It would have kept things easier on the supply system, or was the issue one of mine is better than yours?
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By and large the axis did not have unified structures. Units might serve under some other power but they still typically retained their own equipment. There was no equivalent to âarsenal of democracyâ either. As to the rest Germany was scraping the bottom of the barrel just to equip its own troops. And even then had to use to plenty of captured equipment or equipment produced at captured/subordinate factories just to make do.
It would likely have been far better for the Axis supply system in general had they had a unified supply structures but that was not the case. But as the situation was what it was even the Germans had to choose between having more units with mixed set of equipment or less units with unified equipment. With the system setup as it was there wasnât really any chance to have unified equipment across the various forces.
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Was this an issue of factory capacity or material shortages? For instance, if the Axis had made the Med into an Axis lake and could deploy blockade runners from French West Africa and the Red Sea ports of Egypt, Sudan, and Italian East Africa, could they have gotten enough material to do do some level of Arsenal of Nazism?
Iâm not personally quite sure but there are several books on the topic - like Adam Toozeâs âThe Wages of Destructionâ. It is quite clear however that Germany was under severe oil shortage all the time and imported materials like rubber would also have been hard to come by while at the same time Germany had plenty of coal and iron (steel). Regardless the Germans seem (feel free to correct me here) to have had factories running all the time with the factory capacity and lack of full war policy on domestic front being the two large limiting factors. But as is fairly obvious from the above it depended on what exactly was being discussed.
As to the last part⌠Could they, maybe. But perhaps the more important question is âwould theyâ. The Nazis had an interest in making sure that they were the top dog. They would likely have been willing to sell some material for profit (like they did during the WW II) but not given it up for free. But as I said above Iâm not too familiar with this particular topic.
OK, well you seem to know less than I do, so let me spitball things. I have read Toozeâs book, and like most works of both economics and history, it completely lacks imagination. I donât know if itâs other universities forcing EH Carrâs wretched historiography on others as was done to me, but this issue of material versus capacity is never addressed. Nor workarounds for the mass starvation in eastern Europe, given the Russians spontaneously averted having 10-20 million starving to death due to disruptions.
Counterfactuals arenât respectable in academia, which is why I despised it even when I was in college 20 years ago.
Truth is the Germans had more or less enough iron for wartime production. Problem is, mass mobilization by its nature guts productivity as skilled non-skilled workers are drafted into the army. Makeup by less skilled and non-German speaking Slavs from the east do not make up the shortfall. Full mobilization wasnât done until 1944, cause it took 18 months to get from the Stalingrad Speech to full mobilization. Up till then, Hitler was afraid of hyperinflation cycles, the kind that ousted the Kaiser.
I think they would do an arsenal, at least with Hertzers and STUGs as those were cheap. Also if the Germans had control of the Middle East oil fields, even just Iraq youâre gonna see a LOT more AFVs because they can actually field them and youâre gonna free up a lot of production for them instead of AT guns. Youâre probably not gonna see the massive heavy tanks, maybe more panthers, mostly STUGs cause bang for the fuel buck wonât be so critical.
As to artillery, I donât know, except thatâŚand I cannot think of the source that there was an 88mm AP round that required a LOT of tungsten that could chew through anything including IS-3s. But there wasnât nearly enough tungsten to justify a mass production run.
Note I think itâs here:
Oh yes, itâs called an AP-40 round:
https://www.tanks.net/anti-tank-weapons/germany-armorpiercingammunition.html
37mm doorknocker goes through 72mm of steel at 220 meters. For reference a Zis-3, a 75mm Soviet version could penetrate 69mm at 500 yards despite being double the caliber.
If thatâs the case you donât even need to export the anti-tank guns, just the ammo, and donate some obsolete door knockers to the Romanians and Hungarians. Is it gonna make them go head to head with Red Guard units? Probably not, but it will bloody the Reds and stall then long enough to get some measure of German response to bail them out.
Zis-3 performance is in
https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=829331
Which I have not read except for the google search result. Cause it really hurts my eyes to read PDF, but it looks fascinating.
Thing is, Axis Minors donât need artillery per se, cause they arenât offensive units. If they can break the tank advance and make the front go as fast as the infantry can walk, theyâre doing their jobs. And to be clear, everything Iâve heard about STUGs is that properly trained could do anything a Panzer IV could do. If the Panzer IV was a 9 on the offensive, the Stug was at least a 7 and seems to have been closer to an 8, at least as described.
I think you misunderstood what i meant. My point was that while for example Americans were interested in the Allied victory the Germans were much less interested in the Axis victory than what they were in the German victory. For example what the Finns found out was that Germans did sell their equipment (not top of the line but still) for profit. StuG IIIs were about 50% more expensive for the Finns than what they were for the Germans. PzKw IVJ were about 100% more expensive and so on. And it wasnât exactly like a lend-lease system.