The primarly reasom Lenningrad did not fall was because it was surrounded by swamps and a very defendable river just south of it. Even this would not have stopped the Germans had Hitler not specifically stopped the northern advance in order for the logistics units to catch up (which allowed that river to be fortified). The Germans had not expected the Estonians and Lithuanians to revolt so effectively, thus hadn't planned on their forward units to advance so quickly.
I think you misunderstood my point.
I meant if the German army actually tried to enter the city but failed to completely surround it beforehand, it would face a similar, if not worse, debacle as at Stalingrad, because of the risk of large volumes of troops engaged in constant fighting in a city they can't immediately extricate themselves from, whilst having the city itself become flanked and surrounded by enemy troops. The bigger the city, the more dangerous entering it becomes, if the enemy wishes to hold onto it.
As for Moscow it was saved because 1.) the winter was in full gear by the time the German's got there 2.) the German units were shells of their former selves after four months of continuous campaigning and 3.) the Russians just recieved fresh units from the Far East.
That's all true, save for the Eastern reinforcements. In December 1941, they were not present in significant enough numbers to have been decisive in the defense, though they were more active in the counteroffensive that followed.
It should be mentioned, though, that it was the Autumn muddy season that comes with the rains that really bogged the Germans down (and the Russians, too, but they were less motorized than the Germans at the time and were thus less affected by it), not yet the Winter.
The idea that German was somehow incapable or less capable of urban fighting is a myth created in this very thread. The Soviet army was just as much a field army as the Wehrmacht and it was able to take Warsaw and Vienna just fine. Just as the German's were able to take Sevastopol and Karakov.
I didn't say incapable, and no, I knew that long before this thread was created, which I haven't bothered to read too much of. It is, however, true that the German army's greatest strength, its tank units and commanders, were of little use in urban fighting, especially when the city's already half or fully destroyed.
Warsaw was a very costly operation.
Sevastopol took how long for Manstein to take?
Kharkov was largely abandoned. There were nowhere near the numbers in it as in Leningrad, Moscow, or Stalingrad. That refers to every battle in that city.
Yes, definetly one of the strange circumstances of defeat.
The situation was reversed in 1944-45.
Unfortunately that is irrelevant seeing as the Germans had just routed several million Soviet troops in prepared positions. The Russians barely held on as it was, the idea that they would have been able to do so without the effects of the winter and the German's being much stronger and better supplied at the same time is ridiculous.
I'm referring specifically to Operation Typhoon and the Battle of Moscow. The German forces involved in that area only numbered around 1 million; Zhukov organized half that strength from scratch in 3 weeks, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of civilians put to work building extensive defensive works, tank traps, and machine gun nests both in the suburbs and city proper. It was these defenses against which the German army's wave broke; had they given more way, do you doubt that Zhukov could have found the numbers again, if not more?
Everything about Moscow being defended any better than a dozen other major Russian cities rolled over at that time simple because it was "a major Russian city" is pure fantasy on your part.
Not really. The plan all along was for the final defensive positions to be around a ring of large cities: Leningrad, Moscow, Voronezh, Stalingrad, and Rostov. The only part of that that failed was the '42 offensive towards Stalingrad.
Many Russian cities weren't "just rolled over:" Kiev, Smolensk, Sevastopol; these cities were defended heartily, costing the Germans valuable weeks (or months in the case of Sevastopol and the Perekop isthmus). But those positions were ultimately withdrawn from; the Soviets were not going to withdraw from Leningrad or Moscow, they would have fought it like they did Stalingrad, pouring more and more men in, fortifying the city and fighting for every bombed out city block. After all, if those cities fell, the war might as well have been over.
The circumstances or Stalingrad in 42 are not even remotely analogous to that of Moscow in 40. The Soviet army of 42 barely resembled what it was in 40, and that is a good thing.
We're talking about the end of 1941, not 1940.
The situation was the large numbers of troops in a city that the enemy refuses to withdraw from, and with vulnerable flanks.
yea right when the Pacific war was over
