Could an Operation Typhoon in August-September 1941 work?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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With regards to the formation of armies, the situation in the late summer was pretty fluid, so there's no recipe for creating armies.
While some armies were formed using new formations well to the rear, there are numerous examples of that not being the case as well.

Nope. The Soviets generally threw them together within a few weeks. By the second week of July they had already formed four armies (the 32nd, 33rd, 34th, and Coastal).

And in some cases, the armies were formed with a simple penstroke (without receiving any new forces) which I guess only takes about 1-2 seconds (!)
Examples of that would be the Coastal Army, 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, 53rd, 55th. And one can argue about the 40th, 42nd as well.

The armies were not formed up within marching distance of the muster point as it would be too easy for a fresh German assault to wipe them out before they could coalesce. Rather, the armies formed up well to the rear and then were railed to the front.

Except that is what happened with the 38th, 40th, 42nd, 6th (ii) and 12th (ii) and 55th.

Multiple defensive lines manned by Soviet armies echeloned in depth which you are doing your damndest to ignore. In addition to the Soviet defenses at the front, the Vyazma defense line had been in operation since June 28th and the Mozhiask Defense Line since mid-July. By mid-August these were manned by the 34th, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 40th, 49th, and 50th armies.

Except the 34th which by mid-August was fighting near Staraia Russa.
While the 40th was non-existent. That army was formed using forces from Southwestern Front in late-August when that Fronts right flank was threatened (and they needed an army HQ to control those forces).
And the 32nd and 33rd were militia units with little combat value at the time.

So the situation wasn't as rosy as you make it out to be.
 

Deleted member 1487

With regards to the formation of armies, the situation in the late summer was pretty fluid, so there's no recipe for creating armies.
While some armies were formed using new formations well to the rear, there are numerous examples of that not being the case as well.

And in some cases, the armies were formed with a simple penstroke (without receiving any new forces) which I guess only takes about 1-2 seconds (!)
Examples of that would be the Coastal Army, 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, 53rd, 55th. And one can argue about the 40th, 42nd as well.

Except that is what happened with the 38th, 40th, 42nd, 6th (ii) and 12th (ii) and 55th.

Except the 34th which by mid-August was fighting near Staraia Russa.
While the 40th was non-existent. That army was formed using forces from Southwestern Front in late-August when that Fronts right flank was threatened (and they needed an army HQ to control those forces).
And the 32nd and 33rd were militia units with little combat value at the time.

So the situation wasn't as rosy as you make it out to be.
Good points. And just because an army is formed doesn't mean it is combat ready at the stroke of a pen or even upon assembly. Later formations lacked all sorts of equipment, experience, qualified officers and NCOs, and even logistical support. Like with German in 1945 many formations that existed on paper were lacked any sort of functional combat power and for the USSR in 1941 Armies and lower formations formed from mid-July on might have had 50k men on paper, but they were in no way comparable to units formed pre-war or even in June or early July, nor even comparable to 1942 and on formations or perhaps even those units formed in November-December 1941 for the Winter Counteroffensives, as they got more time, equipment, and training before fighting than desperation formations created as little more than speed bumps, like most of those of the Reserve Front and later Bryansk Front. Sure there were some elements like the 24th Army of the Reserve Front that were pre-war divisions and those got burned up in August attacking Yelnya. Other than the odd 'Siberian division' brought in throughout 1941, like the very late arriving 32nd Rifle Division that appeared with the rebuilt 5th Army in mid-October in front of Moscow, the only complete division available to that army post-Vyazma/Bryansk in October, the vast majority of divisions and brigades fielded were ad hoc, nearly Volkssturm quality units that were formed to hopefully trip up the German as much as possible. By August and September the West Front and Reserve Fronts were left with mostly inexperienced, under equipped, poorly led division and brigades trying to form and prepare some sort of defense line in the wake of the Smolensk disaster. For example the 12 militia divisions of Reserve Front, which only gained combat power by October compared to August, being only a couple of weeks old by that point.
 
I'm using the table from Glantz's Barbarossa Derailed.
For Western Front, he lists the following:

16th+19th Army = 15,000 (note: on 6 August)
20th Army = 25,000 (note: on 6 August)
22nd Army = 78,000
29th Army = 45,000
24th Army = 50,000 (note: part of Reserve Front from 1 August and onwards)
30th Army = 65,000
Group Iartsevo = 50,000
28th Army = 50,000
Cavalry Group = 10,000

If you pick up a calculator and add those together, you get 388,000.

And then you add the replacements added after July 10th, which is 230,000. If you pick up a calculator and add those to that, it's 618,000.

And again we fall into the trap of shouting opinions at one another with little agreement on basic facts. So another agree to disagree, as neither person has convinced the other and we go 'round and 'round on the same points.

Largely because your view of history is of the Cold War one where the Soviets in 1941 served as nothing but punching bags for the Germans and there was not enough information to truly contest Soviet generals claims. As scholarship with access to full German and Soviet archives has revealed, they put up stiff resistance, repeatedly, that was decisive in stopping German advances.

You either do not or refuse to grasp that the speed and extent of the German eastward advance was and is ruled by two things: the logistical (not just supply, the word you keep using, as that is a much narrower term) and Soviet resistance, not by the decisions made by OKH or the weather. Hell, that the Germans were even still facing Soviet armies east of Smolensk in mid-August 1941 is a pretty solid indication of how Barbarossa had already failed. The entire plan revolved around the Red Army already collapsed as a result of it's defeat west of the D'vina-D'niepr line and it was done this way because the German planners specifically acknowledged that taking Moscow, much less fulfilling the intention of Barbarossa to destroy the Soviet Union, would be impossible impossible. When it transpired that the Red Army had not collapsed after it's defeats west of the D'vina-D'niepr, OKH (and even field commanders like Guderian) failed to heed the implications of what they had concluded in their own planning from several months before Barbarossa and advocated for an immediate advance on Moscow. And as we can see, more then 70 years later, you are doing the exact same thing.

Airfields are denied to the Soviets, the fields themselves can actually be used as the Germans were using the fields at Kalinin in October right after they were captured and were supplied by airlift,

At inadequately low tempos that they couldn't even sustain...

Kubinka is the Soviet military testing ground, so it's fall without evacuation of the majority of it's equipment will be an intelligence bonanza and major problem for Soviet R&D,

That's based on the wishful idea that the equipment wouldn't be evacuated and that which isn't evacuated destroyed. Given how slow and halting the German advance is liable to be, this is unlikely in the extreme.

while the loss of the Dacha will at very least screw with Stalin's head and lead him to launch immediate counteroffensives regardless of military ability to do so, so good luck having him wait for winter to counterattack after a period of reasonable build up.

