General Winter

How much credit do General Winter and rasputitsa (the mud seasons of Eastern Europe) deserve for defeating Napoleon and Hitler?

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>oh no it's cold let's go back :--Dddd

idk, given the Russian army post-Suvorov was completely incompetent it might have been so. Ruskies only know scorched earth and zerg rushing. I'm guessing bad logistics so no supply lines also affected it.

Seems like a less valid excuse for the Germans. It wasn't a new phenomenon and he knew he had a military built to conduct war only in the summer.

If you presume that winter is the main reason why Hitler and Napoleon lost then you are implying that russians are somehow superhumans who are immune to cold and can fly and carry equipment over impassable tracts of land which contradicts your obvious agenda

>Napoleon
none. He retreated because there was a coup in Paris

Shit weather is always to the local defender's advantage.

Don't think I've heard it argued as being the -main- reason, just one of many factors. The argument is usually that it's exaggerated to diminish accomplishments of the Soviet military by pro-German historians.

The Red Army were at least more mechanized than the Germans, especially by the time it came their turn to advance across it.

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>Shit weather
It is not "shit weather", nor it is momentous random event that no one could have predicted except for magical Russian Übermenschen.

Russians have kept a state secret that Fall and Winter SUDDENLY happens in their magical and unknown land of theirs and their roads become impassable, oh wait they didn't.

Hitler even started the attack on July 22nd -- literally the furthest date from Fall and Winter. Much help it did.

It is shit weather. Doesn't matter that it happens every spring and autumn, it's still shit weather.

IT IS FLAT!

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"weather" is a momentous occasion, something tied to specific date (today, yesterday, 21st of March)

"weather" is also somewhat random and is hard to predict, even today

What you were meant to say is "shit climate". And climate is not random at all.

Having a "good" weather tomorrow is possibility.

But climate is inevitable.

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Except that climate is measured in ~30 year intervals. Mud at the start of spring and autumn is not climate. It's a seasonal geological condition caused by changes in weather.

> seasonal geological condition caused by changes in weather.
And what do you think dictates these changes in weather, my good man?
Are these "changes" completely random day by day?

Should i expect -30 centigrade tomorrow? I say no. How do i know this for a fact? Am i magical Übermensch too?

My main point is that these events are not random nor they are secret.

Relaying the blame for losing due to climate and geographical conditions is absurd.

If you didn't plan for these INEVITABLE and very well documented regular events then they blame should be placed somewhere in organisation.

But user, I never claimed the Germans didn't know rasputitsa exists. I simply stated that poor weather conditions are always very much to the defender's advantage, until they seek to go on the offense.

see my own autistic definitions of weather and climate according to them "weather" is something inherently random

climate however is not

If you are saying such and such lost to "poor weather" then you are allowing the CHANCE that these unfortunate for french and germans conditions might not have occurred.

You are basically saying they lost due due to shit luck.

But it is not a "bad luck" when these events are absolutely 100% certain to happen.

Weather is not random. Certain weather patterns always occur. It gets cold in the winter, snow falls, it melts, etc.

The difference is that equipment Russians had was always tested under extreme cold.

The good example of it are service rifles. /k/ will tell you that Mosin Nagant is clunky piece of shit and they are right. HOWEVER clunkiness comes from huge tolerances/loose fitting which makes forcing it to work much, much easier than in case of more tightly-built Mausers(which on top of it have bent bolt so you can't even kick it properly to break the ice when it freezes).

While they've been influenced by those factors just as well as the invaders, it was always easier for them to cope with it. You also have to consider that their armies trained in the very same mud and during the very same winters and being conscript armies, they've had serious amount of reserves that also trained in those conditions.
> Ruskies only know scorched earth and zerg rushing.
Brusilov offensive says hello.

>It gets cold in the winter, snow falls, it melts, et
Exactly.

And these INEVITABLE events can not be described as POOR weather because there is no other case where "weather" is not poor. This seasonal shit just happens. It's not "poor", good or bad, it just happens.

>It's not "poor", good or bad, it just happens.
Are you now claiming that humans are incapable of having opinions? Weather is poor, because people think it is poor.

le germans advanced too slowly and took too many casualties, while letting too many soviets escape to fight another day. end of story.

Your are kinda right the "it was only the weather meme" is bullshit.

BUT you can not deny that the defender gains a lot more from bad weather than the attacker so it's not a 50/50 both sides suffer eqally rhing.

This guy is right. Saying "Napoleon and Hitler would have succeeded if it wasn't for the Russian winter" is like saying "Napoleon and Hitler would have succeeded if it wasn't for gravity."

Warfare isn't a fucking videogame.
You can't complain you would have won if it was
>NO ITEMS
>FOX ONLY
>FINAL DESTINATION

>Germans attack in summer '41
>already stranded by october and november
>IT ONLY FAILED BECAUSE OF WINTER I TELL YOU

this and also,

The germans toasted the russians in ww1 in less than 3 years while actively fighting on 2 fronts. And that was back when "the dirty slav didn't practice the inherently weak bolshevism."

