The Germans increase Panzer production in the Summer of 1940

[TheMarcksPlan]

There wasn't a famine in Hungary in WW2, only in the last days, so no extra food was needed for increased output.

It's not a matter of famine, it's a matter of apportioning >4,000 calories a day to additional miners. There are many non-famine conditions in which this was difficult, including wartime Europe. Lizzie Collingham's book The Taste of War has good discussion of this dynamic.

What you think about Hungarian "Aluminium", is not really the case. It was rather Hungarian bauxite

Yes I'm aware that aluminum comes from bauxite, just as iron comes from taconite and other ores. In either case, we can refer to the element or the finished industrial product in normal speech.

You could argue well that the Germans could have exploited these sources substantially better. However, the Germans had no such thing in mind before they captured Hungary. So it brings me to the conclusion that the Germans needed another approach to gain access to these sources and capacities.

You'll particularly not like this answer but here goes anyway: I suspect Hitler and Antonescu would have put the screws to Hungary in this ATL. Hitler promised to revise the Vienna award; Romania had significantly greater strategic value to Germany. I could see an ultimatum being issued soon after SU falls, followed by either Hungarian acquiescence or a quick military campaign. In either event I'd foresee Horthy et. al. replaced by Arrow Cross fascists as German puppets earlier than OTL. You know the country better obviously - how do you see things developing in this ATL?

[Peter89]

There wasn't a famine in Hungary in WW2, only in the last days, so no extra food was needed for increased output.

It's not a matter of famine, it's a matter of apportioning >4,000 calories a day to additional miners. There are many non-famine conditions in which this was difficult, including wartime Europe. Lizzie Collingham's book The Taste of War has good discussion of this dynamic.

If you take a look at the Hungarian mining output during the war - a steady and steep rise from 1938 - and compare it with the abundant skilled workforce and unused industrial capacities, you might see how badly this topic was handled. Providing 4000kcal/day (a theoretical number btw, black market of foodstuff has a history around, surviving to this very day) was no problem in these years and areas. Some non-agricultural areas like Northern Transsylvania reported a short period of food shortage in late 1940, but it was solved quickly thereafter. In fact Hungary had a very well organized and planned food management system, because the Horthy regime saw the collapse of the food supply in WW1 as a direct cause of the lost war, and even worse, the bolshevism that followed. The real proof of the extra food in the system was the fact that Germand could exploit Hungary way better food-wise after its occupation. The explanation of this can be found in Magyarország gazdaságtörténete (1914-1989) by Gunst Péter, but sadly in Hungarian, so quite useless now.

What you think about Hungarian "Aluminium", is not really the case. It was rather Hungarian bauxite

Yes I'm aware that aluminum comes from bauxite, just as iron comes from taconite and other ores. In either case, we can refer to the element or the finished industrial product in normal speech.

I don't really agree, because aluminium is a very different product than bauxite. You either have to invest 4-5 times into the transportation or into the refining to get the results.

We seem to fail to recognize here that Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary were part of the same country from 1526 to 1920, connected by railroads, waterways, industrial and other links naturally. To connect it into the Reich's bloodstream was very different than let's say, the copper mines in Bor or the manganese mines in Ukraine. This was something that even the communist era achieved in a few years, not an imagination.

The reason why it didn't happen was a strategic choice.

You could argue well that the Germans could have exploited these sources substantially better. However, the Germans had no such thing in mind before they captured Hungary. So it brings me to the conclusion that the Germans needed another approach to gain access to these sources and capacities.

You'll particularly not like this answer but here goes anyway: I suspect Hitler and Antonescu would have put the screws to Hungary in this ATL. Hitler promised to revise the Vienna award; Romania had significantly greater strategic value to Germany. I could see an ultimatum being issued soon after SU falls, followed by either Hungarian acquiescence or a quick military campaign. In either event I'd foresee Horthy et. al. replaced by Arrow Cross fascists as German puppets earlier than OTL. You know the country better obviously - how do you see things developing in this ATL?

Why do you think I wouldn't like it?

I think you are approximately right about this, it was obvious that Romania wanted to regain control over territories lost in 1940. It was clear as day that the Germans will support Romanian claims, and only awarded Hungarians to keep their mouthes shut until the Soviet question is dealt with. The Soviets proposed in 1941 the control of the whole territory lost in 1920 if the Hungarians remained neutral, but they didn't.

The reason for this answers your question. For the ruling elite in Hungary, communism and the worst of nazism meant the same. Defenestration, concentration camps and emigration. So it was their personal and class interest to appese the Nazis as long and possible and then some more. From their perspective, only the Nazi victory could mean their survival. So if the Nazis win against the Soviets, the Hungarian ruling elite would support them, so no need for an Arrow Cross takeover.

The Wallies, however, were different. Horthy was an admiral, and in many aspects a much more open minded person than Hitler. He travelled the world up to China. He knew - and warned Hitler - that Germany can't beat Britain in a long war. By 1943 he was sure about that, but anyway: he had bets on both cards. One pro-German government, one pro-British government, one after another. This pro-Anglo-Saxon view of his was further amplified by István Horthy, his heir, who used to work in the US, in industrial production.

[Richard Anderson]

Indeed I am preaching to the choir - non-AHF readers of this site and others who recite a chorus line. One of those chorus lines is the irredeemable pathology of German production systems. Not just AHF - I actually had a renowned historian tell me directly that additional German industrial manpower wouldn't have caused increased production due to German inefficiency. There's a strain of academic anti-Wehraboosim that - like all thoughts motivated only by opposition to another stupid thought - is a mirror image of the motivating stupidity.

Without knowing the details of the conversation I can't really comment other than to wonder if he was looking at the productivity differential?

Evaluation of USSBS is a big topic and I fear that, given your response to my statements about economists, full explanation would invoke degrees of subtlety undreamt of in your philosophy.

I'm sorry, and hesitate to say this in case it invokes the wrath of He Who Must Be Obeyed, but you might want to re-read that sentence and then ask yourself, "hm, I wonder why I've turned so many off in the myriads of threads I've started". You may in fact be a genius-level polymath that exceeds even Trumps abilities, but I suspect others than me are also tired of hearing what ignoramuses we all are compared to the Big Brain on Brad.

A short version is that USSBS isn't a unified product and is internally contradictory - just see Tooze's exposition of the productivity stats produced internally by USSBS versus the Wagenfuhr stats used in the summary report.

You forgot its also big.

