Just a few more miles and they could’ve ended communism for good.

>>17807666 (OP)
>what is logistic overextension

Their strategy called for encircling Moscow not just walking in. They were hundreds of miles short

>>17807666 (OP)
were the russians too competent or the germans too incompetent?

>>17808025
Not to mention, taking the city itself, which would have been a major battle since they were unable to take cities of similar size like Leningrad and Sevastopol, and had to grind hard for Stalingrad even though Stalingrad was defended by a much smaller force under Chuikov before Uranus was launched.

>>17808054
Given the ease in which Typhoon crushed the Soviet resistance in front of AGC, it is fairly obvious that 2-3 more weeks of good weather would have been all it would have taken to capture Moscow.

>>17807666 (OP)
>communism
Wasn't the issue, but liberalism.

>I know how to take a country
>Declare war by surprise and run realfast to their capitol
takes over Czechia
takes over Austria
MMM GLAY
takes over Poland
>What should we call this one?
>Operation Red Beard
>..
>..
>*huh* *huh* *wheese* fhew
Oh shit

>>17807666 (OP)
Retard Satan.

hoi4 made it way too easy to capture these cities

>>17808025
>Barely attempt to take Stalingrad, lose largest army
>The other big one is stalled out in the north
>The other big one is stalled out south
>The CAPITAL of the enemy country will surely be easier!
As kino as it would have been, no direct assault on Moscow would have been able to happen successfully.

>>17808167
HOI 4 is lame
Video games are lame

>>17808059
They took Sevastopol though.

>>17808072
>germans would win if terrain and logistic didn't exists
whats the point of those arguments

>>17808256
The german army was defeated by the weather, not the terrain, thats the argument champ

>>17808326
Weather wouldn't be an issue if they weren't fighting logistics anon. These althis scenarios always boil down to "what if nothing was the same as this current timeline"

>>17808326
this might blow your mind but mud is created when rain falls down on the earth

>>17808330
They had enough locisics to launch opertion Typhoon which wiped out 200000 soviets and got AGC within sight of moscow before the weather turned bad.What if they had attacked in september and had three extra weeks of good weather?

>>17807666 (OP)
If Japan hadn't cucked out they could have occupied the entire eastern half of the Soviet Union. Imagine all the anime and manga that a much larger and richer Japan would have produced.

>>17808072
>Cool story, citoyen.

>>17808396
Anime would not exist as it does today if Japan "cucked out" since it's stylistic origins are American cartoons and comics that they recieved during postwar occuptation and iterated on as western cartoon studios in the 60s-80s used Japan to outsorce animation to

>>17808394
I didn't know that good weather causes food, ammo, oil and tanks' spare parts to magically teleport in the hands of german soldiers

>>17808054
The Germans did wonders given they didn't have infinite soldiers and often had to work with awfully long supply lines, not unfrequently infested by partisans.
Compare German and Italian achievements during the war to get a good grasp.
The Russians also fought well, but they had just one front to worry about, generous economic aid and much easier logistics

>>17808411
If the german army had such poor logistics they would never have survived the winter of 1941

>Maybe they did have magic

>>17808189
After a long siege, something they culdnt afford with moscow

>>17808394
>What if they attacked in september and had three extra weeks of good weather?

Mud season wasnt good weather
And mud season was what really killed the timetable, winter actually helped the advance to resume because the roads became solid again

And the other anon is right, by December they had no more reserves. Even if Von Bock successfully encircle Moscow because of some divine effort of highspeeding Typhoon, he had nothing to stop the overwhelming Soviet December counteroffensive which pushed back the German lines 200-300 kilometers, and that offensive is inevtiable regardless of weather

Moscow was never the issue to begin with. Barbarossa was planned for 6 weeks. I dont think you realise what a serious miscalculation that is. The Germans (and other observers) expected that the Red Army would be destroyed in the opening blow, that the Soviet state would collapse, and the rest would be Wehrmacht driving up the highways against local resistance and capture the grainfields, industry and oil refineries intact.
It was not meant to be against a constant organized fighting resistance, the logistics, manpower and timetable was never prepared for it.
When Hitler said "we only need to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down", that actually summarize the rationale behind Barbarossa

