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How could Hitler have won WW2?
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Its hard to say if America would of entered the war in Europe had the German's and Italians not declared war on them first. One could make a strong argument that America was already in the war before this, the aid they gave to Britain in addition to escorting British Merchant ships was well beyond what a supposedly neutral country should have been doing.
Again its very difficult to say if the Russian's could of survived on their own. The Soviet economy was close to collapse in 1942 and without Lend Lease it would of been even closer, but to say it would of collapsed is extremely difficult to determine. As I already pointed out the Russia's received virtually no aid in 1941 and a relatively small amount in 1942, these where the two critical years of the war for the Russian's.0 -
I think as long as Britain was in the war there was a high chance of the US entering eventually. Knocking the brits out quick (with a peace deal) was hitlers best chance. I think unsupported, Russia would here been defeated eventually.
If the Brits had made peace with the Nazis there was no opening for an American intervention. Where could they invade or invade from? The British would have fought against the Americans to maintain that peace to keep their Empire.
Hitler did not believe Britain would go to war with Vichy France after they made peace but Britain under Churchill did.
Chutchill is key.
Lord Beaverbrook said:
"Chamberlain wanted Halifax. Labour wanted Halifax. Sinclair wanted Halifax. The Lords wanted Halifax. The King wanted Halifax. And Halifax wanted Halifax." Only the last sentence was incorrect, however; Halifax did not want to become Prime Minister. He believed that Churchill's energy and leadership skills were superior to his own."
By force of personality Churchill persuaded Halifax that he was the better man.0 -
Samsonsmasher wrote: »Hitler could not spare tanks to crush the pocket in Dunkirk. He needed them to take Paris and overrun the French before they establish a new defensive line. Paris was the prize.
The reason's where for the Dunkirk Halt order may never been known for sure, perhaps as you suggest Hitler wanted to preserve his tanks for operations further south, perhaps he was spooked by the French counter attack at Aras, perhaps the believed the panzer forces where simply exhausted, maybe Hitler wanted to spare the British in hopes they would come to peace terms, perhaps Goring had convinced him the Luftwaffe was capable of destroy the British on their own.
From what we know now, at this point of the war France was already defeated, the French had lost their best divisions, in terms of divisions the German's outnumbered them over 2 to 1 and also had air supremacy. Even if the German's took some losses and where delayed at Dunkirk mopping up the BEF, France would still have fallen it might have been delayed by a few weeks.0 -
Well the American's did manage to fight their way across the Pacific, an invasion of Europe may not have been beyond them, but it certainly would of been a lot harder.
I don't think for a second the British would of seriously opposed the American's had they gone to war with Germany, infact had Britain come to terms with the German's, they may well have decided with America on their side they could re-enter the war.0 -
I think as long as Britain was in the war there was a high chance of the US entering eventually. Knocking the brits out quick (with a peace deal) was hitlers best chance. I think unsupported, Russia would here been defeated eventually.
Except as stated earlier, Germany never had the means to knock the British out. Plan Z was the means by which Germany hoped to achieve naval parity with the UK. It was due to be completed by 1948 WITHOUT the war.
They may as well have tried swimming across the channel as going across in a fleet of canal barges and fishing boats, I reckon more of them would have made it swimming.0 -
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Well the American's did manage to fight their way across the Pacific, an invasion of Europe may not have been beyond them, but it certainly would of been a lot harder.
That would have been some battle if the US left Germany until after Japan was defeated. At that stage the US navy was massive. They could have created a base of operations in North Africa and eventually ground the Germans down.0 -
Except as stated earlier, Germany never had the means to knock the British out. Plan Z was the means by which Germany hoped to achieve naval parity with the UK. It was due to be completed by 1948 WITHOUT the war.
They may as well have tried swimming across the channel as going across in a fleet of canal barges and fishing boats, I reckon more of them would have made it swimming.
