Why the Allies won

[JerseyJohn]

Blashy

Your statisticians view is just plain wrong. In the Spring of 1940 France and Britain had more troops than the Germans and more tanks. Two months later this was the scene.

Quantity was never the key factor till it became overwhelming from 1943 on.

And, if you got a year after that, in June of 1941 the Soviets had more of everything than the Germans, more troops, more tanks and more aircraft -- but within two months they were on the verge of collapse, fighting not for victory, but for their existence.

Again, you're just downright wrong. There are too many other factors that you completely ignore.

Minty,

I agree completely with what you're saying.

Retributar,

You're right, someone like Clint Eastwood or Kevin Kostner would be great to give it the proper feel for a movie. I'm not really thinking in terms of it being a movie, but I also agree with what you're saying, it needs to have more than a documentary feel.

I've stopped working on it for a while so I can read some novels with similar ideas. Downfall by Robert Harris, which I picked up last night, In The Presence Of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove and The Children's War by JN Stroyar. All three of them set the story much later than the end of WWII. My idea was to set it within they hypothetical war itself, but after the defeat of France and Britain.

The plot and characters of my work are still sketchy, in it's formative stages.

I'm making some decisions and may end up setting it all aside and approaching it from a different perspective, particularly regarding Germany's handling of the European Jews.

I]Wolfpack makes an interesting point about the Madagascar resettlement. I've got to find out if there was any provision for that in the peace treaty Germany signed with France. There might have been but it was never put into effect because Britain controled all routes leading there. I still hadn't examined that situation very carefully.

It's clear to me now that Hitler wanted the total annihilation of all of Jews, everywhere on earth. I'm not sure what the resettlment plans were about. It could be they were only smokescreens designed to placate his own officials who wouldn't have supported outright cold blooded genocide. Certainly, before much longer, the nazi use of the term resettlement came to by synonomous with execution. So that whole area is an unsavory aspect I've got to have clear in my own mind before going any further.

I'm thinking about using a main character who is in the German government but working against the nazis. Someone like Wilhelm Canaris. Perhaps using Canaris himself as the character, but that would mean doing a great deal more research specifically on the admiral.

Or -- I may go the same route the others took, of setting the story long after the end of WWII, perhaps even setting it in today's world with the past sixty years altered by a negotiated German victory in 1940.

-- If that were the case, there might even have been a resettlement of European Jews to Israel itself, with the Germans themselves transporting them. That was another German plan worked on during the 1930s. Part of their reasoning was to divide the Middle East, Jew against Moslem, with Britatin caught in the middle and Germany able to manipulate the situation to it's own advantage.

Key to all of this is Hitler himself. He seems to have changed considerably after the fall of France and, particularly after Britain's refussal to fall in line with his ideas.

A lot of things to reconsider and I'm grateful to you and Wolfpack for introducing some aspects I hadn't given enough thought to.

-- In my first post I said something confusing regarding the fall of France. There were three German panzer corps that broke through Belgium and France in the 1940 campaign. The most southerly and largest was under Guderian. North of him was Reinhardt and north of Reinhardt was Hoth, whose job it was to screen the other two. The three corps were under the command of Ewald von Kleist, the panzer army being under the command of Rundstedt's Army Group A.

Rommel's panzer division was in the northernmost corps. In my earlier description it sounded as though Rommel were under Guderian's command.

What I meant to say was that Rommel broke through a bit differently than the historical situation and reached Dunkirk, cutting off the BEFs escape and forcing the panzers farther south to hook north to his support.

[jon_j_rambo]

Agree with Sir Jersey. The whole Israel thing is quite Biblical. Everything has been played out by freewill. God (in man's timeline) pressed rewind & has given us the future of the book...the creation of Israel in 1948. That instrument of evil in Germany, just another repeat of the past & future.

[JerseyJohn]

Thanks Brother Rambo. That would make a great twist, that the nazis wound up as the driving force behind the creation of Israel. Which, incredibly, was one of the SS projects being looked into. Eichmann actually traveled to Palestine before the war to meet with Zionists to explore the possibilities. The results of his trip were inflated so he could make himself seem more important than he was (I think he was a major at the time, he never rose higher than lt colonel), but if WWII hadn't developed -- Hitler didn't think it would -- there might have been some future in the Palestine resettlement idea.

