No Kiev 1941 - Early Operation Typhoon

agreed, and now you mention that it makes me think it would have been a prime opportunity for hitler to use his paratroopers effectively to help the operation in Moscow go smoothly! why did he waste them on Crete haha
 
well if you think about it, the idea of an earlier operation typhoon could actually lead to a German seizing of Moscow

I have thought about it. If you read the entire thread, you'll see I have thought about it a whole lot. And you'll see that the consensus among the others is that the Germans do not have forces or the logistics to do it. At most, they can reach Moscow at which point they become bogged down in city-fighting. Far more likely, the advance collapses even before then.

You forget, that the main defence of Moscow came from the highly trained Siberian units that were transferred in November.

Incorrect. Many of those forces had been transferred in much earlier then November and had simply been held in the STAVKA's strategic reserve until November. ITTL, the STAVKA will not only have those forces to reinforce the Moscow axis, but also the forces which IOTL were used to replace the losses to the Kiev Operation further south. Additionally, the forces on the Moscow axis are unlikely to be destroyed as they were IOTL due to the lack of German surprise, better Soviet preparedness, and stretched German logistics radically slowing and weakening the German advance. Instead, they'll slow and bleed the Germans significanty before falling back to the next defensive line. And then the next. And the next. Until the Germans invariably hit their culmination point and become vulnerable to a Soviet counterstrike.

Prior to this, the defence of Moscow was disorganised as the paranoia and shock wee was still common
Incorrect. Soviet defences in early-September were far tougher then they were at the start of October. The Soviets (or more accurately, Stalin) actually expected an immediate attack on Moscow and had organized accordingly. The OTL Typhoon, coming so late in the year, took the Soviets by surprise.

That is yet another advantage the Germans won't have ITTL.
 
agreed, and now you mention that it makes me think it would have been a prime opportunity for hitler to use his paratroopers effectively to help the operation in Moscow go smoothly! why did he waste them on Crete haha

Perhaps because they were stil recovering from Crete? Panzergruppe's Guderin and Hoth were enough to get to Moscow, A paratroop drop was likely to nd in a debacle. However, the Bradenburgur commandos would almost certainly have been used for special operations behid Soviet lines,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburgers

Securing key bridges in Moscow as they had dne previously during Operation Barbarossa. Maybe also securing government buildings and similar missions.
 

Ian_W

Banned
agreed, and now you mention that it makes me think it would have been a prime opportunity for hitler to use his paratroopers effectively to help the operation in Moscow go smoothly! why did he waste them on Crete haha

Because with Crete in Allied hands, the Rumanian oilfields get the crap bombed out of them.
 
Moscow was a bifg place in 1941 abd srategicaly vital, certainly to the Soviet Union. You make an interesting point about Japan though. If we have a situation where German troops have taken Moscow in October 1941 or at least are fighting in Moscow how does this influence thinking in Tokyo? While Japan is a member of the Axis war with the US was probably certain by this stage, Will Tokyo risk a two front war gambling they can defeat both the Soviet Union and the United States quickly. Another Japanese alternative might be to threaten a war and build up forces on the Siberian border, perhas initiate a border clash. However, last time they tried that, in 1939 at Khalkin GOL (Nomohan) Japan was badly beaten. Toky might wait until the Siberian divisions have redeployed to defend Moscow and hope to grab some territory as the Soviet Union falls (as Tokyo sees it) That however might be a miscalculation on their part which perhaps delays or even butterflies away Pearl Harbour - Japan, now at war with the Soviet Union pus off war with the USA and Britain until th Siberian campaign is over and Stalin has sought a deal. S we could have no Pacific War starting in 1941/42. The US is probably still dragged iinto war with Germ,any in this scenario, probably sometime in 1942 most likely over attacks on US escorted lend lease convoys. All this could have very interesting effects on the course of the war.

As an aside, I have always ignored the poster who you almost entered in a flame war for the very obvious reason that he seems like an old, stubborn man who cannot incorporate new ideas into his mind anymore. You don't respond to a person who responds to new, well-reasoned arguments by repeating almost exactly what he said before. It would be like arguing with a rock.

