Which battle? The Battle of Britain? Doesn't Germany have fewer Bf-109s if it concentrates on heavy bombers? And even if Germany manages to get air superiority over England, when the tide of battle inevitably shifts to the Allies' favor, Germany has less of a domestic defense than they did in our timeline.
Yes the Battle Of Britain, and why would they have had fewer Bf-109s? If we are assuming a more competent military power overall then the Germans would have realised the obselesence of the Do-17 and He-111 earlier and would have been phasing them out in favour of their new heavy bombers bythe time of the Battle, all the increase in resources needed to build a four engined bomber over a twin-engined bomber (the He-111 is NOT a small aeroplane) could easily have been accomodated by the massive slack in the german economy at the time.
The British economy, far weaker than the German, managed to build a massive force of almost 1000 heavy bombers in addition to a fighter force of at any one time about 1500 Spitfires. If the germans had a force this size in 1940 (so about 500 fewer bombers but much better ones) and had used drop tanks (only a few months in it, the Bf-109 E-7 could carry a tank and came into use towards the end of the battle) the RAF would have been destroyed.
As for the tide of battle switching to the allies favour, that is by no means a certainty. Without Britain in the war it is highly unlikely the USA would have entered the war in Europe, and without British and US assistance it is quite possible the Soviets would have been defeated. The Germans came within a tiny margin of victory in Russia (Liddell Hart thought that if the USSR had the same rail gauge the Germans would have won in 1941) and had they won in Russia you would have had a German victory in Europe. They came incredibly close.
Define won. And where do you get a Germany that goes to war with all of its neighbors without Hitler's anti-Semitic agenda? And without WW2, why would Germany even develop ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads? And where does it get the money to pay for them? And if Germany were developing nuclear weapons, why wouldn't everyone else be?
I define won as defeating Britain and the USSR, under those circumstances the USA would not have gotten involved in Europe, at least not right away.
This is a hypothetical debate, there are of course assumptions to be taken into account before you can have such a debate, one of them is that Germany was competently managed in WW2, it wasn't.
The Germans took advantage of the chaos of politics that led to WW1 to try and build a European Empire, this was with nothing but Prussian militarism and a desire for an overseas empire to inspire them. They could easily have started being aggressive in Europe without Hitler, in fact reamament started before he took power.
Everyone assumes that Germany could have won the war if they'd only been allowed more of a head start. No country was going to let them have that head start.
Nonsense - they had a massive head-start. They lost because Britain held on long enough for US industrial power to be brought to bear in the West and because the Russians were too strong in the East. The Germans could have won despite these things if they had beaten Britain and Russia by the end of 1941, which could have happened.
Some say Germany should have scrapped the battleships and made more U-Boats. In that case, England would have made more Destroyers for ASW.
England was losing the Battle Of The Atlantic anyway until the USA entered the war, providing long-range aircraft, escort carriers and additional escorts in quantity. Going back to the technological point, if the Schnorkel had turned up a couple of years earlier even with US involvement the battle would have been lost.
There is no stalemate. The Allies were united on unconditional surrender. It was a German pipe dream that the Allies would ever come to the negotiation table.
The allies made an agreement on unconditional surrender in 1943, at which point they knew they were going to win. The key year in WW2 was 1942. In 1939-41 the allies were losing, badly. It is no coincidence that the USA entered the war and it only took a year for the tide to turn, but 1942 was crucial. The Soviets could still easily have ben defeated (There is a superb book about the war in Russia "Absolute War" by Chris Bellamy, well worth a read) and the Battle OF The Atlantic was going very badly.
In 1943 after Stalingrad and Kursk in the east and after about May 1943 in the Atlantic, and after Germany was thrown out of Africa the war changed to the allies favour drastically, but it was very close before then.
The Schnorkel is not a war lengthener. It would, however, suck more American ASW resources out into the Atlantic which would affect the Pacific Theater. Ultimately, the Pacific War ends in September anyway with Japan glowing in the dark.
No, two years earlier it was potentially a war-winner. Most U-boats were not sunk by being located by Sonar but when caught on the surface recharging by aircraft or escort vessels. The war in the Atlantic was won by killing lots of U-boats, merchant shipping losses were curtailed because the U-boats were literally driven out of the Atlantic. If they had been able to hang on a year longer D-Day could not have happened.
I don't see your point about the Pacific either. The Japanese could have lengthened the war full stop by using their submarines effectively, and although a US victory was pretty much inevitable the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was launched from an island captured during the US campaign. If the campaign had been slower the airbases would not have been captured and even a B-29 could not fly all the way from Hawaii.
Sea Lion is a non-starter.
You clearly have not seen the film, or read much about the period. Sealion would probably have been a disaster launched in September, RAF or not (only PROBABLY though, as people have pointed out Hitler took big gambles and won a heck of a lot) but many historians believe that after Dunkirk a quick jump for a foothold rather than the three months respite the British actually got might well have worked.
"It Happened Here" was written by two very eminent British historians - you have to accept there is significant debate over these issues. I tend to agree that an actual invasion was unlikely, but if they had lost the BofB Britain would probably not have lasted long. Without the ability to defend the UK from the air German bombers could have roamed at will, and even the inadequate bomber types deployed by the Germans would have devastated our industry.
Neither Britain nor USSR were in danger of being forced out of the war. Even if the Nazis magically teleported to the Middle East and the Soviet oil fields, America has plenty of oil to run roughshod over the competition.
OK now you are delving into the realms of fantasy. Britain and the USSR very nearly lost, respectively in 1940 and 1941. Both BEFORE the USA entered the War. How exactly would the USA have joined the war with no Britain in it? The post-war B-36 was in fact designed initially with bombing Europe from the USA in mind, so there is evidence to suggest that the USA might have come to our rescue, but it would have been incredibly difficult and the war would have concluded ten years later than it did.
Do not kid yourself - before the USA entered both Britain and the USSR were very nearly beaten.
And again, after Berlin and Dresden glow in the dark, the Germans will come to the table soon enough.
Well we are back to technology again. OK, so the USA has the atomic bomb, which gives them a big advantage, and then the B-36 is rushed into service to carry it, along with say a modified P-82 Twin-Mustang to escort it to target. Now the USA can attack targets in Europe by launching an air raid on a scale unheard of before, several thousand miles of which involve flying over enemy territory.
OK, so eventually so one side or other would have developed ICBMs - guess which country Wernher Von Brauhn came from? There is debate over it amongst historians but the Germans had a mature atomic weapons program as well.
Ultimately, I'd bet on the USA. You are however talking about a completely different, far longer, far more devastating conflict that would have killed millions more, where the Holocaust would have been completed and all European Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and mentally ill massacred.
This is not what happened, but it easily COULD have done. I'm really rather pleased things turned out how they did but it was a lot closer than a lot of people think it was before the USA entered the war.
