What if Hitler instead of launching an attack on Stalingrad, launched a second attack on Moscow in 1942?

The only way to secure the Caucasus is to take Stalingrad. Today it's called Volgograd, and it sits on the river Volga. But blocking the city or seizing it, the Soviets could not adequately hold the Caucasus. The Caucasus needs to be taken to remove half of Soviet oil and route it to Germany as well as knock out a large portion of precious metals. So yes Stalingrad needed to be taken or destroyed. The area around it needed to be taken.

Not him, but the point of taking Stalingrad wasn't to be able to pipe oil out of Baku or the rest of the Caucasus, but it was to create a linchpin for the flanks. There's a LONG hanging line you have to defend, and rivers are not great barriers when your necessary density is so low. Just having a railhead near the likely point of Soviet counterattack eases German defensive efforts enormously.

Throughout 1942 and until Uranus and Saturn had succeeded, the North Caucasian and Transcaucasian fronts had no contact through or with Stalingrad, their lines of supply were mostly over the Caspian sea.

>The only way to secure the Caucasus is to take Stalingrad.

stalingrad was only listed as an objective in the case blue plan because of its war industry facilities, which were to be destroyed. taking the city held no meaningful gain. assaulting cities in barbarossa had delayed and caused significant casualties for the germans.

the original plan called for holding the river and using it as the major tank obstacle. when operation uranus happened in winter 1941, the river was held by hungarians and a few insignificant detachments.

>taking the city held no meaningful gain
Look at a map. It sits on a river. If the Germans take Stalingrad, it literally cuts the enemy off of easy movement into and out of the Caucasus. I seems like the second sentence you annoyingly space confirms that it was being used as a natural obstacle. My argument is that it is operationally and strategically significant for winning the war during the entire period, and it seems you confirmed that, unless you were trying to piggy back on this user: by talking about oil, in which case yes it was not meant for immediate reallocation since that effort would've been aggravated during the war.

Its always weird to see these "what if hitler did this one thing differently" threads. The fight wasn't even close, germs got blown the fuck out

Not to mention that most of the really egregious errors were made by the Allies, not by Germany.

Say, for a ridiculous alt-his scenario, that the French take advantage of the Mechelen (sp?) incident to fortify in depth along the Dyle and Maas rivers, and assuming there is a recognizable Barbarossa, Stalin sets up a real defense in depth so you don't get millions of men pocketed in the first week and a half. In return, we will let Hitler take back any two separate decisions, whichever ones the individual thinks are the most egregious.

I have a hard time believing that this leads to a better German overall performance in our alternate WW2

Not even. It all hinged on the 6th army, which surrendered at Stalingrad with over a quarter million Axis soldiers. And that's all basically due to Paulus, who turned out to be a dirtbag anyways.

>If the Germans take Stalingrad, it literally cuts the enemy off of easy movement into and out of the Caucasus.

or you can surround and siege the city? they literally did this with leningrad you idiot.

not to mention that the rationale to assault the city was based on the sudden onset of insanity and failure of the german military intelligence to identify soviet reserve capability.

>My argument is that it is operationally and strategically significant for winning the war during the entire period

and hitler ordered leningrad assaulted because he believed the same thing.

how does it feel to be just as wrong as hitler?

fucking armchair generals, i swear. you don't need to assault and capture a city, especially when your military strength is fucking maneuver warfare. you surround and interdict the fuck out of relief/ reserve forces, and an operation uranus comes your way, you get the fuck out of dodge because you can't afford to be surrounded.

but you don't understand that because you're going on about taking cities like virgins go on about pussy on a pedestal.

>and hitler ordered leningrad assaulted because he believed the same thing.

typo: it's stalingrad

Bad scenario. A clear blowout would've been if Germany fully mobilized beginning in 40 ending in 42, went with Goering's plan to cap Gibraltar, N. Africa,and Egypt(which they couldn't do because they wanted to fight the Soviets). So instead of fighting the USSR, they cut off Britain's Mediterranean holdings over a year using official plans. Without the overwhelming air losses due to the Soviets, they could overcome Britain as they're split between Asia and Europe. In 42, Germany uses it's air power to overcome Britain and uses French civil transports in conjunction with air transports to move onto the isles. The RN can't do much because torpedoes can wipe their essential order of battle like the Japs did to them in Asia. This works as long as the Soviets don't invade before 43.

>or you can surround and siege the city?

Holy shit you can't be this stupid. Look at the map. The same river that would cut off the Soviets is cutting off the Germans. If you tried to surround Stalingrad by attacking across a river where the Soviets have every manner of aircraft, artillery, and tank on the other side it would be a massacre. The whole point is that whichever side captures the city can cut off the enemy with the river. The city can't be surrounded in the same way as Leningrad because that's the whole fucking point of attacking Stalingrad in the first place. Look at Leningrad- the river is actually cutting off the Soviets to the south and east. and allows the Germans to surround it in the first place.

