http://home.istar.ca/~johnstns/hdpding.html

An interesting and thoughtful paper. I think the author’s contention about the role of strategic attrition in war in the modern era has merit. His warning that tactical and operational success do not necessarily add up to strategic victory is particularly apt in regard to the ongoing War on Terror.

My main criticism would be that the author often commits the same error he attributes to others, namely confusing the meaning of maneuver and attrition at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. I also think he misunderstands Simpkin and Clausewitz.

In RACE TO THE SWIFT, Simpkin does draw maneuver and attrition theory archetypes, but goes on to point out that they are, in fact, complementary once hostilities commence. In his view, maneuver and attrition are two sides of the same coin at the tactical and operational levels. As the author of the paper observes, the dichotomy between maneuver and attrition appears to be an exercise in sophistry, usually perpetuated by the “maneuverists” to draw attention to their ideas.

I also think that debates on these topics tend to become muddied because the participants often hold different definitions for the terms used. For instance, a recent discussion on H-War about the nature of Blitzkrieg and its implementation in the French Campaign of 1940 bogged down over the inability to arrive at a universally acceptable definition of “doctrine.”

I’ve begun to wonder just how synonymous the concepts of attrition warfare, stellungkrieg (war of position) and ermattungstrategie (strategy of exhaustion) are. It seems to me that stellungskrieg only makes sense when used conjunction with the concept of bewegungskrieg (war of movement) as understood by the interwar-era German Army. War of position, as practiced by the Western Europeans in the 18th Century for instance, is not the same as the modern understanding of attrition.

Cheers,

A comment on Delbrück: I read his work on this issue some years ago, and found his argument a strong one, if not entirely similar to that of the author of this paper. He may be criticised, as he is in this paper, for seeing history as rather sharply divided into eras with fundamentally different playing rules. In this, he of course reflects the thinking of the German historiography of his day. But in any case, his basic point would be that a strategy of annihilation is only feasible under certain circumstances and on certain preconditions, which I think is a valid viewpoint.

Generally, I think the maneuver/annihiliation versus attrition dichotomy tends to be pursued to unprofitable lengths in much theoretical writing, such as in Leonhard's book. It seems relatively clear that they are both aspects of all large-scale operations, and that they should perhaps rather be understood as complementary. Nor are they neccessarily IMO reflections of the approach taken by a given army - Barbarossa, f.e. was clearly conceived as an annihilation operation (as was Soviet counterplans), but the campaign nevertheless was by neccessity basically decided by attrition, even though it contained many battles of annihilation on a grandiose and even unprecedented scale.

The reception of Delbrück's views by the contemporary German military is I believe a highly interesting subject in it's own right. It would be fascinating to produce or see a thorough study investigating German operations in the three wars from 1870-1945 in the light of German military thinking of the period. Of course, many writers comment on this, but I have yet to see something really satisfactory on this issue. Oh well, maybe I should get on with it myself, it would perhaps be one of the relatively few areas of military history where we History of Ideas types would have a comparative advantage.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
Nikals Zetterling directed me to an otherwise unheralded paper that I think is quite good. It is at:

http://home.istar.ca/~johnstns/hdpding.html

It is certianly in line with my statement that any war that lasts longer than six weeks becomes a war of attrition.

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I have a cached copy (from google.com) of the said paper but cannot access the homepage. Is it still online?

The cached copy does not include the name of the author - anyone knows?

Claus B

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Originally posted by cbo:
I have a cached copy (from google.com) of the said paper but cannot access the homepage. Is it still online?

The cached copy does not include the name of the author - anyone knows?

Claus B

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There is a whole qualitative edge to the attrition debate as well.

The rus suffered 4+ times more cas then the ger army in the east during all of 43. Plus the pop as a whole suffered deaths that were 2.5 times what has been reported for the military. This is important for attrtion purposes. And yet the rus pop at its highest in 41 with all the original terr under its control might have been 2.5 times larger then ger. And in 43 they certainly didn´t have that terr or pop.

In 43 the rus army was losing the attrition battle to the german army. Big armys with big pop do not automatically win attrition battles.

