Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

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BDV
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Supplies? What for?

#31

Post by BDV » 26 May 2011, 17:31

Well, if the germans in the Kessel are well supplied, they can make it "one german every 15 seconds". The longer it drags on, the more veterans can be spirited out of the Kessel. Three motorized divisions and three panzer divisions are surrounded in the Kessel, thus they are likely materiel write-offs. Might as well get your worth for it in.

Hitler gambled on establishing the Tunisian Fortress instead (as opposed to say the Benghazi Fortress - but that's another WhIf).
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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LWD
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Re: Who's supplying the steel?

#32

Post by LWD » 26 May 2011, 19:51

BDV wrote:
JonS wrote:You've already been told that this is a gross distortion of Germany's energy position.
And you were told that Da Reich kneecapped itself economically at the tune of a few billion RM per annum, more than enough (among many, many other things) to increase coal production by the piddly few percent this WhIf requires.
I don't see where that supports your view point. Furthermore this is another POD. Even if it were allowed where would the extra effort come from?


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BDV
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Who's supplying the steel? My grandfather.

#33

Post by BDV » 26 May 2011, 20:58

LWD wrote:I don't see where that supports your view point. Furthermore this is another POD. Even if it were allowed where would the extra effort come from?
.
Many of the Axis PODs requires some sort of increase in economic output. E.g., switcing to Ar-232s production will cost resources, labor. Usually, this would mean some other program would get cut (surface ships, UBoots, and Fallschirm are my faves for downsizing).
.
Hoever, based on my family's kulak background, and bolstered by opinions as the one expressed by Miklos Horty:
it is impossible, in a year or two, to eliminate the Jews, who have everything in their hands, and to replace them with incompetent, unworthy, mostly big-mouthed elements, for we should become bankrupt.
I argue that such economic boost would have been easily at hand had Nazi Germany eased off its "C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute" antisemitic policies.
.
How? I'll exemplify. My kulak grandfather had to go to the city and sell his wares personally, using his horses and time, instead of this being done (more efficiently I would add) by the local jewish merchants and their horses launguishing in the stables of the local nazi bigmouths. Extrapolate that to the size of the economy and you will see that there are as many point losses as there were jewish merchants, craftsmen, engineers, doctors removed from the European economic network by Nazis.
.
Who's supplying the steel? My grandfather, indirectly, through the two weeks of labor he doesn't have to waste to sell his stuff (and still end up with an inferior financial return).
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#34

Post by gurn » 26 May 2011, 22:22

Put the women to work and stop killing your citizens(let the enemy do that if you must have them dead).6 milliom people could have done more for the cause alive than turned into ash.
Ohh wait Hitler was a wack job so I figure not much chance of rational thought.

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#35

Post by JonS » 27 May 2011, 01:23

Oh, right. So the Nazis can win the war if only they'd stop being Nazis. Well yeah, that'd work. Seriously. It would.

But then the Ruassians could counter by stopping being incompetent Soviets, and instead become hyper efficient capitalists. That'd put a crimp on the Not Nazis Anymore (NNA). And the Americans could stop being an isolated continent and instead become a part of Europe. That'd save them having to ship everything across the Atlantic, and they could pour millions more men and billions more dollars into their land forces. That's really stuff up the NNAs. The French would simply stop being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, and thereby bid adeiu to the Blitzkrieg as a viable operation of war. And the British would, naturally, stop drinking tea all the damn time and instead get off their buts and actually do something.

Simples.

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BDV
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Bolsheviks not being bolsheviks. Unbritish brits.

#36

Post by BDV » 27 May 2011, 15:52

It is of course fair to ask, how far can one stretch the Nazis, before they stop being the "evil Nazis from hell" we have come to know.

But then, on the russian side, one has the "enemies of the people" Meretskov and Rokossovsky ending up as RKKA's most effective Army/Front commanders. And other enemies of the people were spirited out of GULAG to head military hospitals and win Stalin Prizes, and to be technical leaders in the soviet rocket program.

And on the British side, we have the favourable comments on Satan's behalf issued by Winnie C, accompanied by generous materiel support to same Satan, and joint imperial actions with same Satan.

So yes, British did get off their butts, and murderour bolsheviks stopped being murderous bolsheviks. And the economic problems induced by the antisemitic policies were well perceived at the time. So it is not unfair to ask - What if?!?
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#37

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 31 Jul 2011, 14:24

The Ar 232 transport could carry 5 tons of cargo ?

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#38

Post by CanKiwi2 » 01 Aug 2011, 18:07

nebelwerferXXX wrote:The Ar 232 transport could carry 5 tons of cargo ?
Seems about right.
Empty weight: 12,780 kg (28,175 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 21,150 kg (46,628 lb)

Factor fuel, weapons and crew out of the 7,350kgs and you would have around 5 tons of cargo capacity.
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#39

Post by phylo_roadking » 01 Aug 2011, 22:42

Empty weight: 12,780 kg (28,175 lb)
...or 12.8 tons
Max takeoff weight: 21,150 kg (46,628 lb)
...or 21.2 tons

That's just under eight and a half tons until MTOW....

