Changing The War

[grumbler]

Originally posted by sean9898
I don't see how my comments would allow you to conclude that I agree. The French campaign in 1944 would not have been improved by another Mulberry, or more trucks. The allies simply advanced too far too quickly. IMHO, the capture of intact ports, which was pretty much impossible is the only solution to the supply problem.

Why is the capture of a port the only solution, when the creation of additional capacity to suply the forces on the front line is not? Are the bullets delivered by Mulberry and truck somehow inferior to those delivered by an "intact port"? The Allies had plenty of supplies. The problem was delivery to the fighting forces. I have proposed a solution, which you toss off without explanation. I think supplying the army was a higher priority than conducting the SBC.

I do not believe that any justifications for Strategic bombing have been proved false. Neither has the bomber will get through theory. The bombers, be they German, American or British did always get through. While daylight bombing would extract a toll too high for the results, nighttime bombing was undefendable.

I think that all of the justifications for strategic bombing were proved false until the advent of the atomic bomb. Many, many bombers did not get through, and most of those who did missed their targets, especially at night.

Bombing did not improve British morale.

Many historians disagree with this.

To believe that the British sat in shelters merrily singing "We'll hang our washing on the Siegfried Line," is to believe wartime propaganda.

I'm not sure who this is meant for. Are you doscussing this topic with someone else on another board, perhaps? It certainly is not anything that I said.

A concerted effort by German heavy bombers on the scale of the British campaign would have severely hampered the war effort, and the will to continue. Speer himself is quoted as saying "6 more Hamburgs would have knocked us out of the war."

This is purest speculation. If you wish to quote someone, please cite a source. The fact of the matter is that the SBC, carried out at great cost in lives and treasure, DID NOT knock Germany out of the war, so this speculation isn't even germaine to the discussion.

The reassesment of Strategic bombing is typical of the kindler, more gentle and politically correct age we live in. The immorality of killing German women and children allows for reassesment of a campaign which had a very large impact on Germany's ability to attack Russia and later the allies.

Actually, many held the same opinions as I hold even during and just after the war. I'm not sure why you are imputing that it is the "the kindler, more gentle and politically correct age we live in" that guides my historical analysis and conclusions. I base my conclusions on the facts and the facts haven't changed since 1945. The propoganda war for strategic airpower goes on, however, as we witnessed in the botched "surgical strike" campaign in Yugoslavia.

It was not a myth, take a look at the devastation in London and Germany. The affects of strategic bombing are still evident today, many of the towns in Essex have areas where housing was built to relocate the homeless people of London.

You haven't read Churchill, have you? What you are talking about is NOT what I am talking about.

In 1941 the British army was not big enough to carry out actions in Greece and the desert.

Which is exactly my point.

The relatively light burden building strategic aircraft in February 1941 imposed would not have changed that. Again, don't presume I make your point, obviously I made it poorly but in no way supporting your arguement. Poor strategic decisions do not necesarily disappear with greater resources.

What exactly was the total investment in strategic bombing by britain through Feb 1941? How can you call it "relatively light"?

The defeat at Gazela and the retreat to Cairo was not a resource problem, but a similar problem the Italians suffered in 1941, fortified areas which could be isolated and flanked. The mismanagement was so great that not even Tobruk could be saved. Putting the Red army in the desert would not atone for mistakes that grave.

If there were more forces facing the Germans, it would be much harder for the Germans to isolate them or outflank them. Gazala was a VERY near-run thing, and I would argue that additional forces freed up by the abandoning of the SBC by the British before it even got started would have remade the entire desert campaign.

Never reinforce a defeat. Doubling, or tripling the forces available to not make up for incompetance. Adding more aircraft to Singapore requires a resultant increase in logistics. You can't simply transfer men and material and assume that everything is going to be OK.

Never give in the the desire to quote cliches! Additional forces certainly CAN make up for poor leadership, just ask the Finns.

My point is that Bagration did not end the war, and would not without the Germans fighting on the Western Front. To assume that the allies simply sat back until 1944 allowing the Russians to win the war is a false one, and an insult to the many airmen who gave their lives over Germany.

So, now I am insulting airmen by pointing out that their campaign was an unwise expenditure of men? I think not. I think you should drop the emotional stuff and stick to the facts. I never said that the Allies "simply sat back until 1944 allowing the Russians to win the war" and so you don't have a leg to stand on with that strawman. I WOULD argue, however, that Bagration was a greater defeat for Germany than was the camapign in France, and that bagration was more aid to the Allies than the '44 France campaign was to Bagration. However, this is scarcely germaine to our discussion, which is about whether or not the resources used in the SBC would have been better spent on other, more needed, assets.

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by grumbler
Why is the capture of a port the only solution, when the creation of additional capacity to suply the forces on the front line is not? Are the bullets delivered by Mulberry and truck somehow inferior to those delivered by an "intact port"? The Allies had plenty of supplies. The problem was delivery to the fighting forces. I have proposed a solution, which you toss off without explanation. I think supplying the army was a higher priority than conducting the SBC.

