Could Germany ever have forced the UK into signing an armistice...

Could Germany ever have forced the UK into signing an armistice? It seems like if the Luftwaffe had spent more time developing a proper bomber force they could've simply continued bombing RAF bases until there was no way for them to effectively fight back.

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dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf
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If Operation Barbarossa had worked out as planned, then Britain probably would have been forced to sign some kind of armistice. With the Russian bear subdued, Hitler would be able to turn his attention back to the west.

I don't think there is any scenario with Barbarossa works unless Germany has no other enemies to worry about while at the same time somehow not making it obvious they're planning an invasion

If the US supported the UK, almost certainly not. The US + UK were capable of successfully attriting and beating any size of air force that the Axis could have put together.

>Could Germany ever have forced the UK into signing an armistice?
maybe if Hitler hadn't broken every treaty he ever signed, they might have been more open to negotiation

The mistake was that Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe to concentrate on ineffective terror bombing. If the Luftwaffe had consistently targeted the RAF's production facilities and air bases the Germans could have left the UK defenseless.

The biggest mistakes the Germans ever made was not wiping out the UK before the USSR, and declaring war on the US. If they avoid these mistakes they'd actually have proven successful.

That's why I think it hinges on the Luftwaffe having put a higher priority on strategic bombing, it requires them to destroy the RAF's ability to effectively defend Britain from bombing raids and to do so before the US can justifiably enter the war

But user, it was extremely obvious that Germany was going to invade. Stalin had multiple different sources telling him that a German attack on the Soviet Union was imminent. He simply chose to ignore all of the warning signs. So yes, a successful Barbarossa is indeed possible. It just has to be done sooner. Hitler waited too long.

You don't necessarily have to subdue Britain before America enters the war. You just have to subdue Britain BEFORE June 6, 1944.

The US could never "justifiably enter the war" without Germany taking the first step.

Subduing them before America enters the war is the most ideal scenario though because even if Britain is subdue that could still leave America willing to fight Germany

> It seems like if the Luftwaffe had spent more time developing a proper bomber force they could've simply continued bombing RAF bases until there was no way for them to effectively fight back.
Don't be stupid. Britain built more planes, bigger planes, and even if the Luftwaffe did have a strategic bombing force that didn't cut into their CAS force such that you can't win in France, yo still have the problem of escorting the bombers, as the operational ranges of the German fighters were tiny.

In any event, look at pic related. Literally millions of TONS of bombs were dropped on Germany without forcing an armistice through airpower alone. What makes you think it would work in reverse?

>The mistake was that Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe to concentrate on ineffective terror bombing. If the Luftwaffe had consistently targeted the RAF's production facilities and air bases the Germans could have left the UK defenseless.
And if the Brits move FG 11 up to bases in the midlands?

>The mistake was that Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe to concentrate on ineffective terror bombing. If the Luftwaffe had consistently targeted the RAF's production facilities and air bases the Germans could have left the UK defenseless.
I believe modern historical consensus is that the UK would still have won the Battle of Britain even with such a change in emphasis on the part of the Germans.

>That's why I think it hinges on the Luftwaffe having put a higher priority on strategic bombing
Unless you're imagining an alternate history in which the Luftwaffe had significantly more resources than it did in the real timeline, I don't think this would have changed anything. Just switching to strategic bombing instead of what they were actually doing during the BoB wouldn't have worked. It took years of practice and much greater resources than anything the Nazis had in 1940 for the Allies to make strategic bombing against the Axis effective. WW2-era strategic bombing was so imprecise that it required enormous bomber fleets to do serious damage. There's just no way the Germans could have done that sort of damage with the sort of resources they had available.

No. There was literally no chance that the U.K would ever surrender, especially with the U.S backing them up and the Nazis losing on the Eastern front.

Without Britain to act as a staging area for an invasion, there is literally nothing that America can do to influence events in the European theater. The highest priority is making sure that Operation Barbarossa is a success. Once the Soviets are out of the picture, Germany can re-focus on Britain.

If America gained a foothold in North Africa though it's still a serious threat, they dominate the Atlantic and with Africa as a base they have a staging area to invade anywhere in southern Europe

The LW only switched to city bombing because they failed completely to destroy the RAF.
No sector airfield was shut down for more than a day, Chain Home was never seriously damaged, and German aircraft production and pilot training per week never exceeded that of Britain's.

