Let's Talk Optional Rules

[Neilster]

I think German aeroengine production was much lower than with the Allies due to other factors, such as a lack of skilled workers, tungsten for cutting tools and long-term planning. If, as you seem to be suggesting, it was actually due to a lack of steel, then please provide the evidence.

Even in a WW2 engine, there is a lot of aluminium used. The Rolls Royce Merlin, for example, used cylinder blocks of "R.R.50" aluminium alloy and the Daimler-Benz DB 601 used cast Silium-Gamma-alloy cylinder blocks.

I've read many times that aluminium shortages and a lack of skilled labour hampered German aircraft production but never a lack of steel. Hence my request above.

Edit: To add the last two paragraphs.

Cheers, Neilster

[brian brian]

Let's face it: World in Flames IS a fantasy game. The Axis can do lots of things in the game they had little hope of achieving in the real war.

But overall, the very real constraints of logistics are just simply left in the background to a large degree. And not just for the Axis. The western Allies aren't required to deploy shipping assets on the board to support a few million soldiers an ocean away from home in NW Europe in 1945. There is no question the USA could and did build enough Liberty ships for that to happen....it's just not part of the game.

Personally, I hope the design continues to evolve in this area, and the power of the computer is harnessed to increase realism without losing playability, all while staying in the basic decision-making framework of the World in Flames design.

In the short run however, most suggestions to increase realism by increasing the logistical and economic constraints on the Axis will be resisted heartily .... by the players themselves. Even the players who laugh at Hearts of Iron. A majority of players accept the use of an Oil rule, but that is as far as many will go in this area.

One thing I have always respected about the game is that it does lead the players to continue to learn about WWII. And I think discussing the game and the level of simulation in it is perfectly fine, and any electronic forum about the game has always allowed and encouraged such discussion. So I think there is a place for a meta-discussion on WWII and how World in Flames represents it, right here on this forum even - but it needs to be in another thread.

Consider just one of the optional rules - HQ Movement. I would wager that less than 50% of players of the paper game use that one. "Who cares, let's just play," and "How do you expect me to remember to use that one when I move an HQ?" are two common sentiments about it. Perhaps computer enforced rules will make it easier to use at least, but I expect it to remain an unpopular option.

Overall though, let's consider Optional Rules in this thread please. Any other questions on them?

[Neilster]

I think that wargames in general and WiF in particular have really taught me a tremendous amount about why things happened as they did in WW2. The effect of terrain, for example, is something that is often hard to grasp when just reading history.

I also feel that impulses are actually a pretty good analouge for the pulsing flow of real WW2 operations, where one side expended themselves after a while and the other had a chance to counter, after perhaps being resupplied or falling back on interior lines of communications.

Cheers, Neilster

[brian brian]

I would also like to note that in consideration of a request from a new player, up above there I described all the optionals in the game as pro-Axis, neutral, or pro-Allied.

I did not generally note the degree to which they influence the game, and I would like to amend that. Most of the optionals have just a slight impact on the balance of the game. You could perhaps select optional rules based totally on that pro-side list and have a less experienced player take the advantageous side - and it still might not make much difference to the outcome.

Experience and the basic wargaming skills of multi-turn advance planning (rather than playing impulse by impulse) and not leaving units sitting around the map doing nothing (quite common), and the basic ability to foresee likely outcomes of your own and your enemy's decisions will still generate the outcome far more than the mix of optional rules selected. Some would disagree as it is of course easier for a losing player to suggest the winning side just had a crutch of key optional rules to lean on.

The one optional rule in the list that I see as a significant balance changer is the Food in Flames option, which can add 3 production points per turn to the CW. That's potentially 5 build points per turn in the second half of the game, perhaps 30 build points a year in 1943 and 1944, depending on CW factory totals and rounding results. This does make a very large difference over time. So if you are looking for an option to help balance the game for an inexperienced Allied player taking on a grizzled Axis veteran, that is a place to start. The idea is even in Harry Rowland's original Designers Notes for the game, which suggests balancing the game to the players' tastes by adding or subtracting resources from the USA. Alternative political dealings on the American Home Front, if you will.

