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.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
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.

And why wouldn't German development be limited by the war in the alternate timeline? They're still going to fight Russia and invade France, the UK is still going to bomb them every night, etc. Meanwhile why are you assuming that the US is going to have the same wartime limits that they had in reality? For example, if there's no need to produce a horde of "good enough for the job" P-51s for immediate use maybe the US gets its first jet fighters into production a bit earlier and negates the advantage Germany had with the ME-262. Similarly, if Germany isn't suffering daily B-17 attacks maybe they don't ignore the ME-262's engine problems and rush it into production immediately, and the US enters the war with the only jets.

Also, development takes time even without having your factories bombed. Germany would have to advance their development by several years (doubling the rate at least!) to even have a chance, while the US just has to do what they already did. Who knows what obstacles they might have encountered in trying to turn a quick 30-second sketch into a viable weapon, and how many years it might have taken to overcome them.

Also theoretically Germany could have defeated USSR already in 1941 if they would have managed to capture Moscow.

Lol, no.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Also theoretically Germany could have defeated USSR already in 1941 if they would have managed to capture Moscow.

No. Just no. Napoleon managed to and he still got his butt kicked.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
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.

And why wouldn't German development be limited by the war in the alternate timeline? They're still going to fight Russia and invade France, the UK is still going to bomb them every night, etc. Meanwhile why are you assuming that the US is going to have the same wartime limits that they had in reality? For example, if there's no need to produce a horde of "good enough for the job" P-51s for immediate use maybe the US gets its first jet fighters into production a bit earlier and negates the advantage Germany had with the ME-262. Similarly, if Germany isn't suffering daily B-17 attacks maybe they don't ignore the ME-262's engine problems and rush it into production immediately, and the US enters the war with the only jets.

Also, development takes time even without having your factories bombed. Germany would have to advance their development by several years (doubling the rate at least!) to even have a chance, while the US just has to do what they already did. Who knows what obstacles they might have encountered in trying to turn a quick 30-second sketch into a viable weapon, and how many years it might have taken to overcome them.

You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

Also theoretically Germany could have defeated USSR already in 1941 if they would have managed to capture Moscow.

Lol, no.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Also theoretically Germany could have defeated USSR already in 1941 if they would have managed to capture Moscow.

No. Just no. Napoleon managed to and he still got his butt kicked.

It depends on how fast they capture Moscow. Or specifically the manufacturing centers behind it. Germany was too slow and they didn't get there till the machinery had been relocated. If they had captured that the Russians would have lost all their industrial capabilities. No more tanks, no more aircraft, very limited ammunition and new weapons, etc...

 Sienisoturi wrote:
You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

Germany was nowhere near getting a nuke, and the supposed fear of German nuclear attacks certainly didn't stop the US from bombing them into rubble in reality.

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

Germany was nowhere near getting a nuke, and the supposed fear of German nuclear attacks certainly didn't stop the US from bombing them into rubble in reality.

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

However the main leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin decided to stay in Moscow, even if it meant that in the case that the battle would have been lost he would have been captured.

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.

As much of the government had bailed, capturing Moskovy would have just been a killzone. The government was East, the industry was East.

indeed, if the timing is poor Moscow could have been the original Stalingrad, with the Siberian divisions playing the role of Operation Uranus. What happens in this scenario if Germany loses an Army in 1941 instead of 1942?

 Peregrine wrote:

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

In most cases, yes, leadership can be replaced. However, Stalin had such a cult of personality about him, and filled the Party and Military with those who supported him so absolutely that the capture of Moscow with Stalin in it would have broken the very resolve the Red Army in WW2 were famed for. Stalin was Russia and Russia was Stalin at that point, and I honestly doubt the nation would have fought in with any kind of meaningful way without Stalin at it's head. They certainly wouldn't have been able to select a new leader with any credibility; Stalin head no heir apparent, and the idea that anyone but him was fit to lead the country had been deliberately (if shortsightedly) stamped out.

Throw in the fact that it would be a huge propaganda piece for the Nazis to have captured/killed the World's Biggest Communist, and the industrial force the Russians would lose with an early capture of Moscow and I really don't see them bouncing back from that.

All that said, I still doubt the German army could have taken Moscow, but if they somehow managed it, it's Game Over for the Eastern Front.

If Moscow and the Soviet leadership fall I don't see what is left of the Soviet Union staying in the war (or remaining a union). The soviet system is very centralised and may have no arms industry to speak of (depending on the timing). It does require the Germans to be focused on Moscow and reasonably able at negotiation/recruitment with the various ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Two things that the Nazis were terrible at historically.

You're then left with running the region without it becoming a net drain as it was in the previous war.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

In most cases, yes, leadership can be replaced. However, Stalin had such a cult of personality about him, and filled the Party and Military with those who supported him so absolutely that the capture of Moscow with Stalin in it would have broken the very resolve the Red Army in WW2 were famed for. Stalin was Russia and Russia was Stalin at that point, and I honestly doubt the nation would have fought in with any kind of meaningful way without Stalin at it's head. They certainly wouldn't have been able to select a new leader with any credibility; Stalin head no heir apparent, and the idea that anyone but him was fit to lead the country had been deliberately (if shortsightedly) stamped out.

Throw in the fact that it would be a huge propaganda piece for the Nazis to have captured/killed the World's Biggest Communist, and the industrial force the Russians would lose with an early capture of Moscow and I really don't see them bouncing back from that.

All that said, I still doubt the German army could have taken Moscow, but if they somehow managed it, it's Game Over for the Eastern Front.

Why are you thinking that Stalin is going to get captured?
Let me see if I am understanding this correctly.
So to pull this off Germany has to
1. Merely get to Moscow in 1941 (which they couldn't do because of Father Winter)
2. Kill Stalin.
3. Out R&D the Allies while fighting the last of the Soviets and holding onto that territory.
4. Not get nuked in 1946.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

In most cases, yes, leadership can be replaced. However, Stalin had such a cult of personality about him, and filled the Party and Military with those who supported him so absolutely that the capture of Moscow with Stalin in it would have broken the very resolve the Red Army in WW2 were famed for. Stalin was Russia and Russia was Stalin at that point, and I honestly doubt the nation would have fought in with any kind of meaningful way without Stalin at it's head. They certainly wouldn't have been able to select a new leader with any credibility; Stalin head no heir apparent, and the idea that anyone but him was fit to lead the country had been deliberately (if shortsightedly) stamped out.

Throw in the fact that it would be a huge propaganda piece for the Nazis to have captured/killed the World's Biggest Communist, and the industrial force the Russians would lose with an early capture of Moscow and I really don't see them bouncing back from that.

All that said, I still doubt the German army could have taken Moscow, but if they somehow managed it, it's Game Over for the Eastern Front.

Why are you thinking that Stalin is going to get captured?
Let me see if I am understanding this correctly.
So to pull this off Germany has to
1. Merely get to Moscow in 1941 (which they couldn't do because of Father Winter)
2. Kill Stalin.
3. Out R&D the Allies while fighting the last of the Soviets and holding onto that territory.
4. Not get nuked in 1946.

I was only replying to the suggestion that The USSR as we knew it could survive a capture/killing of Stalin (by replacing him), which I don't think they could. I agree entirely that such an event would require a significant amount of luck for the Germans, incompetence from the Russians and a completely different approach to the war by both.

 George Spiggott wrote:
It does require the Germans to be focused on Moscow and reasonably able at negotiation/recruitment with the various ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Two things that the Nazis were terrible at historically.

If and if. We Finns had our share of "Great Finland" fanatics who dreamed of uniting all fenno-ugric tribes under the light of the one true Finnish nation. If, if if... maybe we could have pacified large parts of the northern USSR through treaties with related peoples that were being repressed by the Soviets. But that would have required a huge victory over the soviets first, driving them back over the Ural mountains.

People just don't understand the distances involved, or the amount of soldiers and tanks deployed. D-Day? Sure, it was huge. But compared to Kursk it was a minor show in a cheap theater. Or maybe just a mime show outside that theater. The Cold War made the US (and most of the west) ignore how much the USSR actually did to grind down the Nazi war machine. D-Day - 156,000 brave Western men against some 50,000 Germans. It was no mean feat to take the beaches and start landing equipment, granted. But witness Kursk - 1,2 million Soviet troops + 5000 tanks against half a million Germans with 2500 tanks. And more coming in on both sides while the battle spiraled out of control...

Spetulhu wrote:

 George Spiggott wrote:
It does require the Germans to be focused on Moscow and reasonably able at negotiation/recruitment with the various ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Two things that the Nazis were terrible at historically.

If and if. We Finns had our share of "Great Finland" fanatics who dreamed of uniting all fenno-ugric tribes under the light of the one true Finnish nation. If, if if... maybe we could have pacified large parts of the northern USSR through treaties with related peoples that were being repressed by the Soviets. But that would have required a huge victory over the soviets first, driving them back over the Ural mountains.

People just don't understand the distances involved, or the amount of soldiers and tanks deployed. D-Day? Sure, it was huge. But compared to Kursk it was a minor show in a cheap theater. Or maybe just a mime show outside that theater. The Cold War made the US (and most of the west) ignore how much the USSR actually did to grind down the Nazi war machine. D-Day - 156,000 brave Western men against some 50,000 Germans. It was no mean feat to take the beaches and start landing equipment, granted. But witness Kursk - 1,2 million Soviet troops + 5000 tanks against half a million Germans with 2500 tanks. And more coming in on both sides while the battle spiraled out of control...

