Full German motorisation instead?

Thus the answer is clear, the MG34 has the advantage of “open swing” when it comes to changing the barrels.

@jim010:

Good analysis. +1 to you.

Had the Germans had these, though, it would be hard to say what they would match up against.  Britain and France would have ships to counter these.  Instead of being an answer to the Deutschland class, they would have had to have built answers to the more powerful Mackensens.  The KGV very likely would have had 15 guns rather than 14s.Â

Very hard to figure out what France and Britain would have responded with.  And in turn, whatever the French did would influence the Italians.  My guess is you would have seen a much more aggressive battleship race between the major powers.  The super battleships planed by everyone probably would have materialized sooner.

Well said.

@KurtGodel7:

As you pointed out, actually capturing the city was unnecessary. But having captured the city, Hitler was very determined to hold onto it. Abandoning it would have presumably meant having to recapture it later; and once again suffering that same 1:1 ratio during the recapture.

One thing I’m wondering: why would Germany have to (or even want to) recapture at great cost a city that it was unnecessary (and indeed counterproductive) to capture in the first place?

@abworsham4

I think there are two possible problems with this strategy:

Firstly, whilst it would have been indeed much easier to produce, could Germany have produced enough of them to match Soviet production with Western Allied bombing and fighting in North Africa and later in France and Italy? At least Germany would have a qualitative advantage due to crew training.

Secondly, could Germany hypothetically had enough manpower to equip those tanks? I admit this is a lesser problem, as I would favour having one tank than 3-6 infantrymen.

Morning, Worsham.

My favorite German warship actually built was the Bismarck. One of the best battleships of the war.

My favorite planned German warship was the H-44. The H-44 would have had double the displacement of the Yamato battleship. It would have had 20" guns; instead of the 17" guns found on the Yamato. It was planned to have 68 AA guns; compared to 24 for the Yamato. It also would have been by far the most heavily armored battleship Germany had ever built. The intention was to make it impervious to attack.

Brilliant!
Thank you. Have not watched any news yet.

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.

Hitler should have just stopped the war after May 1941 and just fight UK and take her colonies and use his pact with Stalin to co-capture the Middle-East and finish off India. After 10 years of consolidation of capturing most of Europe and finishing off UK, invade the Soviet Union with the full enjoyment of all the jet fighters, super heavy tanks and greater war making capacity.

So i guess invading Soviet Union was the worst mistake and not using them as true allies until you didn’t need them anymore and causing a two front war.

Hitler should break any military treaty with Japan and try to 5th column USA with sympathizers to keep US neutrality.