That might well be it.
Of course the US doesn't exactly win either, I've read a bit more about the US privateers, though.
Imperial German invasion of the USA
- Thread starter Ricardolindo
- Start date
That might well be it.
Of course the US doesn't exactly win either, I've read a bit more about the US privateers, though.
The issue I think that we are missing is getting the troops TO the US. Last I checked you couldn’t walk or take a train across the Atlantic Ocean is in the way. And even a few years later in WW1 after England has had several years to practice moving troops all over the globe this was not easy. Moving the US Army to France was a Huge PITA. And the US had access to US, British and French shipping and didn’t get into a fight or a navel battle on the far end.
Frankly we are talking something on the closer to pulling off a WW1 style invasion like a mini D-Day.
And even D-Day was pulled off mostly from England.
Not a lot of examples of amphibious assault exist pre WW2 for a reason. In part it is because the now how was just not available at the time. And in part the technology was just not mature. Crossing the Atlantic with no place to resupply on the far side and having enough fuel and resources to actually fight is hard to do with 1900 technology. And will put the offensive side at a huge disadvantage.
Look at such examples as England’s attempt in WW1 at Gallipoli. That wasn’t exactly a rousing success.
So you have very few examples of a Successful seaborne long distance invasion in that time frame and more then a few examples of what problems are going to be likely and you have two Navies that are relatively even. One will be defending its homeland with everything it has while the other will have to support from a long way off and keep at least a few ships back to protect itself and its support ships traveling across the Atlantic.
And Germany is not exactly known for having a TON of passenger ships or an access or merchant ships it can use for the invasion.
So between having to fight the US Navy to get here and just the problem of getting the troyhere to begin with I don’t think this will work real well.
Yes if the US Rolls all ones and Germany rolls all 6s it may go badly for the US but odds are the Germans get thier butt handed to them because of the distance factor.
As for why you would bother... that is a different argument. Germany is risking its fleet a large chunk of its Army and opening up a door for its traditional Eurpean enemies to take advantage of for Frankly littl gain. It is not like taking the US down will make its position in Europe (the only thing that TRULY matters to Germany) better. And will drive the US firmly into the Camp of its enemies.
The long term ramifications of this mess is going to be a US will build a LOT bigger Army and a powerful Navy to make sure this doesn’t happen again. It will also probably sign a treaty with England that will see it enter any future war against Germany on day one. And if a WW1 type war breaks out with the US having a reasonable size Army and Navy and on the Sude of England and France from the start it will be over in a year or so.
These are all things that Germany is risking on an very dangerous gamble that has little benefits to Germany. I mean think about it assuming it goes as well as can be expected and the US hands over to Germany everything it asks for. So what? In 5 or 10 years time the US will be one of the most powerful counties on Earth. As frankly the only thing stopping the US from being at least #2 in 1915 was that it didn’t WANT to be. In this timeline it will be scared and it will be mad. So it will take the resources it has and it will build what it Thanks it needs to protect itself. Yes Germany like most of Europe looks down on the US at the time so it may not realize how bad an idea this is but it is smart enough to understand that it will never completely take over and hold the US and that anything short of that will just create another permanent enemy to join France. And what does Germany get for this? A few useless Islands on the other side of the world?
I am sorry I just can’t see it happening.
1). Germany is not dumb enough to try it.
2). The reward to risk ratio is just not worth it
3). The US Navy will inflict large amounts of damage to the invasion fleet
4). Germany will have a hard time getting a good sized Army to the US and a harder time supplying it
And last but not least
5]. I think England would step in to make sure this doesn’t happen.
A). They don’t want Germany to get any advantage
B). They don’t want the US to become paranoid and start building a big military to “defend itself “. England has to many interests in America to want the US to have a reason to build up it’s military.
C). England may join the US just to take a stab at Germany (and if that happens France may see this as a great time to get A-L back)
The end result is that Germany will get its butt handed to it in this war or in a few years when the next European War breaks out. Because the Mess in the Balkans and with AH and Russia and France wanting A-L back is not going away so eventually you will have a war over that. And thier is a good chance that it happens in the middle of this mess as the opritunity fo Germany’s enemies is hard to pass up.
