How did the Germans last over three years once Barbarossa failed?

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BDV
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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#151

Post by BDV » 05 May 2016, 20:51

Appleknocker27 wrote:Factory support of parts and ammunition played a very prominent role. The financial aspect of investing time and money into an obsolete foreign tank with no ability to upgrade it played a large role as well. The thought process behind the use of French equipment was sound IMHO, looking at it purely from a logistical/financial standpoint.
The logic of trained Panzer crews getting blown to bits in training tanks while significantly stronger machines are rusting in the depots is questionable when looked from the military operations POV.


The Romanians also had R35's, but their 37mm gun fared no better against T34's, so what's the point?
That's why Romanians insisted on 47 mm guns for tanks at a minimum, and when Germans failed to provide, they went for their own improvisations, putting captured soviet guns on surviving Renault R35 and Skoda R2 chassis; more dramatically when they put captured soviet guns on captured soviet chassis (TACAM T60).


The only tank that would have been able to help the Romanians was the S35, of which the Germans captured around 300. The idea that the Romanians could have benefitted from a handful of these is not very viable. How many would the Germans give up? How in the world would Romania be able to keep them running (lack of spare parts, service parts, etc.)? The odds against effective use are huge...
That would require that the production lines continue to some extent, obviously. Given that the production line was French one can see the method; given the outcome was defeat the method was method to madness, unfortunately.


"The operational flaw was its poor mechanical reliability. The suspension units were too weak and too complicated, demanding enormous maintenance efforts, especially since the cast armour modules did not allow an easy access to the suspension and engine.[4] Repairing broken tracks in the field was well-nigh impossible.[12] This had been caused by the fact that there was no central institution regulating French tank development.[citation needed] The Army branches issued very vague specifications, leaving it to private enterprise to come up with precise proposals. The French machine tool national stock was relatively outdated and tank designs reflected the limited existing production facilities.
First of all, if these were so unreliable, why did the "competent" German military send 90 of them to the most difficult terrain (mountainous tundra) of the Barbarossa operation? Also, the modifications to make repairs easier had already been implemented by Armistice, and new builds had had these changes built in. The rest of the quoted paragraph is little than a minimally substantiated and almost meaningless ad-hominem.

Building SOMUAS beyond 1942 would have required a major turret redesign, sure; but that's another discussion. For 1941-42 OstFront they were quite OK.


To introduce a Christie suspension — the obvious solution — demanded a thorough industrial modernization and the raising of quality standards."
To require a solution there should be a problem. Somuas operated in the Arctic tundra, the Sahara desert and everywhere in between. Furthermore, the same style of suspension was used by Italians for the P26 tank.

So I stand by my critique of German use of French industrial base in the 1940-1941 timeframe.
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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#152

Post by Richard Anderson » 05 May 2016, 22:20

ljadw wrote:From Lend-Lease to Russia : the First Moscow protocol june 1941/june 1942 (with as source : Vorsin in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies Volume 10 june 1997 :"Motor Vehicle transport deliveries by Lend Lease )

Red Army Motor Vehicle Park:

22 june 1941 :272600 :100 % domestic

1/1/1942 : 318500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 /1943 : 404500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 1944 : 496000 : 77.9 % domestic

1/1 1945 : 621200 : 63.6 % domestic

1/5 / 1945 : 664400 : 58.1 % domestic


Imported :

in 1942 : 22000

In 1943 : 94100

In 1944 : 191300

1945 : 218100

Thus in 1942/1943 there was an import of 116100 and a production in 1941 (second half),1942/1943 of 146200, this indicates that till 1944 the Soviet production was higher than the import.

Last point some 119000 LL trucks were assembled in Soviet factories .
I see you haven't noticed the problem's with Vorsin's numbers? They are the Red Army truck park. Not what was received and what was lost. What were not in the Red Army truck park, but were received by the USSR.

