On Wed, 30 May 2018 13:01:14 +1000, SolomonW <SoloomonW@citi.com.au>
wrote:

I was reading this article which is clearly well researched.

https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-German-State-Railway-Deutsche-Reichsbahn

Although there would still be problems in adapting German trains to the >Russian winter, the Germans could ship a lot more supplies.

For example according to the article "The assault on Moscow in 1942 failed >primarily because the Germans were not able to extend their standard gauge >line east of Smolensk fast enough. While ample quantities of supplies were >available for the first two phases of the German attack against Moscow, the >German rail transportation system was not able to sustain the shipment of >needed military supplies for the third and final assault phase."

Any thoughts on this?

WHAT German assault on Moscow in 1942? Certainly there was one in the
fall / early winter of 1941 but that pretty much ended on or about 5
Dec 1941. The closest they came in 1942 was to take Voronezh but the
intent there was to turn SOUTH towards Stalingrad not NORTH towards
Moscow.

I've wargamed a 1942 "turn towards Moscow" but while in that scenario
the German player DID take Moscow, the cost of the attrition battle
required to take it made the victory of doubtful benefit. Think Verdun
1917 times 3 and you'll have the right idea.

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"The Horny Goat" wrote in message news:79kmke5sqph9ksi3eplo7ffq3lsh2e19c8@4ax.com...

WHAT German assault on Moscow in 1942? Certainly there was one in the fall
/ early winter of 1941 but that pretty much ended on or about 5 Dec 1941

I get the feeling the advance was starved to a stop. It's not true that the Germans were unaware of the Russian winter. But with limited supply
capacity, priority was given to fuel and ammunition. Enemy food stores were supposed to make up for the lack of rations.

German dreams of capturing Moscow and ending the War in the East evaporated, and Stalin's dreams of a grand counteroffensive that would kick the Germans
out of the Soviet Union also faltered. The slaughterhouse that was the
Eastern Front would continue until 1945...

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On Wed, 7 Aug 2019 19:46:36 -0500, "Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:

"The Horny Goat" wrote in message >news:79kmke5sqph9ksi3eplo7ffq3lsh2e19c8@4ax.com...

WHAT German assault on Moscow in 1942? Certainly there was one in the fall >> / early winter of 1941 but that pretty much ended on or about 5 Dec 1941

I get the feeling the advance was starved to a stop. It's not true that the >Germans were unaware of the Russian winter. But with limited supply
capacity, priority was given to fuel and ammunition. Enemy food stores were >supposed to make up for the lack of rations.

German dreams of capturing Moscow and ending the War in the East evaporated, >and Stalin's dreams of a grand counteroffensive that would kick the Germans >out of the Soviet Union also faltered. The slaughterhouse that was the >Eastern Front would continue until 1945...

Simply capturing Moscow in 1941 does not guarantee German victory. If
they capture Moscow AND manage to hold it through the 1941-42 Sovet counter-offensive it probably puts them into a winnable war of
attrition in 1942. This is particularly true given the Soviet Union's
rail net which was at last as centralized on Moscow as France's was on
Paris.

But merely taking Moscow does not guarantee the ability to hold it.
Please don't make that dangeorusly false assumption.

A 1942 drive on Moscow as their main offensive (e.g. instead of the
Stalingrad campaign) probably results in an updated version of 1916-17
at Verdun on a grand scale. Given the German's superiority of speed,
such a major battle of attrition would be the last thing the Wehrmacht commanders would hope to achieve.

On the other hand, looking at the German capture of Sevastopol does
show they had the ability to do a massive siege...

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"The Horny Goat" wrote in message news:apepke5ql8v85q6nbvus3sj7m9o315k2qv@4ax.com...

Simply capturing Moscow in 1941 does not guarantee German victory. If they capture Moscow AND manage to hold it through the 1941-42 Sovet counter-offensive it probably puts them into a winnable war of attrition
in 1942. This is particularly true given the Soviet Union's rail net which was at last as centralized on Moscow as France's was on Paris.

But merely taking Moscow does not guarantee the ability to hold it. Please don't make that dangeorusly false assumption.

