The Germans increase Panzer production in the Summer of 1940

[ljadw]

More tanks meaning higher operational availability is theory .

Theory???

A higher tank production does not mean more trained crews.

Who told that the Germans should spend 1943 with training and refitting? Guderian.

It does also not mean more tanks on the front , [...]

Yes it does. The Germans never faced the problem that they had too many tanks at the factory yards, but they lacked the train capacity to get them to the front.

to have more operational tanks you need more supplies,

It depends on what your tanks are doing. If your X*2 number of tanks do the same thing as your X number of tanks, then you need more supplies. If your X*2 number of tanks are recuperating, training, etc. then then don't necessarily need more supplies.

And a tank unit with more tanks would advance slower .

I already told you that it's not true. Or please specify what do you mean by "advance".

1 A tank production of 10000 tanks instead of 6000 tanks does not mean that there would be 4000 more operational tanks on the front .
2 If the Germans lacked the capacity to transport 4000 additional tanks to the front ,these tanks would remain behind the front and would not be operational .
3 About training and refitting : it took more time to train a tank crew than to build a tank .
4 If your X *2 number of tanks are training and refitting, they are not operational .On June 6 1944 the LSS was training and refitting but was not operational .
5 100 tanks will advance slower than 50 tanks, the same for 100 trucks : 100 tanks with 100 trucks need more supplies to advance than 50 tanks with 50 supplies .But as the road space is limited ,to supply 100 tanks and 100 trucks will result in jams and heavy traffic .
If a column of hundred tanks /trucks needs 10 km of road space and if the average speed is 10 km per hour ,after one hour the first tank/truck will have done 10 km while the last one will still be at the start point .
A column of 50 tanks/trucks will need less road space and less time .
The smaller the unit, the faster the advance .
A column of 50 tanks will need less time to cross a bridge than a column of 100 tanks .
Small convoys go faster than big convoys .

But you pretend Germany needed more Pz Div and had the resources to set these up.
About the speed of a division you get it wrong too. Even if it advances in one column on one road, then the front of the column wil not get less far because the column is longer in a stronger division. the tail Will simply arrive later. You also conveniently forget that your 100 tanks do not need to drive in one column. Depends on terrain.
Specifically a stronger Pz Div would imply more tank batallions and these would not advance one behind the other.

Tanks need road space to advance;the more tanks the more road space will be needed,and the available road space limits the number of tanks in a PzD .If you have 100 tanks ,this means 10 km of road space is needed . If you have 200 tanks, it will not be the double, but more than the double .

[Aida1]

More tanks meaning higher operational availability is theory .

Theory???

A higher tank production does not mean more trained crews.

Who told that the Germans should spend 1943 with training and refitting? Guderian.

It does also not mean more tanks on the front , [...]

Yes it does. The Germans never faced the problem that they had too many tanks at the factory yards, but they lacked the train capacity to get them to the front.

to have more operational tanks you need more supplies,

It depends on what your tanks are doing. If your X*2 number of tanks do the same thing as your X number of tanks, then you need more supplies. If your X*2 number of tanks are recuperating, training, etc. then then don't necessarily need more supplies.

And a tank unit with more tanks would advance slower .

I already told you that it's not true. Or please specify what do you mean by "advance".

1 A tank production of 10000 tanks instead of 6000 tanks does not mean that there would be 4000 more operational tanks on the front .
2 If the Germans lacked the capacity to transport 4000 additional tanks to the front ,these tanks would remain behind the front and would not be operational .
3 About training and refitting : it took more time to train a tank crew than to build a tank .
4 If your X *2 number of tanks are training and refitting, they are not operational .On June 6 1944 the LSS was training and refitting but was not operational .
5 100 tanks will advance slower than 50 tanks, the same for 100 trucks : 100 tanks with 100 trucks need more supplies to advance than 50 tanks with 50 supplies .But as the road space is limited ,to supply 100 tanks and 100 trucks will result in jams and heavy traffic .
If a column of hundred tanks /trucks needs 10 km of road space and if the average speed is 10 km per hour ,after one hour the first tank/truck will have done 10 km while the last one will still be at the start point .
A column of 50 tanks/trucks will need less road space and less time .
The smaller the unit, the faster the advance .
A column of 50 tanks will need less time to cross a bridge than a column of 100 tanks .
Small convoys go faster than big convoys .

But you pretend Germany needed more Pz Div and had the resources to set these up.
About the speed of a division you get it wrong too. Even if it advances in one column on one road, then the front of the column wil not get less far because the column is longer in a stronger division. the tail Will simply arrive later. You also conveniently forget that your 100 tanks do not need to drive in one column. Depends on terrain.
Specifically a stronger Pz Div would imply more tank batallions and these would not advance one behind the other.

