# Defence of the Reich



## bob44 (Nov 24, 2012)

This is a you are in charge of Germany's defense starting in 1943. From what was historically available. You control all air groups, antiaircraft, production of aircraft, ect. How do you do it?


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## Njaco (Nov 24, 2012)

Annex the Sudetenland.

Forget bombers and focus on more fighters with qualified pilots which entails an improved training program if possible. Stop needless manufacture of ridiculous prototypes and versions.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 25, 2012)

First off, I would stop the political in-fighting and get everyone on the same page.
Start ramping up pilot training and rotating aces into positions where thier experience would benefit the younger pilots coming into service.
Boost my jet engine program and get the Me262 and He280 up to strength by providing the engine manufacturers with the money and materials they deperately need.
Increase night fighter production and start becoming more offensive in this aspect by attacking strategic targets that will yeild the highest possible value.
Scale back on the "wonder weapons" and use the manpower and facilities to supplement current or next generation airframe production.
Restructure and co-ordinate AA systems.
Listen to my experienced generals and field marshals for input on battlefield situations and react accordingly...


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## Denniss (Nov 25, 2012)

Stop rotating air units from the eastern front to the western front and vice versa - completely different tactics required. Lots of good pilots from eastern front were annihilated in the west and vice versa.
Do everything to get high-alt interceptors and eliminate the enemy recons flying all over germany.
Flak ammo needs to be improved to ignite on both contact or set alt - until late in the war they only had either of the two options.


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## Siegfried (Nov 25, 2012)

Offense is the best defence and apart from defending the Reich it would be necessary to take the fight to the UK and the USA.

1a Emphasise the quality of fighters more: Me 109’s with retractable tail wheels and smoothed over gun bulges, retractable tyre covers to improve performance. I think about 15mph gain was possible.

1b Faster specialised night fighters able to position themselves after a diversionary raid was discovered and intercept more targets in the limited amount of time available.

1c Something with much better altitude performance is required by late 1943.

2 The Germans did well in developing radar but more effort was needed to evade future allied jamming efforts which caused problems from 1943 onwards and to improve radar performance so that fewer resources were required. The multi-cavity magnetron was well known in Germany. Devices known as “rad” magnetrons with 8 tooth shaped cavities were capable of producing several kw at 18 to 22.5cm cm in 1939. I have pictures of a 1940 4 cavity magnetron from Lorentz with the circular cavities and narrow slits used in Randall and Boots magnetron. It seems because the Germans went straight to blind fire capable 50cm to 80cm radars while the allies initially used less capable played 15m to 1.5m radar they perceived less need to develop microwave units while their microwave effort was obsessively focused in achieving frequency changing which magnetrons only do with difficulty and with limited precision.

The main chance for German success was a series of new radars operating at 27cm using something called a ceramic disk triode that could have bypassed much of the allied jamming and window effort. It was more powerful and unlike magnetron was capable of coherent pulse Doppler to resolve windows. Manheim-K was the name of this radar but its introduction was delayed by the bureaucratic decision to focus on conventional radars.

3 I believe the V2 would have been an effective weapon. However a SAM missile might have been of more use and should be fielded earlier. Wasserfall SAM instead of V2 in 1944.
4 Divert some resources from the V2 into the V1. The V1 caused a massive expenditure of allied resources and cost at least 200 fighter aircraft losses. Had the weapon started firing 12-7 months earlier at the middle or end of 43 it would have relieved the German homeland greatly. The V2 had enormous scope for greater speed (it reached over 500 mph by Feb 1945), range and accuracy (Ewald Sauerkirsche trilateration guidance) and range (400 miles)

5 Obviously more effective air defence weapons were required. The Germans did have a crude proximity fuse that used a type of device called a cold cathode thyratron and did fire functioning prox fuses and did have a program. Such innovation is required in fuses, SAM missiles or even simple unguided missiles with prox fuses that would not have needed the toughness to survive a gun launch.

6 Somewhat more effort in dispersing, hardening and having repair contingencies of the synthetic oil industry.

7 Push through in flight refuelling as was shown successful by trials beginning in 1940, push through a 4 engine He 177 with 4 x BMW 801 or Jumo 211J in preparation for the even more powerfull DB603 or Jumo 213.

These aircraft will provide extended maritime reconnaissance in a survivable airframe, threaten lone dispersed distant Allied targets with well-known guided weapons, attack Soviet targets beyond the Urals and courier between Germany and Japan. When the USAAF starts bombing Germany the longer ranged versions now equipped with powerful new engines to get heavy fuel loads of the ground and in conjunction with in-flight refuelling will attack US East Coast targets. Large amounts of fighters will be withdrawn to defend the US and perhaps Canadian coast. Blackouts will be the norm. Minesweeping will become necessary in the Hudson river.

8 An atomic bomb will be needed. It’s clear that the someone in Germany (Diebner?) knew the critical mass required of an atomic bomb with a HWA (Heers Waffen Ampt) or Army Ordinance Office paper placing the critical mass for both Uranium and Plutonium as 10-100kg which agrees with the Maud committee estimate of 2-100kg and matches the 55kg likely used by Littleboy. A program, run by a proper leader (say a Werner von Braun) instead of pure academics would have yielded results had it been started in 1940.

A good leader will have qualities open to such ‘dreaming’ and will understand the limitations of academics. One need only look at Dowdings imaginings of ‘death rays’ that lead to British radar. Speer let Weisacker and Heisengberg of the hook to easily. One recounts Churchill note that even if there was only a 1/10 chance of an atomic bomb working it must be done.

I don't envisage nuclear war but a kind of mutually assured destruction leading to a negotiated settlement.


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## stona (Nov 25, 2012)

Your point 8 is very contentious Siegfried. 

The cover of that document and date is unknown. It may post date the very report you refer to. 
.
It is clear from interogations and "Epsilon" transcripts that the team working on the German atomic project (it scarcely clasifies as a serious weapons project) had absolutely no idea of the critical mass required.One of those "bugged" at Farm Hall was Kurt Diebner. They were working with figures and a theory in which Heisenberg had made some serious mistakes. The absence of the sort of wide ranging of peer review to which allied scientists would submit their work meant that his fundamental mistakes were carried over into the program.

There is some evidence of other enrichment programs,at least one SS effort, but there is no evidence that they ever built working reactors. Many German scientists,not just those rounded up by operation "Alsos" and incarcerated at Farm Hall, may have had the theoretical knowledge to do it but don't seem to have actually done it. Some of their proposed methods simply don't work others are way beyond the technology of the 1940's,some beyond 21st century technology.At least one was more Alchemical than Chemistry.

The fact that someone has patented a device,which several German scientists did,doesn't mean they had built one.

Another popular myth is of two nuclear tests (Rugen and Ohrdruf) but there is not a single shred of real scientific evidence to support this.One well known "nazi bomber" has produced a photograph of an explosion as evidence! It could be any explosion!

"Alsos",one of the first allied scientific missions into liberated Europe,found only a primitive program. No working nuclear reactor. No large quantities of separated Uranium-235. No credible bomb design.Alsos scientific director Samuel Goudsmit summed it up nicely. "Sometimes we wondered if our government had not spent more money on our intelligence mission than the Germans spent on their whole project." 


A radiological device or "dirty bomb" is not a nuclear device.There is some evidence that one German program might have been attempting such a device.

We have to go on evidence not conjecture. Like most conspiracy theories the nazi bomb depends on hundreds or thousands of people on both sides of the conflict actively conniving to hide the existence of a weapon for some obscure political reasons.
It was Benjamin Franklin,a wiser man than most, who said,"three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

The first part of my working life was as an organic chemist,I do understand the relevant facts and figures.

Steve


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## Njaco (Nov 25, 2012)

bob44 said:


> This is a you are in charge of Germany's *defense *starting in 1943. From what was historically available. You control all air groups, antiaircraft, production of aircraft, ect. How do you do it?



Whats interesting is that philosophically Germany had no defense because Hitler didn't believe in the word.


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## Siegfried (Nov 25, 2012)

The HWA report, which was a sort of executive summary, got the critical mass estimate right. Heisenberg specifically states at farm hall that he had *"never made a critical mass calculation". *He really was a quasi pacifist torn with being a loyal German and being anti-war. You only need to look at his pre war philosophical ramblings (still available on Dover books) to see that. 

Diebner was a Nazi and never talked much. So were several others. Certain scientists such as Diebners boss Schumann weren't even at farm hall. Bothe wasn't there either.

Don't read anything by Rose, Bernstein, Groves or Goudsmitt without taking many grains of salt. All were to close to the action in time. Non was a professional historian. All had axes to grinde against the Germans at farm hall for various reasons, some personal.

I recommend American academic Historian Mark Walker. He is professional and not personally attached by ethniticity, politics or profession to a specific result.

It can be shown that:
1 They (or someone) got the critical mass right.
2 Contrary to Goudsmitt they knew the difference between fast and slow as well as prompt and delayed neutrons. Ample evidence of that as Mark Walker proves in several books on the subject. Even Rose concedes it. He does a good job teasing apart Why the Germans didn't really try to build a bomb. (Heisenberg points out in his defense that even the USA didn't test a bomb by Germany's collapse)

3 They knew of moderators though they bet on Heavy Water due to bad measurements on Graphite due to contamination. Two Germans Hanle and Joos explained the problem with graphite contamination though the message didn't get from the Army Program to Heisenberg. Norweigen Heavy water was 'free' as it was a byproduct of electorlysis for the purposes of making amonia via Haber Bosch.

4 The knew of cadmium control rods as early as 1939 (even a general news paper published this).
5 They knew of neutron reflectors or tempers.
6 They knew how to calculate criticality of a heavy water lattice, rod or plate reactors as well as concentric spheres (calculated by Clara Doppel in 1942)

Its hard to believe that having demonstrated the abillity to distinguish fast from slow neutrons and having developed the abillity to calculate criticality that they would fail to calculate super-criticality for a bomb.

Diebner for instance developed several ways of calculating criticality quite different and more sophisticated than Heisenberg.

Really, the only reason this is contentious is because starting with Goudsmitt (and Groves) a hatchet job was conducted. Moral attacks by scientists are often couched in terms of 'scientific credibillity' they are however far from impartial.

The so called atomic tests at Rugen likely have conventional explanations. There do however appear to be some patents by Diebner and Schumann for using shaped charges to make neutron blasts. It is possible to make neutrons by bombarding certain materials such as berylium with particles such as alpha particles from radium or electrons from a vacuum tube, electron gun or atomic accelerator. Using shaped charges to blast lithium into berylium seems to have been a way Diebner at least looked at producing a powerfull neutron blast. Ie using chemical produced plasmas instead of beams. He along with Schumann were the shaped charge experts at the HWA. Virtually at the last month before littleboy was dropped on Japan at neutron trigger/source known as an "urchin" was added to the bomb. That is as far as I'd go in speculation.

The Germans had two devices that actually produced enriched Uranium. An ultracentrifuge which produced around 0.6 grams of 6% enriched. Its prototypes were destroyed no less than 3 times by bombing before one survived long enough to test. Orders were placed on the Bamag company for several hundred in late 1944 apprently for reactor work. In theory they could produced weapons grade material by themselves without any intervening device and they were far more efficient though the hight RPM was a challenge. The other was the uranium sluice which chopped up a gaseaous stream of heated uranium and then used another blade to tip and tail off the lighter and faster moving U235. It didn't require high RPM, about 500. Again two prototypes destroyed by bombing with the final version producting about 4% enrichment. Hartek and Groth produced these. An alectronics expert who was wealthy and autonomouse enough to have his own lab, von Ardenne, looked at electromagnetic enrichments. In fact his "von Ardenne" Ion source was in fact superior to the one used in the allied caulutrons.

So there was ample people to draw upon.


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## davebender (Nov 25, 2012)

Almost too late to matter.

Give He-162 jet fighter and R4M FF rockets the highest priority for development and mass production. Both can be in mass production in less then one year. Both are relatively inexpensive to produce. Early versions of He-162 should be powered by Jumo 004A engine until the Jumo 004B engine is production ready.


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## pinsog (Nov 25, 2012)

Kill Hitler and sue for peace. You have 110 million angry Russians on one side and England and the United States on the other in a country half the size of Texas. Unless you suddenly aquire thermonuclear weapons your going to lose. Period. Make peace and limit the casualties in your country.


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## stona (Nov 25, 2012)

Siegfried I am perfectly aware of all of this. Once again one or two of your points are scientifically contentious but this is not the forum for that.There are others which I can't comment on because whilst I understand what you are saying I have no intention of giving myself a physical chemistry refresher course. I didn't much enjoy the maths first time around and I definitely wouldn't today!

I have simple questions. 

What hard evidence do you have any of the numerous German scientists involved in the German nuclear project calculated the critical mass of material for a Uranium bomb? One dated document,even a back of the envelope calculation will do.

Where is the physical evidence for a viable device? The material,a working design,even evidence of a coherent test program?

Every Chemistry graduate knows theoretically how a nuclear weapon works and even the various steps to produce the relevant materials,I know that I do.That is a long,long way from actually producing one

The program wasn't months but years away from a viable weapon. The more time passes the more often people will extrapolate poor or dubious evidence to revise the conclusions reached by the various allies in 1945.

Steve


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## Readie (Nov 25, 2012)

bob44 said:


> This is a you are in charge of Germany's defense starting in 1943. From what was historically available. You control all air groups, antiaircraft, production of aircraft, ect. How do you do it?



Interesting question...I'm sure the German high command thought of everything they could... maybe even accepting the inevitable defeat?
Lost cause by 1943.
Cheers
John


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## stona (Nov 25, 2012)

Readie said:


> Interesting question...I'm sure the German high command thought of everything they could... maybe even accepting the inevitable defeat?



The Reich was the only occupied "country" of WW2 that didn't produce any kind of meaningful resistance. If you won't accept the possibility of defeat until enemy forces are already in your capital it is difficult to plan for that eventuality.
Contrast that with the plans laid by the British in the event of an invasion. Some may seem faintly ridiculous now but at the time they were deadly serious.

Steve


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 25, 2012)

Readie said:


> Interesting question...I'm sure the German high command thought of everything they could... maybe even accepting the inevitable defeat?
> Lost cause by 1943.
> Cheers
> John



I think the noose was tightening, but it was not a lost cause by 1943. Maybe late 1943 the earliest, but I think 1944 was really the point where defeat was inevitable.


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## Readie (Nov 25, 2012)

stona said:


> The Reich was the only occupied "country" of WW2 that didn't produce any kind of meaningful resistance. If you won't accept the possibility of defeat until enemy forces are already in your capital it is difficult to plan for that eventuality.
> Contrast that with the plans laid by the British in the event of an invasion. Some may seem faintly ridiculous now but at the time they were deadly serious.
> 
> Steve



We can laugh at 'Dad's Army' now. I agree it was anything but funny at the time.
Rather like 'Alo Alo'...
Still, at least we can still laugh at ourselves in these uncertain times.
Cheers
john


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## Readie (Nov 25, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I think the noose was tightening, but it was not a lost cause by 1943. Maybe late 1943 the earliest, but I think 1994 was really the point where defeat was inevitable.



Did WW2 go on till 1994 Chris? I must have missed something....

I know its just a typo mate.

I'll go with 1943. The loss of North Africa in May 1943 signalled the end.
Although I would add that this with that marvellous thing called hindsight...
World War II, 1943

Cheers
John


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 25, 2012)

Readie said:


> Did WW2 go on till 1994 Chris? I must have missed something....
> 
> I know its just a typo mate.
> 
> ...





Ooops typo! Thanks for pointing that out. I was just picking on someone for that very same thing in the myth thread. Karma huh?


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## bob44 (Nov 25, 2012)

> maybe even accepting the inevitable defeat?



That is a personal theory of mine. That is, several key people in German military and industry, realised that Germany was not going to win the war or a peace by 1944 maybe 1943. These people started to put a wrench in the works. Causing delays in development and production. Perhaps even talking with the Allies.


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## davebender (Nov 25, 2012)

Casablanca Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


> “Casablanca Declaration,” and what is, perhaps, its most historically provocative statement of purpose, “unconditional surrender.”



After January 1943 it's pointless to talk of negotiating a peace treaty. Germany (and Europes) only hope is to hold out until FDR dies. Then maybe Germany can get a peace treaty which does not leave most of Europe under Soviet control.


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## johnbr (Nov 25, 2012)

I would drop a 10k bomb in a bomber formation and step up R#D on the He-006 and kill the He011.Make the Ar-440 in to a night fighter with the DB-603n.


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## tyrodtom (Nov 25, 2012)

bob44 said:


> That is a personal theory of mine. That is, several key people in German military and industry, realised that Germany was not going to win the war or a peace by 1944 maybe 1943. These people started to put a wrench in the works. Causing delays in development and production. Perhaps even talking with the Allies.



That just sounds like a slight modification of the Nazi's excuse of how Germany lost WW1.


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## dobbie (Nov 25, 2012)

If you waited until 1943 after making most of the world angry with you, Id say its time to bag it. Should have waited until 1943 before you decided to invade anyone. The world was still trying to recover from the Great Depression in the 30's and nobody really had the money to gear up for another world war. 

Having Italy as your major ally was such a nothing in comparison to what you really needed.

Starting a fight with the Soviets and Americans was a bone head move. The bone head move the Allies didnt do but should have was to kick their butt when Germany occupied the Sudatenland.

No Navy to speak of to take the fight to North America except for the U boats and they were becoming less effective. America proved that it had the manufacturing capacity to sustain itself plus supply the Allies while operating unmolested.

No quantity of bombers or the necessary fighter escorts to bomb the war making assets of their enemies.

Not enough of a military force left, after occupying most of Europe to invade anyone past England, and that particular opportunity was blown when it turned from a battle to a political hissyfit. Should have stuck to bombing the factories, airfields and radar sites instead of trying to knock down the cities.


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## Siegfried (Nov 25, 2012)

stona said:


> Siegfried I am perfectly aware of all of this. Once again one or two of your points are scientifically contentious but this is not the forum for that.There are others which I can't comment on because whilst I understand what you are saying I have no intention of giving myself a physical chemistry refresher course. I didn't much enjoy the maths first time around and I definitely wouldn't today!
> 
> I have simple questions.
> 
> ...



The evidence is that the HWA report got the super-critical mass for an atomic bomb correct. Further evidence is that the Canadian researchers who built the Canadian/US Heavy water reactor examined the German subcritical reactor at Haigerloch and German calculation methodologies and said that the Germans knew how to dimension a reactor correctly and calculate criticality. The Germans were the first to achieve positive neutron production using the concentric leipzig subcritical reactors in early 1942.

There never was an industrialised German bomb program due to its expense and limited chances for success in time, it remained funded at a scientific level presumably hoping for a cheaper breakthrough.

However, with the benefit of hindsight there should have been a program and what there was could have been better co-ordinated by better motivated scientists or leaders. Heisenberg was not the man to do the job, clever as he was. To be fair when Speer claims he had in mind offering 500 million Reichs Marks to Heisenberg/Weiszacker he may have expected too quick a result (6 months or 2 years). Would anyone honest have said, yes I can have a fieldable atomic weapon within 2 years? Someone like von Braun might have but it still would have been late.

I merely make the point, in the context of this thread, that building more and better fighters to shoot down more allied bombers makes no difference. You need to be agressive and put the allies on the backfoot and that means conducted raids against the continental US when the US starts conducting raids against Germany. It probably means at least demonstrating aerial mine laying against the US east coast before then so that they know the politicians know their population will not be impune from consequences.

In terms of technology the German engine program needs to advance at least 1 year in order that the German pilots had high perfofrmance aircraft up to saving their own lives in the 1943 period when the core of experienced pilots was eaten away by attrition.

That means
Me 109K in October 1943 not 44. You need well homolgated 440mph fighter to deal with the P-51, Griffon Spitifre and Tempest V.
Me 109G ASM and or AM in March/April 43 instead of 44 or at least the AS version or AM version alone. 
Me 109G rated at 1.42 ata in October 1942 not Otober 43.
Fw 190D9 in November 43 not November 44

Thats a very tall order but possibly doable by ditching certain hyper engine programs.

Having the Jets ready earlier would a bonus but even harder.

Mostly it would be essential to have a way of succesfully attacking the UK and USA. Waiting for someone to come and bomb you, no matter how good your defense, is ultimatly doomed since they will ultimatly find away around your 'passivity'

Better fighters/nightfighters and radar might protect the German factories and population a little longer and keep the Luftwaffe pilots alive and the 8th and Bomber Command away and combined with earlier V1 missiles it might be able to put of Overlord from the summer of 44 to the summer of 45. 

But then what, inevitably unless there was a Soviet defeat, allied material superiority would lead to technical superiority and win out and of course an atomic bomb is a game changer. So defeating the bomber streams on its own is at best a delay.

Ultimatly sometime around late 45 the allies will be ready with a weapon. The likely presence of SAM missiles over Reich airspace by late 1945 will make the B-29 a vulnerable target that would be easily pricked of if they attacked in anthing but a massed formation and that might buy the Germans a few months as the allies prepare an attack by several hundred B-29 within which will be a dozen atomic bombers. The Germans would need to demonstrate an bomb by then.

Of course the most important thing would be to be finnicky about cypher security. The Luftwaffe was the most sloppy of the 3 services in cyper practice.


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## bada (Nov 26, 2012)

pinsog said:


> Kill Hitler and sue for peace. You have 110 million angry Russians on one side and England and the United States on the other in a country half the size of Texas. Unless you suddenly aquire thermonuclear weapons your going to lose. Period. Make peace and limit the casualties in your country.



Most logic post here 

anyway,if above not possible: start the harassement of bomber's formation above the channel when they are not fully regroupped yet and where the escort is still fuel-overloaded. Set a tremendous FLAK-Wall in north France/belgium/holland with a good radar control. Devlop SAM's more rapidely (higher budget)...but still the numbers start to be against the germans from the second half of 43 and the allies would certainly adapt quickly sending more short ranged fighters in front of the bomber formations (i see spitfires in this scenario), what means the LW would have to send even more of their own fighters to counter the Raf Fighters


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## davebender (Nov 27, 2012)

Jumo 004A engine could have been mass produced during 1943 but it will cost more then Jumo 004B. It's up to RLM to decide whether that's a worthwhile trade off for having Me-262 Jagdgeschwader operational by the end of 1943. IMO it's a better deal then the expensive V2 missile program.


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## drgondog (Nov 28, 2012)

By mid 1942 most of the changes suggested on this thread would have been a.) strategically unsound unless Germany could make peace with USSR and re-allocate resources and R&D to focus on the threat from the West, and b.) impossible given Hitler's insistance that Defense was second priority.

To beat Commonwealth and US after 1942, Germany had to neutralize airpower from the UK, harness the natural resources necessary to develop nuclear weapons, channel resources to protect the development and production, and develop the delivery systems - all ahead of the Manhattan Project.

