Could Hitler Of Won The War If...

Saphroneth

Banned
If Germany had developed better sea to land invasion equipment before the war to invade Britain then in could of been possible with the help of an air invasion to get behind British lines at the coast.
Again, how do you handle the navy?
Incidentally, paratroopers are not very capable of mass invasion. A little guide:


Case study - it's raining men

Air drops are, fundamentally, a crazy idea. Take a perfectly good unit of men (usually better than usual, ideal NCO material in other units) and throw them out of a plane.

They can work - they often do. But they present two unique logistical challenges.
The first one is - where do they get their weapons?

This isn't trivial, because full battle dress complete with weapons weighs a LOT. In fact, during the early part of WW2 if someone had jumped in full battle dress they'd have hit the ground hard enough to break a leg despite the parachute.

The German fallschirmjaegers in WW2 had an answer - they would have their weapons dropped separately, in canisters, except for their sidearms. Land, walk to the canister, pick up the weapon, you're ready.
Simple.
When you're not being shot at, and when you're doing this on an open field in peacetime on a sunny day.

In practice, this led to all kinds of f*ckups. For starters, the canisters could end up in the wrong field - when the dropping plane is moving at hundreds of miles an hour, then you can get the canister quite a long way off by dropping it a second too late. (And you can't steer to follow the canister down - your parachute isn't steerable at this point! One riser to the canopy.)
There might be people shooting at you on the way down - or as you run out to the canister to get your weapons.
The plane itself might be off course.
If landing at night, you might not even SEE the canister.
And, when you get there, someone else might have taken the weapon already. Go and find another canister.


The second problem is that you're basically being dropped out of the sky and have no idea where the commanding officer is. (Or for that matter your sergeant.) Airborne forces take a while to consolidate back into effective fighting forces, which eats away at their main advantage - surprise.
Because airborne don't have much staying power. The only things they jump with are very light - maybe an anti-tank weapon, but that's about it until post WW2.
But that's not a unique logistical challenge.

The unique logistical challenge is REsupply. Everything your airborne force gets has to be flown in - by glider, dropped by parachute, or unloaded at an airport.
And air supply is HARD.
You don't have any other option, though, so get to it.

Each supply aircraft can provide a couple of tons per flight, and you're going to need an airport to let them land and take off again. Or at least something like an airfield - the worse the quality, the more the landing accidents, and you'd better hope that there's no booby traps.
Another option is dropping gliders. They still need someone to steer them, so you're also dropping in qualified pilots from a not unlimited supply, and they do need reasonable fields to land in, but at least they don't have to take off again. (They're not reusable, though. Hope you built enough gliders.)
Or there's just dropping more supplies by parachute.
Oops, the wind's blowing the wrong way, your mortar resupply just drifted behind enemy lines and now they're arriving at you much faster than you were hoping!

The Germans added a whole new fillip to this simply by who flew their transports. (the Ju-52.) Rather than have a transport corps as a permanent organization, or stripping bomber crews (because bombers were needed for the high tempo of offensive operations), they instead used their multi-engined aircraft flight school teachers.
This is inventive, but it's also very, very risky. If they suffered casualties (and the slow and ungainly Ju-52 was very vulnerable) then they lost not merely their best multi-engined pilots but also their ability to train more.

(That's a perennial problem for the Axis as a whole - unlike the Allies, who rotated their best pilots to go train more pilots, the Axis kept sending their best into harms way where they racked up incredible scores and then died. Losing all their experience without passing it on.)



So, with all that, why do people use airborne forces?
Partly because it seems cool. Partly the real value of surprise - if you want to take a bridge intact, drop several hundred men on it and then RUN LIKE HELL with your main army to link up with them. Bring ammunition and tea, the paras will need it.
And partly because of misunderstandings.
The Allies were finally swayed on the need for large airborne forces by the spectacular capture of Crete, using airborne forces only.
The Germans, on the other hand, were shocked and appalled by the heavy casualties and how close they came to failure - so never launched a large scale paradrop again.
Indeed, none of the large Allied drops really worked according to plan. But the Normandy one does bring the final reason people use paratroopers to light.
Logistics. Not yours, those of the enemy!
Drop about ten thousand fit, well trained, well armed young men into the rear areas of an army and tell them to do something. It doesn't matter what, most of them will forget it - and they'll try to muddle through by killing whoever seems to be doing something important for the enemy.
This makes a logistical network go absolutely bananas.
You had that resupply scheduled for yesterday? Sorry, ten young enemy paratroopers shot the driver, set the truck on fire, and blew a bridge to smithereens with the explosives.
You need to march down that road? Sure, but there's paratroopers about, so you may be about to be shot.
You need four thousand more men on the front line? Sorry, they're all hunting paratroopers.

This concept is called LGOP - Little Groups Of Paratroopers - and is vaguely terrifying.




From this thread:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=340674
which I recommend you have a good read of.
 
I thought this was 'alternate history'.

In Alternate History we pay attention to capabilities, logistics, and probability. I.e. if something is impossible going by the information we have, for instance a German invasion of North America is impossible during World War II regardless of any Germany efforts to try.

Okay then if Hitler before the war broke out gave more attention to Germany's navy and had prepared for operation sealion before the war he could of done it. He also knew about Americans developing nuclear weapons and Hitler gave more attention to the importance of science during war.

Imperial Germany tried to engage in a naval race with Britain. It lost. Badly. To the point it wasn't even a race, the British held up the German buildup as an EXCUSE to build more ships, they were barely trying. So if Germany decides to build up a fleet in preparation for WWII Britain is going to take notice and build up its own forces to match (and that's assuming Germany even gets close, which it won't.)

As to science, first he knew no such thing. Second, Nazism is incompatible with science. Hitler's nonsense had atomic physics labeled "Jewish science", and the Nazi Party viewed scientific research with suspicion.

