Operation Typhoon called off by November 1941

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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I think the proposition suffers from an excess of hindsight and the usual assumption that the only people able to influence matters are the Germans.

You need to recall the situation of the German armies through October.

Early in the month at great effort they had put together a respectable force for the initial Typhoon battles. However in the process ( the approach marches) they had shed 30-60% of their vehicles on non combat wastage. As the supply and engineer officers had said a short rest enables them to get some vehicles running, it does make then box fresh, they will break if driven far.

Around Mid October Hitler announces to the World that the Russians are defeated and its over we can move on to the fun genocide bit.

Realistically from 2 October AGC has advanced around 300km between 2 and 24 October ( Wagner Army QMG) that’s pretty good going and the only thing certain about stopping for the winter is that it means the Russians have 6 months to raise more armies, train more armies and equip more armies.

However the second half of October is a disaster but only in hindsight. The German attack gets confined to predicable lines has to go through a series of defensive belts and push back but do not break through the Soviets. By the end of the Month 10th Pz is described by its corps commander as ‘no more than a reinforced reconnaissance patrol’ and in other divisions regiments were at company strength.

In order to do that and maintain that advance the Germans are shedding and cannibalising vehicles to keep something mobile and using 24 horse teams to pull one gun forward.

The end result is that formations are strung back along up to 300km of front with, until a freeze, no way of recovering heavy kit, and limited options for doing that anyway. They have expended much of their strength getting there, and in several cases deliberately broken up higher formations to retain some form of mobility.

They are engaged in fairly continual combat along the whole AGC sector and some quite desperate defensive battles ( the kind where regimental HQ staffs get squished by T34s) around Kalinin.

Quick review of this action –German regiment overrun and decimated heroic panzers arrive like Seigfried and the Valkyrie, shout Seig Heil, fight a battle and drive off the Jewish Bolshevik beast. But they have to high speed motor for 10km, several turn their gear boxes into mush in the process, fuel is burned, oil is burned men and machines are destroyed in the battle and as the infantry generals said it all happened after the regiment is decimated, so the survivors have to cover another kilometre per company.

The Logistics situation has been screwed for 3 months and in November only half the required number of trains will reach AGC. That’s trains btw not tons, trucks or anything else. From September the Trains don’t get to Russia in sufficient numbers, pushing the railhead further east just compounds that.
As it is for the November drive on Moscow the tanks have a basic load of ammo and enough fuel to get half way there.

Stopping at the end of October means that’s where you are. Strung out, ill supplied and short of everything, cold and increasingly hungry with the logs only able to bring up around half of what you need much less the explosives, timber, wire, ammunition etc needed to ‘ go on the defensive’.

Retreat along the lines proposed means attempting to break contact with an aggressive enemy with a superior air force (they had the Moscow hardstanding and heated hangars to work in) artillery ( they had the depots and the wagons and the trucks and all the horses of Siberia to call on to pull them), cavalry, maps ( its around this time that the AGC map depot gets sabred to death) march back leaving behind the sick, wounded and everything you cannot carry for at least 10 days in -40 temperatures.

Attacking the army you have just destroyed twice over and whose last (?) defensive lines you have blown through is not a daft option, especially if you are a German general whose solution to every problem is a rapid mobile offensive or a Fuhrer who has just pronounced the end of Soviet resistance.
 
Did they manage "100 to 200 KM" during that time, because you claim that they would need to withdraw about that much. According to wiki, there was a stand down order between Oct 31st to Nov 15th. So, my point still staads. The Germans if they dug in on their Nov 1 positions would be covering positions similar to the OTL Rhzev salient, not 100-200KM behind this point.

Actually pulling out and looking at a German frontline map indicates that on October 15th, 1941 the Germans were nearly 140 kilometers from Moscow at their closest point. They were 70 kilometers from Moscow on October 25th, 1941. When the winter campaign was over, they were roughly a 100 kilometers from Moscow at the closest point.

Curse my memory and the sheer size of the Eastern Front screwing with my perspective of scale.

Even though they did OTL with less men? Unlikely.
OTL they were pushed back from that line by a Soviet force operating further away from their railheads then ITTL.

But, that's where they were OTL on Nov 1, not 200 KM east of that point. So, I do not see where you get this idea that there would be a massive withdrawal.
200 KM was something of an overestimate on my part (the curse of working off of memory), but no they were not at the same place on November 1st as they were on October 15th.

