What are people buying?

[goat major]

winter war not Winter War

Sorry dad. I’ll go sit in the corner and quietly chastise myself

I was answering Fred .... and supporting you...

[Jeremy]

Russia is indeed a place. However I think time also works in terms of what I’m trying to say.

[Jeremy]

winter war not Winter War

Sorry dad. I’ll go sit in the corner and quietly chastise myself

I was answering Fred .... and supporting you...

[Norman D. Landings]

Sustained full-auto keeps everybody warm.

[Buff Orpington]

I had something insightful to say as I reached the bottom of the last page but it's gone now.

Welcome to your future.

[Buff Orpington]

Oh yes

Don't you mean, Russia was not the only place German troops failed to be issued enough winter gear....

So Bulge then?

How could a military machine so efficient that it could manage to design seasonal variations of different cammo schemes fail to get such simple stuff right? Possibly because the allies were bombing the shit out of their logistics train and no-one had the balls to tell the High Command to stick to the simple stuff.

[Jeremy]

That’s one of the great problems they had. Guns like the MG34 and MG42 cost far more and took far longer to manufacture than guns like the Bren. The tanks were similar, far more complex and all requiring different components to the allied tanks which were simpler and often utilized the same components to other vehicles.

[FreddBloggs]

Because the german military machine was so inefficient that it made british leyland look organised. One of the reasons germany lost both wars was that they were slow to adopt a war footing on the home front. This led to supply issues on basic things, add in to that massively underblown estimates of time to do things and you have the perfect storm.

Suddenly discover you need a million greatcoats, and capacity to make 25,000 equals a bad winter in russia.

[FreddBloggs]

That’s one of the great problems they had. Guns like the MG34 and MG42 cost far more and took far longer to manufacture than guns like the Bren. The tanks were similar, far more complex and all requiring different components to the allied tanks which were simpler and often utilized the same components to other vehicles.

The Luftwaffe was classic for this, the variety of planes built, some good, some not, but it meant they never had excess of the ones they really needed. Add in the politics of adolf or goring liking a plane meant it had to be built and operated even if it was a dog (me210). The allies had a more cut throat approach of standardising.

One of the reasons the Battle of Britain was won, was that every RAF man who crashed or parachuted down but was unhurt had another plane to step into.

[Jeremy]

There’s also a theory that if they hadn’t stuffed about creating Panthers and Tigers and devoted their energies to Panzer IV’s and spare parts, Normandy would have gone on for a lot longer. An Allied victory was inevitable, it would just have cost more lives and more time.