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

[BlondieBC]

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.

Yes, it is vulnerable to a pincer attack, but so was Kursk for the the Soviets so vulnerability does not always mean defeat. It does mean an hard fought Soviet counter attack with likely similar forces to OTL. The difference will be instead of just weak Italian and Romanian divisions to attack, they likely have some additional German division in reserve to counter attack. The Soviets will only get one chance to break the Germans and force a retreat of the Volga. If the Soviets fail, the will lack the petroleum to launch the broad attacks we see in 1943 and 1944, and they will have to resort to the much slower WW1 style attacks with much less motorized units. Until routes are secured to oil in the south, the soviets will be able to fight a war of attrition, but not be able to achieve large breakouts due to lack of fuel.

It is not that much of a stretch to change to these orders. The Attack to the south was supposed to be after the Volga line was achieve. The Soviets attacks on the 6th Army flanks were slowing it down, so instead of choosing to launch the attack to the South early, Hitler could have chosen to send some extra units to help the 6th Army. Early on, Stalingrad was poorly defended, and additional forces might have achieve the full Volga line before the Soviets could react in strength. And by delaying the push to the South(Baku) by a few months, we set up a scenario where it might be cancelled until the ever strengthening counter attacks are defeated. Stalingrad is much different battle if the Germans secure the full western bank.

 

[BlondieBC]

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.

You are missing the operational concept. Stalingrad was supposed to be taken without a major fight. At one point even without additional units, the 6th Army could have just sent motorized units to seize the city with little resistance.

And once this is achieved, the battle is not longer the Germans digging light infantry out of a city. It is a battle of light infantry trying to cross a 1000+ meter river and defeat much heavier, dug in German Infantry. Instead of using artillery, direct fire and airpower to interdict light infantry in the open. Much better battle for the Germans.

It is not like Moscow in 1942. Moscow was heavily defended. The Soviets were caught off guard and initially, Stalingrad was poorly defended.

I have seen other source claiming the majority came through Persia. What % do you believe came through Persia. Even if only 20% less, it is still a lot less.

And the oil is the critical point. The soviets will have lots of oil in Baku. Lots of tanks to the north, and no way to get the oil to the tanks in as large a quantity as OTL. I am sure there will be heroic logistical efforts by the Soviets, but the resources going to this logistical effort ITTL would be going to killing Germans IOTL. And tanks with limit oil transform the Tank Armies into infantry attacks with lots of tank support. Without all the fuel for the tanks and trucks, you don't get the large breakouts achieved by the soviets.

And even with a victory here, it is not a guaranteed axis win. One would have to write a full TL to get a fill for how it plays out, and many butterflies would be hotly disputed. And one has to do a lot of work to estimate the breaking point of the soviets. Soviet will to fight is vast. Vast is not unlimited.

I know you take it as a given that the Soviets could never lose or decide to make peace, but without more detailed arguments, it is just that. Your opinion.

 

[BlondieBC]

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.

No, it means I think the USSR might drop out of the war, might be in the war but not attack, or might be months to years behind OTL on regaining land. It means if the Soviets fail to recapture large parts of the Ukraine in 1943, there are some very serious food issues we have to look at. It means if the Ukrainian eastern industrial region is not recapture in 1943, we have to lower the Soviet production. It means the Soviets have fewer lend lease supplies. It means the soviets may lack the oil to launch any major attacks in 1943. It means substantially reduced pace of Soviet air operations in 1943.

The POD in discussion has horribly complicated butterflies of the logistical nature. It changes how, where, and when battles are fought. In some realistic TL with this POD, the Soviets will collapse or make peace. In some they will not be attacking. In some they will still be in the war. I have not done the detail work, so I can't assign % to these scenarios, but It is clear to me that under some scenarios, the Germans hold large potions of the Volga line in 1943, and the result will be massive problems for the Soviets.

And don't forget that both Stalin and Hitler made HUGE strategic blunders, and we don't know who makes the blunders in 1943 for this ATL. Hitler could still manage to do something horribly stupid in 1942 and 1943. Or perhaps he just makes average decisions and does not lose the 6th Army. Then in 1943 having achieve his desired eastern border, the Soviets are the attacker. They are hamstrung by a Stalin blunder and much worse logistics than OTL.

