A financial controller by trade, I decided to do some number-crunching in Excel to try to formulate a good industrial plan for the rearmament of Germany. I will not call it optimal, because what is optimal is not clear cut – is it a maximum amount of Wehrmacht guns on the ground and Luftwaffe planes in the air by September 1st, 1939? Or is the finish line June 22nd, 1941?
I decided to go with a number of factories I find subjectively sufficient, both for the 1939-1940 campaigns and beyond. The thing with civilian factories is that they are not only a means to build military factories – they are also necessary to build other stuff you positively need like radars, air bases and not the least, repair battle-damaged infrastructure and bomb-damaged industries. Taking out the USSR is made immensely more difficult without the ability to quickly repair lots and lots of damaged infrastructure.
Thus, without claiming for a moment that this is an optimal number, I’ve settled for building 25 civilian factories. This will allow us to have, together with factories from focuses and Anschluss, no less than 77 civilian factories available by 1938, when we roll into the third phase of the 4-year plan – building military factories. After removing some for consumer goods, that should still allow us to have four full 15 factory stacks before the outbreak of war, plus some change for buying strategic resources.
1936 – 1st phase, Infrastructure
So, beginning in 1936, we are going to focus on building infrastructure. High infrastructure is a powerful modifier on construction speed and we want to avoid building at anything less than 100% infrastructure if we can help it. Why? The construction cost of a civilian factory is 10800. Each unit of infrastructure reduces that cost by 10% or 1080. Thus, for every three infrastructure we build, we basically get (more than) one civilian factory constructed for free.
National Focus
But the first order of business here is national focus. And I’m going to propose we start with the 4-year plan, not Rheinland.
Why? Because that will give us the use of minister Hjalmar Sacht, who gives a 10% increase in construction speed for infrastructure, which will be the only modifier available to us during the first phase. Also, we will be hard pressed to reach the troop count required for Anschluss in just140 days, even if we do the “Deploy at 20% training”-routine. Thus, the order of national foci to complete for 1936 will be:
So, we are going to need 25 free building slots in provinces with 100% infrastructure by the time we start building civilian factories. I propose the following;
As an added bonus, increasing infrastructure to 100% in these regions will add +52 steel and +12 Aluminium that could potentially be exported for another 7 civilian industries to speed things up later. This, of course is dependent on someone wanting to buy the metals, but getting 7 civilian industries just for building 13 Infrastructure (at less than 1/3 the cost of civilian industries) is not too shabby!
Now, these regions are surely not the only ones possible. They are good choices because they have many free slots, many resources and/or already high infrastructure. Other choices are surely possible, but Brandenburg, Hannover, Thüringen and Hessen should be avoided, because the focus Reichautobahn will later raise their infrastructure to max, so any infrastructure built there before that is essentially thrown away.
Feel free to comment with better choices of provinces!
Order the builds so that the two 4-infrastructure provinces come first, and the 2-infrastructure build comes last.
Technologies
You want the industrial technology “Construction I” at the earliest possible date. But that does not mean you should research it from the start. Rather, go with “Eletronic Mechanical Engineering” (84 days) which raises research speed with 4%. Then make sure one research slot will be available after day 70, for example by researching (providing you have Man the Guns) Smoke Generators or Improved Seaplane Catapult (63 days) and then wait with picking a new tech for research until you have completed Four Year Plan. This will give you x2 100% research bonus for industrial tech. Alternately, you could pick one 84-day or two consecutive 42 day techs (like Marder III and Wespe) , even if you cannot then immediately start researching Construction I on day 70. It’s not a big deal.
One Four Year Plan bonus should be used for Construction I and the other for Concentrated or Dispersed Industry, meaning Basic Machine Tools should be another initial pick.
Military production
We will allow for one more Civilian Factory traded away for resources (for rubber most likely) so that you build infrastructure with 21 of 31 available industries. This will allow you to build x3 Bf 109, x3 Panzer II, x2 10,5 cm artillery and x5 support equipment (which will be needed to quickly build skeleton divisions).
Let’s roll!
Now you’re all set. Build orders ready for 13 infrastructure, Focus: Four Year Plan, Tech picks: Basic Machine Tools, Eletronic Mechanical Engineering and one 63 day technology from the naval tech tree (or an 84 day, if you do not want to waste a whole week of research).
Be sure to de-prioritize Reinforcements and upgrades under “Recruit and deploy” and build at least 10 infantry division lines and deploy each one at 20% training, or you’ll not qualify for Anschluss by day 210.
When Four Year Plan is completed, pick Hjalmar Sacht. He will be with us until the end of phase two, when Sudetenland focus is completed, as he provides a useful bonus of 10% to both infrastructure AND civilian factory construction.
After Four Year Plan, choose Rheinland. At the first chance, research Construction I. After Rheinland, you should be good to pick Anschluss, which will give you around nine new civilian factories at this point. After Anschluss, pick Autarchy. After Autharchy, pick HG-Werke. Soon thereafter (around October 20th), your thirteenth and last infrastructure should be done.
