WI: The Nazis don't alienate oppressed Soviets?

1) Except there are again cases where the Allies were not at all synergetic. The UK and USA had a massive fallout (pun intended) over the Manhattan Project, there was no overall co-ordination of democratic and Soviet offensives whatsoever.....

2) No, this is pretty clear if it's seen in terms of the debates the Allied high command had over which resources to allocate where. It was a fortunate thing for the Allies that the Wehrmacht faced the Soviets, against the WAllies the A-A:N W is the only way for them to win with massive casualties as what they did IOTL wasn't going to cut it.

4) The reality of Allied synergy again is that the USSR was fighting Germany Only, the UK and USA Germany First, and none of them really bothered to form any actually unified plan in practice. The victory of OTL was far more contingent and a measure of ultimate Nazi weakness as much as anything else.

6) Sure there is: the Germans passed information to Japan that Singapore was indefensible, which altered their entire concept of their big Pacific Offensive. There's other cases of inter-Axis co-operation, the biggest problems between Axis Powers were with Italy and Germany which reflected Mussolini's thinking with his balls more than any actual military logic.
 
So the idea that Manstein suddenly cashiers Paulus if he refuses his orders as per OTL and the soldiers of 6th Army, who endured a protracted bloodbath in the city of Stalingrad and are thus exhausted and going to have at least some short-term adjustments to returning to mobile war and have spent the period from 2nd Kharkov to Stalingrad under Paulus are going to totally and utterly accept this cashiering, they're going to fight like fresh soldiers without heavy equipment against an aggressive enemy with it, and the whole "exhaustion from WWII's Verdun" factor has no relevance because German tactical virtuosity heals all wounds and makes Germans supermen, not human beings *is* what this scenario relies on.

Nah, in reality these human beings called Wehrmacht soldiers will be smashed no matter the scenario and frankly troops escaping pockets in large numbers would not necessarily be a devastating thing to the Soviets, as this happened in all the *German* encirclements of 1941. Which is *how* the Soviets were able to keep funneling in all that cannon fodder. As usual your suppositions rest on the Germans being military automatons and assuming their enemies are completely passive and make no adjustments to their own plans or attempts to exploit altered circumstances.


Paulus refused Manstein's "suggestions"; Manstein didn't have the authority to fire him; he mentions in his memoirs that if he wanted to under the command arrangments that existed, he would have had to threaten his resignation to the OKH and Hitler would have had to personally relieve him

That situation ends when Manstein rolls into the city and takes over command authority for the 6th army... Paulus will either obey or be fired; and Manstein's stock with the 6th army considering he just rescued them from encirclement will probably be about as high as humanly possible; he would name seydlitz (who was very popular in the 6th army as a certified hero) her commander and get the fuck out

the 6th army was bloodied and tired BUT they are still 20 quality german divisions who when resupplied will not be a small obstacle to over run; and they will be sent hell back to the rear to refit and rearm; with the rearguard actions left to the fresher panzer divisions who would fight a delaying action to the don
 
The key to Stalingrad was the combat power of the 6th Army. With 6th army surrounded and not getting anywhere near enough supplies, the combat power rapidly declined. The declining power freed up Soviet forces to (a) Stop the rescue attempt, and (b) Do further offensives--or actually the second phase of the same offensive.

No Torch would mean that the Germans would have several hundred additional transport planes available both before and immediately after the Stalingrad encirclement.

The Germans did use air transports routinely to deliver small quantities of key logistics material to front-line units, so having those transports in the vicinity from Nov 8 to Nov 19 (the time from Torch to start of the Soviet offensive) would have some impact on the initial state of German supplies in the pocket--probably not a significant impact, but maybe a couple days more fighting power.

The 400 tactical aircraft (fighters and bombers) sent from the eastern front to Tunisia would have some impact from Nov 8 to Nov 19. Probably the Soviets would have to feed more troops into Stalingrad to maintain their pockets there, and the Soviet bridgeheads that the Soviet offensive started from would get hammered to some extent. Neither of those factors would be decisive, but the Soviets would start out slightly weaker than they did historically.

The additional German transport planes available in the area would mean that the airlift got rolling sooner, which would slow the decline in 6th Army combat power. Theoretically a Ju-52 could lift around two tons. Figure 300 additional planes, one trip per day = 600 additional tons.

In reality there would probably be bottlenecks, including the weather and airport capacity that kept them from reaching that potential, but even if they hit 400 additional tons in the first few weeks of the airlift they would significantly slow the loss of combat power inside the pocket, tying up more Soviet troops surrounding them for longer. They would be able to hold the airports inside the pocket longer, which would compound their ability to retain more of their combat power.

