Midway had a whole bunch of "fog of war" issues. The US carrier Hornet launched its air strike on the wrong heading. The torpedo squadron commander realized this and adjusted meaning he was going in alone. This pulled all of the Zeros which annihilated the torpedo squadron but put the Zeros out of position when the squadrons of the other US carriers arrived from a different direction and had free runs without the Zeros harassing them.

So the US made a mistake by launching on the wrong direction where only one squadron from that launch reached the target (the bombers and fighters never made it to the battle). The Japanese made a mistake by sending all of their CAP to the lone torpedo squadron. And ultimately the US was able to cash in on their own mistake which caused the Japanese mistake. Any number of woulda, coulda, shouldas may have easily turned this into a US debacle rather than a resounding victory.

It depends what you mean by 'defeat.' In my opinion there was zero chance of the United States ever 'losing' and next to zero chance of Britain ever being successfully invaded by the Germans, but had a few things gone differently in 1941-1943, the Soviet Union could have potentially fallen or at the very least devolved into a never ending stalemate.

One of those things was the securement of the Suez canal and the mediterranean. The Germans could have easily kicked Britain out of Africa, and invaded Gibraltar, effectively sealing off the soft underbelly. The could have then attacked the Soviet Union from the west and south, effectively destroying the biggest trade route between the allies and the Soviet Union (through Iran). As you probably know, the Soviet Union had a severe deficit in coal and other energy when they lost their biggest energy region near Dnepropetrovsk. The loss of some or all of the caucasian oil fields from the south would have severely limited their war effort with Germany and either resulted in a negotiated truce or in a stalemate.

Alternate scenarios in the east could have been the Germans being better prepared for the winter 1941, and stopping their winter offensive before they were overextended, however they had lost almost a million men in the 1941 campaign and likely could not have attacked along the whole front anyway in 1942. Hitler was right in the sense that winning the war in the east would have meant winning the war of resources, and his strategic decision to capture the Caucusus oilfields in 1942 was likely correct, however there were extreme logistical issues plaguing the Germans right from the get go, and those issues were never more harshly felt than in Blau. Stalingrad was largely undefended in August 1942, and it was a very near run thing, but it's unlikely the Germans would have been able to capture and hold the city anyway due to their supply problems. The Caucusus campaign was likely destined to fail because of these issues as well.

Another potentiality was the continued bleeding of the Red Army via mobile warfare and elastic defense (Manstein) rather than the static world war I era defense (hitler) that led to high casualties for the Germans in 1943-44. The Russians had been literally bled white up until that point and a couple million more casualties for them would have meant the war protracting into a stalemate and likely concessions.

The defeat of the Soviet Union would likely lead to a cold war between Britain-USA and German European hegemony, and would probably have resulted in the first atomic bombs being dropped on Germany, but who knows if the Germans would have had nuclear weaponry at that time. They had a program of their own and were not far behind the Americans up until 1941 ish.

The Germans could have never conquered the world, but they could have easily held onto Europe and captured territory from the USSR, which essentially was their war end-game anyway.

As far as the war in the west goes, Germany lost their greatest chance at a protracted war when Hitler failed to capture the hundreds of thousands of allied troops at Dunkirk. He let them escape because he believed it would lead to peace with Britain, but really it allowed them to assist in the invasion of Europe that much sooner.

In my opinion Japan never stood a chance. Their defeat was inevitable vs. the United States behemoth. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the people in the United States were never going to stop until they were victorious, and any losses at Midway or Leyte would have done nothing to change this. It might have prolonged the war, but with Japans allies nowhere near to help with their own naval force projection and Japans severe lacking in natural resources, it was only a matter of time.

'Winning' in the conventional sense wasn't the Japanese war aim.
The gameplan was to play for a stalemate.

The Japanese High Command regarded the US as an inferior, mongrel race that lacked the will to win if it meant taking heavy casualties (racial bias).

The plan was to seize the raw materials needed and establish a defensive perimeter. Then to defend that perimeter while inflicting as many casualties as possible on the US attacking forces. The premise was this would alienate US public opinion and force the US administration to accept a negotiated peace.