This is a good point. The only way I see this working for Germany is if either: 1) Germany never starts WWII; 2) Germany somehow makes it so France and Britain are neutral when it drives through Poland and into the USSR. Even then it is seriously touch and go. I would what the effect of an all out Japanese attack would have been at the same time, if it would have been enough to put the USSR over the edge.

The fact that the Soviet Union survived the death of Stalin suggests that it might have been capable of surviving the death or capture of Stalin.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fact that the Soviet Union survived the death of Stalin suggests that it might have been capable of surviving the death or capture of Stalin.

Did it, though? Yes, the name stayed the same, but it was only after several years of political manoeuvrings, being left largely alone and more than a few assassinations and such that they actually found a new leader in Khrushchev, and his defining policy was Destalinisation.

If it takes years of struggle and a U-turn on policy to get a replacement in peacetime, do you really think they could do all that while still maintaining the ability and the will to fight off one of history's largest invasions?

 Paradigm wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fact that the Soviet Union survived the death of Stalin suggests that it might have been capable of surviving the death or capture of Stalin.

Did it, though? Yes, the name stayed the same, but it was only after several years of political manoeuvrings, being left largely alone and more than a few assassinations and such that they actually found a new leader in Khrushchev, and his defining policy was Destalinisation.

If it takes years of struggle and a U-turn on policy to get a replacement in peacetime, do you really think they could do all that while still maintaining the ability and the will to fight off one of history's largest invasions?

Very much so. It would wonderfully have concentrated the leadership's minds, because none of them would be likely to survive the fall of the SU.

As for Destalinisation, Stalin did a lot of back-pedalling on his previous policies in order to cope with the war situation.

It's a fallacy to suggest that losing Moscow would have meant the end of Russian resistance, historians have been tackling that question for quite some time. With so much industry moved east into the Urals, it's actually very possible the Russians could have continued fighting. Now, Moscow itself was a significant center of production, but losing it would not put an end to Soviet war materiel. Far more debilitating would have been the damage to the Soviet rail system, as Moscow was the central hub for many railroads in the country. It certainly would have affected their logistical capability, but even then I don't think anyone could definitively say it would be the end of their war effort.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
It's a fallacy to suggest that losing Moscow would have meant the end of Russian resistance, historians have been tackling that question for quite some time. With so much industry moved east into the Urals, it's actually very possible the Russians could have continued fighting. Now, Moscow itself was a significant center of production, but losing it would not put an end to Soviet war materiel. Far more debilitating would have been the damage to the Soviet rail system, as Moscow was the central hub for many railroads in the country. It certainly would have affected their logistical capability, but even then I don't think anyone could definitively say it would be the end of their war effort.

Yeah, it's more the (hypothetical) loss of Moscow (before industry moved East) and the loss of Stalin there that I think would a death blow to Russia. Say, for example, the full force of the Barbarossa Blitzkrieg was pointed at Moscow, and captured the city before the political or industrial infrastructure could be moved out; it's unlikely even with the Germans getting everything right, but I can't see Russia recovering from that. I personally don't think they could have replaced Stalin with a credible leader in time to marshal a counteroffensive, and while I doubt you'd get a full surrender, what resistance there was would be disparate and uncoordinated, led by whatever commanders could be found but, at the highest level leaderless.

And then, even it they somehow fight off the Germans, you get a rerun of the 18-21 Civil War as everyone vies for the top spot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

Germany was nowhere near getting a nuke, and the supposed fear of German nuclear attacks certainly didn't stop the US from bombing them into rubble in reality.

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

Yes, you can you forgot that Stalin had already cleared the military and the government of "enemies" a few times, so if Stalin and his support was taken down, i wouldn't think there would be new leadership, at least not quick.
And the Russians were on the run during the attack on Russia, if he had kept it up they would have taken Russia, bailing out Italy out gave the Russians time to regroup.

 Paradigm wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
It's a fallacy to suggest that losing Moscow would have meant the end of Russian resistance, historians have been tackling that question for quite some time. With so much industry moved east into the Urals, it's actually very possible the Russians could have continued fighting. Now, Moscow itself was a significant center of production, but losing it would not put an end to Soviet war materiel. Far more debilitating would have been the damage to the Soviet rail system, as Moscow was the central hub for many railroads in the country. It certainly would have affected their logistical capability, but even then I don't think anyone could definitively say it would be the end of their war effort.

