Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

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Guaporense
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#46

Post by Guaporense » 25 Mar 2017, 05:17

By the way, German stocks of weapons were similar in 1941 and January 1944:

Image

In terms of quality of personnel, in 1941 the German army was of higher quality than in 1943 thanks to lack of serious losses from 1939 to 1941 which allowed them to focus on improving the quality of training and soldiers became highly experienced. In fact, in June 1941 the German army was at it's all time peak of quality, never to be reached again.

The massive increase in equipment production over the next years did not translate into higher stocks of equipment. The reason was simple: a 1941 division with 4 arty batteries needed about 55 guns at and over 105 mm: the German army in 1941 had about 205 divisions and 11,500 guns over 100 mm, hence, they had the correct amount of equipment. Higher equipment output was a function of the need to replace higher losses after Barbarossa. By January they had 11,200 guns over the same categories and a field army of similar size (about 4 million men).

The only advantage the German army in 1943 had over the 1941 army were better tank designs but that was of little relevance: the German army in 1941 did not lack tanks when executing their advances using armored spearheads. The better tank designs of 1943-44 were useful to fight the heavier Soviet tanks but those that did not exist in significant numbers in 1941. Finally I should add that the obsession with tanks in internet discussion is not proportional to their historical importance: artillery, mortars, grenades and rifles inflicted over 95% of all casualties in WW2, while tanks were specialized weapons: they consisted of an armored car with a small artillery piece, a specialized weapon designed to break through front-lines during offensive operations. Tanks were not a basic, essential, weapon. Same applies to aircraft, by the way. WW2 aircraft were very delicate light machines that did not inflict heavy casualties (airpower consisted of usually way less than 5% of the firepower available in ground combat engagements), their role was more psychological than real (the noise of the Stukas was more important than anything these things actually did).

The failure of Barbarossa was due to the underestimation of USSR's determination and capacity to replace losses. To win against the USSR the Nazi command would need to first understand that to defeat the USSR would be really, really hard and would require total commitment. In other words, instead of invading the USSR with 75% of the Wehrmacht they would need to shift resources away from all other fronts to focus almost 100% of the Wehrmacht on Barbarossa. That way they could try invading the USSR with over 200 divisions instead of the historical 153. Also, be prepared to replace more losses than they were historically: The Nazis planned to invade and defeat the USSR in 4 months with about 500,000 casualties. Instead they failed to defeat the USSR and suffered 800,000 casualties in 6 months.

On the quality of the Soviet medical services vis the German one: well, Germany was a more developed country so it was expected for their medical services to be superior. The Soviet Union mobilized 35 million soldiers and got a large fraction of those wounded (like 22,326,905 or so according to Krivosheev) so it was expected that their medical system would not be able to treat all these 22.3 million sick and wounded soldiers very well. While the Germans had 4.43 million soldiers wounded and sick up to January 1945, so a much smaller number of people to treat and given their economy was much more developed, I guess they received better medical treatment, well out of the 4.2 million wounded of the army, "only" 295,659 died of wounds up to January 1945, or 7%. Soviet deaths among wounded and sick is 1,371,504, about 6.5% but that's nearly 5 times more than Germany's on a population slightly more than twice as large. That's it, by official figures.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#47

Post by Stiltzkin » 27 Mar 2017, 01:06

In terms of quality of personnel, in 1941 the German army was of higher quality than in 1943
The same goes for the Red Army. Those were the units that received the highest amount of training and participated in multiple campaigns before the war.
Though it is important to point out that both armies will increase their experience in waging total war, officer staff and war industry will improve, while personnel will suffer. That is to say that 78-85% of all casualties will be suffered by the basic units and Infantry, tankers and pilots who represent an "Elite" (and hence, a small fraction) did usually live long enough to accumulate experience, though combat reports show that Soviet tanker and pilot quality mostly dropped during the war as the qualitative gap was the largest in those fields.
the noise of the Stukas was more important than anything these things actually did).
Special targets for specialized vehicles.


