Second World War 'what if?'....

[Sergeant Wilson]

Whit? They started it surely?

It's a moot point.

[JogaBonito]

What if they hadn't come up with the nuclear bomb? What if the Americans thought boots on the ground was a better option than the n-bomb (I remember watching some WW2 show on BBC2 where they explained how the Japanese would rather fight to the death than surrender, making the fight on the Okinawan and surrounding islands such a nightmare).

My Polish lady-partner is pretty bitter at the way they were overrun by the Germans and then the Soviets whilst the west did sweet fa.

[Hillonearth]

Whit? They started it surely?

The RAF bombed Berlin before the Luftwaffe bombed London in summer 1940 - the Germans were concentrating on the RAF airfields at the time.

They used mainly Hampden bombers which didn't carry much of a payload - they were called Flying Suitcases as they were so cramped - and were aiming for the airport, but predictably missed the target although they didn't cause that much damage.

Even more predictably, Hitler promptly lost his shit and ordered a shift of focus to UK cities.

[dorlomin]

The RAF bombed Berlin before the Luftwaffe bombed London in summer 1940

Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam.

[dorlomin]

What if they hadn't come up with the nuclear bomb? What if the Americans thought boots on the ground was a better option than the n-bomb (I remember watching some WW2 show on BBC2 where they explained how the Japanese would rather fight to the death than surrender, making the fight on the Okinawan and surrounding islands such a nightmare).

My Polish lady-partner is pretty bitter at the way they were overrun by the Germans and then the Soviets whilst the west did sweet fa.

The Soviet Japanese war and Second Sino Japanese wars would have dragged on for a few more months. Japanese ground forces were in no state to fight the premier mechanised force in the world but would have likely gone guerilla and exacted high casualties while taking very high casualties. But those kind of battle offer much more scope for desertion and surrender compared with the caves of Iwo Jima or Okinawa. The war would likely have draggen on for a couple of more months and ended either when Downfall began and the Americans showed a willingness to take the casualties of an invasion of the home islands or when the Soviets began their invasion of the main islands. Several hundred thousand more killed at any rate.

[Roland B]

Don't mention the war.

[Hillonearth]

Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam.

Granted, but none of these are related to the the original question which was specifically about the UK and Germany.

[KnightswoodBear]

Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam.

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

[peasy23]

Granted, but none of these are related to the the original question which was specifically about the UK and Germany.

There was a good programme on a few weeks back with Ewan McGregor and his brother about the Battle of Britain. The Germans had been pounding the airfields in the London area and had the RAF on the brink of collapse, possibly as close as 10-14 days away. The decision was then taken to bomb Berlin, which had minimal impact, but it did f**k with Hitler's head enough to make him order Goring to forget about the airfields and attack London instead. That then had the effect that the southern based RAF fighters could go after the German fighter escorts, while they could bring in fighters from North of London to take on the German bombers. It also helped that the Germans had no clue as to how good the British radar network was.

[LongTimeLurker]

My Polish lady-partner is pretty bitter at the way they were overrun by the Germans and then the Soviets whilst the west did sweet fa.

Best way to shut them up on that is to remind them about what they did to Czechoslovakia at Teschen in 1938.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Conference#Resolution

[dorlomin]

The reason why British cities were bombed was in retaliation for bombing German cities. Before, only military targets were bombed, but this was replaced with "area bombing". With the aim of turning a civilian population against their government. However, it ended achieving the exact opposite as it did in London. The only positive aspect of deliberately targeting civilians in a war is that it makes them less likely to want to go to war in the future. How many people would have been in favour of the Iraq war had they known Saddam could bomb us?

Long winded post warning

"Area bombing" was a very specific tactic that emerged in 1942 from bomber command. It involved very large blast bombs (cookies) and lots of incendiaries. It was developed by closely studying what had and what had not worked in the German bomber offensive over the UK.

That is what area bombing looks like.

The Germans went after specific targets in 1940/41 such as the London docklands and the City of London (a dock and a financial hub). But bombing then was hugely inaccurate. When they switched to night bombing (The Blitz) they tried to attack specific targets like dockyards but these were nearly impossible to hit at night. Even the infamous raid on Coventry was aimed at industry.

