Why were the Wehrmacht's logistics so bad?

[cardcarrier]

Germans didn't achieve their goals in North Africa in any possible framing of these goals that they used. They failed to secure Italian possessions which was initial point of the deployment. They failed to take Egypt too which was a result of gradual mission creep and Rommel personal flexible attitude towards the strategic goals High Command set before him.

Basically, if you move away from framing military success as 'who does the most killing' and 'who takes the most ground', the German actual success rate is pretty poor throughout the war.

On top of that the claim was the operational victories came from not worrying to much about outpacing logistics

Truly the N.African campaign was not a good example for that!

Rommels orders from his superiors (who never bothered to visit Africa or read quartermaster papers for themselves) were complete non sense from the moment he arrived

He had no control over his own high command and political leadership deciding to use 80 percent of axis war potential against Russia and to declare war on 7x Germanys industrial power. He certainly has zero input in the Italian army and fleets wild lack of preparedness for war

Except in the aftermath of his incredible operational victories most of his campaigns in Africa started with him at a disadvantage of 2.5-3.5 to 1 in infantry armor and artillery and something close to 1:1 in aircraft

There is no general who would have gotten more out of what Germany committed to Africa under the nonsensical series of orders be received and lack of support from Europe. Not Ike not Monty not zhukov or napoleon. The dak fought a very tough and 8 times out of 10 operationally well managed campaign

 

[cardcarrier]

Cite?

I’ve read something from dr showalter that says it is a case study at the Russian army academy. My brother was a battalion commander in gulf war 1 and told me it was a standard table exercise for new company commanders at fort hood in the late 80s. Fritz bayerlin and others used it as a nato lecturing tool throughout the early part of the cold war

As well it should be. His recon battalion where some really crafty bastards in that battle

 

[TDM]

Rommels orders from his superiors (who never bothered to visit Africa or read quartermaster papers for themselves) were complete non sense from the moment he arrived

He had no control over his own high command and political leadership deciding to use 80 percent of axis war potential against Russia and to declare war on 7x Germanys industrial power. He certainly has zero input in the Italian army and fleets wild lack of preparedness for war

Except in the aftermath of his incredible operational victories most of his campaigns in Africa started with him at a disadvantage of 2.5-3.5 to 1 in infantry armor and artillery and something close to 1:1 in aircraft

There is no general who would have gotten more out of what Germany committed to Africa under the nonsensical series of orders be received and lack of support from Europe. Not Ike not Monty not zhukov or napoleon. The dak fought a very tough and 8 times out of 10 operationally well managed campaign

I agree with most of that, but that does not change the fact N.Africa was a particularly unforgiving theater for ignoring logistics in and that was the claim. The claim was also they won, they didn't

 

[Crueldwarf]

Rommels orders from his superiors (who never bothered to visit Africa or read quartermaster papers for themselves) were complete non sense from the moment he arrived

Rommel initial orders made perfect amount of sense. His purpose was to shore up the Italians and keep the British out of Libya. He achieved that and after that he decided to creatively interpret what 'securing Italian holdings in the North Africa' means and expanded it to 'let's kick the British out of Egypt'. Nobody from higher up actually ordered him to do that. It was purely his own doing.

If he chose to sit tight in Libya the end result would be the same - British with the American help would kick him out by 1943, but he also would save both Germany and Italy and inordinate amount of men and material that was spent on chasing British around the desert for no fucking gain at all.

It is basically what happens when you allow a glorified Corp commander to make strategic decisions for your country. Only Japanese were worse at that. They had colonels who tried to define whole foreign policy and shit.

 

[cardcarrier]

Rommel initial orders made perfect amount of sense. His purpose was to shore up the Italians and keep the British out of Libya. He achieved that and after that he decided to creatively interpret what 'securing Italian holdings in the North Africa' means and expanded it to 'let's kick the British out of Egypt'. Nobody from higher up actually ordered him to do that. It was purely his own doing.