>not to mention that the rationale to assault the city was based on the sudden onset of insanity

Right I'm sure those ww1 veterans and lifelong generals just needed you're logical euphoric mind to guide them and it would've turned out alright lol

>and hitler ordered leningrad assaulted because he believed the same thing.

So you're claim is that two of the largest cities that connect the Soviet railways and communication lines should have been left alone? Think this through. I don't think there's one historian or military writer who would agree with leaving the strongest Soviet infrastructure points alone.

>fucking armchair generals

Literally you right now just by arguing itt. 0% self awareness it's like speaking to a small angry child

>inb4 your* and extra period in there

If that was bait it was good.

It’s just desperate Wehraboos fondling themselves over the hypothetical of the “based Nazis” winning

Stalingrad was a smarter target than Moscow

Idk about Leningrad, but perhaps army-group-north should have been a higher priority.

>higher
*lower priority

>A clear blowout would've been if Germany fully mobilized beginning in 40 ending in 42,
Pic related. DOn't fall for Speer's lies.

>went with Goering's plan to cap Gibraltar, N. Africa,and Egypt(which they couldn't do because they wanted to fight the Soviets).
And because they didn't want to attack a friendly regime in Spain, nor did they have the logistical capability to campaign offensively in North africa all the way to Egypt.
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a220715.pdf

>. So instead of fighting the USSR, they cut off Britain's Mediterranean holdings over a year using official plans
At BEST, they fight for a while in Spain and let the Italian fleet out of the Med, because taking Gibraltar is feasible. Taking Egypt is not.

>Without the overwhelming air losses due to the Soviets,
The overwhelming majority of German air losses were sustained in combat against the Western Allies, not the Soviets.
don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm

> they could overcome Britain as they're split between Asia and Europe.
No, they won't be, see above.

>In 42, Germany uses it's air power to overcome Britain and uses French civil transports in conjunction with air transports to move onto the isles.
This doesn't even make sense, even assuming they attain air superiority, which is unlikely, given how Britain produced more planes than the Germans. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production

Please educate yourself in a basic manner concerning WW2.

>or you can surround and siege the city?
No, you cannot. Average troop density per kilometer of front in 1942 for the Germans was about 3,000 men per km.

Say you want to surround Stalingrad without actually entering the city. You'd need to do so at at LEAST a distance surrounding the city outside of artillery from within the city, or your blockade will be suffering constant bombardment losses. The premier howitzers of the Red Army were the 122mm and 152 mm guns. The M-1938 has a range of just under 12 kilometers. The M-1937 152mm can hit at around 17 kilometers.

Stalingrad itself is about 8 kilometers across. You will be left with a mostly circular ellipsoid some 40 kilometers in diameter, which will have a circumference of about 125 kilometers. That, in turn, will need some 376,800 men if you want it to have the same sort of defensive strength as say, the Rzhev Salient.

You do not have an army that big to spare. You will also note that it would be larger than the entirety of the pocketed and destroyed sixth army, nevermind the much smaller losses sustained actually attempting to assault the city.

>fucking armchair generals, i swear. you don't need to assault and capture a city, especially when your military strength is fucking maneuver warfare
Pot, meet kettle, especially when you don't understand the stresses involved in maneuver warfare.

>The same river that would cut off the Soviets is cutting off the Germans. If you tried to surround Stalingrad by attacking across a river

are you literally retarded?

the germans don't literally surround the fucking city like some medieval castle. they don't need to fucking go across the river to fulfill some autistic need to have complete double 1080 mctwist control of stalingrad.

>The whole point is that whichever side captures the city can cut off the enemy with the river.

controlling a point on the volga does not mean you captured it. this isn't one of your fucking ww2 video games. you control the river by capturing the length of it. unfortunately hitler thought under-armed and poorly led hungarians were up to the job.

>Right I'm sure those ww1 veterans and lifelong generals just needed you're logical euphoric mind to guide them and it would've turned out alright lol

this was literally the original fucking point of case blue. you avoid the cities and maneuver warfare the fuck out of russians.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Blue#Planning

besides, they already had a logical and euphoric corporal to guide them.

>So you're claim is that two of the largest cities that connect the Soviet railways and communication lines should have been left alone?

are you talking about leningrad or stalingrad?

