Yep
No, there's another myth ITTL: "Germany would have won the war by taking Paris because he would never betray his best buddy Stalin".
- BNC
The Twin Vipers: A TL of the Berlin-Moscow Axis
- Thread starter BiteNibbleChomp
- Start date
- Status
Yep
No, there's another myth ITTL: "Germany would have won the war by taking Paris because he would never betray his best buddy Stalin".
- BNC
1/43-3/43
Cairo Conference, January 1943
As a new year dawned, the leaders of the six major Allied powers (Britain, France, Japan, China, Italy and the United States) met in Cairo in an attempt to form a unified policy for the defeat of the Axis, and how the post-war world should be organised.
As he had in Washington, Chiang Kai-shek once again argued for the return of Manchuria to China once the Soviets were evicted from the territory, insisting that it had been unjustly taken from China in 1931. The Japanese, who had been the first nation attacked by the Axis, maintained that it was unfair that they be left in a worse position than they had been on June 27th, 1939, if they were on the winning side. While Japan had only had the support of Britain and France in Washington, now Roosevelt was inclined to return Manchukuo to them as well. The new civilian government in Japan had been well received in the West, and Japan had done much more of the fighting in the war than China – indeed China had never been at war with the USSR. Chiang argued that the defeat of the CCP was just as important as defeating the USSR and therefore deserving of credit, but as the CCP was all but vanquished and the Chinese looked to be making no move to fight the Soviets, it fell on deaf ears.
The question of what to do in Europe was no more clear. About the only thing anyone could be sure about was that Germany had to be occupied and the Nazi government overthrown, to prevent the rise of another “stab in the back” myth and another war twenty years down the track. How far to occupy was a very different question – a drive to Berlin would likely be quite costly, and Daladier worried that the French Army would not accept those losses, especially if a German state was created afterwards. Roosevelt meanwhile wanted to ensure an ‘unconditional surrender’ of the Nazis, and a complete occupation of Germany to deny them the chance of starting another war. Churchill wanted to go one step further, believing that a march to Moscow was necessary, complete with an overthrow of the Bolsheviks, denying the Soviets any of their recent conquests.
Churchill was alone in wanting to go as far as Moscow. Roosevelt, Daladier and Mussolini all knew that a full-scale invasion of Russia would be an enormous undertaking over terrible terrain and at the end of a massive logistic pipeline, against an enemy that was vast in numbers and in industrial power (during the 1930s, the USSR had more tanks than the rest of the world combined, and production had not slowed since). Roosevelt wanted to restore the independence of Poland, Finland, Turkey and Romania, but as it was not yet clear how hard Stalin would need to be pushed to make such an arrangement possible, the Allies decided to allow the situation to develop. One thing remained clear though: the Axis had not only to lose the war, but had to be convinced that they had indeed lost. A half-measure like that of 1918 would not provide the world with security and peace.
The Oil War, February 1943
Oil’s importance to the Axis war effort cannot be overstated – tanks and planes needed it to move, and without either of those a successful sustained campaign against a modern army would be impossible. Oil had been the driving factor for both the invasion of Romania in 1940 and the invasion of Iran in 1941, the former to secure Germany’s supply and the latter to improve the Soviets’. Ploesti was now providing Germany with just enough oil to manage its war machine, although production of synthetic fuels gave them extra security. Baku had been heavily damaged by an earlier air raid, and while Maikop and Grozny had taken up the slack, the Soviet margin of error had been decreased considerably, and Stalin had done everything imaginable to improve defences in the Caucasus (while oil from Iran was taken back to add to the Soviet stockpile).
Poor infrastructure in the Middle East, the short range of escort fighters and Soviet defences had deterred the Allies from attacking Baku after their first raid, but with Italy having entered the war, attacking Ploesti was now a viable option. ‘Bomber’ Harris wasted no time transferring some RAF units to Italian Albania (now the closest Allied territory to Romania), and the first raid on the oil complex was conducted on February 2nd, 1943. Although the Germans had defended Ploesti well, and more than 60 bombers were lost in the raid, it was hailed as a major success after intelligence agents found out that Ploesti’s production capabilities had been reduced by more than 50%, enough to force Germany into dependence on synthetic fuels (the production centres of which were also routine targets) and Soviet exports for good.
