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How could Hitler have won WW2?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    Every German spy dropped in the UK was captured and either turned or shot and they did not have a sympathetic population to operate within, unlike British agents dropped into Europe. German radar might have been technically more efficient but even some of the best radars on both sides were unable to rotate through 360 degrees. The British Chain Home system was very good but could not "see" behind itself so when German aircraft passed the front row, the RAF were depending on a smaller second row and visual confirmation by the Observer Corps. The radar system also had power and system failures that led to gaps in the coverage but this led to the development of vehicle borne radars to fill the gaps. The British could not cover all the gaps and when the Germans tried swamping the defences with multiple raids, big and small,high and low, the defence system was unable to cope and the RAF essentially attacked the big raids and let the airfields look after themselves against the low raids, with local air and anti-aircraft gun defence. Remember that the Germans were attacking from Bristol right around the coast to Norfolk and that's a lot of ground to protect. What is also left out of the narrative is the damage inflicted on the coastal towns, such as Portsmouth and Southampton and many others, which took a battering and continued to be hit right up to November of 1940. The Germans to this day insist that the Battle did not stop right after the 15th of September and they continued offensive operations until November. The whole story isn't as cut and dried as some would have you think.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Azza wrote: »
    The RAF where not far from defeat when the German switched to bombing cities, so had the Germans kept attack the RAF bases as they where doing for another few weeks the could of won the Battle of Britain. ...

    Not so certain of that. The RAF had resources all over the UK. Germans really were only attacking the bases in the South. The bases they were attacking were mainly grass fields. Almost impossible to put out of action for any length of time. The RAF also could rotate pilots back up north to rest. The Germans were running out of pilots and planes faster than the RAF were.


  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    The British losses in the Battle of Britain where not sustainable indefinitely and they where not far off collapse when the German's switched to targeting cities. It was never a case that the RAF would be totally be destroyed by the German's, in the event the losses where deemed unsustainable the RAF wouldn't have just committed what was left to the battle until it was completely destroyed but pull back its remaining aircraft to the north and try and preserve as much of it as possible to be used against a German invasion.

    Its true the German's where taking more losses but considering the German where able to commit some where in the region of 4000-5000+ aircraft to operation Barbarossa around which 3,000 where combat aircraft and that was only two thirds of the Luftwaffe's total strength, across the whole of the Luftwaffe they had plenty of aircraft and pilots left.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    If we hadn't told the Brits the weather was getting better in time for D-day........

    (for want of a nail the shoe was lost, etc etc :) )


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Azza wrote: »
    The British losses in the Battle of Britain where not sustainable indefinitely and they where not far off collapse when the German's switched to targeting cities. It was never a case that the RAF would be totally be destroyed by the German's, in the event the losses where deemed unsustainable the RAF wouldn't have just committed what was left to the battle until it was completely destroyed but pull back its remaining aircraft to the north and try and preserve as much of it as possible to be used against a German invasion.

    Its true the German's where taking more losses but considering the German where able to commit some where in the region of 4000-5000+ aircraft to operation Barbarossa around which 3,000 where combat aircraft and that was only two thirds of the Luftwaffe's total strength, across the whole of the Luftwaffe they had plenty of aircraft and pilots left.

    That's because they gave up attacking Britain because their losses were unsustainable.

    Its almost impossible to close a grass airfield.
    The effect of the German attacks on airfields is unclear. According to Stephen Bungay, Dowding, in a letter to Hugh Trenchard[224] accompanying Park's report on the period 8 August – 10 September 1940, states that the Luftwaffe "achieved very little" in the last week of August and the first week of September.[225] The only Sector Station to be shut down operationally was Biggin Hill, and it was non-operational for just two hours. Dowding admitted 11 Group's efficiency was impaired but, despite serious damage to some airfields, only two out of 13 heavily attacked airfields were down for more than a few hours. The German refocus on London was not criticals

    As for pilots...
    number of RAF fighter pilots grew by one-third between June and August 1940. Personnel records show a constant supply of around 1,400 pilots in the crucial weeks of the battle. In the second half of September it reached 1,500. The shortfall of pilots was never above 10%. The Germans never had more than between 1,100 and 1,200 pilots, a deficiency of up to one-third. "If Fighter Command were 'the few', the German fighter pilots were fewer".