You seem to think you have to pick one or the other either build a large number of tanks or build your navy up? You can pick both.

And, unless you are the WWII United States, you end up with fewer of both. Germany was outnumbered in the Battle of France OTL, how much worse is it going to be if half the steel used on tanks OTL is diverted to battleships.
 

SeaPony

Banned
...
Around 1942!?

Your understanding of WW2 is worryingly problematic.


You seem to want to play down Germany's strength in maintaining control over europe?
occupymap.jpg
 

Saphroneth

Banned
You seem to think you have to pick one or the other either build a large number of tanks or build your navy up? You can pick both.
Actually, you can't. Germany was skating on the edge of economic disaster in the 1930s and can't simply build "More things".
If they pay for more ships they can't pay for as many tanks or aircraft. If they pay for more tanks, they can't pay for as many ships.
And so on.
 

SeaPony

Banned
In Alternate History we pay attention to capabilities, logistics, and probability. I.e. if something is impossible going by the information we have, for instance a German invasion of North America is impossible during World War II regardless of any Germany efforts to try.



Imperial Germany tried to engage in a naval race with Britain. It lost. Badly. To the point it wasn't even a race, the British held up the German buildup as an EXCUSE to build more ships, they were barely trying. So if Germany decides to build up a fleet in preparation for WWII Britain is going to take notice and build up its own forces to match (and that's assuming Germany even gets close, which it won't.)

As to science, first he knew no such thing. Second, Nazism is incompatible with science. Hitler's nonsense had atomic physics labeled "Jewish science", and the Nazi Party viewed scientific research with suspicion.



And, unless you are the WWII United States, you end up with fewer of both. Germany was outnumbered in the Battle of France OTL, how much worse is it going to be if half the steel used on tanks OTL is diverted to battleships.
I know they could not of invaded America but developed the atom bomb before the Americans. This is alternate history developing the atom bomb before the Americans:confused:
 
I thought this was 'alternate history'. Okay then if Hitler before the war broke out gave more attention to Germany's navy and had prepared for operation sealion before the war he could of done it. He also knew about Americans developing nuclear weapons and Hitler gave more attention to the importance of science during war.

This is all assuming Hitler suddenly becomee sane, which is implausible. And if you take Hitler as sane from the start, then Hitler definately doesn't get as far as he did. It's a miracle he got as far as he did in real life.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I know they could not of invaded America but developed the atom bomb before the Americans. This is alternate history developing the atom bomb before the Americans:confused:
The atomic bomb project cost an apocalyptically large amount of money. It took the combined efforts of US scientists, UK scientists, Danish scientists, and even some German scientists driven out of the country by the Nazis. It took years of full-speed effort.
So no, the Germans can't get the atomic bomb first. In our reality they actually decided it was not even possible.
 

SeaPony

Banned
Actually, you can't. Germany was skating on the edge of economic disaster in the 1930s and can't simply build "More things".
If they pay for more ships they can't pay for as many tanks or aircraft. If they pay for more tanks, they can't pay for as many ships.
And so on.

Not just developing more of everything but the technology if Hitler had paid more attention to quality instead of quantity. If Hitler had got to power in 1929 he would of had a whole 10 years to prepare for war.
 
If Germany had developed better sea to land invasion equipment before the war to invade Britain then in could of been possible with the help of an air invasion to get behind British lines at the coast.

No they couldn't. Britain is an island, and had heavily fortified all the invasion spots on the southern coast. Landing farther north is even more suicidal than landing in the south, because it means the RN has even more time to run around inside the undefended landing craft.

I know they could not of invaded America but developed the atom bomb before the Americans. This is alternate history developing the atom bomb before the Americans:confused:

And as I noted earlier, the Nazis developing an atomic bomb is borderline impossible. I mentioned invading America as an example of something that was completely impossible.

OTL the Manhattan Project cost the United States some 2 billion dollars, which was the same amount Germany managed to pour into the V-2, which was crap. Or as I think Saproneth (or Calbear, not sure which) put it once: Germany spent 2 billion dollars and built a rocket which killed about 1 person per launch. The United States spent 2 billion dollars and built instant sunshine.

Not just developing more of everything but the technology if Hitler had paid more attention to quality instead of quantity. If Hitler had got to power in 1929 he would of had a whole 10 years to prepare for war.

Paying too much attention to quality (and still managing to produce shit like the Tigers) was a major problem OTL.
 

SeaPony

Banned
This is all assuming Hitler suddenly becomee sane, which is implausible. And if you take Hitler as sane from the start, then Hitler definately doesn't get as far as he did. It's a miracle he got as far as he did in real life.

Again it is an alternate history, Hitler can have a different personality.
 
I think I'll get some popcorn.
Homemade or movie theater style
I thought this was 'alternate history'.
I hate it when people do this. ASB doesn't mean "Do whatever you want," at best that's the ASB forum. Here we examine what is plausible.
You seem to want to play down Germany's strength in maintaining control over europe?
occupymap.jpg
Wrong year. Operation Barbarossa started in 1941, and in fact at the beginning of 1942 the Russians were pushing Hitler back from the gates of Moscow. By 1942 Germany had already pretty much lost the war. They couldn't hope to beat the Soviet Union in the east and in the west were facing Britain and the gigantic cheat code that is the USA.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
Oh, and a bit of terminology you seem to find confusing.



Alternate History is not simply "anything goes", at least not in this forum. There are other forums which are more permissive, like Writer's Forum or ASB - but here in Post 1900, we apply rigorous standards of realism. People on this forum can tell you what modifications to a Bf109 would require re-specifying the aircraft and which are simply not doable, all the shortcomings of the design of USS Alaska, and the particulars of USSR doctrine in 1945.
 
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