The Aircraft Division's report alone contains many statements that modern scholarship has disproven or heavily modified. For example the report endorses the notions that (1) Hitler forced V-2 production (actually Hitler was initially resistant and Speer enthusiastic), (2) that the relative paucity of 2-shift work owed to laxness rather than to German supervisory labor shortage and other factors, (3) that cost-plus contracts dominated wartime aircraft procurement when RLM largely phased them out by 1939.

1) Well, they got that story from Speer, so it is hardly unexpected? I just don't see why its necessary to throw out the baby with the bathwater...and in any case, it doesn't say much as to whether or not the aircraft production statistics are correct, does it?
2) Try as I might, I don't seem able to find the USSBS analyst condemnation of this "laxness" in the report? Instead, it simply reports where, when, and why shifts and hours were added. You know, searching for answers as to why the German productivity was so low? You seem to be reading more into it than is actually there.
3) Yes, a shocking mistake, but since it apparently only led to the conclusion that it "did not contribute to efficient labor utilization", I am not sure why it is so critical?

You seem unable to believe that one can find scholarship serious/important despite seeing serious systemic errors in it, so I won't pursue the argument further in this post.

I am? No, I am actually not sure how you came to that conclusion? I can easily "believe scholarship serious/important despite seeing serious systemic errors in it". It's just that has nothing to do with what I was saying.

Again I'm inclined to trust Tooze's more recent scholarship and credit his relation of Zentralplanung's description of things. In any event, there's no contradiction between a surplus of some parts and a shortage of others.

That's fine, I still have trouble seeing how steel spar caps cause a widespread loss of aircraft production, but then I also have a problem with Tooze's blanket statement that "between July 1943 and March 1944 there were no further increase in the monthly output of aircraft.

4-E bomber production, for what it was worth, increased. 2-E bomber production decreased, but that was planned in order to divert resources to fighter production. The even less useful 1-E bomber production decreased, but then the Ju 87 was near obsolescent. Fighter production increased, albeit not at the desired pace.

Aside re USSBS: Before joining AHF early last year, my main WW2/MH reading was in adolescence and college. During college I checked out well-worn copies of USSBS reports from the Uni library and kept them in my room at the fraternity. Predictably, beer/whatever was spilled on them (the passive voice is necessary due to the haziness of that period). Afraid that I had damaged rare original documents, I didn't return them. When I accepted my "diploma" on stage in front of family and friends, the diploma folder was empty but for a several-hundred dollar bill from the library. They shortly got back their USSBS reports and didn't notice or raise a stink about the beer stink.

Ah, misspent youth, its wasted on the young! Although I must admit I avoid analysis through beer googles, I try to save that for posting here.

Not true. BMW, for instance, lost 18% of its workforce to Wehrmacht call ups in early 1943, including from aero-engine plants. Arming the Luftwaffe contains multiple such examples, as well anecdotes about skilled soldiers being "loaned" back to factories.

BMW was not an aircraft manufacturer, they were a component manufacturer, 18% of a total workforce is not the skilled workforce. These were the standard set of workforce disruptions the German economy went through, including the periodic labor furloughs, from summer-fall 1940 onward.

Thanks though for the reference to something I hadn't already read. We'll make a research assistant of you yet.

The reserved occupation system is a gross description of a policy aim; as with much in wartime Germany (and elsewhere) policy aims are not self-executing and rely on bureaucratic efficiency to turn goal into reality.

Um, substitute Britain, the US, the USSR, Italy, ad nauseum for "Germany" and it remains just as factual.

You quote the evidence yourself.

Sorry, but that is deflection. The report stated the "Russian women's" productivity, not how much or how little aviation firms "liked" them.

You're ignoring the Zombie Ostheer and the smaller Ersatzheer resulting from no Ostheer. Figures discussed in the post linked originally.

The "Zombie Ostheer" only functions in World War Z. Meanwhile, the real Ostheer began with a strength of 3.2-million, lost 1,211,275 in 1941 and 1,982,020 and ended 1942 with 2.5-million.

Anything to justify your "looks like?" As I've discussed elsewhere, citing works like Herbert's Hitler's Foreign Workers, Germany's ability to recruit/retain foreign labor diminished with her war fortunes. ATL she's winning and collaboration becomes a much more rational strategy.

1939 - "foreign workers and Jews" = 300,000 Total workforce = 39.4-million
1940 - foreign workers = 1.15-million Total workforce = 36.05-million
1941 - foreign workers and PW = 2.5-million Total workforce = 32.3-million
1943 - foreign workers = 6.5-million
1944 - foreign workers = 7.907-million

"ATL" victory is sometime undefined for some unknown reason in 1942, nicht war?

You're also ignoring that Germany occupies >100mil more Soviets in this ATL than in OTL 1944.

Oh, so they occupy the entire USSR?

Seriously you need to articulate a claim regarding the relationship between debt financing and war production. You're gesturing towards some financial limit additional to real resource limits but haven't spelled anything out. If you believe that Germany's debt position would have prevented the mobilization of resources for production, you should say so and justify the view. Instead you do these drive-by citings where identification of the arguments/logic is impossible.

Could it possibly be because I don't really care, having gone round the bend on this subject innumerable times? Alfred C. Mierzejewski, "Plundering Pensions" is the most recent paper I recall delving into the subject, while I already pointed you toward Ritschl and the prewar German financial mess.

So now you're just listing things that I didn't include in a sketch?

As any serious reader here will know, I've addressed these issues elsewhere.

You must not be a Monty Python fan. Anyway, did I mention fuel?

See this is where we revisit the territory of my having to ignore you. You know that a cut to Ju-88 production in '39-40 isn't a "cut out" - so you're consciously misrepresenting arguments. If you want to have a serious discussion we can do so; if you want to play games I have better uses of my time.

Sorry, but I'm trying to understand from walls of text and continual references to "other threads that explain it all" or "future threads I'll start in order to explain it all", just exactly how five pounds of sh!te get extracted from a one-pound bag?

What is a "cut to Ju-88 production in '39-40"? Elimination of investment in the Junkers complex in order to shift it to tank production? Where does the later investment in Junkers come from? The tank industry? Meanwhile, no Ju 88 affects Weserübung and the opening air plan for GELB, likely resulting in a much different campaigns. Ditto the opening air battles of BARBAROSSA, given if you cut the Ju 88 in 1939 and 1940 that implies - assuming you find the funding to reinstate the Junkers program - only 110 Ju 88 produced in 1941.

A cheap slogan that anybody capable of signing up for an account can make.

Well, yeah, but did I mention fuel? Is it cheap slogans or answering questions that you're trying to avoid?

Does anyone else doubt that LW production would have shifted towards more expensive and capable planes if the Germans had greater resources? It's almost too dumb a question to ask...

