Nazi Germany VS The Soviet Union


  • In my opinion, Germany actually had a chance to win the war (against all Allies) had they not made some crucial mistakes. Of course, the Allies made even more mistakes than the Germans, so you could look at this both ways.

    First off, Germany’s first BIG mistake was allowing the Allies to retreat from Dunkirk. The French were already beat. If the Germans would have used their ground forces to cut off the English and French troops at Dunkirk instead of just using the Luftwaffe, moral would have been completely wiped away. Instead, the Allies saw this evacuation as a victory and that gave their people hope. To compound the problem, the same soldier who evacuated at Dunkirk ended up forcing the Germans to allocate more resources to Africa and eventually those same soldiers invaded Normandy. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s completely unreasonable to think England may have surrendured had they suffered a catastrophe at Dunkirk.

    Second, the Germans had no business helping Italy in the Balkans or in Africa. Those resources should have been directed towards Russia.

    Third, if Barborossa had been launched earlier as planned, Russia would have collapsed. The Red Army crumbled when Germany advanved. The only problem was that the Germans couldn’t capitalize on their efforts because of the bad weather. With the extra weeks available from an earlier invasion date, the Germans could have continued encircling massive pockets of Russians. Moscow would have been reached. Once the capital was captured and Stalin fleed, Russia would have collapsed just as it did in WW1. In this case, no Stalingrad, no Kursk.

    Of course, if things did go bad (as they did in history), Hitler should have never intervened in the operations of the war. Erich von Manstien and other brilliant planners were more than capable of conducting the war.

    So…?

    Lastly, I wanted to note the Nazi ideology. Many people on here think had they “liberated” Russia instead of “conquered” Russia, more Ukrainians and Soviets would have helped. Well, the German war machine was made possible by de-humanizing their enemies. The German army was the best trained in the world and they thought they were figthing to save their master race. The believed this so much, that they were also the most motivated soldier in the army.

    I don’t want to sound like Im supporting their ideology, but it surely helped their military (and doomed their country).

    By the way… when playing Axis and Allies, am I the only one that likes to pretend they are actually conducting the real war?  :-D

    One game with my roommate, I baited him to send his armor into Caucus because it was lightly defended. He took it but my counterattack was vicious and he lost all his armor and I told him, “dont worry, that happened to Paulus too!”


  • Read an interesting theory today that actually seems plausible: that Heydrich’s espionage network planted forged documents that made there way up to Stalin about an attempted joint coup against Stalin between the Red Army leaders and the Nazi. The significance is that the Germans, knowing Stalin’s paranoia, were responsible for Stalin’s purges that crippled Red Army leadership on the eve of war.


  • That would be right up Heydrichs sleeve. That man was a walking brain constantly thinking of such subterfuge. He pulled off the hoax that staged the invasion of Poland, and involved with many projects as Himmler’s right hand man.


  • A walking evil brain.

    But for everyone who thinks that Germany would have defeated a ‘lone Russia’ I would have to disagree. By the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, the turning point of the European theater, Russia was facing over 200 German divisions while the Anglo-Americans were only facing 6-7, includine ONE light panzer division under Rommel in North Africa. The fact that the Russians won the Battle of Stalingrad and turned the tide suggests that Germany would have been ultimately unsuccessful in a strictly German vs. Russia war. Lets face it, Russia has not been successfully invaded since the Mongols (actually not Russia at the time) because its just too big in geography and population.


  • The Germans beat them in world war one. They did it two ways: first by sending the communist agitator Lenin on a train to Russia to destroy the Imperial aristocracy and second by military victories further sending the Czars position into a weakened  state.


  • After Stalingrad, the Russian tanks were more sophsticated than the German tanks and outnumbered them over 4:1, as well as over 2:1 manpower. That is shear overwhelming power - not to mention behind the sophisticated German panzer units, their army was still relying on quite primitive military elements like cavalry.


  • yea AFTER Stalingrad…. nobody will debate that any hope remained AFTER Stalingrad. However in August 41 anything was possible

  • '11

    It’s interesting to think of how advanced and mechanized the German Wehrmacht was at the time of WWII, especially with their Blitzkrieg campaigns and yet they still relied on hundreds of thousands of horses for the supply lines in all campaigns of the war.

  • '19 Moderator

    You use what you’ve got, I believe I read that the US had more trucks than any other nation, but it was easier for us to build and ship trucks than breed, feed and transport horses.


  • The issue of mechanization in the whermacht was not a reason for its failure because the winter campaigns of 41 and 42 caused major problems for trucks as the oil froze up and transports broke down. Horse was a good way to over come some of these issues. German logistical capabilities were very good probably second after USA and definatly better than the Soviets. However, not going to total war economy was a key issue for German failure but not an influence that could not be compensated by other means such as military doctrine and organizational advantages that Germany had.

