WW2 Logistics - Did the Axis Even Do the Math?

[Ilya Muromets]

To put that into perspective, Iosef, let's look at the following:


(source: "Table 3.1: outlays by superfunction and function: 1940--2009," in Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 (2004), Washington, pp. 45--52

That's a graph of the US military spending as a percentage of GDP from 1940 to 2003. Now, before you start celebrating the fact that the US spent 37.8% at its peak of wartime spending as "proof" that it's simple to do so, let's compare American and German GDPs throughout the war.

US GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:Based on Table 1 found in Mark Harrison, The USSR and Total War: Why Didn't the Soviet Economy Collapse in 1942? from Mark Harrison, "The Economics of World War II: an Overview," in Mark Harrison, ed., The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge University Press (1998), 10.]
1938 - 800
1939 - 869
1940 - 943
1941 - 1094
1942 - 1235
1943 - 1399
1944 - 1499
1945 - 1474

German GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as above]
1938 - 351
1939 - 384
1940 - 387
1941 - 412
1942 - 417
1943 - 426
1944 - 437
1945 - 310

37.8% of the US's 1499 billion GDP in 1944 is 566.62 billion. That's far greater than the peak of German GDP. Even if, somehow, German could afford to spend 20% of its meager GDP on military equipment, that's just 87.4 billion. How do you propose that spending that amount for the "next few years" would allow them to sustain buildup when it doesn't even come close to the US alone? How can they sustain even close to a constant spending of 20% for years when, at this point, most of their infrastructure has had its ass kicked on both sides, and is still getting kicked again and again?

[Isolder74]

Those figures are rather interesting. I wonder how does Germany fare against just the United Kingdom or France? Was there any single part of the Allies they the Axis could even try to overwhelm economically?

If France didn't get overwhelmed quickly and it did become a protracted war would Germany have been able to keep up the war?

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, to be fair, in terms of GDP Germany had the 2nd highest GDP figures during the war.

French GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 186
1939 - 199
1940 - 184
1941 - 130
1942 - 116
1943 - 110
1944 - 93
1945 - 101

British GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 284
1939 - 287
1940 - 316
1941 - 344
1942 - 353
1943 - 361
1944 - 346
1945 - 331

Soviet GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 359
1939 - 366
1940 - 417
1941 - 359
1942 - 274
1943 - 305
1944 - 362
1945 - 343

However, compare this to the rest of the Axis and it's quite clear that Germany made up the bulk of total Axis GDP.

Austrian GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 24
1939 - 27
1940 - 27
1941 - 29
1942 - 27
1943 - 28
1944 - 29
1945 - 12

Italian GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 141
1939 - 151
1940 - 147
1941 - 144
1942 - 145
1943 - 137
1944 - 117
1945 - 92

And, although the Japanese were pretty much a non-entity in Europe, for the sake of completion, here're the figures for Japan.

Japanese GDP (1938 - 1945) in International Dollars (billions) [source:same as previous post]
1938 - 169
1939 - 184
1940 - 192
1941 - 196
1942 - 197
1943 - 194
1944 - 189
1945 - 144

[Simon_Jester]

Those figures are rather interesting. I wonder how does Germany fare against just the United Kingdom or France? Was there any single part of the Allies they the Axis could even try to overwhelm economically?

If France didn't get overwhelmed quickly and it did become a protracted war would Germany have been able to keep up the war?

Against France alone? Guaranteed win for Germany, in my opinion. Germany had more men along with a bigger economy. Against France and Britain, with no eventual American or Soviet entry?

I am not highly qualified, but at a guess I suspect we'd see a stalemate: the French would be ground down over a few years of protracted warfare at most, and Britain alone could not supply the manpower to invade the continent and overthrow the Germans, period. It's conceivable the Allies would win after a very protracted struggle analogous to the Napoleonic Wars, but I suspect the British would eventually accept Germany's superior position on the continent as a fair accompli and make some kind of peace that preserved an independent France (probably a weak one) and just gone about their business.

Now, a reprise of World War One, with Britain, France, and the USSR all piling on Germany at once... Germany would definitely have lost that one in short order, because the new USSR was much stronger relative to Germany than Czarist Russia had been in World War One, even though France was probably weaker in relative terms.

[Steel]

Against France alone? Guaranteed win for Germany, in my opinion. Germany had more men along with a bigger economy. Against France and Britain, with no eventual American or Soviet entry?

I am not highly qualified, but at a guess I suspect we'd see a stalemate: the French would be ground down over a few years of protracted warfare at most, and Britain alone could not supply the manpower to invade the continent and overthrow the Germans, period.

What on earth are you talking about? How is the situation posed any different from actual history over the relevant time period? How does the fact that the US/USSR are never going to enter the war somehow make France able to hold out for years, as opposed to in reality when they also had no support from the US/USSR and were defeated about as fast as it was physically possible to drive a tank cross country to Paris?

