How close were the Soviets to collapse, if at all

Dead, I think you could be right about this. Once the Soviets began their offensive the Germans realised quickly how much they had underestimated the both the size of the Soviet Army and the will of the nation to resist the attack. Stalin made a smart move by using the term "Mother Russia" at every instance and he wasnt lying. No matter what his intention was, the fact remained that the Soviet Union was to be wiped out and it wasnt just politically motivated, it was obviously racially motivated too.

James//Tom, great posts in relation to the German Equipment, but I'm curious, did the German armor use a different fuel to Soviet Armor? Did the T-34 use a Diesel Engine and the Germans use Petrol, and would this have a bearing in the conditions prevalent in Winter 1941?


By the way, its a pleasure to see such a well mannered thread and kudos to you all for keeping it that way!!

 

James//Tom, great posts in relation to the German Equipment, but I'm curious, did the German armor use a different fuel to Soviet Armor? Did the T-34 use a Diesel Engine and the Germans use Petrol, and would this have a bearing in the conditions prevalent in Winter 1941?

Yes, T-34 had V-form diesel engine which should be kept warm in winter condition - as I read in memoirs of driver of SU-122/ISU-152.

BTW, this link might be interesting for tank lovers: T-34 History Museum > Home page. (this museum is easy to visit, not like Kubinka, so come gather there this summer, huh?)

 

Yes, T-34 had V-form diesel engine which should be kept warm in winter condition - as I read in memoirs of driver of SU-122/ISU-152.

BTW, this link might be interesting for tank lovers: T-34 History Museum > Home page. (this museum is easy to visit, not like Kubinka, so come gather there this summer, huh?)

That's an interesting looking museum there, DB. It seems an odd place to celebrate your wedding at but the wedding photos must be fab!

CS

 

That's an interesting looking museum there, DB. It seems an odd place to celebrate your wedding at but the wedding photos must be fab!

Looks like this foto taken at some local Great Patriotic War memorial, not the museum's one. Its a tradition in modern Russia to visit some honoured memorial during wedding procedure.

 

They made it as far as the outer most station of the subway as far as I can remember they were only a few miles from the city centre , but it was isolated units only - the main army was some way back about 20 miles.

Hitler rejected out of hand the feelers put out by Stalin , in 1943 peace feelers would again be rejected.

The German view once said "We were stopped by the mud" but Zhukov was held his hand and when it came to the crunch played it very well and at just the right time.

The Geman line was so over extended that reaching Moscow put them out on a limb , a position which given their resources was untenable.
Apart from reaching Moscow Typhoon called for the city to be surrounded and taken - an impossible call as time went on.
You are absolutely right;an other proof:front strenght 22 june:Germans:2.9 Russians :2.7 1 september :Germans :2.9 Russians 3.2 1 december:Germans :2.6 Russians :4.2 German tank strenght :22 june: 3483 O1 sepember:2450 (losses 1129 ,replacements:96 ! ) 1 december :2312 (losses 892 replacements 404 + 2 +5 panzer =350 ) and how many of those 2312 were operational ?

 

I do not think the Germans would have been able to capture Moscow. The Wermacht was really on its last legs before the gates of Moscow. There was just not the men or material available to undertake such an operation. The germans had suffered horrendous losses just getting to Moscow, and these losses were not being replaced. Those who say that the cold played no part on The German forces are not thinking right either. There were a hell a lot of casualties due to frost bite.

The Germans were not able to capture moscow, they had shot thier bolt just after the start of Typhoon. Soldiers recall being exausted and unable to continue another step. Equiptment being unusable and useless. The German army was in no fit state to continue the offensive.

 

I do not think the Germans would have been able to capture Moscow. The Wermacht was really on its last legs before the gates of Moscow. There was just not the men or material available to undertake such an operation. The germans had suffered horrendous losses just getting to Moscow, and these losses were not being replaced. Those who say that the cold played no part on The German forces are not thinking right either. There were a hell a lot of casualties due to frost bite.

The Germans were not able to capture moscow, they had shot thier bolt just after the start of Typhoon. Soldiers recall being exausted and unable to continue another step. Equiptment being unusable and useless. The German army was in no fit state to continue the offensive.
Absolutely correct and whilst I agree with you about the frostbite casualties the posts in this thread such as the above also do much to refute the argument that the only thing that stopped the wehrmacht was the weather! It was a factor alright but not the contributing one.

 

Witrhout doubt, General winter played his part in interferring with Hitler's plans for a quick conquest.The 6 weeks delay in getting the operation underway resulted in the Wehrmacht being caught up in the heavy rainfall of the autumn of 1941 which had a serious adverse effect on the logistics of the campaign.Furthermore, the German forces were not adequately equipped for a winter war.Her troops did not have special winter clothing and what little they had, did not come up to the specification of that of the Red Army.Too little and too late,the Germans had to run campaigns to requisition winter clothing from their civilians.