I really like that possibility.

With the European Jewish community there were divisions, of course. The French and German Jews regarded themselves as much more modernized and acclimated than their Eastern European cousins. Assuming that program had been adapted after a peace treaty in 1940, there would have been about 2,000,000 German and Polish Jews under German dominion for resettlement to Palestine. Presumably Germany would have invaded Russia, adding another 5,000,000 or more.

Interesting possibilities.

[Minty]

I think we have fallen into a trap here. we play this game and, to ever play Axis, distance ourselves from the Nazi element. look at HC's very diplomatic structure to the game. the only swastika is nearly blocked, Winston and Big Joe are there but no Hitler and only Rommel's smiling face.Ok so it's Ike not FDR but truman was there for the last bit and besides ike got to be Pres and oldmen in wheelchairs just don't look so militaristic. And rommel? He's the friendly german general right? Not a nazi? oh surely not.Just think james mason, even hollywood romanticism about him. There's no swastika in the game, no mention of Nazism and no Waffen SS totenkompf deathsquads. You get supply loss from partisan actitiviy but no morale loss from the 4th army having to shoot children in the back of the head every day in the Ukraine One of the tech options for germany is not "gas chambers level 2". sorry to be so blunt but we all try and put aside the brutal facts of the regime so that we can play the game. Fine, at least then we can treat it as a wargame only. The mistake is then to carry that onto the discussion over history -where you cannot ignore the evil. Resettlement of Jews by the nazis? Are you all mad? Hitler wanted them all Dead cos he was pure evil.It drove him completely and consumed him utterly, anything else is a smokescreen. even in total defeat he blamed jewish america, jewish bolshaviks in russia, jewish ideas. Jews were the scapegoat for WW1 defeat and economic collapse. jewish bankers in the wall street crash. jewish communists, everything, He would NEVER have packed them off on some cruise trip to happy zionist land. There are possible alternative histories and Fatherland by robert harris is a very plausible one. I love the idea of JFK Senior being the 60s president in a US that was now morally corrupt as a result of not winning the righteous second world war. Stop kidding yourself about anything other than Hitler wanting the final solution.

[JerseyJohn]

Minty,

Agreed. I said much earlier, and probably two or three times that Hitler wanted all Jews, everywhere, to be killed. Period!

And yet, he also had the SS investigate ways of deporting them, usually to some alterior motive. Most of the time his reasoning was work to death. The SS, when they finally implemented the so called Final Solution in early 1942, went to sickening legnths I won't write down to try and literally squeeze every cent they could out of each Jew they murdered.

The only motivation the nazis would have had for sending the European Jews to Palestine would have been to cause trouble for the British, pit Arabs against Jews and, ultimately, come in and exterminate them. In effect Palestine, in the view of this nazi plan, was a way of turning Palestine into nazi occupied Poland; a place to gather the Jewish population and have them all in one place for the final slaughthering.

I have no delusions about this and sincerely hope nothing I said came off to that effect. What I'm speculating on is scenarios that might have branched off these things in the sence of writing a novel. Nothing more.

There's also the factor of Hitler's death. If things had run their natural course when would he have either died, or become incapacitated? Because I don't think the Holocaust, in the form it happened in, would have taken place without Hitler. There other rabid anti-semites like Streicher and Heydrich, but not even Himmler was obsessed with exterminating world Jewery, it was Hitler's mania.

And it became extreme when Germany began losing the war. The reasoning became a dual war, one against the allies and the other against the Jews.

But if the war hadn't begun spiralling down for Germany would it still have happened in quite the same way?

[Scook]

The most amazing thing to me is less than 50% of people in Death Camps were Jews. Hitler had it in for a lot of people. I am guessing if he had his way with an Aryian world, he and his cabinet would have plunged themselves into the pits of Hell after they purged the world of all sub-humans.

[JerseyJohn]

Agreed, Scook. Nazi policies against the Poles were almost as brutal as those implemented against the Jews. Some of his own henchmen realized how ludicrous this was; in one of the three Polish districts, all Poles had to do was fill out a form saying they were really German and, magically, they were fine upstanding citizens of the Reich instead of earmarked for extermination.

Slaves, Freemasons, Gypsies, communists, homosexuals all marked for extermination with all other parts of mankind seen on a tier system, all of them under the genetically nonsensical Aryan overlords.