1/ we need to know what weight of fuel the Ar 232 tanked;

2/ the weight of crew plus defensive armament PLUS their munitions (the latter is usually greater than you might think!)

3/ the takeoff weights specified by the Luftwaffe! MTOW looks great - but it's often quite a bit higher than the maximum operating weight specified for an aircraft. MTOW is what the physics adds up to :wink: it doesn't take into account muddy runways etc...

And the difference between all those weights and the maximum specified is its cargo carrying capacity.
Last edited by phylo_roadking on 01 Aug 2011, 23:43, edited 1 time in total.
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Terry Duncan
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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#40

Post by Terry Duncan » 01 Aug 2011, 23:43

And the difference between all those weights and the maximum specified is its cargo carrying capacity.
But that is going to mean the plan fails! The 6th Army will still starve, maybe a bit slower, but starve none the less. Maybe a mass production program of Me 323's to bring in supplies?

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#41

Post by BDV » 02 Aug 2011, 13:45

Terry Duncan wrote:And the difference between all those weights and the maximum specified is its cargo carrying capacity.

But that is going to mean the plan fails! The 6th Army will still starve, maybe a bit slower, but starve none the less. Maybe a mass production program of Me 323's to bring in supplies?
Maybe, but it will tie up all those Soviet forces longer, and make Little Saturn impracticable. And it will allow for another 20-60,000 german veterans to be spirited out, on top of the 90,000 that were flown out in OTL.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#42

Post by Terry Duncan » 02 Aug 2011, 17:30

I would think the figure would be far less impressive than the lowest estimate you give. Maybe a stripped down version with no guns could lift more, but a standard plane would probably lift about 3 tonnes in this sort of operation. Even then you have the constant attrition from mechanical problems and enemy action which will reduce the numbers. The scale of the operation would probably have been beyond any nation at such short notice.

A far better idea is Paulus disobeys Hitler and withdraws prior to being cut off, or tries to fight his way out as soon as it is apparrent.

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Re: Airlift. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#43

Post by BDV » 02 Aug 2011, 20:46

Terry Duncan wrote:The scale of the operation would probably have been beyond any nation at such short notice.
Except that Luftwaffe was simultaneously (and at the same time, might I add) doing the Tunisian bridgehead buildup, to the tune of 9,000 tons of supplies and 33,000 men for November-December 1942 (LUFTWAFFE AIRLIFT IN THE TUNISIAN BRIDGEHEAD: EXPEDITIONARY LESSONS FOR A TRANSFORMATION AGE, Lt Col P. E. Bauman, USAF). Halving of the Tunis airlift can be projected to net Wehrmacht an additional 5-8000 tons of supplies to the kessel troops by the end of 1942. Assigning transports to the Eastern Front also produces a ripple effect with the He111 units, which instead of working as second rate cargo planes, bomb Soviet units (necessarily) moving in the open.

The simultaneous half-assed Stalingrad airlift, while trying to create a Tunisian Fortress by means of airlift went against the core of a most pertinent advice issued by a most famous german warrior:
"He who defends everything, defends nothing".

However, if North Africa receives the bulk of the airlift, it really doesn't matter if the airlift is Tante Jus or Ar232s...
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#44

Post by phylo_roadking » 02 Aug 2011, 21:43

Assigning transports to the Eastern Front also produces a ripple effect with the He 111 units, which instead of working as second rate cargo planes, bomb Soviet units (necessarily) moving in the open.
1/ One of the reasons the He 111s were available as scratch transports was they were on the edge of obsolesence, particularly as tactical day bombers. And you're suggesting feeding them back into the MiG meatgrinder?

2/ IIRC from when I was looking into the use of odd types of transport in the airlift - there was a suprising number of days' flying lost because...of course...it was winter. Bad weather is bad weather - but transports only have to fly from runway to runway, they're not concerned too much with the acurate placement of ordnance in 10/10ths cloud, or on semi-camoflaged troops....

3/ exactly how much medium- and low-altitude level bombing was the Luftwaffe doing against troops operating in open formation on the Eastern Front by then???
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Re: Ar 232 Transport. Linchpin of victory at Stalingrad.

#45

Post by Terry Duncan » 02 Aug 2011, 21:52

Except that Luftwaffe was simultaneously...
Yes, and it isnt up to the task. Phylo has pointed out the age of the He 111 and the weather that will hit the effort. The other problem is the loss of Tunisia will lead to bombing of Italy and then Germany from the south and an earlier invasion in Italy. It is of course quite possible these things may not happen faster, but they were fears at the time - Kesselring raised then iirc.

I would say the problems at Stalingrad by November 1942 are beyond the ability of one plane type to fix, it needed an entirely different command setup and far greater common sense and flexibility.

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