German Armed Forces without Barbarossa

Deleted member 1487

To clarify, Hitler decides against launching Barbarossa in 1941, postponing it until after the defeat of Britain.

But why? Hitler turned East because he didn't think he had the resources to defeat Britain in a protracted war and didn't trust Stalin to keep supplying him with resources until 1942. He also thought the USSR was easy pickings, so would yield the resources he was having to pay for quickly after an invasion, as the regime was not consider stabile by Hitler.
 
But why? Hitler turned East because he didn't think he had the resources to defeat Britain in a protracted war and didn't trust Stalin to keep supplying him with resources until 1942. He also thought the USSR was easy pickings, so would yield the resources he was having to pay for quickly after an invasion, as the regime was not consider stabile by Hitler.

That's the problem, there's no viable reason why Hitler or OKW wouldn't want to go East in 1941. But it's an interesting scenario all the same.

What would take Soviets do with all their T-26s? Would they scrap them or use the chassis?

The Soviets were focused on streamlining production in 1941, with the T-26's primary factories undergoing conversion to produce other models. The remaining T-26s would either be 1. Shifted to lower priority military districts 2. Assigned to reconnaissance or headquarters battalions or 3. Attached to seperate tank battalions or regiments. Some will be scrapped, but I can't find information about the Soviets doing this often.

The chassis could perhaps be used as an artillery tractor, or for a self-propelled gun or flamethrower, but without a factory producing new models standardization won't happen.
 
Quick question.

Are we to assume that as per standard issue Naziwank the rest of the world jams turnips up its nose and tries to find out if windows in different cities taste like the local food by licking them. Whilst thinking that the Brown Bess musket and chariots are suddenly the way forwards in regards to military power.

Whilst across the channel in 'Liberated' France the Germans suddenly have this amazing burst of insight, knowledge, wisdom and common sense, re-write the Nazi party, the German industrial complex, completely write off the infighting between the armed forces for production/control etc as well as suddenly developing machines that were reactions and counters to things they had never face or barely knew about (hello say the KV-1 and T-34). And of course. Napkinwaffe!

Did you see who started the thread? Julian of all people can hardly be accused of Naziphilic tendencies. But, ofc, it is always easier to grind axes than taking such unimportant factlets into consideration...
 

Deleted member 1487

That's the problem, there's no viable reason why Hitler or OKW wouldn't want to go East in 1941. But it's an interesting scenario all the same.
Have Göring die early on so that the LW has better leadership and the German economy is better organized, which gives Germany the strength and leadership to take Britain on in 1940-42...but that changes the situation about German preparations leading up to a later Barbarossa quite a bit with such an early POD.
 
Have Göring die early on so that the LW has better leadership and the German economy is better organized, which gives Germany the strength and leadership to take Britain on in 1940-42...but that changes the situation about German preparations leading up to a later Barbarossa quite a bit with such an early POD.

Or alternatively have someone convince Hitler that Britain can be defeated. Perhaps Halifax becomes prime minister in 1940, and a temporary ceasefire is achieved. But actual peace negotiations break down by December as Hitler refuses to do anything other than dictate terms. Italian forces in Africa are severally mauled as the ceasefire ends. Hitler panics and cancels Barbarossa, while at the same time being assured that Britain can be broken by the end of 1941.
 
But why? Hitler turned East because he didn't think he had the resources to defeat Britain in a protracted war and didn't trust Stalin to keep supplying him with resources until 1942. He also thought the USSR was easy pickings, so would yield the resources he was having to pay for quickly after an invasion, as the regime was not consider stabile by Hitler.

Can't we just have them do something smart for a change. Barbarossa was started with too few mobile forces, something that was accepted on the basis of faulty intelligence estimates both of Soviet strength and stability. The Germans could do the math, and realise that now that they had a lot of allies (Hungary, Romania, etc) they could improve the strength of axis forces at a faster ratio than the USSR. In one year, with a proper production plan and an ambitious and well coordinated training effort, the axis could field more mobile forces, and the fighting power of its allies could be dramatically improved. The Soviets would be improving also, but they were at the initial stages of introducing new types of everything, having made a vast investment in the mid 30s on now obsolete equipment. So the ratio of progress could favour the axis.
By mid 42, if the German were smart, they could have the same amount of mechanised forces, but with PzIVF2 as standard (just pull back OTL production one year and that gives you the c2000 tanks needed) but critically they could cascade equipment (PzIII, Pz38, Somuas) to their allies so that the Hungarians, Romanians and Italians could each provide an extra PzK, trained to near German standards.
Quality ratios would still favour the Germans (the Bf109F and FW190G were still superior to the Yak 1s, they would face,etc).
The critical factor would be which side uses the extra year better to improve its starting situation. But the fact is that with proper intel, anyone could have understood at OKW that they were one PzG and a few Army Corps short for OTL Barbarossa.
 
