What if Hitler doesn't overexpand the German army?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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It is not surprising that veterans make a difference.

In the American Civil War this was a major factor. Confederate units tended to have replacements sifted in, where the Union tended to form new units whole-cloth. This meant the existing veteran units were gradually ground down, and the new units had a rougher time until they had suffered enough to be veterans.
 
If you scan the individual pages you can attach them page by page via clicking the 'upload a file' button below when you are posting a new message. If you want to PM me I'll give you my email so you can send me to the scanned chapter in PDF form.

OK, I can do this on a weekday sometime next week.
 
Having so few divisions is strategically disastrous.

You'd have literal gaps in the front, and Soviet deep battle would demolish German logistics a lot more then the extra divisions OTL ever did or could.
 

Deleted member 1487

Having so few divisions is strategically disastrous.

You'd have literal gaps in the front, and Soviet deep battle would demolish German logistics a lot more then the extra divisions OTL ever did or could.
Until 1943 there wouldn't actually be gaps in the front and by then that was a need for new divisions because of destroyed ones during the Stalingrad campaign. Also I never said no new divisions, just only after the existing ones are brought up to strength first.
 
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.

According to the German definition, the Vjaz'ma-Bryansk encirclement battle ended on 18.10.
Are you using the same definition?

Anyway, if we start by looking at the OKH 10-Day casualty reports for the period 20.10 to 30.11, we get the following German casualty figures for AG Center:
12 835 KIA, 46 183 WIA and 2 563 MIA for a total of 61 581 KIA/WIA/MIA

If we continue by looking at the German daily count of captured Soviet POW's from 19.10 to 30.11 (for AOK 2, 4, 9, Pz AOK 2 and the rear army command - but excluding Pz Gr 3 and 4) we get a figure of roughly 160 000.
Which probably would increase a bit if the data for the two remaining PzGr's are included.

To summarize, given that the Germans reported suffering about 61k kia/wia/mia in this post-Vya'zma-Bryansk timespan, while at the same time reporting capturing more than 160k Soviet POW, I have a hard time squaring those numbers with yours.

Would you care to elaborate a bit on how you arrived at your numbers?
 
Until the late war period the new units were built on a base of veterans skimmed off existing units. The Volks Grenadier units fielded in late 1944 were a example of the first large scale fielding of units without substansive veteran cadres. The static or fortress divisions that begain coming into existance in 1942 had a smaller veteran cadre thn sought for the field formations. Even in 1939 the second & third wave reserve units called up received a levy of fully trained cadres from the standing units, some ten to fifteen percent of the total cadre in the unit. Siegfried Knappe in his autobiography describes his roles as one of these cadres sent to a newly mobilized unit.

Bottom line is for the first three years very few new units were fielded without a significant experienced cadre included. Through 1943 & 44 there was still a effort to provide veteran cadres to new formations.

The most obvious example being the 12thSS "Hitlerjugend" Division which received a draft of some 3000 men from the Liebstandarte.
Or about a 15% cadre, despite the 1st SS still being in action on the Russian Front.
 
OTL The profusion and wide variety of divisions was an essential part of Hitler's management style. Hitler frequently assigned the same task to multiple subordinates, then waited to see which one produce the best results. That is why the Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine all competed for the same men and weapons.

Theoretically the Wehrmacht should have received the bulk of manpower and weapons for ground fighting, however the SS had similar ambitions. While the SS may have started out as little more than political bully boys, Himmler's ambitions drove the SS to morph into secret police, exterminators and eventually a second ground army. Because of Himmler's political connections, he was able to secure the best tanks and most fanatical Nazis.

Meanwhile, Herman Goering's Luftwaffe pioneered parachute and glider-borne assaults. After suffering heavy losses during the invasions of Holland and Crete, they quit training Fallschirmjaegers as paratroopers, but still retained large numbers who re-rolled as some of the best defensive troops in Italy, France and Germany. Goering's political influence was so strong that he was able to establish production lines for new weapons (e.g. FG42 rifle) despite heavy casualties and failed campaigns (e.g. Battle of Britain).
By late war, the Luftwaffe could not fly enough airplanes to fully occupy all its ground crew, but fierce rivalry with other German armies prevented transferring those men to the Wehrmacht, so they were re-rolled as under-equipped and poorly-led Luftwaffe Field Divisions.

There is a parallel with the RCAF, because by late 1944, the Bomber Campaign had been won and the RCAF started releasing surplus airmen. RCAF snobbery prevented those surplus airmen from transferring to the Canadian Army which suffered massive casualties during the summer of 1944. This shortage of soldiers sparked the Conscription Crisis. The CC proved politically disastrous in Quebec but never provided significant numbers of conscripts to depleted Canadian infantry and tank regiments.

Thousands of Kriegsmarine sailors suffered similar fates when the German Navy ran out of surface vessels, so sailors were re-rolled as Marine Infantry, defending Prussia against Russian invaders.

