Did Nazi Germany have oil? Would Germany have curbed stomped everyone if they never invaded the Soviets? Tank sperging. Debate it all here.

[Vesperus]

Ukraine is losing so hard that we're now getting WWII history lessons.

Top Kek

We wound up discussing comparative mythology in Elaine Miller's thread the other day.

Sometimes news is slow and you need to make your own entertainment.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

(because of the illusion that allied bombing campaigns were what shut down the factories, rather than the fact that the tanks just weren't well designed for mass production to begin with)

This is like saying "shooting your enemy doesn't kill him". There is a very good reason why every major military on the planet, the US, the Chinese, and yes, even the Russians maintain and build strategic bombers that can do more than carry nukes. The new Russian bomber that just got shown off can carry nearly 100,000 lbs worth of bombs, and that isn't because nukes are that heavy. I don't mean to sperg, well I do, but to say blowing up the factory where tanks are made/repaired has less than serious effect is insane. A lot of Russia's tanks that would otherwise be write offs are back in action again because of the specialized industry and personal in some factory somewhere.

 

[Ashkenazi Porn Actress]

This is like saying "shooting your enemy doesn't kill him".

The vast majority of German factories during WW2 were up and running again with no major losses in prductivity days after being bombed. There were a few ccases where bombing massively impacted production e.g. the destruction of the factory producing Tego-Film in Wuppertal which made the Ta 154 and He 162 non-viable but for all the bombing German war material production peaked in 1944, largely because Bormann, Himmler and Speer made common cause and centralised production.
Studying this gave RAND and similar think tanks the idea that nuclear war might be survivable.

 

[Susanna]

This is like saying "shooting your enemy doesn't kill him". There is a very good reason why every major military on the planet, the US, the Chinese, and yes, even the Russians maintain and build strategic bombers that can do more than carry nukes. The new Russian bomber that just got shown off can carry nearly 100,000 lbs worth of bombs, and that isn't because nukes are that heavy. I don't mean to sperg, well I do, but to say blowing up the factory where tanks are made/repaired has less than serious effect is insane. A lot of Russia's tanks that would otherwise be write offs are back in action again because of the specialized industry and personal in some factory somewhere.

Very few bombs actually hit the factories. That the strategic bombing campaign was ineffective genuinely isn’t controversial.

https://ps.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15gaptb/how_effective_were_allied_strategic_bombings_in/

Imagine you’re in a WW2 bomber. Your Norden sight might be accurate to within twenty metres. That already severely hampers your ability to hit a factory, but you’re also targeting the factory at night during a blackout. Half the planes didn’t even bomb the right towns, and the ones that did find the right one were still basically just bombing residential areas at random, because those were the ones that would be lit up (from carelessness).

 

[Kane Lives]

Very few bombs actually hit the factories. That the strategic bombing campaign was ineffective genuinely isn’t controversial.

https://ps.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15gaptb/how_effective_were_allied_strategic_bombings_in/

Imagine you’re in a WW2 bomber. Your Norden sight might be accurate to within twenty metres. That already severely hampers your ability to hit a factory, but you’re also targeting the factory at night during a blackout. Half the planes didn’t even bomb the right towns, and the ones that did find the right one were still basically just bombing residential areas at random, because those were the ones that would be lit up (from carelessness).

The converse argument is that the effect of bombing on morale is genuinely hard to measure. From all accounts, bombing is an immensely traumatic and disrupting experience that would inevitably affect productivity, no matter how much it might have missed. After all, just because the first bombing wave missed YOU on the first day didn't mean it wouldn't hit you later that week.

Richard Overy also posited an interesting second-order effect to bombing as well. Bombing may not have stopped the Germans from peaking their industrial production in 1944, but they might have prevented an even greater increase in efficiency, due to the need to both defend these industrial sites, needing to decentralise production (which always disrupts any sort of gain that you might have gotten from production of scale) and of course, the above-mentioned morale effects.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

The vast majority of German factories during WW2 were up and running again with no major losses in prductivity days after being bombed. There were a few ccases where bombing massively impacted production e.g. the destruction of the factory producing Tego-Film in Wuppertal which made the Ta 154 and He 162 non-viable but for all the bombing German war material production peaked in 1944, largely because Bormann, Himmler and Speer made common cause and centralised production.

I find it hard to believe that a factory which has just been hit was soon up and running at similar levels of productivity in a few days. If you have sources on this please provide. I also find the idea that bombing was ineffective to be nonsensical when bombing reached its peak in the same year in which German industry reached its peak of production.