The whole Moscow debate mostly gravitates around post-war bullshit by the German generals to blame every mistake on Hitler to make themselves look good, but the truth is that Barbarossa had failed long before then, and many of Hitlers concerns about the operation was proven right
The push for Moscow was out of desperation for a knock-out blow because the Germans kept telling themselves that the Red Army were on their last leg. It was wishful thinking.
Most historians also argue that even if Moscow had been captured, it wouldnt have been that big of a deal. Moscow was no longer the capital at the time, and the Germans would still desperately need oil

>>17808396
Japan signed a neutrality pact with the USSR two months before Germany invaded. Not only were they were completely blindsided by Barbarossa, but they actually had some reservations about reneging on a diplomatic agreement. This is also why they didn't take this as a chance to leave the tripartite pact. They knew that fighting the Soviets would go poorly from firsthand experience as well.

>>17808409
American cartoons were already popular in Japan long before the occupation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bf8y3v1BvU

>>17808394
What if a meteorite fell to earth and slammed directly into Hitlers face at 3000mph turning him and the entire OKW into dust on 31st August 1939? What then huh? What then?

>>17808954
The Japanese were somewhat considering reneging on that agreement after Barbarossa happened, even they thought the idea of betraying the USSR at the time was tempting. It wasn’t until the U.S. oil embargo that the Japanese were fully on board with the strike south plan instead.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantokuen

>>17808995
Besides the oil embargo, there was also not enough time to plan, prepare, and execute any such major operation before the weather turned.

It took Germany over a year to plan and prepare Barbarossa, and Japan must do this before october (mud season) when they only find out about Barbarossa in mid-summer.
Japans foreign minister actually visited Berlin in 1941 but everyone was given strikt orders by Hitler not to mention the planned Barbarossa. The Germans were sure of victory and did not want to risk any leaking information

>>17809009
Not like information getting leaked would’ve made a difference. Stalin ignored every warning prior to the invasion. Hitler could’ve openly told the Japanese about his plans and Stalin would deny the information.

>>17808970
Note how this fascinating althist scenario goes completely ignored?

>>17809128
Because that scenario is beyond human control

Hadn't the Soviet government already fled to Samara by then?

>>17809128
because it's impossible
meteorites do not fall upon the earth, those are meteors. Meteorites are the ones that have already landed. Typical retard /his/ post

>>17809311
Yeah and this one landed on Hitler and the OWK at 3000mph. Now what?

>>17808116
What does liberalism mean?

>>17809325
that's incredibly slow for a meteor, normal speeds are about ten times as much
again, you're a retard

>>17809330
Yes, a slow meteor turned Hitler and the OKW into a cloud of atoms on 31st August 1939. What happens now?

>>17809333
Hitler didn't meet with the OKW on 31 august 1939, so the meteor must be of a size that would cause a global extinction event

>>17809344
Let's say he did. What if Hitler held a meeting of the OKW on the 31st August 1939 and then a meteor slammed into their meeting room at 3000mph. What now huh?

>>17808396
Mongolia alone could have defeated whatever the Japs decided to throw at the USSR

>>17809349
Doesn't matter how blunderous the Japanese campaign could've been, merely having to supply two fronts and losing the Lend-Lease route would've been excruciating for the Russians.

>>17809296
For the most part, yes, but Stalin stayed in Moscow.

>>17809525
Japan isnt going to suicide itself for Germanys sake.
They were running on stockpiles after USA cut them off. Use it all on a second land war going nowhere just like China and then wait for their military, society and empire to implode because when the oil runs out, everything stops, and people in Japan will be starving and freezing.

Because why?
Because it benefits Germany?
A country they barely had any communications with except some token gesture agreements.

>>17809574
Stalin stayed in Moscow because it was that obvious that the Germans wouldnt capture it.

People dont realise that it wasnt just the fact that the Germans lacked the ability to reach Moscow.
It's that the Soviets were simultaniouslt holding back a huge number of divisions and material that completely overwhelmed Army Group Center during the December-January counteroffensive, pushed the German lines back over 300 kilometers and nearly routed the entire center.