Having said that - given that there was a unified recognition that combined US/RAF airpower was a very bad thing for Germany - then given prescient knowledge of Africa campaign:
Extract Afrika Corp and LW from Africa.
Shift large portion of LW fighter and bomber resources to Italy and LufFlotte 3 to contest the French/Dutch airspace with not only strong defensive capability but also significant night bombing capability.
Meet influx of American airpower by attacking UK RAF and US airfields, and ports at night. RAF night fighters will extract high toll but attempts to develop strategic footprint in East Anglia will be severly curtailed. RAF ops will be severly impacted as long as LW continues to pour resources into the campaign.
(this is all about buying time)
Re-Allocate existing fighter aircraft production and engine development to focust on In-Line version of Fw 190/Ta 152, reduce 109 production accordingly and continue buildup of Fw 190A series. Focus night fighter dev on Ju 88 versions.
Re-allocate bomber resources to Me 410, He 277 (with at least one version modified for very large weapon), Ju 88, Ju 390 and maybe Do 217
Accelerate dev of Me 262, kill the Ju 87, wind down the 109, continue V-2 and surface to air/proximity fusing R&D
If and when US daylight strength increases to overwhelm (much longer timeframe) France, Holland, West German defenses - shift squadrons from East and South to build up the core of LuftFlotte Reich and put all of German air defenses (flak, day/night fighter, radar sites, etc) under central command - including deployment. 
Kill Hitler so that rational thinking may surface regarding Defense of Germany.


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## Readie (Nov 28, 2012)

drgondog said:


> By mid 1942 most of the changes suggested on this thread would have been a.) strategically unsound unless Germany could make peace with USSR and re-allocate resources and R&D to focus on the threat from the West, and b.) impossible given Hitler's insistance that Defense was second priority.
> 
> To beat Commonwealth and US after 1942, Germany had to neutralize airpower from the UK, harness the natural resources necessary to develop nuclear weapons, channel resources to protect the development and production, and develop the delivery systems - all ahead of the Manhattan Project.
> 
> ...



The other factor is the convey supply routes for the allies.
If Germany was to win then these would have to be dealt with.
No conveys...no D Day
No conveys no strategic bombing campaign.
No conveys no supplies for the Soviets.
and so on....

Germany's ultimate failure on the high seas was instrumental in its defeat.

Cheers
John


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## bobbysocks (Nov 28, 2012)

a lot of the supplies to the soviets from the US were coming into vladivostoc by us freighters flying the soviet flag. the first lend lease shipment was destroyed in an eastern port while it was still on the docks. so if you want to stop russian supply you will need u-boats and/or raiders in the pacific. you need to also step up u-boat activity in the atlantic with the mining of ports and waterways. weather will ground a lot of airborne attack. I would step up the wire guided missle to not only be deployed via aircraft but experiment with it on small fast attack water craft...like a PT boat or smaller. but beyond all thing you have to stockpile as much fuel as you can in underground facilities.


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## bob44 (Nov 28, 2012)

> To beat Commonwealth and US after 1942, Germany had to neutralize airpower from the UK, harness the natural resources necessary to develop nuclear weapons, channel resources to protect the development and production, and develop the delivery systems - all ahead of the Manhattan Project.



Givin how much advanced aircraft and weapons Germany did developed and had designed on paper, I wonder how close they really where to developing a nuclear weapon?
I know the Allies said Germany was not very far along in development, but maybe?


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## gjs238 (Nov 29, 2012)

How many atomic/nuclear bombs did the US have for field use prior to VJ day?
Even if Germany was successful in developing such a weapon, how many would they have been able to produce?
Where would they have been deployed?

If Germany built one bomb and dropped it in the West, would that have stopped the Soviet advance?
If they dropped it in the East, would the Allies have sued for peace?

How about two bombs?
It seems that Germany needed several (many) bombs to come out of this alive, and that just wasn't going to happen.


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## Readie (Nov 29, 2012)

The Nazi's had the delivery systems with the rocket V1 / V2. 
By the time the Germans realised an A bomb could have make a difference to the defence of the Reich it was too late to make one as the raw materials were unavailable.
Lets face it making an A bomb was hard enough for the American's with no restrictions on resources or finance.
Allied Intelligence was on the case and the allies would have never let the Nazi's get into the position of being able to call the shots.
As I have said earlier the Nazi's made some fundermental errors that ensured defeat.
Cheers
John


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## gjs238 (Nov 29, 2012)

Readie said:


> The Nazi's had the delivery systems with the rocket V1 / V2.



Could a V1 or V2 carry a Little Boy or Fat Man?


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## stona (Nov 29, 2012)

gjs238 said:


> How many atomic/nuclear bombs did the US have for field use prior to VJ day?



They built 5 Hiroshima type bomb assemblies,and these were all made into bombs (Little Boy) eventually before being decommisioned around 1950. These are known as "gun assembly highly enriched Uranium" devices. The name comes from the way they work,essentially firing one lump of Uranium at another (or others) to create the super critical mass. The problem is that such devices require a surprisingly large mass of the enriched Uranium,typically around 50 Kg, and I don't know how much of this they had available. Having the aseemblies and having the "fuel" are two different things.

The US also eventually built 120 Nagasaki type bombs (Fat Man),mostly between 1947 and 1949. These were Plutonium implosion devices in which a sub critical mass of Plutonium 239 is compressed by high explosive,increasing its density until it becomes super critical.

I can't emphasise enough how far away the Germans were from developing either of these basic devices. They had effectively zero highly enriched Uranium at the end of the war,remember you need about 50Kg for a gun assembly HEU. They had no weapons grade Plutonium either,nor had they started the research programme to make an implosion device work.You could write a book about the problems encountered by the Manhattan scientists trying to get an implosion device to function,modelling explosions is tricky today and very difficult in the 1940s. It sounds easy to compress a sphere of material to super criticality but it proved anything but.

The atom spy Klaus Fuchs allegedly told his Soviet controllers that in 1947/8 the US was produced 100Kg of Uranium 235 and 20 Kg of Plutonium 239,which is a lot of fissile material!
This of course allowed the Soviets to calculate exactly how many devices the US could produce.

Cheers

Steve


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## Readie (Nov 29, 2012)

The V1 payload was 850 kg
The V2 payload was 1000 kg

The Little Boy weighed 4400 kg
The Fat Man weighed 4633 kg

The Germans had a way to go to develop a rocket that could match a B29 payload.

Cheers
John


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## Shortround6 (Nov 29, 2012)

1st step, develop bomb.
2nd step, develop delivery system with enough range to get bomb out of suicide range........


On second thought reverse order of steps 1 2.


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## fastmongrel (Nov 29, 2012)

Build all of the Nazi Vunder Veapons (with what? no nazi fanboi ever bothers with the cost in money and materials) delay the inevitable by a year or two and all of Germany is a pile of radioactive rubble with a red flag on top. Germany lost the war in 1938 it was just a matter of how long till the noise stopped.


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## pinsog (Nov 29, 2012)

The V1 or V2 for delivery of a nuclear weapon? I don't think the V2 was even close to being reliable enough for the delivery of a nuke was it? What was the failure rate of V2 rockets? If you upscaled the V1 to be big enough to carry a nuke, bigger wing, multiple engines etc, how would you get it through the fighter defenses? Launch at night? Give it a night fighter escort up to the edge of London and then tell the escorts to run like mad?


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## stona (Nov 29, 2012)

Readie said:


> The V1 payload was 850 kg
> The V2 payload was 1000 kg
> 
> The Little Boy weighed 4400 kg
> ...



A good point John.
Of course according to some the Germans were not only capable of developing a nuclear device,whereas infact they were only just at the experimental stage of reactor building,let alone producing fissile material in meaningful quantities,but would have produced one weighing less than a quarter of the allied effort 
Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory!
Steve


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## Readie (Nov 29, 2012)

Exactly Steve,
The Reich was not defendable. The best was an occasional allied bloodied nose....sheer allied mass would always win.
The Germans could not fight Russia, Britain, the Commonwealth and America and hope to survive virgo intacto.
John


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## stona (Nov 29, 2012)

Readie said:


> The Reich was not defendable.
> John



Not on the terms of the original proposition. By 1943 the damage had been caused by nazi government policies over the preceding years,stertching all the way back to the immiediate pre war years.
The idea that in the period 1943-45 the Germans could produce a war winning wonder weapon (or weapons),like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat is ridiculous.
Cheers
Steve


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## Milosh (Nov 29, 2012)

Could Nazi Germany have developed a 'dirty' bomb that could be carried by the V2?


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## davebender (Nov 29, 2012)

G series nerve agent would be more effective and it was already in mass production. 

As soon as someone uses nukes or chemical weapons any remaining traces of civilized behavior would disappear overnight. Europe (including Britain) would become a very grim place. I'd rather not contemplate the end result.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 29, 2012)

fastmongrel said:


> Build all of Siegfrieds Vunder Veapons (with what? no nazi fanboi ever bothers with the cost in money and materials) delay the inevitable by a year or two and all of Germany is a pile of radioactive rubble with a red flag on top. Germany lost the war in 1938 it was just a matter of how long till the noise stopped.



Siegried is no longer with us for obvious reasons. Don't lower yourself by insulting someone who does not have the ability to answer back.


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## CobberKane (Nov 29, 2012)

Readie said:


> Exactly Steve,
> The Reich was not defendable. The best was an occasional allied bloodied nose....sheer allied mass would always win.
> The Germans could not fight Russia, Britain, the Commonwealth and America and hope to survive virgo intacto.
> John


 
I think this is simplistic, if only because it was never inevitable that Germany would wind up facing the combined allies. The BoB and BOA were close run things - if the Germans had managed to take the UK out it is not difficult to iumagine they might have done the same to the USSR before the USA got involved and made the difference it did. I'd say they were in the game up until Dec 7 1941.


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## bobbysocks (Nov 29, 2012)

pinsog said:


> Launch at night? ....



they did launch a lot at night but they had a tell tale flame trailing behind them that was easy to spot. many were shot out of the skies by the women manning coastal AA. 

didnt they have "heavy water" plants in norway??

just think of the effects of a german A bomb at normandy, stalingrad, kursk....


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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2012)

Putting aside all the arguments about rockets, and jets etc, my opinion is that the critical shortage facing the LW was fuel and pilots. Without either of these Germany was doomed. And given that the german offensives of 1942 were stalled and then rolled back in the latter part of 1943, and manpower beginning to run dry, it becomes absolutely essential to make some sort of peace , even if just temporarily, on the Eastern Front. A truce will reduce manpower losses and reduce fuel demands, and will dramatically reduce LW attritional losses. From that pointa number of promising opportunities arise. 

A negotiated peace or truce with the Russians was a very remote possibility, but maybe possible


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## stona (Nov 30, 2012)

bobbysocks said:


> didnt they have "heavy water" plants in norway??



Yes. The Germans were using "heavy water" as the moderator in their experimental reactor at Haigerloch. Another indication of how far away the Germans were from a bomb is that this reactor was too small to go critical and no Plutonium was ever going to be produced by it.

Others have pointed to the existence of various German technologies for the enrichment of Uranium and these did exist,like the reactor,in "laboratory form".No evidence of an industrial programme for the production of weapons grade material has ever been found. Seperating the isotope needed (U235) from the rest is extremely difficult. The allies built a huge enrichment plant at Oak Ridge Tennesee as part of the Manhattan Project. There was no German equivalent.This stage is apparently the major stumbling block for the Iranian effort today. 

The Germans were operating a small reactor in a cellar under a church in Southern Germany (not far from Stuttgart) with a handful of scientists and technicians. The Allies were running a huge industrial complex employing thousands of people including physicists from around the world. It was financed with billions of dollars.Not only was there the famous site at Los Alamos but many other sites,including reactors and an enrichment plant,across the entire United States.

To add further perspective a Soviet team investigating the German "Uranium Project" at the Kaiser Institute reported.

"They [Germans] have experimentally observed the beginning of a chain reaction (neutron multiplication). As a moderator they used heavy water obtained from Norway. We found two five-liter cans of heavy water labeled Norsk Hydro. We also found some metallic uranium and several kilograms of uranium oxide."

Don't be confused by a few kilograms of Uranium Oxide. 99.3% of that mass is useless for an atomic weapon!

The nazi bomb myth,like all myths, tends to fade in the face of facts and hard evidence.There will always be a Rainer Karlsch or a Thierry Meyssan (rubbish about 9/11) who will cash in and make a few bob with an outlandish theory which preys on people's gullibility and lack of will (or ability) to carry out the most basic research. 


Cheers

Steve


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## Readie (Nov 30, 2012)

CobberKane said:


> I think this is simplistic, if only because it was never inevitable that Germany would wind up facing the combined allies. The BoB and BOA were close run things - if the Germans had managed to take the UK out it is not difficult to iumagine they might have done the same to the USSR before the USA got involved and made the difference it did. I'd say they were in the game up until Dec 7 1941.



There were lots of close squeaks but, and here is the important point. The nazi war machine would not deliver the 'knock out blow' in either the BoB, BoA,Russia or in North Africa. There are many reasons why this happened but, it did.
Cheers
John


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## stona (Nov 30, 2012)

Any kind of truce or compromise in the East would not only fly in the face of German policy but more importantly nazi ideology.
For this to have been even a remote possibility there would have had to have been a change of government in the Reich and that was hardly likely in 1943.
Cheers
Steve


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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2012)

i agree, but not beyond the realm of possibility. there were a couple of minor stirrings within the Nazi hierachy after Stalingrad that make this at least a possibility. there was some talk of making Manstein the CinC OKH, a new position that would have restore some professionalism to German operations and command structures in the East. its a short walk from that point to getting a peace deal worked out. Peace feelers were extended by both sides after Stalingrad, but neither side was prepred to give ground, and it all came to nothing. Something akin to the rise of Ludendorf in imperial Germany was needed, so this would not haver been a precedent. Just unlikely and difficult given the Nazi hold on power


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## tyrodtom (Nov 30, 2012)

Nazi idealology seemed to accept a pact between Moscow and Berlin before WW2. Why not in 1943 ?
Nazi idealoogy was whatever Hitler said it was.


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## stona (Nov 30, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> Nazi idealology seemed to accept a pact between Moscow and Berlin before WW2. Why not in 1943 ?



Because it suited the nazis,and the Soviets,that is it suited both sides.You can't make a truce if the other side won't accept one.
By 1943 it was far too late. Hitler's war of annihilation and its associated genocide was in full swing. Various infamous Fuhrer befehl had been issued,aimed at "Bolsheviks" that is the ruling party in the Soviet Union. Most importantly why on earth would the Soviets agree to such a thing? By 1943 Stalingrad was saved,the 6th Army was destroyed and the Soviets had a real live German Field Marshall to parade for the cameras.Around the same time the siege of Leningrad was finally lifted. By mid '43 the Germans had been smashed again at Kursk. The Soviets were winning and they knew it.At the Casablanca conference in January 1943 the "big three" had agreed on the unconditional surrender of Germany. The Soviets didn't much like this at the time but they weren't going to stop,to some extent for their own ideological reasons,until they got to Berlin. Come to some accomodation or truce with the nazis....not a chance.
Cheers
Steve


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## tyrodtom (Nov 30, 2012)

I can see that the Soviets probably would not accept any kind of ceasefire, treaty, or whatever from Germany, because they had no problem remembering how well their last agreement with the Nazis worked out. The only way they would trust a German now, was if they were standing on his neck.
But from the German viewpoint, which usually had little connection with reality, there's no reason they shouldn't approach Russians with a offer.


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## stona (Nov 30, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> But from the German viewpoint, which usually had little connection with reality,



That's true enough 

Cheers

Steve


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## Readie (Nov 30, 2012)

Had the Nazi's Hitler studied history and Napoleon in particular they would see how quickly things can unravel after squandering your best soldiers on the Russian steppe.
John


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## bob44 (Nov 30, 2012)

> Nazi idealology seemed to accept a pact between Moscow and Berlin before WW2. Why not in 1943 ?


No, not in 1943. This was a war to destroy the other, to the end.
And with the German defeat at Stalingrad, why would Russia make a truce?


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## tyrodtom (Dec 1, 2012)

bob44 said:


> No, not in 1943. This was a war to destroy the other, to the end.
> And with the German defeat at Stalingrad, why would Russia make a truce?



Read post 53.


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## iron man (Dec 1, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> I can see that the Soviets probably *would not accept any kind of ceasefire, treaty, or whatever from Germany*, because they had no problem remembering how well their last agreement with the Nazis worked out. The only way they would trust a German now, was if they were standing on his neck.
> But from the German viewpoint, which usually had little connection with reality, there's no reason they shouldn't approach Russians with a offer.


I respectfully disagree. 

If properly handled, there is a good chance that Germany could have made the USSR a very tempting offer in the middle of 1942. 
This would have to come hard on the heels of the twin catastrophes suffered by the USSR that Spring/early-Summer: Manstein's rout of the Soviet armies in the Crimea/Kerch penninsular and the subsequent "smackdown" of the Red Army's offensive at Kharkov. (Incidentally, German airpower played a huge part in both of these operations). 

If Germany had made a proper diplomatic approach in this period, one can not be 100% certain as to how this would be received in Moscow; saying there was "*absolutely no chance*" is not supportable...because this diplomatic approach never happened. 

As it was, in light of these massive defeats dealt upon the Red Army (and *they were *truly *"massive"*), Hitler was now convinced that the planned offensive (_Blau_) would succeed in engaging/destroying the remainder of the "core" Red Army field formations. 
With hindsight, we know that this was not the case. 
At the time (important:_with the available intel_), it would have been a much harder task to predict the likelyhood of a "successful" outcome for Germany, but the odds _may have well seemed worth the risk._

Regardless, this point in the war would have offered the best chance for Hitler to draw the line, largely on his own terms...and he was a fool to ignore this as an option.

But this is hindsight...and Hitler was Hitler, so this makes discussing it pointless.

And this is _way_ off the topic of "Defense of the Reich"...LOL!


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## Shortround6 (Dec 1, 2012)

iron man said:


> And this is _way_ off the topic of "Defense of the Reich"...LOL!



Once you leave the area of strategic "Defense of the Reich" (cutting down the number of opponents) you enter the area of tactical (or grand tactics?) "Defense of the Reich" and no matter what the Germans did that was only going to buy weeks or at best months before the end and a higher cost for both sides.


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## stona (Dec 1, 2012)

iron man said:


> I respectfully disagree.



Which is fair enough. You're right about hindsight but that's why,bearing in mind the overall global political and miitary situation,I will still maintain my contrary view. Of course we'll never know 

Cheers

Steve


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## Readie (Dec 1, 2012)

Shortround6 said:


> "Defense of the Reich" and no matter what the Germans did that was only going to buy weeks or at best months before the end and a higher cost for both sides.



I agree with that. I would argue that the DotR started with the non victory in the BoB and BoA.
Regards
John


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## parsifal (Dec 2, 2012)

Hpstorically, there were several occasions when the East front protagonists did make thye vaguest tilts at peace. At there was one occasion when Hitler did actually come come to realizing that he had bitten off more than he could chew in the east....at a point early enough (1942) for things to make a difference.


Ive seen report of Hitler, in either late Summer or early Autumn 1942 becoming very concerned about the lack of progress particualalry in the drive into the Caucasus. Its not well known, but the after the seizure of Maikop, the Germans instituted a report about how long it would take to restore some measurable oil production from these fields. The Germans (that is... Hitler) were very dismayed that no decent amount of production was possible for at least two years, and then only if trains devoted to military re-supply could be reduced. In a chapter of "Stopped At Stalingrad" Chris Hayward writes "The Fuhrer's initial joy at Maikops seizuree soom turned to bitter disapoointment. Hitlers delight soon turned to bitter dispoointment when it was learned that the Soviet rearguards had so comprehensively detroyed hundreds of the wells, that it would take years to restore production". 

In September List reported that he was no longer abale to move forward. Hitler initially sent both Halader and Jodl to the front, to find out what the problem was. Both Halder and jodl agreed with Lists assment. These acts cost List and Halder thgeir jobs, with Hitler taking direct control of the Caucasus Army Group. however, Psychologically his reactions at learning that Lists pessimism was supported was very significant. The contemp0orary report clearly suggest Hitler was realizing that the battle at least at that pointwas lost. I am convinced that if the right pressure had been applied at that point, Hitler would not have taken direct persomnal command and may well have accepted the appopinment of a supreme east front military copmmander. This is what OKH wanted to do, but Hitlers solution was partial, and completely unsatisfacxtory....he appopinted himself as head of AG "A".

If a supreme commander had somehow been appointed, it is virtually assured that much of the disasters of the next three months would have been avoided, providing far greeater reserves for the 1943 fighting. Moreover , if the East front Commander had been Manstein, the Germ,ans would have managed a very heavy attritional toll on the Russians. That in itseld opens up huge possibilities.

Moreover, denying the effect the East Front has on German reserves is just silly. about 80% and casualties of combat for the German Army were on the Easternb Front. Around 60% at least of aircraft losses occurred in the East . The front placed massive demands on German roling stock and fuel. A truce, even if temporary will provide huge capabilities for the Germans.


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## Readie (Dec 2, 2012)

Good point,
If Hitler had studied history he would have seen that even one of greatest armies of its age came somewhat unstuck in Russia...
The French Invasion of Russia in 1812, also known as *the Russian Campaign in France (French: Campagne de Russie) and the Patriotic War of 1812 in Russia (Russian: Отечественная война 1812 года), was a turning point during the Napoleonic Wars.* *It reduced the French and allied invasion forces (the Grande Armée) to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe.* The reputation of Napoleon as an undefeated military genius was severely shaken, while the French Empire's former allies, at first Prussia and then the Austrian Empire, broke their alliance with France and switched camps, which triggered the War of the Sixth Coalition.
The campaign began on 24 June 1812, when Napoleon's forces crossed the Neman River. Napoleon aimed to compel Emperor of Russia Alexander I to remain in the Continental Blockade of the United Kingdom; an official aim was to remove the threat of a Russian invasion of Poland. Napoleon named the campaign a Second Polish War (in reference to the "First Polish War"); the Russian government proclaimed a Patriotic War.
At nearly half a million strong, the Grande Armée marched through Western Russia, winning a number of relatively minor engagements and a major battle at Smolensk on August 16–18. However, on that same day, the right wing of the Russian Army, under the command of General Peter Wittgenstein, stopped part of the French Army, led by Marshal Nicolas Oudinot, in the Battle of Polotsk. This prevented the French marching on the Russian capital at Saint Petersburg; the fate of the war had to be decided on the Moscow front, where Napoleon himself led his forces.
*While the Russians used scorched-earth tactics, and often raided the enemy with light Cossack cavalry, their main army retreated for almost three months.* This constant retreat undermined confidence in Field Marshal Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, leading Alexander I to appoint an old veteran, Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, the new Commander-in-Chief. Finally, on 7 September, the two armies met near Moscow in the Battle of Borodino. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; it involved more than 250,000 soldiers and resulted in at least 70,000 casualties. *The French captured the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army. Moreover, the French could not replace their losses whereas the Russians could replace theirs.*
I think we all know that it was the Russian campaign that destroyed the Third Reich.
This what happens with a lunatic in charge and its always the foot soldiers that suffer ...what ever side they are on.
Cheers
John


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## CobberKane (Dec 2, 2012)

Readie said:


> There were lots of close squeaks but, and here is the important point. The nazi war machine would not deliver the 'knock out blow' in either the BoB, BoA,Russia or in North Africa. There are many reasons why this happened but, it did.
> Cheers
> John


 
Indeed there were many close squeaks, which is why I would no concur with the idea that combined allied force was "alway going to win". History could quite possibly have delivered an occupied UK and Western Europe with the US and USSR sitting on the sidelines. However, I agree that once the US entered the war it was as good as over.


