What is the opinion of the group on the differences that would have been if the United States had suffered significant damage to the continental US in the second world war? If say Germany had developed some type of ultra long range bomber or rockets filled with gas and fielded them in large numbers and destroyed significant parts of the eastern seaboard?

Of the major combatants we suffered by far the least amount of damage to our infrastructure and cities. Our civilians were not direct witness to the devastation and suffering that the citizens as the other belligerents were. If we would have had untold numbers of homeless, jobless, hopelessly starving civilians, and a free press that would have shown these images of our fellow American suffering in misery and dying on our own soil to the rest of the country, do you think it would have strengthened or weakened our resolve to free the world, and/or would it have made our people retract into a shell, the political will shifting to the safety of our shores at the expense of sacrificing England and the rest of Europe for Hitler and Stalin to fight over?

Would we have sued for peace in the hopes that Hitler would be satisfied with Europe and Japan with the portion of China and the Pacific that they held?

Could the country have been subject to enough damage to our cities that we would have taken decades to rebuild the infrastructure? Could this forced modernization of the infrastructure have actually been a positive in the long run (as I have heard argued it was in Eurpoe and Japan)?


Further, how would our political will to fight in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan been different? If our leaders of today had witnessed New York in ruins, as today's leaders of Europe witnessed their own lands devastated, would we have been as willing to jump into the above mentioned conflicts? (I for one have never been one to condemn France for not supporting our invasion of Iraq, if I had seen as much blood spilled on my country's soli as engulfed France in the 1st half 0f the 20th century I might not support ANY country's war)


Lastly, would we be perceived as a superpower if we couldn't protect our cities even with thousands of miles of oceans separating us from our enemies and allowed billions of dollars damage to our infrastructure and tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths?



I know I'm asking for this to be looked at from numerous different angles and possibilities, however any comments on any portion of the questions is of course welcome. If this has been discussed before please point me to the thread, I did do a search and did not find anything.

The world you are speculating on is so far off the real world it's hard to tell what would happen. However if you look at the last war where the US recieved significant damage (the ACW) you'll find they kept fighting.

It wouldn't be any different at all. The wars in Korea and Vietnam were proxy conflicts against the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. Iraq and Afghanistan are wars for fossil fuels and the defeat of oil cartel's stranglehold on western civilization.

Rather naive questions, really.

First, Neither Germany nor Japan ever had the industrial or economic power necessary to mount anything other than nuisance raids on then US Mainland. And in order to do that, both countries would have had to divert resources which would have severely constrained their war-fighting capabilities in other, much more important theaters.

Second, after Pearl Harbor, any attacks on the Continental US would only have further inflamed and enraged the American Public's passions against the Axis.

Third, given the expanse of the US, any possible attacks along either coast would not be able to touch a significant part of the US war industry, and would be so costly to the attackers that they couldn't possibly sustained for any significant period of time.

[quote=Devilsadvocate;353985]Rather naive questions, really.

First, Neither Germany nor Japan ever had the industrial or economic power necessary to mount anything other than nuisance raids on then US Mainland. ..

But this is a what if scenario. By your interpretation the sub-forum shouldn't even exist.

As for it being naive, we had a fairly long discussion with one of my college professors along these lines, I was looking to see if anyone agreed or disagreed with his viewpoints. Since Professor Sumida teaches at the war college as well as the U of Md I'll take his participation in the conversation outside of class time as validating the topic.

Thanks for your input regardless.

You do understand, that your scenario requires a far more powerful and resource rich Third Reich? The only way for Germany to harness enough resources to create a strategic bombing fleet was to conquer the Soviet Union.

So therefore, you'll have to assume that the Germans were victorious in Operation Barbarossa.

A Yank is little different to a Pom.

He would have reacted with the same determination to get on with the war and win it ASAP.

In fact it probably would have made him MORE determined.


John.

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"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". - Voltaire.

It really doesn't matter with whom you have discussed these questions, they are so far into the realm of fantasy as to be meaningless. And you can inform Professor Sumida that I said so. LOL!

As for this forum existing, it does for the discussion of logical and realistic alternative histories, and there is a set of rules specified to make sure they are logical and realistic. That includes provision for some departure point in the historical background that would create a reasonable chance that the conditions you are positing could exist. You haven't provided such a departure point.

