Was the Wehrmacht overrated?

http://http://books.google.com/books?id=KFuxqau6bdUC&lpg=PA565&ots=yRBLukffDx&dq=german%20peace%20terms%20to%20britain&pg=PA565

In this article it states that Germany soon after it's conquest of France was planing to have peace between Britain.

But with Britain being pressured by Stalin to stay in the war and tie up German units while Russia introduse it's expansionist policy.

In which case wouldn't the Battle of Britain "BOB" be much more vital for Germany to come out ahead?

 

That is not inconsistent with them being overrated. As I've said on a couple of threads it's hard to be overrated if you aren't pretty good to start with.

 

What tiredoldsoldier said.

 

German engineering like you talk about was decent to very good until you go into production. The lubircated pin rubber padded tracks of their halftracks were an engineering marvel for example. But, they were incredibly expensive, hard to produce, required alot of maintenance and, were horribly over engineered. Porsche using electro-mechanical drives was a good engineering choice but a horrible manufacturing one. The Bomber A and B programs (heavy and medium bomber respectively) were engineering disasters because the Luftwaffe insisted on insane requirements (like the aircraft having to be capable of dive bombing), far too advanced technology inclusions (like remotely controlled defensive gun systems, all-electric systems (the Fw 191), use of unproven engines still in development, pressurization for the crew, etc.), and other aspects of the plane's performance that would prove impossible for manufacturers to meet in a wartime setting.
So, the Luftwaffe's heavy bomber, the He 177 was a failure. The Bomber B program failed completely (Ju 288, Fw 191) with the only successful contender being the Hs 130C that wasn't even in the program officially!

In civil engineering (eg., construction) the Germans were absolutely pathetic. As far as I can tell, they had a near complete national lack of construction machinery. There were a few ancient steam rollers available, the occasional antique steam shovel, and a bit of other construction machinery (often horse drawn) throughout the country. The Wehrmacht relied almost entirely on manpower using hand tools to carry out construction projects. Bulldozers, dumptrucks, and other heavy construction machinery was unknown and simply didn't exist in the Wehrmacht. Thus, it was taking the German army months to build a semi-permanent bridge over a major river in Russia using thousands of men in its construction as an example.
Railway engineers repairing vital rail systems could do just a few miles a day as they had only hand tools to perform the work. Building something like the ALCAN (Alaska) Highway or the Ledo Road was beyond German conception and capacity. A single US engineer battalion using equipment from a single engineering equipment battalion had more mechanization and construction capacity available than a whole German Army (3 Corps) would have had! That is, 1000 or so US engineers could do the work of 10 times their number of German construction troops!
In invading Russia this lack of capacity doomed the Germans from day one. The rail system couldn't be converted fast enough. Even the converted protion was substandard because the German rail engineers couldn't improve rail beds, install new switches, water towers, coaling stations, and other infrastructure the Soviet pre-war system lacked that the Germans needed for full efficency. German construction troops couldn't build proper roads so the few that existed deteriorated into little more than pot holed dirt tracks. Trailers couldn't be used with trucks to make them more efficent due to the awful quality of the roads. Trucks wore out more quickly in such dusty, tough conditions.
All the while the frontline units went without fuel, food, ammunition and, other supplies. All-too-often in those critical first few months of the Russian campaign the Wehrmacht found its spearheads stopped due not to enemy action but a complete lack of supplies.
Engineering capacity drove the transportation system capacity which in turn drove the logistic capacity. Basically, because the Germans neglected civil engineering their supply system broke down. In turn, the troops had to fight short on supplies which, in turn led to a higher wastage of troops and material.
This was enemy number one during the opening months of the Russian campaign. It had its effects even in Poland and France. You can see it in Norway too. Rommel had the same problems in North Africa. Yet, it often goes unnoticed or appreciated that the Germans were lousy builders.

 

Man for man, from 1936-1942, its clear that the Wehrmacht was probably the best all-around army in the world. There is no arguing with results and in that period, the German army won almost every single battle it fought, against almost every other army in Europe, including the Russian army - which population (and army) outnumbered Germany's by 4 to 1.


The german army had the advantage of an extremely capable high command, excellent and pragmatic staff work, and good preparation before the war. (Ironically Versailles actually did the Germans a favor, since they were forced to destroy their obsolescent equipment from WW1 and could start over instead of being tempted to keep the old junk in use to save money, as happened to alot of the victor nations of WW1.) The Germans carefully studied their WW1 experience and put the important stuff into a manual for training - something few or none of the other nations they fought against bothered to ever do. Also the Germans trained their leaders carefully and thoroughly - German non-commissioned officers (feldwebels) received 6 months of training before considered fit for duty. This was longer and better training than the US gave to its second lieutenants.

