We all know how WW II ended, but would be really be like that if not for the U.S. help?
I would say yes. Britain was on it's knees, Soviet Union was rampaged because Stalin killed all great tacticians before the war. Most of Europe was under German rule.
Hitlers biggest mistake was impatience, if he had defeated his enemies one by one we would all today live in one great Reich. He was a fool to attack Soviet Union ( the sheer size of the country was teemed difficult to control and it required a LOT of troops ) and to declare war on America ( because American economy could produce 10 more Sherman's and solders for every killed in action ). And Germans where fools to let Hitler decide military strategy ( like sending German army to Sicily and denying Germans victory at Kursk ).
But even so Germany lost 6,630,000 to 8,680,000, while complete Allied Military casualties vary around 16,000,000.
I actually blame Hermon Goering. The Battle of Britain was nearly won by the Germans in the early stages of the war and Goering's change of strategy eventually lost it for the Germans. Essentially after the first few weeks / months the Germans had managed to knock out almost very major airfield in southern England, along with nearly destroying the vast majority of the country's airplane factories. It was when Goering changed to civilian bombing and resources were switched from the original venue that the Brits made an amazing and commendable comback that allowed them to get supieror aircraft into the sky and beat the Germans back.
Keep in mind though, a win at the Battle of Britain doesn't necessarily mean anything. Churchill might, and most likely would, have remained totally committed to fighting to the end. A win at the Battle of Britain would only transfer to the Battle of the Chanel, German aircraft v. Royal Navy. If the Navy loses, Germany MIGHT be able to pull off something like operation Sea Lion, but the history on the German's ability to raise a transport flotilla is shaky at best. However, if Jerry jack boots did hit the Isles, that would have been the end of it for Great Britain.
In the end, yes they could have won the war. The could have done so in MANY ways, and remember that they came within inches of conquering Russia. PLaying "what if" history is fun, but in the end its just a game that no one could ever prove.
Germany would have lost, but the whole affair would have been even bloodier. They were small, lacking in strategic resources, and led by unhinged, indecisive madmen. The Soviets would have ground them down eventually. It might even have been more ideal to wait longer to invade from the west, to let both sides wear down, and then steamroll through both the Germans and the Soviets with the new nuclear weapons and a fresh, well supplied military, cutting the Cold War short before it even began.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Germany would have lost, but the whole affair would have been even bloodier. They were small, lacking in strategic resources, and led by unhinged, indecisive madmen. The Soviets would have ground them down eventually. It might even have been more ideal to wait longer to invade from the west, to let both sides wear down, and then steamroll through both the Germans and the Soviets with the new nuclear weapons and a fresh, well supplied military, cutting the Cold War short before it even began.
Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs. If the Germany had faced each for individually they would won the war. They lost because they fought against 3 superpowers ( Britain, USA, USSR ) in the same time, and sheer number of solders, tanks, artillery and aircraft just overwhelm them. They would only have trouble with USA because US are hard to be attacked even today.
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Kilkrazy wrote:How do you define a German victory in WW2?
It's impossible to make an estimation of their chances without defining that point.
For the Germans to win - defeat every other world power.
My statement is that Germans would won if they only defeat their enemies one by one ( If they attacked Britain in 1942, defeated it and then attack USSR in 1943-44 then defeat it and finally attack USA in 1946-47 and defeated it ).
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Germany would have lost, but the whole affair would have been even bloodier. They were small, lacking in strategic resources, and led by unhinged, indecisive madmen. The Soviets would have ground them down eventually. It might even have been more ideal to wait longer to invade from the west, to let both sides wear down, and then steamroll through both the Germans and the Soviets with the new nuclear weapons and a fresh, well supplied military, cutting the Cold War short before it even began.
Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs. If the Germany had faced each for individually they would won the war. They lost because they fought against 3 superpowers ( Britain, USA, USSR ) in the same time, and sheer number of solders, tanks, artillery and aircraft just overwhelm them. They would only have trouble with USA because US are hard to be attacked even today.
Might want to check your facts there. The Germans ALMOST had an atom bomb, right up until the point where a few Norwegian commandos sunk a barge carrying all the the heavy water the Germans had made up until that point in time. Considering it took years to make that stuff, the raid effectively ended German nuclear ambitions for the time being.
Also, Germany have many chances to win the war but botched up on a good number. The war against the USSR could have, and in all honesty, should have been won. It was the foolishness of Hitler and his inability to trust his "elitist" generals that lost him the war in the east, along with other contributing factors.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Don't get me wrong though, still glad they lost in the east. A win against the USSR would have almost perfectly secured a German victory in WWII. By victory I mean the surrender of G.B. and a truce with the U.S.
Assuming that Germany had not attacked the USSR and instead had focused on fighting the European powers I think they would eventually have gone on to invade mainland UK (assuming as mentioned above that they had not started bombing our cities instead of our airfields/factories/etc) and our overseas territories.
However, I think it would have been a long and bloody campaign (given that we would not just surrender like the French).
Though as KK says, you need to define what you mean by "winning" or "losing" to then see how possible it may or may not have been.
olympia wrote:The wermacht suffered 80% of its causalities fighting against the Red Army. The U.S. contribution to the defeat of Germany was limited.
This.
The answer is No, the War was already turning against Germany when the US finally decided to get in on the action.
But I will say that though they were late to the fight, the supplies to the Allies were invaluable.
SilverMK2 wrote:However, I think it would have been a long and bloody campaign (given that we would not just surrender like the French).
The government may have surrendered but many of the French people never surrendered.
Similarly the Polish, though their government never surrendered they didn't exactly have time to either.
So if Germany had concentrated on Western Europe and not bothered with Russia, they would have conquered everything but they would have a hard time controlling it.
olympia wrote:The wermacht suffered 80% of its causalities fighting against the Red Army. The U.S. contribution to the defeat of Germany was limited.
This.
The answer is No, the War was already turning against Germany when the US finally decided to get in on the action.
But I will say that though they were late to the fight, the supplies to the Allies were invaluable.
SilverMK2 wrote:However, I think it would have been a long and bloody campaign (given that we would not just surrender like the French).
The government may have surrendered but many of the French people never surrendered.
Similarly the Polish, though their government never surrendered they didn't exactly have time to either.
So if Germany had concentrated on Western Europe and not bothered with Russia, they would have conquered everything but they would have a hard time controlling it.
Ehh, that's easy to say but there is a reason why the Germans decided to move against Russia when they did. The loss of the Battle of Britain totally stonewalled the Germans. Lacking a navy OR complete air superiority, an invasion of the British Isles was utterly impossible.
The Germans moved against the Russians at perhaps the best possible time they could. Stalin was not interested in sitting on his lorels for an indefinate period of time and most likely would have eventually invaded NAZI Germany, especially if their efforts against Britain continued to the stonewalled. The Germans pushed when the Red Army was at its weakest and did I fine job whipping the Russians all the way to Moscow, the problem is that the Germans spread their forces far too thin. Hitler insisted that his army be divided into three major groups, Armee Gruppe North, Center, and South, evenly spreading his troops, for the most part, across all territories. His goal was to capture all three Soviet linchpins at once, Stalingrad, Moscow, and Leningrad.
The OKW, the German High Command, advised Hitler against this course of action, citing that the fall of just one of the three linchpins would be more than enough to finish off the Russians. Stalingrad was a major rail center that, if taken, would have given a well reinforced German army the ability to cut off the valuable and utterly necessary Baku oilfields. Moscow was also a major rail center and its capture would have effectively split the Red Army in two, leaving the north virtually cut off from all supplies and ripe for total destruction.
Hitler got greedy, he wanted it all and, as such, he lost out. It could be argued that a more concentrated effort against Stalingrad or Moscow, in combination with the revoking of orders such as the Commissar Order, would have done a great deal to help the Germans.
Another interesting avenue is that of the local population. During the first few weeks of Barbarossa the Germans were hailed as liberators by the Russian people. The Germans had removed the vicious, mass murdering, regime of the USSR and were supposed to be their saviors. NAZI ideology, orders from the top on how to treat the Russian people, and SS exterminator brigades that followed the Wehrmacht like vultures all combined to isolate the Russian people and eventually turn them against the Wehrmacht. Partisan activity was a serious thorn in the side of the German army and the support of the locals could have gone a long way to helping out.
Keep in mind, as I said before, this is all "what if" history and is by no means hold any real water. No one can, or will ever, know how events could have unfolded.
Not to mention that the war was economically crippling Germany. Europe's recovery after the war was very much funded by the American dollar, in order to maintain a level of order and military efficiency capable of fending off the USSR for any length of time, the US would have to actively aid the Germans. Although, considering the animosity between the USA and USSR that built up, they may have. But if Germany was a potential rival superpower, maybe the US would side with the Soviets until they were gone. Personally, I think they would have.
Regardless of whether the US did or did not enter the war, the war in Europe was always going to be won or lost on the Eastern Front. If it could be somehow shown that US support or aid helped stave Russia from defeat, then a victory in Germany's favour is more likely if the US did not become involved.
Though Brother Coa's idea that Germany would then go on to invade the US mainland is pretty ridiculous. Even in a 'what if' fun and games look at history, Germany could hardly look at that sort of expansion by 1946. And it would be interesting to see how if there would still be the Pacific front to account for. Regardless of the situation in Germany, the US was about to explode into its full military potential.
Manstein wrote:
Might want to check your facts there. The Germans ALMOST had an atom bomb, right up until the point where a few Norwegian commandos sunk a barge carrying all the the heavy water the Germans had made up until that point in time. Considering it took years to make that stuff, the raid effectively ended German nuclear ambitions for the time being.
The evidence in the last several years proves that on some island on the north of county, in March 1945, Germany tested atomic bomb, and it was successful test. The only thing that they didn't have is time. And that happened after British commandos sink the ship carrying heavy water.
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Thanatos_elNyx wrote:
The answer is No, the War was already turning against Germany when the US finally decided to get in on the action.
But I will say that though they were late to the fight, the supplies to the Allies were invaluable.
Correct, U.S. have already sending ammunition and equipment to both Soviets and the British. After that the USA simply overrun the Germans with manpower and equipment.
Also the Soviets have done the same in 1944.
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Kilkrazy wrote:Define defeat.
Capitulation of Great Britain, USSR and USA.
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Manstein wrote:
The Germans moved against the Russians at perhaps the best possible time they could. Stalin was not interested in sitting on his lorels for an indefinate period of time and most likely would have eventually invaded NAZI Germany, especially if their efforts against Britain continued to the stonewalled. The Germans pushed when the Red Army was at its weakest and did I fine job whipping the Russians all the way to Moscow, the problem is that the Germans spread their forces far too thin. Hitler insisted that his army be divided into three major groups, Armee Gruppe North, Center, and South, evenly spreading his troops, for the most part, across all territories. His goal was to capture all three Soviet linchpins at once, Stalingrad, Moscow, and Leningrad.
That is what I am saying. If they attacked USSR later with full force they would won. There is no way to conquer the state that size with "only" 3.000.000+ men. Soviets could easily stretch their forces to breaking point and then initiate raids. Not to mention that German tanks where breaking in the winter time. And Stalin wouldn't attack Germany in the next several years, we can see that by his reaction day before the invasion. He didn't listen his spies telling him that the Hitler would attack, he said that that is impossible because they where buddies. He still didn't believe even when Germans attack USSR.
Manstein wrote:
Keep in mind, as I said before, this is all "what if" history and is by no means hold any real water. No one can, or will ever, know how events could have unfolded.
True, but one thing is for certain. We would all live under the German Reich if Hitler did won the war.
That last one is a bit much to ask for. Short of a sci-fi portal opening over North Carolina, how do you expect the German Reich to transport a sizeable enough force over the Atlantic? Conquering Europe would by itself by a remarkable feat.
That last one is a bit much to ask for. Short of a sci-fi portal opening over North Carolina, how do you expect the German Reich to transport a sizeable enough force over the Atlantic? Conquering Europe would by itself by a remarkable feat.
They just needed time, they would probably attack American mainland in middle '50. Ever played "Freedom Fighter"? The Soviets there used submarines, ships, Aircraft carriers and loads of gak to attack American mainland. And they would probably attack Canada and allied themselves with Mexico ( like Germany in WW 1 tried).
Brother Coa wrote:We all know how WW II ended, but would be really be like that if not for the U.S. help?
I would say yes. Britain was on it's knees, Soviet Union was rampaged because Stalin killed all great tacticians before the war. Most of Europe was under German rule.
Hitlers biggest mistake was impatience, if he had defeated his enemies one by one we would all today live in one great Reich. He was a fool to attack Soviet Union ( the sheer size of the country was teemed difficult to control and it required a LOT of troops ) and to declare war on America ( because American economy could produce 10 more Sherman's and solders for every killed in action ). And Germans where fools to let Hitler decide military strategy ( like sending German army to Sicily and denying Germans victory at Kursk ).
But even so Germany lost 6,630,000 to 8,680,000, while complete Allied Military casualties vary around 16,000,000.
So what do you think?
Britain on its knees?I think not my friend we were dominating the skies over our territory and giving jerry what for at the same time.The yanks only came aboard when a bunch of drunken jap pilots tried parking on the wrong frigate's. what?
That last one is a bit much to ask for. Short of a sci-fi portal opening over North Carolina, how do you expect the German Reich to transport a sizeable enough force over the Atlantic? Conquering Europe would by itself by a remarkable feat.
They just needed time, they would probably attack American mainland in middle '50. Ever played "Freedom Fighter"? The Soviets there used submarines, ships, Aircraft carriers and loads of gak to attack American mainland. And they would probably attack Canada and allied themselves with Mexico ( like Germany in WW 1 tried).
Yeah. But then that would be WWIII, wouldn't it? Or at least a seperate war of some sort.
Furthermore, the friendliness of Canada, being part of the Commonwealth, would depend heavily on how the Colonies reacted to any eventual defeat to the British Isles. Churchill gave the impression that a result similar to Vichy France (where grudging co-operation existed) would be unnacceptable, yet that tune may change if Nazi Jackboots came parading through the streets of London.
The evidence in the last several years proves that on some island on the north of county, in March 1945, Germany tested atomic bomb, and it was successful test. The only thing that they didn't have is time. And that happened after British commandos sink the ship carrying heavy water.
Although I have yet to receive a PhD, I am an active historian of WWII and have worked under several very well known WWII history professors. If there was evidence that the Germans tested an A-Bomb, which I am certain they did not, I would have heard about it.
It sounds to me like you are picking up on some History Chanel speculation nonsense. As such, I shall repeat, the German Atomic Program ended with the destruction of their only source of heavy water was destroyed. To speculate that the Germans tested a working atomic bomb is pure and utter nonsense and unless you can whip up some concrete evidence, which I know you can't (unless you stumbled upon some super secret Reich portfolios that the C.I.A. has been hiding for 60+ years), you should lay that conspiracy theory to rest.
As to the utter foolishness of Germany invading the U.S.A.... I think you might be too interested in those fun, yet silly, video games that have NAZIs storming 1950s New York city. Hitler and the NAZIs wern't interested in some sort of video-gamesque global domination scenario, it would have been utterly impossible. NAZI ideology was limited to and pertained only to the expansion of German Lebensraum in the east. Hitler didn't even want to go to war with Britain, not only because they were powerful, but because he respected and liked the British Empire. The NAZIs though the Slavs were an inferior race whose land and resources really belonged to the Aryan Germans.
If, for some reason, the Germans, and I really should say the NAZIs, had won the war, they would have been content AND had their hands full building the east into their own paradise. The NAZIs would have, most likely, never invaded the U.S. and would have been content with a white peace with G.B. Once again, speculation on that subject is stuff that is best left for video games and novels, not real historical discussion.
P.S. If you are going to try and cite some half-done OKW report on "how to invade America" that won't fly as real. Every major country has a contingency plan for an invasion of everyone. Somewhere in the Pentagon there are papers that detail how the U.S. would conquer Canada, as well as any other country in the world.
The evidence in the last several years proves that on some island on the north of county, in March 1945, Germany tested atomic bomb, and it was successful test. The only thing that they didn't have is time. And that happened after British commandos sink the ship carrying heavy water.
Although I have yet to receive a PhD, I am an active historian of WWII and have worked under several very well known WWII history professors. If there was evidence that the Germans tested an A-Bomb, which I am certain they did not, I would have heard about it.
It sounds to me like you are picking up on some History Chanel speculation nonsense. As such, I shall repeat, the German Atomic Program ended with the destruction of their only source of heavy water was destroyed. To speculate that the Germans tested a working atomic bomb is pure and utter nonsense and unless you can whip up some concrete evidence, which I know you can't (unless you stumbled upon some super secret Reich portfolios that the C.I.A. has been hiding for 60+ years), you should lay that conspiracy theory to rest.
As to the utter foolishness of Germany invading the U.S.A.... I think you might be too interested in those fun, yet silly, video games that have NAZIs storming 1950s New York city. Hitler and the NAZIs wern't interested in some sort of video-gamesque global domination scenario, it would have been utterly impossible. NAZI ideology was limited to and pertained only to the expansion of German Lebensraum in the east. Hitler didn't even want to go to war with Britain, not only because they were powerful, but because he respected and liked the British Empire. The NAZIs though the Slavs were an inferior race whose land and resources really belonged to the Aryan Germans.
If, for some reason, the Germans, and I really should say the NAZIs, had won the war, they would have been content AND had their hands full building the east into their own paradise. The NAZIs would have, most likely, never invaded the U.S. and would have been content with a white peace with G.B. Once again, speculation on that subject is stuff that is best left for video games and novels, not real historical discussion.
P.S. If you are going to try and cite some half-done OKW report on "how to invade America" that won't fly as real. Every major country has a contingency plan for an invasion of everyone. Somewhere in the Pentagon there are papers that detail how the U.S. would conquer Canada, as well as any other country in the world.
As for the German Atomic bomb I agree, I watch a series called "Hitler's atom bomb" and I remember that they talk with some German who tells them the whole story about that. But if you believe that this is conspiracy as Americans using Tesla prints to finish the Atomic bomb then we shell live it to rest.
And why do you think that Germany wouldn't invade USA if Hitler controlled much of Asia, Africa and whole Europe? As much as Hitler had respect for USA and British empire his obsession was still the world domination. I am pretty sure that he would invade it in some point after he conquered much of British empire and USSR. And he would have Japan as an ally, an Japan already have in plan to control the pacific.
P.S. Why would USA attack Canada? Aren't the allies?
As for the German Atomic bomb I agree, I watch a series called "Hitler's atom bomb" and I remember that they talk with some German who tells them the whole story about that. But if you believe that this is conspiracy as Americans using Tesla prints to finish the Atomic bomb then we shell live it to rest.
Plans to do things and actually doing them are different. The Germans were still interested in the bomb, but the loss of the absolutely vital ingredient that was heavy water set their program back many many years. Not to mention the lost of interest that OKW had after the whole affair.
It is a conspiracy as far as it is utterly based on speculation and has not one, single, half charred, fragment of a document that could even hint at proof that the Germans test an atomic bomb.
Brother Coa wrote:
And why do you think that Germany wouldn't invade USA if Hitler controlled much of Asia, Africa and whole Europe? As much as Hitler had respect for USA and British empire his obsession was still the world domination. I am pretty sure that he would invade it in some point after he conquered much of British empire and USSR. And he would have Japan as an ally, an Japan already have in plan to control the pacific.
See my above post. As easy as it is for Americans to envision that Hitler, "the ultimate evil," wanted to conquer the world, he didn't. NAZI ideology was based around the German race and the destruction of the Jews. In this wacky scenario in which Hitler wins the war, a hefty chunk, if not most of the world's Jews would have been dead, and the NAZI want for Lebensraum would have been satisfied. The NAZIs would have had absolutely nothing to gain but everything to lose in an invasion of America, especially if there had been a white peace. O... and yeah... they would have to play a costly catch-up game in the way of building a functioning naval fleet, something that takes decades of concentrated manufacturing. Such cost would have been an impossible weight on a war ravaged Germany. You have to remember that invading Russia to get its resources is not like playing D&D, where at the end you find a pot of gold to go buy your next cool magical item. You have massive infrastructure, labor, and organizational requirements to even THINK about beginning to extract those resources. Rebuilding Germany, starving out the Russians (an actual plan that called for the mass starvation of millions of Russians), then moving in and rebuilding ALL of EASTERN EUROPE, would have taken decades at best... and that's assuming the NAZI economy didn't collapse for other reasons.
For more information on the German war economy, reference Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the NAZI Economy."
To summarize, the NAZIs only cared about building their Aryan paradise, not spreading that idea of paradise to all corners of the world, or occupying it for that matter. Even if they did want to "conquer the world" they would have been in no shape to do so for decades after the conquering of Russia. A Russian capitulation would have... MAYBE, seen a change of Government in G.B. which would have lead to a peace, the re-establishment of Edward VII on the Throne, and a Labour government, not some NAZI puppet.
EDIT: Germany would not have seized G.B.s colonies, it would have been logistically and politically impossible. Chances are G.B.'s Empire would have just fallen apart, but it COULD have stayed together, but still would have been under British rule.
Brother Coa wrote:
P.S. Why would USA attack Canada? Aren't the allies?
That last one is a bit much to ask for. Short of a sci-fi portal opening over North Carolina, how do you expect the German Reich to transport a sizeable enough force over the Atlantic? Conquering Europe would by itself by a remarkable feat.
Define capitulation of Great Britain.
Define the terms and also specify whether the rest of the Empire and dominions would be expected to follow suit.
Considering Chuchill's attitude i doubt the Empire would have surrendered... That said a German occupation of Britian wouldn't have been too easy either...
Manstein wrote:I actually blame Hermon Goering. The Battle of Britain was nearly won by the Germans in the early stages of the war and Goering's change of strategy eventually lost it for the Germans. Essentially after the first few weeks / months the Germans had managed to knock out almost very major airfield in southern England, along with nearly destroying the vast majority of the country's airplane factories. It was when Goering changed to civilian bombing and resources were switched from the original venue that the Brits made an amazing and commendable comback that allowed them to get supieror aircraft into the sky and beat the Germans back.
Keep in mind though, a win at the Battle of Britain doesn't necessarily mean anything. Churchill might, and most likely would, have remained totally committed to fighting to the end. A win at the Battle of Britain would only transfer to the Battle of the Chanel, German aircraft v. Royal Navy. If the Navy loses, Germany MIGHT be able to pull off something like operation Sea Lion, but the history on the German's ability to raise a transport flotilla is shaky at best. However, if Jerry jack boots did hit the Isles, that would have been the end of it for Great Britain..
Then why blame him if this strategy (not actually his strategy, but never mind that) made no difference to the outcome. Destroying more of 11 Group's airfields changes nothing.
I'm not aware of any aircraft factories that were destroyed, although many were damaged. Loss of aircraft production was never the primary problem for the RAF. If German troops had landed successfully that would be no guarantee of victory. All reasonable projections suggest that Sealion would have been a failure.
Manstein wrote:I actually blame Hermon Goering. The Battle of Britain was nearly won by the Germans in the early stages of the war and Goering's change of strategy eventually lost it for the Germans. Essentially after the first few weeks / months the Germans had managed to knock out almost very major airfield in southern England, along with nearly destroying the vast majority of the country's airplane factories. It was when Goering changed to civilian bombing and resources were switched from the original venue that the Brits made an amazing and commendable comback that allowed them to get supieror aircraft into the sky and beat the Germans back.
Keep in mind though, a win at the Battle of Britain doesn't necessarily mean anything. Churchill might, and most likely would, have remained totally committed to fighting to the end. A win at the Battle of Britain would only transfer to the Battle of the Chanel, German aircraft v. Royal Navy. If the Navy loses, Germany MIGHT be able to pull off something like operation Sea Lion, but the history on the German's ability to raise a transport flotilla is shaky at best. However, if Jerry jack boots did hit the Isles, that would have been the end of it for Great Britain..
Then why blame him if this strategy (not actually his strategy, but never mind that) made no difference to the outcome. Destroying more of 11 Group's airfields changes nothing.
I'm not aware of any aircraft factories that were destroyed, although many were damaged. Loss of aircraft production was never the primary problem for the RAF. If German troops had landed successfully that would be no guarantee of victory. All reasonable projections suggest that Sealion would have been a failure.
Goering may not have invented civilian bombing, but he was certainly behind the Luftwaffe's decision to change to that style of warfare. Also, I said that the strategy COULD have meant something else. "What if" history is a massive tangle of possibilities, could beens, and just generally incalcuable yet fun to ponder nonsense.
To make my original statement more concise: If the Luftwaffe would have continued its bombing patterns in such a way so to continue to render the massive effectiveness of south England's airfields void, as well as continued its effective bombardment of British aircraft manufacturing facilities (the actual, literal, destruction of any heavy industry plant is close to impossible. The buildings might get burned but nothing short of a direct hit is going to destroy heavy machinery), the chances of a German victory over G.B. would have greatly improved.
There is still no guarantee that Sea Lion would have worked, as you said, but Luftwaffe air superiority would have made the operation feasible, instead of impossible. Also keep in mind that Sea Lion was still half baked at the time it was pigeon holed. Rolling out a half backed plan and "proving" it would or would not work is one thing, but examining the texts and saying that, based on what was written, it would have been a failure is walking on shaky ground. Then again, this is "what if" history, all of it is shaky ground. Remember that the glaring success that was 1939-1940 for the Germans was based on a backup plan presented by.... yes... Erich von Manstein after the actual German plan was thought captured when a German aircraft crashed in Belgium containing the details on the whole thing. Its all shaky stuff, its all "what if" history, anything could have happened and... back to the point... a win at the Battle of Britain would have greatly increased chances of German success in later ventures.
As for an actual invasion of Britain, the problem for examining this goes hand in hand with whether or not the Germans could have actively, policed and secured supply routes (if they could even muster the ships) across the chanel. If the Luftwaffe was somehow powerful enough to drive off the Royal Navy, and Grand Admiral Raeder was able to wave a magic wand to make several hundred supply ships appear at Caen, the Wehrmacht would have MOST LIKELY, been able to easily defeat the forces that Britain had on the island, which were miniscule. I am not totally up to date on the numbers but I would be surprised if the Brits could have mustered anything close to Corps level. But that's all a mute point. Jack boots on the Isles wern't supposed to be about total occupation, they were about getting the British Government to sack Churchill, put Edward VII back on the Throne, and accept a truce; not some video game NAZI nightmare with swastikas draped from Big Ben.
At any rate... Mr. Spiggott, I think we can both agree that a win at the BoB didn't guarantee anything, but it would have greatly furthered NAZI odds at victory over Britain.
Kilkrazy wrote:
Define capitulation of Great Britain.
Define the terms and also specify whether the rest of the Empire and dominions would be expected to follow suit.
Well, conquering of British isles and then dissolution of British empire. Or simply conquering of all it's territories.
Take India for example, they would surly use the situation and declare independence from British empire if Britain where to fall under German Reich.
And why do you think that Nazi Germany invsion of USA was impossible if they where to defeat Britain and USSR?
How would you then imagine USSR invasion of the USA in Cold War era?
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Manstein wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:
P.S. Why would USA attack Canada? Aren't the allies?
The innocence of youth... so sweet.
Still don't get you. In the same logic France would attack Germany, no matter they are in the heart of EU.
And why do you think that invasion of USA is impossible?
And why do you think Hitler would stop conquering the world after he defeated USSR and Britain?
Without North American logistics and combatants then it could very well sway the outcome of WW2. They had the infrastructure and location that made a huge difference in the war effort.
But the USSR was by far the biggest roadblock to Germany's potential victory.
Manstein wrote:As for an actual invasion of Britain, the problem for examining this goes hand in hand with whether or not the Germans could have actively, policed and secured supply routes (if they could even muster the ships) across the chanel.
Securing the channel is one of the 'impossible' situations, even with aircraft to spare the Royay Navy (home fleet) outnumbers the German Kriegsmarine by 10 to one or more, the Kreigsmarine has no capital ships at at all to counter the RN's ships. In addition ships from the colonies would continue to return once the signal of an attack had been given. By September (When the Luftwaffe's tactical change occurred) the weather and tides are beginning to turn. Time is against an attack in autumn 1940.
OK, so the first step is for the Germans to successfully invade the British Isles.
Their best chance to do this was in 1940 and they failed. The British home defences got stronger for the next two years until it was completely unrealistic for the Germans to think of invading until they had defeated Russia.
If we are to assume that the Japanese did not attack in the Pacific, the US might not have been brought into the European war (remember it was Hitler that declared war on them) however this would not have compromised their situation together with the Canadians as the "arsenal of democracy". The British Empire could have substituted Imperial personnel for the US they would have lacked.
The Germans would have had to stop the transatlantic convoys by unrestricted submarine warfare. They tried this in history and came close to succeeding, but were stopped by a combination of RN, USN and air force action.
There is no telling that the USA would not have been brought into the war by unrestricted submarine warfare, as happened in the Great War. If this had happened, the Germans would probably have been defeated even quicker than they actually were, since there was no distraction in the Pacific.
The thing is once you go past the end of 1941 the variation from actual history becomes greater and greater and you have to guess more and more. Perhaps the Manhattan Project would have been started by the British, and ended with the atom bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.
Well, exactly. And since we're playing 'Fantasy Wars', how would the war have gone if the British Empire had sided with the Third Reich? The two probably could have existed side-by-side, though it's unfashionable to point that out....
Albatross wrote:Well, exactly. and since we're playing 'Fantasy Wars', how would the war have gone if the British Empire had sided with the Third Reich? The two probably could have existed side-by-side, though it's unfashionable to point that out....
The problem is one of benefit rather than morality. What benefit is there to the UK tagging along with Germany. Britain and Germany go to war over Poland. Germany needs Poland to invade Russia.
Unless the Soviet Union attacks Poland first and Germany 'steps in to secure eastern Europe against the Soviet Union'. That idea may need a better salesman then Ribbentrop in order to sell it to the UK and France though. But if the 'what if...' is that Ribbentrop is up to the job then it may be possible.
4M2A wrote:Most countries could have worked with germany. At the time the Nazis views weren't that unpopular. It's because of WW2 that we view them as bad.
Hardly. Nazis made Nazis unpopular. WWI made Germans unpopular.
It may not have been common knowledge but the governments themselves would have been able to take a good guess at what was happening. We were flying planes over Germany.
There were a lot of germans who did know. Prison staff, high members of the Nazi party, ect...
Albatross wrote:Well, exactly. and since we're playing 'Fantasy Wars', how would the war have gone if the British Empire had sided with the Third Reich? The two probably could have existed side-by-side, though it's unfashionable to point that out....
I don't like how hollywood movies have given people the impression that the yanks rescued europe. British and Canadian troops were almost half of those landing on normandy beaches. British Airborne took on the most dangerous sites to land in.
Soviets got to Berlin first. America contributed a lot, but didn't save europe.
Germany was never going to really win WW2. They took on most of europe and Russia. While they did significant damage, there is a difference between beating their military in france and taking (and holding) their countries. They didn't have enough people to occupy the taken countries and their tendency to attack the current inhabitants really didn't help.
4M2A wrote:Most countries could have worked with germany. At the time the Nazis views weren't that unpopular. It's because of WW2 that we view them as bad.
Hardly. Nazis made Nazis unpopular. WWI made Germans unpopular.
Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
4M2A wrote:We knew that they were discriminating / killing jews.
Not to the extent of The Holocaust. Some escaped from the country and camps and tried to tell what was going on but they were generally dismissed as it was believed that no one would do such things. What simpler times.
Maybe not how extreme it got, but they knew they were doing something with them. The could see the camps. A lot of british citizens got caught up when the Nazis started rounding up "undesirables". They knew something was happening on a huge scale.
Ahtman wrote:Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
How about your tone down a step and do some of your own. They weren't even popular enough in Germany to win an election outright. It would be fair to say they divided opinion in certain circles before the war, it is also right to say their aggressive foreign policy was unpopular outside Germany a few years before September 1939.
There was a lot of people in other countries who completely supported his actions. Nazi views weren't extreme for the time and people believe he was justified in what he did. Between politicians Hitler was reasonably popular.
4M2A wrote:There was a lot of people in other countries who completely supported his actions. Nazi views weren't extreme for the time and people believe he was justified in what he did. Between politicians Hitler was reasonably popular.
Yes, especially the Ukrainians, Italiens and French.
Ahtman wrote:Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
How about your tone down a step and do some of your own. They weren't even popular enough in Germany to win an election outright. It would be fair to say they divided opinion in certain circles before the war, it is also right to say their aggressive foreign policy was unpopular outside Germany a few years before September 1939.
Isn't the leader of the most popular party the Councillor (Hitler) and the Leader of the country was the President (Hindenburg), I think that's how German democracy worked during those times.
Manstein wrote:NAZI ideology was limited to and pertained only to the expansion of German Lebensraum in the east. Hitler didn't even want to go to war with Britain, not only because they were powerful, but because he respected and liked the British Empire. The NAZIs though the Slavs were an inferior race whose land and resources really belonged to the Aryan Germans.
