re: WWII “what if?” Scenario- Operation Barbarossa

The Red Army had a deputy for every staff and command position in the division, so they could immediately start forming up a fresh division as soon as the manpower was assembled.

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I love WW2 history. Hitler needed to take England.

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Actually, he didn't have to.

England is an island. Germany had something like 40-ish (IIRC) Uboats to start the war. If they had started with 200, England could have been easily neutralized with a preemptive strike against merchant vessels, followed by a blockade. England would then be a greatly reduced factor in the early war and might even have had to negotiate peace to avoid starving.

Hitler could have won by depriving Russia of their oil by diverting the better divisions slated for invading Russia to North Africa when the British were weak in 1940 after defeating the French. Send some west to fortify the southern part of the Straits of Gibralter. This makes the Med into a German lake just with artillery. Send other divisions to take the Suez Canal, take Iran and then threaten Turkey from the East. Force the Turks to close the Bosphorous. Now the only ports the Russians have are Murmansk and Archangel in the Artic. Build up forces to start the invasion of Russia by with the objective of taking the Russian oil in Baku. Now Hitler has all of the oil he will need. Russia is deprived of their oil and the Black sea fleet becomes trapped.

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Would the American public gone for it though?

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There would be some balking in some quarters, but most Americans would have just shrugged and went "Might as well get it over with".

Hitler was a beast - a barbarian and absolute scourge on humanity ! Fortunately he was an incompetent military leader !

I'll go one even better, what if they had not changed from military targets in Britain to cities? They had the RAF just about done and they could have easily finished the job. That, combined with your scenario, would have made an entirely different war. Also, Hitler's demand that the 262 be used in the air support role instead of all-out interceptor/fighter was a costly mistake.

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Toho gave FDR his door. No way he wasn’t going to walk through it.

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Phrasing

If they keep bombing military targets in Britain, they win. England couldn't have fought back

All of the hypotheticals in this thread had been brought up time and time again.

1. Should've built more u-boats

Even at peak effectiveness, the u-boat sinkings never eclipsed construction of new merchant vessels. The UK was well-supplied from sources abroad and the U.S. was always going to get involved once it became clear that the balance of power in Europe was entirely thrown off. It’s possible that more submarines would’ve delayed the war effort, but by 1943 ASW had caught up sufficiently and war patrols became suicidal.

2. Germany should’ve continued bombing military targets instead of switching to cities

Germany never had enough bombers and lacked strategic bombers to threaten British war production. The Brits were building planes faster than the Germans in 1940. The losses suffered were unsustainable before they even switched to cities, and actually was a reason why they switched to terror bombing. The Luftwaffe’s range limitations meant they couldn’t suppress targets beyond southern England. RAF still had radar and excellent fighter ground control. Even with all of this, the UK still could never be fully neutralized because the Germans lacked the ability to invade. This is what kept the UK in the war.

3. Germany should’ve taken Gibraltar, Suez, Iran, Bosphorous

This looks great on paper until you realize how dogshit German logistics were in the first place.

-mGibraltar? No way. Franco was never letting German armies into Spain to attack Gibraltar. Hitler knew this and showed no interest in potentially starting another front in the Iberian peninsula, which would give the UK another base to operate from. Even if they take Gibraltar, strikes can be launched from West Africa and by carrier air to neutralize Gibraltar.

Suez? Makes perfect sense but Germany would’ve had to send massive resources beyond what was sent. Italy’s African forces were shite in the first place which is why Germany had to get involved, creating a logistical nightmare for the Afrika Korps. Assuming Hitler has now opened up another front on the Iberian peninsula, what resources are there to secure Egypt? Even if you do take Egypt, they just re-route around Good Hope - which is not that disastrous.

Take Iran? You’re already stretched to your limits logistically as is with critical shortages of war materials and oil. German logistics were already bad enough moving into the USSR where there were no sealifts necessary. There’s no chance they’re going to be able to take the Levant (they relied on Vichy France governance) and move into Iran. Iraq’s pro-German coup was being crushed by the UK and in early 1941, the USSR and UK invaded Iran to prevent them from supplying Germany. It’s just not happening.

Secure the Bosporus? Another case of “open another front”

Turkey was going to remain neutral up until they were invaded and would ally with whoever would fight their invaders. They passed friendship acts with the UK in 1939 and later Germany in 1941. If Germany tries to secure the Bosporus by taking Istanbul then they’re going to get stonewalled like the Italians and Germans to a degree did in Greece. The USSR and UK would step in to prevent this from happening.

4. Make the Caucasus the primary target instead of Moscow

This makes perfect sense. The German military didn’t have enough oil to sufficiently sustain operations even before Barbarossa. They knew they had to invade when they did because they only had 2 million tons stockpiled and oil production was not going to increase quickly from Romanian and coal. They relied on the Soviets for up to 10% of their oil anyway.

Assuming they do ignore Moscow and Leningrad and thrust directly through the south to get to the oil fields, it’s quite possible they make it - but getting the oil infrastructure intact is a different story. The Soviets would have definitely blown the infrastructure and lit the wells on fire. If they could have extinguished the wells and extracted oil, they would’ve had to transport it to Romania because Baku, Maikop, and Grozny would be destroyed. All the while, this corridor created by the Southward thrust would be susceptible to attack by Soviet forces that weren’t threatened initially in the center and north. The infrastructure would still be in place and they would counterattack relentlessly into what would be a precarious logistical situation for the Germans and likely cut them off and encircle them.

5. Wait until 1942

Makes sense, build up your stockpile of oil, secure other regions first, recover from Poland and France.

Except that the Soviets were recovering from the Purges and by 1942 their armies would have been rapidly modernizing with new generals being able to come into their own without having to be on death ground. T-34 production was rapidly approaching 1,000 a month on the original timeline by mid 1942 and would’ve been even higher in this alternate one.

The German fuel situation wouldn’t have improved either, they still had limited production and what they could stockpile would’ve been constantly tapped into if they were trying to secure other regions and strategic points in the build up to a 1942 invasion to secure their position. It just doesn’t work. They chose 1941 because they knew the situation wasn’t going to get any better. The German intelligence always underestimated the size of the Soviet army and would have underestimated it again leading up to a 1942 invasion.


I love hypotheticals as much as anyone but WWII was defined by history that had already been written hundreds of years beforehand, geography, and scarcity of resources. None of those factors are ever addressed in usual hypotheticals because they completely throw off the scope of the war which could have only happened under a strict set of circumstances. WWII was defined by WWI. It was defined by the Brits having the world’s largest empire. It was defined by the U.S. having the largest industrial economy in the world. It was defined by geography and treacherous waters. Germany would still be in a bad position, with bad allies, with emboldened and effective enemies no matter the hypothetical. Their successes early on gave them false hope and give false hope to people writing hypotheticals decades later.