The M72 LAW, adopted in 1963, is similar to the Panzerfaust in many respects: single-use, lightweight, unguided, light anti-tank weapon.
Meh, hard to blame him when the problem is with paratroops as a military concept. For what it’s worth, John Keegan has identified four really large-scale uses of paratroopers during the war…going from memory, Crete, D-Day, Market-Garden and Operation Varsity, I believe. Although three of the four were technically successes, they were Pyrrhic victories at best. All four operations entailed heavy losses to superbly trained troops. It turns out parachuting is too risky and too subject to the vagaries of wind and ground conditions to be useful in large-scale military operations. As soon as helicopters offered a viable alternative, dropping by parachute was relegated to small special-forces operations in every army.
I’d always read the Germans used their ME-262s almost exclusively against the bomber streams; do you have a cite for that?
In addition to mechanical unreliability, German tanks tended to have another problem: the parts that worked were too well-made, if you can believe it. I saw a documentary where they showed a Panther engine block. Other nations would have stamped out the frame parts for such an engine block, but the Germans machined the entire thing lovingly like luxury watchmakers. The process took a long time, but the engine block still fit together perfectly some 70 years later.
The expected lifetime of a Panther at the front in 1944 was a few days to a few weeks at most.
That kind of lavish attention to the wrong detail plagued the German war effort. Great expense and labor to produce a magnificent work of art that would then be immediately destroyed (like as not, while still enroute to the front, without ever firing a shot in anger).
You could say the same thing about amphibious landings as well, but how else were the Marines going to capture an island?
Large scale paratroop drops are another thing that seems foolish in hindsight, but at the time was the best option, even if kind of flawed.
It wasn’t so much that they were individually machined, it was that the engines were hand-fitted. In other words, they’d machine the cylinder bores, and then either find the best fitting pistons out of all the ones they had on hand, or machine pistons specifically for the cylinders AS bored. Basically they spent the time and effort to make sure all the parts fit just-so, while US manufacturers tended to build the parts so that you could grab any piston and have it fit any bore reasonably well. Maybe not as well as a hand-fitted one, but it probably took a fraction of the time and expense to put that piston in versus a hand-fitted one.
We can but try.
You are quite right, and I mean no offense by this, but fanboy syndrome is so insidious that you are falling prey to some of it right here. Hollywood hardly helps where every German tank has to be a Tiger, or wargames going back to Squad Leader and PanzerBlitz where the German side is usually drowning in Panthers, Tigers, Jagdpanthers, Wespes, Hummels and Wirbelwinds and all of the infantry are tooling around in Sd.Kfz. 251 halftracks.* German armor was inferior tank for tank to French and British armor during the fall of France in 1940. German armor was inferior to Soviet armor from the beginning of Barbarossa up until at least 1943. They were successful because they were better able to use what they had. The Germans made extensive use of captured Soviet 76.2mm guns as the PaK 36(r), both as a towed piece and mounted on the Marder because it was far superior to the anti-tank guns Germany had available; the German 75mm PaK 40 was only just entering production as 1941 drew to a close.
Even when these smaller numbers of ‘best’ equipment became available, they never came close to being the majority of the equipment Germany was using; Germany kept producing the good-enough right now in larger numbers than the more difficult to produce best equipment. Up until the last days of the war, German armor was much more likely to be a Pz-IV or StuG-III than a Panther or a Tiger, a self-propelled AT gun a Hetzer than a Jagdpanther, infantry rifles to be Kar98(k)s than StG44s, fighters to be Me-109s or FW-190s than Me-262s, and U-boats a Type-VIIc than a Type XXI.
*Only one of the four panzergrenadier battalions per panzer division was even on paper supposed to be mounted on half-tracks, for comparison all three armored infantry battalions in a US armored division were mountd on half-tracks both on paper and in practice.
