If the Soviets did not get involved in WW2
- Thread starter Gelion
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El_Tigre
Prince
Been there, done that:fing0lfin said:
Let me tell you something about those "40.000 planes build in Germany in 1944". First, here are the "Serviceable Aircraft Strengths of the Luftwaffe on the Eve of Overlord, 31 May 44". Again, this is the official OoB of the Luftwaffe:
Spoiler :
And here is the "Serviceable Aircraft Strengths of the Luftwaffe on 10 January 1944":
Spoiler :
Have another source: "Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1939-1945" by Williamson Murray.
Spoiler :
Don't confuse "Aircraft produced" with "Serviceable Aircraft". Now, how to explain the astonishing difference between 40.000 planes produced and 5.000 planes in service (note that the data in the pic above is not the serviceable "German Aircraft Strength", which explains the difference between the two sources.).
I cannot summarize it better than the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (bolding is mine):
"German fighter production continued to increase during the summer of 1944, and acceptances reached a peak of 3,375 in September. Although it has studied the problem with considerable care, the Survey has no clear answer as to what happened to these planes; the differences of opinion between German air generals, it might be added, are at least as great as between those who have searched for the explanation. Certainly only a minority of the planes appeared in combat. Possibly the remainder were lost in transit from factory to combat bases, destroyed on the fields, or grounded because of a shortage of gasoline or pilots. Conceivably some are part of an inflation of German production figures. The answer is not clear."
El_Tigre
Prince
The monthly production was barely enough to keep 5000 planes in the air. No adequate reserves of Tetraethyl. No possibility to expand the Tetraethyl production in less than 3 years.fing0lfin said:
Again: Were does the Tetraethyl for the excess 35.000 planes come from?
I can't understand you. What does the OoB has to do with the industrual capabilty of one country ??? I say that Germany produced 40 000 planes. That's all. And the tables prove it.El_Tigre said:Been there, done that:
Let me tell you something about those "40.000 planes build in Germany in 1944". First, here are the "Serviceable Aircraft Strengths of the Luftwaffe on the Eve of Overlord, 31 May 44". Again, this is the official OoB of the Luftwaffe:
Spoiler :
And here is the "Serviceable Aircraft Strengths of the Luftwaffe on 10 January 1944":
Spoiler :
Have another source: "Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1939-1945" by Williamson Murray.
Spoiler :
Don't confuse "Aircraft produced" with "Serviceable Aircraft". Now, how to explain the astonishing difference between 40.000 planes produced and 5.000 planes in service (note that the data in the pic above is not the serviceable "German Aircraft Strength", which explains the difference between the two sources.).
I cannot summarize it better than the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (bolding is mine):
"German fighter production continued to increase during the summer of 1944, and acceptances reached a peak of 3,375 in September. Although it has studied the problem with considerable care, the Survey has no clear answer as to what happened to these planes; the differences of opinion between German air generals, it might be added, are at least as great as between those who have searched for the explanation. Certainly only a minority of the planes appeared in combat. Possibly the remainder were lost in transit from factory to combat bases, destroyed on the fields, or grounded because of a shortage of gasoline or pilots. Conceivably some are part of an inflation of German production figures. The answer is not clear."
El_Tigre
Prince
I posted it again only to prove that the German Tetraethyl production in 1944 was barely able to keep 5.000 planes in the air, and not 40.000 as you claim.fing0lfin said:
Again: Were does the Tetraethyl for the excess 35.000 planes come from?
El_Tigre said:
Although my numbers are different, i will accept your and continue the disscution with them.
I don't see why there is no possibility oto expand the production. Germany obttained the tetraethyl pattent in 1936.
And Germany had tetraethyl reserves. It bought tetraethyl from England and some US corporations before the war.
El_Tigre said:
Lol..I have never claimed that Germany had tetraethyl for all it's planes.
And actually it didn't needed to keep all planes in air. The planes from the east front together with those used in the west would have been enough.