True, but those railheads are still not as substantial as Moscow.
Their substantial enough to improve the Soviet supply situation.

ITTL, the Germans are knowingly hunkering down in winter positions...so they will get some of this stuff to the front (and they must've OTL, or the Germans wouldn't have been able to hold where they were to begin with.)
They didn't. Pretty much all the German winter-weather gear spent the winter in warehouses near the border. The Germans persevered through the winter through a mix of their own improvisations, captured Soviet winter weather gear, and Soviet weakness. Glantz likens both the Soviets and the Germans in the November-Febuary 1941/42 periods to two exhausted, beaten-up, and punch-drunk boxers. A suspended German advance in November allows the two boxers to get a little rested and sobered up... but their still going to be pretty weak.

Tula was never taken; a company advanced into it, but were pushed out in a matter of hours. It was however nearly surrounded.

Yeah, your correct. I thought the Germans managed to struggle into it sometime in mid-November, but a look at the areas of advance shows I misremembered. It does seem that the Germans did manage to cut most of the rail-lines into the city though...
 

Deleted member 1487

They didn't. Pretty much all the German winter-weather gear spent the winter in warehouses near the border. The Germans persevered through the winter through a mix of their own improvisations, captured Soviet winter weather gear, and Soviet weakness. Glantz likens both the Soviets and the Germans in the November-Febuary 1941/42 periods to two exhausted, beaten-up, and punch-drunk boxers. A suspended German advance in November allows the two boxers to get a little rested and sobered up... but their still going to be pretty weak.
About 20% of German troops get their winter gear IOTL. The reason it stayed in warehouses was to make rail space for ammo and other supplies, but if they aren't using that space by late October for active combat supplies they can bring up winter gear. Also its a lot easier to handle the winter in a prepared position rather than exposed to the elements. With both sides weak, but one in fixed positions and the other with what was only effectively militia inexperienced at offensive actions (still useful for fixed position defense though) they would suffer much worse from being exposed to the elements and from having to confront a vastly more experienced force in defensive positions.
 

Deleted member 1487

And judging by Grannit's examination of the rail situation, that is the most they'll ever get.
Who's Grannit? Got a link to whatever book that is? They did eventually get all the gear, the question is how long that would take if prioritized and they could take time off shipping as much ammo and fuel as was necessary for Typhoon come late October/November.
 
Who's Grannit?

I meant Gannt. As in "Gannt the Christ", you know the guy who posted at the top of this page?

They did eventually get all the gear, the question is how long that would take if prioritized and they could take time off shipping as much ammo and fuel as was necessary for Typhoon come late October/November.

If they do that, then they don't have adequate fuel and ammo to repel the Soviet offensive.
 

Deleted member 1487

I meant Gannt. As in "Gannt the Christ", you know the guy who posted at the top of this page?
I was unaware he posted any facts at all.

If they do that, then they don't have adequate fuel and ammo to repel the Soviet offensive.
Based on? They don't need to expend the ammo and fuel in November, so they have that space for weather gear and can bring up what they need as they need it, rather than IOTL when they were using everything faster than they could get it up.
 
I was unaware he posted any facts at all.

Then maybe you should have read his post:

The logistics situation has been screwed for 3 months and in November only half the required number of trains will reach AGC. That’s trains btw not tons, trucks or anything else. From September the trains don’t get to Russia in sufficient numbers, pushing the railhead further east just compounds that.
 
Citations as requested Umlauts not included

Which bit in particular.

Supply trains in November for AGC requirement 32 per day actual november arrivals 16 - Shuler The Easter Campaign as a transportation and supply problem in 'From Peace to War' also quoted in Shuler Moskau 1941

September/October Easter front train arrivals Creveld Supplying war.

The inability to bring up Kluge's cot - Geobbels diary.

Supply situation generally well lets try Reinhardt Panzer Gruppe 3 in der Shlacht von Moskau und ire Erfahrungen im Ruckzug p1.

On the ineffectiveness of horse drawn transport Boberach Meldungen aur dem Reich Band 8 p 2902 Document 231 26 October 1941

Supply problems in 6th Pz KTB 6th Pz




Or read Stahel Operation Typhoon.
 
If the Germans call off Typhoon at the end of October are they still pushing on to Tihkvin, Rostov and trying to siege Sevastopol? It would be logical to try and take Volkov to try and cut the Ladoga barge traffic. So I could still see some of these places being supply eaters still in this TL.

