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Even if D Day had failed. And there were several ways it could have. The war couldn't have gone on much longer than it did.
Germany and Japan were out of everything. People, metals, fuel, bullets, food. Everything. Everyone saying that the Axis might have had nukes is full of shit too. After the war Werner Heisenberg. (The physicist who headed up the Nazi atom bomb program. Not just a pseudonym for a meth cooker.) And his team was captured by the British. While they were in custody they heard a radio news report about the Hiroshima bombing. Heisenberg believed that it was a hoax at first. The scientists in charge of the Nazi atomic program couldn't believe that the Americans had developed a nuclear weapon. Let alone one small enough to fit in an aircraft. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf Werner Heisenberg I don’t believe a word of the whole thing. They must have spent the whole of their £500,000,000 in separating isotopes: and then it is possible. Hahn: I didn’t think it would be possible for another 20 years. Karl Wirtz (head of reactor construction at a German physics institute): I’m glad we didn’t have it. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (theoretical physicist): I think it is dreadful of the Americans to have done it. I think it is madness on their part. Heisenberg: One can’t say that. One could equally well say “That’s the quickest way of ending the war.” Hahn: That’s what consoles me. Heisenberg: I don’t believe a word about the bomb but I may be wrong View Quote Attached File Attached File Had the war somehow gone on there would have been deployment of a few more advanced prototype weapons. Particularly aircraft. But by that point the Axis didn't really have fuel or competent pilots to fly them. Volksjager would have been a complete clusterfuck. That plane was difficult for experienced pilots. Crewing it with Hitler Youth and putting it up against experienced allied pilots in Gloster Meteors and Lockheed P80s would have been suicide. As absurd as the thought of continuing the war is. It's not the craziest thing like this I have ever read. That would be the the Axis of Time series by Birmingham. Joseph Stalin turns into an honest to god wizard in that one. Pulling atomic bombs and numerous other advanced weapons that the Soviets simply didn't have the resources to make out of thin air. |
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Or.....Hitler maintains his non-aggression pact with the USSR. Reinforces Rommel with several more divisions before too many American supplies come in. Rommel, conquers Egypt and seizes the canal. Moves into the Middle East and secures the oil fields. No war with USSR and a source of petroleum could send the war into 46-47.
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Outside of the technology advances, the US was tapped on drafting troops and paying into the war. Politically, the will was running out. The whole "it would have cost us a million casualties to invade Japan" is an irrelevant thought exercise, because the US would never have drafted that many more men. View Quote Again though,this discussion needs a frame of reference as to why the war is still going on in 1947. What shifted the timeline? What was the setback? It's far too simplistic to say "well,B-36s would have been facing 15 year olds in Natters in 1947" because something would have necessitated using B-36s over Germany in 1947. |
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Or Lord Halifax accepts the offer to be PM instead of declining in favor of Churchill. Halifax was a Hitler appeaser and hated Churchill, with disaster staring them in the face Halifax was offered the PM job but, I believe, figured he'd hand the shit sandwich to Churchill and just try to survive politically to pick up the pieces later. Halifax was made part of Churchill's war cabinet and then tried to convince the cabinet to force Churchill to seek peace terms with Hitler just as Dunkirk began, but Churchill saw it coming and beat him to the punch by a matter of hours with a speech to the cabinet that established his policy of total resistance. Dunkirk was as successful as it could be, the British hung on by their fingernails, the rest is history. But if Halifax took the PM offer, or if Churchill's government lasted all of two and a half weeks before he had to resign after Halifax hijacked the cabinet and stirred an already rising panic, Halifax would have negotiated. Hitler wanted Britain as an economic (and perhaps even direct military) ally against Russia much more than he wanted to march into London, I think both he and Halifax would have accepted "internment" of most of the RN and RAF's equipment in occupied France (which Hitler would then steal, that being understood by both but unstated for political reasons), mild reparations and advantageous but not disastrous trade terms (which Hitler would unilaterally change once Britain was largely disarmed) and the right to build a colonial empire hither and yon. Britain wouldn't have to be invaded or occupied, just being disarmed and neutral would add many, many years to the war. Russia is much more likely to have fallen, at a minimum FDR has to adopt a Japan first policy since it would be the better part of a decade before we could hope for a trans-Atlantic D-Day, quite possibly we avoid war with Nazi Europe entirely until both sides have nukes and we settle into a cold war. View Quote |
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The US was pretty much unscathed by the war. You only lost 400,000 people,which as a percentage of the population was near nothing.Germany took more losses at Stalingrad alone than you absorbed in the entire war,on all fronts, but I don't think that's something Americans appreciate. View Quote Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. |
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I think the B-36 had a higher ceiling than any Japanese fighters at 42,000 feet officially, unofficially 50k+. The B-29's ceiling was much lower at 32K, and was 50-60 mph slower, and when doing high altitude bombing the Japanese couldn't manage very many interceptions on them. I think the B-36 almost completely out ranges their flak as well. So if you stuck with high altitude it doesn't matter, they'd be taking little or no damage. View Quote In reality the B36 was conceived as a bomber that could launch from a base in the USA and fly over Germany (or the Soviet Union) and return which would give it plenty of time to get to altitude. But hey - as the last piston powered strategic bomber it made a statement. |