If he chose to sit tight in Libya the end result would be the same - British with the American help would kick him out by 1943, but he also would save both Germany and Italy and inordinate amount of men and material that was spent on chasing British around the desert for no fucking gain at all.

It is basically what happens when you allow a glorified Corp commander to make strategic decisions for your country. Only Japanese were worse at that. They had colonels who tried to define whole foreign policy and shit.

Standing in the defensive with the geography of Libya is impossible and this proven throughout the western desert campaign

The day he landed in Libya British airbases were already close enough to routinely bomb Tripoli and British possession of Benghazi let their light ships control the gulf of sirte to menace his supply lines (including a battleship bombardment of Tripoli)

By 1942 the new generation of American built bombers could bomb Tripoli from Egyptian bases; and more to the point Tripoli even if fully operational (which it often wasn’t)wasnt enough to keep his army supplied for active operations

The quartermaster corps looked at Libya before he went. They said 4 divisions and 1000 planes or don’t bother Hitler ignored them and did a half measure. If Rommel followed his orders he would have been defeated and compelled to surrender well before the end of 1941

 

[Alamannicus]

They had colonels who tried to define whole foreign policy and shit.

"The Officers did WHAT at the bridge??"

 

[Crueldwarf]

Standing in the defensive with the geography of Libya is impossible and this proven throughout the western desert campaign

It is very much possible because if Rommel was capable of kicking British butts all the way to El'Alamein, he would be capable of doing the same at the Libyan border with even greater success doing quite literally the same thing but with much shorter supply line. And it would be much cheaper for the German war effort as a whole.

 

[Hydra1234]

To be fair the red army did have issues keeping is (huge) armies supplied in that advance and logistics was often a serious limiting factor, but also had more trucks etc than the Germans could have dreamed of.

The Soviet Union ended the war (in Europe) with ~660k trucks, around the same size as the German motor pool at the start of Barbarossa, with substantially more men than the Germans. Lend-lease was offset by the fact that the Soviets produced very few domestic trucks during the war.

 

[cardcarrier]

It is very much possible because if Rommel was capable of kicking British butts all the way to El'Alamein, he would be capable of doing the same at the Libyan border with even greater success doing quite literally the same thing but with much shorter supply line. And it would be much cheaper for the German war effort as a whole.

This was a circular problem for which there was never a solution

British planes at gambut airfield outside Tobruk could fly resupply missions to Malta threatening Rommel supply lines

British planes at gambut could and did bomb his cargo ships in Tripoli and bengahzi

British submarines and light surface ships could refuel and rearm to attack his convoys

Pushing the British back hundreds of miles, although making his supply lines longer made Tripoli and Benghazi more secure Geography and preponderance of forces was always against him

 

[Post]

This has probably been mentioned but the biggest thing wasn’t really the Germans having bad logistics it was more so the Russians using different rail gauges than the Germans, and the Russians destroying their trains as they retreated. Supply trains coming out of Germany would have to change over to the few Russian gauged trains the Germans captured, and physically changing track gauges from Russian to German was a costly process for them to undertake.

As other already have mentioned, changing the gauge wouldn't have been that difficult. It's a question of priority and long term planning. Of which the latter was pretty much non existant in German high command. One of the reasons for that is that they knew they couldn't win a long war, so their aim was to keep it short. Which works fine if you manage to knock out your opponent at the first blow, but goes to shambles if you don't.

Different gauge thing is kinda overrated IMO. You can deal with that relatively simply. People today are still dealing with that constantly because gauge difference persisted and parts of the USSR are now in the European Union and they mostly kept the old gauge. So it is a really a question of changing/adjusting a carriage on the crossing points. And it was as possible in WW2 as it is now. Traincar undercarriages didn't change that much since these times.

