Andy, didn't you say in other thread that there were no intentions by the Soviet Union to invade Germany?

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

dp, sorry for screwing it up, it's sat.night...

[ 12 October 2002, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
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Did I write that the Russkies were about to roll on GERMANY? I don't have doubts that the USSR would try to grap her pieces as put out in the Hitler-Molotov-visit 1940. Surely this was not Germany. And even if they had plans, they wouldn't have invaded in 1941.

Cheers,

[ 12 October 2002, 08:29 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

The Russian army would have been pressured to attack Germany by other allied forces anyway. It would definetely help if Germany had to fight a war on two sides. Meaning that Hitler couldn't direct all of his forces to the west.

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MUSTANGS FOREVER
FACTS ARE JUST THERE TO ARGUE YOUR OPINIONS

War with Russia was inevitable, so the only chance of Germany winning the war was defeating Russia. If she did that, than no allied strategy, especially if Germany goes after Britain next, would have worked.

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

OIL, OIL, and more OIL!!!

Give Germany unlimited and easy access to fuel reserves then you may well see a difference. This would certainly be helped by putting the economy onto a war footing very early.

First post in ages back at uni and lacking the net at mo...

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Hmm.

As one area I'd say thet the Germans had to work out a strategy for dealing with Britain. Either strangle it with U-boats (cheap and pretty likely to succeed) or invade it with land forces (tricky but possible with enough preparation) or go for the peripheral strategy in the Mediterannean (equally possible with enough resources). At various times Hitler tried all of these, but none of them with any deep conviction until it was too late for any of them to succeed.

Jumbo

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"Capital! We're nearly out of ammunition! Now we can get at them with the bayonet!" General Paddy Gough, 1st Sikh War

Good points Jumbo and Red. Germany really started reving it into gear too late. If they could have gotten past Stalingrad then they would have a whole lot of oil. The Me.262 used a lot of oil..... They should've surrounded Great Britian with U-Boats before June 6, 1944. With Great Britian at a brief "stand-still" Germany might've been able to builg up a larger army and Luftwaffe to take out the Meditereanean and possibly both England and Russia!!!!!!!!!

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MUSTANGS FOREVER
FACTS ARE JUST THERE TO ARGUE YOUR OPINIONS

The Soviet Union must have been defeated by December 1941 if Germany wanted to win the war.

And Great Britain could have been defeated in summer 1941 or 1942 with the U-boats. Great Britain was an easy one...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Yes, you did, Andy. You said that the Soviet Union had no intentions to attack Germany and conquest Europe. Do you remember that thread with the neighbours; Mr. B and Mr. S and I don't know what-the-hell-else...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Right. Not even the pre-emtive strike plans prepared by Soviet military (don't confuse this with "preventive war" plans, which were even less existant) were paraphied by Stalin.

If you have proof for Soviet intentions to invade Germany in 1941 before the USSR was under attack by her, please post it.

Of course the USSR had intentions to conquest PARTS of Europe (Eastern Poland, Finland, Bukovina, Bulgaria, parts of or even entire Romania), but not ENTIRE Europe. I never wrote something else, not here, nor in the "Hitler/Stalin and the conquest of Europe"-thread you mentioned.

I invite you to quote me to show any contradictions.

Cheers,

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

I have some idea.
-Improve the Enigmas because the British could and can intercept it by the ULTRA
-Air Superiority
-Use Stg44 and Gewehr 41
-Attack Caucasus first it will disable USSR oil production
-Germany must not kill the jew
-Friendship and liberate Ukraine
.

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Technology is not going to win the war for Germany. You can change or fine tune their equipment but in the end it will not change a thing. The Allies will adapt to it and, the more effective the new German technology is the quicker the Allies will respond.

There are really two broad items the Germans needed to effectively have a chance of victory in WW 2:

The first is massively improved logistics and engineering. Their rail system needed to be very highly orgainzed to move supplies in a timely fashion where they were needed. It was rare that the Germans made full use of their available rail system. Too often there was alot of slack in line use and alot of wait time for rail cars. Engines were hardly used to capacity either.
In engineering alot more mechanization would have been desirable. For instance, how much difference would it have made for every panzer battalion to have 3 or 4 tanks with bulldozer blades? Rail repair units based on a well equipped train or two would have made a huge difference too.

The second need was for a comprehensive and sound strategic plan right from the start. Instead of a strategic plan that went only as far as the current campaign, Germany should have planned for a strategic war involving all their potential opponets right from the start. This would mean that following Poland, France is planned for and Britain is planned for. With proper planning the Germans could have better tailored their equipment to the war they planned to fight.
Thus, they would not have pushed for say, a Luftwaffe with limited strategic range or capacity. The Navy would have had a more comprehensive plan for dealing with Britain including alot more integration with the Luftwaffe than it had originally. As it was historically, the Luftwaffe on the outbreak of war had no maritime patrol aircraft beyond coastal patrols and air-sea rescue and even these were of minimal number. Once it became apparent that maritime patrol was a mission requirement the Luftwaffe only committed to it on a very lukewarm basis and mostly with pretty marginal aircraft.
Of course, this would have also required that there be no Waffen SS (eg private armies including later Luftwaffe ground units) so the army was a monolithic organization on the ground.

I believe that Germany should concentrated on Africa instead of Russia. Several crucial objectives would have been accomplished. The elimination of British troops in Africa, more allies from from countries like Iraq, more importantly Germany would have had access to all of the oil. With no war on the Eastern front, Germany could have very well figured out all of the logistics with the transportation of the " black gold. " Also Italian troops might have very well gotten the experience they desperately needed if they fought along side the Germans to begin with and took notes.

