- The figure of 869,000 men above includes the forces from 4th Army, 13th Army and 21st Army. None of which were part of Western Front on 30 September
- He's only subtracting unrecoverable losses.
- He doesn't account for losses between 10 September and 30 September.
- His figure of 230,000 individual replacements is a guess of the Western Fronts share derived from "Once it completed mobilizing the 805,000 men called for in its covert exercise of May and June of 1941, it allocated these replacements to its operating armies in late June and July as march-battalions and companies." - Glantz. My question in that regard was what about the replacements (both in the form of formations and individual replacements) received in August and September?
1. Is not an issue, since 4th, 13th, and 21st army's were a part of the Western Front in late-June and early-July when the count began. The reasons they drop off the Western Front's OOB by September 30th is the same reason their men do: they were destroyed. Doesn't change that their men were part of the Western Front when that counting begins.
2. Is a minor issue, as there's no way to tell how long a sanitary loss would have been out of action. Could be hours, days, weeks, or months. Probably not years though.
3. Is a minor issue, because as you yourself admit the loss after September 10 were small.
4. There's precious little on those, but Glantz's concluding strength figures match Soviet figures for September-October to a strong degree, so they do not appear to have much.
With regards to individual replacements, Lopukhovsky in "The Via'zma Catastrophe" p.75 writes that "the fronts on the Western strategic axis received more than 193,000 replacements in the month of September"
Of these, I counted 51,888 men arriving at Briansk Front in September in march battalions from this (and a few other related documents)
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=114719516.
The former do not appear in the strength figures, so it's probable they wound up being reallocated in response to the Kiev catastrophe. The latter isn't enough to cover for the losses suffered by the Bryansk front, which bore the brunt of Guderian's southward advance. And if we want to discuss major evidence, both the strength tables created for the provisioning of rations and GKO strength reports for September 31 approximately match the figures provided by Glantz.
You were arguing that the numerical advantage the 30 September force had with regard to the 1 September force was more than offset by the exceptionally low quality of the replacements received during September.
I was arguing that since the Soviet losses in September in the Western Main direction were relatively small, a very large share of the 1 September forces were still present on 30 September - only with an additional month of experience.
This, combined with the numerical advantage (both in personnel and equipment) the 30 September force enjoyed, placed your original claim that the 1 September force was much stronger into question.
Given that it was only Soviet losses after September 10 which were relatively small and those of September 1-10 were massive, and also represented the most trained and experienced of the Soviet forces as they were the ones leading the offensive as was custom, the logic here is specious. You have provided no evidence of a numerical advantage in relation to those of 1 September.
The Germans also dedicated resources to tackling the logistic issues that confronted them whether or not you deem them sufficient; claiming that they didn't even understand the task post-war when they had solved the rail transport issues in less than a year despite having to rebuild the entire rail infrastructure of Russia behind their lines was no small feat and does show they learned, adapted, and overcame.
And you show again you don't know what your talking about at a very basic level.
As late as 1944, the Germans hadn't managed to rebuild the rail infrastructure of Russia.
By contrast, the German approach was fractured into a number of competing authorities, dominated by the Wehrmacht, who had no previous experience of long-range operations using railways and refused to seek the professional help of the Reichsbahn. Their ad hoc arrangements for running the railways behind the front were insufficient, and the Eisenbahnpioniere failed to build capacity in the crucial connection between the border and the Supply Districts. Nor did the situation improve after February 1942 when the Reichsverkehrsministerium took over control, as their efforts to bridge the Polish Gap were too limited, and the railway capacity was restricted by rigid operational practices. Attempts to upgrade the Russian railways to a modern standard with sufficient capacity took too long, and Ostheer suffered a perennial shortage of transport capability. As late as June 1944 Heeresgruppe Mitte would have to choose between transporting munitions or reinforcements, as there was insufficient railway capacity to carry both simultaneously.
So no, the actual studies on the issue show that the Germans did not dedicate sufficient resources to tackling the logistic issues and they did not rebuild the entire rail infrastructure of and that they did not learn, adapt, and overcome the issue. In fact, Stahel points out that the Germans stripped these support units of things like their vehicles in order to replace losses among the combat formations. The Germans did the opposite of devote resources: they took them away.