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## Readie (Dec 3, 2012)

CobberKane said:


> Indeed there were many close squeaks, which is why I would no concur with the idea that combined allied force was "alway going to win". History could quite possibly have delivered an occupied UK and Western Europe with the US and USSR sitting on the sidelines. However, I agree that once the US entered the war it was as good as over.



I agree about the USA CK.
I would also raise the point that the nazi's armies were never big or strong enough to hold all of western Europe including GB.
The Gestapo's reign of terror and the concentration camps would have terrorised populations and there would be collaborators of course.
They may have invaded but,at the end of the day, holding onto the land and controlling the people is another matter entirely.
Cheers
John


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## gjs238 (Dec 3, 2012)

parsifal said:


> Hpstorically, there were several occasions when the East front protagonists did make thye vaguest tilts at peace. At there was one occasion when Hitler did actually come come to realizing that he had bitten off more than he could chew in the east....at a point early enough (1942) for things to make a difference.
> 
> 
> Ive seen report of Hitler, in either late Summer or early Autumn 1942 becoming very concerned about the lack of progress particualalry in the drive into the Caucasus. Its not well known, but the after the seizure of Maikop, the Germans instituted a report about how long it would take to restore some measurable oil production from these fields. The Germans (that is... Hitler) were very dismayed that no decent amount of production was possible for at least two years, and then only if trains devoted to military re-supply could be reduced. In a chapter of "Stopped At Stalingrad" Chris Hayward writes "The Fuhrer's initial joy at Maikops seizuree soom turned to bitter disapoointment. Hitlers delight soon turned to bitter dispoointment when it was learned that the Soviet rearguards had so comprehensively detroyed hundreds of the wells, that it would take years to restore production".
> ...



Perhaps this explains why FDR Churchill sometimes appeared so, um, accommodating to the Soviets.


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## drgondog (Dec 3, 2012)

parsifal said:


> Hpstorically, there were several occasions when the East front protagonists did make thye vaguest tilts at peace. At there was one occasion when Hitler did actually come come to realizing that he had bitten off more than he could chew in the east....at a point early enough (1942) for things to make a difference.
> 
> Moreover, denying the effect the East Front has on German reserves is just silly. about 80% and casualties of combat for the German Army were on the Easternb Front. Around 60% at least of aircraft losses occurred in the East . The front placed massive demands on German roling stock and fuel. A truce, even if temporary will provide huge capabilities for the Germans.



Parsifal - I can't find a period where more than 25% of LW Losses were suffered in the East. What are the sources you refer to?


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## Readie (Dec 3, 2012)

gjs238 said:


> Perhaps this explains why FDR Churchill sometimes appeared so, um, accommodating to the Soviets.



Ah, the wily and cynical Churchill. 
I do not mean this to criticize, far from it Churchill in particular was the man of the moment. He literally held the freedom of Europe, Africa and the Far East in his hands.
John


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## parsifal (Dec 3, 2012)

drgondog said:


> Parsifal - I can't find a period where more than 25% of LW Losses were suffered in the East. What are the sources you refer to?



Caldwell, which is a really good online source. These are not soley losses in combat.....they are overwhelmingly losses due to write offs, cannibilsation, overruns and the like. Caldwell establishes that only about 16% of combat losses were suffered by the LW in combat against the VVS. It was a far more dangerous environment in the air in the west. However, Ive always maintained that the lions share of the Me109s produced (just using them as an example) were not lost in air combat. Most were lost in the mud and blood of the eastern front.


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## Milosh (Dec 3, 2012)

Prof. Olaf Groehler disagrees with you, and Caldwell, at least for the period from Sept 43-Oct 44.

http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm


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## parsifal (Dec 3, 2012)

Oops. Looks like I got the ratios wrong. Should have checked. However, some of the criteria are a bit strange. Why include the Balkans as part of the west?

During this period, a total of 8600 operational aircraft were "lost" in the East, while 27,060 were "lost" in the West; according to Groehler. However this does not fully account for production in that period. the ratio of western "losses" to eastern "losses" was thus 27,060/8600 = 3.41 to one.

Also does not alter the fact that losses had not that much to do with enemy action....the majority of losses were due to non-combat related incidents. Groehler agrees with that.


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## Milosh (Dec 3, 2012)

parsifal said:


> Oops. Looks like I got the ratios wrong. Should have checked. However, some of the criteria are a bit strange. Why include the Balkans as part of the west?



How much fighting was done by the VVS in the Balkans in the time period Sept 43-Oct 44?


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## drgondog (Dec 3, 2012)

Prof. Olaf Groehler is the reource I have settled on for LW fighter losses.


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## Jenisch (Dec 3, 2012)

parsifal said:


> Also does not alter the fact that losses had not that much to do with enemy action....the majority of losses were due to non-combat related incidents. Groehler agrees with that.



Reality of all AF's. 

The Wehrmacht was not envisioned to fight a prolongued war in Russia. You know the wishful thinking of the Nazis, Parsifal


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## parsifal (Dec 3, 2012)

Milosh said:


> How much fighting was done by the VVS in the Balkans in the time period Sept 43-Oct 44?



I'll check this time before trying to answer definitively. However, fighting began December 1944, and more or less continued through to the end of 1944. There were at least three major offensives by the Red Army in the region. VVS average strength in that period varied, but saying it was 16000 would not be far from the truth. At least trwo major air army sized units were committed, so a figure of 5-6000 aircraft more or less continuously engaged is not an exaggeration. 

If around 40% of Soviet front line strength was committed to the Balkan campaignsand 8900 that is statyed in Groehlers work is 60% of the VVS achievement, then it is likley the LW lost 3500-4000 a/c in the balakans, and 3500-4000 less ac in the west. 

I woiuld therefore gusstimate that German losses in the East, including the Balkans campaign in that 43-45 period was 12500 to 13000 a/c, whilst German losses in the west (less the Balkans) was perhaps 23-25000. of course there was some allied activity in the Balkans, such as the Ploesti raids, but nowhere near the level of Soviet activity.


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## Milosh (Dec 4, 2012)

Soviet operations into the Balkans (Romania) did not start til Aug 19 1944. By Sept 1944, the Soviets had reached the Danube.
http://ww2db.com/images/battle_secondjassykishinevoffensive2.jpg


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## parsifal (Dec 4, 2012)

Milosh said:


> Soviet operations into the Balkans (Romania) did not start til Aug 19 1944. By Sept 1944, the Soviets had reached the Danube.
> http://ww2db.com/images/battle_secondjassykishinevoffensive2.jpg



I dont agree. The Balkans includes Rumania, and Rumania at that time extended to include the bogus province of Tranistria. Operations to clear the Axis forces began immedialtely after the fall of Kiev.

Western sources sometimes euphamistically refer to the battles fought January to May 1944, as the clearing of the ukraine. Soviet histories do not refer to those campaign by that name. For them the clearing of the ukraine began with the offensives that followed behind Kursk, and more or less completed with the capture of the Ukrainian capital. Soviet sources consider the battles fought January to May as the first phases in the clearing of the Balkans. Certainly there were deep inroads into Rumania and somewhat into Hungray (their pre-1941 boundaries that is) by May. These are part and parcel of the Balkans proper.

Since Groehler relies in part on Soviet sources, his references to Balkan campaign losses should be assumed to be more akin to the Soviet version of the "Balkan campaign". even if you would prefer the western idea of what the Balkan campaign was, fighting in Rumania proper had started by the beginning of May. 

So depending on how you want to interpret the names given and the geography, the "Balkan campaign" had begun either in January, or May 1944.

The relative weight the Soviets gave to these campaigns can be gauged by the forces they committed.....7 Army Group sized "Fronts" (out of either 16 or 18 front line "Fronts" available at that time), with the formations commited including the very best the Soviets could field at that time....(including the following army sized formations) 1st Tank, 2nd Tank, 3 Gds Armoured 4th Gds Armoured, 4th Gds Rifle, 8th gds Rifle, 37th Army, 7 Gds Rifle. They undertook massive interdiction operations in the Black Sea, virtually ignored in Western Sources.

In January 1944, the Soviets deployed 8500 frontline aircraft on the eastern Front. By may this number had increased to about 12000. If the Soviets committed their air strength more or less proportionally to the ground committment made, we can expect about 40-50% of their airforce to be deployed in these campaigns in the South. Against this, virtually all the LW strength in the East was used at some time or another, as the LW tended to be moved around the front fire brigade style wherever the fighting was heaviest, or the crisis the greatest (and the lionsd share of fighting at this time was in the South). To the German strength we must also consider the strengths and losses of the Hungarian and Rumanian air Forces which, according to Axworthy, amounted to around 30% of total (and whose losses are not included in Groehlers analysis) 11800 .

Not everyone agreees with Groehler incidentally Ellis for example puts LW losses at 116000 for the entire war, Italian losses at 5272, Hungarian and Rumanian losses are unstated, but are several thousand and all on the "Eastern Front" (of course there were the Ploesti Raids) . Soviet losses 1941-5 are 106000 a/c


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## tomo pauk (Dec 4, 2012)

The 1st Jassy-Kishinev battle was fought from April 1944, in today's Moldova. 
Anything, in the Eastern front prior April of 1944, should still be regarded as a fighting within Soviet union. Red Army was, on 1st Dec 1943, at Dnepr river, IOW they were holding roughly half of Ukraine on that date. It took them until late April to gain a foothold in Carpathians.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Eastern_Front_1943-08_to_1944-12.png

Romania is/was Balkans; Hungary and Moldova are/were not.


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## Vincenzo (Dec 4, 2012)

imho Romania is not Balkans


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## tomo pauk (Dec 4, 2012)

I stand corrected. Most of Romania is north of Danube.
The Romanian participation in 'Balkan Games' fooled me.


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## parsifal (Dec 5, 2012)

Im not convinced that Rumanaia as it existed in 1944 was not part of the "Balkan Camapaign". We have a Soviet view on Geography for the purposes of classifying their campaigns as different to the way we in the west classify the Balkans. Without hesitation, or even being prepared to think about it, we reject the Soviet view and adopt the narrow western europoean view. We dont know by what criteria Groehler defined the Balkan campaign. We would need to get access to his research documents to answer that. The Balkans as a region is a narrowly defined area of land, yet as a concept is a concept that is a moving feast. it has at times included many countries no longer considered part of the Balkans. I tend to think or would like to think that Groehler was not as specific as we are attempting as to what the Balkans actually were. I think in fact that Groehler was relying on Soviet and Germans records and that he may well have been referrng to the Soviet concept rather than our own


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## Jenisch (Dec 5, 2012)

parsifal, the number of acft employed by the Soviets you have given includes aircraft avaliable to operations or just in the inventory? I ask this because IIRC there's a significative difference in what the VVS had and what the VVS could fly in combat, and by the numbers you have given it looks like is what the Soviets had in total.

If I find the info about the number of operational VVS planes, I will post it.


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## Milosh (Dec 5, 2012)

If that is so parsifal then why does Groehler have 'Italy and Balkans' in the 'West'? He should only have 'Italy'. Then there is the fact that Groehler had a pro Soviet bias.


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## parsifal (Dec 5, 2012)

I dont know. I do note that Caldwell also questions Groehlers grouping of the balkan losses to the west. And Caldwell is anything but pro-Soviet. As a point of clarification, we are relying on Groehler, via Caldwell, which probably means the source is no longer a "pro soviet source". Dont suppose you have a copy of groehlers work that has not been re-interpreted by any chance. ive certainly never seen one


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## Jenisch (Dec 8, 2012)

Parfisal, what is your source that 60% of the LW losses occured in the EF?


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## parsifal (Dec 8, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> Parfisal, what is your source that 60% of the LW losses occured in the EF?



My overative imagination unfortunately. For some reason I had convinced myself in my own mind that Groehler had stated as much in his dissertation. According to Caldwells interpretation of those figures only about 29% of losses were on the eastern front. 

Now, there are still some caveats about that. At this minute we only have Caldwells interpretation of groehler, not Groehler. Still, and to be fair, Caldwell is a good source in his own right.

Secondly however, and this is harder to accept, Groehler has some rather strange ways of categorising things, like attributing losses in the Balkans in 1944 to the Allies. that seems very odd to me, and its what weve been haggling over over the last couple of pages. 

Finally, not all sources agree completely, or even substanitally with Groehler, though his research is considered the best . some, like Ellis seem to paint a completely different story, and in particular Groehler does not seem to include the significant losses incurred by the minor allies, who provided a substantial contribution of aircraft on the eastern front.


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## Jenisch (Dec 10, 2012)

You said that because the Eastern Front drained so much of the LW (which is not confirmed), then a peace in the East would allow Germany to stop the bombing. This is at least contestable.

The Wages of Destruction, page 124:

_With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the grow-ing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste._

Page 410:

_The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bearcomparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing.But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was not untypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energysupplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and itsWestern European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mentionits domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now hadto supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at least5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher thanGermany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw Franceback into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 Francewas reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In aneconomy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects weredramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was avail-able to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to themilitary planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy.In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for themotor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronicshortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots,due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing itssoldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made them-selves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at itsBrandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lackedthe petrol necessary to check the fuel pumps of vehicles coming off theassembly line. A special allocation of 104 cubic metres of fuel had to bearranged by the Wehrmacht's economic office so as to ensure that therewere no further interruptions_

In my opinion, it was more easy Germany have a peace in the West to win in the East than vice versa. Also, it's necessary to define what "win" is. Perhaps the West could not have occupied Germany, but certainly they would weaken it to a point where it would pose a minimal treat to their interests (it was the objective of their envolvement in the war!).


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## parsifal (Dec 10, 2012)

Hi Jenisch

I suggested that the best way of defending Germany wsa to "shorten her fronts". But she also had to do that in such a way as to not give away territory too easily. I just think there was more possibility of a truce with the russians than there was with the west. Not that there was ever much chance of either.

Its just that if we are talking "vital interests", the allies made their "vital interests" the unconditional surrender of Germany, and never really showed any signs of deviating from that Russia too made unconditional surrender by Germanya pre-requisite of peace. However the Soviets showed faint signs that they might back away from that so it follows that the greatest possibilitieis rest with a truce on the eastern front as oppsed to the other fronts. 

I still think that a truce in the east would have substantially altered the situation in the west...in the air and on the ground. To say otherwise is to say that the Soviets were inconsequential to the outcome. I think that is a fundamentally wrong statement. Neither do i thjink that the Soviets alone could win the war. The allied victory was just that....an allied victory. I think that proportionatly the allies made greater effort in the air, whilst on the ground the Soviets made the greatest contribution. However, in both areas (ie in the air and on the ground) both west and east made critical contributions to victory.


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## Jenisch (Dec 10, 2012)

parsifal said:


> I still think that a truce in the east would have substantially altered the situation in the west...in the air and on the ground. To say otherwise is to say that the Soviets were inconsequential to the outcome.



The Germans would not sign peace with the Soviets unless they retained most of the rich regions of the country (and had the Caucasus). Germany was in no condition to trade with the Soviets As for the Soviets, with the US and Britain having Germany as common enemy, they would not have reason to reach a deal like this with Hitler, which BTW, would condemn the country in short time.


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## Jenisch (Dec 10, 2012)

The logic of the German war effort: The Wages of Destruction, page 452:

_However optimistic the Wehrmacht may have been in the assessment of its own capacities, the sheer size of the task facing them in the Soviet Union could not be denied. Most fundamentally, the Germans were grossly outnumbered. Even allowing for the unreliability of Stalinist statistics, the population of the Soviet Union cannot have been less than 170 million in 1941. The population of Germany was less than half that: 83.76 million people in 1939. Though the German army that invaded the Soviet Union probably outnumbered the Red Army troops stationed in the western sectors, the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists. From the outset, therefore, it was clear that the Wehrmacht must not be sucked into a battle of attrition. And this imbalance of manpower was compounded by the enormous expanse of Soviet territory and the sheer impassability of the terrain. If the Red Army were able to withdraw in good order this would present Germany with insuperable problems. If on the other hand the coherence of the Soviet force could be broken, then the difficulty of maintaining communications would hamper their efforts to restore coherence no less than it impeded the German advance. Everything depended on deciding the battle, as in France, in the first weeks of the campaign. This was the assumption on which Barbarossa was premised. A massive central thrust towards Moscow, accompanied by flanking encirclements of the Soviet forces trapped in the north and south, would allow the Red Army to be broken on the Dnieper-Dvina river line within 500 kilometres of the Polish-German border. The Dnieper-Dvina river line was critical because beyond that point logistical constraints on the German army were binding. These limitations on Germany's new style of 'Blitzkrieg' had not been obvious in 1940, because the depth of operations required by Manstein's encircling blow (Sichelschnitt) had never exceeded a few hundred kilometres. The entire operation could therefore be supplied by trucks shuttling back and forth from the German border. On the basis of their experience in France, the Wehrmacht's logistical staff calculated that the efficient total range for trucks was 600 kilometres, giving an operational depth of 300. Beyond that point the trucks themselves used up so much of the fuel they were carrying that they became inefficient as a means of transport. Given the vast distances encountered in the Soviet Union, an operational depth of 300 kilometres was absurdly restrictive. To extend the range of the logistical system, the Wehrmachtt therefore split its motor pool into two segments. One set of trucks would move forward with the Panzer units and would ferry fuel and ammunition from intermediate dumps that would be resupplied by the main fleet operating from the borders of the General Government. By this expedient, it was hoped that the initial logistical range could be extended to 500 kilometres. By happy chance, this coincided exactly with the Dnieper-Dvina line. Haider, the army's chief of staff, was clearly aware of the fundamental importance of this constraint. In his diary at the end of January 1941 he noted that the success of Barbarossa depended on speed. 'Speed! No stops! Do not wait for railway! Do everything with motor vehicles.' There must be 'no hold ups', 'that aloneguarantees victory'. If serious fighting were to extend beyond this initial phase of the assault, it was clear from the outset that the Wehrmacht's problems would progressively multiply. If the Red Army escaped destruction onthe Dnieper-Dvina river line, the Wehrmacht would not be able to engage in hot pursuit, because it would first need to replenish its supply bases closer to the front line. After that, all operations would ultimately depend on the capacity of the Soviet railway system and the speed with which the Wehrmacht could build up forward supply bases to support Germany itself. Most German freight transport in the 1940s was accomplished by rail. For short distances, the horse was still essential in both town and countryside. Of course, the German motor vehicle industry might have been coaxed into producing more trucks. But the basic constraint on the use of motor vehicles in wartime Europe was not the supply of vehicles, but the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber. As we have seen, the fuel shortage by the end of 1941 was expected to be so severe that the Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorization as a way of reducing its dependence on scarce oil. Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would crack under the impact of the first decisive blow. It was hoped that, like the French, the Soviet forces would disintegrate, allowing them to be finished off in a series of encirclement battles. In the second phase of the operation, the German army would advance towards Moscow against disorganized opposition, precipitating the political collapse of Stalin's regime. In World War I it had taken almost four years for the combined forces of Austria and Imperial Germany to bring about the final disintegration of the Tsarist army. The assumption was clearly that the Communist regime was weaker and that the initial blow struck by the Wehrmacht would be far more dramatic. The racist assumptions built into this axiom of German planning are obvious. It was not, however, devoid of all rationality. Expressed most succinctly in terms of per capita GDP, there was a major developmental difference between Germany and the Soviet Union. According to the best modern estimates, German per capita GDP was two and a half times that in the Soviet Union in 1940. On this basis there was good reason to think that the huge quantitative advantage apparently enjoyed by the Red Army would turn out to be illusory. The far greater organizational capacity of theWehrmacht, the superior quality of its equipment and the greater training of its soldiers would carry the day. After all, this was the army tha thad defeated the combined forces of France, the British Expeditionary Force, Belgium and the Netherlands in six weeks. By launching its army against the Soviet Union, rather than prosecuting a direct air and sea assault on Britain and its backers in the United States, the Third Reich was not making an irrational strategic choice. It was deploying its best weapon against what still appeared to be the 'weakest link in the chain'.Not that the Germans were oblivious to the modernization of the Soviet Union since World War I. As the Wehrmacht's own economic staff well knew, Stalin's Five Year Plans had substantially transformed the geography of the Soviet economy. According to credible Western estimates we now believe that Stalin's regime increased total industrial output by 2.6 times between 1928 and 1940, and armaments outputgrew by vastly more. In their haste to industrialize, the Soviet planners had placed a large amount of investment in Western economic zones vulnerable to the German onslaught. But as the planners in Berlin fully understood, the First Five Year Plan of 1928-32 had established a new Soviet industrial base, safely to the east of the Urals, which had the capacity to sustain a self-sufficient population of at least 40 million people. Even if an invader managed to overrun a large part of the western Soviet Union, war production could continue at new industrial centres, such as the gigantic engineering works at Sverdlovsk. Overall,Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial. In 1939 the German steel association put the Soviet Union well ahead of Great Britain, in third place behind the United States and Germany, with an annualoutput of 18 million tons of steel, compared to Germany's 23.3 million tons. And on paper at least the Red Army was a formidable force.Throughout the spring of 1941 Franz Haider recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stocks of tanks and aircraft. Hitler knew that the Soviets had modern aircraft and 'mammoth' tanks with normous guns. But he comforted himself with the fact that most of the Red Army's equipment was obsolete. On the assumption that the Wehrmacht would be able to achieve a massed concentration at strategicpoints he was happy to predict that the Soviets would 'crumple under the massive impact of our tanks and planes'. No one, however, could deny the sheer vastness of the Soviet Union, and this alone made Barbarossa into a daunting proposition. Beneath the thick layer of hubris and optimism that surrounded the planning forBarbarossa, there were those in Berlin who expressed severe misgivings from the start. The doubts, interestingly, were of two kinds. There were at least some officers who questioned the feasibility of the operation itself. Significantly these included Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group Centre, to whom fell the awesome task of crushing the main body of the Red Army en route to Moscow. By the end of January 1941, Bock was so concerned about the scale of the mission assigned to his army group that he forced Haider, the chief of army staff, to concede that there was a distinct possibility that the Red Army might escape beyond the Dnieper-Dvina line. What wouldhappen in this eventuality was the key question. One of the earliest wargames done to test the Barbarossa plan concluded that unless both the destruction of the Red Army and the capture of Moscow could be accomplished within a matter of months, Germany would face a 'long-drawn-out war, beyond the capacity of the German armed forces towage'._


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## Jenisch (Dec 10, 2012)

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of Nazi War economy, page 430:

_In line with their confident expectation of aspeedy and decisive victory, the Third Reich calibrated its attack on theSoviet Union so that as many resources as possible could be freed at the earliest possible opportunity for the ongoing struggle with Britain and its backers in the United States._

Page 431:

_The significance of the Blitzkrieg strategy adopted in 1940-41 was not that it allowed the overall level of mobilization to be kept to a minimum, but that it allowed the German war effort to be split into two parts. The factories producing for the army directed their efforts towards providing the equipment for a swift, motorized Blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the rest of the German military-industrial complex began to gird itself for the aerial confrontation with Britain and America._


Page 440:

_From the start of 1941, the Luftwaffe in particular was focusing its attention as much on the continuation of the war against Britain and the United States as it was on Barbarossa. Hitler himself set the tone with his address to the commanders-in-chief at Berchtesgadenon 9 January 1941. Treating the defeat of the Soviet Union as a foregone conclusion, Hitler sketched a future of boundless possibilities, in which Germany would wage a 'battle of the continents', by which he clearly meant a war with the United States.