Yeah, it's more the (hypothetical) loss of Moscow (before industry moved East) and the loss of Stalin there that I think would a death blow to Russia. Say, for example, the full force of the Barbarossa Blitzkrieg was pointed at Moscow, and captured the city before the political or industrial infrastructure could be moved out; it's unlikely even with the Germans getting everything right, but I can't see Russia recovering from that. I personally don't think they could have replaced Stalin with a credible leader in time to marshal a counteroffensive, and while I doubt you'd get a full surrender, what resistance there was would be disparate and uncoordinated, led by whatever commanders could be found but, at the highest level leaderless.

And then, even it they somehow fight off the Germans, you get a rerun of the 18-21 Civil War as everyone vies for the top spot.

My only issue with that hypothetical is that it's so incredibly generous to the Germans when they already had so many things going for them. When you account for the fact that Barbarossa was the worst kept secret of the war and still caught the Russians by surprise, that most of the Red Army at that time was within striking distance of the border with Germany, that Stalin's interference with his generals wasted away millions of Red Army troops needlessly in futile counter-attacks, that the advance into Russia couldn't possibly have been made any faster, why give the Germans yet another advantage in the hypothetical? I guess it can still be entertaining to contemplate, I think I would just enjoy a less overtly generous set of circumstances if we're playing "what if?"

 Peregrine wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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 might be true. Honestly I don't know much about Japan's motivations for the war of the Pacific front in general.

 Peregrine wrote:

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

Why not do both?

Because history has shown time and time again that fighting a war on two fronts at the same time is a bad idea? Especially if you don't have any significant allies left.

 Peregrine wrote:

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.

Well, this is an "what if" thread...
The fact that Germany was unable to defeat Russia doesn't mean it is impossible if a number of circumstances had been different. Germany had taken out the almost complete Red Army in its first strike, if the German leadership would have been actually competent they could have taken out Russia quickly. Faced also with a Japanese invasion in the Far East, Russia would have had a lot more trouble rebuilding at the same speed it did. It is also possible that the Soviet Union would have collapsed because of internal political and ethnic tensions.
If so, Germany would have been in a much stronger and more secure position, with a huge industrial base. They would have been much more able to research new stuff and make better equipment than they were in real history.

Whatever the possibility, in this scenario, the Soviet Union collapses quickly with most of its territory occupied by Germany and Russia turned into a vassal state. Let us say this happens by 1943. Having uncontested dominion over all of Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Germany's position would be much stronger than it was in the real history.

 Peregrine wrote:

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.

Actually, the US did not even produce a single B-36 during the war. It's first flight was only in 1946. Even if they would spend more resources on it, it is unlikely they would have finished the project before 1945. Any significant bombing operation of Germany would have taken into the late 1940's to build the required amount of bombers and bombs. By that time Germany could easily have designed fighters with a high enough range to take on intercontinental bombers, and worse, they could have gone ahead with the Amerikabomber project and have built their own bombers capable of bombing the US.

 Peregrine wrote:

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.

Even with Germany as weak as in real history that would be unrealistic. France and Britain were in no shape to take on even a weakened Germany. At least not before the Russians would be in Paris. Every German city was reduced to rubble in real history. Germany would never have surrendered because of a single bomb.
In this alternate scenario it is even more unrealistic. the German and Japanese positions would be much stronger than they were in real life. Britain would be as good as out of the war, either having sued for peace or still under siege. Germany might well possess means by now to destroy US bombers and bomb the US in return. The US faces a war on two fronts against two powers that together dominate almost all of Eurasia and are likely already preparing ways of invading the US. The war is not going to be over anytime soon.
What does the US gain from such conflict, and at what costs? The US clearly supported Britain, but also had a long history of isolationism up to this point. Faced with this much more bleak scenario, I think it is likely non-interventionist politics would have prevailed in the US, especially after the death of Roosevelt.

In any case, I think it is oversimplistic to say that the US could have simply ended the war with nukes, in real history, and in alternate scenarios with a stronger Germany even more so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

Germany was nowhere near getting a nuke, and the supposed fear of German nuclear attacks certainly didn't stop the US from bombing them into rubble in reality.

Nice counter-argument. However can you answer me how the Soviets could have kept fighting without their leadership?

Because leadership can move or be replaced? This isn't a video game where you capture the capital city and you win the war.

Yes, you can you forgot that Stalin had already cleared the military and the government of "enemies" a few times, so if Stalin and his support was taken down, i wouldn't think there would be new leadership, at least not quick.
And the Russians were on the run during the attack on Russia, if he had kept it up they would have taken Russia, bailing out Italy out gave the Russians time to regroup.

