What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#61

Post by Sheldrake » 18 Nov 2016, 10:47

stg 44 wrote:
Sheldrake wrote: I think that this has to refer to the Wehrmacht rather than Germany, though I would be interested in the source for the figures. There were far more than 750k motor vehicles in Europe in 1943.

Neither the Germans nor the Soviets were anything like as motorised as the British or US Army. Both were largely dependent on horse transport with only a small number of motor vehicles. While there were 187 divisions on the Eestern front only around 19 were fully motorised. Each German infantry division was established for around 1000 motor vehicles.
So theoretically the Germans were established for some 19 x 4k= 76k (for Panzer and motorised divisions) plus 169k vehicles for the infantry divisions and 14 x 4k = 56k for armies and 42 x 4k =168k for corps - total 469k motor vehicles

These are not particularly accurate numbers as the real need for motor vehicles was in the supply chain, which is not simply a multiple of the number of component formations. In any event the Germans were inadequately supplied with mechanical transport.
The reason the Germans and Soviets weren't as motorized as the Brits or US is that the UK forces had only 50 divisions, some of which they had to disband for manpower reasons, while the US had no more than 100 divisions. Both Germany and the USSR had over 300 divisions and both had lost huge numbers of motor vehicles to wear and tear, combat, and abandonment in retreat. By 1944 IIRC the Soviets were using hundreds of captured German AFVs and IIRC over captured 50k trucks (not counting any other motor vehicles). Horse and rail were the main means of logistics of course, but it would seem the Germans had more motor vehicles within the military than the Soviets did, who had more than twice as many men in their military. Clearly your totals were just TOE, not the reality especially after the reduction of infantry divisions to 6 battalions. But yeah even with 750k motor vehicles (I'd love to know when exactly that snapshot was taken) they were badly under establishment of TOE even with the huge reductions in personnel per division.
There are a couple of observations to add to this.

#1 Logistics were a blind spot within WW2 German military strategy. The Nazis proposition for the German public was "guns and butter" offering military success through short campaigns without seriously fully mobilising their economy. Blitzkrieg meant ignoring the implications of a long war and taking chances with the logisitc - see endless discussion re the Eastern Front and North Africa. Hitler was an amateur strategist with a nerdy interest in every rivet of the latest piece of military technology but only a faint grasp of logistics. No one in the zoo of Nazi leadership had the interest and authority to fight the logistic corner.

#2 The Nazis has the resources of the automotive industries of whole of occupied Europe to call upon to expand motor transport - but they did not. Instead their Military transport was a ramshackle collection of captured and home built vehicles.

#3 US Lease lend made a big difference to the Red Army's logistic capabilities adding 400k trucks and jeeps 1942-45.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#62

Post by stg 44 » 18 Nov 2016, 15:51

stg 44 wrote: I find those numbers interesting, because it means the Germans overall had more trucks than the Soviets...but the Germans were spread out over multiple fronts and obviously dropped a lot in the meantime. It would be interesting to get a comparative Soviet stocks on hand for all those categories of vehicles, but I have no idea where to find that info.
I got some answers in a different part of the forum about the Soviets:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=225522
Sheldrake wrote: There are a couple of observations to add to this.

#1 Logistics were a blind spot within WW2 German military strategy. The Nazis proposition for the German public was "guns and butter" offering military success through short campaigns without seriously fully mobilising their economy. Blitzkrieg meant ignoring the implications of a long war and taking chances with the logisitc - see endless discussion re the Eastern Front and North Africa. Hitler was an amateur strategist with a nerdy interest in every rivet of the latest piece of military technology but only a faint grasp of logistics. No one in the zoo of Nazi leadership had the interest and authority to fight the logistic corner.
That is actually old historiography that has since been disproven, there was no 'blitzkrieg' economy as such, they had effectively drawn down civilian production to wartime levels by 1938 and had higher female worker rates than anyone save for the USSR after 1941. Adam Tooze and Richard Overy have proven all the above beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Germans were not really making butter at home, they had a war economy in effect before WW2 even started. In 1940 the Germans didn't expect to defeat France in a year and weren't even planning necessarily on their strategy to pocket French armies to really work out. The only campaign that they expected to win quickly was Barbarossa. They accurately planned for the first 2 months of it, anticipating once they destroyed the border armies the campaign would be won and they could march on Moscow no later than August; their entire conduct of Barbarossa makes sense in that context, as they then ran into reinforcements that they didn't expect in front of Smolensk, who then turned out not to even be the last of Soviet new mobilizations that year. The move to close a pocket at Smolensk was initially done with the expectation that those were the last Soviet forces to be eliminated, but then they bumped into a 3rd echelon of Soviet armies that had been unknown when they started to close the Smolensk pocket. Logistically their conduct looks nuts, but from the understanding that they literally had no way of knowing about the third echelon of Soviet mobilizations, what they did made sense if they were going to be advancing unopposed after Smolensk. Stark reality kicked in and Hitler then had to defer any Moscow move until the flanks were cleared and logistics/rail lines could be moved up. Guys like Guderian and even Heinrici still thought that they should have moved on Moscow in August, not understanding the logistics of why that was impossible, while ironically Hitler had that made clear to him by upper level staff.