Edit: I did more research on this and discovered that the German rule of thumb was that in Russian winter weather conditions it took on average a little over 3 JU-52s to generate 1 flight/day, so figure 100 additional flights and 200 additional tons/day on average.

They could also evacuate more of the wounded, reducing the food and medical requirements inside the pocket. Figure an average of 200 additional flights per day, and the Ju-52 could handle 12 litter patients per flight, or 18 non-litter patients. So maybe 2400 additional wounded evacuated per day on average. In a week that's 16,800. In a month it's a little under 75,000.

Edit: We probably need to cut these figures in half on average, so 1200/day on average and maybe 37,000/month. Evacuations do cut the supply requirements some. Figure 300 tons of food/day initially. Cut personnel by 37,000 (roughly 12.8 percent) and the minimum daily food tonnage drops roughly 38 tons. Hit 60,000 and you drop the daily food tonnage by over 60 tons.

The Germans historically evacuated a mixture of wounded and specialists, and got out somewhere in the vicinity of 40-45k. The number of evacuees in a No Torch/more transports scenario is probably limited by the need to keep people on the line to keep the Soviets from grabbing the airports more than by transport capacity to get people out.

Bottom line: Even if 6th Army never gets out of Stalingrad the Soviets win a less decisive victory. They have to fight a 6th army that retains more of its combat power longer, which means more Soviet casualties, both men and machines. They also have to cope with 400 more German tactical aircraft, which adds to their casualties. The Germans airlift more people out, which means fewer German casualties, or at least fewer killed or captured. How much of a difference would that make? Let's say the Germans get an extra 80,000 guys out. The Soviets lose an extra 100,000 killed or permanently disabled around Stalingrad because 6th army retains combat power longer. That shifts the eastern front balance by 180,000. Not trivial, though nowhere close to decisive.

The Soviets also have to wait longer before they can launch the second phase of the offensive, which historically did a number on the Italians, and might not even be able to carry that out if the Germans remain strong inside Stalingrad long enough and cause enough additional Soviet casualties.
 
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I don't see that two more days or what have you of fighting power for an army that could never be supplied by air power (Demiansk is one thing, the full 6th Army is quite another thing) would have done anything but prolong the agony. If it does do this the resulting situation might well forestall any German equivalent of Third Kharkov and put the USSR into an ultimately better strategic position in the long term.
 
I don't see that two more days or what have you of fighting power for an army that could never be supplied by air power (Demiansk is one thing, the full 6th Army is quite another thing) would have done anything but prolong the agony. If it does do this the resulting situation might well forestall any German equivalent of Third Kharkov and put the USSR into an ultimately better strategic position in the long term.

With 300 additional aircraft that is several hundred more tonnes of food, fuel and ammo to be flown into the pocket a day; and in the context of Manstein relieving the city; he would arrive in Stalingrad approximately 12/15/42 and push his 800 truck supply tail through to reinvigorate them

with the larger scale of supplies coming in during the encirclement and the fairly quick relief, the 6th army will not lose all of it's potency

edit it also frees up HE-111's that were consumed delivering supplies and allows them to continue bombing operation ring forces to soften them up for Manstein's advance
 
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With 300 additional aircraft that is several hundred more tonnes of food, fuel and ammo to be flown into the pocket a day; and in the context of Manstein relieving the city; he would arrive in Stalingrad approximately 12/15/42 and push his 800 truck supply tail through to reinvigorate them

with the larger scale of supplies coming in during the encirclement and the fairly quick relief, the 6th army will not lose all of it's potency

It didn't lose its fanaticism until very late IOTL as it is so what difference will two days make?
 
There is a difference between being a fanatic; and being a fanatic with a full belly and cartridge pouche

The full belly part is the only bit that would actually change anything, the full cartridge pouch won't as it didn't IOTL. Unless the Germans go back six years before WWII and build ten times as many transports as they did and also build weather machines they won't have enough clear weather to fly enough planes no matter how many additional transports they have, nor will the delivery ever approach at its strongest what the Sixth Army required as the barebones minimum for one day.
 
The key to Stalingrad was the combat power of the 6th Army. With 6th army surrounded and not getting anywhere near enough supplies, the combat power rapidly declined. The declining power freed up Soviet forces to (a) Stop the rescue attempt, and (b) Do further offensives--or actually the second phase of the same offensive.

No Torch would mean that the Germans would have several hundred additional transport planes available both before and immediately after the Stalingrad encirclement.