As for Japanese calculations, they had no interest at all in attacking Siberia. For one, Siberia had nothing worth conquering. While we know it is resource rich, extracting it with the technology back then was almost impossible. Japan's strategic focus was basically the oil and rubber of southeast asia without which its military would not be able to function. That is why it attacked the US over the oil embargo. Its military would be virtually ineffective within 6 months without a new supply of oil.

Now there is a strategic calculation to be had that the Japanese would attack Siberia in order to weaken the Soviet Union and allow it to fall to Germany thus helping all axis powers. But Axis coordination throughout the war was always terrible and every man for himself. See all the foolish adventures of Italy for absolute proof positive for this. This compared to the allies where America agreed with Britain that Germany was the larger strategic threat and to focus most of their resources on defeating Germany first even though their individual interest was in retaliating against Japan.

*******************************

Continuing back to the hypotheticals in this thread one where Moscow is taken easily and one where it drags down into urban warfare, I'd posit that it doesn't matter as long as Moscow is rendered ineffective as a transportation and economic hub.

The Soviet situation was quite desperate in the fall of that year. Tanks were literally rolling out of factories in Leningrad and Moscow straight to the front lines.

Lets consider why all the German Generals thought Moscow was so important. For one it was a transportation hub and in a world that was just becoming acclimated to cars and airplanes, railway was everything. It was especially crucial throughout the war because both the trans-siberian railway from Vladvistok and the northern supply railway from Archangel.

Without Moscow, supplying the factories east of the Urlas with American and British raw materials (especially aluminum which was in critical shortage since the main russian supply was from Ukraine) would've been far harder. In fact, the Finns knew they could cut off the Archangel railway link but never did as they didn't want to face harsh Soviet retaliation later if the war went bad.

And Moscow was still a large industrial center that accounted for about 15-20% of USSR industrial output. Much has been made of the Soviets moving their factories eastward but they were only able to do this for some factories and had to be supplied by America with railway cars, trucks, and other critical manufactured goods to make up for losses. Losing Moscow would've been not merely a symbolic blow but a significant logistical and economic one as well.

The fatal flaw in Hitler's thinking (other than the fact that he was ignorant on military strategy in general) was his preoccupation with economic resources. Any loss he inflicted on the Russians could be made up with British and American trade easily. For example, Operation Case Blue was premised on the fact that taking the fields at baku would cripple Soviet oil production. The USSR produced about 150 million barrels a year at the time. The US produced over a billion. Any losses, though significant, could be made up by the US in any contingency.

To defeat the USSR required crippling their transportation network as one of the prerequisites. The soviet counteroffensive with Siberian troops would've had to disembark hundres of km away instead of right at Moscow. American lend-lease aid would've been much harder to distribute. And logistically, without US trucks yet shipped in large numbers to the USSR, Russian supply would've been so crippled that the front likely would've been much farther back across the board.

Taking Moscow almost assuredly would've significantly extended the war vs the original timeline. IMHO, it's hard to see how Leningrad could've survived without the supply line from Moscow and if Leningrad falls, the Germans would have a port which massively improves their supply situation. Even without taking Leningrad, in the OTL they supplied hundreds of thousands of troops at the Demyansk Pocket which was a hooking line through the snow next to Moscow. The supply situation was indeed bad, but it's hard to say how it would've been worse had the Germans at least contested Moscow. Having access to some Moscow airfields and at least the ruins of housing is an improvement over the holes in the ground they dug outside of Moscow IOTL.

Over time maybe the Soviet Union still wins, but the Germans should've at least risked Stalingrad-like casualties in order to destroy the economic and transportation hub of the Soviet Union. They ended up taking horrendous casualties for some strategically worthless city on the southern Volga (at the real Stalingrad IOTL) anyways that had it been captured would've had no positive effect on the German strategic situation. If Moscow had been destroyed the same way Stalingrad was by intense street fighting, it would've been a humongous blow to Soviet strength.
 
As an aside, I have always ignored the poster who you almost entered in a flame war for the very obvious reason that he seems like an old, stubborn man who cannot incorporate new ideas into his mind anymore. You don't respond to a person who responds to new, well-reasoned arguments by repeating almost exactly what he said before. It would be like arguing with a rock.

