German doctrine was to ignore tanks, let them roll over, and the open up on the infantry to separate them and allow the tanks to be dealt with by follow on forces. Tanks were more like battering rams which shot up strong points and supported infantry while advancing, as well as provide a psychological effect when used en masse both to boost the morale of their own infantry and lower that of the enemy.
The Germans and Soviets used panje carts in the same way: intra-division supply. People make WAY too much of the use of horses for supply in general as if it were a massive part of the logistical apparatus rather than simply an intra-division supply movement facilitator. Of course trucks are better, but when you have hundreds of divisions rather than the several dozen of the Wallies, you cannot have enough trucks for everything, so you use horses to supplement them in a capacity where their limitations are minimized.
The truck issue was more a problem of lack of capacity on the Soviet side which only got worse when the Luftwaffe's strategic bombing campaign in the summer of 1943 that destroyed the Molotov factory in Gorky as well as severely damaged the synthetic rubber plant in Yaroslavl. I just found out too that the Soviets bought the license and equipment to make US diesel engines for trucks while the bombing campaign against Gorky destroyed and they never were able to make those engines. Instead they ended up just having rely on US L-L models and captured trucks.
The Soviets in 1941 had any number of issues, but one of the worst was being technologically and industrial backwards, so simply couldn't make enough trucks for all their needed. The loss of trucks further in Barbarossa, both civilian and military, as well as the loss of 40% of the pre-war industry effectively crippled them for the rest of the war. If not for LL they would have utterly fucked. Yes Soviet combat power grew with the proportion of L-L they received.
See above. Most of the tanks broke down before even getting the battlefield and the Luftwaffe had a field day hitting the packed roads. There there was the break down in communications:
en.wikipedia.org
The Soviets simply were way behind in thinks like electronics production, training, experience, usage, organization, etc. They simply just were not ready for modern warfare and L-L really filled in all of those gaps. Getting modern Russian histories that actually look into these issues are rather surprising since they are absolutely scathing about the reality of the Soviet technological/industrial mess things were in at the start of the war.
Remember when I said that was because the Soviets lost around 40% of their economy in 1941 and a huge chunk of their rail system? Yeah traffic will fall heavily because of massive economic disruption. What you're pointing out above fits into what I was saying perfectly.
The Soviets did evacuate some military specific industry, but a fraction of the overall industry in the territories lost. They were able to get out the tank factory in Kharkov for instead, but not a bunch of other stuff in Ukraine that they either blew up or lost. Soviet propaganda tried to cover up how much was lost by only pointing at their successes.
Not just the Luftwaffe, all part of the Wehrmacht needed a replenishment/reinforcement by May 1943 and that simply took time. Manstein though was against the offensive before it was launched.
en.wikipedia.org
Apparently he was against the delays if it were going to be launched at all:
Not exactly accurate:
Wikipedia's next section about the actual cancellation is incorrect, the GatSWW series points out that the offensive basically ended as soon as Hitler took away the reserve mentioned above and the 'extension' until the 14th was really just to disengage the SS panzer corps for the removal of the 1st SS division. Roland was never implemented, the only part of it that ever happened was the disengagement part that allowed units to be stripped from the front.
You're really just ignoring everything I wrong, aren't you?
Germany fought more than just the USSR, the Soviets meanwhile mostly just had to fight the Germans. Less than 50% of the Wehrmacht even took part in Barbarossa and the proportion on the Eastern Front fell after 1941. Plus don't forget about all the casualties taken up to the start of Barbarossa as well. Then once we dig into population stats the Germans were an aged society compared to the Soviets; the German birthrate collapsed after WW1 to well below replacement rates which didn't recover until after the Nazis rose to power while the Soviets had a relative baby boom after the Civil War. So on top of the general population disparity there was also a youth/fighting age male disparity as well which effectively meant that the Soviets had 300% of Germany's young male population. Granted the Soviets lost a lot of potential soldiers in the occupation of much of western USSR in 1941-42, but given that the USSR focused their entire military on the Eastern Front, but the Wehrmacht only about 45% of it's overall numbers at it's peak commitment that meant the Soviets had a decisive manpower advantage. There were the Axis minor allies of course, but they largely only showed up for about a year and by 1943 played an decreasing role in the frontline fighting.
Plus you factor in the role of LL in freeing up manpower to fight in the USSR and the larger need to retain industrial workers for the German work force (slave/forced labor only ever made up a small fraction of overall German labor), then the Soviets had a decisive manpower advantage, but one that led to enormous waste of lives.
But the Soviets never did since they had give up strategic bombing in 1941. They outsourced that to the US and they primarily focused on their army and army support aviation.