One character overlaps most of these private armies: General Ramke. He enlisted in the Kaiser's Marine Infantry before WW1 and fought in the trenches of the Western Front. During the inter-war lull, Ranke served in the Wehrmacht, but at the start of WW2 joined the Liftwaffe where he led paratroopers through Crete, North Afrika and ended his military service during the seige of Brest.

An alternate reality would have General Ramke continue to serve in the Navy, but lead multiple divisions of Marine Infantry divisions that were as well-equipped and trained as US Marines or (British) Royal Marine Commandos. After the successful invasions of Poland and Norway, KMI would expand to fill greater rolls during the invasions of Holland, Belgium, France, the Balkans, the Baltics and Russia.

I do agree with the OP that reinforcements would have been better used replenishing existing divisions and other armies should have been limited to a few specialized troops. The world would be better off if the SS never existed.

In another alternate timeline, the Wehrmacht would receive the bulk of men and weapons with the other forces limited to handfuls of specialized troops (eg. naval gunnery officers or forward air traffic controllers).
 

Deleted member 1487

Having so few divisions is strategically disastrous.

You'd have literal gaps in the front, and Soviet deep battle would demolish German logistics a lot more then the extra divisions OTL ever did or could.
Looking back at this a bit more I was trying to find information about the state of German forces in 1942 that would be impacted by having less divisions. As it was German divisions across the board were pretty badly torn up by the fighting in 1941 and the winter of 1942, so in the north they were down to about 60% of establishment, while the replacements brought in to get AG-South up to strength only got them to about 85% strength on average before Case Blue, partly because of 2nd Kharkov and Sevastopol.
According to Per70 in another thread AG-South received 15 divisions from April-June 1942:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...stead-of-störfang.398497/page-2#post-13169554
That included the 22nd Panzer division (with 11th army in Crimea), 23rd and 24th Panzer, 71st and 82nd divisions (not new ones), 305th division (not new, converted to a combat division from a garrison division), 323rd division (form in 1940), 336th division (formed 1940), 340th division formed in 1940 as a garrison division and upgraded, and 6 'new' infantry divisions that in my POD wouldn't be formed. Only those 6 (out of 12 infantry formed in late 1941-early 1942), of all those sent wouldn't be formed ITTL. That and the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Panzer divisions. 24th Panzer division was the converted 1st Cavalry division, so perhaps that still happens. Losing those 6 infantry divisions and let's say 2 Panzer divisions, the 22nd and 23rd as they were brand new while the 24th was converted from an existing division, would be felt, but the 22nd Panzer division's role in Crimea could be filled by the 24th Panzer division, as it wasn't needed for 2nd Kharkov, while the OTL 25th Panzer division could be sent East instead of hanging around in Norway do nothing and brought up to full strength sooner. That would fill the role of 22nd and 23rd Panzer historically, while admittedly leaving a gap where the historical 24th Panzer division should have been. Given that not forming the OTL 22nd or 23rd Panzer division would mean 4-6 (depending on how damaged) of the existing Panzer divisions of AG-South could be brought up to full strength instead, while still getting two additional Panzer divisions that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Meanwhile by not forming the 12 new infantry divisions of December 1941-March 1942 that does leave some gaps in the defenses in the West, as that is where some of the new divisions first went before heading East, IIRC 6 of the 12, while the other 6 went to AG-South by the end of June. Moving the OTL 25th Panzer East due to no OTL 22nd or 23rd Panzer existing (I'm imagining the OTL 24th and 25th Panzer are TTL's 22nd and 23rd Panzer divisions), does leave a gap in Norway, but there really was no threat there anyway. What does happen is that instead of getting 6 new infantry divisions of the upper 300s numbering AG-South instead brings its infantry divisions back up from 85% strength (on average) to 100% strength. That should fill the gaps that not having 6 additional divisions would leave. Full strength existing divisions would have the combat power and staffing to hold more ground and do more damage in combat, as they were veterans anyway, plus would have months to impart experience on the new troops before major offensive action starts. Perhaps 11th army doesn't does divisions north to Leningrad with fewer divisions around, which would totally fill the gap of the historical new divisions not built here.