If you actually look at what the Germans planned and did with logistics in France they were very well planned and executed. It conformed to reality and worked out very well, even if the advance was pushed faster than it could keep up for strategic reasons. Those lessons were applied then for Russia...which was a serious problem, because Russian depth made creating a strategic paralysis impossible, because you couldn't move deep enough quickly enough to hit their nerve center, Moscow, due to the horrible infrastructure and endless masses of newly mobilized reservists acting as speed bumps. Planning had been unaware of Soviet reserve generation capabilities, the horrible infrastructure, the lack of ability to capture working Soviet rolling stock, and how much the Soviet people were willing to fight for the Soviet regime against a foreign invader.
Sheldrake wrote: #2 The Nazis has the resources of the automotive industries of whole of occupied Europe to call upon to expand motor transport - but they did not. Instead their Military transport was a ramshackle collection of captured and home built vehicles.
Not exactly, they lacked the raw materials to run it all, though they certainly took advantage of a lot of it. Tooze again makes the point that European industry could not function under blockade, so the Germans had to choose to try and utilize industry with unfriendly labor outside of Germany, where end products were routinely sabotaged, or pull in labor, raw materials, and machinery to use in Germany where everything could be controlled. They chose the latter and that was the right choice given the raw material famine in Europe. So they had to use everything they could get their hands on that existed in the moment and thought that their campaign in the East would be over quickly and with it the entire was, as the British would quit after Russia was knocked out, plus they'd get Soviet resources to use to run European industries.
Sheldrake wrote: #3 US Lease lend made a big difference to the Red Army's logistic capabilities adding 400k trucks and jeeps 1942-45.
Absolutely; I posted a link at the start about what their vehicle pool was in that period and it was quite a bit less than Germany's until a point 1944 when Soviet offensives started demolishing German vehicle stocks and capturing them for Soviet use.


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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#63

Post by Sheldrake » 25 Nov 2016, 01:46

stg 44 wrote:
stg 44 wrote: I find those numbers interesting, because it means the Germans overall had more trucks than the Soviets...but the Germans were spread out over multiple fronts and obviously dropped a lot in the meantime. It would be interesting to get a comparative Soviet stocks on hand for all those categories of vehicles, but I have no idea where to find that info.
I got some answers in a different part of the forum about the Soviets:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=225522
Sheldrake wrote: There are a couple of observations to add to this.

#1 Logistics were a blind spot within WW2 German military strategy. The Nazis proposition for the German public was "guns and butter" offering military success through short campaigns without seriously fully mobilising their economy. Blitzkrieg meant ignoring the implications of a long war and taking chances with the logisitc - see endless discussion re the Eastern Front and North Africa. Hitler was an amateur strategist with a nerdy interest in every rivet of the latest piece of military technology but only a faint grasp of logistics. No one in the zoo of Nazi leadership had the interest and authority to fight the logistic corner.
That is actually old historiography that has since been disproven, there was no 'blitzkrieg' economy as such, they had effectively drawn down civilian production to wartime levels by 1938 and had higher female worker rates than anyone save for the USSR after 1941. Adam Tooze and Richard Overy have proven all the above beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Germans were not really making butter at home, they had a war economy in effect before WW2 even started. In 1940 the Germans didn't expect to defeat France in a year and weren't even planning necessarily on their strategy to pocket French armies to really work out. The only campaign that they expected to win quickly was Barbarossa. They accurately planned for the first 2 months of it, anticipating once they destroyed the border armies the campaign would be won and they could march on Moscow no later than August; their entire conduct of Barbarossa makes sense in that context, as they then ran into reinforcements that they didn't expect in front of Smolensk, who then turned out not to even be the last of Soviet new mobilizations that year. The move to close a pocket at Smolensk was initially done with the expectation that those were the last Soviet forces to be eliminated, but then they bumped into a 3rd echelon of Soviet armies that had been unknown when they started to close the Smolensk pocket. Logistically their conduct looks nuts, but from the understanding that they literally had no way of knowing about the third echelon of Soviet mobilizations, what they did made sense if they were going to be advancing unopposed after Smolensk. Stark reality kicked in and Hitler then had to defer any Moscow move until the flanks were cleared and logistics/rail lines could be moved up. Guys like Guderian and even Heinrici still thought that they should have moved on Moscow in August, not understanding the logistics of why that was impossible, while ironically Hitler had that made clear to him by upper level staff.

If you actually look at what the Germans planned and did with logistics in France they were very well planned and executed. It conformed to reality and worked out very well, even if the advance was pushed faster than it could keep up for strategic reasons. Those lessons were applied then for Russia...which was a serious problem, because Russian depth made creating a strategic paralysis impossible, because you couldn't move deep enough quickly enough to hit their nerve center, Moscow, due to the horrible infrastructure and endless masses of newly mobilized reservists acting as speed bumps. Planning had been unaware of Soviet reserve generation capabilities, the horrible infrastructure, the lack of ability to capture working Soviet rolling stock, and how much the Soviet people were willing to fight for the Soviet regime against a foreign invader.
Sheldrake wrote: #2 The Nazis has the resources of the automotive industries of whole of occupied Europe to call upon to expand motor transport - but they did not. Instead their Military transport was a ramshackle collection of captured and home built vehicles.
Not exactly, they lacked the raw materials to run it all, though they certainly took advantage of a lot of it. Tooze again makes the point that European industry could not function under blockade, so the Germans had to choose to try and utilize industry with unfriendly labor outside of Germany, where end products were routinely sabotaged, or pull in labor, raw materials, and machinery to use in Germany where everything could be controlled. They chose the latter and that was the right choice given the raw material famine in Europe. So they had to use everything they could get their hands on that existed in the moment and thought that their campaign in the East would be over quickly and with it the entire was, as the British would quit after Russia was knocked out, plus they'd get Soviet resources to use to run European industries.
Sheldrake wrote: #3 US Lease lend made a big difference to the Red Army's logistic capabilities adding 400k trucks and jeeps 1942-45.
Absolutely; I posted a link at the start about what their vehicle pool was in that period and it was quite a bit less than Germany's until a point 1944 when Soviet offensives started demolishing German vehicle stocks and capturing them for Soviet use.
I am afraid I disagree with you. Sure, Overy put forwards interesting arguments, but they are far from accepted as gospel, and nor did he prove that Germany was fully mobilized before 1944. Common sense suggests otherwise. If Goebbels called for "Total War" after Stalingrad then the senior German leadership did not consider themselves to be on a Total war footing before that point.