A note on tank production

There is no major reason for the PzIV not to be given a decent AT gun earlier. The PaK40 was ready in 1940. They produced 1687 Ausf G from May42 to June 42 and 3744 Ausf H from April 43 to June 44.
It would be possible, with the right decisions being made in 1940, to have more than 2000 PzIV with HV guns delivered before June 42, while still producing more than 1000 PzIII. The Germans would now have more tanks than needed, so the balance could be used to provide their allies with decent tanks.
 

Deleted member 1487

Or alternatively have someone convince Hitler that Britain can be defeated. Perhaps Halifax becomes prime minister in 1940, and a temporary ceasefire is achieved. But actual peace negotiations break down by December as Hitler refuses to do anything other than dictate terms. Italian forces in Africa are severally mauled as the ceasefire ends. Hitler panics and cancels Barbarossa, while at the same time being assured that Britain can be broken by the end of 1941.

The problem with that is that the resource issue was still a problem that is painfully obvious; if Britain is not defeated by December Hitler is going to turn east then. The economy was so badly managed that Hitler was too panicked to wait until 1942 to invade Russia and have to rely on the Soviets for food and oil until then; the only way to get him to not invade in 1941 is to have the economy be better managed, which means no Göring in charge of it (or Darré in charge of agriculture).

Can't we just have them do something smart for a change. Barbarossa was started with too few mobile forces, something that was accepted on the basis of faulty intelligence estimates both of Soviet strength and stability. The Germans could do the math, and realise that now that they had a lot of allies (Hungary, Romania, etc) they could improve the strength of axis forces at a faster ratio than the USSR. In one year, with a proper production plan and an ambitious and well coordinated training effort, the axis could field more mobile forces, and the fighting power of its allies could be dramatically improved. The Soviets would be improving also, but they were at the initial stages of introducing new types of everything, having made a vast investment in the mid 30s on now obsolete equipment. So the ratio of progress could favour the axis.
By mid 42, if the German were smart, they could have the same amount of mechanised forces, but with PzIVF2 as standard (just pull back OTL production one year and that gives you the c2000 tanks needed) but critically they could cascade equipment (PzIII, Pz38, Somuas) to their allies so that the Hungarians, Romanians and Italians could each provide an extra PzK, trained to near German standards.
Quality ratios would still favour the Germans (the Bf109F and FW190G were still superior to the Yak 1s, they would face,etc).
The critical factor would be which side uses the extra year better to improve its starting situation. But the fact is that with proper intel, anyone could have understood at OKW that they were one PzG and a few Army Corps short for OTL Barbarossa.

The problem was food and oil, not equipment. Germany couldn't wait to improve weapon systems if she had to depend on Soviet largess for the fuel for the tanks and food for the soldiers to man them. Hitler didn't trust Stalin to supply him through 1942, which, if true, meant that those new weapons would be useless for lack of sufficient fuel or food for the men.

But much of that was largely because Goering and Darré mismanaged the German economy, making Germany dependent on the Soviets to a larger degree than necessary. Change that and Hitler's calculation changes.
 

sharlin

Banned
I would assume that they don't; Sealion is all but impossible, and the logistics in Africa, and Allied material growth, preclude a decisive victory there. Hitler will eventually realize this and turn East, likely in 1942.

Really the Nazi's could only do barabarossa in 1941, they knew the soviets were rearming and reorganising after the purges and getting their armed forces back together and striking in 1941 made the most sense because they would still strike whilst their forces were at their best and the soviets in the midsts of a massive reorganisation. Delaying until 1942 makes the Germans weaker and the Soviets stronger. This scinario is happening in the APOD world and althought they have not done the attack yet I've an inkling of whats coming and its not good for the Germans.