 

[Snake Featherston]

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........

Strictly speaking when they're facing Hitler and the Nazis, there's no way for them to lose. There are ways where their winning amounts purely to clearing their territory and there are a few ways to avert their participation altogether, but otherwise, you're guaranteed to see some form of the Eastern Bloc because the Nazis were just strong enough to be menaces but nowhere near strong enough to win.

 

[Snake Featherston]

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

Um, not really. Your plan is virtually the same one as what was actually intended, and takes into no account either the huge space involved, or any possible actions/counteractions by the Soviets. It'd work just as badly as the one actually adopted. It's Caucasus or bust, the Volga is just a means to guarantee disaster on a larger scale.

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

So in other words you don't care about Germans raping Soviet mothers, wives, and daughters, and evidently invading and occupying Eastern Europe in totalitarian blocs for a half-century is worse than an invasion intent on slaughtering almost everyone in the USSR and whatever survivors are left being reduced to perpetual slavery? Evidently when Germans are the raping, shooting, butchering barbarians it doesn't count.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Yes, it is vulnerable to a pincer attack, but so was Kursk for the the Soviets so vulnerability does not always mean defeat. It does mean an hard fought Soviet counter attack with likely similar forces to OTL. The difference will be instead of just weak Italian and Romanian divisions to attack, they likely have some additional German division in reserve to counter attack. The Soviets will only get one chance to break the Germans and force a retreat of the Volga. If the Soviets fail, the will lack the petroleum to launch the broad attacks we see in 1943 and 1944, and they will have to resort to the much slower WW1 style attacks with much less motorized units. Until routes are secured to oil in the south, the soviets will be able to fight a war of attrition, but not be able to achieve large breakouts due to lack of fuel.

It is not that much of a stretch to change to these orders. The Attack to the south was supposed to be after the Volga line was achieve. The Soviets attacks on the 6th Army flanks were slowing it down, so instead of choosing to launch the attack to the South early, Hitler could have chosen to send some extra units to help the 6th Army. Early on, Stalingrad was poorly defended, and additional forces might have achieve the full Volga line before the Soviets could react in strength. And by delaying the push to the South(Baku) by a few months, we set up a scenario where it might be cancelled until the ever strengthening counter attacks are defeated. Stalingrad is much different battle if the Germans secure the full western bank.

Kursk actually was not vulnerable to the Germans at any point, no matter when Citadel would have been launched Soviet weight was more than sufficient to achieve it. The claim that Stalingrad rapidly falls neglects a huge number of factors, first and most vital among them that strictly speaking it was never supposed to be a battle. The operational goal was Baku, not the Volga. Any vision of how to capture a city on the Volga neglects that without oil to run the German army it will have its panzers shot up in a massive Soviet encirclement. Likewise the claim that after the Germans achieve Hitler's goals for Stalingrad, namely the total destruction of the city, shooting all the males in it, and herding the women and children to destruction that the Soviets are somehow going to surrender requires a very blinkered view at best. Nanking in Europe just ensures Germany will be a gutted ruin postwar over all of it, not just East Germany.

 

[Schorsch]

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.

Yes, the Wehrmacht was severely under strength and the SU was getting better fast. Only if the Wehrmacht was able to inflict devastating casualties against the Red Army any sort of "win" was possible. But the SU leadership wasn't that stupid in the 2nd half of 1942.

If the Wehrmacht had been able to build up strategic reserves a successful Soviet counterstrike in 1942 would be less likely, but that doesn't change the long term perspective too much. The German production in 1942 was weak, much weaker than it was in 1943 and 1944. Soviet resources soared, including lean-and-lease deliveries.

By the second half of 1942 the war - in hindsight - was pretty much unwinnable. The Wehrmacht could have delayed the catastrophe by retreating into better positions, but one needs to remember that all exposed German positions ate up quite huge amounts of Soviet troops (which also in 1942 were thrown into combat with pretty slim hope of success, and often a good chance of total annihilation).

