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What could possibly go wrong?
>instead of encircling and starving out holdout cities so you can capture as much red leadership in Moscow as possible you get bogged down and defeated in stalingrad then switch operational objective to southern russia and run out of steam
They didn't get bogged down, they were repealed and encircled, they did get bogged down in the north though.
They tried to take Moscow but failed.
Given the ease in which Typhoon crushed the Soviet resistence in front of AGC, it is fairly obvious that 2-3 more weeks of good campaign weather would have been all it would have taken to capture Moscow.
After the fall of the Viazma pocket, given good weather, there was no credible Russian blocking force that would have prevented the Germans from taking Moscow if they could have moved immediately towards the city. there were only 90,000 Russians manning the Mozhaisk line (the defenses before Moscow) in mid October.
And then what? They get Moscow.. Ok so how do they plan on holding it? What do they do when the Siberian reserves show up? Not capturing Moscow is arguably a good thing for Germany considering the fact that they would of probably lost more soldiers & equipment trying to hold on in the coming winter.
Moscow was the central rail network for the Soviet Union. Yes, it was the capital city, but there was a strategic important to it as well. If they gained firm control of Moscow, transporting Russian troops and supplies across the front would have been much harder.
I wasn't saying it wouldn't be a massive blow to Soviet war efforts, it surely would be. But even with these drawbacks I think German prospects of holding frankly unfavorable positions (i'd imagine there would be somewhat of a bulge) are extremely slim.
Soviet leadership refused to evacuate, and it's not about holding it it's about seizing it and destroying it's economic potential
You're looking at this like it's HoI4. Stahp.
>and it's not about holding it it's about seizing it and destroying it
What are you talking about? Im talking about during the war and the immediate counteroffensive that followed typhoon. You cant seriously think if it had succeeded and Moscow fell that the Germans would burn it and then leave, right?
Im talking about during the war. The way total war works is you take strategic points until the enemy cannot feasibly continue to fight. I dont care about whatever autistic plans they had afterwards
>You don't think the Germans would just burn it and leave right?
That was literally the plan, feint for the oilfieldds and draw the main Russian counterattack, while the northern army takes Moscow then swings south and outflanks the Russian army. But the northern army, like I said earlier, got bogged down and routed, then what was left was merged with the southern push and by then it was already too late.
>Holding
The Germans were never going to hold Moscow. They planned to completely destroy it by blowing up the Moscow-Volga Canal.
It honestly went very very well. If it wasn't for the US funding the Soviets, Germany would have won easily. They destroyed the entire airforce and tank fleet of the Russians multiple times over.
Russia is flat. Of course they could have held Moscow by advancing ahead.
Dont forget about the fact of the lend lease, the massive air campaign and
Germany would have crushed the USSR easily whitout all of thess
retard
>muh land-lease
ah yes, like clockwork
>According to David Glantz, the most accomplished AMERICAN historian, if the US did not send a single thing in land-lease nor joined the war at all - the war would've ended in early 1946 with all of Europe under Soviet occupation.
Well done Enrique, your entire involvement amounts to a ~year shorter war.
Bonus: Japan surrendered because of the Soviets and not due to meme nukes.
Cope
Lend lease and the air superiority of the UK/US is what saved soviet troons
Coping homosexual
Can you... prove it? If you dont care to then maybe post your credentials? Otherwise shut the fuck up.
>stalin famously said that the USSR would have lost without US lend lease
>retard browsing the history board asks for proof
I will not spoonfeed you proof. It is a litmus test for you to be able to call yourself a sapient being.
Zhukov said that as well, they must be both wehraboos
Do you think it's a coincidence that the Russians only started having success against the Wehrmacht in 1943 (1942 was only against Axis allies) when Germany had to pull the Luftwaffe and all the 88mm guns to the defense of the Reich, send a million men to Italy and the Balkans and Lend-Lease supplies started arriving en masse?
