Countries have to produce armies that are suitable to their economy, population and structure but have choices within these parameters. Germany could not produce a mass mechanised army like Britain did because she needed a large army. This army was quite capable of invading Russia using railways just as it had in the Great War.steverodgers801 wrote:reading Tooze, the Germans were actually an food import country, largely because their farms were not mechanized like the US. In France the Germans did not suffer logisticly because of the distances and the road system. How much better could the German army have been in Russia if they had a better transport system. In contrast to the Germans look how effective the Soviets became in their mobility with the advent of lend lease. As you point out, especially during 1942, the rail system was not large to support the German advance and they did not haveenough trucks to transport both men and supplies.
And you are right Germany was able to invade France without repairing the railways because the distances were under 300 miles and the army was relatively small.
The problem facing Germany in 1941 was not shortage of trucks as even a larger truck fleet would not have been able to carry a larger German army past the 300 mile limit and Moscow was 600 miles away and the final A-V line 900 miles away. I agree Germany needed a better transport system in 1941 but what she needed was railway construction troops. This was the only way to carry the Heer all the way to Moscow. Trucks to move the invasion forward and then rapid re-establishment of the railways. The Eisenbahntruppe were too small, too low priority and Army officers did not understand railways and excluded the DRB from their planning.
Comparisons:
The British/US armies in Normandy/France had by July 227 GTR companies (40 trucks or 200 tonnes) 9,000 trucks plus another 108 GTR of railway equivalent and could support 32 Divisions 3-400 miles into France before they ran out of supplies. That is 70,000 tonnes of lift which is the same as the German Army 3 GTR Regts had on 22nd June 1941. The German Army had 170 divisions and had to travel 600 mile. I would argue that even the British/US Army would have been unable to reach Moscow at 600 miles using mainly trucks and their far smaller force. Both needed to establish mass transport such as shipping or railways before the next bound forward.
The Soviet advance in 1944. The degree of mechanisation of the Red Army is often overstated due to the Lend Lease argument. In Jan 1944, the Red Army has 496,000 trucks while the Germans have 435,600. Most of these trucks are assigned to Divisions and are pulling guns or hauling stores while around 35-40,000 are assigned to supply duties at Front/Army level, but this is to supply a field army of 6 million men in 280 division (US sized equivalents). On a per person basis the Red Army has half the degree of mechanisation of the Germans (2.5 million army). Even by Jan 1945 the number of trucks has only risen to 621,000. The Soviets advance is limited to 150 miles in advance of their railhead though they are able to send some units such as Tank Armies 300 miles in advance unsupported. So why do the Soviets succeed in Poland when they have many of the same problems as the Germans in 1941? The problem of changing the railway gauge over from standard to broad, destroyed facilities, bridges, tunnels, signalling etc. were the same problems as the Germans faced. But the Soviets put a million men into road and rail repair behind the lines and rebuilt the railways far quicker than the Germans did. They also ran the railways far better than the German military railways. Their high point was in 1943 when they ran 200 trains per day in Russia. In 1945 the Soviets were running 500 trains a day behind their fronts.
