How Germany could've won?

The French fleet drank wine, the British rum and the Italians stuck to port

 

Looked for the thread over on the axis history forum that discussed this. Found:
Axis History Forum • View topic - The Italian Navy and Operation Sealion 1940
I was the one that supplied some of the ranges for the Italian DDs. Turns out if they are just sailing straight there most of them can make it (so much for my memory of what was in the thread). Escorting a fleet on the otherhand becomes a bit more problematic.
Found a thread over there with much more range info for the Italian fleet:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=136256

 

I fail to see how a few Italian DD's could have made any difference. SUppose they did make it, what happens when they need repair? does Germany have the means to fix them.

 

You what is interesting about new what if's is that no matter how new or great an idea or thought might be to try and prove your point, I can almost guarantee you it has already been thought off, many many times.

 

Hitler's biggest blunder was the Battle of Britain. Perhaps misled by Goring's overly optimistic estimate of
the resources needed to subdue British air, he wasted a lot of strength (especially air power - planes and aviators)
that could very well have altered the Russian war. A win there meant all of Europe and her resources. But it
also meant an incredibly large domain to manage, and Hitler was already planning a reduction in
his military resources. It would have been quite impossible for Germany to defend the entire European continent
against an Anglo-American invasion somewhere or the certain campaign. And any invading force would
have found plenty of willing volunteers in the populace to fight the Nazis. It seems as though Hitler was banking on
a negotiated peace once he was firmly in control of Europe. Wishful thinking.

 

I disagree . Totally .

 

1)The losses of the Battle of Britain did not alter the outcome of Barbarossa
2)Europe and her resources were marginal
3)It is not so that Barbarossa would follow automatically,if the BoB was won/if there was no BoB

 

Sailing the bulk of the fleet past Gibraltar and into the Atlantic would leave Italy unprotected from any raids the Mediterrenean fleet at Alex could mount, not likely Mussolini would do that before Alex was neutralized. The Regia Marina sailing passing past Gibraltar in 1940 is not going to happen unless a lot of other things have before that, including at least neutralizing Gibraltar itself.
Range is not the determining issue, I have range data for most Italian ships and they could make it from Genova or Cagliari to Bordeaux without refueling, I don't recall if/where the four ships sold to Sweden did refuel befor being intercepted by Vian but I doubt the British provided them with fuel, if they could make it to the Baltic they certainly could make it to a French North coast port.

Considering the Italians were running nearly a convoy a day to NA plus quite a few ones to Albania, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, the Dodecannese, etc. I think that myth has been sufficiently debunked. The truth is much closer to the RN making no attempt to stop the traffic to a from NA despite global superiority, I suggest you look at the statistics for shipments to the Dodecannese islands, off the Turkish coast and practically in the Alex based Med Fleet backyard to see who usually "stuck to port" unless ULTRA offered a good chance for an ambush.

 

Simple,by not attacking the West,and driving against the East,Balkans and Russia.

 

That simple eh??

 

What about the British and the French? Even though they were locked into the "Phoney War", the Germans would still have to leave very strong forces, to include vital supporting air units along the uncompleted Siegfried Line to counter them during their joyride east.

 

IMO one chance he had was not going for the BoB, that backfired by cementing British resolve, and pursue a "southern" strategy to bring Britain to the negotiang table, loosing Gibraltar, Malta and Alex may well have done that and there was very little the British could do to prevent that, risking the few available combat ready troops left after Dunkirk and the the bulk of the RN to save Egypt is a big gamble and unlikely to succeed.

According to Hitler's writings his objectives were East, not West, war with Britain and France was something he would have liked to avoid, a negotiated peace with France and Britain was clearly in his best interests.

Cleaning up the production system earlier, so as to achieve the 1944 production peak in 1942, would also help him a lot, 1944 levels of production would allow equipping all German units with first rate weapons and probably having enough left for the front line allied troops on the Eastern Front, that would make the red army's task a lot harder than it was historically and could bring about a 1942 collapse.
As a side note to this convincing the Italians to leave aside nationalistic pride and standardize on 7.92x54 ammo for the ARMIR may be a tough sell, AFAIK all the oters axis minors were already using the Mauser ammo.

An earlier acceleration of the U-Boat war could add more pressure but is politically more risky as it may give Roosevelt a "casus belli" to bring the US in the war. IMO best strategy against the US is not to give them a "casus belli" and wait for the huge costs of the rearmament programmes to swing public opinion against FDR, there was little the US had that Hitler wanted, actually they both shared a hatred of the USSR so with FDR out he may reach an accomodation with a more "isolationist" US president, the defeat of the USSR would also allow Japan to turn to Siberia rather than China for expansion.

 

Although not an "Axis" minor, Finland nevertheless fought against the common eastern enemy with Germany. However the Finnish army used 7.62x54 ammo. That was handy, since the big (biggest?) provider of arms and ammo for the Finnish army was the USSR herself - though not voluntarily...!

I'm not really that sure that FDR shared "a hatred of the USSR". At least he "hated" more the traditional imperialistic powers like the UK. E.g. in Yalta he showed (far too) great understanding (and ignorance) to Stalin's demands and little to the Churchill's views - nor to the rights of the small democratic nations.

After all it was the invaluable know-how of the USA which helped the USSR to build up her military machine in the 30's.

 

That could have been even simpler! Why bother with everything else: just jump over Poland, Belarus, capture Moscow and that's all folks.

 

The only reason why the U.S. joined the war was because the French fell, up until then the U.S. officially was "neutral" but before the fall of France even the Brits were willing to give the Germans what they wanted.Therefore up until the fall of France,the British and the French didn't mind what Hitler was doing.They were more willing to sacrifice most of Europe,for them to stay out of the conflict,because nobody of the aforementioned govts was willing to sacrifice their troops life for the East,and give a defeating blow to Hitler.
What the British,French and the U.S. were hoping was that the Germans and the Russians would annihilate themselves,and they wouldn't be forced to fight them.

 

America officially was neutral,but they were negotiating with the Brits before their entry on the British side.Britain was given an access to U.S. companies,since they weren't able to mass produce the radar and other war materiel needed for the war.Through the war the Americans and the Brits couldn't agree on a single joint strategy against the Germans.For example the U.S. leadership was advocating for landings in France in 1943,the British were advocating grand strategy and take out Germany piece by piece.For example the landings in North Africa were done since the U.S. army was still green.Stalin was neutral at the beginning,but was hoping that Hitler would turn against the West.It was Churchill idea that Russians should be brought in the alliance against Hitler,during the early stages of the war on the East,America created the supply route PQ-17,which was designed to send Russia the necessary material.After the U.S. entry,the U.S. Congress and president Roosevelt,created the Land-Lease program.

 

It is England who first choose to stop the Nazis, from the beginning and alone against the Axis. This is essential for understanding the Second World War. Everything except the conflict among Britain and Nazis was optional. Furthermore, Churchill was the central, cohesive element of the Alliance.


I don't understand how this could be considered as a »what if« situation.

 

Because everybody before Churchill came to power thought that the best thing is to allow Germans and the Soviet to finish themselves.