The idea that UK\US air raids had minimal impact is an absolute nonsense.

During the Battle of the Ruhr, Bomber Command severely disrupted German production. Steel production fell by 200,000 short tons (180,000 t). The armaments industry was facing a steel shortfall of 400,000 short tons (360,000 t). After doubling production in 1942, production of steel increased only by 20% in 1943. Hitler and Speer were forced to cut planned increases in production. This disruption caused resulting in the Zulieferungskrise (sub-components crisis). The increase of aircraft production for the Luftwaffe also came to an abrupt halt. Monthly production failed to increase between July 1943 and March 1944. A raid on the city of Essen on 8 March 1943 destroyed 160 acres of the city centre and caused 75% destruction in a further 450 acres.^[76] Further attacks on the industrial city Kassel dehoused 123,800 people (62% of the population) and killed 6,000.Tiger tank production at the main plant of Henschel was halted for months^[77] and 88 mm artillery production was halted for four months.^[78] RAF bombing disrupted production of the Panther tank, delaying the Germans' Operation Citadel.^[79] Locomotive production, the Henschel firm's main product, ceased in the Ruhr after July 1943 and production was further disrupted by the destruction of 100,000 workers dwellings. Production of ammunition fuses (for artillery) was also stopped. Some 200,000 had been produced prior from September 1939-March 1943.^[80] For the time being, "Bomber Command had stopped Speer's armaments miracle in its tracks".^[81] Furthermore, some 7,000 heavy German artillery had been diverted to protect the Ruhr.^[82] Th

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_of_the_Reich#Limited_British_success_.281942.E2.80.9343.29

In 1942 German factories were working 5 day 1 shift operations. Many were producing consumer goods. There was huge slack in the system. The plan was to draft in millions of labourers and work 7 day 3 shift patters (a 400% increase). Wartime production increased but only slowly as it soared in the allied nations. A lot of mistakes were made and a lot of resources wasted by something like 80% of 8.8cm kanon (the dreaded 88) were used in defence of the Reich not anti tank duties, by late 43 something like 60-70% of Nazi fighters were on defence of the Reich duties not on the fronts. The over whelming majority of German fighter pilots killed were killed on defensive duties. An enormous amount of resources was required to clean up and protect from raids.

Then in 44 the allies hit on a huge winning stratagy. Instead of defending the bombers, they would put up a giant wall of 1000 fighters ahead of the bombers to kill the attacks before they arrived. In one week the Nazis lost close to 20% of their total fighter strength.

Albert Speer made a hugely salient point. Every major town had to have a large stock pile of guns and ammunition that spent most of the year unused. Trained gun crews could spend 360 out of 365 days not firing at targets. But these guns were premium tank killers.

In December 1944 the Germans launched a huge counter offensive. We know it as the Bulge. They only had fuel for a couple of days, the whole plan revolved around capturing allied supplies, yet no German coal to oil plant had been over run by allied troops. They had been obliterated by bombers. Time and time again you read of new production delayed, training cut back and operations cancelled because of the losses to allied air raids.

There were virtually no German fighters to defended against the Overlord landings and Operation Bagration, why? They had been destroyed by the Pointblank Directive defending the Reich.

German rail was completely destroyed and components could not be moved between factories due to the air assault.

The 'oil plan' had cut the Nazi oil supply from coal to about 10% before the allies actually invaded Germany.

You can argue it was not worth the price in terms of aircrew.

You can argue it was not worth the price in terms of civilians lost.

You can argue the resources could have been better used.

But it was not worthless and had a huge impact.

[JogaBonito]

Best way to shut them up on that is to remind them about what they did to Czechoslovakia at Teschen in 1938.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Conference#Resolution

I doubt she'll be too pleased if I told her to shut up. Interesting reading. Just came across this and it doesn't paint it so black and white though?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak_border_conflicts

You can tell I'm not a history buff.

[Fotbawmad]

Whit? They started it surely?

Source please.

Initially, Hitler insisted that only military installation be bombed, but in a speech made on 4th of September on 1940. He explained after months of the British targeting civilians in nightly bombing raids. He was left with no choice but to return the favour. Of course, you're not going to learn that in school or through any mainstream media outlet. Due to it painting us and Churchill in a bad light.

