Germany Attacks Russia in 1942 not 1941

[Glider]

Enjoy the break and I look forward to your return.

I agree with everthing that you said apart from the end. I don't see how the Allies can retake N Africa when the Med is an Axis Lake. The logistics and distances are to huge to contemplate.
Also the Germans would be able to concentrate on the Russian Convoys and who knows. If the Italian Fleet was able to join the Germans and be a threat to the Atlantic, that really would cause trouble.

 

[royal744]

Did Russia have the resources to invade in 1941 though? Certainly Stalin wanted to invade at some point, but the army still hadn't recovered from the purges, and much of the equipment was still well out of date. Stalin was caught off guard when Hitler invaded, despite being warned to the contrary numerous times. There weren't nearly enough men and equipement in the border regions for a full scale invasion, and building them up would have taken time.

If Germany had invaded in 1942, only earlier in the year, they would have had more time to capture Moscow or Leningrad before winter set in. If either or both of those had fallen, would there have been any way back for Stalin? From a German perspective the whole campaign seems to be a case of missed oppertunities and mis-management by Hitler, as the country was there for the taking

I'm wondering if it really would have made a real difference in the long run to have captured either or both Leningrad and Moscow. Just ask Napoleon. I can't speak for Leningrad very well, but there was a general feeling among the Politburo that they would probably have to give up Moscow too, although that was not something that Marshall Stalin was very eager to do and the reasopn he brought Zhukov from the east. Apart from the sting and damage to morale, I am constantly brought back to the simple mathematics of force levels and geometry, as in geography. Just looking at a map of Russia and taking into account the seemingly almost limitless capacity of the people to absorb grievous pain and suffering, and to commit prodigious acts such as the mass movement of industry beyond the Urals where German bombers could not reach them, it seems an exercise in shadow boxing to imagine that the Germans could ever really have permanently defeated the Soviet Union. The Russians showed, convincingly enough, in my view, that they could trade space for time.

The question of supply transport is also interesting, because the evidence seems to show that the Wehrmacht was far less mechanized than the films showing blitzkrieg would have one believe. Most German rear echelon supply transport seems to have been horse-powered. Even at the time of Dunkirk, the British were highly mechanized by comparison and the US army, when it finally woke up was 100% mechanized and the US sent literally thousands of Studebaker trucks to the Soviets. So in the space time equation, the question of supplies and transport becomes a critical factor.