Operation Nordlicht instead of Störfang

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Deleted member 1487

I got my hands on a Glantz book on Leningrad and it seems based on the Moorbrand option there was another way to get Leningrad without attacking it at all. Since Manstein's plan was to take Leningrad by starving it out through taking the Ladoga port...after Operation Moorbrand, the destruction of the Soviet 54th Army's bulge shoved in the German Volkhov line, there would be a major weakness in the Soviet lines west of the Volkov so they could roll that up and reclaim the west bank of the river completely, which would cut off the supply routes to Leningrad. It would also give defensible lines and eliminate two Soviet armies. With 2nd Shock army just destroyed the Soviet Volkov Front wouldn't be able to held, and the NOG wasn't strong enough to help the Soviet units outside the Leningrad pocket.

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leningrad road life.jpg
 
I have a hard time envisioning Leningrad surviving if the Germans manage to clear the area west of the Volkhov river.
So if the losses sustained by the Volkhov Front in this ATL is large enough; going for this alternative might very well be the best option.

On a tanget - given that AG North got all the way to the outskirts of Volkhov in November '41, one might wonder how far they would have gotten if they had dropped the rather hopeless attempt to link up with AG Center in mid-October, and instead focused on capturing that city and beyond.

To summarize; this ATL provides AG North with a big boost in strength by the second half of June.
Given the rather convoluted shape of the frontline, they had numerous alternatives to inflict substantial losses on the Red Army.

With regards to the effect this would have on the rest of the frontline - it depends a bit on some unanswered questions from the original assumption.
How long would the Sevastopol garrison hold out without an Axis attack? And how many Axis troops would it tie down before that happened? An even bigger Romanian component in the siege would probably be considered.

Generally, the Soviets had pretty much exhausted their strategic reserves by the start of September.
Any scenario that inflicts more losses on the Soviets in the summer could thus have a big effect by that time.
 

Deleted member 1487

With regards to the Osprey campaign book you mentioned in the first post of this thread: the map of the Liuban offensive in that book gives a slightly distorted impression of the 54th Army situation in June.
If we look at the German situation map from say 15th June (see attachment), it's worth noting that the Germans already cut into the base of the salient.

While the terrain was bad, it's probably not worse than the terrain they attacked into when encircling the 2nd Shock Army.

And while losses would be high in the breakthrough phase for the 2-3 divisions conducting the attack - as it were in the above operation - the savings from a shortened frontline and a reduced threat to the Kirishi group would probably make up for it. While at the same time dealing a heavy blow to the Volkhov Front.


View attachment 288171
Hey could you comment on the idea of attacking that bulge and then following up and trying to take advantage of the weakness of the Soviet 54th Army to clear the West Bank of the Volkhov river as a means to cut off Leningrad's Lake Ladoga supply lines from the East? I'm thinking they sent 4x 300-series Infantry Divisions, 1 in May, the 3 sent East in June, so that in early July they lop off the bulge pictured and then continue attacking north to the city of Ladoga at the mouth of the Volkhov where it empties into the lake.

Edit:
Ninjaed!

With regards to the effect this would have on the rest of the frontline - it depends a bit on some unanswered questions from the original assumption.
How long would the Sevastopol garrison hold out without an Axis attack? And how many Axis troops would it tie down before that happened? An even bigger Romanian component in the siege would probably be considered.

Generally, the Soviets had pretty much exhausted their strategic reserves by the start of September.
Any scenario that inflicts more losses on the Soviets in the summer could thus have a big effect by that time.
The Sevastopol garrison supposedly could only hold out for a month or some at most beyond the historical attack due to the water supply according to a Russian source. But let's say that isn't a factor then the Soviets can hold out until Noworossiysk is attacked in August and the supply base that kept Sevastopol going is shut down. Then they have to surrender some time in August-September. There would have to be IIRC 2 Romanian divisions holding Kerch, plus 3 more hemming in Sevastopol, plus 2 weak German divisions. Sevastopol was not in a position to attack to break out. It would be effectively the Romanian 3rd army holding Crimea until Novorossiysk is attacked then it would have to wait for Sevastopol's surrender and then it could move north. As it was AFAIK it took minimal forces to besiege Sevastopol during Trappenjagd, the attack on the Kerch penninsula in May 1942.
 
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Deleted member 1487

I have a hard time envisioning Leningrad surviving if the Germans manage to clear the area west of the Volkhov river.
So if the losses sustained by the Volkhov Front in this ATL is large enough; going for this alternative might very well be the best option.
Based on information I managed to get from this thread:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=224699&p=2040174#p2040174
It would seem Operation Moorbrand, the cutting off of the Pogostye salient would delete 8 rifle divisions, 1 marine brigade, and potentially 1-2 tank brigades holding the base of the salient. That would leave 4th Guards Rifle Corps, 1-2 tank brigades, and 281 Rifle division outside the salient. 4th Guards Rifle Corps had 3rd Guards Rifle and 4 Rifle brigades (not sure about any artillery attached).