Must be a dumb question, since no one I can see raised the issue. Could it be another straw man? Say its not so! Meanwhile, in RL, the Germans did shift towards more expensive and capable planes, like the Ju 188, developed to replace the rapidly obsolescing Ju 88...oh, wait.

[TheMarcksPlan]

. The report stated the "Russian women's" productivity, not how much or how little aviation firms "liked" them

Good God you can be exhausting Richard.

Is an inference that employers like productive employees really worth arguing over?

I'll get to some of your other points when I have the tolerance. It's a nice day in my corner, hope you're having a good weekend.

[Richard Anderson]

Good God you can be exhausting Richard.

I warned you, small Pennsylvania mill town, blue collar and middle class, union worker democrats and managerial/town government republicans, big family, and I used to sit on the periphery as an army brat watching the adults go at it hammer and tongs. At least no blood was ever shed that I am aware of.

Is an inference that employers like productive employees really worth arguing over?

If the inference is that it is a desired outcome rather than something forced by inadequate means, then yes.

I'll get to some of your other points when I have the tolerance. It's a nice day in my corner, hope you're having a good weekend.

Yep, a lovely fall day in the PNW, hot-tubbing and watch the water, mountains, and wildlife.

BTW, the issue of deferred workers "UK-gestellten" is interesting when it comes to the perpetual German manpower crisis (is it really a crisis if its perpetual?) First, as I believe I mentioned a while ago, the Germans on mobilization seriously screwed up and drafted in way too many essential workers after the outbreak of war and up to the end of the French Campaign. The result was the great labor holiday of the fall 1940 and winter 1940/1941 as the Wehrmacht in general, but especially the Heer, re-balanced forces and personnel. Entire divisions in the process of organization were disbanded, existing divisions had large numbers of personnel furloughed to return to work in the civilian economy, and considerable additional training went on based on the experience of the campaigns to date. In the end, quite a bit of the difference in terms of the composition of the first seven Wellen of divisions between regular, reserve I, reserve II, and Landwehr was lost as they became somewhat homogenized. During this process, most, but not all UK-gestellte were returned to industry, and replaced by conscripts, but that wasn't the end of the problem.

UK-gestellten amounted to about 13% of each draft year called up and as of 4 December 1942 the number not in the Wehrmacht totaled 5,560,000 men, of which 1,680,000 were younger than 33. However, of those, 679,000 were in critical positions and could not be released (or so said their papers). Of the 1,001,000 whose service was just deferred, 281,000 of them had been through the RAD and/or basic training. Of those, 207,000 were planned for call-ups through April 1942, along with 334,000 untrained UK-gestellte, while it was planned to draw 100,000 more each month for training. Effectively, by the end of 1942 the "reserve" of UK-gestellte was rapidly being emptied. Then, in the aftermath of Stalingrad/Tunisia, replacement planning for 1943 quickly centered on the UK. The first six months of the year were supposed to see 800,000 drafted, except by this time the Rüstungsministerium was protesting strongly that these call ups were affecting production...by the end of June only 600,000 of the 800,000 planned had actually been drafted, the remaining 200,000 receiving new deferments. So the second half of 1943 envisaged 700,000 UK beings called up. What makes this so fascinating is that we also have appended to the plan the opinion of General Olbricht. He first remarked on the results of the earlier "800,000" plan and then noted pessimistically the "700,000" plan included 180,000 men whose call up would supposedly not affect the armaments sector. Significantly he believed only 50,000 could be obtained with that stricture, that ministry opposition would be intense again, and that the rest of the plan “Steht...absolut in den Sternen”. By September, Olbricht's prediction was coming true, the Org.Abtl. noted that neither the "800,000" or the "700,000" plan had been fulfilled and they then believed that it fundamentally could not be fulfilled.

Problematically, there were also the UK-gestellte still in the Wehrmacht, who had not been released in the 1940/1941 re-balancing. There too, various firms via the Rüstungsministerium periodically requested and obtained their release from service. It got so bad that on 2 August 1943, it was ordered that for every man so released from the service a UK-gestellte had to be released for military service...a very distinct form of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Anyway, this hopefully demonstrates some of the other real world problems German industry was dealing with in 1943, which affected output that were not part of the component part "krisis" of 1943.

[Peter89]

4-E bomber production, for what it was worth, increased. 2-E bomber production decreased, but that was planned in order to divert resources to fighter production. The even less useful 1-E bomber production decreased, but then the Ju 87 was near obsolescent. Fighter production increased, albeit not at the desired pace.

[...]

Well, yeah, but did I mention fuel?

With double or triple the aircraft production, if the Germans wanted to keep up pilot training standards with the Wallies, they'd need about ten times the avgas just for the training of the crews. Needless to say, this was well beyond any realities.

It's odd to claim that X was beyond German capabilities without having a value for X.

IIRC the actual fuel budget for LW training was surprisingly low. Anybody have the figure at hand?

You: https://i.imgur.com/dJAFt8s_d.webp?maxw ... ity=medium

About 2m tons per year with a monthly consumption 100-200,000 tons.

Takao already gave you a detailed answer here ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=247189&p=2256790 ) why it was quite impossible to triple avgas production for LW with the capture of the SU.

I skip that part for now.

The problem here is that German production of ACs had to be increased in order to meet the losses. Otherwise, there was no possibility to increase the AC production AND maintain training standards.

I only have the breakdown of numbers for january-february-march 1945 which represents the most radical ratio tilted towards operations (understandably) and they show between 25-35% of the fuel consumption for training.

What the Germans needed (/ realistically capable of) was not another campaign, not the increased AC production, not the introduction of the unstable jet fighters, but an operational pause to build up AC strength, train new crews and most importantly, convert fuel into experience.

However, the average length of service for the LW personnel was 8-30 days , and while 70% of the Wallies' bomber aircrew ended up as KIA/MIA/WIA, German fighter pilot losses were above 90%

Attrition was not something that could easily be avoided in WW2 aerial warfare: for starters, noncombat losses of LW aircrafts rose as high as 45%, operationally ready crews were between 53-75% for fighter pilots and 33-53% for bomber crews. Despite the multiplied production, the LW had approximately the same number of fighters in mid-1940 and the beginning of 1944. The problem is that one must improve all these numbers to improve the efficiency of the Luftwaffe as a fighting arm.

One can argue well that if the aerial warfare was such a cruel battle of attrition, how can Germany ever hope to defeat the Wallies?

The correct answer is that there was no way of doing that. A double avgas production could easily be eaten up for just to keep the training standards in par with the Wallies with the same amount of aircraft. That would slow down the attrition of crews and noncombat losses for aircrafts, but to triple the operational crews and aircraft for the LW with the same amount of training as the Wallies: it was simply beyond all the POL production from the Caucasus to Provance.

