Why were the Wehrmacht's logistics so bad?

[TDM]

Not if you use Soviet trade as explanation. After all Germans are trading with you in increasing ammounts and as you said it’s years in advance - is Hitler gonna start the war in 33 or 36?

I don't think the Soviet are that dumb, they can still trade without this*, plus it would require reproachment way earlier than the MR pact and for Stalin not to be paranoid

*and often did so by throttling back on shipment speed!

Germany and Italy were Romanias biggest trading partner. Don’t need to lock it in as an ally before the 40s but no country at such a time of crisis will say no to investments like that.

Again they're not dumb they know this locks them in because nothing comes for free and Hitels be giving speeches since the 20's. Now it might well still be tempting for teh trade off, but the USSR are still going to see. And Romania well knows it has to keep the USSR sweet as well. and the soviett do see the Black sea as their pond

Also if you doing both at the same time it all just gets more obvious to the Soviets!

I get the idea, and in logistical terms it makes sense but it kind of ignores that other countries have eyes and their own desires

 

[Vabasion]

I don't think the Soviet are that dumb, they can still trade without this*, plus it would require reproachment way earlier than the MR pact and for Stalin not to be paranoid

*and often did so by throttling back on shipment speed!


Again they're not dumb they know this locks them in because nothing comes for free and Hitels be giving speeches since the 20's. Now it might well still be tempting for teh trade off, but the USSR are still going to see. And Romania well knows it has to keep the USSR sweet as well. and the soviett do see the Black sea as their pond

Also if you doing both at the same time it all just gets more obvious to the Soviets!

I get the idea, and in logistical terms it makes sense but it kind of ignores that other countries have eyes and their own desires

That requires hindsight the Soviets at the time don’t have. Poland is still between them with a seemingly powerful army. Romania barely has a fleet and Germans have nothing while they have several battleships in the Black Sea. No one in 30s would believe Germans would be in Caucasus within a year of starting a war with Soviets.

 

[Post]

That's because we had the industry to be able to motorise the entire military in the 1930's

This is in fact a very important factor. In 1939 in the US the ratio of motorvehicles per head of population was 1:10, whereas in Germany it was 1:70. This also means there are a lot more people in the US familiar with driving cars and maintaining them.

After the Polish campaign the losses of vehicles couldn't be fully replaced, meaning that they needed to scavenge the civilian park and needed more horses. This was repeated after the French campaign. A large part of the trucks used in Barbarossa were french.

 

[TDM]

That requires hindsight the Soviets at the time don’t have.

I don't think it does, remember Hitler's been giving speeches since the 1920's

the thing is your plan is good one in abstract but that will mean everyone can see teh potential of it as well

and like I said the soviets don't need this to trade with Germany

Poland is still between them with a seemingly powerful army.

Another group already sandwiched between two bigger neighbours who will see this and be worried,

Seriously the Germans are just building European gauge railways in the Baltics for the joy of trade

Romania barely has a fleet and Germans have nothing while they have several battleships in the Black Sea.

And so they just going to let Germany massively increase Romanian naval structure under their noses

No one in 30s would believe Germans would be in Caucasus within a year of starting a war with Soviets.

They don't need to for this to be perceived as a threat

plus doing both at the same time or even one after the other?

 

[TDM]

This is in fact a very important factor. In 1939 in the US the ratio of motorvehicles per head of population was 1:10, whereas in Germany it was 1:70. This also means there are a lot more people in the US familiar with driving cars and maintaining them.

After the Polish campaign the losses of vehicles couldn't be fully replaced, meaning that they needed to scavenge the civilian park and needed more horses. This was repeated after the French campaign. A large part of the trucks used in Barbarossa were french.

Yep I read somewhere that one of the problems Germany had at the end of the war when they were madly recruiting the pretty young to replace drivers etc in the Panzer divisions, was by 1944 there was high chance that you average 18 year old German kid had never been behind the wheel of anything with a motor.

even you Russian peasant driving a T34 or nice lend lease 2.5 tonne truck probably had more time on the collective's tractors

 

[Vabasion]

I don't think it does, remember Hitler's been giving speeches since the 1920's

the thing is your plan is good one in abstract but that will mean everyone can see teh potential of it as well

and like I said the soviets don't need this to trade with Germany


Another group already sandwiched between two bigger neighbours who will see this and be worried,

Seriously the Germans are just building European gauge railways in the Baltics for the joy of trade



And so they just going to let Germany massively increase Romanian naval structure under their noses


They don't need to for this to be perceived as a threat

plus doing both at the same time or even one after the other?

