Von Manstein advocated an elastic, mobile defense and was ready to cede territory, attempting to make the Soviet forces either stretch out too thinly or to make them advance too fast so that they could be attacked on the flanks with the goal of encircling them. Hitler however ignored Manstein's advice and continued to insist on static warfare. What if Hitler listened to him?

You mean the Germans wanted to do to the Soviets, what they themselves did? lol....

If im not mistaken the Germans were in that dilemma at the end of 1942.

And the Soviets were faced with that at the battle of Berlin..... Zhukov chose not to advance until his other reserves moved into position, otherwise he would be outflanked and caught in the same position that the Germans were under Moscow.

Also Germany's commander like Mastein after 1942 relized that Germany couldnt win the war in the East..................anyways dont think that much would off changed, Germany would off still lost.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I think that if the Germans had the means available they might have done the famous Kharkov Backhand a few times more on some unwary formations, problem is that after Kursk the Germans had lots of problems in ammassing and supplying mobile forces in the proper times and places, initiative had been lost, Manstein or no Manstein.

But on minor occasions that could and certainly did occur.

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I do believe Manstein wanted to do a backhand operation not long after Kharkov 1943 which could had worked but was over ruled by Hitler as he wanted the Kursk operation.

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Man of the Year 1942

Regards, Richard

Yes, Manstein wanted to do what the Russians did, that is wait for the other side take the initiative of the attack, and when he is well engaged, tired and disorgansed strike and catch him off-balance.

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I find it hard to believe the Russians would end up falling into that trap.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Well, they spent most of 1941, 1942 and a good part of 1943 doing exactly that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Kharkov for instance

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Does anyone in here think if there is anyway on earth that the German could win after Stalingrad?

No.

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Man of the Year 1942

Regards, Richard

Sorry should have been more clear.......

Zhukov would have never fallen into that trap...

Whenever Russia suffered defeats like this is because Stalin got involved.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

No

In fact most historians would now say that Germany never had a chance of winning.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

No

In fact most historians would now say that Germany never had a chance of winning. </font>[/quote]I would disagree here. Germany did, in fact, have a "win" in a sense. The problem was that Hitler did not seek a termination of the war at the point of victory but instead pushed beyond it.
The victory point was the fall of France. Britain, a seapower had no effective means of bringing about an ultimate victory on her own. To eventually win an absolute victory over Germany (as eventually did occur) Britain needed a land power ally; in this case either the US or Soviet Union to enter the war.
On the flip side of this Germany was a land power. However, much as the Romans had, Germany had the potential to exercise sufficent sea power or an effective guerre de course to eventually bring a settlement with Britain. Invasion and total defeat would not have been necessary to reach such a point.
In this scenario Germany does not invade the Soviet Union. Rather, Hitler concentrates on gaining a defeat of, or peace with, Britain. Germany would still have to prop up Italy and could have defeated the British in North Africa without an Eastern Front. It is not necessary for the Germans to take all of the Middle East; just defeat the Commonwealth armies to a point where the British government and people sue for peace. This is even more likely once Japan enters the Pacific war.
To prevent a US entry into the war U-boat operations could have been limited to the Eastern Atlantic in clearly defined war zones closer to England. The Germans could also have resumed their Z-plan fleet construction to force the British to divert resources to naval construction rather than land or air forces.
The Soviet Union could have waited until Hitler and Germany had consolidated their gains in Europe to date. With a more docile populace and a stable infrastructure in place without the distraction of a Western Front against Britain Germany could have resumed hostilities in the late 40's or early 50's against the Soviets.

Those are great points T.A. but if im not mistaken Ironcross was talking about Russia, so my point ( "In fact most historians would now say that Germany never had a chance of winning" ) was only based on Russia.

If I am mistaken then I would agree with you T.A.
Hitler should have stopped when he was ahead and that was when Germany captured France.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Ok, on Russia, the Germans could have possibly won; or at least brought a successful negotiated peace but not because of operational or strategic direction. The biggest problems the Germans faced were in the realm of combat support arms not in fighting at the front. Some examples:

Insufficent railway engineering troops (eisenbahnbautruppen). The Wehrmacht only had sufficent units to provide one rail line per army group when one per army was really necessary. This would have requried nine times the units available to fulfill. This is doable as it represents only about an additional 10,000 men. If the Germans added some degree of mechanization, say mounting the unit on a train with rail based equipment like cranes and such, these units would have been even more effective. As it was they were almost totally unmechanized.
This would have prevented many of the supply bottlenecks as well as a far better means of repair and replacement of equipment through better access to rear area depots.
Prior to the invasion the troops that were available were over used in upgrading rail lines in Poland and Eastern Europe to a degree that could never be fully utilized. Too many parallel lines were built. This kept the railway repair units too busy to train and equip properly for the up coming campaign.
Additionally, the Wehrmacht should have been fully aware of the differences in rail gauge in Russia as well as differences in capability of locomotives etc. These are things the Germans could have planned for but didn't.
The inability of the Germans to quickly open up and repair the rail system was probably the single biggest bottleneck to victory in 1941 they faced. It was the reason that winter clothing was not available. It was the reason that when the Russians launched their winter offensive in front of Moscow that reinforcements arrived slowly and piecemeal from Germany and France. It held up 8th and 6th Army in the 1942 offensives as well.

Utilizing OT units to provide construction on roads and bridges. Again, this is something the Germans could plan for. Materials could have been stockpiled for these purposes and units made available to perform the work in a quick and thorough manner.

