How could Germany have won the war?

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    Pretty good list there…

    What do you think?

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    Before some says: Germany could not have “won” the war, think about the prospect of a regional victory with a negotiated peace.

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    My take:

    Earlier total war mobilization for fighters and submarines (and to some extent tanks upon imminent war with the Soviet Union). If Germany mobilized its full industrial strength in 1939 for a total war, Britain would have been cut off from its Empire by significantly greater numbers of submarines, fighters and bombers (look at war production figures and how small fighter production was in 1939/1940 compared to 1943 and 1944).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

    U-boat production:
    1935 (14)
    1936 (21)
    1937 (1)
    1938 (9)
    1939 (18)
    1940 (50)
    1941 (199)
    1942 (237)
    1943 (284)
    1944 (229)
    1945 (91)

    This would have allowed better results in the Mediterranean and the Middle East (say continue up to 1942). At some point, the Soviet Union would have mobilized and attacked Germany, but the logistics and morale would have worked in Germany’s favor.

    The other aspect is strategic coordination with other allies. If Japan, like Germany had attacked the UK and the DEI but not the US, the US might have been slower entering the war. Besides, Japan could have worked to reach the Middle East and gain access to critical oil production.

  • '12

    It is a good list.  I didn’t pick simpler tanks only because big attrition tank battles occurred in Russia and by this time the end was already assured.  Even if the soviets fell in 1942 it would be to late to take out England and the deadline to win all out in Europe was by the time the atom bomb had been developed.

    Germany producing more subs in 1944 then in 1935+36+37+38+39+40 tells a story.  Even 91 in 1945 was more than all the years of 35-39.

    Taking out England first before the US got into the war.  Then letting Japan and the USA duke it out while Germany takes out Russia as Japan loses.  The US gets the bomb, defeats Japan and leaves Germany alone.  Very plausible.

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    @MrMalachiCrunch:

    It is a good list.  I didn’t pick simpler tanks only because big attrition tank battles occurred in Russia and by this time the end was already assured.  Even if the soviets fell in 1942 it would be to late to take out England and the deadline to win all out in Europe was by the time the atom bomb had been developed.

    Germany producing more subs in 1944 then in 1935+36+37+38+39+40 tells a story.  Even 91 in 1945 was more than all the years of 35-39.

    Taking out England first before the US got into the war.  Then letting Japan and the USA duke it out while Germany takes out Russia as Japan loses.  The US gets the bomb, defeats Japan and leaves Germany alone.  Very plausible.

    Without the racial persecution and the export of scientists, would nukes have been developed earlier in the US vs. Germany?

    A couple of things to potentially add to the list would have been to not alienate the Soviet population and / or spending time / resources / focus on the genocides…

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    One interesting aspect is what if Germany introduced large numbers of long range maritime aircraft to harass the convoys as they get closer to the continent (but still out of range of Britain’s interceptors)

    A few dozens (at most) of FW 200, “scourge of the Atlantic” per W. Churchill sank 331,122 tonnes of shipping from June 1940 to February 1941

    More detail is given here.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerführer_Atlantik

    Allocating a few hundreds of these right of the gate in June 1940 + a battle of Britain with more German fighters + more uboats and Britain would have been completely squeezed out.

    Without supplies, the UK industry would have been completely obliterated and Germany would have had an easier and easier time countering whatever countermeasure the UK would have come up with.

  • '12

    The last items would also have been huge.  Had their propaganda machine been used to turn some soviets against Stalin they could have had much help from the local populaces.

    But even had the racial persecution and the export of scientists occurred and the US got the bomb about the same time, if they were not at war with Germany and only Japan and England had fallen, a nuclear US I think would live with a non-nuclear Germany had Germany spent some effort and propaganda on the US citizens convincing them that Germany had no beef with the US and that it was just a european thing.

    Had it not, the US would have been delayed less than the Germans would have been advanced.  It was not just a few top level nuclear scientist the Germans were short of, it was the huge huge resources put into actually producing the bomb.  The Germans were really not that close at all to making a bomb.  Perhaps by 1950 they could have one.  Look how long it too the Russians and they stole the plans from the US and had the raw materials and manpower to produce what was required.