(1) One of the Mulberries was destroyed in a storm after only a few days, there's no guarantee that additional ones wouldn't have been as well. They were a temporary expedient designed to be used only until the Allies secured a significant port, such as Cherbourg (which is why the Americans pushed as hard as they did up the Cotentin Peninsula in the Bocage.) They were not a viable long-term solution to the problem of supply in France.

(2) As for additional trucks, what was the carrying capacity of the French road network-I've always had the impression that the rear areas were fairly congested as it was. I suspect that they fitted as many trucks on them as they could and maintain any semblance of traffic control. Not considering the additional fuel and spares the big American trucks would need.

Shortening the supply line by capturing additional ports was absolutely essential, regardless of the number of trucks you cram into the rear areas. One rapidly approaches the law of diminishing returns.

 

[unmerged(2539)]

To SBC or not to SBC?

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm#c

This is the 45 strategic bombing survey, european theatre, the asian theatre was even more enthusiastic for the SBC concept. I draw to your attention the conclusions at the end of the report, along with an opening that attributes % of industry devoted to this area.

As early as the 20 and30s the RAF was committed to SBC, to argue that it was an underutilasation of assets is only possible with hindsight, Hindsight that didnt come during ww2, didnt come with the adoption of an independant SAC in 48 in the US, that SBC was to be a central plank of US policy as defined in 49 by the Air Policy Commision in the US, a policy that was followed in Korea, and indeed in the Linebaker 1 and 2 operation in Nam, and indeed in the Gulf. And depending on who you talk to is still alive and kicking today.

To argue against the SBC is to ignore the ratinal for its adoption, namly that of a way to avoid the ww1 experience, to allow that more of any conventinal weapons can be produced is both practable and feasable, but would mean that the policys set out long before the conflict be discarded, policys that, at the time offered a realstic chance of avoiding a repeat of ww1 trench warefare and a long attritional campaign. We may just as well argue against blitzkrieg for the germans best chance of success, its central to their thinking of how to prosecute the war, to contemplate changing it is for me, to large a leap to make, just as to discard the SBC as both UK and US policy.

Hannibal

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by grumbler
Why is the capture of a port the only solution, when the creation of additional capacity to suply the forces on the front line is not? Are the bullets delivered by Mulberry and truck somehow inferior to those delivered by an "intact port"? The Allies had plenty of supplies. The problem was delivery to the fighting forces. I have proposed a solution, which you toss off without explanation. I think supplying the army was a higher priority than conducting the SBC.

Supplying the army was a problem, not because of Strategic Bombing, but long supply lines, and a front which had expanded too fast for the allies to continue. The truck route was still littered with snipers, and no port closer than Normandy was available. Of course, investing in air transport, several more artificial harbors, and building a pipeline across France would have helped, but without clairvoyance no one could have expected the liberation of France to be so fast.

I think that all of the justifications for strategic bombing were proved false until the advent of the atomic bomb. Many, many bombers did not get through, and most of those who did missed their targets, especially at night.

3% of bombs landed within 5 miles of the target area. While this is a little misleading, as often a city radius is greater than 3 miles, it is still a low bomb success rate.

The 1944-45 attacks on rail transport and oil production were easily quantifiable and had a most decisive impact on the war. By June 1944 90% of all aviation fuel production was destroyed.

{on Britain being bombed not increasing British morale}
Many historians disagree with this.

There are incidents of Churchill having items thrown at him when visiting London, accounts of the shock after Coventry and the natural conclusion to be drawn from large groups of people unable to sleep during the 1940-41 German campaign.

It's hard to quantify how bombing either improves or weakens civilian morale. While it might increase national resolve people on the end of bombs are not happier than in safer areas.

I'm not sure who this is meant for. Are you doscussing this topic with someone else on another board, perhaps? It certainly is not anything that I said.

You brought up the stereotype morale improves theory.

This is purest speculation. If you wish to quote someone, please cite a source. The fact of the matter is that the SBC, carried out at great cost in lives and treasure, DID NOT knock Germany out of the war, so this speculation isn't even germaine to the discussion.

I have to cite every quote?

"Hamburg put the fear of God into me ... If the bombing raids continue on the present scale we shall be coasting downhill within three months"

"the strategic bomber is the cause of all our setbacks ... (it) is the greatest lost battle on the German side"

Both Speer quotes are from The Bomber War by Neillands. The "6 more" quote is from a TV interview.

Do I have to retro-cite everything in this thread?

Actually, many held the same opinions as I hold even during and just after the war. I'm not sure why you are imputing that it is the "the kindler, more gentle and politically correct age we live in" that guides my historical analysis and conclusions. I base my conclusions on the facts and the facts haven't changed since 1945. The propoganda war for strategic airpower goes on, however, as we witnessed in the botched "surgical strike" campaign in Yugoslavia.

The revision of Strategic Bombing is a more recent trend. Hastings who has written a superb book criticising the strategy and morality of the tactic nevertheless mixes the results with the morality of their achievement. The importation of morality into bombing analysis has definately affected the interpretation of the bombing results.

You haven't read Churchill, have you? What you are talking about is NOT what I am talking about.

Do I have to read Churchill to continue this discussion? You claimed that the bomber always getting through was a myth. That "myth" is still evident today. To claim that even the relatively light damage to Britain somehow refutes the notion of prewar fear of bombing is false.

Which is exactly my point.

