• 2024 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17

    Now that’s a pretty old topic to revive, but one worth considering nevertheless.

    I’d say it would depend on precisely when in 1941. My assessment would be:

    January - April 1941: Britain
    May - September 1941: USSR
    October - December 1941: the war was already lost

    Until about April, the German U boats were highly effective against British shipping (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Happy_Time). If Germany had focused on producing them in greater numbers, Britain might have been forced to enter into negotiations to end the war.
    Next, there was a fair chance to defeat the USSR before the autumn rains turned everything to mud. That chance would have been much better if Operation Barbarossa had started some six weeks earlier, as originally planned.
    After those opportunities were missed, I’d say the war was basically lost for the Axis, especially after the US entered the war in December.

    (edit to fix a minor error)


  • Wow, a 2009 poll, but a very good topic. Very worthy question. Thank for digging up some good discussion material.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Re-open the POLL!


  • @Gargantua:

    Re-open the POLL!

    Done


  • Hi Worsham. Have tried thinking about this one.
    Think it made sense to finish England after they entered the war. It just wasn’t possible though, as Germany did not have the amphibious capability and necessary air superiority.
    Russia made sense as Germany’s strength lay in its land forces and Hitler hated them!
    But we all know how hard a two front war can become.
    I think Herr KaLeun said it best with his dividing up the year.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    I’m very much a “Finish them one at a time” kind of guy.


  • Russia Shall never fall!

    Even if you did conquer Russia, YOU CANT CONTROL IT. Everywhere even in siberia there will be Rebels.


  • Hindsight shows that directly attacking the British Isles would have been futile.

    They should have concentrated on gaining full control of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and eventually India.

    Full on, combined, submarine, night airborne, and amphibious operations on Malta would have succeeded and even give experience for eventual hostile Nazi / Italian landings elsewhere.

    Winning 80% of the Mediterranean, and 50% of Egypt could have opened negotiations w Franco in Spain to take Gibraltar from behind.

    An impoverished UK would eventually outlast FDR’s willingness to lend to them. 
    Hitler would also need to outlast the US public’s willingness to re-elect FDR.

    After German and Japanese forces meet up in India (6-15 yrs) , Japan could transport over virulent disease warheads for the German rockets to finish off the British population.

  • '17 '16 '15

    yea  and the rest of their own population too


  • @legion3:

    Naturally though, I voted for the USSR,  :wink: the opportunity to knock them out of the war or at least to take and hold Moscow, a major road, rail and communication hub with no equal in the Soviet Union, was available in the early fall of 41 had the Germans not been diverted and thus delayed in the turn south into the Ukraine. Another Hitler directive.

    I take a few issues with this, It is VERY common to overestimate the value of moscow. Because moscow was such a hub, it would be very easy to link the railroads behind moscow, they are not that far apart. The russians built ALOT of railroad in WW2, and this would have been a very small challenge for them. They could probably have made Gorky their new capitol. losing moscow would not have been the end of russia by far.

    As long as the russian army is alive and well supplied, russians would win this showdown. What the hitler directive did was to divert the panzers south, to help with the capture of kiev, What this move did was to encircle 700 000 russian soliders and to hasten the capture of Kryvbas and Krivoy Rog, which where the main prodcution of russian steel, dealing another devestating blow to the russian economy. This move severy reduced the resuplyment of the red army and encircled alot of the russian prewar division. This means that the 700k soliders they encircled was among the best equipped and best trained russian divisions. I could very easily argue that if the germans had gone for moscow instead, then these divisions and the increased russian production could have made the summeroffensive of 42 impossible, and the russian winter counterattacks in the winter of 41/42 that much more devestating. It was already devestating because of the of the 18 siberian divisions (guessing about 500K soliders). If you double the number of trained soliders, then the germans would probably have been lucky to even hold moscow, and if they tried, a stalingrad situation might have developed.

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