Tanks need road space to advance;the more tanks the more road space will be needed,and the available road space limits the number of tanks in a PzD .If you have 100 tanks ,this means 10 km of road space is needed . If you have 200 tanks, it will not be the double, but more than the double .

Ridiculous because tanks do not depend on roads and you do not know how many roads are available anyway. You clearly have strange ideas about the advance of a Pz Div. Actually, you know nothing about it.

[Aida1]

I see.

When Guderian was appointed on 01/03/1943, the Germans were evacuating the Rhzev salient (just finished with evacuating the Demyansk pocket), retaking Kharkov and committing to Tunisia.

After the snow and dust settled, Guderian suggested that the German panzer forces should recuperate, train, conserve strength and reorganize. If necessary, conduct an orderly, fighting retreat to stronger defensive positions to the D-D line.

Instead, by May 1943 the Germans lost an army and an air fleet in Tunisia, for essentially nothing; including 2 Heavy Panzer Battalions (501st and 504th).

Then they've lost an insane amount of panzers in the battle of Kursk, and threw half-trained units at the Wallies in Italy.

So what actually happened in 1943 was entirely against Guderian's wishes.

For example, he reorganized the Heavy Panzer Battalions' (Schwere Panzer Abteilungen) OOB: from 29 Tigers and 35 Panzer IIIs he ordered the SchPzAbt to include 45 Tigers alone.

45 Tigers was almost a month's production back then, so replacing and upgrading the 2 battalions lost in Tunisia would take 1.5 months.

So what do we see on the unit level? The Germans never had enough Tigers / panzers to go around. They started with the 501-505 SchPzAbt; 501st and 504th committed to Tunisia, 502nd to AGN, and 503rd and 505th to the Battle of Kursk.

Then the 506th, 507th and 508th were started in May, followed by the 101st and 102nd SS SchPzAbt in July (the 103rd SS SchPzAbt was not equipped with Tigers then) and the 509th in September.

The 6 new battalions might have been established with the new Tiger I acceptances (270 in OOB and 320 produced), but the losses that occured in Africa and Kursk, could not be replaced.

The 510th and the 103rd SS SchPzAbt were equipped with Tigers in 1944; in June and October, respectively.

What I try to say here: Guderian understood that the Germans cannot replace lost tanks with an operational reality like that. Thus it was important to keep relatively combat-ready units with higher authorized panzer count, because that was important for the concentration of forces.

What ljdaw says is this: Guderian thought that units with 400 panzers are better than units with 200 panzers.

Keep in mind that the panzer divisions with 200 panzers had in reality 100 or 150 tops; a theoretical 400 panzer division would average around 200 and maxing around 300; also, there was no sense to maintain small forces and hope that the industry will fill them up; it won't.

It leads us back to the larger strategic picture: the Germans had to conserve their strength and pick battles with losses that the industry and training system can replace. They didn't so they were forced to fight with understrength units and curtailed crew training.

Setting up new divisions when you are unable to keep the existing experienced ones up to strength was always wrong. Guderian was correct when he wanted no new units set up. A waste of resources.

Ah: the myth of Hitler wasting resources by creating new PzD .
There were 21 PzD at the start of Barbarossa ;the new ones were not created for Barbarossa .Two of them were disbanded in 1943 .
Of the newcomers (22-27 ) 22 + 27 were also disbanded in 1943 and there were also 7 ( only 7 ) SS PzD
Germany ended the war with some 30 PzD ,which was not too much, because even more were needed ,as the Western Front needed more PzD .
It is also not so that the old ones were experienced : most of the men of the existing PzD were dead,wounded, missing or were transferred to the new divisions .The LSS was experienced in the Summer of 1944 ,but received as replacements men without experience from the LW .
With only 10 PzD not only would Germany have lost the war in 1941, but ,it could even not protect the conquered territories in 1940,even without war with the SU.
After winning the war in 1940,Hitler planned an army of 120 divisions ( this was too high ) ,but these 120 divisions could not occupy and defend the conquered territories AND at the same time protect the border with the USSR : more mot.and panzer divisions were needed .

Here you contradict yourself as you stated that more tanks were not be possible as you needed other assets then which allegdedly were not available. But Germany did set up new Pz Div which implies that the assets were available.
It would have been better to use these resources to keep the existing ones up to strength. If you have difficulty keeping up to strength existing units, you should not create more. It is not about the number of divisions’ it is about how strong they are.
Pretty funny that you pretend Germany needed more divisions which implies pretending that you could set them up with resources you pretended were not available to strengthen existing divisions. Actually cheaper in resources to replace losse in existing divisions.

