Eastern Front WW2 - deep dive into railways

[Cpl GAC]

I'm curious to hear from scenario designers if the below article's information sheds new light on the Russo-German WW2 supply regarding how vital the rails were and how both sides approached it; whether it has you thinking about modeling a new approach, or, it confirms your existing design approach.

https://www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2018/3/9/ ... r-19411945

Basically, it says Germany had a managing the flow issue, not a physical lines issue, while the Soviets really had their game down.

The writer mentions US Civil War military rail expert Herman Haupt's two main principles, and here they are; the military should never interfere with the efficient running of the railroad and that rolling stock should be emptied and returned promptly to enable their re-use as transport.

This paragraph sums up Germany's reality during Barbarossa - "By the conclusion of the Smolensk battle in early August, it is clear that the supply situation was under strain, and despite over a month’s pause in operations, there were insufficient supplies to carry the units forward to Moscow. The underlying problem was clearly identified by General Halder on 3 August 1941 as being the Eisenbahntruppen conflict of interest, between building low-capacity lines quickly behind the advancing armies or building high-capacity lines capable of supporting Generalquartiermeister Wagner in his objective of building up a Supply District behind each Heerengruppe. The Eisenbahnpioniere had been rapidly changing the gauge and undertaking basic repairs of bridges but were not repairing signaling or telephone communications or restoring the engine depots because they were focused on keeping within seven days of the advancing armies. These tasks were being left to the FED and the HBD, who did not possess sufficient equipment to build this infrastructure nor an organizational structure to manage the work. In the operational files of Heerengruppe Mitte, there are three maps showing the progress of the re-gauging of the main double-track line from Brest: On 3 July 1941, it ran to Baranocwicze with an unloading point there, and it was drivable on Union gauge with a further unloading point at Minsk. By 31 July 1941, unloading was happening at Orscha, with a second Union gauge track from the border through Lida as far as an unloading point at Polozk, while on 28 August a Standard gauge track was unloading at Smolensk with the second Union line from Lida unloading at Vitebsk.61 General des Eisenbahnpioniere Otto Willi reported on 8 August 1941 that 16,148 km of track had its gauge converted, of which 4,414 km was in the Heerengruppe Mitte area. With the distance from Terespol on the Polish border to Moscow being 1,070 km, there was sufficient Standard gauge track converted to support the advance using German railway stock."