OT: What if?

[wulfgar]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

Bottom line. The so called inferior Spit I/II, along with the Hurricane I, won when it counted.

What? In the battle of France?

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

ORIGINAL: wulfgar

Whatever the capabilities of the early Spitfires, the 109 out-ranged them on internal fuel and out performed them with fuel injection. As for drop tanks the 109 was using them long before the Spitfire.
In your mind you are putting later marks of the Spitfire against earlier 109's.

Go ahead into that negative G dive while I'm on your 6, I'll roll invert and pull positive g's inside you and blast you out of the sky.

Spitfire negative G problem dealt with by early 1941 with a device designed by Beatrice Shilling, working at Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough,:

Officially named the 'R.A.E. restrictor', the device was immensely popular with pilots, who affectionately named it 'Miss Shilling's orifice' or simply the 'Tilly orifice'.
Wikipedia [:)]

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: wulfgar

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

Bottom line. The so called inferior Spit I/II, along with the Hurricane I, won when it counted.

What? In the battle of France?

It wasn't so much the aircraft, but superior Luftwaffe tactics which gave the advantage during the early battles, this was partially offset when the fighting moved over the UK and the British Air Defence System enabled the RAF to position squadrons to the best advantage. It still took a little time for RAF Fighter Command to give up their unwieldy 'vic' close formations and copy the Luftwaffe's more flexible 'finger 4'.

Comparison of aircraft is meaningless without considering the effects of tactics and training, with the advantage clearly with the Luftwaffe at first. [:)]

[stone10]

I. Could the Germans have developed the Panther tank in 1939?
Is the Germans winning after they developed Panther and Tiger? No. So I guess they either can't Poland or run out of fuel after case white.
II. What if the FW190 was used instead of the Me109?
FW company would earn more money?
III. What if the Germans were ready for a winter battle?
The commanders of mountain divisions wouldn't be happy with this.
IV. With 3 million men, could the Germans have made more Divisions prior to Barbarrosa?
Yes. But who could provide equipment, supply and oil to those divisions?
V. Could the Germans have reworked thier supply system better prior to Barbarossa?
They could spend several years to rework their supply system...

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Wild (you are splendidly named, btw) it's not that I am pro Soviet. It's that nazi alternate history is just boring and overdone. I really don't think anything genuinely new or interesting on the subject has been thought up in decades. Nothing in this thread qualifies as either new or interesting, btw, it's the usual blend of implausible stuff and technological fetishism.

So how about that Soviet win at Warsaw? Does the revolution spread to Berlin and elsewhere? What do the Western Allies do?

Very interesting question, missed this first time round. It raises all sorts of issues with regard to the requisites for organic proletarian revolution, whether it can be spread from outside, and not least, whether the world was even ripe for socialism in 1920, anywhere.

In passing, Flavius, I would suggest that you extend your investigation of the effects the interests manifested in the cold war have had on western understanding of the Russian military, to the effect they have also had on our understanding of political issues and characters.

Nevertheless, as regards spreading the revolution to Poland, the Bolsheviks soon noted in their counterattack on Poland, how unresponsive the locals were to revolutionary appeals. Voting against a continuation of the attack towards Warsaw at the central committee, Trotsky, then or subsequently, quoted Robespierre on the foolhardiness of exporting liberty at bayonette point. Lenin and the majority disagreed, to everyone's cost.

Even in military victory, which Tukhachevsky was more than able to deliver, 'sovietisation' of Poland would not only have alienated many of the revolution's potential allies in Poland, but quite possibly, also the German workers, the mass of whom they so desperately sought to lead. Though subjugation of a small power might sometimes be necessary in an unfavourable strategic situation, as in the Caucasus, it has powerful side effects for revolutionary causes, and is a desperate measure.

That is not to say that the proximity of the Red Army to Germany in 1920 wouldn't have boosted the KPD. It might or might not. But what of leadership, the other vital ingredient of revolution? By 1920 all of Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Mehring ( ) were dead. Three years later, the KPD botched the most favourable revolutionary situation for lack of artistry and helped pave the way for both Stalin and Hitler.

If revolution had succeeded in Germany, I think brings me to the point where the possibilities are too many, with too many variables to speculate. But of all the possible outcomes, the further spread of revolution to France and britain, to the US even, where Eugene Debbs had gained a million socialist votes from his prison cell, I am left wondering what the working class taking political power, even internationally, could actually have achieved.

Scientific socialism as opposed to utopian, bases itself upon the development of labour productivity to a level at which there is no longer any need to fight over satisfying basic needs. Marx described this as the absolute prerequisite for socialism.

