German logistics in the east

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ljadw
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Re: German logistics in the east

#46

Post by ljadw » 14 Feb 2012, 17:21

The ammunition consumption between june 1941 and april 1942 was some 90000 tons a month,in the second war year ,it was some 117000 tons a month
Source:Germany and WWII Tome 6,P 709 and Tome 8 ,P 19
The 1941 supplies were:
june :23077 tons
july :101.594
august:118855
september: 107.870
october:90.563
november:68.035
from a post on WW II forum(with as source :Donat)

julian23
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Re: German logistics in the east

#47

Post by julian23 » 14 Feb 2012, 17:52

paspartoo wrote:
julian23 wrote:
In 'Der Munitionsverbrauch im zweiten Weltkrieg im operativen und taktischen Rahmen' ,Gerhard Donat, Biblio 1992 the following is stated on page 40 :" The Gruppe Munition beim Generalquartiermeister des Heeres im OKH made the following assessment of the munition situation on 26.12.1944 :
1. The munition consumption held itself within the limits of the supply, which under some local tenions in general could sufficiently supply the combat . The eastern front only shows a total consumption of around 80.000 tons, a quantity which was only reached twice since two years."
I don't understand .80.000 per month?
No doubt as the report continues by explaining that this low consumption was the result of diminished supplies and sharp saving measures.


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Re: German logistics in the east

#48

Post by paspartoo » 14 Feb 2012, 18:24

Hmm. Book 'Waffen und Geheimwaffen des Deutschen Heeres: 1933- 1945' gives for Nov'44 : 156,709 and Dec '44 : 146,469 .
By the way maybe it would be better to have a separate thread on ammunition expenditure in the Eastern front.
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/

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waldzee
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Re: German logistics in the east

#49

Post by waldzee » 14 Feb 2012, 18:56

julian23 wrote:
paspartoo wrote:
julian23 wrote:
In 'Der Munitionsverbrauch im zweiten Weltkrieg im operativen und taktischen Rahmen' ,Gerhard Donat, Biblio 1992 the following is stated on page 40 :" The Gruppe Munition beim Generalquartiermeister des Heeres im OKH made the following assessment of the munition situation on 26.12.1944 :
1. The munition consumption held itself within the limits of the supply, which under some local tenions in general could sufficiently supply the combat . The eastern front only shows a total consumption of around 80.000 tons, a quantity which was only reached twice since two years."
I don't understand .80.000 per month?
No doubt as the report continues by explaining that this low consumption was the result of diminished supplies and sharp saving measures.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kesselring’s lament http://books.google.ca/books?id=GuuOyzd ... nt&f=false
Was that aerial strafing in Italy effectively choked his train supply form the Brenner Pass south.
It is pertinent that German rail used chain& buffer coupling, & vacuum braking, as opposed to the AAR coupling which allowed double the length & weight of North American trains.
If you have to devote 20% of your train length to Flak & anti partisan cars, you can run 20% more trains- yet achieve less total tonnage delivered.
So, increased # of trains is not a direct correlation with increased supply of goods.

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Re: German logistics in the east

#50

Post by Jon G. » 15 Feb 2012, 09:37

waldzee wrote: Kesselring’s lament http://books.google.ca/books?id=GuuOyzd ... nt&f=false
Was that aerial strafing in Italy effectively choked his train supply form the Brenner Pass south.
I am sure you can provide a quote to that effect? I suggest you look for Operation Strangle on the Wiki pages which you link to so often - not least because this topic is about German logistics in the east
It is pertinent that German rail used chain& buffer coupling
Yes. That allowed them to lay their hands on rolling stock from practically all of occupied Europe - except, of course, for the Soviet Union, which had different gauge, and different couplings.
& vacuum braking
No. Quite the contrary, actually. German occupation expedited the departure of the vacuum brake in favour of the Reichsbahn-standard compressed air brake with some rail systems.
as opposed to the AAR coupling which allowed double the length & weight of North American trains.
If you have to devote 20% of your train length to Flak & anti partisan cars, you can run 20% more trains- yet achieve less total tonnage delivered.
So, increased # of trains is not a direct correlation with increased supply of goods.
Some data about DRB in the east's performance posted by me at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1459982

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Re: German logistics in the east

#51

Post by julian23 » 15 Feb 2012, 14:20

paspartoo wrote:Hmm. Book 'Waffen und Geheimwaffen des Deutschen Heeres: 1933- 1945' gives for Nov'44 : 156,709 and Dec '44 : 146,469 .
By the way maybe it would be better to have a separate thread on ammunition expenditure in the Eastern front.
This thread is already about logistics on the eastern front .