    There was only small window when Britain losses of aircraft exceeded production. During that window it wasn't just unsustainable for Britain it was even more so for Germany. Hence they stopped.
    24 August to 6 September as the critical period because during these two weeks Germany destroyed far more aircraft through its attacks on 11 Group's southeast bases than Britain was producing. Three more weeks of such a pace would indeed have exhausted aircraft reserves. Germany had seen heavy losses of pilots and aircraft as well, thus its shift to night-time attacks in September.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain#Assessment_of_attempt_to_destroy_the_RAF


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,395 ✭✭✭Harika


    Seems I mixed up the radar story
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/

    Anyway with RAF forced to operate from further north they would loose air superiority over the south of England, still sealion was doomed to fail.
    And what we know now, air superiority alone doesn't win wars without boots on the ground.
    RAF wouldn't run out of planes, just lost operational ability.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Harika wrote: »
    ...
    Anyway with RAF forced to operate from further north they would loose air superiority over the south of England,....

    I don't think that was ever a real possibility. The German's never managed to close the airfields. Dowling still had kept a lot of non experienced UK pilots and squadrons in reserve.


  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    No doubt aircraft an pilot losses where a factor in German's decision to end the air campaign against Britain. I don't think the German's where ever overly enthusiastic about invading Britain and the losses where without a doubt unsustainable in the context that they needed those aircraft for the invasion of Russia.

    If Hitler/Germany's sole ambition was to focus on and eliminate Great Britain they could of made good on those losses (as I pointed out they had huge numbers of aircraft and pilots available for the start of Barbarossa) they could of exhausted the RAF for a least a time anyway.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    The stats suggest the Germans would have run out of pilots and aircraft first.

    Let's pretend they did that. How then do they defeat the Royal Navy with no Aircraft? Not going to happen in 1940 with the German Navy.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭jackboy


    beauf wrote: »
    The stats suggest the Germans would have run out of pilots and aircraft first.

    Let's pretend they did that. How then do they defeat the Royal Navy with no Aircraft? Not going to happen in 1940 with the German Navy.

    That’s the type of lack of strategic thinking that Hitler demonstrated throughout the war. His only plan every time was one massive attack and hope that the enemy folds. This worked in France but not because the German army was invincible. The Germans would have been better off if they won in France after a protracted campaign with heavy losses. That may have restricted the victory disease a bit.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,792 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    There's an argument, but I'm not sure how strong it is. Hitler wasn't terribly interested developing atomic weapons; the German programme started late and was seriously under-resourced because Hitler gave it a low priority. So even if European Jewish physicists had remained in Europe and were available to the support the programme, he might not have made use of them.

    The bigger difference would have been on the other side; Teller, etc, would not have been available to the US atomic programme. But it would still probably have been a bigger, earlier and better-resourced programme than anything the Germans were doing.

    Uhh.. There's a lot of truth to the argument that the best physicists had fled (Fermi, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe and of course Einstein.) And, Hitler's racial purity and surrounding himself with sycophants prevented Heisenberg et al. from ever receiving enough support to complete his heavy water experiments.

    I don't think the German program was all that low-priority; it was a tactical error to not fund it, and Germany wasted a lot of resources during WWII. Imagine a dirty bomb in the nosecone of a V2 or delivered by an early Nazi jet plane, terrifying.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Azza wrote: »
    ....
    If Hitler/Germany's sole ambition was to focus on and eliminate Great Britain they could of made good on those losses (as I pointed out they had huge numbers of aircraft and pilots available for the start of Barbarossa) ..

    As soon as Germany took the pressure off to allow it's airforce to recover, that also allows the RAF to recover.