The Bolsheviks realised that they could not create socialism in backward Russia, that 'generalised want,' as Marx put it, would lead inevitably to counterrevolution. They put their money on spreading revolution to an advanced economy that could haul Russia out of its backwardness before the working class's power was toppled. They lost the bet, and sixty odd years sooner than is generally recognised.

But had the revolution spread to Germany as they particularly hoped, would it have made any difference? Looking at German economy and living standards of the time, and even that of Britain and the US, I really think the entire project was premature. While the advances of the 19th century were indeed impressive and emerging mass production techniques promised a further leap in possible living standards, even rich people of the time were subject to levels of want and discomfort that the contemporary technology and labour productivity could not ameliorate for them, let alone for the entire population. The social force for socialist revolution, the working class, had come into being, but the economic and technological prerequisites for that class's rule, and the end of class rule, had not.

A little dense, but worth the effort-

"The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds himself in a dilemma. What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in this awkward position is irrevocably lost. "
Engels, 1850 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 06.htm#6.1

I don't believe that means of production capable of eliminating generalised want for the worlds's population came into existance before the IT revolution. On top of all the labour saving and many other technologies developed after the war, modern communications have made a 40+ hour working week unnecessary in an economy not regulated by a market. Poverty is increasingly the product of our economic organisation rather than a necessary historical division of wealth. The de-skilling and unemployment of swathes of people is not an absolute social necessity but relative to our society in it's trajectory of decay.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: wulfgar

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

Bottom line. The so called inferior Spit I/II, along with the Hurricane I, won when it counted.

What? In the battle of France?

Try that brawl known as The Battle of Britian.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

ORIGINAL: wulfgar

Whatever the capabilities of the early Spitfires, the 109 out-ranged them on internal fuel and out performed them with fuel injection. As for drop tanks the 109 was using them long before the Spitfire.
In your mind you are putting later marks of the Spitfire against earlier 109's.

Go ahead into that negative G dive while I'm on your 6, I'll roll invert and pull positive g's inside you and blast you out of the sky.

Actually you wouldn't. By the time you rolled inverted, dove, than rolled upright, the 109 would be long gone.

[barbarrossa]

We could settle this with some IL-2 Sturmovik.

I've still got a copy. [:)]

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

We could settle this with some IL-2 Sturmovik.

I've still got a copy. [:)]

1946? Also have Cliffs of Dover.

So many hours of fun.....

[barbarrossa]

I don't have a USB joystick! But I've got a hankering!

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

I. Could the Germans have developed the Panther tank in 1939?
II. What if the FW190 was used instead of the Me109?
III. What if the Germans were ready for a winter battle?
IV. With 3 million men, could the Germans have made more Divisions prior to Barbarrosa?
V. Could the Germans have reworked thier supply system better prior to Barbarossa?

I Tough question on the Panther on a lot of front. Overall, the Germans needed numbers and considering a Panther was twice the weight of a Mk III, it would not have solved the issues of numbers. The other issue is a lot of the technology (road wheels for example) didn't exist yet. I think it more likely the Germans come out with the Tiger. (It was already under development before the Germans ran into the T-34). One thing that would perhaps have helped would be the tank would not have been as buggy due to being rushed.

II. Lot of conversation already on that in this thread. One thing I did not see mentioned was the D version of the 190, which the Allies hated with a passion. Both were good planes. I don't think much of the 109G because it sucked even worse on range, visibilty was even worse than normal and the plane was generally a pig unless run at full power, which of course kills your range. The 190 was a better plane than the G version, but the 109K was a good redesign on a frame that was by then 12+ years old. Very true that most German aces prefered the 109 over the 190 for whatever reason.

III. Covered elsewhere. A better question may have been if the Germans did a better job preparing for a multi year campaign against Russia.

IV. As mentioned, they actually demobilized 20 divisions I think after the campaign in France to help with production. The issue is not really the number of divisions, but the overall manpower. I think the Germans hurt themselves trying to keep so many divisions because each division has its own support services, so you tie up more manpower in HQ units, non combat services instead of feeding replacements into the divisions that existed.

V. Actually, their supply services performed for what they planned for in the campaign. They planned on support to destroy the bulk of the Russian army west of the Dnepr river/in the border regions. (They actually did that for the most part, except in the south until Guderian came down). After that, they expected it to be more of a "pursuit" battle for the rest of the campaign as they moved to occupy Russia. It wasn't and their supply services got caught unprepared to provide what was needed to the troops.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

We could settle this with some IL-2 Sturmovik.

I've still got a copy. [:)]

1946? Also have Cliffs of Dover.

So many hours of fun.....

