How lucky could Hitler have got

No need to force him. You'll get halfway there by not having Admiral Canaris (a British agent!) doing his best to discourage Spanish participation.

And what, precisely, are the consequences? We already had operational plans to seize the Canaries, so the situation in the Atlantic is unchanged. If anyone can demonstrate to me that a convincing operation plan to capture Gib existed, then I shall certainly concede the point, but no-one ever has, so: how do you take Gib, which in the past has held up against foes actually abel to contest the seas? It's a narrow strip of sand with a gigantic natural fortress at the end of it. Once again, feel free to correct me, but all I can imagine happening is Spanish troops getting slaughtered.

So, we basically have a couple of tiny pinpricks on British manpower (seizing the Canaries and keeping the Gib garrison at strength).

And Spain itself? No Atlantic wall, a large part of its population bitterly opposed to the ruler who finished conquering them merely a year ago, with a handy pro-British regime in Portugal (speaking of which, Salazar, who had backed Franco during the civil war, will still be working for British interests in Iberia whether Canaris is or not) for organising supplies...

Just find a way for him to keep his eye on the ball. Maybe keep him randomly obsessed with a coincidentally useful objective (like say Leningrad), or SOMEHOW more open to using Hiwis.

Racial prejudices quite aside, there remains the issue of eqipping and motivating all these "Hiwis". The PoW battalions actually raised were so unreliable that German battalions sometimes had to fire on them.

Agreed. Hitler should have made it a precondition to declaring war on the US.

Achieving what? A tightening of the Soviet manpower situation and a slash in LL rates that's unlikely to tell too badly before Japan is comprehensively defeated, since their army in Manchuria was in no condition to take the fortress of Vladivostok or take on the Far East whatsoever. Without elite divisions to strike southward, Japan rapidly runs out of resources while America starts to equip a new Chinese army using the Burma road.
 
And what, precisely, are the consequences? We already had operational plans to seize the Canaries, so the situation in the Atlantic is unchanged. If anyone can demonstrate to me that a convincing operation plan to capture Gib existed, then I shall certainly concede the point, but no-one ever has, so: how do you take Gib, which in the past has held up against foes actually abel to contest the seas? It's a narrow strip of sand with a gigantic natural fortress at the end of it. Once again, feel free to correct me, but all I can imagine happening is Spanish troops getting slaughtered.

So, we basically have a couple of tiny pinpricks on British manpower (seizing the Canaries and keeping the Gib garrison at strength).

And Spain itself? No Atlantic wall, a large part of its population bitterly opposed to the ruler who finished conquering them merely a year ago, with a handy pro-British regime in Portugal (speaking of which, Salazar, who had backed Franco during the civil war, will still be working for British interests in Iberia whether Canaris is or not) for organising supplies...
Bad for Spain in the short term, but it's spreading the British just that much more thin. More pressure on Vichy to cooperate. And surely they could try to take Gibraltar by surprise... Appearances matter too- one more member of the axis coalition makes them look stronger, almost more important than Spain's actual contributions.

What would probably be more helpful would be retaining Spain as an undeclared ally. Sending volunteers and bypassing the blockade.

Racial prejudices quite aside, there remains the issue of eqipping and motivating all these "Hiwis". The PoW battalions actually raised were so unreliable that German battalions sometimes had to fire on them.
Like those hiwis at stalingrad, amirite?


Achieving what? A tightening of the Soviet manpower situation and a slash in LL rates that's unlikely to tell too badly before Japan is comprehensively defeated, since their army in Manchuria was in no condition to take the fortress of Vladivostok or take on the Far East whatsoever. Without elite divisions to strike southward, Japan rapidly runs out of resources while America starts to equip a new Chinese army using the Burma road.
I wasn't suggesting they'd actually help. By doing that Hitler would avoid declaring war on the US (because the Japanese would most often NOT invade Siberia), which creates other problems for the allies.
 
I wasn't suggesting they'd actually help. By doing that Hitler would avoid declaring war on the US (because the Japanese would most often NOT invade Siberia), which creates other problems for the allies.

This is the only single thing that has been mentioned thus far, and as far as know exists, that could measurably impact the outcome of the war. If Germany can keep the US out indefinitely, then they can win, or at least not lose. Once the US is in, the war will be over one way or the other - either as it ended historically in the best case (well, or even earlier if you change a few things), or with as many German cities as it took going up in atomic fire to induce a coup and a surrender. Game over.
 
An "author"

And here is a reply from another forum:


And that reply from another (somewhat mysterious) forum would gain credibility if it didn't utter complete nonsense in the first sentence. Those 200+ Ju 52's were destroyed in the Netherlands. Not Belgium and not France. If the author can't get something as simple as location right, we can dismiss his other calculations....
 
