Who was WWII's most important leader?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

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If Galland had had his way, the Battle of Britain would have been fought with He-112s or He-100s instead of the slower, less maneuverable, shorter-ranged Me-109s. Of course, at this time, he was too junior to have much of a voice in policy decisions like this. Still, as a front-line commander, his opinion should have counted more than it did.

 

Amazingly enough, in his memoirs, Adolf Galland was always right. That's not uncommon in memoirs, but

i) the He-112 and He-100 designs were not significantly longer ranged or more manoeuvrable than the Bf109, so far as I know.

ii) The Bf109 could have been a better plane, but it was also in service, which the Heinkels could not have been, just on development time.

iii) The real key to the superior performance of the Heinkels was their steam radiators. No-one has ever made a steam radiator work on a service plane. And Ernst Heinkel had this tiny little problem. He was an aeroplane designer, not an aeroengine maker. With Heinkel designs it was always, "this would work great, if it weren't for those dumbass engine designers." Shoemaker, stick to your last.

 

Correction: I was thinking of the He-112U, the speed record unit of spring 1939. Obviously the original He112 could have been available alongside the Bf109. It just wasn't a substantially better plane.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Amazingly enough, in his memoirs, Adolf Galland was always right. That's not uncommon in memoirs, but

i) the He-112 and He-100 designs were not significantly longer ranged or more manoeuvrable than the Bf109, so far as I know.

ii) The Bf109 could have been a better plane, but it was also in service, which the Heinkels could not have been, just on development time.

iii) The real key to the superior performance of the Heinkels was their steam radiators. No-one has ever made a steam radiator work on a service plane. And Ernst Heinkel had this tiny little problem. He was an aeroplane designer, not an aeroengine maker. With Heinkel designs it was always, "this would work great, if it weren't for those dumbass engine designers." Shoemaker, stick to your last.

 

Correction: I was thinking of the He-112U, the speed record unit of spring 1939. Obviously the original He112 could have been available alongside the Bf109. It just wasn't a substantially better plane.

 

 

The information I've seen has the Heinkels with at least half again the range of the 109. The 109 had about 10 minutes of linger time once it reached London from Pas de Calais. Increasing overall range by 50% would have given them a lot more time to cause havoc on the RAF airfields, with obvious consequences for the Allies.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

We can leave the He100 out of this. It was a fantasy plane.

As for the He112, let's look at the numbers;

Bf109B-D: hp, 700; Vmax (no elevation specified) 292mph; range, 652miles (assuming a hp cruise of 80% max hp, .5lb/hp hour, that's 280lb/hour, and Vcruise 70% of Vmax --which is too fast to escort contemporary bombers, but that's another story-- 3.19 hours endurance at maximum efficient cruising speed;

Weight (empty) 3522lb; weight (maximum takeoff); 5062: disposable lift, 44%. Not bad for a 1935 fighter. My crap source doesn't give wing area, but span 32'4.5". Armament: 2 fuselage machine guns, two wing m.g.s. That last sounds like an attempt to b.s. the Reich Air Ministry, though.

Of course, this plane would have been eaten alive by Hurricanes and probably even Gladiators. You've got to do something about the power plant.

He112: 700hp*; Vmax, 317mph; range, 683 miles. Wow, that's a lot more speed from virtually the same (empty) thrust to weight ratio. By same assumptions as above, I calculate back to a slightly lower endurance of 3.08 hours, and thus minimally less than the Bf109D's 149 (approx.) US gallons of avgas.

Weight 3571lb/4960: disposable weight, 39%. Uh oh, Mr. Heinkel. I don't like where this is going. Span: 29'10.25".

Armament: 2 fuselage machine guns, 2 wing cannons. I call double shenanigans! Although, admittedly we're probably just talking about Oerlikon pop guns.

Without the data before me, I can't be sure, but I _think_ the key difference between these planes is going to turn out to be speed range. the Heinkel will have a higher stall speed, hence, landing/takeoff speed. Given the Bf109's reputation as a pilot-killing hot rod on the ground, I would not want to be the pilot of one of these Heinkels, especially flying form an improvised air field in northern France come September. Admittedly some of the damage to the Bf109 was self-inflicted by its bizarre undercarriage design, but the small size and crammed internals of the Heinkel wing suggests another narrow track undercarriage.

