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How did Afrika Korp get to Africa?
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One reason is that the OKW didn’t care much and left the shipping totally up to the Italians, therefore it is/was not well documented.
Everything the Geemans did was documented three times.
So the shipping papers could be from the italians were as the papers from the Reichsbahn would be german.
Therefore no records at all but maybe a few papers that state that tanks were downloaded.
The DAK was just a sideshow. They scattered everything together they could grab.
Working under worst conditions.
Compare what the SS got during the same time period to the stuff DAK got. :-o :-o -
Again, it’s interesting for being a puppet state that Vichy didn’t do it for Germany as well seeing that France still had a med fleet that could do it.
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At times during the campaign, JU-52s brought men and fuel to Africa.
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Well I figured Germans did some of the lifting for their men, it’s the tanks and trucks I always wondered.
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The other thing is, most of the time Germans used the vehicles and tanks from the enemy.
“Das Fliegertuch” aviator cloth and very good goggles were sometimes the best weapons they had in the Africa campagne.
They may have had less material to work with but used everything to deal with.
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Well why not? Germany was capturing so much equipment, they were giving it away to their allies. I remember reading about captured stockpiles of weapons that the German captured enough equipment from the allies that they could of replaced the entire Heer with foreign equipment.
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These weapons were handed out to Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Fremde Heere Ost and so on, WW I weapons wich were short of Ammo. :|
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Yeah I know, they gave it to the other Axis nations or Axis friendly. Germany usually kept the good tanks for themselves.
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@Caesar:
Yeah I know, they gave it to the other Axis nations or Axis friendly. Germany usually kept the good tanks for themselves.
Which was very sensible of Germany. Operating a large-scale haphazard collection of captured foreign vehicles and weapon systems is more trouble than it’s worth and creates all sorts of headaches. It multiplies the number of machines that your troops have to be trained to operate (even assuming that you have access to things like the original operating manuals); it creates a force whose components have uneven performance levels (with the lesser-performing units thereby dragging the better ones down to their level, if you try to operate your forces as a group); it greatly complicates the problems of maintenance and spare parts; and it potentially introduces caliber incompatibilities to the issue of ammunition supply. Even something as basic as tools and nuts and bolts can become a problem: when the French battleship Richelieu joined the Allied side in the middle of the war, and was sent to New York for a refit, the American shipyard workers had all sorts of trouble working on the ship due to the fact that the ship had been built using the metric system rather than using the imperial-derived system of US customary units.
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Well Germany usually kept tanks for themselves in areas where they factories couldn’t easily reach like North Africa where Germany didn’t have a lot of tanks anyways so they kept what French and British tanks they came across.
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Russian T34/57 under German control.
Maybe late '42.
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Germany used to report that friendly fire was a problem due to tank commanders looking at the tank and see it being hostile rather than looking at the symbols to see if it is friendly.
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Well who’s to say the Russians wouldn’t have painted on it to make the Germans think twice? Or vice versa?
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I am pretty sure you can find something on a nations painting their tanks in hostile colors to by pass areas. I mean you can look at what Germany did and actually try to produce Allies tanks just for this.
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One point to keep in mind is that a tank’s paint-job is either difficult or impossible to see under various viewing conditions, especially at long distances. A backlit tank – such as one seen against the horizon skyline – may simply appear as a dark silhouette, in which case its shape will be the identification feature that will call the most attention to itself.
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We may want Russians to appear uniform, with nice green tanks and red stars, I recall many descriptions of Russian regular soldiers at a distance as a “dirty, shoeless, without uniforms”. No doubt most soldiers appear this way after a few days in the mud.
from the air they just looked like a mob, but underestimating their toughness and ability was a huge mistake. This from an era where tanks didn’t come with luxuries like…seats…or working exhaust systems…cough…
The first warning of an enemy tank’s presence was often the total loss of half-a-dozen vehicles within a few seconds, forget actually seeing where it is or gun flashes…you’d be running for your life.
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We may want Russians to appear uniform, with nice green tanks and red stars, I recall many descriptions of Russian regular soldiers at a distance as a “dirty, shoeless, without uniforms”. No doubt most soldiers appear this way after a few days in the mud.
from the air they just looked like a mob, but underestimating their toughness and ability was a huge mistake. This from an era where tanks didn’t come with luxuries like…seats…or working exhaust systems…cough…
Yes, the Russians in WWII did indeed practice what could be called “spartan pragmatism” when it came to their tank production, and in a more general sense in various other aspects of their war effort. The manufacturing of the T-34 was poorly finished by western standards, but the Soviets (who on some occasions reputedly drove tanks out of factory buildings and straight into combat) had no time to waste on aesthetic niceties; they took the practical view that tanks are built to fight, and that since tanks don’t necessarily last long in active combat there’s no point in devoting manufacturing work to anything other than functionality. And even the functionality element was something on which the Russians were very bare-bones at first, though they improved as the war went on. I think, for example, that the original T-34 turret was so small that the tank commander had to do double-duty as the gunner, which was very awkward in terms of combat effectiveness.
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They didn’t even provide for a turret “basket” from which seats could be mounted such that he didn’t have to wedge himself up against the gun and sight just to be able to fight.
And paint? Rust is good paint.
Don’t know if you’ve seen it but there is a video online from 2015 or so of them restarting a diesel ISU-152? that has been parked in a field since 1948-1950…I’m not sure how this is possible with mice living in the cylinders and oil residue harder than asphalt but apparently, it can be done, because they start it after considerable effort, get it on a truck, then onto a rail car under its own power, all with what appear to be its original factory tracks…
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Don’t know if you’ve seen it but there is a video online from 2015 or so of them restarting a diesel ISU-152? that has been parked in a field since 1948-1950…I’m not sure how this is possible with mice living in the cylinders and oil residue harder than asphalt but apparently, it can be done, because they start it after considerable effort, get it on a truck, then onto a rail car under its own power, all with what appear to be its original factory tracks…
I haven’t seen it, but I believe it. There’s an apocryphal (but not improbable) story about a Russian air force officer and an American counterpart having a conversation during one of those occasional detente periods during the Cold War, during which the Russian remarked: “You Americans build fighter planes like nice ladies watch. Very pretty, very dainty. Drop watch on floor; watch breaks. We Soviets build fighters planes like Mickey Mouse clock. Big, ugly, heavy. Drop clock on floor, clock stops; pick up clock and shake, starts working again.”
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Heh heh good one CWO. The AK47 epitomizes that. In defense of American fighters, even though it was gold plated, John Boyd did a heck of a job with the F-15. F-16 as well
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