Exactly. Even had the German's achieved naval parity with Britain, its just that...naval parity. They still have to go and defeat the Royal Navy to such an extent that it couldn't interfere with a German sea borne invasion. But the British where just as likely if not more so of winning any naval battle's that come about, so what happens then, do the German's spend another couple of year building up a navy to try again?0 -
The time to invade was shortly after Dunkirk. A senior British army man of the time said that the shock of a wave 100,000 with as few as 100 panzers or a even less suddenly suddenly landing on south and east coasts could have brought about a collapse. I know that hey would have been unsupported as the RN would have cut them off from support but using local supplies they could have driven inward. Anyway, there had no such plan ready or resources available at that time.Exactly. Even had the German's achieved naval parity with Britain, its just that...naval parity. They still have to go and defeat the Royal Navy to such an extent that it couldn't interfere with a German sea borne invasion. But the British where just as likely if not more so of winning any naval battle's that come about, so what happens then, do the German's spend another couple of year building up a navy to try again?0 -
The time to invade was shortly after Dunkirk. A senior British army man of the time said that the shock of a wave 100,000 with as few as 100 panzers or a even less suddenly suddenly landing on south and east coasts could have brought about a collapse. I know that hey would have been unsupported as the RN would have cut them off from support but using local supplies they could have driven inward. Anyway, there had no such plan ready or resources available at that time.
Invade how? By swimming across the channel 1 by 1, because that was the best chance they would have had. I will state it simply. The minimum force required to establish a beach-head for an invasion would have been about 250k.
If they attempted that 1/8 of the royal navy would have killed 245k Germans in an hour, end of story.
The discussion of an invasion of the UK is pure fantasy.0 -
The time to invade was shortly after Dunkirk. A senior British army man of the time said that the shock of a wave 100,000 with as few as 100 panzers or a even less suddenly suddenly landing on south and east coasts could have brought about a collapse. I know that hey would have been unsupported as the RN would have cut them off from support but using local supplies they could have driven inward. Anyway, there had no such plan ready or resources available at that time.
I think you have got that mixed up. I believe what this person you are referring to actually said was the German's should have tried a airborne drop of 10,00-20,000 paratroops in London, around the time of Dunkirk/the fall of France as the British where such a low ebb the shock of the airborne attack might have convinced them to sue for peace.
The Germans where in no position to land 100,000 troops or 100 Panzers, they simply had no ships available at that stage to land anything like 100,000 troops.0 -
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Invade how? By swimming across the channel 1 by 1, because that was the best chance they would have had. I will state it simply. The minimum force required to establish a beach-head for an invasion would have been about 250k.
If they attempted that 1/8 of the royal navy would have killed 245k Germans in an hour, end of story.
The discussion of an invasion of the UK is pure fantasy.
With Operation Sea Lion the German's would of had the advantage of choosing when to invade, so I don't think the British could of stopped them from landing, assuming the German's had the weather on their side. But once they landed the Royal Navy would simply be able to destroy or cut off any attempt at resupply. The German's would certainly have held out for more than an hour, but they would of been forced to surrender in a matter of days. Also I don't think the invasion force intended was anywhere close to 245,000 men. I believe it was more like 13 divisions, so more like 150,000-160,000 men.0 -
With Operation Sea Lion the German's would of had the advantage of choosing when to invade, so I don't think the British could of stopped them from landing, assuming the German's had the weather on their side. But once they landed the Royal Navy would simply be able to destroy or cut off any attempt at resupply. The German's would certainly have held out for more than an hour, but they would of been forced to surrender in a matter of days. Also I don't think the invasion force intended was anywhere close to 245,000 men. I believe it was more like 13 divisions, so more like 150,000-160,000 men.
I will give you an analogy, right now there enough ships in Dublin port to carry such an invasion force. They are faster better built and more seaworthy than anything available to Germany in 1940.
Have you ever seen HMS Belfast on the Thames in London? Its a museum ship and was active in 1940, it is a town class light cruiser. At the time the royal navy had 10 town class, they had about 80 other light cruisers, about 100 destoyers. I will ignore the heavy cruisers, battle cruisers, battleships, submarines, corvettes, converted cruisers.