>>17809612
Obviously a scenario where Japan attacks the USSR hinges on whether or not the oil embargo is in place. It all depended on whether or not Japan annexed South Indochina, a move which ended up causing more harm than good for the Japanese in the long run. The U.S. wasn’t going to place an oil embargo on Japan if they joined the war against the Soviets and never annexed South Indochina, the oil embargo was specifically because the South Indochina annexation was a threat to the Philippines.

>>17808396
Japanese naval intelligence ran very detailed wargames that told them both that Barbarossa was unwinnable and that the IJA would starve to death in Siberia as soon the weather got cold, given there was like zero logistical infrastructure there apart from the transiberian railway. They lost like 200k men in Papua New Guinea from starvation and disease alone which is exactly what would've happened to a Japanese invasion of the Soviet far east.

>>17809525
The Soviets maintained significant reserves in Siberia and the far east throughout WWII so the idea that it would've been a walk in the park for them is laughable. The Japs had WWI tier ground tactics and equipment which favoured them in tiny fortified island garrisons and against Chinese peasants armed with spears, but not against a mechanized military with state of the art tanks, artillery and aircraft.

reminder that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, the size of France, took only 2 weeks and was done almost entirely by green reservists who had been sitting in the far east for all of WWII

>>17809704
>The U.S. wasn’t going to place an oil embargo on Japan if they joined the war against the Soviets

Stop presenting your theories as if they are facts. It makes you look like a total faggot.

>>17808003
>what is Mongols conquered Russia with no logistics.

>>17810150
>with no logistics
the mongols had a vast logistical network, plus by that point you were in an era where all it took to win was one decisive battefield victory

>>17810121
The Kwantung Army of 1945 was a hollow shell of its former self. It was still large, but its experienced troops were either fighting in other fronts or died elsewhere.

>>17807666 (OP)
At least Napoleon burned down Moscow. Germans couldn't even do that. KWAB.

>>17807666 (OP)
thank Japan

>>17807666 (OP)
Germans could have easily become the rulers of Eurasia if they just weren't genocidal retards attempting to wipe out entire populations but simply behaved like every successful Empire builder in history - that is improving the conditions of living of conquered peoples. Would have been extremely easy in case of Soviet Russia kek

>>17810754
Imagine a fucking imbecile which managed to unite people behind fucking communist (a product of German retardation btw) ruler kek.

>>17810412
They only had interwar armour, incredibly shitty artillery and AT weapons and almost zero available fuel; how the fuck were they supposed to launch an offensive invasion against the Red Army which by that point had T-34s, KV heavy tanks and entire tank divisions?

>>17810150
No one can be this retarded

>>17808072
>capture Moscow
And what exactly would this do? Because if you think Stalin would give up after Moscow you’re retarded lmao.

>>17810754
>>17810762
Maybe if Germany didn't have a great shortage of food and raw materials for it's own people and army.

>>17808536
They did they used horses

>>17810854
Those tanks wouldn’t have been available in Siberia in mass numbers in 1941, which was the only time the Japanese even considered invading.

>>17811291
If Stalin decided to stay in Moscow if the Germans managed to get into the city he’s as good as dead.

>>17810854
Russians took heavy casualties in the 1939 clashes with Japan and Japan could've upgraded their AT guns just like Germany did, if they didn't pour all their steel into ships. And Japan had enough fuel reserves to launch an invasion, hell they even managed to march through half of China in 1944.

>>17807666 (OP)
communism will live on in some form as long as the jewish race lives on
under the name on liberalism it was flourishing in america so even glassing soviet union would have achieved nothing at all in this regard

>>17811450
That's a lot of if

>>17808025
>moscow is hundreds of miles wide

>>17811444
they were already deployed in the far east given the undeclared war that the Japanese initiated in Mongolia. Soviets won Khalkin Gol after redeploying sufficient modern armour to counter the Japs who had no answer. The Soviets maintained substantial reserves in the far east for the entire duration of the war in case of a Japanese assault, which is why they were able to crush the Kwatung army so easily in 1945

>>17811450
He wouldnt have stayed unless victory was certain.