To secure this future of globalpower, German armaments strategy in 1941 needed to be directed as much towards investment in future capacity as towards current pro-duction. In the prelude to Barbarossa, therefore, the army, the Fou rYear Plan and the Luftwaffe all engaged in substantial investment drives. Coming on top of the expansion programmes set in motion in 1938 and the more targeted investment triggered by the Fuehrer's ammunitionprogramme of early 1940, the result was an investment boom, the likeof which had never before been seen by German industry.

As far as the German army was concerned, the chief priorities weretanks and explosives. Despite the enormous scale of operation Barba-rossa, the German army shared the view that the ultimate militaryenemies of the Third Reich were Britain and the United States._




> I think that is a fundamentally wrong statement.



It's not.



> Neither do i thjink that the Soviets alone could win the war. The allied victory was just that....an allied victory.



It was a joint victory. However, unless you alterate the reality to reach your point (that the Germans and Soviets could have signed peace), this is not realistic. I presented evidence that Germany was already suffering from fuel shortages *before* the Barbarossa. After that, the problems only became worse. Germany had only one alternative: defeat the Soviet Union in a quick war. When this was not achived and war was declared in the US, Germany's fate was sealed. And even if they did defeated the Soviets in the timeframe they expected, it would still not necessarily give Germany what the Nazis expected. They were extracting far less from the conquered Soviet territories than expected, while the Soviets were ready to sabotate the oil wells in the Caucasus (and the Allies had contingency plans to bomb them). The Axis hopes relied more in their enemies than in themselfs.




> I think that proportionatly the allies made greater effort in the air, whilst on the ground the Soviets made the greatest contribution. However, in both areas (ie in the air and on the ground) both west and east made critical contributions to victory.



To the war end in the historical timeframe? Yes. To the war end with a German surrender or unconditional surreder? Not necessarily.


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## parsifal (Dec 10, 2012)

You have got to be kidding in claiming the allies did more on the ground than the Soviets. 80% of german casualties, and a corresponding amount of hardware, were lost on the eastern Front. The allies only became involved in the latter part of the main fighting on the ground, and involved in 1 major campaign (disregarding Italy for a minute) compared to the long continuous fighting that occurred between Germany and the Soviets 1942-5. The lions share of credit on the ground lies with the Soviets. That is not to deny the critical support provided by the allied land armies.It also does not detract or challenge the central role played by the allies in the air, and at sea. As i said, the allied victory was just that, an allied victory, in which all the plyers had a hand in the victory. To assume however that the allies could win, without the help or assistance of the soiets is near delusional.

If not for the sustained Soviet operations on the eastern front that completely sapped the German strengths and reserves , and lost them valuable territories and experienced personnel, the Germans facing the allies in 1944, would have been unbeatable. Certainly on the ground, and arguably in the air as well. And Germany would have had the resources to develop such programs such as their jet fighters and terror weapons properly, whilst the allies would not.

And misusing Wages Of Destruction is a bit outrageous as well. The author does not imply in any way that the Soviets were irrelevat to the result. In faxct he is at pains to demonstrate the german miscalculation of DSoviet importance and capability...esentially he is saying the germans underestimated the russiansds, not that the russians were superfluous to victory.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 10, 2012)

I think you under estimate the potential of the United States. We did a number of things wrong in WWII in hindsight but American Factories were just hitting their stride in 1944. The course of the war would have been much different and longer without the Russians but Ger.any had no real hope once the US got in the war. 

As an example from the two naval threads running; the US commissioned at least 8 Essex class carriers in 1945/6. Canceled four more and completed one in 1950. Throw in what they were doing with 3 other classes of aircraft carriers and it an be seen that an avalanche of equipment could show up in 1945/46 that the Germans had no hope of stopping. The US was slowing down production of certain weapons types even in 1944.

As far as history goes the Russian people certainly did more than their share and suffered accordingly. They were instramental in the way things did play out but that was not the only way things could have gone.


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## parsifal (Dec 11, 2012)

maybe eventually, the US might have acquired the strength and experience to take on the German army whilst the germans remained at their peak efficiency. And we ought not underestimate the economic strength of the US. 

However, what is being overlooked in this are the qualitative differences. Im known around these parts for my pro-allied opinions, but i am realistic enough to know when we would be licked. I think it was the Dupuy institure that determined that at its peak the each German soldier needed about 2.5-3.0 US soldiers just to contain him, and around twice that number to undertake efective offensive action. The german army at it peak stood at around 10m men. If they were all deployed into the west, with all of the efficiency of the 1942 wehrmacht, you would need an American army of around 30-60 million men to contain that and drive the germans back. They had nowhere near that capacity. The 1942 program for the US Army was around 200 divs, and the force structure about 15 million men (from memory). in the finish tha program was halved to about 100 divs. As it stood, the US army struggled as most of the fighting was done by relatively few .....about 30 divs, of the more experienceed units. Units were forced to keep fighting long after they were burnt out, because the US Army simply lacked the depth (and never would acquire that depth) to use all its formations raised in the offense. And thats historical, when Dupuy reckons the Germans were only worth about 1.31 allied soldiers per German, and the majority of its 9million men were locked in a struggle against the Soviets.

And we still have not factored into account the effect that losing 30-60 million men would have on the domestic production, or the increased shipping demands.

Its a total myth to expect the US to be able to defeat the Germans without the help of the Russians.


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## gjs238 (Dec 11, 2012)

But how does Germany go from considering "partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht" and not being able to collect milk from rural farmers to being unconquerable?


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ic1-3.html

... As a basis for estimating the munitions and shipping that the Army would need, the Army planners calculated on an ultimate Army strength of 8,795,658 men with "approximately 215 Divisions." Of the over 8,000,000 men, about 2,000,000 were to be allotte_d to the Army Air Forces. ..._

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ic2-5.html
Then goes on to say:

_Meanwhile, the progress of the war on the Soviet front and the prospective air bombardment over the European continent still left uncertain, at the end of 1942, the Army's ultimate size as well as the number of combat divisions necessary to win the war. It was still difficult to predict with exactitude the casualty rates to be expected and the amount of reserve strength needed to be built up. Postponement of the plan to launch a major cross-Channel operation made the need of mobilizing a large U.S. ground Army less immediate. Instead, greater emphasis was to be placed on first developing U.S. airpower. Given the anticipated limitations in shipping, it appeared at the end of 1942 that the projected deployment of a huge air force 


--113--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


overseas by the end of 1944 would definitely restrict the number of divisions that could be sent overseas by that time. It was clearly undesirable to withdraw men from industry and agriculture too long before they could actually be employed in military operations. Allowing a year to train a division, the mobilization of much more than a hundred divisions by the end of 1943 appeared to be premature. In late 1942, moreover, procurement plans for the armed services for 1943, particularly for the Army ground program, were revised downward by the JCS in response to a War Production Board recommendation. All these limiting factors pointed to the need for scaling down previous long-range calculations, as well as for effecting economies in manpower within the Army.21 
The process of reducing earlier long-range estimates, begun on the War Department and joint planning levels toward the end of 1942, was clearly reflected in the approved Army Troop Basis for 1943, circulated by G-3 in January of that year.22 This troop basis set the mobilization program for 1943 at 100 divisions. It called for a total Army strength of 8,208,000, a figure previously approved by the President. This troop basis marked the turning point in War Department and joint Army-Navy calculations. In place of limited objectives that would be greatly exceeded in time, these estimates were approaching the ultimate ceiling strengths of the Army. 

Soon, however, the War Department began to foresee difficulties in meeting even the 100-division goal. At the beginning of 1943 divisions were moving overseas much less rapidly than had been anticipated. With ground units accumulating in the United States, the activation schedule for divisions was slowed down. The modification of the procurement program sharply curtailed production of both housing and equipment for U.S. troops in training. The decision to arm French troops with weapons of U.S. manufacture threatened to cut still further into equipment available for the U.S. forces. As a result, War Department authorities were greatly concerned by the spring of 1943 over the question of a balanced mobilization for the remainder of the year._

As a member from the Axis forum pointed out:

There were three things that appear to limit the size of the US Army.

1) Transport over seas. This seems to have been one of the biggest but given time would go away.
2) Equipment shortages. Mobilization of troops was slowed to conform to delivery of equipment. This also would go away over time and faster if the aid to the Soviets was kept for internal use.
3) Support requirements were greater than expected. This would have meant that the 200 division force was likely not reachable but something well in excess of 100 would ultimately be.

What Parfisal is forgoting is that the US and Britain did not planned to give up in case Hitler defeated the Soviet Union (it's also needed do define how this "victory" would occur). Parfisal is working with the historical timeframe to claim that while the Anglo-Americans planners did not work with the idea of finish the war in 1944-45.


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

Other thing is the belief that the Soviet Union was critical to the defeat of the LW (i.e the Western Allies would not be able to defeat the LW without it). Parfisal, you need to provide evidence for that.

http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm

This link provides evidence just on the contrary: the LW fighter force was mostly destroyed in the West. The USAAF defeated the LW in the first 6 months of '44. Why they would not be able to continue fighting it for more time if it was larger? Lack of pilots? Lack of fighers? Lack of bombers? No. Also, after Japan was contained, there would be no hurry to launch offensives in the Pacific and more aircraft could be sent to Europe. I suspect that even the B-29 could have been sent to Europe if necessary. By the wars end, there were more than 2000 B-29s in the Pacific. As can be seen, the Germans themselfs recognized the overhelming US potential.


Also: 

If there was no war in the east, the situation would not change, not from an economic point of view: what the Germans stealed from the East was (compared to their needs and consumption) marginal, not from a military point of view: there still would be a big part of the army and the LW be tied on the eastern border. The Soviets could have re-started the war at any time. Also, Parfisal is desconsiderating what I already posted:

The Wages of Destruction, page 124:

_With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the grow-ing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste._
Page 410:

_The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bearcomparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing.But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was not untypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energysupplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and itsWestern European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mentionits domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now hadto supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at least5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher thanGermany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw Franceback into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 Francewas reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In aneconomy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects weredramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was avail-able to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to themilitary planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy.In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for themotor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronicshortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotoriz-ation' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots,due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing itssoldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made them-selves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at itsBrandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lackedthe petrol necessary _

Conclusion: Germany did not have conditions to face the US and Britain in attrition war unless it had the necessary resources, and they could only come to the USSR. And the USSR would not simply give them to Germany and Germany did not have conditions to acquire them from the USSR. Germany did not stood a chance. A peace with the USSR that not give Germany vast resources was out of question, so this would not allow Germany to stop the Allied bombing and conquer of air supremacy.


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## Readie (Dec 11, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> As a member from the Axis forum pointed out:[/B]
> 
> There were three things that appear to limit the size of the US Army.
> 
> ...



*Axis forum*?

Don't you people ever give up trying to rewrite history...

John


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

Readie said:


> *Axis forum*?
> 
> Don't you people ever give up trying to rewrite history...
> 
> John



We have some great discussions there. If you think we are wrong, then provide evidence. I already provided evidence using an acclaimed work of Adam Tooze, an individual which also likes to "rewrite history".


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## Readie (Dec 11, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> We have some great discussions there. If you think we are wrong, then provide evidence. I already provided evidence using an acclaimed work of Adam Tooze, an individual which also likes to "rewrite history".




I'm not arguing about the discussion Jenisch but, I have to admit I find the revisionist axis theories almost laughable...
As for an 'axis forum'...people never learn do they.


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

Readie said:


> I'm not arguing about the discussion Jenisch but, I have to admit I find the revisionist axis theories almost laughable...QUOTE]
> 
> Revisionism? I participate there most if the 'What if' section, and while there are some stupid people, we have members that provide arguments backed by reliable evidence. Works like Tooze's Wages of Destruction and John Ellis Brute Force are well frequentely used in discussions such as this one. There's ample evidence that Germany was not as strong as many people paint it.


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## Readie (Dec 11, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> Readie said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not arguing about the discussion Jenisch but, I have to admit I find the revisionist axis theories almost laughable...QUOTE]
> ...


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

Readie said:


> Jenisch said:
> 
> 
> > Yep, thanks to the Nazi's bleeding Germany to death in Russia, total belief in Hitler's 'inner conviction' and failing to deliver a 'knock out blow' in any theatre.
> ...


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## stona (Dec 11, 2012)

You can attribute the final destruction of the Luftwaffe fighter force to the Western allies but from the start of Barbarossa until September 1942 the Luftwaffe consistently,month by month,lost more aircraft in the Eastern theatre. As of December that trend was restored. Hardly surprising as this is where most of them were. The glitch,most noticeable in November (224 East/595 elsewhere) coincides with "Torch"
Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

stona said:


> You can attribute the final destruction of the Luftwaffe fighter force to the Western allies but from the start of Barbarossa until September 1942 the Luftwaffe consistently,month by month,lost more aircraft in the Eastern theatre. As of December that trend was restored. Hardly surprising as this is where most of them were. The glitch,most noticeable in November (224 East/595 elsewhere) coincides with "Torch"
> Steve



In the war context most of the LW fighter force was destroyed in the West (since 1939). What some people are making confusion here, is that this does not necessarily meant the Soviets could not have defeated the LW alone. The Soviets managed to defeat the LW in the air battles of Kuban and Kursk, when it was mostly envolved in the East, and they were constantly growing in strenght and quality. By 1944, the VVS fighter opposition was a fraction of before due to the LW transfer to the West, but even so the VVS had the capability to defeat the LW if it had remained in the East.

As for the West here, it's not different. Given the overwhelming numerical and qualitative superiority the Anglo-American air forces had, it would not be the LW fighter contingent of the Eastern Front that would stop them. Kinda like the Heer contingent in the West that would not stop the Soviets in the East. 

As for the ground scenario, after air supremacy was estabilished over Europe and Germany was properely "softened" (perhaps nuked), an invasion would come if she did not surrender. No Army was able to hold an invasion where the enemy has overwhelming aerial, naval and the adequated number of ground troops. People can try, but Nazi Germany would not escape from this rule.


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## stona (Dec 11, 2012)

Jenisch I agree with your basic premise,that ultimately the Western Allies would have defeated Germany even had the Soviet Union dropped out of the conflict for some reason.
It would not be fair to minimise the huge contribution of the Soviets which enabled a second land front in 1944 and a rapid conclusion to the conflict thereafter,less than a year having been at it since 1939.

As far as the Luftwaffe specifically is concerned the fighter force was minced in the West but just about everything else was destroyed in the East. With the expansion of fighter production,to counter the RAF/USAAF, at the expense of all other types these Eastern losses were never replaced.

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

stona said:


> It would not be fair to minimise the huge contribution of the Soviets which enabled a second land front in 1944 and a rapid conclusion to the conflict thereafter,less than a year having been at it since 1939.



Where did I said that? The Soviets played the greatest contribution in the war, historians are not incorrect when they say that. In the war context, the Soviets were the ones which most contributed to the outcome of the war as it occured. However, as I have said, this does not necessarily meant the West was dependent of the Soviets to defeat the Nazis or vice versa. 

Actually, a scenario like this is extremely complex. There are practically endless factors to considerate. People are many times inflexible in their analyzes of an alternative history scenario. For example, the Eastern Front lasted for four years, due to the losses and limitations the Soviets experienced. So, why a hypotetical solo Western confrontation with Nazi Germany could not have lasted more than historically? Time buys a lot of things. For example, since Europe was short of coal, food and oil, the Allies could have put a siege on it. Other thing would be the simple liberation of France. The Allies could have liberated France and dig in until they could have launched their "Bagrations". With France liberated, perhaps it would not be impossible to have the French motherland as allied again. Certainly the possibility of have the French ports and use the country to launch aerial operations against Germany would improve the Allied position considerably. Other possibility would be diplomacy with Japan. After Japan was severely beaten (and perhaps also nuked), the Japanese leadership was willing to negociate a conditional peace withthe Allies (I'm assuming no Casablanca here). If "save" Western Europe and defeat Hitler was more important, then Japan could be isolated if such peace was signed or put under siege. I don't know how public opinion would play out, but anyway, by 1943 the Pacific surely could have went in the defensive. The "20%" of the American war potential employed against Japan certainly was more than one "Luftwaffe". Just the USN could have fielded more aircraft than the LW.


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## bobbysocks (Dec 11, 2012)

jenisch, i dont think he's sayin you said that..he was agreeing with you i believe.


*"these Eastern losses were never replaced."* therein lies the crux of the issue. i just read an interesting piece on kursk. how on target it is i have no idea but the author does make a good case at casting down somoe of the myths. as i understand it the germans took a larger tool on the soviet army than was inflicted upon them. the determing factor was the soviets could afford to lose the men, tanks, aircraft...the germans couldnt. i remember reading the thoughts of a german ace on the eastern front ( could have even been hartmann )...he said if they ( the LW ) shot down 30 VVS plane they were replaced by 90. likewise the western allies could out product germany. sooner or later that is going to be the determing factor.

in case you are interested in that article on kursk...like i said i dont know enough about the battle to be able to draw a conclusion one way or the other but here it is....

The Battle of Kursk


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

I still didn't read Christer Bergström's books about the Eastern Front - they are higly regarded - this is a review of the one from Stalingrad:

_Drawing upon a wealth of German and Russian archival material and personal accounts, Bergstrom chronicles the momentous developments on the Eastern Front from early 1942 to January 1943, events that resulted in the destruction of the 6th Army at Stalingrad. Luftwaffe and Red Air Force units were key players in the sometimes titanic land battles waged during this time. Equipped with superior aircraft flown by combat-experienced crews using proven tactics, German fighter, bomber, ground-attack and recce units overwhelmed the opposition, lending valuable support to the Panzers while decimating their poorly-trained and -led VVS contemporaries operating a smorgasbord of biplane and monoplane designs. While Russian units were being re-equipped with more potent aircraft such as IL-2s, Pe-2s, Yak-1s, LaGG-3s, etc., they often lacked time to develop effective tactics before thrown into battle. Yet despite wholesale slaughter of VVS units, Germany, as Bergstorm relates in the book, couldn't hope to win the war of attrition Stalin was willing to wage. In time Luftwaffe bombers and fighters, their numbers dwindling, became fire-brigades, switched back and forth across fronts to provide needed - if temporary - strength to a threatened location or air support for a new offensive. Germany's transports were likewise called upon for tasks - such as the aerial resupply of Stalingrad - beyond their capabilities. In the end, quantity conquered quality._

People who read his books told me that he presents evidence that the LW had a critical role in the German advances. If not for it's capability to provide "flying artillery" and interdict the Soviet supply lines, the Heer would never be able to achive the fantastic advances and victories in Russia. I'm not impressed by that, aviation was already know to be a decisive weapon for the ground fight before the war.

Therefore, it would not be possible that the "invencible" German Army of millions and millions that Parfisal says would exist with the Allies controlling the skies. With the railway system of France destroyed and the Allied fighters bombing any trucks and wagons, the German logistic system would become a bottleneck in short time - the extra millions of men would be useless. And as I already said, the Allies would not need hurry to launch the invasion and advance immediately. As soon as the Allies set a foot in the continent, they could have entered in the defensive if necessary. As soon as they were ready, they could start to advance again. This is what the Germans feared, hence why Rommel wanted to stop the invasion at the beachs, not the continent.


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## Balljoint (Dec 11, 2012)

While Kursk wasn’t primarily a tank battle, my info is that the Germans did in fact get waxed. The attack was old school blitzkrieg and the Soviet defense was mines, massed artillery and sappers. With the attack being long expected and slow developing, Soviet artillery was well sighted in and used the pakfront to concentrate fire. Tank on tank was secondary. Soviet sappers popped out of trenches and broke/poured containers of gasoline and oil into the engine compartments of the tanks. This was particularly effective against Dr. Porsche’s elephant which didn’t mount machine guns. Guderian commented that it was like shooting quail with cannon.

Hitler had been warned and seemed to realize that without the element of surprise the attack would be a failure. Yet he made the last grand gesture before his armies stared their final retreat.

Barbarossa by Alan Clark is my primary source.


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## bobbysocks (Dec 11, 2012)

Balljoint said:


> While Kursk wasn’t primarily a tank battle, my info is that the Germans did in fact get waxed.



i am not saying that they didnt get beat...i am saying numberwise ( if i am reading that article correctly ) the soviets lost more....but were willing and able to absorb the loses where the germans werent.


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## parsifal (Dec 11, 2012)

Lets try for compromise. ive made my views pretty clear that the Russians were critical to Allied victory. 

I am surprised and dismayed to find some arguing that is not the case. okay. But the point that generated this sub-issue was whether, if the Germans were able to make a separate peace with the russians, whether that would make defence of the skies over germany a more winnable proposition. 

Hopefully that will get the debate back onto some relevance


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## Jenisch (Dec 11, 2012)

parsifal said:


> But the point that generated this sub-issue was whether, if the Germans were able to make a separate peace with the russians, whether that would make defence of the skies over germany a more winnable proposition.


 
Parfisal, the bombing campaign was only treatned when there was not fighter escort avaliable. As soon as fighters were avaliable, the Allies would overwhelm the Luftwaffe in the same form the Russians did. Maybe the only realistic chance Germany had was to secure a substantial fuel supply from the USSR, in order to have an adequated number of pilots (and I'm not certain if only this would be viable). However, Germany was in no conditions to pay for it. And would the Russians, that already suffered so much from Germany, continue to sustain it's war effort? For them it was much more interesting to defeat Germany (and later Japan) with the West and grab some land in the process - what they actually did.


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## parsifal (Dec 11, 2012)

I see the scenario developing more or less as follows. There are a lot of variables, and things might not pan out in the way I would expect them to. However this is how i see it developing

June 1941, Hilter does not order the partial demobilization of the German economy. Germany maintains and increases it military outputs, such that production levels are running at about 6months ahead of historical schedules 

October 1941, Hitler heeds the advice of his front commanders, and cancels Typhoon. The heer consolidates and fortifies its position, and because there is no late autumn offensive, has time to bring up its winter gear. As part of the preprations, an east front commander is appointed to run the campaign. hitler defaults and takes a more indirect role in operations 

November '41- March 1942, the Red Army launches its counter attacks, as it must, but is defeated by a rested and dug in German Army. Instead of suffering the 5 million casualties that they did historically, the russians suffer about 8 million. this rips the heart out of their military cadres.

At the end of the winter, Hitler realizes he cannot win the battle outright, he finally starts to listen to the intell reports he is receiving. peace terms are put to the Soviets, which includes access to the Soviet opil sources. 

