Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?: Horses and the German Army of World War II (Stackpole Military History Series) Paperback – September 10, 2008

My breakdown rating for Dinardo’s book ‘Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?’ is 4 stars for compiling facts concerning the use of horses by the Germans during WWII and 2 stars for his analysis. Averaged out to 3 stars.

An example of facts listed that I found interesting:
1. In preparation for the invasion of Russia, the Germans acquired 15,000 peasant carts from Poland as transport vehicles for their Infantry divisions.
2. Germany entered Russia with 2,000 different types of vehicles - maintenance nightmare !
3. The German 105mm artillery piece loaded with ammunition, fodder, and associated equipment required 6 heavy draft horses in good physical condition.
4. The 150mm ammo cart alone required 8 horses.
5. Typical Russian horse, Panje, was tough but small. Could only haul wood carts - artillery and German steel horse drawn carts too heavy. Germans used about 7 million of these horses.
6. In the first 4 months of Operation Barbarossa the Germans lost 102,910 horses. During the first winter in Russia, despite reduced military operations, Army Group Center still was losing 1,000 horses per day !
7. May 29th 1944 Army Group B had 3,552 trucks converted to run on wood gas. This was due to the shortage of gasoline/diesel

The book is 133 pages, chronologically arranged and a easy read. Several maps showing troop movements, but of poor print quality. 11 photos all of poor print quality. Other than the Russian Panje, no photos or drawings showing the different types of horses listed by the author. Also, of all the equipment listed by the author that the horses are pulling, there is a photo showing 1/2 of a small panje wooden cart, 6 plus team of horses pulling some unknown piece of equipment because the photo does not show it, and a 105mm piece where you really cannot see the horses. ( I believe this photo actually shows a 150mm piece) The photos are 3rd rate quality, and do not even give you a general idea of how the horses were used to pull various equipment.

Next is Dinardo’s 2 stars for analysis. He claims that most of us believe that during WWII Germany was a fully modern, mechanized military power. He claims our misguided beliefs about the German Mechanization is due to films and memoirs. Let us start with the title of his book -‘Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism’ Dinardo comes up with the term Mechanized Juggernaut from Frank Capra’s propaganda series during WWII called ‘Why We Fight” Dinardo postulates that Capra and the BBC series ‘The World at War’ solidified the myth that the Germans were a mechanized juggernaut. How many people below the age of 50 have seen either of these ‘documentaries’?
Next, Dinardo lists the following movies to have reinforced “the notion of mechanization....’ Casablanca, North Star, Five Graves to Cairo. According to Dinardo, these movies depicted Germans as ruthless or efficient and this in turn “....reinforce the notion of mechanization......” Really !!???
from watching these movies I certainly did not get the Mechanized Juggernaut feeling about the Germans. Then Dinardo lists ‘The Longest Day’ and “Patton’ reinforcing the idea of Mechanization and that the Germans did not use horses because the movies did not show many horses. Fair enough - but how many people below the age of 50 have seen these movies? These movies came out in 1962 and 1970 respectively. Now the last obvious comment about Dinardo building his case using movies as key in perpetuating a myth - how many out there really base their views on historical events from what Hollywood churns out? That would be like watching ‘Deer Hunter, ‘Platoon” and ‘Good Morning America” and having a definitive view about American soldiers in Vietnam war. Sounds silly doesn’t it?
Next Dinardo list memoirs written by High commanders and field commanders. These covered operations at a very high level and commanders such as Guderian wrote about panzers. So, no talk about horses. Fair enough. As far as an enlisted soldier or NCO or low ranking officer, Dinardo only mentions The Forgotten Soldier where Guy Sajer was in an eliter Panzer division. Dinardo failed to mention that Sajer commented on how much he had to walk. More importantly, there are endless memoirs written by the common soldier that Dinardo completely ignores.
‘In Deadly Combat’ By Biderman discusses on the eve of invading Russia their divisions only mode of transportation was either foot or horse. Soldat by Sigfried Knappe was an artillery unit that was horse drawn. Tigers In the Mud is Otto Carius’s experience as a tank commander, but in it Otto would sneak over to the American positions and steel a jeep - why ? Because obviously the Germans were short of vehicles. I believe Dinardo simply cherry picked his memoirs to support his thesis.

