Hello!
Here is a little question for you: How many letters had been sent by German fieldpost during WWII?
Try to make your best guess.
To make it easier for you: How many millions was it?
For our American friends: A million is 1.000.000 , i.e. 6 zeros. 
And remember: NO Googling!
100.000.000 ?
Well, since about 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht (not at the same time of course) I’d guess the number is even higher…
Guys, wwaaaaaaaaaaay off! 
Common! How many millions was it?
Do not be shy and low on numbers.
Applying 18 million people to an assumed average of three years’ service (allowing for deaths and late enlistments) = nominal 54m man years.
Assume each service person has three people on average writing to them and replies to each letter = (54m x 3 = 162m) x 2 = 324m.
Assume letters are exchanged on average monthly = 324m x 12 = 3.9 billion; fortnightly = 324 x 26 = 8.5 billion; weekly = 16.9 billion.
Letters to front line units will be rarer than to rear and occupation troops. Some men well have fewer and some more than an average number of letters, replies and correspondents. Also there will be letters as part of morale campaigns. So, I’d say anywhere between about 5 and 30 billion items is possible, but I’d guess around 15 billion.
I’m almost with you, just require the standard deviation?
The standard deviation in my experience is that all jobs take three times as long as estimated and cost two to five times as much as budgeted, except for US military aeroplane projects which are elebenty leben times more of everything, except for delivery time which can be estimated fairly accurately by substituting a decade for each year in the original contract.
On that basis, the Germans probably handled a squillion items. 
Spot on!
30 billion… Hopefully this is not a trick question ;-D
_
50.000.000.000
Damn… now i do realize why they felt shortage of everything since 1943:)
The thousand tonns of papers were spend on letters ONLY.
And if to count how many tonns they have spend for propogandic leaflets:mrgreen:
Why?
No it is not a trick question…
Nice number by the way… not entierly correct, but nice nonetheless.
Befoe we proceed any further I have one or two questions, Igor.
Are we including parcels?
When you say ‘sent’ do the numbers include those that disappeared, or is it simply those that were stamped with the field post stamp?
Do the numbers include those which were not delivered and returned to sender (which might have received a second stamp), and may not have reahed the sender?
Is the unit of measure in tons/tonnes, sacks, letters, postal items etc?
At which point were the measurements taken e.g. at a central fieldpost office, point of collection, point of delivery etc?
By fieldpost are we excluding non-military i.e. civillian traffic?
Please help, Igor, I’m not able to sleep! My head is churning with figures, I’m braking out in bedsweats, and the very thought of factoring in for exponential smoothing is simply orgasmic!
32Bravo!
Do not be difficult on me! I have no idea about those issues.
I asked about letter sent back and fourth by the German field post service.
All those question you asked made me sad… very sad… my heart submerged in sorrow…
So sad in fact - I do not know when I will be able to feel orgasmatic in the nearest future…
Any how, the answer is…
is…
40.000.000.000
that is fourty billion letters. Approximately, of course.
Is ten billions above good or bad?
That would made an average of about 2222 letters per soldier to serve in the Wehrmacht. Seems quite a lot to me! (I hope I didn’t make any miscalculations)
Approximately?.. Now I’m really disappointed!
Wasn’t my intention to make you sad, Igor. On the contrary, I thought you would have devoured those questions. Now that saddens me. 
Perhaps, RS can give you some tips on feeling orgasmic again, apparently, he has just the tool for the job - pulsates, I’m told.