The shortcomings of the German Army in WW2

[Case]

There's an interesting article on the Wargamer website here: http://www.wargamer.com/articles/german_myth_main.asp which discusses the ways in which the German army is often overated in computer games and histories of the war.
Given that some people on this board are of the opinion that the German defeat in the Second World War was solely Hitler's fault, I think that the article is well worth a read.

 

[kobayashi]

Completely unconvincing. The main flaw in the entire article is that is assumes the other powers did not have many of the same problems. Hitler is not the only primary problem that people associate with the Germans. For example, the LACK of resources and not the dirstribution of resources was another primary problem - alluded to in one sentence in the article but ignored completely thereafter. In other threads some possible turning points which could have led to German victory have been identified - like Japan attacking Russia instead of Pearl Harbour. Having better German logistics organization is certainly not one of them.

 

[Case]

German logistics were a major problem. Throughout the war the vast majority of the German army was dependant on horse-drawn transport and rail transport, with the result that major movements could move at little more then walking pace (most notably during the later stages of Barbarosa, and the 'battle of the build up' in Normandy).

 

[kobayashi]

The point is

Were the soviets not using horses and rail? Was sending supplies across the Atlantic easier?

 

[Lucky]

Given that some people on this board are of the opinion that the German defeat in the Second World War was solely Hitler's fault, ...

First of all the main false assumption is that Hitler was the only one who made any decisions for the Axis powers. It is true that he became more powerfull throughout the war but he wasn´t the only one to make decisions.
But on the other hand Hitler indeed made several decisions which influenced the course of the war greatly.
He was the one who stopped Operation Sealion and didn´t even think about a seaborne invasion.
But the turning point was Operation Barbarossa, of course.

German logistics were a major problem.

Before starting the invasion of the Soviet Union Hitler consulted several fortune tellers, astrologists and others.:crazyeyes He based his decision on their predictions of a fair winter in 1941. The German army then invaded Soviet soil without appropriate winter equipment, despite the protest of the generals. There was more than enough equipment in storage.
So in a sense it indeed was a major logistical proplem.
His second major error in this operation was sending Army Group Center to assist Army Group South in taking Kiev. AGC could easily have reached Moscow before the winter. At this time there was almost no defense there, the first Siberian reinforcement arrived only in late December.
:tank:
But again! Hitler wasn´t a one-man government and military leader. Many of his colleagues in government and military shared his views or were afraid to disagree.


Without good german logistics the Blitzkrieg wouldn´t have been possible. That´s why nobody could stop them in the beginning.
But the longer the war lasted the greater the resource problems became, as mentioned by kobayashi.
The german African Corps was the first to 'feel' this lack of resources. Due to the naval superiority of the English in the Mediterranean, only few shipments could be made from Italy and an Army couldn´t/can´t be supported only with air transports.
At the Soviet front the problem was even greater because it stretched over several thousand kilometers. And the Soviet were destroying every infrastructure on their retreat.
The most well known example of lack of recources is probably the Ardenne counteroffensive in 1944. The german King Tiger and Panther tanks were far superior in firepower and armor. But after several days of advancing the tanks ran out of fuel and the now moveless tanks were a great target practice for the Allies.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

The primarily horse drawn german supply forward of the railhaead was a major anchor upon their offesive operations. It could not even keep up with infantry marching, much less mechanize advance.

 

[SunTzu]

Think about this.
If japan attacked russia instead of the usa.
If operation barbarossa never took place.
What if Germany never declared war on the usa?
Germany was the one to declare war on the usa, the usa didn't declare war on germany.
What if hitler did operation sealion and succeeded, then he would have all of his forces for operation barbarossa

 

[kobayashi]

BTW,

Does anyone know what is the synthetic oil that the Germans produced when they lost their oilfields?

 

[Rowan]

Maybe also one of the biggest short comings of the Wermacht was its industrial base.
[dance] [dance]

 

[Richard III]

I stopped reading at the bit about the "wasteful" decentralized logistics commands and structures. What a crock. Maybe if the author had compared the decentralized logistics to, say, the more centralized model of the allied forces in France in '44 - whoa, wait, wasn't that the same centralized model that led to hoarding, corruption, massive administrative waste, and was combatted by various commanders proceeding with operational priorities at the expense of supplies? Golly, and all that, PLUS the shortages due to poor logistics. Interesting...

I DO think that many wargames go a bit far in terms of German superiority, and their operational/strategic intelligence wasn't so hot. but how far is open to debate. I just watched a documentary last night on the Italian campaign - good stuff, lots of interviews with frontline troops re: the Gustav Line, Cassino and Anzio. It's pretty hard to come away from stories like those without wondering if German strength was underrrated.

 

[knowltok3]

One of the big problems the Germans had was that they kept designing better tanks. This lead to short production runs and delays in getting the tanks to battle as better tweaks were added. The result is that the tanks were superb, but high maintenance and in lower supply. They were also fixated on the super tank and didn't see the value of having a bunch of tanks that were just decent.

