Army Group Center Encircled in 1941, then Germany lose 50 divisions in the South in 1942. How would the rest of the war proceed?

Anti-GrammarNazi

Army Group Center gets encircled and destroyed in 1941 near Moscow. Let's suppose Hitler still decides to go South in 1942 and Staligrad proceeds as usual, with the difference that this time the Soviets allow Germany to rescue their forces at Stalingrad, only to use this as a diversion to cut all the axis troops in the Caucasus area as shown here:

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What would such defeats mean for the rest of the war?
 

ObssesedNuker

Anti-GrammarNazi said:
Army Group Center gets encircled and destroyed in 1941 near Moscow. Let's suppose Hitler still decides to go South in 1942 and Staligrad proceeds as usual
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What? If AGC gets wiped in ‘41, where does Germany find the strength to launch another major offensive? Everything that went into gathering the strength for Blau would instead have to go into stitching together a new front around - say - Smolensk. AGS would have to transfer many formations north as part of that and hence would be much weaker come the campaign season in ‘42 and probably barely be able to avoid the 2nd Kharkov Offensive turning into a total defeat for the Germans, never mind destroying it and then launching a deep offensive into Southern Russia and the Caucasus.
 
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Lacktoastandtolerant

I could be mistaken, but...

One alternate history scenario I've seen suggested over the years is for AGC to have gone directly for Moscow rather than turning south to assist AGS in Ukraine. A common counter to that is that it would have left AGC with a large gap on its flank that the Soviets could have exploited, to potentially knock out large portions of AGS, and thus it wouldn't have been a useful strategy for the Germans to try, or some sort of silver bullet to get the Nazis to win in the east. But then, Hitler didn't always make the best strategic choices...

So maybe that could be a way to get the "AGS encircled and destroyed near Moscow in 1941" part without needing to resort to ASB, perhaps in this alternate scenario Hitler gets overconfident and perhaps ignores the warnings from advisors and generals, or something like that

I'd definitely concur that "going south in 1942" to Stalingrad and the Caucasus would be unrealistic, though, with that scenario, and that they'd instead be focusing on trying to stitch together a new frontline in the center

Maybe instead of cutting off the German forces in the Caucasus, you could get a second sizable encirclement of German forces by the Soviets in 1942 a different way. After the 1941 encirclement of AGS, perhaps this leaves the Germans with an even bigger hole in their front that a Soviet offensive could then exploit for further advantage. Though perhaps at that point, logistics could limit the ability for the Soviets to make sweeping gains of ground that could allow for such additional major encirclements on that sort of scale. Though the Soviets would still be in a much better position having gotten a decisive win against AGC
 

Ian Henderson

Actually, "Straight on for Moscow! No Diverging Movements!" was the Generals plan. It was Hitler who insisted upon the divergence south to Kiev, already thinking about securing resources. I am of the opinion that in this argument, neither Hitler or his Generals were right, rather, they were ignoring the fact that Barbarossa was already in trouble in a strategic sense because Germany just couldn't support an offensive big enough to swiftly knock Russia out of the war. Arguing over side issues is usually a symptom of ignoring the underlying cause; in this case, that German logistics weren't up to supporting a broad enough advance to ensure victory.
 

Post

If Army Group Center is encircled in 1941, there's no way the Germans can launch operation Blau. They won't recover from the losses. In OTL they were just able to launch operation Blau. Here their losses are much bigger and they've lost a lot of ground compared to OTL.
 

TDM

I agree with other posters

Leaving aside I don't know how the Soviets will encircle, reduce and then destroy AGC in 1941 anyway, if they somehow do this there's going to be no 1942 German offensive that will look anything like the OTL one because:

1). they've just lost AGC with up to what 50 divs gone?! That is simply a huge loss to recover and launch an offensive from in a few months

2). Overall the German offensive is now completely split and made up of two isolated prongs (AGN & AGS)

3). the Soviets in order to encircle and destroy AGC in 1941 would have to be benefiting from some pretty big PODs, which in themselves will force changes.


(stopping AGC from getting to Moscow and then launching a few over enthusiastic counter attacks in winter, and encircling and destroying AGC while it tries to get to Moscow are two very different things!)


EDIT: to answer the OP though if somehow the Red army is able to encircled and destroy AGC in 1941, and then the Axis still push 50 divs of AGS into being encircled and destroyed in 1942 by a Red army that can do that, what happened next? I'd guess if things keep going like this the red Army will push the axis out of the USSR by 1943 and be about to launch it's own offensive into Reich territory. The wallies will have to be pretty quick if they want a piece of this, but they will likely be helped because I suspect Germany will be pulling from all other fronts to ward off this very much over achieving when compared to OTL Red army!

However there could be wide reaching butterflies here. The Japanese seeing this ATL 1941 might actually hold fire on their own moves against the allies end of 1941-42, and that will have it own effects not only on the Far east theatre and GB & Co, but also on the US entry. And I also see Italy potentially drawing away from Germany here
 
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