WI: A Different Barbarossa

According to Wikipedia, the Battle of Smolensk ended on August 5. I am proposing having Typhoon begin in early-mid September. This leaves, ITTL, over a month of a completely static front, during which to stockpile.

And the result of that excruciatingly slow and frequently interrupted stockpiling: enough for 17 divisions by late-August/early-September. Not enough for the rapid breakthrough and encirclement of the OTL Typhoon.

Also, did you read what I wrote? I outlined the possibility of Hitler specifically, in the context of his documented anger at the underestimation of the Soviet Union, having one of his flashes of insight, and acting on it against the wishes of the rest of the high command, which he sometimes did as you have pointed out on many occasions.
Those flashes of insight were not something that came out of nowhere: their results were of Hitler's survey and interpretation of the situation. Hitler's decision to attack towards Kiev was not based on his anger at the underestimation of the Soviet Union (which, in any case, was rather mollified by the fact that he himself shared in that underestimation) but on the fact that AGC had some wide-open flanks that serious Soviet forces were amassed on. Once those were cleaned up, he was a-okay with a full drive on Moscow. ITTL, the southern flank is at least cleared up (although the very premise of the idea is starting to look dubious, as I noted below) so he would be a-okay with an immediate advance on Moscow.

Fair enough. But I would just like to point out that quality matters as well as quantity. The Germans used so many different types of trucks, so many of which broke down so early due to either the terrain or a lack of spare parts that I would suggest the "real" number, in other words, those which were actually working and reliable, was probably far, far lower than the paper number, certainly by September. On the other hand, IIRC, the trucks provided to the Africa Corps were actually proper all-terrain vehicles made to military specifications, so while they may not look big as a percentage, I still think there would be a noticeable improvement if they were all given to a single army group.
Oh, no, Crevald deals with that too: the various foreign trucks constituted yet again half the motor pool with the other half being entirely domestic . But even among the dedicated German military vehicles (like the Opels) the daily loss rate was 2%. So even looking exclusively at those, throwing in Africa Korps covers less then two-days worth of losses. Not to mention that during October many of these trucks themselves spending a lot of time idling because the railroads weren't bringing in the supplies they need to haul.

Hell, even the September stockpiling wound-up getting delayed by more then a week because of some early autumn rains that caused heavy flooding and even a small foretaste of the raputitsa to come (by the way: an early-Typhoon will be blundering straight into the rains. Guess I should extend my estimate on how long it will take to break the first Vyazma-Bryansk line of defence by 8 days).

The German success depended on a correct balance between the advancement of the railways and the frontline. IOTL, this balance was achieved until October 1941, if accidentally so. ITTL, as with every "early-Typhoon" proposal without exception thus far, it is going to be thrown out of whack.

See above. I am still giving him over a month of a completely static front to replenish his losses, while not taking new ones like OTL, and stockpile supplies.
Which gives you enough for 17 divisions, not the 70 needed. You're expecting a force a quarter of the power of the OTL one to achieve the same results against even tougher resistance. Not going to happen.

It was, IIRC, able to deliver more than a hundred tons of supplies a day on average to the Sixth Army in the Stalingrad pocket, sometimes more than three hundred.
And this was totally inadequate to supply the Sixth Army even in it's static condition.

And this would obviously be under far easier circumstances of no enemy air opposition and no antiaircraft fire. It's not by itself going to make the advance's supplies perfect, but it's not nothing.
It pretty much is. The quantities of deliveries you are talking about, a couple of hundred there a few hundred here, are drops in the ocean compared to the demands. And then there is the cost: the supply of the aircraft themselves will mean diverting overland logistical assets, that is trucks and trains, to support them when it is likely more efficient to have those trucks and trains try to support the ground advance. Air resupply has always never been an adequate means of sustaining an advance except in the absence of any enemy resistance at all.

I'm not convinced. IIRC, they were given weekends and holidays off.
The civilian portions were, the military part kept working. Not going to change ITTL, really, since nothing in your PoD is changing the actual German attitude towards their logistics net, which is a systemic issue dating back decades.

What you describe sounds to me like simple incompetence.
Incompetence isn't something you can fix by telling people to work harder.

No, TTL Kiev will take somewhat longer than Smolensk, but not so long TTL Typhoon can't begin in early-mid September, as I have said.
Then it begins with only the stocks for a force as quarter as powerful as the OTL.

