The German invasion of Russia:

Doppleganger said:
'Blitzkrieg' is a operational-level system not a strategic plan. Please re-read post 62 of mine. In any case, this discussion is becoming increasingly pointless. The Germans used the same tactics in Poland, France and initially in Russia so this all basically nit-picking.
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Speaking of nit-picking I have been reading some interesting theories that the invasion of Poland was not blitzkrieg either it was a traditional envelopment campaign with small elements of blitzkrieg and that the first real application of blitzkrieg was in France.
 
MontyB said:
Speaking of nit-picking I have been reading some interesting theories that the invasion of Poland was not blitzkrieg either it was a traditional envelopment campaign with small elements of blitzkrieg and that the first real application of blitzkrieg was in France.
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Technically correct, although even in France the theory in practice was still being worked out, hence the reason why Guderian and Rommel both disobeyed orders to wait for infantry support. Their senior commanders (at Army level for Guderian and Korps level for Rommel) were not singing from the same hymn sheet. Kunikov is partially correct when he states that Operation Barbarossa was the first true major Blitzkrieg operation, although he is incorrect about the strategic aspect as Blitzkrieg is an operational level doctrine and not a strategic concept.

However, the same tactics were used in Poland, France and Russia, just that the emphasis switched from traditional Keil und Kessel (wedge and cauldron) tactics in Poland to Blitzkrieg in Russia and then ironically back to traditional tactics as the tide turned against them after 1942.
 
As much I know there was blitzkrieg in Poland and blitzkrieg in USSR, since concept of blitzkrieg means that advancing side defeats the defender BEFORE he completes mobilization. I.e., it means that existing army of defender is defeated before tons of reservists flow into it. In this terms campaign of France could not be considered as classical blitzkrieg, since French army had time enough to mobilize the reservists and economy according to the state of the war.

In USSR blitzkrieg was not successful for 2 reasons:
1) the resistance of Red Army was harder than German Stuff was planned;
2) the resistance altogether with large territories of USSR caused delay of advance, which gave USSR additional time to mobilize reservists and make new divisions and even armies instead of defeated and destroyed ones.

And yes, blitzkrieg is strategic, not tactical on operational concept.
 
There was also the conflict between Blitzkrieg tactics and Keil und Kessel tactics, particularly in Russia. For example, Blitzkrieg tactics were responsible for large scale encirclements but then once these encirclements were closed the pocket had to be reduced, generally by infantry and artillery formations. The conflict arose because of the need for the panzer formations to both a) form the outer ring of the encirclement to ensure no enemy forces escaped and b) continually exploit breakthroughs and keep the enemy from reforming in the rear. It is largely ineffective to attempt to do both at the same time so a conflict of interest arises and decisions have to be made.

Guderian generally chose not to use his divisions to close pockets but instead to continue to push forward into the enemy rearguard. Was he right or wrong? In Moscow 1941: Hitler's first defeat ( ISBN 978-1-84603-017-8 ) the author Robert Forczyk criticizes Guderian for not sealing off the Bryansk and Trubchevsk pockets. Guderian chose to push towards Tula instead, believing that operational speed to attempt a coup de main on Tula was more important. This conflict between exploitation and consolidation was also a reason why Blitzkrieg sometimes failed.
 
I am not entirely sure that "unrestricted" blitzkrieg would have worked in Russia simply because of the size of the country and the poor state of German logistics.
Even Guderian admitted that had their advance been held up for anymore than two weeks in France they would have ran out of fuel and ammunition and Russia is a much larger proposition.
 
My understanding, is that the only classic Blitzkrieg was against France and the low countries in 1940 (but attempted again in 1944). Only here could the supply chain be easily cut due to the geography and distances involved. This also involved the luring of the enemy into a salient (effectively all of Belgium) so this plan could be effectively deployed on a large scale, sealing off nearly all of the armour available to the allies.
 