The Russians have no choice but to continue to attack. They release their final reserves, about 300 divisions, from behind Moscow, and hurl them at the German front lines in a desperate bid to break the stalemate. The Germans adopt mobile defence tactics, giving ground where needed, and counterattacking and isolating pockets of the Soviet forces. the Soviets, over the next 3 months to the end of June lose another 8 million men instead of the 1 million they lose historically. The Soviet Army is utterly gutted and lays prostrate ready for defeat. Stalin faces a near revolt in his own regime, make peace or be removed.....

In late June the Germans renew their offensive on a limited basis, slicing through the now wrecked Soviet forward positions with ease. Peace terms continue to be offered to the Soviets as their army disintegrates. They make the decision to make peace, allowing the germans continued access to oil as a condition of the peace treaty. 

From there, we can extrapolate what theat might mean to the german defence of the Reich. a whoilsale transefer of about 4million men, and around 2500 a/c and 3 full flak divisions (from memeory). The allies immediately cancel their 1942 bombing offensive, giving the Germans respite and the ability to defvelop their advanceed techs. The alies fall back onto their atomic progrmas, but the germans, now with reources to spare, almost match the allied efforts (now reduced because of elevated defence needs and losses to U-Boats). The war drags on into 1947-8, with both sides acquiring nuclear weapons at about the same time....

history rewritten........


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

parsifal said:


> In late June the Germans renew their offensive on a limited basis, slicing through the now wrecked Soviet forward positions with ease. Peace terms continue to be offered to the Soviets as their army disintegrates. They make the decision to make peace, allowing the germans continued access to oil as a condition of the peace treaty.



I'm very skeptical of your "miracle" theories, Parfisal. The main reason being that if they were so good as you say, why they were not implemented? The WM estimated that in late 1941 the Soviets had 360 divisions - they actually had 600 - it would be perfect to execute this strategy. You are also puting too much blame in Hitler. This is a cliche, the idea that Hitler was responsible for practically all the mistakes of the WM is in good part a myth created in the post-war by ex-WM members. And before you say anything of me, I'm backing my arguments with Tooze's book, which is a book with reliable economic data, which I will post more of it now:

The Wages of Destruction, page 452:

_However optimistic the Wehrmacht may have been in the assessment of its own capacities, the sheer size of the task facing them in the Soviet Union could not be denied. Most fundamentally, the Germans were grossly outnumbered. Even allowing for the unreliability of Stalinist statistics, the population of the Soviet Union cannot have been less than 170 million in 1941. The population of Germany was less than half that: 83.76 million people in 1939. Though the German army that invaded the Soviet Union probably outnumbered the Red Army troops stationed in the western sectors, the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists. From the outset, therefore, it was clear that the Wehrmacht must not be sucked into a battle of attrition. And this imbalance of manpower was compounded by the enormous expanse of Soviet territory and the sheer impassability of the terrain. If the Red Army were able to withdraw in good order this would present Germany with insuperable problems. If on the other hand the coherence of the Soviet force could be broken, then the difficulty of maintaining communications would hamper their efforts to restore coherence no less than it impeded the German advance. Everything depended on deciding the battle, as in France, in the first weeks of the campaign. This was the assumption on which Barbarossa was premised. A massive central thrust towards Moscow, accompanied by flanking encirclements of the Soviet forces trapped in the north and south, would allow the Red Army to be broken on the Dnieper-Dvina river line within 500 kilometres of the Polish-German border. The Dnieper-Dvina river line was critical because beyond that point logistical constraints on the German army were binding. These limitations on Germany's new style of 'Blitzkrieg' had not been obvious in 1940, because the depth of operations required by Manstein's encircling blow (Sichelschnitt) had never exceeded a few hundred kilometres. The entire operation could therefore be supplied by trucks shuttling back and forth from the German border. On the basis of their experience in France, the Wehrmacht's logistical staff calculated that the efficient total range for trucks was 600 kilometres, giving an operational depth of 300. Beyond that point the trucks themselves used up so much of the fuel they were carrying that they became inefficient as a means of transport. _

Continue...


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

. Given the vast distances encountered in the Soviet Union, an operational depth of 300 kilometres was absurdly restrictive. To extend the range of the logistical system, the Wehrmachtt therefore split its motor pool into two segments. One set of trucks would move forward with the Panzer units and would ferry fuel and ammunition from intermediate dumps that would be resupplied by the main fleet operating from the borders of the General Government. By this expedient, it was hoped that the initial logistical range could be extended to 500 kilometres. By happy chance, this coincided exactly with the Dnieper-Dvina line. Haider, the army's chief of staff, was clearly aware of the fundamental importance of this constraint. In his diary at the end of January 1941 he noted that the success of Barbarossa depended on speed. 'Speed! No stops! Do not wait for railway! Do everything with motor vehicles.' There must be 'no hold ups', 'that aloneguarantees victory'. If serious fighting were to extend beyond this initial phase of the assault, it was clear from the outset that the Wehrmacht's problems would progressively multiply. If the Red Army escaped destruction onthe Dnieper-Dvina river line, the Wehrmacht would not be able to engage in hot pursuit, because it would first need to replenish its supply bases closer to the front line. After that, all operations would ultimately depend on the capacity of the Soviet railway system and the speed with which the Wehrmacht could build up forward supply bases to support Germany itself. Most German freight transport in the 1940s was accomplished by rail. For short distances, the horse was still essential in both town and countryside. Of course, the German motor vehicle industry might have been coaxed into producing more trucks. But the basic constraint on the use of motor vehicles in wartime Europe was not the supply of vehicles, but the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber. As we have seen, the fuel shortage by the end of 1941 was expected to be so severe that the Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorization as a way of reducing its dependence on scarce oil. Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would crack under the impact of the first decisive blow. It was hoped that, like the French, the Soviet forces would disintegrate, allowing them to be finished off in a series of encirclement battles. In the second phase of the operation, the German army would advance towards Moscow against disorganized opposition, precipitating the political collapse of Stalin's regime. In World War I it had taken almost four years for the combined forces of Austria and Imperial Germany to bring about the final disintegration of the Tsarist army. The assumption was clearly that the Communist regime was weaker and that the initial blow struck by the Wehrmacht would be far more dramatic. The racist assumptions built into this axiom of German planning are obvious. It was not, however, devoid of all rationality. Expressed most succinctly in terms of per capita GDP, there was a major developmental difference between Germany and the Soviet Union. According to the best modern estimates, German per capita GDP was two and a half times that in the Soviet Union in 1940. On this basis there was good reason to think that the huge quantitative advantage apparently enjoyed by the Red Army would turn out to be illusory. The far greater organizational capacity of theWehrmacht, the superior quality of its equipment and the greater training of its soldiers would carry the day. After all, this was the army tha thad defeated the combined forces of France, the British Expeditionary Force, Belgium and the Netherlands in six weeks. By launching its army against the Soviet Union, rather than prosecuting a direct air and sea assault on Britain and its backers in the United States, the Third Reich was not making an irrational strategic choice. It was deploying its best weapon against what still appeared to be the 'weakest link in the chain'.Not that the Germans were oblivious to the modernization of the Soviet Union since World War I. As the Wehrmacht's own economic staff well knew, Stalin's Five Year Plans had substantially transformed the geography of the Soviet economy. According to credible Western estimates we now believe that Stalin's regime increased total industrial output by 2.6 times between 1928 and 1940, and armaments outputgrew by vastly more. In their haste to industrialize, the Soviet planners had placed a large amount of investment in Western economic zones vulnerable to the German onslaught. But as the planners in Berlin fully understood, the First Five Year Plan of 1928-32 had established a new Soviet industrial base, safely to the east of the Urals, which had the capacity to sustain a self-sufficient population of at least 40 million people. Even if an invader managed to overrun a large part of the western Soviet Union, war production could continue at new industrial centres, such as the gigantic engineering works at Sverdlovsk. Overall,Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial. In 1939 the German steel association put the Soviet Union well ahead of Great Britain, in third place behind the United States and Germany, with an annualoutput of 18 million tons of steel, compared to Germany's 23.3 million tons. And on paper at least the Red Army was a formidable force.Throughout the spring of 1941 Franz Haider recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stocks of tanks and aircraft. Hitler knew that the Soviets had modern aircraft and 'mammoth' tanks with normous guns. But he comforted himself with the fact that most of the Red Army's equipment was obsolete. On the assumption that the Wehrmacht would be able to achieve a massed concentration at strategicpoints he was happy to predict that the Soviets would 'crumple under the massive impact of our tanks and planes'. No one, however, could deny the sheer vastness of the Soviet Union, and this alone made Barbarossa into a daunting proposition. Beneath the thick layer of hubris and optimism that surrounded the planning forBarbarossa, there were those in Berlin who expressed severe misgivings from the start. The doubts, interestingly, were of two kinds. There were at least some officers who questioned the feasibility of the operation itself. Significantly these included Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group Centre, to whom fell the awesome task of crushing the main body of the Red Army en route to Moscow. By the end of January 1941, Bock was so concerned about the scale of the mission assigned to his army group that he forced Haider, the chief of army staff, to concede that there was a distinct possibility that the Red Army might escape beyond the Dnieper-Dvina line. What wouldhappen in this eventuality was the key question. One of the earliest wargames done to test the Barbarossa plan concluded that unless both the destruction of the Red Army and the capture of Moscow could be accomplished within a matter of months, *Germany would face a 'long-drawn-out war, beyond the capacity of the German armed forces towage'*.[/I]


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

Again: who is saying that Germany could not win an attrition warfare with Russia? Not Jenisch, but the Germans themselfs.



> a whoilsale transefer of about 4million men, and around 2500 a/c and 3 full flak divisions (from memeory).



It would not be 2500 planes (of which only a part where fighters) that would stop the USAAF and the RAF. As for the 4 million men, the Allies had conditions to overcome them. 



> history rewritten........



Yeah, but there are many things that defy common sense in what you wrote. First, there's the "Aryan" German Army, which only because it entered in the defensive, has a qualitative improvement beyond imagination of us Untermenschens. Second, the idea that Germany would be able to invade the Soviet Union, kill millions of it's population, inflict severe material damage in the country, and then force the Soviets to sign a peace with Germany that would include they would supply it with a huge quantity of oil (Adios Red Army, Red Air Force and much of the Soviet economy). To go further in show how this is a castle of cards: even if the Soviet government was treated, while still having power they could have sabotated the Caucasus oil industry if they felt it was a blackmail from a desesperated Germany (the system was actually producing much less than normally, hence the Soviets received substantial Lend-Lease petroleum products: 
_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGbjPqFFvA_


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## stona (Dec 12, 2012)

It would have made no substantial difference to the air war in the West and I see no reason why the allies would have reduced or abandoned the bombing campaign of 1942onwards.
The RAF offensive was starting to fulfill the objectives set by Harris.I don't mean in terms of shattering German infrastructure or even the effects on production.The night bombing attacks had a serious effect on civilian morale as evidenced in innumerable SD reports (Sicherheitsdienst). Details of the Hamburg attack spread quickly through Germany and attacks in the South led to the population being describes as "restive,angry and bitter." The reports also note that people no longer exchanged the nazi salute,reviled the party as the author of their trouble,rarely wore party badges and regarded Goering as a liar. Women of "the lower classes" were reported as saying that even 1918 wasn't as bad as this.
The nazis,it is often forgotten,were a populist party. These continuing reports about severe problems with civilian morale were read by the leadership and informed its decisions.
Reports on popular dissatisfaction and low morale made the party nervous of squeezing the population as hard as the WWI government had done and running the risk of a popular explosion like that of October/November 1918. Total mobilisation of the Reich's human and economic resources did not occur until far too late,the war was already lost. That's one for Harris.
The leadership's enthusiasm for V weapons in order to retaliate is a function of popular dissatisfaction too. This seriously skewed late war production. The USSBS estimates that the resouces invested in the V-1 and V-2 programs from 1944 until the end of the war was equivalent to 24,000 fighter aircraft. The regime was reacting to popular pressures and political factors bought about by the bombing and not military realities.

The military,industrial and economic weight of the Western Alliance would eventually have prevailed.

As a minor detail,how many resources would the Germans have required to hang on to their newly acquired territories in the East? It's a big place! I don't see any way that a system like that employed by the British in India would have worked.

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

stona said:


> II don't mean in terms of shattering German infrastructure or even the effects on production.



Well, according to this interview with Adam Tooze, the bombing could have been much more effective than was thought:

_LAURENCE REES: And the single most mistaken decision of the war?

ADAM TOOZE: Well, there’s something I’d like to talk about that we haven’t spoken about so far, which is the strategic bombing campaign. I actually think that the RAF had the German war economy by the throat by the summer of 1943. The series of attacks launched by the British from March 1943 through to the cataclysmic attack on Hamburg at the end of July has a devastating impact on the German war effort that’s been very, very largely underestimated so far. But from the inside of the Speer Ministry there’s no question that this is seen as a fundamental turning point in the war and a moment potentially of no return. They expect the German war economy to be crippled in the winter of 1943 and the reason why that doesn’t happen is that the RAF turns its attention from the west of Germany to Berlin, and makes a vain attempt to destroy Berlin. However, Berlin is an inappropriate target. It’s too large, it’s too far away and it’s at the end of the productive chain, whereas the Ruhr stands at the very beginning because it’s the centre of German coal mining, without which the heavy industrial economy of Germany grinds to a halt.

And the Germans are deeply puzzled why the British make this move. And in the autumn of 1944 and into the spring of 1945 when the attacks on the Ruhr are resumed and focused on the shunting yards which are necessary to move the coal around they have an immediate and absolutely dramatic effect on the German war economy. So I think the RAF’s decision to shift its focus from the west of Germany and the Ruhr in particular to Berlin does count as a pretty major strategic miscalculation.

LAURENCE REES: And it also follows from that that you think the strategic bombing campaign was extremely effective?

ADAM TOOZE: Yes. There’s no question that it had an absolutely devastating impact on the functioning of the German war economy from as early as the spring of 1943. The Germans just about begin to believe by the beginning of 1943 that despite the setbacks on the Eastern Front the Russians are a long way away, and they actually began to get a real grip of their armaments production and are beginning to shuffle resources around in a quite strategic, and deliberately calculated way, and had put the organisation in place to do that. That’s the substance behind the Speer 'miracle'. What then happens is that steel output becomes completely unpredictable because of the impact of the British attacks and begins to fall, and immediately you see a plateauing off of armaments production. Instead of continuing to rise it grinds to a halt at a moment when everybody else’s is ramping up and the American war economy in particular is hitting top gear. And this is a complete disaster for the German war effort and produces a major political crisis. Speer begins to lose his grip on power and has, in the end, to solve this problem with his ill fated alliance with Himmler which emerges in the autumn of 1943 and unlocks a whole new supply of slave labour for the German war economy._

Most mistaken decision of WW2 > Professor Adam Tooze > WW2History.com


As for the mobilization of the German economy, Stona, it's a myth that it was not mobilized at the start of the war.


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## gjs238 (Dec 12, 2012)

In Mein Kampf Hitler writes about, obsesses about, Lebensraum in eastern Europe.
He wrote of the Germanic British, cousins of the Germans.
Clearly, the goal was not the West but the East.

So instead of the what if being peace with the East, what about peace with the West?
Hitler's pre-Poland gambles paid off. But his luck ran out with Poland when the West declared war.
But what if the West had not declared war and reached an accommodation, sacrificing Poland?


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## parsifal (Dec 12, 2012)

> Again: who is saying that Germany could not win an attrition warfare with Russia? Not Jenisch, but the Germans themselfs


.

Actually the germans did entertain such thinking. The professional military believed prior to Kursk that given proper strategic military leadership, without the contant interference by Hitler and his cronies, that they could win a war of attrition. What was needed was a war of movement, whilst the germans still had the ability to do so. By giving and taking ground, the professionals in the heer knew they could extract the maximum of casualties out of the red army. By the end of 1941, most of the generals had realized that territorial expansion only added to the logistics nightmare for Germany. By using russia itself as a battleground, the Russians would be forced into a war tyhey would have a hard time winning. What was needed to make this strategy work was relaistic leadership at the top, and unfortunately for Germany that never happened.

Evidence of how the professional soldiers thought Germany's defensive war should be fought is there if you look for it. Suggest you look at AGS operations February to April 1943, and Rommels retrreats from Cyrenaica. 




> It would not be 2500 planes (of which only a part where fighters) that would stop the USAAF and the RAF. As for the 4 million men, the Allies had conditions to overcome them.



In fact by the end of 1942, it was only about 400 fighters, but the force structure was at least 2500 planes in the east. It was not the airframes the germans needed, it was the personnel 



> Yeah, but there are many things that defy common sense in what you wrote. First, there's the "Aryan" German Army, which only because it entered in the defensive, has a qualitative improvement beyond imagination of us Untermenschens


.

Stop talking rubbish. I'm the last person in this place to start mouthing the superiority of german arms on the basis of their politics. the German army WAS superior, and substantially so, but it had nothing to do with their race. it had everything to do with their methods and training. And the germans proved time and again that they were capable of amazing things, even in the teeth of utter defeat. The best example I can think of is Manteins defensive operations after Stalingrad....a masterpiece of improvisation, and an outstanding defensive success. the very thing they needed a year earlier .....



> Second, the idea that Germany would be able to invade the Soviet Union, kill millions of it's population, inflict severe material damage in the country, and then force the Soviets to sign a peace with Germany that would include they would supply it with a huge quantity of oil (Adios Red Army, Red Air Force and much of the Soviet economy).



Getting access to Soviet Oil is a long shot. the rest is entirely possible. The Soviets didnt suffer such high attrition, because back in 1941, the germans made the mistake of continuing its push toward Moscow long after it was no longer feasible to do so. The German Generals, particualalry the front commanders were universally opposed to it. They knew that the capture of Moscow was largely a symbolic gesture by November. They also knew that they needed desperately to to pull up the advance, consolidate, and recover. Some did not anticipate the effeects of the Soviet winter, but many of th generals did. 

If the generals had gotten their way and Hitler had backed down (a big ask, and the weak point of the whole argument) the germans would have defeated the Soviet counteroffensive of 1941. From there the Soviets, militarily would have been forced to make renewed attacks against the German lines. The Germans demonstrated at izyum and Kharkov what happens to the Soviets when they attack unprepared. And that was with german forces badly depleted and worn out from misuse. 



> To go further in show how this is a castle of cards: even if the Soviet government was treated, while still having power they could have sabotated the Caucasus oil industry if they felt it was a blackmail from a desesperated Germany (the system was actually producing much less than normally, hence the Soviets received substantial Lend-Lease petroleum products




Its not a house of cards, its the very plan that Manstein envisaged would get germany out of the war. i think he was right. as for oil from overseas, the Soviets were still self reliant to the tune of about 60% capacity on the caucaasus. The Soviets themselves knew that the Caucasus was critical to their war effort. thats why they fought so hard to defend it.
As forthe Soviets destroying the place rather than giving oil to the germans...again, rubbish. In 1939, despite having misgivings about the germans, the russians were willing to give oil to Germany, they would do it again if it was part of a peace deal. Only if the Russians were going to lose these oil firelds to direct military action would they destroy them (as they did) 



> and put the blamme in some "radical group". The NKVD could have "created" this group, or simply pick up actual prisioners in the Gulag and put the blamme on them.




This is totally illogical. And there is no basis to support it whatsoever. The Russians would not destroy these oilfields if after having been defeated, it was their means of salvation. It would be viewwed as their means of salvation not something to be thrown away. 




> In that enters the irrealism of this scenario, Parsifal. The only way that Germany had to really control the Soviet oil would be by actually trying to capture it (again, the things usually happen in the way they happened because there were no alternatives).




No, they happen because of human frailties. Hitler wa incapable of backing down, that led to his country's defeat. if he could have accepted a compromise peace, the russian sure would, and from their all this stuff you are saying falls away. The Germans were never going to capture the oilfields intact, but Russian previous actions showed them to be prgamatic, and quite prepred to "sell their soulds" if circumstsances demanded it. 



> And there was also the danger of leave the Red Army (which was being supported by the US and Britain) able to pose a treat to Germany in the future. The mere possibility of a revolt is unlikely, not only because the opposition was practically eliminated in the Great Purge, but also because the situation. The Soviet people understood well that they had to fight, there was no alternative.


 There is no basis for sying this. in fact the history of Russia just 20 years before suggests completely the opposite to what you are saying. A defeated Russia is an unstable Russia. Russia with 20-30 million casualties is going to sue for peace, despite Stalin or anybody else for that matter. 



> In a scenario where by somehow Germany is stronger than historically, the Soviets woud have retrated, but give up, no.



Thats a matter hotly debated,and by no means a certainty, especially if the Soviets had suffered heavy one sided defeathttp


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## stona (Dec 12, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> As for the mobilization of the German economy, Stona, it's a myth that it was not mobilized at the start of the war.



Really? Take a look at some figures. When did something as fundamental as the German aircraft industry move to 24 hour working. British manufacturers were doing it in 1940.What percentage of German women were working in 1940/41?
The German economy didn't start to take up the slack until 1942/3,by which time it was too late. It was not geared for a long haul.There are endless references for this in just about every history of the period.
Speer wasn't a magician. He didn't have more to start with. The increases in production that he managed,despite the allied bombing,were achieved by removing the slack from the production economy.

Let's concentrate on aircraft production,this is an aircraft based forum after all. It was not until Germany was embroiled in the conflict with the Soviet Union,more than two years into the war,that Goering finally authorised to bring some order to the aircraft industry. By this time it was already to late. The attrition of the previous years had been ignored and the British aircraft industry had a more than two year head start. Even the US,as relative new comers,were at least a year ahead. How is this "mobilised at the start of the war"?

More anecdotally why did Speer complain that he was confronted by whining Gauleiters in 1943 when he wanted to divert materials away from cosmetic production to armaments. German women,apparently,neede their make up.

Steve


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## parsifal (Dec 12, 2012)

> It would have made no substantial difference to the air war in the West and I see no reason why the allies would have reduced or abandoned the bombing campaign of 1942onwards.



Hi steve

Perhaps not immedialtely, but the return of manpower, the redeployment of 30% more flak, with the best crews, and the arrival if vast numbers of aircrew and service personnel is going to deliver a massive boost of resources foir the germans, that the allies will find hard to match. If the Peace treaty with the Soviets occurs say in September 1942, by mid to late 1943, instead of having around 500 fighters and 250 Night Fighters defending the reich, the Germans may well have around 1500 and 700. if the loss are a linear relationship to fighters available, that immediately pushes BC loss rates through to the unsustainable level. Same for the US 



> The military,industrial and economic weight of the Western Alliance would eventually have prevailed.



You do realize that you are basically saying the Soviet contribution to victory was irrelvant. i cannot accept that. Moreover, if the allies had been forced to fight the Germans without the Soviets, the great US economic advantage would have been a lot less. A lot more effort would have been meeded to keep the convoys rolling, much manpower would need to be diverted.......I just cannot see the Allies winning an unconditional surrender in that scenario. I dont see the germans winning, per se, but their ability to fight more or less indefinately is a possibility 



> As a minor detail,how many resources would the Germans have required to hang on to their newly acquired territories in the East? It's a big place! I don't see any way that a system like that employed by the British in India would have worked.



