Axis Best Case - WW2

[Deleted member 1487]

Allied intel and comm security was much better than the Axis.

Not nearly as much as they pretended when you look at the TICOM documents. They either lied in pop history or the info was classified and historians didn't have access to it until very recently, but even now there are still classified reports about Axis code breaking.

Christos military and intelligence corner

<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Military and intelligence history mostly dealing with World War II.

chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com

Typex machines may have been captured but the Germans never fully broke it.

What do you mean by 'fully broke it'?

B-dienst and the other tried but they didn't have enough manpower for the job.

They gave up after 6 weeks because they were not given more time or resources to work on it. That was in 1940. Apparently by 1942 they captured enough info to break into it per that report I linked.

Whatever they got was of minimum value, otherwise they would have been able to spring a trap or two for the Allies.

The bigger problem for Germany was the lack of resources to take advantage of the information.
See this book on that specific subject wherein the author says exactly that when talking about the subject of why they didn't make more use of the excellent sigint they were getting:

Amazon.com: The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German codebreaking 1939–45 eBook: Jennings, Christian: Kindle Store

The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German codebreaking 1939–45 - Kindle edition by Jennings, Christian. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German...

www.amazon.com

That and Hitler ordered really dumb reactions that didn't take into account this info and his wanting to believe the disinformation the Allies put out via their Double Cross spies.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Not nearly as much as they pretended when you look at the TICOM documents. They either lied in pop history or the info was classified and historians didn't have access to it until very recently, but even now there are still classified reports about Axis code breaking.

Christos military and intelligence corner

<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Military and intelligence history mostly dealing with World War II.

chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com

What do you mean by 'fully broke it'?

They gave up after 6 weeks because they were not given more time or resources to work on it. That was in 1940. Apparently by 1942 they captured enough info to break into it per that report I linked.

The bigger problem for Germany was the lack of resources to take advantage of the information.
See this book on that specific subject wherein the author says exactly that when talking about the subject of why they didn't make more use of the excellent sigint they were getting:

Amazon.com: The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German codebreaking 1939–45 eBook: Jennings, Christian: Kindle Store

The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German codebreaking 1939–45 - Kindle edition by Jennings, Christian. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German...

www.amazon.com

That and Hitler ordered really dumb reactions that didn't take into account this info and his wanting to believe the disinformation the Allies put out via their Double Cross spies.

Fully broke as in they were able to read Allied comms like plain writing much like Allies did OTL with the Enigma transmissions.

OTL Hitler was dense AF. Period.

Fellers was probably the biggest Allied intel leak in WW2. That or the SS Automaton being captured by KMS Atlantis.
But the Allies didn't have a systematic security problem where their intel agency was either commanded and staffed by rebels (Abwehr) or lead by a dunce (Luftwaffe).
Enigma was doomed in 1932, when that traitor sold the info about it to the French.
Had the Germans found out and told the Axis because they were all using Enigmas or derivatives of the machine, their intel and comm security would have been a much tougher nut to crack.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Fully broke as in they were able to read Allied comms like plain writing much like Allies did OTL with the Enigma transmissions.

Yeah, the Allies never did that with Enigma either, the best they could do was 24 hours after capturing the latest machine and code books, plus spending years developing the first modern computers.

OTL Hitler was dense AF. Period.

No argument there.

Fellers was probably the biggest Allied intel leak in WW2. That or the SS Automaton being captured by KMS Atlantis.
But the Allies didn't have a systematic security problem where their intel agency was either commanded and staffed by rebels (Abwehr) or lead by a dunce (Luftwaffe).
Enigma was doomed in 1932, when that traitor sold the info about it to the French.
Had the Germans found out and told the Axis because they were all using Enigmas or derivatives of the machine, their intel and comm security would have been a much tougher nut to crack.

There were many more than that. Fellers was pretty bad though.
The B-dienst convoy codes was pretty huge too, but a real big one was tapping and decoding of the scrambled comm hotline between FDR and Churchill (SIGSALY):

Intercepted conversations - Bell Labs A-3 Speech scrambler and German codebreakers

One of the most interesting codebreaking successes for the German side, during WWII, was the solution of the American A-3 speech scrambling ...

chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com

Real time decoding too.

That's just the more famous stuff. Plenty more there too, especially with the Soviet codes.

The Abwehr situation is something totally separate from SigInt and irrelevant to this discussion, same with Goering's duncery.

Engima was not doomed in 1932, the Allies couldn't crack it reliably until December 1942 and was based on the capture of the code books and latest Enigma machine:

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Germans did find out that the Polish had cracked the system in 1939 when they overran the country, per that book (which cites the TICOM reports) I already linked.

 

[McPherson]

Wireless?
Allies had better security than the Axis. (Typex)
Unless the Axis tried to jam those wireless signals.

Whatever they got was of minimum value, otherwise they would have been able to spring a trap or two for the Allies.

They DID.

Radio traffic analysis and decryption is not just one machine type or one source exploit.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Yeah, the Allies never did that with Enigma either, the best they could do was 24 hours after capturing the latest machine and code books, plus spending years developing the first modern computers.


No argument there.


There were many more than that. Fellers was pretty bad though.
The B-dienst convoy codes was pretty huge too, but a real big one was tapping and decoding of the scrambled comm hotline between FDR and Churchill (SIGSALY):

Intercepted conversations - Bell Labs A-3 Speech scrambler and German codebreakers

One of the most interesting codebreaking successes for the German side, during WWII, was the solution of the American A-3 speech scrambling ...

chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com

Real time decoding too.

That's just the more famous stuff. Plenty more there too, especially with the Soviet codes.

