Road space needed for supply columns

lljadw

Active member
2 difficult ones
1) what would be the road space needed for a supply column of 170 trucks and what would be its possible average speed?
2)how many roads (+road space) would be needed for the advance of a small German mobile division ?
place : Russia
time: october 1941(operation Typhoon)
 
As a lad I would watch convoys pass down the road for hour after hour. After one night convoy had passed by we went out and flattened in the road was a motorcycle dispatch rider who had fallen of his bike and the whole convoy must have run over him.
 
I know this is probably not what you are looking for but there is an interesting break down of logistics on the Eastern Front available on the web.

It may provide some answers then again it may not but I found it interesting none the less.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ence/kent-csi/vol6no4/html/v06i4a07p_0001.htm
Thank you,but I already consulted this source .
Could one not say that 100 trucks would need 10 km of road space ,resulting in the fact that a road of 10 km could handle only 100 trucs ?
 
Between each truck there was little over another trucks length between them, so a hundred truck convoy would take up the space of around 225 trucks which would be less than one km. When these convoys started rolling they stopped for nothing and dispatch riders would control every junction. We never reckoned on the distance they covered but how many hours they took to pass. Watching some of these convoys in southern england during WW2 prior to D Day were a sight that you would never forget
 
Between each truck there was little over another trucks length between them, so a hundred truck convoy would take up the space of around 225 trucks which would be less than one km. When these convoys started rolling they stopped for nothing and dispatch riders would control every junction. We never reckoned on the distance they covered but how many hours they took to pass. Watching some of these convoys in southern england during WW2 prior to D Day were a sight that you would never forget

In the RAF the space between trucks in convoy was 12 meters in town and 50 meters in open country.

I did convoy control in the TA in Germany with other DR's leap frogging each other, which at times could be scary, especially on the autobahns. On one convoy control I pulled up at a road junction in a town and waved through literally hundreds of trucks and Land Rovers.

The bike was a Can Am, which broke down later that night! The bloke in the background was a mad Welshman.

The slowest vehicle was always (usually) at the front of the convoy, the weird thing about convoys, the front truck would doing 50 kph, the rear truck could't keep up at 80kph.
 
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Part of my job in the RMP during our wartime role was to monitor convoys, book them in to harbour areas, check for stragglers, provide traffic control at junctions etc.
 
Thank you,but I already consulted this source .
Could one not say that 100 trucks would need 10 km of road space ,resulting in the fact that a road of 10 km could handle only 100 trucs ?

You could say anything really because as indicated in that source supply transport was not uniform you had a mixture of everything from 30 ton haulers to 5 ton trucks and horse and cart.

In the absence of any hard data you would probably be better off using BritinAfrica's data as I don't imagine there would be a huge difference in logistics protocols just the level of mechanisation.
 
Well,I am looking for figures in wartime :I have a discussion in an other forum with some one who claims that after the Battles of Bryansk/Vyazma,there was no need for the whole AGC to advance to Moscow:4 mobile divisions would do the job.Something that I am challenging,because,I doubt that one division could advance on one road only:the road would be congested.From what I remember,when the first German units arrived at Dunkirk,a lot still were in the Ardennes .
And,I remember vaguely that only small units of the 2nd Army were liberating Brussels and Antwerp,the main part still being in France .
That's why I am searching how much road space a division would need that was using one road only .
 
During the war the roads would be taken over by the army and only the army would use them. There was the famous American Red Bull Express in France where there was continuous circle of trucks on the move the whole time. Now you could try looking up some fact and figures on that operation, and if I remember rightly that was to supply Patton's army while advancing. As crew got out of the lorry another would get and the whole just kept going.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ball_Express
 
Usually British supply convoys were broken up into "packets," a section commanded by a full corporal in charge of 6 to 8 trucks depending on the type of truck, i.e in my day it was 4 tonners and 10 tonners. I was tasked as a 10 tonner section commander, except when on the move to another location, my 2 i/c took over my section while I was tasked as DR.