>You'd need to do so at at LEAST a distance surrounding the city outside of artillery from within the city, or your blockade will be suffering constant bombardment losses.

until they run out of ammunition, and it's hard to resupply because they've got a river to transport over which is being interdicted by the luftwaffe.

and the casualties sustained from bombardment are quite insignificant compared to a failed attempt at taking the city and getting encircled by russians in russia, dont you agree?

Would have been impossible OP, the Germans were in less of a strategic position to advance on Moscow in 1942 than they were in 1941.

>expenditure goes up

What am I missing? That proves the production was mobilized but doesn't explain to what degree. The picture really doesn't mean anything. In fact, relative prices should go down as production increases, so it doesn't represent the degree of efficiency in acquisition programs.

>linking war college paper study
>instead of Fuller's The Second World War
>Or Goerings operational plans

I guess I can link studies from a west coast university on the gender spectrum and that's all the proof we need

>At BEST, they fight for a while in Spain and let the Italian fleet out of the Med, because taking Gibraltar is feasible. Taking Egypt is not.

Stupid. They wouldn't be fighting all over Spain. They would be fighting the speck of Gibraltar. Are you suggesting that Germany can wreck France and Poland in short order, along with Greece, low countries, etc but not tiny Gibraltar?

>>"The overwhelming majority of German air losses were sustained in combat against the Western Allies, not the Soviets."
>proceeds to link losses in 43 an 44 despite this scenario specifically being 42 and earlier.
>losses higher than nominal strength throughout

The most essential equipment and experienced pilots were lost in great number in the east even before then.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_history_of_the_Luftwaffe_(1939–45)

If German production increased starting in 40, and the UK had to split it's air fleet between Asia and Europe, then it would be possible.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production

>No, they won't be, see above.

Nothing was posted above regarding Britain splitting it's fleet. If it doesn't, then Japan can keep sinking RN like it did the Prince of Wales and Repulse.

>This doesn't even make sense, even assuming they attain air superiority, which is unlikely, given how Britain produced more planes than the Germans

So you're just going to disregard the aircraft Britain has to send overseas?

>until they run out of ammunition, and it's hard to resupply because they've got a river to transport over which is being interdicted by the luftwaffe.
The Luftwaffe which could not historically stop the constant resupply of the city even before you decide to dilute their efforts by embarking on a colossal offensive needing to secure literally hundreds of more square kilometers of territory?

>and the casualties sustained from bombardment are quite insignificant compared to a failed attempt at taking the city and getting encircled by russians in russia, dont you agree?
Not if you're going to be sitting around getting shelled for months, which is apparently what you're contemplating. As it is, your "plan" requires the employment of more men than were historically lost when the entire Sixht Army got pocketed; which makes it a non-feeasible enterprise right there, nevermind how you've conspicuously left absent how the fuck you're going to supply your troops on the east side of the city, who will have no rail, road, or secure river lines of communication back home, and be facing whatever else is going to be thrown at them from the east and north, and possibly even south, if you're weakening Army Group A to free up the colossal amounts of manpower you'll need to even begin to attempt this debacle

Leningrad was already a low priority by the end of 1941. At that point it was static, aside from a few failed Soviet counteroffensives until 1944 which all ended in disaster.

Everything you posted was misleading or an outright lie.

>the germans don't literally surround the fucking city

A few minutes earlier....
>or you can surround and siege the city? they literally did this with leningrad you idiot

bahaha you blown the fuck out of yourself

>they don't need to fucking go across the river

No shit, they weren't. The city is built over the river and stretches out to the western end. The problem was Chuikov's tactic of "hugging the enemy", ensuring the Germans were pinned and risked losing everything if they backed out too soon. This is basic stuff.

>controlling a point on the volga does not mean you captured it

Actually it does. The other bridges can be destroyed by aircraft or artillery. Fording the river requires exposure for the attacking side. Calling that reality a video game doesn't change the facts.

>this was literally the original fucking point of case blue. you avoid the cities and maneuver warfare the fuck out of russians.

If you've read either Fuller or Irving you would know that there was an argument within the German command about how to proceed. It's why if you read Manstein's Lost Victories he just blames Hitler but if you read anyone else, like Hoth's Panzer Operations, you find out that Manstein didn't agree with Jodl and Brauchitsch and wanted to do his own thing instead of following orders and chain of command. Or you would know that if you bothered to read anything other than Veeky Forums poop posts.

>are you talking about leningrad or stalingrad?

Both are essential in this manner.

>What am I missing?
The fact that there are no sudden jumps around 1943 when Speer claims he "FULLY MOBILIZED" the German economy. It was proceeding along the same lines that everyone else (besides Italy) was operating under. The German war economy was already at its limit by late 1940, with the ever present decision necessary as to whether to draft men or send them to the factories. Their problems were in the realm of mismanagement, not of insufficient mobilization.

