How Nazi Germany could have won WWII

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Gawdzilla, I have no idea what you're on about. Really not. I simply asked what you meant by "war production", because it seemed to me that your definition was narrower than what I would understand by the term.

I quote one number from the US war production figures. The fact that specified the C-47 was a non-combatant in no way excepted it from that production. So I'm having trouble seeing what the issue is here.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Also, I'm sure we (the US) built at least 32,000 4-engine bombers during the war.

B-17, about 12,700; B-24, about 19,200; B-29, about 3,000; B-32, 115. Total: just over 35,000. Of course, this is total number built, which means for the B-17 and B-24 some of the amount was, strictly speaking, not built during the war. But the figures are illustrative of the level of production nonetheless.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

I quote one number from the US war production figures. The fact that specified the C-47 was a non-combatant in no way excepted it from that production. So I'm having trouble seeing what the issue is here.

I was puzzled by your comment as well. Why mention C-47's as a reply to a post about tanks and AT ammo? Like you were implying we only massively out built Germany in cargo planes?

But everywhere I look states a bit less than 10,000 C-47's were made.

IE: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/fac...eet.asp?id=502

I don't mean to imply cargo aircraft weren't important.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I was puzzled by your comment as well. Why mention C-47's as a reply to a post about tanks and AT ammo? Like you were implying we only massively out built Germany in cargo planes?

I took the comment to be an example of just how prodigious American production was. Not only did the U.S. produce an enormous amount of direct combat materiel (e.g. tanks, fighters, bombers, cruisers, destroyers, bullets, etc.), it produced a huge amount of supporting materiel (e.g. trucks, locomotives, merchant ships, cargo aircraft, etc.).

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I took the comment to be an example of just how prodigious American production was. Not only did the U.S. produce an enormous amount of direct combat materiel (e.g. tanks, fighters, bombers, cruisers, destroyers, bullets, etc.), it produced a huge amount of supporting materiel (e.g. trucks, locomotives, merchant ships, cargo aircraft, etc.).

Absolutely, but the term being commented upon was "war production". Obviously, both combat materiel and supporting materiel fall within the category of war production. That is all I meant.

[Tolls]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Absolutely, but the term being commented upon was "war production". Obviously, both combat materiel and supporting materiel fall within the category of war production. That is all I meant.

BString mentioned logistics in the first sentence of the post Gawdzilla was replying to, and how that played a big role in the war.

In terms of production Gawdzilla (as far as I interpreted it) was highlighting the amount of production that went into logistical support by providing the C-47 as an example. He wasn't disagreeing with anything.

All anyone needs to do on that front is look at the lend lease materiel sent to the Soviet Union and how much of it was trucks and rolling stock.

[StankApe]

People love to talk about cool weapons, planes ,bombs and the brilliant tactics of Generals, but its really food, gasoline and ammo that wins wars.

[catsmate1]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

Some points about the above.

The Me 262 first flew on 4 April 1941—but using a piston engine. It didn't fly under jet engine power until more than a year later, on 18 July 1942. It didn't get into mass production until about two years after that. The commonly repeated story is that Hitler's insistence on turning the Me 262 into a fast bomber is what caused the production delay, and while that had a role, the main problem the Germans encountered was getting the jet engines into mass production with satisfactory quality. Achieving that proved a difficult task. By the time that was mastered it was too late for the Me 262 to make a decisive difference.

But here's the interesting thing. The He 280 jet fighter prototype flew under jet engine power more than a year before the Me 262 did—on 2 April 1941, or two days before the Me 262 prototype was test flown using a piston engine. But the German leadership wasn't interested. It was still thinking in terms of quick victories, and anything that couldn't be put into production rapidly was largely ignored.

And the Me-262's 1942 flight only started under jet power, it had a single piston engine as a safety measure and this was needed as the engines failed early into the test flight.

[catsmate1]

Originally Posted by StankApe

People love to talk about cool weapons, planes ,bombs and the brilliant tactics of Generals, but its really food, gasoline and ammo that wins wars.

And the ability to get them to where they're needed.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by StankApe

People love to talk about cool weapons, planes ,bombs and the brilliant tactics of Generals, but its really food, gasoline and ammo that wins wars.

