Germany winning on the Eastern Front

[ljadw]

Sejanus: "However, I highly doubt that Stalin would have capitulated." (over moscow's capture).

Tsarist times are long gone. By the 1930's Moscow was the only center of road, rail, and other spider's webs of all types. Only by going through Moscow could one telephone, telegraph or drive whichever way to go. You see this on maps. Moscow is the center of everything. Without the very center of the Communists, it would be very difficult to find the oil, roads, railroads, communications, and many other resources to continue fighting. Once Germans took Moscow, they planned a huge bombing campaign against the Red Army and the whole society moving beyond the Urals. Where would the forces of Stalin find everything to make successful war, from nowhere...?

That is not correct :

1)Where would the Germans find the forces to start a bombing campaign against the Urals ?

2 ) The Soviet army was numerically stronger at the end of 1941 than in june 1941.

3) Roads were almost never used during the war in the east for obvious reasons .

[BDV]

3) Roads were almost never used during the war in the east for obvious reasons .

Well, roads were to be used to support logistically WM's glorious triumphal march to Volga/Urals. And they were used during Barbarossa and in the exploitation phase of Taifun - with the well known no good very bad awful results.

[ljadw]

For logistics, the railways were essential and dominant, not the roads :divisions were not moved from one AG to another,from one army to another, by road, but by train : especially PzDivisions, because tanks were not made to drive over big distances using bad roads ,or even good roads.

A German mobile division in action needed daily almost 500 tonnes of supplies:this cold not be done by trucks , but only by railway.

[Sejanus]

Sejanus: "However, I highly doubt that Stalin would have capitulated." (over moscow's capture).

Where would the forces of Stalin find everything to make successful war, from nowhere...?

This assertion of yours (and others) is doubtful as Moscow did not supply everything for the entire Red Army, including it's supplies, equipment and personnel. Soviet Russia was a vast country that was drawn on for what was needed, with assistance from the West (Lend-Lease). The war could have continued if Moscow was lost.

By the 1930's Moscow was the only center of road, rail, and other spider's webs of all types. Only by going through Moscow could one telephone, telegraph or drive whichever way to go. You see this on maps. Moscow is the center of everything. Without the very center of the Communists, it would be very difficult to find the oil, roads, railroads, communications, and many other resources to continue fighting. Once Germans took Moscow, they planned a huge bombing campaign against the Red Army and the whole society moving beyond the Urals.

The "very center of the communists" could have been relocated, different routes could have been used, new roads and rail lines built, etc. And on the subject of maps, Moscow was never "the only center of road, rail, and other spider's webs of all types" or "the center of everything" for the entirety of Soviet Russia (you did write "everything").

Sorry, but these ideas of yours are no better than your earlier claims that the Wehrmacht could have been successfully resupplied entirely by air for the entire invasion to Moscow, bypassing everything on the way and not bothering with the encirclement of Red Army units, etc.

[BDV]

For logistics, the railways were essential and dominant, not the roads :divisions were not moved from one AG to another,from one army to another, by road, but by train : especially PzDivisions, because tanks were not made to drive over big distances using bad roads ,or even good roads.

The logistics to the southern third of the front could theoretically be supplanted by shipping, but that would require serious planning and materiel expenditure to remove the Soviet Black Sea fleet. Historically, after the destruction of Romanian Navy, the Chernomorsky Flot ruled those waves.

Also if Luftwaffe had enough strength to eliminate the Ural industry, spread across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, it should have had no problem eliminating Leningrad industry, spread across maybe 100 square kilometers, saving PzGruppe 3 and 4 their detour north... :roll:

[randwick]

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Ijadw is correct , Corp level units had to be connected to a rail-head , the lower tactical units then used Trucks (always in very short supply)
or most often horses carriages , quickly the eastern Europe "panje wagon" became ubiquitous , it was available locally for seizure , was adapted to local tracks, was light enough to be drawn by the small local horses and did not need fuel .

Army group north used Talinn and Riga harbor , Army group south had some Black sea cargoes but in spite of search I couldn't find any record of German using Rostov , Tangarod or Mariupol harbor .

