I enjoy thinking about alternate ending to WW2 and what would have brought them about. From an allied defeat at dunkirk, to a German victory in North Africa, or what if the Germans didnt have to bail out the Italians in the balkans, and had that extra few weeks in Barborossa? woul htat have given them the precios tie they needed to take moscow? I think so. give an example of something you think could have changed the war and all of history.

If the carriers had been present at Pearl Harbor that would've changed the entire Pacific Theater.

for good or bad lionel?

I think that the most frightening possibility would have been if Germany had succeeded in developing an Atomic Bomb. If they had the bomb they could have mated it to their ballistic missiles and almost certainly brought about a favorable end to the war. They also had bombers capable of reaching the east coast of the U.S., but it was their missiles that would have posed the real threat. We could shoot down the V-1's but against the V-2's there was no defense.

I'm not sure that if the Germans had taken Moscow that it would have drastically altered the events on the eastern front. The Russians demonstrated an amazing resilience, and I don't think the loss of Moscow would have meant much to them in practical terms. Their industry had allready been moved far to the east, and if anything, the loss of Moscow would just have made them more determined to defeat the Germans, if that's possible. The Russians lost an estimated 20 million people in WWII, and if they could survive that and go on to victory, I think the loss of Moscow wouldn't have fazed them much.

Germany was at the gates of Moscow after an amazing advance through Russia. The german army could see the spires of the Moscow landscape. All that stopped them was one of the coldest winters ever recorded. So cold their guns would not even fire. Had they started the campaign 2 months earlier they would have taken Moscow easily. This would have made it a one front war and probably changed the situation significantly. Divisions would not have been diverted to the eastern front.

The russians did lose a lot of people and fight very hard - but they got almost all their supplies to make tanks and planes from the US. If Hitler had taken Moscow - then that wouldn't have happened and the Germans would have slaughtered most of the population and taken all the industry.

Pagan raises a good one about the nuclear bomb. If Hitler had that then it would have been a very very different ending.

I think the capture of Moscow would have dealt a near death blow to soviet moral, while raising german moral through the roof. German troops would be quartered in moscow for the winter and fortified it. The soviet union was ahnging on by its fingernails the first year and a half to two yers, and I believe the loss of thecapitol would have been to much to overcome. a more strategic capture later in the war would have been stalingrad though, as it would have cut the country in two and denied vital oil to soviet armys in the north. alof this oil would be used by the germans.

Trav and Drew,

I still have to disagree with you about the importance of Moscow to the Soviet war effort. As I said in my post most, if not all, of the russian's heavy industry had been moved east, beyond the Ural Mountains, out of reach of german bombers. Yes, Moscow was the capital, and its loss would have had an effect on Russian morale, but not a fatal one.

Before Germany invaded Russia, Hitler told his generals that this would be a different war than the one that they had fought in France. He told them it would be a war of extermination, and that they need not fear being tried for war crimes (boy was he wrong on that one). The war was waged with unspeakable brutality by the Germans and this became apparent in short order to the Russians. This meant that the war was not one fought for patriotic reasons. The Russians soon realized they were fighting for their very lives, and in a war like this the loss of a single city, no matter how symbolic, would not have been a deciding factor. The Russians knew they had to fight or die, and that surrender was not an option. True, in the beginning phases of the war they were completely outclassed, and surrendered in droves when they were defeated in large encirclement battles, but later in the war the Russians fought with incredible tenacity. Also, one of the reasons that the Russians lost so many battles in the early stages, was that in 1939 Stalin, in a fit of paranoia, had approximately 95% of the officers in his army above the rank of captain, executed because he perceived them as "politically unreliable". This led to a critical shortage of competent officers. It wasn't until the newer officers had gained some battle experience that things started to improve for the Russians in the field.

Drew, your statement that we sent the Russians most of the parts they used to build their tanks and planes, isn't really accurate. While we did send them some Sherman tanks, and some fighter planes, namely older P-39's and P-40's, they produced the vast majority of their own aircraft and arguably the best all-around tank of the war, the T-34. When the Germans first encountered the T-34 in battle, they were stunned and desperately started a program to build tanks that could defeat it in battle. This was directly responsible for the development of the Panther and Tiger tanks.

