typhoon postponed

there was a lot of deliberation in the german army after the encirlement of kiev... army group center had been on the same line for many weeks and the panzer armies needed critical maintaince. the russians had been launching ineffective countracks against von bock while panzer group 2 went south and spent themselves quite a bit... some of the general staff including rundsted wanted to take up winter quarters at this point

lets say hitler decides against operation typhoon just like he postponed the battle of france to start in may instead of january

the germans will still face a massive russian countering attack
the russians will not lose the massive number of troops at bryansk

can the germans hold their line and what are their prospects in resuming the offensive in the spring
 
I had brought this up before and someone jumped all over me for this being ASB which it is not. There are many who claim that this would be a slam dunk total victory for Germany in 1942 but I do not think it would be that easy. Rundstedt it will be noted was as worried about the Russian army as the weather.

The Russian counterattack will not be a total failure but it will make only limited gains. These gains would likely goad Hitler into making at least tactical counterattacks to retake any lost territory.

The spring attack on Moscow is going to head into the teeth of Soviet defenses. After some initial success I can see the Law of Diminishing Returns kicking in for the Wehrmacht. Likely the southern pincer gets bogged down at Tula which could turn into a meatgrinder a la Stalingrad. Hitler may well give up on taking Moscow and instead shift to a southern strategy in the late summer.
 
if the germans do well in the defensive battles that would follow maybe hitler doesnt do the major command reshuffles that he did after the failure to take moscow... leaving the grownups in charge could definently help. the german army wasnt equipped for sustained urban warfare no matter what city it was in... they could only hope maybe in the spring offensive to surround moscow then hope for total political collapse
 
if the germans do well in the defensive battles that would follow maybe hitler doesnt do the major command reshuffles that he did after the failure to take moscow... leaving the grownups in charge could definently help. the german army wasnt equipped for sustained urban warfare no matter what city it was in... they could only hope maybe in the spring offensive to surround moscow then hope for total political collapse

Yeah but I'don't see how they are going to encircle Moscow without taking Tula which is itself a medium sized industrial city and it is there that I see them getting bogged down in urban warfare which would not be Guderian's forte---assuming he escapes the winter sack. The northern pincer could well get stopped at theVolga Canal.
 
they did capture kiev and karkov which are both fair sized cities.... the only way they could surround it (moscow) would be if the russians did a few headlong attacks into their defensive line both in the winter and in the early spring ( a la paulus' victory in spring 1942) severly weakened themselves and let the germans overun them
 
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