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Marcus
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Re: German logistics in the east

#52

Post by Marcus » 15 Feb 2012, 17:23

A post by waldzee containing personal remarks directed at another member was removed.

/Marcus

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German logistics in the east

#53

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 18 Feb 2012, 23:29

That is the problem with these sorts of statistical arguments, the difficulty of deciding what they are counting.

1) On the one hand we have "The Gruppe Munition beim Generalquartiermeister des Heeres im OKH made the following assessment of the munition situation on 26.12.1944 :......around 80.000 tons .... " supposedly a MAXIMUM since this occurred only twice in two years.

2)Then we have "The ammunition consumption between june 1941 and april 1942 was some 90,000 tons a month,in the second war year ,it was some 117,000 tons a month" whose figures are 50% bigger than in item 1.

So they are patently counting two different things. But the historians rule is that "unless you can prove the primary source itself was in error" then you have to go with the primary source account. So the account in item 1 is pretty unassailable.

There have been cases when primary sources have been proved incorrect, the classic case of the USAF Bombing Survey of the German Economy getting the nature of the economy wrong when taking evidence from a single captured statistician. Modern research has shown that the witness thought he was right but his position showed him too narrow a view of the economy

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German logistics in the east

#54

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 18 Feb 2012, 23:32

AS in my earlier post, perhaps we should be looking at the effect of partisan activity on supply from the rail-head to the troops or the lack of logistical support in this area. With its sparse railway network the USSR, often forced the German units to be some distance away from a functioning railway line, often 50-100km.

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Re: German logistics in the east

#55

Post by julian23 » 19 Feb 2012, 10:13

Der Alte Fritz wrote:AS in my earlier post, perhaps we should be looking at the effect of partisan activity on supply from the rail-head to the troops or the lack of logistical support in this area. With its sparse railway network the USSR, often forced the German units to be some distance away from a functioning railway line, often 50-100km.
The partisan activity would always be much less in the area immediately behind the front because of the density of troops there. Type of terrain also played a large role. The partisan activity was therefore strongest in the area behind Armygroup center with its large areas of woods and swamps.

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Re: German logistics in the east

#56

Post by julian23 » 19 Feb 2012, 10:56

'Partisanen gegen die Eisenbahn' continued.
" Although the activity of the partisans seemed to show a light lowering in september, the considerably smaller area because of the retreats , in reality shows a further increase. Notable-and a hint of higher control-is the agile and varied use of the partisans according to the situation at the front; as a result of this often the lines which were decisive for the fast execution of logistical and tactical transports were interrupted for a long time . The number of attacks in this month was 1256. On different particularly important lines (Minsk-Gomel and Moghilew-Shlobin) they had increased by 50% compared with the month before. On the former line the daily average was 5 , on the last 3,5 attacks. The protection of the line Gomel-Shlobin was made so dense by the use of arrived march batallions that by night there was a post every 5 m. Nevertheless, inexplicably there were still blowings.
Several lines failed completely. There were 14150 blowing places. In addition 2995 mines were removed. 343 trains were derailed. The acts of sabotage above all on the vulnerable water stations led in places to considerable operating problems. The defecting of the native line protection units also often endangered the carrying out of the transport.
...The number of attacks in october was 1073, the number of blowings 5450, 1097 mines were removed. Particular main traffic lines were often daily only usable for a few hours. Line blockages: in 104 cases over 12, in 15 cases over 24 hours. Damaged were 323 locomotives and 1114 waggons, 47 bridges were blown up by the partisans, 285 trains were derailed . 70 km of tracks had to be replaced. The acts of sabotage were aimed at signal boxes and Reichsbahn stocks, of which one (Baranowicze) was partially destroyed. Because of lack of forces for the protection of lines mow also mobile units of the transport security regiments were used. "

