Question for WW II history buffs

[Amici]

Originally posted by feralmerril:
I am nobody, but I belive if hitler would have let his generals fight the war we would have been in big trouble

Agreed.

Specifically, his biggest mistakes were:

1. NOT eliminating the RAF when it was on the brink of destruction; and

2. THEN invading Russia.

A distant third would be not eliminating Malta as a British base, which cost Rommel much of the supplies he needed in Africa.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by walnutred:
Not a small change but I believe if Hitler had not wasted time, men and machinery rounding up Jews, Poles etc., and diverted those resources into the attack on Stalingrad, he would have won in Russia.
Maybe no won but been able to cut a deal.

But then that wouldn't have been Hitler. Trains carrying victims to the concentration camps had a higher priority than troop and supply trains to the front. That about says it all.

Russia didn't win the war, they drug it out at least two more years. Had Russia declared war on Japan in 1942, and let us build air basses on Russian territory, there would have been no need for the island hopping campaign. A year of heavy bombing on Japanese mainland would probably have brought Japan to her knees in '43 and freed up many of the Pacific resources.

War between the USSR and Japan any sooner than it happened wasn't likely because they both benefited greatly from the non-aggression pact. Japan had just gotten the living crap kicked out of them at Nomonhan and weren't interested in messing with Stalin anymore for a while. The pact allowed both sides to divert troops to face more pressing opportunities/dangers. It allowed Stalin to shift troops to the west, where they stopped the German drive on Moscow. It allowed the Japanese to shift troops from Manchukuo to China and eventually, the Pacific theater. By the time the bombs were dropped and Stalin declared war on Japan, the Kwantung Army was nothing but the sick, lame and lazy. It's why the Soviets left nothing of the Kwantung Army but a red smear on the steppe.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by boomstick:

What is the smallest change that would have resulted in an Axis victory?

If Prozac had been invented 70 or 80 years ago...

Prozac doesn't cure syphilis OR Parkinson's...

 

[n4zov]

Hitler's two biggest mistakes and both probably war-losing were:

1- Declaring war on Russia unnecessarily
2- Declaring war on the US unnecessarily

 

[GatorFarmer]

A fair amount of evidence has emerged that the Russians were in fact massing for an attack on Europe and that German attack in June of 1941 was simply a proactive attempt to strike them before they were fully ready. As such, the Germans bought Europe four years before Russians over ran the Eastern half and saved the Western half entiredly.

Where things could have changed slightly, but significantly changed the war, at least in the East, would have been an earlier official policy (instead of the unuffocial policy that existed basically from day one) of arming Russian (and Ukrainian, etc) Nationalist groups and turning them against the Russians.

However, even without an official policy, about *half* the line company strength of even the SSLAH unit were actually "Hiwis" - Russians who switched sides - in the winter of 1941. Somewhere over a million Russians/former USSR citizens fought for the Axis against Communism.

If the Germans had one, there'd have been a Europen Union with Germany and France as the dominant economies. Oh wait... Huh.

 

[kenpofan]

I'd reccomend the book.

How Hitler could have won World War 2

By Bevin Alexander.

For a History Nut like myself this was a good read.

Patrick

 

[gr8AmericanBash]

Originally posted by pbslinger:
What is the smallest change that would have resulted in an Axis victory?

Aaah, a question for the ages.
My answer: if only Tom Cruise had been alive in the 40's.

Seriously, the Eastern Front killed Germany's chances of winning the war.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Very good thread, I think I'll get that book.

 

[pbslinger]

Very good thread, I think I'll get that book.

In case you are hungover, this isn't the "hottest celebrity" thread

 

[CH47gunner]

Not developing a four engine strategic bomber.
They already had a somewhat ready model - the FW200 Condor.

1) Could/should have used it during the Battle of Britain to eliminate the RAF. Take England off the map & where/why would you stage the European invasion?

2) Could/should have used it to bomb Russian war factories beyond the Ural Mtns. No T34's.

There so many "small" errors that could be pointed out.
1) Failing to take the island of Malta.
2) Getting stuck in Stalingrad instead of taking the Caucusus oil.
3) Not using the ME262/jet fighter until 1944 - Heinkel first flew their jet fighter in 1941.
4) Not throwing Goering out on his fat-ass.

Bruce

 

[S/W - Lifer]

The early development of and unrestricted use of an accurate ICBM with atomic warheads.

