How Germany could of defeated the S.U. during Barbarossa?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

Pretending Iraq is similar to Barbarossa doesn't have anything to do with 1940s ideology, it is just tendentious contemporary politics.

There is, of course, the disturbing military question this comparison raises, namely, how successful will the US Forces in Iraq be when the first snows start to fall?

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

Pretending Iraq is similar to Barbarossa doesn't have anything to do with 1940s ideology, it is just tendentious contemporary politics.

There is, of course, the disturbing military question this comparison raises, namely, how successful will the US Forces in Iraq be when the first snows start to fall?

All the best,

John. </font>

[Corvidae]

I think this thread reads better after a bottle or three of tequila,

we got the victors history crowd, the hollywood as history crowd ,,,, the dogmatic propaganda crowd, the "lets rehabilitate hitler" crowd,,, and the honest historians who are trying to figure out the whole mess,

any guesses on who i'm sharing my tequila with ???

[chiavarm]

Originally posted by frenchfried_krautdog:

"General Mud".

IIRC He was killed in Stalin's Purges :confused:

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

I see that rather than addressing my last responses to your allegations about me, you've simply picked a new attack angle. Since you brought it up, though, weather control (aka environmental modification) has demonstrably been operational since at least

the Vietnam War, when it was used to attempt to wreck the Ho Chi Minh Trail, via flooding and bridge washouts, under Project/Operation Popeye.

Regards,

John Kettler

[juan_gigante]

John - big, big difference between weather control and environmental modification. It's fairly simple to change the landscape through a variety of ways to induce erosion or flooding. Creating or preventing precipitation or controlling the temperature or pressure is a whole 'nother story.

[John Kettler]

juan_gigante,

Sorry for any inadvertent confusion, but the official treaty on the matter is titled CONVENTION ON THE PROHIBITION OF MILITARY OR ANY OTHER HOSTILE USE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATION TECHNIQUES and was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations 10 December 1976. If you search the CM: Shock Force Forum you'll find a post on this, together with the specific types of prohibited modifications, which go way beyond weather modification. See also my cover feature, "Weather Wars" in ATLANTIS RISING magazine, No. 55, available at www.atlantisrising.com If you e-mail me privately, will be glad to send you the article as I submitted it.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Son of Hamchuck]

JasonC,

Moving from blitkrieg to total war economy sooner ( say at Barbarossa's start' to avoid tipping off Stalin) would have most likely given the Germans at least a stalemate and relative control of European Russia, but it would not have been a given that the SU would have capitulated during Barbarossa ( or quickly thereafter ). Stalin & company were quite prepared to take the show to the Ural's and fight from that base. Now, doubtless given the fact that Germany would have survived to fight a longer war against the Allies, and developed an infrastrucure in Russia ( starting from the ground up would have taken years ), and brought the advanced weapons in development online, you would have a whole different scenario. So, yes in the end Germany could have prevailed, just not during Barbarossa.

FFKD

[juan_gigante]

John -

Issue #55 wasn't in the archives, so I couldn't read your article. It's not a huge deal or anything - my father is a meterologist with NOAA, so whenever someone mentions weather, I try to weigh in. Thanks for the offer, though.

[John Kettler]

juan_gigante,

It may be listed in the related pay per download site, but I'm not sure. My offer to you still stands.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Grimly Fiendish]

Originally posted by JasonC:

No Dave, you didn't stick to ideology instead of contemporary politics. Discussing 1940s ideology with the understanding most concerned were raving lunatics is fine, just one piece of the historical equation. Pretending Iraq is similar to Barbarossa doesn't have anything to do with 1940s ideology, it is just tendentious contemporary politics. Which you have been repeatedly urged to drop as inappropriate, but you can't grasp the distinction. Here is a hint - 60 years old equals history, 6 years old or less equals politics. Pretending contemporary pols are Nazis, inexcusable and moronic politics.

