What if....?

[Scott Evans]

One point that Churchill made to FDR before Pearl Harbour was that while he personally (And a UK that he led) would fight on to the death, if he somehow succumbed in an invasion, there was nothing stopping some other guy coming to power in the UK and swapping the Royal Navy for peace terms and a level of independence. To elaborate, why should the UK send over the fleet to defend the US when the US had done very little to help them survive?
It was not a threat but merely a warning that Churchill himself might have been killed and the Island subjugated, and in that case you could not really blame them for swapping the Fleet for the lives of their own people.

With the Royal Navy German (And not in opposition) the US would have been in a terrible spot. Yes later on in the war they could have probably taken them all on, but at this point their main force was in the Pacific countering the Japanese threat (Well, mainly as a Fleet in Being, hoping the Japs would be good because of the threat a large hostile fleet in the area posed.)

And the Royal Navy was no spring Chicken.

If, say, the UK fell in 1940 or early 1941:

In battleships;
4 15" Royal Sovereign-class, Ramillies, Resolution, Revenge, Royal Sovereign, the Royal Oak being sunk.
5 15" Queen Elizabeth-class, Barham, Malaya, Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, Warspite.
3 14" King George V's (The newest UK BB's) The KGV, the Prince of Wales (Sunk on my B-Day, Dec 10 1941) and the Duke of York, completed in August 1941. The other two of the class commissioning in 1942.
Then you have the Hood, the Renown and the Repulse, so 15 ships of 14" or more with 2 more coming out soon. Add to that the Bismark and the Tirpitz the 11" Gneisenau and Scharnhorst and you have a pretty deadly force, even if the R's were old and slow.

In carriers, the RN by part way through 41 time had 3 Illustrious in commission, 3 Courageous class and the old ones, the Furious, the Pegasus, the Eagle and the Hermes. And you have to count with them the Graf Zeppelin.

In heavy cruisers the County class were still mostly around, their heaviest losses coming to the Japs. 11 8" Counties and 2 8" Yorks. You add to this the likes of the 11" Deutschlands (2, the Spee having been lost by now) and the 8" Admiral Hippers (4).

And while some of the British ships would have been in the Pacific, most were in the Atlantic or Mediterranean at the time. Plus the Americans would have little help in the Pacific (A few Aussie heavy cruisers and different light cruisers of Australia and New Zealand at best), and this is without even factoring the Italian navy which would no longer have to oppose the Royal Navy. (2 12" BBs, 2 12.6" BB's, 3 15" BB's and one that was not completed which might have very well been finished. 5 or so 8" Cruisers should also be included.)

And you have to remember that the Iowa's were not out, the Essex's were not out. So as you can see it would have been a definite possibility had Churchill been killed in the fighting.

That said I personally do not think the war would have been lost after 1941 or so unless something drastic happened, I am not sure it would have been won either.

[fredlebel]

Wasn't Hitler's first plan was to rule Continental Europe and have peace with Britain?

[Scott Evans]

Yes, that was his first plan but with the British proving more stubborn than he thought he decided to conquer them instead. But to do that he had to beat the RAF so he could could dominate the Channel with his aircraft and get his troops across hence the Battle of Britain. But like Napoleon, it was taking too much work (Those continental powers never understood sea power) and decided to knock off Russia and then come back to his British problem (As did Napoleon.) Thankfully neither of those dictators came out of Russia the same as they went in.

It is funny how history repeats itself..

[fredlebel]

That brings up a good question for this thread, what if Hermann Goering never existed. What if the head of the Luftwaffe wasn't also one of Hitler's closest advisors? Dunkirk, Invasion of Britain, repulsing the Invasion of France and I think when the Germans were surrounded in Stalingrad all had Goering saying, "Hey, Hitster, no need to send the infantry, my planes will do the job." But they didn't.

[Scott Evans]

I guess it really depends on who was in charge instead because if it was someone even LESS aggressive the invasion of Poland might have taken much longer indeed (Because if you recall the air power of Germany was the main thing keeping the Poles from regrouping and played a major part.) If it carried over into winter Germany might not have been able to finish off Poland that year giving the Allies in the west more chance to respond and not made the Germans look so unstoppable. (And demoralizing.)

During the Battle of Britain the German's were very very very close to eliminated the RAF bases in range to stop them and if they had not have changed targets it would have been a different story. (Same thing with the Brit bomber who ditched a bomb over Berlin and prompted Hitler to retaliate with the Blitz).

[deutschlandschutze]

Even if the aircraft didn't win it for the Germans, they were still very effective and a major role in the Blitzkrieg. Also, if the Germans had better prepared for Russia (for example: having winter clothing on hand just in case...) they may still have defeated Russia despite the winter that stalled their invasion. It didn't matter that they were prepared for the second one because the Russians had already been given enough time to build her mass army and retaliate. Another massive factor against the Germans in Russia was Hitler's indecisiveness. He couldn't seem to make up his mind where he wanted his troops and therefore kept switching his orders, which in turn caused massive traffic jams.

Though the results of the BoB(Battle of Britain) couldn't have been predicted, the destruction of the Luftwaffe became a major factor in the outcome of the war. On D-Day only two German aircraft made it into the skies to help defend the Atlantic Wall. With more aircraft support, the men on the beaches would have been desimated as well as the landing craft coming in towards the beach. The Luftwaffe also would have been able to put much larger reaction forces into the skies on the Ostfront.

