# Barbarossa - Horse Drawn Blitzkrieg



## Kirkhill (9 Apr 2021)

Jonathan Dimbleby is a bit Leftish for my taste his recent article has an interesting graphic















						Jonathan Dimbleby: The inside story of the barbaric battle that really lost Hitler the war
					

Perhaps it wasn’t Operation Overlord that defeated Hitler, but the failure of Operation Barbarossa




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




The thesis is that Hitler beat himself.  

Arguable.

Germany patently won the campaign.

But the Steppes beat them.  No secure flanks.


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

Kirkhill said:


> Jonathan Dimbleby is a bit Leftish for my taste his recent article has an interesting graphic
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for this. I have never been able to find any credible scholarly writings on what would have happened had Hitler not opened a second front. I suspect that D-Day would have never happened, and that possibly Frankfurt and perhaps Hamburg would have suffered a similar fate to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Are you aware of anything that discusses this?


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## Kirkhill (9 Apr 2021)

Nothing on my bookshelves or (depleting) memory banks.


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

Kirkhill said:


> Nothing on my bookshelves or (depleting) memory banks.


Perhaps we should submit it to FJAG as a possible future series.


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## FJAG (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Perhaps we should submit it to FJAG as a possible future series.



If you are looking for a fun alternate WW2 history you might want to try Harry Turtledove's four-book "Worldwar" series.

Spoiler alert: it has an alien invasion happening in the middle of the war. The aliens had sent a robotic recce in the 12th century and were unprepared for humans having airplanes and tanks since their own weapon development cycles were measured in centuries and millennia (something like the CAF's).

Worldwar series - Wikipedia


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> If you are looking for a fun alternate WW2 history you might want to try Harry Turtledove's four-book "Worldwar" series.
> 
> Spoiler alert: it has an alien invasion happening in the middle of the war. The aliens had sent a robotic recce in the 12th century and were unprepared for humans having airplanes and tanks since their own weapon development cycles were measured in centuries and millennia (something like the CAF's).
> 
> Worldwar series - Wikipedia


Yeah. Read it, and was "mildly" enthused. I truly wonder what would have transpired if Barbarossa had not been launched.


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## FJAG (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah. Read it, and was "mildly" enthused. I truly wonder what would have transpired if Barbarossa had not been launched.



Yup. Turtledove has some interesting concepts but too often gets bogged down in certain recurring sub themes and secondary story arcs - that incidentally cuts across most of his different novels and series. 

My guess is that had the Battle of Britain not gone the way it did then Operation Sea Lion would have replaced Barbarossa and gone in before Pearl Harbor. Assuming that Sea Lion had been successful. Then Barbarossa could have taken place in an entirely different scenario afterward. Eventually it would have had to take place as people tend to forget that Russia under Stalin had been expansionist as well not just with Poland but the Baltics and the creation of the Moldavian SSR and multiple other regions including the Far East. Russian Communism was designed to be portable.

🍻


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> Yup. Turtledove has some interesting concepts but too often gets bogged down in certain recurring sub themes and secondary story arcs - that incidentally cuts across most of his different novels and series.
> 
> *My guess is that had the Battle of Britain not gone the way it did then Operation Sea Lion would have replaced Barbarossa and gone in before Pearl Harbor. Assuming that Sea Lion had been successful. Then Barbarossa could have taken place in an entirely different scenario afterward.* Eventually it would have had to take place as people tend to forget that Russia under Stalin had been expansionist as well not just with Poland but the Baltics and the creation of the Moldavian SSR and multiple other regions including the Far East. Russian Communism was designed to be portable.
> 
> 🍻


Yeah, good call, but Hitler wanted both air and naval superiority before he launched. It would have been an interesting face off between the UK and German Navies, albeit that had the Germans achieved air dominance and increased their U-boat sorties, the UK would have inevitably lost.

Not sure how well an invasion of Britain would have gone. Although small in geographical terms, the forces required to occupy it would have been exceedingly large. Hitler was hoping that the UK would sue for peace in the aftermath of SeaLion; had that happened, perhaps Pearl Harbour may not have. Great discussion.


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## SeaKingTacco (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah, good call, but Hitler wanted both air and naval superiority before he launched. It would have been an interesting face off between the UK and German Navies, albeit that had the Germans achieved air dominance and increased their U-boat sorties, the UK would have inevitably lost.
> 
> Not sure how well an invasion of Britain would have gone. Although small in geographical terms, the forces required to occupy it would have been exceedingly large. Hitler was hoping that the UK would sue for peace in the aftermath of SeaLion; had that happened, perhaps Pearl Harbour may not have. Great discussion.


I am a little confused as to the logic that a German invasion of the UK in 1941 would have prevented the Japanese from taking a run at the Americans in the Pacific. Can you elaborate your line of thinking?


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## Ostrozac (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah, good call, but Hitler wanted both air and naval superiority before he launched. It would have been an interesting face off between the UK and German Navies, albeit that had the Germans achieved air dominance and increased their U-boat sorties, the UK would have inevitably lost.
> 
> Not sure how well an invasion of Britain would have gone. Although small in geographical terms, the forces required to occupy it would have been exceedingly large. Hitler was hoping that the UK would sue for peace in the aftermath of SeaLion; had that happened, perhaps Pearl Harbour may not have. Great discussion.


Reference Sea Lion, the Germans were highly handicapped by their lack of naval power. They had a miniscule surface fleet and no torpedo bombers. U-Boats alone wouldn’t have cut it against the full British fleet. They might have managed to land a force, possibly even a sizeable force, in England. But it couldn‘t be sustained and it would have been surrounded and starved out.

Germany simply lacked the sea power to accomplish Sea Lion in 1940.


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

SeaKingTacco said:


> I am a little confused as to the logic that a German invasion of the UK in 1941 would have prevented the Japanese from taking a run at the Americans in the Pacific. Can you elaborate your line of thinking?


Yeah sure. If the Germans had been successful in SeaLion, US thinking would have been significantly different in terms of what their priorities were in  June 1941. They may have shifted their focus to their near front, Consequently, their criticism/embargoes of Japan may have waned.

This is a discussion that I have enormous interest in.  I am more than happy to be dissuaded from a perspective.


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## SeaKingTacco (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah sure. If the Germans had been successful in SeaLion, US thinking would have been significantly different in terms of what their priorities were in  June 1941. They may have shifted their focus to their near front, Consequently, their criticism/embargoes of Japan may have waned.
> 
> This is a discussion that I have enormous interest in.  I am more than happy to be dissuaded from a perspective.


I am not sure I buy that.
I think the Royal family and UK government would have set up shop in Canada, in exile. The Americans would have been persuaded to build up their Atlantic Fleet quicker, along with developing long range Army Air Forces (hello B36!) that could strike Europe from North America if the Germans got frisky and decided that they wanted to continue west.

I am not sure that in anyway alters the calculus in the Pacific. I think the Japanese still strike Pearl Harbour in 1941, but lose even faster than 1945, because the US is not also fighting in Europe at the same time (If both the Germans and Americans are smart...).

I enjoy this, too.


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## Ostrozac (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah sure. If the Germans had been successful in SeaLion, US thinking would have been significantly different in terms of what their priorities were in  June 1941. They may have shifted their focus to their near front, Consequently, their criticism/embargoes of Japan may have waned.
> 
> This is a discussion that I have enormous interest in.  I am more than happy to be dissuaded from a perspective.


For many in America, Japan WAS considered the near front, given the US possession of the Philippines as well as the sizeable US presence in China. Nazi Germany did many things, but they didn't directly threaten US interests, which at the time were heavily focused on Latin America and the Western Pacific. The thinking of Japan as the main threat was especially prevalent in US naval circles and other sea power advocates.


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## Blackadder1916 (9 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Yeah sure. If the Germans had been successful in SeaLion, US thinking would have been significantly different in terms of what their priorities were in  June 1941. They may have shifted their focus to their near front, Consequently, their criticism/embargoes of Japan may have waned.
> 
> This is a discussion that I have enormous interest in.  I am more than happy to be dissuaded from a perspective.



But that supposes the US's near front was Europe.  While Roosevelt may have been an Anglophile/Europhile, America had major territorial interests in the Pacific, particularly the Philippines and an affinity for the Chinese side who had been at war with the Japanese since 1931.  The American oil and steel embargo against Japan was in conjunction with a similar oil embargo by the Dutch (even though Germany was occupying their homeland) whose East Indies resources were necessary to Japanese military operations in China.


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## Colin Parkinson (9 Apr 2021)

Operation Sea Lion was never going to work out, had they tried, the UK would defeated the attempt, perhaps with high losses themselves and it would likely force the US to declare war on Germany. 