El_Tigre
Prince
Finally. Thank you. You have to go back to the year 1936 to make your scenario (Germany defeats GB) work.fing0lfin said:
That is all I wanted to hear. Your scenario, though, has nothing to do with the premise of this thread.
Have a nice day.
El_Tigre said:
I don't really understand you
That the Germans obtained the technology in 1936 means that they were experianced in producing Tetraethyl and had already build facilities. And i still don't see why the Germans would have needed 3 years to expand their production.And as i said even the Tetraethyl that the Germans really had, would havee been enough to conquere Britain.
El_Tigre
Prince
For the record, here is the OP:
Note the bolded part: Our "alternative universe" does not start earlier than September 1939. You may not change events before that date.
Germany tried to build a third Tetraethyl plant, but couldn't complete it in 3 years.
The Tetraethyl that Germany really had wouldn't have been enough even for the training program for 40.000 pilots.
El_Tigre
Prince
I missed that one. Are you talking about the situation in June, 1941?fing0lfin said:
I haven't changed anything before 1939. Just mentioned when Germany obttained the tetraethyl.
With the recources from the East front, every production in Germany could have been speeded up.
Germany didn't needed 40 000 planes. And Germany's tetraethyl was enough for conquering Britain.
With the recources from the East front, every production in Germany could have been speeded up.
Germany didn't needed 40 000 planes. And Germany's tetraethyl was enough for conquering Britain.
Tank_Guy#3
Lion of Lehistan
El Tigre, those statistics about the Luftwaffe are awesome.
I find these numbers are quite similar to those I had imagined the Luftwaffe had during the times indicated.
Now as for the main question on this thread. I do believe that the West would have eventually triumphed. I in no way deny that it would have been far more costly in the number of lives lost, and may have taken several more years, but the West would have won. The reason being that the United States, Great Britain, and all of its allies would have an exponentially greater area with which to draw resources from, metals, foodstuffs, fossil fuels, and most importantly men.
According to the CIA World Factbook Germany is a little bit smaller than Montana. I grant you that the Germany of today is smaller than the Germany of the WW2 era which I BELIEVE encompassed Austria, the Polish Corridor, Czechoslovakia, and East Prussia. I again BELIEVE that these were added to what I call Greater Germany, or the actual nation of Germany during World War 2.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html
I find these numbers are quite similar to those I had imagined the Luftwaffe had during the times indicated.
Now as for the main question on this thread. I do believe that the West would have eventually triumphed. I in no way deny that it would have been far more costly in the number of lives lost, and may have taken several more years, but the West would have won. The reason being that the United States, Great Britain, and all of its allies would have an exponentially greater area with which to draw resources from, metals, foodstuffs, fossil fuels, and most importantly men.
According to the CIA World Factbook Germany is a little bit smaller than Montana. I grant you that the Germany of today is smaller than the Germany of the WW2 era which I BELIEVE encompassed Austria, the Polish Corridor, Czechoslovakia, and East Prussia. I again BELIEVE that these were added to what I call Greater Germany, or the actual nation of Germany during World War 2.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html
Colonel_here
Chieftain
This information comes from "History of Second World War" by general Tippelskirch (german general):
For operation Sealion german aviation should have destoryed british aviation, with attacks directed against RAF, airbases and supply bases and also against military production plants.
German aviation at the point had numerical advantage of 2 to 1 except for the fighters where ration was less favourable. For attack against Britain there were the following forces. 2nd airfleet (under coommand of fieldmarshal Kesselring) and 3rd airfleet (under command of fieldmarshal Shperrle): Overall 1100 bombers, 900 single engine fighters, 120 double engine heavy fighters.
Attacks had to be began on august 5th and Sealion was sceduled for 15 august. The main goal was to destroy or ppush the RAF out of Southern England in order to allow bombers to fly without much of fighter escort and cripple british economy in the area.
The wide use of primitive radars and other detection systems allowed for RAF to know for sure the direction from where German planes were comming and create strong air blocks. British prohimity to their airbases allowed them to easily refuel and join back into fight faster. German fighters could not escort bombers all the way to the target and back and had to return back to their airbases while a new squadron would meet the bombers on their way back and escort them home.