I thought you agreed that the Soviets might very well launch a counterattack, in which case, except for the initial contact, both sides will be attacking into each other.
There will be a counterattacking forces that move up from the tactical and operational reserves while the front line defenders bleed and slow the enemy and they'll do so after the enemies main thrusts have been identified. The entirety of the Soviet armies aren't just going to stand up and charge the moment they spot the Germans coming towards them.

In context, I obviously meant "I don't accept that TTL AGC will be so badly supplied that it won't be able to achieve Vyazma-Bryansk," not that it won't be badly supplied afterwards once it advanced farther east, which OTL it obviously was.
I have already provided all the numbers to back up supply estimates, additional Soviet strength without the losses of the El'nia offensive, and the catastrophe of supplies for the Germans all through the rest of autumn of 1941, and how trying to move faster will worsen those. In return you have countered those numbers with... pretty much nothing.

Well, replace them then. A force this big should have the necessary resources.
If it was that simple, don't you think the Germans would have done it OTL? The replacements simply didn't exist. The Germans didn't think they would need any and by the time they realized they were wrong and began, it was a bit too late. Their only was to start pulling that other 80-90% of personnel up front and giving them rifles. These people had little-to-no combat training and there was neither adequate time nor resources to give them any. It worked about as well as you'd expect. The infantry in particular were practically skeletons of their former selves by the time autumn started giving way to winter and they never really recovered for the rest of the war.

First of all, I'm making the basic factual claim that at the beginning of the Battle of Smolensk the railheads were probably west of Minsk. Is this true or not?
It is true.

Secondly, you said it, the German forces "linked up east of Smolensk." In other words, they linked up east of Smolensk when the railheads were probably west of Minsk.
Running on internal stocks, sure.

In addition, during the battle itself, the front may not have moved much, but while the fighting is still going on much more supplies are obviously being consumed than before or after.
Quite, and that consumption rendered them static. In the meantime, the railhead was moving up. Still, they subsisted through the entire battle pretty much hand-to-mouth. Had they attempted any notable advance due east, say towards Vyazma or Bryansk, they would have started bleeding... badly.

I also don't understand this whole "lateral advance" thing.
It means whoever is carrying the supplies can just drive a similar distance southeast instead of an increasing distance due east.

Well, it would have the whole month I mentioned earlier to catch up.
A single panzer corps achieving what an entire panzer army with a significant chunk of AGN's infantry in support couldn't do OTL? Why do you think Hitler sent Panzer Group 3 in August-September up to AGN? Hell, how is a single panzer corps supposed to achieve what the OTL panzer army did in June-July-August, much less OTL August-September?

I remember you posted repeatedly in other threads statistics of how incomplete Soviet industrial evacuation from Ukraine was when the Germans arrived. How "ten of sixteen" this and "eight of twelve" that was captured before they could be evacuated. Common sense dictates that if the Germans are ahead of OTL, they will disrupt the process more than OTL.
Not when they also stall out ahead of OTL.

They were able to upgrade Eastern Poland's rail net to the point that the force which was supplied from it wiped the one it was attacking off the face of the earth.
Except they didn't upgrade it at all, cancelling the program due to a lack of steel. It was still the same rail net in 1941 as it was in 1940 and 1939.

Seriously, is it not just obvious that a country which controls virtually the entirety of continental Europe, and all its major economic centers west of Russia has the resources necessary to upgrade a few railroads given almost a year's notice if it really wants to?
Prove it. Your the one claiming the Germans can do it, prove they can do it. Almost all of those continental economic centers outside of Germany had been reduced to basket cases as a consequence of German occupation and we're not talking about "a few railroads" but pretty much the entirety of the Hungarian and Romanian railnets from one end of the country to the other. At a time when they couldn't even upgrade half of the Polish railnetwork.

It's becoming increasingly clear that your chasing a phantom here.

Instead of throwing troops into the wasteland in the south, would the forces assigned to the OTL DAK not be of more use capturing Leningrad and it's tank factories? If that can be achieved then the Soviets loose access to the one tank which in 1941 the Germans had no answer to: KV1

Not enough road space. As it was, there were giant traffic jams which developed behind AGN's lines as panzer divisions, supply columns, and infantry formations also started tripping over each other once they were across the D'vina. Throwing in another corps of panzers and it's logistics tail will just screw that up worst and give the Soviets additional time to prep the defenses for Leningrad. At least that is one thing removing most of a panzer army will improve (although it does it by shifting all the burden onto AGS instead: more slow downs!) even if it comes at the cost of seriously neutering AGNs offensive combat power. Yet another Catch-22 for the Germans...
 