In ww2, France (which held in ww1) fell in 5 weeks. They gave russia 1-3 months. I think some american strategists even had estimates as low as 3 weeks.

to continue on this, they literally did the same thing as the russians in the finnish winter war, they prepared for a summer offensive, not giving the army supplies appropriate for late fall and winter.

Even though certain elements in the wehrmacht were wiser than, the general presumptuousness of the nazis made the whole thing a disaster.

Of course there were many other factors as well, the rapidity of capitulation of other states over the course of ww2 made the germans believe the russians will falter before too long and especially with half the europan USSR under german command and literally millions of russian soldiers surrendering and being captured.
But, the tenacity of the russian, the possible sheer madness of Stalin and the soviet high command, coupled with the successful defense of Moscow and Leningrad holding out all contributed to USSR holding out and forestalling capitulation.

>their magical and unknown land of theirs

You're not wrong but its worth mentioning the maps were so bad, Russian roads little more than dirt, and, in the steppes east of Ukraine, no landmarks or even road signs present that the Germans were often crossing open countryside with only a compass pointed East.

It's something of a recurring joke in PK reports that patrols and dispatch riders would have to ask the locals for directions, but more a testament to bad planning.

>IT IS FLAT!

That's the problem. No run off means the soil becomes supersaturated. It's not just roads turning to mud, it's that the entire area becomes marshland.

>Russian roads little more than dirt

understanding the russian road is tricky business :^)

youtube.com/watch?v=7DljgSrTbNE

For Napoleon, weather was the main factor alongside disease.
The Russian army did had very litttle to do with the French losses, and the only credit the Russian deserve for the French failure are to the guy who had the idea to burn Moscow

For Hitler, it's very different
The weather probably hindered the German advance, but the decisive factor was the willingness the Soviets had to sent waves after waves of soldiers to their death

Tl;dr
Napoleon was defeated by Russian winter, Hitler was defeated by Russian zerg rush

Napoleon was literally not defeated. He won against the Russians in a battle and occupied a destroyed Muscow.

Most of his army withered on the way back.

>The Russian army did had very litttle to do with the French losse
Ever heard of Borodino? The Beresina?

Both combined inflicted less than 50,000 death on the 400,000+ French losses that occured during the campaign
And these are the two biggest battles
Total combat death amounted for like 70,000 on 400,000
The bulk of the French losses were inflicted by cold and starvation during the retreat

>Both combined inflicted less than 50,000 death on the 400,000+ French losses
Death maybe; but casualties in general were over 60k on the french side in these two battles.
But they were not the only ones: Smolensk had up to 10k, 1st and 2nd Polotsk 17k combined, Viazma 8k, Krasnoi had 13k killed and 20k captured.
While it is still true that most casualties were due to starvation and cold, its simply wrong to say "The Russian army did had very litttle to do with the French losses"

What the fuck are you talking about ?

videogame?

It is a fucking FACT that the attacker suffers more from bad weather read Clausewitz you pleb.

old mens territory

The mud, snow and vast land is the only reason Russia survived those.

> The mud, snow and vast land is the only reason Russia survived those
here we go again

"if it wasn't for X, Y and Z our glorious master race would NEVER have been defeated by these lowly untermenschen who treacherously used their secret sacral magical powers to control elements themselves"

see

I know you guys hate to read so here's something for you.

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That's considerably higher percentage of combat-related casualties than during the US Civil War. DESPITE winter.

>"if it wasn't for X, Y and Z our glorious master race would NEVER have been defeated by these lowly untermenschen who treacherously used their secret sacral magical powers to control elements themselves"
kek

Napoleon didn't even lose a single battle in Russia. He just didn't expect the Russians to be such dishonorable psychopathic trash that they would just keep running away while burning down their own country, all for the sake of getting cucked by Britain. But that's how much the Tsar hated France.

The Grand Armee lost a number of important battles during the retreat.

Initially he wanted to retreat from Moscow but still hold a large part of western Russia with many important towns to continue the war next summer, but he constantly got his shit pushed in across the whole arc of his frontline.

There are also some who name Borodino- the main battle of the Invasion and one of the largest of the Napoleonic Wars- a french tactical defeat, because at that point it had already become clear that simply occupying russian cities will not bring the war to a close and thus his aim should have been to destroy the russian army and not just push them away from Moscow, especially with regards to the large number of french casualties among their very best troops (though imo it was a clear french victory)

> WAAAAAH
> IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!

Hannibals win battles

Cunctators win the war.

>There are also some who name Borodino- the main battle of the Invasion and one of the largest of the Napoleonic Wars- a french tactical defeat, because at that point it had already become clear that simply occupying russian cities will not bring the war to a close

It wasnt clear at all though
It was very reasonable from Napoleon to assume the Russians may surrender after he took Moscow
He shouldnt have waited there so long though
After it becalme clear they wouldnt surrender, he should have either started the retreat immediately or have pushed toward Petersburg
Instead he sat there for two months letting food reserves go down and winter approach

The Germans were defenders in shit weather for four fucking years.