Germany went around cape horn and had supply ships in the south atlantic and a few in the indian ocean. they did indeed send some goodies to Tojo. Tojo had some 100 Japanese me 262’s in some underground mountain in japan ready for our operation Olympic.
@ncscswitch:
You are talking a COUPLE of disassenbled ME262’s and other tehcnological innovations via a couple of U-boats basically AFTER Germany had fallen.
BIG difference between that and full-scale supply runs from say Egypt to Burma…
And I am not just talking about land transfer… the UK (and US) both maintained effect air and naval superiority in the Indian Ocean for the duration of the war. Britain was never kicked out of Port Morresby, or Rangoon…
Well that is a “what if” situation. It may have been possible, but since it never did……I guess well never know for sure. Most likely it would have failed after a few weeks.
Regarding full scale German shipments to Japan early in the war, 2 words…
Flying Tigers
@ncscswitch:
Regarding full scale German shipments to Japan early in the war, 2 words…
Flying Tigers
Flying Tiger Tanks? O.o
Germany only had one chance and that died with the battle of Britain. If Germany would have waited until 1944, then that would have also given the allies more time to arm and think about future German agression. Hitler hit France at the right moment, but only an idiot opens a second front without finishing the first. The intelligent German generals knew that it was all lost when the Luftwaffe was unable to bring Britain into submission. U-Boats and firebombing Britain into submission would have done the job. Germany was not ready, nor would have been ready for a seaborn invasion (sea lion) for years to come.
-Ezto
@Imperious:
El Jefe posts:
“forget the Master race crap. Jesse Owens was a good lesson.”
That episode is a great propaganda piece that keeps getting repeated by History, while if you look up the facts you will notice that Germany won more medals in 1936 than at any other time before or since… they had a huge lead over all other nations at this event… Just look at the results… This “little fact” has gotten the brush off for too long. I am not saying they performed better because they believed in the “nazi superman concept”, but it shows what happens when people belive in what the nation is doing and the direction its heading.
Can you say cheating?
There were many things the Germans could have done differently. The biggest obstacle for Germany to win the war was Hitler being the supreme commander.
Hitler was a fanatic and an awful commander. The holocaust required a great amount of resources but his anti-semitism is who he was and how he unified the country from the depression so there is no way we can remove that. Hitler did refuse to have women work in the factories. The Russians, along with many other countries, used everybody to work in the factories and were capable of producing double the tanks in a month than the Germans.
When Hitler saw the 262 jet fighter he demanded it be used exclusively as a bomber. It delayed the production for 1 and a half to 2 years of the me-262, which would despite the setback, still become the first mass produced jet plane in history. They eventually went around Hitler and made it back into a fighter. Imagine jet airplanes obliterating the bombers hitting germany, and germany controlling the skies.
Hitler also messed up D-Day because he would not allow 3 of the 6 tank divisions to be moved in Normandy without his consent. Well, Hitler slept late into the morning on D-Day. Around 11:00-12:00 A.M. late.
Hitler made many mistakes. If Hitler had not screwed up the me-262 and D-Day, Germany could have survived longer. If the war would have gone on for 1 more year, Germany would have had the Atomic bomb. Plus, they had a stealth jet bomber that was successfully flown and was being modified for strikes against the U.S.
Then there is the Russian front and ordering that no one surrender or retreat. We can list his failures for a long time.
Plus, they had a stealth jet bomber that was successfully flown and was being modified for strikes against the U.S.
Why is the only image I had on reading this the dreadful sequel of the Philadelphia Experiment?
Somebody has been at the www.Luft46.com site again. That sub orbital jet bomber was only a drawing. no prototype was ever made or flown. I wish it was different but it wasnt.
No, it was the history channel, luftwaffe airplanes. They have film of a succesful test flight and they realized that it was hard to see on radar, and they discovered it had stealth abilities. also the plane is in a museum. It looks just like the b-2 stealth bomber. Its called the Horton. http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=105
No, it was the history channel, luftwaffe airplanes. They have film of a succesful test flight and they realized that it was hard to see on radar, and they discovered it had stealth abilities. also the plane is in a museum. It looks just like the b-2 stealth bomber. Its called the Horton. http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=105
Horten was the manufacturer (named after the brothers who founded it). They had many flying wing types with varying degrees of completion. Some didn’t make it much farther than a drawing board and raw materials.
It doesnt matter anyway. Those inventions would not have turned the tide. They needed them in 1941 when Germany still had a chance. 44-45 was too late for victory. Even a settlement by some method of “attrition” would not be possible. The resolve of the allies was too great… especially the Soviets.
Actually, early flying wings had somethign that you could more accurately call variable accidental stealth.
The shape made the more difficult to see from the side with radar since they lacked the large fuselage and rudder to reflect radar directly back to the receiver. However, due to the nature of a flying wing, they actually had a larger radar cross-setion from the front, and since teh early jet intakes had no masking whatsoever, those jet intakes were basically radar beacons that screamed “HERE!”
