The plan was Stalingrad reagion only, and this was the first time a large encircling move was successful. If the Red Army got too ambitious for its capabilities, as it did subsequently, the resut would be a disaster. This plan was good enough, and was made according to an accurate view of possibilities. More than this certainly would be an overreach.

They had to burst through two flanks over very unfavourable ground, encircle a functioning army and build a contravallatio (outer wall) strong enough to deter the obviously coming relief attack. Success on three counts [img]graemlins/hsu.gif[/img] Not bad!

__________________

Field Marshal-General Erich Von Mainstein, he wrote about his defeat at Stalingrad after the war: “In winter 1942 I realized that we would not win in the war against the Soviet Union. We failed to maintain the far-stretching front in Russia. I understood the Soviet troops would finally crush us, moving step by step”.

No argument from me I agree.

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

I agree with the working skunk [img]smile.gif[/img] The Germans had shot their bolt and in 1942 they no longer had the ability to wage offensive operations along the entire front. They were able to do only one thrust, and were smart enough to go for a peripheral and divergent target.

__________________

I´d like to get more info on the German operations plans in the Leningrad sector actually for summer-autumn 1942. I think we´ve discussed of the troops transfer from Crimea area to Leningrad sector but the Red Army started the attack first forcing the Germans to defend and thus never got the offensive going. Don´t know if the Germans ever had the amount of troops that could be called a major offensive in the AGN area 1942?

__________________

Look at the size of Russia to Germany no contest, greater population greater the output in weapons game over. AH was to short sighted to see this, Barbarossa was a very poor move.

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

No big deal, Hitler himself tol us what his plans were. You only have to look for his Directives.

Directive 39, Dec 8th 1941:

3. ...
(c) Army Group North will shorten its eastern and southeastern front north of Lake Ilmen, while still denying the enemy the road and railway from Tikhvin to Volkhovstroi and Kolehanavo. This will make it possible, after the arrival of reinforcements, to clean up the area south of Lake Ladoga Only thus can Leningrad be finally enclosed and a link with the Finnish Karelian Army be established.

(d) Should it turn out that the enemy has withdrawn his main forces from the coastal area south of the Bay of Kronstadt, and no longer intends to defend this area seriously, that coast will be occupied in order to economize our forces.

Not exactly what I call very aggressive...

Directive 41, April 15 1942

I. ... The final encirclement of Leningrad and the occupation of Ingermanland may be undertaken as soon as conditions in that area permit, or sufficient forces can be made available from other theaters.

May be.. When... Nothing else. The rest of the directive is concerned with the South. Not even a mention of AG Centre! As you see no great plans other than sit tight and wait.

__________________

Hey Za I am interested in reading AH's Directives found one book on the subject - (Hitler's War Directives 1939-1945 By Hugh Trevor-Roper) do you know if this is any good?

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

Trevor Roper is a good author, won't let you down. I haven't read that particular book.

__________________

Yes he is good I think, I shall give it ago.

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

very good book i particularly liked it

__________________
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill

On the possible Leningrad operation:

The attack on Kursk was to have been followed by a German offensive in the north, code-named Operation Parkplatz, which was intended to take Leningrad by storm.Given the extraordinary losses suffered by the 6th Army at Stalingrad,it is astonishing that Hitler still had any appetite for warfare in built-up areas. Nine divisions were earmarked to join AGN for the assault, although Field Marshal von Kuchler signalled that he had enough siege artillery in place and would not require more.The failure at Kursk led to the cancellation of the operation.

From Ostfront
By Charles Winchester, 2000 Osprey Publishing Ltd

August 23

August 23, 1942: After a year-long siege of the city, Hitler orders the final attack on Leningrad (Operation Nordlicht).

http://www.feldgrau.com/august.html

__________________

Methinks it didn't work too well. The city didn't change hands...

__________________

I have a question did Field Marshal Leeb ask AH could he take Leningrad back in 41?

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

I guess this was the time when Hitler changed his mind every two weeks of what he wanted: Leningrad-Kiev-Moscow-Ukraine-Moscow... So I´d think Leeb would have wanted to take Leningrad but he did not have the armor to do it because Hitler had sent the tanks to AGC.

__________________

Thanks Kai.

__________________
I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

The eastern front by the end of 1942 was a sealed defeat for the Germans they couldnt advance on the whole front like they did in 1941 they were just too weak and there goes any remote chance of winning or drawing on the eastern front I guess.