Other optional rules that makes a large difference in play are the combination of Divisions, and SCS Transport. Without those two rules, there will be quite a bit less chance the Axis can do anything in terms of seizing new overseas territory via amphibious invasion. It's not so much of a balance issue as the Allies can also take advantage of division invasions in the game, but I think it does create a different game with a bit less possibilities for dynamic changes to what areas of the world might see combat forces appear.

[Neilster]

...but I think it does create a different game with a bit less possibilities for dynamic changes to what areas of the world might see combat forces appear.

Can you elaborate on this? Why is this the case? Is it that if one can't do little invasions around the place that one is likely to try some other large scale strategic option?

Cheers, Neilster

[Lingering Frey]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

...but I think it does create a different game with a bit less possibilities for dynamic changes to what areas of the world might see combat forces appear.

Can you elaborate on this? Why is this the case? Is it that if one can't do little invasions around the place that one is likely to try some other large scale strategic option?

Cheers, Neilster

Range of SCS versus amph is somewhat important. More significant are the simple limitations on the number of units that can be used to invade anywhere. Add a handful of little semi-disposable units on highly mobile semi-disposable transportation devices that can pull off invasions on empty hexes and you get a game that is much more dynamic in terms of little surprise invasions all over the map.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Lingering Frey

ORIGINAL: Neilster

...but I think it does create a different game with a bit less possibilities for dynamic changes to what areas of the world might see combat forces appear.

Can you elaborate on this? Why is this the case? Is it that if one can't do little invasions around the place that one is likely to try some other large scale strategic option?

Cheers, Neilster

Range of SCS versus amph is somewhat important. More significant are the simple limitations on the number of units that can be used to invade anywhere. Add a handful of little semi-disposable units on highly mobile semi-disposable transportation devices that can pull off invasions on empty hexes and you get a game that is much more dynamic in terms of little surprise invasions all over the map.

Yes. I think I took the opposite meaning from what was intended in brian brian's post.

Cheers, Neilster

[brian brian]

Actually I was thinking what both of you have mentioned. Without division invasion capabilities, the Axis are unlikely to attempt a campaign around Oran, Narvik, or Aden, for example. They might, and they could, build MARine corps units to try for one of those areas, but I wouldn't expect that to happen.

Perhaps without AMPHs, Divisions, nor SCS Transport a bit more over-the-beach attacks might occur. But not using the SCS Transport optional changes the range at which you can move troops over the oceans, and that changes the game somewhat, and even for the Allies as well.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

I do not know if RAW or RAC represent this limitation, either, but, really, if the Germans want to repair those oilfields or more Russian RR lines, then they need to build fewer planes, subs and tanks ...

warspite1

The day WIF gets into that level of complexity and micro management is the day I stop playing.....

It's not really micro-managing to spend 4 BPs during production to repair an oil well and living with the fact you have 4 less to spend on something else.

warspite1

It depends on how many such rules are introduced in the name of this realism. Where do you draw the line? If you are going to build railroads and worry about gauges then that gets into Europa Series territory. No thanks.

[ACMW]

Steel was less of a constraint than might generally be thought. High-strength steels were more worrying for Germany (vital for a/c production, inter alia) with the concern being the loss of Manganese mines in Nikopol & Krivoi Rog. [Source: Speer, 'Inside the 3rd Reich'.] However, when Speer analyzed the problem (usage / stocks / production / holdings within the supply chain) he found that even Manganese was not critical. Rather Chromium, Molybdenum and Silicon. According to Speer (Nov 43), if Chromium source was turned off, the production of almost all advanced materiel would stop 7 to 9 months afterwards.

[aspqrz02]

Yes. I actually did read your post.

