*loses you the war*

>Soviet sabotage means we shouldn't even try and instead gamble on a meme-tier strategy of hoping they surrender once we take Moscow because otherwise we'll run out of fuel
Like, how fucking retarded do you have to be to think that would actually work? Moscow has little strategic value. The Nazis needed fuel to keep the war machine going, they needed those Caucasus oilfields because they sure as shit weren't gonna get it from anywhere else. Plus, the Soviets need those oilfields too - how are the Reds gonna run all those tanks and shuffle those troops around if you take most of their oil production?

The Nazi command were a bunch of field commanders elevated way above their abilities; they literally never thought once about strategy and instead busied themselves with the tactical work that lower level officers are supposed to handle, which is why they crashed and burned so hard.

Imagine what kind of war we'd be looking at if Barbarossa had gone to the Caucasus rather than Moscow. Imagine that at on New Years '42 we have Nazis on the Caspian and the Volga, and though the Soviets have now recovered they now lack the fuel supplies to execute effective counterattacks, reducing them, like the Nazis, to a more passive defence. It's a whole different war.

>Imagine that with a simple change in the direction of the main thrust EVERYTHING MAGICALLY WORKS FOREVER AND ALWAYS AND THE SOVIETS PUT UP NO RESISTANCE!!!!1111!!!!ONEONEONE!!
FTFY. It's close to 3,000 kilometers from the German positions to the Caucasus, or about triple what it took to get to Moscow. Clearly, they'll just teleport to cover that massive distance, right? Clearly the colossal perimeter you'll open up as you turn southwards won't invite counterattacks long before you secure the Caucasus, right? Clearly, the Soviets won't notice where your main thrust is and shift reserves and new recruiting to block the advance, right?

Also taking the Caucus would cut the lend lease logistics that went through Iran. Hitler did nothing wrong

>Moscow has little strategic value.

Maykop was thoroughly destroyed by the time the Germans got there, see pic related. The devastation was so bad that the technicians in charge of reconstruction thought their efforts would be more useful in increasing Romanian or Austrian production instead.
Besides, Maykop was small in the bigger picture of Soviet oil production. 75% of oil came from Baku, which was at the very edge of the Caucasus. The Wehrmacht would have to trudge 1,400km from their frontline to reach that city, in extremely rough, mountainous terrain limiting logistics and favoring defensive operations and partisans. In fact, the greatest challenge would actually be transporting the oil from the Caucasus; partisan activity by the beginning of November 1942 had brought 45% of trains in the region to a halt, and the few trains left would have supplying troops as their first priority, not moving oil around. Water transport would be out of the question too since the Black Sea was patrolled by Soviet ships and all the tankers in the area were busy bringing up Romanian oil via the Danube. The Germans knew this before they even started the campaign; in a March 1941 study by the WiRuAmt, they concluded that even if all the Caucasus oilfields were captured intact (they weren't), only 10,000 tons of oil per month could be carried overland to Germany, a blip in the German requirement of hundreds of thousands of tons per month.

Given how badly the Reds were smashed in '41, it's at least worth a shot. You have a greater chance of actually succeeding; by '42 the Soviets were strong enough that they could halt the attack, and by '43 they were superior. The Nazis' advantages diminish with time from the day they enter the USSR, so it would be best if they used as much of the time they have to be superior to get as close to what should be their primary objective as possible, since securing it might actually let them win, whereas not securing it means certain doom. Dicking around advancing north and 'guarding your flank' doesn't accomplish anything if you don't take the oilfields because if you don't take the oil you're doomed regardless of what you do up north.

That you for that post. I always wonder whether the Germans had a way to transport Caucasus oil somewhere useful. That information is not very available.

Another question is, whether it is possible for the Germans to supply a thrust that reaches Baku, and whether there are even enough roads for the Germans to advance on with the required bigger force.
Another question is, where the German front lines in the north are supposed to be, and who defends them to keep the Soviets from attacking southward somewhere north of the Sea of Azov and cutting off the Germans.