It is NOT about how strong they are ( and more tanks per division would not make them stronger ) : it is about the number of divisions .The number of units : Rommel wanted to disband the existing PzD in Normandy and to use them as non mobile artillery ,divided over the coast ,because 20 tanks with one infantry batallion would be better at StMére LÉglise on June 6 1944 ,than a PzD of 400 tanks arriving on June 16 .
Rommel was right, Guderian, as usual,was wrong .
Germany needed some 20 PzD in Normandy/Pas de Calais ,each with some 100 tanks,to stop the allies : not 5 PzD with 400 tanks.
Guderian lived in the past : Germany could not afford big tank battles,and thus not PzD of 400 tanks who would fail to arrive, to operate, t win .
Because : the Allies had air superiority and because Germany was on the defensive .
Even in 1941 the Ostheer was better of with 17 PzD of 200 tanks than with 8 PzD of 400 tanks .Divisions with 400 tanks could not operate in the USSR . The Soviets tried,but failed .
All German PzD had in June 1941 each less tanks than the 1 Mechanised Corps,which had 2 tank divisions and one Mechanised division :
1 and 3 tank division and 168 mechanised division .
Manpower of this MC (3 divisions! ) was 31,439 men and its 2 tank divisions (each some 10000 men ) had together 1037 tanks ,thus each more than 500 tanks .
The result of all this was that 1 MC was disbanded on August 41 ,after 6 weeks of fighting !
And this was what Guderian wanted to parrot . And his 400 tank PzD would have suffered the same fate as the Soviet tank divisions .
Thus : under the bus with Guderian .

You are evading now. You said that one could not strengthen the existing Pz Div because of lack of resources and now you say Germany needed a higher number of Pz Div which eats up even more resources. . Not very smart to make new divisions when you cannot keep up to strength the existing ones. If necessary, better a lower number with more tanks each. Lots of understrength divisions is a waste of resources and you spread very thin your experienced cadre.

[ljadw]

There is,concerning the number of tanks, no such thing as an understrength tank division : a tank division with 400 tanks can also be understrength and is mostly understrength .
Better a tank batallion where it is needed than a tank division far away from where it is needed .
German tank production in 1943 was lower than the tank losses, which was caused by the involvement of big tank units .More and smaller tank units would have lower losses and would be more efficient .
It took weeks to move Das Reich to Normandy,reason being that Das Reich was too big .It would have been easier and faster to move DasReich to Normandy if it was smaller ,divided in DAs Reich I and Das Reich II.

[ljadw]

Theory???


Who told that the Germans should spend 1943 with training and refitting? Guderian.



Yes it does. The Germans never faced the problem that they had too many tanks at the factory yards, but they lacked the train capacity to get them to the front.


It depends on what your tanks are doing. If your X*2 number of tanks do the same thing as your X number of tanks, then you need more supplies. If your X*2 number of tanks are recuperating, training, etc. then then don't necessarily need more supplies.


I already told you that it's not true. Or please specify what do you mean by "advance".

1 A tank production of 10000 tanks instead of 6000 tanks does not mean that there would be 4000 more operational tanks on the front .
2 If the Germans lacked the capacity to transport 4000 additional tanks to the front ,these tanks would remain behind the front and would not be operational .
3 About training and refitting : it took more time to train a tank crew than to build a tank .
4 If your X *2 number of tanks are training and refitting, they are not operational .On June 6 1944 the LSS was training and refitting but was not operational .
5 100 tanks will advance slower than 50 tanks, the same for 100 trucks : 100 tanks with 100 trucks need more supplies to advance than 50 tanks with 50 supplies .But as the road space is limited ,to supply 100 tanks and 100 trucks will result in jams and heavy traffic .
If a column of hundred tanks /trucks needs 10 km of road space and if the average speed is 10 km per hour ,after one hour the first tank/truck will have done 10 km while the last one will still be at the start point .
A column of 50 tanks/trucks will need less road space and less time .
The smaller the unit, the faster the advance .
A column of 50 tanks will need less time to cross a bridge than a column of 100 tanks .
Small convoys go faster than big convoys .

