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 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course its "Germany wins". Any speculation about an alternate outcome to WW2 is going in with that assumption. Or at the very least its "How does Germany not lose".

But there's a difference between asking "can Germany win, or at least do better than they did in reality" and assuming that Germany will succeed and granting them every possible advantage while assuming that everyone else does no better than reality (or even worse than in reality). A reasonable question is "if WWII starts a few years later and both sides have their first-generation jet fighters in widespread use is the ME-262 capable of winning the air war". An unreasonable question starts with "assume all German aircraft are magically replaced by ME-262s that are magically better than the real ones, but nobody else gets their jets beyond the prototype stage".

Thats relatively easy intelligence to gather.

No, it really isn't, at least if you want it early enough to matter. To design an interceptor capable of reliably stopping the B-36 (and remember that the definition of "reliable" is "if one B-36 with a nuclear weapon gets through you lose a city") you need to get specific performance data on the B-36 before it goes into mass production. And at that point the specific performance data you need is only going to be known by a few engineers and test pilots, so you can't just magically assume that "intelligence" will get it for you. By the time specific performance data is available to a larger group of people and more likely to leak the B-36 is already in mass production and entering service. And at that point it's too late. Any interceptor based on that late information won't be finished and in widespread service in time to stop an attack that will be coming as soon as the nuclear-armed B-36 squadrons are ready.

 sing your life wrote:
He's not making anything up. The Germans did have plans for improved versions of the V2 that would have had the range to reach targets in mainland america and the Pacific, but it most likely wouldn't have been able to carry a single standard Luftwaffe bomb let alone a full nuclear device.

He said they had ICBMs, not that that they had plans for it. And as for how seriously we should take the plans... well the Soviets had plans for a flying submarine.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
In a hypothetical world where WW2 drags on, the Germans will have ICBMs before anyone else. They will also acquire nuclear weapons, and they will also have fighters capable of attacking B-36s because Hitler won't interfere in the Messerschmidt program.

No, that's total and utter fantasy. Germany started the war a long way behind in the science of the bomb, and it's program was a piddling nonsense compared to the vast program undertaken by the US.

ICBMs are nice, but not necessary when bombers exist. And what advantage they have disappears when you look at the inadequate standards of manufacturing of the much less ambitious V2, and the hopelessly inadequate guidance systems that would have been driving these things.


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 Paradigm wrote:
Well, we know for a fact that he conspired with Hitler to attack Poland simultaneously (a fact often overlooked by the general public), and once there, did commit war crimes that frankly made the Nazis look tame. In the half of Poland that they occupied, the Red Army and NKVD (secret police) basically wiped out the Polish middle and officer classes to keep a proper resistance from forming. It's certain from that* that Stalin had a long-term eye towards expansion in Eastern Europe, though whether or not he planned to launch an offensive into Nazi-held Europe is unknown. Given that the whole aim of these deals with Hitler was to delay the German attack on Russia (as Russia in 38/39/40 would be crushed with ease), I'd say an actual assault on Europe would be unlikely any time before 43+.

I don't think Stalin had a clear date, but '43 is the year that shows up most of the time. Consider the Germany fighting France and Britain for 2.5 to 3 years, then a more modernised Soviet army sweeping through from their territories in Eastern Poland,. Whether it would have worked is up for debate (it's a long way from their much of their industrial base, they'd have to rely on a rail system running on a different rail gauge, and they'd few trucks as there'd be no US lend lease)... so a lot depends on how exhausted each of the allies is by then.

Anything by Beevor is good, especially his book on Stalingrad, which is pretty definitive. Max Hastings is another great historian, and has covered both WWs extensively.

Heh, the two I was thinking of were Beevor and Hastings. I'd add Liddell-Hart in there as well - he's dated in its research because he's been dead for 40 years, but as a history written by a guy who was actually there it's excellent (albeit with a clear bias to his areas of focus - British campaigns and tanks).


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 Ratius wrote:
A good read Sebster, cheers.

Not a problem. It clearly hasn't made a dent on Gray Templar, so I'm glad someone got some value out of it.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Except Germany doesn't declare War on the US in this situation, remember they are acting much more cautiously. Not using Hitler's crazy suicide aggression.

If you dismiss Hitler's crazy aggression, then you have to abandon the attack on Poland. Which was folly that antagonised the whole world and should most likely have seen a quick collapse of Nazi control.

You can't just claim the stupid gambles that paid off, while dismissing the ones that didn't. That isn't alt-history, it's fan fiction.

Which leads to the tensions being much lessened. The US doesn't engage much beyond what it was doing at the beginning of the war, supplying materials but not much active participation in the fighting. This is heightened even more if Japan still declares war and engages the US in the Pacific, drawing the full attention of the US while Germany is a potential threat that doesn't escalate into fullblown conflict.