The fuel situation for Germany was certainly a part of the problem, but the inability of German industry to produce enough trucks was as well. Prior to the launching of Barbarossa the Germans scoured occupied Europe for trucks to try to make up for the shortfall, but this had its own logistical problems. Rather than having to provide spare parts for only a few models of wheeled vehicles, it was a nightmare of its own trying to provide spare parts for scores of different models of wheeled vehicles manufactured by every country Germany occupied.
Fair enough - I really ought to have prefaced my remarks by stating this was the situation when the Germans were losing, not when they were winning (and yes, I know, even when they were losing, not every German tank was a Tiger, or even a large number of them - it is just that they put a disproportionate effort into the glamourous stuff).
The Nazi domination of the army was progressive throughout the war.
Emphasis of the glamour stuff had a distorting effect far outside the actual numbers involved - for example: the Germans delayed launching Kursk so that Panthers would be avaliable - even though only a tiny number of Panthers actually made it to that battle and they had, allegedly, very little impact.
It isn’t that the Germans insisted on only having the “best” - that wasn’t my meaning at all, and no doubt it is my fault that you read it that way; rather, as the war progressed and the Nazis became more dominant over the course of the war, they put effort they could ill afford into getting “the best”, effort they could more profitably have put elsewhere. The military returns from, for example, the tiny number of super-duper tanks they actually made were simply not worth the cost.
True, and as I noted, the US was absolutely dominant in this area. The Red Army moved on Berlin in US-made trucks.
I find this difficult to believe…by the early 1930’s American automobile engine factories all had automatically bored and honed blocks , by a fixed multi-head boring mill. So the Germans were using 1920’s technology? Unbelievable.
I didn’t say it, so much as quote a respected military analyst, John Keegan. His point was very specifically that paradrops seemed like a good idea, but proved so wasteful of elite formations in all – all – major operations ever attempted that armies stopped using them entirely (like the Germans after Crete) or used them only for small-sale special forces ops while trying to transition to something else. The idea of vertical envelopment – dropping a large formation behind enemy lines – as a method of winning battles was, it turns out, fatally flawed.
This happens occasionally in warfare, like the idea of using hydrogen-filled zeppelins, some things simply do not work out, even if they were neat ideas.
There is no such thing as a tank that’s “too well-made.” Properly casted, welded and fitted, both the tiger and panther performed as well as the allied tanks. The trouble was by late 1944, a lot of the heavy industries was already dominated by slave labor, workers who had no love for the German cause. Though shoddy work or deliberate sabotage were punishable by immediate execution, workers still managed to break a few gear teeth, or mis-align rotating parts.
Boring and honing are seperate operations. Both operations are staggered, cylinders 1 & 5, then 3 and 7, and then the other side would be worked on. Pistons were done in 5 different sizes, A thru E, to match the bore size.
Look up the Rolls-Royce Merlin; apparently the British ones ran like tops, but were designed for hand-fitting and meticulous craftsmanship. It took Packard getting hold of the design and reworking it for modern manufacturing techniques before it took off (so to speak) as a mass-produced aircraft engine.
The thing was, US auto makers made a huge proportion of the pre-war cars and trucks and were very experienced in mass-producing engines and other components, while the European manufacturers had primarily concentrated on luxury models made in considerably smaller numbers.
Germany’s successful War Machine almost always based on quality over quantity no mather what was the situation and when it’s like that the nr. 1 question is that there have to be succesful air defence and air force to protect materials, production and factories. And of course: in the front too.
And:
Jet Fighters. well, in the start there is always more problems.
StG 44: yes, like I said earlier.
Nuclear Program: every country had a lot of problems in their nuclear programs. For example: what was Soviet Union nuclear program before they find Germany program?
Missiles: situation in end-1944 and 1945 was pretty desperate. Have you ever heard Wasserfall missiles and Dr. Walter Thiel?
What I said earlier is a fact not an opinion. I was comparing allied workers and their working conditions to german workers and their conditions.
What I meant was that the Third Kharkov battle and success came almost right after Stalingrad. (February and March).
It take way too long before Kursk started after that.
Again what I meant It was only July when there was two front in Europe and compared to Normandy the Sicilian Campaign was different thing.
