India still had the problem of Japan - they might have stuck with Britain over that threat alone.
Australia or Africa would have been Churchill's new home if not India.
cheers
Reb
What if...
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phylo_roadking
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Pirx, your timeline is wrong on India; the Congress Party and others "supported" governmental i.e. British Policy during the war - in retrun for promises on Independence. Or at least halted their popular protests. Some very small nationalist organisations continued to campaign but it time of war this was of course sedition and treated as such. The period of protest began at the very end of the war and of course after it as the time came to make good on it....and when for a time britain wanted to hold on to the revenue of Empire to help her rebuild.
IF the British Empire had ended up being governed from India - India's history would be VERY different right now. There would NOT be Independence, more likely a long festering war of independence, but one the British would fight without the mistakes it made in Ireland in 1918-21, more like successfully as in Malaya.
Reb, I don't think you'd have seen Churchill as PM...
I think the King would have a new Prime Minister.
IF the British Empire had ended up being governed from India - India's history would be VERY different right now. There would NOT be Independence, more likely a long festering war of independence, but one the British would fight without the mistakes it made in Ireland in 1918-21, more like successfully as in Malaya.
Reb, I don't think you'd have seen Churchill as PM...
I think the King would have a new Prime Minister."Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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phylo_roadking
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Yup. Or somewhere in England. The wartime preparations for a final "National Redoubt" slid into Cold War preparations, so apart from what's known about "operational" preparations - "Paddock" etc., and what's become known over the years about the twelve Post-War RSGs and the NSG in the caves at Corsham...the same caves as Bristol put their engine works in WWII! - the WWII preparations on land for a final continuation of government have remained shrouded in secrecy.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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phylo_roadking
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Been thinking more about planning for an invasion of the US. Reb, don't forget one major thing - after the defeat (?) of Russia, Germany would have years of peace to restart the "Z" Plan, so while nowhere near equal in terms, the USN would probably have met a rejuventated Kriegsmarine in the Atlantic - PLUS carriers!
As for the USN being able to implement successful submarine war on the Japanese - yes, but the Japanese empire in the Pacific, and her flow of resources from China, depended on sea transport. This would not have happened in the Third Reich. Historically, the only raw material that HAD to be transported by sea was Swedish iron ore from Narvik down the coast of Norway and into the Baltic via the Skaggerak. That route would be the first replaced by a landroute through Finland and Russia by rail. Also, No England would have meant the French Resistance movement would have been nipped in the bud, no campaign of sabotage in industry or transport. Also, no longterm bombing of French coastal ports, and their shipbuilding facilities available to the Germans once rebuilt.
However, measure against this the Germans' start-from-scratch on amphibious warfare, even down to the creation of every single vessel needed for such a crossing, This would be no "Sealion" - like Torch and Overlord and all the Italian landings, it would have required a self-contained ampibious force of deep sea-capable ships. These would have had to be designed tested and built from scratch. Germany HAD by the end of the war developed a number of "landing vessels" for transporting tanks etc., but these were in the end just used for transporting AFVs around in coastal waters, and as flak barges. But the point is - they only perfected them years after Norway and Sealion! Imagine that multiplied for the fleets(s) needed for a successful invasion of the continental US???
Ten to fifteen years would be a proper estimate!
As for the Atomic Bomb - by the time the Americans accepted that it would be needed on Europe to ensure their own safety, it wouldn't be the Superfortress carrying it, it would be the B36!
I think it would take MANY years for the Americans to work themselves up to accepting the necessity of that, unlike Japan. Probably not until the fleet sailed. Over THAT period of time you'd be constantly fighting against the average US citizen's propensity for sticking his head in the sand......
As for the USN being able to implement successful submarine war on the Japanese - yes, but the Japanese empire in the Pacific, and her flow of resources from China, depended on sea transport. This would not have happened in the Third Reich. Historically, the only raw material that HAD to be transported by sea was Swedish iron ore from Narvik down the coast of Norway and into the Baltic via the Skaggerak. That route would be the first replaced by a landroute through Finland and Russia by rail. Also, No England would have meant the French Resistance movement would have been nipped in the bud, no campaign of sabotage in industry or transport. Also, no longterm bombing of French coastal ports, and their shipbuilding facilities available to the Germans once rebuilt.
