Yeah, it had suffered 60% casualties... by January. In October and November, it successfully held the line and it participated in the December. Meanwhile, mist of Army Group Center dropped from ~80-90% of its strength at the start of Typhoon to less then 50% by the start of December.
Forcyzk might have got that wrong then, but I cannot find more information about the 32nd other than they were driven back and fought on through November.
Got a source on the drop of AG-North strength by that much? Considering how many casualties they inflicted, that is still probably 1/3rd or less than what the Soviets took between October-December.
The Soviets suffered ~114,000 losses in Operation Typhoon outside of the Vyaa-Bryansk encirclements. The Germans suffered ~150,000 losses after the first two weeks of the operation. If a near 1.5:1 loss ratio in the Soviets favor is "disproportionate", then you have some strange ideas of what that means.
You can't leave out the 1 million casualties taken in the pocket battles on the Soviet side considering that is where the majority of German losses were suffered as they were still liquidating part of the pockets to the last week of October. Where are you numbers for the Soviet losses coming from and over what period? I'm sensing number fuckery again. Just like when you made all sorts of ridiculous claims about how many losses a Soviet unit of 40 tanks inflicted in our last argument.
'That's the myth. The reality is that the operational pause was forced upon the Germans by enemy resistance.
Bullshit it was forced by logistics, which was caused by mud in October until the frost. I know you know better than that.
Lack of adequate enemy resistance means advancing is just a matter of taking a small portion of your forces that you can support and route marching to the objective. The results of offensive action is always determined by enemy opposition first and all other considerations second.
If the weather/ground is bad enough you cannot move at all and there is a limit to what you can supply even without resistance. It is completely bullshit to claim that weather doesn't matter, it is a combination of factors, because even minimal resistance can stop a force who's logistics are crippled by weather/mud that would have otherwise squished them in normal weather.
Doubtful they were in much condition to do anything after that trip.
Without having to fight a 10-15 day march is hardly disabling, especially as the invasion force did it while fighting and they were still good for fighting to the gates of Moscow.
Well, the individual divisions demanding more supplies owing to their greater strength also means you need more supply units. But frankly, the issue wasn't how many supply units by itself. Considered in a vacuum, the issue was Germans had enough transport assets in quantitative terms. It was the infrastructure they had to travel across, the organization they answered too, and their equipments qualitative failings that did them in.
Again I'm talking about 1942 when the rail situation was dramatically improved compared to 1941. But if we go that route replacing the broken down trucks with replacement equipment would have a major effect in sustaining forces near the front. Allocating more manpower to improving rail bottlenecks would help too even if not all the necessary equipment is available to bring it up to better standards. Until winter the issue wasn't the quality of the equipment in those conditions, it was more the wear and tear and the weather, as well as issues with rail supply. There were a ton of factors working together to undermine the invasion and it is amazing it got as far as it did. A testament to how weak Soviet resistance was by that point.
Eh? No it wasn't. All the decisions in that regard had been made before Barbarossa kicked off. It was done with the belief that
I assume you mean the pre-Barbarossa expansion, I didn't mean that, I mean the units formed after Barbarossa kicked off, which would be the IIRC 17th wave that started forming in December 1941. There were two more waves in early 1942 the 18th and 19th waves. That was 12 infantry divisions between December 1941-March 1942.
The 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Panzer divisions were all ordered during Barbarossa, the 24th being the converted from the 1st Cavalry division late in Barbarossa, right before Typhoon. The 25th Panzer was formed in Norway and wasn't initially more than a regiment or brigade potentially for an invasion of Sweden that never materialized and was again formed in 1941. Turns out in May 1941, so that would be still formed despite the POD I'm discussing, the 22nd-24th though wouldn't.
BTW: the expansion of panzer divisions from 10 to 20 was actually a good idea as the dispersal of armored strength meant that the ratio of tanks to infantry, artillery, and divisional sustainment became quite right. Prior to that, the Panzers OOB were too tank heavy. The attempt to go for 30 definitely was misguided, even though it made sense to the Germans at the time.
I'm not arguing with the forming of the 10 additional divisions before Barbarossa, just the number beyond 21. The 21st Panzer was effectively just a renamed 5th light division, so that was already formed in all but name before Barbarossa. The 25th Panzer also was formed in May 1941 for a potential operation in Sweden that never was needed, so later upgraded to a full division. That would still probably happen. That then leaves 22 Panzer divisions by the end of 1941 and I don't think they needed more than that really.
Another "funny" fact is that the Wehrmacht by mid 1941 had 224.000 troops deployed on motorcycles. The production of motorcycles declined however from 116.081 in 1940 to 33.733 in 1943 (p 114), but at least I wonder if it would have been wiser to motorise infantry on motorcycles with sidecars (3 men each) instead of in trucks?
I did see his point about how important motorcycles with sidecars were to German mobility, as they held 3 men plus their equipment. Trucks are IMHO better for multiple purposes like moving supplies, equipment, casualties, etc. that motorcycles couldn't. They probably would have been useful for bringing up reserves and taking walking wounded back. I do know they were pretty good for scouting, which the units on them tended to be used for. Looking at the Kubelwagen though I'm thinking that was probably a better investment than the side car motorcycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Kübelwagen
Ironically it seems the US and USSR ripped off the German motorcycle design:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_R75