How could the Axis Powers win WW2?

[Memeosan]

Firstly, not bombing London and prevent the bombing of it. When the Germans invaded Britain by air, they avoided cities. The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident when a German He-111 dropped a bomb in a building which resulted in the killings of many civilians and caused public outrage in Britain; increasing the morale of civilians.

Secondly, not declaring war against the Americans. When Pearl harbour occurred, Germany declared war as an act of friendship - The Americans only attended to fight against the Japanese.

Thirdly, fall-back/dig in when Russian winter was coming. When the German general staff knew that winter was imminent, they ask Hitler that if they could dig in for the winter, but Hitler disagreed with this and kept on moving.

Lastly, during Blitzkrieg, the Germans add the opportunity to destroy the whole entirety of the British army in Dunkirk. There were approximately 400,000 British (some French) thousand troops that lacked in supplies an couldn't be reinforced because it was encircled. While the Germans had 800,000 thousand men ready to attack, being supported with tanks and CAS.

(Edit: Grammatical mistakes fixed.)

[Andsed]

Firstly, not bombing London and prevent the bombing of it. When the Germans invaded Britain by air, they avoided cities. The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident when a German He-111 dropped a bomb in a building which resulted in the killings of many civilians and caused public outrage in Britain; increasing the morale of civilians.

Secondly, not declaring war against the Americans. When Pearl harbour occurred, Germany declared war as an act of friendship - The Americans only attended to fight against the Japanese.

Thirdly, fall-back/dig in when Russian winter was coming. When the German general staff knew that winter was imminent, they ask Hitler that if they could dig in for the Winter, but Hitler disagreed with this and kept on moving.

Lastly, during Blitzkrieg, the Germans add the opportunity to destroy the whole entirety of the British army in Dunkirk. There were approximately 400,000 British (some French) thousand troops that lacked in supplies an couldn't be reinforced because it was encircled. While the Germans had 800,000 thousand men ready to attack, being supported with tanks and CAS.

Uh for the last part about Dunkirk the Germans did try. The reason they stopped was because many of their tanks were running low on fuel and if they kept going it might of exposed their flank so Hitler gave the halt order to secure the flank. He figured the German air force
the luftwaffe could destroy the british and the luftwaffe did try sinking around a good amount of ships and killing thousands. And the German land force did attack but were stopped by the French and Belgian rear guard.

[Conserative Morality]

As Hitler, I'd shave off that goddamn mustache first and put my plans for Jew persecution on hold until a more practical time. Instead of warring on Poland after taking Czechoslovakia, ally with them against the USSR - the Bolshevik menace is greater than a little Slavic dictatorship on our borders. Make this offer as us and the USSR are gearing up for the invasion of Poland, letting them know that the SovUnion will hit them from the east and they can either fight a losing battle or give up Danzig/the corridor and help us fight the Bolsheviks. Hopefully, that avoids war with the UK and France at first - letting me focus my attention on building a coalition of Eastern European states and subject nations whom I can later crush or Aryanize. After a few years of fighting, the USSR would be crushed without the assistance of the UK, France, or the material support of the US, which still views us ambivalently because we haven't moved on any Western democracies.

After that, reinforce the Italians in North Africa and start to stir up trouble in Egypt, using local nationalists as a cat's paw against British rule with the ultimate goal of an independent, aligned Arab Republic or at least Egypt with German access to the Suez. This would likely start up the shitstorm with the UK and France, but with the war against the USSR winding down and some measure of lebensraum gained, our forces can focus on storming France through the Ardennes and push through from Italy because God knows the Italians can't do jack shit on their own. I imagine this is around '43/'44, so the Japanese and the Americans are likely at war, but we've not backed the empire up, so the Americans are at peace with us, but are on war footing and are starting to eye us warily as we war on their two closest allies. Japan isn't too happy with us, but they wouldn't've been much help anyway - the SovUnion couldn't project enough force to be distracted in Manchuria and the Japanese couldn't project enough force inland to be worth being distracted for. Forget the Battle of Britain - strategic bombing is not what's going to win the war. Focus on CAS and local air superiority. Grind France into dust, and then offer the allies a peace on relatively favorable terms: the formal rescinding of the Treaty of Versailles, relinquishing Alsace-Lorraine and the Maginot Line to Germany, an 'independent' Arab Republic/Egypt, and special political and economic concessions from Belgium and the Netherlands while leaving the UK and France otherwise mostly untouched. Hopefully, this whole time the US will have stayed out of the war, and our war with France and Britain will be too short to merit their involvement. Oh, and I guess I take Denmark too, because it makes Germany look bad (aesthetically/geopolitically) with a little corner of independent Nordics. Make the map nice and Nazi, s'il vous plait.

