Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

Discussions on High Command, strategy and the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in general.
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Qvist
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#31

Post by Qvist » 28 Feb 2006, 13:56

:oops: Thank you Michate - silly mistake. And persistent on my part, it seems. "Grabenstärke" is of course also the term used in the document quoted.

cheers

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#32

Post by ljadw » 03 Nov 2009, 10:40

Nickterry said he would publishing on this issue ;some one knows if this has be done ?


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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#33

Post by Evzoni » 15 Jul 2010, 23:41

I had read somewhere, the exact source is now lost to me that the Wehrmacht's combat manpower was 85% of its division as opposed to 65% of an american division

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#34

Post by Larry D. » 16 Jul 2010, 00:34

I think the reason this is hard to get at for the purpose of making a rational comparison is because each country used a different criteria for determining who was included in the "combat" component and who was not. Unless exactly the same criteria is used, it would be a matter of comparing apples to oranges. The German Kampfstärke figure was usually expressed as the number of full infantry battalions it could bring to bear at a specified point in time. The best source for this subject is probably the Duprey Institute in suburban Washington. They did an enormous amount of research on this back in the 1960s, 1970s and into the early 1980s.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#35

Post by JonS » 16 Jul 2010, 03:43

Thread necromancy:
Qvist (in 2006) wrote:
- railwaymen - essential to logistical support
And also not part of the armed forces, in any of the major combatants.
This assertion is not true, as a cursory examination of relevant detailed OoBs will show. Both the US and the Commonwealth included quite substantial forces to operate and maintain their railways while on campaign. In fact, AFAICT, they didn't use anything but uniformed personnel for that purpose, although I'll concede that it wouldn't suprise me much if they were supplemented in Italy and NWE by civilians.

Also, this.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#36

Post by Michate » 19 Jul 2010, 17:53

ljadw wrote:Nickterry said he would publishing on this issue ;some one knows if this has be done ?
Yes, he has been publishing his dissertation. I have ordered it via ethos, however, despite repeated promises to provide an online copy it still has not been done so far.

However, some other people do have the same data that he outlined in this thread.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#37

Post by Jon G. » 19 Jul 2010, 18:17

JonS wrote:Thread necromancy:
Qvist (in 2006) wrote:
- railwaymen - essential to logistical support
And also not part of the armed forces, in any of the major combatants.
This assertion is not true, as a cursory examination of relevant detailed OoBs will show. Both the US and the Commonwealth included quite substantial forces to operate and maintain their railways while on campaign.
So did the Italians, the Germans, and the Japanese. I'm less sure how Soviet military railroads were organized. A good-sized part of the German rail network in the East was run and operated by 'Feldeisenbahnkommandos', directly under Wehrmacht control, whereas the larger part of the railroads in the East was run as a seperate RB operation, whose manpower establishments may not have been part of the overall Ostheer OOB.
In fact, AFAICT, they didn't use anything but uniformed personnel for that purpose, although I'll concede that it wouldn't suprise me much if they were supplemented in Italy and NWE by civilians.

Also, this.
Well, the British (or rather, New Zealanders, as you undoubtedly know) did supplement their railroad troops with locally hired Egyptians and Libyans, for the generous payment of a shilling a day. Also, the Egyptian national railroads were operating in direct support of the 8th Army in the Nile Delta.

...just as the Germans supplemented their rail personnel in the East with locally recruited Poles, Ukrainians and Russians. I get the impression (from Potgießer) that this was a fairly good posting as far as forced labour went because rail workers were entitled to extra rations due to their heavy work.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#38

Post by Michate » 05 Aug 2010, 18:55

Michate wrote:
ljadw wrote:Nickterry said he would publishing on this issue ;some one knows if this has be done ?
Yes, he has been publishing his dissertation. I have ordered it via ethos, however, despite repeated promises to provide an online copy it still has not been done so far.

However, some other people do have the same data that he outlined in this thread.
Yesterday I received an email that the thesis had been scanned, but after downloading I noticed the silly folks had mistaken things and provided me some piece of postmodernist poppycock instead of what I had ordered :roll: .

