How Hitler Could Have Won The War Before 1942

Spain: to entice them into the Axis, was on the agenda, talks were held, but Franco perhaps asked to much.

Quite right, of course. In my opinion, Franco never intended to join the Axis. He was a cunning fox, and quite aware that entering the war with his war-divided country meant the Canaries were exposed to conquest and Gibraltar frankly was not; so he pitched his bid too high, to avoid the tactless snub of actually refusing to negotiate with the Axis.
 

Cook

Banned
Who is Doenitz (?),.


Carl Donitz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz

Spain: to entice them into the Axis, was on the agenda, talks were held, but Franco perhaps asked to much.


Franco deliberately asked more than he thought Hitler would be willing to give because he knew Spain was far from recovered from the Civil War and he was probably astute enough to realise that the war wasn’t decided yet; if he went in and Britain won he would loose and if he stayed out and Hitler won well he’d still be able to pick up Gibraltar. So he had no reason to gamble.


Likewise, the Soviet Union was asked to join the Axis, at least via a protocol of understanding between them and Germany, but the Russians kept on upping the price - Finland, Rumania, Turkey (acces to the Med.). It was then a race who could get the blow in first - German did. .


Stalin did everything he could to aid Hitler without entering the war. He knew that sooner or later he’d have to fight Hitler anyway but hoped that it would be sooner.

And Japan - fight the Russians - what with, they needed oil, they had to steal that from the Dutch. And to it with safety, meant fighting the US - hence Pearl Harbor.


This isn’t as clear cut as that. The decision to move south instead of north is heavily tied up with the rivalry in Japan between the Army (who wanted to go North, knowing that they would get the lion’s share of funding from the decision) and the Navy (How wanted to go south for the same reason).

Ian Kershaw’s “Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941” is a very good read concerning these matters.
 

Cook

Banned
Quite right, of course. In my opinion, Franco never intended to join the Axis. He was a cunning fox, and quite aware that entering the war with his war-divided country meant the Canaries were exposed to conquest and Gibraltar frankly was not; so he pitched his bid too high, to avoid the tactless snub of actually refusing to negotiate with the Axis.

Dead on the money.
 

Commissar

Banned
The biggest stratigic mistake was the halt order at Dunkirk, had he pressed forward he could have defeated of the BEF, and gotten the surrender of the Brittish.

Not possible. The AA Canal had been flooded and Guderian's Panzers were worn out. There was still concern that the French were about to breakout from Stonne and cut off the entire Panzer thrust and the French came pretty close too.

Also if the Germans had tried to rush the pocket, they would be advancing in flooded marshy ground, be subjected to heavy Artillery Bombardment, and the Naval Might of the Ally Navy would add overwhelming firepower to smash up the attacks.

The Germans made the correct decision to allow the BEF and French forces to escape. They then got all those fine British Trucks which they used to finish off France.
 

Rubicon

Banned
280 German U-boats are actually within the boundries of the Anglo-German naval treaty, as long as the Germans were willing to limit themselves only to Type II U-boats :D

Blair said:
The last item on the agenda was submarines. Germany insisted on parity with Great Britain (about 52,700 tons) but assured Britain it would build only to 45 percent of parity (about 24,000 tons) unless "outside considerations" compelled a larger program.

Blair said:
In midsummer 1937, Great Britain, in conferance with the terms of the Anglo-German Naval treaty, notified Germany that it intented to increase its submarine force by 17,300 tons - from 52,700 to 70,000 tons.

Blair said:
In late May of 1938, after Hitler had been rebuffed and humiliated in his first attempt to absorb the Sudetenland .... [snip] ... He Would invoke the escape clause in the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, which, under certain circumstances, allowed Germany parity with Great Britain in submarines - a planned 70,000 tons.

In treaty limits a Type II U-boat displaced 250 tons, a Type VII 500 tons, and a Type IX 750 tons.

If Dönitz managed to persuade the OKM to favour his approach to convoy raiding more then what happend OTL, so that at least the plans to build the Type X minelayers and Type XI U-cruisers are scrapped, we might see a more dangerous composition of the German U-boat force early in the war.

This estimation assumes 2/3s of the tonnage allocated to Type VII, and 1/3 to Type IX.


94 Type VII U-boats = 47.000 tons
30 Type IX U-boats = 23.000 tons
Total: 124 U-boats of 70.000 tons

All of these are not available on September 3rd 1939, many of these only began construction to late, roughly half would not be available for one reason or another. Most of them would though be available for the summer of 1940 and the 'Happy times' of U-boats.
 
Last edited:
Fun fact-after the Battle of Poland, the Germans were abut two weeks from running out of ammo. They needed to focus on the army for the invasions of next year to work-and then they needed to focus on the army for Barbarossa.

So where do they ge the resources for hese 300 U-Boats?
 

Rubicon

Banned
Fun fact-after the Battle of Poland, the Germans were abut two weeks from running out of ammo. They needed to focus on the army for the invasions of next year to work-and then they needed to focus on the army for Barbarossa.

So where do they ge the resources for hese 300 U-Boats?

To be fair the issues about lack of supplies after Fall Weiss and the possibility of building a lot more U-boats are completly unrelated. They use different kinds of raw material and the industries are not dependant on each other.

The issue about supplies was more a matter of misscalculating the amount of supplies used in combat rather then not being able to produce more or lack of funds. This is actually quite a common problem, it happend to the coalition forces after the first gulf war for example.

Construction of U-boats had a much higher demand for high-grade steel. While the production of high-grade steel was no bottleneck in itself, Germany had actually a production capacity that vastly outstripped it's resources, but rather the production of Coke needed for the production of high-grade steel. Get Germany more Coke, and the country could produce much more steel.