> Zhukov, whose army was 748 km (465 mi) away from its base of supply, assembled a fleet of 2,600 trucks to supply his troops, while the Japanese suffered severe supply problems due to a lack of similar motor transport.[36] In early July the Japanese had only 600 trucks, rising to 1,000 by the end of the month, of which only 75% were operable. By 20 August the Japanese managed to accumulate 2,000 trucks delivering 1,500 tons of supply daily, but even this fell below the Red Army's capabilities.
This is before both lend lease and the US oil embargo on Japan btw, there is absolutely zero way the Japanese strike north would have resulted in anything but hundreds of thousands of Japs starving and freezing to death in the Siberian taiga

>>17812885
>which is why
That is not why at all. They sent battle hardened units from Europe to take Manchuria while the Kwantung army had been drained of its best troops.

>>17812925
Pls look at the Soviet casualty figures for Khalkhin Gol.

>>17812925
Not much worse than what ended up happening to them when they chose to attack the U.S. instead. A USSR preoccupied with dealing with Germany is easier to beat than an unscathed US. Japan would be relying on Germany to do the heavy lifting, Japan’s role would’ve been to divert some Soviet equipment away from the German front and block the pacific lend lease route, with the added benefit of delaying US entry into the war.

>>17812967
A few K casualties more in a single battle doesn't matter when you have the reserve manpower and industrial capacity to wage total war, which Japan did not

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/overthrowing-fate-barbarossa-revisted

>>17807666 (OP)

You realize that the Soviets would have just retreated to Samara (most functionaries had already been evacuated there by rail in October, 1941) in the event Moscow was lost right?

>>17808396

Anime and Kawaii culture as a whole are both a byproduct of Japan's defeat in WWII.

>>17808943
So then what made the soviet union so eager to fight? I would have thought there was plenty of dissent, with all of stalin's purges and oppression

The reality is that Hitler should have gone with his original plan for the Caucasus. Inevitably the three pincer attack and gunning for Moscow is what handicapped Barbarossa. His generals were retarded, outdated and quite frankly fucked him over for the duration of the war with their stupid ideas.

>>17807666 (OP)
>2 more days and moscow is finished!
Wait ive heard that one before

>>17813431
>A few K casualties more in a single battle
lmao, they suffered heavy casualties in a series of battles. You are talking complete crap like they were on different power levels.
Japan was also the only country that didn't face manpower issues in WW2 and DID waging total war from 1937-1945, just not against Russia. Meanwhile the Russians could never bring any reinforcements or supplies to this front when they were fighting for their very existence by the skin of their teeth in Europe.

>>17807666 (OP)
It's convenient that nobody ever talks about what the Germans would do if they ever got to Moscow.

Because "getting" there would be all they did since there was no chance of actually taking the city.

>>17807666 (OP)
How did that work out for Napoleon? They would have been better concentrating on securing the oil fields of the Caucasus, the steel in Donbas, and the grain around the Don and Volga.

>>17808054
The plan itself was retarded and relied entirely on Russia being a paper tiger, which is what the Germans believed at the time of conception.

>>17813706
Exactly what Hitler argued.
He knew the city was ultimately pointless because the Russians wouldnt surrender.

>>17813450
Losing Moscow would still be a terrible blow, it was the nerve for communication and railway, and still the largest industrial hub despite the evacuations. Samara would still be the 'capital' yes but it's silly to pretend that losing Moscow would be a nothingburger.

The main point however is that the Soviets simply wouldnt collapse with the fall of Moscow, and as long as that is the case, the Germans are still facing the exact same problems in 1942 as they did IRL; they are stuck in a 2-front war and they need oil. Taking Moscow hasnt solved anything from a grander strategic perspective.
In fact, I would argue that the German situation would be worse if Moscow is captured.
Stalin would concentrate Soviet forces around Moscow to retake it. Hitler would consequently concentrate German forces around Moscow to hold it. There would be less men and material to spare for Case Blue against the Caucasus, which still must happen even with Moscow because Germany needs oil.
The Russians would also be far more prepared for a German southern offensive unlike IRL. In IRL they expected the Germans to make a second attempt to capture Moscow so Case Blue came as a complete surprise and overhelmed the unprepared Russian forces, hence why Army Group A made such rapid advance. In this alt-history scenario Moscow has been captured so the Russians can only expect a southern offensive.