I noticed that as well, but the rest of the info looked reasonably accurate - I'm not an expert on German airborne operations in WW2, but I'm conversant enough to generally spot utter bullshit, and other than what you pointed out, it looked OK to me.
 
Bad for Spain in the short term, but it's spreading the British just that much more thin.

Temporary commitment of tiny forces to the Canaries, and we can measure the number of men needed to operate machine-guns covering the Rock in the hundreds.

It's going to stretch the Germans way thinner if the Americans whack Spain in *Torch, trash the exhausted and primitive Spanish army, organise supply through Portugal, and are welcomed by many ex-republicans, of course...

More pressure on Vichy to cooperate.

How so?

And surely they could try to take Gibraltar by surprise...

"Try" being the critical word here. What we're talking about here is running down a tiny sand spit with nothing on it. People don't seem to get that Gib isn't just a random town that we happen to own. It's one of the most defensible places in the world.

Some reading about the Great Siege would be constructive. Gib held off two of the world's top armies, a damn fine engineer, and credible naval forces for years.

Appearances matter too- one more member of the axis coalition makes them look stronger, almost more important than Spain's actual contributions.

And what good does this do, when the Americans reach the Pyrenees?

What would probably be more helpful would be retaining Spain as an undeclared ally. Sending volunteers and bypassing the blockade.

They did that.

Like those hiwis at stalingrad, amirite?

There appears to be some confusion about the meaning of "Hiwi". Those classified as "former Russians" included Hilfswigers, who were basically camp followers, menial labourers, draftees, and other people desperately trying to keep food in their bellies by tagging along with German units; and also the prisoner of war units.

People being people, there are some bizarre tales of loyalty and even friendship from the Hiwis, who (like many of their German "comrades") mostly didn't care about the politics more than staying alive; but the PoW units, or any other large formation raised from Soviet citizens, would be as hilariously unreliable as the attempts made IOTL.

As a matter of fact, all units raised from Soviet PoWs were declared useless in the east after Kursk and sent to hold fixed positions in the west. Some still mutinied. A Georgian battalion liberated Texel in the Dutch Frisian islands.

I wasn't suggesting they'd actually help. By doing that Hitler would avoid declaring war on the US (because the Japanese would most often NOT invade Siberia), which creates other problems for the allies.

He wasn't motivated by loyalty (look how much loyalty he showed his erstwhile chum Stalin), but by what he and his top men thought were Germany's strategic interests. America was not really neutral by any stretch of the imagination, and Roosevelt's declared policy being that is America committed to war-level arms production on Britain's behalf and thsi enabled British victory, America would be saved a battle that would otherwise fall to its sons. From a German perspective - tinted by self-serving "intelligence" that claimed the American people were too weak and decadent to send a real army to Europe - it made sense to declare war and thus have complete freedom to attack American shipping.

It was a decision taken by and for Germans.
 
I think his greatest stroke of luck would have been Churchill NOT becoming Prime Minister on May 10th 1940. Some believe Halifax would never have sued for peace, others believe that had the BEF been lost at Dunkirk, the "peace party" would have been in a majority in Cabinet and Halifax would have sued for peace through Italian mediation. Taking Britain and the British Empire out of the war would have been a huge stroke of good fortune for Hitler -

Hm, how about something I haven't seen yet: Germany doesn't build the Bismarck, Tirpitz, etc. Britain was always more worried about controlling the sea lanes than Continental politics, and with absolutely no German surface navy to worry about the British political powers-that-be decide to make a deal with Germany, and make sure that Halifax becomes the Premier instead of Churchill. Even in our time line, there was a sizable contingent in the City (British Wall Street???) that thought that fighting Germany would weaken the British Empire to the point that it would collapse, which is what happened.

Plus all the money, steel, and man hours that went into basically useless ships goes into planes and tanks.

the next would have been nothing delaying the launch of Barbarossa on April 22nd 1941.

I thought the original date was May 18th.
 
He did not demand the entry of Spain on the side of the Axis.
Well, Germany gains Spanish bases and can now take Gibraltar. On the other hand, Spain is pretty much inconsequential besides that, and Gibraltar wouldn't have had a large impact on the Med. theater (Britain was supplying Egypt and Malta via the Cape and the Suez). On the other hand, there are a whole bunch of large economic consequences, such as no international trade via Spain, and having to supply yet another Axis country with precious oil and other raw materials.
Not taking Malta?
That certainly would help the Axis war effort quite abit. A tremendous number of Luftewaffe aircraft were shot down by Malta-based fighters. Taking Malta is difficult however, but there were instances where it could've been possible. Mostly early into the war, before it was fortified into an impregnable fortress.
 
