ralph124c, while some of what you’ve said above is reasonably accurate, I’ll pick a nit with this part:
The V-1s were frighteningly cost-effective. In 1944 dollar-equivalents, the V-1s delivered a ton of high explosives for about $50. The V-2s delivered that same ton (they did not have a significantly bigger warhead) for $12,000. You have a point about the V-2’s reliability and cost, but V-1s were a very effective program, even with the difficulty of aiming them.
Well, with the exception that Stalin was almost psychologically defeated in the first week or so of Barbarossa. He was numb and barely able to function, and spoke very pessimistically of defeat. But he recovered his mojo soon.
The Germans probably couldn’t have beaten the entire Soviet Union, but they could theoretically have bullied Stalin into surrendering before he realized the country’s capacity to absorb damage and come back from defeats.
Don’t underestimate the Battle of Britain, it was vitally important strategically and as proof that Nazi forces could be defeated, over a year before the US even entered the war.
The Nazis sailed right through the Ukraine without much serious resistance. Obviously the industrial resources weren’t anywhere near the level of France, but Crimea (which the Nazis IRL did occupy, mostly) had resources galore. Without having to fight France, the UK, and the rest of western Europe, the Nazis could (in my opinion) have taken the USSR at least as far as the Urals. Which is a pretty enormous tract of land, with all sorts of resources. The Soviet leadership (in real life) had plans to retreat behind the Urals; they were ready to go, many did go.
The German had a few opportunities to get out while they were ahead, but they had to keep playing their hand.
They should have stopped before invading Poland. Germany would be a huge nation today if they had.
They could have stopped after conquering France. They may have been able to parley what they had (France, Denmark, Norway, the low countries etc.) into some kind of peace with Britain.
Once they stuck their noses into the Soviet Union there was no way out. It is slightly possible that they might have been able to negotiate some kind of end to the war if they had really wanted to but by time they figured out they weren’t wining anymore, it was too late. That is the basic problem: “We’re winning the war, no point in talking peace. Oops, now we’re losing. Why won’t anyone discuss peace terms with us?”
In a single word: “No way.” OK, it’s two words, but strategically, Japan could not afford to bypass the Philippines, with its US bases, to invade the Dutch East Indies, not would it let Singapore, Hong Kong and Malay remain untouched, leaving the west flanks vulnerable as well. That would be suicide.
Remember that had Japan not attacked them, there would have been nine more battleships available to the US and the Royal Navy on December 10th, and another 300 planes, plus bases all over the place. Prewar planning already called for the US Pacific fleet to reinforce Singapore.
Britain would have have no hesitation in reinforcing the Dutch East Indies, and it would be hard to keep the US out of the conflict, especially since it would appear to not be that rough a fight.
The Japanese, with the probable exception of its field commanders leading the charge in China, had a healthy respect for the US and the US industrial power. Their battle plan called for careful expansion (which they did with remarkable speed) and had anticipated that the US would follow suite, but have the difficulty of fighting entrenched troops.
Nitpick: 1933.
You’ll want to read Fatherland by Robert Harris. Fantastic alt-hist novel about a Kennedy-Hitler summit in 1964, and various behind-the-scenes intrigues in the Nazi hierarchy.
A previous thread that may be of interest: When was the U.S. Navy at its most powerful? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
So what were the REAL chances of Russia fighting on the Axis side? I have not researched this in some time, but was there not an alliance initially and an agreement to conquer and split Norway and Sweden?
How close was Russia to becoming an Axis power?
Maybe it would never have happened, but if Germany had a “do over” I have to think doing whatever you can (lie, feign friendship, bribe, et al) to keep Russia out of the war and/or aligning with them - even temporarily - while the remainder of Europe was defeated and dealing with the United States would have been a much better strategic move.
That said, I know that hindsight is 20/20 and that the Germans considered the Russians their primary enemy.
Two more thoughts:
Is there any merit to a scenario where the United States back out of the war if the Allies do NOT break the JN25 code, the Americans lose the Battle of Midway and the D-Day invasion is repelled because Germany did not advance on the Russian front?
If under a “No Hitler” scenario earlier in the war after part of Europe was defeated, the Germans start negotiations for peace under a position of “feigned” strength?
I tend to think # 2 was an impossibility simply due to the German ideology. The rest of the world simply would not allow that hate to exist.
Thoughts?
The Germans could have won everything. Their mistake was deciding to use force. Had they simply decided to drown Kaiser Wilhelm at birth, we could imagine a “more Swiss” Germany. Demographics and economics could have then worked their magic even more rapidly than they have in our timeline.
