Re: [MV] WWII civvy trucks usage by Germans

From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2005 - 19:50:32 PST


The answer is simple... the Germans used anything that moved. No,
seriously... they did. German industry was not put onto a full war
footing until 1943 and was even then plagued by too many designs and a
lack of coordination between manufacturers. Meaning, that although two
trucks of the same class might basically be the same, the parts might
not be. The result, throughout the war, was that the Germans never had
but a fraction of the motorized vehicles they needed produced locally.
If you look at supply columns, particularly in Russia, you will often
find as many different types of trucks as trucks pictured! I'm not
kidding.

When the Germans took over Austria they incorporated whatever was
currently in use there. When Czechoslovakia fell current inventories
were also taken away, and the Czech factories tasked with building more
of whatever they were building before the fall. When Poland fell, the
same thing though many of its vehicles were foreign made. The fall of
France was where the big booty came from, with lots and lots of French
trucks falling into their hands. And all the minor countries the
Germans went into... same deal... whatever they had became German.

Since there were actually few makers of unique trucks in Europe,
relative to the numbers produced, this meant that invading Yugoslavia
and Greece, for example, netted a lot of French and British material
either directly (i.e. retreating British forces) or indirectly
(Yugoslavia and Greek Armies used foreign equipment). Sometimes the
vehicles were locally made under licenses, some of which were American.

The Soviet Union was a nightmare for the German supply system, and so
too was the plethora of vehicles used by the Soviets. One of the
"good" things about 1941 and 1942, from the Soviet perspective, was
that they lost a significant part of their motor pool. This cleaned
out a lot of the headache legacy vehicles, which were then replaced by
newer, standardized models produced locally or imported from the
Allies.

Many of the seized trucks were kept locally with the occupation source,
which kept them close to stocks of spares. New spares were made as
much as possible, but this wasn't always possible so trucks were often
driven until they literally could not be driven any further.

To sum up... if a truck was made for civilian or military use between
1930s and 1940s, there is a very good chance that the Germans used it.

Steve

On Feb 22, 2005, at 9:20 PM, Stephen L Dussetschleger wrote:

> Kinda wondering what trucks the German Army woulda used in WWII. I
> know
> of course about the Opel Blitz & also that there was a FORD factory
> producing throughout the war basically a late 30's model of 1 1/2 ton
> truck.
> Particularly I am wondering if there were any DODGE or Chevrolet 1
> 1/2
> ton cargo style trucks produced in Europe just before the war. Or
> were
> ones ther part of early lend-lease ?
> Steve
>
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