The Germans increase Panzer production in the Summer of 1940

[maltesefalcon]

Let's talk about the elephant in the room before this thread runs its course.

In order to change history from the OTL we must identify a major campaign that Germany lost largely due to inadequate Panzer forces only.

Then we must postulate how those increased numbers would turn the tide and the outcome of same.

It would have to be prior to the fall of 1942. After that the Axis had lost the opportunity to win the war by purely military means.

Once last point. Just because Germany made more tanks, it does not automatically mean stronger Panzer forces in the same ratio. For example in 1944 Germany made 30000 or so aircraft, the most ever in the war. But the front line strength of the LUftwaffe actually went down in the same time period.

[RichTO90]

I guess this is what I get for taking a vacation and failing to check the drivel-meter when I return; I miss wonderful gems like this.

According to Zetterling, the Allies sent a total of 8800 tanks in the 3 months of the battle of normandy in the western front. The Germans sent a total of 2200 tanks to face the Allied forces.

Actually what Niklas stated was that from 6 June to 12 August 1944 the Germans committed 2,248 AFV to Normandy. That's 68 days or 2 months and 7 days, not "3 months". Unfortunately his estimate of Allied commitments is rather poor and operates based upon TO&E assumptions that are simply incorrect. As a better estimate, we could take the number of Allied available on 7 August, plus known casualties. For the Americans that was about 2,527 tanks and 900 SP TD. For the British, that was about 3,485...call it around 7,000 and you might not be too far off.

But, in the eastern front in a single of month of 1944, the Germans had 4900 tanks, including about a monthly supply of 1,000 tanks delivered (assuming that 60% of their monthly tank production went into the eastern front), in the 3 months of the battle of normandy, the Germans had supplied the eastern front with 7,900 tanks.

I wonder just which "single month" that might have been?

3 Jan – 3,774
12 Jan – 3,560
31 May – 3,059
15 Sep – 3,481
30 Sep – 3,356
31 Oct – 3,702
15 Nov – 3,739
30 Nov – 3,731
15 Dec – 3,911
30 Dec – 4,067

Oh, there it is! The next to last day of the last month in the year. Oh, sorry, for a moment there I was excited at G getting within 17% of the correct figure. Let's see, replacements? Ah, yes, those recorded as received in the East for the period June-November 1944 (six months):

Pz IV – 901
Panther – 623
Tigers – 247
StuG/StuH – 2,741

I make that to be an average of 752 per month. In fact, during the "three months of the battle of normandy [tsk, tsk, caps please?]" they totaled:

Pz IV – 524
Panther – 429
Tigers – 173
StuG/StuH – 1,675

So, it was the eastern front that produced such disparity in tank numbers engaged in the western front. Note that in 1944, the western allies produced only 25,000 tanks.

Sigh...the Americans produced 23,284, the British 4,411, and the Canadians 1,236 tanks and AFV on tank chassis in 1944, which, for the Americans, was about half their production capacity...or less. BTW, at least G is consistent; his German figures are exaggerated by 17% and his Allied figures are docked by 17%. Of course consistent bullshit is still bullshit. :roll:

Which of course is where this thread keeps missing the problem for the Germans. What was their productive capacity in tanks in 1940? How many factories did they have built that could do final assembly on tanks? How many were they building? That was the bottleneck and it mattered not one whit how much steel was diverted from building battleships, submarines, or bathtubs if there weren't sufficient factory production capability of turning that steel into tanks. Nor, oddly enough, could shipyards or bathtub manufacturers turn out tanks in yards and factories meant to build ships or bathtubs. :roll:

Cheers!

[BDV]

Of course consistent bullshit is still bullshit.

And our honorable Junta has what to say?

[Guaporense]

Let's talk about the elephant in the room before this thread runs its course.

In order to change history from the OTL we must identify a major campaign that Germany lost largely due to inadequate Panzer forces only.

There wasn't such campaign.

Then we must postulate how those increased numbers would turn the tide and the outcome of same.

The German panzer production during the first years of the war was very small in proportion to total production, in proportion it increased greatly. That's because during the course of the war that the Germans discovered that the marginal value of increased tank supply exceeded marginal cost when production was so small, so they increased it.