As for Japanese calculations, they had no interest at all in attacking Siberia. For one, Siberia had nothing worth conquering. While we know it is resource rich, extracting it with the technology back then was almost impossible. Japan's strategic focus was basically the oil and rubber of southeast asia without which its military would not be able to function. That is why it attacked the US over the oil embargo. Its military would be virtually ineffective within 6 months without a new supply of oil.

Now there is a strategic calculation to be had that the Japanese would attack Siberia in order to weaken the Soviet Union and allow it to fall to Germany thus helping all axis powers. But Axis coordination throughout the war was always terrible and every man for himself. See all the foolish adventures of Italy for absolute proof positive for this. This compared to the allies where America agreed with Britain that Germany was the larger strategic threat and to focus most of their resources on defeating Germany first even though their individual interest was in retaliating against Japan.

*******************************

Continuing back to the hypotheticals in this thread one where Moscow is taken easily and one where it drags down into urban warfare, I'd posit that it doesn't matter as long as Moscow is rendered ineffective as a transportation and economic hub.

The Soviet situation was quite desperate in the fall of that year. Tanks were literally rolling out of factories in Leningrad and Moscow straight to the front lines.

Lets consider why all the German Generals thought Moscow was so important. For one it was a transportation hub and in a world that was just becoming acclimated to cars and airplanes, railway was everything. It was especially crucial throughout the war because both the trans-siberian railway from Vladvistok and the northern supply railway from Archangel.

Without Moscow, supplying the factories east of the Urlas with American and British raw materials (especially aluminum which was in critical shortage since the main russian supply was from Ukraine) would've been far harder. In fact, the Finns knew they could cut off the Archangel railway link but never did as they didn't want to face harsh Soviet retaliation later if the war went bad.

And Moscow was still a large industrial center that accounted for about 15-20% of USSR industrial output. Much has been made of the Soviets moving their factories eastward but they were only able to do this for some factories and had to be supplied by America with railway cars, trucks, and other critical manufactured goods to make up for losses. Losing Moscow would've been not merely a symbolic blow but a significant logistical and economic one as well.

The fatal flaw in Hitler's thinking (other than the fact that he was ignorant on military strategy in general) was his preoccupation with economic resources. Any loss he inflicted on the Russians could be made up with British and American trade easily. For example, Operation Case Blue was premised on the fact that taking the fields at baku would cripple Soviet oil production. The USSR produced about 150 million barrels a year at the time. The US produced over a billion. Any losses, though significant, could be made up by the US in any contingency.

To defeat the USSR required crippling their transportation network as one of the prerequisites. The soviet counteroffensive with Siberian troops would've had to disembark hundres of km away instead of right at Moscow. American lend-lease aid would've been much harder to distribute. And logistically, without US trucks yet shipped in large numbers to the USSR, Russian supply would've been so crippled that the front likely would've been much farther back across the board.

Taking Moscow almost assuredly would've significantly extended the war vs the original timeline. IMHO, it's hard to see how Leningrad could've survived without the supply line from Moscow and if Leningrad falls, the Germans would have a port which massively improves their supply situation. Even without taking Leningrad, in the OTL they supplied hundreds of thousands of troops at the Demyansk Pocket which was a hooking line through the snow next to Moscow. The supply situation was indeed bad, but it's hard to say how it would've been worse had the Germans at least contested Moscow. Having access to some Moscow airfields and at least the ruins of housing is an improvement over the holes in the ground they dug outside of Moscow IOTL.

Over time maybe the Soviet Union still wins, but the Germans should've at least risked Stalingrad-like casualties in order to destroy the economic and transportation hub of the Soviet Union. They ended up taking horrendous casualties for some strategically worthless city on the southern Volga (at the real Stalingrad IOTL) anyways that had it been captured would've had no positive effect on the German strategic situation. If Moscow had been destroyed the same way Stalingrad was by intense street fighting, it would've been a humongous blow to Soviet strength.

Some excellent points there. Personaslly doubt Japan wouyld have atacked in Siberia eithe. For at least tw good reasons. First they had alrady had a serious clash with the Soviet Union at Khalkin Gol where the came off worse. Second war with the US was pretty much certain and Tokyo would not want a two front war,

If the Germans had taken Moscow it might have won the war for Hitler. Perhaps someone mounts a coup against Stalin and sues for a Beggar's peace with Hitler. In which case you get a nastier Brest Litovsk style peace dictated by Germany. It is, as you say, equally possible that the war continues and maybe the Soviet Union still wins. More likely th first Atom Bombs will be dropped on German cities whil the Red Army is fighting its way through the Ukraine or perhas into Eastern Europe. In the short term (1942) I would consider he likely operations to be German offensives in Ukraine similar to Case Blau and Soviet offensives to retake Moscow and relieve Leningrad.

