Ode to Pavlov

[m39 white death]

The following radio intercept was received by German forces on June 22 following the destruction of a Soviet HQ:

"Oh Pavlov, your name is like harmony in my ears, how brave and utterly incompetent you were, oh flower of Russian manhood! The maidens will forever sing of your courage and stupidity, and youths will lay up at night dreaming of your hapless feats of arms! Dogs will no longer drool at the sound of bells, oh knight of the Motherland!"

[Endsieg]

hey chief...what moved you to post this?, quite tragic indeed....which Sov HQ sent this ? ...Sov West Front was commanded by Popov, i think....didnt he get flown out and executed?....operation barbarossa was the biggest mistake in the history of the german nation...45 years of an unnecessary and undeserved Sov superpower was the result....if only the prussian officer corps had done its duty and arrested/executed the entire band of nazi charlatans circa 1937!

[hakan]

Gah... Endsieg. As a true democrat I respect your answer, but what history books have you been reading?

With the experience from WWI, in combination with the information about the standard of the Soviet army (after the miserable attack against Karelia), it seems very logic to attack them '41. And after all, the higher goal was never to occupy Western Europe, but to defeat the Communists.

Nice forum, by the way!

//Håkan

[m39 white death]

From a strategic sense, attacking the Soviet Union was utter stupidity. 20th century warfare has always been won by countries with the strongest GDP. I'm not talking about guerrilla wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Morrocco, or French Indochina, which are not true wars to begin with. Starting with the American Civil War and culminating in WWII, the powers that can mobilize their larger economies always win.

Hitler had always desired "living space," and looked eastward from the very beginning. This is set forth in Mein Kampf. Hitler's generals didn't want to go to war with the Soviet Union; they were ordered to prepare a plan and execute it. Hitler became convinced of his own infallibility and that of the Wehrmact, which proved tragic to both on the Russian Steppe. To suggest that attacking the Soviet Union in '41 is logical fails to recognize the economic realities of warfare, the opening of a third front (when Hitler condemned the Germans for opening a second front in WWI), the failure of the Luftwaffe to win the Battle of Britain, and Hitler's obsessive/compulsive personality that believed that sheer will could shape reality (see "The Triumph of the Will").

I havn't even talked about US involvement; the Soviet Union won the war in the East by themselves. Yeah, the American sent a lot of stuff as did the Brits, but I don't believe they were decisive. The Germans were stopped at the gates of Moscow entirely by the Red Army, and by doing so guaranteed a war of attrition, which the Germans could not hope to win. But we all know this....where is Pavlov when you need him?

[Endsieg]

hey M39,
excellent bloody post!....but pray tell us lesser literary lights where are you coming from constantly harping on Pavlov?....does it rhyme with Chekhov?

As we all know from WIR, the Reich cud have/shud have won operation Barbarossa....they wasted immense time Aug-Sep '41 in the center while cleaning up the flanks....yeah...greatest Cannae in history behind the Dnepr bend in Sep....but was it worth it?, operationally necessary? AG North was both too large yet too small for its job....take out Lgrad by Sep 41, maybe this failure was decisive....OR was the 2 month pause in the center inevitable?, AG Center incapable/exhausted by July 31?....in WIR the Axis player usually "wins" the game in the late August moves/plots....why didnt the real Axis?....Hitler and his generals began arguing abt what to do late July...anyway, what does it matter?...was better for all humanity that Axis didnt win, right??

[m39 white death]

The Pavlov thing is just for fun. I've got a game going with Forward March and he killed Pavlov on the first turn. So, to make my first couple replies as the Russian player more humorous than "ran away", "ran away some more", "still running away", I started the Pavlov thing. Truly, he will pay for the death of Pavlov, that beacon of Marxism that will forever spur the proletariat towards action against their bourgeois suppressors!

But back to the real war...to understand why the Germans attacked Russia, in spite of all the overwhelming reasons not to, you have to understand Hitler. I read a good book called "Soldat", which is an autobiography of a young German staff officer written some time after the war. In it, he mentions how his friends' father, speaking about Hitler in the prewar period, called Hitler a "gambler" that would get Germany in trouble some day. Once one man can hijack a country, and then that man becomes convinced of his own infallibility, it usually spells disaster. I think what made Hitler different from other dictators like Stalin, Franco, etc. is that they knew when to stop. That is, they never bit off more than they could chew. They recognized risk and knew when to stop...Hitler always thought his own sheer will could transform reality, and in his early career it did. So, the numbers never really mattered to Hitler, and in modern warfare its all about the numbers.

