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Operation: Sealion
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I will concede that the Germans had some of the best tacticians in Europe, when it came to fighting a battle. When it came to strategy, the Germans had no real concept of sea power, totally overestimated their own capabilities, especially with respect to the USSR, never really resolved within the General Staff the best strategy to use in attacking Russia, never really got Rommel under control, assumed that because the only conceivable invasion area in France to them was the Pas de Calais, that the Allies would attack the same area, allowed their painfully built up forces in late 1944 to be squandered in the Battle of the Bulge, rather than committed to resist the Russians. Considering the Bulge, the German General Staff were totally astonished that Patton was able to shift the axis of attack for the 3rd Army from east to north in 3 days, instead of the 3 weeks that they thought it would take. They assessment was based on how long it would take THEM to shift an axis of attack. Arrogance does not normally produce good results.
I have not the foggiest idea of what you mean by my posting of attacking New York. I did not post in that at all. My postings in that area involved Unit 731 of the Japanese Army. My own view of an aerial attack by Germany on New York is that Hitler might order it, but it would not be carried out. Even if it did, the likelyhood of the aircraft surviving long enough to drop is a bit small. The US did maintain a full air defense network here, just in case. If somehow, it did make it here and drop a limited number of bombs, I would rather not think of the consequences for German cities. The pressure from the American public to use every means of utterly destroying the German cities by the use of any and every weapon, including chemical agents, would have been very hard to withstand. If the attack occurred prior to the November of 1944 Presidential election, I am not sure that Roosevelt would have been able to hold off, or even be willing to do so.
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Lets not forget that a large part of the German Army still relied on animals for tranportation of supplies.
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Very well put Timeover51. I appreciate the wealth of knowledge you bring to these discussions.
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When it came to strategy, the Germans had no real concept of sea power
I find this to be rather funny when it was the HMS Hood that was sunk in 7 minutes when it encountered the Bismark; and it was the Graf Spee that was scuttled not sunk by enemy action after fighting off/destroying 3 British cruisers off Montevideo when Uruguay forced them to either set sail or be impounded. Not to mention things like the US tasking the USS Washington (North Carolina Class Battleship) with convoy defense in the early years of the war due to the U-Boat et.al. threat.
The Germans had a good solid view of naval power, they just did not have enough time to reach levels of parity with the Allies before Hitler ordered the offensives to begin. And even when the German Navy sailed into battle when they were massively outnumbered in 1939, it STILL took 3 years for the Allies to achieve Naval superiority in their own back yard (the Atlantic Ocean).
For those who question the above, let me recommend the Military Channel’s “Top 10” programs, which puts the German Pocket Battleships and the Bismark Class Battleships in the Top 10 for surface ships (Deutschland Class Pocket Battleship #9, Bismark Class Battleship #7), and the Type VII U-Boat as #1 all time for submarines.
http://military.discovery.com/convergence/topten/topten.html
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Yes Admiral Raeder was an astute commander, perhaps equal to Yamamoto. He only had what resources and command structure he was alloted and used his position to get Hitler to change his mind on rare occasions. Unfortunately the effort for the Kreigsmarine was stymied by Hitlers own narrow knowledge of the capabilities of his navy and fat Goerings inability to support the U-boats with proper reconnaissance or the navy with some control of his Luftwaffe due to inter-service rivalry between Raeder/Donitz and Goering.
The Germans were not ready for war until 1944-46 when the planned Z fleet would be available to contest the British.
The Germans used their navy better than any other considering the amount of forces they had, but it was Hitler that ruined its potential.
The only aspect of the German military was was underutilized was its Luftwaffe. Fat Goering failed in nearly every aspect even when he had superior odds against the enemy.
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I wonder what effect would the German Navy in World War 2 have if it’s size has been similar to the Kaiser’s Navy?
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If that was the case Sealion would not require air superiority. The Luftwaffe just ties up the RAF and the navy protects the transports. British cant do anything except risk her navy at large with disaster
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@ABWorsham:
I wonder what effect would the German Navy in World War 2 have if it’s size has been similar to the Kaiser’s Navy?
In order to reach the size of the Kaiser’s Navy, it would have needed to break the terms of the Treaty of Versailles much earlier than it did, which would have resulted in WW2 starting sometime in the early 1930s, long before it could have built up to any significant degree. The pocket battleships/armoured ships were built to get around the term of the Treaty of Versailles, but were in theory in compliance. The French in the late 1920s and early 1930s were looking for a reason to land on Germany, but were restrained by the British. Germany building another High Seas Fleet would have made Britain ready to invade Germany as well. The result would have been a British and French invasion of Germany sometime around 1931 or so. No Hitler, no Nazis, early WW2. You need to understand that the Germans had to first build the industrial base to produce heavy armor plate, large caliber guns, and heavy gun turrets before building ships like the Scharnhortz and Bismarck. Also, the Bismarck used enough steel for 2,000 Mark IV tanks. You have a finite amount of steel. What do you build if you are Germany?