Not him, but the fuck? The first Soviet successful counteroffensive was at Yelnya. And that was in 1941 against German troops. And my God, what the fuck do you think the winter counteroffensive was that pushed the Germans away from Moscow?
There is a difference between counterattacking a salient and having a full-scale counteroffensive.
The winter counteroffensive was indeed a full scale counteroffensive. You had 5 separate Fronts all attacking. And I would point out that
said nothing about full-scale counteroffensives, the words were, and I quote
>Do you think it's a coincidence that the Russians only started having success against the Wehrmacht in 1943 (1942 was only against Axis allies
That is simply wrong.
>Also not any of those anons, but the winter offensive was absolutely horrible for the soviets. It didn't achieve anything of value as the germans still held most of the hubs and population centers, and was absolutely horrendous in terms of soviet casualties. Just citing it as a soviet 'win' seems a bit dishonest.
I won't try to argue it wasn't bloody or exhausting, but the Germans permanently lost initiative in the sector. For the rest of the war, up in the north/center, the Soviets attacked, and the Germans defended.
Plus, it had major ramifications in German planning. Check out
https://web.archive.org/web/20170216125642/http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-21/cmhPub_104-21.pdf (page 135 of the PDF, which is page 113 of the document itself). While strikes at the Caucasus were always something being kept in the back pocket, it's only after the Winter offensive finished up that you see it being really pushed hard and the voices advocating a second crack at Moscow wither away.
Also:
>He is absolutely retarded in implying the allies were relevant in this central phase of the european theatre though. 8/11 casualties were in the east (were there were never less than 75% of the german army).
This is not true. Even in 1941, the Eastern Front got about 2/3 of the German army, and the ratio shifted away from it as the war progressed. https://www.axishistory.com/books/134-campaigns-a-operations/campaigns-a-operations/2085-number-of-german-divisions-by-front-in-world-war-ii.
>The Germans permanently lost initiative in the sector. For the rest of the war, up in the north/center, the Soviets attacked, and the Germans defended.
That of course is true, but I wouldn't call the soviet attack the cause of this. The germans arrived at their outer lines by the skin of their teeth and were in shambles as an attacking force. They never again had the resources or logistics to mount a meaningful offense in that sector. After 41 germany could only ever support one out of the three army groups in an offensive and in 42 that was Army Group South in a last-ditch effort.
Granted the soviets definitely didn't make this a vacation for the troops, but at that time they wouldn't have had to perform any bigger offensive actions to stop the germans. In so far I would agree that even in the high-command the realization was spreading, that an entire Army Group might break due to soviet aggression, but the planning itself didn't really change much. North and Center just needed to "hold".
By 43 it really no longer mattered what Germany planned, but what the Soviets did.
As a little personal aside, I would take literature based on early post-war german general's memoirs (and thus sources not necessarily correct and also manipulated by Halder) with a grain of salt.
>the Eastern Front got about 2/3 of the German army, and the ratio shifted away from it as the war progressed
While that might be true, I think the overall picture doesn't change much. Either I can't do math or your source supports my number though as from beginning of Barbarossa until Feb 44 the 3:1 ratio of east west remains in tact. Obviously the east had nothing even in the area of full-strength divisions shortly into the campaign, so you can certainly be right. It's just the basic number I kept in my head.
Germany broke herself in the east before any relevant amount of allied soldiers fought her.
I'm less certain on several of those points. Yes, German logistics were shambolic, and their footprint needs get heavier and heavier as the Soviet forces get more organized and generally tougher, so you're going to see a narrowing of scope to see any successful German German offensives in 1942 even without the Winter Offensive. But I still think that there's a very real possibility without it of the Germans using their limited engineering and aerial resources to focus up near Moscow instead of down near the south if you don't have that offensive and subsequent pressuring operations. Furthermore, it did dissipate German efforts, albeit probably not enough to be commensurate with the huge Soviet efforts in the same areas (They called Rzhev a meat grinder for a reason); those logistical issues are not some fixed feature of the Soviet landscape, it's mostly an issue of rail capacity available+what can be built or upgraded with engineering units-the needs of the troops in the area, and those Soviet attacks both increased German needs and decreased engineering operations, especially where rail lines got torn up as the battlefields moved.