All of this is of course only even worth contemplating in the knowledge that the Germans could not take Moscow. Stalin was considering a surrender and was only held back by the military's insistence that they can hold the city. Sure, if you know that that taking that is impossible, it makes sense to divert forces to secondary battle fields. Cutting off Murmansk comes to mind. That would remove the port that 25% of lend lease goes through and could be done with a comparatively minor investment.The same goes for cutting off Leningrad. If you know you can't take Moscow, you can dig in at a defensible position and divert the necessary forces there. Keep the city surrounded and it will be neutralized and free up significant forces in late 1942.

Baku is not even a good idea if you know that Moscow will not fall. It's simply not practical.

>Hitler comes back from the death
>Shitposts about his General Staff

If the Nazis take the Caucasus, the Black Sea Fleet is by definition eliminated since it will have no port. Therefore, shipping it over the Black Sea would be just fine.

The General Staff being bad at strategy doesn't mean Hitler was a god.

He was better than them at war strategy but obviously was really bad at the whole "take over the world" thing, which in itself is an inherently self-destructive course of action.

>Moscow has little strategic value.

Moscow is literally the most important railroad junction in Russia.

Well yes, except that

The Nazis couldn't use the railroads.

"Getting close" to Baku is worthless. Actually getting to Baku or ano ther major oil source is worth something, but even iwth the feeble resistance the Red Army put up in 1941, they were able to contain the German advance long, LONG before they covered the distance to reach a real target. You're just substituting one impossible to obtain objective for a different impossible to obtain objective, and all the "imagining" a 1942 position on the Capsian won't actually let a Germany that focused there reach it.

>. Dicking around advancing north and 'guarding your flank' doesn't accomplish anything if you don't take the oilfields because if you don't take the oil you're doomed regardless of what you do up north.
Driving straight for the oil fields and watching the Red Army move in behind you unopposed and losing an entire Heersgruppe accomplishes losing the war in 1941. Just because you don't give a shit about the risk doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Here's a description of the conditions in the Caucasus by a German officer. The infrastructure was even more primitive than the western Soviet Union, the terrain greatly favored the defender and hindered armored movement, and the best transportation for troops was the simple mule. Considering all these factors, I think there's a very hard limit on how many troops and resources you can focus on the theater before you start getting severe diminishing returns.
Either way, there's no capacity left to ship the oil up the safest way through the Danube. German tankers, if there's any left, would have to go through the Dardanelles to Mediterranean ports and be subjected to British air and naval forces.

Eww, what's wrong with his teeth?

Turkey wasn't letting any belligerant's ships through the Dardanelles. If they wanted to get shipping through the Black Sea, they'd have to build it out of Romania.

And neither could the soviets if they lost Moscow.

I mean if you want to argue victory was impossible to begin with go ahead, but don't say that advancing on Moscow was somehow a better idea, because even if the Caucasus was a crapshot it was the only real way to win, even if they couldn't actually accomplish that goal.

Advancing with all three army groups like they did historically was the best option. The Caucasus oil was important, but so were the population and industrial centers of central and northern Russia. They focused only on the south in 1942 since the offensive capability of the army was diminished so much and the Soviets were expecting an attack on Moscow at the time; and you still can only divert so much resources to the theater.

>>He was better than them at war strategy
>"Hey Hitler, Russia is like, 30 miles away from Berlin. Maybe we should redirect some veteran divisions to protect the capital"
>"Ha, no. Send them off to the other side of the country to fight Yankees and Brits and down south to get encircled in Hungary"

>implying he didnt send the veterans west so they would survive and pass their knowledge on to the post war generation

Hitler was grateful, he knew the war was lost, he made sure his best men would survive.

The German army wasn't in great shape by the time they got to moscow either lad. A Soviet victory would've resulted anyway

His best men died in '43 and '44 though

That's idiotic fan fiction.

Slightly off-topic, but how close did the Nazis get to breaking the British blockade(by any means)?

Nowhere at all. As far as I know, they never even tried to ship regular cargo through the North Sea and the Atlantic. Everything was either the Baltic or at most the coast of Norway.

Imports dropped dramatically due the blockade and never recovered. This had a huge effect and it confuses me whenever someone says Britain never made a significant contribution to the war.

but user, in hearts of iron you instantly get the oil, you idiot! The General Staff didn't know this cause they're retarded, but I, the esteemed Veeky Forums poster, know better! I've been here all summer after all, dropping knowledge!

