historygeek2021 wrote:Per this post, the majority of vehicles needed would be trucks, not cars:
MV's organic to mech divs given by Askey
here. As stated, converting an ID into a Mot.Div requires an additional 700 trucks and 500 light transports. Panzer division requires 1,522 trucks and 782 light transports.
historygeek2021 wrote: 6 tires @147.7 pounds each = 886.2lbs/MV
You're right, I read "per tire" as "per truck."
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Let's redo the calculation:
MV's required:
- 5 PzDiv's @ 1,522 trucks and 782 light = 7,610 trucks, 3,910 light
- 5 ID's --> Mot.Inf. @ 700 trucks and 500 light = 3,500 trucks, 2,500 light
- 5% delta to Service of Supply columns (299,912 trucks, 42,328 light) = 15,000 trucks, 2,000 light
- I chose 5% delta because five more divs is only ~3% of Barbarossa committed strength, plus a fudge factor for division types.
- Sum: 26,000 trucks, 8,500 light transports [note - higher than my previous estimates]
Rubber required:
- Truck = 886.2lbs
- Light = 600lbs
- Sum= 12,800t
Call it 15,000t for additional tank road wheels and motorcycles. Or call it 26,000t (see below). Or perhaps 50,000t.
historygeek2021 wrote: ↑11 May 2022 15:40
According to Figure 2 on page 53, the German coverage ratio for rubber was only 56.6% in 1940
That's Streb's figure based on 38,500t supply, against which the author is arguing.
historygeek2021 wrote: the entire import of rubber came on a single train just a few hours before Barbarossa commenced. Rubber that arrived shortly before the invasion won't be able to be used to produce vehicles in time for the invasion.
The paper lays out a conservative case for 23,500t rubber via rail from Russia in 1940-41:
A conservative estimate for imports by railway from Russia between January and June 1941–which assumes that the daily figures suggested by Treue (1955) for March 1941 represent peak figures that were only met by 50 percent in the preceding months –yields 23,500 tons–a number in line with fragmentary evidence presented in other accounts (Cf: Goralski and Freeberg 1987, 66; Treue 1955, 182). This figure also assumes that a further 6,000 tons of natural rubber already destined for the Reich in mid-March 1941 did not reach the German border in time before the outbreak of war and was consequently lost.
He is plainly suspicious of - at least doesn't incorporate - the 21k single train:
it has been suggested that a single train hours before the launch of Operation Barbarossa delivered a final 21,000 tons of natural rubber across the Russo-German border (Goralski and Freeberg 1987, 66).
As the author states:
One account focusing on Indian-sourced rubber imports from Russia between April 1940 and June 1941 puts the overall figure at 15,000 tons (Schwendemann 1995, 162).
...so either all Indian rubber was on that one train (plus 6,000t more) or the author's estimate of Russian-shipped rubber is too conservative (he plainly thinks it is and he's almost certainly right).
historygeek2021 wrote:Second, the article appears to be double counting production of rubber in occupied western European countries. There is no indication in the article that western European countries were producing synthetic rubber, so the production in these countries was not an input (synthetic rubber) but an output (vulcanized rubber).
What do you mean by the input/output distinction here?
Anyways,
here again is the author's tally of rubber supplies not listed in the usual stats.
Let's table for now whether "producing factories" are double-counted and leave them aside.** In the West alone that leaves 14,000t additions in 1940 and 25,000t in 1941 - say 12,000 available before Barbarossa. That's 26,000t additional rubber from the West alone.
That alone is sufficient to cover ATL requirements estimated at 15,000t. Even if I'm off by 70%, it's still sufficient.
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**Elsewhere the author states that Italian production is listed net of Buna deliveries. It's conceivable the author forgot to add that caveat re French 1940 production. Even more conceivable is that, as Michelin was so eager to make tires for Germany, Nazi authorities left its stocks of rubber and the French 1940-41 production came from these stocks. The main Michelin plant was in Clermont-Ferrand and therefore not subject to the "wild looting" of the initial occupation period.
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historygeek2021 wrote:There are a few issues with the article.
I've also noted issues with the article.
Nonetheless, no article is perfect and the issue here regards actual German capability rather than whether the author made mistakes. Some of what you identify as "issues" are superficial contradictions between the author being conservative and his mentioning upside cases (the 21k-ton train) that he doesn't incorporate into a conservative estimate. The author's core point is basically bulletproof: that the default source -
Statistisches Handbuch - fails to capture massive rubber stocks transferred by German authorities outside of the normal import channels. It's a point I've made elsewhere about the proceeds from occupation. Given the chaos of Nazi administration, this should always have been obvious. The author's core point alone uncovers unnoticed rubber in excess of ATL requirements.
Note also that I have
entirely different and sufficient arguments that I relied on before seeing this article.
The article is in some sense only an explanation of something that seemed clear to me from the stocks numbers - that Germany could have been using rubber more aggressively than it did, had it chosen to build more MV's (aircraft being a small portion of rubber demand, as the author quantifies). The article explains why German stocks continued rising during a period when most histories (but not the USSBS) claim rubber was a major constraint.