Andre27

Banned
Not enough road space. As it was, there were giant traffic jams which developed behind AGN's lines as panzer divisions, supply columns, and infantry formations also started tripping over each other once they were across the D'vina. Throwing in another corps of panzers and it's logistics tail will just screw that up worst and give the Soviets additional time to prep the defenses for Leningrad. At least that is one thing removing most of a panzer army will improve (although it does it by shifting all the burden onto AGS instead: more slow downs!) even if it comes at the cost of seriously neutering AGNs offensive combat power. Yet another Catch-22 for the Germans...

It may be a catch-22 and there may be insufficient road space, but in hindsight the capture of Leningrad would have paid off a lot more dividend than the wild goose chase in the south.

Improving the supply situation and taking the soviet navy out of the picture, not even mentioning that the capture of Leningrad closes the Kirov railway between Murmansk and Leningrad.

Diverting a panzer army south was IMO one of the gravest errors made.
 

Deleted member 1487

It may be a catch-22 and there may be insufficient road space, but in hindsight the capture of Leningrad would have paid off a lot more dividend than the wild goose chase in the south.

Improving the supply situation and taking the soviet navy out of the picture, not even mentioning that the capture of Leningrad closes the Kirov railway between Murmansk and Leningrad.

Diverting a panzer army south was IMO one of the gravest errors made.
There were plenty of unused roads in Lativa and Estonia that were left to the slow marching 18th army while the 4th Panzer army went to Pskov and into Russian territory toward Leningrad. Had they had an extra Panzer corps, especially a light one like Rommel had IOTL, then they could blitz right up into Estonia and capture the ports months early, finish off the Soviet 8th army, and pop up at Narva and go right to Sabsk where the Luga Line was breeched IOTL. There were no partisans in Estonia against the Germans, rather they were fighting the Soviets and secured German supply lines while helping them convert rail lines. It was a major missed opportunity to quickly clear the Baltics and get all the volunteer enthusiastic labor they wanted with no partisan harassment of supply lines in Estonia for at least 1 Panzer corps while the rest of 4th Panzer army moves up the hard way East of Pskov; by having the advance on both sides of Lake Peipus they can get all the benefits of having multiple roads so as not to burden supply lines and can appear at multiple points on the Luga Line to breach it, while clearing out the ports in Estonia to bring up supplies as well as starting converting the rail in Estonia and parts of Latvia months earlier (just using Baltic labor too, thus not burdening the overworked German teams).

http://www.allworldwars.com/Comments-on-Russian-Roads-and-Higways-by-Max-Bork.html
IOTL the Soviets were allowed time to demolish the Estonia rail lines due to the slow speed of advance by German foot infantry; having a fast moving Panzer units drive up Tartu via Riga would capture the lines before they could be systematically demolished and speed their use by the Germans.
http://www.estonica.org/en/History/...ld_War_II/German_invasion_of_Estonia_in_1941/
https://translate.googleusercontent...(1941)&usg=ALkJrhiFHPabPHDTjawl4oSGflQnUr5XoQ

estonia_pol99.jpg
 
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And the result of that excruciatingly slow and frequently interrupted stockpiling: enough for 17 divisions by late-August/early-September. Not enough for the rapid breakthrough and encirclement of the OTL Typhoon.

Guderian's advance south towards Kiev began on August 23. Let's say, because of the factors you've pointed out in the south, more capable Soviet resistance and somewhat worse terrain for maneuver, TTL Typhoon takes place around September 10-15, which I think is reasonable. The point I'm making, as far as the general capability of AGC to speed up the rate at which it can make itself capable of performing the Vyazma-Bryansk encirclements, is that for around a full two-three weeks its front will be a lot more static than OTL, because of not having to support Guderian's advance south into the teeth of fierce opposition and non-stop counterattacks or anything like it.

Those flashes of insight were not something that came out of nowhere: their results were of Hitler's survey and interpretation of the situation. Hitler's decision to attack towards Kiev was not based on his anger at the underestimation of the Soviet Union (which, in any case, was rather mollified by the fact that he himself shared in that underestimation) but on the fact that AGC had some wide-open flanks that serious Soviet forces were amassed on. Once those were cleaned up, he was a-okay with a full drive on Moscow. ITTL, the southern flank is at least cleared up (although the very premise of the idea is starting to look dubious, as I noted below) so he would be a-okay with an immediate advance on Moscow.