 

All this said, I would add that i) we will never know how the Heinkel would have performed when upgraded to the 1000hp engine range. ii) It could only have achieved that superior dwell time over London by cutting loose from bomber escort, and that would have been defeating the point. iii) I strongly suspect that these numbers, and especially the Vmax are from a different series (ie manufacturers' numbers rather than ministry numbers).

 

*Technically, the Heinkel had a different 19 Litre V-12 Jumo that delivered 680hp instead of 700. I assume that by the time it had entered military service, Jumo engineers would have perfected the art of inverting their imitation Kestrel.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

This site says that the He 112B-2 had a range of 715 miles. Raymond Toliver gave a somewhat longer range in the book, IIRC. Even at 715 miles, that gives a not insignificant amount of extra linger time.

 

Cutting the fighters loose from close bomber escort was one of Galland's arguments for how to win over Britain; close bomber escort is also rarely if ever carried out these days. Sending the fighters over in waves could have provided continuous air superiority during the entire bombing mission without tying more than a few (if any) fighters to close escort duties. Sticking with the bombers reduced the fighters' linger time as well, since they had to zig-zag to keep from outrunning the bombers.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Yeah' date=' but to find someone to listen more than Goering did would not have been hard. Fortunately for the Allies, Goering stroked Hitler's ego as much as he expected his own to be stroked, so Hitler kept him around.[/quote']The one positive attribute Hitler possessed besides ambition was that he was very loyal to his immediate subordinates and other long-time Nazis from the 20's and early 30's. As long as they didn't betray him, he was prepared to tolerate criticism and outright incompetence from them.

[Mr. R]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

It of course depends on the context of what you want to be "important". If by important you mean "who can I place in jeopardy so their demise may change the outcome of WWII" then I suggest the following persons.

 

1. Winston Churchill - For all the reasons mentioned thus far. Especially if the fictional person to fill his void isn't up to the challenge of holding out through 1941.

 

2. Marshal Georgy Zhukov - Took over the Defense of Moscow, directed the defense of Stalingrad, drove the Wermacht back across Russia and to it's ultimate defeat in Berlin. Zhukov was one of the very few officers to not agree with Stalin and live. It is difficult to imagine two such Generals in Stalin's Russia.

 

3. FDR - Though Truman was able to finish the War, I don't know if Henry Wallace would have had the savvy and determination to lead the country in a two-front war while negotiating with England, France, Poland, and Soviet Russia.

 

4. Stalin - What sort of chaos would ensue in Russia if Stalin was assassinated at the start of Barbarossa? Or during the Seige of Stalingrad. Would a paralyzed Soviet Union give the Germans enough breathing room to secure the Ukraine and fuel the Wehrmacht?

 

5. Eisenhower - Able to balance demands from the Free French, Poland, Montgomery, and Patton. I can't think of any other General capable of keeping the Allies together long enough to invade France after getting bogged down in Italy. Which brings up the question, would Germany be able to fend off England, America and the various Resistance groups if they all acted on their own agendas, and with their own rivalries?

 

This list sums it up.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

This site says that the He 112B-2 had a range of 715 miles. Raymond Toliver gave a somewhat longer range in the book, IIRC. Even at 715 miles, that gives a not insignificant amount of extra linger time.

 

Cutting the fighters loose from close bomber escort was one of Galland's arguments for how to win over Britain; close bomber escort is also rarely if ever carried out these days. Sending the fighters over in waves could have provided continuous air superiority during the entire bombing mission without tying more than a few (if any) fighters to close escort duties. Sticking with the bombers reduced the fighters' linger time as well, since they had to zig-zag to keep from outrunning the bombers.

 

Okay: i) a difference of 40 miles of range is a difference of about 4lb of avgas, and 7 minutes of dwell time --in the miraculous case in which air combat was fought at maximum efficiency engine settings and speed range. In any case, the Bf109s superior disposable lift means that in any weightlifting battle, over ordnance or surplus fuel, the Bf109 was gonna win.

ii) your site also confirms that the figures we have are from the manufacturer. Unless you believe that the P-40 and Hurricane were 400mph fighters and that the Blenheim could make 300, I would recommend some caution with manufacturer's numbers. They exist to sell planes. The jury is out on whether the Heinkel 112 had any range advantage at all, because it was almost certainly significantly slower than is reported here. (0.14 hp/lbs; Dewoitine D.520 [for some reason my splat book omits the Spitfire I!) 0.15.)

iii) the site also confirms the ground handling problems, although not the narrow track undercarriage.

