Operation Tannenbaum Outcome?

Jim Smitty

Jim Smitty

Ok the background here isn't important. Lets say for whatever the reason Nazi Germany decides to invade Switzerland in 1941. There is no help forecoming from either Vichy France or Mussolini. Further the Soviet Union isn't a factor here. This is all on the Germans and the Wehrmacht. How long would it take the Wehrmacht to overcome Swiss resistance and force their surrender.

My personal hunches is the Luftwaffe would gain control of air within a week before gaining total air supremacy within three weeks. On the ground it would be harder as the Alps isn't great Panzer territory. They would have to use the Luftwaffe was flying artillery, but could they break the National Redoubt the Swiss have?
 

Shinsu

The Swiss military strategy was changed from one of static defense at the borders, to a strategy of organized long-term attrition and withdrawal to strong, well-stockpiled positions high in the Alps that was known as the National Redoubt. This strategy was essentially one of deterrence. The idea was to cause huge losses to German forces and render the cost of invading too high for whatever benefits they could have gotten. During an invasion, the Swiss Army would cede control of the economic heartland and population centers, but retain control of crucial rail links and passes in the National Redoubt. Switzerland was very valuable to the Nazis as a neutral country. Germany made 75% of the gold to foreign currency exchanges through Switzerland. The gold came from national banks the Germans had plundered in their conquest. Switzerland was also important to transfer and sell looted art.
 

lionhead

Switzerland will be very hard to take. You say no help from Italy, so they can't attack from Italy either? If they can only atack from the North, they aren't going to penetrate their defenses. Switzerland could sutrrender eventually, but only by attrition. The Swiss can dig in deeper than any country. If they can hold out till winter, German advances stop dead center and casaulties will mount up.
 

Peg Leg Pom

If the Germans did this and Italy wasn't involved then the chances are Italy is still neutral.

Switzerland would be a cast iron bitch to invade. Every adult male is a trained soldier and most of the reserves keep their weapons at home. They are well armed, well trained and live in a land that is ideal for fighting a defensive war and Italy's probably selling the Swiss supplies as fast as they can. Having the Germans take Switzerland is definitely not in Italy's national interest.
 

Nik

May be urban legend, but one of the German generals reputedly spoke to his Swiss counterpart pre-war.
"You can muster a quarter-million men under arms. How would you fare if I arrive on your border with an army of half a million ?"
"Oh, we'd all shoot twice, then go home..."

Perhaps more relevant, the mountains surrounding the passes were tunnelled and mined to the point that any invading army must expect to have megatons of rock fall on their heads and multiply cut the roads. Unable to advance, unable to retreat, the survivors must surrender in place or provide target practice for Swiss snipers and mortars.

Air support ?? Forget it ! When Stukas must dive past tunneled machine gun nests, and changeable mountain weather may suddenly interpose cumulo-dolomite or cumulo-granite, the Luftwaffe's attrition would make their 'Battle of Britain' losses seem trivial...

There's another factor. Apparently AH remembered the grievous losses of WWI's Alpine campaign. There, the 'Mountain Jaegers' on both sides suffered horrendous casualties, proportionally much worse than the Trenches. When one (1) well-placed mortar or pack-howitzer shell could avalanche a snow cornice or scree across an enemy position, when re-supply was at the mercy of fox-holed snipers, when the geology was totally treacherous and hasty excavation nigh impossible, if not suicidal, infantry combat was the stuff of nightmare.

Add cold air, altitude, altitude differences and cross-winds which made precision artillery *difficult*. While Swiss defenders had the relevant local factors to correct their 'shoots', invaders must 'walk' their counter-fire onto targets. That's not going to end well...

An object lesson was the Italian efforts to force their border passes into France. The forts there took one hell of a hammering, but held the passes. The German mountain specialists who came to help fared no better. IIRC, despite the predicted attrition, those forts could have held out for many more months, but reluctantly surrendered after France fell...

The 'Unspeakable Sea Mammal' thing probably had a better chance than trying to storm the Swiss 'interior'...
 

Asp

It would be like Iwo Jima and Okinawa but a million times worse.

The Swiss aren't going to waste their energy and human resources on banzai charges and have had much longer to dig in than the Japanese. I'm guessing the fortifications would also be better made because the Japanese had very little concrete, heavy equipment, and rebar to build theirs. The Swiss would have used these.

The other serious problem for the Germans is that they don't have anywhere near the level of fire support to crack those defenses as the U.S. did in the Pacific. Every point on Okinawa and Iwo was under the guns of thousands and hundreds of vessels respectively, not to mention enormous numbers of planes and conventional artillery. The Germans don't have that. They have some planes and conventional artillery, but not nearly what the U.S. had access to.