    I think you could script a game plan for Germany starting in 1935 that makes them master of the world if Hitler could get into power maybe using some fascist philosophies early on then once in power cut that crap out and concentrate on winning wars.  Very scary if Hitler could have suppressed his end goals until the war was won.

    I agree that the goal would be to squeeze out England, more subs and more planes like you said at the right moment before the US got involved was critical.

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    Where was the UK getting it’s oil from in 1940? How long could their war economy have sustained a 80% type interdiction of oil supplies shipped by sea? What type of reserves did they have?

    Any insights, anyone?

  • '12

    Interesting and good questions.  I wonder if oil was the right target and not food.  The island could survive without much oil, tho it would have been harder to fight.  The people could be deprived of oil for the military, but not food.  The island could not feed itself, starving people will sue for peace.  look at Germany in 1918.

    I’m guessing the oil was mostly from the US and that runs the risk of bring the US into the war.  However food shipments could be targeted at non-US supplies of food from the rest of the British commonwealth, like Canada….

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    After lots of research, I found that the UK started its first oil field in 1939, which produced about 2.3 million barrels during the war (there seems to be mention of other fields too, but I can’t find them and they probably entered production in the war later). In comparison, the synthetic oil production in Germany was about 20x larger. So it does seem that the UK was almost totally dependent on oil supplied from the outside!

    The Dukes Wood and Eakring oilfields alone produced 2,269,305 Barrels of oil for the war effort.

    This is approximately equal to the yearly contribution of 43 fully laden sea going tankers. This is almost the same as the number of Oil Tankers lost to enemy U-Boats.

    There were of course other oilfields producing at this time as well as just these two. They too were all run from Eakring by Eakring crew.

    The Dukes Wood and Eakring Oil fields were producing oil when some senior officials in this country were recommending making a deal with Nazi Germany because of the serious lack of oil. These oilfields were making up the shortfall at this critical time.

    In August 1942 Britain’s secretary of Petroleum, Geoffrey Lloyd, called an emergency meeting in London of the Oil Control Board with members of the oil industry’s advisory committee. The subject was the impending crisis in Oil. The Admiralty had reported fuel stocks were two million barrels below safety reserves and were sufficient to meet only two months requirement. The decision was made to bring over American Roughnecks to drill 100 wells rapidly, they did this in total secrecy under wartime conditions.

    The oil produced at Dukes Wood and Eakring was superior in quality to Middle Eastern and North Sea Oil.

    http://www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/eakring.htm

  • '12

    Interesting observations.  I wonder how many ships of oil England required compared to those of food stuffs?  Oil cargo ships may have been easier to escort as there were fewer of them compared to food shipments.  I thought I had read somewhere that the threat was England not being able to feed itself more than the oil earlier on.  Could be wrong tho.

  • '17 '16 '13 '12

    Thinking about this more, the Germans only had to sink shipping going off to the UK. There was no need to acquire air  supremacy over England (acquiring air supremacy over the English channel to enable further shipping destruction would be worth it).

    Let’s not problem that these ships sunk need to be replaced too!


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    Had their propaganda machine been used to turn some soviets against Stalin they could have had much help from the local populaces.

    Very scary if Hitler could have suppressed his end goals until the war was won…

    Yes, Stalin had purged at lot of the minorities, like ukraineans, baltics, cossacks etc etc, and they could have turned against Stalin, not to mention russians that was against communism. But Hitler was against arming slaves, even to fight other slaves, because his main purpose with the war was to kill most of the slaves west of Ural and then populate the Ostland with pure germans. But Hitlers generals did draft a lot of volunteer Ukraineans and Russians, not to forget Vlasov’s cossack army, but they could never tell Hitler about it. They had to do this in secret, so they didnt upset Hitler and ruin his day.

    Yes, if Hitler could have suppressed his urge to kill jews and slaves until the war was won, the history might have turned out different. The german army was always short of supply because Hitler used the railways to bring jews to Auschwitz. Imagine all this trains bringing supplies to the front instead, and the 6 million jews working in factories or fighting as soldiers, it might have made a difference. But then, Hitler would not have been Hitler, and there would not be any WWII.


