Please give me your opinion !!!

[Alexei]

OK that's about something Guderian (I am not sure; I think it's him...) said.
We have lost the war the day we did not hoist the ukranian flag on Kiev's cathedral.
(sorry for bad english, I hope that somebody will adjust the correctness soon).
What do you all think about it?

[Belisarius]

As in, "we are going to lose this if we can't get the Ukrainians on our side"?

Yep, I think you're right. What if they'd taken their view of slavic people and shoved it somewhere and instead realized that the Wehrmacht was greeted as liberator of Ukraine in the start? What if..

[peter hellman]

I think you're right Belisarius. From what I've read over the years I've got the strong impression that many people Ukrainian, Tchetchens for example, living in Russia of those days hated the "Real" Russians, If the Germans would have threaten them decently, they would probably have fought besides the Germans throughout the war. Many did in the beginning. :rolleyes:

[gdpsnake]

I don't know about losing the war but I've read estimates of up to 5 million Russians could have served for/with the Germans for their own homeland in the Ukraine. They could/would have used captured Russian equipment and some German. The old White versus Red Russians issue wasn't dead.
As a side comment, my own, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'Liberation idea' didn't aid in the massive surrenders at the start of the war. The Russians didn't want to fight for Stalin until they 'discovered' that Hitler was worse.

[Redleg]

Sounds like there should be a scenario in there someplace.

[Grumble]

Appealing to ethnic nationalism in the Tsarist Empire, is one of the levers Imperial Germany used in WW1. In the Ukraine at least, it definitely helped defeat the Imperial Russian Army, and later hang on to Ukraine until the end of the war.

[acrosome]

Have you ever read Charles Winchester's "Ostfront: Hitler's War on Russia 1941-1945?" It is an admittedly superficial examination of the subject, but he seems to dwell extensively on the issue of collaboration in the occupied Soviet Union and how the Germans succeeded in alienating many who would otherwise have helped them.

[Del]

Please do not forget, many, many Germans settled in the Ukraine thanks to the invites by Katherine the Great and other Russian aristocrates. Although these German settlers stayed to themselves in their settlements, the Germans who moved to the 'big city' like Odessa intermarried with the people who lived there. It is not surprising there were many German sympathizers there. What strikes me as surprising is that Hitler did not take advantage of this. It's as though he didn't know about it.

Of course the Butcher Stalin didn't help matters what with the way he treated the people of the Ukraine.

[Randy]

Stalin treated them terribly when he moved them off their own farms and onto the collectives. Millions died of starvation (just one of the perks of living in a communist society), eventhough this was across the whole of the Soviet Union. So the Ukranians adopted that old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." So at first they treated the Germans as liberators, until they started their Anti Slavic policies.

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

The case is that it was also possible to recruit Russians. General Vlassow (captured by the Germans in 1942) raised some troops from POW camps. Eventually, there were (as far as I know) two russian divisions serving with the Germans under Vlassow.

If the German war aims would have been the destruction of the USSR into smaller, independent republics and the reduction of russia to her 1939 borders (maybe with a small adjustment in the north to the Finns) and if they would have treated their POWs as human beings, it is very likely that Stalin would have been in a big trouble.

However, if Hitler declares war on the US in Dec, 1941, the war will be over in late 45/early 46 (won by the US with atomic bombs), unless the western allies would make something *very* stupid (like trying to land in Calais in early 1942 or something like this).

For SPWAW, there might be the possiblity fo a lot of interesting scenarios including Vlassows troops....

Kind regards,
Roland

[ August 11, 2001: Message edited by: RolandRahn ]

[Alexandra]

However, if Hitler declares war on the US in Dec, 1941, the war will be over in late 45/early 46 (won by the US with atomic bombs), unless the western allies would make something *very* stupid (like trying to land in Calais in early 1942 or something like this).

This, IMO, is a very iffy statement. Why? For a number of reasons.

First, politically. The use of the bomb anywhere in Europe would have, at that time, and possibly still today, would have been polical suicide for the President and his party. Why? It would have killed a very large number of civilians who, unlike the Japanese, were part of an ethnic group with a very large voting block in the US. At that time, the German-American vote still controlled most of the mid-west, and that huge vote alone would have been lost to the party saying 'yes' to a bomb.

Second, the bomb itself. One must remember some things about it. First of all, there were only two. Second of all, it did limited to no actual military damage to Japan. What it did do was shock the Japanese military enough that thier Government was able to convince that that surrender was the best way to end a lost war. However, a Germany that held all of Eurpoe, except, arguably Sweden, the UK, Switzerland, and the Iberian Peninsula would not have had that same political shock effect ripple through it. Even if Hitler himself had been killed, there's no reason to belive that command would not have passed smoothly - as, it in fact, did, in '45 to Admiral Doenitz when Hitler killed himself (if he did, but that's another thread).