So you are claiming that the British army would have been strong enough to take Tripoli and defend Greece if the 1940-41 bomber offensive did not go ahead. Highly optimistic as even by 1942 the British could barely scrape 1000 bombers together for the attack on Cologne. How many armoured divisions could 1000 bombers provide?

What exactly was the total investment in strategic bombing by britain through Feb 1941? How can you call it "relatively light"?

Sorties By Year:
1940 22,473
1941 32,012
1942 35,338
1943 65,068
1944 166,844
1945 67,483

Tons dropped per year
1940 7,022
1941 22,996
1942 37,197
1943 136,433
1944 275,559
1945 178,461

Thats why I call it relatively light.

If there were more forces facing the Germans, it would be much harder for the Germans to isolate them or outflank them. Gazala was a VERY near-run thing, and I would argue that additional forces freed up by the abandoning of the SBC by the British before it even got started would have remade the entire desert campaign.

The defense of Gazela was considered strong enough to withstand an assault. It is pure speculation to suppose that doubling the size of the Commonwealth army would double the number of defenders. By selectively claiming that a few units here and a few more resources there would change the outcome of a battle, then you are doubtless correct. Whether deployments would be so conviniently perfect had Britain had more resources though is not a certainty.

Never give in the the desire to quote cliches! Additional forces certainly CAN make up for poor leadership, just ask the Finns.

It's a great cliche Usually correct, and as Britain could not swell their ranks to Red Army proportions is especially relevant to their operations.

I never said that the Allies "simply sat back until 1944 allowing the Russians to win the war"

I apologize for misinterpreting your statement that Bagration all but ended the war.

 

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca
...As early as the 20 and30s the RAF was committed to SBC, to argue that it was an underutilasation of assets is only possible with hindsight, Hindsight that didnt come during ww2, didnt come with the adoption of an independant SAC in 48 in the US, that SBC was to be a central plank of US policy as defined in 49 by the Air Policy Commision in the US, a policy that was followed in Korea, and indeed in the Linebaker 1 and 2 operation in Nam, and indeed in the Gulf. And depending on who you talk to is still alive and kicking today.

As of 1997, when I attended the Air Force's "Planning the Strategic Air Campaign" course at Maxwell Air Force base, the SBC concept is alive and well. It still follows the mission mentioned in the USSBS (talking about the decisions reached at casablanca): "destruction and dislocation of the Germany military, industrial, and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the German people to the point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened." Further, it postulates that war can be won via strategic air power alone - that other military systems are redundent.

To argue against the SBC is to ignore the ratinal for its adoption, namly that of a way to avoid the ww1 experience...

I would argue that the rationale for the adoption (by the politicians in the US and UK) of the SBC was to make war cheaper and reduce the size of the military needed in a nation. The reason why the bomber enthusiasts proposed the SBC was because it provided the only rationale for the existance of independent air forces. If air forces were adjuncts to land and sea power in winning the war, then the land and sea decision-makers could trade off air power for other types of power in an effort to reach what they felt to be an optimal mix. By claiming the independent power to win wars, the air forces could claim independence from decision-making by the non-air-minded, and get their own priorities funded (and even gain funding at the expense of the other services).

...We may just as well argue against blitzkrieg for the germans best chance of success, its central to their thinking of how to prosecute the war, to contemplate changing it is for me, to large a leap to make, just as to discard the SBC as both UK and US policy.

Au contraire. Blitzkrieg was based on a realistic assessment of the capacities and capabilities of the technologies at hand. Strategic bombing has always been based on an overly-optimistic assumption of air power's capabilities and an under-assumption of the enemy's ability to resist it. Independent air power has always failed the test. I think it has been safe to dump the concept since about 1905!

 

[unmerged(2539)]

But would you not agree that both allied and axis theorys, SBC and Blitzkrieg were based on what they believed were a realistic assessment of the capacities and capabilities of the technologies at hand, and could only be shown to be effective or flawed in the acid test of a war?.

To change a doctrine in peactime is a lengthy buisiness, to attempt to do so during wartime, with attendant relocation of infrastructure is even more of a nightmare.

I use the blitzkrieg as an example of something that is a central tenant of a nations war aims and philosophy, as an example of what i cannot envisage that nation not doing, in an attempt to examine its capabilitys and options. I cannot think of the UK going to war without SBC, nor germany without blitzkrieg.

1917 Independant RAF eastablished.
Goals and aims. 2000 heavy bombers to be used against german economy and work force morale. During 1918 the concept was drawn up in detail, but the armistice left it untested at a large scale, only limited raids involving 120 bombers against Rhinland cities. 1919 bombing survey claimed tremendouse morale effects but meagre destructive value and pinpointed the existing technology as the cause of lack of physical damage.
Post war(ww1) german and french doctrine focused on ground support and battlefield superiority, in short an adjunct of the armys needs.
The Independant RAF went a different path, this independance allowed them to forumulate doctrinaly independant theorys, which resulted in the 36 War Manual, that had its central tenet, the bomb is the chief weapon of the air force, the main objective is to remove the enemys capacity to wage war by removing his economy and the moral reserves that maintain it. Co operation with other services was de emphasised.
The reason for aceptance of this theory by the political masters were many, not least was the abscence of a large standing army keen to fight its corner, the concept followed traditional concepts of blockade and economical warfare, it offerd an alternative to the misery of posistionl warefare as ww1, with attendant high casualtys.
Also bombing fitted well into the geopolitical outlook of the global empire,with potential eniemies 1000 of miles from the home country, it was seen as an extension of sea power, in that its limited use in Iraq, S africa and India were economical and cost effective.
In 36 Bomber command drew up its list of prioritys, oil,chemicals, iron and steel, while not being sure what were critical economic targets were more vunerable. That they would succed was an article of faith, when in may 40 as a result of german bombing of Rotterdam the RAF went in for its SBC, faith was not enough anymore.

