[AdamL]

Sightless asks how I can be sure that the Germans would have won in the east if they had fully mobilized their economy.

Read the campaigns, it's actually really plain and obvious if you look strictly at the strategic picture. I don't buy any of the [censored] about the Russians being inferior tactically (though they had logistical problems, etc.) But strategic scale, even operational scale in 1941, the Russians are hanging by their underpants.

1941 they're just recruiting as many guys as they lose and replacing armor as fast as they can. All the armies on the front get smashed because they aren't allowed to retreat and have at most 10 days supplies each. The Germans push through. Entire Soviet Armored Corps evaporate.

But it's not France. Russia is big, it's deep. The Russians produce tank brigades and shoot them at the front lines like ammunition (no long term outlook/plan). They hold the Germans by throwing up a new line in front of their old ones, over and over again.

Eventually the German offensive slows down (due to replacement pools getting exhausted, supply strain, all kinds of shortages, a lot of it caused by the weather) and the Soviets get a breather -- instead of the replacements going straight into the meat grinder, there is enough complacence from the Germans that a new front actually gets to form. Instead of breaking even losses vs. replacements, they actually get gain and get stronger.

Then of course next year the Germans still haven't mobilized and the Soviets produce something like 3-4x as much war material each month. Eventually the Soviets throw together an army from the surplus, a German army gets surrounded by the new offensive (surprise surprise) and the whole thing goes on from there.

It's not like Germany could just take the Soviet Union easily. More than 1 year. Certainly 2. Full war production.

Germany's problem was thinking they could win without full economic mobilization, not that they were incapable of winning at all.

There's some good discussions out there on the net on this stuff, which is where I learned most of what I pass along here.