Midway
Japanese victory at Midway pushes the US forces back over 1,000 miles and makes it that much harder to regain the lost territory.
It would also make it that much harder for Roosevelt to justify and implement the 'Germany first' policy.
If 'Germany first' becomes 'Japan first', then

A lot of the lend lease that went to UK and Soviet Union gets diverted to the Pacific theatre to satisfy the demands of the generals and admirals there.
The Soviet Union war effort would be hampered by this and their recovery and advance into Eastern/Western Europe is delayed

It's possible that the strategic air war against Germany is scaled back with aircraft diverted to the Pacific.

Operation Torch, Husky and Overlord - all delayed if they take place at all.



The final outcome is an still allied victory ( nuclear weapons) but the shape of the post war world is totally different.

Could Japan have just kept China and Korea and Germany just kept Poland, Czechloslovakia, Hungary, Romania, etc., negotiated a peace and it's all good?

Would China have eventually expelled Japan?

Would all that just have lead to a later war with the UK, USSR, and USA? Or maybe not if mutually assured destruction prevents it? Or maybe there would have been total nuclear war in 1950 or w/e.

The allies, and the UK especially, would never have negotiated a peace with Germany on those terms.

My understanding is that the German's felt they could. Apparently they couldn't because I think that's what they were hoping the pause in the Western War would result in. So, I guess you're right, but I wonder if it had been just about anyone but Churchill in the UK.

Hi microbet:

I suspect the problem with this is that Hitler had already proved he would break any agreement he saw fit to break.

Best wishes,
Mason

heh...

It doesn't matter. The Japanese had no chance at capturing Hawaii, which meant that even if they scored 3-0 in AC and captured the island of Midway, the American industrial juggernaut would have overcome them eventually. Decisive victory at Midway wins the Pacific war for the US quicker, and decisive loss only delays it.

Hi Everyone:

I just watched the show Nazi Mega-Weapons about Wernher von Braun and the V2 Rocket. According to the show, if the V2 was perfected six months earlier, and a lot more would have been produced, Germany might have had the ability to start destroying English cities forcing England out of the war, and perhaps then no D-Day.

Best wishes,
Mason

Haven't seen the show but I'd be interested to hear how they come to that conclusion. The Blitz never forced Britain out of the war so I'm not sure how they think this would've. If it looked likely to be the case I'd also assume the allies would've focused much more of their resources on nullifying this threat.

The V2 was a fairly blunt terror weapong and it was hugely resource heavy. Germany wouldn't have had the capability to increase production without crippling other areas of the war economy. It also never actually killed many people, although a lot of this was down to British intelligence sending false reports that affected German targetting. If we look at the figures, 1402 V2's were fired at London, killing 2754 and injuring 6523. If we also look at the raw figures in terms of explosives, the V2 had a 2200lb warhead but we can compare that to the bombing of Germany and the allies dropped over 2000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries in under 2 hours on Cologne in May 1942 and this was less than half the record for the war, which was 4800 tons dropped on dortmund in a single raid in 1945. So with that in mind I'd dispute their conclusions.

Finally, I enjoy thinking about 'what if' scenarios occasionally but this seems to be one that's out of the realms of possibility. It's akin to thinking what if Germany had managed to get a nucear bomb? They could then have forced Britain out of the war. Sure that would probably be the case but it's not realistic.

Growing up I heard from time to time bemusings by my German friends of "I wonder what happened if Germany won WW2 yadda yadda."

I've always wanted to get in there face and laugh at them for the real truth that we absolutely annihilated Germany. Instead I've decided to just post it here as history and the real truth have already settled the score.

"James Bacque's book, Other Losses explains how US and Allied Forces starved 700,000 German soldiers in open detention camps after they surrendered. Then we starved another 5,000,000 German civilians in post WW II Germany."

And let's not forget the Rape of Berlin

This is a deeply flawed book promoting a false narrative.

The author misrepresents and misinterprets the events and the situation as it was in Western Europe in 1945/1946.

