WW2, The War of Industry?

kowloon

So, was WW2 ,more than anything else, a war of Industrial might?
No biting or eye gouging, FIGHT!

TerrorFirmer

Yes. Initially the German army was able to outfight its opponents through superior tactical ability, but by the time a two front war gathered pace, it inevitably played a part....particularly in production of transport rather then combat vehicles, the Germans relied heavily on horses....thousands upon thousands of them. I read somewhere recently that in 1944, the Germans produced 80,000 trucks while the Americans - and this is excluding Russia and Britain/Canada - produced over 400,000.

The Germans problem was never actually industry in general though...despite lagging hugely behind the allies. Industrial output peaked in mid 1944 for aircraft and I think munitions peaked in that year also (though munitions became a critical problem from late 1944 on), and in late 1944 for armor; by 1944 however the oil refineries were under constant attack and the Germans were deprived of up to 90% of their fuel and often had to abandon perfectly good tanks for lack of it. Equally the Luftwaffe was grounded by lack of fuel as much as it was by allied air power. Look at the Ardennes offensive, crippled due to lack of fuel, even in failure, despite not loosing an extraordinary lack of tanks in combat, the Germans had to abandon countless armored vehicles because they couldn't retreat for lack of fuel. Actually, now that I think about it, this was a massive turning point in the war that is wholly under appreciated in general history...

Of course it was a problem in the sense that the German economy was not geared towards total war in the years that would have benefited from it most....only instigated after the defeat of Stalingrad, and not until 1944 did it really take off...

Dinter

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Look at the Ardennes offensive, crippled due to lack of fuel, even in failure, despite not loosing an extraordinary lack of tanks in combat, the Germans had to abandon countless armored vehicles because they couldn't retreat for lack of fuel.

I have to agree. An offensive that relys on capturing the enemies fuel supply to continue is never a good idea!

The extensive use of horses by the Germans is a good point. Something that's not portrayed that well in films etc. Most movies seem to think every German was a Panzergrenadier.

Still although German output (as in mass) continued to climb for most of the war, allied bombings ensured that whilst they might have thousands of tonnes of item A, they'd have no item B, without which they couldn't make item C. Germans would then have to use a part cannabilised or redesigned or made of a less suitable material which inevitably led to failure.

The Allied air assaults should be seen as pivotal in that light.

Manic Moran

Dinter wrote: »

I have to agree. An offensive that relys on capturing the enemies fuel supply to continue is never a good idea!

I believe that the general idea in WWIII for Soviet forces was that they'd be doing a lot of filling up on the local economy in Germany. Given the spread of petrol stations in Western Europe, and other industrial uses (Generators, trains etc, which were not common in WWII), that may well have been a pretty sensible move.

The extensive use of horses by the Germans is a good point. Something that's not portrayed that well in films etc. Most movies seem to think every German was a Panzergrenadier.

When the war started, only one country's army in the world was fully motorised: i.e. all the troops had access to transport, all the artillery was drawn by truck/tractor and so on. The British.

NTM

Lockstep

How does that quote go again?

Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.

Feel free to correct me.

Manic Moran

There was another one by a US general after a brief: "I still have no idea what these "logistics" are, but damnit, I want some"

NTM