  • '11

    Oh, I’m not arguing the mechanization issue. If Germany had gone into a total war economy and war production, then they probably could have matched Russia better at least in the tank and artillery department, not the man power. Germany just didn’t prepare as well as they should have for the invasion of Russia. If they had, then they probably would have had a variety of vehicles that could handle the perpetual cold, along with more winter weather gear for the troops.


  • “yea AFTER Stalingrad…. nobody will debate that any hope remained AFTER Stalingrad. However in August 41 anything was possible”

    I understand that, but the question is about Germany vs. Soviet Union. The fact remains that the VAST majority of the German divisions were fighting the Soviet Union and the battle of Stalingrad and the German decline after their defeat suggests that they would have lost the war against the Russians even if the Americans and British had nto been involved. Remember that the Germans were on the run long before D-Day, and that the Anglo-American front was seemingly only opened eventually when the British and Americans feared Soviet hegemony over Germany. On the other hand, there is something to be said about the salience of American Lend-Lease Aid.


  • but the question is about Germany vs. Soviet Union. The fact remains that the VAST majority of the German divisions were fighting the Soviet Union and the battle of Stalingrad and the German decline after their defeat suggests that they would have lost the war against the Russians even if the Americans and British had nto been involved.

    Yea and Germany invaded the Soviet Union June 22 1941, and Stalingrad was about 1.5 years latter, what about THIS time period. Who cares about AFTER Stalingrad? Nobody is or can argue that Germany would win after Feb 1 1943, unless at Kursk Hitler started earlier and didn’t wait till the Soviets built 5 lines deep of fortification lines it perhaps can be argued that it may have bought time but not changed the outcome.

    The only period of constructive discussion of a German victory would be her operations from June 41-about autumn 1942. Lots of possibilities were possible for Germany.

    It is also an unassailable point that after Kursk the Soviet Union alone could have defeated Germany w/o no further help from western allies. If Germany stripped all her fronts and left them bare it would not have even dented the eastern front. The Soviets would have rolled all the way to the Spanish border


  • I would agree with IL’s last statement. I concur with it. The Russians didn’t need anyone’s help at all near the end. However, it needs to be pointed out -if it hasn’t already- that the Lend-Lease by the UK/US did help the Reds quite substantially. I know this is getting off topic, but for the first little while during 41-42 and probably a bit afterward, the Russians didn’t have a lot of transports and similar vehicles to help them get around. I can’t remember the numbers, but the Lend-Lease program gave the Russians quite a lot of vehicles to help them with their battles.


  • @The:

    However, it needs to be pointed out -if it hasn’t already- that the Lend-Lease by the UK/US did help the Reds quite substantially. I know this is getting off topic, but for the first little while during 41-42 and probably a bit afterward, the Russians didn’t have a lot of transports and similar vehicles to help them get around. I can’t remember the numbers, but the Lend-Lease program gave the Russians quite a lot of vehicles to help them with their battles.

    Aircraft 14,795
    Tanks 7,056
    Jeeps 51,503
    Trucks 375,883
    Motorcycles 35,170
    Tractors 8,071
    Guns 8,218
    Machine guns 131,633
    Explosives 345,735 tons
    Building equipment valued $10,910,000
    Railroad freight cars 11,155
    Locomotives 1,981
    Cargo ships 90
    Submarine hunters 105
    Torpedo boats 197
    Ship engines 7,784
    Food supplies 4,478,000 tons
    Machines and equipment $1,078,965,000
    Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
    Petroleum products 2,670,000 tons
    Chemicals 842,000 tons
    Cotton 106,893,000 tons
    Leather 49,860 tons
    Tires 3,786,000
    Army boots 15,417,001 pairs

    courtesy of Wiki

    This is from the U.S. alone, and does not include U.K. numbers.


  • It does not have the most important thing on the list:

    Russian blood and toil

    22 million Russians dead paid for victory, while we lost like 450,000 dead by comparison.

    Payment in “tanks or machine guns” can only get you so far. lives are what count in statistics.

    I think w/o Lend Lease Russia could still win, but more lives would be lost but if the campaign went the same way the result would be the same too.

  • '19 Moderator

    35k motorcycles! damn it I want one of those back!

  • '11

    That’s a lot of boots. Did they have insulated sandals before the boots arrived?


  • Yes, Germany could beat the U.S.S.R out rightly if no other fronts existed. The Germans would still need the surprise factor and the results of the summer of 1941 to pull this off.

    Without surprise the war would have drained Germany quicker than the vast U.S.S.R. I’m curious how German war material and fuel production would do without the hamper of bombing raids.

    What a great question!


  • If Germany did over run Moscow do you think they would have kept going?  What would they have gained my taking SFE?

    LT

Suggested Topics

  • 2
  • 10
  • 2
  • 13
  • 7
  • 104
  • 7
  • 10
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

40

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts