Nazi Germany began the second world war with very effective armed forces. They had the advantage of being ahead of others in quality and/or quantity of some key armaments, but they had also managed to retain and/or rebuild a very high level of 'man for man' effectiveness - that *something* that makes organisations effective, perhaps from some combination of military tradition, coordination, skill, elan, delegation, indoctrination, innovation etc.
But what if they hadn't? What if some combination of pre-Nazi run down (perhaps some of: slightly harsher treaty of Versailles, increased diversion of effort to domestic priorities, increased distrust in discredited military leadership,
increased focus on more 'militia' style defence over a centralised army, mismanagementt of arms industies) and more chaotic management post taking over (e.g. removal of too many experienced officers for more ideologically 'suitable' ones, repeated 'modernising' reforms that just disorganise and fragment expertise, more political insistence on arbitrary elements of doctrine and operational planning) managed to break the organisational machinery to the point it looses its effectiveness?
Could you see them ending up with the sort of organisation that never quite gets things right and is always less than the sum of its parts?
Perhaps we would we see the run up to war looking basically the same - Nazi diplomacy/grand strategy unchanged and broadly similar numbers of divisions and tanks - but then start to go off the rails and start to produce a sort of snowballing farce?
Perhaps the Poland campaign looks more like the Soviets in Finland or Italy in Ethiopia. Eventually enough reserves are brought in to force a Polish surrender before an effective French Saar offensive can be organised, but casualties are higher than expected and key supplies are wasted, expended or run down. To the rest of the world it doesn't look too bad (in OTL Poland collapsed much faster than expected) but to those involved there are clearly big problems.
The response then makes things worse:
1. An insistence that the attack on France must still go ahead on the planned date (despite everyone knowing it can't) wastes lots of time and resources that could have been used planning for an achievable date.
2. The wrong people are removed from command or promoted. It's not uniform but the ones who have learned the wrong lessons or are best at 'office politics) tend to be promoted over those who 'failed to perform' because of systemic problems (and who could perhaps have been able to start fixing them with that experience).
3. Too many 'reforms' are introduced to try and fix the problems, but none can really be completed on time with the resources available. Generals increasingly have to find more creative ways of prevaricating, working around or pretending to comply with new organisational directives.
Some form of attack on Norway is still launched. The complex timings don't work so well. Some sort of foothold is taken but no knock-out blow.
The attack on France is finally launched. (Perhaps say 3 weeks late?) It is similar to the OTL plan involving an attack through Belgium and a strong narrow thrust to the centre. But the planning is definitely worse.
1. The simple is overcomplicated. For example perhaps this version has a much more complex series of diversionary attacks which in theory help paralyse the defenders but mostly wear down available aircraft by flying sorties over unimportant sectors.
2. The timing is a bit ropey. Because of the missed deadline and rushing to meet it, multiple timetables have been produced and not everyone is quite on board with the plan.
3. The 'main thrust' is perhaps slightly overloaded. The attack in the north therefore won't pin down as many troops, while the extra forces assigned to the centre aren't adding much useable additional power due to space and logistics but are also making it more obvious.
4. The Allies have had just a little extra time to prepare. Reserves are slightly better organised and trained, commanders have had slightly more time to get to know their responsibilities and men, slightly more tanks and guns and planes have been deployed. (But of course Gamelin is still in charge with a probably similar defence plan, there are still plenty of deficiencies of anti-tank guns and tank-radios, etc. etc.)
What do you think? Does this sound vaguely plausible? And if this had happened, what do you think might have happened next?
Does Nazi Germany somehow stumble to just beating France (perhaps with a less favourable armistice?) and onwards to launching a totally car-crash version of Barbarossa? Or bog down into world war 1 part 2 and slowly collapse? Or..?
But what if they hadn't? What if some combination of pre-Nazi run down (perhaps some of: slightly harsher treaty of Versailles, increased diversion of effort to domestic priorities, increased distrust in discredited military leadership,
increased focus on more 'militia' style defence over a centralised army, mismanagementt of arms industies) and more chaotic management post taking over (e.g. removal of too many experienced officers for more ideologically 'suitable' ones, repeated 'modernising' reforms that just disorganise and fragment expertise, more political insistence on arbitrary elements of doctrine and operational planning) managed to break the organisational machinery to the point it looses its effectiveness?
Could you see them ending up with the sort of organisation that never quite gets things right and is always less than the sum of its parts?
Perhaps we would we see the run up to war looking basically the same - Nazi diplomacy/grand strategy unchanged and broadly similar numbers of divisions and tanks - but then start to go off the rails and start to produce a sort of snowballing farce?
Perhaps the Poland campaign looks more like the Soviets in Finland or Italy in Ethiopia. Eventually enough reserves are brought in to force a Polish surrender before an effective French Saar offensive can be organised, but casualties are higher than expected and key supplies are wasted, expended or run down. To the rest of the world it doesn't look too bad (in OTL Poland collapsed much faster than expected) but to those involved there are clearly big problems.
The response then makes things worse:
1. An insistence that the attack on France must still go ahead on the planned date (despite everyone knowing it can't) wastes lots of time and resources that could have been used planning for an achievable date.
2. The wrong people are removed from command or promoted. It's not uniform but the ones who have learned the wrong lessons or are best at 'office politics) tend to be promoted over those who 'failed to perform' because of systemic problems (and who could perhaps have been able to start fixing them with that experience).
3. Too many 'reforms' are introduced to try and fix the problems, but none can really be completed on time with the resources available. Generals increasingly have to find more creative ways of prevaricating, working around or pretending to comply with new organisational directives.
Some form of attack on Norway is still launched. The complex timings don't work so well. Some sort of foothold is taken but no knock-out blow.
The attack on France is finally launched. (Perhaps say 3 weeks late?) It is similar to the OTL plan involving an attack through Belgium and a strong narrow thrust to the centre. But the planning is definitely worse.
1. The simple is overcomplicated. For example perhaps this version has a much more complex series of diversionary attacks which in theory help paralyse the defenders but mostly wear down available aircraft by flying sorties over unimportant sectors.
2. The timing is a bit ropey. Because of the missed deadline and rushing to meet it, multiple timetables have been produced and not everyone is quite on board with the plan.
3. The 'main thrust' is perhaps slightly overloaded. The attack in the north therefore won't pin down as many troops, while the extra forces assigned to the centre aren't adding much useable additional power due to space and logistics but are also making it more obvious.
4. The Allies have had just a little extra time to prepare. Reserves are slightly better organised and trained, commanders have had slightly more time to get to know their responsibilities and men, slightly more tanks and guns and planes have been deployed. (But of course Gamelin is still in charge with a probably similar defence plan, there are still plenty of deficiencies of anti-tank guns and tank-radios, etc. etc.)
What do you think? Does this sound vaguely plausible? And if this had happened, what do you think might have happened next?
Does Nazi Germany somehow stumble to just beating France (perhaps with a less favourable armistice?) and onwards to launching a totally car-crash version of Barbarossa? Or bog down into world war 1 part 2 and slowly collapse? Or..?
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