Germans doomed to failure

I agree to this point!

 

Mark 4.

"Who said anything about the urals the plan was to take Moscow (highly unlikely) Then hold off russian attacks from across the urals."


I was trying to illustrate that taking Moscow was the 'easy' bit. The Russian factories had been shifted to the east of the Urals, and there were still vast numbers of men available east of Moscow.

Taking Moscow would have been no different to failing to take Moscow. Stalin etc would have escaped east, and the men and materials were still there and threatening the vastly over-stretched germans. Generals Miles and Winter would remain just as much a threat as ever.

And the ENTIRE front had to be defended against the Russian threat, not just the city of Moscow. A thrust north and south of the city could have surrounded it. The germans did not know where or when that threat would happen.

 

Doesn't plain stupidity have something to do with the failure aswell?
How many major battles were fought when they could have been avoided, but instead drained valuable resources and lifes? Places like Stalingrad and Kursk. Just how strategically important were they? Would they have been worth the cost for the Germans even if they managed to win those battles? There must have been cities/towns/villages not worth the fight.
Or maybe I don't know enough to say stuff like that yet.

 

Thats what i said. The whole thing wasn´t planned after an good strategic point of view. All the mistakes they made gave an horrible result. What can you do with to less men and material, to long supply ways, a bad planning and the mistreatment of the civillians? You will end up at an catastrophy. And if they had read an history book about the problems of Napoleons "Grand Armee" they could avoid a lot of their mistakes including the later problem with the partisans. This too was an reason that broke the neck of the "Grand Armee" and it didn´t made living easier for the Wehrmacht.

 

That is unless your talking about the fate of Leningrad... By taking Moscow the Wehrmacht would cut Leningrad's lifeline to the rest of the Soviet Union. A double track heavy capacity rail line ran between Moscow and Leningrad and was the source of the majority of Leningrad's food, ammunition and fuel. If this line were cut all that remained were two single line tracks of low quality/capacity that took very inconvenient and out of the way routes to reach Leningrad. http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/map-ussr-1960-railways.jpg
These tracks were likely to be high priority targets and quickly severed. The loss of Moscow as a transportation hub basically dooms Leningrad and allows Army Group North to reduce the city and move its bulk up to the Onega river line and secure AGC's northern flank. With no road network and very limited rail capacity the Red Army's Volkov Front would wither away under pressure until its supply lines became shorter or AGC sent mobile units north to cut it off. Looking at the rail map linked above and with a basic understanding of supplying a large number of units in major combat, the loss of Moscow makes the loss of Leningrad academic.

 

Wasn't Moscow a communications hub aswell?

 

Yep with a lot of hidden bunkers in different parts of the city. And if Stalingrad was a massgrave for the Wehrmacht i can´t imagine what Moscow would have been.

 

Yeah but Moscow was a major Transportation hub AND Communications hub, I don't think Stalingrad was either one of them...all it had was a name. Moscow would have been much more worth the fighting than Stalingrad.

 

I really don't think that taking Moscow, Leningrad AND Stalingrad would have made ANY difference, apart from shifting the front line a further 100 Kms east. Thus adding to the german LOCs. There is NO way that Russia would have sued for peace/surrendered after losing all 3 cities.

The further east the germans got the harder and more dangerous the job was. Like I said, Moscow was only half way to the Urals, and just sitting on a front line a couple of thousand Kms long, ALL of it under direct threat, is not a good idea.

 

Correct! But for that you´ve neede an straight and powerful movement into this direction and not a unnecessary splitting of the troops and spreading out of 1000km.
I´m not an strategist but an concentrated, powerful movement with strong flanks would have had more success.

 

I suggest you guys look at the map of Soviet railways I posted and take note that the Germans would have been in possession of the majority of the rail network. Moscow is halfway to the Urals, but not all of Russia is of equal value.
In regard to a fight for Moscow in the city itself in 1941:
According to the speculative scenario of an attack on Moscow earlier than Operation Taifun:

"the city had no citadel comparable with that at Brest, nor seacoast and great lake as at Leningrad, nor favorable strategic circumstance as in Stalingrad. The Soviets intended to evacuate the place, then begin to trade space for time to somehow survive east of the Volga". (from Hitler's Panzers East)

Taking Moscow in Sept or November would have been more like Minsk or Smolensk.

 

You´re right! The railway net was helpful and it would have been possible to take this city. The Russians would have evacuated the most important people and military facilities. But if you have the chance to look at plans with hidden bunkers and tunnels you can imagine that they weren´t built for sightseeing tours for the Wehrmacht. If i´m right with my opinion the Red Army would have stopped the Wehrmacht in an short distance out of Moscow. And than they propably would have used their tunnel system to infiltrate the city with their Troops and make the Wehrmacht feel "uncomfortable".

