General World War 2 Discussion Thread

Well seeing this thread is back on track I have a question for those who have extensive knowledge of WW2 history. You guys are talking about manufacturing capacities and the like thus I ask the following.

Why did Nazi Germany prefer to focus on expensive and over engineered tanks such as the Panzer IV, Panther, Tiger, Tiger II instead of a single solid tank design meant for mass production?

They Germans never managed to mass produce any tank in the war, the Soviets manufactured roughly 60 000+ T-34s (All variants). The USA took a similar approach by producing nearly 50 000 M4 Sherman (All variants). The Panzer IV production is around 5000, the most produced armoured vehicle was an assault gun, the Stug III whose's production output was around 13 000 (all variants).

Why not try to mass produce the Panzer IV ausf J earlier, instead of the lavish Panzer IV ausf H, Panther and Tiger ?

I would say that by manufacturing several different tanks they put a huge strain on their manufacturing industry seeing the different tank models did not overlap in manufacturing, it was wasteful. But I'm quite uninformed on the manufacturing details So I could be wrong.

I've read online that Hitler himself was obsessed with tanks. He supervised even the tiniest details such as the armour thickness, the guns calibre, and specially names for them during their conception. Which is odd for a Statesman, especially seeing he did not know much about engineering, even less about strategy, let alone grand strategy.

Hitler had a great memory for trivia and figures, which he would use to establish dominance.

I also don't buy into the idea he was strategically inept, plenty of Generals survived to write self serving memoirs that basically set out to say:

Everything we achieved was due our brillance and all the failures were because of Hitler's interfeence. Also I was totally against the atrocities, but those were those nasty SS people not the Army. I would have loved to have killed Hitler but he had bound us all by an oath of loyalty so we could do nothing

Hitler's memoirs would have been no less full of excuplatory BS


Hitler's strategy up until 1941 went pretty well, but strategy is not something the Germans have done well since Bismarck.

Their "strategy" for winning both world wars (post Schliffen) boiled down to "win lots of battles". This leads to a lot of tactical victories with no clear direction.

I remember reading something about his disputes with Guderian on Wikipedia. If I recall correctly Hitler was convinced that tanks gave political advantage and diluted them across several panzer divisions instead of concentrating them on fewer divisions as Guderian wanted.

Hitler wanted to expand the number of Panzer divisions after the fall of France, but he could only do that by cutting the number of tanks in each of them. Guderian argued that this diluted their shock value.

Don't think this was motivated by political considerations though

Was the German high command so incompetent not the see such a gaping flaw in their grand strategy?

Yes

As noted above the Germans didn't do "Grand Strategy"

The Army used it's power to have control over it's own procurement process, and they were not very good at it

Rather than have production engineering to get output you have pursuit of incremental tactical advantage. This means a bunch of small changes that ensure you can never get a proper production run going and hence a bewildering variety of panzer marks

Add to that that the Germans did not properly mobilise or organise until late and they end up using a lot of cobbeled together equipment they have looted from everywhere else.


Logistics, Intelligence and Industrial organisation are great German shortfalls.


Of course organisation of any kind is anathema to Nazi world view anyway, because they are committed to the idea that might makes right so beauracratic infighting is something of a speciality.

Jentz and Spielberger books have a lot of reprinted documents and orders about the Panzers. They are freely available if you simply search their last name on a pdf search engine.

I think the Germans had enough problems supporting the tanks they had in the field, let alone more of them. Any reading of a divisional history is largely rife with breakdowns, delays, shortages of fuel and ammunition for the tanks they had. High tank quality was important to them.

They did have some of major advantages over the reds as far as equipment alone went, though. They had a lot more communications equipment, mechanized infantry (halftrack mounted) and motorized infantry (Trucks) integrated with their armored forces.

The Red Army, although its operating elements were twice the size of the Wehrmacht in the East, used roughly the same amount of motor vehicles (with the Wehr biased towards smaller vehicles) during the war until 1943.