However, measure against this the Germans' start-from-scratch on amphibious warfare, even down to the creation of every single vessel needed for such a crossing, This would be no "Sealion" - like Torch and Overlord and all the Italian landings, it would have required a self-contained ampibious force of deep sea-capable ships. These would have had to be designed tested and built from scratch. Germany HAD by the end of the war developed a number of "landing vessels" for transporting tanks etc., but these were in the end just used for transporting AFVs around in coastal waters, and as flak barges. But the point is - they only perfected them years after Norway and Sealion! Imagine that multiplied for the fleets(s) needed for a successful invasion of the continental US???
Ten to fifteen years would be a proper estimate!
As for the Atomic Bomb - by the time the Americans accepted that it would be needed on Europe to ensure their own safety, it wouldn't be the Superfortress carrying it, it would be the B36!
I think it would take MANY years for the Americans to work themselves up to accepting the necessity of that, unlike Japan. Probably not until the fleet sailed. Over THAT period of time you'd be constantly fighting against the average US citizen's propensity for sticking his head in the sand......"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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phylo_roadking
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Meant to comment earlier on bombardment of the continental US; There's still supposed to be a little controversy on whether the Peenemunde team actually tested the A-10, the stretched, staged version of the V2 technology. Certainly Von Braun made "unattributable" comments that would leave you guessing! LOL But as to whether it would have made an effective "bombardment" weapon, thats very unclear. The US' own experiences in the late '40s and '50s at Red Sands and Edwards'.....and the long tale of repeated failure before ultimate success in the USSR showed that the more complicated a rocket is - the greater potential by several orders of magnitude is the chance for mechanical failure....which is why in the end military heavy bombardment rockets - ICBMS or IRBMS - ended up with solid fuelled motors as opposed to hugely more powerful liquid-fuelled. And yet the "predicted" failure-on-lauch rate in the USSR for instance was at some times in the Cold War put as high as 30%!!! Imagine THIS failure rate stacked by having to use the technology of several decades' previous.......
The Germans would more likely have gone the way of longrange air/spacecraft - after all, the Saenger Antipodal Bomber dating from WWII is one of the seminal designs for a "Space Plane" and certainly Saenger's calculations etc. formed the basis for a LOT of USAAF work in this area later - BOMI, Dynasoar etc. But again this would have taken years to develop and prove. Longrange psiton-engined aircraft would have given the Germans some short-term hope for an intercontinental striking potential - but the Americans were actually far in advance of them, having early work on the B36 on the drawing board as early as 1942, before it became clear that the war eith Japan could be ended within the practical lifetime of the B29. In those early days of the Pacific War the US was thinking in terms of bombing Japan from the USA.....giving them certainly the capability to bomb Europe with the same aircraft. Or imagine a Free French or British colony in Africa or the Middle East acting as a Guam or Tinian or Saipan..... Even the BRITISH had done a considerable amount of work on the six-engined Victory bomber, with Barnes Wallace contributing, only for this work to be stopped when again it became clear that its huge range and bombload characteristics would be superfluous.
The Germans would more likely have gone the way of longrange air/spacecraft - after all, the Saenger Antipodal Bomber dating from WWII is one of the seminal designs for a "Space Plane" and certainly Saenger's calculations etc. formed the basis for a LOT of USAAF work in this area later - BOMI, Dynasoar etc. But again this would have taken years to develop and prove. Longrange psiton-engined aircraft would have given the Germans some short-term hope for an intercontinental striking potential - but the Americans were actually far in advance of them, having early work on the B36 on the drawing board as early as 1942, before it became clear that the war eith Japan could be ended within the practical lifetime of the B29. In those early days of the Pacific War the US was thinking in terms of bombing Japan from the USA.....giving them certainly the capability to bomb Europe with the same aircraft. Or imagine a Free French or British colony in Africa or the Middle East acting as a Guam or Tinian or Saipan..... Even the BRITISH had done a considerable amount of work on the six-engined Victory bomber, with Barnes Wallace contributing, only for this work to be stopped when again it became clear that its huge range and bombload characteristics would be superfluous.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
This game is going to this question:
what USA will do if UK and USSR fall?
In real history Hitler probably wishes peace traety with UK than conquer this country, but Churchill all the time was sure that USA will help him - officially or secretly.
After conquer of USSR Germans got huge resources of iron from Ukraine and Russia, and Norway could be bombed 24h/day or whole US Navy could blockade Norvegian ports, it gives nothing.
And atomic bomb.
1. US could drop a-bomb if they are sure that Germans couldn't. If they drop bomb in 1945 what if Germans sent bomb over NY few months later?
1. Remember that Germans had millions of hostages: Jews, Slavs, British, French. Hitler has possibility to play that card.
what USA will do if UK and USSR fall?