Very few bombs actually hit the factories. That the strategic bombing campaign was ineffective genuinely isn’t controversial.

https://ps.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15gaptb/how_effective_were_allied_strategic_bombings_in/

Imagine you’re in a WW2 bomber. Your Norden sight might be accurate to within twenty metres. That already severely hampers your ability to hit a factory, but you’re also targeting the factory at night during a blackout. Half the planes didn’t even bomb the right towns, and the ones that did find the right one were still basically just bombing residential areas at random, because those were the ones that would be lit up (from carelessness).

Is it considered ineffective because it wasn't the war winning move commanders and politicians at the time believed it would be? Or did it objectively have no effects on production? Your cited source mentions "These numbers are relatively low as production was often only briefly off set by raids, instead greater impact occurred when aircraft industry had to be dispersed which cost them months of production time to recover." Which comes off as contradictory. Did it effect production, yes or no? Was the "necessary dispersal of industry" really needed if bombing had immediate minimal effect? However, your source also says "Germany lost 3-5% of its potential arms production in 1943 and 11% in 1944." I'd hardly call the loss of a tenth of production a minor thing, especially in a total war.

 

[Meh123]

Solar powered tanks? So Russians can just put paint cans on drones and take out the tank's ability to refuel? At this point, why the hell not.

I actually think it would make sense to equip tanks with diesel-electric drives, separate electric engines on both sides (save on transmission and differential gear) and have a few 10kw battery onboard, so the diesel gen have a buffer.

Their range is too short. That vast majority of the drones you see in Ukraine, especially the FPV ones, have sub 3km ranges.
Larger SAMs that are emitting energy are 5+ km behind the Frontline, more like 10km for anything heavy.
Emissions control is extremely important for SAM sites as you don't want to be emitting for any extra time unless you're engaging a target.
Frontline AA are usually guns or IR guided systems.

My idea of "cheap SEAD drones" is a lancet or shahed type, fully passive, going in stealthily while something highly reflective and threatening baits the radar to emit.

 

[The Ugly One]

Very few bombs actually hit the factories. That the strategic bombing campaign was ineffective genuinely isn’t controversial.

Did you read the entire text you linked? Early RAF bombing was indeed ineffective, and that point is uncontroversial. They managed to kill some civilians and burn some towns, but this had little effect on the war. "Morale bombing" is worthless unless you're going to use atomic weapons. However, once the Americans showed up with better bomb sights and a more effective strategy (a story that repeats itself over and over in WWII), that changed:

Germany lost 3-5% of its potential arms production in 1943 and 11% in 1944. These numbers are relatively low as production was often only briefly off set by raids, instead greater impact occured when aircraft industry had to be dispersed which cost them months of production time to recover. More concerning was american focus in 1944 on synthetic fuel plants which could not be relocated and resulted (in combination with the loss of Romanian oil fields to the Soviets) the grounding of much of the Luftwaffe in 1944. More important was the impact bombing had on forcing Germany to divert significant resources to defending its cities. At its peak in August 1944, over 39,000 anti-aircraft batteries were setup in Germany maned by over 1 million personnel. Max Hastings goes so far as to say that almost the entire German fighter force had to be diverted back to Germany from 1943 onwards to challenge the bombers. It is also worth mentioning that many of these anti-aircraft batteries were reliant on 88mm guns which also served as powerful anti-tank weaponry. The more that were kept away from the Eastern Front the better the situation for Soviet forces.

The gist of what you linked is that gross numbers don't tell the whole story. Specifically what was affected, and how, is critical. There are some good examples in the post, e.g. grounding the Luftwaffe and diverting Flak 88s back to Germany from the Eastern Front was hardly a big fat nothing. Importantly, this happened in 1943 - after Kursk, the USSR had air superiority on the Eastern Front, and American bombing played a role in that.

An example of why we need to look at specifics is the destruction of Alkett, which crippled Stug III production in 1943 (notice how often that year comes up as a turning point), which was one of the most important AT guns the Germans deployed against T-34s. The vehicle was so important that Panzer IV lines were converted over to StuG IV, but this was at the cost Panzer IV production. This is in turn important because the Panzer IV was the only tank Germany produced in high volumes at the time that could face off against a T-34. The Panzer V didn't hit volume production until 1944.