Frankly we are talking something on the closer to pulling off a WW1 style invasion like a mini D-Day.
And even D-Day was pulled off mostly from England.
Not a lot of examples of amphibious assault exist pre WW2 for a reason. In part it is because the now how was just not available at the time. And in part the technology was just not mature. Crossing the Atlantic with no place to resupply on the far side and having enough fuel and resources to actually fight is hard to do with 1900 technology. And will put the offensive side at a huge disadvantage.
Look at such examples as England’s attempt in WW1 at Gallipoli. That wasn’t exactly a rousing success.
So you have very few examples of a Successful seaborne long distance invasion in that time frame and more then a few examples of what problems are going to be likely and you have two Navies that are relatively even. One will be defending its homeland with everything it has while the other will have to support from a long way off and keep at least a few ships back to protect itself and its support ships traveling across the Atlantic.
And Germany is not exactly known for having a TON of passenger ships or an access or merchant ships it can use for the invasion.
So between having to fight the US Navy to get here and just the problem of getting the troyhere to begin with I don’t think this will work real well.
Yes if the US Rolls all ones and Germany rolls all 6s it may go badly for the US but odds are the Germans get thier butt handed to them because of the distance factor.
As for why you would bother... that is a different argument. Germany is risking its fleet a large chunk of its Army and opening up a door for its traditional Eurpean enemies to take advantage of for Frankly littl gain. It is not like taking the US down will make its position in Europe (the only thing that TRULY matters to Germany) better. And will drive the US firmly into the Camp of its enemies.
The long term ramifications of this mess is going to be a US will build a LOT bigger Army and a powerful Navy to make sure this doesn’t happen again. It will also probably sign a treaty with England that will see it enter any future war against Germany on day one. And if a WW1 type war breaks out with the US having a reasonable size Army and Navy and on the Sude of England and France from the start it will be over in a year or so.
These are all things that Germany is risking on an very dangerous gamble that has little benefits to Germany. I mean think about it assuming it goes as well as can be expected and the US hands over to Germany everything it asks for. So what? In 5 or 10 years time the US will be one of the most powerful counties on Earth. As frankly the only thing stopping the US from being at least #2 in 1915 was that it didn’t WANT to be. In this timeline it will be scared and it will be mad. So it will take the resources it has and it will build what it Thanks it needs to protect itself. Yes Germany like most of Europe looks down on the US at the time so it may not realize how bad an idea this is but it is smart enough to understand that it will never completely take over and hold the US and that anything short of that will just create another permanent enemy to join France. And what does Germany get for this? A few useless Islands on the other side of the world?
I am sorry I just can’t see it happening.
1). Germany is not dumb enough to try it.
2). The reward to risk ratio is just not worth it
3). The US Navy will inflict large amounts of damage to the invasion fleet
4). Germany will have a hard time getting a good sized Army to the US and a harder time supplying it
And last but not least
5]. I think England would step in to make sure this doesn’t happen.
A). They don’t want Germany to get any advantage
B). They don’t want the US to become paranoid and start building a big military to “defend itself “. England has to many interests in America to want the US to have a reason to build up it’s military.
C). England may join the US just to take a stab at Germany (and if that happens France may see this as a great time to get A-L back)
The end result is that Germany will get its butt handed to it in this war or in a few years when the next European War breaks out. Because the Mess in the Balkans and with AH and Russia and France wanting A-L back is not going away so eventually you will have a war over that. And thier is a good chance that it happens in the middle of this mess as the opritunity fo Germany’s enemies is hard to pass up.
I have a hard time accepting that the Kaiser's plans plans were motivated by a mere desire to for more colonies. There were far easier foes with more valuable territory to attack than the USA, the US, very much unlike other continental powers, was friendly and posed no threat to Germany's own security and strategic goals, and which was guaranteed to become a very powerful enemy after the fact whether Germany won its little war or not.
