What if the Germans in 1942 only seized Stalingrad in 1942 and did not go south.

During the German summer offensive of 1942 what if the Germans only
seized Stalingrad earlier and did not invade southern Caucasus area. That is the 1. Panzer Army & 17. Army stayed north of the Don river and the 11. Army was held as a reserve, instead of being sent to Leningrad? What would be the consequences?

Stalingrad was not a strategical target for the Germans, but mostly a political one. The goal of the german advance into the Kaukassus and Black Sea region were the oilfoelds of that erea and the rich resources for both industry and agriculture. Stalingrad was Hitler's personal thing, simply because of the name refering to the leader of the USSR, who was his personal foe.

Anarmath said:

During the German summer offensive of 1942 what if the Germans only
seized Stalingrad earlier and did not invade southern Caucasus area. That is the 1. Panzer Army & 17. Army stayed north of the Don river and the 11. Army was held as a reserve, instead of being sent to Leningrad? What would be the consequences?

Click to expand...

Quite the opposite suggestion is more likely. Leaving Stalingrad alone and attacking only Caucasus makes a little more sense than sending forces on two divergent axis of advance. Still doomed to fail, perhaps even more catastrophically if Germans do 'better' in a sense of plunging themselves even deeper into Caucasus. Then, perhaps Soviet counter strike might cut off the supply lines capturing Rostov and it is game over for them.

Had Hitler ignored the name Stalingrad on the map
the Wehrmacht had advance into the Caspian Sea region were the oilfields of Baku lies.
here the Wehrmacht had cut off the soviet, there supply of Oil and Gasoline.
it could this left the Red Army with out fuel for there cars, tanks and aircraft ?

Michel Van said:

Had Hitler ignored the name Stalingrad on the map
the Wehrmacht had advance into the Caspian Sea region were the oilfields of Baku lies.
here the Wehrmacht had cut off the soviet, there supply of Oil and Gasoline.
it could this left the Red Army with out fuel for there cars, tanks and aircraft ?

Click to expand...

In the long term perhaps. Still, for a few more months, Soviets would have more than enough to fight.

HMS Warspite said:

Stalingrad was not a strategical target for the Germans, but mostly a political one. The goal of the german advance into the Kaukassus and Black Sea region were the oilfoelds of that erea and the rich resources for both industry and agriculture. Stalingrad was Hitler's personal thing, simply because of the name refering to the leader of the USSR, who was his personal foe.

Click to expand...

The Volga was. If the Germans control a long stretch of the Volga, it is much harder for the USSR to move oil from the South and Lend-Lease from Persian ports. It is also the final eastern border of the Greater Reich.

Stalingrad was a sound objective. The Volga is wide and makes a good defensive line. By cutting off the oil to the south, they can deny the USSR strategic mobility in the 1943. So if the Volga line can be held over the counterattack over the winter by the additional reserves the Germans hold, then the Germans will be the only one with major tank offensives after 1943. Simply the benefit of after Kursk-type battle the Russians not being able to launch an armor counter attack is huge. Same for the 1944 offensive. Success here will extend the war by at least a year. And there is a possibility that with fewer oil resources available, the German summer offensive in 1943 could work.

While the fighting spirit and reserves of the Soviets is legendary, it is not unlimited. And with the right butterflies, we have to talk about will Russia be in the war by the time D-Day occurs.

The Germans then leave themselves exposed north and south to flank attacks and in an obvious trap where the encirclement and destruction of Army Group South is concerned.

BlondieBC said:

The Volga was. If the Germans control a long stretch of the Volga, it is much harder for the USSR to move oil from the South and Lend-Lease from Persian ports. It is also the final eastern border of the Greater Reich.

Stalingrad was a sound objective. The Volga is wide and makes a good defensive line. By cutting off the oil to the south, they can deny the USSR strategic mobility in the 1943. So if the Volga line can be held over the counterattack over the winter by the additional reserves the Germans hold, then the Germans will be the only one with major tank offensives after 1943. Simply the benefit of after Kursk-type battle the Russians not being able to launch an armor counter attack is huge. Same for the 1944 offensive. Success here will extend the war by at least a year. And there is a possibility that with fewer oil resources available, the German summer offensive in 1943 could work.

While the fighting spirit and reserves of the Soviets is legendary, it is not unlimited. And with the right butterflies, we have to talk about will Russia be in the war by the time D-Day occurs.

Click to expand...

