5
« on: December 02, 2005, 06:50:27 AM »
Id have to say that any choice after the period of the fall of 1942 was largely outside of the European Axis grasp for eventual victory. The most favored period IMO or rather the closest to victory would be around August 1941, when in a number of theater's of war Germany was clearly dictating the course of the war. So that brings into play of your choices three namely: Dunkirk, Yugoslavia, and the change in assigning forces from army group central to help AGS envelop Kiev pocket (665,000 soviets prisoner).
Id rank Dunkirk as the biggest prize because it represented a sizable portion of the the British army and whose capture would have led to a different result in Africa, plus might have allowed Hitler to pursue Sealion, or at least have another "window of time" to fight England because they needed themselves time to retrain a new army..etc
The second most blunder would be losing those 6 weeks in the balkans, bailing out IL Duce for his own blunder in Greece and fighting in Yugoslavia.
The Kiev option lost some for Germany to be sure, but time was allready lost in the balkans, so id have to rank the Balkans higher on the blunder list.
The 1942 options were rather bleak for Germany because the strategic and economic reserves of the Soviet Union were having a toll on Hitlers armies, The whole goal was to win quick victory "on the cheap" without a full mobilization or "Total War" commitment back at home. This could only have been done in that first year, because the numbers were increasingly against the Reich after 1941.
Show Posts