There had to have been something more. Perhaps he really did believe that the US was an existential threat, and that with its growth rate would become a future obstacle to Germany's plans and the order of things in Europe. Or perhaps it was a belief that it would somehow, perhaps due to the common language, inevitably move closer to Britain. Surely a few rebellious scraps of the Spanish empire was not worth gambling Germany's future in the 20th century...
There had to have been something more. Perhaps he really did believe that the US was an existential threat, and that with its growth rate would become a future obstacle to Germany's plans and the order of things in Europe. Or perhaps it was a belief that it would somehow, perhaps due to the common language, inevitably move closer to Britain. Surely a few rebellious scraps of the Spanish empire was not worth gambling Germany's future in the 20th century...
The US had a Huge German population at the time and was about as friendly with Germany as anyone was. We had companies that did some business with them So logically thier is no good reason to force the US into the roll of enemy when they are naturally inclined to be neutral or slightly favorable to Germany and frankly Germany needs all the friends it can find.
Of course honestly forces me to admit that pretty much all of Europe looked down on the US (and pretty much the rest of the world at the time) and drastically underestimated it. So if thier was a REASON to attack I am sure the arrogance of Europe at the time would see them do so.
I just can’t see it happening for the reasons I expressed above. In older days (say 1800 or before) it didn’t take all that much to support an invasion so you see them periodically used. As of WW2 technology and experience allowed for the support of a “modern” army invading over the sea. But in that strange time between the beginning of a more modern technology equipped army that you are starting to see in the American Civil War and the Boar War and the Crimean War it is MUCH harder to just “dump” an army on someone else’s shore. The advantages of trains to relocate troops and bring in supplies is a huge advantage that requires an extremely large army to counter and an absolutely enormous supply of material to keep you invading army going. This requires a huge complicated supply chain being supported constantly over an ocean. This is problematic for a few reasons. Not the least is having enough ships to keep it going as well as enough war ships to keep it safe.
So I am not sure that anyone at this time can pull off as opposed invasion over an ocean. England probably sort of could. They had SUCH a huge Navy and so many ships that against a relatively weak opponent they probably had enough to pull it off. But the advantages of the defender are going to cause disproportionate problems for the invader.
Yes I am sure they can (if things go well) establish a beachhead but getting off the beach and doing anything? A totally different matter. And realy in this case what does it get Germany? Ok the invade and site on a few square miles of the east coast. Now what? Eventually they are going to either get tired and go home or they are going to surrender or they are going to get blown back into the sea. As thier is no way they can sustain an invasion over that distance against a peer Navy. Yes it will take the US a while to build up an Army but what it has will be relocated fast and will hold them in a relatively (for the size of the US) small area. Then when they build up the army from the rediculus amount of volunteers the invasion will cause the army will toss the Germans back into the sea.
So thier is little to absolutely no gain to be had for Germany and a noticeable downside.
Thus I can’t see this ever happening.
Of course honestly forces me to admit that pretty much all of Europe looked down on the US (and pretty much the rest of the world at the time) and drastically underestimated it. So if thier was a REASON to attack I am sure the arrogance of Europe at the time would see them do so.
I just can’t see it happening for the reasons I expressed above. In older days (say 1800 or before) it didn’t take all that much to support an invasion so you see them periodically used. As of WW2 technology and experience allowed for the support of a “modern” army invading over the sea. But in that strange time between the beginning of a more modern technology equipped army that you are starting to see in the American Civil War and the Boar War and the Crimean War it is MUCH harder to just “dump” an army on someone else’s shore. The advantages of trains to relocate troops and bring in supplies is a huge advantage that requires an extremely large army to counter and an absolutely enormous supply of material to keep you invading army going. This requires a huge complicated supply chain being supported constantly over an ocean. This is problematic for a few reasons. Not the least is having enough ships to keep it going as well as enough war ships to keep it safe.