But how to improve the aforementioned numbers, if increased POL production is not a game-changer solution?

The realistic deployment of the aerial units is a good start. In any ATL or late war strategic consideration defense is the keyword. So no extra commitments on the wrong side of the Mediterraneum or in Inner Russia is realistic.

Inter-arms/branches cooperation, including intelligence, damage control, firefighting, logistics, design, etc. could substantially improve the effectiveness of the air defense and mitigate the damage the Wallies could cause.

Then comes the ATL's increase in fuel, then the increase in production... in fact, both crew training and AC production waaay "surpassed" the fuel production by 1944. The whole Soviet 1941 avgas production of 1.29m tons, if captured intact, delivered to the Reich, refined further into at least A3/B4 fuel, wouldn't be enough to cover the gap between the LW and the Wallies for the OTL crew training with OTL production.

[TheMarcksPlan]

You: https://i.imgur.com/dJAFt8s_d.webp?maxw ... ity=medium

About 2m tons per year with a monthly consumption 100-200,000 tons.

That's total LW consumption, I was talking about the training fuel budget where consumption would have risen more dramatically in my ATL.

already gave you a detailed answer here ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=247189&p=2256790 ) why it was quite impossible to triple avgas production for LW with the capture of the SU.

No you're confusing "TMP made a calculation mistake" (forgetting to use fractional distillates instead of crude oil) with "TMP's broader argument was proven wrong." Even with the correction, and even if Germany used only rail to move crude oil from the Caucasus, doing so would require only 9% of OTL German rail FTK's and even smaller portion of Grossraum FTK's.

Europe had a lot of excess refining capacity in 1942 so, even though the SU likely destroys Caucasian refineries, plant can be moved there and established on the old foundations as needed. If Germany needs to invest in new refining plant, such investment would easily substitute for the billions of RM spent on new synthgas facilities in OTL 1942.

With at-source refining we're back to only 4.5% of Reichsbahn FTK's to triple total LW fuel consumption.

And as you know, German shipbuilding for the Danube and Black Sea suffered OTL from steel allocations; absent the Ostheer a small fraction of OTL ammunition steel would build a substantial Black Sea/Danube tanker fleet that would pick up the oil at Batumi/Novorossisk.

So we don't really need to use the railways much but if needed we could.

The common AHF slogan "Germany couldn't move oil from the Caucasus" is only that - an empty slogan unsupported by analysis and assuming that Germany wouldn't adapt infrastructure needs via rational and feasible investment.

to triple the operational crews and aircraft for the LW with the same amount of training as the Wallies: it was simply beyond all the POL production from the Caucasus to Provance.

Again here's a claim that X was beyond potential fuel resources but no value given for X or for potential fuel resources.

Let's look at just Soviet oil resources:

1941 Soviet oil production was 33mil tons. We'd have to assume a ridiculously low octane content to knock that down to 4mil tons and thereby prevent tripling LW fuel consumption. To prevent an implausibly-large LW training fuel budget of 10mil tons would also require assuming ridiculously low octane content.

And that's just Soviet oil. Obviously there's significant other resources in play.

The whole Soviet 1941 avgas production of 1.29m tons, if captured intact, delivered to the Reich, refined further into at least A3/B4 fuel, wouldn't be enough to cover the gap between the LW and the Wallies for the OTL crew training with OTL production.

Why is Soviet avgas production relevant? The relevant metric is crude oil production and distillate yield.

Again I sense an unwillingness to consider German investment and adaptation to different circumstances. OTL German investment in synthgas programs was enormous, constituting the bulk of "autarky" investment in the below chart:



As you can see, Germany invested 4.3bn RM in autarky programs in 42-43, or about 2% of GDP. Most of that investment is unnecessary in a post-SU ATL. As Japan can ship rubber over Trans-Siberian as well, basically all of OTL autarky investments from '42 become unnecessary.

How much oil refining capacity could have been built for a resource expenditure equal to the massive synthgas investments? I'm not exactly sure but definitely much more output capacity than the synthgas plants. By prewar prices, synthgas was >3x as expensive as oil-derived gas. We'd have to know the comparative capital share in refineries vs. synthgas operations to translate output capacity, per invested RM, between them. But it'd have been at least 3x. Peak German ouput of synthgas was 6.5mil tons in 1943. Absent bomb damage and with more investments coming online in OTL '44 it would have been substantially higher. So it's not difficult to see Germany have 20mil tons refining capacity in a post-SU ATL, especially given the millions of tons of excess capacity in OTL European refineries.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Why do you think I wouldn't like it?

On at least one occasion in the past you have taken my description of what Nazis would have done for a claim that Nazi actions were "legitimate" or perhaps that I endorsed them. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=243557&start=480#p2295512 I am still quite sore over this, tbh.

I don't really agree, because aluminium is a very different product than bauxite. You either have to invest 4-5 times into the transportation or into the refining to get the results.

Well ok. Hungary is a small part of the bauxite/aluminum issue anyway.

We seem to fail to recognize here that Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary were part of the same country from 1526 to 1920, connected by railroads, waterways, industrial and other links naturally. To connect it into the Reich's bloodstream was very different than let's say, the copper mines in Bor or the manganese mines in Ukraine.

I see why changing resource flows in conquered territory (Yugoslavia, Ukraine) is different from doing so in allied territory (OTL Hungary) but I don't see why that same logic applies were Germany to have treated Hungary differently in this ATL.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Is an inference that employers like productive employees really worth arguing over?

If the inference is that it is a desired outcome rather than something forced by inadequate means, then yes.

So many things embedded in your reply...

First, for the issue of desired/forced to have any relevance to the ATL it would have to change the outcome. I.e. whether Germany would use forced Russian labor would depend on whether it was desired/forced. I don't see any difference between "Germany desired more weapons production" and "Germany was forced to make more weapons and therefore to tap non-domestic labor resources." WW2 was a total war, OTL Germany was trying everything it could to win and would be doing so ATL as well.

Second, I infer that you think Germany lacking adequate domestic resources is a gotcha or something. I.e. you think it matters to me whether German domestic resources were sufficient to win the war. I haven't directly considered the question because I don't really care but on reflection I'd say no, the Germans couldn't win the war on domestic resources alone - in my ATL they need extra foreign labor and forced imports or they lose.

I suspect you raise this irrelevant issue in part because you spend too much time arguing with silly Wehraboos. You have a Wehraboo hammer so everything looks like a Wehraboo nail. This method of argument is suited for discussion with someone who thinks "just put Hans and Frans in a rowboat and Sealion works" or "if only Ostheer had walked into Moscow in '41."

