Could the Axis have won?

[Montmorency]

AI.

[Brenus]

The problem with the “what if” is the “if”: Hitler had to attack France when he did, as France was rearming fast, and new material was coming (especially planes) and the French tanks were better. Few months more, and Gamelin would have been in pension, and nobody could say if a new Head of Allies Forces would have done…
There are a lot of “if” in your first assessment. The entire plan was based on the “Blitz Krieg”. This war failed when the Red Army wasn’t destroyed at the borders. Then Germany had no weapons for a strategic war (no Strategic Bombing Command). Hitler gambled and lost, as shown by the lack of winter clothing in 1941… The first major German defeat is in front of Moscow in 1941. German’s campaigns after 1941 was just a try to compensate a failure.

“so a later assault would have been met by stronger soviet forces.”: The Soviet were stronger than the Nazi. The problem was the lack of competent military leaders thanks to Stalin paranoia and the purges. Perhaps the Germans would have met more T 34, but the counter-offensive would have been still un-coordinated, and Russian men sacrificed in vain.

About the Pacific War, I think the Japanese were at the limit of their operational capacities in attacking Midway, and that why they failed. How, could they have cut Australia from USA? The Germans tried it with U-boot and nearly succeeded for few months, but, then, they failed.

[Franconicus]

Well, what were the alternatives?

Not attacking Poland, of course. Well, then the Drittes Reich would have been bankrupt (not too bad allternative).

The invasion of Scandinavia and France went pretty well. Dunkerque could have been better, though.
I think Hitler had a little chance then to end the war. We all know that Churchill's Britain was not willing to give in, but I always wondered what would have happaned if Germany offered peace at relatively good terms to France and Poland. Taking Elsac-Lorraine and Danzig to the Reich, but leaving the rest. Making a military political and economic alliance with Poland, the BeNeLux, Norway, Sweden and France. Germany would have been the leading nation on the continent. What reason would Britain have had to go on fighting? What reasion the USA to join the war. Hitler could have waited some years and then invading Russia.

The other chance was the submarine war. With a focus on this weapon and w/o that Enigma stuff, Germany would have a chance to cut off the British Islannds and to force Britain to peace. Maybe not a lasting one, but at least a chance.

I do not believe in anything else. Why should Germany have won the war, if it was able to take seize Suez? It would have been some trouble for Britain to loose the swa route throught th Med, but Germany would not have had the resources to invade Arabia or even India.
Moscow? Even the fall of Moscow would not have ended the war against the Soviets.

[Kocmoc]

Well, wait.

Brenus is right in most points.

Let me add a few.

Judet was a great Problem, same as Göbbels. Both didnt thought about a long war and that was the reason for not having strategic bomber.
Stuka everywhere, they even tried to get the JU-88 to work as Sturzkampfbomber.

Back to the "IF".

After beating france, many people did look at the "map" and probably thought: "wow, now the axis have won…"

In the first place, the Masterplan was to not get france or UK involved into the war. Hitler wanted to invade poland and than go for russia.
Its also worth to mention, that the war wasnt planned to start 39, back in 1935/36 the plan was, to start war around 41/43.

IF, france and UK would have stand out of the war, Hitler would had just run east, full force. If he would have won it is still questionable,
but it would have been a much harder fight with a lot more troops and material.

Now, after beating france, there was 2 ways to continue the war:

1. "Fall Gelb" - invading england. There are documents out from the english war achieve, that the UK fleet wouldnt be able to stop the invasion.
If Hitler would had invaded england there would have been a good chance (much better than "barbarossa") to win it.

The problem was the "air war above england", one real problem was the range of the bf109. Today many people tend to explain the heavy losses of the
german airforce with the "Radar" in south england. If you consider, that in late days of the air war, most radarstations had serious problems to get the
information about planes incoming to the english airports, I say that 10 min warning got reduced to 2 min or less.
So the real problem was the short range of the 109, which had fuel for about 10-15 min airfight or to defend german bomber.

2. "barbarossa". Today we know in most cases, what happened and what the plan was. The german blitz didnt work, that for sure.
Not much to add, the early days went good, than the already mentioned t34 hit the field and just rolled over the pz4 and stug3 and all the lower tier tanks.
The real deal was the very bad leadingstructur the russians had at that time, they had a "polit-based" leadership in the early days, after stalin killed 90% of all officer (not himself ofc ;) ).

