Operation Barbarossa

What exactly were the factors that led to the failure of Operation Barbarossa? Was the date it was launched relevant or just another meme?

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m.historyextra.com/article/feature/operation-barbarossa-9-popular-myths-busted
amazon.com/Barbarossa-Derailed-September-Encirclement-Counteroffensives-ebook/dp/B005ATQZS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512102011&sr=8-1&keywords=Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk 10 July–10 September 1941.
operationbarbarossa.net/the-book/volume-vi-the-science-of-war-gaming-and-operation-barbarossa/
historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans.htm
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>WW2 thread on Veeky Forums are for the brainlets. no exceptions

Lack of an actual objective beyond "just encircle a bunch of shit, I don't know" had something to do with it

Ultimately, it's enormously hard to beat modern Russia by "direct" methods of battlefield defeat and occupation of its territory. It's too damn huge. Successful wars against Russia tended to either be limited, or have provoked the Russians into a political collapse, and you can win by supporting one faction against other factions.

Ultimately, Stalin's grip on power was too tight to be unseated from within. The Germans were counting on a repeat of the Russian collapse of WW1, and it didn't happen.

>Was the date it was launched relevant or just another meme?
Definitely meme. It was launched when it was because the mud dries late in the year in that part of the world. There's a reason Fall Blau started on June 24th, and their offensive in '43 only had a realistic earliest date of Mid-June (and wound up not actually starting until early July)

Probably the biggest preventable mistake was the neglect of railway troops in the assumption that the majority of Soviet railways and rolling stock could be captured intact. They could never keep up with the rate of advance during the campaign, with the result being that all three army groups were receiving half or less the amount of requested trains daily. Railroads proved even more important than expected due to the large attrition rates of horses and vehicles and their limitations in use.

There was no way Germany could have won and the entire operation was a mess from the start

>Falls behind schedule just 1 week in
>150,000+ casualties
>Germans constantly changing objective mid-operation
>Logistical problems at very start (Germans at Brody in Eastern Poland ran out of food)
>2/3 primary targets not captured
>German advance faltering already before even "General Winter"
>Even if the Germans took Moscow (unlikely) the (Soviet leadership) would have just evacuated to Samara, and commence a counter offensive all while churning out tanks, guns, and aircraft comfortably in the Urals

Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs:
''I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin’s views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don't think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. He never made a special point of holding a conversation on the subject, but when we were engaged in some kind of relaxed conversation, going over international questions of the past and present, and when we would return to the subject of the path we had traveled during the war, that is what he said. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so.''

Battle of Stalingrad

They didn't factor in the existence of anti-aircraft guns when they decided on supplying the 6th army from the air and allowing themselves to be surrounded/refusing to break out.

The decision was made because capturing Stalingrad and then to Astrakhan would have been equivalent to cutting the Soviet Union's jugular.

The History channel version of Stalingrad is that it was an Ego pissing contest because of the name of the city, but in reality it was a critically strategically important city.

The Soviets wouldn't have been able to supply their tank divisions if that happened.

Logistical issues, overreaching, underestimating their opponent severely.
You were told this in many threads, Khrushchev is not a reliable source.
Germans were beaten at Moscow before a scrap of American aid arrived. So to claim American aid allowed Soviets to survive is rubbish. Soviets already survived after victory in front of Moscow.

>expecting to take out Russia in one swift campaign
>vague objectives
>underestimation of Soviet strength
>poor logistics that only got worse the more you advanced
>high casualties and equipment losses

>Khrushchev is not a reliable source.
Yes he is. He was high enough in the soviet hierarchy to know what's going on and had no reason to lie about that, whether you like him or not.

>You were told this in many threads
I only ever posted this in one other thread.

>He was high enough in the soviet hierarchy to know what's going on
You have no idea how Stalin's regime worked do you?
And Khrushchev had every reason to say this, because it reflects badly on Stalin.
Instead of someone's claims, I'm offering you reality: Germans were beaten in front of Moscow, and then almost raped by Soviet counterattack, before a scrap of American aid arrived.
Some tanks were British though, so I guess Brits helped.