As long as the UK remained at war and inflicting blockade, Germany's resource and economic position was doomed. As I've said to you in this and so many other threads - countries with temporary military advantages and acute resource shortages don't solve anything by switching to the long game - it makes no fething sense.

The US also still doesn't have the ability to nuke Germany into the dust, not instantaneously. We would be banking on them surrendering to a partial bluff like the Japanese did

That isn't what happened at all. The bomb on Japan didn't actually force the surrender. The council was locked at 3 votes for surrender and 3 votes against, and after the bomb it was... 3 votes for and 3 votes against. Meanwhile the civilian population didn't even know the bomb had been dropped until weeks after the war's end. It was Russia's attack through China that actually tipped Japan over in to surrender.

We made the Japanese think we had more bombs than we actually could produce in a timely manner, at best we could have dropped a new bomb every couple weeks, and this is a much stronger Germany with more resources to pump into getting the ME-262 able to engage the B-36s. Europe also isn't open season for using nukes, unless we wanted to alienate our allies by bombing their occupied cities.

Wha? There's a whole bunch of German cities that could have been, and were planned to be nuked.

Nor is the bomb purely about forcing a surrender. A nuke will annihilate manufacturing and resource centres - it removes the ability of the enemy to wage war. Whether they surrender or not is irrelevant when they can't make tanks, planes or rifles any more.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course its "Germany wins". Any speculation about an alternate outcome to WW2 is going in with that assumption. Or at the very least its "How does Germany not lose".

And yes, Germany is going to have the intelligence that the B-36s fly at very high altitude and can go a long ways away. Thats relatively easy intelligence to gather. And they will have the resources and time to manage that, unlike in reality where they didn't have the resources or time.

For Germany to have intelligence assets able to acquire classified military secrets AND the ability and will to use that information wisel yAND supposing that the chain of commad is willing to change priorities( that have an ideological rationale). An effective Nazi Intelligence operation against the US just cannot happen, in any universe.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course its "Germany wins". Any speculation about an alternate outcome to WW2 is going in with that assumption. Or at the very least its "How does Germany not lose".

No, that assumption is all too common in WWII alt-history, and it's pretty much why most WWII alt-history sucks.

1) Start with a decision to flip the most obvious part of the war, Germany loses becomes Germany wins.
2) Make up a bunch of justify that.
3) Pretend that nonsense is actually plausible.

You're actually engaging in two different types of the above in this thread, the first is in pretending Germany was anywhere near getting a nuke. And the second is in letting Germany keep all their successful strategic gambles, while getting a do-over on all the gambles that went wrong. And with both types you've actually convinced yourself that it's plausible, but none of it is.

Maybe instead of trying to think of alternatives, you just go and read about the war. Get a real understanding for the complexity and challenges faced by each of the major powers at each stage of the war, and then start playing with a couple of what-ifs - you'll quickly realise that it's extremely hard to produce a German win unless you are actually changing things for the purpose of a German victory.

Just because historically the Allies won, it doesn't mean all Alternate History has to make them lose. They could have won a different way, quicker or slower. It is an equally valid speculation.

What if:

Nazi idealism and dogma allowed for jews to apply their talents, skills, and their manpower to the war effort?

What effect would the increase on manpower and in skilled positions have? Especially at the start and mid stages of the war?

How effective could forced labour have been in a setting where pointless death wasn't the aim?

 Mr. Burning wrote:
What if:

Nazi idealism and dogma allowed for jews to apply their talents, skills, and their manpower to the war effort?

What effect would the increase on manpower and in skilled positions have? Especially at the start and mid stages of the war?

How effective could forced labour have been in a setting where pointless death wasn't the aim?

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that confiscating the wealth of the German Jews during the years before the war is what financed a large part of the Nazi re-armament.

In any case, the war would have had a very different outcome if the NSDAP wasn't so violently Anti-Semitic and Albert Einstein had not remained in the US in 1933, but instead returned home and became involved in Germany''s war effort.

Forced labour, generally, is always less effective than paid labour, until you start getting second and third generations of slaves who are born into that existence and don't know any different.

What do you guys think is the real turning point of the Second World War?

A) Stalingrad

B) Kursk

C) Midway

D) Pearl Harbor

E) London Blitz

 Sir Arun wrote:
D) Pearl Harbor

The point at which US involvement was unavoidable, and the question changed from "can German and Japan win, or at least accomplish some of their goals" to "how long will it take for Germany and Japan to lose, and what will the terms of their surrender be".


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 Mr. Burning wrote:
What if:

Nazi idealism and dogma allowed for jews to apply their talents, skills, and their manpower to the war effort?

The Nazi party no longer has a convenient enemy to blame, the political situation is entirely different, and you have to start asking if WWII could have happened at all.

