Divisional daily supply requirements for various nations

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Andreas
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Divisional daily supply requirements for various nations

#1

Post by Andreas » 27 Nov 2005, 11:17

taylorjohn wrote:4. The scales of supply for the British and US armies were indeed lavish. Allied planners reckoned that 700 tonnes of supplies would consumed by each division a day of which 250 tonnes would be required for the forward areas. By contrast, the Germans were much more economical – it was reckoned that their divisions consumed no more than 200 tonnes a day.
John
This is from a post in 'Evaluation of the US Army' in the WW2 in the West Section.

It got me wondering if this straightforward comparison (which I have seen done elsewhere) is really telling the whole story.

Some factors why western allied divisions would require more supply:

1. Western allied divisions were generally larger than late-war German divisions, I think.
2. British divisions were better equipped in terms of artillery and AT guns.
3. They had much larger motor pools, and my guess is that POL weighs more than fodder for horses, and also can not be sourced locally (living off the land).

German divisions were supposed to live off the land to some degree - was this included in the 200t allocation of supply, or additional?

On the contrary for Soviet divisions - they were smaller, with less motorisation, and fewer organic heavy support weapons. They were also supposed to live off the land to some degree, like the Germans. Can someone tell me the daily requirements of a Soviet division?

I am not sure there is a way to compare the daily requirements directly, even if we adjust for size and degree of motorisation. A factor along the lines of 'combat power generated' would probably have to enter into the equation, but that is of course fraught with dangers.

What would be good reference works (preferred online, and free ;) ) on this topic?

Thanks a lot in advance.

All the best

Andreas

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Michael Emrys
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#2

Post by Michael Emrys » 28 Nov 2005, 01:14

One thing that you have touched on briefly needs, I think, to be emphasized. The Allies had more artillery and used it more lavishly than the Germans. Now if the way those supply figures are arrived at is to take total expenditures of entire armies and divide that number by the number of divisions present (which I suspect to be the case), then we are also counting ammo expenditures by corps and army artillery units, which at least in the case of the US army accounted for at least half of all present. And since artillery ammo comprises a huge chunk of overall tonnage, that might account for the difference, or at least a big part of it. Hauling all that ammo up to the firing line is also going to consume a lot of POL.


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Re: Divisional daily supply requirements for various nations

#3

Post by Jon G. » 28 Nov 2005, 10:22

Hi Andreas,

I will try and type up a response which includes numbers later this week.
Andreas wrote:It got me wondering if this straightforward comparison (which I have seen done elsewhere) is really telling the whole story.

Some factors why western allied divisions would require more supply:

1. Western allied divisions were generally larger than late-war German divisions, I think.
2. British divisions were better equipped in terms of artillery and AT guns.
3. They had much larger motor pools, and my guess is that POL weighs more than fodder for horses, and also can not be sourced locally (living off the land).

German divisions were supposed to live off the land to some degree - was this included in the 200t allocation of supply, or additional?
1. Is I think entirely correct, especially if we take real strength rather than theoretical strength as expressed by late-war German TO&Es.

2. I would also agree with, although you could add that there were a great many automatic weapons - which are voracious from a supply viewpoint - in late-war German divisions.

3. I would however disagree with. IIRC a German infantry division needed approx. 30 tons of horse fodder a day, meaning that fodder only constitutes a small fraction of overall supply needed. Just how much POL is needed depends very strongly on which activity the division in question is involved in - attack and pursuit consumes lots of POL, whereas static defense consumes much less. Fodder expenditure, on the other hand, is pretty constant regardless of what the division is doing - unless it is under siege, in which case the horses are bound to become fodder themselves :)

I don't think German divisions were supposed to live off the land, though no doubt they usually ended up doing so to varying degrees. The 200 tons/day is clearly an average figure; division daily supply needs could go from 30 tons a day for static inactivity (and note that this figure implies that horses are fed by external means/stabled with local farmers perhaps) and up to 450 tons/day for heavy combat; perhaps surprisingly infantry divisions use more supplies than panzer divisions do, no doubt because they have a larger artillery element.

Still if memory serves DAK panzer divisions were assumed to get by on 350 tons of supplies a day plus water - this in a countryside completely devoid of fourage.
...I am not sure there is a way to compare the daily requirements directly, even if we adjust for size and degree of motorisation. A factor along the lines of 'combat power generated' would probably have to enter into the equation, but that is of course fraught with dangers.

