Delayed Barbarossa

[MattII]

Originally Posted by wiking

LL wasn't given to the Soviets until October due to the invasion and the likely chance of Soviet survival after the major losses of June-September and may not be if the British are not in the war when the invasion happens.

And why are you assuming that the Soviets will need LL? They'd have a whole extra year of uninterrupted farm and factory output, plus they can start moving some new designs into production.

And the longer the Germans have to build up. They will have a massive air force ready at the end of it, which was a major deficiency IOTL with Barbarossa; the Luftwaffe was only about the same size as it was during the invasion of France and was therefore not able to lay down the same intensity of effort as during the Blitzkrieg. The increased Luftwaffe support would offset a lot of the ground power of the Soviets, especially when the Red Air Force would be swept from the skies.

Yeah, nice try, but OTL the Soviet air force didn't have a whole lot of modern equipment when the invasion started, another year and it will have a load of modern stuff. Additionally, a lot of German equipment was built in response to what the Soviets hit them with, so they're not getting nearly as much as you'd think.

Here expect the Luftwaffe to be at least 4x as large in the East thanks to avoiding fighting anywhere but against the Soviets. Of course if the British are in the war then this is moot.

Meanwhile, expect a massive modernisation of the Soviet air-force and a massive jump in numbers.

Another factor people seem to missing is that the Soviets had serious issues with replacements while they were upgrading their units; serious issues with experience with the new equipment especially their new aircraft; serious issues with maintenance because their new vehicles did not have replacements, their mechanics did not have experience working with these new models, and the shoddy work the early versions of the T34 and early aircraft had because of the pressure to get them into the field. Also the huge expansion of Soviet forces also meant that they had vastly inexperienced formations, leaders, and supply issues from having to supply all of these new units and upgrade them. They were producing new, inexperienced and undertrained mechanics to service their expanding forces, which means they are not likely to be effective in their designated roles yet, which would help increase inservicability in their units. The Soviets lacked domestic sources of Avgas, so had to limit the amount of training their air forces could do and were in no way about to improve training into 1942 as they were still expanding their air force. Basically Soviet training, experience, and organization would still be terrible in 1942 as would logistics and servicability of their mechanical units.

Have you had a look at the mess that was the German logistics network? Plus of course, as I mentioned, the Germans are going to lack of what would prove to be essential equipment.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

1) The Allies weren't beaten in Norway on the seas, they killed the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet there for the duration of the war. They were beaten in Norway from poor organization, their weaponry was in 1940 superior to the Germans just as much as the T-34 was relative to 1941-2 Panzers. The problem with the Strategic Bombing Offensive argument is that the Butt Report indicated how much BS was in the argument that bombing broke Germany. If anything the Germans nearly broke Allied war effort and the absence or presence of the Luftwaffe didn't really do much on the Eastern Front.

I didn't say the Allies were beaten on the seas, they lost in the air and on the ground. The strategic bombing effort didn't break Germany, but it seriously hurt them and from 1944 crippled their war effort due to the destruction of logistics and synthetic oil production. The Germans were no where near breaking the Allied air war. Considering that over 12,000 AA guns and munitions for those guns were based in Germany with over 800k personnel manning them, it took a huge chunk of German effort to defend against the air raids, not to mention the huge drain on production caused by the dispersal of production, even underground, the diversion of resources to V-weapons that cost far more than they contributed, and the deaths of major numbers of workers, the loss of housing for those workers, and the destruction of factories which delayed production. The criticisms against the air campaign have been debunked in recent years.

The absence of the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front handed the Soviets the show and prevented the Germans from breaking up armored formations like they did in 1941-1942. Its no surprise that the Soviets did the best in the early years on the ground when the Luftwaffe was grounded by weather.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

It if anything tended to make Germany's job harder, such as at Stalingrad where it primarily gave the Red Army a lot of nice shelter thanks to Richtoften's bombing raid.

Yet it was Richthofen's bombers than made Fall Blau a great succes up to that point and the victory at Sevastopol possible. It was a mistake that time, but hardly invalidates the power of airpower as you are ignoring the literally hundreds of examples of air forces of all sides destroying armor in the open and making a victory for the ground forces possible.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The Germans also didn't have the resources or mental conceptions for a strategic air campaign, and if we judge by the ineffectiveness of the Allied campaign in 1941-4, then it's a pretty fair argument that the CBO didn't do anything until the ground troops were in a position to do what they needed. Air forces lied about this to justify their unnecessary existence, it was only a lie.

They certainly had the mental and doctrinal conceptions and also the material for a serious campaign. Goering fucked up the technology issue, as did his lackies, which meant that the German 4 engined bombers, all 1,200 of them, were incapable of seriously contributing to the war. No its not a fair argument that the CBO didn't do anything. In fact your argument has been scholarly debunked since the late 1990s. And its clear you haven't read the recent scholarship about the effects of airpower in WW2. Yes, clearly strategic bombing didn't end the war, but it had a major impact as did tactical and operational bombing. The pendulum swung too far in the other direction in criticizing airpower. The reality is far more nuanced. Yes it was impactful, but it was not a war winner on its own.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

2) Actually I'm pointing out the only reasons they did well at all in 1940, when by most reasonable analyses the French and British should have won that campaign in a matter of weeks. The Germans always faced enemies with superior numbers, and in 1940 an enemy with vastly superior quality of equipment. What they had as a counterbalance was enemy stupidity and their own willingness to gamble on the enemy being stupid. The Wehrmacht was never an invincible engine of destruction, it was a balky, limited force that survived on the inability of its enemies to recuperate a defeat on their borders.

No, it was the loss of control of the air that doomed the allies. The German army was only a component of warfighting in German doctrine. Alone it was shaky and limited; but it wasn't alone. The Luftwaffe had more resources directed at it than the Heer because it was so critical to German warfighting conceptions. Ignoring the airwar and its role gives an incredibly distorted view of the campaigns fought and why the played out as they did. A huge reason the Soviets and Allies were winning in 1944 was that the had control of the air and were bombing German logistics and armor units so much that they lost major effectiveness (not to mention the vast amounts of guerilla sabotage on every front the Germans were one that cost them valuable resources, fighting men, logistics, and time. Of course that was a strategic/political issue that was above the pay grade of the generals to influence). Yes the ground components of those campaigns were important too, but wouldn't have been as successful if the airwar was contested or the Germans had control. In fact German doctrine assumed control of the air to truly win a campaign, because without it its army was not designed/materially capable of fighting or winning large campaigns.

And no army in WW2 was every an invincible machine of destruction. Not the Soviets or US. Even today the US military isn't invincible, so of course the Germans, proportionally much weaker than the US armed forces of today by far, were not. I'm not claiming they were, but rather that you are narrowly focusing on one aspect of the war and claiming that the others didn't matter to its outcome and using that to state the Soviets were invincible to the Germans.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by MattII

And why are you assuming that the Soviets will need LL? They'd have a whole extra year of uninterrupted farm and factory output, plus they can start moving some new designs into production.

Because LL provided them with things they didn't have on their own, like Avgas, modern electronics, and heaps of raw materials like rubber that they didn't produce domestically. They already had all their new designs in production in 1941. Beyond the initial campaigns they had serious trouble early on producing everything they needed and were only able to OTL with massive material aid from the British and US.

Originally Posted by MattII

Yeah, nice try, but OTL the Soviet air force didn't have a whole lot of modern equipment when the invasion started, another year and it will have a load of modern stuff. Additionally, a lot of German equipment was built in response to what the Soviets hit them with, so they're not getting nearly as much as you'd think.

And guess what they didn't have a whole lot of experience with that equipment. ITTL they wouldn't either, which just like OTL they would end up crashing it, because once they left flight school they didn't get to fly to train in their units due to shortages of Avgas among other things. They just were churning out lots of pilots and mechanics, which meant that they had very little spare parts and experience with their new machines. Just add in heaps of new stuff without much training once they get it and throwing in new pilots constantly with new mechanics and its just as likely that like in OTL they new planes won't be serviceable when the campaign starts and their pilots will get slaughtered either through crashing their new equipment, of which the early models' quality was low thanks to the push to replace the old stuff regardless of manufacturing quality, through combat inexperience and lack of training, or just being overrun on the ground.

The modern stuff you are referring to is the tanks. Yes the Germans will be behind in tank technology, but they used their bombers to deal with tanks mostly, until they were forced to use their tanks for AT duty because the aircraft had to be used on other fronts. Aircraft-wise the Germans learned nothing from the Soviets and had much better aircraft and pilots. Also the Soviets will be behind in technology too, as they learned their T34s and airplanes were flawed when fighting the Germans. They lacked enough radios and the capacity to build all of the necessary ones, plus enough of the raw materials like copper, which had to be formed properly to use for communications.

