War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 (51 page)

The Russians, with space to react, were given time to learn. They had already noted the difficulty of matching the infantry pace to Panzers. Night defence was invariably poor, as also the reaction of motorised and Panzer elements to unexpected attacks, especially when they were resting on roads or in villages. These had ‘weakly defended outposts that can be easily overwhelmed during the attack’, the report read. It was deduced that wide-ranging night attacks to harass the Germans, by destroying material and inflicting casualties, was likely to have considerable impact. But German officers arrogantly surmised they held the tactical edge. Generalmajor Nehring, commanding the 18th Panzer Division, calculated from an examination of captured staff maps that he would require a 15-day logistic capability to sustain the forthcoming attack.
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This would suffice to reach Moscow, or just short of it, when a further decision dependent on the situation would be necessary. Estimates of Russian strength had been 171 divisions prior to the campaign, which was revised to 200 shortly after and then to 360 divisions within six weeks.
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Surprise had been mutual.

The effectiveness of surprise was diluted over time. New factors started to emerge. Halder foresaw the approaching dilemma as early as 11 August:

‘The time factor favours them, as they are near their own resources, while we are moving farther and farther from ours. And so our troops, sprawled over an immense front line, without any depth, are subjected to the incessant attacks of the enemy. Sometimes these are successful, because too many gaps must be left in these enormous spaces.’
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In mid-September he wrote to his wife that ‘the shame of it is that time is frittering away, and time is the stuff of victory.’
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Time, distance and the unexpected ferocity of resistance had a cumulative impact upon the
Ostheer.
Commanders retained confidence because the Wehrmacht had yet to lose a battle during this war. Two factors, however, interacted in reducing the qualitative impact of a barely sufficient attack-to-defence ratio. They were faltering logistics and an army that was, in its own words, ‘victoring itself to death’
(Totsiegen).
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The original ‘Barbarossa’ concept surmised that the Russian field armies would have to be defeated in western Russia, within 500km of the border, to realise the plan. OKH calculated that the distance from the frontier to Smolensk should be covered in one mighty leap, followed by a pause, during which time the rail network would be extended to catch up. Covering the resupply gap, meanwhile, would necessitate a balance of tracks, wheels and rail transport. The reality was that tracks – the Panzers – rapidly outstripped the marching armies which were reliant upon horse-drawn transport.

Logistics was based upon the army’s
Grosstransportraum
(lorry carrying capacity), which was truck columns supplying the 33 ‘fast’ divisions and their supporting troops and headquarters. There were 144 divisions to be supplied in total. The sanguine expectation was that the 300km drive to Smolensk could be covered by a six-day 600km round-trip by lorries, including loading and unloading. Each division would receive only 70 tons per day through this method, of which well over one-third would consist of rations. Concentrating only on the ‘fast’ divisions would denude the remaining 111 divisions. ‘Fast’ divisions encircled the pockets, but the slower divisions still required substantial logistic support to reduce them. Potential for problems existed even before the 300km intermediate Smolensk objective was reached. The 500km line (from the frontier) beyond it represented a form of intangible ‘tripwire’ that would snag any offensive and cause it to falter. At worst case it might collapse. German field-post letters home had already frequently alluded to shortages of equipment, food and manpower replacements at the front.

A fundamental tenet creating a 500km logistic check was the technological inferiority of lorried transport compared to rail in 1941. The French Blitzkrieg, despite the convincing perception given by newsreels of powerful motorised German columns portrayed in the propaganda film
Sieg im Westen
(Victory in the West), was not reality. Indeed, the earlier campaigns had irretrievably damaged the motorised lorry fleet, now reliant upon captured stocks. Even if these fleets had existed, they would have been inferior to rail. No fewer than 1,600 lorries were needed to equal the capacity of one double-track railway line over the 500km distance. Motorised transport further devoured material in its own right, requiring fuel, drivers and personnel, spare parts and maintenance. Consumption relative to the payload carried placed railways in the ascendancy as the most efficient primary carrier at distances in excess of 320km. Lorry columns were a tactical rather than strategic asset.

Some 40% of Wehrmacht divisions were equipped with captured French motorised vehicles at the outset of ‘Barbarossa’.
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Panzer division reorganisations prior to the campaign created more units from virtually the same number of tanks, forming 19 Panzer divisions from nine. The creation of the additional ‘fast’ divisions resulted in a corresponding demotorisation of units and services in infantry divisions, which had meanwhile expanded from 120 to 180. The newly created motorised units were experiencing enormous difficulties by late summer, due to wear and tear.

Technical transport reports from the SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ (LSSAH) offer an instructive snap-shot of the problems experienced by a relatively well equipped motorised unit. The LSSAH started the eastern campaign with an inventory of 3,403 vehicles, 240 of which were captured. Many of the same vehicles had already been used for campaigns in Austria, the Sudetenland and Bohemia-Moravia, and most of them had been employed in Poland, France, Greece and the Balkans, and now Russia. No regular or complete refurbishment of vehicles occurred between the French and Balkan campaigns before ‘Barbarossa’. OKH simply ruled that fairly worn parts – those with an assessed 5,000km of life – were to be reinstalled. By the autumn most vehicles had averaged 8,000km and supply and special-duty variants had surpassed 12,000km. Fine dust on all roads caused numerous break-downs. There were no new filters to remedy the situation, so cylinders and pistons wore out early. Reliance on low-grade oils caused piston-rod failures requiring a complete overhaul to repair damage. Shortage of spare parts resulted in ‘junking’ otherwise repairable vehicles, which were cannibalised to keep the remainder of the fleet moving. By 10 October the Motor Transport Officer was predicting catastrophic fall-out rates: 493 vehicles had broken down, 160 were immobilised awaiting spare parts and, he assessed, 250 more vehicles would likely break down within the next 500km.
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This was the situation on the eve of the final German offensive at the end of the year.