In real history Hitler probably wishes peace traety with UK than conquer this country, but Churchill all the time was sure that USA will help him - officially or secretly.
After conquer of USSR Germans got huge resources of iron from Ukraine and Russia, and Norway could be bombed 24h/day or whole US Navy could blockade Norvegian ports, it gives nothing.
And atomic bomb.
1. US could drop a-bomb if they are sure that Germans couldn't. If they drop bomb in 1945 what if Germans sent bomb over NY few months later?
1. Remember that Germans had millions of hostages: Jews, Slavs, British, French. Hitler has possibility to play that card.
amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas
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phylo_roadking
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Pirx, there are several threads in several places here on Feldgrau regarding the Atomic bomb; basically, it doesn't matter whether you believe Heisenberg's statements of not, the German bomb devlopment programme was VERY slow compared to the Allies and went off in entirely the wrong direction.
In brief - in 1945 at Farm Hall he told his British interrogators that he had deliberately overblown the cost of developing a bomb to the Waffenheersampt, and also grossly exaggerated the length of time it would need to develop a workable device. So the project was dropped "officially" though work dragged on at research level rather than weapon development speed. There were TWO significant milestones during the war that gave the Allies a picture of how work was progressing; Heisenberg at one point requested permission to travel to Copenhagen to speak to Nils Bohr, his former teacher. During a private conversation outdoors at night where they could not be overheard, heisenberg apparently showed Bohr a diagram of what he was working on as a bomb - nothing more than a VERY rough sketch of a reactor! It seemed his real bomb ideas had progressed nowhere beyond the idea that it would be a portable reactor forced to go into meltdown, rtaher than any form of the implosion device we all know and love. Bohr was later debriefed by british Intelligence on behalf of the MAUD Committee, who under RV Jones were responsible for gathering intelligence on and assessing Germany's Bomb for Churchill.
In a second incident, a year or so later, an OSS agent was planted in the audience of a scientific conference in Switzerland; as an academic heisenberg was allowed to travel "abroad" with permission if he could get it. The agent was briefed that if at ANY point during his lecture or questioning Heisenberg referred to a bomb in detail - he was to shoot him from the audience! As it turned out, Heisenberg's grasp of a working bomb was AGAIN so primitive that the agent walked away!
The MAUD Committee also throughout the war had access to scientific papers and publications by Heisenberg and his team as published in Sweden and Switzerland, and were able to trace his theoretical work.
In Spring 1945, the advancing American Army found Heisenberg's attempt at a nuclear reactor in a castle in Southern Germany; basically lumps of uranium that were to be lowered into a hole in the stone floor and allowed to react and enrichen, with "heavy water" as a moderator to damp the reaction. A meltdown and runaway reaction waiting to happen! No real form of control or emergency shutdown, and almost NO shielding for workers.
No matter how much of a genius Heisenberg was in the past, his brief moment of scientific genius that had won him the Nobel Prize for his Uncertainty Principle was LONG gone! The German Bomb program was a completely hopeless attempt to achieve a nuclear reaction on a shoestring "academic" development budget. It would have produced a bang all right - but only among Heisenberg and his coworkers
Yet the myth of a German Atomic Bomb remains - even though it was still sets of incorrect equations on blackboards when the Americans exploded their first device at Alamagordo.
I have to ask -
Why and by who would Norway be bombed 24/7 ???
In brief - in 1945 at Farm Hall he told his British interrogators that he had deliberately overblown the cost of developing a bomb to the Waffenheersampt, and also grossly exaggerated the length of time it would need to develop a workable device. So the project was dropped "officially" though work dragged on at research level rather than weapon development speed. There were TWO significant milestones during the war that gave the Allies a picture of how work was progressing; Heisenberg at one point requested permission to travel to Copenhagen to speak to Nils Bohr, his former teacher. During a private conversation outdoors at night where they could not be overheard, heisenberg apparently showed Bohr a diagram of what he was working on as a bomb - nothing more than a VERY rough sketch of a reactor! It seemed his real bomb ideas had progressed nowhere beyond the idea that it would be a portable reactor forced to go into meltdown, rtaher than any form of the implosion device we all know and love. Bohr was later debriefed by british Intelligence on behalf of the MAUD Committee, who under RV Jones were responsible for gathering intelligence on and assessing Germany's Bomb for Churchill.
In a second incident, a year or so later, an OSS agent was planted in the audience of a scientific conference in Switzerland; as an academic heisenberg was allowed to travel "abroad" with permission if he could get it. The agent was briefed that if at ANY point during his lecture or questioning Heisenberg referred to a bomb in detail - he was to shoot him from the audience! As it turned out, Heisenberg's grasp of a working bomb was AGAIN so primitive that the agent walked away!
