Operation Barbarossa Ever Winnable?

[Aragorn2002]

7 hours ago, Freyberg said:

The outcome of war is not predetermined by economics or logistics - if it were, we would probably all be speaking Sumerian or Akkadian...

Or English...

[DMS]

On 8/7/2021 at 7:59 PM, danfrodo said:

Stalin did just about everything he could to help the Germans win before and during the summer of 1941.  Stalin had mostly exterminated his officer corps.  He put too much of his force too far forward and did not use defense in depth, despite having incredible depth.  He had no plan for how to handle a German mobile offensive.  he continually ordered hasty, ridiculous, piecemeal counterattacks that continually failed, resulting in terrible losses.  He refused to let units retreat, leading to the costliest defeats in the history of the world.  Yet despite all these utterly anti-competent choices, the Germans still didn't win.  So if they couldn't win with all this help, could they really have won?

But maybe if they had gone straight for Moscow, they could've won?  Maybe, I suppose it's best chance they had.  Maybe taking Moscow, which was the communication hub for the country, could've caused some kind of collapse given how hated Stalin was in Ukraine & elsewhere?  Maybe they could've held the loooooong southern flank of the Moscow drive against all those troops in the south? 

Don't mix politics with history. You don't like Stalin, it is understandable, but if he was a bad person - it doesn't mean that all his decisions were stupid, he was hated by everyone e.t.c. 

"He had no plan for how to handle a German mobile offensive."

It was no good plan while Germans had huge mechanised forces, 4 tank groups. (France was conquered by 1) Rifle units on foot would be outmaneuvered anyway. Defense in depth? They would be beaten by parts. And Soviet tank units had organisational problems, not enough trucks, artillery tractors. Industry couldn't produce enough of them. That's why Soviet tank counter attacks often lacked artillery and infantry support. Not because "oh, they didn't know that combined arms attack is more effective", but because of industry limitations. That's why German 88s could destroy KVs, T-34s and infantry easily throw charges on them. Everything has rational explanations, without this "ideology".

Edited August 10, 2021 by DMS

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, DMS said:

it doesn't mean that all his decisions were stupid, he was hated by everyone

Agreed.  Stalin's policies were intended to drag Russia from belong a feudal agrarian economy very much in danger of being gobbled up by western and Jape (can't say J*p without being called a racist on these forums) invasions.  White Russians were fighting him through the 20's and Soviet domination was in doubt.  However, to get the funds to purchase the modern industrial infrastructure needed, Stalin was ruthless with dominated nations like Ukraine and the others.  According to "Bloodlands" (an excellent and very readable book) Stalin was responsible for about 10 million deaths due to deliberate starvation or deportation during the 20's and 30's.  The Nazis may have gotten their inspiration from Stalin.

Was that a legitimate cost?  That's what one can discuss.  

[ASL Veteran]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Agreed.  Stalin's policies were intended to drag Russia from belong a feudal agrarian economy very much in danger of being gobbled up by western and Jape (can't say J*p without being called a racist on these forums) invasions. 

You could just say Japanese.  It's only five extra letters.

[Glubokii Boy]

8 hours ago, DMS said:

And Soviet tank units had organisational problems, not enough trucks, artillery tractors. Industry couldn't produce enough of them. That's why Soviet tank counter attacks often lacked artillery and infantry support. Not because "oh, they didn't know that combined arms attack is more effective", but because of industry limitations.

Lack of knowledege, experience and training was a very big part of the russian failure in the early part of the war imo...

Sure...a limited number of commanders, primarely at the higher level i belive,  had a decent understanding of combined arms but at the command levels further down the chain of command this understanding was usually far more limited as far as i understand.

Corps commanders, division commanders , battalion commanders etc ...had usually a very limited understanding of combined arms...a limited understanding of logistics etc...

Even if some of the best front, army comanders knew what they needed to know...they had a hard time to implement their ideas because of the low quality of their subordinate commanders...as well as the low training of the troops...

