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JCG
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between a rock and a hard place
Feb 2002
time: 00:24
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IIRC, Japan attacked the Soviets yes, but a couple of years before 1941.
And well, surely they would have gotten their butts kicked a second time, but that would mean diverting a fair number of SU forces, resources and time from the main front. If done correctly, it would be a nicely sprung trap.
And Germany could well have won WWII, IF it had taken care of its enemies one at a time.
I know Hitler didn't really want to mess with the British, but letting them off the hook so easily after the BoB (ie: not giving the African theatre and elsewhere the necessary importance) proved to be a big mistake.
Germany could also had delayed the attack on the Soviet Union for a couple of years. A confrontation was apparently inevitable, in all fairness, but preferrably later than sooner. And without the British to contend with by then, all the better.
Declaring war against the U.S. was also out of the question, a thankless act of "solidarity" with the Japanese that secured Germany's total defeat. Once the U.S. was in the war, there was no way to "win", and chances for a settlement in the West went down the drain once "unconditional surrender" came into play.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
And leave supply lines vunerable to Soviet forces? Oh my. |
I doubt they would be that vulnerable. It wouldn't have taken even a quarter of the forces to take the ME that were thrown against the SU in 1941. Turkey had no modern weapons, there were 35,000 French troops in Syria and only 7 British divisions in the whole ME (including Egypt).
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:24
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1) Keep the USSR out of the war until the war with the UK/US is resolved.
2) Invest heavily in airpower including long range bombers that can take on anything in the Atlantic and bomb British factories and fleet anchorages into dust.
3) Move to jet fighters and bombers sooner.
4) Develop the atom bomb ASAP - but do not use it - just demonstrate it.
5) Build a hugh landing craft fleet, invade England when it is complete. Probably ready by '43.
6) With England out of the war, take over her Empire.
7) Invade the USSR - June 1944. And as noted here, be friendly to the conquered peoples until the Russians are defeated.
8) Assist Japan to defeat China.
9) Combined Axis invasion of the US through Mexico, circa 1950.
Last edited by Ned on 05-12-2002 at 21:16
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by JCG
IIRC, Japan attacked the Soviets yes, but a couple of years before 1941.
And well, surely they would have gotten their butts kicked a second time, but that would mean diverting a fair number of SU forces, resources and time from the main front. If done correctly, it would be a nicely sprung trap. |
There were two engagements. Once in August 1938 on a division level, ended with IJA retreating. Second time was in May to September 1939, ending in the crushing defeat of the IJA. After that, Japan shifted focus to southward expansion, so in 1941 its forces would be totally out of position.
Also, the Soviets always maintained a large garrison in Siberia.
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Lord Merciless
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Germany would have never developed the atomic bomb. They spent lots of effort developing the Deuterium and Tritium, all key ingredients of the hydrogen bomb. But without have the fission bomb, Deuteriums and Tritiums are pretty harmless stuff.
Heisenberg either intentionally sabotaged his own research, or he had never figured out that fission bomb would have worked.
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ravagon
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Australia
Sep 1999
time: 13:24
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3 Major points I can think of:-
(1) Germany didn't fully gear its economy/industry towards war until mid 43' IIRC. Even after they had there was just too little focus to it. Little provision for winter-fighting in the USSR. Diversion of resources to their never-realized blue-water Navy. Beginning the useless mass-destruction bombing campaigns against British cities that led to the reprisals against their own industry. Beginning a 3rd front in North Africa. The list goes on...
(2) The very basis of their expansion East was too rigid and very wasteful. Lebenstraum. Wehrmacht soldiers were showered with flowers and hailed as liberators in the baltics and even the Ukraine and Georgia. A year later, having found out how much worse off they were under Nazi rule, partizan was activity was rampant just when German supply lines were stretched most and losses mounting.
If they'd avoided being seen for what they were until after the USSR's defeat they might have avoided much of this.