Furthermore I do not accept that the Germans were making the best use of their logistic resources. The extermination programme was a massive waste of resources as was much of the effort building good knows how many Fuhrer bunkers. A further slice of transportation was wasted moving construction materials for pointless grandiose V1 and V2 bhunkers.

Look at the German army in Normandy 1944 to see how much of a blind spot the germans had to logistics. The Germans had years to prepare for the allied invasion, which would be the point of main effort in 1944. They formed powerful mobile troops such as 1st and 2nd SS panzer Corps based around then latest well armed and well motivated troops. Yet the artillery logistic support was feeble.

There was little logistic planning for the battle that was fought. When Rommel, the logistic ignoramus par excellence decided that the battle would be won or lost on the waters edge, there were no plans to support a battle inland. He was only interested in the day's worth of ammunition his fortified coastal. As far as he was concerned the rest was irrelevant.

As a result the nearest supplies of 17cm and 21cm ammunition were in Metz, a two day round trip with unit transport rendering the Ist SS corps heavy artillery battalion useless for much of the time.

The command structure of the German army in the west left the Germans logistically weak. For nearly two months after D day the Germans fought under two controlling headquarters: Seventh army and an ad hoc grouping called "Panzer Gruppe West." But Panzer Gruppe West didn't have any logistic or signals assets of its own. These things matter a lot and handicapped the strongest elements of the Wehrmacht.

The Germans were, like many military history geeks are far more interested in tanks than transport....

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#64

Post by stg 44 » 25 Nov 2016, 16:13

@Sheldrake, I'm not interested in arguing that point, Adam Tooze backs up Overy's points in his book.
Are you seriously arguing that German logistics were and issue in 1944 France without talking about the Allied Transport Plan? How are you seriously make such points without talking about the enormous losses in equipment Germany had suffered to that point and the Allies were inflicting from the air on production, units in the field on the way to the front, and rail?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Plan

That aside a PAW 600 would actually keep the Pz III somewhat viable was an AFV; the weapon was lighter than the KWK39 (50mm L60), slightly shorter and had a lot more AP and HE capabilities than even the L24 75mm Pz IIIN. By the end of the war thy thought they could cram it into a Pz 38T with a Pz IV turret.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_II ... production
http://henk.fox3000.com/38t/26/1/01.jpg

In fact the Belgians and French revived the concept post-WW2 and turned out a 90mm version:
http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product3587.html
Here is the AT gun version:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/idf-fight-for ... -d921-90mm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_AML#AML-90
They were able to put it into a 6 ton armored car, so the German Puma AC could take it, since it had the 50mm L60 gun, same as the Pz IIIJ, as the PAW 600 was even lighter than the French gun, yet still able to kill the IS-2 or even -3.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#65

Post by stg 44 » 26 Nov 2016, 16:18

What might also be interesting is the use of the PAW1000 or potentially an even bigger version for a StuG or even Hetzer setup and being able to then knock out the IS-2 and -3 at 1000m.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerwurfkanone_10H64

If the Germans ever figured out the HESH round, then the Soviets would really be in trouble, because then the StuH 42 could take advantage of the poor quality of wartime Soviet armor to spall them something fierce with 105mm HESH rounds.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#66

Post by Sheldrake » 27 Nov 2016, 16:06

stg 44 wrote:@Sheldrake, I'm not interested in arguing that point, Adam Tooze backs up Overy's points in his book.
Are you seriously arguing that German logistics were and issue in 1944 France without talking about the Allied Transport Plan? How are you seriously make such points without talking about the enormous losses in equipment Germany had suffered to that point and the Allies were inflicting from the air on production, units in the field on the way to the front, and rail?
My point is that whatever the effectiveness of the allied transport plan it does not excuse the lack of priority given by the Germans on logistics, as evidenced by the lack of foresight in planning for the invasion. Like many military hobbyists, they were far more interested in the sexy combat technology and ignored or dismissed logistics.

A few more B Vehicles would have been far more effective than any magical effect of the PAW 600

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#67

Post by stg 44 » 27 Nov 2016, 17:42

Sheldrake wrote: My point is that whatever the effectiveness of the allied transport plan it does not excuse the lack of priority given by the Germans on logistics, as evidenced by the lack of foresight in planning for the invasion. Like many military hobbyists, they were far more interested in the sexy combat technology and ignored or dismissed logistics.
What lack of priority? You are asserting something you haven't proven, that the Germans didn't plan to fight in France in 1944, while totally ignoring the impact of 'round the clock bombing of German cities and industry, as well as the near total paralysis inflicted on the transport system of Northern France by the Allied bombing campaign. Planning was impossible in that context because all the plans fell apart as roads were interdicted, rail lines ripped up, and canals mined. It is impossible to discuss the failure of German logistics in 1944 without crediting the massive effort the Allies put into bombing infrastructure and shutting down German logistics; it may have been the most important factor in the success of the Normandy landings holding and gaining ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Plan
The plan was devised by Professor Solly Zuckerman, an advisor to the Air Ministry, to destroy transportation in Occupied France during the "preparatory period" for Operation Overlord so Germany would be unable to respond effectively to the invasion.[5][6]

