Nazi Victory Do's and Don't's

Keep in mind that there are five levels of submarine warfare.
1. Very few ships get through. Think Russia in 1942.
2. Few ships get through and the Allies are not able to seriously bomb German cities and interfere with industrial production or supply a French invasion. Think Malta in 1941.
3. More ships get through and the Allies are only able to annoy German cities and perhaps invade North Africa. Think North Africa in 1942.
4. Most ships get through and the Allies win the war. That was 1943.
5. Almost all ships get through but you at least make them delays ships to form convoys, and build escorts and use up multiengine aircraft on antisubmarine patrols instead of bombing raids. That was 1944.
 
...but, Wyragen-TXRG4P and Red, Hitler's postwar map plans after have nothing to do with my arguments. I wrote that Germans were outnumbered by those he declared war on, which is clearly true. What I actually wrote, again:

o He insisted on only allowing racially German help. But Germans were outnumbered by those he declared war on; if he'd looked for help from those he'd conquered, he'd've been able to make more tanks and planes and put up more of a fight.
 
DO: Use the recesources, skilled workers and technically skilled submariners to get the jet program and V-2 rocket programs going early.

Won't argue the jets, but weren't the V-2's even MORE uneconomical? At least the U-boats had a period of success.
 

Hendryk

Banned
DO: Use the recesources, skilled workers and technically skilled submariners to get the jet program and V-2 rocket programs going early.
And what are you going to do with the V-2s? Destroy a few London houses? Unless you have nuclear ordnance to put into them, and you don't, V-2s are a waste of resources.
 
Keep in mind that there are five levels of submarine warfare.
1. Very few ships get through. Think Russia in 1942.
2. Few ships get through....

The difficulty with that is that most ships always got through. Churchill exaggerated the U-boat threat to get U.S. support and Donitz refuised to accept that it was not working. If you have time, read Clay Blair's two books (Hunters and The Hunted). Together, they are 1,700 pages of great information.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-U-Boat-War-Hunters-1939-1942/dp/0679640320

That is not to say that the Germans did not have rampages in 1939 to early 1940 and a second rampage on the U.S. East coast. In the end, however, PQ-17 situations (escorted convoy almost wiped out) were very rare.

And what are you going to do with the V-2s? Destroy a few London houses? Unless you have nuclear ordnance to put into them, and you don't, V-2s are a waste of resources.
Early development and mass production of V-2s would have allowed Germany to area bomb british cities with out suffering casualties themselves. Meanwhile, un escorted British night raiders and suffer huge casualties.
 
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Early development and mass production of V-2s would have allowed Germany to area bomb british cities with out suffering casualties themselves. Meanwhile, un escorted British night raiders and suffer huge casualties.

But the damage caused by the V-2's single warhead is far less, and comes at far greater expense, than that of a reusable bomber with an area bombardment effect. I'd argue the opposite - that the Germans should have put effort into something mid-way between the Heinkel and Junkers medium bombers they used in the Blitz, and the Amerika bombers. A nice Lancaster/B-17 analogue developed in the late 1930s would have given them much more bang for their buck than the single-use, highly expensive V-2s that have so much less range. Heck, the Italians managed to do it, and saw the reason behind it. Why not the Germans?
 
But the damage caused by the V-2's single warhead is far less, and comes at far greater expense, than that of a reusable bomber with an area bombardment effect. I'd argue the opposite - that the Germans should have put effort into something mid-way between the Heinkel and Junkers medium bombers
I see your point and I agree. :)
 

King Thomas

Banned
Take Austria in 1938, then stop and quietly develop nuclear weapons, not alarming the other countries.If the other countries are not worried, they won't rearm so fast.When they have 5 nukes, they can conquer Europe using them and the German army.

And you're right, this is a very bleak topic.
 

Maur

Banned
I've more or less given up responding to those threads, since it got to the point where I could more or less copy and paste my old posts back into the new responses. Right now, there's a 15-page (and counting) thread going on in pre-1900 about the economic viability of the CSA which contains some, well, rather spectacular misconceptions.

The future of an independent CSA was hardly going to be a bed of roses, but there's so many misunderstandings about it that writing yet another post pointing them out seems rather pointless. Someone (I forget who) earlier on in the thread posted a bunch of links to some earlier posts which others had provided (myself included)... but these got ignored for the remainder of the thread.
If you mean in that thread, i don't think anyone posted such thing. I'm curious thought, what do you think were the misconceptions? (if you happen to have such links, i'd appreciate them, too)

EDIT/ Oh wait, just as i wrote this i noticed 4 links on another page of it :eek:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=3893437&postcount=111
 
The classic example is "If only Rommel had pushed a little more, he would have conquered Alexandria, crossed the Nile and then casually strolled all the way to India".

Well, unless ammunition, oil and replacements grow up in the Western Desert; no, he couldn't do that, no matter how much of a tactical genius he was.

Another classic example would be something like the sudden halt of the allied armies in Belgium and Eastern France in the autumn of 1944 that lasted until next March, something that I've rarely seen in any timeline.

Damn, thats the mistake Ive been making all these years!

Not realising about the famous desert plants that grow oil and panzer-parts !! :eek::eek:
 
^ ^ ^ ^

This.