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More atom bombs by then How does the war go on? Do we beat Germany and then get into a fight with Russia over the treasure and to stomp out communism? View Quote 2) Patton survives his accident/assassination; goes rogue, starts war against Soviets. We take the place of Germany, stalling out in Eastern Europe during winter to massive casualties. Likely nuclear exchange doesn't change things much, but destroys anything of value in Russia and/or Eastern Europe. We withdraw to current EU bounds & sue for peace, right up against a hostile nation that obtains nukes shortly after. Future conflicts from here on typically involve nuclear exchanges, there is no Cold War. I don't think any of the sovereign governments involved in WWII would survive either scenario, and would collapse into revolution and a global dark age. I think events chose the best path possible for mankind. |
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Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. View Quote D-Day fails/never occurs. Maybe the US decides to let the Russians bleed Germany dry, with continued aid, but no additional fronts created. After they take Berlin, the rest of the allies watch in astonishment as Russia pushes all the way through France and the Balkans. They hold at the Italian border. German prototypes and researchers make hasty retreats to England and treaties with the Allies after Hitler dies. The Pacific front stagnates as Japan retreats to their home islands and goes internal to defend against the Soviets. The allies in the Pacific see massive troop and material cuts to support the upcoming effort in Europe. This allows us to see Russia and the Allies get the same amount of German intel that they did in reality, and allow it to develop their own technology. So then, we do get B-29s and B-36s in the European theater, so Moscow can be bombed/nuked. |
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Horten HO 229 seems like it had the potential to be bad news for the allies... https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/359475/F089BA5E-9D75-4452-BDE0-6B7DF0C5C2DB_jpeg-1191310.JPG View Quote Totes stylish, though; even had a designer flight mask by Hugo Boss |
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This. there's a reason no practical flying wings existed until after the computer age, aka fly by wire... Flying wings are good at lifting heavy loads, but are very unstable in certain flight regimes. Would not have been too much of a threat in a fight. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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That Horten is very cool but with no tail and no fly by wire I doubt it would have been controlable. there's a reason no practical flying wings existed until after the computer age, aka fly by wire... Flying wings are good at lifting heavy loads, but are very unstable in certain flight regimes. Would not have been too much of a threat in a fight. |
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Quoted: Americans tend to believe they defeated Nazi Germany on their own, and forget that 9 out of every 10 casualties in the European theater were on the German-Soviet front. Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. View Quote |
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Yes, but were it not for the US, Europe would have been "liberated" by the USSR. Germany, France, Italy and everything in between would be communist shitholes. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: Americans tend to believe they defeated Nazi Germany on their own, and forget that 9 out of every 10 casualties in the European theater were on the German-Soviet front. Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. |
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Luft 46 secret weapons are far more interesting to speculate. Swarms of cheap He-162 would have been useful if they had trained pilots in them. https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/21072salamander/top700.jpg View Quote |
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That looks like some crap Ivan threw together in his basement; no way German leadership gives something ugly the go-ahead! View Quote |
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Eccept that it was over weight, underpowered steaming garbage. View Quote The thing is,it likely would not have even been designed or constructed as it were if the war situation was such that it was leading into 1947. It's rather like "what if they had built He-162s in 1943?",well they could have didn't want/feel the need to rush such a program so it leads to questions like "why would they have built it with the proper glue in 1943 when they weren't into wanting to build such a cheap fighter at all". The same is true of small arms. If the war dragged out another couple years then yes it's possible that things like night vision on assault rifles,RPGs and air to air missiles and ATGMs would have been common or it's possible that Germany would have kept on turning out Panzer IV based things and Messerschmitts at 1943 production rates,depending upon why. |
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Americans tend to believe they defeated Nazi Germany on their own, and forget that 9 out of every 10 casualties in the European theater were on the German-Soviet front. Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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The US was pretty much unscathed by the war. You only lost 400,000 people,which as a percentage of the population was near nothing.Germany took more losses at Stalingrad alone than you absorbed in the entire war,on all fronts, but I don't think that's something Americans appreciate. Not to make light of the US military in the ETO, but the purpose of the D-Day invasion was to (1) tie down German resources that couldn't be used to slow down the Red Army's defeat of the Wehrmact, and (2) seize as much European soil as they could so the Red Army didn't throw out previous pacts and push all the way to the English Channel. |
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The war with Japan was essentially over. The choice was developing to destroy from the air or starve out the home islands. A hot war continuing in Europe would likely have meant resources would not be available for an invasion (and still likely unnecessary). All the outlying areas were being mopped up. The allies were quickly establishing full air and sea control. The USSR would have had the decision to continue in western Europe or clear up their ambitions in the East. Japan was not an existential threat to the Russians - but the stain of the Russo-Japanese War ate at the Russian psyche (yes, they were the USSR but Russian Imperial inadequacies, then as now, were on their minds). They were poised to sweep into the home islands from the north. Hokkaido, at least would have been invaded - at some great cost. I'd expect they'd have reinforced "Outer Manchuria" (so to speak) and swept into "Inner Manchuria" and ended up with taking the Korean Peninsula, etc. That's assuming, like with the US, etc., that resources were available as opposed to being tied up in Europe.