[Simon_Jester]

Against France alone? Guaranteed win for Germany, in my opinion. Germany had more men along with a bigger economy. Against France and Britain, with no eventual American or Soviet entry?

I am not highly qualified, but at a guess I suspect we'd see a stalemate: the French would be ground down over a few years of protracted warfare at most, and Britain alone could not supply the manpower to invade the continent and overthrow the Germans, period.

What on earth are you talking about? How is the situation posed any different from actual history over the relevant time period? How does the fact that the US/USSR are never going to enter the war somehow make France able to hold out for years, as opposed to in reality when they also had no support from the US/USSR and were defeated about as fast as it was physically possible to drive a tank cross country to Paris?

Because there was an element of luck in the rapid overthrow of France. Isolder's question started "If France didn't get overwhelmed quickly..."

If the Germans hadn't been able to punch a panzer column through a gap in the French lines, if they had instead thrown the bulk of the panzer forces at the heavily armed forces who were planning to defend in Belgium against a repeat of the von Schlieffen Plan only with mechanized forces... the French might have held out longer. I do not know how long. I cannot possibly imagine them holding out more than a few years, even with every possible break in their favor.

More realistically, they won't last a few years. But if France didn't get overwhelmed quickly by the Ardennes Offensive, they would have lasted more than six weeks, almost inevitably.

[LaCroix]

I cannot see how a clash at the Ardennes would have changed the outcome of the war so much that France would not have fallen quicker than it would take for Britain to even properly mobilize their war engine. I doubt that it would have resulted in delay of the fall for more than a week or two. Back then, the Royal Air Force was unable to disrupt the Maas river crossing, and the first counterattack near Montcornet had to be ended due to German air superiority.

If there had been a "Big clash at the Ardennes(tm)", the resulting loss of such a huge force would probably have destabilized the defense even more, and the Dunkirk escape would never have happened. As far as I am informed, one problem of Germany in the french war was that the advance went too fast, and they had problems supplying their armies as they rushed along.
Germany was for all accounts unstoppable in this attack. (They outnumbered the french in every arm by about 3:1, and were tactically and technologically superior)

The inevitable defeat of a big french army at the Ardennes and the slightly slower advance of German troops would probably have resulted in a more coordinated attack on the trapped forces in Dunkirk. The loss of the British Expedition Corps at Ardennes Clash(tm) and Dunkirk would pose a serious loss of experienced manpower for the British and make an invasion by Britain impossible.

With US/USSR turning a blind eye, I think that the war in Africa would have turned out different as well. With France's resources in German hand, and no support by the US, I doubt that Britain would have won an aerial war of attrition with Germany. Germany concentrating it's naval forces on Britain would also have changed the war significantly, I think. Without US/USSR in the game, Britain would accept a peace offer rather quickly, as it would be the best they could hope for.

[Thanas]

No more speculation about alternate history, especially because such considerations have been posted in the past before. No need to repeat them.

[Simon_Jester]

Very well, though I'm having trouble locating examples of such; do you happen to recall roughly when and where, or any prominent words that came up so that I can use them as search terms? "Ardennes" doesn't seem to cut it.

[thejester]

If there had been a "Big clash at the Ardennes(tm)", the resulting loss of such a huge force would probably have destabilized the defense even more, and the Dunkirk escape would never have happened. As far as I am informed, one problem of Germany in the french war was that the advance went too fast, and they had problems supplying their armies as they rushed along.
Germany was for all accounts unstoppable in this attack. (They outnumbered the french in every arm by about 3:1, and were tactically and technologically superior)

No, they didn't. The French Army had a lot of problems in 1940 - arguably so many that victory in the long run was impossible - but it still had enough military power to beat a Wehrmacht that also had plenty of deficiencies. The bigger problem for the Germans with a 'big clash in the Ardennes' is that the whole point of the sickle cut was to draw the best units of the French Army into the Low Countries and then cut them off. For any big clash to occur a sizeable proportion of those units would have to be in the Ardennes, rendering the whole strategic objective irrelevant even if a tactical victory is achieved. Note that that is a big if, French doctrine essentially boiled down to 'fire kills' and that was reflected in their top line units; a head-on clash does, to an extent, favour French strengths. Moreover on at least once occasion when French and German armoured tangled at divisional level it ended badly for the panzers. Either way no sickle cut, no Dunkirk, and almost certainly no fall of France in 1940.*

*One of the biggest strategic problems facing France was the concentration of resources, industry and population in the north...fighting on French soil between 1914-18 was disastrous economically and demographically. French strategy was geared toward not allowing that to happen again (one of the reasons the sickle cut worked) and if it did - as potentially could happen in this scenario - then defeat might be inevitable. But not straight away.

And sorry Thanas for continuing the speculation.

[Thanas]

*sigh*

That will teach me to ask nicely in the future.