That reminds me of "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, where, years after the conquest of Moscow, a never-ending partisan war continues to rage on...

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On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 14:14:08 -0500, "Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:

But merely taking Moscow does not guarantee the ability to hold it. Please >> don't make that dangeorusly false assumption.

That reminds me of "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, where, years after the >conquest of Moscow, a never-ending partisan war continues to rage on...

In Fatherland the fighting was far to the east of Moscow, can't recall
which side of the Urals was on and was considered by the Germans more
an irritation than a serious war.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind the Germans could have taken
Moscow in 1941 - but am not at all sure they could necessarily hold it
(for once thing it would have meant forgoing the Kiev pocket which
would mean another 600k Soviet troops on the front) and if they were
to take it and be driven back even to 100 km east of our timeline's
spring 1942 front line how is Germany ahead? (For one thing I would
expect this to take even greater losses on both sides than OTL)

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The Horny Goat wrote:

That reminds me of "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, where, years after the >conquest of Moscow, a never-ending partisan war continues to rage on...

In Fatherland the fighting was far to the east of Moscow, can't recall
which side of the Urals was on and was considered by the Germans more
an irritation than a serious war.

Disagree. The ongoing war with the US-backed Russian forces is a two decades-old running sore that leads to seemingly infinite German
casualties which, Harris writes, must be transported on night
trains. Despite this everyone knows how bad the Eastern front is; the
cadet who discovers the body that begins the investigation is sent to
a punishment battalion in the east, which is understood to be certain
death.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind the Germans could have taken
Moscow in 1941 - but am not at all sure they could necessarily hold
it

If Hitler demanded that Stalingrad be held at any cost, surely Moscow
would be even more prized, and thus even more an ultimate drain on
German manpower and resources if lost?

--
geo:37.783333,-122.416667

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On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 22:05:45 -0700, Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu>
wrote:

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind the Germans could have taken
Moscow in 1941 - but am not at all sure they could necessarily hold
it

If Hitler demanded that Stalingrad be held at any cost, surely Moscow
would be even more prized, and thus even more an ultimate drain on
German manpower and resources if lost?

While I agree what's your point? Neither Hitler nor Stalin knew that
the winter of 1941-42 would be the coldest in 40 years.

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"The Horny Goat" wrote in message news:24l4le10gvj84ddu4l6jvn8u2rrdard547@4ax.com...

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 22:05:45 -0700, Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu>
wrote:

If Hitler demanded that Stalingrad be held at any cost, surely Moscow
would be even more prized, and thus even more an ultimate drain on German >>manpower and resources if lost?

While I agree what's your point? Neither Hitler nor Stalin knew that the winter of 1941-42 would be the coldest in 40 years.

I wonder if todays "climatologists" would have fared any better...

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On 8/13/2019 10:00 AM, Byker wrote:

"The Horny Goat"  wrote in message news:24l4le10gvj84ddu4l6jvn8u2rrdard547@4ax.com...

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 22:05:45 -0700, Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu>
wrote:

If Hitler demanded that Stalingrad be held at any cost, surely Moscow
would be even more prized, and thus even more an ultimate drain on
German manpower and resources if lost?

While I agree what's  your point? Neither Hitler nor Stalin knew that
the winter of 1941-42 would be the coldest in 40 years.

I wonder if todays "climatologists" would have fared any better...

Weather is not Climate.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

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"Dimensional Traveler" wrote in message news:qiv3ir$i21$1@dont-email.me...

On 8/13/2019 10:00 AM, Byker wrote:

I wonder if todays "climatologists" would have fared any better...

Weather is not Climate.

Maybe they should've read the Farmers Almanac...

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On Tue, 13 Aug 2019 12:00:47 -0500, "Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:

While I agree what's your point? Neither Hitler nor Stalin knew that the
winter of 1941-42 would be the coldest in 40 years.

I wonder if todays "climatologists" would have fared any better...

I'm unclear what you mean - Germany suffered far less in the winter of
1942-43 than in 1941-42 (a) because the winter was much milder and (b)
because by then they had had neary 18 months to get ready. Of the
winters after 22 June 1941 -> 9 May 1945 1941-42 was by far the
coldest.

