German Strategic Mistakes

AllthingsCP

Watch the Video on how Hilter lost the war,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5agLW7fTzBc

Then pop back on here leave your feed back and see can we add to the list.

solas111

A fascinating lecture and thank you for posting the link.

As I was watching it I could not help but dwell on the way that modern day Ireland and the European Union are being driven by a particular ideology with no room for manoeuvring or alternative thinking. Like Hitler’s Germany, could this adherence to strict free market ideology lead to our ultimate downfall?

AllthingsCP

solas111 wrote: »

A fascinating lecture and thank you for posting the link.

As I was watching it I could not help but dwell on the way that modern day Ireland and the European Union are being driven by a particular ideology with no room for manoeuvring or alternative thinking. Like Hitler’s Germany, could this adherence to strict free market ideology lead to our ultimate downfall?

What i found interesting was {Not in this video but in one of the other's by that user}, Is that Hitler at the start of his government and right up into the late 1936 & 37 believed that USA would invade Canada to combat United Kingdom hold on Northern America, And this was in some way included into Hitler plans with dealing with already weaken United Kingdom and USA.



''Details of an amazing American military plan for an attack to wipe out a major part of the British Army are today revealed for the first time.
In 1930, a mere nine years before the outbreak of World War Two, America drew up proposals specifically aimed at eliminating all British land forces in Canada and the North Atlantic, thus destroying Britain's trading ability and bringing the country to its knees.
Previously unparalleled troop movements were launched as an overture to an invasion of Canada, which was to include massive bombing raids on key industrial targets and the use of chemical weapons, the latter signed off at the highest level by none other than the legendary General Douglas MacArthur.
The plans, revealed in a Channel 5 documentary, were one of a number of military contingency plans drawn up against a number of potential enemies, including the Caribbean islands and China. There was even one to combat an internal uprising within the United States.
In the end there was no question of President Franklin D. Roosevelt subscribing to what was known as War Plan Red. Instead the two countries became the firmest of allies during WW2, an occasionally strained alliance that continues to this day.
Still, it is fascinating that there were enough people inside the American political and military establishment who thought that such a war was feasible.
While outside of America, both Churchill and Hitler also thought it a possibility during the 30s - a time of deep economic and political uncertainty''.
Daily Mail

Google for full Doc on Channel 5 .

Really their was a lot of factors that the German's {Hitler the High Command and the Nationalist Socialist Party} stupidly discarded in the development stages of war with the USA. Also the sheer lack of any real organised attack or defense plan with Japan or communication for that matter compared to the Allied force was just leaps and bounds apart.

And top of all this their was a completed drain on manpower and resource on the Eastern front where once again their was little to no support from Japan.

Look at some of these stats how could Germany have won production wise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

{Wiki to War-Plan-Red
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red


America War on Britain
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Mod sorry for all the links but once everyone is on the same page we should be up for a good discussion.

riffmongous

Considering american defense elements came up with a plan to kill their own people and blame cuba its not actually that surprising what else they drew up plans for

AllthingsCP

riffmongous wrote: »

Considering american defense elements came up with a plan to kill their own people and blame cuba its not actually that surprising what else they drew up plans for

Luckily in the end it was decided a war with Britain would be too costly and it was abandon. They reckon that Canadian forces at later stages in the war would have push past New York. And the US would have destroyed their own infrastructure up to 70miles in-front of the Canadian and UK forces. US needed a quick attack and a quick end and a war with UK would have lasted a lot longer then anyone wanted.

Jawgap

I've read all of Andrew Robert's books, including the two referred to at the start, and would generally be a 'fan' of his work I would disagree strongly with his idea that Germany could have won WWII.

There was nothing Germany could have done to 'win' - the only way a German victory could have come about was if the Western Allies (or Britain before that) committed a monumental error of grand strategy, such as a Japan-first policy, or an attempted to return to NW Europe in late 1942 or 1943, and even then they probably would only have postponed the inevitable by a few years.

In terms of grand strategy, their mistakes, in order of magnitude were
1. Miscalculating the British and French willingness to come to Poland's aid
2. Declaring war on the US
3. Not driving all out for Moscow, once Barbarossa had been launched

Of course it might have all ended differently if Halifax, instead of Churchill, had been prime minister.

AllthingsCP

Jawgap wrote: »

I've read all of Andrew Robert's books, including the two referred to at the start, and would generally be a 'fan' of his work I would disagree strongly with his idea that Germany could have won WWII.

There was nothing Germany could have done to 'win' - the only way a German victory could have come about was if the Western Allies (or Britain before that) committed a monumental error of grand strategy, such as a Japan-first policy, or an attempted to return to NW Europe in late 1942 or 1943, and even then they probably would only have postponed the inevitable by a few years.

In terms of grand strategy, their mistakes, in order of magnitude were
1. Miscalculating the British and French willingness to come to Poland's aid
2. Declaring war on the US
3. Not driving all out for Moscow, once Barbarossa had been launched

Of course it might have all ended differently if Halifax, instead of Churchill, had been prime minister.