You enjoy demolishing silly arguments, which is fine though not my cup of tea. It may be causing to read silliness into things for your own enjoyment.

...which brings me back to:

I warned you

I didn't need the warning lol.

small Pennsylvania mill town, blue collar and middle class, union worker democrats and managerial/town government republicans, big family, and I used to sit on the periphery as an army brat watching the adults go at it hammer and tongs. At least no blood was ever shed that I am aware of.

I endorse the union/democrat part.

You've given me some sh*t for claiming analytical abilities, which is fair. That said, it is literally my training and profession to scrutinize argument structure. So consider me as claiming to have picked up a thing or two in a couple decades of practice rather than claiming to have been born with a Big Brain.

When working with younger attorneys, one of the first judgement skills to build is when not to make winnable objections. Make every objection that you logically can and the judge just gets annoyed, save powder for fights that actually help your client. Raise irrelevant points and you can substantively harm your case.

There's no formal judge here but under the perhaps fictional notion that we're searching for truth and liable to change each other's minds, each of us is effectively the judge. So while being garrulous is fun were we circled around a tap, it's not the best tactic for substantive discussion.

BMW was not an aircraft manufacturer, they were a component manufacturer, 18% of a total workforce is not the skilled workforce.

I don't see why components manufacture vs. final aircraft manufacture matters. Planes can't fly without components, BMW engines being particularly important.

We'll make a research assistant of you yet.

I'll send references from past professors who employed me in that role.

Oh, so they occupy the entire USSR?

Pre-war SU was >190mil, only 25mil east of Caucasus. Germans occupy nearly all European SU so 100mil is conservative even with 15% evacuation.

Could it possibly be because I don't really care, having gone round the bend on this subject innumerable times? Alfred C. Mierzejewski, "Plundering Pensions" is the most recent paper I recall delving into the subject, while I already pointed you toward Ritschl and the prewar German financial mess.

If you don't have a point to make about production impact then I don't care either. And if you don't care then why do keep bringing it up? Just being garrulous?

Anyway, did I mention fuel?

See above and elsewhere.

Elimination of investment in the Junkers complex in order to shift it to tank production? Where does the later investment in Junkers come from? The tank industry?

Obviously the tank industry would be a source. Scale up tanks earlier than Ju-88 production, then shift investment flow later - in '41 or so.

Meanwhile, no Ju 88 affects Weserübung and the opening air plan for GELB, likely resulting in a much different campaigns.

Really? 133 Ju88's fought in France; they were terribly unreliable and dangerous to their crews - as typical for early production. Say we halve the Ju88 program in '39-'40 and thereby lack ~70 Ju88's. Interested to hear how lacking 70 finnicky Ju-88's while having a few hundred more tanks makes Gelb worse off.

Ditto the opening air battles of BARBAROSSA, given if you cut the Ju 88 in 1939 and 1940 that implies - assuming you find the funding to reinstate the Junkers program - only 110 Ju 88 produced in 1941.

Are you still assuming there's no Ju88 program in 1939 or will you finally recognize that merely its production facilities and output have been reduced?

Problematically, there were also the UK-gestellte still in the Wehrmacht, who had not been released in the 1940/1941 re-balancing.

This plus your narrative about 1943 shows how many reserved workers ended up in the Wehrmacht, which shows that no Ostheer means more of those workers in the economy in ATL 1944. Not sure what point you were trying to make but you made mine.

Yep, a lovely fall day in the PNW, hot-tubbing and watch the water, mountains, and wildlife.

Cheers and good on you for escaping our Rust Belt weather. Chicago's having a good week but that will probably be our last of the year.

[Richard Anderson]

About 2m tons per year with a monthly consumption 100-200,000 tons.

That's total LW consumption, I was talking about the training fuel budget where consumption would have risen more dramatically in my ATL.

I'm not sure you may realize just how dramatic a rise that would have to be?

The USAAF consumed just over two tons of fuel in the Z/I for training operations for every ton of fuel it consumed in the theaters of war for operations. Or, to put it another way, in 1942, the USAAF consumed roughly 13,511,000 tons of fuel in the Z/I, in 1943 47,567,000 tons, in 1944 81,880,000 tons, and in eight months of 1945 50,890,000.

Furthermore, during the period 1 January 1943-31 August 1945, combat flying time for the USAAF amounted to 13,821,000 hours...specifically primary training flying time in the Z/I amounted to 49,060,000, while combat unit flying time in the Z/I (primarily operational training) amounted to 23,132,000 hours. Another 21,873,000 hours were flown in the Z/I by transport and communications aircraft and overseas by the ATC and non-combat (primarily liaison and transport) aircraft.

You want a Luftwaffe that can match or exceed those figures, so you might want to use them as a start to your calculations, rather than making a WAG that the Germans can do it simply by shifting resources about.

already gave you a detailed answer here ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=247189&p=2256790 ) why it was quite impossible to triple avgas production for LW with the capture of the SU.

No you're confusing "TMP made a calculation mistake" (forgetting to use fractional distillates instead of crude oil) with "TMP's broader argument was proven wrong." Even with the correction, and even if Germany used only rail to move crude oil from the Caucasus, doing so would require only 9% of OTL German rail FTK's and even smaller portion of Grossraum FTK's.

Assuming you can move the crude oil from the Caucasus and elsewhere, it really doesn't matter, since the Germans only obtained fractional amounts of their required aviation fuel from crude. It was the five Bergius process plants that supplied it.

Europe had a lot of excess refining capacity in 1942 so, even though the SU likely destroys Caucasian refineries, plant can be moved there and established on the old foundations as needed. If Germany needs to invest in new refining plant, such investment would easily substitute for the billions of RM spent on new synthgas facilities in OTL 1942.

They don't need to invest in refining plant, they need to invest in Bergius plant. That is extremely expensive in terms of coal consumption, steel consumption, manpower, and RM. I'm sure you've read the Oil Division Report? Extrapolate from that.

[Richard Anderson]

So many things embedded in your reply...

First, for the issue of desired/forced to have any relevance to the ATL it would have to change the outcome. I.e. whether Germany would use forced Russian labor would depend on whether it was desired/forced. I don't see any difference between "Germany desired more weapons production" and "Germany was forced to make more weapons and therefore to tap non-domestic labor resources." WW2 was a total war, OTL Germany was trying everything it could to win and would be doing so ATL as well.

