Slitherine

OK, let me wax megalomaniac...
The Axis lost the war because they attacked the two sleeping giants--the USA and Russia. At the same time! They were eventually overwhelmed by force of industry.
What strategy by the Axis powers could have led to victory ( a DV!)?
I think keeping the USA (the "arsenal of democracy") out of the war longer (Hitler surprisingly declared war on the USA in December 1941, in support of his Axis ally Japan) would have been critical.
I think a successful strategy would have been to focus all efforts by Germany and Italy in 1941 on North Africa, Suez, the Middle East (oil!!) up to the border with Russia and locking out the Mediterranean. This would have been the first phase.
The second phase would have comprised a simultaneous** attack in 1942 on Russia from the west and south (Caucasus) teamed with an attack from the east by Japan! There would have been a concerted effort to delay involvement by the USA as long as possible until after Russia fell.
A third phase or one concomitant with the second phase would have been growing submarine bases along the Atlantic to lock out Great Britain.
Only then would the war proceed across oceans...to Great Britain...then to the USA from the east by Germany and the west by Japan.

My understanding is that Germany was approaching a fiscal crisis and that made compelled Hitler to start the war a few years earlier than he had promised Admiral Raeder. Once they did that, I think their only chance would have been to make use of Ukrainian manpower… which could not have happened under nazi ideology. It would have required treating them better than the USSR did to win them over.

Declaring war on the US didn’t help, nor letting Göring handle Dunkirk, waiting so long to let Speer overhaul German industry, repeating the WWI mistake of allying itself to relatively weak European countries… but it was always going to be a long shot.

wargovichr wrote: Strategy--tactical to strategic--is critical in winning any battle or war. As a couch potato General I got to thinking.
Here is my dozen errors in WWII German war strategy?

As since latest the American Civil War war results where more or less predicted by economy, there was exactly one German strategy mistake - to have started the war. Everything else would have a very minor impact on war result and some of your mentions are not even mistakes, just the opposite (Germany never had the resources to spare for an efficient strategic bomber arm e.g.).

If you are stupid enough to unnecessarily and without any reason open war against more or less everybody else, single failures after get really, really moot. Without the unprofessional and stupid Soviet military and the overly cautious Anglo American one the war would have been even shorter.

Regards,
Thorsten

Starting the battle at Stalingrad.

If I was in charge of the Eastern Front, I would have faked an attack in the South, maybe as far as Voronezh and Rostov, and then, once the Soviets had moved the army to deal with AGS, unleashed a secret army (reinforced AGC) towards Moscow.

- BNC

*AGS stands for Army Group South, AGC for Army Group Centre

Since the english espionage could decode pretty much all the german communication: Nice try !

The Soviets didn't actually need any British decodings, they had their own intelligence network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_spy_ring So even if the Enigma messages hadn't been decyphered the Soviets would still have had enough info to know what was up.

The Battle of the Bulge (almost) worked in spite of enigma having been cracked - so it was still possible.

- BNC

ThvN wrote:The Soviets didn't actually need any British decodings, they had their own intelligence network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_spy_ring So even if the Enigma messages hadn't been decyphered the Soviets would still have had enough info to know what was up.

Right. That makes it even more of a mystery - how the hell did Germany survive for such an extended time? The allies had everything - better production, more men, more material, knowledge of enemy movement ...

Regards,
Thorsten

- Latterly an obsession with increasingly heavy armour and variants in limited numbers as opposed to tried and tested armour in greater quantities.
- Hitler interfering at a tactical level miles from a front, i.e. frequently refusing to to heed advice from experienced generals from the field who knew better.
- Making a deal with Russia over Poland.
- Invading Russia and its timing of Late June.
- Delay of ME262 production (prototyped 1941).

ThorHa wrote:
Right. That makes it even more of a mystery - how the hell did Germany survive for such an extended time? The allies had everything - better production, more men, more material, knowledge of enemy movement ...