There was still a general air of German racial superiority that was infusing their politics at the time, and the Italians and Japanese had similar ideals becoming popular as well. The Jews were just a convenient scapegoat for the Nazis to blame, if they didn't pick them it would have been another target. They were still quite bitter about WW1 and the sanctions.

The Japanese would also still have had their massive expansionism going on.

 Sir Arun wrote:
What do you guys think is the real turning point of the Second World War?

A) Stalingrad

B) Kursk

C) Midway

D) Pearl Harbor

E) London Blitz

F) Operation Barbarossa. Once the Germans woke the Soviet Bear, it was really just a matter of time. The only thing the Western Allies did after that point was material support (those kick-ass trucks), and keep half of Europe free from Communist "liberation"

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Just because historically the Allies won, it doesn't mean all Alternate History has to make them lose. They could have won a different way, quicker or slower. It is an equally valid speculation.

No, I'm not saying any speculation about a different outcome is automatically wrong - there is afterall a hell of a lot more possible outcomes than total defeat for one side or the other. I'm saying that almost all WWII alt-history is about Germany winning, so it has become a dull cliche. And most of the ways people try to arrive at that cliche is based around a very dubious understanding of history - such as ideas suggested in this thread that if only Germany had never made a mistake everything could have been different (while taking all of Germany's successful gambles for granted).

Looking at the build up and outbreak of the war, what you see until the end of 1941 is an incredible lucky streak for Hitler. Dropping one or a couple of those bits of good fortune is far more plausible, and opens up way more interesting outcomes than just shoehorning through whatever it takes to make Germany win.


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 Mr. Burning wrote:
What if:

Nazi idealism and dogma allowed for jews to apply their talents, skills, and their manpower to the war effort?

I'm not sure it's possible to pull anti-semitism out of the Nazis without fundamentally changing what they were. I mean, if they're not rabidly aryan, why is Hitler chasing lebensraum?


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 Sir Arun wrote:
What do you guys think is the real turning point of the Second World War?

A) Stalingrad

B) Kursk

C) Midway

D) Pearl Harbor

E) London Blitz

Battle of Moscow was the turning point. After that there's really no possible German victory that will relieve their resource problems. The German army would never be as strong again, and the Russian army would only go from strength to strength. It wouldn't have been known by either side that Germany was basically done, but in hindsight it's clear. Thus was Germany's high tide, and their one chance to somehow steal vic

Then Stalingrad and Operation Uranus gave Russia the initiative. Even with the campaigns overreach and effective German counter, this battle solidified the Russian position and the German losses meant their next offensive would have to be limited to a single point.

After that Kursk is the battle that made it clear to everyone that wasn't a deranged tyrant that Russia was now clearly the stronger power.

After that you have Bagration, in which Germany effectively lost any chance of bleeding Russia enough that they might force a ceasefire - total and complete defeat was the only possible outcome.

1) Battle of Moscow wasnt the turning point. You really think SU would have surrendered if Moscow had fallen? Napoleon conquered Moscow and still lost. Most of the Soviet industry had been moved beyond the Urals already. There was no way Stalin would wave the white flag even if the Wehrmacht had taken Moscow.

Also, taking a city is one thing. Holding it is another. The Red Army could have easily encircled Moscow after all the Siberian divisions arrived.

2) I have heard that in 1943 there were talks in Sweden about a potential ceasefire between SU and Nazi Germany, but Hitler refused as Stalin demanded the Germans withdraw to the pre July 1941 border. I would say that was technically the Reich's last chance of somehow averting complete annihilation. Though I'm pretty sure this was before Kursk, so I can understand why Hitler refused. He had too much faith that the new Panthers and Tigers would win the war for him.

Aside from Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor being two very, very, very stupid moves, I also think Fall Blau was a tactical blunder. Pushing that far into the Causasus only to have your army ground down in a war of attrition in Stalingrad while not reaching the oilfields of Baku is an epic failure. Whats even funnier, is thinking you have 80% of Stalingrad and have almost won the battle while huge amounts of Soviet troops amass beyond the Volga only waiting to launch Operation Uranus. But even if the Wehrmacht had ignored Stalingrad (or just bombed it to rubble) and then proceeded to reach Baku with the 6th army, holding it would have been a different story altogether.

Personally I think the whole economic reason behind the Barbarossa operation was stupid as hell. You want to defeat Bolshevism and destroy the SU? Okay. You want to attack Russia so you can gain access to the Caucasus oil fields? Facepalm. It would have made much more sense after the lost Battle of Britain to use the Italian Navy and every barge in the Mediterranean to ship the majority of the Wehrmacht over to North Africa, then push into the Middle East and secure the oil fields there. This would have dealt a blow to the British Empire with the loss of not only Suez but also the other ME countries, and secured Germany all the oil necessary to hold out against the US in the long run (or at least until the Reich got nuked to smithereens). With no war between the Reich and the SU, millions of soldiers still alive would have made a US/UK only Normandy landing suicidal.