For the 6 other 'new' divisions not with AG-South that would have been elsewhere I'd imagine two would go as replacements instead to 18th army, which would allow 6 divisions to be brought up to full strength (most 18th army divisions were down to 6 battalions rather than the 9 they should have had), as the 9 battalions of one such new infantry division would bring 3 divisions back up to fill battalion OOB. Plus the extra equipment that would have gone into forming division assets could replace equipment and personnel losses outside of infantry regiments/battalions. 2 divisions not formed in December 1941-March 1942 then means the 6 revived veteran divisions can be used for major necessary operations around Leningrad in Spring, such as Operation Moorbrand, which was the cutting off of the Pogostye Salient that most of the Soveit 54th army had stuffed itself in during the attempt to link up with the trapped 2nd Shock Army. So 18th army on it's own power could then destroy most of 2nd Shock army and 54th Army by June-July, which frees up a ton of strength that historically was not available by the time 11th Army showed up for Operation Nordlicht. Historically due to delays in getting the offensive ready Nordlicht was preempted by the Soviets launching an August offensive to break the Leningrad siege; that would be impossible if 54th Army is pretty much destroyed, while the Germans can take at least 2 of their revived 18th army divisions to help out with Nordlicht once 54th Army is effectively out of the picture for several months (just like 2nd Shock army). That would be a big reprieve for the Germans and might mean that Nordlicht does happen in August 1942, which would effectively be the doom of Leningrad, rather than 11th army getting stuck in destroying a Soviet attempt to link up with Leningrad. That may still happen to a degree later when the Soviets eventually rebuild both 2nd Shock and 54th Army, but that will take a fair bit longer than IOTL and perhaps Leningrad will be decided by the and the Germans will have the necessary forces to defeat that and inflict the historical losses on the Soviet relief attempt, plus take Leningrad.

For the remaining 4 divisions that would not be formed ITTL they'd probably go to reviving some 12 AG-Center divisions. That is probably a wash all things considered. Now the rest of 1942 really depends on how things play out with Stalingrad, if that same thing basically happens then the historical problems still play out more or less the same in that area. Come late 1942 in Tunisia the lack of a HG Panzer division and other assets might well end up being a gift in disguise, because if the Germans lack enough extra divisions as a strategic reserve they won't throw them into Tunisia to be destroyed and Rommel could be evacuated with his men and Italians to defend in Sicily and Sardinia and rebuild there, rather than being wiped out in Tunisia. Not sure how that theater would play out then, because divisions evacuated from North Africa could be rebuilt much more quickly the policy is not to be building up a bunch of divisions and instead have a bigger reserve pool. They'd also have more ability to convert fortress/garrison divisions into combat divisions if needed. They might even have surplus equipment enough to give to the Italians to get their surviving evacuees from Africa back into fighting shape when the Italian economy could not replace their equipment so rapidly.
 
From a logistical pp. perspective, I wonder what per c. Percentage of supplies reached th eastern fronts by ship ... by rail ... by truck and by horse draw wagon?
I also question how many trucks the Germans could "liberate" from occupied countries before they cripple local economies?
Remember that the Wehrmacht depended upon occupied countries like Czechoslovakia to supply beans an bullets.

In the end, captured vehicles and weapons proved the Achilles heal of the Wehrmacht, because dozens f different types of vehicles required thousands of different types of spare parts. Supplying all those different space parts - over poor roads - was difficult even before partisans intervened.
 
The Nigel Askey books look interesting, well IIA and IIB do and I have put in a ILL request to get copies. Is there another source that people can suggest that might talk about material and organization shortfall of the German divisions 1940 and 1941? I am more interested in gaps in the support units, field repair units and the like.

Michael
 
In the end, captured vehicles and weapons proved the Achilles heal of the Wehrmacht, because dozens f different types of vehicles required thousands of different types of spare parts. Supplying all those different space parts - over poor roads - was difficult even before partisans intervened


German trucks

Adler
AEG
Afa
Audi
Bergmann
Bergmann-Metallurgique
Bleichert
BMW
Borgward
Brennabor
Breuer
Büssing-NAG
Daimler-Benz
Demag
Deuliewag
Deutz
DKW
Esslingen
Famo
FAUN
Ford
Framo
Freund
Fuchs
Goliath
Hagedorn
Hamor
Hanomag
Hanno
Henschel
Horch
Kaelble
Klöckner-Deutz
Kramer
Kraus-Maffei
Krupp
Lanz
MAN
Manderbach
Maschinenbau Lüneburg
Mercedes-Benz
MIAG
Neander
Normag
NSU
O&K
Opel
Ostner
Phänomen
Primus
Renger
Sachsenberg
Saurer
Schlüter
Stoewer
Talbot
Tempo
Trippel
VW
Vögele
Vomag
Wanderer
Zettelmeyer
Ziel-Abegg
Zündapp

Austrian

Austro-FIAT
Austro-Daimler
Fross-Büssing
Gräf & Stift
ÖAF
Perl
Saurer
Steyr-Puch

Czechoslovakian
Jawa
Praga
Skoda
Tatra
Walter

And that's leaving out the French and Italian that were on the Eastern Front
 
Due to lack of numbers the allies would advance at a faster rate until they started closing in on Germany then things would start getting much harder.
 
Got a source on the drop of AG-North strength by that much?

AG-North? I said Army Group Center. In any case, it's stated by Stephen Fritz in Ostkrieg. He's generally very favorable to the Germans so...

You can't leave out the 1 million casualties taken in the pocket battles on the Soviet side

1 million? Nobody actually states the Soviets lost 1 million in the pocket battles. The Germans claim 673,000 while the Soviets admit 499,000. Post-1990 research into both sides archives comes out to ~514K And in any case, since your claim rests on the bizarre idea that the Germans were still slaughtering the Soviets beyond the pocket battles, then the debate is specifically about losses suffered outside and thus not only can I leave them out, I have to leave them out. And so do you.