Second, I infer that you think Germany lacking adequate domestic resources is a gotcha or something. I.e. you think it matters to me whether German domestic resources were sufficient to win the war. I haven't directly considered the question because I don't really care but on reflection I'd say no, the Germans couldn't win the war on domestic resources alone - in my ATL they need extra foreign labor and forced imports or they lose.

I suspect you raise this irrelevant issue in part because you spend too much time arguing with silly Wehraboos. You have a Wehraboo hammer so everything looks like a Wehraboo nail. This method of argument is suited for discussion with someone who thinks "just put Hans and Frans in a rowboat and Sealion works" or "if only Ostheer had walked into Moscow in '41."

You enjoy demolishing silly arguments, which is fine though not my cup of tea. It may be causing to read silliness into things for your own enjoyment.

No, I enjoy arguments based upon actual comparable metrics, not ones where crude oil becomes aviation fuel and sufficient quantities are available when the actual quantity required is unknown, all through the wave of a hand.

...which brings me back to:

I didn't need the warning lol.

I endorse the union/democrat part.

Really? I endorse my entire family, even the Trump voters among them. You must have a remarkably homogeneous bunch in your background.

You've given me some sh*t for claiming analytical abilities, which is fair. That said, it is literally my training and profession to scrutinize argument structure. So consider me as claiming to have picked up a thing or two in a couple decades of practice rather than claiming to have been born with a Big Brain.

When working with younger attorneys, one of the first judgement skills to build is when not to make winnable objections. Make every objection that you logically can and the judge just gets annoyed, save powder for fights that actually help your client. Raise irrelevant points and you can substantively harm your case.

There's no formal judge here but under the perhaps fictional notion that we're searching for truth and liable to change each other's minds, each of us is effectively the judge. So while being garrulous is fun were we circled around a tap, it's not the best tactic for substantive discussion.

And it is my professional background and experience (not training though, I actually hate stats and we usually had our house statistician crunch the more comlex numbers) to find data, analyze it, pick apart its sources, and see what floats to the top. The problem I keep seeing is that you obviously have the analytical training, but you seem to have had a hiatus in basic research on the subject since your beer-fueled college days reading filched USSBS reports. So I see you coming back to arguments like the Germans will simply refine crude to get aviation fuel. They can't and won't, which would be something you might realize of you re-read the Oil Division reports again carefully. They were almost exclusively dependent on the Bergius process.

Sorry, got to run again, life calls, maybe more tonight?

Cheers and good on you for escaping our Rust Belt weather. Chicago's having a good week but that will probably be our last of the year.

Nope, the small mill town I referred to was New Kensington, Pennsylvania, but I escaped from Northern Virginia. Meanwhile, go Cubs! One of my boys is in Evanston and the other in Mount Prospect, while all three boys more or less grew up in Skokie...ex-wife moved there after divorce.

Cheers yourself until later.

[Richard Anderson]

You've given me some sh*t for claiming analytical abilities, which is fair. That said, it is literally my training and profession to scrutinize argument structure. So consider me as claiming to have picked up a thing or two in a couple decades of practice rather than claiming to have been born with a Big Brain.

When working with younger attorneys, one of the first judgement skills to build is when not to make winnable objections. Make every objection that you logically can and the judge just gets annoyed, save powder for fights that actually help your client. Raise irrelevant points and you can substantively harm your case.

Um, you know then the term advocatus diaboli?

There's no formal judge here but under the perhaps fictional notion that we're searching for truth and liable to change each other's minds, each of us is effectively the judge. So while being garrulous is fun were we circled around a tap, it's not the best tactic for substantive discussion.

Sure, but the issue for me has never been argument structure, but rather the ad hominem, strawmen, and logical biases expounded in reaction to the counterargument. Sadly, my usual reaction to an ad hominem is the same, I am truly no saint myself, which obviously can lead to spiraling out of control. Hopefully we've finally arrived at an understanding now.

I don't see why components manufacture vs. final aircraft manufacture matters. Planes can't fly without components, BMW engines being particularly important.

I know, its a fine line between pedantry and attention to accuracy, but I also will believe I am simply improving the accuracy, rather than being pedantic. Meanwhile, "18%" is from the total workforce, not the skilled workforce. As some of my notes regarding the UK-gestellte issue should show, there tended to be a back and forth on the issue for the entire war, it was never truly solved. Nor, by the way, was the issue of the "German" workforce moving from one job to another, following the money, ever really solved, although regulations tended to discourage it.

I'll send references from past professors who employed me in that role.

So long as you did not simply find what they were looking for...

Pre-war SU was >190mil, only 25mil east of Caucasus. Germans occupy nearly all European SU so 100mil is conservative even with 15% evacuation.

Aside the issue with the Soviet census, "pre-war" the Soviet census counted c. 170 million...the additional 20 million was acquired during the war by the annexation of the Baltic states. However, what I was wondering was where you got "Germany occupies >100mil more Soviets in this ATL than in OTL 1944"? The maximum extent of the German occupation was c. 1942 and by then much of the working population had been evacuated from threatened areas. IIRC, some 40 percent of the prewar Soviet population lived in the territories occupied by 1 January 1942, but 6 million of the 76 million were evacuated east of the Urals. Furthermore, the population of the Soviet east was 47 million. So your ">100mil more" implies they occupy the territory inhabited by 170 million.

If you don't have a point to make about production impact then I don't care either. And if you don't care then why do keep bringing it up? Just being garrulous?

Oh, you missed the point? It was that the German economy was in a shambles prewar, got worse during the war, and only staggered on due to some dubious bookkeeping and the widespread rapine of occupied territories.

See above and elsewhere.

See above and elsewhere. I recommend the Fischer-Tropsch Archive as well as the Oil Division Report.

Obviously the tank industry would be a source. Scale up tanks earlier than Ju-88 production, then shift investment flow later - in '41 or so.

"Shift investment flow" just moves money. The physical retooling took months, especially of you are changing out from machining large steel castings and plate to pressing and joining aluminum panels and vice versa. It took Fiesler ten months to retool from Bf 109 to FW 190 production and another seven months before production was back to earlier levels. It took Arado nine months. Retooling for a new tank design typically took six months.

Really? 133 Ju88's fought in France; they were terribly unreliable and dangerous to their crews - as typical for early production. Say we halve the Ju88 program in '39-'40 and thereby lack ~70 Ju88's. Interested to hear how lacking 70 finnicky Ju-88's while having a few hundred more tanks makes Gelb worse off.