Which is another thing the raw numbers don't tell. Allied bombing reduced German arms production by 3%-5%, but the German target was 25%+ growth that year. But instead of building new factories so they could the desired 600 Panthers/month target by 1943, most of their resources went into rebuilding factories the Allies destroyed, and Panther production never hit this target. So while the USSR kept ramping T-34 production up, and up, and up, the Germans were fighting just to keep what they had going.

Although certainly strategic bombing fell greatly short of its original intent - many theorists before the war believed that bombing alone could win wars - there is anything but a universal consensus that it accomplished nothing. In fact, you will find plenty of military historians arguing that Germany's complete inability to put pressure on Soviet tank production due to not developing a long-range bomber until far too late played a nontrivial role in their defeat.

Anyway America doesn't make artillery munitions or anything in volume, so you guys are fine now.

 

[Susanna]

Did you read the entire text you linked? Early RAF bombing was indeed ineffective, and that point is uncontroversial. They managed to kill some civilians and burn some towns, but this had little effect on the war. "Morale bombing" is worthless unless you're going to use atomic weapons. However, once the Americans showed up with better bomb sights and a more effective strategy (a story that repeats itself over and over in WWII), that changed:

Once the Americans showed up with their genuinely great bombsights they also brought the idea of night bombing, which meant fewer airframe losses but also made it just about impossible to actually aim, Norden sight or no. The bombing wasn’t a non-factor, but it was inconsequential compared to what actually won the war, the Red Army and the hero workers of the Soviet Union.

 

[geckogoy]

A huge part of why bombing was less effective than anticipated against the germans is they were extremely skilled industrialists, and in some cases could restore entire flattened industrial parks in a matter of months, whilst simultaneously re-organizing the supply chain so as to minimize impact to overall productivity.

If you bombed the germans factories flat today, for instance, you likely wouldn't see production resume for 10 years.

compared to what actually won the war, the Red Army and the hero workers of the Soviet Union.

They were losing terribly prior to economic aid, in 1942 50% of the steel in the russian economy was from lend lease. 50,000 tons of high explosive a year were coming in. Tens of thousands of machine tools.

Prior to lend lease, the germans were outproducing the russians in every metric, and the results on the front line showed that.

 

[Fapcop]

Germany had no domestic petroleum resources to make fuel. That's why they invaded Russia in the first place. Without oil they lose eventually no matter what, same as today. All the wunderwaffle in the world is irrelevant with nothing to run them on.

Meh… There were the Rumanian deposits, as well as some small scale deposits in Bohemia as I recall.

More to the point, Germany had also developed a pretty impressive synthetic fuel production. If not for the war in the East, they likely wouldn’t have huge fuel problems, especially when their fuel factories started to come online in 1943/1944.

Regarding the allied bombing campaign, I think it’s important to point out that German war production managed to increase year over year until 1945.

As for the allied war effort, I think that the central point is, that the Soviet Union would have defeated Germany with not without the US and UK. The converse isn’t true. The UK and US would never have defeated Germany alone. Can you imagine what D day would have looked like with 100 extra divisions in France?

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

The effectiveness of factory bombing in WW2 is somewhat irrelevant, at least once Overlord was decided. The actual mission given to the 8th air force was the destruction of the luftwaffe before Overlord.

The bombing missions essentially became bait to drag German fighters up to 25k where US planes had significant advantages.

For anyone interested, Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles has a very well done series on the P-47 showing this.

 

[Fapcop]

And yet, that's what he is said to have said, and it's consistent with what Krushchev said he said in private as well. Did Stalin later insist that Allied efforts in fact had no effect?

Surely you’re not surprised that Stalin is buttering up Roosevelt at the Tehran conference, where he needs Rossevelts support for things like the Polish question?

Kruschev likewise was infamous for talking out of both sides of his mouth. Saying one thing, and later taking the opposite position pretending that he never said anything else in the first place.

Sure, L&L was helpful, but all of the war winning weapons: Tanks, planes, rifles, sub machine guns, artillery, were Russian weapons produced by Russian factories.

View attachment 5752829


View attachment 5752843
It is also reported that assault groups of the Russian Armed Forces managed to enter the center of Rabotino in Zaporozhye. The armored vehicles of our forces are already arriving there to suppress the firing points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Link

View attachment 5752851
RuAF making progress south of Bogdanovka; Due to the very high number of wounded Ukrainian military personnel the hospital in the city of Chasov Yar was closed to ordinary citizens.

UUUURRRRRRAAAAA!!!!!

