The role of necessity in wartime invention

[Boots262]

So to continue the discussion from the 'Fantasy Weapons' thread, I'm interested in unpacking this question of 'necessity'.

To make my side clear, I don't think that necessity was ignored in weapon design/manufacturing decisions during the War, but I do think that we have to be very careful how we define necessity, especially in the example I gave in that other thread - (and I quote myself):

Necessity has an odd relationship to weaponry. For starters, compare the T-34 to the Sherman - contemporaries of one another, yet a T-34 took something like 1/4 the resources to produce as a Sherman. The Allison-engined Shermans shipped with beautiful instruction manuals and expensive toolkits because it was deemed a necessity by the American factories. The Soviets, with Germans on home soil, saw only the necessity of getting tanks in the field. Then there's the decision by the British to continue producing tanks armed witht he 37mm pea-shooter because it was too expensive to re-tool factories for the larger-bore AT guns (like the 17 lber). The 17lber was designed in 1940, first used in Tunisia in 1942, but didn't make it into tank chassis until 1945 because of this fateful decision. Then what about the Tiger and Tiger II? Great designs as long as crossing bridges, high speed and fuel efficiency aren't considerations. Or, more importantly, ease of maintenance. One of the strengths of the Russian and Allied war machine over the German was the inter-operability of their weapons and materiel. You could fix Shermans and T-34s easily because they were the only tank they used by the end of the war, and most SP artillery and Tank Destroyers were based on those chassis, so spare parts were plentiful. The Germans had Pz 35s and 38s, various captured French tanks, Pz 2s, 3s, 4s, Panthers and two models of Tiger, plus numerous tanks destroyer variants, each of which used different engines, road wheels, treads, etc. The Germans cottoned onto this far too late with the E-series tanks, specifically designed to be inter-operable but that never got off the drawing board. The E-100 is the most infamous (and frankly the dumbest, although also the coolest) Necessity plays a role, as does keeping up with the arms race, but it is rarely the only consideration.

Say 1988 immediately pointed out two legitimate flaws in my argument - Firstly, the Firefly was in use in 1944 (he also pointed out the Achilles, Archer and Challenger), and that (and again, I quote):

Really both were necessities: Sufficient functional tanks and effective guns. It comes to which necessity has a higher priority. There are very few things ever invented without some sort of need, especially during war time when resources are limited and all efforts directed to one cause.

So, for those of you just joining us, that's the state of play at the moment.

Now, let me try and narrow down what I'm saying. I certainly take Say1988's point that necessity is still the determining factor, though I would immediately reply that it's a matter of conflicting necessities. You could mount a pretty convincing argument as a tanker that it was a necessity to be able to penetrate opposing tanks' armour. But in a modern industrial war, that is not the only determining factor, and here we have a perfect example of economic/industrial necessity over-ruling battlefield necessity.

Anyway, enough from me. I'm opening discussion but I don't need to have the last word in this post. Let's write a collaborative essay :lol: - what is the role of necessity in war? How do you decide between conflicting necessities? When do these decisions stop making sense? I want examples, people. Don't need references, but examples are necessary. This is history, after all!

[say1988]

Maybe necessity is not the perfect term.

There is in general, an overriding need to create more advanced (and more efficient) methods of killing and/or surviving the new enemy methods in war, and in preparation for it. You may not have a specific need to fill at the moment, but you see potential for the enemy to create that need in the future, or the enemy not to follow you and give you and advantage.

These needs are also subjective to people's minds at the time. So while General X might see the need to this new item, such need may not actually exist [For Canadians, teh infamous shield-shovel of WWI]. As well, we have competing needs of some people to get famous, make money and/or other personal needs, which produced many items (whether good or bad).

If there is a clear necessity more money and effort will be directed there, even at something that seems clearly outlandish, the Habakkuk idea was derived from the hugely important need to close the mid-Atlantic gap and protect the vital convoys, and appears to be something funded out of desperation as, though clearly possible, seems unlikely to have been worth the effort.

