How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

It would be very difficult to implement mass slaughter in peace time. The camps were located outside Germany for a reason. You can get away with a lot during war. Can you really kill 30 million people in peacetime? The Nazi's were limited by politics too.
Sure:

1. Put the people you want to genocide in the same general area
2. Hoard all the food
3. Refuse to give food to the people you want to genocide
4. Wait a few monts
5. Done

It worked for Stalin after all. And Mao made it by mistake.
 
How much hindsight can we bring to the plan? Moscow is necessary in 1941 IMHO, otherwise you're stuck in a long war of attrition that the Soviets have the upper hand in; they aren't unbeatable even if they hold Moscow, but the task becomes much harder otherwise. I think it was possible IOTL to take Moscow in 1941 with some different strategy, but then it is hardly guaranteed. The best situation is to be more aware of the state of the Soviet rail system and have accurate planning to build up capacity as you convert the rail system to support continuous operations further East. The major problem, as ON likes to point out, as the logistics issues. They were not insurmountable, as the Soviets were able to push in the other direction quiet rapidly based mostly in rail, because they lacked the same level of motorization in 1944 as the Germans had in 1944, but were able to travel nearly as fast somehow, which turns out to be that they understood the nature of their rail system and devoted the necessary resources to repair, rebuild, and upgrade the system as they advanced to sustain operations. So it certainly was possible as the Germans had large construction organizations and the resources to build things up had they been aware of the problem and planned accordingly, which would have enabled a much more rapid and further advance East along the Moscow axis (provided the Kiev and Leningrad sideshows were avoided).

how much do you think could have been solved with abbreviated BoB and earlier conversion of 100s (?) of gliders to powered flight? not an optimal solution but they had huge numbers of Gotha and DFS gliders as well as literally huge Gigant plus huge numbers of captured French engines.

AFAIK none were ready until 1942 and later?
 
But wouldn't this early investment in steel allocate resources away from other things? Making the invasions of Poland and France have less resources and less likely to succeed.
He, that is the beauty of it. The investments were made IOTL before or during 1939/40 so you are moving these investments from the most labor congested overheated period into one were there is excess labor capacity.
You Will be supplying steel and freeing up working capacity in 1937-39. Part of this capacity would be invested in synthetic fuels, but there is no drain on the system. Just access to more steel and fuel.
It Will cost some RM but that was an abstract thing in those years.
 
Sure:

1. Put the people you want to genocide in the same general area
2. Hoard all the food
3. Refuse to give food to the people you want to genocide
4. Wait a few monts
5. Done

It worked for Stalin after all. And Mao made it by mistake.

Stalin and Mao didn't do it on purpose though. Their economic systems that they thought would work failed, and then people starved. To the extent they picked and choose who starved based on loyalty to the leader thats just a pragmatic second effect. Starvation wasn't the actual goal.
 
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