Posted on 08/02/2015 7:44:26 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Invading the North American mainland can be safely left in the realm of bad Hollywood films. And that's even today, with larger ships, jet cargo aircraft, and more people. While it makes for a great strategy, in the end, it's just a nonstarter. Why?
The Germans had no forward base in the New World. If they had seized Iceland, any of the French protectorates in the Caribbean, or northern South America, then an invasion, while still a stretch, could have been conceivable. Without forward bases to deploy to and from, an invasion isn't going to happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
The Man in the High Castle
A gun behind every blade of grass.
Only if Hitler's miracle weapons (jet planes, V-2 rockets,) had been developed much more prominently (and maybe like you said the a-bomb) would Germany have stood a chance. The U.S. was also fighting a war against Japan that did not get near the resources the European war got. We (and Britain and the Dominion countries as well) soundly defeated Japan. After a year of success, Japan was thoroughly crushed.
Germany simply did not have the manpower and resources to see it through a prolonged war against the combined might of the Allies. How Hitler would have been able to successfully attack the U.S. mainland considering all that would entail would have been well night impossible. He would have had to invade some South or Central American country to establish a base and hope the supply lines weren't interrupted. Pretty doubtful.
The tragedy, of course, is that Hitler might have been stopped as late as 1938 if Britain had stood up to Hitler and supported France. And there were a number of generals on the German general staff who were more than willing to try and depose Hitler as well.
I think a tad more “interesting” is the question of what would have happened had Germany won World War I? I think most historians (and I am but a casual student) would agree that the ramifications of WWI were quite a bit more profound than WW2.
Arguably, there very well might not have been a WW2 without the result of WW1 as it turned out. No doubt some lower level conflicts may have arisen intra-Europe because of the convoluted alliances that had been built up in the 19th century.
Almost certainly, there would not have been the rise of Naziism. There wouldn’t have been this disgruntled corporal named Adolf Hitler who, for better or worse, right or wrong, thought his nation had been sold out and betrayed by literally everybody.
And the Brits would not have obtained the power to divvy up the Ottoman empire into the present day states of Iraq and Israel and Jordan.
But Germany, in many respects a brand new country in 1870, patently stronger and more technically advanced than say Belgium and Holland and understandably lacking the overseas possessions aka colonies those smaller nations had come into over many many decades....always felt like the brunt of the neighborhood. A resentful position, again, right or wrong.
I have to disagree here. I think they would have been a lot more serious about raising their children and cracking down on the leftists in the US.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
The elves and dwarves would have battled them until a great wizard came to lead us all.
“Good thing they stopped at Pearl Harbor.”
Yeah, right after the bombing.
The actual invasion of Normandy, just in terms of ships, involved 1,213 warships, 4,126 transport vessels and about 1,600 vessels of other types.
The US produced 2,710 Liberty ships and 534 Victory ships to transport this stuff to the ETO and PTO.
In addition, the US produced 35,000 landing craft to get the troops ashore.
Let's also not forget we produced 24 Essex class aircraft carriers along with 101 escort type carriers. And we were slowing production down of these in late '44/early '45.
The key stat though was oil production. We were self sufficient and Germany wasn't.
Simply put, Germany did not have the industrial base to produce anything near this requirement to deploy a force across the Atlantic and to sustain it.
The US was the only country with the industrial base to be able to conduct a two front strategy while supplying its two major allies with substantial military aid.
Those things are like crack. Completely addicting.
Yeah, they blew that.
I got the regular ones they had last time.
I miss the old days where there was a plain, white box with unknown local manufacturer.
They were cheap and awesome. I could eat a half-a-dozen in no time. Butter and sop up some turkey gravy. Yum.
A more interesting question would be what would have happened if they had a better leader and later actually had something militarily effective as a payload on the V2.
Basically, they would have won the war, except for the gross and continual strategic and tactical mistakes of their political leadership. IMO, the Allies were very lucky.
“Simply put, Germany did not have the industrial base to produce anything near this requirement to deploy a force across the Atlantic and to sustain it.”
...which is why they were so interested in lightning war. Had they consolidated their gains, the territories that they took had those resources.
“This required a massive production of Liberty ships along with escort carriers and destroyers to secure the Atlantic. “
Well, as Stalin supposedly said, “Quantity has a quality all of its own”.
Ether that or the WWII vets would have stopped our slide into the abyss.
I think had the Germans treated the Russians humanely, many would have welcomed them as liberators from Stalin.
Weak? Timid? Tell that to the Russians, British, French, Poles, et. al. The German soldier may have been the best ever fielded by any country. They were fighting against much greater forces and still almost succeeded. If they had obtained a nuclear weapon first, it would have been a much different story.
Britain wasn't ready for war in 1938. Their military was in sad shape.
I really think this is an overlooked aspect of the Eastern Front. All Hitler had to do was "play nice" until he'd won and then he could've enacted his plans.
Good thing he was an idiot.
Actually the time to stop Hitler was 1936, when he crossed into The Rhineland, he issued orders to turn around if the French started shooting at them. Of course, there wasn’t a single bullet fired at them.
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