Wouldn't there have been ANY loss of political infrastructure with the capture of Moscow?

And I can say with certainty that Soviet numbers advantage was NOT a guarantee of victory-- it obviously wasn't in 1941, and still wasn't in 1942. Considering that in the end it was a 20 to 1 numbers advantage and few critical cracks that finally got the Germans running, and that the Russians STILL lost two or three men for every hopelessly outnumbered German they killed all the way back to Berlin, and in the siege of Berlin lost FIVE to one...

...if the balance had been a little different I can definitely see Germany winning. The loss of morale and political infrastructure, combined with improved Supply that would have resulted from the capture of Moscow, could have kept up the German victories and minimized their losses enough for them to hold the line at the Volga. You have to remember-- the Germans had no problem defeating Russian armies that were only, say, 5 times as large as theirs, and it was (according to many historians) largely the incredible strategic overreach and needless diffusion of offensive energy which cost the Germans the war. If they'd stayed out of Kursk, if they'd kept their forces together, if they'd concentrated their offensives and kept ample reserves for defense, they could have kept the Russians tied up for years and possibly have held them off all together.

Remember that the Germans were STILL advancing, on MULTIPLE fronts until the end of 1942.

And without the Eastern Front losses, Germany could possibly have defeated us at D-Day or at least whipped us in the Battle of the Bulge. I agree with you that we would probably have had to use the Bomb.

DA