Clams Canino wrote:

I'll let Dunkirk lay for now and address that of which I'm *sure*.

What Hitler did not know, is that he had come very close indeed to finishing
off the RAF by concentating his bombing on RAF installations and coastal
defences. While he didn't have the strategic bombers, the Stuka and JU-88
had indeed delivered enough of a blow to the RAF that had Hitler *not*
switched to bombing London, he could have finsished off the RAF in a couple
more months.

I don't know about this... it was a war of attrition with the British getting
resupplied by the US. Seems to me that percentage wise, the Luftwaffe was losing
more strength more rapidly than than the RAF (or was it the RFC at that time).
Anyway, the more planes the Germans lost, the less air strength they could put
over any given stretch of front for a blitzkrieg. In other words, success in the
air war over Britain equals failure at their other war operations.




Had the Germans stuck to "the plan" they would have rendered the RAF
innefective and then been able to launch the planned "Operation Sea Lion"
which was the reverse of our D-day cross-channel invasion. Given the weight
they could have thrown at that (as opposed to attacking Russia) there is
little doubt that Nazi occupied England could have come about just as Nazi
occupied France did.

I doubt it very strongly. Now, if there was a land bridge, sure. But facing off
two armies on dry land is a *very* different proposition than trying to ferry an
army across water. It's possible the Germans could have won, if they had been
able to get enough tanks across intact to hold a port for landing the rest of
the army... but that would take significant air cover, too, which they were
losing in your earlier scenario.


Now tell me? What good would all those B17's have done us without a ready
staging area in England? And regardless of our "eventual" intentions to get
more involved in Europe, the fact is we let Britian flap in the breeze too
long as it was, and we would not have been able to react quickly enough to
stop Hitler from crossing the channel.

Agreed. But remember, there was significant political opposition to getting
*any* involvement in a European war... Roosevelt was doing a lot for the
British, and ramping up US war industries, but we couldn't have helped them *if*
the Germans had got a strong foothold in England. And while it was proven that
one could fly B-17s off carriers, it wouldn't be an effective plan on a large
scale IMHO.



I can easily see a scenario where if Hitler took England correctly, left
Russia alone, and Japan bombed the US at Pearl (holding our interest) that
he could have easily consolodated his power in Europe. Perhaps *then* he
could have still gone after Russia too - taking enough time to do it right.

It might well have come down to "Who comes up with The Bomb 1st" as we in
the US could not have mounted anywhere near as effective an attack on Europe
without England.

Yes, it's easy to armchair quarterback it now..........

Well, if the Germans had gotten The Bomb first, it would have doomed England for
sure, and Russia later; it wouldn't have mattered whether they could
successfully invade either. You could even propose that they could have adapted
V-2s to be carried by subs and attacked the US with enough strength to stop us
from coming after them. But the 'brain drain' was a very real phenomenon; there
were relatively few German scientists who could build an atom bomb and the best
two said quite plainly afterward that they weren't going to (despite that they
pretended to in order to save their necks... can't say I blame them).

Now Japan with atom bombs is a little scarier, and they were closer from what
I've read.... that's what the balloon bomb project was really all about.

DSK

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 08:03:29 -0500, DSK wrote:


Well, if the Germans had gotten The Bomb first, it would have doomed
England for sure, and Russia later;

I'm just wondering. Inventing the Bomb, and manufacturing it in
sufficient quantities to make a difference are two different things. If I
remember correctly, the two bombs we dropped on Japan were all we had.
Were any of the powers at that time capable of sustaining nuclear
production?

thunder wrote:


I'm just wondering. Inventing the Bomb, and manufacturing it in
sufficient quantities to make a difference are two different things. If I
remember correctly, the two bombs we dropped on Japan were all we had.
Were any of the powers at that time capable of sustaining nuclear
production?

Probably not. The US had the most money, the most manpower, and the best
access to the materials, and as you noted we only could build two.

But... if the Japanese knew we only had two, would they have surrendered when
they did? *If* either Germany or Japan had built even one atom bomb (and I
don't think they could have, given the expense and material requirement) who
would have called their bluff?

DSK