With all of this oil and an extra 3 million men not to mention more planning for the invasion of Great Britain, all of Europe might have very well fallen to the 3rd Reich.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I expected better than this. Please explain:

a) how is Germany going to "figure out all of the logistics with the transportation of the black gold". How many years would that take? Is the Iraqi oil already fully on line three years after the invasion, after the massive injection of technology by one of the foremost oil-savvy nations? No. So?

b) how long would the Soviet Union sit entirely still while watching the German empire grow until it is ready to gobble it at leisure. Stalin's premise was that the Fascist and Capitalist powers would fight each other to exhaustion, not than one of them would massively overpower the rest. Failing these conditions, direct action need be taken.

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Africa buys the Germans nothing. They lack the navy to support operations there. Supporting the Italians there is nothing but a distraction. Trying to use the Middle East as an oil source will be hard. This puts them on a head on collision course with the US once again (the US is the leading developer of what Middle Eastern oil sources that are available).
On that note, I would add that keeping the US out of the war (including Lend-Lease) should have been a major German strategic goal. The US is the leading nation in terms of capacity to crush Germany. The Soviets are a tough enough nut on their own. With the US thrown into the mix the Germans are finished.
The Germans could have just made better use of the oil and coal they already had. Coal gassification and synthetic fuels could have been greatly expanded on local resources rather than relying on a tenious campaign in a distant land trying to capture these resources.
On Poland, if the Germans could have managed it or, planned for it, they should have taken the whole country before allowing the Soviets to occupy about half of it. This places them almost 300 miles closer to Moscow when they do jump off. Again, better strategic planning.

I have never really understood why Hitler jumped all over declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor. We were certainly leaning against him in the Atlantic but he had no real, overriding reason to add another large, really pissed off, industrial country to deal with and from what I have read, the senior Heer leadership was taken aback by his petulance in declaring war without consulting them as to the Werhmacht's ability to fight the US, the UK and the Soviet Empire all at once. But I guess that in Dec 1941, he was still expecting a Soviet collapse and he thought the Brits were also on their last legs and tied up trying to hold on to their overseas holdings, such as India. I also wonder if there was a bit of contempt for the ability of the US to make the substantial contribution as quickly as it did.

Japan didn't seem to want to reciprocate, they didn't attack the Soviets after 22 June 1941, but I guess that was in large part due to the butt-whupping they had received a few years earlier and they were looking at a critical oil shortage that could not be rectified by taking oil-less Siberian land.

I feel confident that the US would have eventually joined the European war even without a Dec 1941 German declaration of war, I just can't speculate how many more incidents like the Reuben James it would have taken.

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Best Regards,
JW

Very well Za, here is another attempt.......

Algeria and Saudi Arabia might very well have become the next countries on the list of German occupation. With no other countries forces present ( with the destruction of the British troops ) Germany and her allies might have very well gone unchecked.... At least for sometime. With an occupied Africa this also cuts off the American landing.. Also a German navy might not have been necessary in the mediterranean since there was no opposition. So the Italian navy might have faired pretty well with policing. As for the logistics, Miguel my friend as you are the engineer this would be your field of expertise, all I can do is just assume or guess at best. I would imagine maybe a tanker or some sort of pipeline... ( yes I understand that this sounds unrealistic so please excuse my ignorence on the matter ) In terms of a time frame, I would say that this would depend on when the war might have come to an end. Great Britain would really be the tricky part, if Dunkirk played in favor for the Germans and an extra 30k British prisoners from Africa, with the U-boat blockade of the main island and NO declaration of war on the US, might have this been enough to force Great Britain into surrender in return for all of its prisoners? or a full out invasion of the Island? Overall my hypothesis for a Germany victory might only work if the war would have ended and all of the following accomplished by no later then mid 42'......

I come to this conclussion based on Stalin's premise...... So if Germany can get all of this done before Stalin's war machine is at full strength then Germany might come out on top.....? With the war over, this might just give her enough time to do whatever it is that she might need in order to figure out the logistics for oil development and transportation?

Ok...... your turn to extinguish my silly theory!

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Except that if Hitler had taken all of Poland in 1939 and not given the Soviets an inch he would have had a very, very angry Stalin just waiting to stick the knife between his shoulder blades the moment his attention was turned west against France. A lot of eastern Poland had been taken from Russia/Ukraine in war in the early 1920s and the Russians/Ukrainians wanted that land back. Hitler had little choice but to give the Russians at least the eastern sections of Poland if he wanted Stalin to play nice while he dispatched the Western Allies.

I think to understand Hitler's quick declaration of war on the US you have to understand that at that time he was, for the first time in history, really starting to look bad. The German armies had stalled in front of Moscow and only a couple of days before Pearl Harbor the Russians were counter-attacking and rolling over the German army, which by now everyone in Germany knew was unprepared for winter war. While few people would publicly admit it, this had to cause many Germans to think that perhaps Hitler had made mistakes and wasn't the genius that Nazi propaganda had made him out to be. The US had been a constant thorn in his side and already was all but officially at war with Germany and doing everything in its power to thwart Hitler's plans. The sudden and devastating strike on Pearl Harbor was a terrible blow for US pride and conversely a huge propaganda coup, as well as a military one, for Japan. Hitler, facing nothing but bad news from the Russian front, wanted in on the good news from Pearl Harbor. Declaring war on the US put Germany into the limelight along with Japan and temporarily, at least, until Hitler could stem the bleeding in Russia, he could distract the German press with news from the Pacific.

I think this is just another one of those cases where Hitler's emotions got the best of him and he jumped on a quick fix for his problems, one that would ultimately have a huge and negative impact on his and Germany's future.

Quite possibly. I wonder if though, it had more to do with his megalomania and less about placating Mr Joe Average German, or should I call him Herr Joseph Durchschnitt Deutschlander?

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Best Regards,
JW

Agreed..

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler