Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

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Richard Anderson
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#526

Post by Richard Anderson » 13 Aug 2021, 00:55

Tom from Cornwall wrote:
12 Aug 2021, 10:14
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
11 Aug 2021, 19:27
completely unskilled Russian women
Why do you think Russian women were "completely unskilled"? Is that what your primary source was saying?

Regards

Tom
Because it fits the preferred narrative? Previously, the same source also supposedly said German industrialists preferred unskilled Russian women.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#527

Post by glenn239 » 13 Aug 2021, 20:58

ljadw wrote:
12 Aug 2021, 19:16
1 NO : Hitler said several times in his meetings with his generals that the aim was to force Britain to give up .
You said that the intention with Barbarossa was to force Britain to give up before the US entered the war. That is not correct. No one in Berlin thought Barbarossa could cause the British to throw in the towel before the US entered the war. The intention was to take out the USSR before the USA could intervene in Europe in force.
2 There was no looming threat of US global hegemony .
You must be completely unfamiliar with the second half of the 20th Century to have even typed that.
3 1950 is not 1940 ,besides US did not fight against the SU in 1950 .
You made the factually incorrect statement that the USSR could "do nothing" to prevent the USA from having its way with the Axis powers. In fact, with Stalin's and Chinese assistance the US couldn't even defeat North Korea, a much weaker adversary.
4 If the Soviets had wanted to attack the ME,that was dominated by Britain they would have done it before Barbarossa . They did not do it,because they had not the power to do it and because it was not in their interest if Germany could defeat Britain in 1940 .
One can presume that Stalin's first wish to attack Japan came in the 1930's, but the invasion itself waited until 1945. Moving southwards, I would guess that Turkey and Iran would be swallowed starting in 1942. Any move against the British would come after the point that the Red Army was certain it could smash the German army unassisted if need be. So, not earlier than the end of 1943.
5 It was in the interest of the USSR that the capitalist civil war would last as long as possible . Who would win was irrelevant .If Germany won,it could not attack the USSR,and a victorious Third Reich would collapse before 1953 . If the West won, France and Britain would be that exhausted that they would no longer be a danger for the USSR . And the US would leave Europe as after WWI :the US left Europe after 1945 : there were only two US divisions in Europe in 1950 .
The Soviets best outcome was a stalemate in which the West and Germany exhausted themselves. The alternative was US global hegemony with Germany and Japan now satellites of the Americans aimed at Russia This was an outcome far worse for the Soviet Union. This cold conclusion seems to point in a direction you very much wish not to go, that Hitler slit his own throat with Barbarossa. And yet, that is exactly what he did.
The only wise policy for the Soviets was to remain neutral ,as they did in 1939 ,not to ally themselves with a loser : Germany was in a dead end at the end of June 1940 :the army, LW and the KM tried to force Britain to give ,but they failed and every day Britain was becoming stronger .And every day the danger of war with the US was increasing .
The Soviets had no interest whatever in seeing Germany defeated by the US, nor in allowing the British, French or Japanese empires to continue existing. The USSR was becoming a Superpower in the 1940's, strong enough to destroy these Empires and supplant them with Communist regimes unassisted. For you to say that the British were 'becoming stronger' in 1940 is off the mark as compared to the real situation. The British Empire was on its last legs, running its last sprint, and its total disintegration was already discernible.


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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#528

