Could have Germany won?

[Bushido]

If Germany had postponed their invasion of Russia and spent their time supplying Rommel with his much needed supplies, troops, tanks, ect. Do you think he could have defeated the Allies in North Africa?

And if he had won in North Africa--Would the invasion of Russia, ended in German Victory?

[Little Joe]

Germany could of won WW2 yes, if Hitler wasnt so intent on streching his forces so far.

And maybe if Japan hadn't of attacked America they wouldnt of got involded till it was too late.

[Bushido]

Could Rommel have defeated the Britishn New Zeallander,ect.----Germany had almost no air cover if I am not correct, the British pretty much controlled the Mediteranian after the Italian Navy was destroyed.

Another Question: Would Russia have surrendered if Germany had taken Moscow and won the battle at StalingraD.

[BigDork]

Didn't we just discuss all of this?

[Little Joe]

Stalingrad would of been a huge moral blow For russia if they had lost, after Stalins "Not one step back"Speech, But i doubt it Countries like Russia probably would of fought to the death or run until they run out of the resources which ever came first.

So must likely a human wave would of been sent Germanys way lol

[Tank Ace]

In strategic command yes, in the real world, probably, there army would not have been spread out and there would have been more troops in North Africa. More troops in France, but those troops experience levels would have been severly low since all there combat experience (especially the SS panzer units) was gained on the eastern front.

[Bushido]

Thanks

[Kobal2]

Russians would never have lost, even with Moscow and Stalingrad down.

First of all, Russians were downright fanatic about the Motherland at that time (and probably still are - it's something that goes far far back in history), as was seen during their defense of Stalingrad etc...They would probably have fought street by street right up to the Pacific.

Then, there is the sheer size of Russia. Germany would never have been able to occupy it all, they just didn't have the population for that kind of feat. Combine widescale guerilla with the "series of natural disasters" that is the Russian weather... If all else had failed, the Russians would have probably done what they did to Napoleon : scorched ground tactics. Leave nothing behind, burn every ressource you can't take with you, be it natural or mechanical, retreat as far as possible, and let Mother Russia do the job itself.

And lastly, like one said in another post, while the early-war Red Army was laughable, in 45 they could probably have defeated the US and British combined if they had wanted to, they were that good. The fact is, they almost did with the Germans all by themselves.

I don't believe Stalin would have attacked Germany though and if they had done so they would have been easily pushed back at the time, what with the purges and inexperience of Russian troops in 41 - IMHO Barbarossa was a big, big mistake.

[Little Joe]

Indeed Hitler was better off concentrating on whittling down Britain in England and the med and North Africa before even thinking of taking on the reds,No army in History could be streched that far.

[Bushido]

Now here is an interesting question-its a what if?

If Rommel had taken North Africa, Do you think he would have pushed into the middle East and move north to hit Russia at its southern border?

[Kobal2]

What about the rest of Africa then ? most of it was colonized by the British, the French, the Belgians...

[Sergei]

Happened in the previous episode of 'What If':

Could Russia have won alone?

Could Germany have lost alone?

Could Russia have won in 1941?

There's some good stuff in those threads for all whatifists...

[Kobal2]

Thanks Sergei, much much to learn in there.

[Alexei]

Originally posted by Bushido:

(...) the British pretty much controlled the Mediteranian after the Italian Navy was destroyed.

Actually it was the opposite. I am not sure about the date - I believe it is in beginning of 1942 - the Royal Navy had no more BBs in Mediterranean Sea (Italian minisubs + some diverted to Pacific I guess).

It was the right moment to attack Malta, but Rommel wanted to run for Cairo...

What if Malta had fallen ?

[Falcon988]

Germany could have won if it hadn't stretched its recourses thin and expended them in so many places, yes, but then history wouldn't call it World War II now would it? The war could've just been limited to the Blitzkrieg and North African campaigns. Their fatal mistake was attacking Russia while remaining at war with England and opening a two front war. The German economy couldn't sustain that kind of action especially since they didn't mobolize for total war until 1943 (after Stalingrad), a fact which absolutely baffles me.

[Kobal2]

Wouldn't baffle you so much if you were German in '43. Hindsight is always 20/20, but at the time they really believed Nazi B.S. regarding the "Osten" people - that they were degenerate barbarians, little more than a nuisance to the German Kriegsmaschine, something like Poland with money. The fact that in the early war Russians died in droves, charging MGs yelling URAAAAA ! and other such nonsense reinforced them in this opinion.

Like JasonC said in one of Sergei's links, they really, really believed that the 6 or 7 million soldiers they had killed already were the core of the Red Army, and that they were fighting remnants, shards of a force, and couldn't imagine that Russia probably fielded more tanks and men in '43 than in '41, despite their tremendous losses. Or that they could let their frontmen die while regrouping a huge army in the rear for the Stalingrad counterattack.

But your average Russian, he's a wily old bastard, he is. It's all those winters spent playing bloody chess

[Royal_Dragoon_Guard]

Didn't matter how much reinforcment/supplies Rommel was sent, most of it was doomed to go to John Brown's locker at the bottom of the sea, because Britain held the ace in the pack - Malta. From that island, strategically placed, aircraft and submarines played havoc with shipping to the Afrika Korps. The Germans certainly had their forces spread way too thin because of Hitlers obsession with the east. Mind you their involvment in Africa wasn't pre-planned, Mussolini kinda dropped them in it! With friends like that who needs enemies. Still the Afrika Korps involvement gave us a great game right?

