Lets talk about alternative WW2 scenarios...

[Ecthy]

Bull**** subforum!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Invading Britain isn't necessary - provided you can cut, or at least massively reduce, the amount of food imported by ship.

Who knows, a tighter lock on food imports may have lead to more victory gardens and an even greater increase in the nutritional intake of the populace.

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Bull**** subforum!

Sore loser.

And no, finns didn't lose, we came in second...

I've wondered, how would things have gone, with GB out of the war by Barbarossa. Disasters at Dunkirk and... when was Alamein, again? Anyways, defeat in Africa for the brits, some peace feelers through Sweden, a "gracious" peace deal with Germany ("We just wan't a bit of France and friendly (puppet) goverments in the occupied countries.. We have bigger fish to fry.")

Also, a scenarion like this, German troops just outside Moscow in 41, Luftwaffe bombing the city, happens to kill Uncle Joe. Would this have broken the soviet back, get them to sue for peace at ridiculous terms, and would Germany have accepted anything but unconditional surrender? Or would Josif become a martyr, cementing the russian resistance?

Also, was there a time before... Tehran, I think, when Allies and Axis might have come to a settlement peace, without the complete annihilation of the other party?

[chequita guevara]

According to B.H. Liddel-Hart, the USSR was building its military for a planned attack in Germany around '43-'44.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dauphin
That ignores Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa etc. It also ignores the US's armed neutrality.

Had Germany actually mobilized its economy for war in say 1940, and made effective use of conquered lands in their economic schemes, the British commonwealth would have been outproduced significantly. More importantly, several of the centers of commonwealth production are far off, not the same problem for the Germans.

Besides, what would Britian be hanging on for?? Without the entrance of the US at least, they would have no chance of beating Germany militarilly. Even with the US on board, without a significant continental base of operations attacking Germany would be extremely difficult at best, as Germany could focus FAR more troops on any one front than the western allies ever could under that scenerio.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
According to B.H. Liddel-Hart, the USSR was building its military for a planned attack in Germany around '43-'44.

That is interestig, assuming this scenario how well do you think they would have done? And where would the Nazis be in 1944 assuming they had focused big time on submarines and aircraft production to fight Britain and had got away with a complete victory in North Africa (including Egypt) and had made less shining but still very good progress in conquering Iraq and other British colonies in the ME.


Also where would Franco's Spain be in such a 1944?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by GePap


Had Germany actually mobilized its economy for war in say 1940, and made effective use of conquered lands in their economic schemes, the British commonwealth would have been outproduced significantly. More importantly, several of the centers of commonwealth production are far off, not the same problem for the Germans.

Besides, what would Britian be hanging on for?? Without the entrance of the US at least, they would have no chance of beating Germany militarilly. Even with the US on board, without a significant continental base of operations attacking Germany would be extremely difficult at best, as Germany could focus FAR more troops on any one front than the western allies ever could under that scenerio.

Assuming Japan attacked just as it had in the real world in 1941 how would the US balance support for the besiged and perhaps conquered isle and fighting in the pacific?

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
According to B.H. Liddel-Hart, the USSR was building its military for a planned attack in Germany around '43-'44.

I was under the impression, that the initial success of Barbarossa was partly due to the soviets being allready in offensive stance.

[Dauphin]

That is one argument, it could also be incompetence.

They were still shipping goods to Germany even after Operation Barbarossa started.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun


I was under the impression, that the initial success of Barbarossa was partly due to the soviets being allready in offensive stance.

AFAIK no. There was some debate some years back about Barbarossa being an explicit "preemptive war" against an already planned Soviet offensive for 41, but IIRC the idea has been thrown out by most historians.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
According to B.H. Liddel-Hart, the USSR was building its military for a planned attack in Germany around '43-'44.

his book on ww2 is an essential read.

i'm reading a biography of stalin at the moment. it provides writings by stalin and conversations with senior party figures which prove that he was thinking about and planning a war with germany in 1944, even whilst hitler was preparing to invade poland.

[Patroklos]

The Germans were already winning the Battle of the Atlantic before the US entered, if Germany could have focused on long range bombers (people forget how the few Germany had were effective at convoy raiding) and Uboats it would have been no contest against Britain alone, probably in Germany's favor even with the US.

And has been said, there is no chance of a US/UK invasion of the continent without Russia.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
I was under the impression, that the initial success of Barbarossa was partly due to the soviets being allready in offensive stance.

I was under an opposite impression: That Stalin had just finished a major purge of his officer corp and so had no army leadership to do anything.

One expert event profffered his opinion that the Stalin's learning that Soviet generals were planning a coup was disinformation planted by Nazi agents, so Stalin would purge his army of its best generals.

[korn469]

I blame three of Germany's defeats/missed opportunities (Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Stalingrad) on Hermann Göring. So he dies in a car wreck in like January of 1940, and Hitler replaces him with a capable leader. The Germans sweep the British from the beaches at Dunkirk, then win the Battle of Britain, and Britain surrenders in 1940. Hitler ignores Yugoslavia in 1941, and invades around April of 1941 still catching the Soviets flatfooted. Japan also declares war on the USSR at this time. Germans occupy Moscow around October of 1941. By mid 1942 the Soviet Union crumbles, and the axis win WWII.

