Worst misstakes on the eastern front

[g00dd0ggy]

Not sure if that is a response to my post or not.

My point really is that the Wehrmacht needed to bring the Red Army to battle in'42 - that means taking on its reserves. '42 was the last chance the Wehrmacht had to beat the Red army in the field, and in my view it was capable of doing it.

Obviously a direct drive on Moscow would have run into heavy resistance and I was not suggesting that should have been embarked upon. A drive to Voronezh, then wheeling North would have forced the Red army to battle in terrain suitable for mobile war and given the Wehrmacht a chance to defeat it. Driving into the endless Steppe played into Soviet hands.

Bear in mind that the Luftwaffe had pretty much complete air superiority and the fighting would have been in relatively open terrain. Given these circumstances I am struggling to think of an army in WW2 that did not enjoy success.

[Mist]

Originally posted by g00dd0ggy:
Not sure if that is a response to my post or not.

yep Doggy, it was responce to your post.

My point really is that the Wehrmacht needed to bring the Red Army to battle in'42 - that means taking on its reserves. '42 was the last chance the Wehrmacht had to beat the Red army in the field, and in my view it was capable of doing it.

Obviously a direct drive on Moscow would have run into heavy resistance and I was not suggesting that should have been embarked upon. A drive to Voronezh, then wheeling North would have forced the Red army to battle in terrain suitable for mobile war and given the Wehrmacht a chance to defeat it. Driving into the endless Steppe played into Soviet hands.

Bear in mind that the Luftwaffe had pretty much complete air superiority and the
fighting would have been in relatively open terrain. Given these circumstances I am struggling to think of an army in WW2 that did not enjoy success.

Moscow was not in such great value in campaign '42. No need to explain why. Hitler was going to successfully finish the war in 1942 and had no chances to do that later because of Western Allies threat. Capture of Moscow would not finish the war. Capture of oilfields of Caucasus would probably increase Germany chances.
And the last thing. Why do you think that German Army would be more successfull in turning north and fightning prepared foe than marching all the way to Stalingrad.

[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]

[Grisha]

Originally posted by SoleSurvivor:
I have a book "Der Zusammenbruch der Heeresgruppe Mitte im Osten 1944" by Rolf Hinze. ("The collapse of Army Group Center in the east 1944") Motor Buch Verlag ISBN 3-87943-681-9 4th Edition 1994 which covers the entire period in great detail. Yes they made some mistakes but I don't see a real chance to prevent either losing all power to resist for the next soviet attack which would have been a matter of weeks or breaking down. The book has extensive information on both side's oob, number of artiellery pieces etc. I don't know how reliable these numbers were but soviet power is overwhelming here.

Very true, Soviet numerical superiority was very high against AGC. But, when you consider that the Soviets had an overall numerical superiority of maybe 2.5:1 by summer 1944, then one realizes that there was no such thing as overwhelming Soviet odds spanning the entire front. And when you consider German qualitative superiority, then even a purely numerical Soviet superiority of 3:1 is more likely an actual 2:1 odds for combat purposes - poor odds for an attacker. Thus, the only way the Soviets could attain the odds they needed to be successful, was to find a means of redeploying their troops w/o German detection. Their answer was in the development of deception and camoflauge, known collectively in Russian as maskirovka. Maskirovka had been successfully incorporated into Soviet operational art by mid-1943, though their first real successes in it were during operation Uran. By 1944, the use of Maskirovka matured to a strategic scale, whereby entire portions of the front undertook deception operations of great detail to mislead and confuse German operational intelligence. By the summer of 1944, the Soviets had 'set the table' with their winter/spring operations by giving the impression that they were primarily committed to an offensive in the Ukraine. German intelligence was so convinced of this that most of the panzer assets were redeployed, or left, down south, leaving AGC with few panzer reserves. Then, in summer 1944, the Soviet began with operations in the Baltic region while at the same time commencing false operations elsewhere. The German response was confused, but some panzers assets were redeployed north. Then the massive Belorussian campaign commenced, taking the Germans totally by surprise. More panzer assets were taken from the Ukraine to aid in the defense of the Minsk area, though they were too late to do much good. Finally, the Soviets launched their Ukrainian campaign(Lvov-Sandomeirz), which had equal success, since most of the panzer reserves had already been sent up north.

Thus, by clandestine movements at night(or under thick smoke in daylight) coupled with simulations of false deployments elsewhere, the Soviets were consistantly able to deceive German operational intelligence as to their intentions. The mistake was that German operational intelligence was rarely(edited) able to detect the scale of these movements, or if a Soviet deployment was for real or false.