I believe the competition to retain and expand armored offensive ability rested largely on formation quality rather than weapons production- As the war went on, the German mobile formations largely deteriorated due to the circumstances they were in while the Reds improved, but did so from a primitive level after the collapse of soviet armored forces. (From Tank brigades, regiments, and battalions to Tank Army)

On the other side, improving tactical defense abilities and progressively heavier armed Allied troops made armored offensive operations less and less potent.

There were political problems, as well.

IMO, Guderian's proposition of 400 tank divisions was probably more about command structure and his desire to keep the Panzertruppen retained as a strategic and operational weapon. Infantry Generals often had the opposite interest- they want the armored forces more spread out.

With Kursk- just like the summer offensives of 1941 and 1942 the Germans bit more than they could chew and their conducted their operations without really knowing the size of Soviet reserves (eg. Steppe front) and their military ability. Soviet production and mobilization was just too much for them.

They were defeated very badly at Kursk even though they knocked out many soviet tanks. (which makes them look pretty cool to some people) The German panzer forces did not even penetrate the soviet operational rear. They only bloodied a surface.

There are actually pretty substantive counterarguments as to the timing of Kursk- basically they conclude that the Germans couldn't start it any earlier, anyway. Soviet fortification operations started in IIRC, in March or April of 1943.

The thing with the Soviets is their increase in defensive and offensive combat power- it increased dramatically starting from the winter of 1942 onward with the deployment of their first 2 Tank armies from their STAVKA reserve and the formation of their first Artillery divisions.

The Artillery divisions were vital for Soviet deep penetration operations, and were formed by combining various formations together into one synergistic entity. Soviet artillery divisions increased to around 38 or so and 2-3 divisions were often combined with newly formed Guards motor divisions (Rocket launchers) into Penetration corps.

As far as armor went, the Soviets also started transforming their hundred plus independent tank brigades, regiments, and battalions into their proper armored formations- their tank corps and mechanized corps. They used their first 2 tank armies in winter counteroffensive of 1942 and this armored force was eventually expanded to 6.

There were also dramatic improvements to their sapper armies and anti-tank artillery forces.

Kursk was very much a watershred for a new way of war for the RKKA- They finally had all the components of deep operations ready, they just needed to test it in full for the first time.

With the Germans, they were simply swamped both by numbers and Soviet military innovations.

They attempted to concentrate their artillery with feeble Volks artillery corps and the experimental creation of the 16th Artillery division but they simply did not have the resources to compete with the soviets.

With German combat equipment, there are trends prevalent through the Jentz/Spielberger :

-They were reactive to tactical armor demands and would react quickly to provide them small quantities of the item that was demanded. These were typically cobbled together in a short period of time with available platforms/chasis and delivered. Very often they would just build a small batch of these and never build any more ever again.

For instance the Sturmpanzer Brummbar had a Self-propelled 150mm armed predecessor STI-33B that was ordered as a result of needs incurred during the Stalingrad offensive.

The AFV was designed, produced, and delivered to the troops in 3 weeks. IIRC there were only 2 dozen.

-Many exotic AFV were simply built out of leftover or worn chasis. The elefant was built of unused chasis of porsche tigers.

The panzer III/IV are quite interesting items and reflective of the German armored mindset. Both vehicles were very expensive for what they did (same price point as the late war Panthers) but had really excellent ergonomics and visibility.

I have seen the inside of the Panzer IV and there are 10-11 view ports, resulting in a tank with much higher visibility than the comparably blinder Panther. The design of the crew layout is really good, and intuitive. The interior is fancy and it looks like the tank needs a lot of finely machined parts. It's not just a cast job like the T-34 or the Sherman.

Have you read "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer? Outstanding combat memoir as a member of the elite Gross Deutschland Division, he fought in all the great battles from Kursk to Kharkov.

Forgotten Soldiers is becoming a highly debated book as of recent years. Not everybody (many historians) believe Sajer was even in some of the units he described in the book. Some of the movements he made doesnt even make sense!! I would unrecommend that quickly even though it is a great book.

