Jon G. wrote:Guaporense wrote:...
*Well, Germany indeed produced more artillery ammunition than the US (Ger made over 300 million rounds of ground artillery ammo of over 75mm between 1940 and 1944, the US made 230 in the same period) and I suspect, more heavy guns in 1944 at least.
Have you considered that German artillery, by and large, had much more work on their hands (i.e. much more to shoot at) in the 1940 to 1944 period than US artillery had? US artillery ammunition production from 1940 to 1944 reflects need whereas German artillery ammunition production in the same period reflects necessity.
I don't know how much artillery ammunition the US made in 1943, but it would be interesting to see if not this figure might well surpass German artillery production for the same year.
US artillery ammunition surpassed Germany on the number of heavy rounds in 1942.
This is the data I have:
million of Heavy rounds
--------Germany ----- USA ----- Britain
1942 ---- 57 ----------- 70.9 -------- 25
1943 ---- 93 ------------ 86 --------- 14
1944 --- 108 ----------- 85.6 ------- 12
totals: - 258 ----------- 242.5 ------ 51
To Germany, ammunition made up a larger proportion of war production than either Britain and the US.
Second to the US Wartime Production Achievements, aircraft made up of 23.9% of US munitions production, while ammunition made up 10.6%, or 44% of aircraft production in value. To Germany ammunition made up of 75% of aircraft production by value.
In relation to armaments, in 1944 ammunition may have represented 14-15% of total armament production in the US. While for Germany it was close to 30%.
Historically, the US made 19.7 billion US$ dollars of ammunition, out of 106 billion dollars of armaments. Germany made 35.1 billion RM of ammunition out of 117 billion Rm of armaments. Since an RM was worth about 0.5 dollars, it yields a German ammunition production of 17.5 billion US$.
In terms of tonnage, the US made 3.86 million tons of artillery ammunition, 2 million tons of small arms ammunition, 5.29 million tons of bombs, for a total of 11.15 million tons of ammo "items" (give another 1 million tons for aircraft and navy ammo). Germany made 8.583 million tons of ammunition and 1.28 million tons of aircraft bombs, for a total of 9.86 million tons of ammo "items".
Also, in 1944 Germany made 19,000 Panzers, the US made 20,500 tanks and SP guns in the same year, and German tanks were heavier. In terms of ground combat munitions, Germany produced comparable quantities to the US. The US superiority came from Navy and Air-force production.
Why make the comparison for 1944?? That was the year when German tank production peaked (and your figure includes turretless, and therefore less labour-costly STUGs, as The Enigma points out) whereas American tank production was ramping down by that year since it was becoming obvious that the war was won.
Well, because 1944 was the year of peak munitions production for all great powers (including the US), even thought Germany was heavily bombed and was losing territory, with implied in the collapse of their trade bloc, and hence that their production was below potential. US tank production was being reduced in 1944 for reasons other than "'the war was won", but simply because scarce resources were being allocated to other uses than tank production, since the US had already much more tanks than they could use.
For the US between 1943 and 1944, for example, the production of ground related munitions and warships was reduced, while the production of aircraft increased over 40% by weight. Overall, US munitions production increased 11% between 1943 and 1944.
Bombing only destroyed the building, not the machines, with are made of steel and hence are very resistant to explosions...
That was realized early on. A great many of the Allied bombs dropped on Germany were of the incendiary variety as a result.
If you cannot destroy the machines, kill the laborers.
Anyway, labor was the most scarce resource for the German war economy. So they acted all right.
...In 1944 explosives production was nearly 500,000 tons, and it reached an annual output of 600,000 tons in June. For comparison, the USSR produced 600,000 tons of explosives during the whole war...
'Whole war' of course being a different timeframe to the Russians than it was to the Germans. Also, while the Soviets 'just' had the Eastern Front to worry about, the Germans had war on their hands elsewhere, too.
Yep. Germany produced 1.5 million tons of explosives during the whole war, while the USSR produced 600,000 tons. But their supply was increased by 300,000 tons of lend-lease explosives. While Germany spent 2/3 of their ammo on the ost front, with would mean about 1,000,000 tons of german explosives to 900,000 tons of soviet explosives.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz