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Originally posted by Darrin:

In 43 the rus army was losing the attrition battle to the german army.

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This conclusion is not really warranted if all we look at is military losses or population losses.

There is an intermediate issue between population and military -- and that is the rate at which population (and other resources) are being converted to military capacity. That is a critical consideration, because once one sides capacity to wage war is destroyed, their civilian population (and total resources) are no longer a threat.

So the key issue in winning at attritional warfare is to attrite the enemy's capacity to conduct the war. That means that you must inflict a positive ratio of losses over expansion of warmaking capacity. And that the ratio you achieve must be enough more than the ratio you suffer (if BOTH are positive) to make up for any starting imbalance in forces and potential.

In 1943 the Russians were suffering losses in their military at a faster pace than the Germans. And they were suffering losses in their civilian population faster than the Germans. But they were generating military might FASTER than they were losing it. They were building tanks faster than they were losing them, inducting the population into the military faster than they were losing them, and expanding their war economy faster than it was being destroyed.

Because of their population and resource limitations (and declines) it is clear that their pace of expansion of warmaking capacity was not sustainable indefinitely, and in fact they were probably running out of time when 1945 rolled around. But so long as they were building forces faster than they were losing them, and so long as the Germans were losing forces (and/or expanding the commitments of their forces) faster than they were building them, then THAT was a key issue to achieving "victory through attrition".

It is folly to conduct warfare at a "sustainable" pace if your opponant actually has the potential and the will to "win". Sustainability in this regard would mean converting civilian resources to warmaking capacity at a pace that is no faster than the general expansion of your civilian resource base. If one side seeks to conduct war at a sustainable pace, and the other is willing to forego sustainability in order to win -- guess who holds the advantage? The challenge for national leadership is in converting your resources at a pace that gives you the best chance of winning the war before you consume your resource base.

Once you include the rate of conversion of civilian resources to warmaking capacity, the Soviets were in fact "winning" the war of attrition against the Germans in 1943. Their military might was growing faster than Germany's. Their risk was whether they were "winning" it fast enough to finish the job before they ran out of civilian resources to convert.

-Mark 1

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Originally posted by cbo:
I have a cached copy (from google.com) of the said paper but cannot access the homepage. Is it still online?

The cached copy does not include the name of the author - anyone knows?

Claus B

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Claus:

I too can not access the original listed URL.

Try instead: http://johnston.ca/paul/hdpding.html to find the paper (this IS the one we're talking about, right?)

And try: http://johnston.ca/paul/index.html to find the guy's homepage.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
MK 1: I suspect your arguements about sustainability are more sophisticated than the thinking of the chief decisions makers at that time (Hitler & Stalin). It implies a pacing and trade-off of losses over time that I seriously doubt they were considering.

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Agreed. Also, even the most sophisticated council of economic advisors has never succeeded in predicting the details of how the economy responds to any stimulus or drane.

However, the national leadership doesn't really need to make explicit decisions on sustainability. Most will operate with a sense of how quickly they are dissassembling their economy, but in truth Darwin will work that out for them.

What the national leadership needs to do is mobilize -- convert civilian resources to military capacity -- more quickly than their losses, and quickly enough to build an advantage over their opponent(s).

I would assert that US and Soviet leadership really DID understand this. Whether they articulated it as I have or not, the national leadership focused their own attention early-on to the issues and challenges of the mobilizing civilian resources to military purposes. The German national leadership did not really focus on this process until 1943, by which time they were already too far behind.

Its a "velocity" or "momentum" kind of thing -- you can afford to loose a LOT of battles if you have more momentum in your conversion of resources to military purposes. The question of "attrition", in an all-out conflict between industrial nations, really revolves around causing your opponent losses of military resources 1) FASTER than they can be replaced, and 2) FASTER than your own rate of losses over replacements. If you are succeeded in these, then the only question is whether you can sustain your momentum. You don't have to calculate that -- reality will tell you the answer -- if you can't, you'll slow down whether you want to or not.

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Originally posted by Mk 1:
This conclusion is not really warranted if all we look at is military losses or population losses.

There is an intermediate issue between population and military -- and that is the rate at which population (and other resources) are being converted to military capacity. That is a critical consideration, because once one sides capacity to wage war is destroyed, their civilian population (and total resources) are no longer a threat.

So the key issue in winning at attritional warfare is to attrite the enemy's capacity to conduct the war. That means that you must inflict a positive ratio of losses over expansion of warmaking capacity. And that the ratio you achieve must be enough more than the ratio you suffer (if BOTH are positive) to make up for any starting imbalance in forces and potential.

In 1943 the Russians were suffering losses in their military at a faster pace than the Germans. And they were suffering losses in their civilian population faster than the Germans. But they were generating military might FASTER than they were losing it. They were building tanks faster than they were losing them, inducting the population into the military faster than they were losing them, and expanding their war economy faster than it was being destroyed.

Because of their population and resource limitations (and declines) it is clear that their pace of expansion of warmaking capacity was not sustainable indefinitely, and in fact they were probably running out of time when 1945 rolled around. But so long as they were building forces faster than they were losing them, and so long as the Germans were losing forces (and/or expanding the commitments of their forces) faster than they were building them, then THAT was a key issue to achieving "victory through attrition".

It is folly to conduct warfare at a "sustainable" pace if your opponant actually has the potential and the will to "win". Sustainability in this regard would mean converting civilian resources to warmaking capacity at a pace that is no faster than the general expansion of your civilian resource base. If one side seeks to conduct war at a sustainable pace, and the other is willing to forego sustainability in order to win -- guess who holds the advantage? The challenge for national leadership is in converting your resources at a pace that gives you the best chance of winning the war before you consume your resource base.

Once you include the rate of conversion of civilian resources to warmaking capacity, the Soviets were in fact "winning" the war of attrition against the Germans in 1943. Their military might was growing faster than Germany's. Their risk was whether they were "winning" it fast enough to finish the job before they ran out of civilian resources to convert.

-Mark 1

[This message has been edited by Mk 1 (edited 08-13-2003).]

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Well during the last half of 43 the rus tanks are being des at a rate of 3000 a month but produced at a rate of only 2000 a month. IT then is no suprise to see the number of rus tanks on thier side of the front go from a high of 12,000 during the summer to half this by the end of dec. The will to 'win' certainly didn't matter to the rus tankers who got toasted in such high numbers during this preiod.

Meanwhile the ger loses tanks from all fronts at a rate during this period that is less than the number they produce.

At least during the second half of 43 the rus army is losing the attrition war with tanks. It is only when you take in the whole year that they break even.

Zetterling kursk 43

Also while they did build more weapons arty and tanks at least then ger despite having less of an overall GDP. They devoted more of thier GDP by % to the mil before war. It was easier and absol req to convert to even higher levels after 41. Also during 42 the rus built a huge number of light and med motors that were easy to build but with limlited usefulness.

So much of thier resources went to building and rebuilding thier army that they accuatly lagged behind the ger in building the less sexier parts of thier army and economy. Less or equal amounts of ammo as the ger despit having 4 times as many arty and tanks. Less or equal amounts of aircraft, trucks, rail cars, railways, roads etc...

So much of the ger war making prod and expansion was in germany itself something that rus never trully affected until the closing months of the war. Yet by taking a big chuck of rus in 41 and 42 they suffered losses to thier GDP that even in 45 they never recovered to 1940 levels. Rus was the only country who never exceeded thier pre war GDP levels. Also even though rus prod and GDP may of incresed from 42 to 45 so did ger production and GDP as well at least till late 44.

Its really not much of a suprise the ger were able to keep up with rus by herself since at most they had 140 mil people in 43. Ger in 43 had 80 mil peole but had a tot pop of perhaps 250 mil allies and subjacted people including a few helpful netruals.

During 43 even with all the help from the allies to rus directly and indirectly by syphoning of ger resouces to other fronts. Rus barley manages to hold thier own attritionly against ger. Sustainng excess mil and pop loses far in excess of what the ger do and at a rate the rus COULD not sustain. Especially after even higher losses in 41 and 42.

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Originally posted by Mk 1:
What the national leadership needs to do is mobilize -- convert civilian resources to military capacity -- more quickly than their losses, and quickly enough to build an advantage over their opponent(s).

