Weird coincidence but Santa brought me that book and I'm reading it right now.

What are we counting as an Axis victory?

Germany invades both Britain and Russia conquering both and Europe being proclaimed "Germania" and later an invasion of the USA? No.

Germany conquering more land and ending the war on negotiated peace? Yes, very possible.

Had the BEF been captured GB simply has to leave the war no matter what any Churchill fanboy thinks they simply cannot stay in.

Without the bombing campaign against Germany and USA/GB aid to Russia I just do not see Russian victory, Stalin was an idiot he would probably send more troops to the front before the initial invasion and millions more would be captured.

OK, that seems like a reasonable place to start.

Why would you say that?

The loss of the whole BEF would not have been as decisive a loss as you seem to imagine. The BEF at the time of Dunkirk comprised 9 front line divisions and 3 training and labour divisions. These forces lost the equivalent of 3 divisions in casualties in the fighting during the withdrawal, and all their equipment in the evacuation. There was only enough spare equipment left in Britain to quickly re-equip about 2 divisions. Meanwhile the British Empire had another 37 divisions, of which 26 were already in Great Britain. Of the 12 nominal (net 9 in terms of manpower) divisions evacuated without equipment from France, 2 were disbanded, 1 was reorganized for a different role, and only two were considered operational by mid-July. The rest had to be brought back up to strength over time with untrained conscripts. So the immediate net loss to the forces available to defend the British Isles, should the BEF have been captured as a whole, was two divisions from a potential force of 28. That's not decisive enough to force Britain from the war, even though these would have been their best two infantry divisions.

The British Empire went on to raise another 66 divisions, net of reassignments and disbandments. So the loss of 9 divisions worth of men, though not insignificant, was again not sufficiently large to decisively affect the war's outcome. Keep in mind also that the British Empire began disbanding divisions (mostly in Australia and New Zealand) as surplus to requirements years before the war concluded. If they had lost more at Dunkirk, the result would have been fewer disbandments a bit later. The major strategic impact of the capture of the whole BEF would have been to delay the recapture of North Africa, since more troops would have been redeployed from that theatre to Great Britain during late 1940 and early 1941.

And then there is the matter of the myth of the stop order. Germany didn't stop attacking the British at Dunkirk and let them get away scot free. What they actually did was change the force composition of the attacking forces as the operation moved into new terrain. The so-called stop order came from professional army officers concerned about the marshy coastal terrain being less suitable for armour, about the wear and tear on their overextended mechanized forces, and about the need to consolidate their lines. The actual operation order issued by the German high command on the day of the supposed stop order called for the elimination of the British and French forces in the Dunkirk pocket. British forces were under constant attack by German land and air forces. While greater continued pressure from the German armour would certainly have reduced the number of British forces that could have escaped, it is far from certain that none would have been evacuated.

Germany had lost the war with Russia by November 1941, if not earlier. This was before the western aid to Russia or the bombing campaign had become significant. All the highly unlikely elimination of Britain from the war would do would be to delay an ultimate Soviet conquest of all of Europe by 1946 or 1947.

The German Reich really could defeat the Allies in World War II.

During the campaign in France in 1940 the German tanks stopped near Dunkirk. If they would continue the offensive, it would be a catastrophe for the Allies.

During the company in Africa, it was necessary to neutralize allied forces in Malta. They disrupted the supply of everything needed by German and And the Italian troops. This played a role in the battle of El Alamein.

A great role was played by the seizure of a machine by the Germans for decoding messages called Enigma. Without the interception of messages, many plans for German offensives would be a secret for the Allies.

As for the company in Russia, I can say that the approach of the Army Group Centre after the capture of Smolensk, it was necessary to go on the offensive on Moscow. Instead, the army split to help other armies complete the encirclement of the Red Army in Kiev and the attack on Leningrad. However, the Red Army troops were already demoralized and could not withstand the offensive of the Army Group Center. The Germans would have managed to capture almost unprotected Moscow before the cold.

In the summer offensive on the Caucasus in 1942, it was necessary not to concentrate mechanized divisions in Stalingrad, but to attack the North Caucasus. Stalingrad could simply be blocked and bombed by aviation.

