WI: The Fuhrer demands more trucks!

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Then it is useless because attitudes shifted and changed during the entire period and trying to present what Bock said and did at this one point as affecting this other, widely separated point.

So you have a source which says he didn't believe the same thing earlier?

Yeah, he is. Since we're discussing the Vyazma encirclement and not the Bryansk one here, given that we already settled that.

Since Glantz states the Soviet forces in front of Moscow in September were stronger than in October, the alt-Vyazma might catch more prisoners, which is probably what he is referring to. Nor does he say it certainly would.

2012 actually, going by the back cover stuff.

All that means is that your copy was printed later. Type in "Barbarossa Derailed" into Google and it clearly comes up as "Originally published: 2010."

But you fail to provide the full context. I pointed out that by weakening the German position and enhancing their own, as well as being able to build-up adequate supplies, the Germans enhanced their own position and weakened the Soviets. Therefore, they enhanced their position and by extension their capability of taking Moscow, over the Soviets.

Lost time means little if the time could not be productively used otherwise and he doesn't call the Leningrad diversion useless.

And as I pointed out, Glantz's assessment doesn't go so far, concluding that claims that the Kiev encirclement produced positive results for the Soviet Union are "True in part." Saying that the battle "in no way diminished German hopes for success" is not the same as saying they increased them.

I also did say earlier that I agree on balance the Kiev operation was superior.

Yes, the quote is saying the amount shipped is equal to the standard loads of rations, ammunition, and fuel. It does nothing to state that rations were actually in the amount shipped. Do pay attention.

From page 141. "The actual daily requirement of the Fourth Army's two panzer groups was 2,000 tons of ammunition or four trains, 4,000 tons of POL or eight trains, and 450 tons of rations or one train..."

It's pretty clear that he still believes that the Soviets would be able to mount the counter-offensive in 1941 in Barbarossa Derailed. So that is consistent and thus there is good reason to believe in both cases.

Fair enough. It's not an all-or-nothing issue though, that a counteroffensive would still be possible doesn't mean it wouldn't be hindered by the loss of such an important locality.

Both Martin Van Crewald and David Stahel go into the logistical side of Barbarossa quite extensively in their respective books. If you bother to read them and learn about the subject, as opposed to just selectively quotemining them for debates without actually deepening your understanding of the subject, you'll learn that logistics is a major task which requires considerable planning, forethought, and care. Beyond that there is pretty basic knowledge: you don't build, or rebuild as the case may be, railroads on a whim. Rail conversion and repair is fundamentally a major construction task and you don't ad-hoc major construction tasks. I guess you might not like that as a source and try to reject it, and your free too do so... but reality is that which when you cease to believe in it does not go away.

You made the specific claim "The Germans priorities in rail conversion had already been set long before the Kiev encirclement became a thing," it's up to you to support it rather than saying it's so obvious that I should just agree it's obviously true. If it's so true, you should have no trouble finding quotes to support it.

But which would be utilized to organize the assault against AGC's southern flank.

Which basically means the Soviet rail system is not fairing any worse then OTL, as that is what is required for those series of offensives and counteroffensives.

So the Soviet rail system was on the verge of collapse in OTL?

If he could see them in general, then certainly he could see them for the Sickle Cut plan.

So you have no examples of Hitler imposing limiting ideas in the planning then...

Manstein was the one who briefed and convinced Hitler, not Halder.

Looking through the footnotes to The Myth and Reality of German Warfare, it appears the reference to Halder being the one who introduced Hitler to the concept was a simple misprint and it should have read Manstein, so I obviously concede there. The point about Halder having come to support the plan independently stands though. As far as Hitler's ideas, yes Frieser's analysis does rely on an examination of Hitler's actions, as he says "Just how little Hitler understood the idea behind the Sickle Cut will be described in detail in the analysis of the operation itself," I don't see why this makes the analysis inherently implausible.

A little private grumbling following some rather discouraging reports was characteristic of the German Army. But throughout the actual planning conferences Halder showed a zero doubts about the strategic rationale and outcome to subordinates, superiors, and equals alike both in public and private. So too did the rest of the plotters, this stemmed from confidence in their likelihood of victory and reluctance to reprise the role of doubters they had with Manstein's plan.