 

[Snake Featherston]

No, it means I think the USSR might drop out of the war, might be in the war but not attack, or might be months to years behind OTL on regaining land. It means if the Soviets fail to recapture large parts of the Ukraine in 1943, there are some very serious food issues we have to look at. It means if the Ukrainian eastern industrial region is not recapture in 1943, we have to lower the Soviet production. It means the Soviets have fewer lend lease supplies. It means the soviets may lack the oil to launch any major attacks in 1943. It means substantially reduced pace of Soviet air operations in 1943.

The POD in discussion has horribly complicated butterflies of the logistical nature. It changes how, where, and when battles are fought. In some realistic TL with this POD, the Soviets will collapse or make peace. In some they will not be attacking. In some they will still be in the war. I have not done the detail work, so I can't assign % to these scenarios, but It is clear to me that under some scenarios, the Germans hold large potions of the Volga line in 1943, and the result will be massive problems for the Soviets.

And don't forget that both Stalin and Hitler made HUGE strategic blunders, and we don't know who makes the blunders in 1943 for this ATL. Hitler could still manage to do something horribly stupid in 1942 and 1943. Or perhaps he just makes average decisions and does not lose the 6th Army. Then in 1943 having achieve his desired eastern border, the Soviets are the attacker. They are hamstrung by a Stalin blunder and much worse logistics than OTL.

We do, however, know that Hitler's blunders were strategic on a scale that was much more crippling than Stalin's were. The assumptions are always tilted in favor of Soviet blunders, never Axis blunders, and with the usual statistical pretense that events that can never be proven are likely to result in some different option. Germany crams a huge force into a small portion of the Volga, resulting in magically creating logistics that it never had in reality, ignoring altogether the Caucasus, which it cannot logically do, for a goal that will neither disrupt Lend-Lease nor Soviet production, nor interrupt the US supplying the Soviets with food as well as other vital aspects of war production.

The Soviets have no peace with Hitler beyond that of the charnel house, he refused every single peace offer they made IOTL, in this scenario he'll be no more inclined to accept them. A rule of thumb is if your Axis victory scenario requires Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany, it's not going to happen with Hitler's.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Yes, the Wehrmacht was severely under strength and the SU was getting better fast. Only if the Wehrmacht was able to inflict devastating casualties against the Red Army any sort of "win" was possible. But the SU leadership wasn't that stupid in the 2nd half of 1942.

If the Wehrmacht had been able to build up strategic reserves a successful Soviet counterstrike in 1942 would be less likely, but that doesn't change the long term perspective too much. The German production in 1942 was weak, much weaker than it was in 1943 and 1944. Soviet resources soared, including lean-and-lease deliveries.

By the second half of 1942 the war - in hindsight - was pretty much unwinnable. The Wehrmacht could have delayed the catastrophe by retreating into better positions, but one needs to remember that all exposed German positions ate up quite huge amounts of Soviet troops (which also in 1942 were thrown into combat with pretty slim hope of success, and often a good chance of total annihilation).

If we look at the fate of Army Group North, it is the most thorough deconstruction of any idea that different Axis actions against the USSR produce Axis victory. It retreated intact into the Courland Pocket, the Soviets never won a Bagration-level victory over it, it had the most continual record of casualties inflicted for losses sustained of the war, and Hitler left it to rot in Lithuania for his own reasons. Army Group North fought in the standard "Nazis do better scenario" and got bupkiss from it.

 

[Snake Featherston]

I know you take it as a given that the Soviets could never lose or decide to make peace, but without more detailed arguments, it is just that. Your opinion.

The most detailed argument is Hitler's demented genocidal plan and refusal of all Soviet peace offers IOTL. Unless Germany's run by people actually looking for peace, not Manifest Destiny to the A-A Line with the Soviets dying off to make way for a demented variant of a German Empire, no peace will ever happen. Only more, perpetual, ruinous warfare. Again, I realize for whatever inexplicable reason some people just don't get that Hitler was not looking for a war in the conventional sense, but just because their opinion doesn't allow them to accept fact does not erase that Generalplan Ost and its intended murder of 30 million Russians is the *starting point* for what in practical terms would have been much bigger. There is no Nazi-Soviet peace, there is Soviet victory or Hitler annihilating the Russians in the most ghastly and bloody sense imaginable. This is why the Nazis cannot win the war on their own terms.

