Let me present now some points w.r.t core logistical issue of the Eastern front in all the rough broad stages/markers (Barbarossa, Fall Blau, Citadel, Bagration).....that doomed Germany by 1943/44 (given what it had, how it chose to organise and execute with those resources in two crucial years, and what it lost and simply could not make up for..and thus was doomed after it)
I might go into more depth on some points here if there is interest...this in itself is a very limited summary to give an idea of what is often overlooked (especially the impact on logistics and the high sensitivity of logistics to downstream consequences).
First a prologue:
A good logistics book I would recommend for the interested reader (it has crucial WW2 analysis in it from the perspective I am coming from, but also very good coverage of other wars before it):
Buy Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein To Patton 2 by Creveld, Martin Van (ISBN: 9780521546577) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
I would also recommend readers to distill what is and isnt (in literature available today) influenced by (or outright is) clean-wehrmacht theory that was pushed along after WW2 (and nuremberg) ended initially by a number of Generals such as Von Manstein and Guderian et al.....and their clear blatant bias for taking this approach.
This has made its way (directly or non-directly, with or without intent) into a huge body of conventional wisdom and further literature (often taken from granted, and by many very well read authors)....given the incorporation of it into a huge amount of NATO and American immediate post war publications too for a number of purposes.
It is not hard to also find authors that have called out and call out (especially since the 1970s) and debunk this kind of stuff and given strong counter-arguments (some also overdo it)....but this other perspective (especially when given the requisite well-founded sources and archives to reference it) must also be looked at (if the reader/student has not)...and must be done so diligently to at least get as close to the full picture of all possibilities....i.e there is a full large greyer spectrum in between these two perspectives.
An example of the reverse of the clean-wehrmacht (i.e that the holocaust cannot be separated at all from it) in relation to crucial logistical self-harm the Germans did (past the more well known harm to the opponent and civilians) can be found in many books, but one that pops to mind is:
Holocaust versus Wehrmacht: How Hitler's Final Solution Undermined the German War Effort (Modern War Studies) [Pasher, Yaron] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Holocaust versus Wehrmacht: How Hitler's Final Solution Undermined the German War Effort (Modern War Studies)
www.amazon.com
It was not exactly a "good read" for me (but that is matter of varying tastes), but it did contain good points and source materials in it. A short summary review of it is found here:
Yaron Pasher. Holocaust versus Wehrmacht: How Hitler's "Final Solution" Undermined the German War Effort. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014. xiii + 364 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-2006-7. Reviewed by Edward Westermann (Texas A&M University, San Antonio) Published on H-War...
networks.h-net.org
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A brief commentary on logistics w.r.t Germany in the war:
Without further ado some of the points I would like to make about the Eastern Front logistics (that is often overlooked or totally ignored).
Sorry in advance if this is structured all weird, I am just airing out spontaneously in interest of conserving time from my end. (I went back and added some headers etc though)
Germany had a number of things baked-in from the onset that gave severe logistical challenges for any endeavour (especially one that would need long logistical chains).
Germany was notably good to superb at two basic access + input sectors relevant to war (especially at that time):
Coal and Steel.
Logistically this meant a reliance on railways and trains as much as possible (and keeping these logistics as close to fully operational as possible). You could make good quality locomotives that made use of the coal. You could lay or improve railway lines that made use of the steel (which also used coal in production). This was a strong ecosystem infrastructure and knownhow Germany had developed during the industrial revolution in general.
Germany was similarly deficient at: Natural (Crude) oil and Rubber.
These were both things it largely imported during the industrial revolution and right up to 1939.
The problem of this reliance (as evidenced during WW1 and its final disastrous result for Germany) was one of the veins that pushed forms of pragmatic autarky (well before Hitler arrived on the scene) and deployed significant scientific and technical for the substitute of synthetic crude (made from Coal) and its further refined products "synthoil" as I call it (that were effectively the same as Diesel and Gasoline and aviation gasoline).
