Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

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MarkN
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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#61

Post by MarkN » 19 May 2017, 14:26

stg 44 wrote: I came here looking for specific information about about a specific element of Rommel's supply lines ...
Quite so. And that can be easily ascertained from the gliederung I posted up and a bit of effort on your behalf to fill in the blanks.

But now you want more.
stg 44 wrote: What Urmel rightly states is that shipping lists will say what was actually sent to North Africa, which is the most helpful for my purposes, because it shows exactly what was then not available for other fronts.
Now you want to know about all the equipment sent to North Africa to see if it would, in your opinion, make a difference to the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front.
stg 44 wrote:If Urmel is willing to provide the information I requested, it will be appreciated and if not I understand; it is a lot of work to engage in for someone else's interest.
stg 44 wrote: Still it would be interesting to know what was sent.
It would.

But do you really grasp how much work will be needed to comb through every ship's manifest that sailed from mainland Europe bound for North Africa during 1941-1943 to list all the stores and equipment that was sent by the Germans? All just so you can unlock yourself from an arguement elsewhere and further convince yourself that the Wehrmacht could have won the war in 1941 if only....

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#62

Post by MarkN » 19 May 2017, 23:24

My evening having been turned upside down, I've spent the last 45 mins or so flicking through some of the files on my HD. Whilst I recognise that the original poster shows little or no interest in the understanding the subject and the realities, other readers may be interested in the following.

Turns out I have the monthly reports of the KNF DAK (Korps-Nachschubsfuehrer DAK - CRASC in English) covering September '41 to July '42. In reality, with the creation of Pz.Gruppe Afrika, OC Nachsch.Kol.Abt 572. was double hatted as KNF DAK thus the reports are principally concerning Nachsch.Kol.Abt 572. and add ons.

The reports provide details of monthly tonnage transported, kms travelled, and much, much more. Even details (for 1941) of all the ships unloaded at Benghazi with the name of the ship/goods/tonnage for each etc.

To cut a long story short, it confirms that (for Nachsch.Kol.Abt 572. at least) the KStNs hold true for actual truck numbers. Thus, as an example, for January 1942 it records that of the 154 LKW brought to North Africa (in April 1941), an average of 55 were fit for service, 45 under repair and 55 had been written off.

In another report, detailing the annual effort of Nachsch.Kol.Abt 572., it notes that the 150 odd trucks had each already done an average 100,000 km before arrival in Libya and, from arrival in April 1941 until the end of December 1941, they had added another 50-56,000 to the clock.


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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#63

Post by MarkN » 21 May 2017, 11:12

There is a thread from over 10 years ago on this forum that provides a huge amount of information on the subject (as long as you can read past the nonsense argued by the self-confessed gamer): viewtopic.php?f=56&t=93416

One small element that I managed to extract from this was a snapshot of the vehicle situation for 18 December 1942.

Establishment total motor vehicles: 16,966 (including motorcycles)
Establishment total LKW: 7,842
Actual LKW available: 5,220

These are the numbers for the entire German forces in Libya - Heerestruppen, Armee Versorgungstruppen, HARKO Afrika, DAK and 90 le.Afr.Div. - but excludes 164 le.Afr.Div and Luftwaffe.

The numbers of trucks (LKW) for Rommel's 'Großtransportraum' (Armee Versorgungstruppen) were:
Establishment: 1,594
Actual: 1,236


Each of these numbers accord with with gliederung and KStN and follow on neatly from the numbers I published earlier for 1941.

They are a long way from some of the numbers promoted by stg 44 and even further from the ones he wants/believes them to be....

PS.
Many thanks to RichTO90 for providing the information in the first place.

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#64

Post by Richard Anderson » 21 May 2017, 18:50

MarkN wrote:Many thanks to RichTO90 for providing the information in the first place.
Cheers for that!
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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#65

Post by stg 44 » 21 May 2017, 23:41

MarkN wrote: Whilst I recognise that the original poster shows little or no interest in the understanding the subject and the realities, other readers may be interested in the following.
MarkN wrote: They are a long way from some of the numbers promoted by stg 44 and even further from the ones he wants/believes them to be....
Seriously, you need to grow up. The argument, which you picked, was long since over and you continue on needling out of some obsessive need to demonstrate what, some imagined sense of righteousness because the rest of your life is so sad?

