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- Thread starter Heeresgruppe A
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inek
Banned
We have one thread where a lot of stuff relevant was discussed, including that book and many others I am sure you have read it but for others who may not have read it:
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As for my personal opinion formed on what I read and what I think, there were several points Typhoon and Barbarossa in general were bungled, and it always looks like one more improvement would have been enough to tip the balance to the other side. The specific points you mentioned,
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As for my personal opinion formed on what I read and what I think, there were several points Typhoon and Barbarossa in general were bungled, and it always looks like one more improvement would have been enough to tip the balance to the other side. The specific points you mentioned,
This would definitely seal the deal.
It’s a handful of otl deployments to change in concert, so it’s a lot to ask. In effect, the army group is losing momentum and the units starts to prioritize their own cohesion rather than the strategic objectives. It’s a lot to ask that they don’t start to look for their immediate survival in those conditions.
That while the changes in unit deployment might have had the effects you are looking for they happened for a reason (exhaustion, dwindling supplies, safeguarding unit cohesion) beyond strategic consideration.
Changing those decisions might not be easy without changing the underlying causes and of you want to touch the underlying cause you are back with classics (logistics, supplies, eeinforcements).
I think you right, the Germans at this point are just running on fumes. Trying to get the last few miles to Moscow might put them in an even more vulnerable position at the start of the Red Army's counter offensive. Their main consideration in November 1941 should've been trying to establish a secure Winter line, to preserve their strength for the coming Spring.
Garrison
Donor
But it really wasn't because the German armies had exhausted their momentum and reach the limits of their supply lines. What you had was an army that had given its all and was just ripe for a concerted counter attack by fresh troops with decisive leadership, which Zhukov and his 40 divisions had in spades.
During 1941 and 1942 the Germans repeatedly thought they were one winning blow away from knocking the Soviets out of the war. In reality they weren't.
II have strong doubts that even if everything went perfect for the Germans, they could take Moscow and keep it in the winter of 1941.
They encircled (or were as close to as possible Leningrad for several years, but didn't take it. They only reached the outskirts of Moscow. They took several months to take Stalingrad (before it all went wrong there, the Soviets only kept a few 100 meters of the city). I don't think it's possible for them to take Moscow in 1941. To take Moscow they have to either encircle iit, or fight all the way through the city. Neither is something they'd be able to do before the winter sets in, because the Soviets would throw everything at them, they also knew how important the city was.
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As I expressed in my previous post, capturing Moscow is a long shot for the Germans in november 1941. Often the assumption seems that reaching Moscow is capturing it. As Stalingrad and Leningrad proved, it's not that easy. It will take months to capture Moscow completely, and the Germans were to depleted in november 1941 for a campaign of months.
No they weren't. By October of 1941 the Germans approaching Moscow were a shell of their former self. They only had a third of their vehicles operational, and the infantry was at half strength. If the Germans had reached and entered Moscow frankly their army would have been destroyed due to the condition it was in. Their overextended flanks would have been smashed, and you might well see much of Army Group Center just wiped out in winter 1941.