The air campaign, carried out by the bombers of the RAF and USAAF crippled the German rail networks in France and played a crucial role in disrupting German logistics and reinforcements to the invasion area.[7]

The effectiveness of the Transport Plan was evident in German reports at the time. A German air ministry report of 13 June 1944 stated: "The raids...have caused the breakdown of all main lines; the coast defences have been cut off from the supply bases in the interior...producing a situation which threatens to have serious consequences." and that although "transportation of essential supplies for the civilian population have been completely...large scale strategic movement of German troops by rail is practically impossible at the present time and must remain so while attacks are maintained at their present intensity".[13]
If you're unwilling to even discuss the fact of the above and instead just blame German planning instead, you're nothing more than an ideologue with a fixed idea that no amount of historical evidence will make any sort of sense to, because it doesn't fit into your contained little narrative.
Sheldrake wrote: A few more B Vehicles would have been far more effective than any magical effect of the PAW 600
Not really given the bombing of German truck production in 1943-44 that crippled production of logistics vehicles, plus the Allies heavy efforts in destroying German logistics to the point that they couldn't bring reinforcements or supplies into the battle area in a timely fashion. German failures to supply Normandy were a function of the MASSIVE Allied success in interdiction and rail destruction. Why are you chronically unwilling to acknowledge the fact that the Allies were hyper successful at that through an immense sacrifice of aircraft (over 4400) during the Normandy campaign? It seems like you're just here to derail the thread by complaining about issues that are not the topic of discussion and in the OP it was acknowledged that the weapon wouldn't be a war winner on it's own. If you want to discuss logistics and things the Germans could have done to improve that start another thread about it rather than derailing this one with your pet obsession.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#68

Post by Richard Anderson » 27 Nov 2016, 18:24

Sheldrake wrote:There was little logistic planning for the battle that was fought. When Rommel, the logistic ignoramus par excellence decided that the battle would be won or lost on the waters edge, there were no plans to support a battle inland. He was only interested in the day's worth of ammunition his fortified coastal. As far as he was concerned the rest was irrelevant.

As a result the nearest supplies of 17cm and 21cm ammunition were in Metz, a two day round trip with unit transport rendering the Ist SS corps heavy artillery battalion useless for much of the time.
I would be interested in a source for that information. It is most odd, especially considering as of 5 June 1944. 7. Armee alone had 16 muni-lagern and four combined fuel-munitions lagern in its zone in France containing some 18,645 metric tons of ordnance.
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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#69

Post by Sheldrake » 27 Nov 2016, 18:51

Richard Anderson wrote:
Sheldrake wrote:There was little logistic planning for the battle that was fought. When Rommel, the logistic ignoramus par excellence decided that the battle would be won or lost on the waters edge, there were no plans to support a battle inland. He was only interested in the day's worth of ammunition his fortified coastal. As far as he was concerned the rest was irrelevant.

As a result the nearest supplies of 17cm and 21cm ammunition were in Metz, a two day round trip with unit transport rendering the Ist SS corps heavy artillery battalion useless for much of the time.
I would be interested in a source for that information. It is most odd, especially considering as of 5 June 1944. 7. Armee alone had 16 muni-lagern and four combined fuel-munitions lagern in its zone in France containing some 18,645 metric tons of ordnance.
FMS B832 1 SS Corps Artillery in Normandy SS General Leutnant Walter Staudiger. It is consistent with the FMS interviews with Eberbach who ordered the cannibalisation of 16th LW Division after Op Goodwood to provide logistics command and control in the rear area of pz Gruppe West, which probably led to the formation being upgraded to a Panzer Army. Until then almost all German forces in Normandy were drawing on 7th Army's overloaded logistic system.

Staudiger also claimed that much of 7th Army's ammunition in the Caen area was stored in the open where it was destroyed by enemy action. He claims that with a little forethought the mines between Caen and Falaise would have been a secure ammunition store. He blamed Rommel for the lack of a plan B for what the artillery of 1st SS Corps were to do in the event of an invasion.

What is your source for the 7th Armee logistic situation? The German supply situation interests me.

18,000 tonnes of ammunition and fuel sounds impressive, but there were a lot of artillery pieces in the 7th Army sector from the Dives to the Loire. IIRC a unit of fire was around 132 rounds per gun per day which works out at some 2 tonnes per 10.5 cm FH18. Multiply that by, say, twenty for the number of divisions (including the reserve formations) and add in stocks for Anti aircraft, anti tank, medium and heavy guns, ignoring the coastal guns, and daily consumption of artillery ammunition is around 3,000 tonnes; less than a week of ammunition - and that is before we subtract the tonnes of fuel for tanks and motor transport.

7th Army operated 40 different artillery equipments in seventeen different calibres from five different countries of origin, so stocks of 10.5 cm lFH18 were useless if the unit was equipped with 10.5cm LG40/1.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#70

Post by Richard Anderson » 29 Nov 2016, 21:02

Sheldrake wrote:FMS B832 1 SS Corps Artillery in Normandy SS General Leutnant Walter Staudiger. It is consistent with the FMS interviews with Eberbach who ordered the cannibalisation of 16th LW Division after Op Goodwood to provide logistics command and control in the rear area of pz Gruppe West, which probably led to the formation being upgraded to a Panzer Army. Until then almost all German forces in Normandy were drawing on 7th Army's overloaded logistic system.