Did you read mine?

Where I actually said you were right ... but only to a point ... and then pointed out where the shortcomings in your logic were?

The point is that the Germans were simply unable to produce as many aircraft as they wanted because, largely, of their shortage of steel, not because of a shortage of aluminium (though that probably contributed as well, just not as much). Things were that close to the bone.

So, yes, aero-engines should be included.

It's like arguments by people on the aforementioned newsgroups that surely the Kriegsmarine could have built more submarines if only they'd tried harder ... and then you have to point out, sadly, that submarines use diesel engines. And therefore compete with things like tanks and other heavy vehicles. Given that there was no slack in the way of resources, in this case iron and steel (which is the point), if you want more submarines then the resources have to be diverted from elsewhere ... so, do you want fewer tanks>

I have pointed out that the Germans wanted to, but simply couldn't, produce a whole lot of vital things during WW2 because of this overall shortage of iron and steel ... they couldn't produce enough RR tanker cars to move all the POL they produced themselves (and, believe me, they wanted to), let alone expand their capacity to move oil from the Caucasus; they wanted to expand their RR network into Russia more effectively, but couldn't produce enough maintenance, fueling and signalling equipment, and not enough extra Locos and Rolling stock, even though they desperately needed to; they wanted to produce more warships, including submarines, but didn't have the resources to do it ... in this case, both factories and steel ... unless they stripped it from elsewhere; they tried to produce enough aero engines, and set up a huge plant to do so, but failed ... both because the plant was unsuccessful as well as because they didn't have the iron and steel to divert, even though the Luftwaffe got first choice of whatever resources were available; they wanted to expand their own munitions and war related manufacturing plants much more than they did, but found that they couldn't ... because the raw materials, largely iron and steel, were not available in the quantities available.

Sure, aero engines may take, relatively, less iron and steel than, say, a Tank, or Sub, or Truck, but the problem was that the Germans had a limited amount of iron and steel available that was suitable, lost access to most of it (as it was imported) when the war broke out, and never managed to expand access elsewhere enough to make a difference ... so, they actually butted heads against the brick wall (so to speak) of 'no more iron and steel' and had to make choices.

Which means, if you want more tanks, you have to take the iron and steel from somewhere else (and not from the Kriegsmarine, which got damn all, relatively speaking ... the slack just isn't there) ... ditto more aeroplanes or more submarines.

The Allies, on the other hand, never reached the limit of their resources, except, arguably, manpower - and even there they did better than the Germans because they more readily (for example) employed women in non-traditional roles in massive numbers whereas the Nazis had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing a tenth as much, because of their 'Kinder, Kuche, Kirche' policies - they were certainly never short of iron and steel.

For that matter, Germany was short of lots of other raw materials, shortages that they had no realistic way of making up ... tungsten, for example. Makes the best AP penetrators. Germans had to stop producing them in late 1942 because their entire stocks of tungsten were bought pre-war from sources that were no longer available ... and the remaining tungsten was needed for other, more important, things, like high speed precision machine tools ... the very tools needed to make, for example, aero engines efficiently.

And, yes, they were short of aluminium as well. A lot of the supposed 'production' of aircraft in the last 18 months of the war, after Speer took over, was actually false accounting by Speer and his staff ... a lot of 'production' counted as 'new' was actually remanufacturing and repairing of shot down or otherwise destroyed airframes and engines ... no one knows for sure how much, except that the percentage was very very high. Likewise, a lot of the later war production figures for aircraft, generally included without comment in the overall German totals, were a carefully constructed lie ... Speer boosted monthly production numbers by including numbers from the last week of the previous month and the next week of the following month, then including them (double counting, in effect) all over again the next month.

Or note the fact that the last years of the war saw the German soldiers, sailors and airmen being clothed in uniforms made out of nettles ... for the simple reason that sources of other fabrics were overstretched.

I could go on and on.

