The german wehrmacht in Modern America (RAR!)

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Well, yeah, that's obviously the idea behind the #2 scenario. #1 presents the more historical Wehrmacht.

[K. A. Pital]

Both scenarios are heavily inflating their capabilities by giving them the full number of people who ever served (~20 million, actually, even if you remove the Navy) throughout the conflict and the full number of war-produced tech (dunno what's the production period, but I assumed the typical 1938-1945 for the Reich).

Even in the 'they all surrender' the US is likely facing enormous problems: the population just increased by 20 million people who are from a different time, not integrated and not willing to integrate. I bet some part of them will go on to form white supremacist 'resistance cells', and recruiting is going to be easy because of my previous point: they are universally hated, despised and will be discriminated against on a whole new level.

The aircraft production figures are as follows:

Fighters Attack Bombers Recon Transport Training Other
57,653 8,991 28,577 5,025 8,396 14,311 11,361

Total 133,387. If half of their bombers and attack craft are enroute and others preparing for takeoff (from where, I wonder again - how do you even place that number of planes in one spot?), that means around 15 k craft already set for attack.

[Simon_Jester]

Both scenarios are heavily inflating their capabilities by giving them the full number of people who ever served (~20 million, actually, even if you remove the Navy) throughout the conflict and the full number of war-produced tech (dunno what's the production period, but I assumed the typical 1938-1945 for the Reich).

Yes, but there's a difference between inflating their capabilities by using all the people and machines that historically served, and inflating their capabilities by taking all the people that historically served AND giving them all ahistorically effective weapons.

The aircraft production figures are as follows:

Fighters Attack Bombers Recon Transport Training Other
57,653 8,991 28,577 5,025 8,396 14,311 11,361

Total 133,387. If half of their bombers and attack craft are enroute and others preparing for takeoff (from where, I wonder again - how do you even place that number of planes in one spot?), that means around 15 k craft already set for attack.

Fascinating. Where is your source from the production figures? Not that I'm disputing them, just that I couldn't find them.

Assuming those figures are accurate, the Luftwaffe can deliver roughly... I'm going to estimate an average of about two tons of bomb per 'bomber,' which is less than the theoretical maximum for a Ju-88 but close, and their bomber force is damn near half Ju-88s anyway, with most of the other bombers being lighter. Also bearing in mind that even if the plane can carry more than two tons, doing so results in more drag and less speed. For the Ar 234 this would be an overestimate, as it couldn't carry that much load as far as I can tell. Now...

That translates into about 34000 tons of bombs from about 17000 sorties (I am here counting 'attack' aircraft to bomb some of the closer targets), from planes already in the air, to spread out among a large number of targets. Unless the Germans have control of the weather on the Eastern Seaboard, some of their targets will probably be protected by cloud or worse conditions, and while many of the targets could be put out of action with a couple of well-placed bombs, realistically getting those hits is going to require a much larger number of sorties per target.

If the Germans launch nothing but bombers and their planes magically appear literally on the runways of local airports, they might actually get the other half of their bomber force off the ground... eventually. Otherwise it's going to take a while for those strikes to materialize.

[K. A. Pital]

Yes, but there's a difference between inflating their capabilities by using all the people and machines that historically served, and inflating their capabilities by taking all the people that historically served AND giving them all ahistorically effective weapons.

Sure enough. That can be the difference between them quickly taking over a patch of land 200-300 km in radius at most and them spreading out to 500 km away and more.

Not that I'm disputing them, just that I couldn't find them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_p ... Air_forces

Assuming those figures are accurate, the Luftwaffe can deliver roughly... I'm going to estimate an average of about two tons of bomb per 'bomber,' which is less than the theoretical maximum for a Ju-88 but close, and their bomber force is damn near half Ju-88s anyway, with most of the other bombers being lighter. Also bearing in mind that even if the plane can carry more than two tons, doing so results in more drag and less speed. For the Ar 234 this would be an overestimate, as it couldn't carry that much load as far as I can tell. Now...

That's right. If they have a mix airforce, they would mostly have the Ju-88 and He-111.

That translates into about 34000 tons of bombs from about 17000 sorties (I am here counting 'attack' aircraft to bomb some of the closer targets), from planes already in the air, to spread out among a large number of targets.

Given the situation, it is unlikely the bombers will make it much further than 750 km. Depends on whether they wish to return.

Unless the Germans have control of the weather on the Eastern Seaboard, some of their targets will probably be protected by cloud or worse conditions, and while many of the targets could be put out of action with a couple of well-placed bombs, realistically getting those hits is going to require a much larger number of sorties per target.