I think the Germans had enough problems supporting the tanks they had in the field, let alone more of them. Any reading of a divisional history is largely rife with breakdowns, delays, shortages of fuel and ammunition for the tanks they had. High tank quality was important to them.

Yes but a lot of their problems related to keeping the armour on the field is precisely because it's heavy, overly complicated and derived from small lot production and whatever has been looted and cobbeled together from odd bits of "Crazy Adolf's Discount AFV bin"


The US could have built heavy tanks earlier, but prefered not to.

Standardised 30 ton Shermans are a lot easier to move around the field than 60 ton Tigers

I have seen the inside of the Panzer IV and there are 10-11 view ports, resulting in a tank with much higher visibility than the comparably blinder Panther. The design of the crew layout is really good, and intuitive. The interior is fancy and it looks like the tank needs a lot of finely machined parts. It's not just a cast job like the T-34 or the Sherman.

Yes, but WW2 marks the beginning of "It doesn't matter what the finish on your weapon is because it will get killed too quickly to be worth it".

Tanks are expendable ammunition, not objet d'art

That's a 'what-if' scenario.

Instead of the Panther (Panzer III/IV development goes back to before the war), at the most basic they were probably better off with a medium tank that had the engine of the Sherman and had a lower cost, sloped superstructure that was only a few tons heavier than the Sherman.

Then their typical specifications of 5 man crew, 75 high velocity, 80+ rounds of ammunition, visibility, sloped frontal armor @ 80mm could be put into place.

That's what I think, anyway.

Many Generals and divisional history compilers with the same excuses:

'We were heroic defenders of the German people'

'Overwhelming Allied material'

'Allies too cautious and slow, could have destroyed us any time if they were us'

'We were individually superior to the Asiatic, mongoloid Russians that were bound to the land and acted as with herd instincts'

'We were never beaten in a 'fair fight''

I also don't buy into the idea he was strategically inept, plenty of Generals survived to write self serving memoirs that basically set out to say:

...And..of course, it was 'all Hitler's fault', General Mud and General Winter beat us, not the Red Army or ourselves.

On topic of books, I read Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. Operation specefic and a quite fun read. You can read about the operation here Perhaps not the deep and analyzing kind of book, but indeed a fun read.

Ah yeah, I've got that book. Ian Fleming was involved in that IIRC?

That's a 'what-if' scenario.

Instead of the Panther (Panzer III/IV development goes back to before the war), at the most basic they were probably better off with a medium tank that had the engine of the Sherman and had a lower cost, sloped superstructure that was only a few tons heavier than the Sherman.

Then their typical specifications of 5 man crew, 75 high velocity, 80+ rounds of ammunition, visibility, sloped frontal armor @ 80mm could be put into place.

That's what I think, anyway.

That would be the e-50, the best medium tank in ww2 never produced. Thanks to Hitler's irrationality he believed that warfare would be dedicated by larger and larger supertanks to the point of the p-1000 ratte. good thing he was wrong.

That's a 'what-if' scenario.

Instead of the Panther (Panzer III/IV development goes back to before the war), at the most basic they were probably better off with a medium tank that had the engine of the Sherman and had a lower cost, sloped superstructure that was only a few tons heavier than the Sherman.

Then their typical specifications of 5 man crew, 75 high velocity, 80+ rounds of ammunition, visibility, sloped frontal armor @ 80mm could be put into place.

That's what I think, anyway.

That might have helped in a minor capacity, but if you're making changes to the timeline circa 1943 it's not going to result in the Germans doing anything other than holding out a bit longer.

^^
I doubt even longer- it wouldn't win them any more battles.

It is three in the morning and I'm on my 10th beer, I hit back whilst on Netflix and ended up on this thread. Why? I dont have a fucking clue.


Anyhow I happen to member of a bookclub here in Sweden that get some non-standard books. Recently I've read the entire series of Artyom Drabinks books with stories from veterans. (Yes I do understand anecdote in plural isn't data but still, nice read) Books in the series are:

T-34 vs. Tiger
Stalin sledgehammers
Against the Luftwaffe.

Basically, one book going on about tankers, one about AT crews, and one about fighter pilots. You guys want pictures or stories I have them.