I would assert that US and Soviet leadership really DID understand this. Whether they articulated it as I have or not, the national leadership focused their own attention early-on to the issues and challenges of the mobilizing civilian resources to military purposes. The German national leadership did not really focus on this process until 1943, by which time they were already too far behind.

Its a "velocity" or "momentum" kind of thing -- you can afford to loose a LOT of battles if you have more momentum in your conversion of resources to military purposes. The question of "attrition", in an all-out conflict between industrial nations, really revolves around causing your opponent losses of military resources 1) FASTER than they can be replaced, and 2) FASTER than your own rate of losses over replacements. If you are succeeded in these, then the only question is whether you can sustain your momentum. You don't have to calculate that -- reality will tell you the answer -- if you can't, you'll slow down whether you want to or not.

-Mark 1

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Of course by 42 the combined allied GDP was already pointing in the wrong direction for ger. With a further increse in 43 for rus and the US. By 42 the US civ economy had already been converting for war time production and planning. Partly due to lend lease but also due to thier own planed pre war expansions. I´ve actually heard rich say that the US civ economy never actually declined but increased as well during the war which blows your conversion theory to pieces.

Also notice about half the shermans the US made never saw combat. Or that all those american japanese were placed in jails. It certainly seems that even the US was not as perfect as you seem to suggest. Any suggestion that rus was somehow more perfect than even ger is more myth than reality.

Obviously the allies were almost destined to win if rus held out during 42 and was not forced to suspend operations late in the war due to mounting loses mil and civ.

In 43 on the east front ger des paled besied rus losses. Rus was barely able to replace thier loses while ger had an easier time despite having to divert more and more recouces to more and more fronts during this year then all the rest. Ger would eventualy lose the war big time starting in 44 but even across all theatrs things were not so bad in 43.

I was specifically refering to the east front above and its attrition affects on rus and ger which did not directly include the other coutries. I was specifically refering to a qualataive manever adv the ger enjoyed over the more attrition based russians.

Of cource part of the problem with ger is that when you have very suceseffull offesives in 41 and 42. If you can do this with tot mil per cas ratios of 6-1 the neccesacuty of even futher expansion of your mil prod is not obvious. So maybe by 43 after the set back at stalingrad things become more urgent and obvious for increased ger prod.

Without a strong rus the western allies would be in trouble come 43-45. Part of the problem hindering greter ger production of mech things is oil they only have half of what rus did. If they captured the caucases they could double thier oil and cut rus in half. Further reducing rus str and increasing the usefulness of ger tanks, aircraft, trucks etc... weather produced early, mid or late war. You can´t make 100,000 tanks and operate 12-20,000 if you only have half the oil rus did.

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Originally posted by Mk 1:
I would assert that US and Soviet leadership really DID understand this.

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If the Soviet leadership really did understand this, then you would think they would have been concerned about leadership, training and developing doctrine that would keep their losses at a more reasonable level. It would appear that they remained wedded to their command driven, "casualty insensitive" system to the end (and continuing in Chechnya and with Moscow hostage rescue operations to this day).

One does note that the Soviet armies were refilling their ranks in 1943 with "local resources" and as it is, one is left with the impression that they were running a little shy of infantry in 1944 and 45. It does appear that they were relying on field recruitment of personel as they reconquered Ukraine to maintain their strength.

While one could argue that the Soviet leader understood the "production" side of the equation, they never really got a grasp on their own "attrition" side of the equation. Part of this may have been due to the tendancy for the entire system to systematically grossly overclaim German losses. As such, due to a failure to develop honest "body counts", they were getting a false measure of the damage they were inflicting on the enemy and a false measure of the exchange ratios and results of their actions.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Less or equal amounts of ammo as the ger despit having 4 times as many arty and tanks.

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This is a significant point of which I am still exploring the ramifications of.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Any suggestion that rus was somehow more perfect than even ger is more myth than reality.