But you pretend Germany needed more Pz Div and had the resources to set these up.
About the speed of a division you get it wrong too. Even if it advances in one column on one road, then the front of the column wil not get less far because the column is longer in a stronger division. the tail Will simply arrive later. You also conveniently forget that your 100 tanks do not need to drive in one column. Depends on terrain.
Specifically a stronger Pz Div would imply more tank batallions and these would not advance one behind the other.

Tanks need road space to advance;the more tanks the more road space will be needed,and the available road space limits the number of tanks in a PzD .If you have 100 tanks ,this means 10 km of road space is needed . If you have 200 tanks, it will not be the double, but more than the double .

Ridiculous because tanks do not depend on roads and you do not know how many roads are available anyway. You clearly have strange ideas about the advance of a Pz Div. Actually, you know nothing about it.

The advance of tanks depend on supplies and on protection by infantry and artillery . The supply trucks and the mot.infantry and artillery are tied to thr roads . Thus the tanks are tied to the roads .
QED.

[Aida1]

There is,concerning the number of tanks, no such thing as an understrength tank division : a tank division with 400 tanks can also be understrength and is mostly understrength .
Better a tank batallion where it is needed than a tank division far away from where it is needed .
German tank production in 1943 was lower than the tank losses, which was caused by the involvement of big tank units .More and smaller tank units would have lower losses and would be more efficient .
It took weeks to move Das Reich to Normandy,reason being that Das Reich was too big .It would have been easier and faster to move DasReich to Normandy if it was smaller ,divided in DAs Reich I and Das Reich II.

Again shows you ignorance. You would be the only one that believes a weak division is better than a strong one. :lol:Q
And you should do some reading about the moving of Das Reich to Normandy . Das Reich did not move directly to Normandy. It was first sent to the Dordogne to operate against the maquis(Das Reich V Weidinger pp137-139). Caused a delay of a few days as it stayed there a few days before moving off on to Normandy on june 12. It took 3 days from there to reach Normandy the 15 th june(Weidinger pp 176-177). So your weeks are actually days.

[Aida1]

1 A tank production of 10000 tanks instead of 6000 tanks does not mean that there would be 4000 more operational tanks on the front .
2 If the Germans lacked the capacity to transport 4000 additional tanks to the front ,these tanks would remain behind the front and would not be operational .
3 About training and refitting : it took more time to train a tank crew than to build a tank .
4 If your X *2 number of tanks are training and refitting, they are not operational .On June 6 1944 the LSS was training and refitting but was not operational .
5 100 tanks will advance slower than 50 tanks, the same for 100 trucks : 100 tanks with 100 trucks need more supplies to advance than 50 tanks with 50 supplies .But as the road space is limited ,to supply 100 tanks and 100 trucks will result in jams and heavy traffic .
If a column of hundred tanks /trucks needs 10 km of road space and if the average speed is 10 km per hour ,after one hour the first tank/truck will have done 10 km while the last one will still be at the start point .
A column of 50 tanks/trucks will need less road space and less time .
The smaller the unit, the faster the advance .
A column of 50 tanks will need less time to cross a bridge than a column of 100 tanks .
Small convoys go faster than big convoys .

But you pretend Germany needed more Pz Div and had the resources to set these up.
About the speed of a division you get it wrong too. Even if it advances in one column on one road, then the front of the column wil not get less far because the column is longer in a stronger division. the tail Will simply arrive later. You also conveniently forget that your 100 tanks do not need to drive in one column. Depends on terrain.
Specifically a stronger Pz Div would imply more tank batallions and these would not advance one behind the other.

Tanks need road space to advance;the more tanks the more road space will be needed,and the available road space limits the number of tanks in a PzD .If you have 100 tanks ,this means 10 km of road space is needed . If you have 200 tanks, it will not be the double, but more than the double .

Ridiculous because tanks do not depend on roads and you do not know how many roads are available anyway. You clearly have strange ideas about the advance of a Pz Div. Actually, you know nothing about it.

The advance of tanks depend on supplies and on protection by infantry and artillery . The supply trucks and the mot.infantry and artillery are tied to thr roads . Thus the tanks are tied to the roads .
QED.

Tracked vehicles are not tied to the roads so you are being ignorant again. You dug yourself a deep hole and making it deeper the more you post.

[Leprechaun]

Tracked vehicles may not be tied to roads but they rely heavily on them, having read Stahels book Kiev 1941 the big problem was not more tanks more men more planes but a supply line that actually worked.

[Aida1]

Tracked vehicles may not be tied to roads but they rely heavily on them, having read Stahels book Kiev 1941 the big problem was not more tanks more men more planes but a supply line that actually worked.

For supply you do need roads and railroad but that was not the issue here except that fewer stronger divisions clog up the roads less than more weaker ones.