Staudiger also claimed that much of 7th Army's ammunition in the Caen area was stored in the open where it was destroyed by enemy action. He claims that with a little forethought the mines between Caen and Falaise would have been a secure ammunition store. He blamed Rommel for the lack of a plan B for what the artillery of 1st SS Corps were to do in the event of an invasion.
Staudiger's postwar "claims" are just that. He, like most of the other FMS writers had little access to any documentation.
What is your source for the 7th Armee logistic situation? The German supply situation interests me.
NARA T312, 1571, 000607.
18,000 tonnes of ammunition and fuel sounds impressive,
No, munitions only. Four of the depots were combined ammo/fuel depots as opposed to unitary AML.
but there were a lot of artillery pieces in the 7th Army sector from the Dives to the Loire. (snip)
Indeed, and that 18,645 metric tons is all munitions, not just artillery. We also know the rough consumption levels for part of the period averaging (without looking it up, so IIRC) around 500-1,000 tons per day, which was a fraction of the allies. However, a paucity of ammunition available and the problems the Germans had getting additional ammunition forward to the AML from factories in Germany did not mean they simply ignored the problems of logistics...it means they were unable to solve them with the means they had, given the Allied concentration of attacks on German logistics.
7th Army operated 40 different artillery equipments in seventeen different calibres from five different countries of origin, so stocks of 10.5 cm lFH18 were useless if the unit was equipped with 10.5cm LG40/1.
An extreme case, given that insofar as I am aware only a half-dozen batteries or so in 2. FJD and 91. ID were equipped with the LG40...and they were rather late arrivals.
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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#71

Post by Sheldrake » 30 Nov 2016, 17:07

Richard Anderson wrote:
Sheldrake wrote:FMS B832 1 SS Corps Artillery in Normandy SS General Leutnant Walter Staudiger. It is consistent with the FMS interviews with Eberbach who ordered the cannibalisation of 16th LW Division after Op Goodwood to provide logistics command and control in the rear area of pz Gruppe West, which probably led to the formation being upgraded to a Panzer Army. Until then almost all German forces in Normandy were drawing on 7th Army's overloaded logistic system.

Staudiger also claimed that much of 7th Army's ammunition in the Caen area was stored in the open where it was destroyed by enemy action. He claims that with a little forethought the mines between Caen and Falaise would have been a secure ammunition store. He blamed Rommel for the lack of a plan B for what the artillery of 1st SS Corps were to do in the event of an invasion.
Staudiger's postwar "claims" are just that. He, like most of the other FMS writers had little access to any documentation.
What is your source for the 7th Armee logistic situation? The German supply situation interests me.
(1)

NARA T312, 1571, 000607.
18,000 tonnes of ammunition and fuel sounds impressive,
No, munitions only. Four of the depots were combined ammo/fuel depots as opposed to unitary AML.
but there were a lot of artillery pieces in the 7th Army sector from the Dives to the Loire. (snip)
Indeed, and that 18,645 metric tons is all munitions, not just artillery. We also know the rough consumption levels for part of the period averaging (without looking it up, so IIRC) around 500-1,000 tons per day, which was a fraction of the allies. However, a paucity of ammunition available and the problems the Germans had getting additional ammunition forward to the AML from factories in Germany did not mean they simply ignored the problems of logistics...it means they were unable to solve them with the means they had, given the Allied concentration of attacks on German logistics.(2)
7th Army operated 40 different artillery equipments in seventeen different calibres from five different countries of origin, so stocks of 10.5 cm lFH18 were useless if the unit was equipped with 10.5cm LG40/1.
An extreme case, given that insofar as I am aware only a half-dozen batteries or so in 2. FJD and 91. ID were equipped with the LG40...and they were rather late arrivals. (2)


Re 1. It is true that Staudiger had little access to documentation.

Even without access to documentation his comments highlight qualitatively reasons for German failure that go beyond blaming the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine and over whelming allied numbers. (I don't have any access to documents relating to the deployment of troops in Germany in the Cold war, but i can tell you the problems we worried about.) Staudiger's comments on the logistic failings and the planning failings in the years before D Day are consistent with the interview those made by Eberbach in his debrief and the comments in British RA Notes No 20 Aug 1944 which speculated that the ease with which the British were winning the CB battle lay in German failings.

Many German officers interviewed all blamed allied air and sea power for the German defeat - an easy way deflect criticism from the conduct of the land battle. (As do some of the Wehrmacht fan club on historic forums! ;) )

Does your data support or disprove Staudiger? Where were the stocks of 17 cm and 21cm ammunition? How many rockets for the werfer brigades were held in 7th Army's depots?

As a former artillery staff officer I found Staudiger's comments fascinating. Where else is there discussion raised about artillery survey, the handling of artillery or artillery logistics for the reserve formations? 500-1000 tons of ammunition

Re 2. Sorry, but the idea that the Germans did the best they could and couldn't have done any better is straight from the Wehrmacht apologist playbook. Here are some of the propositions put forwards by German - and British observers:-

1. The Germans themselves acknowledged that their horse drawn transport was inadequate for supply purposes - yet continued to generate a teeth arm heavy shop window of formations that could not be supplied adequately. This was a central failing of the German high command. The Germans also failed to reallocate vehicles from the disbanded Italian army rationally. Thus the artillery of the 71st infantry division in the Italian sideshow was fully motorised, while the artillery in Normandy was short of ammunition.