If Germany wanted to "win" WWII, once the invasion of France was done, the installation of the Vichy Regime, Germany would begin a phased withdrawal to it's western borders, after extracting multiple concessions from the occupied countries including non-aggression pacts, Freedom of navigation, force limitations and guaranteed access to raw materials. while the UK would not agree to anything directly, they be forced to go along with the rest of Europe in letting Germany access the high seas and not be able to go after it's Merchant ships. Germany might want some of it's colonial possessions back as well. 
Germany takes stock of lessons learned and works to improve the Pz III & IV and continue to mechanize it's army. The trade deals and ocean access allows for raw materials and the economy to continue. Hitler then prepares to deliver a knockout blow to Stalin with the intent of breaking the Communists and reinstalling a puppet Czarist like government. This includes more long range bombers, building up fuel stocks and increasing rail access to the eastern front, with the stockpiling of railway building equipment and supplies near the border. Likley the timeframe will be 1942 to take advantage of the apparent Soviet weaknesses. The Germans can bring a lot more combat power to the Eastern Front. the Soviets don't have Lendlease and lack chemicals to produce high explosives and other critical elements, including trucks. Much of the early Campaign goes on as it really did, perhaps Hitler does not make the mistakes he made and they grab the oil fields and secure them. Stalin is isolated. Japan hits the European Colonies, while the Europeans are busy negotiating with Germany, but perhaps does not hit Pearl Harbour. Germany decides to improve it's world standing by negotiating a peace deal with Japan on behalf of China, removing one of the pressure points the US has for going to war.


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## Weinie (9 Apr 2021)

Colin Parkinson said:


> Operation Sea Lion was never going to work out, had they tried, the UK would defeated the attempt, perhaps with high losses themselves and it would likely force the US to declare war on Germany.
> 
> If Germany wanted to "win" WWII, once the invasion of France was done, the installation of the Vichy Regime, Germany would begin a phased withdrawal to it's western borders, after extracting multiple concessions from the occupied countries including non-aggression pacts, Freedom of navigation, force limitations and guaranteed access to raw materials. while the UK would not agree to anything directly, they be forced to go along with the rest of Europe in letting Germany access the high seas and not be able to go after it's Merchant ships. Germany might want some of it's colonial possessions back as well.
> Germany takes stock of lessons learned and works to improve the Pz III & IV and continue to mechanize it's army. The trade deals and ocean access allows for raw materials and the economy to continue. Hitler then prepares to deliver a knockout blow to Stalin with the intent of breaking the Communists and reinstalling a puppet Czarist like government. This includes more long range bombers, building up fuel stocks and increasing rail access to the eastern front, with the stockpiling of railway building equipment and supplies near the border. Likley the timeframe will be 1942 to take advantage of the apparent Soviet weaknesses. The Germans can bring a lot more combat power to the Eastern Front. the Soviets don't have Lendlease and lack chemicals to produce high explosives and other critical elements, including trucks. Much of the early Campaign goes on as it really did, perhaps Hitler does not make the mistakes he made and they grab the oil fields and secure them. Stalin is isolated. Japan hits the European Colonies, while the Europeans are busy negotiating with Germany, but perhaps does not hit Pearl Harbour. Germany decides to improve it's world standing by negotiating a peace deal with Japan on behalf of China, removing one of the pressure points the US has for going to war.


And, hence, the stimulating, and (for me) enlightening, discussion  on what could have been. I thank you all.  Please add to this.


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## FJAG (9 Apr 2021)

Ostrozac said:


> Reference Sea Lion, the Germans were highly handicapped by their lack of naval power. They had a miniscule surface fleet and no torpedo bombers. U-Boats alone wouldn’t have cut it against the full British fleet. They might have managed to land a force, possibly even a sizeable force, in England. But it couldn‘t be sustained and it would have been surrounded and starved out.
> 
> Germany simply lacked the sea power to accomplish Sea Lion in 1940.



I don't think that "sea power" would have been the dominant issue had the Germans been able to secure "air superiority". Similarly the Brit Army was heavy equipment poor post Dunkirk and would have had a hard time opposing a mechanized force (which some but by no means much of the German Army was then). I'd put my money on air power.

The Channel is a very narrow corridor which would handicap freedom of action for any naval force without local air superiority. German air superiority and a localized flooding of the operational region with submarines would have greatly impeded British naval forces. 

On the other hand, Germany was very handicapped in the quality and quantity of landing craft and other sea transport capabilities needed in order to secure a beachhead and to sustain it indefinitely. With the British capable of achieving local air superiority there would have been no chance of success.



SeaKingTacco said:


> I am not sure I buy that.
> I think the Royal family and UK government would have set up shop in Canada, in exile. The Americans would have been persuaded to build up their Atlantic Fleet quicker, along with developing long range Army Air Forces (hello B36!) that could strike Europe from North America if the Germans got frisky and decided that they wanted to continue west.
> 
> I am not sure that in anyway alters the calculus in the Pacific. I think the Japanese still strike Pearl Harbour in 1941, but lose even faster than 1945, because the US is not also fighting in Europe at the same time (If both the Germans and Americans are smart...).
> ...



I wonder how far the Americans could have gone vis a vis Europe without Britain as a base for building up their force? Africa? For Operation Torch the Western Task Force of 35,000 troops including two infantry divisions and a part of an armoured division did sail directly from the US.  

Without the UK in play much of the German Atlantic Wall defence structure could have been greatly reduced. By D-Day, the Atlantic Wall consisted of some 1.8 million men in 58 divisions with 3,300 guns and 1,300 tanks which could well have been used elsewhere.

Would the US have bothered with Germany at all if Britain had fallen? Very debatable.

I tend to agree with you on the Pacific. The Japanese knew that the US was hemming them in and limiting their access to natural resources that they needed. There were other options for them but as of Dec 7th, 1941 the US wasn't involved in Europe anyway (except in minor ways). I think with the loss of Britain, the Japanese would have been even more inspired to act aggressively considering that British possessions in that part of the world would have been even more vulnerable to takeover and that the contemplated loss of much of the US fleet in Hawaii would open up the seas to them completely was even more valid.

🍻


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## SeaKingTacco (9 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> I don't think that "sea power" would have been the dominant issue had the Germans been able to secure "air superiority". Similarly the Brit Army was heavy equipment poor post Dunkirk and would have had a hard time opposing a mechanized force (which some but by no means much of the German Army was then). I'd put my money on air power.
> 
> The Channel is a very narrow corridor which would handicap freedom of action for any naval force without local air superiority. German air superiority and a localized flooding of the operational region with submarines would have greatly impeded British naval forces.
> 
> ...


But, ultimately, the Japanese would have still lost. I can think of no strategic play that they could have realistically used that would not have seen them crushed under the weight of US industry.


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## Ostrozac (9 Apr 2021)

SeaKingTacco said:


> But, ultimately, the Japanese would have still lost. I can think of no strategic play that they could have realistically used that would not have seen them crushed under the weight of US industry.


If the Japanese went all-in against the Soviets in 1935-1937, and convinced the US that they were so committed on the Asian landmass that Japan was no threat to American interests in the Pacific, the US might have left them alone. Japan would instead be crushed under the weight of Soviet industry.


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## FJAG (9 Apr 2021)

SeaKingTacco said:


> But, ultimately, the Japanese would have still lost. I can think of no strategic play that they could have realistically used that would not have seen them crushed under the weight of US industry.



Agreed. Especially if the US had no Europe to divert some of its resources to.

Which leaves the really big question. What would have happened after the US takes out Japan? 

Look at that in three streams: 1)  Germany is stable in Europe without attacking Russia ; or 2) Germany has beaten Russia; or 3) Germany is still fighting Russia?

🍻


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## SeaKingTacco (9 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> Agreed. Especially if the US had no Europe to divert some of its resources to.
> 
> Which leaves the really big question. What would have happened after the US takes out Japan?
> 
> ...


If Germany has taken out Russia, there is no scenario for a succesful cross Atlantic liberation of Europe by the Americans. There would have been no domestic appetite and the logistics are nearly impossible.

The Third Reich may or may not have collapsed under the weight of it’s own contradictions, but that may not have been until the the 1970s or 1980s, after a “cold war“ with North America.

it raises the question of what the middle east would have looked like, with no Israel and no British investment in Saudi/Iraqi oil. Would Iran and or Turkey have emerged as regional powers?  Aligned with whom? Germany? Or the US?


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## medic5 (9 Apr 2021)

I think what is often not discussed about why Hitler wanted war in the first place, resources and elimination of the people he deemed unworthy. Hitler needed the resources of the east, and his sole purpose of starting the war was the destruction of the Soviets. 

