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Rochey wrote:With regards to the Third Reich V Britain, the moment the Luftwaffe lost air superiority, any chance of invading England went down the drain.

The Germans never had the slightest chance of pulling Sealion off in the first place - they simply didn't have anything close to the sealift capacity.

Quite true. I was just pointing out that if they turned their attention to gaining such a capacity, they'd have still likely been defeated.

So it still stands that in the end it was a losing war. There was no hope for victory.

Well, had Hitler not attacked Russia and not declared war on the US, it's possible he could have simply starved the UK into a ceasefire, and kept control over Europe. Granted, that wasn't all of what Hitler wanted, but I'd count that as a damn good victory.

But how long would it take before germany would lose its grip over europe? I don't think it would be to long.

I'd certainly agree with that statement post-Stalingrad, and probably post-Moscow, but before then it would be very iffy. I'd say the two critical factors were the Italian invasions of Egypt and Greece, and Khalkin Gol. The former forced Hitler to delay Barbarossa to pull Mussolini's fat out of the fire, and to secure his southern flank. This meant that critical weeks of summer were lost, with the result that the Panzers literally froze up in sight of the Kremlin. The latter diverted Japanese attention away from the Soviet Union and towards the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies, allowing Zhukov to send Siberian divisions westwards to launch the counterattack in front of Moscow (and drawing the US into the war).

If these two events had not occurred, or particularly if the Khalkin Gol offensive had been launched in late 1941, then the German army would not only have reached Moscow in decent campaigning weather, but would also have been facing smaller numbers of tired Russian troops. Capturing Moscow would have had a serious effect both on Russian morale, and coordination, and could easily have led to a successful 1942 campaign to destroy the Russian ability to launch effective coordinated offensives. They would have been driven back to the Urals. With this massive drain on Wehrmacht fighting strength much reduced, forces could then have been shifted back to the west, and a much better fist made of the development and defence of the Atlantic Wall.

Well, I did specify if Hitler had not invaded Russia.
But you're right that it was Mussolini incompetantly screwing around in Africa and Greece that was the main reason for the defeat of Germany to the Nazis.

Sorry, that was in response to Deep's post above yours.

The problem the Germans had was that invading Russia was vital to their long-term victory. If they hadn't done so, the Russians would have eventually invaded them, with the advantage of being on the offensive and far better prepared than they were in 1941.

Ah, no problem.

And yeah, the two of them were pretty much on a colision course from the start.

The Russians were in no shape to fight anyone at that time. They lost to Finland for God's sake! Germany should have finished with what they already had and then taken a year off to regroup and prepare.

Deepcrush wrote:The Russians were in no shape to fight anyone at that time. They lost to Finland for God's sake! Germany should have finished with what they already had and then taken a year off to regroup and prepare.

The Red Army of 1941 was in far better shape than that of the winter of 1939/40 - better equipped (particularly regarding winter clothing), better trained and better led. The T-34s were starting to be deployed in numbers. Another year and the Germans would have been in serious trouble.

Another year would have aloud the Germans to fight in warmer weather with as many more of their panzers as they could build plus bring troops from the western areas. The Africa offensive should never have happened and Italy should have been open to send half of a million support troops to the eastern front. Also, until the second and third fronts opened. Russia was having a great deal of trouble in facing the Germans.

Captain Seafort wrote:

sunnyside wrote:You Brits and the Ruskies were kinda Lazy when it came to helping taking out Japan though.

We were busy clearing the Japanese out of Burma, and as for Russia have you ever heard of Operation August Storm?

Actually, I haven't and am fascinated by this.

WW II was a team effort.

Actually, I haven't and am fascinated by this.

The USSR launched an invasion of Manchuko, which was a puppet government of Japan, shortly after the dropping of the first atom bomb. Had the war continued, they had plans for an invasion of Hokaido, the northernmost island of Japan. IIRC, the Soviets deployed close to 2 million troops in the attack.

Sahaklin is still a huge point of contention between russia and japan, hindering most economic initiatives between the duma and the diet,and of course, look at the divided korean penninsula...........