WI:1942 Guderian returns to command army group south

At the end of 1941, Guderian was fired; both due to long standing fueds with his commanding officers AND for making a nuisance out of himself/playing games with orders to the point that nobody wanted to deal with him anymore.

He sat out all of 1942, not only because he was in Hitler's doghouse (an example of this was that when Rommel went home on sick leave in '42 he asked for Guderian to take over the Panzer Army Africa, and Hitler refused saying he was unacceptable to be reinstated to active service)... AND because he had a number of heart and stomach ailments that required a considerable rest period

So lets say his stomach and heart problems flare up just after the Vzama-Bryansk encirclements are complete, and he is compelled to go home. This saves him the disgrace of failing before Moscow, and stops him from building up a lot of the bad blood that kept him off active service. Lets say he is able to take 6 months to recover so that by June he is healthy

Bock gets fired in July 1942 for disobeying orders and bickering with high command... in steps Guderian to take over army group south (for the purposes of the POD, A and B army groups are not created, but instead stay subordinate to Guderian's headquarters

what do we see different?
 

Satrap

Donor
Is Guderian capable of commanding an Army Group or is it a step too far? surely there are many better candidates, eg Manstein
 
Well, didn't alot of German generals die on the OstFront?

Perhaps without his memoirs, our ideas about the Wehrmacht will be completely different.
 
Is Guderian capable of commanding an Army Group or is it a step too far? surely there are many better candidates, eg Manstein

I suppose that is an unknown since he didn't get the opportunity... and Manstein was available since his offensive against Sevastopol was complete the week the before Bock was fired
 
The big question is to what degree Guderian would be free from Hitler whimsy. Assuming that at least initially he has a free rein I would see him using both Fourth Panzer Army and First Panzer Army in a double pincer meeting on the west bank of the Don near Svoboda. This would unfold too rapidly for the Russians to withdraw as they did OTL so I see it destroying the Russian 21st and 28th Armies and at least half of 40th Army. Guderian would resist the temptation of trying to take Voronezh. Now Voronezh Front's primary mission was to block a German thrust north (Stavka thought Moscow was the German objective) so I don't seeing them launching a full scale attack.

So far so good but after that I see some of OTL's problems emerging like logistics and vacillating priorities esp. about Stalingrad. Hitler will interfere eventually.
 
The big question is to what degree Guderian would be free from Hitler whimsy. Assuming that at least initially he has a free rein I would see him using both Fourth Panzer Army and First Panzer Army in a double pincer meeting on the west bank of the Don near Svoboda. This would unfold too rapidly for the Russians to withdraw as they did OTL so I see it destroying the Russian 21st and 28th Armies and at least half of 40th Army. Guderian would resist the temptation of trying to take Voronezh. Now Voronezh Front's primary mission was to block a German thrust north (Stavka thought Moscow was the German objective) so I don't seeing them launching a full scale attack.

So far so good but after that I see some of OTL's problems emerging like logistics and vacillating priorities esp. about Stalingrad. Hitler will interfere eventually.


Bock gets fired too late for some of the irrevocable decisions to be cancelled out (like sending the 4th panzer army to Rostov and playing with their left flank too long)... My idea was to have Guderian replace Bock at Army Group South in July 1942 instead of Hitler liquidating army group south and turning Army Group A and B into seperate commands directly answerable to him. Within the POD this is probably the earliest Guderian can come back to service

Hitler between the failure before Moscow and Stalingrad was at his second worst state in his life (the worst being after July 20th 1944)... he refused to listen to people, and was micromanaging the shit out of everything; so Case Blue suffered from an extraordinary lack of leadership and oversight...Hitler fired List from Army Group A and didn't even name a replacement so it became Hitler and Kleist commanding the army group in their spare time... an example of how difficult Hitler was to work with at this time paraphrased

Hitler: Why has army group A not taken the caucauses
Jodl: My fuhrer you ordered all their supporting air power to assist the assault on stalingrad and their two axis of attacks are separated by hundreds of miles, there are simply not enough divisions to cover their front
Hitler: What? Who gave those orders that doesn't make sense
Jodl: You did my fuhrer, here is a transcipt of your orders
Hitler: What that is bullshit, I'm firing List for not taking the caucauses and I'm firing you for using my own orders to contradict me you unGerman asshole

Admittedly Guderian was very politically astute and had a history of being able to either circumvent his orders, or run interfearance and make a pain in the ass of himself till he got what he wanted. The question is how much of his bullshit will Hitler put up with before he sacks him... I think this depends on if Guderian is able to avert the disaster at Stalingrad by launching crossings of the Volga to compel the Russians to withdraw from the city... as long as there is victory, Hitler might turn a blind eye to Guderian not exactly following orders (provided Guderian doesn't run his mouth too much) but if the army seriously bogs down, they are going to start feuding, fast (especially since Hitler was doing whole sale firings of staff officers at the end of 1942)
 
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