Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Should Hitler have waited?" video.

  1. A motorized Division have much trucks. A mechanized division uses more half-tracks, APCs, IFVs and such.
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  2. The thing is that time was not on Japans side so a deleying war could never be won. We all know the enormous industrial superiority America had over Japan with all carriers and planes it produced. But there was also a large technological advatage it had over Japan. Japan only had a good Navy in 1941-42 while the A6M Zero still was the best fighter plane in the world and its pilots was were battle hardened veterans. And all this was lost, all the carriers, all the skilled pilots and planes just a few months after the war had started with the battles of Midway and Guadacanal. But I don't think that Japan could have won a long war even if it had won at Midway and Guadacanal. Simply because it never had the ability to replace its losses of pilots and the aircraft production was so small that the Zeros could never be replaced with something better to combat the best American planes such as Corsair and P51H. Japan could simply not produce anything compareable in the numbers needed. Winning early victories in the pacific against an oponent with outdated planes (such as the Buffalo) and which had prioritzed the best resources to fight the nazis instead does not say much of Japans combat capabilities. The real test would come once America had started to gear up for war for real. Japans industry was not up to western standards once the war began. It could conquer much lands, but it lacked the transport ships needed to move all plundered resources (oil, sugar, coal, copper, rice, cotton etc) to Japan. The empire was overstretched and it didn't have the transport ships needed to supply all garrisons it had put out everyware. The war in China was also meatgrinder without any victory at near sight, or at sight at all. And fighting China, USSR, USA and Britain was not something Japan win in the long run. It build tanks in extremely small numbers, and the few they made were shitty and getting outdated more and more for each year - just like its fighter planes which were getting outclassed by western planes so much that kamikaze attacks finally became the most effiecent way of using their old junk. Had Japan been more victorious, then America would not have started to demobilize its economy by 1944. The Montana class battleship would not be canceled for example, and in a real national crisis America could still mobilize its economy for war much more than it actully did. It was in fact the only major allied power that never full-heartedly commited everything it had to this conflict. And Americas most battlehardened best equiped troops from Europe would be transfered to this less prioritized front. And if that wouldn't end Japan, then some nukes would. Japan was overstreched in 1942, and it didn't have any tranport ships for a large land invasion of the USA. And grabbing India was also very unrealistic. So where could Japan deliever a knockout punch?
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  3. 1. German car manufacturers was not used to producing cars at the same large scale as the Americans. And European economic culture have traditionally been very different from Americas. In the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s did America have much natural resources but little workers, while Europe had the opposite and had much workers but little natural resources. So Europe could waste much workhours to produce a thing but they could not afford to waste natural resources. And the problem was the opposite for the Americans, which were inventing the concept of massproduction by starting to produce homes of wood with standardized parts - which was method that saved much labour but wasted much material resources. So traditionally have wages and the standard of living been higher in America than in Europe until the last hundred years of history. 2. People didn't know that there was much oil there. Another problem with oil is that not all oil fields are equally large (there are over 80.000 oil fields in the world today but 60% of our oil comes from the 500 largest fields. And the Ghwar field in Saudiarabia produces more oil than all oil fields in the North Sea combined). So I wonder if the Libyan oil would be available in the large amounts needed for Hitlers ambitions. And opening a new oil field takes 12 years on average today. And then you also need oil refineries, infrastructure, transportation and such. So if you started gathering oil in 1933, then you would have to wait until 1945 before you could start getting any oil.
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  4. Well Germany didn't own Austria or Czechoslvakia and had no stolen Czech tanks. And the new German army and air force was just 1 year old..so I guess Germanys chances were pretty bad.
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  5. After the conquest of France and the Balkans Hitler could just have waited until 1943 before making any new invasion of a country. Soviet Russia could give him all the oil he would need to keep his economy running, and Germany could train more men into effiecent combat Division and losses of airplanes over Britain could be replaced. The Soviet Union would of course also improve its military strength in 1941-43, but Germany would make bigger gains. Furthermore could those two years also be used for Germany and Italy to secure the grip of Africa by for example taking Malta and destroying the British fleet with superior airpower. So when the German invasion of Russia comes in 1943, then Germany could put all their focus on the Eastern front and gain more assistantce from Italy. The Axis would then look stronger than ever in 1943 and countries would hesitate to join the allies, while fascist regimes would feel tempted to join the war. Franco and others could certainly have contributed more men if they wanted to. And the German industry was never ready to compete USA or USSR before 1943. So by not starting a war too early, Hitler could probably have improved his odds somewhat. Anyways, wildcards also playes its role in this war. The war could easily have taken a different turn if the royal navy had sunk the French navy, or if the Luftwaffe never had succeded in detroying the worlds largest airforce in just one week after the invasion of Russia. And the attack on Pearl Harbour should have been avoided if the japanease political and military leadership just had a milligram of common sense in their brains.
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  6. what would victory look like? Or a limited victory? A good question. I guess a collapse of Russian regime (as in 1917) after some serious defeats following the loss of Stalingrad could have ended the war in the east, and then the west. Another option would be that Germany would have employed a defensive strategy from 1943 onwards and just trying to make a defense in depth and stratigic counterattacks (as Mainsteins 1943 Kharkov offensive) and crushing allied attacks with massive encirlements. And Germany's disadvantages would be compensated for with skilled men, prepared defensive positions, using the terrain, relying more on surface-to-air-missiles, landmines and cheap StuGs instead of tanks that takes more resources and manhours to build. And after some horrendous Russian losses, then Russia could perhaps be knocked out from the war by a revolution or by a German occupation of key territories. And then the western allies would be forced to carry more of the wareffort on their own shoulders. And then war exhaustion would rise and people in the west would feel hopelessness about the prospects of winning the war against a power with the resources of an entire continent at its disposal. So a peace agreement could be found since no other solution could be found. Hitler didn't want to destroy the British empire, and the Britishers had no idea how the possible could defeat him once Russia laid under his feet.
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  7. One reason that made it possible to go to war in full force for Germany and the USA was that those countries were suffering from massunemployment and a terribly weak economy. So people didn't have a job and many were literarly starving since their was no social safety nets back then. So when gearing up for war began people didn't react like they would do if a Hitler would take power in a society with a strong economy, a high standard of living and a plenty of job oppurinities... because in such a society people would feel pissed off when the government demands higher taxes to pay for more tanks and warships. People would be disatisfied with a lower standard of living because of rationing and all taxes. And since there are not many unemployed, the military has to expand by taking people away from their old jobs - which is not very popular among the workers or the buisnesses. So the popularity of this warmongering regime would probably fall during normal circumstances. But the 1930s were different. There was lots of unemployed men who didn't mind working for the military. People didn't mind rationing that much since they had been starving for a decade, and they would see anything as an upgrade from the previous misery. And people was just grateful to have a job so they could feed themselves and their family and start to feel pride and self-respect again, and then it didn't matter that much that they had to pay much taxes for all military toys Adolf wanted... because everything still felt like an upgrade for the previous situation.
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