As previously indicated though I believe the most likely outcome ids tht n earl Typhoon still fails but will advance further than it did wih Gweman troops fighting their way into Moscow but faling to ctualy take the city. In 1942 events will probably follow a course not unlike OTl.

As far as that certain individual is concerned, well. the least said the better.:eek:
 
As an aside, I have always ignored the poster who you almost entered in a flame war for the very obvious reason that he seems like an old, stubborn man who cannot incorporate new ideas into his mind anymore. You don't respond to a person who responds to new, well-reasoned arguments by repeating almost exactly what he said before. It would be like arguing with a rock.

Pot, kettle, yadda yadda. None of you have yet managed to refute my points about how the Germans screwed up logistical situation would be vastly worse with an early Typhoon or that Soviet resistance would be harder and more effective as the forces on that axis were stronger and expecting an attack in early-September, unlike how they would be in October. Lucaswillen never really addressed them and instead started either misunderstanding or pretending that I was rejecting the PoD, for some reason. It's something that would have gotten him thrown out of a formal debate a long time ago.

Seriously, all these arguments have been comprehensively demolished by such works written by distinguished historians like Martin Van Crevald, Richard Overy, David M. Glantz, and others. The continued reiteration of these arguments is clearly indicative of people who have either not read these works or who have read but failed to understand what was actually being said.

But then I suppose that when you are not capable of addressing your opponents argument, just ignoring or misrepresenting it is a lot easier.
 
Last edited:

Ian_W

Banned
*bunch of stuff deleted about why the Soviets losing Moscow would have been good for the Germans*

Diogenes5,

There is absolutely nothing in anything you've written about the how the Germans could have overcome their logistical difficulties and got a big-enough force to Moscow in an early Typhoon - which, by definition, is done with the German railhead well west of where it was in November.
 
There is absolutely nothing in anything you've written about the how the Germans could have overcome their logistical difficulties and got a big-enough force to Moscow in an early Typhoon - which, by definition, is done with the German railhead well west of where it was in November.

His analysis also completely ignores several other things:

1. That the Soviets will evacuate Moscow's industry if it is threatened anyways (as they largely did IOTL) and that the evacuation of industries was not remotely dependent on L-L (as it all occurred before any L-L shipments even managed to arrive).
2. He thinks that "Stalingrad-esque street fighting" means it would engulf the entirety of Moscow, instead of just the westernmost parts of it. Moscow is a much bigger city in terms of land area then Stalingrad after all.
3. That the Donbass and Kharkov-Orel regions, which will not fall without the Kiev encirclement, represented not only a even more substantial portion of Soviet manufacturing then the Moscow industrial region, but also contains all those raw material deposits that he later talked about the Soviets losing (including Aluminum). Meaning that ITTL the Soviets industrial capacity in 1942 will be better and much less dependent on lend-lease even if the Germans wreck Moscow attempting to take it.
4. He horribly exaggerates Moscow's importance as a rail hub (there are, in fact, rail connections between the Urals and other parts of European Russia further to the north, east, and south of Moscow). Especially for the Leningrad line, as IOTL the Germans actually did manage to cut the Leningrad-Moscow railway for several weeks when they took Kalinin, but the Soviets just diverted the rail traffic up through the Gorki-Yaroslavl and Kirov-Cherpovets lines until they retook Kalinin .
5. He is wrong about the importance of L-L to the Soviets in 1941-1942 (which accounts for less then 10% of total L-L sent and in final analysis made a small, but not decisive, contribution in Soviet industrial recovery during that year), and about where the bulk of L-L came from (the Arctic Convoy route was literally the most hazardous and least effective means of receiving L-L the Soviets had. The overwhelming bulk of it came via Persia and the Pacific routes, especially the latter).
6. He is wrong about the effect of Leningrad falling. Leaving aside that the port facilities are liable to be nothing but wreckage, the reality is it was actually less efficient to ship stuff to a Baltic or Black Sea port then it was to just rail stuff out to the front directly from Germany. Hence why the Germans only bothered with sea supply if a force was cut off and pinned against the coast and why ports like Riga, Tallinn, and Rostov failed to improve their supply situation. And to reach the Archangel rail line would require the Germans to advance through the forces of the Northern and Volkhov nearly 500 kilometers over trackless peat bogs and heavy forests, which just is not going to happen. The only real effect of Leningrad falling (which unlike Moscow falling, is possible if improbable) is that it allows the Germans to physically hook up with the Finns... except they already have perfectly suitable lines of communication via the Baltic and Norway.
7. He thinks that the air resupply of the Demyansk pocket, when a force of just German infantry were cut-off just a dozen or two kilometers behind the lines by Soviet forces who lacked enough strength to even seal the pocket in pocket is comparable to a much larger force with a significant mechanized component being cut-off hundreds of kilometers behind the line in a fully sealed pocket manned by millions of Soviet soldiers.