The point being, the Germans faced absolute hard and, in many cases, unchangeable, limits as to how much they could produce of a whole range of things because they simply didn't have the access to the resources needed to increase those limits. All they could do was shuffle things around ... like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, in a way.

Under the circumstances, could the Germans have won WW2? A valid question.

The German planners themselves didn't think so.

Or, to be more accurate, they didn't think they could win a war like WW1 ... or even one that proved to be significantly different, as evidenced by the Polish and Western European campaigns ... with a proviso. They believed, and Hitler told them they could, win a short, sharp, war ... which is what the Polish and Western European campaigns were.

In effect, what Hitler and the Nazis believed was that they could build up their limited resources, expend them all on a short, sharp, campaign, then rest, rinse and repeat. And it worked ... up until Barbarossa.

So, it's not actually impossible to win as the Germans, you just need to do better at the Blitz than they actually did. This minimises the resource shortage problems.

However, it also assumes you won't be fighting a two front war, supporting a feckless and incompetent Italian ally, facing a UK that simply won't be logical and make peace, and then, when the Japs (assuming they do) attack the US, face off against the US as well ... then you're in a whole world of hurt because you simply cannot compete in an extended world war.

But it can be done.

I'd rate it as a very low order probability, except against incompetent or inexperienced Allied players, but, hey, it's not impossible!

Phil

[aspqrz02]

Yes, tungsten was a problem, but not as limiting as the basic lack of iron and steel. As for evidence, I would suggest reading Tooze's "Wages of Destruction', which goes into Germany's problems in great detail, though it isn't as ground breaking in academic circles as it has been for more general readership ... a lot of what he puts all together in the one spot has been known for a long time, in some cases even during the war, but was often not put together in a coherent whole, as he has.

I would recommend it as a start.

For the Air War aspect of things, supplement it with Overy's works, the older ones as well as the more recent 'The Bombing War'.

Maiolo's excellent 'Cry Havoc: The Arms Race and the Second World War, 1931-1941' is also a valuable summation of the strengths and weaknesses of all the major powers in the period.

And, of course, the relevant chapters of Van Creveld's 'Supplying War' give some useful insights as well.

THere's lots more, but those are the ones that I have handy in my personal library, and which are the most focussed on the relevant issues. Reading them, then following through their Bibliographies, especially Tooze's, are a must if you wish to get a comprehensive idea of where the Germans were according to the latest scholarship.

Phil

[aspqrz02]

Take anything that Speer said with several trainloads worth of salt sprinkled liberally.

Not to put to fine a point on it, Speer lied. Consistently. Repeatedly. About almost everything. Though not about everything all the time.

And, like a good liar, he based his lies in the truth.

However, in some things he was truthful ... and, more or less, his comments about Molybdenum are, IIRC, correct ... just not the whole truth, as often as not.

Read the relevant chapters of Tooze's 'Wages of Destruction' to get an overview of just how much Speer lied and misled.

Phil

[henri51]

There is realistic and then there is realistic. Take the pilot rule: it seems to make the game more realistic, but then one of the decisive factors in the Pacific War was the ability of the US to rapidly train a large number of new pilots, and the inability of the Japanese to replace their pilots (Japanese pilot training took about 2 years!). So whether or not the pilot rule is turned on, the pilot replacement in the game will be unrealistic, unless the game makes it more difficult for the Japanese. In the War in the West, the Allies generally removed their pilots from combat after a number of missions and used them for training, whereas German pilots generally flew until they died (some German aces shot down over 200 planes). So the Germans had more experienced pilots, but were hampered by lack of planes the the time of D-day.

The good news (for me) is that I don't care very much if the game is very realistic. After all, if I want to see an accurate recreation of WW2 I will watch a movie (not a John Wayne one [:'(]or read a book. However I understand and respect those who enjoy the ILLUSION of recreating the war as it was.

