Collection of opportunities in WWII

Here I want to start a collection of strategies and tactics Allied and Axis powers could have used to get the war over with - either quicker (for the Allies) or the other way around (for the Axis powers). Short TL's, if a change at one point leads to significant differences later (like other alliances).

Add ideas or comments to ideas, if you like.

jolo said:

Here I want to start a collection of strategies and tactics Allied and Axis powers could have used to get the war over with - either quicker (for the Allies) or the other way around (for the Axis powers). Short TL's, if a change at one point leads to significant differences later (like other alliances).

Add ideas or comments to ideas, if you like.

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Well, for the Nazis you have the usual ones :-

1. No halt before Dunkirk
2. Not letting up on the airfields in the Battle of Britain
3. No halt order by Hitler on R&D that won't yield results within a year
4. No Operation Barbarossa
5. No declaration of war upon the USA
6. Use of the V-weapons against the embarkation ports for D-Day
7. Use of the V-weapons against the bridgeheads in Normandy

Grey Wolf

Axis

- Melting pot strategy instead of racism: Much more people, much better science&tech, much less flow of information and professionals to the Allies, Einstein may stay in Europe (maybe no or later nuclear bomb), more support of the people of occupied territories in the East, and so on. A few minor changes are necessary to get the same increases in production.

- Competition instead of synergy: The Nazis increased production and productivity by combining companies of an economic branch into huge monopolies. That gave them gains due to economics of scale at the beginning, but later cost them a lot due to less competition. Prices needed to be fixed, for instance, when the war production soared, which made it difficult for the economy to adapt to scarce ressources. If competition had been enforced (partly by more international cooperation during peace times), that would still have allowed economics of nearly the same scale, and more longterm growth.

- More subs, to allow an effective war against British shipping in case of a war against GB.

Allies

- Quick development of tactics against German tanks after the Nazis invaded Poland and their strengths became obvious: Molotov-Cocktail, Artillery against tanks, ambushes with tank mines, and so on should be possible to figure out and train within the weeks the Allies had.

- An offensive against Germany within the first few days of the declaration of war, to quickly gain south west and western Germany.

Axis

- I figure it would be useful to secretely distribute old and damaged tanks, as well as some cannons, along the whole coast line, especially where a landing might occur. They could be used to sink landing boats while they are still a long way from the coast.

Soviet Union:
-Worker and Peasant's Air Fleet placed on alert
-Better logistics for Soviet counterattacks
-Better co-operation with Polish and Baltic states, possibly first do not occupy them

Eh, mor than I can count...

Axis

- adopt a fluid defence startegy as proposed by Manstein (after Kursk)
- create better encription codes
- impliment jet power for fighter aircraft
- stop waisting resources on futile projects
- impliment the Final Solution until after the war is won
- get descent allies (for Germany)

Allies

- retreat armies rather than have them fight encircled (SU)

More as I think of them...

Axis

- One futile project was the V2 - I once read the Germans used up 10 times more ressources for a V2 when it cost the Allies. The ressources could've been invested better in subs, improved V1s, planes, and so on.

I read recently of an interesting corridoor conversation between Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Bormann. Rosenberg was, it will probably surprise some, closely involved in Ukrainian nationalist ideas. He believed that the Ukrainians were an old and worthy people and that Nazi Germany would set them up as an independent nation and an ally. He asked Bormann something along the lines of how the plans to do this were coming along and Bormann replied that the Ukrainians were untermenschen and would be treated as such. Bormann at the time was rising in Hitler's orbit and won the argument as to how the Ukraine was to be dealt with. Some question whether this is evidence that Bormann was a/the major Soviet agent, but to be honest it is irrelevant to the question here - what if Rosenberg's views of Ukrainians had prevailed, and he had Hitler's support instead of Bormann ?

Grey Wolf

Well, as the allies.

