Kelvin wrote:butgen wrote:ljadw wrote:butgen wrote:ljadw wrote:
Not only were the Germans desperate in september 1941,but also must you,because,you are using the classick strawman ,I did not write that German armored divisions were not able to operate in the SU because the,
re were no roads,
1st strawman :I did write :I doubt very much
2nd strawman :I did not mention armoured divisions,but motorized forces
3th strawman :you are "forgetting" that I also did mention:the 2 rasputitza's and the winter .
But,the most surprising is that you think that german armoured divisions could operate in the SU ,notwithstanding the bad roads,or that there were no roads,because tanks did not need to drive on the roads,unless,you are thinking that the only important thing in a Pz division was the number of tanks,and that the rest:infantry,artillery,supply were neglectable And,of course,you are ignoring that the deep penetrations by the Pz divisions in the summer of 1941,resulted in a failure,and that Barbarossa had already failed at the end of augustus ,because the success or failure of Barbarossa did not depend on what the Pz divisions could do,but on what the Red Army could and would do ;but,of course,that's not mentioned in the hagiographies of the German panzer generals ..
It is amazing that a user on a forum like this can be so totally ignorant of the history of WWII.
You literally stated that mobile warfare could not be important in eastern europe as there were no roads there.
I stated with absolute convintion that you are on your own when you deny that during Barbarossa a huge chunk of the USSR was taken and huge numbers of soldiers captured essentially because of the breakthroughs by mobile forces. You can call that failure as much as you like.
I call it success.
And your usual unsourced insults against german commanders do not make an impression either.
Your abscence of knowledge about ww2 is staggering.
It was a failure,because operation Barbarossa (I you don't know,search
) stated that the SU had to be defeated in a quick (=short) campaign,well,after a campaign of 10 weeks (=quick and short) and after losing 400000 men,and after losing 1179 tanks and 37 AG,the SU was not defeated .
What was the reason ? Of course not because the German army was not fully motorized,because you stated there was no need for .
Or was there something with the tactical superiority by the German generals ?
I could give some reasons ,but why wast my time with some one whose only argument is that the German generals were superior(only hindered by the stupid Hitler) and who is parading as the defender of their honour against insults .We had here some time ago also some one who was defending the honour of the german generals :general(
) G ,maybe a relative ?
It is not a surprise that you do not mention the massive soviet losses.
Operation Barbarossa obtained the result that could be obtained. Did not win the war but was certainly a successful campaign.I think it was Hitler who decided to attack the USSR and not his generals.He certainly also had major influence on some aspects of Barbarossa.(imposing too many objectives)
Operation barbarossa certainly proved the superiority of the german army in mobile warfare.
You have never even attempted to prove anything which is not surprising in view of your complete lack of reading.
Putting words in someone else's mouth is proof of weakness.
Defending the professional reputation of german commanders is not difficult and there are many on that side of the argument. Your thesis that Hitler,the civilian ,was smarter than his highly competent commanders is indefensible and there are not many on that side of the argument and those have a clear political motivation.
With regard to direction of war, Hitler main targets were on Leningrad and Ukraine. Moscow was his general's target. Hitler compromised with three routes. Hitler's generals were optimistic than Hitler himself. Halder suggested the collapse of Russia within 14 days. Both British and US military intelligence predicted that Russia was about to fall within 2 months. Hitler was the most conservative : 4 months. Hitler 's generals sometimes were very pessimistic, like in 1938, during Czech crisis, Beck thought that Germany was doomed to failure when facing Czech and French forces. But after the collapse of France, his generals were much more optimistic because they began to think Hitler was always right in everything : Annexation of Rhineland without the intevention of the Western countries, so did Anschluss of 1938. The Western countries submitted to Hitler again in Czech crisis. When Britain and France wanted to resist Hitler during Danzig crisis, Hitler succeeded in gaining Stalin's friendship in Aug 1939, then Poland was overran within one months. then Scandanavia and the quick collapse of French army. German generals really believed Hitler 's campaign against Russia would success. But the war situation became worse and finally lost the war, they blamed all on Hitler.
Without the destruction of Southwestern Front in Kiev in Sept 1941, there were over 700,000 men threatening German flank if they marched into Moscow. If based upon French experience of 1940, Barbarossa was failure even though German captured 3.35 million Russian by Dec 1941. During French campaign, by June 4, 1940,( only 24 days after campaign began) 30 French divisions including three armored divisions, three light armored division and all seven motorized divisions plus Belgian and Dutch forces were destroyed ; 1.2 million allied soldiers were captured and BEF were driven out of Europe and lost all arms and were practically neutralized as they seldom had arms and vehicles for war.
On the other hand, When army group center thrusted into Russia, 500,000 Russian soldiers of the Western Front were trapped ; but only 287,000 were captured in Minsk and many Russian retreated into the rear and those in pocket resisted until July 10 1941. The blow was too soft to cripple Russian war machine ; Rundstadt in the south , failed to give a heavy blow to Russian in Galicia until Aug 1941 in Uman, In Baltic States, Russian succeeded in retreating into the rear even Leeb occupied Lithuania and Latvia by mid-July 1941.
Even after Russian were defeated in many battles in Smolensk, Roslavl, Kiev, Zhimomir, Gomel, Uman, Mariupol, Revel and Nikolaev but Russian have already raised 160 divisions in August 1941 after the destruction of first 200 divisions, when Vyzama battle was over in Oct 1941, another 700,000 Russian troop were raised plus the arrival of Siberian troops, made barbarossa doom to failure. In August 1941, German troop were sucked in Smolensk already. So by August, 1941, German were incapable of destroying the large number of Russian troop like French campaign, made the failure of Barbarossa inevitable.The key point of success were destruction of 200 Russian divisions in first twenty days of war before any Russian reserves were mobilized like the French campaign when the half of allied divisions were destroyed or neutralized, including some elite ones and French was unable to mobilize new divisions for war like in 1914.[/quote
Atraditional and not wrong POV,bt ,IMHO,it is approaching the subject from the POV:what could the Germans have done to make Barbarossa a suces,and,IMHO,with some exageration,one can answer :nothing,because,success or failure of Barbarossa depended essentially of what the Red Army could and would do :
1)would the Red Army accept the battle or would it retreat in the wide Russian steppe?If the Red Arme would retreat,it would be VERY BAD for the Germans,because the deciding victory on thr Red Army would be postponed and stay out ;don't forget that the Germans were fighting with a watch:every hour was counting,if ,at the end of august,the Rad Army was not defeated,all German victories after august would be futile,because not decisive .Fortunate for the Germans,the Red Armly accepted the battle .
2)would the Red Army succeed into mobilise quickly its enormous reserves ? If it could,game was over for the Germans :the decisive blow had to be dealed at the frontiers,and in the first ten weeks .Germany would not be strong enough to deal another decisive blow after august and some 600 km in the Russian inland .The Germans gambled that ,as in 1914,the Russian force generation would be slow,and,even to slow .But,they were wrong:the Russian mobilisation started immediately and on large-scale;on an average,the Russians were sending monthly 1 million men to the fronth .
Even ,without the Russian mobilisation,Barbarossa would fail,if the Red Army had refused the battle (and vice-versa) .That's why I am very sceptic about the big importance of the German mobile warfare capacity :in the first 10 weeks the Germans took 1.5 million POW,but the result was that the Red Army was stronger than in june .
,but,427000 motor vehicles were send -arrived? to the SU,but the Red Army did NOT (and I presume NEVER) had at any time 427000 operational LL motor vehicles .