So I am not sure that anyone at this time can pull off as opposed invasion over an ocean. England probably sort of could. They had SUCH a huge Navy and so many ships that against a relatively weak opponent they probably had enough to pull it off. But the advantages of the defender are going to cause disproportionate problems for the invader.
Yes I am sure they can (if things go well) establish a beachhead but getting off the beach and doing anything? A totally different matter. And realy in this case what does it get Germany? Ok the invade and site on a few square miles of the east coast. Now what? Eventually they are going to either get tired and go home or they are going to surrender or they are going to get blown back into the sea. As thier is no way they can sustain an invasion over that distance against a peer Navy. Yes it will take the US a while to build up an Army but what it has will be relocated fast and will hold them in a relatively (for the size of the US) small area. Then when they build up the army from the rediculus amount of volunteers the invasion will cause the army will toss the Germans back into the sea.
So thier is little to absolutely no gain to be had for Germany and a noticeable downside.
Thus I can’t see this ever happening.
Ricardolindo
Banned
The Kaiser's goal was to end the American influence on the world. The European nations accepted the US as an equal at at end of the Spanish-American War.
Deleted member 9338
I tried to game this after the Conroy book 1901
(I think) came out. Was damn difficult to get their fleet over here, even if they took Puerto Rico
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Yeah there’s a reason the Brit’s obsessed so much about having coaling stations here there and everywhere.
Chugging about in steam warships was pretty miserable if you had to keep putting into neutral ports and hoping someone would not only have the right amount of the right kind of coal handy, but be willing to sell it to you.
Chugging about in steam warships was pretty miserable if you had to keep putting into neutral ports and hoping someone would not only have the right amount of the right kind of coal handy, but be willing to sell it to you.
I have real doubts about the Germans carrying out this scenario too, but... would it really be that hard to get the fleet over here? It would be in the face of a hostile USN that was armed and waiting for them, but assuming that war hasn't broken out yet, would it be that hard? Could the Germans build enough coal ships (colliers? Not sure of the name) to at least get the fleet over here?
It takes somewhere between 8 and 18 months to build a collier at that point in time. Coaling in open waters was done very rarely and was highly dependent on sea state. The Germans had no reason to embark on such a program absent a lot of advanced planning for invading the USA. Gathering the ships needed to transport tens of thousands of soldiers and their gear in ports of embarkation and then actually loading those troops and gear is not going to be hidden - can't be. Then when those ships, and the bulk of the German fleet set sail (with warships carrying extra coal on their decks), it will be noticed. The armada can try and sail outside of regular shipping lanes, but that will depend on luck. In the earlym1900s marine radio was a rare thing, but still a total surprise not happening...
The Germans have a tendency to look down on anyone that isn’t German and England has been the Mighty English Empire long enough that they still tended to look down on thier former colonies, So in both cases thier is resin to believe that neither country was exactly looking at the US as a near equal. In much of Europe that didn’t change until WW2. So Germany looking down on and underestimateing the US is not out of the realm of possibility. Much like the US did with Japan in 1941.
I doubt it would lead to Germany being dumb enough to attempt to invade the US for ABSOLUTELY no good reason and little practical gain. Short of having a fortune teller convince the Germans that they would be in the losing sude in 2 world wars and that the US was directly responsible for those losses thier is not much reason to take a pretty neutral US and turn them into a dedicated Enemy and basically force them to side with England and France. So unless all the German High Command has been lobotomized I just can’t see them being dumb enough to try this.
The CANT win. At best the take a few miles and sit on it until a relatively mild treaty is signed. Then they go home and have absolutely Zero ability to enforce the treat without trying it again. And it is a One time only trick. Germany will not be able to pull that off again. The US was economically and industrially more then able in 1900 to build a Large Army/militia/national guard and also to install guns/fortify anyplace significant on the East coast to prevent this from happening again.
