This is 100% correct. Hitler/OKH had no idea of the reserves available to RKKA; any Barbarossa plans beyond the Border Battles have to be considered mooted by changing circumstance.Max Payload wrote:The ‘royal mess’ in mid-July was caused by AGC facing five Soviet armies that weren’t supposed to be there (seven if you count 24 Army at Elnia and 28th at Bryansk). So instead of Third Panzer Group being able to advance north between the Lovat and the Ostashkov lakes to support AGN, it was stuck trying to close the Smolensk pocket and extracting 19. PzD from Velikie Luki.
This thread is debating the pre-Barbarossa plans for the German advance but we have to realize (1) those plans were no longer relevant as stated above and (2) Hitler and OKH (Halder) had divergent strategic/operational concepts for the invasion. Hitler's high-level planning foresaw sending AGC's mobile groups north and south to help the flanks but OKH was planning to subvert that directive for a drive on Moscow. IMO there's little point to trying to ascertain pre-Barbarossa planning past the first couple weeks. It was a mess within the minds of the invasion's architects, let alone between those minds.