 Sir Arun wrote:
What do you guys think is the real turning point of the Second World War?

A) Stalingrad

B) Kursk

C) Midway

D) Pearl Harbor

E) London Blitz

I would have to answer this question with: Operation Barbarossa, largely on account of the excellent analysis given by historian David Stahel in his book Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Most armchair historians put the turning point much later in the war than that, but Stahel makes a very strong case that Germany was screwed as early as August 1941. I'll sum up some of his points because I really love talking about this stuff.

Much of Stahel's argument centers on Germany's logistics problem. For example, the sheer magnitude of various marks and designs of vehicles in the Heer was absolutely staggering. There was no possible way to have effective and efficient maintenance when you needed to keep so many spare parts for such a wide variety of vehicles, so the fallout rates were predictably severe. This was helped in no way by the fact that Russian roads were abysmal in comparison to the countries that the Heer had already campaigned in, and all the ensuing dust from long marches into the Soviet Union not only clogged up engines but doubled or even trebled oil consumption, which was not in good supply to begin with.

Then you have the actual logistics chain. While the speed of the Panzer divisions was impressive, in reality their headlong drive into the Soviet Union caused some serious issues with the entire operation. The Germans simply did not have the means to keep the panzer divisions well stocked because the deeper in they drove, the farther their already tenuous lines of supply stretched. What made re-supply even worse was the manner in which the panzer divisions fought. They would encircle large groups of the Red Army, cut them off from reinforcement and simply move on to the next goal, leaving the encircled Red Army formations at the mercy of Germany's infantry divisions following behind (often FAR behind). While this was certainly the fastest way to go about doing their business, in reality it meant that the German rear areas had crippling security issues from partisans that had absorbed Red Army soldiers that were left in the dust by the panzer groups. This made resupply even more dangerous.

Probably the biggest wrench in Germany's logistics problem though was the damn trains. The Heer, from the outset of hostilities with the Soviet Union, PLANNED to capture rolling stock in order to facilitate their advance. As in, they knew they couldn't do it with what they had, and so were relying on capturing enough Russian trains just to keep themselves going. Unfortunately for the Germans, the Russians were really good at either destroying their trains or getting them out of reach. The difference in rail gauge certainly didn't help matters. Although it was relatively easy to simply move rail lines to make them accommodate the smaller German gauge, the bigger problem was that, since Russian trains were so much larger, their maintenance facilities and train stops were spaced much further apart. This was not an easy problem to solve and created yet another drain on Germany's supply chain.

The final logistical problem was manpower. Yes, Barbarossa was a massive operation involving millions of Axis troops, but the Eastern Front was huge. There was very little depth in the line, and the further in the Germans fought the longer the frontline became which seriously diluted the strength of the Heer. The German front was paper thin, which is one of the reasons why the Russian counter-offensive in the winter of 1941 was such a serious problem. There was no depth to the defense and usually nothing in reserve to plug the gaps. The Luftwaffe was in a pickle for the same reason. There was simply too much front to cover, so the best that German pilots could do was achieve local air superiority only. Huge sections of the front were vulnerable to the Red Air Force because there simply weren't enough German pilots or planes available to fly across the entirety of that theatre.

So in conclusion, yeah, I personally believe that Barbarossa was the turning point. Germany's only chance was a short, decisive campaign in Russia to secure the resources they needed and eliminate the last remaining threat in the East. It was evident as early as August or September of 1941 that this was not going to happen,and it could only go downhill from there.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Aside from Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor being two very, very, very stupid moves

I kind of disagree with Pearl Harbor being a stupid move. War with Japan was probably inevitable given Japan's plans and previous actions in the region, and the only hope of winning that war is to knock the US navy out of the fight and force a peace treaty that gives Japan what they wanted. It's only in hindsight that we know how little effect sinking all of those battleships was going to have (though, ironically, it's hindsight provided in part by the success of aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor), and even then the outcome could have been quite different if the US aircraft carriers had been in port at the time.

Now, it's certainly a good argument that Japan made a serious strategic mistake by putting themselves on a path that made war with the US almost inevitable, but if you're going to do that then Pearl Harbor is about the best possible way to start the war.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
Aside from Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor being two very, very, very stupid moves

I kind of disagree with Pearl Harbor being a stupid move. War with Japan was probably inevitable given Japan's plans and previous actions in the region, and the only hope of winning that war is to knock the US navy out of the fight and force a peace treaty that gives Japan what they wanted. It's only in hindsight that we know how little effect sinking all of those battleships was going to have (though, ironically, it's hindsight provided in part by the success of aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor), and even then the outcome could have been quite different if the US aircraft carriers had been in port at the time.

