Read my first post in this thread.

General discussion re what would happen in a couple of possible scenarios during world war 2

Shandrax: If Hitler won the war it would be exactly the same as what we are currently witnessing in Europe in terms of the EU

Me: Comparing the Nazi occupation of Europe with the EU is ridiculous. The EU don't have a policy of wiping the Jewish race off the face of the earth for a start

Shandrax: Hitler's main goal wasn't to wipe out the jews. His main goals were to reverse the Versailles Treaty and to destroy the lock that the global financial market had on the world and all the effects that go along with it. Since the system was mostly controlled by jewish companies, they became his target more or less by accident.

Me: The holcaust was unintentional?????

Shandrax: No it wasn't unintentional. It was totally intentional, just not in the year 1933 or 1924 for that matter.

Me: You do realise we're discussing WW2 here? Not 1933 or 1924

Your original post:
So, can you explain in your own words exactly what 1933 or 1924 have to do with this?

With what? WWII? The lead up to the war is relevant to discussing the war and certainly is relevant to discussing what-if scenarios. Shandrax opined about the EU yada yada and you objected, raising the holocaust issue. He responded with his views on Hitler's original intent and you objected because he was going back to Hitler's intention before the war formally started. Imo, it's fair for him to do that and objecting to it tries to win the argument by preventing him from explaining his position because it falls outside some parameter (the dates of the war) defined by you.

Perhaps your intent was to make the point that the war actually happened, the holocaust actually happened, and Hitler's original intent in 1924 and/or 1933 is rendered irrelevant. But it didn't come off that way based on the way you worded your post ("You do realise we're discussing WW2 here? Not 1933 or 1924"). Although I can see how someone could interpret that sentence differently than what I consider the more obvious interpretation (of not considering anything that happened before the war started).

FWIW, I otherwise agree with you and think the comparison with the EU is absurd, in part for the reason you stated.

The 2nd paragraph was indeed the point I was making, i.e. these things did happen. We can guess at people intentions in various scenarios based on intent etc but in this case we don't need to guess as we see exactly what happened.

George,

As for the possibilities that would have came with Germany fully developing a nuclear bomb during WW2. Assuming that Germany did get the bomb toward the end of the war, I think the most likely nuclear target for Germany would have been somewhere in Russia. As the UK(toward the end of the war) would have seemingly been a tougher task for Germany to hit with a successful nuclear strike.

Not if they mounted it to a rocket.

German missiles as in the V2 came with faults. They were effective but at times the rocket would miss its intended location.

I dont feel Germany would have trusted a non- human piloted aircraft carrying out the worlds first(assuming the strike is before the USA hits Japan with the atom bomb) nuclear attack.

But that's the nice thing about nukes. You don't have to be all that accurate. Rocketry--even by 1945 standards--is actually a lot less prone to human error than dropping a bomb out of an aircraft. It's mostly a question of technical expertise.

The problem with mounting it on a rocket would be the weight involved. But if that wasn't an issue then it may actually have been a better option than delivering it by aircraft given the allied air superiority on both fronts

Little Boy (Hiroshima bomb) weighed in at 4,400 kilos.
The V2 payload was only 1,000 kilos so, even if they had a bomb, rocket delivery wasn't really an option.

Also, the V2 range was only about 200 miles, not enough to strike any major Soviet target unless you're going to use your nuke as a battlefield tactical weapon.

The only aircraft the Luftwaffe possessed that could carry that size payload was the Heinkel He 177 - an aircraft with notoriously unreliable engines that were prone to overheating and fire.

As a side note. from mid 1944 virtually all Germany's bomber force was grounded by a combination of personnel, parts and fuel shortages.

The lack of a delivery system is moot because they had so little chance of getting the bomb first. Most of the key scientists in the field were either in the US or working on the original British Tube Alloys projects that was folded into the Manhattan project. That 's not to say that most of the key scientist were American or British - they were mostly refugees from Axis or Axis-occupied countries. If the Americans had not been involved, then it might have been a tighter three-way race with Britain and Canada, Russia and Germany being the likely finishing order. In that race, finishing third is a lot worse than getting a bronze medal at the Olympics.

Fully agree with your assessment on the possibility of developing a weapon.

My response was directed at the posts starting #30 that made the assumption that Germany somehow had a nuclear bomb.

I guess my primary point is that development of the bomb is not the only factor, as the Germans also lacked an effective delivery system.

What if Germany never manages to recover in time after the treaty of Versailles and Hitler never gets the support and popularity for his rise to power? Would tension between the USSR and the west would lead to WW2? How would that play out?

By the West do you mean France and the UK?

Yes, IF the US would get involved in this, it would surely not be from the start. And there is also the problem of Japan. Which side would the Japanese take(that is if they take any sides)?

I think it would have been the other way around, a year delay would have benefited the US. Japan had been importing something like 90%+ of their steel and oil from the US before the US stopped trading with Japan due to their war in China. That's why they felt they had to start the war when they did, they were pretty much out of resources. At the time of Pearl Harbor the Japanese only had 1 carrier under construction and no resources to build more, I think the US had 11-13 new carriers due to come online in 1943 so time was working against Japan. It was similar to Germany's situation with Russia where the clock was ticking and they required a quick and early knockout to win.

Yeah, I agree that the Japanese had a limited amount of time in which to act. They knew that the US Congress had authorized 13 new fleet carriers. Eventually 32 were planned and 24 actually commissioned. However, "due to come online in 1943" may be a bit misleading as to how much of a window of opportunity the Japanese had. The first of the new ships was only ready for action in the Pacific about 18 months after Pearl Harbor. And only two or three others were available for action in late 1943. If the Japanese had caught the US Pacific Fleet carriers in Pearl Harbor, they likely would have had naval superiority in the Pacific until 1944, instead of losing it in 1942.

