Any way for the Germans to win the Eastern front?

[Razgovory]

Found this  today, reminded me of this thread so thought I'd pop it in here.

http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/STAVKA-OKH.html


Do it better on the Eastern Front as the OKH or Stavka, or something.

Neat.  I won the war and succeeded Hitler as leader.  Europe is mine!  Made the final push in the autumn of 1945.  Only cost 26,219,516 lives.

Played as STAVKA (I wish it would let you choose which side you play for),  Won the War in  Winter of '45.  Only cost 27,918,879 people.  I succeeded Stalin as well.

[Maximus]

Played as STAVKA (I wish it would let you choose which side you play for),  Won the War in  Winter of '45.  Only cost 27,918,879 people.  I succeeded Stalin as well.

It only lets me play the soviets.

[Malthus]

That game helps with my murder boner.

For a murder boners lasting more then six hours see your physician immediately.

Note: actually murdering your phyiscian is not recommended and may be illegal in some jurisductions.

[grumbler]

And then there's still that pesky attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, which probably wouldn't depend on Barbarossa having taken place or not.

Well, if Germany's forced the Brits to concede already by winning in Africa that hardly matters does it?

What would the British have been forced to concede by the Germans winning in North Africa?

[Alcibiades]

Played as STAVKA (I wish it would let you choose which side you play for),  Won the War in  Winter of '45.  Only cost 27,918,879 people.  I succeeded Stalin as well.

It only lets me play the soviets.

Just keep loading it, it'll randomly switch.

[Alcibiades]

And then there's still that pesky attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, which probably wouldn't depend on Barbarossa having taken place or not.

Well, if Germany's forced the Brits to concede already by winning in Africa that hardly matters does it?

What would the British have been forced to concede by the Germans winning in North Africa?

A much longer journey for their curry?

[grumbler]

I'm not sure that's actually true.  I watched a panel of historians of WWII a few days ago.  One of the more esteemed members of the group made the case that the Japanese only made the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 because they were assured that Hitler was winning and would declare war shortly after.  Their original plan called for an attack on the USA in 1946, but the Germans assured them that Germany would stand against the USA alongside them in the event of an earlier attack.  Germany's initial successes in Barbarossa were key in convincing the Japanese that the Germans weren't going to lose the war and that it was best to jump onto the winning side as early as possible.

The Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 is what propelled the Japanese to plan for an early war against the US.  Had they waited until 1946 after the US completed its buildup, it would have been a very short war, indeed.

The Axis ("Tripartite") Pact didn't commit the Germans to declare war on the US, and in fact had Germany told Japan they would not do so if Japan attacked first.  The revision of the Axis Pact to require Germany to do so (the Japanese aim in the revision), and to also forbid any Axis member from making any separate peace (the German aim in the revision), was signed on Dec 10, and Hitler declared war a day later.

[The Brain]

Paukenschlag.

[grumbler]

A much longer journey for their curry?

The Med was closed to them as it was.  The Canal was useful to them to supply their troops in North Africa, and Alexandria was a key repair base, but losing the canal and Alex wouldn't have knocked them out of the war.

Plus, i am not at all sure the Germans could have done it, even lacking an Eastern Front.  The logistics capabilities just weren't there to even keep what they had in supply.

[grumbler]

Paukenschlag.

Have you read Operation Drumbeat http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Drumbeat-Dramatic-Germanys-American/dp/1591143020/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324594224&sr=8-1 ?

An excellent book.  If it had been published as fiction, it would have been decried as absolutely unrealistic.  It makes you understand that Admiral    "Terrible" Turner's nickname referred to his ability, not his temper.

[The Brain]

Paukenschlag.

Have you read Operation Drumbeat http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Drumbeat-Dramatic-Germanys-American/dp/1591143020/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324594224&sr=8-1 ?