It is likely they will miss some targets, but let me put that into perspective for you: the amount of bombs dropped on a single day would equal the total amount of ordinance dropped on the Ruhr during the Allied strategic bombing campaing during 5 months. Concentrate half a year's bombing efforts during World War II into one day, and you can easily see that not much of what's targeted within the German tech-dependent radius (be it 350 or 700 km) would survive.

If the Germans launch nothing but bombers and their planes magically appear literally on the runways of local airports, they might actually get the other half of their bomber force off the ground... eventually. Otherwise it's going to take a while for those strikes to materialize.

The second wave is not that important, actually. It is unlikely to take off anyway, unless Zor really makes them appear on all available runways ready for takeoff.

[Patroklos]

The Ruhr valley is about 1% of the area you are talking about the Luftwaffe trying to effectively target in this scenario. The population of the Ruhr was probably not even that of modern Georgia, we are talking an orders of magnitude more economic targets alone in just the SE compared to the WWII Ruhr valley. They are also not as concentrated.

[Simon_Jester]

The Ruhr valley is about 1% of the area you are talking about the Luftwaffe trying to effectively target in this scenario. The population of the Ruhr was probably not even that of modern Georgia, we are talking an orders of magnitude more economic targets alone in just the SE compared to the WWII Ruhr valley. They are also not as concentrated.

It's still enough for them to cause paralyzing one-day damage to a large number of separate airbases and major installations, especially since most of those airbases have little or no point defense against air attacks so that WWII bombers can fly low and slow enough to actually hit their targets. It isn't enough to totally wipe out the entire economic infrastructure of, say, everything from the Mason-Dixon Line to the Gulf Coast, but a few hundred targets are going to get hammered.

Assuming flying conditions are good.

Yes, but there's a difference between inflating their capabilities by using all the people and machines that historically served, and inflating their capabilities by taking all the people that historically served AND giving them all ahistorically effective weapons.

Sure enough. That can be the difference between them quickly taking over a patch of land 200-300 km in radius at most and them spreading out to 500 km away and more.

Well, the difference between them blowing up the airbases within that radius, versus failing to do so.

Remember that "I blew up the airbase here" has very little to do with "therefore I was able to conquer the surrounding territory." The main obstacle to further expansion of the massive swarm of Wehrmacht ground troops is the lack of vehicle transport for them all, and the fact that the road infrastructure will not support all their movements easily, especially after a few carefully targeted airstrikes on major highway bridges and so on.

Most of those Wehrmacht soldiers are, realistically, going to have to walk. Just as they did in Russia- which is a major reason why the Wehrmacht never actually advanced its main front lines by more than about twenty or thirty kilometers a day. Sure, isolated formations could sprint ahead to create encirclements, but the great bulk of the army had to walk.

Not that I'm disputing them, just that I couldn't find them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_p ... Air_forces

Somehow, I managed to miss that in my searches. Oops.

It is likely they will miss some targets, but let me put that into perspective for you: the amount of bombs dropped on a single day would equal the total amount of ordinance dropped on the Ruhr during the Allied strategic bombing campaing during 5 months. Concentrate half a year's bombing efforts during World War II into one day, and you can easily see that not much of what's targeted within the German tech-dependent radius (be it 350 or 700 km) would survive.

Understandable... but which five months? During which five months were 34000 tons of bombs dropped?

Also, the question of what to target is significant. The Germans would probably like to stop US ground forces from deploying against them, and breaking up road networks would be good for that... but that will involve hitting a lot of targets when secondary roads are factored in, dispersing their effort, and they will need those roads to advance if they have a hope of winning.

[K. A. Pital]

The effective combat radius of most German bombers - even advanced ones - means they either have to go on one-way missions or confine the attacks to a radius of 300-500 km to get most out of what they have. It is an area bigger than the Ruhr, but the intensity of bombing is a lot higher: 34000 tons of bombs coming down on the same day within several hours is not something you can just scoff at.

Remember that "I blew up the airbase here" has very little to do with "therefore I was able to conquer the surrounding territory."

The USAF has several thousand fighters in service (around two, I reckon); destroying the AFBs with everything still left on them is likely to increase the necessary mission range for remaining fighters, as there is nowhere to land. Destroying fighters means there is less fighters and bombers left after the initial wave, which is also good for the Germans. It also means fighters and bombers have to cover a greater range to attack the German horde. The most natural thing to do will be to bomb whatever'snearby.

Oh, and when the Ruhr was bombed, that was in 1943. The area targets were spread over was also a bit bigger than the Ruhr itself, some targets were away like Köln, for example.