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#39

Post by JonS » 05 Aug 2010, 23:32

Jon G. wrote:Well, the British (or rather, New Zealanders, as you undoubtedly know) did supplement their railroad troops with locally hired Egyptians and Libyans, for the generous payment of a shilling a day.
Ah, good point. But IIRC, they reasonably quickly got booted back to metropolitan Egypt (if such a thing can be considered to exist. See below) once their performance in the Western Desert was found to be too flaky.
Also, the Egyptian national railroads were operating in direct support of the 8th Army in the Nile Delta.
Yeah, Egypt is an interesting case since it was simultaneously a national strategic base area and a tactical area of operations. In the original post I included the rider "operate and maintain their railways while on campaign", specifically to delineate between, say the UK (and the various Commonwealth home countrys), CONUS, or Germany, and theatres where fighting was going on. Extending that concept to Egypt I'd put an arbitrary line about 25 miles east of Alex, then consider anything west of it "on campaign" and anything east of it "metropolitan."

Jon

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#40

Post by Jon G. » 06 Aug 2010, 12:19

Well, it will appear that the original exchange point between the Egyptian State Railways and the NZ railway troops was at Similla, close to Mersah Matruh, and a good 150 miles west of Alexandria, and also a good distance across Axis lines in the summer and autumn of 1942.

The British army was intended to take over more and more of the operations of the desert railway from the Egyptians, but the transition didn't always happen so smoothly - in part because the British still relied on Egyptian rolling stock up to Similla, in part because there was money to be made by the Egyptians running military cargoes for the British.

I wonder what the arrangement was in East Africa?

Anyway, and just trying to stay on topic, this arrangement does not seem too different from the way the Germans ran their rail lines in the east if we suppose that the Feldeisenbahnkommandos (or soldiers running trains) were roughly equal to the NZ railwaymen, and the ESR roughly similar to the RB (or national train services running trains for the military)

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Re:

#41

Post by Yuri » 23 Feb 2017, 21:29

Larry D. wrote:The sticking point in this discussion, which I just now came upon, appears to be Luftwaffe strength returns for the Eastern Front. Here are some figures that may be of interest and use.

Luftwaffe Ration Strength Figures - 1943

Mitte: Oct 42 (892,792); Jan 43 (784,982); Apr 43 (949,943); Jul 43 (1,045,172); Oct 43 (1,084,382); Dec 43 (1,138,875).
Luftflotte 1: Oct 42 (143,947); Jan 43 (109,521); Apr 43 (134,761); Jul 43 (130,299); Oct 43 (64,722); Dec 43 (71,956).
Luftflotte 2: Oct 42 (77,089); Jan 43 (135,993); Apr 43 (122,301); Jul 43 (31,701); Oct 43 (45,187); Dec 43 (70,328).
Luftflotte 3: Oct 42 (353,552); Jan 43 (344,886); Apr 43 (353,038) Jul 43 (403,934); Oct 43 (388,823); Dec 43 (390,046).
Luftflotte 4: Oct 42 (193,541); Jan 43 (88,456); Apr 43 (162,122); Jul 43 (165,336); Oct 43 (127,636); Dec 43 (133,681).
Luftflotte 5: Oct 42 (90,015); Jan 43 (85,692); Apr 43 (88,351); Jul 43 (100,318); Oct 43 (87,962); Dec 43 (85,226).
Luftflotte 6: Oct 42 (141,440); Jan 43 (182,089); Apr 43 (148,043); Jul 43 (137,599); Oct 43 (129,430); Dec 43 (107,221).
Lw.-Kdo. Südost: Oct 43 (86,125); Dec 43 (78,368).
Strength on the Dec 43 (1,138,875) did not significantly coincide with the exact data. On 01.12.1943 in the Luftwaffe were: 1,919,581 (only Germans), without LwFDiv that in mid-November was transferred to the Heres.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0&start=60
The difference 780,706 (68,55%).
On 01.11.1943 Luftwaffe was nearly 3,000,000 (including LwFDiv, foreign volunteers and Hiwi

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Re:

#42

Post by 2KILFA » 11 Nov 2023, 20:47

Larry D. wrote:
18 Feb 2006, 16:25
The sticking point in this discussion, which I just now came upon, appears to be Luftwaffe strength returns for the Eastern Front. Here are some figures that may be of interest and use.