Now, it's certainly a good argument that Japan made a serious strategic mistake by putting themselves on a path that made war with the US almost inevitable, but if you're going to do that then Pearl Harbor is about the best possible way to start the war.

I disagree. Anybody who thinks a country the size of the US with a population of 132 million doesnt have the industrial capability of outproducing a relatively small island nation whose recent conquests have overstretched their forces' supply lines to its limits, is seriously crazy in the head. Even crazier is the thought that the majority of the entire US pacific fleet would all be stationed at a single harbor on any given day and knocking it out would mean immediate ceasefire of so large a country.

While pearl harbor was a strike of genius in its planning and execution (though they did forget about bombing the oil farms that would have dealt a much more severe blow), from a strategic point of view it is madness to have your entire war strategy rely on one alpha strike starting and ending a war and bringing a huge opponent to the negotiating table.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Anybody who thinks a country the size of the US with a population of 132 million doesnt have the industrial capability of outproducing a relatively small island nation whose recent conquests have overstretched their forces' supply lines to its limits, is seriously crazy in the head.

Well yes, that's why I pointed out the argument that Japan made significant strategic mistakes by bringing themselves into conflict with the US. Japan was already a threat to US interests and territory in the Pacific, so unless they make significant strategic changes in addition to not attacking Pearl Harbor war is pretty much inevitable. Once Japan was committed to that conflict the only hope of winning was to create a short war where the US industrial advantages aren't relevant.

Even crazier is the thought that the majority of the entire US pacific fleet would all be stationed at a single harbor on any given day and knocking it out would mean immediate ceasefire of so large a country.

It's not exactly crazy when the majority of the US Pacific fleet was in Pearl Harbor. In hindsight we know that the aircraft carriers were more important than the battleships, but by conventional wisdom at the time it was a pretty decisive blow.

As for meaning an immediate ceasefire, it would because the US would no longer have a navy capable of fighting back in the Pacific. It's very hard to attack a bunch of islands on the other side of an ocean when most of your fleet has been destroyed. So that gives some time before a counter-attack can be launched, and Japan's only hope is that the delay is long enough to allow them to negotiate a peace treaty that accomplishes their strategic goals.

IN my Opinion Germany and Japan should have ignored america (not attacking pearl harbor and not attacking american shipping) and should have focused on Russia, if the german and Japan had coordinated their attack on russia together, they could have taken russia, if germany had succeeded in taking Russia the war outcome would have been very different.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
IN my Opinion Germany and Japan should have ignored america (not attacking pearl harbor and not attacking american shipping) and should have focused on Russia, if the german and Japan had coordinated their attack on russia together, they could have taken russia, if germany had succeeded in taking Russia the war outcome would have been very different.

Well, "Germany is annihilated by a one-day nuclear war" is certainly a very different outcome. Also, they can't really ignore the US because that would require Japan to give up its ambitions in the Pacific and Germany to ignore the fact that the US is neutral in name only and busy supplying their enemies.

Germany was under no requirement to declare war on the US. While it wasn't the first career ending move for Hitler Inc. It was a massive one.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
What do you guys think is the real turning point of the Second World War?

A) Stalingrad

B) Kursk

C) Midway

D) Pearl Harbor

E) London Blitz

I would have to answer this question with: Operation Barbarossa, largely on account of the excellent analysis given by historian David Stahel in his book Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Most armchair historians put the turning point much later in the war than that, but Stahel makes a very strong case that Germany was screwed as early as August 1941. I'll sum up some of his points because I really love talking about this stuff.

Much of Stahel's argument centers on Germany's logistics problem. For example, the sheer magnitude of various marks and designs of vehicles in the Heer was absolutely staggering. There was no possible way to have effective and efficient maintenance when you needed to keep so many spare parts for such a wide variety of vehicles, so the fallout rates were predictably severe. This was helped in no way by the fact that Russian roads were abysmal in comparison to the countries that the Heer had already campaigned in, and all the ensuing dust from long marches into the Soviet Union not only clogged up engines but doubled or even trebled oil consumption, which was not in good supply to begin with.

Then you have the actual logistics chain. While the speed of the Panzer divisions was impressive, in reality their headlong drive into the Soviet Union caused some serious issues with the entire operation. The Germans simply did not have the means to keep the panzer divisions well stocked because the deeper in they drove, the farther their already tenuous lines of supply stretched. What made re-supply even worse was the manner in which the panzer divisions fought. They would encircle large groups of the Red Army, cut them off from reinforcement and simply move on to the next goal, leaving the encircled Red Army formations at the mercy of Germany's infantry divisions following behind (often FAR behind). While this was certainly the fastest way to go about doing their business, in reality it meant that the German rear areas had crippling security issues from partisans that had absorbed Red Army soldiers that were left in the dust by the panzer groups. This made resupply even more dangerous.

