WW2 stuff
Good stuff, though I'd disagree about a couple of points.
Germany almost had the British beaten in the Battle of Britain. A few more weeks of pounding the radar sites and the Brits wouldn't have been able to respond to the Germans because they wouldn't have seen them coming. Spitfires don't help when you can't engage the enemy and the Brits didn't have the oil to run constant air patrol. I'm not saying they could have invaded - the Germans just didn't have the ships - but they could have had the Brits in a far worse position.
The Germans could have easily won Barbarossa if they hadn't been so stupid at Stalingrad. Moscow was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It's Army Group South that really mattered. If the 4th isn't redeployed back and forth, they either capture Stalingrad intact or (better yet) Grozny. All the Germans had to do was maintain their positions on the Don to prevent the flow of traffic coming up the Don while taking Grozny. That cuts off the Russians from both their best food and oil sources. With another 250,000 troops not slugging it out in Stalingrad, Paulus would dig in along the bends of the Don and let the Russians beat their heads in trying to break through. Their units in key positions would have greatly strengthened the lesser armies of Hungary, Romania and Italy which were all spread too thin. By the end of the winter the Russians would have been starved for oil and food. Instead, Hitler tried to get both Stalingrad and Grozny and ended up getting neither.
Also, one can only wonder what would have happened if Hitler had used his paratroopers to take Malta. The Brits were beaten in Egypt until they were resupplied by Malta. If the Germans take Malta and reinforce Rommel with 1/3rd the troops they did later trying to save that army, the Brits are done. Egypt is overrun, the Germans have a clear shot to the Middle East oil fields and even a chance for Rommel to come up from the South to flank the Russian armies around Grozny.
Oh I agree that the Germans almost had them beat, but trust me when I say that even the destruction of the radar wouldn't have been enough, and the English would still have been far from blind. It all came down to the Royal Observer Corps, and there were many more of them around the country than radar stations. I saw a program on it not too long ago. Also, to your point about the ships, there was just no comparison when it came to naval strength, so even if the German had won the air war, which would have left them decimated, anyway, how would they have gotten across the channel? It just wasn't feasible, even if the Luftwaffe could have attacked the Royal Navy, so the war was lost for Germany once they allowed the Allies to escape at Dunkirk. Apparently, captured german pilots from the battle of britain also felt that if the battle for air supremacy could not be won by the Luftwaffe, then the conflict would ultimately settle into a kind of 30 years war between germany and the uk, which England would have won, imo. Yes, it would have taken longer, but they could have done it, especially with their techniques of deception.
And now to the eastern front, lol.
Stalingrad wasn't part of Barbarossa, but I still understand what you're saying. I disagree that Moscow wasn't important, though, because it's capture could have had a devastating impact on the will of the Russian people to fight on, but I realized how foolish that sounds just in typing it, lol.
Still, Moscow was the objective, and Hitler completely blew it when he opted to encircle the Kiev Pocket. Woo, lol.
As for the food and oil supplies, I completely agree, although it should be pointed out that the germans already had the bread basket (ukraine) of the region in their hands, so the Russians were already at a disadvantage, to say the least. Securing such a front would have been difficult, though, because if they get cut off in the Caucasus, how would they fight their way out? The Germans did try to proceed in that direction, but they didn't commit nearly enough guys to get it done, even though they still made excellent progress due to the ability of the Fallschirmjägers, which shouldn't come as a surprise, lol. Bottom line - Stalingrad was all about ego, but when you go back and look at what happened, more german troops died from frostbite and other diseases than from actual combat, lol. The cold also stopped their guns from working, but they should have anticipated that before they invaded, but hey, what do I know? I'm not an invincible and impossibly-arrogant member of the 'master race,' lol.
Finally, North Africa was a complete waste of time that was only made a priority because the only country that Italy ever defeated in the second world war was Ethiopia, lol.
How's that for a sidekick when you're trying to take over the world, lol?
I wonder if Hitler ever pulled Mussolini aside and said, "you're embarrassing me. Now go wait in the car," ahaha.
The Italians were useless. The only thing that they ever had as a plus for the germans was their navy. Well, until the British decimated it Pearl Harbor style with biplanes, lol. The fact is is that Rommel was always outnumbered and outgunned, which makes his achievements even more impressive, imo, and I did read somewhere that the ultimate plan was for Rommel to link up with the other german forces in the Caucasus, but that is ridiculously far fetched, imo. Besides, if Rommel is on the eastern front instead of in North Africa from day one of Barbarossa - OH DEAR GOD.
I don't even want to think about that, lol. That's scary.
I'm not so sure that the germans could have taken Malta, though. Have you forgotten how decimated the Fallschirmjägers were after Crete?
Sidebar - as for the eastern front, this is where Turkey plays a huge role, imo, because, had they sided with germany, again, lol
, then that completely cuts the Russians off from resupply via the Black Sea, which was one of the biggest reasons for their defeat in world war 1. Just something to think about. Sorry I wrote so much, btw.
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