Against the the russian advance, the germans could retreat behind the Weichsel. Defending this stream barrier from Thorn to the mouth with 16 divisions against forces of equal strength is not difficult. Probably the russians would not have gotten involved in a forced crossing. They would have marched away to cross the stream above Thorn. This would have presented favourable moments for counterattack. In any case, time would have been won. This gain of time would have only been a postponement of the battle for the germans.Considerable reinforcements could not be expected by them,while the russians could meanwhile unite their armies and bring them to full strength. One would have to deal with one strong united army, while one now was faced with smaller separated ones, whose comunications could be many times hindered by cutting the telegraph wires on the german territory by Landsturm etc... Evidently, this situation had to be exloited. One had to try to first defeat one of the russian armies decisively and then turn against the other. There could be no doubt against which the first atttack had to be directed . From the direction of its advance the Narew army was the most dangerous. It was also the one against it wad easiest to assemble a bigger part of ther german forces. If the German commander decided to attack the Narew army, he needed to unite as many forces as possible for this purpose. No division could be used in another direction without compelling reason. It can therefore only be approved that all german forces with exception of the I AK, the 1st reserve division and the 1 st cavalry division where destined against the Narew army. This resulted in 13 infantry and reserve divisions besides 3 cavalry divisions. If these were united in the line Dtsch Ehlau-Strasburg , then one would have thrown back the enemy , if one succeeded in beating him, in an easterly direction, that is there where it could hope for the soonest reception by the Niemen army. That would not have served the Germans a lot . The Narew army had to be decisively beaten and completely separated from the Niemen army. This could only be made possible by surrounding the enemy right wing. It can therefore only be agreed to that the commander of the Germans had III and V corps advance over Osterode-Bergfriede and II corps on Strasburg while he had the XVII corps retreat on Neumark.
franz Halder Generaloberst ,Koenigsstein 1 march 1950
Comments on the study : The tank maintenance service in the German Army
With the assistance of the best available experts and on the basis of his own extensive experience at higher headquarters, Generalmajor Mueller-Hillebrand, has succeeded in giving a clear and detailed account of the Tnak maintenance services in ythe Germman army. The account of the develelopment of the service in part I appeared necessary in order to describe that the tank maintenance system described in part II was not developed after some mistakes and blunders had been made.The observations made in the eastern theatre of operations seem to me especially important. I fully agree with the opinion of the author concerning the basic problem of a centralised versus a decentralised ttank maintenance service.
Introduction The basic problem : Centralised versus decentralised tank maintenance service
During the recent war the Geramn army acquired considerable experience in the area of tank maintenance and the recovery of disabled tanks.The prolonged duration of the war, as well as the extensive areas covered by the operations and, in Russia, the technical difficulties caused by the lack of paved roads, together with the limited capacity of the railroad system and the lack of technical equipment in the country itself, increased the wear and tear on our tanks to an extraordinary degree and compelled us to make continual changes in the organisation of the maintenance service.To these difficulties were added the excessive strain on the Geramn armament industry as the lack of manufacturing capacity-difficulties which became finally insurmountable as the result of the air raids. It became evident duri,ng the war that the factors which determine the demands to be made on the maintenance service differ according to the service of operations, the technical development of weapons, and other factors. The organisation of the maintenance service, therefore, had to be constantly altered and improved.Thus, there is no ideal solution for this problem which can be applierd in every case. The basic problem with tank maintenance is whether it should be performed principally by installations in the rear-perhaps even by the armaments industry in the zone of interior- or whether they should be carried out as close to the front as possible, i.e. directly in the field units themselves. If a war waged in the vicinity of a country's borders, that is, not too far away from the tank manufactoring plants of the home armament industry , and if it can be expected that only limited demands will be made on the supply system of the tanks, and , if in addition, the belligerent nation is soo wealthy that it can suplly its troops with a steady stream of new tanks in wartime, then the field units can be relieved to a large extent of the work of repairing disabled tanks and this maintenance work can be transferred to large, central installations further to the rear. This theory works out quite differently in practice if one realises, for example, that during the short campaign in France in 1940, the tank maintenance platoon of a tank batallion with approximately 100 tanks had to make 327 major repairs, which means that each tank of the batallion had to be sent to the repair shop on an average of more than three times during the few weeks of the campaign .The work which was done by the maintenance detachment of the comapnies is not included in this. Without a fast working maintenance service attached to the field services this batallion would have had to have approximately 100 percent of its tank equipment replaced after only the first two weeks. Now, if an army is confronted with a war which will make considerable demands on its forces over wide areas of land, even the wealthiest nation will not be able to maintain the fighting power of its tank arm with a centralised organisation.In such a case, maintenance must be performed primarily by the field units themselves.For, in the last analysis, the urgent necessity of supplying the field unitswith an adequate number of spare parts to repair such of their tanks as are no longer serviceable must take priority even over the supllying of new tanks. But then the field units must also carry with them the necessary machines and equipment at their disposal in order to carry out whatever repair work may arise. The correct solution must be found somewhere between the two extremes of a centralised and decentralised maintenance service . The experience of the Geramn army led more and more to the realisation that it is hardly possible to put too much of the repair service in the hands of the field units themselves. The difficulties which arose during the war in connection with the tank maintenance service were caused largely by the fact that this rule was not observed consistently enough. By the time that the field maintenance service had ben broyught to a full peak of efficiency the production of spare parts by industry was no longer sufficient- a situation which continued up to the end of the war. This prevented the otherwise excellent field maintenance organisation from becoming fully effective. The reason for this serious mistake was undoubtedly the fact that the government offices which controlled production in the armament industry failed to realise the importance of the field maintenance