[Curry]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Agreed, Scook. Nazi policies against the Poles were almost as brutal as those implemented against the Jews. Some of his own henchmen realized how ludicrous this was; in one of the three Polish districts, all Poles had to do was fill out a form saying they were really German and, magically, they were fine upstanding citizens of the Reich instead of earmarked for extermination.

Slaves, Freemasons, Gypsies, communists, homosexuals all marked for extermination with all other parts of mankind seen on a tier system, all of them under the genetically nonsensical Aryan overlords.

JJ - true. And more than just those you lised. Including Christians that devoted themselves to Christ instead of the Fuhrer, or many Artists that they didnt like, or writers they didnt like. JJ you would have been in trouble I think.

[Curry]

But back to why the allies won,

Go to Terifs always excellent comments on the game itself on why its harder for the Axis to win. Because the Axis player often makes more mistakes.

True in real life of WWII. DA Fuhrer made many more mistakes. The Allies made some, but if we were to just list the mistakes I think that is the reason. Maybe too simple, but I think its true.

[JerseyJohn]

Curry,

Thanks for placing me on that list, along with one of my idols, Thomas Mann. I wouldn't have it any other way than to be targeted by nazis, neo-nazis, whatever lunatic fringe is running around. Better to be their enemy than their friend.

The Christian part is a little tricky. Some Catholic clergy went to concentration camps, or worse, while most went on without being disturbed; it depended upon how involved in politics they were. The same held true in the occupied countries, particularly Poland, where many priests and nuns were killed by the nazis, but the Vatican urged the Polish church to restrict itself to spiritual concerns. Kind of odd, they were being ruled by Lucifer himself and were being asked to ignore his presence.

Agree with what you're saying about the mistakes made being a prime factor. The odd thing with Hitler is, up to the victory in France, he played everything to near perfection. His big miscalculation was in believing the British and French would back down when he invaded Poland. Even there, his revised assessment about there being a negotiated peace within a year isn't unreasonable considering there was no possibility of Germany being blocaded (with its economic treaty with the USSR working for it).

The original West Front plan didn't envision a military victory, only a limited victory in the Low Countries. From there he was willing to play improvise his way through a long deadlocked war.

That all changed with Manstein's Ardennes plan, and after the unexpected victory in France, Hitler's judgement was never again sound.

[ October 03, 2006, 06:24 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Curry]

JJ - on the Christians. Many, no more than likely most just went with the nazis and the pressure they applied. However, many did not, like Dietrict Bonhoffer as a good example who stood up against them and gave his life for it.

I was in Berlin last March and some Christians like Bonhoffer were in the great display, the topography of terror. Which everyone should see and the Germans don't advertise too much as a tourist site. It is on the original location of the SS and Gestapo sites in Berlin which have never been built over to this day. If anyone goes to Berlin its a must see that will affect you.

Here is a link

http://www.topographie.de/en/index.htm

However, my point is not just about Christians, it was like you said, a bit of anyone that would voice any opposition to them or anyone they didnt like for whatever reason.

[Liam]

This topic has been discussed before as to why the Allies won. I think that it wasn't as simple as numbers. The Axis had the Edge and early expansions in Military Doctrine and having conquored vast tracts of territory. By 1942 onward it what pretty much a reverse as Allied Nations mobilized and countered with their understanding of Modern Warfare and at that point Germany and Japan had there last moments in the LimeLight..

Numbers definitely did make the Difference and Russians had been battered to death and had learned how to fight this insurmountable foe. Much like SC2, the Axis pushed her back thousands of miles and the Axis really couldn't lock the Jaws on the Huge Russian Army. She found herself split in her goals to close the Deal so to speak and she certianly could of, I do not think that Any good War Historian would disagree the Germans blundered throughout later '41 and into '42.. Splitting Forces too much, countering orders

As far as the Minor Conquests, there were blunders on behalf of the French and British, not properly handle diplomacy nor the situation at hand. They were unprepared for WW2 in 1940 and that primarily why they both nearly ended there, which could've been it... Noone is for certian what Stalin may have done without the UK... Doubtful it would be an SC2 Story. Anyone who thinks that Sea Lion was impossible, visit the various PillBoxes in my Ancestoral home, they litter the landscape and are a sorta of Landmark and fun spot to visit for Hobbyists Really there would've been the DoverWall, in preparation for the German Onslaught

