Germany Mass Produces Armored Cars?

Germans Mass Produce Armored Cars

  • Huge Effect

    Votes: 3 7.1%
  • Medium Effect

    Votes: 9 21.4%
  • Low Effect

    Votes: 23 54.8%
  • No Effect

    Votes: 7 16.7%

  • Total voters
    42

marathag

Banned
Germany lacked trucks not AFVs.

Even worse than lacking trucks, what trucks Germany did have were of such diverse manufacture that the logistics of keeping the logistics force itself running were crippling in of themselves.

IIRC the Whermacht commenced operation Babarossa with over 1000 different types of trucks in inventory, and that only got worse as they added captured Soviet stock.

German trucks

Adler
AEG
Afa
Audi
Bergmann
Bergmann-Metallurgique
Bleichert
BMW
Borgward
Brennabor
Breuer
Büssing-NAG
Daimler-Benz
Demag
Deuliewag
Deutz
DKW
Esslingen
Famo
FAUN
Ford
Framo
Freund
Fuchs
Goliath
Hagedorn
Hamor
Hanomag
Hanno
Henschel
Horch
Kaelble
Klöckner-Deutz
Kramer
Kraus-Maffei
Krupp
Lanz
MAN
Manderbach
Maschinenbau Lüneburg
Mercedes-Benz
MIAG
Neander
Normag
NSU
O&K
Opel
Ostner
Phänomen
Primus
Renger
Sachsenberg
Saurer
Schlüter
Stoewer
Talbot
Tempo
Trippel
VW
Vögele
Vomag
Wanderer
Zettelmeyer
Ziel-Abegg
Zündapp

These Austrian

Austro-FIAT
Austro-Daimler
Fross-Büssing
Gräf & Stift
ÖAF
Perl
Saurer
Steyr-Puch

These Czechoslovakian trucks
Jawa
Praga
Skoda
Tatra
Walter

And I haven't made the list of the French trucks yet
 

Driftless

Donor
German trucks


These Austrian


These Czechoslovakian trucks


And I haven't made the list of the French trucks yet

I think the bigger problem was not having enough of one standardized 4x4 or 6x6 design to make the maintenance side of the equation work. Settle on a single relatively simple standard 4x4 - like a Germans equivalent of the CMP's and farm the production out to a cross-section of that long list of manufacturers - then they might have been in better shape.
 
They made a stab at standardisation when mechanising in the inter-war years but then lost shed-loads of equipment during the retreat from France so had to go with what the various factories were set up to produce, plus the manufacturers were somewhat resistant to the idea of producing other company's vehicle. In an ideal world they would of had one vehicle for each of the five weight classes and as many common parts between them as possible, but as has been observed before it's not a perfect world.
So from a position of desperation, they still managed to do better in the field than Germany from a position of victory?

Just as important as oil is the production capacity for specific items. Industrial capacity is not totally fungible - you can't convert equipment used to manufacture submarine hulls into equipment used to make truck chassis or engines very easily.
No, but you can move men and raw materials about a bit, eliminating stoppages in one sector, but exacerbating them in another.
 
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So from a position of desperation, they still managed to do better in the field than Germany from a position of victory?
To be fair they did have something of a head start, IIRC they were one of the largest exporters of motor vehicles in the world by a fair margin in the inter-war years. If they had standardised on models or at least components they likely could have produced even more or an equal amount whilst taking less time/resources.
 
Hang on a sec', not sure if I'm going doolally or not but has GlobalHumanism edited the thread title?
 
For all the hype on armoured cars their use in an armoured battle is more of finding the enemy and occasionally shooting at something they could easily handle like say a platoon of infantry or a few trucks in a convoy . Once this is understood it is easy to see that the vaunted German armoured cars were utterly useless to improve the speed of advance . Now as other posters have said if the mass production of a common chassis vehicle or even common engine parts etc then it would improve matters considerably . Imagine just how many spares you need to run an army with a different engine and suspension etc for just different classes of vehicle . Now imagine your logistical and mechanical needs are for 50 different truck types , your mechanics need to be actual tradesmen and good ones at that , instead of being trained by rote on a single or maybe half dozen engine types . Cannibalising to keep trucks working can also only go so far .

If you went back in time and tried to make the German army better the first task is to find the people responsible for military logistics and bring them together with a piece of camouflage painted 4*2 as hard as possible . Armoured cars great lets have the same engine family in all of them . Half tracks , great lets make them also use the same engine family . Chasis components like suspension , drive shafts gearboxes etc , lets make them all use the same components .


Oh look one of the 30 factories making spare parts for vehicle A was bombed no spare parts for that vehicle will exist for 6 months , yup that's a smart way to run a war .
 
Historians often talk about the relative speed at which the German mechanized forces were able to advance, penetrate and subsequently encircle and pincer enemy forces from all sides.

They also discuss how the bulk of the regular infantry was the opposite, moving slow and steady from the rear.

So what if the German command, wishing to mechanize these forces as well, decides to cut production elsewhere (U-Boat maybe?) and put towards mass producing light and/or heavy armored cars?

Germany was too resource-constrained for any reallocation to make a significant difference. He-177 engines, the Ju-89(?) Ural Bomber, various fantasies about surface warships, fancy U-boats, etc. An early introduction of the MP-44 might have had an impact, but I wouldn't bet on it.
 
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