[Brutus]

In this time, all major nations understimated the Soviets. The western allies wanted to attack the soviet oil fields in the Caucasus in summer 1940 from their bases in Syria and Iraq. The only reason they did not was that they lost the battle of France so suprisingly fast.

It sounds crazy, but maybe Stalin would have entered the war on German side if France would not have fallen in 1940.


I don't want to say Hitlers attack wasn't a mistake, but you can't blame Hitler for his Barbarossa without to mention that the allied staffs of this time were even more braindead than he was

[JagdFlanker]

stalin's plan was to let the other's fight themselves to oblivion, then clean up the remains of both sides. in the meantime stalin wanted to 'clean up' the USSR and get it's industry (and military) up more towards western levels. after france was taken so easily stalin still thought it would take at least a few years for germany to finish the allies, which is why when he was told the germans had invaded he couldn't believe it and did not order his troops to defend for many hours after the fact.

even though had i been there when the go-ahead for barbarossa was given i would have thought hitler was some sorta mental case and was gonna get us all killed, in the end all the reasons hitler should not have invaded the USSR were balanced out by the red army's complete unpreparedness to handle the situation.

but believe me hitler was a complete moron, and when it came to the way he conducted the entire eastern front he was a control freak who controlled every movement of every unit on the front without having even the slightest clue about what the actual situation was. any idiot can do some things right sometimes and that's no different for hitler, but in the long run he tried to play the war like a game from his bunker and completly ignored all the brilliant leadership around him, sacking them if they didn't do exactly as he had asked. how stubborn was hitler? most of hitler's ministers (himmler, goering, etc)managed to keep their posts from the beginning of nazi power right to the end, even though many were incompetant (goering). their secret? if you just went up to ze fuhrer with an idea, it would ALWAYS be rejected out right, because hitler didn't think of it himself! but they all knew how to manipulate hitler to do what they wanted by making hitler THINK it was his own idea! basically starting the conversation with the problem, and 'twisting' the conversation to give hitler the info to come up with the same answer that you already have! what a retarded bonehead...

in my opinion there is only 1 major turning point in the war - hiltler's order of no retreat EVER. had the generals in control of the tactical situation been able to manouver their forces in defence they may have been able to deal more punishing blows earlier in the campaign and eventually bled the red army with much less casualties than they took (look at rommel's brilliant tactics in afrika - attack, pretend to retreat, then suck the chasing brit tanks into range of prepared 88 positions). by the end of the war stalin was starting to run out of men, so perhaps had the german army been more flexable tactically the front line would have been more fluid, and we know in a run and gun situation the germans are going to kick some reds around much more often then the other way around! there likely would have been a lot more Karkhov 1943 situations earlier!

[m39 white death]

I don't think Hitler's mismanagement of the war was fatal per se. Sure, he made a lot of mistakes, but I think the Germans would have lost no matter who was in charge. There was just too many Russians and too many T-34's.

Something the game doesn't model well is the ability of the Russians to fight defensively, even in fall of '41. The designers took away some of the benefits of entrenchments and in so doing ensured that it is just about impossible to hold Moscow in '41. Forget about Leningrad. I think the benefit of entrenchements should be put back in.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Brutus

It sounds crazy, but maybe Stalin would have entered the war on German side if France would not have fallen in 1940.

Sorry, a bit late coming in on this thread as I have been away. Point is that Stalin did enter the war on the German side. The war began with the invasion of Poland by both countries operating as allies in a co-ordinated attack. 6 countries were attacked in 1939/early 1940 - Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Romania - Russia was the agressor in all cases (Germany only in Poland). The European democracies were faced with two rampaging dictatorships, with Italy and possibily Spain waiting their turn. If Hitler had not been stupid, the Western allies may have ended up at war with all of them. The Western allies tried to send troops to Finland to fight against Russia, but Sweden would not give transit permission, Lucky escape for them.