 

Most (about 50%) of the Lend-Lease aid to the USSR came via Vladivostok and then via the Trans Siberian Railway to the west.

That artery was vital, and it carried not only materials but also men. IF the germans had managed to get to the Urals, their LOCs would have been impossible. The german supply lines would have ground to a halt long before they got that far, they only just managed to get to Moscow.

And those captured railway lines would have lasted a week under constant Russian attack.

 

All this is theory, It was possible for the Wehrmacht to conquer Moscow and the cities on their way to it. Also would it have been possible to defend the railway and their supply lines. But the much bigger problems would have hit them after they had Moscow. So Moscow alone isn´t enough you have to control the rest of the country too. And that means they had become the same problems as they had in reality. They had to spread their troops and i´m sure that it had ended the same way like it did.

 

The strategy of the Germans was different :it was destroying the Soviet Army before it could mobilize,and the rest would follow:fall of Moscow,........
The reasons for this strategy were
1)there was no way to arrive at Moscow in 10 weeks(the railways in the territory of AGC would not afford it),while it was possible to destroy the Soviet Army in 10 weeks .
2)even point 1 was possible,it was very unlikely that the fall of Moscow on 10 september would mean the collaps of the SU .
3) all that would happen after september was adventitious;the decision had to fall in the first ten weeks .

 

The fact remains that if the Wehrmacht had taken Moscow the Red Army's efforts to continue the war would have been greatly hindered. Everything from transportation, industrial production, mobilization/force generation to morale would have been negatively impacted. It also meant the fall of Leningrad and the resulting operational freedom of Army Group North.

I'm not sure what you mean here, throughout the conflict the German rail net in the East rarely had any issues after the winter of 1941/42. Even large amounts of partisan attacks in 1943/44 had almost no effect on Wehrmacht train schedules and resulting tonnage shipped.

 

Black 6.


"The fact remains that if the Wehrmacht had taken Moscow the Red Army's efforts to continue the war would have been greatly hindered. Everything from transportation, industrial production, mobilization/force generation to morale would have been negatively impacted. It also meant the fall of Leningrad and the resulting operational freedom of Army Group North."




During the attack on Moscow, I think that virtually all factory production had been moved east. Loss of Moscow would not have reduced production. The 'transport hub' view is open to question also, The rail lines from the Urals would have been intact.



"I'm not sure what you mean here, throughout the conflict the German rail net in the East rarely had any issues after the winter of 1941/42. Even large amounts of partisan attacks in 1943/44 had almost no effect on Wehrmacht train schedules and resulting tonnage shipped."




With Moscow/Stalingrad/Leningrad gone, the USSR would have seen that those rail-lines would have to be disrupted. They would have been, they only had to destroy/disrupt the last 100 Kms, and any extension to the east east of those cities would have had to be rebuilt from scratch on the wreckage of the scorched earth tactic.
I can only repeat, the loss of those 3 cities would NOT have stopped Russia from fighting for the Motherland. Their morale would NOT have been broken. And again, the further east the germans managed to get, the harder the job was.

 

I still fail to see how it was possible for Germany to capture Moscow. In what scenario would Moscow have fallen and how would this be accomplished?

In the first 6 months of Barbarossa, Germany sustained 800k casualties but was only able to replenish 200k of them. Moscow was not only the worlds most fortified city but also more than twice the size of Stalingrad, what price would Germany pay for such an accomplishment in both men and equipment and how many of these casualties would be replenished?

Finally, how would the Germans be able to hold the city or prevent themselves from suffering the fate which befell on the 6th army?

 

Factory relocation... You can move the machines and the workers but you cannot move the buildings, the power stations, the rail net and all of the rest of the supporting infrastructure and services. Production is thus negatively effected and to a large degree, whether it is a lower rate of productivity, lower quality, both or other. Just by simply saying the Soviets relocated factories doesn't in any way replicate Moscow, Kiev, Smolensk, Minsk, Leningrad, Rostov, etc. If this were some sort of economic model depicting industrialized warfare you would see that without Moscow the Soviets would have a lower output for the same amount of resources they were using prior to Moscow's loss. In essence, the Soviet military-industrial base would experience a large amount of displacement which has a direct effect on the efficiency and output generated. This amount of lost efficiency by displacing the Soviets from Moscow has the potential to be decisive in a protracted industrial war. By denying the transportation hub to the Soviets, their ability to move the same volume of men, equipment, supplies and raw materials is negatively impacted as well. The Soviets only had a few double tracked lines that could handle heavy loads (quality bridges), aside from the tran-Siberian railway I don't know of any they would have had left if the Germans took Moscow and Leningrad. The loss of Moscow seriously hinders the Soviet railnet and in some areas almost paralyzes it.

 

Its back a few pages.....