American Invasion

<As for Germany well they would have to secure Iceland and Greenland, Bermuda and all of the American and British Islands in the Caribbian and St. Pierre and Miquelon. Germany would have to spend several years building up her forces on these locations as would Japan.>

For every year Germany spent, the US could spend arming herself,too.

<Japan and Germany would have to start launching air raids as early as possible> IMO. This would be another BOB. Axis powers with limited air time over the continent, while US fighters not.

 

FramerT, If Japan or Germany were to attempt an invasion with outh build up of forces on a fairly close location they would fail, To build the necessary ships to do such an operation would take a good 10 years for Germany.

Yes the axis airtime over the U.S would be a big problem but would you really go and invade a country with out doing some sort of damage to the invasion area wether it be destroying bunkers, naval facilities, or air fields etc.

 

Thanks SD, that's pretty much what I'd imagined.
It's an intriguing thought, the sheer amount of civilian firepower the US could potentially generate if the need had arisen. Probably the best armed partisans the world had ever seen...

Cheers,
Adam.

 

I'd recomend a look at Ellis's book 'Brute Force' summarizes and provides a bit of guidance for analyzing the production of the various principles of WWII, and their combat power. One crtical point Ellis makes is that US production exceeded the the peak capacity of all the Axis nation combined, by a large margin.

Ellis extrapolates to a limited extent the additional capacity Germany may have gained through increasing effciency and exploitation of conquored territory in Europe and Africa. This still does not challenge the capacity of the US. Tooze in his book 'Wages of Destruction' anayzes the multipule failures and problems of German industrial policy and ability. From these and other sources it becomes clear that Germany in 1942 was unable to support the vast army & airforce it had attempted to create. Slave labor and forced production from conquored territorys was insuffcient to make up the difference. And, it seems that some of Germanys gains cost more to keep than they returned.

German use of Latin America is problematic. While there many Germans and decendants of German immigrants living in those nations they were balanced by similar immigrants from Britian, France, ect... From 1939 the British had been waging a underground war against the German diplomats and agents in Latin America, and in 1940 the US joined this. Even in 1941 the Germans were losing this diplomatic & 'agent' war.

US ground strength in the US by mid 1941 consisted of 30+ divsions. By the spring of 1942 there were appox fifty with manpower for another thirty in the training pipeline. Most of these remained in the US in 1942 and the bulk did not leave until the latter half of 1943. Even in 1944 there werre well over one million US Army personnel remaining in the US in various capacitys

In 1941 the US Army conducted a study that outlined three stratigic plans. the first assumed both the USSR and Britian would remain in the war vs Germany. The second assumed either one would be knocked out, the third that both would be conquored. In the first case the resources for a ground army of 100 divsions and 100 airwings were identified, in the second case resources for 200 divsions and proportional airforces were identified, and in the third a 300 divsion force was proposed.

As it was the US Army activated approx 89 divsions, and sustained another 20 to 25 divsions of US Marines Free French, Chinese under Stillwells command, and a few others. Enough additional equipment and supply was sent to the USSR and China to supply a dozen more divsions. So it does not seem difficult for the US, without the need to maintain vast supply lines, to provide up to 200 divsions for continental defense.

However the offensive strength of the US was in its navy and airforces. To defeat the Axis it might not be necessary to expand the ground forces beyond 150 divsions, with the balance placed in building a even larger fleet and airforce.

 

Ok, America would probaly have the best armed Partisans in the world but i can tell you know no one wants to ever attempt an invasion of Australia, We may not have lots of guns but we sure can improvise and still KICK ASS

Hell, me and me mates already have several plans in place to deal with an invasion. hehehehehehehe.

 

Can we agree that this thread doesn't have a leg to stand on?

 

Its always interesting to see the experts at there work,

 

Uhn?? You talking to me? Re-read my post. I was quoting someone else. And I said, for every year Germany spends building up, like wise the U.S. would. They were'nt about to stand idly by letting Germany mass 10-20 divisions without doing the same.

The whole invasion thing does'nt have a plan. Do they capture Washingon DC or maybe NY? What is the plan?

 

What I would like to see on this thread is:

1. When is the proposed start date of the scenario? About the beginning of 1942? 1943?

2. The proposed means by which the Germans will move their forces to the Americas and where the initial landings will occur. Or, the alternatives to this.

These are basic to the whole issue. Right now just some vague notion of these two items has been presented in the finest traditional use of lots of PFM! (see board acryomyms for explaination)....

 

If i was to invade Aussie i would do it at the time of the Melbourne Cup, many would be to p1ssed to fight.

 

One problem there, I haven proven with my mates that i am a much better fighter when im pissed..... .....good luck with invading your self anyway.

 

ok I am going to think about this one tonight, I will post my answer tomorrow with out reading any previous answers. I will say this however. The answer lies in Germany beating England in 1940, and either the Japanese holding off on bombing Pearl Harbor until 1942 or Germany not declaring war on the USA on Dec8th 1941.

 

Given this extremly unlikely scenario taking place in mid to late 43 in place of Barbarossa

Has anyone ever watched Red Dawn? Here in Pa. every year 1.5 miilion hunters enter the woods for opening day. That's just ONE state
There a far to many gun owners in the US. Any Invasion attempt would be hit with casualties faster than they can come across the ocean. Without German or Japanese assistance Mexico crumbles and become the 51st state

You too huh. As most weapons owned by civilians are for hunting purposses I would say that the Germans would be in for the worst snipping activity known to man

 

While I don't know the numbers in 1940, today in the US there are just shy of a quarter million privately owned machineguns not to mention automatic weapons, artillery, mortars, and even armored vehicles running around the country.
Back then it was still possible to buy antitank rifles like the Solothurn, BARs, Thompsons, and many other purely military firearms with little effort. And, many did (and do) exist in the US then and now. Aside from that, the US was the most motorized nation on the planet. The US civil population was better equipped with motor vehicles than the German military was!
As for invading from Mexico, the "front" is nearly 1500 miles long. It is almost totally devoid of roads (in the 40's), suitable rail systems (eg., north-south versus east-west), towns and cities, and anything else necessary to support the movement of large armies. I could just see the Germans trying to cross the lower Sonorian desert between Yuma and Nogales AZ or East of El Paso TX back then. Southern Arizona is perfect ground for defenders. The small mountian ranges make perfect locations for defenders to direct air strikes and artillery onto any unit trying to move through the relatively flat valleys between them. The whole area is criss-crossed with arroyos that would work just like an anti tank ditch along virtually their entire lengths. With next to no roads and no usable rail net to speak of just trying to keep the advance supplied would be a nightmare.
A US invasion is just not in the cards.

 

I have something to add. What is Stalin going to do while Hitler is occupied across the Atlantic?

 

What if "Superman" flew for the Germans?

"Es ist ein Vogel, es ist ein Flache, es ist UBER-MAN !!