What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#151

Post by Richard Anderson » 02 Jul 2019, 21:18

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:05
For pure curiosity's sake, what is your argument against my contention that an additional 20 mechanized divisions - if used to encircle Northwest and Southwest fronts during the Border Battles - would have won Germany the war?
My argument against your contention is simple; your notion that the Germans could have created an "additional 20 mechanized divisions" is pie in the sky and you have provided zero evidence other than claiming that various decision-makers would "think harder" as to how it could be done.
IMO the case for my ATL is easy if the 20 divisions are feasible. And that's all I mean in saying that the Eastern Front - by extension WW2 - was closer run than commonly supposed.
Then trot out some hard arguments and facts as to how such was feasible. Please note as a starting point that Germany began on 1 September with 15 such divisions, increased that to 22 by 1 September 1940, and then to 48 by 1 September 1941. And that despite constant efforts at increasing production, they peaked at just 50 such divisions as of 1 June 1944. Oh, and please note I am excluding the hodgepodge of SS units from that calculation in order to keep it simple.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#152

Post by MarkN » 02 Jul 2019, 21:20

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:05
MarkN wrote:your entire what if is premised upon a History Channel quality understanding of BARBAROSSA: the Germans were close to taking Moscow and winning the war.
Wrong. I've explicitly stated - in this thread and the other - that taking Moscow is insufficient for German victory.
I know. But you have bought into the falsehood that they were close to winning and thus it only needed another 20 mech divs.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:05
There is no "magic bullet" for German victory; they have to win a war of attrition and resources against SU. And they could have.
Correct. No magic bullet. 20 mech divs are not a magic bullet.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:05
RichardAnderson wrote:Yes, but you've come with an argument unsupported by facts.
Let's narrow the grounds of the discussion a little. I appreciate that you disagree with my contention that Germany could/should have launched Barbarossa with 20 more mechanized divisions. I even admit that I have provided insufficient detail to carry my argument that the additional forces were feasible. [At the highest level I continue to believe so but will need time to address all your specific objections].

For pure curiosity's sake, what is your argument against my contention that an additional 20 mechanized divisions - if used to encircle Northwest and Southwest fronts during the Border Battles - would have won Germany the war?
You have made no argument how 20 additional mech divs would have achieved success, you've just made claims that they would succeed and thrown out yet more claims about how many losses the Red Army would take in the process.


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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#153

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 02 Jul 2019, 21:29

RichardAnderson wrote:your notion that the Germans could have created an "additional 20 mechanized divisions" is pie in the sky
Yeah I got that part. So you will not answer the question of "what if" the divisions exist.
RichardAnderson wrote:you have provided zero evidence other than claiming that various decision-makers would "think harder" as to how it could be done.
Simply not true. Hallmark of poor debating is to portray your opponent's arguments in the weakest light possible, thereby saving yourself some thought (but also depriving one of thought). I've pointed to (1) prioritizing Heer during the 1939 financial bottleneck, (2) investing fewer resources in LW and KM, and (3) mobilizing European labor resources earlier in the war (e.g. appointing Sauckel or similar minister earlier). It costs nothing to say "you have no argument re X" and yet imposes on the other the duty to remind of the arguments already adduced. This is the last time I'll repeat myself.
MarkN wrote:You have made no argument how 20 additional mech divs would have achieved success, you've just made claims that they would succeed and thrown out yet more claims about how many losses the Red Army would take in the process.
You'll be forgiven if you haven't read every post in this thread by now. But you're wrong.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#154

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 02 Jul 2019, 22:03

On the issue of the feasibility of the extra equipment, here's a quick excel calculation I started a while back:

Image

The figures aren't exact; I haven't differentiated the infantry/artillery weapons between Pz and Mot. divisions for example (this actually overstates the requirements for the 10 panzer divisions). And I'm sure there are some items missing (AA guns come to mind immediately but I'm not going back over it again, too much other work today).

But let's say I'm off by a factor of 5 and the cost of equipping these divisions is 2.5bil RM. That's still a small percentage of German war expenditures pre-Barbarossa.