Hannibal

 

[unmerged(5120)]

Concerning SB and its efficiency, read Ellis' Brute Force and Speer's Inside the Third Reich side by side:

The Allies never had any real strategy for bombing Germany.

The first effect (and very real it was) of SB was tying down an ever increasing percentage of German war production in defense of the homeland (ie, fighters and AA guns, the latter being especially important because they used up a lot of Germany's scarce stockpile of strategic metals like chromium, wolfram, etc...)

It was only in 1944, when the Allies started to have both lots of bombers and near-total air superiority over Germany that they were able to drop such a large tonnage of bombs that even if those bombs were dropped on widely spread targets, enough would repetitively fall on the same crucial ones to create real problems within the German economy.

It is true the oil industry was singled out from time to time, but not single-mindedly enough that it would have had any telling effect had the overall tonnages dropped not been that high.


Now to revert to two earlier topics:

the 1940 campaign in France:

Has anybody here played Fall of France?
From what I know of the subject, the French OB in this game is pretty accurate:
- lots of decent-to-good artillery, including a nice stash of extra-heavy WWI leftovers
- poor to average infantry, with a handful of decent units
- lots of tanks and motorized units, but without a decent armored doctrine and no armored divs (though the 3 DLM's come close) to make them effective
- terrible offensive doctrine that makes counterattacks a challenge to say the least (French units halved in attack if they've moved in the previous movement phase)
- a derelict air force

OK, now if you play without the "idiot rule" that forces you to put every useful unit in Belgium and prevents you from reinforcing Sedan, what happens?

Basically, if the Germans try the historical approach under those conditions, they find themselves in a rather bad position:
Yes the Panzers can slice through the Ardennes, but then they'll find that rooting out decent units from the bad terrain and prepared positions on the other side of the Meuse without decent artillery support quite a challenge.
Air support alone won't do it, and bringing enough artillery to do it takes enough time for the French to bring up stuff like static flak.

And once the Panzers are there, they're stuck, because lateral movement in the Ardennes isn't exactly easy. So lose a couple critical turns for redeployment.

In the meantime, you enjoy a romp in Belgium until you reach the improved positions the Allies are frantically building.

After that, it's stalemate, the most important factor being that starting in July, the French aircraft production goes into full gear (that's historical), so the German Air superiority erodes pretty fast, and after September it's the Allies who call the tune in the air (would be even faster than that if the British RAF garrison could be partly released once the front is stabilised).

And then bad weather sets in.

If the Germans send the Panzers through Belgium they fare a little better, but being a couple hexrows closer to the French border when the weather breaks border doesn't change much.

The key factor is that with high troop density, successful attacks require air support, and beginning in July the luftwaffe can land at best two airstrikes per turn.

We once tried a combined Polish/French scenario in which the Germans attacked in the west in late 1939 and it helped them a lot: with an even weaker French Air Force to start with, the Wehrmacht was able to start attriting the French Army all through winter and early spring, plus the spring starting line was much closer to Paris.

When we were forced to end the game with the AugII, 1940 turn, the French Army was at the end of its tether and final breakthrough was only a matter of a couple turns.

So conclusions are:

The French Army was rather strong but brittle. With a decent CinC (read: not a complete fool) it could have weathered the summer campaign. After that, and assuming production in all countries continued on the same trends, the Allies would have enjoyed complete air superiority over the Western Front starting in Fall, 1940.
Allied tank production was slower in gearing up, but by early 1941, they would probably have had many more than the Germans, and the first glimpses of what could be done with them.

But the Wehrmacht had a stronger back. And German industry was still full of resources, so the war could have dragged on for a long time, the main question being, what would Stalin have done in that kind of situation?

Jeeeeez! what a post. 1943 invasion of Europe later on (this time according to Second Front (again, the Europa game))

 

[grumbler]

Originally posted by sean9898
Supplying the army was a problem, not because of Strategic Bombing, but long supply lines, and a front which had expanded too fast for the allies to continue... Of course, investing in air transport, several more artificial harbors, and building a pipeline across France would have helped, but without clairvoyance no one could have expected the liberation of France to be so fast.

I am not arguing anything specific other than to sy that the Allies DID have resource limitations that couls have been mitigated somewhat with the resources used by the SBC instead.

The 1944-45 attacks on rail transport and oil production were easily quantifiable and had a most decisive impact on the war. By June 1944 90% of all aviation fuel production was destroyed.

The German later recovered from this 90% figure, however. I am not arguing that the bombings didn't produce results, I am arguing that the bombings didn't produce results commensurate with the resources expended on them.