Most of those Wehrmacht soldiers are, realistically, going to have to walk. Just as they did in Russia- which is a major reason why the Wehrmacht never actually advanced its main front lines by more than about twenty or thirty kilometers a day. Sure, isolated formations could sprint ahead to create encirclements, but the great bulk of the army had to walk.

During the initial attacks in Barbarossa, German armoured formations advanced 60-75 km per day, which isn't a bad result by all means and now they have way, way more of them; some are also well-trained in urban combat and recapturing urban zones from them is going to be very hard. The tech disparity on the ground is not nearly as big as it is in the air. So while the entire 20 million will not be able to advance more than 20-30 km per day, we are still looking at millions in armored units rolling up to 150 km away in a couple of days. Road quality is not that important, these are realistic advance tempos not over modern highways but over dirt roads prevalent in 1940's Russia. It is also unlikely that within the first day there'll be a lot of resistance, the surprise factor is much, much worse than even during Barbarossa.

The Germans would probably like to stop US ground forces from deploying against them

They have the spare firepower to obliterate a lot within 200-300 km; as to US forces farther away, those are hard to hit. The US does not have millions permanently mobilized in ground forces like the DPRK, and hitting army bases is not that useful unless there is armor or trucks there.

[Mr Bean]

So the thoughts are so far that Day 1 in the first six hours millions die to a concentrated bomber attack local defense forces are decimated and only rambo attacks and scattered partisan forces do anything to slow the German down before they have a nice 100 mile radius zone. At this point the German airforce life expectancy is measured in days with five days being the longest I'm guessing anyone will give them.

What about a day by day?

Day 1 12 million Germans arrive (That 20 million figure counts Italy and foreign fighters I'm guessing because otherwise the figure I find is 12 million) lots of deaths and lets say 60% of the Luftwaffe is destroyed/crashes/taken out of the fight. The German army advances across good American roads and handy American track which they can capture and re purpose. Soldiers start scavenging and digging as they turn Atalanta into a seriously defended city. They (The Germans) can literally afford to assign 1 soldier for every 1 civilian and still have 11.5 million soldiers free to advance. Something tells me Atlanta gets a 50,000-100,000 man occupation forces while some civilians are press ganged into digging trenches or moving things while the occupation force get's a crash course in things like cell phones, modern technology and the like.

Day 2, the Germans push further as American starts scrapping together every single intel asset to begin setting up a nighttime attack plan finding concentrations and key points for every single Tomahalk in the Atlantic fleet's depot. Germans learn exactly how nasty air war has gotten and more territory is captured.

Day 3 As day 2, but more concentrated attacks either staying nighttime only or going 24/7. Germans advance far enough to threaten places like Augusta and Montgomery.

Day 4 ground forces begin fighting German ground forces and then everything is up in the air.

By day 4 there has been time to summon soldiers back to the new front, arm and equip them as well as lay down plans. Remember the German entire strategy relies on speed and it will likely take a day or two to think to start yanking down highway signs so unlike previous advances the Germans will have excellent pathway's to advance along and once they are outside city limits the traffic will die down as people will take side roads rather than trying to run down highways choked with Panzers. Pretty much every tank is able to tow after all, so yanking 18 wheelers or Nissans off the road won't be that hard and highway mediums are great tank driving areas. The questions in my mind are how soon blocking forces can be put up and how far the Germans will spread before contact is made. The simple fact is they have the manpower to go a long way in all directions before stopping.

[K. A. Pital]

No, 20 million is the correct figure. I excluded 1 million for the Kriegsmarine, as specified in the OP.

The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 to 1945 is believed to have approached 18.2 million. This figure was put forward by historian Rüdiger Overmans and represents the total number of people who ever served in the Wehrmacht

Here a breakdown by type of service that is very close to that:
http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html

lots of deaths and lets say 60% of the Luftwaffe is destroyed/crashes/taken out of the fight.

On the deaths: a lot will die, but if they only bomb AFBs and other military installations, and not just every factory around the place, the casualties may actually be not that huge, though of course the most massive ever suffered by the US on home soil since god knows when. 50% of the LW isn't even in the game, as I understood: they are not enroute, which means they are only preparing for takeoff (not sure how the hell that should be feasible unless they have a territory big enough to have enough airfields to fit 55 000 airplanes!).

The simple fact is they have the manpower to go a long way in all directions before stopping.

They will run into roads fully jammed with cars and, perhaps, dead people in these cars at some point. And slow down. There's also the matter of supporting an armed force advance with fuel and such, though truth be told their tank units were pretty well composed from the very start of the war, nevermind its middle, and covering 100+ km in a few days will be possible. The matter of logistics will kick them in the balls once their initial magical weapon and fuel load starts expiring.