Historically, the Dacha was very much under threat. There is zero evidence this had any impact on Stalin... in fact, I think I recall reading in Court of the Red Tsar that he had it prepped for demolition although I'm a little hazy on it. Nor did the loss of his Dacha's in the south seem to have any impact on him. More likely is you are just latching on to this because you just want Stalin to do what is most convenient for the Germans. In any case this very much runs against what tended to happen historically: when shit was truly on the line, Stalin tended to become much more realistic and didn't worry about something petty like losing a dacha...

If the center of the city is in artillery range, besides the PVO air defenses having a major gap, the public would flee the city en masse, rail would be disrupted from the shelling and evacuation, and the government and STAVKA would have to evacuate the city and set up elsewhere, disrupting operations and destroying the prestige/authority of the regime to actually be in power.

No basis for the public fleeing beyond a very brief panic among a limited portion of it OTL. The predominant mood in Moscow when the Germans approached was generally one of defiance, not panic. The rail in the eastern part of the city would be operating just fine. Government evacuation would have probably already been conducted by the time the Germans make it into the western most parts, like OTL. And the prestige/authority of the regime would be kept sturdy by the fact the city is being defended in street-street combat in the western part, with the Germans quite clearly stuck there.

In terms of extending the rail lines, they could get the lines extended there by October or at latest December, as they won't be extending rail lines to Leningrad nor beyond the Psel river in Ukraine to the Mius river (unless the Soviets fall back further even later), so can focus rail repair/conversion resources behind AG-Center to link up the front.

Again, wishful thinking. Not only was there not enough infrastructure behind the frontline to fit those extra rail crews but nor was there time to for the extensive redeployment of the relevant assets. This was not something that could be done on as short or improvised basis as you apparently think it could. That kind of shifting of priorities requires sound, massive, and extensive planning. For that sort of planning to be done quickly, the entire German logistical organization would have had to be radically different then how it was OTL. For instance, the staffs would have had to be massively larger then they actually were. Even for the OTL planning, and implementation of plans, German staffs were far too small and tended to be too overwhelmed exacerbating their logistical failures. Another issue is that their logistical functions would have had to be unified under a single command instead of being chopped up between the General Staff, the General Army Office, the Transport and Organization Branches, and the General Quartermaster. This disunity in effort hindered not only planning but coordination as well.

With that in mind, the demands of supplying the fresh advance would be beyond the capacity of German logistical services to handle, as it was OTL in Typhoon when the rail net was in a dramatically better state then it was in August. In August, the German rail teams can either try convert the railway east as fast as they can while neglecting the support infrastructure that allows adequate supply throughput (what they did OTL), expand the railway at a much slower pace while building an adequate support infrastructure for the converted rail net, or they can sacrifice on both rail conversion and support infrastructure improvement in order to ship out supplies over the existing rails and infrastructure to support an advance eastward to the best ability that the existing rail net and it's supporting infrastructure can handle (which, in August, is even more woefully inadequate then in October). They cannot do all of these. What having the Germans start Typhoon a month and a half early really does is break the German supply chain a month and a half early. Only in the most deluded perspective on logistics, one which almost belongs right alongside Hitler at his worst, does it improve it.

Capturing portions of the city and military bases would also yield a lot of highly useful supplies for German forces too.

Those supplies would have long been moved or destroyed by the time the Germans arrived, as generally happened elsewhere.

Nothing but disruptive things happens to the USSR if the Germans set a foot within Moscow

Based on wishful Nazi-esque thinking which holds that the Soviet Union is a rotten structure which will collapse the moment. In reality, the Soviets had made quite concerted preparations to defend the capitol and there was every indication they intended to hold the city to the last and even continue the fight without it if they had too.

especially as the southern branch of the counteroffensives will have to deal with AG-South on their flank,

Non-issue, given AG-Souths inability to advance against ATL Soviet defenses east of the D'niepr. The only force the Soviet counter-offensive forces are going to have to worry about are those of AGC, and those are either directly in front of them or tied down in fighting to the east.

plus German forces in a much better flank defense position than IOTL as the front lines are far less long and Guderian can support 2nd Army with 2nd Panzer,

2nd Panzer is tied down in urban fighting in southwestern Moscow and the region to it's immediate south along the Oka river while 2nd Army is guarding a front nearly twice as long as OTL.

while 9th, 4th, and 3rd Panzer army are also available to hold large sections of front as well.

4th Panzer Army is far to the north holding Valdai Heights. As to 3rd and 4th Panzer: they could either keep pushing forward or they can hold a large part of the flanks. They can't do both. My map (and your OP, ultimately) is assuming the latter situation, which means that 4th Panzer is tied down in fighting in northwestern Moscow and along the direction of the Volga-Moscow Reservoir Canal while 3rd Panzer is tied down in fighting in southwestern Moscow and in the direction of the Oka-Moskva River. That leaves the 9th by itself to defend a line roughly as large as that 2nd Army is holding in the south. Historically, 2nd Army failed to hold a line half that size. There is little reason to suspect the 9th would do any better.

Plus based on your map the Kalinin-Msocow rail line is cut so massing on the north flank for a major counter offensive would require major rail detours around Moscow Canal and to the East of the Ivanovko Reservoir:

That happened OTL with the fall of Kalinin. And the Soviets responded by doing precisely that. Without Kalinin falling, though, they can make use of it as a railhead very close to the German northern flank, unlike OTL.

Plus the longer that rail line is cut, the longer Leningrad is cut off of most rail traffic.

Again, historically the line was cut for months. The Soviets responded by simply shunting the traffic eastward. It very much helps IATL that Leningrad isn't under siege, seeing as the Germans are simply sitting around on the Luga, so there isn't as much urgency there...

With regards to the formation of armies, the situation in the late summer was pretty fluid, so there's no recipe for creating armies.
While some armies were formed using new formations well to the rear, there are numerous examples of that not being the case as well.

Yeah, I could see if there were things like an army getting formed from the shattered remains that had been hastily reinforced and other sort of stuff. In that case, it would simply be placing a whole bunch of pre-existing formations under a newly formed HQ.

Except that is what happened with the 38th, 40th, 42nd, 6th (ii) and 12th (ii) and 55th.

Some of those I'm dubious on given the distances but frankly, it's not really relevant if some of the armies did make it to the front via marching when there are so many others could have only made it via being railed in. It still proves that the Soviets clearly had, and still have, the capacity to rail many armies over extensive distances, thereby disproving Wiking's claim.

Except the 34th which by mid-August was fighting near Staraia Russa.

I can buy that. I was looking at the list of armies that were formed in July and August 1941 in the immediate Moscow region and simply eliminated those which don't appear up front in the maps of the frontline in mid-August. Given the location of the 34th's formation, I could see it being moved to Staraya Russa instead of sticking around.

While the 40th was non-existent. That army was formed using forces from Southwestern Front in late-August when that Fronts right flank was threatened (and they needed an army HQ to control those forces).

Actually, upon review, I don't know how the 40th made it on to that list...

And the 32nd and 33rd were militia units with little combat value at the time.

