Originally posted by Joseph Scott:
With reagrd to Jason's original contention that the Germans falied to expand their military suffiently:It is not that simple at all. There was an ongoing debate between Hitler and the German Army on this point, begining with Fritsch and Beck back in 1938, and contining all throughout the war.
Oops sorry to quote the entire post. I just wanted to say I am in agreement with the contention that the rapid expansion of the Wehrmacht prior to the war did lead to a decline in overall quality.
Also, regarding your statement about the Fw 190, are you sure it measured up in quality with the P 51? Just a nitpick, I know, but I would like to see some evidence for that
Best Regards
I.M.A
Hitler wanted a bigger army before Poland even happened of course. But the army sizes he demanded were flatly refused by Fritsch and Beck on the following grounds: doing so would have mandated reducing the training time of officers from 2 years to 6 months. It was the admanat opinion of the army that two yaeras was the absoluite minimum amount of time neccessary to train a good officer.
Fritsch told Hitler that he could not get the kind of army expansion he wanted before 1943.
Anything else would have resulted in a possibly irrepairable quality loss.
Throught the war, attempts to expand or even replace army strength was conditioned by the need to have fully trained officer cadres to lead such units.
When such things weren't done, such as with the Luftwaffe Field Divisions, with officers from Luftwaffe air anfd support units, not trained in the mode of warfare they were fighting, the rseklts were disaterous, and the units in question were never anything like up to army standard.
So, while the Germans could have built up their army more rapidly, doing so would have almots vertainly reduced it's quality.
And that would have had an important effect on the attrition exchange rations upon which the premise if built.
They could only tarina officers so fats, and to ensure the quality of that training time, they could only expand their training schools so quickly, since they had to train more onstructors (and even lengthier process to train more officers.
And this isn't limited to officers, though it has the greatest effect there. The Germans, to replace the losses they suffred in 1943-44, had to continually cut corners on training of ordinary soldiers. The army that manned the Wsetwall in late '44 and fought in the Ardenness was nothing like it's predeccesor in early '44, much less pervious years. Basic soldier skills continued to decline, as less time was devoted to training.
Also, as far as equipment, especially tanks: the Germans couldn't just build and drive more tanks by making less sewing machines, or what not.
As Rich has already noted, the whole proces of expanding a particular indutry is expensive and time consuming.
Again, in 1938, Hitler wanted to have a British style all Mechanized/Motorised army. And available data indicated to him that Germany could, if other areas were sacrificed, build enough trucks to do this.
But, were, Fritsch and Beck wanted to know, would Hitler get the fuel for such a force to move?
The Germans were constantly trying to increase their synthetic fuel production, and they succeeded admirably. But it is very questionable of they could have done so much faster than they did. Without adequate fuel, extra tanks in 1941 or 42 make no great difference.
The Germans limited the built up of mehcanized.motorised firces because they did not have access to the fuel. The amount of time and effort Hilter focused on trying to get to the Caususes (ie, the entire southern front, Stalingrad, and all that) should make that clear.
As should what happened to the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe had no desire to reduce pilot training. But fuel shortages meant that pilots logged fewer and few flight hours before being sent into combat. The aces of the glory days dwindled, as they found themselves having to babysit squadrons of newbies who just could't fly at the old standard.
The same problem is present with regard to building more aircrraft, as suggested in Gilbert's post. They only had so much fuel to go around.
Finally, their is the material part of it, literally. Consider tank armour steel: From 1940-42, a 55-80mm plate of armour had specification BHN (Brinnell Hardness Number) of 294-338. That is, the armour was expected to be that hard, when tested, to be acceptable for service.
However, to meet the increased production runs of 1943-44, the Germans had to drop their specifuications for that plate thickness to 266-311, a nearly 9% drop in hardness.
Or aircraft: to achive the 1944 fighter production levels, the Germans switched production away from the Fw-190, an aircfrft that was on par with the best Allied fighters, like the P-51, to to concentrate on the simpler, cheaper Bf/Me-109, a plane whcih, while good, was pretty well outmatched by aircraft like the P-51.
In short, had the Germans done as Jason advises, and built up their army as fast as thei population and indutry could manage, (ie, at 1943-44 levels), they would have had to sacrifice quality in everything, from tank armour to fighter models, right down to the critical area of troop quality.
And again, they would not have been able to drive all those new tanks, nor fly all those new aircraft, much less all the trucks those Panzer divisions needed, and thus would not have been able to train all those drivers and pilots, either.
It is for all those reasons, along with the other important socio-political realities concerning German public opinion, that the Germans did not expand their armed forces at such rates.
Thus, the contention that the Germans didn't fully mobilize their resources because they were overconfident is just wrong.
They, like their opponents, made a series of decsions throughout the war, concerning trade offs between things like aircraft or tank production, army size vs. quality, and a thousand others They may not have made the best decision each time. In fact, we can be sure they didn't. But there is no basis for accusing them of ignoring things out of overconfidence, or not "really trying."
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posted 08-01-2006 03:40 AM