Also re-training the Axis troops to help the Germans could work, but you'd have to re-train most of the lower Officer ranks of the Romanian army, re-equip it with more tanks, artillery and guns as well as re-training the men as well just as a starter and just as one example. If you spent 1 year doing this it would not be enough and would in the long run be a waste of resources.
 
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BlondieBC

Banned

On the older weapons being retired (planes, guns, artillery), will they scrap it into scrap metal or will they put it in warehouses for possible future usage?

Also, will they force the lesser allies to go to the German standard or will they still have say very light Romanian divisions with ad hoc weapons?
 
The improvement is going to be in the standardization, which means there will some additional trucks over OTL, but they will all be of the same type, so there will be one set of spares that can be brought forward; this means that rather than the machines breaking down in the advance and being permanently immobilized by the lack of spares, they can be brought back online by having stocks of spares on hand and having one set of types.

And what about the additional strain on logistics that comes from having to truck forward spares in addition to fuel, ammunition, and (to a lesser degree) food? What about combat losses against much, (much) tougher Red Army advances?

No, there is not an either or in this situation. The Germans can spend the resources on upgrading production in 1940-41 both for fuel AND weapon systems. Then in 1941/42 they produce said weapon systems, having taken non-modern systems offline and balancing production expansion against producing modern systems already in production until the upgrades are complete, then allowing them to channel their resources into building weapons.[/quote]

You are aware they are still in a war against Britain (and later America), right? Strategic bombing campaigns, institutional infighting, and the need to ship stuff to Stalin (lest he start putting on the resource crunch in the Fall/Winter of '41) mades the management of already limited resources very much a "either/or" proposition.

The resources that would have gone into weapon system in this period go to upgrading existing factories and finishing new construction like synthetic oil for the long campaign that is expected in the East.
And lo here is the flaw: the Nazis, for reasons of racial ideology, are not expecting a long campaign in the east. They do not see any reason to prepare for a long campaign in the east and will not see any relevance to spending resources to prepare for a long campaign in the east.

Because of heavy aerial combat in the west. Aviation fuel was the only fuel use that exceeded production and imports by 1941 and aerial operations were limited from January 1941 to build up stocks for Barbarossa. Ground forces fuel was accumulating from the point that France fell, as ground operations had ceased and fuel usage was mostly training and transport at that point.

Incorrect.


In 1938, of the total consumption of 44 million barrels, imports from overseas accounted for 28 million barrels or roughly 60 percent of the total supply. An additional 3.8 million barrels were imported overland from European sources (2.8 million barrels came from Romania alone), and another 3.8 million barrels were derived from domestic oil production. The remainder of the total, 9 million barrels, were produced synthetically.Although the total overseas imports were even higher in 1939 before the onset of the blockade in September (33 million barrels), this high proportion of overseas imports only indicated how precarious the fuel situation would become should Germany be cut off from them.2

At the outbreak of the war, Germany’s stockpiles of fuel consisted of a total of 15 million barrels. The campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France added another 5 million barrels in booty, and imports from the Soviet Union accounted for 4 million barrels in 1940 and 1.6 million barrels in the first half of 1941. Yet a High Command study in May of 1941 noted that with monthly military requirements for 7.25 million barrels and imports and home production of only 5.35 million barrels, German stocks would be exhausted by August 1941. The 26 percent shortfall could only be made up with petroleum from Russia. The need to provide the lacking 1.9 million barrels per month and the urgency to gain possession of the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus mountains, together with Ukrainian grain and Donets coal, were thus prime elements in the German decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.3
 
One other thing: would the German Wehrmacht be able to mass produce enough winter clothing if Barbarossa was delayed?

Oh, they had the winter clothing. What they didn't have was (1) the perception that there would be any need for them since they expected the serious fighting to be done well before winter and (2) the ability to get it too the troops in a timely manner troops without critically compromising the deliveries of ammunition, spare parts, and fuel*. Without winter clothing, some of the Germans freeze to death. Without all those other supplies, their entire front-line collapses and the Soviets score a war-winning victory. Naturally, even the Nazis realized that the first situation is better then the second.

*And food, although that was less importance thanks to the "hunger plan".
 
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