[Caesar]

It's tough to actually determine where necessity ends and politics begins. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The standard 37 and 50mm guns the Germans were using proved to be horribly ineffective against the heavy Soviet armor and the sloped armor of the new T-34. The Wehrmacht high command issued a project order to the arms industry for a new tank designed with a large gun and sloped armor. The Panther was created as a result--the first main battle tank ever and probably the best tank of the war.

In 1943, Ferdinand Porsche sold the design of the tank destroyer 'Ferdinand' to Hitler during a demonstration. Guderian, Inspector of the Panzertruppen at the time, was there as well. He advised against purchasing the design. Porsche, however, was one of Hitler's favorites and knew how to sell things to der Fuehrer very well. Hitler bought the design. Guderian spent the next week trying to figure out how to incorporate the new tank destroyers into the Panzerwaffe. He ended up having to create new battalions.

One was necessity. The other politics. The Ferdinand would perform well after it's horrible debut at Kursk. But was that worth the spent resources?

[Akranadas]

Necessity is a hard thing to put down. I would say the adoption and use of French and other countries chassis to be converted into mobile Anti-Tank guns a necessity, where as things like the Tiger are more designers having no boundaries.

This also brings up the notion of Real Time Design Evolution, which was present more on the Western Allies side with things like Herbert's Funnies, Sherman Modifications for fighting in hedges and the upgunning of tanks rather than needing a new tank.

[Sturmhaubitze]

The Soviet High Command anticipated that German tanks would be heavily armoured and so put their resources into higher caliber anti-tank and tank guns. They stopped production of their lighter calibers, like the 76mm, in favour of the heavier calibers that wouldn't show up until much later. When the invasion began they discovered that German panzers were not as well armoured as they thought, and their older and current guns could penetrate reliably. So the existing designs were put back into production, and the newer designs left to the wayside.

Other nations also anticipated that they'd need a better weapon, and put forth requests to their various ordnance establishments to come up with designs, ahead of when they actually needed them. Sometimes these designs arrived just in time to be useful, and sometimes they arrived too late or were bad calls. For example, the US 90mm and 76mm guns were developed well before they were fielded, and 90mm-armed tank destroyers (later called the M36 Jackson) were ready for production before D-Day, but US Command felt they were not needed. That decision was promptly reversed not longer after D-Day, and an order was put for every 90mm-armed tank destroyer that could be sent.

[Caesar]

During the earlier days of Soviet-German relations, the Red Army and Wehrmacht cooperated fairly extensively. The Red Army felt that the Wehrmacht was incredibly advanced and powerful--especially their armor. One thing led to another and the Germans eventually agreed to send their latest and greatest tank design to the Soviets in Kiev for them to marvel over. The Germans sent their most advanced design, the Panzer III. When the Soviets got their hands on it, they were sure they were the butt of a German practical joke. The Panzer III was a good design they said, but surely the Germans had something even better to match their image? They didn't. The Soviets were disappointed. They sulked back to their KV-1 and T-34 designs while the Germans sat there perplexed.

Necessity is a hard thing to put down. I would say the adoption and use of French and other countries chassis to be converted into mobile Anti-Tank guns a necessity, where as things like the Tiger are more designers having no boundaries.

Necessity? I'm not so sure. The Germans loved to make use of every little piece of equipment they came across. German soldiers would make use of Soviet submachine guns, captured Belgian artillery, and forcefully borrowed French tanks. German units carried all sorts of junk around with them for the duration of the war. While it may make Hans and Klaus feel better that they had grabbed that really great SMG off of some dead Bolsheviks, the logistics guys behind the lines were most certainly unhappy. They German supply lines were bogged down more and more over the course of the war by the necessity to carry more and more kinds of random ammunition for all these borrowed weapons.

This was even the case in the closing days of the war with the Soviets knocking on Hitler's door. Those venerable old men of the Volkssturm were armed with everything from Romanian rifles to French anti-tank guns. French cartridges and Belgian artillery shells were still trickling to the front even as Hitler closed his mouth around his pistol.

While it may have been pragmatic to gobble up every piece of usable hardware the Germans found, it most certainly was not a necessity. Nor was it even a good idea after the first year or two of the war.