Sorry, Jason, all I was trying to do was pick a contemporary situation for a rough comparison that is, in fact, as far from 1940s ideology as I could get---that was the point. I was as unaware of your brilliantly simple distinction between history and (ugh!) politics, as I was that Nazi politicians still live and breathe. (Fundamentalists, however, are much the same no matter their background.)

It seems to me that nothing is truly immune from honest analysis, and if you think my comparison utterly wasteful, then you should be able to answer the following questions about the Iraq war plan:

How long did it take to capture Saddam? Why? How long was it supposed to take? Was the head of the serpent cut off, as planned? Or did it melt away before the air campaign ended? What were the plans for occupation? Were there any?

(You're right that these are to some degree political, not military, questions. But then, were Hitler's plans for occupying Russia post-Barbarossa, if any, purely military in nature?)

Did US troops go in with enough body armor? Good enough quality? Enough men? Enough Humvee armor? If so, good enough for what? To avoid how many casualties? Or were the 1000 postwar deaths part of the plan?

(Clarification: I do not propose that they were. I do believe that the highest planners---the CIVILIAN ones---did not care about casualties. Naturally, this is supposition, and I reveal it here not to air my "politics" but to be honest about them.)

No, I don't really expect sincere answers.

[JasonC]

f-k - sure it would have taken into 1942. That's the whole point, you don't need to gamble on one swift season getting a knockout. All you have to do is get the ball rolling downhill and make sure time is on your side.

The Russians are much closer to losing in pure attrition terms than people often realize, because a 5 to 1 loss rate is one heck of a headwind to try to make up.

In the actual event, the sustainability of all the Russian offensives of the second half of the war depended on mobilizing manpower from the last areas cleared, and getting them into new units within 6 to 12 months. Those provide half or more of the new recruit flow. The loss rate simply wasn't sustainable without the front moving their way.

Yes the Russians can pull back in space terms. But there aren't a lot of additional recruits to be had in the Urals. Not a million a month. They could keep up the huge mobilization rate for a while anyway, but not forever. Not at 1941 loss levels.

The thing that saves them is the German force isn't expanding. It isn't even making up its own lower losses. So if the Russians manage to push their mobilization rate past their own loss rate, they gain relative power.

But if the panzer fleet was doubling in size, and the Germans were not only making up all infantry losses but adding new divisions to the force even half as fast as they later show they could when they really had to? (E.g. 1944 collapse of both fronts made good). Then the Russians are in a world of trouble.

Toss in not sacking the best generals for bringing the "we didn't win in one season" message, and instead listen to them. Imagine Rundstadt is running AG South in 1942, with Guderian in charge an additional panzer army, complete in every detail added to the OOB, behind the south wing or at its shoulder (on the Don opposite Voronezh, say). With German infantry armies as big as the minor allies historically, also added. And boatloads more everything to support all if it logistically etc.

You don't need the Russians to "capitulate", they can fight on if they like. You just clobber them by the bushel continually and they can't make up the ground. Their own manpower reserve is not at all limitless, and if they don't liberate any subject population, it gives a lot sooner than a mobilized Germany. They have to reduce any attacks to sustainable levels, and those can't make any real impression on a German force they don't outnumber 3 to 1 in tanks and 2 to 1 in men.

Is there any solution to the US in any of that? No. But it would have beaten Russia.

[JasonC]

DS - Dems pathetic attempts to make mountains out of molehills in one of the clearest and most complete military victories in recorded history, is just politics at its very worst. Especially since their entire contribution to the war effort has been to whine continually for years and try to make partisan hay. That's why they will never be trusted with national security matters again.

Isn't this fun? Aren't you so much more interested in this than in CM? Isn't that why you are posting on online politics sites instead of here? And isn't the wonderful insight such arguments produce, the reason BTS first booted politics to a general forum, and then decided they were not welcome even there?

