AH Wif Barbarossa succeeded?

In 1941 the Germans launched the invasion of the USS aimin at the manor cities, I find this to be a stupid idea, one splitting up the army makes it easier to cut off, Huge percentage of conscripts came from rural areas, the cities would be nigh impossible to take, so what if Hitler had a sane mind and decided to focus all efforts on the soviet oil fields in Ukraine and Baku, because of the germans seize the soviet oil fields,'it does not matter how many tanks or guns the soviets produce their factories will no be able to run also, by cutting off Baku, you cut of the sovet forces stationed in the east from oil supplies and by seizing Ukraine and mos of the caucasius the Germans can cut of the soviets from land lease, plus with these areas under German control the Germans can refuel, resupply and rearm their force and then invade the Russian heartland, plus while they invade they treat the ethnicities with kindness so that theyy will support Germany, could this tactic have worked.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
In 1941 the Germans launched the invasion of the USS aimin at the manor cities, I find this to be a stupid idea, one splitting up the army makes it easier to cut off, Huge percentage of conscripts came from rural areas, the cities would be nigh impossible to take, so what if Hitler had a sane mind and decided to focus all efforts on the soviet oil fields in Ukraine and Baku, because of the germans seize the soviet oil fields,'it does not matter how many tanks or guns the soviets produce their factories will no be able to run also, by cutting off Baku, you cut of the sovet forces stationed in the east from oil supplies and by seizing Ukraine and mos of the caucasius the Germans can cut of the soviets from land lease, plus with these areas under German control the Germans can refuel, resupply and rearm their force and then invade the Russian heartland, plus while they invade they treat the ethnicities with kindness so that theyy will support Germany, could this tactic have worked.

1. The not-splitting-the-army alternative means there's a huge ass soviet army flanking army group center
2. Baku is even further away from Germany than the big cities and requires getting troops through the Caucasus and Stalingrad is in the way anyway.
3. You might note that Iran borders the Soviet Union in both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
4. Lend-lease is not vital that early in the war. In fact, no lend-lease in 42 would barely be felt, if at all. Most of the land-lease, if I remember Glantz, came in 44 anyway.
5. "they treat the ethnicities with kindness" - if they did we wouldn't be there in the first place and they wouldn't be nazis
 
COULD Barbarossa have succeeded?

In 1941 the Germans launched the invasion of the USS aimin at the manor cities, I find this to be a stupid idea, one splitting up the army makes it easier to cut off, Huge percentage of conscripts came from rural areas, the cities would be nigh impossible to take, so what if Hitler had a sane mind and decided to focus all efforts on the soviet oil fields in Ukraine and Baku, because of the germans seize the soviet oil fields,'it does not matter how many tanks or guns the soviets produce their factories will no be able to run also, by cutting off Baku, you cut of the sovet forces stationed in the east from oil supplies and by seizing Ukraine and mos of the caucasius the Germans can cut of the soviets from land lease, plus with these areas under German control the Germans can refuel, resupply and rearm their force and then invade the Russian heartland, plus while they invade they treat the ethnicities with kindness so that they will support Germany, could this tactic have worked.

"what if Hitler had a sane mind and decided to focus all efforts on the soviet oil fields in Ukraine and Baku.."

Basically Operation Blau in 1942. To pull it off, you have to at least get to where the Germans got in 1941 and then you still have the same problems of logistics that stymied the Germans in our time line.

"...plus while they invade they treat the ethnicities with kindness so that they will support Germany...

A much asked question. While there's no doubt that the nonRussian peoples in the USSR had little use for the Russians, that doesn't mean they want to be untermenschen in a Greater German Empire. Exactly how many of the nonRussians will support the German Empire to what extent for how long...

Wif in the original title implies that you're thinking about what kind of a country Russia would be if the Germans conquered it in 1941, but that's not what the body of the Gustavus Adolphus "starter" post is about.
 

"what if Hitler had a sane mind and decided to focus all efforts on the soviet oil fields in Ukraine and Baku.."

Basically Operation Blau in 1942. To pull it off, you have to at least get to where the Germans got in 1941 and then you still have the same problems of logistics that stymied the Germans in our time line.



A much asked question. While there's no doubt that the nonRussian peoples in the USSR had little use for the Russians, that doesn't mean they want to be untermenschen in a Greater German Empire. Exactly how many of the nonRussians will support the German Empire to what extent for how long...

Wif in the original title implies that you're thinking about what kind
country Russia would be if the Germans conquered it in 1941, but that's not what the body of the Gustavus Adolphus
"starter" post is about.
No what I meant was Germany heavily fortifies it's eastern border and plans a defensive war while the main German army heads for Baku...
 