Thank you for finding the exact information I was requesting, why is it that has to be included with the snide remarks after dodging around the request to begin with and after protesting that I don't deserve the information in your view?

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#66

Post by MarkN » 22 May 2017, 12:34

Back to the premise of the original question...

The purist would probably argue that Rommel was allocated approximately zero 'Großtransportraum' vehicles where 'Großtransportraum' was generally meant to mean the 'heavy trucking service' using vehicles of 4-tonne capacity and above.

Rommel's Nachschubdienst was based around the 'standard' NachSch.Kol.Abt built upon modular kl.Kw.Kol and gr.Kw.Kol. In otherwords, 'standard' 3-tonne trucks hauling an average of 2.5-2.6 tonnes a trip.

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#67

Post by Richard Anderson » 22 May 2017, 16:21

MarkN wrote:Back to the premise of the original question...

The purist would probably argue that Rommel was allocated approximately zero 'Großtransportraum' vehicles where 'Großtransportraum' was generally meant to mean the 'heavy trucking service' using vehicles of 4-tonne capacity and above.

Rommel's Nachschubdienst was based around the 'standard' NachSch.Kol.Abt built upon modular kl.Kw.Kol and gr.Kw.Kol. In otherwords, 'standard' 3-tonne trucks hauling an average of 2.5-2.6 tonnes a trip.
I've been waiting a while for that shoe to drop. :D Indeed, the GTR was formed specifically for the Russian Campaign to supplement the standard Armee and Korps Nachschubdienst.
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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#68

Post by stg 44 » 22 May 2017, 16:27

Richard Anderson wrote:
MarkN wrote:Back to the premise of the original question...

The purist would probably argue that Rommel was allocated approximately zero 'Großtransportraum' vehicles where 'Großtransportraum' was generally meant to mean the 'heavy trucking service' using vehicles of 4-tonne capacity and above.

Rommel's Nachschubdienst was based around the 'standard' NachSch.Kol.Abt built upon modular kl.Kw.Kol and gr.Kw.Kol. In otherwords, 'standard' 3-tonne trucks hauling an average of 2.5-2.6 tonnes a trip.
I've been waiting a while for that shoe to drop. :D Indeed, the GTR was formed specifically for the Russian Campaign to supplement the standard Armee and Korps Nachschubdienst.
You mean Polish Campaign:
/viewtopic.php?t=214721
/viewtopic.php?t=108967
Prior to the outbreak of war the Germans had organized their higher echelon motor transport assets into three regiments, collectively referred to as the Grosstransportraum:

Regiment 602, which was the only active regiment in peacetime, was organized with staff company, field police section, and three battalions each with five companies, a repair platoon and an information (?) platoon. Regiment 602 had mainly four-ton trucks with four-ton trailers for transport vehicles. At full strength the regiment had 2200 vehicles and a load capacity of 4500 tons.

The two other Grosstransportraum regiments - 605 and 616 - were organized along similar lines as Regiment 602, but only their officers were active army ranks - all rank and file, drivers, mechanics etc. were civilians, and the vehicles on strength were 'conscripted' civilian trucks - i.e. not built to military specifications and with a great variety of truck types present in each regiment. Regiment 605 had a tonnage of 6000 tons while Regiment 616 had a tonnage of 9000 tons which implies that truck size, rather than geographical location, decided which regiment a civilian vehicle was conscripted to.

Combined, the tonnage of these three regiments corresponds reasonably well with the 20,000 figure which is usually given as Grosstransportraum size at the onset of the Polish campaign. It's also frequently stated (in van Creveld and elsewhere) that GTR losses during the campaign in Poland were a very serious 50% - losses caused, mostly, by wear and tear from poor roads.

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#69

Post by Richard Anderson » 22 May 2017, 16:39

stg 44 wrote:You mean Polish Campaign:
I'll be damned, good catch, I've never bothered to look at the organization dates: KTR 602., 605., and 616. were all formed on mobilization on 26 August 1939. You learn something new every day. Thanks!
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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#70

Post by stg 44 » 22 May 2017, 16:40

Richard Anderson wrote:
stg 44 wrote:You mean Polish Campaign:
I'll be damned, good catch, I've never bothered to look at the organization dates: KTR 602., 605., and 616. were all formed on mobilization on 26 August 1939. You learn something new every day. Thanks!
No worries, I've been doing some reading about it as of late, so that info was fresh in my mind.