[JasonC]

As for the detailed military matters, I vividly recall predicting pretty much what transpired back in March of 2003. That we would win easily but then face extended, low level, and ineffectual sniping, mine, and suicide attacks indefinitely, which would not be able to accomplish anything militarily but which would have to be endured politically. I was regarded as a wild eyed optimist even among strident backers of the operation.

Because all our men were going to be gassed. Err, no. Because the oilfields would all be ablaze with Kuwait dwarfing fires, the gulf permanently ruined. The fanatical elite Republican Guard would fight hard this time unlike last, and we'd take 10,000 casualties just getting to Baghdad. Then there was nothing we could do once we got there. Because urban fighting was different, our technology would not work as it did in open desert. It would be house to house against limitless numbers of fanatics and our Stalingrad. Otherwise sober analysts solemnly intoned as much between rebroadcasts of Baghdad Bob's purely factual reporting.

When the columns paused for all of 12 hours to let supplies catch up and weather a sandstorm, it was already a "quagmire". Our forces were completely insufficient for the job. Bypassed forces holding out in the cities in a marvelously clever "urban strategy" would soak up all our combat power shy of the capital, and we'd therefore never be able to take one the fresh RG divisions coming down from the north. Meanwhile in the north, our light only forces would be unable to make any headway against massed Iraqi armor.

Whoops whoops and whoops. The worst that happened was one time the 101 sent all its helos on an airforce style raid and found even primitive air defenses, if just numerous enough, are actually pretty dangerous to mere choppers, as opposed to fast movers. Which was just another proof that war is friction and robust combat power will out. Nothing could touch the armor. (But the Russians had undoubtedly supplied massive numbers of Kornet ATGMs which would defeat M-1 armor easily. Err.)

Tanks proved even more useful in urban fighting than in the open - as Israelis had long said.

Oh then the swarms of fanatics in their technicals were going to attrite us, even if individually less effective than our higher tech vehicles, because used with suicidal bravery, and there is no way to defend against suicidal bravery. Those lasted a couple of news cycles.

And the Iraqis would be united against us. Until they helped pull down the statues.

The first phase over, the second consisted in the enemy believing their own press releases and trying to take on our units directly, result annihilation. Then they went after supply convoys and small patrols, but again with direct unit attacks. Took maybe a week to adapt and extended some training for NG units. Within a couple of months the enemy gave that up as a main tactic, because they were getting dusted too thoroughly.

Then they believed the urban combat press reports and went for area control, particularly in the middle north and in parts of Baghdad. When we started showing that wasn't so, it was cinematic enough on Al-Jaz that Iraqi pols intervened to save rebels. We backed off until after CNN ceased to be the decisive front (the election) then cleaned them all out. With about 1/1000 of the causalties of Stalingrad, and total victory in less than a week.

So they started avoiding direct military on military clashes and went after our convoys pretty much exclusively with IEDs. Those did some damage but we adapted. They produced no decisive effects, but have produced half our actual losses. Serious technological fixes (engineer vehicles, jammers, sniffers) have been fielded (and intel has improved - see below) and have cut their effects in half, at least.

Frustrated, they switched to easier targets - Iraqi politicians and security personnel. At first the latter had fire discipline problems and shot off their ammo before help arrived, resulting in a wipeout or three. Slightly better training and improved response systems eliminated that as a successful tactic. They tried mortaring our compounds - and learned about counterbattery radars.

They tried kidnappings, got a few concessions from weak kneed Europeans, and the worst press in world history. Everyone who has ever seen their idea of recruitment tapes would smile pleasantly as they boiled in oil. Way to go on the PR front, guys, keep it up.

So those were too hard for direct engagement too, and they switched to aiming at unarmed Iraqi civilians with remote detonations. Which have only pissed off their only possible allies. In places Baathist Sunnis are hunting them down themselves by now. They were supposed to intimidate everyone out of voting. Everybody voted.