The fact is that equipping a land army was, relatively speaking, cheap in 1941. For that reason you can have a poor country like Russia outgunning a rich country like Germany, which spent much more on air and naval warfare.

The biggest obstacle IMO isn't producing the extra weapons had Germany decided to enlarge its army as envisioned in the ATL. Rather it's mobilizing the extra ~400k men. Germany did so (and more) later in the war by ramping up its use of foreign labor - both "free" and forced. Its efforts in this domain were not systematic until later in the war with, inter alia, the appointment of Sauckel as plenipoteniary for labor. More could have been done earlier.
Last edited by TheMarcksPlan on 02 Jul 2019, 22:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#155

Post by MarkN » 02 Jul 2019, 22:04

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:29
So you will not answer the question of "what if" the divisions exist.
Why should anyone do so?

I appreciate that you feel you have created a credible "magic bullet" to give Germany victory. However, to me, your what if 20 additional mech divs existed is no more credibility than asking what if Germany had a fleet of battlestar galactica.

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#156

Post by Richard Anderson » 02 Jul 2019, 23:50

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:29
Yeah I got that part. So you will not answer the question of "what if" the divisions exist.
As Mark notes, why should I? Its your fantasy. However, I will note one issue you have dodged...where the manpower comes from. Yes, I know, "the German High Command will think hard about it and divert manpower from the KM and LW". That is a dodge in and of itself, because it ignores the second and third order effects of de-prioritizing the other services. What does Dicke Hermann do for example? Remember, through the Hermann Goering Werke he had control over a major slice of the war industry and its financing. Nor was the buildup of the KM in the 1930s about winning a future war, it was about restoring German prestige and gaining concessions at the London Naval Conference. Remember too, "Plan Z" had little effect on the wartime mobilization.

So, anyway, okay, 20 more mechanized divisions. So roughly half a million men. Where do they come from? Where does the equipment come from?

And what happens when, as is likely, 20 infantry divisions are converted to mechanized? Who supplies the additional foot sloggers who did the majority of the actual fighting to eliminate the various kessels? What happens when those additional spearheads deep in the Soviet rear just become islands in the sea of fleeing troops when the poor bloody infantry loose control of the "fixing and fighting" part of the kesselschlacht? Again, you need to imagine the second and third order effects possibly stemming from your changes.
Simply not true. Hallmark of poor debating is to portray your opponent's arguments in the weakest light possible, thereby saving yourself some thought (but also depriving one of thought). I've pointed to (1) prioritizing Heer during the 1939 financial bottleneck, (2) investing fewer resources in LW and KM, and (3) mobilizing European labor resources earlier in the war (e.g. appointing Sauckel or similar minister earlier). It costs nothing to say "you have no argument re X" and yet imposes on the other the duty to remind of the arguments already adduced. This is the last time I'll repeat myself.
Nope, sorry, I quote your response to my initial questions "I will do a larger post on the economic/personnel background to this ATL". Where is it? This is certainly not it.

1. The "financial bottleneck" of 1939-1940 was systemic and was not subject to simple tweaking in order to make it work better. Germany had over-mobilized after the Nazi ascent to power and the 1939 "bottleneck" was simply a repetition of the 1937-1938 one.
2. The Luftwaffe and the associated growth of the air industry in Germany was a major aspect of the German economic recovery in the 1930s. Stifling the economic growth of the aircraft industry does little to improve things. It also becomes questionable what the effect on the opening stages of the war would be? A reduced Luftwaffe has wide-ranging effects on how the battles and campaigns get prosecuted, especially during the French Campaign. Nor is it possible for the Germans to know in advance what worked in prewar Luftwaffe doctrine, so it would be impossible for them to prioritize the best working bits. Much the same argument applies to the KM.
3. How do you mobilize "European labor resources earlier in the war" before those territories are conquered? Sauckel was appointed 21 March 1942, but by then Germany was already "employing" 1.2 million PW (mostly French) and 1.3 million civilians (mostly Poles) as 8.4% of the labor force. It took Sauckel from his appointment to June 1943 to rustle up 2.8 million more, the vast majority Ostarbeiter, and 2 million more by February 1944.

