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I've been reading through a couple of threads lately, and I've noticed a common theme:

There seems to be no way for the Axis to achieve any of their so-called "economic" objectives for WW2 to alleviate their logistical problems.

The German war machine needed oil. Hitler's idea was to conquer the oil. The problem is that they had almost zero machinery in place to get that oil to Germany. Baku oil fields? Only shitty railroads available. Middle East oil? No tankers available. Hell, even the equipment needed to fix and maintain the wells mainly come from America.

How about the Japanese? From my recollections of "Why the Allies Won", Japan entered the war about 3 million tons of shipping in the hole. So even if they used all their tankers (and none of them were sunk), they still wouldn't be able to ship enough oil to the Home Islands to meet their existing demands.

So, the question is: Shouldn't logisticians on the Axis side have known this?

I think both of them were hoping to knock their opponents out fast before it became an issue. Which is pretty idiotic to say the least.

Japan does list a short war as one of its aims. However, Hitler has often stated the need to control the massive resources of the Soviet Union.

And based on the threads here, there was pretty much no way they could transport any of it to Germany.

The oil transport issue would have been straightforward enough for the Nazis given some time. You only had to get the oil from Baku to the Black Sea. A couple railroads did exist which could do that and which would not highly relevant to operations further east in Russia. The Nazis would have simply murdered or deported the local population whose needs the lines would normally fulfill. This would also make the tracks nice and easy to guard after a couple years of sustained murdering.

Once on the Black Sea the Nazis could just load the oil on to barges, which can be built of wood as well as steel, and then take those up the Danube which goes all the way to Germany. Barges are about the most cost effective transport you can have in the world, though a fair number will sink in Black Sea storms. Most Romanian oil moved historically by river and canal, and this handled a lot of oil distribution within Germany. Eventually they would have built pipelines. Railroad traffic was not ever very effective for moving oil, even on the world standard quality of the US system. But that’s why in the long term you just built pipelines. The US had lots already.

Japan just planned to ‘win’ before it ever came to economic crisis. What do you want out of panicked SAMURIA WARRIORS? They saw a chance of a lifetime and they dived for it without thinking.

As for specifics however. Japan needed about 9.3 million tons to runs it civilian economy. They had about 6.4 million tons. Of this in fact about 2 million tons was taken by the Army, and about 1.5 million tons by the Navy for war use and these ships did NOT carry raw materials back home until 1944. Around 2 million tons was thus left to feed the needs of the economy! However Japan did capture over a half million tons in the start of the war, and they built anywhere from about 600,000 to 1.5 million tons a year in the war. So had the war ended, they could have expected to build out of the shipping shortage in just a few years. Japan actually had the world’s most modern merchant fleet in the world at the time, and the speed and quality of these ships are a major factor in why Japan was able to make the war grind along for as long as it did. Japan lost about 7.5 million tons during the war and had about 1.5 million tons left, so that means they actually did build what they needed. Its just it all got sunk, beached or burned.

Did the Germans ever use the Black Sea for supplying the other way though? (i.e. Getting ammo from Germany to their troops in Southern Russia)

They used coastal convoys a fair bit, but you had the massive siege of Sevastopol operation going on smack dab in the middle of the theater and the Russian Baltic fleet with a battleship, several cruisers and a much more active force of destroyers, motor torpedo boats and submarines in opposition. The Soviets unlike the Germans also had a dedicated naval air force. This plus the weakness of the Romanian navy and the fact that most vessels are barge and tug setups with little maneuverability limited what convoys could for the Nazis. The Germans actually deployed a fair number of the invasion craft they built for Sea Lion in the Black Sea. By international treaty the Germans could not bring in vessels from the Mediterranean Sea through the Dardanelles.

If the Turks had joined the Axis and a lot more transport and warships could move into the Black Sea from Italy in 1941 the German situation in the Black Sea could have dramatically improved, and the bases of the Russian Black Sea Fleet might be completely overrun. But Turkey was a careful neutral in the war and was never going to join Hitler or the British and Russians. It was poorly armed, even worse of economically then in 1914 and most importantly it had wooden cities and wise leaders. Once the US entered the war the Turks had even less reason to ever want to touch the war. Of course German operations in Turkey would also still be subject to major supply constraints, and you have to take those forces from another operation. Never getting involved in North Africa would provide a couple divisions to play with and a few wings of bombers.

I think you mean Black Sea Fleet, but point taken. Where was it based after the fall of Sevatopool? I presume it also gets taken out of the equation once Baku is taken because the Russians won't have oil to fuel it anymore?