2. Germans admitted that the could have made better used of the motor vehicles that there were in France. Stauidiger said that they lost a lot of vehicles from driving over ill maintained under supervised roads. Eberbach claimed that there were plenty of under used vehicles supporting the Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine. There were also vehicles supporting construction work on the Atlantic Wall in Northern France during June and July 1944. Eberbach also used the HQ of 16 LW Division to organise the supply lines for Panzer Gruppe West. There was no German equivalent to the logisitc support form the "Via Sacra" at Verdun or the red ball express. (There could have been. There were lots of construction troops and labour)

3. The muddled command structure in OB west with conflicting chains of command and unresolved concepts for battle left a lot of logistic issues unresolved with dire consequences. This was a self inflicted wound.

4. The choice of Rommel as the commander of Army Group B was an acceptance for a command style which gambled that logistics could be improvised. Staudiger was right. There was no preparations for contingencies in the event that the allies were not defeated on the waters edge. There was no plan B. Typically Rommel it was all a gamble on the Longest Day.

Re 3. It is true that only a half-dozen batteries or so in 2. FJD and 91. ID were equipped with the LG40. However it was rather unfortunate for the Germans that this was where the Americans landed! Doesn't this rather illustrate that the Wehrmacht considered logistics as an afterthought?

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#72

Post by stg 44 » 30 Nov 2016, 17:33

Sheldrake wrote: Many German officers interviewed all blamed allied air and sea power for the German defeat - an easy way deflect criticism from the conduct of the land battle. (As do some of the Wehrmacht fan club on historic forums! ;) )
Its now wrong to acknowledge where the majority of the problem lay? Revisionist histories of the conflict have gotten to the point where they cannot even talk about these issues in context and have to blame the German military incompetence in all issues, while ignoring to vast constraints they operated under. Its become a cartoonish characterization of what actually happened when you can't point out that the Allies dominated the air in a way no military in history has up to that point or since until the Gulf War.
Sheldrake wrote: Does your data support or disprove Staudiger? Where were the stocks of 17 cm and 21cm ammunition? How many rockets for the werfer brigades were held in 7th Army's depots?
Again there were vast logistics issues like strategic, operational, and tactical bombing that made accumulating them pretty difficult.
Sheldrake wrote: Re 2. Sorry, but the idea that the Germans did the best they could and couldn't have done any better is straight from the Wehrmacht apologist playbook. Here are some of the propositions put forwards by German - and British observers:-
No one is arguing the Germans did perfectly given constraints, they were human after all, just that the bigger issue than their mistakes within those constraints was the constraints themselves that severely limited their ability to operate and badly screwed up their planning to the point that their mistakes somewhat stemmed from the uncertainty around their situation.
Sheldrake wrote: 1. The Germans themselves acknowledged that their horse drawn transport was inadequate for supply purposes - yet continued to generate a teeth arm heavy shop window of formations that could not be supplied adequately. This was a central failing of the German high command. The Germans also failed to reallocate vehicles from the disbanded Italian army rationally. Thus the artillery of the 71st infantry division in the Italian sideshow was fully motorised, while the artillery in Normandy was short of ammunition.
What alternative to horse drawn transport was there when there wasn't enough fuel, trucks, or experienced men to fully motorize? Even if they were entirely robotic in their organization and did everything perfectly in the extremely chaotic logistics environment of the Allies wrecking logsitics on every front and bombing Germany's factories and infrastructure they didn't have enough supplies and means to actually use all the trucks at their disposal, assuming they could even get there to where they were needed. Generating a tooth bigger than the tail was pretty much necessary when there isn't enough supplies coming in to justify having idle supply troops sitting around, especially when there aren't replacements coming in to make good combat losses. You see there were these things called strategic constraints that Germany faced in 1944 that doomed their war effort. How could they move Italian vehicles to France when Operation Strangle and the Transport plan, as well as the Combined Bomber Offensive was wrecking rail infrastructure, there wasn't enough fuel to go around, and probably not any ability to get spare parts to France from Italy as well as no experience among the French based German divisions on Italian equipment. It's silly suggestions like that that are entirely rooted in a fantasy ideal world where all that needed to be done was allocate resources and problems would be solved without any understanding of the reality of the situation on the ground that made it impossible to really organize.
Sheldrake wrote: 2. Germans admitted that the could have made better used of the motor vehicles that there were in France. Stauidiger said that they lost a lot of vehicles from driving over ill maintained under supervised roads. Eberbach claimed that there were plenty of under used vehicles supporting the Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine. There were also vehicles supporting construction work on the Atlantic Wall in Northern France during June and July 1944. Eberbach also used the HQ of 16 LW Division to organise the supply lines for Panzer Gruppe West. There was no German equivalent to the logisitc support form the "Via Sacra" at Verdun or the red ball express. (There could have been. There were lots of construction troops and labour)
Who was going to maintain the roads? The Germans didn't have enough people, the French resistance was reaching new heights of danger in rural areas, the French public was increasingly uninterested in working for or with the Germans due to at very least the payback the Resistance would dish out, and the Germans didn't have enough guards to force them. Plus they were desperately putting their maintenance/repair resources into trying to fix the repaired rail roads the Allies kept bombing, while building up the Atlantic Wall. There were finite resources available and they were allocated to things that were more immediately necessary. Underused vehicles may have been the case, but did Stauidiger know the fuel situation or really what the other services were doing with said vehicles? Any chance he might be blaming the other services for his own failures? I'd say the vehicles helping build up defenses were pretty much occupied doing what was necessary, given that there were risks of the Allies landing elsewhere and turning the German flank while they were preoccouped in Normandy.