The raid on Ploesti finally convinced Stalin to commit the Red Air Force to help defend Germany, despite Hitler and Goring’s boasts that the Luftwaffe was capable of holding the Combined Bomber Offensive back. With tens of thousands of planes, Stalin believed that the Red Air Force would provide a multifold increase in Axis airpower over Germany and France, and when Hitler was made aware of just how vast his ally’s air force really was, he reluctantly allowed it to operate from German airfields.
Stalin’s contribution of 2,000 Yak fighters to the Western Front quickly proved troublesome, as the Luftwaffe airfields did not have the necessary infrastructure to manage so many more planes at once (despite what Goring had told Stalin), and overcrowding made it much more difficult for ground crews to handle even the previous numbers of planes. Allied bombers took the opportunity to destroy many aircraft on the ground, while those few Yak fighters that did manage to get in the air were outmatched by their Allied counterparts (Stalin, who had heard about the Ki-61’s use in Korea, was shocked by the far superior A7M and P-47 being used in Europe). After around three weeks of chaos, it was decided that while Soviet planes could replace German losses, a substantial increase in fighter cover was not possible, and many Soviet squadrons were withdrawn, instead providing cover to the interior of Germany and Romania. With this change, the Luftwaffe now had access to a far more substantial reserve, and the Allied bomber raids quickly became much more costly.
Collapse in the Middle East, March 1943
In Iran, the Soviet position had unravelled in the face of several naval landings and a general offensive by the 7th Indian Army. Chuikov had fallen back to Esfahan, where his supply line was reduced to just over half its previous length, hoping that the Indians would become overstretched and become a prime target for a counterattack.
The counterattack never materialised. In early January, the Indian forces based in central Iraq (which until now had been holding the line in case Chuikov decided to move west) launched an offensive of their own into central Iran. The divisions that Chuikov had positioned to hold the western mountains were quickly defeated, and the new offensive threatened his supply line once more, forcing yet another retreat towards Tehran, with the 19th Army dwindling as many conscripts, tired of life under Stalin, deserted.
Chuikov’s shattered army eventually made it into Tehran, only to be once again met by the Indian forces, who placed the city under siege in March. Cut off from supply, and too far from other Soviet forces to hope for relief, Chuikov committed suicide and the 19th Army surrendered. Excepting the northern border regions, Iran was free from Soviet forces.
- BNC
As a new year dawned, the leaders of the six major Allied powers (Britain, France, Japan, China, Italy and the United States) met in Cairo in an attempt to form a unified policy for the defeat of the Axis, and how the post-war world should be organised.
As he had in Washington, Chiang Kai-shek once again argued for the return of Manchuria to China once the Soviets were evicted from the territory, insisting that it had been unjustly taken from China in 1931. The Japanese, who had been the first nation attacked by the Axis, maintained that it was unfair that they be left in a worse position than they had been on June 27th, 1939, if they were on the winning side. While Japan had only had the support of Britain and France in Washington, now Roosevelt was inclined to return Manchukuo to them as well. The new civilian government in Japan had been well received in the West, and Japan had done much more of the fighting in the war than China – indeed China had never been at war with the USSR. Chiang argued that the defeat of the CCP was just as important as defeating the USSR and therefore deserving of credit, but as the CCP was all but vanquished and the Chinese looked to be making no move to fight the Soviets, it fell on deaf ears.
The question of what to do in Europe was no more clear. About the only thing anyone could be sure about was that Germany had to be occupied and the Nazi government overthrown, to prevent the rise of another “stab in the back” myth and another war twenty years down the track. How far to occupy was a very different question – a drive to Berlin would likely be quite costly, and Daladier worried that the French Army would not accept those losses, especially if a German state was created afterwards. Roosevelt meanwhile wanted to ensure an ‘unconditional surrender’ of the Nazis, and a complete occupation of Germany to deny them the chance of starting another war. Churchill wanted to go one step further, believing that a march to Moscow was necessary, complete with an overthrow of the Bolsheviks, denying the Soviets any of their recent conquests.
