German Logistics

[Redbaron1908]

Hello I am looking to see if someone can give me a description of how the German system of logistics worked during World War Two?

[Christoph Awender]

Hello!

Could you be a little more specific? At which level? Heeresgruppe, Armee, Korps, Division..... what info exactly?

\Christoph

[Redbaron1908]

Basically an overview of how the whole system worked I know that this might be hard but I am really intrested.

[Christoph Awender]

Hello again!

I have lots of material about the german transport and supply system but I would really need to know what you like to know.
Do you want to know how troops were transported (how many trains a division etc...)?
How the material was brought to the units?
Transport of wounded, personnel etc...

Give me just something for what I can look for.

Responsible for all transports was the "Chef des Transportwesens". His command was responsible to organize transport of troops, goods by train, aircraft and trucks.

\Christoph

[[MK]Jagdtiger]

Hi, i'm also intersting in that kind of thing but i can't find it on the web.
i wanna know how the did the transport to the field and the trains with units how long did it take them to the front line etc. etc.

thnx

[Christoph Awender]

Hello Jagdtiger!

I try to give an overview of the topic. When the OKW planed a new offensive it had to announce the plan to the "Chef des TRansportwesens" (ChdTw). Especially his "Feldtransportabteilung" organized the plans, schedules for the transports.
More than 90% of troops were transported by trains.

The ChdTw. had routes (train) available which were designated with colours. The ChdTw. looked how many trains could pass such a transport-route in which time with which speed. It was really complicating.

For example Transportstrasse 6 (Brown route): Aulnoye - Charleroi -Dinant -Bertrix - Libramont - Gouvy - St.Vith - Stadtkyll -Euskirchen - Köln - Opladen - Wuppertal - Hagen - Scherfelde - Holzminden - Seesen - Halberstadt -Halle - Eilenburg - Falkenberg - Cottbus - Sagan - Glogau - Lissa - Kankel - Jarotschin - Wreschen - Barlogi - Kutno - Lowicz -Warschau. This route was passable for 72 trains at normal traffic per day.

After the schedule was made the OKW had to determine which unit goes which time and where.
See here the plan for a larger troop movement: http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/grafik/ ... trauss.jpg

Troop transports had to be "reserved" in advance at the Ch.d.Tw. so that he can deploy the necessary transport capacity.
- Small troop transports 6-30 men had to be reserved 12 hours in advance
- small horse transports (up to 40 light horses) 4 days in advance
- single seriously wounded or lying not infectious patients - early as possible
- Unit transports with horses and vehicles had to be reserved at the local Transportkommandantur 18 days in advance
- Troop transports (more than 380 men - 18 days, 30 - 380 men - 4 days)
- Larger horse transports 18 days in advance
- Wounded soldiers, soldiers on vacation could go with the scheduled trains.
If under certain circumstances was no possibility to reserve a transport before the local Transportkdt. should be called by telephone. The Trsp-Kdt. had a map where all available rollling stock was written down.
These were large maps which showed the stations and which waggons were present there.

The Verladeoffizier (loading and unloading) was responsible that waggons were not overloaded, goods were fixed properly etc...
The Transportführer (also Verladeoffizier at small transports) was responsible for the military order, protection, schedule etc...
The Bahnhofskommandanturen (Bahnhofsoffz., Ausladekommissare) were the connection between units and railway organization.

The trains for transporting troops were standardized.
I-Züge for Infanterie formations
K-Züge for Panzer and mot.troops

I-Zug (1.1.1942): 1 Personenwagen 2.Klasse, 1 Personenwagen 2./3.Klasse, 1 Personenwagen 3.Klasse, 13 gedeckte Güterwagen for troops, 12 gedeckte Güterwagen for horses, 9 Rungenwagen, 14 O-Wagen for vehicles, 2 O-Wagen for AA-protection.
This was a standard transport for a infantry division with 53 waggons. To move an entire Inf.Div. about 70 trains were used.
At the beginning of the war the combat troops and supply troops were always moved separate which needed more space of course. Around 1942 the transports were reorganized and the elements mixed which lowered the number of trains per division.
During the war of course these numbers got lower as the divisions became smaller.