Even assuming that is still true by mid-August, and ignoring that much of the armies of the Reserve Front and Western Front that were up front would be falling back to join them, that's still fine. By the time the German forces hit them, most of the German forces themselves will also be of little offensive value from the hard fighting and logistical collapse. This also happened in a number of cases with the OTL Typhoon. It evens out.

So the situation wasn't as rosy as you make it out to be.

5 armies, two conscript-militia and three trained reservists with the odd pre-war division thrown in, is a lot rosier then it was during the OTL defense of Moscow immediately following Vyazma-Briansk, when the Soviets didn't have a single real army but instead a scattered bunch of composite divisions and brigades to hold the line with. Yet held the line they did against a advance that was both stronger and better supplied then the IATL one. And I haven't even taken into account how the initial German advance would unfold slowly enough that the bulk of the forces up front would be able to fall back. Guderian in mid-August struggled to make less then 50 kilometers from August 8th on through August 24th against the shattered remnants of the Central Front (the armies in the disposition maps don't even have recognizable divisions) that were fleeing eastward after Roslavl, an ROA of around 3 kilometers a day. Now he's suddenly going to achieve an ROA almost 20 times that against armies that are actually formed up and manning multiple defense line, including multiple river crossings?

There wouldn't even be any element of surprise: an advance east towards Moscow in early/mid-August was exactly what Stalin was expecting and he had prepared his forces accordingly. Zhukov had disagreed and expected the Germans to be professional about it, consolidate, and clear the flanks. In response, Stalin transferred Zhukov to command the Reserve Front, which Zhukov ruthlessly had whipped into a combat ready state by mid-August... only for the freshly trained forces to get burned up after the expected offensive failed to materialize and Stalin ordered the Yel'naya offensive. IATL, there is no Yel'naya Offensive because the German attack does materialize.
 
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And then you add the replacements added after July 10th, which is 230,000. If you pick up a calculator and add those to that, it's 618,000.

I see you didn't answer my challenge to show which section of the frontline these 230,000 soldiers were holding on July 31.
That's a huge number of troops - clearly they must have been manning a very large section of the frontline? But which one?

Or do you believe that the numbers Glantz use for the 16th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, 28th, 29th, 30th, Yartsevo or Cavalry Group on July 31 does not include any reinforcements received between July 10-31?

It still proves that the Soviets clearly had, and still have, the capacity to rail many armies over extensive distances, thereby disproving Wiking's claim.

But it doesn't show that these armies would be available for use any other place without consequences.
Say, if you want to use the Coastal Army around Smolensk in August/September, the consequence would be the loss of Odessa in August.

Even assuming that is still true by mid-August

The militia divisions weren't converted to rifle divisions with proper equipment until September.

5 armies, two conscript-militia and three trained reservists with the odd pre-war division thrown in, is a lot rosier then it was during the OTL defense of Moscow immediately following Vyazma-Briansk,

On 2 October, the Red Army had 4 field armies (31st, 32nd, 33rd and 49th) manning a second defensive belt. That's comparable to the situation in August/September.

It is true that the Soviets didn't have a large number of forces available once the Germans broke through that second defensive belt.
But then again, that would also hold true earlier.
 

Deleted member 1487

And then you add the replacements added after July 10th, which is 230,000. If you pick up a calculator and add those to that, it's 618,000.
.
Replacements....for losses taken in August-September. Are you deducting casualties?

5 armies, two conscript-militia and three trained reservists with the odd pre-war division thrown in, is a lot rosier then it was during the OTL defense of Moscow immediately following Vyazma-Briansk, when the Soviets didn't have a single real army but instead a scattered bunch of composite divisions and brigades to hold the line with. Yet held the line they did against a advance that was both stronger and better supplied then the IATL one. And I haven't even taken into account how the initial German advance would unfold slowly enough that the bulk of the forces up front would be able to fall back. Guderian in mid-August struggled to make less then 50 kilometers from August 8th on through August 24th against the shattered remnants of the Central Front (the armies in the disposition maps don't even have recognizable divisions) that were fleeing eastward after Roslavl, an ROA of around 3 kilometers a day. Now he's suddenly going to achieve an ROA almost 20 times that against armies that are actually formed up and manning multiple defense line, including multiple river crossings?
Which 5 armies are you talking about? If you mean the Reserve Front, just like in October they would be crushed as part of the Vyazma pocket, while the armies on the flank fronts wouldn't be a threat or moved rapidly enough to replace those lost at Vyazma, against just like in October. In October the only reason the composite leftovers held the line was the mud that confined the Germans to roads and let the Soviets concentrate their limited combat power on the few defensive positions that were ready; they couldn't be flanked due to the oceans of mud off the roads and logistics was a mess because of said mud and the lack of road options and large number of unpaved roads that wheeled supply vehicles couldn't traverse. Guderian for instance bogged down heavily as early as October 3rd in places on his front, while by October 10th during the Vyzama pocket muds started and hampered the pocket battle and only got worse as 4th Panzer army tried to exploit to Moscow, while 3rd Panzer also bogged down badly on the way to Kalinin, but they didn't really face much resistance once they skirted Soviet forces at Rzhev until they got to Kalinin. The issue for the Soviets is once Reserve and West Front are smashed as Rzhev there is nothing in the way on the road to Moscow and no mud to save the USSR. A single corps would have all the supplies it needed (in mid-July the AG-Center quarter master said they could send at least two to Moscow) to capture the city, given that it lacked any defenses by early September. Guderian faced tough resistance from Central Front, which was not a small organization, but effectively destroyed them in two weeks and advanced beyond Gomel, fighting off repeated Soviet counteroffensives along the way. To travel the same distance he did between August 8th-24th would actually put his forces in Vyazma on the 20th BTW. 2nd Panzer moved a corps from Roslavl to Gomel and beyond, traveling a circuitous route along the way, maneuvering around enemy formation and fighting the whole way (not really an issue once he bashes through 24th army if he heads East). I'm really surprised you think Guderian's forces didn't fight very hard through the 8th-21st period.

Now since you made me do this, this is on you for this round of map dumps:
aug 8.jpg

aug 10.jpg


aug 12.jpg


aug 14.jpg


aug 14-18.jpg


aug15.jpg


aug 18.jpg


aug 19.jpg


aug 20.jpg



Looks like they had a lot of organized resistance and ripped through it with a fraction of Guderian's 2nd Panzer, as the majority of his forces were tied down defending to the East.

