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Petiloup -> RE: v4.040 GG 42 scenario (6/6/2009 2:02:36 AM)
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What is certain is that in 1942 the German army is still stronger than any other army.
At the start of the 1942 offensive in the East the Russian army did choose to retreat full speed and started to fight back only in Stalingrad and in the mountains of the Caucasus. Winter 1942 ended in disaster as we all know but in 1943 it was still quite balanced between the Red Army and the Whermacht. Kursk was another waste of troops and tanks for Germany with no gains while the Russian industry was building more than Germany could do.
Germany advantages were quality of troops training and quality of the command but this was compromised by Hitler meddling into the Army decisions.
With Albert Speer reorganizing the production and if the Whermacht Generals could have implemented the Elastic defense they were so good at (retreat first, let the attack loose momentum, counterattack Blitzkrieg style) then maybe Russia would have been exhausted before reaching Berlin.
On the West the Allies weren't nowhere in 1942. Few troops with no experience, no clear superiority yet but US industry could afford anything. Italy was still in the war and the Afrika Korps was still in Lybia. Operation Torch was still a shaky success taking quite a bit of time to free Tunisia. Even Normandy was a victory with a big help from Hitler believing till Operation Cobra that Normandy was a mere diversion.
What is very hard to represent in this game using Regions instead of Hexes is the huge amount of territory you need to cross in Russia to go anywhere and how Russia would pour troops in the fight with total disregard of human life.
Without Hitler commanding the Armies and declaring War to the US in December 1941, Germany could still have prevailed against Russia. Luckily it didn't went that way.
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