Lets talk about the Eastern Front in WWII. While being pushed back the Axis powers frequently counter attacked. was this a mistake? other than Stalingrad and Kursk what battles were important to the outcome of the war? In hindsight what could the Germans have done to win or cause a stalemate?
Lets talk about the Eastern Front in WWII. While being pushed back the Axis powers frequently counter attacked...
Asher Jones
Nathan Allen
Moscow
Rzhev
Arguably Sevastopol and the Crimea campaign
The 44 and 45 campaigns were mostly just ending the already decided war.
Jacob Morris
Counter attacks are pretty much a necessity when the enemy has over stretched themselves
Christian Moore
Fair enough but many were pyrrhic and weakened the overall effort
Levi Price
Can you go into these more?
Jonathan Miller
Holding the breadbasket for as long as possible might be the only way, the Soviet Union was holding off starvation virtually the entire time (the average person's weight in Moscow dropped 15lbs) and they saw a massive famine in late '45. It could seriously jeopardize their war effort and giving the Germans an upper hand, West Front is still totally fucked but its not unbelievable that the Eastern Front could be won.
Joseph Price
Also if the 6th army had fought to escape encirclement, would the Axis have a better chance?
Cameron Evans
I think the western front may have allowed terms of a ceasefire if the axis had defeated the soviets. But that makes sense, it really makes you realize how important lend lease was.
Kayden Lewis
Moscow is when the initial German advance failed. It is where the German army ran out of strength and was forced to withdrawal and regroup. They would never field a comparable army.
Rzhev was a constant grind that crewed up entire armies of both side for not much change. Ultimately it favored the Soviets despite the fact they fucked up massively and lost far more men.
Juan Roberts
>Rzhev
literally have never heard of this, but it sounds insane. How could they have done Moscow differently?
Aiden Ward
Avoid meatgrinders like stalingrad
Adam Lewis
The Soviets stopped allowing black and grey market produce in mid-45 in order to regain state control of the food system, which lowered their internal food production. In addition the US and UK food shipments fell off dramatically.
If the war continued nether would have happened and the Soviets would have been able to weather the effects of the drought.
Easton Adams
Honestly, even before they launched the operation to take Moscow. Like, before they got even to Kiev the war was decided.
Super well sourced post
np.reddit.com
Charles Parker
>he browses reddit
Kill yourself my man
Josiah Wright
If this India Pakistan thing kicks off I'd say were one step closer to death sweet embrace
Andrew Gray
I'm not sure Stalingrad was a mistake although I believe the way they tried to take it was.
Jonathan White
>Moscow
Pray?
The entire Barbarossa campaign was founded on inactuate intelligence estimates that underestimated Soviet strength by almost a million men. Only the terrible readiness of the Red Army and a series of inexplicable massive fuckups saved Barbarossa from turning into a total disaster. The Germans did as well as anyone could possibly expect, and it was not good enough.
Luis Carter
>I think the western front may have allowed terms of a ceasefire if the axis had defeated the soviets.
The USAAC would end up dropping nukes over Germany when they became available, though they probably wouldn't of needed it considering they and Bomber Command were turning cities into parking lots on the regular through late 44/ early 45. Collapsed Soviet front wouldn't have even helped much, they were fighting pretty much the entire Luftwaffe fighter force at that times anyways.
>The Soviets stopped allowing black and grey market produce in mid-45 in order to regain state control of the food system, which lowered their internal food production.
Possibly, but I wish I knew more. I actually did some research on their food supplies, the chaotic state of the system and separate Army/Civilian supply networks makes everything pretty confusing.
Kayden Adams
reading this now but i tend to not trust historians on anything speclative.
Carter Parker
Stalingrad was a massive mistake man, shitty romanians were covering the flanks and let the germans get encircled but besides that the city probably didn't absolutely need to be taken and if it did then yes bombing it to shit was a big mistake as well
With lend lease going on the eastern front was doomed from the beginning americans really did save the war. Inb4 butthurt vatniks
Jackson Campbell
The Taste of War is a good overview of wartime food supply systems, particularly it shows hows international the Allied system was.
Don't know any good sources on the Soviet food system in particular.
Mason Russell
>Don't know any good sources on the Soviet food system in particular.
