Hi all,

Does anyone have any idea or source suggestions where I might find info about maintenance and service requirements for 1940 vintage Panzers - Pz I, II, III, IV, 35(t) & 38(t) - especially stuff like time/mileage intervals. I'm supervising someone looking at the 1940 campaign in France and we are trying to pin down the impact (if any) of the virtually non-stop running between 10 May and 24 May 1940.

I know it's a long shot but figured that if anyone knows it would be on this Grate Sight...

TIA

BillB

I don't know the actual intervals but 14 days of hard running wouldn't make any difference on a Stuart. Basic maintenance by the crew will get you about 750 to 1000 miles before it has to have real work done to it. (When they were new)

Cheers for that Tim, but is a Stuart comparable reliability and maintenance wise with the German & Czech machines I cited? Not being smart, I'm genuinely curious. We'll have to pull out the map and do some as-the-crow-flies mileage calculations, I think.

In part the original request was framed by a signal from Kleist IIRC who claimed that 50 per cent of his vehicles were unserviceable when he got close to Dunkirk. The claim is rejected by some but I was curious and the guy I'm supervising hasn't managed to dig up anything in the German archives apart from an Army-wide graph that records a very large increase in u/s vehicles during May and June 1940.

Also and slightly OT but with ref to your reply above, according to Brit accounts I've read, it was routine for British Sherman units to pull back after dark for maintenance on a daily basis. Is this necessary by the maintenance "book", or do you think it might be an institutional throwback to earlier Britsh practice with other, less reliable vehicles?

BillB

I'd say the Stuart is many times more reliable than any Panzer but the III and IV weren't that bad. Pulling back at night IS a good idea because you can't open up the engine bay when there's a threat of action and checking the oil is a fair task on any tank. Still, if push comes to shove the US tanks can and did go hundreds of miles just adding fuel. I would have believed the Germans should have been able to get across France without losing half their tank force to mechanical issues (at least with early war tanks)

IIRC, most of the German u/s tanks were out of fuel temporarily or had some minor equipment failure that would have to wait for the parts truck (i.e. the crew could fix it but the part wouldn't be normal tank stowage). Don't forget that very few people had any idea of what would break on a tank during a long run in combat conditions. The Germans ran into the same problem at first in the Desert. Almost all of 5th PzRegt's PzIIIs broke down during Rommel's initial advance to Tobruk. This was due to increased wear in the desert conditions. Once the Germans learned what kind of spares to have handy and added sand filters the reliability rate went up again.

The British reputation for unreliable tanks in the Desert was greatly exaggerated by them sending out tanks but no spares. Reports on breakdown losses repeatedly contain the phrase, "There are no spares in the ME."

Another thing that didn't help the British was that many of their "emergency" tank shipments like the TIGER convoy were composed of tanks stripped from units in the UK, and were often near or past their 1000-mile rebuild date when they arrived in the ME. And one other little habit - the tanks were shipped without oil, so the tanks' oil would be drained BEFORE being driven to the docks for loading. You can imagine what wonderful things this practice did for the engines.

Probably we have some stuff like this, but I’ll be able to chek only after my holiday trip

Thanks very much Roman. There's no great rush.

BillB

I've got a book that tells about the loss of tanks ready for action at some dates in the '40 campaign. Including info about how many tanks were made ready again within few days. This includes some temporary combat losses as well, though.

Ref the first bit, I don't doubt that was the case but we've not come up with any verifiable specifics - if you've got any references for this I'd be grateful if you could pass them on. I'm aware of the lack of knowledge at the time too, which is what prompted my raising the matter in here. The guy I'm supervising is investigating whether the Germans had the capability and were in a position to overrun Dunkirk before Hitler's halt order, which tends to get the blame for the German failure. One strand we are investigating is von Kleist's claim that his Panzergruppe was down to 50 per cent of its tank strength. Some including Guderian and more recent commentator's dismiss Kleist and claim he was hamming it up because he was worried about the dispersal of his units. That may be true but Guderian and the other Panzer zealots would say that, too. Hence my request.



Exaggerated or exacerbated? Fair one, there was a lot of that in all areas in the ME in 1940-41. Which is why those Colonials were "sacrificed" by being despatched to Greece. IIRC there wasn't anyone else to send.


Cheers for that, good to know.

BillB

[edited for incompetent formatting]

That would be very useful, thank you. Any chance of the author, title and publication info? that way my guy can see about chasing up a copy.

BillB

Bill,

Would I be correct in my emmerging conviction that the British war in North Africa was a badly ran show? It seems to me that Churchil was attempting to control events that was too far away from him for having an accurate appraisal of the situation and priorities.

BillB; PM.



It was initially a great success against the Italians, the they proceeded beyond the culminating point of attack and got driven back by what was a mostly faked German counter-attack.
Both sides had serious troubles afterward.