    Look at German Fighter production in 1940 vs 1945

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_aircraft_production_during_World_War_II

    Very hard to kill production of aircraft. Allies tried and struggled with vast resources thrown at it. Germany tried in 1940 and failed. Britain had an extremely efficient production and repair system, network in place before the battle is Britain.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    beauf wrote: »
    I don't think that was ever a real possibility. The German's never managed to close the airfields. Dowling still had kept a lot of non experienced UK pilots and squadrons in reserve.

    The German intelligence was flawed as well. They expected the 15th September attack to be the day that a depleted RAF was finally finished off. The German pilots were expecting little resistance, instead the RAF put more planes in the air than any other day and gave the Luftwaffe a seriously bloody nose.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Goring had a habit of writing cheques he couldn't cover.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 610 ✭✭✭Samsonsmasher


    Aegir wrote: »
    The German intelligence was flawed as well. They expected the 15th September attack to be the day that a depleted RAF was finally finished off. The German pilots were expecting little resistance, instead the RAF put more planes in the air than any other day and gave the Luftwaffe a seriously bloody nose.

    This would never have happened if Halifax made peace with Hitler after the fall of France. No Battle of Britain no Blitz and no patriotic rhetoric from Churchill. Instead a Quisling regime in Britain which a Vichy like military alliance with Nazi Germany in return for an unmolested British Empire to allow Germany get on the invasion of Russia. Even so Germany's victory in 1941 would be lucky just as their victory over France was lucky - the offensive in the Ardennes that broke through the Allies lines and led to the evacuation from Dunkirk was a bold gamble that just about paid off.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,216 ✭✭✭✭Beechwoodspark


    For Germany to win they’d have had to take Russia over and take command of the Russian army. Then take it from there.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    This would never have happened if Halifax made peace with Hitler after the fall of France. No Battle of Britain no Blitz and no patriotic rhetoric from Churchill. Instead a Quisling regime in Britain which a Vichy like military alliance with Nazi Germany in return for an unmolested British Empire to allow Germany get on the invasion of Russia. Even so Germany's victory in 1941 would be lucky just as their victory over France was lucky - the offensive in the Ardennes that broke through the Allies lines and led to the evacuation from Dunkirk was a bold gamble that just about paid off.

    I'd imagine that even in that scenario as soon as the Germans started to struggle in Russia during the winter that the British and French would quickly rejoin the conflict and we'd end up with a Napoleonic style 2nd Coalition as neither could risk an overall German victory happening


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,643 ✭✭✭storker


    There is no possible scenario where Hitler would not have gone to war against the Allies or specifically avoided war with the Soviet Union but it was not inevitable that he would have lost.

    I'm not so sure about that. The allies were out-producing Germany hand over fist, not only in aircraft, shipping, tanks etc but they weren't forced to keep talented submarine captains and pilots in action for far too long, whereas the Allies could afford to rotate many more experienced people out of the line to help train up new recruits.

    Hitler could have given himself a better chance by:

    1. Winning the Battle of Britain and knocking the UK out of the war.
    2. Not wasting resources by bailing out the Italians when they came unstuck in the Balkans and North Africa
    3. Not invading Russia.
    4. Developing a strategic bomber AND producing it in large numbers.
    5. Not wasting good rolling stock transporting Jews to the east when army formations were crying out for resupply.
    6. Giving Doenitz more than a handful of U-Boats in 1939 instead of wasting resources building big, useless capital ships because they look cool.
    7. Refraining from dicking around with operational command and let the generals do their jobs. Adolf was probably the best general the Allies had.
    8. Winning over the inhabitants of occupied territories instead of brutalising and alienating them.
    9. Allowing German women to work in the factories instead of seeing them as Nazi-making machines and using half-starved, brutalised, utterly unmotivated slave labour instead.

    Ultimately, though, it still more than likely would have ended in defeat, although it would have taken longer. The German armed forces were built with short, sharp, victorious campaigns in mind. Once the quick victory wasn't achieved and the enemies started to gain strength, the jig was effectively up. The Luftwaffe never recovered from its losses in 1940 and their transport assets never recovered from the disastrous invasion of Crete in 1941, a chicken which came home to roost big time with the Stalingrad disaster. By the time Doenitz was receiving increasing numbers of U-Boats, the allies had the technological means to relegate them to nuisance value. The quality of the army started to decline as early as 1941 as casualties from Barbarossa ate into the pool of well-trained, experienced men. And so on...