Not just about WW2, by the way, although that's the most obvious example. Discussion of the American Civil War and the future of the CSA often brings out a whole host of tired misunderstandings too, which get repeated ad nauseaum. "CSA would remain agrarian", "CSA had no industry", "slavery was uneconomic", "CSA was obsessed with squabbling over states rights", "CSA would become a banana republic", "CSA was economically inefficient because it didn't grow its own food", "a post-war CSA would face endless slave rebellions" etc. (Admittedly, the last of those is heavily dependent on when the CSA wins independence).

I've more or less given up responding to those threads, since it got to the point where I could more or less copy and paste my old posts back into the new responses. Right now, there's a 15-page (and counting) thread going on in pre-1900 about the economic viability of the CSA which contains some, well, rather spectacular misconceptions.

The future of an independent CSA was hardly going to be a bed of roses, but there's so many misunderstandings about it that writing yet another post pointing them out seems rather pointless. Someone (I forget who) earlier on in the thread posted a bunch of links to some earlier posts which others had provided (myself included)... but these got ignored for the remainder of the thread.

Funny you should mention it - I had it very much in mind. I read the first five posts or so, decided I'd intervene, and read ahead to make sure I didn't repeat anything. I made it onto the second page before I just gave up. I could see the exact sequence that would follow:

I'd contradict the big untruths in 2-3 posts, then spend 4-6 posts repeating myself under a barrage of responses that assumed I meant things I had not said. Gradually, the more incoherent would wander off or rant and get kicked. I'd still then have to find and cite better sources than the ones that were left. There might follow a discussion of source quality in which I could probably make arguments that would convince some lurkers but which would be ignored by posters. Then either my opposite numbers would ignore them and keep arguing indefinitely, or I'd suddenly be talking to myself.

I admit, I'm sometimes tempted to compile all of my old posts into one long essay on the potential future of the CSA, which people could then just link too... but even then I'm not sure that it would help.

I hope someday you do just that. I for one would find it extremely useful and interesting. And no, the problem wouldn't go away, but.... Well, I'd look at it like a fire hydrant. Certainly it'd be no use preventing fires, but it'd make a fair number of them easier to put out.

It can get rather frustrating at times. I suspect if you had gone on with FRI, things would have gotten even worse. A thick skin is essential, but not always sufficient. For writing DoD I have at various times been called a racist, an Americophile, an Americophobe (not in those exact words for the last two), a moral relativist, secretly in favour of slavery, hate the French, am a cynic, a God-hating atheist, and have a fondness for bad puns. (Okay, so the last one is pretty much spot on). Oh, and I was once called (by email) a "c***-s**king Nazi lover" - apparently because DoD Germany successfully invaded Britain.

That said, I do think that there is scope for well-researched WW2 timelines, even despite all of the problems. It just takes a lot of tolerance and, most likely, a willingness to ignore unproductive comments.

Good heavens, I hadn't realized. I've never had it quite that bad. You may well be right.
 

tqm111

Banned
You know, as I see it, there are three types of PoDs:
Coin flips
Judgement calls
ASB

A coin flip is something that could go either way. Look at Turtledove's Timeline 191, the entire PoD that kicks it off is a minor event that could've gone the other way.
Or look at a Reagan assination PoD. Could've gone either way. The bullet ricocheted off a limo and hit him and ended up inches from his heart.

If there's something that could plausably go heads, and it goes tails, thats a rational plausable PoD.

But there are plenty of things that are maybe ASB because the historical event, once set in motion was a fait acompli. That in a big way is a judgement call for many of us here.

When Hitler invades Russia when he did on OTL, despite all coin flips, will he always lose? Is it a fait acompli?

Will Sealion always fail? Will Britain always win the Battle of Britain?
Will Normandy always be successful?

Some of it depends on your PoD. If Rommel coin flips the other way and doesn't go visit his wife, does Normandy go the other way? Or is his choice a fait acompli because of inferior German meteoroligists?

If Iraq invades Kuwait in 1990, is it a fait acompli, no matter who is president, that there'll be Desert Storm?

And for us, as AH people, it depends on placing the PoD in the right place and letting the butterflies do the heavy lifting. That's part of the challenge.

Then there's real ASB:
WI Evil Lincoln
WI Evil FDR
WI Benevolent Hitler

Those aren't just aliens, magic and space bats. ASB also includes a fundemental implausable and irrational shift in a person's character. That's really ASB. Because if you had an evil FDR, he wouldn't have been FDR. He wouldn't have gotten to where he got when he did. The butterflies would've brought him somewhere else.

It also includes a fundemental implausable and irrational shift in the ground situation without a proper PoD. Hitler invades Russia in the same place at the same time and they magically win. No. Sealion happens too early and the Germans win. A successful Sealion is plausable (by that I mean invasion of England) but you'd have to change the conditions enough for it to happen.

So, Nazi victory Do's and Don'ts?
-Do do coinflips. Things that could've easily gone the other way.
-Do place your PoD in the right place.
-Don't fundementally change a person's character.
-Don't fundementally change a ground game. Place your PoD correctly, let the butterflies do the work.
 
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