The Japanese are a different story, too divided in their Military decisionmaking, too afraid to strike out at the High Command Level, too insane at the lower Command Level. They did some great initial conquests but soon faltered without any sort of plan to rule this Massive Territory they'd conquested

Their fate would've been that of subordinate to the German's had UK or USSR fallen, they would've consolidated perhaps later though Germany very well my friends, could've conquored a Majority of the Known World and BELIEVE me, the US would've dealt with Hitler. One way or the other, the Technology didn't exist to resist him 1941 and 1942, i.e. a Nuclear Bomb or even Long Range Bombers.. We'd of likely accepted the inevitable as a Minor Western Nation... Neutral and friendly to the New Axis Giant

The World would look very odd, Pax Germania

2/3rds of the Steppe converted into Liebenstrom, France a German Bitch so to speak, England the same... Italy would've gotten a huge chunk of it's former greatness, a new Roman Empire.. Spain, Turkey would've thrown their lot in as well as many MiddlEastern Nations... Cooperative Axis Allies, as most the World Fought the Oppressive Axis Regimes, most would've sided to avoid being destroyed.. Netherlands being bombed was the first sign of what happens to those who resist the Nazis, they couldn't make up their mind to surrender did and still got bombed!

Numbers did count, Oil, mass production, numbers. Though Superior leadership and better choice of equipment is as powerful, look at 100 thousand Americans able to whip the Iraqis, I bet you, that 50 thousand Americans could've knocked out 3 qtrs of a million Iraqis, with thousands of tanks and Aircraft. Perhaps 400-500 ourselves... A stark comparison, many of these Nations had better equipment though not readily availabe and not deployed properly and with incompetent men at the Helm.. The Germans had an Open Door to victory in 1941 they were unable to seize it, they had a Meglomaniac in their Leadership and he was No Napoleon

[Retributar]

Excellent Essay Liam !, of course i agree with you!.

[jon_j_rambo]

QUESTION: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?

ANSWER: Nobody knows, because nobody has ever tried.

[Lars]

Rambo, send me an email with your game parameters if you want Allies or just send the Axis first move.

Finally going to have time for the home machine tonight.

[jon_j_rambo]

QUESTION: How many gears does a French tank have?

ANSWER: 6 gears. 5 gears reverse, 1 gear forward (just in case they are attacked from behind).

[Colin I]

Rambo,

Very harsh (and generally told of the Italiens). Look at history, the French WON the first serious tank engagement in history when they actually had decent armour concentrated. Later it went awfully wrong in lots of ways but the fall of France is noticeable for the fact that a small segment of the French army (eg some colonial troops) performed very well (in some cases facing down tanks without adequate antitank weapons) although much of the rest was rapidly demorilized.

To quote from a commentary on a reputable source -May, Ernest R. Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France. New York: Hill and Wang in 2000:

"The 2nd and 3rd DLMs of General Prioux badly mauled the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions of General Hoepner at Hannut, and only because Prioux retired behind the main French line as ordered was the German position in Belgium not seriously disrupted.

Rommel's critical crossing of the Meuse at the Houx sluice was costlier and less certain than generally recognized, and would not have taken much more on the French side to prevent it altogether.

That Guderian was able to reach Sedan almost unhindered (and unmolested from the air while his tanks were nearly gridlocked on the narrow roads of the Ardennes) was considered a "miracle" by all involved, and his crossing of the Meuse—which utilized such concerted airpower, according to May, that "rarely afterward would there ever be such a comparably concentrated bombardment from the air"—nearly failed, and led to a series of seesaw engagements around the bridgehead on 14 and 15 May (while the spearheads were rushing westward) that nearly tipped the balance back in favor of the French.

Its something that SC2 does not do well (although the potential upgrade to Tanks 1 is good and accurate) - it all could have ended for the Germans in France.

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo,

I don't agree at all about the French Army, not even in 1940 -- their leadership was inept, but the soldiers were still both brave and effective. But I did get a kick out of your remarks. The one about the tank gears was very popular after the 1968 Arab-Israel War, only at that time it was the Egyptians who had those backwards moving attacks.

Liam,

Great post! :cool:

I particularly like your assessment of the Pax Germania, that's pretty much what I see it as being also.