As for the war in general, highly simplified and my most personal opinion: Germans are awesome at tactics but can't get into strategy to save their life.

It is three in the morning and I'm on my 10th beer, I hit back whilst on Netflix and ended up on this thread. Why? I dont have a fucking clue.


Anyhow I happen to member of a bookclub here in Sweden that get some non-standard books. Recently I've read the entire series of Artyom Drabinks books with stories from veterans. (Yes I do understand anecdote in plural isn't data but still, nice read) Books in the series are:

T-34 vs. Tiger
Stalin sledgehammers
Against the Luftwaffe.

Basically, one book going on about tankers, one about AT crews, and one about fighter pilots. You guys want pictures or stories I have them.


As for the war in general, highly simplified and my most personal opinion: Germans are awesome at tactics but can't get into strategy to save their life.

i think artyom (sp) just edited and translated those accounts into English. I have read some of the work he has translated and it is a little difficult to read, but the accounts are amazing and good to learn about.

I was going to clear up some things on how the Red Army worked, Commissars, SMERSH, Penals, Command and stuff like that since many people have heard of it but very few seem to fully know about stuff like that more than by name.
However I was crushed under the sheer weight of Soviet Bureaucracy. When you've studied it for a while, you don't think of certain things that for the uninitiated will seem strange, and in my attempt to lay down some groundwork I think I've written somewhat of an essay. This is groundwork will post next part when I have time.

First a quick rundown of different bodies.

RKKA - Workers and Peasants Red Army. This is the basic army. It sorted under the Peoples Commissariat of Defense(NКО). Ministries are bourgeoisies the Soviet union had Peoples Commissariats which fills the same function. Leader during the war was Peoples Commissar (ie minister, shortened NarKom) Semyon Timoshenko upto 19th of July 1941 the post was then taken over by Stalin.

NKVD - Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Headed by Beria. Many departments with funny shorthands some listed under spoiler. Show Spoiler
I just wanted to give a taste of the huge bureaucracy this truly was and that no the NKVD was not "the Soviet SS" but a ministry so grand Kafka would break himself. Generalised terms about the NKVD means all of the above, please refrain from it. Note also that this isn't all departments. Yes there was an administration and management department ARP, I think they drank vodka and tried to come up with new departments nothing else. "Ilya lets have a department with the acronym PEDR!! HAHAHAHH!

NKVD GUGB/NKGB - State security. Aah this is what most people mean when they say NKVD. Much power in an already powerful organization. Split after Stalins time into MVD and KGB.
They where split apart already in february 41 but was but back together in july of 41 then again as GUGB because of war and NKVD looked like they had too few departments. (joke)
They in turn where divided in to several divisions (THERE IS MORE). 1st protected Party and government leaders (Yes that is the same thing) 2nd secret-political department, 3rd counter-intelligence, 4th special section (special means not even the Soviets wrote what the hell they did. they spied on people, shot people and did the black work) 5th Foreign department, 7th Encryption (6th was transfered to nr 2 and 4)

GKO Main Committee of Defense, not to be confused with NКО or the Stavka (High command).
Created in 41 for the overall leadership of all aspects of the country during the war. This committee ruled all aspects of the country.

Stavka - High command, and no it isn't STAVKA it is not an acronym.
Military High command of the country, not the same as GKO. GKO dealt with everything Stavka just with the military matters. If you need to produce more fuel for tanks next summer talk to GKO, if you are needing tanks for your operation talk to Stavka.

OSOAVIAChIM - Short for the Society for Promotion of the defense, aviation and chemical building. Volunteer organization for youths that taught fieldcrafts, skydiving, and the like, worked like a way to do boot camp at an early age. Had their own airfields, radio clubs, fire ranges and stuff like that. Many Partisans and early well what people call "spetznas" came from here. Included for having a long acronym.

GRU - Main Intelligence Directorate. Created already in November of 1918. Fierce rival of the Security service(KGB). Sorts under the army, but since october 23 '42 reported only to the Narkom of Defense, ie Stalin. Before that reported to General Staff of the Red Army.