If America did not enter the war when it did, or Japan invades main land USA after Pearl Harbor, The German's defeat the UK and France in the west before declaring war on the USSR, Pressure would be lifted on Italy in Africa and the could better support the war in Eastern Europe.

riffmongous

I would have thought myself that not having a proper plan to invade Britain was the biggest strategic mistake of the war

AllthingsCP

riffmongous wrote: »

I would have thought myself that not having a proper plan to invade Britain was the biggest strategic mistake of the war

Nazi German at the start was like a steam engine once's started hard to stop, Once stopped bloody hard to start again. They should have really push home on the fear that existed in England and invaded.

Jawgap

AllthingsCP wrote: »

If America did not enter the war when it did, or Japan invades main land USA after Pearl Harbor, The German's defeat the UK and France in the west before declaring war on the USSR, Pressure would be lifted on Italy in Africa and the could better support the war in Eastern Europe.

I don't think that even in the most favourable of circumstances and with the best of luck the Japanese could have landed a force and sustained it on the contintental US - I doubt it could even have occupied any of the Hawaiian Islands for more than a token period - certainly no longer than six months.

riffmongous wrote: »

I would have thought myself that not having a proper plan to invade Britain was the biggest strategic mistake of the war

The Germans completely lacked the capacity, technology and organisation to launch a successful invasion of the UK, therefore they were completely incapable of developing any plan to invade the UK.

Up until the Summer of 1940, the only amphibious operation the Germans had conducted was the invasion of Norway - even though they eventually subdued the country using a combination of airborne troops and a ground force transported by sea, the Royal Navy recovered from its initial surprise and eventually punished the smaller Kriegsmarine - the German surface fleet lost nearly half its strength in vessels sunk or seriously damaged.

In contrast to any operation that might have been directed at the UK, the Germans in Norway were not required to conduct beach assaults. They landed into poorly defended Norwegian harbours, lacking adequate defences and were supported by an unchallenged and powerful Luftwaffe.

They conceived the potential invasion as a river crossing on a broad front and intended to rely heavily on mines to isolate the invasion routes along with airpower to neutralise the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands) and provide tactical support to the invasion!!!

The UK's fate was in it's own hands and many of their C-in-Cs knew it as did Churchill and the key members of the Defence Committee (Operations). They were reasonably confident they could avoid defeat.

AllthingsCP

Jawgap wrote: »

I don't think that even in the most favorable of circumstances and with the best of luck the Japanese could have landed a force and sustained it on the continental US - I doubt it could even have occupied any of the Hawaiian Islands for more than a token period - certainly no longer than six months..

Ok but surely after the bombing of Pearl the Japanese Navy was superior on the Pacific, And maybe could have harass the United States on the west, Panama Canal was a choke point that the Japaneses could have better exploited days after Pearl Harbor when America was reeling from the attack and stopped the Atlantic Fleet from the reinforcement of the Pacific.

Jawgap

After Pearl the US Navy had 16 battleships, 7 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, 19 light cruisers, 6 anti-aircraft cruisers, 171 destroyers and 114 submarines split between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The Japanese had 12 carriers (6 heavy & 6 light), 10 battleships, 18 heavy cruisers, 20 light cruisers, 126 destroyers and 118 subs.

I'd say they were ascendant but not superior - plus the US had much more tonnage under construction including 25 carriers. At the same time the Japanese were only building 7.

The endurance of the Japanese carriers was about 10,000 nm - Pearl was about 3,600 nm from the Home Islands so just about within their range. The west coast (Los Angeles) of the continental US is about 4,800 nm from Japan - beyond the range of the Japanese carriers unless they steamed in a straight line or had a coaling / refueling station in the eastern Pacific.

And even if they had the required eastern Pacific base, unless Pearl was neutralised, the US Navy would have been astride their supply lines back to Japan.

AllthingsCP

Jawgap wrote: »

After Pearl the US Navy had 16 battleships, 7 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, 19 light cruisers, 6 anti-aircraft cruisers, 171 destroyers and 114 submarines split between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The Japanese had 12 carriers (6 heavy & 6 light), 10 battleships, 18 heavy cruisers, 20 light cruisers, 126 destroyers and 118 subs.

I'd say they were ascendant but not superior - plus the US had much more tonnage under construction including 25 carriers. At the same time the Japanese were only building 7.

The endurance of the Japanese carriers was about 10,000 nm - Pearl was about 3,600 nm from the Home Islands so just about within their range. The west coast (Los Angeles) of the continental US is about 4,800 nm from Japan - beyond the range of the Japanese carriers unless they steamed in a straight line or had a coaling / refueling station in the eastern Pacific.

And even if they had the required eastern Pacific base, unless Pearl was neutralised, the US Navy would have been astride their supply lines back to Japan.

Ok so an invasion on Hawaii Pearl City was not possible, But what if Japan had won at Midway and went on to capture Australian ports.

What if the Rivalry between the Commanders of the Navy didn't exists and they offered more supporter to one another.