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I'm not really sure this was the point Mk 1 was making.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
While one could argue that the Soviet leader understood the "production" side of the equation, they never really got a grasp on their own "attrition" side of the equation. Part of this may have been due to the tendancy for the entire system to systematically grossly overclaim German losses. As such, due to a failure to develop honest "body counts", they were getting a false measure of the damage they were inflicting on the enemy and a false measure of the exchange ratios and results of their actions.

I think I'll skip addressing the US.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
This is a significant point of which I am still exploring the ramifications of.

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The ger seemed to have a better all around view of thier economy than the rus. One of the first things hitlar did after taking over power was to reduce the numbers spent % wise on the military for a year before slowly bringing it up. This seems especially contratictary during a period when the ger army was still extremly tiny and there were many threats around all her borders.

They were many things to be done before the first tanks for example could be built. Many aspects of the civ economy had to be brought up to a certain level to allow this. The type of tanks to fit in with doctrine and training also had to be selected. Even after the first tanks were built the crew had to get trained the army had to develop and practice the larger doctine. The mech realibility of the tanks and mechanical work had to be be examined and developed. Parts recovery repair etc... Things had to be examined over and over again to make sure you are going in the right direction.

The rus on the eve of battle might have had 24,000 tanks in thier arsel but maybe only 15% were totally free of defect. Although 80% were considered op by their large pre war def any tank that could move. But once they started moving off base towards were the ger at the border this number did decile even further and the recovery and repair system was inadaqute to cope.

Despite battles in manchuria, finlad and skirmishes in the baltic coutries, spain at least. Rus seemed fixed on producing as many tanks as possible without regard to thier ability to operate them even mechanically. Let alone adopting the newer better ger turrents designs, radios and training thier crews to put up a better fight.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
I remeber reading in nicklas kursk book that weapon claims were still grossly inflated by 43 but total ger mil pers cas were much closer to reality.

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Originally posted by Darrin:
Rus seemed fixed on producing as many tanks as possible without regard to thier ability to operate them even mechanically.

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It was the nature of Soviet economic system to focus on single big-ticket items and to leave supporting work at a lower priority. The focus on a few "sexy" items as a "measure of effectiveness" for their production resulted in numorous odd distortions. The economy was "command-driven" the same as the army was. I don't think this was the optimal arrangement for either.

The guilty party here is the Soviet Union, not the "Rus". During the course of its existance, three out of the seven leaders of the Soviet Union were not Russians, including its leader during WWII.

Most people think the shermans were some moneolithic tank that eased prod and main but that is not so true. Thier were at least 4 different engines one of which was hugly complicated and 3 different guns. Many modifications made during production from adding more arm to wet ammo sttorage and even different suspension. The tanks were made in different factories and were made with slighly differently just in the construction of the frontal glacis.

Thats without even discussing the jumbo shermans or british shermans converted to use maybe 2 more guns above the US level. Or the US TD which came in three differnet types. Of which the first two types the M10 and M18 both used 76 mm guns that although of the same cal were different in most respects including needing differnt ammo.

Even the light tanks the stuart and mccafee were diff tanks including very different guns. 37 mm and 75mm respectivly and this doesn´t even count the M3 medium tanks from earlier in the war.

The brits were even worse then this they made thier own tanks with a bit less variety but had to use thier tanks in conjugtion with the larger number of yank tanks in thier own forces. And work in close colaboration with the yank forces themselves.

The rus tanks early in the war were quite a varity dating back to the mid 30s. Only with the loss of so many of thier tank in 41 did the pictur change. They made mainly T34s and light T60,70 su76 which were all similar came to be the dom tanks in the army very quickly. It certainly helped with production and by 43 most of the rus tanks were T34s. But operation wise the rus made use of up to 15,000 LL tanks of many different types which while small in number still caused problems. This combined with less common tanks that survived from before the war and made after the war also caused headaches.

