Well, time to talk about Soviet logistics in World War Two now.
Thank you everyone who voted for this topic on Patreon.
Now, first of logistics is the business of planning, preparing, providing material support
for the armed forces to live, train, fight, move, and all the other stuff. So basically that they can't properly function.
Now, for Soviet Russia, there are few key challenges, which are usually not present for instance in Western Europe.
There's the vast territory.
Then there's overall a rather bad infrastructure. Both roads and railroads are quite different.
This is also due to the vast amount of territory.
Then there's Rasputitsa, which is the spring thaw
and the rain in fall era which basically turns everything into a huge field of mud.
Thus the name "General Mud".
And basically, yeah, it makes movement
almost impossible for most vehicles and also due to the lack of infrastructure most dirt roads turn into mud as well.
Then there was a limited amount of industrialization,
which also brings a limited amount of motorization. So this is also very important if you look at this,
the, the limited amount of motorization industrialization also brings with it that, for instance, you have a more agricultural society,
so less people know how to deal with
cars, trucks, whereas more know how to deal with horses and everything,
which is very important because horses and roles are quite important for logistical reasons.
Now, let's look at some basics.
So one major aspect of logistics will always be railways
they are there for the strategic and operational movement.
Now, a lower down level of basically trucks, cars, and horses. They are there for operational and tactical movement.
So basically,
they move all the stuff from the rail head to the front usually.
So they are very important for the last few kilometers.
Now.
Railways, we need to look at them a little bit historically.
So in the 19th century,
originally, the railway was mostly ignored by the militaries, and it was a reason for this,
because they realized at one point that population density is actually a very important factor in determining
how well you can live off the land or not.
So,
this also turned out very importantly in the, in American Civil War when they invaded the Southern territories,
and realized the population density was rather weak.
So they needed proper railway support because they couldn't live off the land,
so, not enough food, not enough fodder, and other elements,.
And also in the American Civil War, there was a major problem with, with the railroad
logistics and everything, and I think they hired a civilian.
And he made clear principles, which some often note, they have to be learned for every war sometimes over put in print, or put in writing again.
And this was basically no one, absolutely no one, no officer, no medic,
no soldier, nobody can interfere with the schedule of the trains.
So no priorities or no special cases at all.
Because this is the thing, the whole scheduling of railways and trains and everything with the different rails is, is a very complicated subject.
So if you change anything you have delays everywhere, and, and, yeah, it's basically a mess.
And usually other people don't know this layman. They look at it, "you just changed this instead and nothing happens", but then it just blows up.
Now also the Russians had quite some experience of logistical issues. First one, they really happened instructing was the Crimean War
in 1853 to (18)56.
And the follow-up was they also know that, okay, we have this problem, how to move troops and, and supply them and everything else.
Then in general, I thought Russia had underdeveloped roads, and the distances were far, very long.
This was also very important if you look at the First World War,
armored trains were way more important in the Eastern Front than everywhere else.
Because the train is so important for logistics, and also those in the Russian Civil War.
So for armored trains, I did a video on Austro-Hungarian trains, so if you want to check that out.
Now, one very important about rail logistics is that the key elements for them are locomotive sheds and depots.
Because they're there refilled, they are maintained, they're watered. They get the coal, they get sand, they get the grease and everything else.
And you also need to put the, the locomotives and sheds and protect them to certain degree from the elements, especially in
Soviet Russia, because it's very hot in the summer, and, well,
I don't need to tell you that it's cold. And basically, if you take out one depot,
it denies around 100 kilometers of track.
So this is very important to keep in mind.
So the Soviets in 1941 were very good at destroying these depots, and, and, and locomotive, sheds,
and this may create its very problems for the Wehrmacht.
Notice, it also had some high-capacity lines.
They were basically for one good from one source to one destination.
So usually from one area where the resources are provided to one industrial area.
And, and they did quite a lot of stuff there.
So now, let's move to the "horse versus truck" discussion, because usually everyone goes,
"Okay, the truck is way better and a horse is, yeah, it's poor guys' logistics and they have their problems".
