re: The largest land invasion in military history commenced on this day 85 years ago...

If you have one, what is your favorite podcast on that?

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If Hitler launches Barbarossa in early May, who knows how the war goes. Those 5 weeks were key.

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Thanks, il Duce

Yeah, I've listened to that one. Should've said "aside from DC". That is a great one, but most of his are.

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The logistics of that had to be such a nightmare

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It was worse than you can even imagine. I can’t remember the exact breakdown, but a huge portion of the vehicles (everything from tanks to lorries) the Germans did have were ones they’d captured from other countries. Imagine the headache from spare parts alone.

A other thing was how to keep the horses alive. As I said earlier, 119 of the 153 German divisions relied on horses for transportation. In total, the Wehrmacht had roughly 750,000 horses on the Eastern Front when they invaded the USSR. The daily requirement to keep these horses fed was approximately 9,000 tons of hay.

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In total, the Wehrmacht had roughly 750,000 horses on the Eastern Front when they invaded the USSR

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I imagine a good portion of those horses got eaten the winter of ‘41 around Moscow and ‘42 around Stalingrad. Who knows if any of those horses survived the war?

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If Hitler launches Barbarossa in early May, who knows how the war goes. Those 5 weeks were key.

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Just like North Africa, Germany had to clean up Mussolini's mess in the Balkins and Greece. That's where those 5 weeks went. Nazi troops got within 20-25 miles of downtown Moscow at their greatest advance. It is totally plausible that given 5 more weeks, the could have captured Moscow and cut off the head of the snake.

Years ago I read a book on the German industrial/economic policies in WWII.

They didn't even go to a full war-time economy until late in the war.

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German supply lines were stretched pretty thin even then.

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Could Germany have done anything to strengthen their supply lines though? You have
1. Distance —-You’re getting farther from Germany every day.
2. Trucks. —-Germany was using a lot of trucks from conquered nations such as France. Like someone stated above, finding parts once a truck became broken down was probably next to impossible
3. Stalins scorched earth policy. —-Germany literally had to bring everything they’d need because you couldn’t salvage any food, clothing, shelter, material going forward. You can forget about using railroads too. Right?
4. Roads ——most of the roads weren’t paved so the roads turned to sticky mud in the fall and froze solid in the winter. That isn’t ideal in the least.

The logistics of getting supplies to the front in a perfect situation is tough, but the reasons I stated make it almost impossible to adequately supply 3 great army groups.

The only chance the Germans had was to turn the population to their favor.. like in Ukraine when they first arrived. A better way of life. The Roman model to some degree.

Of course that was short lived because they were nazis after all.

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June 22, 1941.

Operation Barbarossa. Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union featured between 3.5-3.8 million men attacking along a front that stretched from 1,800 miles from north to south. 153 German divisions, grouped into three separate army groups, were backed by 3,600 tanks and some 600,000 motor vehicles.

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It probably would have succeeded if Hitler had not delayed the start of the invasion in order to keep the British out of Yugoslavia. Also probably would have succeeded if Hitler had let Army Group Center bypass Kyiv and head straight for Moscow.