No, 133 Ju 88 were serviceable on 10 May 1940, out of 292 on hand the same date, thus 45% serviceable. For He 11 it was 738 of 1,075, thus 71% serviceable. Part of the problem was that they were still converting to the new aircraft, possibly not the smartest thing, and also because III/KG 4 and KG 30 also participated in Weserübung, but also because the Luftwaffe readiness rates were crap, pointing to a wider issue. How about the functionally obsolescent and near obsolete Do 17? I wonder how long the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht were willing to soldier on with them?

Meanwhile, as I've pointed out before, the problem with the Panzer program was the lack of a settled design for the principal "light tank" Heer doctrine called for, the Panzer III, not a lack of funding.

Are you still assuming there's no Ju88 program in 1939 or will you finally recognize that merely its production facilities and output have been reduced?

Merely? I'm still trying to figure out how aviation plant becomes tank plant and then back again, all in the space of a few years.

This plus your narrative about 1943 shows how many reserved workers ended up in the Wehrmacht, which shows that no Ostheer means more of those workers in the economy in ATL 1944. Not sure what point you were trying to make but you made mine.

Sorry, but the UK-gestellte were not all "reserved workers", they were deferred from conscription for many reasons. By 1943, many of them in the army were "surviving sons". What I was illustrating was the chaos the Wehrmacht actually went through regarding the UK-gestellte, the back and forth that actually occurred, which was symptomatic of the mess the Germans were in.

[TheMarcksPlan]

the Germans only obtained fractional amounts of their required aviation fuel from crude.

Sure you have the right reading of the Oil Division report? You seem to have inferred that the Germans were incapable of refining avgas from crude as a general matter but that’s not how I read the report. Here’s the passage I suspect you’re fixing on:

None of the crude oils available yielded aviation grade gasoline, so the Germans counted on their synthetic oil industry

That statement may be susceptible to different interpretations but I read it as a feedstock issue rather than a technical capabilities issue. It would be odd for the Germans to have been able to make avgas from coal but not from oil. IIRC German/Austrian crude was describe as “waxy” – too heavy to be refined efficiently into avgas.

When a central textual provision is ambiguous we look to context and neighboring provisions to elucidate the drafter’s intent. The Oil Division’s report contains several additional clues that the decision not to refine imported crude into avgas owed to factors other than technical ability:

In Germany, where the most needed product was lubricants, the crude oil was first distilled in a pipe of shell still to remove volatile materials such as gasoline, kerosene, and diesel oils.

As the report discusses, producing lubricating oils via synthetic means was extremely difficult; the use of crude was more efficient.

What about the kerosene etc. distilled in the process of obtaining lubricating oil? Presumably this went on, partially, to produce the several thousand tons of avgas obtained annually from refineries. While this amount is a mere rounding error in German avgas supply, one cannot turn crude oil into several thousand tons of avgas by accident. This fact alone suggests German technical refining proficiency.

Another import piece of context is the utilization of Bergius hydrogenation plants. While these plants were indeed the primary source of German avgas, at peak production their output was only 55% avgas. See total output charts in Oil Division report. Yet, as the Oil Division recognized, these plant’s production was highly flexible and could switch rapidly between avgas, mogas, and diesel. So why didn’t they produce more avgas? Well as the Oil Division recognized, there was a minimum of non-avgas required – fueling the Heer was at least as important as fueling planes.

Given this context, I do not find German refining statistics dispositive of whether German refineries could have produced avgas. Rather, I see a rational set of priorities that would have caused Germany to leave avgas production to its hydrogenation plants while assigning other tasks to the comparatively smaller output of its crude oil refineries.

As the evidence is inconclusive, we should entertain further evidence of German refining capabilities before rendering a final judgment.

I concede that if the Germans were unable to refine avgas from crude oil it would be a significant impediment to this ATL. There are other possible solutions, such as full utilization of the Bergius plants for avgas while substituting refined mogas/diesel for their other production. And building more Bergius plants. It would be substantially more difficult, haven’t run the numbers/analysis yet.

You want a Luftwaffe that can match or exceed those [American fuel consumption] figures

Nope. A statement that my ATL needs America-level fuel budget was made by Peter89 but not endorsed by TMP.

The LW never significantly exceeded a 2mil mt avgas budget. The U.S. apparently burned 80mil tons of avgas (whence the stats, btw? I’d love a reference to browse). The LW was still performing decently, per pilot/plane, in 1943 and into 1944 so maintenance of those OTL quality levels is all that I require. My ATL envisions ~5x 1943’s plane production in 1944. If my ATL 1944 requires 5x 1943’s total OTL LW fuel budget that’s ~10mil tons. In many aspects of WW2 America was lavish with resources (human and physical) to a suboptimal degree.

Really? I endorse my entire family, even the Trump voters among them. You must have a remarkably homogeneous bunch in your background.

The most general level of description at which my family could be called homogenous is center-right. Mostly Republican but anti-Trump but for Grandpa, who still has a Bush/Cheney 2004 sticker on his car. I’m a far left outlier on our spectrum. I endorse their vision of family and friendship, their sports allegiances and food/recreation preferences. On more abstract issues we disagree.

go Cubs!

Not to be needlessly garrulous but Go White Sox! Wrigley is the best open-air drinking establishment in a city chock full of them but for most of my life serious baseball fandom required a trip to the South Side. My neighborhood is fun when the Cubs are winning but some Cubs “fans” might ask who the quarterback is...

One of my boys is in Evanston and the other in Mount Prospect

Nice places, know both well. My nephews are just up the highway from Mount Prospect.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Oh, you missed the point? It was that the German economy was in a shambles prewar, got worse during the war, and only staggered on due to some dubious bookkeeping and the widespread rapine of occupied territories.

No I guessed that was the point but again it has to cash out in production terms to undercut my ATL unless there's some other argument I'm not anticipating.

One theoretically possible outcome is, basically, a breakdown of market/payment incentives to coordinate work and imports. I.e. Germans stop showing up for work because they believe they're being paid in worthless scrip that will be destroyed by inflation or erased by confiscatory taxation. Countries stop extending clearing account credits and imports dry up. All of these factors didn't arise OTL, however, when German leverage and prospects were much worse than they'd be post-SU. The more Germany seems likely to at least survive the war under its current government, the better is its credit. Likewise Germans seem no more likely to functionally revolt if the results of their efforts are still showing in German battlefield victories. And German real resource augmentation in the ATL would translate into greater funny-money resources via trade and increased supply of goods.

Basically there's no reason to believe that rapine of occupied territories would subside or that the Germans would suddenly adopt GAAP accounting practices. There's obvious reasons to criticize their approach morally but no obvious reason to say it didn't work or wouldn't work.

