How vital for great Britain was America WW2?

Rroff said:
I also like to ponder further back than that - through the 1930s the Swiss for instance read the signs and quietly started to prepare - on declaration of war they mobilised 600,000 men to the border and sat out most of the war - if in other countries instead of the general complacency and denial that another war could happen more active steps had been taken instead of turning a blind eye to Germany re-arming and keeping defensive capabilities well invested in would it have ever broken out?
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wasn't that to do with the german arms manufacturers sneaking past the terms of versailles by buying up swiss companies and using them to do research and development on new weapons, like the chain of development that led to the likes of the mg34/42 (which it should not be understated was and is an excellent gpmg considering it's barely been updated and is still in service)

stands to reason the swiss might well have been more aware than others as to germany's re-arnaments and what that would mean for europe.
 
There may be an aspect to that I don't really know. There was certainly some though who were sounding the alarm in Britain and elsewhere though.

It is also part of the reason the Swiss mostly sat out the war as it was useful to the Germans to have some stuff manufactured where it couldn't be bombed.
 
Rroff said:
I also like to ponder further back than that - through the 1930s the Swiss for instance read the signs and quietly started to prepare - on declaration of war they mobilised 600,000 men to the border and sat out most of the war - if in other countries instead of the general complacency and denial that another war could happen more active steps had been taken instead of turning a blind eye to Germany re-arming and keeping defensive capabilities well invested in would it have ever broken out?
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France by itself could probably have defeated Germany as late as 1936, if France had made a military response to the remilitarisaton of the Rhineland (which Germany was forbidden to do, but did anyway). France could certainly have taken the Rhineland and defeated the German forces in it, which would have been a huge problem for Hitler's plans and possibly ended his rule. But the French government was fed false information about the size of the German forces and eye-watering figures for the financial cost, while all the time Hitler lied convincingly about his intentions. Purely peaceful intentions, just repositioning German forces in Germany as a purely defensive measure.
 
Rroff said:
There may be an aspect to that I don't really know. There was certainly some though who were sounding the alarm in Britain and elsewhere though.

It is also part of the reason the Swiss mostly sat out the war as it was useful to the Germans to have some stuff manufactured where it couldn't be bombed.
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true, in the run up to the war there was an awful lot of folk with their fingers in their ears pretending that hitler was going to do anything but re-ignite the old flames of war.

but then in the long run i take the view it was our fault anyway, the crippling of germany after ww1 by the "allies" was what tilled the soil for hitler to grow in.
 
nightrider1470 said:
Without USA would us British people, definitely have been conquered ?

Or could we have defeated Hitler without them?
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Without Russia neither Britain nor USA could have beaten Germany. More likely both been conquered.
Russia lost between 9 and 11.5 million solders, out of total 20-27 million casualties.

To put in perspective the British casualties were around 382,000 military personnel and 67,000 civilians.
The Americans around 412,000 solders (on both theaters) and 12,000 civilians.

Yugoslavia lost almost 450,000 solders out of 2 million dead.

While China alone against the Japanese in WWII lost almost 3.8 million solders our of total 20 million casualties.

The rest is history.
 
Actually the casualty numbers are not the be all and end all of the argument, this was total war between those two forces.

As I said earlier, Germany could not have beaten Britain once Dunkirk was over, they missed there chance of victory (by a negotiated peace of us asking for it). As for the US, once they entered the war it was just a matter of time before the axis forces were beaten by the massive production factor they brought to the war effort.

One interesting fact that is often overlooked is that Hitler expected war in 1938, he didn't expect the appeasement from the French and British. This extra time allowed for Britain to manufacture more of the needed war resources that in the end led to victory.
 
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Panos said:
Without Russia neither Britain nor USA could have beaten Germany. More likely both been conquered.
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Despite the events at Dunkirk the British still had significant naval forces and significant numbers of military spread around the globe such as Africa not to mention the commonwealth to draw on - in the event that the US wasn't a factor that would have been reconfigured for more defendable positions so as to free up resources to send to the home front - meanwhile emergency programs had sprung up at home to resupply and draft more man power into the British armed forces - the most likely outcome would have been a long protracted stalemate with the cost and scale of either side mounting something like D-Day against the other just too costly.

The only way that would have really gone any other way would have been if Germany had immediately mounted a decisive campaign to gain air supremacy and pushed to the front to invade immediately - but part of the reason that they didn't do more damage to us at Dunkirk was due to how strung out their supply lines had become pushing into France meaning they couldn't do such immediately without being very vulnerable if we had somehow mounted a significant counter-attack.
 
I think the whole world in 39/40 was amazed at just how utterly fast blitzkrieg moved compared to old methods.
France was superior to Germany in all ways except outdated tactics and reliance on fortifications.
We all know that.
 
I believe Germany were looking to go to war early to mid 40s to have their forces up to strength. Hitler brought that forward but had they been allowed to quietly build them up then that steamroller would have been bigger and quicker across Europe and maybe unstoppable
 
Efour said:
I think the whole world in 39/40 was amazed at just how utterly fast blitzkrieg moved compared to old methods.
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Yeah - most of the world still had at least one leg still in an era of military campaigns that were protracted, ponderously planned, etc. and its an especially effective tactic against defences that are poorly organised, complacent and lazy - though even well planned fortifications fell to it often due to the static nature of the planning.