The second bottleneck for Germanys U-boat force after high-grade steel, was the problem with training the crews, the baltic was not suitable for training purposes during the winter months as the ocean during the thirties and forties froze, unlike today with its warmer climate.

If for some reasons Germany manages to have more U-boats available for combat on September 3rd 1939, the U-boats will run into torpedo shortages during the first six months as the production of torpedoes was much to slow and low even for OTL numbers.
 
To be fair the issues about lack of supplies after Fall Weiss and the possibility of building a lot more U-boats are completly unrelated. They use different kinds of raw material and the industries are not dependant on each other.

The issue about supplies was more a matter of misscalculating the amount of supplies used in combat rather then not being able to produce more or lack of funds. This is actually quite a common problem, it happend to the coalition forces after the first gulf war for example.

Construction of U-boats had a much higher demand for high-grade steel. While the production of high-grade steel was no bottleneck in itself, Germany had actually a production capacity that vastly outstripped it's resources, but rather the production of Coke needed for the production of high-grade steel. Get Germany more Coke, and the country could produce much more steel.

The second bottleneck for Germanys U-boat force after high-grade steel, was the problem with training the crews, the baltic was not suitable for training purposes during the winter months as the ocean during the thirties and forties froze, unlike today with its warmer climate.

If for some reasons Germany manages to have more U-boats available for combat on September 3rd 1939, the U-boats will run into torpedo shortages during the first six months as the production of torpedoes was much to slow and low even for OTL numbers.


Actually, the issue over raw material supply for U-boats was WORSE than it was for the general army supplies - it certainly doesnt use different stuff, just items that are harder to make and use more scarce materials
 

Rubicon

Banned
Actually, the issue over raw material supply for U-boats was WORSE than it was for the general army supplies - it certainly doesnt use different stuff, just items that are harder to make and use more scarce materials

While I certainly agree that the raw material situation was in no way good for the construction of more U-boats in late -39, nor did I claim it was so, quite the contrary if you read my post.

What I did claim was that the construction of U-boats and the production of supplies share very few industries and raw materials outside high-grade steel, and that the two issues are not related. Perhaps I did not make that clear enough in my post, if that is so I apologize for the confusion it may have caused.
 

Cook

Banned
While I certainly agree that the raw material situation was in no way good for the construction of more U-boats in late -39, nor did I claim it was so, quite the contrary if you read my post.

What I did claim was that the construction of U-boats and the production of supplies share very few industries and raw materials outside high-grade steel, and that the two issues are not related. Perhaps I did not make that clear enough in my post, if that is so I apologize for the confusion it may have caused.

High Grade Steel, heavy diesel engines are just the start.

These 300 U-boats either get reinforced concrete pens or get bombed out of existence.

I’d say Doenitz’s dreams were about as unlikely to happen as the Kriegsmarine Plan Z.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z
 
While I certainly agree that the raw material situation was in no way good for the construction of more U-boats in late -39, nor did I claim it was so, quite the contrary if you read my post.

What I did claim was that the construction of U-boats and the production of supplies share very few industries and raw materials outside high-grade steel, and that the two issues are not related. Perhaps I did not make that clear enough in my post, if that is so I apologize for the confusion it may have caused.

They aren't just steel tubes, you know!!! Thats the least of it.
Its all the stuff that goes in, the equipment, torpedoes, etc. If you have people building this, then they aren't building something else, and there were desperate shortages of things like rubber and copper which they made heavy use of.
 

Rubicon

Banned
High Grade Steel, heavy diesel engines are just the start.

These 300 U-boats either get reinforced concrete pens or get bombed out of existence.

I’d say Doenitz’s dreams were about as unlikely to happen as the Kriegsmarine Plan Z.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z

I suggest you re-read my posts and then be so kind and point out exactly where I claimed 300 U-boats was in any way realistically possible before the outbreak of the war.

They aren't just steel tubes, you know!!! Thats the least of it.
Its all the stuff that goes in, the equipment, torpedoes, etc. If you have people building this, then they aren't building something else, and there were desperate shortages of things like rubber and copper which they made heavy use of.

Of course they are just steel tubes, just look at they way they are constructed ;) . But yes U-boats need a lot more resources and raw materials then just high-grade steel that I do agree with.

What I do not agree with is that those very same resources, raw materials and industries that are needed to produce these U-boats, are not needed to either restock the German army’s supply of artillery shells and rifle cartridges. We aren’t talking about the conflicting need for resources that was between U-boats, tanks, aeroplanes and artillery (well at least I’m not).

Why do I not believe so? They weren’t in OTL, so why should they be in any other potential TL? We aren’t talking about daily expenditure ammunition of the scale of Verdun or Somme since there were no actual large scale fighting between mid October –39 and early May –40.

The resources and raw materials needed to produce enough supplies to the German army so that it’s stocks of ammunition and shells are not dangerously low after the Polish campaign, were comparatively small. And could have used those very same stocks of resources and raw materials between May and September –39 as Germany did OTL between October-39 and January –40. The industries needed for this is not needed by the U-boat industry, and does not use the same manpower, could have increased its production, they were producing at much less then their full capacity OTL.
 
So the Germans produce moar U-Boats, Britain dose nothing.? I generally dislike arguments that ignore the logical reaction of the other side. Which is why I dislike topics like Stalin strikes west in 1945 or Germany wins via Rommal’s magical strategies etc.

If Germany tries this Britain will step up production ASW Destroyers etc. The British Isles cant really be starved into submission the way the Germans think it could and the facts is Nazi U-Boats production was hampered as much by incompetence and inefficacy than lack of materials.

And while all this is going on the US is gearing up for war and the Soviets are building a fuck-ton of stuff paint army green whilst mobilizing another couple of million troops.:eek:
 
Top