What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#91

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 10 Jun 2019, 14:07

ljadw wrote:. Additional Kesselschlachten were only possible if there would be additional Soviet forces west of the DD line : in the first month the Soviets lost 600000 POWs; more POWs were only possible if the Soviets committed more men .
This is one of the essential errors that inspired the ATL. Lots of commentators make this kind of error, including Halder who thought the war won by virtue of AGC's encirclements.
Truth is that the vast bulk of the Red Army survived the border battles. Only one of the fronts suffered encirclements, the largest (Southwest Front) did not. Red Army had ~2.7mil men serving in its active first echelon forces; only ~300k of these fell into German hands at Minsk-Bialystok.

Plus it's obviously not true that only forces west of DD line could be encircled (Kiev? Vyazma-Briansk? Chernigov? Velikie Luki?).
Hanny wrote:long range dive bomber assets to support deep Pzr operations who lacked integral art and needed that extra omph
Gotta make choices; this is a bad one. Air power is the most expensive way of getting "oomph;" building SP artillery would have been much more cost-effective. It's so dumb that I just don't believe your assertion that this is the primary reason for building the Ju88. Sources? My sources are replete with talk of their strategic bombing role; getting the bombers close to England was a central aspect of pre-France planning.
Hanny wrote:So now its [sic] no JU 88 15k production run at all,
It's

Are you saying that I'm saying no Ju 88's at all, or do you realize that I'm saying fewer Ju88's?
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#92

Post by ljadw » 10 Jun 2019, 19:33

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
10 Jun 2019, 14:07
ljadw wrote:. Additional Kesselschlachten were only possible if there would be additional Soviet forces west of the DD line : in the first month the Soviets lost 600000 POWs; more POWs were only possible if the Soviets committed more men .
This is one of the essential errors that inspired the ATL. Lots of commentators make this kind of error, including Halder who thought the war won by virtue of AGC's encirclements.
Truth is that the vast bulk of the Red Army survived the border battles. Only one of the fronts suffered encirclements, the largest (Southwest Front) did not. Red Army had ~2.7mil men serving in its active first echelon forces; only ~300k of these fell into German hands at Minsk-Bialystok.

Plus it's obviously not true that only forces west of DD line could be encircled (Kiev? Vyazma-Briansk? Chernigov? Velikie Luki?).

Most of the 2.7 million men of the Red Army were located east of the DD line .
You are wrong about Halder ,who was not a war gamer .
He thought very soon that the war was won (as did Hitler ) because the Soviets were going to the border and were defeated between the border and the DD line ; only west of the DD line could the Germans defeat the Soviets .If the Soviet resistance continued east of the DD line, it was over for the Germans ,the encirclments east of the DD line were never decisive and more mobile divisions would not help : the more mobile divisions had to fight east of the DD line,the less would go to Moscow, to the Volga and to the Urals . It was 1300 km from Berlin to Kiew and 2300 from Kiew to Magnitogorsk .The German divisions would never make it .
If there was no Soviet resistance east of the DD line, there was no need for additional mobile divisions .
If there was a Soviet resistance east of the DD line, the additional mobile divisions would not help : if 150 divisions could not go to the Volga,the chances for 180 divisions to go to the Volga were inexistent .
About the number of POWs : this did not depend on the number of German divisions that were committed, but on the number of Soviet divisions that were committed .
And, the number of Soviet POWs did not indicate the Soviet weakness , but the Soviet strength : the more POWs , the more men the Soviets were able to commit .


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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#93

Post by David Thompson » 11 Jun 2019, 04:13

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#94

Post by Richard Anderson » 11 Jun 2019, 06:05

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
10 Jun 2019, 07:03
I'm not surprised that in your mind this conversation is about who is smarter. That your motivation here is to show how smart you are and how much you know. I invite you to engage substantively with my proposals.
gen·ius
/ˈjēnyəs/

I was using it in the adjectival form: very clever or ingenious. I was not making "this conversation...about who is smarter", but rather I was commenting on the lack of cleverness or ingeniousness in your what if. It is neither clever nor ingenious and has been done to death all too many times, sometimes by those exhibiting considerably more knowledge of the actual history.
Substantive question:
Do you think it historically implausible and economically impossible (1) for Germany to have shifted '38-'41 production and investment from LW/KM to Heer, and (2) for it to have mobilized more resources early in the war?