Anachronism means someone or something not in its correct chronological time. Dinardo builds his case that since the German military so heavily relied on horses it was an anachronism. He writes in his conclusion ‘...the bulk of the German Army that fought
World War II was not far removed from its imperial predecessor of World War I, or even of the nineteenth century.’ Ok, sounds like an anachronism. Oddly in the very next paragraph Dinardo states that “....all of the European armies against whom the Germans enjoyed success, namely Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (initially), were essentially mirror images of the major part of the German Army.” So, according to Dinardo all of the armies in Europe were anachronisms. In 1939 the US army also was an anachronism if we go with Dinardos approach. 2 stars for Analysis by Dinardo.

Why were Germans so backwards with mechanization?
Dinardo goes at length listing what the ratio was of automobile ownership per the countries population. In 1935 the USA had 1 car per 5 people, and in 1937 the Germans were at 1 car per 47 people. Dinardos conclusion is “...Germany did not have a population conducive to the creation of a large motorized or mechanized force.” He writes further that since “...the German population’s relative unfamiliarity with motor vehicles and the breakneck pace of the army’s expansion.” the Germans had to rely on horses. According to Dinardo the Germans are so backwards they cannot figure out vehicles that are made of steel and have internal combustion engines.
Interestingly Dinardo does not mention Soviet Union car ownership because it would not support his thesis. Dinardo himself writes later in the book that by 1944 the Soviets were by far more mechanized and motorized than the Germans. How did this happen with Russian population having even a more limited exposure to motorized vehicles? First off, Dinardos analysis is ridiculous that if a group of people are not around vehicles they cannot figure out how to build them, use them, or maintain them. He has a bone to pick with the Germans and has to ignore the Soviet Union to maintain his bias. During WWII German medium and heavy tank production was at about 38,000, Soviet at 76,255 and US at 68,864. The US did provide 427,000 motor vehicles to the Soviets. Furthermore, from reading the excellent book T-34 Attack, I discovered that the Soviet tank crews came from a very poor background. It was common that when the young man left home for military service he wrapped his few belongings in a rag to take with him. He did not even own a bag! These men typically went to the tank factory and participated in the tanks final construction before becoming a crew member. My point is, if Russian peasants from the Kholhoz can figure out mechanical equipment, why does Dinardo think the Germans cannot? He writes that the Soviet rifle divisions by December 1942 have become “...a very lean 9,354 men 44 guns and 1,732 horses.” According to Dinardo the Soviets are already becoming more motorized, so apparently the Soviets also can provide enough trained drivers and maintenance personnel. Something, according to Dinardo, the Germans ‘did not have a population conducive to the creation of a large motorized or mechanized force.”

In passing he mentions also the German economy could not provide the fuel needed for additional vehicles. He does not address at all that if the Germans were fully mechanized like the US was on June 6th 1944, they would never be able to provide fuel for these vehicles. The Germans had to use horses because they did not even have enough fuel for the few vehicles they did have. To me, the interesting question here is - what the hell were the Germans thinking in 1939 when they knew full well they had very limited oil supplies. This then dovetails with the next point Dinardo does not understand - Blitzkrieg. Starting with Poland, the Germans had to attain quick victories because they had limited resources - ie equipment. They could not sustain a war of attrition (like what happened with Russia)
In the Polish campaign alone, the Germans used up 1/2 of their entire stockpile of ammunition! The Germans did not use the concept Blitzkrieg because they were able to field thousands and thousands of tanks and trucks. They needed quick victories due to limited supplies. To me that is the insanity of Germany starting WWII - they did not even have the means to win, yet they embark on a course that burned down half of Europe and western Soviet Union. They also did not have the sense to be committed 100% from the very beginning. For the first several years of the war Hitler refused to allow German women to work in the factories. He did not want the civilians to experience great hardship like they did in WWI. He wanted to conquer Europe and western Russia, but was not willing to commit the German population 100% Insanity! At the same time in USSR, USA and UK women are working in the factories. In Albert Speers book factory owners were showing Speer press photos of woman workers entering factories in the US and UK. This was 1941-1942, and they pleaded to get more workers. Hitler said no. Another example from Speers book is that during the war German ‘governors’ (sort of like USA state governors) had personal trains with locomotives that Speer wanted to use to bring supplies to the eastern front. Around 1943 he requested personally from Hitler to get these trains from these governors. Hitler did NOT have the political will to make such a request. It would provide too much of an inconvenience for these governors. These are some examples why the German armies had lots of horses - not what Dinardo would like you to believe - that Germans were simply in over their heads when it came to technology (mechanization).
I do agree with Dinardo in his criticism of the Germans having thousands of different types of vehicles which creates a maintenance nightmare. And his criticism that the Germans had many smaller factories building equipment that was not conducive to mass production.