Yes he has and no one cared. “Jews? Yeah situation is bad but surely not that bad”. “Lebensraum? How quaint to daydream in your 40s”. Everyone discounted speeches and mein kampf as simple populism and rage baiting for votes and power. No one took it seriously until Munich that Germans are on some warpath. Stalin constantly misjudged the situation until Germans proved him wrong. War with Poland? Will take a while. War in the west? Will take years. Germany will be desperate and won’t be able to start a third front surely!

They’re building Soviet gauge rails in baltics and once Molotov happens and Germans give those up who’ll suspect war?

Yes they would. It’s civilian. Not shipyards nor are they selling them warships. No one in 30s considered AirPower relevant and able to win at sea. It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor and Otranto that view changed. For all Soviets know they can send their battleships and bombard the port facilities at will.

Thing is there’s no simple fix and every solution will take years and can be made less or more obvious. But there’s no magic button to press to fix logistics

 

[sampleswift]

By comparison, how good/bad was the Soviet Logistics? Not to the quality of the Americans, but perhaps better Soviet logistics could explain why the German logistics in the east didn't work properly?

 

[Vabasion]

By comparison, how good/bad was the Soviet Logistics? Not to the quality of the Americans, but perhaps better Soviet logistics could explain why the German logistics in the east didn't work properly?

They were terrible on par with Germans. That’s on top of actual quality issues with supplied items once they did reach the front. Soviets faced shortages throughout the war despite winning it and having a relatively safe production area and rear.

 

[DracoLazarus]

This is in fact a very important factor. In 1939 in the US the ratio of motorvehicles per head of population was 1:10, whereas in Germany it was 1:70. This also means there are a lot more people in the US familiar with driving cars and maintaining them.

After the Polish campaign the losses of vehicles couldn't be fully replaced, meaning that they needed to scavenge the civilian park and needed more horses. This was repeated after the French campaign. A large part of the trucks used in Barbarossa were french.

Yeah, France's way more motorised economy was thoroughly looted by Germany to keep its campaigns going.

 

[Post]

Yeah, France's way more motorised economy was thoroughly looted by Germany to keep its campaigns going.

Suddenly I have a flashback to my youth, when I wanted more cars and trucks for my 1:72/76 soldiers, I painted some of my Matchboxcars green.

 

[RedSword12]

German logistics was unsuited for invading the Soviet Union because Germany wasn't rich enough in resources to spam out trucks and trains like the Americans could. People like to laugh at the Wehrmacht's logistics, but German logistics in the Battle of France performed extremely well. There were the inevitable issues, but at the end of the day they were able to sustain a high-intensity offensive campaign deep in enemy territory, which is pretty darned good when you consider that most of the burden was carried by horses. When it comes to invading the Soviet Union, having sufficient industrial capacity for satisfying both tactical and logistical needs is imperative, and Germany just wasn't rich enough to do it. Even if German logistics was well-managed, it would not have been up to the task.
It all comes back to German material scarcity, which is the very reason the operational level was prioritized so much higher than logistics; operational capability had to make up for logistical shortcomings because for Germany slow, methodical campaigns were unwinnable. The fundamental logistics of the country dictated that military logistics could never take first priority, whereas the wealth of the United States allows us to take the opposite approach.

 

[Post]

but German logistics in the Battle of France performed extremely well.

Which was mostly due to three factors:
1) the campaign only lasted 6 weeks
2) they didn't need to advance that far
3) the good infrastructure in Belgium and France (for instance the panzer divisions could refuel at gasstations in France)

1) and 2) meant that it was exactly what the Wehrmacht (and German strategy) was prepared for. 3) meant that shortcomings could usually be compensated by living off the land. When these conditions weren't available, it fell apart (Barbarossa, North-Africa).

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

You are surprised that the British Empire had better logistics than, at the end of the day what was a jumped-up regional power?

Corelli Barnett reckoned the Empire was actually a source of British weakness, with the Royal Navy in particular suffering from strategic overstretch

 

[Garrison]

The Germans' logistics may not have been as good as the Americans', but somehow even the British had Germany beat in that department.

