Comments by "Al Loomis" (@alloomis1635) on "[Barbarossa] The Major Errors and Blunders - Or why Barbarossa Failed" video.

  1. there is a famous saying in the military world, that attack plans only last to the first contact. in fact, with some adjustment, the german plan worked quite well for about 3 months. well done! there is more to war than battle. munitions production, quality of serving military personnel, and number and quality of replacements are also vital. with the available appreciation of sov assets, hitler/high command decided that time was on the side of the soviets. but the earliest available date was sept 1. if it had been jun 1, the world might be a much different place. but they were busy elsewhere. it is wrong to say they made a mistake. war is not chess. they took on an enemy that proved to be stronger, following political imperatives arising from hitler's demand for lebensraum, facilitated by his successful guess that france would be a push-over, and leave time for barbarosa. the mistake was in dreaming of a german empire, and even that was not out-landishly wrong. execution was as good as human abilities could deliver - even when losing the germans were better soldiers, better led than opponents. they were beaten by inadequate numbers, inferior production, with a bit of help from the russian winter. indeed, arriving in front of moscow in summer uniform by itself meant the game was up.
    1