What effect had for war with UK?
What effect had for Germany allies?
What may was beginning of war?
etc.

Denes can you give as a scenario - with your aviation knowledge?

Iama

u mean if Germany would have invaded USSR in 1942?
hm... maybe up to that point a second Battle of Britain would have started, and considddering the lessons the german might have learned already, it would have ended ina favourable manner for germany, not necesarily by invading Briatin, but forcing Churchill si accept an armistice.
about Germany's allies... probably Germany togheter with the italians would have been able to push the alies out of N Afrika, maybe also forcing them to commit to a ceasefire or even a favourable peace for Germany.
If the supposition above would have realized, most probably, Germany and its allies, (unbothered by the brits over france, and in Afrika and without the danger of a landing in Normandy or anywhere else) would have been able to put up enough troops and materials to take Moskow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, and push further into Russia.Togheter with the development of new technologies like jets, and superiour tanks, might have meant a total German domination of Europe and Asia. Also i really doubt Hitler would still be alive, or at least not leading Germany.
as u can see there are lots of "if", "would", "might" etc... also it might have been the other way around........

Sorry, I am not a fan of the 'what-if' history.
History is (should be) an exact science, not a place for 'what-ifs'.

Lt. Col. Dénes

An exact science? Not possible... It is quite possible to observe all the outcomes of a certain event, yet we can make few suppositions about the nature (or, more exactly causes) of the event. Documents and historical evidence is harder to uncover than mathematical formula. In my book, that places history among astrology, not physics...

I beg to disagree with that.
Documents and historical evidence - at least for the part several hundred years - are not that hard to uncover.
Properly interpreting them is difficult, as few historians are really knowledgeable and totally impartial.

And history is an attemp to retrace the exact events that happened only one way. Therefore it (should) be an exact science. In my opinion, at least.

Here is the definition of history, as given by Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Britannica

Lt. Col. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on November 12, 2004 04:04 pm

"what if's" are just mind exercises. Why do you have knowledge, if you don't try to do some kind of this mind ex.???
Your point of view are well welcome, and have some weight. So, give it a try.

Iama

In my opinion east front in 42 gives you only 3 years in place of 4 to do the job before you get nuclearized

If anyone wants to conduct a somewhat professional "what if" scenario, one has to do it as scientifically, historically and politically as possible.
In this case it means separating the variable at hand -- "Barbarossa" in different time frames -- from all the other events, which stay the same.

So, we can only make a serious "what if" scenario only if we analyse the impact of the changed schedule of the campaign, not remake the whole Barbarossa campaign by "what if"-ing whole other campaigns with their own fixed characteristics and strong points-weak points relationships, and thus adding more units and supplies, by eliminating the second front factor etc.

i do not get it, imperialist. you say that should one desire to conduct a what if scenarion, he must do it historically. well, if one does that historically, where is the "what if"?

you do it with historically known facts -- there was no jet fighter at the time, so including a jet fighter in a "what if" Barbarossa campaign is childish. There were only a number of divisions available for Barbarossa, so changing the number of divisions available means already going out of the Barbarossa "what if", which is all about time.

Early 1942 vs. mid-1941, with the same no. of troops, with the same lack of bombers, etc. -- what if there was more time?

You will see that applying this kind of strict "what ifs" will actually make you see mistakes, overlooked possibilities, chance, tactical details affecting the strategic outcome etc. Things that have a certain "lessons learned" utility, not sci-fi cool, but unrealistic stuff...

The biggest SF "what if" -- what if the war didnt start?

This post has been edited by Imperialist on April 16, 2005 08:35 pm

OK, I agree with this "what-if" scenario. Let's think it over.

First of all, why would Hitler postpone his russian campaign for one year? He wanted to take care of USSR quicklier because the russians were beginning to catch up militarily (just imagine a polish border filled with T-34 tank divisions). The only way he wouldn't have attacked: a) realised that the russian bear is not an easy target (I'd say impossible, judging after the Barbarossa event, when all reports about the russian army were dismissed as fairytales) making an understanding with the russians, against Great Britain. Now, he proposed this one time to Molotov, getting a stern refusal. But...

a) A "what-if" scenario is an alernative history based on the valability of one event, in our case a german attack against USSR in 1942. So, in order for this to happen, I think that a limited german-russian alliance directed against Great Britain is the sole factor.

Why would Germany lose another year? Well, I think he would have been convinced to take perpherical actions, especially in North Africa, Spain or Turkey. But, in this case, the attack against USSR in 1942 wouldn't have been a glorious advancement but a war of positions, with great Kursk-like battles in the Polish area. My bet? I dare to say that Great Britain and Germany would have suceeded to make peace, in order to drive the russian scrooge out of Central Europe.

Dont jump to other "what-ifs" (an alliance with USSR against Britain in '41 ) from the "what-if" at hand.
Hitler could have used the rest of 1941 with other minor engagements in Africa and over England, but that didnt mean he couldnt have continued to better prepare his Barbarossa (like preparing for winter clothing or something like that).
The second impact of that waiting time -- the weather. If we take the weather as something unchangeable by human intervention, we can compare the weather situation of 1941 with 1942.
Was 1941 the year with the harshest winter of the century in Russia? Was the 1942 winter milder?
The third impact of this "what-if" -- the length of the campaign. A campaign started in spring 1942 would have added whole months of fighting. What impact would that have had?

But you can't have a valid "what if" hypotesis if you don't have a reasonable explanation for it. I, for one, don't see Hitler doing the Barbarossa one year later unless he had managed to come to terms with Stalin in 1940-1941.

Its no use doing that, because we want to see how a changed variable (time) in the case study affects its outcome, not what should have happened to reach that changed variable (cause for that you'd have to create more variables and include other events not included in this case study)... it would be pointless doing that, cause then you;d have to change more, and more, back and back in time, and you lose focus.

p.s. reasonable "what-ifs" do not/should not exist by definition, cause you start from the unreasonable assumption that you can analyse a different situational branch with the basics of the branch of time evolution which that event happening as it did created;


This post has been edited by Imperialist on April 16, 2005 09:48 pm

But how can we look at the outcome of our first assumption if we don't know every variable that may influence its result? For example, a better relation with USSR might mean for Germany better tanks, more resources. If we want to see a "what-if" situation evolving, we can't very well start from scrap. I already said that the best way to do it is by looking at the reasons why Hitler never initated Barbarossa in 1942, and the subsequent military and political decisions that might have followed.

What use could this discussion have if we wouldn't look at it at least from reasonable perspectives, if not from historical models?