@CWO:

It’s possible (though unlikely, as I’m going to argue) that the participants in WWI might have tried to end the war before 1918 through some kind of settlement.

You make some good points, but I would argue they are more relevant to the war that actually happened, and not an alternate scenario like mine or the OP where Russia is the focus of German military efforts.

In my mind it all hinges on Belgian neutrality and Italian ambition. If either England or Italy enter the war in aid of France, the whole calculus changes.

But I don’t think France is keen to shed THAT much blood for Alsace-Lorraine if Russia calls it quits and they stand alone against the Central Powers.

You had wondered before about German casualties on the East Front. Wiki sez it accounted for less than 10% of German war dead and about 25% of the wounded. Most German casualties came from repeated offensive efforts in France. If Germany defends in the West, they actually gain a LOT of strategic flexibility, as they would be using fewer troops defending than they did historically when attacking.

@CWO:

France and Russia had an alliance treaty, and a war by Germany with one of those two powers thus more or less guaranteed a war against both powers.

@ABWorsham:

The Schefflin Plan, in theory, would end a war in months.

“War is the continuation of politics by other means.”

@Midnight_Reaper:

@Caesar:

I don’t doubt those claims, I am just doubting if France would hold its end of the treaty it had with Russia if Germany or Austria attacked.

I think they would have. In fact, I think they were eager to avenge their defeat in their last war with Germany.

–-

To be honest, I wonder if Germany would have considered any escalation in 1914 if they had known that Italy had planned all along to betray their alliance and work with France in the event a wider conflict. Italy had always had it’s eye on Austrian territory.

German plans were to knock out France quickly, before Russia could fully mobilize. With hindsight, however, we know that Russia’s forces are incompetently led, and the Western Front will favor the defensive.

The only way I see for the Central Powers to win the war is to do so in a way that prevents an extended conflict that will inevitably grind apart Germany’s allies, the Austrian and Ottoman Empires. It doesn’t have to be a fast victory, it just has to be a war that is executed more effectively.

In the unlikely event I am in control, Germany should avoid war with England at all costs. If done right, even Italy and the Ottomans can sit it out.

The idea then, is NOT to invade France. Germany was convinced any major conflict needed to be fought on French soil, and were committed to that end, but in a war that favors defense, they should have tried to maximize that advantage.

Force France to commit politically to the defense of their Russian ally.

At the beginning it is merely Germany/Austria against Russia/Serbia. If France commits to an offensive, then make limited attempts to gain more defensible ground, but stay out of Belgium, and maintain a defensive posture. Make France bleed for Russia to no gain. Keep potentially both England AND Italy out of the war, ending the issues of blockade and American complaints about German subs. American opinion may well be split in the event that Belgium maintains it’s neutrality. The Ottomans should merely bide their time, keeping the British from mobilizing or accelerating strain on their Empire.

This places all the political pressure on France.

Meanwhile, with a defensive posture in the West, Germany can focus on cutting apart Russia, hopefully without Italy distracting the Austrians.

It’s a lot of “what-ifs” politically, but it keeps the war focused on it’s winnable components. French public opinion falters in proportion to Russian military setbacks until one or the other breaks.

If Germany can defeat Russia by, say, late 1916, and France has made no gains?? Do the French continue the fight? Or sue for peace??

@taamvan:

they only had 57 so we’re giving them 243 extra boots….the surface ships do seem to have been a waste, but that’s because there was no precise vision of how they’d be used without wasting them, and no idea what Germany would have done without any surface ships at all.

Which is precisely my point. There was basically no strategic thinking going on in the Kriegsmarine prior to the war.

Germany’s only true naval rival was England.
England could not be caught in a naval arms race.

The logical extension is to engage in some sort of asymmetrical campaign that enables you to close the gap in capability. Add to that the fact that England is an island nation, and the goal should have been crystal clear.

If they had the capability and long range to control the material war at sea, then that would have been decisive.

Exactly. The British knew what was up. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 was specifically negotiated by the British to discourage Germany from building a navy to fight a Commerce War…submarines, armed merchant trawlers, fast cruisers.

