elcavatar
In 1941 Britain was desperate for military aid and was ready to pull out of the war.
Being ready to pull out of the war is very far removed from being on the edge of collapse. In 1941 the sun still didn't set for too long on the British Empire.
It wasn't till America joined and later Russia's military build up that the German forces started to get spread out through too many fronts.
In terms of the way the war played out of course, that hasn't been what I've been talking about though.
Germany's U-boats dominated the seas. If it wasn't for the cracking of the code, neither Britains nor Americas Atlantic navy could stand up to Germany.
The U-Boats were a grossly overrated threat in terms of military capacity. They had a relatively speaking extremely limited amount of time they could remain submersed, they were a great danger early on when they had a significant element of surprise- that fell through fairly quickly which is why they moved to focusing their efforts on merchant vessels and avoiding war ships.
The amount of infantry and armor is an issue when discussing England. A navy alone cannot win you a war.
When you are an island it can defend you nigh completely. Much as is the case with China and Taiwan today-
IF they were joined by land China could decimate them with extreme ease. The problem is that they can not
project their military might as Taiwan's Navy is capable of sinking every troop transport China could muster. The same was the case with Germany in the 1940s and they were well aware of that fact.
The Bismarck forced Norfolk and Suffolk to retreat and sank HMS Hood while severly damaging Prince of Wales. It was actually the captains mistake of radioing Hitler while in need of repairs that brought down the Bismark. When Britain got Bismarcks location they used biplanes to cripple the Bismarck. So to try and say Germany was scared of Britains navy is kinda silly. There was a reason the Bismarck was trying to hide. Generally after you pretty much defeat 4 ships and get damaged in the process, you might want to get repairs before facing more ships.
The Bismark was attempting to hide from the moment it left dock- there were considerable concerns that the ship would lose much of its advantage if they were forced to confront any war ships until it could reach the open Atlantic. Also- the fact that the Bismark was sunk due to intelligence and a
biplane(well, the torpedo she was packing ) is quite demonstrative of why the Royal Navy was vastly superior to anything the Germans could offer. They were a complete organization- Germany tried to build the best equiptment and figured they could win by that alone.
They took Rome because Germany was laying a withdrawl. Allied forces had to fight through mountainous terrain and terrible weather. Their forces were exhausted by the time they reached the Gustav Line as the terrain highly favored Germany. The Allies were haulted there.
You are again talking about exactly what happened, not alternatives which is what I have been talking about since the beginning. Take all of the troops sitting in England and relieve the front line soldiers with them and then redouble your efforts. To handle "D-Day" try the Marines from the Pacific who had considerable experience and would have been
significantly more effective then the green troops that actually pulled it off.
Actually Madagascar was the "final solution".
No, it wasn't. Territoriale Endlosung != Gesamtlosung.
g33k-
However, I think you don't give the Russians enough credit. The vast majority of the Wehrmacht was fighting the Soviets.
The Russians were fighting an exhausted, freezing force without enough food or supplies to be effective by any reasonable standard and still had significant difficulty defeating them. That isn't to say that the Russians were not extremely poorly equipped themselves, but the Germans had both hands tied behind their back and were outnumbered by an overwhelming amount and they still nearly won. I appreciate exactly what contributions the Russian Army had during WW2, I see it as one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. We could have avoided most of the major wars and suffering the world saw since then had the Germans rolled the Russians flat and then the Allies(US/UK) could have dealt with them on their own. So many of the Worlds problems would have been solved- no terrorized Eastern Europe, no Chinese revolution(and Tibet invasion), no Vietnam, no Korea, no Cuba and none of the regimes we put in place in the name of fighting them(that we now have to take out one by one).
This lacks reference to a point in time or time period or even a place or battle. A blanket statement like this is wrong. While I agree during the winter of 1941, the Germans were confident, but completely lacked winter provisions. This was a lack of foresight on the Germans and it cost them perhaps the only chance they had of victory.
It cost them nigh certain victory.
But to say the German soldiers never feared the Russians sounds like Nazi propaganda that claimed the Russians were sub-human. It didn't take long for the Germans to realize they fought more like superhumans than subhumans.