Some numbers:
Inf.Div. entire division must not use more than 70 trains.
Inf.Div.(mot) without Pz.Abt. needed 32 trains for the Kampfstaffel
Inf.Div.(mot) with Pz.Abt. 37 trains for the Kampfstaffel
Pz.Div. 40 trains for the Kampfstaffel (entire division must not use more than 108 trains)
From 1944 on these numbers were changed due to the new organizations of Pz.Div.44 and Div.44.
Inf.Div.44 - 25 trains for the Kampfstaffel, 15 trains Ergänzugsstaffel
Pz.Div.44 had several choices: Kampfgruppe 1 with 35, Kampfgruppe 2 with 32 and Erg.Staffel with 3 trains = 70; geschlossener Kampftransport with 54 trains for the Kampfstaffel, 16 trains for the Erg.Staffel.
Panzergrenadierdivision - 57 trains (49 Kampfstaffel, 17 Erg.Staffel)
Volksgrenadierdivision - 37-39 trains. 30 for Kampfstaffel, 7-9 for Erg.Staffel

So I will stop for now. I hope it is not too confusing as I wrote it from my rememberance looking sometimes in the documents.

\Christoph

[jesper]

Hi Christoph
thanks good explanation, one can easily imagine the complexity and how in fact the whole process could be made into a very excellent strategy game, a wwII version of railroad tycoon.

[Redbaron1908]

Thank you for the Information Cristoph,

One thing I am intrseted in would be how troops were transported during the early days of the war and how they were supplied with regular things that an army needed to have.

[[MK]Jagdtiger]

thank you very much,
i approciate your help

[Christoph Awender]

Early operations in the war. According to reports of the Feldtransportabteilung of the Chef d.Transportwesens the deployment for Fall "Weiß" and "Fall Gelb" were very easy with enough time and no major problems.
The trains moved in the so called "Friedensfahrplan" (peacetime schedule) with highest speed at 18 - 24 trains per day and transport-route.
The only problem was that especially the armoured and motorized divisions had to be unloaded in a way they could attack right away. This was because the enemy should not know the main routes of attack which was done by the Pz.Div.
This was done by assembling all rolling stock available in the last days before the western campaign. 48-72 trains per day and route.
In many cases the tracked vehicles were transported by train while the wheeled elements marched on the roads. They also had to build several locations to unload the units because not everywhere a station was available.
Also a problem before the western campaign was that the start of the attack was postponed several times. So the Reichsbahn had to hold rolling stock ready which could not be used for the normal transports for the german economy.
But also no major problems with the deployment for Fall "Gelb"

The Chef d.Trw. had "hard" times preparing transport space for the planed Operation "Seelöwe" (ships) and then for Operation "Felix". They had a lots of work with it and then they were cancelled.

The Chef d.Trw. had 8 days to organize the deployment for operation "MArita" and reinforce the already deployed troops for the attack on Greece in Rumänien, Bulgarien and Ungarn.
This was accomplished by making no schedules but plan each transport itself (freier Bahntransport).
Also nine divisions on the way to the east were redirected to Ungarn which was a great logistic success.

Some numbers for deployment (Troops and material) Fall "Weiß":
20.-26.August 1939 139.827 waggons;
27.August - 2.Sept.1939 79.893 waggons;
3.-9.September 1939 105.998 waggons.
10.-16.Sept.1939: 128.146 waggons

Goods, material transports
There were three groups of material transports:
- Wehrmachtgut which is material that is already owned by the Wehrmacht and stays in Wehrmacht property
- Private good for the Wehrmacht which is material the Wehrmacht needs but is still a private property and is transported from private factories/companies to Wehrmacht authorities.
- Rüstungsgut are all goods which are "wehrwichtig" which means goods which were used to "strengthen and keep up the power of the Wehrmacht" (zur Erhaltung und Stärkung der Schlagkraft der Wehrmacht) but were transported from private to private.

The first group of goods were transported for the special Wehrmachttarif while the others for civilian tarifes.

The first group was again divided in "Wehrmachtgutsendungen" and "Wehrmachtnachschubsendungen". This depended on which kind of unit or authority the receiver was. Was it a unit of the Feldheer, Feld-Luftwaffe, or of the Ersatzheer.