...where as things like the Tiger are more designers having no boundaries.

The Tiger tanks were not so much a lack of boundaries as they were a request by the Wehrmacht for a new heavy tank design. The Wehrmacht wanted a heavy tank like the Tiger as early as 1940. The Tiger design proved to be just what they had asked for. After all, not many Tigers were meant to be produced. Nor were they meant to form the bulk of the Panzerkorps. A breakthrough tank was what was asked of the Tiger and it's what they got.

Now, if you want to complain about no boundaries, the Ferdinand is an excellent candidate for ridicule. It was so absurd and most certainly unneeded that it took Guderian three days to find a way to incorporate the thing into any formations. While a heavy tank battalion made up of Tigers was useful, the battalions of Ferdinands and Elefants into the logistics of the Wehrmacht were straining already strained resources. Over the duration of the war, the Wehrmacht was like a man bench pressing 300lbs. Every time the man was able to lift the weight, another 10lbs was added. By the time the war ended, he was trying to lift 1000lbs.

[Sethero]

I think necessity is really in the eyes of the beholder. The use of captured equipment was certainly considered a necessity by the troops on the ground (and their commanders) in the sense that having a tank/machine gun/AT gun is better than not having one. Of course as Caesar pointed out that created logistical nightmares later in the war, when use of captured equipment became institutionalized within the German army. That perhaps is where a good short term pragmatic decision based on necessity created a long term issue. Then again, the potential for recovering equipment along the fronts allowed for easier resupply on the eastern front (or so it was thought) but that was not born out effectively in practice. Still, the thought is good; use a Soviet weapon when in Stalingrad and there's a high probability that you can scrounge supplies. Use a German weapon and supplies would have to be shipped long distances to you.

Necessity certainly drove a lot of innovation throughout the war. Aircraft development is one area where new designs were needed to get ahead of the curve and establish superiority of equipment. Again, when this was taken too far it created more problems than it solved (German development of advanced designs reduced their capability to produce larger volumes of other aircraft). However, in the mid-war years it was critical that new designs, specifically of US naval aircraft, be implemented to overcome the relative superiority of Japanese Zeroes.

Necessity, or perceived necessity drove the decisions not to up-gun certain allied tanks, as the assumption was that mass of arms was needed. Retooling factories may have created equipment shortages on the front. Manpower was a ready resource for the allies, so upgrading all weapons produced was less important than getting equipment in the field.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Using captured equipment is good in the short term, but in the long term you're better off disposing your foreign weaponry. As long as the capture of weapons is never disallowed, but their usage never officially logistically supported, then you avoid the problem of keeping it long past its usefulness.

The Ferdinand/Elefant was incredibly wasteful. The Hornisse/Nashorn was a far more efficient platform for the PaK43; better mobility, more reliable, lower maintenance costs, cheaper to build, quicker to build. The incredibly heavy armour of the Ferdinand was not needed when it's equipped with a gun that out-ranged everything else at that time. And yet all that protection was pointless when infantry overran it.

There were still a few Marder III's equipped with captured 76.2mm guns by the end of the war. Wasteful, they should have only been used until PaK40 tank hunters were available in numbers.

Early Jagdpanzer IVs were armed with the StuK40, the same gun as the StuG III G and StuG IV. Wasteful, as this meant the vehicle had exactly the same performance as the StuG IV, but at the cost of producing a different super structure.

While the Czech 38(t) chassis was mechanically sound and reliable, the German war machine seemed to be of two minds on how best to use it. If they were fully intent on keeping it, then production of other German chassis of the same weight and engine power should've been dropped. The 38(t) could have replaced numerous special purpose vehicles the Germans were making, simplifying the maintenance requirements of their armoured forces.

The SdKfz 250 chassis was somewhat unnecessary, and getting enough of them built was a problem until well into the late war period. Focusing production on only the more useful SdKfz 251 and its variants would have meant more half-tracks overall.