The MAUD Committee also throughout the war had access to scientific papers and publications by Heisenberg and his team as published in Sweden and Switzerland, and were able to trace his theoretical work.
In Spring 1945, the advancing American Army found Heisenberg's attempt at a nuclear reactor in a castle in Southern Germany; basically lumps of uranium that were to be lowered into a hole in the stone floor and allowed to react and enrichen, with "heavy water" as a moderator to damp the reaction. A meltdown and runaway reaction waiting to happen! No real form of control or emergency shutdown, and almost NO shielding for workers.
No matter how much of a genius Heisenberg was in the past, his brief moment of scientific genius that had won him the Nobel Prize for his Uncertainty Principle was LONG gone! The German Bomb program was a completely hopeless attempt to achieve a nuclear reaction on a shoestring "academic" development budget. It would have produced a bang all right - but only among Heisenberg and his coworkers
Yet the myth of a German Atomic Bomb remains - even though it was still sets of incorrect equations on blackboards when the Americans exploded their first device at Alamagordo.
I have to ask -
Norway could be bombed 24h/day
Why and by who would Norway be bombed 24/7 ???
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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Dragunov
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so 10-15 years of anticipating an invasion it is? would Gerry really go through the trouble of building up for that? and wouldn't it be quicker with all the slave labour from the comquered lands?
and what would change if England and Germany had a truce?
and if moscow was had by '41, when would England be gone, if an invasion was the only way?
and what would change if England and Germany had a truce?
and if moscow was had by '41, when would England be gone, if an invasion was the only way?
When Stalin says "Dance" a wise man dances.- Nikita Kruschev
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phylo_roadking
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If England was going to go, it would be the SPRING of 1941; after Sealion brought the Germans ashore, the GHQ Line and other defences halted them, then they moved slowly up the country. Would take up to 6-8 months.
IF a truce was signed with Germany instead - yes, in the end there would HAVE to be an invasion, just to remove England finally from the game table in the event that it could be "liberated" and used as "Airstrip One". The when of an invasion would depend on...
1/ the terms of the Armistice; would the UK remain really independent with her navy and Empire intact? Or a pro-German government installed at some level, starting a slow rot? Then any "invasion" would be slow and silent, more GB oozing into the Greater Reich....like NOW LMAO.
2/ How much pressure the Americans could bring to bear on the British to remain more than just nominally independent;
3/ If it was to be an "opposed" invasion AFTER Russia was defeated and after a period of "peace" with the British Empire, it would be when the core of the German amphibious force had been developed. So any invasion soon....or MUCH later as a prequel to hopping across the Atlantic.
As to WOULD the Germans invade the US? Yes. The Reich had even MORE potential for collapse than Soviet Russia; remember its economy was about to implode under the weight of the international loans negotiated for Hitler in 1933-4 on the eve of the war; production and raw materials in the rest of the Greater Reich would stave this off indefinitely BUT there were NO signs from the gap from June 1940 to the delcaration of "Totalische Krieg" of ANY changes in overall economic planning or policy. Germany HAD to constantly expand. Also, what the next years would bring would be the total OPPOSITE of the Isolationism of the years before the war; via third-party neutral countries the USA would bombard Nazi germany with ALL the benefits of Western society, or try to, to foster as much discontent as they could - the Cold War examples of the Beatles in Russia, American bluejeans etc. would be as NOTHING compared to the huge propaganda war the US would wage - and win! And it would HAVE to be shut down....
IF a truce was signed with Germany instead - yes, in the end there would HAVE to be an invasion, just to remove England finally from the game table in the event that it could be "liberated" and used as "Airstrip One". The when of an invasion would depend on...
1/ the terms of the Armistice; would the UK remain really independent with her navy and Empire intact? Or a pro-German government installed at some level, starting a slow rot? Then any "invasion" would be slow and silent, more GB oozing into the Greater Reich....like NOW LMAO.
2/ How much pressure the Americans could bring to bear on the British to remain more than just nominally independent;
3/ If it was to be an "opposed" invasion AFTER Russia was defeated and after a period of "peace" with the British Empire, it would be when the core of the German amphibious force had been developed. So any invasion soon....or MUCH later as a prequel to hopping across the Atlantic.