An issue with Moorbrand as a jump off point for an offensive is that the pocket would end up like the 2nd Shock Army salient, which took a long time to liquidate, though given the artillery that would have been available it might have gone a lot quicker, but not quickly enough to avoid the Soviets moving army reserves into the area. Also the area behind the salient had few if any roads and was very swampy, so a major attack force in the area without the winter frost may be pretty tough given the residual Soviet forces plus reinforcements.

One thing that might help is using that operation as a misdirect. Create the pocket and liquidate it with existing divisions plus 12 Panzer slashing across the rail line at the base of it, plus one fresh division coming in in May to do the operation in June. That fixes Soviet attention to try and liberate the pocket, which then allows the 3 fresh divisions sent in June plus further siege artillery and say 5th Mountain to attack the rail line in the Soviet 8th army's sector where the Soviets historically launched the Sinyavino Offensive out of. Using the heavy artillery, plus 4 attacking divisions organized into a corps, spearheaded in the hilly area by 5th Mountain along the rail line to Volkhov would catch the Soviets by surprise in early July if the fixation is on the Pogostye pocket set up in mid-June. IIRC by early July there was only 1-2 Soviet rifle divisions holding the area near Sinyavino, the 128th Soviet Rifle division. The Soviet 8th army had some reserve units based on a situation map from July 16th 1942 I found from this website:
http://wwii-photos-maps.com/

I think I'm seeing 1 RD, 1 Brigd., and one tank brigade. Hopefully some of those might be drawn off by the Pogostye situation, but if not the 4 German divisions should be able to handle them, even given the terrain. The thing is there was a Soviet RD and mountain brigade of the 8th army nearby, but neighboring the Pogostye salient, so I'd think they'd get sucked into that situation and be screened by the German division opposite them that won't be engaged offensively in my suggested plan. I'm going to assume they won't be a major factor in stopping an attack out of Sinyavino. With some of the heavy artillery train allocated, let's say half, the other half fighting the Pogostye pocket, they should be able to rip the Soviet 8th army apart and advance on Volkov via the rail line from the west, while the 54th army is engaged heavily trying to hold it's position together and liberate the 2/3rds of it's troops in the Pogostye pocket.

It looks like and offensive against the Soviet positions West of the Volkhov river is very doable and even if it results in high losses, say even higher than the Sinyavino offensive of August-October 1942, which cost the German 26k casualties, let's say worst case scenario for the Germans 50k losses, they would have pretty much wiped out the Soviet 8th and 54th armies, cleared the west bank of the Volkhov and set up very defensible positions, plus of course eliminated Leningrad. All in all those 50k casualties would eliminated probably over 500k Soviet troops or even more, from the Oranienbaum bridgehead, the Soviet Baltic Fleet, the Leningrad defenders, and the 8th and 54th armies. Plus it captures the factories in Leningrad and over 1 million civilians supporting the Soviet forces in Leningrad, and frees up the Axis forces screening it, plus then leaves the heavy artillery park used for the offensive to pound the Soviet bridgehead left on the Volkhov after 2nd Shock Army was wiped out, which was causing the Germans a lot of problems. Then add in the ability to launch an offensive and capture Karelia and Murmansk and eliminate another 250k Soviet soldiers, plus 25% of Lend-Lease and free up Luftflotte 5 for other operations.

Even if we go worse than 50k casualties and say the operation costs AG-North 100k casualties that is more than worth it for the vast strategic gains. For comparison just holding the Demyansk pocket alone in the winter of 1941-42 cost AG-North over 65k casualties with no strategic gain compared to withdrawing west to more defensible positions, which they had to anyway in 1943.

Edit:
even better information came in about the 54th army:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2040186#p2040180
On 30.6.42:

294 Rifle Division - 5 286 men
281 RD- 3 850
80 RD - 4 985
11 RD - 3 837
311 RD - 6 170
198 RD - 4 280
177 RD - 5 821
115 RD - 4 371
285 RD - 4 571
3 GRD - 9 478
6 Marine Brigade - 2 099
32 Rifle Brigade - 2 576
33 RBr - 2 757
137 RBr - 2 328
140 RBr - 2 669
16 Tank Brigade - 683
98 TBr - 845
122 TBr - 1 347
124 TBr - 696
21 Artillery Regiment - 1 060
24 Artillery Regiment - 1 095
13 Artillery Regiment - 1 084
40 Artillery Regiment - 920
51 Rocket Battalion - 325
115 Rocket Battalion - 315
Total 73 448 men in combat units.