I have to cite every quote?

Only the ones you expect to be taken seriously as arguments!

Speer was, of course, concerned with production. Naturally he saw the effects of lost production as the greatest disaster to Germany. Had he been a general on the eastern Front, he would probably have cited the Destruction of Army Group Center as the greatest German defeat.

Do I have to retro-cite everything in this thread?

No. I don't think you had any other quotes that were central to your arguments.

The revision of Strategic Bombing is a more recent trend. Hastings who has written a superb book criticising the strategy and morality of the tactic nevertheless mixes the results with the morality of their achievement. The importation of morality into bombing analysis has definately affected the interpretation of the bombing results.

Well, as I haven't read hastings I cannot argue how much of what he said on the suject was influenced by his view of the morality of the campaign. I haven't argued morality, just cost-effectiveness.

Do I have to read Churchill to continue this discussion? You claimed that the bomber always getting through was a myth. That "myth" is still evident today. To claim that even the relatively light damage to Britain somehow refutes the notion of prewar fear of bombing is false.

If you don't know what the prewar notion of bombing effectiveness was, you cannot continue to respond to my statements. I have knowledge that you lack, and that lack makes it impossible for you to argue my conclusion with me.

So you are claiming that the British army would have been strong enough to take Tripoli and defend Greece if the 1940-41 bomber offensive did not go ahead. Highly optimistic as even by 1942 the British could barely scrape 1000 bombers together for the attack on Cologne. How many armoured divisions could 1000 bombers provide?

Again, I cannot find the specifics of how much lucre the Brits put into the SBC. I just have the figure that almost 50% of their total expenditures on the war were spent on the RAF, but no breakdown of Bomber Command versus fighter command or coastal command et al. Remember that many more than 1000 bombers are required to put 1000 in a raid.

However, we do know from The Great Ships Pass that 100 bombers equalled the cost of a battleship when manpower and support costs are calculated in. We also know that a battleship of the WWII period cost on the order of 35 million pound sterling, or $165 million US dollars. That gives us a rough cost per bomber of something like $1.5 million. If Hannibal can find out something on tank costs we might be able to answer your question.

Sorties By Year:
1940 22,473
1941 32,012
...
Thats why I call it relatively light.

That is telling me that output was light, which is MY argument. You do not address expenditures.

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by grumbler
I am not arguing anything specific other than to sy that the Allies DID have resource limitations that couls have been mitigated somewhat with the resources used by the SBC instead.

Of course the allies could have had resources available if the Strategic Bombing campaign was cut back, or non-existant. The Germans could have more resources available too. The measure of both sides are very difficult to guage, it would be nice to have a complete breakdown of estimated GDP loss to Germany and cost to the allies.

However, the problem for the allies is to spend those resources on other assets and deploy them. Apart from very limited situations, there is no where to add extra allied infantry, tanks or tactical aircraft. I'm are ignoring the Pacific War here, that opens another can of worms regarding effective deployment and the issue that the atomic bomb could not have been finished faster.

Given the low number of sorties, and tonnage delivered from 1940 to 1942, that probably prevents enough divisions being created and deployed to Greece to keep the 2 armoured divisions heading for Tripoli. It probably prevents sufficient troops to be deployed to stave off the Gazela defeat.

For 1944 I'd speculate that perhaps enough can be done to improve the supply situation and have Montgomery in Holland and Patton across the Siegfried line. However, perhaps the Germans have enough resources to bolster those defenses, given that 500,000 troops and most of the Luftwaffe are not dead or in Germany.

I do not see any credible arguement that cutting back on Strategic Bombing will provide enough assets to effect the war. I am open to suggestions, or speculation but IMHO none have gone far enough to persuade me otherwise yet.

The German later recovered from this 90% figure, however. I am not arguing that the bombings didn't produce results, I am arguing that the bombings didn't produce results commensurate with the resources expended on them.

Yes, they recovered to 50% in July 1944 then more bombing knocked it down to 2% output. By October 1944 German synthetic fuel was down to 43% of normal production. This directly affected the Russian invasion of Germany, in 1945 stranding 1800 tanks deployed to Silesia and of course the Ardennes disaster when German Panzer divisions attacked without enough fuel to take their objectives.

It's arguable that the allies lacked focus during the campaign, and the two forces were carrying out different objectives, but I don't know of any other means the western allies could have immobilized that many tanks.

Only the ones you expect to be taken seriously as arguments!

This is far more civilized than usenet, I think we can trust each other not to invent quotes.

If you don't know what the prewar notion of bombing effectiveness was, you cannot continue to respond to my statements. I have knowledge that you lack, and that lack makes it impossible for you to argue my conclusion with me.

I am well aware of the prewar bombing fear, that cities and industry would grind to a halt. While that did not happen, there is no question that the bomber always got through. Had Germany built heavy bombers and not used Heinkels and Dorniers on London then the damage would have been as great as the allies unleashed on Germany. Even the moderate bomb loads of the 1940 Luftwaffe was enough to all but destroy central Coventry. Looking at the post war German damage, I would argue that the pre-war fears were well founded, and that the predictions were almost correct.