Yeah, that's the point I was making. "We did all that and more." The US sent via lend-lease over one-half BILLION buttons, and eight sets of salt and pepper shakers. Plus various numbers of other items in between those figures.

Sorry about the bad figures, btw, I should know better than to quote hard numbers without checking my files first.

[BStrong]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

:snork:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/...hip/index.html

Thanks.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by BStrong

Thanks.

It took me a month to get that file online, 72,000+ cells to check. The OCR program recognized ones as lower case "L"s so I had to check each individual instance of "L" to see if it should be a one. That was "fun".

[nudger1964]

Originally Posted by StankApe

People love to talk about cool weapons, planes ,bombs and the brilliant tactics of Generals, but its really food, gasoline and ammo that wins wars.

isnt that what blitzkrieg was all about?
The German military seemed to be quite well aware that they could not win a protracted conflict.
The moment the russian offensive stalled, it was all over bar the shouting - Ive always had the impression that the professional army knew that well enough.

[Locknar]

Folks...if you wish to discuss the Holocaust/"gas vans"/etc. please do so in the appropriate thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=233904) - this is not it.

Posted By:Locknar

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

isnt that what blitzkrieg was all about?
The German military seemed to be quite well aware that they could not win a protracted conflict.
The moment the russian offensive stalled, it was all over bar the shouting - Ive always had the impression that the professional army knew that well enough.

But the Nazi leaders were expounding the idea that Stalin's régime would collapse on account of political instability before being able to deploy the full force of its country's resources. The German professionals might have been able to suppress their disquiet about this implausible proposition for these reasons:

France had just exhibited a similar incapacity to deploy its full strength in the face of the German Army's tactics;
Stalin had recently slaughtered many or most of the Red Army's senior commanders. German military leaders, valuing themselves highly, would estimate the loss of their Soviet counterparts as being catastrophic for the Soviet Army;
The performance of the Red Army in the "Winter War" against Finland had been unimpressive.

So for these specious reasons, the Wehrmacht generals might have supposed that a protracted conflict would not take place.

[nudger1964]

Originally Posted by Craig B

So for these specious reasons, the Wehrmacht generals might have supposed that a protracted conflict would not take place.

quite so,
But in relation to the question at hand, how Nazi Germany could have won the war, seems to me the only way they could have done so was to knock Russia out quickly and decisively.
Was that ever achievable?
Im no expert on this, but from what i gathered the Red Army started to become an effective force right about the time Stalin was having a bit of a breakdown and went AWOL

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I took the comment to be an example of just how prodigious American production was. Not only did the U.S. produce an enormous amount of direct combat materiel (e.g. tanks, fighters, bombers, cruisers, destroyers, bullets, etc.), it produced a huge amount of supporting materiel (e.g. trucks, locomotives, merchant ships, cargo aircraft, etc.).

That was how I took it as well, highlighting that the US could build pretty much anything and everything the Allies might need.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

quite so,
But in relation to the question at hand, how Nazi Germany could have won the war, seems to me the only way they could have done so was to knock Russia out quickly and decisively.
Was that ever achievable?

No, but their political masters might have persuaded them that it was, for political, and indeed racial (sub humans ruled by Jews) reasons, in defiance of their professional military misgivings. Bear in mind: it seemed that Hitler, and not they, had been right about France.

Quote:

Im no expert on this, but from what i gathered the Red Army started to become an effective force right about the time Stalin was having a bit of a breakdown and went AWOL

Quite so. Who could have predicted that?

[nudger1964]

right.
Well my impression has always been that Germany lost any possible chance of winning the war before the end of 1941.
Their only chance was if Russia had collapsed according to plan. The only bearing Britain and the USA had was on how badly they lost.
One thing I have never really been clear on was what the Americans would have done had Germany not helped out by declaring war on them.
What was in the political and military planning minds between the 7th and 11th december 1941?
My guess is Roosevelt would have gone for Germany first regardless of any declarations of war

[Tolls]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

right.
Well my impression has always been that Germany lost any possible chance of winning the war before the end of 1941.
Their only chance was if Russia had collapsed according to plan. The only bearing Britain and the USA had was on how badly they lost.