Really its not a question of could they win but could they stall the American Navy and Army for longer the 5-17 months to allow their axis forces in Europe to get into a position to offer help on the Atlantic Coast and knock UK out of the War disabling some of USA ports in the Pacific.

Jawgap

AllthingsCP wrote: »

Ok so an invasion on Hawaii Pearl City was not possible, But what if Japan had won at Midway and went on to capture Australian ports.

What if the Rivalry between the Commanders of the Navy didn't exists and they offered more supporter to one another.

Really its not a question of could they win but could they stall the American Navy and Army for longer the 5-17 months to allow their axis forces in Europe to get into a position to offer help on the Atlantic Coast and knock UK out of the War disabling some of USA ports in the Pacific.

To what end would be the question I'd ask. If they succeeded beyond the wildest realms of their most optimistic dreams and knocked Australia (and New Zealand) out of the war, then what? The US would still have all its formidable power to bring to bear and the Japanese would be faced with trying to support a force at the end of very long and vulnerable supply lines.

What saved Japan from an earlier defeat was the Germany First policy of the Allies - if they offered a greater threat Roosevelt could quite easily have gone for a Japan First policy and piled support into South East Asia and the British / Commonwealth forces fighting there, and into the Chinese Nationalists - squeezing the Japanese on three broad fronts.

Even at the height of operations in Europe, the US were still supplying their forces in the Pacific with one ton of supplies for every two pounds the Japanese were able to provide to theirs.

I'd suggest there was nothing the Germans could have done to defeat the British, unless the British made some or a series of shocking strategic errors.

Stovepipe

why did you regard the Germans as having miscalculated with regard to the response of Britain and France's response to the war on Poland? The Germans had claimed Czechoslovakia in an easy, bloodless victory, had annexed Austria effortlessly and had done a deal on Poland with Russia. Everything they had tried, they succeeded on, so why would they even think that the UK/France would even react at all?
With regard to war plans, why the furore about US plans versus Canada? Every war department/staff college of the major armies of the period had drafted similar plans with regard to their immediate neighbours, anyway, even if only as a wargaming exercise. Such plans would be dusted down every few years and updated, just in case.
With regards to the inability of the Kriegsmarine to make amphibious landings, well, that condition applied to every Navy of the time. There was little or no landing craft (of the type later seen at Dieppe and Torch) availability and probably all European forces that actually moved troops over water depended heavily on good rail facilities/heavy crane equipped harbours and a large merchant marine. At least, the British, Italians and French had the experience of decades of moving large quantities of men and materials around their empires.
With regard to Britain's ability to defend itself from a direct German invasion, they did seriously consider evacuating the Royals to Canada and Dunkirk left them critically short of artillery, anti-tank guns, ammunition for same and motor vehicles such as military-grade trucks and most important, decent tanks. I'm of the opinion that if Hitler had pushed his forces across the Channel as a continuation of Dunkirk, in the timeframe May-June, then the British would have found it very difficult to dislodge them. If the Germans had been able to establish a toehold and keep it sustained for long enough, then it could have compelled an early US intervention or a Canadian/Empire intervention.

Jawgap

Hitler was a compulsive gambler - he gambled Britain and France would not honour the guarantees given on Poland - the gamble backfired

Michael Burleigh in his history of the Third Reich mentions that Hitler regarded Britain and France as "ineffectual and weak" and that they could not (not "would not") fight a war on behalf of Poland. In France's case, however, he seemed to have overlooked the fact that the French had over 7 billion Francs invested in Poland.

Hitler knew there was unfinished business with the French, but he didn't think Poland would trigger a war with them. If anything their strategic plans envisaged war with France in or around 1943 - as evidenced by their war production plans.

War with Britain wasn't really in his plans and he regularly held forth his views that he would like to have allied with Britain. He also thought it fairly inconceivable that two Saxon countries could go to war with each other.

On the question of invasion, the Germans were a land continental force, the British a seapower - that's why the Germans successfully evicted the British from the continent and why they would have failed to sustain a landing - they may have got troops ashore but given the British Home Fleet was still knocking around and the British still had a powerful air force could they (the Germans) have forced the issue? - especially as Churchill was also willing, apparently, to deploy gas.

They may have lacked artillery, but Bomber Command was still a potent force and had already identified aiming points and had well advanced plans to bomb the beaches and coastal towns.

AllthingsCP

Stovepipe wrote: »

why the furore about US plans versus Canada? Every war department/staff college of the major armies of the period had drafted similar plans with regard to their immediate neighbours, anyway, even if only as a wargaming exercise. Such plans would be dusted down every few years and updated, just in case.

These where not just war-plans the USA started to Re-deploy thousands of troops and tanks near the Canadian border, built airfields and re-deploy Air support to these, and Huge base's in preparation for an invasion where build and maintained. Fleets where re-organised to counter and English invasion. Just and alternative history on WWII if it happen and not many are aware of it.