Provide a degree of mechanical construction equipment, something almost completely unknown in the German military construction industry. Even a few bulldozers, road graders and the like would have made a huge difference in productivity.

Utilize pipelines for movement of POL. Moving fuel by train and truck is very inefficent by comparison.

No

In fact most historians would now say that Germany never had a chance of winning. </font>[/quote]I would disagree here. Germany did, in fact, have a "win" in a sense. The problem was that Hitler did not seek a termination of the war at the point of victory but instead pushed beyond it.
The victory point was the fall of France. Britain, a seapower had no effective means of bringing about an ultimate victory on her own. To eventually win an absolute victory over Germany (as eventually did occur) Britain needed a land power ally; in this case either the US or Soviet Union to enter the war.
On the flip side of this Germany was a land power. However, much as the Romans had, Germany had the potential to exercise sufficent sea power or an effective guerre de course to eventually bring a settlement with Britain. Invasion and total defeat would not have been necessary to reach such a point.
In this scenario Germany does not invade the Soviet Union. Rather, Hitler concentrates on gaining a defeat of, or peace with, Britain. Germany would still have to prop up Italy and could have defeated the British in North Africa without an Eastern Front. It is not necessary for the Germans to take all of the Middle East; just defeat the Commonwealth armies to a point where the British government and people sue for peace. This is even more likely once Japan enters the Pacific war.
To prevent a US entry into the war U-boat operations could have been limited to the Eastern Atlantic in clearly defined war zones closer to England. The Germans could also have resumed their Z-plan fleet construction to force the British to divert resources to naval construction rather than land or air forces.
The Soviet Union could have waited until Hitler and Germany had consolidated their gains in Europe to date. With a more docile populace and a stable infrastructure in place without the distraction of a Western Front against Britain Germany could have resumed hostilities in the late 40's or early 50's against the Soviets. </font>[/quote]Here are some reasons why Barbarossa occurred when it did.

1. Hitler wanted all continental problems be settled before 1942. He predicted that his military advantage would be lost to the west by that time, and he must finish SU before USA could effectively come to Britain’s aid. He once said he was a hunter with two tigers and one bullet.
2. It was clear that Britain would not sue for peace as long as Churchill is alive. It has been said that Churchill provoked the air raid on London by the Luftwaffe. He ignored Hitler’s repeat warnings, and raided Berlin several times for an accident caused by the Luftwaffe. That kind of said it all about Churchill’s determination.
3. The Shot-on-sight and lend and lease policies already took place. There is no reason for Hitler to expect America was going to be neutral after her arm build up.
4. When Hitler met Molotov in Berlin, Stalin demanded military bases on the outlets to the North Sea, Constantinople, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland. Russia had a huge military build up along her border at that time, and had aggressively invaded Finland and Romania. It was seen by Hitler as the Bolsheviks’ first step against western civilization.
5. Hitler had to start the operation in late June since there were heavy rain in western SU, and the Panzers could not have operated before that time.

Please feel free to comment on this

On elastic defense I found this surfing...

The key to an elastic or yielding defence was resources. Germany did not have the tanks, trucks, guns, men, fuel, or ammunition to implement an elastic defence. That was the case both before Kursk as well as afterward. Logistics was one of Germany's biggest weaknesses and one they could not overcome (a quantitative limit of available resources). Manstein was only guessing or whistling past the graveyard and he gives very little credit to the improvements in Red Army operational doctrine that began to take effect in the latter half of 1943.


On Germany's chance of winning the war...


The war was over for Hitler in the week starting 5th December 1941, the start of the Russian counter attack and his declaration of war against the U.S.

The problem was that Hitler wouldn't let anyone get in his way of satisfying his woolly headed notion of 'lieberstrum' and genocide in the East, he wrote about it in 1923.

Apart from being mentally unbalanced, he was very dumb, he should have learned from the war he himself fought in, you don't start a war on two fronts and you don't bring the U.S. into the fight.

Hitler definitely still during the western campaign 1940 was overcautious and kept on reminding the attacking troops of their flanks, even stopped the pouring troops like we all remember. Also the plans were quite detailed.

So somehow the situation after that changed and Adolf got to thinking he was the war god and all his decisions were correct...

After Stalingrad you must remember that in Kharkow in March the Red Army was rather badly beaten and IF Hitler had a huge reserve to follow AND the weather had allowed its advance these troops might have driven all the way back to Stalingrad....that much the situation changed in a couple of months on both sides from almost attacking mindlessly to fleeing like headless chickens....

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T.A.,

Stalin would never nagotiate a peace!! In fact once again this is a general thought in the U.S.
( I only say this cause I went to school here and this is what I was always told by teachers and professors ) However anyone who knows anything about Stalin ( the man of Steel ) and his character, would know that nagotiating for peace without a full victory for Russia was impossible. It would simply never happen.


I would say that these are good points however these were more of an inconvenience rather then a problem. The problem that the Germans faced was a problem that they havent faced before. An enemy that would do anything to get rid of the invader. An enemy that was more determined to fight and sacrifice then the invader. The Russian soldier was the biggest problem for the Germans!!!! Not transportation.

And the only way that Hitler could have defeated Russia was to exterminate the entire population and as long as one Russian was alive he/she would fight till the end Achieving this was impossible! This is why Hitler never had a chance. [img]graemlins/hsu.gif[/img]

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

So I guess only a very few number of the Russians fled or surrendered