WI: Higher Soviet Losses following the Opening Stages of Operation Typhoon

On 2 October 1941, the next stage of the German invasion of the Soviet Union began with the objective of taking Moscow. At this point, Soviet units in the area no longer outnumbered the German units attacking them, and had just been defeated at Kiev after being encircled on 16 September.

After the opening stages of this offensive, about 90,000 men and 150 tanks were left to defend Moscow. My question is, can the Germans inflict more losses on the Soviets, and can they capitalize on these to take Moscow? Also, would the Germans be able to hold Moscow for any significant amount of time while being faced with Soviet units reinforced with Siberian divisions while at the end of their own supply line?

Also, we need to remember that weather is an issue as Winter is approaching and October of that year was particularly wet in Russia.
 
More than were taken in the Viazma and Bialystok pockets, you mean? No. If anything the Germans inflicted as many losses on the USSR around Moscow as it was humanly possible for them to do, and they never made the Soviets tap into the 250,000 soldiers they were building up behind the city IOTL. There's precious little that could go worse for the USSR by the fall of 1941 in any OTL Moscow scenario and rather more that could wind up favoring the Soviets.
 
Moralle

If Moscow falls, and word gets out, it could hurt Soviet moralle--and will certainly give the Germans a big bost!
 
While you could make some changes around the edges on an operational level there aren't going to be any more encirclements. The Germans simply don't have the logistics to pull it off at this point, the logistical strength gradient is massively against them. That said you could turn a few tactical level battles around and have the Germans inflict a few thousand more casualties pretty easily.
 
If Moscow falls everyone will know because the war will be over.

That's just not true. The Soviet Union is not France, if Moscow fall's Stalin may be in trouble but the Politburo will fight on and considering the logistics and balance of forces any Nazi occupation of Moscow would be extremely short lived. You can't butterfly away the fact that the Germans were a thousand miles away from their jumping off points in Poland, a thousand miles over a trashed transport net, a thousand miles of battles and attrition weakening and wearing down the Panzerkorps. In contrast the Soviets were retreating towards their industrial heartlands, the transport problems were getting easier and they were soon to throw the fresh, veteran Siberian Divisions into battle.
You can get a German occupation of Moscow. But Operation Typhoon isn't it. You either need an earlier focus on Moscow, probably during the planning stage of Barbarossa or a Spring '42 offensive.
 
Wouldn't a short occupation of Moscow still cause serious problems to the Soviets if the Germans manage to destroy a serious part of the city's infrastructure before being pushed back?
 
More than were taken in the Viazma and Bialystok pockets, you mean? No. If anything the Germans inflicted as many losses on the USSR around Moscow as it was humanly possible for them to do, and they never made the Soviets tap into the 250,000 soldiers they were building up behind the city IOTL. There's precious little that could go worse for the USSR by the fall of 1941 in any OTL Moscow scenario and rather more that could wind up favoring the Soviets.


Snake is correct, the German army's bolt was shot after the Briansk-Vyzama encirclements; the weather was against them, they where over 500 miles from their polish rail heads; many of the infantry divisions where short at least a regiments worth of men, many of the horses that where critical to moving supplies and artillery had been killed or died from exhaustion; and the tanks where simply worn out, they had driven (counting marching,counter marching, looping for encirclements etc) in many cases more than 1500 miles since June and serviceability had gone to complete shit; ditto for the LW
 
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