The German army was expanding too fast, unbelievably fast. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIn 1933, the number of regular Wehrmacht troops was only 100,000.

However, seven years later, the total strength of the regular army of the Third Reich in 1940 has easily exceeded 5 million, and the strength of the Eastern Front has exceeded 3 million.

With such a rate of expansion, it is inevitable that the quality of the troops will decline, and it is also a normal phenomenon that there is insufficient weaponry.

Taking the German armored forces as an example, General Guderian, the father of the German armored forces, once proposed that the number of tanks in the German armored division should be 360 or even more.

However, due to the rapid expansion of the army, the number of tanks in the German armored division could only be maintained between 220 and 280 in most cases.

In the later stages of the war, when German industry was destroyed, the level of production of weapons and equipment declined, and the losses of front-line troops increased, the armored forces had fewer tanks.

At that time, the armored divisions that could put together 150 tanks were already considered the main force, and some improvised armored divisions even had only a few dozen tanks.

To put it cruelly, that is, the German armored forces, which are so much talked about by the majority of military enthusiasts, have never been fully formed in the actual combat process.

In real history, in 1940, one-third of the German army on the Eastern Front used heavy weapons and equipment, which were not domestic products.

For example, trucks, one fifth of the German army came from defeated France. Others are from Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.

There is not one model of trucks from these countries, but dozens of models. How can such an equipment situation ensure logistical operations?

Although Li Le has been working hard for more than three months, he has simplified the production of heavy equipment and improved production efficiency.

However, this phenomenon has not been fundamentally changed, and it has only somewhat eased the pressure on the equipment of the main forces.

The equipment of the captured countries such as France that has been eliminated has only been reequipped from the main force to the non-main force, and there is no so-called "elimination" at all.

What the first-line troops don't want, the second-line troops rush to want. The equipment that the second-line troops don't want is a treasure to the third-line troops.

Most of the German army is still using horse-drawn artillery, who is embarrassed to say that some cars will be eliminated? Bicycles are good things in the case, no army will refuse the temptation of a car.

It's not just a question of not being able to knock out these cars, it's that Germany is still ordering these cars from France! In order to arm more troops, the German military had to use all the forces at its disposal.

It seems inappropriate to allow France to produce military weapons and equipment. But it's another thing to have the French provide civilian-grade trucks.

In order to repay the huge war reparations, the Vichy government of France exported large quantities of civilian equipment to Germany. Including oil extraction equipment, including civilian-grade cars and trucks!

The German military can no matter what civilian level or military level, these cars and trucks are occupied by the military, anyway, they can drive it, and it is better to tow artillery!

Even these cars are likely to get stuck in the mud and not adapt to the brutal battlefield environment. But with equipment is better than without equipment, this is the status quo of the German Army!

From here, it is not difficult to see why the German units who got the Chaser tank destroyer were so happy. This new weapon, which is so cheap that it explodes, really solves the big problem of insufficient equipment in the army.

Although most of the French tanks were not used because of the different combat concepts, these things also played a role in different places.

Some of the French tanks had their turrets removed and converted into tractors for use as engineering equipment.

And the dismantled turret was not wasted at all, it was either installed on an armored train as a battery, or it was installed on the defensive line to replenish the number.

The other part of the more advanced tanks was transferred to the training unit to train tank driving and handling talents.

In the end, the rest can be seen - either equip their own second-line troops to deal with the guerrillas; Either as a compensation settlement, it was exported to allies such as Romania.

In order to ensure that millions of expanded troops have suitable weapons and equipment, Germany's logistics department, equipment department, and production department have racked their brains and used every screw around them.

Li Le's simplification of the production of weapons and equipment has been widely praised by these departments because of the qualitative improvement in the production speed and the saving of raw materials.

But even so, the German army lacked all kinds of weapons and equipment. The situation saddened Brauchitsch at the General Headquarters, as well as Keitel at the Supreme Command.

Up to now, most of the weapons in the hands of the infantry on the Eastern Front were still single-shot bolt rifles, the Mauser Model 98K.

Although this weapon is not backward, its performance can only be considered mediocre. Submachine guns are already scarce, and new assault rifles are even rarer.

The recently developed individual bazooka is also distributed to the front line in small quantities, and it is as difficult to see the truth as a secret weapon.

