Hi guys,
Hitler made a huge number of mistakes before the war started, the biggest of course being even starting the war.
The idea of militarily dominating Europe, including the continental sized Soviet Union against the will of every other European people or nation is ludicrous in the extreme. To persevere is even stupider.
Hitler's chief advantage was mobilizing sooner than his enemies, but when they did, they mobilized faster than he expected closing the gap of his military advantage, narrowing his window of opportunity, so he started the war 2 years before he was really ready. STUPID!
Trusting Goering with anything was stupid, especially something so critical as air power; the Luftwaffe was always too small for the job it had to do, losing half its front line strength in France and the other half in the BoB, so as Williamson Murray demonstrated almost 40 years ago, the LW was ultimately doomed from the start, as was the Regia Aeronautica and the IJNAF and IJAAF; each because of their vastly inadequate training base, while when production increased, the remaining poorly trained pilots merely crashed it faster.
Speer's claim of a single engine fighter production miracle in '44 is probably a Nazi myth since the training and frontline units never saw them, some suggest actual Me109 and FW-190 production was only 2/3 of the claimed figures.
You can argue that the EATS [Empire Air Training Scheme] or the BCATP [British Commonwealth Air Training Plan] meant Britain was going to inevitably win, when it set out to annually train 50,000 pilots and air crew or around ten times as many as the LW dreamed of doing, as opposed to an even greater disparity of what it actually achieved.
Regarding Barbarossa, it is amazing if not astounding that Hitler didn't know there were hardly any metaled roads outside the cities (perhaps if he'd spent some time on the eastern front things might have gone better 25 years later), that they were connected only by rail and because of his neglect, Germany began the war with fewer train engines and RR wagons than in WWI [NTM lower rates of production and replacement], and fewer rail construction troops to handle shifting the Russian RR gauge (all of 3.5"); when Germany had needed vastly more even in heavily networked western Europe in the first war for all the narrow gauge (24") light rail needed beyond the standard railheads which were at least 7 miles behind the trench lines (for a light rail network of around a thousand miles or so) which was the only way to supply the front through the morass created by the shelling etc, the 15 pound per yard rails and light sleepers able to support wagons of ten tons, responding far faster than any animal or man packed supplies could make it across no man's land; thus preventing any breakthrough from being exploited.
The fact that no experienced east front officer felt able to point out the absurdities demonstrates the stupid nature of dictatorships.
As a Spetnaz officer noted in his memoir from around 1960, prewar soviet defense planning emphasized wrecking the connecting western rail links, especially the RR bridges, from the late 1920's, and only Stalin's paranoia destroyed these very carefully prepared plans when he wrecked the army almost ten years later.
Because at least 75% of the army still depended upon horses, Germany used more horses in WWII than in WWI, and while producing many more motor vehicles [but which were only a small fraction of what was needed] which used rather scarce fuel, as opposed to the vast coal reserves the RR used.
Perhaps deeper drilling and efforts at fracking might have helped.
Incidentally, the OKW had to de-motorize ten divisions in the spring of 1939, because the army's motor vehicle accident rate exceeded its quarterly allocation of motor vehicles, which included around 500 motorbikes per division, many with side cars in lieu the staff cars other countries provided as a matter of course, to save on the fuel.
Goering saw to it the LW was entirely motorized, because Nazi ideology saw the automobile as modern but the railroads as old if not obsolete, so 16% of the German motor vehicles on the eastern front in June 1941 were LW, but due to the pitiful roads and lack of spare parts etc, half of all of them were ruined or wrecked in the first 3 weeks, so just having more trucks would probably not have helped the situation that much.
Because the requirements for a successful invasion were quite beyond German resources, the OKW Barbarossa planners ignored the logistic tar baby they knew was right in front of them, and even sending the railway troops ahead of the infantry wasn't going to be enough to keep up with even minimal daily supplies, so inevitably delays in the advance occurred that the Russians took full advantage of.
Despite conquering France, the largest IC vehicle manufacturer on the continent, the Germans made little use of that capacity, NTM the lack of rubber [the synthetic kind left a lot to be desired in more ways than one] should have underlined the need for far more RR engines and wagons (NTM RR construction/repair troops) long before the war began.
Because of the German refusal to produce enough spares, there were only 300 spare tank engines [for the mark III and mark IV] for the final fall drive on Moscow.
So Milch, as one of the best organizers in all of Germany, was sent east in December 1941 to help unsnarl the RR mess Hitler had created on the eastern front by sending almost every train belatedly east without letting those already there unload and return, a mistake the Union hadn't made in the ACW since Haupt took over, but every nation since had at one time or another, which almost collapsed the German economy for the lack of trains to move the basics of coal, iron ore, food, etc, etc.
The Wilson administration did the same thing in WWI and almost collapsed the US economy.
While the Russians managed to save more of their RR engines and rolling stock (losing only 15% to 40% of mileage), I'd argue the hundreds of Lend-Lease locomotives, thousands of wagons, thousands of miles of track etc were actually more important than the trucks, particularly during the nominal defensive phase, although the phones, switchboards, 250,000 miles of telephone cable, radios and all the other communication gear was probably even more important throughout the war; especially after Stalin's stupid order to conserve copper had idiotic commissars cutting down critically needed telephone lines to preserve the copper within.
This is hardly a complete list of Hitler's stupid mistakes, like declaring war on the USA, but railroads are the elephant in the room everyone has been overlooking.
Best wishes to all,
L
SilverbladeTE wrote:Germans screwed up in a ton of ways.
a) wasting huge effort and precious highly trained lives on the bombing of Britain wrecked the Luftwaffe's ability
they also had no long range bombers capable of destroying tank factories etc deeper in Russia
they did not wreck the rail infrastructure that would have crippled the Soviets MAJOR FAIL!!
b) Hitler didn't mess things up militarily *directly* as bad as folk think in the first 2 years or so as he mostly relied on his generals, many who WERE incompetent toadies and jackasses at the higher level (OKW were putzes, if Guderian had been in charge instead...)
but then
he had fired or refused to listen to ones who tried to tell him what he
needed to hear.
c) logistics, Russia is immense so so many issues there and German industry was HORRIBLY inefficient
too many different novel and poor designs, etc etc
best thing the Russians got from Allied supplies wasn't weapons/tanks, it was TRUCKS, that was absolutely key
d) easiest way for Germany to win would be "not to play" to quote a fave film
Few years and Stalin's horror would have collapsed due to gross mismanagement and violent crack downs, abuses etc
riots, Beria being ordered to "deal with it" in his usual vile ways...Soviet system would have come off the rails, the German invasion gave them a way to keep power
frankly, the idea of the Nazis, Stalin's scum, a large percentage of the Japanese military all being in one place at the same time and either left to fight each other to death with barbed-wire wrapped clubs, or incinerated with napalm or nukes....mmmm! Yeah That'd be justice.
ruined much support and thus, work on precision weapons and in general, just over all work on accuracy and rue effectiveness.