The Germans increase Panzer production in the Summer of 1940

[Richard Anderson]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

[ljadw]

There is,concerning the number of tanks, no such thing as an understrength tank division : a tank division with 400 tanks can also be understrength and is mostly understrength .
Better a tank batallion where it is needed than a tank division far away from where it is needed .
German tank production in 1943 was lower than the tank losses, which was caused by the involvement of big tank units .More and smaller tank units would have lower losses and would be more efficient .
It took weeks to move Das Reich to Normandy,reason being that Das Reich was too big .It would have been easier and faster to move DasReich to Normandy if it was smaller ,divided in DAs Reich I and Das Reich II.

Again shows you ignorance. You would be the only one that believes a weak division is better than a strong one. :lol:Q
And you should do some reading about the moving of Das Reich to Normandy . Das Reich did not move directly to Normandy. It was first sent to the Dordogne to operate against the maquis(Das Reich V Weidinger pp137-139). Caused a delay of a few days as it stayed there a few days before moving off on to Normandy on june 12. It took 3 days from there to reach Normandy the 15 th june(Weidinger pp 176-177). So your weeks are actually days.

Wrong : two times
1 DR left Montauban at the morning of June 8,not for the Dordogne, but for Normandy .DR was not sent to the Dordogne to fight against the maquis .
2 It took 17 days ( not 3 ) for an incomplete DR to arrive at Normandy,and even more time for the whole division to be in Normandy .

[ljadw]

The distance between Montauban and Caen ( using the today's roads ) is some 730 km . The suggestion that 77 years ago German tracked vehicles would have been able to cover this distance by road/ going through the country, is totally risible .
Tanks were made for short distances .
PS : Tulle is not the Dordogne but the Corréze and Oradour is located in the Haute Vienne

[Tom from Cornwall]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

Tom

[Aida1]

There is,concerning the number of tanks, no such thing as an understrength tank division : a tank division with 400 tanks can also be understrength and is mostly understrength .
Better a tank batallion where it is needed than a tank division far away from where it is needed .
German tank production in 1943 was lower than the tank losses, which was caused by the involvement of big tank units .More and smaller tank units would have lower losses and would be more efficient .
It took weeks to move Das Reich to Normandy,reason being that Das Reich was too big .It would have been easier and faster to move DasReich to Normandy if it was smaller ,divided in DAs Reich I and Das Reich II.

Again shows you ignorance. You would be the only one that believes a weak division is better than a strong one. :lol:Q
And you should do some reading about the moving of Das Reich to Normandy . Das Reich did not move directly to Normandy. It was first sent to the Dordogne to operate against the maquis(Das Reich V Weidinger pp137-139). Caused a delay of a few days as it stayed there a few days before moving off on to Normandy on june 12. It took 3 days from there to reach Normandy the 15 th june(Weidinger pp 176-177). So your weeks are actually days.

Wrong : two times
1 DR left Montauban at the morning of June 8,not for the Dordogne, but for Normandy .DR was not sent to the Dordogne to fight against the maquis .
2 It took 17 days ( not 3 ) for an incomplete DR to arrive at Normandy,and even more time for the whole division to be in Normandy .

You must be kidding. Any history of the DR tells you otherwise.Whole books have been written about the march of the DR and what happened in Ouradour.

[Aida1]

The distance between Montauban and Caen ( using the today's roads ) is some 730 km . The suggestion that 77 years ago German tracked vehicles would have been able to cover this distance by road/ going through the country, is totally risible .
Tanks were made for short distances .
PS : Tulle is not the Dordogne but the Corréze and Oradour is located in the Haute Vienne

Tracked vehicles are always transported by rail over long distances. Was also planned for the transport to Normandy but the DR was ordered first to act against the maquis which meant it had to advance by road.. Allied air superiority and destruction of the railways made it impossible to use rail transport all the way anyway.
And you remain in denial about the real issue which is that fewer Pz Div much stronger in tanks requires less vehicles than more much weaker ones.

[Peter89]

Instead, by May 1943 the Germans lost an army and an air fleet in Tunisia, for essentially nothing; including 2 Heavy Panzer Battalions (501st and 504th).

That was only thirty-one Tigers, however.

David

Yep, but to re-establish those battalions would require 90 Tigers as per Schwere Panzer-Abteilung Organisation E.

[Peter89]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I think we've lost something with Guderian.

[Aida1]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I think we've lost something with Guderian.

Actually Guderian is very relevant as his memorandum in 1943 adresses the real issue . You need more tanks but not more Pz Div.

[Peter89]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I think we've lost something with Guderian.

Actually Guderian is very relevant as his memorandum in 1943 adresses the real issue . You need more tanks but not more Pz Div.

I'm out

[Aida1]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I think we've lost something with Guderian.

Actually Guderian is very relevant as his memorandum in 1943 adresses the real issue . You need more tanks but not more Pz Div.

I'm out

Silly comment. The real issue is deciding how many Pz you want in a Pz Div, how many pz Div you want for the mission that is theirs and then you need to produce enough tanks and spare parts to equip them and sustain them given the losses you will have. From that viewpoint Germany certainly needed more production of tanks and spare parts in 1940. The end result was a seriously diminished panzer force by 1942 as production was not enough to replace the losses and in spite of that new divisions were set up. Guderian had to adress that issue in the beginning of 1943 and made some sound proposals The reasoning behind these would have been relevant in 1940 too.