Moving on, "free roaming fighter" tactics and offensive CAPs were tried in World War II. In general, they failed. Against an efficient fighter direction system with far more sorties at its disposal, it would have resulted in the RAF picking off bombers and fuel-starved fighters by the bucket load.* The solution to escorted bomber tactics is not to say "this is hard," and give up, but work out solutions or improve bomber self-defence. (Through speed, stealth, low-flying, ECW and defence suppression, if more gun turrets don't work.)

 

*Contrary to common myth, Fighter Command massively outnumbered the Germans in airframes and still more in pilots on Eagle Day.

[Vulcan]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

That is a point that is often neglected in books about WWII. The Germans were outnumbered pretty much through the entire war!

 

For example, the German forces that invaded France were outnumbered heavily overall. They won by gathering thier forces and hitting France where their troops were not! This kind of thing persisted througout the war, the Germans were very good at getting the most out of their troops by concetrating them at the point of decision.

 

As far as people who would change the course of the war... Give France a commanding General who realized how easily the Maginot Line could be bypassed. He would have left a cadre force to hold the line, kept his main force concntrated and well back as a mobile reserve, and when the Nazis steamrolled the Low Coutries, he could have smashed them head-on in nothern France. The Germans were outnumbered that badly in theater at the time.

 

Of course, if the French commanding General had a pair, he would have attacked into Germany as soon as war was declared. Since Germany had the cream of their forces in Poland at the time, the war would have ended virtually immeditately...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

So as far as the initial thread question goes, is the concensus that Winston Churchill was the leader most instrumental in defeating Germany?

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

So as far as the initial thread question goes' date=' is the concensus that Winston Churchill was the leader most instrumental in defeating Germany?[/quote']

 

I would go with that. He made quite a few mistakes, but certainly instrumental.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Because the SS was many things to many people, where the SA was far more unified.

 

Your basic SS soldier was a combination soldier/policeman/Comissar. He believed in the Nazi ideals and enforced the law - often brutally, but also professionally. The organization saw itself as elite, and many of it's members tried to live up to that.

 

Then there was the Waffen-SS, part of the same organization, but separate. And the Waffen-SS was highly variable - there were units that upheld the highest standards of professional soldierly conduct. And there were also the Totenkopf (Death's Head) units that ran the extermination camps.

 

In comparison, consider that the entire SA could have been considered Totenkopf units.

 

My own understanding was that the SA was basically uniformed muscle. Quite numerous, certainly but not elite.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

My own understanding was that the SA was basically uniformed muscle. Quite numerous' date=' certainly but not elite.[/quote']That's accurate so far as it goes, but we should also remember that the SA was led by more radical members of the Nazis who considered Hitler too willing to broker deals with the established power structure (which is entirely accurate, since that's precisely how Hitler became Chancellor of Germany). Hitler of course killed all the SA's leaders in the "Night of the Long Knives" right after he assumed power and was never challenged for leadership of the Nazi Party (or Germany) again.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

That is a point that is often neglected in books about WWII. The Germans were outnumbered pretty much through the entire war!

 

For example, the German forces that invaded France were outnumbered heavily overall. They won by gathering thier forces and hitting France where their troops were not! This kind of thing persisted througout the war, the Germans were very good at getting the most out of their troops by concetrating them at the point of decision.

 

I'm going to disagree here. The Germans were only outnumbered by fancy number-juggling. There were almost 100 million Germans in the Reich, 45 million French. Conscription, and you do the math. The Germans had one heckuva a training problem, but plenty of WWI vets to pick up the slack. (Like everyone else.)

Looking at the various natural barriers and fortifications along the border, the Germans opted to cross the Ardennes. This was not unanticipated. The Belgian manoeuvres of the year before focussed on just such a scenario, and were very extensively covered in the military press.

The French, though, were faced with all kinds of priorities in force allocation. Since the Meuse valley facing the Ardennes was a naturally strong barrier, it was relatively lightly held --by infantry, the artillery allocation being much more significant. Since mobile forces were also required to lead the army into contact along the defence line in Belgium and link up with the Dutch, the screening force sent into the Ardennes was lighter than it could have been, and could not advance into Belgium until after action began.