You seem to answer "yes" to both questions, but haven't said so explicitly.
Oh, indeed, good guess.
If I'm right in that guess, then what's your argument? In particular, why couldn't Germany have made different cuts to its armaments programs in early 1939, such as avoiding Plan Z in favor of ramping up Heer programs that were cut, most notably a 50% cut to planned tank building? Surely you're aware that the crisis that caused these cuts was financial, such that spending between the services was essentially fungible at that particular point.
Well, for a start my argument is that you need a better grounding in the real world before you start building your fantasy. Exactly what do you think was invested in "Plan Z" that you could "avoid" in order to "favor...ramping up Heer programs that were cut"? Schlachschiff H was laid down at Blohm u. Voss 15 June 1939 and J at AG Weser on 15 August 1939...and all work halted in them on 10 October 1939. At most, the keels were laid and probably not even that work was completed on J. The little work done was scrapped 25 November 1941. Similarly, Kreuzer M and N were planned for keel laying beginning 1 November 1939...but it never happened. The rest? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Now of course material was allocated for them, but where do you think it went when work halted?

Nor was the "50% cut to planned tank building" quite what you, or rather Adam Tooze who you are likely taking it from, think it was and it was not a problem solvable by throwing more "GDP" or "steel" at it. Quite simply, the more pressing problem was the state of the Panzer III program. After producing 70 pre-production vehicles between May 1937 and November 1938, before a workable production variant could be settled on...except by 11 July 1938 contracts for 2,155 Panzer III had been granted...and 115 completed by 1 September 1939. The situation for the Panzer IV was not quite as bad only 640 contracted for and 211 completed, but overall the Panzer acquisition process was a mess. In any case, although the planned production of medium tanks (Panzer III and IV) October 1939-October 1940 was halved in the 1939 Rechnungsjahre plan from 1,400 to 700, 1,046 were actually produced, plus 340 38t. Nor was investment necessarily reduced, because, as I pointed out before, 65-million RM were allocated to the expansion of the Panzer program via the Nibelungenwerk. In addition, plant expansions were funded at Henschel's Mittelfeld plant, MAN, MIAG's Ammewerk, Alkett, and DB.
Why couldn't Germany have appointed a "Plenpotentiary for Labor" immediately after war began, with broad powers to induct foreign and domestic workers?
Foreign workers? They were already there as paid, prewar Gastarbeiter, many of whom likely went home on the declarations of war. You want more? You have to conquer them first, incorporate them into the Reich, and put them to work as Zwangsarbeiter. Domestic workers? Germany was at full employment and over-mobilized, having to release soldiers in the fall of 1940 to keep the economy running.
I can see several facially valid responses to these questions but all of them arguably are overcome if Hitler has a different strategic conception of the coming war with the USSR. For example: "Greater demands will inspire greater resistance among the French and Polish." Sure, but with a bigger war looming Hitler's probably more willing to make more risks and throw his weight at allies and the conquered.
What is "facially valid"? So far you seem to be using farcical validation. Anyway, WRT the history of the Gastarbeiter and later Zwangsarbeiter you need to do some work. Resistance among all the occupied territories (Poles, Czechs, Belgians, Norwegians, Dutch, French, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and Soviets) existed from the get go, while others (Spaniards, Hungarians, Romanians, and other neutrals too) that remained nominal Gasterarbeiter were soon seeking to return home as well.
We can get down to brass tacks of how the greater forces are "paid for." But we'd have to adopt a different tone and be more explicit about our priors.
Yes, please, by all means could you begin to be more explicit about your priors?
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#95

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 11 Jun 2019, 07:37

Richard Anderson wrote:Nor was investment necessarily reduced, because, as I pointed out before, 65-million RM were allocated to the expansion of the Panzer program via the Nibelungenwerk. In addition, plant expansions were funded at Henschel's Mittelfeld plant, MAN, MIAG's Ammewerk, Alkett, and DB.
Good to know and I agree that it isn't necessarily (logically) the case that investment was curtailed as part of the order cut. Do we know specifically what the pre-1939 investment plans were versus what happened?
Richard Anderson wrote:Resistance among all the occupied territories (Poles, Czechs, Belgians, Norwegians, Dutch, French, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and Soviets) existed from the get go, while others (Spaniards, Hungarians, Romanians, and other neutrals too) that remained nominal Gasterarbeiter were soon seeking to return home as well.
No I realize that resistance existed from the get-go; nonetheless it's true that Hitler was deliberate not to push France too far in armistice negotiations. In that specific case, "resistance" encompasses both Camus with a gun and the North African colonies going over to De Gaulle. In all occupation cases we see that Germany extracted far more foreign workers later than earlier, and we see an efficient administrative apparatus for this "recruitment" only with the advent of Sauckel after the mid-war crises. Nazi occupying officials didn't want to cause unnecessary problems for themselves (e.g. more resistance) in their fiefdoms; it took a centralized initiative to really get the labor spigots flowing.

My supposition is that, had Hitler a realistic apprehension of his strategic position especially w/r/t USSR - whether via dissenting Abwehr and Foreign Ministry channels (which existed) or via Mannerheim's realistic appraisal of RKKA strength or better FHO intelligence - then Hitler would have felt himself in a crisis throughout '40-'41 and would have taken at least some of the steps he took later to increase production - especially army production.
Richard Anderson wrote:At most, the keels were laid and probably not even that work was completed on J. The little work done was scrapped 25 November 1941. Similarly, Kreuzer M and N were planned for keel laying beginning 1 November 1939..
You're right that it would be better to have a fuller picture of the work completed. I note, however, that work on the 16in guns was sufficiently advanced to be completed and that orders and commitments for propulsion and turret machinery etc. would have had to have been placed at that time. I don't know to what extent such work actually began. But whether the work began or not, the critical point (and yes I'm getting this mostly from Tooze) is that the production/investment bottleneck of early 1939 was entirely financial and therefore any RM committed to Z Plan prevented investment/production somewhere else that suffered cuts. Same for Ju88 program.

Now, returning to the year or so prior to Barbarossa, German vehicle production is no longer constrained by the financial considerations of 1939. Production is basically a matter of plant capacity (assuming sufficient labor and raw materials) but plant capacity will have been set largely by decisions made in 1939 and earlier. If it's the case that 1939 saw no actual cuts to vehicle-producing plant investment, then I'm still going to say that Germany should have invested more in plant and less in two-engine bombers and surface naval vessels. Because the strategic imperative was to defeat Germany's continental enemies on land before trying to win at sea or via strategic airpower. In that crucial period after France and before Barbarossa, Germany could - I argue - have addressed raw material and labor constraints to building a larger army by (1) recruiting more foreign labor plus (to a lesser extent) minor tweaks to domestic consumption and (2) taking the additional raw materials from the very generous export allowances made in 1940. If the latter causes Franco and Inonu to howl, that's acceptable because Germany is IN A CRISIS and needs to build as strong an army as possible to wound Russia sufficiently to defeat/neutralize her within a couple years.
Richard Anderson wrote:overall the Panzer acquisition process was a mess.
Clearly so. And yet a lot of the production problems were solved via learning; economies of scale later played out. An earlier ramp-up of panzer production would inevitably move this learning curve forward.
Richard Anderson wrote: [your ATL] is neither clever nor ingenious and has been done to death all too many times
I'd be interested to read good past threads querying whether Barbarossa could have succeeded with a stronger German army. Within reason of course. IIRC there are a couple threads claiming Germany should have had 300 divisions or something.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#96

Post by ljadw » 11 Jun 2019, 08:57

You can't expect FHO to give informations that would indicate that a successful Barbarossa was impossible . Without a successful Barbarossa,Germany had lost the war against Britain .Thus ,FHO was expected to give informations indicating that a successful Barbarossa was possible .And,, as all intelligence organisations,FHO was covering its behind : it said that it was not possible to give informations about the number of reserve divisions the USSR could mobilize . As this was not important,no one paid any attention to it .But it did not save Kinzel : after the failure of Barbarossa, he was fired .
Too much importance has been given to the FHO reports .

