"Soviet Union collapsed in the opening months of Barbarossa" Topic

…and Manhattan Project failed to produce a working atomic bomb?

"What do you gentlemen estimate the situation of the world would be like, sans nukes and a rapid German victory over the Red Army in, say, about 4˝ months?

Germans, even in total victory, are unlikely to push as far as the Russian Far Eastern Pacific coast. Thus, the US would have still turned the Japanese navy to ash and would have blockaded the home islands, stopping short of invading them.

What would the picture look like in Festung Europa, Afrika, and the Middle East, and where would Britain stand in all of this, since by early 1942 the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, unburdened by the demanding Ostkrieg, would now be free to cause mayhem…"

link

Armand

Written by and for Nazi lovers.
The very name of the site is a clue.
More clickbait nonsense. You've been warned.
"How can we guarantee that the pure Aryan race triumphs, as it so richly deserved?"

Well… it's your own opinion… I found many threads there very interesting…

TMP link

Armand

I'd agree with Tango. That site has some useful stuff that wasn't readily available elsewhere when I went looking for it. Don't knock a whole site just because it has a few articles like this. There is plenty of 'gung-ho' ahistorical rubbish glorifying Allied actions so one has to accept to similar from Axis.

The assumptions in the article are untenable and so the scenario it poses is impossible.

Don't knock a whole site just because it has a few articles like this.

🙄

Back in the halcyon days of the previous century, when the OFM was a YFM, I subscribed to the Avalon Hill General.
There was a rubbish article about how the Germans defended Normandy with a single 1000 man battalion, armed with Tiger II tanks. The author called them "Supermen".
My very first ever Letter to the Editor was a furious condemnation. I very neatly cancelled my subscription.
So, I do hold a publication responsible for publishing "rubbish". Even though it did publish useful stuff like "perfect plans" for Stalingrad or Waterloo. 🙄

I'm too lazy to read the article

However, I'm of the opinion that wars are more usually won by economic/political action

1. Would a more comprehensive defeat of the red army in 1941 have prevented further Russian fighting? Would East front still have required a vast amount of resources from Germany? To Russians this was absolutely the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis were clear that they considered the Slavs an inferior race (a political/economic issue)

2. Could US manufacturing might have ever been overcome? (an economic issue)

3. Without Britain as a staging point, invasion of Europe would have been much harder. If Britain had surrendered this might have enabled German military success. (political issue)

4. Nuclear weapons accelerated Japanese surrender. Tokyo firebombing caused 100000 civilian casualties, more than initial deaths at Hiroshima. So perhaps a year before US could have started directing battle hardened marines into Europe… (political issue)

Now it is fun to play what if, how else would you ever wargame with a straight face? Must be able to distinguish between fun and serious analysis. I'm sure with enough Tiger II assuming mechanical reliability, ammunition and fuel could have stopped the Normandy invasion in its tracks. At least until the second wave got going. Or not. Definitely a multiple beer discussion. And Rommel should have been in charge

How about Rommel obeying orders and not sucking resources into North Africa? German High Command thought it was an issue….

John

Thanks

Armand

The atomic bomb, historically, proved to be practical (let alone the hydrogen bomb) therefore it somehow would have to be "discovered" and invented/created.

There was much discussion in the early 40s amongst scientists that it was totally impossible, bit like the idea that the very atmosphere could take part in a chain reaction. Dead end ideas like Heavy Water, OK, but they had to get there with the investment and the scientists involved.

As for the USSR collapsing. Moscow could be occupied, even Josef Djugavishli (heck I cannot do his name with out Google check, so I will not bother) could be overthrown, but we know how the "Russians" have fought on historically. Even if they did not know they were facing an insane genocide of all Slavs, whatever their faith

Thanks also my good friend…

Armand

Accepting the (implausible) hypothesis that the USSR folded, then presumably the Luftwaffe would have refocussed on Britain. It got close enough to destroying Fighter Command once – it might have done it again. At that point an invasion of Britain would have been plausible because a navy without air cover was dead in the water. Certainly the 8th Army would have been run out of North Africa.