The carrier under construction was the Taiho. While resources to build more aircraft carriers were scarce, the Japanese completed 5 more fleet carriers (2 from converted liners and 3 built from scratch) and some light carriers after Midway, but few of them conducted air operations.

Yes, we're talking about Russia. I was responding to a question by Mason regarding whether Germany could have defeated Russia.

But if the US hadn't entered the war, then Overload probably doesn't happen (unless much later) and Germany has launch sites from France and Belgium to use against the UK and bases for medium and short range bombers (and would there be much left of the RAF without US involvement?).

It's Overlord. You're right. Without the US, a cross-channel invasion of Europe that is the main western offensive against Germany doesn't happen. Italy, south of France and the Balkans are all more likely.

As expat has correctly pointed out, the Germans didn't have a delivery system for the Bomb. Fedex was probably not an option. Of course, that's unimportant because Germany would not have got the bomb before Britain.

Why wouldn't there be? They had already defeated the Luftwaffe without US involvement.

More likely but doesn't prevent Germany from attacking the UK by air. The north France invasion took away airfields and V2 launch sites.

The Germans didn't have a delivery system for the American bomb. If Germany created a nuclear bomb it might have been smaller and lighter than the American design. It could have been delivered by a bomber to the UK, or by truck to Russia. And if small enough, by the V2. And within context of this discussion, all I wrote was, "If Germany got the bomb, then it's a different story." And it was in reference to Russia, not the UK.

The UK won the battle of Brittan before American involvement. But the Luftwaffe was destroyed mostly due the the American effort in 1943. But you have a point about the RAF still being viable throughout the war. But not viable enough to prevent England from being bombed if Hitler had the bomb, imo.

You have made the point more than once that you don't believe Germany could have gotten the bomb before the UK, the US or Russia. Fine. Let's pretend Santa Claus gave Hitler a dozen nukes and no one knew how many Hitler had. Can Germany win the war?

The American design was already about as small and light as 1940s technology could make it. It would have taken several more years to make a bomb small and light enough to fit in Germany's existing bombers, and even more time to make it fit on a V-2. Germany's best bet would be to develop a purpose-built aircraft to deliver it.

Bomber survival rates over the UK were lower than over Japan.

LOL! Are you seriously suggesting the Germans could smuggle a truck through the Russian lines, and then drive it for hundreds of kilometres through Russian-occupied territory and get it to a Russian city?

No. The American bombs weighed nearly 4x as much as a Mercury space capsule. Missile delivery wasn't going to happen until the mid-1950s, mostly due to advances in bomb technology that reduced the size of bombs.

Practical delivery to a Russian target would have been a lot more difficult than to a British target.

What you are asking is equivalent to "If we suspend the laws of physics, could Germany win the war?" What's the point of such a question? If you can suspend the laws of physics, I suppose anything can happen.

If the Germans had a much larger supply of bombs than the better-resourced Americans were able to produce, they might have been able to knock Britain out of the war. Not Russia. Too hard to deliver bombs to meaningful Russian targets - the distances were too great.

The American bomb was already about as small and light as 1940s American technology could make it. Obviously, since only the Americans had the bomb only the American technology existed. If in a what-if scenario Germany had the bomb then the technology might have been different.

Which doesn't prevent Germany from delivering the bomb, especially if they had several.

No, I wasn't suggesting that even in the slightest. I original responded to Mason's question with

"I don't think Germany could have defeated Russia in a conventional war even if it wasn't also fighting in the west. Moscow is a long way from Germany and the supply lines would be vulnerable, to say the least. Even if Germany conquered Moscow, such a victory would be short lived, as Russian forces would eventually surround the city, cutting off all resources. So long as Stalin escaped and was controlling the army, German occupation of Moscow wouldn't stop him. If Germany got the bomb, then it's a different story."

In such a scenario Germany is occupying Russian territory and can transport trucks into Russia behind its own lines.

If small enough . . .

By bomber probably. Unless Germany established advanced air fields in the east (such as in east Poland or even in Russia).

No, just trying to get you to stick to what I originally posted in response to Mason. Although you finally addressed my post, sort of, in your last paragraph.

If they had progressed as I stated then they could have knocked Russia out of the war if they had the bomb at that time. Stalin would have to concede. Britain, on the other hand, would be happily speaking German and wearing Lederhosen (LOL).

Seriously, Germany wanted Russia's resources and she could have concentrated it's efforts in those areas and forced Russia to back off with its army if she had the bomb. The UK would have been neutralized and Germany might have held most of Europe for many years. Or if the war essentially progressed as it did in Russia, and Germany got the bomb later, they could have used it tactically against the Russian army and achieved a stalemate for a number of years, or sued for peace.

New hypothetical (with bonus question)

What happens of instead of going into the pacific, Japan attacks Russia from the east? 100% blitzkrieg land war. Germany does the same from the west. Sues for peace with the US, UK and France under an umbrella of anti communism...

Question, of course, is "why didn't Japan do this?"

Because it didn't meet their strategic goals of controlling East Asian/Pacific resources, and didn't fit their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere ideology. What exactly is the upside to dispatching a million or so troops to Siberia? Russia is frickin huge, and there isn't a lot of reason to think Japan would have fared a good deal better than Germany.

I guess the idea is that the SU would be the one fighting a war on two fronts rather than Germany.

You say ideology. Interesting choice of word... Can you expand. I thought it was more practical rather than ideological...