Barbarossa Planning

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Hanny
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#706

Post by Hanny » 12 Feb 2019, 19:42

Munitions stored in damp conditions will show around a 50% failure rate, its what damp did to the chemicals, in 1982 a hygroscopic oxidizer* was invented to reduce/remove this problem. Given around half the Art inventory on the Eastern front was 75mm, its a no brainer a lot of french 75 shells were consumed there.**"Rick Atkinson wrote that half of the Wehrmacht's artillery pieces on the Eastern Front were French guns."

*https://patents.google.com/patent/US6620267B1/en

**https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CH ... 36&bih=754


Page 106 Halders diary
Buy up French coastal artillery in Tunisia for Torth Africa ( 16 7,5 cm Gun Btrys, , 8 10,5 cm Gun Btrys., 12 22 Gun Btrys.).
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#707

Post by Paul Lakowski » 13 Feb 2019, 05:55

Thanks Bob, as always illuminating.


The Wehrmacht could have mechanized there entire line of Divisional/Korps/Army level field artillery through the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s. In point of fact they actually dabbled in mechanized gun concepts in the late 1920s . They mounted a couple hundred 37mm & 77mm guns on 'off the shelve' farm tractors. Use the same basic plan but on the much, much larger scale with the tens of thousands of "Zugkraftwagen" built through mid 1930s to mid 1940s. These could then be employed to mount Wehrmacht field artillery through out the war as early versions of the "WAFFENTRAGGER".

Historically tens of thousands of "Zugkraftwagen" were built as towing tractors through out this time period. The smallest and most built version was the 5 ton tractors designated to tow "1 ton artillery" -ergo the name 1 ton Zugkraftwagen. These were employed to tow light anti tank guns and infantry guns as well as 20mm flak for both the Luftwaffe and HEER.

As the war progressed such guns were mounted on the very tractors that previously towed them and filled a vital role in the mechanized warfare of the day. At a pinch this would work but these 3/4 tracks were underpowered, so by mid war heavier tractors were being employed to carry the same guns and more ammo plus light armor was mounted around the cab to protect the gun crew from small arms and light shrapnel.

In extreme cases in 1940/41 the largest model - the "18 ton Zugkraftwagen" employed 6 tons of armor around the cab and load deck , in-order to mounted a massive 88mm FlaK in a 360o pedestal mount with 85o elevation plus 40 rounds of ammo and 14.5mm armor around the cab. Needless to say this monster was 3.5 meters high and weight 25 tons , which means it must have been able to manage maybe 45 kph with ground pressure similar to a tank [~ 13lb/in^2].

With this as a base line- the 5 ton 360o pedestal mounted 88mm Flak , could be exchanged for a similar size/weight field artillery piece like the "Schwere 10cm Kanone 18" , a Korps LEVEL counter battery artillery piece. Likely the divisional , 15cm Schwere Feldhaubitzer 18 , is the same size and could be mounted in similar manner onto the "18 ton Zugkraftwagen". This piece was the main field artillery pieces for the Wehrmacht divisions through out the war. In addition to the"18 ton Zugkraftwagen" the same 88mm Flak also worked on the "12 ton Zugkraftwagen", and if the mount was a limited traverse /elevation field artillery mount- it could probably be mounted on the "8 ton Zugkraftwagen".

In 1941 the Wehrmacht possessed 7000* LeFH-18 and 2800 * 150mm sFH-18 artillery plus ~700 * 100mm K-18 pieces in the Field Army . They also had.... As matter of interest the Luftwaffe also had > 4500 * 88mm FlaK- although the bulk of these were static units.

530 "18 ton Zugkraftwagen"
1560 "12 ton Zugkraftwagen"
2880 "8 ton Zugkraftwagen".
1800 "5 ton Zugkraftwagen".
4600 "3 ton Zugkraftwagen".
8100 "1 ton Zugkraftwagen".

Interestingly in 1943 Hitler proposed mounting the 105mm LeFH 18-40 on the "3 ton Zugkraftwagen" as a way to mechanize the bulk of the Wehrmacht artillery.