>I guess I can link studies from a west coast university on the gender spectrum and that's all the proof we need
You would appear less stupid if you actually bothered to read shit. And I think it's hilarious that you think a paper FROM A MILITARY ACADEMY is some sort of irrelevant nonsense. Let me cite some relevant passages for you, since baby needs spoonfeeding.

>However, since the fall of Cyrenaica in February 1941, the Axis were reduced to a single port for unloading supplies. This was Tripoli, the largest Libyan harbor by far, capable of handling- under ideal circumstances- five cargo ships or four transports simultaneously. As long as no unforeseen explosions wrecked the quays, and the largely local labor force was not driven off by air raids, the capacity amounted to approximately 45,000 tons per month.

1/3?

>A motorized force of one division, such as the 5th light which the Germans sent to Libya, required 350 tons of supplies per day. To transport this quantity over 300 miles of desert (the distance from Tripoli to the front) required 39 columns of trucks with 30 two-ton trucks in each column (1170 trucks). As reinforcements arrived, or as the 300 mile distance increased, more trucks would be required. With the two German divisions and associated forces in the Afrika Korps, this raised the motor transport to 6,000 tons.

Together with the Italians, the Axis forces in Libya now totaled seven divisions, which when air force and naval units were added, required 70,000 tons per month. This was more than Tripoli could handle effectively, so additional ports were required.

>From Februray to May, Rommel and his Italian allies recieved a total of 325,000 tons of supplies, or 45,000 tons more than current consumption, but he was unable to bridge the enormous gap from Tripoli to the front, so his supplies piled up on wharves while shortages arose in the front line.

Internal citations omitted. Bear in mind, this is pointing out the ridiculous failures of Rommel's historic attacks, the last of which only got as far because he was able to seize British supplies, not something he could count on. You want him to advance another 408 kilometers above and beyond the absolute furthest only possible on plunder extent he could reach.

It. Could. Not. Be. Done. It's not a question of commitment, it's a question of the underlying reality of transport capacity.

2/3

>The Luftwaffe which could not historically stop the constant resupply of the city

no, but you try keeping a city supplied AND the artillery supplied well enough to cause significant casualties with interdiction.

oh and there's a fucking river in your way. good luck.

>before you decide to dilute their efforts by embarking on a colossal offensive needing to secure literally hundreds of more square kilometers of territory?

nigger it wasn't my fucking idea. that's german war planning and military intelligence for you. now you know why they lost.

>Not if you're going to be sitting around getting shelled for months

do you know how much logistical effort it would take to keep interdiction up for months?

they couldn't even reliably do it in ww1 and that's with mostly static lines, how the fuck are the russians going to do it with a city surrounded on 3 sides?

>As it is, your "plan" requires the employment of more men than were historically lost when the entire Sixht Army got pocketed

unless im a fucking retired german OKW staff officer shitposting from a siberian work camp, case blue isn't "my plan."

do you know how wars are won? each side has a fucking retarded plan, the side with the less retarded plan wins.

now guess which side won ww2.

> Are you suggesting that Germany can wreck France and Poland in short order, along with Greece, low countries, etc but not tiny Gibraltar?
I'm suggesting that Franco is not going to be keen on letting a German army into his country when he has no means of making it ever leave again and thereby reducing himself to complete puppet status. And in case you never looked at a map, Spain is in between occupied France and Gibraltar. You will have to fight. You will also probably have to dissolve Vichy's government months after you created it, which will cost you international credibility (what little you have), run the risk of the French fleet joining the British for real this time, and almost instantly create a Free French army in North Africa to jeopardize your insane operation from the other end.

>The most essential equipment and experienced pilots were lost in great number in the east even before then.
[citation needed] And I mean something other than a wikipedia article which claims nothing of the source.

>If German production increased starting in 40,
It did you fucktard. Also, read this. chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2013/05/wwii-myths-german-war-economy-was.html

>Nothing was posted above regarding Britain splitting it's fleet. If it doesn't, then Japan can keep sinking RN like it did the Prince of Wales and Repulse.
Britain would not split their fleet, and the suggestion that they do so is absurd.
>So you're just going to disregard the aircraft Britain has to send overseas?
I am going to disregard it because in fact Britain sent virtually no forces overseas, and even with their total destruction and withdrawal, Japan was unable to even fully subdue Burma, let alone take important places like India or Australia. Not to mention that it entirely hinges on the impossibility of securing Egypt, which is nonsense.

>Everything you posted was misleading or an outright lie.
Great non-rebuttal there.