Originally Posted by MattII

Meanwhile, expect a massive modernisation of the Soviet air-force and a massive jump in numbers.

See above. Numbers means very little as OTL 1941 demonstrated. The quality was very low and the inexperience with the new gear was pretty fatal IOTL 1941 for the Red Air Force.

Originally Posted by MattII

Have you had a look at the mess that is the German logistics network? Plus of course, as I mentioned, the Germans are going to lack of what would prove to be essential equipment.

Yeah, much is made of it, but what was the context? The Germans advanced too far too fast. Here they won't advance as fast or as far and will have massively improved logistics because of it. In fact I do have to give the Germans respect for the major efforts and successes in keeping up with their combat units logistically given the material constraints they were under and the shittiness of the planning of the General Staff/Hitler.

But the Soviet's logistics weren't pretty either. They had the major advantage of fighting deep in their own country for most of the war and could afford to be less diligent in that regard. Especially later on they had tons of help from the US in providing new trains, which the Soviets produced very little of during the war, hundreds of thousands of trucks and the fuel for them, and communications gear to run the rail lines (switching gear, light/signals, phones and phone wires etc.)

If the Germans make a serious effort to train bust and bomb logistic centers, which they did not do OTL, the Soviets would have a serious problem without LL, as they would either need to make the replacement gear themselves and cut production of war material, or do without. Not to mention the strain of fighting further West and having to deal with the increased distances and limited switching capabilities near the border.

[MattII]

Originally Posted by wiking

Because LL provided them with things they didn't have on their own, like Avgas, modern electronics, and heaps of raw materials like rubber that they didn't produce domestically. They already had all their new designs in production in 1941. Beyond the initial campaigns they had serious trouble early on producing everything they needed and were only able to OTL with massive material aid from the British and US.

OTL they'd lost a lot of their factories, so of course they couldn't produce everything.

And guess what they didn't have a whole lot of experience with that equipment. ITTL they wouldn't either, which just like OTL they would end up crashing it, because once they left flight school they didn't get to fly to train in their units due to shortages of Avgas among other things. They just were churning out lots of pilots and mechanics, which meant that they had very little spare parts and experience with their new machines. Just add in heaps of new stuff without much training once they get it and throwing in new pilots constantly with new mechanics and its just as likely that like in OTL they new planes won't be serviceable when the campaign starts and their pilots will get slaughtered either through crashing their new equipment, of which the early models' quality was low thanks to the push to replace the old stuff regardless of manufacturing quality, through combat inexperience and lack of training, or just being overrun on the ground.

Perhaps for the Red Air Force, but it's a lot harder to wreck a tank by crashing it into...oh hey, it's on the ground already. Of course, the Soviets will still lack experience, but will have better tools than the Germans, which will go some way towards alleviating that failing.

The modern stuff you are referring to is the tanks. Yes the Germans will be behind in tank technology, but they used their bombers to deal with tanks mostly, until they were forced to use their tanks for AT duty because the aircraft had to be used on other fronts. Aircraft-wise the Germans learned nothing from the Soviets and had much better aircraft and pilots. Also the Soviets will be behind in technology too, as they learned their T34s and airplanes were flawed when fighting the Germans. They lacked enough radios and the capacity to build all of the necessary ones, plus enough of the raw materials like copper, which had to be formed properly to use for communications.

Actually, it wasn't just tanks, they had virtually no self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank destroyers or self-propelled anti-aircraft guns either. All they did have in fact was tanks and armoured cars.

See above. Numbers means very little as OTL 1941 demonstrated. The quality was very low and the inexperience with the new gear was pretty fatal IOTL 1941 for the Red Air Force.

A lot of the Red Air Force was whacked or captured on the ground. with a tough Red Army a lot less are going to be captured.

Yeah, much is made of it, but what was the context? The Germans advanced too far too fast. Here they won't advance as fast or as far and will have massively improved logistics because of it. In fact I do have to give the Germans respect for the major efforts and successes in keeping up with their combat units logistically given the material constraints they were under and the shittiness of the planning of the General Staff/Hitler.

5 calibres of tank guns 9 of anti-tank guns, 5 of field, medium and heavy guns and 6 of AAA.

But the Soviet's logistics weren't pretty either. They had the major advantage of fighting deep in their own country for most of the war and could afford to be less diligent in that regard. Especially later on they had tons of help from the US in providing new trains, which the Soviets produced very little of during the war, hundreds of thousands of trucks and the fuel for them, and communications gear to run the rail lines (switching gear, light/signals, phones and phone wires etc.)

Oh hey, here's another point where you blatantly ignore the fact that the Soviets are going to have a lot more industry than OTL for at least a year longer.

If the Germans make a serious effort to train bust and bomb logistic centers, which they did not do OTL, the Soviets would have a serious problem without LL, as they would either need to make the replacement gear themselves and cut production of war material, or do without. Not to mention the strain of fighting further West and having to deal with the increased distances and limited switching capabilities near the border.

The Russians will be doing exactly the same though, because they'll have the aircraft for it (as well as the Il-2 they'll have the excellent Pe-2 and Tu-2 in reasonable service).

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

I didn't say the Allies were beaten on the seas, they lost in the air and on the ground. The strategic bombing effort didn't break Germany, but it seriously hurt them and from 1944 crippled their war effort due to the destruction of logistics and synthetic oil production. The Germans were no where near breaking the Allied air war. Considering that over 12,000 AA guns and munitions for those guns were based in Germany with over 800k personnel manning them, it took a huge chunk of German effort to defend against the air raids, not to mention the huge drain on production caused by the dispersal of production, even underground, the diversion of resources to V-weapons that cost far more than they contributed, and the deaths of major numbers of workers, the loss of housing for those workers, and the destruction of factories which delayed production. The criticisms against the air campaign have been debunked in recent years.

The absence of the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front handed the Soviets the show and prevented the Germans from breaking up armored formations like they did in 1941-1942. Its no surprise that the Soviets did the best in the early years on the ground when the Luftwaffe was grounded by weather.

This is all historical revisionism of a seriously flawed sort designed to make valid a concept that never has worked and never will work. Strategic bombing is a great big dud. It diverted the Luftwaffe......which didn't mean all that much in 1942, when the Allies accomplished nothing, in 1943 the Luftwaffe affected democracies and Soviets equally in terms of the war of armies. In 1944, by the time it meant something it was essentially Close-Air Support for both wings of the Allied advanced on a large scale. As a war-winner Strategic Bombing was as successful against Germany as it was against North Korea in Korea and North Vietnam in Vietnam.

Originally Posted by wiking

Yet it was Richthofen's bombers than made Fall Blau a great succes up to that point and the victory at Sevastopol possible. It was a mistake that time, but hardly invalidates the power of airpower as you are ignoring the literally hundreds of examples of air forces of all sides destroying armor in the open and making a victory for the ground forces possible.

Not really, Operation Blue was never going to be a success at any point at any time. There was no logistical basis to support it, it was always mounted on a shoestring. Most of its captures were empty space that resulted in it overextending itself in the Caucasus campaign, in the Stalingrad Campaign the Soviets succeeded in forcing the Germans to deplete their hard shell in the city and leave their logistical tail vulnerable. The successes in the initial phase were simultaneous with a marked Soviet increase in tactical ability, as there are no 1942 encirclement successes in Blue to compare with say, Minsk, Viazma, or Kiev.

Originally Posted by wiking

They certainly had the mental and doctrinal conceptions and also the material for a serious campaign. Goering fucked up the technology issue, as did his lackies, which meant that the German 4 engined bombers, all 1,200 of them, were incapable of seriously contributing to the war. No its not a fair argument that the CBO didn't do anything. In fact your argument has been scholarly debunked since the late 1990s. And its clear you haven't read the recent scholarship about the effects of airpower in WW2. Yes, clearly strategic bombing didn't end the war, but it had a major impact as did tactical and operational bombing. The pendulum swung too far in the other direction in criticizing airpower. The reality is far more nuanced. Yes it was impactful, but it was not a war winner on its own.