Not a great mystery there, the British were fully motorized at the beginning of the war. Germany's problem was that to modernize its logistics they needed, oil, rubber and steel in the sort of quantities that would let them build and operate a fleet of trucks alongside their fleet of Panzers. It should also be noted however that even the much more mechanized Allies struggled in 1944 to move supplies from their beachheads. Beyond a certain distance the law of diminishing returns kicks in however good your system is.

 

[yulzari1]

The British logistics were built into their system as a world naval power with repeated colonial expeditionary expeditions gave them a merchant’s view of operations rather than a warrior view. With little more than a third of the USA population and a world navy, large air force and the experience of supplying a continental army for the years of the Great War they would base operations upon the logistic capabilities in hand. The draw upon logistics of the horse caused a deliberate decision to motorise the entire army which was founded upon an investment in command of the seas which allowed for logistics to draw upon oil across the globe to fuel a motorised logistics tail. Very much helped by the Canadian motor industry making the vehicles in huge quantity. The USA did not have to defend itself and with a vastly greater population and domestic resources and a world class industrial economy it could simply flood the logistics market as it were. The French army was in a similar position to the British, only less so when the war began. By and large the allies did what their logistics permitted and the logistic base was the foundation for the operational planning. The Germans could not compete and had an army that bulk of whom could move no faster than Napoleon’s. It has been said that, if the Soviets all ran away in 1941 it would still take six weeks for the main German army to reach the gates of Moscow. Thus the reliance on swift movement from the limited motorised ‘army light’ to shock the enemy into allowing the plodding Dobbins to catch up and then repeat. More like a series of Viking raiders and looters than a steady advance of a complete army. It might have worked in the medium term for some years had they consolidated their early victories and imposed a white peace. Folk say that the end was determined as soon as the USA was forced into the war but the end began in Barbarossa. Compare the desperate race across Russia of 1941/2 outrunning all resources and running an army on three thin lines of rail across hundreds of miles to support a front of over a thousand miles with the Wallies advance across NWEurope at a pace determined by the logistics pace to keep them fully supplied.

The German‘s problem was reflected in the British experience in the Western Desert. Initially they were far weaker in arms and logistics support than the Italians so swift bold attacks were the only way to defend. To stand still was to lose slowly. In East Africa this improvised boldness paid off handsomely in the absence of Italian logistical support but in Libya it could not be sustained. Latterly Montgomery was in a position to operationally pause and rein in the bold risks and replaced it with assembled logistics and adherence to operational doctrine. The Germans never had enough operational pauses to invest in logistical infrastructure, nor the will to do so. Consider that Germany was literally next to the front in the east. A front hundreds of miles deep but they could, and did, march there. The British had to supply their front across thousands of miles of sea, often around a complete continent and a sea that was subject to enemy attack all the way. It might take a week to transport German supplies down a Russian railway line but it could take months for British supplies to leave Britain and arrive in Egypt. But they put in the resources to support the logistics to build the supply conveyor across such distances and once built it continued to deliver convoy after convoy until they had the logistics in place to roll forward without stopping.

I have heard it said that the Germans invested in fire fighting. The Allies in fire prevention. Another good quote is that the Germans brought a horse to a motor race.

 

[RedSword12]

Which was mostly due to three factors:
1) the campaign only lasted 6 weeks
2) they didn't need to advance that far
3) the good infrastructure in Belgium and France (for instance the panzer divisions could refuel at gasstations in France)

1) and 2) meant that it was exactly what the Wehrmacht (and German strategy) was prepared for. 3) meant that shortcomings could usually be compensated by living off the land. When these conditions weren't available, it fell apart (Barbarossa, North-Africa).

But you fail to ask yourself why this was the best performance of Wehrmacht logistics. The answer is that Germany didn't have the strategic resources to throw around to supply its logistical and tactical needs simultaneously except on short-duration, short-distance campaigns. It wasn't for lack of desire for good logistics. It's because they literally couldn't do it, even if they had the best logistics officers in the world. Logistics over tactics may work when you are a global superpower, but it doesn't work when any prolonged war will see your war effort strangled to death. Germany did not have the luxury of being able to fight long wars. Lack of strategic depth drove Prussia and later Germany to focus on decisive battle. Any other option would likely see them defeated, as it did in World War I and nearly during the Seven Years' War.