2 or 3 town class light cruisers would sink the entire fleet currently in Dublin port a couple of hours and they were in constant patrol in the channel. No German invasion fleet (hundreds of ships) would have got anywhere more than 2 miles off the channel islands at any point during the war.
Any attempt to assemble such a fleet would have been seen by the RAF and the RN weeks in advance. So there would be no surprise.
Operation Sealion was fantasy and was correctly dismissed as such by the Germans.
In fact I would add that even trying to assemble such a fleet would have been prevented.0 -
It would be a one shot deal. A surprise crossing backed by paratroops inland taking airfields (poorly defended) and using obsolete ships. Moving quickly inland they would not have met effective defense as the British were short of modern tanks guns and ammunition They would have to land before the full force of the RN would get there. Anyway Germany didn't even have a plan at that time for it. When they eventually assembled for Sealion only 10% of the fleet was severely damaged or sunk before leaving by the RN and RAF.0
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I think I read before that the German Air Force did not even have the type of bombs that would be required to severely damage warships. Surely they should have put more resources into developing such weaponry as an airforce capable of keeping warships at bay would be cheaper than developing a surface fleet0
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Yes I was on the HMS Belfast when I was young but I barely remember it.
The bulk of the Royal Navy's home fleet was based up in Scapa Flow up not patrolling the channel or based in ports along the south, south west cost of England (as they would of been targets for the Luftwaffe). It would of taken some time for them to get down from Scapa Flow to contest the landings.
2-3 light Cruisers would not have been sufficient to deal with the entire invasion fleet, they would of got the intention of the surface ships of the Kreigsmarine, U-Boats, have had to avoided the German minefields and probably attracted the attention of significant German air power.
Think about what your saying for second, 2-3 cruisers would never have enough ammunition to sink 100 ships, even assuming they where 100% accurate with their gunnery (which they where no where near).
The invasion would only have gone ahead assuming air superiority making it difficult for the RAF to carry out reconnaissance over the many ports the German's where assembling the invasion fleet in. The Royal Navy patrol ships if they spotted part of the invasion fleet can't magically summon the rest of the fleet from Scapa Flow. Again assuming the German's had won air superiority wouldn't they make ever effort to sink any patrol ships along the inttended route the invasion force was planing to use weeks in advance. Even if the British had advanced warning that the invasion fleet was assembling (which wasn't coming from one location but across multiple locations), do they send the home fleet down from Scapa Flow close to the channel to await the invasion and give the Luftwaffe days to bomb them in advance, you think the German's wouldn't have notice them and sent every aircraft they had over and over at them to do as much damage before invasion began. The German's would of halted the invasion force and kept bombing the home fleet until it dispersed.
The German's had no chance of successfully invading Britain, but I don't think the British where in a position to stop the landings, the distance was too short and it would taken too long for the British to assemble the home fleet inforce. But once they had done that the German's had no way of stopping them from cutting off the landing zone and destroying any attempt at resupply via sea.
From what I've read from the German's point of view, they where confident they could land in Britain, but had no confidence in the navy being able to resupply the invasion force. So yes the invasion was a fantasy but not in a bit different manner than you suggest.0 -
I think I read before that the German Air Force did not even have the type of bombs that would be required to severely damage warships. Surely they should have put more resources into developing such weaponry as an airforce capable of keeping warships at bay would be cheaper than developing a surface fleet
The Lufwaffe performance against shipping was quite poor. In British waters outside of submarine attacks only 1 in 100 ships where sunk and most of them where accounted by mines. The Luftwaffe flew thousands of sorties at Dunkirk but only sank 5 destroyers.
I never really heard it was down to the type of bombs used but more to do with lack of training on how to attack ships.
Yes the surface fleet wasn't very effective but hey hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Even if more effective bombs where developed for anti shipping operations, Germany lacked long range plans capable of using them.0 -
Was that down to air cover near Britain.
