All I am saying, is that before Leningrad would have fallen, it would have provided all the able bodied men for the Red Army, and later on would be fairly useless in that respect - with just over 1% of its residents being men reaching military age annually, that would be 25k a year, after ~400k potential recruits of all ages initially.
Why did Operation Barbarossa fail?
- Thread starter Magnus Imperator Rex
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The delay into June was necessary because the Spring 1941 Raputitsa was a long one. An offensive which goes off in May 1941 would have immediately bogged down in mud and lost all surprise by the time it dried up and movement could be restored to the battlefield.
Had the Germans tried to concentrate most of their forces on the northern axis instead of advancing on three separate ones... they would have failed even worse. As Martin Van Crevald notes in his chapter on Barbarossa's logistics from Supplying War:
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A similar metric applies to Leningrad. Additionally, ignoring Ukraine means ignoring a positively massive portion of both the pre-war Red Army and the Soviet resource-industrial base while giving AGC an enormous southern flank ripe for a counter-offensive while simultaneously allowing the Soviets to concentrate their freshly raised reserve armies in fewer places on the defense instead of having to deploy them all over the place to replace the constantly changing losses.
Would have led to a catastrophic rout with freezing German soldiers cut down in the open.
Logistically impossible. The Germans had the winter equipment all stockpiled in . The problem was they didn't even have enough train space and trucks to get it out to the troops without catastrophically reducing the shipments of ammunition and fuel.
US declares war anywhere between a couple of weeks to a few months later, depending. At the very minimum, the US ambassador meets with Hitler:
"There is no way for the USN to determine if a submerged submarine is German or Japanese, so a complete exclusion zone around U.S. flagged convoys has been announced. The U.S. will, of course, refrain from attacking any German submarine, provided it does not attack an American flagged vessel, once it surfaces and identifies itself since the U.S. has 'friendly' relations with the 3rd Reich."
"The U.S. can not, of course, give any assurances regarding RN or RCN vessels in the same convoy. The U.S. can also not take for granted that any submerged submarine is actually a KM boat, an IJN submarine might be lurking in the area, just awaiting the opportunity to attack. The Japanese have already clearly demonstrated their villainy and a surprisingly wide reach, so prudence is the only acceptable course. So once it identifies itself any U-Boat is free to conduct attacks, on the surface, provided no U.S. vessels are targeted. Many of those U.S. vessels are, of course, carrying war supplies and/or troops to the UK. The British are our allies against Japan, and providing them with war supplies and sending troops to train with the more experience British forces, all for use against Japan of course, is to be expected."
"Of course we understand your concerns, Herr Hitler, but we have the 'strongest' of assurance from the British that the materials will only be used against Japan."
And with that, Hitler either abandons any attempt to fight Britain (which is a political impossibility given how determined the British are to fight him) or declares war on the United States.
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One school of thought is the Germans had zero chance of winning period. Here is a lecture from the US army war college. In a nut shell the battles of the Eastern Front was far larger than any of the publicly accepted histories describe. The soviet union launched massive counter offensives that have been ignored by history for various reasons but bottom line Germany could not win period full stop (by the way according to this school of thought if Hitler did not order the do not fall back order in 1941 Germany would have been defeated in 1941)
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Some reasons Barbarossa failed in 1941:
* The delayed start of Barbarossa because of Yugoslavia & Greece campaign.
* Mud season in the fall, turning the roads into mudpits.
* Crappy Russian roads/different railroad size, no asphalt.
* The Finns desicion to stop advancing on different front regions starting in august.
* The German lack of winter clothing & winter equipment.
* The German underestimant of the size of the Russian army.
* Richard Sorges intelligence; that Japan was not gonna attack Russia, it allowed Russia to transfer 18 fresh divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia to the Moscow area to be used in the battle of Moscow starting in october 1941, used to attack the now exhausted German troops.
* The delayed start of Barbarossa because of Yugoslavia & Greece campaign.
* Mud season in the fall, turning the roads into mudpits.
* Crappy Russian roads/different railroad size, no asphalt.
* The Finns desicion to stop advancing on different front regions starting in august.
* The German lack of winter clothing & winter equipment.
* The German underestimant of the size of the Russian army.
* Richard Sorges intelligence; that Japan was not gonna attack Russia, it allowed Russia to transfer 18 fresh divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia to the Moscow area to be used in the battle of Moscow starting in october 1941, used to attack the now exhausted German troops.
As usual, the Red Army or any other intentional action on behalf of the Soviet Union is left out of the reasons that Germany failed to defeat the Soviet Union. This is by no means personal against you, Loke, since you are just the last in a long line of people that mention a long list of things that totally forget that the main impediment of the German advance was the continued resistance of the Red Army.
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I don't know if it already has been linked. Hitler had no idea how strong the Soviets really were. Or at least he said so to Mannerheim.
Alright, I'll concede that the the delay was necessary.
I'll simply ask you one question:
At what point did I say he should've only had one axis? I never even said Ukraine wasn't important. Taking the grain fields and taking the industrial center that was Kiev was massively important to damage Soviet capacity.
