Germany could not win ww2?

[RamscoopRaider]

With just one, that's the Role Bismarck plays, never goes on that 1940 deathride she's (He?? Nutty Nazi sailors) hides in the fjords just as well at 35k as 45, and RN tosses just as much at her.
A couple thousand tons of steel.is nothing to turn your nose up at.

And two ships hiding in a Fjord are better than one, and better at convincing people you really do mean it when you say you want a balanced fleet . Plus Tirpitz was launched by April '39, with most of the scarce resources (turbine making, fire control systems etc.) built before then, Germany is not yet at a bottleneck when that happens

When you have a steel shortage yes, in the years that steel is actually assembled, Germany was still exporting the stuff by the Megaton and it wasn't a bottleneck, so saved resources are marginal, and that is the cheap part of the ship, everything else costs the same at 35k compared to 42k (which was legal, hello escalator clause), or more as you have to use more expensive lighter weight stuff. Meanwhile the skilled Marine engineers, Germany had a real shortage of, a few thousand tons of wiggle room saves considerable design hours, meaning those engineers can spend more time on stuff that matters, U-Boats, Torpedo Bots and Destroyers

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

Completing any Hipper with 11" guns would be stupidly provocative, it was what the AGNA was meant to prevent. B-T show more of a commitment to a "balanced fleet", being ships that can symmetrically engage a battleship, while S&G can't really. Hence the diplomatic benefit, that and B&T can tie down more forces as a fleet in being than S&G
Tirpitz was laid down early enough that you can't really transfer resources used by her to more useful programs without giving your hand away, by the time you can the resources to complete her are probably worth it for the benefit they will provide, keeping a few British BB sitting in Scapa glaring at her in a Fjord rather than doing something useful. Shaving off 7,000 tons won't save that much resources, something that had been discovered beforehand

And two ships hiding in a Fjord are better than one, and better at convincing people you really do mean it when you say you want a balanced fleet . Plus Tirpitz was launched by April '39, with most of the scarce resources (turbine making, fire control systems etc.) built before then, Germany is not yet at a bottleneck when that happens

Sadly I expect that the only Axis folk who benefit from the Kriegsmarine's "The Fleet in Being" role are based in Taranto & Kure.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Sadly I expect that the only Axis folk who benefit from the Kriegsmarine's "The Fleet in Being" role are based in Taranto & Kure.

Well yes, but that still benefits Germany. If the fleet in being reduces available resources in the Med campaign to slow it down a month or two, well that benefits Germany, as would the Allies having to reduce priority for landing craft/merchantmen in favor of building/repairing warships against the Japanese. In any case due to the AGNA the resources are there to be used,by the time it really becomes irrelevant, post Munich, the ships involved are all more than half complete with the long lead items finished and resources already assembled

 

[CV12Hornet]

Sadly I expect that the only Axis folk who benefit from the Kriegsmarine's "The Fleet in Being" role are based in Taranto & Kure.

That benefits Germany, though; the longer the Italian fleet is in operation, the longer it closes the trans-Mediterranean Suez route, with deleterious effects on the British shipping situation and thus a much lowered ceiling for acceptable merchant losses. That makes the goal of starving out Britain via submarine that much more viable.

 

[Sarthak]

That benefits Germany, though; the longer the Italian fleet is in operation, the longer it closes the trans-Mediterranean Suez route, with deleterious effects on the British shipping situation and thus a much lowered ceiling for acceptable merchant losses. That makes the goal of starving out Britain via submarine that much more viable.

Read this

Could the Nazis have starved Britain into submission?

At the dawn of the Second World War, the island nation of Britain faced the grim possibility that it might be starved into defeat owing to a German naval blockade. To assess this threat, a group of Cambridge dieticians took part in a secret experiment to see just how malnourished they could become.

io9.gizmodo.com

The myth that Germany could starve Britain has been debunked hundreds of times.
Some produce like meat wouldn't be available, but everyday food like the others food items were largely available.
The Blockade of Germany starved more Germans than the Blockade of Britain starved Britain.

 

[Luciano7477]

Well people, I left the discussion in the past but now that I have free time I will read all the comments from the beginning to continue the debate. I apologize for my absence.

 

[Luciano7477]

Only with unrealistic foresight from Germany and Japan, which still requires lots of luck, and probably keeping America neutral.

If Japan realizes that occupying Indochina puts them on an unwinnable collision course with the West, and they can only win wars with SU/BE if Germany wins in Europe, Japan could stay out of Indochina and join Barbarossa. If Germany leaves Italy to their fate in NA, they can get more men and supplies for the important front.

Japan and North Africa Corps joining Barbarossa doesn’t necessarily win them the war in the East, but it could open the possibility of getting to the AA line by some point in 1942 (and some big gains for Japan). Germany and Japan could use the trans Siberian Railroad, which probably doesn’t do more than help a small amount.

But if the USSR is out of the way at some point in 1942 Germany will have gotten what they wanted. This probably butterflies away Pearl Harbor, and might delay American involvement.

Germany could hold on and win at this point if they fight the US and America gives up eventually without Pearl Harbor as a motive and a tougher fight, and they should certainly win at that point with no American entry.


It’s not likely, but not ASB.