And yet, once the British entered the war, he planned to conquer the islands. Why not the US as well?
Considering how wildly Hitler's take on his own ideology varied from time period to time period (in Mein Kampf, the US is contemptible, in Zeites Buch is is laudable) it probably isn't wise to base your conclusions only on what Hitler wrote, but to also look at his behavior, and that of those around him.
You're also not giving much credence to the fact that there a very lively scholarly debate surrounding this very issue.
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Ahtman wrote:
4M2A wrote:We knew that they were discriminating / killing jews.
Not to the extent of The Holocaust. Some escaped from the country and camps and tried to tell what was going on but they were generally dismissed as it was believed that no one would do such things. What simpler times.
Its also worth remembering that lots of people were antisemitic back in the day, so trusting the messenger had problem beyond the scale of the atrocities.
Germany would have lost, even if the US hadn't become engaged in the war.
We should all be very grateful that the US came into the war, though, because if the Russians had steamrolled Berlin and looked out over a ravaged Europe there's every chance they would have kept going, 'liberating' the whole of continental Europe. The Soviet system could have been inflicted on millions more people, and with access to that much more capital and technical expertise, it's possible it could have lasted decades longer.
Manstein wrote:Keep in mind though, a win at the Battle of Britain doesn't necessarily mean anything. Churchill might, and most likely would, have remained totally committed to fighting to the end. A win at the Battle of Britain would only transfer to the Battle of the Chanel, German aircraft v. Royal Navy. If the Navy loses, Germany MIGHT be able to pull off something like operation Sea Lion, but the history on the German's ability to raise a transport flotilla is shaky at best.
Shaky at best is putting it mildly. You just have to look at the scale of D-Day and the immense resources the US put into planning it to realise that a naval invasion of Britain was impossible. Goerring's decision to begin bombing cities was ineffective, but probably the only option Germany had for forcing Britain into agreeing to peace terms.
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Brother Coa wrote:Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs.
No, they didn't.
If the Germany had faced each for individually they would won the war.
No, they wouldn't. The Soviets had the military power to defeat Nazi Germany by themselves. This can be established by the simple fact that the Soviets defeated Nazi Germany almost single-handedly (more than 80% of German casualties were on the Russian front), and the resources dedicated to fighting the British and US forces on the Western front would not have made a difference
The Germans lost when their initial operations failed to properly encircle the Russians in the first months of the war. Even if that had been achieved, it would have only given the Germans a window of some months to reach and occupy Moscow, and even that would have simply made defeat of the greater Soviet warmachine achievable, possibly.
My statement is that Germans would won if they only defeat their enemies one by one ( If they attacked Britain in 1942, defeated it and then attack USSR in 1943-44 then defeat it and finally attack USA in 1946-47 and defeated it ).
Each effort, even without the impossibly narrow deadlines, is an absolute impossbility. They lacked the naval capability to launch a naval invasion of Britain. They lacked the sheer manpower needed to occupy the Soviet Union. And they lacked both those things ten times over to consider the occupation of the US.
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Manstein wrote:Might want to check your facts there. The Germans ALMOST had an atom bomb, right up until the point where a few Norwegian commandos sunk a barge carrying all the the heavy water the Germans had made up until that point in time. Considering it took years to make that stuff, the raid effectively ended German nuclear ambitions for the time being.
They almost had heavy water. Even if they had heavy water they still would have been decades off getting the bomb.
Also, Germany have many chances to win the war but botched up on a good number. The war against the USSR could have, and in all honesty, should have been won.
I don't think you understand the scope of difference in Nazi and German military production. Germany had an excellent military culture and fine reserve of skiller officers, and the Russians most certainly did not, but ultimately WWII was a war decide by industrial production. The Germans understood that in any protracted war they would be beaten, and this is why they focused on the idea of lightning war and a rapid defeat of France and Britain (that they eventually declared such a win impossible, only to stumble upon it by mistake with the incredible success of the Ardennes manouvre).
They attempted the same against the Soviets, and achieved remarkable success against a disfunctional enemy, but the vast scale of the Soviet Union prevented the Nazis from winning a lightning war.
From there it became a war of attrition, decided by military production, and the Soviets were overwhelmingly superior. The only other measure from there was manouevre, and here the Soviets and the far greater operational range of their T-34s tipped the balance even further in their favour.
Sure, the first six months of 1941 were horrific for the Soviets, but by the end of the year they'd drawn on so many more troops that numerical parity was reached by the end of the year, and maintained throughout the rest of the war.
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Brother Coa wrote:The evidence in the last several years proves that on some island on the north of county, in March 1945, Germany tested atomic bomb, and it was successful test. The only thing that they didn't have is time. And that happened after British commandos sink the ship carrying heavy water.
No, the Germans did no such thing.
That is what I am saying. If they attacked USSR later with full force they would won.
No, they committed everything. The troops left in Europe would not have made a difference, and would still have been required for garrison duty if the war with Britain had been concluded. If they'd properly co-ordinated their troops for operational effectiveness they might have achieved more encirclement and removed more Soviet troops from the war... but they didn't. Even if they had, it only would have put them one step closer, and still a long way short of actual victory.
True, but one thing is for certain. We would all live under the German Reich if Hitler did won the war.
Fascist dictatorships collapse all the time, and the Nazis were less stable than most. The price would have been horrific and it's great we didn't have to pay it, but it's unlikely it would have lasted forever.
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Brother Coa wrote:But they didn't know about his extermination program. Even the Germans didn't know that until the end of the war.
It wasn't that well kept a secret. The Jews were being rounded up and taken away before the war. That they were being taken to certain camps in large numbers and not coming out again was known (there were debates during the war over whether railway lines to the extermination camps should be bombed or not).
If it was so poorly kept a secret in wartime conditions, it'd be impossible to keep it secret during peace.
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Brother Coa wrote:But the Germans didn't know that, same as Soviets didn't know how many people Stalin have killed...
They didn't know the number, but they knew people were taken in the middle of the night and never seen again.
There's this idea that tyranical regimes exist because people are unaware of the evil they do. It doesn't actually work like that. People are simply afraid to act against government, out of fear they'll be next.
But even worse than that, the people are often okay with the oppression done to others. The German population might not have all believed that the Jews were responsible for their problems, but enough of them did. And even if they didn't, they probably didn't have a problem with Jews being moved out of good German neighbourhoods (and would then elect to simply not think at all but where they were taken). And even if they weren't okay with that, they were unlikely to risk their lives for the sake of a Jew.
And it wasn't that much better in the rest of the world. Jews were trying to leave Germany, as Nazi oppression got worse and worse. They applied for political refuge. We knew they were being targetted, but we accepted very few Jews as political refugees.
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Movac wrote:I love the people that act as if German world domination would have been possible. Ahh the product of a high school education and the liberal media.
The liberal media is responsible for a US-centric view of historic events, and a failure to understand the scale of fighting in Russia relative to that in Western Europe? That's an odd claim.
Cane wrote:Without North American logistics and combatants then it could very well sway the outcome of WW2. They had the infrastructure and location that made a huge difference in the war effort.
But the USSR was by far the biggest roadblock to Germany's potential victory.
Russia was a big issue, but they didn't develope a lot of their own technology. The suspension system used by their famous T-34's was invented by an American and they got a lot of engines and other technology from the UK as well. Then we forget the marriage of a certain UK engine and a certain US frame that created the P-51 which pretty much ended German air superiority.
As far as Canada goes, we did invade Canada during the Revolutionary War in order to free them from British rule as well. We didn't want Europe involved in our hemisphere at all, which is detailed in the Monroe Doctrine and was later enforced by Teddy Roosevelt. Had Teddy Roosevelt been secretary of the Navy during 1939 we probably would've declared war at that point in time.
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George Spiggott wrote:
Ahtman wrote:Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
How about your tone down a step and do some of your own. They weren't even popular enough in Germany to win an election outright. It would be fair to say they divided opinion in certain circles before the war, it is also right to say their aggressive foreign policy was unpopular outside Germany a few years before September 1939.
Hitler was elected to power thanks to his ability to find a scapegoat(the Jews) and a huge issue to unite the rest of the Germans(economic depression thanks to reparations after WW1). Hitler then went on to become a dictator by having top Army officials assassinated and slowly began to take back land and repeal reparations thanks to a French and British government that felt bad for the huge amount of debt they forced the country of Germany into. This allowed Hitler to take back places like the Ruhr and allowed him to build his forces.
So the French and British governments felt bad for the reparations they put onto Germany---> Appeasement of Hitler retaking land and rebuilding military---> buildup of economy, military, and the autobahn---> Invasion of Poland coordinated with Russia---> French and British finally saying "Wait a second, something's up.".
Then you have to look at all of the places that surrendered to Germany. France surrendered and so did Norway although the surrenders were not very much liked, in fact the Norwegian surrender created a word in the dictionary, the word 'Quisling' which means traitor.
Manstein wrote:Keep in mind though, a win at the Battle of Britain doesn't necessarily mean anything. Churchill might, and most likely would, have remained totally committed to fighting to the end. A win at the Battle of Britain would only transfer to the Battle of the Chanel, German aircraft v. Royal Navy. If the Navy loses, Germany MIGHT be able to pull off something like operation Sea Lion, but the history on the German's ability to raise a transport flotilla is shaky at best.
Shaky at best is putting it mildly. You just have to look at the scale of D-Day and the immense resources the US put into planning it to realise that a naval invasion of Britain was impossible. Goerring's decision to begin bombing cities was ineffective, but probably the only option Germany had for forcing Britain into agreeing to peace terms.
Only thing I advance that, when playing the "what if" history game, everything is possible. Perhaps Hitler didn't need to land in England, perhaps a loss in the air would have forced out the Conservative Churchill government and return of a peace wanting labor party negotiated a peace....perhaps, highly doubtful... but perhaps. I can't stress enough how arguing in absolutes, or near absolutes, on most of these subjects is a completely and totally laughable subject to serious historians.
sebster wrote:
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Manstein wrote:Might want to check your facts there. The Germans ALMOST had an atom bomb, right up until the point where a few Norwegian commandos sunk a barge carrying all the the heavy water the Germans had made up until that point in time. Considering it took years to make that stuff, the raid effectively ended German nuclear ambitions for the time being.
They almost had heavy water. Even if they had heavy water they still would have been decades off getting the bomb.
Very true, which is why all this atom bomb foolishness should be put to rest. Its all a bunch of conjecture whipped up by History Channel shows looking to draw in High School kids, I should know, I used to be one of those kids before I really began to study history.
sebster wrote:
Also, Germany have many chances to win the war but botched up on a good number. The war against the USSR could have, and in all honesty, should have been won.
I don't think you understand the scope of difference in Nazi and German military production. Germany had an excellent military culture and fine reserve of skiller officers, and the Russians most certainly did not, but ultimately WWII was a war decide by industrial production. The Germans understood that in any protracted war they would be beaten, and this is why they focused on the idea of lightning war and a rapid defeat of France and Britain (that they eventually declared such a win impossible, only to stumble upon it by mistake with the incredible success of the Ardennes manouvre).
They attempted the same against the Soviets, and achieved remarkable success against a disfunctional enemy, but the vast scale of the Soviet Union prevented the Nazis from winning a lightning war.
From there it became a war of attrition, decided by military production, and the Soviets were overwhelmingly superior. The only other measure from there was manouevre, and here the Soviets and the far greater operational range of their T-34s tipped the balance even further in their favour.
Sure, the first six months of 1941 were horrific for the Soviets, but by the end of the year they'd drawn on so many more troops that numerical parity was reached by the end of the year, and maintained throughout the rest of the war.
Actually, I do, if I didn't I would be out on the street and wouldn't be studying this subject at the German military archives in Freiburg... right now. Regardless, and I apologize if that last bit sounded a little edgy (love ya Sebster ), you are correct to imply that Soviet industrial production had far outstripped German production by.... ehh, I want to say late 43 or early 44. I wish I had my old notes and resources on all this, I would be happy to scan them and put them up. Times like this make me wish the Reicharchives had all their junk on the internet.
To my point, if you go back and read my earlier points you will find that I make a point regarding a major failure in German strategy at the onset of Operation Barbarossa. There is significant historical evidence, stuff that is still.... slowly... being released by the Russians, between top level Soviet generals and politicos that an early victory at Stalingrad, or more likely Moscow, COULD (remember, what if history) have broken the USSR's back. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the inability of the Germans to acquire any of their three lynchpins was based on the fact that Hitler, specifically Hitler, didn't trust his soldier from birth virtual Spartan military High Command. Hitler wanted all of the prizes, and his quest for ultimate victory lead him to ultimate defeat. To reiterate, a more focused attack against Moscow or Stalingrad, could have handed the Germans a victory.
Ahtman wrote:Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
How about your tone down a step and do some of your own. They weren't even popular enough in Germany to win an election outright. It would be fair to say they divided opinion in certain circles before the war, it is also right to say their aggressive foreign policy was unpopular outside Germany a few years before September 1939.
How do you read tone? You were wrong then and wrong now about the popularity of the Nazi party (not in the pop star sense of the word), thus, you might want to do more reading on the pre-war period where there were Nazi support groups in different parts of the world. You seem to be giving a revisionist history that assumes everyone knew everything that we do now about the group when they didn't. There were some people that saw them for what they were but most were either favorable of them or indifferent. The internal politics of Germany doesn't represent how the average British or American citizen felt about them pre-War. people were so wanting them to turn the country around and be successful that the first response to their aggression was appeasement. We wanted them to be good guys that were out to help their people. It wasn't understood at that point what that truly meant and wouldn't know fully till we had been at war for awhile. Pretending they were generally disliked from the beginning is just not true.
Ahtman wrote:Not even close to true. Do more research. There was a lot of sympathy for the German movement, though few truly understood the depths it would go to at the time. They were seen as trying to pull Germany back up out of economic depression and social malaise following the Treaty of Versailles.
How about your tone down a step and do some of your own. They weren't even popular enough in Germany to win an election outright. It would be fair to say they divided opinion in certain circles before the war, it is also right to say their aggressive foreign policy was unpopular outside Germany a few years before September 1939.
How do you read tone? You were wrong then and wrong now about the popularity of the Nazi party (not in the pop star sense of the word), thus, you might want to do more reading on the pre-war period where there were Nazi support groups in different parts of the world. You seem to be giving a revisionist history that assumes everyone knew everything that we do now about the group when they didn't. There were some people that saw them for what they were but most were either favorable of them or indifferent. The internal politics of Germany doesn't represent how the average British or American citizen felt about them pre-War. people were so wanting them to turn the country around and be successful that the first response to their aggression was appeasement. We wanted them to be good guys that were out to help their people. It wasn't understood at that point what that truly meant and wouldn't know fully till we had been at war for awhile. Pretending they were generally disliked from the beginning is just not true.
I actually agree with Ahtman seeing as though he is correct. We wanted them to return to their previous state in terms of economics(not really military) and Hitler seemed like a nice enough guy at the time.
As far as the British people surrendering due to lack of morale, I don't know if that would happen. The reason why we won the Revolutionary War was due to unpopular sentiment for the war, but that was a completely different case. The british people were fighting for survival against a tough enemy and I doubt that they would surrender if a single regiment of the Wehrmacht couldn't reach the shore.
halonachos wrote:Russia was a big issue, but they didn't develope a lot of their own technology. The suspension system used by their famous T-34's was invented by an American and they got a lot of engines and other technology from the UK as well. Then we forget the marriage of a certain UK engine and a certain US frame that created the P-51 which pretty much ended German air superiority.
The T-34 was in production in 1940, before the hypothetical split in which the US would no longer take part in the war as they did historically.
The Soviets didn't produce that many innovations personally, but that isn't what decided the war. Technology was there for anyone to grab, the important factor was to pick the right technology because you understood what was needed in the largely unknown combat environment of 1940. The French, for example, had incredible innovations throughout their military, but focussed almost entirely on immediate area command and control, on combining local infantry, armour, and air assets in co-ordinated assaults. They were, in a sense, fighting today's war in 1940, and got pounded because of it. At the same time the Germans were using their significant expertise in precision manufacturing to build giant technological boondoggles, that while individually impressive required far more development time than could ever possibly benefit them. A serious look into German military tech (not one of those stupid history channel things about super-terrifying German super-tech) leaves me very relieved the Germans sunk so much time into V-2s and Panthers, and not into more MG-42s or a medium tank that could actually effect a rapid breakthrough.
Meanwhile, the Russians understood the value of mobile tanks to penetrate enemy lines and mess up logistics, and so focussed on building a tank with vast operational range, supported by an advanced suspension system. So they adapted the Christie suspension that hadn't been given that much interest by other governments. Once the war was on in earnest the value of the Russian model became obvious, a fact underlined by the American adoption of a horizontal suspension system into their Shermans in 1944.
Another example is the P-51, that you noted ended German air superiority. Except all the components and technology in the P-51 were available long before then, and had even been in service with the British for some time before the US realised that their daylight bombing operations needed fighter escorts. By the time the P-51 was properly deployed across Europe it was late 1944 and the war was already over. Another example is radar - all the components were fully developed in the 1930s and available to any of the major players of the war, but it was the UK that recognised the potential of an effective command and control system to decide air combat.
What mattered was identifying the right technology, and producing it enough mass to make a difference. The Russians did this, and the Americans weren't far behind. In comparison the Germans were a shambles.
Hitler was elected to power thanks to his ability to find a scapegoat(the Jews) and a huge issue to unite the rest of the Germans(economic depression thanks to reparations after WW1). Hitler then went on to become a dictator by having top Army officials assassinated and slowly began to take back land and repeal reparations thanks to a French and British government that felt bad for the huge amount of debt they forced the country of Germany into. This allowed Hitler to take back places like the Ruhr and allowed him to build his forces.
The primary drive for Hitler's rise was actually the synthesis of working class and conservative groups in their opposition to communism.
The appeasement of the French and British was less about feeling bad over the reparations, and more about the unwillingness and inability of the major powers to wage another war like WWI.
Like I said, the P-51 was the combination of a certain frame with a certain engine. The frame had been developed by the US for quite some time, but the US engine in it couldn't handle higher altitudes so they adopted the engine already in the Spitfire which allowed it to go to higher altitudes which made it an effective as hell fighter.
There were differences in British and US bombing tactics, the british favored night time carpet bombing while the US preferred day time raids against specific targets. Then there was a raid carried out by the army that had the sole purpose of drawing the Luftwaffe into the air.
They launched a small bomber raid into a heavily defended area and sacrificed the bombers in order to let the P-51s take out the Luftwaffe fighters. The results were about a 90% mortality rate for the allied bombers used in order to remove 2/3 of the Luftwaffe.
I don't remember the name of the attack/operation, but I saw it on the Military channel so I hold it a bit higher than anything on the history channel. I will try to find it.
I think it might've been "Big Week" but I'm not too sure.
Manstein wrote:Only thing I advance that, when playing the "what if" history game, everything is possible. Perhaps Hitler didn't need to land in England, perhaps a loss in the air would have forced out the Conservative Churchill government and return of a peace wanting labor party negotiated a peace....perhaps, highly doubtful... but perhaps. I can't stress enough how arguing in absolutes, or near absolutes, on most of these subjects is a completely and totally laughable subject to serious historians.
Oh sure, a complete defeat of the RAF could theoretically have caused the British to negotiate a peace. That's a plausible option.
My point was that the theoretical possibility of the Germans following up on the defeat of the RAF with a seaborne invasion, let alone one effected within a year of the defeat of France, to be absolutely laughable. These are what-ifs, but somethings remain ludicrous.
Very true, which is why all this atom bomb foolishness should be put to rest. Its all a bunch of conjecture whipped up by History Channel shows looking to draw in High School kids, I should know, I used to be one of those kids before I really began to study history.
I guess "the Germans failed to capitalise on early victories against the Soviets, the advance stagnated and was eventually dealt decisive defeats in 1942, with significantly greater production in all areas, and the allies began a long, hard but inevitable drive on all fronts towards Berlin and victory" just isn't as exciting as a story about the Nazis being months away from some supertech or another. I'm beginning to understand that a lot of the nonsense people believe is because it makes for a world that is more flattering to themselves, easier to understand, or just plain more exciting. Against that, reality is most unwelcome.
Actually, I do, if I didn't I would be out on the street and wouldn't be studying this subject at the German military archives in Freiburg... right now. Regardless, and I apologize if that last bit sounded a little edgy (love ya Sebster ), you are correct to imply that Soviet industrial production had far outstripped German production by.... ehh, I want to say late 43 or early 44.
The figures I've seen say Soviet production in 1942 was greater than German production. Of course, it depends how you weight different elements of production (finished units vs total resource production, for instance). Not that that matters if, as you're arguing, capture of Stalingrad was enough to inflict a military defeat of the Soviet Union by itself, regardless of military production.
I wish I had my old notes and resources on all this, I would be happy to scan them and put them up. Times like this make me wish the Reicharchives had all their junk on the internet.
Interesting, and I'd love to see your notes. Personally, I've read enough 'if only they'd done that one last thing' to be very wary. I've seen countless 'if only they'd done that one last thing' to begin to suspect there's never just one last thing. If Stalingrad had been taken then the Soviets would have suffered significant supply disruptions and Germans would have been able to push into the oil regions with more security... but they'd still have so much more to achieve before final victory.
There is significant historical evidence, stuff that is still.... slowly... being released by the Russians, between top level Soviet generals and politicos that an early victory at Stalingrad, or more likely Moscow, COULD (remember, what if history) have broken the USSR's back.
True, and there's an adage that I've repeated a lot in my life and likely failed to follow in this thread 'they will say it is impossible until someone does it, and then they will say it was inevitable'. With that in mind perhaps German defeat wasn't inevitable, and they if multiple other things had gone their way then maybe the Soviet Union might have collapsed.
I'd be interested in any notes you have on Soviets believing they were that close to collapse.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the inability of the Germans to acquire any of their three lynchpins was based on the fact that Hitler, specifically Hitler, didn't trust his soldier from birth virtual Spartan military High Command.
To be fair, many of them were plotting to kill him, and culturally they were very different. I'm not sure how much I would have trusted them, either.
To reiterate, a more focused attack against Moscow or Stalingrad, could have handed the Germans a victory.
Maybe, I'm not sure how many more resources than the entirety of the 6th army you could have piled into Stalingrad in order to secure that victory.
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halonachos wrote:Like I said, the P-51 was the combination of a certain frame with a certain engine. The frame had been developed by the US for quite some time, but the US engine in it couldn't handle higher altitudes so they adopted the engine already in the Spitfire which allowed it to go to higher altitudes which made it an effective as hell fighter.
There were differences in British and US bombing tactics, the british favored night time carpet bombing while the US preferred day time raids against specific targets. Then there was a raid carried out by the army that had the sole purpose of drawing the Luftwaffe into the air.
They launched a small bomber raid into a heavily defended area and sacrificed the bombers in order to let the P-51s take out the Luftwaffe fighters. The results were about a 90% mortality rate for the allied bombers used in order to remove 2/3 of the Luftwaffe.
I don't remember the name of the attack/operation, but I saw it on the Military channel so I hold it a bit higher than anything on the history channel. I will try to find it.
I think it might've been "Big Week" but I'm not too sure.
The point is not the quality of the P-51, that's undisputed - it was a great aircraft. The point is that that one piece of tech didn't do anything in particular to decide the war. It wasn't in the war in serious numbers until the end of 1944 - at which point the war was over.
It also underscored my point that the war wasn't decided by exclusive access to elite technology, what mattered was recognising which technologies would help fight the war (being the first war in which large numbers of troops and tanks could move across ground rapidly, it was a new envronment that was barely understood by anyone in 1940). Anyone could have utilised Christie suspension, but the Russians were the ones that saw how high quality suspension could greatly increase the ability of tanks to penetrate deep into enemy terrain. Anyone could have put together a radar network, but the British were the ones who saw how important command and control could be to an air campaign. The P-51 could have been flying in large numbers in 1941 - if the Americans had realised how important fighter escort would be for their bomber wings, but they only realised this in early 1944.
I'm just correcting a point of fact. It was a great aircraft. There were many other great aircraft on both sides.
The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:
Good enough or better designs of aircraft and guns
Industry to manufacture them in larger quantities
A larger population base on which to draw for crew, and a better organised training programme. (E.g. British use of female pilots for ferry duty.)
A safe area in which to train crew (the US and Canada)
Plenty of fuel to allow more crew training and operational sorties
Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar
Gyro gunsight
All of the above came to the peak in 1944 and rapidly ground down the Axis forces.
It was broadly the same story in the Pacific War, with the addition of more attention to crew survival and rescue compared to the Japanese.
Kilkrazy wrote:The P51 was produced to a UK specification in a short period. It wasn't pre-existing US technology though obviously it was designed by US engineers.
The P-51 chassis was flying around in military service in 1942. When the US realised they needed an aircraft to escort their bombers, they put the Merlin engine into the chassis. It was all pre-existing tech, in military service in other forms, that was put into the P-51D once the US realised they had a new military need.
The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:
Good enough or better designs of aircraft and guns
Industry to manufacture them in larger quantities
A larger population base on which to draw for crew, and a better organised training programme. (E.g. British use of female pilots for ferry duty.)
A safe area in which to train crew (the US and Canada)
Plenty of fuel to allow more crew training and operational sorties
Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar
Gyro gunsight
Industry, industry, industry, industry, and also some other things.
Just look at the production of aircraft by the various powers. Everything else is secondary at best.
Brother Coa wrote:That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.
Why would you be comparing a specialist heavy tank, of which there were 1,300 produced during the war, with an all purpose medium tank, of which just under 50,000 were produced?
Brother Coa wrote:That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.
Why would you be comparing a specialist heavy tank, of which there were 1,300 produced during the war, with an all purpose medium tank, of which just under 50,000 were produced?
That makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense, like you said industry, industry, industry, industry, industry....
We can also compare German and American planes if you want, or Soviet and German airpower. In the end, like I said, Allies win because they overwhelm Germans with sheer numbers of everything. And it was not an easy victory for them.
Brother Coa wrote:It makes perfect sense, like you said industry, industry, industry, industry, industry....
We can also compare German and American planes if you want, or Soviet and German airpower. In the end, like I said, Allies win because they overwhelm Germans with sheer numbers of everything. And it was not an easy victory for them.
Oh, sorry I misread you, thought you were saying it wasn't aout industry, because Tigers were so good. Text based medium, intent, and all that.
Thing is, once you start looking at industrial production, you'll see the Soviets outproduced the Germans by themselves. Lend lease certainly helped and gave the Soviets equipment they probably would have had to have done without otherwise (especially trucks), but even if you take that out Soviet industry was superior to the Germans.
Kilkrazy wrote:
The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:
Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar
Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.
@ Sebster, the Merlin engine, that's what it was called. I kept thinking Marlin engine for some reason.
Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.
The Christie suspension was mostly about speed and could also switch between road tires and a track, however the Russians didn't have the rubber supplies necessary to utilize road tires for most of the war.
The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.
The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful. The british utilized night raids instead of a lot of fighters and both sides believed that their way was better. Until the Dresden fire bombing when the british decided that maybe carpet bombing civilian areas to destroy moral wasn't really working. The americans would blow up bridges and other small targets and until they needed to hit the bigger targets they really didn't need fighter escort.
The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.
The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.
Closer to the end of the war the germans got really desperate and they decided to use suicide pilots against enemy planes in hopes of reducing allied pilot moral and a stunt pilot said that the V2's needed human pilots.
If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.
Fortunately/unfortunately he did.
Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.
There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.
Yes, contrary to the original post, Britain was most certainly not on its knees. As others have pointed out, we had achieved aerial superiority and weren't doing badly in North Africa either. Hitler was busy running himself into the ground in Russia and fast running out of resources on all fronts.
If anything, I think the best Germany could have achieved was a stalemate. But I think Germany's population would have wised up eventually that they were on the wrong side and overthrown the nutcase.
halonachos wrote:@ Sebster, the Merlin engine, that's what it was called. I kept thinking Marlin engine for some reason.
Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.
The Christie suspension was mostly about speed and could also switch between road tires and a track, however the Russians didn't have the rubber supplies necessary to utilize road tires for most of the war.
The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.
The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful. The british utilized night raids instead of a lot of fighters and both sides believed that their way was better. Until the Dresden fire bombing when the british decided that maybe carpet bombing civilian areas to destroy moral wasn't really working. The americans would blow up bridges and other small targets and until they needed to hit the bigger targets they really didn't need fighter escort.
The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.
The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.
Closer to the end of the war the germans got really desperate and they decided to use suicide pilots against enemy planes in hopes of reducing allied pilot moral and a stunt pilot said that the V2's needed human pilots.
If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.
Fortunately/unfortunately he did.
Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.
There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.
I think its so funny that the Christie suspension is getting so much attention here.
Along thing I want to say is that the bolded area is factually incorrect. A good number of the German garrison in France was composed of foreign service branches of the Wehrmacht, but the Germans also had several "crack" or "elite" forces.... on the division level. To those not familiar with standard military force denominations, a division is the sub unit that lays below Corps and Army level, so it consists of many thousands of troops.
Off the top of my head I can name a few examples: 17th SS, the 12th Panzer SS, and I know the 2nd Panzer SS got into the fight pretty quickly. There are a great deal more examples but I don't really care to search for them at the moment. The point is, the Germans did have several battle hardened divisions in France, some of the best troops in the Wehrmacht actually. Their biggest problem though stemmed from a solid lack of NCOs, most of which had been KIA / wounded in Russia.... as well as all the other factors of Allied air superiority, less production capacity, ect. ect. ect.
O.. and yeah... I find it really weird that you guys are tapping into this myth of the Sherman basically only being good at ganging up on German tanks; that's not true. There seems to be this idea that, although fewer in number, the Germans had these invincible tanks that were only destroyed due to massive Allied numbers. I think this might be a "legend" sort of myth that is meant to make our victory sound all the better.
The fact of the matter is that the Sherman's 75mm cannon had more than enough power to pierce the side armormant of the Panther MBT at ranges of... hmmm, I won't lie, I can't dig the meters out of my head but at a decent, not close, but decent range they could dependably pierce armor. There are several accounts of this.... MANY accounts, of both American and British armored columns engaging German Panthers and being able to dependably put them down. Of course, we are talking about Panthers. Most of the Wehrmacht's armored force at the time was made up of the Panzer IV, a rough equal to the Sherman on many levels.
The true terror that tanks such as the Panther and Tiger brought to the battlefield was their long range guns and heavy frontal armor. If you managed to engage them at a fairly close range or come up on their flanks, you were doing well.
Lesson of the Day: History Channel isn't, for the most part, real history... rather one that is presented in such a way as to be generally, and eagerly, consumed.
I usually watch the Military channel now, its a lot better at talking about battles and the weapons of war. Like the fact that german tank crews had to wait for the tank to be on fire before bailing out.
The Battle of the Bulge was covered as well and it said there was a Sherman tank that was in a village that received fire from Panther tanks only to have the first shot ricochet off of the Sherman's front armor and dent the barrel of the Sherman, when the Sherman fired it blew a hole in the barrel of the Sherman. The Sherman is still in the village IIRC.
And as I said, most but not all of the elite(the reason why the Americans had a policy of executing SS troops was because of the slaughter of American troops by SS soldiers).
The major aspect of the Tiger Tanks was the fact that it was scary as hell, its a giant hunk of tank and until we started using Firefly's we didn't have too much that could meet the panthers at a far range.
The Sherman had thin armor and they were more or less drivable ovens according to the actual crews.
Ahtman wrote:How do you read tone? You were wrong then and wrong now about the popularity of the Nazi party (not in the pop star sense of the word), thus, you might want to do more reading on the pre-war period where there were Nazi support groups in different parts of the world. You seem to be giving a revisionist history that assumes everyone knew everything that we do now about the group when they didn't. There were some people that saw them for what they were but most were either favorable of them or indifferent. The internal politics of Germany doesn't represent how the average British or American citizen felt about them pre-War. people were so wanting them to turn the country around and be successful that the first response to their aggression was appeasement. We wanted them to be good guys that were out to help their people. It wasn't understood at that point what that truly meant and wouldn't know fully till we had been at war for awhile. Pretending they were generally disliked from the beginning is just not true.
No that would be necessary for them to be the shorthand for evil that they are now, an overly powerful expansionist Germany is enough of a reason to be wary. The Nazi's intentions were very unpopular in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Italy (specifically the Anschluss) as well as neutral Norway before the war. The presence of support groups changes nothing as groups opposed to them are just as common. Linking appeasement directly to popularity and sympathy is an incredibly simplistic viewpoint.
"We wanted them to be good guys" Who's 'we', the US? That makes more sense the shifting of a few borders in some countries nobody knows the name of may not be an issue in Washington, in Danzig or Prague it's a much bigger deal. Not everyone's primary goal was turning a dollar selling things to the Germans.
Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs. If the Germany had faced each for individually they would won the war. They lost because they fought against 3 superpowers ( Britain, USA, USSR ) in the same time, and sheer number of solders, tanks, artillery and aircraft just overwhelm them. They would only have trouble with USA because US are hard to be attacked even today.
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Kilkrazy wrote:How do you define a German victory in WW2?
It's impossible to make an estimation of their chances without defining that point.
For the Germans to win - defeat every other world power.
My statement is that Germans would won if they only defeat their enemies one by one ( If they attacked Britain in 1942, defeated it and then attack USSR in 1943-44 then defeat it and finally attack USA in 1946-47 and defeated it ).
Thiers evidence to show that the Germans may have developed a atomic bomb and tested it during WW2.
Its a little coincidental that Nazi German Scientist were exstradited to USA and helped devolope the Atomic bomb.
(not to get confused with the German Scientist who fleed Nazi Germany)
Its may seem contravorstial but Germany could have possibly made an Atomic or dirty bomb and tested it succesfully as thier was signs of radioactive activie at the supposed test area.
Yak9UT wrote:
Thiers evidence to show that the Germans may have developed a atomic bomb and tested it during WW2.
Its a little coincidental that Nazi German Scientist were exstradited to USA and helped devolope the Atomic bomb.
(not to get confused with the German Scientist who fleed Nazi Germany)
Its may seem contravorstial but Germany could have possibly made an Atomic or dirty bomb and tested it succesfully as thier was signs of radioactive activie at the supposed test area.
Evidence which suggests that something may have happened is not evidence which proves that it did happen.
Additionally, there is no coincidence involved with the removal of German scientists to aid in development of the bomb. The Manhattan Project drew talent from wherever it could, that one source of talent was Germany, a key region for physics research before the war, is not surprising.
Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.
+1
If the Japanese didn't need to fight off the US then there's a lot of history that changes in the Pacific Front. First of all, no Flying Tigers, you know the American pilots that taught the Chinese how to be competent fighter pilots. It also potentially means no embargo of oil on the Japanese which means they can be more mobile. If the Japanese never lost their naval forces to the American fleet they would've been able to focus on China, Indochina, and Russia which means that Russia would also be split between an Eastern and Western Front. So that means Russia would also be weakened by the fact that they would have to fight the Japanese to the farther east.
I think it would've been a stalemate, but Germany would not have won.
Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.
+1
If the Japanese didn't need to fight off the US then there's a lot of history that changes in the Pacific Front. First of all, no Flying Tigers, you know the American pilots that taught the Chinese how to be competent fighter pilots. It also potentially means no embargo of oil on the Japanese which means they can be more mobile. If the Japanese never lost their naval forces to the American fleet they would've been able to focus on China, Indochina, and Russia which means that Russia would also be split between an Eastern and Western Front. So that means Russia would also be weakened by the fact that they would have to fight the Japanese to the farther east.
I think it would've been a stalemate, but Germany would not have won.
The "planes for hire" Flying Tigers were recruited and discharged from US armed forces and "in theater" before Pearl Harbor and subsequently the US declaring war. Just saying. Additionally, the US already had an oil and metal ore embargo on Japan(pissed Japan off) before Pearl Harbor as a result of Japan's actions in China and such.
Yes, but it was part of us being involved in the war effort. For us to be completely 100% out of the war effort, Japan would still be getting materials from us, England wouldn't be getting older ships from us, we wouldn't be aiding the Chinese in fighting the Japanese, etc.
Russia would still be fighting the Japanese more seeing as though we destroyed their carriers and a lot of their naval capability. If they didn't need to fight us then the islands they garrisoned would also require less troops seeing as though Australia and some of the British colonies would be the only opposing forces on the islands able to put up some resistance.
Byte wrote:Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.
While it was possible to track V2s by radar, on descent they moved so quickly that the plan to shoot them down with AA or fighters was quickly abandoned, as the allies realised they would do more damage with expended rounds falling back to earth than the V2 would do.
The only instance of a V2 being shot down was when one was launched just as an American bomber was passing by, allowing a particularly skillful bomber gunner to shoot it down.
halonachos wrote:Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.
Yes, it was offered to the US. That's my point - the US could have accessed the technology, as could several other powers the US actually had weapon sale agreements with, but they passed on it, because they didn't envision the role for tanks that the Soviets did. There were plenty of technologies out there that could have been used by all sides, so the issue was never about having access to high end tech, but to realising which tech was most important in the strange new world of modernised warfare that was 1940.
The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.
Yes, and the system served them very well. Unfortunately the British continued to use underpowered engines, resulting in tanks that were far too slow for their weight class. This was only corrected with the Meteor engine put into the Comet tanks. This is, again, the frustrating result of the allied military not applying existing technology, as the UK was producing a range of quality engines, they were just using them in fighter aircraft and not fitting them to tanks.
The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful.
Which was, again, my point. The introduction of the P-51 was the result of the US realising it had a military need, and then casting about for pre-existing tech to fill that need.
The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.
Only if you look at the high profile German designs like the Panther and the Tiger, and ignore that these were produced in very small numbers because they were specialist designs (there was about 6,000 and about 1,300 produced, respectively). The real heavy lifting of the German military was performed by the far more modest Mk III and Mk IV tanks, of which there were about 6,000 and about 9,000 produced, after which you can add in another 3,000 odd Mk I and Mk IIs. Then you look at the massive number of self propelled guns the German produced - more than 9,000 StuG IIIs, another 1,000 odd StuG IVs, 3,000 hetzers. Then you add in all the funny designs like the Marders, and it becomes clear that the core of German tanks weren't in the very famous Panthers and Tigers, but in the workhorse designs same as everyone else. And the German workhorse designs were not any better than anyone else's.
It's also very odd that you'd claim everyone's tanks were outmatched by the Germans. The Russians had no shortage of very glamorous, very powerful and very big tanks of their own, partcularly in the JS series, as well as far superior medium tanks, and a wide range of self propelled guns (ranging up to IS-152, which demonstrated as much ludicrous overkill as any of the late war crazytech German tanks, but was actually produced in large numbers).
Then you consider how many more of each of these the Soviets produced over and above the Germans, and well, the relative power of the two militaries should become pretty clear.
The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.
All of which is great, but the primary issue with the V2 was always that it was a precision rocket carrying a negligible payload.
If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.
Piling more troops into Stalingrad would have only gotten more troops trapped in the eventual Soviet encirclement. What was needed was better quality and better equipped troops in the surrounding Romanian, Italian and Hungarian units. Except all that equipment was being piled into the meatgrinder in Stalingrad, so when the Soviets countered with armour, there was little the Axis troops could have done to stop the Soviet tanks.
While there were some arguments being made to better protect the areas around Stalingrad, no-one was arguing for reinforcements there on a scale that would have stopped Operation Uranus, because the Germans had no idea the Soviets were capable of such a build up of forces.
Fortunately/unfortunately he did.
This idea that Hitler cost the Germans the war is utter tosh. Ther Germans failed to organise their operations on multiple occasions, long before Hitler ever came to interfere. Even if they had capitalised on those errors, they were still the smaller country with acute resource limitations, and would have needed a whole lot mor go their way to triumph.
By the time Hitler was directly overriding the commands of his senior generals (about the time of Kursk) the war was pretty much lost, we were just waiting for the decisive battle that made it clear to everyone involved.
Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.
This isn't particularly true, and also basically irrelevant to everything being discussed here.
There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.
Yeah, the Soviets were complete dicks, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything being discussed here.
Manstein wrote:I think its so funny that the Christie suspension is getting so much attention here.
It was cited an example of Soviet military limitation, because they didn't invent it, they just used it extensively. I pointed out that it was actually an example of what really mattered - identifying what tech would actually help your nation fight the new style of war made possible in 1940. Actually accessing that tech was secondary, at best.
Off the top of my head I can name a few examples: 17th SS, the 12th Panzer SS, and I know the 2nd Panzer SS got into the fight pretty quickly. There are a great deal more examples but I don't really care to search for them at the moment. The point is, the Germans did have several battle hardened divisions in France, some of the best troops in the Wehrmacht actually. Their biggest problem though stemmed from a solid lack of NCOs, most of which had been KIA / wounded in Russia.... as well as all the other factors of Allied air superiority, less production capacity, ect. ect. ect.
Yeah, the problem was really the lack of resources needed to launch and sustain an offensive
O.. and yeah... I find it really weird that you guys are tapping into this myth of the Sherman basically only being good at ganging up on German tanks; that's not true. There seems to be this idea that, although fewer in number, the Germans had these invincible tanks that were only destroyed due to massive Allied numbers. I think this might be a "legend" sort of myth that is meant to make our victory sound all the better.
This isn't the first thread I've tried to dissuade people away from the myth of German wundertanks, and I doubt it'll be the last.
I'm not sure why people have bought into that myth. Thing is, it isn't just the power of German tanks that they exaggerate, it's everything right down to the quality of individual troops. I think you're right in part, Grandad was much more heroic if you had to battle against indestructible wundertanks, but I think the bigger part of it is that most people who argue about this stuff are nerds first and foremost, and nerds will latch onto a handful of numbers and begin to imagine how things must of been, rather than actually listen to anyone tell them how things actually were.
So they look at front armour stats, and penetration at range stats, and conclude the Panther with it's heavy front armour and long barrelled 75mm gun will destroy all opponents. They don't take the time to understand how a tank might operate in an actual wartime environment, fail to consider how a non-penetrating hit might still knock the turret off its mount, or cause it throw a track, or how the less prestigious AT gun or bazooka team might inflict a heavy toll on tanks, or how the tanks might be destroyed by artillery or bombing.
Nah, they'd rather just talk about tanks fighting tanks.
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halonachos wrote:And as I said, most but not all of the elite(the reason why the Americans had a policy of executing SS troops was because of the slaughter of American troops by SS soldiers).
There was no formal policy of executing SS troops - that would have been a warcrime and the US should be rightly proud of it's record of avoiding such atrocities.
I think you're thinking of a specific incident during the Battle of the Bulge, in which captured US soldiers were shot. This was called the Malmedy Massacre, and after the war the officer who
The major aspect of the Tiger Tanks was the fact that it was scary as hell, its a giant hunk of tank and until we started using Firefly's we didn't have too much that could meet the panthers at a far range.
There were plenty of ways to take out Panthers, it's just that few of them called for meeting Panthers head on with your own tanks. Bombing, AT guns, tank destroyers... even bazooka attacks from concealed infantry on the flanks and rear of the tanks were more than capable of taking a Panther out of the fighting.
There's this odd idea that armoured warfare consists of taking on the enemy tanks head on at full range and seeing everything decided by armour and penetration at range measures... as if war was some kind of showdown at noon like in a Gary Cooper movie. It doesn't work like that, and a tank can be very useful even when it can't match the best performing enemy tanks.
The Sherman had thin armor and they were more or less drivable ovens according to the actual crews.
The Shermans were not particularly less armoured than other medium battle tanks. They weren't a match for the German heavy tanks, but they weren't meant to be. Different tanks, different roles, different results.
Ultimately the value of large number of small and medium tanks with good mobility proved a far more successful strategy than the German approach to pile increasingly more resources into increasing bigger tanks.
Byte wrote:Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.
While it was possible to track V2s by radar, on descent they moved so quickly that the plan to shoot them down with AA or fighters was quickly abandoned, as the allies realised they would do more damage with expended rounds falling back to earth than the V2 would do.
The only instance of a V2 being shot down was when one was launched just as an American bomber was passing by, allowing a particularly skillful bomber gunner to shoot it down.
Aye, V1's were intercepted by aircraft. V2s were not.
The SS part was bad wording on my part. It wasn't an official policy, but more of unofficial actions after the Malmedy Massacre. This lead to the Dachau Massacre, Chenogne Massacre, and the orders that no SS troops were to be taken alive. This was later repealed saying that the US needed information from them. The germans also had a nasty habit of feigning surrender, another anecdote was when a Sherman tank drove down an alley to avoid a Panther and a young German soldier stood there in surrender, shortyl after two officers popped up with a Panzershrek and fired only to miss the sherman that then used the main gun to blow them away.
This sherman was knocked out in the Ardennes, and the reason the barrel is blown out like that is because a shell from a Panther tank ricocheted off of the front armor of the tank and messed up the barrel.
It wasn't always a killing shot and of course they did miss and then there's a lot of factors. Statistically they should've been better than other tanks of the same caliber. Didn't always play out that way though seeing as though they weren't as mobile as some of the other tanks.
At the Stalingrad issue, he didn't want to send more troops because the Russians had been pushed back to about 1/3 of the city and he had already said the battle was won. Because he was so stubborn in the idea of victory he wouldn't allow the German forces in Stalingrad to retreat. By the time he decided to do something he had been completely surrounded and his men so far gone that a breakout was impossible. Again, Hitler imposed upon his men a death sentence.
The Sherman tank was developed for industry and its chassis was used for just about any kind of turret.
Again, we couldn't match the Panthers at range but that doesn't mean a bazooka crew could pop out behind it and give it a good whack.
halonachos wrote:The SS part was bad wording on my part. It wasn't an official policy, but more of unofficial actions after the Malmedy Massacre. This lead to the Dachau Massacre, Chenogne Massacre, and the orders that no SS troops were to be taken alive. This was later repealed saying that the US needed information from them.
I've never heard any policy, official or otherwise, that ordered such. In the wake of the Malmedy massacre one individual unit said it wouldn't take any SS troops prisoner, and this might explain in part why a seperate US unit decided to massacre German troops. It's worth noting the German troops massacred weren't SS, if I recall correctly.
The massacre at Dachau was less to do with the guards being SS troops and more to do with the piles of bodies around the camp.
At the Stalingrad issue, he didn't want to send more troops because the Russians had been pushed back to about 1/3 of the city and he had already said the battle was won.
When Operation Uranus was launched the Germans controlled 90% of the city. In terms of the city itself, he was right, more or less. The problem was that while the Germans had been slowly grinding forward the Russians had been amassing immense forces for an encirclement, which they proceded to achieve with brtual efficiency. The Germans had no reserves to fight through the encirclement, and the sixth army lacked the strength and provisions to fight it's way out and be confident of maintaining good order.
Hitler's order for the sixth to await relief doomed them, but the alternative was for the sixth to fight it's own way out, and likely collapse into route in the process. An ugly choice, either way, where the real mistake was already made, in failing to properly protect the flanks of the sixth, and see the Soviet counter coming.
I've also read a lot of accounts that Hitler's refusal to allow troops to retreat might have had merit. German morale was terrible at the time, and tactical retreats would likely have spread to route, and loss of much material.
But more than anything, I have to repeat that by this time the war was lost, the Germans had failed to take Stalingrad, and failed to take Moscow, and as the failed counter-offensive at Kursk would show, they were not going to be able to launch another meaningful offensive in the war. Hitler had barely interfered by this point, but the war was already over.
The Sherman tank was developed for industry and its chassis was used for just about any kind of turret.
Again, we couldn't match the Panthers at range but that doesn't mean a bazooka crew could pop out behind it and give it a good whack.
Yeah, but as I've said a few times, the Sherman wasn't built to blow up Panthers at range. The main role of a medium tank is to achieve breakthroughs of the enemy position and disrupt their logistic supply.
To actually defeat German tanks on the ground the US had dedicated tank destroyer batallions. Now, you can talk about the Wolverines and Hellcats being undergunned for their role of taking out Panthers, and you'd be right, as only the high velocity 90mm gun on the Jackson could threaten the Panther at range.
Not that any of that really mattered, by the time the US deployed into Europe the Germans were barely capable of amassing for armoured breakthroughs, and the only sustained effort they attempted, at the battle of the bulge, was defeated by their own supply difficulties and the overwhelming power of allied aircraft.
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halonachos wrote:Russia would still be fighting the Japanese more seeing as though we destroyed their carriers and a lot of their naval capability. If they didn't need to fight us then the islands they garrisoned would also require less troops seeing as though Australia and some of the British colonies would be the only opposing forces on the islands able to put up some resistance.
The Japanese abandoned any thought of open war with the Russians after they were utterly trounced at Khalkhin Gol in 1938. While the Japanese navy was modern and quite impressive, the army (though well disciplined and tactically skillful) lacked logistical support of the major world powers. The result was 30,000 dead Japanese soldiers and a clear answer that the Japanese could not match the Soviets in open war.
This led to the Japanese decision to secure oil and other resources from the south and not from Soviet territory. If anything, removing the US from the war would have only committed Japanese forces into the Philipines and Indonesia, and left the Russians with even less concern over their eastern border.
The command wasn't for the overall army, battalions had their own rules for what they did in terms of smaller scale issues(ie who they would take prisoner compared to where to attack). So a field commander could've issued the order and only that battalion would listen to the order and the rest of the army would carry on with their merry ways.
I never said that the Sherman was designed to take out panthers, the Firefly and Pershing were created to deal with heavier tanks. The sherman was a ubiquitous design created so that it would be easy to produce and upgrade.
I see a Sherman tank and I think Leman Russ. This thing had so many variants it wasn't even funny and there's a reason that every Allied force used them.
England received the majority of Shermans uder the Lend-Lease Act( which is where the Firefly comes from), New Zealand, Australia, Russia, and even Brazil got some Shermans.
Looking at US variants alone we have two TD's a couple rocket launching Shermans(Calliope), the Preist was based off of the Sherman chassis and the list goes on. It was probably the most utilized chassis in the war.
halonachos wrote:The command wasn't for the overall army, battalions had their own rules for what they did in terms of smaller scale issues(ie who they would take prisoner compared to where to attack). So a field commander could've issued the order and only that battalion would listen to the order and the rest of the army would carry on with their merry ways.
Yeah, and the point at which we're talking about informal commands within individual battalions, with no actual recorded instances of SS soldiers being executed because they were SS soldiers, I think it's fair to say we're not really talking about anything at all.
I never said that the Sherman was designed to take out panthers, the Firefly and Pershing were created to deal with heavier tanks. The sherman was a ubiquitous design created so that it would be easy to produce and upgrade.
People in this thread were commenting on the quality of German tanks, but only really mentioning the Tigers and Panthers, and talking down the Sherman - by comparing it to Tigers and Panthers.
I see a Sherman tank and I think Leman Russ. This thing had so many variants it wasn't even funny and there's a reason that every Allied force used them.
Pretty much. Straight forward design, produced en masse, adaptable. Well, mostly adaptable, the turret ring was too small in the original (which was only built for the 50mm gun), but that was fixed.
Mind you, the other two medium tank designs, the German Mk IV and the Soviet T-34 were just as adaptable, and were also upgunned and modified into various self-propelled guns.
England received the majority of Shermans uder the Lend-Lease Act( which is where the Firefly comes from), New Zealand, Australia, Russia, and even Brazil got some Shermans.
Did Australia operate Shermans? I remember reading about a NZ division, which was notable because they had an armoured division and Australia didn't. Perhaps we had some, but not focussed into their own unit, or something.
Looking at US variants alone we have two TD's a couple rocket launching Shermans(Calliope), the Preist was based off of the Sherman chassis and the list goes on. It was probably the most utilized chassis in the war.
Yeah, probably beat out the T-34, but a lot of that would be due to the British fixation on building all kinds of whacky variants.
But yeah, simple manufacture, straight forward operation, not too fiddly to maintain in the field, with a good enough gun, good enough armour and just about good enough speed. A solid, workhorse tank, exactly what was needed.
The Sherman's problem was that it's gun was never strong enough. Compared to German counterparts, US tank design always lagged behind. For example, by the time the Sherman got upgunned to a 76mm, German tanks had been uparmored and were more resilient to that level of power (the same problem plagued US tank destroyers who other than the M10 never managed to stay ahead of the armor curve). Part of the problem was the existence of the Tank Destroyers, as McNair and Bruce insisted that the Sherman didn't need better firepower (especially McNair who single handedly hosed the entire Pershing program and delayed it by two years).
Other than its weak firepower compared to the armor of German tanks, the Sherman was still good. It's underpowered gun only really came out as a major problem when Panthers and Tigers were around. It did well enough against the hodgepodge of armored vehicles used by the Germans towards the end of the war and of course, outnumbered them.
Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.
+1
If the Japanese didn't need to fight off the US then there's a lot of history that changes in the Pacific Front. First of all, no Flying Tigers, you know the American pilots that taught the Chinese how to be competent fighter pilots. It also potentially means no embargo of oil on the Japanese which means they can be more mobile. If the Japanese never lost their naval forces to the American fleet they would've been able to focus on China, Indochina, and Russia which means that Russia would also be split between an Eastern and Western Front. So that means Russia would also be weakened by the fact that they would have to fight the Japanese to the farther east.
I think it would've been a stalemate, but Germany would not have won.
The "planes for hire" Flying Tigers were recruited and discharged from US armed forces and "in theater" before Pearl Harbor and subsequently the US declaring war. Just saying. Additionally, the US already had an oil and metal ore embargo on Japan(pissed Japan off) before Pearl Harbor as a result of Japan's actions in China and such.
Thats an interesting question though isn't it. What if the US had never put an embargo on Japan? Would Japan had stopped other than its efforts in China and IndoChina or would have it eventually gotten uppity for one reason or another?
Everyone that heeps praise on the US of A always forgets Russia.
Russia was kicking the gak out of Germany in the East before we made a Western front in Normandy.
Could the UK and French have successfully invaded Normandy without us as early as they did? No.
But with Russia pulling more and more Germans to the Eastern front, the allies eventually could have.
I think it's fair to say that we helped end it earlier. And, since we helped launch the Normandy campaign when we did, we prevented the Soviet Union from land-grabbing more of Western Europe.
LordofHats wrote:The Sherman's problem was that it's gun was never strong enough. Compared to German counterparts, US tank design always lagged behind. For example, by the time the Sherman got upgunned to a 76mm, German tanks had been uparmored and were more resilient to that level of power (the same problem plagued US tank destroyers who other than the M10 never managed to stay ahead of the armor curve). Part of the problem was the existence of the Tank Destroyers, as McNair and Bruce insisted that the Sherman didn't need better firepower (especially McNair who single handedly hosed the entire Pershing program and delayed it by two years).
Other than its weak firepower compared to the armor of German tanks, the Sherman was still good. It's underpowered gun only really came out as a major problem when Panthers and Tigers were around. It did well enough against the hodgepodge of armored vehicles used by the Germans towards the end of the war and of course, outnumbered them.
Thats not accurate. Shermans were superior to most German vehicles in Africa and competitive in Sicily and Italy. Their difficulty, as noted was not continuing to upgun in mid 1943. After all we did have 76MM shooters, and later 90MM shooters which were effective. As the Isrealis were able to upgun Shermans to 90MM it was definitely doable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_tank_destroyer
We also have to remember that by the time of DDay, we had a buttload roaming fighter bombers. Yes the Germans could make extremely rare super tanks. But those extremely rare super tanks were utter targets from the air. More importantly their logistics tale was chew toy to air attack.
Kilkrazy wrote:I think the Israelis managed to cram a 105mm gun into the Sherman.
Ah you're right. Now thats biggie sizing.
This is interesting.
The British were more astute in their anticipation of the future development of German armor — beginning development of a 3-inch anti-tank gun even before its predecessor entered service and planning for its use in tanks that would replace the M4. Out of expediency driven by delays in their new tanks designs, they mounted this high-powered Ordnance QF 17-pounder gun in a standard 75 mm M4 Sherman turret. This conversion became the Sherman Firefly. The 17 pounder still could not penetrate the glacis plate of the Panther but it could easily penetrate the Panther's gun mantlet at combat range;[43] moreover it could penetrate the front and side armor of the Tiger I at nearly the same range that the Tiger I could penetrate the Sherman.[44]
In late 1943, the British offered the 17 pounder to the U.S. Army for use in their M4 tanks. Gen. Devers insisted on comparison tests between the 17 pounder and the U.S. 90 mm gun (even though the 17 pounder could be mounted in a standard M4 turret while the 90 mm gun needed a new turret). The tests were finally done on March 25 and May 23, 1944; they seemed to show that the 90 mm gun was equal to or better than the 17 pounder. By then, production of the 76 mm M4 and the 90 mm M36 tank destroyer were both underway and U.S. Army interest in the 17 pounder waned.
kronk wrote:Everyone that heeps praise on the US of A always forgets Russia.
Russia was kicking the gak out of Germany in the East before we made a Western front in Normandy.
Could the UK and French have successfully invaded Normandy without us as early as they did? No.
But with Russia pulling more and more Germans to the Eastern front, the allies eventually could have.
I think it's fair to say that we helped end it earlier. And, since we helped launch the Normandy campaign when we did, we prevented the Soviet Union from land-grabbing more of Western Europe.
Without us there would be a lot less tanks out in the war.
The British received 17,184 sherman tanks, Russia received 4,102, New Zealand received 150 Sherman tanks, Australia got 3 Sherman tanks but they got 757 Lees/Grants, and Brazil got 53 Shermans among the Shermans given to Free France, and Canada was given 4 Shermans but were allowed to manufacture their own and they built 188(known as grizzlies). The US army used 19,247 Shermans by comparison and the USMC used 1,114.
So if we remove the US we remove 21,436 sherman tanks from non-US forces and at a total we remove 41,979 Sherman tanks from the battlefield. That's a whole lot less armor.
We also gave a lot of supplies to Russia, we gave them 7,983 planes through the Alaska-Siberian Air Road and it allowed them to run intelligence as well.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Without the US the Christie suspension wouldn't of been developed either which means the T-34 wouldn't have been produced as it was and the same goes for some british tanks.
Kilkrazy wrote:Except for the ones built by US factories for British clients.
Christie invented his suspension in the 1920s. It was licensed to the Soviets in the 1930s and was in combat use before the US entered the war.
Except of course if we were not in the war there would have been no "Lend Lease." If we applied a strict nuetrality policy there would have been no armaments sent.
Indeed without the above we wouldn't have a Grant/Lee tank to begin with as those were rushed designs just prior to WWII because it was thought we would go to war with Germany.
Kilkrazy wrote:Except for the ones built by US factories for British clients.
Christie invented his suspension in the 1920s. It was licensed to the Soviets in the 1930s and was in combat use before the US entered the war.
Except of course if we were not in the war there would have been no "Lend Lease." If we applied a strict nuetrality policy there would have been no armaments sent.
Indeed without the above we wouldn't have a Grant/Lee tank to begin with as those were rushed designs just prior to WWII because it was thought we would go to war with Germany.
The US didn't apply a strict neutrality policy. The US was happy to take British payment for supplies until the money began to run out. Lend Lease started before the US entered the war.
Kilkrazy wrote:Except for the ones built by US factories for British clients.
Christie invented his suspension in the 1920s. It was licensed to the Soviets in the 1930s and was in combat use before the US entered the war.
Except of course if we were not in the war there would have been no "Lend Lease." If we applied a strict nuetrality policy there would have been no armaments sent.
Indeed without the above we wouldn't have a Grant/Lee tank to begin with as those were rushed designs just prior to WWII because it was thought we would go to war with Germany.
The US didn't apply a strict neutrality policy. The US was happy to take British payment for supplies until the money began to run out. Lend Lease started before the US entered the war.
Thats my point. I think the OP is asking what happens if the US stays out of the war. Therefore no Lend Lease and no shipments before that. remember, that occurred because Roosevelt effectively wanted us in the war. In this scenario something has happened and the US would be nuetral.
Alternatively, who's to say the US doesn't start selling munitions and materiale to Germany as well? Then you might really have a problem with MADE IN THE USA Panthers running about.
Kilkrazy wrote:You're making the assumption that nothing would have taken the place of the Shermans or the Christie suspension.
Oh something would have, but it would need to be developed first of all. Same goes for the B-25's that were given to the Russians for Lend-Lease, something would've replaced them but seeing as though that means all of the production of war materials would've been in a country being bombed by another country it would be less. And again, that's almost 50,000 tanks that would be out of the war and all of those tanks were produced in the United States, away from war conditions. If you have England trying to produce their own fighting vehicles they would not have been able to produce close to that amount.
Overall, England only made 20,150 tanks from 1940 to 1945. America made double that number in Shermans alone so I think it would be safe to say that England would not have been able to replace the lost tanks with their own production, they just weren't capable of it. Not to mention the fact that the british tanks during the early part of the war could barely fare against German Anti-tank weapons and a lot of german armor, until the M3 Lee/Grant was introduced to the British they suffered terribly.
Russia on the other hand made 102,300 tanks on their own, making them the most capable of trying to replace the lost Sherman tanks. However, the US produced 88,500 tanks in total. During 1942 and 1943 the US outproduced the Russians (25,000 to 24,700 and 29,500 to 24,000) respectively and production waned over the next two years.
Germany alone made 46,700 tanks and outproduced the English.
So if we remove the US the allies lose 88,500 tanks total which is almost half of the Allied armor produced. I doubt England would have been able to replace the armor given to them during the Lend-Lease act. (42% of tanks produced for the allies were american made.)
Now to planes.
England produced about 123,500 warplanes and Russia produced 157,500 warplanes which really aren't bad numbers until you look at the whopping 301,500 warplanes produced by the US. (52% of the total warplanes produced were american)
Remove the US and you lose over half of the total number of warplanes used during WW2.
Now let's look at the actual people holding the weapons and driving the tanks.
England put forth a respectable 22,727,000 troops and Russia put forth 48,907,000 troops. The US put up 38,116,100 men. If you take out the US, that's 35% of the allied fighting force.
The truth is I doubt they would've been replaced because the UK didn't have the capacity to do so.(UK tank doctrine was also screwed up so that didn't help either).
Frazzled wrote:Thats not accurate. Shermans were superior to most German vehicles in Africa and competitive in Sicily and Italy.
Hence my statement about the firepower only being a problem around panther's and tigers. In all other combats against other opponents until about mid 1943 it was capable. Clarify: It's accurate in the sense that the power and range of the Sherman for much of its service time was not comparable to that its German counterparts, but the tanks that posed a threat to the Sherman were in much fewer number than Shermans, and there were often more older German tanks in service than new ones.
After all we did have 76MM shooters, and later 90MM shooters which were effective. As the Isrealis were able to upgun Shermans to 90MM it was definitely doable.
All separate issues from actually upgunning the Sherman during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_tank_destroyer
Um, not a Sherman? There was a variant based on the Sherman Chassis but it was not employed as other Shermans were by the US in WWII.
We also have to remember that by the time of DDay, we had a buttload roaming fighter bombers. Yes the Germans could make extremely rare super tanks. But those extremely rare super tanks were utter targets from the air. More importantly their logistics tale was chew toy to air attack.
There were a multitude of reasons for the lack of upgrading the Sherman. Air superiority, limited German armor capabilities, the vast numbers at which the Sherman could be produced, McNair being a douche etc.
England put forth a respectable 22,727,000 troops and Russia put forth 48,907,000 troops. The US put up 38,116,100 men. If you take out the US, that's 35% of the allied fighting force.
How many of the 38 mil served in Europe? It's important to distinquish between the War in the Pacific and the War in Europe when making a comparison for fighting Germany. EDIT: Also might want to check your numbers. Maybe cut the US in half, divid Britain by 2, and who cares how many Russians there were? There were plenty
UK tank doctrine was also screwed up so that didn't help either
The British armor doctrine was more serviceable than ours and they adapted better to changes in German armor.
"Not to mention the fact that the british tanks during the early part of the war could barely fare against German Anti-tank weapons and a lot of german armor, until the M3 Lee/Grant was introduced to the British they suffered terribly."
Not completely true. The Matilda II was immune to just about every AT element available to the Germans apart from the 88. It was however woefully under-gunned.
Cheesecat wrote:The main reason Hitler lost because was because Germany lacked CRASSUS ARMOURED TRANSPORTS.
I think you mean CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT there my dairy feline friend...
...But, but there's no assault ramps if only Hitler knew he might have won the war.
The name stays.
And, Hitler was/is(depending on who you listen to) a certified nutcase so go figure, he probably lost BECAUSE he used CRASSUS ARMOURED TRANSPORTs instead of the other, better variety...
Cheesecat wrote:The main reason Hitler lost because was because Germany lacked CRASSUS ARMOURED TRANSPORTS.
I think you mean CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT there my dairy feline friend...
...But, but there's no assault ramps if only Hitler knew he might have won the war.
The name stays.
And, Hitler was/is(depending on who you listen to) a certified nutcase so go figure, he probably lost BECAUSE he used CRASSUS ARMOURED TRANSPORTs instead of the other, better variety...
What a lack of foresight because it's insulated interiors would have helped the Germans cope with the harsh Russian winters.
LordofHats wrote:The Sherman's problem was that it's gun was never strong enough. Compared to German counterparts, US tank design always lagged behind. For example, by the time the Sherman got upgunned to a 76mm, German tanks had been uparmored and were more resilient to that level of power (the same problem plagued US tank destroyers who other than the M10 never managed to stay ahead of the armor curve). Part of the problem was the existence of the Tank Destroyers, as McNair and Bruce insisted that the Sherman didn't need better firepower (especially McNair who single handedly hosed the entire Pershing program and delayed it by two years).
Other than its weak firepower compared to the armor of German tanks, the Sherman was still good. It's underpowered gun only really came out as a major problem when Panthers and Tigers were around. It did well enough against the hodgepodge of armored vehicles used by the Germans towards the end of the war and of course, outnumbered them.
The T-34 is widely regarded as the best tank of the war, and it's standard 76mm wasn't as good as the Shermans. This is okay, because neither the Sherman nor the T-34's primary role was to engage heavy German tanks at range.
The Germans succeeded in defeating France and made tremendous gains early on against the Soviets, despite having much weaker tanks, by driving their tanks through undefended and weakly defended points in the enemy line, then proceeding to destroy the enemy's logistics supply. This is the key threat tanks offer to the enemy.
By the time Panthers arrived on the field in any numbers, it was just in time to lose in Africa, and be defeated at Kursk. Ultimately, having a tank that's really good at blowing up enemy tanks didn't count for much. Having a mass of tanks with the capability to drive around enemy positions and cut off their line of supply is a huge deal, though.
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Frazzled wrote:Thats an interesting question though isn't it. What if the US had never put an embargo on Japan? Would Japan had stopped other than its efforts in China and IndoChina or would have it eventually gotten uppity for one reason or another?
It is an interesting question. I would think, given the Japanese Manifest Destiny, they couldn't have tolerated British and American controlled assets in Asia for long, though maybe they might have tolerated it as long as China was a resource drain... given that would have been forever, they might still be fighting there today, and no Pearl Harbour or Singapore would have ever happened.
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halonachos wrote:Without us there would be a lot less tanks out in the war.
The British received 17,184 sherman tanks, Russia received 4,102, New Zealand received 150 Sherman tanks, Australia got 3 Sherman tanks but they got 757 Lees/Grants, and Brazil got 53 Shermans among the Shermans given to Free France, and Canada was given 4 Shermans but were allowed to manufacture their own and they built 188(known as grizzlies). The US army used 19,247 Shermans by comparison and the USMC used 1,114.
Except the point that's been made multiple times in this thread is that the Soviets had the military capability to defeat the Nazis by themselves, at which point we're only looking at 4,000 tanks.
Now, 4,000 tanks might sound like a lot, but the Soviets produced 100,000 tanks of their own throughout the war, compared to 40,000 German tanks. At which point your argument is that 100,000 tanks couldn't have overcome the Nazis 40,000 tanks, but 104,000 tanks could. Which is silly.
Lend lease mattered, but it mattered in terms of trains and trucks, to aid the Soviet logistics. Which was certainly important, but people then need to understand that the trucks supplied to the Russians didn't allow them to match the Soviets, they were already equal with the Germans (who contrary to popular understanding were incredibly dependant on old fashioned supply systems, including a very large number of horses and carts). The trucks given to the Russians just gave them another edge.
We also gave a lot of supplies to Russia, we gave them 7,983 planes through the Alaska-Siberian Air Road and it allowed them to run intelligence as well.
The Soviets produced more than 150,000 of their own aircraft, well above the 120,000 produced by the Germans. The 7,000 supplied under lend lease were not a deciding factor.
Without the US the Christie suspension wouldn't of been developed either which means the T-34 wouldn't have been produced as it was and the same goes for some british tanks.
You already made this argument, and I already explained why it was wrong.
The question isn't "what would have happened if the US had never existed?", the question is "what would have happened if the US hadn't entered the war?"
The decision of the US in 1941 or any time after that to not enter the war, and to not aid the Soviets, doesn't change the private sale of tanks by Christie to the Soviets. You might even speculate that the US could have banned any arms sales to the Soviets... except that at the time of sale the US had banned arms sales to communist Russia. The tanks were illegally sold to a front company.
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purplefood wrote:I don't think Germany would have won.
They would have probably been able to keep their captured lands in Europe and maybe been pushed out of Africa.
Doubtful. The Soviet war machine, in and of itself, was superior to the Germans, and the Soviets were unlikely to seek peace terms once they were advancing on all fronts.
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Frazzled wrote:Thats my point. I think the OP is asking what happens if the US stays out of the war. Therefore no Lend Lease and no shipments before that. remember, that occurred because Roosevelt effectively wanted us in the war. In this scenario something has happened and the US would be nuetral.
Alternatively, who's to say the US doesn't start selling munitions and materiale to Germany as well? Then you might really have a problem with MADE IN THE USA Panthers running about.
I really doubt the Germans would have given anyone the design and manufacturing skill to build their tanks. What's more likely is the US would have mostly supplied trucks and other logistics gear to Germany, same as they did for the Russia. It probably would have made a fair difference, but unlikely enough to decide the war.
Though, given the US dislike of both, what's most likely is that they wouldn't have sold to either.
I wonder if we could construct a reasonably plausible scenario where the US allies with Germany, not by committing troops but supplying equipment in a lend lease operation. Maybe increase US hostility to communism (which was already substantial)... to the point where they might have sent troops to support the whites in the civil war. After that failed they might have backed the Nazis in an offensive against the Soviets (much like backing Saddam against Iran). If you make the war just the Soviets vs the Nazis, and give the Nazis the lend lease supplies given to the allies, then you've got a very even contest (even if you then give the Soviets more warning, and so the early defeats aren't as bad).
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LordofHats wrote:There were a multitude of reasons for the lack of upgrading the Sherman. Air superiority, limited German armor capabilities, the vast numbers at which the Sherman could be produced, McNair being a douche etc.
Thing is, McNair saw what happened in France, and saw what happened in the early stages of Barbarossa. He understood that the primary threat of German tanks was to penetrate the enemy position and threaten encirclement. His proposed response to this makes sense, build dedicated AT units that are held in reserve, capable of responding very quickly to any German tank offensive, it's basically the origin of the defence in depth strategy widely accepted today. Meanwhile the US's own tanks were to continue to specialise in supporting infantry and making their own armoured breakthroughs.
This didn't work out because the Germans were never in a position to make another armoured offensive, given the situation on the Russian front and their crippled supplies. But preparing for the war the enemy would have liked to have fought, if they were capable of it isn't really a bad idea.
I voted no. The Soviets already had the Germans in full retreat. If anything, Germany may have held out a little longer. But I don't think Stalin would have been worried over a few more million Russian deaths.
There's also the question of Japan. Stalin may have very well recruited soldiers from the various countries the Russians had gone through to get to Germany, sent them to eastern Russia, and gone straight for the Japanese mainland. I can't say how, but I'm fairly certain that some soviet engineers would have thought of a cheap way to make tanks ocean-worthy.
sebster wrote:Thing is, McNair saw what happened in France, and saw what happened in the early stages of Barbarossa. He understood that the primary threat of German tanks was to penetrate the enemy position and threaten encirclement. His proposed response to this makes sense, build dedicated AT units that are held in reserve, capable of responding very quickly to any German tank offensive, it's basically the origin of the defence in depth strategy widely accepted today. Meanwhile the US's own tanks were to continue to specialise in supporting infantry and making their own armoured breakthroughs.
The Tank Destroyer doctrine was crippled by how the TD battalions were organized into other divisions and the impractical nature of organizing your anti-tank response in this method. The nature German deployed tanks later in the war made them even more ineffective than they already were. That and the design concept of behind most of the US tank destroyers proved unsuitable to fighting outside of North Africa. It might have actually worked with better integration into parent units and more sensible designs, all of that really just leads to the birth of the MBT and the death of WWII tank concepts. McNair's concept made sense on paper but not in practice, as he failed to fully grasp the concept of combined arms that the Germans had begun to use (and McNair himself continually pushed for towed AT guns rather than the self-propelled gun motor carriages push for by Bruce which onyl complicated the problems with his doctrine). McNair also generally just failed to fully understand how the German's won in France.
My comments on the Sherman were less about its intended role and more about how this idea that the Sherman was 'bad' came about. Indeed the entire idea that German's had awesome armor and the allies had crap armor leads from the problems with the armor curve and the effectiveness of German armor (which had a lot to do with crew training and unit organization as much as design). That and what Tigers and Panthers were encountered did quite a bit of damage early in their inception. Cruiser tanks as a concept failed as much as TD's. There were few opportunities in WWII for the cruiser concept to be employed and Shermans increasingly found themselves in slugging machines with German tanks or bogged down supporting infantry (the TD's ironically found themselves in the same position as their guns were excellent direct fire support, but they also ended up being used as field artillery), never fulfilling the originally intended role.
British Tank Doctrine and US tank doctrine first used tanks as infantry support, however the British used tanks to engage other tanks compared to the US who used TD's to take on tanks.
The Matilda, while a nice armored vehicle was supposed to be probe to mechanical problems and the only really good tanks the british produced were supposed to be the Cromwell, Valentine, Comet, Churchill, and Challenger. I think there was something else about the payloads of the two countries. I believe that we had HE rounds while the UK didn't at first.
But Lord-loss is correct about why the Shermans were 'bad' (if I am reading him correctly). Shermans were not designed to be anti-tank but for the elimination of TD and infantry so they didn't have the proper weapons placed on them.
Shermans were great tanks, but they lack the aesthetics of the Tiger and Panther tanks. Personally I prefer the looks of the Tiger and the Porsche turret on the Tiger 2 compared to the Sherman. The Tiger also is big and scary looking so a lot of people may be using WYSIWYG when they compare tanks.
The numbers I got were rounded, that's the big issue. They aren't 100% exact and they also include all soldiers, pilots, drivers, and crew.
The Russians had the ability to beat the Germans, but the British lacked it. I guess its something that we may never know seeing as though there's a lot of unknown variables and courses of history that change.
For lack of a nail the shoe was lost, for lack of a shoe the horse was lost, for lack of a horse the rider was lost, for lack of a rider the battle was lost, for lack of the battle the war was lost.
LordofHats wrote:The Tank Destroyer doctrine was crippled by how the TD battalions were organized into other divisions and the impractical nature of organizing your anti-tank response in this method.
Sure, but I think this was done largely because Germany never threatened to muster massed armour again.
That and the design concept of behind most of the US tank destroyers proved unsuitable to fighting outside of North Africa.
More to the point, most of the tank destroyers were severely undergunned, left with the same 75mm gun as the Sherman, which pretty much defeated the point entirely.
It might have actually worked with better integration into parent units and more sensible designs
True.
McNair's concept made sense on paper but not in practice,
True, I'm not defending the doctrine, merely the rationale for the doctrine. The thing to remember is that WWII really was a whole new form of war, and a lot of theories came out in how to best exploit and defeat the potential of these new mobile, hard hitting units like main battle tanks.
The idea of dedicated AT units was, I think, a fairly sensible response, and one of the first thoughts along the lines of defense in depth as a response to the threat of blitzkrieg.
It didn't really work, but in the general chaos and confusion of WWII, I don't think it really ranks up there with the worst of the decisions made.
Cruiser tanks as a concept failed as much as TD's.
I think it's fair to say that WWII as a whole was one big lesson for everyone involved that specialised tanks didn't really work out, and what was needed was a general purpose tank. Leading to, as you say, the era of the MBT.
That said, the Germans did fairly well with their dedicated tank destroyers. In large part because they actually faced dedicated, operational level tank offensives.
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halonachos wrote:British Tank Doctrine and US tank doctrine first used tanks as infantry support, however the British used tanks to engage other tanks compared to the US who used TD's to take on tanks.
Not just as infantry support, but in armoured offensives to penetrate enemy lines.
And it's important not to exaggerate the differences in the armour of the US and UK. While the British wanted front line tanks that could take out Panthers and Tigers and developed the Firefly as a result, they only placed on Firefly in each tank platoon - one out of every five. It wasn't as though they felt every tank had to be the equal of the Panther, either.
But Lord-loss is correct about why the Shermans were 'bad' (if I am reading him correctly). Shermans were not designed to be anti-tank but for the elimination of TD and infantry so they didn't have the proper weapons placed on them.
More to the point, I think there's far too much emphasis being placed on the role of tank killing in assessing the value of each tank. The T-34, which just about every military historian will tell you is the best tank of WWII, was also outgunned by the Panther, and didn't move to major production of the 85mm version until 1944. Yet it remained the best tank of the war because it assaulted positions and exploited breakthroughs better than the alternatives.
Shermans were great tanks, but they lack the aesthetics of the Tiger and Panther tanks. Personally I prefer the looks of the Tiger and the Porsche turret on the Tiger 2 compared to the Sherman. The Tiger also is big and scary looking so a lot of people may be using WYSIWYG when they compare tanks.
Definitely, there's a lot of 'rule of cool' in any nerd argument about real world military matters.
The Russians had the ability to beat the Germans, but the British lacked it. I guess its something that we may never know seeing as though there's a lot of unknown variables and courses of history that change.
Oh, no doubt that the British couldn't have done it. British industry was simply not comparable with German industry.
Had the US not been involved the most likely result is Britain continuing to hold it's own, while the Germans attack and are eventually overwhelmed by the Soviets. From there you'd likely see Soviet occupation of Western Europe. So I think we should all be very grateful the US did take part.
halonachos wrote:British Tank Doctrine and US tank doctrine first used tanks as infantry support, however the British used tanks to engage other tanks compared to the US who used TD's to take on tanks.
The Matilda, while a nice armored vehicle was supposed to be probe to mechanical problems and the only really good tanks the british produced were supposed to be the Cromwell, Valentine, Comet, Churchill, and Challenger. I think there was something else about the payloads of the two countries. I believe that we had HE rounds while the UK didn't at first.
But Lord-loss is correct about why the Shermans were 'bad' (if I am reading him correctly). Shermans were not designed to be anti-tank but for the elimination of TD and infantry so they didn't have the proper weapons placed on them.
Shermans were great tanks, but they lack the aesthetics of the Tiger and Panther tanks. Personally I prefer the looks of the Tiger and the Porsche turret on the Tiger 2 compared to the Sherman. The Tiger also is big and scary looking so a lot of people may be using WYSIWYG when they compare tanks.
The numbers I got were rounded, that's the big issue. They aren't 100% exact and they also include all soldiers, pilots, drivers, and crew.
The Russians had the ability to beat the Germans, but the British lacked it. I guess its something that we may never know seeing as though there's a lot of unknown variables and courses of history that change.
For lack of a nail the shoe was lost, for lack of a shoe the horse was lost, for lack of a horse the rider was lost, for lack of a rider the battle was lost, for lack of the battle the war was lost.
You may have missed it, but I pointed out earlier that the Matilda II was immune to all German AT elements apart from the 88. That makes it "pretty good". That effectively makes it a very early "Tiger", except for the pop-gun.
More to the point, most of the tank destroyers were severely undergunned, left with the same 75mm gun as the Sherman, which pretty much defeated the point entirely.
Not just that but their relatively crappy armor. Armor was sacrificed for speed to quickly ambush and attack enemy tanks, but even before the Germans lost the ability to amasss tanks for breakthroughs the idea of finding some German tanks strolling around by their lonesome was slim, and the TD's were not well intigrated into a combined arms force (their entire concept was based of the idea of aggressively pursuing and destroying German tanks. McNair failed to realize that German tank breakthroughs went supported by artillery, aircraft, and mechanized infantry all things he failed to take into consideration when designing the concept.
The armor really came to be a big problem in Western Europe it where the idea of being able to roam around at speed and kill tanks became even more dubious due to terrain. I don't argue against the rationale for a TD doctrine, just that the one McNair and Bruce developed was not one that had been well thought out or integrated into an armed force.
Firefly's were developed for use with Cruiser tanks, as the standard Cromwell lacked the firepower to deal with Tigers and Panthers. The idea was that they'd cruise with the Cromwells, but of course the opportunity to employ cruisers rarely came (the Firefly was really just a stop gap for the Comet and other heavy cruisers). And the British did have Tank Destroyers, as their doctrine didn't have tanks fighting tanks but supporting infantry and cruising. They had their share of M10's, and upgraded them later in the war with 17 pdrs to create the Achilles.
British and US armor doctrines really just through around different names but functionally were more or less the same. The suffered the same problem against German armor, in that their standard tanks often ended up having to fight them because there were never enough tank destroyers and because you often didn't have time in an advance to simply wait for a TD to stroll up and kill that panzer that's in your way.
sebster wrote:Thing is, McNair saw what happened in France, and saw what happened in the early stages of Barbarossa. He understood that the primary threat of German tanks was to penetrate the enemy position and threaten encirclement. His proposed response to this makes sense, build dedicated AT units that are held in reserve, capable of responding very quickly to any German tank offensive, it's basically the origin of the defence in depth strategy widely accepted today. Meanwhile the US's own tanks were to continue to specialise in supporting infantry and making their own armoured breakthroughs.
The Tank Destroyer doctrine was crippled by how the TD battalions were organized into other divisions and the impractical nature of organizing your anti-tank response in this method. The nature German deployed tanks later in the war made them even more ineffective than they already were. That and the design concept of behind most of the US tank destroyers proved unsuitable to fighting outside of North Africa. It might have actually worked with better integration into parent units and more sensible designs, all of that really just leads to the birth of the MBT and the death of WWII tank concepts. McNair's concept made sense on paper but not in practice, as he failed to fully grasp the concept of combined arms that the Germans had begun to use (and McNair himself continually pushed for towed AT guns rather than the self-propelled gun motor carriages push for by Bruce which onyl complicated the problems with his doctrine). McNair also generally just failed to fully understand how the German's won in France.
My comments on the Sherman were less about its intended role and more about how this idea that the Sherman was 'bad' came about. Indeed the entire idea that German's had awesome armor and the allies had crap armor leads from the problems with the armor curve and the effectiveness of German armor (which had a lot to do with crew training and unit organization as much as design). That and what Tigers and Panthers were encountered did quite a bit of damage early in their inception. Cruiser tanks as a concept failed as much as TD's. There were few opportunities in WWII for the cruiser concept to be employed and Shermans increasingly found themselves in slugging machines with German tanks or bogged down supporting infantry (the TD's ironically found themselves in the same position as their guns were excellent direct fire support, but they also ended up being used as field artillery), never fulfilling the originally intended role.
Agreed. The attempts to hurredly upgun the Sherman in late 44 and get the Pershing (protoPatton) into production reflect the American's gaining that knowledge as well. Like Army procurement during the Civil War, a few guys can really screw it up, but thats most bureaucracies and the Germans screwed up often as well (Ferdinands, Tigers, and the whole overengineered concept for everything).
I remember a story -- it may be apocryphal -- in which the Soviets went to visit the German tank proving grounds before the war when they were still friends.
The Germans rolled out their Pz1-4 series and drove them around a bit, and shot off the machine-guns, 20mm and 37mm cannon and the 75mm short howitzer.
The Soviets, who already had the T34 in prototype and KV1 in production, said, "Very nice. Now why don't you show us your real tanks?"
Kilkrazy wrote:I remember a story -- it may be apocryphal -- in which the Soviets went to visit the German tank proving grounds before the war when they were still friends.
The Germans rolled out their Pz1-4 series and drove them around a bit, and shot off the machine-guns, 20mm and 37mm cannon and the 75mm short howitzer.
The Soviets, who already had the T34 in prototype and KV1 in production, said, "Very nice. Now why don't you show us your real tanks?"
One of my Military history magazines conjectured that if the USA hadn't intervened in WW2, Japan would have pretty much captured Asia and part of Australia. Australia is pretty easy to land on, and without the carriers the USA had, the allies would have had a tough time trying to match the japanese air capacity in the pacific.
Doctadeth wrote:One of my Military history magazines conjectured that if the USA hadn't intervened in WW2, Japan would have pretty much captured Asia and part of Australia. Australia is pretty easy to land on, and without the carriers the USA had, the allies would have had a tough time trying to match the japanese air capacity in the pacific.
What if the radar blips were treated as a potential enemy attack on December 7?
What if Britain has decided after Dunkirk that "Meh, we're out. Once is enough"
What if Italy hadn't gotten uppity in Africa?
What if Poland held out longer?
What if the US had joined the war in 1940 using German raiding on shipping as an excuse? We got crotchety about that sort of thing.
I would suggest to those who are interested in Soviet Union's contribution to WW2 to read Colonel David M Glantz's books. He is an US army intelligence expert who specialized in USSR. He translated many declassified Soviet documents while researching for his books.
The total USSR factory production is actually lower than Germany, but the Soviets organized their factories for full wartime production early during the war. Germany didn't fully organize for wartime production system till, I think, 1944. By then it was too late. This was from Colonel Glantz's book "When Titans Clashed".
The T-34 initially was armed with a 76mm cannon but in late 1943 they were upgraded to 85mm which were nearly comparable to that of the vaunted German 88mm.
German tanks such as the Tiger, Tiger II, Panther and many heavy tanks were mechanically unreliable. Panthers were prone to catch on fire. Tigers require special equipment to get to the front, they don't even fit on a normal railcar without changing out tracks. When Panthers were first rushed into battle, at Kursk, nearly all 400 of them were rendered useless within a week. Most of them broke down, hit mines or stopped by determined Soviet infantry.
I think the anti-Soviet propaganda of the Cold War still lingers today. Colonel Glantz quoted in his book that even during the initial phases of Barbarosa, the Soviet army actually stopped several German offenses and actually threw some parts of the German army back. The Germans won during the Summer campaign, but the Soviets won during the Winter campaign. This continued until Stalingrad culminated in a decisive Soviet victory.
inquisitor_bob wrote:I would suggest to those who are interested in Soviet Union's contribution to WW2 to read Colonel David M Glantz's books. He is an US army intelligence expert who specialized in USSR. He translated many declassified Soviet documents while researching for his books.
Inquisitor_bob is right. Glantz is the gold standard for military history. Keegan and the rest of those airport bookstore guys are no where near this level.
inquisitor_bob wrote:I would suggest to those who are interested in Soviet Union's contribution to WW2 to read Colonel David M Glantz's books. He is an US army intelligence expert who specialized in USSR. He translated many declassified Soviet documents while researching for his books.
Inquisitor_bob is right. Glantz is the gold standard for military history. Keegan and the rest of those airport bookstore guys are no where near this level.
Whilst I'm not disputing Glantz superiority, I think it's a bit unfair to refer to Keegan as a airport bookstore guy. He's a hugely influencial, Oxford educated historian, after all. Give the man a little credit.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:You may have missed it, but I pointed out earlier that the Matilda II was immune to all German AT elements apart from the 88. That makes it "pretty good". That effectively makes it a very early "Tiger", except for the pop-gun.
Except for the fact that it was too heavy for the engine it had, took a long time to make(they had to grind away thick parts). It was also twin engine and that meant the crew had to maintain two engines instead of just one. It also meant that one could go out while the other one ran perfectly fine. It lacked High Explosive shells, was slow, and the steering was a bit off. Then later on the TD used by the Germans was replaced and they could engage them at range. Before that it took an anti-aircraft gun.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:You may have missed it, but I pointed out earlier that the Matilda II was immune to all German AT elements apart from the 88. That makes it "pretty good". That effectively makes it a very early "Tiger", except for the pop-gun.
Except for the fact that it was too heavy for the engine it had, took a long time to make(they had to grind away thick parts). It was also twin engine and that meant the crew had to maintain two engines instead of just one. It also meant that one could go out while the other one ran perfectly fine. It lacked High Explosive shells, was slow, and the steering was a bit off. Then later on the TD used by the Germans was replaced and they could engage them at range. Before that it took an anti-aircraft gun.
Of course they started using "an anti-aircraft gun" for just such a purpose by Africa. Thanks for nothing Rommel.
inquisitor_bob wrote:I would suggest to those who are interested in Soviet Union's contribution to WW2 to read Colonel David M Glantz's books. He is an US army intelligence expert who specialized in USSR. He translated many declassified Soviet documents while researching for his books.
Inquisitor_bob is right. Glantz is the gold standard for military history. Keegan and the rest of those airport bookstore guys are no where near this level.
Whilst I'm not disputing Glantz superiority, I think it's a bit unfair to refer to Keegan as a airport bookstore guy. He's a hugely influencial, Oxford educated historian, after all. Give the man a little credit.
Who was also a lecturer at Sandhurst for years.
Some of his books have aged a bit, but there isn't much in them that would have been dubious at the time of writing. (I have an issue with his treatment of British navy signalling during the Napoleonic Wars, but that's a different matter.)
One thing also heled allies in war - simple mechanic. It was much more simplified to change some part on Sherman or T-34 than Panzer or Tiger. The Sherman Mechanic joked about that he only need one tool for the whole tank
And US solders had big advantage with their rifle ( M1 Garand ) which have 8 rounds instead of 5, and it can fire semi-automatic.
Another pain for the Germans was the resistance in France, USSR and Yugoslavia.
But to be fair, one German solder then was worth like 5 allied in training, moral and determination. Italian solders where uselles ( in one battle against French Italians lost 631 killed, 2,631 wounded, 616 missing while French had 40 killed, 84 wounded, 150 missing. )
I think Germany would've won the war had the US allied with the Germans. Russia would've been a tough nut to crack, but with all of the airpower the Americans could muster, Russian factories and tanks would be reduced heavily.
Russia would be divided much like Germany was and would probably end up being ground down.
A German Blitzkrieg through Canada and into North America may have worked fairly well if combined with an attack from the south by Mexico at the same time... I'm not sure what forces the USA had to protect itself against a land invasion however.
Kilkrazy wrote:What if the Germans and Russians had teamed up against the USA?
What Japan did to Pearl Harbor, only with 15 fast attack carriers.
Germans thought they were badass with battleships. Battleships = target practice.
On the positive this develops the interesting scenario of US/Japan against USSR/Germany.
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purplefood wrote:A German Blitzkrieg through Canada and into North America may have worked fairly well if combined with an attack from the south by Mexico at the same time...
I'm not sure what forces the USA had to protect itself against a land invasion however.
How exactly are they going to do that? They have no transport capacity and frequently WWI navy against the power that became the most powerful navy ever conceived by mankind in two years. You cannot blitzkrieg through Alaska. Its, er all mountains. You need aricraft to get around much of it, and thats now.
This really is impossible to decide. Germany would have dedicated many more troops to Russia instead of concentrating a lot in the west with Britain and France.
Would be a whole different world, though, scary to think, that.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:You may have missed it, but I pointed out earlier that the Matilda II was immune to all German AT elements apart from the 88. That makes it "pretty good". That effectively makes it a very early "Tiger", except for the pop-gun.
Except for the fact that it was too heavy for the engine it had, took a long time to make(they had to grind away thick parts). It was also twin engine and that meant the crew had to maintain two engines instead of just one. It also meant that one could go out while the other one ran perfectly fine. It lacked High Explosive shells, was slow, and the steering was a bit off. Then later on the TD used by the Germans was replaced and they could engage them at range. Before that it took an anti-aircraft gun.
Insert *List of Tiger/Panther/KonigsTiger problems*.
Reverse the situation. Stick a 2 pounder with no HE on a Tiger, what have you got? Point is you've been somewhat under-rating the vehicle. Seems to me that an armoured vehicle that can only be stopped by a single asset in the entire German army including its tanks can't be all that terrible. even with engineering issues. Yeah, the British Army turned out some poor efforts and only really seems to have got it together when there was no point bothering, but comparatively, the old Duck MK2 was actually pretty good.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Incidentally, recent research on my extended family now reveals that members of it worked at both the Vulcan Works (nr Warrington, UK) where they made the MK2, and the Rolls Royce Clan Foundry in Belper, Derbyshire which was heavily involved in the Cromwell tank (and its sister vehicles.) I was quite impressed to learn that!
The mechanical unreliability of Tigers and Panthers is horribly overplayed. The early production models of both had many problems as the Germans never seemed to do proper trials on their vehicles, but the Tigers and Panthers that began to see action in early 1944 were as mechanically reliable as other tanks of the era. The problem with both was more their production cost than their mechanical reliability (not to suggest they weren't mechanically complex to maintain).
The lack of fuel brought down more Tigers and Panthers than mechanical failure.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Reverse the situation. Stick a 2 pounder with no HE on a Tiger, what have you got? Point is you've been somewhat under-rating the vehicle. Seems to me that an armoured vehicle that can only be stopped by a single asset in the entire German army including its tanks can't be all that terrible. even with engineering issues. Yeah, the British Army turned out some poor efforts and only really seems to have got it together when there was no point bothering, but comparatively, the old Duck MK2 was actually pretty good.
Except for the fact that the Tiger didn't have a 2 pdr and neither did the Panther then I would be inclined to agree with you. The Matilda had an inefficient weapon and heavy armor, the Tiger had an efficient weapon and heavy armor. Point goes to Tiger in my opinion.
After doing some research I found out that my grandfather maintained P-51s and my great grandfather was part of a TD crew on a half-track. They had a tank come from under a pond next to them.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Reverse the situation. Stick a 2 pounder with no HE on a Tiger, what have you got? Point is you've been somewhat under-rating the vehicle. Seems to me that an armoured vehicle that can only be stopped by a single asset in the entire German army including its tanks can't be all that terrible. even with engineering issues. Yeah, the British Army turned out some poor efforts and only really seems to have got it together when there was no point bothering, but comparatively, the old Duck MK2 was actually pretty good.
Except for the fact that the Tiger didn't have a 2 pdr and neither did the Panther then I would be inclined to agree with you. The Matilda had an inefficient weapon and heavy armor, the Tiger had an efficient weapon and heavy armor. Point goes to Tiger in my opinion.
After doing some research I found out that my grandfather maintained P-51s and my great grandfather was part of a TD crew on a half-track. They had a tank come from under a pond next to them.
I had to read that last line twice before I realised what you were saying. A Tank "submerged in a pond".
Anyway, the best way for the Germans to win WW2 is to not invade Poland. Instant win because it never starts. Do it a little later on in the "Thousand Year Reich".
LordofHats wrote:Not just that but their relatively crappy armor. Armor was sacrificed for speed to quickly ambush and attack enemy tanks, but even before the Germans lost the ability to amasss tanks for breakthroughs the idea of finding some German tanks strolling around by their lonesome was slim, and the TD's were not well intigrated into a combined arms force (their entire concept was based of the idea of aggressively pursuing and destroying German tanks. McNair failed to realize that German tank breakthroughs went supported by artillery, aircraft, and mechanized infantry all things he failed to take into consideration when designing the concept.
True, but similar lightly armoured designs were found among the Germans with the Marder and Hetzer tank destroyers, and they had considerably more success. In part this is due to Germany being on the defensive more, but also because the gun was considerably more capable against allied tanks.
The armor really came to be a big problem in Western Europe it where the idea of being able to roam around at speed and kill tanks became even more dubious due to terrain. I don't argue against the rationale for a TD doctrine, just that the one McNair and Bruce developed was not one that had been well thought out or integrated into an armed force.
Yeah, that's fair.
Firefly's were developed for use with Cruiser tanks, as the standard Cromwell lacked the firepower to deal with Tigers and Panthers. The idea was that they'd cruise with the Cromwells, but of course the opportunity to employ cruisers rarely came (the Firefly was really just a stop gap for the Comet and other heavy cruisers). And the British did have Tank Destroyers, as their doctrine didn't have tanks fighting tanks but supporting infantry and cruising. They had their share of M10's, and upgraded them later in the war with 17 pdrs to create the Achilles.
Yeah, attaching your limited numbers of more capable tank destroyers to your regular tank units was a much more effective strategy in hindsight. Mind you, a far better strategy is for all your tanks to be capable of taking out enemy tanks at range, but you fight with the army you have, not the army you want, as the saying goes.
British and US armor doctrines really just through around different names but functionally were more or less the same. The suffered the same problem against German armor, in that their standard tanks often ended up having to fight them because there were never enough tank destroyers and because you often didn't have time in an advance to simply wait for a TD to stroll up and kill that panzer that's in your way.
It seems it was fairly common WWII for highly specialised equipment requiring organisational co-ordination to be properly deployed to almost always fail. I think that was one of the big lessons of WWII, just because you can build a clever vehicle, doesn't mean you'll be able to co-ordinate it's effective use in combat.
Which, as you pointed out, is one of the things leading to the MBT.
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Doctadeth wrote:One of my Military history magazines conjectured that if the USA hadn't intervened in WW2, Japan would have pretty much captured Asia and part of Australia. Australia is pretty easy to land on, and without the carriers the USA had, the allies would have had a tough time trying to match the japanese air capacity in the pacific.
I have a really hard time figuring out how they might have invaded Australia. I mean, if you can't supply 1,500 troops in the North of Indonesia, how do you think they would have managed to supply an even greater force heading further South?
I guess in part the supply difficulties were due to Japanese defeat in the Timor Sea, but even without that they were never particularly capable of supplying their land forces, armies in China had been regularly going without fully supply for years by that point.
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Kilkrazy wrote:What if the Germans and Russians had teamed up against the USA?
They would have spent a long time trying to figure out how to cross an ocean, I suspect.
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purplefood wrote:A German Blitzkrieg through Canada and into North America may have worked fairly well if combined with an attack from the south by Mexico at the same time...
That supply line is horrendous.
I'm not sure what forces the USA had to protect itself against a land invasion however.