Single goods could be sent via the normal Reichsbahn system. The goods are brought to the station and sent via the local Transportkommandantur.
If they had to send more supply goods (more than one waggon) it had to be announced 4 days in advance.
The Transportkdtr. than set up a train or a part of a train. (Nachschubzüge or Nachschubzugteile) A Nachschubzug had between 10 and 21 waggons. Nachschubzüge or Nachschubteilzüge were normally ordered by the Generalquartiermeister via the Chef d.Trw. (Ib) of the unit.

The trains were sent to so called "Sammelbahnhöfen" (collecting-stations) where the supply waggons were sorted out of other trains and set together to new trains.
The supplies were sorted according to their "Fahrtnummer". Then these sorted trains were sent to unloading-staions the Armies operated or so called "Armeezugbildungsbahnhöfen" (Army train set-up stations). There the trains were again divided and distributed to the Korps from there to the divisions.
The whole system was organized by so called "Fahrtnummern" which were numbers for destinations like Feldpostnummern.

hope this helps and don´t hesitate to ask if you have more questions.

Christoph

[Qvist]

Wonderful information Christoph!

At a different forum, I had a prolonged discussion with a gaming researcher who was reluctant to accept that the speed with which the Germans could reinforce their forces in Normandy after 6 June depended largely on the capacity of the rail network. In that connection, he contested the relevance of number of trains as a measuring unit, pointing out that a train can carry many or few rail cars. My assumption was that since number of trains generally seem to be used as a measurement, there probably was little variance, and that trains generally carried as heavy a load as they were capable of (which seems to me also a rational policy in itself). Do you know anything about this?

cheers

[Christoph Awender]

Hello Quist!

I hope I understand the point of discussion. There is no doubt and a 100% fact that the german rail system was totally taken out in the invasion area shortly before and during the Invasion.
A report says that this and in April 1945 were the only times the railway system was largely effected by enemy air attacks. Other times the damages were relatively easy to repair in a short time.

Supply trains always had as much waggons as needed but not more than 21. The numbers of waggons was never a problem just the railway system itself where more then 90% of the supply ran.

Some numbers:

--Locomotives/personnel-waggons/goods-waggons
1939: 21.700/68.462/630.326
1940: 22.381/68.922/672.028
1941: 23.671/70.529/754.559
1942: 27.569/72.448/852.270
1943: 22.600/71.018/888.949
1944: 23.950/75.700/946.406

Don´t know if this helps in the discussion,
Christoph

[Redbaron1908]

Thank you very much Cristoph I know that this information is not easy to look up. I have been looking on the Internet for roads and railroads that were used during the attack on the west in 1940 I am unable to find anything. I have only been able to find out maps of roads and rail lines that they use today. What I am trying to make is a map of the roads and railroads that the germans used in the area during the attack. For logistical purposes could you give me information of were there were roads and rail lines that were used for and during the attack.

[Darrin]

Wonderful information Christoph!

At a different forum, I had a prolonged discussion with a gaming researcher who was reluctant to accept that the speed with which the Germans could reinforce their forces in Normandy after 6 June depended largely on the capacity of the rail network. In that connection, he contested the relevance of number of trains as a measuring unit, pointing out that a train can carry many or few rail cars. My assumption was that since number of trains generally seem to be used as a measurement, there probably was little variance, and that trains generally carried as heavy a load as they were capable of (which seems to me also a rational policy in itself). Do you know anything about this?

cheers

One of the problems the gers had later in the war was how long it took to get to places by train increased. If a train going to normandy for example before Dday could get there in 1 week but afterwards took two weeks then the capicity of the system is cut in half. Also at normandy many of the trains had to unlad not very close to the front at places that may not even be real stations. This introduced delays in moving units and supplies fwd to were they were need esp since transport and fuel were in short supply for most units. Also if the trains took longer to get to the front the trucks and horses may have also been delayed as well reducing thier normal capacity.

[Qvist]

Hi Christoph

Actually that wasn't quite what I meant, sorry if I was unclear. I am referring rather to the use of trains as a measurement - as in a panzer division needs such and such a number of trains to be moved. Now, the number of trains is of course only a valid measurement if they all carry a standardised load/number of wagons - there is a great difference between 10 trains with 1 car each and 10 trains with 21 cars each.

cheers