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.

The creation and liquidation of the pocket in it's entirety cost the Germans approximately 50,000 losses, compared to the 150,000 suffered beyond it.

Where are you numbers for the Soviet losses coming from and over what period?

David Glantz gives the total casualties for the defensive phase of the fighting (September 30-December 5th) as 658,279 and for the counter-offensive (December 6th-January 7th) as 370,955. I went with the latter number, rounded and approximated to account for possible errors, and subtracted the Vyazma-Bryansk losses.

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.

The claim is accurate. What is inaccurate is your claim that there were other tank brigades. There was not. From October to mid-November the 4th Tank Brigade was it for Soviet armored reserves in that sector. The reality there is that Katukov halted Guderian's advance a week before the weather closed in and inflicted many more casualties on the Germans than he took in return, a fact which even Guderian grudgingly admitted. And that Katukov was able to gain such success because the Germans had overreached themselves hardly takes away from the achievement. Striking at the point where and when the enemy is most vulnerable is part of good generalship. Rommel's ability as a field commander isn't dismissed because the British had stripped the forces facing him to send troops to Greece after all.

Bullshit it was forced by logistics, which was caused by mud in October until the frost.

No it was not. Had the Soviets not put up tremendous resistance, then the Germans would have strolled into Moscow irrespective of their logistical problems and the weather. And the logistical problems were really a function of the German's own inability to recognize their culminating point. And even without the mud, the German logistical network was collapsing from the sheer strain of having to support a ferocious battle (a function of, you guessed it, Soviet resistance) over such distances. What's really bullshit is your continuing to try and absolve the Germans of the responsibility for their defeat and the Soviets of the credit for their victory.

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.

Except the Germans did move. Even after the mud set in they were moving. Slowly, and painfully, and costing themselves buckets of blood. But they were moving. Without adequate Soviet resistance, the movement wouldn't be painful, slow, and costly. The reality is that offensives in WW2, even the unsuccessful ones always managed to move. What mattered was how fast, how far, and how costly the movement was. And the foremost determinant in those costs was the condition of ones own forces compared to that of the enemies.

Without having to fight a 10-15 day march is hardly disabling,

Go to the Belorussian/Polish border and march to Smolensk on foot the whole way. Give yourself no rest days. Take a heavy pack. Carry a heavy rifle. Strap on grenades and load your pockets up with supplies. Take away all decent food and force yourself to sleep the nights, out in the fields and rains. Remember not to change your underpants. Forget about having a wash. Infest your self with lice. To be true to the period, don't take any of the paved roads. Bring some dice and roll at some point to see if you should hire some Belorussian/Russian hunters or airsoft enthusiasts or re-enactors or whatever to come after you at on the trip to simulate potential partisan activity. Then come back and tell me how much you feel up to doing something like fighting a battle after that and for how long.

Again I'm talking about 1942 when the rail situation was dramatically improved compared to 1941.

Oh it improved. But it was never adequate to the task and problems persisted throughout the entire war in the east. Operation Blau was also repeatedly plagued by supply problems. Citadel, not so much. But then there was copious amounts of time to build up for it and it never got anywhere to begin with. After Citadel, the Germans were always falling back on their supply sources so it became a moot point.

Until winter the issue wasn't the quality of the equipment in those conditions

Yes it was. The bumpy conditions found on most Soviet roads generally saw German equipment often get literally shaken to pieces just in the process of movement. And the dirt roads kicked up copious amounts of dust that clogged engines, exhausted men and animals, clogged up various mechanisms and so-on. To single out the obvious example of trucks: the Germans lost 25 percent of their motor pool to all causes in the first 19 days. Army Group Center lost

I assume you mean the pre-Barbarossa expansion, I didn't mean that,

I was referring to the post-Barbarossa expansion. The decisions related to that expansion pre-date Barbarossa kicking off as forming divisions isn't something you can do on the fly. The plans and preparations require months. The Soviets were able to do it during Barbarossa by the fact their mobilization apparatus contained all of the planning and had set up much of the preparation. The Germans had no such luxury.

According to the German definition, the Vjaz'ma-Bryansk encirclement battle ended on 18.10.
Are you using the same definition?

It's a bit more then two weeks, but not so much that it doesn't matter so I can.

Anyway, if we start by looking at the OKH 10-Day casualty reports for the period 20.10 to 30.11, we get the following German casualty figures for AG Center:
12 835 KIA, 46 183 WIA and 2 563 MIA for a total of 61 581 KIA/WIA/MIA

The OKH report is suspect because it doesn't at all match up with the casualty reports submitted by divisional commands and below. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who put all those reports together yet.

If we continue by looking at the German daily count of captured Soviet POW's from 19.10 to 30.11 (for AOK 2, 4, 9, Pz AOK 2 and the rear army command - but excluding Pz Gr 3 and 4) we get a figure of roughly 160 000.