But this is actually quite complicated. So a truck usually can carry more and it's faster.
Additionally, if you have a truck you can turn it off, and come back one month later, and it's still there, usually.
There's one huge difference, a truck is very well on roads,
but once you move cross-country, the problems start to come. So wear-and-tear increases, it's way
slower, and the capacity decreases.
Additionally, you need a complex system. You need fuel, you need tires, you need roads.
For instance, in Verdun 1916, the French when they supplied with trucks and everything,
they had several battalions to pull up the roads and repair them and everything.
And for maintenance, it's also very important to remember that in the Second World War, we still had a very large agricultural society.
So most people didn't know how to fix a car.
I mean, nowadays people also forget it again,
and it's also way complicated, but there was a time in between where basically everyone in certain areas knew how
kind of fix a car, how to change a tire or something. And here we have an agriculture society,
so they know more about how to deal with horses.
And a truck, to certain degrees, It's just a bit arcane to them.
It really depends from, from where they were, but a large amount of the population
back then still lived in the rural areas.
And this is not just for Soviet Russia, this is also for Germany and other regions.
So this is where the motorization of a society comes into place, and I think the United States was the leading country.
Now, the horse is less affected by cross country movement than a truck.
So in general, on a road, it's rather slow, but the speed doesn't decrease that much once it's cross country
this is also because the wagons were usually light weight.
And the main issue with horses was usually, if you had to go upwards, but then they had more horses.
So, they usually moved at the max speed which was rather low, but for general they had a, you could say constant slow speed output.
Now, this also meant that they often could take the direct route cross-country, where trucks had to, well, find the best way.
Overall, of course, they were slower, and for food, it's very important,
they not only fed on grass. They usually needed also fodder, especially since when they were carrying loads.
So, so, this if you can just put them on a meadow and help everything is fine. You'll need to provide them with proper fodder.
Additionally, there are also way more dependent on water and everything. So this meant that
horses die faster than humans. Usually if you don't provide them with proper water and everything.
Additionally, they were rather low-tech. So the maintenance amount was limited,
and generally, you could say, the truck
generally was way strong on paper, but you need to look at the complete circumstances to see, okay,
maybe in this case a horse was better, or the the difference was, the margin was way smaller than expected.
This is often the case something on paper, it looks perfect.
So if you compare a truck and the horse on paper, and don't qualify for all the, the other factors, you will say,
"okay, truck all the time". And then you realize, okay, "oh, I need a whole infrastructure, I need mechanics".
Because, for instance, most people, to certain degree, knew how to take care of a horse,
but (did they know) how to take care of a truck? And also for, for horse, yeah, there are no spare parts,
but for a truck, you need to build them as well. And a horse, to certain degree, can't yield as a truck.
Well, if you leave a truck for one month, it's probably not gonna "grow" another spare part.
So,
now, let's look more to the Soviet's specifics. So there's the Rear, or usually called the Rear Services.
This is a very important concept for the Soviets.
That meant that every sector, the agriculture, the industrial, and society would supply the front.
Now, due to their experience in Khalkhin Gol, in the Winter War, and in Poland, it was split between four commands.
This was rectified in summer 1941, when they realized the case that it isn't gonna work.
So in August 1941, there were several changes, and for one,
the rear commanders were made the deputies of the,
of the overall commanders.
So they always were fully integrated in the planning, preparation of attack, defense, and everything.
So they fully integrated the logistical aspect into the Army High Command and everywhere else.
So they always had the rear guy who was next to the, basically, the commander, and he was the deputy commander.
It's a very interesting aspect. So he was not just a staff officer. He was way more important.
Additionally the whole rear office had a more monopoly on transportation.
This mean, for instance, that the director for artillery had to go through the rear office to transport something.
And H. G. W. Davie notes
that they basically had a mega role. And
it was equivalent to three to four positions in the German Reich.
So very important. They had a strong monopoly and focused everything there. So additionally it was also centralized control.
So, usually,
for instance, in a German division or something, they sent a demand from below. So they requested, "okay, we need ammunition,
we need food, we need that, we need spare parts".