No, it was the loss of control of the air that doomed the allies. The German army was only a component of warfighting in German doctrine. Alone it was shaky and limited; but it wasn't alone. The Luftwaffe had more resources directed at it than the Heer because it was so critical to German warfighting conceptions. Ignoring the airwar and its role gives an incredibly distorted view of the campaigns fought and why the played out as they did. A huge reason the Soviets and Allies were winning in 1944 was that the had control of the air and were bombing German logistics and armor units so much that they lost major effectiveness (not to mention the vast amounts of guerilla sabotage on every front the Germans were one that cost them valuable resources, fighting men, logistics, and time. Of course that was a strategic/political issue that was above the pay grade of the generals to influence). Yes the ground components of those campaigns were important too, but wouldn't have been as successful if the airwar was contested or the Germans had control. In fact German doctrine assumed control of the air to truly win a campaign, because without it its army was not designed/materially capable of fighting or winning large campaigns.

And no army in WW2 was every an invincible machine of destruction. Not the Soviets or US. Even today the US military isn't invincible, so of course the Germans, proportionally much weaker than the US armed forces of today by far, were not. I'm not claiming they were, but rather that you are narrowly focusing on one aspect of the war and claiming that the others didn't matter to its outcome and using that to state the Soviets were invincible to the Germans.

No, Germany never had strategy in either World War. At a battlefield level the German army was very dangerous. German strategy never existed. You can't find one in the Kaiserreich's war, when Imperial Germany did rather better in that war than Nazi Germany ever managed in WWII. The Nazis had a feuding mishmash of overlapping bureaucracies whose strategy was attack enemy-kill enemy, if we can call it that.

Soviet victory in WWII was in the 1941-3 timeframe. Their reaching Berlin and the Elbe merely expanded on the scale of that victory and turned them from a Great Power into a superpower. What was not easy to foresee was that Lend-Lease would be such an effective power boost to the USSR by comparison to the Wehrmacht and Nazi Germany, given it was irrelevant for those first two years. The 1944 advances happened because in 1941-3 the Nazis lost any pretense of even a tactical initiative that could and would stick.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

This is all historical revisionism of a seriously flawed sort designed to make valid a concept that never has worked and never will work. Strategic bombing is a great big dud. It diverted the Luftwaffe......which didn't mean all that much in 1942, when the Allies accomplished nothing, in 1943 the Luftwaffe affected democracies and Soviets equally in terms of the war of armies. In 1944, by the time it meant something it was essentially Close-Air Support for both wings of the Allied advanced on a large scale. As a war-winner Strategic Bombing was as successful against Germany as it was against North Korea in Korea and North Vietnam in Vietnam.

What about it is flawed? That the Germans had to divert major resources away from the Eastern front? That the Germans had to disperse industry, making it more inefficient? That the Germans had to repair industry that had been bombed and stopped production? That the Germans lost their ability to move forces around in daylight in their own home country and lost the ability to produce fuel for their forces? Or that the German workers were dehoused by the British nightbombing campaigns from 1942-45, limiting the labor available for war work?

Strategic bombing claimed it could win the war itself, which it failed at. Still after the war the Germans stated flatly that they could have produced 35% more had it not been for the factors I just mentioned due to bombing. The loss of the Luftwaffe in the air war over Western Europe and its absence on the Eastern Front is a major reason the Germans did so poorly in 1942-45. It was not the only reason, but it let the Soviets gain air superiority and let them mass and operate large formations of all kinds without harassment, not to mention their logistics network was escaped any sort of destruction or harassment, especially after 1941. In this regard the air war over Germany had a major effect even as early as 1942. Of course so did the Mediterranean campaign with its diversion of resources and the need to defend against the British in 1941, which left only about 50% of the Luftwaffe available for Barbarossa in OTL 1941.

Strategic bombing is not a war winner, it is a force multiplier and enemy force divider. It damaged the German ability to apply anywhere near full production or apply their air force to other theaters as was critical to their doctrine. In that regard it was a major success and was hardly costly in terms of allied lives. In fact the invasion of France was impossible without the air war!

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Not really, Operation Blue was never going to be a success at any point at any time. There was no logistical basis to support it, it was always mounted on a shoestring. Most of its captures were empty space that resulted in it overextending itself in the Caucasus campaign, in the Stalingrad Campaign the Soviets succeeded in forcing the Germans to deplete their hard shell in the city and leave their logistical tail vulnerable. The successes in the initial phase were simultaneous with a marked Soviet increase in tactical ability, as there are no 1942 encirclement successes in Blue to compare with say, Minsk, Viazma, or Kiev.

Agreed, operation blue was a failure in conception, but the Germans defeated the Soviet armies in the field and drove them off, especially due to air superiority. This time the Soviets didn't sit still and fight, but rather ran, but what induced them to run was airpower and defeat in the field. Stalin was desperately ordering his forces to stay put, but they fled instead, much to the Soviets' benefit it turns out. But they didn't retreat out of a pre-planned defensive operation, rather it was spontaneous and unorganized. The failure to capture large formations wasn't a failure of the Germans in battle, but rather a function of the Soviets abandoning their equipment and running as fast and far as they could, meaning the Germans beat them badly.

The failure of the Germans plan however has nothing to do with the German ability to fight, but rather a shitty strategy that left them overextended and vulnerable due to Hitler and his sycophants planning and operating incredibly incompetently. This is more due to the German political structure than inherent German flaws, as it let the head of state also be the head of the military and the head of specific armies in the field. The pre-Hitler OkW had decent planning and leadership, but Hitler fired all of these men and replaced them with his sycophants.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

No, Germany never had strategy in either World War. At a battlefield level the German army was very dangerous. German strategy never existed. You can't find one in the Kaiserreich's war, when Imperial Germany did rather better in that war than Nazi Germany ever managed in WWII. The Nazis had a feuding mishmash of overlapping bureaucracies whose strategy was attack enemy-kill enemy, if we can call it that.

Yes it had strategies. Bad ones. Ones they changes. In WW1 and WW2.
The attrition strategy of Verdun, the last gasp peace offensive, the submarine offensive. All strategies of WW1, all failed, but all strategies.
WW2 was a different animal entirely, but again the Germans had strategies, they just failed and were changed very often. They did have some successful strategies too, like the one that beat France, defeated the Soviets on the border of Russia, crushed the Balkan states and so forth.
They lacked a strategy to defeat Britain, at least a consistent one that didn't change weekly. When they changed their strategies frequently or planned poorly or operated from and ideological view of the world they lost, but they did have some plans.

You're glossing over the planning that was actually done. It was very flawed in most cases or required the enemy to do exactly what they anticipated, but they did plan and operate in a semi-rational manner, though from a warped world view.
The Sickleschnitt was much more that just 'kill enemy kill'. If that did that then they would have lost.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Soviet victory in WWII was in the 1941-3 timeframe. Their reaching Berlin and the Elbe merely expanded on the scale of that victory and turned them from a Great Power into a superpower. What was not easy to foresee was that Lend-Lease would be such an effective power boost to the USSR by comparison to the Wehrmacht and Nazi Germany, given it was irrelevant for those first two years. The 1944 advances happened because in 1941-3 the Nazis lost any pretense of even a tactical initiative that could and would stick.

No 1941-1943 was about not losing the war. Winning the war was late 1943-45. It was pretty easy to see that LL was necessary to keep the Soviets in the game in 1941-1943. LL was pretty critical in late 1941 when over British goods filled in the major gaps created by the losses of June-September. Beyond that it gave the Soviets the opportunity to focus their production on certain areas and allowed the US and British to fill in the critical gaps like electronics, food above all, and just about everything to do with aviation (avgas, aluminum, avionics, etc.) not to mention the critical aids in transportation that really let the Soviets go full bore in 1943-1945. Even at that later part of the war the lack of transportation, the lack of bombing and diversion of German resources, the lack of avgas or aluminum, not to mention the radio gear and training they got from the British and US or certain critical raw material like formed copper wires for telephone lines could have serious hampered the Soviet ability to defeat the Germans and conquer their country. Not conquering Germany would have meant giving them the chance to recover and remain a threat. Superpower status was a side issue to winning the war and ending Germany as a threat to the Soviet Union.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by MattII

OTL they'd lost a lot of their factories, so of course they couldn't produce everything.

They didn't have the capacities I mentioned even before the invasion, so it wasn't the result of losing factories. Also the Soviets began evacuating factories before the Germans invaded, which meant that less than 20% of Soviet industry in areas the Germans captured were actually lost.

Originally Posted by MattII

Perhaps for the Red Air Force, but it's a lot harder to wreck a tank by crashing it into...oh hey, it's on the ground already. Of course, the Soviets will still lack experience, but will have better tools than the Germans, which will go some way towards alleviating that failing.

Yeah, that's why you use explosive AP rounds on locomotives, like the US did and the Germans did with their one train buster unit. It was remarkably effective and took a lot to repair. Plus it blocks the track for other trains until another locomotive can be brought out to tow the dead train cars off the tracks.