Regards,
Thorsten

The most apparent answer to me would be that The Third Reich was probably able to survive so long because they were willing to stoop to levels of inhumanity most of the rest of us weren't. The Allies maybe could have ended the war in 1939 had the French continued their drive into the Ruhr while the bulk of the German army was fighting in Poland. But the prospect of a bloody war was something the Allies wanted terribly to avoid early on, perhaps to the point of denial. (Stalin was very concerned not to show any bad will toward Hitler even as the Germans were preparing for Barbarossa, and therefore refused to make adequate preparations) The Nazis could care less about whatever death and destruction another war would bring.

Secondly, the Third Reich was clearly defeated by 1943 and any reasonable people would have sued for peace rather than see their homeland systematically destroyed to the last straw. Hitler demanded on many occasions that his own soldiers fight to the death instead of retreat or surrender which could have saved a few lives. The Nazis stalled the war for as long as they could thanks to the apparent willingness of many young German men to throw their lives away in the name of such lofty ideals as "revenge" for WW1, exterminating "sub-humans" and creating new lands for Germans to colonize. The Western Allies probably could have more recklessly driven to Berlin faster had we treated the lives of our soldiers with total disregard. The Soviets did manage to recover and reconstitute their army despite the fact that the bulk of the German war effort after 1941 was put into destroying their country. After Kursk, the Soviet advance quickened at a relatively great pace probably in part due to the fact that Stalin didn't much care about the lives of his people either.

I just come here for some mindless computer gaming fun. Of course sometimes ugly truths about war tend to pop their head up unavoidably now and again. So we need to remind ourselves that this is just trivial fun and (hopefully) nothing more than that. But since the question was asked above, that would seem to me to be the best answer.

ThorHa wrote:
Right. That makes it even more of a mystery - how the hell did Germany survive for such an extended time? The allies had everything - better production, more men, more material, knowledge of enemy movement ...

Regards,
Thorsten

2 words: Hitler Youth. The Germans were willing to put 9-year olds on the front to defend the country. If they had used men only (lets say 16+), they probably would have fallen by Christmas 1944.

- BNC

I believe they also had a lot of other foreign nationals from defeated countries (and other allies/volunteers) in their armies as well. A perfect example of this is Army Group Narwa. Incredible defense against the odds by a very multinational group of soldiers (although they were still forced to retreat).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Narva_(1944)
Note the approximately 7:1 casualties - particularly incredible given the stage of the war and what they were facing.
The following Battle of Tanenburg Line was even more incredible - 17:1 casualties!

@GaryChildress:

Nice explanation, does not fit to the facts unfortunately. The loss rates of the German army was always lower than the one of its enemies. West or east front, attack or defense the same picture, although brutality coupled with inefficiency of the Red forces leadership made the disparity much higher.

Regards,
Thorsten

The Germans did so well early on because of the element of surprise, deception, overwhelming numbers (except for France '40 where they had a bigger air force than the Allies), better trained and experienced troops, more modern equipment, the combined arms tactic, the blitzkrieg strategy, tanks used as panzer divisions, subs in wolf packs, better radio/signals communication, better generalship, better small unit independent command, etc., etc.
The HUGE errors came when Hitler decided to invade Russia AND declared war on the USA. The Germans awoke the sleeping giants who with survival of hard knocks, experience, superior industrial production, and time rose to crush the enemy.
It seemed the daring gambles by Hitler were paying off early on, then his lust for expansion, megalomania and miscalculation led to a turning point in the war and Germany began losing. Hitler, by mid-war became broken mentally and physically, compounding bad decision after bad decision, thankfully accelerating the end of the war.
Perhaps the "Mediterranean Strategy" (see "How Hitler Could Have Won World War II," by Bevin Alexander, [2000]) where the entire Mediterranean was captured and sealed off, the Middle East oil was seized, The British empire broken, etc.), might have worked but that implies sane leadership, not attacking Russia, Japan not attacking the US, Germany not declaring war on the US, etc.).
Someone mentioned the atom bomb. Of course, one of the first big mistakes was Germany expelling the German-Jewish scientists.
Some say Hitler started the war too early, rushing head long, perhaps somehow sensing a failing physicality and impending early mortality (?)
A LOT of coulda, shoulda, wouldas!

