French Navy and Capitulation
 

WOLF359,
I have read through the posts, maybe I missed something but I didn't see anyone answer your questions. If I missed it i am sorry for repeating here.

When France surrendered, Raeder wanted the French Fleet.

Hitler was afraid if he made demands to have the French Fleet surrender to him they would defect to Great Britain. There by adding their strength to the British Fleet.

Another reason is he did not wish to further antagonize the British and was still hopeful for peace with them.

As far as the French scuttling their Capital Ships in Toulon, that happened when the Germans tried to capture them in November of 1942 after the allies landed in North Africa.

French Navy WWII pictures link
 

french sweeper, many thanks for sharing the pictures, it is these small pieces of history that I find very exciting, the putting together of large events into context of people and their lives / stories.

Looking at the map Stalingrad seems to be a bit more eastward than Moscow so tactically I think it would make more sense to go straight for Moscow but since the city held Stalin's name Hitler wanted to win there bad before hostilities were to end with Russia I guess. Thankfully the Russians knew how to fight in cold weather, that gave them a major advantage. I guess moral of the story is don't invade Russia if you can't finish the job by the end of fall, Napoleon learned the hard way too.

For those who want to read a German's perspective of the eastern front read "Tigers in the Mud" by Otto Carius. He was a Panzer commander who fought with Tiger tanks against the Russians.

In June 1942, when the Germans renewed their offensive in Russia the two goals were the Baku oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad. The idea was to cut Moscow and the rest of Russia off from it's main oil supply (The main rail and river links to Baku run through Stalingrad). Ultimately, the Germans didn't have the strength or the logistical capability for both goals and stalled in the Caucasus Mountains well short of Baku and found themselves foundering in a frontal (and attritional) attack on Stalingrad. At the time the approaches to Moscow were well fortified and defended by the bulk of the ever-growing Red Army as Stalin expected Hitler would try for Moscow again. The Germans didn't have the strength to make a push along the entire front. As it was, due to heavy losses in the previous winter, they had to cannibalize those northern divisions that didn't take part in the Caucasus drive of their trucks and motorized vehicles to make the 1942 offensive possible at all. They also had to rely on their weaker Rumanian and Hugarian allies to cover their lengthening front which contributed to the Stalingrad disaster, as these troops with low morale and little anti-tank capability were easily overrun by Soviet tanks in the open steppes in winter.

Germans approached finns in winter -41-42 to inquire how to maintain fighting capability in winter. Initial response was that every soldier is to put on every piece of clothing he posesses, regardeless are they standard issue or not. Germans complained that military dicipline and protocol are to be maintained. Finns responded that russians will create some activity to keep germans exposed if troops are known to lack winter clothing. Thus freezing them slowly.

Source never tells if germans heeded our advice.

It wasn't so much that needed tonnages of winter equipment and clothing didn't exist for the Germans as the frosts came on, as that they existed in the wrong places---at depots in Germany far from the front. The transportation infrastructure east of the Russo-German border was far less developed than that west of it., and the destruction caused by the invasion did nothing to improve it's capacity.

As the Germans got ready to carry out their final 1941 offensives before Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov they were far enough from the Reich's logistical heart to be down to mere capillary carrying capacity. In terms of moveable tonnages, Hitler was faced with the choice of being able to shunt forward enough of all kinds of supply (including winter clothing and oil) to sustain his forces for defensive operations, or push up enough petrol and ammmo for offensives ones. The decision at his well-heated headquarters far from the front was for the latter.

If only there had been some historical precedent they could have studied regarding the problems inherent in any ongoing invasion of Russia...

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/408...oninrussia.jpg

Even if Moscow fell many people say the Russian army will fall back behind the Ural mountains along with their industry and build up strength for a massive counter attack. Russia is a huge country so I don't see how German occupation would've been very practical without major help.

That help would have been Japan. USSR intelligence had it's contacts in the right places and found out that Japan will not attack the Soviet Union. Now all the divisions defending the eastern borders of the country were free for the battles in the western part, it did take them quite some time to get there though. They arrived somewhere near the battle for Moscow, if I remember correctly of course.

Great thread would read again. Now where did our history teachers go? I wouldn't mind reading more of this. :up:

Failure to take Moscow by diverting troops South to the Caucasus was the real game changer. After that the real 'brains' in the German high command knew the war was lost.
As early as Jul 1941, the Russians knew the Germans were going to breach their defenses and threaten Moscow. On 3 Jul, Lenin's body was moved from Moscow to Tumen to prevent German capture or destruction. Little over two weeks later, on 22 Jul, 127 German bombers raided Moscow, even lightly damaging the Kremlin.
On 2 Oct 1941, Fedor von Bock led German troops to assault directly against Moscow. German advances were slower than they had hoped with a rainy fall season and later a cold early winter. As German vehicles become immobilized, the German army continued to advance, however the cold weather was affecting the morale and fighting ability of the troops to a high degree. On 15 Nov, another push for Moscow was launched, and within two weeks the Germans reached the 27km marker to Moscow, with some soldiers claiming the sighting of the towers of Kremlin.
The crucial fact was that Hitler ignored most of his generals who were pushing for taking out Moscow,which hadnt suceeded for Napoelon,and the German high command were still using his plan albeit modified for the 20th centuary to invade Russia.A daunting task in itself.Hitler was supporting a plan put together by Gen Von Losberg which aimed at driving for the heartland of Russias industry and oil,of which Stalingrad was the lynch pin.If Stalingrad fell,the way was open to the oil fields.That is why so much hinged on Hitler winning there. Stalingrad could have been won.
Hitler was rightly concerned that if he marched on and took Moscow without neutralizing the Soviet army and Ukrainian food and steel production, his army would find itself in Moscow with strong and well supplied armies on its flanks and would be forced to retreat in winter like Napolean had. The belief was that the army had to be neutralized first and Ukraine captured before a successful campaign could be mounted on Moscow. In fact Hitler changed his mind, as was his wont, several times during the campaign. Some divisions were transfered from one army group to another several times before the Kiev pocket was neutralized and the drive on Moscow begain in earnest. It is possible that the Germans could have succeded in all three goals if they hadn't had orders change so drastically, so frequently. But a drive on just Moscow might have left the Germans in an extremely exposed salient. In which case they would have been slaughtered in the Soviet winter campaign.
In my view a successful invasion of the Soviet Union would have had to acomplish four goals, with a fifth goal virtually impossible. The first four are capture of the grain and iron production in the Ukraine, neutralization of the baltic fleet with the capture of Lenningrad, elimination of the communication and transportation linchpin that was Moscow, and capture of the Baku oil fields or at least their neutralization with the capture of Stalingrad and Astrakhan. The fifth of course would be the capture of the Urals. Hitler actually did accomplish one of these. The other three he almost acomplished at one point or annother. Had the Germans been able to take and hold all four areas they probably would have won the war in the East.

Even if Japan wanted to help, the war they fought against the US considerably tied up their resources.

I think ediko is presuming that Japan forgoes it's historical surprise attack on December 7th, 1941 on the US and instead joins Germany in the attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler's invasion of the USSR began on June 22, 1941 six months before Pearl Harbor. If Japan had soon joined in as well, it would have presented Stalin with a two-front war.

The Imperial Japanese Army, in particular at one time favored a move north out of Manchuria against Vladivostok and Siberia as they saw Russia as their traditional enemy. A joint German-Japanese attack on the Soviet Union might have invoked some diplomatic protests from the US, but given the isolationist and anti-communist attitudes of the country, probably no military ones.

After the battles around Nomonhan in the summer of 1939 there was never any realistic prospect of Japan launching offensive war against the Soviet Union.

The leadership of the Army in Manchuria had lost great face in defeat; one infantry division had been subtracted virtually in its entirety from the order of battle and another had lost almost all its heavy equipment and many of its soldiers. Much of the theatre air force lay in smoking piles on the Mongolian steppes and literally hundreds of Japanese soldiers had become prisoners of war and declared legally dead by the High Command.

Like the bully who had been badly beaten by a former victim, the Japanese Army and military junta would bend over backwards to avoid antagonizing Stalin right to the bitter end.

After Nomonhan the Imperial Navy's Southern Strategy became national policy and Japan turned towards areas in America's sphere of influence making a clash at some point, almost inevitable. The 'soft and decandent' Americans would be far easier pray than the seemingly formidable Bolshiviks so they told themselves.

The thrashing received by the Kwantung Army on the Khalkin Gol by the Red Army was one of the decisive events of WW2.

Well you are right about this. But Stalin had to be sure of it. Pretty much the only chance to beat USSR would have been a 2 front war with it. Be that with the help of Japan or.... well yeah, no chance. But even with some help from Japan , Germany would have had a better chance, since 2 front wars are always a disaster to manage.

But if I'm honest this won't really lead anywhere, I might as well tell you that Japan would have won if it had a star destroyer, well it would, but it didn't.


I heard some ideas here about the capture of Gibraltar to effectively seal off any Allied shipping. But would a piece of rock really stop UK's fleet? I mean really, even if Germans had Gibraltar and put some coastal batteries on it, how long would it take for the Brits to get some BB's and CV's out? It's just a piece of land, the reason UK could use it so effectively was because they had a powerful surface fleet guarding a narrow pass, that base just gave them fuel and ammo, and all the other good stuff. Am I right in this, or do I miss something important?

Ultimately after the US oil embargo, Japan had no choice but to turn south as the Russian Far East lacked the one thing Japan craved most--oil. There were some operating wells on Sakhalin Island, but not nearly enough to meet Japan's needs. Plus, outside of Vladivostok the area lacked any sort of vital industrial or population center to aim as well, being mostly empty wilderness. The Russians if they wished could have simply traded space for time on a grand scale.