The Germans did use air transports routinely to deliver small quantities of key logistics material to front-line units, so having those transports in the vicinity from Nov 8 to Nov 19 (the time from Torch to start of the Soviet offensive) would have some impact on the initial state of German supplies in the pocket--probably not a significant impact, but maybe a couple days more fighting power.

The 400 tactical aircraft (fighters and bombers) sent from the eastern front to Tunisia would have some impact from Nov 8 to Nov 19. Probably the Soviets would have to feed more troops into Stalingrad to maintain their pockets there, and the Soviet bridgeheads that the Soviet offensive started from would get hammered to some extent. Neither of those factors would be decisive, but the Soviets would start out slightly weaker than they did historically.

The additional German transport planes available in the area would mean that the airlift got rolling sooner, which would slow the decline in 6th Army combat power. Theoretically a Ju-52 could lift around two tons. Figure 300 additional planes, one trip per day = 600 additional tons.

In reality there would probably be bottlenecks, including the weather and airport capacity that kept them from reaching that potential, but even if they hit 400 additional tons in the first few weeks of the airlift they would significantly slow the loss of combat power inside the pocket, tying up more Soviet troops surrounding them for longer. They would be able to hold the airports inside the pocket longer, which would compound their ability to retain more of their combat power.

They could also evacuate more of the wounded, reducing the food and medical requirements inside the pocket. Figure an average of 200 additional flights per day, and the Ju-52 could handle 12 litter patients per flight, or 18 non-litter patients. So maybe 2400 additional wounded evacuated per day on average. In a week that's 16,800. In a month it's a little under 75,000.

The Germans historically evacuated a mixture of wounded and specialists, and got out somewhere in the vicinity of 40-45k. The number of evacuees in a No Torch/more transports scenario is probably limited by the need to keep people on the line to keep the Soviets from grabbing the airports more than by transport capacity to get people out.

Bottom line: Even if 6th Army never gets out of Stalingrad the Soviets win a less decisive victory. They have to fight a 6th army that retains more of its combat power longer, which means more Soviet casualties, both men and machines. They also have to cope with 400 more German tactical aircraft, which adds to their casualties. The Germans airlift more people out, which means fewer German casualties, or at least fewer killed or captured. How much of a difference would that make? Let's say the Germans get an extra 80,000 guys out. The Soviets lose an extra 100,000 killed or permanently disabled around Stalingrad because 6th army retains combat power longer. That shifts the eastern front balance by 180,000. Not trivial, though nowhere close to decisive.

The Soviets also have to wait longer before they can launch the second phase of the offensive, which historically did a number on the Italians, and might not even be able to carry that out if the Germans remain strong inside Stalingrad long enough and cause enough additional Soviet casualties.

Another point I forgot to mention-Sixth Army expressed clear requirements as a minimum for one day. At their peak the Luftwaffe delivered only a third of it and much of the time only a third of what they delivered on that peak, which was the third day. More transports won't alter Hitler's myopic conviction that his army shall not be withdrawn, and if Manstein and Seydlitz both wind up sacked for disobeying Hitler's orders that's a great move....for the Soviets. The Germans can't magic up clear flying weather, nor will a few additional transports suffice to get the Germans except to perhaps the bare minimum required for one day once.
 
I think I had better put all my usual points about Eastern European Myth and Legend in one place, the better to quote them because let's face it I'm going to have to.

1) The area that made up the UkSSR in 1941 was too very distinct regions that happened to speak one language: the larger eastern zone, which had been part of the USSR from the start, and the smaller western zone, which had been violently conquered and subdued by the Red Army in 1939. Obviously the attitudes of the population, their historical memory and relations with the Soviet state, were entirely different. If various organisations from the western zone claimed to represent the True Vindicated Ukrainian Nation and sent warbands and propagandists into the east, what of it? The Soviets said they were the True Vindicated Ukrainian Proletariat and sent warbands to the Carpathians. How about we look at what individuals did, not some imaginary corporate person 'Ukrainians'.

2) Germans and 'Russians' did not represent equally alien and hostile figures to the inhabitants of the eastern section. Sure, the Russian or Soviet state had pretty much continuously got up their noses one way or another, but you could say much the same of Russian peasants. But Russia was a known country: not just in that it was very close in language, religion, history, and culture, but also in that Ukrainians went to Russia, and Russians to Ukraine, all the time and had long done so.

This was well within a lifetime of 1918, when British diplomats confirm that 'russkiy' (Orthodox eastern Slav) was all you could get out of Ivashko about his 'nationality', a concept alien to him. Ivashko had been substantially Ukrainianised since then, not least by the efforts of the UkSSR, but it gives some perspective. Ukraine and Russia being part of the same country was all anybody could remember.