There was problems in Germany tank production and definitely not the least was allied bombing raids against Maybach engine plant and other tank factories.
Yes, when there is not heavy bombers to destroy enemy factories and industry the only real choise is to concentrate everything to protect own factories and industry.
Well, allied bombings had very heavy effect what comes to Germany fuel problems/fuel shortage. That was self-feeding situation.
StG44 mass production lasted very, very little time comparing to PPSh-41.
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Yes, but not enough. Not even near as big they would’ ve be.
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The strategic bombing campaign was vital to defeating Germany because it effect everything and in the end there was no Luftwaffe to fight.
Stalingrad was encircled in November 1942. Third Kharkov was fought in February and March 1943. That’s four months later, not ‘almost right after’. If you take another look at the map of the Eastern Front linked, you’ll notice the Red Army continued to advance west from Kursk despite being stopped at Third Kharkov from further advances in that direction.
The Germans deliberately abandoned the Rzhev Salient after fighting to hold it for 14 months specifically to shorten the length of the front and to free up divisions for use elsewhere. That elsewhere turned out to be squandering them at Kursk. See here:
And here:
If that is what you meant, you didn’t convey it by stating that there was only one front in Europe in 1943.
Again, German armament production in all categories increased every month from 1941-44 despite the strategic bombing, and the final collapse in production levels in 1945 was as much due to the physical loss of land where the factories and resources were located to the advancing Allied ground forces. This also does nothing to address the fact that the Panther had a horrible operational rate due to mechanical unreliability even in late models after the bugs of the engine setting itself on fire were addressed. The day prior to launching the largest offensive in the West since the Allies had returned to the continent the Panther only had a 71% operational rate. One month later the survivors had a 34% operational rate. The slow production rate of the Panther also ensured that the Pz-IV remained the mainstay of German panzer divisions, as it was much easier to produce and remained in production until the end of the war. It also wasn’t uncommon for there to be more running StuG-III assault guns in panzer divisions than running Panthers despite the fact that on paper the 1944 TO&E(warning, pdf file) authorized more Panthers in the second panzer battalion than the number of StuGs in the (self propelled) Panzerjäger Battalion.
Germany didn’t get to make this choice. It was being buried in aircraft production by its enemies just like it was in all other categories of armaments. Germany concentrated on single engine fighters because there was no other choice for them. Among the other factors, they only needed one engine, not four. Either way, the He-177 was a disaster as a strategic bomber. The engines were extremely unreliable, hence the nickname “flaming coffin”. Believe it or not, early models of the He-177 had dive brakes. That’s right, one of the design requirements of the closet thing Germany came to a proper strategic bomber was that it be able to dive-bomb.
Yet again, this is simply not true. The US Strategic Bombing Survey conducted after the war found that it had nowhere near the effect it was hoped to have in all categories of production, including fuel. Germany’s fuel problem was that they simply did not have control over the production of enough of it. One of the primary effects of the strategic bombing was the destruction of the Luftwaffe as any kind of effective force through attrition combating the bombers, and more particularly their fighter escorts. The P-38, P-47 and P-51 could all ultimately escort the B-17s and B-24s deep into German airspace and perform equal to or better than the Me-109 and FW-190. The FW-190 and particularly the Me-109 had very short legs, as amply demonstrated during the Battle of Britain when the Me-109 was pushing its fuel reserve dog fighting over London from bases on the French and Belgian coast.
And? Again, pay attention to the numbers, they are the year they were introduced to service. More than 6 million PPSh-41s being produced from 1941 had a much greater impact than less than a half million StG44s being produced starting three years later. And again, any objections he may have had aside it was developed behind Hitler’s back, and one he was made aware of it he gave it his blessing.
- Have you looked up the loss rates of Bomber Command and the 8th and 15th USAAF in early operations? To reiterate, Bomber Command was losing more flight crews KIA than the number of German civilians it was killing. In the disastrous Schwienfurt-Regensburg mission the 8th USAAF lost almost three times as many flight crews as the number of German civilians it killed. 2) Horseshit. The strategic bombing campaign was in no way vital to defeating Germany. They were going to be steamrollered by the Red Army in the end regardless. For the nth time, production of war materials by Germany increased every year despite the strategic bombing.