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#97

Post by Richard Anderson » 11 Jun 2019, 16:40

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
11 Jun 2019, 07:37
Good to know and I agree that it isn't necessarily (logically) the case that investment was curtailed as part of the order cut. Do we know specifically what the pre-1939 investment plans were versus what happened?
I doubt any investment was cut, since by Rechnungsjahre 1939 (April 1938-March 1939) 80% of German government expenditure was for the Wehrmacht.
No I realize that resistance existed from the get-go; nonetheless it's true that Hitler was deliberate not to push France too far in armistice negotiations. In that specific case, "resistance" encompasses both Camus with a gun and the North African colonies going over to De Gaulle. In all occupation cases we see that Germany extracted far more foreign workers later than earlier, and we see an efficient administrative apparatus for this "recruitment" only with the advent of Sauckel after the mid-war crises. Nazi occupying officials didn't want to cause unnecessary problems for themselves (e.g. more resistance) in their fiefdoms; it took a centralized initiative to really get the labor spigots flowing.
Hanny has adequately responded to this and I'm about to leave on holiday, so I will simply comment that the notion is pie-in-the-sky fantasy based solely on hindsight.
My supposition is that, had Hitler a realistic apprehension of his strategic position especially w/r/t USSR - whether via dissenting Abwehr and Foreign Ministry channels (which existed) or via Mannerheim's realistic appraisal of RKKA strength or better FHO intelligence - then Hitler would have felt himself in a crisis throughout '40-'41 and would have taken at least some of the steps he took later to increase production - especially army production.
What "dissenting Abwehr and Foreign Ministry channels" were those and what were they reporting? What were the "steps he took later to increase production"?
You're right that it would be better to have a fuller picture of the work completed. I note, however, that work on the 16in guns was sufficiently advanced to be completed and that orders and commitments for propulsion and turret machinery etc. would have had to have been placed at that time. I don't know to what extent such work actually began. But whether the work began or not, the critical point (and yes I'm getting this mostly from Tooze) is that the production/investment bottleneck of early 1939 was entirely financial and therefore any RM committed to Z Plan prevented investment/production somewhere else that suffered cuts. Same for Ju88 program.
Sigh...I note that you're still pretending that an "entirely financial" bottleneck wasn't a real bottleneck and could be simply resolved by pouring piss from one bucket into another. If you really have read Tooze you will note that the entire pre and wartime process was actually one of trying to plug holes in various buckets of piss by ladling piss from one leaking buckets into another. The favored method was by shifting steel allocations about from industry to industry. It didn't work too well.