I read the Bread of Affliction, it was pretty informative but there are so many holes in the Soviet supply system that its not something thats easy to follow. Its easier to see who isn't receiving food than it is to find who is and what they were getting. If there's something to take away from it, its that people needed the peasant markets and the subsidiary farms. There's probably something to the idea that they might've been able to whether the storm a bit, but I couldn't say anything definitive.
Jaxson Hill
Well it would take them a year to have it operational, the allies seeing the defeat of the soviets and a surge of forces to the western front may have come to a political agreement. they were in a favorable position but they still had the pacific and the European theatre fighting against them.
Ryder Martin
>terrible readiness of the Red Army and a series of inexplicable massive fuckups
I wouldn't say it was inexplicable, they weren't prepared and were not as professional. That is one reason I do not believe it was doomed from the start.
Blake Mitchell
The problem with that line of thinking is that the Allies got burned on every agreement they entered with Germany and they've got a serious advantage in the air and are confident they can bring Germany to its knees by strategic bombing. Germany pulled literally all of the gear they thought could help against the bomber raids, even the stuff that was far to immature to be of any use, they got nothing out of it save for giving the Allies some ideas for stuff they could try out after the war.
Nicholas Powell
I think they should have gone pincer first, taking Stalingrad/Caucasus oil and supplies + Leningrad. And then go for Moscow.
But I guess the Germans got blindsided by their blitzkrieg victories, which actually works well in Western Europe where there's infrastructure to support your quick advance.
They wanted to end the war as fast as possible by taking Moscow, but they should have leaned from Napoleon that Russians don't give up that easily.
Levi Cox
another question, what could the axis have done differently with logistics trains?
Nathan Turner
Counter attacking was standard German doctrine at the time.
Jaxon Turner
>The USAAC would end up dropping nukes over Germany
And if the Germans had defeated the Soviets, they could have used it's resources to build their nukes.
If it weren't because of Norwegian resistance, they would have gotten nukes much sooner then we did: en.wikipedia.org
Connor Perez
Which agreements? (genuinely do not know), I would counter however that the German industry actually grew during the time of the bombings and that not needing the Luftwaffe on the eastern front could have hurt allied air power. I'm trying to put myself in the mind of the allies and even near the end it wouldn't appear certain.
Dylan Morgan
The German nuclear program was basically useless for weapon production, they needed high quality uranium ore, which might as well have been unicorn horns for them.
Oliver Wright
Not sacrificing hundreds of thousands of troops in pointless fight to the death no retreat scenarios would have been a good start. But small mustash guy wouldn't take no for an answer.
John Garcia
I know, was it a mistake?
Colton Sanders
This. Also not alienating the occupied peoples senselessly would've helped. Portraying yourself as liberator from communism without burning down villages left and right might've led the USSR to collapse into civil war, tons of people hated the communists. But that didn't happen, because it turned into a war for survival for the Russians.
Dominic Nelson
>While being pushed back the Axis powers frequently counter attacked
you need to counter-attack to regain the initiative
the attacker is usually the one who can dictate where and when the fights take place and this is important
>other than Stalingrad and Kursk what battles were important to the outcome of the war?
battle of moscow, which stopped the german advance
case blue, whiere the germans tried and failed to take caucasus oil fields
operation bagration, major proof of concept of deep battle doctrine, inflicted some of the largest german defeats in history, and put soviet troops on the vistula river
vistula-oder offensive, where the russians manage to capture poland and begin the invasion of germany proper
battle of berlin, the final battle of the european theatre
>In hindsight what could the Germans have done to win or cause a stalemate?
they were more or less doomed in the late 30s when they decided that they had to invade the soviet union in the first place
unless there was a major change in the policy making process and the people involved, there was no way they could ever successfully invade the soviet union
there would be so much shuffling of people at the grand strategy and political levels that we wouldnt even be talking about nazis or a world war of any kind at this point
Xavier Reed
>Which agreements? (genuinely do not know)
Munich was the big one.
>German industry actually grew during the time of the bombings and that not needing the Luftwaffe on the eastern front could have hurt allied air power.
It grew at a much slower rate than they were planning for and it had loads of effects on loads of kinds of equipment. Aviation engines were seriously hurt by them, the latest piston driven aircraft had to make use of boost systems that cut their service lives short just to make them competitive. Production was sustained and some areas increased, but corners were cut and desperate measures were taken.
