How much of the desire to secure Stalingrad also considered the Tractor Works? AIUI, the facility there was still important enough to the Soviet war effort that even while most of the rest of the city had been evacuated, or abandoned, the factory was still putting out several T-34 a day.
Not a sufficient reason, on it’s own, to force the decision to invade the city, but I think it may have been another factor pushing for the decision.
Aside from which, the German might well ahve won had they been better equipped. First off, apparently they were still using horses (vast numbers of them) for transport. They simply hadn’t made any wintertime preparations. For the legendary “German efficiency” they were sorely lacking in basic supplies like ammunition and clothing, as well as the capacity to transport these items toward the east. Add in the incredibly bone-headed decision to unleash cruel repression upon the locals, and you had a recipe for a desperate lack of supplies.
And their big iron gear was lacking too. They never had enough artillery or tanks, and what they did have was too lightweight for extended combat operations. Hitler, wanting to avoid the social unrest of WW1, never pushed the economy into full war mode.
In addition, Hitler’s bailout of the Italians in Greece led to him delaying the attack on Russia. If he had attacked Stalin earlier in the year, with better logistics and social policy, he would likely have won WW2. Of course, that’s like saying a serial killer would get away with it if he just killed one hooker instead of going back again and again.
I have heard it said that Stalin retained a large force in Eastern Siberia, out of fear of a Japanese attack. As the Japanese thraet failed to materialize, Stalin was able to move his forces west, where they took on the exhausted german forces. Yet, all movement of this force had to be via the trans-Siberian RR. Too bad the Germans couldn’t have severed this link-it might have saved them at Stalingrad.
Logistics was a big problem for the Germans on the Eastern Front. Hitler basically paid lip service to the concept.
If you want to win the Eastern Front, this is what you need to do (and even then there’s no guarantee):
Decide on a long-term objective and stick with it. No waffling from Moscow to Kiev to Leningrad back to Moscow, and then back south towards Stalingrad.
No atrocity orders (insert euphemism where appropriate). Any soldier or commander who orders massacres of civilians, prisoners of war, Communist officials, etc. will be severely punished. Portray yourself as liberators to the Russian people-get some partisans operating behind the Russian lines.
Get a logistics expert installed high in the chain of command with broad leeway when it comes to planning the distribution of supplies. In conjunction with that, get the economy on a total war footing earlier.
That’s for starters-there’s more you can do of course.
What? And not have large (European-nation sized) areas virtually (in the precomputer sense of “for all intents and purposes”) held by partisans in your rear? 
Hitler had an understanding of strategy that began and ended with those of a bright corporal in The Great War. That ain’t strategy, that’s tactics.
They should have listened to General Albert Burkhalter, he wanted to send everyone to the Russian front!
I’ve heard that the Germans had incredibly bad planning-their troops were freezing in the Russian winter-because there were not enough winter boots, coats, etc. Did Hitler think the Russians would fold in the first 6 months?
Trying to figure out why or what Hitler thought about anything is like trying to find a tadpole in a muddy pond. Odds are you can’t anyway and you’re going to end up feeling dirty either way.
Truth is, I don’t believe we know what the man was thinking. But we can take a pretty accurate guess that after the constant victories of his skilled, aggressive generals, he felt his armies were invincible. Had they been adequately prepared, they might have been.
But by the time the Wehrmacht invaded Russia, the soldiers were probably tired and in need of some rest. They were much too spread out. They were equipped incorrectly and insufficiently supplied.
Hitler probably had been told this and disregarded it. He tended to disregard his generals’ advice on a lot of things, often to his detriment.
He conquered Poland in 2 weeks and France in a month. Meanwhile, it took the Soviet Union 3 months to beat Finland, of all countries. So, why not be able to take over the Soviet Union in six months?
I have read* that one of the reasons the Russians were taken by surprise was that they knew this, and assumed that the Germans would never invade when they were so obviously unprepared. Russian intelligence was looking for the things that would be signs of preparations they knew were needed for fighting in Russia, such as increased availability of mutton due to the number of sheep killed for sheepskin coats, and not seeing any indication that the Germans were prepared to fight a winter campaign.
I believe what Hitler said regarding Russia was “Kick in the door and the entire structure will collapse”.