Last but not least,the Wehrmacht suffered dearly from having inadequate lubricants for their armour,transport and machinery.Extremely low ambient temperatures meant that lubricating oil viscosity increased to a point where lubrication was non effective and mechanical failure followed.On the other hand,the Russians,used to coping with severe weather, were using diesel and lubricating oils produced to the appropriate specification for the range of weather extremes to be encountered through the most severe of Russian winters.Use the wrong diesel in low ambient temperatures and the diesel wiill "wax out",not flow easly and block any filters in an engine fuel system.

 

from what i've been reading about the eastern front is that during operation typhoon the germans came very close to eliminating the soviet armies but the russians prevailed in the end

 

Logic says that if they were able to mount a massive counter-offensive against the exhausted Germans, perhaps they were not so close to defeat after all.

 

I do not think the Germans would have been able to capture Moscow. The Wermacht was really on its last legs before the gates of Moscow. There was just not the men or material available to undertake such an operation. The germans had suffered horrendous losses just getting to Moscow, and these losses were not being replaced. Those who say that the cold played no part on The German forces are not thinking right either. There were a hell a lot of casualties due to frost bite.

The Germans were not able to capture moscow, they had shot thier bolt just after the start of Typhoon. Soldiers recall being exausted and unable to continue another step. Equiptment being unusable and useless. The German army was in no fit state to continue the offensive.
About the casualties due to frost bite :Iam not that sure
1)The general assumption is that the winter was the harshest of the century ;but ,was this true ? I should like to see some proof ;in "Russia at War " "General Winter" there are indications that the winter was an average one .
2)When did the winter strike ? I think on the beginning of december,after the failure of Typhoon and coinciding with the Russian winter offensive .
3)I have seen some figures that the casualties due to frostbite were an average of 33 % of the German Non Combat Losses in the winter;maybe the winter was not that exceptional or the German soldier was better protected against the winter than is generally assumed .
4) Some figures of German NCL :
september 1941 :57000
october 1941: 63000
november 1941 : 73000
december 1941:91000
january 1942 : 128000
february 1942 :85000
march 1942 :62000
For september,october and november:weekly average =15000
for december and the 1st Q of 1942 :weekly average =21000
The average time of a NCL beying unfit for action was for 93 % 1 month .
5)Figures of Soviet NCL :for the 4th quarter of 1941 :140000 =11000 weekly
:for the 1st quarter of 1942 :200000 =15000 weekly
6)the German tank losses in the winter (will search for some figures):they were not only due to the cold,but also to a shortage of fuel(the supply lines did not fucntion),and when the Germans had to retreat,they had to abandon a lot of tanks
7)I have found some figures for German tank losses:june + july:58O;august :600;september:238;october:300 ;november:370;december:340

 

LJ, you'd save my day if you could supply your sources

 

Sorry,had forgotten:the tank losses are from Va-Banque(from Schustereit )P
91 :rough figures,Sturmgeschutze and Panzerbefehlswagen are not included .
For the German NCL :Axis History Forum:German Casualties in Barbarossa in 1941 :look at an excellent post by HERO .
For the Soviet NCL :Axis History Factbook and !Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century:the losses of the Armed Forces(can be downloaded ) by Krivosheev . But!:the English traduction leaves to be desired and studying Krivosheev can get you a headache (it got me one) . Cheers .

 

Concerning winter and it's effects, on a similar discussion, I posted the following here, in post #92 :

From Robert Forczyck's "Moscow 1941 - Hitler's First Defeat", 90-91.

THE WEATHER FACTOR

The entire issue of the impact of poor weather conditions upon the conduct of Operation Typhoon has been distorted by decades of disinformation from both sides and gross oversimplification. Operation Typhoon was fought over a large area - 500km from north to south - and weather conditions often varied considerably along the front. It is clear from both German and Soviet weather data that while the offensive was hindered by passing periods of poor weather, that the worst winter weather did not arrive until after Typhoon had culminated. German weather data collected from all six armies involved in Typhoon demonstrate that the first snowfall, about 5cm in the period 7-13 October, fell mostly in the southern areas where Guderian was operating and did not affect Ninth Army, in the north around Rzhev, at all. Although the October snow melted quickly, it did not render every road impassable. On 10 October Fourth Panzer Army noted, 'here and there, the roads are hardly passable' and Guderian's own command recorded that 'motorized movement is partly impossible in some areas'. German records also indicate that the roads began drying out after four days and the mud phase in early October lasted for only about one week. Rain from 27 October to 3 November produced more mud, as well as a rainy period on 19-24 November, but in each case the effect of mud was fairly temporary and localized. It was never the case that all the roads in the AGC area were simultaneously impassible due to muddy conditions. The greatest impact of the mud upon German operations was to add further strain to the impoverished Wehrmacht logistical system.