Stovepipe

When it comes to strategic mistakes, I think the failure to build a large four-engine bomber was one...apart from that, the policy of alienating races and nationalities that would have willingly come under the German flag, such as the Baltic states, was one........the failure to utilise female workpower and depend on slave labour in factories........the failure to get the 262 into combat earlier and in decent quantities.........the failure to win the mass production of tanks race. As one bitter german panzer man said, "by the time the factory has finished grinding the wheels of a panzer, the russians have turned out a whole T34". Also, the sheer cost to the German war effort/economy by having the whole concentration / death camp system. Apart from the blatant horror of it all, it took huge resources from the rail system and it sucked up manpower like nobody's business.

regards
Stovepipe

silverharp

Stovepipe wrote: »

When it comes to strategic mistakes, I think the failure to build a large four-engine bomber was one...

out of divilment Ill dispute this , a 4 engine bomber costs more, uses more fuel and needs more crew and they wouldn't have changed the course of any particular front. While they might have inflicted more civilian casualties , they never had the capacity to take British or Russian industry to breaking point.

As for the Me262, it was a flawed design as Hitler wanted everything to carry bombs. And even still , they would only have been strategic in 1940 by 43 it didn't matter how good German fighters were.

in essence their "Hi tech" approach was utterly flawed and history concludes that most wars are won with the equipment available at the start of the war.

Jawgap

The problem wasn't that they didn't develop a heavy / strategic bomber - the problem was that they wanted it to have a dive bomber capability!!

In 1936 they flew the first of what became known as Uralbombers - the Do19 and Ju89. The problem was that the guy who championed the long range bomber - Walter Wever - died just after the project 'took off.' Kesselring took on the project and was more focused on army support and killed off the project.

Later in 1937, Heinkel were given a contract to develop a long range multi-engine bomber (Project 1041). This they developed as the He177 and it flew in November 1949. The plan was to produce about 400 of these in 1942, 900 in 1943 and 1500 in 1944. In terms of range and bomblift, it didn't compare well with the Lancaster and B17.

What knackered the project though was Udet - who then was head of Luftwaffe Technical Development - insisting the thing be able to dive bomb - that is deliver bombs in a shallow dive. This led to a 'unique' engine configuration which caused significant technical problems.

The problem with the Me262 was Hitler's insistence that it fulfil a fighter-bomber role, rather than them just be used as an air defence fighter. Anyway, even if they had brought it in earlier, it wouldn't have made much of a difference - by that stage the Luftwaffe were starved of aviation fuel to the point where not only could they not run anything like a proper training programme (leading to an increased accident rate as well as increased combat losses), they couldn't run engines to operate the dynamos that powered the fairly excellent airborne radar sets they had, and they couldn't put up large formations of fighters.

Stovepipe

Hi there,
If the similar sized British economy could field three four engine bombers, then the Germans could have fielded at least one. Technically, it wasn't beyond them and a four-engine bomber would have had a greater impact during the Blitz and the night raids on industrial Britain. Time and again, the He111 couldn't deliver big enough loads to devastate factories and they often had to revisit targets. A case in point is Supermarine in the South. They flattened it and prompted the move to Castle Bromwich of critical Spitfire production and hastened the use of shadow factories and the dispersal of subassembly production. But, it took repeated attacks to do so because medium bomb capacities weren't good enough and the British were able to salvage a lot of the critical mass production equipment and move them out. If they had fielded a long-range four-engine bomber, they would have been able to apply mass bombing to the Northern cities, as well as supplant or replace the Condor as a maritime raider. Also, as an addition to four engine bombers, they never really had enough large transport aircraft and were forced to depend on the Ju52 and various odds and sods to try and keep all the fronts going.
With regard to the 262, I think it was Galland who said that if they even a token force of 262s in 1943, facing the Americans as the daylight bombing campaign got off the ground, then it would have forced the Americans to back off and give the Germans a breathing space.

regards
stovepipe

Jawgap

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi there,
If the similar sized British economy could field three four engine bombers, then the Germans could have fielded at least one. Technically, it wasn't beyond them and a four-engine bomber would have had a greater impact during the Blitz and the night raids on industrial Britain. Time and again, the He111 couldn't deliver big enough loads to devastate factories and they often had to revisit targets. A case in point is Supermarine in the South. They flattened it and prompted the move to Castle Bromwich of critical Spitfire production and hastened the use of shadow factories and the dispersal of subassembly production. But, it took repeated attacks to do so because medium bomb capacities weren't good enough and the British were able to salvage a lot of the critical mass production equipment and move them out. If they had fielded a long-range four-engine bomber, they would have been able to apply mass bombing to the Northern cities, as well as supplant or replace the Condor as a maritime raider. Also, as an addition to four engine bombers, they never really had enough large transport aircraft and were forced to depend on the Ju52 and various odds and sods to try and keep all the fronts going.
With regard to the 262, I think it was Galland who said that if they even a token force of 262s in 1943, facing the Americans as the daylight bombing campaign got off the ground, then it would have forced the Americans to back off and give the Germans a breathing space.

regards
stovepipe

Three books have recently been published looking at the effects of bombing in WWII:-

• The Bombing War (Richard Overy)
• Bombing States & Peoples (Badoli, Knapp and Overy)
• Bombing the People: Giulio Douhet and the Foundations of Air-Power Strategy (Hippler)
  

They provide a comprehensive analysis of bombing in Europe in WWII and the Combined Bomber Offensive.