If Russia had fallen, Germany would have become the next world power, but it never could've happened. The Soviets wouldn't have given up if they lost Moscow or Stalingrad or both. Let's paint a picture, Paulus and the Sixth Army take Stalingrad and cut the Volga, Army Groups A and B pivot and take the Caucuses, and Army Group North takes Archangel.  That is literally the furthest the Germans planned. They sit on the steppe with their imaginary line, now what? Would Stalin really make peace? Allow the Germans to consolidate their gains? There is no possibility that the Soviets would have given up. 

Regarding Sea Lion, I believe that sea power would've been the deciding factor. Yes, air power probably has greater importance during the initial landing, but what about resupplying afterward? Would the Allies would have been able to supply their forces in Normandy if the Germans controlled the channel? Sure the Germans could've landed their armor and caused all sorts of chaos, but armor isn't much use if you can't fuel them.

My two cents.


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## Colin Parkinson (10 Apr 2021)

Japan had the majority of it's land forces in Manchuria and Korea opposing the Soviets and occupying China. The island forces were a small part of the army. I never understood Japan's need to further than that into China. Pure arrogance I suspect. Malay and the Dutch East Indies made sense due to rubber, tin and oil. The drive into China and Japanese brutality was a driving factor in US foreign policy, driven by public concern in the US for China. japan could have pulled back and consolidated their hold on China, with the fall of Europe, they could seize Dutch, French and British colonies, providing the resource they needed. Taking pains to avoid confronting the US, then could isolate Chinese coastal trade till they got trade agreements beneficial to them. Malaysia could have been a bridge to far, had the Brits taken the threat more seriously and placed a more competent General in charge. With a little more preparation and some more training for the RAF there, it's quite debatably how far the Japanese would have gotten, it was a close run thing for them as it was. They may have eventually succeeded, but it would have been a nasty fight and the Japanese would hesitate to advance further.


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## rmc_wannabe (10 Apr 2021)

The Nazis lost due to their own brutality and genocidal ambitions. 

Germany spent precious time, money, manpower, and resources  on the concentration camps. Also, German Jews were just as pissed off about the Treaty of Versailles as everyone else, even more so for the merchant class that were suffering through inflation, and a lot of them had fought patriotically for Germany during the First World War. If the Nazis weren't hell bent on wiping out a race, they would have had retained manpower and resources to expand its influence. They would have also had able bodied, Jewish men to supplement its armed forces and workforce. Framing it as a Nationalist effort instead of the genocidal fools errand it was.


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## Kirkhill (10 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> I think what is often not discussed about why Hitler wanted war in the first place, resources and elimination of the people he deemed unworthy. Hitler needed the resources of the east, and his sole purpose of starting the war was the destruction of the Soviets.
> 
> My two cents.



Two cents well spent.

I do take issue with your first sentence though.   In particular  "elimination of the people he deemed unworthy".   I agree that he certainly did that, and that he had personal issues in that regard but I think his primary focus was on Das Volk and ensuring that they would never again be starved,  humiliated and driven into bankruptcy.

To ensure the supply of resources for Das Volk he needed to do two things:

Secure resources
Eliminate competition

Eliminating competition, like charity, begins at home.


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## FJAG (10 Apr 2021)

rmc_wannabe said:


> The Nazis lost due to their own brutality and genocidal ambitions.
> 
> Germany spent precious time, money, manpower, and resources  on the concentration camps. Also, German Jews were just as pissed off about the Treaty of Versailles as everyone else, even more so for the merchant class that were suffering through inflation, and a lot of them had fought patriotically for Germany during the First World War. If the Nazis weren't hell bent on wiping out a race, they would have had retained manpower and resources to expand its influence. They would have also had able bodied, Jewish men to supplement its armed forces and workforce. Framing it as a Nationalist effort instead of the genocidal fools errand it was.



I think that you are grossly overestimating the allocation of time, money, manpower and resources which went into the machine that perpetrated the truly horrific genocide that took place under the Nazis.

One needs to remember that the holocaust wasn't directed solely at the Jewish race but at several elements that the Nazis considered part of the Jewish-Bolshevik problem. While some 6 million plus Jews died, there were another 11 million victims of persecution including everything from mostly Soviet civilians and POWs, to Poles and Serbs, the disabled, Romani, homosexuals and Freemasons.

While the scale of such deaths were truly horrific, the resources committed to the effort were relatively modest. The Einsatzgruppen who followed the German combat forces were relatively small and in total numbered give or take some five thousand.  The troops responsible for the concentration camps were part of the SS-TV which was considered a part of the Waffen SS but was only a small fraction of it. The vast majority of the Waffen SS were basically front line troops albeit that some front line Waffen SS troops convalescing from wounds were assigned to the camps. At their height there were 27 concentration camps with around 6-700 subcamps. The key here is that the subcamps were considerably smaller and their primary function was to provide forced labour pools.

Essentially the camps were run with SS guards and administrators but the actual control of the daily workings within the camp were carried out by trustees from amongst the inmates. Similarly, much of the collection and transportation of inmates was carried out by local security forces and often by those of the foreign security personnel of the countries occupied by Germany.

It may never be accurately known how many individuals were participants in the system. Based on German records, the post war German prosecutors investigated some 170,000 individuals as suspects but in the end only 6,700 were ever found guilty. Compare that to a German Army in WW2 of some 17.9 million in total and with some 9 million at its peak.

The point here is that the entire operation was very much set up as an economy of force system which was also designed to benefit the German war effort with cheap labour. 

While the outcome of the Holocaust was truly horrific, it would be incorrect to say that "the Nazis lost because of their own brutality and genocidal ambitions". There are many reasons why the Germans lost, principle amongst them is that their resources did not match those of their combined adversaries especially the USSR (21 million and 13.2 at its peak), Britain (5.9 million and 4.7 million at its peak) and the Americans (16.3 million, 12 million at its peak) and the industrial output of the USSR and the US. While Germany had ambitions which led to the war, those had their foundation in the outcomes of WW1 including the fragmentation of the German people under foreign regimes and the restrictions placed on Germany, the great depression, the growth and threat of communism and the factors Kirkhill cites, it would be wrong to characterize these ambitions as being 'genocidal' notwithstanding that genocide was an eventual outcome.

🍻


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## Brad Sallows (10 Apr 2021)

Stalin's hope was that the armies in the west would fight themselves to exhaustion so the USSR could walk in and take over more territory.  The USSR was reforming and improving its military and armaments.  I've come across a few theses which proposed tentative periods by which Stalin might have deemed the USSR ready: mid '42, mid '43, etc.  1941 was too soon.  The German-Russian war may have been inevitable.

Germany's fleet was relatively weak, and it's air force was built to support armies, not for strategic warfare.  I doubt Germany could ever have successfully invaded Britain; a negotiated peace borne of stalemate and exhaustion might have been possible after mid '41 and before whatever date Stalin might have chosen.  However, if Churchill kept the British spine stiff until Dec '41, I can't imagine why the Japanese should not have gone ahead since much of what they wanted belonged to European countries in no position to offer much resistance, especially if Britain were preoccupied with a Germany undistracted (yet) by adventures in Russia.


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## medic5 (10 Apr 2021)

Agreed. In 1941 the Red Army was still recovering from the Officer purges, and their Deep Battle Doctrine was in shambles after the execution of Tukhachevsky. Stalin did not expect a war for at least a few more years, and dismissed Barbarossa intelligence as lies. 

What I think most people fail to realize is that 1941 was the perfect time for the Germans to invade, if there ever was to be one. The Germans could never hope to outproduce the Soviets, and late 1941 was the peak of German mechanization. After that, the Wehrmacht steadily demechanized, and even converted some of their divisions into ordinary infantry. There would be no better opportunity, the British were in shambles and couldn't even think about entering Europe for another half decade, the US was not at all involved, and the Soviets would only grow stronger from here as their technology advanced and they rebuilt their officer corps. 

All of this was to avoid a two front war, since everyone knew that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. Would you rather wait for the US to get involved, the British to rebuild, and the Soviets to close the gap in technology and doctrine? 1941 offered the best odds on a hell of a gamble.


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## medic5 (10 Apr 2021)

Colin Parkinson said:


> Japan had the majority of it's land forces in Manchuria and Korea opposing the Soviets and occupying China. The island forces were a small part of the army. I never understood Japan's need to further than that into China. Pure arrogance I suspect. Malay and the Dutch East Indies made sense due to rubber, tin and oil. The drive into China and Japanese brutality was a driving factor in US foreign policy, driven by public concern in the US for China. japan could have pulled back and consolidated their hold on China, with the fall of Europe, they could seize Dutch, French and British colonies, providing the resource they needed. Taking pains to avoid confronting the US, then could isolate Chinese coastal trade till they got trade agreements beneficial to them. Malaysia could have been a bridge to far, had the Brits taken the threat more seriously and placed a more competent General in charge. With a little more preparation and some more training for the RAF there, it's quite debatably how far the Japanese would have gotten, it was a close run thing for them as it was. They may have eventually succeeded, but it would have been a nasty fight and the Japanese would hesitate to advance further.