  • In case you ask me.

    When UK and France declared war , Hitler could have haltet his troops on Germany’s original 1914 borders and stated that he had no more claims, and that the treaties of Versailles and the spirit of Wilson was fulfilled. Then UK and France would be short of any casus belli, and there would be no world war, and Hitler would be considered one of the greatest statesmen of the century because he had restored Germany’s originale borders, not to mention that he lifted Germany out of the depression.

    But since he kept on, the best thing he could do different, was better cooperation with his allies and his generals.

    The treaty with Stalin was clever, the Poland campaign was a success, the attack on Norway to secure the steel trade and treathen the North Sea was a success, and the initial attack on France was a success. But by now Hitler started to mess it up, and he was responsible for the miracle of Dunquirk. If he had trusted his generals, he could have got 350 000 british hostages to enforce a peace treaty.

    But from this point his Italian allied startet to mess things up in Balkan and North Africa. Mussolini attacked Egypt and Greece without telling Hitler, and failed in both places. Hitler could have ignored it, and saved every man for Barbarossa, but then the oil fields in Ploesti would have been vulnerable. Better cooperation with Italy could have avoided the attacks on Egypt and Greece, and made for an ultimate Barbarossa campaign. Or Hitler could have put of Barbarossa, and used all available resources to conquer the rich oil fields in the Middle East, closed the Sues canal, allied with Turkey, and kicked the Brits out of North Africa and the Med. Now Germany would have a great template for a 1942 Russian campaign.

    Better cooperation with Japan could made a successful Barbarossa. If Japan attacked Russia simultanesly, and Hitler let Army Group Center go straight for Moscow, then Moscow would have been conqered. In our real timeline, Moscow was saved by the siberian troops and the non-aggression pact with Japan. As it turned out, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour did not help Germany, it just brought giant military industrial complex USA into the war, and from that point the outcome was pretty much set.


  • @Razor:

    …The german army was always short of supply because Hitler used the railways to bring jews to Auschwitz. Imagine all this trains bringing supplies to the front instead, …

    this might be a part of the reason but mainly had the Reichsbahn to deal with the russian width of the tracks wich was 1542 mm. Reichsbahn Pioneers had to change or switch it to European 1435 mm.

    s4.jpg

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @Razor:

    …The german army was always short of supply because Hitler used the railways to bring jews to Auschwitz. Imagine all this trains bringing supplies to the front instead, …

    That’s a ridiculous assertion.

    Especially considering he used those SAME jews as slave labour, pumping out munitions, supplies, etc, whilst barely feeding them anything.

    1 train ride carries X amount of people for X amount of thousands-man-hours… hmmm


  • Can you be a little more specific Aleposita?

    Not every hard labour was done by Jews or Jews only, there was O.T. and R.A.D who were first in line to build Sub pens etc, etc.
    They were more likely refreshed with workers from Concentration Camps.


  • Keep focus on radar, airfields and fighter aircraft factories during the battle of Britain; I would add attack North Sea and Channel convoys by air along. Force the Royal Air Force to fight over the Channel where the Germans have a better chance of favorable match up.


  • @Omega1759:

    Pretty good list there…

    What do you think?

    Good survey.


  • Thanks Omega:  great poll, question and options.
    I am a great believer in keeping the US out of wars: they always ruin it for other nations!
    WW2 could have been two wars, on two different halves of the planet.
    Hitler’s declaration of war, followed stupidly by Mussolini’s, was unnecessary and brought Patton and Bradley and the II Corps to the shores of Africa, with all the problems that caused the beleaguered Axis forces there. Next was Sicily and Italy’s surrender, then 20 German Divisions holding the Italian Peninsular instead of fighting the Russians. (Hitler called off Zitadelle early for fear of losing control of Italy.)
    I do also think the UK could  have been starved by better use of Navy and Air by German planners. As others have said Sealion was not necessary, only shutting down the Island from outside. The Channel was a great place to draw out the RAF, as the 109 just did not have the combat range to stay too long over England.

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