The He111 and the medium bombers used in the Blitz were reasonably effective - the problem was the Germans had know way of knowing what to hit, how to it and when they they were being effective. As it turned out - incendiaries were the key to effective strategic bombing, and the German mediums could carry enough to be effective, but the lack of intelligence of the impact their raids were having prevented them knowing that.

The British, on the other hand, on the receiving end realised how effective incendiaries were so when the time came their bombloads were heavily weighted in favour of incendiaries.

For example during GOMORRAH (the bombing of Hamburg) in one hour the RAF dropped nearly 2,300 tons of bombs on the city including an average of 17000 incendiaries per square kilometre.

As regard factories, they also learned from the experience of being bombed. Destroying a factory was largely found to be an irrelevant exercise - you had to destroy the machine tools. Time and again the air forces blew the crap out of factories, but if the tools and jigs survived production was rarely interupted for more than a few days.

The other point that becomes clear is that once the US Army Air Forces tumbled onto oil and transportation as the key targets, the days of the Luftwaffe were numbered. Also when Doolittle took over the 8th Air Force he changed the whole nature of their strategy towards countering the Luftwaffe and the Luftwaffe fighter forces in particular - that drew them into a battle of attrition, forcing them to expend resources and take casualties they couldn't afford.

Anyway, even if, as Galland suggested, the Me262 was introduced earlier and even in greater numbers, the US Air Forces would have just switched to night bombing - further overwhelming the stretched German night fighter defence system.

Stovepipe

The Germans knew what to hit because they did what the British did; they asked people who had travelled in Germany for industrial purposes about what factory was where; they consulted senior men in relevant industries about their opposite numbers in Germany, they consulted academics in universities about German industry in general and in particular and they even did basic things like read trade catalogues, which conveniently had exact addresses of factory locations. The British had the edge because they were fed intelligence back by friendly persons in occupied territory or by their own spies, whereas Germany had little or no genuine friendly intelligence and a lot of their information depended on such things as consular spies in Lisbon or Dublin. Like the RAF, they were very dependent on photoreconnaissance and this was effectively cut off early in the war. The Luftwaffe began using combined bombloads as early as Guernica, which was a deliberate on the job case study of the effectiveness of different bomb sizes. They certainly knew the value of the incendiary, as they were dropping thousands of the 2lb incendiary in 1940 and they also knew that the parachute mine made an effective building smasher, which the RAF copied as the 2000 and 4000lb MC bombs, ie, an unaerodynamic projectile dedicated to knocking down brick apartment blocks, the cornerstone of German city dwellings.

regards
Stovepipe

Jawgap

They did all that and more to prepare target lists as well as categorise and prioritise individual targets and areas. The driving assumption was that the war effort could be fatally undermined by attacking key chokepoints - except as Tizard pointed out (admittedly after the War) - "You can't destroy an economy." Their target lists they compiled using all the information proved pretty worthless.

As comprehensive and all as the lists were, they were not the 'right' targets and it took RAF Bomber Command and the various US Air Forces a few years of trial and error to figure out what targets were important and what weren't - in any event Bomber Command was pretty much engaged in targeting morale from 1941 as a way to undermine industrial output - just after the Blitz proved conclusively that bombed populations' morale was far more resilient than air power theorists thought it was!

It was really only when Nicholas Kaldor developed the concepts of 'cushion', 'depth' and 'vulnerability' that the USAAF began to pick and pressure effective targets. That led them to focus on air power, oil and transport - German air power and fighters actually scored poorly using Kaldor's approach but Doolittle identified it as a pre-requisite that had to be dealt with before they could move on to attack other targets.

In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe targeting was all over the place and they never really figured out that 11 Group's Sector Station Ops Rooms were the critical target. Similarly during the Blitz, they targeted various industries, cities, populations and docks without figuring out that largely immobile food stores were the critical target. They had an idea that incendiaries were effective but not an exact appreciation - their typical bombloads during the Blitz comprised 25% incendiaries, 30% delayed action (to hamper fire fighting and rescue efforts) and 45% HE. In contrast Bomber Command bombloads for area bombing usually had 45% incendiaries.

The one significant target the USAAF missed was the German aero-engine industry - they didn't appreciate it how fixed and concentrated it was.

Bomber Command were not really interested in knocking German apartment buildings over. They categorised city zones by their 'combustability' and bombed accordingly. The HE was used to blow out windows and knock roofs off to facilitate burning.

In Italy they used a higher proportion of HE because Italian architecture was different - more stone, less wood, more courtyards and lower building densities made for poorer opportunities to set things on fire.

BlaasForRafa

Jawgap wrote: »

The one significant target the USAAF missed was the German aero-engine industry - they didn't appreciate it how fixed and concentrated it was.