I think one has to understand the goal of Imperial Japan. By 1940, Japan was the dominate regional power. They had pretty much grabbed all the islands that they could without antagonizing the US, and had to make a decision. Would they slow down and consolidate their gains, or try to become something greater than just a regional power? Their choices were simple, stand down or keep going that would inevitably lead to antagonization and war with the Americans.


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## Infanteer (10 Apr 2021)

Interesting.

1.  There are no scholarly books on what would have happened had the Germans not invaded the Soviet Union because you can't write one.  It's ahistorical and while it can be fun, its speculative only.

2.  Anyone interested in Barbarossa and the 1941 campaigns in general must read the works of David Stahel.  An Australian researcher living in Germany, these are the authoritative English language books on the campaign.  He writes on a period that is very poorly covered in the literature (for example, his book on the battle of Kiev is only the second to cover what was to date the largest battle in the history of mankind).

Barbarossa
Kiev
Typhoon
Moscow
Moscow Counteroffensive

Stahel builds off David Glatz's monumental series of books that are the authoritative books on the Eastern Front from the Soviet perspective.  Glantz's premise was that *Moscow established that the Germans would not win the war on their terms, Stalingrad that they would not win at all, and Kursk that their loss would be total and decisive*.  Stahel uses a deep well of primary sources to push back the first part of this premise - the German loss in the East in 1941 was actually much earlier.  Stahel puts it at the battle of Smolensk in August of 1941.  Due to issues of attrition, lines of communication, and mechanical issues the Germans after August had to assume positional warfare on most of the front and could only attack along a single axis with part of their mechanized forces.  So Stahel essentially re-writes Glantz's premise somewhat that *Smolensk established that the Germans would not win the war on their terms, Stalingrad that they would not win at all, and Kursk that their loss would be total and decisive.*

3.  Speculation on what the Americans would do in the event of a British defeat should read more on the Rainbow Planning.  An excellent start is the Plan Dog memo which is sort of a bridge from US interwar planning to US wartime planning.  The Americans very much considered that they would fight the next war on their own, and that Japan was there most likely opponent.  This was due to two policies - first Hemispheric defence was listed as the priority throughout the Interwar period, and Hawaii, Alaska, and Panama formed a triangle that constituted the western part of the hemisphere.  Second, the Open Door policy regarding China clashed directly with Japanese regional aims and created the path to an oil embargo and war.  This was tangentially related to what was going on in Europe.


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## Infanteer (10 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> I think what is often not discussed about why Hitler wanted war in the first place, resources and elimination of the people he deemed unworthy. Hitler needed the resources of the east, and his sole purpose of starting the war was the destruction of the Soviets.



I think you give too much credit and foresight to Hitler's planning.  The war was started rather inadvertently, and was about the Polish Corridor, not the destruction of the Soviets.

If you look at the Stahel reference above, there is good evidence showing that the thinking behind the issuing of Fuhrer Directive 21 directing the invasion of the Soviet Union was in fact driven by the inability to defeat Britain, and Hitler's concern for the ever increasing cooperation between the UK and the US.  Stahel contends (convincingly in my opinion) that Barbarossa was another strategy of expedients, designed to secure one flank before the US/UK relationship became too much for Germany to handle.

So I'd offer that the Germans didn't start the war with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviets, and that Barbarossa was simply a means to an end - the end of snuffing out the Anglo-American alliance that Hitler believed was the biggest obstacle to victory.



medik05 said:


> What I think most people fail to realize is that 1941 was the perfect time for the Germans to invade, if there ever was to be one. The Germans could never hope to outproduce the Soviets, and late 1941 was the peak of German mechanization.


Not quite accurate.  The Germans did not convert to a wartime economy until 1943.  In 1941, the German Armed Forces were still losing steel to construction products like the new German parade grounds in Nurnberg, etc, etc.  Contrast to the Soviets, who essentially converted 100% of their economy to the war effort hours after the Germans invaded.



medik05 said:


> I think one has to understand the goal of Imperial Japan. By 1940, Japan was the dominate regional power. They had pretty much grabbed all the islands that they could without antagonizing the US, and had to make a decision. Would they slow down and consolidate their gains, or try to become something greater than just a regional power? Their choices were simple, stand down or keep going that would inevitably lead to antagonization and war with the Americans.


Dominant militarily maybe, but even in 1941, the Japanese were still dependent on foreign sources for key materials - oil, tin, rubber.  They had to import these supplies from the colonial powers of Britain and the Netherlands.

Their attempt to establish hegemony over China was in direct conflict with stated US policy in the region (Open Door).  The Japanese understood that they could not be an independent power and pursue an aggressive regional agenda without securing a resource base.  When they made the decision in late 1941 to go to war, they knew full well that they only had fuel supplies to fight for about 2-3 years.

So, as opposed to being a regional hegemon, the Japanese were playing from a weak hand, and they knew it.


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## Colin Parkinson (10 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> I think one has to understand the goal of Imperial Japan. By 1940, Japan was the dominate regional power. They had pretty much grabbed all the islands that they could without antagonizing the US, and had to make a decision. Would they slow down and consolidate their gains, or try to become something greater than just a regional power? Their choices were simple, stand down or keep going that would inevitably lead to antagonization and war with the Americans.


and it was completely and utterly wrong and pig headed, had saner minds prevailed, then they could have consolidated, worked the local populations into an alliance by not treating everyone as crap and be able to actually get goods back to the home Island. Postwar the Brits were happy to find in Malaysia large stockpiles of tin and rubber that had been destined for Japan, but their merchant fleet was sunk, so it never left.


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## medic5 (10 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> I think you give too much credit and foresight to Hitler's planning. The war was started rather inadvertently, and was about the Polish Corridor, not the destruction of the Soviets.
> 
> If you look at the Stahel reference above, there is good evidence showing that the thinking behind the issuing of Fuhrer Directive 21 directing the invasion of the Soviet Union was in fact driven by the inability to defeat Britain, and Hitler's concern for the ever increasing cooperation between the UK and the US. Stahel contends (convincingly in my opinion) that Barbarossa was another strategy of expedients, designed to secure one flank before the US/UK relationship became too much for Germany to handle.
> 
> So I'd offer that the Germans didn't start the war with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviets, and that Barbarossa was simply a means to an end - the end of snuffing out the Anglo-American alliance that Hitler believed was the biggest obstacle to victory.



I personally believe that the Soviet Union was the target all along. Bolshevism was his true ideological enemy, and the Soviet Union possessed the resources for future wars. The plan was to force Britain into a peace deal, then with his western front secure, invade the Soviet Union. His primary target was always the east, not just something that came up on a whim since he couldn't control the UK. I would make the argument that the destruction of UK/France was to secure his western front in preparation for his eastern campaign. 

I will take a look at the books you linked by Stahel, I'm not particularly well read in this area at all. 



Infanteer said:


> Not quite accurate. The Germans did not convert to a wartime economy until 1943. In 1941, the German Armed Forces were still losing steel to construction products like the new German parade grounds in Nurnberg, etc, etc. Contrast to the Soviets, who essentially converted 100% of their economy to the war effort hours after the Germans invaded.


What I meant was the German Army was at its strongest in comparison to the Red Army in 1941, and that ratio would steadily shift as the years past. The Wehrmacht still held tremendous technological advantage over the Soviets, but doctrinally and technologically their edge would erode as time passed. Do you believe that the Germans would have done better if they waited till 1943 to attack? What about waiting till 1945? My opinion is of that the Germans would only see their advantages be eroded if they continued to wait.

Then again, none of this is necessary if you don't agree that war with the Soviets was inevitable and that Hitler's primary ambition was the destruction of the Soviet Union and the capture of its resources.

Thank you Infanteer for your book recommendations, I definitely have much to learn. After reading much of your posts from older threads, I have much respect for your knowledge and really appreciate the decision games you made.


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## medic5 (10 Apr 2021)

Colin Parkinson said:


> and it was completely and utterly wrong and pig headed, had saner minds prevailed, then they could have consolidated, worked the local populations into an alliance by not treating everyone as crap and be able to actually get goods back to the home Island. Postwar the Brits were happy to find in Malaysia large stockpiles of tin and rubber that had been destined for Japan, but their merchant fleet was sunk, so it never left.


I definitely agree. Then again, we do have the benefit of armchair analysis. Things were far less certain in December 1941.