The Russian's fought like superhumans? Are you a Stalin booster? The Russian foot soldiers performed to death or they, and then perhaps their entire family, would be slaughtered by their superiors. They fought very, very poorly- they just fought without surrender. If they had fought like superhumans the Germans wouldn't have had a 10:1 kill ratio- that would have been the other way around. Not that the Germans fought like superhumans either- the fact that they were so completely inept and
still managed a 10:1 kill ratio speaks volumes about just how poor a fighting force the Russians were.
However Germany could have focused on Gibralter, Africa and the Middle East, instead of invading Russia. There would have been no way for the UK to defend these with such numbers of German troops.
They already had.... what do you mean? Rommel himself was leading the African campaign, it was fought over the course of years; I don't know exactly what to make of this comment.
If England had been knocked out of the war, which could have easily happened if Hitler did not let the Allied army escape at Dunkirk, I really doubt the US would have went to war against Germany. The US and the UK were very close allies in the 20th century. If the UK had settled for peace, no reason for the US to get involved. This is mostly conjecture though and debatable.
Moot point- Germany declared was on the United States. After Peal Harbor we were going to war. If not for England we would have simply expedited dealing with Japan and then made very short work of Germany.
Why would we nuke France, when Germany was the enemy?
Too much static thinking regarding maps these days It wasn't France, it was Germany. Besides- 'Operation Ironclad' ring a bell? We openly invaded French territory(that they actually held) killing its soldiers- without any Axis power around.
You say Germany lost because of German incompetence. Well what about Stalin's mistakes? The Red Army lost thousands of tanks all of its planes and 2.5 million men during the first few months and still beat the German!
Stalin was a moron at best, that is a given.
I am saying that Germany made a huge miscalculation and even if they were perfect, they had a small chance, if any of winning a war against Russia.
If they launched the invasion in spring- Lustwaffe followed by Panzer followed by infantry they would have taken Russia fairly easily.
The Red Army was quite capable of taking the entire European continent with conventional arms immediatly after WWII and through most of the Cold War.
After WW2 there wasn't anything left of continental Europe though.
To compare the Red Army of 1945 with China is not even a close comparison. The Red Army was technologically on par with the US in conventional arms. Along with superior numbers, they had an excellent chance to take all of Europe if they so wished.
They had the US/UK to worry about and we were certainly far more then a match for Russia at that point in time, quite easily. Atomic bombs can not be forgotten about for an instant in this discussion as we were the only game in town- Russia lacked any atomic program in 1945, and we had proven repeatedly are willingness to use them. Russia was quite weak and inept- they assumed as much power as they did as they were rolling over the ashes of war.
Had the allies not been successful on D-Day, France, Germany, Greece and perhaps Italy would have enjoyed 50 years of communism along with the rest of Eastern Europe as the Soviet Unioun would have "liberated" them.
I was talking about in the context of not doing D-Day at all- ever. If we had used the spearhead we had in Italy and focused all of our efforts there we could have prevented the communists from gaining nearly as much ground as they did.
Steelski-
Another thing that puzzles me. Why was germany not nuked........Ah yes. Because its in mainland europe and not a great place to nuke anyone.
Another reason could have been
we didn't have the bomb YET. It was a few months after the German surrender that we finished the Manhattan Project. It certainly would have been used- the long term effects of radiation were not known in any way at that point in time- we would have dropped dozens/hundreds if that is what it took.
Why was Viatnam not Nuked????????????????????
I can think of a few thousand reasons. Pretty much all of them involving very high power Soviet ICBMs tipped with multi megaton warheads
if you could be helpful and post figures. but seriously, how can you deny what achivement their army made? it was leagues ahead of anyone else on land.
No, Shaka managed more entirely on foot.
THAT was impressive.
even if that was the case it still tells me that it was a mistake to attack Russia. Also is this muther russia yours? then dont call it mother russia.
What term should be used then? I was not talking about the Soviet Union at large, I was not talking about a province of it nor was I talking about the people in it. I was talking about the mother land to the Russian people.
No I dont I do know that the Royal navy was leagues ahead yes but you also can speculate as to exactly what would have happend if all resources were concentrated in the West.
And the US's Navy was busy in the Pacific. What would happen to those ships when Japan was finished? Germany was hopeless trying to project its power using Naval capability.
