(III) Typhoon- origins, aims and feasibility

by Luka Bilić

Of three reasons for failure: Soviet resistance, German inadequacies and weather the middle one is arguably the most interesting and obscure.

2.German inadequacies.

Barbarossa failed already in summer mainly because of already overstretched capabilities to project power further east, because of unyielding and even stiffening Soviet resistance and actually already debilitating losses of mechanised forces that by late summer had only a fraction of its former strength left. For example by late July PG 2 had suffered 71 percent drop of total tank strength (total losses plus temporary losses, many of which became only partly functional vehicles or needed protracted time to return to service forming at every moment present large ‘virtual’ strength of panzers hidden under ‘temporary losses’ because of inadequate repair capacities), and of remaining 29% half were Pz IIs. PG 3 in late July had some 60% casualties rate among tank units. Even two months of refitting and receiving significant replacements numbering hundreds of tanks (save for PG2 that had less time refitting and had to move into Ukraine) panzer formations of AGC (PG 2,3 and 4) were still overall below 50% panzer serviceability rate of which 30% were total losses.

Yet certainly most serious hindrance to German efforts weren’t unsustainable losses, gambled carelessly away in expectation of elusive Soviet collapse, but their implacable logistical situation. Even after the war Halder, chief of General Staff and embodiment of contemporary German military leadership and thinking said- ‘the material had to serve the spiritual. Accordingly, our quartermaster service may never hamper the operational concept.’ But while German military leadership demonstrated laughable lack of grasp of some of basic aspects of modern war, reality was pitiless. Logistical problems fall into three crucial categories- railways, trucks and fuel, with former imo as main reason, and two of the letter similar in importance closely following.

Railways.Railways were principal form of transportation in road scarce and vast environment of SU. They above all dictated each side’s potential to project power, move units and basic supplies. In entire 1941 situation with German railway capabilities in SU was miserable. Of course this was felt proportionally more as front lines moved away from German centers of power.

Reasons for such state of railways were multifold. First Reichbahn (German railways) were designed to cover the needs of Germany and addition of three times bigger territory conquered in the east wasn’t something they could transcend, all the improvisations notwithstanding. Contrastly Soviets lost some 40% of railway network but only fraction of rolling stock and locomotives so their transport capacity actually swelled. Germans hoped to capture Soviet rolling stock and locomotives but results were very disappointing. Bulk of it was evacuated before the invaders and only about 8% of locomotives fell in German hands, many of them because they were unserviceable and couldn’t move. Nice example was evacuation of locomotives from Odessa area that were driven onto huge floating dock and towed away into the sea and to safety. What’s more Reichsbahn was plagued, as were many German services, with many overlapping authorities that hindered priority tasks. Next, Soviet territory that Germans captured in the summer were for greatest part border regions and newly acquired territories in 1939-40 period. These areas had by default undeveloped and low capacity railway network, and suddenly they needed to support the effort superseding any peace time needs of even most busy and developed parts of railway system. Soviet main network only begun roughly east of Kiev and Smolensk. To this we must add that Soviet 5 inch rails gauge was different to German one and this had to be adjusted in order for things to work.ut actually gauge was only smaller part of the problem. Soviet locomotives were bigger and had longer range than German ones thus key installations for supporting them were built much further apart then German locomotives could manage. These locomotive depots or sheds provided supplies of coal, water, sand, grease, maintenance, protection from freezing in winter conditions and a turntables to turn locomotives around. Locomotives were operating only within their section of line between two depts, and lines capacity was determined by the capacity of depos and number of locomotives it could service. Building of this kind of installations wasn’t easy and required specialized equipment and workforce that Germans lacked and couldn’t produce out of hat.

Adding to German problems greatly, Soviets knew that the depos, not tracks were the key to railway functionality and thoroughly destroyed them as well as also hard to replace signaling equipment. Later railways were partisan’s prime target as well. As Hoth very insightfully (as usual) observed in August, railway rebuilding services were crucified between the demands of the army to swiftly build simple low capacity lines in order to support developing operations and quartermaster’s requests to thoroughly rebuild infrastructure and equipment in order for him to be able to create a logistical base of forward depots and capacitated railheads behind army groups for further operations beyond already reached limit for large scale operation support (Dnepr-Dvina line).

How did this reflect to situation on the front isn’t hard to imagine and is clear from countless reports from the field. For example during September AGS received minimal number of trains during only 12 days, while on all other days the number was below minimum. While in AGC rear areas less trains were arriving in October(1860) with gigantic offensive underway than in September (2093) even though the September number was already lamentably low. Already in August with lines going only as far as Smolensk Germans were in trouble and supply capacity hardly adequate. Numerous reports from AGC divisions indicated serious lack of fuel and ammunition for even defensive battles against Timoshenko offensive, and Guderian’s drive south even prioritized was constantly plagued with insufficient fuel and supplies, as was visible from his reports. Luckily for the Germans, Soviet resistance in the area was minimal and main Guderian’s problem remained trickling supplies. Actually his entire drive south was maintained by mere dozens of panzers that were in supply. Their pitiful supply situation in August makes German strategic dilemma about Kiev or Moscow totally moot and surprising, but ‘logistics couldn’t be allowed to hinder strategy’- as if children were playing war.. Of course general offensive of AGC plus two entire panzer groups in October would strain these fragile logistical capabilities far beyond breaking point. It was calculated that in second part of September, 27 fuel trains per day would be needed to build up bare minimal reserves for Typhoon. This quota wasn’t fulfilled on even a single day, even 20 were seldom reached. Wagner informed Halder that trains were canceled for variety of reasons from partisan attacks to problems with network capacity but also ominously because of empty fuel reserves depots. In such situation amounts of fuel delivered to AGC were barely adequate to meet day to day requirements and there was no possibility for practically any stockpiling as Kluge (commander of 4th Army and PG4) reported on 13th September. PG 2’s war diary indicates that they received only one third of minimum fuel that was promised. Schweppenburg’s panzer corps reported on the eve of Typhoon that he thinks he won’t be able to reach even his first tactical objective, let alone OKH’s objectives for Typhoon, some 400 km beyond Moscow. 4th panzer division detailed already on 2nd October how short its individual units would fall due to fuel shortage from their first objective (Orel) raging from 20-40 km. Prior to Typhoon, reports of impossibility for ‘far reaching attack’ in words of PG3 were coming from all over, from all panzer groups to Kluge and Strauss, commanders of 4th and 9th army. Problems weren’t only in fuel but also in ammunition and spare parts, not to mention soon needed bulky winter equipment. As it was, munition was adequate for development of forward Soviet fronts (at Vyazma-Bryansk), but no more. They were simply counting on collapse again. Besides the distance, part of the problem was stationary position of the army. While on the move Wehrmacht was like horde of locusts plundering food and whatever they needed from local population, but once stationary, locals couldn’t possibly support such enormous army and large part of ‘build up’ supplies was used for simple day to day sustainment. Later, in early November Guderian was reporting that he was receiving only quarter of promised fuel and that railway bottleneck was the main cause of all shortages