attrition war , mea culpa

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Foreword
you might have noticed the recent arrival of a new member , Jason C ,
He has great passion and strong opinions about armored warfare during WW2
I came across his theory of eastern front war attrition on an other forum (dupuy) and asked him the permission to present them here as it match mine ,
but am too bashful to take even implicit credit for it
I guess he came over to check what a dog breakfast I would be making of it
He has a somewhat up and at them attitude , our forum is a pretty open handed mob and I'm sure things will turn out fine ...eventually :smok:

why hitler lost the war

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Objectively, the Russians began the war with a superior strategic view of its likely course and fundamental nature.
They treated it as a long war of attrition from the begining.
The Germans gambled on rapid victory through surprise, initiative, offensive use of concentrated armor, etc.

Everyone acknowledges that the Germans lost that gamble, but most modern analysts, in my opinion
are far too impressed by not very sound German thinking (and later maneuverist doctrines of their own),
think that the war was only winnable for Germany if they were even more maneuverist about it (Moscow vs. Kiev e.g.),
or got luckier, or both. I consider this fundamentally unsound.

Start with the objective assessment that the Russians are right about the fundamental nature of the war.
Sure, the Russians have to learn some stuff about modern combined arms and use of armor etc. But the Germans have to learn, too.
They have to learn to treat the war as what it actually is - a long war of attrition, in which no one breakthrough can be decisive
(the motive of Russian "deep battle" thinking since WW I).

The sooner the Germans learn their lesson, the better their potential performance could have been.

Obviously, their best possible performance (on my thesis, understand) would be if they were fully prepared for a long war of attrition from the day of the invasion.
With the economy mobilized fully for war, tank output ramped, recruitment planned to expand the army continually not just keep it static etc.

But they could also have woken up around the time they instead lunged for Moscow in late 1941,
realising (as front line commanders were saying) that they needed continual replacement and refit,
and that the Russians were not collapsing despite massive losses and repeated breakthroughs etc.
(Which should have told them that single breakthroughs were never going to be decisive etc).
Or they could have woken up after being pushed back from Moscow in the winter fighting.
Or they could have prepared the 1942 campaign with the idea that a long succession of operations in depth would be necessary
(like Russian 1943-4 planning rather than their shoestring "try to grab everything when the south breaks open").

The sooner they pull out the stops on tank production at home, and stop trying to win the war in one more push, the better their chances.

Now, key point in my thesis is to look at German tank production ability and mobilization speed,
and contrast with Russian performance on both scores. The basic facts are these
- German peak output in mid 1944 is roughly equal to Russian peak output (rate, per unit time, obviously).
This is unsurprising, since pre war German industrial potential is at least equal to Russian
(and the disruption of losing 40% of your pop and industry areas to actual occupation trumps losses to bombing hands down).
The reason the Russians nevertheless outproduce the Germans 2 to 1 in tanks,
is the Russians to that rate (nearly their own peak) as early as late 1942. They are at full output longer.
German output rises more slowly to the same eventual level. This to me proves the Germans *could have* had comparable tank production,
but did not because they delayed.

Furthermore, the Germans consistently achieved very high exchange ratios against the Russians.
If those were coupled to twice the weapon base - especially earlier - the Russians would not readily have stood it.

The Russians are right about the kind of war, the dramatic issue is, will the Germans see their mistake and correct it?
(That they do not is largely arrogance, overconfidence, believing their own hype, etc).

I consider all of it highly germaine to modern debate over doctrine.
I see the same cult of maneuver and unbounded faith in rapid decision,
along with a reality of much longer wars for which we are doctrinally unprepared.

So the moral is, attrition thought is sounder than its press,
and the tendency to dismiss it with contempt is both unjustified by its historical truth and successes, and objectively dangerous.

unquote.

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Interesting, I agree that the Russians approached the war in a somewhat 'hearltess' strategic fashion...

But even if Germany could theoretically have produced more tanks , where would they have gotten the fuel to run them? Personally I think that the most valuable objective for the Germans in the entire war was the Caspian Oil reserves: more effort should have been spent on securing them

 

Yeah, people will get used to him. He might even mellow slightly
I've enjoyed his posts so far, and at some point I might even debate a few bits.

 

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Yep , the oil supply was (certainly in hitler's eyes ) amongst the biggest limitating factors , stalin was equally concerned about the flow of oil
but the germans had pretty much no access to maikop oil , thoroughly sabotaged , with concrete poured into the well heads,they didn't use the wells in the taman peninsula ,and couldn't get to grozny , they lost the lot anyway in less than six months and still managed to fight for two and half years !
anyway the critical panzer mass argument as I see it is hitler saw barbarossa as a slam bang , hello madam good-bye madam , kind of thing
in brief he went on a campaign instead of a war
all through come the same song from the fuhrer headquarter and the OKW
jully 41 ....the russians are broken ,
october 41 ... the russians have nothing left
jully 42 .... the russians have played their last reserves
october 42 .... the russians are finished

then , surprise surprise , february 43 , germany is put on a total war footing ,
guderian is put in charge of reorganising the panzer arm severely depleted ,
by the end of january 43 there were only 495 battle worthy tanks in the whole eastern front ,
nearly 8000 tanks had been lost since june 41 ,
there was a very real chance of a disaster greater than stalingrad

manstein at kharkov saved the day with the SS divisions

on the other side ,

stalin jully 41..." it's a war of extermination they want , they will have it ! "
the whole economy was pretty much on a war footing before the war ,
after june 41 , there was no economy , every production was geared to supplying the front ,

nothing else .