Dropping some of the lighter special purpose half-track and tracked designs would have been good also. There was an SdKfz 7, SdKfz 9, SdKfz 10, SdKfz 11, RSO, and the Opel Maultier. Only two designs were really needed, a light version for towing guns and acting as a self-propelled platform for light guns, and a heavy version for tank recovery and other big jobs. Also the SdKfz 251 could take over some self-propelled gun roles.

The sheer number of anti-tank guns employed by the Germans during the mid and late war periods is also mind boggling. From the period of D-Day onwards, one could find PaK36s (Obsolete, if not for the special shaped charge round they developed for it), PaK38s, PaK40s, PaK43s on wheeled carriages, and PaK43s on cruciform mounts. And those are just the German designs. For captured guns, there's the PaK97/38 (A French 75mm) and PaK36(r) (A Russian 76.2) as the most common, and various others that were used by specific divisions at any particular time. You really only want to have two anti-tank gun designs; one that's good for medium tanks, and can be mass produced as your main gun, and one for heavy tanks.

For infantry weapons we have the FG42 as a wasteful project. Inter-branch rivalries usually result in logistically unsound decisions like this, and the gun itself wasn't all that great either. The concept behind it was sound, but the superior StG44 was all that was needed.

For heavier guns, the array of infantry, mountain, and recoilless guns the Germans produced was also wasteful. One infantry gun of a reasonable calibre, say 105mm, was all the infantry really needed. Instead they made the leIG18 75mm (Not bad, but lacked the HE oomph), and the sIG33 150mm (Lots of oomph, but very cumbersome). Then there's the GebG36 75mm as a mountain gun, which wasn't bad, but again it would have been better to drop the leIG18 and mass produce the mountain gun instead if you needed a light gun. And then there were captured French, Belgian, and Russian artillery pieces pressed into service... yet more waste, considering you need massive supplies of ammunition to make the best use of them.

[say1988]

The Ferdinand was simply a way to use these now purposeless hulls that were sitting around (perhaps Porche felt the need to not be seen as wasteful? Or to get his money out of the chassis or something, military need isn't the only one present in war time). Like the incorporation of foreign equipment in order to have to produce less of your own and/or not need to retool captured factories, it was a resource thing, but it really was stupid. And towards the war as German losses increased they needed anything they could get their hands on.
Though some foreign weapons were very effectively brought into German service without problems, such as many rifles that were rechambered to German 7.92 or 38(t) chassis fitted with standard German weapons.

And many of the wasteful items do have a niche, but like the infantry guns you mention the war effort would have been better served with a single more versatile replacement.

[Caesar]

I would agree with that sentiment, but the Germans actually started to supply ammo for all the random equipment they took from defeated armies. Even some of the home designed German equipment suffered from this. The StG44, while an excellent infantry weapon, required yet another ammo type to be supplied to troops.

[say1988]

I thought that a large portion of the foreign munitions were generally produced in their country of origin (not that there weren't many Germany munitions), especially where factories were captured intact. But still: short term different ammo is probably more efficient than scrapping captured vehicles and producing new ones.

[Sethero]

When Germany overran France, all of French industry was essentially theirs, as well as military equipment reserves. France had a massive industrial capacity and decent equipment, so it's likely that the Germans felt they could simply maintain these factories as they were. This would have been fine if those units had stayed in Western Europe, but of course Barbarossa changed that. Now you have Italian units using mainly Italian munitions, Germans using German and French equipment, Finns using Finnish munitions, all of whom rely wholly or in part on a supply line stretching the entire continent. With Blitzkrieg, the speed of the advance allowed the Germans to acquire Soviet equipment and in some cases factories. Now there was little time to refit factories in France to German munitions and even less time for more eastern factories to be refit, necessitating the continued use of captured equipment and creating an untenable supply situation. Even with the German skills in organization the limits of their supply system were surpassed.

I think ultimately that while it seemed like the most efficient use of supplies on hand, using captured equipment forced them to maintain too many factories manufacturing too many varieties of munitions for too long a time while forcing their supply chains to accomodate too many variables. While it makes sense to grab that artillery piece and use it against its' previous owners, it makes more sense to scrap it once the immediate battle is over and remanufacture it as a standard German weapon, especially for an army on the offensive.