What?[/quote]
Well, I’ve not read it but suspect it was probably set in around 1812. When Napoleon took and burned Moscow without it making a blind bit of difference to who won.
It still would have affected it some, perhaps stalling the mobilization of the Russian army and preventing Germany from losing so much territory in the winter.
I’m still of the firm persausion that for a couple of reasons the loss of Moscow would have affected a diffrent outcome.
Moscow was the main North-South communication node. Cut it off and you cut a lot of transport to Lenningrad etc.
It is also symbolic, but I dont think so symbolic that it would affect Soviet morale too much, but it could have affected the Germans more.
Also, at this stage of the war,I’m not sure Moscow would have turned into a Stalingrad situation and if the Germans took it early enough, well who knows.
Moscow was more important in 1941 than in 1812. As Firefly says, it was a communication hub, i.e. a RAILWAY hub. Most supplies etc were moved by rail, so cut this, and the sovs have a serious logs problem. When the army marched on foot, i.e. in 1812, it was not such a serious issue.
The real issue with this what if is that you need to look beyond the victory over conventional forces. Did Germany have any plans for hearts and mind operations? could they have held their land gains against the inevitable resistance.
Even if the Axis had achieved victory in continental Europe I doubt it would have been able to sustain the occupation as they lacked the manpower to garrison every villiage, town and city.
A good question is if Germany would even think of stepping into Siberia and beyond, though almost all Russian industry is in the West, Russian guerilla attacks would spring from every direction, you don’t even really need anti-tank weapons to hop onto a tank and gun down the crew. And air would be almost useless against guerillas because they don’t mass in large groups like an army would, or have huge complexes. And that’s just for Russia, there were hundreds of resistant forces behind enemy lines, with all the countries occupied by Germany (if taken like, GB, Russia, and North Africa) with the armies spread out they would get decimated.
Yes and no. Gurilla attacks are only effective when morrale are high and you know how to use the numbers of men you have to their full capacity. It is not to say that the Germans wuold have lost if they took over what they wnated. StallingradK do you know about the Boer War of 1899-1901? The war was between the forces of Great Brittan and the Boer States Transvaal and Vreestate. (today South Africa ) As you know GB had the best army and Navy in those days and the Boer states had a smaal army. The Boers was the first to use Gurilla attacks against the Roayl Armed Forces and did succeed in doing so for a long time but then the Brittish used consentration camps for woman and children that lived on the farmes and burned down the farms and killed all the animals, named the Scorched Earth Campain. After the Boers saw the way the woman and children were suffering in the camps they gave up fighting. 250 000 woman and children died in the camps.
The biggest problem with Germany was when things went bad in Africa and in the East, then morale also fell. By 1943 they saw the end comeing and thus only fought for survival and not for the Honor of their country.
So never say that numbers count, because it is not always about the numbers but about how you use them to their full capacity.
Henk
Since that’s roughly twice as many poeple as ever passed through the camps, I suspect your numbers are waaay off. For instance, this South African site states that 116,752 people were held in the camps, of whom 27,927 (22,074 of whom were under the age of 16) died - this is unclear if it is from all causes or directly related to conditions, but I would assume all causes. There won’t be a lot of difference between the two numbers anyway.
Since that’s roughly twice as many poeple as ever passed through the camps, I suspect your numbers are waaay off. For instance, this South African site states that 116,752 people were held in the camps, of whom 27,927 (22,074 of whom were under the age of 16) died - this is unclear if it is from all causes or directly related to conditions, but I would assume all causes. There won’t be a lot of difference between the two numbers anyway.[/quote]
From what I’ve read about it - most deaths were caused by contagious diseases were they not?
From the way it’s written by HG, you’d think we were sticking them in the chambers.
I agree, they were called concentraion camps, because they concentrated the population in one place. By their very nature that concentration allowed the rapid spread of disease.
This was both shocking and shamefull to the british public at that time and was exposed in british newspapers. Things were then done to stop the problem.
I havent read any thing to say the same for German newspapers or any media in ww2.
I am so sorry I put a extra zero in there. It was 25 000 woman and children. I once went to the Museum dedicated to the Boer war in Bloemfontein South Africa where they say how many people died in each consentration camp. My Grand mother’s fathers brother died as a baby in one of the camps.
Yes, the problem was that there was no disease prevention in place by the Brittish and the public in Brittan was against it and even Emily Hobhouse came to South Africa to help but was send back. The thing is that all consentration camps are Evil and nobody has the right to do to a nother human like the Brittish govermant of the time during the Boer war and like the Nazis and SS during WW2, but that is all in the past and we can not prevent it from happening but we can prevent it form happening in the futare.
Well you know quite a lot about the Boer war. Normaly people from other countrys do not know about the Boer war. It is great to know that there are other people out there that know their history.