EDIT: Blech, I double-counted the Waffen-SS, the real figure would be 18 million because the lost Kriegsmarine million is compensated by the Waffen-SS million and the number stays the same at ~18 million.

[Prannon]

You know, I've been reading through these replies and it appears to me that no one is really giving much consideration to the German Air commander's ability to shift in tactics once the disparity in the air is clear.

Who's to say that once they realize that they have no way to defeat the US Air Force in the air, that they won't shift overwhelming firepower to trying to hit the fighters on the ground, the costs be damned? It's not like the US has much of a strategic reserve (as far as I'm aware) that can be spooled up quickly in this sort of emergency, and in my mind a Zerg Rush sort of strategy might just give the Luftwaffe enough of an edge to seriously cripple the US Air Force long enough for a ground campaign to make serious gains. At least until carrier based aircraft arrive. I doubt the Germans will have much that can touch that.

Someone mentioned earlier that an F-22 might as well be the same thing as a 1940s Russian fighter if it's on the ground, and an explody 1940s era bomb will still destroy it just as much as an explody JDAM bomb.

Also, I get the feeling that folks are glossing over just how MANY people 20 million soldiers are. All crammed into Georgia and armed to the teeth with (old) military grade weaponry. Texas has a population of 26.4 million people, as a comparison. The US army** has around 1.1 million active and reserve personnel, with maybe something like 400,000 additional National Guardsmen (correct me if I'm wrong). Honestly, a lot of folks are assuming that US victory is a granted, when I'm having a hard time seeing how the Germans can lose with their surprise and numerical advantage. They'll suffer atrocious casualties and they'll have a desperate fight, for sure, but in a complete surprise attack with the US military dispersed and flatfooted, and US industries not geared for attrition warfare... yeah.

This isn't a cake-walk for the US military and I don't think that victory is assured within a few days.

**Edit: Changed "military" to "army." The military as a whole is far larger.

[Patroklos]

There is no opportunity for the Luftwaffe to change tactics. Whatever they are going to accomplish will happen in the hours after they appear after which they become a non entity. Even if they did US fighter range (non bomb truck) can be in the 1000+ miles with thousands of options for operating bases. The Germans have no means to hit them on the ground.

[The Romulan Republic]

Prannon, the US military may be outnumbered, but if ever there was a situation where you could reintroduce the draft without massive protests, its this.

[Gaidin]

Just curious, would you even really need the draft?

[Mr Bean]

Just curious, would you even really need the draft?

Yes, unless your after the war plan consists of lining the Germans up against the nearest wall and putting a bullet in their heads your going to end up with a minimum of two million prisoners.

[The Romulan Republic]

There would probably also be a surge in the number of voluntary recruits for the military. Nothing like an invasion (by Nazis no less) to rally the patriots.

[lance]

What does this mean for the rest of the world? Does this give China, Isis, or Russia a way to push there agenda with less resistance?

[Block]

Out of curiosity, are any of these German vehicles protected against EMP? I mean, I know they're not computerized, but EMP can overload circuits in general no?

[Borgholio]

What does this mean for the rest of the world? Does this give China, Isis, or Russia a way to push there agenda with less resistance?

If anything, there will be MORE resistance. Nothing like an invasion of 20 million Nazis to give the military a blank check and turn the US into the most heavily fortified nation in history. You think anybody is going to even think about defense cutbacks if (for all they know) this could happen again?

No, the US will go on a military spending spree not seen since 1941, forcing our competitors to either walk on eggshells or start an arms race.

[Gaidin]

Out of curiosity, are any of these German vehicles protected against EMP? I mean, I know they're not computerized, but EMP can overload circuits in general no?

WW2 electronics is a day of analog circuits. EMP is largely a non-issue because they don't have the tech to throw EMPs at our circuitry, and they don't have the tech to make EMPs relevant weaponry.

[K. A. Pital]

There is no opportunity for the Luftwaffe to change tactics. Whatever they are going to accomplish will happen in the hours after they appear after which they become a non entity. Even if they did US fighter range (non bomb truck) can be in the 1000+ miles with thousands of options for operating bases. The Germans have no means to hit them on the ground.

Actually, the Luftwaffe cannot really attack anything outside the 700-750 km radius due to the range of their planes (Germany did not field real long-range bombers).

Someone mentioned earlier that an F-22 might as well be the same thing as a 1940s Russian fighter if it's on the ground, and an explody 1940s era bomb will still destroy it just as much as an explody JDAM bomb.