Churchill was alone in wanting to go as far as Moscow. Roosevelt, Daladier and Mussolini all knew that a full-scale invasion of Russia would be an enormous undertaking over terrible terrain and at the end of a massive logistic pipeline, against an enemy that was vast in numbers and in industrial power (during the 1930s, the USSR had more tanks than the rest of the world combined, and production had not slowed since). Roosevelt wanted to restore the independence of Poland, Finland, Turkey and Romania, but as it was not yet clear how hard Stalin would need to be pushed to make such an arrangement possible, the Allies decided to allow the situation to develop. One thing remained clear though: the Axis had not only to lose the war, but had to be convinced that they had indeed lost. A half-measure like that of 1918 would not provide the world with security and peace.
The Oil War, February 1943
Oil’s importance to the Axis war effort cannot be overstated – tanks and planes needed it to move, and without either of those a successful sustained campaign against a modern army would be impossible. Oil had been the driving factor for both the invasion of Romania in 1940 and the invasion of Iran in 1941, the former to secure Germany’s supply and the latter to improve the Soviets’. Ploesti was now providing Germany with just enough oil to manage its war machine, although production of synthetic fuels gave them extra security. Baku had been heavily damaged by an earlier air raid, and while Maikop and Grozny had taken up the slack, the Soviet margin of error had been decreased considerably, and Stalin had done everything imaginable to improve defences in the Caucasus (while oil from Iran was taken back to add to the Soviet stockpile).
Poor infrastructure in the Middle East, the short range of escort fighters and Soviet defences had deterred the Allies from attacking Baku after their first raid, but with Italy having entered the war, attacking Ploesti was now a viable option. ‘Bomber’ Harris wasted no time transferring some RAF units to Italian Albania (now the closest Allied territory to Romania), and the first raid on the oil complex was conducted on February 2nd, 1943. Although the Germans had defended Ploesti well, and more than 60 bombers were lost in the raid, it was hailed as a major success after intelligence agents found out that Ploesti’s production capabilities had been reduced by more than 50%, enough to force Germany into dependence on synthetic fuels (the production centres of which were also routine targets) and Soviet exports for good.
The raid on Ploesti finally convinced Stalin to commit the Red Air Force to help defend Germany, despite Hitler and Goring’s boasts that the Luftwaffe was capable of holding the Combined Bomber Offensive back. With tens of thousands of planes, Stalin believed that the Red Air Force would provide a multifold increase in Axis airpower over Germany and France, and when Hitler was made aware of just how vast his ally’s air force really was, he reluctantly allowed it to operate from German airfields.
Stalin’s contribution of 2,000 Yak fighters to the Western Front quickly proved troublesome, as the Luftwaffe airfields did not have the necessary infrastructure to manage so many more planes at once (despite what Goring had told Stalin), and overcrowding made it much more difficult for ground crews to handle even the previous numbers of planes. Allied bombers took the opportunity to destroy many aircraft on the ground, while those few Yak fighters that did manage to get in the air were outmatched by their Allied counterparts (Stalin, who had heard about the Ki-61’s use in Korea, was shocked by the far superior A7M and P-47 being used in Europe). After around three weeks of chaos, it was decided that while Soviet planes could replace German losses, a substantial increase in fighter cover was not possible, and many Soviet squadrons were withdrawn, instead providing cover to the interior of Germany and Romania. With this change, the Luftwaffe now had access to a far more substantial reserve, and the Allied bomber raids quickly became much more costly.
Collapse in the Middle East, March 1943
In Iran, the Soviet position had unravelled in the face of several naval landings and a general offensive by the 7th Indian Army. Chuikov had fallen back to Esfahan, where his supply line was reduced to just over half its previous length, hoping that the Indians would become overstretched and become a prime target for a counterattack.
The counterattack never materialised. In early January, the Indian forces based in central Iraq (which until now had been holding the line in case Chuikov decided to move west) launched an offensive of their own into central Iran. The divisions that Chuikov had positioned to hold the western mountains were quickly defeated, and the new offensive threatened his supply line once more, forcing yet another retreat towards Tehran, with the 19th Army dwindling as many conscripts, tired of life under Stalin, deserted.
