Barbarossa is well planned & executed, much like the sickle cut was.

I list what the Soviet's lost in '41.

I also list the effects of the very focused campaign to destroy the Baltic fleet, that went on for nearly a month in '42, when German power was at it's zenith. With a dedicated wing. Which was fundamentally ineffectual, when compared top it's goals.

I further mention that the best year for Soviet subs in the Baltic, was just '42.

You are not going to sink all the Soviet fleets everywhere in just a few hours. Spectacular failure looms when the LW can't do it in a whole month of trying, against a very limited area of the Baltic.

 

Too bad you don't know that German power was at its Zenith when France was defeated, before Hitler wasted 2,000 planes over Britain. In the east it was at its zenith on June 22, 1941 and it rapidly waned. The WM lost over 420 tPanzers in the first week (Kleist's small force alone lost 200) and received none. Plane losses were similar. Truck losses were shocking in 1941, out of 600,000 trucks to supply a small occupied area at the beginning of the campaign, there were under 170,000 operational (though many were heavily worn) at the end of the year and there was a huge area to supply.
Besides losses, plane and Panzer wear and personnel exhaustion through constant fighting exacerbated the small numbers at the beginning of the campaign. To claim that Germany was at the Zenith in 1942, after the heavy losses in Barbarossa, Typhoon and the winter counter offensive and when it was being trounced on all fronts for lack of equipment (Panzers and planes shuttling between the Crimea, the Caucasus and Stalingrad for lack of equipment and the offensives stalling temporarily when these leave).
It is ironic that Hitler left the whole front static in order to advance to distant and heavily defended Stalingrad and Caucasus after losing most of his equipment and having large armies tied up inb Crimea, Leningrad, etc, and having lost a million men, yet you think that leaving the central front static and advancing along the weakly defended coasts with 600,000 trucks available is not possible. and with Höpner not having to reach Stalingrad is impossible.

What part of most of the infantry is not advancing, but guarding the central border (it has short, fixed supply lines, w/o trucks) and there are only 850 tanks of Höpner to supply from Poland & E.Prussia (compared to OTL over 2,100 for Höpner, Guderian and Hoth) do you not understand?
Höpner has 200,000 trucks to move infantry, supplies, artillery, etc, and no horses or marching troops. Hopner has a captured train (Guderian and Hoth didn't). Höpner is also receiving materiel through Riga, Tallin, etc, which are captured early in the campaign (Riga by Höpner and Tallin by ithe force from Finland. and he is not advancing N to Leningrad, but to Rzhev, where he can also receive supplies and reinforcements through Leningrad. But supplies and the enemy are much less of a problem than OTL, so Höpner and Guderian in the N and Kleist and Hoth in the S achieve more, faster and with fewer losses.

It really does not take much imagination to see the difference between fighting in and supplying a rapidly advancing front 2,800 km long with enormously strong defenses in Belorussia and N Ukraine, using 625,000 horses, 600,000 trucks and 2.4 million men on foot and along two narrow swathes of weakly defended coasts with a flank covered, the same amount of trucks and no horses or men on foot.

 

1) Too bad the LW dedicated an entire Luftflotte an entire month to sink a fleet contained almost entirely in a miniscule area, and suffered abject failure. Regardless of when Hitler had the most panzers. Believe it or not, that's rather irrelevant, when it comes to a dedicated campaign to sink ships...

2) Donesn't part of mechanised forces need infantry to protect their supply corridor, especially the longer, narrower and more vulnerable it is? Have you seen the length of your exposed supply line? You've actually widened the frontage you need to defend considerably, when compared to the historical three pronged advance, and removed the possibility for either force to feint or threaten in aide of the other. All while increasing the logistical congestion.

3) It doesn't take any imagination at all. Instead, it actually takes some knowledge and understanding to realise it is unfeasible. Both of which you have shown an ample lack thereof.