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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#708

Post by Stugbit » 13 Feb 2019, 14:58

The Wehrmacht could have mechanized there entire line of Divisional/Korps/Army level field artillery through the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s.
Instead of building Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Graf Zeppelin, Germany should have focused those resources and time on building more guns, trucks and Hanomags for infantry support. Absolutely useless ships, they did almost nothing during the war. How many guns you can build with a battleship?

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#709

Post by ljadw » 13 Feb 2019, 16:46

How many guns can you build with a battleship ? not one ,because less warships do not mean more guns, trucks,etc : for more guns, trucks, the plants who make them ,need more workers who know how to make trucks, guns, ..more machine-tools, more room space, and as more room space was mostly not available, new plants had to be built,which demanded time .
Besides,your argument is not valide as most surface ships were built before the war,when there was no need for more trucks, etc .
And, to use more trucks for Barbarossa , more decent roads were needed in the east .
There was no need for more trucks and guns,and it was not possible .
The mechanisation of the field artillery would not help Germany in Barbarossa : on July 3 1941,Halder said : the war is won,but not yet over . And this was without mechanised field artillery. Halder was wrong, but not because the field artillery was not mechanised .

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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#710

Post by Stugbit » 13 Feb 2019, 17:29

How many guns can you build with a battleship ? not one ,because less warships do not mean more guns, trucks,etc : for more guns, trucks, the plants who make them ,need more workers who know how to make trucks, guns, ..more machine-tools, more room space, and as more room space was mostly not available, new plants had to be built,which demanded time .
Weren`t battleships made of metal? Perhaps they were made of grey painted wood, isn`t it? That`s why so many of them sunk during the war.

Building capital ships takes time, people, a lot of resources, special and specific machinery. And they were quite expansive.
Germany made many of those things and they worth nothing, had no combat return for all their investment.
Besides,your argument is not valide as most surface ships were built before the war,when there was no need for more trucks, etc .
Germany since the beginning, before WWI, was ambitioning becoming an empire, and with the Nazis they had an even more warmonger ideology. Hitler was always envisioning a war with Soviet Russia, it was written in his own book. The probability of a big war happening with the political context of the 30s was very high. Why getting ready for the worse could not be thought at the time? Even if they did not built trucks, they could had build tanks, aircraft, more relevant stuff.

Building a navy that was a mistake. They couldn`t compete with their adversaries in terms of surface ships after the Scapa Flow incident. And the weapons and tactics were changing, battleships would lose space for aircraft-carriers, that was already envisioned before the war started.

Boby
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#711

Post by Boby » 13 Feb 2019, 17:45

Yes, what was the raw material sum of the KM surface fleet? And how many the overall production? Leaving aside those used for the civilian sector + exports, how much remained every year?

Was the pre-war industry capable of absorbing it?

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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#712

Post by Stugbit » 13 Feb 2019, 18:07

Boby wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 17:45
Yes, what was the raw material sum of the KM surface fleet? And how many the overall production? Leaving aside those used for the civilian sector + exports, how much remained every year?

Was the pre-war industry capable of absorbing it?
Boby, how I`m supposed to know? I`m on the other side of the Atlantic, I don`t have access to the original archives. But you`re in Spain, for 10 Euros you can pick up a train and in three hours you`ll be in Germany looking for this information for us.

I`m basing myself on the name “capital ship”. With this kind of name the thing has to worth something, don`t you think? Otherwise they would call it “proletariat ship” or something like that.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#713

Post by Paul Lakowski » 13 Feb 2019, 19:18

Boby wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 17:45
Yes, what was the raw material sum of the KM surface fleet? And how many the overall production? Leaving aside those used for the civilian sector + exports, how much remained every year?

Was the pre-war industry capable of absorbing it?
USSBS reports 50,000 tons per month allocated to planned naval construction for 1945 plus anther 12,000tons for merchant ship construction.

My idea of adapting thousands of "Zugkraftwagen" into earlier versions of the "Waffentragger" would require a considerable diversion of armored steel. The ATLANTIC WALL consumed about the same amount of armor as WEST WALL [100,000 tons] and equally planned to waste this on machine gun loopholes etc. Studying the WESTWALL it appears the amount of nickel/chrome invested was around 2500 tons , when basic RHA would require none of these priceless assets. Which means both wall projects could be completed without the chrome/nickel investment.