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## SeaKingTacco (10 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> I definitely agree. Then again, we do have the benefit of armchair analysis. Things were far less certain in December 1941.


This is a really good thread.


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## medic5 (10 Apr 2021)

SeaKingTacco said:


> This is a really good thread.


Agreed. Loving the WW2 discussion without the typical garbage on other forums.


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## Infanteer (10 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> What I meant was the German Army was at its strongest in comparison to the Red Army in 1941, and that ratio would steadily shift as the years past. The Wehrmacht still held tremendous technological advantage over the Soviets, but doctrinally and technologically their edge would erode as time passed. Do you believe that the Germans would have done better if they waited till 1943 to attack? What about waiting till 1945? My opinion is of that the Germans would only see their advantages be eroded if they continued to wait.



The Germans did not hold a tremendous technological advantage over the Soviets.  In fact, it can be argued that it was the other way around.  Russian tank designs (KV and T-34) were by far and away superior to anything the Germans had.  Their appearance one the battlefields of 1941 caused serious problems for the Germans, and those designs would influence future German tank design (Mk 5 and 6).  Soviet small arms were more rugged and there is reference to Germans preferring captured Russian sub-machine guns.  Ditto with artillery, which was more simple, numerous, and effective, even in 1941.  In the air, the Il-2 was a better ground attack plane than what the Luftwaffe could field.  Although the Soviets fielded a large amount of obsolete equipment in 1941, this was because they never threw anything out - but their modern equipment in 1941 was as good or better than anything their enemy fielded.

Zooming out a bit, the Soviet technology also provided an advantage in terms of production.  From trucks to tanks to radios to planes, the idea was to find a good design and go with it.  Contrast this to the Germans, with an essentially boutique system of various models from competing industries and a huge variety of platforms from conquered countries.  Imagine you are the quartermaster of 47 Panzer Corps, and one of your divisions is entirely kitted out with French trucks and older Mk 1 and 2 tanks, while the other one is a mix of German trucks and newer Mk 3 and 4 tanks, and the third had Czech material.  Even in the earliest months of the war, the effects of these two systems began to make an impact.  The Soviets possessed a technological base designed for total war, while the Germans possessed one that, when exposed to a war longer than six weeks, could not keep pace.

Compared to the German Army which was essentially a horse drawn Army of 125 divisions spearheaded by about 25 mechanized divisions, the Red Army was anything but disadvantaged technologically.  Where the Red Army had problems was with some clunky pre-war doctrine and organization, command and control, and integration of combined arms, which you add some ruthless strategic decision making that could be counter productive.  These are things that would take a year or so to iron out, and they used the lives of millions of Soviet soldiers to buy the time to do so.

There is, however, some merit in your argument that in 1941 the Soviets were at their nadir and the Germans "caught them on the wrong foot," and that they would have been much better prepared in future years.  The Soviets were coming out of the officer purges, and had just been roughly handled by the Finns.  Generals who performed well, like Zhukov in the Far East, were beginning to rise to the top and displace the old Civil War Cavalry cronies that Stalin kept around.  The Red Army was also going through a period of doctrinal and organizational flux with regards to mechanized forces as well.

Although speculative, it is fair to say that given the size of the Soviet economy and the reluctance of the Germans to mobilize theirs (they were about to begin demoblizing parts of their Army prior to Barbarossa to free up men for the civilian economy), the Germans would not have been as successful had they delayed their invasion of the Soviet Union by a year or two.

If you are interested in the Red Army at all, especially in the early part of the Second World War, the books Stumbling Colossus and Colossus Reborn are essential reads.


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## medic5 (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> The Germans did not hold a tremendous technological advantage over the Soviets.  In fact, it can be argued that it was the other way around.  Russian tank designs (KV and T-34) were by far and away superior to anything the Germans had.  Their appearance one the battlefields of 1941 caused serious problems for the Germans, and those designs would influence future German tank design (Mk 5 and 6).  Soviet small arms were more rugged and there is reference to Germans preferring captured Russian sub-machine guns.  Ditto with artillery, which was more simple, numerous, and effective, even in 1941.  In the air, the Il-2 was a better ground attack plane than what the Luftwaffe could field.  Although the Soviets fielded a large amount of obsolete equipment in 1941, this was because they never threw anything out - but their modern equipment in 1941 was as good or better than anything their enemy fielded.


What I said was not correct, I mostly meant to say that the Germans fielded better equipment then and had better doctrine especially around the flexibility and initiative on the part of junior officers than the Soviets. Yes, the T-34 and KV were amazing designs and could put the Pz 3/4 to shame even with the long barreled 75, but out of the 26,000 or so tanks the Red Army fielded, how many were amazing designs? Almost all were useless BT/T26 series tanks that were useless in anything outside of reconnaissance. I don't put much weight on small arms, but I doubt submachine guns were particularly useful on the steppe, and superior German squad level weapons mostly would have negated that advantage.

Regarding aircraft, I know absolutely nothing about aircraft, so I won't even try to form an opinion. But I did notice that the Soviet Air Force was pretty much destroyed on the ground and didn't gain back superiority till much later. Whether that is because of the surprise of the Germans or better tech, I have no idea. 

My original point was that the Germans were the strongest they would ever be in comparison to the Soviets in 1941, and that if time were to pass the Germans would grow weaker and weaker while the Soviets rebuilt. About mechanization, following 1942 the German Army actually demobilized (I don't have a source to back this up, remember seeing a graph somewhere, so call me out if I'm wrong), and the number of Panzergrenadier divisions actually decreased on the official table of organization. Yes, the Heer was horse drawn, but in 1941 they did not feel the brunt of oil shortages yet, and they would only grow more horse reliant over time.

Basically what I am saying is regardless whether the Germans were stronger than the Soviets in 1941, this was their best chance to win. Not quite sure how good that chance was though.

I'm going make a reading list, any other books about the Eastern Front (or WW2 in general) you would recommend?


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> ...  Russian tank designs (KV and T-34) were by far and away superior to anything the Germans had.  Their appearance one the battlefields of 1941 caused serious problems for the Germans, and those designs would influence future German tank design (Mk 5 and 6).  Soviet small arms were more rugged and there is reference to Germans preferring captured Russian sub-machine guns.  ...



Add to that the fact that the T-34 model was designed for rapid and cheap manufacture. Most of the few design improvements to the tank over the years were to make it faster to build rather than improve on what was already a basically good fighting vehicle. Russian monthly T-34 production averaged out at 1,300 was the equivalent of three full sized German tank divisions (and that's considering that many of their factories had to be moved during the German offensives.)

Meanwhile German monthly tank/assault gun production of all types (but mostly the less capable PzIII and PzIV types) averaged out at 300 in 1941, 450 in 1942, 1,000 in 1943, and 1,500 in 1944. Total German tank/assault gun production was 50,000 while 57,000 T-34s were built (29,000 were the 85mm upgunned version) together with an almost equal amount of all other Russian types of tanks and assault guns.

T-34 - Wikipedia    /   German armored fighting vehicle production during World War II - Wikipedia

A final factor was that after 1943, Germany had to worry about three fronts--fighting in Italy, guarding the depth of the Atlantic Wall, and Russia while Russia really only had the one.

Like the tanks, the PPSh-41 was designed for rapid and simple manufacture through stamped sheet metal parts rather than machined ones. While the German MP 40 was also mostly stamped metal and quite useable and rapidly manufactured, the fighting in built up areas of Russia was not suitable for the standard infantry rifle, the K-98 and many captured PPSh-41s were pressed into service to augment the more limited supplies of MP-40s.

My uncle had a Russian Tokarev SVT (40 I think) and I remember one day taking a large box of old WW2 surplus ammunition to the range. Pretty much every casing ruptured or split lengthwise but nonetheless the rifle operated without stoppages. Rugged and reliable (the ammo not so much).

🍻


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## Weinie (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> The Germans did not hold a tremendous technological advantage over the Soviets.  In fact, it can be argued that it was the other way around.  Russian tank designs (KV and T-34) were by far and away superior to anything the Germans had.  Their appearance one the battlefields of 1941 caused serious problems for the Germans, and those designs would influence future German tank design (Mk 5 and 6).  Soviet small arms were more rugged and there is reference to Germans preferring captured Russian sub-machine guns.  Ditto with artillery, which was more simple, numerous, and effective, even in 1941.  In the air, the Il-2 was a better ground attack plane than what the Luftwaffe could field.  Although the Soviets fielded a large amount of obsolete equipment in 1941, this was because they never threw anything out - but their modern equipment in 1941 was as good or better than anything their enemy fielded.
> 
> Zooming out a bit, the Soviet technology also provided an advantage in terms of production.  From trucks to tanks to radios to planes, the idea was to find a good design and go with it.  Contrast this to the Germans, with an essentially boutique system of various models from competing industries and a huge variety of platforms from conquered countries.  Imagine you are the quartermaster of 47 Panzer Corps, and one of your divisions is entirely kitted out with French trucks and older Mk 1 and 2 tanks, while the other one is a mix of German trucks and newer Mk 3 and 4 tanks, and the third had Czech material.  Even in the earliest months of the war, the effects of these two systems began to make an impact.  The Soviets possessed a technological base designed for total war, while the Germans possessed one that, when exposed to a war longer than six weeks, could not keep pace.
> 
> ...