>no, but you try keeping a city supplied AND the artillery supplied well enough to cause significant casualties with interdiction.
Meanwhile, YOU try keeping an army of roughly 200,000 supplied in even worse conditions, since they'll have to insert themselves between enemies on two sides, and have no railheads nor river transport.

>nigger it wasn't my fucking idea. that's german war planning and military intelligence for you.
You mean the plan that they abandoned as completely unworkable? I don't think that counts.

>do you know how much logistical effort it would take to keep interdiction up for months?
Yes, I do. I strongly suspect you do not, or that you do not understand how transportation issues worked in WW2.

>they couldn't even reliably do it in ww1 and that's with mostly static lines, how the fuck are the russians going to do it with a city surrounded on 3 sides?
The way that they did it historically? The city fighting in Stalingrad lasted a lot longer than that, and the German presence certainly attempted to interrupt their supply lines.

>unless im a fucking retired german OKW staff officer shitposting from a siberian work camp, case blue isn't "my plan."
Case Blue did not attempt to institute the "blockade Stalingrad" part. They dropped that idea, because it was stupid. To suggest that it was in fact the right thing to do is even more stupid.

>>the germans don't literally surround the fucking city
>A few minutes earlier....
>

ah yes, the siege of leningrad. pictured here clearly encircled 360 degrees by germans and some unenthusastic finns.

note the deployment of the kriegsmarine's new shock troops, the U-Truppen, where they contribute to sieging leningrad from their posts on THE FUCKING GULF OF FINLAND AND LAKE LADOGA

>insinuating cost directly translates to production
>despite Speer reducing costs partly as a natural result of increasing production along with other innovations

>You would appear less stupid if you actually bothered to read shit

I'm glad you mention that.Let's dive in shall we?

>"Rommel's actions were characterized by an almost complete disregard for logistics in his operations planning"

So right off the bat he disregards every other historian and Rommel's personal accounts. Interestingly, your precious author had the nerve to cite Irving, Fuller, and even Rommel. I can tell you after reading all three none of them agree with that statement or much of what was in said paper. It seems to me to a be designed to be contrarian in an attempt to build academic credit. Any trade book is more reliable if that's true, so long as it's based on those authors.

>It. Could. Not. Be. Done. It's not a question of commitment, it's a question of the underlying reality of transport capacity.

Which if you bothered to read the original scenario, the ports are less necessary because it of the Egypt route being in use. ffs man at least bother to know what you're arguing against.

>So right off the bat he disregards every other historian and Rommel's personal accounts
You're aware of the "that's not my pigeon" comment, or the fact that yes, he envisioned a grand offensive that could not be supplied. That's pretty blatantly disregarding logistical factors. Rommel saw them as solely in terms of commitment, as you seem to. Please explain how even unlimited commitment makes Tripoli's harbor bigger. Or magically creates a railroad connecting it to points East.

>Which if you bothered to read the original scenario, the ports are less necessary because it of the Egypt route being in use
Here are your original retarded comments.

>went with Goering's plan to cap Gibraltar, N. Africa,and Egypt(which they couldn't do because they wanted to fight the Soviets). So instead of fighting the USSR, they cut off Britain's Mediterranean holdings over a year using official plans.

Nothing in there mentions a lack of a need to capture ports to sustain an advance into North Africa. Nothing in there suggests how they'll magically cut off the British shipments going through Suez. None of it makes an opel truck more fuel efficient, or drives down the supply needs of a German or even Italian division. None of it changes the fact that Britain can much more easily sustain a large force in Egypt than Germany ever can because of the vastly superior local rail infrastructure.

In fact, it repeats the same stupid assertion that I outlined above. "They couldn't do it because they wanted to fight the Soviets." It was a lack of commitment, not reality, that made the North African campaign fail. That misstates the fact enormously, and is stupid. Real, material factors limited the forces both sides could send and have function in the desert. Sending in more stuff just means more guys you can't feed, water, give ammo to, or move. It is pointless.

>It did you fucktard. Also, read this. chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2013/05/wwii-myths-german-war-economy-was.html

Of course it did, but Speer's armaments program did not commence until 42 and ending in 44. You're so ignorant there's no way to discuss with you. You just have to catch up on your readings. Otherwise it's me sitting here and teaching you about time frames. So protip: when someone talks about German mobilization, they're talking about the leap that happened in 42, not the gradual buildup in the decade prior. That was referenced several times and in every thread it seems, so I'm not sure why you still haven't gotten it.

>[citation needed] And I mean something other than a wikipedia article which claims nothing of the source.

The citations are at the bottom genius.

>Britain would not split their fleet, and the suggestion that they do so is absurd.

Holy shit. I really shouldn't even waste time if this is an actual Veeky Forums claim. what the actual fuck user are you here for (yous) alone?