>>17813706
Taking Moscow means taking control of the railroads, or at the very least disabling them

Moscow was more important in 1941 than in 1812

No, Germany had already way overextended itself by then, they should've just dug in a line across Novgorod, Smolensk and kiev and baited the Russians into attacking them and encircling them in counteroffensives
Wouldn't lead them to victory but it would've created a stalemate and allowed them to let the soviets blunt their own forces

>>17813832
Germanys best bet would have been to stop short like you said, and then defeat the Soviet army whenever it appeared. The Germans were tactically superior on the open battlefield and usually inflicted far heavier losses than they took. It was city fighting that became a nightmare because their tactical superiority was lost there, and they could easily be encircled when the army was immobile.

The main strategy in this scenario is to simply bleed the Red Army until Stalin realise that victory will be too costly, and agrees to a seperate peace.
IRL the Soviets had no more reserves by spring 1945 because of the heavy human cost during the war. By 1946 the USSR was facing economic and social collapse so the huge Red Army had to be demobilized to get the men back into the workforce. By 1947 Russia had faced one of the worst famine in modern history because of the insane human loss.

The strategy to set up a defensive line and bleed the Russian Army whenever they tried to engage, instead of trying to advance into the interior, is exactly what Imperial Germany did in ww1, and eventually the cost of human life was a major cause for the revolution. Had the Germans treated the occupied territories better, come as liberators, set up independent states and armed the population, there could be a real chance of re-igniting the civil war as the Soviets would be pushing the Wehrmacht back.

It probably wouldnt win Germany the war, but it's still a potentially better scenario.

>>17813459
>Stalin's purges
Why would there be dissent to some traitors getting killed? As an average soviet citizen you had pretty much 0 chance to be affected at all.
>oppression
Vague seething

>>17813874
Anyone could be sent to the gulag for 'sabotage', dumbass. They event sent their top rocket scientist there.

>>17814087
Don't screw with the bag, chuddy

>>17813709
friendly reminder that EVERYONE believed that. The soviets had been embarassed just a year earlier in Finland. Before that, the japs beat them Manchuria. There was no reason to suspect that they would be this strong, especially after all the purges.

>>17813697
>since there was no chance of actually taking the city.
According to history, in September there were only a few thousand drunk militia defending it, even lenin had been unplugged and sent off on a train. If AGC had attacked in september, instead of being diverted to kiev, victory was assured

>>17815256
Leaving over 700.000 red army soldiers and tanks and aircrafts to rain on the German flank.

>>17815205
False. They weren't 'that strong', they just had a shitload of help from the Brits and the US. Also, Hitler didn't exactly underestimate them. He thought they were going to be the hardest challenge. But I do think he underestimated the amount of aid they'd receive from the Allies in order to turn the invasion around. You also have to take into account that they were fighting for survival while in Finland they were fighting for territorial gains most Soviet soldiers didn't find interesting. It's much easier to convince people to defend their home than to fight in some war abroad.

>>17815300
They wouldn’t have been able to conduct offensive operations against whatever the Germans had there anyway.

>>17815306
>False. They weren't 'that strong', they just had a shitload of help from the Brits and the US.
They were weak for the same reason they were weak in Finland; Poor doctrine, incompetent officers, and a centralized command that discouraged initiative.
The defeats in Finland mirrors the defeats at Brody and Kiev.
The Germans underestimated the sheer size of the Red Army and their ability to learn from their mistakes (and learn from their enemies). The Soviets re-introduced ranks and limited commisar authority, released imprisoned generals like Rokossovsky, and embraced Tukhachevskys doctrines of Deep Operations (which was a refined version of "blitzkrieg") that had been dismissed during the purges. Officers were able to give mission command initiatives to seize an opportunity without waiting for orders from central command. Red army also re-introduced mechanized divisions and corps formations into divisions, expanded on Maskirovka, which became more sophisticated than the German deception and counter-intelligence (hence why a massive operation like Bagration compeltely fooled the Germans).

It was a long process, but by late 1943 and 1944 the Red Army had become a modern and effective fighting force compared to what it was at Finland and Barbarossa.
Fighting toe-to-toe with the Wehrmacht gave the men and officers constant experience and they learned from the Germans. Why wouldnt they?


>Also, Hitler didn't exactly underestimate them.
"We only need to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure comes crashing down" - Hitler
What does that sound like to you?

>But I do think he underestimated the amount of aid they'd receive from the Allies in order to turn the invasion around.
You mean the 2% of Lend-Lease which managed to arrive in 1941 was what ultimately stopped Barbarossa?

