That’s quite a claim. Some of the obstacles facing the Ostheer were the geographical size of the SU, the limited industrial capacity of Germany in 1940/41 to supply everything that might be required for an advance in strength to the Volga and beyond, and the timescale set by Hitler for the start of the invasion, none of which Halder could influence. If those detailed, compelling arguments from Halder had required substantial additional resources and a longer period of preparation they would have been dismissed out of hand. As for the political punditry, the agenda was set by Hitler who by the summer of 1940, with his authority unassailable, would brook little dissent. It is true that Halder did not express any serious reservations about the Barbarossa planning and his diary entries of the time make surprisingly little reference to the preparations, but as Halder well knew a dissenting OKH CoS would not have survived in post for long.TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑14 May 2020, 19:19The essential job of the man leading the German General Staff should have been to provide a path to victory based on military analysis and judgment, not based on political punditry about which Halder had no special insight and turned out to be disastrously wrong. ...
Had Halder presented Hitler with detailed, compelling arguments about the obstacles facing the Ostheer, the plans could have been rectified and Germany could have defeated the SU.
Even without the benefit of hindsight the General Staff could have made a better fist of the planning, but enough to make a critical difference to a campaign that had to begin by June 1941? I doubt it.
Planners have to make a whole raft of assumptions in preparing a campaign, including assumptions about requirements for, and diversion of resources towards, infrastructure upgrading. And as you previously stated (#7) “... they saw no urgent need for it. Why worry about building a railway system in a rush when the Red Army will be destroyed and the war won within truck range of the border? Worry about that after the war...”