T-34

If you can come up with a list of those production figures, I'd be very interested. The figures I have seen for production of T34, KV series and Shermans are significantly greater than Pz III, Panzer IV, Tiger, King Tiger and all the assorted Stugs, Jpzs and PzJgrs put together.

However much of the rest of your post has merit.

 

Do share the sources of that data with the board so we can peruse it.

 

I'm curious, you quote some things I also believe to "myths", like the effectiveness of WW2 aircraft against tanks, but also question some generally widely accepted production and availability figures. Are you leaving out the older tanks (BT, T-26, T-28, etc) out of the initial Soviet line up? 1000 looks right for just T-34 and KV. But 15.000 is very low for wartime T-34 production.
I'm very interested in the armour quality issue of the Panther you seem to have access to more detailed data than I have.

 

Jadgermeister writes:

"The Russians did not have a huge tank force as people believe. In 1941 they started the year with roughly 1000 tanks. They ended the year with the same number they began, even though they produced over 15k tanks that year. The Germans managed to kill all 15k of them."

Of everything you wrote this stood out for me. I'd like to know where you get this information. David Glantz states that the Soviets possessed 22,600 tanks and SP guns on 22 Jun '41, of which they fielded 14,200. He also states that they produced, from 1941 to April of '44, 98,300 tanks and SP guns (from When Titans Clashed.) Sorry I don't have a breakdown of tanks only but is it really your contention that the Germans produced this much armor as well?

 

I have to agree with JB here, the statistics can be manipulated in just so many ways but you can't deny the disparity in production.
In 1941 the Soviets on the eve of Barbarossa had a massive number of tanks, of which perhaps 35% in the Western Military Districts were actually combat ready. That's many times more than just 1,000 and still more effectives than the Germans fielded at that time. They may very well have had 1,000 effectives left by 31 Dec. 1941, but I would guess that still is more effectives than the Germans had at that time (especially in critical locations).

I do agree with your basic premise though. If it were any single opponent compared to Germany taking into account production numbers, then adjusted by relative kill/loss ratios I think that the Germans come out on top in attrition (one on one comparison, not Germany vs all Allies combined)

 

I know people hate wikipedia, but here are some very organized lists of production for both German and Russian production:
Soviet armored fighting vehicle production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
German armored fighting vehicle production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Im going to ignore pre-1942 production, since the eastern front began in late 1941, and going to ignore 1945 because of obvious reasons. This means I will be comparing 3 years out of 3.5 years of fighting.
When you take that into account, German production in the first two years of fighting on the Russian front was 41,000 tanks. Russian Production was 52,000. The Germans were nowhere close be being vastly outnumbered, the Russian outproduced them by less than 15%.
I know, I know, the Germans also had to fight the West, but US production, was only 50k vehicles, although for some reason the number which saw combat was far less, as there are several thousand 105 Sherman and M36 which did not see action in 1944. Lets ignore that for now, and you find that the Germans were outproduced only 2.5:1, not 10:1 like is popular folklore.
Take into account that Germans reused every tank chassis possible, while the west threw away many of its tanks, at least 10k, and the ratio of tanks which the Germans needed to kill all of a sudden gets a lot lower.
What I want to know is why no German tank has a kill ratio below 6:1, unless 5 out of 6 German tanks were being killed by things other than armor.

American armored fighting vehicle production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I think Wikipedia is an amazing resource if used right.

I don't see how ignoring the 6 months of 1941 and 5 months of 1945 can be valid or end up with 2 years of figures?

 

If you can set aside the arguments that Soviet/Allies possesed more natural resources, more factories, more money, more efficent production, simpler designes, and no bombing of their factories or rail lines, then the proposition that Germany was barely outproduced makes complete sense.

 

This is true only if you selectively look at the production data. For example, let's accept the tank production numbers given above. Germany also ended tractor production early in 1942 and unarmored half track production late that year. Their truck production, even with captured capacity in places like Czechoslovakia and France was far below that of the Allies.
Why is this important? For two reasons. First, it freed many subcontractors to produce tank parts or other parts for stuff that remained in production. Second, tanks don't operate in a vacuum. Without supply and support vehicles to carry fuel, ammunition, food, etc., and more vehicles to recover and repair the tanks the wastage and non-combat loss rates skyrocket.
This was a major Soviet problem on the eve of the German invasion. They had lots of tanks on paper. About 60% of them were deadlined for various mechanical reasons. These were mostly abandoned very early in the campaign. Of the runners a good portion broke down or ran out of fuel and were abandoned. This was due to a severe shortage of trucks in the Red Army. The same can be said for their artillery park.