Again that lack of experience is not offset by new gear if they have no experience with that new gear. OTL Soviet pilots crashed their airplanes because they didn't know how to fly that new gear and the mechanics couldn't do proper maintinence on tanks or airplanes they didn't have spares for nor were familiar with due to that inexperience both of the new mechanics and because it was new gear.

Originally Posted by MattII

Actually, it wasn't just tanks, they had virtually no self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank destroyers or self-propelled anti-aircraft guns either. All they did have in fact was tanks and armoured cars.

Because doctrine had them relying on the Luftwaffe to provide all of the above. So long as the Luftwaffe is flying support none of it is necessary, which is why the Allied Air Offensive was so critical to Soviet success and it hurt the Germans to have half of their Luftwaffe on other fronts in June 1941.

Originally Posted by MattII

A lot of the Red Air Force was whacked or captured on the ground. with a tough Red Army a lot less are going to be captured.

If the Germans launch their offensive on the Soviets ITTL, how is it going to be very different?

Originally Posted by MattII

Oh hey, here's another point where you blatantly ignore the fact that the Soviets are going to have a lot more industry than OTL for at least a year longer.

Yeah, so what? That extra output is only in certain categories and is solely going to replacing old equipment. That means no spare parts are being produced and the mechanics are not familiar with it by the time they get it, nor are the combat troops, because the Soviets were putting off training for existing combat units while the majorly reformed their entire doctrine in 1941. Plus the winter weather and muddy seasons are not good training time either. That leaves the summer months for training, which they will not get as reorganization won't be done until the muddy season at the earliest, plus the major expansion of the military with tons of undertrained, inexperience raw recruits, NCOs, and officers, none of whom will have experience or training in operating as a unit or really training with their new equipment needs to be integrated into existing formations. By Spring the Germans are coming. Giving a bunch of untrained people weapons isn't going to make them effective at using those weapons or really fighting as an army.

Originally Posted by MattII

The Russians will be doing exactly the same though, because they'll have the aircraft for it (as well as the Il-2 they'll have the excellent Pe-2 and Tu-2 in reasonable service).

Really? The Red Air Force wasn't effective OTL until 1944-5. Their pilots had about 60 hrs of flight time in trainers if they were lucky and very little or none with the aircraft they would fly in combat. It showed. The Germans were able to score very high very quickly on the Eastern Front because the Soviets were so inexperience/untrained to actually fight. Even with an extra year the Soviets are still going to lack enough Avgas to train their pilots in their units and are still expanding their pilot programs, meaning that all the training and flying is actually happening in flight school with trainers, not with combat aircraft in units. 1942 is going to be very likely similar as 1941 in the air, regardless of the quality of the aircraft. The pilots aren't going to be well trained enough to fly them without crashing. It was the invasion and loss of the air force that forced the Soviets to start improving the quality of training and the influx of US Avgas that actually allowed them to afford more flight time in training. Oh and US aluminum that allowed for the Soviets to build up a massive airforce.

That and the rapid expansion of the new models means shoddy worksmanship at the factories, plus very limited spare parts, plus shitty mechanics means the Soviet serviceability is exceptionally low. Even if the Red Air Force survives, it will quickly be put out of action due to the dearth of spares and the inexperience of the flight crews with the new units to keep them airworthy.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

What about it is flawed? That the Germans had to divert major resources away from the Eastern front? That the Germans had to disperse industry, making it more inefficient? That the Germans had to repair industry that had been bombed and stopped production? That the Germans lost their ability to move forces around in daylight in their own home country and lost the ability to produce fuel for their forces? Or that the German workers were dehoused by the British nightbombing campaigns from 1942-45, limiting the labor available for war work?

Strategic bombing claimed it could win the war itself, which it failed at. Still after the war the Germans stated flatly that they could have produced 35% more had it not been for the factors I just mentioned due to bombing. The loss of the Luftwaffe in the air war over Western Europe and its absence on the Eastern Front is a major reason the Germans did so poorly in 1942-45. It was not the only reason, but it let the Soviets gain air superiority and let them mass and operate large formations of all kinds without harassment, not to mention their logistics network was escaped any sort of destruction or harassment, especially after 1941. In this regard the air war over Germany had a major effect even as early as 1942. Of course so did the Mediterranean campaign with its diversion of resources and the need to defend against the British in 1941, which left only about 50% of the Luftwaffe available for Barbarossa in OTL 1941.

Strategic bombing is not a war winner, it is a force multiplier and enemy force divider. It damaged the German ability to apply anywhere near full production or apply their air force to other theaters as was critical to their doctrine. In that regard it was a major success and was hardly costly in terms of allied lives. In fact the invasion of France was impossible without the air war!

All of it. The Germans did not have to devote significant resources in terms of aircraft until later in the war, in practical terms the primary role the CBO served was to boost the number of German aces for most of the time prior to that. What you say about Overlord is true, but that's not strategic so much as operational air support. Strategic bombing promised much and delivered nothing but a lot of dead people and blown up airplanes.

Originally Posted by wiking

Agreed, operation blue was a failure in conception, but the Germans defeated the Soviet armies in the field and drove them off, especially due to air superiority. This time the Soviets didn't sit still and fight, but rather ran, but what induced them to run was airpower and defeat in the field. Stalin was desperately ordering his forces to stay put, but they fled instead, much to the Soviets' benefit it turns out. But they didn't retreat out of a pre-planned defensive operation, rather it was spontaneous and unorganized. The failure to capture large formations wasn't a failure of the Germans in battle, but rather a function of the Soviets abandoning their equipment and running as fast and far as they could, meaning the Germans beat them badly.

The failure of the Germans plan however has nothing to do with the German ability to fight, but rather a shitty strategy that left them overextended and vulnerable due to Hitler and his sycophants planning and operating incredibly incompetently. This is more due to the German political structure than inherent German flaws, as it let the head of state also be the head of the military and the head of specific armies in the field. The pre-Hitler OkW had decent planning and leadership, but Hitler fired all of these men and replaced them with his sycophants.

No, they defeated them in the field and then the Soviets carried out a real strategic retreat for the first time. Their gains were primarily making the map red, not anything tactical or strategic. At Stalingrad Paulus was totally outgeneraled by Chuikov and Yeremenko, his army lost its mobility before Uranus and his abiilities to counter it were slim at best. You're making a claim that counters everything said by people like Glantz that actually studied the Soviet war. If you've evidence to show this, use it. Otherwise I'm going to chalk this up to the wankfest that passes for most "analysis" of this war.

Originally Posted by wiking

Yes it had strategies. Bad ones. Ones they changes. In WW1 and WW2.
The attrition strategy of Verdun, the last gasp peace offensive, the submarine offensive. All strategies of WW1, all failed, but all strategies.
WW2 was a different animal entirely, but again the Germans had strategies, they just failed and were changed very often. They did have some successful strategies too, like the one that beat France, defeated the Soviets on the border of Russia, crushed the Balkan states and so forth.
They lacked a strategy to defeat Britain, at least a consistent one that didn't change weekly. When they changed their strategies frequently or planned poorly or operated from and ideological view of the world they lost, but they did have some plans.

You're glossing over the planning that was actually done. It was very flawed in most cases or required the enemy to do exactly what they anticipated, but they did plan and operate in a semi-rational manner, though from a warped world view.
The Sickleschnitt was much more that just 'kill enemy kill'. If that did that then they would have lost.

It had no strategic planning whatsoever outside Hitler's brain farts. The generals and admirals deliberately turned this down, and the result is what you get: a micromanaging prick with generally put bad ideas being the only man in Germany willing to make a decision. And his decisions worked because his enemies were incompetent, not because he was good. Sichelsnitt was a success by a hair's width. Germany had no strategy, and what plans it had it no more adhered to the WWII versions than it did to the WWI versions.

Originally Posted by wiking

No 1941-1943 was about not losing the war. Winning the war was late 1943-45. It was pretty easy to see that LL was necessary to keep the Soviets in the game in 1941-1943. LL was pretty critical in late 1941 when over British goods filled in the major gaps created by the losses of June-September. Beyond that it gave the Soviets the opportunity to focus their production on certain areas and allowed the US and British to fill in the critical gaps like electronics, food above all, and just about everything to do with aviation (avgas, aluminum, avionics, etc.) not to mention the critical aids in transportation that really let the Soviets go full bore in 1943-1945. Even at that later part of the war the lack of transportation, the lack of bombing and diversion of German resources, the lack of avgas or aluminum, not to mention the radio gear and training they got from the British and US or certain critical raw material like formed copper wires for telephone lines could have serious hampered the Soviet ability to defeat the Germans and conquer their country. Not conquering Germany would have meant giving them the chance to recover and remain a threat. Superpower status was a side issue to winning the war and ending Germany as a threat to the Soviet Union.

