast. |
Pages: 1 2
|