Eventually though there is only so many times you can replay that before defenders start to catch on.

This was both a blessing and a curse - they'd over-extended their supply lines by the time it came to Dunkirk which gave us breathing room - if they'd been able to keep that momentum moving they'd have been in London before Christmas 1940.
 
Rroff said:
Yeah - most of the world still had at least one leg still in an era of military campaigns that were protracted, ponderously planned, etc. and its an especially effective tactic against defences that are poorly organised, complacent and lazy - though even well planned fortifications fell to it often due to the static nature of the planning.

Eventually though there is only so many times you can replay that before defenders start to catch on.

This was both a blessing and a curse - they'd over-extended their supply lines by the time it came to Dunkirk which gave us breathing room - if they'd been able to keep that momentum moving they'd have been in London before Christmas 1940.
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It was assumed they would keep that momentum up at Dunkirk. Which is why so many returning soldiers were cursing the RAF and Dowding in particular. Soldiers were all saying "where is the RAF, the Germans are bombing and strafing us at will"
In fact the truth was much much different. During Dunkirk, the RAF was tasked to keep as many German fighters and bombers on the ground as possible. The result of this was vast numbers of German bombers and fighters were destroyed before they could even get in the air, or just destroyed where they were parked.
If the RAF had actually tried bring these aircraft down over Dunkirk rather than on the ground, the bloodbath at Dunkirk could easily have been much much worse. It took years before returning Dunkirk veterans were ever made aware of this.
 
Minusorange said:
It took 2 battleships (Rodney and King George V, 4 if you count the previous encounter with Hood and Prince of Wales) 2 heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, 6 destroyers and the Ark Royal to sink just the Bismarck and it was only because we got a lucky torpedo hit that took out her rudder leaving her sailing in a circle that let us kill her
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Sinking the bismarck was always disputed, the German sailors claimed it was scuttled. Cameron did a dive to it and he reached the same conclusion that it was scuttled, though probably would have sunk in the long run anyway.
 
Gerard said:
Sinking the bismarck was always disputed, the German sailors claimed it was scuttled. Cameron did a dive to it and he reached the same conclusion that it was scuttled, though probably would have sunk in the long run anyway.
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I have no doubt that the order to scuttle was given and may even have been enacted. One thing that has always worried me though, why scuttle a ship with so many crew members still aboard ? It is generally believed Lütjens himself was already dead at this point. I can't imagine any ships commander ordering his ship scuttled with so many crew still aboard. I think that the copy and paste below from Wiki says a lot.

"The whole stern had broken away; as it was not near the main wreckage and has not yet been found, it can be assumed this did not occur on impact with the sea floor. The missing section came away roughly where the torpedo had hit, raising questions of possible structural failure.[147] The stern area had also received several hits, increasing the torpedo damage. This, coupled with the fact the ship sank "stern first" and had no structural support to hold it in place, suggests the stern detached at the surface. In 1942 Prinz Eugen was also torpedoed in the stern, which collapsed. This prompted a strengthening of the stern structures on all German capital ships."

If the stern of the ship became detached on the surface, this can only be the result of damage in action and has nothing to do with a scuttling attempt.
 
If hitler had won i wonder if we would be a world full of political correctness like now?

How long could he have kept a strict regime going?
 
m4rmite said:
If hitler had won i wonder if we would be a world full of political correctness like now?

How long could he have kept a strict regime going?
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Tough question - depends how much room was given for individuality even within a stricter framework of conformity and then the actual cultural spread - within Germany for instance doing things for the greater good of the country seems even today far more ingrained in a larger proportion of the population than is typical here so would be more tolerant of the strictness - so a lot would depend on whether and how things settled down culture wise in the long run over the whole empire and many other factors.
 
kitfit1 said:
I have no doubt that the order to scuttle was given and may even have been enacted. One thing that has always worried me though, why scuttle a ship with so many crew members still aboard ? It is generally believed Lütjens himself was already dead at this point. I can't imagine any ships commander ordering his ship scuttled with so many crew still aboard. I think that the copy and paste below from Wiki says a lot.

"The whole stern had broken away; as it was not near the main wreckage and has not yet been found, it can be assumed this did not occur on impact with the sea floor. The missing section came away roughly where the torpedo had hit, raising questions of possible structural failure.[147] The stern area had also received several hits, increasing the torpedo damage. This, coupled with the fact the ship sank "stern first" and had no structural support to hold it in place, suggests the stern detached at the surface. In 1942 Prinz Eugen was also torpedoed in the stern, which collapsed. This prompted a strengthening of the stern structures on all German capital ships."

If the stern of the ship became detached on the surface, this can only be the result of damage in action and has nothing to do with a scuttling attempt.
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Stern could have detached when it went under, apparently it basically went sliding down an underwater mountain for quite a-ways before coming to a stop.

Nobody will really ever know in the long run, they can only theorise.
 
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