Yeah, Black Sea Fleet. The major Russian base in the western Black Sea was Novorossiysk, during Blue the Germans literally reached midway into this city, isolating Russian defenders on a peninsula, before a combined amphibious-land counterattack backed up by those heavy Russian ships threw them all the back way to the Crimea.

In the interim the Russians based out of Poti and Batumi, which had minimal facilities. After 1942 nothing larger then a destroyer did anything of note for the Russians in the Baltic because of the risk of air attacks. During 1942 Russia fully risked its ships, and didn’t suffer nearly as much as you might expect for doing it. Most Luftwaffe pilots had zero training for hitting a moving ship and it’s not easy.

If you took Baku then the Russian Black Sea coastline is effectively cut off from the entire outside world by default though a few supplies might be able to sneak in through north west Persia. However as the entire Nazi history in the battle for Russia demonstrate, just because you advance preposterously far doesn’t mean you could hold it. The Germans could get all the way to Baku and still end up being cut off by a Russian counter offensive. If that happened they’d also be stuck with a 700 mile long line of retreat.

I'm suddenly filled with the urge to find a book on the heroic exploits of the Black Sea Fleet. Any recommendations?

I know of exactly one English language book which says anything about the Russians in the Baltic in WW1 or WW2 other then the typical brief passages about the Goben. It is History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power by Donald W. Mitchell. It covers from the Mongols to 1974 when it was written. The Black Sea fleet was the best fleet for a long period of Russian history including both world wars. It had a real enemy to face in the Ottomans and then the Turks and yet it was isolated from the politics of St. Petersbourg and then Moscow.

While not *especially* in-depth, A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern at least dedicates a chapter to the Black Sea, going into much more detail than the Goeben's activities.

Google Books Link

Hitler also seems to have been banking on only having to fight on one Front at once. The non-aggression pact with Russia was due to run out in 1944, which should have been plenty of time to secure the Reich's western flank if he'd stuck to the plan. Even if Sealion had still been a no-go, Hitler need only bide his time, concentrating on expanding the Navy and finishing what Mussolini started in North Africa.
If Britain had thrown in the towel before Japan and the US finally butted heads in the Pacific, there'd be less political support for making an alliance of convenience with the Soviet Union, which could butterfly away Pearl Harbour when the Japanese scented easier prey in the East. And even if Roosevelt managed to scrounge up political support for taking on the Axis without the smoking gun of Pearl, what could the US do to threaten the Third Reich without British forward bases?

Zaune wrote:Hitler also seems to have been banking on only having to fight on one Front at once. The non-aggression pact with Russia was due to run out in 1944, which should have been plenty of time to secure the Reich's western flank if he'd stuck to the plan. Even if Sealion had still been a no-go, Hitler need only bide his time, concentrating on expanding the Navy and finishing what Mussolini started in North Africa.
If Britain had thrown in the towel before Japan and the US finally butted heads in the Pacific, there'd be less political support for making an alliance of convenience with the Soviet Union, which could butterfly away Pearl Harbour when the Japanese scented easier prey in the East. And even if Roosevelt managed to scrounge up political support for taking on the Axis without the smoking gun of Pearl, what could the US do to threaten the Third Reich without British forward bases?

B-36 bombers with nuclear weapons, assuming that war does happen after all those historical changes and the Third Reich doesn't go bankrupt due to its absurd wartime expenditures.

Pelranius wrote:B-36 bombers with nuclear weapons, assuming that war does happen after all those historical changes and the Third Reich doesn't go bankrupt due to its absurd wartime expenditures.

Roosevelt would really struggle to get popular support for that when the only people Hitler was really interested in waging war on were communists, though if the Final Solution had gone down the same way then there would have been a leak sooner or later.
And he had the whole Soviet economy to suborn in order to pay for everything if the gamble paid off, to say nothing of what he'd already grabbed in continental Europe. Perhaps his reasoning was that it'd all be alright so long as he won.

lance wrote:I think both of them were hoping to knock their opponents out fast before it became an issue. Which is pretty idiotic to say the least.

I have to see if I can find the source but I recall reading at least one history that suggested that in fact German strategy - or more accurately Hitler's strategy - was in fact just what you describe: quick wars reliant on the heaviest possible use of mechanization and maneuver warfare to conclude hostilities favorably before unbearable economic costs could accumulate.

Since Hitler was at least as good an economist as he was a military strategist I don't actually have much trouble believing he may have thought that way.