service and neglected the production of spare parts in favor of the production of new tanks.Immeasurable harm was causec by this mistake. However, the question of the importance of the tank maintenance service in comparison with that of tank manufacture is also very greatly influenced by transport requirements. The tank is a weapon which is especially subject to wear and tear on the one hand, while on the other hand it is more often in need of repair than other weapons as the result of enemy fire. Moreover, tanks are heavy and take up a great dal of space.For this reason, tanks can be most economically repaired by the field units. This saves transport space and time. One railway boxcar can carry a tremendous number of spare parts, with which a corresponding number of tanks can be made serviceable again, whreas only one tank can be shipped to the troops on one special car,which because of its weight can only travel oover certain railway routes, not to speak of the time and labour which is required to repair the damaged tanks for repair, especially when they are no longer able to move under own power. Here are a few important rules based upon German experience during the war:
1. The importance of the repair service in maintaining the fighti,g power of an army can hardly be overestimaterd........In this connection the loss of a tank is considerably more serious than the loss of a man, if one considers, for example, that in Russia during the recent war the ratio on the Geramn side was one thousand combat soldiers to one tank. 2. One cannot wait until wartime to organise a tank maintenance service. In this case the maintenance service would always lag behind requirements and satisfactory efficience could not be attained...... 3. Just as in other military fields, it is also true in the tank maintenancy service , that only the closest personal contact will assure maximum intitiative and therefore top performance.Therefore, maintenance detachments should be integrated into the tank companies, and maintenance companies and platoons should be integrated into the regiments and tank batallions respectively.Then the maintenance personnel is working for its own company, its own regiment or its own batallion. The greatest part of all the maintenance work will be carried out within the regiment...... 4. The necessity of tank maintenance should be borne in mind as a principle in designing the tank, if one does not want to be confronted by very unpleasant surprises during a war. To ensure a high number of serviceable, it is necessary to design a simple, sturdy type with easy accessible parts and the fewest possible different models. The simplier,sturdier and more compact the design of the tank , the less wil be the cost of the administrative and maintenance services.Moreover, fewer supplies will be needed and the suplly service itself will be greatly simplified. Should subsequent changes in the design of the tanks become necessary: one should determine whether the advantages of a new design outweigh the disadvantages arising from more complicated repairs and particularly the procurement of spare parts.Under certain circonstances, for example, if subsequent changes are made, the corresponding spare part will automatically become useless and will have to be discarded by all the spare parts depots and replaced by a new part. While the tank is still being designed, it is advisable to consult experienced engineer officers, who have to maintain tanks in the field. 5. The requirements of tank maintenance also greatly affect the production of tanks and tank spare parts, and these two types of production must stand in a definite ratio to each other. In this connection the production of an adequate number of spare partswill normally take priority over the manifacture of new tanks. The necessity for this becomes perfectly clear if one recalls the example which has been cited earlier in this treatise, according to which each tank had to undergo major repairs more than three times during a six-week campaign. Experience has shown that about seventy percent of such repairs require the installation of new spare parts. 6. The development of operations, climatic conditions or the employment of new , not yet fully tested models may suddenly lead to unexpectedly high tank losses, and this would necessitate special measures to ensure quick repairs.These, too, can best be made by the maintenance services with the field units.....During such special operations it is adviseable to reinforce the tank maintenance companies of the tank regiment with specialists from all branches from the zone of the interior for the duration of these rapid repairs. Another argument in favor of this solution is the fact that very little transport space is required, for it is much simpler and quicker to bring men and spare parts to the place where they needed than to transfer entire maintenance installations, as well as ship the necessary spare parts, set up these installations in working order again, or even to move the damaged tanks hundreds of kilometers to the rear and send them back again to the front after they have been repaired. The development of tank maintenance services during the war Section 1: Difficulties The difficulties which would have to be faced during a war as far as the maintenance of tanks were concerned were not fully realised before the war . Soon defects became evident which became more acute with the prolongation of the war and called for relief. These defects were encountered in the following fields: a) The field units did not have enough maintenance services. It is true that the tank regiments had one maintenance company each and the subordinate units also had personal for maintenance work. However, this personnel was unadequate and couldn not be employed to the fulles extent because.... b) The maintenance equipment, machines and special vehicles were not sufficient as to numner and type to satisfy the demands . c) The avilable personnel was not sufficiently trained. It had been assumed that automobile mechanics,welders and other workers from civilian plants would meet the demands of the maintenance service in the field after a short training period. This was, however, not the case. d) The need for spare parts had been underestimated because of the brief, peacetime experience of the armored forces, which were still new in service; so that the stocks which had been prepared were not sufficient. The actual need for certain parts became more and more apparent in the field units; it fluctuated according to special circonstances during the war and varied considerably from earlier calculations. Evenn in peacetime, subsequent or additional orders were sometimes not filled by industry after long delays. Sudden and excessive demands for a certain spare part could sometimes be satisfied only at the expense of the production of new tanks or only after considerable delay. e) The supply organisation for spare tank parts was set up in the same manner as that for ammunition, weapos and the like. The field units were supposed to file their requests for spare parts through supply channels. These requests had to be collected and forwarded to the organisation in Germany , which in turn had to ship the spare parts prepared for this purpose to the field units.The fact that this system was too lengthy did not become evident until during the war. In particular , the great number of spare parts required for the various types of tanks, especially since the wear and tear on them varied greatly, called for a carefully planned and fast working message system, adequately trained personnel in the higher staffs , and a smoothly operating supply organisation which would forward the spare parts to the field units.