4) What's worse, is that you are continuing to hash out the same arguments, but without actually providing anything in the form of a detailed plan or realistic prognosis, inspite of repeated requests. It has been explained, in very simple terms, why you cannot advance faster. In response, you state opinions, instead of facts and expect us to accept them on the basis of you saying so. That's not how you persuade anyone in the Real World.

Already in the first week of Barbarossa, the Germans became aware of their gross miscalculations with regards to logistics. The poor roads meant they could only get 70% of the expected movement per unit of fuel. The loss of trucks due to poor maintenance and increased strain due to the substandard roads, further exacerbated the problems. Historically, they were using the ports. Historically, AGN was the best supplied force.

5) You have 20% of the invasion force exposing a total flank area at least the same as it was historically.

6) You still cannot advance further than 300 miles in 1941 from your operational start, without resting for a week or two for resupply. There is no way, at all, that you are going to leap 1000 km in 7 days. No army has ever achieved that distance, at that pace. Ever. The US took two weeks to advance around half the distance (Kuwait-Baghdad) in 2003 in Iraq. In other words, you have the Germans advancing 4 (four) times faster in 1941 than the US in 2003...

7) You still assume the use of paratroops, when they have been effectively decimated at Crete, and removed from all use during Barbarossa until doctrinally re-examined. By Hitler's direct orders. So your ATL has the successful non-invasion of Crete. Or you need to explain where these zombie paratroopers spring from.

 

The sacrifice the Red Army soldier did was incredible.

The Dietl attack in north, in my opinion, went to waste mostly because the Red Army Navy kept on landing forces behind the lines, where they attacked and caused havoc, and the Wehrmacht was forced to turn back and destroy this invading Red Army suicide mission. This was holding them back all the time.

 

Green,
You make completely vague statements like an entire Luftflotte and entire month, which mean absolutely nothing. I already mentioned that Luftflotte 1 did not even have Stuka at the beginning of the campaign and was by far the smallest (just like Höpner's Panzer force was a joke compaired to Hoth's or Guderian's) and it could not even fulfill its primary mission of supporting the WM, much less deal with ships and planes.
The LW had to redeploy Ruddel's Stuka squadron from another area to sink Marat, which was at least an order of magnitude more difficult to sink than subs
A much larger LW force and even the Panzers were completely useless during the initial phase of the Soviet winter counteroffensive, because it could not operate in the extreme cold. Even the huge, better equipped, allied air force was completely useless during the intitial phase of the battle of the bulge.

There were fewer Stuka for a 2,800 km front in Barbarossa than the 350 deployed in a smaller, weaker front in Poland, than there were mostly in Barbarossa (there were also fewer Hs 123).
Most of the LW was concentrated in Belorussia (which is why 50% of Soviet planes were wiped out there and Guderian and Hoth could advance so fast). Daftly, much of the force and munitions supporting AGC were wasted bombing Brest, Byalistok, Minsk, etc, during the critical first days of Barbarossa, which ATL are not bombed.
Again, the allies concentrated 12,000 planes (including much better fighter bombers, twin engine and 4 engine bombers), thousands of tanks and fieldguns and the artillery of hundreds of warships in a wee front in France (and took over a month to capture Caen, within range of naval guns), while Germany spread 2,800 planes and 3,600 tanks extremely thinly over a 2,800 km front. ATL these planes are concentrated along the coasts and have no problem wiping out Soviet ships, planes, tanks, etc, in the area and Höpner has much better support and logistics and a stronger force, so he needn't waste days in Raseiniai, a week waiting for infantry on foot, etc,

 

Even before the attack on Murmanks, there were much stronger defending than attacking forces (unlike most of barbarossa, where the Germans achieved local troop superiority eveywhere). Moreover, 2 German divisions require hundreds of tons per day to fight continuously and they received almost nothing for long periods, because German ships were sunk. Finally, it is bad enough to have to attack a stronger force, but it is still worse to have to do it with meager air support and taking naval gun fire.

