Post by SolomonWLet assume that you are an allied planner in early 1942. What could you do
that would significantly speed up Hitler's fall?
Almost nothing if significantly is end 1944.
Put it another way you need to adjust a whole series of
interlocking plans and production programs then have the
commanders use the resources better and even then you are
taking weeks off the end of the war in Europe, not months,
given a starting time of 1 January 1942 Far too much of what
you could do had been decided by then.
It is not a case of just the available combat units, it is their
support forces and doctrine as well. And effective doctrine,
proper mixes of forces, requires experience.
Post by SolomonWCould it cause a change that has Hitler defeated in 1944?
No, not without lots of knowledge handed back through time,
mainly on how to conduct effective operations and a big
assumption the earlier opening of such operations does not
allow the time for the Germans to mount some effective
counter moves.
Starting 1 January 1942.
Want to systematically bomb Germany's synthetic oil refineries?
This will not do a lot to the Heer but will hurt the Luftwaffe. You
need long range high performance fighters, so you need the
Merlin P-51, the historical P-51B or later.
The first 2 stage Merlins were built at the end of 1941, the British
had built 900 by the end of 1942. Packard started 2 stage Merlin
production about a year later but only built 9 to the end of April
1943. P-51 production ended in September 1942, replaced by
A-36, P-51A production began in March 1943, P-51B in April,
P-51C at the new plant in Dallas in August.
The first Mustang mark I, the NA-73 (The P-51 was the mark Ia)
arrived in Britain in October 1941, followed by 7 in November and
24 in December. First squadron service was on 5 January 1942.
The RAF had decided by 24 January it wanted 10 squadrons of
them. First operation was on 24 May 1942. By April 1942 Rolls
Royce had done the calculations on a Merlin version and in June
the US was informed of the idea, 3 conversions were ordered on
15 June. By the end of August the RAF was talking about accepting
engineless P-51 airframes for UK Merlin installation. The British
conversion first flew in October 1942. The US conversion first flew
at the end of November. US combat units were flying missions in
Britain in November 1943.
So
1) you need to speed up 2 stage Merlin production
2) need to speed up Merlin Mustang trials.
3) need to bring the Dallas factory on line quicker.
So say the P-51A becomes the first Merlin Mustang, an extra 310
aircraft, March to May 1943, versus 283 P-51B to end August 1943.
So you have gained 3 months, so operations start around August
1943.
Meantime the Jumo 213 was around in 1943 and you have given the
Luftwaffe a lot more incentive to get the Fw190D into production.
Also of course is the fact the 8th Air Force dropped a total of 47,452
short tons of bombs in 1943, 12,577 of that in December. So even
having the fighters you lack the bombers and it took around 12 months
to train a bomber group. Now add to go after a specific set of targets
the bombers needed electronic bombing aids. The US first tried H2S
in September 1943, by end February 1944 two 8th Air Force bomber
groups had been equipped with H2X, end May it was 6, end July 11,
end August 24.
Then add the acute shortage of people trained to use the sets and
the way February serviceability of the sets was around 77% while
for the second half of 1944 it was around 88 to 90%.
The loss of merchant ships and in particular tankers off the US east
coast and in the Caribbean during 1942 would hurt the allies for most
of the war, forcing convoys from the start, along with blackouts etc.
would cut the losses but again you are talking in terms of weeks of
improvement.
The one thing you could do was stop the LST orders being cancelled
for DE only for DE orders to be cancelled for LST when the U-boats
were defeated in the first half of 1943.
So the allies have enough LST to launch the historical Overlord
operation in mid 1943 except of course there are the German forces
historically committed to Kursk and the much reduced allied air
power available and the fact the US army, in order to field the forces
it had in 1944, was continually splitting formations to create cadres
during the 1941/43 period. So a nominal 5 divisions in September
1939 to 23 in December 1940, to 39 in October 1941 to 76 in
December 1942 to 94 in August 1943 (including 4 Marine and 1
cavalry, the cavalry was disbanded in May 1944, 2 more Marine
divisions were formed, in January and August 1944). So the actual
effective formation count was lower than the total until 1944 and
even then formations had to give up trained men as replacements
for the units in combat.
So you have the invasion shipping but not the merchant shipping in
1943 or the airpower or the trained ground troops. Remember how
much the allies learnt about proper tactics in the Mediterranean?
