Blitzkrieg had been very successful up to then. I suppose it was a case of don't change a winning strategy. Did the Russians learn from what had happened earlier or would those have been their tactics anyway? -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Fisher at Home: | | Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z | | Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+
I think the entire German army in Europe and it's Blitzkrieg strategies only worked in the early days because the opposition was so poor. They were deluded pseudo religious nuts, not great military strategists. If they had been half way competent they would have prevailed and had they not victimised the Jews, gone on to develop the A-bomb first.
It's not. It's because your forefathers turned right instead of left and finished up in America. Well seeing as the whole world is currently un-American, now you can join in the fun, and get rat arsed at the same time. -- Beav VN 750 Zed 1000 OMF# 19
I honestly wouldn't know how much a pint of beer costs. As for bottled water, I've only ever bought it when I'm riding any distance. Make mine the burd with the great tits. -- Beav VN 750 Zed 1000 OMF# 19
I think almost all of it reflects well on the Wehrmacht, but badly on Hitler. Starting when it did, and conducted by him as it was, it failed. It *might* have worked had the Wehrmacht been given free rein (ie: not diverted forces from the drive on Moscow to a pointless drive south). Man for man, unit for unit, the Wehrmacht wiped the floor with every opponent it met. It was only ever beaten when opposing air cover and materiel was overwhelming. Look at things like the recapture of Kharkov. At generals like Manstein, Rommel, von Runstedt, von Manteuffel, and others. The Wehrmacht was better trained, better led, and (barring the fatal shortage of armour and fuel later on) better equipped than anyone. German small arms were superb. I think, as time goes by, there'll be a re-appraisal of the Wehrmacht as a force. Yes, they lost, but they lost fighting against half the world.
Von Huth's Panzer columns stretched back 100 miles into Germany on the day before the attack on the West on May 1940. There was no means by which they could be attacked in any meaningful way. By mid-1944 the Allies' Tactical Air Forces ruled the ground, even individual horse-and-cart transport was attacked from the air. One ground-attack Mustang pilot was told "Don't bring back your ammunition. We've got all the ammunition we need". Fighter escorts for the daylight bombers would leave the bomber stream over the North Sea, and head back to attack ground targets. The Germans soldiers of the time had a saying about aircraft; "If it's green, it's British; if it's silver, it's American; if it's invisible, it's German". This was somewhat prophetic, as the Arado jet aircraft, the 234B bomber version, was thought to have been fitted with carbon powder loaded behind the wooden front edge of the wings, to give radar absorbency; another first at the time.
As it turned out, Blitzkrieg doesn't scale up very well. The sheer size of the Eastern territory boggles the mind and it led to horrendous supply problems.
At an acute tangent to that, and thinking of the supply problems on the home front, SWMBO just came home with a sale price book from 'The Works'. "Victory Cookbook - nostalgic food and facts from 1940-1951" by Marguerite Patton. Recipes like Bird's Nest Pudding (not literally) and Sheep's Head Roll (literally). Anyone remember 'rissoles' . What a feed line.
Very true. OTOH, it might be asked if the German military really did their duty to Germany and the German people. The Stauffenberg coup attempt was too little, too late IYSWIM.
All our yesterdays eh? Better stop before I start reminiscing about the 'Palm Court Orchestra of the Grand Hotel', 'Sing Something Simple' and 'Semprini Serenade' on the wireless. -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Fisher at Home: | | Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z | | Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+
Misses the two critical advantages of the T34 over the German competition. Crude simplicity - the T34 was easier to build, cheaper to build, could be produced in greater quantity and was far easier to maintain in the field. I've posted in UKRM before the amazing production stats the Russians achieved. Famously, the track width, generally adopted in tanks now, which reduced ground force to a level sustainable over tundra and deep thawing mud.
I think it was well planned. It was changed while being executed. Hitler, against the please of his generals, halted the advance in fear of a non-existent counter attack, and then abandoned the drive on Moscow for the swing south. Then, some weeks later, he re-authorised the drive on Moscow. Some commenttators think this cost him Barabrossa. OK, then name instances when they lost against weaker forces and materiel. There must be some, but I can't think of any atm. Armour, yes: the T34. Artillery and small arms - no. German was better. The Russians just had more. Why did Kalashnikov say he designed the AK47? Because he was pissed off at being shot at with better guns. Yes, this is true. At the starts of the campaign, though, Germany had plenty of tanks and Russia had very few T34s. As Blitzkrieg failed, the balance swung to Russia. So, on the initial Barbarossa campaign, They could have carried it. True again, but the Germans were hardly ever short of weapons. It didn't matter with small arms. It mattered more with big weapons, like tanks. Possibly not. But he *did* meddle, fatally, in its execution. See top.. And the key fact remains - six months to get to Moscow, more than three years to push them back, when Russia enjoyed overwhelming odds *and* Hitler was fighting a war on other fronts. The Wehrmacht was superb.