1936-1937, 2nd Phase, Civilian Industry
When possible (near the end of 1936 if you've done everything right so far), start building civilian factories in the provinces built up to 100% infrastructure. You might need to shuffle around build priorities to insure you do not start to build factories in a province before you have completed the infrastructure build there. Your first civilian factory should be built around mid-december 1936. Pick Construction II for research ASAP.
After HG-Werke, pick Kdf-Wagen. After Kdf-wagen, there’s two ways to go, to my mind: pick Coal Liquidization and Synthetic Rubber and go for the Extra Research slot ASAP, or Army Innovations and Treaty with the USSR for early access to the Panzer III – your choice. In either case, after those two or these picks are done, it’s time for Reichsautobahn, which will give us 100% infrastructure in four provinces with at least 12 free slots. Those will be where we start to build military industries in phase 3. After that, we should be good to pick Sudetenland. Around the time it completes, by mid-december 1937, we should be just about finishing up our last civilian factory and starting production of military factories.
Thus, when Hjalmar Sacht regrettably tends his resignation at the annexation of the Sudetenland, we can say “Good Riddance!” and bring in Walter Funk to replace him (be sure to save 150 pps) who does not give a bonus to civilian factories or infrastructure (which we will not build any more) but instead to military industries and dockyards, which are the next order of business!
1938-1939, 3rd Phase, Military Industry
After finishing our last civilian industries, it’s time to start building military factories (and possibly dockyards), beginning in the four states developed to 100% infrastructure through Reichsautobahn. If you want to build any dockyards at this point, save Hannover for them. If so, now could also be a good time to pick “Naval rearmament”+”Naval Effort” as they will give us extra slots for naval construction. Either that, or go directly for First Vienna Award and Fate of Czechoslovkia. After we’re finished with available slots in the Reichsautobahn provinces, build in free slots in the highest infrastructure provinces available. It is not worth it to build additional infrastructure to speed up construction of military factories, as they are much cheaper than civilian ones. Prioritize fighters, support equipment and artillery – the Fate of Czechoslovakia will have given you a good number of light tanks to form a few more panzer divisions, and you will need artillery aplenty to form those hard-hitting 7 Inf + 2 art infantry divisions. If you can add support AT to them, all the better.
Stop building military factories around mid 1939, and prepare for war with refineries, radar stations and additional air bases. Don’t forget to do the Westwall Focus. Now would be a good time to add to the forts against France by dismantling the Sudetenland forts for extra build speed, if you feel the need. I usually do not.
Well, this has worked well for me – but I’d be happy to hear how this little scheme could be further improved upon!
I decided to go with a number of factories I find subjectively sufficient, both for the 1939-1940 campaigns and beyond. The thing with civilian factories is that they are not only a means to build military factories – they are also necessary to build other stuff you positively need like radars, air bases and not the least, repair battle-damaged infrastructure and bomb-damaged industries. Taking out the USSR is made immensely more difficult without the ability to quickly repair lots and lots of damaged infrastructure.
Thus, without claiming for a moment that this is an optimal number, I’ve settled for building 25 civilian factories. This will allow us to have, together with factories from focuses and Anschluss, no less than 77 civilian factories available by 1938, when we roll into the third phase of the 4-year plan – building military factories. After removing some for consumer goods, that should still allow us to have four full 15 factory stacks before the outbreak of war, plus some change for buying strategic resources.
1936 – 1st phase, Infrastructure
So, beginning in 1936, we are going to focus on building infrastructure. High infrastructure is a powerful modifier on construction speed and we want to avoid building at anything less than 100% infrastructure if we can help it. Why? The construction cost of a civilian factory is 10800. Each unit of infrastructure reduces that cost by 10% or 1080. Thus, for every three infrastructure we build, we basically get (more than) one civilian factory constructed for free.
National Focus
But the first order of business here is national focus. And I’m going to propose we start with the 4-year plan, not Rheinland.
Why? Because that will give us the use of minister Hjalmar Sacht, who gives a 10% increase in construction speed for infrastructure, which will be the only modifier available to us during the first phase. Also, we will be hard pressed to reach the troop count required for Anschluss in just140 days, even if we do the “Deploy at 20% training”-routine. Thus, the order of national foci to complete for 1936 will be:
- 4 year plan by day 70
- Rheinland by day 140
- Anschluss by day 210
- Autarky by day 280
- HG-Werke by day 350
So, we are going to need 25 free building slots in provinces with 100% infrastructure by the time we start building civilian factories. I propose the following;
- Moselland, build 3 infrastructure for 7 free slots
- Rheinland, build 2 infrastructure for 5 free slots
- Oberschlesien, build 4 infrastructure for 7 free slots
- Niederschlesien, build 4 infrastructure for 6 free slots
As an added bonus, increasing infrastructure to 100% in these regions will add +52 steel and +12 Aluminium that could potentially be exported for another 7 civilian industries to speed things up later. This, of course is dependent on someone wanting to buy the metals, but getting 7 civilian industries just for building 13 Infrastructure (at less than 1/3 the cost of civilian industries) is not too shabby!