Maybe you can take Tunisia as part of Torch. So the allies can
move to say Sicily in early 1943, say 3 to 4 months early. Except
the US forces would be still green, the German losses of the
troops sent to Tunisia, like an extra Panzer division, the loss of
Luftwaffe instrument instructor crews in transports would not have
happened. Also like the 8th Air Force the 15th Air Force will
take time to build up. So the extra invasion shipping allows the
allies to continually go round the German defensive lines in Italy
so by the end of 1944 they are at the Alps. Then where?
Another important lesson learnt by the US in 1942/43 was the ability
to ship lots of supplies overseas with the minimum of problems
finding it again at the other end. The troops for Torch ended up
receiving much equipment several times as shipments became
lost "somewhere in England". With associated flow on effects
on troop training in the US due to lack of equipment there. In 1943
the US army forces moving overseas generally had to take their
own equipment with them, costing weeks of training time before
and after the move for packing and then unpacking, in 1944 they
turned their equipment in, moved and were issued new equipment
at the other end, in Europe anyway.
The extra invasion shipping from 1942/43 would enable an
earlier Overlord operation, say in mid April 1944 given the
problems with winter weather, at which time the 8th Air Force
had 31 bomber and 13 fighter groups, versus 40 and 15 on
6 June while the 9th Air Force strength was even further from
its historical D-Day strengths. So the Germans will have better
strategic mobility, given less allied airpower to attack the rail
network and less time to do the attacks.
So it all works and you arrive at Antwerp 6 weeks earlier than
historical. The final operation of the pursuit is an all out effort
to clear the approaches to the port. It took 11 or so weeks
between port capture and opening, so say halve this and the
allies have the historical December supply situation in
September thanks to the invasion being 6 weeks early and
the 6 weeks quicker clearing the approaches. By the way the
usual sequence of a port opening was 1) supplies pile up on
the docks as transport out of the port is inadequate, 2)
supplies pile up on the associated depots as they have
inadequate transport to the forward depots, 3) the forward
depots end up with lots of supplies on wheels waiting to be
unloaded with too much arriving relative to the unloading
capacity, which caused problems further back due to a lack of
transport. It took a few weeks from port opening to everything
working assuming there was no change that caused a
reallocation of transports or change of depot positions.
In September 1944 the allies would have gladly swapped
combat formations for more supply units.
Add of course the time needed to build things like the fuel
pipelines from the channel ports to the front line.
End August 1944 the US Army had 23 divisions in France and
5 in Britain, end September it was 32 divisions in France and
2 in Britain. End December it was 46 and 6. At peak it was
61 divisions in France/Germany in March 1945.
So you are 3 months ahead in terms of territory captured,
and troops supplied and this is everything going reasonably
well, but you are behind in terms of US military power available.
So everything else happens in the same time scale and
the war ends in early February 1945, assuming for example
the Germans defend on the west bank of the Rhine and lose
as many troops as historical. And so on.
Note given how close Antwerp was to the front line the allies
used other French ports for things like ammunition, fuel and
personnel, so they have to be opened as well.
So again like any hypothetical you can arrange a result,
especially if the other side is confined to their historical
time lines and reactions, so all the improvements are on
one side. The reality of how long it took to build the
equipment and train the personnel, the way the allies gained
knowledge of how to do operations over the course of the war,
things like amphibious assaults, army group level supply,
combined arms tactics is it all takes time and unless the
answers are handed back through time and believed or
enforced it is very hard to change the overall result and the
later you make any start point the less changes can be made.
In the east you need Stalin to allow better objectives for the
1941/42 winter offensive, the May 1942 operation and
generally over extending his forces on the attack in the
1942/43 period. That will help but again it is still a 1945
victory.
Finally according to the British Germany imported 114,558
tons of Chrome Ore from Turkey in 1939, 25,498 tons in 1943
and 21,182 tons January to August 1944, the Turks say the
exports were 104,156 tons in 1939, 13,564 tons in 1943 and
59,649 tons in 1944.
German imports of chrome ore from the USSR were
23,382 tons in 1940.
The USN chrome plated its big guns for a useful increase
in barrel life.
Wolfram/Tungsten came from Spain and Portugal.
Geoffrey Sinclair
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