Meanwhile, only three of the guns intended for H and J were completed as naval weapons before the project went on hiatus, while another eight were completed as coastal artillery in 1942-1943...as were the original three. The gun house designs were complete, but no manufacture had occurred, ditto insofar as I remember for the propulsion plants...the "investment" in the ships was the incomplete keel structure and the stockpiles at the ways.
Now, returning to the year or so prior to Barbarossa, German vehicle production is no longer constrained by the financial considerations of 1939. Production is basically a matter of plant capacity (assuming sufficient labor and raw materials) but plant capacity will have been set largely by decisions made in 1939 and earlier. If it's the case that 1939 saw no actual cuts to vehicle-producing plant investment, then I'm still going to say that Germany should have invested more in plant and less in two-engine bombers and surface naval vessels. Because the strategic imperative was to defeat Germany's continental enemies on land before trying to win at sea or via strategic airpower. In that crucial period after France and before Barbarossa, Germany could - I argue - have addressed raw material and labor constraints to building a larger army by (1) recruiting more foreign labor plus (to a lesser extent) minor tweaks to domestic consumption and (2) taking the additional raw materials from the very generous export allowances made in 1940. If the latter causes Franco and Inonu to howl, that's acceptable because Germany is IN A CRISIS and needs to build as strong an army as possible to wound Russia sufficiently to defeat/neutralize her within a couple years.
Sigh...the financial investments planned for plant expansion resulted in increased output in 1942. Did you miss that it took them most of two years to build Nibelungenwerk? I am unaware of any German analog to DTA and GBTA in the United States, which indicates to me they simply did not have the slack in their over-mobilized economy to achieve such.
Clearly so. And yet a lot of the production problems were solved via learning; economies of scale later played out. An earlier ramp-up of panzer production would inevitably move this learning curve forward.
What "production problems were solved via learning"? The overly complicated Panzer III and IV were simplified as best they could and Panther was designed for simplified production, especially its notorious final drives (which created a problem of its own), but Tiger was a production monster. Worse, German tank manufacture continued to use station assembly instead of mass production techniques until the end of the war. There were no "economies of scale", there was simply an increase in scale, plant was added and more workers were forced into the plant and forced to work longer hours in horrible conditions without pay and sufficient food. That could only be accomplished by "an earlier ramp-up of panzer production" plant and labor.
I'd be interested to read good past threads querying whether Barbarossa could have succeeded with a stronger German army. Within reason of course. IIRC there are a couple threads claiming Germany should have had 300 divisions or something.
There is this search-button thingie in the upper right-hand corner...

Anyway, 300 divisions? When? How? After initially mobilizing 102 in September 1939, they had 167 as of June 1940...209 as of June 1941...225 as of June 1942...282 as of June 1943...294 as of June 1944...and zero as of June 1945. So that must be why they lost the war. :roll:

Anyway, have fun with your fantasy, I'm off to have fun in the real world...I suggest you try it some time. :lol:
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#98

Post by Takao » 12 Jun 2019, 13:34

Stopping work on the Seydlitz & Graf Zeppelin is all well and good, but both ships were laid down in December, 1936, and would be well under construction by 1938. So, stopping construction the will likely give little benefit financially.

Further, no Z Plan likely would not see any large financial return, as only 3 battleships and two light cruisers had begun construction. Not much work had been done on any when the plan was binned. For the three H Class begun construction, only about 12,300 tons of material had been prepared. So where is this gargantuan savings coming from?

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#99

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 13 Jun 2019, 14:41

Richard Anderson wrote:What "dissenting Abwehr and Foreign Ministry channels" were those and what were they reporting?
Ernst Kostring, for one, gave reports that should have given Halder more pause. I remember reading about dissenting Abwehr voices somewhere; I'll have to get back to you with cites.
Richard Anderson wrote:What were the "steps he took later to increase production"?
German domestic consumption decreased during each year of the war. Start that process earlier because, again, it shouldn't take Stalingrad or Moscow to make Hitler realize he's in a crisis.
Plus the mobilization of foreign labor. Increased constantly throughout the war. I already gave Sauckel's appointment as one discrete step in that mobilization.
Richard Anderson wrote:I note that you're still pretending that an "entirely financial" bottleneck wasn't a real bottleneck
You're pretending I think that. Financial bottlenecks are real in the same sense that money is real. It's a queer sense but is a (social) fact nonetheless. Programs were cut for lack of funds.
Richard Anderson wrote:Anyway, have fun with your fantasy, I'm off to have fun in the real world...I suggest you try it some time.
I have taken your advice so deeply to heart that I write this from the Gatwick express train. A few days in your lovely country for work and a week or so on the continent for fun (also some UK fun this weekend). Enjoy yours as well.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#100

