Trains and moving divisions question
BillC
Hi,
In moving division sized units around on the eastern front, how many trains
would it typically take to move an armor division and an infantry division?
How many engines and cars would it be on each train? Was moving a German
division by train much different than moving a Soviet division? What were
the time frames involved?
Thanks, Bill
Bill4611 at hotmail.com
Rich Rostrom
>Hi,
>In moving division sized units around on the eastern front, how many trains
>would it typically take to move an armor division and an infantry division?
1 flatcar per tank, tank destroyer, or SP gun
1 flatcar per 2 halftracks, scout cars, or heavy trucks
1 flatcar per 3 towed guns, light trucks, or horse-drawn wagons
1 boxcar per 40 men or 6 horses
plus additional box cars for food, ammo, fuel, fodder, and gear;
probably 1 such for each car required above.
(Remember that even panzer units used horse-drawn transport as
much as possible, due to the shortage of fuel.)
In areas of partisan activity, additional flatcars would
be rigged with sandbagged gun positions.
>How many engines and cars would it be on each train?
That would depend on the locomotives. There were (and are)
many different types of locomotive, from switch engines
that shuttle around in yards moving a few cars at a time,
to express locos which haul a modest number of cars at
high speed, to massive freight engines for pulling up to
100 laden coal or ore cars at a time.
If the route had any uphill grade segments, extra locos
could be required. Even in Russia there are hilly areas
and river valleys.
>Was moving a German division by train much different than
>moving a Soviet division?
German divisions were larger than Soviet divisions when
at full strength. Both sides had many understrength
divisions, but German formations were nearly always
less depleted.
--
Nothing which was ever expressed originally in the English language resembles,
except in the most distant way, the thought of Plotinus, or Hegel, or Foucault.
I take this to be enormously to the credit of our language. -- David Stove
--
PaulJ
This is off the top of my head, so correct me if I'm wrong, but as I
recall, ballpark figures would be:
pz div: 75 trains (note that often only tracked veh shipped by rail,
with bulk of wheeled transport moving by road convoy)
inf div: 15-20 trains
size of trains: good question, this is just a guess but I'd say 30-50
cars each
armd veh were shipped on flat beds, chocked and chained down (which is
the way its still done)
troops were shipped either packed into passenger cars (if they were
lucky) or packed into freight cars, in improvised multi-level bunk beds
and straw (if they were not so lucky)
As to time-lines, the answer of course is that it depended. In
principle a train move to the Eastern Front from, say, France, could be
done in as little as 2-3 days of travelling time. In practice, it
depended upon priorities (and the state of the rail lines). But one of
the major factors wasn't just the travelling time on rail -- it was the
time to marshal and load the unit, and unload and reform the unit, which
off-hand I'd say could easily double the time involved.
Merry Christmas and all,
PaulJ
IBM
"BillC" <Billd...@Hotmail.com> wrote in
news:cqhh1j$o...@gazette.corp.bcm.tmc.edu:
Thats the sort of information one used to find in Staff Tables.
Basically a whole bunch of answers to basic questions regarding the
care, feeding, and transport of your side's troops. Also had useful
things like march rates, etc.
IBM
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David Wilma
>As to time-lines, the answer of course is that it depended. In
>principle a train move to the Eastern Front from, say, France, could be
>done in as little as 2-3 days of travelling time.
Don't forget the incompatible gauges of the Soviet and European railways. This
required transferring passengers and cargos at the frontier, certainly adding
days to the journey.
David Wilma
www.HistoryLink.org
The online encyclopedia of Washington state history.
Michael Emrys
in article cr2ck3$7...@gazette.corp.bcm.tmc.edu, David Wilma at
davew...@aol.comREMOVE wrote on 12/30/04 6:13 PM:
> Don't forget the incompatible gauges of the Soviet and European railways. This
> required transferring passengers and cargos at the frontier, certainly adding
> days to the journey.
But, as the Germans had crews reguaging the railways, I believe this was
only a problem the first year or so of the war while they were advancing. At
least this should have been the case for the principle, heavily-used
railways.
Michael
Andrew Clark
"Michael Emrys" <em...@olypen.com> wrote
> But, as the Germans had crews reguaging
> the railways, I believe this was only a problem
> the first year or so of the war while they were
> advancing.
The Reichsbahn was critically short of high grade steel for
rails; points; locomotives & carriages; signal equipment;
drivers; guards; track engineers etc. In other words, the
high tech, high-skill components of a railway network which
could not be reliably produced by mass slave labour.
--
Georg Schwarz
PaulJ <us...@example.net> wrote:
> As to time-lines, the answer of course is that it depended. In
> principle a train move to the Eastern Front from, say, France, could be
> done in as little as 2-3 days of travelling time.
I read that shortly before Stalingrad it would take a German soldier two
weeks of travelling for getting back from the Eastern front for a home
leave. Maybe getting on a train meat more waiting that the actual time
on board?
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
georg....@freenet.de +49 177 8811442
Cub Driver
>I read that shortly before Stalingrad it would take a German soldier two
>weeks of travelling for getting back from the Eastern front for a home
>leave. Maybe getting on a train meat more waiting that the actual time
>on board?
Yes, two weeks would have sufficed in peacetime to cover the whole
length of Russia on the trans-Siberian railroad.
Presumably a west-bound soldier on leave had to give way both to
east-bound supply cars and west-bound hospital cases.
