The Ultimate Battle of Impractical Vehicles

@fido Very nice video.

What if, in 1939, before the war, Germany decides to withdraw all surface forces (like the destroyers, cruisers, and pocket battleships), to the Baltic Sea, where they will do nothing until the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are combat ready. Hitler then orders the German surface fleet (this battle happens before the Norwegian campaign, or doesn’t happen at all) to engage the British near the Jutland peninsula, hoping to win an even bigger surface victory than at the Battle Of Jutland in World War 1 (many far right Germans celebrated the Battle Of Jutland and the Battle Of Tannenberg as a victory to forget World War 1). Let’s say the German and Allied fleets fought to the death, and the German sailors were willing to sail into such a battle.

How detrimental would this have been for the German war effort? How would the war have changed?

The way I see it:
-two additional German trained Italian Infantry Divisions would be of no use because fully equuipped and trained they have been comming to late to make an excessive change.

the addition of another Panzer Division would be one of the best solutions but only FULLY equipped and along with two Pantergrenadier Reg.

the addition of a Panzer- Grenadier-Division to the theater would be of no good use without a few Panzer Regiments.

the addition of a company of new Tiger tanks and an anti tank Marder company would be a good add- on but require Panzer Grenadier Regs as well.

-200,000 additional anti personal mines would be good if you consider to keep what you got and def thinking about a Defensive Strategy.

-none of these options are enough to beat back the 8th Army <- The 8th Army was good but not to strong to beat the Germans. I think if the DAK would have had more then the rare Supply shipped over the Med. Sea, then the Brit. 8th would have had a hard time to beat back the Germans.

Under the line: Tanks and Grennys are the optimal choice of mine and I can see Rommel doing a good job with it!

Thank you Pacific War.
I do see your “draw” argument, but feel “to the death” is more fitting!
Hope you get to play again soon.

They still make unit books for combat tours, the Units themselves do it, usualy an S2 function, however nowadays they are usualy much less dramatic…  I have two…

I vote with these guys!  It is not a tank but it is a very powerful armored vehicle.
I love that beast too… a real good self propelled gun to be more specified.

This poll did not generate the interest that I assumed it would. I have locked the voting as it is time to move on to another subject. There were many different types of aircraft involved in this battle but I will confine my thoughts to the torpedo planes as that is what I voted for. The first single engine torpedo planes to attack the Japanese were six of the new TBFs from Midway. No hits were registered. One made it back to Midway. The first of the carrier torpedo planes to attack were Sixteen TBD Devastators from USS Hornet. (VT8) Because of confusion and inexperience they attacked without fighter cover. One man survived. Again no hits. The next group to attack were fourteen TBDs from USS Enterprise. (VT-6) Again no hits and eleven were lost. The last torpedo attack was made by thirteen TBDs from USS Yorktown. (VT-3) Once again no hits were scored and twelve planes were lost. But by this time ALL of the Japanese fighter cap was down to the deck to stop all of these torpedo planes. By chance this is when the dive bombers made their attack which lasted only about three minutes and left three Japanese carriers burning. Of course there were many others who gave their lives on Midway, on Enterprise and on the destoyer USS Hammann who never even got to see the enemy fleet. But those young men in the torpedo bombers gave their lives without even knowing the outcome of the battle. Can we even begin to imagine what their last thoughts were? They all contributed all that they could for this country. It is a shame that so many young people today have no clue what those men did for all of us.

Imperious Leader nailed the last comment.

Japan entered the War with the West with 51 Army Divisions; however 27 where already in use in China. Thirteen of the remaining divisions were facing the Red Army. Japan was willing to head to war with the Allies with ten to eleven availiable divisions!

Japan would quickly start recruiting from it’s 73 million population, but Japan kept the same habit of attacking the Allies with smaller forces.