They instead graciously allowed them to build a “Balanced” fleet 1/3 the size of the Royal Navy, made of ships that would be of little use to Germany in a wider war.

But they didn’t have any of the things they would need to beat each enemy in turn, it was built “just in time”.   Some of it (4 engine bombers) was never built or even seriously considered, partially because of dissipation of effort.

The submarine strategy was very strong when there was no counter, and very weak once there was, so reliance on that to win the war probably wouldn’t work , it meets an escalating counter-response.

Well in spite of the fact that later U-Boat designs would be more effective, there was nothing about the U-Boat arm in 1939 that prevented it from defeating the UK aside from the fact that it was too small.

Also, England was well aware of the threat that U-Boats posed to their empire. The Royal Navy was not standing still prior to the war in regards to the need to defend their supply lines from U-Boats. But it was tactics and technology that were the hurdles from 1939 to 1943, not some failure by the British to respond at a strategic level.

Early in the war they would send merchants out alone and unguarded, while warships engaged in Search and Destroy operations over thousands of miles of open ocean. MADNESS. The needed goods were completely unguarded, while combat forces wasted their time in fruitless searches.

Even after the Convoy System was implemented it took YEARS to train both Merchant and Escort crews to maintain fleet discipline during an attack…and even then the need for more long-range aircraft to close the Mid-Atlantic gap was basically unaddressed for months.

Needed technlogies like Leigh Lights and Centimetric Radar would not be refined until 1941-1943. Those first couple of years were absolutely critical to Britains survival, and the “escalating counter-response” was not simply a matter of trying harder. Without the tactics or technology available, I don’t see a way out for Britain in 1940 if the Germany Navy is properly directed in its mission to strangle English commerce.

It’s hard to crank out fighters in those factories if the raw materials are on the ocean floor.

@Caesar:

The problem with Germany’s navy is that it was built for one thing and then deployed for another. If Hitler allowed Plan Z to be completed, then it would put the Kreigsmarine on par with UK’s Home Fleet.

In 1948. If the UK stood still and did nothing to counter the build up of their rival.

I maintain Germany could never win a naval arms race against the British Empire.

I know Germany merchant fleets were able to supply their forces in Norway since UK never deployed in the Baltic.

Most of the goods transported in the Baltic were in vessels under Scandinavian flags. Most of Germanys merchant fleet was sunk, captured or interned early in the war.

@CWO:

I wonder about that.  Germany’s maritime trade wasn’t in the same league as Britian’s, and I doubt that it had a domestic merchant fleet on the same scale as Britain’s, and I’m not aware of Germany operating convoys on anything like the scale of the Allies.  Moreover, the concept of defending merchant ships with surface warships (or with anything else, for that matter) is a concept that only applies in wartime…and in both World Wars, German merchant shipping was quickly eliminated by the Allies (chiefly Britian, probaly) from pretty much everywhere (except possibly the Baltic in WWII).  So if the point of Germany having a surface fleet in WWII was to protect its merchant ships, then that strategy was a colossal failure.

Nobody “guarded” merchants with warships. Ever. If you want to “protect” your merchant, you put a gun on it. If you need to defend shipping lanes, only a proper convoy system can do the job, and Germany simply didn’t have need of it, having access to most of what it needed on the continent, oil being a very notable exception.

The conventional view is actually that the point of Germany’s surface-combat warship fleet in both World Wars was, with slight variations in the two conflicts, to tie down the Royal Navy at its home bases by offering a constant threat that Germany’s own warships might be deployed.  This is the “fleet in being” concept, and Admiral Tirpitz in WWI was pretty blatant about it.

While true, this, to me, demonstrates a lack of critical thinking by both sides.

What was the German surface fleet going to do if the Royal Navy just sailed for the Caribbean?? What possible goal could it have achieved, especially in the face of the Royal Air Force, that it could not achieve while the Royal Navy was a factor? Certainly not an invasion. They couldn’t close the Channel. They couldn’t reinforce the Mediterranian.