I remember back in January 1985 when I was living in Winnipeg I was
reading in the Winnipeg Public Library a book which featured the daily
Moscow temperatures from that winter on successive pages.and had the
epiphany "hey it's colder than that the other side of this window!"

Ironically at that time the West German army was using CFB Brandon
(about 2 hours west of Winnipeg) for armor training and it was common
to see German soldiers in Winnipeg airport. (I've no idea whether they
still do - I moved 2 years after that and haven't been back since)

They chose Brandon as it is open prairie with lots of maneuver space.
I do not believe they ever trained in winter but then the German army
in the 1980s never contemplated fighting in central Russia either....

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The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

I remember back in January 1985 when I was living in Winnipeg I was
reading in the Winnipeg Public Library a book which featured the daily
Moscow temperatures from that winter on successive pages.and had the
epiphany "hey it's colder than that the other side of this window!"

Back around 2000, I had a co-worker who was a Russian immigrant.

Two years running, he went back to Moscow for a visit over
Christmas/New Year's. Both times, it was colder in Moscow than\
here in Chicago while he was there.
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

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On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 10:14:45 -0500, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote:

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

I remember back in January 1985 when I was living in Winnipeg I was
reading in the Winnipeg Public Library a book which featured the daily
Moscow temperatures from that winter on successive pages.and had the
epiphany "hey it's colder than that the other side of this window!"

Back around 2000, I had a co-worker who was a Russian immigrant.

Two years running, he went back to Moscow for a visit over
Christmas/New Year's. Both times, it was colder in Moscow than\
here in Chicago while he was there.

Winnipeg Edmonton and Ottawa have the coldest winters in North
America. I lived in WInnipeg for 4 years some 30 years ago and had a
great time but no question Jan/Feb were no picnic. They DO have
beautiful summers

CFB Brandon (which is an army base 2 hours west of WInnipeg) has just
about identical weather to Winnipeg and is used for armor training as
it's basically 100k acres of open prairie.

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On Wed, 30 May 2018 13:01:14 +1000, SolomonW <SoloomonW@citi.com.au>
wrote:

For example according to the article "The assault on Moscow in 1942 failed >primarily because the Germans were not able to extend their standard gauge >line east of Smolensk fast enough. While ample quantities of supplies were >available for the first two phases of the German attack against Moscow, the >German rail transportation system was not able to sustain the shipment of >needed military supplies for the third and final assault phase."

Any thoughts on this?

Uh WHAT 1942 German assault on Moscow?

The only German assault on Moscow was in the fall of 1941 after the
liquidation of the Kiev pocket with the Russian counterattack
beginning on 5 Dec 1941.

There were two main German plans for 1942. One was an attempt to break
through around Tula in the south and NW of Moscow to the north to
attempt to encircle Moscow. The other plan (and the one that was
adopted was the attempt to drive to the Volga and either capture or
disrupt the Soviet oil industry in the Caucasus.

I'm pretty sure every regular reader here knows how THAT turned out!

(My personal view is that they made the right choice but bungled the
execution for all the usual Hitlerian reasons. I also think the
Stalingrad campaign demonstrated the Germans WOULDN'T win and the
Kursk battle proved that the Germans would and that the period between
most anything could have tipped the scales either way including into a
bloody stalemate. As it was the Red Army was running into manpower
problems in the winter of 1944/45 so the 'bloody stalemate' wasn't
nearly as science fictiony as it sounds - up until around Jan Feb 1945
the Russians were losing more troops than the Germans which is amazing
given how badly the German army got crushed in the summer of 1944 in
the East)

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On Wed, 30 May 2018 13:01:14 +1000, SolomonW <SoloomonW@citi.com.au>
wrote:

I was reading this article which is clearly well researched.

https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-German-State-Railway-Deutsche-Reichsbahn

Although there would still be problems in adapting German trains to the >Russian winter, the Germans could ship a lot more supplies.