You underestimate the Russian people if you think Stalin was able to root out all dissident. Quite the contrary, in fact (his opponents seized power the moment he died) Russia has always been a very fractious society, and the Soviet Union more so. Stalin kept everything together with terror and charisma, but if he had suddenly died, the whole thing would come crashing down as Politburo members would fight for influence and power, the republics of the USSR and RSFSR would get troublesome as always, ethnic groups would sense an opportunity for independence and side with the Germans, rival communist groups would spring up again, and worst of all, the Whites would come back, kickstarting Civil War 2.0 with German support (how ironic).
Russia needs a strong leadership to function. Russian history has shown multiple times already that when leadership suddenly falls away, the whole country collapses into chaos (1598, 1917 and 1991 being some of the most notable examples)

 Iron_Captain wrote:


Well, this is an "what if" thread...
The fact that Germany was unable to defeat Russia doesn't mean it is impossible if a number of circumstances had been different. Germany had taken out the almost complete Red Army in its first strike, if the German leadership would have been actually competent they could have taken out Russia quickly. Faced also with a Japanese invasion in the Far East, Russia would have had a lot more trouble rebuilding at the same speed it did. It is also possible that the Soviet Union would have collapsed because of internal political and ethnic tensions.
If so, Germany would have been in a much stronger and more secure position, with a huge industrial base. They would have been much more able to research new stuff and make better equipment than they were in real history.

The line in bold is absolutely untrue. Yes,the Germans encircled and subsequently destroyed very large formations of the Red Army, and these encirclements were much larger and captured many more men than what the Germans had done in previous campaigns, but here again the sheer scale of the Eastern Front must be taken into consideration. Despite losing literally millions of troops, the Red Army actually grew in size between the start of Operation Barbarossa and the conclusion of Operation Typhoon in the autumn of that year. There was never a point where the Red Army was in danger of ceasing to exist or having the ability to fight. What's more is that the Soviet Union could bear its casualties much better than the Germans could, despite the fact that in raw numbers their losses were many times greater. This is why 1941 is the first and only time the Germans could engage the Soviet Union across the entire breadth of the front. By 1942 they already have enough of a manpower problem that their major offensive in the campaign season is so much smaller in scope than Barbarossa, and even smaller still in 1943 when their strategic goal was simply to close the Kursk salient.

To address the second point about being able to knock Russia out of the war quickly if German command was competent, this is also blatantly untrue. The problems of fighting the Soviet Union were far too severe to be addressed by greater competence in the field. These were serious logistical problems that would have required a lot of time and a lot more resources to rectify, and the Germans had neither of those. What they did have was luck, and this took them really, really far. Much farther than they should have gotten. Barbarossa was doomed to failure from the start, it just isn't remembered that way because of an incredible combination of highly favourable circumstances that seriously affected the initial invasion. Almost everything that could have gone right did go right, and very little that could go wrong did go wrong.

 Sir Arun wrote:
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.

I never said the Nazis were going to win if they took Moscow. No, Moscow is the turning point because with its failure Germany had no plausible way of winning the war.

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.

I already mentioned that in this thread.

Aside from Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor being two very, very, very stupid moves,

Meh, pushing hard to take Czechslovakia was stupid, attacking Poland was stupid, going on the offensive against France and Britain was stupid...

And while Pearl Harbour was stupid for the Japan, the German plan to encourage it was unlikely to succeed, but necessary. With British blockade Germany was never going to beat Russia, and the blockade couldn't be beaten while the u-boats were banned from hitting US boats. Open war on the sea was necessary, and that meant the US were going to enter the war. As long as that was going to happen, might as well have them (hopefully) pre-occupied with Japan.

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.

Meh, what choice did the Nazis have but a push through to the oilfields, hinged by Stalingrad? If someone has a better plan for the second summer offensive, I'd love to hear it.

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.

As I've pointed out already in this thread, this isn't Risk. It isn't a game played by people looking for whatever territorial expansion and resource acquisition is most practical. It's the real world, in which territorial ambition is almost entirely defined by political and cultural values. The Nazi reason for being basically boils down to occupation of the East. Everything else, from the occupation of Czechoslovakia through to war with France and Britain, was all in service of that final goal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sir Arun wrote:
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.

What Japan wanted was a repeat of 1905 - a sudden attack that knocks the enemy off balance followed by a rapid capture of all desirable territory, and then a peace treaty.

Obviously it didn't work, but they were hardly idiots for thinking that what had worked in the past could work again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.

Absolutely not. Ignoring the US meant allowing US convoys to enter Britain, which meant Britain could maintain a blockade on Germany indefinitely, which meant Germany's resource inferiority to Russia was pretty much critical.