An excellent book.  If it had been published as fiction, it would have been decried as absolutely unrealistic.  It makes you understand that Admiral    "Terrible" Turner's nickname referred to his ability, not his temper.

No. Maybe I'll include it in my next shipment.

[grumbler]

I'll just provide the link rather than poorly paraphrase the argument made.  I'll try to find the portion again, though, since the whole segment is 1.5 hours long.

http://youtu.be/79KU997m9o4

Listened to the portion to do with the question at hand, and compared what Prof. Weinberg says to what Michael Gannon says in Operation Drumbeat (which deals fairly extensively with the German DoW).  I think Weinberg overstates the nature of the Hitler-Matsuoko talks in the spring of 1941 committed Hitler to.  In those informal talks, Hitler got Matsuoko's assurance that Japan would attack the USSR, and assured Matsuoko in return that Germany would declare war on the US even if Japan found it necessary to attack the US first.  When Japan, in November 1941, reminded Hitler of his promise to declare war on the US even if japan attacked first, Hitler deferred an answer until he could get the revision of the Tripartite Pact (committing each member to "no separate peace"), which occurred on Dec 10.

Thus, I disagree with Weinberg that Japan would not have attacked unless they knew Germany would come into the war on their side.  I think that this is also the positions of John Toland in The Rising Sun and H.P. Wimot in Empires in the Balance, but those books are at school and I would have to check them to verify.  I think Japan's timing and actions were driven by their own perceived needs, and by their perception that they could succeed in a short war against the US.  Weinberg ignores this perception, which also drives his analysis that pearl harbor was a disaster for japan because the US could, over the course of a few years, recover almost all of the ships lost there.

[Habbaku]

Good points, grumbles.  I haven't studied the DoW nearly as much as I probably should, so thought it wisest to defer to someone who's rather learned on the subject.  That you disagree makes me curious to find more from Weinberg's perspective than just the short Marshall Foundation speech in the video.

Of course, it's also more a boot to the ass that I need to read Toland's book, which has been languishing on my shelf for the past year. 

[Razgovory]

Why couldn't the Japanese just buy oil from the British or the Dutch?  The British were in desperate straits and couldn't have to picky in who was willing to give them cash.  I don't know who was actually running Indonesia at the time if it was the British or the Dutch, but I couldn't imagine the Dutch being in such a comfortable position as to turn up their noses at money.

In fact, wouldn't an alliance with Britain be much more lucrative then a war against them?  The Japanese could ally with Britain and help out in the Atlantic and perhaps send an expeditionary force in North Africa while the Japanese are sold oil and tacitly given a free hand in China.  In 1940-41 the British essentially had to take what ever help was offered, and weren't in a position to make many demands.  An agreement with the British might also lessen pressure from the US.

[grumbler]

Good points, grumbles.  I haven't studied the DoW nearly as much as I probably should, so thought it wisest to defer to someone who's rather learned on the subject.  That you disagree makes me curious to find more from Weinberg's perspective than just the short Marshall Foundation speech in the video.

To be fair to him, he was brought in to address myths, etc, so maybe he is being more provocative there than he usually is.  His presentation of "myths" in general is pretty much just a litanies of when leaders took specific steps that went counter to their announced principals, rather then genuine myths.

Pretty much everyone ignored the fact that the US didn't pursue in 1942-43 the "Germany first" strategy it had supposedly planned from the start.  There were good reasons for this, but it makes for an interesting myth to bust.

Of course, it's also more a boot to the ass that I need to read Toland's book, which has been languishing on my shelf for the past year. 

The book is a bit dated, given that it was written before the whole cryptanalysis/ULTRA story broke, but is still very well-written and gives a fairly good view f the war from the Japanese perspective as well as the American.  Toland was the first, and perhaps only, writer to interview all the surviving principals from both sides, and one of the few writers on the topic who spoke Japanese fluently and so was able to address the subtleties of what the Japanese wrote and told him.  You'll like it, but should keep in mind that it is dated.