Um... yes? I have been saying throughout this thread that TTL Typhoon will commence as soon as possible after Kiev just like OTL.

Oh, no, Crevald deals with that too: the various foreign trucks constituted yet again half the motor pool with the other half being entirely domestic . But even among the dedicated German military vehicles (like the Opels) the daily loss rate was 2%. So even looking exclusively at those, throwing in Africa Korps covers less then two-days worth of losses. Not to mention that during October many of these trucks themselves spending a lot of time idling because the railroads weren't bringing in the supplies they need to haul.

Hell, even the September stockpiling wound-up getting delayed by more then a week because of some early autumn rains that caused heavy flooding and even a small foretaste of the raputitsa to come (by the way: an early-Typhoon will be blundering straight into the rains. Guess I should extend my estimate on how long it will take to break the first Vyazma-Bryansk line of defence by 8 days).

The German success depended on a correct balance between the advancement of the railways and the frontline. IOTL, this balance was achieved until October 1941, if accidentally so. ITTL, as with every "early-Typhoon" proposal without exception thus far, it is going to be thrown out of whack.

Okay, fair enough.

Which gives you enough for 17 divisions, not the 70 needed. You're expecting a force a quarter of the power of the OTL one to achieve the same results against even tougher resistance. Not going to happen.

What we're debating.

And this was totally inadequate to supply the Sixth Army even in it's static condition.

It pretty much is. The quantities of deliveries you are talking about, a couple of hundred there a few hundred here, are drops in the ocean compared to the demands. And then there is the cost: the supply of the aircraft themselves will mean diverting overland logistical assets, that is trucks and trains, to support them when it is likely more efficient to have those trucks and trains try to support the ground advance. Air resupply has always never been an adequate means of sustaining an advance except in the absence of any enemy resistance at all.

First of all, an effort to airlift supplies closer to the front like I'm suggesting wouldn't take place under anywhere near the difficult circumstances of the Stalingrad airlift, so would probably be able to deliver on average a lot more. Second, I'm not proposing having this be the only or even the main source of supplies for TTL Typhoon, just that it could help out somewhat. Third, IIRC, three hundred tons, which was sometimes met, was the Sixth Army's minimum daily requirement, and it of course was a whole lot larger than the average army. And in general, if the supplies delivered by the airlift had been "nothing," Paulus's forces would have collapsed a lot earlier.

The civilian portions were, the military part kept working. Not going to change ITTL, really, since nothing in your PoD is changing the actual German attitude towards their logistics net, which is a systemic issue dating back decades.

This is so simple. If someone is working on a project of which the deadline is far off, and they do a little each day (OTL Typhoon) as opposed to doing nothing and then rushing at the end, the amount of work that person is going to put in on any average day is going to be a lot less than if the deadline is much closer, (TTL Typhoon) whatever his or her general "attitude" towards the project.

Incompetence isn't something you can fix by telling people to work harder.

The kind of utterly grotesque incompetence and failure to perform basic tasks-which could easily be carried out with the available resources if the work were just a little more organized-which you described sounds to me like exactly the kind of thing that could be rectified with a little more supervision.

Then it begins with only the stocks for a force as quarter as powerful as the OTL.

What we're debating.

There will be a counterattacking forces that move up from the tactical and operational reserves while the front line defenders bleed and slow the enemy and they'll do so after the enemies main thrusts have been identified. The entirety of the Soviet armies aren't just going to stand up and charge the moment they spot the Germans coming towards them.

Just standing up and charging is a good description of what they did during their Smolensk counteroffensive.

I have already provided all the numbers to back up supply estimates, additional Soviet strength without the losses of the El'nia offensive, and the catastrophe of supplies for the Germans all through the rest of autumn of 1941, and how trying to move faster will worsen those. In return you have countered those numbers with... pretty much nothing.

See above. I would also like to point out one other thing-IOTL Stalin was very attached to Kiev and absolutely refused to let go of it even as the jaws of the encirclement snapped shut on the S-W Front. In essence, he sacrificed an entire front, one of the largest, best-trained and best-equipped the Soviet Union had, and much valuable territory to its east, rather than let the city fall earlier. I find it very possible, perhaps even likely, that he would do something similarly stupid ITTL, now that Kiev is falling even faster, such as an even more hasty counterattack to try to prevent its fall, or a transfer of forces from AGC's sector in a failing attempt to forestall the inevitable, or maybe even another purge.