"(by any means)"
So was Operation Sea Lion a meme, even if they broke their air defense?

there was absolutely no chance of a sustained land offensive. They could suicide troops over in transports, lose half of them on the trip over, and then the other half would run out of supplies with no chance of resupply. They never came close to breaking their air defence either, the Commonwealth was outproducing planes 2:1 during the battle of Britain, the pilots were getting trained much longer and in a safe area (Canada), and that's before plane production REALLY took off.

>Moscow has little strategic value.

Its the biggest rail head in the entire Soviet goddamn Union.

Where were they importing all these products from?

Volunteer German: He doesn't look very scary. More like a six-foot subhuman.
Guderian: A subhuman, huh? OK, try to imagine yourself in the Migration Period. You get your first look at this "six foot Subhuman" as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like Neanderthal - he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not the Slav. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side,
[makes 'whoshing' sound]
Guderian: from the other two Slavs you didn't even know were there. Because Slav's a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this...
[he produces butterfly knife from his pocket]
Dr. Alan Grant: A six-inch retractable knife, like a razor, fused to the left hand. He doesn't bother to stab your jugular like a Gypsy, say... no no. He slashes at you here, or here...
[he lightly 'slashes' across the former Hitler jugend's body with the knife]
Hitler: Oh, Guderian...
Guderiant: Or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know, try to show a little respect.
Volunteer German: OK.
[Guderian leaves the now slightly frightened soldier]

There were pretty extensive trade relations with Latin America, most importantly in oil imports.

>the Nazis could've won if not for [Specific event or decision]
The sign of the ultimate brainlet

>invades Russia
>expects positive results

Baku accounted for something like to 70-80% of all oil production in Russia. It wasn't just about gaining the oil fields (that was secondary) but about resource denial in a war of attrition. Secondly it could serve the purpose of denying the Iranian lend-lease passage. The Caucasus was always a primary war-goal, it was why Stalingrad happened. Moscow was also a very important war-goal but the Nazis realised they could not take it with a frontal assault. The division of the armies and the three pronged assault made operational sense and was the typical Kesselschlacht prussian military doctrine, to which the Russians had lost over and over again in 1941.

>implying the Nazis lost WWII

"the swatztika"

sounds like some nomad tribe in the subsahara.

Yes. They probably could have landed a few thousand troops (losing half on the way there) but they couldn't have supplied the ones they landed and the Brits would have gone batshit and gassed the beaches.

B-but muh game says that he was a brilliant strategist.

He did that in a last attempt of inflicting / letting the Allies inflict as much destruction as he / they could on Germany.

HoI IV was a mistake.

Nothing personal Soviets.

>Moscow has little strategic value
While I agree with you that oil fields should've been primary goal, this is a brainlet statement.

Is that HOI IV? Is it a paid DLC feature?

>moscow
>literally trainhub for the entire SU
>little strategic value

you what nigga?

Do you have a link or source for this study by the Wehrwirtschafts- und Rüstungsamt?

Yes its HOI4, but I dont think its DLC. I think its part of the next update

sci-hub.la/10.1080/01402399508437621
>He [Hitler] had almost certainly not read the March 1941 report by Generalleutnant Hermann von Hanneken of the War Economy and War Armaments Office, which was appended to a letter sent by Keitel to the OKH. This report warned that, even if the Caucasus oilfields could be captured intact, very little oil (only 10,000 tons per month) could be carried overland to Germany.

>letting you tailor your generals as you like is a bad thing

user pls.

heinz guderian WWII biopic played by sam niell when?

Thanks alot this whole article seems to be a great read, much more interesting than the study itself i hoped for in the original post.

there's a leaked excerpt of the script in

It just needs that to be the case because too much of the gameplay depends on leader values

The whole trait chart on the right is DLC; the basic stats on the left are not.

It doesn't matter if the Nazis can't use the railroads.

kek, how'd I miss this gem

neither can the Soviets, it's basically the same logic with the oilfields where the Germans won't be able to use what they captured for a while but the most significant short-term effect being that Soviet warmaking capability is hampered

>caucus is cut off
>US just sends you more oil

by sending them all off to die?

>>US just sends you more oil
Lend lease was through Iran and the Caucus though.Good luck transporting suplies through Siberia

Actually, the single biggest port of call for Lend Lease was in Vladivostok, and thus most of it DID go through Siberia.