While COMPASS was a great success, it owed nothing to British planning. It was an accident; COMPASS was originally intended as a raid or spoilig attack to keep the Italian 10th Army fom advancing further into Egypt. The 'raid' aspect shows in that 4th Indian Division, the infantry half of the operation, was scheduled to be and indeed was withdrawn to be sent to Cunningham's campaign against the Italians in East Africa. After the initial assault O'Connor wanted to folow up his success and Wavell eventually gave him the 6th Australian Division, which was poorly equipped and not completely trained. Nevertheless the OZians performed prodigies and took Bardia and Tobruk. The mainstay of this drive had been 7th RTR, the Matilda regiment. This was withdrawn after Tobruk; not that there was much to withdraw, the few Matildas remaining (losses were mostly due to mechanical failure, not combat) were on their last legs.

O'Connor got Wavell to OK another advance and sent the depleted 7th Armoured across the desert to Beda Fomm, while the 6th Australians kept pushing the Italians back along the Via Balbia. Beda Fomm was a very close-run thing, the British barely managed to get into position to trap the fleeing Italians, and the Italians could have won if somebody could have gotten them organized.

My point is that COMPASS was a spur-of-the-moment sequence of following up unexpected victories, nothing planned by British generals (save O'Connor). Had the British any idea of how successful they would be, they would have left 4th Indian and kept the pressure on the Italians instead of giving them breathing spaces. The campaign would probably have ended a month earlier except for the delays the withdrawal of 4th Indian caused. We cannot be certain of course, but I see no reason why a faster pursuit would have been less successful. There is the possibility that resupply and maintenance would have constrained the British to the historical schedule, but if COMPASS had originally been planned as knockout blow it would have had a greater logistical priority.

Rommel's initial offensive was another fluke, he was supposed to just do a spoiling attack but he took the bit and ran rampant. Part of the reason for his success was that the British withdrew the troops that had done COMPASS (and broke the veteran 7th Armoured up) replacing them with green units. Wavell thought he could get away with leaving a weak force because he was reading Rommel's mail and knew Rommel had orders not to attack until 15th PzDiv arrived a month later. Rommel started his insubordinate streak and caught Wavell napping, being helped by luck such as the capture of O'Connor and Neame. Nevertheless had HE waited as he was supposed to, I don't see how the British could have held Tobruk in the face of the addition of 15th Panzer.

Really, the Desert War was not much for generalship by senior commanders. Churchill kept muddling things up for the British and Rommel ignored every order he was given by his superiors.

Actually, Churchill set many of the priorities, the expedition to Greece being the most momentous. Churchill's constant nagging, replacement of Wavell, and premature offensives like BATTLEAXE were responsible for most of the British problems.

But Churchill did have a very valid point, ME Command was more tail than teeth and horribly inefficient. One gets the impression that firing most of the staff officers and letting some crusty RSMs run the thing would have gotten better results. What Churchill failed to understand was that the delays that plagued him were not the fault of Wavell and later Auchinleck. The rear-area muddle was an institutional failing of the British Army. It was not the Army's fault either, the BA had no experience of large commands and logistics. For 20 years the BA had functioned as a constabulary on a regimental (bn) level, and they had been told for 20 years not to bother their heads about learning to do those "Continental War" things, because they would never have to. So they had to learn on the fly and put it together as they went along; it is no wonder their efforts were amateurish and uncoordinated, the failure had been built into the system when Whitehall made the pronouncement that "There will never be another BEF."

An organized and trained army would not have the rear-area muddle and waste. Churchill fumed about sending hundreds of thousands of men and having them disappear into administrative quicksand while not increasing combat power by much. He was correct to fume, but he blamed the wrong people. Wavell and Auchinleck were a bit busy to take on the task of retraining the British Army into efficiency, and I can imagine the cries of joy from Whitehall had they tried.

Hi all,

preliminary group response as I'm pushed for time - I'll try and get round to more detailed answers over the weekend.

@ lastdingo - thanks for the PM, I'll get back to you asap

@ Jonathan & King - agree with some bits & disagree with others, as you'd expect. Luckily this stuff is still relatively fresh in mind from my Tobruk book, so I should be able to talk coherently...

BillB

I think your best shot would be strength returns from the divisions, but whether these are to be found in the archives of the divisions, corps or higher up, I dont know. They may also have vanished all together, of course.

In Stoves history of 1. Panzerdivision (IIRC), there is a reference to the situation for that divison around May 20.-21. From memory, they were down to about 50% of their tanks when they arrived at the mouth of the Somme and the Channel coast, but after a day of rest, they were back to about 70% again. It may suggest that Kleist "50%" comment was technically correct, but also that many of the 50% "lost" could be rapidly repaired and would soon catch up.