>Great non-rebuttal there.
Here:
I was quoting him. My argument is that Leningrad was easy to surround for the Germans and Stalingrad was a different animal. I was quoting the other guy I'm arguing with.

>Meanwhile, YOU try keeping an army of roughly 200,000 supplied in even worse conditions,

nigger, i said before this ain't my fucking plan.

the entire point of my posting is that had the germans stuck to their guns and stayed out of stalingrad, they would've been able to avoid being encircled by the reserve soviet armies used in operation uranus.

no they wouldn't have won stalingrad, but the 6th army wouldn't have been encircled, which is the least retarded plan out of all the OKW's retarded plans.

>you mean the plan that they abandoned as completely unworkable?

yes, i'm referring to the plan that was unworkable but less unworkable than getting encircled at stalingrad.

>Yes, I do. I strongly suspect you do not, or that you do not understand how transportation issues worked in WW2.

please, elaborate.

>The way that they did it historically? The city fighting in Stalingrad lasted a lot longer than that, and the German presence certainly attempted to interrupt their supply lines.

the way the soviets did it was to move their artillery out of the city and on to the east bank, because logistics.

but please, go ahead and tell me elaborate on the nuisances of supplying a besieged city across a river with enough munitions, food, etc.

>Case Blue did not attempt to institute the "blockade Stalingrad" part. They dropped that idea, because it was stupid. To suggest that it was in fact the right thing to do is even more stupid.

but failing to assault the city and getting encircled in the winter isn't more stupid?

>You're aware of the "that's not my pigeon" comment,

You don't seem to be aware of the importance of primary sources, or the fact the paper you cited, has citations that directly contradict the paper itself. You must be really smart.

this is the guy you're arguing with, you idiot.

>My argument is that Leningrad was easy to surround for the Germans and Stalingrad was a different animal.

yes it was a different animal. and yes, they should've siege it, it's still a city that would fuck up your maneuver warfare-oriented forces.

but please, continue saying stupid shit for my amusement.

They would have still failed miserably because of the endless supply of properly equipped cannon fodder.

>Of course it did, but Speer's armaments program did not commence until 42 and ending in 44.
SPEER'S ARMAMENTS PROGRAM WAS FUCKING IRRELEVANT. It was quite literally taking credit for pre-war investments in the military armament sector. You ever heard of a guy named Adam Tooze? Read his book. amazon.com/Wages-Destruction-Making-Breaking-Economy/dp/0143113208

>That was referenced several times and in every thread it seems, so I'm not sure why you still haven't gotten it.
Because there's no actual evidence for it other than Speer's self-serving memoir, which is bullshit. Therefore, I have disregarded it.

>The citations are at the bottom genius.
Original stupid claim

>The most essential equipment and experienced pilots were lost in great number in the east even before then."

>The failure of the Luftwaffe during Barbarossa was reflected in its losses, with 2,093 aircraft of all types being destroyed.

>Losses in personnel were also high and irreplaceable with 3,231 killed, 2,028 missing and 8,453 wounded.

>The Luftwaffe had, by October 1942 flown over 20,000 individual sorties but its original strength (in the shape of Luftflotte 4 with 1,600 aircraft) had fallen 40% to 950 aircraft. The bomber units had been hardest hit having only 232 out of a force of 480 left.[65] The Luftwaffe still held air superiority but clearly its strength was being eroded. The Russian output of aircraft continued unabated—no matter how many enemy machines were destroyed, more appeared, while its own much smaller losses, particularly among the crews, were becoming serious. The Luftwaffe's Sturzkampfgeschwader made maximum effort during this phase of the war flying 500 sorties per day and causing heavy losses among Soviet forces losing just an average of one Stuka per day.
Those are LITERALLY the only statements made concerning Luftwaffe losses.
1/2

Nowhere does it say anything that meets your stupid claim, that they were the "most essential equipment and most experienced pilots" The article doesn't even bother to break down the personnel losses by their job. The Luftwaffe included baggage handlers and AA gun operators and other people who weren't pilots.

Now, this might just be me, but I think that when the Luftwaffe loses more DAY FIGHTERS in 4 months on one front of the air war in 1943 than it does for all plane losses throughout all of Barbarossa by a factor of 50%, that might be the more relevant thing.

>Holy shit. I really shouldn't even waste time if this is an actual Veeky Forums claim. what the actual fuck user are you here for (yous) alone?
Great non-rebuttal. I can so see Churchill going

>You know what we should do? Let's split up our fleet to go ineffectually defend some places that actually aren't under serious danger anyway, and would only paint themselves as targets for the Japanese, so we can leave Britain open to some hypothetical attack. IT'S A GREAT IDEA!

