Okay, then how do you gain operational mobility for the Infanterie-Division? As mobilized the initial Wellen of divisions not specifically designed as bodenständige were mobile by German standards, but they were not of course motorized divisions. Each had roughly 350-390 "cars" (PKW), c. 600 "trucks" (LKW and Zgkw), and 500 motorcycles. A motorized division had many more.TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑08 Nov 2020, 00:39So I don't think more tanks alone would yield Ostsieg. As I've said elsewhere, it's operational mobility that allowed the potential for Kesselschlachten. Mobile infantry divisions might have done just as well as panzer divisions though likely at higher casualty cost.
So then, more motor vehicles can be derived by not converting those elements of the German motor vehicle industry to the production of components for aircraft, tanks, and other things...but then you are cutting production of aircraft, tanks, and other things. Robbing Peter...and et cetera.
Because what you - and apparently Tooze - seem to think was the problems/cutbacks to the Panzer program are not what you think they were. I explained that to some extent in June of last year and hesitate to repeat myself. In short, armaments funding in 1939 was not cut, Panzer production was not "cut back", they 11 July 1938 contracts were not amended, but productive output was constrained due to the problems with the Panzer III design. Meanwhile major investment was dumped into the Nibelungenwerk for Panzer IV production, and coincidentally the pockets of Herman Göring, but again the lack of factory space producing the tanks was the limiting factor rather than monetary expenditures. That the principal factory was not completed or operational until 1941 is a measure of the realities of capital investment in heavy industry in Germany during the war. Another good measure is that when Alkett Berlin got bombed, they fashioned a new final assembly hall in an existing derelict plant nearby and then hauled partially completed hulls from the original plant to it by horse teams in order to complete assembly.Re the 1939 cuts to the panzer program, you've oft opined that it made no difference. Why exactly?
So demobilized soldiers are all skilled in aircraft machining and assembly?It's a good question, one that I don't have a precise timeline for as of yet. Again, young discussion.
I see a few points that would yield at least a doubling of LW strength over Germany in '43 though:
(snip)
These factors alone easily double LW Reich defense strength compared to OTL '43.
Why is the VVS weaker in 1942?
Where do the electronics and the skilled pilots and crews for the "repurposed" bombers as night fighters come from?
Who rebuilds the bombers as night fighters? They were not one and the same you know?
We must have a different definition for "easily".
Um, if you halt/reduce "investment" in the Heer in the winter of 1941/1942, how does it win in 1942? Seems to be a bit of a disconnect there?Meanwhile, LW investment program would exceed OTL's by early '42: unlike OTL, where Germany scrambled to undo '41's premature shift away from Heer over winter 41-42, army investment stops and all machine tool production and factory construction resources go to LW. Perhaps no Tiger I production, for example - until later if ever. Aside from the shift in capital investment resources, those resources are greater. As discussed upthread, OTL '42 began a decline in German investment; ATL '42 is the peak and sees massive investment in LW plant. How much additional plant is online in ATL '43? Not sure, need more info on historical German lag time between LW investment and production flow (of course those historical lag times were almost always amplified by construction labor shortages fixed in ATL).
No, performance difference was negligible, at normal power settings. the problem, for the Germans, was their MW and nitrous-oxide boost added weight to the airframe, was required to match performance of the allied 100+ octane engine performance, and like all WEP systems, lowered engine life and increased maintenance requirements, which the Luftwaffe could not afford.Yes but with MW performance difference was negligible. Sure it cost some engine lifespan but German fighters won't have very long life spans anyway.
No, simply walking the dog to its reductio ab adsurdam.Ah taking out the old Wehraboo hammer again.
You think I was serious? Who shot off your sense of humor?Distance matters. Samsun to the Danube is ~400 miles, Maracaibo-England >12x longer. Convoying costs ~30% shipping capacity, is not necessary on the Black Sea. So Germany expends ~1/20th the shipping capacity per ton of oil moved, versus the Wallies.
Yeah, except they did and could.There's an obvious difference between hitting an industry embedded in the urban fabric of a large targeted area, versus hitting discrete and relatively isolated points such as Bergius plants. RAF didn't and probably couldn't target specific plants in 1943.
You need to really, really come up with something that negates the actual ebb and flow of the 1941/1942 campaign that projects the German pinprick at Rostov another 350 kilometers forward to Maikop that isn't a wall of text handwave.I see Maikop falling in January '42 in a decent Ostsieg ATL, coming online in fall '42. That's ~4mil tons already. Baku falls in mid '42, starts pumping ~6 months later so early '43.
Yes. Do you have thirty years or so of your life to spare?(snip)
Can anyone recommend a good reference for W.Allied aircraft losses by theater and month? I'm accumulating statistics from various sources but don't have a single great source.
One frustrating tendency is for sources to give attrition stats by % only, without telling either absolute losses or sortie numbers from which absolute losses could be inferred.
Seriously. AFHRA and AFHSO are a good start, but unfortunately, you really need numerous visits to Maxwell, NARA, TNA, and BAMA to start to scratch the surface of the subject, Luftwaffe and/or USAAF. Then there is the RAF and the Red AF. One major problem, and a huge hole in your assumptions, is that in among the general mess that the Luftwaffe records were left in at the end of the war, is that insofar as I know there is an even bigger hole in the records of Luftwaffe training. We have excellent data on the strength of the Luftwaffe combat side for instance, but pretty much zero for the training side, so actually making anything close to reasonable assumptions about what they required to boost the strength of the Luftwaffe is based on effectively ZERO data. The best I am aware of that can be offered is the data on USAAF and RAF training requirements...then extrapolating.
[edited due to distraction of watching Biden-Harris victory speech ]