Chuikov’s shattered army eventually made it into Tehran, only to be once again met by the Indian forces, who placed the city under siege in March. Cut off from supply, and too far from other Soviet forces to hope for relief, Chuikov committed suicide and the 19th Army surrendered. Excepting the northern border regions, Iran was free from Soviet forces.
- BNC
There's a reason that I've seen Cadorna be called the best Austrian general of all time.
TTL's Italian commanders aren't so dumb.
Sitting there and doing absolutely nothing is sometimes the best move that can be made.
- BNC
Quite an update. I'm glad to see that a civilian government is in power in Japan as opposed to the more militaristic one of that period in OTL.
the otl italian war plan in this situation was to let the other bleed
4/43-5/43
Operation Longsword, April 1943
“Long Toms and 75s roared behind us. Our airplanes zoomed above us. Funny-lookin’ flail tanks cleared the path ahead of us, and kraut machine guns tried to shoot us. But that horrible cacophony was the sound of victory.”
- Lt. Arnold Simpson, 16th US Infantry Division, April 17th, 1943
The plan to break through the German trenches and annihilate Army Group A was the culmination of eighteen months of buildup and planning. All Allied nations that had troops on the Western Front had committed divisions to the plan, with the Americans taking the lead in the west and the French in the east. Specialised equipment had been developed specifically for the offensive, including the “Fire-Eater” flamethrower and “Ugly Joe” minesweeper variants of the M4 Sherman tank, while regular equipment was also present in incredible numbers – more than 10,000 regular Shermans were present on the front. When the guns began firing, the earth trembled. Those who had planned it called it ‘Longsword’.
The western arm of the offensive was primarily comprised of Alexander’s 2nd British Army and its attached Free Forces, and Bradley’s 1st American Army, which together covered the frontline between Lille and Amiens. Their task was to advance roughly parallel to the Franco-Belgian border, where they would meet up with the eastern arm of the attack, led by Clark’s 2nd American Army and Bourret’s 5th French. Meanwhile the French 7th, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies would launch a smaller scale offensive hoping to pin down the bulk of Army Group A in front of Paris and on the Marne, preventing a retreat and eventually leading to the encirclement of the bulk of the German army on the Western Front, leaving the way into Belgium wide open.
When the guns opened up on the morning of April 17th, Bock knew he had been placed in a very difficult position. Army Group A occupied a huge bulge of French land, which had caused the army group to become very overextended, and Allied bombing raids had made the supply of the forward units much more difficult. Much of his reserve had been diverted to counter the Italians over the winter, while his own offensives had wasted a lot of equipment that was badly needed now. Nonetheless, the Germans fought well, and in many places held the trenches until breakthroughs in nearby sections forced them to either retreat or be surrounded in their trenches. Hitler ordered that every soldier stand his ground and never retreat, but with the situation growing ever more desperate, his commands were disregarded.
The Castle of Cards, April 1943
By the third day of ‘Longsword’, the Allies had pushed through most of the German trenches. Despite Hitler’s order, Bock knew that maintaining his current position, especially near Paris, would doom Army Group A to encirclement, and ordered his forces furthest south to retreat to the north bank of the Marne, while the Gustav and Dora guns were disassembled and sent back to Germany.
Further north, Bock had very little control over the units facing the strongest Allied assaults, where the situation had completely unravelled and local commanders were issuing contradictory orders in a bid to stop the offensive before it became a true breakthrough. Bock did manage to get orders through to his two Panzer groups, under the command of Generals Guderian and Hoth, ordering them to pull back to Soissons and form a reserve, rather than be wasted on the front line.
Hitler had quickly grown tired of Bock’s failure to stop the Allied attack and his constant retreats, and on April 26th, ordered him to Berlin for court-martial, although Bock shot himself instead. His replacement was General Erich von Manstein, best known for developing the nearly-successful Operation Ragnarok (as well as a lesser-known plan to use the Ardennes as an invasion route into France in 1940, although this was dismissed as ludicrous owing to the impassable terrain of the area). Manstein arrived at his field headquarters only to see most of the army group trapped in an Allied encirclement twelve hours later.