The reason the operation turned into such a mess is because of wishful thinking. Everyone knew that Germany could not supply any meaningful force around Moscow enough for it to fight--therefore the expected disposition of Soviet forces was shifted west, until the entire Red Army was assumed west of the Dnepr. The bizarre comments by visiting officers that a Panzer III was obviously a light tank and the real medium tanks should not be kept secret were brushed off. The Red Army was too large to beat quickly so they assumed it was exactly small enough to beat in a timely fashion. The industrial capacity of the Soviet Union was too high so it was passive-aggressively ignored. At any point where an issue came up the assumptions were massaged until the issue went away.

So basically they claimed that a force just small enough to wreck before supplies ran out was located just close enough to be engaged properly with equipment just bad enough to never cause hassle and allies just willing enough to do whatever was required of them. tl;dr Germany invaded a country with twice as many people and a larger industrial base with a """plan""" that made Donald Rumsfeld look like Napoleon.

>And Khrushchev had every reason to say this, because it reflects badly on Stalin.
>Yes, let's say we owe our existence to the people who are now our enemies even though it isn't true just to discredit a guy who is long dead.

>Instead of someone's claims, I'm offering you reality
Instead of the claims of someone qualified, you're offering me your claims.
>Instead of someone's claims, I'm offering you reality: Germans were beaten in front of Moscow, and then almost raped by Soviet counterattack
They were beaten so badly that they took most of Ukraine the following year.

>The History channel version of Stalingrad is that it was an Ego pissing contest because of the name of the city, but in reality it was a critically strategically important city.
I mean you're not going to name some piece of shit worthless city after yourself, right?

Here are three big ones that come to mind (there are many more) that encompass more problems to come.

1. Invading during rare period of unity in Russia. Stalin's great purge 2 years before and his cult of personality led there to be little opposition to his government. There will still groups of people that felt disenfranchised under Stalin's regime and looked for change (e.g. Ukrainians) but Hitler's views on the Slavic people quickly turned their views on the German invaders. Better outreach to these communities oppressed would have gone a long way to bring disorder in the Soviet Union.
2. Hitler's inability to stick with one plan. While being dynamic and open minded is important in a war, Hitler consistently looked to change his plans even when the situation did not demand it. The plan at the start was not perfect, but Hitler's constant changes made for the loss of initiative that they had at the start. In a war against a country that has both resource and manpower advantage, initiative is key to breakdown order in the in the larger country. Hitler's objective should have been to target these points of organization rather than the resource rich region down south.
3. Lack of motorization to deal with the Rasputitsa. Contrary to popular perception, most of the Wermacht were supplied with horse drawn carriages. This mode of transportation would prove very ineffective when the rainy season brought about a lot of mud. The panzers and the half tracks fared well, but they were few and far in between when considering the German army as a whole. Production of motorized equipment that could deal with the mud before the invasion would have been vital.

>Was the date it was launched relevant or just another meme?
Just another meme. The Germans couldn't have launched the operation any significant amount of time earlier because there's a spring muddy season as well. Just look at all the major operations on the Eastern Front - they're generally punctuated by the Spring and Autumn muddy seasons.

>hey guys I posted it again xd

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>no one mentioning the fact that Germany didnt fully mobolise it's economy until '43, maybe even '44

total meme

As big of a meme as calling arguments a meme as a refutation?

germany outperformed britain in every relevant measure of mobilization such as women in the workforce, percentage of industry working on war orders, declining per capita consumption, and military spending as a percentage of GDP in every year since 1939
military spending as a percentage of GDP was higher than even the soviet union
they were essentially in a war economy from 1938 onwards

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You continue to parrot kike Bolshevik propaganda against NS Germany. Did it ever occur to you that if they would have just given up they would have surrendered and NS Germany would have won?