The question of how Hitler forces Franco to do something Franco was never going to do remains unanswered.

After their meeting Hitler, having received Franco's conditions for entering the war, said he would rather have several teeth removed than repeat that discussion while Franco raised his list of demands on the odd chance that his already extortionist list hadn't been high enough to dissuade Hitler.
 
The question of how Hitler forces Franco to do something Franco was never going to do remains unanswered.

After their meeting Hitler, having received Franco's conditions for entering the war, said he would rather have several teeth removed than repeat that discussion while Franco raised his list of demands on the odd chance that his already extortionist list hadn't been high enough to dissuade Hitler.


for clarification, is there someplace where this list of demands can be found, I have always been curious.
 

Markus

Banned
And that reply from another (somewhat mysterious) forum would gain credibility if it didn't utter complete nonsense in the first sentence. Those 200+ Ju 52's were destroyed in the Netherlands. Not Belgium and not France. If the author can't get something as simple as location right, we can dismiss his other calculations....

I dismiss that statement as utter, complete nonense! I have mixed up and overlooked details in the past too, which you obviously never did. And as you confirmed, the relevant info like number of lost Ju52 is correct. I can confirm from memory that the total and servicability rates are correct too.
 

Markus

Banned
And here is a little picture to visualize the sitaution.


25pounder.jpg



The 25pdr has a range of just under 12km, I uperimposed an 11km circle around Lympne and the lenght of the front on land is more than 40km. Note, defending 40km already has the paras overstretched by more than 50% and they leave the beaches unguarded and have no reserve. Thus a 40km perimeter would be most unrealistic.


Now we shrink it to a more realistic 24km to fix the flaws above and look at that:

18pounder.jpg



The entire pocket is well within range ... of obsolete 18 pounders from WW1.
 
Just to clarify, it is very obvious that the invasion with barges would only have worked with pretty well total air and sea superiority. They would have been very slow.

I suspect the Nazis taking a port by paratroopers is unlikely to say the least. However if they had liners might have managed to cross simply because of their speed.

As I said it assumed all the luck going to the devil's representative.

However if there were maybe 30 000 Nazi troops in Essex (or be it unable to obtain any relief or supplies becuase the Royal Navy would pretty quickly block anything) could that have still caused a British collapse.
 

Markus

Banned
I suspect the Nazis taking a port by paratroopers is unlikely to say the least. However if they had liners might have managed to cross simply because of their speed.

As I said it assumed all the luck going to the devil's representative.

However if there were maybe 30 000 Nazi troops in Essex (or be it unable to obtain any relief or supplies becuase the Royal Navy would pretty quickly block anything) could that have still caused a British collapse.

Ports had been fortified since the dawn of history and even Tudor forts would be invulnerable to paratroopers.

Beachng a liner. Ok, it gets you ashore, after all it got the Japanese ahsore on GC but after that...

One division is defending the area, plus 2.5 in GHQ reserve, that a 1.75 to 1 numerical advantage for the Brits. Factor in that the german troops are light infantry, while the british ones are the heavy version and the British advantage get´s much bigger. Now take into consideration that the Brits can win by simply holding their ground -something even 2nd line Territorials did well in France- and this goes south for the Germans. Faster than in the Sandhurst scenario.

By the way, this was the situation before Operation Dynamo!! After that there were many more trained troops in the UK.
 
Markus, terrific map showing the situation!


Dan Reilly The Great, requested material included parts of French North Africa, primarily Morocco, along with huge quantities of fuel(Spain being utterly dependent on foreign imports), grain, armored vehicles, aircraft and vast quantities of other armaments including a separate laundry list to be sent immediately to equip the Canary Islands garrison.

Later, perhaps feeling Hitler might not have taken the hint, Franco decided to claim parts of France itself(!).
 
Guys

While I think it highly unlikely that Hitler would bulldoze Franco into declaring war, if he did I think Gibraltar would fall, eventually. It's too difficult to supply in the modern age with overwhelming German air superiority being available.

However as IBC says it would do relatively little in reality, although it would be a big prestige win in the short term. However it means that Germany had now added Spain to the list of countries it has to support. Not a great problem at first although Spain will have problems getting food and other imports. However once Germany is tied down in Russia, Britain has regrouped and the US enters the war Iberia is going to be bloody difficult to defend. This is important as it gives easier access to France than a cross-channel assault, even if having to fight across the Pyrnees.

Moreover in the shorter term the Canaries and other Atlantic islands would enable the Atlantic gap to be closed earlier. While supplies to the resistance will increase the costs for Franco and any German forces in Spain considerably.

Steve
 
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