So…what??? Seems to me like the German surface fleet as it stood historically was of no use to Germany and no threat to England. Norway, sure, but not England.

As it was, I’m sure that it was for propaganda/morale reasons that the Home Fleet was kept at home, to keep those in England feeling safe and protected, but I’d argue that that decision lengthened the war. England should have just sent the bulk of the Home Fleet to Singapore in December of 1941. Probably would have saved that city from the Japanese and shortened the Pacific War.

@Omega1759:

Not enough U-boats in 1939 was also a big mistake. The ~30 that they had really did cause a lot of damage. More “Condor” long range patrol planes to attack allied shipping would have been good as well.

This was going to be my answer.

“Plan Z” should have never even been suggested. The idea that Germany was going to somehow “catch up” to the Royal Navy in terms of surface combatants was laughable, even prior to the beginning of hostilities with England.

The two Scharnhorsts and two Bismarks that were completed cost, in total, upwards of $400 million Reichsmarks.

I would argue that the 100 submarines you could have had instead for that cost would have probably won the war against England around the same time the historical Battle of Britain began.

And that’s just subbing out a few battleships for subs. A real committment to a submarine construction program prior to the war beginning would have been decisive, even if countered by the UK with more focus on ASW.

It took nearly 4 years, US entry into the war, and several technological breakthroughs to both fully implement the Convoy System and win the Battle of the Atlantic. I see no outcome other than defeat for the United Kingdom if they face a Germany with 300 U-Boats in 1939.

The US can threaten war over Unrestricted Submarine Warfare in 1940, but if the UK is defeated before years end, it is essentially an empty threat, as the US is not going to retake Europe by staging out of Iceland or the Azores.

Of course, extra naval patrol aircraft would have greatly aided in the goal of strangling the UK…but that would have depended on Göring not being a total idiot.

In fact, I change my answer.

–-

Have Göring and Ernst Udet die in a plane crash sometime in early 1933.

I’m not sure who takes over the Luftwaffe at that point…but they can hardly do worse.

It is not my normal policy to gravedig, but I wanted to address this point.

@CWO:

Forcing military personnel to go on a suicide mission by threatening to imprison or kill their relatives would undoubtedly work with some individuals, but this method also runs the risk of backfiring spectacularly.  Anybody coerced by such a method is going to be extremely resentful (to put it mildly) and some individuals placed into this position might respond by simply pretending to agree to take the atomic weapon into enemy territory on a suicide mission; upon arrival, they might well be brave enough or resentful enough to turn the weapon over to the other side and to urge them to use it to destroy the capital city and the leaders of the dictatorship which has threatened them and their families.  Some might be idealistic enough to sacrifice their family members to accomplish this; some might not believe their government’s promises that their relatives will not be harmed if they cooperate (governments who rule at gunpoint don’t score very highly on the credibility and trust scales); and some might conclude that the best chance their families have of surviving is to eliminate the dictatorship before the dictatorship can eliminate them. Personally, an atomic weapon is something I’d only place in the hands of people in whom I have absolute trust, not in the hands of people I’ve threatened and antagonized.

All of this is certainly true. However, there is a way around the problem.

Naval mine technology of the era could easily be adapted to utilize a nuclear weapon, with a timed detonator, and towed to the target by a fully manned (and fully loyal) submarine crew.

It would take some specialized training for deployment in shallow water. It would also require some technological modifications, as the mine would need to surface just prior to detonation. These challenges are easily manageable by any navy of the war.

So forget all about those suicide missions.

If Italy had invaded early enough…say prior to 1941…I doubt that any effort by the UK could have retaken it.

They were simply unable to manage Axis air superiority to make a landing in strength in the central Mediterranean, especially after the fall of France.

The longer the Axis waited, however, the harder the invasion was going to be. The civilian populace would be more apt to resist, and there were more British military personnel being sent to the island. Italian deficiencies in naval armor, naval radar, and joint air/naval operations also became more apparent to the Royal Navy as the war progressed.