 

 

 

 

[Warts 'n' all]

48 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:

You could just say Japanese.  It's only five extra letters.

You're right. But, it might make his brain hurt.

[Erwin]

Precisely.  We humans abbreviate everything we can for a reason. 

[Bufo]

14 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Precisely.  We humans abbreviate everything we can for a reason. 

Only if you are murican.

[Artkin]

The Japanese were definitely ready to get their azzez handed to them by the Soviets.

[Freyberg]

3 hours ago, ASL Veteran said:

You could just say Japanese.  It's only five extra letters.

...or, if you want a term that carries the horror of the time, there's 'the Empire of Japan'.

[mjkerner]

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sounded much better.

Two r's in murrican, Bufo. 

[Probus]

31 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sounded much better.

Two r's in murrican, Bufo. 

And don't forget the apostrophe either!

I still think that if Barbarossa was going to have any chance of success the Nazis should have acted against their nature and went into the USSR as liberators. If Soviet soldiers started to desert and fight with the Germans, that's a 200% change for each deserter. It had already happened once in WWI. 

[Zveroboy1]

Yeah you're not wrong but to be fair if you postulate that the only chance Germany had to win the war against the Soviet Union was by having nazis not being nazis you're basically leaving the realm of plausible what ifs to enter plain science fiction. Remember why Hitler invaded in the first place : lebensraum, untermenschen, jewish-bolshevik threats etc. None of these things mesh particularly well with acting as a benevolent conqueror.

[ASL Veteran]

IF the western allies did not declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland

IF that resulted in neutral France, Britain, and America along with no Lend Lease

Germany invades the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1940.

No German occupation forces in France, Norway, etc so the full force and resources of the German military were targeted on the Soviet Union standing alone

Italy, Romania, Finland, and Hungary all join the invasion of the Soviet Union (Mussolini wanted to help the Germans in the Soviet Union in spite of Hitler not wanting his help.)

I think that even with what we know now the Axis powers would have prevailed.  The wild card in that scenario would be if the Empire of Japan still attacked the US in December of 1941, would Germany still declare war upon the US and thus likely bring Britain into the war as well (not sure what France would do in that circumstance).  If so, would Germany simply defend the West Wall and send a few troops to North Africa or would substantial forces be moved west to actively fight Britain, the US, and maybe France or maybe not France.

 

[Probus]

2 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

nazis not being nazis you're basically leaving the realm of plausible what ifs to enter plain science fiction.

I don't think that it would be outside the realm of possibility for the 'liberating' Nazis to turn into the 'conquering' Nazis after the war. Goebels could have easily fabricated a reason to turn on 'em. Divide and conquer. 

[danfrodo]

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.

[Warts 'n' all]

If I might be allowed to paraphrase. "Never Mind the waffle. Here's ...   

 

[Probus]

7 hours ago, danfrodo said:

he was convinced, as were most others, that soviets were a paper tiger that would easily fall

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?

Edited August 11, 2021 by Probus

[Probus]

3 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

If I might be allowed to paraphrase. "Never Mind the waffle. Here's

We can't see your video clip @Warts 'n' all.  Hopefully it was appropriate for this age group. 

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, Probus said:

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?

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. 

[pintere]

Alternate history is always a really tricky subject, for as long as one changes enough variables one can ALWAYS imagine a way one outcome or another could've been achieved. Could Barbarossa have been won? Yes, absolutely, provided enough variables are changed. However since most of us are probably far more interested in what could realistically have happened, I'll give my thoughts as to how German could have "won" Barbarossa while changing as few variables from history as possible. These are based off my own research as well as an extended campaign in Gary Grigsby's War in the East where victory was indeed achieved.

1.) How do you achieve victory in war? Two ways. You either break your opponents' will to fight, or you destroy their means with which to prosecute war. Germany lost WWII because of the latter reason, whilst Russia lost WWI because of the former. 

