I was having a few beers at a local establishment here in Chicago last Thursday, and a friend of mine asked this question:

If there was one, (and only one), thing you could change in the course of history, what would it be? This created more of a debate about the effects of changing history itself, rather than what event we'd like to change, but it is still quite an interesting consideration.

So I'm going to slightly rephrase the question: If you could change one single detail during WWII, what would it be?

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"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance." Socrates

One change in ww2? That would be let von Bock attack with all the force to Moscow in August 1941. All or nothing! I would love to see that man greet the parade on his horse for Moscow like Paris...His dream come true!

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I am going to stay out of WWII a bit. I suposse WWI is far more important than WWII. WWI made the XX century and our history. There wouldn't have been WWII, Cold War, Viet Nam, Korea, Russian Revolution, etc. Maybe the USA would still be some forgotten country, maybe the British and French empires would still there. Who knows?

And Kai, totally agree. My grandfather has told me about that. Von Bock wanted to finish his military career as a kind of Von Moltke, Von Schlieffen, Von Blücher, Von Scharnhorst or Von Gneisenau... a REAL field marshall: the conqueror of Moscow, the winner of WWII.

And God, the man could!

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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

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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

Peppy, do you see an avatar here? hint hint

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"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance." Socrates

Otto, you mean Friedrich's avatar here!

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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

The number of lives lost

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MUSTANGS FOREVER
FACTS ARE JUST THERE TO ARGUE YOUR OPINIONS

Japanese attack on Sydney Harbour-the rammifications of this attack are too numerous to mention and really leave us Australians, even now, with a foul taste in our mouths!

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

I have to agree with Mustang... But I would have also liked to see an Allied counter attack on Crete.

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David

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

A sentimental reply - it probably wouldn't have changed anything, but I'd have liked 30 Corps to have relieved Johnny Frost's men at the Bridge....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I totally agree with Mustang--I would have liked to cut the total of lives lost

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

I would have liked to change the racial policies of the Nazis. No persecution of Jews or Slavs, no holocaust.

Instead, 300.000 (or was it 600.000??) more Germans (among them excellent scientists, soldiers, citizens), a Ukraine willing to help Germany overthrow Stalin, a content Poland... and that alone would save 6 million lives in total.

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

Greetings Gents! My "what if" topic concerns Singapore. My contention is that had British Commonwealth troops staged one last-ditch, total commitment, bayonet-charge attack, preceded by a "rolling thunder" mortar and artillery barrage, they would have broken the back of Japanese resistance on the island. They outnumbered the Japanese by a considerable margin and many of the Allied troops located in coastal defense positions, never got into the fray, nor fired a shot in anger. It may not have changed the outcome of the battle, but it might have prolonged it and set back the Japanese timetable of conquest by several weeks or more.

I'm with Freiderich here a bit. Given the choice I would change the assassination of the Arch Duke that started WW1 and therefore shaped the 20th Century.

But as for WW2, I would change the defeat of Poland into the defeat of Germany's attack on her. Imagine, German forces are defeated by the technically inferior Poles. Hitler would never have even considered taking on Britian and France after that. Even the Russians would have had second thoughts about taking on Poland.

Millions of lives would have been saved. The course of history altered. Germany's influence over European affairs changed forever.

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"Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books" - Montesquieu 1689-1755

I don't quite get this part. Are you saying Germanty would be weaker or stronger? I would say that such a situation wouldn't change Germany's influence over Europe at all.

Even losing two world wars hasn't changed things much in the end (and I can't think of something that could change it more). Germany is still a giant that is causing alarm every now and then and the current "we are strong once more, kneel or feel our strength" policy being haphazardly conducted in typical German uncoordinated fashion (I strongly disagree with this policy BTW, the USA has done the same thing and it earned them 11. September) is just an example of this.

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

John, my final analysis of the Battle for Singapore is that the British quite simply "cocked it up". I have a rather extensive article on the battle on my site which, although old, does show that luck was on the Japanese side throughout the entire battle.

The British did not fortify the northern beaches at all, even when it was clear that Malaya would be lost on the grounds that it would be bad for morale. There weren't even slit trenches up there.

The British also evacuated the northern landing areas just before the Japanese came ashore. And later in the battle they again just spontaneously decided to retreat. In all of WW2 I have yet to come across a more disorganised force that lost to such an inferior enemy. The Rumanians at Stalingrad were at least outnumbered and outgunned.

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

Andreas

Too right. Percival refused the requests of his Engineer Major to build defences because "they would be bad for civilian morale". However you also have to lok at the overall state of the Commonwealth forces at thet time in Malaya. The Aussies pretty much started deserting from day one, and morale collapsed fairly quickly, to the extent that Gordon Bennet made his own getaway and Aussie deserters roamed the waterfront firing on ships taking civilians to safety. The Indians had just gone through a massive army expansion, consequently many officers did not know their own men, whilst some Indian units were heavily infected with Nationalism. The Sikhs, of course, did very well: they did do a good well-documented bayonet charge and the Japs fled (well, a few hundred bearded 6-foot Sikhs waving bayonets would make anyone think twice). British forces were badly trained, and many newcomers just went straight into the bag at the end. Leadership in general was terrible.

Percival was the last man on Earth who should have led an army, Brooke-Popham (who kept falling asleep whilst he was talking in staff meetings) was the worst Theatre Commander ever. At least Tom Phillips can only be accused of rash stupidity, rather than craven timidity.

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

When Hitler invaded Poland, France to have attacked Germany from the West. Germany would have had to cease fire because there were not enough divisions to fight a two front war even if Poland did not have armour. Hitler would have been ousted by the people and WWII would not have taken place in Europe.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Sorry to interrupt gentlemen, I don't mean to hirack any threads, I just wanted Friedrich to see a couple new available Avatars:



Ok, back to the discussion...

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Phear der PanzerPenguin!
HellFish love teh

I also go for Operation Typhoon.

Von Bock get the troops he wants and he captures Moscow end of December.

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My one change for the Axis would be - the priority during the 1940 German invasion of Western Europe is to defeat Britain, not France. So no halt order for Guderian's panzers on 21 May 1940. Result: Almost the entire BEF is surrounded and forced to surrender - only 35,000 Allied troops escape at Dunkirk instead of 350,000, and the final French surrender is delayed by two weeks to 8 July 1940.

Without the morale boost provided by Dunkirk, the British government might have been more willing to consider a compromise peace.

For the Allies it would be persuading the Belgians to join the Allies in 1939 (with the Maginot Line considered impregnable a German invasion of Belgium was virtually certain) - so the Allies are ready for the German invasion in May 1940 instead of having to race the fast-moving Germans into Belgium. With strong Allied support the Belgians might have held up the Germans for some time instead of being quickly defeated.

Ha, I suppose there was no von Bock before? That´s a hard one for Friedrich.To change Hitler to von Bock??We´ll see.

Anyway, that might have changed the British attitude about peace,if they lost total 400 000 thousand men in Dunkirk!They did lose almost all equipment.Ha, why didn´t they sack Goering after this??!

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