Again, I cannot find the specifics of how much lucre the Brits put into the SBC. I just have the figure that almost 50% of their total expenditures on the war were spent on the RAF, but no breakdown of Bomber Command versus fighter command or coastal command et al. Remember that many more than 1000 bombers are required to put 1000 in a raid.

We could speculate that a great proportion of RAF expenditure was on the heavies. Coastal command was quite short of aircraft as displayed during the Channel dash disaster. Although more aircraft were available than the handful of Swordfish which attacked, I've never heard any claims that coastal command had too many aircraft.

The 1942 1000 bomber raid really scraped together almost every available aircraft. Many of them were the outdated twin engine bombers, and IIRC the final total was something around 960, but they claimed it to be 1000. Certainly production would have been commited for new aircraft, but I'm not too sure how that would have translated into ground forces, and what theire impact might be.

I am digging for some actual $$$ spent, don't hold your breath though. Perhaps Hannibal has a link in his stash.

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by Sire Enaique
So conclusions are:

The French Army was rather strong but brittle. With a decent CinC (read: not a complete fool) it could have weathered the summer campaign. After that, and assuming production in all countries continued on the same trends, the Allies would have enjoyed complete air superiority over the Western Front starting in Fall, 1940.
Allied tank production was slower in gearing up, but by early 1941, they would probably have had many more than the Germans, and the first glimpses of what could be done with them.

But the Wehrmacht had a stronger back. And German industry was still full of resources, so the war could have dragged on for a long time, the main question being, what would Stalin have done in that kind of situation?

Jeeeeez! what a post. 1943 invasion of Europe later on (this time according to Second Front (again, the Europa game)) [/B]

That's an interesting post. Do you think France could survive 41 and 42?

 

[unmerged(5120)]

Again, it depends on what the Soviets do.

France just didn't have the manpower resources to fight another WWI.
The population size in 1940 is misleading: there was a sizeable deficit in draftable young men, because WWII occured just 23 years after WWI, and French losses had been huge in the first war (1.5 million dead not counting the crippled, all of them men in their prime who never had any more children, out of 40 million people), plus most men between 18 and 35 spent almost the whole war in the trenches.

Germany hadn't come close to this demographic disaster during WWI, and was thus able to duplicate it during WWII.

Of course the British would have helped, but witness how slow they were in building up their army (just as in WWI, btw: it took them 2 years to be able launch a real offensive - the Somme), and the paltry size it reached in the ETO (by January 1945, there were more French troops on the Western front than British).

Of course, had France stayed in the war, the North African campaign wouldn't almost have happened at all, which would have helped.

And the French Navy's destroyers (@ 70) would have been very useful for convoy escort duty (remember the steep price Britain paid for a handful of obsolete flush-deckers in 1941).

The French and British economies were fully geared up for war production by the summer of 1940: they had planned for a long war from the outset, whereas Germany hadn't. So on the materiel side, they'd've had a big advantage in early 1941.

But it certainly wouldn't have sufficed to bring Germany to its knees in 1941, which in turn would have left her time to gear up her own production (and she did just that in early 1942 anyway...)

If the Soviets had attacked in July 1941, now, with most on of Wehrmacht on the Western front...

In any case, Japan would still have attacked the US in 1941, so US troops would have started to trickle in in mid-1942, and count on Stalin to attack Germany at some point anyway.

Now the Soviets would have had a much more difficult time of convincing their population of the rightness of that war without Nazi thugs ever having operated on Russians.

Too many political variables after 1941 to make more than WAGs.

 

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Some writers on the Matrix Games forum about the upcoming War in the Pacific game from 2by3 and Matrix mentioned thr B-29 as the most expensive US military project of the war. The cost figures were buried in the threads about production. There may have been something on the topic in the Pacific War threads also.

Another consideration about the bomber war was that the pro-bomber crowd figured in the 1930s that heavy bombers would be flying too fast and high for interceptors to take them on. Also, the heavy bombers had strong defensive firepower. Chennault, and probably a few other interceptor advocates, saw that the bomber crowd was wrong, and argued his case within the army airforce and lost. It ended up taking quite a bit of time before effective long range escorts could accompany the heavy bombers.

I really enjoyed "To Lose a Battle" by Alistair Horne on France '40.

Sole Survivor, the US wanted to invade France as early as 1942, but the British pursuaded the US that southern invasions should come first in 1942 and 1943. Considering how much the Brits and Yanks really had to learn about large scale amphibious invasions, and how good the German army was in 1942 and 1943, it probably was better for the Allies in the long run that the cross channel invasion wasn't attempted until 1944. Roosevelt and the US army certainly were committed to helping the Russians by openning a second front as soon as possible. In fact, too many US troops were shipped to Britain in 1942, enough to make a dangerous situation in the South Pacific in that year.

At the Gazala Battle in June 1942, the Commonwealth and Allied forces could have won with what they had on hand. The reserves, especially armor, were just positioned too far to the rear and didn't make effective counterattacks. The Africa Korps was trapped between the fortified boxes and the Commonwealth reserves, and it was as dangerous a situation as Rommel had to face in the whole campaign. It took supreme effort on the part of the German and Italian troops to cut a supply line through the fortified boxes to save DAK.

