What if the Germans attacked Moscow instead of Stalingrad?

some germans div received winter clothes at time.
but OKH in a great optimistic vision of war, have scheduled winter clothing for 50/60 Div i.e. occupations troops...
the first winter was one coolest of war.
I read on a very serious book on effects of weather during warfare, the story of a german soldier in Leningrad front, who leave his helmet outside and when he putted in without protection, seen her brain freezing...by -40°C.

the truth is the german army was not ready to win a long and bitter war.
victory in Poland, France, Balkans was mirage.
don't forget when you cross german border in belgium and arrive in Paris, you make a travel of 600km. In russia you are only in Smolensk and you must do the same travel to reach Moscow. What is possible in narrow front is impossible to repeat in wide space.
A easy comparison, Napoleon's all footed troops move faster than blitzkrieg german's army....
an another easier, the Panzer Waffe represents approximately 2% of Ostheer when Knight are 20/30% of medieval army with the same role in battlefiel, breaktrouht and make the shock...
pre barbarossa victory are local or tactical victory. None is a stratégic. germans never go beyond outskirts of moscow because there are unable to do it.
my opinion is, (I agree, it is only the result of reading not only Glantz and many hours of wargaming) german could win in russia in two years. the first they must destroy a maximum of troops while preserving the army. Red army despite big reserve in human and improvement of materials and command, couldn't resist two times at a frontal assault...but the conditions of post war studies and the on time decisions are not the same. the fall of moscow is louder than the fall of Kiev or au Paulus's pause...

one anthoer and main reason of german's defeat is the great failure of intelligence.
They have no idea of ennemy forces or position of them :
in june 41 they think to meet 4/5000 tanks in reallity 15/20000 ! they don't know T34 or KV1. When they visits tank productions sites in Krupp factory, Russians officiers didn't believe that the PzkpfwgIV E (with short 75) was the most powerful tanks...the leading germans officiers was worried and surprised...
in april 42 they don't see the preparations of Karkhov offensive
in december 41 siberians div is a really surprise especially when Bock declare war will be won by the last battalions lauched in battle. actually germans launch theirs last battalion, not the russians...
in november they are unable to spot 800 tanks of 2nd Guards army and 5th tank army near the don.
the 12th july 43, for OKH, red army is white bled but two days after the russians lauch offensives against belgorod, orel and the mious
and the best for the end, they can't imagine bagration 1.2millions frontovik lanched from pripiet bulk to minsk when reserve are in lwow...
the german command is blind (except the tree first months of war) beyond the 50km behinf front line , there is "terra incognitae"
SO Moscow or Stalingrad, the results is the same

 

"No accurate figures" says it all; did red Army forces expel Russians from their homes because they wouldn't live in the same building as a Slav?

 

When it comes to the topic of Eastern Front, I can't help but think of the start of the war between Iran and Iraq. The one thing that stands out is that Saddam and his cronies thought Iran would be a pushover with the purges happening in the Iranian military and that the Ayatollah wouldn't be able to rally Iranians together.
Hitler and some of his senior officers also thought the same way about the Russians. They underestimated their opponents.
Judging from all the posts on this thread, it seems the overwhelming point being presented is that Nazi Germany consistently underestimated the capacity of the Soviet Union.

 

Yes, that's what happened.

 

don't forget the great collect for furs and hot clothes for the troops in december 41...
many coats are sending (until the pause in german railways during Xmas holydays)...Totaler Krieg....

 

So the mighty Wehrmacht ended up in toilets and the Bolshevik rebels ended up on the Reichstag!
Thank you Führer.

 

The Soviets knew to blow every possible house available to the Germans either by scorched earth policy or by bombing them from planes. Don´t think the Germans had a house to live in if the Soviets knew of the house in the battle zone.

 

Yes, true in deed however they not always had the opportunity to do so.......

Smolensk, Vyazma, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kieve are some examples of fierce battles where Soviets did not have time for scorched earth. At least not to an extent in which they wanted.

 

on 5th december temperature is 35 °C below zero. the coldest winter in the last 140 years. nothing works on the german side: engine don't start, cannons falls into pieces when they fire, rifles open up like artichokes (truth). the steel is hot, pilots can't reach metal dashboard of thier aircrafts.

Nevertheless hitler is euphoric. he is convinced that nazis are about to enter moscow, no matter that most tanks have already gone. In fact, the only one thing that was seriously planned in the thyphoon operation was the demolition ot the kremlin, and the usual blacklist of people to be executioned/inprisoned (see sealion plan).

And that's not enough: on 11th december, despite it's clear that nazis are failing at taking moscow, what does mr.H do? he declares war to the United States! the US had not declared war to germany yet and Japan is not going into war with russia (everybody knows that)

 

If the winter was exceptionally cold, wouldn't that affect the Red army as well?

 

As i keep pointing out to those above but none of you guys want to hear or read that thousands upon thousands of Soviet troops died during that winter, and according to the many books i have read docco's i have watched mention that in relative terms the Germans coped as well as the Soviets. Too many here have this Pro-Soviet invincibility dogma, yes i know that the Germans lost the war, but if the shoe was on the other foot and the Soviets were fighting the rest of the world on a multi front war how would they cope, remember that there would be no help from anyone. Not good i supect.

