I'll have to tackle the rest later, but for now:
TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑06 Jul 2020 10:24
A lot of food for thought in your post and I'll give it a fuller treatment when I'm off vacation and back with the relevant books.
I disagree with your basic theses but appreciate the intelligent, analytical style of this post - much like my view of O'Brien.
Preliminarily, I have a couple subsidiary factual issues that we can discuss in greater depth but for now I'll just note them:
- You use the OKW war diary for Eastern Front casualties; IMO the Overmans study compellingly revises dead upwards by 35%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_ca ... r_Overmans The war diaries were incomplete - not surprising in the midst of such a war (and far less incomplete than comparable Soviet records).
Overman's study has been found to be flawed:
viewtopic.php?t=226986
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=140220
For this one you'll have to search for Overman's name and you'll find the relevant sections (starts bottom of page 3):
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-c ... tation.pdf
The war diaries were the tally of losses to that point before reporting broke down. I get not trusting it after the system broke down, but until that point in 1945 it was reasonably accurate. Overman's study on the other hand relies on very flawed demographic data and includes casualties that happened after the period in question (end of January 1945).
TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑06 Jul 2020 10:24
[*]As I've mentioned elsewhere, there are problems with O'Brien's estimate of German air/sea production versus land. He goes from USSB statistics but, as Tooze points out, those statistics don't properly account for the Heer's enormous consumption of "civilian goods" to feed/clothe/etc soldiers in the field. That revision would significantly decrease the air/sea war's fraction of German war production - I'll probably get around to quantifying this effect sooner or later.
[/list]
Not really sure what sort of percentage of the economy you think military uniforms cost. Care to post some numbers to illustrate your point about the various 'civilian' categories added to the calculation? O'Brien focuses on weapons, because those mattered quite a bit more than the cost of uniforms. In terms of things like food a lot did come from requisitions in the East even in 1941. Unfortunately I don't have numbers because AFAIK none were really kept of all the scrounging that was done. I think you're willfully missing the point of O'Brien's argument that the war was won or lost due to weapons, so it really only makes sense to factor in military production rather than civilian items.
If you read the paper that Urmel cited, O'Brien puts a much finer point on his argument that should hopefully clarify his position to you.
TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑06 Jul 2020 10:24
I disagree that the
land battles of WW2 were more about machines than men. IMO there's a certain economic reductionism - of which O'Brien's book is the apotheosis - that ignores the human factors of battle. The Red Army, for instance, had nearly as much material per soldier as the German in the latter years of the Eastern Front, but on anything approaching numerical manpower parity the Germans would have prevailed dramatically.
IMO the variations in manpower strength and in combat efficiency outweighed variations in material assets, per soldier, in WW2. That's something about which I need to say more (later), however.
You're certainly welcome to disagree with his thesis, but ultimately it was the tanks, bombers, artillery, ammunition, etc. that decided the issue, not masses of charging infantry, even for the Soviets. It wasn't human wave attacks the Germans feared, it was massed T-34 assaults backed by Il-2s, heavy artillery, and various SU series SPGs.
I'd like to see a source that shows that the Soviet army had as much material per man than the Germans before 1945. I wouldn't be shocked by that necessarily by say March 1945, but prior to January 1945 I very much doubt that given that the Soviets had fewer trucks in raw numbers than Germany did and more men. Again the Eastern Front from late 1942 on was modulated by increasing Wallied intervention in the war, which sucked off German equipment, reserves, and supplies and gave the Soviets lopsided material advantages in certain categories (in raw numbers, not necessarily per capita).
Take for instance the Luftwaffe: in terms of single engine fighters by 1943 75% of them were on fronts other than the Eastern. That was a huge gain for the Soviets, as the Luftwaffe had been a massive part of Wehrmacht success in the East to that point and when it wasn't available bad stuff tended to happen.
Then there is the value add of Lend Lease, which helped improve the quality of Soviet gear from 1943 on, not just in terms of actual Western equipment, but also through raw materials, machine tools, and even semi-finished materials. In 1941 for instance when the Soviets had to rely on mostly their own production and equipment more aircraft were lost to non-combat causes than combat, but by 1943 that had reversed. It wasn't simply material assets, but the quality of the material as well. The T34/76 vs. the T-34/85 was quite a substantial difference in combat efficacy even beyond the quality of materials issue or the cannon size, because of the use of the 3 man turret and experience producing the design so they could correct production flaws, which had plagued 1941-43 models.
The Soviets and Wallies too would disagree with you about the value of material superiority as well, as their entire method of fighting was overwhelming the enemy by having more material massed at the site of battle than he did. See the book "Brute Force" by Ellis.
The human element mattered to some degree, as did organization for combat, but there is a limit to human quality in the face of massed firepower.
TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑06 Jul 2020 10:24
Second. The ultimate objective of war is, as Davie nicely points out in his review, to subject the opponent to your will. That doesn't require incapacitating all or even most enemy soldiers. So long as your side is stronger, you can keep pushing forward until the enemy has lost what he needs to hold. Killing the enemy helps with that process but it's not the end goal. Raising the Hammer and Sickle over the Reichstag is the end goal, which ends the war.
Too bad the Soviets themselves disagree with you:
https://mca-marines.org/gazette/seven-p ... -doctrine/
-Destruction or capture of the opponent’s forces, and the destruction or seizure of the weapons and equipment necessary for them to fight. This may be undertaken directly through engagement or indirectly through maneuver that forces the opponent into an untenable situation. Whichever course is chosen, destruction or capture of the opposing force is the premier consideration in the planning of combat action. All other objectives are considered as secondary and contributory.
-The seizure of terrain held by the enemy. The occupation of terrain for its own sake is not a consideration. Rather, occupation of terrain is predicated upon destruction of the opposing force that holds it and stems directly from the accomplishment of that task. In this respect, the two activities are considered as inseparable coelements of mission accomplishments.
Operation Bagration as a case in point.
Urmel wrote: ↑06 Jul 2020 11:21
The Germans couldn't defeat the Red Army in 1941 or 1942 when there wasn't an air/sea campaign by the Allies and they could muster multi-offensives. So I would disagree with that conclusion, for one.
Article was 2000 actually.
You mean other than the ongoing war against Britain in the Atlantic, on the Channel Front, in the Mediterranean, in the Arctic waters, etc.? If wasn't as if 100% of the Wehrmacht was deployed in the East, in fact less than 50% even in 1941 if you look at overall Wehrmacht strength in 1941 and 1942. Still the USSR was brought to the point of collapse through Case Blue:
https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/603.html
That said though apparently everyone at the time thought the USSR would be vulnerable to being defeated in a single campaign (yes including the Allies), in hindsight it was silly to think that the world's biggest country would be defeated in 1 or 2 major campaigns, so to say that because the USSR wasn't defeated before the US entered in 1941 (i.e. 5 months into the invasion of the USSR) means that the USSR couldn't be defeated or the Allies had no role in the war in 1941-42 is frankly silly.