Post by ljadw » 14 Aug 2021, 08:46

glenn239 wrote:
13 Aug 2021, 20:58
ljadw wrote:
12 Aug 2021, 19:16
1 NO : Hitler said several times in his meetings with his generals that the aim was to force Britain to give up .
You said that the intention with Barbarossa was to force Britain to give up before the US entered the war. That is not correct. No one in Berlin thought Barbarossa could cause the British to throw in the towel before the US entered the war. The intention was to take out the USSR before the USA could intervene in Europe in force.
2 There was no looming threat of US global hegemony .
You must be completely unfamiliar with the second half of the 20th Century to have even typed that.
3 1950 is not 1940 ,besides US did not fight against the SU in 1950 .
You made the factually incorrect statement that the USSR could "do nothing" to prevent the USA from having its way with the Axis powers. In fact, with Stalin's and Chinese assistance the US couldn't even defeat North Korea, a much weaker adversary.
4 If the Soviets had wanted to attack the ME,that was dominated by Britain they would have done it before Barbarossa . They did not do it,because they had not the power to do it and because it was not in their interest if Germany could defeat Britain in 1940 .
One can presume that Stalin's first wish to attack Japan came in the 1930's, but the invasion itself waited until 1945. Moving southwards, I would guess that Turkey and Iran would be swallowed starting in 1942. Any move against the British would come after the point that the Red Army was certain it could smash the German army unassisted if need be. So, not earlier than the end of 1943.
5 It was in the interest of the USSR that the capitalist civil war would last as long as possible . Who would win was irrelevant .If Germany won,it could not attack the USSR,and a victorious Third Reich would collapse before 1953 . If the West won, France and Britain would be that exhausted that they would no longer be a danger for the USSR . And the US would leave Europe as after WWI :the US left Europe after 1945 : there were only two US divisions in Europe in 1950 .
The Soviets best outcome was a stalemate in which the West and Germany exhausted themselves. The alternative was US global hegemony with Germany and Japan now satellites of the Americans aimed at Russia This was an outcome far worse for the Soviet Union. This cold conclusion seems to point in a direction you very much wish not to go, that Hitler slit his own throat with Barbarossa. And yet, that is exactly what he did.
The only wise policy for the Soviets was to remain neutral ,as they did in 1939 ,not to ally themselves with a loser : Germany was in a dead end at the end of June 1940 :the army, LW and the KM tried to force Britain to give ,but they failed and every day Britain was becoming stronger .And every day the danger of war with the US was increasing .
The Soviets had no interest whatever in seeing Germany defeated by the US, nor in allowing the British, French or Japanese empires to continue existing. The USSR was becoming a Superpower in the 1940's, strong enough to destroy these Empires and supplant them with Communist regimes unassisted. For you to say that the British were 'becoming stronger' in 1940 is off the mark as compared to the real situation. The British Empire was on its last legs, running its last sprint, and its total disintegration was already discernible.
1 The aim of Barbarossa was to prevent a US intervention and to hasten the elimination of Britain . This could only be done if Britain gave up before the US could intervene,and the only remaining way to force Britain to give up was Barbarossa .The only way to force Britain to give up was to prevent the US from intervening .
The elimination of the USSR on itself would NOT improve Germany's situation . It was the opposite .
Germany needed peace, but Britain continued the war .
Germany could do nothing against Britain .
Germany could do nothing against the US .
The only remaining power that Germany could attack was the USSR and they hoped that a successful Barbarossa would force Britain to give up and that the elimination of Britain would prevent an intervention from the US .
2 As far as I know, but I could be wrong, 1940 is NOT the second half of the 20 th Century .
3 About Iran and Turkey : the Soviets did not attack them after the fall of France, thus why should they attack them in 1940 ?Besides, they were too weak to occupy Iran and Turkey and the occupation of these countries could give Stalin no benefits, only problems, very big problems .
4 The future remained unknown for Stalin : Pearl Harbour happened in December 1941, not in 1940 ,and after 1945 Japan was a less danger than before 1945 .Japan had no army after 1945 .
5 The USSR was NOT strong enough in 1940 to destroy the western colonial empires .Besides, there is no proof that Stalin wanted to do this in 1940 .The destruction of the western colonial empires was mainly the result of their exhaustion after the war and of the US anti-colonial policy .
6 Stalin was , opposed to Hitler, not afraid in 1940 of the US .Both US presidential candidates of 1940 (FDR and Willkie ) were left wingers, very hostile to Germany , but not hostile to the USSR.
6 Britain was stronger in 1940 than in 1939, stronger in 1941 than in 1940, stronger in 1942 than in 1941,etc .
Germany failed to defeat Britain in 1940, it had no chance to do it after 1940 .

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#529

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 14 Aug 2021, 20:40

I came across this reference in CAB79/13/7 in the minutes of the British Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting held on 23rd July, 1941:
5. MEETING WITH DIRECTORS OF INTELLIGENCE.

THE COMMITTEE:-

(a) Took note of the weekly statement of the situation by the Directors of Intelligence.