What would be good reference works (preferred online, and free ;) ) on this topic?
I've recommended van Creveld so often on this forum that I sound like a scratched record. Not that it isn't a very good book (it is), but because it is the only title I know of that has logistics as its main subject. I am aware of another title called 'Feeding Mars' by John A. Lynn, but my earlier post on this forum for reviews and opinions on this book garnered zero response.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=776022

Van Creveld is not free, but you can peek at the Amazon link I provided. As for his general outlook on the higher supply needs of Allied divisions in NW Europe it should tell you something that he calls his chapter on D-Day 'War of the Accountants' :)

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#4

Post by Qvist » 28 Nov 2005, 11:16

Some of this has already been touched on, but:

1. I suppose a key issue here would be what type of German division the compaison is being made with. Obviously, a Bodenständig Infantry Division did not have supply requirements similar to that of a Panzer Division (or to that of a Western infantry Division for that matter). So, what does the German figure reflect? A 44 infantry division? Or some average of supply tonnage delivered divided by the number of divisions on some front during some period?

2. Also, what is really a "requirement" rather than a reflection of logistical capabilities? I am sure, for instance, that German divisions could have usefully consumed much more artillery ammunition than they did, if they could have had it delivered. In Normandy, while the number of US and German artillery tubes were fairly similar, US shell consumption was apparently three to four times higher than German.

3. To Andreas' point 2 and additional to Grease_spot's pertinent point: Western armies had proportionately many more independent combat units than the Germans, and these usually operated with and drew supplies through divisions. They were also to a large extent the types of units that consumes a lot of supplies: Tank batallions, TD batallions, artillery batallions and AA batallions. This would tend I think to have a significant effect on the supply consumption of Western divisions, even if the requirement has not been calculated by dividing the total supply effort by the number of divisions (which it may have been).

Shrek:
perhaps surprisingly infantry divisions use more supplies than panzer divisions do, no doubt because they have a larger artillery element.
That is surprising - I would have thought it was the other way around. But 7-batallion infantry divisions of the sort prevalent after mid-43 usually did not have more artillery batallions than the Panzer divisions (three). And Panzer Divisions had a much larger number of heavy weapons overall?

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#5

Post by Jon G. » 01 Dec 2005, 22:24

Qvist wrote:
perhaps surprisingly infantry divisions use more supplies than panzer divisions do, no doubt because they have a larger artillery element.
That is surprising - I would have thought it was the other way around. But 7-batallion infantry divisions of the sort prevalent after mid-43 usually did not have more artillery batallions than the Panzer divisions (three). And Panzer Divisions had a much larger number of heavy weapons overall?

cheers
The figures I quoted are averages and thus likely to be affected by the fact that infantry divisions would find themselves conducting heavy defensive figthing more frequently than panzer divisions would. Heavy defensive combat is apparently the most supply-intensive activity of all if measured as daily expenditure - i.e. no doubt the build-up for a deliberate assault is presumably even more supply-intensive, but supply actually used as expressed by total tonnage divided by number of divisions divided by number of days the projected offensive lasted would be smaller.

On a related note, the division always seems to be the point of reference for supply calculations. D-Day planners apparently worked on a basic assumption of 800 tons per division per day, possibly taking into account that they expected the first days of the operation to be one of heavy defensive fighting. Actual estimates after the landings were 650 tons/day/division, but even that was on the high side; divisions involved in pursuit (that is, after Cobra) in fact only used about half of that figure.

D-Day's initial supply problems seem to have been connected more to a 'wrong' mix of POL and ammunition - too much of the former and too little of the latter - which again can be explained by most early objectives falling behind schedule. Later on the Allied forces encountered supply problems again, but this time because they were operating too far from their supply heads - which was still the Normandy beaches because most of the obectives projected after the breakout fell ahead of schedule, with the important exception of most of the Channel ports. Thus, the problem seems not to have been the amount of supply in the pipeline, but rather the distance from the supply head to the frontline.

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#6

Post by Andreas » 01 Dec 2005, 22:51

Hi

Thanks for all the replies and the recommendations on books. I am not asking for online because I am cheap, but because my wife has threatened divorce if I buy anymore books, and I have to admit she has a point. Since we only got married three months ago, that would be a shame.