Then I gas the Jews, slaughter the Slavs, and drink German beer for the rest of my life.

[Memeosan]

Firstly, not bombing London and prevent the bombing of it. When the Germans invaded Britain by air, they avoided cities. The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident when a German He-111 dropped a bomb in a building which resulted in the killings of many civilians and caused public outrage in Britain; increasing the morale of civilians.

Secondly, not declaring war against the Americans. When Pearl harbour occurred, Germany declared war as an act of friendship - The Americans only attended to fight against the Japanese.

Thirdly, fall-back/dig in when Russian winter was coming. When the German general staff knew that winter was imminent, they ask Hitler that if they could dig in for the Winter, but Hitler disagreed with this and kept on moving.

Lastly, during Blitzkrieg, the Germans add the opportunity to destroy the whole entirety of the British army in Dunkirk. There were approximately 400,000 British (some French) thousand troops that lacked in supplies an couldn't be reinforced because it was encircled. While the Germans had 800,000 thousand men ready to attack, being supported with tanks and CAS.

Uh for the last part about Dunkirk the Germans did try. The reason they stopped was because many of their tanks were running low on fuel and if they kept going it might of exposed their flank so Hitler gave the halt order to secure the flank. He figured the German air force
the luftwaffe could destroy the british and the luftwaffe did try sinking around a good amount of ships and killing thousands. And the German land force did attack but were stopped by the French and Belgian rear guard.

Even so, it was possible to attack the British and French with infantry, CAS and artillery. Tanks in urban areas usually don't perform well but still a factor in winning.

[DeltaSource]

If they had a better leader

[The Empire of Pretantia]

I don't see why it's important to know how Russia expanded past the Urals as an invader.

If you don't understand why, then your invasion, and your chances of conquering Russia, are doomed to fail.

I still fail to see why Russia's expansion East of the Urals was key to its defense.

The whole point of Russia being so large is so it can simply keep moving back inside itself and drawing the enemy further and further inside. This puts immense pressure on the logistics of the invader and opens them up to counter offensives. Russia is well aware that its western borders are the most vulnerable part of Russia, so what better way to negate that is to have an unimaginably vast country from which your government and your industry can retreat into and continue fighting. Compare this with western European countries where if you conquer their capital, more often than not said country capitulates. So what if they capture land? So what if they capture Moscow? The military command is still intact, the army itself is still intact, the government is still intact, and your industries are still producing materiel and supplies to continue the fight. When you have built up enough strength, you can go on the offensive. The Russian's withdrawl into itself worked when the Swedes invaded, when the French invaded, and both times Germany invaded. Granted WW1 resulted in a peace treaty bought about by political instability rather than a military defeat, but the Swedish, French, and Nazi German invasions were all defeated because they could not continue fighting.

Yes, I am aware of the stock Russian defense strategy. However, all three cases were more complex than,"Burn everything and wait out the enemy."

Also as somebody else pointed out, Germany was doing pretty well in Russia, especially compared to the Western Front.
Sweden's matches the description the best, but Sweden never reached Moscow. Not even close.
France's case is also close, but Napoleon wasn't even going for the capital.
In Germany's case it's drastically different from both Sweden and France because it was a sheer war of attrition, where Russia stayed constantly engaged and directly ground down Germany's strength. Also worth noting this is the only case where Russia actually had industry to move.