Meanwhile, Japan tried their luck against Russia in the battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939. The Japanese attacked with numerical superiority, and long story short got absolutely hammered, losing more than 40,000 mean to the Soviets about 7,000. The Japanese army was skilled and well disciplined, but their tanks and artillery were just not up to the standard of modern armies, and their logistics chain was woeful. A second attempt would probably have been even worse - go read about the late war Soviet offensive through Asia if you've got any doubts - it's one of the most amazing ass-kickings in modern war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.

Most people don't realise, but Hitler didn't declare war in some reactionary move to support Japan's attack. Germany had actually encouraged Japan to attack, because Germany knew it needed to start sinking US convoys, and that meant the US was going to enter the war (WWI all over again). So you might as well have an ally try and score a significant win upfront, and then hopefully keep the US occupied.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.

But, once again, nations don't work like that - nations don't just pick and choose what wars to fight based on what fights they think they can and can't win. Political and cultural beliefs play a huge factor. The invasion of Russia wasn't a military calculation gone bad - it was the purpose of Hitler's entire foreign policy.

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.

Except it almost did work. The Germans went 450 miles in a month, and destroyed more than 100 divisions. And they got to Moscow - their lines of supply were stretched but their casualties weren't severe. It was the Soviet ability to call up more than a hundred more reserve divisions, basically forming a whole new army after losing the last one, that changed everything.

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.

That's the point. That's why it was now or never for Germany.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
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.

This is actually a much neglected point. Total German industry was around 50% greater than Russia, before you add in the other European countries and captured territories aiding the invasion of Russia. Despite this, Russia was able to lose 100 divisions in the outset of the war, rebuild them and then continue to offset their on-going tactical inferiority by vastly outproducing Germany.

If Germany had moved to total war sooner, things might have been vastly different (they actually had large numbers of men that would rotate between service and factory work, while women remained at home or in crafts... incredible really).

For that matter, if Germany built a more efficient industry, that focused on rate of production over excellence, well it might also have been so different.

Good thing the Nazis are idiots

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.

Again, Germany was actually encouraging Japan to enter the war with an attack on the US. To encourage that and then stay silent and not declare war... well that's not how anyone operates. Besides, Germany wanted open season on the high seas, and knew that meant sooner or later the US would enter the war, with the full support of the public.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
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.

An interesting hypothetical is if Roosevelt's plan for Japan - to just keep them talking as long as possible had lasted another month. Japan entered the war at Germany's high tide - as it had almost reached Moscow, believing that if they waited any longer they'd miss out on the spoils of war.

Roosevelt had kept Japan talking for a couple of years at that point, if he'd kept them talking just another month Japan would have seen Germany repelled from the gates of Moscow, and then what? Maybe that wouldn't have been enough to shake the assumption of inevitable German victory, but maybe it was?

With no Japanese attack, does Germany still go to open war in the Atlantic? Do we then end up with an even shorter war in Europe? And meanwhile Japan steadily completes its occupation of China... or does the US still end up going to war with Japan?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
However the main leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin decided to stay in Moscow, even if it meant that in the case that the battle would have been lost he would have been captured.

That probably would have helped the Soviet cause, really.

Capturing Moscow isn't a win condition. It's a position from which Germany can leverage further advantage. Either way the war is going to last through 1942 and almost certainly in to 1943 as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
As much of the government had bailed, capturing Moskovy would have just been a killzone. The government was East, the industry was East.

indeed, if the timing is poor Moscow could have been the original Stalingrad, with the Siberian divisions playing the role of Operation Uranus. What happens in this scenario if Germany loses an Army in 1941 instead of 1942?

Russia has nowhere near the capability for Uranus at the Battle of Moscow - it doesn't have the tanks, nor the logistics support, nor the planning capability. The most likely scenario is pretty much what happened after Moscow throughout the Rzhev salient - vast numbers of poorly trained reserves with minimal equipment basically get fed in to a meatgrinder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Paradigm wrote:
In most cases, yes, leadership can be replaced. However, Stalin had such a cult of personality about him, and filled the Party and Military with those who supported him so absolutely that the capture of Moscow with Stalin in it would have broken the very resolve the Red Army in WW2 were famed for. Stalin was Russia and Russia was Stalin at that point, and I honestly doubt the nation would have fought in with any kind of meaningful way without Stalin at it's head. They certainly wouldn't have been able to select a new leader with any credibility; Stalin head no heir apparent, and the idea that anyone but him was fit to lead the country had been deliberately (if shortsightedly) stamped out.