Probably the biggest wrench in Germany's logistics problem though was the damn trains. The Heer, from the outset of hostilities with the Soviet Union, PLANNED to capture rolling stock in order to facilitate their advance. As in, they knew they couldn't do it with what they had, and so were relying on capturing enough Russian trains just to keep themselves going. Unfortunately for the Germans, the Russians were really good at either destroying their trains or getting them out of reach. The difference in rail gauge certainly didn't help matters. Although it was relatively easy to simply move rail lines to make them accommodate the smaller German gauge, the bigger problem was that, since Russian trains were so much larger, their maintenance facilities and train stops were spaced much further apart. This was not an easy problem to solve and created yet another drain on Germany's supply chain.

The final logistical problem was manpower. Yes, Barbarossa was a massive operation involving millions of Axis troops, but the Eastern Front was huge. There was very little depth in the line, and the further in the Germans fought the longer the frontline became which seriously diluted the strength of the Heer. The German front was paper thin, which is one of the reasons why the Russian counter-offensive in the winter of 1941 was such a serious problem. There was no depth to the defense and usually nothing in reserve to plug the gaps. The Luftwaffe was in a pickle for the same reason. There was simply too much front to cover, so the best that German pilots could do was achieve local air superiority only. Huge sections of the front were vulnerable to the Red Air Force because there simply weren't enough German pilots or planes available to fly across the entirety of that theatre.

So in conclusion, yeah, I personally believe that Barbarossa was the turning point. Germany's only chance was a short, decisive campaign in Russia to secure the resources they needed and eliminate the last remaining threat in the East. It was evident as early as August or September of 1941 that this was not going to happen,and it could only go downhill from there.

I agree entirely. Barbarossa was a mess, it was very arguably doomed to failure from the start, and in the grand scheme of things, really an unwise move in the grander scale of the war, motivated as much by Hitler's hatred of Stalin and what he stood for as it was by military gain. The fatal flaw, I think, was relying on the same tactics that worked against Western Europe; blitzkrieg tactics could never work on a nation as large or a front as wide as Russia. With thousands of miles to absorb the strike, and a huge area across which to dissipate it, the tactics and the geography were utterly incompatible.

Had the Russian armed forces not been in complete disarray after the Purges, and hideously under equipped thanks to 'modernising' a good five years before the rest of Europe, I'm pretty sure the Wehrmacht would have never reached Stalingrad, Moscow or Leningrad; they would have been turned around and sent packing with their tail between their legs within a year of commencing the invasion. Add to that the fact that the USSR was far more instrumental in Victory in Europe than America ever where, and I think it's fair to say that poking the Bear in 1941 was the moment that signed Germany's death warrant

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
IN my Opinion Germany and Japan should have ignored america (not attacking pearl harbor and not attacking american shipping) and should have focused on Russia, if the german and Japan had coordinated their attack on russia together, they could have taken russia, if germany had succeeded in taking Russia the war outcome would have been very different.

Well, "Germany is annihilated by a one-day nuclear war" is certainly a very different outcome. Also, they can't really ignore the US because that would require Japan to give up its ambitions in the Pacific and Germany to ignore the fact that the US is neutral in name only and busy supplying their enemies.

That is quite a big assumption to make.
It assumes that after dropping the USSR out of the fight, Japan would have gone ahead with declaring war on the US.
That the US would focus on defeating Germany rather than Japan.
That the US would be interested in bombing Germany.
That Germany, now with all of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia under its occupation would somehow not develop any means to counter US bombers.
That the US would be able to produce enough long range bombers and nuclear weapons cheap enough to make using them against Germany a viable way of winning the war.

Personally, I don't think the US would have been quite as willing to go to war all on its own against a Germany/Japan that dominates all of Eurasia. Would it not be more likely that the US would have continued its isolationism at that point? Personally, I think the more viable scenario for the US in such a case would have been to engage in an arms race like in the Cold War and wait until the German/Japanese Empires inevitably fall apart because of internal tensions.

 Paradigm wrote:
I agree entirely. Barbarossa was a mess, it was very arguably doomed to failure from the start, and in the grand scheme of things, really an unwise move in the grander scale of the war, motivated as much by Hitler's hatred of Stalin and what he stood for as it was by military gain. The fatal flaw, I think, was relying on the same tactics that worked against Western Europe; blitzkrieg tactics could never work on a nation as large or a front as wide as Russia. With thousands of miles to absorb the strike, and a huge area across which to dissipate it, the tactics and the geography were utterly incompatible.