The 160K were probably stragglers from the Vyazma-Bryansk battles getting rounded up and thus belong in that category. I'm aware of no major encirclements post-Vyazma-Bryansk that would make such numbers otherwise credible.

Would you care to elaborate a bit on how you arrived at your numbers?

I ran with an intermediary number between the OKH claim and the Soviet claim (the latter of which is even more ridiculous then the former, I mean 400K... really?). Frankly, I had (and have) a hard time seeing the Germans suffering more then 250K. So I split the difference and rounded.
 
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Deleted member 1487

AG-North? I said Army Group Center. In any case, it's stated by Stephen Fritz in Ostkrieg. He's generally very favorable to the Germans so...
I'll take a look at what he says when I can find my copy. I must have mistyped and said north when I meant center. What page is that on?

Edit:
on page 185 all I'm seeing is AG-Center suffering 87k casualties from September 30th-November 10th, which is nowhere near a 30% or more drop in strength. Also Fritz says they had to transfer 4 divisions out there control, which would account for a drop in strength by those sorts of margins. They had suffered some 317k casualties between June 22nd-November 10th 1941 according to Fritz, 87k of which from September 30th-November 10th.

On page 160 he mentions 50k losses in the first two weeks of Taifun and then says total losses were 270k by mid-October (the same date effectively)...he means total losses since the start of Barbarossa, not since the start of Taifun, which is something you should understand in the context of how he says it and presents numbers for AG-Center throughout the chapter "Whirlwind".

By December 5th AG-Center had taken 350k casualties since the start of Barbarossa in June, so an additional 33k between mid-November and early December. Fritz does say on page 192 that most of the remaining divisions were at 50% of strength, which would mean combat strength given that he was quoting von Bock in the context of combat power. That doesn't mean AG-Center was at 50% strength or 50% combat power compared to the start of Typhoon or even Barbarossa.

Again with the statistical bullshit, is that the only way you can try and win internet discussions about history?

1 million? Nobody actually states the Soviets lost 1 million in the pocket battles. The Germans claim 673,000 while the Soviets admit 499,000. Post-1990 research into both sides archives comes out to ~514K And in any case, since your claim rests on the bizarre idea that the Germans were still slaughtering the Soviets beyond the pocket battles, then the debate is specifically about losses suffered outside and thus not only can I leave them out, I have to leave them out. And so do you.
I've seen it in print several times, including with Zetterling, Glantz, and Stahel. Yes the Soviets were still getting killed beyond the pocket battles, though clearly not at the same rate.

Edit: Looked through Glantz's Operation Barbarossa and in the chapter on Vyazma-Bryansk and the October 1941 period in the conclusion section he specifically states the Soviets lost 'well over 1 million men in a month'. Granted he was talking about the entire front, but there were minor casualties inflicted on the Soviet forces during the Tikhvin Operation and the Rostov one in October, 90% of the losses the Soviets were taking were in front of Moscow and Glantz is saying well over 1 million Soviet losses had been suffered, which is in line with 1 million casualties at Vyazma-Bryansk area.

On the Vyazma section specifically Glantz in "Barbarossa" states that 250k Soviet soldiers escaped the pockets out of 1.25 million and that the Germans took 688k POWs, which leads him to state that around 1 million Soviet casualties had been suffered in the pocket battles, the 688k PoWs plus battle casualties.

I did see in When Titan's Clashed he quoted Krivosheev for Soviet casualties matching your numbers (actually specifically what you say the Germans claimed), but in other works of his Glantz even says that Krivosheev's casualty counts for the Soviets is too low and he think it was well over 10 million dead instead of the ~8.6 million Kirvosheev claims. That means at some point Krivosheev's numbers are under counts, which would mean it is likely that his 'official' numbers for 1941 are probably severe under counts.

The creation and liquidation of the pocket in it's entirety cost the Germans approximately 50,000 losses, compared to the 150,000 suffered beyond it.
Again your numbers there are highly suspect, as fighting in the pocket area to liquidate the last hold outs went on beyond the first 2 weeks of October.

David Glantz gives the total casualties for the defensive phase of the fighting (September 30-December 5th) as 658,279 and for the counter-offensive (December 6th-January 7th) as 370,955. I went with the latter number, rounded and approximated to account for possible errors, and subtracted the Vyazma-Bryansk losses.
I'll look through his stuff and see what I can find. I think he is quoting Kriovsheev, who has been called out by several Russian historians for severely undercounting Soviet casualties throughout the war, especially in the initial period when command and control broke down and records are incomplete. The Germans claimed something like 600k POWs plus over 300k casualties inflicted during the pocket battles.

