Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "The Turning Point? BATTLESTORM STALINGRAD E16" video.
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The Truth By this time of the war it was probably too late. One reason that Case Blau was planned and implemented (ignoring the Caucuses oil as the other primary reason) was that the defenses around the Leningrad and Moscow regions had been beefed up to the point that OKH didn't think they could easily break through the lines. This is supported, in part, by the 2-3 massive offensives the Red Army launched during 1942 in the Rzhev region. There is a very good video on this in the series "Soviet Storm" called "The Rzhev Meatgrinder" [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnhOTwSL5pI ]. This is a series of battles that have been completely ignored by both Soviet and German historians. During all three attacks the Wehrmacht barely clung to the region, the loss of which would have made their situation on the front near Moscow extremely perilous.
You make a very good point, though. Indeed, this was what Paulus had suggested in the spring of 1941 during the planning for Barbarossa. Again, the German High Command forgot about logistics. Had they followed Paulus' plan, their first objective would have been to attack and capture Leningrad. This would have given the Germans complete control of the Baltic, and all the ports into which they could ship supplies. It would have the added benefit of considerably shortening their supply lines. It would also have freed up both German and Finnish troops to put more pressure on the fronts north and east of Leningrad, plus capture the second largest city in Russia and denying both its population and industry to Russia (especially the Kirov Tank factory). Moscow could then be targeted using a pincer movement from south and west. The capture of Moscow would deny the USSR of the use of its factories, prevent the region being used as a communications hub, and prevent the area from being used to recruit soldiers. This could then have been used as a springboard to attack south along the Volga and completely cut off Soviet forces in the Ukraine. Granted, this would have left the Axis forces in the Ukraine understrength, but as long as they could keep the Red Army occupied they would have been doing their job.
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The Truth The thing that really messed up the German war plans was not the lack of a "decisive battle", rather the depth of reserves the Soviet Union had. I was floored when I read that the USSR had a standing army of around 5 million men in June 1941, with 15 million reserves! I don't think it would have mattered if the Germans had followed their traditional method of warmaking, as they needed to annihilate the Red Army the equivalent of 4 times to win. Germany just didn't have the reserves of manpower available at that time. Nor were they ever really able to address it. Quite simply, the Russians bled the Wehrmacht to death, although it was a very Pyrrhic victory.
They also didn't take into account the attrition their forces would be subjected to during Barbarossa or later. The fact they didn't increase tank and aircraft production beyond their 1940 levels until January 1943 speaks volumes about their arrogance. The Wehrmacht also lacked mass-produced trucks and sufficient spares to keep the front lines supplied with fully functional equipment or replacements.
There was a very good quote about the German Army in Citino's "The German Way of War" to the effect that the Wehrmacht wasn't that modern after all, i.e., they hadn't learned from their mistakes in WW1 on the operational and strategic level. Sorry I can't give you the exact quote right now, my copy of this book is in storage. One quote that was given in the Time Ghost "The Great War" was quite apt as well. Paraphrasing what was said, "The German Army was outstanding tactically, [... ] operationally, and strategically bankrupt. In other words, at a tactical level the Landwehr (and later Wehrmacht) were extremely good at the tactical level, somewhat less so operationally (although I disagree with the author being quoted on this point), but never really had properly set objectives or goals for their offensives. Their blundering around in the spring of 1918 was called "the offensives to nowhere". The same could be seen for much of 1941 and 1942 - every general was vying to conquer this city or that, but no set stop points or objectives were really being specifically chosen. The German offensives more or less "went with the flow", and stopped when they either ran out of supplies or they encountered resistance they couldn't overcome. It was terrifying when you initially saw it, but once you figured out the trick, you could easily divert the spearheads into cul-de-sacs (rather like the Americans did in the Ardennes, or the Russians at Kursk).
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@joeblow5178 Indeed. However, for the generals to do so, they would have had to look at the broader strategic picture. This was something that OKH and OKW seemed incapable of doing (but as TIK points out, something that Hitler did do, but was routinely circumvented). Surely they should have seen that one of the best ways to knock Britain out of the war was to seize Egypt and the Suez Canal, and threatening the Middle East oil fields, but they didn't. For Barbarossa, the generals' complete lack of understanding logistics and supply did as much to deprive them of victory as the Red Army. Plus, at no point did attrition of equipment and manpower seem to enter their thoughts, and hence, planning. It was a really weird blind spot, and turned out to be the Achilles Heel of the Wehrmacht.
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