Right before Barabossa If you looked at the Axis empire there it would be good If the Axis divided it give west Africa to Spain, East Africa to Italy, France,Poland,Britain,to the Third Reich, Yugoslavia,Greece, Macedonia to like the Romanians,Bulgarians,That other one, and The Baltic to the Finnish . Also before invading Russia I would ask for a massive amount of supplies from them. I would spread the wealth to my allies and the countries that were occupying would mainly control the counqred nations with there own troops with over 10,000 German advisers each.
How are you going to conquer the UK? Sealion was a joke of an operation.
Spain wouldn’t enter the war - Franco was the only decent general running a country in WW2, and he took one look at the situation and told Hitler to take a running jump. Besides, Spain was a wreck after the civil war.
Italy tried to take over East Africa, had a great deal of trouble with the Ethiopians before being spanked by a comparatively tiny British force.
Greece stopped the Italians dead - what makes you think Romania and Bulgaria have a prayer?
Russian deliveries to Germany were IIRC limited by the capacity of transport links, rather than what Stalin wanted to deliver. You can’t increase the amount delivered without more rail lines.
I agree with pdf27. The Italians were rather weak in many areas. Heck, even when Rommel got to North Africa, he found that even the Italian maps of the area were useless. I doubt that the Italians would have been able to hold on to any territory for any length of time without having military help regardless of it being in Greece or Africa.
Spain was in no shape to enter any war, regardless of what gifts or territories they might receive. Franco did have a pretty good idea that the war wasn’t going to end well for the Axis powers. Spain had too many problems that it needed to solve internally.
Romania and Bulgaria also depended heavily on the Germans militarily and they wouldn’t have been able to hold on to anything on their own. They quickly turned against the Germans when things got hot. Greece and Macedonia were important as far as guarding the southeast flank from the Allies as well as supply routes. To just offer these areas to other countries, even if they were Axis allies at the time, would have been rather dangerous.
And, even if the railways would have been there, Stalin wasn’t stupid enough of giving Germany a great deal of supplies. Stalin might have been a murderous leader, but dumb he was not. When the non aggression pact between Germany and Russia was signed, it was something that they both knew would be limited. I don’t think that neither had the intention of holding back against each other forever, even at that moment.
perhaps with a huge force of u-boots create a blockade around the islands. the Brits would try to fight the subs but would ultimately lose their oil,fuel for fighting and the battle for Britain would of ended soon once it began due with a bunch of spitfires waiting for fuel. With no air force Britain would be on the defensive and then Jerry could send in armies from any direction starting with super soldiers, like the FJ, creating beachheads. Their Navy would be destroyed by torpedo armed ju-88s and stukas. :army: Am I wrong or am I wrong?
You’ve outlined elements of Germany’s strategy for defeating Britain, which failed in the real war.
Sealion, or its equivalent, was a necessary exercise to conquer Britain. It could never have worked and, without German troops defeating British forces on land in Britain, Britain could not have been conquered.
And, might I say, that the OP situation is hopelessly simplistic and ill informed, and most notably with the unsupported “Same with the Jap empire.” assertion.
The conditions leading to and during the war in Europe and the Pacific were entirely different and there were few parallels between them, and none which would support the assertion that the European experience was the same for the Japanese Empire.
On a more specific level, my understanding is that few Stukas were equipped as torpedo aircraft and that most of those that were were converted back to bombs.
The suggestion that Germany could have invaded Britain by sea if the British air defences were obliterated ignores the significant naval forces available to Britain for home defence if things became desperate, with all RN ships being called for home defence. In the real war, Germany never achieved control of the English Channel and the approaches to Britain.
And, WTF is it with ‘super soldiers’ being sent in? We’re talking about a real war, not some video game.
And as for ‘super soldiers’ creating a beachhead, so what? If the RN can still patrol the Channel and waters between Britain and continental Europe, it’s quite possible that the beachheads will be cut off from their LOC and be dealt with by the home forces in Britain.
Romanians ? Do you remember what happened in battle of Stalingrad ? Which nations were on the flanks of the 6th army ? The same situation was in the bulgarian army too - poorly equiped and far from the german standarts . Just without Germany all other of their allies were poor and needed constant troops and support .
The Germans didn’t have a huge force of U-boats in 1940, and those they did have (about 30 in total from memory, so around 10 on patrol at any one time) were busy in the North Atlantic and western approaches trying to create just such a blockade - without conspicuous success.
The U-boats available in 1940 were usually built around 1937 - i.e. before the Munich agreement (the time afterwards being needed to finish building them, train and work up the crews). A large U-boat force is good for only one thing as far as Germany is concerned - blockading the Atlantic sea lanes between Britain/France and the US. Since in 1937 Germany is massively weaker than either Britain or France and was relying on essentially their goodwill not to be invaded, building up forces to clearly be used in a war against the UK is a really bad idea. Furthermore, resources for these U-boats would be diverted from other shipping - destroyers, etc. - which would also be critically needed in an invasion of the UK.
This was tried - the U-boats against the RN, RCN and later USN. The U-boats lost (U-boat crewmen as a whole suffering around a 75% mortality rate over the war, with the overwhelming majority of survivors those who transferred to U-boats late in the war and often never made a single patrol).