 

To be honest that was the ONLY time the "not a step back order" from Hitler worked for the German forces really....if the Red Army had done a massive attack in one part of the front only the whole AGC would have fallen, but Stalin wanted a whole-front attack...

I mean who taught these guys Stalin and Hitler about warfare anything...Stalin later on realized Zhukov was correct, Hitler stuck to this thesis.

 

Ok here is a senario that could still be in the spirit of this thread, say the German Army and it's Axis partner decide that Moscow was to be it's main target and so after all the dogma that Hitler wanted to go after Leningrad was finally convinced that Moscow was to be to only target and so the German/Axis armies went after Moscow.

Army Group North would initially go throught the Baltic states but swing right and head towards Tver and launch a North Western assault on Moscow.

Army Group Centre would head out towards Minsk and then straight onto a Western assault on Moscow.

Army Group South heads out towards Kharkiv and then in a swing left towards Tula and then launch a Southern assault on Moscow

Resulting in Moscow faces the combined assault of all three army groups.

 

After the battering the Red army received the Moscow counter-attack is rather impressive wouldn't you say? If the Red army was as badly affected by your 'exceptional winter' as the Germans doesn't this make its achievement all the more impressive?

Surely it makes sense that after the blitzkrieg failed in july-august the Germans would adapt by grabbing raw material regions whilst they still could?

 

russians suffered enourmous losses, in relative terms maybe even more than germans. true. but that's the point: russians could afford it, germans couldn't.

before dec-41 nazis had never been defeated, nevetherless when it happended at the gates of moscow the war was already lost.

it was the same for napoleon, he was never defeted in open field battle and he got moscow too. but actually the invasion turned into a catastrophe for "la grande armée".

the fact is that military invasion of russia is simply impossible.

Add to this that the nazis tried to do that without having a plan (barbarossa was nothing) and you can't be surprise of the outcome of the war.

 

the job is impossible to do for german army.
Barbarossa is only three diiferents battles...
the russians stops germans in AGN aera by violent and heavy counterattacks during on month, enough to prepare the defense of Leningrad. the result is a tie.
in AGC altough loss, never the retreat turn into debacle. and the winter counter offensive is launched when stavka decide to do it. if Stalin listen Joukov and condentrate all troops in this sectors instead to multiply local attacks, such, that AGC have been collapsed. major victory for soviets, never moscow will be threated...
in AGS, minor victory for germans, Ukrainia is cleared and the weakest Panzergrupppe face to the largest tank units, do the job.

the germans are so few, so slower and understrenght that I don't know that they can win in 12 weeks

 

Yes, if the the 3 German armies attacked Moscow, Moscow would have fallen. However several other problems occur for the Germans. Hitler's main objective was to destroy as much of the Soviet Union's military as possible. By going solely after Moscow several million troops would have gone unchecked, 600,000 alone just in Kiev.

What would the Germans do after Moscow has fallen? How long would they hold the city for?

I would imagine that Moscow would be incircled by millions of Russian troops which have now escaped?

Also casualties were a huge concern for Germany. In the first six weeks of fighting the Whermacht cassualties amounted to over 213,000 but only received 47,000 replacements.

Leningrad was a huge industrial center with a huge garrison what would the troops do there?

I would imagine that just like Napoleon, Germany would have taken Moscow but would pay dearly for it

 

riga-moscow: 900 KM

minsk-moscow: 700KM

Kharkiv-moscow: 800KM

your thesis works better in theory than practice.
- What you simply call "swing" is actually like crossing a medium size country (paris-marseille 780KM). probably at least one of the armies would have been halted.
- let's be optimistic, let's say that all 3 armies joined. Certainly their force would have been heavily reduced along the way.
- starting from nov-41 siberian troops started to move to west, fresh troops well equipped
- you imagine russians fighting to death to defend moscow. are you sure? stalin was not as stupid as mr.H. He would have ordered troops to leave the city and move to east.
- in case the nazis took moscow the aftermath would have been very risky.... wermacht would have been totally worned out and overstratched. totaly exposed from all sides.

 

I still sticking to my senario that had the German Army had done what it wanted to do free from the constant interference from Hitler it could have achieved a remarkable invasion of the Soviet Union.

But having said that i believe that Leningrad had to be dealt with, even i can see leaving Leningrad alone would open up a huge exposed left flank, but the danger for the Soviets even with this exposed German left flank is that could the Baltic Military District and Leningrad Military District divert valuable resources from the Baltic states and the defense of Leningrad itself to launch an offensive on German forces, at best those Soviet Military Districts would have to send at least 50% to 60% of available troops to counter the Germans, this would leave Leningrad especially vulnerable to attack by the 12 to 14 Finnish Divisions. In the South however, i can concede the Germans would have trouble.

 

Counter attacks were constant all the way up from the Baltic states up to the point when the remainder of the forces were pushed into Leningrad. Even then Leeb expressed his concern of the casualties which he had received.... Around 60,000 even putting his 8th panzer reserve into action. While the Soviets recieved more then 3 1/2 times the casualties. If Leningrad was skipped over then the extra 250k Soviet men would have been on Germany's flank without using any of the forces defending Leningrad