I read a report on the net a couple of years ago compiled by the USAAF brass with help from Focke-Wulf staff on the effects of the numerous raids on the various FW factories during the war. The FW staff said that if the Americans had gone after some of the critical component manufacturers, it would have crippled production. There was only one factory producing FW-190 canopies in early-mid 1944 and if that had been flattened then production of the fighters would have slowed to a trickle for at least 3 months.

Balaclava1991

The most costly mistake that the Nazis made was the failure to prevent the majority of the Allied forces surrounded at Dunkirk from escaping by sea in late May/early June 1940. The capture of the majority of the BEF might well have given Lord Halifax the upper hand over Churchill. As Prime Minister it seems likely that Halifax would have sought peace talks with Hitler. Britain would probably been allowed to keep their Empire and Hitler would not have been distracted by operations in the Balkans especially ejecting the British from Greece before he launched his invasion of Russia in 1941 and might have captured Moscow before the worst of the Russian winter set in.
With a peace treaty concluded between Britain and Germany, America would have been unlikely to get involved in Europe.
Russia of course would have had no option but to fight on without Anglo-American help prolonging the war in the East.
Where the course of the war would have gone from there is anybody's guess.

Another way the Nazis could have brought the British to the negotiation table was to avoid launching Operation Sealion at all and concentrate on defeating the British in North Africa and the Middle East. Churchill needed the Blitz to galvanize the British people in 1940. His belligerent rhetoric would have appeared absurd unless there was direct military action again Britain itself. Again the appeaser might have gained the upper hand and negotiated peace with Hitler.

macraignil

I read the book by Heinz Guderian about his role in world war two. He mentions the acceptance of a peace treaty with France as not been in the strategic interest of Germany and they should have continued their military campeign to occupy all of French territory and then moved four devisions of tanks to north Africa. This could have allowed Germany and Italy full control of the Mediteranian and they might have been able to gain some experience of landing troops on enemy shores at Gibralter and other small but strategicaly significant allied bases.

The number of submarines the Germans had at the start of the war would indicate they were unprepared for war with the british empire. Some posts above highlight the lack of a strategic bomber as being a major failing in German forces but even today strategic bombing on its own does not seem able to provide a decisive victory without ground forces. If four German tank devisions had practise of driving over long distances in North Africa and into the middle east and their experience in the Mediteranian thought them something about ampibious military operations, then there might have been more success for Germany against the UK and Russia.

The military equipment production levels reached in the USA would have made German victory very unlikely once the US entered the war against the axis forces.

Operation Barbarosa also seemed more aimed at grabbing territory than completing a decisive victory over a huge expanse of Russia even to the east of Moskow. The Russian military equipment with tanks like the T34 was much too effective for Germany to survive after failing to defeat the Russians quickly.

Jawgap

macraignil wrote: »

I read the book by Heinz Guderian about his role in world war two. He mentions the acceptance of a peace treaty with France as not been in the strategic interest of Germany and they should have continued their military campeign to occupy all of French territory and then moved four devisions of tanks to north Africa. This could have allowed Germany and Italy full control of the Mediteranian and they might have been able to gain some experience of landing troops on enemy shores at Gibralter and other small but strategicaly significant allied bases.

The number of submarines the Germans had at the start of the war would indicate they were unprepared for war with the british empire. Some posts above highlight the lack of a strategic bomber as being a major failing in German forces but even today strategic bombing on its own does not seem able to provide a decisive victory without ground forces. If four German tank devisions had practise of driving over long distances in North Africa and into the middle east and their experience in the Mediteranian thought them something about ampibious military operations, then there might have been more success for Germany against the UK and Russia.

The military equipment production levels reached in the USA would have made German victory very unlikely once the US entered the war against the axis forces.

Operation Barbarosa also seemed more aimed at grabbing territory than completing a decisive victory over a huge expanse of Russia even to the east of Moskow. The Russian military equipment with tanks like the T34 was much too effective for Germany to survive after failing to defeat the Russians quickly.

A fully equipped German armour / panzer division comprised of about 14,000 men and 3,000 vehicles. At rest it consumed 30 tons of supplies per day and up to 700 tons per day when fighting on the offensive. It took about 400 railway cars to move one, and on the road they could stretch out to 70 miles.

I'd suggest the last place you'd want to send one is over to North Africa (very limited railways and road nets) unless you are absolutely sure your supply lines (which stretched all the way back to the Reich) can sustain without them being interdicted.

macraignil

Maybe operating a tank ofensive at a distance would have thaught the Germans lessons on what was required for their ofensive on Russia and the planned attack on the UK. I was not suggesting this option was better because it would have been easy.

Jawgap

macraignil wrote: »

Maybe operating a tank ofensive at a distance would have thaught the Germans lessons on what was required for their ofensive on Russia and the planned attack on the UK. I was not suggesting this option was better because it would have been easy.

I don't think so. N Africa and the USSR were qualitatively different challenges - there were no railways in N Africa (none worth mentioning) while there were some in the USSR; there was one road in N Africa (the Via Balbia), while there were some in the USSR (and relatively dense road net in and around the Baltic); and, obviously enough the terrain, weather etc are different. Few of the lessons were transferable, except perhaps one about the Wehrmacht lacking the capacity to support an offensive using motor transport alone.