[ljadw]

A stronger division clog up more road space than a weaker division .
We have the proofs that the divisions proposed by Guderian would not work and did not work .
The Soviet 1st Mechanised Corps ( 3 divisions, 31439 men,1037 tanks ) fell very soon apart and was disbanded after 6 weeks of ''fighting ''.What Guderian proposed was a Germam Mechanised Corps which also would fail .
Tracked vehicles are/were depending on wheeled vehicles who were tied to roads, thus the tracked vehicles were also depending on roads .Guderian's PzD who advanced to the coast in May 1940 used roads . They were not going through the country/the forests .
It took a long time to send in June 1944 the two weak SS PzD (9 and 10 ) from Poland to Normandy . If these 2 weak divisions were ''Guderian ''divisions with each 400 tanks, the Germans would have needed even more time to transport them to Normandy .
The decision to double the number of PzD ( which did not mean to half the number of tanks per division )was very logical and had nothing to do with Barbarossa .
If the OKH had in 1941 accepted the idiotic proposals from Guderian, the Soviets would have been in Berlin in 1941 .
The Germans had 21 PzD of which 17 were committed for Barbarossa (3200 tanks ) .Guderian proposed 10 PzD of which 6 would be used for Barbarossa .
Guderian never thought on the problem how to transport a PzD .

[ljadw]

A full -strength PzD needed 80 trains with each 55 wagons ( Source : L.Deighton ) .
A ''Guderian '' PzD would need more trains , more wagons , these would need more time to be loaded and and would advance at a lower speed, would need more time for unloading and the division would need more time to advance .
400 tanks (without men, ammunition and fuel ) would need 400 wagons and a lot more of trains .

[ljadw]

About the fuel : 400 tanks would need more than 240000 liter of fuel a day .
Where would one get this fuel, how would it be transported to tanks advancing in the forests? How long would it take to supply them ?
Of course,Herr Guderian never thought on this .

[Aida1]

A stronger division clog up more road space than a weaker division .
We have the proofs that the divisions proposed by Guderian would not work and did not work .
The Soviet 1st Mechanised Corps ( 3 divisions, 31439 men,1037 tanks ) fell very soon apart and was disbanded after 6 weeks of ''fighting ''.What Guderian proposed was a Germam Mechanised Corps which also would fail .
Tracked vehicles are/were depending on wheeled vehicles who were tied to roads, thus the tracked vehicles were also depending on roads .Guderian's PzD who advanced to the coast in May 1940 used roads . They were not going through the country/the forests .
It took a long time to send in June 1944 the two weak SS PzD (9 and 10 ) from Poland to Normandy . If these 2 weak divisions were ''Guderian ''divisions with each 400 tanks, the Germans would have needed even more time to transport them to Normandy .
The decision to double the number of PzD ( which did not mean to half the number of tanks per division )was very logical and had nothing to do with Barbarossa .
If the OKH had in 1941 accepted the idiotic proposals from Guderian, the Soviets would have been in Berlin in 1941 .
The Germans had 21 PzD of which 17 were committed for Barbarossa (3200 tanks ) .Guderian proposed 10 PzD of which 6 would be used for Barbarossa .
Guderian never thought on the problem how to transport a PzD .

You must be kidding. Guderian never thinking about how to transport a Pz Div,? Contrary to you he actually had practical experience in it. You do not understand a thing. Two weaker Pz Div have obviously moch more vehicles than one stronger one in tanks. Guderian proposed nothing in 1941 as he was not Inspector general then. He proposed in 1943 the gradual strengthening of the tank strength of Pz Div and was correctly against setting up new divisions.
And tracked vehicles do not need roads. That is why they are tracked in the first place.

[Aida1]

A full -strength PzD needed 80 trains with each 55 wagons ( Source : L.Deighton ) .
A ''Guderian '' PzD would need more trains , more wagons , these would need more time to be loaded and and would advance at a lower speed, would need more time for unloading and the division would need more time to advance .
400 tanks (without men, ammunition and fuel ) would need 400 wagons and a lot more of trains .

Actually a lot less than more divisions each a lot weaker in tanks. You do not want to understand that.

[Aida1]

About the fuel : 400 tanks would need more than 240000 liter of fuel a day .
Where would one get this fuel, how would it be transported to tanks advancing in the forests? How long would it take to supply them ?
Of course,Herr Guderian never thought on this .

You can bet General Guderian did think about all aspects. That was his day job You have zero practical experience in this matter and it shows in your primitive postings. You have absolutely no clue..