Yes, it *might * have. Hitler delayed it to screw around in Greece & Yugoslavia after Mussolini got himself into troubel down there. IF Barbarossa had occurred two months earlier, the German Army might have been able to take the big 4 cities (they took only one) before Winter set in. If so, Russia might have collapsed. Hitler’s biggest screw up and the biggest Military “what if” of the War.
And how would those airborne troops have defended themselves against British anti-aircraft fire on the way down to the ground? Everyone else seems to assume the British would stand by and allow all those Germans to land intact, as opposed to in a few million bloody little pieces. Maybe the British didn’t have sufficient AA to kill all of the proposed airborne soldiers, but I can’t help but think they could have gotten a goodly number of them.
(AA in this sense is not only explosive shells filled with shrapnel on timed fuses, but anyone capable of using a rifle to shoot at a big, white parachute.)
Yes, it is possible that the germans could have captured Moscow in the first winter of the war. stalin and his commissars had plans to evacuate and restart the government in some remote city (possibly Magnitogorsk). however, it is hard for me to see how capturing Moscow wins the war for the germans. They (by mid-December) have lost a quarter of a million men! Not only that , they are at the end of a 900+ mile supply chain. by December, the German Army was losing more men to frostbite than russian bullets. So they move into Moscow (which has most likely been put to the torch by the fleeing russians) exactly what do they gain? They have no supplies and its getting cold. Of course, they have demoralized the Russians, but this will only last for a while, This is exactly what Napoleon face in 1812. Somehow, occupying a burnt out, starved city isn’t much of a victory. Would the germans benfitted? At leaset they would have shelter in the city-buit thats about it. Nope, Barbarossa was a war by a nation of 55 million againsta nation of 225 million-can’t be done.
If the prime objective is to support an invasion of the UK, I think the Luftwaffe was almost correctly structured, but were lacking in range and doctrine - they would have needed fighters and light bombers that could knock out the RAF and its support infrastructure anywhere in the UK,and then provide tactical support. Maybe something like the FW190 with drop tanks, and lots of Ju88s or a german Mosquito. But all this would require the blueprints to land in front of the OKW in about 1935 at the latest.
Not really a major concern, particularly at that stage of the war. It’s impossible to blanket a whole country with AA - it is inevitably concentrated around major targets or on the approach routes to them. Unless the paratroopers get dropped right on top of something like an airfield, factory, strategic bridge or something similar they would probably be OK. Pissed-off locals with shotguns, pitchforks, axes or whatever would be nasty though - even after landing the paratrooper still needs some time to get out of the chute, and the germans apparently jumped with just a sidearm and all their longarms in a canister dropped separately. I can’t recall the casualties during the D-Day drops, but they were high.
As for the hypothetical Russian campaing, I think the wermacht would have shot its bolt completely after doing Poland, the Low Countries, France AND Britain within one year. Reforming, re-equipping and getting sorted out for a spring 42 offensive would have given time to get all that captured industry to work and finish mechanising properly (get rid of all those horses!), but would also have given Stalin more time to prepare for the storm even he would have seen coming.
Would a modernised and better-prepared Wermacht fighting on only one front and supported by the whole resources of Europe and some of its overseas territories (oil!) be able to overwhelm a better-prepared and forewarned Red Army without the benefit of the Murmansk convoys and without the propaganda advantages of Nazi brutality? I don’t think it’s any less feasible than a successful invasion of Britain, i.e. it 's less unlikely than a squadron of flying pigs that speak esperanto. Not by much though.
If you think I was in anyway disagreeing with this – then my bad I was not clear
**DrDeth ** smarter men than me have agreed with you … I am just saying I am not convinced, but I understand your points
Moscow was the rail hub of the entire Soviet Union. Russia’s supply situation would have gotten much more difficult while Germany’s would have gotten a whole lot easier.
-Joe
Let us put it this way; there a whole damn book out- very well writen and copiously researched- that argues my point (and I lent my copy, so I don’t remember the exact title). Now, he could be wrong, that’s true- but it was the best “what if” argument I have even seen about Hitler possibly winning WWII.
I agree that if Germany had presented itself as liberators that might have changed WWII also. But I consider that a political “what if” as opposed to a military what if- and a “what if” that simply wasn’t going to happen under the real world Hitler.
However, Hitler easily could have let Mussolini get bogged down in SouthEast Europe, and gone with Hitlers original plans.