There is so much speculation there. There's nothing guaranteeing political stasis, certainly no more stasis than what actually happened. And if the opposite had happened and the military high command had taken effective control, well then basically you've got 1943 come early, and an improvement in Soviet operations - at the very least you wouldn't see the wasteful over-reach of the Winter Offensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:
People just don't understand the distances involved, or the amount of soldiers and tanks deployed. D-Day? Sure, it was huge. But compared to Kursk it was a minor show in a cheap theater. Or maybe just a mime show outside that theater. The Cold War made the US (and most of the west) ignore how much the USSR actually did to grind down the Nazi war machine. D-Day - 156,000 brave Western men against some 50,000 Germans. It was no mean feat to take the beaches and start landing equipment, granted. But witness Kursk - 1,2 million Soviet troops + 5000 tanks against half a million Germans with 2500 tanks. And more coming in on both sides while the battle spiraled out of control...

The Soviet contribution to the war was by far larger, but comparing to D-Day is really misleading. The scale of D-Day is highly limited by how many troops you can offload in a single day on a beach - it's an extraordinary technical achievement, but in terms of troop numbers its fairly obviously going to be quite small.

Later operations would involve much larger numbers of troops, though obviously nothing that ever matched the scale of the Eastern Front.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
This is a good point. The only way I see this working for Germany is if either: 1) Germany never starts WWII; 2) Germany somehow makes it so France and Britain are neutral when it drives through Poland and into the USSR. Even then it is seriously touch and go. I would what the effect of an all out Japanese attack would have been at the same time, if it would have been enough to put the USSR over the edge.

I'm not sure British withdrawal from the war is that implausible. They were basically beaten, and in a position that would have seen almost every other nation in history would have been seeking terms.

From there, well... you get an end to the blockade of Germany. And probably access to Middle East oil. That'd make a huge difference, but whether it would be enough of a difference... probably not?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Paradigm wrote:
If it takes years of struggle and a U-turn on policy to get a replacement in peacetime, do you really think they could do all that while still maintaining the ability and the will to fight off one of history's largest invasions?

Except that you're basically as urgent as you have to be. In peace time that can mean everyone spends years plotting and planning to get their best personal outcome, but another nation hell bent on the destruction of your country and the subjugation of its peoples has just captured your capital city…


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
You are however forgetting that the US might have been reluctant to bomb Germany, as there could have been fears that the German navy would have managed to bombard coastal cities by nukes developed in Germany, as there are some arguments that Germany was very close into developping one.

No, there is no sensible historic argument that Germany was even close to getting the bomb. There is just such a vast difference between ‘we have a nuclear program’ and having a nuclear program that’s going to produce a working bomb in a few years. The US had a massive headstart on Germany, and even with that the Manhattan Project was vast – at it’s peak there was more than 120,000 people working on the project. That’s the kind of scale of labour you need to go from theoretical concepts to an actual working piece of ultra-cutting edge technology.

In Germany you had a handful of small scale experiments by a bunch of different teams, led by competing physicists. If one of those teams had managed to convince the German leadership that they had a practical concept for a bomb… then the Germans would have reached the point at which the US started the war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The fact that Germany was unable to defeat Russia doesn't mean it is impossible if a number of circumstances had been different. Germany had taken out the almost complete Red Army in its first strike, if the German leadership would have been actually competent they could have taken out Russia quickly.

What? So we just look past the German command wiping 100 odd divisions of Russian troops for minimal losses, and then call them incompetent for not wiping out the next 100 divisions?

What the hell kind of thinking is that?

Faced also with a Japanese invasion in the Far East, Russia would have had a lot more trouble rebuilding at the same speed it did.

Kholkhin Gol 2 - Electric Kholkhinigoo.

Seriously, despite excellent discipline and tactical strength, Japan's army was the product of a barely industrial power. The idea that they could have achieved anything useful against the Soviet army is just a non-starter. What they did in forcing the Soviets to leave border troops there was about the most they could achieve, and attempting another attack that would likely have been as disastrous as Kholkhin Gol would only have freed the Soviets to then send more of their border troops to fight Germany.

If so, Germany would have been in a much stronger and more secure position, with a huge industrial base. They would have been much more able to research new stuff and make better equipment than they were in real history.

At the start of Barbarossa they had the entire industrial might of continental Europe under their control. If you can't do it with that industrial base, then you can't do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
The line in bold is absolutely untrue. Yes,the Germans encircled and subsequently destroyed very large formations of the Red Army, and these encirclements were much larger and captured many more men than what the Germans had done in previous campaigns, but here again the sheer scale of the Eastern Front must be taken into consideration. Despite losing literally millions of troops, the Red Army actually grew in size between the start of Operation Barbarossa and the conclusion of Operation Typhoon in the autumn of that year.

Russia wasn't just drawing in untrained conscripts. It was calling up its large reserves, and while vast these were finite. I think its fanciful to assume that Soviet Russia could have just absorbed another total theatre disaster on the scale of Barbarossa.

The point being, I think, that a second Barbarossa was probably never going to happen.

What if Hitler had not agreed to halt the panzer division attack on the BEF?