>>17815322
Wow. I wish someone had told me earlier. Now I am totally convinced.

I'm gonna email every historian on this. They need to know.

>>17815306
Germany destroyed 100 Soviet divisions and they just built 100 new ones by the next year. Nothing like that has ever been performed in history.

>>17815374
Why else do you think they were in a defensive position before and during the battle of Kiev?

>>17815422
The Soviet doctrine in 41 and early 42 was to launch broad offensives from every direction. They absolutely would've attacked from Kiev if they hadn't been destroyed.

>>17815424
It was a while before Army Group Center came down to finish them off. Why didn’t they attack Army Group South in that time frame?

>>17815424
AGS wouldve stopped them

>>17815430
Yeah, as if the historic winter offensive wasn't bad enough, now they'd be even more outstretched and attacked from the south as well.

>>17815430
Correction; South would have been stopped at Kiev, instead of at Rostov when Center went for Moscow.

And you will still have half a million Russians poised to attack the supply flank of Center, which means more of Center has to be re-directed to defend the flanks and less of Center is left to push for Moscow.

And mud season begins in October, of which all movements completely stops.

>>17815421
Germans didn't know that there is winter in the East and they didn't check that the USSR population was three times bigger than theirs. With all males having military training.
Basically the Aryan master-minds stoned on their farts after conquering some countries 5 times _smaller_ than them.

>>17815876
They knew they just didn't think it would matter. Every aspect of planning for Barbarossa was based on the assumption that they would win a few battles near the border and then march to the Urals unopposed. No one anticipated the superhuman effort the Soviet Union actually made to win the war

>>17815911
>No one anticipated the superhuman effort the Soviet Union actually made to win the war
They assumed that an entire "race" will let itself get genocided without putting any resistance? WHOAH big German brains

>>17807666 (OP)
I always found it funny when I see people say shit like
>Moscow was the Soviet Union's central rail hub, so once the Germans captured it the Soviets would be finished
Seemingly unaware that the fact it was the central rail hub was what would make it so difficult to capture in the first place, since as long as the city was able to defy encirclement that means it can be easily resupplied, and the Soviets would throw everything they had at defending it. It would have just been Stalingrad but worse.

>>17815924
The more common thing where people say capturing Moscow would have been no real difference because Napoleon is way more retarded than that

>>17815911
Virtually everyone watching Barbarossa unfold were equally surprised as the Germans that the Soviets did not fold after the devastating losses in June-August of 1941. Any other state wouldnt stomach such losses.
The Soviet society had been brutalized during the interwar period by Stalins regime, and it had made them hardened to endure the pressure that was placed on them by the invasion, and Stalins purges, while decimating the army and the civil government, is probably what also kept the government intact under such circumstances (whereas the French were quick to surrender because of their poltiical disunity, when many historians argue that the French government could simply have refused to sue for peace and kept fighting from overseas)

The Germns were quite euphoric during June and July because of the devastating success of Barbarossa; virtually every Soviet division which had been marked for destruction had been destroyed.
But they were already getting alarmed and anxious by August when new Soviet formation kept appearing, and that many Soviet divisions who were trapped still didnt surrender like "normal" soldiers would in the west, which costed the Wehrmacht critical time and produced casualties since Wehrmacht infantry divisions had to constantly eliminate these pockets of resistance.
The Germans also overestimated themselves and were extremely alarmed by the number of Soviet divisions that managed to escape every encirclement attempt

When the Germans captures factories, they were appalled at just how vast the production capability of these tank factories were. Hitler himself lamented that he would never have ordered Barbarossa, had he known the real production potential of the USSR, and it became clear that the Barbarossa planners had severely miscalculated the number of Soviet divisions (they thought it was no more than 140 divisions, when in reality it was over 300). The Soviets also looted the civilians of tracktors and radios to fit new tanks

>>17815928
I mean, it would have been a deathtrap
Good possibility of Germans getting encircled in Moscow

>>17815928
Both sides are dishonest.
>Capturing Moscow would give Germany an automatic win
>Capturing Moscow would just be another nothingburger
Dunno why people insist on taking the most radical position in every debate.