[henri51]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

Not to put to fine a point on it, Speer lied. Consistently. Repeatedly. About almost everything. Though not about everything all the time.

And, like a good liar, he based his lies in the truth.

Well he was not the only one! Due to the Cold War, Westerners were fed an unending series of lies about the war. How long did it take before most Westerners realized that most of the WW2 German casualties were on the Eastern front, and even the most recent movies and TV programs still claim that the D-day invasion changed the course of the war and that at that point the Germans were winning. (By that time the Soviets were in Poland, and the Germans had not launched a major offensive since Kursk!).

=====================
"History will be kind to me - because I shall write it!" (Winston Churchill).

[aspqrz02]

Indeed, you are 1000% correct!

Some of what we always 'knew' was the result of cold war paranoia (relying on German assessments of Russian performance in the East, with no balancing Russian information, for example - or the Russians deliberately classifying things like population and casualty figures as 'state secrets, as another) and as big a chunk of the rest was because no-one had actually looked critically at the information that was available.

Of course, a chunk of both areas was known, or at least strongly suspected, before the collapse of communism, but only in the academic and military communities ... you had to dig into specialist books and publications to find it (I know, I did, for some things) ... it's only been in the last decade or so that a lot of it has started to penetrate into the wider realm of the general public, and you still have many 'general' books on the war repeating now known to be wrong factoids as if they were true for the simple reason that their authors are simply regurgitating material from generalist works rather than doing the hard work of mining the increasing wealth of evidence from more academic sources.

Speer was always known to be a liar by anyone in the serious know ... but, I suspect, even they didn't always know how big a liar he was. The 'general public', however, still read his books and older books based on his lies as if they are the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and the real truth is only impinging on their consciousness slowly.

Actually, in many respects, WiF has always done a fair job of modelling the main things about WW2 in Europe - the land war in Western Europe and in Russia - quite well. It's only when you get to the peripheries - Sealion, Gibraltar, North Africa, the Middle East in general - that it starts to seriously fall apart. And, I suspect, those areas are the ones disproportionately affected by many of the Optional Rules.

As I said elsewhere, I don't mind a pure fantasy game either, but I would at least like the option of something resembling reality - and Optional Rules seem to me to be the place where this desire can, or could, be fulfilled.

I think that an Axis player could 'win' - for carefully defined versions of 'winning' - even with something resembling reality imposed through Optional Rules.

How?

Well, forget about Germany conquering all of Europe, or even all of Russia - and certainly forget about them getting the Middle East oil - but could she have managed to force some sort of war-weariness peace on the Russians and Commonwealth?

Hitler and the Nazis couldn't have, as their whole world view was so nasty that fighting them to the end was really the lesser of two evils (which is why Stalin wasn't overthrown, I guess). However, that doesn't mean that you the player can't be a 'kinder, gentler' Germany ... and force a more palatable, but still pro-German, peace on Europe.

I mean, there are special rules for Vichy France, and that could be a template for something similar forced on Russia - a Trans-Ural Republic when Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad are taken, perhaps. That would be impossible for the Nazis, but not, necessarily, for a player. Sure, it would merely be a pause ... like with the UK, as suggested below, but it would be a 'win' in that Germany would dominate continental Europe.

Forget getting the UK onside. Napoleon tried for 16 odd years and failed, I doubt even a kinder, gentler, German player could manage that in real life ... but that doesn't mean that you couldn't achieve something like the real Cold War ... Commonwealth and US against a German dominated Europe.

In the Pacific?

Really, unless you massage reality out of all resemblance to reality, Japan hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell. The only thing they can realistically do is hang on longer than the Japs did historically. But that's a form of victory as well ... doing better than that clot Tojo and his original team of players [:D]

Phil

[brian brian]

No, the optional rules do not reign in the fantasy; they generally just dial up the detail. A rule that does that I have mentioned a few times already, merely costs HQs an extra movement point when they leave a rail line. And it is usually voted down by a majority of players. The Axis success-on-a-shoestring model is used consistently. If it might have worked with a couple of well tied shoestrings, that's good enough for World in Flames.