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I’ll take the 2,000 Mark IV’s.
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Id take more subs at the start of the war like Raeder argued. It would have really put british in the bind.
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The 300 u-boats that Raeder wanted to make war on England would have shocked the English into submission by 1941.
Speaking of the Battle of the Atlantic, this weekend I found my copy of Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner. I caught myself an hour later having to put it down. Great book!
Have any of you read the book The German Raider: Atlantis? It’s my all time favorite book.
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If the Germans had started building that many U-boats earlier, assuming that they violated the Treaty of Versailles earlier, British rearmament starts earlier, and WW2 starts in 1938 over Czechoslovakia, not Poland, if not earlier. You gentlemen act as if the Western powers would make no response to German actions. READ THE TERMS OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES. Hitler took an enormous gamble breaking them. It takes time to build up your industrial base. It takes time to train aircrew, tank crewmen, and submarine crew. Time to allocate who gets the steel production first, who gets the engine production, who gets the armor plate production.
I went through all of this when I tried to run a full-scale WW2 naval campaign. The Axis players wanted to build anything that they wanted, while not allowing any response from the Allied players. If the Axis starts building earlier, there is no 1936 London Naval Treaty limiting the size and gun caliber of the new battleships to 35,000 tons and 14 inch guns. No treaty means that the British go straight to the Lion-class, and do not build ANY KGV. The 1940 Vinson Act mandating a Two-Ocean Navy moves up to 1938, at the latest. The US heads for the Iowa-class rather than the South Dakota class, and the Montanas start building in 1940, and become available in 1943. Armament buildups do not occur in a vacuum. One sides actions result in the other sides reaction.
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Great point timerover51. How fast could Germany have built a navy by 1945? What size would this navy been?
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http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/zplan/index.html
According to this plan, the German Kriegsmarine should have grown to about 800 units, consisting of 13 battleships and battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 so called “Spähkreuzer” which were basically large destroyers. In addition to this many smaller vessels should have been build.
Those ships should have been build between 1939 and 1946, in this time, the personal of the Kriegsmarine should have been enlarged to 201.000 men and over 33 billion Reichsmark should have spend for building the new units.
This project never got reality. Its very questionable that the German industry would have had the resources for such a construction program and that the other European Nations would stood still and not react to this program. The realization of the Z-Plan started on January 29th, 1939. Two H-Class battleships were laid down, three months later Germany quit the the fleet treaty with England and the dream “No more war against Britain” was gone.
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How would a 1945 European war been different? That’s a interesting question.
Since many weapons were developed during the war based on reaction i have no idea. The Tiger and Panther tanks were a response to the T-34. Would Germany start a 1945 war with Mark IV as the main battle tank?
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Well the truth is Germany was accelerating FASTER than any other nation in terms of military technology. Eventually by waiting these would bear fruit. The naval treaty requirements of the London treaty and Versailles were already broken by Germany years earlier with those pocket battleships and the allies had no clue.
However, the industrial rebuilding of the Soviet economy and the slower English economy was slowly pulling away from Germany in some areas. The large Soviet population was viewed correctly by Hitler as an unstoppable inertia of men and material of the communist military complex may have proven an unassailable wall to breach by the whermacht.
So Hitler took his leap of faith in this period of History and plunged the world in his war of annihilation. It was a calculated risk to be sure, but it was entirely possible given the structure of blitzkrieg and her military capabilities that her European foes could be vanquished in quick victories, but Hitler didn’t set up Stalin for a quick campaign and that was only what Germany could afford so they failed. Its like buying a home with a mortgage you can no longer afford to pay and eventually losing everything.
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The London Treaty was signed in 1930, and the French refused to sign it based on the German Pocket Battleships, building the Dunkerque and Strasburg in reply, and beginning design work on the Richelieu-class ships. The all-forward armament of the French ships was based on the assumption that any engagement with the pocket battleships would rapidly turn into a running chase, so maximum forward firepower was desired. So much for the Allies having no clue. The British figured that in the Hood, Renown, and Repulse, plus carrier hunting groups that they had a counter already. Italy refused to sign because the French refused to sign, therefore making much of the treaty meaningless, except for the US and UK. Japan started breaking the terms of the treaty almost immediately, which took a while for the US and UK to realize.