We did ship vast quantities of other war supplies to the Russians, like 5 million pairs of winter boots, and perhaps most importantly, tens of thousands of Dodge trucks. No doubt these supplies greatly helped the Russians, but had they not been delivered, I think perhaps the war would have been prolonged but I don't think it would have changed the outcome. I would also like to point out that the fall of Moscow would have in no way impacted the delivery of these supplies.

Drew, you sated the fall of Moscow would have made it a one-front war, but I'm not sure why you came to that conclusion. Can you explain?

pagan, actually in the beggining phases of Barborossa the russians initially welcomed the germans as liberators, especially the ukranians. after living under stalin for so long they saw the germans as liberators. intially the german commanders capitalized on this in order to get vital intelligence about soviet locations from the civilians. as you know many german field commanders ignored orders to sack citys or eliminate populations.
As far as the russian industry goes,even though it was moved east, without the vital rail link in moscow how would the oil get across the mountains? the major russian oil fields were in the south of stalingrad. any convoy attept would have benn destroyed. soviet war materials would hae slowed to a trickle.

a side note, for anyone interested, here is a great site packed with info on german military in WW2, very indepth and detailed, great site.

SITE (http://www.feldgrau.com/)

Originally posted by Travh20
for good or bad lionel?

Bad for us, unless they were at a different state of readiness than everyone else was. Eventually we would've won anyway - we just had too much industrial capacity, but it would've taken longer to recover, I suspect.

Ooo, I have another one: What if Hitler had actually allowed the Me262 to be developed as a fighter from the get-go instead of trying to make it into a bomber? They might have been able to kill off more bombers and P51s and turned the tide instead of being too-little too-late.

That would have been bad, the ME 262 would have been very good at taking out large flights of bombers.
As for the Carriers being present at Pearl, it could have actually caused us to pull all the way back to the west coast and regroup. That in itself has disaster written all over it. I know it would have kept us out of Europe for much longer and of course that could have lead to Germany completing the A Bomb and putting on the V-2 .

Pagan - good analysis - yes maybe you are right.

My logic was that with Moscow gone the leadership would have been essentially crushed. Typically once you take the capital city you have defeated the whole country. If the germans had taken Moscow they would have been in a position where they couldn't really be beaten.

The T34 tank was a good tank - but they didn't have a lot of them in the early stages which is when it would have counted if Moscow had fallen.

But could they hold it long enough to damage the Soviets? I dont know, hard to invade as it is to hold. I think if they had taken Moscow it may have brought a quicker end to the war.
Hitler might have put everything into holding it and remove his defenses on the west or at least weakened them.

at the stage of the war we are talking about, the allies were in no postition to assault fortress europe. hitler didnt really need to much in the west becasue there just wasnt any way to transport a large invasion force across the channel all at once as would be needed. Dieppe was a disasterous test that showed that we were in no way ready to seriously contemplate a cross channel invasion at that time. I still say if hitler would have taken moscow it would have turned the tide in the east. Stalin could not do the tough talk after running from his capitol and letting the germans take it over. FIring up the civilians to fight would ot be as easy.

This is why I am saying that it could have had a negative impact on Germany. He might have to move more to the east to hold Moscow, the Soviets would have been more willing to fight the occupier.

By the time the Germans did reach Moscow, most of there units were down in strength, there tanks were in nead of repair and long overdue for overhaul. With the fall rains, it really did slow them down alot. To a standstill. If they could launched in the end of April or Early May, this could have gave them enough time to reach Moscow. Russia did not have good roads and the rail system used a different track guage.

