WHAT WINTER MEANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 6

WHAT WINTER MEANS

TO GERMANS ON RUSSIAN FRONT CAMPAIGNING DIFFICULTIES. MANY VITAL FACTORS. The administrative difficulties of any campaign in such a vast country as Russia are enormous. The extent of the front to be attacked and the distances to be covered to reach any visible objective necessitate the use of gigantic armies to ensure quick success, writes Field Marshal Lord Ironside in the “Daily Telegraph.” These armies the Germans have produced, and they have already achieved notable successes. But the timing of their campaign has gone somehow astray. They must have hoped to destroy the Russian forces in the first few hundred miles of their advance. This they have not achieved, for although they have suffered heavy losses in material the Russian armies are still intact. And now the winter is on. The German High Command can be under no illusions as to what this means. They have ample historic experience of campaigning in Russia in winter. Have they the means to do what is necessary? Have they the time in which to do it —with the R.A.F. hammering at their industry and morale in their rear —without turning at least a substantial portion of the Luftwaffe to face the West? Above all, have they the means of transportation for this great winter enterprise? SLOW AND RISKY TRAVEL.

Russia is a vast plain extending right up to the Urals. In summer the roads and railways can be relieved of their heavy traffic by water transport. Large steamers with barges can traverse the country from the Baltic and White Sea to the Black Sea and the Caspian. During the rains before the frost and during the melting of the snow the roads become impassable and the rate of travel on the railways is much reduced owing to the unsteadiness of the tracks. With the coming of the frost the water transport, of course, ceases, but the railway tracks and roads harden up. With railways, the Germans are faced with formidable difficulties at the outset. The Russian and German gauges are not the same, so rolling stock cannot be transferred direct from home. Following their tactics of “scorched earth,” the Russians will have left little behind. ■ Moreover, the Russian locomotives burn three kinds of fuel —wood in the north, and coal and oil in the centre and south. Thus the value of captured Russian railways will be much reduced.

The roads, even the main highways, are not like ours, built upon feet of solid foundation, for there is a general lack of road material in Russia. It is true that they harden up with the intense frost, but they are much hampered by snowdrifts, which cannot be cleared with the same facility as they can on railway tracks. The winter winds in the great plain raise enormous drifts in a night, and not the heaviest traffic of itself can keep the roads open. Roads alone cannot replace railways in the supply of great armies, although the tonnage to be moved is not as great as it was in the last war, owing to the absence of great bombardments against trench systems. Still, the supply of petrol in moving mechanical warfare presents an almost equal difficulty. For the lighter transport with the regiments, using side roads and tracks, there can now be no rapid change to sleighs and ponies, for the animals no longer exist. The Germans have, indeed, always maintained horses for their artillery and wagons in the East because of snow conditions, but animal wastage will be high and tbs supply strictly limited. AVIATION TROUBLES. Aviation in the snow brings many troubles. Aerodromes have to be cleared or the snow levelled to take the skis which replace the wheels on the aeroplanes. Pilots need special training, especially with heavy bombers. In the intense cold of the winds engines have to be kept running al* most continuously to ensure the aeroplanes being ready when required, causing a great wastage of petrol. The controls of the aeroplanes and the bomb attachments freeze up and do not work. Such conditions are part of the daily life of the Russian pilots, who will thus have the advantage of the Germans.

How will the ersatz clothing of the ’ Germans stand up to the cold? Snowgoggles and white clothing for the infantry are necessities. Even the ballistics of the propellants in guns and rifles change, thus making the ordinary range-tables useless. The Russian equipment is built to stand up to these conditions —the freezing of a bayonet to the rifle or the freezing-up of wa-ter-cooled machine-guns, the impossibility of touching cold steel with the bare hands, and many others. Such things as the freezing of fresh vegetables make the life of an unaccustom--1 ed rank and file a nightmare. And what of the High Command knowing all these things? Even such an efficient machine as that 'of Germany, less affected as it is by feelings for ,the rank and file? UNNERVING EXPERIENCE. Every commander directing an advance into the vastness of Russia, with its changes of temperature and lack of communications, must be impressed by the immensity of his task, a feeling which only grows as he advances and yet seems to reach no finality. He feels as if he were pressing against some great sticky mass, which gives way before him and oozes into every crevice behind him. The boldest continues until the physical conditions bring him to a stop, while the weaker hesitates and attempts temporary withdrawals. Both try to disengage from the sticky mass enveloping them until the disengagement becomes an obsession, hastening the moral decline of the directing brain. It has all happened before. It may well happen again. The Russians are fighting our battle as much as we are. That we understand this and are aiding them with all our power is clear. All our thoughts in the hearts of our people go out to the gallant Russian soldiers.