How bloody would a Moscow attack in 1942 have been?

Deleted member 1487

As a question to anyone, what armies did STAVKA have in reserve as of June 28th 1942? I mean the ones independent of what was already assigned to Fronts, which could be stripped out and set to STAVKA if needed.

North of the Oka, there is a grouping 6 brigades (4 rifle, 2 tank), 3 divisions (all rifles), and 5 corps (4 tank, 1 cavalry) under the command of the Western Front uncommitted to the front, between Kaluga and Naro Fominsk.
Do you have the names of the units so I can check their status as of June?

Their liable to be joined by whatever elements of 3rd and 5th Tank Armies, 64th Army
64th Army wasn't formed until July 10th and didn't enter combat until some time in late July as near as I can tell:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-я_армия

Then just before Moscow itself, there is the Moscow Defense Line, constituting a big semi-circle sweeping around the north-west-south. This constitutes a 10 fortified regions (1,500-2,000 men, heavy on crew served weapons and 45mm and 76.2mm guns but light on everything else) and 7 rifle divisions, and 2 rifle brigades.
Any idea what the rifle divisions' titles were?

Within Moscow itself are another five fortified regions, two divisions (one rifle and one cavalry), and two rifle brigades.
Any info about two divisions's names within Moscow? Also any info about the state of the fortified regions in and around Moscow in summer 1942?

Behind Moscow are 9 airborne corps (highly trained, by the standards of the 1942 Red Army, 10-15,000 men infantry divisions) that could basically man the Moscow Defense Line or Moscow itself (or both) at any moment.
Do you have any info about where I can find more information on their status? I know they were being converted to Guards Rifle Divisions in 1942 and were later committed to the Stalingrad area, but my understanding is that as airborne corps they lacked heavy weapons that a regular rifle division would have due to being...airborne.

Over the longer term, there are 17 rifle divisions, 4 corps (3 tank, 1 cavalry), and 8 tank brigades forming up that would be finishing their outfitting and training over the course of July and August.
AFAIK their combat capabilities as units were limited at the date of their founding due to lack of time to actually train as cohere as organized units, even with full TOE and manpower (which wasn't as well trained as they'd later be, but not as bad as the situation in 1941). For example the performance of 5th Tank Army in July 1942; it had only been activated in June.
 
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You know, guys, I'm a great fan of a very promising boxer. He fought 20 matches and he never lost one.

Therefore, he can defeat the world's champion of his weight class.

See the problem there?

Yes, none of his opponents could beat him - and by "none of the opponents" what I actually mean is none of the opponents he has met this far, and even more importantly none of the opponents his manager wisely chose to engage.

There's much talk here about the German troops not being stopped by anybody until 1942. Even taking that as if it were literally true, that would amount to saying that the German troops were not stopped by anybody that their managers, the generals, chose to engage.

But the historical records tells us that:
- in 1942, the German generals, for some reason, chose not to attack the Moscow defense lines,
- in 1942, a German general decided to swing around the Southern open end of the Gazala line, while only bringing a feint against the coastal part of it, the thickest part,
- in 1941, once the Germans reached the final defensive belt around Leningrad, the generals decided that, thank you very much, but we'll just try to kill the people in there by starvation, bombing and bombardment,
- in 1940, the whole German plan revolved around not butting straight into the Maginot Line,
- in 1940, even the water-based defenses of Holland weren't defeated by a land assault, the German generals decided to force the Dutch surrender by threatening the destruction of Dutch cities through bombing,
- in 1939, the 4. Panzerdivision tried to take Warsaw on the fly, and got a deserved bloody nose. So the German generals decided to bomb and bombard the city until it surrendered.

This is actually one of the dirty little secrets of Blitzkrieg, which some fans are so much enthused about: attacking where the enemy is not. Or at least where it is weakest.

So, if we look at the Soviet preparations and defenses of 1942 in front of Moscow, and at the wider, less manned, less entrenched expanses to the South of them... which resembles more the Maginot Line? Which resembles more the flank South of Bir Hakeim?
 
This is actually one of the dirty little secrets of Blitzkrieg, which some fans are so much enthused about: attacking where the enemy is not. Or at least where it is weakest.
So, if we look at the Soviet preparations and defenses of 1942 in front of Moscow, and at the wider, less manned, less entrenched expanses to the South of them... which resembles more the Maginot Line? Which resembles more the flank South of Bir Hakeim?

Tactically and operationally this is all true.
Strategically attacking Moscow would have followed the old Clausewitzian way of thinking. This mindset was also part of the defining features of the Hitler's regime and their (lack of) wartime strategy. One could thus credibly spin the Moscow offensive as "the final strategic battle that settles the war in the East", just like Fall Blau was regarded in OTL.
 

