D-Day "myths". Actually not a bad article at all...

[viper37]

3. The Soviet leadership was deeply unpopular, having persecuted various ethnicities and segments of society horribly. Many in the Soviet Union would welcome a German invasion.

That was a strenght so long as Nazi Germany was willing to cooperate with these people, to arm Stalin's ennemies, integrate them to the Whermacht or the SS like the Waffen SS.  But Hitler viewed them as inferior and potential ennemies that he would not arm, for the most part.  Until 1944, but then it was too late.

And threating the populations like under-men, subjecting them to brutal tortures, privations, mass executions, that did nothing to convince the locals they were better than the Soviets, even if they welcomed their liberators at first.  Just like most of them welcomed their Russian liberators later, it did not turn out exactely as they expected.

4. The Soviet system was rigidly hierarchical, with decision making concentrated on the dictator: military officials feared to show initiative. If Stalin's morale collapsed, or there was a fight at the top among Soviet grandees, the system could not recover.

Yes, but on the other hand, Stalin was not the kind of men that would be demoralized by huge lossess of civilians or even soldiers.
Heck, the entire Soviet strategy relied un numbers: small tanks that could be be built faster hence overpower the Germans by having much more tanks on the front at any time, disposable infantry that could force the Germans to fight until they ran out of bullets and still have troops to attack.  And it was likely the same for their fighter planes.

The Nazi grand strategy was that they realized they could not successfully invade England, and so they thought that if they eliminated the Soviets they would have a unified European empire as an accomplished fact. Britain would have to make a deal then, or be totally cut off by submarine blockade. Also, the US would be tied down dealing with Japan. True, the Nazis could do nothing to the US - but with the Soviets defeated and UK neutralized, the US could do nothing to the Nazis, either. There would be a new cold war, between US and Nazi continental blocks. 

The problem with their reasoning is that they could not block England.  They could not cut off England from its line of supplies and they could not reach the factories of Scotland.

So England could keep on receiving supplies and it could keep on producing what it needed with less costs to the civilian population than the Germans.

Thrusting into Leningrad to cut off Murmansk and Archangelsk would have been a good strategy. Aiming solely for south-east of Stalingrad and the oil fields might have been good (despite the difficulties of exploiting oil so close to the front and shipping it back to Germany).  Dividing their forces in 3, insisting on taking Stalingrad instead of bypassing it, that was a total mistake.  Moscow and Stalingrad had no real strategic value. 

Russia did not collapse under Napoleon when the French reached Moscow, the Russians burnt their cities instead.  With an even more fanatical leader in place, how would they do something radically different, like surrendering after a couple of months?  If Moscow falls, they move further East, that is all.  The supplies line of the North are still intact.  And at the time, I guess

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Standing Soviet Army 90% destroyed - roll
Kiev captured - roll
Moscow threatened - roll
Moscow captured - roll+1

historical nazi behaviour (i.e. einsatztruppen etc): all following rolls -2/3/whatever seems right.

that said: interesting thread.

[Malthus]

That was a strenght so long as Nazi Germany was willing to cooperate with these people, to arm Stalin's ennemies, integrate them to the Whermacht or the SS like the Waffen SS.  But Hitler viewed them as inferior and potential ennemies that he would not arm, for the most part.  Until 1944, but then it was too late.

And threating the populations like under-men, subjecting them to brutal tortures, privations, mass executions, that did nothing to convince the locals they were better than the Soviets, even if they welcomed their liberators at first.  Just like most of them welcomed their Russian liberators later, it did not turn out exactely as they expected.

Absolutely true, yes. But then, the Nazi project was filled with insane contradictions.

The Nazis had at least three different plans for the Slavs:

(1) Enlist their cooperation against the Soviets;

(2) Enfeeble them by culling the intelligentsia, then using them as slaves and serfs; and

(3) Murdering off the lot of them and replacing them with "Aryans".