What if the Germans help established the European Iron and Steel Community in 1930? A common market in 1950? We could imagine Europe dominated by a rich, strong and happy Germany twenty or thirty years earlier than it happened in real life.
Militarism was not just morally wrong, it also was a bad policy.
I see this a lot and it always surprises me. It’s akin to saying “we wouldn’t have lost the game if only we had stayed home.”
If Hitler could have done only one thing internationally, it would have been to destroy Russia and turn that into a giant primitive farming community. He would have given up all his other conquests to do that. It was his goal. It makes no sense to take that off the table in these “what if” drills.
I did not posit that Germany “never” attack Russia… but most historians agree that trying to invade Stalingrad STARTING in late August was playing right into the hands of the Russians.
Had Germany launched the attack in Spring or early Summer or even placated and delayed until 1943, the battle may have not been the turning point in the war it turned out to be.
Germany lost almost 1 million troops in a battle that was a worst case scenario for them. Waiting until 1943 might have resulted in half that number since a not insignificant number of those losses were attributed to the winter and lack of supply.
Additionally would not those troops saved (whether victory in Stalingrad was had or not) have bolstered the eastern front in June of 44?
I have to agree, Paul. Taking a country economically is a much better way of gaining physical and political power over a country. (China over the U.S?) (Nah!)
This is the plot of In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove. He basically took the fall of the Soviet Union and transferred it a Nazi Germany that had won WWII.
As I’ve mentioned in other threads, the Axis actually did have huge oil reserves - they just didn’t know it. Libya had been an Italian colony since before WWI. But nobody discovered Libya’s massive oil fields until the fifties. It’s easy to imagine an AH where that oil was discovered twenty years earlier and fueled the Axis military. The Axis could have secured the Mediterranean by seizing Gibraltar and Aden if they had felt it was a priority and protecting their oil supply would have done that.
Or if Frederick III hadn’t had cancer. His father lived to 90 and his son lived to 82. Let’s say Frederick had a similar life span. Frederick was an Anglophile and wanted closer diplomatic relations with Britain and to reform Germany along British lines.
In fact, even with Wilhelm in power, a Anglo-German alliance came very close to being signed. Wilhelm’s feelings towards Britain veered between devotion and jealousy. Diplomatically, an Anglo-German alliance made sense. A Great War where Britain was one of the Central Powers would have been a very different war.
Nope, most of the V-1s never made their targets. Allied fighter pilots would fly next to them, and get their wingtips under the wings of the V-1-then flip their wings as in doing a barrel roll-the V-1 would flip over and crash into the sea. The V-1 was essentially and unguided missile-whether it hit anything of value was pretty much due to chance.
As for the V-2; the Germans were forced to manufacture them in underground factories, using slave labor. The propellants used were dangerous, and fueling them was fraught with danger of a fire.
While the escapades of Fighter Command were teh sexy, a better candidate for blunting the effectiveness of both the V-1 and V-2 was the use of the Double Cross deception to deceive the Germans about the missiles’ impact points. IOW, the British double agents falsely fed back to the Germans that their missiles were shooting long and that they needed to aim shorter to hit London. This made life rough if you lived southeast of London, but it was still better than the alternative. The wiki for the bombing campaign against the Vengeance Weapons, Operation Crossbow, is a good starting point for further reading.
The V-1 was not unguided; rather it had a very primitive autopilot—to keep it flying straight and level, and a motor cutoff controlled by a nose mounted anerometer—to control distance. CEP was about 8 nautical miles, per this site. Not very good if shooting at troop concentrations, but perfectly adequate for terrorizing a metropolis like London.
The V-2 was propelled by a mixture of 75/25 ethanol/water fuel, and liquid oxygen oxidizer. That in itself, is not insanely dangerous, though LOX has its own issues, which (if Stranger on A Train shows up to this thread), someone else can go into. The pumps for the rocket were steam powered; the steam generated byconcentrated (80%) hydrogen peroxide reacting with a solution of 66/33 potassium (or calcium) permanganate and water, and concentrated H2O2 is somewhat dangerous to deal with, if not to the degree of modern storable liquid rocket fuels such as nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. (This usenet discussion discusses whether T-Stoff’s dangers and reputation for melting pilots was overblown.) I do not know if that concentration of KMnO4 is too. In any event, there was a lot less Z and T-Stoff, than there was of A-Stoff (LOX) and B-Stoff (the fuel):
Edit: Looks like my references have the composition of Z-Stoff transposed. I’m not sure which proportion is accurate. In the meantime,this reportgoes into other fuels the Germans looked into for the V-2.
