Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Was Barbarossa delayed by Yugoslavia?" video.
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@pavlovsdog2551 " Red Army was NOT destroyed "
4.5 mln casualties, more than 2 mln prisoners. The Red Army was not just destroyed, it was destroyed twice over.
" if the Germans HAD invaded in May, despite the weather, and allowed the front to stagnate along the border for a few weeks "
The answer is very easy. The Germans wouldn't have been able to inflict those staggering losses.
" allowing the Soviets to fully commit their reserves "
The Soviets wouldn't have done that, simply because they weren't able to supply more soldiers on the front. Actually, they might have pulled some of their units back, and deploy the defense in depth, simply because a stationary unit is not using as much resources, while a fighting unit needs a lot of those.
At the same time they'd surely train their reservists. No advantage for the Germans.
" BEFORE unleashing the blitzkrieg beast in June "
So they'd train the Red Army in combat for a month, before trying to totally humiliate it? They'd let them build fortifications, fire incompetent commanders, quite likely get rid of the "double command" of the political officers, so forth?
I mean, they'd likely win the early battles even against a better prepared Red Army, but their victories would be much smaller in scope and they'd likely never be able to even reach Moscow.
Their strategy was correct. Hit them hard and hope they'll collapse soon after.
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@kilianklaiber6367 It depends where you live. The further East you go, the more continental the climate gets, and that means harsher winters and hotter summers. Then the transition period is extremely unpredictable.
Yes, it can snow in May. Rarely where I live, right next to Vistula, but it happens. Wet, cold and windy Mays are quite common, though.
Anyway, the whole idea of Barbarossa was to capture the Red Army right next to the border and destroy it there, where the supply lines were short and sweet. It succeeded. If they rushed the offensive and chanced on bad weather, it could have failed.
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