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The Germans knew or should have known about the poor road conditions in Russia. For many officers and senior NCO’s, it’s deja vu, since they fought on the same ground 20 years ago.

Cougar can post some more information about what the German general staff knew of the logistic challenges of Barbarossa. Their generals went ahead with the operation in total disregard of a number of “logistic laws” that govern military operations. These issues will only become more exacerbated in the next few months.

As I continue to study this “war within a war” on the Eastern Front, my opinions of it are going through some revision. I once held the conventional view that the Germans came close to victory only to see it slip through their grasp. Now I consider it amazing that despite all of the challenges they faced in Barbarossa, that the Germans got as far as they did.

i agree with you on the view of the war within the war. if your ead first hand accounts on the german side, within a couple weeks of invasion the officers close to the battle knew they had blundered. the going in intel was woefully short on russian strength. right away, the germs encounterd 3x the number of divisions they expected.

as for the roads, not sure they fought in that area in first war. i dont think the germans got anywhere near moscow in 1917, but correct me on that

i agree with you on the view of the war within the war. if you read first hand accounts on the german side, within a couple weeks of invasion the officers close to the battle knew they had blundered. the going in intel was woefully short on russian strength. right away, the germs encounterd 3x the number of divisions they expected.

as for the roads, not sure they fought in that area in first war. i dont think the germans got anywhere near moscow in 1917, but correct me on that

David Stahel's book, Operations Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East has some very extensive details on the logistical nightmare that the Germans faced on the Eastern Front. It truly is amazing that they got as far as they did considering the difficulty of movement due to the lack of paved, sealed roads, and the lack of a cohesive logistical support chain. In all, at the time of BARBAROSSA, there were only 40,000 miles of hard surfaced all-weather road in ALL of the Soviet Union.

The General Staff knew full well very early on what kind of trouble they were in with the Russian terrain. Here are just a few examples of reports they received from field commanders an personnel:

"After brief downpours of rain, they [the roads] turned into muddy tracks which were only passable in some places after engineers or off-loaded grenadiers had felled trees to make a wooden runway with the trunks. It was not so much our opponents that held up our advance as the catastrophic roads." - Hans von Luck, 7th Panzer Division
"All routes marked as roads turned out to be unsealed, unmaintained sand tracks. The difficulties are placing great demands on the divisions." - Panzer Group 3 War Diary
"The advance goes very slowly. Numerous obstacles keep slowing down our charge. you can't really call what we're on a road. It's better than this in the tiniest hamlet inn Germany. And we're marching on a main road! The shoulders of the road are all muddy from the previous rain - you sink up to your knees- but in the middle of the road there's dust already...each vehicle [is] surrounded by an impenetrable cloud of dust." - Wilhelm Prüller, NCO in German motorized regiment
"The compression of the troops [onto narrow avenues of advance] makes forward progress slower than we would like, to this must be added the unbelievable roads which increase the difficulties." - General Gotthard Heinrici

Keeping a modern army of this size spread across this land area supplied was a near impossible task anyway. The road conditions made it all the more difficult.