The ger tanks later in the war were the panther 75L70 the tiger I 88L56 which was fased out of cons and use with the introdution of the tiger II 88L71 in mid 44. The panzer IV which had only one 75mm gun late in the war and the stug III which again had one 75mm gun for even longer. The ger had two slightly different 75 mm guns late in the war the 75mmL48 for the panzer IV and the 75mmL46 for the stug. The panzer III, IV and the stug all shared many parts to ease construction and maintence. Even since 41 all three vehicles under went drastic changes but by 43 the pIII began to disappear and the others settaled down drastically. The stug was not a true tank by the ger def and that will play in latter. But it was the most common spGUN and was as common as any ger tank so I will include it here. And remained not just commn but mainly unchanged. So we have 4 main tanks and guns later in the war if we don´t count the two tigers that overlapped only a few months at most.

The problem is not the ger tanks which were similar to the US and rus tank forces built and used but all the late war less common ger emergency spguns. In the ger army these did not come under guderian and the panzer forces but the arty including the stug. Design, manufacture, training etc were all arty responsibility.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
If the Soviet leadership really did understand this, then you would think they would have been concerned about leadership, training and developing doctrine that would keep their losses at a more reasonable level.

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Recalling for a moment what I had said:

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What the national leadership needs to do is mobilize -- convert civilian resources to military capacity -- more quickly than their losses, and quickly enough to build an advantage over their opponent(s).

I would assert that US and Soviet leadership really DID understand this.

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I do not assert that the Soviets understood how to "balance" their economy. Nor do I assert they had a clear picture of relative loss ratios. But the Soviet leadership clearly understood that it would end up being a war of attrition, and they needed to expand their military faster than their opponent. It was all about converting national resources into military capability.

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While one could argue that the Soviet leader understood the "production" side of the equation, they never really got a grasp on their own "attrition" side of the equation. Part of this may have been due to the tendancy for the entire system to systematically grossly overclaim German losses. ... they were getting ... a false measure of the exchange ratios and results of their actions.

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Quite agree.

One flaw in the Soviet system, or any system that centralizes detailed decision making, is that the decisions wind up being made FAR away from the sources of information. No central authority has first-hand information, and in centralized decision-making no one with first-hand information makes any decisions.

The US Military today recognizes this in their own leadership models, where a) they stress the expression of the commander's intent, so that those with first-hand information can make decisions on how that intent is implemented, and b) they stress skipping levels for information coming upstream -- ie every commander is expected to receive reports from, and be aware of the dispositions of, subordinates TWO levels below rather than just ONE.

The Soviet military system, and indeed communist dogma, rejected the notion of "soft" human attributes/characteristics in favor of an emphasis on "hard" scientific/numerical methods. It was all in the numbers, because facts don't lie. But the people providing those "facts" ... ?

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
[i] Originally posted by Darrin:
[/b] Any suggestion that rus was somehow
more perfect than even ger is more myth
than reality.

I'm not really sure this was the point Mk 1 was making.

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Thank you, Chris. You are correct, it was not at all the point I was seeking to make.

Having read the article in the topic heading, I observe the author's conclusion that major conflicts between modern industrial powers have tended to be settled by attrition.

I also assert as my own conclusion that these kinds of conflicts are not just a question of who kills more of the other guy's soldiers (or civilians). That the issue, rather, is one of who is able to expand military capacity faster, and that losses are but one of a few variables that ultimately determine who comes out on top.

And I assert that US and Soviet national leadership seemed to understand that it was a contest of expanding military capacity, of converting "civilian" resources into military might. And that the German national leadership did not seem to really grasp this until about 1943.

I have never asserted that any party was "perfect", or "more perfect". I don't presume a position of advocacy for one party versus another. I'm only trying to articulate what I can observe of the lessons of the history of this period, so that my own understanding can grow.

Also it wasn´t that ger mil indus cap overall did not increse but that they started at a much lower inital levels in pre war. With the huge victories and low losses from 39-42 thier was little reason to increase but increase they did. It really wasn´t until 43 that the situation ger was in became apperent to most.

The rus tank and spgun prod reached a high point in 42 in terms of overall numbers and numbers of the T34/KV produced. Thier was no further increase in capacity in thier tank prod. This argues against prod increse as being so important to the soviet side for attriton but for immediate survival after the fiasco of 41. If they trully thought attrition was so important then some eventual increse in tank production to allow for thier continued huge loses even in 43-45 should be seen. Meanwhile the number of ger tanks produced increased each and every year of the war.