Sadr was going to create a civil war by raising the Shiites. He hasn't, Sistani remains firmly in charge of them and backs the new government. Switching to civilian targeting, on the other hand, has raised our leads on operating cells and emplaced bombs by a factor of 10. Wait until we are gone and the CNN Queensbury rules revert to domestic Iraqi norms - the Shia will cut their balls off and feed them to them.

So far their most effective tactic has been to put panties on their head and look humiliated in an appeal for sympathy. Just like the Red Army.

[JasonC]

Oh and the losses. A statistician would not be able to tell the US is at war. Iraqis yes, you could detect it, but you could not publish a paper claiming to show the US must be at war because of casualty figures in a peer reviewed journal.

Since the invasion of Iraq, about as many Americans have been killed by other Americans in single US cities, as have died in Iraq - and the US murder rate is the lowest in 40 years. Overall more than 20 times as many have been. Toss in car accidents and you clear 50 times. It is true the populations are smaller. An average member of the US military has the same statistical chances as a typical US male age 18-39. Those in Iraq higher than those elsewhere, to be sure - just like those in DC or Detroit in the other column.

The Germans lost 46,000 KIA in France and it was considered the greatest successful blitzkrieg in history. They were still facing Macquis when the Americans invaded 4 years later. The US runs a twentieth of the losses and not foreign enemies but a domestic party calls it a defeat. Other nations cry themselves to sleep at night hoping against hope to ever suffer one such "defeat".

[JasonC]

Oh and the "they are just poor pawns" line. Always pretending to speak of others who despise everything they stand for. Here is the modest proposal that give the lie to all that nonsense. Would any liberal be willing to let only citizens who have served in Iraq vote in the next election? No? More likely to file lawsuits challenging their absentee ballots, aren't they? So stop pretending to speak for people you won't even listen to.

[Shmavis]

Before this thread gets locked, I should like to comment on Hitler's mental state. My wife gave me Jim Dawson's "Who Cut the Cheese?" for my birthday. I would call it a fairly comprehensive history of flatulence. In his book, it is mentioned that Hitler "suffered from meteorism, or uncontrollable farting, a condition aggravated by his vegetarianism." Until 1934, he had taken "Neo-balestol, a medical repackaging of WWI gun-cleaning oil" to combat his condition. Unfortunately, it contained the poison known as fusel oil and Hitler ordered it off the market after suffering acute poisoning.

In 1936, he met the quack physician Dr. Theodor Morell, who prescribed anti-flatulence pills which contained atropine and strychnine, both powerful chemicals, causing euphoria, delirium, violent fits, extreme sensitivity to stimuli and many other symptoms. Google them if you want. The accounts of many senior military and civil officials who had to deal with Hitler regularly would seem to support the possibility of his dementia being chemically(or pharmaceutically)-induced.

Now, before anyone gets started, I'm not saying that Hitler would have been a nice, old fellow if it weren't for those pills, or that only Dr. Morell is to blame for the colossal tragedy that was the Second World War, but it does seem to make a bit of sense of Hitler's behavior.

[ February 14, 2006, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Shmavis ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Shmavis:

Before this thread gets locked, I should like to comment on Hitler's mental state. My wife gave me Jim Dawson's "Who Cut the Cheese?" for my birthday. I would call it a fairly comprehensive history of flatulence. In his book, it is mentioned that Hitler "suffered from meteorism, or uncontrollable farting, a condition aggravated by his vegetarianism." Until 1934, he had taken "Neo-balestol, a medical repackaging of WWI gun-cleaning oil" to combat his condition. Unfortunately, it contained the poison known as fusel oil and Hitler ordered it off the market after suffering acute poisoning.

I worked with a vegetarian who ate only bean paste; it was absolutely horrible to live with.