Now, these regions are surely not the only ones possible. They are good choices because they have many free slots, many resources and/or already high infrastructure. Other choices are surely possible, but Brandenburg, Hannover, Thüringen and Hessen should be avoided, because the focus Reichautobahn will later raise their infrastructure to max, so any infrastructure built there before that is essentially thrown away.
Feel free to comment with better choices of provinces!
Order the builds so that the two 4-infrastructure provinces come first, and the 2-infrastructure build comes last.
Technologies
You want the industrial technology “Construction I” at the earliest possible date. But that does not mean you should research it from the start. Rather, go with “Eletronic Mechanical Engineering” (84 days) which raises research speed with 4%. Then make sure one research slot will be available after day 70, for example by researching (providing you have Man the Guns) Smoke Generators or Improved Seaplane Catapult (63 days) and then wait with picking a new tech for research until you have completed Four Year Plan. This will give you x2 100% research bonus for industrial tech. Alternately, you could pick one 84-day or two consecutive 42 day techs (like Marder III and Wespe) , even if you cannot then immediately start researching Construction I on day 70. It’s not a big deal.
One Four Year Plan bonus should be used for Construction I and the other for Concentrated or Dispersed Industry, meaning Basic Machine Tools should be another initial pick.
Military production
We will allow for one more Civilian Factory traded away for resources (for rubber most likely) so that you build infrastructure with 21 of 31 available industries. This will allow you to build x3 Bf 109, x3 Panzer II, x2 10,5 cm artillery and x5 support equipment (which will be needed to quickly build skeleton divisions).
Let’s roll!
Now you’re all set. Build orders ready for 13 infrastructure, Focus: Four Year Plan, Tech picks: Basic Machine Tools, Eletronic Mechanical Engineering and one 63 day technology from the naval tech tree (or an 84 day, if you do not want to waste a whole week of research).
Be sure to de-prioritize Reinforcements and upgrades under “Recruit and deploy” and build at least 10 infantry division lines and deploy each one at 20% training, or you’ll not qualify for Anschluss by day 210.
When Four Year Plan is completed, pick Hjalmar Sacht. He will be with us until the end of phase two, when Sudetenland focus is completed, as he provides a useful bonus of 10% to both infrastructure AND civilian factory construction.
After Four Year Plan, choose Rheinland. At the first chance, research Construction I. After Rheinland, you should be good to pick Anschluss, which will give you around nine new civilian factories at this point. After Anschluss, pick Autarchy. After Autharchy, pick HG-Werke. Soon thereafter (around October 20th), your thirteenth and last infrastructure should be done.
1936-1937, 2nd Phase, Civilian Industry
When possible (near the end of 1936 if you've done everything right so far), start building civilian factories in the provinces built up to 100% infrastructure. You might need to shuffle around build priorities to insure you do not start to build factories in a province before you have completed the infrastructure build there. Your first civilian factory should be built around mid-december 1936. Pick Construction II for research ASAP.
After HG-Werke, pick Kdf-Wagen. After Kdf-wagen, there’s two ways to go, to my mind: pick Coal Liquidization and Synthetic Rubber and go for the Extra Research slot ASAP, or Army Innovations and Treaty with the USSR for early access to the Panzer III – your choice. In either case, after those two or these picks are done, it’s time for Reichsautobahn, which will give us 100% infrastructure in four provinces with at least 12 free slots. Those will be where we start to build military industries in phase 3. After that, we should be good to pick Sudetenland. Around the time it completes, by mid-december 1937, we should be just about finishing up our last civilian factory and starting production of military factories.
Thus, when Hjalmar Sacht regrettably tends his resignation at the annexation of the Sudetenland, we can say “Good Riddance!” and bring in Walter Funk to replace him (be sure to save 150 pps) who does not give a bonus to civilian factories or infrastructure (which we will not build any more) but instead to military industries and dockyards, which are the next order of business!
1938-1939, 3rd Phase, Military Industry
After finishing our last civilian industries, it’s time to start building military factories (and possibly dockyards), beginning in the four states developed to 100% infrastructure through Reichsautobahn. If you want to build any dockyards at this point, save Hannover for them. If so, now could also be a good time to pick “Naval rearmament”+”Naval Effort” as they will give us extra slots for naval construction. Either that, or go directly for First Vienna Award and Fate of Czechoslovkia. After we’re finished with available slots in the Reichsautobahn provinces, build in free slots in the highest infrastructure provinces available. It is not worth it to build additional infrastructure to speed up construction of military factories, as they are much cheaper than civilian ones. Prioritize fighters, support equipment and artillery – the Fate of Czechoslovakia will have given you a good number of light tanks to form a few more panzer divisions, and you will need artillery aplenty to form those hard-hitting 7 Inf + 2 art infantry divisions. If you can add support AT to them, all the better.
Stop building military factories around mid 1939, and prepare for war with refineries, radar stations and additional air bases. Don’t forget to do the Westwall Focus. Now would be a good time to add to the forts against France by dismantling the Sudetenland forts for extra build speed, if you feel the need. I usually do not.
Well, this has worked well for me – but I’d be happy to hear how this little scheme could be further improved upon!
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