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Message
75th Anniversary of Operation Barbarossa
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:25 am
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:25 am
June 22, 1941
LINK
German Mark III. No Tigers or Panthers here. Mark II's, III's, and short barreled Mark IV's were the standard German armor during Barbarossa. These proved sufficient in the early months of the campaign but the Germans were in for a very rude awakening as they began encountering T-34's deeper into the Soviet hinterlands which completely outclassed these German platforms.
Soviet KV-1 tank. One of the few Soviet tanks that gave the Germans serious difficulty during Barbarossa. Unfortunately for the Soviets, they were in limited supply and alone could not stop the massive German envelopments.
Example of the mass prisoner captures that resulted from German encirclements.
The elation of victory was short lived. Though the changing fortunes began to be readily apparent by November, on December 5th, the true reality of the failure to defeat the Soviets with one massive blow became undeniable when the Soviets counterattacked the overextended, exhausted, and freezing German troops at the front.
I'm at work on a slow arse internet connection, so that's the best I got. cue Darth for the detailed graphics.
quote:
Although Adolf Hitler had congratulated himself on the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 as a matter of expediency, anti-Bolshevism had remained his most profound emotional conviction as World War II entered its second year. Following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in June 1940, which put Soviet forces in proximity to the Romanian oil fields on which Germany depended, Hitler’s long-standing interest in overthrowing the Soviet regime was heightened. He became acutely suspicious of the intentions of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, and he began to feel that he could not afford to wait to complete the subjugation of western Europe, as he had originally planned, before dealing with the Soviet Union. Hitler and his generals had originally scheduled the invasion of the U.S.S.R. for mid-May 1941, but the unforeseen necessity of invading Yugoslavia and Greece in April of that year forced them to postpone the Soviet campaign to late June. The swiftness of Hitler’s Balkan victories enabled him to keep to this revised timetable, but the five weeks’ delay shortened the time for carrying out the invasion of the U.S.S.R. and was to prove the more serious because in 1941 the Russian winter would arrive earlier than usual. Nevertheless, Hitler and the heads of the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, or German Army High Command)—namely, the army commander in chief, Walther von Brauchitsch, and the army general staff chief, Franz Halder—were convinced that the Red Army could be defeated in two or three months and that by the end of October the Germans would have conquered the whole European part of Russia and Ukraine west of a line stretching from Arkhangelsk (Archangel) to Astrakhan. The invasion of the Soviet Union was originally given the code name Operation Fritz, but as preparations began, Hitler renamed it Operation Barbarossa, after Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa (reigned 1152–90), who sought to establish German predominance in Europe. For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about three million men. Among those units were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the Barbarossa force had about 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. The Germans’ strength was further increased by more than 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops. The Soviet Union had twice or perhaps three times the number of both tanks and aircraft as the Germans had, but their aircraft were mostly obsolete. The Soviet tanks were about equal to those of the Germans, however. A greater hindrance to Hitler’s chances of victory was that the German intelligence service underestimated the troop reserves that Stalin could bring up from the depths of the U.S.S.R. The Germans correctly estimated that there were about 150 divisions in the western parts of the U.S.S.R. and reckoned that 50 more might be produced. But the Soviets actually brought up more than 200 fresh divisions by the middle of August, making a total of 360. The consequence was that, though the Germans succeeded in shattering the original Soviet armies by superior technique, they then found their path blocked by fresh ones. The effects of the miscalculations were increased because much of August was wasted while Hitler and his advisers were having long arguments as to what course they should follow after their initial victories. Another factor in the Germans’ calculations was purely political, though no less mistaken; they believed that within three to six months of their invasion, the Soviet regime would collapse from lack of domestic support.
LINK
German Mark III. No Tigers or Panthers here. Mark II's, III's, and short barreled Mark IV's were the standard German armor during Barbarossa. These proved sufficient in the early months of the campaign but the Germans were in for a very rude awakening as they began encountering T-34's deeper into the Soviet hinterlands which completely outclassed these German platforms.
Soviet KV-1 tank. One of the few Soviet tanks that gave the Germans serious difficulty during Barbarossa. Unfortunately for the Soviets, they were in limited supply and alone could not stop the massive German envelopments.
Example of the mass prisoner captures that resulted from German encirclements.
The elation of victory was short lived. Though the changing fortunes began to be readily apparent by November, on December 5th, the true reality of the failure to defeat the Soviets with one massive blow became undeniable when the Soviets counterattacked the overextended, exhausted, and freezing German troops at the front.