As to your "last point", no, disassembled trucks shipped to the USSR for assembly were not assembled in "Soviet factories", they were assembled in truck assembly plants, such as the five set up in Persia, which assembled 184,212 trucks for delivery to the Soviets. The trucks were manufactured in the United States. Does assembly in Persia mean they were actually Persian trucks?
Last edited by Richard Anderson on 05 May 2016, 22:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#153

Post by Richard Anderson » 05 May 2016, 22:35

Boby wrote:Richard, it would be very helpful if you gives the source of this very interesting data.

Boby
Vorsin is good, if misunderstood. The numbers of Soviet trucks manufactured by year is generally available, as are the numbers of Lend-Lease shipped. The sticking point seems to be when they arrived and how many were lost in route. Van Tuyll is very helpful, as is Coakley and the various US War and State Department Lend-Lease summaries.

See,

US Department of State, Report on War Aid. Exports from June 22,1941 to September 20,1945
US War Department, Army Service Forces, Statistical Review World War II, Quantities of Lend-Lease Shipments through 31 December 1945
Robert H. Jones, The Roads to Russia is very good in synthesizing van Tuyll, Kashcheyev, Reminskiy, Vanderveen, Stettinius, Kharlamov, and Suprun.
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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#154

Post by Boby » 05 May 2016, 23:39

Thanks Richard

Boby

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#155

Post by Appleknocker27 » 06 May 2016, 18:56

Richard Anderson wrote:
ljadw wrote:From Lend-Lease to Russia : the First Moscow protocol june 1941/june 1942 (with as source : Vorsin in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies Volume 10 june 1997 :"Motor Vehicle transport deliveries by Lend Lease )

Red Army Motor Vehicle Park:

22 june 1941 :272600 :100 % domestic

1/1/1942 : 318500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 /1943 : 404500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 1944 : 496000 : 77.9 % domestic

1/1 1945 : 621200 : 63.6 % domestic

1/5 / 1945 : 664400 : 58.1 % domestic


Imported :

in 1942 : 22000

In 1943 : 94100

In 1944 : 191300

1945 : 218100

Thus in 1942/1943 there was an import of 116100 and a production in 1941 (second half),1942/1943 of 146200, this indicates that till 1944 the Soviet production was higher than the import.

Last point some 119000 LL trucks were assembled in Soviet factories .
I see you haven't noticed the problem's with Vorsin's numbers? They are the Red Army truck park. Not what was received and what was lost. What were not in the Red Army truck park, but were received by the USSR.

As to your "last point", no, disassembled trucks shipped to the USSR for assembly were not assembled in "Soviet factories", they were assembled in truck assembly plants, such as the five set up in Persia, which assembled 184,212 trucks for delivery to the Soviets. The trucks were manufactured in the United States. Does assembly in Persia mean they were actually Persian trucks?
It should also be noted that the US trucks were of superior quality, superior performance and superior reliability. The LL trucks enabled offensives due to their robust off road capability, in stark comparison to their Soviet built counter parts who were mostly road bound and less reliable.
As a logistician, I don't care how many trucks you have, I care about unit hauling capacity, range and ability to reach the customer.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#156