[ljadw]

The distance between Montauban and Caen ( using the today's roads ) is some 730 km . The suggestion that 77 years ago German tracked vehicles would have been able to cover this distance by road/ going through the country, is totally risible .
Tanks were made for short distances .
PS : Tulle is not the Dordogne but the Corréze and Oradour is located in the Haute Vienne

Tracked vehicles are always transported by rail over long distances. Was also planned for the transport to Normandy but the DR was ordered first to act against the maquis which meant it had to advance by road.. Allied air superiority and destruction of the railways made it impossible to use rail transport all the way anyway.
And you remain in denial about the real issue which is that fewer Pz Div much stronger in tanks requires less vehicles than more much weaker ones.

DR was operational in Normandy only at the end of June . Its tracked vehicles were going to Normandy by rail .Tracked vehicles do not cover 730 km by road . The average life of the engine of a Panther tank was 1000 km ,some 100 hours . This means that the Panthers of DR never would reach Normandy by road .Steel tracks lasted 400 km .
If there were in the East not 17 PzD in 1941, but only 6 , Barbarossa would have resulted in a Soviet parade in Berlin in 1941 .
6 PzD for a front of 3000 km would mean that each of them had to cover a front line of 500 km ,which was impossible .

[ljadw]

Yeah, this thread has officially jumped the shark. Two pages now of Aida1 and ljadw quoting entire posts in order to make a one or two sentence "reply" that consists of - more or less - one poster telling the other "you have poopy pants" and the other replying "no, you have poopy pants". Fascinating, in the same way that a train wreck is fascinating.

I think we've lost something with Guderian.

Actually Guderian is very relevant as his memorandum in 1943 adresses the real issue . You need more tanks but not more Pz Div.

I'm out

Silly comment. The real issue is deciding how many Pz you want in a Pz Div, how many pz Div you want for the mission that is theirs and then you need to produce enough tanks and spare parts to equip them and sustain them given the losses you will have. From that viewpoint Germany certainly needed more production of tanks and spare parts in 1940. The end result was a seriously diminished panzer force by 1942 as production was not enough to replace the losses and in spite of that new divisions were set up. Guderian had to adress that issue in the beginning of 1943 and made some sound proposals The reasoning behind these would have been relevant in 1940 too.

It is the opposite :the real issues are
1 how many tanks and spare parts can you produce , how many crew can you train ( FYI : tanks without crew are useless )
2 what are your options ( choices or forced options )
3 is the present tank division composition satisfying ? ( the answer in 1940 was negative )
4 if your choice implies the need of more PzD ( what it was,Barbarossa or no Barbarossa ) and you can't produce more tanks and there is no need for more tanks,the conclusion is very simple : more mobile units with less tanks .
5 Guderian did not complain in 1941 that his PzD did not have 400 tanks each ( it was the half ) ,thus he had no reason to propose tank divisions of 400 tanks after Stalingrad .
6 There was no need for such divisions, there was no possibility for such divisions and such divisions would be suicidal : NO ONE had tank divisions with 400 tank after August 1941 ,thus why should Germany have such divisions ?
7 After Stalingrad Germany did not need more tanks, but more motorized artillery .

[Aida1]

The distance between Montauban and Caen ( using the today's roads ) is some 730 km . The suggestion that 77 years ago German tracked vehicles would have been able to cover this distance by road/ going through the country, is totally risible .
Tanks were made for short distances .
PS : Tulle is not the Dordogne but the Corréze and Oradour is located in the Haute Vienne

Tracked vehicles are always transported by rail over long distances. Was also planned for the transport to Normandy but the DR was ordered first to act against the maquis which meant it had to advance by road.. Allied air superiority and destruction of the railways made it impossible to use rail transport all the way anyway.
And you remain in denial about the real issue which is that fewer Pz Div much stronger in tanks requires less vehicles than more much weaker ones.

DR was operational in Normandy only at the end of June . Its tracked vehicles were going to Normandy by rail .Tracked vehicles do not cover 730 km by road . The average life of the engine of a Panther tank was 1000 km ,some 100 hours . This means that the Panthers of DR never would reach Normandy by road .Steel tracks lasted 400 km.

You need to do some reading. You could have read in Das Reich V , Weidinger Munin verlag 1982 pp140-141 that the request of the division to transport tracked vehicles by rail was rejected so the tracked vehicles did march by road to the Tulles-Limoges area to combat the maquis before moving onto Normandy. All operational units of DR reached Normandy by june 16 (Weidinger p177). The units that were not yet operational (mostly units of rgt Deutschland) stayed behind under the command of Ostubaf Wisliceny and did not move to Normandy yet(Weidinger Das Reich V p 141).

[Aida1]

The distance between Montauban and Caen ( using the today's roads ) is some 730 km . The suggestion that 77 years ago German tracked vehicles would have been able to cover this distance by road/ going through the country, is totally risible .
Tanks were made for short distances .
PS : Tulle is not the Dordogne but the Corréze and Oradour is located in the Haute Vienne

Tracked vehicles are always transported by rail over long distances. Was also planned for the transport to Normandy but the DR was ordered first to act against the maquis which meant it had to advance by road.. Allied air superiority and destruction of the railways made it impossible to use rail transport all the way anyway.
And you remain in denial about the real issue which is that fewer Pz Div much stronger in tanks requires less vehicles than more much weaker ones.

If there were in the East not 17 PzD in 1941, but only 6 , Barbarossa would have resulted in a Soviet parade in Berlin in 1941 .
6 PzD for a front of 3000 km would mean that each of them had to cover a front line of 500 km ,which was impossible .

Nobody prposed that. This is about producing more tanks which was feasible.