Totals in the Volkhov Front on the same day:
8 Army (2 rifle divisions, 1 rifle brigade) - 24 712 men
54 Army (10 rifle divisions, 5 rifle brigades, 4 tank brigades) - 73 448

4 Army (3 rifle divisions, 2 tank brigades) - 20 523
59 Army (8 rifle divisions, 2 rifle brigades, 2 tank brigades) - 48 232
52 Army (4 rifle divisions) - 24 388
2 Shock Army (remains) - 4 210
Front's reserve (2 rifle divisions, 3 cavalry divisions) - 32 708
total 228 221 men

So by late July the Soviets don't have a ton of manpower on hand, so if 4 fresh German divisions can be brought in that would make a huge difference, as they have about 14k men per division, which makes the 4 divisions nearly as strong as the Soviet 54th Army units in the Pogostye salient. As far as I can tell at least 60% of the strength of the 54th army would be in the Pogostye salient/pocket. Front reserves are substantial and probably would get moved in to help relatively quickly, but with the fixation on the Pogostye situation if started in mid/late June then by say July 10th 4 divisions concentrated against the Soviet 8th Army would be able to overwhelm them, as they would be roughly twice as strong and backed up by a powerful heavy artillery park. Soviet Front reserves would likely be diverted already, so they should be able to overwhelm the Soviet 8th Army pretty rapidly before the Volkhov Front could substantially react. That should collapse their position west of the Volkhov river within a month and probably see over 100k Soviet troops made casualties in the process.

I can't see the Germans suffering more than 50k casualties in the process with this in mind, especially with the majority of the 54th Army having put itself in a pocket.

With the west bank cleared and Ladoga and Volkhov city taken or put out of commission by close proximity of German troops, that would shut down both the main supply port and rail junction supplying it out of commission and start the starving out process of Leningrad. That should take probably 2 months starting in late July/early August. By October Leningrad should surrender and with it all told probably close to 500k combatants within the city area including the Baltic Fleet.

Of course for this to have happened Sevastopol couldn't happen to ensure the necessary forces are available in June/July and the right strategic conceptions are had at the right time. Doing this before even considering anything about Sevastopol is beyond logical given the strategic implications. In fact it is incredibly stupid that OKW thought Sevastopol should come first, even given Case Blue. Clearly they thought that Leningrad would be taken soon thereafter, but clearly did not appreciate the logistical requirements to make that happen.
 
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What if instead of taking on Sevastopol in June-July 1942 instead Operation Nordlicht, the attack on Leningrad that was planned but never executed, is run instead? As it was there was little reason to go after Sevastopol other than the prestige of taking it down and some irrational fears of it being used as a base for bombing Ploesti, but as a Russian poster mentioned on another forum that the water supply was running out for Sevastopol anyway and they'd have to surrender in about a month as it was, there was no point to do more than screen the fort until it quit, something the Romanians and a few German divisions could have handled with support from various Axis naval and anti-shipping air units. This of course is assuming Kerch has been secured as it was IOTL in May 1942.

After Sevastopol was taken down IOTL it took about a month to redeploy north starting in July of 4 divisions of Manstein's 11th army, which delayed the original planned attack on Leningrad from July until the end of August, but then a Soviet offensive preempted the German offensive on Leningrad. ITTL instead of waiting until July to start redeploying right after Kerch is secured by May 20th German forces start redeploying to Leningrad, so are in place and ready to attack by mid-July, 6 weeks before the Soviet offensive to relieve Leningrad (which failed IOTL, but caused Hitler to order 11th army to launch a counteroffensive against a bulge punched in German lines and ate up the resources for the Leningrad offensive). So no later than July 23rd the German offensive against Leningrad would start.

There is a great map of the planned offensive in the Osprey campaign book on the Leningrad siege, which I will attach, but the crux of it was that Manstein understood that Soviet forces in the Leningrad pocket were weakened badly by starvation, but were still too formidable to attack directly in the city, so his plan was to grab key terrain features so that he could cross the Neva River and capture the supply route linking Soviet defenders with supply over Lake Ladoga, which would very quickly starve out the city and force it to surrender or die en masse. It seemed like a solid plan that would have succeeded provided it could happen before the Soviets could launch their relief offensive and distract from the plan. With Leningrad falling in 1942 then, even if the Soviets launch their historical relief offensive in August, the Axis forces in the area would be too strong and the Soviet offensive would fail as per OTL. Then the Axis forces freed up from Leningrad, hundreds of thousands of men actually including the Finns and forces locked down fighting the Soviet fleet in the Baltic, could then cut off and take out Murmansk and permanently end the Northern Lend-Lease route as well as shut down the Finnish front; that would free up something like 300k Germans engaged in Karelia/Leningrad for other operations, plus given them great supply lines through Leningrad and all the quality airfields around Leningrad.