The USSR moving on Japan in China would have brought them in conflict with the Chinese. Another traditional enemy. That might have allowed them to exploit the conflict between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese in some ways or chewed them up in a "land war in Asia." The war in Europe sucked up most of the attention and resources from the "Empires" in Asia. Russia and China at war might have taken away some of the resources the "communist" revolutionaries had but the Empires were done. Air power had settled the battleship question. Just as jets were replacing prop fighters, etc, the vulnerability of ships to aircraft was becoming pretty obvious. Carriers were needed in the Pacific, the Atlantic was a chokepoint. Dumb bombs were still in use but direct attack was becoming extremely costly. Radar controlled AA and escort aircraft were making it difficult to get to high value targets. Stand-off weapons, like torpedoes and especially guided bombs/powered missiles, air to surface and surface to surface were on the technological horizon. Kamikaze attacks showed that. |
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Quoted: At 40,000 to 58,000 ft, nothing is easy to shoot down, unless you are using a modern missile. Turbo-recips have some distinct advantages at altitude over jets and turbo-props, especially in that era. Plus, the defensive armament on the early B36's was insane (combination of .50 cal and 37mm). View Quote |
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But Bodenplatte wiped out a lot of the fighter pilot reserve Galland was carefully nursing. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Luft 46 secret weapons are far more interesting to speculate. Swarms of cheap He-162 would have been useful if they had trained pilots in them. https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/21072salamander/top700.jpg USSR drops out or defeated in the east. Battle in the Ardennes ends differently Just an alternate universe exercise. |
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Quoted: The B36 was a massive lumbering AC and would have made an easy target I think. View Quote Except that German and Japanese aircraft wouldn't have been able to reach it and if they could, the B36 would have been able to out-maneuver them. Russians found that out after the war when they tried to shoot down our RB-36's. The B-36 had a much higher service ceiling than fighters of the same era and those that could reach it couldn't maneuver worth a darn. B-36 could out-maneuver them because of it's large wingspan. Or so I read..... |
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Quoted: There was a guy in here a couple weeks ago attempting to make fun of me,asking what the hell Operation Bagration was. The largest Allied offensive of WWII and he had legitimately no idea what it was. View Quote |
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The B36 was a massive lumbering AC and would have made an easy target I think. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
The B36 was a massive lumbering AC and would have made an easy target I think. |
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Quoted: This ^^^^^. No more Mausers, production turned to assault rifles firing the 8mm Kurz. T20's would have to be pushed to catch up. STG's in the hands of troops would have stalled the Russian push, and given us fits with every Wehrmacht soldier capable of full auto fire. Back up the timeline, have Moscow fall, and it starts getting higher possibilities. Hitler frees the occupied countries to reestablish their own governments but not completely subservient and the divisions about face to set up defenses on the Channel coast which are 3X more extensive with brigade level QRF's to meet the Allies on the beaches. If DDay fails we have to nuke Berlin. Like the first Tokyo raid, those guys aren't coming back, and it's not voluntary. The sticking point is whether London gets nuked first. With London nuked the Germans cross the channel bring the war to England on their soil. Not the first time. The German jets would decimate the Spitfires and make Mustangs look downright commuter. Controlling the Channel on BOTH sides and embargoing the English to starve, while looting them and sending all the appropriate genetic selectees back, if they can get by for 20 years then you have another Aryan Army massed, trained, and poised for further conquest. That makes 1965 a completely different adventure with the German War machine moving to the Mexican border. Nukes would have been deployed anyway. No getting around it. View Quote Even if they did, if you delivered a complete working Nagasaki bomb to Germany along with detailed drawings and technical manuals translated to German - they had NO means to deliver the thing to a target. |
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Patton wanted to conscript what was left of the German military and crush the USSR while it was weakened. I think he was right. Ike and Truman let Stalin get away with inhumane shit after the war. |
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Horten HO 229 seems like it had the potential to be bad news for the allies... https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/359475/F089BA5E-9D75-4452-BDE0-6B7DF0C5C2DB_jpeg-1191310.JPG View Quote |
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Patton was right. But the loss of life would have been even more staggering. View Quote |
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Definitely would have seen MIDWAY's in service. MIDWAY commissioned right before the war ended and she and possibly FDR would have seen service. Would have seem more ESSEX's complete and commission as well. DES MOINES class cruisers might have entered service and seen combat as well. Lots of cool stuff would have been used. More use of radio guided bombs as well.
