Hearts of Iron IV - Developer Diary 7 - Air Combat

[keynes2.0]

Only strategic airpower was about assets destroyed directly, tactical airpower was also about the disruption provided, the static positions compromised, the reconnaissance.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

I used to falsely believe that air power kicked butt. But reality shows this was simply not true. On average only about 5% of land combat assets were destroyed by air power. Air power was essential but NOT because of direct combat losses.

It's not simply about total losses, it's about the time, manpower, and industrial resources needed to fight such a war.

A comparison would be the studies done on submarine warfare from the major powers. Germany inflicted a cost of 10 times to 1 in the amount of industrial resources, manpower, and time needed to counter the German submarines. In fact if Germany would have increased production of submarines a mere 5% from 1938 onward it is quite possible that a D-Day operation as happened would not have been possible due to the amount of transports the USA was needing to build to replace losses. They simply cannot build enough transports, troop carriers, aircraft, escort ships, and escort aircraft carriers all at the same time to fight 2 major ocean wars.

By comparison the USA inflicted about 59 to 1 cost ratio against Japanese with submarines... but it was a completely different war as Japan did not develop anti submarine warfare doctrines, or proper escort doctrines.

That is part of the reason I think the new experience model should focus on the actual threat you are facing... losing massive amounts of convoys and escorts such as Britain and USA did should mean they earn lots of experience in anti submarine and convoy escort. Just as USSR losing massive amounts of troops to German tanks should reward experience to anti tank warfare.

War is much more about countering what your facing right now... and if you create a bigger and better Tiger tank, the USSR would be learning more and spending more to counter the new Tiger tanks.

 

[keynes2.0]

It's not simply about total losses, it's about the time, manpower, and industrial resources needed to fight such a war.

A comparison would be the studies done on submarine warfare from the major powers. Germany inflicted a cost of 10 times to 1 in the amount of industrial resources, manpower, and time needed to counter the German submarines. In fact if Germany would have increased production of submarines a mere 5% from 1938 onward it is quite possible that a D-Day operation as happened would not have been possible due to the amount of transports the USA was needing to build to replace losses. They simply cannot build enough transports, troop carriers, aircraft, escort ships, and escort aircraft carriers all at the same time to fight 2 major ocean wars.

1) You assuming that you can linearly extrapolate the effect of German subs. Given that german sub kills were dominated by a small number of aces and they did poorly on ships in convoys it's questionable whether another 5% of subs would have quality or opportunity
2) Another 5% increase in sinkings wouldn't be enough to actually cut into allied shipping totals. You'd need like a 50% increase just to cause a reduction.

In both sub and air warfare the concept of diminishing returns is important. You can't just linearly extrapolate importance.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

1) You assuming that you can linearly extrapolate the effect of German subs. Given that german sub kills were dominated by a small number of aces and they did poorly on ships in convoys it's questionable whether another 5% of subs would have quality or opportunity
2) Another 5% increase in sinkings wouldn't be enough to actually cut into allied shipping totals. You'd need like a 50% increase just to cause a reduction.

In both sub and air warfare the concept of diminishing returns is important. You can't just linearly extrapolate importance.

I never said that it would be a linear effect... but with the amount of sinkings the Germans were already doing and done, the US military was already having issues finding the production needed to get things like troop carriers. They already were discussing delaying events such as the Africa landing and D-Day as it was... so if you add in another few hundred convoy/escort ships sunk over 4 years (1939-1943) it would quite probably change things as it happened.

 

[keynes2.0]

I never said that it would be a linear effect... but with the amount of sinkings the Germans were already doing and done, the US military was already having issues finding the production needed to get things like troop carriers. They already were discussing delaying events such as the Africa landing and D-Day as it was... so if you add in another few hundred convoy/escort ships sunk over 4 years (1939-1943) it would quite probably change things as it happened.

Saying that another 5% more subs would have triggered the Allies pulling back from those is like saying a 5% increase in planes would have made Sealion viable. And it further ignores that the allies got smart with the ASW later and made it hard to hit new targets. Also, it's ignoring that "aces" were responsible for nearly all the sinkings and added a few more inexperienced captains with inexperienced crews would be of extremely limited effect. IIRC half the german subs never sunk a single boat.