As to WOULD the Germans invade the US? Yes. The Reich had even MORE potential for collapse than Soviet Russia; remember its economy was about to implode under the weight of the international loans negotiated for Hitler in 1933-4 on the eve of the war; production and raw materials in the rest of the Greater Reich would stave this off indefinitely BUT there were NO signs from the gap from June 1940 to the delcaration of "Totalische Krieg" of ANY changes in overall economic planning or policy. Germany HAD to constantly expand. Also, what the next years would bring would be the total OPPOSITE of the Isolationism of the years before the war; via third-party neutral countries the USA would bombard Nazi germany with ALL the benefits of Western society, or try to, to foster as much discontent as they could - the Cold War examples of the Beatles in Russia, American bluejeans etc. would be as NOTHING compared to the huge propaganda war the US would wage - and win! And it would HAVE to be shut down....
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
This is the point! but it cames in 80's. Believe me that in 50's 60's or 70's USA could be for us in mars. Majority of Poles did not know how peoples lives in western europe or amirica, however from comunist countries we had easiest acces to west (almost each family has relatives in USA, Canada or Australia). Electronic revolution makes world global village. Before that world was really big.phylo_roadking wrote: Germany HAD to constantly expand. Also, what the next years would bring would be the total OPPOSITE of the Isolationism of the years before the war; via third-party neutral countries the USA would bombard Nazi germany with ALL the benefits of Western society, or try to, to foster as much discontent as they could - the Cold War examples of the Beatles in Russia, American bluejeans etc. would be as NOTHING compared to the huge propaganda war the US would wage - and win! And it would HAVE to be shut down....
amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas
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phylo_roadking
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the point is, Pirx - in the '50s, '60s, and '70s the Poles knew American and the West was there, and its lifestyle was VERY different, and was generally something they wanted. And to Nazi Germany that was enough to require an invasion. To remove that outside "non-influence", a Holy Grail of personal freedom and prosperity. That's what guaranteed an invasion - the US' presence on the same planet!
(You have to remember that WWII gave the USSR its "empire" by default. before that it was HUGELY inward-looking. ONLY outwarding-looking in the sense of trying to foster the International elsewhere to destabilise other countries, NOT to bring them within the Soviet sphere - because there WAS no sphere in those days. After 1945, again you had an enlarged "Communist World", but mentally back to the same retrenched "what we have we hold" mentality of the 1920s and 1930s. There was NO direct Russion Soviet expansion ANYWHERE in the world until...AFGHANISTAN. And even that was really purely military.)
(You have to remember that WWII gave the USSR its "empire" by default. before that it was HUGELY inward-looking. ONLY outwarding-looking in the sense of trying to foster the International elsewhere to destabilise other countries, NOT to bring them within the Soviet sphere - because there WAS no sphere in those days. After 1945, again you had an enlarged "Communist World", but mentally back to the same retrenched "what we have we hold" mentality of the 1920s and 1930s. There was NO direct Russion Soviet expansion ANYWHERE in the world until...AFGHANISTAN. And even that was really purely military.)
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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phylo_roadking
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Lol but of course! Look at the minute aid in real terms they gave to the "growth" of world communism :-) Even the aid given to the Spanish? a fraction of what the Germans and Italians gave Franco; what they gave in numbers was all second-string stuff, or "roadtested" there and found wanting....whereas the German stuff was tested and proven LOL Comintern could have - SHOULD hvae been able to draw on the reserves of the world's richest nation in resource terms - as we now know; natural resources that equal the total of all the other nations of the world put together. And what did the Third International receive? Chickenfeed.
They wanted WEAK Communist states, or destabilised Western deomcracies. The one thing they DIDN'T want was a STRONG Communist state elsewhere in the world. Why do you think they "intervened" to cause the rift between Russia and China just when Mao needed that political and economic assistance?
You have to remember the Soviets inherited a system of government and mindset that grew up in the 13th century, when the Mongols tightened their grip on the Russ; permission to move from place to place, all the mechanisms of a police state? no other feudal kingdom in Europe required that much subjugation and control of the populace. Since then the watchword of ANY Russian government of ANY sort has been paranoia.
They wanted WEAK Communist states, or destabilised Western deomcracies. The one thing they DIDN'T want was a STRONG Communist state elsewhere in the world. Why do you think they "intervened" to cause the rift between Russia and China just when Mao needed that political and economic assistance?
You have to remember the Soviets inherited a system of government and mindset that grew up in the 13th century, when the Mongols tightened their grip on the Russ; permission to move from place to place, all the mechanisms of a police state? no other feudal kingdom in Europe required that much subjugation and control of the populace. Since then the watchword of ANY Russian government of ANY sort has been paranoia.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds