Could Germany have won the war?

[Tinkerpeach]

I am not a great chess player but I think the person making two moves is at the disadvantage

 

[Walt]

You have a chess game between Germany and France. Both have the same pieces, but Germany gets to make 2 moves to every one France makes. The result is obvious.

Very correct. The French did it to themselves. The French commander's headquarters was only connected to the outside world by a once daily motorcycle courier. That would have been good enough in the Franco-Prussian War, but was not even good enough for WWI.

There were other problems, like the French dispersing of tanks, rather than having single units of tanks, and mechanized infantry. The British wired the bridges in the Arden with explosives, but then sent the combat engineers to Norway, so were unable to blow the bridges. And when Rommel pulled loose from his supply lines, and lost his combat engineers, somehow no one bothered to take advantage of it. I could go on and on.

Honestly, the more you see Rommel's mistakes, the more you realize the genius of Sherman.

France stood no chance.

With the generals that France had, they had major problems. They still could have won, if someone had realized Rommel had broken out, and the bridges could have been cut. Remember, diesel was not as much used by civilians back then, and a Rommel cut off from supply lines would not have been able to forage for diesel.

Poland was simply overwhelmed.

Better generals, and better equipment could have extended the time they held out. Had the French had better generals, and been willing to fight immediately, they would have opened up a second front... A second front on German soil. That would have meant Germany would have had to pull troops from Poland...

If the USSR had still attacked, it would all be for naught. Poland could not fight a two front war against two much bigger powers.

Britain hung on through tenacity but proved largely unable to pull out any sort of serious victories on their own.

Germany could not cross the Channel as long as the British Navy was in action. They could not take the British Navy out until the British Air Force was out of commission. And they could never get the British Air Force out of commission, because the British Air Force was almost evenly matched with the Germans, but was fighting over their own land(a major advantage).

 

[Walt]

I am not a great chess player but I think the person making two moves is at the disadvantage

Really?

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I am not a great chess player but I think the person making two moves is at the disadvantage

Try it sometime. The person who gets two moves to your one could beat a chess champion at the game. You stand no chance of winning against it.

 

[Tinkerpeach]

Try it sometime. The person who gets two moves to your one could beat a chess champion at the game. You stand no chance of winning against it.

Seems like they would be moving more pieces into attack range without knowing their opponents strategy and leaving those pieces vulnerable

A rapid advance in chess is a losing strategy

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

I am not a great chess player but I think the person making two moves is at the disadvantage

One of the keys to winning (not losing) in chess is to always defend your pieces so if your opponent takes a piece they have to sacrifice their piece. If your opponent gets two moves, he takes your piece in one move and moves his piece out of danger with the second move.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Seems like they would be moving more pieces into attack range without knowing their opponents strategy and leaving those pieces vulnerable

A rapid advance in chess is a losing strategy

Wrong. Two moves allows you to move and take pieces, move two pieces giving mutual support, etc. You completely overwhelm your opponent.

 

[Tinkerpeach]

One of the keys to winning (not losing) in chess is to always defend your pieces so if your opponent takes a piece they have to sacrifice their piece. If your opponent gets two moves, he takes your piece in one move and moves his piece out of danger with the second move.

Ahhhh

 

[T. A. Gardner]

One of the keys to winning (not losing) in chess is to always defend your pieces so if your opponent takes a piece they have to sacrifice their piece. If your opponent gets two moves, he takes your piece in one move and moves his piece out of danger with the second move.

One of a number of strategies that getting two moves opens up that completely overwhelms your opponent. This was described as the OODA loop by Col. John Boyd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

In France in 1940, what was happening was the Germans were doing 'stuff' and the French were trying to react to it. By the time the French commanders had decided on an action, it was no longer viable and they had to start deciding what to do instead. The result was their forces were immobilized with indecision and destroyed in detail.

 

[Into the Night]

Why are you and ptif always online at the same time? Are you "two" working to harm America? If I want you dangling from the end of a rope that is exactly what will happen. Fuck you and your high school grammar...I think it's time for you to move on.

So you can't answer the question. Evasion. Hallucinations. Argument of the Stone fallacy.

 

[Into the Night]

When looking at military history, I always find myself thinking everything is possible. That being said, it seems more possible that Hitler could have won less. Hitler was lucky to get as far as he did.

They often enter the Battle of France into military computer gaming systems. These are the gaming systems that real generals use to sharpen their strategies. Modern generals always do far better than France did, and when opposing modern generals leading France, do far worse than Hitler did. If France had modern generals, they (with some help from the British) could have won WWII in the first months of the war. I do not blame the French generals for not being modern generals. Modern generals learned from watching the French generals fail.

French and Polish generals were OLD. There was no concept of retirement in either country's military, and there was strict seniority. That meant that many of the generals were 80+ years old, and some were 90+ years old. These are generals who were too old to see combat in WWI. They had a pre-WWI view of combat. USA, UK, Germany, and Russia all had one way or another of getting rid of old generals. US retired them. Russia killed them. US General Pershing lived through WWII, happily retired.