>Britain built more planes

Wrong

>bigger planes
They had more 4 engine bombers, but what value do these have for defending against hostile air raids?

Germany had far greater capacity to train pilots, build aircraft and had the largest air force in Europe. The Luftwaffe didn't need a strategic bombing force, they just needed to maintain the original plan of targeting RAF facilities and using their superior numbers to deplete the RAF of it's best pilots.

If we depart from what originally happened, and Germany doesn't invade the USSR in 1941, they could easily increase the pressure in Egypt and advance to Cairo and later Palestine. The British could never gain the air superiority they need against Rommel and end up losing the battle of Alamein. If the Germans end up breaking the British in North Africa and start to threaten Persia and India, the British would begin to consider terms.

>And if the Brits move FG 11 up to bases in the midlands?

It ultimately has no effect, because Germany can pump out more planes of a higher quality faster. Without wasting them on the eastern front, the RAF doesn't have a chance.

>there is literally nothing that America can do to influence events in the European theater

The LW switched to city bombing because Adolf Hitler directly ordered them to, as a result of a tit for tat battle started when an RAF bomber dropped a few bombs on Berlin to little effect.

That was the Bavarian Corporal, not LW Command.

>Wrong
During 1940 the UK built 15,000 aircraft, Germany built 10,000.

>Germany had far greater capacity to train pilots, build aircraft and had the largest air force in Europe.
The US would have supported the UK in 9/10 likely alternative scenarios. Germany could not have beaten the UK + US combo of production might.
>If we depart from what originally happened, and Germany doesn't invade the USSR in 1941, they could easily increase the pressure in Egypt
Not without beating the UK navy.
> If the Germans end up breaking the British in North Africa and start to threaten Persia and India
Pretty much impossible given the logistic situation, even if you stack the deck in Germany's favor in pretty much every realistic way.

Germany had more capacity to build aircraft but directed it towards army requirements |

in 43' they built way more than the UK

Not even until 44, and even then the differences in construction and changing of German priorities can be seen by the disparity in weight.

>beating the UK Navy

The British cannot use that navy if the Germans have total air superiority in the Mediterranean. That just results in a lot of sunk cruisers and battleships.

Even if the US supports the UK, the UK can only stomach so much loss. Once they lose Egypt it would only be a matter of time. You don't have to stack the deck for Germany at all, we know that Rommel had almost advanced into Cairo, and was only stopped because of British air supremacy made possible because of the LW being deployed on the eastern front. If the Germans are concentrating only on Africa and the Battle of Britain, this results in British failure to maintain the air supremacy they need to stop Rommel.

Even if they run into logistic problems, they only need to threaten Turkey into the axis and that solves all the problems. Syria was controlled by Vichy France long enough for Germany to offer parts of it to the Turks in exchange for cooperation.

I think you're overestimating how willing the US civilian government was to join the war in Europe, without Japan striking the US it leaves WW2 looking more like another feud between European powers. Up until the late 30's the military was actually not allowed to draw up war plans against Germany because congress didn't even want to consider the idea of entering a European war

>Wrong
No, it is not wrong. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production

>They had more 4 engine bombers, but what value do these have for defending against hostile air raids?
They force your opponent to leave more fighters over his own skies to stop your much more powerful raids in return.

>Germany had far greater capacity to train pilots, build aircraft and had the largest air force in Europe.
[citation needed]

>The Luftwaffe didn't need a strategic bombing force, they just needed to maintain the original plan of targeting RAF facilities and using their superior numbers to deplete the RAF of it's best pilots.
Except that would never work, which is why RAF strength keeps increasing during the Battle of Britain.

>If we depart from what originally happened, and Germany doesn't invade the USSR in 1941, they could easily increase the pressure in Egypt and advance to Cairo and later Palestine.
No they can't.

dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a220715.pdf

>From February to May (1941), Rommel and his Italian allies receieved a total of 325,000 tons of supplies, or 45,000 more than current consumption. But he was unable to bridge the enormous gap from Tripoli to the front, so his supplies piled up on the wharves while shortages arose in the front line.

And that's with a shoestring force. If you put more troops in, they run out of food and fuel and munitions all the faster.