Obviously, these plans could not all be carried out at once, as they contradicted each other (why would anyone cooperate if they were to be enslaved or murdered off and replaced? Why murder off your slaves? Etc.). Yet that's just what the Nazis attempted to do - not deliberately, but because different factions of Nazis had different notions, and there was no really sensible overall plan in place.

A truly methodical Nazi plan would have been to engage these plans sequentially, over a much longer period of time (that is, engage their cooperation until the Soviets were beat; then enslave the Slavs, once the Nazis had won; then, gradually get rid of the slave-state, as sufficient numbers of "Aryans" were born over a couple of generations, etc.). That's not what the Nazis did, though. 

Yes, but on the other hand, Stalin was not the kind of men that would be demoralized by huge lossess of civilians or even soldiers.
Heck, the entire Soviet strategy relied un numbers: small tanks that could be be built faster hence overpower the Germans by having much more tanks on the front at any time, disposable infantry that could force the Germans to fight until they ran out of bullets and still have troops to attack.  And it was likely the same for their fighter planes.

Stalin was a remorseless sociopath, but he certainly could be demoralized by fear of defeat - and in fact, he was, at least for a while. By all accounts, he had what amounted to a nervous breakdown, but got over it.

The problem with their reasoning is that they could not block England.  They could not cut off England from its line of supplies and they could not reach the factories of Scotland.

So England could keep on receiving supplies and it could keep on producing what it needed with less costs to the civilian population than the Germans.

Thrusting into Leningrad to cut off Murmansk and Archangelsk would have been a good strategy. Aiming solely for south-east of Stalingrad and the oil fields might have been good (despite the difficulties of exploiting oil so close to the front and shipping it back to Germany).  Dividing their forces in 3, insisting on taking Stalingrad instead of bypassing it, that was a total mistake.  Moscow and Stalingrad had no real strategic value.

England certainly could have been isolated had the Nazis the resources - the Battle of the Atlantic was, as Churchill later stated, a "close run thing". If the Nazis had a hundred more subs at the outset, things may have gone very differently - instead, they put resources into building battleships, which did them little good. 

Russia did not collapse under Napoleon when the French reached Moscow, the Russians burnt their cities instead.  With an even more fanatical leader in place, how would they do something radically different, like surrendering after a couple of months?  If Moscow falls, they move further East, that is all.  The supplies line of the North are still intact.  And at the time, I guess

The Nazis simply figured things had changed over the last century. "Lighting war" had demoralized the French high command; they saw no reason why it couldn't demoralize the Russians.

[viper37]

England certainly could have been isolated had the Nazis the resources - the Battle of the Atlantic was, as Churchill later stated, a "close run thing". If the Nazis had a hundred more subs at the outset, things may have gone very differently - instead, they put resources into building battleships, which did them little good. 

Yes, of course, anything is possible with the proper resource.  I was simply stating that they could not block England with what they had in 1939-1940.

You need boats and you need sailors.  Unlike the Whermacht and the Luftwaffe, they were pretty much starting from scratch with the Kriegsmarine, they did not have a large experienced officer corps to begin with.

The Nazis simply figured things had changed over the last century. "Lighting war" had demoralized the French high command; they saw no reason why it couldn't demoralize the Russians.

France has one side to the German, the other to the sea, and there's 1000km between both.  That's a lot less than what the Russians lost between mid-Poland and Moscow/Leningrad/Stalingrad.

And I can't imagine the French army burning every town and every factories in sight to deny the resources to the Germans.

Once the Russians have backed off by 1000km they are still in Russia.  Once the French have backed off 1000km, they face the Atlantic.  As it was proven during the war, it is much easier to evacuate through land than to embark on ships.  The French and the British that tried to evacuate from St-Nazaire were mostly sunk by German aircrafts, unlike Dunkirk where they could muster air support and even then, the majority of the French rearguard fighting to protect the British retreat had to be abandonned to the Germans.

[alfred russel]

In hindsight, in 1940 I think I could be more easily convinced that the USSR would quickly crumble and collapse than I could in 1939 that France would quickly crumble and collapse.

