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

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

#436

Post by ljadw » 20 Jul 2019, 20:58

jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:41
ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:35

Wrong answer : That the WM consumed 182000 tons of fuel per month, does not mean that the Eastern front would not receive 9620 tons only in September . The WM did NOT consume 9620 tons in September, but it received 9620 tons .
This logic is wrong. In fact, so much fuel would not be enough for one tank group.
jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:41
ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:35

Wrong answer : That the WM consumed 182000 tons of fuel per month, does not mean that the Eastern front would not receive 9620 tons only in September . The WM did NOT consume 9620 tons in September, but it received 9620 tons .
This logic is wrong. In fact, so much fuel would not be enough for one tank group.
Irrelevant : the Eastern front received in September only 9620 tons of oil, because of transport problems, because the Ostheer had big stocks, because other goods got priority, because there was in September no need for much more oil .

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

#437

Post by jesk » 20 Jul 2019, 21:01

ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:58
jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:41
ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:35

Wrong answer : That the WM consumed 182000 tons of fuel per month, does not mean that the Eastern front would not receive 9620 tons only in September . The WM did NOT consume 9620 tons in September, but it received 9620 tons .
This logic is wrong. In fact, so much fuel would not be enough for one tank group.
jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:41
ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:35

Wrong answer : That the WM consumed 182000 tons of fuel per month, does not mean that the Eastern front would not receive 9620 tons only in September . The WM did NOT consume 9620 tons in September, but it received 9620 tons .
This logic is wrong. In fact, so much fuel would not be enough for one tank group.
Irrelevant : the Eastern front received in September only 9620 tons of oil, because of transport problems, because the Ostheer had big stocks, because other goods got priority, because there was in September no need for much more oil .
source?


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

#438

Post by ljadw » 20 Jul 2019, 21:04

jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:54
I only remind. Hanny’s speculations are taken from Halder’s diary, where he refers to Wagner. This is taken out of context. Speech about one base and about the situation on the day of writing. Every day the supply improved.

15 july

Image
''' Every day the supply improved " is something meaningless .

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

#439

Post by jesk » 20 Jul 2019, 21:11

ljadw wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 21:04
jesk wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:54
I only remind. Hanny’s speculations are taken from Halder’s diary, where he refers to Wagner. This is taken out of context. Speech about one base and about the situation on the day of writing. Every day the supply improved.

15 july

Image
''' Every day the supply improved " is something meaningless .
Not really. Wagner gave a report on the Dnieper base on July 15. There is a complex of solutions from two bases.

Image

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

#440

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 20 Jul 2019, 21:16

Avalancheon wrote:
19 Jul 2019, 14:05
Historically, panzer group 1 achieved its breakthrough at Volodymyr-Volynsky and Sokal. The problem was, the supporting attacks on their left (at Kovel) and their right (at Rava Rus'ka) were unsuccessful. Thus, they were forced to advance on a narrow frontage that only permitted them to employ three of their nine mobile divisions. If Army Group South had been able to more quickly capture Kovel or Rava Rus'ka, this wouldn't have happened.
This map from the annex to Boog etc. "Germany in the Second World War, Volume IV" can help guide the discussion:

Image

I see what you mean about Kovel and Rava Rus'ka on the flanks of Kleist's advance but are we sure he wanted to advance on a broader front anyway? Extending his right flank further south requires diverting from the eastwards thrust while moving his left flank further north puts it into marshland pretty quickly.

The width of Kleist's advance doesn't differ much from Guderian's, most of which you can see at the top left corner of this map. I recall reading that Kleist was holding divisions in reserve, committing them as arose the need to engage (e.g. Dubno-Brody) and/or the opportunity to exploit a breakthrough. Contrast this with Hoepner, for example, who used some of his divisions to achieve breakthroughs (something for which he has been criticized).
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#441

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 20 Jul 2019, 21:52

Hanny wrote:pissant
Concerns have been raised to me privately and publicly about the tone of this thread. While I agree that, all else being equal, we'd want to avoid insults etc., I'm fine with the conduct in this thread as far as civility is concerned (less so concerning analytical rigor).

I suspect that Hanny has resorted to name-calling in order to bait me into responding in kind and getting banned or something.
He probably also wants this thread closed down as both the content and the remarks about the quality of his analysis have apparently driven him to a boil.

I won't respond with name-calling; I will continue to point out Hanny's lack of analytical rigor and his difficulties with detecting relevance and following the structure of a complex argument like an ATL.