SMERSh - short for "Death to Spies" now we have stopped playing around with fancy names. . "This is what we do". Was the Counter-intelligence department.
But here it gets kinda complicated, there were 3 of them. SMERSh of the army reported to the leader of NКО, SMERSh of the NKVD reported to the head of the NKVD, and the SMERSh of the Navy reported to the head of the navy. (Kuznetsov)
So that is 3 departments doing counter-intelligence all called the same thing, but they where three separate things.


There that should be a good basis to start off on, my following dumps in this post will be more interesting and I'll try to get some stuff going on what the stuff that is stereotypical of the Soviet union during ww2 and who was responsible for that part and who wasn't.

EDIT: My current read puts me in the 30s I had incorrectly used the acronym NKVM for Peoples Commissariat of Defence, that is incorrect the acronym was at the time of the war NKO. It changed in 34 if 2 secs of googeling puts me right.

I was going to clear up some things on how the Red Army worked, Commissars, SMERSH, Penals, Command and stuff like that since many people have heard of it but very few seem to fully know about stuff like that more than by name.
However I was crushed under the sheer weight of Soviet Bureaucracy. When you've studied it for a while, you don't think of certain things that for the uninitiated will seem strange, and in my attempt to lay down some groundwork I think I've written somewhat of an essay. This is groundwork will post next part when I have time.

First a quick rundown of different bodies.

RKKA - Workers and Peasants Red Army. This is the basic army. It sorted under the Peoples Commissariat of Defense(NKVM). Ministries are bourgeoisies the Soviet union had Peoples Commissariats which fills the same function. Leader during the war was Peoples Commissar (ie minister, shortened NarKom) Semyon Timoshenko upto 19th of July 1941 the post was then taken over by Stalin.

NKVD - Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Headed by Beria. Many departments with funny shorthands some listed under spoiler. Show Spoiler

I just wanted to give a taste of the huge bureaucracy this truly was and that no the NKVD was not "the Soviet SS" but a ministry so grand Kafka would break himself. Generalised terms about the NKVD means all of the above, please refrain from it. Note also that this isn't all departments. Yes there was an administration and management department ARP, I think they drank vodka and tried to come up with new departments nothing else. "Ilya lets have a department with the acronym PEDR!! HAHAHAHH!

NKVD GUGB/NKGB - State security. Aah this is what most people mean when they say NKVD. Much power in an already powerful organization. Split after Stalins time into MVD and KGB.
They where split apart already in february 41 but was but back together in july of 41 then again as GUGB because of war and NKVD looked like they had too few departments. (joke)
They in turn where divided in to several divisions (THERE IS MORE). 1st protected Party and government leaders (Yes that is the same thing) 2nd secret-political department, 3rd counter-intelligence, 4th special section (special means not even the Soviets wrote what the hell they did. they spied on people, shot people and did the black work) 5th Foreign department, 7th Encryption (6th was transfered to nr 2 and 4)

GKO Main Committee of Defense, not to be confused with NKVM or the Stavka (High command).
Created in 41 for the overall leadership of all aspects of the country during the war. This committee ruled all aspects of the country.

Stavka - High command, and no it isn't STAVKA it is not an acronym.
Military High command of the country, not the same as GKO. GKO dealt with everything Stavka just with the military matters. If you need to produce more fuel for tanks next summer talk to GKO, if you are needing tanks for your operation talk to Stavka.

OSOAVIAChIM - Short for the Society for Promotion of the defense, aviation and chemical building. Volunteer organization for youths that taught fieldcrafts, skydiving, and the like, worked like a way to do boot camp at an early age. Had their own airfields, radio clubs, fire ranges and stuff like that. Many Partisans and early well what people call "spetznas" came from here. Included for having a long acronym.

GRU - Main Intelligence Directorate. Created already in November of 1918. Fierce rival of the Security service(KGB). Sorts under the army, but since october 23 '42 reported only to the Narkom of Defense, ie Stalin. Before that reported to General Staff of the Red Army.

