Loss of Africa Korps

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Loss of Africa Korps

#1

Post by admfisher » 13 Apr 2002, 07:36

When Rommel saw that he could not win the battle in North Africa he tried desperatly to get his army withdrawn.
Now all attempts were stopped by Hitlers order to hold fast.
Then at the end of April 1943 Hitlers HQ issued the ordere, "A start is to be at once with the evacuation of German and Italian troops from Tunisia; all availaible means of transport are to e employed."

The lost personal number around 130 000 German soldiers taken prisoner.

What impact would the saving of even half of these vets have had on the rebuilding of the lost divisions?
Then the impact on the defence of Sicily and the Italian main land.

There were plans in place to save this many and the allies would not of been able to stop them all. This is why I say only 50% make it back.

In the rebuilding of divisions it seems the Germans were masters. At this time the war materials would of been made ready if the rebuilding had been in Italy or elsewhere.
You may say they would of been far removed from the front when the allies invaded across to Sicily, but this is getting all little out of the main line. If these men are reequiping and reorganizing in Italy, then they would of had more than enough time to get involved after Sicily.

Basically the German army was kept going by it officer reserve, and the ability to use old hand soldiers to help breakin new soldiers. In many cases this process worked well. The best examples would be the 1st SS LAH, and 2nd SS Das Reich probably.

Overall if the losses at Stalingrad and in North Africa were cut to even half the German Armed forces would of been a much different force in 44.

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#2

Post by Gwynn Compton » 13 Apr 2002, 08:37

The failure of German forces firstly to put England out of the war in 1940, and then to concisively defeat the Soviet Union in 1941, combined with Hitler's daring to take on the economic muscle of the United States are what sealed the fate of the war. I suspect that even had Stalingrad not occured, and the Afrika Korps had been saved, that it would have only lengthen the war by a small amount. From the end of 1941, there were rapidly dwindling chances for Germany to win the war.


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#3

Post by admfisher » 13 Apr 2002, 20:29

Gwynn Compton wrote:The failure of German forces firstly to put England out of the war in 1940, and then to concisively defeat the Soviet Union in 1941, combined with Hitler's daring to take on the economic muscle of the United States are what sealed the fate of the war. I suspect that even had Stalingrad not occured, and the Afrika Korps had been saved, that it would have only lengthen the war by a small amount. From the end of 1941, there were rapidly dwindling chances for Germany to win the war.
Gwynn you have taken my post wrong. We all know of the follies of a two front war, and the mistake of declaring war on the US.

My point is when the BEF was saved it was used to rebuild the British Army, the same could of applied to the Germans.

To what extent did they hurt themselves by throwing away the vets they needed is where I am going.

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#4

Post by Gwynn Compton » 14 Apr 2002, 12:03

The German forces would have been much better, I agree there, and we may have seen significance differences in the battles of 1944, especially in Normandy.

But in the end, defeat would have arrived.

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prolonged pain

#5

Post by admfisher » 14 Apr 2002, 21:09

Yes defeat in the end was the only answer to a possible long question.

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#6

Post by Gwynn Compton » 15 Apr 2002, 00:23

Your comparison between the losses of 6th Army at Stalingrad and the Afrika Korps to the BEF is interesting though. Because after both these disasters Germany still had a large functioning Army, while Britain was still building hers up for war. This is the difference, these disasters were more important in terms of life lost and changes to the front line than they were to the performance of the Troops.

However if the BEF had fallen, it would have dealt the British Army a serious blow.

Out of interest, how many former BEF members joined the RAF for the Battle of Britian?

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replacements

#7

Post by admfisher » 15 Apr 2002, 04:29

Gwynn Compton wrote:Your comparison between the losses of 6th Army at Stalingrad and the Afrika Korps to the BEF is interesting though. Because after both these disasters Germany still had a large functioning Army, while Britain was still building hers up for war. This is the difference, these disasters were more important in terms of life lost and changes to the front line than they were to the performance of the Troops.

However if the BEF had fallen, it would have dealt the British Army a serious blow.

Out of interest, how many former BEF members joined the RAF for the Battle of Britian?
The BEF came back to no equipment except what was at hand and the wonderful LL. It did not take long to refit some units.

The Germans problem was they lost for ever large numbers of vetern soldiers that could not be replaced.

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#8

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 28 Oct 2006, 21:06

In the short term a Axis evacuation of Africa makes a large quantity of German trucks, and some Italian truck production available for the Eastern Front. It is estimated that the Axis sent some 14,000 trucks to Africa. Compare this to the estimated 23,000 trucks avaialble to the Wehrmacht for the opening of Barbarosa. After discounting trucks already lost in Africa, and Italian production retianed for the defense of Italy and other Axis areas in the south there still could some 400 new trucks avaialble each month to support the Eastern Front. There is a similar scale of saving in fuel. Transporting supplies across Lybia drained enourmous quantites of fuel from the Axis supply.

