How close were the Soviets to collapse in June 1942?

How close were the Soviets to collapse in June 1942?

I've heard that David Glantz argued they were close to exhaustion.

Glantz doesn't argue that in his book on Barbarossa, in fact he ends by noting that the Soviets became a fuckton stronger by the end of Barbarossa thanks to actually having experience and weeding out shitty pre-war ideas.

I asked about June 1942, i.e. after second Kharkov.

What makes you think the Soviets were better off immediately after Barbarossa than later? Oh right, you are a moron.

How close were the Soviets to collapse in June 1942?
Probably not a lot, Germany had burn through its oil reserves and Case Blue ultimate objective was precisely capturing the Caucasus to secure its oil fields, something that would be pretty hard to do, taking in account the Wehrmacht resources.

We discussed this at length in a previous thread.

Basically: Nowhere near collapse. The Soviets could've sustained the same war against the Germans, even with significantly greater land gains for the Germans. It was due to the fact that they had a robust transport network and production that was far removed from the front.

Hitler gambled on a political collapse because of the purges, nothing else really. Germany never even had a chance.

I believe Hitler would have been more successful had he actually appealed to populations Stalin had brutalized such as Poles, Ukrainians, and people from the Baltic states. If he could have prevented German forces from being harassed and disrupted by partisans, I believe it would have helped immensely.

This is a meme though.

Baltic states were sold to Stalin by Hitler. They've supported him afterwards but it was literal cuckoldry and everybody knew it. Poles in general had no fucking reason to help Germans due to both historical baggage and current events, Belarusian enjoyed more "ethnic freedom" in interwar USSR than in any other country they were under before and after the war which leaves you with Ukrainians only and then Ukraine had lots of fertile land which was something Hitler wanted to leave for ethnic Germans.

Since there are a few ww2 threads on the front page I'll just ask here instead.

How come the Waffen-SS is represented as this elite force of crack troops, the creme de la creme of the Third Reich's military? Their performance early on in the war as mediocre at best, and even after only a few divisions were well trained & supplied, the rest were undermanned and underarmed. So why are they portrayed as these excellent warriors when regular Wehrmacht units often outperformed them in combat?

Because they're more recognisable for one and because you can show them doing anything you want because of "Wermacht didn't commit atrocities during WW2" myth.

Like you said, the few well trained ones, also fanaticism goes a long way to promote units. Stories such as SS teenagers sacrificing their lives to kill a couple of Americans after capture helped give them a sort of reputation.

material aid saved them

It let them win faster

In the interwar peroid Germany was considerably restricted in the size of its military due to the terms from WW1. Because of this, the standards were quite high and the training longer and more focused. That core group would form the young officers and NCOs in the Whermacht and SS and were responsible for much of that reputation.

As the war went on that core was diminished, training was shorter and less comprehensive, and the reputation of the SS became more about fanaticism.

People underestimate the effect capturing Moscow would've had

I think this rail map speaks for itself

It speaks gibberish

Sure they would lose an important hub but I see uninterrupted rail coverage even without it?

That is assuming capturing Moscow could have happened in the first place.

Remember how Stalingrad went? And that was a less important and smaller city.

The Germans got close to moscow at the absolute edge of their capabilities. They couldn't even reach the city, let alone captuer it.

It wouldnt have made that much of a difference. Soviets were ready to fall back behind the urals if necessary

Let's bring it down to your level then

Line means train
Line go to station
Station important!
Moscow has LOTS of lines going in and out

I'm not saying they could've

>uninterrupted rail coverage
Largest rail and communication hub in the country, now forces all logistics to be divided. Massive impact on being able to move items from one part of the front to another.

There's nothing worth taking past the Urals

Not as close as the Germans.Over extended and wide spread shortages. I believe it was June 1942 is when the Germans fielded their first regiments made up of deaf soldiers due to manpower shortages.

>There's nothing worth taking past the Urals
Except for all of the industry the soviet union moved there, and the soviet military sitting there waiting to take back the vast amounts of territory you are trying to occupy

With no food or oil or housing or logistics

you've been spamming this pic for years now even before Veeky Forums, getting BTFO each time

> With no food or oil or housing or logistics
yes, no logistics
machinery and entire production was teleported thousands of kms to the east with fairy magic

shit you have for arguments literally contradict actual events

>'you'

Talk about boogeymen

As for logistics all of that industry was moved with the logistics in European Russia

You know, that part that would be occupied

Even if they did take Moscow, they wouldn't have been able to hold it.

The germans would have been surrounded (because you know damn well Hitler wouldn't let go of that city) and you would have had yourself another Stalingrad

> machinery was moved and then re-started past Ural territories without logistics

think for a second, for the first time in your life

You can fly ten million men and as many factories into the middle of a desert but it still won't have any logistical capacity

yes all those men and factories were FLOWN into complete nothingness using MAGIC carpets and then just as MAGICALLY they restarted production of goods and started delivering them to the front by the same MAGIC

listen to yourself

also

> European Russia
> occupied
even with entire Moscow province taken, there are still vast, huge territories of European Russia. so big it is still bigger than the rest of Europe

even your own stupid spam pic shows this