MontyB said:
I am not entirely sure that "unrestricted" blitzkrieg would have worked in Russia simply because of the size of the country and the poor state of German logistics.
Even Guderian admitted that had their advance been held up for anymore than two weeks in France they would have ran out of fuel and ammunition and Russia is a much larger proposition.
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One of the main ways to defeat Blitzkrieg is to give up land for time to reform/reorganize in the rear and this is what the Soviets did. Being the owners of (by far) the largest country in the world they could afford to. Basically Barbarossa was largely a series of armoured thrusts resulting in a local encirclement of enemy forces, repeated several times. As you state the size of the country and the feeble state of the German logistical chain made it more difficult to achieve results the deeper they penetrated into the Soviet Union. Thus my belief that Barbarossa should have been planned as a 2 season campaign. In the aforementioned Moscow 1941: Hitler's first defeat, the author states that this was in fact Hitler's preferred option in a way as he wanted to leave Moscow until Spring 1942. Hitler was in fact persuaded by senior German commanders such as Guderian, Bock, Kesselring and Hoth that it was possible and vital to seize Moscow in 1941.
 
I am not disagreeing with the two season campaign theory but I do disagree with the Moscow first element.
The problem with focusing on Moscow is that it still leaves the Soviet forces intact and fully supplied while the forces occupying Moscow would have still been depleted, under supplied and with a huge salient north of Moscow, in essence you have the makings of Stalingrad a year earlier.
For any of this to have worked it would have required AGN to have captured Leningrad and carried on to reduce that northern salient.

I am still convinced that they should have gone south first taking Russian grain supplies (Ukraine) and if possible cutting oil supplies before the first winter thus still leaving the Russian army intact but short of supplies and having to support a huge population through winter.
 
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MontyB said:
I am not disagreeing with the two season campaign theory but I do disagree with the Moscow first element.
The problem with focusing on Moscow is that it still leaves the Soviet forces intact and fully supplied while the forces occupying Moscow would have still been depleted, under supplied and with a huge salient north of Moscow, in essence you have the makings of Stalingrad a year earlier.
For any of this to have worked it would have required AGN to have captured Leningrad and carried on to reduce that northern salient.

I am still convinced that they should have gone south first taking Russian grain supplies (Ukraine) and if possible cutting oil supplies before the first winter thus still leaving the Russian army intact but short of supplies and having to support a huge population through winter.
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(1) Moscow was the major center of Bolshevik control over a large collection of peoples that hated both communism and Russian domination. The loss of Moscow, and this is hard to quantify, would have significantly damaged the credibility of the "Great Patriotic War".

(2) The Soviets were not "intact" in December 1941. Zhukov was able to exploit (a) German logistical problems and (b) the weather to secure a crucial victory over German arms. If you analyse the months prior to December 1941, two things come to mind -- (a) the crushing defeat of the Soviet forces and (b) the attrition of German forces owing to the normal wear and tear of operations. The Soviets DID NOT fight harder than the Poles or French. Wehrmacht losses on a monthly basis were just as high or even more so during the earlier campaigns than the early victories against the Soviets (and even later defeats). The losses for the Wehrmacht hovered between 20,000-40,000 per month. But, it was the Soviets who took the harder blows. This realization must lead to the perspective that the Germans were not able to replenish their forces at the same rate owing to factors that are economic in nature.

(3) The Germans went south first and took the agricultural-based Ukraine in 1941.
 
World War I was a very different circumstance. Russia was a country falling apart which chose for all its wisdom to ATTACK Germany. Russia did not have the forces back then to launch an attack against Germany and succeed and Germany did not defeat Russia by charging all the way into the heart of their territory and negotiating the winter etc. etc.

I think you could have given the Germans about 50 tries to go after Stalin's Russia in World War II and it would have ended up pretty much the same. The winter and the vast distances would have eaten up their forces and the Russian counterattack would have crushed them. In time for the counter attack the Russians came out with some pretty good weapons and more people to throw away than most armies have bullets. Charging into Russia was the stupidest decision ever.