cardcarrier
Banned
I disagree, completely
Guderian's entire Panzer army by the time he neared Tula was down to under 50 runners in battle group Eberbach, attrition had taken it's toll, they were done and never going to encircle Moscow from the rear that campaign season
The same goes for the panzers in the North and the infantry of the 4th army clothed in rags with their boots falling off in pieces, most of their formations where below 40 percent strength, and 200 miles from anything that resembled a rail head
Stalin had marshaled 150k fresh infantry in the city itself forgetting Zhukovs 3 fresh armies waiting to drive them back on the flanks. There is absolutely nothing short of a Soviet political collapse that gets Army Group Center into Moscow, after September 1941 in any sort of timeline that could be considered plausible; the entirety of Operation Typhoon was strategic folly for Germany; the army was spent and would have been far better served digging in and taking up winter quarters
Guderian's entire Panzer army by the time he neared Tula was down to under 50 runners in battle group Eberbach, attrition had taken it's toll, they were done and never going to encircle Moscow from the rear that campaign season
The same goes for the panzers in the North and the infantry of the 4th army clothed in rags with their boots falling off in pieces, most of their formations where below 40 percent strength, and 200 miles from anything that resembled a rail head
Stalin had marshaled 150k fresh infantry in the city itself forgetting Zhukovs 3 fresh armies waiting to drive them back on the flanks. There is absolutely nothing short of a Soviet political collapse that gets Army Group Center into Moscow, after September 1941 in any sort of timeline that could be considered plausible; the entirety of Operation Typhoon was strategic folly for Germany; the army was spent and would have been far better served digging in and taking up winter quarters
Correct me if I’m wrong, but all Forczyk has really made the case for in the above quotations was thats armoured/motorized force was able to *reach* Moscow itself. Whether they would have the strength to drive out the Soviet defenders and then successfully stabilize the front on the onset of the worst of the winter weather before a Soviet counterattack would send them into a headlong retreat is another question entirely, from what I’ve observed. I’m far from an expert on troop movements and specific tactical maneuvers during the Soviet-German War, but from what I’ve seen those far more knowledgeable than myself say is that the AGC was spent during the final stages of Taifun and additional ‘correct’ tactical decisions would ultimately not change the overall strategic reality that the Wehrmacht had reached the end of its rope during the campaign season and from what we’ve seen, seizing Soviet industrial centers that the RKKA committed to defending with proper reinforcement was never even remotely an easy task.
This thread over a year ago was essentially the same discussion with the same quotation from Forczyk, and in the end I think I was more convinced by those arguing that the German forces were simply stretched too thin at this point against the prospect of city fighting with a steadily-reinforcing RKKA. The German units that reached the outskirts of Moscow IOTL were not entire field armies ready to storm and occupy the capital, but rather the strung-out forward motorized and armoured elements. The very tip of the spear, so to speak. They had long behind their infantry and were rushing headlong forward without the large body of supporting forces. As was pointed out, some Panzers reaching the western reaches of the massive city isn’t going to make the Soviet resistance roll over dead, and already many reservists in the city’s general population were being armed and readied for urban combat. That’s not to mention the Soviet defenders at Mozhaysk’s defensive line generally conducting a fighting retreat and a stronger German advance towards Moscow isn’t going to utterly dissolve them. It’s likely they are pushed back and dig into the city itself while RKKA reinforcements are brought into the eastern half of the city and either German forward elements are thrown out before the battle can properly engulfs Moscow or the left-behind Wehrmacht infantry catch up and it turns into a proper siege of the city. I can’t see a situation where the RKKA so royally blunders the situation with such a late PoD that the massive city is almost entirely undefended and exhausted German troops seize it without any sort of prolonged fighting IMO.
Granted, there’s a chance that the perfect storm of panic and German luck dissolves the Soviet fighting formations in front of the city and they rush forward on the heels of the crumbling Soviet resistance, but that would take a ton of luck. Almost too much luck to be generally plausible I think.
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thaddeus
Donor
think no matter the question, the answer is they had 2 1/2 army groups and 3 fronts. that being the rationale for my (repeated) speculation they needed to close out the AGN front (Leningrad) in 1941.
Garrison
Donor
Or Zhukov uses his fresh, well supplied divisions to encircle them in an earlier Stalingrad. As I say by the time the German army reached Moscow it was a spent force at the limits of it logistics and facing weather conditions it was utterly unprepared for.
Garrison
Donor
Well since any attack on Moscow is going to be a slow painful business given the many, many issues facing the German's, I imagine there will be plenty of opportunities to do so before the German troops. And frankly I suspect a Soviet encirclement may be unlikely but still more plausible than some last lunge by the exhausted Ostheer seizing Moscow.
I'm sure the guy who has the name of a German military formation as their username will have a completely objective and unbiased assessment of their capabilities. Plus, as the poster above already stated, Moscow isn't going to surrender as soon as a few starving Germans showed up, there were already hundreds of thousands of troops in the city and clearing it would take months at the absolute minimum even if there were no supply issues for the Nazis.
cardcarrier
Banned
no Stalin called up over 100k emergency city militia, and before anyone brings up artillery or airpower, German sortie tempos had been slackening dramatically as pilots and machines where flown to death and they where forced to progressively displace their airfields forward and forward into more primitive conditions, and staging their siege train artillery forward to Moscow, a la Sevastopol is a minimum 3-4 month preparation phase