The claim is accurate. What is inaccurate is your claim that there were other tank brigades. There was not. From October to mid-November the 4th Tank Brigade was it for Soviet armored reserves in that sector. The reality there is that Katukov halted Guderian's advance a week before the weather closed in and inflicted many more casualties on the Germans than he took in return, a fact which even Guderian grudgingly admitted. And that Katukov was able to gain such success because the Germans had overreached themselves hardly takes away from the achievement. Striking at the point where and when the enemy is most vulnerable is part of good generalship. Rommel's ability as a field commander isn't dismissed because the British had stripped the forces facing him to send troops to Greece after all.
I'll let Per70 handle that one, you were proven wrong on that and still cling to your mistake.
WI: The Germans halt their advance to Moscow
WI: The Germans halt their advance to Moscow


No it was not. Had the Soviets not put up tremendous resistance, then the Germans would have strolled into Moscow irrespective of their logistical problems and the weather. And the logistical problems were really a function of the German's own inability to recognize their culminating point. And even without the mud, the German logistical network was collapsing from the sheer strain of having to support a ferocious battle (a function of, you guessed it, Soviet resistance) over such distances. What's really bullshit is your continuing to try and absolve the Germans of the responsibility for their defeat and the Soviets of the credit for their victory.
Strolled is not correct at all, the mud and weather conditions would have made it a horrible slog. Yes without any resistance they would have captured Moscow, but even minimal resistance dramatically changes the situation, because now the supply of ammo to overcome even minimal resistance puts a huge burden on the already hampered logistics element. So in such weather conditions even defending with militia is worthwhile because it dramatically changes the ability of an enemy force to advance. Nevertheless the Germans advanced regardless to within some 20-30 miles of Moscow via the Smolensk-Moscow highway, but logistics and weather meant they couldn't overcome what resistance was left by late October and they had to stop fighting until mid-November. Yes even distance played a role in the logistics situation, but that alone wasn't stopping them, it took the mud to seize up the system and then the cold to effectively collapse it when trains stopped working. Weather, mud, and distance did more to stop the Germans in front of Moscow by late October-December than Soviet resistance did; without the weather or distance issues Soviet resistance would have been demolished like near the border. It was the combination of the last Soviet reserves, weather/mud, and distance plus attrition on German supply lines that collectively prevented the defeat of the USSR in late 1941.

Certainly the German command deserves incredible blame for their shit planning and silly dispersal of force right before Moscow (especially for the Kalinin diversion), while the Soviets certainly deserve credit for the bravery of their forces and ruthless commitment of forces to the last defenses before the capital, but the victory really doesn't belong to the Soviets forces as much as German mistakes, logistics, weather, and distance did.

Edit:
Stephen Fritz in Ostkrieg even specifically mentions how the Soviets used the Rasputisa as part of their defensive plan, because they knew that movement off of main roads was impossible, so they set up defenses on the highway; without the mud their positions could have been flanked because they were so sparse, but the mud bad it impossible, so they only way to advance was head on. Again that is less the function of the strength of the defenders and more of the impact of the weather.

Except the Germans did move. Even after the mud set in they were moving. Slowly, and painfully, and costing themselves buckets of blood. But they were moving. Without adequate Soviet resistance, the movement wouldn't be painful, slow, and costly. The reality is that offensives in WW2, even the unsuccessful ones always managed to move. What mattered was how fast, how far, and how costly the movement was. And the foremost determinant in those costs was the condition of ones own forces compared to that of the enemies.
Actually yes the move would be painful, slow, and costly, as wet weather and Rasputisa level mud is extremely wearing. There is a limit to how far you can go even without having to fight. Fighting adds an extra layer of hell into it.

Go to the Belorussian/Polish border and march to Smolensk on foot the whole way. Give yourself no rest days. Take a heavy pack. Carry a heavy rifle. Strap on grenades and load your pockets up with supplies. Take away all decent food and force yourself to sleep the nights, out in the fields and rains. Remember not to change your underpants. Forget about having a wash. Infest your self with lice. To be true to the period, don't take any of the paved roads. Bring some dice and roll at some point to see if you should hire some Belorussian/Russian hunters or airsoft enthusiasts or re-enactors or whatever to come after you at on the trip to simulate potential partisan activity. Then come back and tell me how much you feel up to doing something like fighting a battle after that and for how long.
Yeah the German army did that in much worse conditions from June 22nd through July 23rd and fought the entire way in major combat. Taking 15 days to march to Smolensk will not be fun, but it is reasonablly doable without terribly wearing down replacements, especially if the roads are not clogged with advancing armies and supply units, as those had long since moved out of Belarus by and large and relied on rail. Lice and not washing is simply part of combat in WW2 once you arrive in the field.

Oh it improved. But it was never adequate to the task and problems persisted throughout the entire war in the east. Operation Blau was also repeatedly plagued by supply problems. Citadel, not so much. But then there was copious amounts of time to build up for it and it never got anywhere to begin with. After Citadel, the Germans were always falling back on their supply sources so it became a moot point.
Operation Blau was faced with supply problems because it was advancing into territory with different rail gauge; on the attack they were once again forced into the same situation of having to convert rail yet again, just like in 1941, plus it was deeper than they had made it even in 1941. At Citadel they didn't have as many problems because they had long previous converted the rail needed for the campaign, same with 3rd Kharkov. Which is interesting because Soviet partisans made a concerted effort in Summer 1943 to sabotage German rail supply. Until the advance into the depths of the USSR in 1942 the rail situation for AG-South and the other AGs were adequate. Not great, but sufficient to keep them going. The not great part was demonstrated by trying to move 5 divisions from 11th Army North in Summer.

