I think panzer IV was still inferior to the t34 allready coming off the line, and the Panther was developed as a response. Anyway Germany could easily break through the Russian defence with the tanks the already had, but the the lack of clear strategic objectives and the ever changing operational orders wasted it all. I think a focuced all out attack on Moscow would have been lethal, because then the Industry could not have been mooved at the level it was, and their had been no time to bring in reinforcement from Siberia, And they allready had panzer enough for that.
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The Germans were not ready for war even in 1939. The Allies had better tanks, more of them and larger airforce than the Germans. But nevertheless the Germans prevailed and France was subdued in five weeks, to astonishment of all participants. Then there was a brief campaign in Yugoslavia and Greece, sweeping all opposition away.
You become entangled on your own hubris with all those successes. And the opinion and intel the Germans had from Soviet Union and its army fed to this hubris, so what possible problem would the Wehrmacht face?
And lets not forget that the panzer IV’s used in the early operation Barbarossa had short 75mm barrel, unsuitable to properly challenge the Soviet tanks, or even the French and British tanks back in France. So I think that more panzer IV’s wouldn’t change much, if not the ones equipped with long 75mm barrel.
Also the logistics, lack of resources, Soviet road system (or lack of) and all other things already mentioned here contribute to the fact that more of the paner IV’s doesn’t equal better performance. It would had required a more thorough planning from the start, since first panzer IV’s (Ausf. A) were produced already back in the 1937. But hindsight is 20/20, so…
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The Germans did not decide to change the main gun until May 1941 and it was November when they decided on a long barrel 75. So tank vs. tank the t34 had them outgunned until well in 1942.
The short barreled 75 was probably a great infantry support weapon though and more of that would not have hurt. Same reason the Sherman 75 was such a popular gun with the troops.
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The Panther had so many technical problems that it even delayed Operation Zitadelle for many more weeks and still about 60% broke down on the battlefield whereas the Panzer Mark IV version F and G with the long barrelled 75mm gun and extra armour would have been much more effectively and earlier deployed in greater numbers, together with the Tiger. Also the Elefant should have been ousted, I think. Stug III was also good enough.
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I noticed that we did not answer your direct question about what would a beefier panzer army have accomplished in 1941.
Obviously we are talking what’s ifs so let’s assume that they essentially have all panzer 3 and 4’s and maybe another 1000 aircraft.
Let’s assume that this increases their combat lethality by 10-15%
The tempo of operations is so hectic you would almost to have to go day by day to see how much better they would have done.
Would they have taken Leningrad? No. I think I can say this definitively because they intended to starve Leningrad out not fight for it. It would not have starved any faster. They stripped the tanks away from Army group North anyway fairly early on.
Could they have taken Moscow? Well they probably would have reached it. Let’s assume they still divert south to Kiev. To have taken Moscow, I think they would have to have reached it in August. Why August? Because that gives them time before the autumn rains which we’re going to totally stop advances regardless of tank quality.
So they reach Moscow in August but as soon as they do, Hitler orders most of the Panzers away to take the Ukraine. They may have found themselves in a bloody city battle in 1941. This is highly attritional and if they do not secure it before the rains, troops there may be cut off from supplies. More aircraft might allow airlift though so that’s interesting.
Does Isolating Moscow make Russia weaker? Yes major transport and production center. Say they are fighting for Moscow well until the winter because it’s a huge city. The Winter Russian offensive may have cut off Germans in Moscow.
None of this considers how much more fuel and ammunition tanks use. I am assuming the extra quality tanks replaced older tanks. The worst part is every mile they advance further is one more mile they have to move supplies. It is possible that even a more powerful German military advance farther than they can supply.
What do you think?
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The logistical nightmare that the eastern front created for the German military in my opinion was one of the main reasons that they ended up losing fight. The Germans often won the battles but lost the war.
As I stated in a previous post supplying the German war machine in Russia was one steeped in a logistical hell. There are many confirmed reports where the Germans outran their supply chains as they advanced so quickly sometimes 100km plus per day.
Trying to keep up to that advance was difficult as there were few roads and the railways were unusable due to incompatibility with the European rail system. Add to that the primary mode of transportation was still by wagons pulled by horses and oxen. Motorized transport was great if there was a well maintained roadway but the second it rained or the permafrost gave way you now bogged down as these would turn into massive bottlenecks easy for ambush or aerial bombing and strafing.
There were several recorded instances where German tanks were abandoned within sight of a fuel dump because the terrain made it impossible to reach it. There were others where Jerry cans were used to fuel up tanks and vehicles because it was the only way to do it sometimes taking a week to have enough fuel to continue operations and by that time Russian forces would have had time to beef up defences.
I’m of the opinion that if there had been better roads and a compatible railway system the outcome in Russia could of been completely different.
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In the day to day going on, the Germans have units out of gas every day in the Fau Blau offensive. I agree with your assessment. But his question was could a better equipped army have overcome this.
I am doubtful it would have made a difference. But they could have had more tanks in 1941. More planes too.
The truth as I see it is that the vaunted German staff was absolutely incompetent when it came to the logistics issues. Yes that is unfair because the logistics guys said it wouldn’t work past a certain distance but everyone ignored that.
The Germans bet on a Russian collapse in 2-3 months. When it didn’t happen they had already lost. I have seen it argued that the turning point in the war came as early as August 1941 and it is hard to dispute the merits of the argument.
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This could be said of most militaries of the day, but yes German high command overrode orders given by those on the front lines because being safely back in Germany German high command could not see the reality of what was happening on the field.