The Volga, yes. Stalingrad and its particular portion of it, not necessarily. That is a rather small region to cram in the entire striking force of the drive to the south, and if the Germans just go there and stop, the Soviets will begin a series of counterattacks above and more slowly below Stalingrad. This is the 1942 version of the drive only to Moscow. The claim that the Soviets need the Volga region to produce tanks is somewhat belied by Stalingrad's gutting in the OTL battles and this not imairing the USSR, as well as this view relying on a rather certain neglect of a difference between Russian geography and industrial power and Soviet.

The overwhelming majority of Lend-Lease came in through the Pacific, not Persia. Nor is it exactly clear how a narrow, hammering attack focused purely on the Stalingrad region cuts off Soviet access to the south, as per the requirements of the OP. The Germans had troops as far south as Ordzikhondize IOTL, and were able to cut their way straight through the Volga twice in the course of the Stalingrad battles of OTL to no effect. All this also ignores that even focusing purely on Stalingrad Germany's means were far too underwhelming for the scale of the task set to them in the usual pattern. Of course I get that the idea that the Nazis can somehow win the War in the East has no regard for logistical or strategic realities of this sort, relying instead on vague statements involving butterflies and total handwaving of certain all too vital realities of this particular war.

The thing is even with restricted focus the Germans are still suffering highly unsustainable losses while the Soviets will have more reserves for the fighting in & around Stalingrad. Their whole plan being, to give the city just enough troops & material to hold on & wear the Germans down. While the counter-offensive was being planned.

Frankly by 1942 the Germans were screwed they had no chance of knocking out the Soviets after Barbarossa failed in the first few weeks of the war.

Urban fox said:

The thing is even with restricted focus the Germans are still suffering highly unsustainable losses while the Soviets will have more reserves for the fighting in & around Stalingrad. Their whole plan being, to give the city just enough troops & material to hold on & wear the Germans down. While the counter-offensive was being planned.

Frankly by 1942 the Germans were screwed they had no chance of knocking out the Soviets after Barbarossa failed in the first few weeks of the war.

Click to expand...

It's not just the restricted focus, it's that capturing the city of Stalingrad is not all that's required to interdict transport along the Volga. When this happened in the Russian Civil War, it was concurrent with other actions on the part of the Whites to remove the prospects of any flank attacks directed at them. If it is at all feasible for the Germans to concentrate in a single strike zone in 1942, it's the Caucasus or nothing.

Michel Van said:

Had Hitler ignored the name Stalingrad on the map
the Wehrmacht had advance into the Caspian Sea region were the oilfields of Baku lies.
here the Wehrmacht had cut off the soviet, there supply of Oil and Gasoline.
it could this left the Red Army with out fuel for there cars, tanks and aircraft ?

Click to expand...

I disagree

The caucuses didn't have enough roads to support a larger force; when the 4th panzer army was diverted through Rostov to carry attacks south it created gigantic traffic jams and delayed the movements of Kleist's 1st panzer army

splitting the force made sense because capturing stalingrad would block the volga artery and force diversion of the supplies coming from lend lease; it would also reduce the ability of the soviets to transfer additional reserves to the caucuses


the problem was that the planning was stupid, hitler didn't have a firm enough grip on high command and after bock fucked him, he refused to delegate which lead to the campaign not being managed properly


the optimum campaign for the germans after paulus and kleist obliterate timoshenko at kharkov is for the 4th panzer army to race for the great bend in the don (ignoring the fleeing elements at voronzeth on the left flank (leaving them to be cleaned up by the 2nd army later) with 6th army echeloned behind; 6th army to dispatch its engineer and quartermaster battalions forward to assist 4th panzer in crossing the don and then 4th panzer army races to stalingrad; capturing it off the march largely undefended by the end of july; security is then turned over to the 6th army and the romanian armies to erect a defensive line on the volga; 4th panzer army then carries its attacks farther south towards astrakahn to loosen up resistance to 1st panzer army and 17th army so that the oil producing regions can be captured and the remaining forces of the transcaucus military district can either be captured or forced into internment in turkey

That optimum plan requires an army far larger and with a far greater consistent logistical basis than ever existed for the Nazis in 1942 in terms of Operation Blue. Logistics is a bitch, geography is a bitch, both are solidly favoring the Soviets, not the Nazis, here.

Everything you say is reasonable and even correct until you blatantly mischaracterize the comment you were responding too. What the fella said is that blocking the Volga would let Germany hold out longer, not that Germany would win.

Please try to keep historical debates historical instead of insinuating that anyone who proposes a POD like this must be a crypto-Nazi sympathizer.