But da caucus b da only way 2 get da lend wease 2 sobiets if ger ger take caucus dey get black firewater n win dumb dumb generals so dumb how dey lose much easy just make rommel commander of all army group = win no war crimes btw.

(posts HOI3 screenshot on very easy and all theatres on AI)

Why the nips did not stoped the ships?

>provoking the USSR to declare war on you and have the allies ramp up naval warfare in your waters even more

Their is a reason they did not touch them at all.

Because they had a nonaggression pact with the USSR and all Lend Lease ships running the Pacific route were under the hammer and sickle.

in addition to , the Japanese had a kind of mentality that

>American supplies and war materiel bieng used to help the Soviets fight Germanyis stuff they're not using to kick our own heads in. Why give them an incentive to concentrate more on us?

what was in north russia?

I'm guessing not much, given how small the overall tonnage sent there was. Probably a few isolated ports that they thought they could cram a few more goods into.

Arkhangelsk, which had the largest share of Lend Lease tonnage shipped to it from 1941-42.

Oh, if you meant the big northern route (I thought you meant the Pacific one) yeah, Archangelsk in the summer months, and Murmansk when Archangelsk froze over. It was primarily used earlier in the war, especially for stuff that was either directly or indirectly coming from Britain.

no i meant the smallest shipment place, not murmansk and archangelsk

Might be Sevastopol before Germans rekt it.

Timoshenko said so

10/10

There were major rail lines that ran above Moscow and most resources/manpower didn't transit through Moscow. Soviets had 15km deep heavy artillery emplacements surrounding the city on the northern side. Look at the siege of Leningrad. Moscow would have been worse.

Sevastopol is on the black sea, user.

>implying WWII ended

polar bear, tigers, and S-P-A-C-E

Moscow was the center of the russian rail network, the loss of its facilities (trains and repair facilities) would have had a domino effect,slowly freezing the russian railways.

Also, take into account, that in 1941, America had not entered the war – so there was no realistic prospect of a second front or the arrival of significant western aid. Also, consider that during this period there was no indication that the Red Army would be able to improve its combat performance against the Wehrmacht.

Well Germany would declare war on the US on Dec 11th 1941 and North Africa would be retaken by the Allies in 1942 with Italy being invaded in 1943. I suppose it all depends on when the Germans take Moscow and if they can even hold it when the Soviets start to counter attack in the winter of 1941/1942. The news of America entering the war would certainly be a moral booster for the high command at the very least.

Also you say that
>there was no indication that the Red Army would be able to improve its combat performance against the Wehrmacht.
But that is simply not true, the Germans had taken horrible losses all throughout the campaign and no matter how many more casualties they inflicted the Red Army was just getting bigger. I really doubt they could take Moscow in the first place but even if they did, let's say mid to late November, AGC historically was the army group that got pushed back the most by the Soviet Winter Campaign and in this scenario they are not just going to be holding on to the land around Moscow, they are going to be holding onto Moscow itself. Depending on how Hitler acts how much the generals obey him it really just seems like a way to get Stalingrad one year early.

what's the context of that pic?

underrated post

That's not how junctions work, taking Moscow would have severely hampered strategic rail movement for months

>the Germans had taken horrible losses all throughout the campaign and no matter how many more casualties they inflicted the Red Army was just getting bigger
This.
Pic related shows the losses the Wehrmacht sustained from the start of Barbarossa to the middle of March 1942. The number killed may not seem significant, but the number wounded is just as important, and the total casualties of 1.1 million was 35% of the army's average strength and made an already pressing manpower crisis even worse. Equipment losses were significant too, especially in tanks and trucks that weren't produced enough to match losses.

The result was that the Wehrmacht in 1942 was essentially crippled compared to the one that launched Barbarossa; the majority of its divisions at the end of March 1942 were only capable of defensive operations, compared to June 22 1941 where most divisions were ready for any task. Knocking out the Soviet Union would require a frontwide assault to capture all economically important areas, but this was far out of reach for the Germans post-1942 and so the war was basically lost at this point. Note that this is before the vast majority of Lend Lease arrived.

It's fake, the original pic was them inspecting the prototype VW bug

>There were major rail lines that ran above Moscow and most resources/manpower didn't transit through Moscow.

It was the main junction through which you could reach the rest of the country.