I suggest you read this thread and a few others in this History Forum to see that most of what you have brought up has already been disposed of. Try keyword searches in History for Dunkirk, Malta, Moscow and Stalingrad.

Did you read any of this thread other than the first post? Look at the post immediately preceding yours to see why a different German treatment of Dunkirk would not have knocked Britain out of the war. Do you know why the tanks stopped? Do you mistakenly believe that since the tanks stopped the entire German Army stopped? Why do you think that if the tanks hadn't stopped the results would have been materially different? What do you think the net results would have been on the number of equipped troops available to defend Britain one month later, or on German tank strength available for an invasion one month later? Do you know that the order of the day that the tanks were stopped called for continued attacks leading to the destruction of the British and French troops caught in the Dunkirk pocket?

While capture of Malta was probably a necessary condition for an Axis victory in North Africa, it certainly wasn't a sufficient one. Even had Malta been taken, the logistic situation in Egypt was such that the Germans could not supply a large enough force to capture the Canal, and even if they did get to the Canal, they couldn't get across. This topic has been thoroughly treated in this forum

Yeah, if it hadn't been for Ultra, the Allies might have been surprised by the Battle of the Bulge. Oh, wait!

There's no doubt that decoding Enigma was of great value to the Western Allies, but what effect did it have on the eastern front, where the war was won? We can get a sense of the impact of lack of Enigma intercepts by studying what happened when the U-boats switched to a four-rotor machine. No decrypts would have made things harder for the western Allies, but it's quite doubtful that the Germans would have been able to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Can you point to a single major land battle on the Western Front that was won only because of Ultra?

Yes you can say that. Many would even agree with you. What you cannot say is that doing so would have resulted in the capture of Moscow or a Soviet capitulation. I do think it would have been the German's best chance. I see no reason to conclude it was bound to succeed.

And what do you think would have happened if the Germans had concentrated on a single central thrust? Do you know the story of Operation Market-Garden? What do you think the Soviet armies not being encircled by the not-diverted panzers would have done?

Really? All of them? The ones that were being deployed in front of Moscow - the ones that were totally separate from the ones being overrun by the German armoured thrusts? What evidence do you have that supports your claim?

Moscow wasn't almost unprotected. The troops which protected Moscow were nor the ones defeated around Smolensk and Vyazma. Please explain how the Germans could have got supplied troops to Moscow faster then the Russians did?

Below, you mention the mistake of directing armoured forces against a city (Stalingrad) in 1942, yet you suggest that's what the Geman should have done in September/October 1941 against Moscow? Because that's all the Germans could have sent, The infantry were not close enough. The Germans used the Panzers for what they was designed to do.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with the location of formations of both side to see why you are going wrong here.

Isn't that exactly what the German plan called for? I think we have a treatment of the Stalingrad campaign somewhere in this forum too. It might do you some good to understand what actually happened once the plan met the enemy.

In all, you are repeating commonplace misconceptions and oversimplifications.

As things happened in reality the Russians had 27 million casualties in the war (estimates from 20-40 million), 11 or 12 million irrecoverable with 8.8+ million dead. They could have lost how many more without falling apart?

The Soviet armies were without well-established command. A very large concentration of armored troops was lost in the early days of the German offensive. Lost because the tanks simply ran out of fuel because of the constant movement in search of the enemy. Personnel purges in 1937 greatly weakened the officer corps. I do not think that the Soviet troops near Kiev could counterattack. They would quickly lose their combat capability because of the inability to find the enemy and the bombing of aviation.

Attack on Moscow really prevented the autumn rains and severe cold. Bryansk and Vyazma would be surrounded as it was in reality but earlier in time. Moscow was protected but not as strongly as by December 41 and the armored units of the Germans remained strong. Let's say Vyazma and Bryansk surround in September and not in October. In October the weather remained good. Therefore, the offensive to Moscow could be successful until the first cold weather, as the Germans counted. They did not have winter clothes that played a fatal role when the cold came.After the capture of Moscow in connection with the cold, the Germans could create a line of defense and prepare for an offensive against the Caucasus.

Are you suggesting that the Russians were on the verge of falling apart from a lack of soldiers when they stormed into Berlin in 1945? The Germans were the ones who ran out of men.