Attempts by german fighters to engage british fifters one on one and so divert their attention from the bombers failed. Arming german fighters with bombs and so diverting British fighters attention on them while had results also decreased capabilities of German fighters. The result was that the heavy double engine fighters had such great loses that they could not be compinsated.
British had another advantage, when aircraft was shut down they lost the machine, when german aircraft was shut down they lost machine and the team inside.
Due to bad and unpredictable weather over British Isles the two airfleet were unable to go on bomibng runs together and had to split up. By the end of august the loses were so high that the 3rd airfleet was have to limit itself only to night time bombings. 2nd airfleet held out until 15th september and had to go on all night regime as well.
By this time it was clear that the German aviation failed at its task of destroying the RAF and its bases. The new set of targets was given the main goal of which was to terrorise population.
In November tactic was switiched to bombing industrial centres. However even thougn numerous runs were made the results were small.
Finally in december the attacks started to be carried out against ports.
The battle of Britian took completely different trun than expected. It ate up the significant part of best german aviation. While the airfleets were reinforced back to their previous numbers, the experienced pilots were lost. Together with over stress of its forces, loses prevented german aviation reaching its former strength.
As for operation Sealion itself. Due to bad transports the conditions on Lamadsh had to be perfect interms of weather. The corridorr had to be made twice narowwer due to the inability of German fleet to copletely secure it for a perido odf atlest 3 weeks. 3 weeks were thought to be time necessary to carry over the first 13 divisions follwed by the second force of 12 divisions. The air dominance over lamansh and southern England had to be complete in order to prevent the transports from being attacked by the RAF.
The date for Sealion was pushed from 15 august, due to unpreparedness of the navy and army, to 15th spetember than to 21st, followed by the delay for unknown period of time, finally till spring. Overall Hitler lost its interest towards operation when the Luftwaffe failed to produce results.
The author earlier stated the intention of Sealion from directive #17 as following: to scare British government to negotiations, to land in England and so scare British government into negotiations, finally if needed to occupy the British Isles. Final goal was that one way or another Sealion will scare British government ot concentrate their forces in Britian and sp send less aid to the other theatres of war. The last was the only goal accomplished and it only lasted for the year of 1941.
For operation Sealion german aviation should have destoryed british aviation, with attacks directed against RAF, airbases and supply bases and also against military production plants.
German aviation at the point had numerical advantage of 2 to 1 except for the fighters where ration was less favourable. For attack against Britain there were the following forces. 2nd airfleet (under coommand of fieldmarshal Kesselring) and 3rd airfleet (under command of fieldmarshal Shperrle): Overall 1100 bombers, 900 single engine fighters, 120 double engine heavy fighters.
Attacks had to be began on august 5th and Sealion was sceduled for 15 august. The main goal was to destroy or ppush the RAF out of Southern England in order to allow bombers to fly without much of fighter escort and cripple british economy in the area.
The wide use of primitive radars and other detection systems allowed for RAF to know for sure the direction from where German planes were comming and create strong air blocks. British prohimity to their airbases allowed them to easily refuel and join back into fight faster. German fighters could not escort bombers all the way to the target and back and had to return back to their airbases while a new squadron would meet the bombers on their way back and escort them home.
Attempts by german fighters to engage british fifters one on one and so divert their attention from the bombers failed. Arming german fighters with bombs and so diverting British fighters attention on them while had results also decreased capabilities of German fighters. The result was that the heavy double engine fighters had such great loses that they could not be compinsated.
British had another advantage, when aircraft was shut down they lost the machine, when german aircraft was shut down they lost machine and the team inside.
Due to bad and unpredictable weather over British Isles the two airfleet were unable to go on bomibng runs together and had to split up. By the end of august the loses were so high that the 3rd airfleet was have to limit itself only to night time bombings. 2nd airfleet held out until 15th september and had to go on all night regime as well.
By this time it was clear that the German aviation failed at its task of destroying the RAF and its bases. The new set of targets was given the main goal of which was to terrorise population.