The potential of screening actions in the Ardennes is shown by a Belgian reinforced platoon that held up an an entire armoured corps for 6 hours. Unfortunately, lack of strength and time of preparation made this too rare to be significant.

One excellent study of the operation concludes that the Germans would have failed to penetrate the Meuse stop line if the French had blown up two bridges. (The French blew up plenty of bridges, but missed these two.)

[Trebuchet]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Sorry, LB, but raw numbers don't tell the whole story. The French Army was considerably larger than the German Army in 1940, with more and better tanks. The German economy was already stretched to the limit from rearming. The constraint on the size of the Wehrmacht was how many guns , tanks, and planes they could produce, not how many warm bodies they could put in a uniform.

 

Even if you go simply from population numbers, Germany was badly outnumbered by the combined populations of France, Great Britain, Poland, Greece, Norway, Denmark, Russia, the United States, and the Commonwealth - all of whom they declared war upon first. The Nazis assumed that, since the Western democracies were decadent and the Russians were subhuman Slavs, that one German soldier was a match for several of anyone else's. Fortunately for civilization, the ratio wasn't even 1:1.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Sorry, LB, but raw numbers don't tell the whole story. The French Army was considerably larger than the German Army in 1940, with more and better tanks. The German economy was already stretched to the limit from rearming. The constraint on the size of the Wehrmacht was how many guns , tanks, and planes they could produce, not how many warm bodies they could put in a uniform.

 

Even if you go simply from population numbers, Germany was badly outnumbered by the combined populations of France, Great Britain, Poland, Greece, Norway, Denmark, Russia, the United States, and the Commonwealth - all of whom they declared war upon first. The Nazis assumed that, since the Western democracies were decadent and the Russians were subhuman Slavs, that one German soldier was a match for several of anyone else's. Fortunately for civilization, the ratio wasn't even 1:1.

Clearly things are a little complicated. The side with China and India (the Allies) wins the war by population comparisons. The side with the higher GDP (the Allies) wins the war by the wealth comparison. But the crux of the matter is not gross comparisons. Two questions arise. First, can Germany defeat France in a single campaign in 1940. Then, can it hold "Fortress Europe" long enough to win a war of attrition? Besieged fortresses can hold out by virtue of fortifications as well as raw numbers, after all.

As of May 1940, the British Commonwealth had hardly even begun to turn its mobilised manpower into boots on the ground. That leaves FRance to hold the ring. And what does the French army have?

Well, it has a total, including the Army of Africa, of 120 divisions, on full mobilisation, including, IIRC, 2 armoured of various categories. It would like to have more armoured divisions; the problem is that reservists move. When you call up a man who served his 2 years in an armoured division in Toulon, and it turns out he is in Paris, he is not going to got back to Toulon for a weekend refresher on gear changing. So trained armoured division men go back into the general infantry reserve. Eventually, as the army mechanises, this dispersed pool of skill will be drawn upon. For now, not so much. Once mobilised, however, manpower can be diverted into armoured formations, and these will be added to the OB as training permits.

In May 1940, the French mechanised screen includes 3 DLMs ("light assault armoured divisions"), 2 divisions cuirassees de reserve, in effect army tank brigades with attached infantry, and 5 light cavalry divisions. The French army is doing its best to support every ground pounder with an allotment of armoured machine gun carriers, in effect place holders for the APCs the army know is coming but can't yet afford. In practice this means that the cavalry have attached armour, and because it is supposed to be mobile, their carriers are rather faster than that attached to most infantry. Some have even been replaced in formation by things approaching real tanks.

The British have put, depending on how you count them, as little as 9, as many as 13 divisions in the field. At 10 carriers/battalion, that's a lot of armour, but of course we don't count British carriers as AFVs in the balance in 1940. Although we do count French carriers, hence, and only hence, the "French had more tanks" meme.

The British also had the armoured cavalry regiments attached to each regular division, and the one army tank brigade so far ready for war, in France. 1st Armoured Division was in the next flight to be shipped, but had been a little disrupted by a brief attempt to appropriate its infantry support group for action in Scandinavia. This was so unsettling that no official OB has been published showing that by May 1940, that group included a full infantry brigade. Apart from these, 3 British infantry and 1 Canadian division were ready to go over. The question was more infrastructure on the French side than training and equipment on that of the Commonwealth.