Other hallmarks of poor debating are failure to bring facts into the argument, making sweeping and unsupported statements, and responding to counter-arguments with "let me get back to you on that". And by making ad hominum arguments like declaring your opposites debating technique is poor, rather than addressing the substance of his argument. :lol:
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#157

Post by Paul Lakowski » 03 Jul 2019, 00:17

If you take all the HEER motor vehicles and condensed them into "motorised division" plus the associated motorized Korps/armies/army groups , you would end up with a smaller number of divisions overall; but much more mobile army's utilizing the exact same amount of vehicles/fuel as was historically used.

By this same token if all the artillery and weapons were made available to this much smaller force - its logistics situation would be "unlimited" , as would its supply of personnel to rotate & keep the front renewed and fresh. On balance troop training would improve and overall a much more sustainably war effort would result.

The Americanization of the Wehrmacht.

BTW given the vehicle inventory, Wehrmacht could mobilise > 90 motorized divisions by mid 1941.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#158

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 03 Jul 2019, 03:19

RichardAnderson wrote:Nope, sorry, I quote your response to my initial questions "I will do a larger post on the economic/personnel background to this ATL". Where is it? This is certainly not it.
It's not it. I haven't had time to do it, along with the associated research, yet.
You most certainly, however, have not shown that it is flatly infeasible for Germany to have spent ~1bil RM more on its army prior to Barbarossa.
You rightly point out that much detail should be filled in regarding a full ATL path to 20 more divisions, but that doesn't mean it's infeasible.
And yes, I recognize that the general burden is on the ATL author to show the path. If, however, one interjects and claims facial implausibility before the ATL is finished, then shifts the burden to you to show how it's so (analogous to summary judgment or motion to dismiss in a civil suit).
You should be showing how it's crazy/implausible/ridiculous that Germany - a country with ~100bil RM GDP in relevant periods - could not have repurposed `~1bil RM more to the army.
RichardAnderson wrote:The Luftwaffe and the associated growth of the air industry in Germany was a major aspect of the German economic recovery in the 1930s.
First, fiscal stimulus operates identically whether the government is ordering planes, guns, or butter.
Second, the ATL starts in 38/39 when the economy is already at full employment so there's no feasible impact on recovery anyway.
RichardAnderson wrote:Nor is it possible for the Germans to know in advance what worked in prewar Luftwaffe doctrine, so it would be impossible for them to prioritize the best working bits. Much the same argument applies to the KM.
Irrelevant to the ATL setup. Germany should have switched priority to strategic defensive in the air and at sea not because of which weapons were thought to have been effective but because any sane reading of the strategic situation demanded that posture. Germany wasn't going to subdue the UK, let alone UK+US, unless and until it had at least removed its continental land threats (even then Germany isn't really going to beat the Anglosphere but that's beyond the ATL). Simply put Germany has to beat France and Russia before taking the fight to Britain. As true in 1939 as in 1914.
RichardAnderson wrote:3. How do you mobilize "European labor resources earlier in the war" before those territories are conquered? Sauckel was appointed 21 March 1942, but by then Germany was already "employing" 1.2 million PW (mostly French) and 1.3 million civilians (mostly Poles) as 8.4% of the labor force. It took Sauckel from his appointment to June 1943 to rustle up 2.8 million more, the vast majority Ostarbeiter, and 2 million more by February 1944.
(1) Employment of Poles continued to increase during later periods of the war.
(2) Germany did not demand/instigate the "Service through work" program with Vichy France until 1942.
(3) Employment of allied/neutral/occupied nationals like Italians, Hungarians, Dutch, Belgians, Romanians increased in later years of the war even as it became clear that Germany was losing and thereby had less leverage to demand expatriate workers.

All three of these issues could have been ramped up earlier, as they were later when Germany understood its strategic crisis.
To replace ~400k additional draftees would require ~600k unskilled foreign laborers.
To increase German armaments output by the ~1% of GDP I envision would require something on the order of 1-2% of Germany's ~20mil workforce.

