Was there ever any chance of Barbarossa suceeding?

Advance from the Romanian border to Stalingrad, then seize the Caucausus and Baku, then advance north to isolate Moscow from the east all in the first months of Barbarossa?

Not even remotely plausible.
 
The bled white attempting to attack along the whole front. in the offensives after they pushed the Germans back from Moscow. Not during the first counter-attack in which the Germans were nearly routed.

Germany simply lacked the forces to encircle Moscow and attacking directly will end about as well as Rommel's first efforts to assault Toburk. The Heer was utterly worn out by the time it reached Moscow, while the Soviets had whole armies massed behind the capital.

Frankly the Germans forces are more likely to be cut-off trying to encircle or assult Moscow. The Red Army would pretty much have to throw down it's arms, and it showed no signs of doing that during the battle for Moscow.

Also saying the Germans ''could'' or ''should'' have taken Leningrad is a claim unsupported by any facts on the ground OTL, the fact is the city held and the German high-command (rightly) thought an assult on the city was unfeable and would serve only to weaken their forces by undertaking an attacks that were unlikely to succeed. And indeed might allow Soviet forces to break-through and (re)open supply-lines to the city.

Hm, nice writings... sadly useless cause you did not answer something

if i speak about "bleeding white" i never talk about the first 2hours of the operation, just the whole thing. So it looks senseless, if you talk about the first day of the operation :rolleyes:

second - yes, from the german pov leningrad is needed.
if you look at the war in the northern sector, it was the will of the german troops (and the wrong decision in late august to not push something more), not the "defence"... not in july-september 41
later, no german army can dig out the russians... but in august? give em a few more divisions and game over. But if you have these troops only one time, you make decisions... here glady (for the world) the wrong ones...

So i kindly ask you to not answer only parts of the thing.
Thank you...
 
Hm, nice writings... sadly useless cause you did not answer something

if i speak about "bleeding white" i never talk about the first 2hours of the operation, just the whole thing. So it looks senseless, if you talk about the first day of the operation :rolleyes:

second - yes, from the german pov leningrad is needed.
if you look at the war in the northern sector, it was the will of the german troops (and the wrong decision in late august to not push something more), not the "defence"... not in july-september 41
later, no german army can dig out the russians... but in august? give em a few more divisions and game over. But if you have these troops only one time, you make decisions... here glady (for the world) the wrong ones...

So i kindly ask you to not answer only parts of the thing.
Thank you...

Uh, the initial Soviet counter-offensive before Moscow lasted weeks. The forces which took part in said counter-offensive were massing behind Moscow for months and would be well placed to counter/cut-off any attempted German encirclement of the city. Placing the whole of Army Group Centre in peril. That was my point.

As for Leningrad the city was sufficiently well defended to hold off a German attack ‘’off- the-march’’. Assuming of course that the Wehrmacht was organized & well supplied enough to launch a sufficiently strong assault (it wasn’t). Again like the situation in front of Moscow attempts to do so might simply play into Soviet hands. As the Red Army’s attempts at counter-attacking German forces in & around Leningrad, might prove much more successful, if the battle-weary Army Group North is in the middle of a major urban-battle.
 
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The title pretty much says it all?

If there was no chance of Barbarossa suceeding, then how far would you have to push the PoD back for the war to be succesful?

Yes, there was. If the Nazis concentrated all forces aginst Moscow in the summer, they would take it and with that rip the very heart off the Soviet Union. Would it be enough to end and win the war? Not necessarily. The western Allies could directly come to the support of the desperate Soviets still holding Leningrad and Stalingrad, and the war could completely change in scope and character.
 

CalBear

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I advised you to be less insulting. Yesterday Ian give you an official warning about being insulting.

Clearly thse lesser actions were less than effective.

Let's try this.

Kicked for a week for insulting members who disagree with you.

When you come back please try being civil.

Hm, nice writings... sadly useless cause you did not answer something

if i speak about "bleeding white" i never talk about the first 2hours of the operation, just the whole thing. So it looks senseless, if you talk about the first day of the operation :rolleyes:

second - yes, from the german pov leningrad is needed.
if you look at the war in the northern sector, it was the will of the german troops (and the wrong decision in late august to not push something more), not the "defence"... not in july-september 41
later, no german army can dig out the russians... but in august? give em a few more divisions and game over. But if you have these troops only one time, you make decisions... here glady (for the world) the wrong ones...

So i kindly ask you to not answer only parts of the thing.
Thank you...
 
Yes, there was. If the Nazis concentrated all forces aginst Moscow in the summer, they would take it and with that rip the very heart off the Soviet Union.

