Che Guava said:
I'm actually of the opinion that, at least at first, Hitler did the best possible military manoever: he surrounded himself with brilliant military minds, laid out some clear objectives and kept his nose out of it. Later on in the war, when he started believing his own 'hype', he made the fatal flaw of trying to be something he wasn't: a military strategiest and commander
That's pretty much it. Hitler had access to people good at their jobs. He just didn't let them do their jobs. The major disasters on the eastern front are the results of his interference, along with certain advanced weapons that could have prolonged the war or possibly forced a stalemate with Germany as the defacto ruler of the European continent (I'm thinking of the Me262 jet fighter and the Sturmgewehr 44 Assault Rifle here -- both could have been out a year earlier and had a serious impact on the Airwar and Eastern Front respectively).
Che Guava said:
Gee, is energy efficiency really the only reason the holocaust was a mistake?
Ghafhi's alway's shown some difficulty sympathising with the plight of other people, precisely because they are OTHER people.
Che Guava said:
Why bother? He had fellow fascists and countless collaborators in every country he invaded. Lots of foreigners went to work for him.
Quite true.
Che Guava said:
In what other part of Europe? He had footholds in eastearn Europe, Scandanavia, France, the netherlands, sympathetic regimes in Italy, Spain and Switzerland, and was doing his best to defeat Britain ...what was he missing exactly?
The only areas of Europe Hitler's Germany did not have military access to were Portugal (on the other side of Spain), Spain (fascist, friendly, but neutral), Switzerland (neutral, and kept so for international reasons), Sweden (fascist friendly and defacto occupied being surrounded by German forces), and Turkey (hard to invade through mountains, would have triggered a war with the USSR anyway).
Che Guava said:
Which part? The part he annexed or the part that he had a puppet regime in?
Another excellent point, and this is ignoring the political reality that Spain and Germany had reached a political impasse to get Franco to sign on with the Axis. Germany very much wanted Spain in the war, but mainly so they could grab Gibraltar and close the Med off from the UK.
Che Guava said:
The whole point of his war was to punish france, then take on Russia to exapnd germany's borders. Even the non-agression pact was a risky, yet necessary, compromise.
Very true, and this is also avoiding the fact that both the USSR and Germany were political enemies at the time. Neither nation could trust the other, up to the treaty that divided Poland, both Russia and Germany repeatedly verbally attacked each other on the world stage. The M-R Pact was mainly one of convenience to designate "spheres of influence" -- Germany in Europe, Russia with Finland, the Baltics, and Turkey. Both nations knew war was inevitable. Stalin just thought Hitler would wait until after he'd knocked England out.
Che Guava said:
I believe he did. And I always thought that the attack on Pearl Harbour was more to assure Naval dominace of Japan in the Pacific, should america decide to join the war. I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) there were any plans to invade the american mainland!
Germany also supplied blueprints for weapons types. The Japanese Ki-45 (I believe that's the right designation) is loosely based off of a set for the Bf-109, minor the better German engine. Japan was later given designs for the Me262 (the Kikka), and the Me163, though neither entered the war. Neither Japan nor Germany had plans for an invasion of the USA, though it's plausible they would have drafted such plans had the war gone so well in their favor. Germany had developed an "Amerika Bomber" that had the range for a one way trip to New York. Only useful if their Heavy Water plants had bore some success in developing nuclear weapons, and by the time it was ready for production, Germany's air industry was mainly devoted to interceptors to combat the combined British and American strategic bombing command. The two operational bombers built were instead designated as emergency transports to fly Hitler to Japan if the need should arise. They were destroyed on their airfield by American P-51s, I beleive. Beyond that, their most successful efforts at attacking the US came from the early days of the Battle of the Atlantic, where German submarines had nearly crippled American and British shipping up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
Japan did successfully bomb the US through a weird weapon -- high flying balloons. Japan launched some into the jet stream from the home islands, allowing them to come down in the American Northwest. Had these been more accurate, and loaded with the superbugs Japan was developing in Manchuria, they would have been far, far more effective. In addition to that, Japan had successfully developed a submarine capable of launching a limited number of aircraft. They had intended to use this submarine to launch an attack on the Panama canal, but by the time it was ready, the situation was too desperate -- US forces had already knocked out the bulk of the Japanese navy and US bombers were firebombing Tokyo.
Che Guava said:
Back on topic, I look very much forward to playing a civ4 WWII scenario
I'd like that as well as long as the units worked right.