I'm at work on a slow arse internet connection, so that's the best I got. cue Darth for the detailed graphics.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:27 am to ChewyDante
quote:Potentially Hitler's biggest mistake
Operation Barbarossa
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:30 am to ChewyDante
My favorite pictures from the German invasion of the USSR:
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:32 am to ChewyDante
Perhaps the best military ever. Russian winters did them in though.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:33 am to ChewyDante
quote:
75th Anniversary of Operation Barbarossa
Germans.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:33 am to ChewyDante
Great lecture here, about 90 minutes. Gets deeper than the typical History Channel stuff. LINK
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:35 am to ChewyDante
beginning of the end for hitler
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:35 am to ChewyDante
That was a good synopsis. Thx for the post.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:41 am to ForeverLSU02
quote:
Potentially Hitler's biggest mistake
People always say this as if Hitler chose this decision out of a multitude of options. Striking east was a core Nazi principle from the beginning. It was in Mein Kampf. It wouldn't have been Nazism and he wouldn't have been Hitler without Barbarossa. We can argue about whether he should have struck at some other time, and about operational decisions within Barbarossa, but attacking the Soviet Union in some manner was a foregone conclusion. Every other military decision from 1939 on, from Poland to the attack on the West, was made in order to prepare for and support the move East.
This post was edited on 6/22/16 at 11:46 am
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:50 am to ForeverLSU02
I would say more so the timing was the biggest mistake, a few weeks earlier and Barbarossa and Typhoon would have succeeded. Also getting bogged down in Stalingrad over ideological reasons vs military ones was another costly mistake. Make no mistake about it, the Germans were crushing the Russians every step of the way.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 11:57 am to WalkingTurtles
quote:
I would say more so the timing was the biggest mistake, a few weeks earlier and Barbarossa and Typhoon would have succeeded. Also getting bogged down in Stalingrad over ideological reasons vs military ones was another costly mistake. Make no mistake about it, the Germans were crushing the Russians every step of the way.
I think the only way it would have succeeded was if they had taken the Caucasus oil fields and cut off the northern convoys, either through U-Boat action or by taking Murmansk-And they never took Leningrad, so Murmansk would have been a tall order.
Hitler believed the Soviet Union would fall if Moscow fell, but the Russians showed they would keep fighting. They hated Hitler more than they did Stalin, especially after news of German atrocities became known.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 12:16 pm to WalkingTurtles
quote:
I would say more so the timing was the biggest mistake, a few weeks earlier and Barbarossa and Typhoon would have succeeded. Also getting bogged down in Stalingrad over ideological reasons vs military ones was another costly mistake. Make no mistake about it, the Germans were crushing the Russians every step of the way.
The side action where the Wehrmacht had to commit forces in Greece pushed Barbarossa back like 6 weeks I believe. History could be very different if the Germans arrive in Moscow 4-6 weeks earlier than they did. Japan not tying up Russian forces in the far east hurt the Germans as well as their lack of long range heavy bombers to hit Russian arms production.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 1:34 pm to ChewyDante
No ww2 buffs want to discuss in my Acqui Massacre thread?
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Posted on 6/22/16 at 2:37 pm to TT9
The plan would have worked if he didn't try to take Stalingrad.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 2:43 pm to Napoleon
quote:
No ww2 buffs want to discuss in my Acqui Massacre thread?
Nobody gives a shite about a bunch of dead Italians.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 3:31 pm to ChewyDante
quote:
German Mark III. No Tigers or Panthers here. Mark II's, III's, and short barreled Mark IV's were the standard German armor during Barbarossa. These proved sufficient in the early months of the campaign but the Germans were in for a very rude awakening as they began encountering T-34's deeper into the Soviet hinterlands which completely outclassed these German platforms.
The T-34's were indeed a rude awaking for the Germans. They had nothing that could deal with it other than their towed 8.8 CM AA guns. As for the two main German tanks at the onset of the invasion of the Soviet Union, each had far different roles to play.
The Panzer Mk. III...
...was designed to engage other tanks and thus had a high velocity 5.0 CM gun. Even in the Battle of France though the Germans had come to realize the 5.0 CM gun was not up to the task. They thought it would be sufficient in the invasion of the USSR though because it was thought the Soviets had inferior and outdated tanks. Which they did have a lot of those, they also had the T-34 which was all but invulnerable to the Pz Mk. III's 5.0 cm gun.
The Panzer Mk. IV...
...on the other hand had a low velocity short barrel 7.5 CM main gun. This tank was designed not to fight other tanks but rather to support infantry and help them take out strong points and reinforced pillboxes.
After the Germans realized the Pz Mk III was no match for more heavily armored modern tanks, the Germans started looking for a solution. Their answer was the long barrel high velocity 7.5CM anti-tank gun. The first problem they ran into was the fact the Mk III could not mount this gun. But the Panzer Mk IV could. Thus they slowly phased out the Mk III while the up-gunned version of the MK IV...
... was brought into production.
Posted on 6/22/16 at 3:35 pm to Napoleon
quote:
No ww2 buffs want to discuss in my Acqui Massacre thread?
I thought it was interesting and I was completely unaware of that little facet of WWII history. So thanks for posting it.
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