The germans ,of course had ramped up tank production ,speer , the new minister for armament in early 42 , carried on the work of pushing up production , pretty much against the lazy goering ,minister of the economy

guderian and hitler wanted to rebuild in 43 , manstein was pushing for kurtsk
wich hitler stopped as soon as he had a decent excuse .


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On the fuel argument against ramping production, I have of course heard it many times before, but it is not convincing.

First, the German successfully supply a panzer force more than twice as large for years, once they do ramp production. With a much larger air force burning fuel, as well. (The Luftwaffe peaks in early 1944). Second, they only run low on gas after the allied bombers smash the hydrogenation plants in the summer of 1944, and the Russians take Romania. So neither is going to save the Russians from twice the tank fleet in 42-43.

Oil was not the basis of the German war economy, coal was. Industry and power ran on coal, the transport system was rail based and also ran on coal. Oil is needed for high octane av gas to keep the Luftwaffe flying, and that is the scarcest bit, the most dependent on natural oil. Romanian imports and a few large hydrogenation plants for the synthetics supply that.

Lower quality fuel, including diesel, is much easier to make synthetically than av gas quality. And is adequate for the ground forces, which don't need all that much of it (compared to the energy needs of the economy or the cost of keeping 10,000 planes in the air, I mean). They first get it from large synthetic plants, but after air attacks become a problem, they readily disperse it. I mean, a brewery's equipment is sufficient to make diesel from coal.

Second, there is a fundamental underestimation of the flexibility of advanced industrial economies involved. Single resources are not the rate limiter for anything, really. Only total capacity is, because substitutes exist. They just cost. So some things cost a lot of something else, but can always be had if you are willing to give up that something else. Sometimes, it is true, with long lead times that require serious foresight and planning.

Too abstract. I mean you can rail less coal to Italy and feed more to the synthetic oil plants, and thereby trade fully equipped Italian infantry divisions (tricked out by their meager industry, which lives on German energy subsidies in coal form) for higher supplies for mechanized German ones. You can trade Luftwaffe sorties for supplied tanks. You can trade raw capital and lead time for additional synthetic capacity, to allow you to trade more coal for gasoline at better rates. How much of any of the above you think you need, you have to see coming, is all.

Now, in the real deal German overconfidence was so high, that in August of 1941 they were switching factories from army output to retool for uboats, because they thought Russia had already lost and it was time to move on to England. They were also running many factories one shift a day, 10 hours. (Russian and even US war plant had 3 shifts of workers each and ran 24 hours a day, the Russians without weekends as well). The civilian standard of living was as high as pre war. Only 40% of steel output was being taken by the entire war program. The main item in that war program, about all that was ramped up, was just ammunition. Churn out 81mm 105mm and 150mm shells and the war was supposed to be won by the existing force.

The reason is they hadn't learned the deep battle lesson, that modern wars are not won in one big push. They believed in single battles of annihilation and decision by breakthrough. Which just were not available, for reasons the Russians had analysed fully and correctly, interwar.

The Russians looked at the failures of the Brusilov offensive in 1916 and the 1918 German offensives in France, and saw successful breakthrough without achieved decision. They concluded modern wars could only be won by stringing together a whole series of such operations in a larger attritionist context. That, and not hoping to achieve decision by "restored movement" was the sound lesson of WW I. (And why WW II wasn't any shorter or less attritionist, for all the extra movement of fronts).

 

I agree. The Germans needed to realize that they were in a war of attrition after 1941, if not sooner, and needed to do everything they could to ramp up produciton as soon as possible.
I have never understood how capturing Moscow was going to win the war in 1941 for the Germans unless the Soviet government collapsed as well, and I doubt the loss of Moscow was going to cause that. Most scenarios that have the Germans capturing Moscow also have them ignoring the Soviets forces in the south, as if they were just going to sit there and do nothing.
Jason, do you think the Eisenhower's broadfront strategy was an effective attriton strategy as well?

 

I don't think Ike's broadfront was particularly effective, but its limitations were largely logistical. Including southern France in the whole France operation was sensible from either perspective (maneuverist or attritionist I mean), not discussing that.

The real failure in Allied performance after the stellar success of Falaise was the delay clearing the Schelt to open Antwerp. That was partly caused by the lure of decision or hoping the Germans were about to collapse etc. There were also organizational failings - e.g. the US forces up north hording all the available artillery ammo, failure it increase its priority in a timely enough fashion, the rifle replacement crisis - that all reflect the same basic underestimate of the length of the war and the amount of relatively static attrition fighting it would require. But at a planning level, more than the level of directing operations.

