Comments by "Not Today" (@nottoday3817) on "Battlestorm Stalingrad E7 - Operation Nord" video.

  1.  @GeographyCzar  Well, the biggest problem with your comment is the ideea of 'more defensible position'. Unfortunetly, that concept does not hold when talking operational and strategic scale conflicts. Even 2000 years ago, the Romans dealt with enemies on 'defensible positions' by just ignoring them. The ideea goes even lower when considering the fact that here we are talking about the Russian steppe. The only defensible positions you get are the ones you build yourself, aka bunkers, pillboxes etc. They are hard to be broken by individual groups of men. That's the tactical level. However, on the operational level, we have frontlines. They consist of strongly defended positions as well as communication lines between them and of areas which are almost impossible to fortify. The ideea of Blitzkrieg/Bewedungskrieg/however you call it, is to exploit those weak areas, cut the communication lines and all those strong defensible positions would eventually fall as well.
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  2.  @GeographyCzar  Well, such is the life of a soldier. Let us hope we will not see those
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  3. That was exactly what I was thinking
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  4.  @fazole  No, you do not need to get Both sides of the Volga. That would actually be idiotic from a strategic point of view. The goal of the Axis was to protect the flank of Army group A?( Was A or B going for the oil-fields, I have a massive brain block, anyway, you get my point, they had to defend the flank of the push) and they had to cut off the transport of supplies on Volga and neighbouring railways (which could be done with artillery strikes). You do not need to cross the Volga for that. It would actually be counter-productive to do that. Even if you find a break in the enemy defensive positions, you would need to build a bridge which would come under fire from enemy artillery and aviation and most of your guys would drown if they are being forced back. Also, for the modern US army, that ratio is specific for their military needs. They have operations all across the world, but in limited scale, not full wars. That means the support branch does hard work for some time and then they sit on their asses. Ancient rome had 1:1 (soldier vs support and auxiliary)or worse ratio. Also, I do not know how the US army counts that 4:1. Do they count support specifically or do they count 'special missions' as well? (aka combat engineers and such)
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  5.  @fazole  Well, without hindsight the ideea was to get the oil fields and defend from any Soviet counter attack using Stalingrad as a bridge head. And they cut off the Volga by placing some cannons on the Western bank or laying mines. Blast any ships that try to pass through. That's what strategy means. You don't define specific points as objectives. Objectives mean areas and frontlines. The 'Stalingrad objective' for Fall Blau was a frontline stretching along the Volga (optimally up to Astrakhan) to disrupt transport on the Volga and stop any Crossing. Stalingrad was a big city with various bridges and a railway node, meaning that Soviets had a great bridgehead over the Axis lines, that's why it had to be taken out. However, that's not why the operation failed. It failed because the Germans failed to secure the rest of the frontlines. As for the situation of supplies, well, that's what war effort means. When you are constantly fighting you consume much more and fatigue grows exponentially with every hour. When the frontlines are stabilised you can rest, consume less, try to get proper food etc.
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  6.  @fazole  Well, the Caucasus campaign was actually a bit more successful than Stalingrad. They actually had to retreat because Stalingrad failed and they risked being cut off. As for Hitler, well, what he could do? Recite some old norse runes and make cows rain from the sky?
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  7.  @fazole  The oil fields they captured in maykop were destroyed by the soviets so they had to go for Grazny and Baku
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