Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Karri




How do germans get the barges to Volga? Or protect them while they are there?

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ORIGINAL: wulfgar

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ORIGINAL: Karri




How do germans get the barges to Volga? Or protect them while they are there?

How about clearing the entire route up to Stalingrad of enemy forces?

You think the 6th Army was in Stalingrad because they liked the name?

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ORIGINAL: wulfgar

Well, perhaps people better be aware that European Russia is one big flat pancake. Moscow itself is only 150 meters above sea level. And with those big rivers and canals it's possible to move cargo from the Black sea to the Baltic.
In any case the standard route form the Caspian to the Black Sea is up the Volga and down the Don via Stalingrad. Post war they built the canal but would have been a portage system prior. When Germans complained about the roads, we forget the way to get around was via the rivers.
As far as shipping oil to Germany, it's to the Black Sea and up the Danube.



http://www.archipelago.nu/SKARGARD/ENGELSKA/RUSSIA/russian_river_system.htm

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ORIGINAL: Karri



Yes, but moving a barge, let alone the required number(assuming the oil wells would be working at all) is no small feat. And where would the barges come from anyways? They are very much needed in central Europe as well. As for Don and Volga, do they link?

The there's the whole Caspian sea, witht he Soviets still on the other side of it(and Allies in Persia). You'd need to move a whole fleet there to protect the shipping.

Assuming that Baku would somehow solve Axis oil problems is a bit silly when you know that Maikop didn't help them one bit. Any such plan would take years to be put into effect.

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The total length of the Volga-Don waterway is 1045 km, with a guaranteed depth of 4 m. Estimated channel capacity of the inter basin transport system for transit between the Azov and Caspian Seas is 16.5 million tons. The average navigation period is 200 days.

Maintenance of the waterway, which can be divided into three sections ¬¬-- the Volga section, the Volga-Don canal and the Don section -- is performed by the Volga, Volga-Don and Azov-Don state waterway and shipping administrations. These federal state administrations' sphere of activity includes management of ports -- Volgograd, Astrakhan, Kalachev, Volga-Don, Liskinsk, Voronezh, Azov and Rostov.

The history of creation and operation of inland waterways and the hydro-engineering constructions built on them is connected with the development of the Russian transport network. People used convenient portages between rivers from the earliest stages of economic development.

Portage between the Volga and the Don at their closest points had been used for many centuries, making the Volga-Don route attractive for transportation.

Peter the Great started construction of the canal in 1697, for both strategic purposes and for trade with the Black Sea countries of the Middle East. More than 30 attempts to connect the Volga and the Don were made between then and 1917, but most were never implemented.

The new Soviet government discussed the construction of the Volga-Don canal back in 1918. The project was assigned a top priority status, and construction works were to be implemented in several stages.

The first part of the Volga-Don canal was the Kochetov hydro-system built in 1919 some 178 km away from the estuary of the Don River. It was built to create backwater to ensure maintenance of depths at the confluence of the Don and its first tributary, the Seversky Donets River. Its commissioning had significant economic importance for the waterways of the Don basin, as it enabled regular transportation of coal from the of Donetsk coal basin and of bread produced on the fertile irrigated land of the steppe.

Between 1949 and 1952 the following infrastructure facilities were put into operation:

1. The 101 km long Volga-Don canal with 13 canal locks, 3 pumping stations, 13 dams and dykes, 7 spillways and floodgates, 22 navigation channels, 2 bulkhead gates, 8 rail and road bridges, ferry crossings, stations, piers and a 100 km channel-side highway. This amounts to 96 hydro-engineering constructions on the channel.

2. The Tsimlyansky hydro-system in Volgodonsk, with 2 canal locks, a hydroelectric power station, an earth dam, outside irrigation system and railway and highway crossings.

3. The Don main irrigation canal, the Nizhny-Don distribution canal and the Azov distribution canal.

The canal gets its water from the Don River. Three pumping stations (with a design capacity of 45 cub. m/s each) pump Don water from the Tsimlyansky Reservoir successively to the Karpovsk, Bereslavsk, and Varvarovsk Reservoirs. This water is also used for irrigation and water supply. The pumping stations are controlled from a single control centre which is part of Marinovsk hydro-system. The pumping stations are currently being refitted. Hydraulic units with an enhanced capacity of 20 cub. m/s instead of the original 15 cub. m/s are being installed at the Karpovsk and Varvarovsk pumping stations. Units of the original capacity are installed at the Marinovsk station, but their number will be increased from 3 to 4, with a total capacity of 60 cub. m/s.

The Volga-Don canal connects all the seas of European Russia in a single system.

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ORIGINAL: darbymcd

Wulfgar, just so I am clear, you are arguing that the Germans could have exploited the oilfields at Baku provided they 1) capture them 2) repair them 3) capture Moscow 4) capture Leningrad 5) capture Stalingrad 6) build over 3 years a massive infrastructure program to connect two waterways 7) Keep the area clear of enemy action 8) construct a large fleet of oil barges 9) move them to the region. And at that point, after only 4 or 5 years and massive industrial expense (the Germans had lots of spare capacity around this time, yes?) then they could have had the extra oil they needed to complete all those projects above. wow, that is so easy the real life Germans must have been such idiots not to do it!

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capture Moscow 4) capture Leningrad 5)

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6) build over 3 years a massive infrastructure program to connect two waterways

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7) Keep the area clear of enemy action

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8) construct a large fleet of oil barges

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Ok, seriously, because the Soviets manage to ship things in the 50s doesn't mean the Germans had any hope, in any scenario that doesn't involve aliens, of doing it in any way. Please please tell me you don't actually think it is possible....