The Abwehr situation is something totally separate from SigInt and irrelevant to this discussion, same with Goering's duncery.

Engima was not doomed in 1932, the Allies couldn't crack it reliably until December 1942 and was based on the capture of the code books and latest Enigma machine:

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Germans did find out that the Polish had cracked the system in 1939 when they overran the country, per that book (which cites the TICOM reports) I already linked.

But the Axis never took the fact that Enigma was cracked seriously.
Too much Aryan supermen theory.

German intel agencies of the military worked piecemeal, while the Allies cooperated.
That probably contributed to their failure as much as their stubborn belief in their own superiority.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

But the Axis never took the fact that Enigma was cracked seriously.
Too much Aryan supermen theory.

Not really a superman theory, they just thought no one would want to put so much effort as it would take into cracking it to actually do it (there was a colossal, no pun intended, investment in breaking it and it took the combined power of multiple nations to make it happen reliably). Plus they used Enigma for lower level communications, so weren't all that worried about it being broken if push came to shove.

German intel agencies of the military worked piecemeal, while the Allies cooperated.
That probably contributed to their failure as much as their stubborn belief in their own superiority.

Sort of. Britain centralized their code breaking, but the US had a similar system to Germany, just not as divided, and didn't fully cooperate with the British on the Enigma at first:

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The British basically prostrated themselves at the feet of the US and gave them whatever they possibly could since the US was financing their war effort and carrying the larger manpower burden. Still, even then it took both their full combined efforts to reliably break Enigma.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Not really a superman theory, they just thought no one would want to put so much effort as it would take into cracking it to actually do it (there was a colossal, no pun intended, investment in breaking it and it took the combined power of multiple nations to make it happen reliably). Plus they used Enigma for lower level communications, so weren't all that worried about it being broken if push came to shove.


Sort of. Britain centralized their code breaking, but the US had a similar system to Germany, just not as divided, and didn't fully cooperate with the British on the Enigma at first:

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The British basically prostrated themselves at the feet of the US and gave them whatever they possibly could since the US was financing their war effort and carrying the larger manpower burden. Still, even then it took both their full combined efforts to reliably break Enigma.

Someone in Germany should have hooked up Zuse's computer and used it to start cracking the UK codes.
Z3 was way ahead of it's time.
Unfortunately, no one really gave a shit about the Z3 until it was far too late.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Someone in Germany should have hooked up Zuse's computer and used it to start cracking the UK codes.
Z3 was way ahead of it's time.
Unfortunately, no one really gave a shit about the Z3 until it was far too late.

You need specialized computers for code breaking and Germany did use those. I can't find the article at the moment, but they were using IBM computing machines:

German computer based code breaking - Axis History Forum

This is the report that is referenced in the thread:

https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/european-axis-sigint/volume_2_notes_on_german.pdf

Search for computer or computing for info.

 

[marathag]

Spall hazard exists as the armor was bolted onto a frame instead of being welded

The opposite really, the mild steel framework underneath would soak up fragments. Their rivets, unlike most others, were conical and tapered shanks, less likely to sheer and then bounce around. A spall liner might be more accurate.
But that made the tanks heavier for the actual resistance against projectiles.

So the balance of better protection(welded monocoque) vs built up frame that could be built faster by a less skilled workforce

 

[McPherson]

The opposite really, the mild steel framework underneath would soak up fragments. Their rivets, unlike most others, were conical and tapered shanks, less likely to sheer and then bounce around. A spall liner might be more accurate.
But that made the tanks heavier for the actual resistance against projectiles.

So the balance of better protection(welded monocoque) vs built up frame that could be built faster by a less skilled workforce

Ansaldo plate had high sulfur content in the alloys, mild or cold rolled hardened. You know what that means. The plate flaked on the backside when hit by British AP.

 

[marathag]

Ansaldo plate had high sulfur content in the alloys, mild or cold rolled hardened. You know what that means. The plate flaked on the backside when hit by British AP.

Italians, like the US differed on the Riveting process.
They used regular riveting, that was even faster to do. No mild steel plates behind the armor, as with the British, but just angle iron with standard rivets

Very Fast, but not great for protection. Worse when unlike the US and the Homogeneous armor done, was very spall resistant

 

[History Learner]

Given Denis Havlat's articles, I've been thinking about a single PoD event that could work; @wiking with his Paukenschlag reinforced. Cut off from Lend Lease and the Western Allies unable to undertake Operation TORCH or bring the 8th Air Force into action, it's likely the Soviets collapse in 1942 or 1943 or, at best, achieve a stalemate around 1943.

 

[Fulton 44]

Given Denis Havlat's articles, I've been thinking about a single PoD event that could work; @wiking with his Paukenschlag reinforced. Cut off from Lend Lease and the Western Allies unable to undertake Operation TORCH or bring the 8th Air Force into action, it's likely the Soviets collapse in 1942 or 1943 or, at best, achieve a stalemate around 1943.

This is conceivable but once the USSR stabilized in late 1941 and beat back the attack on Moscow, I think that the Eastern Front was destined to be a long, hard slog rather than a quick collapse.

 

[History Learner]

This is conceivable but once the USSR stabilized in late 1941 and beat back the attack on Moscow, I think that the Eastern Front was destined to be a long, hard slog rather than a quick collapse.

I'd imagine the general collapse coming over the course of 1942 and then bleeding into 1943 as the Germans begin a mop up. From a strategic perspective, this might be the best bet for the Anglo-Americans, as it removes the Soviets while still giving them a strong shot to eliminate the Nazi Reich, so that they thoroughly dominate the Post-War world.