The issue with train part of German logistics was not really about how wide the tracks are on which side of the border. The issue was that German and most of the captured European rolling stock was designed for the vastly different distances and different density of maintenance facilities than locomotives and train cars made in USSR. So even when Germans changed the gauge or adapted their trains to run on Soviet tracks (they did both AFAIK in different places and at different times), these trains were still made for European scales of travel and using them in USSR was not by design. So natural attrition from wear and tear on the stock was higher as the result and it compounded the whole mess further.

The distance in Russia were indeed an important issue. But they could have known beforehand and didn't plan for it. As @David Flin mentions, there's a technical term for it.

Rommels orders from his superiors (who never bothered to visit Africa or read quartermaster papers for themselves) were complete non sense from the moment he arrived

No they weren't. The reason he got those orders was because of the logistical reality.

The quartermaster corps looked at Libya before he went. They said 4 divisions and 1000 planes or don’t bother Hitler ignored them and did a half measure. If Rommel followed his orders he would have been defeated and compelled to surrender well before the end of 1941

AFAIK these said 4 divisions because of the logistical reality. That was the most that could be supplied from the harbors in their possession. The reason he didn't get 4 German division is because of the political reality: there were Italians there too. Hitler couldn't order them to retreat out of North Africa.

What Rommel always did, was outrun his logistics and then complain that he didn't get enough to do what he wanted, even though he was told before what he could expect to get* and then chose to ignore it and run with it anyway. IMO Rommel is the most overrated commander in WW2, because he never paid attention to the limitations of his logistics.

* And he got what they told him ho could get, inspite of the popular narrative that the DAK was undersupplied. It may have been (due to Rommels actions), but they were supplied within the capacity of the harbors they had.

 

[Crueldwarf]

Pushing the British back hundreds of miles, although making his supply lines longer made Tripoli and Benghazi more secure Geography and preponderance of forces was always against him

And it will not matter in the slightest. Because OTL Rommel himself did more to interdict his own supply lines than British ever did. He did that by extending that supply line by a thousand kilometers and more.

British could base whatever amount of planes at Tobruk and it wouldn't change the situation with Malta in the slightest. Because the issue about Malta is not how far closest British airfields are. It is about how much of the Luftwaffe is busy in the Soviet Union. And if British would try to pull an air bridge to Malta, the Germans were in much better position to interdict it than they were to interdict the sea resupply. As British were stronger at sea than they were in the air (at this time and place at least).

Rommel's North Africa escapades were pointless waste of resources and good old Desert Fox is one of the most overrated military leaders in history that got his name solely because butthurt British promoted the guy who kicked their butt so much to near godhood. Because loosing to a literal god of war is not as painful as loosing to a random German loose cannon whose main virtue was that Hitler really liked him. And nobody else did.

 

[cardcarrier]

As other already have mentioned, changing the gauge wouldn't have been that difficult. It's a question of priority and long term planning. Of which the latter was pretty much non existant in German high command. One of the reasons for that is that they knew they couldn't win a long war, so their aim was to keep it short. Which works fine if you manage to knock out your opponent at the first blow, but goes to shambles if you don't.

The distance in Russia were indeed an important issue. But they could have known beforehand and didn't plan for it. As @David Flin mentions, there's a technical term for it.

No they weren't. The reason he got those orders was because of the logistical reality.

AFAIK these said 4 divisions because of the logistical reality. That was the most that could be supplied from the harbors in their possession. The reason he didn't get 4 German division is because of the political reality: there were Italians there too. Hitler couldn't order them to retreat out of North Africa.

What Rommel always did, was outrun his logistics and then complain that he didn't get enough to do what he wanted, even though he was told before what he could expect to get* and then chose to ignore it and run with it anyway. IMO Rommel is the most overrated commander in WW2, because he never paid attention to the limitations of his logistics.

* And he got what they told him ho could get, inspite of the popular narrative that the DAK was undersupplied. It may have been (due to Rommels actions), but they were supplied within the capacity of the harbors they had.