If the Soviets join the Axis and declare war on Britain, that potentially forces Britain out of the war, and if Italy is also fighting Britain I don’t think Britain could hold out in MENA, which IMO would knock them out of the war. Germany could then backstab the Soviet Union after Britain is defeated and Germany is capable of winning that matchup, especially with a surprise attack and the help of the Axis Minor.


Germany could try invading Turkey which could potentially increase pressure on Britain, but might not work at all and leaves Germany incredibly overextended and exposed to Soviet attacks.



If Britain invaded Norway and Sweden fights in the Winter War, scenarios where Norway and Sweden become German allies who help invade the USSR could cause Leningrad to fall and free up significant German troops. That doesn’t sound like a likely war winner.




I think these are potential options. But all of them seem unlikely to happen and still probably can’t give Germany the win most of the time.

Even if Germany conquered most of soviet union, they still would fight until the end, They continued to retreat, destroyed and evacuate everything they could to the Urals, and who knows if the Urals fell, until Siberia.

A long term alliance between Germany and soviet union was impossible, both Hitler and Stalin had plans to attack one each other

 

[Luciano7477]

It could, depending upon if it could knock the USSR out in 1941-1942.

Soviet Union would have fight to the end, the same way germany had do

 

[Bellacinos]

I feel like IOTL is actually best case scenario for axis. Hitler has conquered all of modern day EU by 1940 with only 100,000 casualties. cut the USSR like butter for months and occupied a large chunk of them with minimal casualties by December 1941. Japan by November 1941 had one of the largest empires in the world and occupied a large amount of China. That is impressive. If you play ww2 out 9/10 Hitler is defeated before 1941. Look at the amount of opportunities before December 1941 to stop him. Before the annexation of the sudendland, could have been stopped if GB and France invaded Germany once they invaded Poland. Should have been thwarted in battle of France if they had better leadership. Could have been stopped at barbarrossa if Stalin listened to the 88 warnings. The Axis performed really well in ww2 and still got ROFLstomped.

 

[Mario]

I think the only chance for teh Axis was keeping both the USSR (no Barbarossa) and USA (no Pearl Harbour) out of the picture.

 

[RedSword12]

I think the only chance for teh Axis was keeping both the USSR (no Barbarossa) and USA (no Pearl Harbour) out of the picture.

Eh. I disagree. Long-term, the Axis needed to subjugate the USSR to obtain full control of essential natural resources. Otherwise the USSR would eventually find the virulently anticommunist, widely-hated state a convenient target (although that would potentially be decades ahead).

 

[Crowbar Six]

They came within an hair of doing it both years, particularly in 1941.

No, they came in a hairs breadth of getting to Moscow in 1941, holding on to it and going further East in 1942 is a different question.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

No, they came in a hairs breadth of getting to Moscow in 1941, holding on to it and going further East in 1942 is a different question.

Going further east in 1942 if they hold Moscow wasn't a big challenge given that they'd hold the main rail hub of the USSR. The biggest problem with the 1942 offensive south was the dearth of rail lines, especially high capacity lines, to Stalingrad and into the Caucasus (plus of course the huge distances needed to be traveled, which were considerably further than from Moscow to the Gorki-Upper Volga region).

 

[marktaha]

I believe von Schirach later told David Frost that their big mistake was attacking Russia while still at war with Britain. If they'd treated the Russian people decently..

 

[naraic]

I believe von Schirach later told David Frost that their big mistake was attacking Russia while still at war with Britain. If they'd treated the Russian people decently..

The only way they could feed their armies was to starve the Russians. They didn't have a logistical setup to feed their armies and allow the Russians to eat.

 

[Deleted member 90563]

If they'd treated the Russian people decently..

...they wouldn't have been Nazis.

 

[Cymry-Korean]

I believe von Schirach later told David Frost that their big mistake was attacking Russia while still at war with Britain. If they'd treated the Russian people decently..

You cannot separate the Nazis from their racist ideology.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

You cannot separate the Nazis from their racist ideology.

You kind of can, Strasserist Nazis were a thing. Hitler just purged dissent within the party pre-war, but there were still Nazis who disagreed with policy in the East vis a vis the Russian people, but Hitler blocked all recommendations and efforts to be less brutal toward the Russians and even build up Vlasov's army, same with the UPA that they had allied with for a while.

 

[Deleted member 90563]

You kind of can, Strasserist Nazis were a thing. Hitler just purged dissent within the party pre-war, but there were still Nazis who disagreed with policy in the East vis a vis the Russian people, but Hitler blocked all recommendations and efforts to be less brutal toward the Russians and even build up Vlasov's army, same with the UPA that they had allied with for a while.

And the effects of Stalinism wouldn't have been so bad, if Trotsky had led the Soviet Union.

 

[Captain Homicide]

Going further east in 1942 if they hold Moscow wasn't a big challenge given that they'd hold the main rail hub of the USSR.

Assuming Germany took Moscow in 1941 and continued their onslaught successfully in 1942 would Stalin (or whoever was in charge) make a deal or would they retreat past the Urals and continue fighting?

Would a rump USSR with no European territory be able to effectively continue the war against a Germany that now controls virtually all of Europe?