(Don’t know if anyone ever played Battlefield One, but that Russian UUURRRRRAAAA when you play one of the Russia/Civil war maps always gave me the chills. Sorry for the gamer memory.)

 

[Fapcop]

Germany had no natural petroleum resources. It was such a crisis they even tried inventing synthetic fuel. The reason Hitler invaded Russia (and the continent of Africa) was to capture petroleum. This isn't a controversial thing, it's been established fact for over 80 years. Your high school history teachers have failed you spectacularly and whatever schools you attended should be razed. This is nuts.

Eh… The “tried inventing synthetic fuel” wasn’t an act of desperation, it was planned before the outbreak of the war. (And without the war in the East, the domestic production along with synthetic fuel would likely have met German needs.)

And German synthetic fuel and rubber plants were up and running by 1943. (One of them is still running in Poland and is the largest of its kind in Europe.)

Hitler invading Africa for fuel is nonsense. The petroleum reserves in Libya etc weren’t discovered till after WW2.

And as mentioned Germany did have some natural fuel resources, just not many. The fuel situation didn’t really become critical till the Ploesti oil fields were lost.

 

[geckogoy]

The UK and US would never have defeated Germany alone. Can you imagine what D day would have looked like with 100 extra divisions in France?

Would of just atom bombed them into submission tbh. First bomb was actually being shipped towards germany when they surrendered, so it turned around to japan.

 

[Strix454]

And as mentioned Germany did have some natural fuel resources, just not many. The fuel situation didn’t really become critical till the Ploesti oil fields were lost.

The fuel situation did become somewhat critical during the winter of 1941-42. Their fuel stocks were being rapidly drawn down to critical levels and there were other issues including relations with Romania which supplied an overwhelming amount of their oil. There was a bit of a crisis and the crisis did affect the planning process for the 1942 campaign in Russia even though the oil crisis of the winter was a short-term thing. Its a neglected subject in alot of books.

 

[Fapcop]

Would have just atom bombed them into submission tbh. First bomb was actually being shipped towards germany when they surrendered, so it turned around to japan.

Mighty bold of you to assume that there would have been a UK in 1945 to deliver the bomb from, if the SU hadn’t been invaded four years previously. Or that there wouldn’t have been a peace deal signed years before.

Or for that matter, that the Germans didn’t have their own nuke. They were ahead of everyone else in 1939, and with the massive resources that didn’t had to be used in Barbarossa, they may have pursued it.

Also bold of you to assume that Germany would have surrendered, instead of say… Turned the UK into a wasteland with a massive Tabun bonbardment.

 

[Susanna]

, but can you make one out of sticks?
[sorry uploading didn't work, and nitter's "rate limited"]
https://nitter.unixfox.eu/sambendett/status/1586011832136785920

WWII sperging got this thread to 1k. Yay?

Is this some maker meme or something? Your link doesn’t work and I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Nitter is Twitter, no? Why not just link Twitter?

Or for that matter, that the Germans didn’t have their own nuke. They were ahead of everyone else in 1939, and with the massive resources that didn’t had to be used in Barbarossa, they may have pursued it.

They did pursue it, strongly, throughout the war. Nevertheless by 1945 they were still nowhere near a functional device. When your country’s jews leave, you lose all your competent physicists. Funny how that works.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

You know, all I know about American-Soviet Lend Lease is that they got a bunch on jeeps and the Soviet tank crews liked the Shermans we sent them, mostly because they were roomier and more survivable than the T-34s if you got hit. Spring loaded escape hatches and all that, less likely to get stuck and burn to death. Yeah, I know, the Zippo thing, but we fixed that relatively early on.

 

[Susanna]

Spring loaded escape hatches and all that, less likely to get stuck and burn to death. Yeah, I know, the Zippo thing, but we fixed that relatively early on.

In one way, yeah, but the T-34 used diesel, which is super difficult to catch on fire. The Sherman was doubtless more comfortable (I've been in a T-34, it was cramped even for me, and I'm tiny), but in terms of survivability it probably wasn't much better than the T-34 in real life. Don't forget that the T-34 was also significantly smaller and better armoured. The Sherman was designed around fighting hull down, but most of the areas Red Army fought in were very flat, the Sherman was much easier to spot and target. The T-34 also had a much better gun. Oh, and much better mobility. Sherman had narrow rubber tracks, which is nice for driving on roads, but useless for crossing muddy fields. T-34 technically had garbage tracks, but because they were very wide they didn't get stuck.