But what did you think about my statemant about the Gurilla warfare and the numbers being used in war.
So sorry again for my misstake.
Henk
i dont think germany alone could have won wwii… AXIS powers(refering to all the countries as a whole), maybe.
MAYBE… if the Norwegian resistance never sabatoged the german labs that were trying to develop the atomic bomb. If they norwegian resistance never sabotaged the research lab or whatever it was ( cant remember exactly, but it was vital) germany might have developed the atomic bomb before U.S did. The Norwegian resistance is also responsible for destroying a german boat carrying vital supplies for the atomic program
With germany in the power of the atomic bomb, who knows what they could have done to the allied powers.Though the SOE also had a role to play in the sabatoge, it could have never been done without the Norwegians. Thank god for the Norwegian resistance 
If anyone wants to see a nice video on this, check out
Gladiators of World War II - Norwegian Resistance
Well, Well, do not give all the credit to the Norwegian resistance. The RAF bombed the facilaty and also send comados to sabotage it at the Norwegian Hidro Electricle Plant where the Germans experimanted with the idea of a Atom bomb. The German scientist also tried to take long on the development of the Atom bomb by not doing the right things or just looking past the importend facts on building a Atom bomb. They just showed a little bit of progres to Hitler just to satisfy him. But after Hitler relised that it was a waste of money where he could rather build more war equipment and even after the raid on the Hidro dam in Norway he realised that it was just a waste of money.
No ways that all three the Axis countries could have won the war because they did not always saw eye to eye and they all had there own goals and Japan were to gready and did not plan for any thing after Pearl Harbour. Hitler also got to gready after he ocopied Europe and attacked Russia and attacked London and helped Mosselini in North Africa. Mosselini was a ideot wen it came to warfare. He could not take over Greece and keep his grip on North Africa and his army and airforce was a joke. Hitler should have kept the pact with Stalin and used them to win the war and Japan should have just planned better they could have done it. Mosseline only had to get a new brain and maybe he could have done something to be able to wright something good about him.
So finealy they all made big time misstakes and my oppinion is that they never even could have won the war because good always win the battle against the big evil super powers, I mean big like Hitler and Japan not like old little Sadam.
Henk
Are you saying that the Norweigian resistance won ww2?
They might possibly have had the Germany nuclear programme been run by smart people. Problem is, Heisenberg was a complete and utter idiot who didn’t have a clue how to run things. The others were no better - they really would have trouble finding their arrse with both hands and map…
Are you saying that the Norweigian resistance won ww2?[/quote]
ummmmm no? :|, just that they played a vital role that could have definately stopped the germans from developing a atomic bomb. make your own conclusions on whethere or not germans could have won with a atomic bombs.
The German atomic weapons project was rather half-hearted, and they were a long way from producing a bomb. Just think of the amount of time effort and resources that went into the Manhattan project compare to that which went into the German project.
They recently pulled up some of the barrels from the wreck of the Hydro. What they discovered, was that there was not enough heavy water to fill a reactor, by a long way.
I don’t agree with you. I believe the decision to ocupy France was correct but attacking Russia cost Hitler the War. I think Germany should continue taking profit of the element of surprise that Blitzkrieg was, and attack Britain. That way he would prevent USA from using it. I believe Britain was of the utmost tactical importance for both sides. If USA couldn’t use it to prepare the invasion of France from where would they attack? Spain? North of Africa?
First… I dont believe invading Britian would of worked… Churchill would of sacrificed the whole of the Royal Navy to defeat an unprepared German invasion!
Second…Russia’ was soooo close to being knocked out of the war. Imagine… Zhukov counter attacked outside Moscow… the Germans had an adequate supply of fuel/ammunition… plus winter clothing! More and better prepared… this could of turned the Russian Victory into a Russian defeat. Hundreds of thousands of experienced Siberian soldiers taken prisoners… Moscow would of been taken. Who knows… Maybe Zhukov would of been shot?!?
With Russian industry being moved east… it would take them months to begin producing tanks/planes in sufficient numbers. Germany could then attack and capture Stalingrad and cut off Russia’s Caucasus oil supply in the spring.
I dont know how many defeats it would take Russia to sue for an armistice while they still had a hope to resume the war at a later stage.
Hitler could then turn his attention to the middle east.
I"m just throwing out ideas… everyone always says… Stalingrad was the turning point… Kursk was… I believe it could of been in Dec of 1941 when Zhukov saved Moscow. There wasn’t a whole lot of Russian troops… they were not prepared for war. And in 1941… there was a point when Germany actually had more troops in Russia… then the Russians did. Now that is very interesting! Germans outnumbering the Russians!
Oh… and treating all- the people formally under Russian control like sh*t… that did not help the Germans out one bit!
What does everyone think? 
I believe it could have been done, if Hitler concentrated on one thing at a time, building up his forces…