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How viable do you think it would have been to draw 1941 USSR forces into a giant encirclement in Poland?
It's well-agreed that the USSR army was unable to conduct effective offensive operations in the early part of the war, so it seems to make sense to bait them into an attack. A rush to Moscow is also known to be out of the question, so speed is not quite as important.
1. Position Axis forces around the defensible river/mountain areas on the flanks that jut into USSR territory. Have central Axis forces fall back into Poland to the more defensible Carpathians and rivers, drawing in USSR forces.
2. USSR forces have accumulated in an area the size of Poland, with an additional secondary pocket in southern Ukraine. Advance mobile elements into the steppes, roughly along the border of the Dnieper.
3. We have now presumably encircled a massive part of the USSR army at a much lesser cost than if they were attacked on their home soil and have mobile elements in place ready to destroy rear-echelon forces.
Not as fast as the original plan I think, but certainly seems to be more manpower/resource-efficient. No significant manpower or industry is lost by giving up land in occupied Poland either.
Thoughts?
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>>35130393
At the eve of operation barbarossa the russians were completely unprepared, a russian offensive most likely wouldn't arrive in months and by that time russians are now prepared for counterattack and suprise spearheads because of reconnisance.
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>>35130393
/his/
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>>35130507
British/French/Belgian forces had plenty of time to prepare and they still fell. Nobody could predict an encirclement of this size, it would be completely unprecedented.
USSR forces would certainly be more prepared, but I think the Winter War demonstrates how weak they were on the offensive at this stage. I don't think the USSR would be able to able to prevent German forces gaining local superiority in the East, nor would they be able to break through in the West. The main worry would be maintaining that encirclement, but USSR counterattacks are still not effective at this stage.
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>>35130621
When it comes to the ostfront time was not on the germans side, the russians easily outproduced germany if the germans were to just declare war and wait for an offensive russia would just wait until they had the offensive capabilities to defeat germany. Maybe your plan would achieve alot in a tactical sense but strategically it would be a loss.
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>>35130393
The strange thing for me is how many people are like "hurrdurr fucking hitler interfering with his generals and sending panzers south, should have gone straight for moscow".
I believe the exact opposite, that Barbarossa should have been a focus on Leningrad in the north and, perhaps ambitiously, the Don in the south.
Moscow was important but honestly Ukraine's resources were way more important, and putting Germany far closer in 1941 to the caucasus would be worth it. Furthermore it would put soviet forces into a gigantic salient defending moscow which could be pinched from the east and the south.
Leningrad could easily have been taken with a little more resources given to Army Group North, removing not only the Soviet threat to German trade with Sweden but also crucially closing the Murmansk lend lease convoy pipeline.
An ambitious push to the south in 1941 is not unreasonable, the terrain is fucking ideal maneuver warfare terrain and the Soviets were on their ass, which is why I think the Don as opposed to the Dnieper is not unreasonable by the setting in of winter.
Holding that ground in the winter of 41 and then effectively having gained two weeks of tempo vs. real life for Fall Blau ('42 offensive), Stalingrad could have fallen and ripe soviet oil for the taking, also closing the Persian Lend Lease corridor. From then, who knows?
Of course, the enemy always gets in the way of plans, but I still think this would have been a better plan than either what really happened in Barbarossa (half measure between Hitler and Generals) and what the usual armchair generals today say (muh Moscow muh Army Group Center)
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Anyone who wants to start commenting on the economic/medium term barbarossa plans, please read The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Many choices made by German high command were in fact forced moves that were made mandatory by earlier decisions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Destruction
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>>35130710
Russia may have produced more vehicles, but they produced equal numbers of aircraft.
I believe the disparity in number of tanks (67K vs 106K as per the attached) can be outweighed by the more effective usage and higher quality on the German side. It is extremely rare to find a battle with a 1-1 trade in armour losses. The battle of Brody for instance was a 4-1 exchange.
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>>35130927
The disparity that stands out to me there is not tanks but the shocking amount of arty the USSR put on the field, and how the Germans had jack shit for arty compared to the allies. Why is that?
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>>35130951
Because of the preference more more mobile artillery platforms (mortars, tanks, SPGs)
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>>35130971
Mortars are good and all, but not having 100-200mm arty where they needed it when they needed it would've sucked, and artillery inferiority explains a lot about their experience on the defense.
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>>35131006
Are 80mm mortars so different to 100mm artillery?
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>>35130803
You don't need a general to know a war on two fronts is not a good thing.
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>>35131072
On offense not really, on defense when their arty can outrange all your counterbattery efforts, yes.
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