I'm asking not suggesting and in regards to the hypotheticals that were being discussed and the Soviet's ultimate solo conquest of all of Europe in 1947.

That statement is too general to be of much use. Which armies, when? It is not true of all Soviet armies during all phases of the campaign. The Soviet reserve army in front of Moscow was well-controlled.

Yes, these problems all contributed to the initial Soviet collapse. Necessity caused the Soviets to overcome some of these problems fairly quickly.

The troops near Kiev had no problem finding the enemy. The reason they couldn't mount a counter-offensive is because they were being surrounded. They were subject to air attack because the air attacks supported the ground attacks. If the Kiev pocket hadn't been the immediate objective, the air attacks would have been wherever the alternative objective was. Other soviets troops who were not the subject of pincer attacks could and did counter-attack effectively. See the Soviet counterattack which eliminated the German's Yelnya salient during the first week of September 1941.

That's what prevented good movement rates in October and November. In August and September, the problem was logistic capacity. Men advancing on foot, and horse-drawn supply wagons (that's over 80% of the German Army) could only move so fast.

And in late August, the forces the Germans had within striking distance were much less than what they deployed at the end of September when the attack actually began.

Strong? They had suffered considerable losses, as much due to wear and tear as to combat.

No, it didn't. The mobility problems due to rain started to be noticed in the second week of Operation Tphoon.

"Therefore" does not apply, as you have not shown how the Germans, if they had the struck toward Moscow in late Auguest, would have successfully reached it with enough forces to take it. All you have shown is that some of the problems they actually did face later might have been avoided. YOU haven't shown how they would overcome the different problem they would face with an earlier start.

The German command was for the continuation of the offensive against Moscow. For this were Guderian, Halder, Bock. Guderian wrote in his memoirs that he was against Hitler's plan for encircling Kiev. His tanks had to pass 450 kilometers to the south instead of attacking Bryansk and Vyazma. Judging by his exploration of the Soviet troops were not there at a depth of 40 kilometers. He believed that the encirclement was to complete the infantry armies. And the tanks continue to break through the defense in the east.

In the same memoirs, Guderian complains to Hitler that due to the offensive against Kiev, logistical support will become even more complicated.

The force was actually smaller, but there were practically no Soviet troops on this sector either. The tanks of Goth and Guderian were ready for an offensive against Moscow. On their way stood 13 and 21 Soviet armies. In reality, they were defeated. 21 was surrounded by a Kiev boiler. 13 the army was defeated during the offensive on Moscow.

If Germany invents the A-bomb first, then all bets are off. Without that, they would have had a very hard time winning overall (if "winning" means beating everyone else to a surrender). It would have helped them tremendously if they had had a smarter leader who didn't make such stupid tactical errors.

You could say the same about any side though in terms of having the bomb. Germany weren't anywhere near inventing one though

???????

In that case, very likely no WW II

Yes, they were. The fact that many of the senior generals preferred to proceed directly against Moscow doesn't mean such an attack would succeed. Most of the German generals were in favour of Barbarossa as as a whole, and it did not succeed.

Memoirs are not as reliable a source as contemporary documents. Guderian (and others) were known to massage what they wrote post-war to appease the Western victors. However, there does seem to be contemporary evidence that Guderian and others at first opposed the diversion from the Moscow axis of advance. Some of the senior German officers later said that Guderian sold out on this issue - changed his mind and agreed to the diversion when he was given a larger command.

So he could go 50km forward and hit a prepared front, or he could go 450 kilometers south and hit a disorganized, unprotected rear. The armoured doctrine Guderian was pivotal in creating would call the latter the better choice.

Did he?

I somehow doubt it. He may have believed the infantry should be used to deal with the Soviet forces near Kiev, but he couldn't have believed the infantry would be capable of encircling it. They were infantry! they didn't have the mobility required for an encirclement.

Panzers were good at breaking through improvised defences. When faced with prepared defences, doctrine called for combined arms, leaning heavily on infantry and artillery. The panzer spearheads made the progress they did by avoiding prepared positions, or arriving before positions could be prepared. By the end of the Battle of Smolensk, it was too late to get to Moscow ahead of prepared defences, and the only way to avoid these defence was to avoid Moscow.

