Yoozername wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021, 01:59
I caution hand-wavers in thinking that pushing the Shiny-Magic-JIT-Scales-of-Industry button, that assembling a WWII tank is like making a bayonet, or a MP40, or even an antitank gun. Even Nibelungenwerk, which made Panzer IV in great numbers, and also produced many of its own need of parts, relied on 'tubs' or lower hulls, and guns delivered, etc. (many from the Ruhr). While the flippant may just say deliver more of those, there are other considerations besides raw materials. To make those items, you need machinery, welding equipment, people, delivery and also...contracts. All these companies are being run as companies. This wasn't the Soviet Union.
Although everything you mention is true in a general sense, there is evidence that, once the German leadership made it the priority, AFV output was doubled in a single quarter-year. In effect, something akin to what TMP is arguing was in the realm of possibility in 1940-1 did in fact occur in early 1943.
The
USSBS Tank Industry Report informs us:
d. Despite this insistence by their chief, the "Adolf Hitler Panzer Program" as formulated by Speer and his colleagues aimed at the production of only 1,200 Panzer vehicles per month, and that goal not to be reached until the end of 1944. On 17 January 1943, before the program had been officially approved but when it had already been unofficially announced, Speer and Saur were summoned by Hitler and informed that their program was completely inadequate and must be revised upward. They agreed, but explained that although immediate increases might be achieved in output of assault guns and Mark II and IV tanks, Tiger and Panther output could not possibly be expanded within five months. Dr. Rohland and other officials directly responsible for panzer production considered the new committment - a revised program aimed at 1,500 to 2,100 panzer vehicles by the end of the month - utterly fantastic. What impressed the experts most was the difficulty of expanding production capacity to the extent necessary; they believed that the program could be effected only at considerable expense to other armaments production.
And:
e. The need for fulfilling the Adolf Hitler Panzer Program was so urgent, however, that the required steps were taken. On 22 January 1943 Hitler issued a decree directing that all necessary measures be taken immediately to increase the production of panzer vehicles "even if by these measures other important branches of the armament industry are adversely affected for a time." Specifically, the decree authorized the Reichsminister for Armaments and War Production to provide plants producing panzer vehicles and their components with abundant supplies of technicians, raw materials, machinery and electric power, and for this purpose to draw upon the capacities of other was production industries. The decree also prohibited the drafting of men from the panzer industry and cancelled all drafts made after December 1942.
Bolding mine.
The increase looked like this. Data is metric tons, 1942/Q4, 1943/Q1 and 1943/Q2, quarter-on-quarter variation:
Panzer III: 14,973 / 5,221 (
-65%) / 2,323 (
-56%)
Panzer IV: 9,175 / 13,475 (+47%) / 18,450 (+37%)
Panther: 0 / 4,032 / 18,368 (
+356%)
Tiger: 3,705 / 5,928 (+60%) / 8,892 (+50%)
StuG and StuH: 7,170 / 11,400 (+59%) / 20,841 (
+83%)
Sturmpanzer: 0 / 0 / 1,692
Ferdinand: 0 / 0 / 5,850
Marder: 3,669 / 2,660 (
-28%) / 1,899 (
-29%)
Nashorn: 0 / 1,056 / 2,664 (
+152%)
Total: 38,692 / 43,772 (+13%) / 80,979 (+85%)
The increase is driven by the Panther tanks (14,336 additional tons, 39% of the increase) and the StuG/StuH (9,441 additional tons, 25% of the increase). With the exception of MNH, the Panthers and StuG/StuH were produced by five of the six original German AFV producers: Alkett, Daimler-Benz, Henschel, MAN and MIAG. The Nashorn was also produced by Alkett.
Nibelungen and VOMAG, along with Krupp Gruson, had been expanding Pz. IV production at a steady pace since 1942 and show no comparable jump. So it's not primarily a story of new production facilities coming on line.
The second quarter of 1943 sees the "big break" in German AFV production, and the explanation does in fact appear to be that the Germans pushed on the "Shiny-Magic-JIT-Scales-of-Industry". That doesn't mean that it was "simple" or "easy", but ultimately, more workers, machine tools and raw materials almost doubled production in a matter of a few months.