Exactly, the Third Reich's entire military strategy was for quick wars one after another. Looking at the build of the Wehrmacht, you can see that it was built for multiple quick decisive wars, not long wars of attrition. Hitler may have been a simple demagogue, but the German military was competent and had more than learned that Germany could not win wars of attrition, so they played to their strengths. No doubt the plan was that by the time Baku had fallen so would have Moscow, and the war would (hopefully) be over. Thus, they could take their time in building the infrastructure in question.

Not to mention, Hitler's timescale was massively pushed ahead of schedule. I can't offer a source, but if iirc the Nazi war plan was hoping for a war starting in 1944~45. It was expected that the UK and France would react the same to Poland as it had to Czechslovakia, Austria and the Rhineland. Basically, once war broke out Germany was pulling one long Indy Ploy using bits and pieces of previous plans. So, in all honesty it's no surprise half of the things they did seemed a bit haphazard.

ChrisWWII wrote:Not to mention, Hitler's timescale was massively pushed ahead of schedule. I can't offer a source, but if iirc the Nazi war plan was hoping for a war starting in 1944~45. It was expected that the UK and France would react the same to Poland as it had to Czechslovakia, Austria and the Rhineland. Basically, once war broke out Germany was pulling one long Indy Ploy using bits and pieces of previous plans. So, in all honesty it's no surprise half of the things they did seemed a bit haphazard.

Don't have it quite to hand but I have a rather large tome tiltled something appropriate like "History of the Wehrmacht" from post ww1 to 1945 and it has some accounts from the German Staff detailing that any offensive operations would kick off post 1944 at the earliest. I think it was mid thirties that the plan was to have Land forces scheduled to be "fully mechanised" by 45, navy to have some of it's shiny new battle fleet by 44 and the rest by 46 or so, air force to have introduced it's heavy bomber (if they could ever agree on what they meant by heavy) and field next generation replacements for the Bf109 and Me110 by 41-42. They also hoped to have fielded some first generation aircraft utilising this new fangled rocket and jet technology around then.

But then 1939 came round and all the priorities changed.

On the other hand, if the invasion began in 1941-42, the Red Army should have completed a series of reforms and become an even stronger opponent.

However, I question whether Germany could sustain such a long build up. Can Germany possibly do so?

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:On the other hand, if the invasion began in 1941-42, the Red Army should have completed a series of reforms and become an even stronger opponent.

The main problem with the Red Army is if they mobilize their superior manpower reserves before the Germans invade. Historically, the Germans managed to attack the USSR before they could fully mobilize their armed forces. Once the Red Army reached it's fully mobilized size (with it did in late 1942) it becomes nearly impossible for Germany to turn the tide.

However, I question whether Germany could sustain such a long build up. Can Germany possibly do so?

Of course. They just have to spend 20% of their GDP on the military for a few more years. The USSR maintained a military "buildup" for 50 years in the cold war pouring 20% of the GDP into the armed forces (ihn 1989, the russian part of the ussr spent 23.4% of their GDP into the military: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... l=en&dl=en).

The main problem in the nazi military buildup was that they maintained an artificially valued currency, with meant that the reserves of foreign media were drying by 1939. This could be corrected by currency devaluation.

The main problem with the Red Army is if they mobilize their superior manpower reserves before the Germans invade. Historically, the Germans managed to attack the USSR before they could fully mobilize their armed forces. Once the Red Army reached it's fully mobilized size (with it did in late 1942) it becomes nearly impossible for Germany to turn the tide.

Umm...you realize that they would not have mobilized like that in peacetime? Unless they would have expected a german invasion, which seems unlikely given Stalins original expectations (unless you can show that those would have changed by 1942).

Of course. They just have to spend 20% of their GDP on the military for a few more years. The USSR maintained a military "buildup" for 50 years in the cold war pouring 20% of the GDP into the armed forces (ihn 1989, the russian part of the ussr spent 23.4% of their GDP into the military: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... l=en&dl=en).

The main problem in the nazi military buildup was that they maintained an artificially valued currency, with meant that the reserves of foreign media were drying by 1939. This could be corrected by currency devaluation.

And those are comparable HOW exactly?
First of all, Germany was heavily reliant on imports in raw materials, the USSR wasn't (well, from outside the eastern block anyway). That alone gives them much more freedom to spend much more money, simply because they have more available. And no, currency devaluation does not change that problem.

Iosef Cross wrote:Of course. They just have to spend 20% of their GDP on the military for a few more years. The USSR maintained a military "buildup" for 50 years in the cold war pouring 20% of the GDP into the armed forces (ihn 1989, the russian part of the ussr spent 23.4% of their GDP into the military: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... l=en&dl=en).

