Well, Bialystok is nigh impossible to save. But Minsk is distant enough to be saved.Depends which one and why. Say if it is the Vyazma-Bryansk pocket in October because Hitler opts not to launch Typhoon and goes on the defensive. That may not necessarily turn out to shorten anything, though it saves about 1 million Soviet troops. They probably get frittered away over the winter and don't wear the Germans down nearly as much as the OTL winter counter offensive, nor put them in a precarious spot, while the Germans then have time to get ready for winter and get their logistics in order. If it is any of the earlier pockets, then that could derail all the others and change the entire course of the 1941 campaign, so you need a good reason why they don't happen so we could figure out how things would play out from there. Ultimately there can be no generic answer as the specifics of why and which pockets are avoided changes things differently throughout the course of the war.
No.Soviet almost lost,becouse soldiers run or surrender without fight - poor fools thought,thet germans are cyvilized folks from 1 world war.Then Adolf the idiot win war for soviets,massacring prisoners.After that,they start to fight.Soviets had 34 millions of men they could send to front,so losing or gaining one million changed nothing.If the Soviets had escaped just one of the major early encirclements in Barbarossa, such as Bialystok-Minsk, Smolensk, Luga, Galacia, Kiev, or Vyazma-Bryansk, and saved most of those troops, tanks, and guns to continue to bog down and slow the German invasion which was already overstretched by late August 1941--then would the Soviet Union and Allies have won in 1944 or earlier?
I'm unsure the Red Army staff at the corps, army, and army group, were up to anything like what you describe. They were having a lot of trouble that summer just organizing defense zones, retreats, and deployment of arriving reservists.
Well to avoid some of the encirclements it doesn't require a breakout after the encirclement has occurred. Just have earlier retreats occur in the right areas, or have Germans fail in certain offensives slowing them down weeks later. Barbarossa was a massive operation, any little change would have much larger effects later on.Only recently have I gained some small insight into how war is planned and waged at these higher levels of organization. It is not an easy task. That's why I don't think the war could be shortened by a year. Major offensives can only be scheduled at certain times; what the OP is asking is to ramp up Operation Bagration by a year. I don't think that would have happened. Nor do I think STAVKA could have rescued any pocket once it was fully encircled. Nor do I think they wanted to. It seems like Stalin believed everyone who was captured was a "former Russian" who deserved his fate. So to speak, why spill blood to bail out a pocket of encircled cowards?
Does WW2, or history in general, afford any examples of pockets that successfully broke out or were rescued? I may be missing something, but as far as I can remember, encirclement always leads to the surrender of the encircled troops. It seems a disease that can be prevented but never cured.
The 101st Airborne would like a word with you.Does WW2, or history in general, afford any examples of pockets that successfully broke out or were rescued? I may be missing something, but as far as I can remember, encirclement always leads to the surrender of the encircled troops. It seems a disease that can be prevented but never cured.
That aside, Smolensk is definitely preventable, it's not even in Belarus but in Russia, so different movements, Soviets holding the surrounding roads and rail a bit longer, or an early retreat could lead to Soviet forces saving their forces from the area.
Well according to the Wiki article for German encirclements with 1 source for the number, and the article for Battle of Smolensk with 2 sources for the number. The Battle of Smolensk (1941) had 300,000-310,000 Soviet troops captured, 3,205 tanks destroyed or captured, and 3,120 guns destroyed or captured. Alternatively, 1,348-3,273 tanks and guns combined destroyed but not captured.While preventing the Smolensk pocket might be achievable, the Germans only claimed capturing ˜49,000 POW in the pocket itself.
That would be a drop in the bucket, and certainly wouldn't shorten the war by a year.
The 101st Airborne would like a word with you.
How many tanks and guns were captured inside the pocket?The Germans did indeed claim north of 300,000 POW in the battle of Smolensk (Roslavl included) (which by their definition ended in early August).
Of those 49,000 was captured inside the Smolensk pocket - the rest was captured outside the Smolensk pocket.
So maybe some of these individual pocket battles weren't as important after all?
Mogliev could have been bigger had the 2nd Panzer army and 2nd army not decided to let the Soviets go (abandoning their heavy equipment in the process) to save the casualties. Instead then spending them and then some on holding the Yelnya Bridgehead. Smolensk of course could have been much greater had it been properly closed and the proper pressure applied sooner to get Soviet troops to surrender rather than continue to fight to get to the Golden Bridge out of the pocket until about August. Certainly there were many miss pocket liquidation chances on the road to Smolensk, some that would have probably been more important to close than Smolensk even (at the time it was).The Germans did indeed claim north of 300,000 POW in the battle of Smolensk (Roslavl included) (which by their definition ended in early August).
Of those 49,000 was captured inside the Smolensk pocket - the rest was captured outside the Smolensk pocket.
So maybe some of these individual pocket battles weren't as important after all?
Certainly there were many miss pocket liquidation chances on the road to Smolens
Well, that's a good point. But there should be an informal internet law (like "Godwin's Law") where on Alternatehistory.com, the longer a discussion of the Allied side in WWII continues, the probability that someone will instead mention a way it could have gone better for the Axis approaches 1.Mogliev could have been bigger had the 2nd Panzer army and 2nd army not decided to let the Soviets go (abandoning their heavy equipment in the process) to save the casualties. Instead then spending them and then some on holding the Yelnya Bridgehead. Smolensk of course could have been much greater had it been properly closed and the proper pressure applied sooner to get Soviet troops to surrender rather than continue to fight to get to the Golden Bridge out of the pocket until about August. Certainly there were many miss pocket liquidation chances on the road to Smolensk, some that would have probably been more important to close than Smolensk even (at the time it was).
Hmm okay. So I guess that that encirclement wasn't as important as I had thought.The Germans report states 736 tanks and 763 artillery pieces inside the pocket.
And vice versaWell, that's a good point. But there should be an informal internet law (like "Godwin's Law") where on Alternatehistory.com, the longer a discussion of the Allied side in WWII continues, the probability that someone will instead mention a way it could have gone better for the Axis approaches 1.
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True. 1942/1943 D-Days are also mentioned quite a lot.And vice versa