If it was that simple, don't you think the Germans would have done it OTL? The replacements simply didn't exist. The Germans didn't think they would need any and by the time they realized they were wrong and began, it was a bit too late. Their only was to start pulling that other 80-90% of personnel up front and giving them rifles. These people had little-to-no combat training and there was neither adequate time nor resources to give them any. It worked about as well as you'd expect. The infantry in particular were practically skeletons of their former selves by the time autumn started giving way to winter and they never really recovered for the rest of the war.

Well, as you said, despite its heavy losses, by far the more important reason AGC lost its power to attack was its supply problems, which is what we're debating here.

Running on internal stocks, sure.

Quite, and that consumption rendered them static. In the meantime, the railhead was moving up. Still, they subsisted through the entire battle pretty much hand-to-mouth. Had they attempted any notable advance due east, say towards Vyazma or Bryansk, they would have started bleeding... badly.

And, as I have outlined above, they will have over a month of complete, battle-free quiet, substantially quieter than OTL, to rest their losses and replenish their stockpiles. Maybe even longer if, as I speculated above, Stalin decides to devote forces to trying to prevent the loss of Kiev which were devoted to the Battle of Smolensk OTL.

It means whoever is carrying the supplies can just drive a similar distance southeast instead of an increasing distance due east.

I get that, but what I still don't see is how, if the total distance, first either east and then south or north or just strait east the whole time is the same, the former is possible but the latter is not. Actually, given that, IIRC, the roads strait east toward Moscow were in somewhat better condition than those elsewhere, I would think the latter would if anything be somewhat easier.

A single panzer corps achieving what an entire panzer army with a significant chunk of AGN's infantry in support couldn't do OTL? Why do you think Hitler sent Panzer Group 3 in August-September up to AGN? Hell, how is a single panzer corps supposed to achieve what the OTL panzer army did in June-July-August, much less OTL August-September?

Did you read the OP? ITTL AGN is intended to act mainly as a flank guard for AGC. It doesn't need to do what it did historically and isn't expected to.

Not when they also stall out ahead of OTL.

Which they won't. They'll stall sooner in time because they're advancing farther, faster, but not in distance. Besides, a swifter advance at the outset will probably mean a notably less thorough scorched-earth policy by the USSR, and this being Ukraine, more food will probably be captured.

Except they didn't upgrade it at all, cancelling the program due to a lack of steel. It was still the same rail net in 1941 as it was in 1940 and 1939.

Prove it. Your the one claiming the Germans can do it, prove they can do it. Almost all of those continental economic centers outside of Germany had been reduced to basket cases as a consequence of German occupation and we're not talking about "a few railroads" but pretty much the entirety of the Hungarian and Romanian railnets from one end of the country to the other. At a time when they couldn't even upgrade half of the Polish railnetwork.

It's becoming increasingly clear that your chasing a phantom here.

Well, let's look at their work with the rail network in Belarus and western Russia OTL. In the three months of July, August, and September it was upgraded to the point where it could sustain an attack by 70 divisions (more than TTL AGS) to the suburbs of Moscow. They'll have more than double the time to perform similar work in Romania and Hungary-September, October, November, and December of 1940, and January, February, March, April, May, and most of June of 1941.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Well, let's look at their work with the rail network in Belarus and western Russia OTL. In the three months of July, August, and September it was upgraded to the point where it could sustain an attack by 70 divisions (more than TTL AGS) to the suburbs of Moscow. They'll have more than double the time to perform similar work in Romania and Hungary-September, October, November, and December of 1940, and January, February, March, April, May, and most of June of 1941.
A few threads that may help your discussion:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=203286
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=205277
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=214721
 
Hope people don't mind me asking this again, but for anyone willing for the sake of argument to put aside, for the moment, this interesting debate between me and ON and assume my premises are correct-how would the Soviet counteroffensive go with the Germans having two-three extra weeks vs OTL to dig in at their high-water mark near Moscow? What would the effect on the Soviet economy be if what they evacuated from Ukraine is reduced by, say, a third or a half?
 

Andre27

Banned
So the question is "How would the soviet counter offensive in 1941 go if the Germans had 3 more weeks to dig in and prepare".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow#Final_pincer

Going from the wiki the soviets had only a small advantage in manpower with a 2-1 advantage in critical areas.

Germany OTL suffered, according to Guderian, more losses from the cold than from combat.

