Posted on 08/02/2015 7:44:26 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Invading the North American mainland can be safely left in the realm of bad Hollywood films. And that's even today, with larger ships, jet cargo aircraft, and more people. While it makes for a great strategy, in the end, it's just a nonstarter. Why?
The Germans had no forward base in the New World. If they had seized Iceland, any of the French protectorates in the Caribbean, or northern South America, then an invasion, while still a stretch, could have been conceivable. Without forward bases to deploy to and from, an invasion isn't going to happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
... some friendly government in South America (*cough* *cough* Argentina)...
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And Brazil...
Scissors beat paper!
You just caused me to eject some liquid beverage through my nasal passages at this early morning hour! lol
Too bad Fat Man wasn't quite ready in time for the European Theater!
You are on a roll.
All they had to do was send a letter to Mexico and tell them to walk across the border. Not only will they not have to fire a shot but the invading army would get paid by America....hmmmm
Is the Zimmerman letter classified?
Millions of soviet soldiers were Hitler’s meat grinder. The German juggernaut was turned into sausage in that Soviet meat grinder. Of course, a lot of soviet soldiers were turned into sausage as well. Bratwurst and Kielbasa.
I dunno, they would have been coming in through the east coast, you know, all those states that now hate guns. Other than a few upstate guys, who had guns in the NE back then?
They would have known better than invade the south.
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Ummm.... Seems that decades later that has all become true!
Concern is that the Left Coast and the Upper-and Mid-Atlantic Coast of the US is so anti-gun that anyone could invade. NOT referring to the Eastern-most States up North.
They could just walk in today...
Be careful, delaying the war would also have allowed the British especially to have improved their equipment. Two examples, the Supermarine Spitfire underwent testing and acceptance during the period between Munich and the invasion of Poland. IF the war had started even six month later SMS Bismark could not have sunk HMS Hood, because Hood would have been in drydock with her engine rooms in pieces (upgrades to her Armoring scheme was also planned).
As for the Me262, that plane was rushed from proof of concept to operational use due to desperation. several more years of development would have been of great benefit as among other problems it had was engine reliability (40 hours!).
Of course, Hitler did it all wrong. He should have consolidated a victory over Britain before declaring war on the Soviet Union and the U.S. His megalomania and desire for conquest was just too large. He couldn’t wait. The Wehrmacht was a fantastic war machine, but it took on too much.
Plus, the Czech army would probably have given Germany a much tougher fight than Poland's army. Czechoslovakia had better natural defenses with their mountains, and their army was stronger than Poland's. The latter still employed many divisions of useless cavalry.
In Manchester's bio of Churchill he has some fascinating stories of dissident German generals who were ready to depose Hitler if Britain at the time of the Czech crisis (basically Chamberlain) would finally stand up to Hitler and denounce his steady bloodless conquests.
Chamberlain refused to acquiesce to the growing numbers of Brits who finally saw through Hitler and were demanding Chamberlain stand up to Hitler and give a position in the gov. to Churchill. That wasn't going to happen as Chamberlain thoroughly despised Churchill. Almost to the end Chamberlain thought he could deal/reason with Hitler. Of course, Hitler played him like a violin.
There was a very good Justice League cartoon story about Nazi Germany getting a gigantic leap forward in technology from a future version of Vandal Savage. It was quite good. Green Lantern even had to use a rifle.
1. The Krauts were years away from the Bomb. Heisenberg had not gotten close to the breakthrough distance that a low-energy neutron needed to trigger a chain reaction in fissile material. They managed to chase off the only real genius physicists to our Manhattan Project.
2. Zero Nazi aircraft carriers, and no near-term capability to develop the technologies, training and tactics. No aircraft carriers, no amphibious invasions. Their only partially-built carrier the Graf Zeppelin only served to help the Soviets carry more booty back to the Motherland, but capsized on the way.
3.Zero amphibious capabilities: without dedicated landing craft, armored amphibians, attack transports, and well-tried and refined doctrine, every landing is Gallipoli. Towed barges couldn't even hack the "glorified river crossing" across the Channel.
4. Pound for pound, US troops were far better than the Nazis: despite the weird pro-Nazi propaganda saying otherwise, we won every single battle after Kasserine, including the tough landings at Salerno, Anzio, and Normandy and a quarter million Waffen SS at Bastogne. Ate their lunch - go visit the graveyards if you want proof.
5. The vaunted "wonder weapons" wouldn't have won them squat. Kelly Johnson gave us the P-80 in a few short months and there was even an operation squadron of them in England at the end of the war. We had the B-29 and they didn't. Scared the daylights out of them, for good reason. Had things extended a bit, we'd have had even bigger stuff that could have reached Germany directly from CONUS.
Hitler was incredibly stupid to take on the US. Should have left Japan to fight us all by their lonesome.
Senator Blutarski would approve.
"In addition, everybody had guns. One commonality among the nations conquered by Germany is that private firearms ownership was heavily restricted or simply banned. With no such restrictions here and given the fact that modern combined arms tactics were still in their infancy, it's difficult to see how the Germans would have avoided taking heavy casualties. The Germans would have faced an armed force at least 10 times the size of their invasion force, who were also motivated to ensure that they (the Germans) would lose."
I am amazed that fact got past the Slate censors..
We won because of “Enigma”. Hard to lose a football game when you have a spy in their huddle before every play.
The Germans were no where near developing nuclear weapons. Their biggest obstacle in the matter was themselves. The Nazification of their education system, especially their universities doomed their prospects. All scientific knowledge developed by Jewish scholars was discarded by the the Nazi ideology. This would present a serious problem for anyone trying to develop nuclear weapons. Their efforts in the matter were extremely small and headed in the wrong direction because of it. Their education system became a shambles by the time the Nazis fully implemented their program. A lesson for us on placing ideology (PC) over true academic endeavors. It only leads to disaster.
“I think had the Germans treated the Russians humanely, many would have welcomed them as liberators from Stalin.”
Not too likely. They wanted “lebensraum” (room to live), and they were concerned that there were just too many Eastern Europeans to...eliminate. The plan was to push them out of valuable areas and have them die off in the deserts and non-arable lands. So, although the collaborators thought that they were being “liberated”...they were next on the list after the Jews.
Oppenheimer, Bonehoeffer, Einstien.
We got Werner Von Braun After.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Just so...As I recall, my third grade buddies and I discussed this very issue while walking home from school just before summer vacation. We got down to the nuts and bolts question, "How fast could Superman throw all the German U-Boats into outer space?" The author would have stood no chance in debating us, none at all. ;>)
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