
The Influence of Railways on Military Operations in the Russo-German War 1941–45 - Vigier
https://www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2018/3/9/the-influence-of-railways-on-military-operations-in-the-russo-german-war-19411945
======
boomka
There is a very interesting theory that claims one of the major factors
leading to the start of WWI (not II) was that Germans could not change their
mobilization plans to anything softer than outright invasion of Belgium
because there was no easy way to modify the railway schedules on which
mobilization plans rely:
[http://www.ae.metu.edu.tr/~evren/history/texts/taylor1.htm](http://www.ae.metu.edu.tr/~evren/history/texts/taylor1.htm)

So once they were forced into some kind of escalation, they had to escalate
all the way. Other countries did not realize that (obviously) so they kept
putting pressure on Germany with escalations on their end.

~~~
jcranmer
The timetable thesis doesn't hold up that well. The Russians had no plans for
a partial mobilization, and the tsar still ordered a partial mobilization
(although the military did succeed in pressuring him to return to general
mobilization within a few days). Germany not invading Belgium wouldn't have
changed the course of the war all that much--Britain likely would have found
another excuse to involve itself in the war had Belgian neutrality not been
violated.

If you subscribe to the belief that the grand strategy of war should be left
to the politicians and not the military, then the timetable excuse is gross
dereliction of duty on the part of the military: the military is failing to
provide plans for perfectly reasonable options that the government could wish
to enact (i.e., limited war instead of total war).

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> and the tsar still ordered a partial mobilization (although the military did
> succeed in pressuring him to return to general mobilization within a few
> days)

That's not even remotely what happened. What actually happened was the Tsar
ordered a full mobilization while lying to the world that their mobilization
was only partial, to possibly delay the mobilization of other powers. From the
start, not a single thing was done differently from a full mobilization.

------
tetromino_
What I found most interesting from the article was that the effectiveness of
Soviet scorched earth tactics was due to expert Soviet planning and the German
military engineers' naivete about railroad operations.

The Soviet decision of precisely what to scorch was made by railroad logistics
experts. They tore up some tracks here and there, but paid especial attention
to wrecking all locomotive depots before retreating, and taking all
operational locomotives back with the retreating forces, leaving no equipment
for the enemy.

The German military engineers spent their efforts on repairing and regauging
the tracks, but didn't pay as much attention to the condition of the depots,
failing to realize that without a fully operational depot per every 80 km of
track, the line's overall capacity was severely degraded. This left front
units starved of supplies as soon as the length of captured and "repaired"
railroad lines got long enough.

~~~
barrow-rider
> failing to realize that without a fully operational depot per every 80 km of
> track, the line's overall capacity was severely degraded

I am failing to realize this too. To be fair I'm not a logistician or train
guy.

Why are the depots necessary, and why at 80km intervals?

~~~
tetromino_
Steam locomotives could only travel a fixed distance (limited by locomotive
design at the time, which in turn was limited by physical constraints of the
track) before running out of water and coal and needing to be turned around.
The train would then be detached from one locomotive and passed on to the next
one - very much like changing horses in a preindustrial mail dispatch relay.

Refueling, refilling water, turning around, and performing needed regular
maintenance to keep the locomotive in running order was very difficult without
a specially prepared site - the depot. Without depots, you could get a train
80 km down the line, but then you were stuck without the ability to
immediately hand the train off to the next locomotive.

------
cm2187
Amusing collection of military quotes on the importance of logistics:
[https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-
quotes-t511....](https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-
quotes-t511.html)

~~~
adamsea
"My logisticians are a humorless lot ... they know if my campaign fails, they
are the first ones I will slay." \- Alexander

~~~
arcbyte
I ready a very interesting book about Alexander's logistics during his
campaigns that calculated he could never have had more than 4 days supplies.
Imagine spending years pressing further and further into dessert and jungle
not knowing where to get food for 40000 people after a few days

------
KineticLensman
Not many comments yet on the article itself, which I thougt was techically
interesting. Some TL;DR points are:

The Russian network was techically primitive but had higher traffic capacity
(e.g. because manual signalling and slow trains meant collisions were unlikely

Russian central logistics planning meant that there was less non-essential
traffic.

The Russian net was run according to rules developed by railway specialists.
In contrast, the Wehrmacht had multiple competing managers, including some
military officers who made decisions (e.g. commandeering trains) that degraded
overall network efficiency

It was easier for the Russians to repair their own damaged railways than for
the Germans to bring captured networks to their own higher standards

~~~
jcranmer
I haven't read the article yet, but one of the things that does stand out is
that Germany (and Europe) used 1435mm track, whereas Russia used 1520mm track.
This would have caused a major break of gauge in Poland, which would have been
one of the causes of supplies desperately needed for front-line troops (such
as winter coats) getting stuck in Poland.