 

[BlairWitch749]

Um, not really. Your plan is virtually the same one as what was actually intended, and takes into no account either the huge space involved, or any possible actions/counteractions by the Soviets. It'd work just as badly as the one actually adopted. It's Caucasus or bust, the Volga is just a means to guarantee disaster on a larger scale.

except the germans didn't do what was intended; when Halder wrote case blue; the 4th panzer army was supposed to race to stalingrad; capture it off the march and turn it over the 6th army (which is what I suggested)

IRL bock dicked around on his left flank trying to crush the fleeing remnants of timoshenko's forces at voronzeth for 5 days; and then hitler fired him, didn't replace him and created huge command confusions and then ordered the 4th panzer army to go to rostov against kleists objections that the roads were too busy whilst sending the larger and more immobile 6th army into the bend in the don river

have guderian in charge of army group south instead; he leaves the remnants to be mopped up the 2nd German army and 8th Italian army later and keeps to the plan; the germans don't surrender the initiative or give the soviets time to erect a defensive line on the don which lets them bounce the river and have nothing meaningful in front of them before stalingrad itself which the soviets at that point had no plans to defend

 

[Snake Featherston]

except the germans didn't do what was intended; when Halder wrote case blue; the 4th panzer army was supposed to race to stalingrad; capture it off the march and turn it over the 6th army (which is what I suggested)

IRL bock dicked around on his left flank trying to crush the fleeing remnants of timoshenko's forces at voronzeth for 5 days; and then hitler fired him, didn't replace him and created huge command confusions and then ordered the 4th panzer army to go to rostov against kleists objections that the roads were too busy whilst sending the larger and more immobile 6th army into the bend in the don river

have guderian in charge of army group south instead; he leaves the remnants to be mopped up the 2nd German army and 8th Italian army later and keeps to the plan; the germans don't surrender the initiative or give the soviets time to erect a defensive line on the don which lets them bounce the river and have nothing meaningful in front of them before stalingrad itself which the soviets at that point had no plans to defend

And why didn't they do that? Because the Soviets didn't repeat their 1941 mistakes (instead they made completely different ones). Your plan again takes no account of anything the Soviets do, treating them as non-existent, and ignores just how vast the territory you're requiring these troops to cover actually is. Likewise it also assumes that the Germans can simply march and that the Soviet Army, in addition to doing nothing, won't bother to contest cities like Stalingrad. Bock fought at Voronezh because the Soviets didn't follow the Germans' well-laid plans, so the only thing your scenario leads to is a repeat of OTL.

Again, in real war, not the tactics uber alles approach that some alternate history scenarios mistake for it, no plan survives contact with the enemy or with the friction of warfare, and no plan based on ignoring the enemy exists will work anything like as intended. Repeating the plan another time won't change either of these factors, and I'd like you to address them, if you please.

How, exactly, does your plan take into account what the Soviets will or will not do? How does your plan provide for the problem of both holding territory and facing any Soviet resistance in the drive to the Caucasus, as well as the problem of overstretched troops with no flank protection? How does your plan for that matter resolve the logistical shoestring?

 

[BlondieBC]

Kursk actually was not vulnerable to the Germans at any point, no matter when Citadel would have been launched Soviet weight was more than sufficient to achieve it. The claim that Stalingrad rapidly falls neglects a huge number of factors, first and most vital among them that strictly speaking it was never supposed to be a battle. The operational goal was Baku, not the Volga. Any vision of how to capture a city on the Volga neglects that without oil to run the German army it will have its panzers shot up in a massive Soviet encirclement. Likewise the claim that after the Germans achieve Hitler's goals for Stalingrad, namely the total destruction of the city, shooting all the males in it, and herding the women and children to destruction that the Soviets are somehow going to surrender requires a very blinkered view at best. Nanking in Europe just ensures Germany will be a gutted ruin postwar over all of it, not just East Germany.

