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

LJAd, Hitler did not think Moscow was important, The generals did. The problem was Moscow was too far except in a case of total collapse

 

"Collapse" or "capture" of Soviet Union is so gigantic objective that it's size can not be comprehended just by looking at the map of Europe. From the map below it is quite clear that the objectives of Barbarossa are just a fore-meal of a rather large piece of cake. Is it possible to swallow something like that without getting severe stomach aches? German stomachs started turning over already at Kursk, which is 9.325 km from Vladivostok at the far east part of the USSR.

What the Nazis have severely underestimated was the will of Soviet peoples to defend their common fatherland.

 

Weekend usually means saturday and sunday.

Nazi-Germany never planned to occupy the asian parts of the soviet union. The famous AA-line (Astrachan-Archangelsk) was the declared end of operation Barbarossa.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Fatherland%27s_1964_Europe.jpg
"Fall Blau" almost reached the objectives in the south.

 

And what's they have thought? That Russians would sit idle over the AA line watching German colonization of their own soil? EDIT: It was take it all-or-nothing.

By the way, I intend to have a prolonged weekend this time, until Monday August 11th.

 

They weren't afraid of the remaining russians behind the Ural. There is almost no civilization now and even less back then, it is called Sibiria.
As far as I know, they didn't bother about frontiers, there are natural given borders there like the Wolga and the Ural.

 

At least I think the first year´s goal was to push the Red Army to the Urals and behind it.

 

How careless. They should have been. Distance from Moscow to Solikamsk (Urals) is 1,212 km. Do you think that Russians would have voluntarily fled that far?

Germans should now first ask Poles politely to get what they've lost beyond the "Oder-Niesse" line.

 

Only an utter megalomaniac could have set such an unrealistic goal upon shoulders of his army. Distance between Berlin and Ufa at Urals is 2.784 km. In six months that objective could have been achieved at speed of 15,5 km per day. I don't think that Russians could flee that fast.

 

There wouldn't be a Red Army anymore, when Barbarossa would have worked out as planned.

 

Germans didn't complain about being outnumbered in 1941; they started moaning when they started loosing the war. Let's see several case studies or should I say autopsies of the Wehrmacht. After being beaten so dearly I can understand that they have thought that they were beaten by much more Russian bears.


Typhoon:
Axis: 1,929,406
RA: 1,250,000–1,400,000

During Typhoon, the Red Army was outnumbered but inflicted important victory upon "better" German Army, perhaps the most important, decisive victory of the entire war.


Uranus:
Axis: 853.000
RA: 1,143,500
In operation Uranus Red Army had a slight margin by numbers but has devastated the whole 6 army without a chance to escape it's inavoidabe destiny. That was a masterpiece, not a copy of the Kesselschlacht. Germans could not keep a sq. inch of territories gained during the entire Operation Blue. Germans were simply overthought and overfought.


Bagration:
Axis:1,036,760
RA: 1,670,300
Even though Red Army had a 61% margin over the Axis, the pace and the extent of devastation was in no proportion with the numbers of personel. Red army opened a vast hole in German lines and erradicated the whole Army Group Center. A path to Berlin was widely opened, Army group north in inescapable position.

Citadel:
Axis: 780,900
RA: 1,910,361
In Citadel, Red Army had a considerable margin, but if we take into account operations that followed the notorious Prokhorowka, German armies at the south remained intotal dissaray and pushed to their starting point in 1941.

 

Maybe if Germany just completely ignored Britain after the Fall of France and Norway and used nearly all of their resources from the Navy and put it into the Army then maybe Barbarossa would succeed?(Not saying as a definite answer but trying to start an interesting arguing point).

 

@DerGiLLster

In my opinion that would have been indeed a realistic option. Britain wasn’t keen to enter a direct conflict with the Reich any time soon anyways. Instead of protecting Poland they have transferred their troops to Egypt - to protect Suez and the Empire. At the Atlantic they have introduced a blockade of the continental Europe. This indicates that the Phoney war was just an introduction to a long war of attrition – there was no danger of the invasion in France before the Reich was weakened enough to provide an easy victory. With hindsight, during the war Churchill did everything to re-direct all allied efforts to the Mediterranean instead to west France. Just short historic digression: something similar British Empire did with Napoleon, just then they send their troops to Spain!

In this scenario it would have been wise to use weak Romanian troops to guard France and use the entire Wehrmacht at the east. North Africa was just an unnecessary waste of resources. With all these forces concentrated to a single objective, chances for the victory at the East would have been much better.