A Germany unhindered by losses in the West (I'm assuming a UK armistice post-France) and North Africa and a Soviet Union unsupported by any lend lease would have been a very different war indeed.

North Africa mainly for the post-Torch losses and the need to place an army in Italy.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

right.
Well my impression has always been that Germany lost any possible chance of winning the war before the end of 1941.
Their only chance was if Russia had collapsed according to plan. The only bearing Britain and the USA had was on how badly they lost.
One thing I have never really been clear on was what the Americans would have done had Germany not helped out by declaring war on them.
What was in the political and military planning minds between the 7th and 11th december 1941?
My guess is Roosevelt would have gone for Germany first regardless of any declarations of war

IMO Germany had absolutely no hope of winning after the Battle of Kursk in 1943. There was still a slim chance they could have adopted a defensive plan and maybe fought the Soviets to a draw until then,

I'm not sure Roosevelt would have had the support (in Congress and in the general public) to adopt a Germany first policy had they not gone to war against us, at least not right away. After Pearl Harbor there was a lot of "why are we going to war against Germany, it was the Japs that attacked us" mentality. That mostly ended very quickly when a large number of our merchant fleet was sunk right off the east coast, sometimes in port.

I think war with Germany was all but inevitable eventually, but not until after Japan was neutralized. Who know what the consequences of that would have been. Britain would have still won in North Africa, but without the Torch landings it would have taken maybe a year longer. Perhaps we would've completely skipped invading Italy, maybe the invasion of France doesn't happen until the Soviets are marching into Berlin? Then the cold war becomes a hot one? Just speculation.

[catsmate1]

Originally Posted by Tolls

A Germany unhindered by losses in the West (I'm assuming a UK armistice post-France) and North Africa and a Soviet Union unsupported by any lend lease would have been a very different war indeed.

North Africa mainly for the post-Torch losses and the need to place an army in Italy.

Rather like Sansom's new book Dominion. AltHist with Halifax succeeding Chamberlain.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Originally Posted by Garrison

That was how I took it as well, highlighting that the US could build pretty much anything and everything the Allies might need.

Hang on a sec. While US industry was a decisive contributor to Allied victory, the US did not by any means build everything nor anything the Allies needed.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Originally Posted by catsmate1

Rather like Sansom's new book Dominion. AltHist with Halifax succeeding Chamberlain.

Like this thread?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=243159

Quote:

No Dunkirk disaster is really needed, just the supposition that the peace faction won the argument. Its not too difficult to imagine, after all, Britain's military position was hopeless. She could never hope to defeat Germany on her own.

We also know that Hitler wanted to make peace. According to Jodl (via Chester Wilmot), this would only have involved the return of the colonies lost in WW1. I dont doubt the the British could have pushed this further to a de-facto no penalty peace. After all, those colonies had mostly become colonies of the Dominions and returning them to Germany would be problematic in terms of keeping imperial unity.

The subtext of a no-penalty treaty would have been the possibility that Britain and her empire might join in against Russia in an anti-communist crusade. Which is also not inconceivable.

Further, Hitler would have had access to overseas trade, and most importantly the oil wells of the Persian Gulf.

This latter point is of particular salience, for with no need to drive for the oil wells of the Caucasus, the southern front would have been an irrelevance. That means no Stalingrad, and the 6th Army re-directed to Army Group North or to Moscow....

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

It took me a month to get that file online, 72,000+ cells to check. The OCR program recognized ones as lower case "L"s so I had to check each individual instance of "L" to see if it should be a one. That was "fun".

Couldn't you have run some search & replace functions instead? If instances of "1" in a number were replaced by "l" then, for example, to change all cases of "l0,000" to "10,000" (or any figure starting with 10 and a comma) would just require searching for "l0," and replacing it with "10,".

Seems to me this sort of approach might have been easier than checking 72,000 cells individually.

[nudger1964]

Originally Posted by Hubert Cumberdale

Hang on a sec. While US industry was a decisive contributor to Allied victory, the US did not by any means build everything nor anything the Allies needed.

couldnt build an Alan Turing could they

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

couldnt build an Alan Turing could they

And the cavity magnetron, according to wiki

Quote:

was given to the US government in September 1940. At the time the most powerful equivalent microwave producer available in the US (a klystron) had a power of only ten watts. The cavity magnetron was widely used during World War II in microwave radar equipment and is often credited with giving Allied radar a considerable performance advantage over German and Japanese radars, thus directly influencing the outcome of the war. It was later described by America as "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores".