1941-3 was about winning the war, not losing it. The Soviets had to destroy the strategic power of Nazi Germany, which they did in a gradual process amounting to the total destruction of Hitler's barbarian gangster horde. In 1941-3 the democracies played an ephemoral role outside their self-serving rewrites of history to gloss over how badly they failed at a tactical level and to claim grinding up two German divisions in North Africa was equal to the destruction of an entire German Army at Stalingrad.

The Soviets won their war in the first three years of it, their successes after the fact, thanks to Lend-Lease, were not so much victory as empire-creating. If defeating Germany was their chief purpose, Jhassy-Kishinev would have been a much smaller offensive intended to be a stopper to a German flank attack on the forces on the Vistula.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

All of it. The Germans did not have to devote significant resources in terms of aircraft until later in the war, in practical terms the primary role the CBO served was to boost the number of German aces for most of the time prior to that. What you say about Overlord is true, but that's not strategic so much as operational air support. Strategic bombing promised much and delivered nothing but a lot of dead people and blown up airplanes.

50% of the Luftwaffe was not on the Eastern front in June 1941. It just got worse from 1941 on. So yeah, pretty much from the get go the Germans were forced to divert major forces from the Eastern Front. The Overlord operation was only possible because the Luftwaffe had been attritted over Germany and France thanks to the CBO. The CBO killed about 600k German civilians and probably 100k+ more Axis allied civilians, not counting military forces killed and inflicted vast damage on Germany' infrastructure, oil production, and production overall. It did not deliver total victory, but was a major component in total victory, without which the Soviets would have been much much worse off.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

No, they defeated them in the field and then the Soviets carried out a real strategic retreat for the first time. Their gains were primarily making the map red, not anything tactical or strategic. At Stalingrad Paulus was totally outgeneraled by Chuikov and Yeremenko, his army lost its mobility before Uranus and his abiilities to counter it were slim at best. You're making a claim that counters everything said by people like Glantz that actually studied the Soviet war. If you've evidence to show this, use it. Otherwise I'm going to chalk this up to the wankfest that passes for most "analysis" of this war.

Care to provide a title and quote to that effect for my edification? What exactly am I saying that Glantz disagrees with?

I'm not contesting that Case Blue was a failure, but its conception was based on a plan to cripple the Soviets and aid Germany, though that was intensely flawed from conception to execution. Nevertheless the Germans still forced the Soviets to retreat when they were not wanting to, but rather because they had to to avoid destruction. Later when the Germans had ourrun their logistics and were balls deep in the Caucasus the Germans were pinned to the Volga and totally unable to respond, not so much because of being outgeneraled as much as following a plan far beyond their powers. Its funny that when the Germans misallocated their resources here you claim it was a Soviet success, but when the Western Allies did in 1940 'they beat themselves'.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

1941-3 was about winning the war, not losing it. The Soviets had to destroy the strategic power of Nazi Germany, which they did in a gradual process amounting to the total destruction of Hitler's barbarian gangster horde. In 1941-3 the democracies played an ephemoral role outside their self-serving rewrites of history to gloss over how badly they failed at a tactical level and to claim grinding up two German divisions in North Africa was equal to the destruction of an entire German Army at Stalingrad.

The Soviets won their war in the first three years of it, their successes after the fact, thanks to Lend-Lease, were not so much victory as empire-creating. If defeating Germany was their chief purpose, Jhassy-Kishinev would have been a much smaller offensive intended to be a stopper to a German flank attack on the forces on the Vistula.

http://www.amazon.com/Russias-Life-S...tt_at_ep_dpt_2
From Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the USSR in WW2
by Albert Weeks:

This is what Zhukov told about this, in an interview in the 1960s:

"Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. In an analysis of all facets of the
war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' [sic], we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided our front transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries."

Moreover, Zhukov underscored that `we entered war while still continuing to be a backward country in an industrial sense in comparison with Germany. Simonov's truthful recounting of these meetings with Zhukov, which took place in 1965 and 1966, are corraborated by the utterances of G. Zhukov, recorded as a result of eavesdropping by security organs in 1963:

"It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."

Check out Week's book, it demonstrates how dependent the Soviets were on LL to survive and ultimately drive out the Germans.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

50% of the Luftwaffe was not on the Eastern front in June 1941. It just got worse from 1941 on. So yeah, pretty much from the get go the Germans were forced to divert major forces from the Eastern Front. The Overlord operation was only possible because the Luftwaffe had been attritted over Germany and France thanks to the CBO. The CBO killed about 600k German civilians and probably 100k+ more Axis allied civilians, not counting military forces killed and inflicted vast damage on Germany' infrastructure, oil production, and production overall. It did not deliver total victory, but was a major component in total victory, without which the Soviets would have been much much worse off.

The Luftwaffe of OTL was only tactical, not strategic so it would have had impact only at the tactical, not strategic, level. IOTL Germans were still using 1939 airplanes in terms of propeller planes into the late part of the war, ITTL they'll still be doing that but the Soviets *will* be using more modern planes. Overlord was not possible due to the CBO, but due to Eisenhower essentially having to coerce by crude measures Harris and his US equivalents into doing this. The CBO leaders felt it beneath them to demean themselves by doing this.

Originally Posted by wiking

Care to provide a title and quote to that effect for my edification? What exactly am I saying that Glantz disagrees with?

I'm not contesting that Case Blue was a failure, but its conception was based on a plan to cripple the Soviets and aid Germany, though that was intensely flawed from conception to execution. Nevertheless the Germans still forced the Soviets to retreat when they were not wanting to, but rather because they had to to avoid destruction. Later when the Germans had ourrun their logistics and were balls deep in the Caucasus the Germans were pinned to the Volga and totally unable to respond, not so much because of being outgeneraled as much as following a plan far beyond their powers. Its funny that when the Germans misallocated their resources here you claim it was a Soviet success, but when the Western Allies did in 1940 'they beat themselves'.

That's because the scenarios are different. The Western Allies of 1940 did beat themselves. They acted under the assertion that the Axis, knowing they knew that the Axis intended to attack a certain way, would still adhere to that plan. Hitler changed his plan and won by a razor-thin margin. In 1942 the Germans had a bad plan, the Soviets actually orchestrated an organized retreat with Vasilevsky making it feasible for Stalin to approve it, and this was a major difference from 1941.

You're flat out wrong here.

Originally Posted by wiking

http://www.amazon.com/Russias-Life-S...tt_at_ep_dpt_2
From Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the USSR in WW2
by Albert Weeks:


Check out Week's book, it demonstrates how dependent the Soviets were on LL to survive and ultimately drive out the Germans.

The democracies told the Soviets Lend-Lease would only be a drop in the bucket in 1941, and they were correct. It was just as useful in 1942. I know it's a convenient myth that the almighty US economy saved the Soviets from themselves, but the USSR won their war before the Allies' coalition war mattered. It mattered to their abilities to execute their later-phase offensives, not the first stage of the war.

[Snake Featherston]

If we look at the practical reasons for initial success in Operation Blue the answers are threefold:

Second Kharkov, arguably the worst defeat for the USSR in the war, gave the Nazis a brief, near-total armored preponderance at a relatively cheap cost. This was amplified by overall Axis superiority of numbers, the second factor. This was a local superiority, but the reality is that the Germans outnumbered the Soviets, not the other way around. The last factor is that the Soviets (by which I mean Stalin) expected a renewed attack aimed at Moscow, making the inverse mistake from 1941. The reality behind Nazi victories was a very prosaic one. The reality of Soviet victories was that the Nazi plan was over-ambitious and launched on a shoestring. Reality ensued.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The Luftwaffe of OTL was only tactical, not strategic so it would have had impact only at the tactical, not strategic, level. IOTL Germans were still using 1939 airplanes in terms of propeller planes into the late part of the war, ITTL they'll still be doing that but the Soviets *will* be using more modern planes. Overlord was not possible due to the CBO, but due to Eisenhower essentially having to coerce by crude measures Harris and his US equivalents into doing this. The CBO leaders felt it beneath them to demean themselves by doing this.

The Luftwaffe was an operational air force. It had strategic and tactical elements and was constantly misused by Goering and Hitler after the initial, balance doctrine of Wever was abandoned by Jeschonnek in 1941. Goering fumbled the strategic bomber force thanks through Udet too, otherwise the Germans would have had a sizeable (500 aircraft) force at their disposal by 1942. Given the major changes to each German aircraft, it isn't exactly honest to say that they still had the 1939 models, as the radical changes basically made them pretty competitive. The Soviet replacement models weren't equivalent with the German in 1941.

