Rommel as Strategist.

well his biggest mistake was going on to celebration of his wifes birthday while allies stormed beaches of normandy
 
Well, the trouble was not that he wasn't there, but that his defense scheme was virtually thrown away for the OKW (just a loudspeaker of Hitler's will at that time). Hitler, faced with the responsability of choose between:
1- Rommel's tactic: tanks near the beaches where they expected the Allies to land, but with the drawback that, if they put the tanks in the wrong area, Allied could land almost unimpeded and the tanks could be attacked by the rear or flanks.

2- von Rudstedt tactic: Tanks kept on rearguard but ready to get deployed where the Allies were landing as soon as they knew. Sadly it ment that the tanks should go across French country without defence capability against the overwhelming Allied air superiority.

Hitler tried to please both marshall, hence not pleasing anyone. He kept almost half of german armored forces on France near the beaches, and the other half waiting and safe behind the lines. Taking into account that a lot of these "armored forces" comprised obsolete french and german tanks (the newest ones were sent to the Russian front), it ment that the tanks on beaches neither had power to halt the attack, nor the other half could get deployed in time without being wiped out by Close Support fighters and bombers.

To make matters worse (for the Nazis, not for us, praise God for that), the landings happened so soon that no one on Wolfschanze (Hitler's HQ on East Prussian soil), dared to wake up Hitler to warn him... and Hitler was the only one with authority to allow these armored divisions in Normandy to move and attack. So the tanks didn't move on dawn, where they could have roared to with some impunity... at least, less defenceless than midmorning, when they began to roll on.
 
One thing I find incredibly amuzing about the American take on World War II history, is
1.) the almost total disregard for what happened on the Eastern Front
2.) we tend to ignore everything and everyone that we did not encounter directly.

Nazi Germany was blessed with many military geniuses and certainly Rommel was one of them. In my opinion, he was far from being the best of them though. Just like all of the other successful Field Marshalls and/or Generals, he was yet another protege of Heinz Guderian.

It was Guderian who reinvented Tank Warfare making the concept of Blitzkrieg actually work. He also wrought total havock on Poland, then France, then Russia on the Eastern Front. One of Hitler's greatest failings was that he didn't let General Guderian have more free rein ... basically stopping or redirecting him before he could finish what he started. If he had let Guderian alone, the miracle of Dunkirk never happens and Moscow almost definitely would have been taken in 1942. What's worse, Hitler fired Guderian after an argument over strategies and tactics shortly after this, losing the best general he had to his own arrogance.

I can admire Rommel as a strong protege, but in my opinion, he comes nowhere close to equalling Guderian as a commander, as a strategist and as a military genius. I'd also say that Manstein is a few notches better than Rommel. Because Rommel was more the politician, however, he is a greater threat to Hitler.
 
god,
I don't think even if Guderian has free reign over an attempt to take Moscow in the winter of 41 he would of done it. Hoth's Panzer Korps was spent, and Zhukov had just arrived with his Siberian researves. In short, it was a mistake for him to even try a push so late in the fall.

I must also remind you that Guderian was in all acounts, a arrogant "hothead" (Although a very capable General nontheless.) He relied to heavilly on armor alone, and perhaps would have marched the Germans to an even swifter death in Russia (Perhaps, perhaps not)

Rommel was not always a man of armor, like Guderian, he remained skeptical of armor until the blitzkrieg in '39.
 
GuyontheRight said:
god,
I don't think even if Guderian has free reign over an attempt to take Moscow in the winter of 41 he would of done it. Hoth's Panzer Korps was spent, and Zhukov had just arrived with his Siberian researves. In short, it was a mistake for him to even try a push so late in the fall.

I must also remind you that Guderian was in all acounts, a arrogant "hothead" (Although a very capable General nontheless.) He relied to heavilly on armor alone, and perhaps would have marched the Germans to an even swifter death in Russia (Perhaps, perhaps not)

Rommel was not always a man of armor, like Guderian, he remained skeptical of armor until the blitzkrieg in '39.
Click to expand...