[ July 22, 2001: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Ranger-75]

The grestest mistake which made all the lesser ones after it possible, was Hitler's decision to divert AGC away from Moscow to go north and south on the late summer 1941. Franz Halder called this "the grestest strategic blunder of the entire eastern campaign". I'm still not sure that Germany could have prevailed in 1941 if Hitler had not inteferred, the large hanging flank on AGCs south for instance and the fact that Stalin was not going to surrender come hell or high water, but after this, which delayed the advance on Moscow for over 2 months, there was no winning the campaign.

[loveman]

one of the biggest mistakes made by the german army was this.

wheb manstien launched his counter attack and retook kharkov at the end of the winter period in 1943 he formed the southern edge of the kursk bulge. he wanted to keep going as the russians had little reserves in this area. he wanted army group centre to attack with 2nd army. against 2nd army was virtually nothing . if this attack took place along with manstiens drive he could have rolled up the entirs russian centre from the south.
the russians would have had to withdraw its front line back due th manstiens panzers in their rear .
who knows what would have happened then.

[g00dd0ggy]

Loveman,

I assume that one is a joke? Manstein did want to do this, but AGC could not help with the attack, so it was impossible to proceed.

Mist,

I guess my premise can be summarised as follows:

1) In summer 1942 the Germans were still strong and had total air superiority. The Soviets were still training/refitting. In any open-ish battle the Germans were likely to emerge victorious;
2) To defeat the Red Army, or at least to retain the strategic initiative, the Wehrmacht needed to bring the Red Army to battle in summer 1942;
3) An attack directly on the field fortifications in front of Moscow would have been very bloody. Therefore the Wehrmacht needed to attack on a sector that the Soviets would have to defend but that lent itself to mobile warfare.
4) An attack to Voronezh, that then moved North East would have forced the Red Army to battle. There could have been no 300-400 mile retreat as there was into the Volga bend. While the Moscow defences were concentric, the area South/South East of Moscow was suited to mobile operations.

I take your point about this not finishing the war - that I think is a good point. Hitler was constantly looking for the knockout blow (eg Battle of the Bulge). But my own view is that holding the Volga bend (the objective of Fall Blau) would equally never knock the Russians out of the war - and, critically, it had to be held! With a front line thousands of miles long, and having failed to bring the Red Army to battle, that was never realistic. Even if the 6th Army had not been stuck in Stalingrad I do not think that Rumanian 3rd/4th and Italian 8th Armies could ever have resisted the Soviet winter offensive, and they were all that was available to hold that flank.

[Jo van der Pluym]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:
Yep there are a lot of them. I would rank the worst five like this based on strategic importance and outcome of the conflict.

I have see you list, but I think that you have forget the biggest of the mistakes. Namely: Operation Barbarrosa. The Invasion of the USSR.

[Rundstedt]

I just want to say that many people seem to misunderstand or overlook the importance of the huge amounts of men and equipment the Red Army lost during the initial stages of "Operation Barbarossa". People say that it was pure incompetence which led to those losses, but one has to remember that these Soviet losses contributed to slow the German advance towards Moscow. Even if the Red Army units brought forward to defend against the Germans in 1941 were poorly equipped and extremely inexperienced, they still managed to clog the roads behind the advancing Panzer Divisions when they surrendered. So, without firing a single shot they, in a way, managed to check the German advance.

Sure, the Red Army conducted the defense in a disasterous manner, but it managed to protect the main objective, Moscow.

Regards, Rundstedt

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Rundstedt:
I just want to say that many people seem to misunderstand or overlook the importance of the huge amounts of men and equipment the Red Army lost during the initial stages of "Operation Barbarossa". People say that it was pure incompetence which led to those losses, but one has to remember that these Soviet losses contributed to slow the German advance towards Moscow. Even if the Red Army units brought forward to defend against the Germans in 1941 were poorly equipped and extremely inexperienced, they still managed to clog the roads behind the advancing Panzer Divisions when they surrendered. So, without firing a single shot they, in a way, managed to check the German advance.

Sure, the Red Army conducted the defense in a disasterous manner, but it managed to protect the main objective, Moscow.

Who says prisoners are going to use the roads in the first place? Make'em walk beside the roads to not interfere with supply distribution. What really checked the German advance was Hitler's meddling with the original plan, mud, blizzard, and Zhukov with roughly 100 mostly fresh (but many understrength and equipment-poor) Soviet divisions in the Moscow area, including the ones from Siberia, that he used in his counterattack.