Manstein, like Bock, was much more concerned with keeping Army Group A reasonably intact than holding ground in France that simply could not be defended. Within hours of arriving at his headquarters, orders were sent out to strip the trenches south of Compiegne and Reims of nearly all their men, leaving only a small holding force to maintain a position on the Marne and in the old trenches, with the hope of keeping the Allies from pressing too hard on the pocket from the south. Goring promised that the Luftwaffe would keep the pocket supplied by air, utilising the Soviet Il-2s, nicknamed “Flying Panzer” because of their heavy armour, that had just arrived in Germany.
Parrying the Longsword, May 1943
Manstein, to Hitler’s great displeasure, had no interest in holding the pocket at all. Instead he directed the bulk of his forces trapped inside the pocket to attack the Allied positions north of St Quentin, which was now the northwestern corner of the pocket and the Allies’ flank. Guderian and Hoth quickly broke through (most of the Allied forces that had conducted Longsword were positioned further east, near where they met at Hirson), while the Tiger once again proved it was the best tank fielded by either side on the Western Front, leading the charge towards Cambrai. Behind them were over 400,000 German soldiers, desperate to rejoin the army further north.
The Allied High Commands were surprised by Manstein’s breakout offensive, thinking that the Germans would be so beaten down after the intense air campaign that they would not be capable of offensive action. A response to the offensive would also be difficult, as all forward elements of Longsword had advanced over terrain as thoroughly destroyed by static warfare as any battlefield in 1918, and two weeks had not been sufficient to fully restore the supply line. Nonetheless, Bradley (commanding the forces closest to Manstein’s force) wanted to do something.
Bradley sent the 1st American Army back along the Hirson-Cambrai road along which it had advanced in the opposite direction a week earlier, where it caught the middle of Manstein’s column. Forward elements of Army Group A headed for Maubeuge, where they were met by the German reserves, while the rear engaged Bradley in a desperate battle to keep from being cut off once more. These rear forces were however starved of supply (despite Goring’s best efforts, the Luftwaffe had accomplished little and lost a great many aircraft), and exhausted from a long march that began for some as far south as the Marne, and Bradley managed to re-encircle a third of Army Group A. Manstein’s breakout nonetheless was a German victory, as a new line of trenches was established by those soldiers who had escaped the pocket, and while Longsword had pushed the Germans back to the Franco-Belgian border, it had failed in its main objective when it failed to wipe out the majority of Army Group A.
For the unfortunate German soldiers who remained in the pocket after it was closed for a second time on May 14th, the only choice they were left with was either surrender or death in battle. Once the Allies were confident that Manstein would not strike again (although they did not know it, his panzer groups were badly weakened by the breakout), the French climbed over the top to push the Germans away from Paris for good. German resistance varied depending on the sector, but many soldiers quickly realised the struggle was hopeless, and many surrendered rather than give their life for a leader who had failed just as badly as the Kaiser. The immense confidence in the Fuhrer that the German people had once had was no longer.
- BNC
“Long Toms and 75s roared behind us. Our airplanes zoomed above us. Funny-lookin’ flail tanks cleared the path ahead of us, and kraut machine guns tried to shoot us. But that horrible cacophony was the sound of victory.”
- Lt. Arnold Simpson, 16th US Infantry Division, April 17th, 1943
The plan to break through the German trenches and annihilate Army Group A was the culmination of eighteen months of buildup and planning. All Allied nations that had troops on the Western Front had committed divisions to the plan, with the Americans taking the lead in the west and the French in the east. Specialised equipment had been developed specifically for the offensive, including the “Fire-Eater” flamethrower and “Ugly Joe” minesweeper variants of the M4 Sherman tank, while regular equipment was also present in incredible numbers – more than 10,000 regular Shermans were present on the front. When the guns began firing, the earth trembled. Those who had planned it called it ‘Longsword’.
The western arm of the offensive was primarily comprised of Alexander’s 2nd British Army and its attached Free Forces, and Bradley’s 1st American Army, which together covered the frontline between Lille and Amiens. Their task was to advance roughly parallel to the Franco-Belgian border, where they would meet up with the eastern arm of the attack, led by Clark’s 2nd American Army and Bourret’s 5th French. Meanwhile the French 7th, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies would launch a smaller scale offensive hoping to pin down the bulk of Army Group A in front of Paris and on the Marne, preventing a retreat and eventually leading to the encirclement of the bulk of the German army on the Western Front, leaving the way into Belgium wide open.