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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#48

Post by Guaporense » 31 Mar 2017, 22:24

Actually the mortality rate of German officers was higher than common soldiers in WW1 and WW2 (in WW1, death rates among officers was 1.6-1.7 times higher than common conscripts). While the mortality rate of Allied bomber crews and German submarine crews were much higher than common soldiers as well. The elite pilots and tank commanders were perhaps the few who survived dozens or hundreds of missions, most of them didn't score a single kill while a few like Hartmann scored 352.
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#49

Post by Kingfish » 01 Apr 2017, 03:04

Guaporense wrote:Finally I should add that the obsession with tanks in internet discussion is not proportional to their historical importance: artillery, mortars, grenades and rifles inflicted over 95% of all casualties in WW2, while tanks were specialized weapons: they consisted of an armored car with a small artillery piece, a specialized weapon designed to break through front-lines during offensive operations. Tanks were not a basic, essential, weapon.
That is an interesting opinion to have given that land warfare in WW2 was revolutionized by the application of armor. One would be hard pressed to find many pivotal land battles, let alone campaigns, which were not defined by the tank, especially after the fall of France.
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#50

Post by Guaporense » 01 Apr 2017, 09:14

This reminds me of this painting:

Image

As the internet's impression of the Eastern front. The reality was very different: tank and anti tank guns only consumed 6% of the ammunition over 75mm of the German army. Hence, only a small fraction of the firepower of the army was related to tank warfare.
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#51

Post by Stiltzkin » 01 Apr 2017, 17:15

Thats just pathos, lol.

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#52

Post by Stiltzkin » 01 Apr 2017, 17:17

That is an interesting opinion to have given that land warfare in WW2 was revolutionized by the application of armor. One would be hard pressed to find many pivotal land battles, let alone campaigns, which were not defined by the tank, especially after the fall of France.
That is true, but this does not exclude a wrong interpretation of their utilization.

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#53

Post by Kingfish » 01 Apr 2017, 19:21

Guaporense wrote:As the internet's impression of the Eastern front. The reality was very different: tank and anti tank guns only consumed 6% of the ammunition over 75mm of the German army. Hence, only a small fraction of the firepower of the army was related to tank warfare.
Ammunition usage is not indicative of a weapon system's value. Case in point: in terms of tonnage the amount dropped by USN dive bombers were minuscule compared to the heavy bomber fleets, but who is going to say the USAF B-17s and B-24s had a more significant impact on the war in the pacific?
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#54

Post by Michael Kenny » 01 Apr 2017, 20:00

The same crazy logic would allow an argument that as Infantry are only a tiny % of an army then we should do away with both armour and infantry and allow the 'guns' to slog it out on their own.
As 'guns' are stand-off weapons then a special type of gun would be needed to deal with any enemy who came within say 1000 yds of the guns. I suggest a gun in an armoured box with its own traverse and propulsion. What should we call such a vehicle?

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#55

Post by paulrward » 01 Apr 2017, 20:52

Hello All ;
Infantry and Artillery can win Wars; but only Cavalry can make them worth winning...

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC

Mechanized, armored forces were the Cavalry of WW2.


Respectfully ;

Paul R. Ward
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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#56

Post by Paul Lakowski » 01 Apr 2017, 21:49

ljadw wrote:

The German leadership was convinced that only a quick and victorious campaign against the SU could prevent a final German defeat, and I think that they were right to undertake Barbarossa as there were no alternatives to prevent a German defeat .

No Barbarossa = defeat of Germany, Barbarossa = a small chance to prevent this defeat .

Since when was starting a second front against USSR a better move than just fighting the west in a one front war?

