German A-Bomb

@CWO-Marc said in UK World War Two Bombing Site Map:

German bombers attacked the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh on 16 October 1939. The last raid was a V2 rocket attack near Iwade in Kent on 29 March 1945.

Thanks for the interesting link!

The map seems to be offline right now ‘due to high demand’, but the data can still be accessed. And indicate that the first ‘attack’ actually consisted of two unexploded shells on 6 September 1939. Also, the last raid was actually a V1 according to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22124479@N03/5001363807
The Wikipedia article on the V1 has Datchworth as its final British target, however. And the dataset lists 7 attacks on that day, apparently listing Datchworth as ‘Batchworth’.

@221B:

I had to vote other as I think a good proximity fuse ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze )could have made a tremendous difference in the naval battles the Japanese lost.  It certainly made a difference for the Americans.

There is no doubt that Japanese Anti Aircraft were the poorest of the major nations of WW2. Only Rabaul had any success in air defense, and this was due to the massive amount of Allied bombing missions on that target and the practice the Japanese gunners gained. Rabaul would claim 500 aircraft, mostly singing engine bombers.

The Japanese would use several warship superstructures that were sunk to create " flak towers".

The allies who cleared the sky’s of the south pacific of Japanese planes and bombed at will anything desired dreadful hated missions to bomb Rabaul.

@aequitas-et-veritas

I think you overestimate Germany’s ability to not get fooled.

Germany was fooled several times-just look at what the Soviets did:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj7mfyEm_3zAhVeJzQIHWXCB54QFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FRussian_military_deception&usg=AOvVaw3hgbVBMWuU26iUG3iTRmQK

If you’re saying D-Day and the deception in Operation Bagration (and all the other times on the Eastern Front) was all due to betrayal, it should be well known.

In response to your questions, there are several clear answers:

Most German submarines were destroyed by now, and the rest would have been near Pas De Calais, where Germany expected the Allies to land.

And there were German naval units in Normandy-several torpedo boats, or E-boats, which sunk a Norwegian destroyer, the only German naval victory on D-Day. There were also these German naval assets at Normandy: 3 torpedo boats, 29 fast attack craft, and 72 minesweepers. If there truly was sabotage these would have disappeared as well, and the secret traitor would not have been uncovered anyway by the Nazis if we don’t even know his identity today.

The stripping of Luftwaffe and anti aircraft assets were probably done to reinforce the forces in the Defence Of The Reich campaign, after the Big Week which drove German aircraft numbers down to irreplaceable levels:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Week

As for the ordering of targeting devices from Normandy, it’s the same reason why Rommel left for his wife: Inaccurate German weather reports.

As for the two agents or spies your were talking about, one of them was a double agent (like Germany’s entire spy network in Britain), and simply bad luck and quarrelling at higher levels in the German command prevented them from using potentially important information from the other agent.

I cannot find evidence about the problems with the Panzer Lehr Division that you talked about, but I do believe you on this information.

The Allies were much stronger than thought-analysis shows that even if Germany was able to get the full plan from a dead body after the Exercise Tiger disaster (which involved an attack by Germans ships against troops preparing for D-Day), and Germany transferred all of the Fifth Panzer Army to the beaches, and Rommel stayed, the Allies could not have been repelled-shore bombardment and air power would have broken up panzer forces enough to prevent a collapse. The war would have simply lasted longer, or the Soviet would have conquered more of Germany.

Honestly, I find it quite interesting that you came up or mentioned this theory, as it makes for good discussion. I hope we have some great discussions about the German side of D-Day!

Finally, as for the original question, the Fifthteenth Army was eventually used at Normandy, where it was devastated as well as at the Falaise Pocket. The main problem with Operation Market Garden were the Allies not taking seriously Dutch resistance intelligence the fact that German panzer divisions were refitting right where the Allies were going to land. I think if the Fifthteenth Army was at Normandy on the first day, it might have been much harder for the Allies, as they would not have stablished as secured beachheads.

@abworsham4

Please send me his strategies and game reports!

Where can I buy a pair of U-Boots?

Here is a story of a mine discovered on the beach in New Zealand from the WWI German Raider Wolf.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Old-mine-discovered-on-West-Coast-beach/tabid/209/articleID/85131/Default.aspx

Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting Article.

KurtGodel7, very good post, thank you.

I’m still not convinced however, I’ll reply to a few of your points below further:

Germany desperately needed the Russian oil by 1943 (as well as Russian grain which I will discuss further below).  That they failed to take the Caucasus during this time was their last realistic chance at victory, IMO.  However, had they taken the oil wells, but with the Russians destroying them in the process as was quite likely, would the Germans be able to restore the flow of oil in sufficient time? It might take months, even years to rebuild the necessary infrastructure in the best of circumstances, let alone during a brutal war.  The German industry was already hard pressed to supply the necessary armaments and did not have a great deal of experience with oil industry in the first place.  I think they would not have been able to do this.

The same idea goes for the chromium, vanadium, etc., though this would be less difficult for the Germans to accomplish (or mitigate as you also suggest) than the oil problem.

While Germany might have been able to supply an equivalent amount of money, material and engineers to work on their atomic program, there simply were much fewer top nuclear physicists in all Europe than existed in the US.  Consequently, it would have probably cost more and taken longer than the US program for this reason alone.  I have no doubt they could have eventually done it, but I don’t see how they develop nuclear weapons before the allies developed a delivery system that could get through their defenses.

The German V-2 was a technological marvel, but other than size, no more advanced than the rockets being built by Dr. Goddard.  After the war, when Dr. Goddard was able to examine a captured V-2, he was convinced the Germans had stolen his work.  And the Germans might have because most of his designs were on file in the US patent office, available for public viewing (which the Germans did prior to the war).  I think had the Americans wanted to (and Dr. Goddard certainly did) they could have built a superior rocket in a couple months and have it mass-produced in six.  As the A-bombs designs at that time were quite heavy, it might have taken longer than that to build a nuclear capable rocket…but how much longer?

Alternatively, the Allies could have either copied the German jets to enable a delivery system, or devise other means (boats/submarines? special ops?) to deliver these weapons.

In addition, I consider the German attack on Russia to be about food as well as oil  The Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe, and helped the Germans tremendously in 1943.  But food was scarce in 1944 and onward.  Partly this was due to Russian recovery of territory.  But it was also because the Ukraine was normally not sufficient by itself to feed Germany (the year of the capture of Ukraine by the Germans was one of the best years for Ukrainian agriculture as the weather was nearly perfect).  Of course, the poor treatment of the Ukrainians by the Germans did not lend itself to helping this problem either. In order to assure itself of adequate food, I think the Caucasus (the next logical food source) was needed.