Without going into the details too much, this synthoil was far more expensive to make than sourcing natural crude itself....and needed immense (novel) capital investment on top...capital investment that would become scarce during war time.
Thus synth-oil was logistically prioritised and rationed to vehicles that absolutely need them...and there was no easy surplus of it.
Thus even with Germany's huge industrial capacity there was a deep reliance on horses for logistics (especially at mid and final tier delivery)
It must also be noted that every % (and even fraction of %) upstream counts immensely more downstream with any input scope and ceterus paribus.....when it comes to logistics.
If you get "95%" right (at the most relevant thrust/input/setting initially) even with the 100% reference mark beset by the structural "baked in" issues....that is still 5% wrong that will cascade inevitably downstream...especially as time and inertia wears on (given all the resources dependent on these are finite, you cannot resurrect a dead soldier or apparate a lost tank...or the resources that went into training and producing them). Every % counts here.
The numbers are figurative, they cannot be calculated well given the information deficit and fog of war, but the concept and perspective at large is very important to always have in mind when studying any war or conflict.
Given specific and notable things I will now get into....the Wehrmacht on the eastern front was nowhere close to the "95%" and aggravated much of this potential by their own doing (well past what they inherited structurally and the basic scale of the issue at hand..i.e the 100% reference mark). Whether it was 90%, 80% or 70%...doesnt matter to argument as it was not close to 100% that it would need to be and the deficit was larger enough to grow and create a grandiose failure at the end of it (even though the raw force levels and even numbers were superior for the Wehrmacht at many instances during the campaign, especially at the start w.r.t the Soviets).
Logistics is that ultra-crucial transmission component for force level and numbers to objective/ambition.
No matter how good your engine and wheels are of a car, if your transmission sucks, you ain't going anywhere you want to. You put bad fuel (irrationality etc) in the fuel tank for the engine, you compound the problem extra.
It was this irrationality in many vectors of approach and decisions and execution aggravated many % points of the logistics (in my estimation) well past a more neutral scope would have otherwise been.... that too at the onset (1941 - 1942), in the midcourse (1942 - 1943).
By the downstream (1943 - 1945) it really didnt matter (given the material losses w.r.t time and effort commited and spent by then already)....so the shortening logistical chain really didn't help much to stave off the doom....even in a hypothetical where there was no operation overlord or a failed one.
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Let us unpack some details of note:
Basic setup:
General Gercke (railways), General Wagner (gen. supplies, motor transport) were the two assigned for bulk of the logistics side.
There was significantly bad cooperation (w.r.t time, costs, organisation, "middlemen" etc) here off the bat ..when there should have been just one concerted logistics guy/organisation.
This split was not helped (and I suspect likely done/preserved to fulfill) by larger OKH directives steering their distinct separation...things like the barbarossa directive for POWs and civilian prisoners...though there were other factors.
There was only one good major road in ukraine (and lack of proper railway iirc). This was a huge logistics nightmare (given throughput needed).
There was a good railway + better roads from warsaw to moscow (but oil + resources not found in this route, rather a focus on political + industrial knock and/or keeping a stable front for a southern push...this caused the dithering from the onset as to what the clear goal even was)
Route to leningrad complete mess logistically, an immense number of resources were squandered here (even with Finnish proximity and continuation war).
Aggravations to this basic setup (at the large, mid and final tiers):
- Gauge conversion problem all over the place (to use german locomotives to logistical railheads needed)
- Presence of the needed watering and coaling station intensity was insufficient...needing precious capital investment or associated logistical compromise/workaround
- Gen. Wagner estimated 300 miles supply range from the large logistics...but barbarossa (as it was planned and executed) required 900 miles (3x basic disparity putting pressure)
- Soviet POW and encircled armies were treated in Nazi way. Let me summarise it that way. The opportunity cost (w.r.t logistics) were immense on this IMO (and often overlooked). Imagine say soviet POW (as captured) labour to improve final tier logistical infra and handling this (with provision of food and work team org.) rather than ostplan liquidation and often logistical gumming for dealing with this.