So you are proposing that the Germans concentrate their forces near-exclusively in the center, thus leaving large Soviet formations on their strategic flanks and adding even more burden to a logistics train that was incapable of supporting the OTL succession of advances with OTL forces?

Yeah, there is no way that plan couldn't end in anything short of total success, no way at all. :rolleyes:
 
So you are proposing that the Germans concentrate their forces near-exclusively in the center, thus leaving large Soviet formations on their strategic flanks and adding even more burden to a logistics train that was incapable of supporting the OTL succession of advances with OTL forces?

Yeah, there is no way that plan couldn't end in anything short of total success, no way at all. :rolleyes:

It woould be a close run between the exhaustion of Soviet and German logistical resources. A timely fall of Moscow would be an immense blow for the Soviets - the city sits at the center of the railway and road net.
 
It woould be a close run between the exhaustion of Soviet and German logistical resources. A timely fall of Moscow would be an immense blow for the Soviets - the city sits at the center of the railway and road net.
But still not impossible to recover from. Eventually.
 
It woould be a close run between the exhaustion of Soviet and German logistical resources. A timely fall of Moscow would be an immense blow for the Soviets - the city sits at the center of the railway and road net.

I don't think you understand the German logistics problems in their invasion of the Soviet Union. I also don't think you understand the implications of the Germans ignoring Soviet forces in the Ukraine and Baltic States. With this plan, the Germans are as likely to reach Moscow before fall as with the OTL plan.

Even if Argmy Group Center, by some intervention of the Alien Space Bats, manage to reach Moscow, they now have to take-it... so consult the German fighting in Stalingrad to see how that will progress.

In the meantime, the Soviets have massive untouched forces on both of AGC's strategic flanks. Do I really need to spell out the conclusion to be drawn from that?
 
The bled white attempting to attack along the whole front. in the offensives after they pushed the Germans back from Moscow. Not during the first counter-attack in which the Germans were nearly routed.

Germany simply lacked the forces to encircle Moscow and attacking directly will end about as well as Rommel's first efforts to assault Toburk. The Heer was utterly worn out by the time it reached Moscow, while the Soviets had whole armies massed behind the capital.

Frankly the Germans forces are more likely to be cut-off trying to encircle or assult Moscow. The Red Army would pretty much have to throw down it's arms, and it showed no signs of doing that during the battle for Moscow.

Also saying the Germans ''could'' or ''should'' have taken Leningrad is a claim unsupported by any facts on the ground OTL, the fact is the city held and the German high-command (rightly) thought an assult on the city was unfeable and would serve only to weaken their forces by undertaking an attacks that were unlikely to succeed. And indeed might allow Soviet forces to break-through and (re)open supply-lines to the city.


It seems a lot of people picked up on my "the Germans could take Leningrad" argument but without explaining the rationale behind it.

The Leningrad military district panicked when Manstein and Reinhardt sliced through them and encircled everything between them Dvina river. Voroshilov and some of the other real ass clowns who where in charge at that moment sent all the militia out of the city and anyone who could carry a rifle (many of whom didn't actually have rifles) to try and build a defensive line on the Dvina where they where ripe pickings for mobile German forces due to their utter lack of mobility, AT weapons, air or armored support

Manstein however couldn't advance because there was 200 miles of nothing on his right flank and it would take the 9th army's infantry a full 5 days to march troops forward to allow Manstein to advance without making the front totally disorganized... those five days allowed adults at the STAVKA to countermand Voroshilov's orders and send the militia back closer to the city where they had some chance (and succeeded) of putting up a sustained fight

IF there was an additional panzer corps with army group north (for arguments sake 3 divisions under rommel) slotted on Manstein's right flank, he wouldn't have had to wait; and the two corps in conjunction could have encircled and destroyed the militia formations effectively leaving nothing between the Germans and the city itself... basically Manstein and Rommel , if they handled the battle well, would have been able to recreate Guderian's capture of Orel (ie all the Russian formations where in the front lines, they where encircled and destroyed, and Guderian was able to capture the city more or less undefended)

The Africa Corps was proportionally 10x as motorized as a regular panzer corps on the eastern front (because they couldn't supplement with rail or horse transport) so its safe to assume their assets inspite of being trickled across the front would still have been suffecient for them to be as mobile as Manstein or Reinhardt's corps

The POD doesn't have to be neutral Italy, just better performing and less trouble making Italy... ie have Africa remain on the frontier more or less till Barbarossa, so there doesn't have to be a substantial committment of German ground and air forces and have them forgoe the disasterous exercise into Greece
 
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