Post by Appleknocker27 » 06 May 2016, 19:09

BDV wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:Factory support of parts and ammunition played a very prominent role. The financial aspect of investing time and money into an obsolete foreign tank with no ability to upgrade it played a large role as well. The thought process behind the use of French equipment was sound IMHO, looking at it purely from a logistical/financial standpoint.
The logic of trained Panzer crews getting blown to bits in training tanks while significantly stronger machines are rusting in the depots is questionable when looked from the military operations POV.
Which would lead to the question or whether or not it was possible, and if so worthwhile to try and get those machines in action. The answer is in the OTL...
The Romanians also had R35's, but their 37mm gun fared no better against T34's, so what's the point?
That's why Romanians insisted on 47 mm guns for tanks at a minimum, and when Germans failed to provide, they went for their own improvisations, putting captured soviet guns on surviving Renault R35 and Skoda R2 chassis; more dramatically when they put captured soviet guns on captured soviet chassis (TACAM T60).
The Romanians were let in on Barbarossa far too late to implement what you suggest.
"The operational flaw was its poor mechanical reliability. The suspension units were too weak and too complicated, demanding enormous maintenance efforts, especially since the cast armour modules did not allow an easy access to the suspension and engine.[4] Repairing broken tracks in the field was well-nigh impossible.[12] This had been caused by the fact that there was no central institution regulating French tank development.[citation needed] The Army branches issued very vague specifications, leaving it to private enterprise to come up with precise proposals. The French machine tool national stock was relatively outdated and tank designs reflected the limited existing production facilities.
First of all, if these were so unreliable, why did the "competent" German military send 90 of them to the most difficult terrain (mountainous tundra) of the Barbarossa operation? Also, the modifications to make repairs easier had already been implemented by Armistice, and new builds had had these changes built in. The rest of the quoted paragraph is little than a minimally substantiated and almost meaningless ad-hominem.
They did not perform well in an operation that was ill-conceived and not well supplied. Their reliability was a hindrance. Sending S35's made more sense than wasting precious Mk III-IV models.
Building SOMUAS beyond 1942 would have required a major turret redesign, sure; but that's another discussion. For 1941-42 OstFront they were quite OK.
Ok in what way? Assuming they made it along the long marches to make contact with the enemy, sure. On the other hand the mechanical issues and lack of spare parts does not bode well for the idea of OK for combat operations. Partisan and sideshows? They were "OK" for that.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#157

Post by BDV » 06 May 2016, 19:58

Appleknocker27 wrote:They did not perform well in an operation that was ill-conceived and not well supplied. Their reliability was a hindrance. Sending S35's made more sense than wasting precious Mk III-IV models.
The WM had evaluated the S35 as appropriate for the task; that includes reliable enough for the task. No one sends 90 20+ tons machines all the way to the arctic circle just for the fun of it.


Building SOMUAS beyond 1942 would have required a major turret redesign, sure; but that's another discussion. For 1941-42 OstFront they were quite OK.

Ok in what way? Assuming they made it along the long marches to make contact with the enemy, sure. On the other hand the mechanical issues and lack of spare parts does not bode well for the idea of OK for combat operations. Partisan and sideshows? They were "OK" for that.
OK in the sense that unlike the PzIIs (and 35(t)s and (38(t)s) they would outgun and out-armor the vast majority of tanks fielded by Soviets in 1941; and would still be a viable weapon against T34s in 1942.

Less than 1/3 of Axis tanks deployed for Barbarossa had better protection and gun than the S35. The S35s of 12e régiment de chasseurs d'Afrique marched 1600 km from Oran to Tunis (how did they get spares?), through Sahara, so S35s could have marched from 1500 km from Bialystok to Nizhny Novgorod - wait, the Wehrmacht never made it to Nizhny Novgorod, some recon units barely made it to Moscow's outskirts.

All in all method, unfortunately method-to-madness.



P.S. Those same S35 had logged some extra-miles in a dust-up around Dakkar. Some unreliability!
Last edited by BDV on 06 May 2016, 20:22, edited 1 time in total.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#158

Post by ljadw » 06 May 2016, 20:13

Appleknocker27 wrote:
Richard Anderson wrote:
ljadw wrote:From Lend-Lease to Russia : the First Moscow protocol june 1941/june 1942 (with as source : Vorsin in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies Volume 10 june 1997 :"Motor Vehicle transport deliveries by Lend Lease )

Red Army Motor Vehicle Park:

22 june 1941 :272600 :100 % domestic

1/1/1942 : 318500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 /1943 : 404500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 1944 : 496000 : 77.9 % domestic

1/1 1945 : 621200 : 63.6 % domestic

1/5 / 1945 : 664400 : 58.1 % domestic


Imported :

in 1942 : 22000

In 1943 : 94100

In 1944 : 191300

1945 : 218100

Thus in 1942/1943 there was an import of 116100 and a production in 1941 (second half),1942/1943 of 146200, this indicates that till 1944 the Soviet production was higher than the import.

Last point some 119000 LL trucks were assembled in Soviet factories .
I see you haven't noticed the problem's with Vorsin's numbers? They are the Red Army truck park. Not what was received and what was lost. What were not in the Red Army truck park, but were received by the USSR.

