what if the germans won at Stalingrad

holy sh*t, i did two post in the wrong topic

okay, this has to be in the topic seelowe

 

Right, some basic problems with your surmising here.

I will say again, the Luftwaffe have no airbourne Torpedoes at this point and very few armour piercing bombs. They did score successes against the Royal Navy at Dunkirk, but significantly few of theose ships were manouevring at sea at the times of their sinkings, significantly also by the point you give of the Invasion many of these Stuka crews of such experience had already been killed or captured in the early phases of the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe at this stage are not a potent anti-shipping force.

The RAF itself was never close to being wiped out in the Battle of Britain, nor even was Fighter Command, due to Park and Dowding's careful husbanding of their reserves. The point that is usually considered the stage that they were hardest pressed applies to 11 Group Fighter Command in the South East, 12 Group and 10 Group were both far less fatigued and still more than capable of putting up a fight. Bomber Command was largely unaffected by the Battle of Britain.

A lot of the problem with speculating Seelowe is that for Seelowe to go ahead the Luftwaffe had to achieve its goals, and the problem with this is the Luftwaffe had no clear goal throughout the Battle of Britain. To go by what they could realistically achieve, local air superiority over Kent, this still allows for an RAF presence in Kent, especially North Kent.

You give credit for the Luftwaffe against the RN because "A Bf109 (Note: Bf109, not Me!) is better than a Swordfish", equally a Hurricane is better than a Stuka, hell a Fulmar or a Skua is better than a Stuka, and Skuas also scored quite well in Norway as anti-shipping dive-bombers. Additionally, the Bf109 can do a grand total of bugger all against something like a Battleship or a Carrier.

You also fail to give any indication of casualties amongst the landing forces, landing at night is a two edged sword, why do you think the Overlord landings occured early in the morning? Command and control of anything larger than a small highly elite raiding party at night is practically impossible. Even amongst a modern army, the British expedition to the Falklands could have ended in a disasterous, humiliating defeat so early on because when the Paras came ashore at night there was no effective command and control, one account I have read describes men just milling around waiting for orders.

I think a dawn attack is the most likely, and then the casualties will mount and mount quickly. As I have said elsewhere, against the German "landing craft" the Royal Navy wouldn't even need to shoot to sink them, the wake of a destroyer would do the job!

I agree Seelowe would have been an almost certain failure, but I think it would have been at a much reduced cost to the British. I certainly don't see the British Battleships being practically wiped out.

By the way, Brittany is a region of France, Britain is the island nation to the North.

 

kamikaze enyone?

 

Kamikaze is a Japanese word, the hint should be there. Bear in mind even Hitler at the end apparently found the idea of a piloted V-1 distasteful and that wasn't even supposed to be a suicide weapon!

I cannot imagine the Luftwaffe using suicide-Bf109s somehow...

 

I was joking simon, should have added a smily.

 

Ah sorry...

In a way you are right though, about the only way a Bf109 could hurt a Carrier or Battleship would be to Kamikaze it.

I will add another point onto this, whilst the Bf109s may slaughter Swordfish during the day, the Swordfish would be more than capable of attacking by night, the Germans had no proper nightfighters at this point so interception would be all but impossible, the FAA by comparisson would know pretty well where the KM ships and transports would be, back this up with a overflight or flare plane to let the Swordfish crews see their targets and orders to attack targets of opportunity and it wouldn't be too long before the channel started filling up with sunken German shipping.

 

I agree with you on the oil fields and St Petersberg (spelling?) but the western front air war was hammering the German industry, and the attrition costs in German men and equipment were staggering. The war would have been a year or two longer but the Russians would have pushed the Germans back eventually; a major factor in the Allies favour was that Hitler became a Micro Manager and had failed to grasp the fact that he should have let his generals and industry leaders take care of the war.

 

On the 'wargame outcomes'...

What I have seen is that if Germany had managed to get across the channel, and keep their logistic route secure, then they would probably have won the land battle. But that is one heck of a big IF...

 

Hey, today is the anniversary of the German surrender at Stalingrad...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/date ... 573003.stm

 

what give , the germans took stalingrad they even struck a medal for it
showing the grains silos in the background .the tank factory was destroyed
the volga road was cut .
they kept fighting out of tidiness .
as for stalin city , it wasn't as big a deal on the russian side ,
every flea pot was somethingstalin including some big lost cities ,
the one who hurt were Smolensk the western gate of russia , kiev
the mother of russia , karkov the touted achievement of communism
stalin would have got upset ,not because of his name but because he
gave a direct order , not one step backward , and was expecting
obedience .
The turn of the war I think was at the taking of voronej,
the german going south instead of north and moscow .

 

They did not take the city, 62nd Army still held several areas along the riverbank and up to the foot of the Mamajew Kurgan at the height of the German advance. Then the German spearhead was surrounded and their 6th army destroyed.

