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Originally Posted by MontyB As I have said previously I dont for an instant believe that Germany could have won WW2 as they simply did not have the capacity to take on the USA or more importantly they didnt have an ability to take on its untouched production capability.
However I find it incredibly difficult to believe that having access to the 50+ divisions tied up in the west would not have made a huge difference to either the early days of the Russian campaign or a much strengthed Afrika Korps.
With Britain in the war even with extremely limited offensive capability pretty much meant that those units would have to stay in the west and maintain an almost full strength combat capability.
As far as an invasion of Britain went I dont tend to agree that it was an impossibility as long as they had air superiority over the north sea and channel which that would have made RN activity in those areas incredibly costly when you take into account that it would have given the kriegsmarine (especially the uboat force) a very secure (ie downed crew recovery, and air support for naval action thus making RN operations risky at best) lake of operations. However any German assault on Britain would have to have occured and finished before mid-1941 at the latest. |
1. Germany had an industrial capacity (measured in machine-tools) as high as that of the United States. Germany was the world leader in tool production. Germany was also the world's most technologically advanced state. Germany did not have the required resources or the large labour pool.
2. As Doppleganger points out, Britain could never have taken on Germany alone. In fact, you could make a strong case that only the UK-US-USSR alliance was strong enough to defeat Germany. But this does not mean that a German invasion of s. England was possible. Nor does it mean that Germany was an armed camp. I refer you to point one.
3. Britain was not a military weakling in 1939. Britain invested heavily in sea and air power during the interwar. In these two areas, Britain was either far ahead or marginally ahead of Germany. The massive German rearmament drive (while the world watched and did nothing) is a myth. It is still used for propaganda purposes, but the crudest research demonstrates that it is a total lie...real research turns it into a joke. Just google interwar Soviet military production. Here is a quote from the "United States Strategic Bombing Survey":
"Study of German war production data as well as interrogation of those who were in charge of rearmament at the time, leaves no doubt that until the defeat at Moscow German industry was incompletely mobilized and that in fact Germany did not foresee the need for full economic mobilization. German arms production during 1940 and 1941 was generally below that of Britain".
4. A chart of comparative fighter production/losses: [borrowed from the Axis History Forum and taken from Air Commodore Peter Dye, "Logistics in the Battle of Britain"]. The numbers tell it all.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar//AAF...y.html#tdotgaf"
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...03/muller.html