 

[Beagá]

If Germany hadn´t built the 2 battleships, Graf Zepellin and the 2 Schanhorsts, built U-boats and if (and that´s a rather big IF) Uk hadn´t built more destroyers and escorts, the extra submarines WOULD have strategic impact in 1939 and 1940.

But this thread is about air war - we certainly will have a new naval system and can discuss that later.

 

[frolix42]

It was in there already. Women took over agricultural jobs at small farms. Now, I wonder if that was actually all that different in US or if the US government just didn't count being a farm wife as work.

In the United States there was a lot more leeway in the ability to exempt people from the draft, such as the last last male from a farm household was usually exempt from conscription due to the importance of agriculture in the war effort. Britain depended on imports from it's colonies for much of it's food, being a much less rural country than Germany, Britain also exempted it's farmers from the draft. Farms in the United States were much larger and more mechanized, farms in Germany were much smaller and usually not mechanized at all, therefore more labor intensive. The Wehrmacht tried to avoid conscripting farm men as much as possible, but they were forced to abandon this policy as early as 1940.

It is not make work. Food production was hugely important to the Nazi war effort. They had a less efficient agricultural sector but there wasn't any slack especially when you're trying to feed 10 million hungry soldiers who are no longer producing themselves.

I think you are right. Where in the United States you had Rosie the Riveter, in Germany you would have Olga the Farmer. What all this means is that Germany was much less able to mobilize it's women for work in what we traditionally think of as "the war industry", because it would equal reducing their food supply.

Of course by any reasonable measure Germany was on a "total war footing", with a "full-war" economy, probably since the Czech crisis in September 1938. I think it's logically untenable...

This is a rather dishonest way to quote someone. The rest of the quote.

I think it's logically untenable to believe that Germany hadn't given it's absolute priority to it's war effort long before 1943, in fact to suggest this is rather insulting to the strategic sense of German leadership and their ability to judge the severity of the situation they were facing.

It might be illogical but it was a fact. And simple search of history will prove it. Germany was NOT anywhere near a war economy in 1938.

Your belief that Germany hadn't entered a state of "Total War" by 1943 is illogical, but not a fact.

No economy exists in a binary state, War Economy/Peace Economy. However from 1936-1945 was Germany the most mobilized (per capita) country in Europe? Yes, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union '43-'45. Was Germany primarily focused on maximizing it's military strength since 1934? Undeniably. When Speer named the 1943 mobilization drive the "Total War" mobilization program, it's virtually meaningless. It was just a name for propaganda, indeed by implying that only now Germany was putting it's full strength towards the war effort (in 1943:rofl the name does serve a propaganda purpose for Germans. But it is misleading because it implies that Germany hadn't already been maximizing it's mobilization levels before 1943, or that it didn't reach an even more extreme mobilization level in '44-'45

You guys are correct. My point was strictly related to the graph.

What the graph shows is a steady increase in armaments production suddenly leveling off when the Battle of the Ruhr happens. If Allied Strategic bombing had little or no effect, and instead Germany was reaching the limit of what it could produce, you would expect a gradual leveling off of production over time because the Germans did not stop trying to expand armaments production in Apr '43. This is not the case.

 

[varsovie]

Just because food is important doesn't mean that having women work on food production in an outdated sector was a logical choice. I don't have a complete picture here but I imagine it would have made a lot more sense to put those womanpower to creating double or triple shifts on at the factories producing farm equipment and fix that bloated farm sector. The US mechanized farms heavily during WWII. I dont have the complete picture here but it could be that the Germans would have found it culturally beneficial to put the women into women's work on the farms when it would have helped more to put them to work starting double shifts on the farm equipment factories.

To change the subject slightly there is a pretty strong data point on Americans labor that wouldn't show up in employment, the victory gardens. A quick google lookup indicates 20 million gardens and half US vegetable production came from gardens so that's pretty significant.

Yeah right diverting IC, metal and PETROLEUM (fuel) toward farms instead of tanks...