Russia was big enough that they could learn from their mistakes. While France was wiped out within 6 weeks, Russia could hold out for years. It was just about area and distance from Germany. The Germans were not going to make it to the Pacific quickly. This gave the Russian generals time to learn how to be modern generals. Even before the war, they had Deep Operation, which was a more complete modern strategy than Blitzkrieg. With time, that was generally accepted, and they started winning the war.

On the other side of the world, the USA far from Europe also had time to learn modern strategy. The Germany's lead in strategy had completely vanished by the end of the war.

It's not about strategy. It's about being outgunned and outnumbered. Hitler's war was doomed.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

It's not about strategy. It's about being outgunned and outnumbered. Hitler's war was doomed.

Thus proving he and his Third Reich fascism were fucking morons. Congrats, Sybil. You got one right!

If the US hadn’t intervened, I have no doubt most of Europe and Russian would be speaking German. Not sure how the US would have fared alone in the end since we’d eventually have a two-front war with Japanese on one side and the fucking Nazis on the other.

 

[Into the Night]

One of the most remarkable thing NFL coaches do is throw away their playbooks before the Super Bowl. Think about it, they have great strategies, that got them to the pinnacle of their league. They are one of the top two teams, because of that playbook... But everyone knows those plays by now, and they need an all new playbook. So they have to throw out what has worked for them so well.

War is not a football game.

The Allies lost at first, which caused them to be constantly improving their strategies. Hitler won at first, and was an arrogant bastard anyway. It was alien to him to improve what he thought was perfect strategies.

The Allies did not lose. France was overrun before they knew what happened because the fast moving German tanks simply went around the Magino line. The French, after all, have never won a war...not even their own civil war. Poland was overrun since it had no significant army.

But Hitler expended all his resources just to accomplish these easy victories. The remaining allies were banding together and Hitler was facing being outgunned, outnumbered, and with extremely limited resources to continue his aggression.

Putin believes his strategies are perfect, and sees no reason to make major changes.

Is that why he's losing?

trump does not believe he has ever lost an election, so why on Earth would he change his strategies.

Trump has never lost an election.

 

[Into the Night]

I notice a lot of Jewish names among the developers of the nuclear bomb. Many were also German names, and would have been in Greater Germany had Hitler not persecuted the Jews.

Germany's development facility for their Bomb was destroyed by allied action. Even if they had obtained the Bomb, Germany would have still lost. Hitler was already outnumbered and outgunned. He lost his air force too. Again, Allied action.

 

[Into the Night]

Authoritarians typically attack the academics, the teachers and the intelligentsia. They use populism to appeal to the ignorant and stupid.

This happened with Germany, it happened after the Russian Revolution, it happened under Pol Pot and it happened under the Party of Trump.

Hallucinations.

 

[Into the Night]

And if Hitler had actually listened to his military staff instead of thinking he knew better the war would have had a much different outcome. We're lucky he was more devoted to his ideals than to winning the war.

Nah. The result would have been the same. Hitler was vastly outgunned and outnumbered.

 

[Into the Night]

Hitler ran out of time for attacking Moscow. Winter came, and when Spring returned, Moscow was too fortified. That is why they turned South.

If Hitler had not invaded Greece, he would have started out of Moscow earlier, and may have taken Moscow... But that would not have defeated Russia. Russia would have continued to fight, and Greece would have been left on Hitler's flank to allow allied troops to attack through it.

Hitler had no plan to win. He wanted to drive to the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line, but the USSR had already evacuated most of their heavy industry to far beyond that line. They could have continued the fight even after being pushed that far. There was no thought of making it all the way to the Pacific.

Hitler would never have made it to Moscow. The Russian people would have prevented it...and they did.
You are correct that Hitler had no plan to win. By attacking everyone around him, he quickly found himself isolated, with extremely limited resources to prosecute his war, and more and more people joining the Allies.

 

[Into the Night]

Which is why I said that the only means Hitler had of victory was to Crush Stalin in 5 months or less. Because he was fighting two fronts, he had no chance of pulling it off.

He was fighting on THREE fronts, four if you count the U.S. involvement. The Western front, consisting of Britain, France, Spain, and Greece (and a few other nations); the Eastern front, consisting of Russia and it's allies; and the Southern front, consisting of northern Africa (including what is now Libya).

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Hitler would never have made it to Moscow. The Russian people would have prevented it...and they did.
You are correct that Hitler had no plan to win. By attacking everyone around him, he quickly found himself isolated, with extremely limited resources to prosecute his war, and more and more people joining the Allies.

With America’s support.

Like Ukraine, it’s the spirit of the people that matter most. Second is equipment to do the job.

In Vietnam and Iraq, the spirit of the people was pro-Get the Fuck Out, not pro-western.

 

[Melchizedek = Michael]

Which is why I said that the only means Hitler had of victory was to Crush Stalin in 5 months or less. Because he was fighting two fronts, he had no chance of pulling it off.

Hitler still would have been fucked,trying to occupy Russia would have been near impossible