Stalins terms reportedly were that the frontiers return to the 1939 border. The Nazis wanted to retain the whole of Poland. But the Soviets would have had all their own territory returned...


Michael


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

parsifal said:


> You do realize that you are basically saying the Soviet contribution to victory was irrelvant.


 
Nobody is saying that. For "relevant" however, you want to say that the Americans and British would be unable to defeat Germany alone. I will not lose my time anymore with you, Parfisal. I already provided plenty of evidence that the Germans could not sustain an attrition war with the US and Britain. You are not being much different from Richard Overy, that uses similar "noble" arguments but does not support them.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 12, 2012)

Jenisch, Parsifal...

Knock it off you two! If I see one more personal attack, both parties are spending time at the beach. I don't care who started it.


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## bobbysocks (Dec 12, 2012)

stona said:


> The military,industrial and economic weight of the Western Alliance would eventually have prevailed.



that is the way i see it. and i am not discounting the soviet contribution to the war but you also cant dismiss the importance of lend lease material as a stop gap measure in their war with germany. the raw materials ( steel, etc), trucks, food medicine, machinery, along with airplanes, tanks, guns, ammo all supplemented the soviet war machine until it could be brought up to speed. without the eastern war those items would have went to the west. yes, the supply lines were long but the uboat fleet would not have gained much from no eastern war. by mid 43 the convoys were better defended and the losses to uboats were diminishing. so the LW now has 1500 fighters and 700 night fighters. one of the major problems the lw ( and german army ) had in the east was the size of the front. in essense wouldnt the same hold true here? they have the whole of europe to defend with 1500 fighters where as the allies could consentrate their escorts were needed. my contention is that the western allies would still be able to distrupt germany's production where as they would not be able to recipocate. the factories in the us, canada, and other CW would not have missed a beat. the weak link were the convoys and the alles were winning at keeping them going.

i


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## Jenisch (Dec 12, 2012)

HyperWar: An Unknown Future and A Doubtful Present [Chapter 5]

_By August 1943, the Army [US Army] reached its peak combat strength for World War II, fielding a total of only 90 divisions, one of which was later dismantled. Subsequent enlistments made the Army larger, but never increased its combat edge. Marshall and Wedemeyer appreciated the impact that increased military technology would have on the nature of war and planned to take advantage of firepower and air power to field a smaller army. Wedemeyer failed, however, to carry the problem through to its logical conclusion. Modern military technology had a stupendous impact on the battlefield; it had an equally significant influence on Army organization.
Limitations of the Plan--Type Divisions

Incorrect about the number of divisions the Army could field, Wedemeyer was necessarily also incorrect about the numbers of division by type:

Type Division	1941 Estimate	Actual
Armored 61 16 
Mechanized 61 0 
Infantry 54 66 
Mountain 10 1 
Cavalry 4 2 
Airborne 7 5	

The dramatic differences between the Victory Plan troop basis and the final shape of the Army in May of 1945 cannot properly be ascribed to errors of judgment, however.12 The most important changes in divisional organization, division slice factor aside, came about because of logistical and tactical lessons that were unavailable to Wedemeyer in 1941.13

The Army did not create as many armored divisions as Wedemeyer's plan called for chiefly because General George Marshall's greatest fears about Lend Lease were realized: the needs of the British and the Russians consumed a large part of American tank production. In 1955, the Army staff calculated that Lend Lease to the USSR, France, Italy, China, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, and the British Empire had equipped around *101 U.S.-type divisions*.14 The United States, for example, shipped a total of 5,374 medium tanks and 1,682 light tanks to the USSR alone between June of 1941 and September 1945. While only about 20 percent of all war production eventually flowed into Lend Lease channels, that matériel was overwhelmingly heavy equipment such as tanks, artillery, and combat aircraft.15 American industry simply could not satisfy the demands of both Army and Lend Lease for new production and for production of replacement armored vehicles. Therefore it proved impossible for the War Department to equip as many American armored divisions as the Victory Plan called for.

Wedemeyer's emphasis on armored divisions arose from his reading of Fuller and from the dramatic use the Germans had made of armor in the opening battles of the war.16 Some Americans, however, wondered whether so many armored divisions would be tactically desirable, suggesting that they would be awkward to maneuver and very hard to support. General Marshall eventually favored a compact and powerful force maintained at full strength as the better course of action, writing in 1945 that the more divisions an Army commander has under his control, the more supporting troops he must maintain and the greater are his traffic and supply problems. If his divisions are fewer in number but maintained at full strength, the power for attack continues while the logistical problems are greatly simplified.
Other unforeseen developments prevented the Army from forming mechanized divisions, foremost among them the shipping problem. Despite enormous strides in merchant ship construction, there remained a serious competition for space. Mechanized divisions required more shipping space, and the staff realized that ports of embarkation could ship these divisions to Europe only very gradually. Dismounted infantry divisions, on the other hand, required far less shipping space, enabling the United States to build up combat forces in the theater much faster. As with tanks, the vehicles the mechanized divisions would have used were also in great demand by other nations, and Lend Lease quickly consumed much of the available production. Finally, as part of his drive to decrease the division slice, and recognizing production and shipping problems, General McNair decided to remove many vehicles from the divisions and pool them in the field armies, which could presumably manage a smaller number of vehicles more efficiently to accomplish the same tasks. Years later, Wedemeyer remarked that the battlefield would have become a hopeless traffic jam if the Army had carried out his original scheme for mechanized divisions.
Despite the fact that Lend Lease proved a factor limiting the number of armored divisions that the Army could create, it too had hidden benefits for American mobilization. While the constant demands of Britain and Russia for equipment continued to vex the War department, contracts for manufacture of matériel for Lend Lease served the purpose of establishing major military production lines well before America went to war. Industry was in general unwilling to convert to war production unless there was some sort of guarantee of sustained production. Lend Lease provided such a guarantee, and the War Department therefore found that an important segment of industry was already mobilized by 7 December 1941.

Changes in the activation programs for other type divisions were influenced by factors other than Lend Lease. Specific plans for the liberation of Europe eliminated the need for more than one mountain division, although use might have been found for them if the Allies had pursued Churchill's idea of an attack through the Balkans into central Europe. The progress of the fighting in Italy, the one theater that offered scope for employment of mountain divisions, demonstrated that standard infantry divisions fought as well as specialist troops in rough terrain.19 After the Normandy invasion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower's SHAEF staff could find little use for airborne divisions. Neither organized nor intended to conduct sustained battle, airborne divisions had little utility after the invasion. Eisenhower retained them in the general reserve, finally using them in MARKET-GARDEN operation in the Netherlands in September 1944. Thereafter, ground forces advanced so briskly that they captured projected airborne objectives before the airborne operation could be launched, although airborne divisions were used in the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. No one could find a role for horse-mounted cavalry divisions that justified the shipping problems involved, particularly the supply of fodder and feed. Accordingly, the War Department simply scrapped one of the cavalry divisions and converted the other to an infantry division is all but name.
The progress of the war also eliminated the need for the massive antiaircraft artillery organization Wedemeyer planned for the theaters and field armies. He could not know that the strategic bombing campaign the Royal Air Force and the American numbered air forces conducted in Europe would have literally devoured the German Luftwaffe by mid-1944. The Army Air Forces very proficiently accomplished Wedemeyer's second condition for operations on the continent of Europe: they gained "overwhelming air superiority" by July of 1944. The consequence was that the enemy air threat did not exist to justify such a large antiaircraft artillery service in the European theater.20

Likewise, there was little need for the large tank destroyer force planned in 1941. In part, that was because the United States Army found other ways to deal with tanks than by fighting them with a specialized force. Tactical aviation emerged as an efficient way to kill tanks, particularly after air leaders realized that .50-caliber projectiles could penetrate the thin armor of tank's engine compartments.21 There was also a growing consensus in the Army that the best antitank weapon was the tank itself. Early tank destroyers were relatively lightly armored and could not exchange fire with a tank. More heavily armored tank destroyers resembled tanks so closely that the distinction between the two blurred. Eventually, the Army field more powerfully armed tanks than the medium M4 Sherman. Rearmed with a 76-mm. high velocity weapon, the Sherman could at least compete with modern German tanks. The General Pershing tank, introduced at the end of the war, had a 90-mm. gun and, despite maintenance problems, was the equal of the best that the Germans could offer. As a result, tank destroyers became technically and doctrinally obsolescent by the end of World War II.22 Well before the end of the war, the Army began to reduce the number of tank destroyer battalions forming and in training._


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## bobbysocks (Dec 13, 2012)

Alright here's my uneducated point of view ( aka rant...some ( ok a lot of ) alcohol involved ). we give the soviets all this sympathy for enduring the nazi onslaught. they did so much on the ground...way more than the western allies. we should be ashamed of ourselves like stailn complained to the us and uk/cw. we simply didnt participate in the war the way russia did. i guess we slacked a bit and just werent motivated because we had other frivolous things going on...LIKE THE FREAKIN PACIFIC WAR! america was attacked by who?? germany? ummmm....ok there were uboat attacks on shipping...but WHAT ...or shall i dare say WHO...drove the US ( think of dec 7...the infamy day speech) to declare war with one act? Japan/Pearl harbour. america could have simply decided to fight its war there ( in the pacific where it was threatened and attacked ) making a pact with the uk/cw to do what is necessary to bring down the japanese threat to both of out interests. but we didnt. we entered "THE WAR". the us and the uk/cw fought a 2 front war..in 2 different arenas with all the logistic problems you can imagine. how far is burma from london?? Or washington DC from manila? my point is the us/uk/cw alliance fought ALL the ALLIED enemies...2 separate fronts and all the problems that was involved in that. the russians? when did they wage war on japan?? not until AFTER germany surrendered AND it became a land grab for them. *tell me i am wrong in the fact *that they fought weeks after japan *surrendered*!!!!!!! i dont want to hear any crying and whining.! they FLAT didnt take the fight to japan when needed but only when it was BENEFICIAL to them so they could share in the spoils as the victor. the russians endured alot, but only fought on one front AND WHERE AIDED AND SUPPLIED by their other allies. they contributed ZILCH to the us/uk/cw pacific war. ( please correct me if i am wrong )

LET'S ask another question here....had the US/UK/CW not have to divide their resources between the 2 theaters and be able to concentrate solely on the reich would that big soviet contribution been that a big difference???? Honestly, russia was a one man player in the war. if you believe different you are a stark raving fool. there were numerous opportunities for them to accept us/uk troops...air bases ( with long range bombers and escorts )....i would bet everything i have in the bank that if stalin would have asked/demanded troops,,,the us/uk/cw would have happily obliged. THEY DIDNT!! stalin was paranoid of the west and wanted to do it on their own.....and doing so screwed over their allies by not declaring war on japan. so, what ever they endured was by their own hand and decision. i dont want to hear about how badly their loses were....that was THEIR decision...plain and simple...not the allies...nor do i want to hear how their contribution was paramount to the end of the war. how many russians were taken as POWS in burma or the philippines??? how many russian soldiers fell along side the road on the death march??? novel idea......what if the soviets had been more of a team player and let the allies set up bomber and naval bases near Vladivostok....where 17s, lancs, the us/rn could have pounded toyko and japan years earlier...how would that have impacted the entire outcome of the war???


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## vinnye (Dec 13, 2012)

Stalin did not like the idea of foreign troops on Russian soil - even if they were allies in the fight against the Germans. An example of this is the very limited help given to the Free Polish troops that were dispersed around Russia and given little in the way of equipment and aid in transport to organise into an effective fighting unit. Stalin only allowed these troops to be sent to the Med and on into Italy etc rather than to fight the Germans on Russian / Polish ground.
He did not want a strong independent Polish armed force to potnetially be a problem post war.


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## parsifal (Dec 13, 2012)

vinnye said:


> Stalin did not like the idea of foreign troops on Russian soil - even if they were allies in the fight against the Germans. An example of this is the very limited help given to the Free Polish troops that were dispersed around Russia and given little in the way of equipment and aid in transport to organise into an effective fighting unit. Stalin only allowed these troops to be sent to the Med and on into Italy etc rather than to fight the Germans on Russian / Polish ground.
> He did not want a strong independent Polish armed force to potnetially be a problem post war.



There was a Polish Army in the Soviet Army (an Army in the Red Army was roughly the equivalent of a large Corps, less the support echelons). More Poles fought under the Soviet banner than fought for the west. I dont now much about the units formation, though I expect many "volunteered" to get better food and conditions more than anything. Dont know what they did for officers either......

Agree completely with the second para


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## gjs238 (Dec 13, 2012)

bobbysocks said:


> Alright here's my uneducated point of view ( aka rant...some ( ok a lot of ) alcohol involved ). we give the soviets all this sympathy for enduring the nazi onslaught. they did so much on the ground...way more than the western allies. we should be ashamed of ourselves like stailn complained to the us and uk/cw. we simply didnt participate in the war the way russia did. i guess we slacked a bit and just werent motivated because we had other frivolous things going on...LIKE THE FREAKIN PACIFIC WAR! america was attacked by who?? germany? ummmm....ok there were uboat attacks on shipping...but WHAT ...or shall i dare say WHO...drove the US ( think of dec 7...the infamy day speech) to declare war with one act? Japan/Pearl harbour. america could have simply decided to fight its war there ( in the pacific where it was threatened and attacked ) making a pact with the uk/cw to do what is necessary to bring down the japanese threat to both of out interests. but we didnt. we entered "THE WAR". the us and the uk/cw fought a 2 front war..in 2 different arenas with all the logistic problems you can imagine. how far is burma from london?? Or washington DC from manila? my point is the us/uk/cw alliance fought ALL the ALLIED enemies...2 separate fronts and all the problems that was involved in that. the russians? when did they wage war on japan?? not until AFTER germany surrendered AND it became a land grab for them. *tell me i am wrong in the fact *that they fought weeks after japan *surrendered*!!!!!!! i dont want to hear any crying and whining.! they FLAT didnt take the fight to japan when needed but only when it was BENEFICIAL to them so they could share in the spoils as the victor. the russians endured alot, but only fought on one front AND WHERE AIDED AND SUPPLIED by their other allies. they contributed ZILCH to the us/uk/cw pacific war. ( please correct me if i am wrong )
> 
> LET'S ask another question here....had the US/UK/CW not have to divide their resources between the 2 theaters and be able to concentrate solely on the reich would that big soviet contribution been that a big difference???? Honestly, russia was a one man player in the war. if you believe different you are a stark raving fool. there were numerous opportunities for them to accept us/uk troops...air bases ( with long range bombers and escorts )....i would bet everything i have in the bank that if stalin would have asked/demanded troops,,,the us/uk/cw would have happily obliged. THEY DIDNT!! stalin was paranoid of the west and wanted to do it on their own.....and doing so screwed over their allies by not declaring war on japan. so, what ever they endured was by their own hand and decision. i dont want to hear about how badly their loses were....that was THEIR decision...plain and simple...not the allies...nor do i want to hear how their contribution was paramount to the end of the war. how many russians were taken as POWS in burma or the philippines??? how many russian soldiers fell along side the road on the death march??? novel idea......what if the soviets had been more of a team player and let the allies set up bomber and naval bases near Vladivostok....where 17s, lancs, the us/rn could have pounded toyko and japan years earlier...how would that have impacted the entire outcome of the war???



Add to this interring B-29 crews and aircraft in the Soviet Union.
Then reverse-engineered the aircraft.


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## stona (Dec 13, 2012)

I don't suggest for one moment that the Soviet contribution was irrelevant,far from it. I am saying the Western allies would have defeated Germany,eventually,without them. Not the same thing at all.

No way would the Germans have had the extra hundreds (thousands) of fighters available in the West. Take a look at German aircraft production throughout the war and it barely covered their losses. The mid/late war increases inproduction were to counter the air assault in the West which they singularly failed to do.They recalled most of their fighter units from the East to the West where the USAAF/RAF promptly shot them down.

Do you seriously believe in the possibility of a peace arrangement in which Germany and the Soviet Union returned to the 1939 border? I assume you mean the one they "arranged" in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
That I won't buy,two for one and with a massive discount 

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 13, 2012)

vinnye said:


> Stalin did not like the idea of foreign troops on Russian soil - even if they were allies in the fight against the Germans.



Such alliance was opportunistic - they really didn't like from each other. Due to the Soviet alliance with Hitler, the Anglo-French were preparing themselfs to attack the Soviet oil production in Baku, and this was not a mere contingence plan:

_In March 1940, after the end of the Winter War, the British undertook secret reconnaissance flights to photograph areas inside the Soviet Union, utilising high-altitude, high-speed stereoscopic photography pioneered by Sidney Cotton.[10]
Using specially modified and unmarked Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra aircraft painted in a special blue camouflage scheme developed by Cotton himself (who led the RAF's Photographic Development Unit or PDU), the Secret Intelligence Service launched the high-altitude reconnaissance flights from RAF Habbaniya, a Royal Air Force station in Iraq. One such mission was flown on 30 March 1940. Flying over the mountainous region of southeastern Kurdistan, across the coast of the Caspian Sea then north towards Baku, the flight entered Soviet airspace at 11:45 after a four-hour flight. Loitering for an hour whilst making six photographic runs with its 14 in (36 cm) aerial camera, the aircraft left Baku at 12:45 and returned to RAF Habbaniya.[11]
Another reconnaissance sortie was flown on 5 April from RAF Habbaniya, this time crossing Turkish airspace to reach Batumi. This flight encountered Soviet anti-aircraft fire and a Soviet fighter attempted to intercept it. However, the British had obtained everything they needed for photo-interpretation purposes and for mapping the Soviet petroleum centres._

Operation Pike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea that the Grand Alliance was a "noble alliance" is nothing more than a myth. The Soviets would be happy that the Nazis and the democracies destroyed themselfs (this was a major reason of the M-R pact) in the same way that the West would be happy if the Nazis and Soviets destroyed themselfs.


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## Jenisch (Dec 13, 2012)

stona said:


> Do you seriously believe in the possibility of a peace arrangement in which Germany and the Soviet Union returned to the 1939 border? I assume you mean the one they "arranged" in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
> That I won't buy,two for one and with a massive discount


 
With all respect to Parfisal, I think he is giving too much credit to the popular myth that Hitler was blamed for everything bad that happened to the WM, while the officiers have credit for everything good. Parfisal also belives that the German "technological advantage" would be relevant in this scenario. This is another myth. Germany would not develop an atomic bomb first or close than the US one. Stona can explain this better than me. If the war goes into 1945, and Germany starts to deploy jets in increasingly numbers, there would be an answer from the Allies, and their jets were comparable to the German ones. 

As for the tanks, there would be the Centurion and the Super Pershing (I attached an image of the latter), both of which could compete with the latest German tanks. So, in general the Germans did not enjoy a decisive technological advantage over the Allies. Both sides had some areas which were superior to each other however.

As for the Luftwaffe, The Wages of Destruction, page 626:

_In early 1944, the US Army Air Force dramatically turned the tables in the daytime battle by introducing a new generationof long-range escort fighters with performance substantially greater than Milch's outdated Messerschmitts. Literally thousands of Mustang P51S equipped with disposable fuel tanks now accompanied the bombers deep into Germany and picked off the Luftwaffe's interceptors before they even got close to the bomber streams. 'Big Week' - 20-25 February 1944 - is commonly regarded as the critical turning point in the airwar. On six consecutive days, thousands of American bombers were hurled against all the major aircraft factories in Germany. The Luftwaffe was not destroyed in a single week. However, the US Army Air Force gave notice that the Germans would now face an utterly unsustainable rate of attrition. In February the Luftwaffe lost one-third of its fighters and a fifth of its crews. In March, it lost more than half its fighter aircraft. In April 43 per cent were shot down and in May and June the loss rate hovered around 50 per cent. Over the first five months of 1944 the Luftwaffe's entire complement of fighter pilots was either killed or disabled. A few German aces survived long enough to notch up extraordinary tallies but the working life of the average Luftwaffe pilot was now measured in weeks._

Tooze exaggerates in the criticism of the Bf 109, which despite the outdated design was still competitive if flown by a properly trained pilot. Anyway, as we can see, the attrition with the West consumed the LW very quickly. The attrition in the East was not much different, with the difference that the Soviets paid a high price due to initially not having sufficient numbers of modern aircraft, properly trained pilots and tactics.

Luftwaffe Orders of Battle 24 June 1941, 27 July 1942, and 17 May 1943

According to this link, in May 1943 42% of the LW combat force was in the East.

http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm

While according to this other: 

_4.06 times as many aircraft were lost in combat in the West than were lost in the East, a ratio reasonably close to Groehler's 3.41 for all "losses". The most chilling statistic for the JG 26 pilots appears in the sortie data. An airplane flying a combat mission in the West was 7.66 times more likely to be destroyed than one on a similar mission in the East. It is clear that the burden of sacrifice was borne by the Luftwaffe aircrew on the Western Front and over the Reich, not on the Eastern Front._

And as I already wrote: the German aero industry was preparing itself to the confrontation with the West before the Barbarossa started, so there would not be major changes in German production figures.

By late 1941, the LW had lost nearly all it's complement of modern aircraft. If some peace treaty was reached with Russia in 1942, it would not give the Germans the hability to close the gap that had already been open before between them and the Allies. One of the most overlooked things of the war is that Britain was able to match the Germans in terms of having a comparable air force and aircraft production. Only late in the war Germany surprassed Britain in aircraft production. But even so, Britain was producing and employing in substantial numbers an aircraft that the Germans practically didn't had an equivalent - the Lancaster. Now, if we put the US in the story, geez... things become complicated. If Germany brings more fighters, there would be an American response to that. As for bombers, I already wrote earlier: by 1945 there were 3000 B-29s in the USAAF inventory, 3000! Bombing Japan was not a priority for the US. If the US needed to bring more aircraft against Germany after Japan was contained in late 1942 (for Hitler, Japan would keep the US and Britain busy), this would be perfectly possible.

And lastly, I don't think that even if Germany had fuel, it would have a very high chance of not loose the war. Britain had fuel, but if the RAF had to face the USAAF in a hypotetical scenario where the geography was practical, the situation obviously would not be easy for the British. Germany's situation would be similar in this scenario. Hitler expected that Britain would come to terms if he had defeated the USSR. The Germans were working with the prospect of *try contain* the Anglo-American material and manpower superiority if they did not accepted peace, they were not thinking it would be a foregone conclusion to defeat such alliance in the battefield. The Japanese thinking was similar: "we gonna scare them, they will think our position is too much strong and gonna seek for peace. But if they put all their resources against us, we are in trouble".


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## Jenisch (Dec 13, 2012)

Double post.


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## parsifal (Dec 13, 2012)

> I don't suggest for one moment that the Soviet contribution was irrelevant,far from it. I am saying the Western allies would have defeated Germany,eventually,without them. Not the same thing at all.





> No way would the Germans have had the extra hundreds (thousands) of fighters available in the West. Take a look at German aircraft production throughout the war and it barely covered their losses. The mid/late war increases inproduction were to counter the air assault in the West which they singularly failed to do.They recalled most of their fighter units from the East to the West where the USAAF/RAF promptly shot them down


.