Add in that the US can build War ships as well as or better then Germany if it realy wants to and the end result will be a militarized US the likes of which Germany will not be able to compete with. Basically the US was not perticularly interested in building a large military at the time. But a US that was invaded by Germany? Congratulations you have just turned them into complete paranoids.
So you have given reason the the US to arm itself as much as it possibly can (and that is a pretty big amount ) and you have proved to them they CAN’T remain neutral and that the Oceans are not a barrier. So the US will seek allies and they will do this from the Anti German camp.
So for your hard work. Large economic investment and loss of life you have gained a pissed off country that will side with your enemies, has large natural resources and can (and will) build a large military because you scared them into it. All in all if you WANTED to invent way to ultimately screw Germany you would have a hard time coming up with a better plan short of attempting to invade England. Heck they would probably be better off invading France again. At least France is close enough that the German Army can be used to intimidate it into keeping its treaty agreements for a while. With the US within a year they will ignore anything they can reasonably deny and within a couple years will have a big enough Army to tell Germany to go to hell as has been noted Germany can’t get all that much of its Army to the US.
So good job with this. For basically no real reason and little to no gain you have found a way to make Germany lose the First World War in record time. As the US WILL have a large Army, a large Navy and will declare War on a Germany per its treaty with France within days of the start of the war.
I doubt it would lead to Germany being dumb enough to attempt to invade the US for ABSOLUTELY no good reason and little practical gain. Short of having a fortune teller convince the Germans that they would be in the losing sude in 2 world wars and that the US was directly responsible for those losses thier is not much reason to take a pretty neutral US and turn them into a dedicated Enemy and basically force them to side with England and France. So unless all the German High Command has been lobotomized I just can’t see them being dumb enough to try this.
The CANT win. At best the take a few miles and sit on it until a relatively mild treaty is signed. Then they go home and have absolutely Zero ability to enforce the treat without trying it again. And it is a One time only trick. Germany will not be able to pull that off again. The US was economically and industrially more then able in 1900 to build a Large Army/militia/national guard and also to install guns/fortify anyplace significant on the East coast to prevent this from happening again.
Add in that the US can build War ships as well as or better then Germany if it realy wants to and the end result will be a militarized US the likes of which Germany will not be able to compete with. Basically the US was not perticularly interested in building a large military at the time. But a US that was invaded by Germany? Congratulations you have just turned them into complete paranoids.
So you have given reason the the US to arm itself as much as it possibly can (and that is a pretty big amount ) and you have proved to them they CAN’T remain neutral and that the Oceans are not a barrier. So the US will seek allies and they will do this from the Anti German camp.
So for your hard work. Large economic investment and loss of life you have gained a pissed off country that will side with your enemies, has large natural resources and can (and will) build a large military because you scared them into it. All in all if you WANTED to invent way to ultimately screw Germany you would have a hard time coming up with a better plan short of attempting to invade England. Heck they would probably be better off invading France again. At least France is close enough that the German Army can be used to intimidate it into keeping its treaty agreements for a while. With the US within a year they will ignore anything they can reasonably deny and within a couple years will have a big enough Army to tell Germany to go to hell as has been noted Germany can’t get all that much of its Army to the US.
So good job with this. For basically no real reason and little to no gain you have found a way to make Germany lose the First World War in record time. As the US WILL have a large Army, a large Navy and will declare War on a Germany per its treaty with France within days of the start of the war.
Ricardolindo
Banned
I already said, that, the Kaiser's goal for the invasion was ending the American influence on the world.
So who would actually win if it came to an all out war between Russia, the USA and France Entente vs Allies Germany, UK, Italy, Japan and AH in this time period?
Where would the non-Great Powers fall, Ottomans?
Could the USA keep France and Russia in it? If France and Russia go down I don't see how the USA can stand against the world in 1900. Isn't there a thread about the point when the USA can survive to eventually beat everyone?
Where would the non-Great Powers fall, Ottomans?
Could the USA keep France and Russia in it? If France and Russia go down I don't see how the USA can stand against the world in 1900. Isn't there a thread about the point when the USA can survive to eventually beat everyone?