Yes it was. The bumpy conditions found on most Soviet roads generally saw German equipment often get literally shaken to pieces just in the process of movement. And the dirt roads kicked up copious amounts of dust that clogged engines, exhausted men and animals, clogged up various mechanisms and so-on. To single out the obvious example of trucks: the Germans lost 25 percent of their motor pool to all causes in the first 19 days. Army Group Center lost
You might want to come back and finish the thought. The Germans lost their motor pool due to the combat too, as well as using civilian trucks in military operations, which meant they were the first to fall out in the poor roads situation, a problem the Soviets also had, as they forced the civilian GAZ trucks onto the same roads.

I was referring to the post-Barbarossa expansion. The decisions related to that expansion pre-date Barbarossa kicking off as forming divisions isn't something you can do on the fly. The plans and preparations require months. The Soviets were able to do it during Barbarossa by the fact their mobilization apparatus contained all of the planning and had set up much of the preparation. The Germans had no such luxury.
Can you provide a source when the decision was made order the December-March infantry division creation? You're making the claim that it was ordered pre-Barbarossa, I have yet to see any evidence of that. Not only that, but even if it did take months prior to make the decision they had several months from July-November before the official formations started in December. The Soviets did it on the fly by not having extensive planning, they ordered reservists to mobilize and slapped them together with whatever equipment they had on hand; if you actually read Glantz most of the formations formed post-Barbarossa by the Soviets were very ad hoc units with vast deficiencies in equipment and organization, very different from the new divisions formed by the Germans in this period.


The OKH report is suspect because it doesn't at all match up with the casualty reports submitted by divisional commands and below. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who put all those reports together yet.
I'm assuming you got this from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow#Casualties
The estimate of 400,000 German casualties by January 1942 reported in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published in 1973–78.[77] On the other hand, official Wehrmacht daily casualty reports show 35,757 killed in action, 128,716 wounded, and 9,721 missing in action for the entire Army Group Center between 1 October 1941 and 10 January 1942.[91] However, this official report does not match unofficial reports from individual battalion and divisional officers and commanders at the front, who record suffering far higher casualties than was officially reported.[92]
That is sourced from this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Retreat-Hitlers-First-Defeat/dp/0312628196
The next two months were the stuff of nightmares for the soldiers on both sides, whose letters and memoirs have been exhaustively used to paint a horrifying picture of starvation, cold weather, nonexistent medical care, and a complete lack of compassion for opponents.

Michael Jones draws upon a wealth of new eyewitness testimonies from both sides of the conflict to vividly chronicle this pivotal chapter in the Second World War as he takes us from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on the morning of June 22 through the counteroffensive that carried into the spring of 1942.

The author uses numerous first-hand accounts throughout the book, taken from German and Russian soldiers and Russian civilians.

The book is easy to read and offers a nice overview of this period but nothing too technical or in-depth, more of a general or popular historical narrative.

However, unlike his book on Stalingrad, this book will not be very useful to serious students of history. It is mostly a well-written, "fun" read for the military buff in the sense of an impressionistic account. As an earlier reviewer has noted, there is far too little operational detail for the reader to actually understand the military actions described in the book, and the maps are too few and too bad. This is why I say that the book is essentially impressionistic, because the nuts and bolts of the military operations are sadly lacking.

For the casual reader, what will be the most interesting is Jones's use of German language unit histories and "second-tier" military memoirs (ones by figures not deemed important enough to warrant a translation into English, essentially). These provide details that would add to other entry-level accounts of the counteroffensive before Moscow. There are some Soviet sources in the book, too, which are still always welcome.

I found the most irritating thing about the book to be its lazy and neglectful citing of source material. There are no footnotes or endnotes, merely some partial references for each chapter at the end of the book. I soon discovered that whenever I flipped to the back to try to find the source for an assertion or fact that I was bound to be disappointed. This serious lack is also one of the things that makes it far less useful for serious readers and students. I really don't understand why the author couldn't be bothered to do standard citations.

As an entry level book for the casual reader of military history, The Retreat might be a good christmas gift. Unfortunately, I believe that Jones is capable of much more than he actually delivered here.

Near as I can tell without reading the book the claim the author is making is entirely based on anecdotal accounts, not actual research in the archives going through reports from battalions and divisions and comparing that to army reports to make the claim he does. He reads some memoirs and makes claims based on the 'feel' of the situation. I call bullshit, because the plural of anecdote is not data; choosing the most dramatic personal accounts that include heavy losses doesn't mean that situation applied across the front. It seems to be built on secondary literature rather than any archive work, so is in NO position to be claiming that German official casualty reports are incomplete.
 