[Cannon-fodder]

I must admit I am of the opinion that there is no way that Germany could have won the war. The fact was that Russia's enourmous economy would have crushed Germany, in the same way that America's war time economy crushed the Japanese.

However, perhaps it might have been possible for Germany and Russia to live side-by-side in a fascist+communist armistice. America would not have fought this, and it might have produced a 3-way Cold War... worth considering anyway?

TimG

[Tifosi]

Hitler´s intention was not to conquer the whole of russia, but rather to take the western part (as far as the caucus mountains east of Moscow) and deport all the native peoples east. He was a mad liitle bugger, but even he knew there had to be limits somewhere.

And yes, if he hadn´t declared war on America after Pearl Harbour (done in the hope that Japan would reciprocate in kind and got to war with their traditional enemy, Russia) then it´s possible that Germany could have won. Without the USN escorts and the "Liberty Ships", then statistically, the U-boats would have starved us within a few weeks at the rate they were sinking ships in late ´41 to early ´42.

Without the 8th USAAF, we could not have kept up round the clock bombing of industrial and military targets. The RAF didn´t have enough bombers, and they were all designed specifically for night ops. As to the north africa question - that´s trickier.

Yes, we controlled the Med via our base at Malta, but bear in mind that at one point our total air power on the island consisted of three Gloster Gladiator biplanes (nicknamed Faith, Hope and Charity) pitted against a force not much smaller than we faced in the Battle of Britain.

It was largley due to Italian failures that the axis was run out of North Africa as quickly as they were.

I know these answers are pretty generalised, but I hope they are of some help to you.

[K_Tiger]

Oh... please, can someone put this into the general Forum? My eyes start bleeding....

[junk2drive]

438 post since 1999, a thread dug up from june with no complaints, and now it bothers you?

[Michael Emrys]

Re North Africa:

What are you people thinking? Let us say that by some miracle the Italian merchant marine is not heading for the sea bed and the East is all sweetness and light. Let us say that furthermore there have been no reductions in German armament production after the fall of France in 1940, so that there is plenty of stuff waiting around to ship off to Rommel.

Okay, already we are talking about an alternate universe, but for the sake of argument, I'll let that pass...for the moment.

So vast gobs of every kind of warmaking materiel makes its way successfully across the Mediterranean to Libya. Then what? First of all, most of it sits around outside the Tripoli harbor waiting to get a chance at the limited (I might say very limited) dock space so that it can unload. It will almost certainly sit there for weeks and may sit there for months. Things do not happen quickly in these parts. Meanwhile, all those ships full of goodies are sitting ducks for whatever the British care to throw at them. So maybe they and their cargoes go to meet Davy Jones after all. Not much use to Rommel.

And of the stuff that does get unloaded and gets dispersed into dumps before the docks are bombed yet again, what then? Practically the only way for the Axis to move anything forward to the front in NA was by truck. If Rommel wants to keep supplied a true Panzer Armee in continuous offensive operations, It will require every truck in the entire German and Italian armies. And even they might not be enough. Remember, this is hard use and trucks wear out or get wrecked, even without an enemy shooting at them. I doubt that the Germans or Italians are making spares or replacement vehicles at the rate they will need them.

The point is, logistics, logistics, logistics. That thing that is so boring to amateurs who like to draw bold, sweeping arrows across maps and pretend that that's all that is needed. What I am trying to get across to you here, guys, is that even in an idealized alternate history that has been altered to give the Axis a much better shot at it, you still can't support an Axis army that is capable of overrunning the Middle East and posing a credible threat to the USSR's southern flank. Not without changing a lot more things as well.

But all this is fantasy. None of this was about to happen in the real world in our time line.

That's what I say, anyway.

Michael

[Crinius]

Like Tifosi said Germany didnt wanted to conquer thw whole of Russia. They intended to stop at the Wolga. They wanted to stop at a line drawn from North to South from Archangelsk to Astrachan. Even Hitler knew that he didnt coiuld controlle Russia. His plan was to control the vast area in the same way like the Roman Empire. He wanted to build everywhere in the vast steppe fortified strongpoint (like the Roman Limes) In that strongpoints he wanted to place some motorized Kampfgruppen and with them he would controll the vast area.

Regarding Rommel I once read of him that he said if he would have the resources that where spent in Russia on one single day he would have thrown the British out of Africa.

[Dennis Grant]

Little known fact (although I don't remember the source off the top of my head) - Stalin almost surrendered. He was right on the verge of doing so when Hitler ordered the change of axis towards the Ukraine instead of Moscow.

Had Hitler kept his focus on Moscow, it is entirely possible that Stalin would have capitulated. Had the weather been better earlier and allowed Barbarossa to start on schedule, he may have even reached Moscow before doubts started setting in.

Assuming Stalin surrendering, what happens next is anybody's guess. Would Russia respect the surrender, or would Army units continue to fight on? Would there be a powerful Russian Resistance, or meek acceptance of their new German overlords? And with Russia out of the fight, do the Western Allies ever even attempt to open a Western Front?

Impossible to guess. All we know with hindsight was just how close we all got to the brink.

DG

[David I]

By win, do you mean "Win" as in "Win the Nuclear Sweepstakes?". Berlin or the Ruhr, Berlin or the Ruhr? :confused: Guess we'll have to nuke both.

DavidI