Leningrad industries were neutralized by the lack of coal , the Kirov tank factories stopped production around the new year ,
their utmost effort was when Stalin gave then two days of their own tank production for the defense of the city , the workers did miracles , but that was pretty much a last gasp effort ,
all through the siege and the war , light armament was manufactured and repaired in impossible conditions , including a simplified modification of the already spartan PPSh 41

[ljadw]

The problem is that there are only few sources about this subject ,and only in German :

Schüler: but for the moment he is not available

Potgiesser : not bad,but dated

Kreidler

Piekalkiewicz


The Ostheer needed daily some 30000 ton of supplies, this could not be done by trucks .

[BDV]

Army group north used Talinn and Riga harbor , Army group south had some Black sea cargoes but in spite of search I couldn't find any record of German using Rostov , Tangarod or Mariupol harbor .

The Black Sea Fleet could be suppressed by Luftwaffe for some intervals, as was done during Bustard Hunt and during sea evacuation of the Kuban Bridgehead and Sevastopol. However, Soviets were able to suppress Black Sea traffic (see Struma, Mefkure incidents), forcing the Germans to rail stuff to Kerch, then cross it over the Kerch Strait by means of improvised cable car. Soviets were also able to pull two(!) amphibious invasions of Crimea.

Of course, deployment of anti-shipping LW assets in Summer 1941 would have paid some handsome dividends, given that Soviets were working at that time under the concept of offensive "au outrance"; but LW was needed for the Baltic Sea duty, while KM was making just a minimal showing in that theater (for objective and subjective reasons). Same could be said for deployment of coastal UBoats and S-Boats.

[steverodgers801]

There was a air group that did naval suppression, but it was sent to sicily

[randwick]

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thanks BDV for the info ,
the Black Sea theater as a whole is often overlooked in my view , in spite of being quite important strategically .
your comment sow the suspicion that was the case , even then , for the OKW

there also was the very successful soviet evacuation of Odessa and the partly failed , soviet naval landing of Novorossisk
certainly more S-boats would have been quite useful for the Germans ,they could have been deployed with a minimum of trouble
U- boats while being good assets would have been a more ambitious undertaking especially considering the maintenance need
and the fact that they would probably be stuck there afterward if the Turks stuck to their neutrality
that was during the peak of the battle of the Atlantic ,
the soviets fleet was severely handicapped by the loss of their main bases and a lack of ships but , on the whole overachieved

[BDV]

U- boats while being good assets would have been a more ambitious undertaking especially considering the maintenance need
and the fact that they would probably be stuck there afterward if the Turks stuck to their neutrality

Actually a small UBoat flotilla managed to get to the Black Sea, in October 1942;

But even this tiny effort (6 coastal boats) was not complete until May 1943; too little, too late. Still; it likely played a role in the fact that soviet ships did not interfere with Crimea evacuation.

But historically, Odessa evacuation, the Kerch landings and Sevastopol resupply should count as "lost victories" for the UBoat waffe.

[randwick]

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Thanks for the link , very good .
I've also found something on the S boats , they seems to have been quite active ,
http://s-boot.net/sboats-km-blacksea42-43.html
it mention a substantial presence of Italian speed boats which were taken over and "convoy escort" duty , so there must have been convoys !

The units seems to have been deployed at about the same planning stage , late spring 1942 .
to me that would suggest a strategic afterthought by the Kriegsmarine to get into the action after all


P.S we are getting seriously off topic

[BDV]

.P.S we are getting seriously off topic

Not quite. The german failure on the OstFront is multifaceted. Naval matters in the Black Sea is one facet - and not a minor one at that given the importance given to affairs in the Southern 1/3 (Ukraine, Kuban, Caucasus) by the German political leadership. And one they were right about, in principle, panzer-jockeys' Moskaulied to the contrary.

[randwick]

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I've been thinking a bit , the deployment of naval units does fit with the "case blue" planing schedule , not least with the battle for Sevastopol
so maybe that was not incidental after all !
Manstein must have complained of the Soviet Navy supremacy ,and securing the Crimea was very present in Hitler mind

it seems the Italians were quite well set up with francesco Minbelli in command
the Italian 101st Squadron had about twenty units including subs and were present

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ly ... 01&f=false

[line]

Very narrowly Germans were advancing, could seize more territory.Due to the accumulation of a huge number of troops at Rostov, traffic jams occurred.