During WW2, when armies advancing through enemy territory captured enemy factories / oil refineries, how did this actually work in practice?

Question

Did they have their own scientists / specialists travelling in the rear who then try to figure out how to get the facility back online? I’m assuming here that the enemy workers have already fled and the facilities are empty.

In: 77

Answer 1

Many such facilities would be destroyed before the troops even get to them, either by the attackers (factories were prime targets for aerial bombing) or by fleeing defenders sabotaging equipment (in WW2 the Soviets famously did this). In both cases it was done to deny the other side the ability to produce materiel.