As to your "last point", no, disassembled trucks shipped to the USSR for assembly were not assembled in "Soviet factories", they were assembled in truck assembly plants, such as the five set up in Persia, which assembled 184,212 trucks for delivery to the Soviets. The trucks were manufactured in the United States. Does assembly in Persia mean they were actually Persian trucks?
It should also be noted that the US trucks were of superior quality, superior performance and superior reliability. The LL trucks enabled offensives due to their robust off road capability, in stark comparison to their Soviet built counter parts who were mostly road bound and less reliable.
As a logistician, I don't care how many trucks you have, I care about unit hauling capacity, range and ability to reach the customer.
WWII in the east was no Desert Storm : the role of trucks for supplying the armies was secundary : the main role was for the railways .

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#159

Post by Richard Anderson » 06 May 2016, 20:23

Appleknocker27 wrote:It should also be noted that the US trucks were of superior quality, superior performance and superior reliability. The LL trucks enabled offensives due to their robust off road capability, in stark comparison to their Soviet built counter parts who were mostly road bound and less reliable.
As a logistician, I don't care how many trucks you have, I care about unit hauling capacity, range and ability to reach the customer.
I seem to recall an assessment by the US Army mission to the Soviets, which noted that many of the Soviet-produced motor vehicles used bare-metal brake shoes. They required great mechanical effort by the driver to brake, were noisy, overheated easily and lost brake efficiency, and wore out quickly, but they were simple and cheap to produce and required no production of asbestos and resin shoes.
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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#160

Post by MarkF617 » 08 May 2016, 01:23

IIRC Tooze states that France relied on Britain for about 40% of it's coal and imported 100% of its oil. Once the French surrendered this supply was cut off and could not be made up by the Germans who were struggling to provide enough for themselves. It seems to come down to the Germans didn't fully utilise French industry as they couldn't power it.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#161

Post by BDV » 08 May 2016, 21:07

MarkF617 wrote:IIRC Tooze states that France relied on Britain for about 40% of it's coal and imported 100% of its oil. Once the French surrendered this supply was cut off and could not be made up by the Germans who were struggling to provide enough for themselves. It seems to come down to the Germans didn't fully utilise French industry as they couldn't power it.

Mark

The number I've seen quoted is for the French industry being approximately 1/2 of the Reich industry and receiving about 1/5 of the coal.

This imbalance would be quite OK absent the shooting war in the East. Given the war, though, it amounts to starving 1/3 of the industrial park on hand, and depriving the troops of its production output.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#162

Post by Appleknocker27 » 19 May 2016, 14:30

ljadw wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:
Richard Anderson wrote:
ljadw wrote:From Lend-Lease to Russia : the First Moscow protocol june 1941/june 1942 (with as source : Vorsin in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies Volume 10 june 1997 :"Motor Vehicle transport deliveries by Lend Lease )

Red Army Motor Vehicle Park:

22 june 1941 :272600 :100 % domestic

1/1/1942 : 318500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 /1943 : 404500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 1944 : 496000 : 77.9 % domestic

1/1 1945 : 621200 : 63.6 % domestic

1/5 / 1945 : 664400 : 58.1 % domestic


Imported :

in 1942 : 22000

In 1943 : 94100

In 1944 : 191300

1945 : 218100

Thus in 1942/1943 there was an import of 116100 and a production in 1941 (second half),1942/1943 of 146200, this indicates that till 1944 the Soviet production was higher than the import.

Last point some 119000 LL trucks were assembled in Soviet factories .
I see you haven't noticed the problem's with Vorsin's numbers? They are the Red Army truck park. Not what was received and what was lost. What were not in the Red Army truck park, but were received by the USSR.