I agree with Merijeek’s point. And, I think, ralph124c, you’re underestimating the way that Stalin’s USSR had made initiative anathema. Without a central point for orders to come from, there is just too much confusion in the system as it was running for me to believe that it would continue to work.
Well, that is, in all fairness, not a very convincing argument. There are lots of books on any subject you can name- including an awful number arguing that no, Germany had no chance whatsoever of winning the war against Russia- the most obvious one that springs to mind is Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, but I think you could also argue the case using parts of Stalingrad, The Second World War by John Keegan, and, of course, What If? (where this very issue is adressed- Britain under Halifax surrenders after Dunkirk, Hitler goes to war against Russia unimpeded by a second front- and still loses, albeit a year later that otherwise).
IMO, you have to change the circumstances of the time so dramatically that the comparison becomes a little strained. If Hitler had invaded early in the year having made peace with Britian, the Japanese had invaded with him (thus preventing their thrust downwards toward the European colonies, and, in all likelihood, stopping America from entering the war) and both had possessed a reasonably managed invasion plan (as oppossed to the ridiculously optimistic Barbarossa), then Russia might have fallen, perhaps as early as 1941/2.
Otherwise? Forget it.
Well, discarding Hitler’s plan would probably be one of the necessary preconditions of success. Going with the one drawn up by the generals would have let them start off earlier (assuming we are sticking to 1941) and given a more focused strategic drive to Moscow without the unnecessary distractions to the north and south.
Also, any realistic planning would have suggested that winter equipment and clothing would be necessary, even if a quick victory was achieved. I’ve never understood why the Germans didn’t plan for field operations in winter - assuming the russians would just surrender and everyone would be in barracks by the time it got cold seems insane. No counter-partisan sweeps, rebellions that needed crushing or any other military operations?
If Britain were to fall in 1940, then presumably the Balkans would have been without external support, and even a bufoon like Mussolini could safely have been left to his own devices down there - he may not even have needed any help.
I am not sure that taking Moscow guarentees success- I think you have to capture at least a couple of other major cities as well, like Leningrad or Stalingrad. Although I agree that 1941 is a necessity- every year after that simply increases the Russian’s technological superiority. Perhaps we should start a GQ thread- “I’m Planning an Invasion of the USSR in 1941- Advice and Suggestions?”
Well, you have to remember that the rest of the world considered Russia to be technologically insignificant and ripe for toppling. After all, the Wehrmacht had beaten the French (regarded as one of, if not the, best armed forces at the time) within a matter of weeks. I seem to recall that British intelligence estimated a maximum Russian resistance lasting 8 weeks before the nation surrendered.
Go look up his 1934(?) Abyssinia campaign some time. The Italians couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Maybe things changed dramatically by 1941, but I doubt it.
Sure, but the performance of the Italians in Abyssinia campaign is rather comparable to the performance of the Russians in their attack on Finland.
Of course the Russians would be easy pickings. I know it’s not worth anything, of course, but I’ve also done plenty of reading that agrees with DrDeth - the Balkans cost the Germans two months of pre-winter invasion.
Two more months…I think that the Germans could have taken Moscow in that time.
-Joe
From what I read, the Germans (and their allies, Rumania, Hungary, Italy) were stretched to the breaking point by December 1941. Only the stupendous mis-management of th Russian High Command prevented a German defeat. By December, the cold was so intense that many tanks broke down, and soldier’s feet froze because they had no winter boots. In addition, the horse-drawn German Army lost half of its horses. Clearly , the planning was pretty poor. The Blitzkrieg was out of steam-the Germans were able to resume offensive operations in the spring of 1942, but not on the same scale. So, as I say, the capture of Moscow migh have helped, but not by much.
I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate to assume that the Red Army was some sort of invincible behemoth that no-one else had noticed. I think most militaries who had looked into the situation were aware that the Red Army was very large and equipped with enough material to put up a reasonable resistance. The germans themselves were still using horses - it’s not like they were going to be that snooty about Russian equipment. They were shocked by the way Stalin seemed to be able to produce endless divisions of fresh troops, and specific items of gear like the T-34, but apart from that they had a reasonable idea what to expect.
The history of success in western europe plus Nazi racial doctrine led to the Germans over-reaching themselves, but if the professionals had been allowed to assemble and execute a plan without intereference from the loony-in-chief and his acolytes they might conceivably have pulled it off, given sufficient industrial capacity to back them up and the lack of racial fanaticism from the Nazis.