(3) Bringing the US openly into the war was a very foolish move. Rather than arrogance in their own supremacy they should've pressured Japan into the "back-door" approach. Japan itself was more inclined to this course until convinced to go after US/British possessions in the south. Furthermore an accomedation with Chiang in China, thereby freeing up units for an Invasion from the East, combined with an offensive against the Soviets could well have brought about a relaxation of the US embargo.
Even at this stage the US was hardly well-inclined to the USSR, particularly given their stance during the German 1940 offensive in Western Europe.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
The production power would still not rival that of the US, but American carrier-based aircraft wouldn't be able to take on Germany's land-based aircraft. America's only strong ally would be Russia, but with a blockade at Leningrad, Russia would be inaccessible. |
Don't underestimate the capabilities of carrier based aircraft vs land based. Many more land based aircraft have been destroyed by carrier based aircraft than vice versa. This is due to the fact that carrier based aircraft can concentrate so easily, while their "base" is heavily protected by AA and CAP and most importantly, mobile. They could move at over 30 knots, which means that they could move into range at night, launch their planes before dawn, move back out of range and to another position from which they could recover their planes. There is very little chance that they could be touched by enemy aircraft, especially in enough numbers to take out a carrier.
The only thing that carrier aircraft lacked was range / payload. But the fighter bombers could tear up enemy airfields etc. very well. The U.S. had a lot of carriers by the later stages of the war, and could have had a lot more a lot earlier if they were willing to refit fast troop ships as carriers.
As for blockading Russia, what about the Murmansk route, or Vladivostok, or through Iran, or through the Black Sea? One of these routes should be open to the Allies.
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Kepler
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Lovely Oregon
Jul 2002
time: 21:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
I think Heisenberg was uncertain which research path was best. |
So, your position is he lacked the momentum?
Depends what you think the ultimate German war aims were. Assume, against a lot of evidence, that they were sane.
1) Break the possibility of being encircled by France, USSR, and the British Navy.
2) Superstate of all German-speaking peoples.
3) Vassalage, dependent alliance, or neutrality of immediate northern and southern border states.
4) Sea openings to the North, Baltic, and Mediterranean.
5) Postwar power status on a level with US and USSR.
I think if they restrict themselves to this, they can do it.
1. Ally with Italy but maintain strict neutrality with Imperial Japan.
2. Same lightning strikes east through Poland (divide it with the Russians) and west through the lowlands and France to establish the western occupation as bargaining chip.
3. No Blitz. Win the air war from the RAF over occupied territory without bombing British civilian targets.
4. No Barbarossa. If the Russians want to attack along that loooooooooong front against the dug-in best infantry and tank divisions of the Wehrmacht, let em come. Keep the diplomacy at a fever pitch with Stalin, kill the anti-commie rhetoric (the way the US did during the war). As the Japanese make mainland progress against China, the Russians might go that way instead of against the harder German troops.
5. No genocide of slavs, Jews, etc. OK, this probably isn't essential (Stalin got away with it and stayed stable), but this is my alternative history, so there you go. Obviously, it would have helped Germany retain intellectual vigor if it had not been busy murdering its brightest people (though Stalin got away with that too).
6. Make it obvious at all times that Germany will willingly make peace with England and the United States, leave all of territorial France except Alsace-Lorraine, and restore the Lowland nations as a demilitarized zone, restore Slovakia.
What Germany gets out of this is: a superpower state whose physical boundaries encompass current Germany, Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, western Poland. Intimidating military influence over the Lowlands, France, their Italian ally. An iron curtain stalemate with the Russians from eastern Europe down through the Balkans. The post-war anti-colonial movements get rid of British global reach. The world settles down to a cold war rivalry between the USSR and China in the far east, and an economic rivalry between the UK, Germany, and the US in the west which eventually ends with US hegemony in the western hemisphere and German economic hegemony in Europe. The US, USSR, and Germany all get the bomb at about the same time (12-18 months after the European armistice) and stabilize the tripolar cold war.
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05-12-2002 07:11
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