Impact of Fuel and Spare Parts Shortages
By 1943, shortages of fuel and spare parts at the front were seriously reducing the operational readiness of Germany’s Panzer-Divisionen. The Third Reich went to war with the Soviet Union with completely inadequate fuel reserves and exhausted nearly half its stockpile during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Although Germany made great efforts to increase synthetic fuel production, during 1942 monthly military consumption of fuel exceeded production in seven out of 12 months. At the end of 1942, Germany’s reserve stockpile of motor gasoline was down to 313,000 tons, equivalent to less than three months’ worth. By 1943, minus civilian consumption, Germany was producing about 136,000 tons of motor gasoline per month and consuming about 120,000 tons – enabling a slight increase in the strategic reserve. In addition, about 47,500 tons of diesel oil per was produced per month.{19} Thus, Germany’s military machine was living a hand-to-mouth existence that left little or no room for unanticipated losses of production due to enemy action, such as Allied bombing. Nor could the Germans really afford to continue to mount large-scale manoeuvre operations like Barbarossa and Blau without further depleting their reserves; the new norm shifted to mount short-objective operations measured in weeks, not months.
German fuel logistics were measured in Verbrauchssatz (abbreviated to V.S.); 1 V.S. was the amount of fuel required to move every vehicle in a unit 100km. German doctrine stated that a Panzer-Division should possess at least 4 V.S. prior to the start of offensive operations. The amount of fuel in 1 V.S. varied considerably depending upon the type of vehicles in use; the German tanks of 1941–42 were much more economical than the heavier tanks and self-propelled guns of 1943–45. In 1941, 1V.S. of fuel for a Panzer-Division was roughly 150,000 litres (measured in cubic metres, cbm, with 1 cbm equivalent to 1,000 litres) or 150 cbm or 111 tons of fuel. Yet while it only required between 340–360 litres of fuel to move a Pz III or Pz IV 100km, it required 720 litres for the Panther and 711 litres for the Tiger. Likewise, equipping the Panzer-Division with more tracked vehicles such as self-propelled artillery and more SPW halftracks nearly doubled the amount of fuel required for operations. Increased armament and increased armoured protection resulted in much more fuel being consumed, which became something of a vicious circle for the Panzerwaffe.
In order to keep some kind of strategic fuel buffer, panzer units training in Germany and Western Europe were given only modest amounts of fuel for training. Basic driver training on the Pz I was essentially unaffected since this obsolete light tank was fairly fuel efficient, but it had a major impact on the Panther and Tiger conversion courses. Drivers were given less training time on these fuel hogs in order to save fuel for the front, but this meant that many of the new Panther drivers did not get sufficient cross-country experience. Units sent to train in France were shocked to find that there was no stockpile of fuel and ammunition available there for training. One newly-formed unit, the schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 560, equipped with the new Hornisse tank destroyer, was sent to France to train in April 1943 but received no fuel and only ten rounds of 8.8cm ammunition per company. Soon afterwards, the unit deployed to the Eastern Front with no driver training and only a familiarization fire for the gunners.
An additional complication with fuel supplies was actually getting the fuel to the forward areas in the Soviet Union, which was a laborious process and fraught with risks from bad weather, partisan activity and Soviet air attacks on rail centres and fuel storage areas. In the first winter on the Eastern Front, about 80 per cent of the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s (DR) trains suffered mechanical failures in the extreme cold, which reduced daily supply deliveries to one-third of required demand. Due to the destruction of railroad bridges over the Dnepr River, the Germans were also forced to send trains on a circuitous route to reach Heeresgruppe Süd during the 1942 campaign. The situation eased a bit in 1943, since the Germans were no longer gaining significant amounts of ground and were able to re-gauge most rail lines so trains could run up fairly close to the front, which helped reduce distribution problems. Nevertheless, the general weakness of the captured Soviet rail net made it difficult for the Germans to achieve the necessary throughput, with the result that trains carrying fuel and spare parts often did not arrive in a timely manner or with the quantities required. In addition to transportation difficulties, the OKH assigned priority of supplies to the main effort, which usually lay in the Heeresgruppe Süd portion of the front; units assigned to Heeresgruppe Mitte and Nord did not have priority and were allotted much less fuel, ammunition and spare parts.
The German Panzer-Divisionen on the Eastern Front were regularly plagued by shortages of spare parts for tanks, as well as wheeled vehicles. Over 1,000 panzers were awaiting repair at the start of 1943. One root cause of these shortages was the lack of standardization, resulting in trying to operate equipment from multiple manufacturers and countries – this was a severe problem in the 1941 campaign. Yet by 1943 virtually all of the Czech-made Pz 38t tanks and French-made trucks were gone, and there were usually adequate amounts of Pz III and Pz IV spare parts reaching the front. Many of the inoperative tanks would be repaired, once the overworked repair units were able to focus on something other than retreating. However, the introduction of the Tiger and Panther complicated the spare parts situation again. First, the Heereswaffenamt (Army Weapons Department) had ordered very few spare parts for the two new tank models, instead preferring to concentrate on production. Consequently, the schwere-Panzer-Abteilung received only one spare engine and one spare transmission for every ten Tiger tanks.{20} The spare parts situation with the Panther was also quite severe in mid-1943, when faulty components such as the fuel pump malfunctioned more frequently than expected. Normally, it is best not to commit a new weapon system into battle until an adequate stock of spare parts can be accumulated at the front, but Hitler pressured the OKH into prematurely sending both tanks into combat. Nor did it help that the Tiger and Panther used different size road wheels and track, as well as different engines, transmissions and armaments than the Pz III and Pz IV tanks, so the possibility of using any existing parts was almost nil. Taken together, the spare parts crisis hit the new tank models the hardest in 1943, ensuring lower-than-expected operational readiness rates, while the proven Pz IV had a relatively stable logistical pipeline in place.
German Tank Production
After three years of operating well below capacity, the Third Reich finally got serious about increasing its tank production output after the reality of the Stalingrad debacle began to sink in. Prior to Stalingrad, in September 1942, Hitler had ordered production of tanks and Sturmgeschütz (assault guns) tripled from 380–400 units per month over the next two years, which was rather a leisurely build-up. Yet once the 6.Armee was surrounded at Stalingrad and the relief operation had failed, it became increasingly clear to even Hitler and his inner circle that Germany was facing a real crisis and needed to quickly restore its combat power on the Eastern Front as well as preparing for the increased likelihood of a Western Front.
On 22–23 January 1943, Hitler met with Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition Albert Speer, who had gained his position after the death of the less-than-efficient Fritz Todt in February 1942. Hitler now ordered Speer to increase the production of Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) five-fold by the end of 1944. The so-called ‘Adolf Hitler Panzer Program’ that Speer hastily developed called for a monthly production quota of between 1,100 AFVs by early 1944 and 2,000 or more by the end of the year. Yet in January 1943, German factories still built only 248 tanks, including 35 Tigers and 163 Pz IV medium tanks, plus 130 assault guns and 140 tank destroyers; a total of 518 AFVs. In contrast, Soviet industry built 1,433 tanks in January, including 1,030 T-34, plus 57 self-propelled guns. The main German tank, the Pz IV Ausf G, was being out-built 6–1 by its main competitor, the T-34; this production imbalance handicapped the Panzer-Divisionen on the Eastern Front since they were always fighting at a huge numerical disadvantage.