ThorHa wrote:@GaryChildress:

Nice explanation, does not fit to the facts unfortunately. The loss rates of the German army was always lower than the one of its enemies. West or east front, attack or defense the same picture, although brutality coupled with inefficiency of the Red forces leadership made the disparity much higher.

Regards,
Thorsten

Hi Thorsten,

You make a very good point. Sticking strictly to observable evidence, the German army performed very well in WW2 regardless of the odds and regardless of Hitler's interference. Had the German army been completely incompetent the war could conceivably have been over in the first week. So it's probably very fair to say that the relative military competence of many officers and men in the German army played a very significant role in the ability of the Nazis to continue the war for as long as they did. Introducing concepts of moral responsibility and moral obligation tends to add a great deal of complexity in the interpretation of events and those are certainly not concepts which can be easily measured or reconciled into facts and statistics. In the end, I suppose what happens, happens. If it can't be measured then maybe it can't cause anything.

There's a passing comment in Rommel's biography in which the (British) biographer adds "fortunately for us" after commenting on the political interference in military strategy.

Political interference in military strategy is not new. Churchill's book on the First World War pretty much describes the Gallipoli campaign as a near-guaranteed success ruined by political interference. True this is one good idea spoiled by an egocentric fool, rather than a whole series of bad ideas based on an increasingly bizarre world view, aggravated by spoiling the limited chances of any kind of success by micromanagement.

And yes, I know Churchill had an interest in promoting Gallipoli as a potentially low risk high gain option, but he does paint a very persuasive argument in favour, that at least looks like it would have worked if done when planned.

I am a big fan of Churchill, although German. But Gallipoli was borderline: A sound strategy in principle but built on abilities which hardly existed at that time - close cooperation between navy and army in an amphibious operation. It failed, although barely, but according what I read more in depth about this adventure the failure was more due to simple everyday facts. Poor forces coordination and the reluctance of the Navy to engage its obsolete old ships of the line more decisevily in the face of mines and subs.

In other words - Churchill tried a daring and if successful war changing adventure, unfortunately not taking into full account the limitations of available forces and doctrines at that time. By the way - he repeated the same mistake in the North African and Italian theatres in WW II .

Regards,
Thorsten Haupts

Churchill describes the Gallipoli plan as a flanking move around the entire entrenched West of Europe. The concept of taking out the forts using essentially obsolete ships (so ship losses would have minimal impact on the combat fleet), attacking before the Turkish forces could organise effective defences under naval bombardment from the obsolete ships, with another few divisions to bring in once the beachhead had been established, (which the Western front would have hardly noticed) and bringing in potentially 250,000 Greek troops into the combat was quite reasonable.

As to whether it could have been made to work, we will never know because the landing ships and supplies were delayed (thus delaying the landings for enough time to allow substantial improvement in the defences), the naval units were pulled out due to concerns over mine losses when (by some records) there were probably only around four mines left (hence forts remained and could be rebuilt and the supporting naval bombardment was compromised), when supporting divisions were held back and political issues led to a choice between having support from 250,000 Greek troops subject to a successful landing vs the entire Russian army tying up a whole pile of German troops in the east - etc etc

On the other hand, as ThorHa rightly points out, he made other mistakes after this. And while Churchill was a great writer and makes a very convincing case for his plan, he was also a skilled politician and may just have been arguing how his great idea was never implemented properly due to the folly of others, rather than admitting that it was a great idea that would not have worked.

One of the joys of history is to hear a good argument in favour of both sides - crazy idea or a failed stroke of genius.