Seemed to do ok against the Russian convoys and in the Med. They also had the guided Fritz X bombs. First of its kind.0 -
Just doing a quick check and it seems the German's did lack armour penetrating bombs that would of been good against shipping. Think it was simply down to lack of training, ships are moving targets, warships can be quite agile and can fire back at you.
I think it was combination of air and submarine attacks against the Arctic and Mediterranean convoys. The Fritz X I think was only available from 1943 onwards.0 -
The Germans never developed a torpedo bomber did they?0
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I’ve always thought the Japanese cost them the war.
Bringing the Americans into the war by bombing Pearl harbour was insanity. America had repeatedly refused to get directly involved.
Without the American involvement there would have been no successful push back, or it would have been too slow allowing Hitler regroup.0 -
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riffmongous wrote: »The Germans never developed a torpedo bomber did they?
I think they could drop them from ju88 and he1110 -
Just doing a quick check and it seems the German's did lack armour penetrating bombs that would of been good against shipping. Think it was simply down to lack of training, ships are moving targets, warships can be quite agile and can fire back at you.
I think it was combination of air and submarine attacks against the Arctic and Mediterranean convoys. The Fritz X I think was only available from 1943 onwards.
Good description of an attack here...
https://www.armouredcarriers.com/illustrious-malta-operation-excess-january-10-19410 -
I’ve always thought the Japanese cost them the war.
Bringing the Americans into the war by bombing Pearl harbour was insanity. America had repeatedly refused to get directly involved.
Without the American involvement there would have been no successful push back, or it would have been too slow allowing Hitler regroup.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Habour meant war between the USA and Japan but that did not automatically mean war with between the USA and Germany/Italy. Both Germany and Italy declared war on America, Italy actually declaring it first. Whether America would of joined in the war in Europe had Germany and Italy not declared war is a matter of debate.
Its very hard to know what would of happened had America not being in the European war. I do believe Russia could of just about won on their own, but it would of been even more costly for them.0 -
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I’ve always thought the Japanese cost them the war.
Bringing the Americans into the war by bombing Pearl harbour was insanity. America had repeatedly refused to get directly involved.
Without the American involvement there would have been no successful push back, or it would have been too slow allowing Hitler regroup.
FDR was desperate to get America into the war in Europe. American ships and convoys keeping Britain supplied were already fighting the U boats in the Atlantic before the formal declaration of war in December 1941.
If Halifax was PM and he sued for peace in May 1940 after the fall of France the Americans would have had to go to war with the combined British French German and Italian fleets to get a foothold in North West Europe.0 -
The Germans should of concentrated on North Africa, knocked the allies out of the theatre there, that's your southern theatre you have not to worry about. Hitler was a fan of the Muslims he could of increased his army with new recruits to be in his armies. There was a lot of Bosnian Muslims in the waffen SS. This would of added the much needed manpower when they eventually invaded the soviet Union. Conscript from North Africa, they would of gotten possibly millions of soldiers from there, have the clerics on your side saying its a holy war, make it that they are there to save them from communism, have them believe the soviet Union will invade them and make them renounce their religion. Court Turkey, as they were an ally of Germany in WW1 you have ties there. If you have them on your side when you eventually invade the soviet Union there you have the extra manpower of possibly 2 more German armies. You can invade up from Georgia with one of them coming up from the south, the other army could land divisions along different points of the black sea in the soviet Union while at the same time as happened during operation barbarossa the invasion from nazi held territory would still happen. So instead of 3 German armies you would of had 5 the one coming up from Georgia could advance on the oil fields in the caucasus, the other army around black sea could of advanced quickly and taken stalingrad, other 3 army groups would still try and take leningrad, Moscow, and Southern army group linked up with the new army group that has captured stalingrad and these advance north to help capture Moscow with army group centre. Now