There's also the matter of all the landing craft that the US provided. There weren't enough in OTL in 1944 or Italy would have had a few more coastal landings to disrupt axis defences.
Sea Lion ….. No Really
- Thread starter Moss
- Start date
Many, specially the more specialized ones, were designed because of the 42/43 experiences, so there's also that.
Still need a massive fleet to supply & support, plus the aircraft, thanks, men...
Source please?
I've browsed the Churchill WW2 memoirs, and a prospective liberation of Norway certainly gets a lot of mentions, and Churchill plays coy about the Balkan peninsula from Italy, but I don't remember any mention of serious plans for fighting involving Spain unless Franco joined the Axis and went for Gibraltar.
The only way to get small U-Boats into the Back Sea is to have a shipyard on the Danube that can build Type II C or D Class Boats. Having a shipyard operating before the start of Barbarossa would be a tall order. They didn't take over Austria until March 1938, so they had no Danube ports till then.
thaddeus
Donor
there were plans for a much smaller 100t submarine, and later a requirement for the Type XXIII to be "transportable" so the concept not foreign (I'm not the expert on naval matters but my understanding the conning tower was not too difficult to deal with on later revamping/streamlining projects)
beyond submarines (to not get fixated on one aspect) there seems to have been little trouble moving S-boats and R-boats to the Black Sea, they could have moved other commercial ships there and converted them as they did raiders.
Garrison
Donor
The plan for the Type XXI was modular construction in factories and then assembly in shipyards, it was one of Speer's bright ideas implemented over the objections of the shipbuilding firms. It was a disaster with serious problems in the manufacturing requiring months of work in the shipyards to make them seaworthy.
It's almost as it submarines required specialized welding and precision construction gear not really available to small firme in the farm country...
Ok so I've gone through the thread and at first glance I don't think the following has really been addressed
1). The axis failure OTL in the USSR is as much about their own short comings and errors, so unless you have a way to deal with that I can't see them beating the USSR even if new events conspire to make life harder for the USSR. Remember OTL the red army destroyed the bulk of the Axis army in the field and took Berlin so there is a huge range of less successful outcomes for the USSR between what actually happened and what you are suggesting. So you are going to have to do a lot better than a few things not going so well for them to go from OTL all the way to what you are suggesting.
2). I think you underestimate just how incredibly huge the bit of the USSR between the 1941 border in the west to the Urals/AA line is. It is going to take massive resources to manage a newly captured empire of this size, even more so when the plan is to cull the population down to 10% or lower, let alone see a return in resources and manufacturing power.
3), US neutrality, yes there are plausible scenarios where the US is more neutral than OTL. But to keep them them neutral while the axis conquers all of Europe and European Russia, and prepares to take out the British Isles is another matter entirely. Again it's like the 1st point, there is massive range of US neutrally between OTL and this and you will have to explain how the US neutrality in your scenario can bridge this gap.
Last edited:
I didn't call for an Overlord level landing in 1943. I called for a Sicily level landing in 1943, which is obviously doable. I agree maybe it wouldn't succeed but with the Atlantic Wall simply not even existing in 1943, I don't think it is unlikely that it would succeed. Higher casualties and losses maybe, but total failure? I doubt it.
By the way they don't need air superiority over Europe for a single landing... just over the area they are landing.
The Japanese are at the wrong end of the USSR to defeat them or even meaningfully help in defeating them. If the soviets have their hands full with the Germans etc they can just pull back and let Siberia swallow the IJA while they fight a rear guard action. The IJA whose provisioning policy was basically "find what need when you get there" is going to struggle to operate in this area.
also the IJA is already up to their hips in a 5 year long land war with a huge country (China), the plan to go south was to get resources for that war effort not get into another one.
OTL The Japanese looked at Barbarossa with interest but abandoned any idea of going in before the battle in front of Moscow even fully stalled, because frankly the bar they set themselves for sticking their dicks into Siberia was the Germans achieving a victory on the scope and speed of the one in France the year prior, and Siberia pretty much becoming free real estate
Last edited:
What's the objectiv? Sicilly was possible because it was cut off from the main Axis force and the Med was pretty much an Allies lake by them; even them there were severe issues that didn't ruins the op ONLY thanks to massive Allies superiority. And even them, the axis managed a massive evac operation. You try a "sicily" in France in 43, in the teeth of a still verte much in great strengh Germany, and it would be a disaster.
Hitler's idea was that victory in the Soviet Union would persuade the British to recognise the fultility of their position and settle for a peace. Churchill's position was very rocky in 1942 after the disasters in Malaya and Tobruk, so it cannot be said with certainty that thje British would have fought on after a successful Barbarossa. Eventually war-weariness in the face of an indefinite stalemate would have set in. Whether the resolve of the British would have been stiffened as news of the genocidal events in Europe leaked through to the British public is also debatable, since moral indignation has never been much of a genuine motivating factor in wartime.
thaddeus
Donor
yeah, I was not endorsing the Type XXI or modular construction for submarines in general, I mentioned the much smaller Type XXIII as an example that the concept of transporting submarines overland (and down canals) was not an unknown concept. the Type XXIII AFAIK did not develop the problems mentioned, of course it has other limitations.
my point was if they transport what they did historically in 1942, in 1941, it would have been to greater effect. but I was simply replying to better German effort in the USSR.
I don't think that improves the chances for an alt.Sea Lion, which just IMO needs half a dozen major PODs, one of which (or two of which) would be the Allies execute Operation Pike against the Baku oilfields, bringing the Soviets into the war, and at least delaying any invasion East by the Nazi regime.
Interesting. That is how we build submarines and other large warships today. They build modular sections and then put them together in final assembly. It's fascinating to watch in fast motion.
Garrison
Donor
It is indeed, but it only really became practical in the age of CNC machines and the modern factories have detailed blueprints and precise jigs, things which were notably absent in production of the Type XXI.
Very good point. However, because of the Allied bombing campaign the dispersion of production was the best way to protect it. For aircraft, rockets, ball baring's, and many other industries if production hadn't been dispersed it would've come to a halt. To keep U-Boat production up and introduce the new Electro Boat Types into service they needed to look past the traditional methods of ship building. Given time methods would've improved but thank God the Third Reich ran out of time.
thaddeus
Donor
done in by grandiosity, the huge Type XXI preferred over a coastal sub Type XXIII, the V-2 rocket preferred over(something the size of) the Wasserfall AA rocket (just adapt it for battlefield use)
Germany beating the soviets in 1943 is verging on impossible. Having the resources available to do that, pacify the occupied territories, rebuild their badly damaged armed forces AND transport them to Southern Italy or Mediterranean France in 1943 and in sufficient numbers to make a difference is even less credible.
In 1943, whether in an alt-Sicily or alt-Dragoon (and like as not an alt-DDay), the allied forces would be landing against a demoralised and badly handled Italian force [1] and some Osttruppen equivalents, plus a few recovering shattered units and some training ones. They might well have to contend with hastily redeployed German forces after a while, but this could well provide time for Allied presence in France to become established, for Italy to switch sides or go neutral, for Greece and the Balkans to drive out their Italian (and Bulgarian) occupiers.
[1] because Italy will have been left to handle Africa, the Balkans, Greece, Italy and France on its own. alt- Sicily or alt-Dragoon isn't going to be attempted until and unless these forces have been driven out of Libya and after French North Africa (Tunisia at least) has gone allied, and the Italian navy has been effectively neutralised.