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]

[Rundstedt]

Well, I only said the mass of captured Soviet personnel somewhat restricted the German advance during the first months of "Operation Barbarossa". The Soviet High Command sent several ill-equipped and poorly trained divisions against the German juggernaught, in desperation, in order to slow the enemy's offensive into Russia. Even if the Red Army troops offered little effective resistance, the Germans still had to spend valuable time surrounding and neutralize Red Army formations before they could move on safely. Some people have argued wether Stavka did this on purpose to slow the German advance or if it was plain incompetence, but the result remains the same. Therefore I claim that this was one of the factors involved in stopping the Germans outside of Moscow later in 1941.

But this is merely my humble opinion, if I'm allowed to have one!!

Regards, Rundstedt

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Rundstedt:
Therefore I claim that this was one of the factors involved in stopping the Germans outside of Moscow later in 1941.

Ok, one of a dozen factors.

But this is merely my humble opinion, if I'm allowed to have one!!

Whoever said you couldn't have your own opinion here? Anyone who has taken a peek into the ArtWar forum knows opinions, good, bad, and/or controversial, or maybe especially if they are controversial, are allowed here.

[RSmith55]

. German unpreparness of russian winter. Could have costed the wehrmacht deerly but Stalins failure to concentrate his counteroffensive saved him

Well that is not quite accurate as the Germans were not per se unprepared for winter. Read the Chapter on Barbarossa in Supplying War : Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton Martin L. van Creveld.

[RSmith55]

I have see you list, but I think that you have forget the biggest of the mistakes. Namely: Operation Barbarrosa. The Invasion of the USSR.

Nope - simply had to invade the Soviet Union. Hitler was in a strategic dead end that becasue of the incompatibility of the two systems, he had to invade, particuarly with the UK still being in the war.

[Mist]

Originally posted by RSmith:
. German unpreparness of russian winter. Could have costed the wehrmacht deerly but Stalins failure to concentrate his counteroffensive saved him

Well that is not quite accurate as the Germans were not per se unprepared for winter. Read the Chapter on Barbarossa in Supplying War : Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton Martin L. van Creveld.

Hi RSmith! I am currious about the reference you have just gave. Is there any information about amount of supplies needed by infantry/panzer division during various kind of operations like defensive, offensive or simply movement. I would greatly appreciate such information. Thanx in advance!

[BrickReid]

I would guess that all of the dead German troops that died from hypothermia might disagree with the idea that Germany was prepared for the winter. I would also say you must consider the preparedness of the equipment for extreme winter operations. German vehicles were gas operated, not diesel operated, making them more susceptable to weather. Further, fluids used by those vehicles (e.g. transmission fluid and hydraulic fluids) were not rated for the extreme cold of Russian winters. Next you would have to look at design of German Panzers, that used narrow tracks - totally unsuitable for the muddy conditions of the fall/early winter and deep snow of the deep winter. Next, German aircraft were mostly not designed for rough airfield terrain available to a rapidly advancing army. When you consider the tactical nature of their design (short ranged fighters) you have a severe disadvantage of time on station that a fighter maintain providing CAP for ground troops. The biggest mistake was that the German army was not designed to fight in the conditions of the Eastern Front.

The other Biggy for me was the meddling of Hitler into military operations. Aside from the original plan/order to invade, Hitler was the Russians greatest ally.

Lastly was Hitlers refusal to allow the war to change from a war of occupying space to one of destroying the enemy. If Manstein and many other German generals had had their way and were given freedom of mobility with an order to destroy the enemy, the war may have lasted just as long but the outcome would have been Russian children fighting and dieing instead of German children at the end of the war.

We mustn't forget the Western front failures as well. Germany's waste of large numbers of veteran pilots of Britain in their failed operation Sea Lion contributed to the eventual collapse of the Luftwaffe as an effective fighting force. Failure to stop the landings at Normandy, Failure to stop the Allied bombing campaigns, Failure to secure a supply line to North Africa that sent so many dearly needed supplies to the bottom of the Mediteranian.

If you take a random handful of any of the above events and changed them to Germany's favor, the war may well have turned out differently.

Of course, this is all just my NotSoHumbleOpinion :p

[Ranger-75]

So I guess the biggest mistake was allowing Hitler to stay alive after 1940. There were several planned coups, but the plotters never had the b@lls to carry them out until it was far too late.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Originally posted by Mike Santos:
So I guess the biggest mistake was allowing Hitler to stay alive after 1940. There were several planned coups, but the plotters never had the b@lls to carry them out until it was far too late.

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Hu ? No, that isn´t true... the sad true was, this bastard wasn´t to die untill 1945 from his own hand... they tried, over 100 times. In 1942 (0r 43?) they took a time-bomb in his plane, but it didn´t explode, they tried to kill hitler and himmler more than a dozen times, but everytime, something prevented the kill... it´s so frustrating