1. Getting the Belgians to not surrender for a while. Evacuate them and take the n00b Leopold III with you.
2. Getting more men and equipment out of Dunkirk.
3. Having the French territorial army, but not France, surrender 1940. Means that the Frecnh navy and French colonial forces, plus whatever could be ecacuated from the south, including more Poles and Czechoslovaks, fights on for the Allies.
4. No 3 means that Libya falls 1941 or even 1940. No Rommel, secure lines of communication. It can mean that the Docanese Islands can be taken and perhaps Crete be held as there is French support too and no Libyan front to sap commonwealth strength.
5. No Vichy Syria means no Iraqi revolt or Operation Exporter. More commonwealth troops and better strength in the Med might convince Turkey to choose allied in 1943, which opens up a balkans front.
6. France in control of Indochina means another enemy for the Japanese to fight and perhaps no fall of Singapore, since there will be more time to prepare. Java might be able to hold, too.
7. An invasion of Sicily summer/autumn 1942 might be possible.

Some miscellaneous ideas (most unlikely but possible):

France invades Germany in 1939 - in OTL this was a half-hearted measure. A stronger invasion against the little German opposition available on the Franco-German border might have been the catalyst for a "Generals' revolt.

German forces enter the USSR to liberate the masses from Communism and this time actually using the freed peoples as allies rather than treating them all as untermenschen. What happens to them after the war can wait.

Germany persuades Spain to join the Axis and attacks Gibralter. U-Boats based on Spanish ports and Gib could seriously mess up the UK-Africa convoys.

Hitler persuades Mussolini to withdraw from Greece (maybe by threatening not to intervene in N Africa). No Balkan campaign leads to an earlier attack on the USSR, although as Spring 1941 was wet that may not have been a descisive as some think.

France uses the Maginot line wisely. It was a sponge that soaked up troops to no great purpose. More troops available to attack north into the panzers' supply lines might limit the scale of German victory.

Britain and France invade Norway a day or two before the Germans do. Apart from the odium of attacking a neutral. the Germans come in as liberators and the Swedes may even join them. Would the prescence of Norwegian and Swedish troops have helped the Germans take Murmansk ?

Grey Wolf said:

I read recently of an interesting corridoor conversation between Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Bormann. Rosenberg was, it will probably surprise some, closely involved in Ukrainian nationalist ideas. He believed that the Ukrainians were an old and worthy people and that Nazi Germany would set them up as an independent nation and an ally. He asked Bormann something along the lines of how the plans to do this were coming along and Bormann replied that the Ukrainians were untermenschen and would be treated as such. Bormann at the time was rising in Hitler's orbit and won the argument as to how the Ukraine was to be dealt with. Some question whether this is evidence that Bormann was a/the major Soviet agent, but to be honest it is irrelevant to the question here - what if Rosenberg's views of Ukrainians had prevailed, and he had Hitler's support instead of Bormann ?

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I'd like to know if anyone ever told Rosenberg that his name sounds pretty Jewish. I googled for him and found tons of strange conspiracy theories because of that. I finally got a clearer picture when I found this page: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/RosenbergAlfred/ (German). His name is apparently older than the renaming of the Jews, and of French/German origin. One more Top-Nazi who might have had a few experiences of some people believing him to be Jewish. I suppose such experiences in the heated atmosphere after WWI fueled their anti-semitism - they experienced all the negative feelings but didn't feel bothered, as they knew they weren't Jewish at all.

As of the Ukrainians: They'd definitely be more valuable as allies - getting them, and some Russians, into the fighting on Germanys side would have allowed to recruit nearly as many people as the Russians, and to pursue more risky tactics (like more light tanks, self propelled artillery, and light artillery).

Arnhem succeeds, XXX Corps take out the Ruhr, war ends 3 months earlier.

Nazis treating conquered peoples with compassion? Nazis being sensible, logical people? What rubbish.

They treated Ukranians, Russians, Poles, etc as inferior because that was the central core of their ideology. That was what made them Nazis! Make them behave differently and they are not Nazis.

Have Hitler not meddle in military affairs? Have the Germans make strategic decisions on the basis of military logic? Again rubbish.

Hitler was the absolute ruler of Germany. His central belief about himself and his chief public persona was one of the Supreme Warlord. He believed his genius was in showing these so-called professional soldiers that he was better than them. There is no possibility whatever that he would have deferred to his generals' advice. This would mean Hitler was a different personality to the one he was.

MarkA said:

Nazis treating conquered peoples with compassion? Nazis being sensible, logical people? What rubbish.

They treated Ukranians, Russians, Poles, etc as inferior because that was the central core of their ideology. That was what made them Nazis! Make them behave differently and they are not Nazis.

Have Hitler not meddle in military affairs? Have the Germans make strategic decisions on the basis of military logic? Again rubbish.

Hitler was the absolute ruler of Germany. His central belief about himself and his chief public persona was one of the Supreme Warlord. He believed his genius was in showing these so-called professional soldiers that he was better than them. There is no possibility whatever that he would have deferred to his generals' advice. This would mean Hitler was a different personality to the one he was.

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Its nice that you can continually rubbish other people

As for conquered people, take a look at the SS and see the foreign legions there, and which peoples were considered near-Aryan enough to be able to enroll. There is no reason why a racial ideology where half of it is grey could not have decided the Ukrainians were worthy of being treated as allies. After all, the Slovaks and the Croats and the Bulgars were all Slavic

Hitler may have been supreme in that degree, but Nazi Germany was NOT a top-down state. It was a feudal state and increasingly its feudal lords were able to exercise policy independent of Hitler, and to gain influence vis-a-vis one another. This is not the army we are talking about here, this is other ideologues, other Nazis, others with beliefs and power bases which they would and did use to influence Hitler

Grey Wolf

jolo said:

...As of the Ukrainians: They'd definitely be more valuable as allies - getting them, and some Russians, into the fighting on Germanys side would have allowed to recruit nearly as many people as the Russians, and to pursue more risky tactics (like more light tanks, self propelled artillery, and light artillery).

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Just a point of interest, some Russians did fight for Hitler. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Vlasov the traitor and his ROA, the nationality legions, various Waffen-SS units, etc. No doubt the Nazis'd get more if they persue a more sensible policy, but there was quite a few of them, nevertheless.

axis
1 nazis enter a military alliance with the ussr
2 Nov 8, 1939 Assassination attempt on Hitler succeeds
3 close the straits of gibraltar
4 nazis invade middle east take the oil ( never had a real oil supply)
5 invade india and link up with the japanese
6 ussr invades nothern china

NFR said:

Just a point of interest, some Russians did fight for Hitler. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Vlasov the traitor and his ROA, the nationality legions, various Waffen-SS units, etc. No doubt the Nazis'd get more if they persue a more sensible policy, but there was quite a few of them, nevertheless.

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Yes, some badly done "experiments" in this direction. But that's not the millions that would have been possible. And they also weren't used very effectively except maybe against the own (conquered) population.

jolo said:

Yes, some badly done "experiments" in this direction. But that's not the millions that would have been possible. And they also weren't used very effectively except maybe against the own (conquered) population.

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Anti-partisan warfare is what conquered territory formations should be used for, and if they can free up national troops for other tasks by completely protecting the logistical framework and otherwise provide combat support, they'd be doing well. A lot of problem from language to doctrine to training means that usually conquered territory formations isn't really much use as main force units without a lot of preparation.

And I think you may be surprised at the sheer number of traitors - close to a million, by some count, although admittedly a lot of them were not Russians.

AXIS:

1) No big battleships - 400 U-Boats instead
2) Take out one country at a time, ie Poland, Denmark, Norway, & then France.
3) Settle down for a long struggle with the UK using the U-Boats to starve the UK into submission.
4) Offer generous terms of surrender to the UK with a long term strategy of gaining the UK as an ally.
4) Don't attack the USSR until UK is an ally (this maybe around 1945).
5) Don't declare war on USA after Japan attacks.

ALLIES:

1) Commence large scale bombing on German industry the second war is declared.
2) Pay attention to the intelligence services!
3) Ensure Generals Hobart, De Gaule, Montgomery & a few others are in high commands.
4) Don't head north to support Belgium & Holland when first Germany attacks in the west.
5) Wait until Germany reaches the North Sea Coast, then counter-attack behind the German armies on the coast.
6) After destroying the bulk of the German armies north of Dunkirk, drive into Germany.
7) War is more or less over by Christmas.

Axis:
Declare war economy in 1939.
Don't stop long-term projects.
Get the jet He-280 in 1942-43.
Avoid BoB. Get a naval air force and go for the ports and ships.
Send troops to Iraq in 1941.
Don't declare war to USA
Go for Moscow in august 1941.
Don't ve overconfident about Enigma.
Allies:
Invade Germany in 1939.
Don't send troops to Greece in 1941.
British: better defence in the Pacific.