Quote:


Agreed, mate. They were turning out far more than they were in 1940, but tanks, planes, guns etc, not to mention men, were being destroyed, just on the Eastern Front, at a rate far exceeding that in 1940. And that, they couldn't keep up with. Even with the forced labour and the moving of vital installations underground etc, they still couldn't keep the flow of 'decent' weapons and equipment to anything more than a 'trickle'. And of course, there was the fuel problem. The failure of D-Day wouldn't have changed that in any way.

By June '44, the Russians had pushed to Poland. They had their T34's in HUGE numbers, which were more than a match for anything less than a Panther or Tiger (which were in such short supply that they were being madly shuffled from one area of the front to another, just to try and plug up or reinforce areas which were breaking or weakening). So there was absolutely no hope of the Germans being able to get at any oil fields or reserves behind the Russian advance. And there really wasn't any oil anywhere else within reach.

Anyway, after all is said and done, post mortems and 'what if's" aside, Hitler made his 'fatal' mistakes years before D-Day.
The majority of high ranking German Oficers, ministers etc, knew by JUne 1944 that it was simply a matter of time. Many knew even before that.

So, in the nutshell, even if D-Day had failed, I can't see how Germany could have survived for much longer than she did anyway. Maybe another year (just my unqualified 'guestimation').

However, I agree the political & geographical situation in Europe would certainly have been a different one from that which did emerge.
In fact, I think, had the Russians totally overrun Germany and 'absorbed ' it, there may well not have been a place called Germany afterwards. 

It is a well known fact, that  Germany and Japan used massive resourses conning the Allies into believing they had mass produced armaments.
The same way Russia did during the cold war.

Germany even went as far as building carboard factory roofs put up on scaffolding. From the air, they looked real! clever, very clever.

If D-Day had failed, we would have just used our air power to bomb the Boshe into submission.
I doubt we contemplated using nukes.

Anyone know if we did?

Quote:


Thats what Japan thought. And all they did was wake the sleeping giant. The US wouldn't have given in that easily. Would have been just as easy for the United States to send a few B-29s with nukes to Europe as it was to send them to the Pacific. In other words, it would've just pissed the giant off.

good point. The Japanese did not believe the Americans had the will to fight though (at least some of them didn't) I know we would've most likely cleared it with Britain and  maybe France. Don't know about clearing it with the Russians though. The main point of my above post was that the US wouldn't have given in that easily. I think it would'd have an "Pearl Harbor Effect" on the US people. Oh well, this is all hypothetical anyways.

Interesting theories. "Panzers in London". First you would have to get them safely across the English  Channel. Don't forget that any successful cross-channel invasion would involve total air superiority. This was accepted back in 1940. I can't see Germany succeeding if the Allies had failed on D-Day. The Allies had almost total air superiority & this was unlikely to change. It would also involve a huge fleet of surface invasion vessels & escorts. Apart from U-boats the Kriegsmarine was confined in port with no suitable troop transports available. I'm not saying these could not have been built in a short time but getting them across those few miles of water would be a different matter.

Ther German's could never have invaded England. Simply because the Royal Navy was a hugely superior force to the Kreigsmarine. By 1944 all of Germany's powerful warships were either sunk or being hunted down and sunk one by one. So an invasion force would not have made it across the channel. Even if the Germans did have air superiority.

This again would have been impossible. It would have taken a long time to dig a tunnel. The units holding the bridgeheads would have had to have been resupplied by air. Something the Luftwaffe wasn't capable of doing in 1943 let alone late 44/45. Finally, England would have contained one British and two American armies. And enough hardware with which to invade northern europe. A bunch of Paratroops and air inserted Infantry would not have lasted five minutes. As they would have needed armour and artillery at least. Something not even 323's could provide with out holding operational airbases.

But if the Luftwaffe had complete air superiority they could have kept some Stukas airborne 24/7, like the RAF did in Africa and like the Alliies did over France.
Those Stukas may have been old,but with pilots like Rudel,it was the most dangerous Air-to-Ground weapon of the Luftwaffe.