It would be the death of the Heer to try.
 
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riggerrob

Best chance is if Hitler tires of French defenders slowing his advance southwards through Paris, so he launches a second offensive through the Swiss Valle' to take the Rhine River Valley and the port of Marseilles before winter. A southern, ice-free port on the Mediterranean Ocean will help the Kriegsmarine's objectives in North Africa.

The Valle' is a French-speaking portion of the Swiss Plateau that runs from Bazel to Geneva, paralleling Switzerland's border with France. It is heavily populated with plenty of roads and railroads and contains most of Switzerland's agriculture. The Valle' is also the only part of Switzerland wide enough and flat enough for Panzers to maneuver.
The Valle' is separated from France by the low, steep, rounded Anura massif mostly populated by clock-making trolls.
 

ben0628

Banned
Germany would just take the economic heartland and valuable areas and just lightly besiege national redoubt.

This way they receive most of the spoils but suffer few casualties. Outside the national redoubt I doubt the Swiss could put up that great of a fight.
 
CECBC

CECBC

Banned
All these comments make me wonder how tough an Axis Switzerland would be to crack.
 

Nik

"All these comments make me wonder how tough an Axis Switzerland would be to crack."

IMHO, it would make AH's proposed 'Eagles Nest' redoubt look like a kiddies' sand castle. That, the Dambusters could have stomped with those 'tallboy' silo-busters. Dug-in Swiss must either be starved out or nuked...
 

sloreck

Even if Operation Tannenbaum only cost the Germans one soldier, one tank, and one airplane (and say 500 liters of fuel) it would not be worth it. Switzerland allowed an outlet to the international financial system for the Germans, even before you consider the stashing of stolen wealth by various Germans including high party members. This allowed financial transfers for doing things like paying for bills of German embassies in neutral countries, and also allows those embassies to pay agents. The Swiss, for most of the war, were more than happy to sell the Germans anything they wanted that the Swiss could provide, and not ask where the foreign currency or gold came from - one wonders how much dental gold from extermination camp victims was eventually used to purchase items from Switzerland or used in financial transfers.

having said all that Conquering and occupying the important bits of Switzerland (or even all of it) will use up resources the Germans need elsewhere. If Germany wins rthe war, I expect they would have kept Switzerland "independent" but of course dancing to their tune.
 

Towelie

Banned
I don't think such a conquest would be nearly as difficult as people are making it out to be. Defending mountain passes is easy. Defending them when the other side has air superiority, armored vehicles that you have no way to counter, mountain troops just as good if not better than your own, and surrounding the country on 4 sides, likely with help from the Italians is quite a bit harder.

Regardless, it seems we are of the agreement that the Germans would have little trouble in taking the plains in the Northern part of the country. It is the Alps that would prove the greatest challenge. An attack from the South and the North at the same time that splinters Swiss control of the Alpine passes should be enough I think to end the fighting. The Italians and the Germans both had the kind of Mountain specialist troops to achieve such a breakthrough. I doubt it would be easy, but it probably would not be the bloodbath that everyone seems to think it would be.

There are not going to be any Swiss troops with combat experience, their command structure was antiquated with a distinct lack of tactical flexibility, and their troops lightly armed, with a lack of artillery and machine guns as an acute problem. Its very possible that the Swiss forces break under the stress of extended combat, or that a substantial number of them are destroyed in the initial invasion before the retreat to the Alpine fortress because of the success of the German armor in encircling a large portion of the Swiss Defense force.
 

lukedalton

Towelie said:
I don't think such a conquest would be nearly as difficult as people are making it out to be. Defending mountain passes is easy. Defending them when the other side has air superiority, armored vehicles that you have no way to counter, mountain troops just as good if not better than your own, and surrounding the country on 4 sides, likely with help from the Italians is quite a bit harder.
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Against mountain fortification air superiority mean jack, at least for the next 40 years and armoured vehicles in that terrain are more an hindrance than an assets; regarding the quality of the troops...sorry the Swiss are playing in their home turf and know better the terrain and the Germans don't have that much mountain troops.
It will be a bloodpath, mountain warfare it's extremely costly and hard, plus favor in a ridicolous way the defender...just look at the italian front in WWI to have an idea why nobody in the italian command was really eager to start an idiocy like the invasion of Switzerland; sure the endgame will be never in doubt...but the victor will not be really in the mood to party for a long long time.
The best solution it's simply take a note from the Draka and siege the nation, nothing get in and nothing get out but it need the collaboration of Italy for that and will take time.
 