Halder didn't show doubts that the USSR could likely be defeated easily. That's not the same thing as actively agreeing with the strategic rationale, which the quote indicates he actually didn't.

Ultimately it becomes a distinction without difference. Not disagreeing with it is no different then agreeing with it. And both still represent a failure of strategic understanding.

There is a difference, in that you have been arguing that they did actually come to enthusiastic agreement. In other words, you believe that if an ASB had turned Germany into a military junta led by Halder sometime before the decision for the eastern war became practically irrevocable, it would still have gone ahead, whereas I believe it wouldn't have.

So basically no evidence the quote is right either, which renders it useless.

It appears in a serious history book which includes citations. That it doesn't appear in other sources which can be easily found with a few Google searches is not evidence that it is wrong, it just means that the party is a relatively obscure event few people have looked into.

Except it does not state that he made that objective for his Army Group, it states he made it the objective for a specific attack by a specific segment of his army group. No where in there is a statement that he abandoned the hopes of taking Moscow or reaching the Kolomna-Orekhovo-Zagorsk-Dmitrov. Furthermore when, 10 days later, it became apparent even to him that the offensive was failing and he wrote to his superiors that the objectives could not be achieved, he continued with the attack anyway despite the fact you have acknowledged he would have been acting within his authority to call it off. As I said earlier, actions speak louder then words.

So on the whole, what Bock actually did remains inconsistent with the Fritz account.

Bock stated that he could reach the Kolomna-Orekhovo-Zagorsk-Dmitrov line "IF THE PREVIOUS NUMBER OF TRAINS IS AUTHORIZED." It is totally obvious that he meant this as a condition for successfully reaching the line and that it couldn't be reached without the supplies he requested. There is no evidence that he set any objectives beyond the river-canal line, except in the general sense that the offensive could be resumed at the future point at which the supply situation improved.

And Hitler had disagreed with it the 1942-43 plan when it was first drawn up. He had already written in 1936 to the economists that the country had to be ready for war within the next 4 years (Tooze talks about this) and in February 1937 had told his generals that the issue of Lebensraum (basically meaning that France and, if necessary, Britain had to be subdued and the Soviet Union to have been conquered) had to be settled by 1943 at the earliest and 1945 at the latest.

So Hitler said the war was to be brought to a successful conclusion in the 1943-45 timeframe, and this is inconsistent with a projected start date in 1942-43 how?

In that latter memorandum, "Hitler was counting on support from his advisers. Their response must have been a shock and a disappointment. In the discussion that followed the Fuhrer's monologue, Blomberg (Wehrmacht Commander in Chief) and Fritsch (Army Commander in Chief) raised serious objections to his plans. They were not moral objections... What disturbed the generals was the possibility that Germany might become embroiled in a war with France and Britain before the Wehrmacht was ready. They disagreed with many specific points of Hitler's analysis, and they cautioned him against moving too quickly."-Megargee, "Inside Hitler's High Command," p.38

Hitler recognized the issue of timing was paramount. His generals don't even appear to have recognized it was an issue at all.

"What disturbed the generals was the possibility that Germany might become embroiled in a war with France and Britain before the Wehrmacht was ready." How exactly does this shows them not caring about timing?

Yeah. And? They were quite welcome of the opportunity to crush Poland, but they were more nervous about fighting Britain and France. That they failed to recognize that fighting Poland would mean fighting Britain and France is just more indication of their failure to recognize Germany's strategic position.

"They welcomed war with Poland, despite the certainty of conflict with Britain and France" means they were in no doubt that war with Poland was the same as war with the Anglo-French.

It was basically a repeat as their attitude over the prospect of war with Czechoslovakia.

The exact opposite, actually. Their objection to war with Czechoslovakia was precisely because it could involve the Anglo-French as well. Your own quote indicates that their views the next year were quite different.

Cute, but the timing is pretty clear. The scheduling of the meeting where Manstein briefed Hitler on the plan and got his approval well predates the wargames by three days. They were quite separate from each other.