Therefore, to maximize net value: the integral of marginal value less marginal cost, the total tank production would need to be larger than the historical.

It would have to be prior to the fall of 1942. After that the Axis had lost the opportunity to win the war by purely military means.

That's certainly debatable. But anyway, they failed to defeat the USSR due to a large set of reasons, larger tank supply would have helped, but not enough to be a decisive factor alone.

Once last point. Just because Germany made more tanks, it does not automatically mean stronger Panzer forces in the same ratio. For example in 1944 Germany made 30000 or so aircraft, the most ever in the war. But the front line strength of the Luftwaffe actually went down in the same time period.

The Luftwaffe had greater problems in operating it's aircraft in the later part of the war because of the fuel crisis and the transportation crisis. Also, losses in 1944 were greater than in preceding years, thought smaller in proportion to production than 1943 losses.

[Guaporense]

I will not answer to Rich's "arguments". He doesn't want to "talk", he wants to impose. He's like Hitler.

[phylo_roadking]

I will not answer to Rich's "arguments". He doesn't want to "talk", he wants to impose. He's like Hitler.

The fact that his numbers are repeatdly correct and yours are repeatedly shown to be wrong doesn't actually need answering...as far as facts go, they're pretty unarguable

[RichTO90]

I will not answer to Rich's "arguments". He doesn't want to "talk", he wants to impose. He's like Hitler.

So it isn't bad enough that you are pathetic in your own right, but now you want to paint yourself as a pathetic martyr persecuted by the Hitler-like moi? :roll:

Here's the thing hotshot, the only thing I've ever wanted to "impose" on you is a modicum of honesty on your part. Once you admit that you have a prediliction for using bogus figures to bolster your case you can start over with a clean slate by developing your case from accurate data and we can argue about it like honest scholars. But you insist on continuing to "impose" your version of reality, Goebbels-like, on everyone else here. :roll:

Another alternative for you would be to just man up, shut up, and STOP BEHAVING LIKE A TWO-YEAR OLD.

Cheers!

[maltesefalcon]

Let's talk about the elephant in the room before this thread runs its course.

In order to change history from the OTL we must identify a major campaign that Germany lost largely due to inadequate Panzer forces only.

There wasn't such campaign.

That was my point, actually. Without the above this whole thread is somewhat moot.

[RichTO90]

That was my point, actually. Without the above this whole thread is somewhat moot.

In case you haven't noticed, he has difficulty with logic, cause and effect, and honesty...

Cheers!

[David Thompson]

Let's drop the personal remarks, gentlemen. Our intelligent readers can come to their own conclusions based on the arguments advanced by the posters.

[RichTO90]

The German panzer production during the first years of the war was very small in proportion to total production, in proportion it increased greatly. That's because during the course of the war that the Germans discovered that the marginal value of increased tank supply exceeded marginal cost when production was so small, so they increased it.

The problem with that assumption is that tanks always were a "small proportion" of German armament production. For the period 1942-1943 they amount to an average of 5.28% of production. Aircraft, on the other hand, accounted for 39.74% and ammunition 27.8%.

Of course the problem with the rest of the assumption is just that, it's an assumption without facts to back it up. The actual issue was not marginal values and marginal costs (as if the tanks came out of a vending machine or Walmart). It was resource allocation, especially steel, and plant space. By 1 September 1939 the Germans had built or acquired eight tank assembly plants.

Krupp-Gruson, Magdeburg – 1934 (93,600 m2)
Daimler-Benz, Berlin-Marienfelde – 1934
MAN, Nurnberg – 1935 (215,000 m2)
Henschel, Kassel – 1936 (162,800 m2)
Alkett, Berlin-Borsigwalde – 1938 (moved to Falkensee in 1944)
Skoda, Pilsen – 1938
CKD/BMM, Prague - 1938
MIAG, Brunswick – 1939 (85,400 m2)
(I'm still trying to find the size of the Daimler-Benz, Alkett, Skoda, and CKD/BMM plants).

Expansion required capitol and labor, both of which were in short supply. Nevertheless, by the end of 1940 plans and funding were in place to expand facilities, partly by converting other heavy industrial plant, partly by expansion in existing plants, and partly by building new..