If you're interested in understanding the actual events at the end of WW2, I suggest you start by reading this review of the book by a panel of historians and specialists.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/2...trocities.html

Hi Husker:

The conclusion came from the idea that there was no defense for the V2. Thus if Germany had enough of them, including a bigger bomb payload, they could systematically destroy British cities.

The show also pointed out, as you do, that the weapon was very resource heavy and that the massive investment, $500 billion in today's money (which seems hard to believe), probably hurt the German war effort by taking resources away from other places.

Best wishes,
Mason

In terms of nullifying the threat I was thinking more of at the source. The allies had bombed peenemunde but I'm assuming they would've given it an even higher priority if Germany had increased capacity in terms of their V2's.

The money spent on the project was definitely eye watering. I think it was more expensive than the Manhatten project, which is incredicle. Thankfully for the allies Hitler had a habit of getting his priorities wrong when it came to weapons developmnent and specifications etc, the ME262 being a case in point.

There was a lot of paranoia in the German leadership circles about what weapons the Allies were developing.
Wernher von Braun and his team were quite adept at feeding this paranoia and convincing Hitler the allies were developing long range rockets and were ahead of Germany in the race.
This enabled him to get priority assigned to the V2 project to the detriment of U-boat and other weapons production.

There was similar paranoia on the Allied side with regard to the production of atomic weapons. The Allies believed the Germans were much more advanced than they actually were and accordingly assigned a higher priority to the Manhatten project.

The difference being that the Allies had the industrial capacity to continue the Manhatten project without major impact on other weapons production.


Side Note
The German conscription policy in the first years of the war had a major detrimental effect on all their R&D efforts.
There were no occupational distinctions made, so many of the younger mathematicians and scientists found themselves conscripted into rifle regiments.

Hi Husker:

True. Except that according to the show the Germans had developed mobile launchers for the V2 after their original base at Peenemünde had been destroyed.

The show agreed with this point.

Best wishes,
Mason

What if Japan pursued a foreign policy designed to appease the US instead of bombing Pearl Harbor?

What if Germany solidified it's hold on mainland Europe before messing with Russia?

My impression has been that Germany and Japan lost because they bit off more than they could chew, and their hand got caught in the cookie jar.

I should probably have clarified my statement a bit better, i meant targetting the industry involved in the construction etc of the V2's rather than the launchers.

Germany had a pretty solid hold on mainland Europe, that wasn't where their problems came from.

Going to war with Russia lost Germany the war. They had one bullet in the chamber in 1941 and it missed. They were in a difficult position and the only place they could attack was Russia, and they had to do it asap before the Red Army was back on its feet. It almost worked, but when it didn't, the war was over for the most part. Germany could have done a lot of things differently (Dunkirk, Atlantic U-boat program, kick Brits out of middle east and capture Dakar---even more atlantic war) and it would have increased their chances, but because Russia held on in 41 is the sole reason they lost the war imo.

The only foreign policy acceptable to the US would have been for Japan to withdraw from mainland China and give up on their dreams of empire.

That was totally unacceptable to Japan's military leadership.

From the Japanese POV, the US sanctions were painting them into a corner from which the only way out was war.

This is largely true and I believe was Roosevelts plan anyway. He pushed the Japanese to the point they had no other option but to go to war. Not saying it was the wrong decision, but WWII was "Colonial Powers Vying for World Domination: Part 2"

But this was resolved as well. After their base at Peenemünde was destroyed, the Germans moved to another base that was located deep underground where bombing wouldn't have much effect.

Best wishes,
Mason

No, that's just a conspiracy theory.

This wasn't Roosevelt's plan - it was a result of his ( and the State Dept) mistaken understanding of the Japanese leadership.

They didn't realise how deeply the Japanese military government were emotionally invested in their version of 'Bushido' and that they were prepared to die rather than lose face.

Roosevelt's calculation was that, faced with economic ruin because of the oil embargo, the Japanese would back down and negotiate to save as much of their territorial gains as possible.