The figures for wartime big naval guns show additional 550 tons nickel , while naval armor invested during the mid to late war was another 650 tons. These 1200 tons combined with ATLANTIC WALL investment could allow the fabrication of the hot sections for about 30,000 x JUMO-004A jet engine from 1942-1945.

That is a significant strategic asset , wasted.

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#714

Post by ljadw » 13 Feb 2019, 20:40

Henschel made trucks, tanks, diesel engines, etc during the war.How many more trucks would Henschel have built if the Gneisenau was not built ?
And what should Germany have done with 30000 jet engine , as there were never 30000 jets ? And if there were that many jets, there would not be fuel for them , and if there was fuel for them, there would not be 30000 additional pilots .
The result would be no Atlantik Wall and idle jets .

ljadw
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#715

Post by ljadw » 13 Feb 2019, 21:17

Stugbit wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 18:07
Boby wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 17:45
Yes, what was the raw material sum of the KM surface fleet? And how many the overall production? Leaving aside those used for the civilian sector + exports, how much remained every year?

Was the pre-war industry capable of absorbing it?
Boby, how I`m supposed to know? I`m on the other side of the Atlantic, I don`t have access to the original archives. But you`re in Spain, for 10 Euros you can pick up a train and in three hours you`ll be in Germany looking for this information for us.

I`m basing myself on the name “capital ship”. With this kind of name the thing has to worth something, don`t you think? Otherwise they would call it “proletariat ship” or something like that.
10 Euros ? 3 hours ? :P It is 135 euro and 27 hours .

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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#716

Post by Stugbit » 13 Feb 2019, 22:41

ljadw wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 21:17
Stugbit wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 18:07
Boby wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 17:45
Yes, what was the raw material sum of the KM surface fleet? And how many the overall production? Leaving aside those used for the civilian sector + exports, how much remained every year?

Was the pre-war industry capable of absorbing it?
Boby, how I`m supposed to know? I`m on the other side of the Atlantic, I don`t have access to the original archives. But you`re in Spain, for 10 Euros you can pick up a train and in three hours you`ll be in Germany looking for this information for us.

I`m basing myself on the name “capital ship”. With this kind of name the thing has to worth something, don`t you think? Otherwise they would call it “proletariat ship” or something like that.
10 Euros ? 3 hours ? :P It is 135 euro and 27 hours .
I was joking about the three hours, but 135 Euros, really? For a train travel? At least bullet train? This is like 600 Reais here.

Anyway, I still admire the train network you Europeans have. A crazy fellow, Juscelino Kubitschek, dismantled our train network in the 50s. Now we have only busses, trucks and airplanes here. This guy also spent a lot of money creating the worthless city of Brasília.

Building Brasília as the capital is just as worthless as building Bismarck and Tirpitz as capital ships.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#717

Post by Paul Lakowski » 13 Feb 2019, 23:01

ljadw wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 20:40
Henschel made trucks, tanks, diesel engines, etc during the war.How many more trucks would Henschel have built if the Gneisenau was not built ?
And what should Germany have done with 30000 jet engine , as there were never 30000 jets ? And if there were that many jets, there would not be fuel for them , and if there was fuel for them, there would not be 30000 additional pilots .
The result would be no Atlantik Wall and idle jets .


30,000 JET engines would start in mid war with maybe 2000 2500 engines per year. Two per Me-262 with 2 hours warm-up and sortie, that's 4 engine hours per sortie . The engine boasted life of 88 flying hours ,so to a first approximation that's 44,000 to 55,000 sortie per year or 120-150 sortie per day...barely enough to fill a determined training programme for 1-2 years. After that its ~12-13,000 engines per year or 250,000-300,000 sortie per year or 700-800 sortie per day. Luftwaffe West was flying 250-300 sortie per day to desperately throttle the allied bomber stream.

Imagine if those LW sortie were Me-262? That could mean every bomber stream could lose 30-40 bombers per or 210 -300 per week.