Document number 103202/06 was signed by Kirill Meretskov on 18th September 1940. It reveals Stalin was going to wage a massive military offensive on 10th July 1941 under code name "operation thunder". To their surprise Germany waged a preemptive strike 3 weeks prior.

[dorlomin]

Document number 103202/06 was signed by Kirill Meretskov on 18th September 1940. It reveals Stalin was going to wage a massive military offensive on 10th July 1941 under code name "operation thunder". To their surprise Germany waged a preemptive strike 3 weeks prior.

His forces were rather poorly arranged for an attack dont you think.

The only source being a Soviet defector.

[welshbairn]

Initially, Hitler insisted that only military installation be bombed, but in a speech made on 4th of September on 1940. He explained after months of the British targeting civilians in nightly bombing raids. He was left with no choice but to return the favour. Of course, you're not going to learn that in school or through any mainstream media outlet. Due to it painting us and Churchill in a bad light.

Germany started off targeting civilians in Poland, destroying 75% of the buildings in Weilun before moving onto Frampol, Sulejow and Warsaw. They carried on bombing civilian targets in France, and it wasn't until they dropped 97 tons of bombs in the centre of Rotterdam that the RAF responded by attacking the Ruhr.

The only reason Hitler delayed attacking civilian targets in Britain was that he knew we could return the favour.

By the way, this information is available in any standard textbook and the MSM, and thus subject to peer level scrutiny, and therefore probably true.

[Hillonearth]

My Polish lady-partner is pretty bitter at the way they were overrun by the Germans and then the Soviets whilst the west did sweet fa.

What, was going to war over them not enough for her!?

They didn't exactly help themselves even though the writing was on the wall a few years prior to 1939, which resulted in them still having an air force largely made up of obsolescent biplanes and active cavalry units which they soon learned the hard way weren't up to much against tanks.

What they did have they lined up more or less along the border to get the shite kicked out of it almost immediately instead of positioning it behind natural defences, e.g. the Vistula. They estimated they could hold out for a good few months, which would have been long enough for the UK and France to mount a counteroffensive from the west.

What nobody - British, French or Polish - had counted on was the Soviets sticking the boot in from the opposite direction, which meant the ball was up on the slates for them after just a couple of weeks.

[Mr Rational]

Actually, the Germans bombed us first, although it's another argument as to whether they bombed us on purpose or not.

Hitler had expressly forbidden attacks on the capital. On the 24th August a Luftwaffe bomber was swept off course and accidentally bombed London. The following day, Churchill ordered a retaliatory bombing of Berlin. The only casualty was the only elephant in Berlin Zoo, but it was a slap in the face to both Goering and Hitler who had both states that no bomb would ever fall in the city.

The Blitz started not long after it, 7th September springs to mind but I'm not 100% certain to the exact date.

[jagfox]

British efforts in the far east were pretty disastrous at the start of the war. We had a large naval force but it lacked air carriers and at least one of its main battle ships was sunk without much of a challenge by the Japanese.

The defence of Singapore was an utter disaster too. A force numerically inferior landed on a beachead which was ill defended forced the surrender of a large BE force. We were still disembarking troops as the local command had decided to surrender.

Britain and Churchill in particular seemed to spend a lot of time and resources defending Burma due to a perceived threat to India.

America also spent a lot of time and effort trying to shore up China against the Japanese and there was little cohesion between the allied forces until the Jaoanese extended their attacks as far as Darwin via air strikes and invading PNG.

Like Churchill with Burma McArthur probably extended the war in the East by making good his promise to return to the Phillipines. The last Japanese sodier there didn't actually surrender until 1974!

[jagfox]

Re: Turtledove alternative history books, I read the serious that ran from the Civil War through WW1, the rise of a facist confederacy into WW2. I never actually got rou.d to finishing the last three but tbey were quite entertaining and each book was written around five ir six protagonists and their situation. Mark Twain was bizarrely one of the characters in the first three books.

[Sergeant Wilson]

Burma McArthur

I don't like the sound of him old boy, is he one of them?