Therefore, I am entitled to point out the flaws in your reasoning.

First of all the group does not have an opinion. There are as many opinions as there are members.

if the USA had sustained significant mainland damage?

Then the USA would fight on the beaches, would fight on the landing grounds, would fight in the fields and in the streets, would fight in the hills; and would never surrender.

Ahhh, how I love The Twilight Zone (Where Pigs Fly and Germany Wins WW2 TM). This is idiotic.

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Maybe you're just trying to figure out if the American people under their "milder" democratic state can compare to the utter ruthlessness of totalitarianism (Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan) in the game of national survival? No commissars, etc.

We'd be eating sauer kraut and fish heads........as we were kicking the sh*t out of the Germans and the Japanese.

Will you pass the salt, please?

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I agree. Just looks how the US reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the end results.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

The ability of a enemy to sustain a bombing offensive strong enough and of sufficient time length would require a rather a huge deviation from actual history. The observable reactions by the US to the war in the real history would be so innacurrate because so much of the history leading up to the proposed point would be be different and for a huge amount of time prior. Most or many of the later occurances questioned about (Korea) may not have even occured, such as one poster mention, because of the improbable demise of the Soviet Union.

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Best Regards,
JW

Amazon.com: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy: Adam Tooze, J. Adam Tooze: Books

If you're writing a "what if" essay for college, try this book to get an economic understanding of the third Reich and learn about its actual capabilities.

A good companion to that is John Ellis 'Brute Force'. Otherwise known as Ellis's Book of Lists. Amoung other things it contains a extensive comparison of industrial production and battle losses for a wide variety of essential items.

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I forgot my password, can I use yours?

This is as far fetched as "What If my Grandmother Became Reischsführer-SS?"

What is the use? Mods, close the thread before it goes sour as usual. Please.

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Is that the same as saying: "If my aunt had a d*ck she'd be my uncle"

Sorry if this seems ridiculous to you, we actually managed to have an intellectual and civil discussion on this and I thought it could be the same here, obviously I was mistaken. None of this is likely, we never said that, but under the correct circumstances we did not think it was as utterly preposterous as some of you do.

I'll start over again by stating how we got to this discussion. We as a country have turned around dramatically in our support of the 2nd Gulf War even without any further damage to our soil after 9/11. None of us (our discussion group) were alive in WW2 to see the waning public support for the war effort in late 1944 and early 1945 when the country was almost bankrupt, but many of us could see certain parallels between the public support for WW2 and the current war as regards the beginning and the end (or in the case fo the Gulf war at least where we are now). We were looking at different scenarios that could have lengthened the war and this scenario is one we came up with. It then evolved (devolved by many of your apparent opinions) as to what our nation's current feeling for war would be if our parents had seen the destruction of our lands that the parents of our European peers had seen. Apparently that is not even conceivable to certain ones of you so I will agree to disagree as to the possibility or lack thereof of that scenario.

As a little bit of further background, our group espoused that the only way this could have possibly happened was if Russia and Germany had continued to honor their non-aggression pact to the point that Hitler and Stalin had agreed to swap German technology for Russian oil and other raw materials, and not fought each other on a second front, thus Germany eventually overwhemed Britain with Russia and Germany dividing Europe between them.

As Germany was very proficient in guided missile technology and had a large submarine force, we speculated that if Hitler had not been so obsessed with unrealistic weapons such as super guns and maus tanks he could possibly have developed a delivery system combining subs and missiles well before we eventually did. Since we suffered numerous sub attacks off of the east coast it is not beyond the realm of reason that these subs rearmed with missiles could have attained significant damage on the east coast.

Pearl Harbor and our indignation and retaliation did come into the discussion, however that was an attack against a military installation off of the mainland and not a large civilian population base on the east coast with vast infrastrustures to be rebuilt if destroyed. Pearl Harbor of course also happened at the beginning of the war before war weariness set in. A large portion (Not claiming the majority) of the population by 1945 was war weary, even though they had not sustained direct damage to their property. Simply put, would the American civilian will to fight have been as strong in 1945 from a New York or Boston that looked like Dresden or Tokyo? It appears that the answer from the board is an overwhelming yes, as I would hope it would have been had it actually happened. But based on our country's support for our current war situation, I am not as 100% certain as many of you are, which again is how the debate evolved in the 1st place.