In November tactic was switiched to bombing industrial centres. However even thougn numerous runs were made the results were small.
Finally in december the attacks started to be carried out against ports.
The battle of Britian took completely different trun than expected. It ate up the significant part of best german aviation. While the airfleets were reinforced back to their previous numbers, the experienced pilots were lost. Together with over stress of its forces, loses prevented german aviation reaching its former strength.
As for operation Sealion itself. Due to bad transports the conditions on Lamadsh had to be perfect interms of weather. The corridorr had to be made twice narowwer due to the inability of German fleet to copletely secure it for a perido odf atlest 3 weeks. 3 weeks were thought to be time necessary to carry over the first 13 divisions follwed by the second force of 12 divisions. The air dominance over lamansh and southern England had to be complete in order to prevent the transports from being attacked by the RAF.
The date for Sealion was pushed from 15 august, due to unpreparedness of the navy and army, to 15th spetember than to 21st, followed by the delay for unknown period of time, finally till spring. Overall Hitler lost its interest towards operation when the Luftwaffe failed to produce results.
The author earlier stated the intention of Sealion from directive #17 as following: to scare British government to negotiations, to land in England and so scare British government into negotiations, finally if needed to occupy the British Isles. Final goal was that one way or another Sealion will scare British government ot concentrate their forces in Britian and sp send less aid to the other theatres of war. The last was the only goal accomplished and it only lasted for the year of 1941.
El_Tigre
Prince
I was surprised that they were that low. Isn't it incredible that the Luftwaffe (and the Wehrmacht altogether) was able to maintain a fighting condition despite these numerical odds?Tank_Guy#3 said:
Does size really matter?
GB was even smaller, and withstood the Wehrmacht. Actually, I don't think of Germany as small, it's just the US (and the SU) that are completely blown out of proportion. 
I agree with your analysis, BTW.
Colonel_here, do you have an online source for that quote? If you compare Operation Sealion to D-Day you begin to realize what a desaster Sealion would have been: D-Day was on a completely different scale, GB and the US controlled the sky as well as the waves, and the troops were by far better trained, organized and supplied, and still, it wasn't a save bet.
Colonel_here
Chieftain
Sorry El-Tigre my source is a printed book so i can't post a link.
privatehudson
The Ultimate Badass
- Joined
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fing0lfin:
Forgive me if I'm wrong but you appear to say that the Germans could have used the fighters and resources devoted to Russia in summer 41 against the UK to effect an invasion in 1941 I believe?
However El_tigre's point is that the Luftwaffe could not sustain operations with more than around 5000 planes during a month without depleting their Tetraethyl reserves. Using the theory that they wished to eat into those reserves in order to field more planes this would leave the Germans in a precarious position if the operation took longer than expected and have an impact on how much support they could offer to the invasion. Even assuming for a moment that they were prepared to undergo this risk to achieve a temporary advantage an investigation of the reserves is necessary to determine if the Germans could have recieved enough additional planes using this method to overcome the British. El_tigre seems to have said earlier that the reserves were not great, so that implies that the Luftwaffe could either not have put many more planes in the air or could not sustain such an increase for very long, or both.
Given that no concerted effort was likely between the inital failure in the 1940 BoB and the renewal in early 1941 the RAF would have bee significantly rebuilt, it's pilots would have more time to train, it's fighter stregnth (and crucially reserve) would have been brought to a much larger strength and so on. Given this I would argue that the Luftwaffe would have had to devoted a lot more resources than they did in 1940 to have any effect. Also some of those involved in the Russian and Balkan campaigns had been sent there from France having been involved in the Battle of Britain, so you can't just take the numbers assigned to Barbarossa and assign them to the BoB part 2 as some would already be there!