> The British could never gain the air superiority they need against Rommel and end up losing the battle of Alamein.
Don't be stupid. Rommel could never actually supply his troops that far forward, which is why he lost at Crusader and lost again at El Alamein.

>It ultimately has no effect, because Germany can pump out more planes of a higher quality faster.
No, they can't. Seriously, in real life, Britian built more planes than Germany. They trained more pilots than Germany. That's before you get to any of the other allies. The Germans lose the long war.

Bombers can't fly all the way from America to Germany. Britain is still needed as a staging area. Furthermore, there is no way that Britain survives long enough for nukes to become a factor if the Soviet Union has been defeated. This assumes that Operation Barbarossa happened, and was a success.

>but directed it towards army requirements
Britain outbuilt Germany in pretty much all "army requirements" as well. They built more tanks, more artillery, more small arms, more general supplies, etc. Their war economy is at least as fungible as Germany's.

www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/ww2overview1998.pdf

>Bombers can't fly all the way from America to Germany.
No, but they can fly from North Africa to Germany or from an aircraft carrier to Germany. Come 1945, if Germany is still fighting, German cities will start turning into fields of ash.

Even if the US simply supported the UK economically, which it would have, the UK would have been able to single-handedly beat the German air force.

>The British cannot use that navy if the Germans have total air superiority in the Mediterranean.
They won't. They need all their planes fighting this losing battle you want them to fight over Britain, rememeber? And even if they magically had infinite planes, they still don't have the range to actually go a hunting in the Med away from their airbases, nor do they have teh supply infrastructure to deploy them anywhere outside of the Med.

>Even if the US supports the UK, the UK can only stomach so much loss.
Really? How much loss? What factors are you using to demonstrate this? What signs historically do you think showed the UK was anywhere close to throwing in the towel?

>Once they lose Egypt it would only be a matter of time
They won't lose Rgypt. dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf

> we know that Rommel had almost advanced into Cairo,
No, he didn't. He barely got over the border into Egypt proper. Most of the war in North Africa was fought in former Italian possessions. He spent two years seesawing and, Gazala excepted losing every battle that the British weren't overextended and strung out from their own advances.

> If the Germans are concentrating only on Africa and the Battle of Britain, this results in British failure to maintain the air supremacy they need to stop Rommel.
Germany cannot ship over the fuel, munitions, spare parts, etc, to support a large luftwaffe presence in North Africa. They could barely keep DAK going.

>Even if they run into logistic problems, they only need to threaten Turkey into the axis and that solves all the problems.
Tell me how Turkey joining them at the point of a gun (Already absurdly unlikely) makes the ports bigger in Libya, or creaates nonexistant railroad track there?

>Syria was controlled by Vichy France long enough for Germany to offer parts of it to the Turks in exchange for cooperation.
Too bad the British overran it, within months of Rommel's deployment to Africa.

And how would the Germans have gained total air superiority over the Mediterranean? The UK beat them in the BoB even without direct US military support, and that was before the Germans had redeployed their air force east.

Okay, so Germany just has to win before 1945, which is easy enough (again this hinges entirely on Operation Barbarossa being successful).

Take winter out of the equation and imagine the Axis focus entirely on Russia. Say they manage to take Moscow. They'd still be outgunned, outproduced, and outnumbered. Honestly the union won the eastern front since before there was an eastern front. I feel like people don't understand just how strong the USSR was. Or maybe you think that because Germany could invade all the pussy shit nations of Europe they could've taken down the bear too, even though it was logistically impossible.

>which is easy enough
What makes you think so? What makes you think that a successful Barbarossa would have knocked the UK out of the war?

Germany lost the war on September 1, 1939. Everything after that was just its long, slow death-agony.

Moscow was THE railroad hub of the USSR. If Germany takes that city, then the USSR has no way to recover from that loss.

>What makes you think that a successful Barbarossa would have knocked the UK out of the war?

Because if Barbarossa succeeds then all the men, aircraft, ships, and tanks used to support that operation can be shifted westward. Okay, maybe not all of them, some would have to be left behind to ensure that the Soviet government can't somehow reform, but the majority of assets would be free to go west. Basically, now you've got Battle of Britain 2.0, and this time Hitler will have the benefit of being able to scavenge resources from the USSR's bloated corpse. There is no way that Britain would be able to hold out until 1944 in that scenario.