And yes the Germans did not have the resources to organize a 'Voie Sacree' in France in 1944 because of Allied air attacks, something the French did not have to deal with at Verdun or the US with the Red Ball Express and unlimited trucks, manpower, and fuel. Saying the Germans should have done the same thing despite constraints that prevented them from doing that lapses into the absurd. You are arguing from a fantasy position. How can you really argue that there was a ton of idle resources sitting around doing nothing? The labour resources were mostly forced local labor that would run off the second they could, while Allied air attacks would wreck any of their efforts, as they did historically. Plus the Germans were concerned with landings in other sectors, so kept troops locked down defending against that; the Allies had the resources to do more landings and ultimately did in Southern France. German construction resources were a joke in France and the Lowlands by July 1944 and wouldn't have been able to do much if anything more than was done to keep the fight in Normandy better supplied. They were trying to repair rail as fast as they could and couldn't keep up with it, what do you think they would have done driving from the border of Germany where there wasn't wrecked rail supply to Normandy?

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#73

Post by Sheldrake » 01 Dec 2016, 13:38

stg 44 wrote:
Sheldrake wrote: Many German officers interviewed all blamed allied air and sea power for the German defeat - an easy way deflect criticism from the conduct of the land battle. (As do some of the Wehrmacht fan club on historic forums! ;) )
Its now wrong to acknowledge where the majority of the problem lay? Revisionist histories of the conflict have gotten to the point where they cannot even talk about these issues in context and have to blame the German military incompetence in all issues, while ignoring to vast constraints they operated under. Its become a cartoonish characterization of what actually happened when you can't point out that the Allies dominated the air in a way no military in history has up to that point or since until the Gulf War.
Sheldrake wrote: Does your data support or disprove Staudiger? Where were the stocks of 17 cm and 21cm ammunition? How many rockets for the werfer brigades were held in 7th Army's depots?
Again there were vast logistics issues like strategic, operational, and tactical bombing that made accumulating them pretty difficult.
Sheldrake wrote: Re 2. Sorry, but the idea that the Germans did the best they could and couldn't have done any better is straight from the Wehrmacht apologist playbook. Here are some of the propositions put forwards by German - and British observers:-
No one is arguing the Germans did perfectly given constraints, they were human after all, just that the bigger issue than their mistakes within those constraints was the constraints themselves that severely limited their ability to operate and badly screwed up their planning to the point that their mistakes somewhat stemmed from the uncertainty around their situation.
Sheldrake wrote: 1. The Germans themselves acknowledged that their horse drawn transport was inadequate for supply purposes - yet continued to generate a teeth arm heavy shop window of formations that could not be supplied adequately. This was a central failing of the German high command. The Germans also failed to reallocate vehicles from the disbanded Italian army rationally. Thus the artillery of the 71st infantry division in the Italian sideshow was fully motorised, while the artillery in Normandy was short of ammunition.
What alternative to horse drawn transport was there when there wasn't enough fuel, trucks, or experienced men to fully motorize? Even if they were entirely robotic in their organization and did everything perfectly in the extremely chaotic logistics environment of the Allies wrecking logsitics on every front and bombing Germany's factories and infrastructure they didn't have enough supplies and means to actually use all the trucks at their disposal, assuming they could even get there to where they were needed. Generating a tooth bigger than the tail was pretty much necessary when there isn't enough supplies coming in to justify having idle supply troops sitting around, especially when there aren't replacements coming in to make good combat losses. You see there were these things called strategic constraints that Germany faced in 1944 that doomed their war effort. How could they move Italian vehicles to France when Operation Strangle and the Transport plan, as well as the Combined Bomber Offensive was wrecking rail infrastructure, there wasn't enough fuel to go around, and probably not any ability to get spare parts to France from Italy as well as no experience among the French based German divisions on Italian equipment. It's silly suggestions like that that are entirely rooted in a fantasy ideal world where all that needed to be done was allocate resources and problems would be solved without any understanding of the reality of the situation on the ground that made it impossible to really organize.
Sheldrake wrote: 2. Germans admitted that the could have made better used of the motor vehicles that there were in France. Stauidiger said that they lost a lot of vehicles from driving over ill maintained under supervised roads. Eberbach claimed that there were plenty of under used vehicles supporting the Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine. There were also vehicles supporting construction work on the Atlantic Wall in Northern France during June and July 1944. Eberbach also used the HQ of 16 LW Division to organise the supply lines for Panzer Gruppe West. There was no German equivalent to the logisitc support form the "Via Sacra" at Verdun or the red ball express. (There could have been. There were lots of construction troops and labour)
Who was going to maintain the roads? The Germans didn't have enough people, the French resistance was reaching new heights of danger in rural areas, the French public was increasingly uninterested in working for or with the Germans due to at very least the payback the Resistance would dish out, and the Germans didn't have enough guards to force them. Plus they were desperately putting their maintenance/repair resources into trying to fix the repaired rail roads the Allies kept bombing, while building up the Atlantic Wall. There were finite resources available and they were allocated to things that were more immediately necessary. Underused vehicles may have been the case, but did Stauidiger know the fuel situation or really what the other services were doing with said vehicles? Any chance he might be blaming the other services for his own failures? I'd say the vehicles helping build up defenses were pretty much occupied doing what was necessary, given that there were risks of the Allies landing elsewhere and turning the German flank while they were preoccouped in Normandy.

