danfrodo

TIK goes into more detail in his Battlestorm Stalingrad series. But basically the city itself wasn't the problem. In fact 6th Army actually took most of their casualties outside the city. The problem is that they simply didn't have enough strength to both defend their growing northern flank and continue the advance at the same time.
By the time they actually reached the city itself their strength was sapped due to the triple factors of heavy casualties on the approaches to the city (particularly on the Don bend), most of their replacements being sent to Army Group Center instead (thanks for that Halder), and the fact that they had to pull divisions away from the advance to defend their northern flank.
edit: Also crossing the river north of Stalingrad definitely wasn't an option, since there were massive numbers of Soviet troops defending that direction (relentlessly attacking from that direction actually, which kept a lot of German forces away from the city).
 

All good points.  Add in start sooner, have clear objectives -- moscow?  oil?  cut north/south supply lines?  Fun place for speculation.  Maybe let N Africa go, that's a couple more divisions.   TOAW (Operational Art of War game) has some of these alternatives, but the AI is kinda weak.
Earlier someone mentioned Churchill's Greece disaster was actually good.  While it did spur germans to send troops to greece, and possibly delayed Barbarossa, I think we can't really credit Churchill for an absolute disaster of a decision because of a completely unintended side effect.  Another side effect of Greece was that Brits did not have the resources to finish the job in N Africa, leading to another couple years of fighting there when they could've been put to other uses.  The divisions sent to Greece were pulled directly from N Africa, ending offensive operations there. 

Hi @danfrodo what you say is true, Hitler would have never gone for it. But since this is a hypothetical, The 'evil genius' Hitler recognized that if he could stir up the Soviets against Stalin by helping the Ukraine 'liberate' their lands, He would have:
a whole new army at his disposal, Stalin would have one less army His supply lines would be effectively reduced by the width of the Ukraine as that would be friendly territory (1260km).  When the war ends, he shuffles off the remaining Ukrainian soldiers to Siberia (or worse). They are still Nazis... If Hitler had played that game, along with fixing Enigma, starting Barbarossa earlier and possibly driving directly to the oil. Would Barbarossa have been a success?  Maybe not WWII, but at least Operation Barbarossa?

yeah, I agree w Zveroboy1 somewhat: this subject gets kinda goofy after a while.  I've been doing the woulda-coulda game my whole life on eastern front, and it still comes down to Hitler having to do a whole bunch of things he wasn't gonna do.  And why would he have done anything different? -- he was convinced, as were most others, that soviets were a paper tiger that would easily fall.  So strike now before they inevitably get stronger.  His reasoning wasn't crazy, it was just blindingly optimistic.  Optimistic to the point that he didn't consider the price of failure, which was the price France paid after 1812 of having a russian army occupy your capital.  Besides, Hitler was on quite a roll at that point -- every high stakes gamble he made had paid off.  He couldn't even imagine he could be wrong.  His opponents were stupid, brainless sheep, as he had proven over & over again, and Der Fuhrer was an infallible military & strategic genius.

thanks for nothing, Steve.  I was all geared up for weeks of uninformed, pointless speculation by us all on the forum and you've ruined it by providing clear and complete information.  Unless maybe this is some kind of false flag post where it's just to distract us from conjuring up all sorts of "what's really happening" items which might actually get too close the truth..... yeah, that's gotta be it, we're not gonna fall for this obvious ploy. 

thanks for nothing, Steve.  I was all geared up for weeks of uninformed, pointless speculation by us all on the forum and you've ruined it by providing clear and complete information.  Unless maybe this is some kind of false flag post where it's just to distract us from conjuring up all sorts of "what's really happening" items which might actually get too close the truth..... yeah, that's gotta be it, we're not gonna fall for this obvious ploy. 

thanks for nothing, Steve.  I was all geared up for weeks of uninformed, pointless speculation by us all on the forum and you've ruined it by providing clear and complete information.  Unless maybe this is some kind of false flag post where it's just to distract us from conjuring up all sorts of "what's really happening" items which might actually get too close the truth..... yeah, that's gotta be it, we're not gonna fall for this obvious ploy. 

