Moscow 1941

What realy happened at Moscow? I know that two german divisions (from army group center) had to atack Moscow from the N-E and from the S-W. I also know that they got close to the capital, at 30 km. I have two questions:
1 Is all i just said true? (please correct me if i am wrong)
2 Why did'nt they atack???

After the launch of operation Taifun, on 2 October 1941, and the German successes at Bryansk and Vyazma (650,000 Soviet prisoners), the German forces approached Moscow from north and south. The congested roads, the dense forests north of Moscow, as well as the rain that turned the countryside into mud, significantly slowed the German advance. The onset of cold weather caught the German troops unprepared, causing engine failures, frostbites and low morale. In the south, the Guderian's 4th Panzer Division was stopped by the General Katukov's forces at Tula. Only in the north, General Hoth's Panzer Group continued a slow advance. On 15 November, the German offensive was relaunched, and Hoth's 7th Panzer Division succeded to broke through at Klin and reached the Moscow-Volga canal line, 30 km from the city. This is the farthest the Germans could go before the Soviets launched their counter-offensive on 6 December 1941 and pushed back the Germans.

At Discovery there are some documentaries (like Battlefield, Gladiators of the 2-nd wrold war, and others). There I have seen that when the Germans aproached Moscow because of their succes Hitler gave an order to some German units to go to the south to the Caucaz oilfields and to the north to siege Leningrad. There are many times in the German offensive when Hitler intervined and gave orders to do other tasks.

The drive to the Caucasus happened in 42, when Moscow was no longer an option or an objective.

The drive to Leningrad was part of the initial Barbarossa plan, which I think was basically flawed. I don't think many units were diverted from AGC to AGN during 41.

5 divisions - 2 motorized (18th and 20th) and 3 tank divisions (12th, 19th, 20th). Out of these 5 divisions only one returned for Operation Typhoon, while the rest remained in the north.
Hitler's decision to divert the offensive in the north and south also had a serious impact on the fighting strength of the divisions involved.

The Soviet reinforcements arrived, these new troops were Siberian Divisions who were ready to fight during the winter, they droved the Germans back.

Regards

In fact it was not Siberian Division ( as it's usual to say) but Far East Front Divizions.

This post has been edited by vilkas on September 25, 2006 01:38 pm

Hallo,
I hope the discussion that I want to open fits into the topic Moscow 1941 open here, although the main subject is Operation Typhoon -the German strategic offensive targeting the soviet capital.

Is this point of view credible or isolated from reality that we all know : a German army almost exhausted by the war effort since June 1941, an Soviet army exhausted as well but strengthened by numerous fresh forces brought from the Far East, completely bad weather conditions, especially for the germans...
What is your opinion? What point of view have you found in the books that have touched this topic -Battle of Moskow?