And with extra weight in the Volga bulge, the Germans might have held.

Yes, the Germans wanted Baku, but it was a two part plan. First secure the flanks which was roughly the Volga river, then once these units begin to dig in, use the now more empty roads to attack south. Hitler decided to release the attack South early. Have German GHQ make a different decision, and the attack south is delay by months and may be cancelled. And with an additional full army in reserve, GHQ might have used some of these units to help the 6th Army to achieve its results. Or they might not. The 6th army will also benefit from less congestion on the road and better supply situation.

With the Soviets shutoff from oil the the south, they will have much more serious fuel issue as time passes. The Germans are actually better because they don't send a Panzer Army south that burns a lot of fuel.

And it was not lack of fuel that allowed the Soviets to break the Italians but lack of heavy weapons. The Romanians had one heavy anti-tank weapon per regiment. With extra units diverted north to help hold the line, the Soviet attack may be blunted. I am not saying the soviets never take any land, I am saying the Germans might hold enough of the Volga line to stop oil from going north and not have the Volga pocket isolated. A Kursk style counter attack to regain the entire Volga is easy to imagine n 1943 by either side.

I also fail to see how the SS or Eisengruppen operating is incompatible with German heavy infantry digging into defensive positions. In fact, it is easy to see Hitler ordering the initial bombing runs on Stalingrad even if the city had almost no defenses.

 

[Snake Featherston]

They would have held on a narrow sector of the Volga. The question as per the title of the OP, which people don't seem to be reading here, is of the Germans ONLY SEIZING STALINGRAD. This means the entirety of the Operation Blue forces get crammed into that one narrow sector of the front. Not the entirety of the Volga, even, or necessarily interdicting the whole thing, just in the Stalingrad region. The OP involves the Germans only seizing Stalingrad, and no drive to the Caucasus, meaning all this gasconade about the Germans doing this as a precondition to that drive implies you either didn't read the OP or are interested in a different discussion entirely from it. And even then, I fail to see how the fall of Stalingrad magically handwaves the logistics issues the Axis had here, and why the Soviets don't actually come up with any counteractions here, as well as most crucially where the Nazis magically discovered the ability to sign and to adhere to a peace treaty with any Soviet government from. Which your Axis victory scenario, for that's what it is, requires them to do.

I'm going to repost the OP so you can be clear what we're discussing and where I'm drawing my point from:

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?

The result of this is the Germans cram too many troops into a sector too small to provide any kind of strategic results, leading to these troops being ground up and annihilated by a set of successive Soviet attacks upon them. The OP explicitly is talking about no attacks to the Caucasus, whatsoever, and no drive to the South, in any way, shape, form, or fashion. So I'm going to ask you if you and BlairWitch both failed to see this, and why you're discussing the exact opposite scenario to the one specified in the OP, which I seem to be the only one in this discussion to actually be discussing? A drive to the Caucasus is Verboten by the actual scenario under discussion. And I ask again for a simple answer to my question: in what alternate timeline will a Nazi government ever sign a peace with a Soviet government? You're the one under the assumption that the rejection of all the OTL Soviet offers didn't mean anything, so provide some proof Hitler was ever going to sign such a peace, please.

 

[BlairWitch749]

And why didn't they do that? Because the Soviets didn't repeat their 1941 mistakes (instead they made completely different ones). Your plan again takes no account of anything the Soviets do, treating them as non-existent, and ignores just how vast the territory you're requiring these troops to cover actually is. Likewise it also assumes that the Germans can simply march and that the Soviet Army, in addition to doing nothing, won't bother to contest cities like Stalingrad. Bock fought at Voronezh because the Soviets didn't follow the Germans' well-laid plans, so the only thing your scenario leads to is a repeat of OTL.

Again, in real war, not the tactics uber alles approach that some alternate history scenarios mistake for it, no plan survives contact with the enemy or with the friction of warfare, and no plan based on ignoring the enemy exists will work anything like as intended. Repeating the plan another time won't change either of these factors, and I'd like you to address them, if you please.

