Siege warfare

I've heard or read somewhere that it was Hitler who ordered that there would be no assault on the city, since he didn't want to capture it, he wanted to destroy it (by artillery and air attack).

 

Hmm, makes sense. Wipe the city where Bolshevist Russia started right of the planet.


Siege warfare, past and present, is a really interesting aspect of warfare. The very basis of offense vs defence, and then seeing who is better.

Stonewall, you forgot my favorite siege weapon: Petards! Legions of explosive weilding petards means nothing more than pure devastion for the defending forces (or if it all goes wrong, the offensive forces).

Another common weapon was biological. The attackers would place dead horses, livestock, men into a catapult and launch them into the besieged castle to spread diesease and all that good stuff.

 

Although they waited until they were very rotten, otherwise the defenders would simply eat them.

 

Yes, of course, thanks for pointing that out Ricky. It was biological warfare, not a humanitarian effort.

 

Actually I think trying to conquer Leningrad would have been a mistake by the germans.

Basically it would have turned out as another Stalingrad, Leningrad was even bigger, the soviets would have fought even more fanatically in the birthplace of communism....
I can't see the germans conquering Leningrad without concentarting overwhelming forces on it.
Besides that, the loss of Leningrad would not decisively affect the russian war effort.
These forces would lack on other parts of the front.

There were quite more important targets for the germans to concentrate upon than Leningrad....

 

One reason I heard Hitler whanted Stalingrad was becouse it was Stalins name sake city

 

the main raison was the oil in the kaukasus. stalinggrad was the key for the kaukasus. if you controlled stalingrad you didn't had to worry for an attack from that side witch could split army group south in two.

afcourse a the struggle continued, it became a mather of prestige. Hitler defeats stalin at his own city or stalin whipes of the nazis in his own city just a idea of wath the propaganda posters could be

 

Stalingard beared Stalins name , and was a oil junction to the soviets , and if Stalingrad fell the country fell , but If Leningrad was attacked , most people in the city were so weak from the elements and starvation that there might not have been a largescale battle as like Stalingrad , Im not saying this as fact , but it's a possibility.

 

in stead of pushing on at stalingrad, geermany should attacked leningrad in 42 and gave rommel his reinforcements (those of group south are more then enough. rommel takes the middle east (witch has more oil than the kaukasus has) and in 43 you can attack stalingrad from two sides so that the city falls under the great presure.

 

Actually Stalingrad was just a city along the real artery of Russian oil and grain: the Volga river. Cutting the river anywhere along its length would have had the same effect for the German and Russian war efforts as taking Stalingrad, being that Russian industries would be paralyzed.

 

Persian oil...

 

B-24's bound for Russia were transfered near Tehran

and the Brits siezed a North South railroad in Iran near the Iraq border.


The Rommel gambit was countered.