They said 4 divisions as maximum that could be supported minimum for victory and that envisioned taking Malta Crete Cyprus and Gibraltar and use of Vichy ports in Tunisia and air umbrella saturation above Rommel convoys

Nothing remotely like that was done and his supply lines to Tripoli where routinely choked off by air and naval forces out Malta, even when he was sitting still

To give the case in point, in may 1942 after sitting supine for 18 weeks! And Malta being bombed to smithereens where 92 percent of his supplies were getting through and clandestine use of the Tunisian ports he was supplied for 10…10 days of offensive warfare. And the British were preparing for a massive attack in august which he had no ability to defend against. The point of the campaign stood there. He had to steal supplies from the British or he would be defeated and compelled to surrender

 

[TDM]

Not really. It is off-hand impression from memory but Soviet Army ended the war with about the same amount of trucks as Germans started the invasion of USSR. It is a thing that I can fairly say is the most misunderstood about the fighting in the Eastern Front. For the most part of the war, Germans were using more fuel than the Soviets.

Really? I agree that last one is surprising just given the sheer numbers of vehicles produced by either side and lend lease!

although perhaps I should have said had more operating trucks during the respective offensive campaigns

 

[Post]

They said 4 divisions as maximum that could be supported minimum for victory and that envisioned taking Malta Crete Cyprus and Gibraltar and use of Vichy ports in Tunisia and air umbrella saturation above Rommel convoys

Nothing remotely like that was done and his supply lines to Tripoli where routinely choked off by air and naval forces out Malta, even when he was sitting still

To give the case in point, in may 1942 after sitting supine for 18 weeks! And Malta being bombed to smithereens where 92 percent of his supplies were getting through and clandestine use of the Tunisian ports he was supplied for 10…10 days of offensive warfare. And the British were preparing for a massive attack in august which he had no ability to defend against. The point of the campaign stood there. He had to steal supplies from the British or he would be defeated and compelled to surrender

Nevertheless the port of Tripoli was used to capacity (and so it couldn't process more). Malta, Gibraltar and Cuprus weren't really relevant for that. Although the convoys suffered losses, they did get through. You say it yourself, 92% of his supplies got through. He got what they told him he would get. It would have helped if he wasn't sitting near El Alamein, so a large part of the fuel he got was used to get it at the front.

There are very solid reasons why he was told not to advance so far. There was no port capacity to supply him more.

 

[TDM]

The Soviet Union ended the war (in Europe) with ~660k trucks, around the same size as the German motor pool at the start of Barbarossa, with substantially more men than the Germans. Lend-lease was offset by the fact that the Soviets produced very few domestic trucks during the war.

I thought the German motor pool of 600k in Barbarossa includes a wider range of motor vehicles than just trucks?

I'll be honest given the size of the Russian army and the speed of their advance 1944-45, I think I'll need to see some pretty iron clad figures or have some other explanation that would allow this if it's not more trucks.

also ending the war and having them during the ongoing operations are two different things,

 

[Crueldwarf]

Really? I agree that last one is surprising just given the sheer numbers of vehicles produced by either side and lend lease!

although perhaps I should have said had more operating trucks during the respective offensive campaigns

To use actual numbers: Soviet military (minus the navy) consumed 2,6 million tons of fuel of all types during 1942 and 3,2 million tons in 1943. German military in comparison (but with inclusion of the navy here) consumed 4,4 million tons in 1942 and 4,7 million tons in 1943.

The situation was somewhat close even in production numbers. USSR produced 0,9 million tons of aviation gasoline in 1942 and 1 million in 1943. Germany - 1,5 and 1,9 million respectively. All other types of gasoline? USSR in 1942 - 1,6 million tons, 1943 - 1,7 million tons. Germany - 2,1 and 2,3 million tons respectively. What surprised me the most that Germans actually produced more diesel fuel than the Soviets too. 0,5 and 1 million tons for the Soviets and 1,8 and 2 million tons for the Germans.

Germany was fuel starved in very relative manner so to speak. They didn't have enough to fulfill all their needs, yes. But they still had more than USSR had for the first half of the war at least.