In terms of russian capability increasing over time, I agree that it would, but without the vast assistance of US Lend-lease not nearly as quickly as it did in the ‘real world’. The Japanese I think can be pretty much written off - if necessary Stalin could have pulled back a thousand miles into Siberia without significant impact to his military capability, and the Japanese were in no shape to push that far inland. Nearly all the soviet industry was in the west, and even after it was shifted east of the Urals the Japanese would have had trouble reaching it across unoccupied terrain, never mind with partisans and siberian troops fighting them.
As far as Leningrad and Stalingrad go (and even moscow, probably), the germans would have been far better off just bypassing them, cutting them off and leaving them to starve behind a holding garrison. Putting an army into a defended hostile city is a usually just going to leave you with a shredded army and not much to show for it.
Ah, but those “fresh divisions” you talk of were those who were withdrawn from eastern Siberia (IIRC, Stalin released close to 200 Cossack divisions from the east as the Germans pulled closer to Moscow- and his generals were pushing him to take more). It was exactly Stalin’s paranoia about Japanese attack that had prompted him to put them there in the first place, and the USSR would have had far less manpower to call on if it had had to fight a war on two fronts.
I think that the Japanese would never be anything but a minor annoyance to the Russians. Japan had neither the resources of the will to attack Eastern Siberia. Their first probing attacks into Mongolia were met with a crushing response from General Zhukov-most of a Japanese army division was wiped out in the battle of Khalkin Gol. The Japanese had no heavy tanks or anti-tank weapons-they were slaughtered.
The Japanese were quite wise NOT to take on Russia.
That’s true, but then your conclusion is completely wrong. Having played this out in numerous wargames, just about any Japanese pressure in Siberia loses the war for the Russians, as it turns into a two-front war. The problem is- the Axis weren’t Allies, they didn’t co-ordinate things. Pressure by the Japs in the back of Russia allows Germany to win, which allows Japan to win, as America can’t whup Germany and then turn their attention 100% to Japan. Happy Clam is correct.
There was no point in the war when Germany had enough airborne troops to achieve such a thing. A single division of infantry, without heavy weapons, could not possibly have taken over the island, and could not have been supplied enough to stay alive for long.
It’s conceivable this might have worked, but I would not think it would be as obvious a thing as some are making it out to be.
The assumption that this would have worked seems to hinge on two things;
- That the Soviet populace turned against Germany, and
- That partisan warfare was a really decisive factor.
But neither of those things is wholly true. Germany DID, in fact, get a lot of support from the populace. Entire divisions of Soviet, non-Russian troops fought for the Nazis. And the partisan effort, while it was certainly a problem, was very far from decisive; Germany probably got more support than resistance from Soviet civilians.
WRT the eastern front. I think that the posibility of Germany taking Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad is a realistic assuming that they don’t dick around in Yugoslavia for those 6 weeks, but at that point I think the question becomes political more than military. I think it likely that Russia would have sued for peace at that point. However I also think that they would have done what they did anyway-used the time gained to reconstitute their industrial base east of the Urals and started gearing up for WWIII (Electric Boogaloo)-the Russian counter attack aimed at taking back the land the Nazi’s occupied. If Germany has any plans of making their occupation of western Russia more than a temporary situation they would have had to appease the native peoples in occupied Russia (which has been noted as something they easily could have done, yet their racial bias precluded it), worked their asses off to get the southern oil fields into full production (oil was the single resource they needed the most) and dedicated their industry to a massive-and I mean massive- resupply of the armies holding the L/M/S line. Otherwise a year or two later Stalin does to the Germans what they had just done to him (and what he did to them in real life as well).
Let me agree with **Happy Clam ** and DrDeth to this extent vis a vis a Japanese Far Eastern Front:
I think Stalin might likely have over-reacted to a Japanese Move. As it was, IRL he kept far too many resources** (and far too long) to protect against the “what if”. I am not saying the Axis would have conquered the USSR – just I think in a “What if” scenario that does happen in - is more conceivable with that happening.
**From a good article on Ralph124’s (excellent) ref ofKhalkin Gol
Even as he [Stalin] summoned 1,000 tanks and 1,200 warplanes from Soviet Far Eastern forces to battle the German invaders who were making spectacular gains, 19 reserve divisions, 1,200 tanks and some 1,000 aircraft remained in Mongolia to confront the Japanese.