Again we were not saying this was likely, but were looking at any and all scenarios and their geopolitical fallout in later years.

Also, the infrastructure damage sustained during the civil war was largely on southern soil (the losers, remember) which still was largely an agrarain society with relatively few cities to destroy. The same discussion in regards to what the North would have been likely to do if it was their cities being destroyed could be proffered in a civil war discussion and I personally do not think it's simply as cut and dried as some of you make it out to be.

We did come to the conclusion that this was not necessarily ever likely, and also the further conclusion that it was worth the discussion and not simply blowing it off. Sorry for wasting your time if you think otherwise.

Lastly, this was not fishing for a class project, this was from a debate 2 semesters ago.


To those that took time to think through your responses and not just knee jerk them, thanks again for your input.

Jeff

So you were prepared to regurgitate something you had already discussed using the ideas and arguments already put forth by others on the subject.

I love intellectual plagerism.

OK, now you are changing the situation a bit. You should have posted this information along with your first proposition.

It's an open question whether Stalin and Hitler could have remained allies for any length of time. I'm not totally convinced by the argument on either side, but I tend to lean to the belief that they could not. In any case, I'm firmly convinced that the Soviets would not be anywhere near as much help to Germany as most people believe.

As for Germany overwhelming Britain, even with the Soviet's help, that's not going to happen. Germany needed to actually invade Britain in order to overwhelm it. That was an impossibility as long as The RN outmatched the German Navy as badly as it did. It would take three to four (peacetime) years, at the very least, for the Germans to build enough specialized ships for an invasion of Britain to be successful. By that time, the US would be involved in the war and Germany is back to square one.

Then you talk about US "war weariness", and the "country" (the US I assume) being nearly "bankrupt". The US was far from bankruptcy in 1945. In fact, it was alone among belligerent nations in having an economy in which consumer spending actually rose during the war. Taxes were high, but far from unbearable, and don't forget, the US, immediately after the war was able to spend billions on the Marshall Plan and ship millions of dollars worth of food to Japan to avert a famine in 1946, as well as give aid to other countries. Bankrupt, or nearly bankrupt, nations don't do these things.

War weariness, there was, but it was nothing like the "war weariness" of later times and had different causes. An opinion poll taken in early 1945 revealed that better than four-fifths of the public favored continuing the war against Japan until unconditional surrender was achieved, no matter what the cost. I think you are being too simplistic and assuming way too much as to what causes "war weariness" and a breakdown of civilian morale in war situations.

No one was "very proficient in guided missile technology" during WW II, let alone Germany. The V-1 and V-2 missiles were unguided, and as such were practically useless as weapons for bombarding militarily useful targets. The Germans did have a scheme to build large submersible canisters in which V-2's could be towed by subs to the East Coast of the US and launched against area targets. But they could hardly have produced enough such missiles to do much damage, and the damage would only have affected the immediate coastline, would have been random in nature, probably hitting far more empty fields and swamps than cities, and would have been extremely costly to Germany. Developing subs which could launch multiple missiles was beyond the capability of German shipbuilding yards at the time

In order to effectively bomb American cities on the East Coast, Germany would have had to develop huge fleets of very long range manned bombers with far better performance than even the B-29. Something like the B-36 would have been necessary, and in great numbers, to deliver conventional bombs. This fleet would have been so costly to build and operate that Germany would have had to forgo her large Army, and any sort of navy. In the period 1940-45, the economics just weren't in favor of Germany doing anything of the sort. And even if they had been, only the extreme east coast cities would have been in range; the interior of the US still would have supported war industries to produce weapons and equipment to counter any German attacks. It just wouldn't have worked out for Germany; there was no chance that Germany could significantly damage the US East Coast, or anywhere else in the Continental US..


Again, you are exaggerating the "war weariness" of the American Public. Yes, it wanted the war to end and soon, but it also wanted victory, and was willing to pay the cost. Pearl Harbor enraged and united the American public because it was a treacherous sneak attack in time of peace, which killed many Americans, not because of the damage done, or whether it was to private of government property.

