Random COOL photo! WW2 armies issued Paper Models

As I recall, when the Norwegains protested to the British that Britain had violated Norwegian neutrality by entering Norwegian waters and boarding the Altmark, the British retorted that the Altmark had violated Norwegian neutrality by anchoring in Norwegian waters while retaining a cargo hold full of prisoners of war.  The British also apparently implied that the Norwegians had been either openly complicit in this action or, at the very least, negligent in not discovering the German ruse.  My understanding of international law is that belligerent ships entering neutral waters are required to release any prisoners of war they are carrying – a good example being, ironically enough, the British prisonners who were released in neutral Uruguay by Captain Langsdorff when the Graf Spee (the ship supplied by the Altmark) anchored in Montevideo harbour.  At any rate, the British position vis a vis Norway was basically, “You drop your protest and we’ll drop ours.”  Which they did.

All of the above

The “just sit and wait for the Phony War to end in April 1940” option is a bit perplexing as an answer to “You are the German High Command!  What is your next Combat Movement?” because it seems to imply that the Phony War was operating on a fixed timetable, and that this timetable was in someone else’s hands.  The lack of action on land on the Western Front is certainly due in part to inaction by France and Britain (whose strategy was basically to sit around for a couple of years to built up their strength for a showdown, while simultaneously hoping that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a coup), but it was also very much a deliberate choice by Germany.  The Wehrmacht needed to analyze the Polish Campaign, fix the tactical and operational elements that hadn’t worked as well as expected, plan the upcoming campaign against France and the Low Countries, rest and replenish its forces, give them more training, provide them with additional equipment, and redeploy them to the west.  Doing this properly took time, but Germany could afford to take the time to do the job right because of the lack of Anglo-French pressure on the western front. ( In other words, by sitting on their collective hindquarters France and Britain surrendered the strategic initiative to Germany, which gave the Wehrmacht the luxury of attacking at the time and place of its own choosing.)  Moreover, the time period during which these activities took place were the fall of 1939 and the winter of 1939-1940, which was conveniently timed because this meant that the Wehrmacht wouldn’t have to fight in the fall (manageable, but rainy and muddy) or in the winter (far less harsh in the West than in Russia, but still potentially nasty as veterans of the Battle of the Bulge will recall).  The late spring / early summer period chosen for the offensive in the West was much more congenial for military operations.

A Jagdpanther of course. Beautiful shape. With sloping frontal armour and the L71/88.
Love the scene when one breaks over the crest in Normandy in Band of Brothers.

I scored Finland, I’m trying to score Italy to see what it says  :-D

@ABWorsham:

You guys have high regards for the Italian Armies.

The Italian war effort can be described as a failure. Italy had only one main front to fight taking on enemies that have many fronts to contend with. The battles of 1915-17 showsed little progress, 1917 the rout of Caporetto.

Only when Austria-Hungary was at the point of revolution could the Italian Armies have large sucess.

I agree.  But the Italians had more divisions and ships engaged with the enemy at any one time than the USA had during the entire conflict.

You also have to consider that the “Alpine Front” was one of the most difficult and geographically challenging of the entire war.

Just noticed the German West losses I gave earlier is for  Sept 1939 to April 1945. It includes the 1940 losses, an extra 156,556.

**Heer Losses in the Polish, Norwegian, French, and Balkan Campaigns
(Organizationsabteilung d. Gen,Stb. d. OKH. 6 Feb 45, NARA T78, R414, F3226-3227

Losses in the Feldheer**
……KIA…WIA…MIA…Total
Poland …8,082…27,278…5,029…40,389
Norway …1,166…1,548 …1,091…3,805
France… 27,650…115,299…13,607… 156,556
Balkans…1,593…4,845…644…7,082
Total …38,491…148,970…20,371 …207,832

So the claims made in the Third Army  book are even further off!

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.