Granted, there was almost two decades of distance between the events, but Poland fought off the USSR, and Poland was but a speedbump for the Germans. Combine that with how the Finns were doing against the USSR, and how the French/British did against the Germans.

[Malthus]

Yes, of course, anything is possible with the proper resource.  I was simply stating that they could not block England with what they had in 1939-1940.

You need boats and you need sailors.  Unlike the Whermacht and the Luftwaffe, they were pretty much starting from scratch with the Kriegsmarine, they did not have a large experienced officer corps to begin with.

The issue though is whether it was realistic for the Nazis to think they could isolate England if they defeated the Soviets & could put more resources into to U-Boat campaign.

I think it was realistic. But it is based on a pretty big "if".

France has one side to the German, the other to the sea, and there's 1000km between both.  That's a lot less than what the Russians lost between mid-Poland and Moscow/Leningrad/Stalingrad.

And I can't imagine the French army burning every town and every factories in sight to deny the resources to the Germans.

Once the Russians have backed off by 1000km they are still in Russia.  Once the French have backed off 1000km, they face the Atlantic.  As it was proven during the war, it is much easier to evacuate through land than to embark on ships.  The French and the British that tried to evacuate from St-Nazaire were mostly sunk by German aircrafts, unlike Dunkirk where they could muster air support and even then, the majority of the French rearguard fighting to protect the British retreat had to be abandonned to the Germans.

Yes, there are significant differences between Russia and France.

Had France sought to fight to the last, those differences would have been important.

But notice, the French leadership's morale collapsed *before* there was any question of the Nazi armies advancing 1000km. It was the apparent defeat of their armies in the field that caused the collapse.

The Nazis thought that even more massive defeats of Soviet armies ought to trigger a similar collapse of leadership morale among the Soviets. In hindsight, yes, we all know that given that the Soviet leadership did not collapse and the Soviets decided to fight to the last, the Germans were unlikely to win. 

[The Brain]

In Hitler's defense the profound weakness of the German volk wasn't painfully obvious in 1940 when he decided on Barbarossa.

[Berkut]

I think you also have to realize that in the context of these decisions, they are being made by people (both in Germany and Japan) who have a completely fucked up set of priorities.

For Hitler, his position is that he would rather drag Germany into a war they will lose than accept that his vision of the future was not possible.

If you accept that basic premise (which of course is fucking crazy itself) then the following decisions make more sense.

Japan was in a similar place, but for different reasons. If you accept that you would prefer to get into a war you cannot win instead of backing down to US demands in regards to the ongoing war in China, then the plan they put into place was likely one of the best possible options.

[Razgovory]

No one in the Whermacht pushed for Barbarossa.  They kept telling Hitler how bad an idea it was, but they said the same for France...

I don't think this is true.

[The Brain]

I think you also have to realize that in the context of these decisions, they are being made by people (both in Germany and Japan) who have a completely fucked up set of priorities.

For Hitler, his position is that he would rather drag Germany into a war they will lose than accept that his vision of the future was not possible.

If you accept that basic premise (which of course is fucking crazy itself) then the following decisions make more sense.

Japan was in a similar place, but for different reasons. If you accept that you would prefer to get into a war you cannot win instead of backing down to US demands in regards to the ongoing war in China, then the plan they put into place was likely one of the best possible options.

Yes there is tendency to look at the actions of Germany or Japan and say they were stupid. Some were stupid, generally though they were a logic response to the needs of the regimes.

For instance, one criticism sometimes levelled against Japan is that they failed to plan for a war of attrition (didn't mass train aviators, prioritized firepower over survivablity yada yada), but surely the only chance Japan had against the US was a short sharp war, however unlikely. Tsushima actually happened, it's not like it was automatically outrageous to plan for something similar.

[Berkut]

You see the same argument with the decision of Germany to focus on making fewer, but much more capable, armored vehicles. (For now I am ignoring the related issue of just making too damn many different vehicles, which was much more clearly a mistake).

On the one hand, it is easy to point out that they needed to build a LOT more tanks, and producing much fewer, but presumably much better tanks was foolish.