I love the original Il-2 (I have it up to Il-2 1946) [:)] - but the "Cliffs of Dover" was and is total debacle... [:(]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

We could settle this with some IL-2 Sturmovik.

I've still got a copy. [:)]

1946? Also have Cliffs of Dover.

So many hours of fun.....

I love the original Il-2 (I have it up to Il-2 1946) [:)] - but the "Cliffs of Dover" was and is total debacle... [:(]


Leo "Apollo11"

I've heard that. It will get better though. So I hope.

Never did get into the hard core stuff. Though I do like the complex engine management. (We won't mention the time I toasted both engines in a Me-110.......)

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

ORIGINAL: Aurelian



1946? Also have Cliffs of Dover.

So many hours of fun.....

I love the original Il-2 (I have it up to Il-2 1946) [:)] - but the "Cliffs of Dover" was and is total debacle... [:(]

I've heard that. It will get better though. So I hope.

We still hope... but I don't know... months and months have passed (9+ IIRC) and the game is now marginally better - now it resembles some early BETA (the original when it was released was worse that early ALPHA)...

Oleg Maddox is gone and no longer involved (in fact he left before "Cliffs of Dover" even released)...

They are apparently working on total rewrite of graphics engine (and sound engine) but there are so many other things missing or broken that one simply can't overlook all the issues...

IMHO they will patch it somehow and then immediately switch to upcoming "Battle of Moscow" and try to earn some money there (the "Cliffs of Dover" earned what they could)...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Aurelian]

Dang, I didn't know he left.....[:(]

[wulfgar]

Looks like the biggest killer for Germany in the what if's was the fighter planes. But it wouldn't have mattered so much which one. What killed Germany was loss of air supremacy, but it was because of a shortage of trained fighter pilots to meet increasing demand later in the war.
Early in the war they produced 2x - 3x as many bomber pilots as fighter pilots.

By 1944 they'd realized the error and reversed the stats, trying to produce 3x as many fighter pilots as bomber. But it was too late and they couldn't touch the allied production of crew.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

ORIGINAL: wulfgar

Whatever the capabilities of the early Spitfires, the 109 out-ranged them on internal fuel and out performed them with fuel injection. As for drop tanks the 109 was using them long before the Spitfire.
In your mind you are putting later marks of the Spitfire against earlier 109's.

Go ahead into that negative G dive while I'm on your 6, I'll roll invert and pull positive g's inside you and blast you out of the sky.

Actually you wouldn't. By the time you rolled inverted, dove, than rolled upright, the 109 would be long gone.

Puhh, whatever, pulling a negative G outside loop with a closely matched opponent on your six will just get you killed faster.

The only way that could work is if the dummy on your six was lame enough to try and follow you into it. If he's that lame you could bag him some other way.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

We could settle this with some IL-2 Sturmovik.

I've still got a copy. [:)]

I've always been interested in that one, just a "fun" flightsim not really a "serious" one.

I was more into AW->CK->Warbirds->AH->WWIIOL the latter only briefly. Spent loads and loads of time in those.

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

I. Could the Germans have developed the Panther tank in 1939?

Absolutely not.

II. What if the FW190 was used instead of the Me109?

It was when they finished developing it.

III. What if the Germans were ready for a winter battle?

No change. Possibly it could have led to a bigger defeat in Winter 41/42 because transporting that much clothing east would have left no room for food and ammunititon.

IV. With 3 million men, could the Germans have made more Divisions prior to Barbarrosa?

No.

V. Could the Germans have reworked thier supply system better prior to Barbarossa?

No.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

I. Could the Germans have developed the Panther tank in 1939?
II. What if the FW190 was used instead of the Me109?
III. What if the Germans were ready for a winter battle?
IV. With 3 million men, could the Germans have made more Divisions prior to Barbarrosa?
V. Could the Germans have reworked thier supply system better prior to Barbarossa?

I Tough question on the Panther on a lot of front. Overall, the Germans needed numbers and considering a Panther was twice the weight of a Mk III, it would not have solved the issues of numbers. The other issue is a lot of the technology (road wheels for example) didn't exist yet. I think it more likely the Germans come out with the Tiger. (It was already under development before the Germans ran into the T-34). One thing that would perhaps have helped would be the tank would not have been as buggy due to being rushed.

But the Panther was a response to combat on the eastern front. How can the Germans get it before that battle starts?

III. Covered elsewhere. A better question may have been if the Germans did a better job preparing for a multi year campaign against Russia.

That simply wasn't in their thinking. It wasn't in German thinking ever. They won quickly or they didn't win at all.
Had they thought they were going to have to fight a multi year campaign, I don't think they would have bothered.


Regards,
IronDuke