(b) Invited the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee to prepare a map marked with information showing the routes of a possible German advance into Iraq and data relevant to the possible size of the forces, the distances and the capacity of these routes.
I'll see if I can dig up the report from the intelligence Sub-Committee and add to the thread.

Regards

Tom

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#530

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 14 Aug 2021, 23:40

Tom from Cornwall wrote:
14 Aug 2021, 20:40
I came across this reference in CAB79/13/7 in the minutes of the British Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting held on 23rd July, 1941:
5. MEETING WITH DIRECTORS OF INTELLIGENCE.

THE COMMITTEE:-

(a) Took note of the weekly statement of the situation by the Directors of Intelligence.

(b) Invited the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee to prepare a map marked with information showing the routes of a possible German advance into Iraq and data relevant to the possible size of the forces, the distances and the capacity of these routes.
I'll see if I can dig up the report from the intelligence Sub-Committee and add to the thread.

Regards

Tom
Would be interesting to see what the JISC thought. We have to be wary, though, of primary sources' evaluations on these kinds of topics. They were usually made with less complete information than we could (theoretically) find now. The utility lies in the difference between "(theoretically)" and what we practically can access, plus of course the highly-relevant question of what contemporaries planned to do about a perceived contingency - regardless of whether their analysis of the contingency was correct as a matter of fact.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#531

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 15 Aug 2021, 15:37

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
14 Aug 2021, 23:40
We have to be wary, though, of primary sources' evaluations on these kinds of topics. They were usually made with less complete information than we could (theoretically) find now.
Although given that the Turkish and British were holding staff conversations and that there was a British Military Mission in Moscow, I guess there should have been a relatively good understanding of the underlying infrastructure and terrain features which would canalize "a possible German advance into Iraq" from Turkey or the Caucasus. And given that the assessment was being conducted by trained staff officers rather than us amateurs, we should obviously approach their analysis with an open mind.
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
14 Aug 2021, 23:40
The utility lies in the difference between "(theoretically)" and what we practically can access, plus of course the highly-relevant question of what contemporaries planned to do about a perceived contingency - regardless of whether their analysis of the contingency was correct as a matter of fact.
Indeed, and we should also accept that the JISC was writing for a particular audience and had their own pre-conceived notions and biases. Not that different from us in that respect. :thumbsup:
TheMarcksPlan wrote:
14 Aug 2021, 23:40
regardless of whether their analysis of the contingency was correct as a matter of fact
Fortunately we'll never know!

Regards

Tom

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#532

Post by glenn239 » 21 Aug 2021, 15:29

I'm reading Toll right now and there's a passage in it that I think really drives home just how out of Germany's league the United States air program was,

In February Admiral King signed an order fixing an upper limit of 38,000 planes in (Navy) service, and adamantly refused to relax that edict. The production lines began ramping down steeply in the summer of 1944 - but the plants could not be permitted to shut down entirely. ...Admiral McCain...proposed a new plan to assign oly the newest aircraft to frontline service, and to return older units to the United States for train or other purposes. In September 1944 the navy adpoted a more radical plain - to junk thousands of older planes including those already deployed in the Pacific to make room for newer units....This mass-junking of perfectly serviceable warplanes occurred at the height of the war, when the Japanese were falling well short of aircraft production targets..."

The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500. But, there's more,

"...the navy awarded wings of gold to 3,112 new flyers in 1941, 10,869 in 1942, 20,842 in 1943 and 21,067 in 1944. ...the rookie crop of 1944 arrived in frontline squadrons with an average of six hundred flight hours.

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#533

Post by KDF33 » 23 Aug 2021, 00:28

glenn239 wrote:
21 Aug 2021, 15:29
The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500.
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#534

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 23 Aug 2021, 01:13

KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
glenn239 wrote:
21 Aug 2021, 15:29
The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500.
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
I'd second KDF's point and add:

You're looking at a residual (aircraft holdings) from a flow (aircraft production minus losses).

A residual is highly sensitive to the two parameters we've been discussing (aircraft production and aerial attrition i.e. losses).

Were Germany to quadruple its OTL aircraft production, it would be producing the Navy's maximum holding of planes every 3 months.