A Transport Regiment consisted of 3 Squadrons of various types, such as general cargo (including ammunition, fuel rations), tank transporters, bridging units and so on

In my Squadron for example we were general cargo and were issued, A Troop AEC 10 tonners, B Troop Bedford 4 tonners and C Troop Bedford 4 tonners. Each troop was broken up into as many as 3 sections. A section was detailed or tasked as required such as:-

Supplies were taken by trucks from a "rail head" to an "exchange point", then sorted out, then another section transported supplies from the "exchange point" to a "dispersal point" for transport to various units, then the supplies were transported from the "dispersal point" by yet another section to various units.

It sounds more complicated then it actually is.

The only big convoys were when a regiment was on the move, but even then they were broken up into packets or sections. Convoys are extremely easy targets for aircraft so are usually kept as small as possible to reduce the amount of trucks and supplies destroyed.
 
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Interestingly enough I have just read a short document entitled The 11 th Panzers in the Defense, 1944 by A. Harding Ganz where he states...
"Therefore, standard vehicle road march procedures (a panzer battalion moving by day at 20 kmph and 50 meter intervals had a time length of about 30 minutes and a road pace of some 8,000 meters) were now unrealistic."
 
Road convoys are extremely vulnerable especially when the enemy has air superiority, as a result supply drivers had a very high casualty rate.

The usual procedure when coming under air attack, the first vehicle goes off the road to the left, the second to the right, the third left and so on all along the convoy, that is, if there is room to maneuver.
 
Road convoys are extremely vulnerable especially when the enemy has air superiority, as a result supply drivers had a very high casualty rate.

The usual procedure when coming under air attack, the first vehicle goes off the road to the left, the second to the right, the third left and so on all along the convoy, that is, if there is room to maneuver.

The document was covering the 11th Panzer and it says...

With the long-awaited Allied invasion at Nonnandy in June 1944, General Wietersheim dispatched a number of the division's officers north to observe how battle conditions differed from the Eastern Front. Their reports were analyzed and discussed in commanders' conferences, and tactical responses were improvised: Allied airpower was all-pervasive, as already demonstrated in North Africa and Italy.
What Luftwaffe remained was committed to defense of the Reich itself.
Therefore, standard vehicle road march procedures (a panzer battalion moving by day at 20 kmph and 50 meter intervals had a time length of about 30 minutes and a road space of some 8,000 meters) were now unrealistic.
Vehicles, well-camouflaged with nets and branches, with constant air lookouts, would have to "spring" from cover to cover in Einzelgruppen single groups of 3-5 vehicles. If attacked by the Jabos - Jagdbombers, or fighter-bombers, troops would pile out of the vehicles while crews would put up a barrage of fire.
Allied artillery had plentiful ammunition, and its effectiveness was enhanced by accurate observation and corrections from spotter planes aloft.
Panzer artillery fire control exercises emphasized coordination of artillery, rocket, and mortar fue on concentration points, and rapid displacement to avoid counter-battery fire.
Wire communication would be destroyed by shell fire and by bombing; radio would be the primary means of communication, recognizing transmission range limitations imposed by a topography of wooded hills.
American ground advances were, however, methodical and cautious, halting at any resistance, and as a rule ending at nightfall. The Amis lacked the grim stubbornness of the Tommys or the Ivans, preferring to call for artillery support.

Training by Major Heinz Bodicker's Pioneer (Engineer) Battalion 209 was emphasized for all units, as delaying tactics with mines and obstacles would further slow an enemy advance. Aggressive reconnaissance by all units would be important, not only for security, but also to take advantage of the occasional negligence of the more powerful enemy and launch surprise attacks.
 
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My dad who was in the RASC during WW2, stated that convoys usually had a heavily armed gun truck, although he couldn't remember what guns were fitted.

Our vehicles had a limited number of 7.62 BREN guns mounted on top of the cab. I would suppose that in the event of a real war we would have been issued more BRENS or possibly GPMG's.
 
hehe I am not sure you would find me sitting in the cab of a truck shooting at an aircraft, I think I would prefer to join the troops in a ditch on the side of the road.

I know American pilots used to report that a lot of trains carried disguised anti-air carriages that used to open up as soon as they appeared and its main effect was to annoy them into giving the train an extra pasting.
 
We only had one or two BRENS mounted on the cabs of truck for the whole convoy.

In all probability, by the time an aircraft coming in at a high rate of knots was spotted and fired on it would be too late, the aircraft would have destroyed the convoy and gone home for bacon and eggs.
 
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