What the fuck were they thinking?

>>3182211
oil

>>3182220
This. The oilfields at Baku, specifically.

Fun fact: The allies were preparing to bomb those oilfields, but had to abandon this plan when Hitler invaded France.

>>3182211
>The defenses up around Moscow are too tough to easily overcome, maybe even to overcome at all.
>We would like to chew up the Soviet armies, and that would be easier where they're thinner and where the terrain is less woody.
>Also, we're seriously short on oil, especially given how much it costs to transport stuff from Romania (where we do most of our drilling and refining) to the front.
>We need a new source.
>Well, we're not *that* far from the Caucasus, and taking that would both solve our own oil problems, and severely fuck up the Soviets if we can get to Baku and seize it.
>Of course, we're going to have to do something about the threatened counterattack across the Volga, so we'll need to hamper them, shorten our lines as much as possible.

That was the general idea, in any event.

>>3182211
Oil for their vehicles. Also, attacking towards Moscow again was a bad idea since the Russians were now heavily prepared for defense in that area, plus capturing Moscow didn't mean victory, a lot of the Soviet government was already based at Kuibyshev and they fully intended to make the battle for Moscow as bloody as possibly.

>>3182246
Hitler also had this fantasy of the armies in the Caucasus meeting up with their armies in the middle east, but I don't know how much that influenced actual strategy.

File: fuel.jpg (43KB, 565x600px) Image search: [Google]

43KB, 565x600px

They didn't have the best fuel situation

>>3182220
>>3182269
>>3182390
Why didn't they just build hybrid tanks?

File: 670B8DC9-069C-4C59-B964-25731C0DDD59-464-0000004860A91F43.jpg (34KB, 450x470px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 450x470px

>>3182400

>>3182211
You know, seems like that pocket between Rzehv and Demyansk would've been a prioritiy in straightening their lines.

>>3182440
The Soviets were on more or less constant offensive there in 1942; and while those offensives generally failed to do much, the Germans taking an offensive posture would have probably taken their entire effort for 1942, and even then might have failed.

By 1943 (Spring sometime, I forget the exact date), the Germans would abandon the salient around Rzevh and shorten their lines that way.

File: IMG_1284.png (320KB, 1201x921px) Image search: [Google]

320KB, 1201x921px

>>3182211
somebody redpill me on this pocket

>>3182615
>He doesn't know about the siege of the siege of Leningrad