>What exactly were the factors that led to the failure of Operation Barbarossa
1. Hitler
2. Invading Russia

GDP percentages

Arguably any increase in production would probably not that important in the early parts since the underlying problem on supply and logistic is still not tackled
by Typhoon most of the front line division was 1/10 of its size and in the whole operational area there was a grand total of 240 operetable tanks
it could've probably helped the stages of war in 42-43 but you must remember that there was a good rationale in Hitler not wanting to go for total war, harkening back to WW1 where it was mostly the collapse in the home front which contributed for the decision to surrender in 1918,even though the army got its assed kicked it was generally agreed that they could've fought on until summer 1919
Hitler didn't want for the people to be subject to the harshness of total war such as rationing

>not an actual motorized army, most of the towing was done by horses
>not enough preparation, lel just supply yourself let russians die is not good taking care of your soldiers
>let POWs starve to death, who needs workers lol
>ignore the fact russian armor was superior (immobilized vehicles such as the KVs could hold up an entire division)
>2 front war, 3 with Africa
>KILL EVERYONE HURRDURR, you are just making sure every single soldier will fight to the last bullett
>Operation Typhoon: we failed but we will suicide by attacking further because heil shitler

After the 6th army was encircled, a total of 80 pounds of supplies per day were needed to keep the army well equipped, fed, etc. Only around 6 pounds of supplies reached the army in total.

pounds or tonnes my friend?

>The History channel version of Stalingrad is that it was an Ego pissing contest because of the name of the city, but in reality, it was a critically strategically important city.

Let us be honest now. It was both a critically strategically important city and a pissing contest between Egos

>Did it ever occur to you that if they would have just given up they would have surrendered and NS Germany would have won?
Why the fuck would they have given up? Their options were fight or be exterminated, that's a pretty strong motivation to fight to the death.

What are you talking about? They were rationing in 1939.

Treating population like animals. Germany could've gained a major manpower boost if they declared 'war against communism' and recruited Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians instead of murdering everyone

>You have no idea how Stalin's regime worked do you?
And neither do you. You weren't in the fucking room

Stalin's scorched earth

You continue to parrot kike Bolshevik propaganda against NS Germany. Did it ever occur to you that it was the NKVD and not the Germans who committed all those atrocities on the populace?

>Did it ever occur to you that it was the NKVD and not the Germans who committed all those atrocities on the populace?
[Citation needed]

Do you start all of your posts the same way

You continue to parrot kike Bolshevik propaganda against NS Germany. Did it ever occur to you that this is the objectively best way of posting?

You continue to parrot kike Bolshevik propaganda against NS Germany. It didn't occur to me but maybe I'll try it.

so war the purge a genius move?

>Did it ever occur to you that if they would have just given up they would have surrendered and NS Germany would have won?

What a Titan of Thought.

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Tons or tonnes my friend?

Everything.

Timoshenko and Zhukov could have fairly easily removed Stalin at the beginning of war if they really wanted it. There was virtually no party or government at the first weeks of the war

Not an argument.

m.historyextra.com/article/feature/operation-barbarossa-9-popular-myths-busted

Kek

It consolidated Stalin's power, or reaffirmed it which is even more important.

The Sovs learned in Poland and the Winter War and even against the Japanese, and those lessons were as helpful to them as the Nazis' lessons learned after Poland.

Who said that Khrushev claimed that? He was in Ukraine at that time, the people who were with Stalin 24 hours a day were Molotov, Mikoyan and Kaganovich

>Stalingrad
>Not a pissing contest
It was a pissing contest with strategic elements.

Source?
>Germans were beaten at Moscow before a scrap of American aid arrived. Soviets already survived after victory in front of Moscow.
Without LL the SU cannot survive into 1943, period.

By the end of 1941 0.5/3 objectives were reached by OKH. Problems were that the German's didn't exactly have an underlying goal throughout the campaign. As the war progressed, the German's started making worse and worse choices while the Soviets did better. The problem most people have in analyzing Barbarossa is that they try to look for ways that Russia could be *materially* defeated in 1941, and after they can't find anything they conclude that the failure of Barbarossa was inevitable. The problem with this logic is that what the German's needed was to inflict a *psychological* defeat on the Soviets, which would seriously impact their will to fight and make it look like their defeat was inevitable to Britain and the USA. Hitler tried the former, taking important manufactures in the Ukraine at the expense of the latter (Moscow). The reasons why people try to explain things from a materialist side is that it's much easier, you analyze some numbers, run some calculations, and there you have your answer. Admittedly the moral viewpoint is a much larger variable and is not easily quantifiable which is why many shy away from it.

