Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

) 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.

@arbeits,

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.

Because they couldn't cross the channel.

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.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/26571

Frazzled wrote: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.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/26571

Wow, those scenarios are all kinds of mad. I love the bit where the Japanese Fleet sails through the Suez canal.

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.

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.

They may be considered military personnel(mainly for Geneva Convention policies) but they are typically civilians, or in some cases retired military.

Just a thought here.

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.

inquisitor_bob wrote:Just a thought here.

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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

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?

America had a total of 22 carriers during WW2. Eight of them were built before the war.

Then again we really didn't need carriers in the atlantic, we had air stations.

That doesn't include escort carriers built by the US. The amount of them built in WWII is staggering.

Of the 151 aircraft carriers built in the United States during WWII, 122 were escort carriers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_carrier

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.

dogma wrote:

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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

The US won some naval battles during the War of 1812, just about the only thing we won that time around.

We also fought the Barbary Pirates and under Theodore Roosevelt we built a bunch of battleships and sailed them around the world.

Then we also brought Japan out of its isolationist state with some ships.

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.

sebster wrote:

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".

halonachos wrote:The US won some naval battles during the War of 1812, just about the only thing we won that time around.

We also fought the Barbary Pirates and under Theodore Roosevelt we built a bunch of battleships and sailed them around the world.

Then we also brought Japan out of its isolationist state with some ships.

Naval battles during the Spanish American War and US Civil War. Plus we kicked the ass of the French in the Quasi War, but hey who hasn't?