The "Russian part of the USSR", meaning RSFSR? *shrugs* But for the entire USSR, whose economy was quite bigger than that of the RSFSR alone, the numbers were hardly that high. The numbers have been declassified and they were around 8,16% of GDP and 16,4% of the budget in 1985, in 1986 - 8,4% of GDP and 16,2% of the state budget.

Soviet GDP (1985) 777 billion RUB
Soviet GDP (1986) 798 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1985) 63,4 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1986) 67,7 billion RUB

"Soviet War Might from Stalin to Gorbachev". - M.: Voenniy Parad, 1999. - p.223

So no. You don't spend 20% of your GDP in peacetime, unless you're DPRK, perhaps.

Stas Bush wrote:Soviet GDP (1985) 777 billion RUB
Soviet GDP (1986) 798 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1985) 63,4 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1986) 67,7 billion RUB

"Soviet War Might from Stalin to Gorbachev". - M.: Voenniy Parad, 1999. - p.223

So no. You don't spend 20% of your GDP in peacetime, unless you're DPRK, perhaps.

The world bank must have divided total military expenditures of the USSR by the GDP of Russia, so they got the 23.4% and 19.1% for 1989 and 1990. However, total military expenditures in 1989 and 1990 were probably a greater proportion of GDP than in 1985-86, due to increased American pressure, perhaps 11-12%.

Serafina wrote:

The main problem with the Red Army is if they mobilize their superior manpower reserves before the Germans invade. Historically, the Germans managed to attack the USSR before they could fully mobilize their armed forces. Once the Red Army reached it's fully mobilized size (with it did in late 1942) it becomes nearly impossible for Germany to turn the tide.

Umm...you realize that they would not have mobilized like that in peacetime? Unless they would have expected a german invasion, which seems unlikely given Stalins original expectations (unless you can show that those would have changed by 1942).

They probably knew that the Germans would attack them sometime.

Of course. They just have to spend 20% of their GDP on the military for a few more years. The USSR maintained a military "buildup" for 50 years in the cold war pouring 20% of the GDP into the armed forces (ihn 1989, the russian part of the ussr spent 23.4% of their GDP into the military: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explor ... l=en&dl=en).

The main problem in the nazi military buildup was that they maintained an artificially valued currency, with meant that the reserves of foreign media were drying by 1939. This could be corrected by currency devaluation.

And those are comparable HOW exactly?

That shows that a country can maintain very high military expenditures in proportion to GDP for long periods of time. In theory, you only need resources to eat and to replace depreciated capital, while you can spend the rest on the military. German GDP per capita in 1938 was 13 times minimum subsistence level and usually 10% of GDP is necessary to replace depreciated capital.

So, in the limit Germany could spend 83% of their GDP in the military for as much time as they liked, the 17% not spend in the military would be the minimum needed to keep the population alive and the infrastructure and machinery in good conditions. Historically, they never reached the 83% theoretical limit, not even in 1943-44.

First of all, Germany was heavily reliant on imports in raw materials, the USSR wasn't (well, from outside the eastern block anyway). That alone gives them much more freedom to spend much more money, simply because they have more available. And no, currency devaluation does not change that problem.

It is incorrect that Germany's dependence on imported raw materials change the proportion of GDP that they can spend in the military. The degree of dependence on international trade is not relevant for the determination of the theoretical maximum military expenditures. That's because if you spend 80% of the GDP in the military that can also mean that you are producing consumer goods and exporting them in exchange for weapons or raw materials for the production of weapons.

For example, take an economy with a per capita income 10 times minimum subsistence. This economy will spend 10% of GDP on food, 10% on capital maintenance and 80% on the military. Let's assume that this country doesn't have good farmland and no natural resources. They need to import raw materials and food. So they will export manufactured goods and import food and raw materials. The proportion of GDP that these exporting activities would need would be the same as the proportion of expenditures on food and raw materials. Hence, if 80% of the GDP into the military needs 20% of the GDP in terms of raw materials for the ordinance industry, them 20% of the country's production would be exported in exchange of these raw materials for the munitions industry. And 10% would be exported for exchange of food. This 30% of GDP to be exported can be, in principle, anything, but they will count as expenditure on food and raw materials.

The Germans had balance of payment problems before WW2, these problems are called by laymen as "running out of money". What happened was the following:

In the early 30's Germany had a exchange rate with the dollar of 0.4 dollars per mark. The Nazis froze the exchange rate when they took power and proceeded to increase the money supply (in marks). As result, prices in Germany rose, while prices in the rest of the world stayed the same.

That meant that goods became cheaper in the rest of the world in relation to the Germans. The mark became overvalued and as result people started buying goods in the rest of the world and selling these goods in Germany, since their prices were higher there. As result, the quantity imported rose in relation to the quantity exported.