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 610 ✭✭✭Samsonsmasher


    For Germany to win they’d have had to take Russia over and take command of the Russian army. Then take it from there.

    Several Russian divisions actually served in the Wehrmacht led by the defector General Vlasov called the Russian Liberation Army. It was a Corps sized formation. Estonians Latvian Lithuanians Ukrainians and Cossacks served in other units including their own divisions of the Waffen SS with mostly German officers and NCOs. Those who didn't escape to the west in 1945 were liquidated. Vlasov tried to save his skin by supporting the Prague Uprising but was arrested and hanged.

    If the Germans had captured Moscow - I repeat the only real chance was Britain led by Halifax making peace after the Fall of France - they could have only done it by getting lucky and with heavy casualties but then were faced with the problem of holding their gains.

    Both lack of food and poor logistics but more importantly callous indifference to human life led to millions of Soviet prisoners perishing in Nazi captivity. All the same some of these men were spared and put to work as porters and other labour units in the Wehrmacht and also took part in anti partisan campaigns along with regular German troops and the Waffen SS.

    If Barbarossa had been successful in 1941 more pragmatism might have overcome ideological purity and larger numbers of Russians including many who actually hated Stalin might have been used to defend the borders of the Reich with utopian plans to exterminate them put on hold for the time being.

    The ultimate goal of Hitler being to establish an agrarian utopia in the East feeding the German industrial heartland in the West. Rival European powers would be left alone once they recognized Hitler as master of Europe if they kept out of Germany's plans in the East.
    Jews would all have to go and those Slavs left alive would serve new German settlements across European Russia where Aryans would go forth and multiply. This vast stud and breeding farm would be over seen by the SS.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    . Britain had an extremely efficient production and repair system, network in place before the battle is Britain.[/QUOTE]

    Britain didn't until Beaverbrook took over and forced the various manufacturers to cooperate and build shadow factories and dispersed minor factories well North of the fighting. There was a huge amount of opposition at all levels of the industry until Churchill forced them to cooperate or be nationalised by force. Lots of little empires were shoved aside. a lot of noses were put out of joint but Beaverbrook had the ear of Churchill and events proved him right.....The Supermarine plant at Southampton was destroyed, to the point where the surviving machinery and jigs (some very vital ones were the only ones of their kind) were removed from the wreckage of the buildings and shipped North.Hurricane factories were also bombed and a lot of it's production was moved up near Birmingham.
    As for bombing grass airfields, the Germans were perfectly aware that you couldnt close grass airfields,as they operated from them, too and were being bombed nightly by RAF Blenheims but remained fully operational and they did order their fighter pilots to strafe enemy airfield as targets of opportunity, with a view to hitting fighters (or any other aircraft) and their support infrastructure on the ground. The RAF were critically short of tools and vehicles after escaping from France and were often unable to repair aircraft at unit level, which is why so many were sent to the Civil Repair Organisation in mid-1940, before the real attacks began. Also, foreign production in Canada and pilot training in Canada and the Empire made all the difference, as did the influx of European pilots. Britain was never going to run out of pilots, as such, but it did have to transfer Naval and Bomber Command pilots to Fighter Command as losses began to bite. Germany's overall pilot output was quite slow, by comparison, as it was still run on a peacetime schedule and even fighter production was slowed down and Hitler refused to have women in the factories until common sense prevailed and women entered the workforce later,but not on the same scale as the UK.


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  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    beauf wrote: »
    The stats suggest the Germans would have run out of pilots and aircraft first.

    Let's pretend they did that. How then do they defeat the Royal Navy with no Aircraft? Not going to happen in 1940 with the German Navy.