Add to that if the Field Marshall’s had been given leeway to command I think the outcome would of been vastly different. The same can be said for the Russians if Stalin wasn’t so paranoid he could of had an effective fighting force right from the getgo but alas.
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Thanks to this great week by week display of the war, I’ve learned a lot about the struggles in Russia.
And the one thing that really is interesting is how Germany never really adjusted to their known shortcomings. By the time Fau Blau starts, the logistics issue has been known for a year. The rail system being one of the most obvious thing for mass movement of supplies. Given the ability to move over hard ground during the rain and melt periods, re-doing the rail road system would have been a great project to run in that time frame- and they did nothing.
As I posted in a previous thread- changing the rail gauge is quite hard, but had been done before- even as far back as just after the US Civil war when the north and south were so different.
This is just one example of how the Germans really failed to adjust to the conditions.
Interesting to learn about.
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Agree - and appaling that they were so ill prepared for the winter. Huge lack of respect for the wellbeing of the landser. The Russian winter was hardly a secret that could be hidden😉
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Agreed. I know there is anecdotal evidence that the winter equipment existed. Back in Germany waiting to be shipped of course.
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I’d recommend you read: The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich: A History of the German National Railway, Volume 2, 1933-1945
This will give you a good idea of the nightmare Germany imposed on itself when it nationalized the railway and removed incentives for its employees to do a good job. Only caring about loyalty has massive downsides.
Also, I don’t have a source in mind to recommend here, but you can also look into the damages done to their economy when they stopped the free market economy in favor of central planners deciding how much of each resources and products needed to be made.
This coupled with the extreme mismanagement of the railway led to immense waste.
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I’m dumb, I forgot The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Great read for understanding the economy of Nazi Germany.
Just as a quick analogy:
A central planner deciding how much of each resource and product is supposed to be made is the equivalent of an army commander trying to command each of his soldiers individually during a battle. It won’t work.
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The central planner issue is at best a straw man. Every economy in this period shifted significantly toward central planning. The UK was the most extreme example, its peacetime economy essentially ceased to exist. Germany was strangely the least centralized, but this was the political price of stability.
The American economy was largely centralized and planned along cartel lines. The War Production Board determined access to raw materials and outright shut down what it saw as unnecessary production of civilian goods. American railroads had been nationalized in WWI and not wanting to repeat the experience, set up a coordinating cartel through the Association of Americsn Railroads and abided by steep discounts on military traffic. They also closely cooperated on train movements to make everything run smoothly, to point that would be anti-competitive today.
This period is most regulated and planned form of capitalism the US has ever seen (spoiler: and will ever see) and yet it’s still remembered as a golden era.
Like I said, the “planned economy” trope is out if place here. TIK has a dreadful bent for Austrian Evonomics and should be avoided.
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I don’t agree with TIK personal biases or views on the economy. Just like some of the timeghost team members on some subjects.
But TIK just like the Timeghost team spend more time than me chasing unbiased sources about the past. And then I go read those sources and make my own opinions. TIK doesn’t want his viewers to think like him and puts great care to provide as many sources as possible, so why should he be avoided?
Heck, he is one of the only historian on youtube interested in the economic and supply of WW2. And god he was hard enough just to find because almost no reliable sources are available on these topics because each major country in WW2 switched to central planning making it almost impossible to understand and study what happened to the economy.
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Took me some time to figure out what it was all about when TIK was mentioned all the time. Now I found one og his wideos, and yes, its a steady pace, that will take some time to consume
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In fact, avoiding him is how one remains in their echo chamber. Some of the reactions to his videos on Nazism just make me sad…
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I agree, seems like some of his commentator read the memoirs and journals of a few WW2 veteran and take everything written in them as the absolute truth.
I recently read Panzer ace, the memoirs of Richard Von Rosen. While i liked it for his description of some of his experience doing battles with a tank group, I have many doubts about the values he gave himself and his troops.
According to him, he did not like Hitler and his cabal from day 1, he and his soldiers never abused civilians nor saw any abuse by others. And the real barbarians were French occupation troops. Seems like a book meant to whitewash his and the army’s past.
Especially when you consider that the author joined the West German army after the war and needed to present this type of narrative if he wished to keep his job.
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Now for the historical parts of your comment, I do need to bring some facts.
- The US did not nationalized their railroads in WW2. They did it in WW1 because it needed standardization between too many competitors. But they reverted back to a free market economy after WW1. If central planning was better in wartime, why wouldn’t the US government take back control of the railways again rather than letting the private companies adapt their business themselves to maximize efficiency and thus profits like they did?
Source: U.S. government takes over control of nation’s railroads - HISTORY
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Can you please bring your source to say that Nazi Germany did not rely on central planners for their economy? Because The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze shows that their economy was entirely managed by central planners before the war even began. And they already had shortages of goods in Berlin by the start of the war when the world’s market was still open to them. That’s not the sign of a stable economy.
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The US got rid of central planning as soon as the war was over. Everyone says the US got out of the war with a successful economy but that’s not the truth. The US got out of the war in a great position because they never suffered the destruction of their factories and cities and that the war ended before the Government printed too much money in the form of bonds. So the free market was able to resolve the issues created by the central planners quickly.
Sources: Preparing the Economy for War | Boundless US History
The Long Story of U.S. Debt, From 1790 to 2011, in 1 Little Chart - The Atlantic
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/19/unemployment-today-vs-the-great-depression-how-do-the-eras-compare.html
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We had a pretty terrible depression immediately after the war in 1946, and yet, for some reason (I know the reason why 
), historians ignore it:
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