Michael Emrys
in article cra90s$mau$1...@gnus01.u.washington.edu, Andrew Clark at
acl...@deletethisstarcott.freeserve.co.uk wrote on 1/2/05 6:01 PM:
All those were certainly problems. I was confining my reply exclusively to
the question of regauging though. Can you supply any information as to when
the regauging of Soviet railways was sufficiently advanced that reloading
shipments onto Soviet sized trains was no longer necessary?
And it might be interesting to know how the Soviets handled regauging as
they in turn advanced west.
Michael
Louis Capdeboscq
> Umm. What about the rails *already there*?
>
> Hand tools + Unskilled labour = move them from 5'3" apart to 4.8.5"
> apart.
>
> No problems.
Well, "no problems" only as long as you go in a straight line. The
problems will start at the first curve, and let's not mention rail
junctions, crossings, stations, yards etc.
The Germans are going to need at least skilled labor and some
specialized tools to handle these. But I agree with your general point
that shortage of high-grade steel shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Additional problems were the fact that the Soviets were using the
worst-quality rails and ballast in the world. Specifically, this made US
lend-lease locomotives practically unusable (they were too big), but I
think that it also militated against heavy rail traffic of the kind that
the Germans would have liked to run.
> Ditto the signal equipment and points *already there*. Whats wrong
> with using them?
What's wrong is the Soviets didn't have much in the way of signal
equipment, they destroyed a lot of it and Wehrmacht troops enjoyed
shooting it up as well as whatever rolling stock failed in their hands.
> As for the trains and personnel ... the DRB was operating those
> trains, so the DRB personnel were running them.
The Germans requisitioned thousands of trains from occupied countries,
notably France, to pick up the shortfall in their own rail transport
capacity during the first winter.
Clearly the additional trains required personnel, and French SNCF
personnel couldn't be counted upon to operate in Russia.
LC
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Andrew Clark
<asp...@pacific.net.au> wrote
> Umm. What about the rails *already there*?
Well, two problems. They were generally of very poor
standard steel and often fell apart under intensive
Wehrmacht use; and bends and points (and bridges) cannot be
widened in the manner you suggest.
> Ditto the signal equipment and points *already there*.
> Whats wrong with using them?
Russian signal equipment was mostly destroyed as the Red
Army retreated. Even when it wasn't, more intensive use
needs better signal equipment.
> I wasn't aware of major shortages of
> staff in the DRB during the war.
Freeman, in his Economic Atlas of Nazi Germany, makes the
point that, after absorbing the shortages and key skill
losses consequent on conscription, the Reichsbahn was then
expected to take over the entire railway network of Poland,
Ukraine, the Baltic states and much of European Russia. This
represented a rail network the same size as that of the US
and Canada put together, and four times the size of the
pre-1936 German network. The result was critical shortages
of staff, engines, rolling stock and so on, only partly
ameliorated by the confiscation of French and Belgian staff
and stock.
(snip)
Ilkka
Louis Capdeboscq wrote:
> The Germans are going to need at least skilled labor and some
> specialized tools to handle these. But I agree with your general point
Railway engineer troops with special trains.
Michael Emrys
acl...@deletethisstarcott.freeserve.co.uk wrote on 1/11/05 8:13 AM:
> <asp...@pacific.net.au> wrote
>
>> Umm. What about the rails *already there*?
>
> Well, two problems. They were generally of very poor standard steel and often
> fell apart under intensive Wehrmacht use; and bends and points (and bridges)
> cannot be widened in the manner you suggest.
Since the Germans used a *narrower* gauge than the Soviets, widening would
not be required.
Michael
--
Andrew Clark
"Michael Emrys" <em...@olypen.com> wrote
> Since the Germans used a *narrower* gauge
> than the Soviets, widening would
> not be required.
Whoops! Thanks for the correction. On the other hand, the
radius of the curves and bends in rail tracks cannot be
easily changed whether increasing or reducing the width!
RENABORNEY
>Specifically, this made US
>lend-lease locomotives practically unusable (they were too big),
SNIP
Hmmmmm....I have to disagree with you
The US Army had three standard steam locomotives for road service in WWII,
supplemented by a "special" for the USSR
Class S-160 2-8-0 (160,000 lbs on 5 axles)
- 200 to USSR in 1943 as Class Wa and used as light duty engines in the
Leningrad area. USA use in Europe, Italy, North Africa & India
Class S-200 2-8-2 (200,000 lbs on 6 axles)
200 built. USA use on Trans-Iranian Railway hauling Lend-Lease supplies to USSR
Class S-119 Narrow Guage 2-8-2 "MacArthur" (119000 lbs on 6 axles) 832 built.
USA use world-wide. Also Lend-Leased to British Empire
In addition, the USSR came back for a second helping of a successful Great War
design (Russian railways were based on North American technology as the problem
- settling vast areas of wilderness as cheaply as possible were similar) , the
famous "Russian Decapod" 2-10-0 with 875 built 1915-1918 (Classes Ef, Es & Ek)
and 2110 built 1944-1945 (Classes Ea, Em & Emb) used in Eastern USSR & on
Trans-Siberian Railway until the end of Soviet steam in the Eighties. Don't
have locomotive weight, but weight on drivers was 192,500 lbs (on 5 driving
axles)
Additional locos exported to the USSR were
10 0-4-0T switchers (92250 lbs on 2 axles)
20 0-6-0T switchers (125000 lbs on 3 axles)
16 narrow guage 0-8-0 switchers (48000 lbs on 4 axles)