# OPERATION "Barbarossaa"-Did It Have A Chance of Success? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482 "2004-09-07T13:55:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/41 "2004-09-10T00:10:24Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > The _big_ reason the plan, as concieved, failed, was the lack of a 4-engined heavy bomber. > Stalin was able to re-locate much of his war industry west of the Ural Mountains, out of the reach of German aipower. > If Hitler had a long-range heavy bomb carrier, he could have destroyed these relocated factories. Well, no, why would you think that? If they had to relocate factories anyway, there’s no particular reason why they could not have relocated factories beyond the range of German heavy bombers. The heavy bombers of the day could not fly as far as Russia stretches to the east. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/42 "2004-09-10T00:44:01Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Well, no, why would you think that? If they had to relocate factories anyway, there’s no particular reason why they could not have relocated factories beyond the range of German heavy bombers. The heavy bombers of the day could not fly as far as Russia stretches to the east. Besides, Allied bombing never shut down German industry - slowed, sure, but never shut it down. And the Red Air Force, after the initial disasters in 41, was a highly competitive military force. Germany never had undisputed air superiority on the Eastern Front after that, and the Luftwaffe had no long range fighters to escort bombers. Trans-Ural heavy bombers would have been chewed up just as early American bomber formations were prior to the arrival of the Mustang, and the Germans didn’t have the resources to throw away on that sort of battle of attrition. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/43 "2004-09-10T02:11:16Z")
The basic problem boils down to the fact that the Germans had prepared for the same type of short, quickly over, campaign that they had experienced in Poland, Norway, BeNeLux/France, and the Balkans. As pointed out above, they had serious intelligence failures (and failures in understanding the intelligence they did have), and had no real concept of the size of the USSR, the size of the USSR’s armies, and the degree to which an absolute dictatorship would resist despite disasters which would have had a more democratic government begging to surrender (despite being in a similar case themselves). The German Wehrmacht was very much designed for tactical level fighting, with the Luftwaffe almost 100% tasked for air support of the front line troops. Even the Navy was not intended to fight much outside the North Sea and Baltic. This had serious effects on important issues such as strategic, long-term intelligence, logistics and supply (including production), and strategic planning. In my opinion, the German military and political leadership saw the first 2-3 years of WW2 as a series of individual, limited-goal campaigns, with little or no overall strategic thought. As an added factor, I read some time ago (and cannot now remember the source) an analysis of the German invasion of Russia in June 41 which suggested, based on information available since the collapse of the USSR, that the Soviet forces were reconfiguring from an in-depth defence to a massive offensive force during the first half of 1941, and that this was what allowed the Germans to wreak such devistating havoc on the Russians for the first few months. The Russian armies and airforces were concentrated near the border in poor defensive positions and easily overwhelmed by the attacking Germans. Has anyone else come across this theory? Perhaps WW2 would have taken a very differnt direction if the German attack had been delayed a few more weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/44 "2004-09-10T11:25:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In fact, this is probably the single most underrated reason the Allies won the war; German intelligence failed to determine Allied and Soviet intentions in almost every possible way from 1942 on. In terms of the contrast between theoretical capability and actual effectiveness, Abwehr was probably the worst military intelligence organization in the history of the world. They were responsible for one catastrophic failure after another. The Stalingrad counter-offensive - a counteroffensive of some sixty divisions supported by heavy air power, so we’re not talking about an easily concealed force - came as a near-total surprise to the Germans. Kursk? A rude surprise. Bagration? Complete, total surprise. Normandy? Complete, total surprise. I will grant that the disastrous retreat from Falaise was in large part an operational error, but in that case the Allies could not have made their intent more clear if they’d hired skywriters to spell their plans out in plain view. They hugely overinflated Soviet losses (even beyond their already appalling truth) and absurdly underestimated Soviet reserves, causing them to hugely underestimate the size of their opponent. Time and again, the Germans just didn’t see it coming. > > While it’s true Hitler was not a terribly bright man and didn’t really understand war on a strategic level, and it’s also true Germany didn’t really have any sort of planning committee beyond Hitler, it’s hard to understand how they could have won the war when their own intelligence arm failed so miserably to detect their enemy’s true intentions. And it’s easy to understand how they MIGHT have won had their intelligence arm been more competent. Don’t forget there is a reason for this. Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwher, was a BIG traitor. In fact the most fervent anti nazis worked in that organazation. Besides trying to kill Hitler many times, they were great in disiformation. Canaris was an strange and controversial man but he diserves a statue somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/45 "2004-09-10T11:36:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Well, no, why would you think that? If they had to relocate factories anyway, there’s no particular reason why they could not have relocated factories beyond the range of German heavy bombers. The heavy bombers of the day could not fly as far as Russia stretches to the east. Incorrect. The infrastructure {rail, roads, electricity, etc} **did not exist** further east. Even Stalin couldn’t create an infrastructure **and** relocate the factories in the time allowed. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/46 "2004-09-10T11:46:56Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Besides, Allied bombing never shut down German industry - slowed, sure, but never shut it down. Correct, but so what? The German industrial base & infrastructure was vastly greater than Russia’s, until around late 43 to middle 44. They could simply soak up the pounding better than Russia, because they could shut down a line or two while it was being repaired, & still keep working. Russia did not have the excess production capacity until later. So German bombing of Russian targets would have been more effective. > [@](#): > > And the Red Air Force, after the initial disasters in 41, was a highly competitive military force. Germany never had undisputed air superiority on the Eastern Front after that… Flatly untrue. The Red Air Force had problems until 43, & never quite shook the sense of inferiority. Up until the very end of the war, many Red Air Force pilots would panic upon seeing German planes for the first time, & bail out without firing a shot. When the new production of better fighters began, the Russians were able to swamp the Nazis with raw numbers, not quality. And the lack of a long-range fighter is largely irrelavant. Russia radar was largely non-existant, and intercepting high altitude bombers without it is a hit & miss proposition. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/47 "2004-09-10T13:44:05Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Correct, but so what? The German industrial base & infrastructure was vastly greater than Russia’s, until around late 43 to middle 44. They could simply soak up the pounding better than Russia, because they could shut down a line or two while it was being repaired, & still keep working. Russia did not have the excess production capacity until later. So German bombing of Russian targets would have been more effective. The other factor is the toll the Allied bombing offensive took on the Luftwaffe. Defending themselves against Allied bombers soaked up a huge amount of resources - at one point German ammunition production was devoting 25% of product to anti-aircraft defenses - and resulted in the destruction of thousands and thousands of German fighters. All the planes being used to fend off B-17s, Lancasters and Halifaxes were planes that couldn’t be used anywhere else, such as above the front line troops that desperately needed help. Even if not a single bomb had hit its target, the Allied bombing offensive would have still hurt Germany. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/48 "2004-09-10T15:30:58Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Besides, Allied bombing never shut down German industry - slowed, sure, but never shut it down. And the Red Air Force, after the initial disasters in 41, was a highly competitive military force. Germany never had undisputed air superiority on the Eastern Front after that, and the Luftwaffe had no long range fighters to escort bombers. Trans-Ural heavy bombers would have been chewed up just as early American bomber formations were prior to the arrival of the Mustang, and the Germans didn’t have the resources to throw away on that sort of battle of attrition. I agree that heavy bombers are probably not the silver bullet German needs. I don’t think that producing 1 heavy bomber instead of 4 fighters or light bombers (unless production is cranked up so that it is “and” rather than “or”) would have changed things significantly (tactical situation deteriorates faster than strategic situation improves). I also agree that any long range bombers the Germans sent would be unescorted and probably wiped out by the USSR’s fighters (I mean if their fighters don’t have the legs to loiter after crossing the freaking English Channel there is no way they will of much use penetrating the depths of Russia) I think it is hard to fully estimate the impact of the allied bombing of German munitions industries. If you look at the increase in war production from 43 to the end of 44 (basically from when Germany got serious under Speer and the peak of production) it’s pretty impressive. However, it is vastly less impressive than the increases in production in the UK, US, or USSR - bombing had definite effects on production. And this increase in production also incorporates the effects of simplification - producing pretty much exclusively single engined tactical aircraft rather than a mix of light medium and a few heavy planes as previously while other countries ramped up in complexity as well as numbers. I guess it’s possible that a fictitious German heavy bomber escorted by a nonexistent long range fighter might have had some success executing a tran-plan against Russian cities, damaging rail lines enough to hurt Soviet production significantly. Of course for this to happen it would also have to occur to the Germans to try attacking the Russian rail network - a strategy that conventional wisdom held as pointless (too easily repaired) and the western allies only adopted after realizing that the short term chaos they caused in Normandy could be replicated large scale. And I reckon that while the new model luftwaffe is bombing railyards around Moscow the Red Air Force is wreaking havoc unopposed all along the eastern front. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/49 "2004-09-10T20:38:39Z")
I don’t recall seeing them! All I kow is that the Italian Regia Aeronautica was equipped with very slow, 3-engine Sovoia-Marchetti bombers. These were of a design dating to the early 1930’s, and were hopeless against modern fighter (in the Battle of Britain, Italy contributed a token number of these bombers-they were mauled so much that they were withdrawn!). I don’t know that the Italians ever produced a heavy bomber. At any rate, how on earth did the Germans supply their Panzer armies with enough fuel? I never read that they laid any fuel pipelines (as the Allies did to supply their columns). ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/50 "2004-09-10T22:44:35Z")
No wonder you never heard of it ! It was made in a very small quantity (about 24 bombers and 12 transport versions). [Here](http://www.regiamarina.net/arsenals/planes_it/heavy_bombers/heavy_us.htm) is a data sheet on the plane. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482/51 "2004-09-11T22:44:30Z")
Well if German factories had been running 24hr a day instead of a daylight hours only it would have helped to boost the supplies and tank production and allowed a better chance of getting a sucessful Barbarossa [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/operation-barbarossaa-did-it-have-a-chance-of-success/263482.md?page=2)