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ORIGINAL: paullus99

Actually, to settle the argument as to the historical use of the oil fields / refineries by the Germans. If the Germans had captured those fields in any semblance of working order, all it would have taken is a couple of large raids by either the RAF or USAAF to put the oilfields out of commission to an extent to make them useless to the Germans.

Given the large allied presence in the Middle East (which would have been expanded if the Germans threatened to cross the border into Persia / Iraq), it would not have been inconceivable to have some bomber groups based there that would have easily been in range of any captured oil fields.

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Operation Tidal Wave was an air attack by bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) based in Libya on nine oil refineries around Ploiești, Romania on 1 August 1943, during World War II. It was a strategic bombing mission and part of the "oil campaign" to deny petroleum-based fuel to the Axis.[5] The mission resulted in "no curtailment of overall product output", and so was unsuccessful.[7].

This mission was one of the costliest for the USAAF in the European Theater, with 53 aircraft and 660 aircrewmen lost. It was the worst loss ever suffered by the USAAF on a single mission, and its date was later referred to as "Black Sunday".

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ORIGINAL: paullus99

Lack of oil? Certainly - it was a problem for the Axis in general, since they didn't have any real significant quantities inside their own historical borders. As far as comparing a raid against Ploesti & Baku, you really can't. Ploesti was heavily defended by significant anti-air assets and was at a very long distance from Allied airbases.

Baku, on the other hand, would be fairly close to potential airbases in Persia & the Luftwaffe would have to displace a lot of assets to try to protect an area they were unfamiliar with, without advanced radar warning, against what could be significant allied raids (multi-hundred aircraft by 1943).

Again, it isn't about the Germans using the captured fields - there were plenty enough ways to prevent them from doing so, but denying those assets to Russia. And the amount of fuel that would be required by Russia (to replace what was lost) might have been replaced, but the tankers necessary to get it there would still have needed to be built (by the US) which would have taken a significant period of time as well.

For a pretty good read on what might have happened, if both Germany & Japan been a little more successful than history - check out "The Moscow Option" by David Downing.

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Of course the Germans can exploit Baku oildfields fully, by building a massive fleet of barges and teleporting the Kriegsmarine to Caspian sea to protect it, as well as occupying the whole caucasus without any logistical issues whatsoever. Claiming anything else is just Soviet fanboyism! Also, you don't need refineries to change oil into fuel; no, the german engineers surely had some miraculous way to do this with the simple power of thought.

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Romania’s exports to Germany increased to 13 million barrels by 1941,6 a level that was essentially maintained through 1942 and 1943.

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ORIGINAL: wulfgar

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Of course the Germans can exploit Baku oildfields fully, by building a massive fleet of barges and teleporting the Kriegsmarine to Caspian sea to protect it, as well as occupying the whole caucasus without any logistical issues whatsoever. Claiming anything else is just Soviet fanboyism! Also, you don't need refineries to change oil into fuel; no, the german engineers surely had some miraculous way to do this with the simple power of thought.

The question is moving the Soviets out of the way for sufficient amount of time......after that everything else is not so difficult.

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ORIGINAL: aspqrz

The best historical comparison would probably be what the Japanese faced in the NEI ... they actually had experts on the invasion fleet, ready to take over, and any allied plans to destroy the wells and/or refineries were applied haphazardly and not always effectively to boot ... yet it took the Japanese till 1944 to get the DEI wells and refineries back to 80% of pre-war production levels (when they needed to exceed those levels to make the conquest work, economically speaking).

The Germans had no plans, evidently, to occupy or get back into operation any wells they captured in the Caucasus, they had no plans to rebuild the drilling/pumping and refinery installations, they had not enough RR tankers for POL as it was ... so, at a guess, they could manage to get it all up and running a year or so later than the Japs, from a mid to late 1942 start, probably ... so, probably 80% production of the nearest ones by early 1945.

Which means it really depends on whether the US can make up the loss of POL to the Soviets ... which they can, easy peasy(ish) ... and, more importantly, whether the Russian morale can withstand it ... which I think it can.

Overall effect? I doubt the Germans would hold the wells and refineries, or, more importantly, the long access route by rail (no cross Black Sea capacity ... no significant tanker fleet there and no significant ports on the Soviet side) in the face of Russian counter attacks.

I'd guess the Germans would get barely a trickle before they'd have to blow it all up and retreat.

YMMV

Phil

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ORIGINAL: aspqrz

The Soviets historically lost 90% of Baku Oil production anyway, destroying it when threatened by German advances. Did it make a difference?

No.

Ergo, the basis of your assumption is completely wrong.

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The US supplied pretty much all of the Rolling Stock and Locomotives to Russia through the war

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, they also pretty much built up the railway through Iran into Russia from zilch ... IIRC in a very short period of time ...

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ORIGINAL: aspqrz

The Soviets historically lost 90% of Baku Oil production anyway, destroying it when threatened by German advances. Did it make a difference?

No.

Ergo, the basis of your assumption is completely wrong.

The US supplied pretty much all of the Rolling Stock and Locomotives to Russia through the war, and most of the rails as well (apart from unused line sections that were torn up and recycled by the Russians themselves) ... they also pretty much built up the railway through Iran into Russia from zilch ... IIRC in a very short period of time ... they also supplied an entire refinery (at least one) and all of the high octane fuel that enabled the Red Air Force to outperform the Luftwaffe ...

All in all, a pretty good indication that they would have been able to supply Russia down the TSRR through Murmansk and, I guess, through the 'Stans if they'd had to.

Phil