 

[kobayashi]

Have to disagree on this one. I think they had no choice since they didn't have the materials or manpower to man a bunch of decent tanks. As it was trading one for five tanks with the Russians was still losing them the battle of attrition. And, there wasn't the fuel to power many tanks. But even then, trading five for one was better than trading one for one.

Probably would have been more efficient to drop the Tiger series completley until they had a powerful enough engine and you are right in that respect..but the outcome would have been the same even if the Germans had an all Panther force.

 

[knowltok3]

All valid points, and perhaps more tanks would not have helped, but the a greater focus on efficiency as opposed to making the perfect tank might have freed up resources for other areas. That's mainly my point.

 

[kobayashi]

Have a look at this older thread in the scenario creation forum that touches on parts of this topic in great detail. It also eventually led to my ZWK scenario.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1302

 

[Case]

Originally posted by kobayashi
As it was trading one for five tanks with the Russians was still losing them the battle of attrition. And, there wasn't the fuel to power many tanks. But even then, trading five for one was better than trading one for one.

From late 1943 Germany was trading tanks with the Soviets on a one to one ratio! (after all the T-34/85 was roughly equal to the Panther, and the Joseph Stalin II was at least as good as the Tiger I)
The overall five to one ratio resulted mainly from the slaughters of 1941 and 1942.

 

[DingBat]

I don't know about trading one for one. The references I have seem to indicate that the Germans were still getting the better of the Soviets tactically.

One of the largest loss area for the German armored force was breakdowns. Breakdowns can be recovered when you're attacking. When you're retreating, they're a total loss.

Anyway, my take on the Wehrmact:

1) Tactically

The good:

Woops, screwed this up. See my reply below.

 

[DingBat]

I don't know about trading one for one. The references I have seem to indicate that the Germans were still getting the better of the Soviets tactically (PanzerTruppen 1 and 2).

One of the largest loss area for the German armored force was breakdowns. Breakdowns can be recovered when you're attacking. When you're retreating, they're a total loss.

Anyway, my take on the Wehrmact:

1) Tactically

The good:
- Superb small unit flexibility.
- Excellent leadership
- Good weaponry (especially in Panzer, Motorized/PanzerGrenadier, Volksgrenadier, and SS units).
- All arms coordination
- Good training (this decreased as the war progressed).

The bad:
- Uneven quality, especially in infantry divisions.
- Limited motorization.
- German over-engineering of many weapon systems
- Some tendency to fritter away strength in Kampfgruppen, especially as regards artillery.
- Quantity has a quality all of it's own, as the Germans found out to their dismay.

2) Operational

The good:
- Excellent staff support
- Excellent battle management by divisional, corp and army group commanders

The bad:
- Long term thinking tended to stop at the operational level (see below).

3) Strategic

The good:
- Generally excellent leadership, though this was softened by high level "interference".

The bad:
- No real strategy for winning the war.
- No strategic bomber force.
- No unified strategic direction for the various arms.


This focuses on the military itself. If you want to talk about German strategic shortcomings, that's sort of a different topic.

/bruce

 

[DingBat]

Now, for German strategic shortcomings:

1) No full mobilization until relatively late in the war.

2) Tendency to fritter away resources on research projects. No concentration on proven weapon systems.

3) Geographical location in Europe (harder for the Soviet Union or Britain to get into a two front war).

4) No clear strategic goals. War fought as a series of campaigns with no ultimate goal.

5) High level interference with front line limiting operational flexibility.

That's a good start.

/bruce

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Case


From late 1943 Germany was trading tanks with the Soviets on a one to one ratio! (after all the T-34/85 was roughly equal to the Panther, and the Joseph Stalin II was at least as good as the Tiger I)
The overall five to one ratio resulted mainly from the slaughters of 1941 and 1942.

Quite right to say this. The initial swap ratio was about 1:10 and this fell to 3:4 at the lowest point when T-34s first appeared in great numbers. The kill ratio improved in 44 but never back to the level of the early days. I disagree about your comments on the T-34/85 and IS-2. Panther was superior to T-34/85 and a IS-2 is superior to a tiger in my opinion.

Generally Panther and IS-2 should be compared as they were both about 45 tonnes. IS-2 is often considered better because of its bigger main gun - but most people conveniently forget that it could only carry 28 shells (25 kilos) vs about 80 shells (5 kilos) on a Panther. A trade off for fielding a 122mm gun and heavier armour on a 40 tonne platform. The Panther had greater mobility and targetting optics. IS-2 was not very practical and that's why it vanished quicky after WWII.

 

[willemvanoranje]

Originally posted by DingBat
Now, for German strategic shortcomings:
1) No full mobilization until relatively late in the war.

If I get your post wrong, sorry.

1. A full mobilization would've meant less people in the factories and farms. Hitler wanted Germany to be an autarky, so there had to be enough food (that's why I named the farms). Besides that, the young German boys volunteered a lot, so there was no need for mobilization at all. The army already functioned very good, and the factories already were short on employees, especially the aircraft factories in the Ruhr-area and München.