Nha what Germany should've done is earlier militarization with rationing in germany before 42 and better control on the production (manufactures made CIVILIAN cars until mid 43).

Compare that to the URSS that was only producing tanks (or militarizing tractors like at odessa :happy, that they were in high shortage of tractors and fertilizer, that bring them the famines of 46-47 (also Stalin continued grain export, but nonetheless 1-1.5 million peoples died from starvation in the URSS).

 

[Dalwin]

I used to falsely believe that air power kicked butt. But reality shows this was simply not true. On average only about 5% of land combat assets were destroyed by air power. Air power was essential but NOT because of direct combat losses.

That 5% is totally misleading though. Air power is key for a lot more than just direct destruction. It is harder to quantify how valuable the recon aspect is or the disruption of enemy supply lines or just making the enemy hunker down in their bunkers while you are maneuvering freely. Then let's not forget the negative morale impact on the land troops for the enemy having uncontested air superiority.

There was very good reason why the German's waited for overcast before launching Wacht Am Rhine (Battle of the Buldge). They knew they'd have made very little progress advancing armor columns against uncontested enemy air superiority.

None of these things help the planes rack up a kill count but they are all valuable.

 

[Beagá]

Well the overcast weather was important both for stopping air attacks AND air recon, thus allowing surprise.

I hope recon is a bit more important in the game, specially spotting in sea regions by floatplanes and others. It´s a nice thing the new system might allow - recon planes. The more you have, the better the chance you have of spotting stuff and not allow Bismarck to GTFO from North Sea so easily.

 

[Porkman]

Well the overcast weather was important both for stopping air attacks AND air recon, thus allowing surprise.

I hope recon is a bit more important in the game, specially spotting in sea regions by floatplanes and others. It´s a nice thing the new system might allow - recon planes. The more you have, the better the chance you have of spotting stuff and not allow Bismarck to GTFO from North Sea so easily.

I'm really liking this system because you could potentially include a dozen recon planes in each strategic region and have it be viable.

 

[keynes2.0]

I'm really liking this system because you could potentially include a dozen recon planes in each strategic region and have it be viable.

Yes! Recon planes make a lot of sense in this system.

 

[frolix42]

I don't have a complete picture here but I imagine it would have made a lot more sense to put those womanpower to creating double or triple shifts on at the factories producing farm equipment and fix that bloated farm sector.

It's always good to laugh

 

[jju_57]

Your belief that Germany hadn't entered a state of "Total War" by 1943 is illogical, but not a fact.

No economy exists in a binary state, War Economy/Peace Economy. However from 1936-1945 was Germany the most mobilized (per capita) country in Europe? Yes, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union '43-'45. Was Germany primarily focused on maximizing it's military strength since 1934? Undeniably. When Speer named the 1943 mobilization drive the "Total War" mobilization program, it's virtually meaningless. It was just a name for propaganda, indeed by implying that only now Germany was putting it's full strength towards the war effort (in 1943:rofl the name does serve a propaganda purpose for Germans. But it is misleading because it implies that Germany hadn't already been maximizing it's mobilization levels before 1943, or that it didn't reach an even more extreme mobilization level in '44-'45

Are you really claiming that Germany was in full war economy before 1943 (That means 1939 through 1942)? Do you really believe that?

You claim I'm illogical for saying otherwise. So maybe other historians are also illogical.

This from Wikipedia:
"The proportion of military spending in the German economy began growing rapidly after 1942, as the Nazi government was forced to dedicate more and more of the country's economic resources to fight a losing war. Civilian factories were converted to military use and placed under military administration. From mid 1943 on, Germany switched to a full war economy overseen by Albert Speer. By late 1944, almost the entire German economy was dedicated to military production. The result was a dramatic rise in military production, with an increase by 2 to 3 times of vital goods like tanks and aircraft, despite the intensifying Allied air campaign and the loss of territory and factories. "

"At the time of Speer's accession to the office, the German economy, unlike the British one, was not fully geared for war production. Consumer goods were still being produced at nearly as high a level as during peacetime. No fewer than five "Supreme Authorities" had jurisdiction over armament production—one of which, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, had declared in November 1941 that conditions did not permit an increase in armament production. Few women were employed in the factories, which were running only one shift. One evening soon after his appointment, Speer went to visit a Berlin armament factory; he found no one on the premises."