Veiovis

I think the claims of the swiss ability to stop the germans here are massivly exaggarated. "the end of the heer" and "you need atomic bombs to get them out",I mean,really? The germans roll over the swiss heartland without much difficulty,and then decide if they want to dig out the swiss defenders in their mountains or simply let them be until they run out of literally everything. the redoubt was most certainly not able to supply a true army and possible civilian refugees for a longer period of time.
 

lukedalton

Veiovis said:
I think the claims of the swiss ability to stop the germans here are massivly exaggarated. "the end of the heer" and "you need atomic bombs to get them out",I mean,really? The germans roll over the swiss heartland without much difficulty,and then decide if they want to dig out the swiss defenders in their mountains or simply let them be until they run out of literally everything. the redoubt was most certainly not able to supply a true army and possible civilian refugees for a longer period of time.
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The idea is not to stop the invaders but more make them wish that they never had the stupid idea of invading due to the cost; forget any type of mobile warfare or meaningfull air campaign and even to get in the hearland you need to pass a fortification line in an difficult terrain, so any roll over will not be possible...expecially because the OP state that Italy (and her specializated mountain troops that at least have familiarity with the territory) will not help...as said the less costly option is the siege (but you still need Italy and Vichy aid here for that) and still time and resources will needed for that.
 

Veiovis

lukedalton said:
The idea is not to stop the invaders but more make them wish that they never had the stupid idea of invading due to the cost; forget any type of mobile warfare or meaningfull air campaign and even to get in the hearland you need to pass a fortification line in an difficult terrain, so any roll over will not be possible...expecially because the OP state that Italy (and her specializated mountain troops that at least have familiarity with the territory) will not help...as said the less costly option is the siege (but you still need Italy and Vichy aid here for that) and still time and resources will needed for that.
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any kind of fortification outside the national redoubt wouldn't be quickly lost. and the redoubt then starved.
italy and vichy france maybe don't send troops,but them alloweing neutral goods to get there,or worse,activly supporting the swiss is near ASB in a otherwise normal 1941.
 

lukedalton

Veiovis said:
any kind of fortification outside the national redoubt wouldn't be quickly lost. and the redoubt then starved.
italy and vichy france maybe don't send troops,but them alloweing neutral goods to get there,or worse,activly supporting the swiss is near ASB in a otherwise normal 1941.
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It's the quick part that it's difficult due to the terrain and the fact that the forts are nothing to sneeze about and starve the redoubt take time and men and i doubt that there will not be fight...and if Italy doesn't help and Russia is not a factor it mean that's not a normal 1941
 

lionhead

Nik said:
Perhaps more relevant, the mountains surrounding the passes were tunnelled and mined to the point that any invading army must expect to have megatons of rock fall on their heads and multiply cut the roads. Unable to advance, unable to retreat, the survivors must surrender in place or provide target practice for Swiss snipers and mortars.

Air support ?? Forget it ! When Stukas must dive past tunneled machine gun nests, and changeable mountain weather may suddenly interpose cumulo-dolomite or cumulo-granite, the Luftwaffe's attrition would make their 'Battle of Britain' losses seem trivial...
Click to expand...

The first part sounds like a complex and difficult to execute ambush that only a complete moron would fall for. I highly doub the Swiss can trap entire German armies like that, even battallions.

Second part, i suppose most air support happens during the summer of the invasion. The weather isn't all that unpredictable at those times and Stukas and Junkers would be able to do massive damage to Swiss positions. At first. AA is going to be less effective in mountain ranges against tactical bombers like the JU-88. Stukas aren't easy to take out by static AA either. German pilots are good enough to fly through mountainous terrain and irregular weather, JU-87 pilots were capable to bombing within a 50m radius. Since they have air superiority anyway, i wouldn't dismiss the air power in the invasion like that. Besides, the most damage will be done to the Swiss cities by the HE-111 and HE-177.
 

Nik

Um, it may seem a silly question, lionhead, but have you seen those passes' pinch-points ?

Think 'Canadian Rockies'--- A steep valley, a road, a rail-line and LOTS of avalanche warning signs.

Yes, yes, the Swiss won't have 'Marshal Winter' to help during 'Panzer Season', but they do have lots and lots of unstable geology...

Also, IIRC, the Swiss AAA was infamous for shooting amply & accurately at all-comers, be they HEs cutting corners or damaged RAF/USAF bombers trying to get home...
 
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