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Old 2012-08-25, 03:48   Link #78
Ithekro
Gamilas Falls
 
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
The basic problem with Operation Sealion is that it shouldn't be able to work at all. Germany just did not have the ability to mount enough on an offensive across the Channel. Maybe later, but the British still had places outside of Luftwaffe bombing range while the Royal Air Force could still effectively bomb any invasion forces. That and the Germans were never able to effectively neutralize the Royal Navy, even with air power.

As for the German nuclear program. From what I've read they wouldn't be able to make a bomb at any point before the Americans simply because their scientists wer either stalling intensionally, or working along the wrong path. Their project seemed to be centered about nuclear power rather than weaponry. (that and the reason for the US project to exist in the first place was that other scientists realized that a bomb was possible and that it would not be in the world's interest should the Nazis get one). Even an isolationist President could probably see the threat or advantage of a super bomb. Only a pacifist President would ignore a warning from Einstein about the bomb, and I don't think we had any of those running with the major parties back then.

The German trouble with the Soviets was that the Soviets could always fall back. The Urals are along way from Germany and Siberia is even farther. The Communists and Russian peoples were in no way going to give into the Germans. Stalin's cult of personality was way too strong in the 1940s to allow for defeat. They would just fall back so far that the Germans could not follow without needing to massively rebuild the parts of the Soviet Union they occupied to fuel, repair, or feed their military. They needed new airbases if they wanted to keep up the pressure on the Russians beyond the Urals. About the only advantage the Germans would get would be a chance to take Persia and the Middle East for British oil and maye link up with the Japanese in India.

But with that much of the world in a mess, I wonder how ling even the isolationists could keep the US out of it. Especially if trade was maintianed. And the horror stories that would come out of Germany...can't forget about those.
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