Not only that, many have underestimated the Russian's willingness and capacity to fight.

That is not disputed.

Napoleon in 1812 spent four months waiting in a largely burnt out Moscow waiting for a peace offer from the Russians that never came.

One month.

Eventually he would leave Russia with only 27,000 men, having lost 640,000 of the 680,000 he started out with. When Operation Barbarossa began, the German high command figured that it would take a couple of months before the Russians would capitulate. Taking Moscow, according to them, "would bring the whole rotten structure crashing to the ground". And while it very nearly happened, the fact was that not only was Russia willing to sacrifice the millions of men it took to overcome the Germans, it wasn't going to capitulate.

All this has nothing do do with why it's important to know why Russia expanded past the Urals.

[Novus America]

Firstly, not bombing London and prevent the bombing of it. When the Germans invaded Britain by air, they avoided cities. The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident when a German He-111 dropped a bomb in a building which resulted in the killings of many civilians and caused public outrage in Britain; increasing the morale of civilians.

Secondly, not declaring war against the Americans. When Pearl harbour occurred, Germany declared war as an act of friendship - The Americans only attended to fight against the Japanese.

Thirdly, fall-back/dig in when Russian winter was coming. When the German general staff knew that winter was imminent, they ask Hitler that if they could dig in for the winter, but Hitler disagreed with this and kept on moving.

Lastly, during Blitzkrieg, the Germans add the opportunity to destroy the whole entirety of the British army in Dunkirk. There were approximately 400,000 British (some French) thousand troops that lacked in supplies an couldn't be reinforced because it was encircled. While the Germans had 800,000 thousand men ready to attack, being supported with tanks and CAS.

(Edit: Grammatical mistakes fixed.)

Why bomb the UK at all? It was just a waste of planes and pilots.

[Neanderthaland]

[It's difficult to take you seriously when you do things like this. Go back and read my post. Did I reference that exact thing you just referenced? Yes I did. I said it was the origin of Russia's current reputation. You're bringing it up like I'm not aware of it indicates that you're not reading or understanding my posts.

Or when I say "European nations tend not to be outright conquered, but have puppet regimes put in place," and then you come back to me with a list of nations that were "conquered" by having puppet regimes put in place.

So you're admitting that you're wrong because instead of attacking the argument, you're attacking me.

No. Rather that your posts don't deal with the substance of the posts they're responding to. A point you just further demonstrated.

[Memeosan]

Firstly, not bombing London and prevent the bombing of it. When the Germans invaded Britain by air, they avoided cities. The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident when a German He-111 dropped a bomb in a building which resulted in the killings of many civilians and caused public outrage in Britain; increasing the morale of civilians.

Secondly, not declaring war against the Americans. When Pearl harbour occurred, Germany declared war as an act of friendship - The Americans only attended to fight against the Japanese.

Thirdly, fall-back/dig in when Russian winter was coming. When the German general staff knew that winter was imminent, they ask Hitler that if they could dig in for the winter, but Hitler disagreed with this and kept on moving.

Lastly, during Blitzkrieg, the Germans add the opportunity to destroy the whole entirety of the British army in Dunkirk. There were approximately 400,000 British (some French) thousand troops that lacked in supplies an couldn't be reinforced because it was encircled. While the Germans had 800,000 thousand men ready to attack, being supported with tanks and CAS.

(Edit: Grammatical mistakes fixed.)

Why bomb the UK at all? It was just a waste of planes and pilots.

I understand your argument, but sitting in France doing nothing is also a waste of time, it essentially allows the British to rebuild their military and making it harder for the Germans to invade.

[Costa Fierro]

I still fail to see why Russia's expansion East of the Urals was key to its defense.

It gives Russians space.

Yes, I am aware of the stock Russian defense strategy. However, all three cases were more complex than,"Burn everything and wait out the enemy."

No you're not. If you can't figure out why Russia's vast size is a key aspect to its defence then you can't be aware of Russian defence strategy.