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#9

Post by Jon G. » 28 Oct 2006, 21:23

I'm not sure if the 14,000 figure is a correct estimate for the Axis truck inventory in North Africa. The Italian stock of trucks in Libya is frequently stated as 7,000, while Rommel at one time in 1941 requested, and got, 8,000 trucks. These trucks were extracurricular to the trucks organic to Rommel's two divisions at the time.

Likewise, I am fairly certain that the Germans had more than 23,000 trucks on hand at the start of Barbarossa. 23k trucks would probably not even be enough to account for the organic trucks in German motorized/panzer divisions. Just the higher-echelon transportation units alone had about 60,000 tons load capacity.

May I ask, where do you have your numbers from?

I made a post about the GTR here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 398#960398

...alas no replies, yet :)

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#10

Post by redcoat » 28 Oct 2006, 23:41

In Stephen Bungay's book 'Alamein' he states that the total number of vehicles available to the German forces in August 1942 was 4,117

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Re: Loss of Africa Korps

#11

Post by redcoat » 28 Oct 2006, 23:50

admfisher wrote:When Rommel saw that he could not win the battle in North Africa he tried desperatly to get his army withdrawn.
Now all attempts were stopped by Hitlers order to hold fast.
Then at the end of April 1943 Hitlers HQ issued the ordere, "A start is to be at once with the evacuation of German and Italian troops from Tunisia; all availaible means of transport are to e employed."

The lost personal number around 130 000 German soldiers taken prisoner.

What impact would the saving of even half of these vets have had on the rebuilding of the lost divisions?
Then the impact on the defence of Sicily and the Italian main land.

.
The large majority of these men didn't arrive in North Africa until after El Alamein.
Rommel only managed to escape with around 30,000 German troops after this battle, it was only Hitlers decision to reinforce failure in this theater that turned a local defeat into a defeat of Stalingrad proportions

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#12

Post by Jon G. » 29 Oct 2006, 01:55

redcoat wrote:In Stephen Bungay's book 'Alamein' he states that the total number of vehicles available to the German forces in August 1942 was 4,117
Trucks, tanks and miscellaneous vehicles should probably be seen as a sustained effort, rather than an arbitrary head-count at a specific point in time.

Bragadin, whose numbers probably come from the Italian Official History, gives a total of 28,466 Italian vehicles and tanks and 32,299 German vehicles and tanks shipped to North Africa. However, these numbers include vehicles shipped to Tunisia. Also, it is not entirely clear if Bragadin tallies up the vehicles at the point of departure or at the point of arrival.

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#13

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 29 Oct 2006, 04:04

The 14,000 is a estimated aggregate for all trucks the Axis sent from the Italian DoW June 1940 to the end in Tunisia in 1943. It was just one of several fugures availble. One source gives Axis 2,800 trucks in North Africa, another claims 25,000 which may be including captured Allied trucks and French trucks in Tunisia plus any the Italians had there before the DoW and perhaps twice counted vehicals. I grabbed a median figure.

The 23,000 came from a old magazie artical on my shelf. You are right, it probably just includes trucks & the mechanized/motorized divsions & not the transport companies. The author notes the percent not in operable condition are not included, but does not give that number, and excludes the halftracks.

I should have crossed the room & checked Ellis's 'Brute Force'. In table 54 he shows the annual truck production for the major combatants . for Germany he gives 1939 32,558; 1940 53,348; 1941 51,085. This includes production for civilian use, which thru 1941 claimed the majority. Ellis mentions that in preperation for Barabrosa some German civilian trucks were requisitioned & replaced with trucks taken from France/Belgium. He also notes 75 infantry divsions had to give up their small truck component, in exchange for horses.

Ellis seldom mentions trucks in his text. But, in Chapter 5 pg 259 he discusses the Axis truck problem in Africa. 10,000 trucks is identified as the absolute maximum the Axis ever had operable in the theatre at its peak. And, on page 261 where the loss of 5,250 is give for 1942 by Panzer Army Africa. From this & other miscl sources I feel comfortable with the 14,000 shipped (and quite a few were sunk or bombed intransit) as a fair estimate.

Getting back to the Eastern Front (Chapter 1) there is mention of all three army groups mustering less than 15,000 trucks between them in January 1942. Elsewhere he mentions a loss rate from the campaign start of 35% completely written off and 40% awaiting repair. If the '15,000 represents those still running then we can guess another 45,000 amoung the lost and broken percent. That would give a total of 60,000 trucks in June 1941. However this may not include tranport units belonging to some sort of service echelon operating behind the Army Groups. Also in Chap 1 there is a chart showing losses of artillery from the 4th Army artillery group. This chart give a required strength of 252 trucks, and a actual strength of 22 on 18 January 1942 (It shows 181 cannon lost from 225).

Returning to table 54 for comparison UK truck production for 1940 - 89,852; 1941 - 88,161 US 1939 & 1940 - 32,604; 1941 - 183,614. US production peaked in 1943 at 620,000 trucks.