He's probably correct However, that doesn't mean that the logistical support available in August was sufficient to launch an all-out attack on Moscow, And while a continued central push would have been a simpler problem it wasn't an easier problem. The roughly six week delay provided time for a significant advance of the railhead, and for significantly more infantry to be locally available.

?!? The German's own intelligence assessment at the time of the decision to divert was that the largest concentration of intact Soviet forces on the whole front were those deployed in front of Moscow.

This comment of yours, plus your earlier comment about the Panzers still being strong (when, in fact, they had lost about 50% of their strength), plus your comment bwlwo about what forces stood in the German's way makes me wonder how much of a grasp you have of the forces available. In fact, some historians argue that it was the losses inflicted on the Germans during the pre-diversion Smolensk battles that really decided the fate of Barbarossa. You might find "Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk 10 July – 10 September 1941" by David M. Glantz, informative.

Really? Ready? What gives you that idea?

No, these were not the forces in front of Moscow, these were the forces the Germans defeated before turning their attention on the forces in front of Moscow.

First you have to consider the Reserve Front, consisting of the 24th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st and 32nd Armies. Then you have to consider the formations fed into the Western Front after the Reserve Front had been destroyed in the first phases of Typhun. These included the 6th, 15th, 33rd, 43rd and 49th Armies.

Something else you should consider is that when Barbarossa kicked off, only about half the Soviet army was on the Western front. About a third was in the Far East. The rate of transfer of forces from the Far East depended on Soviet assessment of the situation on the Western front. In mid-August, there were still hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in the Far East. If the Germans had gotten closer to Moscow sooner, the rate of force transfer from the Far East could have been accelerated. And of course, the Soviets mobilized millions more before the Battle of Moscow.

And if the offensive had started earlier in the spring of 1941. The Italian troops did not invade Greece and the Germans would not have to transfer their troops to Yugoslavia. Another let's say after the lessons of 40, the rearmament of anti-tank guns from 40 mm to 88 mm of antiaircraft guns began. Let the encirclement take place near Kiev, but German troops still manage to reach Moscow without dirt and cold. In December 41 it was so cold that the lubricant in tanks and other weapons froze. Therefore, the offensive was exhausted and allowed to hold a counterattack.Moscow was also the center of the jelly-road reports, so that its capture ensured the Wehrmacht's superiority in the occupied territories.

The German build up for Barbarossa started before the Balkan campaigns had finished. By Feb 41, they had over 500,000 men in position.
The start date of 15 Mar was pushed back to 22 June because the rivers were swollen and the crossings were impassable. Even if the Balkan campaign doesn't happen, this doesn't make the weather better or the terrain more passable.

Not sure what lessons you are referring to - the 88 was first used in an anti tank role by the Condor Legion in Spain. Although it gets most press, the 88mm was never the main anti tank weapon of the Wehrmacht, that was the 75mm Pak40
It was during the Spanish Civil War that the deficiencies of the 37mm Pak36 were identified and measures started to replace it in service.

It is true that the Pak36 proved was ineffective against the Soviet KV1 and T34 tanks. So much so that the crews reportedly christened the guns 'door knockers' as they only alerted the tank crew to the guns presence.
However by late 41, the Pak36 was being replaced by the 50mm Pak38 and the 75mm Pak40.
Over 20,000 Pak40 saw service (about the same number of 88mm built).

The German forces had greater disadvantages during the early stages Barbarossa than simply the deficiencies of the Pak36

As an aside, a number of Pak36 were transferred to the Romanian army to provide AntiTank capability and were in service on their sectors of the Stalingrad front. This was a factor in the Romanian collapse in Nov/Dec 1942 as they had no counter to the Soviet tank forces.

Problems with anti-tank weapons were found in the fight against French and English tanks. There was time to completely correct the problem, taking into account the USSR's huge masses of tanks.

It was better for the Germans to arm their own allies. Then it would be possible to avoid the breakthrough of Soviet troops at Stalingrad and Voronezh.

Such a large transfer of the offensive from May 15 to June 22 played a big role. Perhaps if Hitler had provided training to war in winter conditions the result of the battle for Moscow would be different. The soldiers just froze in the vast expanses of Russia, when the USSR concentrated fully equipped winter ammunition divisions.