EDIT: Found another little snippet, this time from Greece in 1941 (Jentz: "Panzertruppen" vol 1 p. 157). A year later, but same type of equipment, this time used in northern Greece. Unit is I./PzRgt 3. They probably had about half the regiments vehicles which were 45 Pz II, 71 PzIII, 20 Pz IV and 6 PzBef.
Terrain was rather rough as the retreating Greek and British forces blew up roads and bridges, forcing the battalion into some heavy off-road driving.

Between April 14th and April 19th they recorded the following losses:
- 2 Panzer IV written off due to mine damage
- 1 Panzer III and three Panzer II swamped during a river crossing
- 3 Panzer III and 10 Panzer III damaged by tank and artillery fire to an extent where the battalion could not repair them
- 3 Panzer II, 12 Panzer III and two Panzer IV broken down mechanically, requiring 3-8 days of repairs

So, out of the 70 or so tanks, 24% had suffered considerable mechanical damage during 5 days of fighting.

Another snippet from the same sources states that one division - the 9th - reported that the brakes had worn out on all their tanks during the campaign, apparently due to much of the driving being done in mountains.

cbo

How good were the German logistics? My understanding is that they were, compared to later Allied efforts rather ramshackle. No one wanted to be a supply officer?

As for the comments about the size of the British Middle East HQ. Didn't Wavell have to fight on four fronts near simultaneously? Would that have explained the size of the HQ and logistic elements in the Middle East? Remember, the war in the Middle East covered North Africa, East Africa, Lebanon/Syria, Iraq and also Greece and Crete. Thats a lot of planning and supplying that needed to be done and I've always admired Wavell for his tremendous ability to wage so many campaigns so close together (in time) and so far apart (in distance). That sort of load undid the Japanese in the SW Pacific.

Cheers for that cbo. Could you cite the publication details of the books you mention - full author name & title, who, where and when published. That way my guy can mebbe track them down via interlibrary loan if necessary.

Ref the bit about Kleist's 50%, yes, that is the conclusion my guy has drawn - it would be nice to pin it down a bit more precisely though. He is planning another visit to Freiburg c.Xmas so he may yet turn up something in the records.

thanks again,
BillB

IIRC Rommel´s 7th "Gespenster" Divisoin relied on the newly "acquired" cechish M 38 t. IIRC he ( or Guderian? ) wrote, there were raids, which couldn´t have been done, except for the reliability of those tanks!

Hermann

Well I'm no expert Jonathan, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by badly run. There was some of that but I think it cut both ways - in some instances the mil commanders needed shaking out of their parochial attitudes, and in others Churchill's micromanaging tendencies did get in the way. However, I also think that a lot of the time the friction arose from Churchill having to deal with the grand strategy dimension of which mil commanders were frequently ignorant and/or uninterested. However, given the material, manpower terrain constraints I don't really think much could have been done differently, at least on the British Commonwealth side - and altho it tends to get concealed behind all that mythical Desert Fox stuff the Germans and Italians didn't do much if any better either. The real limiter before the end of 1942 was the geography. There was no really defensible terrain in Cyrenaica between El Agheila and Sollum except to the north where Cyrenaica bulges north into the Med. Advancing east or west without sorting out the latter was open to being cut off, any force trying to clear the northern bit ran the same risk from an advance along the base of the bulge, and neither side ever had the resources to do both a simultaneoulsy. Plus there were no ports of sufficient size to support large scale operations between Tripoli in the west and Alexandria in the east; Benghazi, Tobruk and Bardia were too small and vulnerable. That's why things kept swinging back and forth for both sides.

BillB

Sorry King, not having any of that, apart from the bit about Rommel.


COMPASS might not have been planned as a knock out blow, but employing two divisions plus (in excess of 36,000 men IIRC) it was awfully big for a raid. Especially as it employed just about everything available. Personally I'd go for large scale spoiling attack, and one that employed just about everything to hand in Egypt too IIRC. More importantly, Wavell also issued a memo on the eve of COMPASS that acknowledged the possibility of converting the Italian's defeat into an outstanding victory, and urged all ranks to do their utmost should that be the case. Furthermore, general planning went back to before the Italian invasion of Egypt in Sepember 1940, Wavell ordered Wilson to start work on specific planning at the beginning of October and they started setting up the forward supply dumps that fed the initial attack and subsequent exploitation from 5 November. All of which undermines your contention that "...COMPASS was a spur-of-the-moment sequence of following up unexpected victories, nothing planned by British generals (save O'Connor)..." I think. I also disagree with the last bit about the Desert War not being much for generalship by senior commanders. The work of Wavell, Wilson and O'Connor for COMPASS simply contradicts this. O'Connor came up with a good to excellent tactical plan and implemented it equally well, but that wouldn't have counted for much without Wilson's work on the staff and logistics aspect, and Wavell balancing the needs of the fighting in East Africa to gather the supplies and keeping Churchill in the dark. The other thing you fail to mention is that COMPASS and the subsequent exploitation and capture of Cyrenaica also exhibited a very high level of flexibility at all levels, something that British generalship is frequently lambasted for lacking...

BillB