Had the Russian armed forces not been in complete disarray after the Purges, and hideously under equipped thanks to 'modernising' a good five years before the rest of Europe, I'm pretty sure the Wehrmacht would have never reached Stalingrad, Moscow or Leningrad; they would have been turned around and sent packing with their tail between their legs within a year of commencing the invasion. Add to that the fact that the USSR was far more instrumental in Victory in Europe than America ever where, and I think it's fair to say that poking the Bear in 1941 was the moment that signed Germany's death warrant.

You're totally spot on. Blitzkrieg worked astoundingly on every other adversary the Germans had come up against up to that point in the war, but there were so many things different about Russia that challenged the viability of blitzkrieg and ultimately defeated it. Bad roads, the ability to trade space for time, and the sheer tenacity of Red Army troops were unlike anything the Wehrmacht had to deal with before. The only way Germany was going to beat the Soviet Union was to convert to a total war economy, something Hitler didn't do until 1943 and by then it was far too late.

Your second point also hits the nail on the head. There were many things wrong with Barbarossa, but the timing was actually perfect. A few years sooner and the Red Army could've fought without the crippling loss of its officers in the purge. A few years later and the reorganization of the Red Army would have been complete. It's very likely that the war in the east would have been much shorter had the Germans attacked earlier or later.

 Frazzled wrote:
Germany was under no requirement to declare war on the US. While it wasn't the first career ending move for Hitler Inc. It was a massive one.

This is also true, there was NOTHING compelling Hitler to declare war on the United States. The biggest reason he did it was his mistaken belief that a declaration of war by the US was already coming, and so he wanted to beat them to the punch as a point of national pride. In reality, Roosevelt was actually extremely grateful for Hitler's declaration as it meant he now had tremendous public support for going to war in Europe, something he was lacking even after the events at Pearl Harbor. The second biggest reason was that Hitler actually believed that with Japan on his side that the war could not be lost, and so had little to lose by taking on the arsenal of democracy anyway.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
IN my Opinion Germany and Japan should have ignored america (not attacking pearl harbor and not attacking american shipping) and should have focused on Russia, if the german and Japan had coordinated their attack on russia together, they could have taken russia, if germany had succeeded in taking Russia the war outcome would have been very different.

An interesting hypothetical, but one that had no chance of ever happening. Japan's primary motivation in World War II was to become THE dominant power of the Pacific. The invasion of the Soviet Union would have done absolutely nothing to facilitate that. Going to war with the UK and the US was the only option to realize that goal. There was also the problem of Hitler to consider. He actually did not want assistance from Japan, as he believed the Heer was up to the task on its own and he did not want to share in the spoils of war with the Japanese. In short, your hypothetical, while interesting, has to take a lot more into consideration than where the Axis powers chose to attack. It was a great deal more complicated than that.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Just because historically the Allies won, it doesn't mean all Alternate History has to make them lose. They could have won a different way, quicker or slower. It is an equally valid speculation.

Agreed. I don't know if it has been already covered, but for me, 1939 was the crucial point. Most people will know that when the Germans were busy fighting in Poland, the French army invaded the Saar, advanced 5 miles, and then turned back for an unknown reason.

What if the French had kept going, what if Gamelin, had thrown caution to the wind? Think of the lives saved...

After the war, German generals expressed astonishment at the French decision to withdraw. The French could have been over the Rhine and onto Berlin in a matter of 3-4 weeks.


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 Frazzled wrote:
If you want a documentary of the War, the BBC's World at War is still the Gold Standard. Additionally it has a lot of officers and soldiers from the time (including Genda!) that survived and weren't dottering idiots at the time of filming.

Plus Lord Olivier (the only person who could out Christopher Lee Christopher Lee)!

You missed out James Stewart as well, Frazz. The guy was a legend.

Somebody who knows better about the subject can correct me, but I recall that the Germans had extensive plans to intercept any coming nukes, which meant that US could not have taken such a risk that they would have lost their precious weapons.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Somebody who knows better about the subject can correct me, but I recall that the Germans had extensive plans to intercept any coming nukes, which meant that US could not have taken such a risk that they would have lost their precious weapons.

They had plans, just like they had plans to stop conventional bombing, but they wouldn't be effective. They couldn't stop B-17 attacks, and the B-36 would have flown higher than virtually everything Germany had and be almost impossible to intercept. There were no special tricks being held back just in case the US decided to use nukes.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
It assumes that after dropping the USSR out of the fight, Japan would have gone ahead with declaring war on the US.

They would have. Japan's territorial ambitions in the Pacific were inevitably bringing them into conflict with the US. Avoiding war with the US would require a lot more than simply not attacking Pearl Harbor, they would have had to completely abandon a lot of their strategic goals in the region. The only question is whether the war starts on the original schedule, or a few years later when the US has finished more of its preparations for war.