 

YEP chiukov the commander of the 62th was a pit bull all right ,
on a bad day he had german tanks literaly at the door of his command
post ,mamaiev kurgan fell to the german after days of see saw
fighting ,at one stage both sides were charging the top and bombing it at
the same time , the 64th army was also holding on the southern sector
but again , what give, the german had most of the ruins and there wasn't
any reasons to loose one soldier for what was left ,the real reason was
just a prestige thing, the official reasonwas that the atrition was so
much worst for the russian side.
As for the oil fields the german got nothing out of it and still fought for
two years so ,they could have spared 9 months ,
Staline did seems worried about his petrol supply but most of it was in
baku and azerbaidjan , so it would have been a extra problem to live with
von kleist had enough problem holding grozni .crossing the passes of the
caucasus was impossible.

 

what if the germans attacked at, say, the caucasus first, stalingrad second? would that have changed a thing or just sped up the german defeat? what about stalingrad, then the caucasus.
I think neither would have done much, but i'm still relatively new to this war, even after being off this forum to study up on it (my thoughts were getting bashed a heck of a lot, so i took a breather to get a more complete view of the situation).

 

Your point about the oil fields is quite a valid one indeed; however, the German army did not have a continuous front as they simply did not have enough men and equipment to complete this task. The Russian war industries had been moved beyond the Caucassis Mountain Range(spelling, sorry) and continued to produce much more than Germany could have and did.

In no way would this have meant that Russia would have sued for peace nor been the final death blow of the Russian military; keep in mind the battle for Stalingrad was a definite grinder for the Russins too. In fact the German Southern Army Group destro=yed no less than six Russian armies after the Russians won the battle for Stalingrad, which is very impressive. This last point surely suggests the Russians could afford the costs of attrition in men, resources, and equipment, but, Germany could not.

But, as your point does imply the Russians would have been in serious jeporady of losing Moscow and maybe, a big maybe it is, Lennigrad; adding to the durration of the war by one - two years. The development of the atomic bomb though changes everything at this point in the war years of WW II.

I agree with your post just not the general aftermath of the one battle.

 

The atomic bomb did change everything. In fact, the target was actually Berlin before the Russians captured it, forcing the allies to target Japan. But if the Germans had managed to keep the Russians back for a year or two, their capital would've likely been turned into a hole in the ground and Hitler would've likely died in the blast (i dunno if the Chancellery Bunker would've stopped the blast, i have no clue how deep it goes).

 

Interesting. The Russians didn't actually have any impressive forces in Stalingrad until it became clear that the Germans were putting in an all-out effort to take the city. Before that, the Russians could not have moved into the German flank for simple lack of forces, so the Germans could easily have stormed the Caucasus without worrying about their rear areas. But for how long? It would, after all, have stretched their Rumanian-held flank yet further.

 

there is a definit feeling than stalingrad was not seen as important by
both side in july , it was barely mentioned in "case blue" and the stavka
reinforced it mostly because it was such convenient transport hub .
the strategic key was Astrakan at the mouth of the volga and the forced
passage for the russian oil supplies .

My thinking is turning to stalingrad being like gettisburg , an accidental
battle, not intended by either side

as for Roel statement about the importance of the caucasians oil field to
russia , he is bound to be somewhat right "oil is blood" is valid for
everybody the only valid reference to russian thinking is in
stalin by robert service p463 .. in summer 42 a bloke named baidakov is
called and put in charge of the oil installations .

" Commrade baidakov , hitler is bursting through to the caucasus , he's
declared that if he doesn't seize the caucasus , he'll loose the war .
everything must be done to prevent the oil falling into german hands
.Bear in mind that if you leave the germans even one ton of oil , we will
shoot you . but if you destroy the instalations prematurely and the
germans don't grab them and we are left without fuel , we'll also shoot
you"

this was given in a business like tone and baikanov tough it was fair
enough but plucking up courage he answered
" comrade stalin, you leave me no choice " stalin walked to him and
patted his forehead , the choice is here , fly out , think it over with
budienny an take the decision on the spot "

 

if the germans had concentrated on only the caucasus (sorry if i misspeld it) the russians could be in big trouble. the causasian oilfields and baku are worth of 80% of russian oil suply in those days. even if the russians destroyed every oil field, the russians would also have big trouble with their oil supplies.
but such an attack makes the german flank exposed from an attack from a russian army from Stalingrad. so, the way i see it, it is still a risky plan that has little chance of a good succes. the front is too big and the supply lines too long

 

Like Gunter said, the oil fields of Azerbeidzjan (sp?) produced about 80% of the Russian oil supply, and the fields around Maikop and Grozny a further 10%. Hitler claimed that he could not win the war without at least capturing the latter oil fields; for Stalin, keeping access to these fields was absolutely crucial.

Operational plans for Fall Blau had 6th Army cross the Volga north of Stalingrad, not south near Astrakhan.

 

Stalin had started his political career as an agitator on the baku oilfield
and was personaly knowledgeable about the caucasus , his ( only ? )
success as a military commander had been during the civil war at
Starytsin were he kept the grain of the Kuban flowing to the starving
northern cities , that why the city got the name of stalingrad .
he actually knew more about the region and the oil industry than many of
his commanders .

the oil of Baku ( 80 % sound right ) was shipped mostly by barges and
some by train , to Astrakhan, for refining and distribution .
loosing it would have been a BIG problem , loosing maikop and grozny
was a problem of denial to the german ,