[John Kettler]

juan_gigante,

Second workaround to get the issue. Please call

800-228-8381 (office of ATLANTIS RISING), when the phone is answered by Darsi/Darci, tell her that I suggested you contact the office and ask for a copy of issue No. 55 to be sent to you. Am sure she'll be happy to do this.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Those of you with an interest in Hitler's psyche and medical condition will find my article "Hitler's Madness" in ATLANTIS RISING No. 43 a fascinating read. In addition to a laundry list of pharmaceuticals and toxins given to him later by the notorious Dr. Morell, Hitler may have become what he was during the course of recovering from hysterical blindness after World War I when a well meaning doctor, seeking to restore his sight,

lost when informed Germany had surrendered, started telling him all sorts of grandiose, "only you can save the country" stuff while hypnotized. He got his sight back, became deeply imbued with a sense of purpose, got into politics, after which we were off to the races.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

I think this thread reads better after a bottle or three of tequila,

we got the victors history crowd, the hollywood as history crowd ,,,, the dogmatic propaganda crowd, the "lets rehabilitate hitler" crowd,,, and the honest historians who are trying to figure out the whole mess,

any guesses on who i'm sharing my tequila with ???

The chick with the big tits.

[Son of Hamchuck]

JasonC,

Stalin wouldn't need to raise a million men a month to hold the Urals( or the vast areas between them and the Volga). Why would the Germans

expend the effort to go after the Russians, when a lengthy period consolidating their gains would be the most immediate need ( think the supply line to Moscow was long, it's roughly half of the distance required to reach the Urals. ). All the while, the Russians supply line shortens while the Germans lengthens. Even IF the Germans pursued they would be extremely out of their element in the mountainous country, which would afford numerous advantages to the defender.

The Soviet's would probably not have commited as many men to "meatgrinder" attacks for as long as they did, if they didn't see attrition as making a signifigant dent in the German side. In that case, one would expect that they would have fought more delaying actions giving up space for time. The fact that these attacks had an signifigant effect, and the knowledge that their "human capital" account was larger than the Germans made them the method of choice

All the Russians had to do was survive, knowing that eventually the weight of the US would make the difference, and in the meantime they would rebuild their forces. Their limited objective would be to conduct spoiling attacks from their redoubt, and tie up German forces, which could not be strong everywhere.

The Russians had extensive experience conducting operations thruout their remote hinterland, in and shifting forces back and forth between their far eastern regions, and the west during their civil war. Operating in the Urals would be difficult, but not unmanegable, certainly given the generally low level of infrastructure they were used to dealing with prior to the invasion.

The occupying force still has a hostile populace to contend with, and an unbelievably huge area to garrison even if it's only the country west of the Volga.

The Germans picked the wrong country to invade, but the right time to do it ( well sort of, as it turned out they would have been better off having a never ending Octoberfest ), and made a pretty good run of it for a time. Fix all of Hitlers mistakes, and the Russians wind up in the vicinity of the Urals, probably, bowed but unbroken.

So in the end the Russians don't capitulate, the Germans still have a two front war, and baring the attainment of nuclear weapons first ( unlikely ), go on to defeat by end of 1945.

FFKD

[Grimthane]

Sorry for my ignorance, but was there ever any Nazi suggestion of setting up a White Russian state?

Such as by canning Barbarossa and instead going purely for the 'liberation' of the Ukraine.

This would superficially seem a worthwhile objective for them, at least in the short term (though perhaps not in line with party rhetoric).

A buffer state from which at least some recruits and resources could be drawn and which would presumably be the focus of counterattack, would potentially be of some actual use (more than just keeping the Heer from demobilization as someone suggested earlier).

Anyone know if any fired German staffers suggested this?

[JasonC]

f-k - what are the Russians going to "rebuild" their forces with? All the population is in the areas that would be occupied by then. If they try to attack, they've got as far to go from the Urals to Berlin, as vice versa.

In two years, the Germans have a working rail system complete with enough narrow gauge rolling stock (they can just make it if they want to). The territory isn't going to be a drain. It will be looted like other areas, paying for itself, about.