Okay, accept that, although I tend to think the idea of unconditional surrender at least might be difficult to achieve. Its about the strength and capability of the allied ground forces. Put simply they would have needed to significantly increased their investment in the land forces (and from that, the logistics base needed to support them), and with that would com an inevitable cost in the strength and/or capability of the allied air power.

Looking at the US Army for a minute, according to Shelby Stanton. I dont have his book on the US Army in front of me (but it is at home) at the moment but from memory,he says the US raised 90 divs 1942-5. They started with cadres for 14 divs I think, but these were grossly understrength and completely ilequippe. The Americans had to retain a sizable force at home for further cadres and home defence, and had to also provide significant forces fort the PTO. This left precious little for force projection into the ETO at that time, moreover, with the mapower allocations that were made, the US found it very difficult to translate their massive economic power into effective military power on the ground. For a country of its size, the US Army expansion was actually quite limited, more limited than a mere examination of their force structures would suggest. 

. By the end of 1942, the US Army stood at 74 divs, however for the ETO they only had 90000 men that the general board considered "combat ready".These were thrown into the Torch landings and were promptly shown up as severely lacking in training and experience. You simply dont expand from 14 cadres to 75 in less than a year, and expect your forces to be competitive against an army with years of combat experience, better tactical organization, supeior leadership and generally better weapons.

As 1943 progressed, the Americans continued to experience severee difficulties in their expansion. The problem I think is that they had severely under-estimated the support echelonns needed to support their overseas . People often think that a divisio consisted of about 16500 men for the US, but thi fails to take into account the massive "tails that supported each div. For the brits, the total divisional slice was about 55000 men per div, I think the US was similar. Anyway, for whatever reason, the US found that many of its divisions had to be taken out of availability and used to provide fillers for the few frontline units that they could deploy. By 1944, this figure had ballooned out to nearly 25 divs (which Stanton identifies). these units were not suitable for either mobile operations, or offensive operations. Eventually, in 1945, some of these units had their TOEs normalised and were moved to the front, but were used only defensively for the most partThe US effectively had around 30 Divs that it could use for brekthrough or offensive operations. Well short of the numbers they would need if the Russians were out of the equation. If the Germans maintained a force structure of , say 300 Divs in th4e west, the Allieswould need to double triple, or even quadruple their force structures, and that would have a massive effect on the amount of airpower they could deploy. 


Conversely, with losses reduced for the heer, by the close down in the east, and the reduced fuel consumption they would enjoy (look, at their overall fuel consumption during barbarossa, and then compare that to 1943.......its a fraction in the later years. If there is no eastern Front, the germans will solve their fuel issue). The Germans will be able to pour vast amounts of their resources into expanding their air force. So they will have relatively more aircracraft, whilst we will have relatively less. This is not agood or easy scenario for the allies, and their victory is not a certainty. 




> Do you seriously believe in the possibility of a peace arrangement in which Germany and the Soviet Union returned to the 1939 border? I assume you mean the one they "arranged" in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact


.


I have read about it somewhere....cant recall the source, I agree that it sounds a bit far fetched, but given different circumstances in 1942 (ie a major collapse of the Red Army), as well as a change in German thinking (a much bigger ask) I do think it quite possible

Regards

Michael


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## Jenisch (Dec 13, 2012)

parsifal said:


> .If the Germans maintained a force structure of , say 300 Divs in th4e west




You make critics to the Alllied logistical problems, but simply desconsiderate them when its the Heer. One of the pre-conditions for an invasion is air supremacy. The Allies would not start any invasion until they had put the LW in a situation similar to the one in D-Day. Having said that, how do you solve the problem of keeping 300 divisions supplied when their logistic system becomes a botteneck? Historically, the German forces in France already experienced severe problems due the destruction of the French railway system prior to D-Day, and the constant attacks of Allied aircraft in their supply convoys (ground troops also suffered heavy casualities). And as I already said earlier, there would be not need of hurry for the Allies advance. The EF lasted for four years, this Western Front could have lasted more time than historically if necessary.

One thing I'm certain: the situation in Europe by 1945 would not be good. The German economy would be in trouble, the German cities would be in rubble. By this time what Germany would do? Attack the USSR again? The Russians would be aware that the WM was not the same anymore, and Germany would simply not have conditions to do this. This also would be suicide against the Allies. The Allies could have put Europe under siege, and they also would be able to nuke Germany, killing even more civlians and contaminating others by radiation. Perhaps the people will revolt against the German government, a succesfull coup against Hitler could have occured. Other thing is that the Allies had alternatives to attack Hitler. The idea that 300 divisions would be put in France is hindsight. Even the actual invasion of France had an element of strategy: the Allies did not invaded in Calais, like the Germans expected. This prevented the Allied forces to come in contact with a much larger German contingent. Perhaps Norway could be targeted (difficult, but would deny Germany vital iron ore), other option would be Balkans. There are other options also, and they could have formed a grand strategy to weaken Germany until an opportunity to have a decisive confrontation with it arise. A scenario like this presents big challanges to the Allied attackers, but also to the the German defenders.


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## parsifal (Dec 15, 2012)

PART 1



> You make critics to the Alllied logistical problems, but simply desconsiderate them when its the Heer.



An attacker into enemy controlled territory, where the infrastructure has been thoroughly destroyed, will have an infionitely harder time logistically than a force that has had four years to stockpile resources, and is operating on the defensive. An attacker classically needs 3odds of 3 or 4:1 to achieve brekathroughs, for the allies this was typically 6 or 7 to 1, and artillery concentrations (the lions share of supply, were typically 10 or even 20:1. 

For all these reasons, and many more, the allied logistic problem was many orders of magnitude greater than that facing the germans on the defensive. Mororever, by shutting down their major front, the germans would finally in 1943 be in a position to recover their mobility by rebuiding their MT pools and also building up armoured reserves and manpower reseves 



> One of the pre-conditions for an invasion is air supremacy. The Allies would not start any invasion until they had put the LW in a situation similar to the one in D-Day.



I agree, but that does not mean the germans need to maintin air parity or air superiority to challenge the allies. If they could have put up a meaningful presence on D-Day and after, this alone would have caused enormous problems for the allies. 



> Having said that, how do you solve the problem of keeping 300 divisions supplied when their logistic system becomes a botteneck?



By bringing them home from the easstern Front. The Germans, with a great deal of difficulty (and admittedly in the end unsuccessfully) did manage to maintain a semblance of logistic support on the eastern front, where conditions were many times more difficult to keep the frontline forces supplied. By bringing those forces back to western europe, where the road and rail networks were infinitely better (notwithstanding allied air activity, and where local supplies like food and fodder, were somewhat available the supply and logisitics difficulties are greatly reduced. Germany would not have the problems dupply wise that she did on the eastern front, and as a result of those difficulties, also on all her other fronts. 



> Historically, the German forces in France already experienced severe problems due the destruction of the French railway system prior to D-Day, and the constant attacks of Allied aircraft in their supply convoys (ground troops also suffered heavy casualities).



Their difficulties were caused mostly by the German State railways being grossly overstretched by the demands of the eastern front. Pull out of that front successfully, and some hundreds of thousands of railway workers, vast quantities of rolling stock and locos are returned to western europe, which means, vi8rtually no effect arising fom the allied air campaign on the French rail net. instead of lines and bridges laying wrecked for weeks because there is not the manpower to repair them, they are instead repaired almost immediately they are attacked. because there is now 4 or 5 times the amount of rolling stock and engines to pull them trains are not overstretched in their delivery of supply. Because the Germans have a substantial bomber force, it can re-challenge the control of the channel and open up this waterway to some sfriendly seaborne traffic. because they have additional fighters, oil training facilities and pilots, they can challenge the allied tactical air offensive into france in 1944. Because they have less strain overall on their economy they have plenty of time to properly develop their advanced weaponary including jet technologies, such that even though outnumbereed, their jet squadrons now properly worked up and with fewer teething problems can now deploy and tear holes in the allied piston engined fighters. Their concurrent development of jet bombers, from mid 1943 onward, means that their bomber forces are now un-interceptable. They begin barge hunting operations in the Channel, curtailing training preparations of the allied invasion forces. they start to receive proper intelligence froiom their closer air recon efferts, exposing Pattons fake army group for what it is. They develop Type XIII and XXI submarines that can reek havoc on allied convoys, both close and far.


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## parsifal (Dec 15, 2012)

Part 2





> And as I already said earlier, there would be not need of hurry for the Allies advance. The EF lasted for four years, this Western Front could have lasted more time than historically if necessary.



I know that you said it, but you didnt prove it or show it. Time was not on the side of the allies as much as you think. The more time that elapsed, the more likley German new technologies affecting the battle becomes a reality. For the allies time is not completely kind to them. They have spent years developing landing forces, including tank landing forces, that unfortunately are limited in size of AFVs they can land.....tanks like the Sherman, that even in 1944 were showing signs of being badly outclassed. Give the Germans more time, and they have more and better tanks to fight the same tanks the allies historically fielded, unless the allies want to postpone everything for even longer, whilst they go and rebuild and replace their amphibious landing forces. 

And we still have not dealt with some strategically significant isues. By 1944, the British in particular were exhausted economically after more than 4 years of hard fighting. Because of their distateful and criminal policies in the occupied territories, the germans were not as exhausted. The Americans were not exhausted, but they were running short ofready reserves, particulalry manpower, and simply did not have the capacity to slug it out in an attritional battle with the wehrmacht. 



> One thing I'm certain: the situation in Europe by 1945 would not be good. The German economy would be in trouble, the German cities would be in rubble.



These are un-substantiated claims, and should be disregarded. you may be certain of it, but you have not shown it and certainoly havent proven it. 



> By this time what Germany would do?



Offer negotiated terms of peace, which the allies would probably accept



> Attack the USSR again?



Maybe, after a rest in their victory over the allies



> The Russians would be aware that the WM was not the same anymore, and Germany would simply not have conditions to do this.



This is an altogether different scenario, but suffice it to say its unproven one way or the other. If the scenario pans out to a negotiated settlement, the wehrmacht will be in better shape than it was in 1941. Dont know about the Russians, but probably not good. if a separate peace is made, there would be no help from the allies, in particular ffodstuffs. The country would be starving, many of its generals shot or in prison for losing the war, most of its territories wrecked from the war with Germany. I would not be surpised if Stalinn was overthrown.....and who knows what then....



> This also would be suicide against the Allies.



As history shows, attacking Russia whilst the west is undefeated, is indeed suicide. If the allies are forced to make peace the scebario is altogether different. 



> The Allies could have put Europe under siege,



If war dragged on between the west and the Germans (ie not an eastern front situation), I actually see the Germans being the ones doing the blockading with their new technologies like the Type XXIs and the new fancy bombers they were supposedly working on. its not a good situation at all, and infact all thos American troops bottled up in England may well be suffering many hungry nights as they wait for the situation in the western approaches to improve



> and they also would be able to nuke Germany, killing even more civlians and contaminating others by radiation.



Possibly, but unlikely. The Americans had a policy of not dropping the bomb in Europe. But lets assume they eventually change that. We are now in th realm of specualtion, but I dont think it unreasonable to specualte that the policy might occur in say 1947. However instead of the 24 (or so) bombs that the US historically had built by then (and expended 6 of them) the additional strain placed on the US economy, the decreased size of that economy because of the renewed l;osses in the Atlantic and the demands for manpower in the military, will probablyreduce than number to maybe 5 or 6 bombs, and slow down the deployment to the latter part of the year. Maybe, maybe not, but the point is, you are assuming far too much. In that time frame, it is entirely possible, if a little improbable that the Germans may well have a bomb or two of their own. The allies coulod not know this, so would hesitate bewfore using them. I certainly can see the british having reservations about a nuclear exhnage on their soil. 



> Perhaps the people will revolt against the German government, a succesfull coup against Hitler could have occured.



Quite possibly, but that doesnt mean the end for Germany. Just as plausibly, there might be elections in Britain and the US that voted in leaders prepred to negotiate. Getting rid of Hitler might be a good thing. With someone like Donitz or Speer in charge, I would be even more afraid as the allies than if the madmen Hitler was in charge. 



> Other thing is that the Allies had alternatives to attack Hitler. The idea that 300 divisions would be put in France is hindsight. Even the actual invasion of France had an element of strategy: the Allies did not invaded in Calais, like the Germans expected.



Its interesting, but just note that the pas de clais feint was made possible because of the lack of hard intell for the german. that might well change because of better recon in this scenario. 



> This prevented the Allied forces to come in contact with a much larger German contingent. Perhaps Norway could be targeted (difficult, but would deny Germany vital iron ore),



The so called "iron route" was a bit of a myth, though it would hurt the Germans. Bu, go ahead, send more of the dwindling Allied manpower and shipping reserves to an unimportant front, likley to completely upset the Swedes and decrease the problem on the main front.....



> other option would be Balkans.



Same as above, but this time substitute p*ssing off the Swedes to p*ssing off the Russians. It might work, but it is likley to just tie down yet more of the limited allied manpower reserves on a pointless and difficult front. Different if the allies had a significant manpower advantage, but in this scenario they dont. they need the Russians to achieve that 



> There are other options also, and they could have formed a grand strategy to weaken Germany until an opportunity to have a decisive confrontation with it arise. A scenario like this presents big challanges to the Allied attackers, but also to the the German defenders.



It raises big challenges for the Allies...imnsurmountable ones in fact. The situation for theGermans is far easier. They dont have three enemies to fight. one of them...the biggest, is out of the war. That makes their life a whole lot easier....


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## parsifal (Dec 15, 2012)

Just a piece of advice. If you reply, be absolutely careful not to make any disparaging remarks. We have both been warned. Stay focussed on the issue, or we will be spending time on the beach


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## Jenisch (Dec 15, 2012)

parsifal said:


> It raises big challenges for the Allies...imnsurmountable ones in fact.



The Wages of Destruction, Adam Tooze, page 424:



> With hindsight it is hard to avoid the conclusion that after the defeat of France Germany would have done better to adopt a defensive posture, consolidating its position in Western Europe, attacking British positions in the Mediterranean and forcing the British and the Americans to bomb their way onto the Continent. Given that the Red Army ultimately proved to be the nemesis of the Wehrmacht, this is hard to deny. But what is too often ignored in such counterfactual arguments is the growing awareness in Berlin that, even after the occupation of Western Europe, Germany did not have the upper hand in a long war against Britain and America. The chronic shortage of oil, the debility of the European coal mines and the fragility of the food chain, made it seem unlikely that Germany would in fact be able to 'consolidate' its conquests of 1940 without falling into excessive dependence on the Soviet Union. Even if this were possible, the combined manufacturing capacity of Britain and America vastly exceeded the industrial capacity currently under German control and this, in turn, spelled disaster in a protracted air war. The German army, on the other hand, had proved its ability to achieve decisive victory against what were thought to be the strongest armies in Europe. When we bear this range of factors in mind it is easier to appreciate why a defensive strategy seemed like a second-best in the autumn of 1940. After the defeat of France, the dream of a gigantic land empire seemed within reach, and, given the industrial strength looming on the other side of the Atlantic, there was no time to waste.



The same book, page 410:



> The territories that Germany had conquered in 1940, though they pro-vided substantial booty and a crucial source of labour did not bear comparison with the abundance provided to Britain by America. The aerial arms race was the distinctive Anglo-American contribution to thewar and it played directly to America's dominance in manufacturing. But though the disparity in aircraft deliveries was extreme it was not untypical. A similarly vast gulf was also evident in relation to energy supplies, the most basic driver of modern urban and industrial society.Whereas the Anglo-American alliance was energy rich, Germany and its Western European Grossraum were starved of food, coal and oil.The disparity with respect to oil was most serious. Between 1940 and 1943 the mobility of Germany's army, navy and air force, not to mention its domestic economy, depended on annual imports of 1.5 million tonsof oil, mainly from Romania. In addition, German synthetic fuel fac-tories, at huge expense, produced a flow of petrol that rose from 4 milliontons in 1940 to a maximum of 6.5 million tons in 1943. Seizing thefuel stocks of France as booty in no way resolved this fundamentaldependency. In fact, the victories of 1940 had the reverse effect. Theyadded a number of heavy oil consumers to Germany's own fuel deficit.From its annual fuel flow of at most 8 million tons, Germany now had to supply not only its own needs, but those of the rest of Western Europeas well. Before the war, the French economy had consumed at leas t5.4 million tons per annum, at a per capita rate 60 per cent higher than Germany's. The effect of the German occupation was to throw France back into an era before motorization. From the summer of 1940 France was reduced to a mere 8 per cent of its pre-war supply of petrol. In an economy adjusted to a high level of oil consumption the effects were dramatic. To give just one example, thousands of litres of milk went towaste in the French countryside every day, because no petrol was available to ensure regular collections. Of more immediate concern to the military planners in Berlin were the Italian armed forces, which dependedentirely on fuel diverted from Germany and Romania. By February1941, the Italian navy was threatening to halt its operations in theMediterranean altogether unless Germany supplied at least 250,000tons of fuel. And the problems were by no means confined to the Reich's satellites. Germany itself coped only by dint of extreme economy. In late May 1941, General Adolf von Schell, the man responsible for the motor vehicle industry, seriously suggested that in light of the chronic shortage of oil it would be advisable to carry out a partial 'demotorization' of the Wehrmacht. It is commonly remarked that the Luftwaffe suffered later in the war because of the inadequate training of its pilots, due in large part to the shortage of air fuel. But in 1941 the petrol shortage was already so severe that the Wehrmacht was licensing its soldiers to drive heavy trucks with less than 15 kilometres of on-roadexperience, a measure which was blamed for the appalling attrition of motor vehicles during the Russian campaign. Shortages made themselves felt across the German economy. So tight were fuel rations thatin November 1941 Opel was forced to shut down production at its Brandenburg plant, Germany's largest truck factory, because it lacked the petrol necessary to check the fuel pumps of vehicles coming off theassembly line. A special allocation of 104 cubic metres of fuel had to bearranged by the Wehrmacht's economic office so as to ensure that therewere no further interruptions.



I'm not convinced that the Alllied situation would be factually impossible to sustain. Authors like Tooze belive just in the opposite, therefore this is not a concensus among historians. However, you did provided arguments that I found interesting.


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## J-dog (Dec 15, 2012)

Well I would definitely increase production of the Me-262 and in 1943 not all the materials for the jet engine were gone so you could in a sense make the full jet engine easier that in 1944 and 1945. I would also definitely let the Horton Bros. create the Horton 229 and 18which is the bigger version of the 229 and was designed to Cary a nuclear bomb to the US. Don't think this is me hating the US I'm just thinking from their perspective! These two aircraft from the Horton bros were stealth planes and could have made a difference in the war even in 1943. What was interesting was that it could go 620 mph when it was powered by two Jumo 003 jet engines the same as the Me-262 bet without a tail it created less drag. I would also increase training of pilots and also promote the Arado 234. The Volksjager and the Ta-183.


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## stona (Dec 15, 2012)

J-dog said:


> I would also definitely let the Horton Bros. create the Horton 229 and 18which is the bigger version of the 229 and was designed to Cary a nuclear bomb to the US.



The flaw in that plan is that Germany didn't have,nor was it anywhere near producing,a nuclear weapon for any aircraft to carry. 

Steve


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## J dog (Dec 15, 2012)

actually if these planes were to hold the allied planes out and successfully hold out the war until 1946 Germany was building a nuclear bomb and was already getting all of the equipment for it. Goering actually said to the Horton Bros and he was very clear that Germany would have a nuclear weapon by 1946.


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## stona (Dec 15, 2012)

J dog said:


> Goering actually said to the Horton Bros and he was very clear that Germany would have a nuclear weapon by 1946.



Not a snowball's chance in hell I'm afraid. This topic has been covered in other threads,so with all due respect I don't want to hijack this one.

Cheers

Steve


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## tyrodtom (Dec 15, 2012)

The Third Reich's history is full of promises from Goering that turned out to be just hot air.


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## J dog (Dec 15, 2012)

ok fair enough. Have a nice day!  But you have to admit having enough speed and distance to come to the United States to bomb it would have made a difference with the Horton 18 and with the stealth make it virtually undetectable to radar..they could have bombed New York or Washington. There was a interesting idea by a brilliant German to have bombers fly to the US bomb it and then ditch the planes in the ocean to then be picked up by either a boat or possibly a submarine. Although that would have been more costly to keep spending more money on more planes and then the defenses would adapt and shoot down the planes rendering it useless.


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## Jenisch (Dec 15, 2012)

About the Me 262, another quote from Tooze's book, page 620:

_The Me 262, the world's first operational jet fighter, was a truly extraordinary technological achievement. The fact that in 1945, in the most difficult of circumstances, Germany was capable of producing hundreds of these aircraft should give the lie to any claims about the inherent weaknesses in the German 'technological system'. In the list of dei ex machina with which Hitler might have changed the course of the war, it is amongst the most commonly cited. But it is also one of the weapons most surrounded by self-serving post-war mythology. After the war, Ernst Heinkel, Willy Messerschmitt and the chief of Germany's fighter forces Adolf Galland colluded in the construction of a highly one-sided account of theMe 262's history, designed to celebrate the genius of German technology, whilst at the same time demonstrating the incompetence of the Nazi leadership. In their account, popularized in best-selling biographies and television interviews, it was the meddling of Hitler, Goering andMilch that robbed Galland and his valiant fighter pilots of a weapon with which they might have protected Germany against the merciless onslaught of the bombers. This was a myth that appealed to numerous themes in post-war German political culture: regret at the chance of a victory wasted, the consolation provided by the supposed superiority of 'German technology', the self-righteous commemoration of the horror of Allied bombing. But contrary to legend, all the evidence, in fact, suggests that the Reich Air Ministry seized the opportunity of jet power with every possible speed. What prevented the Me 262 from exercising a decisive influence on the air war was not incompetence and conservatism, but the debilitating material limitations of the German war economy_

I don't have time to right about the Elektroboat right not, but will antecipate something to Parfisal: it's in good part another "Nazi-war-winning-weapon". It's introduction could not have been earlier, while the Allies have conditions to counter the new submarine.


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## stona (Dec 15, 2012)

J dog said:


> ok fair enough. Have a nice day!  But you have to admit having enough speed and distance to come to the United States to bomb it would have made a difference with the Horton 18 and with the stealth make it virtually undetectable to radar..they could have bombed New York or Washington.



Even allowing an unlikely scenario where this happened what possible difference would it make. We're talking a few tons of bombs on the USA. The Anglo/American air forces dropped 2.8 million tons on Germany. It didn't defeat them in itself anymore than the London blitz (a mere 12-13,000 tonnes) forced Britain out of the war. If the Germans and British could "take it" I'm sure the Americans could too.

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 15, 2012)

If the British and American people wanted to see Hitler defeated and difficulties arised, they would not need to considerate peace with Germany, but with Japan. Late in the war the Japanese were not a treat anymore, and would certainly accept a peace proposal from the Allies. That would trow all the Anglo-American industrial and military potential against Germany. Just the American aircraft deployed in the Pacific were equivalent to the total contingent of the LW by a few times. Germany would resist to that? No, it would not. Just B-29s would be 2000 by 1945.