Forces freed up from Rzhev launched the Smolensk offensive and did not AFAIK have anything to do with Kursk. At most they were part of the Orel offensive, but since 2nd Panzer army was stopped early on and was able to inflict horrific losses, grossly lopsided as well, against the Soviet offensive in Orel clearly the retreat was well worth it not just in the casualties inflicted at Rzhev, which was equivalent to two entire Soviet rifle corps, but also sucking them into further offensives against fortified zones they cost the Soviets casualties equivalent to an entire Front.
Since the Eastern Front was an attritional struggle even with the Wallies and due to the sheer size of the front there was no such thing as a decisive battle/campaign, ultimately that counts as a win since the casualty rates were close enough in their favor. Plus there is evidence that the Soviets lied about their casualties at Kursk and they were in fact even heavier and casualty ratios even more lopsided in Germany's favor, which makes it ultimately a successful operation.
Citadel wasn't stopped cold, it was working on the southern flank very well and could have been much more successful, but for Hitler calling it off at the decisive movement of that operation.
Exploit what? There was no such thing as a decisive battle, just increasing casualties of the enemy until they collapsed due to attrition. Germany's only goal from 1943 was to best use what they had and preserve whatever forces they could to inflict the heaviest casualties on the Soviets possible until they either collapsed or quit. Defeating D-Day would help with that immensely due to the freed up forces to increase attrition on Soviet forces, while limiting their own. As the Soviet army was the military center of gravity of the Allies the war would be won or lost there. Really overall it was US domestic will to keep fighting the war and supplying the Allies with material, but that was tied to the willingness of the Soviets to keep fighting more than anything.
From what I've seen of German accounts of the Zis trucks they were actually pretty good in the mud since they were actually American designs of the 1920s or early 1930s. You're right that they weren't really military models, but they did well enough since the early designs were meant for things like farm and heavy industrial work.
The Soviets were decent at rail logistics, at least using their system, and got better with logistics in general as the war went on, their big problem was simply the lack of material; people often confuse lack of means with lack of ability, which the usual example given is 'how much worse the Germans were than the Americans' when it came to logistics. That of course is badly incorrect, as the US made all sorts of mistakes with logistics and planning, they just had more resources to throw at the problem and simply overwhelm it with resources. Same applies to the German side in the USSR in 1941, they did better in logistics than the Soviets due to more experience and a LOT more material.
Hitler interfered in planning all the time; he didn't take a direct hand in it all the time, but mess around as he wished.
OKW did all sorts of planning for operations and was supposed to be the coordinating body while OKH handled army specific planning. Hitler demanded new divisions be formed than existing ones be reinforced. I don't have access to my books at the moment otherwise I'd find quotes for you.
Where are you getting that? They took months to refit, retrain, and rest after Greece so only were able to start marching from the pre-war Soviet border to the front in September. Not sure what the situation was with 5th Panzer, I thought their equipment was lost as well, but nothing comes up on a google search.
Maybe it needed time to R&R after the Balkan/Greek campaign? In July it wasn't really necessary. Not sure why it wasn't committed in August other than logistics.
Where are you getting those numbers? The labor in the camps freed up German men to fight and the number of guards was quite low. Plus they generally used foreign manpower unfit for combat and not fit for combat German manpower in the camps. Mengele for instance was invalided out of military service due to wounds. Also don't forget the 3rd SS division rotated men between the combat division and the camp personnel to rest and recover them or find a use for manpower no longer able fit for military service. Only the 3rd SS division did that since they were raised originally from camp guards.
Of course.
Food under German control. Soviet peoples under German control hid their food so by resettling working capable people from Ukraine or Belarus further west would mean farmers have more labor and could share their hidden food as well as produce more of it with more labor to cover the needs of the new population.
Incidentally west Ukraine is among the best arable land in Ukraine:
agri benchmark – understanding agriculture worldwide
www.agribenchmark.org
So basically you make them the problem of the farmers; they don't necessarily generate any more food for Germany, but they can prevent people from starving. In the case of the Jews/concentration camp victims who starved the situation from 1943 on was different from earlier since so many people had died by that point and freed up food, plus improved rationalization had happened. At that point it was more about who was useful and who wasn't because there was little need to keep alive people who weren't able to work and were considered 'undesirable'.
No it was an attritional slog. Germany was only beaten when it ran out of people and equipment to fight. Soviet bombers didn't matter for how deep they could get, only US and UK bombers did and they already had all the range they needed. The US mission in the USSR was very short lived and marked by a lot of non-cooperation among the Soviet leadership and the US. Hence the German bombing mission against the US bomber base at Poltava being allowed to effectively run unopposed as a means to convince the Americans to leave:
The US would stage B-17s in the Soviet Union, to strike targets deep in German territory. It sounded l
www.airforcemag.com
That's a whole rabbit hole of a conversation I really have no interest in exploring even in this badly derailed thread.