-Joe
…to their advantage? For example-they saw what the finns were able to do with ski troops (encircle and destroy an entire Russian army division) with lightly armed mobile ski troops. And the Russians were NOT terribly good at winter warefare-although their troops were warmly clad, they had supply line problems as well.
The germans had (I believe) two excellent mountain divisions, who could have been used to good effect.These troops should have been used to cut the russian supply lines and disrupt the rear.
As for the german lack of winter gear-in the FIRST winter of the Russian campaign, the germans were reduced to soliciting DONATIONS of winter coats, gloves, hats, etc., from their civilian population! Imagine how chilling that was to a german civilian reading the headlines…“German Forces Advancing in eastern Front”-then reading a notice-please donate your winter coat for our brave troops in Russia!
At THAT moment, i’d be planning how to get to South America!
You’re confusing tactical and operational objectives with strategic problems.
Of course the Germans understood the value of cutting supply lines. I mean, they encircled and captured Russian forces by the MILLIONS by doing exactly what you are suggesting. You’re not coming up with anything they didn’t know; cutting off supply lines was something of a German specialty, and was used to great effect against the Soviet (not just Russian) forces.
The problem that faced the Germans was not operational, it was strategic. What you are suggesting - the use of two mountain divisions to cut off supply lines - is fundamentally a matter of operational skill, but they had that in spades. The problem was STRATEGIC; they were attempting to take over a country the size of North America with a military force, economic backbone and logistics capability was was simply not strategically capable of what it was being asked to do.
To give you some idea of the scales we are talking about here, you say Germany had two fine mountain divisions. Great. The Axis force that invaded the USSR consisted of one hundred and sixty-six divisions, plus an entire air force and associated service support formations and organizations, opposing an army with 190 divisions on or near the German frontier and with well over one hundred divisions in reserve. The German/puppet force was the largest ever assembled for a single operation; it consisted of 4.1 million personnel, or about twice as many people as currently serve in the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines combined. And that’s not counting German reserves and active units fighting or occupying Africa, France, Norway, etc. Two divisions is a drop in a very large bucket; arguing over their use is a case of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Well, just make sure to invade with at least 21 Unit Strength worth of units on the Fall turn, and the Russians can’t delay the Winter War rules for a turn, then they only get free 1-1 attacks on 21 strength worth of units.
Hitler never valued oil enough. He should have focused on Northern Africa and controlled the Middle East before he invaded Russia. It’s not surprising he made a similar mistake at Stalingrad.
Then again, prioritizing symbolic targets over strategic ones is a criticism you could make of a lot of world leaders.
First shock armies show up in November. Taking into account the automatic -1 to attacks on anything not Finnish, even an 8-6-6 Armor is gonna get it’s clock cleaned by one of those beautiful 7-5-4 infantries.
(for what it’s worth, I think we’re talking about two different games… Mine is AH’s old Russian Front game. What’s yours? 
)
Mine’s AH, too, but it’s Third Reich (and I’m not sure if I have the Unit Strength correct.)
Pretty much:
“We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
The “rotten structure” of Hitler’s comment was presumably a reference to the (largely true) German belief that Stalin’s jealous purge of the Soviet officer corps had left the Sov army leaderless and fearful. The “kick in the door” part probably came from Stalin’s insistence on holding territory, especially the newly acquired areas from Poland and other countries via the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which meant that Soviet forces were stationed far forward in a “continuous front,” which the Germans recognized was vulnerable to penetration and envelopment. When the war came, in fact, the ineffectively-led Soviet armies were cut up and encircled in gigantic numbers that amazed the world. It just wasn’t enough to defeat them.
Also, wasn’t the German failure to prepare cold-weather gear more a problem in 1941, during the drive on Moscow? Stalingrad was the next summer/fall/winter after that, 1942. The Germans still weren’t adequately prepared, but it wasn’t because they anticpated victory within months.
Lastly, this part:
is largely a myth. John Keegan, and I think others, have argued that the rasputista (the twice-yearly interlude of mud and rain) ran unusally late in 1941, and a large-scale armored attack was probably not possible much before June 22, the actual start time of Barbarossa.
Sailboat
Not having read Keegan on this, I decline to comment. Though it might or might not have stopped the Germans.
Maybe if Goering had been able to supply the 100s of tons of supplies as he had promised, the Germans may have eventually taken Stalingrad.
As it was, the supplies dropped to the troops fell well short of what was required