Call the total labor needed the equivalent of ~1mil unskilled workers by 1941. Much of that equivalent could have come from cuts to domestic consumption during 39-41 that Germany undertook later in the war, with attendant shifts in domestic workforce towards armaments. The Wehrmacht budget was 25% of GDP in 1939 and 75% in 1944. Pace Tooze, there was meaningful slack in the German early-war economy even if not as much as, for example, the USSB authors thought.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#159

Post by Paul Lakowski » 03 Jul 2019, 03:25

ljadw wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 16:20
These figures do not prove the superiority of German tanks, German tank crews, German tank tactics,because most German tank losses were not caused by Soviet tanks, Soviet tank losses were mostly not caused by German tanks.
There is also no proof that the PzII was useless.The Ostheer started in June 1941 with 746 PzII ,lost in 1941 398 of them and received in 1941 23 PzII replacements .
The initial number of PzI is not known, but the losses were 341 and replacements were 12 .
Jentz figures report 877 Panzer II in June-1 1941 and 756 were with the divisions by late Aug/early Sept 1941 . Reportedly 171 Panzer-1 were also with the divisions June 1941,while in Aug/Sept , 326 were reported with divisions. Clearly the panzer 1 losses also include tanks turned over for conversion.


The Panzer-I & II were clearly obsolete in France 1940 , so long term replacement was due. More importantly the lack of needed tank production numbers demanded a complete revision of industrial building priorities. Ignoring the resource of 2000 Pz-I & II already built tanks was a terrible waste given the problem at hand. Building their way out of such a problem would take years , but rapid mass conversion, could help to narrow the gap quick enough to make real difference.

A "mad scramble to convert all the 1000 Pz-I AND >900 Pz-II into Panzerjäger-I & Panzerjäger-II" ; was a doable solution to an immediate problem, lack of tanks!

With a 41/42 army reinforced with ~ 900 Panzerjäger-I and 500 Panzerjäger-II , the numerous winter Russian tank supported attacks could have been thwarted , limiting the effectiveness of the Russian counter attacks of winter of 1941/42.

Viewed as a SYSTEM ; at the start of Barbarossa the RED ARMY out numbered the Nazi by 5:1 strategically , but by Dec-1941 the Nazi out numbered the RED ARMY 1.5 :1 in tanks.

29,125 RED ARMY TANKS VS 5690 NAZI TANKS at start REDUCED TO 1927 RED VS 3000 NAZI by Dec 1941.

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#160

Post by Hanny » 03 Jul 2019, 08:56

In 9 years 35 to 44 Opel produced:
Blitz 3ton 3.5 liter Type 3.5-36 [down frame or low frame]and 47=5,605
Blitz 3ton +3 to"S" Type 3.6-36=82,356
Blitz 3ton Allrad[all wheel drive] Type 6.6-67=24,981

Blitz 1ton 6-cyclinder Type 2.0-12 = 21,437
Blitz 1ton 4-cyclinder Type 5200 = 3,500
Blitz 1.5 ton Type 2.5-32=16,410
Blitz 2ton/2.5ton 3.5liter Type 3.5-34/83=21,196

Total of 19500 per year. 11k price for the 3 ton, 7k for the 2 ton, and 5k for the 1.5 ton, average is 7k.

Your 20 extra MOT require Opel to produce an extra 56000 in 38/40 so it had to double production, and you want the heavy 3 tonn, which was not adopted by the Heer for use until the scheel program, before then the Heer bought the commercial lighter trucks, so you want to double production and magicly know its the heavy off road 3 ton your Army is going to decide it wants to purchase, when it did, Opel ramped up production from 10k to 13k to meet demand, ie all it could achieve was a 30% increase, not the 100% you want.

Your numbers for other items are also suspect, i pulled Dunnigans Organisation of German mot Division numbers up to compare and it came to over 200k more than you arrived at for the same items, due to your different number of items, 3 tonn trucks being only 40% of the truck TOE, 48 10.5cm not 24, 1500 MGs to your 100 for instance.