How did the Moscow counter offensive cost them the war? Soviet reserves had stopped them already. The losses in 1941 were made good enough so that the USSR was pushed to the brink in 1942 and the bigger issue that the Germans faced was US entry and the expansion of the front line to double what it was in June 1941. The gains were certainly not meaningless to the Soviets, nor even the Wallies. As Mark Harrison has even written between the gains of 1941 and 1942 the Soviet economy was pushed to the point of overmobilization and barely survived the year. So the Soviet counter offensive certainly didn't decide that the Germans would lose WW2, which even David Glantz has said.
Because it committed the Germans to such a protracted engagement within the Soviet Union that the resources expended could in not possibly be recouped for the subsequent war against the Americans. The Germans might still have won out the war in the east, but on the material front they still had lost WW2. The only iffy thing is WAllied public opinion in regards to the blood price at that point.
In no way did the distance advanced, nor the casualties inflicted equal Barbarossa in the damage it had done. The equivalent of the entire pre-invasion Soviet army was destroyed in less than 6 months, while in 1944 the Germans did not suffer casualties that equaled the number of forces they had at the start of the year despite having more than 6 additional months in 1944, multiple fronts, and even adding up Soviet and Wallied totals. Same for the square mileage captured.
Given Soviet and WAllied rates of advances and casualties inflicted in the timespan their operations lasted during the summer of 1944, they very much would have proportion of damage inflicted and square mileage captured that the Germans managed during Barbarossa... had they kept pushing their armies at the tempos the Germans did for six months straight like they did Barbarossa. But they didn't, because they understood the dangers of such overextension. So instead their operations were much shorter then that of Barbarossa: the WAllied great summer pell-mell across France lasted two months. The Soviets summer rampage lasted three. After that, they wound down operations and focused on securing their flanks and bringing up supplies in a manner the Germans conspicuously failed to do in the autumn of '41.
And yet AG-Center launched the greatest and most successful pocket battle of the war, inflicting the best casualty ratio they had yet achieved in the process. Per your contention though that it was rail supply that had strangled the advance (only though after the vast majority of Soviet defensive forces were destroyed and fighting was using up far lower supplies in the second half of October than the first?), then advancing in September or even earlier would have been preferable, because there were more trains coming in.
Because they rested in September with minimal operations on the flanks, which let the rail services focus on pushing up throughput. Had they advanced sooner, the sudden demands on the rail services to support the offensive would have refocused their limited resources increase would not have occurred and the collapse would have come sooner. This increase in throughput managed to build a small stockpile off of those increased train arrival which they proceeded to burn through in that initial lunge. Earlier in September, the stockpile did not exist yet, so the offense would have face-vaulted from the start. In August, the train throughput was less then half that of September, so a army-group level attack would have face-vaulted
spectacularly.
Despite the contention though about the supposed needs for a certain number of trains, even though all the stockpiled supplies were used up by the 3rd of October, the Vyazma-Bryansk pocket battles ran through the 14th and culminated with the Soviets suffering 1 million casualties. So for 11 days the Germans ran on nothing while killed/captured/wounded 1 million men and still being able to advance multiple armies to the gates of Moscow? Either the estimates of what was actually needed were highly faulty or the official numbers were wrong.
Your bending over backward to ignore that the actual German advance had already collapsed after the 3rd and the Germans were not, in fact, able to make significant advances afterward and what advances they did make they did over the bloody corpses of their fallen men, a clear indication of a force that has passed it's culmination point. That is the essential point which you can not hide, although your desperately trying too do so.
Except it didn't. Supply kept going until it ran into a climate conditions that rendered road movement impossible for wheeled vehicles. The fault was continuing trying to advance in November and December, but by then it wasn't the logistics that were the main problem.
At this point, I've provided multiple scholarly sources which show that the rail and supply situation was already impossible. You've given nothing in return except circumstantial evidence that does not necessarily say anything about the supply situation.
But we don't actually know what the book says, we just have the author's interpretation without context or detail. As we know from several sources including Stahel and Creveld the Germans exceeded the pre-planned truck supply mileage limit that was set pre-invasion several times and were able to continue to win. Plus by early-mid August the rail lines for AG-Center were already advanced to Smolensk.
