The "Wars of the Past" Thread

[Hobgoblin]

I would imagine its possible to see several superpowers going to war over Mid Eastern oil. As demand for oil increases (and our economies are tied to cheap oil) while supply stagnates, the powers will want to control what is still available.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Today is the 68th anniversary of Operation Tiger, the disastrous rehearsal for the Normandy beach landings. And when I say "disastrous" I mean more GIs died in this rehearsal than died six weeks later at the actual Utah beach landing. It practically defines FUBAR. It came to light a few years ago after being kept hush-hush for decades. If you don't know the story of Operation Tiger then this is a must-read/listen.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/28/151590212/operation-tiger-d-days-disastrous-rehearsal?sc=fb&cc=fp

 

[8wid]

Is anyone familiar with Generalplan Ost? It was the German post-war plans for annexing Eastern Europe and the former western Soviet Union to make room for German colonization. Although it would have required the extermination of all of Europe's 9 million Jews and an additional 45 million Slavic and Russian peoples to have accomplish this. Quite the nightmare world, however the Soviets and Chinese eventually killed more than this would have. Can you imagine the Nazis having access to nuclear weapons and radioactive devices trying to conduct mass killings. It's disturbing to think of the prospects.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Yes, the Germans were quite ambitious. But that was part of their problem.

I would also say that they were cursed by beginners' luck in the West, with France. It made them arrogant. Which contributed to their downfall in Russia, when the Soviets gave them a long overdue reality check.

And that was that for the genocidal German pipe dream.

 

[8wid]

^I have to agree the Germans would never have one World War II even if the Americans had never gotten involved. The Germans could not cross the English Channel and successfully invade Britain or defeat the Royal Air Force. The Soviet Union had enough resources of its own that just by invading from eastern Europe, they still could have marched on Berlin and killed Hitler. The Germans would have had to pull troops from the western front to halt the Russian advance, but by 1948 the war would have gone badly for Germany and Europe with the exception of Britain and Ireland would have been under the control of a communist system. The Soviet Union was willing to march into Italy and Spain to to remove fascist dictators like Hitler from power and he would not give up an opportunity to install communist governments in western Europe after the war.

 

[Venom75]

I think Germany could've won the war if they would have just stayed out of Russia and North Africa(or at least wait untill Britain was beaten),and just focused on England. The English,I believe,would've eventually been defeated.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Hitler seemed to have known nothing about the Eastern front during the First World War. He had been stationed in the West and that's all he knew. When it came time to invade the Soviet Union, the German army made a direct assault. The Imperial German army had tried that 30 years earlier and it got them nowhere, just as it did in the 1940s.

I wonder what would have happened if Hitler had followed his generals advice and invaded Russia from the south, through Turkey and the Middle East. He would have captured the Russian oil fields and made a surprise attack through Georgia.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I don't see how Germany could have taken England. Not without being able to establish air or naval supremacy.

And even if they did somehow pull that off, they would be fighting the English on their home turf. Which would mean that the British could actually use all their ground forces, including armor.

And then there's Scotland... Just Scotland.

It just wasn't going to happen.

 

[Hobgoblin]

With all due respect for the Scots, would they really have been such a threat to the Germans, had they successfully invaded Britain?

 

[Thundercrack85]

The Scots would fight to the last man. There would be a rifle behind every rock. Whole country would be covered in blood.

Like invading Bizzaro France.

 

[Hobgoblin]

But Scotland is a much smaller piece of land with a much smaller population than the Soviet Union and look at all the people that the Germans killed there.

 

[Thundercrack85]

But Scotland is a much smaller piece of land with a much smaller population than the Soviet Union and look at all the people that the Germans killed there.

And look at how many Germans died. 6 million?

With invading Scotland, you have all the problems of invading England (i.e. you have to invade England), and then some. Namely: worse terrain, harsher winters, less cover, the highlands in general. Oh and you have to fight Scots. In Scotland.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Hitler's chances were entirely slim with the entirety of Operation Sea Lion, had it been initiated. Not with only the Reich's navy and air force anyhow (hence why Britain destroyed the French fleet). Once he opened the war up on two fronts, then he had no chance.

But like Hobgoblin said, he could have had better success with an invasion of the USSR, had he actually been in charge. Although Hitler carried himself with an undeniable swagger, because everything he touched turned to gold. People usually forget, he was actually, a very diabolically clever man. Had he actually been in charge during the invasion on the Eastern Front, he could have seen more success. As pointed out reserves and whatnot. Hell, even managing the largest invasion in history, the Nazis got pretty far, had they began in May as initially intended, there is the very real chance they could have conquered the country. They couldn't have held it for long, a year at the very most, but still, in that time, the USSR would have been decimated and disunited without a totalitarian/autocratic they had been accustomed to for centuries.

Then, he'd have been nigh unstoppable for the United Kingdom. It'd have been a much tougher fight for Britain and America though, that's for sure.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Hitler's chances were entirely slim with the entirety of Operation Sea Lion, had it been initiated. Not with only the Reich's navy and air force anyhow (hence why Britain destroyed the French fleet). Once he opened the war up on two fronts, then he had no chance.