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Quoted: Not really, no. Up north of 50,000 feet, it could easily out-maneuver fighters. View Quote |
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We might have gotten a Montana class battleship or two had the war gone longer. German type XXI submarines would have created new problems in the Atlantic too. View Quote |
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Quoted: There is no way Germany gets nukes. Even if they did, if you delivered a complete working Nagasaki bomb to Germany along with detailed drawings and technical manuals translated to German - they had NO means to deliver the thing to a target. View Quote |
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Quoted: Americans tend to believe they defeated Nazi Germany on their own, and forget that 9 out of every 10 casualties in the European theater were on the German-Soviet front. View Quote 1. If Stalin wasn't playing footsie with Hitler, there would not have BEEN a WWII. 2. Almost as many Russians were killed by Stalin's own men in WWII as by the Germans - roughly 18 million vs. 20 million. 3. Hard to play the victim while you are trying to seize Finland. 4. Purge all your experienced officers in 1937-38? Your army is gonna suck and take losses in following decade. 5. Stalin refused, with a few exceptions, to allow Allied air to operate from Russian territory. [Airplane] Ruskie don't want no help? Ruskie don't GET no help ...[/Airplane] 6. Land combat phase, Russian Front - 22 June 1941 - 4 May, 1945. Roughly 46 months. Land combat phase, D-Day to surrender 6 June 1944 - 4 May, 1945. Roughly 11 months. Russians SHOULD HAVE killed a lot more Germans - they were at it 4 times as long, and they were coming to them, so they were in defense. In contrast - ALL American land operations against the Germans were offensive operations, excepting the Bulge and some other counter-attacks. |
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There weren't any conventional aircraft that could do much maneuvering at flight level 500 or above either way because of how thin the air is and the fact that airplanes can only fly and maneuver based on pressure differences above and below wing and flight control surfaces. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: Not really, no. Up north of 50,000 feet, it could easily out-maneuver fighters. |
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Hitler gives permission to Rommel to stage his armored divisions wherever Rommel wants. Rommel believes Normandy is the real invasion site and doesn't fall for the Pas De Calais deception plan. D-Day invasion is thrown back into the water. Interesting piece of history: few people know that Ike planned for this and had his "we failed" message already written. https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2012/06/dday.jpg View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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What pushes the war to 46/47? D-Day gets pushed back and they can’t reInvade anytime soon? Interesting piece of history: few people know that Ike planned for this and had his "we failed" message already written. https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2012/06/dday.jpg |
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Well, port cities. U-boat delivers a bomb with a midget sub built around it, or sacrifice the u-boat if necessary. There was a thread the other day about an Italian plan to run a midget sub up into New York harbor so that frogmen could attach limpet mines to shipping. They had the midget subs built and were training, sounds like it had a chance, but it got derailed when the carrier sub was sunk. View Quote |
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Quoted: Try and explain to the American people, indeed the entire world, how we decided to fight the Soviets in 1945. Stalin had been doing inhumane shit for about as long as he was Stalin. View Quote |
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Except - you are wrong. Featherwight B-36s operated above 55,000 feet sometimes. Look at the wing - its huge. Fighters trying to maneuver with it would stall out. We know these because they tried. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Quoted: Not really, no. Up north of 50,000 feet, it could easily out-maneuver fighters. Avro Vulcan pilots also did well against F15s later on in history in similar exercises. |
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Quoted: Except - you are wrong. Featherwieght B-36s operated above 55,000 feet sometimes. Look at the wing - its huge. Fighters trying to maneuver with it would stall out. We know these because they tried. View Quote Look, bottom line is that a massive slow target like the the B36 is impractical at any altitude and that may be why it was never used in actual combat. The B52 was a deal breaker though and did everything the B36 tried to do. |
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