How would a "grind down" strategy work for the Germans against the USSR in WW2?

I read recently that for WW2 the german generals, or at least a very prominent one (I think it was Manstein) favoured a strategy to defeat the USSR which basically was all about encircling and destroying the armies of the Red Army one after the other until the USSR simply ran out of armies or its armed forced became crippled, and then roll in virtually unopposed and occupy the important areas of the USSR causing it to collapse, or at the very least after losing enough battles Stalin would throw the towel and be forced to negotiate a favourable peace to Germany.

Said strategy was turned down by Hitler after it became apparent that the USSR had way more armies than he had expected and that such a strategy would need a long war, so instead he focused on directly occupying the most important areas of the USSR to end the war in a quick campaign.

Let's assume either Hitler dies or is convinced and such a strategy is adopted and the German strategy for Barbarossa is all about destroying the Red Army rather than rushing to occupy it even if it means preparing for a long war.

How would this work for Germany?
 
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About as well as the current strategy. The germans were ground down by the USSR. There's just too much army to destroy.
 
The Germans didn't have the oil reserves needed to make such a strategy a reality. They could destroy half of Red Army before they ran out of oil and then they wouldn't be able to encircle anything and would be gradually driven back by the Soviets and Western allies just like OTL.
 
The Germans didn't have the oil reserves needed to make such a strategy a reality. They could destroy half of Red Army before they ran out of oil and then they wouldn't be able to encircle anything and would be gradually driven back by the Soviets and Western allies just like OTL.

If it got to the point where half of the army was destroyed, wouldn't Stalin negotiate? I mean, he was shitting bricks as it is. Every battle he lose is (in his paranoid mind at least) every battle he is closer from getting a coup, which was his nightmare, way more than it ever was being defeated by Germany.

There's just too much army to destroy.

How much? I recall reading some Unthinkable threads comments which point out that if Unthinkable happened the USSR would lose simply becuase they would run out of manpower trying fighting the allies because of having fought Germany first.
 
If it got to the point where half of the army was destroyed, wouldn't Stalin negotiate? I mean, he was shitting bricks as it is. Every battle he lose is (in his paranoid mind at least) every battle he is closer from getting a coup, which was his nightmare, way more than it ever was being defeated by Germany.



How much? I recall reading some Unthinkable threads comments which point out that if Unthinkable happened the USSR would lose simply becuase they would run out of manpower trying fighting the allies because of having fought Germany first.
In 1941 The Soviets had enough manpower to replenish the ranks even if half of the standing army was destroyed while the Germans would not reach nowhere near as far as they did OTL if they focus on destroying armies instead of capturing territory.
 
This strategy has some potential as it negates the age-old Russian strategy of retreating into its poor barren hinterland, and then counter-attacking after the enemy suffers a logistic breakdown. But in order to pull it off, it needs two things to work.

1.) some way to force the Soviets to launch continuous assaults against your forces.

2.) A Securable and unbombable source of oil capable of fulfilling Germany's wartime needs.
 
... uh... you just described the OTL Barbarossa. The plan was to obliterate the Red Army on the border and, since that was supposed to be all the Red Army had, thereby allowing the Germans to occupy the rest of the territory at their leisure. When the Soviets failed to cooperate by not having the good graciousness to fail to have reserves, there was a row between the German generals, who wanted to move onto the “take Moscow” part of the plan despite the fact the “destroy the Red Army” criteria had not yet been fulfilled, and Hitler, who wanted to stick to destroying the Red Army and pick up some resources from Ukraine on the side. That led to the Kiev encirclement, which in turn set the Red Army up for the Vyazma-Bryansk encirclement.

The fundamental problem was that German logistics were gonna break before the Soviets run out of armies.
 
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1.) some way to force the Soviets to launch continuous assaults against your forces.

This one is easily met, as Stalin kept sending counter attack after counter attack. You just need Germany to occupy some USSR territory and halt there and have Stalin keep trying to retake it. Maybe Ukraine could be such a stop, assuming the Nazis could stop being Nazis for a change and secure local support.

Point 2 however, is the main problem.
 
This one is easily met, as Stalin kept sending counter attack after counter attack. You just need Germany to occupy some USSR territory and halt there and have Stalin keep trying to retake it. Maybe Ukraine could be such a stop, assuming the Nazis could stop being Nazis for a change and secure local support.

Point 2 however, is the main problem.

At some point those Counter-attack are going to get alot better planned and supplied though; especially once the initial panic wears off the the Germans coming to a halt removes the fear-based pressure to act quickly to stop them. The Soviets can build up force in-depth to prepare a forcd that's too long and flanks too well screened for the Germans to get around the back of without streching their attack out to a breaking point.
 
Very nearly happened IOTL. Had the Wehrmacht maintained control of the Kuban into 1943, starvation and a dearth of sufficient manpower replacements would've broke the Red Army.
 
Maybe Ukraine could be such a stop, assuming the Nazis could stop being Nazis for a change and secure local support.

The nazis were a for the evulz group,but that doesn't mean their weren't also pragmatic. "securing local support" means hungry germans all the way back in 1941,turning into outright famine in 42 and 43. Turns out voluntarily declining to plunder the vast materials of an entire nation actually has a downside,who would have thought?
 
Only if such plan encompasses a two phase campaign, with the first phase going for Leningrad and the Ukraine in 1941, later halting before the winter comes to regroup their. Then come the second phase where Moscow and the Caucasus oil fields are then taken. Taking Leningrad gives better logistical support for an attack on Moscow and also leads to the fall of Murmansk, cutting off a quarter of their shipping IIRC. Afterwards, the Soviets would just be unorganized armies devolving into guerrilla tactics which will be stomped pretty quick by typical Nazi brutality.

At least that is how it could succeed, logistically and economically. In terms of ideology, I have no idea, as the Germans were heavily reinforced in their viewpoint that the Slavs were unintelligent barbarians, while believing that a political collapse of the Soviet Union would occur as it happened to the Russian Empire in World War One.

In essence, the Germans had to identify where the cutoof point was in 1941, for them to relaunch a much stringer spring offensive in 1942, while the Russians are weaker.
 
This one is easily met, as Stalin kept sending counter attack after counter attack. You just need Germany to occupy some USSR territory and halt there and have Stalin keep trying to retake it. Maybe Ukraine could be such a stop, assuming the Nazis could stop being Nazis for a change and secure local support.

Point 2 however, is the main problem.

Given that Stalin agreed to stop hopeless counter offenses after the disaster in Kiev, what is your justification for ground 1?
 
This strategy has some potential as it negates the age-old Russian strategy of retreating into its poor barren hinterland, and then counter-attacking after the enemy suffers a logistic breakdown. But in order to pull it off, it needs two things to work.
1.) some way to force the Soviets to launch continuous assaults against your forces.
2.) A Securable and unbombable source of oil capable of fulfilling Germany's wartime needs.

if they could eliminate the Soviet fleets from Baltic and Black Seas it would solve a great deal of their logistical problems. they would be on top of (historical) Lend-Lease routes, also the route from their main oil producing area.

they had fairly detailed plans drawn up of industrial and power plant targets to bomb, but delayed in hopes of exploiting them intact?

my view is that they should have agreed to some division of Romania with Soviets prior to invasion of Poland. there are problems with that but fewer than conquering the Caucasus. (they needed ALL the Romanian oil not the half they had to barter to obtain)
 
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