The inevitable German invasion of Russia also ensured that German support would be limited after mid 1941.

That is about the point in time that I would tilt the scale from the Axis to the Allies. There was no hope of the UK retaking Malta had it been lost prior to that point. Likewise, after that point, there was no chance the Axis could take the island without incurring enough casualties to make it a pyhrric victory.

I would argue that the Philippines invasion was entirely unnecessary.

The U.S. certainly didn’t need it as a base of operations, as Nimitz had already effectively bypassed the Philippines by taking the Marianas.

US air superiority, as evidenced by the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, was well established. The threat of Japanese naval and air assets stationed out of the Philippines was minimal. The US had also had no need to send significant assets within striking distance of the Philippines. Support of resistance there was maintained with submarine and covert resupply.

The US submarine campaign had also hamstrung the IJN, leaving it desperately short of fuel. Invading the Philippines nearly played into Japan’s hands by placing a large transport fleet within striking distance of their base on Borneo.

It is a certainty that any attempt by Japan to engage in a Mahanian style fleet engagement on the open ocean, either in a second sortie against the Marianas, or against an invasion of Iwo Jima, was doomed to fail.

Moreover, the US had been effectively supporting Philippine resistance against the Japanese, to the point that many smaller islands were literally free of Japanese forces, and many Japanese garrisons were surrounded by territory under the control of Philippine forces.

While many Filipinos were supportive of MacArthur and his efforts to retake the Philippines, it is questionable that bypassing them would have had any negative impact on the resistance efforts there.

The invasion of the Philippines also resulted in the Battle of Manila, which destroyed the city and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

An objective look at MacArthur’s campaign in New Guinea, against forces that were largely ill-supplied and un-supported by air, naval, or artillery forces, should have indicated that another long campaign in mountainous jungle was counterproductive…it would do nothing but engage forces that had already been written off by Japan, and did nothing to further the goal of actually forcing a Japanese surrender.

One could argue that capturing the Philippines made the job of our submarine crews easier, but this is a false assertion. US subs never operated out of the Philippines, and the Japanese never stationed any assets there that might have made their job harder.

About the only real reason for invading the Philippines, aside from fulfilling MacArthur’s promise, was to prevent the possibility of reprisals against the population by Japanese forces as the war wound down.

Considering the casualties that occurred anyways as a result of the invasion, I believe the possibility of such reprisals was an acceptable risk.

@Zooey72:

What if Chamberlain said “bah, who needs the Polish - not worth fighting a war over”.  What would have happened next?

Even if Poland was considered expendable, the alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union demanded a response from the UK and France. They could not afford to simply stand by and watch Germany and the USSR divide eastern Europe between them.

http://ww2db.com/event/timeline/

Jan 28 1940

• U-34 sinks Greek freighter Eleni Stathatou off the French coast

• U-44 sinks Greek freighter Flora off the Portugese coast

• Soviet forces continue shelling of Finnish forts along the Mannerheim line

• Finnish forces eliminate the Soviets trapped in the Pieni-Kelivaara pocket

• Chinese troops captured Lucheng, Shanxi Province

• Japanese 26th Division attacked Wuyuan, Suiyuan Province

Jan 28 1941

• HMS Naiad spots cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, prompting the Germans to use the Denmark Strait instead of the Iceland-Faroe Islands Passage for the breakout commencing Operation Berlin

• Italian submarine Luigi Torelli sinks British submarine Urla off the Irish coast.

• Italian artillery at Wadi Derna in Libya continues to pin down Australian 6th Division

• B-10 medium bombers of the Royal Thai Air Force bomb Sisophon in French Indochina. It is the last offensive action of the Franco-Thai War. A Japanese mediated cease fire between Thailand and Vichy is signed three days later.

Jan 28 1942

• Japanese troops land at Pemangkat, Dutch Borneo.

• Japanese troops occupy Rossel Island off southwestern New Guinea.

• Japanese troops outflank and wipe out Indian 22nd Brigade at Layang Layang, British Malaya.

