HUGE DEMANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1941, Page 6

HUGE DEMANDS

MADE ON GERMAN SUPPLY & TRANSPORT IN WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. DEPENDENCE ON CURRENT PRODUCTION. (By Telegraph—Press. Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 25. A Swiss newspaper’s correspondent in Berlin estimates that more shells and bombs have been used in the three months of the RussianGerman battle than in all the previous 20 months of other campaigns. The roads to the front on the Ger-| man side are packed with supply columns in which horses in addition to motors are carrying immense quantities of munitions. “The Times” correspondent on the German frontier quotes a German military expert’s estimate that the rolling stock needed on the Eastern Front includes 70,000 motorised cars and lorries, 4000 motor cycles, and between 6000 and 7000 tanks. Every time the front advances 20 to 25 miles about half as many vehicles again as for the fighting operations are needed to bring up supplies and reinforcements, the German said, indicating that 40,000 to 45,000 lorries must be. kept permanently ready behind the lines. The expert also estimated that each division when advancing consumes 100 to 200 tons of munitions daily, and when the rations of fodder and motor fuel are included, each division consumes 300 tons a day. One German panzer division consists of about 1000 motor vehicles, including tanks, and it needs 100 tons of fuel for each 65 miles. The correspondent in Stockholm declares that the Germans have now exhausted their accumulated supplies of munitions and are depending on the day-to-day production, but they are still strong enough to maintain an offensive equal to all theic previous ones. TASK FOR LITVINOV. APPOINTED TO SOVIET DELEGATION. (Received This Day. 16.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 26. The Moscow radio stated that M. Litvinov had been appointed an additional member of the Russian delegation to meet the British and American missions.