The only reason those reinforcements were necessary was the losses the Germans took sitting on the defensive in August-September and attacking on the flanks against strategically pointless targets.
AGC's two panzer groups in August/September were around 500 AGCs. The dispatch of the two panzer divisions and the third panzer group from Army Group North increased that to 1,500. The reality is that the German forces were too weak without those forces, and the logistical lines strengthened during August-September to conduct their operations.
Operational surprise wasn't really that necessary in the aftermath of Smolensk, because of how disorganized and worn down Soviet forces were.
Soviet forces by August of '41 were considerably stronger then they had been beforehand or would be in October after expending themselves in the August/September counter-offensives. The 24th is a prime example: it entered the El'nya offensive as one of the strongest armies in the Soviet OOB. By the time of Typhoon, it was among the weakest. Had it been dispatched to block Guderian instead of being wasted away attacking a pointless salient, the Kiev encirclement likely would have gone very different. In any case, it's crippling during the El'nya offensive meant it's destruction for the Germans at Bryansk was a pretty simple task. The presupposition the Soviets were weaker simply has no support in the historical record. Even ignoring that, the lack of operational surprise would be of considerable difference as it helped the Germans immeasurably in Typhoon even against the weakened Soviets. A good example of this is stuff like at the time the Germans attacked, most Soviet troops had been pulled from their defensive positions so they could be issued with winter clothing. Hence, they encountered very little resistance breaking through the frontlines.
Had the Germans focused their effort on another series of pockets they could have avoided the hammering they got by trying to hold on until the southern flank was cleared and Leningrad encircled by pocketing the Soviet forces to the direct East.
That's precisely what the Germans achieved in August-September: they exploited the weakness of the Soviet flanks to achieve just such a series of pockets at a time when their logistical and fighting strength was unable to support more frontal assaults as heading eastward would have entailed. Heading directly east would mean attacking into Soviet strength, not Soviet weakness, and would not achieve such a success given the strength of Soviet defenses and the weakness of the German forces.
The pre-invasion plan, sure. But that had gone out the window back in early July when the 2nd Strategic echelon appeared unexpectedly and Soviet reserves just kept appearing.
Which should have told the Germans their intelligence was badly flawed, which in turn meant their strategic plan was built on quicksand that was already sucking, and that hence their continuing fixation on Moscow was madness.
What does June 1941 have to do with this discussion? Yes, the Germans were stronger and so were the Soviets in June 1941 as both their pre-war armies were intact; we're talking about the situations after major fighting happened in October 1941 and June 1942. Those two situations weren't comparable for a variety of reasons I already laid out and you've entirely avoided.
Obviously because you don't understand the point: the June 1941 has to do with the discussion as a comparison of strength to OTL June 1942. Had the Germans prepared for a multi-year campaign and not hurt themselves with their overextension in late-'41, they could have entered June 1942 in a strength similar to that of June 1941, which would have meant the ability to prosecute offensives on a similar scale as opposed to the vastly reduced one they were forced to IOTL 1942.
And Stalin denying them replacements and two German preparatory offensives before Case Blue (Wilhelm and Fridericus II) to set up the conditions to allow Case Blue to succeed. So not simply because of 2nd Kharkov. Which makes it very different from the situation in October 1941 as the Soviets had gotten all the replacements that Stalin could generate and there weren't special extra offensives to weaken the Soviets before the main offensive in October; the fighting in August-September were all part of a series of offensives and counter attacks ongoing at the same time that culminated in the Soviet victory at Yelnya.
Whether Stalin withheld Soviet replacements to make good their weakness or not does not change the fact that the reason Soviet forces in the region were so weak as to require such replacements were because of the devastating losses at 2nd Kharkov. It's also worth noting that Friedericus II was, as the name suggests, an extension of Friedericus I... which historically was executed in a modified version to destroy the Soviets at 2nd Kharkov. And there were, in fact, extra-offensives to weaken the Soviets before the main offensive in October: it's known to history as the Kiev encirclement. Meanwhile, in October 1941 the replacements provided did not strengthen the Soviets back to the pre-El'nya strength, even leaving aside the poor quality of those replacements.