I try to address some points, and may miss some:

1. The DAK figure of 350t/day. DAK was usually motorised/armoured. In this article http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ww ... rlord.aspx it is claimed that a German infantry division required 100 tons, and a Panzer division 300 tons. So 350 seems not out by a lot.

2. Living off the land - this was definitely expected, from what I have read. E.g. Meier-Welcker in 'Aufzeichnungen eines Generalstabsoffiziers 1939–1942' discusses the question of how to treat the Soviet population in relation to requisition. Also Manstein's famous order regarding requisitions from the civilian population in 1941. I am not sure how much this would count for, and would welcome explanations on how this was handled administratively, or if it is indeed completely incorrect.

3. Fodder - I am surprised it is only 30t, but the main point is that with the different degree in motorisation, it is not just 30t of extra POL that are needed by the Allies, but a whole lot more. How much more I do not know, but e.g. from the comparison in 'Biography of a Battalion', it is clear that from the company level up, a US division was much more motorised than a German division. This has drawbacks in supply requirements for POL and spares, but obvious advantages in terms of mobility and combat power. It is therefore fallacious (is that a word?) to characterise these extra supplies as somehow wasteful. The same goes for increased artillery ammunition, even though this maybe counter-acted by the presumably heavier use of German small arms.

4. Posture - this affects supply requirements. Nice point by Shrek that defense maybe more supply intensive than attack.

5. Independent units - very good point. I read in numerous places that US infantry divisions had pretty permanent attachments of independent tank/TD battalions. Would these be fed through their own supply units or through the division?

Good discussion, if I may say so. :)

All the best

Andreas

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#7

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Dec 2005, 09:02

Andreas wrote:1. The DAK figure of 350t/day. DAK was usually motorised/armoured. In this article http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ww ... rlord.aspx it is claimed that a German infantry division required 100 tons, and a Panzer division 300 tons. So 350 seems not out by a lot.
I wonder how much of the extra tonnage was water. Even in non-desert surroundings, water would often have to be carted in for the troops from some source; it wasn't always that a squad/section could designate one or two guys to carry everyone's canteens down to the nearest stream for a fill up. But in the desert, more water would have to be transported farther on average.
2. Living off the land - this was definitely expected, from what I have read. E.g. Meier-Welcker in 'Aufzeichnungen eines Generalstabsoffiziers 1939–1942' discusses the question of how to treat the Soviet population in relation to requisition. Also Manstein's famous order regarding requisitions from the civilian population in 1941. I am not sure how much this would count for, and would welcome explanations on how this was handled administratively, or if it is indeed completely incorrect.
I have been given to understand that the chief advantage of starving the Ukrainians was that that much less food would have be brought all the way from Germany and Western Europe, thus freeing up some rail cartage for other priorities.
...fallacious (is that a word?)...
Yes. :)
4. Posture - this affects supply requirements. Nice point by Shrek that defense maybe more supply intensive than attack.
Can't argue the point since I don't have any definite information. I does strike me as slightly counterintuitive, but of course that doesn't automatically make it wrong.
5. Independent units - very good point. I read in numerous places that US infantry divisions had pretty permanent attachments of independent tank/TD battalions. Would these be fed through their own supply units or through the division?
Through division. The next higher echelon logistically in the US Army was the army, corps being primarily a tactical HQ. A good question is who provided supply to those units directly subordinated to corps? I don't know if they drew directly from army also using army QM services, or if there was anything at corps level to handle this. I believe both the German and British armies did things differently with corps more involved in logistics.

But to return to Andreas' question, I don't recall attached units having their own supply units outside of a few trucks and trailers to haul around their basic unit of fire. Everything else would be handled by division, I think.

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#8

Post by Qvist » 02 Dec 2005, 09:16

Also, if my impression is correct US divisions didn't actually have a lot of vehicles - rather, motor resources tended to be grouped with higher rear echelons, and assigned out to divisions for transport or supply purposes according to need?

cheers

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#9

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Dec 2005, 09:44

Yes, Qvist, that's true to in part. For instance, the division would not have enough empty trucks available to dedicate them to the transport of the infantry. Usually though, as Trevor Dupuy once noted, there were enough vehicles of all sorts that they could ride on something for relatively short distances. But it's not true that the divisions did not have a lot of vehicles. I don't have an exact count handy, but it was probably well in excess of 1,000 motor vehicles of all sorts. They were just committed to doing other jobs.