This raises the question that if Germany had more time to prepare and get their supply disaster in order what would have been the impact.

Would an additional 3 weeks have been sufficient to get supplies straitened out?

Assuming this is true and the Germans get things sorted in time, i believe there is a real possibility that the soviet counter offensive had been a massive failure due to the problems which plagued the soviet army at that time. Lack of communication, lack of training, lack of overwhelming manpower.

Would Germany in your scenario have pulled back to the west of the Oka river to shorten the front-line?
 
Guderian's advance south towards Kiev began on August 23. Let's say, because of the factors you've pointed out in the south, more capable Soviet resistance and somewhat worse terrain for maneuver, TTL Typhoon takes place around September 10-15, which I think is reasonable. The point I'm making, as far as the general capability of AGC to speed up the rate at which it can make itself capable of performing the Vyazma-Bryansk encirclements, is that for around a full two-three weeks its front will be a lot more static than OTL, because of not having to support Guderian's advance south into the teeth of fierce opposition and non-stop counterattacks or anything like it.



Um... yes? I have been saying throughout this thread that TTL Typhoon will commence as soon as possible after Kiev just like OTL.



Okay, fair enough.



What we're debating.



First of all, an effort to airlift supplies closer to the front like I'm suggesting wouldn't take place under anywhere near the difficult circumstances of the Stalingrad airlift, so would probably be able to deliver on average a lot more. Second, I'm not proposing having this be the only or even the main source of supplies for TTL Typhoon, just that it could help out somewhat. Third, IIRC, three hundred tons, which was sometimes met, was the Sixth Army's minimum daily requirement, and it of course was a whole lot larger than the average army. And in general, if the supplies delivered by the airlift had been "nothing," Paulus's forces would have collapsed a lot earlier.



This is so simple. If someone is working on a project of which the deadline is far off, and they do a little each day (OTL Typhoon) as opposed to doing nothing and then rushing at the end, the amount of work that person is going to put in on any average day is going to be a lot less than if the deadline is much closer, (TTL Typhoon) whatever his or her general "attitude" towards the project.



The kind of utterly grotesque incompetence and failure to perform basic tasks-which could easily be carried out with the available resources if the work were just a little more organized-which you described sounds to me like exactly the kind of thing that could be rectified with a little more supervision.



What we're debating.



Just standing up and charging is a good description of what they did during their Smolensk counteroffensive.



See above. I would also like to point out one other thing-IOTL Stalin was very attached to Kiev and absolutely refused to let go of it even as the jaws of the encirclement snapped shut on the S-W Front. In essence, he sacrificed an entire front, one of the largest, best-trained and best-equipped the Soviet Union had, and much valuable territory to its east, rather than let the city fall earlier. I find it very possible, perhaps even likely, that he would do something similarly stupid ITTL, now that Kiev is falling even faster, such as an even more hasty counterattack to try to prevent its fall, or a transfer of forces from AGC's sector in a failing attempt to forestall the inevitable, or maybe even another purge.



Well, as you said, despite its heavy losses, by far the more important reason AGC lost its power to attack was its supply problems, which is what we're debating here.



And, as I have outlined above, they will have over a month of complete, battle-free quiet, substantially quieter than OTL, to rest their losses and replenish their stockpiles. Maybe even longer if, as I speculated above, Stalin decides to devote forces to trying to prevent the loss of Kiev which were devoted to the Battle of Smolensk OTL.



I get that, but what I still don't see is how, if the total distance, first either east and then south or north or just strait east the whole time is the same, the former is possible but the latter is not. Actually, given that, IIRC, the roads strait east toward Moscow were in somewhat better condition than those elsewhere, I would think the latter would if anything be somewhat easier.



Did you read the OP? ITTL AGN is intended to act mainly as a flank guard for AGC. It doesn't need to do what it did historically and isn't expected to.



Which they won't. They'll stall sooner in time because they're advancing farther, faster, but not in distance. Besides, a swifter advance at the outset will probably mean a notably less thorough scorched-earth policy by the USSR, and this being Ukraine, more food will probably be captured.



Well, let's look at their work with the rail network in Belarus and western Russia OTL. In the three months of July, August, and September it was upgraded to the point where it could sustain an attack by 70 divisions (more than TTL AGS) to the suburbs of Moscow. They'll have more than double the time to perform similar work in Romania and Hungary-September, October, November, and December of 1940, and January, February, March, April, May, and most of June of 1941.