SMERSh - short for "Death to Spies" now we have stopped playing around with fancy names. . "This is what we do". Was the Counter-intelligence department.
But here it gets kinda complicated, there were 3 of them. SMERSh of the army reported to the leader of NKVM, SMERsh of the NKVD reported to the head of the NKVD, and the SMERSh of the Navy reported to the head of the navy. (Kuznetsov)
So that is 3 departments doing counter-intelligence all called the same thing, but they where three separate things.


There that should be a good basis to start off on, my following dumps in this post will be more interesting and I'll try to get some stuff going on what the stuff that is stereotypical of the Soviet union during ww2 and who was responsible for that part and who wasn't.

Thanks for this. There is some I knew and a lot I didn't.

When I get the chance I will contribute some of my own.

There is a lot of misinformation about the capabilities of the allied armies vis a vis the Germans. They were much more capable than they are given credit and the Germans were not nearly the ubermenschen their fanbois think they were (the same goes for their war machines).

Much of their success comes from two main points.... the first is that at the beginning of the war they were much better trained and more prepared for combat than their opponents. It also means that as they defeated one country after another their now experienced troops went up against the green troops of other nations. Each victory meant more experience, and the chance to refine their skills and use of equipment, whereas each successive opponent was still inexperienced in every sense of the word (never seen combat, never seen blood, haven't used equipment or doctrine in real combat, etc.).

By the time their opponents were more experienced the Germans benefited from being on the defensive and all the force multipliers that implies, including ever shortening lines of supply and communication. But they were certainly not superior.

And there were many things the Germans did much less well, but in all the mystique of their superiority we don't hear about it. (And it is mostly mystique.)

By the time their opponents were more experienced the Germans benefited from being on the defensive and all the force multipliers that implies, including ever shortening lines of supply and communication. But they were certainly not superior.

There really is no "benefit" from being in a defensive war, as the very description of that situation implies that you are losing the war, or are least in a strategic sense at a disadvantage (especially if you are the aggressor in the conflict).

That said, it still is no easy feat defending against better-equipped, better-supplied, numerically superior forces that in most cases are high in morale and never wanting in reserves. This was the Eastern Front from 1944-45. It took strategic genius, tactical creativity and zeal to keep the German line from entirely collapsing after Kursk. The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede. No amount of "force multipliers" accounts for the relatively slow advance of the Red Army westwards. The original German advance east in 1941 was much faster and less casualty intensive despite being grossly outnumbered, especially in armour.

The French and British were in a defensive war in 1940, the Polish in 1939, Russia in 1941 and so on. Unless you know how to use "defense in depth" to your advantage, being on the defensive in the mid-20th century was not a comfortable situation in the least.

The Germans did not possess "strategic genius" in 43-45..It was a drawn-out series of blunders and disasters. The Soviet command was largely more consistent from the STAVKA/Front level at this point. The Germans declined in all levels but remained somewhat competent at Army, corps and divisional level for the most part. (operational, tactical level). It was in the strategic area that they failed badly (Top leadership, Army Group, economic management).

The Germans were tough in the defense because their military system was heavily focused around troop training and divisional organizational development. They were much less impressive in offensive operations come 1943, as their attack methods were getting countered more and more readily.

The big difference operationally is the serious decline in their infantry divisions. They were shrinking in size and capability, and were no longer able to hold the front. The Panzer divisions did not decline as fast, and the numerous small tactical victories their counter-operations accomplished delayed the inevitable.

It took strategic genius, tactical creativity and zeal to keep the German line from entirely collapsing after Kursk. The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede.

The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede. No amount of "force multipliers" accounts for the relatively slow advance of the Red Army westwards.

The Red Army 'advanced in thrusts' mainly due to two things:

1. Logistics and pauses to rebuild/replenish forces
2. Military immaturity- they lacked confidence to perform dramatic encirclements to get the really high reward moves until 1944. This lack of confidence was due to their well-placed fear against counter operations by mobile forces. The Red Army 'matured' in 1944, but not without some internal flaws (their troop training was never at a great level).