On the other hand...well, was there any chance that Germany could product enough tanks to compete with the USSR on a quantitative basis anyway? If they had focused on the basic PzIV instead of the Panther, or just didn't build any Tigers and used those resources to build another few thousand PzIVs? Would that have been better? Would being outnumbered 2:1 in equivalent vehicles be better than being outnumbered 3.5:1 but have much better vehicles?

I suspect maybe not - could 3 PzIV's have done a better job than the job 1 Tiger did, for example (assuming that is the trade off)? I don't really know, I do know that the threat of the Panthers and Tigers meant that they had an effect on battles they were not even in - the existence of them as weapons forced Allied commanders to account for them. And there are many examples where small numbers of these vehicles had incredible results (and of course plenty of examples where they just broke down and did nothing as well).

I don't think it is a simple answer. I suspect each combatant made decisions that aligned with their capabilities in some fashion, and I hesitate to conclude that their choices were wrong for their situations...even if the overall result was defeat.

[mongers]

Hindsight invariable wins in historical discussions; I suspect most of the leaders involved, perhaps with the exception of FDR, thought at various times during the conflict that it could go either way and overall was a much closer run affair, than the production statistics now suggest. 

[Razgovory]

The Panzer IV took longer to build then the Panthers and cost only slightly less.  The panthers were meant to have a more streamlined production.  It didn't work that well.

[grumbler]

I think you also have to realize that in the context of these decisions, they are being made by people (both in Germany and Japan) who have a completely fucked up set of priorities.

For Hitler, his position is that he would rather drag Germany into a war they will lose than accept that his vision of the future was not possible.

If you accept that basic premise (which of course is fucking crazy itself) then the following decisions make more sense.

Japan was in a similar place, but for different reasons. If you accept that you would prefer to get into a war you cannot win instead of backing down to US demands in regards to the ongoing war in China, then the plan they put into place was likely one of the best possible options.

Remember also that, in the case of Japan, they were faced with a time limit; when the two_ocean Navy Act started completing ships, the IJN would be rendered irrelevant, and the US could impose conditions on japan pretty much at will.  By 1944, Japan would have been in an impossible position, unless she was willing to give up her campaign in China (which she couldn't win, anyway, but that's another story).

Germany's timing for war was also limited by British re-armament.  The British knew in 1936 (and so did, presumably, the Germans) that 1939 was "the Year of Maximum Danger" for Britain.  The British and Germans grossly over-estimated the impact of bombing cities, but even in terms of non-airpower considerations, the Germans had a window to act in 1939 that they'd never see again.

It is rather ironic that the Germans considered that their U-boat campaign in WW1 was a failure, and so focused resources on surface raiders, while the British saw that campaign in exactly the opposite terms.  Britain came far closer to defeat in the battle of the Atlantic in WW1 than in WW2.

[Valmy]

Germany didn't have a chance. I am always amazed by how determined they fought on given that fact. I mean I understand why the leadership didn't give up. I understand that their families were threatened back home etc...

But the fact that things occured like the garrison at Saint-Nazaire holding out until Germany surrendered when they just could have given up at any time just boggles the mind. I can get why they might put up a token resistance than give it up, but it was clearly more than that they fought like hell killing tons of Western Soldiers...and for what? I mean I can get resisting the Soviets but holding up the Western advance with such ferocity seems rather counter-productive to saving Germany from Soviet reprisals. And far from saving their families it just meant more of Germany got bombed to hell.

Because they fought for their buddies, not Hitler's shiny Reich.  You can't give up because it fucks your buddy, your brother, whatever, who would otherwise have to face the forces you are tying down. The Germans at Stalingrad knew they were doomed, but knew that they were tying up forces that would otherwise have cut off Army Group A.

Ok so when the German soldiers started to refuse to fight and mutiny in World War I it was because they hated their buddies?  I thought it was they knew the war was lost and saw it was a pointless loss of their lives to keep fighting. Yet in WWII they threw away their lives pointlessly in huge numbers.