At stalingrad things changed, the "politgarde" got replaced and the real boys took over.



Rommel. In short words. Rommel had a lot of success determined by the amount of supplies reached northafrica.
The real deal was the spies germany had, many, if not all, countries in north africa did like the germans. They was almost always advanced in knowledge of the allied troops.
Till the day of the US boys arrived, rommel would have had a real good chance to crack it up.

Here comes malta into place, since italien fucked it up a few times, the german paratroops had to take kreta instead of malta.
"IF", they would have taken malta, and if you look at the battle of kreta, you know, they would had taken malta for sure, the whole supply route would have been free.
This one thing is almost sure, malta = airsupport = no habor for the english fleet = supply for rommel = almost no supply for UK = suez canal!

…. enough for today

[Papewaio]

Crete was a strategic victory, but a hard learned lesson for the Germans. How many times did Germany use paratroops using parachutes post Crete?

Malta was arguably better prepped and ready so the casualties potentially would have been even worse.

North Africa was originally played brilliantly as a logistical campaign against the Axis/Germans. Germany probably would have won if they had Malta. But they probably would have to accept losing a lot of their paratroops to have done so.

[Kocmoc]

Crete was a strategic victory, but a hard learned lesson for the Germans. How many times did Germany use paratroops using parachutes post Crete?

Malta was arguably better prepped and ready so the casualties potentially would have been even worse.

North Africa was originally played brilliantly as a logistical campaign against the Axis/Germans. Germany probably would have won if they had Malta. But they probably would have to accept losing a lot of their paratroops to have done so.

Correct. As i mentioned in my post, Im not going to get into detail.
German paratroops got used a few times, but only one big attack, that should be malta in the first place, but in the end it was crete.
After that they losses made Hitler decide to not use these elite troops again in such a way.

I just pointed out, that they probably had won malta as well, which would have changed the war in north africa for sure.
Especially if you consider the fact, that with the airport on malta the germany would had a huge range advance.

The losses of ships by plane attacks was huge, so the strategic worth of malta was a lot higher than crete.


There were tons of problems, if you consider the amount of tanks the russian did produce, the millions of soldiers.
The USA with a hardcore amount of industry power. The japans and the german could probably do a lot things better, the result, the end would have been the same.

The question should not be in which certain region or what attack first.
The question should be, how to keep the USA out of the war?

There are tons of interesting questions out there. Let me mention one of them, how could it be, that the t34 can get on the battlefield and the germans didnt really had an answer ready? How could it happen, that the "german blitz" went from an advanced army towards an reactive army?


In germany we have to words, "Breitenrüstung" and "Tiefenrüstung", germany choose the "Breitenrüstung" this means, a lot of war-producer did produce weapons in their "own" caliber, their own ammunition. This was made for a short war, with one border. The problem is a logistic problem. the longer a war takes, the harder it is, to distribute
all the different ammunition to the different warplaces. Its a cheap and very quick way to produce a lot of war material in a short time.

The "Tiefenrüstung" is the better way, considering you going for a longer war on different places. You have very few standards, you go with one or 2 caliber. This way the logistic have a quite easy job. "there are 400 tanks in malta, give them 50 shots each"…. "alright, they need both kind of ammunition, the 76er and the 88er"… " okay, I send them 20k shot of each of it"…. DONE!

In Germany, almost each tankversion had different ammounition, you couldnt work like this. There are books out, which look only at the logistics of wars. You can read, that in the first 2 years, while the range of the front wasnt too far away, the logistic was fine. The rate of the correct sent packages was around 85%.
In the 1941 and 1942, the rate of correct sent packages dropped to 60%. You have to consider that in most cases always 10-20% of the package was not usable, since the logistics ordered standard base packages.

This was a huge problem, especially vs. the russians.



To the general idea of these questions.

Im a german, I dont want to imagine an outcome, where the axis would have won. I also dont want to think about a way, where the axis would have fight better/longer.
I exactly know where the two A-bombs would have been dropped. Now call me selfish, but yes, at this point Im selfish as hell. Better someone else, than me, my family or my country.

[Brenus]

@ Komoc. I never though of it. All these people arguing about more V2, more Me 262, more Tigers (ignoring the fact that Germany in 1945 had a shortage of soldiers) would have perhaps change the winds of victory. This would have left to the Allies (if potential German's Victory) to only one option: not "miracle" potential weapons but the A bombs...