I do think the Winter offensive was broadly successful. Not as successful as it could have been (they really should have dogpiled Center instead of hitting everywhere at once) but I don't think its failure to secure large population centers indicates it was a failure either; the main issue (to me, anyway) is the overall balance of the troops in the area and their lines of communication, and it definitely helped there.
Also, I would think that Center at least needs to advance if you want South to advance in 1942, or you're going to open a huge gap somewhere that the Soviets can pour through.
1/2
Reaching Moscow doesn't mean taking it, anyway.
>While that might be true, I think the overall picture doesn't change much. Either I can't do math or your source supports my number though as from beginning of Barbarossa until Feb 44 the 3:1 ratio of east west remains in tact
Math is slightly off. "West" means France and the Low Countries. Forces garrisoning places like Italy and Norway, or fighting in Africa were aimed at the WAllies, not at the USSR. It's still the considerable majority, but it's not quite 3/4ths.
>Germany broke herself in the east before any relevant amount of allied soldiers fought her.
Yeah, that's legit. Or at least bogged down. I think you can make somewhat of a better case for the air war, but even then you don't see incremental major successes until 1942 and no sustained successes until '43 and by that point the Germans are in major trouble in the USSR anyway. And it's very hard to work out how a lot of those Reich Defense assets could have been sent over to the USSR for the aforementioned footprint requirements; Air forces might not have the manpower as army divisions, but they have huge requirements in things like fuel and parts.
Also not any of those anons, but the winter offensive was absolutely horrible for the soviets. It didn't achieve anything of value as the germans still held most of the hubs and population centers, and was absolutely horrendous in terms of soviet casualties. Just citing it as a soviet 'win' seems a bit dishonest.
He is absolutely retarded in implying the allies were relevant in this central phase of the european theatre though. 8/11 casualties were in the east (were there were never less than 75% of the german army). When allied efforts started materializing the german loss was already clear.
I'm of the position that germany had lost by winter 1941, which is a bit more extremist than most, but to say germany only started losing in 43 when up to that point they couldn't fulfill any strategic goals they set for themselves seems misguided. Just because the map wasn't red didn't mean Germany wasn't losing the war.
Mutts are constantly exaggerating shit about lend lease. Think its cope for the fact that they basically just ended up subsidising the soviets to get to Berlin before they did
Uh, I thought it was cope too until I saw the exact amount of shit that was supplied. It was absolutely without a doubt nothing to scoff at.
>David Glantz
He is entitled to whatever opinion, but we can easily point to how lend lease provided the MAJORITY of share of many important goods and products(for example trucks, even Soviet-produced trucks were based on western designs), it's up to debate whether the Soviets can either make up for those specific shortages or how much their military is impaired by those shortages on top of how much more free manpower and resources the Germans would have by not having to defend against an American landing.
Instead of citing Glantz why not cite Zhukov himself?
>It is now said that the Allies never helped us .. . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war .. . We had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance.
The real world doesn't work like that. Of course the US was going to start shovelling resources into the USSR the moment war erupted. Hitler should have taken that into account. Hitler was delusional and you can see the same flaws on /misc/ and stormfront, nonsense conspiracy theories and a warped view of reality predominate. It is something you will need to deal with if you want to have any real success.
You have to remember Hitler's (and much of Germany's for that matter) entire worldview was based around the concept that socialist/heavy economic control was the most efficient economic method. There's no way in their mind that America could have or would be able to nearly supply the entire allied forces.
This is such a weird statement. America was at its least laisse faire during WW2.
Also, even the Soviets were outproducing Germany.
Who funded Germany?