[David Floyd]

There are so many misconceptions out there about Germany's ability to win WW2. The bottom line is this: Even if Germany succeeded in EVERY SINGLE MILITARY OPERATION they attempted or thought about attempting, including Sealion, Barbarossa, and North Africa, the war still would have ended circa 1947 with the atomic destruction of most of Europe, courtesy of the USAAF, the atomic bomb, and the B-36.

The only way Germany could have prevented this outcome would have been to develop the atomic bomb first (they were so far behind this is virtually impossible, absent a mass defection of the Manhatten Project scientists), and couple this unlikely development with that of a delivery system that could reach the United States, BEFORE the US developed one first (marginally more possible, although still not likely - V-weapons that could cross the Atlantic were pipe dreams, and Germany simply did NOT have a heavy long-range bomber program at any point in the war). Germany also would have had to develop a fighter capable of reaching the altitude at which a B-36 could fly - and since very few German fighters in 1945 could have even caught up to a B-29 in ideal conditions, it seems quite unlikely that two years later, they would have been able to bring down the B-36.

The ONLY realistic scenario, IMO, that has Germany surviving WW2, is preventing US intervention. Unfortunately, the better they do, especially against England, the more likely the US is to come in. FDR wanted to get into the war as early as 1940. It's still very possible that had Hitler been politically smarter, he could have refused to declare war on the US in 1941, and restrained Donitz's U-boats in the Atlantic. The political pressure would have been on to focus on Japan, giving Germany time to consolidate in Europe.

The problem is, though, that the US is still on schedule to have the capability to destroy Germany far in advance of Germany's (hypothetical) capability of so much as scratching the US, so this only works if Germany can keep from declaring war on the US, AND if the political situation in the US keeps the US from declaring war on Germany (and this becomes more unlikely, when details of the Holocaust comes out). Remember also that Churchill and FDR are pretty good buds, and I wouldn't put it past the two of them to fabricate provocations to force the US to come in (something along the lines of a Zimmerman note, for example).

Oncle Boris,

Possibly a Sealion, with Germany focusing on naval bombers and submarines to secure a sea passage.

Except if the Germans can't pull off Sealion in the late summer/early fall of 1940, the can't pull it off at all. Britain's army and the RAF would have been too well equipped to defeat any landings. The problem is, the German's can't pull it off in 1940 without destroying the RAF, which they can't do because the RAF has an equal or better kill ratio, is producing more pilots, and is able to recover many more of it's downed pilots, not to mention the fact that the Spitfire was arguably superior to anything the Luftwaffe was flying at the time.

It's actually a misconception that the Germans lost because they focused on cities rather than airfields and aircraft. They did, but most historians today agree that Germany was pretty unlikely to win no matter what they tried.

Heraclitus,

I don't know, if the germans had dedicated their industry to aircraft and submarine construnction, the UK would have had to cave eventually.

Well, the question is whether the Germans can produce enough fighters and U-boats to force the UK to cave before the US enters the war. Historically, that seems unlikely. The UK was outproducing Germany in terms of both fighters and fighter pilots, and in terms of U-boats, how many more could Germany build, and still produce the thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, etc., that they needed to equip the Heer?

Also, remember that in the ****ed up political scene in Nazi Germany, unless the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine can score some big, early wins with less resources, then they won't get the extra resources they need to ACTUALLY score some big wins.

Cerberus,

Invading Britain isn't necessary - provided you can cut, or at least massively reduce, the amount of food imported by ship. That would have taken a major focus on building submarines, developing long range aircraft and possibly the V-weapons. At the same time Britain and Canada and the US would have been mass producing convoy escorts and light carriers. Could have gone either way.

Well, the problem was also the fact that the Allies had broken Enigma and were regularly reading German codes. Even when Germany changed the codes and it took time for the Allies to re-break them (and they always did), the Allies still could rely on HUFF-DUFF to locate German submarines. Once the US started flooding the Atlantic with CVEs and DEs (as did Canada, which had the world's 3rd largest navy in 1945), it was pretty much over. I agree, if Germany can close the Atlantic they can win, but you've gotta change more than just the number of U-boats. With Enigma and HUFF-DUFF, after a certain buildup period more U-boats simply equals more targets.

Giving Rommel proper resources would have almost certainly cost the British Egypt, the Suez Canal and Middle East oil. Deploying major Luftwaffe formations to the Mediterannean would have made the theatre largely untenable for the RN to try and stop the flow of supplies to N Africa.

I agree, with the caveat that you have to take Malta. If you can do that, and give Rommel the resources he needs, you have a chance. I tend to think, though, that Britain could have held the Middle East, even if they lost Egypt - the Germans simply weren't capable of putting THAT many forces into Africa, even if they ignore the Soviets. If the Germans put, say, a strong Panzerarmee into Africa early, rather than just the 15th and 21st Panzer and 90th Light Divisions, then the British respond by shipping more divisions in, too. This weakens them at home, and in the Pacific, but the Pacific is ancillary (except in some pre-war, unrealistic war planning) to the main point, and England is un-invadable by this point, anyway.

korn469,

You blame Hermann Goring for Stalingrad? Yeah, he promised the Luftwaffe could supply 6th Army, but even after that was clearly untrue Hitler still refused to allow a breakout, or even a large scale breakTHROUGH.