The US had two oceans and a Navy. The closest thing to the English Channel would be the Bering Strait and that goes into Alaska where its really cold.
The issue with sending forces to Mexico is that you're sending them into a desert area and then marching them to Texas where Frazzled lives. You would think that the Daschunds would follow their homeland, but no they're extremely loyal to the american way.
We also have the most warplanes developed which means an aerial invasion wouldn't work(they would be shot down) and a naval invasion wouldn't work(we would sink them).
LordofHats wrote:The mechanical unreliability of Tigers and Panthers is horribly overplayed. The early production models of both had many problems as the Germans never seemed to do proper trials on their vehicles, but the Tigers and Panthers that began to see action in early 1944 were as mechanically reliable as other tanks of the era. The problem with both was more their production cost than their mechanical reliability (not to suggest they weren't mechanically complex to maintain).
The lack of fuel brought down more Tigers and Panthers than mechanical failure.
1944 was too late of course. Had the tanks been reliable in 1942/43 they would have made a huge difference. So their unreliability is hardly overplayed.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Anyway, the best way for the Germans to win WW2 is to not invade Poland. Instant win because it never starts. Do it a little later on in the "Thousand Year Reich".
halonachos wrote:The issue with sending forces to Mexico is that you're sending them into a desert area and then marching them to Texas where Frazzled lives. You would think that the Daschunds would follow their homeland, but no they're extremely loyal to the american way.
Bwahaha!
i thought that was going to be a factual answer....i was wrong (well kinda, im not arguing with the Wiener legions)
Texas in 1942 was hot, dry, and had few roads. It did have a lot of people with guns, and as noted, is the dark abode of Frazzled. I kind of think the US would have seen an invasion force coming.
Mexico, having effectively lost 3 wars with the US (independence, 1845, and Pershing's invasion), was not going to invade the US.
It seems it was fairly common WWII for highly specialised equipment requiring organisational co-ordination to be properly deployed to almost always fail. I think that was one of the big lessons of WWII, just because you can build a clever vehicle, doesn't mean you'll be able to co-ordinate it's effective use in combat.
Which, as you pointed out, is one of the things leading to the MBT.
Fairly common, but not the rule. I can think of quite a few highly specialized pieces of kit off the top of my head that did exactly what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it, and where. Most of them seem to have been from the 79th Armoured. A fair few of them still have modern equivalents.
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halonachos wrote:The US had two oceans and a Navy. The closest thing to the English Channel would be the Bering Strait and that goes into Alaska where its really cold.
The issue with sending forces to Mexico is that you're sending them into a desert area and then marching them to Texas where Frazzled lives. You would think that the Daschunds would follow their homeland, but no they're extremely loyal to the american way.
We also have the most warplanes developed which means an aerial invasion wouldn't work(they would be shot down) and a naval invasion wouldn't work(we would sink them).
DAK seemed to work quite well in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and those are all pretty "deserty" places. I don't think "desert" in and of itself is enough to stop an invasion of the USA. Texas certainly isn't as inhospitable as the Quattara depression.
I gather the point of going via South America is that troops and such could be landed traditionally in friendly ports, forgoing the need for a D-Day style operation. So the real stumbling block for a theoretical invasion of the USA by "The Nazis" is the transporting. The Atlantic isn't the private boating lake that the Med or the Channel are, and securing it is far from simple.
Frazzled wrote:
Mexico, having effectively lost 3 wars with the US (independence, 1845, and Pershing's invasion), was not going to invade the US.
Only 2 of those are wars, and the last one was nearly 100 years prior to the relevant period.
Having lost to the US before was not a determining factor in the lack of willingness in the Mexican state for an invasion of the US. Mexico wasn't going to invade the US because the had nothing to gain by doing so.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Fairly common, but not the rule. I can think of quite a few highly specialized pieces of kit off the top of my head that did exactly what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it, and where. Most of them seem to have been from the 79th Armoured. A fair few of them still have modern equivalents.
There's a fair number, for sure, it is a fairly general rule.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:I gather the point of going via South America is that troops and such could be landed traditionally in friendly ports, forgoing the need for a D-Day style operation. So the real stumbling block for a theoretical invasion of the USA by "The Nazis" is the transporting. The Atlantic isn't the private boating lake that the Med or the Channel are, and securing it is far from simple.
If you doubt the effectiveness of the US in destroying an enemy's naval lines of supply, look at what the US did to Japanese shipping over the war. And the US had to go to the other side of the Pacific to handle that, imagine what they would have done operating from their own coastal ports?
There's also the point that we're talking about a horrendously long line of supply. I mean, the allies undertook D-Day because moving through Italy was too long a line of supply, so you can imagine how impossible it would have been to cross the Atlantic, land in some South American port and then drive troops all the way up through Central America.
Frazzled wrote:Texas in 1942 was hot, dry, and had few roads. It did have a lot of people with guns, and as noted, is the dark abode of Frazzled. I kind of think the US would have seen an invasion force coming.
I think that the Germans would've entered Texas only to have Mexico surrender to the US after the Texans invaded Mexico on their own. The German invaders, now hoplessly stranded in America would surrender due to lack of supplies and they would get jobs at local McDonald's restaurants.
Germany lack a lot of troop transports that weren't planes seeing as though they focused on U-Boats. Unfortunately for them we developed ships to sink u-boats, and Germany had no long-range bombers that they could use to support their troops immediately, they would need to be stationed in Mexico. Which is cool except for the fact that we're right there with a force of 40,000 tanks and 300,000+ aircraft, completely feasible for Germany to invade. By feasible I mean Germany would prefer schnitzel over chorizo.
Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
DAK seemed to work quite well in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and those are all pretty "deserty" places. I don't think "desert" in and of itself is enough to stop an invasion of the USA. Texas certainly isn't as inhospitable as the Quattara depression.
North Africa didn't have a hundred thousand rednecks coming to kill you. We know how to deal with invaders. But it does have alll the North Africa problems the Afrika Korps had X10: a logistics nightmare plus constant attacks on your supply lines. Hell they wouldn't have supply lines.
of course if they made it to frericksburg they'd come across Oma's and just go "WTF, are we in Germany?" and start raising crops. Again.
I gather the point of going via South America is that troops and such could be landed traditionally in friendly ports, forgoing the need for a D-Day style operation. So the real stumbling block for a theoretical invasion of the USA by "The Nazis" is the transporting. The Atlantic isn't the private boating lake that the Med or the Channel are, and securing it is far from simple.
***They couldn't cross the British Channel. How they hell are they going to cross the Atlantic? Hey look at all those aircraft flying overhead? I've not seen those before. Oh crap all our battleships just disappeared. Oh its ok here come some more battleships. Oh wait why does one have a Texas flag on it?
All this theorizing rather fails if we lack a couple of certainties. If we are talking about a German invasion of the USA, at what point does the timeline diverge? At what point does it become "the plan"? I would have thought that if invading the US were a long term central aim, perhaps decided in 38 or 39, then the development of the Kriegsmarine would have taken a different route. Given enough impetus, we are looking at a pattern of development of ships or U-boats or even planes that are intended for this invasion role, in a similar fashion to the way that the allies ended up developing specific invasion materials.
On the other hand, if we are postulating no war in Europe, but simply war declared on the USA, its not hard to postulate an Atlantic "Pearl Harbour", perhaps from Iceland. If the US could be caught by surprise halfway through a global conflict, then they could certainly have been caught out elsewhere. What about if the following occurs: After the invasion of Poland, Hitler keeps his non-aggression pact with Stalin, and continues to receive goods from the Soviets. Instead of starting the war he should have known would end him, just like it ended Napoleon before him, he decides that the USA provides a feasible "lebensraum". No Eastern Front. Even with a failed "Sealion" we are looking at a markedly different process. No Eastern Front could mean a better supplied DAK (or its predecessor), which may well mean a fallen Egypt and Iraq, and a controlled Suez. That sort of pressure might well turn the Turks into an Axis power. At each turn, what Germany needs changes, and its potential shifts. with Suez taken and Middle Eastern oil on tap, Germany has far less fuel issues and greatly increased resources. India is threatened, the UK facing greater supply problems, thus becoming much less of a threat to cross-Atlantic operations. And I haven't even got as far as such concepts as a Troop-carrying U-boat.
Basically, without a feasible starting point, most of this "The Germans only had this and that" argument makes no sense. Different requirements leads to different developments, lead to different situations. Its foolish to collapse a "what if" scenario based on something like "The Kriegsmarine didn't have any troop-carriers" or "The Germans spent all their money on U-Boats." or "The Luftwaffe never developed a long ranger bomber fleet."
Kilkrazy wrote:Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
Not to mention, no Merlin engines for the P51D.
Thats ok. We had shooting stars coming into production.
DAK seemed to work quite well in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and those are all pretty "deserty" places. I don't think "desert" in and of itself is enough to stop an invasion of the USA. Texas certainly isn't as inhospitable as the Quattara depression.
North Africa didn't have a hundred thousand rednecks coming to kill you. We know how to deal with invaders. But it does have alll the North Africa problems the Afrika Korps had X10: a logistics nightmare plus constant attacks on your supply lines. Hell they wouldn't have supply lines.
of course if they made it to frericksburg they'd come across Oma's and just go "WTF, are we in Germany?" and start raising crops. Again.
I gather the point of going via South America is that troops and such could be landed traditionally in friendly ports, forgoing the need for a D-Day style operation. So the real stumbling block for a theoretical invasion of the USA by "The Nazis" is the transporting. The Atlantic isn't the private boating lake that the Med or the Channel are, and securing it is far from simple.
***They couldn't cross the British Channel. How they hell are they going to cross the Atlantic? Hey look at all those aircraft flying overhead? I've not seen those before. Oh crap all our battleships just disappeared. Oh its ok here come some more battleships. Oh wait why does one have a Texas flag on it?
Rampant patriotism aside, citizens with private weaponry do not an Army make. (I once got told straight-faced that the entire US military couldn't defeat "Kentucky" because Kentuckians are 'ornery. I assume that Kentucky has a substantial surface-to-air deterrent and a healthy business in anti-tank weaponry.) I take "American citizens have guns and 'tude" defenses with a pinch of salt. Assuming that the US was invaded, I think its quite clear that Germany would have treated the population with exactly the same brutality as everywhere else, and treated francs tireurs and Resistance with brutal force.
I did qualify that desert in and of itself isn't a war winner. It makes it harder certainly, as would any extreme environment, but it isn't a defense on its own.
Bear in mind that crossing the Channel in an invasion planned at a moments notice in improvised transport against the undefeated and fully operational Home Fleet using an under-strength Kriegsmarine is a very different kettle of fish to crossing the Atlantic to a friendly coast-line. Its a different situation, and not really comparable. How easy or hard it is depends as much on when this attack occurs as anything else. If there is peace with America at the time, then its a lot easier. If there is peace with the UK then its about as difficult as a Strength Through Joy holiday cruise. It gets progressively harder during hostilities.
See what I mean about how daft this gets if you don't have a firm starting point?
If USA sent an entire generation too europe, and lost, who exactly would stop the German military just landing and doing whatever they wanted. USA was fighting a war on 2 fronts.
A few people with guns and a gungho attitude wouldnt be able to do a thing to a veteran military, thats just blind, foolish patriotism. The US would of lost, plain and simple.
No amounts of ifs, buts or coconuts would change that. If europe fell, america would follow. And even if they didnt invade, america would be financially ruined with extensive campaigns defending their allies. USA is not by any means invulnerable, it relies on its allies, it needs its allies.
Eventually, I would see China getting involved against Japan en masse, possibly ally with USA, but likely wouldnt of
Kilkrazy wrote:Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
Not to mention, no Merlin engines for the P51D.
We had other planes besides the P-51(which was made only to escort bombers on long-distance trips). That and we had the P-51 before the Merlin engine, its just that the Merlin engine allowed the P-51 to climb to higher altitudes.
There's a reason we had P-51A, P-51B, P-51C, and P-51D(the D was the first to use the Merlin engine), we had plenty of other planes and the ability to rapidly manufacture tanks and still had room to train the crews.
We also had P-38's(which were also long range) and P-47's.
China would ally itself with the US seeing as though we were already helping them. America would not be ruined economically, we made money by selling arms to our allies and some of them paid in gold. The question was if Russia and Germany were allies and if they were allies chances are WW2 didn't happen, although if europe fell and we didn't send troops we would still last as resistance fighters fought the germans and we waited for the germans to try to ship forces over. We would be able to stop their troops in their aircraft or in their boats before they reached the shore, and even if some did make it we would still be able to bomb them.
Agreed we're talking about multiple scenarios at the same time.
Are we discussing some sort of German/USSR alliance against the USA wherein WWII never happened (or at least never made it to the invasion of USSR stage); Germany didn't face the USA and somehow managed to conquer all Europe and the USSR; Germany attaclking the USSr with the USA sitting it out and selling everyone burgers and buicks, WHATS GOING ON FRED?
Kilkrazy wrote:Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
Not to mention, no Merlin engines for the P51D.
China would ally itself with the US seeing as though we were already helping them. America would not be ruined economically, we made money by selling arms to our allies and some of them paid in gold. The question was if Russia and Germany were allies and if they were allies chances are WW2 didn't happen, although if europe fell and we didn't send troops we would still last as resistance fighters fought the germans and we waited for the germans to try to ship forces over. We would be able to stop their troops in their aircraft or in their boats before they reached the shore, and even if some did make it we would still be able to bomb them.
If Europe fell we would've been just fine.
You may be thumbnailing the tale for shortness, but your list of how you would be able to stop this and defeat that has the ring of propaganda about it. The kind of propaganda that says "We have the Armoured FEAR launcher, thus the Allies will be stopped in Normandy." or "If bombs fall on Berlin, you may call me meier." In any situation where the Germans win in the European theater, they must have either allied with or defeated the whole Soviet Union, They must also have defeated the American armies in Europe, which is a hefty chunk of military. They must also have forced the defeat or surrender of the UK and inevitably some or all of its Dominions. Having done this, the Wermacht now has access to all the facilities, manufacturing capabilities, and materials in those nations, or (in the case of surrender) access to them as allies. A Kriegsmarine with access to the greater part of the Royal Navy becomes a much scarier prospect. (That's the whole reason why the Royal Navy sank the French Navy..because nobody needs the Kriegsmarine getting its hands on one of the largest modern fleets in Europe. ) And that is just a part of it. A Wermacht with access to the manufacturing facilities for the T-34 is going to make one hell of a mess. It goes on. For that matter, if the allies are defeated in Europe, the Wermacht suddenly has access to the facilities used to invade Europe. That's quite a lot of purpose-built landing craft right there.
Or there is the moral angle. Your vast and apparently totally brilliant immune to everything armies in Europe just got annihilated. How many of your voters are suddenly interested in not being at war with the enemy that did that? Especially when its only Europe, and nobody gives a damn about Europe. The complete defeat of the American forces in Europe would almost inevitably mean a huge lose for the administration. Are the voters going to continue to agree to war, or desire to cut their losses and pull out? In fairness, they might get a big revenge thing going on. Who knows? But given that a fair number of American military types were against "Europe First", a massive loss there would just reinforce their position.
Kilkrazy wrote:Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
Not to mention, no Merlin engines for the P51D.
China would ally itself with the US seeing as though we were already helping them. America would not be ruined economically, we made money by selling arms to our allies and some of them paid in gold. The question was if Russia and Germany were allies and if they were allies chances are WW2 didn't happen, although if europe fell and we didn't send troops we would still last as resistance fighters fought the germans and we waited for the germans to try to ship forces over. We would be able to stop their troops in their aircraft or in their boats before they reached the shore, and even if some did make it we would still be able to bomb them.
If Europe fell we would've been just fine.
You may be thumbnailing the tale for shortness, but your list of how you would be able to stop this and defeat that has the ring of propaganda about it. The kind of propaganda that says "We have the Armoured FEAR launcher, thus the Allies will be stopped in Normandy." or "If bombs fall on Berlin, you may call me meier." In any situation where the Germans win in the European theater, they must have either allied with or defeated the whole Soviet Union, They must also have defeated the American armies in Europe, which is a hefty chunk of military. They must also have forced the defeat or surrender of the UK and inevitably some or all of its Dominions. Having done this, the Wermacht now has access to all the facilities, manufacturing capabilities, and materials in those nations, or (in the case of surrender) access to them as allies. A Kriegsmarine with access to the greater part of the Royal Navy becomes a much scarier prospect. (That's the whole reason why the Royal Navy sank the French Navy..because nobody needs the Kriegsmarine getting its hands on one of the largest modern fleets in Europe. ) And that is just a part of it. A Wermacht with access to the manufacturing facilities for the T-34 is going to make one hell of a mess. It goes on. For that matter, if the allies are defeated in Europe, the Wermacht suddenly has access to the facilities used to invade Europe. That's quite a lot of purpose-built landing craft right there.
Or there is the moral angle. Your vast and apparently totally brilliant immune to everything armies in Europe just got annihilated. How many of your voters are suddenly interested in not being at war with the enemy that did that? Especially when its only Europe, and nobody gives a damn about Europe. The complete defeat of the American forces in Europe would almost inevitably mean a huge lose for the administration. Are the voters going to continue to agree to war, or desire to cut their losses and pull out? In fairness, they might get a big revenge thing going on. Who knows? But given that a fair number of American military types were against "Europe First", a massive loss there would just reinforce their position.
Well before you went off on your trip there you forgot the OP was that the US never entered the war, so no under that scenario the US and Germany have not fought yet.
You're also presupposing somehow that Germany managed to conquer East Europe, West Europe, and the USSR, and then immediately be able to turn around and build some sort of uber fleet without the US also not building up its fleet.
To the above, no one but Europeans care about battleships. The Japanese proved battleships were not just irrelevant, but vast treasure magnets that were easily disposed of. Let the Germans have the French fleet, even the British fleet, and steam with that hodge podge. We would have turned the Atlantic into a giant Iron Bottom sound with dead Germans.
Seriously.
Kilkrazy wrote:Well, assuming that the Germans waited until the end of WW2 to ally with Australia and Mexico, the US would have had the 40,000 tanks and 300,000 aircraft minus the obsolete, used up and destroyed examples.
Not to mention, no Merlin engines for the P51D.
China would ally itself with the US seeing as though we were already helping them. America would not be ruined economically, we made money by selling arms to our allies and some of them paid in gold. The question was if Russia and Germany were allies and if they were allies chances are WW2 didn't happen, although if europe fell and we didn't send troops we would still last as resistance fighters fought the germans and we waited for the germans to try to ship forces over. We would be able to stop their troops in their aircraft or in their boats before they reached the shore, and even if some did make it we would still be able to bomb them.
If Europe fell we would've been just fine.
You may be thumbnailing the tale for shortness, but your list of how you would be able to stop this and defeat that has the ring of propaganda about it. The kind of propaganda that says "We have the Armoured FEAR launcher, thus the Allies will be stopped in Normandy." or "If bombs fall on Berlin, you may call me meier." In any situation where the Germans win in the European theater, they must have either allied with or defeated the whole Soviet Union, They must also have defeated the American armies in Europe, which is a hefty chunk of military. They must also have forced the defeat or surrender of the UK and inevitably some or all of its Dominions. Having done this, the Wermacht now has access to all the facilities, manufacturing capabilities, and materials in those nations, or (in the case of surrender) access to them as allies. A Kriegsmarine with access to the greater part of the Royal Navy becomes a much scarier prospect. (That's the whole reason why the Royal Navy sank the French Navy..because nobody needs the Kriegsmarine getting its hands on one of the largest modern fleets in Europe. ) And that is just a part of it. A Wermacht with access to the manufacturing facilities for the T-34 is going to make one hell of a mess. It goes on. For that matter, if the allies are defeated in Europe, the Wermacht suddenly has access to the facilities used to invade Europe. That's quite a lot of purpose-built landing craft right there.
Or there is the moral angle. Your vast and apparently totally brilliant immune to everything armies in Europe just got annihilated. How many of your voters are suddenly interested in not being at war with the enemy that did that? Especially when its only Europe, and nobody gives a damn about Europe. The complete defeat of the American forces in Europe would almost inevitably mean a huge lose for the administration. Are the voters going to continue to agree to war, or desire to cut their losses and pull out? In fairness, they might get a big revenge thing going on. Who knows? But given that a fair number of American military types were against "Europe First", a massive loss there would just reinforce their position.
Well before you went off on your trip there you forgot the OP was that the US never entered the war, so no under that scenario the US and Germany have not fought yet.
You're also presupposing somehow that Germany managed to conquer East Europe, West Europe, and the USSR, and then immediately be able to turn around and build some sort of uber fleet without the US also not building up its fleet.
To the above, no one but Europeans care about battleships. The Japanese proved battleships were not just irrelevant, but vast treasure magnets that were easily disposed of. Let the Germans have the French fleet, even the British fleet, and steam with that hodge podge. We would have turned the Atlantic into a giant Iron Bottom sound with dead Germans.
Seriously.
Doesn't matter if the Germans and the Yanks have been in combat or not. Still mostly applicable. Is this theoretical US still at war with Japan? Because if it is, then the greater part of all its efforts are going to be on the other side of the world. If the US never got involved in the first place to support the other European powers, then Roosevelt must have failed to convince them that they should. Perhaps in this alternate he dies earlier on? Whatever. Point is that Germany in this timeline has just conquered the whole of Europe, and must have either conquered or have some form of peace with the USSR. If it decides to turn its acquisitive gaze upon the USA, is this theoretical USA suddenly gifted with all the war materials it hadn't produced to not fight in Europe? Or is it actually concentrating all its efforts on Japan, the more obvious and active opponent? Or is it not at war with either? If it is not at war with either then it is probably still lining up all its toy soldiers (or battleships) in neat easy-to-torpedo rows.
I never mentioned Battleships. I mentioned "fleets". Thats the whole thing. Battleships, U-boats, the Admirals Dinghy. Are you seriously trying to suggest that an America NOT at war with anyone in Europe could suddenly go from its peace-time complement to equal to the combined fleets of Germany, the UK, and France as fast as Germany could capture them? This from a nation that was CAUGHT BY SURPRISE in the middle of a GLOBAL war?.
These WW2 What-if scenarios always seem to devolve into Americans proudly declaring how they can kill anything or out-gun everyone regardless of any reality..even when it flies in the face of actual events. "Texas is full of rednecks with guns so nobody could ever invade it." "The Atlantic Fleet we never built will sink the enemy if they invade, and if they do invade then the thousands of tanks we never made to fight in Europe will suddenly exist."
Actually, what I said up there about Roosevelt would make a likely point of divergence. If he dies early, then the key driving force behind supporting Europe against Hitler isn't there. Regular sales of materials might still happen, but lend-lease most likely would not. In order for Germany to win in Europe after that it needs to not declare war on the US, and either reach Moscow, or simply not invade Russia to start with. The former is the better for increasing its striking power against the rest of the world, the latter allows it to expend less of its own resources in holding Russia. Though that still remains academic once the uber-invincible ten foot tall bullet-proof Americans get involved, because they can defeat anything all the time and never die or lose.....
And again you get personal- for what again? You're essentially arguing that Germany conquers East Europe, West Europe, and the USSR, then spends years to build a cross ocean invasion force, something never before possible, and then manages to survive crossing such and invading a country as large as the country that beat them historically ibut is more advanced technologically. Good thing the US just asat around and did anything to its large existing fleet and didn't see the invasion coming, at all.
Frazzled wrote:And again you get personal- for what again?
I had no idea that one person's account of his common experience with Americans was a matter of personal significance.
Frazzled wrote:
Good thing the US just asat around and did anything to its large existing fleet and didn't see the invasion coming, at all.
The one in the ocean on the other side of North and South America?
Frazzled wrote:The Japanese proved battleships were not just irrelevant, but vast treasure magnets that were easily disposed of.
Is that why we kept building them? Because they were irrelevant?
No, battleships have uses. They are remarkably effective at attacking and protecting shipping, supporting amphibious landings, and defending those lovely but vulnerable aircraft carriers by being both massive gun platforms, and tempting damage sinks.
Frazzled wrote:And again you get personal- for what again? You're essentially arguing that Germany conquers East Europe, West Europe, and the USSR, then spends years to build a cross ocean invasion force, something never before possible, and then manages to survive crossing such and invading a country as large as the country that beat them historically ibut is more advanced technologically. Good thing the US just asat around and did anything to its large existing fleet and didn't see the invasion coming, at all.
Who's the one making massive leaps of faith here?
Incorrect. I'm working off other peoples postulations that Germany somehow "wins" WW2. I also never suggested it would take them "years" to do anything, or that they would be building a purpose-built fleet. What I did postulate is that if they had successfully conquered Europe without American involvement, they would have access to amongst other things a great deal of the Naval ability of the subject nations, be it merchant or military, and the various industrial and military assets of those nations..in much the same way that they kept and used French and Czech assets, and the substantial Soviet ones they captured. So at this point we have a Greater German Reich with potentially the entire assets of Europe at hand, and potentially those of the British Empire as well. If the USA and Canada could get convoys one way, then I'm pretty sure that they could go back the other way. And I think I already mentioned about landing in friendly ports, thus avoiding having to "invade" by sea. None of that is particularly "Leap of faith", but logical progression. The only leap is the one someone else made by suggesting that Germany might win the war.
Also I'm not sure where you get "more advanced technologically" from. The USA had a larger industrial base than any single European nation which was unmolested militarily. Doesn't make it more advanced. US military technology mostly worked on their being more of it, not on being particularly advanced. What advancement there is relies on starting the war in 41, and the lessons learned from several disastrous engagements with veteran formations. (Same as happened in the first war.) Its not unlikely that in THIS 1944, the US is still fielding the Grant as its main tank, having never needed to develop the Sherman. (Given that the Grant is actually superlative at jungle combat, if the US were fighting the Japanese it might have favoured the Grant above any other design, based on the lessons learned.) For that matter, the doctrine used by the untried US Army might need a bit of a look at as well. If the rest of Europe fell for Blitzkrieg even after seeing it demonstrated in Poland, why would the USA have "got it"? As for "not seeing it coming"....need I remind you of Pearl AGAIN? Totally saw that one, didn't you....
Basically if you aren't in the war from 41, you can't lay claim to all the stuff that got done for Europe without a very good reason for having it.
A better scenario allowing a German victory starts with an event during the 1930's. If the Business Plot had come to fruition (rather then being stillborn) the American fascists might have never have allied against the Nazis, or possibly even sided with the Nazis. Without American manufacturing the British would have needed to rely on Commonwealth output (again assuming that they were not allied with the Nazis). In that scenario the British could not have held out.
Germany didn't put a lot of ship building towards battleships and several of Germany's battleships were sunk without allied help. Germany's main focus of ship building was put towards U-boats which are very ineffective transports for troops. Couple that with the development of sonar and other anti-uboat technologies and we have the ability to sink them.
There are wrecks of u-boats off of the eastern shore of the united states if you want to test that concept.
If the US feared an attack and didn't aid the British or any other ally we would have the necessary equipment to fend off an attack. We produced more aircraft than the russians and germans combined and were able to produce fantastic short range fighters along with other long range bombers and fighters.
The P-51 was used in Europe where there was an ability to land if something happened. The P-38 was used in the pacific theater as the wide stretch of ocean necessitated long range fighters.
I don't get how people often forget that unlike Europe, we have two oceans surrounding us and it takes days if not weeks and months to cross. Is it easy to secure, no but it's not easy to cross either. Hurricanes don't really hit Europe, but they sure as hell hit the Atlantic and the east coast of the United States and often occur during the spring and summer. So we have the potential damage to ships at sea during the warmer seasons.
After that we have the fact that major military bases and stations line the east and west coast. Past the coasts there are mountains and then a series of flatlands that comprise what is known as 'tornado alley'.
So we have natural barriers that aren't exactly the friendliest things to meet. We also have large fleets and superior air power which prevent ground forces from landing. After that we still have a formidable amount of ground forces that should be able to mop up any remaining troops.
If we did get involved and got our butt's kicked, sure the germans would be veterans and have all of the advantages of fighting in European terrain. Oh wait, that's European terrain. Who lives and trains in the United States, American forces so we have the advantage of knowing our terrain and knowing how to fight in it.
A german or russian soldier invading the east coast would have problems with the marshs and swamps in the east while American troops who may have lived there their entire lives outmaneuvered them using hit and run tactics.
German forces would cross the west coast only to face mountains and after the mountains a desert and they would have to change tactics and gear accordingly.
We're not like Europe with its almost homogenous selection of terrain, we're kind of mixed up.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @ arbeits, you do realize that the sherman was in use in 1942 right? That meant it was researched and developed in 1941 or previous.
Actually, it was designed in 1940 and saw production in 1941. I guess we did learn from example after all.
I love the fortress mentality demonstrated several times in this thread, in which America is some sort of invincible castle that no-one could ever possibly hope to touch or contest with.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Basically, without a feasible starting point, most of this "The Germans only had this and that" argument makes no sense. Different requirements leads to different developments, lead to different situations. Its foolish to collapse a "what if" scenario based on something like "The Kriegsmarine didn't have any troop-carriers" or "The Germans spent all their money on U-Boats." or "The Luftwaffe never developed a long ranger bomber fleet."
I don't think you really get the strategic time frames it takes to build the infrastructure needed to construct and maintain a a fleet of ships. You measure these things in decades. In the meantime the US would be quite capable of responding as it saw fit.
You also missed, or more likely chose to ignore, the point I made about the ludicrous supply chain involved in landing in some South American port and then driving up through central America. Despite having an absolutely immense productive capacity, the US was significantly reduced in the amount of men and material it could bring to the European theatre because of it's distance from the front. The Germans had nowhere near that level of production, and the US wasn't also engaged in war with it's most powerful neighbours.
The only sensible conclusion is that any German attack, even with a decade or more of planning time, was doomed to complete failure.
Toastedandy wrote:I was talking about if Germany defeated the allies in europe, withdrew from USSR and invaded USA
Then we're talking about a USA and a Germany with massively different military capabilities than the one's that actually existed, and we need to acknowledge that.
Why not ask 'what if German production was 100% greater than it was, allowing them a fully motorised army, and twice the number of tanks and aircraft?"
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:You may be thumbnailing the tale for shortness, but your list of how you would be able to stop this and defeat that has the ring of propaganda about it. The kind of propaganda that says "We have the Armoured FEAR launcher, thus the Allies will be stopped in Normandy." or "If bombs fall on Berlin, you may call me meier." In any situation where the Germans win in the European theater, they must have either allied with or defeated the whole Soviet Union, They must also have defeated the American armies in Europe, which is a hefty chunk of military.
In any situation in which the Germans win in the European theatre, they must have had a vastly superior military to the one they had in reality. You can't escape this. You need to put it up front, and state 'if the German military was twice as powerful as it really was, enough to defeat the Allies in Europe, could it have then affected a seaborne invasion of the US?"
Even then the answer is 'probably not, because it's a really long way to go, even if you have a navy worth a damn'
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Frazzled wrote:To the above, no one but Europeans care about battleships.
First up, it makes no sense to talk about Europeans and naval power. The only nation in Europe putting serious resources into naval power was Great Britain. The German efforts were a silly sideshow at best.
Second up, the Japanese and US were also spending considerable resource building battleships. Yamamoto? The entire fleet in Pearl Harbour? Everybody was committed to battleships, because everyone thought a battleship was able to dominate a sealane in a way nothing else could. It came as a massive surprise to the British, US, Germans and Japanese when battleships proved so vulnerable to aircraft - no-one realised how ineffective ship based guns would be against aircraft. It was one of those revelations that comes out of fighting in an entirely new combat environment.
The Royal Navy was a step behind the Japanese and US as they had even less acceptance of naval airpower, but even then they had carrier born Spitfires due for deployment in 1942.
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Ketara wrote:I love the fortress mentality demonstrated several times in this thread, in which America is some sort of invincible castle that no-one could ever possibly hope to touch or contest with.
There's a weird thing going on in this thread where people are choosing to see the basic realities of geography and distance as if they were arrogant nationalistic assumptions.
They're not. The national character of the US doesn't matter. It remains a near impossible thing to travel across the Atlantic and invade a developed country with a population of 140 million people.
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Brother Coa wrote:So the general assumption is: Germany wouldn't win even if they wait longer, build up their forces and pick their enemies one by one?
That's right. Because the British had already defeated the (already very slim) chance of German invasion long before they received aid from the US, just by maintaining their aircraft strength in the Battle of Britain. Then the Soviets proved they had enough power to defeat the Germans by themselves.
Ketara wrote:I love the fortress mentality demonstrated several times in this thread, in which America is some sort of invincible castle that no-one could ever possibly hope to touch or contest with.
Until you build something called ICBMs its accurate. Even with ICBMs you can't really invade the US, or either of the Americas for that matter. Europeans grossly underappreciate the Latin American countries, which is especially humorous considering most of those countires are growing economically. Its part of the joke of the Red Dawn movies.
halonachos wrote:Germany didn't put a lot of ship building towards battleships and several of Germany's battleships were sunk without allied help. Germany's main focus of ship building was put towards U-boats which are very ineffective transports for troops. Couple that with the development of sonar and other anti-uboat technologies and we have the ability to sink them.