With the delay in launching Operation Typhoon (the assault on Moscow) I don't think Guderian was under any illusions that Moscow could be captured in 1941. Guderian argued fiercely against the diverting of his Panzer Armee to help in the capture of the Ukraine, which may or may not have caused Typhoon to fail. In order for the Germans to win in '41, they had to smash the Red Army and shock them into defeat. By the time Zhukov arrived it was too late in 1941.

Guderian was impetous but he could back it up and he knew on most occasions he was right. He above all others understood that if the momentum in Blitzkrieg is lost then it becomes much less effective. With Hitler ordering him to divert his Panzer Armee 250 miles to help capture Kiev he knew that the forward momentum on Moscow was being critically stalled.

History was to prove him right.
 
Lets consider a few things. Firstly, Army Group Center commanded by Guderian was the only German invasion force that didn't bog down. Army Group North and South were struggling to take their objectives, Guderian and his forces were not. (You'll find this is pretty typical in WW2 history.) He was no fool, we was not going to get so far ahead that he lost his supply lines. He did, however, see one very important thing that Hitler didn't. Since the Stalin and Lenin had industrialized Russia, Moscow was the very heart of things. In industry, in railroads, in everything.

It is in late August/early September that his forces are diverted toward the Ukraine to help the struggling Army Group South. It isn't until LATE NOVEMBER that he is allowed to continue towards Moscow and he has to retake a lot of territory that he had already taken previously. So Guderian's push for Moscow was almost 100% in the very heart of the Russian winter, and some of his forces still got within a mile. I'd say that's pretty damn impressive considering the severity of that particular Russian winter. What if he'd had the extra 3 non-winter months to work with? I think its extremely naive to say that Moscow would have not fallen and that would have been a major problem on the other two fronts for the Russians. Sure, the Ukraine likely doesn't completely fall in 1941. We'll never know how things would have turned out had he been left to pursue what he knew was best. I don't think Zukov would have had a prayer of stopping him from taking the capital, had things gone that way.

The underlying problem I have with Rommel 'worshippers' is that, because we actually fought him, we respect him. Because you really didn't face certain other German commanders, you don't think it possible they might have been better. And if you know anything about Guderian, you'd know better than to say that his strategies relied entirely on tanks. Do some reasearch please.
 
god, Yes, I have done research, and it's become clear to me that during the offensive in '41 Guderian relied to heavilly on armor, advanced to fast, and left his supply lines open, thus creating the problem of Soviet partisians who would harrass the Germans for the rest of the War. I am no idiot, I know Guderian was germany's best, and that he was the man who instated the Panzer forces as a mix of mech infantry and tanks. To say that if Hitler gave Guderian his choice the Germans would of won the war is a little farfetched for me.
 
Yeah sorry if I came across wrong there.

Anyway, the Soviet patisans were not likely to cut his supply lines, as they were in the same boat as the Red Army - in a state of total shock and surprise. Because he was a bit of a beligerent ass, Guderian never got the full support of the Weirmacht. If his supply lines were in danger, that was not because he was doing it wrong. His whole theory of was was for the slower moving infantry to secure what the Panzers had taken. But remember, his idea was to focus a lot more of the German forces towards Moscow.

Not saying that this is a magical formula for German victory, just that it would have made things quite a lot more difficult for Russia.
 
godofthunder9010 said:
Yeah sorry if I came across wrong there.

Anyway, the Soviet patisans were not likely to cut his supply lines, as they were in the same boat as the Red Army - in a state of total shock and surprise. Because he was a bit of a beligerent ass, Guderian never got the full support of the Weirmacht. If his supply lines were in danger, that was not because he was doing it wrong. His whole theory of was was for the slower moving infantry to secure what the Panzers had taken. But remember, his idea was to focus a lot more of the German forces towards Moscow.

Not saying that this is a magical formula for German victory, just that it would have made things quite a lot more difficult for Russia.
Click to expand...