When the guns opened up on the morning of April 17th, Bock knew he had been placed in a very difficult position. Army Group A occupied a huge bulge of French land, which had caused the army group to become very overextended, and Allied bombing raids had made the supply of the forward units much more difficult. Much of his reserve had been diverted to counter the Italians over the winter, while his own offensives had wasted a lot of equipment that was badly needed now. Nonetheless, the Germans fought well, and in many places held the trenches until breakthroughs in nearby sections forced them to either retreat or be surrounded in their trenches. Hitler ordered that every soldier stand his ground and never retreat, but with the situation growing ever more desperate, his commands were disregarded.
The Castle of Cards, April 1943
By the third day of ‘Longsword’, the Allies had pushed through most of the German trenches. Despite Hitler’s order, Bock knew that maintaining his current position, especially near Paris, would doom Army Group A to encirclement, and ordered his forces furthest south to retreat to the north bank of the Marne, while the Gustav and Dora guns were disassembled and sent back to Germany.
Further north, Bock had very little control over the units facing the strongest Allied assaults, where the situation had completely unravelled and local commanders were issuing contradictory orders in a bid to stop the offensive before it became a true breakthrough. Bock did manage to get orders through to his two Panzer groups, under the command of Generals Guderian and Hoth, ordering them to pull back to Soissons and form a reserve, rather than be wasted on the front line.
Hitler had quickly grown tired of Bock’s failure to stop the Allied attack and his constant retreats, and on April 26th, ordered him to Berlin for court-martial, although Bock shot himself instead. His replacement was General Erich von Manstein, best known for developing the nearly-successful Operation Ragnarok (as well as a lesser-known plan to use the Ardennes as an invasion route into France in 1940, although this was dismissed as ludicrous owing to the impassable terrain of the area). Manstein arrived at his field headquarters only to see most of the army group trapped in an Allied encirclement twelve hours later.
Manstein, like Bock, was much more concerned with keeping Army Group A reasonably intact than holding ground in France that simply could not be defended. Within hours of arriving at his headquarters, orders were sent out to strip the trenches south of Compiegne and Reims of nearly all their men, leaving only a small holding force to maintain a position on the Marne and in the old trenches, with the hope of keeping the Allies from pressing too hard on the pocket from the south. Goring promised that the Luftwaffe would keep the pocket supplied by air, utilising the Soviet Il-2s, nicknamed “Flying Panzer” because of their heavy armour, that had just arrived in Germany.
Parrying the Longsword, May 1943
Manstein, to Hitler’s great displeasure, had no interest in holding the pocket at all. Instead he directed the bulk of his forces trapped inside the pocket to attack the Allied positions north of St Quentin, which was now the northwestern corner of the pocket and the Allies’ flank. Guderian and Hoth quickly broke through (most of the Allied forces that had conducted Longsword were positioned further east, near where they met at Hirson), while the Tiger once again proved it was the best tank fielded by either side on the Western Front, leading the charge towards Cambrai. Behind them were over 400,000 German soldiers, desperate to rejoin the army further north.
The Allied High Commands were surprised by Manstein’s breakout offensive, thinking that the Germans would be so beaten down after the intense air campaign that they would not be capable of offensive action. A response to the offensive would also be difficult, as all forward elements of Longsword had advanced over terrain as thoroughly destroyed by static warfare as any battlefield in 1918, and two weeks had not been sufficient to fully restore the supply line. Nonetheless, Bradley (commanding the forces closest to Manstein’s force) wanted to do something.
Bradley sent the 1st American Army back along the Hirson-Cambrai road along which it had advanced in the opposite direction a week earlier, where it caught the middle of Manstein’s column. Forward elements of Army Group A headed for Maubeuge, where they were met by the German reserves, while the rear engaged Bradley in a desperate battle to keep from being cut off once more. These rear forces were however starved of supply (despite Goring’s best efforts, the Luftwaffe had accomplished little and lost a great many aircraft), and exhausted from a long march that began for some as far south as the Marne, and Bradley managed to re-encircle a third of Army Group A. Manstein’s breakout nonetheless was a German victory, as a new line of trenches was established by those soldiers who had escaped the pocket, and while Longsword had pushed the Germans back to the Franco-Belgian border, it had failed in its main objective when it failed to wipe out the majority of Army Group A.