There wouldn't even be any element of surprise: an advance east towards Moscow in early/mid-August was exactly what Stalin was expecting and he had prepared his forces accordingly. Zhukov had disagreed and expected the Germans to be professional about it, consolidate, and clear the flanks. In response, Stalin transferred Zhukov to command the Reserve Front, which Zhukov ruthlessly had whipped into a combat ready state by mid-August... only for the freshly trained forces to get burned up after the expected offensive failed to materialize and Stalin ordered the Yel'naya offensive. IATL, there is no Yel'naya Offensive because the German attack does materialize.
With what? West and Reserve Fronts. Once they were crushed at Vyasma there is nothing left in the way along the Smolensk-Moscow highway and there aren't forces forming in front of the city, nor at the armies on flanking fronts able to move quickly to Moscow. Reserve Front had little combat power by August, Zhukov did not whipping into shape, he bashed it to death in August. The Germans attacking during his offensives and pocketing them achieves the same effect much more cheaply at a time when they were even less combat capable than in October as they actually had time to rest and train once the offensives in early September ended; prior Reserve Front was activated on July 30th and went into the offensive immediately. They had little ability to fight other than some units like the 24th Army and it's Siberians, but they were focused on Yelnya and a flank attack out of Roslavl would have caught them flat footed on August 8th given that the army guarding it, the 28th, was crushed by Guderian and finished off by the 8th of August.
 
I see you didn't answer my challenge to show which section of the frontline these 230,000 soldiers were holding on July 31.
That's a huge number of troops - clearly they must have been manning a very large section of the frontline? But which one?

That they had to be holding a additional portion of the frontline is an assumption you make that is not necessarily in evidence. The frontline the Western Front was holding on July 31st was quite large as it was. Furthermore, it is also conceivable that a substantial portion, or possibly even all, of those men could have been held back from the front to hold rear operational and strategic defensive positions or simply to receive further training.

Or do you believe that the numbers Glantz use for the 16th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, 28th, 29th, 30th, Yartsevo or Cavalry Group on July 31 does not include any reinforcements received between July 10-31?

While one could argue that there doesn't seem much point in listing the number of replacements separately if that was the case, the truth is it is unclear from the tables alone. I'd suspect you'd have to ask Glantz himself if you want to clear that up.

But it doesn't show that these armies would be available for use any other place without consequences.
Say, if you want to use the Coastal Army around Smolensk in August/September, the consequence would be the loss of Odessa in August.

We've already established that the 52nd and 54th would be available IATL with no consequences.

The militia divisions weren't converted to rifle divisions with proper equipment until September.

The militia divisions were rifle divisions pretty much from their first formation. They were formed with a rifle divisions TO&E, even though their actual establishment actually never matched. The "conversion" was little more then a renaming.

On 2 October, the Red Army had 4 field armies (31st, 32nd, 33rd and 49th) manning a second defensive belt. That's comparable to the situation in August/September.

4<5. So not comparable. Frankly, given the greater weakness of the German forces their not liable to make as much success against the second belt as they did in October.

It is true that the Soviets didn't have a large number of forces available once the Germans broke through that second defensive belt.
But then again, that would also hold true earlier.

And those forces held the German assault. That too would hold true earlier.

Replacements....for losses taken in August-September. Are you deducting casualties?

No. Replacements for July 10th through July 31st. Rather hard to receive replacements for August-September seeing as they haven't happened yet.

Which 5 armies are you talking about?

Have you not been paying attention to the last page?

If you mean the Reserve Front, just like in October they would be crushed as part of the Vyazma pocket,

Nah, you keep assuming that they would be crushed despite being stronger then in October and the Germans weaker. In reality, the slower pace and weaker nature of the German advance would allow much more to fall back out of the pocket. The same weakness would also allow many more Soviet forces to successfully escape, as the Germans have fewer men to adequately screen it.

while the armies on the flank fronts wouldn't be a threat or moved rapidly enough to replace those lost at Vyazma, against just like in October.

Despite the fact they proved to be a threat to Guderian's thrust towards Kiev in early-September...

In October the only reason the composite leftovers held the line was the mud that confined the Germans to roads and let the Soviets concentrate their limited combat power on the few defensive positions that were ready;

Again with the mud myth. In reality, the German collapse, both logistically and in terms of the rate of advance, pre-date the mud...

Guderian for instance bogged down heavily as early as October 3rd in places on his front,

... as you subsequently manage to prove yourself. October 3rd is long before the mud set in, especially where Guderian was operating where the Raputitsa set in later then it did further north.

A single corps would have all the supplies it needed (in mid-July the AG-Center quarter master said they could send at least two to Moscow) to capture the city, given that it lacked any defenses by early September.

This is such OKH thinking that it's uncanny. Yeah, the quartermaster in mid-July said they could possibly supply as many as two panzer corps to Moscow in early September. They said nothing about whether two panzer corps could fight through Soviet defenses in early September. Your assertion that the city would have no defenses is based on assumptions on the initial outcome of the campaign that rests more in the realm of Nazi-esque rotten structure thinking then a rational analysis of the situation.

Guderian faced tough resistance from Central Front, which was not a small organization, but effectively destroyed them in two weeks and advanced beyond Gomel, fighting off repeated Soviet counteroffensives along the way. To travel the same distance he did between August 8th-24th would actually put his forces in Vyazma on the 20th BTW. 2nd Panzer moved a corps from Roslavl to Gomel and beyond, traveling a circuitous route along the way, maneuvering around enemy formation and fighting the whole way (not really an issue once he bashes through 24th army if he heads East). I'm really surprised you think Guderian's forces didn't fight very hard through the 8th-21st period.

Because your wrong and he didn't face tough resistance. The resistance Guderian faced from the Central Front can be, and has, been described as "fleeing". He did not have to maneuver around enemy forces (which he would have to if he heads east as there are another two Soviet reserve armies off in that direction) as by the 20th most of the enemies that had made up. After that, Guderian pulled off the line and moved through territory that had already been secured by the 2nd Army down to Gomel. Moving through ones territory you control well to the rear is always vastly easier then advancing

Now since you made me do this, this is on you for this round of map dumps:

*snip*

Looks like they had a lot of organized resistance and ripped through it with a fraction of Guderian's 2nd Panzer, as the majority of his forces were tied down defending to the East.

Very few of your maps show Soviet forces, they all give zero sense of scale, and you also confuse things by throwing in maps of the 2nd Armies advance as opposed to 2nd Panzer Group (although I understand if you got them confused). Meanwhile, if we scoot back to the maps you post earlier, we can see the truth:

ZAm0rGW.jpg


The red circle is the general region within which Guderian made his advance in mid-August, complete with a scale ruler in the upper left hand corner. Compared to the map showing the dispositions on August 8th...

