Barbarossa 1940 in OTL 1941 scenario (after French defeat)

OTL, ww II started in September 1939 with Germany declaring war to poland in September, after that the German Army defeated Poland in one month. Despite Hitler intention to attack France immediately, attack was postponed until may 1940, and France was defeated in 6 weeks. However, it seems that particularly Hitler was increasingly aware on the time schedule constraints of his ambitions. In the end, he also lamented war had not started earlier.

What if instead of September 1939, Hitler goes to Spring scalation against Poland just after seizing Czech Republik (all is planned in the same diplomatic punch), defeats Poland in spring and goes against France in September 1939, defeating France also more or less as OTL, with all french mobile park seized as OTL for barabarosaa (Norway being done just earlier in summer). Battle of Britain starts in end 1939 – beg 1940, but on a lower scale that OTL as Hitler has directly decided to go East as quick as possible to come back later against UK. Regarding Russia, lets assume that there is a non aggression pact in spring 1939 as autum’s OTL one, the Russians seize Bukovina and besarabia diplomaticaly in spring 39- spring 1940 and Red army first echelon is moved there and to former East Poland; Balkans are managed to be diplomatically progerman or neutral without both Yugoslavian coup and Mussolini’s invasion of Greece hapening. Regarding USSR-finish winter war, well, it can be as OTL or an autum war that goes winter 39-40 with OTL soviet and finnish performance & result.

Obviously OTL Germany was extremely lucky in his earlier victories and there are issues of time constraint and force build up that probably makes this close to ASB (we could go back to October 38 war start to a more pausible scenario, but I see other issues in it, so I prefer the described one) but what would be the effect of a June 1940 barbarossa considering the above? How are The Wermacht and the Red army of 1940 in relative terms compared to OTL 1941? Any chance of success or the operation was doomed in any case? I see issues with German Tank portfolio (critical low volumes of P-III and P-IV, maybe 600 best case at June 40 vs 1500 in 1941 OTL, also raw materials tighter than OTL without soviet deliveries of of OTL 1940-41; they could have started earlier in any case), but maybe they are offset by issues on the red Army and the purges being more recent. Maybe there also issues in Russian and German command compared to 1941, maybe is something in this scenario that makes Stalin anticipate better the attack…which you think would be the outcome?
 
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Imo you are putting the cart before the horse.

In OTL, Germany has to resupply between the campaign of Poland and France (IIRC by the end of the campaign, according to Frieser, The LF could barely a dozen of days of campaign before having “to play cards” because of lack of ammunition). Same as for several key sectors of the industry such as the production of “actual” tanks: Pz III, Pz38(t) which are needed to fight France or ammunition and shells for ground force.

Ofc the wallies are also reinforcing but Germany is a year ahead in rearmament and concentrated its’ asset in a single force while the ally spread them so that it actually benefits more on medium term (had the phony war lasted longer that it would be the opposite).

There are also 2 major changes if Hitler went after France in September 1939:

-The accident of Mechelen after which the plan of the Germans were leaked, happened in 1940 and was one of the major reason Germany changed its’ plans.

Now assuming that the Manstein plan is adopted there is another issue:

-The Dyle-Breda variant: The more ambitious plan of the Wallies as it went very far in Holland, it was also adopted in 1940 thanks to the increase of the size of the BEF. Which mean that in this TL France is going at best to the Dyle, at worst on the Scheldt . There are essentially 2 consequences: France would only proceed with a limited penetration in Benelux and it will get one army as an operational reserve (the 7th) hence its' mobile force is unlikely to get cut off because. Which means that it can actually counter the sickle cut. And remember in this TL, the German’s concentration of tank is significantly weaker and the German army in general has an incredibly short Stamina.

If Manstein’s gamble is not adopted, the Germans would probably be able to fare better but again with their limited strength this plan can’t decisively beat the Wallies and they will have to launch another campaign by spring 1940 which is a worse variant of our TL as the French will have the time to adapt their outdated doctrine.
 
thanks for your answer. regarding resupply from poland, l guess 6 months form april to september would suffice, although it is true than otl ammunition took the lion share of procurement before france.

also true what you say about the french campaign, the issue here is that also the french are going to be less movilized, and again the german army has to be lucky.
 
What if instead of September 1939, Hitler goes to Spring scalation against Poland just after seizing Czech Republik (all is planned in the same diplomatic punch),...

Presumably, the German offensive is stalemated on the Vistula. Static warfare ensues both there and on the French border.
Some of the factors you are ignoring:
- the German armored forces that invaded Poland in September had, as their backbone, medium tanks armed with 37mm guns. These were some 370 tanks. Of these, 98 were of German production, PzIIIs. All the others were Czech tanks, the LT35 and the LT38. In the spring of 1939, the Germans have no time to pick up the existing tanks, test them, commission them, assign them to units, and allow the units to train with them; nor there are any of the tanks that were produced in former Czech factories under German control in those last few months of peace. Heck, the Panzertruppen even do not have all the divisions they fielded in OTL six months later.
- the invasion of Poland was kicked off from Slovakia, too, and Slovakia contributed three second-line infantry divisions to the effort. This cannot be organized at the very birth of Slovakia. Not having that springboard greatly reduces the encirclement ability of the Wehrmacht.
- and most of all, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This had not come into being in the spring of 1939 in OTL. Nor can you hope to hasten it; the lack of Western reaction to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia was a factor in Stalin's decision. Negotiations, even though they were surprisingly quick in OTL, would still take a couple of months at least. Germany is thus attacking with no Soviet promise of supplies that will circumvent the blockade on the oceans, and with no Soviet help in Eastern Poland.

Bad job.
 
You need to keep in mind that in this time period German was working furiously to rearm and rebuild its military and in 1939 the job was only half done. Germany invaded Poland with only 66 divisions. Nine months later they invaded France with 141 divisions. The following year they invaded the USSR with 153 divisions. Trying to speed up the time tables for these invasions would have been nearly impossible.
 
I was somehow aware of it as I hadn't seen this one in the forum but it is always good to see why, with nice to the point reasons - i could see the difficulties of beating france and the uk and even more later against the urss (the heer got total priority in the second half of 1940 and beg of 1941 regarding armaments build up) but I hadn't think that even the polish campaign would have changed dramatically.
 
You need to keep in mind that in this time period German was working furiously to rearm and rebuild its military and in 1939 the job was only half done. Germany invaded Poland with only 66 divisions. Nine months later they invaded France with 141 divisions. The following year they invaded the USSR with 153 divisions. Trying to speed up the time tables for these invasions would have been nearly impossible.

There was also a dissemination of things learned after the Poland campaign over the winter months all Battalion Colonels and above attended a school where they learned 'things that worked and things that didn't' and then disseminated those learnings among their fighting company and platoon leaders.

I would imagine that the same thing happened following the Western campaign along with the subsequent training etc that followed.

In addition replacements needed to be trained up and absorbed etc and this all took time.

And then we have the time.

The last French Fortress surrendered on 10th July

How quickly can the German Armed forces, refit and retrain, move to the Eastern Front, build up logistics necessary for an invasion of Russia and then invade?

I put it to the members of the forum that it could not be before Winter and therefore the answer is May/June 1941 ;)
 
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