Which ignores that both Stahel and Crewald show the Germans were stopped dead on the Moscow axis and the rail lines were not putting through the necessary supplies to continue the advance in that direction. Only on the flanks, where Soviet forces were vastly weaker and German supply conditions were better, were the Germans still able to push.
That's debateable, but what isn't is that the Soviets continued their offensives until the weather made them impossible, about mid-April. Then they held of until May.
Sure, and the Germans continued their offensive until October 30th. Doesn't change that their offensives had become impossible
before then.
Again, what is the source and if it is Halder's diary what is the page number so that I may cross reference the quote?
As I said: Halder's diary, entry August 5th 1941. I'm not sure on the page number, since there seem to be different editions but the copy I'm looking at gives page 21. Specifically, it says:
"60 Ton Truck Clms: Difficulties about tires and spare parts. (An officer must be sent to the ZI) Casualties in the columns of requisitioned civilian trucks: 30%. In the columns organized by the Army: 20%. Losses are particularly heavy in AG-North."
In terms of civilian vs. military trucks, it isn't a clear division, as many of the trucks were used by both the military and civilian sectors without difference in their performance, so quite a few commercial models were effectively military grade quality.
Likely the biggest issue would be the foreign civilian models, namely cars and light vehicles which were not really designed for heavy use outside of paved roads. For the military models you also had captured models from the variety of militaries defeated in 1939-41, which probably had a greater problem given the lack of spare parts rather than the use they were seeing. French models would be less of a problem due to the access to the original factories, though that depends on how old they were. Captured British vehicle stocks would probably see high attrition due to lack of spare parts rather than being vulnerable to heavy use in Russian conditions.
It may not really be able to easily subdivide them into civilian vs. military, plus you probably need to subdivide the categories into foreign vs. German/Austria/Czech and how easily spare parts were to get. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that likely the breakdown rate up to August represents the loss of those models that the Germans didn't have access to spare parts and/or were older models that were already somewhat worn out.
Leaving aside accuracy about some minute details (French vehicle factories were non-functional in 1940-41, for example), the breakdown is pretty clearly civilian vs military so an idea of what proportion was civilian vs what proportion were military would take. A clarification on what counts as "civilian" would possibly be useful as the Heer could be applying that to captured foreign vehicles.
That's the thing, it really isn't data, it's a number divorced from context, no different than an anecdote.
The context is pretty clear: we have timestamps and locations and everything. It stands in stark contrast to your supporting evidence which amounts to... well, nothing.
What reports of the Soviets do we have of their logistic supply operation in 1941?
Glantz is pretty thorough in Stumbling Colossus and they were... a mess. Then against, that's up to about June 1941. Circumstantial evidence from others seems to indicate that Soviet logistics, aside from understandable material shortages, functioned fine in the August through November but had great difficulty with the subsequent offensives during the winter. The Railway Operations article I posted above indicates that the issues were finally solved with reforms in March-April 1942 that centralized all the transportation assets under a single command structure, after which they seemed to function okay.
All that I'll add is that per his table in Barbarossa Derailed vol.2 he adds up forces from July 10th-September to get a strength number of 1.4 million without acknowledging he is double counting forces, as he is includes forces that were part of the Western Front and then later Central Front at different dates and totals them up.
What the hell are you talking about? This is what he has to say about that 1.4 million figure, which is footnoted to his 1.25 million figure for September 30th:
"Another official Russian source shows slightly different personnel strength figures for the Red Army's fronts operating along the western (Moscow) axis at the beginning of the Battle for Smolensk and the beginning of Operation Typhoon. For comparison's sake, these figures are as follows: [table for July 10-September 10 1941 which shows 1.4 million men]"
Otherwise, there is no table in the book which makes a claim of 1.4 million men and Glantz certainly doesn't claim it as his own number, particularly since it gives a slightly different strength figure for the Western Front on July 10th (about 20,000 fewer) then he does.
Other historians have cited memos and reports supporting my position,
At best, they cite memos and reports of the Germans claiming what they can do in a vacuum, claims they echo post-war memoranda, but which pay no regard to the logistics of the matter to actually make those claims happen. Those are what the others actually point to. One is discussing claims, the other is discussing actual hard numbers that the success or failure of those claims rest upon.