That is only true for the range of the German bombers. Something to consider is that without external fuel tanks, the F-22's combat radius is ~760 km, but there's one detail: the German-controlled area, even if it's 300-400 km in radius, can be flown through, in which case the F-22 can take off from one airfield and land on another crossing the whole area. So the F-22s and other fighters could do missions at ~1500 km total flight path. However, the US will have to consider whether to fit the craft they have with ATG or AA munitions.

The real shock would be the second scenario: every (or even every second!) German bomber is a Ju-287, for example, with 2000 kg bomb load. They could strike at targets 800 km away within one hour. Now, if they manage to destroy every airbase within a radius of 800 km, the US fighters can start running into range issues, but not before that. Since they are speading out, the forward positions will be hammered by fighters and bombers anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

The USAF has several thousand fighters in service (around two, I reckon); destroying the AFBs with everything still left on them is likely to increase the necessary mission range for remaining fighters, as there is nowhere to land.

True, but they can't get far enough to make this a serious problem for the US Air Force, because most of the Air Force planes have a longer combat radius than that, especially if "combat" means "fly out, dump munitions from comfortably out of range of enemy action, fly back."

Destroying fighters means there is less fighters and bombers left after the initial wave, which is also good for the Germans. It also means fighters and bombers have to cover a greater range to attack the German horde. The most natural thing to do will be to bomb whatever'snearby.

Well, they can't inflict meaningful attrition on the USAF because only a small percentage of it is within striking range of their bases. Compared to the 90%+ attrition they will suffer in the first 24 hours due to the complications of landing their own planes (and stuff getting blown up on the runway by air-launched cruise missiles and so on)... yeah.

Most of those Wehrmacht soldiers are, realistically, going to have to walk. Just as they did in Russia- which is a major reason why the Wehrmacht never actually advanced its main front lines by more than about twenty or thirty kilometers a day. Sure, isolated formations could sprint ahead to create encirclements, but the great bulk of the army had to walk.

During the initial attacks in Barbarossa, German armoured formations advanced 60-75 km per day, which isn't a bad result by all means and now they have way, way more of them; some are also well-trained in urban combat and recapturing urban zones from them is going to be very hard. The tech disparity on the ground is not nearly as big as it is in the air. So while the entire 20 million will not be able to advance more than 20-30 km per day, we are still looking at millions in armored units rolling up to 150 km away in a couple of days. Road quality is not that important, these are realistic advance tempos not over modern highways but over dirt roads prevalent in 1940's Russia. It is also unlikely that within the first day there'll be a lot of resistance, the surprise factor is much, much worse than even during Barbarossa.

True. The deployment situation after the first day will probably look like an octopus, with 'tentacles' of German panzer units having advanced with minimal opposition out to distances up to 200-300 km from their starting points.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the Wehrmacht will still be concentrated within a big blob about fifty to (at most) 100 kilometers in diameter centered on their starting area.

The main issue, though, is that the US is quite capable of blowing up the roads behind those panzer formations, physically airdropping (or helicopter-dropping) troops behind them, and dumping swarms of air-launched antitank missiles on their spearheads. All of which will cause disruption... even as all those highways are cluttered with immense numbers of civilian automobiles, in quantities that the Germans have never seen or even imagined before.

The Germans would probably like to stop US ground forces from deploying against them

They have the spare firepower to obliterate a lot within 200-300 km; as to US forces farther away, those are hard to hit. The US does not have millions permanently mobilized in ground forces like the DPRK, and hitting army bases is not that useful unless there is armor or trucks there.

It may not actually take that many troops deployed to stop one of these Wehrmacht armored columns, because a Humvee with a TOW launcher can effortlessly snipe Tiger tanks as long as the ammunition holds out, from a range at which even Tigers with their gunnery optics would be brutally hard-pressed to reply at.

So, deploy a company with long range antitank weapons, fire a salvo, withdraw, repeat. There will be enough drone and satellite assets in the air to prevent the units on the ground fighting this delaying action from being easily outflanked.

This works hilariously better if you have actual Abrams tanks.

Although doing this along major roads will be hard because the Americans have the same problems the Germans do- masses of cars cluttering the roads.

So the thoughts are so far that Day 1 in the first six hours millions die to a concentrated bomber attack local defense forces are decimated and only rambo attacks and scattered partisan forces do anything to slow the German down before they have a nice 100 mile radius zone. At this point the German airforce life expectancy is measured in days with five days being the longest I'm guessing anyone will give them.

They may well not actually control everything within that 100-mile radius, because they can't get soldiers into all those places, without severely dispersing their advancing armored columns. Only a small percentage of their overall force can move that fast... even on unclogged roads.