As I said, I'm limited as a result of not having the book. Perhaps you could provide the passages where the dates of the wargames are stated?
 
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Your words were "If I were to estimate - without digging to deeply". Estimate means their inexact to begin with.

Of course the numbers are estimates.
The Soviet reporting standard of the time wasn't able to cope with the challenging situation during the summer. Meaning no-one knows the exact numbers.
Even Krivosheev's widely regarded and published casualty figures contains a footnote for 1941 noting that the actual numbers were probably half a million higher...

"Without digging to deeply" means you didn't do any serious research. So your numbers are horribly inexact

I checked about 10-15 different sources.
Now, that isn't any serious research - but fortunately, I've spent quite some time on the subject previously.
So I felt (and still feel) that it was sufficient for this particular subject.

Glantz gives numbers of 1.4 million starting on July 10th. But I can see that he was adding in fronts as they popped up. However, this makes the issue more confusing, not less, as it says nothing about how the already-existing fronts strengths fluctuated.

Initially in this thread, I made the claim that Glantz seems to struggle a bit with the numbers during Smolensk. Presenting a lot of figures, but failing to put them in a proper context.
I'm glad you seem to come around to my view on this subject at least :)


Had the forces facing the opening of Typhoon had any quality, then they would have held up the German breakthrough far longer then they actually did even if there were only just enough to screen the frontline.

A quick summary of the Soviet problems during Typhoon would be:
1) the Soviets simply lacked the necessary mass in both men and artillery to prevent a breakthrough of the frontline
(at this point, feel free to provide a list of examples where the Red Army in '41 successfully prevented a PzCorps from gaining operational freedom when the latter launched a prepared offensive).

2) the Soviets lacked strong mobile forces (and particularly tanks), that could be used in order to counter any breakthroughs

3) Red Army control and command was severely lacking - meaning it took a very long time before the higher-ups realized the severity of the situation

4) The Front commanders and higher ups made several questionable decisions

5) the bulk of the army had a severe lack in motorization, and thus moved to slowly once the order to fall back eventually arrived

In sum -> this resulted in the massive encirclements


Now, we've already discussed 1) a bit.

With regards to 2), Glantz claims the number of tanks supporting the Western, Reserve and Briansk Fronts offensive on 1.September were 390 (with an additional 80 tanks in Southwestern Fronts supporting 40th Army). A month later, the three Fronts reported having about 1250 tanks. So it would seem that the lack of tank forces was an even bigger problem in September.

With regards to 3) you might benefit from re-reading Glantz subchapter on the command confusion on the northern flank, when 22th Army came under attack at the end of August.
Or the chapter describing the command confusion and slow response when the Germans hit Group Kachalov at the start of August.

A Soviet inability to timely respond to developing threats seem to be a common theme during Aug-Sep-Oct, and not something that suddenly occurred come October.

The commanders (4) were mostly the same group as a month before.

Neither is a lack of motorization (5) something that suddenly became a problem for the Soviets come October.


Had the forces at Smolensk lacked quality, their attacks wouldn't have achieved anything regardless of how many there were.

But we shouldn't overstate the success they enjoyed either.

Briansk Fronts offensive and 43rd Army's Roslavl offensive were abject failures.

24th Army's September offensive succeeded in triggering a German evacuation of the El'nia bulge, but the actual performance of the army showed large deficiencies in execution.

And Western Fronts September offensive had failed within days - only managing an advance of a few kilometers. The best thing that could be said of that attack was the attritional effect it had on the defending 9th Army. But if the attritional effect is a measure of success, its worth noting that the 9th Army suffered larger casualties in the first 10 days of October than in the first 10 days of September (during Western Fronts offensive). In fact, that same statement holds true for the entire AG Center as well.

Which theoretically should have been offset by your assertion that the Red Army was better at the start of October then the start of September.

Hardly. The German gain in strength during September is far larger than the potential Red Army strength increase (do note that my key argument isn't that the Red Army was necessarily stronger, but that the evidence doesn't support the statement that it was significantly weaker).

The collapse of German communication links was a result of exactly such a push in the first place and their inability to solve it at roughly the same spot even when the front was stagnant in late-October suggests just how well their attempts IATL to do it would work out.