I don't think there is any need to be so deterministic about it. I have no doubt at all that a force inferior in numbers can defeat a larger force. Othewise we are reducing the art of strategy to aligning all our troops along the front line and pushing, the one with more troops wins. This is not so. A smaller force can win if it is better commanded, the correct decisions are taken and you have the means to sustain your operations.

The Soviets did not win simply because they had the larger nmbers. We can say that they won because they were the side that made the least mistakes (or were smarter).

And I do not believe "The eastern front by the end of 1942 was a sealed defeat for the Germans". The Germans could still have won if they took the correct decisions in 1943, and if they could collect the resources to maintain operations.

__________________

Your point is well taken ZA. The German forces could have managed to pull victory from the Eastern Front with the right kind of resource support and with the right decisions.

__________________
PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

Even 1942 was recoverable still. 6th Army should have pulled back from Stalingrad - hard to convince them do as they were already in posession of 90% of the place - and the Caspian / Caucasus oilfields could have sustained a persistent bombing campaign.

The former would have avoided the disaster, the latter while not bringing the SU to its knees would cause immense difficulties.

Further North they had the entire Ukraine to play with, Manstein could see-saw the Red Army to exhaution there.

But no, the Gröfaz knew better.

__________________

Up to spring – july 1943, Germans were able to mount large scale offensive (Kursk) in spite of their important defeat and withdrawal during winter 42-43 and unti Mannstein managed to stop the tide in february IIRC).

It is right to point out the fact they were no longer able to launch an offensive on the whole front but :

- always remember that Kursk looks like a small scale offensive on the map, but it engaged a very large number of units in infantry, planes and tanks. (Some authors actualy believe that, among other factors, the extreme concentration of forces in such a small and hardly maneuverable front was in itself a reason for operation citadel’s failure).

- there was no more full front scale German offensive in may 1942.

***
As we are now talking about quantities, I’d like to say one factor has not been really discussed so far in this post, it’s the casualties numbers.

More precisely : we draw conclusions about the turning point of the war (if any) but I think German HQ at this time, was drawing its own conclusions taking in acount the losses inflicted to the Red Army.

I’m not saying it’s something likely to change one’s conclusions, but maybe it can help to understand decisions taken during the course of the war.

Example :

- after the huge loses and captures inflicted to Red Army in summer and fall 1941, many German generals believed the push towards Moscow could inflict tremendous losses to Red army and bring it on its knees.

- during the Soviet counterstrike to protec Moscow during winter 41-42, the soviet losses suffered were HUGE (I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I remember they were really high. Germans could seriously believe that, with such a loss rate, the Red Army could not fight much longer),

- although the german’s May 1942 offensive proved very disapointing from this point of view (no more entire armies getting encircled and destroyed, Russians knew when and how to fall back – you can’t compare 1941 and 1942 figures), staggering losses and capture in east Crime (Kerch area) in spring and Sebastopol later on, could make germans believe, they could resume inflicting enormous losses to Red Army, in Stalingrad area.

My point is to remind that many large scale strategical choice made by germans from fall 1941 to end of 1942 were made having ALSO this factor in mind : “no matter where we attack, the point is to meet strong opposition and, if we inflict as many losses to the Red army as we did in summer-fall 1941, we’ll eventualy destroy the Red army”.

The above was wrong, but could sound smart at these times, especialy when the germans had a very rough insight of USSR’s military and industrial potential.

At the start of winter 1942, even with the successes in Crimea, the German HQ realized that, according to what they knew about USSR reserves, they were now losing the game of numbers.

This factor is important to understand German decisions when you ask yourself : why the hell Moscow, why the hell Kiev, why the hell Stalingrad etc

__________________

Join the C-cube now !

One must also remember , in my view, that these decisions were made by Hitler or at least the last word was his. Hitler believed that in the summer 1942 when no strong Red Army forces were captured that the Red Army was running out of men. Hitler´s favourite motto of the time was " Der Russe ist tot!" ("The Russian is dead!").
How wrong the man was...

__________________

Actually, the Soviets were running out of men but this was only really felt in late 1944 when this was becoming academical for the Germans. But in any case as the Red Army was advancing it was being able to find new recruiting bases, such as recovered territory, reintegrated partisans, POWs recaptured, etc.

__________________