Furthermore, you are assuming that the Axis could inflict severe damage on American cities. This was never the case. At best, even assuming Germany was not engaged in a war with the Soviet Union, Germany could mount nuisance raids against US territory which could in no way repay the cost of launching them. Germany might enjoy some propaganda triumphs with the first few, but coud not sustain a military campaign with any reasonable expectation of gaining more than it lost.

In comparing the current anti-war feeling in the US with any supposed reaction to military attacks on the US in WW II, you are comparing apples and oranges. The current attitude is based on a feeling that certain military initiatives the US government has taken are not in the country's best interests; That was not the case in 1941-45. You have to make distinctions as to the reasons for public opinions, which you are not doing.

Bringing the American Civil War into the discussion is entirely inappropriate. Civil wars, are, by their very nature, complex and unlike wars between countries. The motivations, public and private, for engaging in a civil war are quite different, and the dynamics of public opinion also very different. Just as comparing public opinion about undeclared wars in foreign countries is deceptive, so is comparing public opinion about an internal war versus an external war misleading.

I think your discussion was superficial and far too simplistic. You need to also study the differences between current situation and historical events, not just the parallels. And take a good look at the realities of economics, both in the US and Germany.

While I find the question largely absurd as a realistic proposition I would state the following in response:

I doubt that even if the Germans (or Japanese) had some means of projecting firepower to the East (or West) Coast of the US it would have had much impact on the war.
The biggest problem for either is not just having a delivery system for some weapon but targetting. Other than using it for pure terror purposes ala, Bomber Command style ("the target for tonight is Cologne!".... not a factory, not a rail yard, the city) neither had sufficent information about where US industry was located to actually carry out a surgical strike to destroy a particular factory.
This leaves simply striking at population. We can see clearly that at best this would be very time consuming, require a massive amount of material effort and, never have the desired result. The US could have easily carried out evacuations of cities that were threatened.
Another problem both would face is that much of the US is unreachable and that the US is locating more of its industry there. Boeing opened plants in Wichita Kansas for instance to build the B-29. Why? Geographically it was as far from any coast as you could get and still near an ample labor supply.
The US would also have taken measures to mitigate the ability of either to continue attacks. First, there would be active military measures such as antiaircraft artillery, and fighter defenses. Next, camoflauge and deception measures would have been taken (and were) on a massive scale. Many aircraft manufacturing plants near the West coast were given very elaborate and extensive camoflauge. Given the lack of targetting data the attacker had some sort of reconnissance would be necessary. With such camoflauge in place and no on the ground spy network it would be difficult or impossible to locate camoflauged factories and likely result in targetting errors.
The US could also take measures to move production out of range or rearrange how it was being done. For example, the U-boat threat early in the war led to a pipeline being laid from Texas to Pennslyvania to move POL products. This solution eliminated the need for tankers to move these resources and thereby eliminated the U-boat threat to POL supplies for the East coast entirely. After all, a U-boat couldn't torpedo a pipeline on land.

A last problem is geographical as well. If Germany is just able to just reach New York with a weapons system that leaves about 90% of the US unreachable. This means that the US can focus their defense into a small region while mitigating any effects by moving critical parts of the economy out of range.

On the whole, anything the Germans or Japanese could have realistically come up with in this regard would have been nothing but expensive pin pricks that had little, if any, lasting effect.

Sorry but you are wrong. I suggest you take a look at the guidelines for this section. While it is possible to construct wildly counter factual what ifs, my impression any way, is that this list encourages well constructed ones that have a specific PoD (point of departure) and flow logically from their. Yours so far has no specified PoD and would require it to be so removed from the start of WWII and so divergent fromt he real world that it is not clear what can be stated.

Nothing I've seen will lengthen the war much beyond 45.
It was Germany that was almost bankrupt before the war even started. If the Soviets and Germans don't fight then the war ends with the Germans acquiring 1 or more self luminescent cities.

This is very interesting. The 9/11 attack was performed by a few terrorists and it was followed by a total panic in the US and an all out war against what was called terrorism.

What had happened if you had an full scale (or may be not even that) invasion on the continental US?

You would have panicked completely.
Unlike most European countries (and Asian as well) you never had an enemy soldier marching on your soil.
You don't know what it's like and I really don't think you are able to imagine the situation having the Swastika flag on the Brooklyn Bridge.

RAM

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