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Subject: WW11 What ifs?
Johnny Frost    7/11/2003 4:21:01 AM
What do people thoughts on the most interesting "What ifs" of ww11. I immediately think of Hitler not ordering his armour to overrun the Dunkirk and Calais beaches allowing BEF and French Forces to escape. Would this have changed the outcome? What about the decision to switch the targets from the airfields to the cities by the Germans in the battle of Britain. What if Hitler had pushed for Moscow and not the Caucuses in 1941. What if Japan had attacked Russia and not the US, from Manturia?
 
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addo    RE:WW11 What ifs?   6/3/2005 11:05:30 AM
Sweden had dropped its neutrality and helped the Allies from the north?
 
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dogday    RE:WW11 What ifs?   6/24/2005 6:52:51 PM
What if there had been a war just between Japan and the Brits. How well would the Brits had done in naval night engagements? Would they have had the resource to fight a long war against Japan without American help? What would a Naval engagement between there carriers been like. Would the Brits have been able to get there fleet to Australia without getting destroyed by Japans Navy. Could they have saved Singapore in time?
 
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bsl    RE:WW11 What ifs?- Japan vs Britain   6/24/2005 10:58:08 PM
Britain had no hope, at all, with the composition of British forces in the 1930s or the early 1940s. This is actually a pretty simple calculation. Britain could not fight Japan, at all, without the ability to fight at sea. And, Britain simply did not have a force capable of fighting the IJN until most of WW2 had passed. British naval aviation in 1941 couldn't fight the IJN. It was utterly outclassed, as well as badly outnumbered. Too few carriers carrying to few planes, and pretty poor planes, at that. Swept clear of the sea, all British possessions in East and SE Asia were doomed. The real question is whether Japan would have continued the fight into India. As long as Japan was fighting China and feared Russia, most of the Japanese army was tied up in East Asia and couldn't be moved. OTOH, Japan would clearly have been able to dominate the Indian Ocean and this means that any point around the Indian Ocean littoral was open to attack by air. If the already-present Indian nationalist movement got more help, and saw greater chances, then it might not have taken a huge Japanese army to kick the British at least as far back as the Persian Gulf.
 
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dogday    RE:WW11 What ifs?- Japan vs Britain   6/27/2005 7:34:15 PM
So you don't think the Brits had the Navy for it? Were British Subs so bad that they could not have taken a good toll on Japans oil suppy or merchant fleet. You think that without worry about Germany, England could have sent and supplied enough troops to hold India? What about land base Airpower? Did the RAF know how to sink ships The British navy was pretty short legged in the first place. So I doubt that they would have gone to far away from one of there bases. Japan could strike hard for about a year but would have still suffered from an oil shortage. Yes Brit naval air was horrible and the carriers stored few planes, but what was they battle fleet training like for night ops?
 
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pro-military       2/12/2010 3:15:41 PM

>On American Kafir point on Patton drive back the RED army. This seems laughable. Eisenhower only had 80 divisions. They would have bounced of the Russians<

Yeah, and a neat toy used twice in lieu of throwing troops at the Japanese mainland.
The western Allies had 2.1 million men on the western front when the war in Europe ended. Combine that with the couple hundred thousand or more German POWs that would have agreed to fight with the Allies against Russia. Then combine that will the soldiers, marines, and navy that finished off Japan. The result is a very possible victory against Russia. 

 
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pro-military       2/12/2010 3:25:50 PM
What if Hitler, instead of going straight into the Russian army, had sent most of those forces to Rommel in Africa. This would have destroyed the Brits in Egypt. After that, he could have gone unopposed into the Middle East (which was where Britain was getting a lot of its oil), took a left turn, and hit Russia right in its industrial sweet spot. This would have skirted around the entire Russian army, and he would have avoid the Russian winter and mud altogether. 
 
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Hamilcar    No sea lift and no sea power.   2/14/2010 8:17:09 AM
Otherwise he would have invaded Great Britain and won the war, Mahan style
 
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