Vomag, Plauen converted to tank production (404,000 m2)
MNH, Hanover converted to tank production
Henschel’s Kassel plant expanded by 92,900 m2
Nibelungenwerke, St. Valentin construction begun

By 1942 that wave of expansion was complete. No further expansion was feasible until late 1943 and early 1944. Bombing forced the move of the Alkett plant from Berlin to Falkensee, so effectively a lateral movement rather than an expansion. Otherwise, in 1944 there was another wave of conversions.

DEMAG (1st QTR)
Deutsche Eisenwerke (1st QTR)
MBA (4th QTR)

So eventually the Germans expanded from eight to fourteen plants, not because they discovered any great truths of the economics of tank production, but because that is what they had the resources to do.

Cheers!

[RichTO90]

(I'm still trying to find the size of the Daimler-Benz, Alkett, Skoda, and CKD/BMM plants).

Just as a comparison, the US built four plants for the express purpose of building tanks, in addition to the heavy industrial plant that were converted to that purpose. They were:

Lima Tank Arsenal (88,300 M2)
Fisher Grand Blanc Tank Arsenal (158,000 m2)
Chyrsler Detroit Tank Arsenal (297,000 m2)
Ford Dearborn Tank Arsenal (216,00 m2)

[BDV]

.
Well, as of July 1st 1940, Germans also had under their control the French tank production facilities, which were rated at ~250 light tanks (R40s and H39s), and ~100 medium and heavies (CharD2, Somua and CharB1bis) per month. Also the Panhard works were planned to deliver as many as 75 of their excellent Panhard 178 a month. So the capacity was there.
.
Even accepting the excuse that germans could not deploy more panzer divisions than historically, it stands to reason that 2-300 S35s would have been a significant improvement over say 35(t) or maybe even 38(t)s in 1941. Not to mention that Italians could really, really have used 3-4 dozen S35s during Compass.

[phylo_roadking]

Yes....but where were the trained workers from those factories??? If they were in the Reserve and were called up to the Army...then dead on some battlefield or in a German POW camp I know that Belgian industrial production plummeted from the Belgians keeping their Reserves mobilised from Sept. 1939 to May 1940...and in another direction Swiss industry suffered badly too from the number of adult males of working age kept in the Army - so I would assume France was the same?

[takata_1940]

Hi,

Yes....but where were the trained workers from those factories??? If they were in the Reserve and were called up to the Army...then dead on some battlefield or in a German POW camp I know that Belgian industrial production plummeted from the Belgians keeping their Reserves mobilised from Sept. 1939 to May 1940...and in another direction Swiss industry suffered badly too from the number of adult males of working age kept in the Army - so I would assume France was the same?

At first (1940-1941), the German problems for using the French automotive facilities was not only industrial but mostly political. Most of the manpower involved in tank production up to the end of June 1940 was still available. On the other hand, the production capability was completly disrupted by various German measures:

1. Political willingness to deprive France of any armament production: Instead of producing full gears, those facilities were mainly used for making spare parts for Germany's own armament industry (as sub-contractors under German Companies) or for maintaining and upgrading German produced equipments.
2. Administrative separation: France was cut in two zones that could barely trade with each other when such production needed complete freedom of commercial exchanges.
3. Organized pillage of piled up raw materials stocks: this started as soon as many facilities were overun by the German forces.
4. Organized pillage of machine tools: everything usefull was sent to Germany.
5. Organized shortage of energy: most coal ressources were in German zone and very scarcely allocated for French facilities.

By 1941-1942, as the skilled manpower was underused in France, they started to sent it in Germany in order to replace most German workers. By 1944, most skilled workers in German mechanichal industry was French; they were mainly used as cadre for unskilled labor.

Then, in fact, it could not be reversed without reconsidering the whole German policy with French Industry from the very start (when it was not obvious that it would be needed later). Moreover, several German agencies were involved in fully contradictory actions: one tried to ramp up French production, one tried to get French manpower for Germany, another one was pillaging raw materials and machine-tools while the last one was in charge of making all the actions of the previous ones completly impossible with endless paperworks.

S~
Olivier