Big, as in something Germany could not comprehend. Nor the fact that the U.S. Rail system could move troops transcontinentally in 6 to 7 days.
Also want to stimulate John Browings genius, invade the U.S.
to be fair a lot of germans to this day don't get it, I had a german couple tell me they were thinking about driving to new York and see in in a day or so.
Im located on the west coast....
I had some friends from England suggest a group of us get together for a day. They were flying in to Florida, I live in Michigan and our other friends were from Texas and Wisconsin.... So yeah a LOT of folks from Europe have n idea of the size of The US. It is about the same size as Europe but that is counting ALL of Europe including the Eastern parts such as Russia and such.
We all have known or encountered people from Europe who have come to the US and rented cars and then been completely flabbergasted at the sheer size of the place.
Friends of ours in Japan were astonished when visiting and we drove them to our place in Northern Wisconsin (about 210 mi/350 km door to door) and told them we would routinely drive up for a weekend/long weekend as well as longer times. The distance from the eastern end of Long Island to NYC is around 110 mi/185 km, a spread that the Germans were considering as a supply base. In the early 1900s the population of NYC, which at that time included all five boroughs was ~3.5 million . To patrol NYC in 2018, with a population a little more than double that the NYPD has roughly 35,000 uniformed officers. Simply having any semblance of occupying NYC would require a huge number of troops, and unlike the population of NYC OTL you would be facing a population that not only was not wanting to cooperate but that would actually be against you.
It would be one thing to occupy NYC if the USA had surrendered, but to do so in a scenario where 95% of the country is still actively fighting...and to do it where you local logistics base is 100 miles away!
It would be one thing to occupy NYC if the USA had surrendered, but to do so in a scenario where 95% of the country is still actively fighting...and to do it where you local logistics base is 100 miles away!
There tends to be, as these threads always go from "Can X beat the US in an invasion" to "Can X+Y beat the US in an invasion" and etc until it becomes can everyone combined invade the US, regardless of the how or why, and it must be because the US has too much badboy like this is a Paradox game
.My bigger question is to why the US is in a world war against the British and Germans and AH and Italians and Japanese in 1900 - it's one thing, feasibly, to discuss the Germans going out of their way to try and cut the US down to size when they are busy in a war in the Philippines trying to control the islands. But why is the US fighting all at that point in time when there's no reason for the US to join in such a war? And, if it's a Coalition that has assembled, then how did it assemble?
Regardless, the ability to threaten the US is predicated on whether can secure enemy (read: British) territory in North America before France and Russia fall. If they succeed, they will be able to deny the enemy bases in North America, meaning they will have to fight at the end of their supply lines, with all of the disadvantages that such combat would entail. If they don't succeed in taking all of the local bases, the Anti-American Alliance of Convenience (AAAC) would have their base of operations and could operate locally without as many issues.
Still, there's no way to answer your question as there's no background to determine how this alliance forms and why the US decides to fight all of these other nations simultaneously, or why the UK & Germany would rather ally with each other to fight the US, or why the US cares enough about France and Russia to align with them in such a war.
There are a couple of major problems:
- The entire German fleet is designed to be comfortably anchored in well equipped German fleet bases, potentially popping over to British waters for a few days to do a spot of war-winning. Remote operations, not so much. Combat on the other side of the Atlantic, definitely not.
- Coal is one of the shittiest fuels ever to handle. It’s a stone bitch just to get it safely into the coal bunkers in harbour, and then from there into the boilers underway. Doing it at sea? Uuuuuurgh. In the Atlantic?
- Triple expansion engines had horrible fuel efficiency and reliability at high loads
The cruisers were more designed for that sort of tasking but I’m not sure I’d want to invade the US with cruisers.
The destroyers of the time were really big torpedo boats of like 500 tons or something, and taking a coal burner that size across the Atlantic would be unpleasant.
And if security breaks as they are leaving, one telegram gives the US a week to prep a reception. Nice!
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