With the USSR gone, Japan would not have been choked of oil so might never have drawn the USA into the war. It would have been catastrophic for Jews, Roma etc.

Silly but kind of fun.

Cheers,
John

It's often stated that the luftwaffe came close to destroying fighter command. Even AI says: "The Luftwaffe came dangerously close to crippling RAF Fighter Command in late August and early September 1940, particularly by targeting airfields and operations rooms."

The number of replacement pilots is often underestimated in such assessments. I was interested to notice it appears whichever AI google chrome uses is aware of that. There were more could have been made available than were officially listed. Actually pushing fighter command over that edge would have relied on a competence in planning and intel that the nazi leadership historically repeatedly failed to display.

The luftwaffe could conceivably have "won" in 1940 if you change many things. German leadership, manufacturing approach, selection of projects approach, different airplanes, far better intel…. and probably a few other things don't spring to mind just now.
They'd have lost again in 1942 without those changes so you need them in your what if.

I think germany could conceivably have beaten the soviets.
At least to the point whoever replaced stalin would sue for peace.
A fair few things have to change as well though and by the time all those changes happen you'd be looking at some people aren't like the nazis running germany.
EG if they hadn't been driving jews out the country then the nuclear bomb would have almost certainly taken way longer to invent.
If they hadn't been totally disorganised then they'd have realised building capital ships was a huge waste and u boats were what they should have focussed on.
If they weren't utterly totally corrupt to the core then they'd have had more competent people organising things, designers and manufacturers focussed on the greater good rather than competing for attention.

I'm not sure what this winning Germany does for oil. Maybe it's getting it off a defeated cowed soviet union.

On economics of ww2 I would recommend the book why the allies won. Also well worth while listening to the podcast "we have ways of making you talk" it's free if you have amazon prime.

Erzherzog Johann, during World War II, no one had any idea about the oil reserves in Siberia. The bulk of Soviet oil was then produced in the Caucasus – in Azerbaijan and Chechnya. The main economic interests in Siberia at that time were gold, coal and timber.

Andy ONeill, if Germany had defeated the USSR—and the Germans planned to end the war by reaching the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, capturing the USSR's main industrial regions—they would have gained control of almost all of the Soviet Union's known resources at the time, including industrial capacity and a significant labor force. They would have been able to quickly establish resource extraction and production in the captured territories.
The Nazis could have demobilized a significant portion of their soldiers, returning them to production. Or they could have targeted Iran, Afghanistan, and India. After the capture of Moscow, Japan en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantokuen would have entered the war against the USSR and captured the Far East and Siberia, which would have allowed the Germans and Japanese to reunite for joint operations and overland trade.
How would all this have affected Germany's ability to fight Britain?

I was referring to the Caucasus oil fields. Germany and Japan were allies. Why would Germany not have sold oil to Japan to break the US blockade?

Cheers,
John

The nazi leaders of history were very bad at planning, organising design and manufacture. They wasted the substantial resources of occupied countries.
Given the whole of Russia they could likely have wasted a lot of those resources as well.

If the German leaders were more capable, considerate and, well, not zealots…. The Russians might well have been helpful. As it was, planning to wipe out swathes of Russia for "living space" of the superior race would likely have meant serious resistance even after our theoretical surrender.

Having said that, they presumably get some oil once everything is repaired and trains organised. No ostfront means they can likely force turkey on side and go for Egypt.
They would still have big problems at sea.
They still can't invade Britain as there's no practical way to get here.

One interesting point they raised on that podcast I mentioned. Hitler pushed the army to take Ukraine for oil. There was no plan on how that oil was going to get to germany. This is typical of nazi planing, or lack thereof.
German soldiers were greeted enthusiastically as liberators in some parts. This was a surprise because no research had been done.
The Baedeker raids were chosen by using tourist guides. No better intelligence.

It's often stated that the luftwaffe came close to destroying fighter command. Even AI says: "The Luftwaffe came dangerously close to crippling RAF Fighter Command in late August and early September 1940, particularly by targeting airfields and operations rooms."

You're treating AI as a reliable source? Really??? Seriously???
🙄

Thanks also…

Armand