Regardless, I thought it would've been smarter to focus Army Group North and Centre on first working to taking Leningrad and then Moscow instead of stupidly splitting them up.
Trying to advance when you have insufficient troops and equipment is a rather awful idea.
That's fair enough.
The declaration of war against the United States was stupid. Germany had absolutely no capacity to ever even land on the mainland US, had a considerably smaller industry, smaller population, and would be busy fighting the Soviets. There was nothing the Germans could've done to stop the US from supplying the British. There was no way they could've directly invaded the US, and Germany had no capacity to survive a long-term war with the Allies. All Hitler could've done was make himself lose with the US or just dealt with it and kept the stalemate up with the British.
Strategically a stalemate is better than a complete, total defeat.
Well, I think the Russian army during Barbarossa in 1941 was a total disaster, incompetent and in complete disarray.
The Russian losses of over;
4 000 000 soldiers, 21 200 aircraft and 20 500 tanks vs the German/Axis losses of
800 000 soldiers, 2 827 aircraft and 2 400 tanks.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa)
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Which doesn´t explain why, in 1942, russians didn´t have losses of 4 000 000 soldiers, 21 200 aircraft and 20 500 tanks and German/Axis losses of 800 000 soldiers, 2 827 aircraft and 2 400 tanks.
Refusing to acknowledge that soviets DID fight, sometimes rather well, as part of the reason for the defeat is not reasonable at all.
1942? I was under the impression we were discussing operation Barbarossa... June to december 1941?
The Germans did focus to taking Leningrad and Moscow. The problem was that the offensive slowed to a grinding halt, and throwing more trops towards Leningrad was meaningless. Most of Army group North was already hanging on single rail line and could simply not not support more troops. The fact that the whole Leningrad area is full of meat bogs and marshes did not help. On the other hand, Leningrad being an industrial centre kept its solders fairly well supplied and equipped.
The decision for stop advancing on Moscow was likewise dictated by failure of the Army Group Centre to advance and major casualties sustained at Smolensk, which made it clear that without clearing flanks, the offensive isn't going to go any further.[/QUOTE]
There wasn't really any stalemate. The US gradually beefed up the support to the allies. The LL was enacted all the way back in early 1941. The US kept increasing shipments to allies, and started supplying the USSR, and established a security zone where they were escorting allied convoys. It was already a de-facto war.
Let me try this. Barbarossa failed because
1. Stalin could use patriotic spirit of Russian people to defend the Motherland.
2. Red army was prepared to fight in winter.
3. Soviet Union didn`t collapse despite the massive losses to manpower, material and land.
4. Red army had better tanks. For example, German shells couldn`t penetrate medium tank T34 let alone heavy KV-1.
5. Scorched earth policy: Russians relocated every factory out of Germans way so denied their access to the enemy and also that gave Russians fighting chance.
6. Individual red army peasant soldier genuinely hated Germans when it became clear what Germans wanted and how they treating their familie ns left behind.
7. Good timed Red army counter offensive at Battle of Moscow declared that the Red Army has stopped Barbarossa.
Really, all the reasons mentioned before always something to do with stupidity of Hitler or weather etc.
1. Stalin could use patriotic spirit of Russian people to defend the Motherland.
2. Red army was prepared to fight in winter.
3. Soviet Union didn`t collapse despite the massive losses to manpower, material and land.
4. Red army had better tanks. For example, German shells couldn`t penetrate medium tank T34 let alone heavy KV-1.
5. Scorched earth policy: Russians relocated every factory out of Germans way so denied their access to the enemy and also that gave Russians fighting chance.
6. Individual red army peasant soldier genuinely hated Germans when it became clear what Germans wanted and how they treating their familie ns left behind.
7. Good timed Red army counter offensive at Battle of Moscow declared that the Red Army has stopped Barbarossa.
Really, all the reasons mentioned before always something to do with stupidity of Hitler or weather etc.
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To add to that, from a Soviet standpoint, Stalingrad was a big deal as well. Every Soviet account of the Eastern Front mentions Stalingrad at some point. Even if they missed it and didn't fight until 1945 or something. It was a huge turning point for them morally.
Stalingrad, the city itself, was less critical than the Stalingrad area, the rail center and industrial hub of the south. Cutting off the city, and denying its advantages to the Soviets, was already a fairly big deal, and could have been accomplished properly if that was the focus. While Leningrad and Moscow were potentially more important, they were also more difficult for other reasons, and it wasn't practical to take them in 1941 without wearing down the German army significantly. The desperate push to take Moscow all but broke the Germans, and after that they were never able to muster the kind of impetus achieved in '41.
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Barbarossa failed because:
1 - The Soviet Union was bloody huge
2 - The Soviet Union has bloody awful weather
3 - The Soviet Union had a bloody massive army
And frankly, there was nothing Germany could do to address any of those points.
1 - The Soviet Union was bloody huge
2 - The Soviet Union has bloody awful weather
3 - The Soviet Union had a bloody massive army
And frankly, there was nothing Germany could do to address any of those points.
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