[They will likely try commandeering civilian transport, but that will run into some interesting obstacles and cause delay and disruption]

Also, I suspect "millions die" in the initial bombing attacks is an overstatement, if only because it takes an awful lot of bombs dropped on a city to kill a hundred thousand people. Remember that the total quantity being dropped here is on par with one of several entirely separate bombing offensives launched during WWII, and not the biggest of them... and that much of the total bombload has to be dropped on military targets if the Germans want to get any benefit out of it.

What about a day by day?

Day 1 12 million Germans arrive (That 20 million figure counts Italy and foreign fighters I'm guessing because otherwise the figure I find is 12 million) lots of deaths and lets say 60% of the Luftwaffe is destroyed/crashes/taken out of the fight. The German army advances across good American roads and handy American track which they can capture and re purpose. Soldiers start scavenging and digging as they turn Atalanta into a seriously defended city. They (The Germans) can literally afford to assign 1 soldier for every 1 civilian and still have 11.5 million soldiers free to advance. Something tells me Atlanta gets a 50,000-100,000 man occupation forces while some civilians are press ganged into digging trenches or moving things while the occupation force get's a crash course in things like cell phones, modern technology and the like.

Hard to learn how to operate cell phones while serving as armed guards for a populace much of which may be carrying pistols.

Also, cell phone infrastructure may well be disabled remotely by people who don't want the Germans to have infinity walkie-talkies.

Also, look out for all the enormous civilian vehicle streams fleeing them in all directions, which become an entangling obstacle that has to be forcibly cleared off the road with considerable difficulty.

Day 2, the Germans push further as American starts scrapping together every single intel asset to begin setting up a nighttime attack plan finding concentrations and key points for every single Tomahalk in the Atlantic fleet's depot. Germans learn exactly how nasty air war has gotten and more territory is captured.

Day 3 As day 2, but more concentrated attacks either staying nighttime only or going 24/7. Germans advance far enough to threaten places like Augusta and Montgomery.

Day 4 ground forces begin fighting German ground forces and then everything is up in the air.

By day 4 there has been time to summon soldiers back to the new front, arm and equip them as well as lay down plans...

I think your timeline is a bit... oversimplified. Not paying enough attention to what the US will do, and how the civilians in the threatened area will react. Sort of like you're modeling everything as a passive medium the Germans have to push through, rather than active hostility on the part of people trying to screw with them.

You know, I've been reading through these replies and it appears to me that no one is really giving much consideration to the German Air commander's ability to shift in tactics once the disparity in the air is clear.

They won't have the capability to do so and organize the required air attacks efficiently. In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that by the end of the first 24 hours, the only formed units of Luftwaffe aircraft in any condition to sortie are going to be squadron-sized formations that all happened to set down at the same little grass airstrip in the middle of nowhere and were somehow overlooked in the B-52s' hurry to cluster-bomb all those inviting concentrations of hundreds of tightly packed planes parked on the runways at various Atlanta area airports.

Just figuring out how much they've lost and how to react will take a lot of time... and every several hours, another wave of crushing airstrikes will be hitting them over the head and causing further damage. So basically, there will not be the opportunity to perform major air raids under WWII doctrine. They can't manage it with the major runways and aircraft concentrations taken out. That would entail launching hundreds of bombers, forming them up in the air (yummy targets for flights of Air Force jets dumping missiles down into them!), and sending them off to hit a point target that will see them coming an hour or more away.

The best attack order you can give would be something like "any airplanes that can still fly, navigate to the following targets and, uh, bomb them." Not a recipe for wreaking destruction on the target.

Who's to say that once they realize that they have no way to defeat the US Air Force in the air, that they won't shift overwhelming firepower to trying to hit the fighters on the ground, the costs be damned? It's not like the US has much of a strategic reserve (as far as I'm aware) that can be spooled up quickly in this sort of emergency, and in my mind a Zerg Rush sort of strategy might just give the Luftwaffe enough of an edge to seriously cripple the US Air Force long enough for a ground campaign to make serious gains. At least until carrier based aircraft arrive. I doubt the Germans will have much that can touch that.

The Germans can't launch enough planes to make this strategy work. By the second or third day, in terms of organized bomber sorties with a realistic chance of destroying a significant target, they may not be able to sortie more than 2000-3000 aircraft... and it takes hundreds of planes to wipe out each airfield. And they'll see you coming and have interceptors in the air to slaughter your planes in large numbers on the way in.

And, for that matter, just be able to order grounded aircraft to take off and fly away to a more remote base until the danger is gone.

Also, I get the feeling that folks are glossing over just how MANY people 20 million soldiers are. All crammed into Georgia and armed to the teeth with (old) military grade weaponry. Texas has a population of 26.4 million people, as a comparison...