Deleted member 1487

Got a relevant map from the Soviet official history of the war. Note the 1-10 PA bubbles with slanted lines, they are the reserves armies still assembling. The 1st reserve army was the closest to being combat operational, but was still forming on June 28th. If an attack toward Moscow in 1942 happens, say as proposed before with an attack as per OTL east toward Voronezh to seek open ground and bisect the front, then swinging north, they'd run into 5th Tank Army as per OTL, but then in due course also the 1st Reserve Army (64th army that fought at Stalingrad IOTL) before it is fully formed, 3rd Tank army and whatever else STAVKA can strip out of Western Front and rail in from other Reserve Fronts still forming across the country. On the flanks AG-South will have to deal with 3rd Reserve army around Voronezh and probably 6th Reserve Army as well at a minimum. Also earlier Obsessednuker mention the Soviet airborne corps; from what I've been able to find they were distributed to the Reserve Armies at this time, so weren't directly behind or near Moscow; 1st Airborne Corps had been used at Rzhev over the winter and was virtually wiped out (only 800 men or so out of 9,000 managed to escape), which is fate that impacted much of the other airborne corps in the same operation (also participating in the defense of Moscow), so they were rebuilding from a very worn down state in spring-summer 1942 and were converted to Guards Divisions around August. So they wouldn't be a separate, fully formed reserve to use to defend Moscow.

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Deleted member 1487

There's much talk here about the German troops not being stopped by anybody until 1942. Even taking that as if it were literally true, that would amount to saying that the German troops were not stopped by anybody that their managers, the generals, chose to engage.
Look at the historical record in 1942 on the Eastern Front, the Soviets pretty much got rolled up to Stalingrad where the combination of distance affecting supply, negatively for the Germans, relatively positively for the Soviets, and the constant feeding in of Soviet reserves into a city fight fixed them (along with Hitler obsession of taking the city).


But the historical records tells us that:
- in 1942, the German generals, for some reason, chose not to attack the Moscow defense lines,
Hitler alone chose. He wanted the oil and thought that taking it would push the Soviets over the edge. We have the planning documents to write about what happened, the planning for the Caucasus operation starts on p.109
http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-21/cmhPub_104-21.pdf

This is actually one of the dirty little secrets of Blitzkrieg, which some fans are so much enthused about: attacking where the enemy is not. Or at least where it is weakest.
The big dirty secret is that there was no such thing as Blitzkrieg, that's largely a made up word by media. In German it was only Bewegungskrieg, the war of movement, in contrast to positional warfare.
Really, as was noted already by @Karelian, the choice of target for the campaign in 1942 is a strategic choice, not a tactical method. If Moscow is viewed as the center of gravity of the USSR and chosen by Hitler, the guy who actually made the strategic choices, having subsumed the roles of Defense Minister, Chancellor, President, and even commander of the army as of late 1941, then it is the place that will be targeted.

So, if we look at the Soviet preparations and defenses of 1942 in front of Moscow, and at the wider, less manned, less entrenched expanses to the South of them... which resembles more the Maginot Line? Which resembles more the flank South of Bir Hakeim?
No one really has shown what the state of defenses around Moscow really were in 1942. Compared to other places around the front it wasn't that particularly well defended directly and not from the southern direction (different story in the area of Western Front). Soviet Reserve Armies were scattered across the country and not even fully formed. Apparently as of late June they had 60 divisions forming in the reserve armies, most of them still lacking equipment and fully organization. As I understand it those committed to the front in July-August suffered badly from lack of full organization and equipment (62nd, 63rd, 64th and 1st and 4th Tank armies for examples on the Chir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kalach).
 

Deleted member 1487

Not sure if anyone is still interested, but thanks to help on another forum and Russian language wikipedia I've been getting more information about Soviet reserves in Summer 1942; it seems like beyond being scattered across the front, the reserve armies were still quite sort of equipment and were still forming. Most ended up getting deployed to Stalingrad later after they had extra time to form and received equipment, but it seems none were really prepared to fight in July 1942; the reserve armies deployed to defend Stalingrad and fought in the Battle of Kalach were severely handled as a result of their lack of equipment, organization, and piecemeal commitment to the fight. It seems 3rd Tank Army was the most prepared of the new armies to fight and even it suffered badly on the attack. Of the Soviet airborne corps that were converted to Guards Rifle Divisions only two were ready as of late June/early July and were deployed in Taman, later showing up to defend in the Caucasus and Stalingrad respectively. The others really weren't combat ready until about August-September, so really weren't available to defend Moscow as organized divisions.

Other than units that could be stripped from Western and Kalinin Front, Moscow doesn't have a lot of STAVKA reserves ready to defend Moscow. Though of course without the Rzhev offensive starting in late July or their August attack against 2nd Panzer Army they'd have significant reserves to throw in the path of an offensive even after the loss of 5th Tank Army and most of Bryansk Front.
 
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