Full German motorisation instead?

How would the German light cruisers have preformed as commerce raiders?

It could have made a difference I think, the brits could still not beat the blitzkrieg then.

And their army was 10x smaller then the italian, whose moral would raise by the arrival of the germans/first defeats of the british.

But of course, malta should be taken first.

It’s widely thought that Germany’s conquest of Romania is all that kept the German Army and People from complete starvation. Germany brought by train between 300 and 400 million tons of grain occupied Romania.

Germany also had a few long range U-Boats that went to the U.S to get precious supplies. In the early years of the war, the U-Boats were welcomed as heros.

The great Admiral Maximilian von Spee did make plans to recapture the German Island of Samoa in 1914, but with his few sailors, armed as marines, he could do little to change the course of the Pacific. His best way to hurt the enemy was commerce raiding.

better engines and transmissions for the tiger and king tiger tanks. that would of be decisive in both eastern and western fronts

@balungaloaf:

without US aid assistance via lend lease, without the allied strategic bombing campaign tying up much of the luftwaffe and anti air defenses, and without the threat of invasion keeping millions of german soldiers in europe, the soviets would have been smashed before they could ever set up a counter attack.  if moscow was taken, the people would give up on their communist overlords and capitulate.

You alluded to the pressure the U.S. and Britain put on Germany; and I fully agree that pressure was immense. Even in 1940–before the U.S. was technically at war–its industrial production created profound implications for the balance of power in Europe. With massive numbers of American aircraft being produced and sent to Britain, Germany had to either a) find a way to keep pace, industrially, with the U.S. and Britain combined, or b) watch its cities and people be destroyed by waves of British and American bombers. The invasion of the Soviet Union was largely precipitated by the desire to allow Germany to attain the raw materials and industrial capacity to achieve outcome A.

However, keeping pace with the production capacity of the U.S. and Britain also required Germany to invest heavily in its own production facilities. That investment diverted effort from what would have been immediately useful production against the Soviet Union. During 1942, the Soviets out-produced the Germans 3:1 or even 4:1 in all major land categories of production, and even out-produced the Germans 2:1 in planes.

Prior to launching Operation Barbarossa, the German military staff had incorrectly believed that the Soviet Army consisted of 200 divisions. Divisions which had fought very poorly in the Soviets’ 1940 invasion of Finland. In the spring of 1941, the German Army consisted of 150 divisions; 100 of which were used for the invasion of the Soviet Union. But in the months after the invasion, the Soviets were quickly able to expand the size of their army to about 600 divisions. Given the imbalance of sheer numbers, it is very unlikely Germany could have prevailed in a war against the Soviet Union even despite its military’s advantage on a man-for-man basis.

@finnman:

@gnasape:

Looks like an episode of “Deadliest Warrior” on Spike TV!  Someone should contact them about doing this.

Best show ever, The SS just fought the veit cong.

Good show, not great show. Had the show had this face off ( Marine Raiders vs Waffen SS) it could hold the title: great show.

The real prize was the fleet at Toulon under Admiral Jean de Laborde. Even with Darlan’s ceding of his fleet to the Allies, Toulon had 77 available french ships.  Darlan tried to barter with his old rival to throw his lot in with his, but laborde remained silent over the topic  In occupying Vichy France after the African landings, the Germans stopped short of Toulon  demanding the surrender of the fleet.  Soon the German’s grew tired of waiting for a reply and moved in to take the fleet by force.  Quoted as “one of the greatest acts of self immolation in military history”, Laborde scuttled his fleet and sabatoged it before it could get into German hands. In all 3 battleships, seven cruisers, and thirty-two destroyers were lost amongst the fleet.  Eisenhower had mixed feelings, he was dismayed that the fleet was gone, but relieved the prize was not in German hands.