A few quick notes at the end on the communication links.
An army attacking and advancing deep into enemy territory, requires truck based supplies in the first phase of the operation. Some time later, once the railroad infrastructure is repaired, the emphasis will shift from truck-based to railroad-based supplies.

For the Germans, the first (truck-based supply) phase was hampered by muddy roads - a problem that grew worse as October went along. But by mid-November, several key railroad bridges were repaired, and it would seem as if they could enter the second phase.
But alas, by mid-November, the weather turned cold, causing severe problems actually operating on the newly repaired railroads (among others, due to a lack of winterized locomotives).

So just as the German logistical situation was about to see a significant improvement, it actually went from bad to worse, leaving them undersupplied for Oct-Nov-Dec.


The benefit of attacking at the start of September would be that the railroad infrastructure would begin to come online just as the mud period started in earnest. Thus dimishing the detrimental effect of said period.
 
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Had the forces facing the opening of Typhoon had any quality, then they would have held up the German breakthrough far longer then they actually did even if there were only just enough to screen the frontline.
A quick summary of the Soviet problems during Typhoon would be:
1) the Soviets simply lacked the necessary mass in both men and artillery to prevent a breakthrough of the frontline
(at this point, feel free to provide a list of examples where the Red Army in '41 successfully prevented a PzCorps from gaining operational freedom when the latter launched a prepared offensive).

2) the Soviets lacked strong mobile forces (and particularly tanks), that could be used in order to counter any breakthroughs

3) Red Army control and command was severely lacking - meaning it took a very long time before the higher-ups realized the severity of the situation

4) The Front commanders and higher ups made several questionable decisions

5) the bulk of the army had a severe lack in motorization, and thus moved to slowly once the order to fall back eventually arrived

In sum -> this resulted in the massive encirclements


Now, we've already discussed 1) a bit.

With regards to 2), Glantz claims the number of tanks supporting the Western, Reserve and Briansk Fronts offensive on 1.September were 390 (with an additional 80 tanks in Southwestern Fronts supporting 40th Army). A month later, the three Fronts reported having about 1250 tanks. So it would seem that the lack of tank forces was an even bigger problem in September.

With regards to 3) you might benefit from re-reading Glantz subchapter on the command confusion on the northern flank, when 22th Army came under attack at the end of August.
Or the chapter describing the command confusion and slow response when the Germans hit Group Kachalov at the start of August.

A Soviet inability to timely respond to developing threats seem to be a common theme during Aug-Sep-Oct, and not something that suddenly occurred come October.

The commanders (4) were mostly the same group as a month before.

Neither is a lack of motorization (5) something that suddenly became a problem for the Soviets come October.

The Soviet forces were not lacking in either power nor battleworthiness if they had over 1000 tanks and if we look at the tank losses for German forces during October as you have mentioned the Soviets inflicted terrible losses in German tanks. There were instances up until then where the Red Army restrict ed themselves to tactical objectives like stopping a breakthrough (and the resulting freedom of movement as you say), but that did not guarantee success in of itself, quite the opposite, the tank battles that transpired ended in German victories. And, it is more difficult to get good concentration of forces on the defense rather than the offense because, mass, concentration, these are things that apply much more to attacking forces that can afford to put large percentages of infantry, tanks, guns into the narrowed point of advance. Then there is also the issue that the reserves allotted for a counterattack in Typhoon would need to choose between multiple points in the defense that are being breached, which does not bode well. In order for a defense to have any chance it would need to be heavily crammed with forces and heavily layered and fortified, which is something the Red Army was known to do even before 8-9 May 1942 when they were building 10 km layered fortification belts during the lull in fighting, but not feasible for the armies at the far front during Typhoon. And if you look at the instances when the Soviets pocketed German forces some 25 times, it makes me wonder how had their command and control changed so much that they could now turn their tables on their German counterpart, if indeed it had at all. Perhaps, the factors for the failings of the Red Army are caused by poor leadership and little in the way of combat experience, all of which was corrected in time. Zhukov also blames the Soviet early lack of tank and combined arms armies in relation to the Red Army which Glantz touches on.
 
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