Comments by "James the Other One" (@jamestheotherone742) on "Paulus HAD to take Stalingrad (he couldn't bypass it)" video.

@1210alpha Yeah, They essential did lay new track all over, both in German gauge and in repairing the Russian ones that were torn up by the Soviets during their retreats and both that were constantly being bombed and shot up by both sides. The RR engineers (on both sides but mostly German) were the hardest working folks on the Eastern front.
2
@14:20 I imagine Toporani's context was in shipping oil to the Med to get it to Italy or N. Africa? The Caucuses are adjacent to the Black Sea, not the Med. There would be no need to ship it to the Med at all. If they had taken the oil fields and the naval superiority that they did get, they could have barged the oil along the coast to Ukraine or even better Romania, which would have been a much shorter trip/turn around than by overland rail. So as always, the critical failure of the Germans was in getting SQUIRRELED! into trying to take Stalin's namesake city, instead of concentrating on their strategic objective. In fact I have played this tactic a few times, The Rostov-on-Don to Stalingrad salient provides an excellent bait to draw the Soviets into attempting to cut off the offensive going South towards Azerbaijan. In this scenario the 6th Army becomes a supporting unit holding the Volga flank open, with a strong reserve to plug gaps in that hella long line, and waiting for the inevitable Uranus offensive where you cut off any spearhead that blunders along the Don. Basically Kursk in reverse.
1
@jakubstanicek6726 Then you should watch the video again. The Caucasus were the strategic objective here. Stalingrad was a tactical blunder.
1
There would not have been much for the Germans to transport up the Volga, except maybe fuel from Azerbaijan if they captured it. Its quite out of the way from Germany. Everything on the Caspian was Allied controlled. Its likely that the Germans would face attacks by assorted Soviet and even Royal Navy assets if they had taken Astrakhan.
1
sigh...
1
The Japanese miscalculated that the US either wouldn't be willing to fully mobilize for a trans-pacific war, or would be so focused on the European war, that it would ignore the Pacific until Japan had resolved the Chinese campaign and built up a impenetrable island "defense in depth". We all know how well that turned out.
1
The Afrika Korps itself would not have made a difference, but the logistical effort to support it, especially the large amount of it that wound up at the bottom of the Med, would have. The Germans were never going to win because the US had an atomic ace card. About all they could have done is rid the world of Stalin.
1
@jerry2357 The German's wouldn't have needed captured British trucks in N. Africa if they... weren't in N. Africa. Even captured equipment needs fuel, oils, tires, drivers, and all the stuff that they are supposed to be moving, that could have been used elsewhere. What Italy would have done if Hitler had refused to come the rescue is an interesting one. However the German contribution and costs to Italian campaigns was far higher than the Italian contributions to German ones. Its not likely that Italy would bow out of the war just because Mussolini lost his African adventure. It took llooking like the Axis were going to lose and the Allies being on the doorstep of the boot before they tossed Bennie out. And Husky and might not have succeeded at all if the hundreds of thousands of Italians (and Germans) lost in N. Africa were there waiting for those green Americans.
1
@jerry2357 tens in '41 vs. hundreds of thousands in '43. You can't send troops to a territory you don't possess and can't invade. The Brits were very likely to completely over-run all of Italian N. Africa in short order if it weren't for the intervention of Hitler. This is very unlikely to make Italy quit unless it precipitated a coup that deposes Mussolini. But that could have happened at any time.
1
They didn't need to besiege Stalingrad. It had less strategic value than Leningrad. Crossing the Volga and encircling the city would have been expensive because of the sheer size of the area that would have exposed the German units to the full fury of the Soviet Army at its maximum extension. The "siege" of Stalingrad should have just been maintaining blocking position on the west bank and making the town uninhabitable with artillery.
1