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a problem the Soviets also had, as they forced the civilian GAZ trucks onto the same roads

But they were based off the Ford AA truck, that were about as durable as trucks could get in '20-30s.

For off-roading, T and TT were designed for marginal or no roads, and the Ford A and AA Truck were just slightly enlarged T and TT with slightly improved engines and crash gearbox over the T's planetary. Much of the USA's Midwest and West still had roads just like Ukraine had in 1941

519689.jpg


Here's T on a modern rack used to check 4WD off-roaders for axle articulation
001-1916-model-t.jpg


US truck makers only surpassed them by adding more powerful engines, gearing that allowed higher highway speeds and 4 wheel drive.

Nothing wrong with the GAZ AA for that environment
 

Deleted member 1487

But they were based off the Ford AA truck, that were about as durable as trucks could get in '20-30s.

For off-roading, T and TT were designed for marginal or no roads, and the Ford A and AA Truck were just slightly enlarged T and TT with slightly improved engines and crash gearbox over the T's planetary. Much of the USA's Midwest and West still had roads just like Ukraine had in 1941

Here's T on a modern rack used to check 4WD off-roaders for axle articulation

US truck makers only surpassed them by adding more powerful engines, gearing that allowed higher highway speeds and 4 wheel drive.

Nothing wrong with the GAZ AA for that environment
The Soviet version was mostly 2 wheel drive, there were some 4 wheel drive versions, but most of Soviet trucks in 1941 were civilian two wheel drive versions that broke down just as readily as German civilian trucks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIS-5_(truck)
The Zis-5 was the most produced Soviet truck at the time and was based off of a Fiat model, not the Ford truck.

The Soviet version of the Ford AA was mostly a Soviet knock off version, the GAZ-MM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ–MM

Also understand that military operations and civilian offroading are very different situations, with the former having a lot more heavy use with less chance of maintenance.
 
In the American Civil War this was a major factor. Confederate units tended to have replacements sifted in, where the Union tended to form new units whole-cloth. This meant the existing veteran units were gradually ground down, and the new units had a rougher time until they had suffered enough to be veterans.

But taken too far, with the US Replacement Depots, hurt unit esprit de corps and eventually 'Fucking New Guy' syndrome and burned out vets.
Better to pull units out of line and rebuild before rotating back into combat
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You don't think the ability to match recruits with veterans and keep them alive longer vs. sticking the in Green divisions and having to relearn the lessons that experienced divisions already learned at the cost of casualties with much higher casualties?

It is huge impact, but hard to quantify, much like many military POD. It is easy to add more tanks, and do the ATL. It is hard to make the men better trained, and quantify for a POD. We can see this in POD where Lemberg and Pemberg don't fall. Or we can see it in the BEF is captured. The only example that quickly comes to mind is the ACW where the union created new regiments and the South where recruits went to experienced units. The answer to your question is probably in comparing the effectiveness of these units. It seems like from memory, it took a union regiment a year or two to get to the training levels of the southern replacements. So you basically see all those new divisions perform like veterans, but as a part of older divisions.

If I just had to guess on a number, I would say the Soviets would take 5-15% higher casualties in battles in order to win them. And very close losses by the Germans would be holds, not losses.
 

Deleted member 1487

But taken too far, with the US Replacement Depots, hurt unit esprit de corps and eventually 'Fucking New Guy' syndrome and burned out vets.
Better to pull units out of line and rebuild before rotating back into combat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_district_(Germany)
https://books.google.com/books?id=U...epage&q=german replacement system ww2&f=false
The US had a very different system in WW2 than the Germans did. German units were regional, so replacement were brought in from the same parts of Germany for the most part, so you'd have some cultural connection, while the US divisions brought in guys from all over the country and tossed them together. Also the Germans were supposed to have a system where in there was a 'march battalion' that rotated out officers and NCOs to a training unit attached to a division so that they could train up replacements brought in from the regional replacement army under the officers and NCOs they'd serve under in combat; that system broke down in the face of heavy losses, but there were major attempts to avoid the FNG syndrome that the US had no plan for. The US would even throw recovered wounded back into a general pool of manpower so they'd end up with whatever unit needed replacements, rather than the one they came from, with some exceptions like with the airborne divisions.
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-u-s-world-war-ii-troop-replacement-policy/

If I just had to guess on a number, I would say the Soviets would take 5-15% higher casualties in battles in order to win them. And very close losses by the Germans would be holds, not losses.
5-15% greater Soviet casualties from 1942 on (potentially sooner) just IOTL battles, not even accounting for butterfly situation like Operation Moorbrand and Nordlich, would be a substantially heavier set of losses that would have a vicious circle impact on Soviet operations over the course of the war.
 
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Also understand that military operations and civilian offroading are very different situations, with the former having a lot more heavy use with less chance of maintenance.

But the only difference between Civilian and Military production in US truck production were tires, bumpers with a winch, a MG mount, and OD paint.
There wasn't much difference between a Studebaker M5 of 1940 and a US6 of 1941
 
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