So you just doubled the logistical burden of the formations that consume the most POL, without any thought of what that may mean.
Fuel consumption Ostheer planned for 9000 tons a day, but required 12000, now if the extra 20 MOT existed, with your 34k extra 3 tonners, the planned consumption jumps by 1500 tons a day for the truck fuel alone.

Where is this 16% or extra fuel burden coming from?, and how does it reach the end user? on what roads that are already heavily occupied by existing road traffic do they use?.


Your entire posting concept is wishfull thinking at best. :oops:
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 21:05
There is no "magic bullet" for German victory; they have to win a war of attrition and resources against SU. And they could have.
But all the Nazis agreed they could not win such a war, and sought to win before attrition effects brought about defeat. The entire military concept of blitzkrieg, was to win before attrition had its effect.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#161

Post by ljadw » 03 Jul 2019, 08:58

Answer to post 159


1 The Pz1 and 2 were not obsolete in 1940
2 There was no need to convert them in Panzerjäger 1 and 2 for Barbarossa .
3 The argument that they could have thwarted the Russian winter offensive of 1941/1942 is hindsight
4 The Russian winter offensive failed ,without the existence of the Panzerjäger.
5 The Panzerjäger 1 and 2 were built in 1942, but they could not prevent Stalingrad ,this why could they have thwarted the Soviets in 41/42 ?
5 29,150 Soviet tanks against 5690 ''Nazi '' tanks (sic ) is wrong it was some 3500 German tanks against much less than 22000 ( not 29000 ) Soviet tanks :
2000 German tanks and thousands of Soviet tanks were not committed in Barbarossa .The tanks of the Far East remained in the Far East .
Germany had not 3000 tanks in the East in december 1941
It had lost net (replacements subtracted )
Pz1 329
Pz 2 375
Pz3 360
Pz3 (t) 613
Pz4 240
Total 1917 of the some 3500 it had started with .The 2 additional PzD are not included .
The number of German tanks outside the east and the number of Soviet tanks east of the front are irrelevant and can not be included .

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#162

Post by Hanny » 03 Jul 2019, 11:35

Paul Lakowski wrote:
03 Jul 2019, 03:25
ljadw wrote:
02 Jul 2019, 16:20
These figures do not prove the superiority of German tanks, German tank crews, German tank tactics,because most German tank losses were not caused by Soviet tanks, Soviet tank losses were mostly not caused by German tanks.
There is also no proof that the PzII was useless.The Ostheer started in June 1941 with 746 PzII ,lost in 1941 398 of them and received in 1941 23 PzII replacements .
The initial number of PzI is not known, but the losses were 341 and replacements were 12 .
Jentz figures report 877 Panzer II in June-1 1941 and 756 were with the divisions by late Aug/early Sept 1941 . Reportedly 171 Panzer-1 were also with the divisions June 1941,while in Aug/Sept , 326 were reported with divisions. Clearly the panzer 1 losses also include tanks turned over for conversion.


The Panzer-I & II were clearly obsolete in France 1940 , so long term replacement was due. More importantly the lack of needed tank production numbers demanded a complete revision of industrial building priorities. Ignoring the resource of 2000 Pz-I & II already built tanks was a terrible waste given the problem at hand. Building their way out of such a problem would take years , but rapid mass conversion, could help to narrow the gap quick enough to make real difference.

A "mad scramble to convert all the 1000 Pz-I AND >900 Pz-II into Panzerjäger-I & Panzerjäger-II" ; was a doable solution to an immediate problem, lack of tanks!

With a 41/42 army reinforced with ~ 900 Panzerjäger-I and 500 Panzerjäger-II , the numerous winter Russian tank supported attacks could have been thwarted , limiting the effectiveness of the Russian counter attacks of winter of 1941/42.

Viewed as a SYSTEM ; at the start of Barbarossa the RED ARMY out numbered the Nazi by 5:1 strategically , but by Dec-1941 the Nazi out numbered the RED ARMY 1.5 :1 in tanks.