You hate Wikipedia then check out these books:
Fest, Joachim (1999), Speer: The Final Verdict, translated by Ewald Osers and Alexandra Dring, Harcourt, ISBN 978-0-15-100556-7
Fest, Joachim (2007), Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler's Architect, translated by Patrick Camiller, Polity Press, ISBN 978-0-7456-3918-5
Sereny, Gitta (1995), Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, Knopf, ISBN 978-0-394-52915-8
Braun, Hans-Joachim (1990). The German Economy in the Twentieth Century. Routledge.

Bottom line is it is EXTREMELY well documented that the German economy was NOT on war footing prior to 1943, especially when compared to the British.

So laugh all you want. But go read up on history and learn something.

 

[frolix42]

Are you really claiming that Germany was in full war economy before 1943 (That means 1939 through 1942)? Do you really believe that?

Yes.

You claim I'm illogical for saying otherwise. So maybe other historians are also illogical.

and yes.

This from Wikipedia:

"The proportion of military spending in the German economy began growing rapidly after 1942, as the Nazi government was forced to dedicate more and more of the country's economic resources to fight a losing war. Civilian factories were converted to military use and placed under military administration. From mid 1943 on, Germany switched to a full war economy overseen by Albert Speer. By late 1944, almost the entire German economy was dedicated to military production. The result was a dramatic rise in military production, with an increase by 2 to 3 times of vital goods like tanks and aircraft, despite the intensifying Allied air campaign and the loss of territory and factories. "

"At the time of Speer's accession to the office, the German economy, unlike the British one, was not fully geared for war production. Consumer goods were still being produced at nearly as high a level as during peacetime. No fewer than five "Supreme Authorities" had jurisdiction over armament production—one of which, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, had declared in November 1941 that conditions did not permit an increase in armament production. Few women were employed in the factories, which were running only one shift. One evening soon after his appointment, Speer went to visit a Berlin armament factory; he found no one on the premises."

Of course there are many things are not mentioned in these picked paragraphs, for example in the 1930s the Consumer goods industry in Germany had not recovered in the same way it's heavy industry had, which is not surprising given how focused Hitler was on rearmament. That consumer goods share in an economy such as Germany with a pre-war per capita income of $4,500, would be much much smaller than that of the United States and Britain. So production of Consumer Goods at "nearly as high a level as during peacetime" was still relatively paltry to British and American levels.

But the real problem with the Wiki article snippet you choose to base you argument on is that it's dead wrong. To wit:

Within the pre-war territory of the Reich, the already constrained levels of civilian consumption fell by 11 percent (on a per capita basis) in the first year of the war. By 1941, consumption spending was down by 18 percent relative to 1938. As household expenditure dried up, unspent cash poured into the coffers of the German financial system. The most vivid indicator of this wave of war-induced saving is provided by the monthly returns of the German savings banks...The banks of the Sparkassen (People's Bank) provide a direct insight to the everyday financial dispositions of German households. In the month immediately preceding the war, they showed an unusually large new withdrawal, as millions of families did their best to stockpile necessities. Then for the first months of 1940 onwards, as rationing began to bite and the shelves of the German shops emptied, the accounts of the savings banks with a completely unprecedented volume of deposits. By 1941, the inflow was running at the rate of more than a billion Reichsmarks per month.

On a side note, in this way you could think of the Third Reich as a gigantic Ponzi scheme which collapsed in 1945. It's quite sad.

Beyond that, are you surprised that the de facto highest ranking leader of Germany who survived beyond the Nuremberg trials tried to portray himself as very good at his job?

You hate Wikipedia then check out these books:

[Books from Albert Speer's Wiki page]

Bottom line is it is EXTREMELY well documented that the German economy was NOT on war footing prior to 1943, especially when compared to the British.

UK vs. Germany? Where does it say data about this? [CITATION NEEDED]...*crickets*...so not documented by you.