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#57

Post by Yuri » 01 Apr 2017, 22:09

Guaporense wrote: In terms of quality of personnel, in 1941 the German army was of higher quality than in 1943 thanks to lack of serious losses from 1939 to 1941 which allowed them to focus on improving the quality of training and soldiers became highly experienced. In fact, in June 1941 the German army was at it's all time peak of quality, never to be reached again.
In my opinion the highest point of quality level of the Wehrmacht reached in October 1941. The Wehrmacht gained experience in conducting complex operations in large open spaces. At the same time quality level of the Red Army was the smallest. As the fighting continued, from November 1941, the process is reversed. The quality of the infantry of the Wehrmacht began to decline.
Guaporense wrote: On the quality of the Soviet medical services vis the German one: well, Germany was a more developed country so it was expected for their medical services to be superior. The Soviet Union mobilized 35 million soldiers and got a large fraction of those wounded (like 22,326,905 or so according to Krivosheev) so it was expected that their medical system would not be able to treat all these 22.3 million sick and wounded soldiers very well. While the Germans had 4.43 million soldiers wounded and sick up to January 1945, so a much smaller number of people to treat and given their economy was much more developed, I guess they received better medical treatment, well out of the 4.2 million wounded of the army, "only" 295,659 died of wounds up to January 1945, or 7%. Soviet deaths among wounded and sick is 1,371,504, about 6.5% but that's nearly 5 times more than Germany's on a population slightly more than twice as large. That's it, by official figures.
Russian surgeon Pirogov Nikolai Ivanovich (1810 -1881) said: "to achieve good results in military field hospitals are necessary not so much scientific surgery and the art of medicine, how many sensible and well-established administration".
Military field medicine specific and depends little on the availability of sophisticated devices.
Ask yourself the following questions: a)who better to handle the problem of the evacuation over long distances?; who better coped with the problem of frostbite of the body? etc.
For information: the average duration of treatment: - gunshot wounds - 90 days; frostbite - 180 days; rate of complications with frostbite is much more severe. In the winter of 1941/42 frostbite Wehrmacht inflicted more damage, while frostbite in the Wehrmacht were considered sick and in the category of wounded are not included. The percentage returned to duty from frostbitten is much lower than from gunshot wounds. If not to accept urgent measures, the amputation does not inevitably. We can say that in comparison with the Wehrmacht, in the Red Army was not frostbitten. That's why in France divisions staffed by unique personnel - armless, legless, earless and noseless soldiers and officers.

In 1941, the Soviet Union deployed in the rear of the military-hospital network in two more than was necessary. Therefore, in the spring of 1942, the number of beds has cut (if not mistaken) on 600 000 places, remained 800 000 active and 400 000 reserve.
Before the war the Soviet Union built a large number of so-called sanitary and resort establishments. in the buyout rested and treated "workers". Because the distance is huge, the USSR had the air-ambulance fleet - 295 planes, 236 active and 136 reserv of the sanitary railway trains, 100 river steamers. These institutions had appropriate medical personnel. Nothing of the kind in other countries was not. One can say that the Soviet Union was always ready to receive large numbers of wounded and sick.
The answer to the question - why is the vaccine against Ebola developed in Russia?, - you will find, if you be acquainted with what happened in the USSR in 1920, and how this the large-scale problems was solved.

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#58

Post by Yuri » 01 Apr 2017, 22:29

Paul Lakowski wrote:
ljadw wrote:

The German leadership was convinced that only a quick and victorious campaign against the SU could prevent a final German defeat, and I think that they were right to undertake Barbarossa as there were no alternatives to prevent a German defeat .

No Barbarossa = defeat of Germany, Barbarossa = a small chance to prevent this defeat .

Since when was starting a second front against USSR a better move than just fighting the west in a one front war?
Since the chances of peace with great Britain was equal to zero, in my opinion Germany was the only way out - the Alliance with the Soviet Union, or at least benevolent neutrality on his part. This Hitler did not agree.

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#59

Post by Yuri » 01 Apr 2017, 22:44

The Germans in 1941 not were of the Panzer divisions. The so-called Panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht were in fact divisions of armored infantry. Soviet tank divisions of the sample of 1941 proved the futility of "pure" armored divisions.

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Re: Wehrmacht of 1943 invades Russia in 1941?

#60

Post by Marcus » 02 Apr 2017, 12:42

Several posts discussing the claim that the USSR were planning to attack Germany were moved to the existing thread at viewtopic.php?f=55&t=4566&start=1545#p2071119

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