There are wrecks of u-boats off of the eastern shore of the united states if you want to test that concept.
If the US feared an attack and didn't aid the British or any other ally we would have the necessary equipment to fend off an attack. We produced more aircraft than the russians and germans combined and were able to produce fantastic short range fighters along with other long range bombers and fighters.
The P-51 was used in Europe where there was an ability to land if something happened. The P-38 was used in the pacific theater as the wide stretch of ocean necessitated long range fighters.
I don't get how people often forget that unlike Europe, we have two oceans surrounding us and it takes days if not weeks and months to cross. Is it easy to secure, no but it's not easy to cross either. Hurricanes don't really hit Europe, but they sure as hell hit the Atlantic and the east coast of the United States and often occur during the spring and summer. So we have the potential damage to ships at sea during the warmer seasons.
After that we have the fact that major military bases and stations line the east and west coast. Past the coasts there are mountains and then a series of flatlands that comprise what is known as 'tornado alley'.
So we have natural barriers that aren't exactly the friendliest things to meet. We also have large fleets and superior air power which prevent ground forces from landing. After that we still have a formidable amount of ground forces that should be able to mop up any remaining troops.
If we did get involved and got our butt's kicked, sure the germans would be veterans and have all of the advantages of fighting in European terrain. Oh wait, that's European terrain. Who lives and trains in the United States, American forces so we have the advantage of knowing our terrain and knowing how to fight in it.
A german or russian soldier invading the east coast would have problems with the marshs and swamps in the east while American troops who may have lived there their entire lives outmaneuvered them using hit and run tactics.
German forces would cross the west coast only to face mountains and after the mountains a desert and they would have to change tactics and gear accordingly.
We're not like Europe with its almost homogenous selection of terrain, we're kind of mixed up.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @ arbeits, you do realize that the sherman was in use in 1942 right? That meant it was researched and developed in 1941 or previous.
Actually, it was designed in 1940 and saw production in 1941. I guess we did learn from example after all.
Again you're populating the theoretical alternate with real world examples. Yes, in reality Germany neglected its Navy and concentrated on U-Boats designed expressly to hunt shipping. But we aren't discussing what they DID, but what they might have/could have done. If a war aim of the Reich is the conquest of the USA as opposed to the USSR, then obviously things would move differently, be designed differently, and so forth. Likewise, U-boats as used were for hunting and killing ships and thus are useless for troop carrying. Its amazing how things designed for a specific purpose can be really bad at something else. Whitley bombers are rubbish for paratroops...so some bright spark found a better plane for the job. IF Germany decided that under-sea transportation was on the cards, then U-boats would have been designed and built with that purpose in mind, and been much better at it, Maybe not superlative, given the limitations of the concept, but purpose-built nevertheless.
"If the US feared an attack and didn't aid the British or any other ally we would have the necessary equipment to fend off an attack. "
See that first part? That there is your fatal flaw. You have to be aware of the possibility to defend against it, and I remind you again that the almighty USA was attacked and taken BY SURPRISE in the actual war, suffered great damage and very nearly lost its ability to war-fight effectively in the Pacific. Lets take a look at Germany...who managed to attack Russia by surprise and very nearly win the day despite the fact that Germany had been openly advertising its hatred of Bolshevism and desire for lebensraum. Not the greatest basis for a surprise and yet they caught the Russians with their pants down. We are talking about the same nation that, even on its last legs, embattled from all sides, and apparently completely crushed, managed to surprise the US Army by attacking through the Ardennes FOR THE THIRD TIME in two wars. So excuse me If I do not credit the USA with an amazing ability to predict when it is going to be attacked.
As for your "terrain" defense...quite obviously you've never seen Europe, or the terrain in it. Nor were you paying any attention to how the German military operated very well in all manner of terrain, a lot of it quite unpleasant. Who hasn't got mountains? Never heard of a Gebirgsjager? the Deutsche AFRIKA korps? And clearly you aren't aware of the sheer variety of terrain in the USSR either. You're being ridiculous. ALL of the terrain in the USA exists elsewhere. Not to mention the fact that invading and conquering a nation does not mean wading through the bayou pointlessly for days. Would someone invading the UK head for London, or the empty wilds of Cumbria? Lets not forget that the swamp-dwelling GI's with their local knowledge have probably not been up a mountain either. Besides, even with your vast terrain experience, the USA managed to fail to equip its soldiers on several occasions for bad weather, even had trouble giving its troops a hot meal in wintertime... Why would your quartermasters be any better up a mountain in Nevada?
I'll remind you again as well that if convoys can travel one way, then there is no physical reason why they cannot travel in the other. (And in fact they did do that, bad weather notwithstanding.)
By all means, argue against the likelihood of a successful invasion, but please do try and do it sensibly, by actually considering the possibilities.
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sebster wrote:
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Basically, without a feasible starting point, most of this "The Germans only had this and that" argument makes no sense. Different requirements leads to different developments, lead to different situations. Its foolish to collapse a "what if" scenario based on something like "The Kriegsmarine didn't have any troop-carriers" or "The Germans spent all their money on U-Boats." or "The Luftwaffe never developed a long ranger bomber fleet."
I don't think you really get the strategic time frames it takes to build the infrastructure needed to construct and maintain a a fleet of ships. You measure these things in decades. In the meantime the US would be quite capable of responding as it saw fit.
You also missed, or more likely chose to ignore, the point I made about the ludicrous supply chain involved in landing in some South American port and then driving up through central America. Despite having an absolutely immense productive capacity, the US was significantly reduced in the amount of men and material it could bring to the European theatre because of it's distance from the front. The Germans had nowhere near that level of production, and the US wasn't also engaged in war with it's most powerful neighbours.
The only sensible conclusion is that any German attack, even with a decade or more of planning time, was doomed to complete failure.
No, I "get it". What I was arguing was the relative speeds of acquirement compared between having to "build" your fleets vs just pinching them. And that's just the military element. A merchant fleet can be acquired virtually over-night, simply by moving into the ports of a given nation. If Nation X already HAS a navy, and you capture it intact, you can double or even triple your strength without having to build a thing.
I hadn't particularly covered the problems inherent in continuous supply because I've been busy dealing with this constant magical ability for the US to have all the the things it had in 44, after 4 years of warfare and development, in an alternate 1940/41 or even 44 where it hasn't been at war, or gifting the US military-industrial complex with amazing powers of foresight it provably did not have, or ignoring the fact that war materials can be transported across the Atlantic. Until people stop applying this uber-future-soldier patriotic rubbish to it, then the rest is pretty pointless.
Anyway, if one really wants to nail the USA, then Alternate Hitler could do this: capture Moscow (nearly happened) and capture Egypt/Suez (also nearly happened), force the UK to capitulate, and then go through Russia towards China, take India, then Burma, join up with Japan and have a crack that way.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok, try this instead: Clearly it is possible to ship war materials across the Atlantic. Europe contains enough shipping to match or surpass that used in the real convoys (much of it being the same ships, but in different hands.) So REALISTICALLY what stops the Kriegsmarine (supplemented by at least two other European navies, possibly more) from transporting war material TO the Americas? Lets assume this is an alternate 41, where the UK has been taken, and Russia is still an ally.
No, I "get it". What I was arguing was the relative speeds of acquirement compared between having to "build" your fleets vs just pinching them. And that's just the military element. A merchant fleet can be acquired virtually over-night, simply by moving into the ports of a given nation. If Nation X already HAS a navy, and you capture it intact, you can double or even triple your strength without having to build a thing.
I hadn't particularly covered the problems inherent in continuous supply because I've been busy dealing with this constant magical ability for the US to have all the the things it had in 44, after 4 years of warfare and development, in an alternate 1940/41 or even 44 where it hasn't been at war, or gifting the US military-industrial complex with amazing powers of foresight it provably did not have, or ignoring the fact that war materials can be transported across the Atlantic. Until people stop applying this uber-future-soldier patriotic rubbish to it, then the rest is pretty pointless.
Anyway, if one really wants to nail the USA, then Alternate Hitler could do this: capture Moscow (nearly happened) and capture Egypt/Suez (also nearly happened), force the UK to capitulate, and then go through Russia towards China, take India, then Burma, join up with Japan and have a crack that way.
(Edited as the original post sounds more hostile than meant.
Wait where did they amass a surprise merchant fleet from? I'm getting confused. So now Germany not only has defeated all of Europe, defeated the UK, USSR, and magically appeared with a merchant fleet substantially larger than what was around (it was the US merchant fleet that enabled an invasion, not the British merchant fleet). Meanwhile the US did nothing during this time, while Germany magically amalgamated these disparate countries?
So what happened, did they discover the Ark of the Covenant or something. I mean sure if Springtime for Hitler Germany is able to conquer Europe, Asia, and Africa, the US might have a problem, but er...really? I mean the USSR did in fact kick the crap of Germany. It wasn't even close.
If in an alternate scenario Hitler doesn't go after the USSR but somehow trusts them enough not to deploy his entire army, you're saying they are able to build a carrier based battle fleet faster than the US, plus an invasion fleet, and that they can support a logistics train thousands of miles long? This, the country that never won a naval battle, never had an aircraft carrier or even cared about them, vs. the USA which literally went apeshit naval combat wise 1941-1945?
When does this joy occur?
If its after 1944, what keeps their fleet from being nuked by a pissed off Doolitle? Frankly if the Germans have uber powers WHERE THE HELL IS SUPERMAN?
No, I "get it". What I was arguing was the relative speeds of acquirement compared between having to "build" your fleets vs just pinching them. And that's just the military element. A merchant fleet can be acquired virtually over-night, simply by moving into the ports of a given nation. If Nation X already HAS a navy, and you capture it intact, you can double or even triple your strength without having to build a thing.
I hadn't particularly covered the problems inherent in continuous supply because I've been busy dealing with this constant magical ability for the US to have all the the things it had in 44, after 4 years of warfare and development, in an alternate 1940/41 or even 44 where it hasn't been at war, or gifting the US military-industrial complex with amazing powers of foresight it provably did not have, or ignoring the fact that war materials can be transported across the Atlantic. Until people stop applying this uber-future-soldier patriotic rubbish to it, then the rest is pretty pointless.
Anyway, if one really wants to nail the USA, then Alternate Hitler could do this: capture Moscow (nearly happened) and capture Egypt/Suez (also nearly happened), force the UK to capitulate, and then go through Russia towards China, take India, then Burma, join up with Japan and have a crack that way.
(Edited as the original post sounds more hostile than meant.
Wait where did they amass a surprise merchant fleet from? I'm getting confused. So now Germany not only has defeated all of Europe, defeated the UK, USSR, and magically appeared with a merchant fleet substantially larger than what was around (it was the US merchant fleet that enabled an invasion, not the British merchant fleet). Meanwhile the US did nothing during this time, while Germany magically amalgamated these disparate countries?
So what happened, did they discover the Ark of the Covenant or something. I mean sure if Springtime for Hitler Germany is able to conquer Europe, Asia, and Africa, the US might have a problem, but er...really? I mean the USSR did in fact kick the crap of Germany. It wasn't even close.
If in an alternate scenario Hitler doesn't go after the USSR but somehow trusts them enough not to deploy his entire army, you're saying they are able to build a carrier based battle fleet faster than the US, plus an invasion fleet, and that they can support a logistics train thousands of miles long? This, the country that never won a naval battle, never had an aircraft carrier or even cared about them, vs. the USA which literally went apeshit naval combat wise 1941-1945?
When does this joy occur?
If its after 1944, what keeps their fleet from being nuked by a pissed off Doolitle? Frankly if the Germans have uber powers WHERE THE HELL IS SUPERMAN?
I'm not sure what it is you aren't getting about this "game". Its quite easy. By changing the outcome of certain events, you change the direction of other events. In the postulated alternative, Germany can lay claim to the combined shipping of THE WHOLE OF EUROPE and possibly even a substantial amount of shipping from around the world. America isn't the only place that builds boats y'know. That is still a substantial amount of shipping. Its even possible to postulate from that a situation where the combined resources of Europe and the whole British Empire are set against the USA. So, moving on from the fact that plenty of tonnage is available, what comes next? A destination. One option is to land in an allied nation and use that as a springboard. That shortens the supply lines substantially. In the same way that the UK served as a giant "carrier" for D-Day (today no less, 6th June) its possible that some area over the pond could do similar. There is no need to commit to a seaborne invasion. Hell, if the Dominion goes over to the Reich, then there's that whole "Canada" bit to land in.
So what does that leave? The Navy. So what is the complement for US Navy ships in the Atlantic in 41? How "powerful" is the navy? How many carriers does it have in the western seas?
Also, you're probably forgetting that the reason why Germany failed to reach Moscow is because the operation began too late, and ran straight into the Russian Winter. Not because the Russians were winning battles. They only started doing that after the fact. Thus it was actually very close. And the postulation was that the peace between the USSR and Germany stays in place, and perhaps becomes a shared military experience akin to the one that flattened Poland. And we are still talking about a USA that very nearly lost the opening strike of its war, and was only a day or so from losing its Pacific war-fighting ability. But yeah, I forgot that America wins at everything even when it loses regardless of what happens so this is all futile. We could postulate a 1940 where the USA never existed at all, and America would still "win" somehow. "Braveheart" history where America wins in the war between Scotland and England.
So Germany is able to conquer Britain even though it didn't, and the USSR in 1941, even though it couldn't, and is able to immediately turn around and try to invade the US, even though the US had four carriers, a battlefleet, and Germany doesn't?
Does this lead to the later history books noting that "shortly after the maritime disaster in the Atlantic the coup occurred that led to the end of Hitler's reign."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Also, you're probably forgetting that the reason why Germany failed to reach Moscow is because the operation began too late, and ran straight into the Russian Winter. Not because the Russians were winning battles. They only started doing that after the fact. Thus it was actually very close. And the postulation was that the peace between the USSR and Germany stays in place, and perhaps becomes a shared military experience akin to the one that flattened Poland. And we are still talking about a USA that very nearly lost the opening strike of its war, and was only a day or so from losing its Pacific war-fighting ability. But yeah, I forgot that America wins at everything even when it loses regardless of what happens so this is all futile. We could postulate a 1940 where the USA never existed at all, and America would still "win" somehow. "Braveheart" history where America wins in the war between Scotland and England.
Mmm...no (and again with the attacks - what are you jealous or something because we have good food and you're stuck with haggis?)
You've launched about 27 different scenarios. Pick one.
It can't be 1941 unless Germany never attacks the Soviet Union. To be effective, they would have had to have peace with Britain. They couldn't conquer Britain in that time (again, reality already occurred-Germany had no chance). A Peaceful Britain in no way means they're merchant fleet is available and if so, so what? Its a target. A nonpeaceful Britain means the British Navy is continuing to kick Germany's ass, which means the odds are even less so.
So ok, Germany builds a massive troop fleet in a year. Unless you push time back further and state they planned to invade the USA several years earlier they still have no carriers (carriers aren't troop ships. They take years to build and the German navy itself thought WWII was going to be several years later). So the German High Fleet of Bismark, Tirputz and some pocket battleships is leading this adventure? Lets even give them a few extra batteleships.
In the Atlantic they meet four aircraft carriers, and by meet I mean US torpedo and dive bombers sink them all, hundreds of miles out of sight. If they are stupid and the transports keep going or they are too far out then the battleships get the transports, like the Japanese tried to do (and almost succeeded) at Leyte Gulf. This assumes the british fleet also doesn't crash the Lets Bash A Bosch party. Inversely lets say the Germans have uber stealthy powers and somehow cross before the US Navy finds out. Thats even worse for Germany. It leaves an invasion force utterly stranded with transports and protective battleship screen sunk near the coast or maybe a nice Conga line of sunk German ships all the way back to Europe as the US Atlantic and Pacific fleets kick the crap out of them.
Its not America Hurr! Its simple logic. Since Napoleon, no nation has been able to launch a major seaborne invasion without a nearby base. The Germans are completely and utterly unprepared to do so. It wasn't their plan and you have to go back multiple years for them to do so. Unfortunately the further you go back the more unlikely it is as Germany becomes beset by its own difficulties. Although the US was woefully unprepared for a land war 1930-1941 it xould do so for the same reason Britain could. It had a bitchin fleet.
NONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND FOR SOME REASON THAT THE REASON AMERICA JOIND THE WAR WAS BECAUSE WE KNEW IF WE DIDN'T THAT THE AXIS WOULD WIN!!!!!!!!!!!! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW STRONG THE NAZIS WERE, THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WON EVEN WITH AMERICA FIGHTING. HITLER MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS, AND DIDN'T LISTEN TOHIS GENERALS BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE OF NAZI GERMANY AND DIDN'T FALLBACK!!!!!
TheHappySpaceMarine wrote:NONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND FOR SOME REASON THAT THE REASON AMERICA JOIND THE WAR WAS BECAUSE WE KNEW IF WE DIDN'T THAT THE AXIS WOULD WIN!!!!!!!!!!!! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW STRONG THE NAZIS WERE, THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WON EVEN WITH AMERICA FIGHTING. HITLER MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS, AND DIDN'T LISTEN TOHIS GENERALS BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE OF NAZI GERMANY AND DIDN'T FALLBACK!!!!!
Finally! A measured and reasonable voice on this thread!
TheHappySpaceMarine wrote:NONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND FOR SOME REASON THAT THE REASON AMERICA JOIND THE WAR WAS BECAUSE WE KNEW IF WE DIDN'T THAT THE AXIS WOULD WIN!!!!!!!!!!!! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW STRONG THE NAZIS WERE, THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WON EVEN WITH AMERICA FIGHTING. HITLER MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS, AND DIDN'T LISTEN TOHIS GENERALS BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE OF NAZI GERMANY AND DIDN'T FALLBACK!!!!!
Frazzled wrote:So Germany is able to conquer Britain even though it didn't, and the USSR in 1941, even though it couldn't, and is able to immediately turn around and try to invade the US, even though the US had four carriers, a battlefleet, and Germany doesn't?
Does this lead to the later history books noting that "shortly after the maritime disaster in the Atlantic the coup occurred that led to the end of Hitler's reign."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Also, you're probably forgetting that the reason why Germany failed to reach Moscow is because the operation began too late, and ran straight into the Russian Winter. Not because the Russians were winning battles. They only started doing that after the fact. Thus it was actually very close. And the postulation was that the peace between the USSR and Germany stays in place, and perhaps becomes a shared military experience akin to the one that flattened Poland. And we are still talking about a USA that very nearly lost the opening strike of its war, and was only a day or so from losing its Pacific war-fighting ability. But yeah, I forgot that America wins at everything even when it loses regardless of what happens so this is all futile. We could postulate a 1940 where the USA never existed at all, and America would still "win" somehow. "Braveheart" history where America wins in the war between Scotland and England.
Mmm...no (and again with the attacks - what are you jealous or something because we have good food and you're stuck with haggis?)
You've launched about 27 different scenarios. Pick one.
It can't be 1941 unless Germany never attacks the Soviet Union. To be effective, they would have had to have peace with Britain. They couldn't conquer Britain in that time (again, reality already occurred-Germany had no chance). A Peaceful Britain in no way means they're merchant fleet is available and if so, so what? Its a target. A nonpeaceful Britain means the British Navy is continuing to kick Germany's ass, which means the odds are even less so.
So ok, Germany builds a massive troop fleet in a year. Unless you push time back further and state they planned to invade the USA several years earlier they still have no carriers (carriers aren't troop ships. They take years to build and the German navy itself thought WWII was going to be several years later). So the German High Fleet of Bismark, Tirputz and some pocket battleships is leading this adventure? Lets even give them a few extra batteleships.
In the Atlantic they meet four aircraft carriers, and by meet I mean US torpedo and dive bombers sink them all, hundreds of miles out of sight. If they are stupid and the transports keep going or they are too far out then the battleships get the transports, like the Japanese tried to do (and almost succeeded) at Leyte Gulf. This assumes the british fleet also doesn't crash the Lets Bash A Bosch party. Inversely lets say the Germans have uber stealthy powers and somehow cross before the US Navy finds out. Thats even worse for Germany. It leaves an invasion force utterly stranded with transports and protective battleship screen sunk near the coast or maybe a nice Conga line of sunk German ships all the way back to Europe as the US Atlantic and Pacific fleets kick the crap out of them.
Its not America Hurr! Its simple logic. Since Napoleon, no nation has been able to launch a major seaborne invasion without a nearby base. The Germans are completely and utterly unprepared to do so. It wasn't their plan and you have to go back multiple years for them to do so. Unfortunately the further you go back the more unlikely it is as Germany becomes beset by its own difficulties. Although the US was woefully unprepared for a land war 1930-1941 it xould do so for the same reason Britain could. It had a bitchin fleet.
Seems to me that you're again missing the point of points of divergence. Those would be the points where an event could have gone either way, and are often balanced on the finest of turns. Just because something didn't happen, doesn't mean it couldn't happen. That is the whole point and purpose of the exercise. Here is an example. Hitler, on the eve of Fall Gelb, decides that he has in fact pushed it a bit too far, and doesn't invade Poland. Thus no mutual defence treaties are triggered, no conflict begins with France or the UK and so on and so forth. Something as minor as that can change events substantially.
Taking something you said: Germany itself thought the war would be later. Indeed the OKW did not desire war and did not think they were ready for war. What if they could have made a more convincing case to Adolf? The whole game changes completely then, because a Germany unmolested has a much longer time period in which to prepare for.. well anything it cares to really. A more sensibly timed invasion of the USSR perhaps. Or even the time needed to create greater parity in warships. If we assume that the US still gets attacked by Japan, why would other nations not "learn" the usefulness of the carrier? Especially seeing as European nations HAD carriers as well. Its not as if Europe didn't know about them.
I'm still not buying US preparedness for a conflict, given how close the US came to having no pacific fleet at all. What is to say that Germany might not devise some piece of military cunning to divest the US of its Atlantic protection? Japan nearly did on the other seaboard. Its not a massive jump to suppose a hook over Iceland, starting from Norway. Of course this is assuming that the US actually has four carriers in the Atlantic at the right time anyway.
Hitler, on the eve of Fall Gelb, decides that he has in fact pushed it a bit too far, and doesn't invade Poland. Thus no mutual defense treaties are triggered, no conflict begins with France or the UK and so on and so forth. Something as minor as that can change events substantially.
***Ok so its 1938/39 or after 1941? 1938 they have no force to speak of. 1941 see below.
Taking something you said: Germany itself thought the war would be later. Indeed the OKW did not desire war and did not think they were ready for war. What if they could have made a more convincing case to Adolf? The whole game changes completely then, because a Germany unmolested has a much longer time period in which to prepare for.. well anything it cares to really. A more sensibly timed invasion of the USSR perhaps. Or even the time needed to create greater parity in warships. If we assume that the US still gets attacked by Japan, why would other nations not "learn" the usefulness of the carrier? Especially seeing as European nations HAD carriers as well. Its not as if Europe didn't know about them.
***Well here’s a problem. If they wait and the US is still attacked by Japan that means the US effectively goes into total war mode earlier than envisioned and far earlier than Germany does. That means you’re getting closer to the timeline when: 1) the US does that whole 15 attack carriers thing-although it might be 25 carriers without worrying about supplying the Western Front; 2) the US has the B29; 3) the US has an interesting toy that goes with the B-29 when you go for the special “Einstein Premium Package.” In the words of the immortal bard: “Shall we play a game?” That’s totally discounting of course Hitler not attacking USSR. |If he waits a year or two and then invades the USSR he faces-again- Britain/France, and a much stronger USSR. All three of those nations were in fact gearing for war and you gave them time to get even stronger. Germany is stronger but now the Rooskies have gobs of T-34s ready to go happy happy funtime. Plus if its past early 1942 it means the USSR can pull its divisions out even more quickly as Japan will already have half its carrier fleet in Davy Jones’ locker. I don’t see how this goes better for the Germans, indeed it might end up with a radioactive Berlin.
I'm still not buying US preparedness for a conflict, given how close the US came to having no pacific fleet at all.
***What are you talking about? At the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor we had four carriers, and 17 battleships. How many did Germany have again? How many did Britain even at that time?
What is to say that Germany might not devise some piece of military cunning to divest the US of its Atlantic protection? Japan nearly did on the other seaboard. Its not a massive jump to suppose a hook over Iceland, starting from Norway. Of course this is assuming that the US actually has four carriers in the Atlantic at the right time anyway.
****I am not presupposing that. That’s the best option for the Germans. As noted, if not that means your invasion force is stranded in the US. Alternatively the German Navy might sally out first to try to eliminate the US Navy. Again they’d have to actually build some carriers first, or they’re just targets. We’d kind of note a few years ahead if the Germans were building carriers, as well as troop transports. I’d think an invasion fleet leaving Germany might get its ass kicked by the UK, thinking they’re heading for the UK.
But lets back off a bit and say the transports get to the US and utterly slip past the Navy. What now? How do you resupply your German divisions when you have carrier planes and B-17s obliterating your supply line? Germany couldn’t resupply the Afrika Korps across the pond, how are they going to resupply across the Atlanta with no air or naval superiority? Can you say Dnieppe Raid X100? And if Germany loses, wouldn’t Uncle Joseph start giving a gander to all those tank divisions he has sitting there, and thinking Berlin’s so beautiful this time of year – lets go on a picnic?
I covered the why of resupplying Afrika several posts ago, why it failed and how it could have suceeded. In fact its a key factor on defeating the UK.
The "Fall Gellb" example isn't about taking on America. Its an example of how something very small can change situations in a massive way.
In fact I already covered a perfectly viable route to an attempted invasion just before people decided that Germans can't handle mountains AND deserts at the same time because Europe lacks terrain.
Oh, and I was referring to the loss of the fleet to Japanese attack, not that there wasn't a fleet to begin with...in that America very nearly lost the whole thing.
As for the rest: Watching Skyline.I'll get back to you with some possibilities afterwards. There is the question though: what does Germany actually need to do to gain aerial superiority?
ArbeitsSchu wrote:No, I "get it". What I was arguing was the relative speeds of acquirement compared between having to "build" your fleets vs just pinching them. And that's just the military element. A merchant fleet can be acquired virtually over-night, simply by moving into the ports of a given nation. If Nation X already HAS a navy, and you capture it intact, you can double or even triple your strength without having to build a thing.
Just pinching a load of boats doesn't make you a naval power. You need to crew and maintain these boats, and organise their effective use. These are all areas of expertise and facilities that take a long time to develop.
Then if you're using them to support a seaborne invasion of a country on the other side of the Pacific, you need to protect these ships. Even if you pinched everybody else's fleets in Europe, and magically created the loyal German sailors to man them, then it'd still be a hell of a task keeping those ships secure from US sea and airpower.
I hadn't particularly covered the problems inherent in continuous supply because I've been busy dealing with this constant magical ability for the US to have all the the things it had in 44, after 4 years of warfare and development, in an alternate 1940/41 or even 44 where it hasn't been at war, or gifting the US military-industrial complex with amazing powers of foresight it provably did not have, or ignoring the fact that war materials can be transported across the Atlantic. Until people stop applying this uber-future-soldier patriotic rubbish to it, then the rest is pretty pointless.
If the Germans are magically given the capability to actually win in Europe, and then begin the decades long process of building a navy capable of supporting a seaborne invasion of the US, then the US would have seen it coming. It wouldn't have been hard to see it coming.
Anyway, if one really wants to nail the USA, then Alternate Hitler could do this: capture Moscow (nearly happened) and capture Egypt/Suez (also nearly happened), force the UK to capitulate, and then go through Russia towards China, take India, then Burma, join up with Japan and have a crack that way.
You're suggesting that Germany builds a tank in Berlin, trains it to Moscow, trains it over the trans-siberian, unloads at Beijing (because feth it, why not pretend China is pacified by the Japanese as well?), puts it on a boat which carries it to Alaska, and then has that tank drive down into Washington state, and through every western coastal city in the US, one by one. Fighting all the way.
Needing about 3 tonnes of supplies per 1,500 men, for non-combat operations, all brought through that same line of supply.
Ok, try this instead: Clearly it is possible to ship war materials across the Atlantic. Europe contains enough shipping to match or surpass that used in the real convoys (much of it being the same ships, but in different hands.) So REALISTICALLY what stops the Kriegsmarine (supplemented by at least two other European navies, possibly more) from transporting war material TO the Americas? Lets assume this is an alternate 41, where the UK has been taken, and Russia is still an ally.
Is it possible, with the facilities available in the 40s, with the nature of conflict in the 40s, to ship enough war materials across the Atlantic? I don't believe the US would have been able to have sustained a war against Germany by itself, either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheHappySpaceMarine wrote:NONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND FOR SOME REASON THAT THE REASON AMERICA JOIND THE WAR WAS BECAUSE WE KNEW IF WE DIDN'T THAT THE AXIS WOULD WIN!!!!!!!!!!!! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW STRONG THE NAZIS WERE, THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WON EVEN WITH AMERICA FIGHTING. HITLER MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS, AND DIDN'T LISTEN TOHIS GENERALS BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE OF NAZI GERMANY AND DIDN'T FALLBACK!!!!!
First up, CAPS LOCK is on the far left, the third button up. You will find pressing this button once will make the whole of the internet take you much more seriously.
Second up, your understanding of history is terrible, from the relative forces involved, to the chance of German victory during the war, to the reasons Germany lost the war. I think you need to go back to the start of the thread, and reread the whole thread with the understanding that everyone posting in the thread knows more about WWII than you do. Read their posts, internalise the arguments they've made, and get rid of whatever you presently believe about WWII. You will be more informed than you are now.
Being more informed about something might not get you more friends or more respect, but I think it's worthwhile anyway. Maybe you don't, in which case don't bother... but really, really look into pressin that CAPS LOCK thing, that one I can guarantee will improve your internet experience.
TheHappySpaceMarine wrote:NONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND FOR SOME REASON THAT THE REASON AMERICA JOIND THE WAR WAS BECAUSE WE KNEW IF WE DIDN'T THAT THE AXIS WOULD WIN!!!!!!!!!!!! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW STRONG THE NAZIS WERE, THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY WON EVEN WITH AMERICA FIGHTING. HITLER MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS, AND DIDN'T LISTEN TOHIS GENERALS BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE OF NAZI GERMANY AND DIDN'T FALLBACK!!!!!
You realise if you hit the caps lock again it turns off?
ArbeitsSchu wrote:No, I "get it". What I was arguing was the relative speeds of acquirement compared between having to "build" your fleets vs just pinching them. And that's just the military element. A merchant fleet can be acquired virtually over-night, simply by moving into the ports of a given nation. If Nation X already HAS a navy, and you capture it intact, you can double or even triple your strength without having to build a thing.
Just pinching a load of boats doesn't make you a naval power. You need to crew and maintain these boats, and organise their effective use. These are all areas of expertise and facilities that take a long time to develop.
Then if you're using them to support a seaborne invasion of a country on the other side of the Pacific, you need to protect these ships. Even if you pinched everybody else's fleets in Europe, and magically created the loyal German sailors to man them, then it'd still be a hell of a task keeping those ships secure from US sea and airpower.
I hadn't particularly covered the problems inherent in continuous supply because I've been busy dealing with this constant magical ability for the US to have all the the things it had in 44, after 4 years of warfare and development, in an alternate 1940/41 or even 44 where it hasn't been at war, or gifting the US military-industrial complex with amazing powers of foresight it provably did not have, or ignoring the fact that war materials can be transported across the Atlantic. Until people stop applying this uber-future-soldier patriotic rubbish to it, then the rest is pretty pointless.
If the Germans are magically given the capability to actually win in Europe, and then begin the decades long process of building a navy capable of supporting a seaborne invasion of the US, then the US would have seen it coming. It wouldn't have been hard to see it coming.
Anyway, if one really wants to nail the USA, then Alternate Hitler could do this: capture Moscow (nearly happened) and capture Egypt/Suez (also nearly happened), force the UK to capitulate, and then go through Russia towards China, take India, then Burma, join up with Japan and have a crack that way.
You're suggesting that Germany builds a tank in Berlin, trains it to Moscow, trains it over the trans-siberian, unloads at Beijing (because feth it, why not pretend China is pacified by the Japanese as well?), puts it on a boat which carries it to Alaska, and then has that tank drive down into Washington state, and through every western coastal city in the US, one by one. Fighting all the way.
Needing about 3 tonnes of supplies per 1,500 men, for non-combat operations, all brought through that same line of supply.
Ok, try this instead: Clearly it is possible to ship war materials across the Atlantic. Europe contains enough shipping to match or surpass that used in the real convoys (much of it being the same ships, but in different hands.) So REALISTICALLY what stops the Kriegsmarine (supplemented by at least two other European navies, possibly more) from transporting war material TO the Americas? Lets assume this is an alternate 41, where the UK has been taken, and Russia is still an ally.
