Why the German Army couldn't overcome their bad logistics

It's well known that they German Army had poor logistics in WW2. So could they have improved it? Doing so would have helped them on the Eastern Front. So should they have built more trains, trucks, roads, railroads? Should they have had an army of engineers? Well, the answer probably isn't what you're expecting. Today, we're going to talk about the "economic calculation problem" and why the German Army (or any current army) can't have efficient logistics.

Thank you to my Patreon, Diego Torres-Siclait, for today's question!
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ABOUT TIK 📝

History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.

This video is discussing events or concepts that are academic, educational and historical in nature. This video is for informational purposes and was created so we may better understand the past and learn from the mistakes others have made.

[TheImperatorKnight]

As someone pointed out, I put "Operation Barbarossa 1942"... yes, that's because Stalingrad is drilled into my brain at the moment! It was 1941
And at around 22:25 I accidentally put a "£" symbol rather than a "$" symbol. I noticed when doing the subtitles, but it was too late to sort it

[NathanMulder]

The more I learn about German logistics during ww2, the more I am impressed how far they actually came with such a nightmare system.

[fakeplaystore]

"Let's talk about bloat in the German Army. And here's a picture of Goering."

Ouch, that hurt.

[michaelnewton]

"Battles are won by the quartermasters before the first shot is fired." - Erwin Rommel

[korbell]

I am sure that the whole train stealing bit started with an officer somewhere telling a sergeant, "I don't care how you get the supplies, just do it!"

[georgegordon]

And just to point out, it was the German Logisticians who told everyone they would not support an invasion of Russia and it should not be tried..The army just ignored them

[hazelsparks]

Hi Tik! I'm a senior math student at my university, and your description of this is absolutely perfect. A class of this kind of problem are "multistage serial programming problems", otherwise generally known as dynamic programming, and not the computer kind. To give you an idea of how insanely difficult these problems are to solve precisely, if you had 10 relationships between your resources, *only* 10, there are 2^10 = 1024 possible solutions, only ONE of which is optimal, and most of which are horrible! For systems like a war economy, it's just beyond the scope of computers, at all. Thats why "value" as an abstract is so useful, it becomes a more simple issue of minimizing cost

[dyl]

If Hitler just put Mussolini in charge of the trains, supplies might have arrived on time

[prathamsingh]

German infighting is small fry compared to their Japanese ally. Nothing beats the hilarious pettiness of the IJA vs IJN rivalry.
They sometimes even flat out lied about taking strategic points to fuck with each other.

[trevors.]

I'm a Quartermaster officer in the US Army and love your videos breaking down German logistics problems. It is enlightening and refreshing to read about something other than the snow causing problems.

Supplying War - Wallenstein to Patton is an absolutely amazing book, I'm happy to see it featured in this video.

[lowtierwaifu]

Oh god, TIK accidentally put 1942 for Operation Barbarossa. This entire video is now DEBONKED

[Gulitize]

so all I have heard is the Wehrmacht should have shipped itself through amazon.

[Anlushac]

A US Army officer did a study of German logistics post WW2. It reads like a horror story. After reading all I could think was how did the Germans manage to hold on as long as they did.

[gravity]

This illustrates the saying "Amateurs study Tactics, professionals study Logistics"

[floydlooney]

That's a lot of Patreon supporters. This shows there is high TIK demand and not enough TIK supply.

[TaranVH]

Holy shit, this video makes a lot of things make a lot more sense.

[crml]

Really disturbing that I got an ad from a company called “Living spaces” on a video about the Nazi invasion of the USSR LOL

[AndreLuis-gwox]

The person making the question almost sounds like a time traveler gathering info to win the war for the germans hahaha

[Adiscretefirm]

To be fair, very few Amazon routes involve armed resistance.

[paavobergmann]

" this was not good for the local population..."
You bet.