There's also the little problem that even if the morale victory is possible, and could be accomplished by taking Moscow, the odds of successfully pursuing that either are extremely low. Consider the example you alluded to; without the diversion of Heersgruppe Mitte down south, you don't get the Roslavl offensive, and that means that when they attack in late August/early September, the defenses are actually heavier than what they ran into historically in Taifun.

>taking Moscow, the odds of successfully pursuing that either are extremely low.
Historians such as Nigel Askey (who has written one of the most extensive and in-depth works on Barbarossa) completely disagree. He states that an assault on Moscow in August had a good chance of succeeding.
>when they attack in late August/early September, the defenses are actually heavier than what they ran into historically in Taifun
In no way were the Soviet defences then anywhere close to their strength in Typhoon, especially if you look at it proportionally to German strength.

>Historians such as Nigel Askey (who has written one of the most extensive and in-depth works on Barbarossa) completely disagree. He states that an assault on Moscow in August had a good chance of succeeding.
And other historians like David Glantz, who are also quite authoritative on the Eastern Front, do in fact completely agree with this.

>In no way were the Soviet defences then anywhere close to their strength in Typhoon, especially if you look at it proportionally to German strength.
Yes they were. The Roslavl–Novozybkov Offensive was initiated on August 30th and collapsed by September 12th, and was a complete, unmitigated disaster. If you don't see that happen, you don't see the elimination of roughly 50% of the Bryansk front for essentially no gains, you have a very, very different picture when the Germans try to push through past Smolensk.

Stalingrad was important but there were multiple chokepoints on the Volga that could be used for the same purpose. Stalingrad happened to be named after Stalin and be the city Stalin made his name in the party for during the civil war when he captured it from the white army.
Don’t inflate it’s strategic value to be unique, though I am willing to concede on a morale/political will level it was very valuable (and to hitler that was as good as the oil itself it seems)
In any case regardless of strategic value Stalingrad is a textbook example of a clash of ideologies and not as a strategic thrust, any strategic objectives were secondary by the time the battle was engaged in full, shown how it unfolded

No winter clothes
Started the campaign in winter
Hitler micromanaging everything and not listening to his generals
It was a Jewish insider-job
Russian human wave zerg rush
Hitler stupidly declared war on the USA
Japan did not invade the Soviet east at the same time
Did not take Moscow when they had the option to do so

Problem with motorization was even the limited armor and motorized forces they possessed were rather light on fuel, that was half of the point of the eventual push to Stalingrad

>And other historians like David Glantz, who are also quite authoritative on the Eastern Front, do in fact completely agree with this.
Askey has actually analyzed what Glantz said, especially in regards to what the Southwestern Front would do if AGC pushed on Moscow, and proved him wrong.
>If you don't see that happen, you don't see the elimination of roughly 50% of the Bryansk front for essentially no gains
Why do you assume that they still wouldn't have launched an offensive in this scenario? Why do you assume that they wouldn't have been envoloped and crushed like all the Soviet armies before or at this time historically?

>Askey has actually analyzed what Glantz said, especially in regards to what the Southwestern Front would do if AGC pushed on Moscow, and proved him wrong.
What the fuck are you talking about? He does no such thing. Most of his analysis is on economic and political mobilization. Please, show me book and page and the argument that supposedly "refutes" the notion that troops that exist provide a defense and that more troops is a better defense than less troops.

>Why do you assume that they still wouldn't have launched an offensive in this scenario?
Because the entire reason it was launched was out of a misguided sense of opportunism: AGC is leaving, they're weak! Without that, you're not going to get it at all.

>Why do you assume that they wouldn't have been envoloped and crushed like all the Soviet armies before or at this time historically?
I haven't assumed that at all. I'm saying that they will EXIST. And that since they exist, they will fight, perhaps ineffectively, perhaps not (It's not like the Germans weren't taking heavy losses themselves). The defenses between Smolensk and Moscow were in fact stronger before the offensive than when the Germans historically launched Taifun, which makes the assumption that an earlier attack is likely to succeed very specious; the forces in the immediate area are in fact stronger, nevermind whatever the forces around Kiev will do.

