Chapter 58 Railway
Yannick pretended to be embarrassed. "I'm wondering how your country's minerals can be transported to our country quickly and conveniently. Such a large amount of transportation cannot be transported by truck, and can only be transported by rail."
After the mustache came to power in the original time and space, he reorganized the army and prepared for war, and naturally paid more attention to the construction of railways. He unified the loose railway companies and established the German Railway Company, which was renamed German Railway in 1937. After the general director of the German Railway, Dopmuller, pledged allegiance to the mustache, he became the Minister of Transportation of the Empire, and the entire railway system began to formulate more sophisticated wartime transportation plans.
In the blitzkrieg against Poland in 1939 and the Battle of France in 1940, the German Railway successfully completed the tasks, including transporting troops and evacuating residents. Because Germany did not mobilize at that time, many new trains still performed domestic civil and passenger transportation tasks. The German Railway sometimes had to use old locomotives in wartime to perform war tasks. Similarly, the acceptance and adaptation of the Polish and French railways did not take much effort, because the track width was standard and the technical level was relatively modern. In Poland, the Germans established the Eastern Railway, which was at the same level as the German Railway. In principle, the railway was still under the jurisdiction of the country where it was located, but in Paris, Germany established the Western Railway Transportation Department ETRA to supervise the operation of local railways.
Until 1941, the German Railway seemed to have been running well, and soon Barbarossa came. Considering the transportation and mobilization issues for the attack on the Soviet Union, the Germans formulated the Otto Plan and fully expanded the Eastern Railway. It was completed on June 15, only one week ahead of the attack on the Soviet Union. In order to complete the military mobilization for the attack on the Soviet Union, from February 25 to June 23, the German Railway and the Eastern Railway secretly mobilized a total of 34,000 trains to deliver the personnel, equipment and supplies of 141 divisions to the Soviet-German border. The German Army General Staff commented on this: The performance of the railway system exceeded our expectations.
However, the performance of the German Railway exceeded expectations, but the condition of the Soviet Railway could not bring any surprises to the German army. Compared with the West, where railways are distributed in an orderly manner, the Soviet railways are generally in a primitive state: the most dense (relatively speaking) railway network hubs in the Soviet Union are in Moscow, Leningrad and Donets. On the border, there are only four double-track railways that could be used by the German army: the Neman River to Leningrad, the Bug River via Orsha to Moscow, the Bug River via Klimentchok to Donets, and the San River to Odessa. Of course, these four east-west railways also intersect with the six north-south railways, but they still appear sparse in the vast western territory of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, due to the German intelligence department's limited knowledge of the Soviet Union, the German railways seriously underestimated the primitiveness of the Soviet railways. The Germans only knew that the Soviet railways were broad-gauge railways. After they invaded the Soviet Union, they found that the Soviet railways were still at the level of World War I: most of the railways (except Kharkov to Moscow) were built on soft sand foundations, and the sleepers were also relatively soft pine wood. For example, the German standard railway load-bearing capacity standard is 49 kg per meter, while the Soviet standard is 38 kg per meter. The German railway has 1,600 sleepers per kilometer, while the Soviet Union has 1,440. The Germans use screws and washers to fix the rails, while the Soviets use long nails directly. Similarly, the Soviet railway bridges are basically worthless and must be reinforced to transport tanks and other heavy equipment, not to mention the railway dispatching equipment. Basically, most of the equipment is antiques from the World War I period, and the electric-controlled knockdown device is very rare.
The German General Staff required the German army to seize as much of the Soviet railway network as possible, and hoped that the Soviet army would destroy the railway as little as possible during its retreat. Fortunately, this was achieved as much as possible and as little as possible. The German army's rapid advance and the Soviet army's surprise made the railway basically fall into the hands of the Germans intact, but the German railway pessimistically believed that it was worthless. In order to cope with the pressure, Germany established the Eastern Operations Office in Warsaw to try to coordinate the efficiency of railway transportation on the Soviet battlefield. Although the number of trains sent from Germany to the front line every day has successfully increased from 600 to 900, there are indeed very few supplies that can be delivered to the front line. With the arrival of the cold winter in Russia, the Eastern Railway finally collapsed: the Central Army Group had a minimum daily supply of 75 trains, but in fact it was only 40 at most, and only 25 at least. The Northern Army Group had a quota of 30 trains, but in fact it was only 10.
It was not until the spring of 1942 that Speer took over the German Railway. Under the management of the energetic Speer, the German Railway quickly recovered the vitality that was defeated by the severe cold.
Yannik must plan ahead and solve these problems early. "It's a problem to transport the minerals here, and it's also a problem to transport the finished products back. It's too difficult to rely on the existing means. Unless..."
"Unless what?" Tukhachevsky asked anxiously. He also wanted to know what solution Yannik had.
"Unless the railways can be unified." Yannik said his plan without changing his expression. "But your country's railways are not compatible with those in Europe. If your country's railways are converted to the same width as Europe, then it will be very convenient to transport minerals."
"!!" Tukhachevsky raised his eyebrows slightly. He was naturally not a fool. Of course, he knew what the same railway specifications meant. Once the railway specifications are unified, it will be convenient to transport minerals now, and it will also be convenient to transport strategic materials in the future!
Yannick did not give Tukhachevsky time to think and continued. "It is best if this railway goes all the way from the border to the Ural Mountains, so that all kinds of minerals in the Ural Mountains can be transported here continuously." In the future, the German army can also drive straight in along this railway, and the supply will be extremely convenient.
As for whether the Soviets will agree? Yannick is not sure.
Maybe after the Soviets review the drawings of the "super battleship" and find that they do not have the ability to build it, they will agree. After all, on the surface, the Soviet Union has taken a big advantage in building this "super battleship". They only need to mine the minerals in the mountains and transport them to Germany, and they will get a "super battleship" in the near future.
Where can you find such a good thing? Apart from Germany, no other country is willing to do this! Ask Britain, France, and the United States, are they willing?
After pondering for a while, Tukhachevsky shook his head. "His Highness Yannick's proposal is good, but we don't have extra funds to renovate the railway. Moreover, if this railway is renovated, the trains on our other railway networks will not be able to run on this line, which is inconvenient for us."
"This is simple." Yannick said casually: "In this case, let's just build a special line for transporting ore, from the Ural Mountains to the border, and connect it to Europe. Isn't this convenient? Specially transport ore. As for the investment in this line, of course it will be paid by you, but you can also consider using ore to convert it and let us solve it."
In this era, it is not difficult to build a railway. It is not like running the high-speed rail of the future. There is no need for advanced seamless steel rails and ballastless tracks. It is also not like the future. It needs to allocate a large amount of demolition compensation. In the Soviet Union, if you say you want to expropriate land, you can expropriate it immediately!
So, there is only money left to build the railway. If the Soviet Union doesn't have it, it will still use ore to compensate!
But he also knew that it would be impossible for Khachevsky to make a decision on such a large project now. "General, you can go back and discuss it." If the Soviet Union really disagrees with building a railway, then he can only move out of Plan B and use containers, which can at least improve efficiency.
The meeting ended in a happy atmosphere where both sides felt they had gained something.
Tukhachevsky boarded the return plane with drawings of monkey-version armored reconnaissance vehicles, tanks, trucks and other equipment. On the plane, he heard a horrifying secret from Natasha: the 150-ton super tank successfully developed by Germany!