It’s not just a case of having naval superiority though GS, it’s the sheer distance that the supply lines would have to cover - it’s a hell of a long way from the US to Germany and reenforcements, supplies etc would have taken a hell of a long time to get over the Atlantic, plus if the UK wasn’t involved in the war, the U-boat menace could have been much worse - the US would have had to develop the technology to defeat them without the input and experience of the UK, plus it only take’s one lucky torpedo and suddenly you’ve got a whole army of tanks in Germany with no fuel - look at the supply problems the Allies had in 1944 with the supplies only having to come from the UK.
I wonder, how powerful was the US Atlantic fleet in say, 1941? Add to that a what if: What if U-boats were sat off the east end of the Panama Canal, or worse still, the Germans found a way to make the canal itself unusable?
The US fleet at in 1941 was a little on the ropey side, that is why the Japs thought they could take the Yanks on.
They had also recently removed their main observation assets.
The aerial air craft carriers of the USN. After one of them the USS Macon crashed in a storm, they pretty much grounded the lot. It is believed that these could, only could, have prevented the surprise attack of Pearl Harbour, although, not neccesarily an outright attack.
USS Macon, in flight.
This is one the “SparrowHawk” fighters carried by the Airships. 3 were carried in total. This one still has wheels fitted, for use over land. Whilst over sea these were replaced with a central extra fuel tank.
This looked like a bomb and caused absolute chaos when, as a joke, a plane dropped a copy of the that days news paper to the President of the USA whilst he was on holiday on a USN Battleship!!!
The “Trapeze” was captured by the hook on the top, and then the trap lifted the aircraft in to the hull.
3-4 aircraft could be carried.
See here for insignias of the sqns and airships www.bluejacket.com/ usn_avi_insig_zp.html they are too big to post.
See for more details. www.spot.colorado.edu/ ~dziadeck/airship/usa.htm on the airships.
Couldn’t be that hard to close the canal - one guy and a well placed bomb on one of the locks and you close it. Plus of course, without British involvement, the Kriegsmarine would have been a lot stronger to take the Yanks on.
Well, it looks like our hypothetical USA v. Germany in the early 1940s war would be a largely naval affair due to the lack of ground on which to fight.
I suggest that the US would have won, being able to apply economic pressure to Germany. For the Germans to have been able to compete economically, they would have needed to expand. Maybe this would include Romanian and Ukrainian oil fields, the coal mines of Silesia, the Czech automotive and armaments industries. Can anyone guess how that would have ended up.
Interesting side note.
The americans tried again this sort of “big plane carrys little plane” arrangemnent.
Possibly inspired by the Germans “Mistle” combinataions where a single FW-190 or Me109 was sat on top of a Ju88 with a special war head nose and packed with bombs.
The fighter took the big plane to the attack and realeased it just like a bomb.
The arrangement was also used to carry fighters most of the way to Britian so that they could defend the bombers as they bombed Britain in the later stages of the war, in few numbers.
As seen here
The Yanks tried it for longrange fighter cover from America to Russia. Using the Flying wing bombers with a similar trapeze to bring a small fighter up. The idea being these fighters could be realeased and recovered as neccesary, on the flight to Russia.
This was a trial project, I can’t find any info on the net, but it was not taken in to any great numbers, as it was replaced by sea bourne aircraft carrier aircraft instead.
I don’t think that the ‘war’ would be all that cut and dried to be honest - without WW2 breaking out in 1939, the US would have had no reason to start building their forces up, therefore their navy could well be much weaker than it actually was. On the other hand, without having to fight the Royal Navy, the Germans could well have built up a very strong navy by, say, 1942. You can build a lot of aircraft carriers and battleships in three years, if they could have got 2 or 3 carriers and a few capital ships built, along with the U-boats they could have been a very strong navy by 1942.
As soon as the war breaks out, the U-Boats all sortie straight into the Atlantic. The US, using the same outdated technology that Britain had to for real in 1939/40, is virtually powerless against them (the techonology to defeat the subs has not been developed by the British because they had not faced the threat to be forced into beating it). The U-Boats run riot along the US east coat, sinking many merchant men until the US is forced to stop almost all sailings along their east coast, unless they are heavily escorted. At the same time, a lone agent in Panama manages to blow one of the locks of the Panama Canal up, leaving the canal unnavigable for several months.
