Garrison
Donor
Logistics would still have killed them, not to mention underestimating the size of the Red Army by a factor of four.
Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
Interesting. Could the prophecy that Hitler made on January 30, 1939 threatening the annihilation of the European Jews if "international finance Jewry" started another world war been at least partly intended to attempt to prevent the US from getting involved in any wars in Europe that Germany might start?
US personnel on US ships were already fighting the Germans. US personnel were even convertly serving with Coastal Command (e.g the pilot of the Catalina that sighted Bismarck). At the same time, the US Army and Air Force were wholly unready for active deployment as of December 1941.
But they were training up rapidly, even before Pearl Harbor, and that would certainly continue with the US formally at war. They would be ready for action in Europe in a few months - about the same time that the US would have declared war on Germany.
IOW, Germany not declaring war wouldn't delay the actual entry of US forces to combat against Germany.
Key word is logistics, unless he can magic up better roads and more rail lines in the Western USSR then OTL 1941, frontlines are roughly in the same place
marathag
Banned
Now if Germany had any political brains, would have jettisoned the Japanese on Dec 8th.
After all, it's not like they were helping against the USSR from a military standpoint.
And a low grade informal war at Sea, beats being part of the Axis that sneak attacked Pearl Harbor.
Why give FDR a free DoW? Make him work for a DoW against Germany in Congress.
That vote won't be as lopsided as with Japan.
After all, Greater Germany is best served with an enraged USA with 'Japan First' as policy
Even then, the USA declaring war after a casus belli (caused by
Plus even if/when Roosevelt gets a DoW on Germany (probably not on the 8th Dec. but somewhen in '42, he won't be able to push (as much) for unconditional surrender.
And indeed, will have to follow a Japan First policy.
Should the US landings in Italy and France be delayed one year (by later DoW / Japan first policy), that could lead to more German victories on the Eastern Front.
So, the Reich would probably lose the same way as OTL, but their chances would be a tad higher.
So America goes with a Japan first policy. All the resources that went to the European campaign - Soldiers, Navy, Army Airforce etc goes to the Pacific and instead, the USMC and the USMC Air squadrons come to Europe along with the number of Army units, (say they include the Alamo Scouts), that OTL Went to the Pacific.
After the Desert, Sicily is taken, and with different commanders, (no Marc Clarke for example), different tactics, maybe Italy are taken out of the war quicker?
D-Day would be a smaller affair, maybe three beaches instead of five - One British, One Canadian and One American, and the OTL Omaha is left alone this time, No Patton's ego to delay closing the Falaise pocket, Maybe Caen taken on the bounce, (Monty is in the far east so maybe Slim in Europe), no market garden and more chance of the Scheldt Estuary being taken as a priority, all of this could see Germany slightly later but with far better logistics, (Red Ball Express getting more credit), but better supply lines meaning a faster drive on Berlin.
Downside means a Soviet occupied Austria post war?
That works for Germany. Unless they use their U-boats to attack US convoys in the Atlantic. Then 'poof' there's your casus belli by the treacherous Germans sneakily attacking the US while they had 'jettisoned' the Japanese.
And if the Germans don't attack US convoys to the UK, they just make life easy for them. Free buildup of forces in the UK and of the UK in the med, the US convoys go just straight through the med to Alexandria, and if they're attacked it's "ah, so you're no really jettisoning Japan?"
So it sounds nice in theory, but it's never going to work.
marathag
Banned
Oh, Nazi Germany still loses, but 1942 looks far worse than OTL for the Allies. I don't see a large US Bomber participation in 1943/44 either
Well if Burma is held and the Rice crop is still available for India that changes a lot in India.
I think it will look better for the allies, because it's only going to work if the Germans call of USM. If they don't they will be at war with the US very fast. In which case there's no difference with OTL. It'll still be Germany first after Germany sneakily attacked US shipping with submarines while they said they were not supporting Japan.
I don't think so.
Attacking US ships that carry lend-lease (in violation of the country's neutrality) in international waters is far less an offence than attacking the US home territory directly.
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It won't just be lend-lease going through the Atlantic. Chances are it's US forces too. After all the US is not at war with Germany, so they should be safe transporting troops through the Atlantic and the mediterrean too Australia, right? They're clearly flying US flags, so why is Germany attacking them? If the Germans are attacking them, they must be in with Japan. <= that at least will be the US reasoning
1st November 1941 - 7th December 1941 – Global War – Part IV – Hitler Raises the Stakes
Garrison
Donor
1st November 1941 - 7th December 1941 – Global War – Part IV – Hitler Raises the Stakes
By the 5th of December leading elements of the Ostheer were practically within a stone’s throw of the Kremlin, though according to one German officer, ‘by then all we had was stones’. The German forces were literally freezing in place, a situation compounded by the breakdown of the logistical system that supported the frontline units. Supplies simply couldn’t be moved forward by a system so deeply dependent on horse drawn transportation and what trucks were available were every bit as vulnerable to the Russian winter as the Panzers they were trying to support. The Germans had pushed far beyond the line of the Dnepr and still the Red Army continued to fight, seemingly able to endless replace the Divisions the Wehrmacht had destroyed.