The Soviets made it different. They had centralized control and only the division was of
in charge of food and fodder.
Everything else was centralized. And it was strongly priorities based on the fighting.
So as Davie notes, for instance,
they starved out several divisions, "starved out" on a quotation marks,
and focus only on those who were fighting for instance. So a strong focus on
prioritization (like) "where do we need the supplies",
"which supplies are the most important", for instance, fuel and ammo were considered the most important.
Now, let's look at the situation of the railways during the war.
In 1941, the Germans were in a large part of Soviet Russia than in the European area.
And the capture and the Soviets as such lost about 40 percent of the network. Yet, they were very good at ever creation.
So they only lost about 15% of the motive power.
So the rolling stock and the locomotives, which meant that they had way more
locomotive power and motive power to provide
the whole existing or still remaining network.
And, this is also quite interesting, the pre-war estimates from Western Europe were basically led to the Soviet,
the railway network would collapse. This didn't happen.
Now it's also very important to look at the difference in capacity. As I said before,
the system was underdeveloped in comparison to Western Europe. So in the Soviet Union, you usually had for a single line,
12 pairs of train per day.
Whereas in Germany, internally the Reichsbahn managed up to 72 pairs of trains per day on a single line.
How was this done? Well first, they were at different speeds,
so the Germans usually drove faster, which of course also increased wear and tear.
And you needed more complex signaling techniques, and also more personnel, a qualified personal derivatives, and also more sidings
so that trains could overtake each other and everything.
Now,
how was it solved in Soviet Russia? Basically they used a low-tech system that just worked.
So they had one speed and it was around 25 kilometers per hour.
So every train moves with that speed. This also limited the requirements for signalling and signalling personnel and everything.
Additionally, wear-and-tear was decreased,
and to increase the capacity overall, what was shipped, they used longer trains. So Soviet train had usually around 650 tonnes of cargo,
whereas the German train had about 450 tons of cargo.
As you can see, they had a way more simpler system,
but that worked for that environment specifically, and was optimized for that. Other aspects very optimized for instance,
you have a good track and you have a bad track, so you use the good track for delivering the stuff because
yeah, it needs to hold, and you use the weak track to return the train that is mostly empty or less filled.
So wear-and-tear is also mitigated.
Now, let's move to motor transports.
Now, very important, one of the experts for Soviet logistics is
H. G. W. Davie, you can also find him on Twitter,
so I'll link him here, and he also helped me a bit out here with this video with answering a question on Twitter.
And what's very important is he points out that the impact of land lease trucks was actually quite limited,
which was quite surprising for me because basically,
Alexander Hill and David Glantz point out that the land-lease trucks were very important for the offensives.
What Davie notes is they used a lot of trophy vehicles,
so basically a lot of vehicles captured from the Germans. Now one could now say,
"okay, well, it doesn't make sense",
but you should remember the Davie published in the Journal of Slavic (Military) Studies,
for which Glantz was and Hill is now the editor.
So, I think the, now, here's the point,
I think the Hill and Glantz spoke more on the general level and Davy looked at a special case scenario. So, I don't think it's,
initially, I thought it's quite a contradiction,
but also if the thing is here now,
I think, there's probably some academic discussion going on soon.
And we see what what holds true what not, because I think it's, it's been intimated.
So again, because I'm rather new to Lend-lease and way, way more newer to Soviet logistics,
and these areas are, well, it seems generally a bit understudied.
Now he generally notes, there was a low amount of motorization.
It's very interesting.
He points out that the 7th Guard Army, a complete Army in 1945, had less combat vehicles than one British infantry division.
And, if you look at the Soviet rifle divisions, basically from 1942,
but, which was mostly the organization throughout the whole war, their amount of motorized weapons was very limited.
They had 12 anti-tank guns that were fully motorized, 12 medium howitzers,
and 21 heavy mortars. Everything else was only semi-motorized or mostly carried by horses.
So this is very interesting if you look at this.
Now, the aspect is now, one question that came up from a Patreon (supporter) "torbai" is,
how were the quick and deep breakthroughs in 1945 or 1944 possible by the Soviets.