As to your "last point", no, disassembled trucks shipped to the USSR for assembly were not assembled in "Soviet factories", they were assembled in truck assembly plants, such as the five set up in Persia, which assembled 184,212 trucks for delivery to the Soviets. The trucks were manufactured in the United States. Does assembly in Persia mean they were actually Persian trucks?
It should also be noted that the US trucks were of superior quality, superior performance and superior reliability. The LL trucks enabled offensives due to their robust off road capability, in stark comparison to their Soviet built counter parts who were mostly road bound and less reliable.
As a logistician, I don't care how many trucks you have, I care about unit hauling capacity, range and ability to reach the customer.
WWII in the east was no Desert Storm : the role of trucks for supplying the armies was secundary : the main role was for the railways .
No, it was not secondary, they are inseparable links in the same chain. An army can have the greatest rail service in the world, but if its tactical truck fleet is weak they will have difficulty in getting supplies from any railhead to the fighting units. This is exactly why Soviet offensives built up huge supply depots and only surged as far as their tactical truck fleet would allow. If they relied on Soviet trucks only, the range of their offensives would have been much shorter.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#163

Post by Appleknocker27 » 19 May 2016, 14:48

BDV wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:They did not perform well in an operation that was ill-conceived and not well supplied. Their reliability was a hindrance. Sending S35's made more sense than wasting precious Mk III-IV models.
The WM had evaluated the S35 as appropriate for the task; that includes reliable enough for the task. No one sends 90 20+ tons machines all the way to the arctic circle just for the fun of it.
Your logic is unsupported by any factual information. Operation Silver Fox was a dismal failure, the S35 tanks were roadbound and performed poorly.


Building SOMUAS beyond 1942 would have required a major turret redesign, sure; but that's another discussion. For 1941-42 OstFront they were quite OK.

Ok in what way? Assuming they made it along the long marches to make contact with the enemy, sure. On the other hand the mechanical issues and lack of spare parts does not bode well for the idea of OK for combat operations. Partisan and sideshows? They were "OK" for that.
OK in the sense that unlike the PzIIs (and 35(t)s and (38(t)s) they would outgun and out-armor the vast majority of tanks fielded by Soviets in 1941; and would still be a viable weapon against T34s in 1942.

Less than 1/3 of Axis tanks deployed for Barbarossa had better protection and gun than the S35. The S35s of 12e régiment de chasseurs d'Afrique marched 1600 km from Oran to Tunis (how did they get spares?), through Sahara, so S35s could have marched from 1500 km from Bialystok to Nizhny Novgorod - wait, the Wehrmacht never made it to Nizhny Novgorod, some recon units barely made it to Moscow's outskirts.

All in all method, unfortunately method-to-madness.



P.S. Those same S35 had logged some extra-miles in a dust-up around Dakkar. Some unreliability!


The S35 was mechanically unreliable and the machines deployed to North Africa most definitely did not travel 1600 km at any point on their own power. They were moved by ship to within 200 miles of the front before taking a full 12 days to make an administrative (NOT combat) movement to forward positions. There is no evidence available to say that they even drove that distance under their own power and were not moved by US M19 tank transporters or perhaps even rail. Either way, what you posted was false. To suggest that foreign tanks in German service that lacked factory support, trained mechanics and spare parts could make a combat advance of 1000 miles in a single season is just plain silly...

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#164

Post by Don71 » 21 May 2016, 16:21

ljadw wrote:From Lend-Lease to Russia : the First Moscow protocol june 1941/june 1942 (with as source : Vorsin in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies Volume 10 june 1997 :"Motor Vehicle transport deliveries by Lend Lease )

Red Army Motor Vehicle Park:

22 june 1941 :272600 :100 % domestic

1/1/1942 : 318500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 /1943 : 404500 : 99.6 % domestic

1/1 1944 : 496000 : 77.9 % domestic

1/1 1945 : 621200 : 63.6 % domestic

1/5 / 1945 : 664400 : 58.1 % domestic


Imported :

in 1942 : 22000

In 1943 : 94100

In 1944 : 191300

1945 : 218100

Thus in 1942/1943 there was an import of 116100 and a production in 1941 (second half),1942/1943 of 146200, this indicates that till 1944 the Soviet production was higher than the import.

Last point some 119000 LL trucks were assembled in Soviet factories .
This numbers are wrong to the numbers of other Authors!