Amazing explanations of how things  unfolded.


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## Kirkhill (11 Apr 2021)

Weinie said:


> Amazing explanations of how things  unfolded.


He's good like that.  Stop telling him.


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## Blackadder1916 (11 Apr 2021)

One thing often overlooked in the story of the Soviets bouncing back from invasion was the evacuation and relocation of a significant part of their industrial capacity.  The majority of their manufacturing (including armaments) was in the west.  As the Germans advanced, a good portion of the plants in the path were dismantled (sometimes only hours before the Germans reached it) and moved east (along with workers) where they were reassembled and put back into production in short order. While somewhat hyperbolic, it would be comparable to packing up most of the industrial plants in 1940s Eastern Canada, right down to every nut, bolt and washer and moving them to Alberta and BC and getting them back to normal production within a few months.


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## medic5 (11 Apr 2021)

Yeah, Soviet production was truly impressive. After Germany was defeated, instead of crews bringing their vehicles to Manchuria, they just got new ones straight out of the factory.


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

Blackadder1916 said:


> One thing often overlooked in the story of the Soviets bouncing back from invasion was the evacuation and relocation of a significant part of their industrial capacity.  The majority of their manufacturing (including armaments) was in the west.  As the Germans advanced, a good portion of the plants in the path were dismantled (sometimes only hours before the Germans reached it) and moved east (along with workers) where they were reassembled and put back into production in short order. While somewhat hyperbolic, it would be comparable to packing up most of the industrial plants in 1940s Eastern Canada, right down to every nut, bolt and washer and moving them to Alberta and BC and getting them back to normal production within a few months.


The Soviets used the practice they'd had in doing that to disassemble and remove all the industry from the parts of Eastern Europe, including East Germany, that they had overrun and moving it back into Russia after the war.

🍻


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## GR66 (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> Zooming out a bit, the Soviet technology also provided an advantage in terms of production.  From trucks to tanks to radios to planes, the idea was to find a good design and go with it.  Contrast this to the Germans, with an essentially boutique system of various models from competing industries and a huge variety of platforms from conquered countries.


Slight derail...any lessons here?


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## Infanteer (11 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> I mostly meant to say that the Germans fielded better equipment then and had better doctrine especially around the flexibility and initiative on the part of junior officers than the Soviets. Yes, the T-34 and KV were amazing designs and could put the Pz 3/4 to shame even with the long barreled 75, but out of the 26,000 or so tanks the Red Army fielded, how many were amazing designs?


My books are unavailable to me at the moment, but a quick search tells me that Soviet production of T34 and KV tanks in 1940 and 1941 was at around 5,000 vehicles, greater than the total German tank totals in the Eastern Front.  The loss of tens of thousands of obsolete models is irrelevant when you still field more technologically superior vehicles than your opponent.



medik05 said:


> But I did notice that the Soviet Air Force was pretty much destroyed on the ground and didn't gain back superiority till much later. Whether that is because of the surprise of the Germans or better tech, I have no idea.


It wasn't.  While much of its air forces in the forward Military Districts were destroyed in the first few days, the Soviet Air Forces were able to start contesting air superiority once the Germans moved deep into Russia.  Stahel cites numerous primary German sources indicating the problems posed by Soviet air attacks as early as August 1941.  The Luftwaffe in the east was, like the panzer forces, largely at the end of its tether when a quick victory didn't manifest itself.

Don't feel like I'm trying to pick on you, but your understanding of the Eastern Front is based on older scholarship (1950-1995).  It's understandable, as this was the dominant narrative for over a generation, but it is a narrative that suffered from the fact that the Soviet sources were closed to the West, the Germans wrote the first histories and covered their tracks, and the Allies accepted it because in the 1950s, the Germans were the good guys and the Soviets were bad.  Basically, the German generals got to put lipstick on their pig and sell it to English-speaking readers.

In the last 20 years, there has been a tremendous revision of Eastern Front scholarship and understanding, led by Glantz's focus on the Soviet sources and Stahel's efforts in the last 10 years for the German side.  There is a reason the Eastern front basically turned into a grinding war of attrition from about August 1941 on - the Germans weren't as good as the previous historical paradigm purports, and the Soviets weren't as bad as they've been made out to be.

You indicated you desire to read more, which is great.  A good first read is Glantz's 2001 monograph which can be found online.  Many readers here will like the "historical debates" sections of this paper as they speak to the ahistorical musings.  As for books, start with the Stahel and Glantz books I linked to above - in my view, they are essentials in any East Front library.  Make sure to scan the endnotes for both these authors, as they both do a good job with their citations and you can uncover numerous other tidbits and sources in the notes.

If you want to move out of 1941, Glantz wrote a massive 4-volume series on Stalingrad which is now the definitive source in the English language.  It takes patience to get through those volumes, especially due to the poor maps, but the source gathering, especially on the Soviet side, is impressive.  I'm starting to scratch the 1943 operations, and have Demolishing the Myth on my shelf, but have yet to get to it.  It scores high marks from the right scholars.


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## Infanteer (11 Apr 2021)

GR66 said:


> Slight derail...any lessons here?


The lessons are obvious, and I've seen them brought up in a modern context.  Hyper-exquisite forces look great on Day 1 of a conflict, but may not be around on week 4.  What then?  How do you replace sophisticated platforms that depend on numerous production lines and lead times of months as opposed to weeks or days.  I've seen literature citing cases where U.S. operations basically ran out of precision guided missiles for spells of time.

I suspect that if a conflict erupted between two conventional powers, it'd dumb down pretty quickly as all the high priced stuff broke or was destroyed.  What happens then is a good exercise to go through.


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## Colin Parkinson (11 Apr 2021)

I have crawled around an early T34/76, it's certainly is not as good as people think. The ergonomics are awful, the visibility out of the tank is terrible. Driving them was unfun. Even the Soviets thought so and initially rejected it, however there was no time to change the design.  It certainly had some good elements, mainly a decent gun with a good sight, enough armour and wide tracks. The planned tank was to be the T34M. The Pz III was in many ways a better tank, it was an excellent tank to fight in for the crew, but by 1941 was becoming dated even with the 50mm. The Pz III stayed around throughout the war, acting as a scout/security squadron for the Tiger Battalions. 
It's impressive just how fast tank technology changed between 1939-1945, where you go from the Pz I,T26, Cruiser I to Tiger II, IS-3, Centurion and T-44. Had the Brits gotten the Lee/Grant 6 months earlier, things in the desert might have gone differently.


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## Weinie (11 Apr 2021)

Colin Parkinson said:


> I have crawled around an early T34/76, it's certainly is not as good as people think. The ergonomics are awful, the visibility out of the tank is terrible. Driving them was unfun. Even the Soviets thought so and initially rejected it, however there was no time to change the design.  It certainly had some good elements, mainly a decent gun with a good sight, enough armour and wide tracks. The planned tank was to be the T34M. The Pz III was in many ways a better tank, it was an excellent tank to fight in for the crew, but by 1941 was becoming dated even with the 50mm. The Pz III stayed around throughout the war, acting as a scout/security squadron for the Tiger Battalions.
> It's impressive just how fast tank technology changed between 1939-1945, where you go from the Pz I,T26, Cruiser I to Tiger II, IS-3, Centurion and T-44. *Had the Brits gotten the Lee/Grant 6 months earlier, things in the desert might have gone differently.*


Is that simply because of the 75mm gun?


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## TangoTwoBravo (11 Apr 2021)

Putting aside whether Germany should have taken the first punch against the Soviet Union, Barbarossa does give a fascinating look into war on a massive scale. Looking at the German plan, I think we can see the tyranny of distance.  The distance from the German border to Paris is around 300 km. The distance from the Line of Departure in Poland to Moscow is about 1,100 km without a very well developed road/rail network. Then consider the width of the front which the Germans seemed intent on covering. 

The German plan itself couldn't seem to decide on the aim. Defeat the Soviet Union - sure. But how? Cripple it economically by seizing key territory? Sure, but there is lots more terrain in the Soviet Union. Cripple it militarily by destroying the army in the field? Sure, but there are lots more armies in Reserve and with a focus on quantity over quality the Red Army could regenerate quite quickly. Seize Moscow? That's an idea - Napoleon tried that one. Given that the German plan was not to conquer all of the USSR then I think that Moscow would have made the best objective: politically crippling to the will of the USSR and its a major transportation hub. 