 

[David LaPell]

Hitler's generals were terrified of the man. One, he wanted total control over the battelfield, despite his knowing so little. If he would have let his generals do their jobs, Germany might have actually won the war. Hitler also promised Admiral Raeder that the war would not start until 1945, so that Germany would have a modern surface fleet. When the war started in 1939, Raeder stated that the best his ships could do was "die gallantly". He knew that he could never beat the British Royal Navy in a straight up fight.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by CH47gunner:
Not developing a four engine strategic bomber.
They already had a somewhat ready model - the FW200 Condor.

The Fw-200 LOOKS like it'd make a good general purpose bomber, but in fact the bomb load was relatively small, and even with that bomb load, the airframe was seriously over-taxed. If you actually do some serious reading on the Condor, you'll run into pictures of Fw-200s with broken wing spars (trailing edge of the wing actually touching the ground), and even some with broken backs. Some of the pictures show bombs scattered around the aircraft when the airframes failed.

It was based on a commercial airliner with a small passenger and cargo capacity and just couldn't handle a serious war load. The Condor was built for speed, not heavy lift.

There were more appropriate aircraft from Focke-Wulf and Messerschmidt, but there was never the will or the resources to put them into series production. In fact, one of the Messerschmidts is supposed to have flown from France to within miles of the US coast and returned without being detected.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

1. July 1943-Hitler cancels Operation Zitsdelle, the attack on Kursk. Von Manstein appointed Commander in Chief, East.
2. Luftwaffe Chief of Staff Wever survives.
The Luftwaffe develops and adopts a 4 engine bomber. The FW 200 Kondor was basically a reconaissance plane, not a bomber.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

Attacking the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1938, although acquired the excellent Skoda Arms Works and Czech armored units, it sent the Western Powers to begin rearming thus giving Britain just barely the fighters needed to hold off blitzkrieg and Britain the equipment to interfere in the Balkans just enough to delay Barbarosa. The remainder of Czechoslovakia could as easily be taken with Poland. Hitler was content to let the generals run the war when they were attacking, he did not understand the concepts of mobile defense and the crushing defeats that the panzer divisions could inflict on the Soviets in a mobile retreat. By the time of the "Fuhrer Prinzep", the issue was decided.

 

[RufusG]

Originally posted by uzisandfloozies:
1. the germans should have pushed much more aggressively into southern russia, to get to the oil fields, and not been so fixated on taking moscow.

I would have said he was fixated with Stalingrad, but given the same reason otherwise. We like to think we were the big dogs in WWII, but the rooskies did most of the heavy lifting, and if the Nazis would have knocked them out in a year or so, it would have taken us forever, or maybe longer, to win the war.

 

[dennis40x]

No Pearl Harbor no United States fully involved in WW2.

 

[glypnir]

Roosevelt was scared that the Japanese would just attack the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and such spots, and maybe even the Philipines, and he would not be able to rouse US opinion against them. That's one of the reasons for the surprise at the Pearl Harbor attack. He did not believe that they would be so stupid.

Now for WWII and Hitler winning. If the Japanese had done that strategy - just hit at British and Dutch posessions to get the oil they needed, and then continued on that same direction through India, and linked up with the Germans who came across via Africa and maybe with an alliance with Turkey, and not attack Russia and the U.S. until they have a giant land empire across Europe and Asia.

 

[wbraswell]

Germany could never have won a world war. It just wouldn't have the resources or the allies. Roosevelt was not going to let England go under. We would have been drawn into the war eventually by the U-boats being in our waters and sinking our ships. I don't think that Stalin would ever have cut a deal with HItler, after his betrayal. He would have fought to the last Russian.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by wbraswell:
Germany could never have won a world war. It just wouldn't have the resources or the allies. Roosevelt was not going to let England go under. We would have been drawn into the war eventually by the U-boats being in our waters and sinking our ships. I don't think that Stalin would ever have cut a deal with HItler, after his betrayal. He would have fought to the last Russian.

We were already actively engaged with the U-Boot fleet even before Pearl Harbor. In one engagement a US Destroyer rammed a U-Boot, causing the two to become lodged together. The two crews fought it out with smallarms and even thrown shell casings from 3" or 5" guns.

Of course it was a US Navy pilot illegally on board a British Catalina who found the Bismarck immediately before it was found and sunk.