I think you mistook what I meant about the CBO. It ground up the Luftwaffe over Germany, not by directly attacking it, but rather by forcing it to fight and be attritted above Europe. Plus the CBO had diverted the Luftwaffe from supporting ground operation since 1942 and was increasingly sucking in Luftwaffe resources, preventing them from doing what the Army badly needed them to do: support them on the Eastern Front.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

That's because the scenarios are different. The Western Allies of 1940 did beat themselves. They acted under the assertion that the Axis, knowing they knew that the Axis intended to attack a certain way, would still adhere to that plan. Hitler changed his plan and won by a razor-thin margin. In 1942 the Germans had a bad plan, the Soviets actually orchestrated an organized retreat with Vasilevsky making it feasible for Stalin to approve it, and this was a major difference from 1941.

You're flat out wrong here.

So the Germans attacking on a shoestring budget with a bad plan and limited ability to support their offensive was the Soviets beating them, not the Germans beating themselves and leaving the Soviets an open flank?

Care to provide a Glantz quote proving me wrong and demonstrating the Soviets had a retreat planned? A book and page number would be greatly appreciated.

Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War.
Antill, Peter (2007). Stalingrad 1942.
Beevor, Antony (1999). Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942–1943.
Glantz, David M.; Jonathan M. House (2009). To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April–August 1942

All of these seem to disagree that the Soviets had a retreat planned; in fact they claim the Soviets thought the Germans were planning to attack Moscow and shifted the bulk of their forces there.

http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Stalingr...6358119&sr=8-4
From a review of Glantz:

Glantz, a veritable book producing factory, has definitely set a new standard in literature on Stalingrad. This book, the first of three, follows the Wehrmacht after the Moscow-Counter offensive of 1941/1942 through the Soviet Kharkov offensive and into Operation Blau. In doing so Glantz aims to establish three facts that have been glossed over in general histories of both the Eastern Front and the battle for Stalingrad specifically: Soviet forces did not simply retreat when confronted with Army Groups South, and after Army Groups A and B, to take the fight to Stalingrad, as if pre-planned; STAVKA did not abandon the Donbas region to preserve its forces; and the Red Army soldiers that the Sixth army finally met inside Stalingrad were not the same troops who retreated throughout the summer and finally decided, or were forced, to stand and fight. In reality the Red Army put up resistance to German advances from day one. Glantz takes the time to go through many of these operations and point out exactly how much damage Soviet troops were able to inflict on the Wehrmacht and why the Germans were still able to overcome forces that more often than not outnumbered them in either men, artillery, or armor, and sometimes in all three categories. Of personal interest to myself was the chapter on Army Group A's incursion into the Caucasus region. This is an entire campaign long ignored due to the limelight Stalingrad encompasses.

In the end it seems the Red Army was still committing mistakes they should have learned from in 1941; piecemeal attacks by mechanized and tank forces, lack of command and control in the field, failure to institute combined arms operations utilizing artillery, tanks, infantry, engineers, and the air force, etc. The Germans, however, are also guilty in that they once more overestimated their abilities and underestimated that of the Red Army. The final result is a detailed and highly needed study that not only provides context to the eventual clash that occurred in Stalingrad, but also highlights the actions that led up to the battle and the many battles, and even campaigns, that have gone long ignored due to Stalingrad's ever growing shadow.

Totally contradicts what you are claiming Glantz says. Feel free to provide a quote that supports your claims.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The democracies told the Soviets Lend-Lease would only be a drop in the bucket in 1941, and they were correct. It was just as useful in 1942. I know it's a convenient myth that the almighty US economy saved the Soviets from themselves, but the USSR won their war before the Allies' coalition war mattered. It mattered to their abilities to execute their later-phase offensives, not the first stage of the war.

Yeah, the US didn't want the Germans to capture the LL materials when the Soviets fell, so purposely held back aid until October 1941. Of course they told the Soviets they were only going to give them a little in 1941. The British of course gave the majority of their aid in 1941 and 1942 to make up for this and keep the Soviets in the war. The material aid in food alone saved the Soviet Union IOTL. Also the explosives, raw materials, etc. all made Soviet victory possible. Pick up that book I mentioned in my last post that cites the Zhukov interview; it wasn't just a myth that LL saved the Soviets. It actually did.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

If we look at the practical reasons for initial success in Operation Blue the answers are threefold:

Second Kharkov, arguably the worst defeat for the USSR in the war, gave the Nazis a brief, near-total armored preponderance at a relatively cheap cost. This was amplified by overall Axis superiority of numbers, the second factor. This was a local superiority, but the reality is that the Germans outnumbered the Soviets, not the other way around. The last factor is that the Soviets (by which I mean Stalin) expected a renewed attack aimed at Moscow, making the inverse mistake from 1941. The reality behind Nazi victories was a very prosaic one. The reality of Soviet victories was that the Nazi plan was over-ambitious and launched on a shoestring. Reality ensued.

From the review of Glantz above.

[I]Glantz takes the time to go through many of these operations and point out exactly how much damage Soviet troops were able to inflict on the Wehrmacht and why the Germans were still able to overcome forces that more often than not outnumbered them in either men, artillery, or armor, and sometimes in all three categories.

Seems like you are mistaken.

Also from another review of the book:

Another important aspect covered concerns Stalin's fortifying the Bryansk Front with new tank corps that would put pressure on the German advance to Stalingrad or to block the way to Moscow if Paulus turned north at the Don River. There is an extensive accompanying table of troop disposition for both sides that shows the Soviets greatly outnumbered their enemy in tanks in this sector.

And yet the Soviets weren't able to stop the advance until the Germans stopped due to logistics issues.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

The Luftwaffe was an operational air force. It had strategic and tactical elements and was constantly misused by Goering and Hitler after the initial, balance doctrine of Wever was abandoned by Jeschonnek in 1941. Goering fumbled the strategic bomber force thanks through Udet too, otherwise the Germans would have had a sizeable (500 aircraft) force at their disposal by 1942. Given the major changes to each German aircraft, it isn't exactly honest to say that they still had the 1939 models, as the radical changes basically made them pretty competitive. The Soviet replacement models weren't equivalent with the German in 1941.

I think you mistook what I meant about the CBO. It ground up the Luftwaffe over Germany, not by directly attacking it, but rather by forcing it to fight and be attritted above Europe. Plus the CBO had diverted the Luftwaffe from supporting ground operation since 1942 and was increasingly sucking in Luftwaffe resources, preventing them from doing what the Army badly needed them to do: support them on the Eastern Front.

Yes, in 1944, when it was working as glorified close-air support. The CBO leaders did not want fighters like the P-51. They did not want to close the air gap in the Atlantic. Eisenhower had to do the bureaucratic version of the rack and thumbscrews to get them to help Overlord. They were myopically focused on one variety of war, and what they delivered did as much harm to Germany as it did to North Korea and North Vietnam.

Originally Posted by wiking

So the Germans attacking on a shoestring budget with a bad plan and limited ability to support their offensive was the Soviets beating them, not the Germans beating themselves and leaving the Soviets an open flank?

Care to provide a Glantz quote proving me wrong and demonstrating the Soviets had a retreat planned? A book and page number would be greatly appreciated.

Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War.
Antill, Peter (2007). Stalingrad 1942.
Beevor, Antony (1999). Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942–1943.
Glantz, David M.; Jonathan M. House (2009). To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April–August 1942

All of these seem to disagree that the Soviets had a retreat planned; in fact they claim the Soviets thought the Germans were planning to attack Moscow and shifted the bulk of their forces there.

http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Stalingr...6358119&sr=8-4
From a review of Glantz:


Totally contradicts what you are claiming Glantz says. Feel free to provide a quote that supports your claims.

14
More significantly, the German advance failed to duplicate the massive prisoner hauls of the previous year.

Stalinand Timoshenko had learned from their mistakes, and on 6 July, the
Stavka wisely directed the Southwestern and Southern Fronts to conduct a strategic retreat, rather than to stand and fight. Some formations were trapped, particularlyaround Millerovo (9th and 38th Armies) and north of Rostov (elements of 12th and 18th Armies). On 20 July, Hitlervirtually halted his advance at Rostov in order to seal the encirclement. Moreover, some of the newly organized andpoorly equipped Soviet troops surrendered too easily. On the whole, however, most of the defending armies escaped theinitial German thrusts. During the first three weeks of fighting, for example, Army Group A took only 54,000 prisoners.