The German military in WWII did not distinguish itself with good command of
logistics.

~~~
lostlogin
The other intersting comment in the article related to the possible loading of
Russian trains. The less confined operating areas meant loads could be wider.

~~~
tetromino_
Both wider and taller! The most common Russian T loading gauge is 3.75 meters
wide, 5.3 meters high.

Compare to Germany's traditional G2 gauge: only 3.15 meters wide by 4.65
meters high, and that height is with a sloping roof profile. (And the German
gauge is quite generous compared to some other Western European countries; for
much of the British network, the loading gauge is much smaller.)

------
olavk
Calling it the Russo-German War is (probably deliberately) ignoring the
sacrifices and sufferings of millions of Ukrainians and Belorussians and other
nationalities in the USSR.

~~~
ableal
I believe the designation in Russian is "The Great Patriotic War of
1941-1945".

Then things get simplified for English-speaking audience titles ...

~~~
PeterisP
There are terms that are both simple and not actively misleading (as much of
that war happened in non-Russian USSR) - what's wrong with "Eastern front of
WW2"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_\(World_War_II\))
?

~~~
mLuby
Well, depends how far East you go… But generally yeah that makes sense. Or
talk about the two governments: "Nazi-Soviet war"

------
JadeNB
Is it appropriate to pretend that the title of a scholarly article, rather
than, say, a blog post, is something other than what it actually is? I
understand the point of badpun
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17489430)
)'s helpful suggestion, but this is a scholarly work—viz.,

> This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis
> in JOURNAL OF SLAVIC MILITARY STUDIES Volume 30 Issue 2 on 27th April 2017

—where one can expect that the choice of language is careful and significant,
and it's called "The Influence of Railways on Military Operations in the
Russo-German War 1941–1945", not what the current headline says it's called
(Influence of Railways on Military Operations in the Soviet-German War
1941-45).

(With that said, let me be the first top-level thread to comment on something
_other_ than the title. I haven't read the article yet, but it's a fascinating
topic and I look forward to doing so!)

------
antocv
Russi-German war huh, as if the Uzbeks and Khazaks were not affected and
effective in repelling Nazis, Germans, Italians, Romanians and Croatians among
more, as if this was a national war and not ideological?

~~~
baxtr
A suggestion from your side instead of a rant would be helpful. Maybe Russo-
Khazaks-Uzbeks-German-Italian-Romanians-Croatians war?!

~~~
LoSboccacc
I think "Eastern Front in WWII" is the editor-friendly name, even if it's
pointless navel gazing.

~~~
baxtr
Thanks for me teaching me “navel gazing”, had to look that up :)

About your suggestion: I’d associate the Asian theatre with that...

~~~
vesinisa
No, that is the Pacific Theatre. Eastern Front in WWII unambiguously refers to
the European theatre of the Axis-Soviet conflict in Western post-war study.
The problem with that term is of course that from the Soviet/Russian
perspective, the enemy was coming from the West, so they refer to the European
theatre as the Great Patriotic War - a rather loaded and mostly unheard of
term in the West.

So academia has had to come up with new rather obscure neutral terminology
like the German-Soviet Conflict or Russo-German War.

------
myth_drannon
I can't read an article that starts with a such bizarre title. If author can't
state the name of the war properly the rest is definitely not worth to read.

~~~
Maakuth
You mean it should say Second World War? That's quite broad, then you'd need
to add more qualifiers. This name is more exact and is not wrong.

~~~
rimliu
I grew up in USSR. History textbooks talked only about Great Patriotic War.
1941-06-22 to 1945-05-09, USSR vs. Germany, nothing elze.

~~~
Maakuth
I'm a Finn myself and we also have special names for the two wars Finland
fought during the WWII; The Winter War (1939-40) and the Continuation War
(1941-44). It would be interesting to know what number of different specific
names for the parts of that war are being used.

------
classicsnoot
To all of the pseudo-pedants who think there is only one acceptable name for
World War Two, I humbly submit a man far greater and learned than myself and
many others: Victor D. Hanson

[https://youtu.be/tQq-ORA4fHw](https://youtu.be/tQq-ORA4fHw)

~~~
ryanx435
I honestly think those pseudo-pedants didn't actually read or understand the
article they just want to sound like they are intelligent so they found some
detail to nitpick.