Ironic about history repeating. Though, if I recall, Napoleon did not achieve nearly as good of a k/d ratio as did the Whermacht and SS in Russia. And I just reminded myself...

Another far reaching result had the Luftwaffe not lost its superiority... The Allied bombimg campaign of German factories and railways would not have been nearly as effective. As it was, their bombings crippled the Third Reich's industry and infrastructure.

Hitler should have spent less time working on new, secret weapons, and more on the tried and true... he needed more men and equipment. If he had had more tanks and a quicker response time, his Panzer Divisions may well have been able to push the Allied landings on D-Day right back into the sea. This would have caused a possibility, though slight, of a truce with America and Britain. Germany could have devoted all her resources towards the Ostfront and effectively halted the Russian advance.

As for the What if...? regarding the fall of Russia and Britain and the subsequent invasion of America by Germany. (If Hitler even would have attempted)... It is important to note that only a small percentage of American service men saw action in WWII. Not to mention that if it came down to protecting America, the U.S. forces would not have been split between Pacific and European. All of her troops and materials could have been concentrated in one front. Geography would play another huge role. If the Germans had managed to make a sizeable foothold, America has very diverse terrain and is not ideal for invasion. In the east were vast forests with a wicked mountain range and swampland in the south east. It then opens into flat open terrain... any targets moving across it could easily be destroyed by aircraft. If they got past this, they have the Rockies to deal with... I'm sure you get the picture.

Wow that was quite a ranting... anyways all those are just educated guesses that I hold...

[rspeirs]

What if...

Well, I have a question that has been haunting me for quite awhile. Being that Erich Von Manstein was my favorite general of the war, I have to ask, what if Operation Citadel, the German attack at Kursk, wasn't called off by Hitler in light of Operation Huskie, the Allied invasion of Sicily? Von Manstein had Georgy Zhukov where he wanted him, and he insisted to Hitler that he be allowed to attack once more, but his attempt was in vain. Would Kursk still have been a defininitive Soviet victory, or would Von Manstein claim victory for the Fatherland?

Also, what do you think would happen if Von Manstein was never removed from command? Would the Eastern Campaign been a different story? Remember, Von Manstein had a tactical wit about him, and he was planning on goading the Soviets into attacking to swiftly, in which case, he would move his men onto the flanks of the Soviet army, where he would encircle them, thus crippling them.


(And didn't something along the standards of what happened at Kursk happen at Tobruk? Something along the lines of Rommel wanting to attack, but Hitler wouldn't allow it.)

[∬: Erik Schneider]

The answer is...

Hitler was an idiot when it came to anything tactical about war. At the beginning of the war he had a lot of trust and allowed his generals to do pretty much as they pleased/thought was best. Near the end of the war, he lost that trust and began to involve himself too heavily with the war. He made a lot of choices that he thought was best while some of his best generals disagreed with him ... and look where that got him.

A brilliant political leader... he should have put enough trust in his generals that they would make the right decisions. They know how to do their jobs while he doesn't. At least, that's what I think.

Just look at Russia. Hitler gambled everything by attacking it and when everything was going well he began to make stupid and over confident decisions. He lost the war when he didn't defeat Russia before Winter.

[☭Yaroslava Zolnyernova]

Look. If we looked at everything tactically the Germans had better everything. they had better small arms, tanks, planes, and advanced technology. They would have gone even farther if it had not been for a single liability: Hitler himself. He chose not to continue the MP44 programme that continued without his permission. He made bad strategical and tactical decisions as well.

The way I see it, the German generals were some of the best in the world at the time. they could have easily taken the western front and Africa if Hitler had not interfered. However, the USSR is another story. Stalin suspected Hitler was out to conquer Europe and in preparation he ordered that many factories be build on the Eastern side of the Ural mountains. the battle of Kursk may have been won by the Germans, and they probably would have passed by Stalingrad without a battle. However, those factories on the east were waiting for the evacuating workers in the west. They were prepared to build massive numbers of T34 tanks; which they did by 1944.

Also, mountains are the worst terrain to fight in and the Germans would have reached them about the time winter would have set in. Apart form the snow and mud, the Germans would have no chance of breaking through the Urals. For the six months that it would have been snowing, the Russians would have pumped enough tanks out to push the weakened Germans.

To put it simply, the Germans would have successfully held west Poland and almost all of Europe. But, the USSR would probably have lived with their ability to produce so much war material. If the Russians could have held out until 1946 with that, they would have moved their production to new rifles and they would likely have armed their entire army with better rifles. the USSR just had a land and production advantage that German engineering and strategy would not have been able to defeat.

There's my two pence, as it were.

[Werner von Maybach]

Jun 2, 2009 22:15:04 GMT ☭Yaroslava Zolnyernova said:

the Germans had better everything. they had better [...] tanks

The Russian tanks where definetly superior to the German ones untill late 1942/early 1943, when the first Tigers and Panthers appeared on the battlefields.

Especially the famous T-34 was maybe the best tank of the world in it's time.

One of the main reasons of the German success in this phase is more their tactical superiority. For example, every German tank was equipped with radio, what made up a huge difference.

And Stalin still was assured of his "not one step back" tactic what finally ended in the giant pockets of the year 1941.