Surprised this question is still in GQ; it seems like quintessential GD material.
To answer the OP, my response is “Yes, provided…” a lengthy list of breaks go the Axis’s way.
[ul]
[li]If the Dunkirk pocket is annihilated, leading to the British questioning their desire to prolong the War. [/li][li]If German and Japanese diplomacy wasn’t so terribly incompetent; if Talleyrand were the Foreign Minister and not Ribbentrop, say. [/li][li]Then, you possibly can negotiate a settlement with Britain—guarantee the U.K. keeps the Commonwealth, return the POWs, etc; while the British suspect that Germany will be soon be too busy with the Soviets to renege on the deal.[/li][li]No British war means no more British blockade of Germany, which means no more U-boat campaign and no more irritated USA.[/li][li]Further, the USA can now trade with Germany—which they had no problem with, pre 1 Sept 39.[/li][/ul]
The British can claim how steadfast they’d have been all they want: IMHO, taking 330,000 casualties all at once would give pause to any country this side of the Soviet Union. OTOH, the Soviets obviously kept on fighting after 450,000 were lost in the Kiev encirclement. I am guessing the Red Army was a wee bit larger than the British Army of 1940. Hell, total British Army casualties for the whole war, in both theaters, was 385k dead and wounded, with another 180k POW. Taking 60% of that total all at once would be a very large shock.
With Germany able to trade with the USA and Britain, able to buy the trucks that otherwise went via Lend-Lease to Stalin, and thereby mechanize their logistical train, I am not so sure that Barbarossa doesn’t ultimately succeed. No, I don’t think the Germans could conquer and pacify all of the USSR, but I think they could knock them out of the war.
For Japan, I’ve stated before in other threads that I am not sure that the U.S. wouldn’t sign an armistice, provided the IJN had a crushing victory at Midway, and proceeded to make Pearl Harbor’s life hell. Japan would certainly look 10 feet tall at that point. There’d be, what: the Doolittle Raid and the tie at the Coral Sea to make the U.S. feel better about its chances? If Wasp and Saratoga were to be sunk as well after this hypothetical defeat at Midway, it would look really bad. To have the drop on the IJN, ambush their carriers and still get your ass kicked…? Not good for morale. No matter how much the USA absolutely outclassed Japan industrially.
Say, if Japan promised to return the Phillippines, Guam and other U.S. territories, in exchange for a free hand in China, IndoChina, and the East Indies… I am not sure the U.S. absolutely rejects that out of hand.
So, very unlikely the Axis can do anything but die horribly. But not impossible.
Again, as I posted above, there just simply isn’t any way that Japan would give back PI. With bases on that archipelago, their entire empire in Indochina and the East Indies are vulnerable. In fact, all you would be doing is introducing a truce while America builds some more carriers.
The second problem is Britain. Is Japan going to give back Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya or does this expect they’re just going to quit on their own?
[quote=“Gray_Ghost, post:58, topic:630891”]
[ul]
[li]If the Dunkirk pocket is annihilated, leading to the British questioning their desire to prolong the War.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’ve always wondered what reaction there would have been in Britain with far more British POWs in Germany post-Dunkirk. The French ended up with almost a million of their servicemen held in POW camps throughout the war - they signed a deal in 1940 whereby they would be released at the end of hostilities, assuming that this would happen within weeks (and not five years) - and it must surely have preyed on the mind of the average Frenchman. Or Frenchwoman, because all the fit young men were being held prisoner. With more than a quarter of a million British soldiers held in camps I can imagine the people back home in the villages and towns thinking not again, let the effing French suffer. Hitler might have tried some kind of grand prisoner exchange as a show of goodwill, thus making Churchill look like an unreasonably belligerent warmonger.
I’ve always had the impression that the Axis had no way to force a long-term victory, and that they would have collapsed anyway, but we could have allowed ourselves to lose, if that makes sense. If the Battle of France had gone on longer, and we had sent far more aeroplanes and soldiers to reinforce the doomed French forces, we would have lost even more than we did at Dunkirk; if the Norwegian campaign had been a disaster for Germany, we might not have got rid of Chamberlain when we did. We had no qualms about throwing Poland to the lions in 1945, we might have had no qualms in an alternative 1940.