# Modern US Army vs Nazi Army **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957 "2016-09-26T18:55:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/41 "2016-09-27T03:51:54Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Why would they stop there?:rolleyes: Interesting, actually - not to hijack the thread, but how much could the 2016 US military conquer of the 1940s world? Half? Two-thirds? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/42 "2016-09-27T03:58:46Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Interesting, actually - not to hijack the thread, but how much could the 2016 US military conquer of the 1940s world? Half? Two-thirds? By 1920 the British empire controlled 25% of the total land area of the planet. I would think the US military could get the whole 1940s world without too much trouble if it wanted to, heck they could probably do that with some effort with the 2016 world as well. We are seriously OP compared to the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/43 "2016-09-27T03:59:08Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > If the whole country got transported, that would include modern airstrips within our borders, at least. If not also at bases around the world, yes? And it’s not as if tarmac got patented in 2015… ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/44 "2016-09-27T04:10:54Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And it’s not as if tarmac got patented in 2015… I could be wrong but doesn’t the air force have tactical teams that can set up landing strips basically anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/45 "2016-09-27T04:27:39Z")
Of course, if the whole country got teleported, we’d have an economic collapse of hellish proportions. Just for instance, all those people who work for the overseas McDonald’s franchise and distribution network. No more overseas McDonald’s! We would have to re-invent our entire economy, and the process would be monstrously dislocating. On the other hand, we know in advance that overseas McDonald’s franchising is going to be successful, so we get to bypass a lot of guesswork. We also know about all the oil in the near and mid-East, so we could glom Arabia and Iraq before they have any kind of political or economic power. (We’d also have historical knowledge on our side, and would know things like not to let Japan build the Fukushima reactor, or Italy build the Vajont dam. Anchorage, AK, would have lots of time to prepare for the 1964 earthquake.) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/46 "2016-09-27T04:33:38Z")
When Japan invaded China in World War II, there was an analogy that Japan was like a swimmer in a swimming pool, in the sense that the swimmer could go anywhere he desired, but couldn’t hold territory meaningfully and that as soon as he moved, the water filled the gap left in his wake, since Japan, despite being technologically superior, was simply vastly outnumbered by China. So I wonder if we wouldn’t have something similar here in the OP’s hypothetical. The United States’ forces would vastly outclass everything they encountered, but it might be like a swimmer in Europe - if the USA wants to take every inch of Axis territory in Europe. You can go anywhere you want, but don’t have the numbers to hold territory. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/47 "2016-09-27T04:34:58Z")
By the way, at what point is the USA intervening? At the very outset of war, or at Nazi Germany’s high-water point, when they had taken France and pushed near Moscow? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/48 "2016-09-27T04:39:45Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > By the way, at what point is the USA intervening? At the very outset of war, or at Nazi Germany’s high-water point, when they had taken France and pushed near Moscow? At the very height of their power. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/49 "2016-09-27T04:42:28Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > At the very height of their power. OK, gotcha. In that case it would be like the 1991 Gulf War as you mentioned, but on a scale ten times bigger. Assuming availability of all C4ISRT assets like satellites, etc., American airpower would cause the Wehrmacht to cease to be a functional, effective force inside of a month. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/50 "2016-09-27T04:42:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > When Japan invaded China in World War II, there was an analogy that Japan was like a swimmer in a swimming pool, in the sense that the swimmer could go anywhere he desired, but couldn’t hold territory meaningfully and that as soon as he moved, the water filled the gap left in his wake, since Japan, despite being technologically superior, was simply vastly outnumbered by China. > So I wonder if we wouldn’t have something similar here in the OP’s hypothetical. The United States’ forces would vastly outclass everything they encountered, but it might be like a swimmer in Europe - if the USA wants to take every inch of Axis territory in Europe. You can go anywhere you want, but don’t have the numbers to hold territory. India was held by a tiny island off the coast of Europe. As long as you keep all the water in the pool and don’t let anyone else swim it all amounts to the same thing right? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/51 "2016-09-27T05:41:38Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > . . . The United States’ forces would vastly outclass everything they encountered, but it might be like a swimmer in Europe - if the USA wants to take every inch of Axis territory in Europe. You can go anywhere you want, but don’t have the numbers to hold territory. This is why we invented Vietnamization. We’d conquer a big chunk of land, arm the locals, put them in charge of securing the area, and move on. It’s an Imperial technique the Romans mastered, and, in the hypothetical, we’d probably use it to really good effect. For instance, we’d liberate France, then arm the French with 1960’s weaponry and technology – better than anybody else had, but not equal to our own really good stuff – and turn France loose on those parts of Germany we can’t attend to ourselves. (We’d have already armed up Britain…but, knowing history, not the Soviets.) In the same way, we wouldn’t have to fight Mao ourselves: just give more concrete support to Chiang. You know the old joke: “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” Well: we don’t need to conquer the world; we just need to conquer a bunch of friendly conquerers. (Sort of a no-holds-barred version of the Cold War. And we’re the only ones with nukes.) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/52 "2016-09-27T13:36:33Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > You severely underestimate the [B-1B](http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104500/b-1b-lancer.aspx) top speed of Mach 1.2 or 900+ MPH a payload of 75,000 pounds and an “intercontinental” Range. Even a modern 747 is faster than 340 mph. I think I had a typo there or something- clearly I was typing something other than the speed. At any rate, they can’t sustain supersonic speeds, but do have cruising speeds in the 650 mph ballpark (0.85 mach), which only makes the point that much more. I imagine that in a week or two of high intensity air operations, the modern-day USAF could effectively cripple say… 1943-ish Germany in pretty much every respect, especially if they had accurate wartime or post-war maps to use. I mean, a small handful of 2000 lb laser-guided Paveway bombs can do what it likely took an entire bomber raid in WWII to accomplish. Things like destroying factories, bridges, railyards, etc… are much more easily and effectively accomplished nowadays. Hell, look at the Thanh Hoa Bridge- some 871 sorties mounted against it with conventional bombing techniques with no success, and the first Paveway raid against it of 14 planes hit it and knocked one end into the river, and the second Paveway raid destroyed it entirely. That’s the sort of accuracy and destruction we’re talking about. Rather than mounting a raid of 250 B-17 bombers to destroy a small set of targets in a German city, we could hit them with a handful of bombs from a handful of bombers flying faster than the Germans would think possible. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/53 "2016-09-27T13:56:40Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Good thinking. The OP wants to refight D-Day and the advance on Berlin. But we don’t have to. > > IMO even modern airmobile forces don’t have the range to raid Berlin from Britain. Or even from the French coast until we’ve fought some ways in. By the time we get to the French/German border though things will be different. Berlin, or the approaches to it will be in range for such raids. > > Using airmobile raids against intermediate HQs and generally ranging a couple hundred miles out ahead of the armor/infrantry spearhead to create mischief in the enemy rear is a darn good idea. As is simply using tacair to locate and destroy those same places. Wouldn’t helicopters and transport planes be vulnerable to the masses of AAA covering Germany, and to some extent even the Luftwaffe? German production totaled 200,000 AAA guns, and 60,000 fighters. Now, at any given time in the war there will only be a small fraction of that along a path leading to Berlin, but as a WAG it’d take tens of thousands of air strikes to clear the path. That’s on the order of magnitude of the Gulf War air campaign. Could the modern US military sustain an even bigger campaign? How long before we’re at the literal point of running out of bombs and can’t keep up with aircraft maintenance? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/54 "2016-09-27T14:18:58Z")
LSLguy mentioned incinerating Berlin, but if we’re talking about the modern US military we also have to take into account modern US sensibilities. We’re not going to be doing strategic bombing of civilian center and we’re not going to use nukes. Given our casualty averseness I think our leaders would also be tempted to just put airpower into the fight and make the Brits do all the ground work. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/55 "2016-09-27T14:36:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If we weren’t willing to use nukes first we’d still be bunker-busting the crap out of their HQs. EW would terminate their entire national command and control system except for motorcycle couriers and carrier pigeons. If we let them keep radio we’d break all the ciphers trivially and read their comms from end to end. No need to let them keep radio. We could watch their movements faster than they could make them. > [@](#): > > The biggest problem the modern air arms would have is that we simply don’t have enough airplanes to kill all the juicy essentially undefended targets. But unlike in WWII we don’t need to drop 10,000 tons of bombs over a week to wreck a factory. Instead we send in 2 jets one time and actually hit the place. Strategic bombing was in its very infancy in WWII and it really wasn’t until the fact-finding teams when in after the war that they started to understand what should be done the next time. We wouldn’t need to inflict as much damage as they had to against the Nazis. First would be to cripple their oil and fuel facilities and storage and Germany would be entirely screwed. Effectively attack their transportation system and there wouldn’t be anything left to move goods or armies. The other problem would be the limited number of smart bombs because modern factories just don’t produce enough for that scale of a war, but IMHO, it wouldn’t be necessary. We still have enough “dumb” bombs and without the constraints of worrying about civilian losses, dumb bombs will do. The war would be over before they started to need replacement arms from factories. > [@](#): > > The Navy would be similar. Shortly after a U-boat surfaces at night it simply explodes. They can’t detect our radars nor our incoming ordnance. Nor do anything about it if they do. As with the air forces, we don’t have the raw numbers to be everywhere. But anywhere we are, they’re not. At least not anymore. Zero of their spotter planes will return from their first mission. The Nazi surface navy, such as it was by 1944, wouldn’t fare any better. Nobody would realize they were in danger until they started exploding. You just can’t fight what you can’t see. This would have been a bigger factor in '42 than '43 by which time the Kriegsmarine had pretty much been defeated and only a few patrol boats caused any damage to the invasion forces on D-Day. However, it is going to be a big part of my strategy outlined below. > [@](#): > > The Army will have it rougher, but not that much rougher. Between artillery and night vision it’ll be like the Blitzkrieg was against the Polish cavalry in 1939 but in reverse. They can’t see, think, decide, move, or shoot even half as fast as we can. Nor can they do it 24 hours a day rain or shine. In 1944, Germany was reduced to moving their armor at night because of Allied air supremacy. In this alt-hist, Germany couldn’t move their armor or their armies day or night. The march from Normandy took almost a year in real history because the front moved slowly and we couldn’t prevent reinforcements from arriving. This would not be the case with modern armed forces fighting against them. > [@](#): > > Again the biggest problem we face is compared to the sheer physical size of the German army, we just don’t have that many men or machines. We utterly dominate wherever we are. But there’s lots of places we just can’t be. Fortunately modern air power can hold a flank pretty well. Keeping our supply lines secure from pincer attacks is probably the rate-limiting step in the advance. See below. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Good thinking. The OP wants to refight D-Day and the advance on Berlin. But we don’t have to. > > IMO even modern airmobile forces don’t have the range to raid Berlin from Britain. Or even from the French coast until we’ve fought some ways in. By the time we get to the French/German border though things will be different. Berlin, or the approaches to it will be in range for such raids. The only thing I disagree with is this _French coast_. What’s that? We own the air, we own the sea, we can pinpoint bombs and naval guns and we have ability to set troops down behind lines. First we attack Antwerp and take the port. We blow the hell out of all their armies and tanks which rush forward while we grab the bridges. It may even be easier to clear Denmark, then take a port closer to Berlin allowing the logistic lines to be shorter. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/56 "2016-09-27T14:40:44Z")
The Nazi’s did invent integrated rapid mobility combined arms air, armor, infantry and artillery combat (Blitzkrieg). But they did it 80 years ago. I feel like we had a similar thread a short time ago. But a Nazi Blitzkrieg would be about as effective against a modern heavy Brigade Combat Team with integrated air support as the Maginot Line was at stopping them in the 40s. Technology has the effect of compressing time and space on the battlefield. It’s why the Germans were so effective in the early stages of the war. Countries like France and Poland were thinking and operating on WWI timeframes. Weeks and days instead of days and hours. As someone pointed out with the B-1 Lancer, imagine a 1940s army trying to deal with a single aircraft that can be launched from bases beyond their range to respond, is largely immune to their anti-aircraft countermeasures and can destroy an entire regiment in a single bombing run. Or dealing with a tank that travels twice as fast as yours across country, is largely impervious to your main cannon and can actually fire and hit you from 2.5 miles away, while both tanks are moving at full speed. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/57 "2016-09-27T14:55:38Z")
Another important factor is we understand Nazi technology. When you read contemporary accounts of the war you’ll see that while a country may be able to see what an enemy is doing, it’s often very difficult to figure out how they’re doing it. To give one example, the Germans never really appreciated how much the British were using radar. The Germans understood radar existed and they had radar sets of their own. But the British had built up a radar network and incorporated it into their command structure. The result was that the British could track incoming German bombers and send just the right amount of interceptors to the right locations. Radar made British air defense substantially more effective. But the Germans never realized this and never made any significant attempts to bomb radar stations. There are hundreds of other examples like this. Things which weren’t clear to the people in the middle of a war encountering them for the first time but which we’ve been studying in history books for decades. We probably have a better understanding of how the German military works than the Germans themselves did during the war. And if we somehow went back and fought those Germans, we could use this knowledge to pinpoint our attacks at the places where they would do the most damage. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/58 "2016-09-27T15:23:19Z")
We’d also be able to tell the Brits the names of the Cambridge Five. OTOH; in an alternate Universe, Modern America would be replaced with 1940’s America and the entire world order would collapse as America became a third world country simply due to being 60+ years behind in tech. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/59 "2016-09-27T15:59:06Z")
Incidentally, what’s the _bare minimum_ of modern non-nuclear technology required to change the outcome of WWII? Suppose the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe had a few AC-130 Spectres, with all the ammo and fuel always readily available for them. Would that have turned Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, etc. into German victories? Maybe one B-52 armed with sensor-fuzed cluster skeet munitions (again, with all the ammo and fuel always readily available, constantly landing and replenishing) would have won Kursk for Germany? An Imperial Japanese Seawolf-class SSN might have singlehandedly won Midway, etc. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/60 "2016-09-27T16:46:07Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Good thinking. The OP wants to refight D-Day and the advance on Berlin. But we don’t have to. > > IMO even modern airmobile forces don’t have the range to raid Berlin from Britain. Or even from the French coast until we’ve fought some ways in. By the time we get to the French/German border though things will be different. Berlin, or the approaches to it will be in range for such raids. > > Using airmobile raids against intermediate HQs and generally ranging a couple hundred miles out ahead of the armor/infrantry spearhead to create mischief in the enemy rear is a darn good idea. As is simply using tacair to locate and destroy those same places. V-22’s and CH-53’s air in-flight refuel capable. No limit to the distance they can travel to drop off troops. We just have to wait for the V-22 numbers to come up a little more. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957.md?page=4)