Posted on 06/22/2021 10:05:55 AM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
One other huge factor was the Soviet Union’s role in the botching of de-colonialization.
I dunno about that plan. Germany would have controlled all of Siberia and 50% of Asia. Rail lines across Siberia to Manchuria would have connected the Reich with the Empire of the Sun. Germany would have sent troops to help fight the Japs. Totally different scenario indeed.
Fixed it.
It’s time to break out The Russian Campaign, Squad Leader, or, War in the East. PanzerBlitz would also be acceptable.
I have those.
I don’t think I’ve played them since college.
The Ballad of October 16--The Almanac Singers (1941)
But when launched Barbarossa, they turned on a dime and became flag-waving super patriots.
The Sinking of the Reuben James--The Almanac Singers (1942)
Any good books to recommend?
A much bigger threat would have been moving the U-Boot fleet to the Pacific, but there would have been big logistic hurdles to that. And they still had a war with Britain to pursue.
My personal opinion is that the Germans lost the war at Dunkirk: if they had captured the BEF, Britain would have had no army and the Germans 400,000 British hostages. If they had offered an armistice I think even Churchill would have been forced to take it. The Germans would have asked for a few concessions like their colonies in Africa back. But they would have insisted on heavy reparations to be paid in kind to Germany as war material, especially vehicles. With no shortages of oil or raw materials and additional war material extracted from both France and Britain and no war in North Africa, the Wehrmacht would have been an even more formidable opponent for Stalin.
That would have left them with an enormous left flank... a situation due to the failure of Barbarossa that the Germans had to deal with in 1942 with Fall Blau.
Good movie
They also deported the Polish pilots that defended Britain during the Blitz
Wasn’t he Alsatian?
Yes.
Shame! Shame!
There is still quite the community of gamers out there. There are even ways to play by email like cyberboard and Vassal (and Vasl).
Despite the monster that he was, we can thank Stalin for the success of D-Day due to his armies . Had Germany's forces been concentrated on the Atlantic coast, the war would have lasted much longer and possibly could have ended differently.
A bigger blunder than the daft Halt Order...at Dunkirk and Calais
Hitlers Wehrmacht flag officers were mostly incredibly brave and capable battle scarred tough men some from aristocrat lineage in old Prussia ..arguably as a capable a consortium of generals and field marshals ever assembled in modern war
But aside from Beck and Rommel few had the balls to oppose Hitler
Terrified of the man they were it seems
Don’t shoot the messenger
Mark Clark wrote extensively of this after the war..
Wehrmacht leadership and troop combat motivation inflicted a 50% higher casualty rate on American and British troops than vice versa
Even when outnumbered which was the usual...and attacking or defending
And while our advanced trained troops were effective as well as pacific marines...the Brits were pretty damn good ....and yet they too lost casualty rate wise...
Anyhow ...we overwhelmed them....which is what we do when we are determined and what we should have done in Indochina
Barbarossa was so foolish...not many years prior Russia was seen as balance to an aggressive Poland in Weimar years
Hitler was not a military tactician
I disagree: if he had gone for and sized the oil fields first. That would have shut the Russians down.
Adolf? Is that you? No just kidding perhaps you’re right...though they say one must destroy the enemy forces to win wars.
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