German sabotage of US

@ABWorsham4

So the what if is “What if the Finns mobilised more troops that would free up German forces?”

And the question is where I would send them. Okay.

I think it might be easier by saying where I would not send them.

I am also assuming that the “Mountain Corps” are just infantry, not Gebrigsjager or Alpini, considering the corps were entirely made up of regular infantry divisions.

Italy (Germany’s doing really well here, no hope of pushing the Allies out with one corps, so just do what we did historically)

Norway (almost nothing there except the sabotaging of the heavy water plant, but any hope of redoing the bomb is long gone)

The Atlantic Wall (Allies aren’t landing there until 1944, other areas are much more dire)

Leningrad Front (Feels like the time for storming Leningrad is long gone and a corps wouldn’t make a difference, maybe if the Kursk attack was cancelled entirely and was redirected, but tanks don’t work well in cities)

So that leaves:

Army Group South

Balkans

Kursk

Mainly because I’m more knowledgable about this area I would probably give it to Kursk (to strengthen the attacks) or Army Group South (to hold the line against the Soviet counteroffensive, allowing Manstein’s guys to continue pushing on Kursk rather than racing southwards to defend). I also have an odd affinity for Kursk out of all the Eastern Front battles.

And I feel there’s no way to get Tito.

As we both know, this wouldn’t change much in the grand scheme of things. Hopefully Manstein does better though.

@jim010:

Good analysis. +1 to you.

Had the Germans had these, though, it would be hard to say what they would match up against.  Britain and France would have ships to counter these.  Instead of being an answer to the Deutschland class, they would have had to have built answers to the more powerful Mackensens.  The KGV very likely would have had 15 guns rather than 14s.Â

Very hard to figure out what France and Britain would have responded with.  And in turn, whatever the French did would influence the Italians.  My guess is you would have seen a much more aggressive battleship race between the major powers.  The super battleships planed by everyone probably would have materialized sooner.

Well said.

@KurtGodel7:

As you pointed out, actually capturing the city was unnecessary. But having captured the city, Hitler was very determined to hold onto it. Abandoning it would have presumably meant having to recapture it later; and once again suffering that same 1:1 ratio during the recapture.

One thing I’m wondering: why would Germany have to (or even want to) recapture at great cost a city that it was unnecessary (and indeed counterproductive) to capture in the first place?

It’s widely thought that Germany’s conquest of Romania is all that kept the German Army and People from complete starvation. Germany brought by train between 300 and 400 million tons of grain occupied Romania.

Germany also had a few long range U-Boats that went to the U.S to get precious supplies. In the early years of the war, the U-Boats were welcomed as heros.

May they rest in peace. But it is a little strange that the article describes this as “one of the worst naval disasters of the second world war”. Numerous other ships went down with far more casualties.

Goering’s boost: “everything that fly’s belongs to me” this is the major source of the problem. Inter-service rivalry was catastrophic to getting the needed changes done. Goering would not let his power diminish to booster Karl Donetz.

I think this was a very key consideration for the UK, Germany, Russia and Japan:

@KurtGodel7:

However, one reason for Hitler’s impatience in invading the Soviet Union was the British food blockade of Germany; and the resulting starvation in German-held lands. Delaying the invasion of the Soviet Union by two years would have meant two extra years of famine conditions; especially in occupied territories and population groups assigned low or mid-level priorities for scarce, precious food calories.

Only the US and some parts of the British empire had abundant food.  The UK, Germany, (and later Japan) were squeezed by naval (or submarine) blockades.  Russia was squeezed by the vast territories taken by the Germans.  Of course I’ll grant that in the early part of the war, Germany did quite well by taking the food and supplies found in France, Belgium, Ukraine, etc.

Grizzly, you make a good point.  The Germans were never going to be able to invade the UK; but they did try to starve them.  An excess of wheat in Australia and Canada does no good for the UK if it cannot be delivered.  I guess we disagree on whether or not British hunger, lack of heating oil, etc. would have been sufficient to make them either sue for peace with Germany…If the British were hungry enough (and I think without the US merchant marine), I could see them saying screw the French, lets have a ceasefire and let the USSR and Germany fight it out.

Regarding the USSR, I once read an estimate that 7/8 of the entire Germany war effort was fought on the eastern front.  This estimate includes the forces in Norway, the battles in Africa and the Balkans, Crete, the U-boat effort, the battles in Italy, the defense of France after D-day, the V-1 and V2 and other technological weapons, etc.  The defense of France required minimal forces in the early part of the war, especially early in the war when it was obvious the UK was in no position to invade.  I don’t think this small difference would have been enough to turn the tide in the East despite the small margin of victory by the USSR during 1941 and 1942.  I even doubt Hitler would have reduced the forces occupying France at this time had the UK capitulated.

That’s a good read. Very much a worthy first effort.