As the war progressed the same problems began to multiply for the Germans. As a final note, German production is made artificially high by a practice they did that the Allies, except Russia, really could not do. That practice was to rebuild damaged tanks returned from the field at the factory and return them to service as "new" vehicles. Damaged tanks would be inserted into the production line as they arrived and were rebuilt. The Germans also did this extensively with aircraft. An airframe might have had 2 or 3 different werk numbers assigned to it during its lifetime. Each time a new number was issued this counted as "new" manufacturing even though it was really a rebuild.

 

Jadgermeister-

I think you are using numbers incorrectly. First, belittling the fact that Germany fought or was fighting in Russia, western Europe, Africa, Italy and kept active panzer divisions in a number of other countries does not recognize how understrength and dilute Germany's panzer forces were. Sorry, the thousands of armored vehicles produced by the US, USSR and UK collectively were much greater than that produced by Germany. This is why Germany used so many captured and obsolete vehicles. This is why the average panzer division fought below full strength, often way below full strength. I think ignoring certain years is also misleading as tanks produced in 40 or 41 were possibly still in use in 42. Why not compare all numbers of tank production, they are available.

If it is not too much trouble could you please address my numbers above as taken from Glantz by comparison to your number for 1000 Russian tanks. Did I misunderstand the sentence?

 

One reason the Germans appear to have far fewer tanks operationally is that they did have far fewer tanks. Over half of their production went into self-propelled and turretless vehicles.
Turretted tank production amounted to just 23,487 vehicles excluding the Pz I from 1939 to the end of the war (eg., war production).

The Pz II was produced into 1942 with a total of 647 (including the later Lynx) for the war.
Pz III production is a bit more problematic.
549 3.7cm gunned Pz III were produced (A to D models).
2394 5cm /42 gunned Pz III (E to H models) were produced but, a protion of that (say about a fifth, maybe a bit less) were rebuilt 3.7cm vehicles.
1969 5cm /60 gunned Pz III were produced (again, many of these are regunned E to H models rather than new tanks).
100 Pz III flammpanzer were built.
660 7.5cm L 24 Pz III were produced (mainly by regunning E to H models)
262 Befel Pz III were also produced (some or many from earlier models converted for the purpose)
1168 Pz 38t were produced through 1942. This makes the Pz 38t one of the more significant production models through 1942.

902 Pz IV with a 7.5cm L24 got produced. (A to F1) A few of the later models were upgraded to F2 and beyond standards.
7071 Pz IV lang (7.5cm L48) were produced. Again, some of the F and G models were remanufactured as H and J models.

5508 Panthers were produced. Of these several hundred are rebuilds rather than new production.

1348 Tiger I were produced
377 Tiger II were produced.

I'm sure people will quibble over the exact production numbers but, the above are reasonably accurate. This clearly shows that German tank production was quite low compared to the various Allied nations. Additionally, by year German production remained less than 5,000 units through 1943.
If you assume a in service rate of between 50 and 75% for these vehicles at any time you can easily see the Germans are fighting with very few tanks in the field.

Now, this can be significantly increased, particularly from 1943 on, by adding in self-propelled and turretless vehicles on German chassis.

 

If you follow the links, you can see that even on the best year, 1943, they made just over 15k T-34, and in 1944 production of T-34/85 was far less. So the widely accepted figure of 15k a year is actually quite a bit more than the average of even the best production years, let alone the firat and last years when production was far less.

 

My bad, I meant 3 years out of 3.5 years of fighting, but I think its only fair to compare the 3 years where production was stable, because the misinformation claims that it was normal for Germany to be outproduced, but the truth was that Germany kept up with the Soviet Union for 85% of the war. If being able to match the Russians 85% of the time is not enough, the I dont know what is. Even if they matched the Russians 51% of the war, the myth that the Germans were outproduced would be technically still a lie. The truth that they matched the Russians 85% of the time makes it really kind of crazy to even attempt to say they were outproduced.
Im not saying you were trying to say it wasnt true, but we both know others do, so I felt compelled to include that in my reasoning.

 

I find it very unlikely that Russia would have had 15k vehicles active at one time, as that would mean that they had nearly a year of service between introduction and destruction, and there is no source which comes even close to a tenth of that. If the tanks only survive a few weeks at best, that is going to roughly correlate to the number of tanks produced in that timeframe. If they last a month, then you can expect a month worth of tanks to be the active number of tanks. Whatever the average time of survival was would always be the average size of the force, as it includes both the vehicles which were destroyed in a week, and those not destroyed during the entire war. If we find a reliable average lifespan of tanks, then we can have a pretty accurate idea of how many tanks were in service.

