ther really took its toll. All too often the Germans didnt have enough supplies to survive let alone fight. Some units only had about 1/4 of their ammunition while shipments of coats used to combat the cold only provided 1 coat per crew. The food supplied was frozen Machine guns froze, oil turned thick, batteries died and vehicle engines had to be kept running which wasted precious fuel supplies. One German officer wrote home to his wife: We have seriously underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate. This is the revenge of reality. The lack of planning due to the delay in the attack on Moscow and poor supplies caused operation Barbarossa to fail.IntelligenceOne of the biggest factors leading to the failure of Operation Barbarossa was Hitlers lack of intelligence. This came in two forms. The first was his arrogance, which led him to do what he wanted not what was needed. He had been advised by several of his staff on key strategic issues, which he chose to ignore. On the other hand, Hitler also did not have professional spies or invest time in collecting information about a country before attacking it. Russia, Britain and U.S. all had an intricate spy network.Germany had initiated the war with Russia expecting only 200 Russian divisions. Once the war had begun it became apparent that the German army was fighting over 400 Russian divisions. The lack of research caused the German Army to fight a larger force than expected and further weaken the overall mission.Along with equipment and personnel numbers, intelligence would have told Hitler that the Russian people would not give up easily. Their tenacity and stubbornness was equal to that of Hitler himself and helped create the extended battle. The Russian people, who were more afraid of Stalin than Hitler, fought till the end fearing retribution by Stalin if they didnt. This factor was also left out, while hard to plan for, of Hitle...