29,125 RED ARMY TANKS VS 5690 NAZI TANKS at start REDUCED TO 1927 RED VS 3000 NAZI by Dec 1941.
Oh dear lord, what a crock. What is clear to you is you have no idea of how to read the data, no it does not include turned over for conversion. You also forgot to add in SU production for the year. :( 22/6/41: SU 22.6k V German 3648, Jan of 42, SU 7.7k German 1547, went from 6:1 odds to 5:1.

Do you have to use bold text to draw attention to your inability to count?, its not required as its painfully clear without it


Archive files: Federal German Archive, Military Archive
Production numbers of the Heer June 1941 to Jan. 1942, BA-MA, RH 8/v.1090, 1091.

Rolf-Dieter Müller, Das Scheitern der wirtschaftlichen "Blitzkriegstrategie" [The failed economic Blitzkrieg strategy], in: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, pp. 936-1078, see pp. 977.

In stock: 3648 (June 22, 1941)
total losses: 3254
surviving: 394
newly supplied: 1153
in stock: 1547 (end of Jan. 1942)

Production / allocation rates / total losses for Pz I
June 1941: 0 / 0 / 34
July 1941: 0 / 0 / 146
Aug. 1941: 0 / 0 / 171
Sept. 1941: 0 / 0/ 7
Oct. 1941: 0 / 0 / 18
Nov. 1941: 0 / 12 / 33
Dec. 1941: 0 / 0/ 19
Jan. 1942: 0 / 22 / 30
Total: 0 / 42 / 450

Production / allocation rates / total losses for Pz II & II F
June 1941: 15 / 0 / 11
July 1941: 20 (pl) / 0 / 112
Aug. 1941: 36 / 1 / 104
Sept. 1941: 37 / 5 / 32
Oct. 1941: 48 / 1 / 65
Nov. 1941: 45 / 16 / 30
Dec. 1941: 50 (pl) / 15 / 70
Jan. 1942: 38 / 31 / 68
Total: 289 / 69 / 492


Production / allocation rates / total losses for Pz III
June 1941: 133 / 0 /21
July 1941: 115 (pl)/ 45 / 155
Aug. 1941: 179 / 0 /74
Sept. 1941: 178 / 6 / 104
Oct. 1941: 179 / 187 / 77
Nov. 1941: 206 / 39 / 116
Dec. 1941: 188 (pl) / 0 / 113
Jan. 1942: 159 / 55 / 160
Total: 1337 /332 / 820

Production / allocation rates / total losses for Pz 38 (t)
June 1941: 65 / 0 / 33
July 1941: 65 (pl)/ 27 / 182
Aug. 1941: 64 / 8 / 183
Sept. 1941: 76 / 1 / 62
Oct. 1941: 53 / 72 / 85
Nov. 1941: 50 / 0 / 149
Dec. 1941: 50 (pl) / 0 / 102
Jan. 1942: 59 / 0 / 27
Total: 482 / 108 / 823

Production / allocation rates / total losses for Pz IV
June 1941: 38 / 0 / 15
July 1941: 41 (pl)/ 15 / 109
Aug. 1941: 44 / 0 / 68
Sept. 1941: 46 / 2 / 23
Oct. 1941: 51 / 56 / 55
Nov. 1941: 52 / 7 / 38
Dec. 1941: 56 (pl) / 0 / 40
Jan. 1942: 59 / 22 / 48
Total: 387 /102 / 396

Production / allocation rates / total losses for assault guns
June 1941: 56 / 0 / 3
July 1941: 47 (pl) / 4 / 11
Aug. 1941: 50 / 0 / 26
Sept. 1941: 38 / 0 / 12
Oct. 1941: 71 / 7 / 23
Nov. 1941: 46 / 0 / 10
Dec. 1941: 40 (pl) / 1 / 19
Jan. 1942: 45 / 3 / 53
Total: 393 / 15 / 157

Production / allocation rates / total losses for command tanks
June 1941: 5 / 0 / 1
July 1941: 15 (pl) / 0 / 17
Aug. 1941: 0 / 2 / 12
Sept. 1941: 2 / 0 / 17
Oct. 1941: 0 / 0 / 14
Nov. 1941: 0 / 5 / 6
Dec. 1941: 15 (pl) / 0 / 12
Jan. 1942: 14 / 18 / 37
Total: 51 / 25 / 116

SU side.http://i1284.photobucket.com/albums/a56 ... 35e9d5.png

Krivishev Table 96 Tanks and SPG
22/6/41 On hand 22.6k recieved from factory, 5.6k, total stock, 28.2k, losses 22.5k.