For all the damage the purges did to the Soviet military, it seems clear that they did help in that Stalin and his cronies had a very firm grip on their country, and given the German war aims it is unlikely that either the Soviet leadership or the Soviet people would lose their will to fight first. Thus, victory could only be achieved by destroying the means.

2.) In the case of the Soviet Union that is rather hard to do! It is a big country with a much larger population than Germany, and it is arguably the case that no single area in the Soviet Union was invaluable to their war effort. With all this in mind, for Germany to win they would need to appreciate these twin-fold difficulties in triggering any Soviet surrender. The challenge then is to formulate an operational strategy for removing the Soviet means to fight. I believe that for this two happen they would need to try to achieve two core operational aims:

a) Reach the historical AA line (or close to it).

b) Deplete the Soviet population and manpower reserves to the point where they cannot hope to reconquer their lost territories. Lend-lease could make up for a great deal of supply difficulties, but lend-lease cannot replace men! It is also stated in numerous places that Soviet manpower reserves were not inexhaustible, and that they too were taking extraordinary measures in this regard at a relatively early stage. The reason they did not ultimately bleed themselves dry historically is because they were eventually able to lower the casualty exchange ratio to a point in their favour whilst simultaneously regaining new manpower reserves from their reconquered territories (partisans, Poles, Romanians, etc.).

3.) So, from the start, Germany needs to be ready for a 2-4 year campaign. Industrial production would need to be adjusted for this expectation (and this was totally within the means of 1941 Germany to do), and operational aims would need to adjust to it as well. As far as Barbarossa is concerned, I believe just two things need to change for the first year to be considered a success:

a) Take Leningrad (or at least guarantee its fall in early 1942). This firmly secures the north flank, helps alleviate supply difficulties in the north and definitively removes the Soviet Baltic fleet as a threat. I explore what is probably the most feasible way to do this in the following AHF thread. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=255587

b) As soon as the first stage of Typhoon is completed and the Vyazma-Briansk pockets eliminated, stop. It's my understanding that the German high command debated the relative merits of digging in in late 1941 or trying to take Moscow before year's end, so there's no reason to believe that this option may have ended up being the one taken if more thought was given to the necessity of being in a good defensive position for the winter. If they had dug in at the start of November 1941 instead of later then they would've been in a far better position to deal with the Soviet winter counteroffensive and therefore sustain far fewer losses in men and materiel during the first winter. They thus would hold a line along the rough axis Lake Ladoga-Demyansk-Vyazma-Kharkov-Mius. 

4.) This also sets them up well for 1942. In 1942, the goal should be to feign a threat towards Moscow (something the Soviets tried very hard to preempt historically) whilst achieving everything Blau did historically, with two exceptions:

a) Don't bleed the 6. Armee dry in Stalingrad!

b) Make sure that the extended flanks of Army Group South are well defended. This could probably have been achieved historically if enough equipment was shipped to the Axis allies and enough armour reserves were available to counter Soviet armoured breakthroughs. Again, this seems wholly within the realm of possibility. 

5.) Now it's the spring of 1943. The Germans have suffered no catastrophic defeats, whilst the Soviets have suffered huge losses in territory and manpower through both German victories as well as failed attempts to achieve offensive success of their own (similar to how they did at Rzhev and Yelnya historically). Now the Germans can launch an attack to seize Astrakhan and Makhachkala (on the Caspian Sea) and thereby cut off the rest of the Soviet Union from Baku. It may also well be possible to launch an attack that will finally capture Moscow this year also. 

6.) At that point it's simply a matter of continuing to attrite the Soviets until the Soviet leadership is forced to concede the loss of most of the western Soviet Union. I imagine this would happen no later than the end of 1944, for if the Germans still have a capable land force then they have the ability to both launch opportune encirclements of Soviet forces in either offense or defense. 

This, I think, is the most realistic pathway for Germany to achieve victory in the East as they had originally intended. Fortunately for the rest of us, such a thing never came to pass!

