Originally Posted By: Trajan
The armed forces were not designed or capable of long campaigns.
That's sort of part of the discredited "Blitzkrieg Legend" or myth. There was never any sort of "Blitzkrieg" operational planning nor strategy envisioned by the German High Command to fight a short war based on strategic disadvantages of raw materials, fuel, and industry. The Wehrmacht was not built to simply fight short wars, it just sort of happened that way initially out of desperation and taking strategic risks. The Wehrmacht was a product of the limited industrial capacity Germany had at the time. In fact, the initial war plans of any kind were lacking. The only pre-war plan Germany had against France for instance was Fall Blau (or Case Blue), which was little more than a defensive plan to deal with a French incursion.
The first actual offensive war plans were hastily drawn up in the Autumn of 1939 by Halder when Hitler farcically demanded an immediate invasion with his exhausted military, which took losses in Poland despite the short war there. They predicted heavy casualties for rather limited gains through Belgium simply to stage air bases to bomb both Britain and France. They were indeed plans for a long, bloody war of attrition. A war most German generals believed they could not win. Falb Gelb, and Halder's adaptions of Manstein's deception of the 'sickle cut' (surprise) attack through the Ardennes -flanking the best part of the French Army leaping into Belgium- came about through sheer desperation and the improvisations during the operation by Guderian and other commanders on the ground in the Sedan...
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They couldn't even replace the losses from the campaign in France or the Balkans before June 22. Sure, they doubled the number of Panzer divisions. By cutting the existing ones in half.
Then that had nothing to do with the armed forces, did it? Unless they planned to not make good the losses German industry couldn't make up for them. But the truth is German production did increase substantially, so in a sense after holding out for five years while fighting a two, three, even four front war (if we count the Western Allied bombing campaigns) despite being vastly outnumbered, the Germans did at least make good some losses. But yes, the Poles and French did inflict serious losses that hindered whatever they could bring against England in 1941...
They couldn't "replace the losses," because the German Wehrmacht was not prepared to fight ANY wars until at least three years later than they did, perhaps until the mid-1940's. It was Hitler's belligerent foreign policy that forced them to war far earlier than planned. Of course, no one else, was really ready for war either. But time was bought for the RAF to bring the Spitfire online and to bolster its Hurricane production. A few months earlier, and Britain may well have lost the Battle of Britain...
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And yeah, the Luftwaffe, just like the VVS, was designed around tactical support. One does not use short range level bombers, short range dive bombers, or short range fighters for strategic warfare.
You're confusing "causation" and "correlation". The Luftwaffe did not mostly field medium and tactical bombers because they didn't want four-engined strategic bombers, they simply had to vie for resources against the other arms. As I said, their existential enemies were not very far away. Would it be more tanks? or more Me109's? Aircraft engines were prohibitively expensive and I recall reading in Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" about a huge engine plant meant to compete with U.S. production that failed and turned into a massive white elephant. The Luftwaffe was also producing and flying the Me109 from the beginning and until the end of the war. Do you really think this was a conscious choice based on doctrine? A doctrine not to have more Fe190's or jets? The truth is the capabilities of German industry as well as the more existential continental threats shaped the formation of the Luftwaffe, which was only fully created a mere five years before the war began. The medium bombers were baby steps towards an air force capable of strategic operations envisioned later in the 1940's. As it was, the Luftwaffe was more powerful and at least as technically sophisticated as her neighboring enemies. The British largely developed their Bomber Command and strategic capabilities during the war and not before it, as the only means to hit back at Nazi Germany.
The Kriegsmarine was also woefully short of larger class warships and true battleships and there were no aircraft carriers. Do you think that's what they envisioned not having a stronger navy to confront the Royal and French Navies? Do you think they loved the outdated u-boats enough to effectively base their Navy on them?
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The UK was just across the Channel, and the tactical airforce failed. And said tactical airforce certainly not reach across the Urals to bomb, say, Tankograd. (What the Soviet concentration of tank factories was called.
The German Luftwaffe also never considered it would be facing the Royal Air Force after only six weeks of combat in France. A war they envisioned would take months if not years, even with 'sickle cut', which in itself was a plan envisioned to be far more limited until commanders on the ground like Guderian turned it into a strategic route.
Even if the Luftwaffe had attained air superiority, Operation Sealion was poorly planned and probably would have ended in defeat.
There were plans for the "Amerika Bomber," and a "Ural Bomber", but they faced technical hurdles and weird design constraints such as a strategic bomber that could dive bomb (He177). There were other and more pressing needs and a very political and ruthless competition for resources by the various Nazi authorities in the war economy.
And oh yes, Herman Goering was lying to the Fuhrer about the capabilities of the Luftwaffe all along and promising things that could not be delivered and pressuring his underlings like Ernst Udet to deliver on his lies. Udet ultimately committed suicide because he knew Germany could not win the air war with its production levels...
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Losing Moscow would of done a s much to end Stalin as losing Moscow did to Alexander I. (Nothing).[/qwuote]
No, it would not have been "nothing." Alexander I was fighting a Napoleonic war with musket and bayonet tactics. He didn't have trains and a need for a rail hub. The Battle of Moscow was probably the turning point of the war, if it had ended badly for the Soviets, there is no telling what would have happened. It certainly would have given the British and the Americans pause...
How could it? Losing city after city, millions upon millions of people, both civilian and military, losing areas such as the Donbas didn't do it. So how would the loss of yet another pile of bricks do it?
Because it was a political capital they could not afford to lose, after losing city after city. One which would have afforded Army Group Centre a nice winter quarters and a strategic base to launch operations eastward. But I never said it necessarily would have led to Soviet defeat...
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And who would overthrow him? Not the military. They didn't even think about it in the late 1930's. They didn't think about it during the first months of the war. They were prepared to lose Moscow if necessary.
Stalin killed much of his senior command in the 30's, of course they didn't. But WWII was in 1941 and things weren't going well, some Commissars were winding up dead at the front. Stalin also melted down at the beginning or Barbarossa, he may well have returned to that state making succession a distinct possibly, as he nearly thought he had been replaced while sulking in June of 1941. There's an alternate history essay of Molotov taking over somewhere...
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The NKVD? Hardly? Beria, the second most powerful man, never even thought of it. He knew that Stalin's fall would mean his own. He didn't last very long after Stalin died.
Beria would have been the first target of a coup, he was loathed, if feared, by most as a demented pervert...
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And even if one did end Stalin, then what? The war wasn't going to end. The Soviets were not going to surrender. Surrender meant extermination.
I never said it was. A Red Army junta may have prosecuted it more competently. But Stalin relented to his generals like Zhukov and Rokossovsky, as they again applied the Tukhachevsky's concepts of "Deep Battle" that were forbidden by Stalin and his moronic yes-men like Budyonny. It's also been said that they confronted Stalin in 1942, telling to stop meddling or they might resign and the war would be lost...