And if you specifically look at the Vistula–Oder Offensive, it turned out way faster than planned.
And Davy argues this is because due to several factors. One was that the Soviets manage to capture a lot of railways intact,
so the Germans weren't fast enough in destroying them and in ever quitting everything.
Additionally, they had very well experienced railway brigades that were also now very well equipped the mechanization, so they had power drills,
the other very important tools, and they managed to rebuild bridges far faster than they assumed.
Now,
since you have a rapid breakthrough, and it's faster than expected, you also capture more.
So you have this, this positive feedback loop that you can capture more.
And another interesting point which brings up now a rifle division moving 30 kilometers per day is rather fast.
But this already happened in the 19th century.
The issue is, now you have now combined arms divisions, so you have artillery,
you have anti-tank guns, you have anti-aircraft guns and everything,
so they are a bit more heavier than what you had in the 19th century, generally.
And, so, basically you had to relearn for the circumstances of the 20th century, and he notes the main issue is to make
a proper solution for the "three tyrannies", what he calls it,
"weight", "demand" and "distant". so you have this trinity and you need to measure out how would this work, and how much forces you need,
how much motorization you need in other aspects, and what you can use, for instance, where you can live off the land,
the population density and everything, and other aspects.
Now it should also be mentioned,
that there are various issues with the Rear Services. There's one article from a Russian historian, (Valeriy) Zamulin.
I had no time yet to read it because I want to get the basics down first. And then I
likely at one point look at this article and because there it's basically how what went wrong or what was a major problem.
Now, to summarize now.
What made Soviet logistics work this way? Basically they had a long time experience with bad infrastructure,
and supplying a large empire, I mean they fought in Russo-Japanese War on the eastern edge, and fought in Crimea War in the southern area,
and they fought in, yeah, and, on various fronts
over the 19th century and also the 20th century.
So,
specifically for Barbarossa, they had now a small network,
because they lost a lot of area, but there are lots of rolling stock. So they had capacity in reserve.
So they could also sometimes, "okay, we put that railway,
we put those the rolling stock on the side, because we can't unload fast enough
and we prioritize other stuff". Now, and they also took the low-tech approach.
So, slow speed, reduce wear-and-tear, simple signaling techniques.
So basically, just regular soldiers sometimes could provide signalling, whereas else, for instance,
the German needed qualified personnel and everything, yeah.
Then centralized supplied with strong set of priorities.
And for instance, the US Army technical manual from 1946 on Soviet logistics noted,
their rigid, rigid principles
to solve as followed. So, rigid principles strong priorities.
You, you can say, okay,
"this is a rather harsh statement", but you could also say, "okay, if you want to be affected,
sometimes, it just better works with rigid principles". And also it's noted from the American Civil War,
The rigid nests of nobody can change the schedule of a train is also very rigid principle, but it just worked,
unlike some Bethesda games.
And the other major aspect is the modern logistical system, so they had integrated the logistical aspects,
the logistical command into the command of the armies, and this monopoly on transportation.
So very strong focused on getting the logistics right, which is very important on
the Eastern Front, or for the Soviet, it was actually the Western Front, I think I never point this out.
But yeah, it's kind of, you have to see the spots in your life time.
So.
A big thank you here to everyone awarded on this topic on my Patron,
and especially to "torbai" for asking the question on the breakthrough, and also "Peter" for sending me the article from Davie about the railway logistics on the Eastern Front.
Thank you for watching and see you next time!
For more infomation >> Kinzinger: Pelosi is not interested in fixing immigration - Duration: 4:19. 
For more infomation >> What Makes Tom Hardy SO Attractive? | Tom Hardy Style Guide - Duration: 3:22. 
For more infomation >> Student protests shut down Eiffel Tower - Duration: 1:56. 
For more infomation >> President Trump Announces New U.N. Ambassador - Duration: 1:20. 
For more infomation >> Snow totals: Who is getting the most snow this weekend - Duration: 1:53. 
No comments:
Post a Comment