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As one can see, the advance on the left wing is around 30-40 kilometers, about 7-8 kilometers a day. The right wing's advance is deeper to the point it goes off the map, but is still substantially below that of the scale bar so it is likely around the same. It's swinging eastward mainly because the 2nd Army is just further to the south, off the map, crossing over the D'niepr. Comparing it to some of the maps you posted earlier, the rate of advance is little different. 7-8 kilometers a day is not going to be encircling much. Probably not coincidentally, the right wing of the Panzer Group is operating closer to Mogilev, where a secondary rail line is available. We can also see that your claim that most of Guderian's forces were facing eastward in mid-August or were holding the Yel'naya salient is untrue. Only the 17th, 18th, and 10th Panzer are facing eastward and only the 10th and 18th are at the Yel'nya salient, with the latter in a reserve role. The salient itself is being held by the XX Grenadier Corps of the and . Finally note that in the August 8th map, the Soviet armies are shown as not just armies but also as coherent divisions whereas in the August 15th map, only the right wing of the 13th still maintains such coherency. That pretty clearly shows that by the 15th, the Central Front's forces had lost any real ability to resist. Once again, I will reiterate that the degree of Soviet resistance which Guderian encountered during this entire period can, and has, been described This is not remotely comparable to the kind of resistance Guderian could expect to face in a eastward drive. It also rather neatly explains the August 20th map:

upload_2017-5-1_2-7-27.png


The Central Front has fled east, easily allowing the 4th Army to simply move into the new positions while Guderian's panzer corps has moved into the unoccupied space in front of. The withdrawal of his Corps has begun further to the rear however, with some of the grenadier divisions under Guderian's command heading back towards the Mogilev-Gomel rail line for transfer down to Gomel.

With what? West and Reserve Fronts. Once they were crushed at Vyasma there is nothing left in the way along the Smolensk-Moscow highway and there aren't forces forming in front of the city, nor at the armies on flanking fronts able to move quickly to Moscow.

You have yet to prove that the West and Reserve Fronts would be crushed in an early Typhoon, never mind that we have already thrown out your assumptions about the inability of the Soviets to shift forces around by rail or that there would be no further forces beyond the immediate front.

Reserve Front had little combat power by August, Zhukov did not whipping into shape, he bashed it to death in August.

That Zhukov spent much of the early and mid-August training the Reserve Front and got it into a combat ready state is well established. This then bore out in the subsequent Yel'naya Offensive where the Soviets successfully fought through the German defensive lines and forced the Germans to withdraw from the Yel'naya salient in order to avoid being cut off and destroyed for the first time in the whole war, as the Germans at the time themselves admitted in private. This alone disproves your nonsensical assertion that the Reserve Front had little combat power... indeed, it rather indicates that the Reserve Front was probably one of the two fronts with the greatest amount of combat power in the entire Red Army, the other being the Southwestern Front (although it's achievement was rather more pulling off a mostly successful fighting retreat rather then managing to force a German withdrawal).

The Germans attacking during his offensives and pocketing them achieves the same effect much more cheaply at a time when they were even less combat capable than in October as they actually had time to rest and train once the offensives in early September ended;

Once again, you make the assertion that the Soviets are less combat capable and the Germans more, totally ignoring what the math and scholarship tells us. OKH did the same thing, so I guess it's just fashionable or something.

They had little ability to fight other than some units like the 24th Army and it's Siberians,

What? The 24ths divisions were mainly 1st wave mobilization divisions formed in July in either the Moscow or Orel military districts.
 
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That they had to be holding a additional portion of the frontline is an assumption you make that is not necessarily in evidence. The frontline the Western Front was holding on July 31st was quite large as it was. Furthermore, it is also conceivable that a substantial portion, or possibly even all, of those men could have been held back from the front to hold rear operational and strategic defensive positions or simply to receive further training.

It would be quite remarkable if the Western Front held 230,000 trained reservists back at the same time as a large number of the Front was fighting for their lives in near encirclement around Smolensk. Times were desperate...
Furthermore, it seems odd that no archival information about such a force exists. The figure Glantz uses is after all an estimate on his part, and not something derived directly from the Red Army records.

While one could argue that there doesn't seem much point in listing the number of replacements separately if that was the case, the truth is it is unclear from the tables alone.

We do know that the numbers for the 16th, 19th and 20th are not excluding replacements during July. They are based on a Red Army report listing the strength of the armies in question.

For the others, one can verify using other methods.
Take Group Maslennikov (29th Army) as an example. On 1 August, that group consisted of 2 Rifle Divisions, 1 NKVD Rifle Regiment and 1 Corps Artillery Regiment.
Glantz's estimate of 45,000 men for that group certainly doesn't appear to be understated (by not including replacements). If anything, the opposite seems more likely.

I'd suspect you'd have to ask Glantz himself if you want to clear that up.

I believe I have a pretty good understanding of the table in question.

What Glantz is trying to do is present 3 things:
(1) he wants to show the strength on July 10,
(2) he wants to show the strength on July 31
(3) he wants to show the the total number of participants in the battle during July

The number of replacements between July 10-31 are included in the table to support (3).
But there's no obvious place to put that number. It doesn't belong in the July 10-column. And it doesn't belong in the July 31-column.
So he puts the number in one column in one book, and in the other column in the other book. In the process, adding to the confusion.


So were did the replacements go? A few suggestions might be:

(1) The 4th, 13th and 21st Armies had a starting strength on 10 July of 191,000.
By August 1, the 4th and 13th had merged into one, while the 21st had split into the 21st and 3rd. In total, they made up the Central Front.
And Glantz puts the strength of the Central Front at 285,000 on August 1.

That is, after three weeks of heavy combat (for instance a large part of the 13th was encircled at Mogilev), their size had actually grown.
Clearly, a lot of the replacements troops went to that those armies, and are thus accounted for in the Central Front number of August 1.

(2) Other replacements troops ended up as a casualty.
The battles of July were quite heavy, in which a large portion of the participating Soviet forces ended up as kia/mia/wia.
There's no reason to believe a replacement soldier arriving on say July 11 would be invulnerable.
Or do you believe that none of the replacement troops arriving between July 10-31 actually ended up in combat?

(3) Yet other replacement troops became part of an army, survived the fighting of July, and are accounted for in the July 31 figures for their corresponding armies/groups.
In the report listing the strength of the 16th, 19th and 20th armies at the start of August, the Soviets didn't distinguish between original members of the armies, and soldiers that arrived later on.
They simple present one figure, giving the number of troops in the armies. Which makes sense, as there isn't any logical reason as to why the army should exclude soldiers from a strength report based on the soldiers arrival date at the army.
It follows that if any of those armies received any replacements in the last three weeks of July - the ones that avoided becoming a casualty are accounted for in the strength figure of the army at the start of August.

We've already established that the 52nd and 54th would be available IATL with no consequences.

Not entirely without consequence.
The OTL seems to assume the 4th Panzer Group is utilized south of Lake Il'men (while losing a Motorized Corps from 3rd Panzer Group for a short time at the start of September).
If the Red Army doesn't make any corresponding move, they might struggle a bit in that area - although it might not be the worst area to struggle in.

The militia divisions were rifle divisions pretty much from their first formation.

I see Nigel Askey in his third volume (about the Soviet forces) rates the Moscow militia rifle divisions lower than other militia rifle divisions, which again is rated lower than the end of July shtat-rifle divisions.
Among others, he writes they were low on artillery and engineering assets (in addition to trained personnel).

4<5. So not comparable.