In the case of BARBAROSSA, the logistic assumptions made by OKW / OKH were bordering on insane / deluded. Those assumptions then fed into other decisions regarding the organisation of the transport companies and even all the way back to decisions being made about factory production - these could be classed as operational, rather than strategic mistakes.

Stovepipe

Strategic mistake: the resources diverted to sustain the Holocaust; apart from the sheer horror of it all, it soaked up manpower, diverted rail resources, consumed vast quantities of building materials and resources like food, clothing, electricity, domestic fuels like coal and wood and the use of land.
Strategic mistake: getting stuck into Stalingrad and Hitler's failure to allow true tactical mobility.

macraignil

The lesson that the Wehrmacht was lacking the capacity to support an offensive in North africa would have been significant for their capacity to support an offensive in the far reaches of Russia to the east in spite of the fact they were qualitatively different.

I agree some of the logistics of Barbarossa could be viewed as operational rather strategic mistakes but would like to make the point that the strategy of invading a country the size of Russia when only having experience of blitzkrieg on Germanys immediate neighbours was also a mistake.

There was also strategic merit in controling the Suez canal and having an amphibious mechanised tactical ability in the Meditaranian could have prevented a very costly paratroop attack on Crete and possibly brought conflict in Greece to an end faster. British bases at Gibraltar and Malta were also persistant problems for the axis forces and the allied invasion of North Africa was made easier by Germany not properly securing this field of operations.

Jawgap

macraignil wrote: »

The lesson that the Wehrmacht was lacking the capacity to support an offensive in North africa would have been significant for their capacity to support an offensive in the far reaches of Russia to the east in spite of the fact they were qualitatively different.

I think you're missing the point- N Africa and the USSR are wholly different environments - I doubt there was anything learnable in either theatre that could be transferred to the other.

N Africa completely lacked the infra-structure to support anything more than four armoured or motorised divisions. Von Thoma admitted as much in his report when he was attached to the Italians fighting there in October 1940.

When Rommel was sent to Africa his orders were to only operate as far east as Sirte - for good reason. It's 300 miles from Tripoli to Sirte and 300 miles is about what the logistics organisation could manage (it's nearly 1400 miles to Alexandria via Benghazi) - the German logistics system assumed that no force would operate more than 300 miles from it's main administrative base.

If he wanted to go beyond Sirte he needed another port - unfortunately between Tripoli and Alexandria there was no port capable of handling the amount of supplies he would have needed - plus the further east he went the easier it became for the British to attack his lines of communication from the air.

The USSR had the requisite infrastructure to support a drive by three Army Groups - the strategic mistakes related to how that infrastructure was put to use; how the forces were balanced / harmonised with the infrastructure behind them. Also unlike N Africa, there were opportunities for soldiers to forage for supplies and there was no need to transport water.

macraignil wrote: »

I agree some of the logistics of Barbarossa could be viewed as operational rather strategic mistakes but would like to make the point that the strategy of invading a country the size of Russia when only having experience of blitzkrieg on Germanys immediate neighbours was also a mistake.

There was also strategic merit in controling the Suez canal and having an amphibious mechanised tactical ability in the Meditaranian could have prevented a very costly paratroop attack on Crete and possibly brought conflict in Greece to an end faster. British bases at Gibraltar and Malta were also persistant problems for the axis forces and the allied invasion of North Africa was made easier by Germany not properly securing this field of operations.

I'd agree the decision to launch BARBAROSSA was a first rate strategic error, but even if it wasn't - the use of three Army Groups to chase down divergent objectives, was a mistake, as was predicating an operation on an assumption that the Red Army could be brought to battle within 300 miles of the border - (or even the 600 miles this was later revised to).

Finally, given the distances involved I doubt the Axis could have reached the Nile and then the Canal - not without capturing a port like Alexandria, and I'd question whether his force was capable of that.

macraignil

Jawgap wrote: »

I think you're missing the point- N Africa and the USSR are wholly different environments - I doubt there was anything learnable in either theatre that could be transferred to the other.

OK. I did get the point that North Africa and the USSR are not the same. You have given more information on how North Africa was not suited to mechanised warfare as the Germans were used to. My point was that trying to overcome the problems there would have served as a lesson on the problems involved in operating outside the 300 mile limit of operations that had been accepted up to then. If they could not organise an operaton to take the Suez canal, how could the Germans expect to capture the USSR or the UK?

I am not suggesting they could have taken the Suez canal with the resources that were applied to the problem, but that focusing more resources there immediately after defeating France might have made that strategic goal achievable. Its all speculation, but I am simply repeating what Heinz Guderian suggested in his book as being the best use of his Panzer forces once the Germans defeated the French. I believe he realised the logistic difficulties involved and knew these logistic problems needed to be overcome if the Blitzkrieg was to bring victory to the Germans.