Regardless of the cold and a crumbling supply system the Ostheer was somehow still grinding forward, until the Soviet counterattack struck in that first week of December. Forty Divisions commanded by General Georgi Zhukov, with the fighting seeing the T-34 tank deployed en masse for the first time. The Soviet blow was struck at the perfect moment, with the Ostheer massively overextended and at the limits of their endurance. There was little the Ostheer troops could do to resist as Soviet troops and vehicles, far better adapted to the weather conditions than their opponents, routed the leading elements of the Ostheer. During this catastrophe the only real counter the Wehrmacht had to the T-34 was the Pz IV Ausf G. At Hitler’s insistence the units equipped with these tanks had received higher priority for supplies, so some of them remained operational even as their comrades found themselves deprived of food and fuel. There weren’t nearly enough of them to affect the course of the battle, but the very same Generals who had regarded the whole insistence on upgunning the Panzer IV as a folly on Hitler’s part would now start insisting on expanding production of the Ausf G and the StuG III assault gun, which also proved invaluable on the defensive, as quickly as possible [1].
This change of heart simply affirmed Hitler’s growing belief that the General Staff officers of the Heer were useless and that only he had the strategic vision to lead the Reich to victory. The progress of the war from this point on would prove otherwise, to everyone except Hitler and his most dedicated followers. Many will point to Hitler’s response to the Japanese offensive in the Pacific as a clear example of this increasing megalomania, a decision made purely on the whims of Hitler.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941 tends to draw most attention when it comes to opening of the Pacific war, it was though simply one part of the larger Japanese offensive aimed at British, Dutch, and US possessions in the Pacific. The opening of an entire new front in the war and the burdens that would bring were hardly welcome for the British, this however was massively outweighed by the entry into the war of the USA as a combatant, prompting Churchill’s quote, “Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.[2]” Still even after the US declaration of war against Japan by the USA on the 8th there was a legitimate concern that the Americans might choose to focus their efforts on the Pacific. Those who opposed intervening in the European war could use this turn of events to reduce the shipments of materiel to Britain and insist that all efforts be focused on crushing the Japanese in revenge for their ‘sneak attack’. Such ideas barely had to time form before they were rendered moot on the 11th of December when Hitler declared war on the United States.
On the surface this seemed like an astonishing blunder on the part of Hitler, adding yet another major power that Germany would have to fight when it was already overextended by the war in the USSR and concerned about the military build-up of the British, especially their bomber forces. There was at least some strategic logic to it however, and it was not only Hitler who wanted to take the war to the USA. One important motivation was a desire to be seen to support the Japanese. The prospect of diverting British and America resources away from helping the USSR was seen by Hitler as an opportunity to regroup the Ostheer and finish the Soviets off with a fresh offensive in the Spring. With the USSR under his control Hitler was confident Germany could meet the Anglo-American alliance on even terms, assuming they were even wiling to continue the war under those circumstances.
The other reason for declaring war was that from the German perspective the USA was to all intents and purposes already at war with the Reich in the Atlantic. The USS Kearny and the USS Reuben James had both been sunk while defending convoys and engaging U-Boats [3]. There was serious discussion on the US side of arming merchantmen before Pearl Harbour and extending the escort operations of the USN practically to the shores of Britain. On the other side of the equation the U-Boats were not achieving the results needed to bring Britain to its knees. The U-Boats were barely averaging 250,000 tonnes of merchant ships per month in 1941, far short of the 650,000 tonnes per month that was estimated to be needed to degrade British shipping and cut off her vital Atlantic supply line. These estimates by the Kriegsmarine didn’t account for the impact of Liberty Ship program, which produced replacement cargo hulls at a rate undreamed of before the war. The ever-increasing number of escort ships available to the Royal Navy, reinforced by the US Navy and the Royal Canadian navy, more Escort Carriers and Very Long-Range patrol aircraft, as well as better tactics and technology deployed by the escort groups, were all making it harder for the Wolf Packs when attacking convoys. This was assuming that ULTRA decrypts didn’t allow the British to safely reroute convoys away from the prowling U-Boats [4].
All of this fed into Hitler’s decision to declare war on the USA, which in no way made it less of a desperate gamble, or even just wishful thinking. Hitler’s plan was doomed because it was based on false assumptions about the resilience of the Soviets and the speed with which the USA would mobilize for war, turning its vast industrial might into the ‘arsenal of democracy’ [5].
[1] So the upgraded Pz IV have shown their worth, but they aren’t going to stop Zhukov.
[2] That is the authentic quote, and it was the moment when really the British knew they were going to win.
[3] A small butterfly in that the Kearny is sunk rather than merely damaged as per OTL.
[4] So yes there is a rationale for Germany declaring war on the USA…
[5] …It just isn’t an especially good one.
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Garrison
Donor
Did anyone really doubt Hitler would double down? 
The next four updates will cover the initial battles in Malaya and I am actually writing a couple of late additions to the TL, covering the carrier battles in the Spring of 1942, and they are not the ones you might be thinking of...
The next four updates will cover the initial battles in Malaya and I am actually writing a couple of late additions to the TL, covering the carrier battles in the Spring of 1942, and they are not the ones you might be thinking of...Well, I wasn't thinking of one with the Graf Zeppelin, so that must be it.Did anyone really doubt Hitler would double down?