The execution of Barbarossa saw the main effort/objective shift several times. It seems the Germans tried to do everything and while they had some spectacular victories in terms of territory seized and Armies destroyed they gave the Red Army the time it needed to always have fresh reserves to counter the exhausted Germans (1,100 km as the crow flies). The campaign against France, on the other hand, while admittedly on a much tighter scale at least had an inspired design to defeat the French. For the next two years in the East the Germans couldn't nest their tactical and operational excellence (we could debate that I suppose) into a coherent strategic plan. Was it even possible? Who knows.


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## SeaKingTacco (11 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> What I said was not correct, I mostly meant to say that the Germans fielded better equipment then and had better doctrine especially around the flexibility and initiative on the part of junior officers than the Soviets. Yes, the T-34 and KV were amazing designs and could put the Pz 3/4 to shame even with the long barreled 75, but out of the 26,000 or so tanks the Red Army fielded, how many were amazing designs? Almost all were useless BT/T26 series tanks that were useless in anything outside of reconnaissance. I don't put much weight on small arms, but I doubt submachine guns were particularly useful on the steppe, and superior German squad level weapons mostly would have negated that advantage.
> 
> Regarding aircraft, I know absolutely nothing about aircraft, so I won't even try to form an opinion. But I did notice that the Soviet Air Force was pretty much destroyed on the ground and didn't gain back superiority till much later. Whether that is because of the surprise of the Germans or better tech, I have no idea.
> 
> ...


I have a couple of books that I could recommend:

1. The German Army 1933-1945 by Matthew Cooper. Not specifically about the Eastern Front, but gives you a good overview of how and why it was organized and equipped the way it was, the problems it faced on all fronts and the internal politics of the General Staff.

2. Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. Probably not as scholarly as the works cited by Infanteer, but I found it readable.

3. Hitler’s Army by Omar Bartov. Kills the myth, perpetrated by many German Army veterans in the west in the 1950s, that they were not Nazis and had nothing to do with with the excesses of the SS. You really get sense of how good that whitewash job was, when you read something like Otto Carius’ “Tigers in the Mud”, which is useful for what it leaves out, as much as for what he talks about in terms of fighting on the Eastern Front.


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## SeaKingTacco (11 Apr 2021)

TangoTwoBravo said:


> Putting aside whether Germany should have taken the first punch against the Soviet Union, Barbarossa does give a fascinating look into war on a massive scale. Looking at the German plan, I think we can see the tyranny of distance.  The distance from the German border to Paris is around 300 km. The distance from the Line of Departure in Poland to Moscow is about 1,100 km without a very well developed road/rail network. Then consider the width of the front which the Germans seemed intent on covering.
> 
> The German plan itself couldn't seem to decide on the aim. Defeat the Soviet Union - sure. But how? Cripple it economically by seizing key territory? Sure, but there is lots more terrain in the Soviet Union. Cripple it militarily by destroying the army in the field? Sure, but there are lots more armies in Reserve and with a focus on quantity over quality the Red Army could regenerate quite quickly. Seize Moscow? That's an idea - Napoleon tried that one. Given that the German plan was not to conquer all of the USSR then I think that Moscow would have made the best objective: politically crippling to the will of the USSR and its a major transportation hub.
> 
> The execution of Barbarossa saw the main effort/objective shift several times. It seems the Germans tried to do everything and while they had some spectacular victories in terms of territory seized and Armies destroyed they gave the Red Army the time it needed to always have fresh reserves to counter the exhausted Germans (1,100 km as the crow flies). The campaign against France, on the other hand, while admittedly on a much tighter scale at least had an inspired design to defeat the French. For the next two years in the East the Germans couldn't nest their tactical and operational excellence (we could debate that I suppose) into a coherent strategic plan. Was it even possible? Who knows.


Seizing Moscow was probably the only realistic option for anything like a victory. Maybe, if they had have avoided both Stalingrad and Leningrad, that would have helped, too.

Even with Moscow in German hands (and maybe a deposed/dead Stalin), I still don’t see how you don’t get Zhukov and a bunch of others rebuilding the Russian Army behind the Urals and coming out swinging in the summer of 1942.


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## Colin Parkinson (11 Apr 2021)

The 76mm was a all round good gun for 1941, with decent AP and HE performance. The biggest issues though with the T34, was the ability to fight from it and the doctrinal use of it. While everyone focus on the tanks, a lot of the real power of the Soviets was their infantry and artillery. Reports I read is that the Germans knew they could not let Soviet infantry dig in once they gained an objective and that they would quickly bring up AT guns and ATR to fend off German armour. We look down at Anti-tank Rifles in the West, because ours were lacklustre, but the Soviet ATR's were a significant threat and even forced the Germans to refit the Panther to protect it's flanks from them. Carius reported his Tiger 1 was disabled by a ATR round that penetrated into his cooling system and that the hail of fire from them was effective at destroying vison blocks and making it difficult for the crew to effectively fight the tank. The Germans had a great deal of respect for AT guns which were considered more of a threat than Soviet tanks.


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## Infanteer (11 Apr 2021)

SeaKingTacco said:


> Seizing Moscow was probably the only realistic option for anything like a victory. Maybe, if they had have avoided both Stalingrad and Leningrad, that would have helped, too.
> 
> Even with Moscow in German hands (and maybe a deposed/dead Stalin), I still don’t see how you don’t get Zhukov and a bunch of others rebuilding the Russian Army behind the Urals and coming out swinging in the summer of 1942.


The Soviets planned to move the capital to Kuybyshev in 1941.  Taking Moscow then would have been as useful as when Napoleon occupied it in 1812.

I can't help but wonder what the capture of Leningrad may have led to.  Freeing up two Armies, linking up with the Finns and being able to eliminate Murmansk as an Allied supply pipeline would have presented the Soviets with a big problem.


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## medic5 (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> Don't feel like I'm trying to pick on you, but your understanding of the Eastern Front is based on older scholarship (1950-1995). It's understandable, as this was the dominant narrative for over a generation, but it is a narrative that suffered from the fact that the Soviet sources were closed to the West, the Germans wrote the first histories and covered their tracks, and the Allies accepted it because in the 1950s, the Germans were the good guys and the Soviets were bad. Basically, the German generals got to put lipstick on their pig and sell it to English-speaking readers.


Yeah, you're right on this one. Most of the very few books I've read were older ones, and my opinions are probably tainted from reading more memoirs from the German side as opposed to more modern histories. 

Thank you to both you and SeaKing's book recommendations, I really do appreciate it.


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> My books are unavailable to me at the moment, but a quick search tells me that Soviet production of T34 and KV tanks in 1940 and 1941 was at around 5,000 vehicles, greater than the total German tank totals in the Eastern Front.  The loss of tens of thousands of obsolete models is irrelevant when you still field more technologically superior vehicles than your opponent.



Soviet armoured vehicle production is here.

T-34 production was 115 and 3016 for those years and KV 1 production was 141 and 1,121 so 4,393 in total. In 1942 it went to 12,661 T-34 and 1,753 for KV 1.

🍻


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## Kirkhill (11 Apr 2021)

I still stipulate that the Germans were beaten by the inability to secure their flanks.  There is just too much space in Russia.  Russia could always fall back over the Urals, as it did with its factories, and then envelop Germany's open flanks and encircle them.  No matter what the Germans did space (and the weather - Generals Mud and Snow) always gave the Russians time.

And the cold wore down their people and the kit.


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## medic5 (11 Apr 2021)

Kirkhill said:


> I still stipulate that the Germans were beaten by the inability to secure their flanks.  There is just too much space in Russia.  Russia could always fall back over the Urals, as it did with its factories, and then envelop Germany's open flanks and encircle them.  No matter what the Germans did space (and the weather - Generals Mud and Snow) always gave the Russians time.
> 
> And the cold wore down their people and the kit.


Manpower is definitely a big part too. What other army could have taken the losses the Soviets did and still continue to fight?


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## SeaKingTacco (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> The Soviets planned to move the capital to Kuybyshev in 1941.  Taking Moscow then would have been as useful as when Napoleon occupied it in 1812.
> 
> I can't help but wonder what the capture of Leningrad may have led to.  Freeing up two Armies, linking up with the Finns and being able to eliminate Murmansk as an Allied supply pipeline would have presented the Soviets with a big problem.


That is an excellent point. But, how much of a factor was lend-lease, ultimately, given the above mentioned Russian tank production figures? Was it more for propaganda purposes than actually affecting the strategic calculus?