You’re a fucking idiot, do you think lend lease were just a couple of planes and bullets lent over to the russians?

15 million boots were given to the soviet union, this meant that production for boots were lessened and the russians could focus production effort elsewhere, this is one example of many.

Had it not been for the americans, the soviet union would not have survived.

Not him, but given the timing of the Lend-Lease aid, your assertion seems unsupported; it's primary importance was enabling the Soviet counterattacks and rolling all the way back to Berlin, not bare survival of the Soviet state.

haha surprisingly accurate

>Did it ever occur to you that if they would have just given up they would have surrendered and NS Germany would have won?

>What the fuck are you talking about? He does no such thing. Most of his analysis is on economic and political mobilization. Please, show me book and page and the argument that supposedly "refutes" the notion that troops that exist provide a defense and that more troops is a better defense than less troops.
No idea what this jumbled mess is trying to say
>Because the entire reason it was launched was out of a misguided sense of opportunism: AGC is leaving, they're weak! Without that, you're not going to get it at all.
I can very well see another disastrous Soviet failed at trying to cut off a Panzer spearhead.
>The defenses between Smolensk and Moscow were in fact stronger before the offensive than when the Germans historically launched Taifun
I highly doubt it. You seem to forget that the German forces were considerably stronger then than at the start of Typhoon.

didnt the SS lose something like 2/3rds of their total fighting strength relatively quickly?

British Lend-Lease made a considerable difference in the Soviet winter offensive, however it is true that Barbarossa was stopped by German mistakes and some good Soviet decisions and luck. American Lend-Lease made a crucial difference in 1942 and allowed the Soviets to survive into 1943.

>No idea what this jumbled mess is trying to say
I am calling bullshit on your claim: Askey makes no such "disproving" of Glantz's analyses, which are mostly common sense. More troops=better defense than less troops.

>I can very well see another disastrous Soviet failed at trying to cut off a Panzer spearhead.
Yes, the Roslavl offensive failed; which is the entire point I was making. Great way of showcasing you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

>I highly doubt it. You seem to forget that the German forces were considerably stronger then than at the start of Typhoon.
Your doubt is irrelevant. You are wrong and your comments reveal you have absolutely no idea what was going on in that section of the front in the time period in question. Buy this book and read it.
amazon.com/Barbarossa-Derailed-September-Encirclement-Counteroffensives-ebook/dp/B005ATQZS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512102011&sr=8-1&keywords=Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk 10 July–10 September 1941.

>British Lend-Lease made a considerable difference in the Soviet winter offensive
Ehh, not really. What mostly gets thrown around is the number of "medium and heavy tanks", which were a tiny minority of the overall tank pool, and shocker, not all that important for relatively static fighting in heavily forested areas.

> American Lend-Lease made a crucial difference in 1942 and allowed the Soviets to survive into 1943.
Again, the data does not particularly bear this out. 1943 is really when it got big, you had more LL by both volume and value between July and November 1943 than you have in all of 1941 and 1942 combined.

kek

Not an argument. LL Saved the Soviet Union you commie

why make these kinda jokes when americans are 99% retarded and will believe any bullshit they read

Because it's true

How would this matter if the US was giving tons of supplies to Britain? They may not have had to focus their war effort on production as a result unlike what the Nazis had to.

Not him, but this trend is already extant even before Cash and Carry started, let alone Lend-Lease.

>What exactly were the factors that led to the failure of Operation Barbarossa?

square meters

Time + Energy / Surface

Surface was too big.