I also find it odd that lucaswillen thinks that 1942 will got largely as per IOTL when the Soviets are literally millions of men, thousands of tanks and aircraft, tens of thousands of trucks and artillery pieces stronger with concurrently considerably more industrial production and better trained, equipped, and led forces while the Germans are (assuming they do somehow manage to avoid major encirclements during the winter) a few hundreds of thousands of men, around a thousand tanks, and tens of thousands of trucks and artillery weaker then IOTL while starting from a position much further west then IOTL. That isn't a recipe for IOTLs 2nd Kharkov (why would there be a 2nd Kharkov when it is several hundred kilometers behind Soviet lines?) or Operation Blau. It's not really a recipe for anything that actually occurred on the Eastern Front. What is most likely is that both sides launch a major offensive in the summer independent of each other, both of these offensives get mauled (but not destroyed like 2nd Kharkov was, an important distinction) by the other side (possibly even from slamming into each other in a giant meeting engagement) but the Soviets (with their superior resources and manpower) bounce back from the mauling and launch another offensive within a few weeks that drives the Germans back something like several dozen to a hundred kilometers.
 
Last edited:
Diogenes5,

There is absolutely nothing in anything you've written about the how the Germans could have overcome their logistical difficulties and got a big-enough force to Moscow in an early Typhoon - which, by definition, is done with the German railhead well west of where it was in November.

Bock and Halder would have considered this in their planning and they were able to pull off Kiev. Hence the logistics of getting to Moscow were likely achievable.

However, sustaining a lengthy urban battle and defending Army Group Centre's over extended flanks during the course of that battle would in ll probability have resulted in failure and possibly disaster similar to or indeed worse tha what happpened.

I have no doubt that AGC would have go to Moscow. Once there Bock would have had to try to tke the city in a coup de main using Pnzergruppes Hoth and Guderian. He would not have had much choice given that he would jave reached the city in late September at the earliest, Taking a bg city like this often went badly wrng as at Warsaw and Stalingrad. If that happened the affair would bog dwn into at least a siege like Leningrad and probably an extended Stalingrad style battle
 
Bock and Halder would have considered this in their planning

Except that they had a solid history of ignoring logistical considerations in their planning both before and after this. You have provided no evidence they did so otherwise in this particular case.

Honestly, if Bock and Halder had the logistical sense you ascribed to them, they would never have advocated any version of a 1941 Typhoon.

and they were able to pull off Kiev.
Which was much less logistically burdensome for reasons already explained to you in this thread and thus an inadequate comparison.

Almost all serious post-WW2 war games on the subject have actually mapped out the exact line of advance that the Germans can reach on what dates before the supply attenuation becomes too great. All of them end some distance west of Moscow. The earlier the date, the further west the line is. This is not something that Halder, Bock, Hitler, Guderian, or anyone else in the German command can wish away and it is something that will cause an early-Typhoon to crash and burn even faster if the Germans go with that decision. In light of that, Hitler's decision to divert AGC to eliminate Soviet forces in Ukraine not only secured the flanks, destroyed threatening Soviet forces, and denied resources to the Soviet Union but also permitted the German railheads to catch up enough to permit the Germans to make it as far as they did IOTLs Typhoon.
 
Last edited:
Top