Logan Torres
>It grew at a much slower rate than they were planning for and it had loads of effects on loads of kinds of equipment
the reason german industry grew at the height of the bombing raids was because they had just finished building factories that they started a few years ago, resulting in a huge boost to their production even though the factories themselves were getting blown up
its a case of "lying statistics" where simply reading the timeline of events without considering context leads to the mistaken conclusion that the bombs were somehow making germans more productive
because germans could triple production just by having 3 shifts a day, and if your bombs only cut production by a third, then it seems like your bombs had no effect because production increased anyways
you need to consider a hypothethical world where the germans continued building factories but werent bombed
here is a list of problems the germans had that were caused or exacerbated by bombs
>panther spare parts production reduced to bombing
>maybach engine production bottlenecked due to bombing
>type XXI U-boat never sees useful service due to constant interupputions
>massive shift to single-engine fighters and twin-engined bomber hunters rather than strike aircraft to counter allies
>railway and roads constantly delayed due to bombs
>molybdenuym mine in norway destroyed, forcing substitution of silicon
>de-housing caused less effective labor
Matthew Miller
But this would ruin the entire point of war.
Brody White
>the reason german industry grew at the height of the bombing raids was because they had just finished building factories that they started a few years ago
I know, I really could've phrased that better.
>you need to consider a hypothethical world where the germans continued building factories but werent bombed
The problem is that there's really no way to stop them in the long term, the Allies advantages in electronic warfare, pilot training, and aircraft production really aren't things they could overcome.
Leo Allen
Yes. So you could say defeat was inevitable. If you turn literally everybody into your enemy you'll have a bad time.
Elijah Gray
Only when you can't kill the enemy fast enough. Literally that was the only worth a shit trait the soviets had. Lest we forget the 13:1 k/d ratio the Germans had initially against the soviets, only to be reduced to a still impressive 3:1 or 4:1.
Just couldn't kill them commie rats fast enough.
Jack Nelson
Posting some Eastern front photos.
Leo Cox
Jaxon Gomez
Liam Carter
Oliver Hughes
Aaron Anderson
Connor Jackson
Thomas Mitchell
Adam Foster
Evan Hill
Adrian Foster
Daniel Torres
>The USAAC would end up dropping nukes over Germany when they became available
that imply they would have air superiority over Germany which is far from sure if the German beat the Russian
if the allied refused to help the Russian on the basis of ideology, Germany could have won in the east
then there's pretty much zero chance for d-day and the war would probably end up there wit ha cold war between the US/UK and Germany
Charles Thomas
Connor Torres
Carson Collins
Jack Cruz
Mason Hill
Ryan Jackson
Adam Edwards
>the Axis powers frequently counter attacked. was this a mistake?
Attack is the best form of defense, keeping the Soviet on their feet was the best thing the axis did.
Matthew Diaz
Hudson Foster
The encirclement tied up tons of Soviet troops. If the 6th army escaped those would be available for use. It wouldn't have much long term strategic significance.
Thomas Rivera
Brandon Barnes
Zachary Morales
retard
Tyler Allen
Asher Nguyen
Josiah Hughes
Mason Garcia
John Hernandez
Jonathan Powell
Wyatt Carter
Angel Cruz
They (Goering) shouldn't have lost almost 1/3 of the luftwaffe's logistical capacity at Crete.
Those Ju-52s were too precious. Stalingrad could have been different with those planes.
I actually did a detailed study and report back in college on this. I spent considerable time translating and researching eastern front flight records. I'll look for the report tomorrow, I might still have it.
John Campbell
please post if you do
Leo Sanders
>And if the Germans had defeated the Soviets, they could have used it's resources to build their nukes.
how, its not like beating Russia give them 50% extra research speed or something. America dropped their first Nuke in 1945, bit the Germans had pretty much dropped the possibility of using Nukes as weapons, even the Wikipedia article you linked says that the hydro wouldn't have even been able to supply a reactor.
Oliver Green
wait, how did they lose 1/3 of their ju-52s over crete, I know that the landings were more or less a fiasco but that seems like a ridiculous amount,
Kayden Bennett
>Stalingrad could have been different with those planes.
it would have let them hold out longer, but all winter sounds implausible
especially since soviet ground assaults eventually damaged or destroyed the airstrips any ways