 

The thing is that the Allies retired more than 1 in 4 tanks when they became obsolete. The Germans reused everything they had. The Allies produced 225k tanks and self propelled guns of all kinds, compared to 52k German tanks, which is a 4.3:1 ratio, nothing near the insanely high 10-12:1 which popular culture says.
Military production during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Firstly, the Germans produce 600k trucks alone, not including HT and Tractors. They did not have shortage of trucks, they were extremely limited in how the could use them. Later in the war, they could not move during the day. This effectively cuts the usefulness of the trucks in less than half. The lack of being able to move should not be mistaken for low production numbers of trucks.
Secondly, the number of tanks which were "recycled" is very small. Less than 300 PzIII were modified, as according to the Osprey two part book on the Stug. Only a handful of III were modified into Stugs, while about 1 in 10 IIIN was a rebuild, and the IIIN had the highest number of rebuilds of any production line. Less than 1000 tanks were rebuilds, including all the Czech tanks. Very few tanks were rebuilds from tanks which were not combat losses.

Also, what is unfair about using knocked out tanks as new tanks? The allies leave their tanks to rot, and use new materials to make a new tank. The difference is that the Germans used old tanks as bases for new tanks, instead of using new resources. Its roughly the same, those tanks were dead already or not in use, they are for all purposes the same as making a tank out of totally new resources dug out of the ground. If the allies had reused their tanks, then their production would have been far higher, but they did not.
Its a pity too, because it would have been awesome to see a 90mm armed Stug like version of the M3 medium or even Stuart series. would have solved a lot of tank hunting problems.

 

What?!! The Germans were short on motor transport in 1939 and things never really got much better. Without the huge influx of captures and foreign manufacturing capacity the Wehrmacht would have been pretty much demotorized by the end of 1943. 80% + of the whole German military was non-motorized and the percentage slowly fell as the war progressed.
Starting in Poland the Wehrmacht lost more motor vehicles than production could make up in more than a year... if no more losses occured. By January 1940 the Wehrmacht had to reduce the motor vehicles alloted to infantry divisions for supply columns by 50% and replace them with horse drawn wagons. France likewise ate up motor vehicles at a prodigious rate. It was only the mass capture of French and British motor vehicles that allowed the Wehrmacht to make good most...most not all.... of their losses.
Note that most of this loss was from simple wear and tear. In Russia this just got worse. The lack of roads and the presence of dust and other severe weather conditions caused motor vehicle losses to wear and tear to skyrocket.
In fact, not only did Germany have a shortage of motor vehicles but also a shortage of horses. By the end of 1942 they were about three quarters of a million short of needs.
For their 1942 summer offensive only AGS got anywhere close to a full allotment of motor vehicles and then only for supply columns and panzer divisions. The infantry had to make due with wagons.
As I pointed out tractor production ended at the beginning of 1942. Unarmored halftrack production followed by late 42. This was done to try and up motor vehicle production some and also in anticipation of a new generation of simplified half tracks, the Schwere Wehrmacht Schlepper. Unfortunately, this vehicle never got into the kind of production necessary.

 