>They would have won if the enemy just surrendered or didn't fight!
lmao literally the same in every german response
WE WULDA WON IF THE AMERICANS DIDN'T ENTER THE WAR
WE WULDA WON IF THE BRITISH DIDN'T STAY IN THE WAR
WE WULDA WON IF THE SOVIETS SURRENDERED
lmao, it sure is easy to win a war if the enemy just gives up

>I am calling bullshit on your claim: Askey makes no such "disproving" of Glantz's analyses
Askey does dissprove Glant's claim that the SW front could have endangered AGC if they push on Moscow.
>Yes, the Roslavl offensive failed; which is the entire point I was making. Great way of showcasing you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Nice reading comprehension. I stated that an equivalent to Roslavl could have been likely even if AGC didn't go south.
>Barbarossa Derailed
Yes a regurgitation of the Soviet archives whose detail on the strength of the German forces aren't nearly as meticulous as the Soviets. Besides, the Soviets had 1M at Vyazma-Briansk at the start of Typhoon. Are you seriously claiming the Soviets had *more* directly AFTER Smolesnk?

>Ehh, not really. What mostly gets thrown around is the number of "medium and heavy tanks", which were a tiny minority of the overall tank pool, and shocker, not all that important for relatively static fighting in heavily forested areas.
Composing 30-40% of all heavy and medium tanks around Moscow in the beginning of December is not "minor". Besides, aircraft and more importantly industrial supplies and equipment were extremely useful for the Soviets during this time period. LL didn't necessarily stave off Soviet defeat in 1941, but it significantly increased the odds.
>Again, the data does not particularly bear this out. 1943 is really when it got big, you had more LL by both volume and value between July and November 1943 than you have in all of 1941 and 1942 combined.
Perhaps I exaggerated somewhat however comparatively where the Soviets were in 1942 the smaller LL amount did make quite an impact. Soviet successes in 1943- would not have been possible without LL, nor their massive production numbers.

>Askey does dissprove Glant's claim that the SW front could have endangered AGC if they push on Moscow.
Where? In what book or journal article does he do this? Also you can't dismiss a source like Derailed as "regurgitated" then literally regurgitate a figure out of your butthole

Not him but come on now

>Where? In what book or journal article does he do this?
operationbarbarossa.net/the-book/volume-vi-the-science-of-war-gaming-and-operation-barbarossa/ It's not out yet, but will be shortly
>then literally regurgitate a figure out of your butthole
Oh so now the Soviets didn't have many troops at Vyazma Briansk? In reality they lost 500K there or more. From Juke's The Second World War: The Eastern Front 1941–1945

because the claim is often made that Britain was more mobilized than Germany early on

>Askey does dissprove Glant's claim that the SW front could have endangered AGC if they push on Moscow.
That is not the point Glantz was making, and I have mentioned nothing about the SW front in this entire thread. I, citing Glantz, and talking entirely about the forces in between Smolensk and Moscow, and that even if the SW front does absolutely jack shit, the defenses are stronger on August 30th than they were in October.

> I stated that an equivalent to Roslavl could have been likely even if AGC didn't go south.
And even if the SW front tries something and gets demolished (which is by no means certain), it's irrelevant as the northern defenses are still stronger.

>Yes a regurgitation of the Soviet archives whose detail on the strength of the German forces aren't nearly as meticulous as the Soviets.
No, he's using Soviet archives to discuss Soviet forces. Unless you have a reason to believe such information is a lie, (in which case Askey is also in trouble since he relies on Soviet archival information heavily) about their own forces, you have no case.

>Besides, the Soviets had 1M at Vyazma-Briansk at the start of Typhoon.
No, between Byransk and Vyzama you had the 24th, 43rd, 33rd, and 50th armies, all of which were in the Bryansk Front or the Reserve Front sent to prop up the Bryansk Front. 4 armies are not a million men. You get to that "over 1 million men" by including the entire Bryansk, Western, and Reserve Fronts, which stretched all the way up past Andreapol and all the way down to Rylsk.

Protip: The Soviets had troops all along the front before the idiot offensive, and would continue to have them afterwards.

>Are you seriously claiming the Soviets had *more* directly AFTER Smolesnk?
The Roslavl–Novozybkov Offensive is usually considered part of the battle of Smolensk; if you are including the fall of the city but not those last gasps, then yes, they did in fact have more men in the corridor than they did by the start of Taifun.