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German logistics in the east

#57

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 19 Feb 2012, 12:30

julian23 wrote:The partisan activity would always be much less in the area immediately behind the front because of the density of troops there. Type of terrain also played a large role. The partisan activity was therefore strongest in the area behind Army group center with its large areas of woods and swamps.
Yes I would agree with this statement except for my previous statement regarding the length of communications from the railhead to the troops.
For instance in AG Nord with its less dense rail network, units might be 100km from a functioning "branch line" and perhaps more from a proper supply railhead. The carrying of supplies from the railhead was a significant logistical exercise involving shifting thousands of tons of supplies and equipment daily from the trains and onward to divisional of higher formation supply dumps. This was mainly done by road and lorry (?) and would not have been covered by combat formations as it might be 50+km behind the front line, so this was the area of reserves and security forces and so still came under partisan attack.

Do we have any information about how this system worked and how it fared?

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Re: German logistics in the east

#58

Post by julian23 » 19 Feb 2012, 14:23

I had a look in 'Heeresgruppe Nord', W.Haupt , Podzun Pallas 1966, which contains a chapter on partisans. Simply confirms that partisan activity was concentrated in the area not in control of the army and was mainly directed against bridges and railroads.
As the front fell back partisan activity disappeared. It is pretty obvious that in the area under control of the army, the presence of military units is too high. Further back there are only security units. Attacking the railroads is also the most efficient way of disrupting logistical support.

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German logistics in the east

#59

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 19 Feb 2012, 16:29

The other question that remains is: were the German supply services able to move the supplies from the railhead to the fighting units or is this where we have a potential for supply failures?

We have established that
1) German industry supplied enough ammunition
2) The DRB sent 200 trains a day from the Reich eastwards and got enough supplies to the railheads
3) Partisan activity was heavy but not sufficient to disrupt the supply for long enough to have a strategic effect.

So the material was getting to the front but were they able to distribute it to the units? This had been a problem in 1941 with massive bottlenecks at rail depots and no means of moving the material forwards.

Does anyone have details of this divisional/corps level supply system. In the Great War much had been done by light railways.

julian23
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Re: German logistics in the east

#60

Post by julian23 » 19 Feb 2012, 17:46

Der Alte Fritz wrote:The other question that remains is: were the German supply services able to move the supplies from the railhead to the fighting units or is this where we have a potential for supply failures?

We have established that
1) German industry supplied enough ammunition
2) The DRB sent 200 trains a day from the Reich eastwards and got enough supplies to the railheads
3) Partisan activity was heavy but not sufficient to disrupt the supply for long enough to have a strategic effect.

So the material was getting to the front but were they able to distribute it to the units? This had been a problem in 1941 with massive bottlenecks at rail depots and no means of moving the material forwards.

Does anyone have details of this divisional/corps level supply system. In the Great War much had been done by light railways.
Point 1 would not be correct as the already mentioned study by Gerhard Donat points out. The main problem was producing enough not only to cover daily usage but also to build up reserves which are necessary for periods of very high usage where what is delivered is lower than what is consumed. In the summer of 1943 the usage of ammunition on the eastern front was so much higher than what was delivered that by the end of august the amounts at the front were lower than the 'Erste Munitionsausstattung'. In september 1943 the Generalquartiermeister judged on 28.09.1943 that "if the heavy fighting on the eastern front continues, the supply of ammunition is not secured"(Donat pp38-39).
Some numbers. In july 1943 2124000 LFH shells were supplied and 3476000 fired. In august it was 285000 supplied and 3674200 fired. In september it was 2350000 supplied and 2893000 fired. For october only 1900000 could be supplied. The Generalquartiermeister judged the situation as serious(Donat p.38).
In november and december measures by the Generalquartiermeister allowed again to deliver 60000 to 70000 tons more to the eastern front than was used so that a certain winter reserve could be attained and the severe ammunition crisis of the fall was overcome(Donat p.39).

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