Jawgap

macraignil wrote: »

OK. I did get the point that North Africa and the USSR are not the same. You have given more information on how North Africa was not suited to mechanised warfare as the Germans were used to. My point was that trying to overcome the problems there would have served as a lesson on the problems involved in operating outside the 300 mile limit of operations that had been accepted up to then. If they could not organise an operaton to take the Suez canal, how could the Germans expect to capture the USSR or the UK?

I am not suggesting they could have taken the Suez canal with the resources that were applied to the problem, but that focusing more resources there immediately after defeating France might have made that strategic goal achievable. Its all speculation, but I am simply repeating what Heinz Guderian suggested in his book as being the best use of his Panzer forces once the Germans defeated the French. I believe he realised the logistic difficulties involved and knew these logistic problems needed to be overcome if the Blitzkrieg was to bring victory to the Germans.

Point is the logistic problems could not be overcome - not without a huge, disproportionate allocation of logistic effort to DAK & Panzerarmee Afrika - when Rommel lauched his attack in January 1942 he demanded an additional 8,000 trucks for his supply columns - at a time when the Germans could muster only 14,000 for service in Russia.

Pouring more fighting resources into an area increased demand for supplies which in somewhere like N Africa leads to diminishing returns - for example, by the time Rommel was halted on the 4th of July at El Alamein, over one third of his fuel was being used to transport the other two thirds. He held Tobruk - but the losses of shipping bound for Tobruk were nearly 4 times those heading for Tripoli and Benghazi. He needed 100,000 tons (by his own estimate) of fuel to go back on the offensive - he received barely 10,000.

The point being that even if they wanted to, and even if they had the forces available, the supply system was completely inadequate to support the force needed to fight through to Alexandria. Rommel admitted as much when he said he was fortunate to have been stopped at El Alamein - if he hadn't he reckoned he would have arrived at Alexandria with two battalions, 30 tanks and an even more extended line of communication.

Also to make the supply system adequate required the deployment of numbers of trucks that the German just didn't have - and again the more trucks you add, the more fuel and maintenance facilities you need - especially as the distance from Tripoli to El Alamein (one way) exceeded the lifespan of a truck engine in N Africa.

And Guderian was well aware of the limitations imposed by logistics which is why he described logistics as the "ball and chain" of armoured warfare. As they say logistics dictates what's tactically possible.

Coup detat

Jawgap wrote: »

I've read all of Andrew Robert's books, including the two referred to at the start, and would generally be a 'fan' of his work I would disagree strongly with his idea that Germany could have won WWII.

There was nothing Germany could have done to 'win' - the only way a German victory could have come about was if the Western Allies (or Britain before that) committed a monumental error of grand strategy, such as a Japan-first policy, or an attempted to return to NW Europe in late 1942 or 1943, and even then they probably would only have postponed the inevitable by a few years.

In terms of grand strategy, their mistakes, in order of magnitude were
1. Miscalculating the British and French willingness to come to Poland's aid
2. Declaring war on the US
3. Not driving all out for Moscow, once Barbarossa had been launched

Of course it might have all ended differently if Halifax, instead of Churchill, had been prime minister.

The best way to defeat the Soviet Union would have been to first focus resources on controlling North Africa and the middle East, they could then capture the oil fields in Baku. Once their military becomes strong enough they should then invade Russia on two fronts, three if Japan comply.

jackboy

If Germany's initial invasion of Russia was carried out with a fully committed Japanese invasion from the east there is a high chance that Russia would have crumbled quickly. They could have then finished the British empire off easily enough. The key would have been keeping the US out of the war at all costs. Its hard to imagine Germany and Japan carrying such a joint operation though.

Aenaes

Wasn't Stalin expecting a Japanese assault though? I've read accounts of highly trained Siberian troops being stationed in East Russia in preparation for an attack from Japanese forces.

Even when Moscow was in a perilous position, I think they were there as Stalin was convinced Japan would attack. Stalin was finally convinced Japan wasn't going to attack, due to reports such as Richard Sorge's, and manouvered the Siberian troops to confront the Germans.

I wonder did Japan have the necessary logistics/motorised capability for a long slog through Siberia? In the Summer of 1941 they wouldn't have had an abundance of oil, rubber etc., due to the USA's embargoes and not occupying Indonesia and the Philippines as of then.

jackboy

From what I have read I think transferring the Siberian troops was critical in removing the German threat of Moscow. If the Japanese held up these troops in the east, Russian may have been in a dire situation.

Jawgap

The Japanese completely lacked the logistic capacity to sustain any kind of directed land offensive in the face of organised resistance.

Manach

I'd read accounts of the Russo-Japanese War at the start of that century (for instance in a recent Mannerheim bio) and on the Soviet officer class, many of whom served in that conflict, would have coloured their perception of the fighting capabilities of an even more advanced IJP force. In the 1940/41 phase of the war, it was no means certain that the Japanese could not have inflicted serious injury to the Soviet war effort, especially in light of the German threat. So the latter's failure to co-ordinate military action with their Eastern allies was a major error.