To the Mods - I believe it is fair game to opine on the quality of thought of posters here. It would be fair game to say "X historian doesn't exhibit analytical rigor" so it should be fair game here as well. I will continue to avoid name calling but I would prefer you allow Hanny to keep blowing off steam rather than shutting down the thread. The ideas exchanged have been fruitful and even those most opposed to the ATL have positively contributed with research assistance.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#442

Post by Hanny » 20 Jul 2019, 21:57

Its rather poor form to re edit a post after its been replied to, as it can often appear your changing the posts content after the reply is made. Post again, its no hardship to avoid, that way people will read it instead of thinking you have changed the post for other purposes.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19

355,000 tons is 4% of Germany's 1941 fuel budget. Hitler would have gladly spent that amount of fuel to win in the East. Any diminution of air/sea activity in the west due to fuel reprioritization is well worth winning in the East.
Acording to whose number for Germanys fuel budget in the East?.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19
I'll provisionally accept Hanny's 355,000 ton figure as the maximal case for my ATL Barbarossa because it proves my point that any delta to fuel burn from the larger forces is manageable. That said, I don't trust Hanny's figures nor his ability to actually do math correctly, especially when there's a chance he can make his case look stronger. I do trust that Hanny has put all of his considerable energies into making the additional fuel burn as high as possible.
Given you were out by 2 decimal places and had no value for stocks in transit or what it took to transport it, i can see why other in theory numbers look better. If you noticed made no reference to the number of trucks getting lower as in reality, 20% were gone in the first month.

Now we move onto your next conceptual failure, that amount of fuel requires 788 fuel train loads in a month (July) just to get it the extra 20 formations. Since the entire Heer is getting 2160 train loads for everything, 780 of which are fuel trains, your going to have to wave the logistics fairy wand again.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19
Conclusion: Burning an extra 355,000 tons is an acceptable tradeoff for a successful Barbarossa and fuel is not the operative constraint on this ATL.
Oh dear, we have not looked at outcomes yet, only a theory of what it takes to get there, all of which point the opposite of your second assumption and only the logistics fairy wand argument will work. Your first assumption is based on the battle fairy waving its wand.

Is it?, you just burnt and 355k in a months operations, when the entire Germans stock and production of July is lower than that value, and requires rr fuel transports that simply do not exist. Conclusion, you cant count for shit sherlock. Dont know what to count in the first place. And cant comprehend what info others provide and are immune to what numbers indicate when the dont fit your fantasy.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19
Ok I need 42,000 trucks instead of 34,000. That still requires only 0.1% of Germany's GDP over three years.
Wrong again.

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19
You are an excellent research assistant Hanny, I thank you.
Your not very quick on the uptake, i already told you im here to take the piss out of your argument.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#443

Post by Hanny » 20 Jul 2019, 22:03

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 21:52
Hanny wrote:pissant
Concerns have been raised to me privately and publicly about the tone of this thread. While I agree that, all else being equal, we'd want to avoid insults etc., I'm fine with the conduct in this thread as far as civility is concerned (less so concerning analytical rigor).

I suspect that Hanny has resorted to name-calling in order to bait me into responding in kind and getting banned or something.
He probably also wants this thread closed down as both the content and the remarks about the quality of his analysis have apparently driven him to a boil.

I won't respond with name-calling; I will continue to point out Hanny's lack of analytical rigor and his difficulties with detecting relevance and following the structure of a complex argument like an ATL.

To the Mods - I believe it is fair game to opine on the quality of thought of posters here. It would be fair game to say "X historian doesn't exhibit analytical rigor" so it should be fair game here as well. I will continue to avoid name calling but I would prefer you allow Hanny to keep blowing off steam rather than shutting down the thread. The ideas exchanged have been fruitful and even those most opposed to the ATL have positively contributed with research assistance.
You asked me to adopt a standard you yourself do not practice, all arising from your own incompetence, the appropriate term for you is as used.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

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

#444

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 20 Jul 2019, 22:08

Hanny wrote:the appropriate term for you is as used.
Like I said, Hanny, I'm not bothered by any insults you want to throw out and I specifically request that the mods allow you to vent your rage. So I haven't asked you to adopt any standard beyond trying to be a little smarter than you are.

But either way, you're welcome to continue contributing research here. You have some knowledge; you just can't be trusted as having the intelligence to use it correctly.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#445

Post by MarkN » 20 Jul 2019, 22:15

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 20:19
355,000 tons is 4% of Germany's 1941 fuel budget. Hitler would have gladly spent that amount of fuel to win in the East.

Conclusion: Burning an extra 355,000 tons is an acceptable tradeoff for a successful Barbarossa and fuel is not the operative constraint on this ATL.
If that was the magic bullet to success, why has it taken 80 years to spot it?

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

#446

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 20 Jul 2019, 22:19

Hanny wrote:im here to take the piss out of your argument.
Oh that's been clear from the start.
You have trouble understanding the argument, however, so you don't know what's good for you.
Hanny wrote:trucks getting lower as in reality, 20% were gone in the first month.
Here again Hanny shows his inability to differentiate ATL delta from OTL conditions.