Whether Germany would build up a residual similar to American would depend on whether USAAF continued to immolate its bomber forces by feeding them into battle with 10-20% sortie loss rates. If they did so, American residuals would quickly disappear. If they didn't - if they husbanded resources - then Germany would build up residuals.

This is, again, why these questions should be analyzed via at least quantitative reasoning.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#535

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 Aug 2021, 05:44

KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
Indeed, the USN had only 14,847 combat aircraft as of 10 July 1945. Oh, wait, that was just in the Pacific Ocean Areas. They also had 1,286 transport, training, and utility aircraft in POA.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#536

Post by Peter89 » 23 Aug 2021, 08:22

KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
glenn239 wrote:
21 Aug 2021, 15:29
The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500.
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
When did Germany have 5500 aircrafts present within operational units, excluding those in repair, maintenance and transit / depots?
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#537

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 Aug 2021, 16:36

Peter89 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 08:22
KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
glenn239 wrote:
21 Aug 2021, 15:29
The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500.
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
When did Germany have 5500 aircrafts present within operational units, excluding those in repair, maintenance and transit / depots?
Oh! Oh! I Know! I know! :lol:

The answer is never,

The largest number of "combat aircraft" - the Luftwaffe's definition BTW - was reported 30 November 1944. There were 5,375.

At the same date, the USAAF alone in "Theaters Vs Germany" had 14,685 - by the same definition of "combat aircraft".

For the "oh the German's could just build 1E fighters, its more efficient" crowd, on the same date, the Germans had 2,256 operational, the USAAF 4,454.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#538

Post by Peter89 » 23 Aug 2021, 17:08

Richard Anderson wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 16:36
Peter89 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 08:22
KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
glenn239 wrote:
21 Aug 2021, 15:29
The US Navy alone capped its aircraft strength at 38,000 at a time the Luftwaffe was peaking at its maximum strength of 5,500.
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
When did Germany have 5500 aircrafts present within operational units, excluding those in repair, maintenance and transit / depots?
Oh! Oh! I Know! I know! :lol:

The answer is never,

The largest number of "combat aircraft" - the Luftwaffe's definition BTW - was reported 30 November 1944. There were 5,375.

At the same date, the USAAF alone in "Theaters Vs Germany" had 14,685 - by the same definition of "combat aircraft".

For the "oh the German's could just build 1E fighters, its more efficient" crowd, on the same date, the Germans had 2,256 operational, the USAAF 4,454.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too.
For me, this number (5375-5500) seems to be too high, and I'd bet that it does include aircrafts in transit, undergoing minor modifications and repair. To the best of my knowledge, at no point in the war was the ground echelon of the LW able to keep 5500 aircrafts in combat ready state. By late 1944 the logistical pipeline was full of accepted aircrafts actually present near the factories or in transit, but relatively few at operational airfields. Fuel shortages and poor weather forced aircrafts to the ground, thus the Allies could not shoot them down fast enough, I think this is the primary reason why their numbers grew. Not to mention the pilot quality, I think this number is a hollow one for multiple reasons, completely impossible to compare with the American one.
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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#539

Post by glenn239 » 23 Aug 2021, 17:50

KDF33 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 00:28
Although it is true that U.S. air and naval air strength peaked at a multiple of that of the Germans, you are comparing apples-to-oranges here: your U.S. figure is for total aircraft holdings, including trainers and liaison, as well as aircraft undergoing maintenance, repair or held in depots, whereas for the Germans you are only looking at the number of aircraft present within operational units.
I thought you were going to say that that US Navy was only 1 of the 3 major Allied air forces, (the other two being the USAAF and the RAF, of which the USAAF was certainly larger).

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Re: Could a German invasion of Turkey succeed?

#540

Post by KDF33 » 23 Aug 2021, 20:23

glenn239 wrote:
23 Aug 2021, 17:50
I thought you were going to say that that US Navy was only 1 of the 3 major Allied air forces, (the other two being the USAAF and the RAF, of which the USAAF was certainly larger).
Why would I write that? You compared numbers for Luftwaffe aircraft within operational units to overall aircraft holdings of the USN. I simply pointed out that the comparison is invalid, because the U.S. figure includes a far wider category of aircraft than the German figure.

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