In October, I count 20 Rifle Divisions and 2 Cavalry Divisions controlled by the 4 second echelon armies.
In September, I count 6 Rifle Divisions and 11 Moscow Militia Rifle Divisions in the 4 second echelon armies. Now, the case of the 50th is a bit special since it was a 2nd echelon in mid-August when it was formed, but quickly turned into a first echelon army when Guderian advanced southwards. It had 6 Rifle Divisions and 1 Cavalry Division when it was formed in mid August (when it was in 2nd echelon) or 7 Rifle Divisions and a Rifle Regiment at the start of September when it was part of the first echelon.

Summing it up, you have 20+2 divisions in October and 23+1 (if you use 2nd echelon 50th Army) or 24 (if you use 1st echelon 50th Army).
Adjusting for militia factor and generally giving the troops additional weeks of needed training, the difference isn't all that great. Id est, it is comparable (which in my vocabulary means about the same). It's certainly not a huge difference.

And those forces held the German assault. That too would hold true earlier.

It's difficult to discuss what would happen in step 4 of an ATL when we haven't reached a common understanding of what actually occurred in step 0 yet (that is in OTL).
 

Deleted member 1487

No. Replacements for July 10th through July 31st. Rather hard to receive replacements for August-September seeing as they haven't happened yet.
In which case they'd be included in total strength returns as of July 31st, not in addition to them. So whatever that strength returns as of August 1st are include the replacements sent in July.

Have you not been paying attention to the last page?
I'd prefer if you specifically listed them and where they would and when in your mind.

Nah, you keep assuming that they would be crushed despite being stronger then in October and the Germans weaker. In reality, the slower pace and weaker nature of the German advance would allow much more to fall back out of the pocket. The same weakness would also allow many more Soviet forces to successfully escape, as the Germans have fewer men to adequately screen it.
You haven't demonstrated that they were any stronger in August than in October, while in October the reserve units formed in mid/late July were actually more experienced and ready in their echeloned defensive positions than they were in August, while they were busy attacking AG-Center frontally and at Yelnya.

Despite the fact they proved to be a threat to Guderian's thrust towards Kiev in early-September...
Because he was advancing to them where they already were and they didn't have to travel far to get at his flanks in September. If he was advancing East in August they'd have to travel quite a distance to actually get at him, while 13th and 21st Armies of Central Front weren't much of an offensive threat to the flank of advance East, they were demolished handily by 1 Panzer Corps and 2nd Army in a couple of weeks IOTL in mid-August, while Reserve Front and West Front would be engaged and destroyed by the advance East. Can you post a map of what flank armies would be attacking the flanks of a push East in August and September?

Again with the mud myth. In reality, the German collapse, both logistically and in terms of the rate of advance, pre-date the mud...
In some cases yes, but they pushed on far from their start positions, but suffered their logistics issues in concert with the start of the mud on the Vyazma axis of advance; Guderian had logistics issues much further south before being hit with the muds, but was crippled by them when they started, even after solving much of the distance related logistics issues.

... as you subsequently manage to prove yourself. October 3rd is long before the mud set in, especially where Guderian was operating where the Raputitsa set in later then it did further north.
Not on the Southern Front. Guderian experienced issues with mud starting on the 3rd that only got worse. By the 6th it was totally incapacitating his move on Mtsenk. That is confirmed in several sources including Stahel's 'Operation Typhoon', "T-34: a Mythical Weapon" that has an extremely detailed description of the fight at Mtsenk around October 8th, and Forczyk's Osprey campaign book on Moscow Campaign.

This is such OKH thinking that it's uncanny. Yeah, the quartermaster in mid-July said they could possibly supply as many as two panzer corps to Moscow in early September. They said nothing about whether two panzer corps could fight through Soviet defenses in early September. Your assertion that the city would have no defenses is based on assumptions on the initial outcome of the campaign that rests more in the realm of Nazi-esque rotten structure thinking then a rational analysis of the situation.
That's all that is needed in early September after the Vyazma pocket is finished. They could get two Panzer armies to Vyazma and then 1 Panzer corps from each to continue on the highways to Moscow itself. As it was 1 Panzer Corps from Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army effectively destroyed the entire 13th Army on it's own and then assisted 2nd Army in the near destruction of 21st Army and shoving the newly formed 3rd Army backwards toward Kiev. 24th Army was already heavily engaged around Yelnya and lacked a reserve to stop an attack East of the Panzer Corps that shattered 13th Army, plus they weren't really prepared for an attack on the flank across the Desna after the destruction of 28th army at Roslavl.


Because your wrong and he didn't face tough resistance. The resistance Guderian faced from the Central Front can be, and has, been described as "fleeing". He did not have to maneuver around enemy forces (which he would have to if he heads east as there are another two Soviet reserve armies off in that direction) as by the 20th most of the enemies that had made up. After that, Guderian pulled off the line and moved through territory that had already been secured by the 2nd Army down to Gomel. Moving through ones territory you control well to the rear is always vastly easier then advancing
He was repeatedly attacked by Soviet forces the entire way. Just because Central Front fell apart doesn't mean it wasn't a wreck on the 24th because Guderian advanced into thin air, he beat them in heavy combat.
P.385 of Barbarossa Derailed vol. 1 talked about the heavy fighting experienced for over a week, starting on August 8th by Guderian's forces pushing south during which time 13th Army was destroyed as a fighting force. Furthermore Glantz states that the Soviets saw such a move coming and in the creation of Reserve Front and ordered them to prepare their defenses, while Stalin swapped out commanders in late July to put more 'fighting generals' in place to resist Guderian. Days before Guderian attacked 13th army they had been reinforced by the 4th Airborne corps, 52nd Cavalry division, and 21st Mountain Cavalry division. In 3 days of heavy combat (p.387) 13th Army's front was cracked wide open and they were routed and fled south. Within 6 days XXIV Panzer Corps captured 16,000 men, 76 guns, 15 tanks, and an armored train. That was done without the support of 2nd Army, which delayed their attack until the 12th, after Guderian's corps had succeeded in their attack and were already starting a mini-pocket battle.
Thereafter the Panzer Corps and 2nd Army engaged in multiple pocket battles and destroyed several Soviet corps in their push to Gomel and beyond. The shattered remnants of 13th Army withdrew East, the 21st Army south. That was on the 16th of August, about a week after the start of the offensives. Bryansk Front was formed from the wreckage of Central Front on the 14th. Of course during all of this 2nd Panzer Army was keeping most of it's forces fighting Reserve Front, which under Zhukov was hammering on Yelnya. So despite the major commitments against Reserve Front 1 Panzer Corps from Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army and 2nd Army with all of it's supply problems, muddy roads of poor quality, and heavy losses to that point succeeded in about 1 week destroying Central Front as a fighting force, pretty much necessitating the formation of an entirely new Front with it's remnants and reinforcements. I have no idea why you think there wasn't heavy fighting to destroy and entire Front, force the creation of a new one, and inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on Central Front, perhaps up to and over 100k.