>Composing 30-40% of all heavy and medium tanks around Moscow in the beginning of December is not "minor"
Considering that the battle of Moscow employed something like 1.6 million men overall, some 3,200 tanks, 7,600 artillery peices, and well over a thousand aircraft, and that some 85% of the tanks were light tanks, we're left with just under 200 medium and heavy tanks spread out over all those troops for the Battle of Moscow. It wasn't that important.

> Besides, aircraft and more importantly industrial supplies and equipment were extremely useful for the Soviets during this time period.
Industrial supplies were generally not sent by the British, and I'm not aware of any significant shipments in that same time period. Soviets also looked down on most airplanes sent them (except bizarrely the Airacobra, which the British and Americans thought was junk)

>Soviet successes in 1943- would not have been possible without LL, nor their massive production numbers.
Now this I quite agree with you on. But there's a long chunk of difference between Soviets rolling into Berlin and the Soviets losing the war and being occupied, especially with the Western Allies directly attacking the Germans by that point.

> I have mentioned nothing about the SW front in this entire thread.
I apologize for that.
>if the SW front does absolutely jack shit, the defenses are stronger on August 30th than they were in October.
I have "When Titans Clash" right in front of me. Would you like to give me page numbers?
>Considering that the battle of Moscow employed something like 1.6 million men overall, some 3,200 tanks, 7,600 artillery peices, and well over a thousand aircraft, and that some 85% of the tanks were light tanks, we're left with just under 200 medium and heavy tanks spread out over all those troops for the Battle of Moscow. It wasn't that important.
Perhaps 3200 tanks during the entire battle, but not in early December historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans.htm
>Industrial supplies were generally not sent by the British, and I'm not aware of any significant shipments in that same time period. Soviets also looked down on most airplanes sent them (except bizarrely the Airacobra, which the British and Americans thought was junk)
From the article:
>Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors.
>Now this I quite agree with you on. But there's a long chunk of difference between Soviets rolling into Berlin and the Soviets losing the war and being occupied, especially with the Western Allies directly attacking the Germans by that point.
If you remove LL you raise Germany's chances in the 1942 campaign, which was probably their last chance to win in the East. However it's kinda moot because I don't really see many scenarios where the US is in the war and LL isn't sent unless the Soviets are already knocked out.

How would the germans take moscow if they could not even capture a tractor factory in stalingrad?

>When the Red Army counter-attacked at Moscow in December 1941, the Soviet numerical inferiority was even larger. Soviet strength returns in archives show that on 1 December 1941, the Soviets were able to muster 576,500 soldiers and 574 tanks against German Army Group Centre – which at the time had between 1.9 and 1.2 million troops with 1,800 tanks and assault guns.
Is this real?

Never mind, I read item 9

>I have "When Titans Clash" right in front of me. Would you like to give me page numbers?
I would like you to give the text and the sources he's using.

>Perhaps 3200 tanks during the entire battle, but not in early December
Was the battle over in early December? Why exactly are you only counting what I presume is a point selected at the start of the Soviet counterattack and not say, the start of the German offensive, or yes, what was committed in the overall battle?

>>Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors.
Now please, demonstrate how this number means anything. What were Soviet needs and domestic production? How many factories do "312 metal cutting tools" even service?

>If you remove LL you raise Germany's chances in the 1942 campaign,
Not much. Stop and think for a moment. It takes time for factories to churn out war materials, more time to get them distributed to the fighting forces. Shocks or boosts in production capabilities usually only reach the front line months after the change in the production facility (exact time depending on what exactly it is being produced) PQ 12 for instance, landed in Murmansk. I'm not aware of any extensive metalworking plants in Murmansk, so anything landed there had to be shipped outwards (which wasn't always easy, since the Finns liked to raid the 1 railroad connecting it to the larger Soviet Union) longer still to train any factory workers in their usage, and longer yet for that cut metal to itself be used to build a tank or an artillery piece or whatever. By 1942, the Soviets are just starting to absorb things.

Actually, maybe nix on the text. My wife wants to go out for drinks with some of her friends and I'll likely not be able to check in for a while, and won't be in much of a condition to continue the conversation.

Russians got such a blowout victory that I don't even know how you can discuss if it was American aid that helped them win. All that Americans did during both world wars was to shorten them.