That was sarcasm.

>the entire point of my posting is that had the germans stuck to their guns and stayed out of stalingrad, they would've been able to avoid being encircled by the reserve soviet armies used in operation uranus.
But if you don't even try to take Stalingrad, you surrender the possibility of ever securing the Caucasus, owing to the ever-present danger of a massive Soviet counterattack. I mean I guess you could argue it's best in the sense that it prolongs the Soviet triumphal march in Berlin the longest, but it's a plan that loses for sure, which is a pretty bad one.

>please, elaborate.
WW1 transportation abilities were enormously inferior to WW2 era transportation capabilities. Furthermore, the WW1 western front (to which I assume you're referring to) packed about as many men as the Eastern Front of WW2 into an area roughly 1/5th the size. The bottleneck isn't overall capacity, it's local capacity in the sense of how much the roads and railroads that are between wherever supplies are being produced and your fighting units are can carry. The Don, Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, whatever other independent armies (which gets complicated as they were constantly being reshuffled, but that's another matter entirely) don't have to compete for limited road and railroad capacity in the same way that crowded trench armies did.

Comparing the two is ridiculous.
1/2

>but please, go ahead and tell me elaborate on the nuisances of supplying a besieged city across a river with enough munitions, food, etc.
The Germans are never going to make it across the river in enough strength to interdict the city. If they somehow do, they themselves are going to have the same problems, only they have to face enemies on two sides, assuming the Soviets have something east of the Volga. That is an untenable position and will not last, at which point the route to the city will be cleared. In any event, pocketed Soviet forces had demonstrated an ability to resist fiercely before. Even as early and as disastrously as something like Bialatosk-Minsk had the Soviets making repeated counterattacks in an attempt to break the encirclement, while getting absolutely nothing in the way of logistical support, and the Soviets were far better organized and prepared by late 42, and in this local case, help was much closer.

>but failing to assault the city and getting encircled in the winter isn't more stupid?
Honestly, no it is not. Assaulting the city at least has a chance of success, especially in the early days when the Soviets are routing into the city. This "blockade" can never even theoretically work. While there was an error made in not retreating before Uranus, even that one is less stupid than "stretch yourself so thin trying to invest the city", especially since a withdrawal from there would almost certainly leave Army Group A flapping in the breeze, trading one disaster for another one.

>You don't seem to be aware of the importance of primary sources, or the fact the paper you cited, has citations that directly contradict the paper itself.
You're right, I'm not aware of any such citations that contradict the paper itself. Maybe you can make some up. And you've yourself admitted that it does in fact cite primary sources, Halder among them.

>But if you don't even try to take Stalingrad, you surrender the possibility of ever securing the Caucasus

i've already been over this. stalingrad was never the focus of case blue, securing the volgo was. and you secure it by seizing the length.

if the soviets build up at stalingrad, guess what? they're not flanking you because they're in a funnel. and if they soviets arent flanking you, then you can flank them, ie maneuver warfare.

>but it's a plan that loses for sure, which is a pretty bad one.

and yet it's the least worse plan, making it the best by default.

how could the germans win at stalingrad? by winning at moscow.

the germans didn't win at moscow? well, that's fucking ww2 in a nutshell.

>the bottleneck isn't overall capacity, it's local capacity in the sense of how much the roads and railroads that are between wherever supplies are being produced and your fighting units are can carry.

and the area east of stalingrad was a fully-developed logistical wonderland, wasn't it?

no it isn't, it's the fucking russian country side and the main logistical thoroughfare, the volga river, is now being contested by hungarians. yes i know, >hungarians, but they still have rifles and a prayer.

moreover, the luftwaffe has air superiority and is interdicting the fuck out of you, so you're limited to moving at night time.

>The Germans are never going to make it across the river in enough strength to interdict the city.

why the fuck would the germans need to go north of the volga? the luftwaffe interdicts the north, that's it. and the less the luftwaffe is needed on CAS, like if the germans theoretically assaulted the city and needed a lot of CAS, then that's more sorties for interdiction and less supplies getting through.

but you never answered whether the soviets could supply enough artillery AND supplies for the city to hold, so get stop lollygagging. i mean, i'm obviously wrong, so it's not that hard of an argument, right user? : )

>but failing to assault the city and getting encircled in the winter isn't more stupid?
>Honestly, no it is not. Assaulting the city at least has a chance of success,

well you know what they say, you miss 100% of shoots you never take!

>This "blockade" can never even theoretically work.

it works if the 6th army leaves intact. that's my only winning condition for this theoretical argument, because it's the only one that matters.