One of the problems for Guderian (and Hoth, Hoeppner and Kleist for that matter) was the lack of mechanisation for the supporting infantry divisions he left in his wake. Ideally, Panzergrenadier divisions would have kept up with the panzers and secured vital points behind him. I don't think it's so much because of Guderian's attitude that he didn't get full support from his superiors; it's more that some of them couldn't fully appreciate what Blitzkrieg was all about! Remember that most of them were WW1 veterans who still percieved war as being a series of gradual advances rather than lightening thrusts with overwhelming force as theorised by Guderian.
 
I've always found it sortof interesting - the only successful conquest of Russia was by the Mongols. The Mongols were largely from Siberia where winter is even nastier that it is on the European side of modern Russia and distances are even more insane ... so General Winter and General Distance were irrelevant to them. Everyone else who has tried has failed.

In my opinion, I think that losing Moscow in the early stages would have been a very big problem for the Red Army. Resupply for Leningrad and the Ukraine would have been prohibitive at best. Guderian would have been at risk of being cut off, but the Red Army was in such a state of disarray at that time that I don't think anyone would have tried the obvious. Partisans were barely beginning to opperate, so I don't know how effective they would have been at cutting off Army Group Center. The taking of Moscow would have left the Russians without their primary industrial area - Moscow/Gorky. That would leave a besieged Leningrad, Stalingrad area and Tankograd. Russia can still fight, but would they managed to drastically outproduce the Germans in this scenario? Not nearly to the same extent certainly. Additionally, the fall of Moscow would have been a terrible blow to the morale of the Russian soldiers. But as history has always shown, all bets are off when invading Russia.
 
If the Wehrmacht had managed to take and hold Moscow in 1941 the war would have been largely over for the Soviet Union. It would also have spelled the end of its existence as an independent nation. IMO this would have happened had the following conditions been met:

1. Hitler had put German industry onto a war footing before commencing Barbarossa.

2. Moscow and only Moscow had been made the main thrust for the Wehrmacht.

3. Barbarossa had started in late April as originally planned.

Operation Typhoon would have succeeded in the capture of Moscow despite the Germans severely underestimating the courage and will to fight of the individual Soviet soldier, despite the Nazi's alienation of the Ukraine peoples, despite the different railway gauge employed by the Soviet Union, despite the lack of a modern road system in Russia and even despite General Winter.

Truth is, we got lucky.
 
I don't know god, the stuff the USSR had going beyond the Urals was preety impressive, at best I think the taking of Moscow would of conviced many of the submursive elements in the Red Army to call it quits, which hey, could of been a very big blow for Stalin. Then again, I agree with the fact that taking Moscow would of doomed Leningrad, and the German Army may have had an oppurtunity to move North from there and wipe out any lend lease the Soviets were recieving (In particular Duece and a Halfs. Soviet Infantry was pathetic until they were able to become mechanized).
 
Yeah, "what they had going behind the Urals" = Tankograd. That's a common nickname for it anyways because T-34's and other Russian tanks were heavily produced from that area. So yes, that would have still been there of course. That's why I mentioned it. But if we can count Leningrad as "doomed" after Moscow falls, there goes two of the biggest industrial areas in the 1941 Soviet Union and puts them into German hands (even if scorched earth means Germany has to rebuild them). Considering that Germany never overtook either, it certainly changes things in this hypothetical situation.

If we added a bit more to the hypothesis and throw all those ridiculous orders to "punish the Russian people" and delete Einzatsruppen from existence, I think you'd also have had a MUCH more substantial number of Russian people willing to sign on for the German cause just out of hatred for Stalin.
 
Well when the Wehrmacht first entered the Ukraine they were welcomed with jubilation as liberators. Had Hitler been willing to tap into this (which was impossible given his beliefs) then Germany would have had a ready made army of up to half a million strong fighting men who would have gladly joined them against the Red Army.

Can you imagine the difference that would have made to Barbarossa?
 
I dunno, the Ukranians would have been poorly equiped and second rate at best, probobly similar to the Hungarians and Romanians. But your right, they would be expendable, and thus in the longterm useful.
 
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