Total numbers of ger tanks and all spguns made would be in excess of 55,000 vehicles but strectching back to the late 30s. The total number of rus tanks and spguns made would be 100,000 during 4 years of war. Add in at least 20,000 pre war inventory and LL tanks and you get 120,000 tanks and sp guns made in rus. The rus alone might have produced double the ger tank numbers but lost more like three times the numbers on the eastern front. Its highly unlikly without a major att by the combined westen powers late in the war that rus would win the war by atrruiton or any other way...

Of course the rus also recieved a less than 15,000 LL tanks and spguns. And were aidded in thier tank production by arrival of certain LL items such as aluminum for the T34, KV engines which surpassed rus production during the later half of the war. But even with this help rus tank prod did not incese not even with the larger models later in the war.

In fact by 1945 rus losses during the last part of the war outstripped the ability of rus to produces tanks just as it had for the last 6 months of 43. Despite fighting rements of the ger army who were alo fighting the western forces. This despit the ger losing certain important war cap areas, imports routes and having thier prod/trans capacity bombed or reduced.

Now back to ability to produce tanks cheaply. The ger, rus and US all made thier medium late war tanks roughly around the same price. The T34, sherman and PzIV were all similarly priced despite the sherman and T34 being produced with great economy of scale. Almost 55,000 shermans and 65,000 T34s were made but germany made only 10,000 PzIVs. Economy of scale would dictate that the much larger number of shermans and T34s made would produce lower price than the panzer IV. Not only did that not happen but the panther tank was also produced around the same cost despite being produced in even smaller numbers roughly 6000 and was 50% heavier and more complex than the rest. None of this demonstrates that the ger were poor at production rather the reverse.

The real problem was not the material attrition which could be solved by production. But the high personnal loses which were caused by high material loses and which the rus could only really solve by production once the war started. Thier were a few points were attempts could have been made to reduce high material and personal losses but it seems to have had to small an impact.

The problem was not material attriton but personal attriton. Not just in the army but also in the civialan pop. People dieing in rus terr and occupied terr. People removed perm or temp from russian territory and used as ger workforce. Rus pows used as a ger workforce these were things the rus lost and the gers usally gained.

And it seems certain that without serious allied involvment in the west rus would have at best tied the gers in material attrition but lost the personnal attriton. No army, coutry and economy can operate with tanks without crew, trucks, fuel, ammo, factory workers etc... The rus army and country would evtually clopose or at least bleed dry even post 43.

Even in 41 since the rus peace time war economy was such a big part of thier GDP thier was much less room for the civ economy to be shifted to allow for military prod increses to occur then even the germans had. Plus with the huge loses of terr in 41 the ger GDP decclined by 40% but the actual rubble value of wartime production incresed. While wartime production was sometimes transported out most of the civilan production was not saved to be later converted to anything it was lost permanently.

Even something as important as oil the rus prod deliced to two thirds and stayed thier for the whole war. Trying to operate a modern overly large overly mech army without enough oil, trucks, rail, explosives, arty etc... Its no wonder the rus lost so many men and things.

I have seen him stating, and offering some statistics to support that:

- The Soviets were NOT increasing production of critical war materials after 1942.

- The Soviets were losing people faster, and by 1942 were already starting to run low.

- The Germans were INCREASING production of critical war materials after 1942.

- The Germans were GAINING population and expanding their wartime human resources after 1942.

- The Soviets were actually LOSING the "war of attrition" after 1942 -- particularly in the second half of 1943 and the first half of 1945, but even if you average first and second half of 1943 the Soviets were not "winning". It has even been asserted that the Soviets were loosing men and material not only faster than the Germans, but faster than they could be replaced. By this we must conclude that Soviet forces were contracting.

- The Germans demonstrated a positive battle loss ratio versus the Soviets throughout this period. While the ratio declined over the war years, the German production and resource base seems to have risen, and Soviet forces are demonstrated to have been contracting.

If I assembled just these observations, I would conclude that the Germans must have won. Clearly they would have been winning in 1943, OK perhaps loosing some of what they took in 44 but growing stronger during that time, and then going back on the winning path in 45.

Yet I see no evidence of this in my history books. Rather, I see an unbroken string of Soviet advances in the second half of 1943, with little evidence that the Soviets were weakening nor that the Germans were at all capable of stopping them. That string runs unabated through 1944 and right up to the end of the war in mid-45.

And oddly enough, throughout this period I see the material AND manpower advantages on the Soviet side expanding from one campaign to the next -- fighting from a position little better than parity in 1942 to fighting from a position of overwhealming superiority in late 1944 and early 1945.

To what do we attribute this appearant contradiction in terms?

quote:

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Originally posted by Mk 1:
I must confess that now I am rather confused about the information which Darrin has offered.

I have seen him stating, and offering some statistics to support that:

- The Soviets were NOT increasing production of critical war materials after 1942.

- The Soviets were losing people faster, and by 1942 were already starting to run low.

- The Germans were INCREASING production of critical war materials after 1942.

- The Germans were GAINING population and expanding their wartime human resources after 1942.

- The Soviets were actually LOSING the "war of attrition" after 1942 -- particularly in the second half of 1943 and the first half of 1945, but even if you average first and second half of 1943 the Soviets were not "winning". It has even been asserted that the Soviets were loosing men and material not only faster than the Germans, but faster than they could be replaced. By this we must conclude that Soviet forces were contracting.

- The Germans demonstrated a positive battle loss ratio versus the Soviets throughout this period. While the ratio declined over the war years, the German production and resource base seems to have risen, and Soviet forces are demonstrated to have been contracting.

If I assembled just these observations, I would conclude that the Germans must have won. Clearly they would have been winning in 1943, OK perhaps loosing some of what they took in 44 but growing stronger during that time, and then going back on the winning path in 45.

Yet I see no evidence of this in my history books. Rather, I see an unbroken string of Soviet advances in the second half of 1943, with little evidence that the Soviets were weakening nor that the Germans were at all capable of stopping them. That string runs unabated through 1944 and right up to the end of the war in mid-45.

And oddly enough, throughout this period I see the material AND manpower advantages on the Soviet side expanding from one campaign to the next -- fighting from a position little better than parity in 1942 to fighting from a position of overwhealming superiority in late 1944 and early 1945.

To what do we attribute this appearant contradiction in terms?

-Mark 1

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If you think the sov army only had parity in 42 then maybe you should go back and read your history books or find some with correct numbers its just not true. In fact the actual sov army grew very litlle from 43 to 45 except maybe aircraft. Also if you look at the rus units in 44 they are understr and as the war goes on the rus army does decline in size.

Well when the rus lose 1000 more tanks than they produce for over six month during late 43. Resulting in the number of tanks on the front decline in half we can hardly say that was not attritonal nor was it brillant russian offensive technique.

Also even before the allies invaded hitlar issued one of his furer orders that no reinforment of the east was to be made at expanxse of the west this was in nov 43. So it should come as no suprise that the ger started losing more groud then they could afford soon after this. But even so thier loses stayed relativly low and the rus relativly high until the summer of 44. When for 2-3 months after normandy the loses were higher. When almost half the ger pz div were in the west. But even then it returned to nórmal levels in late 44.

One of the reasons the rus were able to advance and be a bit mmore sucesful in the later part of the war was all the LL that arived. For example the av gas supplied was about 60% of total numbers which is 50% higher than the rus prod alone. But since the LL items usually were conc into the last two years and the rus prod was more avg each year it was less sig early and more sig late war. During the later part of the war we might see 3 times more av gas come from LL then was produced which increases the total amount of av gas avilable by 4. We can see this repeated for things such as explosives, trucks etc...

In fact the rus losses in men and tanks actually went up in 45 to levels higher than it had been since 1941. Despit the fact they were attacking remeents of the ger army that was fighting a 2-3 front war.

The rus were still losing men faster on the east front in 44 then the gers were and by a margin that excedded thier population. Both of those figure were narrowing though and the doors were within sight. The big difference in 44 was that the ger losses in the west which had been minimal before 44 were now very significant. This together with the sov army began to turn the tide of attrition almost in line with difference between the sov and ger pop.