What was he thinking

If i'll ever be so unfortunate and have to visit Br*tian, i would locate Ch*rchills grave and piss on it
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As far as strategic goals go Moscow was nearly irrelevant, only strategically relevant thing with Moscow was it being railroad hub. The most important strategic goals for Germany was securing OIL and FOOD. Capturing Moscow did nothing to secure those goals. FOOD was in Ukraine. OIL in Caucasus. Every man, horse and tank wasted on trying advance on Moscow was wasted. Not to mention time. Ukraine was quite conveniently on the way to Caucasus. Stalingrad had importance as it is river Volga, a major transport route, something far more important than any symbolic value of name. It was fine point tie down Soviet troops. Basically what Germans were supposed to do with Moscow was bombing rail yards, bridges and shit, also maybe some specific industrial targets and HQ's. But generally just harass Soviets there.

German navy might be weak when compared to US Navy or Royal Navy, but Soviets were bottled up in Leningrad on from day one after Barbarossa began. Only thing Soviet Navy could do during the war was operating with handful of submarines from Leningrad. Baltic was important as shipping route for Germans, they needed Swedish iron ore.

How Barbarossa should have gone:
1. Secure Baltic States, siege Leningrad. Defend those gains with some mobile reserves.
2. Everything else towards Ukraine and Caucasus.

They got to almost to the goals in Caucasus, had they ignored Moscow in late 1941, they would have made further into east in south by winter 41-42, there is a chance that they would have made it on summer 42. Caucasus was also a major shipping route for Lend-Lease shipments from US.

It was the generals that fucked up with Barbarossa. They simply didn't understand how economy works, tactical victories were more important to them than strategic goals.

There isn't much FOOD and OIL in Moscow. The two things German war economy needed keep running desperately. Kremlin was a fucking tourist attraction.

/int/ out of ten.
It was autism and it was on the KC Zig Forums. Please leave.

Never
It posted on here before i posted on gaysea

Brits were too pussy to step in Baltic.

Anyway German Navy and AF pushed commie shit hard and locked them in Leningrad for good.

They would be a second, even more useless Italy. Nothing but a drain on German resources.

They would've been an Italy tier ally and would've collapsed/gotten overrun almost instantly

I miss KC /int/ posting. It was the friendliest international banter you could have anywhere on the internet.
Kohlchan just isn't the same.

You aren't only one missing defunct chans, Finnish chans have gone to utter shit since fall of kuvalauta. When it comes Krautchan, I was on its /int/ occasionally for years. Some of early Spudo raids were Ebin! =DD. Later ones had very little creativity, but jonnes gotta do what jonnes do.

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That's not a small thing. Moscow wasn't a railway hub, nor were its resource reserves empty, it was practically the beating heart of the entire railway system in European Russia and the cornerstone of all major logistical movement from further East. The capture or denial by damage of this nexus has horrendous knock-on effects to the Soviet war effort. It means no supplies moving where they need to be at further railyards and then on to truck depots. It means the cutting of a central place to distribute lend-lease coming from ports in the north, south and east alike. It means the uncontrollable unraveling of exceedingly important aspects of the teetering war effort.

Also of import are the electric generators and substations in the vicinity of Moscow & Gorky, of which it can be said, 'destroying just two thirds of the turbines would have knocked out about 75 percent of the power used by the Soviet defence industry, and only two smaller energy centers behind the Urals and in the Soviet Far East would have been left intact.' The death rattle of Soviet industry would swiftly grind out, and a substantial portion of lend-lease would from America would be turbine components to try to reconstruct the plants. But the Germans only realized to target these plants with Operation Eisenhammer in 1943, far later than necessary with far scanter resources available than were needed, and the plan would never go through for numerous stumbling blocks.

Moscow is important. Moscow needs to be taken, not as a symbol, but as a vital element of the total war for both sides. It is not a pure political target. But you have to choose; either go for broke with the earliest rush to Moscow possible, which is for the most part unfeasible without a substantially improved German logistical train and weapons to improve and secure her pace of advance, to 'kick in the door and let the whole rotten structure collapse,' or you bite and hold at vital economic flanks, trip the colossus and beat him to death, seizing Moscow in the second campaign season.

Without some very substantial changes over OTL, you cannot follow and carry out Hitler's triple-target plan in one year or even come close; it is indeed best to bite and hold onto two at most and strike Moscow's vital points with gun and bomb. Instead, the generals continued to argue for Moscow, Hitler ordered ahead/relented to Operation Typhoon in the fall, and taken by fury at its failure & the unauthorized withdrawal of the untenable front lines, reactively demanded their defense- which he may not have done had he been asked to authorize the withdrawal in the first place- after repeatedly having been gone around by his increasingly mistrusted generals. The rest is history.