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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#718

Post by Stugbit » 13 Feb 2019, 23:12

Paul Lakowski wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 23:01
ljadw wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 20:40
Henschel made trucks, tanks, diesel engines, etc during the war.How many more trucks would Henschel have built if the Gneisenau was not built ?
And what should Germany have done with 30000 jet engine , as there were never 30000 jets ? And if there were that many jets, there would not be fuel for them , and if there was fuel for them, there would not be 30000 additional pilots .
The result would be no Atlantik Wall and idle jets .


30,000 JET engines would start in mid war with maybe 2000 2500 engines per year. Two per Me-262 with 2 hours warm-up and sortie, that's 4 engine hours per sortie . The engine boasted life of 88 flying hours ,so to a first approximation that's 44,000 to 55,000 sortie per year or 120-150 sortie per day...barely enough to fill a determined training programme for 1-2 years. After that its ~12-13,000 engines per year or 250,000-300,000 sortie per year or 700-800 sortie per day. Luftwaffe West was flying 250-300 sortie per day to desperately throttle the allied bomber stream.

Imagine if those LW sortie were Me-262? That could mean every bomber stream could lose 30-40 bombers per or 210 -300 per week.
They would have had fuel for those jets because jet engines uses querosene instead of gasoline or diesel, isn`t it? During the very late war the Germans could count only with the 262, since there was no fuel for the regular piston aircrafts.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#719

Post by Paul Lakowski » 14 Feb 2019, 01:06

Stugbit wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 23:12
Paul Lakowski wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 23:01
ljadw wrote:
13 Feb 2019, 20:40
Henschel made trucks, tanks, diesel engines, etc during the war.How many more trucks would Henschel have built if the Gneisenau was not built ?
And what should Germany have done with 30000 jet engine , as there were never 30000 jets ? And if there were that many jets, there would not be fuel for them , and if there was fuel for them, there would not be 30000 additional pilots .
The result would be no Atlantik Wall and idle jets .


30,000 JET engines would start in mid war with maybe 2000 2500 engines per year. Two per Me-262 with 2 hours warm-up and sortie, that's 4 engine hours per sortie . The engine boasted life of 88 flying hours ,so to a first approximation that's 44,000 to 55,000 sortie per year or 120-150 sortie per day...barely enough to fill a determined training programme for 1-2 years. After that its ~12-13,000 engines per year or 250,000-300,000 sortie per year or 700-800 sortie per day. Luftwaffe West was flying 250-300 sortie per day to desperately throttle the allied bomber stream.

Imagine if those LW sortie were Me-262? That could mean every bomber stream could lose 30-40 bombers per or 210 -300 per week.
They would have had fuel for those jets because jet engines uses querosene instead of gasoline or diesel, isn`t it? During the very late war the Germans could count only with the 262, since there was no fuel for the regular piston aircrafts.

Diesel was needed for U-Boat war , but in the last year of fighting this demand diminished. That and straight gasoline was available for use in the Argus AS-014 pulse jets which would be adequate for fast low level ground attack, but much worse at medium altitude and higher. That and it had the vibration problem. Late war research revealed that pairing the pulse jets canceled out the vibration problems, while an augmenter , would allow very good performance up to 12.5km [KAY; GERMAN JET ENGINE AND GAS DEVELOPMENT pp 244-253].

Plans were drawn up in the Me-262 program for integrating the pulse jets, including the improved Argus AS-044, but there is no mention of "augmenter" OR pairing pulse jet engines.

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Stugbit
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Re: Barbarossa Planning

#720

Post by Stugbit » 14 Feb 2019, 02:31

Here, Paul.

Wikipedia states that the ME 262 could use a coal based synthetic fuel, J-2. But it also could run on diesel oil and aircraft gasoline.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_004

I wrote "querosene" like it is written in Portuguese, I`m sorry. It`s Kerosene I was talking about. This: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene

But it is derived from petroleum, I thought it came from coal. So, this synthetic standard fuel ME 262 made use was not kerosene, it was something else derived from coal. There were plenty of resources in Germany for jet fuel.

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