The impact of cold weather upon ill-clad Wehrmacht troops has been cited as a primary factor in stopping Typhoon. In October, daytime temperatures were mostly in the range 0º to 15º C (32-59º F), with frost on about one-third of the nights. It was coldest in the Third Panzer Army area around Rzhev. Temperatures did drop significantly in November, with daytime temperatures in the range 13º to 30º F and with frost on 80 per cent of nights. While the German front-line troops were certainly miserable in this cold, damp weather, temperatures in this range did not begin to cause significant amounts of illness and frostbite until the end of November, at which point Typhoon was already culminating from supply shortages. Snowfall in November was about 20cm and the freezing conditions actually improved German mobility. The terrible freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls did not actually begin until 4 December, at which point Typhoon was over. During the onset of the Soviet Winter Counteroffensive. temperatures fell below 0º F from 4-7 December, which had a great impact upon the morale and health of the front-line German troops and helps to explain how the Soviets were able to achieve some of their breakthroughs. The intense cold drove German infantry indoors, allowing Soviet infantry and cavalry to infiltrate and envelop units that ceased to maintain continuous fronts. The worst freezing temperatures were around the Moskva-Volga Canal, which makes the Soviet breakthrough on the Klin Bulge more understandable. The weather did warm up during 8-12 December, which helped the Germans to mount a tenacious defense of Klin but fell below 0° F again on 13-15 December. To sum up, the debilitating and casualty-inducing cold temperatures did not arrive until the point at which Typhoon had failed anyway, but this weather did assist the Soviet Counteroffensive.

 

I think they were close - Stalin would have taken terms if Hitler had offered them and he did seek them.
Collapse - internal in that Stalin would have been gotten rid of , collapse in terms of surrender or both.
If a strong alternative to Stalin had existed Stalin might have been put into a shallow unmarked grave - he had certainly proved to be a disaster in terms of the position he had placed Russia in.
Collapse against the Germans - probably unlikely unless the Germans had been able to take Moscow and had proved to be in better shape than they were.
The cost of getting to Moscow had been extreme and at none of the critical points did the Germans have the strength to prevail , and against all the areas in which they were pressing they could not break through much less exploit any breakthrough.
Zhukov I thinks appreciated the actual position towards which the Germans were heading.

The weather aside the ability of the Germans to mount an offensive on the scale of Typhoon was beyond them - logistical and in terms of replacements and maintenance for the panzers they at the end of their tether.were

 

All listed factors definitely played their role in Op Typhoon defeat - yet I would list the weather first and here is why.
Barbarossa was delayed by some 8 weeks by the Yugoslavian uprising. Hitler could not afford to go to war with Stalin with the Balkans up in arms against him. Should that not be the case the Battle of Moscow would have happenned 2 month earlier and given how close the Nazis came under far worse conditions of Russian winter (plus the fact that 2 months earlier Sorge could not advise with certainty on Japanese intentions hence reinforcements from Far East were unavailable) I would be inclined to think that Moscow would be doomed.
December is a whole lot different from October in Russia.

 

You haven't read post #34 above, have you?

 

You haven't read post #34 above, have you?
I had read this before.
It is very hard to speculate what could or couldn't have happened should it not be for the weather or earthquake or Napoleon's cold before Waterloo.
Under circumstances, given that Hitler was forced into launching an offensive rather than coming under Stalin's imminent attack - well, I am saying that originally planned Barbarossa just could work.
As for the actual thread - the collapse was very close. The government was in Samara, public unrest was high, morale was exceptionally low. The militia was formed with little or no arms, not even enough shovels for digging trenches. Organizied skilled workforce was mostly en route to the East where the industrial plants were re-located, remaining mob was looting stores and warehouses esp the liquer ones.
But then again, with the fall of Moscow the war would not have finished altogether as it did not necesserily equate with the collapse of the whole country.

 

given that Hitler was forced into launching an offensive rather than coming under Stalin's imminent attack

That sounds like you're convinced "Barbarossa" was a preventive strike?

 

That sounds like you're convinced "Barbarossa" was a preventive strike?
Yes and no. Being of exactly same breed both regimes and both fuhrers could only survive in expansion, so I don't doubt for a second that both Stalin and Hitler had been preparing for an offensive campaign sooner or later. Hitler's position though was more vulnerable to the external threats than Stalin's (and resource-wise Germany is no match to Russia). So it was a pre-emptive strike as it had occured first but it would've happened anyway (even if Stalin had not been planning his moves but then again it wouldn't be Stalin then).
The trigger was probably Soviet troops moving inside Romania dangerously close to Ploesti oil fields...