The reason you can't see that is that both of you fantasize about a Nazi German victory in World War II.
It wasn't going to work.
It was like the Japanese plan to take China. It was never going to happen. China had more towns than the Japanese had soldiers.
If those were their ONLY opponents and the rest of the world was asleep, it just "might" have worked under the best of circumstances but that's not how the world works and that's not what you plan an operation around.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
World War I was a very different circumstance. Russia was a country falling apart which chose for all its wisdom to ATTACK Germany. Russia did not have the forces back then to launch an attack against Germany and succeed and Germany did not defeat Russia by charging all the way into the heart of their territory and negotiating the winter etc. etc.

I think you could have given the Germans about 50 tries to go after Stalin's Russia in World War II and it would have ended up pretty much the same. The winter and the vast distances would have eaten up their forces and the Russian counterattack would have crushed them. In time for the counter attack the Russians came out with some pretty good weapons and more people to throw away than most armies have bullets. Charging into Russia was the stupidest decision ever.

The reason you can't see that is that both of you fantasize about a Nazi German victory in World War II.
It wasn't going to work.
It was like the Japanese plan to take China. It was never going to happen. China had more towns than the Japanese had soldiers.
If those were their ONLY opponents and the rest of the world was asleep, it just "might" have worked under the best of circumstances but that's not how the world works and that's not what you plan an operation around.
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The point was that no country can or did defeat Russia, and I proved that this is not true. I will try to brush off the rest of your extremely accusatorial comments.

Your understanding of WWII (not to mention of war itself) is brutally crude. I am shocked that anyone could make comments of this nature.

Please re-read material covering WWI. You are so wrong in your comments that "wrong" is the wrong word to describe them. They are more illusion than real.
 
I don't only think that it would have been possible to beat Russia, it should have been relatively easy if Hitler would have played his cards right. By recruiting the population rather than alienating them his manpower would have quickly overtaken Russia. There were many minorities that would have willingly fought for Germany after their suffering under Stalin, in fact some did. Combined with common sense winter preparations and advice they could have received from the Finns, the entire European theatre bar the UK should have been in their hands by 1942.

The declaration of war on the US wouldn't have helped over the long term though, This was quite pointless before the axis had secured the entire Euro-Asian-African continent, and quite silly even after then.
 
Ollie Garchy said:
Germany defeated Russia in WWI -- look up the Brest Litovsk Treaty and you will understand what I mean.
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That's right - but Germany did not defeat Russia in battlefield. Actually Germany did it by financing bolshevist movement, which collapsed Russian Empire from inside, and then ceased fire with Germany in battlefield, as it was populist move of bolsheviks - to provide a peace for people of Russia tired of war.
 
Either way, the whole World War I Germany vs Russia couldn't have been more different from the World War II confrontation.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
That's alright, I think you guys have made up your minds a long time ago anyway.
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Your previous post made me laugh out loud. With all due respect it is clear that you have only a basic understanding of the Eastern Front theatre in WW2. I have to assume this otherwise you would not have posted what you did. The reason why Germany eventually lost the war in Russia had a lot more to do with what Germany did not do than what Russia did. The Germans had 2 great chances in 1941:
  1. Drive right to Moscow and capture it before onset of the Autumn rasputitsa (muddy season). This would have cut Soviet communications North to South, be seen as a major morale reducer for the defenders and the capture of the Moscow railroad hub would have severely disrupted the Soviet logistical chain, making large scale Soviet offensives much more difficult to achieve. OR
  2. Halt on the Dnieper River line after the Kiev operation and resume operations in Spring 1942, which was apparently Hitler's initial plan. The German army would be resupplied and refitted and winter uniforms would have reached the troops in time for winter. Being dug-in along a major defensive line would have made any Soviet winter counter-offensive extremely costly.
Instead, the Germans tried to do both at the same time and left themselves overextended and under-supplied. The option to recruit disenchanted sections of the population (Cossacks, White Russians, Ukrainians etc) would never have been possible under the Nazi regime but exploitation of these peoples by Hitler would have made life somewhat easier. Despite this, the Germans still initially did really well in 1942. Imagine a rested, refitted, better-supplied German army without Hitler having lost his bottle and the outcome of this war might have been entirely different.
 
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