What if U.S. invaded Soviet Union?

@abworsham4

I read that, and is one of my sources. Funny enough, KaLeu put a link to Quora asking the same question, and one of the answers just copied and pasted the article you sent me.

@ABWorsham:

Churchill proposed an invasion of Northern Norway and Sweden in 1939 to remove half of Germany iron ore. As a new leader he did not have credibility to get this invasion quickly planned before the Germans reacted.

How does the war progress if the Allied Expeditionary Force invades Norway and Sweden?

I was reading this over again. I don’t think it would be possible with an Allied invasion during 1939. Since the mountains are pretty much impassable during winter, which is from October to April, the invasion would have to be done from the start of the war in September and finished before October. This was not likely to happen. The first window of opportunity opened in November when Russia attacked Finland. But in the case of Finland, snow and ice was a necessity for a successful campaign, since that part of Finland is impassable swamps and marshes during summer. In Norway it is the other way around, since mountains are impassable during winter. And that give Britain a first possible D-day on April 8th 1940, the day before Germany did actually attack Norway.

The reason Britain did not attack on April 8th is IMHO that they got reports of a German breakout into the sea, so they ditched the infantry already onboard, and sailed to intercept the German fleet. But as w know, the Germans had then walked down the gangway in all major Norwegian ports. And they could do so because the ports were not defended. But here comes the twist. Next day Britain sailed in 25 000 troops bound for the Narvik area, but they was not able to kick out the 1900 Germans, because at that time Britain lacked landing ships and landing crafts. And you can not amphibious assault a defended coast without landing crafts, as proven in the Normandy landings 1944.

So basically the 25 000 Allied troops sat in the port of Harstad waiting for landing crafts to be build and this took 7 weeks, before they ware able to invade Narvik late in June , by then defended by 40 Germans. In the meantime 10 000 Norwegians equipped with winter gear and trained in mountain warfare, were pushing the bulk of the Germans towards the Swedish border.

I figure, if the Brits had landed in Narvik April 8th 1940 and walked down the gangway as friends, the Germans would for sure be cut of from the iron ore. But if the Norwegian socialist government had declared war, then I cant see how the Brits could have been able to break out from Narvik and cross the mountain range over to Sweden. None of the total 35 000 Brits, French and Polish soldiers in Norway 1940 had winter equipment nor training in mountain warfare. The last blizzard was in may, and they would be stuck in Narvik until then, surrounded by a Norwegian mountain division. And on the other side of the border, 320 000 Swedish soldiers, also trained in winter and mountain warfare, would wait for them, protecting the iron mines. So Churchills plan could only work if Norway and Sweden did cooperate volunterely

@KurtGodel7:

The Type XXI U-Boat had a rubber coating, making it difficult to detect. Also, its streamlined design allowed it to move faster underwater than it could while surfaced. It had a sophisticated electronics system.

Also, if you’re giving Germany the Type XXI U-boat in 1943, then you should also give it the kinds of torpedoes it had available in 1945.

Hmm maybe the underwater launchable Do-Werfers as well, too?!
German had some successful underwater launchings with, I think 15 or 28cm Do-werfers ,in 1942 near the Penemünde area.

Thanks Marc.  I often visit the BBC site but dont often go to the england section.  Missed this one!

It seems mines in general are usually overlooked in WW2 History.  Not only were mines a danger to U-boats, much of the Allied shipping losses in the first 3 years of the war were attributed to mines.

Thanks for the great post!

@Raunchy:

At least 749 U.S. sailors and soldiers would be dead by dawn.
Code-named Exercise Tiger, the ill-fated D-Day dry run was at the time America’s costliest incident of the war (only Pearl Harbor was worse).

:roll:sigh, people just dont know anything about history

But very interesting article, I dont blame you for the  author being an imbecile

Patton is one of the most interesting characters in WW2.

First of all look at how the Germans feared him. They were terrified of the man. Secondly a good many of Patton’s strategic and tactical viewpoints came to pass about both the 2nd World War and the Cold War. The man also had a sense of justice. He forced German civilians that tried to ignore the existence of the concentration camps to walk through the horrors there. As a tactician and commander I doubt we had anyone better than Patton.

The man had his faults certainly. The two incidents of slapping a soldier (he discharged a firearm in at least one of those, not sure about the second), he always seemed to have trouble managing his supply lines, and he always had trouble keeping his opinions quiet. He blundered severely sending troops to liberate a POW camp that happened to have his son in law as a prisoner. Patton never believed in shell shock, “battle fatigue”.

I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson’s first two books (Army at Dawn and Day of Battle). Patton is a major player in Army At Dawn (focused on North Africa). In the second book Patton is involved briefly but you learn many of his predictions about the fight in Italy prove to be correct. I look forward to third which focuses from D-day to the end of the war. I was disappointed in the amount of time Jeff Shaara devoted to Patton in “No Less Than Victory”. True a wealth of information is already recorded about Patton but writing any WW@ novel without Patton would be like writing about the Shenandoah Valley without mentioning Stonewall Jackson.

I believe that some authors portray Patton with a bias and marginalize Patton (most notably alternative writer Harry Turtledove). Part of this is because Patton offers so much stuff to criticize in his character. Part of it also comes from the fact it is popular to criticize anyone that could be considered conservative today.