    Perhaps your right and I'm just repeating the traditional narrative that the RAF was close to defeat in the Battle of Britain but that narrative doesn't take account of the strength of of the Luftwaffe at that point in the battle.

    But a couple of things I will point out is that the German's did not commit the entirety of the Luftwaffe to the Battle of Britain.

    The other thing is as I already said the Luftwaffe had a considerable air strength available for Barbarossa.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe_serviceable_aircraft_strengths_(1940%E2%80%9345)

    I'd be rather surprised if the Luftwaffe was in the same or worse shape than the RAF was by the time they switched over to city bombing in the Battle of Britain that they would have been able to rebuild and train up new air crews to the force it had available for Barbarossa.

    As for defeating the Royal Navy without an air force as I'll ready said in a previous post I don't think the German's could of prevented the Royal Navy from destroying the invasion fleet after it sailed across the channel even with the assistance of the Luftwaffe.


  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    storker wrote: »
    I'm not so sure about that. The allies were out-producing Germany hand over fist, not only in aircraft, shipping, tanks etc but they weren't forced to keep talented submarine captains and pilots in action for far too long, whereas the Allies could afford to rotate many more experienced people out of the line to help train up new recruits.

    Hitler could have given himself a better chance by:

    1. Winning the Battle of Britain and knocking the UK out of the war.
    2. Not wasting resources by bailing out the Italians when they came unstuck in the Balkans and North Africa
    3. Not invading Russia.
    4. Developing a strategic bomber AND producing it in large numbers.
    5. Not wasting good rolling stock transporting Jews to the east when army formations were crying out for resupply.
    6. Giving Doenitz more than a handful of U-Boats in 1939 instead of wasting resources building big, useless capital ships because they look cool.
    7. Refraining from dicking around with operational command and let the generals do their jobs. Adolf was probably the best general the Allies had.
    8. Winning over the inhabitants of occupied territories instead of brutalising and alienating them.
    9. Allowing German women to work in the factories instead of seeing them as Nazi-making machines and using half-starved, brutalised, utterly unmotivated slave labour instead.

    Ultimately, though, it still more than likely would have ended in defeat, although it would have taken longer. The German armed forces were built with short, sharp, victorious campaigns in mind. Once the quick victory wasn't achieved and the enemies started to gain strength, the jig was effectively up. The Luftwaffe never recovered from its losses in 1940 and their transport assets never recovered from the disastrous invasion of Crete in 1941, a chicken which came home to roost big time with the Stalingrad disaster. By the time Doenitz was receiving increasing numbers of U-Boats, the allies had the technological means to relegate them to nuisance value. The quality of the army started to decline as early as 1941 as casualties from Barbarossa ate into the pool of well-trained, experienced men. And so on...

    1. Winning the Battle of Britain does not knock Great Britain out of the war.
    2. With out a doubt the war in North Africa was a huge resource drain the German's could not afford. However I don't think the German's could of risked allowing the British to have a presence in Greece. They would of been in range to bomb the Romanian oil fields which where absolutely critical to the German war effort.
    3. Invading Russia was always Hitlers primary goal. If he hadn't harbored that intention their may have been no war in the first place.
    4. Strategic bombers could have helped in the war with the Soviet Union but if you build large quantities of them it comes at the expense of something else, most likely the medium range bombers. They would of required more resources to produce and thus there would of been less of them. These strategic bombers would have vulnerable on their own as the German's wouldn't have had long range fighters to escort them all the way to their targets and back again. Also by focusing on strategic bombing the Luftwaffe's ability to provide tactical air support would decline as well.
    5. I don't believe this really a factor, more to do with limited capacity of the railway lines and also the fact that Russia is so vast that many areas in Russia are not close to railway lines and at that point supplies have to move from their closest railway line stop to their end location via truck which requires fuel which they in turned lacked.
    6. A larger U-Boat fleet earlier might have helped knock Britain out of the war but the decision to build a surface fleet to challenge the Royal Navy come about more from decisions made by the German navy than by Hitler. Plan-Z was not due to to be complete until 1948, which shows the German's did not intend to go to war with Britain when they did.
    7. Hitler got many decision wrong, but he's become the fall guy for everything that went wrong in war for Germany. his generals made many bad decisions as well and blame should be shared equally among them.
    8 & 9. This was down to Nazi ideology. It was pretty much Hitlers goal to wipe out those races he considered inferior. Had he been smarter about it he could of temporarily treated these people relatively fairly until he was assured of victory and then turned on them. But Hitler genuinely believed his own crap so to speak and saw these race's as sub human and could not bring himself to treat them well even for a short period of time let alone allow himself to think that he might need their active assistance.