But like Hobgoblin said, he could have had better success with an invasion of the USSR, had he actually been in charge. Although Hitler carried himself with an undeniable swagger, because everything he touched turned to gold. People usually forget, he was actually, a very diabolically clever man. Had he actually been in charge during the invasion on the Eastern Front, he could have seen more success. As pointed out reserves and whatnot. Hell, even managing the largest invasion in history, the Nazis got pretty far, had they began in May as initially intended, there is the very real chance they could have conquered the country. They couldn't have held it for long, a year at the very most, but still, in that time, the USSR would have been decimated and disunited without a totalitarian/autocratic they had been accustomed to for centuries.

Then, he'd have been nigh unstoppable for the United Kingdom. It'd have been a much tougher fight for Britain and America though, that's for sure.

I dont know if that is what I meant to say. I think he would have had a better chance with the Soviets if he had actually listened to his generals.

Hitler has become a sort of demi-god/boogey man in the minds of the people over the years. He was charismatic and could give a good speech but beyond that...he was nothing special. He was a geopolitical bully, which served him well for a while, until he got (even more) arrogant and bit off way, way more than he could chew.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Arguably it all started going down hill when Hitler took a more active hand in commanding the military. But that's also because the war just turned against him. The Germans had a great start, mostly due to France and Britain's incompetence, but by 1941, reality started catching up to them.

You really can't take on Russia and America simultaneously and win.

 

[8wid]

Reading more about Kennedy's effectiveness when he was alive, in his second term JFK would have been a mediocre US President at best. He might have struggled and thinly managed with the help of Lyndon Johnson to get the Civil Rights Act passed, and it's highly unlikely he would have sent ground troops into South Vietnam and only escalated the war by adding military advisors. It's my opinion that the next President of the United States might have put in ground troops if it was Nixon or Johnson that won, but Kennedy would not have done more than put about 40,000 advisors into Vietnam if he wasn't already considering a slow withdrawal of the 16,000 he had already put in.

Has anyone ever heard of this game by the way?

 

[The Englishman]

The Scots would fight to the last man. There would be a rifle behind every rock. Whole country would be covered in blood.

Like invading Bizzaro France.

And us English wouldn't have??

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

The Scots would fight to the last man. There would be a rifle behind every rock. Whole country would be covered in blood.

Like invading Bizzaro France.

It's an unknown. People could have said the same about France before its World War 2 capitulation. The Scots of the 1940's might not have been as hardcore as the beserker warriors of 'Braveheart.'

 

[Thundercrack85]

And us English wouldn't have??

If you'll look up, I basically said that invading England was suicide.

 

[Thundercrack85]

It's an unknown. People could have said the same about France before its World War 2 capitulation. The Scots of the 1940's might not have been as hardcore as the beserker warriors of 'Braveheart.'

I don't really know what happened in France. No one does. Apparently Churchill found it just as surprising. But then, that's why they became the butt of every joke about military failure for 50 years.

However, given how the British people fought hard as hell, I think its safe to say they wouldn't take an invasion lying down (or as we know it now, the French way). Seems the Germans agreed with that assessment, given their casualty figures.

 

[8wid]

While JFK would have kept advisors in South Vietnam, he may actually have negotiated with the Soviet Union to declare a nuetral political influence in it like they did in Laos, after all Nixon was able to negotiate a cease fire for a brief period of time he later broke. Imagine if Kennedy had lived he might have negotiated one of these in the Vietnamese Civil War, or he would have kept building up the number of military advisors until the end of his second term and let the next US President to deal with it. I imagine that Vietnam would have been the biggest issue of the 1968 election any way and the anticommunist Nixon would have won it.

 

[8wid]

What Europe would look like in the best case scenario of the Nazis winning the war.

 

[Thundercrack85]

So, apparently they not only conquer / exterminate all of East Europe (which they failed at btw, though not for a lack of trying), but they also conquer all of Great Britain? Including Ireland? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound I suppose.

About as plausible as the Germans conquering / enslaving / exterminating the rest of the human race. And we all know what happened when they tried that.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

I dont know if that is what I meant to say. I think he would have had a better chance with the Soviets if he had actually listened to his generals.

Well then I wholeheartedly apologise.

Hitler has become a sort of demi-god/boogey man in the minds of the people over the years. He was charismatic and could give a good speech but beyond that...he was nothing special. He was a geopolitical bully, which served him well for a while, until he got (even more) arrogant and bit off way, way more than he could chew.

He, definitely bit off more than he could chew. Fighting a war on two fronts against Europe, the USSR and eventually the USA was a disastrous move.

But he definitely deserves his reputation, imo. His streak of luck is nigh on unparalleled in history, and if I were superstitious, I'd say bordering on supernatural. From being spared from death in WWI, to his "punishment" for the Munich Putsch, joining the National Socialists and the petty arguments between Papen and Schleicher which almost cemented him becoming Fuhrer and then most of the war, along with surviving the assassination attempt.

However, he did become over arrogant. That was ultimately his downfall.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Hitler should have stopped with France, made peace with Britain, and prepared for war with the Soviet Union. But he (and German leadership in general) wasn't a pragmatist. Once you get that fanatical militarism and racism going, it's hard to stop.

I suppose that's one thing people forget. The Germans didn't invade the Soviet Union for practical reasons. They had a master plan, to colonize and exterminate all Slavs. I don't think anyone can even really comprehend the sheer scale of atrocities the Germans committed in Eastern Europe. They murdered more than 10 million civilians in Russia alone. The war left more than 20 million dead.

Anyone who wants to understand the Cold War has to understand the psychological effect World War II had on the Russian people.