What impact would it have had on the rest of the conflict and on the Soviets to lose Leningrad (and Murmansk/Arctic route Lend-Lease, plus have Sevastopol surrender in July-August due to lack of water)?

I'm attaching a map of the plan for you all to critique
View attachment 287576

German's could have done so much more than they did. The few divisions that were moved to Leningrad after the whole Crimea is captured were available elsewhere. Norway had four or five extra divisions. Move those down to Rzhev Pocket. Move the Hungarian 2nd Army to southern end of the pocket. That frees up another twelve german divisions. Hungarian 2nd being deployed in the woods, and commanded by Model, gives them a strong defence position. The released german divisions are used to cut off the pocket and destroy it, and freeing up Demyansk from the east. There are then sixteen to twenty freed up German divisions. Half of those divisions are more than Manstein's 11th Army. Those half are used to launch the attack on Leningrad, cutting it out as above. The other half of the divisions are then moved to the south, to support Case Blue. German divisions instead of Hungarian, makes the Don line more secure.
Instead of the 4th Pz Army running around at Hitler's whim, they strike for Stalingrad, capture it and cut off all those Russian Armies that actually got away.
You now have the 4Pz and the 6th Army in much better shape, not having to fight in the streets of Stalingrad. Those armies are used to guard the Don, instead of the Italians and the Rumanians. Those two armies are then moved to the south to use their expert mountain divisions where they should have been used, in the Caucasus mountains, where their equipment would better serve them.
The 11th Army isn't then needed to go north.
Net effects
Leningrad falls, dock yards are then used to supply northern troops and build more U Boats (outside range of allied bombers). Russians lose a million troops from both Leningrad and Rzhev pocket, making them much weaker.
Stalingrad is captured without a withering fight. Volga is cut, causing economic issues for Russians. Russians lose more troops trapped in the kessel formed by the 4th Pz. Defend line along south is more secure, with expert mountain troops fighting for the Axis in the mountains.
11th Army is in reserve in south.
Operation Mars doesn't have the advantage of attacking on three sides, so in fails even more badly. Operation Saturn doesn't get to go in against weak Allied division but against german divisions. THose divisions are backed up by strong german reserves and that attack also fails.
 

Deleted member 1487

German's could have done so much more than they did. The few divisions that were moved to Leningrad after the whole Crimea is captured were available elsewhere. Norway had four or five extra divisions. Move those down to Rzhev Pocket. Move the Hungarian 2nd Army to southern end of the pocket. That frees up another twelve german divisions. Hungarian 2nd being deployed in the woods, and commanded by Model, gives them a strong defence position. The released german divisions are used to cut off the pocket and destroy it, and freeing up Demyansk from the east. There are then sixteen to twenty freed up German divisions. Half of those divisions are more than Manstein's 11th Army. Those half are used to launch the attack on Leningrad, cutting it out as above. The other half of the divisions are then moved to the south, to support Case Blue. German divisions instead of Hungarian, makes the Don line more secure.
Instead of the 4th Pz Army running around at Hitler's whim, they strike for Stalingrad, capture it and cut off all those Russian Armies that actually got away.
You now have the 4Pz and the 6th Army in much better shape, not having to fight in the streets of Stalingrad. Those armies are used to guard the Don, instead of the Italians and the Rumanians. Those two armies are then moved to the south to use their expert mountain divisions where they should have been used, in the Caucasus mountains, where their equipment would better serve them.
The 11th Army isn't then needed to go north.
Net effects
Leningrad falls, dock yards are then used to supply northern troops and build more U Boats (outside range of allied bombers). Russians lose a million troops from both Leningrad and Rzhev pocket, making them much weaker.
Stalingrad is captured without a withering fight. Volga is cut, causing economic issues for Russians. Russians lose more troops trapped in the kessel formed by the 4th Pz. Defend line along south is more secure, with expert mountain troops fighting for the Axis in the mountains.
11th Army is in reserve in south.
Operation Mars doesn't have the advantage of attacking on three sides, so in fails even more badly. Operation Saturn doesn't get to go in against weak Allied division but against german divisions. THose divisions are backed up by strong german reserves and that attack also fails.
Whoa, slow up there, 2nd Hungarian is needed for Case Blue and couldn't handle the attacks being launched in Rzhev, the divisions in Norway were needed to guard against a British invasion, and an attack out of Rzhev while the Soviets are attacking and prior to the west flank is cleared up would be impossible to achieve logistically. During the Spring of 1942 there was a lot of rebuilding needed and too much to do cleaning up the front lines after the Soviet Winter offensives. No offense, but what you propose is impossible to achieve given the constraints of the time. Logistically moving that many troops around in the East is impossible, moving 5 divisions of the 11th army north nearly collapsed the rail system and took a month longer than planned.
That said I'm certainly with you about 4th Panzer army, but that is a separate POD.
 
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