No what I meant was Germany heavily fortifies it's eastern border and plans a defensive war while the main German army heads for Baku...

Eh? Germany prepares for defensive war agaisnt SU while taking offensive action agaisnt russia? Surely I'm not the only one confused here?

If you mean that in 1941 Germany striks only at the south (OTL AGS) that that's a folly. The'll run into main concentrations of Red Army. They'll leave aside a lot of industrial potential and major cities (except I guess Kiev).

And if you look at the map you'll see that advancing only in the south will create a big (big even for SU) salient. Remember what happened in november 1942? Exposed flanks + unengaged forces = disaster
 
Eh? Germany prepares for defensive war agaisnt SU while taking offensive action agaisnt russia? Surely I'm not the only one confused here?

If you mean that in 1941 Germany striks only at the south (OTL AGS) that that's a folly. The'll run into main concentrations of Red Army. They'll leave aside a lot of industrial potential and major cities (except I guess Kiev).

And if you look at the map you'll see that advancing only in the south will create a big (big even for SU) salient. Remember what happened in november 1942? Exposed flanks + unengaged forces = disaster
right..... Well then What if on their march to Baku they incited nationolist revolt in Ukraine and Belarus, could that keep the SU busy, or maybe Durin Stalin,'s purges of the Army Timoshenko, Zhukov, most of the Russian general staff is executed, so the SU makes blunders could that work.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
American Lend-Lease saved Stalingrad, so the Lend Lease was somewhat influential there.

According to Clarke and Glantz it's actually mostly an exageration; by the time lend-lease arrived to the front, Stalingrad was already all but won, the Red Army was on the offensive. For a battle where lend-lease starts becoming important (and it's still more of a war-shortening than war-winning but that's admittedly debatable), you're looking at Kursk.
 

Rebel

Banned
Barbarossa was immpossible. OTL was the best case scenario, easily, what with Stalin forbidding preparations, allowing forces to be encircled, and wasting reserves in fruitless counterattacks, not to mention the Purges. The entire Soviet defensive strategy was molded to give the Germans the greatest possible advantage, but still they were unable to win due to the size of the Soviet armies and the poor infrastructure of Russia. Even if Stalingrad Lenningrad, or Moscow fall the war will continue and will end up in the Soviet's favor.
 
right..... Well then What if on their march to Baku they incited nationolist revolt in Ukraine and Belarus, could that keep the SU busy, or maybe Durin Stalin,'s purges of the Army Timoshenko, Zhukov, most of the Russian general staff is executed, so the SU makes blunders could that work.

Ukraine's a much-discussed one. To summarise...

- Ukraine was really two seperate countries that spoke Ukrainian: Soviet Ukraine, part of the Soviet society since its founding; and Galicia-Volhynia, former Polish Ukraine, conquered by the Soviets two short years ago.

- In Galicia, the population were as a rule strongly nationalist (and loyal to their local Greek-rite Catholic church). They wanted to be ruled by nobody, German, Polish, or Soviet, and their partisan organisations played their own games, preferring to work with the Germans but quite willing to turn on them.

- The Germans raised Galician troops and police - however in not very great numbers, proportionately speaking, and they had to make concessions about the Greek Catholic faith. A lot of these troops and police were entryists who were really loyal to the nationalists.

- In Soviet Ukraine, the peasants were very hostile to Stalin and it took a (very) short period of convincing before they realised that something worse than Stalin existed; but they were also followers of the Russian Orthodox church, their Ukrainian national identity rather uncertain, and very averse to foreign invaders. The identity of the cities was more complex: many people living there had been peasants in their lifetimes, of course, but generally the cities were more Soviet in identity. This urban-rural distinction holds true for Russia as well, really.

- The Nazis raised exactly the same sort of troops in Soviet Ukraine that they did in Soviet Russia: "schuma" (detachments of collaboraters organised in anti-partisan death-squads) and "hiwis" (Soviets who became auxilliaries and rear-echelon helpers for the Germans to keep themselves alive). They also did the same things to turn people against them: food confiscation and savage anti-partisan measures.

In short: Galicia is a country where the Germans raised one division and might have raised more; but it's a long way from Baku, was occupied in the first moves of the campaign, and has only so many inhabitants. Soviet Ukraine wasn't going to revolt.
 
...or maybe during Stalin,'s purges of the Army Timoshenko, Zhukov, most of the Russian general staff is executed, so the SU makes blunders could that work.

During Stalin's purges of the Army, most of the Russian general staff and senior officer cadres WAS executed. Zhukov was one of the few Army officers, as opposed to political cadres, who wasn't. Whether Tukhareshky (sp?) et al. could have done any better in 1941...
 
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