Thirdly, Militarily - With no Russia in the war, there are hundreds of thousands of German and German Allied troops that are not tied down in the East. That means that the massive hemmorage of German strength does not happen - 80 percent of German equipment and 75 percent of thier manpower losses, after all, occured on the OstFront. With no OstFront, it's quite plauabile to assume that Rommel's dream of a double envelopment of the MidEast comes true, perhaps led by Manstein or Kesselring. Given that, it's unlikely that Torch succeeds, as the French are less likely to side with the allies, and the Dak could be reinforced with all sorts of units. Even if Torch succeeds, Overlord fails.

After all, with full air superiority, and facind 2nd and 3rd rate troops, one American Beach nearly failed as it was - and that one was the only one where any 1st rate troops were. Put veterans on all the beaches, and give the Luftwaffe back the planes it lost, in the real war, in Russia, and the landing probably fails.

In all liklihood, if Russia falls in '41/42, the best the Allies can hope for is a Korean War style truce, that ends up lasting for generations.

Alex

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Originally posted by Alexandra:
However, if Hitler declares war on the US in Dec, 1941, the war will be over in late 45/early 46 (won by the US with atomic bombs), unless the western allies would make something *very* stupid (like trying to land in Calais in early 1942 or something like this).

This, IMO, is a very iffy statement. Why? For a number of reasons.

First, politically. The use of the bomb anywhere in Europe would have, at that time, and possibly still today, would have been polical suicide for the President and his party. Why? It would have killed a very large number of civilians who, unlike the Japanese, were part of an ethnic group with a very large voting block in the US. At that time, the German-American vote still controlled most of the mid-west, and that huge vote alone would have been lost to the party saying 'yes' to a bomb.

Second, the bomb itself. One must remember some things about it. First of all, there were only two. Second of all, it did limited to no actual military damage to Japan. What it did do was shock the Japanese military enough that thier Government was able to convince that that surrender was the best way to end a lost war. However, a Germany that held all of Eurpoe, except, arguably Sweden, the UK, Switzerland, and the Iberian Peninsula would not have had that same political shock effect ripple through it. Even if Hitler himself had been killed, there's no reason to belive that command would not have passed smoothly - as, it in fact, did, in '45 to Admiral Doenitz when Hitler killed himself (if he did, but that's another thread).

Thirdly, Militarily - With no Russia in the war, there are hundreds of thousands of German and German Allied troops that are not tied down in the East. That means that the massive hemmorage of German strength does not happen - 80 percent of German equipment and 75 percent of thier manpower losses, after all, occured on the OstFront. With no OstFront, it's quite plauabile to assume that Rommel's dream of a double envelopment of the MidEast comes true, perhaps led by Manstein or Kesselring. Given that, it's unlikely that Torch succeeds, as the French are less likely to side with the allies, and the Dak could be reinforced with all sorts of units. Even if Torch succeeds, Overlord fails.

After all, with full air superiority, and facind 2nd and 3rd rate troops, one American Beach nearly failed as it was - and that one was the only one where any 1st rate troops were. Put veterans on all the beaches, and give the Luftwaffe back the planes it lost, in the real war, in Russia, and the landing probably fails.

In all liklihood, if Russia falls in '41/42, the best the Allies can hope for is a Korean War style truce, that ends up lasting for generations.

Alex

The bomb was intended to be used against Germany. Germany just had the uncheerfullness to collapse three months before the bomb was available.

Regarding the number of bombs:
Trinity (Plutonium - Implosion type, July 1945)
Little Boy (Uranium - Gun Type, August 1945)
Fat Man (Plutonium - Implosion Type, August 1945)
That's it - for the August of 1945. However, if the war had continued, the US would have been able to produce much more bombs. And, knowing that there is a long war going on, the US may have dismantelt Little Boy and used the material to build several implosion Bombs (Implosion works, as far as I know, both with Uranium and Plutonium and needs a much smaller critical mass, but I'm not absolutely sure about this).

Regarding the military value of the bomb:
The plan for Olympic called for several ABombs to clear the beachheads and to cause a little trouble behind the front in order to prevent the Japanese from reinforcing the beachheads.

Would Overlord fail?

In 1944 - perhaps. But would they try it in 1944? I don't think so. They may try it in 1942 (in order to prevent the collapse of the USSR, also I think that it is very unlikely that the western allied leadership would make such a big mistake), but there would be little incentive to try it in 1944 (assuming that the USSR had fallen in 1942).

Regarding the strengh of the Luftwaffe:
A lot of German planes were lost in the defense against the western allied bomb raids. This would still happen even if the USSR falls in 1942.

In my opinion, unless there would be a truce before the Bomb becomes available, there would be a rain of ABombs against Germany in 1946. And if this is not enough, the allies could have done Overlord in 1946 supported by the tactical use of nuclear weapons.

Kind regards,
Roland

BTW: I think that this discussion might be moved to "art of wargaming" ....