    Agree with you on German war effort been geared around short, sharp military campaigns.

    You can see in my previous post a link to German aircraft numbers. The German's more than recovered their air transport capacity after Crete. Of course without Crete they would have more transport aircraft available to supply the besieged troops at Stalingrad but they still wouldn't of able to come close to properly resupplying them.

    Agree with the rest of your post.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Azza wrote: »
    Perhaps your right and I'm just repeating the traditional narrative that the RAF was close to defeat in the Battle of Britain but that narrative doesn't take account of the strength of of the Luftwaffe at that point in the battle.

    But a couple of things I will point out is that the German's did not commit the entirety of the Luftwaffe to the Battle of Britain.

    The other thing is as I already said the Luftwaffe had a considerable air strength available for Barbarossa.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe_serviceable_aircraft_strengths_(1940%E2%80%9345)

    I'd be rather surprised if the Luftwaffe was in the same or worse shape than the RAF was by the time they switched over to city bombing in the Battle of Britain that they would have been able to rebuild and train up new air crews to the force it had available for Barbarossa.

    As for defeating the Royal Navy without an air force as I'll ready said in a previous post I don't think the German's could of prevented the Royal Navy from destroying the invasion fleet after it sailed across the channel even with the assistance of the Luftwaffe.

    You don't mention that Britain also had reserves in the North. But it was also fighting all over the empire and rest of the world's also. They always kept reserves back.

    Even after withdrawal of their most vulnerable types Germany couldn't sustain daylight bombing over the UK they were getting slaughtered, same as RAF light and medium bombers did over Europe. Restricting German fighters as close escorts increased their losses also.

    Battle of Britain was a hard fought battle. RAF was never on its last legs though but was weakened for a short period. Even if there is an opinion that Germany wasn't really trying. Fact is they commited vast resources to it and were losing a battle of attrition quite badly.

    The lessons learnt of daylight raids being unsustainable without heavy close fighter escort would repeated by the Americans.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Open to correction on this..

    As Germany and Russians captured after both in advance in retreat. They had to rebuild the train lines as they used a different gauge and neither would switch to the others. Always thought that was bizarre.

    Another issue was the Germany army moved mainly by horse. Supplies, troops, ammunition even artillery. They were the biggest users of horses in WW2. Feeding and keeping horses alive in Russia was some challenge. In comparison the Russians were mostly motorised afaik.

    It's curious why WWI and WW2 retain so much interest. Even after all this time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 526 ✭✭✭To Alcohol


    Should have kept the Russians on side until they could be nuked and instead smashed the UK thus denying the Yanks a platform to attack from. Game over baby, we're all talkin German.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,395 ✭✭✭Harika


    To Alcohol wrote: »
    Should have kept the Russians on side until they could be nuked and instead smashed the UK thus denying the Yanks a platform to attack from. Game over baby, we're all talkin German.

    Russia was going to strike, there is a controversy if already 1941. As Stalin needed time to rebuild the military after the purges and the catastrophic win over Finland in the winter war.
    Nukes are overrated, two barely convinced the Japanese to surrender and it would have taken years to get a significant amount of bombs available.
    Russia lost 27 million people, a bomb that kills 100000 is barely a blink.


  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    beauf wrote: »
    You don't mention that Britain also had reserves in the North. But it was also fighting all over the empire and rest of the world's also. They always kept reserves back.