Post by ljadw » 13 Jun 2019, 20:17

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 14:41
Richard Anderson wrote:What "dissenting Abwehr and Foreign Ministry channels" were those and what were they reporting?
Ernst Kostring, for one, gave reports that should have given Halder more pause. I remember reading about dissenting Abwehr voices somewhere; I'll have to get back to you with cites.
Richard Anderson wrote:What were the "steps he took later to increase production"?
German domestic consumption decreased during each year of the war. Start that process earlier because, again, it shouldn't take Stalingrad or Moscow to make Hitler realize he's in a crisis.
Plus the mobilization of foreign labor. Increased constantly throughout the war. I already gave Sauckel's appointment as one discrete step in that mobilization.
Richard Anderson wrote:I note that you're still pretending that an "entirely financial" bottleneck wasn't a real bottleneck
You're pretending I think that. Financial bottlenecks are real in the same sense that money is real. It's a queer sense but is a (social) fact nonetheless. Programs were cut for lack of funds.
Richard Anderson wrote:Anyway, have fun with your fantasy, I'm off to have fun in the real world...I suggest you try it some time.
I have taken your advice so deeply to heart that I write this from the Gatwick express train. A few days in your lovely country for work and a week or so on the continent for fun (also some UK fun this weekend). Enjoy yours as well.
The reports of Köstring were not dissenting, they were worthless, only a wast of paper and had no influence on the decisions from Berlin .
Source :Magnus Pahl : Fremde Heere Ost PP 68-70. 79, 87 .
Köstring was a military attaché, but since 1938 these were no longer invited at the Red Army maneuvers; whole regions were forbidden territory . He even did not know that the T 34 was used in 1939 against Japan .
No one in Berlin was taking into account what Köstring said . And, for obvious reasons, it was not better for the reports from FHO, for obvious reasons .Besides the reports from FHO were not much better, not that it was important .

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#101

Post by ljadw » 13 Jun 2019, 20:18

Other point : the informations about the SU came not from the Abwehr,but from FHO .

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#102

Post by Richard Anderson » 13 Jun 2019, 21:01

ljadw wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 20:17
Köstring was a military attaché, but since 1938 these were no longer invited at the Red Army maneuvers; whole regions were forbidden territory . He even did not know that the T 34 was used in 1939 against Japan .
He may not have known about the "T 34 used in 1939 against Japan" because it wasn't, but aside from that your comments as always were worth the paper they were written on. :roll:
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#103

Post by ljadw » 14 Jun 2019, 08:42

Richard Anderson wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 21:01
ljadw wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 20:17
Köstring was a military attaché, but since 1938 these were no longer invited at the Red Army maneuvers; whole regions were forbidden territory . He even did not know that the T 34 was used in 1939 against Japan .
He may not have known about the "T 34 used in 1939 against Japan" because it wasn't, but aside from that your comments as always were worth the paper they were written on. :roll:
YOU never have made typos ?

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#104

Post by ljadw » 14 Jun 2019, 09:46

Richard Anderson wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 21:01
ljadw wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 20:17
Köstring was a military attaché, but since 1938 these were no longer invited at the Red Army maneuvers; whole regions were forbidden territory . He even did not know that the T 34 was used in 1939 against Japan .
He may not have known about the "T 34 used in 1939 against Japan" because it wasn't, but aside from that your comments as always were worth the paper they were written on. :roll:
You don't know that prototypes of the T34 were used in the battle of Khalkin Gol?
David Thomas knew it : he wrote about it in Foreign Armies East and German Military Intelligence in Russia 1941-1945
in Journal of Contemporary History ,Intelligence Services during the Second World War 22 (1987 ) PP 261-301 .
You don't know about the use of the prototypes during the Winterwar against Finland ?
Moldenhauer : Die Reorganisation der Roten Armee , P 151, knew it .
And I hope that you know, opposite to Köstring, who should have known it, that T34 tanks participated in the military parade of May 1941 .
I think that what Thomas and Moldenhauer wrote was more worth than the paper they used .

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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#105

Post by Hanny » 14 Jun 2019, 15:46

Richard Anderson wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 21:01
ljadw wrote:
13 Jun 2019, 20:17
Köstring was a military attaché, but since 1938 these were no longer invited at the Red Army maneuvers; whole regions were forbidden territory . He even did not know that the T 34 was used in 1939 against Japan .
He may not have known about the "T 34 used in 1939 against Japan" because it wasn't, but aside from that your comments as always were worth the paper they were written on. :roll:
He means the A-32, but as usual says something else. :P :lol:, a letter here, a number, there soon it will be a JS III, or maybe a Hussite wagon, T34 was given the go ahead for production on March 1940, as im sure you know.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

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