Germany Ran Out of Rubber for Tires — So Vehicles Used Wooden and Steel Wheels

Описание: When Germany ran out of rubber during World War II, mobility didn’t just slow down — it fractured. By 1943, rear-area trucks, farm carts, and transport wagons were rolling on wooden and steel-banded wheels. No air-filled tires. No shock absorption. Just metal grinding across stone roads — a desperate workaround for a collapsing supply chain.

This video tells the full story of how Germany’s dependence on imported natural rubber turned into a strategic crisis. From colonial plantation economics and the rise of IG Farben’s synthetic Buna program, to wartime rationing, ersatz technology, and the logistical consequences on the Eastern Front — this is the industrial story behind one of WWII’s most overlooked vulnerabilities.

You’ll see how synthetic rubber research accelerated under pressure, why wooden and steel wheels became a last-resort solution, and how shortages reshaped Germany’s wartime mobility — from mechanized divisions to farm transport and factory logistics.

More than a story about tires, this is a case study in industrial fragility — and why modern warfare lives or dies on materials science and supply chains.

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