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If the Germans had more tme, like a year or two, they wold have had a better chance with their technological weapon.
We can all admit that Hitler was an awful commander though.i
Hitler was not a poor commander. In late 1939 most of Hitlers generals wanted to replay 1914’s Scliefen plan, but Hitler saw the genius behind Mansteins plan for a feint in the North, followed by the real blow in the center thru the Ardennes. This was a very innovative and audacious plan. In fact in Nov 1939 their was one of many attempts on Hitlers life following his direction of the war after Poland. But he saw and selected the correct plan even after most of his military leadership saw it different. Hitler was correct and he was rewarded. in April 1940 he knew that Churchill wanted to capture Norway and be beat them to it. In the winter of 1941 his generals wanted to retreat much farther back after the first Soviet counter offensive and Hitler gave his famous “no retreat” order which essentially saved the German army from a complete rout.
Yes he made mistakes, but his uncanny outlook and ability to select the right people and the right plan are allmost too scary to contemplate for if he just used a more mixed solution in his decision making and allowed his appointed military leaders to make some decisions. The Whermacht would have been much more effective.
This question is impossible to answer objectively. There is no right or wrong answer to it. I could say “Germany would have won if Stalin slipped in his bathtub and broke his neck” or “If Hitler and the US were Allies” or “If Stalingrad had fallen” or “If Zhukov turned traitor” or this or that forever!!. Thats the problems with “What-ifs”–they are infinite in range. I dont believe there is one terminal event that,if it could be magically reversed,would cause Germany to win other than not invading Russia. Now theres a “What-if”…
Hitler can be blamed for so much.
1. Refusing to allow woman to work in factories
2. Tank divisions at D-Day.
3. Not allowing a retreat from stalingrad, a major failure.
4. Me-262 being a jet bomber, not a fighter delaying it for years.
What about that whole assasination plot in 1944. Was that not a result of his blunders?
William Shirer feels that there is no way Germany could have won the war. He argues that on a simply economic and industrial scale the Germans could never have competed in the long run with the Russians and the Western Allies. Yes, they could have marched into Moscow in 1941 but Napoleon DID in 1812. The Russians would most likely just have turned the Eastern Front into a giant guerilla war and sapped away at German strength. Probably a better idea would have been getting the oil in the Caucuses because in the long run the Germans ran into serious fuel shortages.
I do agree with Imperious about Hitler; he was not a great commander but he knew war and understood all the basics he needed to know, and if you’re going to fault him for some of his poor choices (i.e. consigning the 6th Army and Paulus to their death in Stalingrad by not letting them retreat and relying on Goering’s rediculous claims that he could supply them by air) you have to give him credit for calling Manstein out of retirement and using his plan to beat France (Schliffen’s plan would have failed) and the way his refusal to allow the German army to retreat in the Winter of 1941-1942 staved off what would have been a complete catastrophe which could have brought the war to an end much more quickly.
At the end of the day, Hitler just ended up with too many enemies and he didn’t understand them. He didn’t understand why England didn’t want to split the world with him… after backstabbing so many other countries. He didn’t understand why the English wouldn’t surrender… even though they knew his navy was badly shaken by the losses in Norway (which, btw, was a brilliant move by Hitler in denying it to England). He didn’t understand why the Russians didn’t rise up against the Soviet government when he invaded… even though Goering was making plans for the mass importation of grains that would have probably starved 20-25 million Russians to death by 1944 and the SS was butchering Russian peasants at the slightest provocation. And finally he didn’t understand why the Western Allies didn’t help him against the Soviet Union to the end, even as they were crossing the Rhine.
Why are we giving him credit for beating the French? The Maginot-line was such a blunder.
Hitler’s biggest problem, which Kyrail was talking about
“At the end of the day, Hitler just ended up with too many enemies and he didn’t understand them.”
Hitler was extremely fanatic and radical. Every great leader should know how to compromise.
Why are we giving him credit for beating the French?
Because in spite of all the advice to attack the French in the conventional manner , he sought the wisdom of an even greater plan from lowly Manstein and saw its brilliance. Nobody was a better judge of character than Hitler. He expertly knew talent and how to organize it for his own purposes. All leaders made many tragic mistakes in the war. Due to Germany’s allready increasingly precarious position on the world stage… its margins of what could be pursued based on resources were never balanced. He overreached for Hegemony too soon and lost his chance to make a new world. A more studied approach in stages should have netted much better results. example:
stage one–summer 1940: go after afrika and the middle east.
stage two: after taking the oil, the Balkans, and India, furish the Italian fleet with oil to get out of the medd.
stage three: continued build up, make Spain and Turkey axis partners, link up with Japan in the orient
Stage four: after sufficient tech is developed send at least 250 divisions attacking from Turkey, Afganistan, eastern Europe etc with jet fighter and bombers
and never declare war on USA… throw that con tract in the trash can > japan did nothing to make the alliance profitable for Germany. Its like having a second Italy to kick around or trying to win a gold metal in the olympics… with the gold metal winner of the special olympics :|