For example according to the article "The assault on Moscow in 1942 failed >primarily because the Germans were not able to extend their standard gauge >line east of Smolensk fast enough. While ample quantities of supplies were >available for the first two phases of the German attack against Moscow, the >German rail transportation system was not able to sustain the shipment of >needed military supplies for the third and final assault phase."

Any thoughts on this?

Now are they confused and mislabelling 1941 for 1942 (in which case
they are confused but those comments do somewhat make sense with
respect to the 1941 campaign, or are they talking about the 1942
assault on Moscow which was the main alternative to Fall Blau which
was the assault on the Don and Volga which ended at Stalingrad (e.g.
the 1942 nearly all of us here known somewhat well)

If the latter then we are discussing a super-sized battle of Verdun
where a large attacking army fought row after row of fortifications.
In the wargame I played on this scenario it turned into a great war of attrition which while the Germans did take Moscow had taken enough
casualties (i.e. more than they took in the Stalingrad campaign but
without any army being encircled, just ground to smithereens in the
course of taking all those fortifications) so that 1943 was clearly
going to be bad news for both sides.

If the latter lendlease was clearly going to be critical in 1943 as
Soviet casualties in this alt-1942 were clearly brutal with few units
being anything near full strength. The winter of 1942-43 was milder
than 1941-42 (which had been the coldest in 20+ years) but terrible
campaigning weather.

On balance I just think '1942' was a typo and I would like to hear
more discussion of where the authors felt things broke down "in the
third phase".

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On Wed, 30 May 2018 13:01:14 +1000, SolomonW <SoloomonW@citi.com.au>
wrote:

I was reading this article which is clearly well researched.

https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-German-State-Railway-Deutsche-Reichsbahn

Although there would still be problems in adapting German trains to the >Russian winter, the Germans could ship a lot more supplies.

For example according to the article "The assault on Moscow in 1942 failed >primarily because the Germans were not able to extend their standard gauge >line east of Smolensk fast enough. While ample quantities of supplies were >available for the first two phases of the German attack against Moscow, the >German rail transportation system was not able to sustain the shipment of >needed military supplies for the third and final assault phase."

Any thoughts on this?

How it happens is important - about the only way he has a serious
chance is if Washington catches a stray bullet. Washington was
perceived as the new Cinncinatus and that was a huge part of his
legend.

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On Sat, 17 Dec 2022 15:31:58 -0800, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

On Wed, 30 May 2018 13:01:14 +1000, SolomonW <SoloomonW@citi.com.au>
wrote:

I was reading this article which is clearly well researched.

https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-German-State-Railway-Deutsche-Reichsbahn

Although there would still be problems in adapting German trains to the >>Russian winter, the Germans could ship a lot more supplies.

For example according to the article "The assault on Moscow in 1942 failed >>primarily because the Germans were not able to extend their standard gauge >>line east of Smolensk fast enough. While ample quantities of supplies were >>available for the first two phases of the German attack against Moscow, the >>German rail transportation system was not able to sustain the shipment of >>needed military supplies for the third and final assault phase."

Any thoughts on this?

How it happens is important - about the only way he has a serious
chance is if Washington catches a stray bullet. Washington was
perceived as the new Cinncinatus and that was a huge part of his
legend.

Crap - i think i responded to the wrong message.

As for the question ACTUALLY asked here is the poster talking about
the 1941 or the 1942 campaign? In 1942 the Germans started the
campaign fairly close to Moscow and the Russians had been building
field entrenchments around Moscow since the previous fall. The Germans
had also had time to adapt the rails they held to German (European)
gauge from the wider Russian gauge.

The issues the original poster is discussing is more a question of the
1941 campaign - Stalingrad was the focus of the 1942 campaign and it's
a LOT further east than Moscow and in all the histories I've read of
that campaign logistics were only a serious factor after the
encirclement of Stalingrad when they foolishly tried to supply
Stalingrad by air rather than withdrawing.

(This had the aftermath postwar of convincing the Soviets that
supplying a major city by air COULDN'T work - until the US proved them
wrong in Berlin 1948-1949 - but the US had far more planes than Hitler
had at Stalingrad plus the Soviets weren't bombarding Berlin)

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