I think from the perspective of the time, the Germans are going to want to try one more lunge to take Moscow, they don't really know how close to the breaking point the Soviets really are. But they probably should have figured out 3-4 days earlier that they weren't going to take Moscow and shifted to the defense especially in the Kiln Bulge.
 
Its like in the Bible when the Angel destroys an Assyrian army of 100,000 men there would be people saying here, "Well, if the angel did not do that the Assyrians still couldn't take Jerusalem and they'd still lose a ton of men." Sorry, I don't buy it.*
*Just my version of a literal ASB and how some people here might still respond to it if it is against their side.

I suspect the Angel's name was Smallpox:eek: That, or Dysentery. Of course, those ARE God issued scourges...:rolleyes:
 
To add to Grannt's point:

World War 2 on the Eastern Front by Lee Baker said:
General Friedrich Paulus supervised a war game in December 1940that showed logistical suppoirt for the invasion would break down even before the great battles of the Dnepr were completed and even if captured stock were utilized. This should have raised serious doubts about the operational plan, but as planning progressed the German high command acknowledged the problems but simply assumed that the war would be won by the time the lack of supplies became critical. Operational planning was thus marked by an irrational optimism that a quick victory would overcome any potential difficulties; as one recent scholar put it, reality was being adapted to the plan rather than vice-versa.

These transport deficiencies were duly noted by Wehrmacht commanders but were considered of little importance because the campaign was designed to achieve a rapid victory. For a quick campaign the German leadership, especially Hitler, envisioned motor vehicle transport (trucks) as more important than rails; the idea was to ship by rail as far east as possible and then to load all supplies into trucks for delivery to the front lines. The solution, as far as the German command was concerned, was thus not to solve logistical problems but to find the operational approach which permitted a victorious conclusion before logistical problems emerged. The problem with this approach, however, was that trucks require roads and these turned out to be scarce in the western Soviet Union in 1941 (especially paved roads). The further the Germans advanced the more precarious truck-based supply chain was clearly a serious mistake, and the transportation difficulties of the fall and early winter of 1941 were not caused by the winter weather or distance, but by a lack of planning.

Basically, the supply problems of late-'41 are inevitable as a function of the poor German planning.
 
Not poor planning just not regarded as relevant.

In November 40 I think Wagner ( QMG ) tells Halder that he cannot supply the armies (in the context at combat levels of consumption) beyond 700-800km of the railheads in Poland, and that’s for a force about half the size of the one actually used.

That’s not regarded as relevant as the Red Army will be destroyed at the border. There will be no army level fighting that far into the USSR.
Everything beyond Minsk for sure and probably Smolensk ( the Geography not the battle) is ad hoc.

So yes they can rebuild the railways but at best this was regarded as a temporary fix to provide limited supplies not sustain the whole of AGC fighting. And it is rebuild, not completely but quite thoroughly the Russians are destroying the railways as they retreat. The Germans have to rebuild them. The service areas in Russia are about twice as far as in Europe so German trains can’t make the distance between coaling and water points these have to be rebuilt. None of this was planned for, neither was having to fight the battles around Smolensk, Briansk, Vyazma against a very powerful opposition.
Its done, but doing it takes stores which have to shipped forward, and they are done in limited time so not very well made, the priority is supplying the troops. So when completed they trains only move at 15mph ( or Kph would have to check) that which is a major reason why the delivery schedule is screwed. Delivery forward is the priority not returning the empties.
And everything compounds this. By Smolensk the Pz forces have taken 10% tank losses but have lost 75% of the P4 fleet and 50% of the P3 and 2 due to mechanical failure, they are burning through 400% of the target allocation of oil.

None of this should matter because the war should be over by then. And they actually have pretty good reasons for thinking this is possible.

The problem with planning for a long war is you are planning for a long war. Russia is a populous industrialised country eventually it can regenerate a force if its given time. Around September October there will be a pause because of the weather. Over winter fighting will be difficult then more mud so if you don’t conquer them by September your next chance will be May June 42.