Thus the opportunity costs that arose of (prioritising food, war material and oil) ostplan (as it happened) versus a hypothetical rational plan for an invasion east (based on logistics first and foremost and using captured human resource to improve logistic chains at end tier delivery rather than liquidating them)...
cannot be understated.
This all got worse and worse downstream w.r.t fall blau (a potentially logical move if allowed to be implemented rationally) and then the irrational obsession with taking stalingrad (ruined any semblance of the logic).
Some armies (like 9th) eventually (at crucial time to their presence being there) were supplied by motor vehicles only (horses all died, froze, starved), severely degrading their operational capability. There was no railway line nearby there at all.
Eventually (and far earlier than most people know/think/assume), whole armies had to make awful decisions (for them) to choose between ammunition + supplies vis-a-vis reinforcements (when they sorely needed both).
Logistical basic pressure calculation by Gen. Wagner around stalingrad time was about as far as smolensk, thus it was extremely overstretched (and that grim analysis was with living off the land/ stealing from peasants etc i.e hunger plan, including lot of needless killing of these peasants rather than rational approach, aggravating things for next year if you plan to win)
Mud mud mud... pre-winter (a famous aspect in the highlight reels compared to other stuff im mentioning)....but also winter cold pressure on bulk logistics (steam boilers bursting in trains and stuff)...absolutely atrocious issues...the situation was worse than grim for half the year from a logistics standpoint.
Logistical challenge and then degradation of logistics (even without liquidation of human resource in hypothetical more rational German war effort) already made the whole objective extremely tough and unlikely to succeed.
But with (Nazi) liquidation of captured human resources (at the frontier and behind it and further behind it) and tieing up of own resources in these crucial areas (esp. behind it) tipped it well beyond any remote chance....whatever the spearheads had going for them (arms, training, cohesion) and the initial surprise+initiative factor in 1941.
There was also an irrational inability to retreat lot of times when it was needed (and often needed long before the situation)...again largely or near completely driven by NSDAP supremacist directive.
Not to mention the general economics/politics of NSDAP affecting the larger economics funding these logistics.
That is far bigger to get into (extends back to 1932 and even before that) w.r.t downstream.
By 1943 the war was basically over (whatever the western allies did, it would just help accelerate the end tbh)....it was a matter of time given the scale of the mess up for 2 complete years. Kaptaan gives fairly good account on Kursk earlier in thread.
If you study the logistical issue (at this point in 1943) and the results on specific major battles and theatres....it is quite stark. E.g Germans could not get
anywhere near to the core Soviet operational depth during Kursk for example (even after MASSIVE planning and resource commited to it, for not only this very basic requirement but to action far more purpose beyond it).
Operation Bagration was just more of the same of an already terminal situation, a complete utter destruction of more than half a million Wehrmacht soldiers (
dead, forget however many more total casualties) in 3 months. I don't think this feat has occurred before or after in such intensity and scale.
Again a rational military would have realised the massive mistake it made to lead to this point and unconditionally surrendered well before (or during) Operation Bagration, to save human life.
The war (solely keeping it reich vs ussr and say operation overlord never happened) was more than over at this point to be perfectly and brutally honest about it.
It was not a direct numbers game or power level thing only (which at majority of this period 1941 - 1944, wehrmacht compared quite favourably or even better than USSR for the majority of it). The transmission (i.e logistics challenge and self-inflicted logistics aggravation past it) makes close to 2/3rds of the failure in my estimation....maybe even more...but definitely at least half.
Its the same concept saiyan mentions here at a scale far far larger (logistics and giving it the best rational scope possible is very much influenced by geography, environment among other things):
This was essentially the largest scale ever done on the world map and world history.
@Madokafc logistics logistics logistics!
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