Just like in Odessa, Leningrad, Kiev, Moscow etc, the Soviets were allowed invaluable time to reinforce the area in Murmansk, Salla, etc, using the RR and /or ships,

The distances between Petsamo and Murmansk, between Salla and Kandalaksha and between SE Finland and Leningrad were the shortest involved in any of Barbarossa's obejctives, yet none of these objectives were captured, because in the arctic the LW, WM, KM and supplies extremely weak, because Leningrad was attacked from distant E Prussia and because a completely untrained SS division and no supply planes and airborne troops were used to capture Kandalaksha and 2 Finnish division were deployed too far south to capture Loukhi, instead of Kandalaksha (forces thinly spread out and poorly supplied and supported as in all of Barbarosa).

 

Nothing in comparison to your vague handwaving; I've even referenced the name of the operation (Eisstoß) further up in the thread, should you take the time to actually check it out.

You still do contribute absolutely nothing to answer the criticism of how the Germans are going to advance as far as you have them, faster than any army ever in the history of warfare, including four times faster than the US Army of 2003.

 

Unless I'm not understanding you correctly what you are proposing is simply not possible not to mention that an attemp was made to capture the main port in Murmansk on 29 June 41'.Silver Fox was a joint military endeavor with Finland aimed at securing the main port with an attack even coming from Norway.

Sorry but I simply fail to see how your operation yields different results. Them Ofcourse there is also this little 20/20 hindsight thingy majigy that continues to hover over us

 

You are the proponent and your ideas have been called to question. It is on your shoulders to supply the facts and logic to support your position. Restating your opinions and beliefs, and waving your hands does not support your position but rather implies it is without merit.

 

What portion was trained in anti shipping strikes at that point? How many units were trained to even use torpedoes and what sort of stockpile did they have?

 

This sort of statement often invokes the phrase "pot calling kettle" in this case however it's more like "pot calling silverware".

 

Fortunately for the Finns, Mannerheim prevented involvement in such "ingenious" actions.

 

I am tired of explaining that it is much easier to supply Petsamo for weeks after wiping out the few Soviet planes and ships in the area, than to lose several supply ships to Soviet and British forces (which ATL cannot even approach the area) and keep divisions fighting without supplies for years.
That it is much easier to supply an offensive both from E.Prussia-Poland and Finland to capture Leningrad and the Baltic countries than to have to advance and supply everything from E Prussia-Poland all the way to Leningrad. That it is much easier for tanks to advance to Moscow from Rzhev and Leningrad than Poland-Belorusia-Smolensk- Kiev Moscow and from coastal Romania-Odessa-Maryupol-Kharkov-Moscow Than Poland-Kiev-Uman-Nikolaev-Lokhvitsa-Rostov. That is is much easier to move iron ore, copper, FLAK, etc, from Sweden to Germany and to use Tallin, Riga and Leningrad to help supply AGN after wiping out Sviet ships and planes in the Baltic, than losing ships for years. Most importantly, that it is much easier to supply rapidly advancing thrusts along the weakly defended coasts with 600,000 trucks than to supply 3 army groups, with 153 divisions advancing along a 2,800 km front into strogly defended territory, with 2.4 million troops walking and 625,000 horses hauling cannon, shells, food, etc,

I am sorry if you cannot see the obvious and keep making the same tangential objections.

 

You have not explained anything. You have given opinions based on assumptions that appear to be based on neither fact nor logic. When legitimate questions are raised you ignore them and/or hand wave them away. On this board you are expected to base what if's on facts and logic and a rather limited POD. You on the other hand create a huge array of POD's with a single wave of your hand and ignore the facts that your projections fail based on the historical facts and logic unless some endless chain of things change and even then they are questionable.

I.e. your projections are anything but logical. They are opinions pulled out of the air (or some place even less reputable) and you have yet to supply a single source that supports them.

