the ww2 german army was 80% horse drawn!

The bulk of the German Army—the dough feet of the normal infantry divisions—moved on shank’s mare. The rifle companies’ transport consisted of three-horse wagons, on which the troops loaded their packs, as did this outfit on campaign in Russia in the summer of 1941. Lone Sentry.com

The WWII German Army was 80% Horse Drawn; Business Lessons from History | Collaboration 2.0 | ZDNet.com

 

The reasons were :
1)the Germans did not have the resources to motorize their army (nor did any other European country )
2)the Germans did not have enough oil (nor did any other European country )
3)more trucks =more drivers,thus less infantry
4)A motorised army could not operate in the East(few roads,rasputitza)
5)Trucks could not supply an army,only the railway could do it (the US army had the experience in september 1944 ).

 

thanks LJ, good response, ray..

 

That was the norm for most armies back then; the US, Britain, and those we supplied were the exceptions. The age of mechanization was just beginning.

The biggest impact of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union may have been not tanks or airplanes but the nearlly half-millon trucks, jeeps, halftracks, etc. we sent them. This was largely responsible for the Red Army's ability to conduct deep mobile offensives in 1943-45.

 

I'm not sure this one is accurate. For one thing wagons need drivers too and trucks can move more per vehicle than a wagon can. They also need less to keep them moving and I suspect less support personel but I'm not at all sure about that one.

 

Yes "Iwd", you would still need drivers, and stable staff for horses where you need drivers and mechanics for trucks. Other than fuel (POL v grass and fodder), and somewhat better mobility in mud, horses are a trade off in the negative.

 

80 % is too high, more like 70 % if that.......

 

how do you equate the percentages ? basing figures on what? German Horse Cavalry and Transport, U.S. Intelligence Bulletin, March 1946 (Lone Sentry)

german horse drawn wagons.. http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=152124

 

Real men don't need cars, they march! (Blitzkreig joke)

Joking aside, given the size of the German army 20% is still a hefty number, it seems a bit hard to believe at first given how certain fronts could not be "catered" to efficiently by horses such as Africa, the Eastern Front (during certain seasons, conditions, etc)

Does this number include tanks, armored vehicles, etc as well?

 

good post, and link's biak, ray..

 

wow 80%.. that seems like a lot.

so were the horse drawn calveries effective in the war?

Seems like the only advantage would be saving gasoline.

there would be big problems if the horses were shot and killed. And the lack of food in the cold Russian winters would be another problem ..

Wondering if this could be a possible reason for the German failure in the war?
Horses/donkeys seem such an outdated means in warfare.

 

source "weapons of wwII forum..

Gunter_Viezenz wrote:

lynn1212 wrote:from what i understand about 80 to 90% of tactical transport for the germans was horse drawn. only the elite units had many trucks and by american standards damn few even then
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I think it would have been a bit higher, but than again it is hard to find information about these kinds of things. I will have to look through my books real quick, I do recall reading that both Manstein and Guderian in their memoirs complained that they had a lot of French trucks which were inferior to the German ones. Furthermore, they lacked spare parts for these vehicles. But thana gain, they would have been commanding some of those 'Elite' units. With the exception of the 11th Army in the Crimea, they almost had no takes till they were going for Sevastepol.
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According to Spielberger, in 1 jan. 1943 there were 1.2 million morized vehicles in German service (all services) of which about half was German production, and there were a total of about 2200 types. What a logistical nightmare.

 

a rewiev of this book...

Volumes have been written on the equipment of the German Army of World War II, including tanks, trucks, motorcycles, weapons, and personal equipment, but little has been written on the horses that made up 80% of its transportation. Horses pulled everything an army needed in the field by wagon or on its back and more horses were used in World War II than in any other war in history. This book includes text from the U.S. Army Military History Institute publication MS #P-090. The participants of this study were among the most knowledgeable the German army could provide, and their conclusions constitute a critique of what probably was the last mass use of horses in warfare. If one really means to understand the performance and tactics of the Wehrmacht in World War II, one must understand the horse and its logistic requirements. Also, this book presents one of the most comprehensive photo collections of the men and equipment of the horse-mounted troops.

 

That's a problem for the horse. If you are a soldier it may be a solution. It's a lot easier to eat a horse than it is to eat a truck. More nutricous as well ...

 

Where did the Germans get all their horses? Was it a carry over from the days of Cavalry, slapping on a wagon-harness onto the horses originally bred to charge the lines?

 

There's a pretty good thread over on the axis history forum about this. They did have an extensive breeding program for horses but also captured/requisitioned a lot on the Eastern front. The thread is a fairly long one 6+pages as I recall.

 

Don't know if it was posted before but Germany used more horses and more horses per man then Napoleon did to invade Russia 100 years earlier...

 

Remember that old thread started by JCFalkenbergIII on the German High tech. Military? Lots of great photos of them using horses, bicyles, mules and I seem to recall there was even one with oxen in there somewhere.

Goto:

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/24098-high-tech-german-military-22.html#post364143

There were something like 30 pages of photos and stuff I think.

 

It may be a bit hard to appreciate for us who have grown up in an environment where everybody has cars and most goods move by truck, but draft animals were the primary means of moving people, goods, or anything that wasn't on the railroad. When Hitler called for a "people's car" it was because most people didn't have cars. Horses were an industry comparable to cars today (except they weren't imported from Japan). People bred and raised millions of horses the same way they did cattle, pigs, or any other livestock they had a need for. German, Russian, and other armies in WWII got horses the same way the Union and Confederacy did in our Civil War, because their whole society was horse-mobile.

Perhaps instead of "The German army was 80% horse-drawn!" the title of this thread should be "The American army wasn't!" That was the novelty.