Operation Barbarossa: One Giant Pincer?

Opeartion Barbarossa :: One Giant Pincer?

  • It Could Work

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • Need's Some Tweeking

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • It's Laughable

    Votes: 11 84.6%

  • Total voters
    13
operation-barbarossa.jpg


I think the idea of a Leningrad-First objective for Barbarossa has been brought before, maybe not in this fashion, but what if said idea was tweeked in the following way:

One Giant Pincer:

  • Stage One: Instead of 3 Wehrmacht Armee Groups striking into essentially 3 separate axis of advance into the Soviet Union (OTL), instead have a central thrust (2+ Armee Groups Combined) be made at Memel, with the goal of reaching and capturing Leningrad by July or August.

  • Stage Two: a Schleffin-esqe sweep down from Leningrad and the coast in hook formation towards the German Border in one giant pincer move? Capturing Moscow, Ukraine, and Belarus on the way

Not only would the initial thrust be easily supplied by sea, but as the Wehrmacht sweeps down, land supply lines become less and less burdensome as the they move closer to German borders.

This is very hypothetical and extremely generalized but how feasible is this plan logistically?

Could it have worked, or been a hilarious failure?
 

Deleted member 1487

The serious problem is then having a huge open flank to the south and heavily burdened supply lines by loading up the north even more. Its just not feasible, which is why the Germans dropped their two thrust idea early in planning.
 
The serious problem is then having a huge open flank to the south and heavily burdened supply lines by loading up the north even more. Its just not feasible, which is why the Germans dropped their two thrust idea early in planning.

Well comparatively, wouldn't it have been easier to supply 2 Armee Groups by sea via Riga or Leningrad than a single Armee group on the Volga or around Rostov?

The 3rd Armee Group, designated for the Ukraine IOTL, could easily be used to protect the flanks of said Northern Thrust.
 

Deleted member 1487

Well comparatively, wouldn't it have been easier to supply 2 Armee Groups by sea via Riga or Leningrad than a single Armee group on the Volga or around Rostov?

The 3rd Armee Group, designated for the Ukraine IOTL, could easily be used to protect the flanks of said Northern Thrust.
To do that you need to capture ports and get them back into operation, but then that wears off the further they get. There is also port capacity, which is a problem Rommel ran into in Africa and the Allies ran into in France. Leningrad won't be operational due to sabotage and you'd need to be able to capture it first to be able to use it, which will take time and in the meantime you need to supply everyone up to it via swamps by rail you need to convert, which took months. Logistics are a horrible bitch in the East in 1941 and that was a major reason for splitting the advance into three.
 
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