Pretty much the Halder - Jodl compromise plan. With an earlier start to Typhoon as Hlder wanted I can see the logistics being put into place to allow for this plan to b implementd. This time however the Wehrmacht either does not do Kiev at all or does something far less ambitios since this is now a secondary option. This likely results in an over extended German salient. particularly vulnerable on the right flank. I can see the Wehrmacht getting to Moscow and fighting their way into the city before the mud season and winter. Then it starts going horribly wrong. I agree with obsessednuker in that the German supply system will collapse but it won't collapse before the AGC is fighting its way into Moscow which becomes in all probability a Stalingrad like battle where, because of the shortage f infantry divisions required to defend the long flanks, the Panzer Divisions are used insead, much as happened the next year at Stalingrad. This of course is a role for which the Panzer Divisions are unsuited.

The thread assumes that the Afrika Korps is not deployed to Libya which gives the Germans another couple of Panzer Divisions which could be of some use as a mobile reserve It probably won't be enough to prevent a magor defeat of AGC over the winter of 1941/2 but the extra divisions may be of some use in damage limitation.

Although I can see in earlier Typhoon getting to Moscow and though th Germans likely could fight their way into the city it is too late in the year, the forces available and the logistics will not support a succesful capture of the city if the Red Army, as they must, choose to fight for the place. And this is where the old Wehrmacht dies much as it arguably did in IOTL
 
This has been discussed innumerable times on this forum and even obliquely here: the consensus is that it would fail catastrophically. The logistics for a successful thrust on the Moscow axis did not exist yet. The Soviet forces guarding the Moscow axis had not yet expended themselves in some fruitless (if nearly successful) counter-offensives to try and avert the Kiev encirclement. At the same time the destruction of the Southwest and Southern Fronts permitted the capture of Orel-Kharkov and Donbass industrial regions, all of which cost the Soviets massively in both military and economic terms.

The two things which dictated the German advance in Barbarossa were logistics and Soviet resistance. In August/September of 1941, neither would permit a successful German assault on Moscow. Instead, it would likely have ensured the Soviets could turn the war decisively in their favor during the winter of '41/'42. From a military standpoint, Hitler made the right call.


Hmmmmm, a very successful thus far advance stops and shifts axis hundreds of miles and then resumes weeks later. Can't see how giving up that summer campaigning weather on the way to Moscow could possibly be a good thing.
 

Deleted member 1487

Another interesting option is perhaps using the 7th flieger division for a paradrop behind Soviet lines on the highway to Moscow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_P...on_of_Soviet_Union_.28Operation_Barbarossa.29
It had recovered by September and would have been highly helpful to have drop behind Soviet lines astride their supply lines at Mozhiask. That would potentially disrupt Soviet reinforcements and supplies coming in to block the 2nd SS and 10th Panzer kampfgruppe that pushed on that route in October.
 
So the question is "How would the soviet counter offensive in 1941 go if the Germans had 3 more weeks to dig in and prepare".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow#Final_pincer

Going from the wiki the soviets had only a small advantage in manpower with a 2-1 advantage in critical areas.

Germany OTL suffered, according to Guderian, more losses from the cold than from combat.

This raises the question that if Germany had more time to prepare and get their supply disaster in order what would have been the impact.

Would an additional 3 weeks have been sufficient to get supplies straitened out?

Assuming this is true and the Germans get things sorted in time, i believe there is a real possibility that the soviet counter offensive had been a massive failure due to the problems which plagued the soviet army at that time. Lack of communication, lack of training, lack of overwhelming manpower.

Would Germany in your scenario have pulled back to the west of the Oka river to shorten the front-line?

A pull-back would undoubtedly be the smart thing to do, but I don't see the Germans doing it. They weren't aware of the Soviet counteroffensive before it hit, and they wanted to retain their positions as close to Moscow as possible for 1942.

Pretty much the Halder - Jodl compromise plan. With an earlier start to Typhoon as Hlder wanted I can see the logistics being put into place to allow for this plan to b implementd. This time however the Wehrmacht either does not do Kiev at all or does something far less ambitios since this is now a secondary option. This likely results in an over extended German salient. particularly vulnerable on the right flank. I can see the Wehrmacht getting to Moscow and fighting their way into the city before the mud season and winter. Then it starts going horribly wrong. I agree with obsessednuker in that the German supply system will collapse but it won't collapse before the AGC is fighting its way into Moscow which becomes in all probability a Stalingrad like battle where, because of the shortage f infantry divisions required to defend the long flanks, the Panzer Divisions are used insead, much as happened the next year at Stalingrad. This of course is a role for which the Panzer Divisions are unsuited.