Snake Featherston said:

The Volga, yes. Stalingrad and its particular portion of it, not necessarily. That is a rather small region to cram in the entire striking force of the drive to the south, and if the Germans just go there and stop, the Soviets will begin a series of counterattacks above and more slowly below Stalingrad. This is the 1942 version of the drive only to Moscow. The claim that the Soviets need the Volga region to produce tanks is somewhat belied by Stalingrad's gutting in the OTL battles and this not imairing the USSR, as well as this view relying on a rather certain neglect of a difference between Russian geography and industrial power and Soviet.

The overwhelming majority of Lend-Lease came in through the Pacific, not Persia. Nor is it exactly clear how a narrow, hammering attack focused purely on the Stalingrad region cuts off Soviet access to the south, as per the requirements of the OP. The Germans had troops as far south as Ordzikhondize IOTL, and were able to cut their way straight through the Volga twice in the course of the Stalingrad battles of OTL to no effect. All this also ignores that even focusing purely on Stalingrad Germany's means were far too underwhelming for the scale of the task set to them in the usual pattern. Of course I get that the idea that the Nazis can somehow win the War in the East has no regard for logistical or strategic realities of this sort, relying instead on vague statements involving butterflies and total handwaving of certain all too vital realities of this particular war.

Click to expand...

mrmandias said:

Everything you say is reasonable and even correct until you blatantly mischaracterize the comment you were responding too. What the fella said is that blocking the Volga would let Germany hold out longer, not that Germany would win.

Please try to keep historical debates historical instead of insinuating that anyone who proposes a POD like this must be a crypto-Nazi sympathizer.

Click to expand...

When he said "the question is whether the USSR will still be there at D-Day or not" that's a pretty clear indication he thinks this'd make Germany win.

Snake Featherston said:

The Volga, yes. Stalingrad and its particular portion of it, not necessarily. That is a rather small region to cram in the entire striking force of the drive to the south, and if the Germans just go there and stop, the Soviets will begin a series of counterattacks above and more slowly below Stalingrad. This is the 1942 version of the drive only to Moscow. The claim that the Soviets need the Volga region to produce tanks is somewhat belied by Stalingrad's gutting in the OTL battles and this not imairing the USSR, as well as this view relying on a rather certain neglect of a difference between Russian geography and industrial power and Soviet.

The overwhelming majority of Lend-Lease came in through the Pacific, not Persia. Nor is it exactly clear how a narrow, hammering attack focused purely on the Stalingrad region cuts off Soviet access to the south, as per the requirements of the OP. The Germans had troops as far south as Ordzikhondize IOTL, and were able to cut their way straight through the Volga twice in the course of the Stalingrad battles of OTL to no effect. All this also ignores that even focusing purely on Stalingrad Germany's means were far too underwhelming for the scale of the task set to them in the usual pattern. Of course I get that the idea that the Nazis can somehow win the War in the East has no regard for logistical or strategic realities of this sort, relying instead on vague statements involving butterflies and total handwaving of certain all too vital realities of this particular war.

Click to expand...

Lend Lease to the USSR was delivered mainly by the pacific by value, the what was delivered though makes this discussion far more interesting

"The Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for lend-lease aid to the USSR, though it was also the most dangerous. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war. The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid 1942. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total.
The Pacific Route opened in August 1941, but was affected by the start of hostilities between Japan and the US; after December 1941, only Soviet ships could be used, and, as Japan and the USSR observed a strict neutrality towards each other, only non-military goods could be transported. Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total."

Rule 1 of AH - thou shalt never put forward any non-ASB combination of events that prevents the Soviet Union winning the second world war........

Snake Featherston said:

That optimum plan requires an army far larger and with a far greater consistent logistical basis than ever existed for the Nazis in 1942 in terms of Operation Blue. Logistics is a bitch, geography is a bitch, both are solidly favoring the Soviets, not the Nazis, here.

Click to expand...

Bigger? 50 divisions were allocated for case blue; the roads could barely handle them as it was; and my explanation would minimize the logistics handicaps the germans put upon themselves during the campaign

Orry said:

Rule 1 of AH - thou shalt never put forward any non-ASB combination of events that prevents the Soviet Union winning the second world war........

Click to expand...

Which works for me, as the only thing worse than the Soviet Union winning is the Nazis winning.

The only reason I would want the Germans to do better is so that the Western Allies liberate more of Europe - ideally confining the CCCP to its 1938 frontiers....

Oh and I do not care how heroic the common Soviet soldier was - it still does not justify what they did to the civilian populations of eastern europe - and the fact the Germans committed atrocities does not justify the 'revenge'. Give the accused a trial and imprison or shoot the guilty if you want - do not rape their mothers, wives and daughters

I don't disagree. Simply, without the Soviet contribution or in most imaginable scenarios in which the they did significantly worse, it would have been an even longer war and consequently, I think, even worse for the inhabitants of occupied Europe.