I have one: Resource mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945 by Mark Harrison, Department of Economics, University of Warwick
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/public/ehr88postprint.pdf

Germany

How cheap was Germany’s early military success? Germany’s prewar economic preparations were very substantial. Table 1 shows that in the years 1935-9 Germany had procured a volume of combat munitions far greater than any other power, and equal in real terms to the munitions production of all her future adversaries combined. Already in the last “peacetime” year of 1938 Germany’s military expenditures were costing her one-sixth of her national income. Only the Soviet Union had applied resources to rearmament on anything approaching the German order of magnitude. Thus Germany had to devote major resources to her war effort, even while she was still beginning her trail of victories. Nonetheless her successes were cheap in at least two senses: first, because rearmament was initiated in an underemployed economy, so that increases in military spending merely took up slack and did not require the resources employed for war to be first withdrawn from other commitments; second, because the resources devoted to war were employed with relative efficiency, and Germany’s conquests brought major economic returns.

versus the Allies.

The British rearmament process began in 1935, in the wake of abandonment of the “ten-year rule” (that there would be no major conflict within a rolling ten-year horizon) which since 1919 had dominated British strategic planning, and with the naming of Japan and Germany as potential aggressors. The main effort was devoted to naval and air rearmament; as a whole, the defence budget remained tightly constrained by both strategic and economic doctrines. Regardless of the domestic background of widespread unemployment, official fears of financial instability still exceeded the fear of external aggression. Until March 1938 British defence preparations had to be carried on within the limits of the doctrine that “the course of normal trade should not be impeded”. Strict financial constraints were soon rationalized in military policy, in the theory of a “war of limited liability”, ruling out the need for any major reconditioning of the ground forces. The perspective of a limited war outlived the financial limitation of defence spending by one year, being abandoned only in March 1939 with the fall of Prague.
Thus, before 1939, Britain rearmed only at a low level, seeking to regulate Germany’s behaviour primarily through negotiation; in 1938 defence spending still claimed only 7 per cent of the national income. French preparations were similarly limited, both in absolute terms and in relation to the size of the French economy. The United States abstained altogether from the rearmament process, defence allocations remaining insignificant in proportion to her national income as late as
1940.

So again, on this topic unrelated to Strategic Air Warfare , it appears the opposite of what you claim is true.

So laugh all you want. But go read up on history and learn something.

I do laugh a lot at what some people choose to believe. What you've done is read a single Wikipedia page , copy pasted some very dodgy paragraphs which agree with you, then demand I read and critique the sources it draws it's conclusions from. If I don't want to take Albert Speer's fawning Wikipedia Page at face value, I can read the fawning Albert Speer biographies that this same Wikipedia page uses as it's source. While you don't appear to have read them yourself. How lazy are you?

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

I do laugh a lot at what some people choose to believe. What you've done is read a single Wikipedia page , copy pasted some very dodgy paragraphs which agree with you, then demand I read and critique the sources it draws it's conclusions from. If I don't want to take Albert Speer's fawning Wikipedia Page at face value, I can read the fawning Albert Speer biographies that this same Wikipedia page uses as it's source. While you don't appear to have read them yourself. How lazy are you?

Actually while I do not know the legitimacy of the authors you quote, in the field of academia Albert Speer is generally only credited with bringing some changes to the German war industry that accelerated production. He however was only accelerating changes that were already taking place, and can only be given some credit. The main growth in armament was due to worker production growth as 1942 a lot of standardization took place so workers were mass producing more. The other main change was less minor changes to parts, no more polishing and getting rid of rough edges that didn't have anything to do with a weapon (like in planes and tanks).

http://economics.yale.edu/sites/def...ps-Seminars/Economic-History/streb-040929.pdf
What Albert Speer did (very last sentence of Page 3):

"First, the number of weapon types was reduced which might have allowed many firms to move to mass production and exploit economies of scale. Second, the frequency of minor design changes of a special type was also reduced so firms could save at least some of the costs arising from adapting their production equipment. Third, against the declared desire of the armed forces, finishing procedures like polishing or lacquering that add nothing to the strike power of a weapon were abolished, which reduced the working hours needed to produce one piece of an armament good. Fourth, firms were forced to share technological know-how in newly established committees in order to give less efficient firms the information considered necessary for imitating the technology of the superior firms. This might have also accelerated the diffusion of flow production techniques in German industry."