The thread assumes that the Afrika Korps is not deployed to Libya which gives the Germans another couple of Panzer Divisions which could be of some use as a mobile reserve It probably won't be enough to prevent a magor defeat of AGC over the winter of 1941/2 but the extra divisions may be of some use in damage limitation.

Although I can see in earlier Typhoon getting to Moscow and though th Germans likely could fight their way into the city it is too late in the year, the forces available and the logistics will not support a succesful capture of the city if the Red Army, as they must, choose to fight for the place. And this is where the old Wehrmacht dies much as it arguably did in IOTL

This is not the Halder-Jodl compromise plan. As the OP specifies, I have given AGS and extra panzer army at the outset of the invasion which will attack out of Romania into the rear of the S-W Front. That being the case, AGS will be able to keep up with AGC much more than OTL, and Kiev will fall around the same time as Smolensk OTL or a little later. This means that TTL Typhoon will have exactly the same strength as OTL Typhoon, as will AGS's advance to Rostov.


Hmmmmm, a very successful thus far advance stops and shifts axis hundreds of miles and then resumes weeks later. Can't see how giving up that summer campaigning weather on the way to Moscow could possibly be a good thing.

Well, while I obviously disagree with him regarding the extent of AGC's supply problems ITTL, ON does have a point about the need for some kind of pause to rest and replenish depleted supplies.

Another interesting option is perhaps using the 7th flieger division for a paradrop behind Soviet lines on the highway to Moscow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_P...on_of_Soviet_Union_.28Operation_Barbarossa.29
It had recovered by September and would have been highly helpful to have drop behind Soviet lines astride their supply lines at Mozhiask. That would potentially disrupt Soviet reinforcements and supplies coming in to block the 2nd SS and 10th Panzer kampfgruppe that pushed on that route in October.

That does sound interesting. Why didn't they do it OTL?
 
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Deleted member 1487

That does sound interesting. Why didn't they do it OTL?
Lack of ground forces and needing it to stay in the Leningrad perimeter. If they don't push all the way up to Leningrad they should be able to keep it free to use for drops. I'm not sure if there was a shortage of Ju52s after Crete and supply ops during Barbarossa though.
 
A pull-back would undoubtedly be the smart thing to do, but I don't see the Germans doing it. They weren't aware of the Soviet counteroffensive before it hit, and they wanted to retain their positions as close to Moscow as possible for 1942.



This is not the Halder-Jodl compromise plan. As the OP specifies, I have given AGS and extra panzer army at the outset of the invasion which will attack out of Romania into the rear of the S-W Front. That being the case, AGS will be able to keep up with AGC much more than OTL, and Kiev will fall around the same time as Smolensk OTL or a little later. This means that TTL Typhoon will have exactly the same strength as OTL Typhoon, as will AGS's advance to Rostov.


QUOTE]

Kiev was strongly defended IOTL but an extra Panzer Army Panzergruppe Rommel?) will certainly help. Assuming Kiev falls in August/early September AGS still has to protect the southern flank of AGC which is easier said than done. And you must remember that extra Panzer Army is still going to be suffering high casualties as was the case with all Wehrmacht units during the 1941 campaign. It would be better if AGS does not try for Rostov but instead advanceson an axis aligned to protect the flank of Operation Typhoon. That will still be strongly opposed,
 
Kiev was strongly defended IOTL but an extra Panzer Army Panzergruppe Rommel?) will certainly help. Assuming Kiev falls in August/early September AGS still has to protect the southern flank of AGC which is easier said than done. And you must remember that extra Panzer Army is still going to be suffering high casualties as was the case with all Wehrmacht units during the 1941 campaign. It would be better if AGS does not try for Rostov but instead advanceson an axis aligned to protect the flank of Operation Typhoon. That will still be strongly opposed,

The extra panzer army will take heavy casualties as per OTL, but no more than OTL, meaning Typhoon will still have the same strength. In addition, Soviet opposition will be reduced since the bulk of the S-W Front will be destroyed near the border. Perhaps not trying for Rostov would be a better idea, but I don't see the Germans being willing to cancel it. It also must be kept in mind that taking the major industrial regions of Ukraine faster than OTL is a goal of this scenario.
 
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