this wouldn't of happened in 1941 possibly late 40s so would of been up against a stronger soviet Union. If you wanted to drain them of some of their manpower in the years before you invaded them you could of come to a secret arrangement with them saying that they could have all of Finland and Sweden but had to have invaded them say within 5 years so let's say 1945, they would of lost millions of soldiers in the process, through injury and death. Less the Germans and their allies would of had to fought when they invaded, plus you you of had Sweden and the Finns as allies then, you could of secretly supplied them with weapons to inflict as much damage on the soviet forces invading. Now with Japan I would of tried to have made them invade the Soviets from the far east just to tie soviet forces down there and then USA wouldn't of been dragged in at that point, deal with them later down the line. In regards to Britain I would have launched an airborne invasion of Ireland and informed the Irish government that we were not at war with them and just diverted their forces up to Northern Ireland and taken that. Make England even more land locked away from other countries. You could of set up air fields up in Northern Ireland and bombed British shipping from there. Hitler should of made Franco put pressure on Great Britain to say that they will be joining the war on the nazi side unless they hand over the rock of Gibraltar, I say in 1940/1941 if they had of they may have gotten this as Britain didn't need anymore against them even this Spain was in no state they still could of supplied manpower to the war effort. But what if what if hindsight is a great thing.0
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Yes I was on the HMS Belfast when I was young but I barely remember it.
The bulk of the Royal Navy's home fleet was based up in Scapa Flow up not patrolling the channel or based in ports along the south, south west cost of England (as they would of been targets for the Luftwaffe). It would of taken some time for them to get down from Scapa Flow to contest the landings.
2-3 light Cruisers would not have been sufficient to deal with the entire invasion fleet, they would of got the intention of the surface ships of the Kreigsmarine, U-Boats, have had to avoided the German minefields and probably attracted the attention of significant German air power.
Think about what your saying for second, 2-3 cruisers would never have enough ammunition to sink 100 ships, even assuming they where 100% accurate with their gunnery (which they where no where near).
The invasion would only have gone ahead assuming air superiority making it difficult for the RAF to carry out reconnaissance over the many ports the German's where assembling the invasion fleet in. The Royal Navy patrol ships if they spotted part of the invasion fleet can't magically summon the rest of the fleet from Scapa Flow. Again assuming the German's had won air superiority wouldn't they make ever effort to sink any patrol ships along the inttended route the invasion force was planing to use weeks in advance. Even if the British had advanced warning that the invasion fleet was assembling (which wasn't coming from one location but across multiple locations), do they send the home fleet down from Scapa Flow close to the channel to await the invasion and give the Luftwaffe days to bomb them in advance, you think the German's wouldn't have notice them and sent every aircraft they had over and over at them to do as much damage before invasion began. The German's would of halted the invasion force and kept bombing the home fleet until it dispersed.
The German's had no chance of successfully invading Britain, but I don't think the British where in a position to stop the landings, the distance was too short and it would taken too long for the British to assemble the home fleet inforce. But once they had done that the German's had no way of stopping them from cutting off the landing zone and destroying any attempt at resupply via sea.
From what I've read from the German's point of view, they where confident they could land in Britain, but had no confidence in the navy being able to resupply the invasion force. So yes the invasion was a fantasy but not in a bit different manner than you suggest.
Submarines operated mostly with their deck guns and 8 to 12 torpedos. They had 1 deck gun and could sink multiple ships in a convoy with them and that was with extremely limited storage space.
Cruisers had space to carry multplies of hundreds of times what a submarine could, they were designed to help capital ships engage enemy capital ships and carried more than enough ammuntion for sinking hundreds of unarmoured merchant ships. They carried 300 rounds per gun. So I have thought about what I was saying. Yes the main British battlefleet was in Scarpa flow. There was also the channel fleet, smaller but still much larger then the German navy which was bottled in the Baltic by the Scarpa flow fleet.