The Belgians had effectively a militia army, 600,000 men mobilised out of a population not much more than 6 million. That meant fortress lines, for the simple reason that the army could not march. It had plenty of AFVs, although few tanks, concentrated in the Chasseurs Ardennais, whose task was to slow down a German thrust to the Belgian Ardennes and fall back on the Meuse (Maass) line. Depending on how far the French screen advanced before making contact, this might mean giving up the central Ardennes to the advancing German screen. It was hard to guess how significant that would be, because it was hard to see where the German main point of effort would be, although common sense suggested that it would be in the Meuse-Escaut (Scheldt) water gap, which is where the key French mobile force of 2 DLMs and abuncha motor divisions would be deployed. General Prioulx, commanding this mobile group, was originally to get the third DLM and more motorised infantry, but this was redeployed for a mission to the north to contact the Dutch.

 

Against this, the Germans had available 120 infantry and 20 sundry other divisions. This 140 units in total was outnumbered by the Allies at 155 or so in total, and 20 divisions were left in the East, most of too low a fighting capacity to be worth transporting, but the numbers were not all bleak. The question here, as everyone understood, would be what happened when the iron spearhead of the German wooden spear hit the French shield.

The decisive question here was which power would wield its weapons more nimbly. This is sometimes reduced to the relative number of tanks. The Allies were outnumbered quantatively in tanks, but that is not the issue, because mobility on the battlefield is a relative thing. Cripple the enemy's mobility enough, and you will be faster, even if you are not that fast at all, as the German army was not fast, for lack of trucks, not tanks. The German advantage lay in planes. Or, more accurately, sortie generation capacity. For a number of reasons that require a fairly subtle level of analysis not often found in military history, the German sortie generation rate over the French theatre of war was going to be much higher than that of the Allies. This placed a great premium on being able to identify the German main effort well in advance, because reserves would take some time to redeploy.

Hence, for a crucial span of time (which might be longer or shorter depending on the air balance), the Germans could count on outnumbering the Allies, wherever they chose to make their main effort.

The French, understanding this as well as anyone, put their resources as follows:

(i) Where the German effort could develop most quickly of all, fortifications. Presumably, these would not be attacked, and idiots would call this successful deterrent a waster of money.

(ii) Where German mobile forces could arrive quickly, but could not be supported and developed by adequate artillery dumps for lack of rail laterals, an artillery-centric defence. (the Meuse barrier around Sedan.)

(iii) Where an integrated threat would develop over a moderate timeframe, in the water gap, and where the most important strategic targets were exposed (the Channel Ports, Benelux will to resist, northern French industry), the French placed their main effort.

 

And you know what? Prioulx's armour kicked German panzered butt in the Battle of the Gembloux Plain. Considering that the German planning for their cunning ploy of going through the Ardennes supposed that they would meet Prioulx there and not three cavalry divisions, I'd have to say that German planning doesn't deserve the credit it sometimes gets. It worked, but much of the credit has to go to the Luftwaffe, a late spring (too many unfinished bunkers, too many unburied telephone cables between batteries and OPs), and a large measure of luck.

[Vulcan]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Great analysis, Lawnmower.

 

Now what's your take on a Allied offensive - say, into the Ruhr, the main German indutrial area at the time - in 1939 when the best of the German forces were in Poland?

[Vondy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Personally, I think its a good thing Reinhardt Heydrich was taken out by partisans early in the war. He was more depraved than Hitler in many ways, was more ruthless when it came to his colleagues in the inner circle than Hitler was (Hitler displayed loyalty to his near, dear idiots), had a significantly better handle on intelligence - and a better internal intelligence network - than his counterparts, and was more competent than most of them by far. I don't think he would have single-handedly changed the tide of the war in terms of outcome, but I do think he would have made intelligence gathering more difficult, and the end-game more painful.

[Vondy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

That is a point that is often neglected in books about WWII. The Germans were outnumbered pretty much through the entire war!