How, exactly, does your plan take into account what the Soviets will or will not do? How does your plan provide for the problem of both holding territory and facing any Soviet resistance in the drive to the Caucasus, as well as the problem of overstretched troops with no flank protection? How does your plan for that matter resolve the logistical shoestring?

Bock should have ignored Voronzeth and his continued screwing around was what caused Hitler to fire him... the forces there were shells following the Kleist/Paulus encirclement at 2nd kharkov; they could have been left to be mopped up or surrounded by the 2nd and 8th army

the Germans pounding the tattered survivors at Voronzeth for 5 days coupled with sending the slower and more road clogging 6th army into the bend in the don gave the russians time to erect and emergency defensive line which held the germans up for two weeks; giving the russians more time to recover from kharkov and shuttle some troops into stalingrad (which was undefended)

if alternate Bock sticks to the plan; the Russians simply do not have time to erect a defensive line on the don because the germans will be across right on their heels; which then limits their options to a flank attack from the north east (after they reorganize and shuttle reserves into the area via the volga) which involves attacking the panzers in open country when they have total air superiority (which the Russians just did at Kharkov and got their asses handed to them)

There is no choice the Russians could make in that context that would retrieve the situation before the 4th panzer army would capture Stalingrad off the march

 

[Snake Featherston]

Blair, I repeat: your scenario takes no Soviet actions under advisement, and I'm getting that feeling of talking to a brick wall again. All you're doing is repeating yourself, so I'm going to ask you again, how does your plan 1) handle the logistics problem, 2) account for Soviet actions, 3) handle the issue of space, terrain, and co-ordination in terms of both, and 4) lead to any different results than OTL? If answering these questions is beyond you, please don't copy-paste your response you've already posted three times a fourth.

 

[BlondieBC]

The most detailed argument is Hitler's demented genocidal plan and refusal of all Soviet peace offers IOTL. Unless Germany's run by people actually looking for peace, not Manifest Destiny to the A-A Line with the Soviets dying off to make way for a demented variant of a German Empire, no peace will ever happen. Only more, perpetual, ruinous warfare. Again, I realize for whatever inexplicable reason some people just don't get that Hitler was not looking for a war in the conventional sense, but just because their opinion doesn't allow them to accept fact does not erase that Generalplan Ost and its intended murder of 30 million Russians is the *starting point* for what in practical terms would have been much bigger. There is no Nazi-Soviet peace, there is Soviet victory or Hitler annihilating the Russians in the most ghastly and bloody sense imaginable. This is why the Nazis cannot win the war on their own terms.

Well, I have seen disputes on whether the Soviets ever made a serious peace offer after June 1942.

You seem to be missing where the AA line ran. For about half the length of the AA, it follows the Volga. Hitler had various crazy ideas about Slavic states to the east, but he did plan to stop at this line.

Yes, the conquered lands have fighting continue. The question is whether the fighting is a massive 600 division army with many mechanized divisions OR some smaller army of fewer divisions and higher % of straight leg infantry divisions than OTL OR a bloody partisan war after the soviet government collapse.

And GeneralPlanOst was plan on how to handle Jews, Slavs and other minorities that was conquered. The plan did not have specific dates for attacks to take place. You seem to be confusing the operational/strategic plans of Germany Army with the racial plans for a post victory world. The POD is simply changing the operational decisions of one of 3 army groups in 1942. Now obviously, the more land the Germans hold or the longer they hold the land, the higher the body count of the Holocaust.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Well, I have seen disputes on whether the Soviets ever made a serious peace offer after June 1942.

You seem to be missing where the AA line ran. For about half the length of the AA, it follows the Volga. Hitler had various crazy ideas about Slavic states to the east, but he did plan to stop at this line.

Yes, the conquered lands have fighting continue. The question is whether the fighting is a massive 600 division army with many mechanized divisions OR some smaller army of fewer divisions and higher % of straight leg infantry divisions than OTL OR a bloody partisan war after the soviet government collapse.

And GeneralPlanOst was plan on how to handle Jews, Slavs and other minorities that was conquered. The plan did not have specific dates for attacks to take place. You seem to be confusing the operational/strategic plans of Germany Army with the racial plans for a post victory world. The POD is simply changing the operational decisions of one of 3 army groups in 1942. Now obviously, the more land the Germans hold or the longer they hold the land, the higher the body count of the Holocaust.