This actually presents a major problem: what are all those German soldiers going to eat? Nobody's going to be willingly selling them food, and the food stockpiles in the area can't possibly be large enough to feed such a huge population of physically active soldiers for more than a few weeks.

You don't have to kill them all, you just have to stop them from advancing until their supply situation becomes untenable.

This isn't a cake-walk for the US military and I don't think that victory is assured within a few days.

Overcoming the Wehrmacht main body is gonna take weeks at best; the US simply doesn't have enough rifle infantry to defeat them all in open battle. Major offensives can be stopped cold due to the US superiority in artillery, air support, and heavy weapons, but going in and taking over garrisoned cities? A nightmare. They'll realistically have to be penned up and starved out.

Out of curiosity, are any of these German vehicles protected against EMP? I mean, I know they're not computerized, but EMP can overload circuits in general no?

If there aren't any transistors or other electronics IN those circuits, no, because there's nothing for the electromagnetic pulse to 'fry.' As a practical matter, a Tiger tank or an Opel truck is going to be about as EMP-proof as a box of rocks.

That is only true for the range of the German bombers. Something to consider is that without external fuel tanks...

No reason not to use the external fuel tanks; the F-22 can still fly too high and fast for any German fighter to intercept it, even if it would show up on German radar, which even with the external tanks it might not for all I know. Radar of that era wasn't all that sensitive.

...the F-22's combat radius is ~760 km, but there's one detail: the German-controlled area, even if it's 300-400 km in radius, can be flown through, in which case the F-22 can take off from one airfield and land on another crossing the whole area.

The main problem is that there aren't really any airbases to speak of south or east of the German positions- at least, none that are comfortably out of the range of "Luftwaffe will blow the hell out of this." So basically, the aircraft will still be taking off from the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, and the Mississippi river valley, and hitting targets around Atlanta, then flying back to the same bases.

So the F-22s and other fighters could do missions at ~1500 km total flight path. However, the US will have to consider whether to fit the craft they have with ATG or AA munitions.

[/quote]Air to ground, mostly, I'd say- with a handful of planes, mostly F-15s, that you load up with AMRAAMs and send in to break up any large formations of German bombers that make it airborne.

The German fighters really aren't much of a threat, it's not worth trying to shoot them down as long as they can't bomb anything, and it's far easier to kill them on the ground with cluster munitions, because they're going to be stupidly overcrowded at the limited number of available airstrips.

[Gaidin]

If there aren't any transistors or other electronics IN those circuits, no, because there's nothing for the electromagnetic pulse to 'fry.' As a practical matter, a Tiger tank or an Opel truck is going to be about as EMP-proof as a box of rocks.

Transistors are cold war era technology. Even their communications technology can take the EMP, at least much more so. There'd be some interference, but it wouldn't fry it I'd think. And to add, the Germans never pushed researching anything capable of an EMP to the forefront, at least not as far and as fast as far as the arms race was concerned. I think we'd be more worried about the atomic bomb part than the EMP part though if they had managed it.

[Prannon]

There is no opportunity for the Luftwaffe to change tactics. Whatever they are going to accomplish will happen in the hours after they appear after which they become a non entity. Even if they did US fighter range (non bomb truck) can be in the 1000+ miles with thousands of options for operating bases. The Germans have no means to hit them on the ground.

I buy that, but only after considering that every US airbase within the Luftwaffe's range from Georgia has been destroyed. I'm giving some credit to the surprise factor and US unreadiness for this type of implausible scenario. Meanwhile, any US airbase outside of the Luftwaffe's range is going to be free to conduct sorties, pretty much with impunity. And I completely agree with other comments that the US will have complete supremacy in the air. My main concern is with US vulnerabilities on the ground, given the number disparity, which others have addressed...

[Attacking vulnerable US air assets on the ground]* is only true for the range of the German bombers. Something to consider is that without external fuel tanks, the F-22's combat radius is ~760 km, but there's one detail: the German-controlled area, even if it's 300-400 km in radius, can be flown through, in which case the F-22 can take off from one airfield and land on another crossing the whole area. So the F-22s and other fighters could do missions at ~1500 km total flight path. However, the US will have to consider whether to fit the craft they have with ATG or AA munitions.

They won't have the capability to [change tactics]* and organize the required air attacks efficiently. In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that by the end of the first 24 hours, the only formed units of Luftwaffe aircraft in any condition to sortie are going to be squadron-sized formations that all happened to set down at the same little grass airstrip in the middle of nowhere and were somehow overlooked in the B-52s' hurry to cluster-bomb all those inviting concentrations of hundreds of tightly packed planes parked on the runways at various Atlanta area airports.

