Could the Axis have won World War 2 ?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-10-14 10:10pm

Finally, Russian. Look, kids. There's a reason so many empires fail when attacking Russia in a conventional war. Just don't fucking do it, is it that hard a lesson?

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"...

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-14 10:11pm

HemlockGrey wrote:What if Italy had no joined forces with Germany, but had gone off on it's own plans of conquest, staying away from the Axis alliance?

Libya, and Italian East Africa fall to the British, the Greek front is stalemated, but inside what was Italian occupied Albania. Though Italy might actually be smart and not attack any British possessions, but that leaves them with only Greece as a possibul prize and only after a long campaign of attrition.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-14 10:17pm

phongn wrote: Four devices for normal operating range, but if we based them in the UK we probably could cram even more on it.

But if they can fly out of the UK, then the need to cram more bombs on a single mission is greatly reduced.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-14 10:21pm

Bah. We can tempt the Luftwaffe into thinking they can score an intercept, then watch as we drop an entire B-36's load onto a particularly large city.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-10-14 10:29pm

Balrog wrote:I've heard of theories where if Churchill hadn't been made Prime Minister and the BEF was completely destroyed in Dunkirk, Britian might have surrendered. While I look for where I've heard of this, any truth to it?

If Churchill hadn't been made prime minister? There's a good chance Britain would have done as Hitler wanted and joined the Axis. Some of the fucks in Parliment were real appeasing fuckers.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2003-10-15 12:22am

phongn wrote:Bah. We can tempt the Luftwaffe into thinking they can score an intercept, then watch as we drop an entire B-36's load onto a particularly large city.

Question, why could the Luftwaffe with its new Jet fighters and rocket craft NOT be able to intercept such a craft? What were its performance characteristics?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-15 12:30am

Icehawk wrote:
phongn wrote:Bah. We can tempt the Luftwaffe into thinking they can score an intercept, then watch as we drop an entire B-36's load onto a particularly large city.
Question, why could the Luftwaffe with its new Jet fighters and rocket craft NOT be able to intercept such a craft? What were its performance characteristics?

I'm quoting a poster on another board about the performance characteristics of the B-36:

I've been carrying on with a hunt for B-36 performance data and finally got the solid data. Its stunning, I knew the performnce of the B-36 had been understated in public documentation. I didn't realize by how much. As a rule of thumb, the B-36s were 30 mph faster across the board than the official figures and their operational altitudes were 10,000 feet higher.

The real operating altitude of a fully loaded fully armed B-36 (with 43,000 pounds of bombs - 4 Mark 3 devices - and fuel for a tactical radius of 3,500 miles) was 48,000 feet. The featherweights improved on that with the final configuration allowing an operating altitude of 52,500 feet under the same load conditions). The RB-36s habitually operated at around 52,000 feet but the featherweights added a lot to that. The ultimate featherweight configuration allowed an operating ceiling of 59,000 feet. This was very rare and a more typical operating altitude for the RB-36 featherweights was 55,000 feet. By the way, the RBs carried up to 20,000 pounds of bombs in addition to their recon gear.

The featherweight conversions didn't add as much to speed as they did to altitude. Most B-36s had a sustained maximum speed using their jets in the 430 - 450 mph bracket. However, there is an interesting point that I hadn't thought of. Because of its huge wings, the B-36 was very agile above 40,000 feet and could actually out-turn an F-86. They could also turn inside a rocket salvo making them quite difficult targets to hit. Those giant wings also meant there was a big margin between stall speed and maximum speed. This wasn't true of high altitude fighters; they had a very narrow maximum speed/stall speed margin and, at a B-36 operating altitude, firing their guns usually stalled them out.

This data has two implications. One is that the Luftwaffe is out of the game. They have nothing that can even begin to cope with the actual performance of the Aluminum Overcast. Even their paper projects are outclassed.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-15 12:46am

And before anyone asks, the source for all that is:

Convair B-36: A Comprehensive History of America's "Big Stick"

No fighter can intercept the B-36, no gun can reach it, even the most powerful shell will fall short fired straight up. And no one could build a working conventional SAM before 1956, Germany never came close to an effective working design.

To anyone who want's to claim that they could, you must prove that Germany could have developed advanced technology that took the US and USSR over a decade to develop post war, working with peacetime resources on a wartime schedule. Germany must do this with wartime resources and its factories and cities being bombed and nuked.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2003-10-15 01:52am

From what I understand the AK_47 was never developed from the Mp-44 it was created independently its design may be based on the looks but thats it

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-10-15 02:32am

Knife wrote: Can you imagine if Germany had waited five or six years before initiating combat. They could have started with a Luffewaffa (sp?) full of jet aircraft, basic cruise missiles, and radar themselves. That would have changed alot.

Just as an aside, I read quite a few articles during my A-level history course that were of the opinion that the Nazi party would have collapsed had the war not been started when it had, any longer, and the escalation of extremist policies without the war would have in the end resulted in mass public outcry and the collapse of the party. Not to mention that the Reich was drowning in red-tape to try and keep up with all the fresh policies coming in.

I imagine, if anyone is particularly bothered, I could try and dig out the references (problem is, I'm here, and my notes are somewhere in that direction *points east* about 9000km ish, still, there is the wonder of emailing people with better memories).

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-10-15 05:09am

Typhonis 1 wrote:From what I understand the AK_47 was never developed from the Mp-44 it was created independently its design may be based on the looks but thats it

Correct. The AK-47 is not a Stg-44 copy (MP-43/MP-44 was a designation made to fool Hitler because he originally didn't approve of the idea- he then saw a demonstration and immediately ordered its name changed to Sturmgewehr).

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-15 09:38am

Sea Skimmer wrote:To anyone who want's to claim that they could, you must prove that Germany could have developed advanced technology that took the US and USSR over a decade to develop post war, working with peacetime resources on a wartime schedule. Germany must do this with wartime resources and its factories and cities being bombed and nuked.

There's also the minor issue that conically-scanned radars (which were used on the first SAM systems) are quite inaccurate and would almost certainly require a nuclear warhead to score an intercept.