Um, no. Just....no. Generalplan Ost was targeted to the entire Soviet population. The Germans would have been the minority intent on eradicating the majority, that majority being the Slavs in that discussion. And in practical terms the seizure of Stalingrad means the entire population of the city will be butchered in a different Nanking in Europe scenario. Any Wehrmacht general that bucks Hitler on this is going to be sacked and replaced by one who will go along with him. I'm not the one confused here, you and he are. You and he also are under the impression that the Nazis are waging 1) a rational war, and 2) going to ever consider a realistic peace with the Soviets, both of which are false assumptions, and in practical terms after Stalingrad becomes Europe's Nanking, Germany will be a ruin postwar, regardless of any moral reality about the suffering and collective punishment involved.

The Stalingrad Campaign, like Barbarossa, illustrates that contrary to the scruples of modern-day German apologists, the Nazis were explicitly treating the wholesale destruction and massacre of entire cities as the same war. Your refusal to accept that the orders for Operation Blue specified exactly this does not alter the meaning of those orders. Any hemming and hawing about the Nazis post-Wannsee developing limits to their mass murder when the death camps are in full swing doesn't alter the reality on the ground. It's the same war to Hitler, and his is the only voice and mind that matters.

Again, your scenario only works if Germany's led by a Kaiser, under Hitler it won't stop. It didn't have the ability to do that.

And I repeat my question, did either you or he miss the part where the OP specified there is nothing going to happen in the Caucausus, full-stop?

 

[BlairWitch749]

Blair, I repeat: your scenario takes no Soviet actions under advisement, and I'm getting that feeling of talking to a brick wall again. All you're doing is repeating yourself, so I'm going to ask you again, how does your plan 1) handle the logistics problem, 2) account for Soviet actions, 3) handle the issue of space, terrain, and co-ordination in terms of both, and 4) lead to any different results than OTL? If answering these questions is beyond you, please don't copy-paste your response you've already posted three times a fourth.

1.the logistics in the don are solved by the 4th panzer army (smaller more mobile) being reinforced with the 6th army's quartermaster and engineer battalions right after 2nd kharkov so they can immediately bridge the river and continue the advance; the germans supplemented with JU-52's in this period to maintain the rate of advance whilst the light rails were rebuilt and the 6th army's mobile corps once across the done had no problem gaining 50km a day (and 4th panzer would be faster against less opposition)

2. the soviet actions are to reinforce the troops at voronzeth to try and drive south and west; which would be countered by encirclement by the 2nd german and elements of the 8th italian army; and to try a flank attack against hoths forces from the north as they drive on stalingrad; which he would engage and defeat in open country

3. the space situation is solved by letting the smaller 4th panzer army go fist at the expense of leaving the 6th army on the don until sufficient bridges are erected for their 20 divisions to cross; Hitler has to either not fire bock or have someone he trusts in charge to coordinate AGS; Guderian would fit this bill

4. the germans don't get stuck for weeks on end at the don and do capture stalingrad off the march and create reinforcement problems for the oil producing regions and a bone in the throat for lend lease; this is a different result than otl (AG B being successful is perfectly plausible with only that pod after destroying Timoshenko)

 

[BlondieBC]

They would have held on a narrow sector of the Volga. The question as per the title of the OP, which people don't seem to be reading here, is of the Germans ONLY SEIZING STALINGRAD.

I read the original post as not launch the attack towards Baku, but the thread author is the one who can say for sure.

... And even then, I fail to see how the fall of Stalingrad magically handwaves the logistics issues the Axis had here, and why the Soviets don't actually come up with any counteractions here, as well as most crucially where the Nazis magically discovered the ability to sign and to adhere to a peace treaty with any Soviet government from. Which your Axis victory scenario, for that's what it is, requires them to do.

It is not handwavium. The logisitics are easier because the forces heading towards Baku IOTL spend several extra weeks or months sitting on logistical hubs in the rear, probably near Rostov-on-the-Don.