What if Barbarossa was planned to be a 2 year operation instead of 6 months?

What if Barbarossa was planned to be a 2 year operation instead of 6 months with the necessary precautions and adjustments made?

Could the Reich plausibly defeat the USSR if Hitler had more patience and wasn't so obsessed with a quick defeat?

Inspired by this post made by @ObssesedNuker:
Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign. This would mean ramping the German war economy (which had a limited shelf life) up in 1941 with the intent of reaching full power in power 1942/43. Then the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow. Once these objectives are obtained, halt at the Leningrad-Smolensk-Mius line prior to winter and dig in, putting Germany in a position to maul the Russian winter offensive, and resume operations in the spring from a much more favorable position than historically.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down. The Soviet and Nazi industries were actually pretty evenly matched but the Germans gained significant advantages in key areas due to the damage they inflicted during the invasion. So long as they protect that lead, they can eventually win. The historical obsession the Germans had with finishing the Soviets off in ASAP led them to seek "quick fixes" in the East, which the Soviets were ultimately able to exploit to first survive and then turn the tide.
 
Last edited:
No, if you're going to knock out the Soviet Union you have to do it quickly. If you don't the Soviets will just trade space for time while they mobilise their overwhelming superiority in numbers. In an attritional war the Soviets are bound to win.
 

Deleted member 97083

What if Barbarossa was planned to be a 2 year operation instead of 6 months with the necessary precautions and adjustments made?

Could the Reich plausibly defeat the USSR if Hitler had more patience and wasn't so obsessed with a quick defeat?
Based on the estimates the Germans had before June, which were drastic underestimates, Barbarossa was their first, last, and only opportunity to conquer the Soviet Union.

If the Germans had known how powerful the Soviets were and were capable of becoming, and realized it would be years long war, they would not find the casualty numbers acceptable, or the logistics feasible, and would have cancelled the invasion plan entirely.

Also, even if they did continue, the Nazis probably weren't capable of a pragmatic 2-year invasion plan until war already started. They thought Russians and Slavs in general were a primitive barbarian tribe. The Nazi ideology meant they would never take the Soviets seriously until the realities of combat.

Furthermore, some of the necessary precautions and adjustments were mutually exclusive. More trucks means fewer tanks. More tanks means fewer trucks. Constructing more railroad takes resources away from something else. And most preparations of any kind, or increase in stock of any kind of vehicle, means that gas reserves are stretched even thinner than they were.
 
Top