 

[Post]

To use actual numbers: Soviet military (minus the navy) consumed 2,6 million tons of fuel of all types during 1942 and 3,2 million tons in 1943. German military in comparison (but with inclusion of the navy here) consumed 4,4 million tons in 1942 and 4,7 million tons in 1943.

The situation was somewhat close even in production numbers. USSR produced 0,9 million tons of aviation gasoline in 1942 and 1 million in 1943. Germany - 1,5 and 1,9 million respectively. All other types of gasoline? USSR in 1942 - 1,6 million tons, 1943 - 1,7 million tons. Germany - 2,1 and 2,3 million tons respectively. What surprised me the most that Germans actually produced more diesel fuel than the Soviets too. 0,5 and 1 million tons for the Soviets and 1,8 and 2 million tons for the Germans.

Germany was fuel starved in very relative manner so to speak. They didn't have enough to fulfill all their needs, yes. But they still had more than USSR had for the first half of the war at least.

So they weren't fuelefficient enough? (as in: they used more fuel for their operations they could afford, while their opponent could beat them with less).

 

[TDM]

And it will not matter in the slightest. Because OTL Rommel himself did more to interdict his own supply lines than British ever did. He did that by extending that supply line by a thousand kilometers and more.

British could base whatever amount of planes at Tobruk and it wouldn't change the situation with Malta in the slightest. Because the issue about Malta is not how far closest British airfields are. It is about how much of the Luftwaffe is busy in the Soviet Union. And if British would try to pull an air bridge to Malta, the Germans were in much better position to interdict it than they were to interdict the sea resupply. As British were stronger at sea than they were in the air (at this time and place at least).

Rommel's North Africa escapades were pointless waste of resources and good old Desert Fox is one of the most overrated military leaders in history that got his name solely because butthurt British promoted the guy who kicked their butt so much to near godhood. Because loosing to a literal god of war is not as painful as loosing to a random German loose cannon whose main virtue was that Hitler really liked him. And nobody else did.

I agree the British do always like to paint ourselves as underdogs, but we did manage to do some arse kicking of our own in N.Africa, even against Rommel the god or war!

 

[TDM]

To use actual numbers: Soviet military (minus the navy) consumed 2,6 million tons of fuel of all types during 1942 and 3,2 million tons in 1943. German military in comparison (but with inclusion of the navy here) consumed 4,4 million tons in 1942 and 4,7 million tons in 1943.

The situation was somewhat close even in production numbers. USSR produced 0,9 million tons of aviation gasoline in 1942 and 1 million in 1943. Germany - 1,5 and 1,9 million respectively. All other types of gasoline? USSR in 1942 - 1,6 million tons, 1943 - 1,7 million tons. Germany - 2,1 and 2,3 million tons respectively. What surprised me the most that Germans actually produced more diesel fuel than the Soviets too. 0,5 and 1 million tons for the Soviets and 1,8 and 2 million tons for the Germans.

Germany was fuel starved in very relative manner so to speak. They didn't have enough to fulfill all their needs, yes. But they still had more than USSR had for the first half of the war at least.

Cool!, where are those from?

also do you have figures for 1944 when the Russians really got going west?

 

[Crueldwarf]

I thought the German motor pool of 600k in Barbarossa includes a wider range of motor vehicles than just trucks?

I'll be honest given the size of the Russian army and the speed of their advance 1944-45, I think I'll need to see some pretty iron clad figures or have some other explanation that would allow this if it's not more trucks.

also ending the war and having them during the ongoing operations are two different things,

By May 1, 1944 Red Army had organizational strength (so what it should have) of 736 671 automotive vehicles (so anything larger than a motorcycle), of which they actually had 541 466 vehicles (so 73,5% of required strength). Of which 408 297 (75,4%) were domestically produced, 113 307 (20,9%) were foreign-made and supplied by the Allies and 19 862 (3,7%) were battlefield captures from the Germans.

I would try to find figures for 1945.