>>17815369
>and embraced Tukhachevskys doctrines of Deep Operations
Deep Battle/Operations weren't invented by Cuckachevsky
Westerners glaze him up and try to credit him with Soviet victories because he was purged, therefore he was le good
His real life military record was poor and included fumbling Poland

>>17815952
If they had captured Moscow and at least isolated Leningrad they probably would have won. The Soviet economy couldn't have coped with losing both. Capturing Moscow was however highly unlikely and not a close run thing

>assaulting a city headon

>>17808943
While a high quality post, to say the Red Army wasn't on its last legs by late 41 is somewhat inaccurate. The Soviet ground forces were shattered, hindsight lets us know they could have and did summon more reserves, but France had a similar choice after the Muse was breached -- they did not choose to fight on. Britain did, somewhat upsetting this thesis, but they did so as a skeleton empire and would collapse shortly after the conclusion of hostilities. What the German planners did not account for was the totality of the war. World War One had only slowed to an attritional crawl as a result of institutional incompetence and a decline in morale/technical proficiency. German planners, given this, knew that victory could be achieved should they return to the important elements of maneuver warfare, foregoing the scaled up mobilizations of the entente entirely. If you watch archival footage from summer of 40 and winter of 41 respectively, you find the German propaganda machine stunned that the allies/sovs would decide to continue fighting after such devastating blows. To them the war was won, and who could blame them for thinking so? Every crucial element from grain supply to heavy industry was in German hands or burning. No war in human history had ever been conducted so quickly with gains so massive, they never expected a recalcitration because it was unprecedented.

>>17813864
>Had the Germans treated the occupied territories better, come as liberators, set up independent states and armed the population,
Then they lost the war in 1933 already.

>>17815961
Couldn't have coped why exactly? Also leningrad was cut off for a very long time anyways

>>17807666 (OP)
The first stages of Barbarossa was a Russian fuck-up of unprecedented proportions - with troops getting orders not to respond to German "provocations"; with commanders not even having established contact with their armies and armies being forbidden to act without explicit orders etc etc. Germans were given Russia on a plate AND they still couldn't do it. They were constantly behind the schedule from the very beginning of their offensive. No, they weren't "close" to properly conquering Russia since they could barely move without even any Soviet resistance.
Me thinks that Germany could have won if the Soviets didn't get their shit together in time. The war wasn't decided by the German Army might (nor the Soviet one) but by communists suspending being retarded when it was needed the most. It was a close call from this - political - perspective, not from a military-strategic one. The Red Army - properly commanded - would have been beyond German reach but it was far from being properly commanded when Germans took their chances.

>>17816356
Exact same argument can be made for :
>WW1, especially the battle for Poland and Prussia
>Napoleonic wars, as the russians barely won any actual battles(their best performance desu) but strategically beat the french
>Peter the ongezellig fan's wars, btfo'd by a teenager repeatedly until he literally ran out of manpower and resources while there were hordes of churkas ready to be thrown to the meatgrinder, now with improved "western" école
Russians are a meme people to have elected, of all ideologies;
The thoughts and regimes of communism, the one ideology that exasperates their faults while destroying their superiority
Lol, lmao even

>>17815918
Russia had crumbled into revolution the last two times it was at war. It was a reasonable assumption that they'd be thrown into chaos once more.

they were already a shell of there former self by the time they reached moscow they already suffered 695.00 casulties and that was from operation barbarossa itself most of the tank divisions were at 20% of there fighting capability and most were in repair shops after moscow all the could do was launch small incursions into soviet territory and even then they were limited due to the amount of shit they lost fighting around moscow after kursk from 43 onwards to 45 on the eastern front they never had a panzer division that was at full strength

>>17808054
soviets were doing "can you beat germany while making the dumbest decisions possible" challenge
>purged the few experienced officers remaining after the civil war
>doubled down on cumbersome tank divisions after germans rolled through france even though the winter war proved that they needed a reorganisation
>chose ukraine over belarus to put their best forces in because their defensive doctrine involved an immediate counter-offensive and they planned to cut off germans in prussia and balkans from there
>didn't learn from their mistakes and kept making a blunder after a blunder basically giving germans victories on a silver plate
if the soviet leadership weren't retarded the war would be over in 1942 in berlin