>Moscow was THE railroad hub of the USSR.
To the Western USSR, which you might notice had already fallen (Smolensk, Sevastopol) or was under siege (Leningrad, Rostov).

More like if Germany wins Barbarossa they have all the food, minerals, and oil required to prosecute a resource-intensive air and sea war against Britain and the United States.

Assuming they can extract it, anyway. Given their policies towards the local population, that's not exactly going to be easy, with half of them murdered and the other half waging a guerilla war.

>and this time Hitler will have the benefit of being able to scavenge resources
What country that Germany occupied was a net gain in terms of resources? France, for example, cut off from its empire was total reliant on Germany for coal (heating, transport). Scandinavia and the Balkans produced nothing while requiring huge garrisons.
Why would the USSR (with partisan groups that make the French resistance look like a lame joke) be any different?

Are you saying if you take down the railroad hub all railroads magically vanish? Even if that's the case the soviets could've connected the tracks through their vehicles, which they had a fuckload of.

They would've just waited east of Moscow until the entire army showed up, and then advance on the Axis. They would've fucked over the German front like they did in our timeline. They produced twice as much, twice as fast, their manpower pool was larger than Germany's entire population, and they had better equipment/tanks. I'm willing to bet if it wasn't for the US getting nukes the ruskies would've marched further into Europe, knowing full well the allies couldn't dream to win on land against them.

>Moscow was THE railroad hub of the USSR

A meme, there were plenty of railroads around Moscow itself. A damaging impact for sure but not the end.

Leningrad never actually fell. In order for a successful Barbarossa to be achieved, Leningrad must be taken in a timely manner. Leningrad was the main base for the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and the city itself accounted for 11% of the USSR's total industrial output.

They were able to extract pretty significant amounts of foodstuffs and manganese in the territories they controlled.

What makes you think that the USSR's bloated corpse could have yielded resources rapidly enough to turn the course of the war? It would have taken a lot of time and effort to fix all the destroyed stuff and connect the occupied territories to the Nazi economic grid.

Yeah, and the rail line from Moscow to Leningrad was cut in several locations, hence why it was usless for the war effort, it was supplied (when they could any way) through Volkhov, not Moscow.

Explain to me how the Soviets would be able to mount any kind of counter-offensive after losing Moscow. They literally can't. Without railroads, they have no way to move around men and material.

This person gets it.

They have railroads you stupid shit. Most of the areas serviced by Moscow's "rail hub" were areas already fallen to the Germans, or at least with large links of those segments occupied.

karty.by/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/railway_SSSR_schema.jpg

Keep in mind that as Germany pushes further east the Red Army loses access to more of it's manpower. If Germany reached the AA line (unlikely) they would've lost their manpower advantage.

Still, plenty of manpower left after Moscow's taken. Also, the partisans were quite an important factor, so if the Germans didn't want to face daily riots they have to either
A) Garrison the cities, which takes manpower away from the front lines
B) Kill everyone, which means the land they took is virtually useless

Realistically the Germans could've pressed their advantage in Ukraine where they were considered liberators by the local population after the central government forced them into starvation. But they didn't, because fuck slavs.

>But they didn't, because fuck slavs.
Well, also because their European empire was a net food importer, and was cut off from the overseas sources of food that places like France and Denmark used to rely on. They needed to make up that shortfall somehow.

>tfw no one mentions the wages of destruction by Adam tooze in a thread about nazi military economics

2bh a fatal flaw in the german blitzkreig o nthe eastern front is that it left a fuckton of soviet troops behind them as they moved forward
they wouldn't be able to hold a line at all points and sovietys could slip through
the further they push, the more diluted the force across the front, the more soviets left behind them, the more danger of getting supply lines cut off, ambushed, attacked on two fronts, etc

Is is the best to assume, that for Germany to win WW2, we would have had two Germanies?

Barbarossa would work if Germans didn't treat Slavs like shit.

If they couldn't take Leningrad or Stalingrad, they'd have no chance at taking Moscow.

> mfw you'll never exist in the timeline where the Germans get themselves encircled and BTFO at Moscow

Germany needs literal magic or space jew science to win WW2.