You're basing that on? They had supplies to fight a massive defensive positional fight east of Smolensk and launch flank offensives by 3rd and 2nd Panzer Groups, plus their air support. Only 1 corps of 3rd Panzer ended up on AG-North's supply lines in late August, the rest were supported via AG-Center's rail lines. If they had the supplies to continuously fight through August and September, why not on the offensive, which was vastly less costly than positional fighting, both in supplies and lives (well, their troops' lives). Compare the situation in October when in two weeks AG-Center suffered about 50k casualties and inflicted over 1 million casualties on the Soviet forces defending Moscow, leaving only 90k defending the routes to the city, but in August-September they only inflicted about 350k while defending and suffered about 100k losses.
Maneuver is where Germany has the advantage over the Soviets, it is in positional fighting that things even out and the Soviet cumbersome command and control system could effectively bring it's numbers and artillery to bear on their own timetable.
Largely they were new forces built up over a couple of months:
You're entitled to your opinion.
Posted already.
Distinction without a difference. He stayed because if he didn't the city would likely fall and if the city fell his regime was in a bad position to survive. If Stalin's regime fell there is not some other one waiting in the wings to take over.
Source? They went for three prongs because Hitler wanted to take three objectives at once.
I don't like the comparison, because in 1812 Moscow as not the capital of the country, the USSR was not the Czardom, the railroad, motor vehicle, and airplane, not to mention radio and telephones didn't exist. The economy of the USSR was vastly different from that of 1812 Russia as was that of Nazi Germany and France. Plus the French only had the strength to advance over a very narrow path, while the 1941 advance was over a wide swath of land from the Baltic sea to Black sea.
You think if we compared the war of 1812 in the Americas to 1941 that a rerun of the US invasion of Canada might be a bit different too?
Ugh, no. I'm not arguing that it would take one swift kick at the border and the USSR would implode. I'm not even arguing that taking Moscow would end the war, but start the unraveling process that would defeat the USSR in 1942. Those are very different things and if you can't tell the difference you're just playing a shitty internet argument game.
You're also ignoring that IOTL the USSR was pushed to the brink of collapse in 1942 as it was and that was with retaining Moscow.
Actually the loss of Moscow would badly disrupt mobilization due to the loss of electrical production for remaining factories and the loss of specific industries within Moscow that would cripple arms production. Kind of hard to have a tank accurately shoot without optics for instance.
In 1944 the German army in the east was not well trained, it was a badly degraded force sapped of reserves, fuel, supplies, air support, armor, etc. During Bagration they were grossly outnumbered and relied on fixed fortifications, which played perfectly into the Soviet methods of artillery preparation. Yet despite that and a lot of guerrilla support in the rear areas of the German supply apparatus, the Soviets still suffered higher losses than the Germans despite it being a worse defeat than Stalingrad for them. Oh and their best divisions with the best equipment were deployed in Normandy. So what gives? How can the B-team of the German army without air support in 1944 have hurt a vastly more powerful enemy worse even during their biggest defeat in the East to date?
In reverse despite being outnumbered and outgunned by the Soviets in 1941 Germany inflicted 10:1 casualties while on the offensive. In fact their casualty infliction ratios went up the deeper they got into the USSR. Operation Typhoon was more costly to the Soviets than the frontier battles, while for the Germans the October fighting was the least costly month to date.
Yet they inflicted the worst defeat on the USSR to date in October. In 2 weeks they killed, captured, or wounded 1 million Soviet troops defending Moscow, leaving only 90k troops blocking their path on the Mozhiask defense line. They only suffered 50k casualties in return. The only thing that stopped them at that point was the weather, which collapsed their supply network when trucks literally could no longer move on the few roads that existed. Even the main highway to Moscow collapsed due to the mud and heavy traffic. As soon as the ground hardened from the frost they were able to attack again, but in the meantime the Soviets had managed to form or bring in sufficient reserves to hold the city. German supply wasn't a problem then and wouldn't be until the January frost that screwed up the western European trains that were not set up to handle the cold.
Because of the mud. I'm proposing Moscow falls in mid-October when the forces that took Kalinin IOTL instead head east to the unprepared defenses around Volokolamsk and blow through them. The 16th army at that time was the equivalent of a weak infantry corps without reserves behind it; the stronger 5th army with it's more prepared defensive positions barely held on IOTL when attacked by a different force, so they wouldn't be in a position to send aid; in fact IOTL it was 16th army that sent some of it's forces to aid 5th army at Mozhiask. Had 16th army also been engaged 5th army would have been even more hard pressed to resist ITTL.
Also Warsaw was a heavily fortified city with an entire field army defending it, Moscow was not.
Moscow itself couldn't fight back, Soviet troops were needed to do so, Panzers showing up on the streets in the midst of a city wide panic are going to be taking the city as they had all the other major cities they overran to that point. Civilians weren't stopping the Axis forces anywhere.
The combat capable population was committed outside the city, there weren't the weapons and manpower left as of mid-October to actually fight. Scattered, disorganized resistance isn't going to stop anything.
Yes, in fact most of the newly forced forces for the December counterattack came through Moscow, were armed by factories in the city, and used the infrastructure to move around. Without that the December forces wouldn't be formed, been able to move about, or be in a position to attack in any coordinated fashion.
The Siberian thing is a myth, I posted a debunking of that above, but I'll add it here again:
Did you even check the cite for the claim you're posting?
"This estimate proved wrong, as Stalin transferred over 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia and the Far East.
[81]"
Goldman p. 177
- Goldman, Stuart D. (2012). Nomonhan, 1939; The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-098-9.
I don't know what a book about Nomonhan in 1939 has to do with the fight around Moscow in 1941 and is directly contradicted by sources that directly relate to the battle itself.
www.nytimes.com
euromaidanpress.com
