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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Mikhail
Germans could have, if they had a smarter leader who didn't commit so many men to racist genocide. Also, Britain was losing pretty bad, Germany COULD have offered Britain peace half-way through the war, and simply kept their gained territory in Europe.
The Japanese could have won as well, if they hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor. Seriously, I doubt the US would have cared whether or not Japan controlled China. FDR would have most likely never been able to convince the US public that entering the war was a must if not for Pearl Harbor. |
The US did care about China, that's why we cut the Japanese supply of American oil and iron off. It was known that their oil reserves would reach a critical low in 18 months. They believed that they could survive if they took the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies, but realized that they couldn't leave the Phillipines in US hands because the US could completely block off the Dutch East Indies with airpower alone.
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Faeelin
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Tau Ceti
Oct 2001
time: 05:19
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No.
1)insufficient industry. The USA produced more weapons than the entire axis COMBINED.
2) Insufficient consolidation. China wasn't worth it for Japan, and they never exploited the territories they conquered for the resources they needed (oil in the dutch territories) sufficiently.
3) Weak allies.
Finland/Italy, etc.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by UberKruX
I've actually discussed this with my boss (he served in ww2, grunt) and he claimed that the Germans (or as he called them, "Krauts") had America "Out gunned, Out manned, and Outthought".
the out gunned part is sinmple to understand, German weaponry gave Germany a slight edge. Out manned didnt seem right to me, but he claims that in all the action he's seen, the Krauts had more men then expected / wanted. as for "out thought", i uppose he's talkign about Rommel and the Gang, but i'm not quite sure.
Overall, i think Germany had a good shot at winning their side of ww2, England was a formidable foe, and America pushed them over the edge. My Grandfather, who also served in ww2 said "The Germans Messed Up Big Time, and We Capitialized on Their Mistakes". i'm not sure what he's referring to, but i'm only a minor ww2 buff.
another way germany could have won would have been if they left russia alone for a while longer, although the US probably would have pushed russia to attack germany anyway.
on the japanese front, I think they had an extremely good shot at winning. if you ignore the nukes on hiro - naga, the Japanese were actually doing rather well for most of the war. The American "Island Hopping" strategy was slow comming. The japanese could have taken all of southeast asia, and mayeb a chunk of russia, but BOTH sides of the war are directly influenced by the other. |
Germany had better tanks, but the US negated that edge with better airplanes. While it would appear logical that German jets might have bested allied air power, the fuel situation was such that the widespread deployment of jets would have wordsened Germany's strategic position. They literally had a choice between having Tiger tanks to keep the Russians at bay vs. having jets to fight allied ari power. Gemany had better machine guns, but the American semiautomatic rifle was better than German bolt action Mauser. The German assault rifle was not issued widely enough to make a difference. American artillery, as used in the American system, was without question the best in the war.
By D-day the Germans definiely did not have the US outmanned, at least not on the western front. You have to take into consideration that a significant number of western front troops were actually prisoners and work units, some of which were more dangerous to their officers than to the allies.
Germany couldn't leave Russia alone, the Russian were out producing and out modernizing the Germans in weaponry by 1941, and the effect of Stalin's army purges was being allieviated as new officers were being trained. The high command felt that they could not wait even one year.
Germany could have preparesd for winter war. They could have at least made winter uniforms for the troops. If they could have just halved their losses to frost bite in the winter of '41-'42 they might have been able to meet their objectives in the '42 offensive. That's still not saying that they would have put Russia out of the war.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I know about the Tanaka Plan from the WWII USArmy propaganda films I own...
The most memorable quote in them was when they referred to the Japanese as "bandy-legged Nips". |
Many of the Japanese Imperial Army's officers actually were bandy-legged. Kids were taken from home at age ten and subjected to a grueling training that included starvation right at the time that their bodies most needed nutrition to grow. Japanese officers tended to be on the average significantly shorter than their enlisted men, and many of them even had rickets of malnutrition.
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Ethelred
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
You don't need that much shipping, as long as you can protect it. The distance is short enough that you can make multiple trips every day. Grab a beachhead with 25-30 000 troops, go back, get more...
I don't think it would have succeeded, but it was Hitler's best chance of getting across the Channel. |
The point is the Luftwaffe was the protection. And the artillery as the invasion force was not going to have any. River barges on the English Channel meant they had to have good weather. 25-30,000 troops is a lot men and a lot of barges. The barges moved at less than five knots. They were going to need good weather just to get accross the channel once in the morning. After that the water gets rougher through out the day even in nicer water than the Channel.
They had no plans for a landing heavy stuff untill they took a port. With light troops only. No artillery and no tanks. Sea Lion was little more than a bluff.
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Jack_www
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I remember watching program on the History Channel about the plans that Japan and Germany had on taking over the world. Germany would push through Russia, into Asia, while Japan would go through China and would meet up with each other. Germany also wanted Japan to fight Russia as well, but Japan had a small conflict with Russia before WWII and were defeated, so they feared having another conflict with Russia, especially since Russia had much greator industrail compacity when comparred to Japan, so they signed a peace treaty with Russia. Japan actually wanted to bring Russia into the war on there side, but Germany did not want to. But I think that this would have been there best chance. Also Germany had a mutual defense pact with Japan, and they did not have to declare war on the US when US declared war on Japan, because Japan had attacked first, but Hittler decided to do this anyways. But with just Germany, Japan, and Italy against two industrail powers U.S and Russia, with Britain helping out and providing land bases close to Germany, they had no chance. Also Japan and Germany were never able to take the war to the US, and take out there industrail capacity, thus they could keep producing weapons non stop, while Germany and Japan's industry was being destroyed by bombing and thus their weapons output fell.
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11-05-2002 07:41
Remember that he balked at invading even England...
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