For the unfortunate German soldiers who remained in the pocket after it was closed for a second time on May 14th, the only choice they were left with was either surrender or death in battle. Once the Allies were confident that Manstein would not strike again (although they did not know it, his panzer groups were badly weakened by the breakout), the French climbed over the top to push the Germans away from Paris for good. German resistance varied depending on the sector, but many soldiers quickly realised the struggle was hopeless, and many surrendered rather than give their life for a leader who had failed just as badly as the Kaiser. The immense confidence in the Fuhrer that the German people had once had was no longer.
- BNC
How are Jews being treated in Germany ITTL? Is there anything like the OTL Holocaust occurring?
I would Imagine resources would be to constraint to commit a pointless campaign of genocide
I would Imagine resources would be to constraint to commit a pointless campaign of genocide
Horribly, and yes, the Holocaust is still happening unfortunately. However it is happening on a slightly smaller scale than OTL - he can't make too much of a fuss about communists or Slavs without angering Stalin (who at this point he is totally dependant on), and the SS hasn't done much in France or the Low Countries (they don't want the Allies to know too much about it, and are waiting for the "inevitable" victory over France).
The German parts of Poland and Romania have been pretty badly genocided though.
OTL Germany's resource situation was worse in 1944 than ITTL 1943 (where Stalin is giving Hitler piles of stuff to keep the front far to the west), yet they still were gassing an awful lot of people. It's well within Hitler's capabilities to be a massive jerk.
- BNC
German situation must be much better indeed, as Soviets deliver raw materials + no Eastern front.
Sure they have the French and Italian fronts to worry about, but OTL they had to guard/fight those fronts too.
Sure they have the French and Italian fronts to worry about, but OTL they had to guard/fight those fronts too.
Pretty much OTL (most tank designs were is development before the war), so I'll just list the changes:
- Italian planned tanks such as the P26 have been brought into production by 1942.
- US Pershing has been pushed forward to counter the threat of Soviet heavies.
- Type 1 Chi-He has been produced in greater numbers than OTL, and is used in Korea.
- No T-34/85 or Panther, these both originated from the tank v tank clashes on the Eastern Front (the T-34/76 is plenty good enough to knock out the best Japanese models, while few tanks were used in Iran)
- The Germans and Soviets have collaborated to create the Panzer VI "Wolf", which is entering service in 10/43 and I'll make an update about it. Generally speaking it is something of a mix between the T-34, KV series and the Tiger, designed according to the Russian mentality of "easy to spam out but still bloody strong".
Moar please sir
Roughly one update a day isn't enough for you people?
- BNC
Pretty much OTL (most tank designs were is development before the war), so I'll just list the changes:
- Italian planned tanks such as the P26 have been brought into production by 1942.
- US Pershing has been pushed forward to counter the threat of Soviet heavies.
- Type 1 Chi-He has been produced in greater numbers than OTL, and is used in Korea.
- No T-34/85 or Panther, these both originated from the tank v tank clashes on the Eastern Front (the T-34/76 is plenty good enough to knock out the best Japanese models, while few tanks were used in Iran)
- The Germans and Soviets have collaborated to create the Panzer VI "Wolf", which is entering service in 10/43 and I'll make an update about it. Generally speaking it is something of a mix between the T-34, KV series and the Tiger, designed according to the Russian mentality of "easy to spam out but still bloody strong".
Roughly one update a day isn't enough for you people?
- BNC
So given that there is no Panther shouldn’t the Wolf be the Pz V ITTL or is the Pz V TTL’s Tiger?
So still the B1bis, S35, H35/39, R35/40 for the French, or did they manage to produce the G1R and/or the SARL42 along with the B1ter?
The French have shifted to using British and American tanks - most of their tank industry was in Paris. Constant bombardment from Gustav and Dora is not exactly a great work environment.
- BNC
- Status