I don't think you understand was 'part of' means. They were separate from, i.e not occurring during. They were short, limited offensives launched to weaken Soviet forces before launching Case Blue to allow it to break through the Soviet lines. Without them the OTL breakthrough wouldn't have been possible like IOTL. So 2nd Kharkov alone was not enough to weaken Soviet forces to allow for the OTL success of Case Blue.
They were necessary to the execution of Blau and were planned as an essential means of it's start, thus they were inherently a part of it. To claim that Fredericus and Wilhelm were not part of it is as inane as claiming Operation Neptune wasn't part of Operation Overlord.
How wide of a front are you counting? At the point of contact Soviet forces were considerably weaker in Ukraine, while if you include the entire region and time period that Case Blue covered that was eventually engaged them perhaps you could add up to 1.7 million men on the Soviet side, including the Caucasian Front:
The width of the front the Germans started Blau on, which covers a region stretching approximately from Orel to the Black Sea. If you were to tunnel vision away from your linked too quote, the info box of the respective sides forces in the wiki article you linked too show, the initial forces were 1.7 million at the point and time of contact ("initial") and rise to 2.7 million only if you include the entire region and time period that Case Blue covered ("totally"). It's a bit confusing, as both cite the same first source which, regrettably, is not available online... so I'm doing a bit of looking elsewhere. The second source cited for your quote is Glantz's "When Titans Clashed" but leafing through the chapter on Blau doesn't give me any figures for German manpower strength. I'm still tracking down my copy of
Enduring the Whirlwind to find Lidtke's precise numbers.
EDIT: Found my copy of "To the Gates of Stalingrad", which also gives a figure of 1.7 million Soviet opposing the Germans on June 28, 1942.
Plus per Stahel the German forces in the East were overall weaker in October than in August even with the reinforcements;
Stahel puts German forces in Army Group Center at the start of October as 1.9 million and 1,500 AFVs. This is compared to August/September when they had 1.2 million men and less then 500 running panzers. Air strength is a bit trickier to pin down, as the numbers he gives are comparing June 22nd vs October 2nd.
in terms of trucks having stripped 5000 from AG-Center to give to South in September, AG-Center was considerably weaker logistically.
Which ignores that the weakest logistical link was the trains, not the trucks. As it was, many German trucks sat at the railheads unusable because the trains couldn't deliver fuel for them. Another 5,000 motor vehicles sitting around with empty fuel tanks does AGC zero good.
weather made the tough logistical situation impossible
Exactly backwards. The historical record, up too and including the German quartermaster staff just before Typhoon started (as Stahel notes) is that the logistical situation was already impossible. That is a bald-faced reality you cannot wish away.
To ignore the impact of the weather on the roads and ground is to miss out on the critical component of the situation in October.
To ignore the collapse of the railroads is to miss out on a even more critical component. The state of the roads and truck park means little if the railways can't keep pace.
If the wheeled trucks supplying the advance couldn't keep moving back and forth to supply hubs even the advance of tracked AFVs is going to bog down, as it did IOTL.
The Soviets too had to keep wheeled trucks moving back and forth from the supply hubs to the frontline over most of the same roads the Germans were, yet they had little problem with the mud.
In 1942 and 1943 the Germans were not operating in front of Moscow on the offensive, so the situation was different, but even then it impacted them, albeit less because of being more on the defensive or at least static compared to leaping hundreds of miles deeper into Russia.
The Germans in '42 or '43 had to conduct extensive maneuvering to maintain their defenses and required wheeled trucks to transport supplies from their railheads to the frontline. The demands for this on the defense are no different then that on the offense. The fact they were operating in Ukraine or Southern Russia or Leningrad region is irrelevant since these regions are hit just as hard as the Moscow region is. Notably this also goes for the other side of the front: the Soviets in October/November 1943 had just conducted a massive advance directly comparable to that achieved by the Germans in 1941, were still extending their railheads forward to the front, yet they were scarcely troubled by the mud and even went on to conduct further offensives that picked up even more territory.
Supposition? We know how strong the Soviet and German forces were in 1941. We know what each side was capable of offensively and defensively based on the actual history of the events. If all you have are general aphorisms and statements to support a point, you're not actually decent point. "Nuh-uh" isn't an actual counter argument.
Yes, we do know. We know that the Germans were not strong enough to take Moscow and the Soviets were strong enough to defend it. That means attempting to be even more ambitious, such as trying to take Moscow in an even faster timeframe, is
less realistic, not more.