I also wonder about the mindless brutality in the Ukraine with the civilian population. Initially hailed as liberators, the Germans quickly “out brutaled” the Soviets, which is saying something. Instead of being able to rely on a newly “liberated and allied” nation state of Ukraine, the Germans turned that into a 700km wide guerrilla war theatre in their rear area.

I still cannot think of a way that the Germans could have won in the East.


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

TangoTwoBravo said:


> The German plan itself couldn't seem to decide on the aim. Defeat the Soviet Union - sure. But how? Cripple it economically by seizing key territory? Sure, but there is lots more terrain in the Soviet Union. Cripple it militarily by destroying the army in the field? Sure, but there are lots more armies in Reserve and with a focus on quantity over quality the Red Army could regenerate quite quickly. Seize Moscow? That's an idea - Napoleon tried that one. Given that the German plan was not to conquer all of the USSR then I think that Moscow would have made the best objective: politically crippling to the will of the USSR and its a major transportation hub.


Fuehrer Directive 21 speaks about the destruction of the Soviet Army and then this "The ultimate objective of the operation is to establish a cover against Asiatic Russia from the general line Volga-Archangel." which would therefore include the capture of and advance beyond Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the centre (more properly the southern portion of the northern thrust) and Stalingrad in the south. The key element which is repeated throughout is to create a buffer/security zone which would prevent any interference from the Soviets (principally their air forces) from harming eastern German territory. 

The frequently repeated methodology (and you almost have to translate it into German in your head to get its full effect) is that the objectives will be achieved through bold and violent action by mechanized spearheads with follow-up consolidation by the remaining force thus preventing withdrawal by Soviet formations. Basically Blitzkrieg 101.

I think the aim and the plan were clear. The question is was it ever achievable or too ambitious in the first place?



Colin Parkinson said:


> ... The Germans had a great deal of respect for AT guns which were considered more of a threat than Soviet tanks.



A lesson which we seem to have troubles either remembering or implementing, and that the Germans and to a large extent the Soviets were very good at, was the incorporation and cooperation of tanks, assault guns, anti-tank guns and infantry in seizing and then stabilizing positions during the attack and then in consolidating and holding against the counter attack.

🍻


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## Kirkhill (11 Apr 2021)

medik05 said:


> Manpower is definitely a big part too. What other army could have taken the losses the Soviets did and still continue to fight?


True that.  Stalin had lots of Tatar and Kazakh bullet traps available.


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## SeaKingTacco (11 Apr 2021)

Kirkhill said:


> True that.  Stalin had lots of Tatar and Kazakh bullet traps available.


And as a Georgian, he was more than willing to fight to the last Tartar and Kazakh.


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

Kirkhill said:


> I still stipulate that the Germans were beaten by the inability to secure their flanks.  There is just too much space in Russia.  Russia could always fall back over the Urals, as it did with its factories, and then envelop Germany's open flanks and encircle them.  No matter what the Germans did space (and the weather - Generals Mud and Snow) always gave the Russians time.
> 
> And the cold wore down their people and the kit.



Flank security was established by way of the Finns in the north and Romanians in the south both under the Fuehrer directive and the actual op plan.

🍻


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## Kirkhill (11 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> Flank security was established by way of the Finns in the north and Romanians in the south both under the Fuehrer directive and the actual op plan.
> 
> 🍻


I'll agree that was the plan.  But by the time he got to a line Archangel-Stalingrad (Arctic Ocean - Caspian Sea) his FLOT was at least three times longer than it was when he crossed his Polish Start line.

He never had enough troops to take that line let alone hold it. Even with various foreign volunteers.

He was a man attacking a shield wall with a rapier.  No matter how sharp the point and how fast and skilled the swordsman he is not going to defeat the wall.  Even if he does manage to break it.


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## TangoTwoBravo (11 Apr 2021)

The debate on objectives during the planning phase (the original plan drawn up by the Army featured an encirclement of Moscow with twin thrusts on Moscow and Kiev) manifested themselves during the operation as well. While they had the AA line as their LOE, the actual objectives and main effort were in flux. In July Hitler changed the priority to Leningrad and the Ukraine (economic reasons), diverting Panzer Corps accordingly. In September he switched it back to Moscow and transferred Panzer Corps again. I get being flexible and taking advantage of opportunities, but changing the main effort cost time - something they didn't have. It's easy to blame Hitler for all this (and his Generals in the post-war never hesitated to place blame there), and perhaps we should look at how the Soviets won. Still, with the distances involved you shouldn't just fling troops around. Pick an objective and go for it. 

As for making Leningrad/Karelia the priority its an interesting proposition. At least it gets the Germans something and denies the Soviets a route to the US/UK. Having said that, something like 50% of Lend Lease (although only goods other than weapons) came through the Pacific route.


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## Infanteer (11 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> I think the aim and the plan were clear. The question is was it ever achievable or too ambitious in the first place?


Maybe for July of 1941, but after that, not so much.

The Germans initiated Barbarossa thinking they could achieve a decisive campaign in Belorussia .  They didn't.  They were also surprised with the ferocity with which Soviets fought back, even when encircled.

As July turned to August, there was strategic paralysis as the Army leadership, specifically Halder at OKH and Bock in AGC, wanted to push to Moscow and, on the way, destroy the main grouping of Soviet forces under the Western Front.  Hitler was not convinced, but wouldn't provide an objective.

This lack of strategy resulted in aimless operations such as Guderian's seizure of the Yelnya salient, which became a magnet for Soviet counterattacks and had to be abandoned after a high rate of losses.  The Army kept pushing for Moscow as the battle for Smolensk wound down, but Hitler would not commit.

Ultimately, Stahel contends, it was the signing of the Atlantic Charter between the US and UK that convinced Hitler that it would be a long war, and resources would be the key.  He placed the strategic objective as Kiev and the Donbas with its resources, and over the protests of his Generals, stopped the advance on Moscow and sent PzrGp 2 south to encircle the Southwest Front at Kiev.

As one charts the battles of 1941, and the strategic discussion within Germany, one can see that the aim and the plan were really expedients after the expected Soviet collapse did not occur in July/August.


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## FJAG (11 Apr 2021)

Infanteer said:


> Maybe for July of 1941, but after that, not so much.
> 
> The Germans initiated Barbarossa thinking they could achieve a decisive campaign in Belorussia .  They didn't.  They were also surprised with the ferocity with which Soviets fought back, even when encircled.
> 
> ...


Absolutely. My comment was only so far as the original objective and plan which was clear and broadly stated so as to leave subordinate commands plenty of room to put flesh on the bones.

That said, it clearly didn't survive long after crossing the start line. There were clearly changes in the plan as opportunities and complications arose.

My earlier question still stands. Was the original objective and plan feasible in the first place or doomed to failure? If it was feasible then the question becomes why did it fail? If it wasn't feasible then that becomes a moot point and we simply debate what points of failure were inevitable and which ones were due to mistakes made after crossing the start line.

You point out some very good points above of what took place which seems to indicate that very early on focus was lost (if it was ever there). You've obviously read much more deeply into this then I have so we're back to the initial question: was the initial plan feasible? did the Army buy into it? was it short resources? Was Hitler too ambitious? or the German General Staff not up to the task?

🍻


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## Infanteer (11 Apr 2021)

FJAG said:


> Was the original objective and plan feasible in the first place or doomed to failure? If it was feasible then the question becomes why did it fail? If it wasn't feasible then that becomes a moot point and we simply debate what points of failure were inevitable and which ones were due to mistakes made after crossing the start line.


Likely the latter, due to a gross miscalculation in intelligence on the strength of the Red Army and its capacity to regenerate.  The literature indicates that the Germans essentially situated their estimate of the Red Army to fit into their objective of a 6 week campaign after which the Soviet Union would collapse.


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## Colin Parkinson (11 Apr 2021)

Well considering the Western forces did pretty much that, the assumption is not without merit. They just didn't count on the Iron will and fear of Stalin.


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## Colin Parkinson (12 Apr 2021)

Slightly off topic, but it could have affected the course of history that we are currently talking about









						Plot to sink the MV Hiye Maru in Elliott Bay fails on January 20, 1938.
					






					historylink.org


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## Ostrozac (12 Apr 2021)

Colin Parkinson said:


> Well considering the Western forces did pretty much that, the assumption is not without merit. They just didn't count on the Iron will and fear of Stalin.


Geography, too. The Eastern Front was on a completely different level to the campaign in the west. The French conveniently located much of their population and industry in readily accessible areas -- Paris was about 400km from the German border. East Prussia to Moscow was 1200km, and there's a lot more Soviet Union located to the east of Moscow.

Reminds me a little of someone looking at a map of Canada and not understanding the scale.


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