01-28-2016, 02:40 AM
(01-27-2016, 03:14 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Good point, but I disagree with your ultimate conclusion. Germany was just trying to take over too much area too quickly.
Just because a country captures enemy territory that does not mean it does not have to spend significant resources keeping that territory under control. It is easy to exploit captured territory for raw resources, but it is not easy to harness an enemy work force and make them manufacture goods to support the war effort.
An extremely fair point, controlling territory soaks up a ton of manpower. What can't be debated though is the fact that the red army tied up around 80% of German forces. Without the red army occupying such a large percentage of German forces, and especially allowing the Luftwaffe to concentrate solely on the western front, I don't see any way the allies establish a toehold in Europe to establish a major threat to the Germans. Occupying territory wouldn't require near the amount of forces that a thousands of mile front against a numerically superior opponent would. Lastly, I think if Moscow was taken the Russians morale would have gone to non-existent. Stalin himself was debating surrender prior to the potential taking of Moscow, he was panicked.