1/1/42 On hand 7.7k.

Given your posting history as weheraboo troll, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNYTx8Ay5rk who deliberately misuses numbers all the time, im going to place you on ignore.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#163

Post by Richard Anderson » 03 Jul 2019, 16:38

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
03 Jul 2019, 03:19
It's not it. I haven't had time to do it, along with the associated research, yet.
Um, that has been evidenced all along. :D
You most certainly, however, have not shown that it is flatly infeasible for Germany to have spent ~1bil RM more on its army prior to Barbarossa.
Why do I need to? In German FY 36-37 the ratio of defense to civilian spending was 81% and decreased the next FY to 68%...a similar bottleneck as that after the FY 38-39 ratio increased again to 80%...this in peacetime. Have you not wondered why the critical Nibelungerwerk, funded in FY 39-40, took so long to be fully operational?
You rightly point out that much detail should be filled in regarding a full ATL path to 20 more divisions, but that doesn't mean it's infeasible.
You have claimed it is feasible. I have claimed that is unlikely and have given reasons why. Do you see a difference?
And yes, I recognize that the general burden is on the ATL author to show the path. If, however, one interjects and claims facial implausibility before the ATL is finished, then shifts the burden to you to show how it's so (analogous to summary judgment or motion to dismiss in a civil suit).
You should be showing how it's crazy/implausible/ridiculous that Germany - a country with ~100bil RM GDP in relevant periods - could not have repurposed `~1bil RM more to the army.
Well good you then, show us the path. What is "facial implausibility" though? And its more than shifting monies BTW, it is shifting people, during peacetime, shifting facilities and machine tools, re-purposing industrial plant, and placating flag officers and service, as well as powerful political and monetary interests.
First, fiscal stimulus operates identically whether the government is ordering planes, guns, or butter.
Sure, but the orders for planes, tanks, guns, and ammunition, as well as the means of producing them and the factory manpower were already in place by the start time of your ATL...note again what the projects were that got cancelled at the outbreak of war?
Second, the ATL starts in 38/39 when the economy is already at full employment so there's no feasible impact on recovery anyway.
Indeed it was and those people were quite happy working on their existing contracts thank you. One of the difficulties that the Germans...and British and Americans found was that getting people to shift from one highly lucrative, government funded job and pick up sticks to a new job was very difficult and could only be incentivized by large increases in wages. But your ATL starts in FY 38-39, when 80% of government allocations were already in war industry...and which led to the financial bottleneck of FY 39-40. Does your abrupt - and inexplicable I must say - decision to cancel major contracts and reallocate the monies elsewhere result in hundreds of thousands of more motor vehicles and thousands of more tanks by winter 40/spring 41?
Irrelevant to the ATL setup. Germany should have switched priority to strategic defensive in the air and at sea not because of which weapons were thought to have been effective but because any sane reading of the strategic situation demanded that posture. Germany wasn't going to subdue the UK, let alone UK+US, unless and until it had at least removed its continental land threats (even then Germany isn't really going to beat the Anglosphere but that's beyond the ATL). Simply put Germany has to beat France and Russia before taking the fight to Britain. As true in 1939 as in 1914.
But the "sane reading of the strategic situation" interwar was that the Luftwaffe was a war winner and the Ubootewaffe nearly brought Britain to its knees in the Great War...oh, and that commissioning major surface vessels demonstrated Germany had returned as a co-equal to France and Britain.
(1) Employment of Poles continued to increase during later periods of the war.
(2) Germany did not demand/instigate the "Service through work" program with Vichy France until 1942.
(3) Employment of allied/neutral/occupied nationals like Italians, Hungarians, Dutch, Belgians, Romanians increased in later years of the war even as it became clear that Germany was losing and thereby had less leverage to demand expatriate workers.
1) "Employment" of Poles? Seriously? The Germans considered the Poles adequate to supplement agricultural labor as forced labor under Germanic supervision, freeing up good Germans to go to Poland and supervise more Poles working at forced labor in Polish farms. Polish forced industrial labor and other Ostarbeiter in industry came later as the Reich went into extremis.
2) 1.3 million French PW were put to work from the get go, the Service du travail obligatoire was instituted 22 June 1942 to relieve the prisoners of war from work.
3) Sigh...the Germans prewar tried to entice foreign labor with minor results, why do you think that when Germany was at war and "winning" they could exert more "leverage to demand expatriate workers" from those countries? They were German allies, not subjugated countries.
All three of these issues could have been ramped up earlier, as they were later when Germany understood its strategic crisis.
To replace ~400k additional draftees would require ~600k unskilled foreign laborers.
To increase German armaments output by the ~1% of GDP I envision would require something on the order of 1-2% of Germany's ~20mil workforce.
To start, how does Germany "ramp up" a workforce of 1.3 million Poles and 1.2 million prisoners of war...in peacetime? 0 :roll:
Call the total labor needed the equivalent of ~1mil unskilled workers by 1941. Much of that equivalent could have come from cuts to domestic consumption during 39-41 that Germany undertook later in the war, with attendant shifts in domestic workforce towards armaments. The Wehrmacht budget was 25% of GDP in 1939 and 75% in 1944. Pace Tooze, there was meaningful slack in the German early-war economy even if not as much as, for example, the USSB authors thought.
No, call the total labor needed what it was, roughly 7.5 to 8 million skilled and unskilled workers or more. And so now you're going to INCREASE the peacetime military expenditures in the Reich BEYOND what historically helped cause the economic downturns of FY 37-38 and 39-40 and brought the Reich to the brink of fiscal collapse in the winter of 1940? Gee, let me just guess how well that would likely turn out. :roll:
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
Hitler's Last Gamble
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Richard Anderson
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#164