From Glantz's chapter on Stalingrad in When Titans Clashed. I now expect you'll find a means to claim that the explicit words "Strategic retreat" don't mean what they actually mean, as that's been my experience when these demands are made.

Originally Posted by wiking

Yeah, the US didn't want the Germans to capture the LL materials when the Soviets fell, so purposely held back aid until October 1941. Of course they told the Soviets they were only going to give them a little in 1941. The British of course gave the majority of their aid in 1941 and 1942 to make up for this and keep the Soviets in the war. The material aid in food alone saved the Soviet Union IOTL. Also the explosives, raw materials, etc. all made Soviet victory possible. Pick up that book I mentioned in my last post that cites the Zhukov interview; it wasn't just a myth that LL saved the Soviets. It actually did.

Incorrect, the USA wasn't able fully to equip its own troops, let alone additionally provide Soviet logistics in 1941. But I expect that the reality of what I'm arguing, that the Soviets defeated Hitler by themselves and conquered half of Europe with Lend-Lease will once again be neglected so people can claim democracy saved Communism when democracy was regularly getting slapped around and as yet not fully able to equip the armies it was raising in its own war. There is a reason democratic armies made no significant actual fighting until the fall of 1942.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

And yet the Soviets weren't able to stop the advance until the Germans stopped due to logistics issues.

Sigh, the Germans had a local superiority of numbers due to Soviet concentration of troops. Local superiority and enough to take Stalingrad and with it the Volga and the Caucasus was not enough. Logistics was only part of the problem, the sheer mass of territory involved was a bigger part. If we're not agreed on basic realities of the Operation Blue framework that are in almost any basic WWII history of this campaign, general or otherwise, then frankly I have no interest in humoring another 67th Tigers type who wants to talk up something that never happened.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

14
More significantly, the German advance failed to duplicate the massive prisoner hauls of the previous year.

Stalinand Timoshenko had learned from their mistakes, and on 6 July, the
Stavka wisely directed the Southwestern and Southern Fronts to conduct a strategic retreat, rather than to stand and fight. Some formations were trapped, particularlyaround Millerovo (9th and 38th Armies) and north of Rostov (elements of 12th and 18th Armies). On 20 July, Hitlervirtually halted his advance at Rostov in order to seal the encirclement. Moreover, some of the newly organized andpoorly equipped Soviet troops surrendered too easily. On the whole, however, most of the defending armies escaped theinitial German thrusts. During the first three weeks of fighting, for example, Army Group A took only 54,000 prisoners.

From Glantz's chapter on Stalingrad in When Titans Clashed. I now expect you'll find a means to claim that the explicit words "Strategic retreat" don't mean what they actually mean, as that's been my experience when these demands are made.

Apparently Glantz reverses himself in "To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942", which primarily focuses this exact subject, not an overview of the Eastern Front like "When Titans Clashed".

Its pretty much one of the major theses of "To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942" that the Soviets didn't try and conduct a strategic retreat, but rather stand and fought with superior numbers to the German attackers and lost.

Frankly I'm more inclined to trust the specialist volume on the subject of Case Blue rather than an overview book of the history of the Eastern Front. And it doesn't speak well of Glantz that he takes two different positions in two different books though.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Incorrect, the USA wasn't able fully to equip its own troops, let alone additionally provide Soviet logistics in 1941. But I expect that the reality of what I'm arguing, that the Soviets defeated Hitler by themselves and conquered half of Europe with Lend-Lease will once again be neglected so people can claim democracy saved Communism when democracy was regularly getting slapped around and as yet not fully able to equip the armies it was raising in its own war. There is a reason democratic armies made no significant actual fighting until the fall of 1942.

Except the US wasn't about providing its forces with raw materials, which were the critical factor to the Soviets. That and food. The US had plenty of both to give the Soviets without hurting the US army.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Sigh, the Germans had a local superiority of numbers due to Soviet concentration of troops. Local superiority and enough to take Stalingrad and with it the Volga and the Caucasus was not enough. Logistics was only part of the problem, the sheer mass of territory involved was a bigger part. If we're not agreed on basic realities of the Operation Blue framework that are in almost any basic WWII history of this campaign, general or otherwise, then frankly I have no interest in humoring another 67th Tigers type who wants to talk up something that never happened.

Where exactly? The Soviets had more troops in the Ukraine even with the German concentration of men for the offensive. How local are we going? I'm sure that the Germans did concentrate more men in certain places, but in the campaign area in late June the Southwestern front outnumbered army group A and B

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by wiking

Except the US wasn't about providing its forces with raw materials, which were the critical factor to the Soviets. That and food. The US had plenty of both to give the Soviets without hurting the US army.

None of those were in quantity to affect the fighting in one way or the other until after Kursk, by which point Germany lost even the self-delusion of winning the war with the Soviets.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

None of those were in quantity to affect the fighting in one way or the other until after Kursk, by which point Germany lost even the self-delusion of winning the war with the Soviets.

http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/SovLendLease.html

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtop...85017&start=15

There is more than one way of looking at Lend-Lease. The Soviet Union, as can be expected from a country with a strong sense of nationalism, minimizes the effect that Lend Lease had on the outcome of the war, and points to its own enormous sacrifices and archivements as being the deciding factor in defeating Germany.

I recommend Albert Weeks' book, "Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II". It is the most definitive study on the effect of Lend Lease on the Soviet's ability to conduct the war. Much of his book is based upon the Russian archival research work of two courageous Russian historians, Boris Sokolov and Alla Poperno, who peeled back the Soviet-enforced silence on this subject within Russia.

There had been a systematic attempt by the Soviets to portray Lend-Lease as being somewhat helpful but far from decisive. This has been largely accepted as being a fact, even in the West. In his book, Weeks outlines the true scope of Lend Lease aid and its implications on Russia's ability to fight the war. With the help of the research of the two Russian historians, he makes the case that the Lend Lease aid was of absolutely decisive importance.

Some of the following facts need to be restated:

Russian foot soldiers were mainly wearing American-made boots (over 15 million pairs supplied) in the latter part of the war.

The Russian air force was flying primarily on US-supplied aviation gasoline.

Over 92% of Soviet wartime delivered locomotives (about 2,000) and other rail equipment (freight cars, rails, ties, switching equipment, etc) were supplied by the Allies.

The USA supplied over 14,000 aircraft to the Soviets, including over 6,000 very useful Airocobras and King Cobras, along with about 3,000 capable P-40's. Over 3,000 highly effective A-20 and B-25 medium bombers also made it to Russia. Large numbers of British-supplied Spitfires and Hurricanes fought over Russia as well. Sokolov clams that Allied-supplied aircraft actually made up 30% of the Red Air force total!

Of the over 7,000 US tanks supplied to Russia, over 3,000 were Shermans. About 1800 of these had the 76mm gun. Reading the memoirs of the famous Russian tank commander, Dmitriy Loza, in his drive through Eastern Europe, these later Shermans were valued every bit as much as a T-34 by their crews. Early in the war, estimates put the Soviet tank strength during the Moscow counter-offensive as being about 30% British. Admittedly British tanks were a far cry from the T-34, but these were in very short supply at that time.

A substantial portion of medium anti-aircraft guns (40mm) were supplied by the USA as well (about 5,000).

The Russians were notoriously lacking in modern communications equipment. Approximately 1,000,000 miles of telephone cables, 35,000 radio stations, 40,000 field radios, 380,000 field telephones, and 1400 radar sets, were sent to Russia to remedy this situation.

Since all Russian tractor factories were producing tanks, the Americans found the time to deliver over 8,000 tractors to the Soviets. Kind of hard to plow field without them, so without it the Soviet would have a hard time feeding themselves

Most of the Russian explosives factories were located in the Ukraine (Donets Basin) and so were overrun by the Germans. To compensate for this, Lend-Lease supplied 317,900 tons of explosive materials. Soviet production is claimed to be approximately 600,000 tons. The Allies supplied over 103,000 tons of toluene, also known as TNT. Soviet production is said to have totalled about 116,000 tons. The huge Russian artillery barrages that so devastated the Germans in the later stages of the war would have been much smaller without Allied munitions supplies. After researching Russian archives, Sokolov estimates that 53% of all Soviet munitions were supplied by Lend Lease.

Vast quantities of machine tools were also supplied (over 100,000), greatly facilitating the production miracle in the relocated Soviet factories. The manufacturing hours of the famous ZiS-3 76mm gun were reduced from 3700 machine hours to 475 hours, to a large part due to sophisticated new machine tools obtained through lend-lease.