The first Moscow Protocol was signed in highly embattled situation of the Red Army on 1.10.1941.

The commitments of the Protocol for the period Oct 41 to June 1942, for 9 months (until the required connection protocol):

1,5 Mio. tons wheat and goods for1 Milliarde $,
among them:
1.800 a/c's (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: roundabout 12.000 a/c's)
2.250 tanks (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: 7.700)
1.000 AA guns, among them 152 90mm and 756 37mm (Total inventory of the Red Army 1.1.42: : 7.900)
5.000 Jeeps
85.000 trucks (The total production of the SU 1941-45 was 205.000 trucks, thereof 150.000 for the military) (Total inventory of the Red Army all types of vehicles 1.1.42: 318.000)
108.000 field telephones
562.000 miles of field telephone cable
9.000 tons armor plates
30.000 tons explosive Toluol und TNT
15.000 tons chemicals

maximum possible number of machine tools (industrial lathes, milling machines, drilling presses etc.), delivered: 3.253 pieces
1.6 Mio. Pair of military boots (for the mobilization and reorganization of the Red Army)
1 Mio. yards. military fabric
~ 1000 tractors
45.000 tons barbed wire

The agreed goods were delivered almost entirely in the 9 months, minus some war losses during transport.

The SU got 85000 trucks till June-July of 1942 and 1,5 million tons of wheat

Wheat gross harvest of the SU 1940-42:
1940: 36.446 million tons.
1941: 24.298 million tons.
1942: 12.516 million tons.

My sources are Glantz and Alexander Hill (The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-45)

To my opinion this first part of supplies of lend lease at only 9 month from October 1941 till June 1942 were essential for the reorganistaion of the Red Army and to built the reserves, which first attacked at November 1942 (Stalingrad). Without this supplies to my opinion it would be impossible. Also the delivered wheat was more then 10% of all SU wheat at 1942 and was essential for the food supply of the Army, workers and civilian people at the main production cities.

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Re: How did the Germans last over three years once barbarossa failed?

#165

Post by BDV » 02 Jun 2016, 20:55

Appleknocker27 wrote:Operation Silver Fox was a dismal failure, the S35 tanks were roadbound and performed poorly.
Was it because of the S35s themselves or German generals misjudging the terrain and the enemy, and mis-planning the action? During and after the Winter War Finns did not go for tracked armored vehicles, but rather 150 mm (and higher) artillery. I am not aware that Germans tried to learn from their experience.

I am still confounded how you just cannot see the poor generalship involved in the Fiasco at the Arctic Circle, S35 reliability issues or not.

The S35 was mechanically unreliable
Should I trust the post-failure excuses of folk who gave us Baron Munchhausen, or their judgement in June 1941 that the S35 was acceptable (after S35 had been in the testing facilities for a year).

No, the machines made it to Tunis, and were withdrawn not due to mechanical issues, but because they were finally (1943) outmatched by opposing armor.


They were moved by ship to within 200 miles of the front before taking a full 12 days to make an administrative (NOT combat) movement to forward positions.


ALL tanks moved as often as possible by "administrative movement" - railcar or transporter. I do not see what this has to do with S35 per se?

To suggest that foreign tanks in German service that lacked factory support, trained mechanics and spare parts could make a combat advance of 1000 miles in a single season is just plain silly...
The few resources Vichy France had available for keeping the S35s running were depended on Nazi Germany's final OK; OTH Nazi Germany had a significantly more resources, including complete control of most of the frontline mechanics (POWs), frontline support equipment, and the SOMUA plant with its personnel as its disposal to (1) expand the SOMUA tank fleet and (2) keep it running.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To recap, the 23 machines that Vichy had in North Africa soldiered on-and-off in the harsh conditions of that theater from 1941 until 1943, on a shoestring budget and with improvised support, logging thousands of miles of travel (from Oran to Tunis alone there are 1200 km, 1400 through Kasserine Pass).

So the statement that Germany could not keep a fleet of S35 running through 1941 and 1942 is the dubious proposition.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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