The most frightening part of this book is that on the back cover it states that DiNardo is professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Looking up this College, on their website it states “The Marine Corps Command and Staff College provides graduate level education and training in order to develop critical thinkers, innovative problem solvers,” After reading this book Dinardo is the last person to be teaching anyone about critical thinking.

This book served to explain quite a lot about operations of the German army in WWII. I grew up around horses and was fairly knowledgeable about their care and feeding, but I was totally in the dark concerning the difficulties encountered while trying to unite and utilize both motorized and horse drawn forces. I had never thought about the logistics of shipping space-greedy fodder. I had never envisioned the space required by horse drawn march columns. It had never occurred to me how the Soviet army had suddenly become able to out manuever the Wehrmacht once they were motorized by Studebaker trucks.

The knowledge in this little book was a real gift to me and I predict it will be likewise for any student of WWII military history and tactics.

Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?: Horses and the German Army of World War II (Stackpole Military History Series) This is the first work that I have run across that amply covers the role of the horse in the German army during World War II. Many years ago I authored a work that covered the subject of draft animals in terms of their relation to German military doctrine and the army's performance, but the work under review covers the role of the draft horse in far more detail. As the title suggests, the conception of the German army in World War II as a motorized, mechanized juggernaut (as is still widely believed by the general public interested in WWII) ignores the fact that the description applied to only a relatively few of the army's divisions. In contrast, the vast majority of the army's divisions relied upon the railroad for strategic movement as far as the railheads, then the troops marched while most of their ammunition, supplies (and in some cases even their artillery) were horse-drawn. The author has done a splendid job in explaining how the many hundreds of thousands of horses were acquired, how horse hospitals operated, how horses were fed and from what sources, how wagons and harness were acquired, how the various breeds of horses fared in their tasks, and the impact of horses on army operations. For anyone who wants to know what the "real" German army was like (except in North Africa where no horses were used but only a handful of German divisions served) he should definitely add this volume to his personal library. Halcion

In this DiNardo work, he addresses the frequently overlooked importance of the horse in German military operations in WWII. What is popularly seen as the mechanized war, he directs the readers attention to the importance of the the horse in this war of motorized movement. Highly recommended.

Excellent since it gave an idea how extensively horses was still used in the German army.

Well written, describes in detail the Horsepower needed to move a division (even icludes needs of Russian ad other forces) and even the needs of a Panzer Division in horses. Detailed battle records show how as transport assets were lost, more and more horses were needed. Truly a unique view of the vaunted "mechanized" forces of the Blitzkrieg and how the horse supported them. Also helps to understand the character rant in "Band of Brothers" where airborne soldier screams at marching German POWs and horse carriages.

DiNardo's work is a necessary piece of the WWII puzzle, but one that has, in the past, been vastly underplayed. The German army in WWII was largely moved by draft animals - artillery, supplies, and all that necessary to keep an army in the field. Less than 10% of the army was mechanized (tracks) or motorized (wheels). DiNardo's work fills in the missing pieces that so many, including professional historians, have neglected. I found the work valid and reliable, but also easy to read, as with all the Stackpole books I've read. If you're a WWII fan, I highly recommend this book.