Battle of Stalingrad

If Hitler had continued to attack the RAF instead of starting the blitz and been able to use all his forces without fear of the USSR invading eastern europe the 20th century could look alot different. I like russian tactics like using woman as snipers and suicide bomber dogs ,very innovative.
 
Gibbs505 said:
A couple of points here. The British still had her navy and if the germans had invaded the navy would have been in a position to cut the germans off from suplies etc. Remember we are talking 1940 and how close run the 1944 return invasion was! None of the LST and LSI and LCI's were around in 1940.

It was a very risky proposition for the Germans, and Hitler knew it.
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Not quite.

To invade britain it would have been alot easier for germany then you are letting on.

Simply, a few fallishmagjers would have been too much for England to fight against. Use them to muck things up before the main invasion, and if hitler concentrated his aerial strikes on military targets and not cities then he would have knocked england out easily.
 
One thing that is sometimes ignored, I think, is that Hitler wasnt originally planning to invade Britain. He was convinced peace was possible between Britain and Germany (indeed, many British aristocrats were on good terms with the Nazis). If he had actually planned an all out attack on Britain, I'm sure he would have made a greater attempt on places such as Egypt, Malta, and even Iceland (occupied by Britain). The thing is, he bit off too much to chew, and they lost because of that. In the end, a pan European Empire is impossible by any means. Many have tried, all have had limited success, yet ultimately they all failed!
 
Another consideration is the intelligence campaign mounted by the Brits to exaggerate the threat on the eastern front, to divert Hitlers attention from Britain. Read an interesting book about this years ago (operation Jericho??).
It consisted of false communication about Russia's strength and intentions, and disinformation about Britains military strength - such a complete airfields with fake plywood silouette planes.
Great value for the time and money spent - Stalin must be turning over in his grave.
On a related subject, if you've ever been to Moscow, you've likely seen the tank barricades still in place near the airport - a poignant reminder of how far the Germans were pushing.
 
A good book on all of this is "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown. Some of the german militry and cililian leaders where communicating quite freely with the west intellagence service!

Not quite.

To invade britain it would have been alot easier for germany then you are letting on.

Simply, a few fallishmagjers would have been too much for England to fight against. Use them to muck things up before the main invasion, and if hitler concentrated his aerial strikes on military targets and not cities then he would have knocked england out easily.
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I disagree, crossing the english channel is a major undertaking and a lot more difficult then many realise. Consider Dieppe. And that was with air superioty.
No, a german invasion MAY have succeded as you say, but it would have been a very dangerious thing, either way!
 
Hitler didn't need to invade Britain. If he'd taken full advantage of Dunkirk the Brits would never have been able to recover. They would have been isolated and unable to pose a threat. The Germans could have bided their time and built up strenght and resources for Russia . The Germans could have gone through the Caucasses captured the oil fields and gone north from there. They would have been in a much better position for a prolonged struggle. Which they wouldn't have had to worry about anyhow if:
they'd invaded in the spring,
not tied up untold resources perpetrating the final solution,
put more than a few dozen heavy tanks on the battlefield at any one time. (There were only 80 tigers in service on the eastern front at any one time)
and wasted time and resouces on wonder weapon after wonder weapon.
 
Good call. I've been watching this thread with interest, it's one of my favorite topics.

And, I'll throw my voice behind Guy Sajer's "Forgotton Soldier" (I've got a late edition copy, so I assume it's still in print). A very interesting, and often neglected, perspective on the Eastern Front.
 
deanml said:
The Germans could have gone through the Caucasses captured the oil fields and gone north from there.
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but it was just such a manouver that sunk them. Again, if Hitler had not insisted that AGC stop and divert it's armour to the capture of the Ukraine, it's likely they would have plowed right over Moscow(weeks earlier than they eventually reached the city, to boot). Moscow was the nerve centre of soviet resistance, that if overrun, would have collapsed. The results of AGC's 3 week halt were twofold. First, they didn't take moscow as scheduled, and secondly that delay allowed the Russians time to relocate thier factories further east. These factories were re-established in great haste and often outdoors. That's how tight for time they were. IMHO, the Germans gave them the war when Hitler stopped Army group center...
 
And thanks to Hitlers idiotic and horrible racial policies, the Ukranian nationalists ended up fighting either for independence or the USSR. The Germans failed to take advantage of the dissent all over the USSR, even in Russia proper. A concerted effort to win "hearts and minds" will have in the end been very advantageous. But the Slavs knew they were bound for Serfdom, no matter who they fought for, so most picked Stalin.

Even the "free russians" who cast their lot with the Nazis were disliked by Hitler. He didnt want Slavs fighting for Germany, it seems. Himmler was more realistic in this respect, because I believe he was for cooperation with dissenters.

Here is a very interesting article about how the Cossacks were massacred by the Brits and Russians after the war. And some of them had even fought alongside Brits in the Russian Civil War! It is strange that I have NEVER heard of this until I found this article. Also, Tito's partisans executed about 30,000 Croats during the last month of the war(many Ustasi though). Lets keep this topic going! Id recommend this article for anyone that believes the war was truly between good and evil! Its pdf BTW:

w w w.uvsc.edu/commorgs/russia/tolstoy/pdf/lienz.pdf

utterly disgusting. Its shocking how it is almost exactly how the Jews were transported.
 
Germany lost generations of her best men on the Eastern Front simply out of hunger, pestilence and lack of supplies. The entire Western campaign seems like a harmless skirmish compared to the men and materiel employed and lost in the East. Had Hitler been removed in 42-43 the world would probably be a different place today.
 
ilovepotatos said:
I still think, if Germany didn't touch Russia, they would have taken out Britain, and the states would have gone for peace.
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I believe if Hitler went straight for Russia,Britain and most of the rest of Europe would have either joined his army or sit on the sidelines cheering,but yes I totally agree if Hitler consentrated on England they would have sued for peace by1941
 
ilovepotatos said:
I still think, if Germany didn't touch Russia, they would have taken out Britain, and the states would have gone for peace.
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I believe if Hitler went straight for Russia,Britain,Finland,Poland,Japan,Turkey and most of the rest of Europe would have either joined his army or sat on the sidelines cheering,but yes I totally agree if Hitler consentrated on England they would have sued for peace by1941
 
deanml said:
(There were only 80 tigers in service on the eastern front at any one time)
.
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The tiger was a mistake to start with anyways, to heavy to use bridges, with poor fording abilities in service, a fuel pig with short range and slow speed.
To be fair, as a defensive weapon it was shown to it's strengths. Employed as a mobile (sort of) strong point it could use it's long range striking ability and armour to the best advantage. In the end, I suspect more where lost to fuel shortages and mechanical breakdowns than enemy action.

Now if they had put the effort taken to build the tigers into making more panthers, they would have had something.
 
Hitler would have won the war in europe but he made three major mistakes#1He should have destroyed the RAF instead of bombing British cities.#2 He should of treated the jewish people as equals because most of the seven million he had murdered during the war would have fought for Germany.#3 treated the russian people better as they would have fought beside the german army as most of them hated Stalin more than the Germans at the beginning of Operation Barbarosa.
 
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