And yes the Germans did not have the resources to organize a 'Voie Sacree' in France in 1944 because of Allied air attacks, something the French did not have to deal with at Verdun or the US with the Red Ball Express and unlimited trucks, manpower, and fuel. Saying the Germans should have done the same thing despite constraints that prevented them from doing that lapses into the absurd. You are arguing from a fantasy position. How can you really argue that there was a ton of idle resources sitting around doing nothing? The labour resources were mostly forced local labor that would run off the second they could, while Allied air attacks would wreck any of their efforts, as they did historically. Plus the Germans were concerned with landings in other sectors, so kept troops locked down defending against that; the Allies had the resources to do more landings and ultimately did in Southern France. German construction resources were a joke in France and the Lowlands by July 1944 and wouldn't have been able to do much if anything more than was done to keep the fight in Normandy better supplied. They were trying to repair rail as fast as they could and couldn't keep up with it, what do you think they would have done driving from the border of Germany where there wasn't wrecked rail supply to Normandy?
Yet more excuses excuses

...... and air force propaganda.

The effects of OP Strangle were vastly exaggerated and did not stop the Germans stockpiling ammunition in advance of Op Diadem. The Pre D day attacks on France did not start until the end of April 1944 which meant the Germans had four years of largely unmolested rail and road movement in France.

The impact of air power on road movement has also been exaggerated - see Zetterling for analysis. The four horse drawn guns of 1./AR 1716 managed to make it as far as Ieper and the Scheldt river in the Ayugust and September retreat.

Sure, the Germans had fewer resources and were hampered by air attacks, but they could have done much better with what they had.

Kesseling as the C in C South had a unified command and his command, with much more difficult terrain and a lower priority made a better job of its logistics. The command structure in the west was a dogs breakfast, typical of the inefficient corrupt Nazi regime with its competing agencies under idiosyncratic (if not idiotic) control.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#74

Post by Keitel » 10 Feb 2017, 16:37

T. A. Gardner wrote: The next big problem is the PAW 600 does have more range than a panzerfaust or panzerschreck but doesn't come anywhere close to the firing range of a 7.5cm Pak 40. The maximum range as an antitank gun is usually quoted at around 750 meters. Realistically, the effective firing range versus a tank is probably a bit more than half that. That means it really isn't up to a kinetic energy antitank gun in capability. As already noted, it would have been a decent replacement for obsolete and obsolescent antitank guns in service and might have been a weapon to hand the design to Axis allied nations like Hungary and Romania to produce.
750 meters was its effective AT Range according to its entry in German Artillery of WW2 by Ian Hogg on page 210. Considering the technology at the time for determining range, most AT engagements took place at 500 meters or less. So it can basically replace all AT Guns and if more power is needed the 88s are with the Luftwaffe attachment are always available. It also outperformed the Infantry Guns in range as well.

It also would have made a great tank gun as well, though without indirect firing aids in the Tanks' FCS, would not have been able to exploit the long range capabilities.

Some other things I would have done to streamline the Infantry Divisions.

Replace all 10.5cm artillery with the Geb H 40 which had the longest range for lightest carriage at 16.74km at charge 7 while weighing 1660kg in action which would be perfect for supporting a Division in its attack zone. I would then kick all the 150mm+ units to Corps' or Higher's Artillery Parks and switch them to bagged ammunition to save on cartridge cases which would greatly save on steel for other things. An earlier suggestion to pool all motor transport at Corps level outside the Panzer Divisions also has merit and would allow all the Heavy Field Artillery to be motorized and the rear services to completely motorize as well which would aid the Landsers far better and allow the Corps to better resupply and reinforce the active Divisions on the front lines better.

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Re: What if the PAW 600 introduced in 1943?

#75

Post by stg 44 » 10 Feb 2017, 19:32

Keitel wrote: It also would have made a great tank gun as well, though without indirect firing aids in the Tanks' FCS, would not have been able to exploit the long range capabilities.
If they wanted to keep making the Pz III as an AFV it would have fit in the Pz III turret and had as good if not better performance than the 5cm L60 and would be a dual purpose weapon unlike the high velocity 50mm. Plus if they put it in armored cars like the Puma it would fill the role modern ACs have with the 90mm low pressure smoothbore guns that were based off of the PAW600. Beyond that they could do what the Israelis did and mount them in halftracks and have a highly mobile SP AT/HE weapon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_AML
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eland_Mk7

Image
Keitel wrote: Some other things I would have done to streamline the Infantry Divisions.
Replace all 10.5cm artillery with the Geb H 40 which had the longest range for lightest carriage at 16.74km at charge 7 while weighing 1660kg in action which would be perfect for supporting a Division in its attack zone.
Not sure if it is that simple, why didn't the Germans do that historically rather than adopting the 105mm 18/40?
Keitel wrote:I would then kick all the 150mm+ units to Corps' or Higher's Artillery Parks and switch them to bagged ammunition to save on cartridge cases which would greatly save on steel for other things.
I can get on board with that, perhaps even doing the British solution and having an 88mm L56 artillery/AT mount weapon for counterbattery fire due to the long range and direct AT work if needed. Why didn't the Germans use bagged propellants historically?
Keitel wrote: An earlier suggestion to pool all motor transport at Corps level outside the Panzer Divisions also has merit and would allow all the Heavy Field Artillery to be motorized and the rear services to completely motorize as well which would aid the Landsers far better and allow the Corps to better resupply and reinforce the active Divisions on the front lines better.
It would make infantry divisions even more immobile, but given that anything below regimental level would be horse drawn thanks to the PAW600 it should allow for a major reduction in motor vehicle use for infantry divisions. Having the infantry division artillery be motorized still would be very helpful.

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