Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "German Logistics (or lack of) in WW2 Eastern Front | TIK Q&A 11" video.

  1. Together with Backe, Thomas's staff had worked out a plan to 'free up' at least 4 million tons of grain from the Ukraine. And Thomas went further than any previous analyst in insisting that the conquest of the Caucasus was a natural complement to the occupation of the Ukraine. In fact, without the conquest of the Caucasus the Ukraine would be of little value, since Germany would need a huge fleet of tractors and trucks to bring in the harvest, for which the fuel could only come from the Soviet Union itself. Astonishingly, Thomas made no comment on the logistical and operational considerations involved in extending Germany's invasion 2,000 kilometres to the east. - Wage of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze
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  2. As a rule of thumb, German logistical experts liked to assign at least one high-capacity railway line to each army-sized unit. But for the ten armies with which they invaded the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht was able to assign only three main railway lines, one for each army group. 81 And the situation for Army Group Centre, where the bulk of the German forces were to be concentrated, was particularly bad. From the outset, therefore, the German army had to assume that not all units would be equally well supplied. Critical stores were to be reserved above all for the main strike force of 33 tank and motorized infantry divisions. If the battle extended much beyond the first months of the attack, the fighting power of the rest of the German army would dwindle rapidly. Fundamentally, the Wehrmacht was a 'poor army'. The fast-strikingmotorized element of the German army in 1941 consisted of only 33 divisions out of 130. Three-quarters of the German army continued to rely on more traditional means of traction: foot and horse. The German army in 1941 invaded the Soviet Union with somewhere between 600,000 and 750,000 horses. The horses were not for riding. They were for moving guns, ammunition and supplies. Weeks prior to the invasion, 15,000 Panje carts were issued to the infantry units that would trail behind the fast-moving Panzers. The vast majority of Germany's soldiers marched into Russia, as they had into France, on foot. - Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze.
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