3) The UkSSR was not governed by 'Russians' but by Ukrainians. The USSR needed cadres that would support it or it would have collapsed by itself, as the Germans convinced themselves it surely would. Most urban working-class Ukrainians (a minority, but large) would have described themselves as Soviet Socialists without hesitation, for instance.

4) So we've established that Ukrainians were involved in the running of the USSR and that the idea of this big multinational state was no recent arrival. It was their country, under a government that terrorised and murdered them, but then, they had always led violent and precarious lives. Famine was by no means new in the 1930s.

We know that patriotic loyalty can make people stick by a rotten state: or why did Germany stagger on into the abyss? So why are Ukrainians so keen to pray for the defeat of the Red Army, in which their husbands, brothers, and sons are serving?

5) The Germans had come within a lifetime and not made themselves popular. Their capacity for contempt had been well-demonstrated. The officers of the Prussian tradition were not nice folk. Did Japan need an ideology of Chinese genocide to terrorise China?

6) Germany was suffering from a very tight manpower situation. It was already making use of several million Ukrainians - to man the arms factories to build the weapons so that the Germans could fight at the front. The alternative is presumably to send Ukrainians, old or with no military experience (because the trained young men are in, you know, the Red Army) to fight their compatriots at the front and have the Germans make the weapons.

7) Where's the grub going to come from, anyway?


Really, the amount of twaddle you here about this. 'Revenge motives', oh dear oh dear. People should try gaining some idea of the human experience of the ordinary Ukrainian. But no, he is apparently only fit to have his opinions computed by us, the civilised west.
 
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Another point I forgot to mention-Sixth Army expressed clear requirements as a minimum for one day.

I've done quite a bit more research on the Stalingrad airlift since yesterday.

There were actually two requirement levels: 300 tons/day minimum to keep the troops alive long term, 500 tons/day (initially set at 750 tons/day) to maintain operational capacity-fighting strength.

At their peak the Luftwaffe delivered only a third of it and much of the time only a third of what they delivered on that peak, which was the third day.

On the peak days, the Luftwaffe did hit about a third of the minimum to maintain 6th Army's fighting strength, so we have an area of agreement there. We may disagree on when that peak happened. Are you saying that the airlift reached its peak three days after it started (that would mean the peak day was Nov 27)? That doesn't seem likely. At that point the Germans were still in the gathering planes stage. The best three day period was Dec 19-21 when the German flew in 700 tons over a three day period. That makes more sense as a peak because the Germans had time to bring in more of their scattered transport planes.

The Germans can't magic up clear flying weather, nor will a few additional transports suffice to get the Germans except to perhaps the bare minimum required for one day once.

I've been trying to find specific figures on how many transport planes the German had in operation historically during various phases of the airlift. I haven't found that yet. I've found mentions of 30-50 JU-52s initially and 320 total transport planes plus 190 bombers used as improvised transports (with smaller loads than the Ju-52s and other operational limitation), which probably represents the peak of the German effort.

Figures I've found for the number of transport planes sent to Tunisia range from 250 to 400, with some sources saying 300. If you go with 300 that would seem to mean that the Germans could almost double their transport fleet at Stalingrad in the absence of Torch. I wouldn't trust that though for a couple of reasons:

(1) It underestimates the impact of the Torch transports in the early part of the airlift. Add 300 to the initial 30 to 40 the Germans were working with and you have up to ten times the capacity for the first couple of weeks.

(2) It probably overestimates the additional number of transports at the peak of the airlift because some of the transport planes used in Tunisia came back, though it took a while to get them ready for service because they had to be retrofitted for cold weather starting and a lot of them needed maintenance after hard service in Tunisia. The German peak days in the Dec 19-21 period probably happened when the transports brought back from Tunisia were finally ready to take part fully.

Bottom line: The more rational Luftwaffe planners calculated that it would take around a thousand Ju-52s to supply 750 tons/day to 6th army. That works out about right. Historically they had 320 Ju-52s and Ju86s (plus some converted bombers) at their peak and got 700 tons in over a 3 day period. Figure that no Torch would mean somewhere around 200 more Ju-52s at peak, so figure maybe half again as much tonnage brought in at peak, so 400-450 tons/day. They should be able to get to that peak several weeks earlier than they did historically because they wouldn't have to get the transports back from Tunisia and overhaul them.

So until the weather turned really bad in late December/January the Germans would probably be between their long-term minimum-to-not-starve level and their long-terms minimum to not lose fighting power level. Given the weather in most of January, they would probably be well below their minimum-not-to-starve level most of the month, but they would be starting at a less debilitated level.
 
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