Above I wrote
It was during the Spanish Civil War that the deficiencies of the 37mm Pak36 were identified and measures started to replace it in service.

It took until late 41 to design, manufacture and put into service a replacement.
If it could have been done earlier then the Pak38 and Pak40 would have seen service in France.

Additionally, the Germans hugely underestimated the size and quality of the Soviet tank force.


They did arm their own allies and it didn't prevent the Soviet breakthroughs.


The expectation was that the war would be over quickly and a winter war would not be necessary. By the time it was obvious that it would be a long war and not a Blitzkrieg, it was too late.

The logistics and supply situation was such that the Wehrmacht needed to prioritise what they moved forward. They prioritised fuel and ammunition over food and clothing to enable the army to continue fighting and moving forward.

The Wehrmacht was ordered to take what food & clothing they needed from the civilian population, even if it meant the civilians starved.
As the Nazi post war planning called for removing the entire population west of the Urals to make room for German settlers, the deaths of civilians was incidental and even encouraged.

The ideologists of Nazism did not think that the army would be hard to fight if the whole country, even the occupied territory, was against them. Although the anti-communist sentiment was strong in the USSR, especially after collectivization. The Germans did not take this into account and eventually became absolute enemies for all Russians.

It's fairly simple. The Germans get the A-bomb before the US, ezgame.jpg.

not that simple

would help in 1942. wouldn't mean a goddamned thing in 1944 unless they were ready to nuke their own territories just so everyone would lose

Everybody in this thread (and life) is massively uninformed. I'd like to be spiteful and call you all delusional but you're simply all uninformed.

WW2, like all wars, was an economic war with some side goals. Germany ****ed up by not going along with the economic financial system and paid the price. There's probably a bunch of German people in this thread and I have 2 nextdoor neighbor kids that are like "OMG I watch Man in the High Castle on Netflix!". Truth is you Germans are idiots and deserved to get destroyed during WW2.

On top of these facts, there's speculation that Germany got obliterated because most of them were Protestants and the Catholic Church wanted revenge. <- I'm leaving this statement as speculation but everything else I've stated is factual.

It was supervised and there was an absolutely 0% chance Axis would win. This whole thread is full of history nerds who haven't done enough research.

Cliffs:
1. I.G. Farben (US company) gave resources to Luftwaffe (German Air Force) to keep that **** going!
2. "Miracle at Dunkirk" is absolute bull**** and really just a ****up that they needed to fix to keep the war going.
3. Operation Paperclip where we absorbed German intelligence.
4. Pearl Harbor being very clearly known about ahead of time.
5. General Patton not being allowed to ride on Germany and then getting assassinated because he's an idiot for complaining.
6. Japan wanting to surrender but Allies saying "**** no!" because it was important for us to drop the bomb.
7. Japan being test-marked for atomic bomb testing. After the Allies firebombed Tokyo, there was a few days where there weren't any bombings because we were preparing for the atomic bombings. Then when Little Boy and Fat Man were flying over undamaged cities in Japan, the people on the ground were wondering... why aren't they bombing us? Lol...

Quotes:

"Germanys unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an own exchange system from which the world-finance couldnt profit anymore. ...We butchered the wrong pig." - Winston Churchill, The Second World War (Book by Winston Churchill, Bern, 1960) [Amazon]

"The war wasnt only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn't want to." - Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946)

"Not the political doctrine of Hitler has hurled us into this war. The reason was the success of his increase in building a new economy. The roots of war were envy, greed and fear." - Major General J.F.C. Fuller, historian, England

"We didn't go to war in 1939 to save Germany from Hitler...or the continent from fascism. Like in 1914 we went to war for the not lesser noble cause that we couldnt accept a German hegemony over Europe." - Sunday Correspondent, London (17.9.1989)

A lot of nonsense here, but why don't we start with just one assertion: What sources do you have to support the suggestion that I.G. Farben was a US company?

You're partially right because I made a small mistake.

It went U.S. Standard Oil (Which is a US Company) -> IG Farben -> Nazi's.

IG Farben is a German company, I just got my companies confused.

http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v13/3/oil.html

http://reformed-theology.org/html/bo...chapter_04.htm