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## J dog (Dec 15, 2012)

Yes but attacking the most populated city in the US and possibly Washington dc it could have done a lot of damage not to the city but the psychological damage would have been greater. This could have made the US pull back forces of their own to protect themselves and then give the Germans more freedom because a good amount of Americans were protecting bomber groups, attacking ships, and attacking tanks which if you eliminate even a few it could help to gain more territory and lose less men and planes. Thus giving more people, planes, tanks, and planes to give greater numbers in later battles. Although it may be not much all Germany needed was those few decisive victories which could be obtained with a little more help.


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## stona (Dec 16, 2012)

It's not going to happen. The design wasn't on paper until 1944 and every design took from 2-4 (sometimes much longer) years to become a useable aircraft. Something as radical as the Horten designs,which were by no means even regarded as viable by many other German engineers and designers,would certainly have taken longer.
It was too late for offensive operations,German aircraft production was concentrated on defensive fighter and fighter bombers.
Already,as early as the last quarter of 1942, Anglo-American production exceeded Germany's by 250% for single engined fighters,196% for twin engined types and a massive 20,077% for four engined bombers. These figures take no account of increasing Soviet production. It's statistics like these that win wars not acts of bravado like dropping a few bombs on New York. Germany had neither the means,nor more importantly the will to embark on the production of unproven multi engined aircraft. Goering's 1944 "Amerika Bomber" was nothing more than hot air.

Another minor point,if as recent research has suggested,the Horten designs incorporated a level of radar stealthiness this was completely accidental. It was not a concept that existed in the 1940s and was never mentioned at the time. One of the Horten brothers (I think Reimar) jumped on the stealth bandwagon many years post war. 
Another myth is that the types built received a special surface finish which they did not. The surviving examples are finished in a standard Ikarol lacquer.

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

stona said:


> Already,as early as the last quarter of 1942, Anglo-American production exceeded Germany's by 250% for single engined fighters,196% for twin engined types and a massive 20,077% for four engined bombers.



And don't forget about you British. Until 1944, Britain actually produced more acft than Germany.


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

Double post.


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## stona (Dec 16, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> And don't forget about you British. Until 1944, Britain actually produced more acft than Germany.



Indeed they did.Even as early as 1940 we had our arses in gear. Throughout the BoB There were only 3 weeks when the RAF suffered a net loss of Hurricanes and in the same 3 weeks a net loss of Spitfires (plus one other later). 
The Luftwaffe was not so fortunate,infact at the start of the BoB it hadn't replaced the losses incurred in the earlier campaigns. Even over Dunkirk between May 26th and June 3rd the Luftwaffe lost 240 aircraft to the RAFs 177. Noone in Germany saw the pattern forming.

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

stona said:


> Indeed they did.Even as early as 1940 we had our arses in gear. Throughout the BoB There were only 3 weeks when the RAF suffered a net loss of Hurricanes and in the same 3 weeks a net loss of Spitfires (plus one other later).
> The Luftwaffe was not so fortunate,infact at the start of the BoB it hadn't replaced the losses incurred in the earlier campaigns. Even over Dunkirk between May 26th and June 3rd the Luftwaffe lost 240 aircraft to the RAFs 177. Noone in Germany saw the pattern forming.
> 
> Cheers
> ...



In terms of the air war, the situation wasn't so bad. Mainly because Germany started to give industrial priority to the air war with the West in parallel with the start of the Barbarossa. And that was because the Germans were considerating victory against the USSR as a foregone conclusion, and they were aware of the big gap between them, Britain and the US in acft production. 

What Parfisal says that I'm in doubt, Stona, is the Alllied manpower problem for the ground forces. The US Army was probably able to raise some 200 divisions if there's no Lend-Lease to the USSR. Anyone has info of how much divisions the British Empire could have provided?


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## tyrodtom (Dec 16, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> In terms of the air war, the situation wasn't so bad. Mainly because Germany started to give industrial priority to the air war with the West in parallel with the start of the Barbarossa. And that was because the Germans were considerating victory against the USSR as a foregone conclusion, and they were aware of the big gap between them, Britain and the US in acft production.
> 
> What Parfisal says that I'm in doubt, Stona, is the Alllied manpower problem for the ground forces. The US Army was probably able to raise some 200 divisions if there's no Lend-Lease to the USSR. Anyone has info of how much divisions the British Empire could have provided?



Of the about $50 billion of Lend Lease the USA sent out , $11 billion went to the USSR, less than 25%. So I think you're overstating the effect that Lend-Lease to Russia may have had on the USA's ability to molbilize.
It takes training facilities that have to be built, and training cadre, that have to be trained themselves, when you want to greatly increase your number of infantry or armored divisions.


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## stona (Dec 16, 2012)

Jenisch said:


> Anyone has info of how much divisions the British Empire could have provided?



I don't know but it's difficult to see how the UK and "Old Commonwealth" could have produced more than they did. 
India gave up nearly three million volunteers who fought in every theatre. There would be political problems involved in any kind of conscription there. 
Men also came from Africa and the Carribean but I suspect that the prevailing attitudes of the time influenced their use (and numbers).
Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-Victory/USA-Victory-5.html

_By August 1943, the Army [US Army] reached its peak combat strength for World War II, fielding a total of only 90 divisions, one of which was later dismantled. Subsequent enlistments made the Army larger, but never increased its combat edge. Marshall and Wedemeyer appreciated the impact that increased military technology would have on the nature of war and planned to take advantage of firepower and air power to field a smaller army. Wedemeyer failed, however, to carry the problem through to its logical conclusion. Modern military technology had a stupendous impact on the battlefield; it had an equally significant influence on Army organization.
Limitations of the Plan--Type Divisions

Incorrect about the number of divisions the Army could field, Wedemeyer was necessarily also incorrect about the numbers of division by type:

Type Division	1941 Estimate	Actual
Armored 61 16	
Mechanized 61 0	
Infantry 54 66	
Mountain 10 1	
Cavalry 4 2	
Airborne 7 5	

The dramatic differences between the Victory Plan troop basis and the final shape of the Army in May of 1945 cannot properly be ascribed to errors of judgment, however.12 The most important changes in divisional organization, division slice factor aside, came about because of logistical and tactical lessons that were unavailable to Wedemeyer in 1941.13

The Army did not create as many armored divisions as Wedemeyer's plan called for chiefly because General George Marshall's greatest fears about Lend Lease were realized: the needs of the British and the Russians consumed a large part of American tank production. In 1955, the Army staff calculated that Lend Lease to the USSR, France, Italy, China, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, and the British Empire had equipped around 101 U.S.-type divisions.14 The United States, for example, shipped a total of 5,374 medium tanks and 1,682 light tanks to the USSR alone between June of 1941 and September 1945. While only about 20 percent of all war production eventually flowed into Lend Lease channels, that matériel was overwhelmingly heavy equipment such as tanks, artillery, and combat aircraft.15 American industry simply could not satisfy the demands of both Army and Lend Lease for new production and for production of replacement armored vehicles. Therefore it proved impossible for the War Department to equip as many American armored divisions as the Victory Plan called for.

Wedemeyer's emphasis on armored divisions arose from his reading of Fuller and from the dramatic use the Germans had made of armor in the opening battles of the war.16 Some Americans, however, wondered whether so many armored divisions would be tactically desirable, suggesting that they would be awkward to maneuver and very hard to support. General Marshall eventually favored a compact and powerful force maintained at full strength as the better course of action, writing in 1945 that the more divisions an Army commander has under his control, the more supporting troops he must maintain and the greater are his traffic and supply problems. If his divisions are fewer in number but maintained at full strength, the power for attack continues while the logistical problems are greatly simplified._


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

_ther unforeseen developments prevented the Army from forming mechanized divisions, foremost among them the shipping problem. Despite enormous strides in merchant ship construction, there remained a serious competition for space. Mechanized divisions required more shipping space, and the staff realized that ports of embarkation could ship these divisions to Europe only very gradually. Dismounted infantry divisions, on the other hand, required far less shipping space, enabling the United States to build up combat forces in the theater much faster. As with tanks, the vehicles the mechanized divisions would have used were also in great demand by other nations, and Lend Lease quickly consumed much of the available production. Finally, as part of his drive to decrease the division slice, and recognizing production and shipping problems, General McNair decided to remove many vehicles from the divisions and pool them in the field armies, which could presumably manage a smaller number of vehicles more efficiently to accomplish the same tasks. Years later, Wedemeyer remarked that the battlefield would have become a hopeless traffic jam if the Army had carried out his original scheme for mechanized divisions.
Despite the fact that Lend Lease proved a factor limiting the number of armored divisions that the Army could create, it too had hidden benefits for American mobilization. While the constant demands of Britain and Russia for equipment continued to vex the War department, contracts for manufacture of matériel for Lend Lease served the purpose of establishing major military production lines well before America went to war. Industry was in general unwilling to convert to war production unless there was some sort of guarantee of sustained production. Lend Lease provided such a guarantee, and the War Department therefore found that an important segment of industry was already mobilized by 7 December 1941.

Changes in the activation programs for other type divisions were influenced by factors other than Lend Lease. Specific plans for the liberation of Europe eliminated the need for more than one mountain division, although use might have been found for them if the Allies had pursued Churchill's idea of an attack through the Balkans into central Europe. The progress of the fighting in Italy, the one theater that offered scope for employment of mountain divisions, demonstrated that standard infantry divisions fought as well as specialist troops in rough terrain.19 After the Normandy invasion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower's SHAEF staff could find little use for airborne divisions. Neither organized nor intended to conduct sustained battle, airborne divisions had little utility after the invasion. Eisenhower retained them in the general reserve, finally using them in MARKET-GARDEN operation in the Netherlands in September 1944. Thereafter, ground forces advanced so briskly that they captured projected airborne objectives before the airborne operation could be launched, although airborne divisions were used in the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. No one could find a role for horse-mounted cavalry divisions that justified the shipping problems involved, particularly the supply of fodder and feed. Accordingly, the War Department simply scrapped one of the cavalry divisions and converted the other to an infantry division is all but name.
The progress of the war also eliminated the need for the massive antiaircraft artillery organization Wedemeyer planned for the theaters and field armies. He could not know that the strategic bombing campaign the Royal Air Force and the American numbered air forces conducted in Europe would have literally devoured the German Luftwaffe by mid-1944. The Army Air Forces very proficiently accomplished Wedemeyer's second condition for operations on the continent of Europe: they gained "overwhelming air superiority" by July of 1944. The consequence was that the enemy air threat did not exist to justify such a large antiaircraft artillery service in the European theater.20

Likewise, there was little need for the large tank destroyer force planned in 1941. In part, that was because the United States Army found other ways to deal with tanks than by fighting them with a specialized force. Tactical aviation emerged as an efficient way to kill tanks, particularly after air leaders realized that .50-caliber projectiles could penetrate the thin armor of tank's engine compartments.21 There was also a growing consensus in the Army that the best antitank weapon was the tank itself. Early tank destroyers were relatively lightly armored and could not exchange fire with a tank. More heavily armored tank destroyers resembled tanks so closely that the distinction between the two blurred. Eventually, the Army field more powerfully armed tanks than the medium M4 Sherman. Rearmed with a 76-mm. high velocity weapon, the Sherman could at least compete with modern German tanks. The General Pershing tank, introduced at the end of the war, had a 90-mm. gun and, despite maintenance problems, was the equal of the best that the Germans could offer. As a result, tank destroyers became technically and doctrinally obsolescent by the end of World War II.22 Well before the end of the war, the Army began to reduce the number of tank destroyer battalions forming and in training._


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## tyrodtom (Dec 16, 2012)

So if only 20% of production was going into Lend Lease, and less than 25% of Lend Lease was going to Russia, then that would amount to less that 5% of total production going into Lend Lease to Russia, a insignificant amount no matter what that exact kind of equipment that 5% was.

While 5374 medium tanks may seem like a lot of tanks, the USA produced over 21,000 M4/75 in 1943 alone, and 71, 000 tanks and self propelled guns during WW2, and the USSR produced 92,000 during the same period. Those are both of tanks and SP guns of 75+mm , With all that considered, 5300 medium tanks aren't significant.


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## parsifal (Dec 16, 2012)

The US Army and its support echelons in the form and in the strength that it was deployed historically, did not have the strength or the depth to tackle the German army, if the Germans were unfettered by their commitments in the East

According to Shelby Stanton (and I can quote him later if need be) the US Army had the capacity to provide about 20000 fillers per week (I think it was per week…I will check the time frame tonite). However, in any three month period from June 1944, the combat divisions committed to the battle suffered over 100% casualties, including non-lethal casualties over that randomly selected three month period. Roughly 50 Divisions were committed to front line operations June 1944 to May 1945 (sometimes more, sometimes less, for example by December 1944, there were 63 US divisions at the front)> With a 100% per quarter casualty rate (a not especially high rate of loss) and 50 divs assumed to be committed to the front, the Americans needed about 775000 fillers per quarter. They were receiving 240000. Some of the shortfall could be filled by wounded returns. Roughly 40% of the wounded could return within 5 months, another 30% would return to some level of service within a year. From memory Stanton assessed the average turn around time for a wounded soldier, from time of injury to return to active service, as about 7 months. At that rate, there would be a return rate of about 70000 men from the sick list each month, or 210000 per quarter. From returns from wounded plus new enlistments that complete basic, the US was receiving about 450000 men, so the net shortfall per quarter for the US Army, against a small part of the German Army, was roughly 325000 men per quarter. They filled these deficits by desperate expediants…..roughly half (from memory) of the nondivisional forces like TD units and AA formations were scrapped and the personnel press ganged into the Infantry and/or armour. About ¼ of the divisions fielded were designated (replacement Divs (not the right name, but that’s what they were) and no longer capable of mobile offensive operations. Their sole role in life became defence and providing fillers for the 30 or so assault formations.. 

In the chaos of late 1944 and 1945, these expedients were good enough for the US Army to muddle through. The Wehrmacht was so stretched, so short of equipment and replacements itself, and so in a state of perpetual crisis, that such shortcomings that the US Army did possess were dwarfed by those being suffered by the Germans. However, in this scenario, the Germans would have none of those difficulties and moreover would have most of the logistic issues that plagued them solved. They would be present in far greater strength and in a far better sate of training. A far higher percentage of US casualties would be unrecoverable, because far more American prisoners would be taken in this hypothetical campaign.

The US Army was never short of equipment, in fact it was probably oversupplied with equipment. Equipment was never the limiting factor for the US Army, it was always the shortages of trained manpower that prevented or limited its full potential. And that was not a problem easily solved except with more time. The problems with assuming the US could afford more time have been discussed already. Some may choose to accept that, some not.


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

I'm still not convinced. But I'm not convinced of the opposite. You induce me think about this. I will research more, if I found anything will post here.

However, using your logic the Russians also would not won by themselfs.


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## parsifal (Dec 16, 2012)

Probably not. The most important item of lend lease supplied by the Americans to the Russians, was food. Without it, the Russians would not have the manpower to overwhelm the Wehrmacht....they would have been needed for domestic food production without American help.


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

Ok, so perhaps this indirect possibility would have allowed Germany to defeat the bombing campaign. 

However, following your logic, the Allies considerated Nazi Germany to be a treat for them. If they realize that it would no be possible to set a foot in Europe, it makes to argue that at least they would try to weaken Germany by focusing in the aerial and naval war. That would free considerable resources against Germany. How do you view that Parfisal? Do you think the Allies could have let the German cities in rubble, like in 1945, before a peace deal was reached?


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## parsifal (Dec 16, 2012)

Yes, there would have been a return for a time to the battle in the Atlantic. And a renewed battle in the air. In the end, I think the allies would win that campaign.....if you strip all the layers away from that it gets down to a battle of resources, and as you rightly point out, the allies simply had the resources to win. But without the Soviets, both these battles take time, and at the end of that, does the western alliance have the resources to win the battler outright in every sense...ie, an unconditional surrender. I doubt it. Thats a matter of opinion, obviously.

At the end of this chasing of tails, you have to ask, and then answer this fundamental question. Were the Russians critical to achieving victory for the allies. I think they were critical Neither do i think the Russians were able to win on their own. We were both as important as each other to the victory. Now, if you can accept that, a further question more relevant to the topic needs to be asked....does the elimination of the Russian Front have any likleihood of affecting the defence of Germany....Ive taken that to mean defence in every sense, not a narrow air defence view.


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## Jenisch (Dec 16, 2012)

parsifal said:


> Now, if you can accept that, a further question more relevant to the topic needs to be asked....does the elimination of the Russian Front have any likleihood of affecting the defence of Germany....Ive taken that to mean defence in every sense, not a narrow air defence view.



I will accept, but to argue with you. In general the defense of Germany is improved, not only by more men and planes, also by more workers, which improves the industrial capability. Hitler's plan was to defeat Russia and realize millions of soldiers to the industry and the navy and air force, with the hope that they would be able to counter the Anglo-American navies and planes. As I have said before, this was the reason of why the LW started to receive priority as soon as the preparations to the Barbarossa were finished, as the Germans were aware of the big gap in acft production that already existed between them and the US and Britain. In theory, it would be an even fight if we put the Soviet resources in German hands. Now, you spoke in the German technology some posts behind, and I will say that it would help them in some areas while in others perhaps not so. The V2 causes me concern when analyzing the Allied situation, but with the Allies having victory in the air war, it's launching sites could have been attacked. As the Elektroboat, it would not be operational before 1945, and I'm not able to talk about it's capabilities. What I already heard however, is that it would not be impossible to be countered by the Allies. And we also would have new Allied technologies arriving. If the Allies wanted to turn Germany in rubble, put some investment in the B-36 in order to have it operationally earlier would not be a bad idea. We also would have the P-80, the Meteor, as well as new piston fighters like the P-51H. And lastly: the atomic bomb. 

What I will say Parfisal, is that the combined Allied effort made victory more certain. At least for now, this is what I think.


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## stona (Dec 17, 2012)

Imagine a reverse scenario where Britain comes to terms with Germany in 1940.
Now there is no Anglo-American alliance in Europe. Germany turns it attention,unhindered,to the ideological war it wanted to fight all along in the East.

This was all laid out by Hitler in Mein Kampf:

"Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, it [Germany] must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation."

And for any of his readers (and that was just about every adult German) who might not understand where this "new land and soil" was to be found:

"For centuries Russia drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading strata. Today it can be regarded as almost totally exterminated and extinguished. It has been replaced by the Jew. Impossible as it is for the Russian by himself to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his own resources, it is equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the mighty empire forever. He himself is no element of organization, but a ferment of decomposition. The Persian empire in the east is ripe for collapse. And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state."

I see no way that the Soviets would have received any assistance from the "West",in fact the reverse might happen. I find it at least possible that the Germans could have pulled it off. We would be living in a very different world.

Steve


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## parsifal (Dec 17, 2012)

I think that a defeat of the Soviet Union under that circumstance is almost inevitable. Im not trying to argue that the soviets are indispensable, whilst the allies are not. Quite the contrary. All three of the major powers that fought the germans had critical roles to play in the victory. 

In fact thats the very basis of my whole argument. Take away one or more of those pillars, and you have a very problematic issue. Even though the Germans stuffed their economy (aided by the allied campaigns) Germany overall, remained a very potent adversary. I believe it took the efforts of three major nations (plus a lot of lesser ones as well) to bring this recalcitrant nation to justice. Remove one or more of those major nations and the problem becomes very difficult. 

Of course things worked to prevent any of this happening, and we should not foreget that. Foremost among them was the nature of the Nazi regime. It was inherently unstable, inherently irrational. Once it had convinced itself that it must win complete victory at all costs, none of the alternatives I suggested were even remotely possible. And this just wasnt a case of blaming hitler.....the whole nation suffered from this deranged state....In the end, the germans have themselves to blame, mostly, for their defeat.


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## stona (Dec 17, 2012)

parsifal said:


> I think that a defeat of the Soviet Union under that circumstance is almost inevitable. Im not trying to argue that the soviets are indispensable, whilst the allies are not. Quite the contrary. All three of the major powers that fought the germans had critical roles to play in the victory.



Yes and yes 

To defeat the Soviet Union was of course the original intention of nazi ideology,policy and strategy.
Britain (and her Commonwealth/Empire) put a serious stick in the spokes. It's the reason why some Germans said they lost the war at the BoB. Not literally as a result of a lost aerial campaign but as a result of the consequences of Britain staying in the war,ultimately backed up by the economic and military might of the United States. Germany had already defeated Europe's supposedly pre-eminent continental military power,force Britain to terms and it really would have cleared the way for its domination of continental Europe.

Cheers

Steve


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## Jenisch (Dec 17, 2012)

Today, many historians say that the war was "won and lost in the East". By saying that they want to mean the Allies would have been defeated if the Soviets were defeated. If the war had went like the Nazis planned, the situation for the Allies would be really complicated, but in my view it would not result in the Nazis in London and much less in Washington (the latter pure fantasy). In this scenario, I don't think the Allies won have won however. A stalamate would be the likely result. 

I think Stona's view of Britain's role in the war is valid. The participation of Britain is overestimated. If not for Britain, it would be impossible for the US to participate in the war against Germany, and the Nazis also would be free to attack the Soviet Union.


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## Balljoint (Dec 17, 2012)

For about a decade after the war it was said that Hitler’s invasion was welcomed in much of the Soviet Union, particularly in the Ukraine. However, atrocities and death squads promptly turned hope into determined resistance. Even the occupied areas mounted resistance that seriously undercut any material advantage of the occupation –this being a burden additive to the scorched earth policy.

It’s an interesting thought as to whether a threshold hearts and minds program would have gained support in the east rather than resistance. This, and leaving Mussolini to deal with his fiascos, might have presented serious resource concerns for the allies.


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## stona (Dec 17, 2012)

Balljoint said:


> For about a decade after the war it was said that Hitler’s invasion was welcomed in much of the Soviet Union, particularly in the Ukraine.



Yes,and not just the Ukraine. Other areas of the Soviet Union too. The Baltic states were also keen collaboraters. Anti semetism was not and never has been confined to Germany.

It's an opportunity that nazi Germany was inevitably going to miss. Hitler never could figure out how the British controlled India,explaining it in the idiotic racial terms used by the nazis. The Indians,as described by Alfred Rosenberg,were racially unconcious "poor bastards" and that's why they could be kept under the British yoke. With that kind of racist ideology there's not much chance of allowing your Slavic "unter menschen" to run your occupied territories for your benefit.

Steve

It occurs to me that I should say who Rosenberg was. Without a full bio here's an extract from "Das Deutsch Fuehrer Lexikon" 1934/35 which gives an idea of his influence on nazi thinking.
"From 1921 until the present, editor of the Voelkische Beobachter; editor of the 'N.S. Monatshefte'; 1930, Reichstag deputy and representative of the foreign policy of the movement; since April 1933, leader of the foreign political office of the NSDAP; then designated as Reichsleiter; January 1934, deputized by the Fuehrer for the spiritual and philosophical education of the NSDAP, the German labor front -and all related organizations"


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