That the US would focus on defeating Germany rather than Japan.

Why not do both?

That Germany, now with all of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia under its occupation would somehow not develop any means to counter US bombers.

They failed to do so in the real world, so what is different about this hypothetical scenario? Russia isn't going to go down quickly even if Germany somehow finds a way to win (probably by act of plot, since the attack on Russia was doomed from the beginning) so Germany's immediate situation isn't improved very much. And remember that the US actually built the bombers and nuclear weapons required, so you're matching a hypothetical counter against a demonstrated capability.

That the US would be able to produce enough long range bombers and nuclear weapons cheap enough to make using them against Germany a viable way of winning the war.

The US already demonstrated the ability to do that. Convert B-17 production (which is no longer very useful if the UK is lost due to range limits) to B-36s and the US has the bombers.

Personally, I don't think the US would have been quite as willing to go to war all on its own against a Germany/Japan that dominates all of Eurasia.

Why not? Nuclear war is a limited investment that would have no real impact on the US population as a whole, and it's not like the US was actually neutral before they officially entered the war. All it takes is one bombing mission and then letting France and the UK mop up the survivors and accept Germany's surrender.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Somebody who knows better about the subject can correct me, but I recall that the Germans had extensive plans to intercept any coming nukes, which meant that US could not have taken such a risk that they would have lost their precious weapons.

They had plans, just like they had plans to stop conventional bombing, but they wouldn't be effective. They couldn't stop B-17 attacks, and the B-36 would have flown higher than virtually everything Germany had and be almost impossible to intercept. There were no special tricks being held back just in case the US decided to use nukes.

However the problem with B-17s was more to do with the numbers and not the quality. If the German aviation program would have continued with no delays caused by war it would not surprise me that they would have developed a high altitude interceptor, or who knows even anti-aircraft missiles.

 Sienisoturi wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Somebody who knows better about the subject can correct me, but I recall that the Germans had extensive plans to intercept any coming nukes, which meant that US could not have taken such a risk that they would have lost their precious weapons.

They had plans, just like they had plans to stop conventional bombing, but they wouldn't be effective. They couldn't stop B-17 attacks, and the B-36 would have flown higher than virtually everything Germany had and be almost impossible to intercept. There were no special tricks being held back just in case the US decided to use nukes.

However the problem with B-17s was more to do with the numbers and not the quality. If the German aviation program would have continued with no delays caused by war it would not surprise me that they would have developed a high altitude interceptor, or who knows even anti-aircraft missiles.

And with enough delays they would have had to deal with these guys. While first flights were 1947ish they would have been stepped up as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-47_Stratojet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-86_Sabre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-85


Bring it Krauthammer!

 Sienisoturi wrote:
However the problem with B-17s was more to do with the numbers and not the quality.

But the same applies to the B-36, except now there are fewer planes capable of reaching its altitude. The US wouldn't send a single plane with a nuke like they did against Japan, where there was no meaningful AA at all. They would have sent the whole B-36 swarm at Germany, with some of them carrying nukes. And there's no way to tell which plane in a squadron has the nuke until they drop their bombs and a city disappears.

If the German aviation program would have continued with no delays caused by war it would not surprise me that they would have developed a high altitude interceptor, or who knows even anti-aircraft missiles.

But it would have been delayed by war, because even if Germany magically wins in Russia it's going to be a slow and costly war. And we're right back to the fundamental problem with these scenarios: to give Germany even the slightest hope of winning you have to assume that every random "we should build this someday" sketch a German engineer made is turned into a viable weapon while everyone else is limited to what they actually developed in the real world.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
However the problem with B-17s was more to do with the numbers and not the quality.

But the same applies to the B-36, except now there are fewer planes capable of reaching its altitude. The US wouldn't send a single plane with a nuke like they did against Japan, where there was no meaningful AA at all. They would have sent the whole B-36 swarm at Germany, with some of them carrying nukes. And there's no way to tell which plane in a squadron has the nuke until they drop their bombs and a city disappears.

If the German aviation program would have continued with no delays caused by war it would not surprise me that they would have developed a high altitude interceptor, or who knows even anti-aircraft missiles.

But it would have been delayed by war, because even if Germany magically wins in Russia it's going to be a slow and costly war. And we're right back to the fundamental problem with these scenarios: to give Germany even the slightest hope of winning you have to assume that every random "we should build this someday" sketch a German engineer made is turned into a viable weapon while everyone else is limited to what they actually developed in the real world.

"you have to assume that every random "we should build this someday" sketch a German engineer made is turned into a viable weapon while everyone else is limited to what they actually developed in the real world."

But this is an assumption that has to be made as the German technological developement was severly limited by the war, while the US's wasn't. Also theoretically Germany could have defeated USSR already in 1941 if they would have managed to capture Moscow.