 

[ArtosStark]

Corelli Barnett reckoned the Empire was actually a source of British weakness, with the Royal Navy in particular suffering from strategic overstretch

Barnett wrote a lot of things. Most controversial in one form or another. He did great work in challenging strongly held presumptions, and caused a lot of discussion that advanced historical research. But many of his conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. Even those that turn out pretty correct often rest on some pretty broad assumptions and lack a fair degree of nuance.

A great author, but one whose conclusions should be considered carefully.

 

[Post]

But you fail to ask yourself why this was the best performance of Wehrmacht logistics.

I am well aware of that, I just didn't get into it (although I already posted in post #23 that lack of industrial base was a main factor). Mainly because others already did.

The answer is that Germany didn't have the strategic resources to throw around to supply its logistical and tactical needs simultaneously except on short-duration, short-distance campaigns. It wasn't for lack of desire for good logistics. It's because they literally couldn't do it, even if they had the best logistics officers in the world. Logistics over tactics may work when you are a global superpower, but it doesn't work when any prolonged war will see your war effort strangled to death. Germany did not have the luxury of being able to fight long wars. Lack of strategic depth drove Prussia and later Germany to focus on decisive battle. Any other option would likely see them defeated, as it did in World War I and nearly during the Seven Years' War.

And hence it was really stupid of them to try again what didn't work in WW1: get themselves into a war of attrition with several large powers*. If you don't have the luxury to fight long wars, your #1 priority should be not getting into them. And not think, "Ah well, I'm gonna try anyway. The weak democracies will fold after a single blow, and the Russians will easily collapse," when the former was proved to be untrue in WW1, and although the latter did happen in WW1 due to internal revolt, if you make it into an existential war, the chances are they are going to fight as long as they can.

The question in the OP was why Germans logistics were lacking in WW2. And they were lacking because of all the reasons mentioned in this thread. The fact that it worked out fine in France doesn't mean their logistics were actually fine for the war they were fighting. They weren't.

Others already have posted analogies. Another analogy is a 100m sprinter coming to a marathon. Not much chance of winning.

* and on top of it, even making the exact same mistake as in WW1 a few years into the war: when at first you don't succeed against the powers you got into war with, get some more enemies, because one final blow will certainly get you the victory. In WW1 it was that they pissed the US off so much that they joined, in WW2 it was attacking the USSR, and later the US getting into the war (although I think that the last one was almost inevitable and didn't really depend on what Germany did).

 

[raharris1973]

Corelli Barnett reckoned the Empire was actually a source of British weakness, with the Royal Navy in particular suffering from strategic overstretch

Gosh I wish I remember where he wrote that - I think he wrote off everything east of South Africa as a wasteful, diverting strategic overstretch (thus India, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia), and possibly the Mediterranean east of Gibraltar, so he still valued the Atlantic parts of the empire, Canada, South Africa, Atlantic and Caribbean islands and such.

 

[Blue cat]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I've tried searching for another thread here, maybe it's like on page 60 of one of the threads I saw or something, but why were they so bad? I keep seeing people assert this as fact, talking about how Barbarossa could never have succeeded because the German's logistics abilities were so terrible, or about timelines where "Oh no, the Nazis understand logistics!" and people making memes and stuff about it, but I don't really understand why they were so bad, and why I've seen some people also extend this to the Prussian, or Imperial German armies as well?

(And also, was there anything could have been done about it, to improve the situation? I've seen some posts say that nothing could have been done, like how Germany couldn't produce or fuel more trucks they had in the field than they already did, etc.)

I've seen some answers about terrible Russian roads, or lack of ability to motorize, thousands of different models of vehicles being a spare parts nightmare, oil shortages, horses being hungry, squishy blood bags, and the like, but I don't really understand how bad it was, I guess. Can anyone explain?

Thanks.

With the benefit of hindsight perhaps they could have benefited by investing somewhat more in their railway system and rolling stock in particular pre ww2. That does pose the question of where would the steel, labor etc have come from. Perhaps fewer heavy surface units for the Germany Navy, perhaps fewer autobahns pre ww2 ?

Perhaps more emphasis placed on air defenses might have mitigated some of the effects of allied bombing on vehicle and fuel production later in the war (along with the effects of air attacks on the railway system) but again that poses the question of what would have been cut in order to provide more resources to air defenses ?