>While there was an error made in not retreating before Uranus

that's a bit of an understatement (read: HUGE FUCKING MISTAKE), since Hitler personally ordered Paulus to stay.

>even that one is less stupid than "stretch yourself so thin trying to invest the city"

actually the idea is to stretch themselves thin investing in the volga. but as i said, the one way the germans could've "won" stalingrad was preserving the 6th army.

>especially since a withdrawal from there would almost certainly leave Army Group A flapping in the breeze, trading one disaster for another one.

everything since failing to take moscow was trading one disaster for another. the point is moot.

>stalingrad was never the focus of case blue, securing the volgo was. and you secure it by seizing the length.
The "length" of the Volga is some 3500+ km. Securing all of it is unfeasible, especially in the timetable you need to do this in.

>if the soviets build up at stalingrad, guess what? they're not flanking you because they're in a funnel. and if they soviets arent flanking you, then you can flank them, ie maneuver warfare
And given they have a readily available railhead and you don't, they can amass supplies faster, distribute them more easily, and well, maneuver better.

>and yet it's the least worse plan, making it the best by default.
Point made, although I'm not so sure that I agree with the some of the assumptiosn involved, namely that a certainty of later defeat is actually a better position, or that the critical mistake was attempting to seize the city and not pulling out sometime in between the start of the assaults and Uranus.

>and the area east of stalingrad was a fully-developed logistical wonderland, wasn't it?
It had a railroad, which is more than you can say for the German forces attempting to move and fight in this field.

>moreover, the luftwaffe has air superiority and is interdicting the fuck out of you, so you're limited to moving at night time.
You only had temporary air superiority, and even that is going to be limited in the winter months by ordinary weather effects.

>why the fuck would the germans need to go north of the volga? the luftwaffe interdicts the north, that's it.
Because the luftwaffe is not going to be able to interdict to the levels necessary to keep Stalingrad pacified, nevermind attacks from further north, of which the Soviets have literally thousands of kilometers to stage an attack from.

>but you never answered whether the soviets could supply enough artillery AND supplies for the city to hold, so get stop lollygagging
It rests on an untenable premise, that the Germans could in fact interdict the city. If you've read my posts with even the most cursory level of attention, I'm flat out deniyng that they could.

>it works if the 6th army leaves intact
No it doesn't. The 6th army doesn't have enough men, even if they don't take a single loss, to cordon off Stalingrad.

> works if the 6th army leaves intact. that's my only winning condition for this theoretical argument, because it's the only one that matters.
No it isn't. That's ridiculous. Stalingrad failed when they failed to destroy the Soviet forces and take the city. The loss of the 6th army is bad, but it's not the why Germany lost the battle, or why they lost the initiative on teh front, those are results, not causes. Ultimately, the Soviets are outbuilding the Germans, and badly, to say nothing of the ever increasing distractions of other fronts that will eventually contest with the eastern front for commitment of limited forces; while the Soviets have no such distractions.

Not losing is not enough to win. Plus, of course, if you stretch out the 6th army, you're likely to see another disaster happen, maybe to them, maybe to another unit that is left flapping and gets encircled.

>everything since failing to take moscow was trading one disaster for another. the point is moot.
Then the plan to encircle stalingrad as opposed to assaulting it is also moot, and what the hell are we even arguing?

Napoleon took Moscow and still lost the grand campaign. However, the USSR wasn't as stable yet. If you want to beat Russia in a war, you have to attack when they are fighting amongst themselves. Mongols attacked Kievan Rus when they were fighting against one another for control of region. PLC won while the Time of Troubles were happening.

And they basically took all of Stalingrad except for the areas on the East bank of the Volga. Hitler was just an autistic idiot who put Romanians, Hungarians and Italians on the flanks of the 6th Army and refused to pull back when he knew he was getting encircled. I don't know exactly how per say, but if he didn't make those 2 mistakes and somehow secure the rest of Stalingrad and destroyed the Red Army Divisions stationed there, he would have been able to successfully cut off the Caucuses.

>It all hinged on the 6th army, which surrendered at Stalingrad with over a quarter million Axis soldiers. And that's all basically due to Paulus, who turned out to be a dirtbag anyways.

What the hell was he supposed to do? They were all going to get killed if they didn't. It was Hitler's fault for putting weak Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Italian divisions on his flanks and not letting the 6th Army pull out of Stalingrad when it was clear they were going to get insulted.

There are so many questions I have about Luxembourg. Why didn't they join with the German Empire like all the other German states? What happened to them in both world wars? Why did Germany even invade them? Cuz they were in the way? What is it like there now? Basically anything and everything about the history of the mysterious realm of Luxembourg.

Wait, I made this my own thread, why did it get posted here?