The situation in Belorussia in summer 1944 was quite different from Normandy at the same time. If for no other reason than sheer scale and force to land ratios.
In the bocage panzers aren't really that useful. Quality infantry was, which is why the US did so poorly. The Germans used rather elite divisions like the II parachute corps with lots of combat experience, lots of infantry firepower, and excellent training for the terrain/small unit combat. I have a book about the US 29th division in the push to St. Lo and it is astounding how well the German paratroopers fought and used the terrain. Regular infantry were simply outmatched by experience light infantry in that terrain since it diminished the role of artillery and other heavy firepower of regular infantry divisions, but magnified defending light infantry's advantages.
Simply put the US and UK forces just fought different types of battles in Normandy due to terrain and types of forces they were facing. The British though deserve all sorts of condemnation for all the cock-ups they had in their part of the campaign, since they passed up multiple opportunities to simply cave in German lines. They were too cautious and paid the price with lots more blood and material. Also most of the German panzer divisions weren't even up to strength by the time the fighting started and received virtually no replacements, so were quite a bit weaker than you'd think. Take the late arriving II SS Panzer Corps; it had just arrived piecemeal and after a lengthy road march which cost them a ton of fallen out vehicles and after fighting in Ukraine for several months. Only a fraction of the 1st SS division even fought in Normandy since half of the division was still refitting after being of the Eastern Front for only a month or so.
The only part I'd agree with what you wrote is that once the invasion threat is gone the Panzers head East.
I don't necessarily think it is just about FDR, US public opinion factored in heavily to Stalin's calculations, especially in the election year of 1944. Churchill probably wouldn't survive the failed D-Day and V-weapons bombardments that now cannot be stopped by land invasion. Question is who his replacement is and what relationship they have to FDR as well as what the British public itself would continue to tolerate; Churchill was freaked out about the paltry V-weapons threat of OTL, so it must have been a serious issue; it is also mentioned in Alanbrooke's private war diary (only published in the 21st century) which mentions a lot of public debate in Britain even as late as November 1944 and beyond about cutting a deal to end the V-missile strikes. He's also incredibly scathing of Churchill, which is interesting.
They were not armed until in flight due to safety issues:
en.wikipedia.org
So if not shot down before the 30 min to target you're right that if working properly it should detonate if shot down, but if you're bombing Germany from Britain there is a several hour flight before they get to a non-bombed target in Germany, which means lots of chances to shoot it down on the way. Since the B-29 is a very obvious plane relative to the other models the Allies had in service it would be very easy to spot and target even on radar.
If shot down they won't necessarily have time to drop the bomb and won't have time to arm it.
Who knows. Von Braun wasn't in charge of slave labor at all, that was Dornberger and later the SS. Von Braun was forcibly inducted into the SS when Himmler took over the project, so it wasn't like he had much choice about anything other than rocket design. If you want to hang people for slave labor then most of the US, UK, and Soviet leaders deserved the same fate. That war was way more fucked up than most people realize and the Allies were nowhere near clean handed.
I'll defer to you on that one, I don't know the details.
James Rocket? I know that guy, been a while since I've talked to him though. Thanks for the link, I'll have to read up on that later. The German bomb project ceased in 1942 on order of Speer due to how many resources it needed to be viable and how long it would take; what existed in 1945 was a series of nuclear energy projects. Had a switch been flipped to recreate a bomb project on the scale of Peenemunde's rocket projects then you'd see things consolidated and coordinated quickly.
Fair enough.
Agreed, though I highly doubt Stalin would want another go given how badly the last one messed him up and how much stronger Germany would be relative to the USSR post-war given that the Soviets are ending much further east than their 1941 start line and with many millions of Soviet citizens behind German lines (including PoWs and Ostarbeiter not to mention ROA and Vlasov's guys) who would have otherwise fallen back into Stalin's clutches. Not only that, but Hitler has at least two major threats to Stalin under his control: various Russia nationalist anti-Soviet groups and the Ukrainian nationalists. Over time these could develop into real threats if another war starts (assuming no NCB weapons) since they will be not only an extra source of manpower, but a nucleus of movements to subvert the Red Army and populations behind the lines. Especially post-Hitler if you get a pragmatic leader in charge (Hitler's health being pretty poor by 1945 IOTL would mean that is sooner rather than later) who develops those groups things could get pretty hairy for Stalin even in peacetime. IOTL from 1944-1950 Ukraine was Stalin's Vietnam (as were the Baltic states and Poland to some degree) even in victory; with a surviving Nazi Germany with West Ukraine under its control it will be able to turn the region into a real nightmare that would make Vietnam look placid in comparison.
www.historynet.com