Strategic bombing is not supposed to make the enemy raise their hands and surrender in the face of raining bombs. It helps to weaken your enemy, in terms of lower production and morale. Dissonance is correct in saying it was not vital in defeating Germany by 1945. That time frame is important. If Germany was strong enough to resist the allied offensives on both sides from 1944 to maybe 1947, then strategic bombing starting in 1944 would definitely be vital in ensuring her (eventual) defeat.
This is a meaningless statement without refernece to
- An idea of what Germany COULD have produced without bombing, and
- What the military cost to Germany was of resisting strategic bombing.
It is fact that a substantial portion of that production was dedicated to trying to stop Allied bombing; according to Keegan, a quarter of German shell production was being used trying to shoot down bombers, and by later in the war pretty much the entire Luftwaffe was involved in the same endeavour, as opposed to supporting German troops. As the German army joke went, “If you see black planes they’re British, if you see white planes they’re American, if you see no planes it’s the Luftwaffe.”
It is perhaps interesting to ask why, if bombing was so useless, the Germans invested so much in trying to stop it. And what could they have done with that investment elsewhere?
You’re misreading me, the statement was in response to Rocket 100’s comment that
Whatever the problems the strategic bombing campaign caused the Germans, reducing tank production certainly wasn’t one of them; the idea that the strategic bombing campaign caused a net reduction in German armaments output is belied by the fact that production of armaments in all categories continued to increase each month throughout the entire war until the final closing months. Could they have netted more had there been no strategic bombing campaign? Sure. Did the strategic bombing campaign cause a net reduction in German production? Certainly not.
Indeed, that is why I said
I’ve not said it was useless, only that it was not vital to defeating Germany as Rocket 100 seems to think. The strategic bombing campaign was not necessary for the defeat of Germany, they were going to lose the war with or without it, particularly with the situation Rocket 100 posits of German wunderwaffe such as the Me-262 and Wasserfall causing heavy losses to Allied bombers in the last year and a half or so of the war. The strategic bombing campaign was carried out in spite of heavy losses in early operations, and would almost certainly continue to be carried out even if losses became heavy again late in the war. Even had the Western Allies decided to abandon the strategic bombing campaign, Germany’s defeat was assured by 1944. Average pilot quality in the Luftwaffe had already been devastated by attrition, Germany had no prospects of improving thier fuel situation, and the Western Allies and to a slightly lesser degree the Soviets enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in tactical airpower.
I agree with the rest of your points, but I don’t see how this invalidates RickJay’s essential point.
It doesn’t; I don’t think RickJay’s essential point is invalid. I agree with what he said and hold more or less the same opinion on the strategic bombing campaign as he does; I think he might have just been reading more into my statement that the strategic bombing was not vital to defeating Germany and that production continued to increase in spite of the strategic bombing than was there. I certainly don’t consider it to have been useless and mean vital in the strict dictionary sense: absolutely necessary or important; essential. While useful, the strategic bombing campaign was not absolutely necessary or essential to the defeat of Germany, and disrupting, or even more fantastically forcing a halt to the bombing campaign with wunderwaffe wasn’t going to save Germany from defeat.
I agree with the comments (about the ineffectiveness of the bombing). Which is why I always wondered-why didn’t the RAF and USAAF concentrate on bombing the Ruhr valley exclusively? It was the source of most of Germany’s coal and steel, and it was closer to England. It is true, Germany had a few other coalfields (mostly Silesia); but destroying the Ruhr would have really shut German armaments down, and fast.
My position is that the only thing that could have saved Germany from defeat would have been if the Soviet Union had collapsed internally following the intital shock of the invasion, as Hitler thought it would.
When the Soviets did not collapse, Germany’s defeat was pretty well sealed, absent some truly improbable circumstances. The war could have lasted longer though.