Meanwhile. Its becoming pretty obvious that Donitz is an admiral stuck in 1916 while the RN are fighting a 1940’s anti submarine war and will defeat the U boats, they are helped in this because the USN with shoot on sight orders is escorting convoys in the western hemisphere and eventually to within 800 miles of Liverpool, The RAF is requiring increasing defensive forces to counter it ( at the lowest point in the war 35% of german war production was geared vs the western fronts) and the Anglo Saxons are holding joint staff talks. Not to mention the US giving kit to the Brits population 500 million, able to deploy, based on ww1 around 120 heavily armed divisions. All of this btw was assumed by Germany as an inevitable consequence of a war with Britain, apart from Donitz being incompetent.

Not conquering Russia in 41 means you will be stuck being blockaded, with a war on two fronts against a materially superior enemy. Planning to not conquer Russia in 41 is planning to lose the war.
 
In November 40 I think Wagner ( QMG ) tells Halder that he cannot supply the armies (in the context at combat levels of consumption) beyond 700-800km of the railheads in Poland, and that’s for a force about half the size of the one actually used.

That’s not regarded as relevant as the Red Army will be destroyed at the border. There will be no army level fighting that far into the USSR.
Everything beyond Minsk for sure and probably Smolensk ( the Geography not the battle) is ad hoc.

So yes they can rebuild the railways but at best this was regarded as a temporary fix to provide limited supplies not sustain the whole of AGC fighting. And it is rebuild, not completely but quite thoroughly the Russians are destroying the railways as they retreat. The Germans have to rebuild them. The service areas in Russia are about twice as far as in Europe so German trains can’t make the distance between coaling and water points these have to be rebuilt. None of this was planned for, neither was having to fight the battles around Smolensk, Briansk, Vyazma against a very powerful opposition.
Its done, but doing it takes stores which have to shipped forward, and they are done in limited time so not very well made, the priority is supplying the troops. So when completed they trains only move at 15mph ( or Kph would have to check) that which is a major reason why the delivery schedule is screwed. Delivery forward is the priority not returning the empties.
And everything compounds this. By Smolensk the Pz forces have taken 10% tank losses but have lost 75% of the P4 fleet and 50% of the P3 and 2 due to mechanical failure, they are burning through 400% of the target allocation of oil.

None of this should matter because the war should be over by then. And they actually have pretty good reasons for thinking this is possible.

The problem with planning for a long war is you are planning for a long war. Russia is a populous industrialised country eventually it can regenerate a force if its given time. Around September October there will be a pause because of the weather. Over winter fighting will be difficult then more mud so if you don’t conquer them by September your next chance will be May June 42.

Meanwhile. Its becoming pretty obvious that Donitz is an admiral stuck in 1916 while the RN are fighting a 1940’s anti submarine war and will defeat the U boats, they are helped in this because the USN with shoot on sight orders is escorting convoys in the western hemisphere and eventually to within 800 miles of Liverpool, The RAF is requiring increasing defensive forces to counter it ( at the lowest point in the war 35% of german war production was geared vs the western fronts) and the Anglo Saxons are holding joint staff talks. Not to mention the US giving kit to the Brits population 500 million, able to deploy, based on ww1 around 120 heavily armed divisions. All of this btw was assumed by Germany as an inevitable consequence of a war with Britain, apart from Donitz being incompetent.

Not conquering Russia in 41 means you will be stuck being blockaded, with a war on two fronts against a materially superior enemy. Planning to not conquer Russia in 41 is planning to lose the war.
As you mentioned the idea that it would take a long war comes from hindsight, but with the knowledge Germany had a short war seemed quite plausible. The Red Army was a mess. Its top leadership was incompetent and stuck in the past, its lower level leaders were too scared to put their pants on without asking for permission, their tanks and planes are all outdated (the Germans didn't know that the T-34s or KV-1s existed yet), and they had just gotten beaten down by the Finns. So naturally the Germans figured that most of the Red Army would be eliminated at the border, the one kick that would send the whole rotten structure crashing down. And lest people think that only the Germans believed this, almost everyone else did too. Throughout the early days of Barbarossa journalists and other political leaders predicted that the Soviet Union was dead. Letters intercepted by the NKVD indicate that plenty of Soviets thought the Germans would quickly win. Stalin himself had a breakdown and seemed to think that all was lost. Germany planning for a long war with Russia seemed as useful as the US planning for a long war with Norway.
 
was reaching (and breaching) the Rybinsk Reservoir ever a serious idea?

my assumption is the idea of turning Moscow into lake farfetched but it does seem they could have played havoc with railway system?

(my question is because an attempt at flooding would be POD for why assault on Moscow called off)
 
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