Presumably Operation Dynamo would have been prevented but at the same time the French would have gained a valuable breathing space.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What if Hitler had not agreed to halt the panzer division attack on the BEF?

Presumably Operation Dynamo would have been prevented but at the same time the French would have gained a valuable breathing space.

People keep banging on about Moscow in 1941, but as I said, the defining moment was in 1939. The French could have won it there and then, whilst the Germans were bogged down in Poland.

People forget that the Germans were pretty raw in 1939 in terms of experience. Yes, they had veterans of the Great War, but they made a lot of mistakes in Poland and their combined arms approach wasn't as honed as it was in May 1940.

The fall of France had repercussions that went beyond Europe. The demise of France led to Japan taking over France's far east colonies, and thus encouraging Japan to aggressivly expand against the USA and Britain's far east colonies. It also pushed Britain towards the USA, and turned a European conflict into a global one.

Think about how history may have turned out, if France had held out, backed up by the expanding British army, Germany defeated, Soviet Union perhaps the new enemy, and the USA remaining isolationist.

Forget Moscow 1941, it's all about France 1939, baby

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What if Hitler had not agreed to halt the panzer division attack on the BEF?

Presumably Operation Dynamo would have been prevented but at the same time the French would have gained a valuable breathing space.

People keep banging on about Moscow in 1941, but as I said, the defining moment was in 1939. The French could have won it there and then, whilst the Germans were bogged down in Poland.

People forget that the Germans were pretty raw in 1939 in terms of experience. Yes, they had veterans of the Great War, but they made a lot of mistakes in Poland and their combined arms approach wasn't as honed as it was in May 1940.

The fall of France had repercussions that went beyond Europe. The demise of France led to Japan taking over France's far east colonies, and thus encouraging Japan to aggressivly expand against the USA and Britain's far east colonies. It also pushed Britain towards the USA, and turned a European conflict into a global one.

Think about how history may have turned out, if France had held out, backed up by the expanding British army, Germany defeated, Soviet Union perhaps the new enemy, and the USA remaining isolationist.

Forget Moscow 1941, it's all about France 1939, baby

Japanese aggression in the Pacific had very little to do with the fall of France. Japan wanted to be the imperial power in the Pacific, and this wasn't possible to achieve without directly challenging the UK and the US. The assertion that the war in the Pacific wouldn't have happened if France held out does not fall in line with what we know about Japan's intentions and motivations. Also Britain was always going to try to fall into the arms of the US, that may have been hastened by the fall of France but it was certainly not the only or even the primary factor.

Another what if:

What if France and the UK hadn't declared war on Germany 2 days after Germany invaded Poland? Would Hitler be content with carving up Poland with the Soviet Union and then calling it quits, given he had gotten Danzig and pretty much all territories lost by Imperial Germany after WW1, or would he have attacked France due to historic grievances anyway?

Or would he have left the Western front alone and gone forward with his plans of attacking Russia?

 Sir Arun wrote:
Another what if:

What if France and the UK hadn't declared war on Germany 2 days after Germany invaded Poland? Would Hitler be content with carving up Poland with the Soviet Union and then calling it quits, given he had gotten Danzig and pretty much all territories lost by Imperial Germany after WW1, or would he have attacked France due to historic grievances anyway?

Or would he have left the Western front alone and gone forward with his plans of attacking Russia?

British policy for 200 years had always been to thwart anybody with designs on controlling Europe. Britain was always going to war, plus, they had pledged to guarantee Poland's security.

As I've said, the fall of France is important for 3 reasons:

1) If Germany is still fighting France and Britain in the west, then it's not invading the Soviet Union. Germans won't make the mistakes of 1914. Moscow 1941 goes straight out of the window

2) France's defeat encourages Italy to declare war. Italy eyes up Britain's empire in the Middle East and Africa. Britain is forced to split its forces. Soon after the fall of France, Britain tells Australia and New Zealand that Mediterranean commitments against the Italians = less defence for the Far east. Stalin correctly predicts Russia is next. Almost the day after France signs armistice, Hitler orders planning for the Invasion of the Soviet Union.

3) Japan takes over Indo-China from France. Japan knows that Britain is stretched against Italy and Germany, and thus, Far East defences are weak. Japan eyes British possessions and the Dutch east indies as well, of course, due to Holland's defeat.

So yeah, the Fall of France is the catalyst for invasion of the Soviet Union, and Japanese expansionism, in my view. It's importance should never be overlooked.

Hitler most certainly wasn't going to be satisfied with Poland.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Hitler most certainly wasn't going to be satisfied with Poland.

Its a good question though. Hitler could have moved up Barbarossa.

Again why is it France and Britain didn't declare war on the USSR when they took half of Poland?