 

 

In terms of logistics, anything more ambitious than control of Central and Western Europe on their part was unmitigated, quixotic gall. It wasn't just an issue of being outnumbered in terms of men. They also lacked domestic fuel resources (critical) - and didn't have the production capacity to go all the way with anything more than one campaign at a time, let alone trying to go head to head with US industry. They launched Operation Sealion before they were finished securing North Africa and after the Lend-Lease act was signed. As soon as Operation Sealion they should have put everything into securing North Africa and either sued for a favorable peace that allowed them to keep fuel reserves and a chunk of their European gains. Instead, they not only had the British Invasion and North African fronts against England who now had American production behind them, but also turned around and opened a third front against the Russians. I know we traditionally consider Germany as fighting a two front war, but they were attempting Operation Sealion, still trying to secure North Africa, and fighting the Russians. Where did they think they were going to get the men and munitions to pull that off? Pure pie-in-the-sky perfidy. And, even if they had dropped Operation Sealion after Dunkirk, secured North Africa, and then hit Russia with everything they had - there is a huge difference between taking Moscow (maybe...) and having the men and munitions to maintain those supply lines and occupy Russia - let alone doing it while also occupying Europe and North Africa. In fact, this is one of the reasons Hitler was probably the most important man of the war. He's the one who ultimately pushed them into the idiotic course of 1941 that cost them not only the war, but their lives and their sovereignty. And not suing for peace once the Russian offensive failed and the American's came in... idjits. Evil, destructive idjits, but idjits.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Economic advisers to Hitler (early 1938): "The German economy is going into the tank. We need to earn foreign currency reserves to buy stuff like, y'know, oil."

Hitler (hearing "blah blah blah blah"): "Kill the dude with the thing!"

Austrian leadership: "We love you, Fuehrer. Thanks for invading us! Here, take all our foreign currency reserves."

Economic advisors (mid-39): "We had a lot of fun maxing out the Austrian and Czech credit cards, but we're still in the same position we were before. We need to reverse our economic policies, demobilise the army, cut spending on the arms industry, and give back at least some of the loot we took from the Jews. Sure, unemployment will go up to 20%, just like at the end of Weimar, but it's the responsible thing to do."

Hitler: "Leeroy Jenkins!"

 

In short, the Nazi war economy, such as it was, was built on looting. Too bad new victims didn't instance. Once Germany beat France and imposed sanctions and all that, it was faced with the fact that as soon as it restored peacetime economics, it would have to trade the store away to get the French to produce/import the food, steel, coal and oil it needed. Germany could not get out of the war. The closest thing the Germans had to a scheme for winning was to loot Russia, because Russia was big and had enough stuff. Which wasn't true.

Strategically, it would have been nice to knock out Britain, or weaken it by taking Gibraltar or Malta or even Egypt. But let's not forget that the military history of Britain is mostly written by defence industry lobbyists, and lesson number one, to be drawn every time it is even vaguely relevant, is that if the government of the day had spent more on arms, the war would have gone better.

In reality, Britain was a Great Power. By choice, it did not have a large, continental size army, although the size of the army it did have was understated. That saved it the resources it needed to build fortifications, boats and planes. The notion that Germany, at the extreme overbalance of its reach, could have knocked those aces out of Britain's reach is as implausible as Germany winning the Battle of Moscow.

Yes, Hitler let himself get buffaloed into making a semi-serious bid at invading England in 1940. It could not possibly have succeeded, and this must have been obvious to all. Submarines looked like a better bet.

So German grand strategy was to hold off the western allies until Russia was looted, and use that loot to go up a level, get a broken prestige class, and pwn the West.

Which language is, in my opinion, only a little less unrealistic than German planning.

As for a French invasion of the Ruhr, it comes down to this. The French armed forces were not built around a "standing start "offensive." It's hard to imagine how the conscript army of a country of 220,000 square kilometres plus colonial empire could be. And the Poles only lasted 2 weeks.

(And anyway came surprisingly close to defeating the Germans, or at least stopping them for that campaigning season, on their own.)

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Points I would like to make as regards the Battle of Britain and Operation Sea Lion.

 

The standard assumption is that Germany was unable to achieve control of the air over even a portion of Britain, and this is what led to Sea Lion's cancellation.

 

The fact is, this is a gross over-simplification.

 

Establishing control of the air over part of Britain was merely the first step of several.

 

The next step would have been to reliably maintain this control. Not an easy task at all, given the limitations of the Luftwaffe, differing aircraft production rates and the threat of RAF units being redeployed from elsewhere.