 

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Have a wander through here, its got a little about the italian supply prioritys for Greece/Africa which may intrest, also the 1937 tables of raw materials is usful.

http://members.tripod.com/~Sturmvogel/WarEcon.html

I dont see that debating the redistribution of prioritys for the allies is usful unless we also consider the lack of effect of the SBC would have had on the axis production. If we came to the conclusion that a different focus will allow the UK to put another Inf corps in the field in 43, along with another Ard Div coupled with LVT, and a Tactical air wing, and the political desire to go cross channel instead of allowing germany and russia to attrit themselves(as advocated by Imperial War Staff), then what would the axis have done with extra production?, the men not needed to man the AA, what if germany was able to mechanise 40% of its forces instead of its hitoric %?, and add 20% more to its AFV production? What if you take it further back in time, which is the only way for me to see it happening, and postulate a different ww2 policy coming out from the ww1 experience, what if Liddel and fuller get the nod and the UK goes blitzkrieg style for the next war?, for me its to much speculation.

I just dont see a usful answer comming our way, especialy if you allow, as i do, that the german advantages were that they achieve more with what they have to work with than allied counterparts, give the allies more to work with must also allow the germans the same increase, yet they gain more on any comparison.

Of course it could be that i dont have a link to detailed explanation of how all eventualtys are covered and that the answer is supported by irrefutable logic.

So in summation, the cost benifit of SBC can only be done after the fact, so what price do you put on winning?, could the allies have won more effiecently, at less cost of life, possibly so, but youve got to have won in the first place to ask such questions. Every war starts with the experts sure of how to win it with the most economical use of the nations resources, every histry book starts by telling us how the experts were wrong about the last war.

Hannibal

 

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Hey warpup you're on matrixgames too?

About the whole DAK story there may be no way to pull sufficient forces & supply through the med in 1942 but this wasn't the point anyway. A serious campaign from the start against the weaker positions of 1940/41 and the '42 supply level might have worked though. However, decisive success must occur before Barbarossa.

 

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just read the chapter on North Africa in Van Creveld's Supplying War.
Waging war on any substantial scale in this theater was simply beyond the Axis' automotive industry's capabilities.

military truck production, 1939-1945:

Germany 345914
Italy 83000
Japan 165945

Total 594859

US 2382311
UK 480943
USSR 197100

Total 3060354

notice the discrepancy? and remember the Allied supply problems?

Of course, without Barbarossa, it becomes manageable. Still, once your whole truck park's stuck in Africa (d'you really believe many will come back?), what happens in Europe?

 

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cost of a tank?, ok, but you wont like the answer.

Panther between US$32,000. US$39,000
Tiger US$64,000.
Sherman was $40-$60,000 depending on the model.Cheaper if built stateside as machine fitting replaced hand fitting as done in the UK.
T-34/76 ('41-'44) was US$34,000 and that of a T-34/85 US$29,597



Hannibal.

 

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Originally posted by Hannibal Barca
cost of a tank?, ok, but you wont like the answer.

Panther between US$32,000. US$39,000
Tiger US$64,000.
Sherman was $40-$60,000 depending on the model.Cheaper if built stateside as machine fitting replaced hand fitting as done in the UK.
T-34/76 ('41-'44) was US$34,000 and that of a T-34/85 US$29,597

What are your sources?
I saw the prices of Panthers, Tigers, and Pzkw IV in Reichsmarks once, but how do you convert this into USD?

 

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North Africa in Van Creveld's Supplying War.
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nice numbers, but, you knew there was a but coming sooner or later didnt you?, does he distinguish between capacity(Ton/ payload) and range(miles/Klm per round trip)?
Also this is domestic production, what about what was produced by and indeed captured from other countrys? What was existing truck stocks before 39?
Also i believe he makes the point that the transport of supply was not as limiting as the port capacity to unload the supplys, although that may be a different book.

For example, the germans in the east(june 41) have 322,000 trucks, divided up so that the 18%(motorised and armd)of the army, have 30% of the trucks, 20% more are in supply and non combat units and the remainder parcelled out in the non mobile units, in 41 alone the german army confiscated 290,000 vehicles from ocupied countrys, as a response to the those lost in Russia(50,000 41-42) and the realisation that the war was not going to be won that year, and that only 67,000 trucks were produced in 41, which will rise to 96,000 in 42.
Even after 100,000 trucks are lost at Stalingrad, the germans have 675,000 on hand at the end of 43. Lack of trucks is not a problem untill 44, when they lose 390,000 in a year, that was beyond any measure or replacement, but by then they had other problems to ocupy themselves with.

Hannibal

 

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Here in not so brief, is an ongoing discussion that is well worth a read, and a think about afterwards. Or skip to the bottom for a summary.......Youl soon see the problem of this aproach.


All-in price for a Panther was $129,000 RM, or about US$32,000. Price for a Sherm was $40-$60,000 depending on the model.
Final assembly of a Panther took 2,000 man hours. All-in including subcomponents 55,000 man hours. The 'cheap' Sherm? 48,000 man hours.
Perfect example, the Tiger weighed about 25% more than a Panther, but cost 100%+ to build - raw materials represents only a fraction of the cost. The Tiger contained almost 100% more parts than a Panther.
//
I think it would be more useful to break out the "cost" of a tank into two parts.