I would like to see the 2 optional rules in the Original Post (Oil and Pilots) a bit more linked. I think a bigger problem for the Axis than producing airframes and airplane engines was having enough fuel to train their pilots enough to make the investment in a new airframe worthwhile. As the war progressed, the Axis could train pilots less and their air force combat effectiveness went down. Then they could less well defend their transportation and oil assets, so they had less oil to train pilots and their air force combat effectiveness....

But that's not in the game either. Nor are any kind of alternative Peace victory conditions. You bid for how many objectives you can hold, as compared to history, after a set amount of turns, and that's that.

The game might evolve on some of these issues some day, but not this day.

I don't find using the Pilot rule to add or subtract realism really. As was noted, realism with pilots would be reflected more in pilot skill being a reflection of training hours. The World in Flames Pilot rule has nothing to do with such questions. It is simply a mechanism that changes the amount of Build Points spent to field an air force, with a slight influence from which hexes you are generally fighting over, and the possibility to change the composition of your air forces some. Use the Pilots rule, and there are generally more planes on the board. Don't use it, see less. Since the # of planes in an airplane counter is a flexible construct to start with, all that matters is your taste for how many planes are used, and how much time that takes in playing the game.

[Neilster]

@aspqrz...Cool. I asked for evidence and you have provided it.

But I have a question. If the Luftwaffe had first use of materials, fighters were desperately needed to stave off the ruinous bombing of the Reich and, as you say, aircraft production was being hampered by a lack of steel, why were the Germans still using steel for other stuff?

Edit to add the question

Cheers, Neilster

[aspqrz02]

Oh. Indeed!

I believe that, from memory, before the war, pre-commitment to squadron training for Luftwaffe pilots was c.200 hours of flight time. The US and Commonwealth had similar (but slightly higher, I think, flight hours) regimes.

By the middle of the war, again, from memory, training time was down to 75-100 hours (say mid-to-late 1943) and, by the end (mid 1944) it was down to 25 hours.

In the meantime, allied pre-squadron commitment flight time had doubled, or close to it.

Worse, however, was the fact that the Germans (like the Japnese, who were actually worse than the Germans) left their aces in the saddle until they were shot down ... the Allies pulled them out and made them instructors for the newbies.

The result was that Allied flight training hours were actually worth much more than Axis ones because they were being done by the best combat pilots passing on hard won expertise directly.

Actually, something that most people don't realise is that, certainly from 1944 onwards, the Germans had nowhere safe left in which to train their replacement pilots ... the Allied air forces were roaming the skies of what was left of the Reich more or less at will and that meant that even training flights could be bounced at any time, more or less without warning.

Actually, for Oil, I would suggest that reality would be more closely modelled if the repair of captured oil resources were treated more like constructing Battleships ... 4 BRP, an Oil Engineer Unit, and 12 months (with the Oil unit having to be there continuously during that period) to get back to zero, then 4 BRP and another 12 months (but no oil unit) to get back into production ... and even that is, based on the reality of what the Axis historically achieved, far too fast I would think. Oh. And the Axis would get exactly ONE Oil Engineer unit (as would the Japs) ... so they could have only one Oilfield being repaired to zero at a time.

But, as you say, WiF doesn't really do that all that well (and neither does any other computer wargame I have ever seen - and darn few Paper ones ... Totaller Krieg comes closest [I haven't seen Dai Senso, but I presume it does as well], though WiE/WitE (SPI) comes close in some areas, such as self destructing German AMPH points and gradually declining German CRTs as the war progresses).

Phil

[aspqrz02]

They were, quite simply, in a bind.

Remember I pointed out that a number of their top military/logistics planners suicided when they found out Barbarossa was going ahead?