And why do we not hear so much about this entry. ........because it was no way on the same scale as it was in france. There is also no real point of resource from Africa, Britain was the Key.
Same scale? I'm not sure what you mean. The African campaign lasted for several years and was handled by Rommel- how was France of larger scale?
Also, Did you know that Britain was facing Bankruptcy nearing the end of the war........?
We all were at some point during the war.
BFG-
A couple of divisions? The combined German/Axis invasion army in Russia was about 4 million. Most of the German war machine entered Russia but never made it out.
Of Panzers. Should have clarified that.
The soldiers positioned in France largely consisted of rejects, for lack of a better word. Germany's best divisions were sent to Russia and destroyed.
Destroyed by winter and then replaced with rejects- that is where Russians actually started making progress.
Right, so you would nuke your ally France, vapourise their civilians and then send in your soldiers to die of slow radiation poisoning?
The allies invaded parts of France during WW2 too- they were not an ally of ours. We had a common enemy- that was it. We were not foolish enough to enter into the obscene multilateral treatise nightmare that caused WW2. As far as radiation poisoning- why not talk about DNA evidence in WW2, both were pretty much equally well known. We knew nothing about radiation poisoning at the time. As I stated- it may not have been the right thing to do but that certainly doesn't mean it wouldn't have been done.
The answer is not very and to effectively nuke the whole of France and be sure you got most of the German forces you would've needed thousands of nukes which simply didn't exist back then.
Large German troop concentration- drop the bomb. If no large German troop concentration- invade. It isn't nearly as complex as you make it out to be. With the very seasoned Pacific soldiers coming back from dozens of D-Days an atomic bomb followed by them spearheading an invasion would have been extremely effective at obliterating the German's shoreline defenses.
In pure man-power they could well have but of course there are other factors such as weapons, artillery (or rather missiles these days), tanks and aircraft. In 1945 the Red Army was not lacking any of these and probably outnumbered all the Allies combined.
We had them significantly ouclassed in terms of aviation- they were sickeningly inept at best in that regard(which is why they needed us to carry out their air support missions) their artillery was mainly what they had taken from Germany and their tanks were negated by air power(they were very ineffectual in surface to air operations). Is there any particular number you would like? I have a breakdown of every armored vehicle produced during WW2 including prototypes.
In 1941 they were underequipped but by the time the war turned they most certainly were not. Also their tanks and artillery were some of the best in the world from a technological standpoint.
The T44 was OK, but they only managed to make 200 of those. The T-34-85 was weak at best- and that is what they had a lot of. It was what, 1943 before a radio became standard equiptment on Soviet tanks? They could produce a lot of tanks, and they could produce good tanks- but at that time they could not produce a lot of good tanks. In terms of artillery German's were superior
by far to all the allies. The V2 made everything else look like a joke in comparison.
At the end of the war Russia's military production capabilities rivaled those of the United States, if not exceeded them.
They were not remotely close. Remember that the US was still producing all areas of military equiptment- for the UK and the US, on top of keeping itself fully operational. If all US industry had been converted to tank/arms production we could have dwarfed anything the Russians could have managed in years.
In particular look up the tactical fighting strengths of the Red Army by the time the war ended.
The Red Army was slaughtered by the Germans. If not for Germany's own stupidity/arrogance and the Red Army's massive numbers then they would have lost quite quickly. Also- we were cutting off fuel, tanks and air craft from reaching the Eastern front for years prior to the Russians making any advances.
If the Allies hadn't entered the war Russia could've conquered the entire continent of Europe all by themselves with ease.
With the level of air supremacy and production supremacy Germany had(before US/UK intervention) not a chance.
At the peak of the Battle of Britan it most certainly was and RAF commanders admit another 2 weeks of Germany's airfield bombings would've forced them to remove their planes from south England effectively paving the way for Operation Sealion
There are a whole lot of 'another two week' type statements revolving around WW2. Using those same standards London and Moscow both fell years prior to the agression reducing(as in- London and Moscow both wrongly assumed they could not possibly withstand the level of boming they endured).
And that's saying nothing about the German U-Boats that were roaming the Atlantic at will and sinking Merchant ships as they pleased.
Merchant ships. Shows how much confidence they had in their awe inspiring UBoats.