As for Germany accelerating FASTER than anyone else, that would be highly dependent on the area. When it came to radar, the Germans were behind in some respects, and rapidly got far behind with their inability to produce microwave radar. They never got remotely close to a proximity fuze, despite the desparate need for one. Atomic research was years away from getting to even a test reactor. Their highest grade of aircraft fuel was 92 octane, making the carrying of water-alcohol and nitrous oxide supplemental fuels for the performance boost the Allies got from having 100/130 and 115/145 octane fuel. Bomber development pretty much stopped with the death of General Weaver, while British and US heavy bomber development accelerated. Yes, the ME-262 did see combat, with an engine that required a complete overhaul after 15 to 25 hours of use. That does tend to limit how many you can produce. The early jet engines of the Allies had an overhaul requirement of 185 hours, and it steadily improved from there.
Their tanks were good, but the Panther, Tiger, and Tiger II were mechanically unreliable, and in the case of the Tigers, badly underpowered. The US made the conscious decision to push production of the Sherman because of the need for overseas shipment, which limited US development. The British Centurion and the US Pershing clearly brought the Allies up to par with the Germans.
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@ABWorsham:
Great point timerover51. How fast could Germany have built a navy by 1945? What size would this navy been?
Pretty Quickly if they hadn’t Attacked Russia, And a Good Chunk of the Z-Plan would have been Realized, Making the KGM more then a Heavy hitting Token Fleet.
I am completly Convinced had the Russians and Germans Stayed Allies. The Axis would have won WWII, weather it happens in 1935, or 39, or 45.
The UK and The US would not Stand a Chance Against them.
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The British Centurion and the US Pershing clearly brought the Allies up to par with the Germans.
yes on par with the Germans after they surrendered. They were not used against Germany coming in very late when the war was decided, while Germany had tiger I in the mid war period.
German tanks were better than all allied counterparts except T34/76 because only German tanks required too many parts and even one tank of the same model had different part than another, so they were always in need of spare parts, while the Soviet t-34 was like comparatively fewer parts and interchangeable. ON the battlefield the Germans always exacted more loses and punishment upon the enemy than they received in return.
Germany had jet power and could have had it earlier had Hitler not re-designated Me-262 as a tactical bomber rather than a pure interceptor.
Germany was ahead in Nuclear fission, but Hitler as usual stopped research when they had the lead and lost it. It was theirs to develop or let others pass them up. But they had the knowledge.
Germany also developed primitive radar latter , but radar was a defensive weapon and Hitler would have no part on it.
Under all aircraft types and rockets no nation was Germany equal, unless perhaps gliders are included.
The walter U-boat was superior to any other allied submarine and was faster than even some allied destroyers submerged.
as i remember the Allies copied German technology after the war and not the other way around.
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Both the US and the UK gave up pretty quickly on the Walther Hydrogen Peroxide powered sub because of the continued explosions of the fuel. That was also a problem with the ME-163 Komet, as unused H2O2 had this nasty habit of exploding on landing, which was not very good for the continued good health of the pilot.
As for the myth that the ME-262 could have been in combat earlier, that is just what it is, a myth. The problem was engine unreliability, and the fact that not until the Germans had a look at the landing gear of a P-47 did they come up with the final gear for the ME-262. The test pilots hated the engine of the ME-262 as they never knew when it was going to fail, only that it would.
Not sure where you get the idea that the Germans were ahead in Nuclear Fisson. The ALSOS mission documents definitely do not show that, nor do they show any major interest in the idea. Nerve gas is a different story, and a bit more complex.
As for rockets, that depends. Liquid-fuel large rockets, yes. Although if Goddard had had the funding that Von Braun received, that might have been more than a bit different. Air to ground rockets for ground support, no. Nothing even close to the US 5" HVAR, or the 11.75" Tiny Tim. Air to air rockets, yes, because they had all of those B-17 to shoot at. Oddly enough, the Allies did not have that many German bombers to shoot at after 1941. Ground to air rockets would be a toss up between the UK and Germany. Ground to ground, about even, although the Germans never had anything close to the rocket barrages launched by the Russians, or the US during an amphibious assault.
Germany was way behind in aircraft engine development, mainly because of poor fuel and not having a good turbocharger for non-Diesel engines. As for the jet engine, which was developed by an Englishman named Whittle, if the UK had been able to devote a bit more time to research, rather than fighting a war, I suspect that they would have had a jet fighter a year or so earlier. The Meteor was used to shoot down V-1s. The Germans were a long way from anything comparable to the B-29, and the US had the B-36 under development. They never did have any carrier aircraft, although the British is some respects were in the same boat there. Transport planes were pretty much a US monopoly, with the German ones being hampered by having too many military characteristics build into them.
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