The Soviets received 350,000 tons of Lend Lease aluminum. It has been estimated that this allowed the Soviets to manufacture over twice as many aircraft as they would have without this metal. 80.3% of the aluminum in T-34 production was supplied by Lend Lease.

Also delivered were 2,300,000 tons of steel, 802,000 tons of noniron metals, 2,670,000 tons of Petroleum products, 842,000 tons of Chemicals 106,000,000 tons of Cotton, over 50,000 tons of wool, over 50,000 tons of leather, and almost 4,000,000 tires and 114,000 tons of rubber. Hundeds of other items were supplied in substantial quantities as well...and I have still not gotten to the main product that almost everyone points to as being the most important.

....That is the over 350,000 1.5 and 2.5 ton high quality American trucks and over 50,000 jeeps that were also supplied.

Russian soldiers sarcastically labelled Spam and other products like it "2nd front". There is a lot of truth in this. They paid in blood while the allies paid mostly in material. However looking at the above totals, it is impossible to minimize the impact of Lend Lease on the Red Army.

Lend Lease allowed the Russians to concentrate on building tanks, artillery, small arms and aircraft in great quantities, and let supplies from American and Britain fill in the very substantial cracks.

Conventional wisdom is that native Soviet productive capacity simply overwhelmed Germany. That it was at levels that the Germans could not match. The raw numbers of tanks, guns and aircraft are impressive, but the truth was that Germany produced 4 times the amount of coal and 3 times the amount of steel that the Soviet Union did during the war. Weeks and Sokolov argue that Lend Lease is what allowed Russia to use their limited resources with extreme effectiveness.

I'll conclude with the following quotations:

Sokolov, the Russian historian stated:

“On the whole, the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western Shipments under Lend–Lease, the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins (FDR’s emissary to Moscow in July 1941) that the USSR could not match Germany’s might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.”

...and finally...one more.

“When we entered the war, we were still a backward country in the industrial sense as compared to Germany…..Today (in 1963), some say the Allies really didn’t help us… But, listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us materiel without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war…We did not have enough munitions, and how would we have been able to turn out all those tanks without the rolled steel sent to us by the Americans? To believe what they say (in the USSR) today, you’d think we had all this in abundance!”

- March G. K. Zhukov


....figures supplied here are primarily from Albert Weeks' book "Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II".

[ObssesedNuker]

If the Germans wait a year, they'll be smashed. We've covered this again and again... the Soviet reforms were set to be largely finished by 1942, while MP-41 would have been finished and have replaced MP-40. Soviet forces would be modernized, deployed-in-depth, and recieved all the necessary trucks that they were lacking in '41. Any German improvements will be negligible... using a somewhat arbitrary numerical comparison, the Soviets will be going from a 5 to a 10 while the Germans go from a 10 to an 11 or 12.

I also don't get where this whole thing about aviation gas is coming from. IOTL, the Soviets got alot out of lend-lease because the German invasion had devestated almost all of their agriculture, industry, and infrastructure west of Moscow. But in a Barbarossa '42, halting the Germans in the border regions would mean all of that industrial strength is still available. The Soviets won't need lend-lease as much because they have not been hurt as much... so yes, they will be able to make their own aviation fuel.

EDIT: As a single example of Soviet modernization, here is what the Soviets on the course to manufacturing by Spring of 1942 in terms of armored combat vehicles alone:

By this time [1942] soviets would have:
1. Around 100-200 KV-3 super-heavies with 107 mm ZiS-6 long-barreled gun (they slow as hell and prone to mechanical breakdowns but solid)
2. Several hundreds of T-34M/A-43 (torsion-bar suspension. commander cupola, three-manned turret, 60 mm sloped frontal armor) and more rolling from factories monthly.
3. Maybe 1000 or so T-50 light tanks (45 mm sloped armor, three man turret with cupola and 45/57 mm gun)
4. Close to 2-2.5 thousands of T-34 in active duty with proficient crews and adequate ammo supply.
5. Probably, several thousands of more modern BT tanks will be uparmored to 30 mm frontal armor.

Also they would have around 15-20 combat-ready mechanized corps (instead 10 in june 1941) with streamlined organization after autumn-winter maneuvers.

Stalin's* Line will be almost completed, armed and camouflaged. In the spring of 1941 began the mass reconstruction of airfields in the three special military districts. So 1942 most of soviet airforce will be dispersed around greater number of locations with far better infrastructure.

*He is actually referring to the Molotov Line, just got it confused with the earlier and defunct-Stalin line.

[wiking]

Originally Posted by ObssesedNuker

If the Germans wait a year, they'll be smashed. We've covered this again and again... the Soviet reforms were set to be largely finished by 1942, while MP-41 would have been finished and have replaced MP-40. Soviet forces would be modernized, deployed-in-depth, and recieved all the necessary trucks that they were lacking in '41. Any German improvements will be negligible... using a somewhat arbitrary numerical comparison, the Soviets will be going from a 5 to a 10 while the Germans go from a 10 to an 11 or 12.

I also don't get where this whole thing about aviation gas is coming from. IOTL, the Soviets got alot out of lend-lease because the German invasion had devestated almost all of their agriculture, industry, and infrastructure west of Moscow. But in a Barbarossa '42, halting the Germans in the border regions would mean all of that industrial strength is still available. The Soviets won't need lend-lease as much because they have not been hurt as much... so yes, they will be able to make their own aviation fuel.

So much of this discussion is scenario dependent. If the British are still in the war, then the Germans are screwed, because they will not be able to bring much more power to bear in 1942. They are greatly disadvantaged and probably will lose quicker, especially when LL kicks in and it will even sooner ITTL.

If the British are out, then the Germans have major improvements in their power thanks to having access to the world markets, being able to use all of their forces, especially the Luftwaffe against the Soviets, and can use gas, which they had a massive advantage in. LL is out and the Germans can utilize the full economies of conquered European nations to pad their own output, something they couldn't do OTL due to the British blockade cutting off the French and others from obtaining raw materials for their industries.

So we should figure out what the scenario is exactly to have an honest discussion about what is actually going on ITTL.

Oh and the Avgas thing is from the Soviets lacking the capacity to produce their own in large amounts in 1941 pre-invasion. ITTL 1942 the situation is pretty much the same even without the invasion, as the refining was outside the areas the Germans captured IOTL anyway.

Originally Posted by ObssesedNuker

EDIT: As a single example of Soviet modernization, here is what the Soviets on the course to manufacturing by Spring of 1942 in terms of armored combat vehicles alone:



*He is actually referring to the Molotov Line, just got it confused with the earlier and defunct-Stalin line.

Source?

[ObssesedNuker]

Originally Posted by wiking

So much of this discussion is scenario dependent. If the British are still in the war, then the Germans are screwed, because they will not be able to bring much more power to bear in 1942. They are greatly disadvantaged and probably will lose quicker, especially when LL kicks in and it will even sooner ITTL.

In military terms? No, not at all. During Barbarossa, the British only consumed a fraction of German attention and the assets needed to fight Britain were very much different from what was needed to fight the Soviet Union.

Also, if Britain is out of the war, then the Soviets will be even more ready then they already are. Stalin won't have the delusion that Hitler won't risk a two-front war because if the British are out then an attack on the Soviet Union won't mean a two-front war. So not only will Hitler be attacking a reformed Red Army, but also an alerted one.

If the British are out, then the Germans have major improvements in their power thanks to having access to the world markets,

The Germans do not have the time to make any significant improvements. Again: 10 to 11 while the Soviets go 5 to 10.

being able to use all of their forces, especially the Luftwaffe against the Soviets,

On the Eastern Front, those additional forces do not noticeably alter the numbers.

and can use gas, which they had a massive advantage in.

That would be counter-productive. Chemical weapons do not mesh well with manuever warfare as the Germans will have to advance over the areas they just gassed. The Soviets also have their own gas stocks which, while not as sophisticated are still just as large.

LL is out and the Germans can utilize the full economies of conquered European nations to pad their own output, something they couldn't do OTL due to the British blockade cutting off the French and others from obtaining raw materials for their industries.

Raw materials which they got from the Soviets anyways.

Oh and the Avgas thing is from the Soviets lacking the capacity to produce their own in large amounts in 1941 pre-invasion.

Which is why their air force was still able to sortie their aircraft even before lend-lease was extended to them in October and lend-lease material didn't start arriving in significant quantities until January, right?

Source?

I was actually quoting myself, quoting another forum:

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threa...2#post-6960327

You'll have to ask him where he got it from, but it fits with the scale of the Soviet modernization program.