I specifically said it would require a tiny portion of the royal navy fleet to stop an invasion. There would been no requirement for the main battle fleet from Scarpa flow, unless the entire German and Italian plus the Vichey French Navy (sunk at anchor by the British) by some magical feat managed to converge on western France, then the main battle fleet would have been required.0 -
The Germans should of concentrated on North Africa, knocked the allies out of the theatre there, that's your southern theatre you have not to worry about. Hitler was a fan of the Muslims he could of increased his army with new recruits to be in his armies. There was a lot of Bosnian Muslims in the waffen SS. This would of added the much needed manpower when they eventually invaded the soviet Union. Conscript from North Africa, they would of gotten possibly millions of soldiers from there, have the clerics on your side saying its a holy war, make it that they are there to save them from communism, have them believe the soviet Union will invade them and make them renounce their religion. Court Turkey, as they were an ally of Germany in WW1 you have ties there. If you have them on your side when you eventually invade the soviet Union there you have the extra manpower of possibly 2 more German armies. You can invade up from Georgia with one of them coming up from the south, the other army could land divisions along different points of the black sea in the soviet Union while at the same time as happened during operation barbarossa the invasion from nazi held territory would still happen. So instead of 3 German armies you would of had 5 the one coming up from Georgia could advance on the oil fields in the caucasus, the other army around black sea could of advanced quickly and taken stalingrad, other 3 army groups would still try and take leningrad, Moscow, and Southern army group linked up with the new army group that has captured stalingrad and these advance north to help capture Moscow with army group centre. Now this wouldn't of happened in 1941 possibly late 40s so would of been up against a stronger soviet Union. If you wanted to drain them of some of their manpower in the years before you invaded them you could of come to a secret arrangement with them saying that they could have all of Finland and Sweden but had to have invaded them say within 5 years so let's say 1945, they would of lost millions of soldiers in the process, through injury and death. Less the Germans and their allies would of had to fought when they invaded, plus you you of had Sweden and the Finns as allies then, you could of secretly supplied them with weapons to inflict as much damage on the soviet forces invading. Now with Japan I would of tried to have made them invade the Soviets from the far east just to tie soviet forces down there and then USA wouldn't of been dragged in at that point, deal with them later down the line. In regards to Britain I would have launched an airborne invasion of Ireland and informed the Irish government that we were not at war with them and just diverted their forces up to Northern Ireland and taken that. Make England even more land locked away from other countries. You could of set up air fields up in Northern Ireland and bombed British shipping from there. Hitler should of made Franco put pressure on Great Britain to say that they will be joining the war on the nazi side unless they hand over the rock of Gibraltar, I say in 1940/1941 if they had of they may have gotten this as Britain didn't need anymore against them even this Spain was in no state they still could of supplied manpower to the war effort. But what if what if hindsight is a great thing.
Hitler was not interested in North Africa and the Middle East except as a sideshow. He was prepared to leave the Mediterranean to the Vichy French and the Italians. He was primarily obsessed with living space in Eastern Europe and European Russia - grabbing the Caucasus oil fields the agricultural land of Ukraine and exterminating the Slavs before repopulating his conquests with Germans.
German faced an acute oil crisis in 1941. The Nazis had one shot to capture Leningrad Moscow - decapitating the Soviet system - and the Caucasus before reaching a line from Archangel to Astrakan.0 -
Ohh I know that but if he had of done that and concentrated there 1st and made allies with Turkey the war could of turned out much different for them. Turkey gave them a much quicker avenue to the oilfields just concentrate a field army advancing from there also into soviet Union as same time as army group north, centre and south. Could of been a game changer for them.0
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Ohh I know that but if he had of done that and concentrated there 1st and made allies with Turkey the war could of turned out much different for them. Turkey gave them a much quicker avenue to the oilfields just concentrate a field army advancing from there also into soviet Union as same time as army group north, centre and south. Could of been a game changer for them.
Hitler was Hitler not some imaginary dictator who never existed so I am basing my hypothetical timeline on the real man and his ideological beliefs and goals to try and plausibly imagine a scenario that could have led to victory.0
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