 

So You think it is easier to supply 3 million men (80% on foot, weeks without fighting om their way to the front) and 625,000 horses (each consuming over 14 kg of grain per day and lasting a few weeks, before it collapses and requiring men to care for it, which also consume food, in order to haul a small load a few km per day for ridiculously long distances) and 600,000 trucks, advancing against the largest army and the strongest defenses in the world (Kiev, Smolensk, etc,) and leaving hundreds of thousands of partisans along the supply routes and then have the armor meander all over the W USSR than it is to supply two narrow thrusts flanked by the sea, using the same 600,000 trucks to carry supplies, infantry, haul guns, etc, the only trains captured in Barbarossa and ports which were not used OTL for AGN's advance so there are no marching troops or horses on the roads. Likewise, that it is easier to advance from E Prussia to Leningrad and from Salla to Kandalaksha or from Petsamo to Murmans (without supplies and tanking bombs and naval shells and with Murmansk reinforced during the advance), than it is to advance to Leningrad from Finland and then to Moscow, to use paratroopers, airborne infantry and air supplies to capture Kandalaksha and a position halfway between Salla and it) on the first day of the war. To advance to Murmansk with a weak force and no supplies (instead of with plenty of supplies, having destroyed enemy ships and planes)?
Call it hand waving, I see it as common sense derived planning and your concerns and your position as absurd.

I rest my case.

 

Your "case" is nothing of the sort.

You still have not provided an answer to fundamental, basic questions, without which your plan collapses. Failure to answer these questions, means your plan is worse than the historical. You cannot use the failures of the original, to hide your own shortcomings.

Let's re-examine for the 99th time:

1) Your "case" demands the destruction of over two hundred vessels in the space of a few hours, when training, doctrine, range, and weaponry make this extremely unlikely. Burden of proof is on you, making the extraordinary claim. Saying "Make it so." does not work. No time table, no allocation of resources, no

2) The paratroopers are decimated in Crete, and historically removed from Barbarossa by Hitler's orders, pending doctrinal re-examination, and are desperately requiring rest, refit, and above all a new batch of recruits. You can't remove historical facts just because they are inconvenient. You have never even attempted to answer this criticism.

3) Dropping paratroopers too far ahead of regular forces is a death sentence. Given the pace of marching for armies: your zombie-paratroopers are long dead.

4) In conjunction with the above, and looking at the Baltic sea advance, you need to examine how fast armies actually move. Even fully motorised modern armies enjoying complete air supremacy can not advance 1000 km in 7 days in hostile territory. This is fundamental. No army has ever marched anywhere nearly as fast as you suggest.

5) Murmansk was historically on high alert, the commander there being wary after the German reconnaissance overflights. Paranoia has its benefits.

6) Historically, all Leningrad's defences at the start of the war, were facing north, against Finland. On a thin bottleneck. There are multiple reasons why the Finns halted where they did. Political and military. You have done nothing to address the political situation of Finland. Just because you do not understand their position, and are incapable of examining their situation, without the benefit of hindsight, does not mean that they were behaving illogically.

None of these issues have been answered.

 

Decimated hardly describes what happened to the paratroopers on Crete the Germans lost almost 7,000 out of the less than 20,000 troops assigned to the operation. That's the equivalent of being decimated more than twice over. For the Paratroopers it was probably worse. Then there's the loss of transport aircraft. Every major airborne op the Germans launched resulted in the destruction of significant portions of their transport aircraft as well and Crete was no exception. I wouldn't expect a major airborne op vs the Soviets to be either.

 

To us it rather appears that you are blinded by your own opinions and preconceptions. Hand waving it is and rather devoid of common sense once the problems are pointed out which they have been.

Resting your case before you have really made much of one is the equivalent of surrender, thanks for not requiring us to waste anymore effort.

 

BTW, the Battle for Greece was over on the 1st of June, 1941; that is a mere three weeks before Operation Barbarossa. Germany had at that stage of the war, a single division of Paratroopers (Fallschirmsjäger). This was called the 7th Flieger Division (renamed the 1st Fallschirmsjäger Division in 1943) and was not sufficienly recovered enough to be sent into battle again until late September 1941, when they were sent to Leningrad.