 

Der Gilster, Mussolini ruined that plan by joining the war. The attack into Egypt forced Hitler to react otherwise Italy would have possibly revolted against Mussolini much earlier

 

So I guess the German generals memoirs should be revised to blame Mussolini not Hitler for their loss...

But really if Mussolini had just stayed a friendly neutral like Spain or at least stay out of North Africa, then Hitler could concentrate his resources from the navy and the North African theater into Barbarossa. But still, how could he stay out if he had successful conquests in Ethiopia and Albania. I don't think he could have hind sighted disaster for Italy anytime soon. Should have stayed under Adolf's wing

 

I wonder though, could Hitler have focused on building his army and air force resources while neglecting his navy in the six years before? I wonder if they could hide the size of the army and air force? I know France certainly would have focused on their army and air force if Germany had done so but what about Britain? I can't see Britain taking away resources from the Navy in response to the Germans focusing on just being a land power. I would think that maybe Germany being a land power might make Britain see Germany as less of a threat while France would flip out.

Does anybody have information on German rearmament during the 1930s? How much did the British and French know about German re-arming and how much would they let Germany get away with it? Could Germany have negotiated a part of the Versailles treaty that by reducing their navy they could increase their army size as well? I know Chamberlain was anxiously watching the Germans even he is portrayed as a leader who let Germany have everything unopposed but he was trying to see if he guarantee peace for Germany and the other nations.

Could taking most of the resources from the navy and putting it into the army have impacted the campaigns of Poland, France and the Low countries? A German army being much more mechanized could inflict greater defeats on it's nation. But at the same time would French generals take the campaign more seriously and deliver fiercer resistance than unusual? I feel as if that the Kriegsmarine would be reduced to that of a tactical navy to simply defend the Baltic for shipments going into Germany from Scandinavia. That would create a headache for the British as the Germans can have established airfields from close ranges and being able to support U-Boats and destroyers into a small corridor of the Norway-Denmark corridor of the Danish straits.

 

I think its worth noting that your examples show a steady pattern of changing numerical strength relative to each other which go well beyond manpower to include planes, tanks and guns. Further all these occurred after losing some 3 million troops to German attacks in 1941.

I have no wish to immune the bravery or courage of the Russian soldier, they were certainly tough SoB's, but most Soviet military operations were not technically complex. Mass men, guns, tanks, planes and throw them at the Axis lines, again and again. What your list fails to note that between these examples were other other large operations which always seemed to have fresh men and equipment in a rate Germany could not match.

Granted this is how war works much of the time, grind the enemy down at what ever the cost, but democracy's can not fight that way except in unusual circumstance's, and even then there is a limit. Such limits rarely factor in totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Finally I would point out that Soviet Military casualties equal or exceed German numbers despite that Germany fought on multiple fronts.

 

Are you sure?

At the start of the summer 1942 campaign the Soviet forces numbered five and a half million men, against six million Germans and their Allies. Both sides had roughly the same number of aircraft, a little over 3,000; the Soviet armies had 4,000 tanks, German forces 3,200. Across the whole area of northern and central Russia the two sides built a vast defensive barricade, and it was here that Soviet forces were concentrated, protecting Moscow and the heartland of Russia itself. Only in the south were Soviet forces much weaker. By July the 187,000 Soviet soldiers here, with 360 tanks and 330 aircraft.

We know how 1942 has ended for the Axis. So, may I ask: who was outnumbered and who was beaten? Who "massed men, guns, tanks, planes and threw them at the enemy again and again"?

 

It's amazing that after the Soviets lost over 5 million men as POWs and many millions more killed and wounded, they built up their forces numerically and as a good fighting force strategically.

 

How could they loose 5 million men in 1941 when the forces in european SU only consisted of 4 million men?

Hitler claimed the destruction of 28000 tanks when he was talking to Mannerheim in 1943, even numbers had been always wrong at the Eastern Front. Concerning ressources, the soviets were vastly superior, then they only had to fight one war, not two or three like the Wehrmacht. And there were the rumanians, hungarians, italians and so on, with their ill equipped and barely motivated (for good reasons) forces.

 

The Soviets lost 3.3 million POW in 1941,to this one should add the number of dead and wounded . But these losses were made good (and even more than that ) by the millions the Soviets were able to send to the front : an average of 1 million per month . The Germans claimed a number of 13400 destroyed Soviet tanks .