Just compare the numbers. The Germans had anywhere from 1/2 to 1/6th of each type of supply, and guess what? They were also that much smaller than the Allies. Simply math tells us that they had sufficient supplies for the number of men they had. Sufficient to drive all the way across Europe and kill tens of millions of supposedly well equipped men.
You have to remember that many of the stories we hear about how Germany was, are from foreigners and they often sight other foreigners who also sight others, and there ends up being no truth in it. There are many books, especially the "VS" series, which have extremely dubious information. Many times they sight books by people who have been proven to have even been there.
You have to be very skeptical of what you read, if they cannot give hard numbers or direct accounts of what happened, they should not be taken seriously. There are millions of people who claim to be someone who did something which never happened, there are actually 7 million people who claim they were Vietnam vets and are really not, according to the IRS.
It is only fair to make assumptions based on hard fact and first person stories, like that of Otto Carius and Georg Grossjohan. Both of them say that the supply units "always" made it on time, and always did their jobs. They actually wrote entire chapters on how well the supply men did their jobs.
I was just reading today about Otto Carius and his opinion of the supply situation, and he said that the supply men were outstanding and always managed to get them supplies each night regardless of the situation. Horses were used, but as non vital transportation, for things like messengers and the mail. Horses were not used on long haul missions, they were used in short routes at the most. They were also eaten.
So who are you going to believe? Scuttlebutt, or two decorated vets who fought through the entire war and on all fronts between the two of them?
You simply cannot believe these outlandish stories about how Germany was in the middle ages. They had enough supplies in the winter of 43 in order to be able to trade liquor for a pet dog, and even once had a drinking game when the commander of Carius' unit gave out a shot to every man in his unit ever time Carius announced kills over the radio. They actually had a HT to carry their winter clothes behind them in that operation as well, so they were not dying for supplies and vehicles.
The idea that Germany couldnt even drive its own trucks is completely wrong. They even had enough gas for the company commander to make nightly trips to his girls home, and for a feldwebel to bring the Tiger's coffee every morning (along with plenty of Russian fire as well).
If a story about wartime Germany cannot be backed up by numbers or first person stories, then its most likely wrong. They had 600k trucks, and supplies were not nearly as rare as some people would like you to believe. After all, Germany did kill tens of millions of people more than they lost themselves. Does that sound like a country which cant use its own trucks? They may have not been able to create full battalions, but half full is not as bad as it sounds.
If the Germans only having half the trucks they were supposed to have is bad, the Britain must have really been in the poop when they could barely field half populated units of infantry from Normandy onward. The US must have really been in the poop when it had to take men from support jobs and use them as infantry!
Just because someone technically has a shortage means nothing. These stories of units having no supplies and such are mainly either made up by foreigners, or from times when the particular German unit in question has been surrounded and is about to be annihilated. For instance, Rommel was technically short on fuel and weapons in North Africa, but he managed to drive the well supplied British all the way across the continent. He technically was only getting about 1/5th of what would be required to give him full strength, but he still had enough to nearly drive the British over the Suez Canal. There really is no other situation until 1945 when the Germans had as many shortages as Rommel had in africa. The size of a unit is all relative. A Russian Division is only about 5-6k men, does that mean that they are only at 1/3 strength? Not at all. If the Germans had 100 divisions which only had 50 divisions of men and equipment, they had 50 divisions of men and equipment, split in half.
If the US decided it needed twice as many units as it had, and only had enough for half of that, then it doesnt have a shortage, it only has enough for the original number. If the Germans had taken their troops and combined them into whole units, they would have had completely full units. Its only a technicality that the units had limited men and supplies. The units were small and had small supplies. If they were so low, then it must be a lie that they pushed all the way across Russia and Europe.
The numbers agree with the first person stories, supplies were available, and they were delivered regularly with trucks, almost without interruption. Many times they didnt even have problems with air attack, most first person descriptions talk about how the air attacks were limited, that even important targets like Tigers would go weeks without air attack, then they would come in numbers, and be gone for another long period.
If you want to have reliable descriptions, dont read books by American and British "historians", there are thousands of Germans who have stories, enough to keep you busy for a lifetime. Stick with the people who were actually there , especially those who have the pay books to prove it, like Otto Carius did. Even he himself says not to believe anybody who cant show you where and what he did in his official German paybook.

 

Interesting take on what is valid/accurate history and what isn't. I have to say though, quite a bit of the generalizations that you run across in various sources are actually correct. Many generalizations are mere food for thought for someone interested in learning more, thus the reason for citations. Generalizations are often backed by a huge amount of proven data that would actually interupt and detract from the point an author or historian is trying to make if it were provided within the context of what you are reading at that moment (salient points). On the subject of German armor production relative to Soviet, there is much written and available. The hard data can provide an accurate overall picture that trumps any veterans recounting of history or his opinion. Veteran accounts make great reading, but analysis of hard facts and data can be far more illuminating in regard to the strategic picture that escapes a veteran's historical tactical viewpoint.
Otto Carius has a valid opinion, but only in regard to what his limited view of the strategic picture allowed him. Considering that 90% of German Army combat formations in the East were Infantry divisions I would say that perhaps the opinion of a horse drawn Artillery officer might be more relevant in regard to combatting Soviet armor. This also says nothing about the Axis allies in the East who had little or no tanks or AT capability and were a favorite target for Soviet breakthroughs.
The fact remains that the Germans/Axis were heavily outnumbered in the East and were slowly ground into dust as a result of it. Case in point, the Soviets actually had more lend lease Shermans active in 1944 than the Germans had Panthers. This says nothing of T34's, KV's, etc. The disparity in Artillery tubes is far worse.

 

Man... Explaining how you reached the wrong conclusion here from the evidence would take a book...