The IIIrd Panzer Corps, part of Generaloberst von Kleist’s Panzergruppe 1, reported only 142 of 338 Panzers available for action on 17 October, and 3,100 of a total of 4,300 vehicles in running order. The report complained, ‘the vast majority of vehicles are worn out’. By the time the corps reached Dnepropetrovsk:

‘Units had clearly reached the high point of their technical performance capacity. Instead of refurbishment, patching took place! Five hundred kilometres have been added in the meantime, not counting the trips on the battlefield and the rides back for supplies.’
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German advance routes and Russian avenues of retreat were carefully combed for usable parts from wrecked trucks. The LSSAH Division Engineer claimed only 50% of his motor transport fleet was fully serviceable at the end of August. Search groups seeking vehicle parts actually fought engagements with their Soviet counterparts for possession of burned-out vehicles.
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The
Ostheer’s
motor-vehicle fleet was experiencing serious difficulties. Only 1,000 trucks were allocated to Wehrmacht land forces each quarter to make up losses. This was insufficient to replace those lost through normal wear and tear, never mind enemy action. Fuel was in short supply, and could not be procured as in France by filling up at civilian petrol stations. Russian petrol had a high octane content and could only be used in German vehicles after the addition of benzol, mixed at specially constructed installations. Provision of spare parts was critical. German units in Russia used no fewer than 2,000 different vehicle types. Army Group Centre, the
Schwerpunkt
for the coming offensive, needed over one million spare parts to support it.
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The Eastern Army lacked homogeneity because its motor vehicles were concentrated within a small number of units. Priority was given to these ‘fast’ Panzer and motorised divisions for breakthrough and exploitation. Infantry forces normally opened the attack paving the way for Panzer break-ins following along afterwards to subjugate enemy units encircled by the fast forces. Ironically this required 75 infantry divisions to be issued 200
Panje
horse-drawn carts to supplement their
Grosstransportraum.
Fast units were checked at about 500km from their start point due to the requirement for lorries to return empty to reload. They had also to carry their own fuel. On average they were driving 2km (because of the need to manoeuvre tactically) for every kilometre of enemy territory conquered.

Technical problems were exacerbated by the absence of metalled roads. Few were anticipated, and these were expected to be low-grade. The reality was even worse, as the small number of metalled roads became degraded within three days of the campaign start, through the volume and pressure of traffic. Heavy rain transformed them into quagmires, and deep sand and dust pushed fuel expenditure up by 30% in dry weather. Raids by groups of cut-off Russians also exacted a considerable toll. Losses were approaching 25% within 19 days of the invasion, rising to one-third within Army Group Centre alone a week later.
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Columns of marching infantry moving up to relieve the Panzers complicated the problem by bringing resupply convoys to a complete standstill. Junkers Ju52 transport airlifts of petrol had to be substituted within 48 hours of the beginning of the campaign to keep Panzer spearheads moving.

Some of the reality of these statistics is revealed through the diary of a German driver with a transport unit at the end of September. He was often away from his company for three to four days at a time. His 6-ton (French) Renault ‘was very good up to a point,’ he wrote, ‘but not for these roads’. Accidents were common. He carried rations, petrol or ammunition as cargo. On one occasion:

‘… transporting munitions we were under fire all day, from 05.00 until 19.00. It was a real “pleasure” with whistling bullets and exploding shells. One man was killed and eight wounded in our ammunition column, but our “blue-eyed [ie lucky] boys” got through.’

Mud and the danger were all pervasive. ‘It is forbidden to drive at night,’ he explained, ‘because there are too many ambushes.’
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Driving conditions were harsh. Kanonier Mutterlose, serving with the SS ‘Leibstandarte’s 2nd Artillery Regiment, complained:

‘What did I know of our front situation? We sat in our vehicles shrouded in clouds of dust with parched throats and dry lips. We strove to look far ahead because the countryside was as flat as a table. Nothing interrupted the eye.’

Driving by night, in columns, was even worse. Mutterlose noticed the driver:

‘… was having a bad time of it now. His primary concern was the vehicle ahead of us, whose tail-lights were not functioning. Hans sat far forward hunched over the steering wheel, his eyes drilling through the darkness. Sometimes we could not see a thing because of all the dust, other times there was just a silhouette of the vehicle in front.’

Mutterlose clambered onto the running board and attempted to remedy the problem by steering the driver through signals and shouts. The inevitable happened. ‘Suddenly, I noticed the vehicle ahead of us had stopped.’ He screamed ‘Halt!’ but it was too late. As the lorry skidded into the one in front, Mutterlose was catapulted into the road. ‘In the silence that followed I could only hear the trickle of radiator water running out into the dirt.’ This ominous sound was the precursor of the driver’s nightmare: to be left behind alone by the road. The SS column drove by, guided around the crippled truck by flashing torch-light. A long lonely vulnerable night followed until they received a tow into a nearby village for repair. They were promptly ambushed by a group of cutoff Russian soldiers. The truck was blazing furiously by the time they were rescued by another German unit, which had also detoured to resolve its repair problems.
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