 

The step after that was to somehow neutralize the Royal Navy. The largest and most experienced navy in the world, in what was basically its own backyard. The Kriegsmarine did not have the strength to do this (as typified by the later Norwegian campaign), so it would have been up to massed attacks by U-boats and from the air. Massed air attacks would have meant diverting forces from maintaining air control of the planned invasion site(s), and thus taking pressure off the RAF. Yes, damage would have been done, but would it drive the RN completely out of the area, both day and night? I really doubt it.

 

Then, there is the invasion itself. Airborne assault (paratroop and glider) would have played a major part but the aircraft would have been flying into particularly hostile territory (with questionable air cover), so losses would have been heavy. The seaborne phase was critical, and Sea Lion called for most of the troops to be carried to England in towed, open barges - Germany simply did not have anything better to do the job. Ghod help those troops if the weather turned bad, OR (more significantly) if even just a few RN warships got in amongst the fleet.

 

Some might make the valid point that, post Dunkirk, a lot of British Army units lacked heavy equipment. Yes, but not all - and the German airborne forces also lacked heavy equipment at that stage (those 'Gigant' gliders did not come in until much later). It could be argued that at best, it would have been an ugly fight.

 

An important example to consider is the later invasion of Crete. The Axis won that one, but their losses were appalling. That was against a scattered and comparitively isolated defending force without any real air cover of its own. The fact that a small number of RN ships got in amongst the seaborne component of the invasion and did one hell of a lot of damage did not help much either. With victories like these .....

 

In short, the Germans COULD have pressed Operation Sea Lion but, unless there was a major differance from the historical situation, victory would have been far from certain and losses would probably have been enormous whatever happened. Which is one reason why they did not go ahead with it.

[Darren Watts]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

I think your best bet for coming up with a German situational improvement is to find a way to have Chamberlain's government hang on for even a few weeks longer in May 1940. If Churchill doesn't become PM, either because he's dead or some bargain's been made between the various groups in Parliament who lost confidence in Chamberlain (keeping him there when the Germans reach the Channel) then it's much more plausible that Britain accepts the loss of France, signs some bogus treaty, and starts rebuilding what it lost at Dunkirk. No Battle of Britain (in 1940 at least), maybe Mosely doesn't get arrested and the Fascists in England keep a public voice, and Germany starts turning on the charm about how they and England need to work together to fight the Commies. You can get a fun bunch of new historical branches from that. Once Churchill's in charge, though, it's tough to see Europe going much differently. dw

[Vulcan]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

(And anyway came surprisingly close to defeating the Germans' date=' or at least stopping them for that campaigning season, on their own.)[/quote']

 

So if the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force had even tried attacking Germany (even if they couldn't have taken the whole country) they might have saved Poland? Or am I reading too much into it?

[SuperPheemy]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

I think your best bet for coming up with a German situational improvement is to find a way to have Chamberlain's government hang on for even a few weeks longer in May 1940. >snip<

 

When I first saw your post, I swear I read "Champions' government", then I got all excited for a Golden Age Champions teaser. Darn my self-induced wish-fulfillment hallucinations!

 

And what are you doing writing precious, precious words here Watts? Back to the Supplement Mines with you!!

[The Weapon]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

Aside from the fine folks mentioned previously, I'll toss out another candidate.

 

OK, Adolf's disqualified, but some of those close to him certainly helped.

 

Goering. Look at various critical points. Dunkirk. Battle of Britain. Stalingrad. Failures of or overreaching by the Luftwaffe. A different leader for the air forces might have helped.

 

Hitler's doctor(s), perhaps?

 

And the great thing about a dead Goering POD is that it's really easy to arrange. Someone gets a lucky shot in (ground fire probably, that's the really good pilots died) during WWI and Goering is just another name on the "dead guys who could really fly" list.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

 

And the great thing about a dead Goering POD is that it's really easy to arrange. Someone gets a lucky shot in (ground fire probably' date=' that's the really good pilots died) during WWI and Goering is just another name on the "dead guys who could really fly" list.[/quote']

 

The main objection here is that Goering was especially close to the Fuhrer, and therefore was able to to use this to get a much bigger slice of the pie for "his" Luftwaffe. A more competent leader MAY have done better, with hindsight, but it is very conceivable there have had much less of a Luftwaffe with which to do anything. Possibly meaning more resources going elsewhere - the SS, the Kreigsmarine, the Wehrmacht, the Abwehr, etc.

 

One of Hitler's most consistent problems was NOT getting along with military commanders who chose competance over toeing the party line.