A lot more vehicles would be held at the army level. But I suspect the great bulk, and the ones you may have in mind, belonged to the Zone of the Interior. Most of the time these were hauling supplies to the armies, but they could also be temporarily assigned to divisions (or whatever) to help them move long distances.

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#10

Post by Qvist » 02 Dec 2005, 10:05

Thanks Grease_spot

It seems to me that here there was a rationalising benefit in the general motorisation of the US Army, which made it possible to use motor resources in this rather flexible way, while the partial motorisation of the German Army required each motorised formation to be self-sufficient and able to move its troops and supply itself and simultaneously. Somewhat above 1,000 motor vehicles of all sorts is not a very high number. A 1.Welle ID in 1939/40 was supposed to have nearly 1,000 motor vehicles, in addition to almost 5,000 horses, while a 1939 Panzer Division had nearly 2,000 (not including armored vehicles).

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#11

Post by Jon G. » 02 Dec 2005, 10:09

I hope you can sneak van Creveld under your wife's nose Andreas. Failing that, you could always put it on your Christmas wish list.
Andreas wrote:1. The DAK figure of 350t/day. DAK was usually motorised/armoured. In this article http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/ww ... rlord.aspx it is claimed that a German infantry division required 100 tons, and a Panzer division 300 tons. So 350 seems not out by a lot.
The 350 tons per day figure is from van Creveld, but I also recall seeing that figure in an old issue of Strategy & Tactics. Don't laugh, wargamers are usually very meticulous about their research. The supply requirements of DAK panzer divisions is specified as excluding water, there were truck columns and auxiliary units whose sole responsibility was finding and transporting water.

It is worth noting that DAK units probably represent the smallest panzer divisions the Germans fielded - only two Panzer Abteilungen each and little organic artillery. Both earlier and later panzer divisions might need more supplies, having more tanks and more artillery respectively.

100 tons a day for an infantry division seems much too low for me if it's a unit engaged in combat. If we put the basic needs per soldier at 2 kgs a day (and that might well be too low), an infantry division of 15,000 men would consume 30+30 tons of supplies before adding POL, ammunition, spare tires...
2. Living off the land - this was definitely expected, from what I have read. E.g. Meier-Welcker in 'Aufzeichnungen eines Generalstabsoffiziers 1939–1942' discusses the question of how to treat the Soviet population in relation to requisition. Also Manstein's famous order regarding requisitions from the civilian population in 1941. I am not sure how much this would count for, and would welcome explanations on how this was handled administratively, or if it is indeed completely incorrect.
With the DAK figure in mind, water was probably one thing that the Germans expected to be able to find locally. That probably goes for basic foodstuffs as well. My point was more that I don't think the Germans took captured resources into account in their logistic forecasts; and in any event locally procured food and firewood etc. would only constitute a small part of overall German supply needs. I think the difference for Barbarossa was that German commanders were specifically told not to show any consideration to the needs of the local population.
3. Fodder - I am surprised it is only 30t, but the main point is that with the different degree in motorisation, it is not just 30t of extra POL that are needed by the Allies, but a whole lot more...
It could be that the 30 tons only account for what the division's 'own' artillery and ambulance train horses would eat, and much like water, fodder was probably a resource that could nearly always be found locally in varying degrees. However, unlike POL use, fodder use could be accurately projected.

At least in theory a completely static division would consume no POL at all, while a division engaged in pursuit or a long road march would use lots of it. That means that POL use has to be subjected to a projection which - as the D-Day case shows - leaves the potential for error. To take an example from the other extreme, I recall Guderian requesting POL delivered to his Panzer Group by air as early as June 24th 1941. Evidently, he had been issued too little POL and, presumably, too much ammunition, since overall capacity of the supply pipeline would be known beforehand.
4. Posture - this affects supply requirements. Nice point by Shrek that defense maybe more supply intensive than attack.
Well, I think the inference is simply that ammunition is heavier than POL, and that defending units use more of it.
5. Independent units - very good point. I read in numerous places that US infantry divisions had pretty permanent attachments of independent tank/TD battalions. Would these be fed through their own supply units or through the division?
I strongly suspect that attached units would become part of the division's own supply chain. Anything else would be inefficient use of available resources. Maybe the rather high D-Day forecast for supply use simply took attached units into account as an abstract factor, rather than supply calculated on a case-by-case basis. In any case, it's important to distinguish between supply forecasts and actual supply use.
Good discussion, if I may say so. :)
Yes! Too many historians get away with simply stating the tired old cliché that 'amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics' and leaving it at that.

