bigger calamity

[JensenPark]

what do you guys think was a bigger disaster for the Germans:

Stalingrad or Kursk?

Yea, they lost basically the entire 6th as Stalingrad...but was the stupidity of carrying through with Zitadelle a bigger blunder/disaster especially considering they must have know the Soviets knew exactly where they were attacking.

If they had gone the route I think Manstein wanted...or attacked in May as originally planned instead of waiting for the Panther...

I can't imagine the Germans could still have won against the combined Allies - but what would the outcome have been if they had taken a different route and not basically thrown away all those tanks/planes/troops bashing their head against the wall at Kursk.

[Enforcer57]

I think Kursk hurt them worse. I still think that Stalingrad was THE turning point, like the BoB was in the west and Midway was in the Pacific, but the Germans could've recovered if they hadn't thrown away those forces at Kursk and gave the momentum to the Soviets. They lost so much armor thrown into the kill zone of all that artillery that they

[BadAim]

Don't forget the 5th panzer army in Tunisia, they lost as much men and materiel there when they surrendered as at Stalingrad. We were quite fortunate to be fighting such Idiots. Any one of the three battles could have been won, had they been fought earlier under more favorable conditions.

[Jabo]

I think that probably goes for quite a number of different actions/command decisions thoughout the conflict - there's any number of points where the course of the war could have been changed. For instance the switch from attacking RAF bases to cities during the BoB.

"for the want of a nail..." etc

Jabo

[Enforcer57]

Yeah, such is re-enacted well in teh SEOWs.....so many things can change an outcome so drastically.

[Cold_Gambler]

I think my own view is aligned with enforcer's, for the reasons he gave.

Stalingrad was bad enough, but Kursk was just a stupid waste of their last opportunity to maintain any initiative. Kursk was especially stupid because the Russians knew that a major offensive was going to take place there and denied the Germans the opportunity to use their superior armoured mobility by building deep antitank defense zone... the Germans knew what the Russians were preparing but still went ahead with the doomed attack. 

[Rattler]

"Sometimes in warfare, stupidity has an inertia all of its own."

[DoubleTap]

Real interesting question, partly because it is probably so hard to definitively answer.

I think invading the Soviet Union when he did doomed Hitler no matter what, as he was seriously over-stretching himself by that point.

[JensenPark]

From what I have read, taking Moscow would have dealt a massive (killing?) blow because of the rail systems...

everything came through Moscow as a hub.

[Cold_Gambler]

I think that the German summer '42 offensive to the Caucasus was a good idea.

It was unexpected (as opposed to an attack on Moscow or Leningrad) and had the Germans succeeded in taking the Russian oil fields the Russians would have had a very hard time of it. All the mechanized equipment (the trucks etc...) sent by the Americans would have been comparatively crippled by a reduction in the available fuel which would have gone to the tanks etc rather than assisting the logistical end.

The decision to take Stalingrad by force, rather than simply encircling it and letting it wither, forced the Germans to give up the mobility of their forces and engage in the street-to-street fighting which sucked in their best units leaving the weaker Romanians on the flank.

In my view, had the Germans either encircled or by-passed Stalingrad and taken the oil fields (they had already just reached Baku), they would have been able to weaken the Russians in advance of a '43 offensive. I'm not sure if the Russians also had refineries in the Caucasus, if they did the Germans would have also shortened their supply lines with respect to fuel...

In short, I think that if not for the decision to take Stalingrad the '42 offensive was tactically and strategically sound. I don't think attacking Moscow was a better alternative.

[Enforcer57]

Since Stalingrad had little military value, they doomed thier effort by trying to take it like you guys said. Amazing that a personality conflict between Hitler and Stalin could lead to such a huge event that so changed the direction of the war. Thank God most despots are military idiots.

[BadAim]

"Sometimes in warfare, stupidity has an inertia all of its own."

[Rattler]

"Sometimes in warfare, stupidity has an inertia all of its own."