But I don't think the United States would have developed the A-bomb first if it hadn't actually been in the war. The Manhattan Project couldn't have been financed through the peacetime defense budget. In fact, it would have been several times larger than the entire peacetime defense budget of 1941.

Great view of the Japanese. Even their views in just going to war were screwed up, that America didn't have the resolve to fight a war in which there were massive losses. They'd obviously never studied the American Civil War, where both sides went on fighting long after the casualties had spiralled beyond anything comprehensible for the time.

As for Hitler not realizing his winning situation in 1941, he didn't realize it in 1940 either.

Dunkirk was open, completely undefended with von Kleist's panzer corps only have to drive there -- a short distance, perhaps one day from their position. Hitler issued the stop order, sent it down the line and when Kleist received it he shot back to Rundstedt that it had to be a mistake, that he was on the verge of cutting the British off from the coast as well as having already cut them off from the rest of the Allied armies. The response was an order to not only stop, but to withdraw his tanks south! So the panzers withdrew and spent three days doing nothing at all while the British and French retreated west, across Belgium, to the coast.

As you said, Germany was run by a megalomaniac, and he wasn't a Napoleon. -- A great remark too.

[JerseyJohn]

Colin I

We posted at almost the same instant, but I'm glad you said what you did about Guderian's advance and von Kleist's having to withdraw on orders instead of taking Dunkirk, as he wanted to do with Reinhardt's panzer corps.

As for those French jokes, adapted from old Italian and Egyptian jokes, the best thing is to ignore them. At least we didn't see the one about the Italian admiral inspecting his fleet through a glass bottom boat -- oops, sorry, didn't mean to say it.

[jon_j_rambo]

The French also had 10% of their troops in the drunk tank during the invasion. Discipline was a joke. Also, the French were pro-Bunta in many ways (see Vichey French).

[JerseyJohn]

Yes, but most of that goes back to leadership problems, not the troops themselves.

For one thing, nearly all the French generals were elderly. Gamelin had been a very competent general in WWI, but he was trying to fight that war a second time. Weygrand was a little better, but he was also elderly and not up on the modern tactics employed by the Germans. There best, and youngest, general was Bilotte, but he died in a car accident during the early days of the Belgium fiasco. Even if he hadn't, it's doubtful he could have effectively controled his troops with the Luftwaffe free to strafe them at every turn.

The drinking problem is a good point. The entire French army started the war with a morale problem and were fatalistic right to the end.

But, oddly, they fought extremely well in the second phase, after Dunkirk, when the Germans had reorganized and invaded France itself. Even the Germans admitted that if they'd had mobile reserves for counteratacking breakthroughs they might have held out for a long time. By then a French victory was out of the question, of course. But with no reserves at all the Germans just punched through the line and fanned out.

[jon_j_rambo]

@Sir Jersey --- Very well said! Nice take, rack 'em. You already have a closet full of Camp Rambo T-Shirts, so I'll just give you regular praise, that okay?

The problem was this: Starting at the top, they were a cowardly & fearful bunch. They realized their weaknessess & lost confidence in the Lord of Hosts.

People will rise no higher than the example demonstrated daily by their leaders. Without a vision, the nation will perish. Nations being just drops of water in a the whole bucket of things.

[Scook]

Poor Frenchy problems go back to 1914. How many men existed in France between the ages of 40-50? Hardy any. An entire generation of men is gone because of inept leadership and machine guns. Yes, Britain and Germany lost multitudes of men too, but per capita France lost it all. I would smoke cigarettes, drink lots, and make movies about nihilism if I were in a country that lost it's purpose.

As a dichotomy to France, this is how Hitler came to power. Germany had old leadership (aka Bismark), and here comes along Ole Adolf and inspires enough people to bring pride to a nation. Germany could have fallen into the same funk that held France sway.

Makes me believe this happened with purpose. I cannot see how random chance would affect our planet so profoundly. Maybe our fate is written?....

[Retributar]

It's good from time to time to see a 'Deep-Thinker' pouring it all out!.

You may not have it all figured out at the moment Scook !, but, seem's like your on your way to doing it!.

[jon_j_rambo]

Nations are used to judge Nations (at times). The hammer of the Hosts? Men vs. Men because of the love of money & pride.