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#12

Post by Jon G. » 02 Dec 2005, 10:40

Grease_Spot wrote:...A lot more vehicles would be held at the army level. But I suspect the great bulk, and the ones you may have in mind, belonged to the Zone of the Interior. Most of the time these were hauling supplies to the armies, but they could also be temporarily assigned to divisions (or whatever) to help them move long distances.
In fact three divisions which arrived in France in September 1944 were stripped of their trucks because they were needed by the supply services.

Truck units were called GTR companies. Each was made up of 40 trucks and carrying capacity was 200 tons. For D-Day they were only expected to be able to cover 100 miles in 24 hours, a projection that turned out to be too pessimistic.

By July 25th 1944, there were 227 GTR companies in NE France, plus another 108 GTR company equivalents in rail transport facilities, implying that GTRs were used as a basic mathematic factor in supply calculations, much like the 800 tons a day per division. Additionally, D-Day forecasts assumed that the French rail system would be so destroyed that it would only contribute little to the overall Allied supply effort.

I've lifted all numbers in this post from van Creveld.

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#13

Post by Qvist » 02 Dec 2005, 12:24

The GTRs then would represent almost 70,000 tons/day - not bad for a force of ~800,000 packed into a small area, when one considers that the whole German Grosstransportraum (which for the sake of confusion we could also abbreviate GTR) in the East amounted to 47,000 tons in June 1942.

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#14

Post by Andreas » 02 Dec 2005, 14:09

Qvist wrote:The GTRs then would represent almost 70,000 tons/day - not bad for a force of ~800,000 packed into a small area, when one considers that the whole German Grosstransportraum (which for the sake of confusion we could also abbreviate GTR) in the East amounted to 47,000 tons in June 1942.

cheers
Hi

That is an amazingly small number. You would still need to add railroad and shipping capacity on to that (the latter played quite a role in the Baltics, IIRC), but it still will come out to be little, is my guess.

All the best

Andreas

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#15

Post by Jon G. » 02 Dec 2005, 14:13

Qvist wrote:The GTRs then would represent almost 70,000 tons/day - not bad for a force of ~800,000 packed into a small area, when one considers that the whole German Grosstransportraum (which for the sake of confusion we could also abbreviate GTR) in the East amounted to 47,000 tons in June 1942.

cheers
Well, if we concentrate only on the GTR themselves and not their rail equivalents, the Allies would have the capacity to lift 45,400 tons of supplies 50 miles r/t each day - or 90,800 tons for 25 miles r/t or whichever other distance:capacity factor you wish to apply. Clearly it's the distance from supply head to front that matters. It's curious that the July 1944 figure for the Allies corresponds fairly closely with the German Grosstransportraum of June 1942.

If there are such things as traditions of logistics (for want of a better term), maybe a point can be made of the Western Allies traditionally falling back on naval-based strategies? The Germans do not seem to have had the same intense interest in port capacity that the Western Allies did, although they fully acknowledged the importance of European ports to their enemies by leaving garrisons behind in most of them.

Further, if you come from a nation whose strategies are usually ultimately naval-based, you might have a certain tendency to bring everything and the kitchen sink with you when invading enemy territory, up to and including two portable ports?

By contrast, the Germans as a land power with continental strategies seem to have been more concerned with keeping a continous pipeline all the way from home factories to the front - so the overall capacity of the logistics apparatus is less important than the physical distance your trains and trucks have to cover? The Germans' own requirement for Barbarossa was for 60,000 tons worth of Grosstransportraum trucks, a requirement that was in fact met. If Barbarossa had been an Allied undertaking, would Allied planners have thought 60,000 tons truck capacity enough for 140-odd divisions? I think not, especially when you consider that the Germans were also going to convert captured Soviet rail lines to European gauge.

By extension, Seelöwe would just have been a major river crossing, followed by a rapidly decided campaign - unlike D-Day, whose planners expected to take a full year to reach the German border after D-Day.

I know nothing of Soviet logistics, but I suspect that they would be closer to their German equivalents in determining logistic needs, truck capacity needed etc. than they would mirror Western Allied planning.

Edited to add comment about Seelöwe and to correct poor grammar.
Last edited by Jon G. on 02 Dec 2005, 15:02, edited 1 time in total.

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