El_tigre's point about production back on the third page is still relevant here though. The Germans were outproducing the British in numbers of planes by the end of the war, but this does not show the entire picture with regards to capacity. The Germans were producing 40,000 planes because almost their entire capacity was devoted to single or double engined planes. The British capacity is noticeably lower as they were producing larger planes that took longer to build. The potential capacity of British industry had it been turned to fighter production would probably have equalled the German 40,000 with relative ease. However what El_tigre is trying to explain is that 40,000 planes look good on paper but if you can't use more than 5000 on a regular basis your aircraft production capacity is not the most relevant figure. It does effect the available aircraft figure as it ensures that losses are made good, but it doesn't represent the full picture. Either way what matters is not what the two countries were producing in 1944 but what they produced in 1940 and 1941, a time when the British were far ahead of the Germans on aircraft prodution.
Because of the above I really don't think the Germans would have had any notable sucess in invading the British isles in 1940 or 1941. Their best hope was to cut us off and concentrate on the supply network to the UK. Not invading Russia would have helped give more time to achieve some of this but the arrival of the US into the war by the end of 1941 would have balanced matters somewhat.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but you appear to say that the Germans could have used the fighters and resources devoted to Russia in summer 41 against the UK to effect an invasion in 1941 I believe?
However El_tigre's point is that the Luftwaffe could not sustain operations with more than around 5000 planes during a month without depleting their Tetraethyl reserves. Using the theory that they wished to eat into those reserves in order to field more planes this would leave the Germans in a precarious position if the operation took longer than expected and have an impact on how much support they could offer to the invasion. Even assuming for a moment that they were prepared to undergo this risk to achieve a temporary advantage an investigation of the reserves is necessary to determine if the Germans could have recieved enough additional planes using this method to overcome the British. El_tigre seems to have said earlier that the reserves were not great, so that implies that the Luftwaffe could either not have put many more planes in the air or could not sustain such an increase for very long, or both.
Given that no concerted effort was likely between the inital failure in the 1940 BoB and the renewal in early 1941 the RAF would have bee significantly rebuilt, it's pilots would have more time to train, it's fighter stregnth (and crucially reserve) would have been brought to a much larger strength and so on. Given this I would argue that the Luftwaffe would have had to devoted a lot more resources than they did in 1940 to have any effect. Also some of those involved in the Russian and Balkan campaigns had been sent there from France having been involved in the Battle of Britain, so you can't just take the numbers assigned to Barbarossa and assign them to the BoB part 2 as some would already be there!
El_tigre's point about production back on the third page is still relevant here though. The Germans were outproducing the British in numbers of planes by the end of the war, but this does not show the entire picture with regards to capacity. The Germans were producing 40,000 planes because almost their entire capacity was devoted to single or double engined planes. The British capacity is noticeably lower as they were producing larger planes that took longer to build. The potential capacity of British industry had it been turned to fighter production would probably have equalled the German 40,000 with relative ease. However what El_tigre is trying to explain is that 40,000 planes look good on paper but if you can't use more than 5000 on a regular basis your aircraft production capacity is not the most relevant figure. It does effect the available aircraft figure as it ensures that losses are made good, but it doesn't represent the full picture. Either way what matters is not what the two countries were producing in 1944 but what they produced in 1940 and 1941, a time when the British were far ahead of the Germans on aircraft prodution.
Because of the above I really don't think the Germans would have had any notable sucess in invading the British isles in 1940 or 1941. Their best hope was to cut us off and concentrate on the supply network to the UK. Not invading Russia would have helped give more time to achieve some of this but the arrival of the US into the war by the end of 1941 would have balanced matters somewhat.
Without the USSR involved ? Far longer war.
The natural decision for Britain would be to accept peace..Invading britain is a task under-estimated in difficulty.
But would britain make peace??. With churchill its hard to say:
When told things looked hopeless he is quoted as saying
' I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me from my place, if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground'
which gives an indication he wasnt over-keen on negotiation
The natural decision for Britain would be to accept peace..Invading britain is a task under-estimated in difficulty.
But would britain make peace??. With churchill its hard to say:
When told things looked hopeless he is quoted as saying
' I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me from my place, if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground'
which gives an indication he wasnt over-keen on negotiation
Koelle
King of Kings
There would be no more the place that used to be called Europe. They call it Germany instead. Oopps, it should be Deutschland since no one would ever speaks English there anymore
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