Originally Posted By: javacontour
Was it the Army ignored their logistics, or those who "tickled Hitlers ear" were the ones he followed?
I.E. the ones who said it couldn't be done were ignored in favor of those who were yes men.
From what I understand, Hitler fostered a climate of competition. Often it became more about telling him what he wanted to hear in order to gain favor with "der Fuhrer."
The logistics of keeping an Armored Division in the field are daunting. Yet the US managed to produce 3 tanks for every 2 by the Germans, most used in the European theater, and they kept them supplied, albeit not always perfectly.
The Soviets also were largely able to keep their double the number of tanks used by Germany in the field.
So logistically, it's doable, but granted, at great cost. The Soviets probably had the easiest logistical tail, while the US had the most difficult pipeline to feed.
I still contend Hitler weaken his forces and squandered his resources before even going into the Russian steppe. This only made the impossible task, impossibler
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Originally Posted By: javacontour
I think the only way Germany could have beaten the USSR was to concentrate on Moscow. If things were as top down as suggested, then taking out Joe and the head was Hitler's only chance.
But his combat ADD, where he would go after this or after that and change directions sealed his fate.
Take out the oil fields in the Caucuses and Moscow and it would have been far harder to beat back the Wehrmacht.
I for one am glad no assassination attempt on Hitler was successful. Had the German generals been given more autonomy, things may have been different. Germany could have won all the real estate for food and fuel they needed to hold out for quite a while. But they made too many mistakes and too many enemies of many sympathetic to their public rationale. (Not to be confused with the sick, private, social agenda.)
That's a myth. Remember the General staff who survived wrote the history on WW2.
Hitler went along with his generals quite often, and when he didn't sometimes he was correct sometimes he was not.
The German army was doomed from the beginning because they ignored their own logistics department. Back in 1940 when Franz Halder and the rest of them were getting all excited about attacking Russia and planning and planting the seed in Hitlers head about how possible it was. They asked the logistics department about the whole idea and I forget the officers name but he was quite good, and he said your nuts. The Russian roads are a joke, and their rail's don't match ours, so your going to get about 700km in and run out of fuel and ammunition. Also the infantry wouldn't be able to ride in on trucks or rail and would have to walk, so the spearheads would be doing a lot of waiting after awhile, which they did.
Guess what he was correct, than what you get is start and stop warfare like in North Africa as supplies come up formations can move. They charged in, the Russians wore them down, they couldn't get replacements, so they ground to a halt. The reason the Germany Army almost froze to death is simply because they lacked the supply vehicles to bring up both winter clothing and ammunition and food. The staff at all three army groups chose the later since you can't stop a Russian Front by throwing jackets and gloves at them.
One of the largest opponents to the entire operation was Guderian who actually had been to Russia and saw the condition of the roads, and had a lot of practical knowledge about tanks and what they are capable of. IE fuel burn and wear. Remember driving armored vehicles over long distances puts a lot of wear on them, armored divisions prefer to move by rail and unload fairly close to the front. This is true to this day.
The US Army had its fair share of problems in 1942 and 43 for that matter. The only reason we did OK logistically is because we simply threw our massive manufacturing weight behind the problem, we didn't need to be good.
People in this country don't really understand the scale of the Eastern Front. The front stretched roughly the length of the US east coast. The Soviets also covered up a lot of the largest battles for political reasons and only in the past decade are they coming to light. For example their was another tank battle in 1942 of equal or greater size than Kursk and its largely unknown.
Also the invasion of France in 1944 no where near represents the scale and scope of the eastern theater of operations. Even at that late stage 65% of the German ground forces were still on the Eastern front, up until than I believe it had gone as high as the mid 80% range.
Contrary to popular belief and a lot of books written by the generals afterwards to make themselves look better Hitler did not make every single decision in Germany for the 12 years he was in charge. Most of the influential German officers thought that they really could get the Russians and Hitler was already pre disposed to the idea. Hitler just didn't wake up one morning and call a meeting and say lets invade Russia. Their was a lot of preparation before hand and talks about it by not only him but the OKW general staff. Having said that the general staff kept dissenting ideas away from Hitler like their logistics department guys.
The German army was out numbered in just about every theater in regards to armor since day one. They also had the poorest quality tanks until 1943 when the Panther and Tiger were sent into the field. The up gunned Panzer IV was marginal at best. IMHO the reason the myth of the superior German tanks is so strong in the West is because we arrived to the party late when the Tiger and Panther were in full production and as we invaded France we came across some very good SS divisions that were refitting in the case of Market Garden or transferred to the West to shore up the defenses. We were not fighting the green German army in France of 1940 with Panzer 1, 2, 3 tanks, which the Sherman was superior to. Instead the largely green US Army came up against battle hardened experienced soldiers who had just left the fire and [censored] of the east with some of the best tanks in the world at the time. No wonder they left such an impression.