Did you know that when the attack on Russia was announced, crowds watching the soldiers marching off to the front stood silent, knowing what a two front war had meant in WW1? And it was only when the initial smashing successes of Barbarossa were obvious that this glum attitude changed ... and lasted until 1943 when even the civilians were getting the message that things were increasingly dicey. By then, of course, they also knew from their sons, husbands, fathers and friends pretty much exactly how the Russians had been being treated on the eastern front, and what was, therefore, likely to happen if/when they finally forced their way into Germany. Which left them with no real choice but to continue to support the war.

By the time it was obvious to the rest of the military that the was was, effectively, lost (1943 at the latest) and that they were merely prolonging the agony, what could they do? The Allies were demanding "Unconditional Surrender" and more or less stuck to it - pretty much everyone (in the Regular military, anyway) recognised that Hitler's beliefs that the Western Allies would somehow decide to stab their Russian co-belligerents in the back and ally with their Nazi enemy as pure fantasy ... but they also recognised that surrender was probably a riskier option for them, personally.

So, they were faced with choices - none palatable - they could produce more fighters (and less tactical and strategic bombers, affecting ground and naval combat options significantly and negatively) and fewer AA guns (which meant less artillery and tank guns, as the optics for the AA guns stripped those requisites from Field Artillery and Tank Gun rangefinders, another bottleneck that they never overcame) and fewer tanks or artillery or trucks, and that meant that they would be less able to combat the advancing Russians, or even the advancing western Allies ... or they could produce fewer Submarines, and make it easier for the Western Allies to supply the Russians and themselves (and the Russians absolutely depended on Lend Lease, despite what revisionists will increasingly tell you, for key elements that made their eventual victory in Berlin and East Germany rather than in the Ukraine or Poland possible), or they could produce fewer aircraft and more tanks, but, then, those tanks would be more likely to be destroyed by Soviet and Allied tactical airpower (as it was, it was increasingly suicidal for the Germans to move vehicles, even armoured vehicles, by daylight, even on the Eastern Front).

Basically, there *were* no good choices.

For example, they dispersed industry as much as possible, to limit the number of choice multiple aspect target areas, but that had the blowback that, from 1944 when the Allies basically started roaming all of Western Europe and shooting up trains, blowing up railroad switching yards and bridges etc. that, according to the Strategic Bombing Survey at the end of the war the Germans were able to transport goods by rail an average of only 12 miles before they ran into severe damage that prevented further progress. As a result, for example, the Ruhr basically shut down over a fortnight at Christmas 1944 - factories completely idle - for the simple reason that the Germans found themselves almost completely unable to move in significant quantities of the raw materials to power or operate them and, equally, mostly unable to move out most of the banked up finished products.

By 1945 the Deutsche Reichsbahn found that so many of its switching yards were destroyed that they could no rearrange the consists on their trains (the 'consist' is simply whatever desired mix of different types of rolling stock you need - box cars, POL tankers, bulk cars, passenger cars, flat cars etc., and can only be done, or only done efficiently, in a switching yard) by pushing cars over on their sides off the tracks (effectively destroying them) to get unwanted ones off and allow new ones to be hitched up ... a sure sign of desperation.

They also built Synthetic Oil plants, and these did stirling service ... and they found that anything short of a direct hit merely sprung seams and the like, easily repaired stuff ... to begin with ... but, as the war progressed, and the Strategic Bombing raids came back again and again and again those seams were patches on patches on patches ... and increasingly distant 'misses' were springing them and putting the plant out of action, partly or completely, for increasing lengths of time.

Basically, they were organised for a short war and couldn't cope with the demands of a long one ... and surrender wasn't an option, especially for the higher ups.

Remember, Churchill simply wanted to line up Hitler and the top Nazis and shoot them all, only Stalin (!) managed to join with Roosevelt to reign him in, demanding trials (of course, Stalin wanted Show Trials, not real ones)!

Phil