    Even after withdrawal of their most vulnerable types Germany couldn't sustain daylight bombing over the UK they were getting slaughtered, same as RAF light and medium bombers did over Europe. Restricting German fighters as close escorts increased their losses also.

    Battle of Britain was a hard fought battle. RAF was never on its last legs though but was weakened for a short period. Even if there is an opinion that Germany wasn't really trying. Fact is they commited vast resources to it and were losing a battle of attrition quite badly.

    The lessons learnt of daylight raids being unsustainable without heavy close fighter escort would repeated by the Americans.

    Again I'm kinda going on the traditional narrative that the RAF was a couple of weeks from defeat, and that include its reserve fighters based in the Britain. The fighter aircraft in other theaters where not readily available to the British if things where going badly for them at home. Fighter aircraft in North Africa did not have the range to fly back to the home island nor could they have landed on aircraft carriers and got back that way. They would have to be shipped back Britain a process that would of taken weeks and place that at risk of U-Boat attack. The problem is magnified with the more distant parts of the empire. The Luftwaffe on the other hand could of redeployed its reserve strength more easily.

    Agree that restricting fighters to close range escorts was a major tactical mistake on the German part.

    Again maybe the British won the Battle of Britain by a larger margin than I thought and for sure the Luftwaffe was coming off second best in terms of actual numbers of planes shot down. But I'm sure I'd agree with the assessment that the Luftwaffe was going run out of pilots and planes first. Some historians seem to believe the effect loss ratio between both sides was pretty even when compared against the total strength of both sides.


  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    beauf wrote: »
    Open to correction on this..

    As Germany and Russians captured after both in advance in retreat. They had to rebuild the train lines as they used a different gauge and neither would switch to the others. Always thought that was bizarre.

    Another issue was the Germany army moved mainly by horse. Supplies, troops, ammunition even artillery. They were the biggest users of horses in WW2. Feeding and keeping horses alive in Russia was some challenge. In comparison the Russians were mostly motorised afaik.

    It's curious why WWI and WW2 retain so much interest. Even after all this time.

    This is true, Russia used a different rail way gauge than what was used in the rest of Europe and it was easier to relay the tracks to suit the trains than to convert the trains to use the different gauge. I've heard this describe as a considerable but actually manageable undertaking.

    The German army mainly moved on foot actually but it did rely hugely on horses for supply, and yes the horses took horrendous losses in Russia. Many people with a passing interest and a superficial knowledge of World War II will often say German should of built more tanks and more planes but Germany simply didn't have the fuel to run them even if did build them.

    According to wikipedia, the Red Army actually used more horses than the German's did. I know the Russian's managed to motorize a higher % of its units than the German's ever did but I'm not sure if achieved over 50% motorization. I can't see any numbers for that online.

    World War I and II where arguably the most significant events in the 20th century and possible in history. They where the largest wars to ever have happened and occurred in the relatively recent past and are well documented (though gaps remain and new information is still coming to light). Don't think its any great surprise that people remain interested in them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,080 ✭✭✭EltonJohn69


    If Hitler, and all his mates, hadn’t been smoking crack he would have had a great chance to win the war


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  • Moderators Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭Azza


    Harika wrote: »
    Russia was going to strike, there is a controversy if already 1941. As Stalin needed time to rebuild the military after the purges and the catastrophic win over Finland in the winter war.
    Nukes are overrated, two barely convinced the Japanese to surrender and it would have taken years to get a significant amount of bombs available.
    Russia lost 27 million people, a bomb that kills 100000 is barely a blink.

    The evidence that suggests the Russian's where about to pre-emptively strike the German's first in 1941 if given a little more time is extremely flimsy and considered not credible at this point. They might have intended to attack Germany eventually but for sure not in 1941.

    Not sure why To Alcohol brought up the idea of nuking Russia. Germany was well behind the USA in its atomic bomb development and it probably would of been the late 1940's at best before the German's had one.

    As for being overrated. That's debatable. Nuke's would be very effective at destroying the industrial capacity of a country. Nuking one or two German cites a month for 6 months and I don't see how the German's would have the means to stay in the fight.


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