"Shift investment flow" just moves money. The physical retooling took months, especially of you are changing out from machining large steel castings and plate to pressing and joining aluminum panels and vice versa. It took Fiesler ten months to retool from Bf 109 to FW 190 production and another seven months before production was back to earlier levels. It took Arado nine months. Retooling for a new tank design typically took six months.

Ugh the money issue again. No to me shifting investment flow means building lathes/presses for aviation rather than tank plants and vice versa. For accounting and social coordination purposes the money moves with the tools and roughly reflects their resource embodiment.

And note that it's not re-tooling. It's different sequencing of investment. Instead of building (just for illustration) 3 LW plants and 1 Heer in 1939 then 1 LW and 3 Heer in 1940, you build 1/3 in '39 and 3/1 in '40. No conversions, just different induction sequencing.

133 Ju 88 were serviceable on 10 May 1940, out of 292 on hand the same date, thus 45% serviceable.

Do you have data on sorties by Ju88 as proportion of bomber/LW sorties? Whether it's 70 or 150 Ju88's it seems unlikely they played a decisive role in France, or that they would have been more decisive than a few hundred tanks. Budrass et. al. estimate these early Ju88's cost 500k RM or about 5x as much as a medium tank. Money-production fungibility is less good for this kind of early production but still...

Sorry, but the UK-gestellte were not all "reserved workers", they were deferred from conscription for many reasons. By 1943, many of them in the army were "surviving sons".

I'm sure that's right.

Still the record is replete with complaints from aviation firms (assembly and components) about losing manpower. Uziel's book has many examples.

As some of my notes regarding the UK-gestellte issue should show, there tended to be a back and forth on the issue for the entire war, it was never truly solved. Nor, by the way, was the issue of the "German" workforce moving from one job to another, following the money, ever really solved, although regulations tended to discourage it.

True but happened everywhere. WPB remarks, for example, on farm families with sons deferred. Turns out that the father would sometimes move/commute for high-paying war work, leaving sonny at home to do the farmwork - but of course a rationale for the deferment was that at least father and son were needed on the farm. Sonny taking the city job would negate the deferment; it was unlikely that the bureaucracy would connect the dots on father's employment.

This is all perfectly predictable human behavior and bureaucratic problems; nothing especially German about it.

However, what I was wondering was where you got "Germany occupies >100mil more Soviets in this ATL than in OTL 1944"? The maximum extent of the German occupation was c. 1942 and by then much of the working population had been evacuated from threatened areas. IIRC, some 40 percent of the prewar Soviet population lived in the territories occupied by 1 January 1942, but 6 million of the 76 million were evacuated east of the Urals. Furthermore, the population of the Soviet east was 47 million. So your ">100mil more" implies they occupy the territory inhabited by 170 million.

Harrison estimates evacuation rates at 10-15% of the population. Some of its was official (mostly rail-ticketed), much was not (panje carts). So it's hard to tell exactly.

Prewar population of the SU east of the Urals was only ~27mil. "Soviet East" in many definitions includes the Urals themselves as well as some geographically European regions such as Bakshir republic. Discussed with references here: viewtopic.php?f=76&t=251106#p2285184

My ATL:OTL comparison is based on 1944 "average." At start of 44 Germany occupied ~30mil, at end 0*. Average ~15mil.
*Plus whoever remained in Courland.

Of ~165mil from the prewar Urals (inclusive) west, ~25mil evacuated and ~10mil dead. Remainder 130mil. 130-15 = 115. All stats on the SU will be off and I may be innovatively off by a million here or there but it's hard to see +100mil occupied in 1944 being an overestimate.

I'd also note that evacuating 15% from occupied territories assumes the upper band of Harrison's projection and was probably unsustainable. Evacuees needed to be fed, housed, etc. There wasn't infinite capacity for this in Siberia and evacuees were already suffering high rates of TB, dysentery, and other maladies caused by poor sanitation, feeding, etc. Realistically it's hard to envision doubling the Siberian/Asian population of SU as this sketch assumes. Given the lower agricultural productivity of evacuee regions (discussed at length in the linked thread), hard decisions would have been required about how many mouths to bring in.

Um, you know then the term advocatus diaboli?

I think he's only admitted to one bar and that one particularly weird.

my usual reaction to an ad hominem is the same, I am truly no saint myself, which obviously can lead to spiraling out of control. Hopefully we've finally arrived at an understanding now.

Same and yessir.

[Peter89]

You want a Luftwaffe that can match or exceed those [American fuel consumption] figures

Nope. A statement that my ATL needs America-level fuel budget was made by Peter89 but not endorsed by TMP.

The LW never significantly exceeded a 2mil mt avgas budget. The U.S. apparently burned 80mil tons of avgas (whence the stats, btw? I’d love a reference to browse). The LW was still performing decently, per pilot/plane, in 1943 and into 1944 so maintenance of those OTL quality levels is all that I require. My ATL envisions ~5x 1943’s plane production in 1944. If my ATL 1944 requires 5x 1943’s total OTL LW fuel budget that’s ~10mil tons. In many aspects of WW2 America was lavish with resources (human and physical) to a suboptimal degree.

This method is quite wrong. There's no such thing how much fuel the LW or the USAAF requires per se; it's highly dependent on the task they have to do.

There's no average for how much fuel a plane needs in a year so if we double the plane count and the fuel count, it's going to work.

First of all, the LW was committed in various theatres with various needs (some of which doesn't exist in your ATL). The defense of the Reich and Tunisia, as well as the Eastern Front were very much different.

Second, the LW maintained (not increased!) the same number of aircraft despite increasing production. Doubled fighter production didn't mean numerically doubled fighter forces, let alone doubled performance of the fighter forces. The attrition reached a magnitude where it was questionable that more planes were helpful at all, or just fodder for the shooting practice of wallied pilots and landing practice for the half-trained recruits.

Third, the relatively stable (100-200,000t / month) German avgas production could only sustain the same number of operational planes (cca. 1500 fighters and 1500 bombers plus the rest) with ever increasing attrition if the training programs' consumption was cut. I gave the numbers above, and even though they are not representative, but 25-35% of the LW fuel budget went into training in those months. And those months were indeed operation-heavy. The point is that training programs ate up a substantial amount of the LW fuel. Simply to keep up with wallies, the Germans needed at least to double their production.

Fourth, the Germans consumed approximately the same amount of avgas as they produced because they didn't have more. Relatively low fuel consumption wasn't an innate feature of German planes.

In a war of attrition where an average pilot could expect to serve 8-30 days before being shot down, where training programs were cut to the quarter of the enemy's, where noncombat losses compromised almost half of the losses, and where both the full initial number of planes and pilots ended their career in every six months... I have my doubts that it foreshadows any good outcome for the Germans.