WI: No Battle of Moscow?

[BlondieBC]

So what if Hitler had decided not to attack Moscow in 1941.?

Depends on the other half of POD, which is what else does Hitler order. We likely see a series of battles where the Soviets attack Hitler near to the German rail heads. The loss ratios will be much better for the Germans compared to Soviet, even though Soviet dead may be higher or lower than OTL. I can't really quantify easily, but lets assume for discussion purposed the Soviet losses are the same, then we are looking at a few extra German corps up to strength in Spring 1942.

Now Hitler can squander the men on pointless task or he can accomplish useful stuff. Likely useful stuff is fall of Leningrad (allows better sea transport, frees up occupying forces) and more forces in Med or North Africa. Something as small as a few 10's of extra LW hunting for ships could have big impacts on loss rates of supplies.

Then come Summer 42. It should go better for Germans since stronger relative to Soviets. And now we likely get what is effectively the second POD which is butterflying away the loss of an Army at Stalingrad. If you role 1 on dice and get a reroll, it should go better. And summer 42 here may look nothing like OTL since Hitler is clearly making decisions in a different way (dead, healthier mind, different advisor, etc), and he might do something like go for Moscow. Or even skip the 1942 offensive season.

But this is likely not enough to win the war. Somewhere between late summer 43 and summer 44, we should see the Soviets become dominant.

 

[BlondieBC]

In this insane invasion of the USSR, the 'sane' strategy would have been to straighten the lines after Smolensk. The area around Moscow is not the best for Blitzkrieg. Southern Russia was. What they should have done, in my small opinion, instead of going after Moscow, was to knock out Leningrad and the northern ports (Murmansk and Archangelesk). At THIS particular point in the war, these ports were one of the main points where Lend Lease was coming in. The Axis could have siezed a crap load of supplies too.

They also 'potentially' could have hurt Moscow in a big way by following through with Operation Eisenhammer.

Just my 2 cents worth...

It was a mere miles extra to shut the link to Leningrad. Not so sure they can easily shutdown the arctic ports.

 

[BlondieBC]

I think they would have a better than even chance. When frozen the marshy ground of that area should be less of a problem for the panzers which would have good infantry support.

Where it gets tricky is that if Leningrad does try to surrender. Hitler, Goering et. al. wanted Leningrad's population greatly reduced (there is an interesting discussion of this in Clark's book). They might instruct Leeb to wait a long time before accepting the surrender to start the process. There is then a chance that devoutly Catholic Leeb might ignore this order and accept the surrender. What happens next should be interesting.

It would not be terribly tricky. If we look at calories and from the Soviet perspective, it is a much darker picture. The key part is not the assault of Leningrad, but Russia regaining some rail junctions east of the lakes that the Germans held. If the Germans hold these, which is likely with extra forces given to the command, then Leningrad remains isolated from food. IOTL the daily ration was very low (seems like under 500 calories per day), there was not any food reserves, and people had burned through their body fat. Just a few more weeks (say 6) of holding the rail junctions, and we see at least half the people who live IOTL in Leningrad die. So the likely spillover effect is a mostly starved city that falls easily to the Germans. Sure the initial resistance may be strong, but it will just fall apart at some point, even without a major German attack.

 

[Julian]

A major offensive operation in the Leningrad region would require AGN to overcome enormous terrain and logistic, and stronger than OTL Soviet resistance. STAVKA careful fed its reserves into the Lenigrad region because it correctly estimated that the German offensive lacked the offensive power and logistics to advance further than Tikhvin. If the whole of 4th Panzer Army is committed, Soviet resistance will be noticeably stronger. The rasputitsa and terrain will delay an immediate advance in September, giving the Red Army time to build up forces in the region.

It's difficult to see a way for the Germans to overcome such difficulties, especially considering that their forces in the Leningrad region were already exhausted, while fresh Soviet forces were still available.

As to Eisenhamner, it was an incredibly unrealistic plan which overestimated the effectiveness of German bombers, underestimated how quickly the Soviets repair damage, and the amount if damage that could be achieved even if the power stations were damaged. Not even close to a panacea.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

The Germans cannot conveniently huddle around their railheads and slaughter the Slavic hordes.
For Hordes there will be.
They (the Fascist aggressor) have to provide a fairly extensive lateral security against a numerically superior enemy with better transport links who much faster than the Germans can dig in will be able to complete the Rzhev and Mozhaisk defensive lines and economize on force.
The winter/autumn attacks by the Soviets are likely to be a combination of cavalry mechanised groups making significant ( 100 km) penetrations of a thinly held line (a lot of the german rifle units are already at 50% or worse ) in order to constrict of cut off major german formations followed by a series of attacks aimed and overwhelming operational reserves to allow more mobile forces to penetrate deep into the German rear area isolating and annihilating the shattered enemy. Won't work mind.
By end of q3 41 the Germans have lost 550k casualties. The Russians 2.7m
Q4 OTL the Germans lost 279k casualties and the Russians 1.5m however this scenario butterflies away the Bryansk/Vyazma pockets
(600k Russian casualties ~53k German and that's all of AGC BTW) without the pocket +70k German casualties on a 41 normal Soviet performance although in the initial Soviet attacks the rate would be much better for the USSR. The high german numbers in the early years from being on the wrong end of encirclements.
Adolf has spotted the Red army 95 divisions, 13 tank brigades and 62 artillery regiments they did not otherwise have or roughly double the force the OTL counterattack used.
Way to go Adolf.

 

[Somua2]

An Offensive Defense

As with any other sort of "reign-in-the-advance" scheme when it comes to fighting the USSR, not continuing the advance results in the strategic advantage shifting towards the USSR faster then IOTL. Yes, the Russians will likely launch a winter offensive and said winter offensives will likely fail rather more so then IOTL, however that is entirely offset by the fact that the Soviets will still have military and industrial assets that Operation Typhoon denied to them IOTL and will undoubtedly retain said assets throughout the winter. This means the Red Army come 1942 will be in a much better shape then IOTL while the Germans are (at best) only in a marginally better shape. Thus, the overall result is a net gain for the Soviets.

I think the key for the center would have been to concentrate on depleting the Russian army. Major encirclements and destruction of troops and infrastructure followed by withdrawl to the planned and the ever more adequately supplied winter line during times of relatively good weather.

I realize that withdrawls are difficult and dangerous. However not so much where the Russian lines have been shattered and initial forces destroyed.