Is it possible, with the facilities available in the 40s, with the nature of conflict in the 40s, to ship enough war materials across the Atlantic? I don't believe the US would have been able to have sustained a war against Germany by itself, either.
1) Merchant vessels tend to already be crewed. The small military complement required to make a merchant vessel defensible is more than adequate to ensure it goes where it is sent. For that matter, many merchant seamen will go with whoever pays them anyway. And its not as if Germany is one of these land-locked nations wjhich has a navy consisting of a single patrol boat. They did have a reasonably substantial Navy, and began the war with the intention of making it much bigger. Protecting them I'll get to in a bit.
2) The above process of expanding a navy exponentially by conquest should shave a few "decades" off the time needed to build a fleet. And Germany did have a naval programme involving the construction of surface vessels. The fact that it fell by the wayside later on for various reasons both expedient and ridicuous is neither here nore there. Besides, it shouldn't have been hard to see the Japanese Imperial Navy coming, but somehow the states missed it.
3) Actually I wasn't suggested a Panzer Road Trip to Washington at all. I work on the theory that (like the Skoda plants in Czechoslovakia) a Germany victorious in any given nation would happily turn over local facilities to their own requirements. Thus in the conquest of say..the UK, we might see the creation of something like a Panzer 41 (B for Britain) using the Valentine, or the Matilda or whatever. Failing that, a Works is a Works. If Ford can build the same vehicle on two different continents by license, then Busching-Nagg or Hanomag can too. Likewise if we postulate the fall of Russia, then we see Germany gain access to the production facilities of the T-34. (For that matter, had Stalin not had the great idea to move production facilities wholesale out of the way, then we could easily have seen such a thing occur in reality.)
First Royal Navy Auxiliary Aircraft Carrier which, as German mercantile HANNOVER, was captured on 8th March 1940 when intercepted in the West Indies by HM Cruiser DUNEDIN and HM Canadian Destroyer ASSINIBOINE. She had been laid down for use as a Refrigerated Cargo Ship and had completed build at Bremen in May 1939. The ship was requisitioned by the Admiralty and in November 1940 was taken in hand for conversion as a Ocean Boarding Vessel named SINBAD. However in January 1941 she was selected for deployment as the first mercantile to be converted for use as an escort aircraft carrier. The changes made included removal of existing superstructure to allow fit of a wooden flight deck for the full length of the ship. The work was carried out by Blyth Dock SB and the ship commissioned as EMPIRE AUDACITY on 20th June 1941. Ballast had to be added to ensure stability and this ship was fitted with a new design radar for aircraft warning purposes, Type 79B. The first of this type, which used only one mast had been fitted in HM Battlecruiser HOOD shortly before her loss in May 1941 (See RADAR AT SEA by D Howse.) Six fighter aircraft were to be carried and had to be kept on the flight deck as no hangar was provided. The name was changed to HMS AUDACITY after conversion in order to avoid confusion with other mercantiles entering service after September 1939 either as new or captured vessels used for trade.
Audacity was sunk after a short operational life, but the concept is sound. I postulate it as an obvious short-term solution to the lack of carriers shipped by this alternate Kriegsmarine. And as Audacity was built on a German built boat, it makes it all the more realistic a prospect that a Germany that decides it requires carriers could create them in reasonable time. Also, Germany was quite happy to be innovative with war materials when it wanted to be. Its a reasonably alternate prospect that if Germany had spent less time innovating daftness like huge railway guns that needed 4000 men and a Flak regiment to operate, they might have caused infinitely more damage.
Of course one of the main reasons Germany never operated as an effective Naval power was because Hitler was at best massively disinterested in Ships, hated going on them, and thus neglected them. The Navy lacked a Goering to argue its side effectively, and thus got ignored. Maybe if Hitler had been a seamen in WW1, matters would have been much different? He would have spent the war interfering with Naval operations and thinking he was a Grand Admiral, and refusing to let ships return to port.
) Merchant vessels tend to already be crewed. The small military complement required to make a merchant vessel defensible is more than adequate to ensure it goes where it is sent. For that matter, many merchant seamen will go with whoever pays them anyway. And its not as if Germany is one of these land-locked nations wjhich has a navy consisting of a single patrol boat. They did have a reasonably substantial Navy, and began the war with the intention of making it much bigger. Protecting them I'll get to in a bit.
***Wait so now you’ve conquered Western Europe too? Crap pick a position already. Either they invaded Poland and the whole spiel starts or they didn’t. If they did, then there’s no way they are ready for an invasion until at least 43. AND THAT assumes they somehow knock Britain out of the war, which AS THEY ACTUALLY TRIED IT, didn’t work out. Even if they somehow did knock Britain out, most of its shipping would have been destroyed by then (remember the UBoats). Those that survived are indeed mobile and already crewed, and would have likely bailed for US and places unknown. They certainly wouldn’t stick around but would have gotten whatever family was in the UK and gotten the hell out of there.
2) The above process of expanding a navy exponentially by conquest should shave a few "decades" off the time needed to build a fleet. And Germany did have a naval programme involving the construction of surface vessels. The fact that it fell by the wayside later on for various reasons both expedient and ridicuous is neither here nore there. Besides, it shouldn't have been hard to see the Japanese Imperial Navy coming, but somehow the states missed it.
***The Japanese are epic at following a storm. Wow hitting a world power before declaring war. They only managed it once. Frankly the Germans aren’t the Japanese and we were on an effective war footing with Germany in the Atlantic in 1941 already. Again, as noted, the Germans had no carrier fleet, no carrier planes, and no carrier history. It took the US and Japan a decade to develop those skills and technologies. Germany aint gak in this area.
3) Actually I wasn't suggested a Panzer Road Trip to Washington at all. I work on the theory that (like the Skoda plants in Czechoslovakia) a Germany victorious in any given nation would happily turn over local facilities to their own requirements. Thus in the conquest of say..the UK, we might see the creation of something like a Panzer 41 (B for Britain) using the Valentine, or the Matilda or whatever. Failing that, a Works is a Works. If Ford can build the same vehicle on two different continents by license, then Busching-Nagg or Hanomag can too. Likewise if we postulate the fall of Russia, then we see Germany gain access to the production facilities of the T-34. (For that matter, had Stalin not had the great idea to move production facilities wholesale out of the way, then we could easily have seen such a thing occur in reality.)
***So now they are invading the USSR again? They tried that remember. Something about the Soviet Hammer and Sickle on the Reichstag. Even if they win it again puts them years further back. So when are we invading now? 1946? 1949? I think the B29 and Mister A Bomb might dispute that a little. After all nothing says loving like the German Navy swallowed up by the Big Boom. As the immortal bard once said:
COngratulations you now permit the German Navy this last image before Nimitz lights up a cigar and calls it a day.
First of all, you started with the confusion between 'reality and possibility' by talking about the US losing after the D-Day invasion, if you want to say that the US actually carried out D-Day then I get to say that they focused on building U-Boats. If you want to say that they didn't focus on U-Boats then I can say that D-Day never happened and there were many, many more american forces in the american mainland.
The afrika korp operated in the deserts and were expressly trained and geared for fighting in the desert while the other branches were trained and geared to fight in temperate or winter regions. In the United States they would have to have a military group organized so that they could operate in different climates at close intervals. The DAK would have issue with operating in the mountains and would need winter specialists to deal with the mountains before they could even reach the desert and the winter specialists would have to wait for the urban forces to deal with the cities before they reached the mountains.
The reason why we had issues supplying gear to our troops was because of the fact that the gear was on one side of the atlantic ocean and our troops were on the other. If Germany invaded they would face the same logistical dilemma the american troops did, I mean come on doesn't that make sense?
Russia has all sorts of terrain as well, but the Germans didn't do too well in Russia did they?
All of the land features of America do exist in other countries, but that wasn't the point. The point was that we have them all in relatively close locations. We go from mountains to desert almost immediately in the west, that means the mountain troops would cross the mountain only to find that they're useless because the very next terrain is all sand and heat. BTW, there are a lot of airbases in the west so they would have to go through the desert to get to them, as for the bayous we have a lot of bases in places that are normally not very residentially friendly.
England is mostly homogenous, you have forests, marshes, and plains and that's about it. Europe has mountains, marshes, plains, and forests. But you don't have terrain features that are too much of a stark contrast to each other. The desert is a stark contrast to just about any other terrain and the germans had to go to a completely different continent to deal with a desert.
BTW, Germany was never able to cross the English channel what makes you think they would be able to cross the Atlantic Ocean and carry out an invasion?
Then there's the fact that America had oil production capabilities in its own territory compared to Germany which didn't, tanks are cool but when they run out of gas you now have a defensive emplacement.
Frazzled... seriously. Are you not yet up to speed on the fact that I'm still not following a SPECIFIC alternate timeline with a set start or finish date, or a specific date of divergence? I'm not Turtledove. I'm not creating a narrative. I'm simply responding to various points with a variety of suggestions as to how those events might come to pass. Also, you keep catching yourself on the real timeline. YES, most of the things that I have suggested didn't happen. We all get that one. What I am suggesting is points where events COULD HAVE been different.
So, if Germany does invade the USSR, there us a point where they COULD have won. In reality, they missed that boat. But they COULD have done X Y or Z thing and events would be different. Is this any clearer for you?
Halonachos: I think you're missing the point. It isn't just about "making things up". We aren't 12. Its about looking at the reality of what is possible. Thus when I say that a Germany intent on invading the USA would have concentrated more military effort into a viable Naval force, its a perfectly sensible suggestion. So no, you don't get to say I have to have U-boats, because we aren't children playing in a sand-pit.
And you're still over-estimating how amazingly varied and dangerous your terrain is to anyone trying to cross it, based on some idiot notion about the difference between European and American terrain. The Afrika Korps went to Germany with equipment the Tropical Institute thought would be suitable. It wasn't. But the DAK went ahead and did very well regardless. Also, you clearly have little concept of the variety of "scenery" available in North Africa either. Mountain troops don't just "become useless" if they aren't up a bloody mountain either, in exactly the same way that Fallschirmjager don't suddenly become useless if they haven't got a plane to fall from.
We've been covering the various ways that Germany might reach the USA for quite some time now, and it was also already covered exactly why Germany failed to cross the channel. Go back and read, because I'm not typing it out again.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Frazzled... seriously. Are you not yet up to speed on the fact that I'm still not following a SPECIFIC alternate timeline with a set start or finish date, or a specific date of divergence? I'm not Turtledove. I'm not creating a narrative. I'm simply responding to various points with a variety of suggestions as to how those events might come to pass. Also, you keep catching yourself on the real timeline. YES, most of the things that I have suggested didn't happen. We all get that one. What I am suggesting is points where events COULD HAVE been different.
So, if Germany does invade the USSR, there us a point where they COULD have won. In reality, they missed that boat. But they COULD have done X Y or Z thing and events would be different. Is this any clearer for you?
Halonachos: I think you're missing the point. It isn't just about "making things up". We aren't 12. Its about looking at the reality of what is possible. Thus when I say that a Germany intent on invading the USA would have concentrated more military effort into a viable Naval force, its a perfectly sensible suggestion. So no, you don't get to say I have to have U-boats, because we aren't children playing in a sand-pit.
And you're still over-estimating how amazingly varied and dangerous your terrain is to anyone trying to cross it, based on some idiot notion about the difference between European and American terrain. The Afrika Korps went to Germany with equipment the Tropical Institute thought would be suitable. It wasn't. But the DAK went ahead and did very well regardless. Also, you clearly have little concept of the variety of "scenery" available in North Africa either. Mountain troops don't just "become useless" if they aren't up a bloody mountain either, in exactly the same way that Fallschirmjager don't suddenly become useless if they haven't got a plane to fall from.
We've been covering the various ways that Germany might reach the USA for quite some time now, and it was also already covered exactly why Germany failed to cross the channel. Go back and read, because I'm not typing it out again.
You speak of "just making things up" but you've done that, repeatedly. Nothing is in a vacuum. If Germany successfully invades the USSR it will gain further resource, eventually. But that eats up time and troops, just delays the potential invasion time to the point the nuke is invented (by the US). That stops the invasion discussion in its tracks.
If they don't invade the USSR and don't invade the rest of Europe then they don't have the ship assets, unless again, they build them. Again, that takes years to do, and it will be noticed. Again it goes to the timeline of having a crossing the Atlantic against a very powerful opponent. If the US sees Germany building a large navy against treaty it would likely further spur its own growth such that the dern ferenners would be facig an even larger fleet (as well as getting Britain's panties in a wad).
If they don't invade the USSR and don't invade the rest of Europe then they don't have the ship assets, unless again, they build them. If this occurs after 1941 and Japan still attacks (less likely as one of the reasons it did so was a non existent threat - with France and Britain unrestrained they'd likely rethink that), then you have a USA on a full war footing while Germany isn't. In effect your window of opportunity all factors being with you is to about June 1942. But of course, the USA is already in military production at that point. No blitzkriegs for you.
Edit: Now that I think about it, this is a seriously bad day scenario for Germany. Every advantage Germany had at the start of the war is nonexistent here. Their superior army-irrelevant at best as its a naval fight, in deep gak at worst if they come ashore against a wartime USA with that bad logistical tale. Their surperior air arm is elmininated, not ebcause the USA is uber but because they have no airfields. Their maritime record is poor so there's just disadvantage there.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Again I'm not saying the USA is uber. I don't see how the US could have invaded the USSR directly across the ocean, which is equivalent. Its just too hard.
They had plans to invade the United States but it was logistical hell.
Between Portugal and the Eastern Seaboard there are 3,586 miles of ocean. This isn't calm water either and we had a hard time getting supplies to our troops because of it.
An invasion by the germans wasn't feasible unless they had somewhere besides the US to land. They would have to land in Canada(which was allied to the US) and Mexico(again allied to the US) if they would be able to achieve anything close to the D-Day level of invasion.
If Hitler even decided to invade the US he would have to secure a port seeingas though the distance would make it a one way trip for any ship trying to cross. There aren't too many ports that are easy nuts for them to crack, again there are wrecks of German U-Boats off of the east coast of the united states from when they tried to harass shipping vessels.
Sure Germany had a lot of nice little gadgets and sepcial forces, but the United States had them as well. Best of all we had the capacity to outproduce Germany, we went from acouple hundreds of tanks produced pre-Pearl Harbor to over 20,000 the following year. That's a hell of a jump in production that the Germans couldn't match.
We also had more people than what the germans had and a lot of german forces would have to stay behind to secure the Reich from resistance fighters. Speaking of resistance fighters the American people would put up a hell of a fight.
The Atlantic Ocean would thwart any invasion, its kind of how we won the Revolutionary War as well.
Interesting to see others - back then- had thought of these scenarios as well. On a map it looks even more crazy.
One not discussed is reverse Siciliy. Landing in Cuba and using that as a stepping stone. Of course welcome to instant blackade and Cuba is quite mountaneous.
Not really, no. Cuba's agriculture sector, while small in terms of GDP, is massive in terms of land allocation and employment. You don't farm mountains.
There are mountains, sure, but they don't dominate the country. Castro used the Sierra Madres as a base after exile, but lots of other people have tried the same and failed horribly.
Frazzled wrote:Interesting to see others - back then- had thought of these scenarios as well. On a map it looks even more crazy.
One not discussed is reverse Siciliy. Landing in Cuba and using that as a stepping stone. Of course welcome to instant blackade and Cuba is quite mountaneous.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:1) Merchant vessels tend to already be crewed. The small military complement required to make a merchant vessel defensible is more than adequate to ensure it goes where it is sent.
SO now you want a supply line manned by men kept under military watch. Never mind the ports and repair docks you'd also have to capture, and presumably staff with men kept under armed guard as well.
And you want men under such conditions to mount the greatest logistics operation the world has ever seen.
They did have a reasonably substantial Navy, and began the war with the intention of making it much bigger. Protecting them I'll get to in a bit.
They had a navy with no chance of matching the British in the open sea. A navy that couldn't have even managed to materially damage the British fleet in open engagement, to the point where the German fleet preferred to remain almost entirely useless and just send out the u-boats. They would have stuggled to increase this substantially because they lacked the port infrastructure to maintain many more ships.
You can give them the win against the French and grant the Nazis the Belgian and French ports, and presume they then set about making those ports militarily secure, and then expanding their fleet dramatically. But then the purpose of such an operation would have been obvious to everyone, giving the US plenty of time to build a response.
At which point you'd have two military engines of similar productive capabilities (continental US vs continental Europe), only with the Germans having to maintain their war effort across half the globe. By a nation with no history of naval operations.
[qupte]2) The above process of expanding a navy exponentially by conquest should shave a few "decades" off the time needed to build a fleet.
You keep thinking it's just about building ships, and ignoring that expertise in building and maintaing ships doesn't just appear when you capture a port. This isn't Axis and Allies.
Besides, it shouldn't have been hard to see the Japanese Imperial Navy coming, but somehow the states missed it.
No they didn't. Do you know anything about the build up Pearl Harbour?
3) Actually I wasn't suggested a Panzer Road Trip to Washington at all.
So now the plan is to conquer part of South America and start building tanks there. Making use of all that much vaunted South American heavy industry, no doubt. This is getting sillier.
Look, no matter what use the Germans got out of East European and French military factories during the war, the heavy lifting was always done by Germany. And in Europe they had access to developed economies with modernised industrial plants in place. Conquering Venezuala will not get you that.
You want to sustain the greatest logistics operation ever considered with military support coming from merchant vessels jury-rigged into military ships?
Of course one of the main reasons Germany never operated as an effective Naval power was because Hitler was at best massively disinterested in Ships, hated going on them, and thus neglected them.
Nonsense. Once Hitler came to power he abandoned the agreed limitations to their naval power signed under Versailles, and formed plans to build about 400 combat ships, including 10 battleships and four aircraft carriers. This was to take place from 1939 to 1948, a period of ten years.
This operation never came close to completion, in part because of the breakout of war in Europe prioritised land operations, and in major part because you can't just throw money at the navy and produce boats. You need capacity.
More importantly, even with that impossible plan the Nazis still wouldn't have matched US naval capacity. In 1938, before naval capacity was significantly increased, the US had 15 battleships and five carriers, and about as many cruisers and destroyers as the Nazis dreamed of getting. When the war kicked off in earnest, while the navy wasn't even their primary focus, the US built that up to 23 battleships and 25 aircraft carriers (and another 65 auxilary carriers), for a total fleet of more than 800 combat ships. And that's without the defense of mainland USA from seaborne invasion even being a consideration - imagine what they could produce if threatened by invasion, with the navy as the priority?
The idea that the Nazis could build, steal and jury-rig enough boats to match the US fleet is absurd. And that's before you consider that to destroy the enemy lines of supply you don't even need to break even, you just need to raid and harry the enemy while keeping your vessels away from major conflict - the Germans did immense damage to UK lines of supply, and that was without the ability to survive in open waters against the Royal Navy. So imagine what the immensely more powerful US fleet could have done to German lines of supply into South America?
Merchant vessels are usually run by civilians and typically have no military men on them. They may have small arms for personal defense but they rely on other military ships for protection.
Its a bit hard to make out, but now the military uses a blue and yellow stripe across the stack in order to designate merchant vessels.
halonachos wrote:Merchant vessels are usually run by civilians and typically have no military men on them. They may have small arms for personal defense but they rely on other military ships for protection.
In time of war all merchant mariners are considered military personnel, and after the late 80's merchant mariners who serve in war became eligible to claim military benefits.
When the US invaded France in 1944, the German soldier in general, had fought for the past 5 years. The average American soldier had no actual combat experience.
Look at who won the war on the Western Front. Even with the lack of actual combat experience the average American soldier was better.
When the US invaded France in 1944, the German soldier in general, had fought for the past 5 years. The average American soldier had no actual combat experience.
Look at who won the war on the Western Front. Even with the lack of actual combat experience the average American soldier was better.
You don't prove the average soldier is 'better' by showing who won. The victor is more a product of numbers and a superior overall war machine, not the product of individual soldier quality. Afterall, the Russians killed most German soldiers, and had a fearsomely effective war machine. But individually they were pretty mediocre troops, with poor officers and minimal support.
Secondly, the US had been in the war for some time by D-Day, and seen heavy fighting. Arguably the lack of American combat experience was a significant issue in their first engagements with the Germans, resulting in the terrible belting they suffered at Kasserine Pass. They improved quickly though, through Africa and Italy. By the time US troops had landed in France, they'd seen heavy fighting.
The best pilot of the war and the one pilot who still has the most kills and combat missions of any pilot in military history was in the Luftwaffe, he was on the Eastern Front and they still lost.
We had a lot more people and enough airpower and sea power to bombard the landing zones for the respective landings. The US however missed their landing zone and fought against non-bombarded targets.
A group of rangers climbed up a cliffside to disable German guns and when they reached them they found out it was only a bunch of telephone poles and camo netting.
The Russians built tank traps composed of a large ditch with all of the dirt from the ditch piled up into a long mound on the opposite end. They also used the fake weapon emplacement idea and tricked the Germans.
It's odd how one side will use a tactic such as fake weapon emplacements and be fooled by the same exact tactic when another side uses it.
halonachos wrote:They may be considered military personnel(mainly for Geneva Convention policies) but they are typically civilians...
If they're considered military, then they are military. They're even subject to the UCMJ during wartime, if I recall correctly.
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halonachos wrote:
It's odd how one side will use a tactic such as fake weapon emplacements and be fooled by the same exact tactic when another side uses it.
Today we have high-resolution satellite imagery and we still have a hard time discerning a water treatment plant from a nuclear facility, or a chemical weapons facility from a medication factory.
Reconnaissance is tricky, and more often than not influenced by the political designs of the people controlling the actual soldiers, be they generals or politicians.
@ whoever. Must people always think in absolutes? Example: The fact that I pointed out that a merchant marine navy could constitute some captured and compelled shipping does not de facto mean it ALL is, and thus saying that the whole effort would rely on compelled shipping is just daft. The Normandy beaches were manned IN PLACES by compelled Russians and the like. Nobody thinks that everybody on the beaches in a German uniform was a Pole though, so why apply that daftness to this conversation?
Also, it is in no way "nonsense" that Hitlers dislike, disnterest or distrust of various military arms had a major effect on policy. The whole system of the Reich was set up on a confusing and adversarial basis, and different groups waxed or waned in popularity based as much on Adolfs whim as anything else.
Having got that aside..I'm quite happy to discuss the actual problems of mounting a seaborne assault on the US by anyone at all, whether it is Germany, China, the Former Republic of Whatchamacallit or Bolivia. No problem with that at all. Its just a little difficult to focus on that when people keep interjecting with "The USA wins because it is best at everything" arguments that don't hold water. You want to award a win to the US in a theoretical situation based on possibilities then go ahead, but don't do it because "Texans are Hard" or "US Army is Best Army."
I don't recall ever saying Germany would "win" at it either. I was just pointing out the potential for making the attempt and how that might come about.
I've only read the first few pages but this is my opinion, the reasons towards the defeat of Hitler in world war II is due to a combined efforts from all the allied nations (and the insanity that was pre-WW2 Germany), it doesn't matter how much or how little - every piece of contribution counted towards the victory in WW2. Now, i personally believe that propaganda was the biggest victor in WW1 and WW2.
Incidentally, having quickly scanned that article Frazz posted:
Lets be fair here, those are allied suggestions for potential invasions, not axis ones. Thus the silliness or unlikelihood of such plans belongs to the author.
"I've invented a silly plan to invade the states. Aren't the Germans stupid thinking that would work?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll expand on previous: The response to most things here is "The American Fleet would sink yadda yadda." but it never gets any further. Maybe it would, but WHY would it? What exactly did the American Atlantic fleet consist of in 1939, 41, 44 or any point in between and why? Did they actually HAVE "four carriers" in the Atlantic at any point, or were they all in the Pacific? If they were, why were they? Did the US Navy ever engage any elements of the Kriegsmarine other than U-Boats, and what was the outcome?
Its the detail that makes this interesting. "American Navy is best Navy" is just dull.
Plus there are unintended probalems with going through South America. In addition to the fact you could never take an army via land throuh the Amazon, once you get there all those young men might get a bit distracted by the local flaura and fauna.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Incidentally, having quickly scanned that article Frazz posted:
Lets be fair here, those are allied suggestions for potential invasions, not axis ones. Thus the silliness or unlikelihood of such plans belongs to the author.
"I've invented a silly plan to invade the states. Aren't the Germans stupid thinking that would work?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll expand on previous: The response to most things here is "The American Fleet would sink yadda yadda." but it never gets any further. Maybe it would, but WHY would it? What exactly did the American Atlantic fleet consist of in 1939, 41, 44 or any point in between and why? Did they actually HAVE "four carriers" in the Atlantic at any point, or were they all in the Pacific? If they were, why were they? Did the US Navy ever engage any elements of the Kriegsmarine other than U-Boats, and what was the outcome?
Its the detail that makes this interesting. "American Navy is best Navy" is just dull.
The proponents of the US Navy is the Best Navy (ie me) can make the statement because it was better than the German Navy because:
*It was larger
*It was more technologically advanced
*It had a 200 year track record.
*It then went on to become the most powerful wartime navy in history, even though it was a secondary priority in the war effort.
And this was during peacetime. Germany had none of these things. Germany has never won a naval battle...ever.
In this scenario the US doesn't have to be the best in the world, just better than Germany.
Have your scenario options involve continuing the war in the USSR which means everything is delayed past the point of nukes, or alternatively that Germany has somehow gained all the merchant shipping of Europe, and then looses it upon the USA in soem really slow surprise attack. Thats great. Then what? You still have to defeat the US Navy, completely and utterly, or else whatever you managed to get across the pond are dead dogs.
Frazzled wrote:Plus there are unintended probalems with going through South America. In addition to the fact you could never take an army via land throuh the Amazon, once you get there all those young men might get a bit distracted by the local flaura and fauna.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Incidentally, having quickly scanned that article Frazz posted:
Lets be fair here, those are allied suggestions for potential invasions, not axis ones. Thus the silliness or unlikelihood of such plans belongs to the author.
"I've invented a silly plan to invade the states. Aren't the Germans stupid thinking that would work?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll expand on previous: The response to most things here is "The American Fleet would sink yadda yadda." but it never gets any further. Maybe it would, but WHY would it? What exactly did the American Atlantic fleet consist of in 1939, 41, 44 or any point in between and why? Did they actually HAVE "four carriers" in the Atlantic at any point, or were they all in the Pacific? If they were, why were they? Did the US Navy ever engage any elements of the Kriegsmarine other than U-Boats, and what was the outcome?
Its the detail that makes this interesting. "American Navy is best Navy" is just dull.
The proponents of the US Navy is the Best Navy (ie me) can make the statement because it was better than the German Navy because:
*It was larger
*It was more technologically advanced
*It had a 200 year track record.
*It then went on to become the most powerful wartime navy in history, even though it was a secondary priority in the war effort.
And this was during peacetime. Germany had none of these things. Germany has never won a naval battle...ever.
In this scenario the US doesn't have to be the best in the world, just better than Germany.
Have your scenario options involve continuing the war in the USSR which means everything is delayed past the point of nukes, or alternatively that Germany has somehow gained all the merchant shipping of Europe, and then looses it upon the USA in soem really slow surprise attack. Thats great. Then what? You still have to defeat the US Navy, completely and utterly, or else whatever you managed to get across the pond are dead dogs.
Even the "silly plan" post covers Japan and Germany achieving naval superiority together. "It was larger" does not cover such issues as "where it is." and "How does it get to where it needs to be." I may have a bigger gun than you, but if its in my grans house 200 miles away, I'm still going to lose that firefight. "What it will become in later years" is a bit irrelevant. As for its track record... hmm. Go on, surprise me with some of the engagements pre-ww2 that the US Navy was in? Also, what are you defining as a "battle" in this context? Jutland-style "battles" were outdated at Jutland. Does the Kriegsmarine have to have won a dreadnought face-off to be able to win some other form of conflict?
Frazzled wrote:
Germany has never won a naval battle...ever.
They clearly won the first battle of Narvik, arguably won Jutland, and then there's Operation Albion.
First Narvik really? Getting A load of your destroyers shot to pieces ,loosing valuable supply ships and then being bottled at the mercy of the Royal Navy a victory? The whole Narvik saga cost Germany most of its destroyer fleet, without these any attempt at an invasion of Britain became even more suicidal.
Jutland? Getting out maneuvered then running away to spend the rest of the war in port as the Royal Navy blockaded Germany, no victory to be had there.
Germany has won many Naval encounters but not those two.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Also, it is in no way "nonsense" that Hitlers dislike, disnterest or distrust of various military arms had a major effect on policy. The whole system of the Reich was set up on a confusing and adversarial basis, and different groups waxed or waned in popularity based as much on Adolfs whim as anything else.
No, it is absolute nonsense. You can talk all you like about Hitler not liking boats and use that to speculate that he didn't build a fleet because of it. But the plain and simple fact is that Hitler's plans called for an immense scaling up of the German navy. I gave you figures for the expansion of the German navy called for under Hitler. Plainly, simply, and absolutely, he wanted a much greater navy, despite any story you might have heard about Hitler not liking to be on a boat. If you pretend otherwise you are choosing to be ignorant.
Having got that aside..I'm quite happy to discuss the actual problems of mounting a seaborne assault on the US by anyone at all, whether it is Germany, China, the Former Republic of Whatchamacallit or Bolivia. No problem with that at all. Its just a little difficult to focus on that when people keep interjecting with "The USA wins because it is best at everything" arguments that don't hold water. You want to award a win to the US in a theoretical situation based on possibilities then go ahead, but don't do it because "Texans are Hard" or "US Army is Best Army."
I don't recall ever saying Germany would "win" at it either. I was just pointing out the potential for making the attempt and how that might come about.
And I've been pointing out that it would be an almost impossible undertaking. I've pointed out the Germans had few transport capabilities. I've pointed out that even the most optimistic ship construction failed to match US strength before the war started (let alone what they produced during the war, let alone what they might have produced if the naval defence of the USA actually became a priority.
At no point have I relied on "the USA wins because it is best at everything". Instead I've relied on the relative strengths of the two navies and the capacity to expand them, and on the difficulties of making and sustaining a seaborne invasion.
And you've done everything you can to ignore this.
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cpt_fishcakes wrote:Jutland? Getting out maneuvered then running away to spend the rest of the war in port as the Royal Navy blockaded Germany, no victory to be had there.
Germany has won many Naval encounters but not those two.
Despite having significantly fewer resources available for Jutland, the Germans sunk more ships (in total was almost twice the tonnage sunk by the British), and inflicted more than twice as many casualties. More importantly, the British failed to force any kind of meaningful engagement with the Germans, and despite their overwhelming superiority the battle meant that the superior British fleet was forced to spend the rest of the war nullifying the German fleet, instead of aiding in the war.
When you go into a battle with superior forces, and lose more ships and more men and completely fail to achieve your objectives, that's a loss.
I'll give you Narvik, though. That seems to me to be a pretty clear win for the raiding British force, despite the losses taken when they withdrew.
cpt_fishcakes wrote:
First Narvik really? Getting A load of your destroyers shot to pieces ,loosing valuable supply ships and then being bottled at the mercy of the Royal Navy a victory?
They held control of the harbor, I consider that more important in this instance.
cpt_fishcakes wrote:
Jutland? Getting out maneuvered then running away to spend the rest of the war in port as the Royal Navy blockaded Germany, no victory to be had there.
Outmaneuvered? Jelicoe crossed Scheer's T twice, but both times Scheer reacted well and minimized the damage; laudable given the conditions on the North Sea at the time (short sight lines).
A much smaller, and more poorly equipped German fleet sank nearly twice the tonnage of its British counterpart. The British held the North Sea, but they didn't win the battle, and the general position is that neither side gained the upper hand; which as why I noted that its an arguable victory, because there are many arguments over it.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Also, it is in no way "nonsense" that Hitlers dislike, disnterest or distrust of various military arms had a major effect on policy. The whole system of the Reich was set up on a confusing and adversarial basis, and different groups waxed or waned in popularity based as much on Adolfs whim as anything else.
No, it is absolute nonsense. You can talk all you like about Hitler not liking boats and use that to speculate that he didn't build a fleet because of it. But the plain and simple fact is that Hitler's plans called for an immense scaling up of the German navy. I gave you figures for the expansion of the German navy called for under Hitler. Plainly, simply, and absolutely, he wanted a much greater navy, despite any story you might have heard about Hitler not liking to be on a boat. If you pretend otherwise you are choosing to be ignorant.
Having got that aside..I'm quite happy to discuss the actual problems of mounting a seaborne assault on the US by anyone at all, whether it is Germany, China, the Former Republic of Whatchamacallit or Bolivia. No problem with that at all. Its just a little difficult to focus on that when people keep interjecting with "The USA wins because it is best at everything" arguments that don't hold water. You want to award a win to the US in a theoretical situation based on possibilities then go ahead, but don't do it because "Texans are Hard" or "US Army is Best Army."