[Costa Fierro]

So you're admitting that you're wrong because instead of attacking the argument, you're attacking me.

No. Rather that your posts don't deal with the substance of the posts they're responding to. A point you just further demonstrated.

They did. You couldn't find anything to counter with and so you resorted to attacking me instead.

Why bomb the UK at all? It was just a waste of planes and pilots.

It was primarily to establish air supremacy over the United Kingdom in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, which would have been the planned amphibious invasion of Great Britain. They attacked the airfields of the Royal Air Force and began decimating it quite effectively, there was a point where the RAF was at breaking point. That breaking point was when the Luftwaffe switched tactics, presumably because the OKW figured an invasion of Great Britain wasn't feasible (they had not knocked the Royal Navy out of the war) and instead went to bombing major population centers in an attempt to bomb the British into submission. Which failed miserably, as the Germans underestimated the anti-Nazi sentiments and resilience of the British people.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

I still fail to see why Russia's expansion East of the Urals was key to its defense.

It gives Russians space.

Space that it never uses to its defense? Do you know where the Urals are? Do you know how many times the Russians have had to hide behind it? Never.

Yes, I am aware of the stock Russian defense strategy. However, all three cases were more complex than,"Burn everything and wait out the enemy."

No you're not.

Yeah I am.

If you can't figure out why Russia's vast size is a key aspect to its defence then you can't be aware of Russian defence strategy.

Okay but 90% of Russia's vast size isn't a key aspect.

[United Muscovite Nations]

It gives Russians space.

Space that it never uses to its defense? Do you know where the Urals are? Do you know how many times the Russians have had to hide behind it? Never.

No you're not.

Yeah I am.

If you can't figure out why Russia's vast size is a key aspect to its defence then you can't be aware of Russian defence strategy.

Okay but 90% of Russia's vast size isn't a key aspect.

Russian industry being behind the urals was key to Russian strategy in WWII, because it was out of range of German bombings.

[Memeosan]

It gives Russians space.

Space that it never uses to its defense? Do you know where the Urals are? Do you know how many times the Russians have had to hide behind it? Never.

No you're not.

Yeah I am.

If you can't figure out why Russia's vast size is a key aspect to its defence then you can't be aware of Russian defence strategy.

Okay but 90% of Russia's vast size isn't a key aspect.

Okay, this is what I think for the last question.

Due to Russia's large size, the Germans found it hard to push because their supply lines were being stretched out as well with their army.

And when there are stretched supply lines, there's valuable resources to take out. The Russians used aircraft like the IL-2 to take out railways that were carrying reinforcements and supplies.

It's hard to supply your army when you're just using one railway to reinforce and supply your army.

Think of it as a three-way pathway. If one is closed, you could use the other two. If there's only one pathway and that's destroyed, you can't move forward.

(Edit: Grammatical errors fixed)

[Neanderthaland]

No. Rather that your posts don't deal with the substance of the posts they're responding to. A point you just further demonstrated.

They did. You couldn't find anything to counter with and so you resorted to attacking me instead.

I said "You're difficult to take seriously because you used fallacious point x and y." Calling that a personal attack is silly. Saying it don't counter your argument when it explicitly does twice is a flat-out lie.

[Confederate States of German America]

Except Japan could never occupy more than a small amount of China.

Which ignores they occupied very large portions of China, including their most productive and populated bits. The 1940 Hundred Regiments Offensive damn near destroyed the CCP while the 1944 Ichi-Go offensive basically linked all of the Japanese conquests by rail, easing the logistical burden for the IJA as well as collapsing most Chinese production; mass starvation was setting in and this was a key fact during the later Chinese Civil War as it discredited the KMT.

[Confederate States of German America]

Russian industry being behind the urals was key to Russian strategy in WWII, because it was out of range of German bombings.

Their planning yes, but not much basis in reality as the Germans still overrun almost 50% of their industrial base in 1941. Most surviving manufacturing existed from thence on around Moscow and such cities, well to the east of the Urals. For example, 63% of air engine production was at the aforementioned city while something like 25% of tank production was found along the Volga.