The Kriegsmarine’s main battle fleet now enters the Atlantic with 2 aircraft carriers and several battleships along with a large number of the lighter pocket battleships, cruisers and escorts. The relatively weak US Atlantic Fleet (most US naval buildup was concentrated on their Pacific Fleet, because of an expected confrontation with Japan that has, in this scenario, not materialised) is forced to face this fleet alone because the damage to the Panama Canal forces the Pacific Fleet to take the long route around South America, meaning that they do not reach the Atlantic Fleet in time.
The US, with their Atlantic Fleet defeated and their Pacific Fleet still too far from the battle zone, are forced to seek surrender terms from the Germans. Thanks to years of underfunding, the US Government knows that the USAAF and the US Army are not strong enough to fight large and professional army that their intelligence tells them the Germans have.
Although they would still have to cross the Atlantic in numbers great enough to invade.
The RAF and the rest of the British forces prevented the Germans from crossing the Channel.
Could the USAAF not prevent landings on the US coast? German air cover would have been practically non-existant.
i’ve always wondered 1,000yd, about the fighter plane combos, wouldn’t it be a heavy waste of material if the bomber was thrown away?
They were specifically designed to attack large targets, ie dams and bridges. Edit to add and ships.
At the time though the Germans were suffering a similar problem as the Japs in the East.
Specifically any aircraft close enough to get to the target stood very little chance of making it out!!!
The German idea was the combo. The Japs idea was the Kamikaze!!!
Apparently the whole thing could take off under the power of the fighter alone!!!
Once it had been realised that the fighter could essentially hitch a lift to the target and flyback, the range was greatly enhanced.
Extra bombs were also attached or loaded in to the bombbay purely for extra punch.
The normal bombers that carried their own escorts were tried in very few numbers.
The idea being that the bombers were protected by “free” fighters for as long as possibe, then they relied on the piggy back fighters.
Once launched the fighters could only hang around for one or two sweeps and then had to fly back to Germany!!!
More info here: www.making-history.ca/ju88project/Mistel/defaultl.htm
Edit to add: Or google “JU 88 Mistle” lots of model type sites, but one or two good ones as well.
Further more.
If any one is interested the following is info on the American plans.
www.air-and-space.com/ficon.htm
www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/postwwii/ficon.htm
www.unrealaircraft.com/forever/ficon.php
and lots more…
Google “FICON”
i think that the “best” army in terms of technology, manpower, and just the skill of the soldiers would be the germans, maybe the americans. but in terms of the army that won the war-the russians. although it couldnt have been done without the americans, the russians just inflicted such heavy casualties on the germans.
A large percentage of non-fatal causalties are caused by artillery. The Us army had the best artillerymen of the war. US artillery was very fast, accurate and numerous with practically infinite ammo.
I’m sure the Soviets would argue that, since they hold all the records for the size of artillery barrages launched.
thats true, but the size of german forces in the east were far greater then in the west. also, while the soviets can do enormous set-piece mass bombardments, it is not as flexible on a smaller scale then us artillery. and, last of all, soviet artillery is not as accurate.
You don’t need to be accurate when you have some of the heaviest guns in the world and you have a tube or rocket launcher for every two or three metres of the front.
speed of aritllery- us army was faster
Do you have a source for that? You can’t just claim something like that without backing it up.
I happen to know that Spike Milligan’s (a British comedian who was in the Royal Artillery during the war) battery trained until they could get the whole battery from being in a convoy to in firing positions in 2 minutes after getting a crash fire order. He mentions it in one of his books about the war (which are, incidentally, probably the funniest books you will ever read about the war). I’d say it would take a lot to get a battery trained to be in action faster.
If you’re talking about rate of fire, it’d be very hard to prove that any army had the fastest gunners - it’s all about training and drills, and they are just a question of practicing over and over again. The Soviets made sure that their artillerymen got plenty of practice.
not so much rate of fire, the speed of artillery positioning. US artillery was all motorized while a lot of russian artillery was horse-drawn.
The same can accurately describe the German artillery.
Being horse drawn I mean.