• US B-17 Bombers stationed in Java bomb Kuala Lumpur and Japanese positions on Celebes.

• Münster, Germany is bombed for the first time by RAF Bomber Command.

• British fighter ace Robert Roland Stanford Tuck (27 kills) is shot down and taken prisoner in Germany

• British submarine HMS Thorn sinks Italian tanker Ninuccia off the Yugoslav coast.

• Indian troops destroy port facilities at Benghazi, Libya as German forces approach.

• After gaining 60 miles, the Soviet offensive under Timoshenko in Ukraine begins to slow.

Jan 28, 1943

• Germany finally mobilizes it’s work force for total war, requiring registration of men aged 16 to 65 and women aged 17 to 50.

• The German forces in Stalingrad, Russia are divided into three pockets by Soviet attacks.

Jan 28, 1944

• In an effort to stop Spain from supporting Germany on the Russian Front, the US and Britain announce an oil embargo.

• Several German divisions are cut off and surrounded near Cherkassy, Ukraine.

• The RAF raids Berlin with 677 aircraft, losing 46.

• German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring orders a counterattack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, Italy.

• Allied convoy JW-56A arrives at Arkhangelsk, Russia.

Jan 28, 1945

• The Ardennes bulge is finally pushed back to its original lines, thus ending the Battle of the Bulge.

• Soviet troops capture Katowice, Poland.

• Anglo-Indian troops capture Pauk, Burma

• Submarines USS Spadefish and USS Pompon attack a Japanese convoy in the southern Yellow Sea, sinking two ships.

@rjpeters70:

This is a great posting.  My only problem with a water surface detonation is that the water itself would absorb much of the blast, acting to suppress the yield effects.

I used THIS simulator to determine blast effects.

With a weapon of this size (15-20 KT), the differences in blast wave, radiation, and thermal effects are minimal, whether an airburst or a surface detonation.

An airburst would be better, but not significantly so.

So, while I think a surface detonation would do significant and some operational harm to the Dunkirk evacuation, and might do real damage to Suez, you wouldn’t get much bang for the buck with a Scapa Flow detonation.

The direct damage to ships is less important than radiation sickness affecting highly trained Royal Navy personnel.

In either case, the base will almost certainly be abandoned, which is the primary goal; either to force them to station at a base farther from operational areas, or from a base more exposed to air attack.

You might take out a battleship if you get to within say a tenth of a mile, but not much more than that (and trading a nuke for a battleship is not a good cost/benefit ratio).

Any ship within 1.5 km is going to sustain heavy damage. Any such ship will be heavily contaminated by radiation and will likely be unsalvageable. Any ship within 5 km is going to lose most of it’s crew to radiation sickness.

It is a significant blow. Certainly greater than Pearl Harbor. Certainly worth a nuke.

@CWO:

I’m wondering about the “suicide submarine” premise. 
…
Given Germany’s lack of a bushido tradition that included ritual suicide for warriors under certain circumstances, getting sailors to agree to a suicide attack (especially early in the war) would have probably been an even harder sell in Germany than in Japan.
…
So the psychological requirement for the “suicide submarine” premise is a bit problematic.

I considered that.

But consider also that Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union hold lots of power over their citizens.

It is not unrealistic to me that the threat of incarcerating or executing a sailors family might be used against sailors of “questionable” status to ensure their cooperation. Or perhaps freeing an already incarcerated family member if the sailor agrees to the mission.

Remember also that, at least for Scapa Flow, there are a number of old Navy veterans who would probably like nothing better than the chance to go out in such a fashion.

I simply don’t see Germany, Japan, or Russia having trouble finding “volunteers”. It’s the liberal democracies of the US and UK that will have an issue there, but they eventually have bombers that can actually perform the task.

@CWO:

From a purely physical point of view, another potential WWII delivery mechanism with ample load-carrying capacity would be by railroad, on a perfectly ordinary freight train.

I ruled out train delivery right away. Too many things can go wrong, and it severely limits your target options.