[Costa Fierro]

Space that it never uses to its defense? Do you know where the Urals are? Do you know how many times the Russians have had to hide behind it? Never.

I know exactly where the Urals are. But you're not getting it. Size is what makes Russia difficult to invade and conquer. The only group that managed to do it were the Mongols, and they invaded from Central Asia (which is also largely steppe).

Russia's size gives it the ability to fall back, overextend the enemy supply and communication lines. Once that happens, the enemy becomes vulnerable, and then you counter attack.

Okay but 90% of Russia's vast size isn't a key aspect.

Yes it is. Look at other large countries. Look at Canada, look at the United States. Invading those countries would be difficult or nigh on impossible to do because of their size.

Let's leave Europe and head to Asia. You only have to look at the Japanese experience in China to see how badly invading a large country goes when you lack the manpower and the resources to do so. Hence why Japan abandoned any idea of invading Australia (they did attack it though).

[Confederate States of German America]

Some things to be pointed out because the Soviet meme is hard in this thread. All figures in thousands of tons:

Steel
USSR: 8,070
Germany: 32,100

Aluminium
USSR: 52,000
Germany: 263,900

Coal
USSR: 48,951
Germany: 338,200

Machine tools
USSR: 160,104*
Germany: 813,880

*Includes Lend Lease imports of ~44,000 units

[Costa Fierro]

Some things to be pointed out because the Soviet meme is hard in this thread. All figures in thousands of tons:

Steel
USSR: 8,070
Germany: 32,100

Aluminium
USSR: 52,000
Germany: 263,900

Coal
USSR: 48,951
Germany: 338,200

Machine tools
USSR: 160,104*
Germany: 813,880

*Includes Lend Lease imports of ~44,000 units

And that is supposed to demonstrate what?

[Aellex]

Some things to be pointed out because the Soviet meme is hard in this thread. All figures in thousands of tons:

Steel
USSR: 8,070
Germany: 32,100

Aluminium
USSR: 52,000
Germany: 263,900

Coal
USSR: 48,951
Germany: 338,200

Machine tools
USSR: 160,104*
Germany: 813,880

*Includes Lend Lease imports of ~44,000 units

And that is supposed to demonstrate what?

Wheraboo's boner for "muh German War machine".

[Andsed]

And that is supposed to demonstrate what?

Wheraboo's boner for "muh German War machine".

Well at least he ain’t talking about how German tanks were the best tanks in the war and how they destroyed everything they fought.

[Confederate States of German America]

Some things to be pointed out because the Soviet meme is hard in this thread. All figures in thousands of tons:

Steel
USSR: 8,070
Germany: 32,100

Aluminium
USSR: 52,000
Germany: 263,900

Coal
USSR: 48,951
Germany: 338,200

Machine tools
USSR: 160,104*
Germany: 813,880

*Includes Lend Lease imports of ~44,000 units

And that is supposed to demonstrate what?

Quite obviously that the Soviet economy was totally inferior to the German economy in terms of necessary war elements; it's a pretty firm rebuttal to the notion the Soviets could not be beaten by the Reich.

[Confederate States of German America]

And that is supposed to demonstrate what?

Wheraboo's boner for "muh German War machine".

I shouldn't be surprised people don't understand the production element of War and reduce to it more memes considering this thread has repeatedly seen Youtube videos cited as evidence.

[Confederate States of German America]

Wheraboo's boner for "muh German War machine".

Well at least he ain’t talking about how German tanks were the best tanks in the war and how they destroyed everything they fought.

There is considerable debate on that matter. The Germans maintained a positive K/D against the Soviets up until the end in tank engagements, but a 1954 study by the U.S. Army found that American tankers generally were able to get the better of engagements by 1944. Some caveats:

1) By 1944, the Panzerwaffen had long since been ground down, meaning crew quality had declined
2) Specific tactical features, in that it in general was found that on average 2-3 Shermans vs German tanks was the normal engagement profile