Anyway, the short answer is found in a concept in Handel's Masters of War. It was originally proposed by Charles J. Minard, a French engineer. This is the idea of a 'culminating point of victory.' When you combine this concept with the knowledge and history of the Wehrmacht's logistical abilities (short version see VanCreveld Supplying War) what you get is a picture of a military that undertook offensives teetering on the brink of logistical disaster by the time they reached the culminating point of victory.

The Wehrmacht was heavily dependent on rail transport for their major logistical support. Motor vehicles and wagon columns were to be used more tactically. The same is true for other militaries of the WW 2 period as well.
In realistic terms an army could operate about 300 miles from a rail head using motor transport to support it. It could operate about 100 miles from one with horse drawn wagons... maybe a bit less. These numbers represent ones where full supply is possible. It isn't given that an army could push beyond this distance accepting a declining supply capacity as a result. In the short term this generally could be an acceptable trade-off particularly if one was close to winning.

In France for example, the Germans ran on a logistical shoestring and often utilized captured supplies like fuel (filling their tanks and vehicles at French gas stations and the like) to allow them to push beyond the 300 mile limit and reach the Channel coast. The push into the middle of France had to wait more than a week to begin to give time for the supply train to catch up with the advancing army. That the road and rail network in both Belgium and France was largely intact and usable as was helped immensely.

When the Germans move to Russia they don't have the luxury of a rail and road system that is intact and usable. So, they substituted motor transport (Grosstransportraum / Large transport colums). For the short term this worked to allow them to push an additional 300 or so miles into Russia. The collapse of the Red Army allowed an even further push. But, by the time they got close to Moscow they had pushed past their culmunating point and were looking at making the final push to take that city with small improvised columns of what mobile troops still retained some degree of ability to advance and fight. It was not going to be enough to win. Hence a stalemate ensued.

The Soviet counterattack was also too weak and poorly supported to do more than be a spoiler that forced the Germans onto the defense for winter. The following spring with a somewhat improved, but still marginal, supply situation the Germans again pushed forward with Army Group South. Again, they went past the 300 mile supply distance and past the culminating point of victory. They ran their supply system on a shoestring. It resulted in defeat at Stalingrad and the destruction of 6th Army.

Citing Carius as a source on logistics is dubious at best. He served in highly unusual units within the Wehrmacht. That is, he was always in small seperate corps level units that were exceptionally rare. Yes, Tiger battalions are a rarety.
As such these units were less exposed to logistical difficulties and generally got more attention when it came to supply as their chain of command had more pull than say, an infantry battalion in some run-of-the-mill infantry division.

Rommel is mentioned. The reason Rommel was short on fuel was because he operated far beyond the 300 mile tactical transport limit. At Alamein he was using roughly 6 gallons of gasoline to deliver one to the front. Overall, he was using about 80% of the fuel delivered to North Africa just to deliver supplies and 20% to the front using trucks.
Tobruk was ruined as a port and the Germans had no way to fix that. Bengazi operated at a fraction of its capacity due to war damage. That left Tripoli as the sole terminus available for supply.
The Germans did try to get the Vichy French to allow Tunis to be used as a port. Tunis had rail lines to Tripoli and also about triple the capacity of Tripoli as a port. But, the Frenhc refused. When the Vichy threw in with the Allies and Rommel moved into Tunisia having Tunis as a port allowed him to support almost double the divisions he previously could.
This is why the British pre-war had built a double track rail line to the Lybian border in Egypt. Their military planners knew that it would be necessary if they were to fight the Italians there. Italy either couldn't built or ignored the need for a similar line in Lybia.


This sort of stuff is not the venue of personal ancedote and typical historical narrative. It is the stuff of engineers, accountants and, science. Logistics can be measured and calculated. The bottom line is that the Germans ran their war on a logistical shoestring. In short campaigns it made little difference and they won. Where they could not win in a short campaign they lost and lost every time. The risk trade off between adequite supply and the advance rate wouldn't allow them to win.
This is why the US and British put so much material, manpower and, effort into civil engineering. To provide the necessary transportation systems to allow their armies to be supplied in the field. This is something the Germans largely failed to do or, where they did do it they did it poorly.

In terms of combat effectiveness logistical shortages work on an inverse expotential curve. A small loss of supply has little effect. Major shortages do not negate fighting power completely. Instead, some residuial always remains. The fact that even small amounts of resistance equate to a large slowing of operations also means that from an ancedotial point of view it appears that the side with the shortage fought much better than would be expected given the supply situation. The problem is that this conflates two seperate issues for which cause and effect are not interrelated. That is, it is an analytically wrong result from the information provided.