Post by Richard Anderson » 03 Jul 2019, 16:47

Hanny wrote:
03 Jul 2019, 08:56
Your 20 extra MOT require Opel to produce an extra 56000 in 38/40
Um, no, it is worse than that. The scheme is produce 20 additional motorized divisions. At that time each had roughly 2,200 to 2,400 LKW and PKW, so call it 46,000. However, the 140-odd division BARBAROSSA force employed roughly 600,000 vehicles to support 33 motorized divisions and roughly 100 infantry divisions (each with 1,000 PKW and LKW). So by that measure they "only" needed about 176,000. Hey! Problem solved, the Germans obviously only really needed 222,000 motor vehicles and with 600,000 they had way more than they ever wanted. Right? :lol:

No. To support the additional 20 motorized divisions would likely require at least an additional 90,000 motor vehicles to retain the same logistical mess that pertained historically.
Richard C. Anderson Jr.

American Thunder: U.S. Army Tank Design, Development, and Doctrine in World War II
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall
Hitler's Last Gamble
Artillery Hell

MarkN
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#165

Post by MarkN » 03 Jul 2019, 17:07

I wonder how much longer it takes TheMarksPlan to spot the elephant in the room.... ;)

The Paulus war gaming identified offensive burnout somewhere between Smolensk and Moscow. Pretty much what happened when they eventually executed the invasion.

Having 20 additional divisions start the invasion means 170 rather than 150 divisions burnout offensively between Smolensk and Moscow. To carry on the advance, the Germans needed 100-150 fresh divisions as a second wave, brought to the front by rail, to push through the first wave.

The first wave of 150 divisions then gets pulled out of the line completely to reorganise, retrain and refresh - rarther than being left in situ to defend the territory gained. When the second wave reaches burnout, the reorganised and refreshed first wave is sent forward by rail and pushes on as the third wave. And so on until the Russians capitulate.

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