I don't recall ever saying Germany would "win" at it either. I was just pointing out the potential for making the attempt and how that might come about.
And I've been pointing out that it would be an almost impossible undertaking. I've pointed out the Germans had few transport capabilities. I've pointed out that even the most optimistic ship construction failed to match US strength before the war started (let alone what they produced during the war, let alone what they might have produced if the naval defence of the USA actually became a priority.
At no point have I relied on "the USA wins because it is best at everything". Instead I've relied on the relative strengths of the two navies and the capacity to expand them, and on the difficulties of making and sustaining a seaborne invasion.
And you've done everything you can to ignore this.
Hitler wanted a more powerful everything. And when any given arm of service failed him (in his perception), they started to get the gakky end of the stick. Well documented fact, not "nonsense"...unless you are thinking in absolutes again, where one example is all examples. To clarify..Hitlers lack of knowledge and interest in Naval affairs was a contributing factor to the waning ability of the Kriegsmarine in any area other than U-Boats. Not the ONLY factor. Him wanting a Navy capable of taking on the British fleet does not reflect anything about him liking ships, or understanding them, nor favouring them over his other projects. The best part of German Naval production ended up wrapped around an engine and a KwK, or flying over London.
Never said YOU were using the "America is Best" argument. But it has been deployed several times, without any real evidence (until the last page or so, where the discussion has rightly moved to looking at Naval capabilities in a bit of detail.) So, if repeatedly asking people to go into a bit more detail about American Naval deployments in the Atlantic is "ignoring this" then you have a curious take on "ignoring".
Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles? Whilst I'm sure that sailing ships and upturned bathtubs of armour plate with zero freeboard were used with great vigour and panache, I'm not sure that its really indicative of how well a WW2 navy might fare against another Navy of the same period.
Frazzled wrote:Plus we kicked the ass of the French in the Quasi War, but hey who hasn't?
Is that what you call, as claimed by some, the seizure of upwards of a thousand of our merchant ships?
Privateers aren't military, they're basically pirates who take a small portion of their income from the state because "Why not?" their primary sustenance came from pillage rights, which were best exercised when taking merchant ships. When fighting military, or anyone with guns really, they tended to surrender outright or flee.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles? Whilst I'm sure that sailing ships and upturned bathtubs of armour plate with zero freeboard were used with great vigour and panache, I'm not sure that its really indicative of how well a WW2 navy might fare against another Navy of the same period.
We don't have to. It occurred, against a better opponent. It was called the Pacific Theater.
Pacific Theater. Yes, I've heard of that. That's the one where the whole Pacific Fleet nearly got sunk in dock in a "surprise" attack halfway through a global war. So, starting well there.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Pacific Theater. Yes, I've heard of that. That's the one where the whole Pacific Fleet nearly got sunk in dock in a "surprise" attack halfway through a global war. So, starting well there.
You're not well versed on your history are you, or is two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer and two destroyers the entire US fleet
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Pacific Theater. Yes, I've heard of that. That's the one where the whole Pacific Fleet nearly got sunk in dock in a "surprise" attack halfway through a global war. So, starting well there.
You're not well versed on your history are you, or is two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer and two destroyers the entire US fleet
Funny thing is that Pearl Harbor was a disaster for the Japanese. They failed their main objective of destroying the Pacific fleet, lacked a good exit strategy, and overall just ended up making a mess of things.
Because letting your fleet get sunk en masse with virtually no retaliation is an amazing win for the US?
Automatically Appended Next Post: No, wait. I can see where this is going. Now people are going to start selling one of the most famous of military cock-ups after the Charge of the Light Brigade as some amazing American "win".
It wasn't a win, but most of the fleet was actually out to sea when Pearl Harbor occured. The Japanese attack failed their objective of knocking out the US fleet and instead just caused the rate of enlistment to increase.
navy.mil wrote:They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbor. They neglected to damage the shoreside facilities at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, which played an important role in the Allied victory in World War II. American technological skill raised and repaired all but three of the ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor (the USS Arizona (BB-39) considered too badly damaged to be salvaged, the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) raised and considered too old to be worth repairing, and the obsolete USS Utah (AG-16) considered not worth the effort). Most importantly, the shock and anger caused by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor united a divided nation and was translated into a wholehearted commitment to victory in World War II.
Compare that to the Battle of Midway where the goal was still to destroy the enemy carriers. The US sunk every single carrier in that battle while losing two I believe.
In fact the tally goes:
USA destroyed 4 carriers, the Japanese destroyed 1 carrier. The big difference, America had carriers in their fleet after the battle while the Japanese had none. Overall the Japanese failed in their goal to destroy the US Pacific Fleet due to their failure at Pearl Harbor.
"They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbour"
See that bit about "luck"? That right there is one of the point of divergence I mentioned earlier. Sheer blind luck prevents the US losing its Pacific Carrier ability.
Also, slightly more relevant to where I was going, if the Japanese nearly managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet by surprise, why is it so very very unfeasible that a Germany similarly intent on attacking the US would not be able to achieve a similar surprise. After all, the US knew that the Japanese were belligerent and equipped for war and they still got caught with their collective pants down. How is it then that people believe that a US aware of a Germany equipping for Naval supremacy and intent on belligerence would be capable of predicting the same sort of attack on the Atlantic coast? Have the US Atlantic Fleet got access to RADAR that stays on all day? Are they paying more attention to their approaches than the Blue Water bluejobs did?
Because 1, by luck for the Japanese there was a flight of B-17's returning to Pearl Harbor. Had there been no scheduled return of a flight of bombers the radar signals would've been heeded.
Also, Japan had been an ally in the last world war unlike Germany so maybe an attack was deemed unlikely although probable.
Second, Japan got lucky once again. The commanding officer of the Pearl Harbor forces had the crews clump all grounded planes together out of fear of sabotage, had the planes been spread out they would've been harder targets.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Hitler wanted a more powerful everything. And when any given arm of service failed him (in his perception), they started to get the gakky end of the stick. Well documented fact, not "nonsense"...unless you are thinking in absolutes again, where one example is all examples.To clarify..Hitlers lack of knowledge and interest in Naval affairs was a contributing factor to the waning ability of the Kriegsmarine in any area other than U-Boats. Not the ONLY factor.
No, the basic fact that Germany was locked in a land war and very much needed to prioritise other areas, and that the ships the Germans had put out to sea were entirely ineffective in threatening British shipping or gaining control of any regions of sea.
This is a basic and clear thing. Hitler came to power. Hitler made plans , and built some vessels towards that aim. The heavy capital ships and other over-water vessels were entirely ineffective in threatening British shipping, while the u-boats initially showed good results, and so the latter was given more priority. The war dragged resources away, and the Kriegsmarine dropped down in priority compared to sustaining the war in the East. In the lack of German naval strength comes from the plain, simple reality that their strategic needs were focused on land power.
Trying to explain any part of that by hyper-focusing on an entirely trivial personality trait of Hitler is a very silly way to approach history.
Never said YOU were using the "America is Best" argument. But it has been deployed several times, without any real evidence (until the last page or so, where the discussion has rightly moved to looking at Naval capabilities in a bit of detail.) So, if repeatedly asking people to go into a bit more detail about American Naval deployments in the Atlantic is "ignoring this" then you have a curious take on "ignoring".
Yeah, I never did. But you just complained about those people, and then set about ignoring the figures I gave you for relative German and US naval strength, and showed that even the most ambitious plan for German naval strength in their history (whether or not Hitler disliked ships) didn't match US strength in 1938, never mind coming close to the scale of the US naval build up during the war.
So there was an actual substantial argument, that showed your initial premise to be wrong. And you're ignoring it.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles?
I gave you the number of military ships, with capital ships listed seperately. You're still ignoring it.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Pacific Theater. Yes, I've heard of that. That's the one where the whole Pacific Fleet nearly got sunk in dock in a "surprise" attack halfway through a global war. So, starting well there.
Yeah, they got outsmarted and beaten, and suffered a setback right there at the start of the war.
Despite it, they went on to defeat the Japanese in the Coral Sea just six months later, and then inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese just another month later.
That the US enetered the war in the wake of a crippling defeat at Pearl Harbour, and had turned the tables utterly just seven months later is an immense credit to the quality of their naval power.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Because letting your fleet get sunk en masse with virtually no retaliation is an amazing win for the US?
Automatically Appended Next Post: No, wait. I can see where this is going. Now people are going to start selling one of the most famous of military cock-ups after the Charge of the Light Brigade as some amazing American "win".
Say you're now thinking like the Japanese. If the Germans thought like that in your operation Boondoggle, they'd end up in a world of hurt.
-The Japanese attacked before war was declared.
-The Japanese mistook a single major battle as how to do it. Even the promogenitor of the plan thought it was stupid and would lead to the USA just going apeshit.
-Single battles are so 18th century. The USA turned naval conflict into a matter of industrial production, combined with superior technology, and superior skillsets.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:"They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbour"
See that bit about "luck"? That right there is one of the point of divergence I mentioned earlier. Sheer blind luck prevents the US losing its Pacific Carrier ability.
Also, slightly more relevant to where I was going, if the Japanese nearly managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet by surprise, why is it so very very unfeasible that a Germany similarly intent on attacking the US would not be able to achieve a similar surprise. After all, the US knew that the Japanese were belligerent and equipped for war and they still got caught with their collective pants down. How is it then that people believe that a US aware of a Germany equipping for Naval supremacy and intent on belligerence would be capable of predicting the same sort of attack on the Atlantic coast? Have the US Atlantic Fleet got access to RADAR that stays on all day? Are they paying more attention to their approaches than the Blue Water bluejobs did?
Some of the major US victories in the Pacific
-Coral Sea - draw
-Iron Bottom Sound Campaign (Guadalcanal campaign)
-Midway
-Marianas Turkey Shoot
-Leyte Gulf
I'm sorry, as you're the proponenht of Operation Hogan's Heroes, where exactly have the Germans demonstrated naval capacity in any form? Its incumbent on you to prove they could do something, not the us. You haven't proven the Germans could even take the British Navy, much less the US Navy, much less build the capacity to invade cross ocean-something never done.
Am new to the topic, have skimmed it, but nevertheless, if I repeat something that's already been said, sorry.
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@Frazzled: So what if the Japanese didn't bother declaring war? [insert sarcasm here]Its not as if an attack on a habour is friendly, now, is it? [/insert sarcasm here] You are correct, however, on their "style".
Anyway, the Third Reich wouldn't have won, as hitler was an imbecilic and inexperienced commander, but still insisted that he was not.
Amontadillo wrote:Am new to the topic, have skimmed it, but nevertheless, if I repeat something that's already been said, sorry.
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@Frazzled: So what if the Japanese didn't bother declaring war? [insert sarcasm here]Its not as if an attack on a habour is friendly, now, is it? [/insert sarcasm here] You are correct, however, on their "style".
Anyway, the Third Reich wouldn't have won, as hitler was an imbecilic and inexperienced commander, but still insisted that he was not.
By not declaring war you're attacking someon who's not aware there's a war on, essentually you're mugging that person. I'd proffer the Germans would not have had the same advantage, as US ships were already killing German sailors in 1941. Our destroyer and cruiser nets were screening convoys out to the middle of the Atlantic. Now you can change events to where that wasn't occurring, but frankly you can change events to where the US doesn't exist, but it doesn't help the claim.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Hitler wanted a more powerful everything. And when any given arm of service failed him (in his perception), they started to get the gakky end of the stick. Well documented fact, not "nonsense"...unless you are thinking in absolutes again, where one example is all examples.To clarify..Hitlers lack of knowledge and interest in Naval affairs was a contributing factor to the waning ability of the Kriegsmarine in any area other than U-Boats. Not the ONLY factor.
No, the basic fact that Germany was locked in a land war and very much needed to prioritise other areas, and that the ships the Germans had put out to sea were entirely ineffective in threatening British shipping or gaining control of any regions of sea.
This is a basic and clear thing. Hitler came to power. Hitler made plans , and built some vessels towards that aim. The heavy capital ships and other over-water vessels were entirely ineffective in threatening British shipping, while the u-boats initially showed good results, and so the latter was given more priority. The war dragged resources away, and the Kriegsmarine dropped down in priority compared to sustaining the war in the East. In the lack of German naval strength comes from the plain, simple reality that their strategic needs were focused on land power.
Trying to explain any part of that by hyper-focusing on an entirely trivial personality trait of Hitler is a very silly way to approach history.
Never said YOU were using the "America is Best" argument. But it has been deployed several times, without any real evidence (until the last page or so, where the discussion has rightly moved to looking at Naval capabilities in a bit of detail.) So, if repeatedly asking people to go into a bit more detail about American Naval deployments in the Atlantic is "ignoring this" then you have a curious take on "ignoring".
Yeah, I never did. But you just complained about those people, and then set about ignoring the figures I gave you for relative German and US naval strength, and showed that even the most ambitious plan for German naval strength in their history (whether or not Hitler disliked ships) didn't match US strength in 1938, never mind coming close to the scale of the US naval build up during the war.
So there was an actual substantial argument, that showed your initial premise to be wrong. And you're ignoring it.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles?
I gave you the number of military ships, with capital ships listed seperately. You're still ignoring it.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:Pacific Theater. Yes, I've heard of that. That's the one where the whole Pacific Fleet nearly got sunk in dock in a "surprise" attack halfway through a global war. So, starting well there.
Yeah, they got outsmarted and beaten, and suffered a setback right there at the start of the war.
Despite it, they went on to defeat the Japanese in the Coral Sea just six months later, and then inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese just another month later.
That the US enetered the war in the wake of a crippling defeat at Pearl Harbour, and had turned the tables utterly just seven months later is an immense credit to the quality of their naval power.
Hyper-focusing? The only person with a problem hyper-focusing appears to be you. The very act of stating that something is a part of, but not the whole reason for an event or happening is the opposite of hyper-focusing. As for not threatening shipping.. I seem to recall a boat called Tirpitz that caused a hell of a lot of effort to be expended against her without ever leaving dock. There is a substantial list of hardware used to chase its sister craft as well. Gaining control of oceans, no, but disrupting life for other people? Plenty of that.
As for the rest: Yes, you did, and very interesting your contribution is too. Maybe when we put some of the utterly stupid suggestions to rest, I might get half a chance to actually go through what you posted in detail. And as part of my original premise is based on the possibility of a German "Pearl", I'd quite like to start at the top, and get a feasible answer for why the Atlantic Fleet is quicker on the uptake than the Pacific one.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Because letting your fleet get sunk en masse with virtually no retaliation is an amazing win for the US?
Automatically Appended Next Post: No, wait. I can see where this is going. Now people are going to start selling one of the most famous of military cock-ups after the Charge of the Light Brigade as some amazing American "win".
Say you're now thinking like the Japanese. If the Germans thought like that in your operation Boondoggle, they'd end up in a world of hurt.
-The Japanese attacked before war was declared.
-The Japanese mistook a single major battle as how to do it. Even the promogenitor of the plan thought it was stupid and would lead to the USA just going apeshit.
-Single battles are so 18th century. The USA turned naval conflict into a matter of industrial production, combined with superior technology, and superior skillsets.
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ArbeitsSchu wrote:"They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbour"
See that bit about "luck"? That right there is one of the point of divergence I mentioned earlier. Sheer blind luck prevents the US losing its Pacific Carrier ability.
Also, slightly more relevant to where I was going, if the Japanese nearly managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet by surprise, why is it so very very unfeasible that a Germany similarly intent on attacking the US would not be able to achieve a similar surprise. After all, the US knew that the Japanese were belligerent and equipped for war and they still got caught with their collective pants down. How is it then that people believe that a US aware of a Germany equipping for Naval supremacy and intent on belligerence would be capable of predicting the same sort of attack on the Atlantic coast? Have the US Atlantic Fleet got access to RADAR that stays on all day? Are they paying more attention to their approaches than the Blue Water bluejobs did?
Some of the major US victories in the Pacific
-Coral Sea - draw
-Iron Bottom Sound Campaign (Guadalcanal campaign)
-Midway
-Marianas Turkey Shoot
-Leyte Gulf
I'm sorry, as you're the proponenht of Operation Hogan's Heroes, where exactly have the Germans demonstrated naval capacity in any form? Its incumbent on you to prove they could do something, not the us. You haven't proven the Germans could even take the British Navy, much less the US Navy, much less build the capacity to invade cross ocean-something never done.
Attacking before war is declared is called "a surprise". So a German Pearl is one that happens without a declaration of war. Thus "a surprise". But you're still not giving up an answer as to why exactly an attack in the atlantic "by surprise" would not create at least the same result? The Japanese got a hit in first and it caught the Americans unawares. But Germany could make the same attempt and America would magically know about it and be able to stop it, despite using the same equipment, training, ship classes and so on?
I seem to recall so many days ago that one of the suggested premises for Germany to attempt an invasion of the US was predicated on two events. The first is the US not entering into the "Lend-Lease" agreement, and instead simply peddling arms at standard prices, and for Germany to have defeated the UK by controlling access to the Suez canal and the surrounding areas (to simplify it a very great deal.) which doesn't require "taking" the Royal Navy as such. It requires only a relatively small increase in tonnage of supplies to Africa to tilt the balance. In reality, this never happened, and the DAK operated on a shoestring, and missed out on perfectly adequate opportunities. (Hitler and the OKW thought Africa was a sideshow and not worth the effort, but according to Sebster the whims of Hitler are apparently not important to the progress of the war historically.) But the alternative is that the Germans do in fact take Egypt and Suez, forcing the UK to supply itself around the cape, or become utterly reliant on lend-lease or its predecessor, or the capabilities of Canada. Germany obtains control of yet another oil-rich area of the world, and very nearly a direct link to their allies to boot. With British influence in the Med reduced to Gibraltar, Crete and Malta (and we know what happened to Crete) the Italians have a much freer hand expanding their own empire across Africa. Such overwhelming axis power there could easily lead to a domino effect in the middle east, which could see Turkey actually taking a side in favour of the Axis. Certainly this puts extra pressure on Russia and the Balkans, freeing up German military forces otherwise occupied there. (And in the course of things allowing Germany to obtain Moscow.)
India, cut off from the UK, is even less well supplied than it actually was. Pressured on one side by Japan, and facing increasing overtures of possible liberation and independence from the UK with German help, India enjoy another mutiny.
Back to the UK. Now effectively cut off from the greater part of the Dominion, the UK must then decide whether it is capable of opposing the Reich in Europe at all. At this juncture, with its armed forces greatly reduced by the loss of Indian troops and its huge losses in Africa, and no free gear from the states to support it, is it really so unfeasible that Parliament might decide against continuing the war?
The next phase rather depends on Parliament, and what demands are made for a surrender, peace or armistice. In some scenarios, the Royal Navy ends up holed up in Scapa being shelled like the French at Dakar. In others it ends up neatly neutralized by terms. Either way, it ends up "defeated"...
Lets assume that the surrender terms lead to a German occupation of the UK. We roll around to where I started days ago, with Germany in control of most of Europe, and well on the way to nailing Russia completely, with substantial access to "floating stock", industry, facilities and what-have you. So the US is faced with a substantial potentially belligerent western neighbour, busy successfully empire building, but not yet at war with the US of A. Just like it was by Japan on the other front. Now explain to me why a surprise attack from the west is any less likely to catch America by surprise?
(None of what I have listed is unfeasible or unlikely or outside the realms of likelihood. In many cases what I have postulated is what would have occurred if certain battles or campaigns had gone the other way. In most cases prevention of the possible events are a great part why the UK was engaged in the damn war with Germany to start with. (Yes Sebs, there were other reasons. Try not to hyper-focus.))
Because Russia had the ability to smash the Germans on their own. If the germans managed to fight their way across the European and then Asian continet they now have a lot of land under their control, land that is still hostile to them and must be policed. So not only do you need more forces to invade you also need more forces to police the conquered territory.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Hyper-focusing? The only person with a problem hyper-focusing appears to be you. The very act of stating that something is a part of, but not the whole reason for an event or happening is the opposite of hyper-focusing.
Not if you mention that one detail alone, and ignore the vast wealth of evidence that directly contradicts it. Hitler planned for Germany to have a vastly greater fleet than it was practical or useful for it to build. That's the exact opposite of not liking ships.
As for not threatening shipping.. I seem to recall a boat called Tirpitz that caused a hell of a lot of effort to be expended against her without ever leaving dock. There is a substantial list of hardware used to chase its sister craft as well. Gaining control of oceans, no, but disrupting life for other people? Plenty of that.
Are you going to claim the Bismarck or the Tirpitz produced results for Germany that justified the vast resources put into them? Despite the Bismarck sinking the Hood, it achieved little to actually disrupt shipping, and spent the time after the battle with the Hood and Prince of Wales fleeing from British ships. Despite more success against the British ships than one could ever hope for, they were still incapable of completing the main objective of disrupting shipping convoys in the Atlantic.
That's the plain and simple fact of the state of naval power in the Atlantic. Despite being excellent ships, the likes of the Bismarck and the Tirpitz were incapable of threatening British shipping in any serious, sustained fashion. They could win skirmishes here and there, and the threat of a suicide run by the Tirpitz into the midst of the D-day landings was enough of a threat to justify bombing the thing, but none of that was ever worth the cost of all those resources used to build it in the first place. As such, the Nazis made the simple and obvious decision to abandon the silliness of raids of surface ships and instead restrict raiding to submarines. They ceded the surface of the water to the US and the UK.
As for the rest: Yes, you did, and very interesting your contribution is too.
It isn't just interesting. It is the plain and simple answer to your hypothetical. The Germans lacked the seapower, even at maximum theoretical construction, to match the scale of the US navy in 1938. Let alone the US navy under wartime production. Let alone the US navy if the US was actually under threat of seaborne invasion.
You haven't tried to argue against that, your statement above is the closest we've got to you actually recognising I made the point at all. I think this is because you haven't been able to argue against it, but haven't been honest enough to admit the facts I presented sink your hypothetical entirely.
Look, it is okay to accept that your hypothetical wasn't really possible. I assumed my original position on the difficulty of seaborne invasion over an ocean and it wasn't until I looked up the numbers on surface ships that the difference in capability of the two nations became so clear. Basically, there's nothing wrong with having started this conversation on the wrong side, but there's a whole lot wrong with continuing to insist you have a reasonable case, when plainly you do not.
And as part of my original premise is based on the possibility of a German "Pearl", I'd quite like to start at the top, and get a feasible answer for why the Atlantic Fleet is quicker on the uptake than the Pacific one.
You can give them their own version of Pearl Harbour. In the war Pearl Harbour gave the Japanese some measure of free reign for seven months, at the end of which they were utterly defeated and never able to counter US ships moving where they wanted, when they wanted, building to their own invasion. In your example, you'd be taking the Japanese fleet, which itself was more capable than the German fleet, and you'd be tasking them not with the far simpler job of preventing US operations, but the far more difficult task of mouting a seaborne invasion across the Atlantic.
Frazzled wrote:
By not declaring war you're attacking someon who's not aware there's a war on, essentually you're mugging that person.
So? War is war.
Except of course we had our fleet actually killing Germans at the time, and not in port having no clue that the Japanese government was sadly in need of anger management classes. Its much harder to surprise us when there are ships and planes actively trying to kill the other side already.
Frazzled wrote:By not declaring war you're attacking someon who's not aware there's a war on, essentually you're mugging that person. I'd proffer the Germans would not have had the same advantage, as US ships were already killing German sailors in 1941. Our destroyer and cruiser nets were screening convoys out to the middle of the Atlantic. Now you can change events to where that wasn't occurring, but frankly you can change events to where the US doesn't exist, but it doesn't help the claim.
We've had this conversation before, this doesn't happen until April '42.
Frazzled wrote:Except of course we had our fleet actually killing Germans at the time, and not in port having no clue that the Japanese government was sadly in need of anger management classes. Its much harder to surprise us when there are ships and planes actively trying to kill the other side already.
I'm confused, if this is the case why this the documentary film by Michael Baysplosion called 'Pearl Harbor' and not 'In the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean'?
Frazzled wrote:By not declaring war you're attacking someon who's not aware there's a war on, essentually you're mugging that person. I'd proffer the Germans would not have had the same advantage, as US ships were already killing German sailors in 1941. Our destroyer and cruiser nets were screening convoys out to the middle of the Atlantic. Now you can change events to where that wasn't occurring, but frankly you can change events to where the US doesn't exist, but it doesn't help the claim.
We've had this conversation before, this doesn't happen until April '42.
Except of course, you're wrong.
Either the casualties inflicted on USS Kearny by U-boat U-568 on October 17, 1941, or the sinking of the USS Reuben James by U-552 on October 31, 1941 might be considered the first American naval losses of World War II. The United States was neither officially involved in the war at the time nor did the incidents cause them to declare war. By coincidence, the Niblack was in the same convoy as the Reuben James when the Reuben James was sunk and picked up survivors from the Reuben James.
Neutrality PatrolFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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U.S. Navy Vought SBU-1 dive bombers of scouting squadron VS-42 flying the Neutrality Patrol in 1940At the beginning of World War II, when Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 started the hostilities in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately declared the United States’ neutrality.
The Neutrality Patrol, organized on September 4, 1939 as a response to the war in Europe, was ordered to track and report the movements of any warlike operations of belligerents in the waters of the western hemisphere. To augment the fleet units already engaged in the Neutrality Patrol which President Roosevelt had placed around the eastern seaboard and Gulf ports, the United States Navy recommissioned 77 destroyers and light minelayers which had lain in reserve at either Philadelphia or San Diego.
The Neutrality Patrol led to U.S. warships assisting British Royal Navy vessels in convoying merchant shipping across the Atlantic Ocean. This placed U.S. naval personnel at considerable risk, as shown by the sinking of the destroyer USS Reuben James from Convoy HX-156 by U-552 on 31 October 1941.
Either the casualties inflicted on USS Kearny by U-boat U-568 on October 17, 1941, or the sinking of the USS Reuben James by U-552 on October 31, 1941 might be considered the first American naval losses of World War II. The United States was neither officially involved in the war at the time nor did the incidents cause them to declare war. By coincidence, the Niblack was in the same convoy as the Reuben James when the Reuben James was sunk and picked up survivors from the Reuben James.
And this is evidence of US ships killing German sailors how?
77 Destroyers is a pittance for the huge USN (The British home fleet alone contains almost a hundred by comparison) Hardly a major distraction for the (also huge) Pacific fleet.
Sinking of Uboats, declaration that there was a US exclusion zone halfway to GB against "pirates" including Uboats. Yes, thats wuite ehlpful against a sneak attack but the incredibly stealthy German surface fleet.
Frazzled wrote:Sinking of Uboats, declaration that there was a US exclusion zone halfway to GB against "pirates" including Uboats. Yes, thats wuite ehlpful against a sneak attack but the incredibly stealthy German surface fleet.
Again sinkings of U-boats start in April '42. Surface fleet attack? My dog's not in that fight.
Frazzled wrote:Sinking of Uboats, declaration that there was a US exclusion zone halfway to GB against "pirates" including Uboats. Yes, thats wuite ehlpful against a sneak attack but the incredibly stealthy German surface fleet.
Again sinkings of U-boats start in April '42. Surface fleet attack? My dog's not in that fight.
I didn't say they were particularly good at it until later. But they were dropping charges on them prior to December 1941.
Again for purposes of this actual discussion there ere wide ranging ships and aircraft in the Atlantic due to the convoy situation. It would be much more difficult to launch a suprise attack in those environs. AS the Germans had no aircraft carriers, they'd hadve to get into artillery range to do so. Thats suicide when the other side has aircraft, including land based aircraft.
Frazzled wrote:
By not declaring war you're attacking someon who's not aware there's a war on, essentually you're mugging that person.
So? War is war.
Except of course we had our fleet actually killing Germans at the time, and not in port having no clue that the Japanese government was sadly in need of anger management classes. Its much harder to surprise us when there are ships and planes actively trying to kill the other side already.
Yes, but that's the american's fault, not the Japanese. How are they supposed to know you're not ready for them? OH WAIT, that was the whole point of the attack. Oops, my bad.
Back to one of the original topics, what alot of people do not realize is that, one of the main reasons Hitler attackted Russia when he did is because the Soviets were likely preparing a similar attack on him. Everyone assumes that he was simply being stupid or arrogant, but the fact is he knew the same thing that Napolean, Von Schlieffen, and all other leaders did, if a unified Russia is alowed time to mobilize its Military, it becomes unstopabl. Hitler, like napolean, failed to bring the russians to ttheir knees quickly enough, despite coming dangerously close, and retreated in the same humiliating manner. I read about this theory mainly in a book by a prominent WW2 historian in a Nazi Germany history class i took "Hitler's Germany" by Roderick Stackleberg
ArbeitsSchu wrote:Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles? Whilst I'm sure that sailing ships and upturned bathtubs of armour plate with zero freeboard were used with great vigour and panache, I'm not sure that its really indicative of how well a WW2 navy might fare against another Navy of the same period.
You can't disregard previous naval actions entirely just because the state of Naval Warfare evolved. Tradition matters. The US has always had a long standing tradition of sailing, going all the way back to the good ol days of being British colonies. That tradition is evident in the power of the US navy. We had a puny fleet of six frigates in the early years, but those six ships did surprisingly well. Much better than one would expect. They were for the most part well constructed, and even those captured by the Royal Navy had their accomplishments that made them noteworthy.
Germany on the other hand, doesn't really have a standing naval tradition. They never have. They've never been a naval power at any point in history I'm aware of. Tradition isn't a make all break all, but it's not something to be tossed out the window.
The US has a naval tradition, and had one in 1941 that gave it background and experience regardless of whether or not naval warfare had changed. Interestingly, what we lacked was a land war tradition. We won the revolution courtesy of 3000 miles of ocean, the War of 1812 we had our butts kicked, the Civil War was horribly executed from a strategic and operational standpoint, and Mexico and turn of the century spain don't make for very challenging opponents.
You can see how our lacking land war traditions and experience that worked out looking at Tunisia and the rapid build up of our armed forces prior. The US' greastest defense has always been and still is the fact that her immediate neighbors are not threatening to her (sorry Canada) and everyone who is has to cross thousands of miles of open water. That is not an easy obstacle to overcome especially when your landing forces then have to take over one of the largest countries by population and milage in the world. It was nearly impossible just to cross the English Channel in Fortress Europa! Heck, its hard to invade Russia and there isn't a body of water in the way.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:See that bit about "luck"? That right there is one of the point of divergence I mentioned earlier. Sheer blind luck prevents the US losing its Pacific Carrier ability.
My buddy Karl might suggest luck (or rather the unpredictability of war) is an inescapable aspect of warfare that must always be considered.
Also, slightly more relevant to where I was going, if the Japanese nearly managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet by surprise,
No they didn't. They nearly managed to cripple it. American industry would have replaced those ships in short order (which we did, and then we built more). Destroying a fleet is also a separate matter from landing troops on foreign soil. And Germany isn't in the pacific it's in the atlantic. The Atlantic fleet wasn't harbored on an island surrounded by ocean. The operational game is completely different for Germany than Japan.
why is it so very very unfeasible that a Germany similarly intent on attacking the US would not be able to achieve a similar surprise.
In the land of "What if?" It's not entirely unfeasible.
After all, the US knew that the Japanese were belligerent and equipped for war and they still got caught with their collective pants down.
Yeah, we wrote the wrong date down on the calender book. The Japanese "surprise" was averted ruin courtesy of a flight of B-17's. Quite "lucky."
How is it then that people believe that a US aware of a Germany equipping for Naval supremacy and intent on belligerence would be capable of predicting the same sort of attack on the Atlantic coast?
In general in WWII, our interests were always more geared towards the threat of Germany. We were aware of the threat of Japan going back to the 20's (we even predicted with surprising accuracy how the Pacific campaign would play out in strategic and operation war games under the scenario Operation Orange). If Germany were gearing up, it's possible we'd be more attentive to what they were doing. In 1941 we were still reeling from the shock of the Blitz and how to deal with it, anticipating entry into the European theatre.
And yet, with all that surprise, the Japanese still couldn't pull off Taranto 2.0. History isn't so plain. British Ultra failed to predict the Ardennes offensive (or was that the Tunisia counter attack?), but one fowl up isn't indicative of the entirety of Ultra's war time record. Screwing up in one scenario doesn't mean you will in another.
Could Germany have destroyed the Atlantic fleet in a similar manner? In the land of "What if" yes. They could have invaded too. But in the land of "What if" anything is possible and it's really only good for playing around with historical ideas and counter factual exercises. The fact of reality is that no way two weiner dogs in hell was Germany going to achieve anything on a naval front given what they had in WWII. I doubt that even in the "What if" realm, a reasonably probable scenario could be created to allow it let alone an invasion of US soil.
), you are correct to imply that Soviet industrial production had far outstripped German production by.... ehh, I want to say late 43 or early 44. I wish I had my old notes and resources on all this, I would be happy to scan them and put them up. Times like this make me wish the Reicharchives had all their junk on the internet.
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