1) The type and quantity of raw materials used to construct the tank. Larger quantities of certain strategic materials were used in Tiger tanks for example. This makes Tiger tanks far more "expensive" than the Panther, but is are these materials reflected in the costs cited above?

2) The man-hours necessary to construct the tank. This is a more acurate reflection of the actual "cost" involved in building the tank.

I've got some data on the materials used in the construction of German tanks. Does anybody have any man-hour figures?
//
Consider the following info:

On 1 March 1945, a total of 9,968 workers were employed in the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nurnberg (MAN) AG works, of which 5,448 were involved in tank construction. these were broken down as follows:

- in administration: 124
- in tank machining department: 841
- in tank manufacturing: 3,985
- in tank assembly: 500

5,023 of these were men, 425 were women. 2,719 of the men were foreigners*; among the women 230 were non-German. Two shifts were run within a 24 hour period, each shift comprising 12 hours.

Now lets go through the following exercise, lets say every one of the foreigners were slave labor, and all of them were employed in machining, assembly or manufacturing (no admin jobs), that would comprise almost exactly 51% of labor. My SWAG is that 25% of the cost of manufacturing a tank is labor (in line with Komatsu & Caterpillar products), that would mean that the cost of a Panther is artificially understated by about 13% - nah, lets just double it, to be safe - The cost of a Panther would come up to say US$39,000**. Still a bargain compared to the Sherm.

Bear in mind that all German tanks were procured at a profit to the manufacturer by the German state, same as their US counterparts.

That the US built more copies of a certain weapon type does not mean they were 'cheaper', the US procured expensive weapons, for example the Garand M1 was four times as expensive as the Kar 98, half again as expensive as an STG44. Tank prices are in line with those of the Soviet Union, the average price of a T-34/76 ('41-'44) was US$34,000 and that of a T-34/85 US$29,597 (yes, that's right, it was cheaper - a deflationary effect of munitions production in wartime Russia).

On a side note, the detail on the Panther assembly man hours, they are broken down as follows:

- Hull production: 55 hours
- Turret production: 38 hours
- Chassis assembly: 485 hours
- Turret assembly: 150 hours
- Final assembly: 85 hours

All info Walter J. Spielberger's "Panther & its Variants" and Mark Harrison's "Accounting for War"

* In this timeframe, 1.8 million Italian workers were working under contract in Germany, and were definitely NOT slave labor. Undetermined numbers of guest workers of other nationalities were also working in German factories. For purposes of this analisys, I am assuming ALL foreign laborers were slave labor because I want to maintain a conservative bias.

** Exchange rate is derived from international commodity price normalization, based on actual RM transactions. Not quite bread , but pretty indicative.
//
I am late coming to this thread.
I admit I know little of the costs and man-hours to produce various tanks - thanks for the info, by the way, very useful - but I think the reason the USA and the USSR out produced Germany is because they could. Or in the case of the USSR had to. Both countries had the man/woman power and the space to build huge tank factories, long assembly lines and so on. The USA had spare capacity in its economy, it was the only economy that grew druring the war, everyone else had to cut back. And both had the funds to burn. It matters not if the Panther is cheaper or not, or whether it takes longer to make; if you can throw money into the pot, hire people, ensure there are no hold ups in supply, have people who come to work and then go home to a safe, warm bed, if you want to, you are going to make more tanks.

I think it comes down to economic power not cost per unit. The USA had, the USSR developed it, the UK never had it and did not got it.

A question for the experts on tank production: were German factories working at maximum production in the period we are talking about? Could they divert production to build more/expand the factories they had? If yes and no, then that's why the USA and the USSR made more tanks.

Side issues: Neither the USA or the USSR had labour problems or 'guild' problems - that is over coming established practices that were counter-efficent. The USA because they were paying good money and the economy was booming, the USSR because they shot anyone who tired to cause problems

Also, how efficent were those 'guest' workers? Slaves are difficult to use for precision engineering; you have to station an engineer over nearly every on of them to be sure they are doing what they are told, so why not use the engineer to do the work? Even the ones who volenteered like the Italians were in a strange country - thier own had just surrendered if we are talking production of Panthers - how hard were they really working?

There is a cliche that WWII was won in the factories. Who had the most? who was able to buid more? who was able to keep them running 24 hours a day, with no fear of bombing - and I know that allied bombing had little effect until close to the end. The Allies, hence more tanks.

///////////////////////////////////Summary//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
cost of a tank, ok, but you wont like the answer.

Panther between US$32,000. US$39,000
Tiger US$64,000.
Sherman was $40-$60,000 depending on the model.
T-34/76 ('41-'44) was US$34,000 and that of a T-34/85 US$29,597



Hannibal.

 

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"military truck production, 1939-1945: "

does it really mean anything? According to Paul Carrel some 50% of DAK equipment in the hot phases of the campaign were captured. Trucks, Tanks, and often food too. British Corned Beef was much better than what the Italians usually had. Rommel's famous commanding car was a British tank. Assuming that at the begin of a campaign at Tobruk (before the Italians are ´beaten up, that is) starts with short supply ways I see the starting phase really manageable.