They got it cheap.

[nudger1964]

Originally Posted by Craig B

And the cavity magnetron, according to wiki They got it cheap.

I guess when you blind folded in front of a wall, bargaining the best deal isnt foremost in your mind.
dont make too much noise about it though - I think technically we still owe them adjusted about 50 billion of WWI debt...sshhh

[Captain_Swoop]

deleted

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

Couldn't you have run some search & replace functions instead? If instances of "1" in a number were replaced by "l" then, for example, to change all cases of "l0,000" to "10,000" (or any figure starting with 10 and a comma) would just require searching for "l0," and replacing it with "10,".

Seems to me this sort of approach might have been easier than checking 72,000 cells individually.

The cells also had text in them in places.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Hubert Cumberdale

Hang on a sec. While US industry was a decisive contributor to Allied victory, the US did not by any means build everything nor anything the Allies needed.

You're really just determined to nitpick this to death aren't you?

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

The cells also had text in them in places.

Nonetheless, a "1" in place of an "l" in a word is not as vital as a "l" in place of a "1" in a number.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Hubert Cumberdale

Hang on a sec. While US industry was a decisive contributor to Allied victory, the US did not by any means build everything nor anything the Allies needed.

I never said they did. I provided hard numbers as to what they produce.

On the gripping hand, the amount of material that went the other way is hard to pin down.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

The cells also had text in them in places.

That doesn't really matter. What you do is search and replace very specific strings, i.e. "l0," being replaced by "10,". By including the zero and comma in the search and looking for exact matches, you are eliminating words from the results (how many words are going to have a lower case L followed by a zero followed by a comma?). Granted, it may take you several passes using different search strings each time (e.g. "l0," and "l2," and so on), but as someone who has used this sort of technique a lot on various documents, if done right it sure beats going through a document line by line, correcting each issue individually.

Now, if in the original document the numbers don't use commas to separate the values then that pretty much negates this technique.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

That doesn't really matter. What you do is search and replace very specific strings, i.e. "l0," being replaced by "10,". By including the zero and comma in the search and looking for exact matches, you are eliminating words from the results (how many words are going to have a lower case L followed by a zero followed by a comma?). Granted, it may take you several passes using different search strings each time (e.g. "l0," and "l2," and so on), but as someone who has used this sort of technique a lot on various documents, if done right it sure beats going through a document line by line, correcting each issue individually.

Now, if in the original document the numbers don't use commas to separate the values then that pretty much negates this technique.

My partner in crime, Patrick Clancey, was a programmer for JPL. He found my system the most secure. Global search and replace didn't meet the standards.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by nudger1964

I guess when you blind folded in front of a wall, bargaining the best deal isnt foremost in your mind.
dont make too much noise about it though - I think technically we still owe them adjusted about 50 billion of WWI debt...sshhh

It was none other than Gordon Brown who paid off the final installments of WWII debt!

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

My partner in crime, Patrick Clancey, was a programmer for JPL. He found my system the most secure.

I'll just point out that manual replacement of each and every issue is as much subject to human error as is any other methodology. Typographica1 mistakes happen.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I'll just point out that manual replacement of each and every issue is as much subject to human error as is any other methodology. Typographica1 mistakes happen.

Very true, but as we both did the same thing, the net result was a low probability of error.

And my own feeling that any fool who didn't know what "111l11" was supposed to be could live with. Patrick, on the other hand, was a bit OCD. (Sorry, I already said "programmer", didn't I?)

[catsmate1]

Originally Posted by Hubert Cumberdale

Like this thread?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=243159

Yep. Though the book is set on '52 and features a rather Fascist Britian, rather like the Farthing books.

[Captain_Swoop]

An invasion of Britain that failed could have had a huge effect on the war. Hitler would have suffered a big defeat early and Britian would have had a huge boost in morale boost and a much strengthened position.
Plans for the invasion of Russia would have taken a big knock as German resources would have been lost.

With the threat of invasion not only gone but squashed resources kept back for home defence could have been put in to Africa and later the Far East.