What if Hitler never declared war on the U.S. This would have changed the outcome of the war significally. Rosevelt could not declare war on Germany. We would have brought all our arms to bare against Japan and probaly defeated her a lot sooner.

we would have attacked germany mearly for the fact that they were bombing our allies

At that time, the American people did not want nothing to do with European affairs. You would have to remember that in this time period that we were a nuetral country. We all knew that Hitler was a bad man but how do you convince the nation to attack Germany when the Germans did not provoke action against us. I know about the destroyers being sunk in the Atlantic protecting the cargo ships halve way to a meeting location with the British in 1941. Rosevelt could not declare war against the Germans cause Congress would not allow it. Also, Hitler did not want to go to war against the U.S. cause of our industrial might. But when Hitler declared war on the U.S. December 8th, this lifted a burden off of Rosevelts shoulders and put a burden on Hitlers shoulder leading to Germany's down fall.

we were escalating our involvement the whole ti,e leading up to our actual entrance into the war. ar first we wouldnt help either side, then we said we would help britain with supplies if they came and got them, then we said we would help them with supplies and deliver them. We would have not sat back and let england fall into nazi hands. If germany never formally decalred war on us we would have helped defend britain agaisnt an operation like Hitlers Sea Lion, if it were to go off as planned.

I have little doubt that we would have gone to war with Germany even if they hadn't declared war on us. We were engaged in actively supporting England through the Lend-Lease agreement and we had to ensure an English victory if for no other reason than to ensure we would get paid for the stuff we sent them :D

Seriously, we were already in a state of near-war with Germany when they made it official. we had already lost many merchant sailors to German U-Boats and the sinking of the Reuben James only made it worse. We knew we were going to war, we were just trying to take the time to prepare for it when Japan forced our hand by attacking Pearl Harbor.

Yes Vile war was a foregone conclusion in Europe but not the Pacific until Pearl Harbor.
We were heavily involved flying British aircraft,training their pilots and providing them with munitions.

Originally posted by Beirut_Veteran
Yes Vile war was a foregone conclusion in Europe but not the Pacific until Pearl Harbor.
We were heavily involved flying British aircraft,training their pilots and providing them with munitions.

I'm not so sure war in the Pacific wasn't a foregone conclusion.

Ok...here I go...I know I'm going to get some flak (a WWII word) for this but...

We acted in such a way as to almost force Japan into attacking us. In an effort to coerce the Japanese into abandoning their war in China we imposed a steel and oil embargo upon them. This would have eventually caused their economy to collapse. I think our Government just didn't forsee that Japan would fight us rather than submit to our will, but even a cursory examination of the political scene in Japan at that time would have told them it was a very dangerous thing to do.

The attack on Pearl Harbor should not have come as that much of a surprise. If another country had crippled our economy the way we did to theirs, we would have gone to war over it as well.

Ok Trav, tell me how un-american that opinion is...:D

Vile, that is a good way of putting it. Roosevelt was already planning a confrontation against Japan by starting a ship building program in the late thirties. He also started up the draft to build up the military just in case there was involvment.

But I wouldnt say that this is a valid reason for them to attack, we had a just position to want them out of China and we really never thought they would attack or would be able to attack us. SO this goes back to my opinion that to us it wasnt a foregone conclusion.

See that wasnt that painful.... LOL

Pagan is correct. Japan didn't ever expect to defeat the US - they wanted to force a peace treaty that would lift the embargo. A suprise attack on the US was pretty much the only option they had - negotiations were going nowhere.

With no Oil or Steel of their own they were aggressively expanding their borders to ensure raw material supply for their economy.

If Japan did pull out of China And Manchuria that was proposed to them to do. That would more likely mean a failure and goes against the bushido code. The nation would more likely be demoralized.

Originally posted by big worm
If Japan did pull out of China And Manchuria that was proposed to them to do. That would more likely mean a failure and goes against the bushido code. The nation would more likely be demoralized.
We didnt understand that back then. We didnt even understand that their military was in control during war time. It was this that made it hard for them to negotiate an end before we dropped little boy. I firmly believe that you must understand an opponent to engage them effectively in war.

They also miss-understood the US. For them to think Pearl Harbour would force a retreat or negotiation by the US was a big miss-calculation. Even if all the fleet was destroyed - the US would have spent 3 years building a massive fleet and developed the atomic bomb and never stopped until Japan was destroyed.