Germany stops at France in 1940, consolidates. How strong can they get?

The seriousness of the plans is massively debated till this day.VERY debatable. Fresh yes, quality of training highly unknown and ditto with experience. Better than 1941 I agree but how much better is unknown and to what effect is even more unknown.Even more debatable as the last time the Soviets had a hard reforming Marshal (Tukhachevsky) Stalin had him shot. I find the idea of Zhukov having a free hand as very unlikely. The Soviets had problems with logistics even till the end of the war and it depending upon lavish Lend Lease and ruthless rationalization of the Soviet War economy. That and the soviet concept of disposable gear where nothing was intended to last for very long, especially tanks. Again I really doubt you would see huge leaps in Soviet Logistical capability. Improvements yes but not enough. This of all the ideas put forward here I disagree with the most. There is a reason the Luftwaffe pilots on the Eastern Front ran up such massive kill totals right up till the end of the war. Till the tanks break down, etc. Nothing can be done about the soviet push logistics system or the readiness levels. So they have 25K tanks, that translates to what? 8K tanks that are actually mobile? Net result is parity with the Germans or slight advantage.Artillery, aircraft, etc would all have vastly increased in quantity.

Quality of training was also quite good, and even having officers would make their fighting formations vastly superior to what they were IOTL. The effects are actually quite well known; the added officer corps were part of what helped the Red Army rebuild its formations over time and improve in quality. Similarly Stalin's relationship with Zhukov is also well known; he respected Zhukov as a fighter and someone who could win battles, yet knew his place. Stalin killed Tukhachevsky due to long term grudges and rivalries that didn't exist between Stalin and Zhukov. Lend lease also had very little to do with early Soviet logistics problems; those were always the fault of poor planning, organization, and execution, all of which would have been greatly alleviated by an expanded and trained officer corps as was seen later in the war. lend lease only truly played a major role in aiding the Soviets after 1943; before that they were mostly going under their own steam due to Allied doubts that they could actually win. Many Soviet losses were due to the fact that pilots were thrown in untrained and in aircraft unsuited for modern combat; modern aircraft and actual training go a long way towards keeping pilots alive in air combat, though I'll admit kill totals will be quite unbalanced. Soviet tanks were several times more reliable than German vehicles, with reliability only improving over time. The Soviets always maintained a massive advantage over German armored vehicles even when starting out with enormous losses; with the appropriate reforms by 1942 all vehicles would be modern and operational, and of course well supplied. The Red Army was inferior to the Wehrmacht in many respects, but the fact is that it understood its failings and was rapidly reforming its practices to be a more effective fighting machine.

See above point on tanks. More is better but how much is actually able to be used?My assumption is the Germans stick with the pre-war economic plan. The manpower returned was shoved into 4 year plan economic expansion projects. As those projects are finished or canceled in light of the new economic situation (A-L ore fields, etc). The manpower etc, is transferred to production.


Why?



This makes ZERO sense with the production plans put into effect the Germans did do.

I'm sorry but you're making no sense. There is clear economic evidence that the German economy had for the most part demobilized through the end of 1940 and into early 1941 and only re-mobilized due to preparations for war with the Soviet Union. Without an expected war with the Soviet Union the German economy won't re-mobilize until war seems to be inevitable, unlikely when Stalin was doing everything he could to economically appease Nazi Germany.



Nice to know the 7.5 cm PaK 40 and 8.8 cm Flak are going to magically disappear. Look yes the Germans were out right caught flat footed by Soviet tank designs. The T-34 was a clear breakthrough, no if ands or buts. At the same time they aren't aliens from another world that the Germans are helpless before. Yes odds are the Germans push forward one of the VK3000 designs to service (making the German issue of multiple designs an issue but I don't see a solution to that without stronger civilian control over production which took till 43 or so to achieve in heavy war), odds are armed with a 7.5 cm KwK 40 or stronger gun. Which is capable of destroying a T-34. The KV series would be a problem but again not an impossible to solve one.

What, guns that were 1. Only appearing in limited numbers and never made a dramatic impact by 1942 even with increased production and 2. Were used ad hoc and never in massive enough numbers to have a decisive effect. You basically ignore that all German formations were equipped almost completely with inferior anti-tank weapons and that Germany lacks the industrial capacity to change that by 1942, again especially at reduced production. German production will never be able to modernize its forces fats enough to allow its under gunned and under armored vehicles to survive in 1942 when they're outnumbered and outgunned. You essentially assume that the Germans will have the economic ability to match Soviet developments eve though they utterly failed at this IOTL except for a limited period in 1943 before the IS-2 and other heavy vehicles came out to combat the Tiger and Panther.



Without a doubt an interesting view point to say the least.

And very accurate if you actually review the Wehrmacht's defensive battles from 1941-1942. Defeat of the Rzhev-Vyazma offensive? Due primarily to standing fast and some short maneuvers after Soviet forces had been pinned down, not grand sweeping counterattacks. Defeat of the Soviet Kharkov operation? German infantry forces held fast and halted Soviet forces before encircling them with a simple pincer movement. Again, victory had already been achieved before any maneuver took place, and that maneuver was fairly simple and small scale. Defeat of Soviet forces in multiple consecutive offensives in the Rzhev Salient, the Voronezh region, at Leningrad, and in the Kotulban region north of Stalingrad? ALL due to good defensive emplacements and effective use of infantry, NOT defensive maneuver. Only a few isolated cases from 1941-1942 saw the Germans achieve operational superiority on the defense solely through the use of mobile forces, and never on the scale of Manstein's counterattack in February 1943.



So if you assume perfect performance by the Soviets and absolute worse by the Germans sure. Especially with respect to readiness levels on the Soviet side. Sorry this was a problem up till present day with Soviet and later Russian forces. So we agree to disagree on numbers here to say the least.

The Germans were all along flying recon flights and I tend to doubt the Germans would totally ignore the significance of the Soviet build up. I really doubt the Soviets wouldn't give other warnings like increasing diplomatic tensions, pushing for concessions, delays of raw materials delivers, etc. So I really don't see the Germans totally clueless as the Soviets build a 350 division army on their border.

Actually I assume that the Germans fail to react competently to new Soviet developments and, as they consistently did IOTL, underestimate Soviet capabilities even when there was clear evidence that they were better than the Germans expected. Even the vaunted Manstein failed to understand the strength of Soviet forces until it was too late. I also take known information about Soviet reforms and effects and apply that to the strategic situation described, and I use known information of German policies and plans and apply those to the situation.

The Germans flew recon flights because they were planning to invade. In every single operation of the war from start to finish, the Soviets to some degree achieved maskirovka at every level, tactical, operational, and strategic. The Germans consistently failed to be able to assess or understand Soviet intentions or the size of forces arrayed against them, only achieving any success due to early advantages which, once those slipped away, left them effectively in the dark about how to fight the war.
 
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