Megargee's book on Barbarossa.
A line on a map is not an actual prepared defensive line. From what I can find it is only in October that 100,000 civilians were mobilized to actually build the Mozhiask Line.
The actual utility of the lines prepared further east of Moscow was probably minimal in 1941 as the front lines didn't even have particularly effective defensive positions as of October.
Unsubstantiated claims. There wasn't even much opportunity to test them out, seeing as many Soviet formations weren't properly manning their defensive positions when the Germans attacked, what with the stand down to receive winter gear and everything.
You haven't actually proven that, only claimed it.Fuel for supply trucks wasn't a major issue in late October, it was the inability of the supply trucks to move through the mud to get the supplies forward.
I've previously cited a passages from Crewald's book which explicitly states that in other threads. I'd cite them again, but I'm having a devil of a time refinding my copy.
As it was you already have claimed that rail supply was worse in October than September per number of trains that were dispatched, so per your own argument fuel and spare parts would be less of a concern to an earlier offensive both because of the greater number trains arriving in that month and the, so you claim, weaker forces that AG-Center has to supply.
Ignoring that the sudden requirements of having to immediately sustain a new offensive, which would be even more immense without a pre-built stockpile, would wreck the rail services just as they did in October.
I don't know where you think it makes sense to claim that supply wasn't working in August-September when forces from AG-Center were launching major successful offensives on the flanks, while AG-Center defeated several heavy Soviet counteroffensives aimed at Smolensk in the same period. Plus at that point, i.e. early-mid August, Smolensk was already the rail head for the army group and delivering supplies.
I don't know where you think it makes sense to claim that the supply requirements of launching only a single army-level attack against vastly weaker forces on the flanks (and which required supporting attacks from other Army Groups on other axis's to succeed) have the same requirements as launching a army group wide assault against the main strength of the enemy's forces or that the rail heads reaching the frontline in mid-August suddenly means they were operating with the level to sustain major army group offensives when the number of trains-per-day shows that the best they managed in August was far short of daily requirements, never mind the requirements of the need for stockpiling of an offensive. The military logic doesn't support the first and the raw numbers don't support the latter.
Given that Soviet forces were weaker in August than October that would be more than enough to close and liquidate a pocket at Vyazma.
According to a GKO strength report dated September 11th, 1941, the combined strength of the Western, Reserve, and Bryansk Fronts were 1.296 million, and this is literally the day after the late-August/early-September offensives ended which cost the Red Army some 100,000 casualties in the Reserve and Bryansk Fronts alone. A matching ration report also for September 11th, 1941 shows . By September 30th it was 1.25 million. The weakening of Soviet forces on the Moscow axis in the intervening time is clear. All the published numbers point to Soviet forces being as strong or stronger in August-September then they were on October 1st. You have failed to provide the slightest bit of scholarly evidence showing Soviet forces are weaker.
Without the need to launch the Bryansk pocket in this scenario they don't need 4th Panzer Group's strength to launch the Vyazma pocket, which means there isn't a need for the 1000 AFV total ITTL (BTW is that operational or just total numbers?).
A claim you have nothing except wishful thinking to back up. And I said pretty clearly it's operational.
Um....Guderian wasn't on the Moscow axis in August-September, he was attacking south into Ukraine. The September rains you have cited hit them well south of the area they would be in an August-September offensive toward Moscow from Roslavl.
By September he was attacking into Ukraine. In August... it's complicated, as he was kinda on the Moscow axis but pushing in the southward direction? But that's an irrelevant red-herring your using to distract from what I actually said, namely the fact that AGC's formations records further north record the rain too.
So what the axis can do is that they do not initially begin exterminating and raping the population. Many of the people were initially happy to be free from the communist system and Stalin, especially the areas that had belonged to Poland, only began resisting when they saw with their own eyes what the axis were doing.
The German advance collapses even faster. German transport capacity was too thin to ship everything the soldiers needed, so the only way to free up space for the quantities of ammo and fuel needed to keep the advance going was to sacrifice food shipments which in turn necessitated the soldiers descended upon the locals like a horde of locusts and steal all their food. This would inevitably entail mass starvation and resistance from the civilian population on the level of OTL. The Germans can either starve the Soviet people or starve the advance. They can't feed both.