Israel
You could argue it the other way; if the Germans had captured Moscow by late 1941, the Red Army wouldn't have been able to launch successful counteroffensives. They wouldn't have been able to ship the troops, supplies and vehicles to where they needed to go. And then the winter of 1941-1942 would have hit the Red Army instead of the Wehrmacht like a ton of bricks. Between the harsh weather, the crippled supply lines and the shock of losing their capital (and all the government buildings, bureaucracies, archives, et cetera in their capital), I reckon the Red Army would have mutinied or surrendered en masse.
There was no feasibility of this, even with a perfect storm of events in their favor they would still face gruelling urban warfare in Moscow and winter would fall throttling resupply.
>they would still face gruelling urban warfare in Moscow
Apparently the only fighting the Moscow militia was capable of, was over which vodka brewery to loot.
See
. The Germans didn't particularly want to, or have to, capture Moscow in one piece. They would have been just as happy surrounding the city, then pounding it into the ground over the winter of 1941-1942 and setting the ruins on fire in the spring of 1942.
>Has never heard of the Roslavl–Novozybkov offensive
Opinion discarded. You might want to look up WHY the Bryansk front was so weak.
they didn't even reach moscow let alone start fighting to take it
>they didn't even reach moscow
the most advanced units did in fact reach the outskirts of Moscow at a railyard. They could see the Kremlin.
Thats a myth anon.
The furthest Germans got was like 16 km away if im not mistaken. And these were the scouts who probably mistaken some church for Kremlin.
If you were in Moscow you'd know, Kremlin isn't really that tall and even back then it was surrounded by tall buildings so you pretty much couldn't have seen it from that far away.
>Nikolay Spiridonov, the commandant of the Moscow Kremlin in 1938-1953, was concerned with the Kremlin’s security right from the early days of the war. The Kremlin was not only the citadel of the Soviet government, it was also the spiritual symbol of the country. So Spridonov sent a secret message to the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs - the infamous Lavrentiy Beria, who ordered the start of the operation intended to mask the Kremlin right away.
>The task wasn’t easy, and involved hiding 28 square hectares of territory in plain sight, which included tall buildings, like the Kremlin towers and Ivan the Great bell tower. On July 22nd, 1941, a 250-kg German bomb struck the Kremlin Palace but didn’t explode.
and now the important part
>All the Kremlin towers were re-painted using different colors and covered with wooden tents. Every roof inside the Kremlin was painted rusty brown so as to make them indistinguishable from typical Moscow roofs. The Kremlin grounds, paved with cobblestone, were covered up with sand. Tents painted to look like roofs were stretched over the Kremlin gardens, with facades of the buildings also painted to confuse the German pilots.
So no, Germans didn't see Kremlin.
>the most advanced units did in fact reach the outskirts of Moscow
Anon, the most advanced German military unit, an actual unit, was over 40 miles away from Moscow. You're talking about a scouting unit, these are not the same thing.
lol no the average panzer division near moscow was down to like 20% combat strength they just non stop pushed since the 22nd of june
A successful Case Blue would have resulted in Soviet economic collapse in 1943.
>there are "people" that actually believe this
Case Blue had no chance of succeeding. It was only launched because the Abwehr told Hitler that Russia was out of reserves and a coupe de grace was all that was needed. Germany did not have enough forces to hold a front that long.
They should've continued to keep crushing Soviet pockets and taking economically vital areas in smaller offensives that they could actually hold.
The Soviet Union would've been fucked once most of their population and agricultural land was under occupation (almost half of it was already in 1942).
>Wargames run by Germans themselves consistently reach the same conclusion: Barbarossa is unfeasible and German army lacks the logistical ability to occupy that much of Russia
>80 years later Wehrbs still insisting "we could have done it!!"
>and German army lacks the logistical ability to occupy that much of Russia
What the fuck are you even talking about, do you think the Germans couldn't have occupied the Soviet Union even if the Red army surrendered?
It's likely true, the Soviets contrary to popular belief neither had unlimited resourced, food or manpower.
>What the fuck are you even talking about, do you think the Germans couldn't have occupied the Soviet Union even if the Red army surrendered?