But it's pretty obvious his intent is to derail the thread, not to illuminate. It's bullshit in the philosophical sense: utterances by someone who doesn't care what the truth is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit# ... d_rhetoric

Moving forward, I won't be addressing individual logical failures like this because...
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/472245 ... shit-is-an
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#447

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 20 Jul 2019, 22:24

MarkN wrote:why has it taken 80 years to spot it?
Apparently I'm the first to think of a slightly stronger Barbarossa ATL?
Well, that's not at all an argument against it.

I also think it explains a lot of the rage in this thread. For tedious people who post only to show what they know and/or how smart they are, nothing is more enraging than someone having an original idea before them.

This is especially true of mediocre minds who've worked a lot in an area and then are challenged by a newcomer. Anybody with >90 IQ can stuff their heads with trivia and parrot the thoughts of other historians; not everyone can produce original analysis.

Hanny and Mark are classic mediocrities and behave as such.
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Re: What if: Hitler wins the war due to slightly stronger Barbarossa forces

#448

Post by Terry Duncan » 20 Jul 2019, 23:35

You have been asked in at least one other thread to cease the personal comments and to address the arguments put forward. If this is beyond anyone here then they will likely be having plenty of time to reflect when a ban is the result of their poor behaviour. If you cannot treat each other with respect then maybe you need to ignore each other?

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

#449

Post by MarkN » 20 Jul 2019, 23:42

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 22:24
Apparently I'm the first to think of a slightly stronger Barbarossa ATL?
Staff colleges, military academies and many other credible organizations have spent endless time searching for the "magic bullet". They've still not found it. I'd be very surprised that nobody has thought to run a BARBAROSSA simulation with a few more troops at the start line. Rather a poor indictment of the military profession if true.

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

#450

Post by Cult Icon » 21 Jul 2019, 03:59

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 07:05
They just didn't have sufficient heft, especially in infantry, to encircle large forces.
AGN units had a harder time than in the center and the south as they ran into more attrition fighting due to the woods and swamps. Advancing also required the construction of long stretches of wooden roads. SS-Totenkopf division was one of the primary units in the North and took enormous casualties in their Barbarossa experience.
No, warfare isn't linear like this. Attacks by Timoshenko with half his OTL strength, against an enemy with strong mobile reserves that could encircle/destroy any thrusts, would not have been simply "half as good."
The Soviet counteroffensives at Smolensk weren't a "German style" offensive operation with everything in the line and everything concentrated in short order. There were subsequent waves of forces, it resembled a long term "fixing attack", resembling the fixing offensives against the Northern Front at Stalingrad. They attacked on a broad front and without much concentration for breakthrough. Zhukov's own guidance on the counteroffensive is that it was better for forces to attack and take losses as being passive would endanger the units anyway.
The SU is not some mystical font of limitless soldiers. It had a discrete capacity to replace/augment its forces and casualties very nearly exceeded that capacity during Barbarossa.
The point is that the Soviet Union's force generation was far superior to that of the Germans/Axis- perhaps if Soviet forces are eliminated at such a rapid rate than Moscow could be occupied but what is next? The German military is spent or at the very best on its last legs for the offensive. There was replacement of German losses that was only partial by the fall of 1941. (After the initial encirclements, after Smolensk, after Kiev). The German army was getting weaker and weaker as it advanced, with less infantry, equipment, firepower, airpower, etc.

Beyond that the Kiev encirclement could be characterized as being a close victory- the skill / boldness of Guderian and subordinates like Model (3rd Panzer Division) was an essential component of this victory and they took high risks to close the pocket with such thin forces. Different command decisions on the Soviet side (another AH) could deny these victories.

The historical side for the German Army (AGC) was that the Vyzama-Bryansk pockets expended much of the remaining vitality of the Army Group- while not falling to depths of 1943 , German divisions in general could be called "brigades" and were more suitable to the defense than the offensive. In von Bock's diary the AG did not have even have the basic supplies they needed to function on the offensive - IIRC it was only 2/3rds.

The picture shown by divisional and lower accounts in the field (histories of 1.Pz, 3.Pz, 7.Pz, 10.Pz, SS-Reich, SS-Totenkopf, SS-LAH, etc.) is also discouraging- the final attacks towards Moscow can be considered quite desperate and slowed down by supply issues and general exhaustion of the troops/terrain conditions. The historical situation paints a picture of the German Army's limits being reached. The Soviets on the other hand were holding back until the right moment, like they did so many times later on in the war.
Last edited by Cult Icon on 21 Jul 2019, 05:01, edited 1 time in total.

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