I have seen claims the Germans invaded the USSR with 500,000 vehicals. This seems a touch high considering it ammounts to ten years of production at the rates given above. Further the motorization of German industrial transport made considerable demands on production.

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#14

Post by Jon G. » 29 Oct 2006, 15:47

Carl Schwamberger wrote:The 14,000 is a estimated aggregate for all trucks the Axis sent from the Italian DoW June 1940 to the end in Tunisia in 1943. It was just one of several fugures availble. One source gives Axis 2,800 trucks in North Africa, another claims 25,000 which may be including captured Allied trucks and French trucks in Tunisia plus any the Italians had there before the DoW and perhaps twice counted vehicals. I grabbed a median figure.
The 14,000 figure does not compare well to Bragadin's figures which I gave above - even allowing that Bragadin's numbers encompass all motor vehicles shipped to North Africa, 14,000 trucks seems to low as an aggregate figure. Conversely, 14,000 seem too high as a measure of Axis truck inventory at any given time.
The 23,000 came from a old magazie artical on my shelf. You are right, it probably just includes trucks & the mechanized/motorized divsions & not the transport companies. The author notes the percent not in operable condition are not included, but does not give that number, and excludes the halftracks.
If memory serves, the Germans expected 30% of their trucks to be out of action at any given time due to repairs.
I should have crossed the room & checked Ellis's 'Brute Force'. In table 54 he shows the annual truck production for the major combatants . for Germany he gives 1939 32,558; 1940 53,348; 1941 51,085. This includes production for civilian use, which thru 1941 claimed the majority.
If we are to believe the USSBS' Motor Vehicle Industry Report then Ellis is in error. 32,558 is the number of trucks in the Wehrmacht's inventory in 1939. Total German truck inventory is given as 101,745 for the year 1939.

In 1940 the army was allocated 38,420 trucks while another 15,571 went to the civilian economy, and 9,305 were exported, for a grand total of 63,296 trucks produced in 1940. The numbers for 1941 are 37,003/15,725/9,672 and 59,463/16,577/5,239 in 1942.
Ellis mentions that in preperation for Barabrosa some German civilian trucks were requisitioned & replaced with trucks taken from France/Belgium.
Some..! Civilian trucks were requisitioned by the Wehrmacht almost as a matter of routine - indeed, two of the three army transportation regiments were composed of civilian trucks and their drivers.Von Schell's standardisation programme ensured that requisitioned civilian trucks corresponded, ideally, to army types, though in reality the compromises of standardisation meant that it was more the other way round.

When the Germans embarked on Barbarossa, they had lots of captured French (& Belgian, Dutch, Dunkirk war booty etc.) vehicles. The occupied countries' motor industries had not yet built many trucks for the Germans by mid-1941, but captures accounted for a great deal.
He also notes 75 infantry divsions had to give up their small truck component, in exchange for horses.
Van Creveld states that the motor vehicle establishment strength of 'ordinary' German leg infantry divisions was cut in half twice - first in the winter of 1939/1940, and second time in the winter of 1940/1941, which amounted to a 1941 establishment strength of ~900 motor vehicles (of which about half were motorcycles) in a 1941 infantry division.
Ellis seldom mentions trucks in his text. But, in Chapter 5 pg 259 he discusses the Axis truck problem in Africa. 10,000 trucks is identified as the absolute maximum the Axis ever had operable in the theatre at its peak. And, on page 261 where the loss of 5,250 is give for 1942 by Panzer Army Africa. From this & other miscl sources I feel comfortable with the 14,000 shipped (and quite a few were sunk or bombed intransit) as a fair estimate.
Yes, but trucks wore out at alarming speed. Very frequently, they were abandoned for lack of fuel or spares or written off due to wear and tear, or occasionally finding themselves in a combat zone where trucks are very vulnerable. For example, the GTR suffered no less than 50% losses from two weeks' campaigning in Poland.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that more than 14,000 trucks were shipped to North Africa, even allowing for captures.
Getting back to the Eastern Front (Chapter 1) there is mention of all three army groups mustering less than 15,000 trucks between them in January 1942. Elsewhere he mentions a loss rate from the campaign start of 35% completely written off and 40% awaiting repair. If the '15,000 represents those still running then we can guess another 45,000 amoung the lost and broken percent. That would give a total of 60,000 trucks in June 1941...
60,000 may be a bit below the mark. If we are to believe the graph below, the Germans had just below 200,000 trucks in mid-1941, as well as about 150,000 cars. No doubt most of those vehicles were with the Ostheer, but the great losses of late 1941/early 1942 can't be read from the graph.

Image
Last edited by Jon G. on 29 Oct 2006, 19:41, edited 1 time in total.

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#15

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 29 Oct 2006, 19:25

That link keeps crashing. I get a popup briefly on the screen & then a error message.

Cant find anything else around here on the subject. I'll pick though Ellis's biblography & see what his sources were for the truck numbers.

Ellis does include massive quantities of numbers for tanks, aircraft, and fuel. So much one starts skipping the numbers from sheer overload. 60+ tables of stastistics is a lot to pick over.

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