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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.
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.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.
And this was totally inadequate to supply the Sixth Army even in it's static condition.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.
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.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.
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.I'm not convinced. IIRC, they were given weekends and holidays off.
Incompetence isn't something you can fix by telling people to work harder.What you describe sounds to me like simple incompetence.
Then it begins with only the stocks for a force as quarter as powerful as the OTL.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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, replace them then. A force this big should have the necessary resources.
It is true.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?
Running on internal stocks, sure.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.
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.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.
It means whoever is carrying the supplies can just drive a similar distance southeast instead of an increasing distance due east.I also don't understand this whole "lateral advance" thing.
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?Well, it would have the whole month I mentioned earlier to catch up.
Not when they also stall out ahead of OTL.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.
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.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.
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.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?
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...