Although the production process of the MG42 improved machine gun was greatly simplified, it was also not widely promoted on the front line because the production time was too short.

The camouflage uniforms that were finally distributed were quickly submerged in the army of millions. Half of the soldiers in the whole army have not yet been distributed, so because of the arrival of winter, white smocks have been distributed.

The H-belt and tactical vest were well received by the soldiers, but they also took time to produce - unfortunately, what Germany lacked now was time!

It is a very simple matter to arm the front-line troops. It is enough to give these infantrymen a rifle and stuff a few dozen rounds of ammunition.

In the real historical time and space, the so-called 100 million jade fragments and other nonsense slogans made by Japan in the late stage of World War II are this kind of minimum armament.

However, the combat effectiveness of the troops armed in this way is very inferior. The role of such troops on the battlefield is often to make up a number with blood sacrifices.

If you want to make the troops have combat effectiveness, then there is an essential difference, if quality is required, then the material demand is even more.

A replenishment squad should also have a light machine gun, right? An infantry platoon should have a grenade or a bazooka, right? An infantry company should have heavy machine guns and mortars, right?

When you get to the battalion headquarters, you have to have a radio station, right? Do you have a car or pack horse? Is it equipped with large-caliber mortars for support fire?

A little further up, do you want infantry guns at the regimental level, do you want anti-tank guns? Is it necessary to have howitzers of 105 mm caliber at the division level?

This is just the regular configuration of an infantry division, not counting the cars and horses that supply the baggage troops, and not counting the necessary daily tools, such as typewriters and binoculars.

If it is an armored force, then the accumulation of equipment such as maintenance vehicles requires endless equipment support.

The expansion of the army according to such normal specifications may not be enough for a long time. Therefore, after the expansion of the army, there is a so-called difference between Category A and Category B troops.

The more anxious the expansion of the troops, the more the cobbled together shrinkage of the troops, the more unreliable the combat effectiveness will be, and the more careful the commander must be in the process of using it.

This is not to say that such a unit is necessarily very low in combat effectiveness, but in terms of combat effectiveness, commanders often cannot use it as a reliance.

Because such a force may stubbornly resist the onslaught of ten times the enemy's strength, or it may collapse within a minute and bury the entire defense line.

This uncertainty has led to the relegation of commanders to the use of these units - to use divisions as regiments and regiments as battalions......

On the current Eastern Front, the German army is facing such a situation. Too many troops are waiting for equipment, too many troops are waiting for equipment that others have obsolete out.

Brauchitsch and his generals were at this time under the supervision of the Führer's High Command, and were struggling to carry out military reforms.

The content of the reform is to simplify the logistics of the troops and standardize the establishment and weaponry of the troops.

In accordance with the requirements of the Führer, front-line troops must be equipped with unified weapons and equipment, so as to achieve standardized supply and standardized equipment.

The High Command drew up specific styles for four types of troops, including panzer, grenadier, mechanized infantry and infantry.

Among them, the armored division is the core of the armored forces worthy of the name, which is a unit equipped with tanks and mainly tank combat.

A grenadier division, also known as an armored infantry division, is a unit equipped with light tanks and armored vehicles that accompanies tank units in combat.

Mechanized infantry divisions, which are complementary to grenadier divisions, are equipped with tank destroyers and trucks, etc., and fight with armored and grenadier units, emphasizing mobility.

The traditional infantry division is the fourth type of troops, and no one cares about the equipment of this kind of troops, horses and bicycles, anyway, what is the use......

For the above four types of troops, the army has drawn up strict equipment standards and increased the ratio of weapons and equipment.

According to this reform plan, in the next three months, the Wehrmacht will replenish the tanks of all the armored units under its jurisdiction, so that these panzer divisions will become truly full-fledged divisions.

After completing the existing troops, we will begin to expand the size of the troops, and deploy veterans to average the combat experience and combat qualities of the commanders of each unit.

Li Le and his generals planned that in the inevitable outbreak of war against the Soviet Union in 1941, the armored and grenadier units would use German equipment and adopt a unified supply process.

The mechanized infantry division, on the other hand, had to be as full as possible at that time. As for the equipment standard, there are no hard and fast requirements.