The second part that Speer did:
"Firms that delivered weapons on the basis of a cost-plus contract generally got a payment that not only covered all their actual costs observed after the end of production, but also included a premium that was calculated as a given percentage of these costs. That is why, under a cost-plus contract, an armament producer had no incentives to reduce costs; quite the reverse, he was motivated to increase them to get a higher premium. To make the rationalization measures listed above work it was therefore unavoidable to change to another type of procurement contract. In May 1942 the government ordered that cost-plus contracts had to be generally replaced with fixed-price contracts. Under this new regime the procurement agency and the armament producer ex ante agreed on a fixed price of a weapon on the basis of their expectations about the future production cost. If the armament producer was able to fabricate the good at lower production costs than estimated, he was entitled to keep at least a part of this difference as an additional profit."

What Speer also did to make himself look better (page 2):
"First of all, the Speer administration intentionally chose the first two months of 1942, in which armament production was comparatively low, as the base of the index to exaggerate its own achievements in the following years (Wagenführ, 1954, p. 211)."

Now to counter the above changes they looked specifically at Aircraft industry... which accounted for about 40% of the German war industry.
"In spring 1937 the aviation department chose to rely on fixed-priced contracts in order to give the aircraft producers the right incentives to reduce costs. In summer 1938 it decided that the aircraft producers had to concentrate on a few different types or components so they could run larger production series."

Which means that all the changes Speer made had already happened in the aircraft industry before Speer had arrived. The author(s) attribute this growth to the aircraft industry having to learn the most efficient production, which takes several years (you can even see that in the US and Britain). On top of this the workers had to learn to make the parts, but they attribute this much less then the process by the factory.

(page 17):
"In Siebel’s plants the average number of workers needed to do final assembly of one unit of the Ju 88 bomber dropped from 9 to 2,2 between 1941 and 1943. The audit report also mentioned, however, that the more frequent use of interchangeable components might have improved efficiency too."

So no, actually people more familiar with he details of WWII don't believe that Albert Speer was the "miracle" of the German War industry... he played a role, but overall the changes he made provided a growth but a "miracle". And by no means was the German war economy not at war economy mode, it was just inefficient that's all.

 

[Jakalak]

I'm sorry about the second ages-late response to a dev diary with a question that's probably already been answered, but have any questions been answered re: anti-air? I can't see any in the OP, and it would be great if there has been any clarification given on how it differs from HoI, especially with what they've said about the new movement.

 

[frolix42]

So no, actually people more familiar with he details of WWII don't believe that Albert Speer was the "miracle" of the German War industry... he played a role, but overall the changes he made provided a growth but a "miracle". And by no means was the German war economy not at war economy mode, it was just inefficient that's all.

I think you've cut to the heart of Speer, during World War 2 Albert Speer's political success in centralizing his control over the Nazi Economy under his Ministry of Armaments was entirely dependent on portraying those who came before him as weak and inefficient at mobilizing resources for war. Being skilled at political warfare does not equate to being skilled in economic management, but under Hitler it was a prerequisite. Most significantly for the purposes of analyzing jju_57's argument is that he cites not data relating to armaments production but the interviews and opinions of people who studied Albert Speer. This is especially comic in regard to pre-war armaments as in 1938 Albert Speer was chiefly occupied designing the Reich Chancellory building.

But of course the POV that Albert Speer was the man who finally mobilized Germany for total war makes no sense in relation to the effectiveness of Strategic Bombing. Speer's consolidation of armaments under himself was far from complete by the time of the Battle of the Ruhr, so if Speer was truly a genius mobilizer we would've have seen continued growth from the Nazi economy beyond 1943.

 

[unmerged(83175)]

The new air approach is imo perfect!

 

[Rancher]

Roll on the naval game if it is as radical as this. Of course not being able to play the air war at the moment everything is speculative. But only thing that gives me some qualms is for instance having only 2 areas in France. Could these not be "made" in the same way as is done for theatres for the army.