Wonder how well the Western Allies would have done against General Mud?
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- Thread starter jwhc
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Wonder how well the Western Allies would have done against General Mud?
The German logistics in Russia were terrible.
Trucks from every country in Europe, as well as artillery and tanks.
Read some of the books on the eastern front, the pictures of the mix of transport while the German were retreating shows just how bad the problem was of supplying parts for their mix of equipment.
Trucks from every country in Europe, as well as artillery and tanks.
Read some of the books on the eastern front, the pictures of the mix of transport while the German were retreating shows just how bad the problem was of supplying parts for their mix of equipment.
Very astute observation coming from someone who has not read the book in question. It wasn't an "army" justifying anything, just the memoirs of a Cavalry Officer fighting in a highly mechanized war.
The deuce-and-a-half was a work horse (no pun intended), right up to the 1970s in NW Europe, but let's not get carried away. It was just one means of getting the massive amount of war material to the sharp end.
The deuce-and-a-half was a work horse (no pun intended), right up to the 1970s in NW Europe, but let's not get carried away. It was just one means of getting the massive amount of war material to the sharp end.
And the item that keep the Germans in the fight for as long as they did.
The class 52 Kriegslokomative.
And here's how one was built..
And here's how we built ours... ( good shots of the Angus Shops in Montreal where the Valentines were built, by the same guys on the same equipment)
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The German trucks were made in a Ford plant in Germany, but they never prioritized the truck as a strategic asset and did not secure a reliable fuel source outside of the Ploesti oil fields that were bombed mercilessly, much to our advantage here in Canada (and our allies too).
After op overlord, the allies had to supply from normandy all the way to the Rhine, until after they liberated Antwerp. The advance was only made possible with thousands and thousands of 2.5T trucks.
The Germans, after D-day, lost air superiority and suffered terribly from not being able to move materiel and armies around the battlefield safely and efficiently. The hose just didn't cut it.
Cavalry officers are biased toward the horse, it doesn;t make it doctrinally the best choice. The brits and Americans learned that early on despite the prestige of the cavalry corps at the time.
It is actually some pretty interesting (and easy to research on the net) reading on the "working/business relationship" between Ford and Ford-Werke, General Motors and Opel during the Second World War. Old Henry Ford seems to have been one nasty old bastard and GM was more then happy to divest itself of Opel post war as quick as possible.
Yes..Henry was a well known axxhole! The stories abound...he had some reason though...post partition the Indian's nationalized his plants. And post war at least until the late '50's there were not a lot of Germans with the income to purchase an Opel. VW was selling ok but motorcycles with side cars were the affordable option for lots of Germans (in the West anyway.)...I am sure that the folks in East Germany were happy to have a bicycle!
I think General Motors (N.America) was ready to run away from Opel full tilt once the full extent of Opels use of slave labour and potential war crimes became apparent post war (not that GM did not have a clue or two what was going on during hostilities).
^ If some things could only talk....................
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Opel survived after the war just fine. As for other German nanufacturers, they seem to do just fine as well despite use of slave labour in the war. Seeing a hippy in a VW is ever ironic.
This is for sale in Caledon, Ontario. I assume it is ex CAF? I do not know what it is.
Not CAF. We didnt purchase the 4 wheel 2.5 ton version. I am most certain that this is a M1078 or M1079 and is certainly American unless it was used by the Canadian government for trials.
This is for sale in Caledon, Ontario. I assume it is ex CAF? I do not know what it is.
Yank, you can see the unit ID locations on the front painted over in black. We do not mark our gear that way, we use standard NATO symbols on the back end but rarely do that to the softskins as they come and go so much.