In terms of operations, Canadian army given too low a priority, Hurtgen fighting pressed too hard, Ardennes too thin, successes in the south (Colmar) insufficiently supported, Patton getting bull stubborn about Metz when he didn't have the artillery throw weight for such tactics - there were operational failings, too. A consistent attritionist would have looked for exchange efficiencies and long-suit sectors, shifted resources to get them, etc. I consider Ike's direction of the war mediocre, overall and at this specific stage.

 

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Phew jason I'm getting an indigestion of subjects , there is half a dozen thread worth in there ,
You'll have to forgive me for taking it one at the time
_ petrol ~ energy as a limitation factor , I believe it was , but not critical ,however there is no doubt that it laid heavily on headquarters thinking ,the synthetic plants took some time to get going full on , the alsace and hungarian oilfields are hardly mentionned but they got flogged to depletion and fought for to the bitter end ,

to said that the energy balance was coal is totaly true , people don't realise how centralized the energy distribution is now , half a dozen distribution nodes control the U.S.A.
in the 40ies every factory had its own power plant , usually a boiler room , fed by coal transported usually by barges ,
the british , as supreme specialist of a coal economy repeatedly hammered the canals,water locks and mine heads ,
the dam busters mission was to hurt coal mining as a main goal .
a comment on the peak number for the luftwaffe ,by 44 the training and flying hours got severely curtained , due to the fuel restriction , so it probably more or less balance .
I would be interested to know about the flow of oil to allied , neutrals and occupied ,
I have the sneaky suspicion that late in the war they got ziltch . at a cost in good will .
by the middle of the war the lack of energy supply was creating very real hardships everywhere in the the europeens countries ,
made worst by the massive requisition of the second most important source of power , the first one for food production ! always underestimated ,
horses !
on the subject of making anything if the trade off is worthwhile , the germans were extracting gold from seawater following in the footsteps of haber ,
the cost was abominable but worth it for them , at the time .

As for Ike , I like him a lot and broadfront was stretching the germans too , as you said they were thin on the ground in defence and narrow in attack
nothing flash but an efficient way of strangling the bastards .
Blame antwerp on monty ,always a pleasurable thing
The resistance got the place virtually intact for the allied only to have the scheld estuary left in german hand for weeks !!


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By December of 1941, the Soviets had lost possibly 1/4 of their population and maybe as much of their produciton capability.
On a GDP basis the allies (BCW + USSR) and axis (Greater Germany, Italy and some fraction of the occupied countries) were nearly evenly matched, while the allies enjoyed a huge population advantage, roughly over 200,000,000 to 100,000,000. With the addition of the US (roughly twice the axis GDP alone and a population of 130,000,000) and Japan (adding about 10% to axis GDP and 70,000,000) to the war the gap only widened.
Under these circumstances, was Allied victory inevitable from 1942 on?

 

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I would say the German could have taken the Eurasian block
since Stalin threw away all his fresh armies in the stupid spring offensives
a determinated assault on Moscow was playable ,
beside its role as manufacturing center , it is above all the distribution node of the whole rail network , linking the north , south and east , it would make Leningrad well night indefensible also cutting the Murmansk life line .
immediately things fall into place , army group north become available as reserves , the supplies lines can use Leningrad arbor and its short rail line to Moscow .
the rest is a descent down the Moskva , Oka and Volga rivers or following the Kazan railways network ,

I think turkey would still stay neutral but Iran wouldn't , there was some joint British-Soviet military intervention to keep them righteous at about this time .


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Well, Iraq (with German prodding) had a go at driving those pesky Brits out. If Iran had joined in we'd have been in quite nasty trouble.

 

Hurtgen gave nothing to the Allies, they shouldve taken the dams which had value then the valueless woods.

 

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All indication is that the Hürtgen battle was a stuff up
Started for good reasons and kept going in a blinkered view that " the Germans would break soon "
Hodges was the most to blame for not taking a step back , a good long hard look and stopping throwing good live men after good dead ones .

The greatest quality in a military leader is to know the score and take his loses for the round

All the advantages of the U.S. army were set to naught from the lack of air support to the inability to organize a front line while every plus for the Germans came good ,long standing fortifications ,total knowledge of the field , broken ground , experienced N.C.O. and officers and morale ( this was the father land now )

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wow ,great stuff ..i had no idea the dam busters were sent to disrupt coal mineing ,how did this work ? my guess would be by turning the coal mines into large underwater caves with very limited appeal to tourist scuba divers ?

 

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flooding polish slaves laborers like rats was only part of it ,
the disruption to the electricity production and the destruction of the canals water feed level was also in play ,
briefly ,a canal with water gates work only if there is a water reservoir to feed it , that's what all those lakes called reservoirs were usually used for !
as the English well knew , destroying the canals system would crowd-out the railways with bulky , cheap stuff and create no ends of transport supply problems
destroying the dams was more efficient than ten great city burning raids

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