No, I'm referring to the scenario where the Red Army does not surrender and the Germans have to keep fight along an increasingly wider and wider front which leads to their units dispersing and a lack of concentration + logistical shortages because they physically lacked the means to transport enough Materials over such distances and shitty roads
The frontline from Leningrad to Astrakhan if Fall Blau succeeded would have been 33% longer than the frontline from Memel to the Danube delta.
The wargames reached the conclusion that making it to the Archangelsk-Astrakhan line in 1941 was impossible, which is fairly obvious.
They did not conclude that the Soviet Union was an ungodly behemoth with unlimited resources that was impossible to defeat by any means.
What if the Germans had not spent resources and manpower toward taking northern russia and re-directed it to pushing toward Baku instead?
they probably would of made it and perhaps the russians wouldnt of sabotaged it as badly then they did when they captured them in 42 so probably it would of let them maybe stop the demobilisation of the army at least in the east motorize more of their divisions so they would of been alot more successful
The fact so many people think “if only they took Stalingrad they’d have won” or the same for Moscow, is astounding to me
No. Taking Stalingrad or Moscow wouldn’t have won them anything. The soviets would have just kept slashing and burning as they retreated and were well supplied by the allies for the counter attack.
The further in the Germans got. The worse their own supply lines got, and the more spread out they were.. Soviets just pulled up the rails and destroyed infrastructure. Holding Moscow or Stalingrad wouldn’t make the Germans any stronger when the counter attack came
Unless you can think of a feasible way for the axis to cut off the Soviet supply routes, the Germans were doomed
>redditor cant do basic logistics
the northern port is frozen in winter, and if they took Moscow and swung south they would take the crimean and black sea ports, leaving the archangelansk port which is inconsequential to the war effort
fucking retard
>leaving the archangelansk port
do you need help understanding the map this anon posted?
do you really think only Archangalensk and Murmansk were used? and do you think they were useless?
>they would take the crimean and black sea ports
they did, it changed nothing
You dumb retard the Soviets weren't being supplied through the Med.
the only real saving grace they could of had in a realistic way was to rush to moscow quickly to the point where they hadnt packed up the factories on trains and relocated them to siberia and blow them up with bombers
idk, maybe don't go to war with a state with giant manpower, shit ton of gas/oil and harsh climate? no? ah ok
Lend lease from israelites in the US
should have gone for the caucuses from the beginning
>kill 20% of russian males
We unironically have Germany to thank for Russia never amounting to anything after WWII
It's hard for me to picture what an encirclement or a frontline actually looks like when it comes to modern warfare: Do they really have squads of men posted at every 25-50 meters waiting to attack or defend a position? How does it really work? How many men take up a space in a given area? How are soldiers really dispersed? How and why do they patrol areas? In ancient warfare it makes sense that a large army would need to congregate and move as a united body or split up as necessary, but the concept is very simple to understand. But land warfare in the modern era? Motorized Infantry? Armor? Artillery? Entrenching to fight an advancing enemy of unknown size and strength? It's fucking mind boggling.
Maybe someone could explain it.
It started in the reneissence,they figured forming troops into an extended line would maximise firepower
To get best results from firepower, you want to create a crossfire, so MGs are placed in mutually supporting areas to create a hailstorm of fire in one area
Motorized infantry was the best-they could move 100 miles in a day and not become exhausted
This causes the "first with the most " effect, where a smaller force can exert maximum density in a small part of the front (Swertpolk in german)
>Given the ease in which Typhoon crushed the Soviet resistence in front of AGC
unbelievable the OP advantage lend lease gave the soviets. imagine if the germans had gotten some kind of american lend lease oil or trucks, would have been embarrassing how quick russia collapsed
The Germans plundered France, Netherlands, Belgium, and the Czech Republic which gave them all sorts of weapons and material. They were also supplied by the Soviets ironically.
winter
Shitlersisters... I don't feel so good...
Shitler was dumb enough to believe in the 'dajoos' conspiracy so it's no surprise he failed at war as well.