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#71

Post by MarkN » 22 May 2017, 17:04

Richard Anderson wrote: I've been waiting a while for that shoe to drop. :D Indeed, the GTR was formed specifically for the Russian Campaign to supplement the standard Armee and Korps Nachschubdienst.
:lol:

I was in two minds with my very first post here whether just to write ZERO or enquire what the question was about. I chose the latter as it seemed to offer more sport.

Since nobody else had mentionned it, I was beginning to wonder if my understanding of the GTR was correct. So I did a bit of a google this morning before posting.

This was one of the first - and by far the funniest - I came upon.
Are you really disregarding the specific image [MarkNote: see image below] of a document specifically describing GTR as heavy transport, 4 tons and above??? I linked the damn image and you can't even comprehend that??? Seriously WTF is wrong with you that you cannot even accept that you're wrong despite having it in writing what exactly GTR transport was? 2.5 tons average for lift capacity that Askey's Barbarossa book talks about was divisional truck lift capacity, nothing about GTR was mentioned in that section. GTR was extra-division (i.e. army level or above) supply units. It was exclusively made up of 4.5 transports and above (p.106 Askey and of course my previous sources on GTR).
Found here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/34791169/ You'll need to scroll down a bit. It's a long and rather self-gratifying post that manages to check all the wrong boxes. :lol:

Image

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#72

Post by stg 44 » 22 May 2017, 17:23

MarkN wrote:
Richard Anderson wrote: I've been waiting a while for that shoe to drop. :D Indeed, the GTR was formed specifically for the Russian Campaign to supplement the standard Armee and Korps Nachschubdienst.
:lol:

I was in two minds with my very first post here whether just to write ZERO or enquire what the question was about. I chose the latter as it seemed to offer more sport.

Since nobody else had mentionned it, I was beginning to wonder if my understanding of the GTR was correct. So I did a bit of a google this morning before posting.

This was one of the first - and by far the funniest - I came upon.
Are you really disregarding the specific image [MarkNote: see image below] of a document specifically describing GTR as heavy transport, 4 tons and above??? I linked the damn image and you can't even comprehend that??? Seriously WTF is wrong with you that you cannot even accept that you're wrong despite having it in writing what exactly GTR transport was? 2.5 tons average for lift capacity that Askey's Barbarossa book talks about was divisional truck lift capacity, nothing about GTR was mentioned in that section. GTR was extra-division (i.e. army level or above) supply units. It was exclusively made up of 4.5 transports and above (p.106 Askey and of course my previous sources on GTR).
Found here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/34791169/ You'll need to scroll down a bit. It's a long and rather self-gratifying post that manages to check all the wrong boxes. :lol:

Image
Okay, what's the point of this post? More smugness about how right you think you are?

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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#73

Post by Knouterer » 23 May 2017, 21:17

"Large Transport Area"? What's that, Google Translate having a particularly bad day?
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Re: Rommel's Großtransportraum in 1941 and 1942

#74

Post by MarkN » 25 May 2017, 19:51

My daughter came to stay for a couple of nights and after finishing her homework last night she complained she was bored. So I gave her a research task to complete whilst I finished up what I was doing and we went out.

Research Task: flip through 1,000 of pages of WW2 docs to find anything that might be of interest to this discussion.

Result: I'm thinking of employing her full time..... :lol:

In less than 45 mins she'd found a pile of documents from February 1941 summarising logistical estimates and transportation requirements for Speerverband Libyen, then 5.leichte and finally DAK. A couple of docs also made note of the impact on Barbarossa of send X, Y and Z number of LKW to North Africa.

She also found this snapshot for September 1942.

Image

That total of approx. 15,000 motor vehicles presumably also includes those they'd captured from the Empire forces as well as any 'bought' from French North Africa.

The figures produced earlier from Askey's book are looking ever more unreliable and unhelpful by the minute.

PS. After I received my daughter's 'payment request', employment is no longer an option..... :lol: :lol:

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