Very few of your maps show Soviet forces, they all give zero sense of scale, and you also confuse things by throwing in maps of the 2nd Armies advance as opposed to 2nd Panzer Group (although I understand if you got them confused). Meanwhile, if we scoot back to the maps you post earlier, we can see the truth:

ZAm0rGW.jpg
All the maps I used were from Barbarossa Derailed vol.1 on the chapter about Panzer Group Guderian's advance south (pp.367-403). If you have an issue with what the maps represent, take it up with Glantz, as that is what he used to represent Guderian's and 2nd army's push south against Central Front. 2nd Army was the bulk of the forces used, as at least half of 2nd Panzer Army was tied down defending Yelnya at the same time as we can see from the map you posted from Stahel's book, which is a cleaned up modern map from another of Glantz's books of the maps of the Battle of Smolensk.


The red circle is the general region within which Guderian made his advance in mid-August, complete with a scale ruler in the upper left hand corner. Compared to the map showing the dispositions on August 8th...

0YUDx11.png


As one can see, the advance on the left wing is around 30-40 kilometers, about 7-8 kilometers a day.
Guderian's Panzers advanced from the west of Roslavl to a city called Starodub by the 21st, east of Gomel. Rather than trying to mess around with estimations based on maps it's easier to use a distance calculator.
https://www.distancecalculator.net/
Roslavl to Starodub is 152km as the crow flies, much further by main road. From Krychaw, a city west of Roslavl, the nearest point I think I can find on a modern map to the starting point of 3rd Panzer Division on August 8th, it is 143km in a straight line to Starodub, 3rd Panzer's end point on the 21st of August. By road it is 175km, which is the rough route that 3rd Panzer took according to the maps I posted. So rather than your estimations, how about we use modern maps that actually give us usable distances? In that case the distance from the position 3rd Panzer Division started on August 8th was 175km to it's position at Starodub on August 21st.

Vyazma on a direct line from Roslavl is 166km in a straight line, 221km by road. Not quite the same distance, but pretty damn close. 3rd Panzer faced opposition the entire way, but ripped through Soviet front lines and drove on regardless, much as they would do in October and would be able to do on August 8th 1941 if sent East instead of south.


The right wing's advance is deeper to the point it goes off the map, but is still substantially below that of the scale bar so it is likely around the same. It's swinging eastward mainly because the 2nd Army is just further to the south, off the map, crossing over the D'niepr. Comparing it to some of the maps you posted earlier, the rate of advance is little different. 7-8 kilometers a day is not going to be encircling much. Probably not coincidentally, the right wing of the Panzer Group is operating closer to Mogilev, where a secondary rail line is available. We can also see that your claim that most of Guderian's forces were facing eastward in mid-August or were holding the Yel'naya salient is untrue. Only the 17th, 18th, and 10th Panzer are facing eastward and only the 10th and 18th are at the Yel'nya salient, with the latter in a reserve role. The salient itself is being held by the XX Grenadier Corps of the and . Finally note that in the August 8th map, the Soviet armies are shown as not just armies but also as coherent divisions whereas in the August 15th map, only the right wing of the 13th still maintains such coherency. That pretty clearly shows that by the 15th, the Central Front's forces had lost any real ability to resist. Once again, I will reiterate that the degree of Soviet resistance which Guderian encountered during this entire period can, and has, been described This is not remotely comparable to the kind of resistance Guderian could expect to face in a eastward drive. It also rather neatly explains the August 20th map:
Right, Reserve Front was already engaged, but only one Panzer Corps was sent south, which destroyed 13th Army on it's own, while then going on to help 2nd Army destroy 21st Army and finish off Central Front by late August. Central Front only lost division coherency due to combat actions by Guderian's Panzer Corps and 2nd Army demolishing it in the space of about a week, forcing the creation of the Bryansk Front on the 14th to replace it. What do you think Reserve Front, formed on July 30th and mostly filled with militia divisions, recently formed, would do when 24th Army is taken in the flank while engaged with the rest of 2nd Panzer Army at Yelnya? 13th Army and 21st Army of the Central Front apparently have little combat power on the defensive, what sort of offensive would they really be able to run against 2nd Army and at least 1 Infantry Corps of 2nd Panzer Army at Roslavl? Reserve Front didn't have combat power to throw at Guderian if he attacked East from Roslavl as you can see on the August 8th map I posted from Glantz. There were only fragments of divisions and smaller units on the Desna and around Roslavl, they were LESS organized than the 13th Army was!!!

The Central Front has fled east, easily allowing the 4th Army to simply move into the new positions while Guderian's panzer corps has moved into the unoccupied space in front of. The withdrawal of his Corps has begun further to the rear however, with some of the grenadier divisions under Guderian's command heading back towards the Mogilev-Gomel rail line for transfer down to Gomel.
The reason it fled was because it was smashed in combat from August 8th to the 16th. What forces did 24th army, east of Roslavl, have in place on the 8th of August? Fragments of divisions, which it's combat power was engaged at Yelnya and attention focused elsewhere than it's flank. Nevertheless the distance Guderian's Panzer Corps traveled by road from August 8th-21st was 175km according to distance calculator, nearly as far as it was to Vyazma.

You have yet to prove that the West and Reserve Fronts would be crushed in an early Typhoon, never mind that we have already thrown out your assumptions about the inability of the Soviets to shift forces around by rail or that there would be no further forces beyond the immediate front.
Reserve Front was the formation East of Roslavl on August 8th with fragments of units holding the Desna after the crushing of 28th army. 24th Army according to Glantz as well as Reserve Front, formed in very late July, was thrown at Yelnya, leaving nothing able to resist along the Desna river to stop Guderian from sending his Panzer Corps across the river in force, using the highway there to roll up the flank of 24th army as it's forces were engaged at Yelnya in offensives, and push on via the open roads to Vyazma. The echeleoned defenses of Reserve Front, such that they were in early August, were not oriented to stop a push over the Desna East of Roslavl. It was open ground with good quality roads (by Soviet standards) to Vyazma. As they attack Reserve Front, weak as it was, in the flank, it takes pressure off of Yelnya where the forces defending it could then transition to the offensive.