Just figuring out how much they've lost and how to react will take a lot of time... and every several hours, another wave of crushing airstrikes will be hitting them over the head and causing further damage. So basically, there will not be the opportunity to perform major air raids under WWII doctrine. They can't manage it with the major runways and aircraft concentrations taken out. That would entail launching hundreds of bombers, forming them up in the air (yummy targets for flights of Air Force jets dumping missiles down into them!), and sending them off to hit a point target that will see them coming an hour or more away.

The best attack order you can give would be something like "any airplanes that can still fly, navigate to the following targets and, uh, bomb them." Not a recipe for wreaking destruction on the target.

*snip my quote*

The Germans can't launch enough planes to make this strategy [of attacking US planes on the ground]* work. By the second or third day, in terms of organized bomber sorties with a realistic chance of destroying a significant target, they may not be able to sortie more than 2000-3000 aircraft... and it takes hundreds of planes to wipe out each airfield. And they'll see you coming and have interceptors in the air to slaughter your planes in large numbers on the way in.

And, for that matter, just be able to order grounded aircraft to take off and fly away to a more remote base until the danger is gone.

Ok, so the points here are fair and valid, but I'm not sure that due credit is being given to the (1) surprise factor, nor to the (2) advances the Germans are going to make.

Let's say that I'm the German commander in chief of this Timeswitched Expeditionary Force from the Fatherland. As Zor laid out, I have maps, objectives, and I already have planes in the air and a whole bunch of others smashed together in positions on the ground. Putting aside any other assumptions, I'm going to understand that:

a) Georgia is a very small place to stage 20 million people, what with feeding them and living space and all that.
b) I will need to start expanding and campaigning IMMEDIATELY just to support my force, much less defeat the enemy.
c) I will probably have complete surprise for the first few hours.

Fine. So, right away, I'm going to set forth my force into several different campaigns, each of which has a strategic reserve since I literally have that many soldiers. One campaign is going to drive west toward Texas across the Gulf Coast, and the other campaign is going to drive North toward Washington, DC and NYC. My orders will be to move as quickly as possible and obtain as much ground as possible. Literally, drive as far as you can, and keep driving as long as you have fuel. Soldiers can forage from the land as needed.

To address your point Simon, regarding the sheer number of Germans, the German commander is likely to understand the need to feed the army's belly just as much as we do in this thread, and will plan accordingly with a highly aggressive and expansionist campaign.

As others have laid out, the US will probably respond quickly, but I'm not as confident that the US will respond with immediate effectiveness. The surprise factor here is simply too great, and although the US maintains a warlike footing in international theaters, the readiness in the US theater is not likely to be very high (any military members please correct me if I'm mistaken). I'd probably estimate at least 24 hours of virtually none to spotty resistance from isolated US air attacks, then a growing coordination as the days follow and more assets are brought on line.

Beyond that, I'd give consideration to the sheer inertia of the potential German campaigns to the North and to the West, with all the numbers they're able to put behind them. Air bases, if they're not within range or bombed to oblivion within the first few hours, are probably going to be overrun, which will scramble things up even more.

*I have edited the quoted posts from Simon and Stas in order to give context (as I understand it) to my responses. Again, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[Zinegata]

Now I'm curious though, and look to someone more knowledgeable: Not counting its TOWs, how would a mere Bradley fare against a Panther? Do the advances in material science allow the Bradley's thin armor to stand up to a KwK42 APCR impact? Likewise, does the Bradley's relatively puny M242 have sophisticated enough shells to crack a Panther's front armor?

The Panther's final drive gave out at the mind-bogglingly low figure of 150km on average, so the question really is whether there would be any Panthers left to fight with after the first road march.

[K. A. Pital]

Of course there would be tanks left: they would be fortified with bags and placed inside towns as armored strongpoints. Another thing to consider is that the USAF has less than 200 strategic bombers, and some of them will perish during bombing of Shreveport, not to mention inevitable attrition losses. Not sure if all of them are even inside the US right now. At most, the first night the US could throw around 3 000 000 tons of bomb ordinance, but that is if the US can even understand what just happened and order fullscale urban bombardment against their own cities. I am not sure they will immediately understand the scale of the invasion. Meanwhile, the dispersal of German units across the entire state - even on trucks carrying guns is to be expected, as they do not want to remain a big fat target. They are likely to take all cars in the Atlanta area, too. Not sure how many the people have there, but most of them will likely get confiscated by the invading forces.

Hmm, it seems like around one car per person is the typical ownership rate for the place. That is another several hundred thousand vehicles, and the Germans would need them as being in a modern car reduces the chances of being hit by a missile or a bomb.