The Wehrmact was certainly not perfect and as you point out, did lack many capabilities that other nations had, for example it had practically no amphibious capability, certainly not compared to the USA or even the British (and it took the US well into 1942-3 before it developed the powerful amphibious striking power that would eventually dominate the Pacific against the Japanese). Whats more German airborne forces were some of the best troops in the world, but suffered from a perpetual shortage of proper aircraft and even had badly designed parachutes (the soldier was held by the chute facing downwards and horizontally instead of vertically like US and British chutes - this insured lots of injuries to the Fallschirmjaeger upon landing.)

As the old saw goes, though, it's not who is better in a war, it's who is worse! As the war went on the shortcomings of the German army, and nation, became much more acute. Everyone except Hitler seemed to realize that Germany did not have unlimited resources like the USA, and could only afford a short war, thus was only equipped and supplied for this since Germany was incapable of little more (for this reason, in the 1930's the luftwaffe decided to forgo a strategic bomber program similar to the US and Britain's. When asked why, Reichsmarshall Goerring replied: "The Fuehrer will not ask me how big my aircraft are, but how many there are!")

 

Germany took on the UK/CW, the USSR and the USA all at the same time. All three larger than than Germany, both in population and in manufacturing potential. It took the combined effort of all three to defeat Germany. Could the US/UK/USSR have done better faced with the same opponents? I seriously doubt it. That should answer the question. They were by no means over rated.

HP

 

Huuh!!you mean its successor in this century is no more one of the .. ?

Regards
Kruska

 

A few things to note.

The US and Britain were engaged in operations against Japan as well as Germany.

Also, Germany wasn't exactly alone. It had Italy until mid 1943 (by which point the war in the East was essentially lost for the Germans), Romania, Hungry, Bulgaria, Finland to an extent (not that those latter countries did a whole lot but they were there)

And as it has been mentioned many times before, the Wehrmacht was terrible at managing a far-reaching war. They were miserable at the logistical operations pertaining to such a war. They just simply could not keep things in order past the first couple weeks of any large scale attack they launched.

 

Starting a war against a superior enemy doesn't necessarily imply quality on the part of ones army.

That's an opinion and one that has been debated a number of times on this board. Certainly all 3 did but were they all necessary?

That's a matter for conjecture. Certainly it's possible. Hard to even see how it would happen though.

Your doubts aside it doesn't answer the question at all. Indeed after there initial success they were overrated by some at the time and this continues up to to day. Another example is the P-51 undoubtedly a very good fighter plane, indeed arguably the best of the war, but many especially here in the US think it was head and shoulders above everything else. Clearly it is over rated by many the same with the Wehrmacht. Also consider some of the components of the Wehrmacht were really not up to snuff compared to their competition. The KM for example or the strategic arm of the LW.

 

Hello Iwd,

Off course not, but the Wehrmacht had defeated every land army by then but could not deliver a deadly blow towards the Russians - not because the Russian army would have been better - but simply due to the fact of the Russians making use of the vastness of Russia in order to pull back and making the Wehrmacht overstreching its lines and capability.

Without the US material support and later military intervention it would have come to a stalemate with Russia IMO - with the Wehrmacht having almost all of western Russia as an argument for favourable talks.

How long this "peace agreement" or "ceasefire" would have lasted is certainly another question.

A what if coalition between Hitler and Stalin would have been the end of the British Island (Maybe not due to military capabilities alone but logically due to numbers and industrial capabilities) and the US IMO would have concentrated on their mainland defense just in case at least till August 1945 (booom).

In contra I do think it answers the question as such, that the Wehrmacht was not overrated but had to be rated as a very capable army till almost the end.

After 1942 it is not that the Russian army was better then the Wehrmacht - but simply due to economic support, industry capability and numbers.
That the Russian army also learned how to improve its tactical capabilities can also not be ignored - but it didn't make them superior to the Wehrmacht in tactical abillity.

I however do conceed to the fact that Hitler totally overrated the Wehrmachts manpower capabilities to conquer Russia. The industrial capability in regards to quantity has nothing to do with the actuall combat capability of an intact army displayed on the field, but it is absolutly decisive in terms to upkeeping the combat capability of an army.

Regards
Kruska

 

Very arguable. The late model Spitfire exceeded P 51 D is most every category. Speed, rate of climb, rate of turn etc.

Early on and even into the later stages of the war the KM had ships of equal or better quality that Wallies exception being there DD's and Carriers of course. Of course this is hard to prove. I'll give you the point on the strategic arm, if you wish to discount the V1 and V2. IF you only mean long range bombers, then they were not the only ones. Russia and Japan would also fall into the same category imo.