The Fallschirmjaeger weren’t exactly “super-soldiers”. In fact they got very roughly handled by second-line British/Commonwealth soldiers on Crete. They only took Crete because a British counter-attack to clear an airfield went wrong and the Germans could hold it long enough to fly in conventional infantry in Ju-52s. The Fallschirmjaeger were damaged badly enough that they never did another paradrop in the war.
The Ju-52 had very poor payload-range characteristics, and in summer 1940 there were only around 250 of them available. This in reality meant that the maximum airlift the Germans could attack the UK with is around 300 tonnes/day - just about enough for a single light infantry division, assuming no losses of the Ju-52s through accident or enemy action. Furthermore, their range is short enough to limit them to the home counties - effectively Kent and Sussex only, which will put them in the teeth of the strongest defences in the UK.
The seabourne invasion was to have been carried out by converted Rhine river barges. These are made of cast iron and so fragile that they won’t move at all if there is any ice on the river, and frequently run with their decks awash. The English Channel is one of the nastiest pieces of water in the world, and within 24 hour steaming for the whole Home Fleet (and about 2 hours for 50 destroyers held in the Thames Estuary at the time. Some of the first wave might get ashore, but the rest won’t.
There were no Ju-88s or Stukas armed with torpedoes in summer 1940. IIRC all the Germans had with torpedoes were some obselete Heinkel biplanes. Furthermore, their level/dive bombers were incompetent in attacking shipping - during the Dunkirk evacuation only a handful of ships were sunk by air attack while stationary off the beaches, and IIRC none while crossing the channel. This means the Luftwaffe of 1940 was essentially powerless against moving surface ships - one of the reasons the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese air attack 18 months later was such a shock.
“Supersoldiers” is a term created for the german soldiers in general by a british or us-american military historian whose name I unfortunately can’t recall.
Myself, I wouldn’t describe no soldier in the world as a “Supersoldier” but would certainly grant the title “elite unit” to the german paratroopers of the
7. Flieger-Division on Crete.
Surely the losses were enormous but they had to deal with an enemy three times the strength of what was reported by german reconaissance. My sources call the “second-line” opponents of the Fallschirmjäger “highly-motivated english, australian, New Zealand and greek volunteers in splendidly constructed positions” plus an unknown number of natives armed with clubs, stones and hunting-rifles with dum-dum ammo who preferentially “took care” of the wounded german paratroopers.
Hardly surprising that they were highly motivated as they didn’t have any obvious ways out. I wouldn’t say they were all that good though - from memory they were a rag-bag of troops evacuated from Greece and randoms scraped together from the Middle East, most likely the units commanders were happiest to lose.
It isn’t a criticism of the Fallschirmjaeger in particular, but of paratroops in general. They arrive disorganised, lightly armed and cut off from reinforcement/resupply. Things then get rapidly worse when the enemy try to kill them. Paratroopers are useful, but only because they attract a certain type of soldier which make excellent light infantry.
The Australians of the 6th Division AIF on Crete certainly weren’t second line troops. They were already battle hardened by a very successful campaign in North Africa, including victories at Bardia and Tobruk, and a very unsuccessful but bitterly fought campaign in Greece where they were mauled by the Germans largely because Churchill sent them and other British forces in without the necessary air support. They evacuated from Greece to Crete and met the Germans again there.
Yet in the midst of all this vicious fighting there was surprising humanity and co-operation between the Australians and Germans. See the third paragraph on p.265 in the last link.
Sure? With the British Mediterranean Fleet floating around the island (although they were busy dealing with the german air force)?
It isn’t a criticism of the Fallschirmjaeger in particular, but of paratroops in general. They arrive disorganised, lightly armed and cut off from reinforcement/resupply. Things then get rapidly worse when the enemy try to kill them. Paratroopers are useful, but only because they attract a certain type of soldier which make excellent light infantry.
“We’re paratroopers. We’re supposed to be surrounded.” :mrgreen:
I remember that one from the Band of Brothers series.
But seriously, interesting what you’re stating here - the sense of parachute forces in general. That would be material for a discrete thread (if there wasn’t already such one).
My goal to victory assuming i have already taken control of france would be to continue attacking RAF stations until annihilated and turn to the mid east were i would take the the oil i needed to continue the war effort also by being in the mid east i could then be threat to the britsh who held positons in india and in russia i would not split my amry into three diff groups to take diff cities no i would have sent one huge army group to drive towards moscow to criple the sov unoin’s communications and then only after i had taken moscow would i then split my army to attack leningrad and stalingrad and second off i would have treated the russian civs as liberators not as conquerers that means no death squads also i would have sent my paratroopers not to crete but to malta
Not possible. The German attack followed the Russian rail lines, and the three major lines were pretty much maxed out - meaning it wasn’t possible to significantly reinforce one front at the expense of the others. Furthermore, pushing forward with your flanks hanging in the air is a recipe for the greatest military disaster in history. If the Germans had done that and the Soviets managed to close the door behind them, the majority of the Wehrmacht would be trapped and the war as good as over.
What is the point of diverting air forces and using fuel and munitions to attack RAF bases in England if you’re not going to invade it, but instead turn to the Middle East, where no planes from England can reach you?