[Centurian52]

I think it may have been possible for the Germans to beat the Soviets. I don't think it was possible for them to win WW2 mind you, but that's a separate topic (basically there is no way they build a navy strong enough to beat the British and Americans before the Americans get nukes).

I guess my opinion is that Operation Barbarossa went about as well for the Germans as it was ever going to. Some adjustment to decisions made during Barbarossa might make a marginal difference. The real make or break operation (I think) was Fall Blau.

Fall Blau of course was the big plan to take the Caucasus oil fields. The original plan was that Army Groups A and B would be launched one at a time, with Army Group B forming a northern blocking line stretching along the Don and Volga to Astrakhan, and then Army Group A would charge into the Caucasus and take the oil fields at Maikop and Grozny (and optimistically Baku as well). The plan changed early on with initially very weak Soviet resistance, leading the Germans to conclude that the Soviet army had collapsed, so they launched both Army Groups at the same time in order to speed the capture of the oil fields. This diluted the strength and logistical support of both Army Groups. On top of that units were pulled from the operation to reinforce Army Group Center.

Historically Army Group B only got about half way to Astrakhan, stalling out at Stalingrad. Army Group A was able to take Maikop, but couldn't take Grozny. And the oil fields at Maikop had been wrecked by the Soviets before the Germans could capture them. The Germans would be forced to retreat from the Caucasus before they could repair the oil fields at Maikop.

If the Germans could somehow win Fall Blau they could resume the highly mobile warfare that brought them their early successes, and possibly defeat the Soviets. But creating a scenario in which they win Fall Blau isn't easy. The obvious steps involve keeping to the original plan, allowing each Army Group to move with full strength and support (also don't strip any units away from Fall Blau, and prioritize reinforcements to Army Groups A and B, instead of to Army Group Center). This almost certainly would have led to the Germans winning the Battle of Stalingrad, since they were so close to taking the city historically that it seems even the slightest nudge would have made the difference in that battle. But Stalingrad is only a milestone enroute to Astrakhan, and there is no guarantee that this is enough to get them all the way to Astrakhan.

If it is enough for them to take Astrakhan and dig in along the planned northern blocking line, then Army Group A has almost a free hand in the Caucasus. The Germans take Maikop, Grozny, and Baku. Of course the Soviets still wreck all of the oil fields before the Germans can capture them (like they did historically with Maikop), so the northern blocking line needs to hold long enough for the Germans to repair the oil fields. Historically the part of the line that had already formed along the Don did not hold against the Soviet Operation Uranus. Perhaps the line is stronger now that Army Group B is no longer trying to conduct offensive operations at the same time. Or perhaps Fall Blau really was doomed from the start. There is no change I can think of that will guarantee German success, only changes that give slightly better chances of success.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Centurian52

[Probus]

51 minutes ago, pintere said:

b) As soon as the first stage of Typhoon is completed and the Vyazma-Briansk pockets eliminated, stop.

I've never heard anyone suggest this strategy before. This would have really helped the Wehrmacht.  Overextending your forces makes them very vulnerable, but would stopping have helped the Soviets more?

55 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Stalingrad is only a milestone enroute to Astrakhan

Why did Germany not cross the river North (and South) of Stalingrad and just encircle the city instead of bleeding it's army dry in city combat?  Wasn't their doctrine to bypass strong points and let the infantry deal with them later. I'm guessing a river crossing was not practical?

[Centurian52]

37 minutes ago, Probus said:

Why did Germany not cross the river North (and South) of Stalingrad and just encircle the city instead of bleeding it's army dry in city combat?  Wasn't their doctrine to bypass strong points and let the infantry deal with them later. I'm guessing a river crossing was not practical?

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).

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Centurian52

[danfrodo]

Note that TIK video series that Centurion52 mentions are based on sources such as Glantz, Jason Marks, others, and he cross references his sources looking for confirmation/disagreement to gain a degree of confidence in what he is reporting.  But the visuals are priceless -- think of maps from Glantz et al except shown dynamically.  Great stuff.