HP

 

1. Who worked in German factories?
2. How many oceans did Germany have to cross to bring forth materiel?
3. For how long did the Germans plan and arm their country before hostilities?

It would be folly to say the combined might of all three. There was as rightly pointed out a war in Asia too.

IMO the Wehrmacht was overrated.
The Luftwaffe was unbalanced, much of the resources was spent unwisely in the Kriegsmarine and the Heer was not balanced for a long conflict.

 

They had won most of the battles vs Poland, Holland, Belgium, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. However the latter two were still fighting and they had yet to encounter many other armeis. This does not mean that they were not overrated however.

Note that this oversretching fit right in with the German plans. It illustrates one of the reasons the German army in particular and the Wehrmacht in general are over rated by many. They look at their early success and not at the flaws that lead to their ultimate failure.

But with the US supporting them? Ie a US Soviet team could probably have defeated Germany. Given the A-bomb a US UK team also were likely to. Without a Japanese intervention even a UK Soviet team may well be sufficient.

It clearly does. As I have said before just because some one is over rated doesn't mean that they are not good. Indeed it is almost a prerequisit for being overrated. Clearly some over rate the Wehrmacht. Just as clearly others underrate it.

An army's quality is not solely based on its tactical ability. In several areas the Soviet army turned in a better performance than the Heer in 42. Given their situation at the beginning of the year I would not want to be the one argueing the supperiority of the Heer.

 

Range? But of course that was the point.

For about a month they had a BB that was the equal of the best allied BBs operational. As you note they never had a CV if they had completed Hindenberg it would have been about as good as a CVE. Their Heavy cruisers weren't up to Baltimore in most regards. Their CL's were inferior to the newere British and US CLs (Indeed the Brookly and Clevland class were on a par with the German CAs). You've noted the DDs weren't as good. They did have outstanding PT boats. In any case they had so few of most of these they were completly outmatched.

The V1 and V2 were a waste of time and effort as strategic weapons. They were purly propaganda/terror weapons. As for the Soviets and Japan they aren't the topic of this thread.

 

Hello lwd,

Off course they would have - industrial, economical and numerically Germany didn't have a chance of winning this war against the allies.

The point I am trying to make is simply, the Wehrmacht is not overrated in regards to its actuall performance capabillity.
That Hitler and some Generals overrated the Wehrmachts abillity in regards to their wet dreams is certainly correct.

Regards
Kruska

 

Actually, most of the German fleet was rather inferior in quality in many ways that really count. For example, their two battleships were rather poorly armed given their tonnage. Eight 15" guns and a 28 knot speed on 45,000 tons is not that good. The US put nine 16" with 33 knots of speed on that same tonnage with more armor to boot.
The two battlecruisers were a bit under armed with 11" guns but better ships overall than the Bismarcks. Their heavy cruisers were definitely poor for the tonnage. Eight 8" guns on almost 18,000 tons is really bad. The Japanese managed 10 8" on 15,000, the US 9 8" on just over 10,000. The British did eight on 10,000 too.
The light cruisers were generally considered failures. They were weak structurially. Their engineering plants were notorious for unreliability. Basically they were harbor queens and sat out much of the war doing nothing.
In destroyers the larger ones were simply too large. The choice of manually loaded 5.9" guns was a poor one. It meant a slow rate of fire on a unstable gun platform that would make handling those heavy rounds difficult. The choice of a very high pressure plant made the ships unreliable so they couldn't perform many of the roles other navies gave their DD's.
The Germans chose to build rather small submarines comparatively too. They really were not designed to carry the war anywhere distant even though the Germans did manage to get a quart out of a pint with the Type IXs.

On the whole, the KM was a step child service in the eyes of the German leadership. Germany was a land power and had little understanding or concern for using sea power until it became necessary to do so. Then, like many land powers they improvised a navy. It worked once in Norway but never after that.

 

Was Nazi Germany actually weaker than Great Britain? I am pretty sure Germany was the superior in manpower and raw material output compared to the British home islands. It was not as if the rest of the Empire could be summoned to Europe with a flick of the fingers.

Kruska and I are agreed that the Wehrmacht was not over-rated, but I suspect he would also agree that the Third Reich was vastly over-rated as a Great Power.

 

Just throwing in my own here, after reading most of the other posts. I would think that after late '42 they were over-rated by the allies, due to their superb past performances. But from early '43 until the end of the war, it is entirely possible that the allies (especially the western allies), expected the Wehrmacht to over achieve, by doing more with less. They did a pretty good job of living up to that, but I feel the American and British might have been a tad too cautious some times.

 

Yep, you bet

Regards
Kruska

 

Right, especially my personal favourit MONTY

Regards
Kruska