Logistics and industrial capacity. Which is basically the same thing. 

I understand, Dan. And you're right as usual. But it's hard to imagine a German victory in the east, even in 1941. Reaching Moscow would only have resulted in a super Stalingrad and a pyrrhic victory at best. Stalin had calculated the loss of his capitol and would through terror and mass executions have prevented the collapse of his regime. What most people underestimate is how well Stalin prepared his country for war. Killing many talented officiers may have weakened the Red army, but tightened his grip on his armed forces. Most Wlassows already lay in their graves when Barbarossa began.  And only Russia could have beaten Russia.
 

Totally agree with you, my friend Aragorn.  But note my caveat -- I am only looking at 1941, since my premise is that war was lost in that first year, before lend lease had major effect.  I agree lend lease was incredibly important overall.

From what I've seen, lend lease was very important, but not at first.  In 1941 it was just a trickle and didn't make much difference.  By 1943 it was a flood but I am working from the assumption that the Germans lost in 1941, per Stahel and others.  After that it was only a matter of what the German-Soviet end game would be -- negotiation or war to the death (death of Hitler, that is)
Anyone watch youtube by TIK?  good stuff.  He had stat (a sourced stat, from actual documents) that said soviets built ~130k trucks during the war.  But lend lease sent them ~400k trucks!  Imagine the lack of mobility, the great shortening of the supply line, that would've been w/o all those trucks.  And if the soviets chose to build all those trucks, how many less T34s & guns & shells would they have had?

OMG, you mean there's MORE after CW & F&R??????

Haha!!  New desktop has arrived and oh it runs everything at very high spec!  On to the third battle now!  
Man, the new computer is so smooth I have to go dive back into everything again.  The detail now is ridiculous!  I have no lag for anything!

Nashorn in action. 



 

Thanks TCapt, that's good info.  Still in setup, just doing the terrain scouting is taking a while, but will pay off, as usual.  I would like to sit back and ambush each avenue of advance but my orders are to find 'em, so off I'll cover.  The warning about soviet air in the area is worrying for sure.  I hope to start it tonite.
Any chance you can call my manager and explain that NATO needs me this afternoon and I should be given time off?

I just finished battle #4 last night, that one is a real treat also
Battle #3 is big, epic fight, I'll be interested to see your take on it

Ugly, ugly, ugly!

Thanks TCapt, that's good info.  Still in setup, just doing the terrain scouting is taking a while, but will pay off, as usual.  I would like to sit back and ambush each avenue of advance but my orders are to find 'em, so off I'll cover.  The warning about soviet air in the area is worrying for sure.  I hope to start it tonite.
Any chance you can call my manager and explain that NATO needs me this afternoon and I should be given time off?

I will not try to drop any spoilers!  I just finished the first mission with a major US victory and I still can't believe it was a major victory.  That battle was, how shall we say...harrowing?  I lost more than I wanted to so we will see how that plays out.
I just started up the second mission.  As the first battle was just so much fun in feeling out where the Soviets were and how to get my troops back safe, this second one is entirely a whole different world.  Literally.  We'll see how this goes.  No plan survives first contact and this one has me completely nervous...
I haven't had so much fun playing any CM title since I don't know when.  I'm completely pulled back into Black Sea now too and, of course, I had to also get the Fire and Rubble pack.  Mwuhahaha!  
Now, if you can please, let's all cross our fingers and pray to the gods of war that brave lonely 2nd Platoon can pull this little gambit off.

He hit the target.  

OK,that is the ugliest tank I have ever seen

OK,that is the ugliest tank I have ever seen

I guess I am a serial philanderer.  I play all the games and my favorite always seems to the be one I neglected for a while and started again -- "wow, this one is the best, why did I stay away  for months?". 
But I gotta say CMCW is f-ing fantastic.  I've got F&R campaign and a CW campaign going and keep sneaking over to the CW one when F&R isn't looking.  The torture and then joy/disaster of watching those slooooooooow ATGMs reaching out....  those saggers scare me to death
If I had to choose one game?  I can't do it. 

Scratch two Shermans…
 

 

I don't know art but I know what I like