That Zhukov spent much of the early and mid-August training the Reserve Front and got it into a combat ready state is well established. This then bore out in the subsequent Yel'naya Offensive where the Soviets successfully fought through the German defensive lines and forced the Germans to withdraw from the Yel'naya salient in order to avoid being cut off and destroyed for the first time in the whole war, as the Germans at the time themselves admitted in private. This alone disproves your nonsensical assertion that the Reserve Front had little combat power... indeed, it rather indicates that the Reserve Front was probably one of the two fronts with the greatest amount of combat power in the entire Red Army, the other being the Southwestern Front (although it's achievement was rather more pulling off a mostly successful fighting retreat rather then managing to force a German withdrawal).
24th Army, their only combat ready unit, was already engaged at Yelnya as of August 8th and had the bulk of it's combat units there.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-я_армия_(СССР)
The successful offensive part of the Yelnya operation happened in early September, but fighting was ongoing since late July non-stop. Soviet offensive success in early September at Yelnya had much more to do with Guderian having pulled out his 2nd Panzer Army to use for the Kiev Operation, which thinned out the line dramatically and made defense of the salient impossible by that point given a serious push by Zhukov. By that point 4th Army was made responsible for holding Yelnya, with vastly extended front to replace the positions 2nd Panzer Army held in August. 4th Army faced Reserve and Western Fronts simultaneously with a front at least doubled by the departure of Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army, so Zhukov's success was a function of the AG-Center losing all it's air support (2nd Air Fleet dispatched it's units to Leningrad and Kiev) and 2nd Panzer Army heading south and requiring 4th Army to hold all of it's August positions plus all of 2nd Panzer Army's August positions as well. No wonder Zhukov succeeded, AG-Center was weaker in that area than it had been at any point since mid-July, while the Soviets were at their strongest point to date in that area and concentrated for a serious offensive. That doesn't mean Reserve Front had some great combat power, it means that Reserve Front concentrated on an area that the Germans weakened to attack somewhere else (Kiev). Southwest Front had the greatest combat power in the Red Army at that time? The West Front would have folded like a wet paper towel if attacked in August-September, just like in early October IOTL.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ельнинская_операция_(1941)
Formed a so-called projection Elninskaya deeply go into the Soviet defenses and pose a threat parts Red Army Viaz'ma direction. In July and August, the connection of the 24th Army tried several times unsuccessfully to cut off this ledge and align the front.

According to the head of the German General Staff, Colonel-General F. Halder , fighting in the Yelnya area became a typical example of trench warfare . German command was able to withdraw its troops from moving Elninskaya projection and replace them with infantry divisions.

August 15 the commander of Army Group "Center" General Field Marshal von Bock wrote in his diary:

... It is difficult to give a definitive answer to the question, what is better: to hold a protrusion or leave it. If Russian will continue to attack the ledge, then keep it profitable. But if they cease attacks that may well be, then the projection is worth preserving, because it will not only become a reference point for our further attacks in the east, but also give an opportunity to provide cover for certain Smolensk railway junction and highway Smolensk - Moscow.
August 21, 1941, after yet another failed attempt to eliminate Elninskaya enemy beachhead, commander of the Reserve Front Army General G. K. Zhukov ordered Major General K. I. Rakutinu stop the attack and to begin preparations for a new, stronger and more organized strike. July 30 artillery commander of the Reserve Front was appointed Major General L. A. Govorov , who made a great contribution to the training and artillery ensure the upcoming offensive. On his initiative, the 24th Army was created powerful artillery group, consisting of the Army Group and a long-range infantry support groups in the divisions. Artillery support the attacking forces shall be implemented by successive concentration of fire as well as fire and a separate battery of guns operating in combat formations of infantry. Advantage has been created over the enemy artillery in 1,6 times, it has been adjusted artillery reconnaissance. [1]

Once again, you make the assertion that the Soviets are less combat capable and the Germans more, totally ignoring what the math and scholarship tells us. OKH did the same thing, so I guess it's just fashionable or something.
Except you haven't proven that at all, you just use points taken entirely out of context to 'prove' your points. When those are knocked how the entire house of cards that your 'argument' is based on comes apart at the seams.

What? The 24ths divisions were mainly 1st wave mobilization divisions formed in July in either the Moscow or Orel military districts.
Sure and they were focused on fighting at Yelnya, not defending the Desna on August 8th. They were the single most combat capable army in Reserve Front and would have been demolished by a flank attack as they were in October IOTL when hit unexpectedly. See the Stahel/Glantz map for August 8th, area east of Roslavl for 24th Army, Reserve Front. The Desna is held by 222nd something or other (division?) at the boundary with 43rd Army and major road headed east over the Desna river that could be used to head to Vyazma (and was in October by 4th Panzer army).

And info about the 43rd Army:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Army_(Soviet_Union)
The 43rd Army was formed on 31 July 1941 in accordance with a Stavka order dated 30 July 1941. The army was formed from the 33rd Rifle Corps and was part of the Reserve Front. It was commanded by Lieutenant General Ivan Zakharkin.[1]

From its formation the army defended the Desna River south of Yelnya on the line of Kholmets and Bogdanovo, fighting in the Battle of Smolensk. After the destruction of Group Kachalov, some of its units became part of the 43rd Army.[3] On 6 August, the army was to attack and destroy the German troops around Roslavl.[4] The attacks, launched in conjunction with the 24th Army were unsuccessful.[5] On 8 August,[6] Pavel Kurochkin was appointed army commander in place of Zakharkin.[7] During the Dukhovschina Offensive, a portion of the army was to attack west across the Desna south of Yelnya.[8] On 2 October, the 4th Panzer Group and the 4th Army attacked the 43rd Army at its boundary with the Bryansk Front. The German attack was part of Operation Typhoon[9] and broke through the defenses of the 43rd Army, creating a 4-6 kilometer wedge in its positions.[10] The army counterattacked with the 149th Rifle Division and the 148th Tank Brigade. The attack was stopped by German air attacks.[11] On 3 October, the army became part of the Western Front. It was ordered to defend the Snopot River.[12] The army was beaten to the river by German troops[13] and became disorganized.[14] On 7 October, Ivan Bogdanov reported that army commander Pyotr Sobennikov had only a group of staff officers with him.[15] The army retreated in heavy fighting back to the Mozhaisk Defence Line. The army was pushed further back to the Nara River northwest of Serpukhov, where it stopped the German advance.[16]

Aug 8th south.jpg



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Here is how far south Guderian and 2nd Army had advanced as of September 2nd, which is much much further than on August 21st and consequently more difficult to supply, but they were still able to:
LageOst2Sept41a_lg.jpg
 
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Deleted member 1487

So putting aside the argument around whether a Vyazma pocket in August 1941 was possible, assuming it did come off and the pocket was closed by the last week of August and liquidated by the first week of September, what do the Soviets have in place to hold Moscow itself if elements of 2nd and 3rd Panzer army exploit the gap to Moscow from Vyazma/Rzhev? At this point the Mozhiask defense line is just getting started and the evacuations of government facilities/personnel to Kuibyshev have not been started, so there is not a second base camp for the Soviet government to displace to. If say two Panzer Corps worth of divisions frontally attack Moscow by September 8th-10th, what does that mean for the Soviet ability to contest the city if West/Reserve Fronts are basically gone like by October 15th? If Moscow falls by September 15th what does that mean for the Soviet ability to continue to prosecute the war and the ability of STAVKA, assuming it evacuates Moscow early enough, to exert Command and Control over Fronts in Ukraine and Leningrad?
 
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