When a good is imported you need to pay for the good using international media of exchange (i.e. historically, gold or dollars) and hence you trade your marks for gold/dollars. The increase in imports meant that the demand for dollars in exchange of marks increased. As result, people were selling marks for dollars and demand for dollars increased to a greater degree than supply. That mean that the dollar reserves of the central bank (or the monetary authority in charge) decreased and that by 1939, Germany's reserver had almost dried out.

That's what people usually mean when they say that Germany was out of money in 1939. The correct remedy for this problem would be to let the mark float and let it lose value. As result, prices in Germany will equilibrate with the rest of the world and the liquidation of reserves of the central monetary authority will stop: Germany's reserves will stabilize.

Iosef Cross wrote:They probably knew that the Germans would attack them sometime.

Citation requested.

That shows that a country can maintain very high military expenditures in proportion to GDP for long periods of time. In theory, you only need resources to eat and to replace depreciated capital, while you can spend the rest on the military. German GDP per capita in 1938 was 13 times minimum subsistence level and usually 10% of GDP is necessary to replace depreciated capital.

Usually... how do you base that estimate? For example, it may be that the percentage of GDP needed to replace depreciated capital is variable, in that it increases the longer issues like maintenance are neglected. Moreover, a society on starvation rations isn't going to be effective at producing and supplying troops; such measures are desperation moves for a reason. The longer it goes on, the more the population weakens (both in physical and morale terms), the more items not obviously critical to the war effort get neglected with negative consequences later on, and so forth.

On top of that, your figure of 83% ignores the existence of things in Germany that cannot be used for war production of any sort: factories that produce musical instruments which are valuable for the civilian economy but not useful in wartime, for instance. In a full mobilization such factories are closed and the labor and resources that fuel them are sent elsewhere. But that can result in a net reduction of GDP.

And even beyond that, doing anything of the sort means utterly gutting future economic growth: if you convert all your locomotive factories to build tanks, soon you will have many tanks, but no trains to move them around the country with. Even if you build enough locomotives to replace ones lost to wear and tear, you will still fall behind powers that kept building locomotives, as your maximum GDP declines in relative terms if not absolute terms.

Ultimately the population will simply overthrow the rulers, or one faction of the rulers will overthrow another, and that's a major limit on this kind of mobilization, and on the kind of very simple arithmetic-only economic model you use in general. Such models do NOT cover what happens when the peasants storm the Bastille in response to rises in the price of bread, rather than merely working more hours to compensate.

First of all, Germany was heavily reliant on imports in raw materials, the USSR wasn't (well, from outside the eastern block anyway). That alone gives them much more freedom to spend much more money, simply because they have more available. And no, currency devaluation does not change that problem.

It is incorrect that Germany's dependence on imported raw materials change the proportion of GDP that they can spend in the military. The degree of dependence on international trade is not relevant for the determination of the theoretical maximum military expenditures. That's because if you spend 80% of the GDP in the military that can also mean that you are producing consumer goods and exporting them in exchange for weapons or raw materials for the production of weapons.

Which in turn relies on having people willing to sell you weapons, and being willing to accept that your supply of ammunition and spare parts for the weapons will be cut off in time of war. Neither of those is guaranteed: 1935 Germany, for instance, could NOT count on either of those. They could not manufacture goods to ship to Britain in exchange for guns, because the British wouldn't sell and even if they did, those guns would rapidly become useless in wartime without British-made ammunition and British-made spares.

You cannot expect other countries to knowingly fuel the military buildup you intend to use to crush them.

Iosef Cross wrote:

Stas Bush wrote:Soviet GDP (1985) 777 billion RUB
Soviet GDP (1986) 798 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1985) 63,4 billion RUB
Military expenditures (1986) 67,7 billion RUB

"Soviet War Might from Stalin to Gorbachev". - M.: Voenniy Parad, 1999. - p.223

So no. You don't spend 20% of your GDP in peacetime, unless you're DPRK, perhaps.

The world bank must have divided total military expenditures of the USSR by the GDP of Russia, so they got the 23.4% and 19.1% for 1989 and 1990. However, total military expenditures in 1989 and 1990 were probably a greater proportion of GDP than in 1985-86, due to increased American pressure, perhaps 11-12%.

The expenditure was 71 billion roubles in 1990, staying at roughly 8,5% percent of GDP. Dividing it by Russian GDP alone is a most egregious error. The RSFSR took about 60% of that budget, not 100%. Ukrainian SSR took around 17%, and others took care of the rest.