Luftwaffe Ration Strength Figures - 1943

Mitte: Oct 42 (892,792); Jan 43 (784,982); Apr 43 (949,943); Jul 43 (1,045,172); Oct 43 (1,084,382); Dec 43 (1,138,875).
Luftflotte 1: Oct 42 (143,947); Jan 43 (109,521); Apr 43 (134,761); Jul 43 (130,299); Oct 43 (64,722); Dec 43 (71,956).
Luftflotte 2: Oct 42 (77,089); Jan 43 (135,993); Apr 43 (122,301); Jul 43 (31,701); Oct 43 (45,187); Dec 43 (70,328).
Luftflotte 3: Oct 42 (353,552); Jan 43 (344,886); Apr 43 (353,038) Jul 43 (403,934); Oct 43 (388,823); Dec 43 (390,046).
Luftflotte 4: Oct 42 (193,541); Jan 43 (88,456); Apr 43 (162,122); Jul 43 (165,336); Oct 43 (127,636); Dec 43 (133,681).
Luftflotte 5: Oct 42 (90,015); Jan 43 (85,692); Apr 43 (88,351); Jul 43 (100,318); Oct 43 (87,962); Dec 43 (85,226).
Luftflotte 6: Oct 42 (141,440); Jan 43 (182,089); Apr 43 (148,043); Jul 43 (137,599); Oct 43 (129,430); Dec 43 (107,221).
Lw.-Kdo. Südost: Oct 43 (86,125); Dec 43 (78,368).

* To arrive at a total for the Russian Front, add the sums for Luftflotte 1, Luftflotte 4 and Luftflotte 6. The only thing missing will then be northern Finland. That area came under Luftflotte 5 and here are some Luftwaffe ration strength figures for just northern Finland: 30 Jun 42 (40,061); 1 Jun 44 (25,943). The dates do not match up with the above compilation, but they are nevertheless insightful. The decrease over two years in northern Finland reflects the reassignment of Feld- units to the Heer and the departure of Luftwaffe construction units.

These figures comprise all Luftwaffe personnel, including the Luftwaffen-Felddivisionen, Fallschirmjäger, and all attached personnel serving the Luftwaffe for whom the Luftwaffe was responsible in terms of rations and supply, i.e., RAD, NSKK, Transport-Rgt.Speer, etc.

If anyone needs additional information concerning the territorial boundries of the Luftflotten, just ask.

[Source: NARA WashDC: RG 242 (T-971 roll 47 frames 0006-12). This source is a monthly report prepared by Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt.(V)/O.K.L.].

--Larry
You've posted this long ago. Now these series are available online. I've been trying to locate the 'frames 0006-12', but have not found them yet, since the layout is different from the usual ones found at other series, plus the file is very long. If you happen to remember the exact page numbers where these frames can be found, can you pinpoint them? Here's the link to what you wrote:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/316311507

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#43

Post by Larry D. » 11 Nov 2023, 23:19

Sorry 2KILFA! That was about 18 years ago. Although I still own that roll of microfilm, my house caught fire on 26 March 2023 and burned out. All of my reference material that survived is presently in a contractor's warehouse for preservation as "salvageable personal property" and I cannot get access to it until my house has been rebuilt and reoccupied. That could be a year from now.

Larry D.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#44

Post by 2KILFA » 12 Nov 2023, 00:34

Larry D. wrote:
11 Nov 2023, 23:19
Sorry 2KILFA! That was about 18 years ago. Although I still own that roll of microfilm, my house caught fire on 26 March 2023 and burned out. All of my reference material that survived is presently in a contractor's warehouse for preservation as "salvageable personal property" and I cannot get access to it until my house has been rebuilt and reoccupied. That could be a year from now.

Larry D.
Yes, I know that you've mentioned it. But I wasn't asking you to find your material, I've posted the direct link to it at NARA where its available online and was thinking that you might still remember the exact page numbers where it can be found. Perhaps I've missed it, but I can't seem to find the 'frames 0006-12' there, where it shows these ration strength figures.

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Re: Wehrmacht "Tooth to Tail" Ratio?

#45

Post by Larry D. » 12 Nov 2023, 17:11

It looks like NARA omitted the frame counter that appears at the very top of each frame when they converted the old microfilm to digital format. Accordingly, you will have to go through it page-by-page beginning with image page 32 or thereabouts. Look for tabulated compilations inside of a box with rows and columns. A sample is on image p.38 for a month in 1942.

L.

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