Saying "all they have to do is survive" rather overlooks the actual role the Red Army historically played in defeating the German army. It is a bit like saying "all China had to do is survive to defeat Japan" - they didn't have anything to do with defeating Japan, which was up to the US to accomplish on its own.

Also, it would not have been any picnic invading western Europe into not 50 but 300 German divisions. Also, give them a year and they've got jets for fighter cover.

As I said, none of it is any assurance against the US - which was going to win the a-bomb race any way you slice it - but it would all have been enough to make Russia irrelevant to the outcome of the war.

Which would have been immensely to German's advantage, compared to what actually happened. And was fully within their existing capabilities, and existing political, economic, and military constraints. Not achieving it was a pure "own goal" due to overconfidence.

That's the thesis.

[Günzel for Kanzler]

Excuse me if I did not read all thew postings here and may be repeating something.

But so far it seems you are still stuck at looking at ground level strategy.

In some recent book review I saw there was a mentioning of the Tavistock institute in England.

The book claimed that Hitler had been there, in 1912-13 iirc, and supposedly was trained/programmed

for later purpose.

I'll spice this up with additional things, for more credibility, in case someone of you actually is

scientific enough to follow this path:

-Get the unedited last interview with John Lennon. There should be a small passage were he announces

to talk about the Tavistock institute, who were supporting or even creating the Beatles in an attempt to

weaken and corrupt society, by "drugs, sex and music". There is a claim the this announcement was why

Lennon was shot. Not by some madman, but by some kind of mindcontrolled dummy agent.

-Read the Cisco Wheelers book on mind control, the extended formula one, so, although he may blame

it all on the everlasting evil nazis, who did not succeed in taking a whole continent by murdering native

people like USA did, yiou may get a big impression of what mind control can be and is about.

.

-Jordan Maxwell has some document copy on his page, as for now, until taken down, or may be iots too

late for them to do that. In that document on some british-israelic society there is a late 1930s magazine

excerpt showing the Gizeh pyramid internal and total geometry explained as a timeline of events up to 2012.

-Including- the WTC date. That was back in 1939.

So, in that light, maybe this is sufficient for the less narrow-minded already, it is posssible that Hitler was

manipulated. That he was placed in charge by by Wallstreet is sort of proven imho, see "Wallstreet and the

rise of Hitler" or what it was called, and as well the feared S. Warburg account, which suppression was worth

some murder for the string-pulling people once ago. But, it still exists, although it's become rare.

As well see "Red symphony" for a story of how Hitler and Stalin were plotted against each other.

For example, here, http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/red-symphony.html

Having read such stuff, don't judge before you did, who knows what Hitler really was and why they lost.

Even Morell the quack alone could have been enough cause, if it's true what is told about his medication

methods.

On the strategic level, I remember a true criticism that Hitler was responsible for having the wrong type of

aircraft at the "right" monent. That is, in case of Russia it would have been wise to simply bomb the tank

factories instead of what they did, but they had no bombers ready. And at the end of war action,

yeah, the war never ended up to today (there is no peace treaty with any german government),

they had neither fuel nor enough fighters for shooting down the bombers of the USA, and Hitler "missed"

the big chance to develop and manufacture more advanced jet fighters, of which they had some,

but not enough.

Overall, Hitler is way overrated. And there is not just dumbness but also method to this - they create a

brightly lit spot, so you people dont see what lies hidden in the shadows.

One last time back to the initial question: Maybe they could have won the war. Maybe they could not,

because that would have been prevented by those who started the war - proven by the fact that they

stopped funding of germany when they had enough war going on.

Maybe "Vatican Assassins" avi and pdf, can shed some light on this as well, since it claims Dresden

was destroyed for being a Protestant stronghold, as well as some other strategically unimportant cities.

So thats why the Queen of England, that bitch, refused to visit Dresden and pay some respect, or even

apologize - because it was religiously motivated murder and destruction they dont want to apologize

ever for. Puts a new spin to conspiratoral history. Maybe Satan lied and he exists, after all.