Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-24577079-20150113025115/@comment-29118948-20150113212818

The Germans got about as lucky as luck would allow. Yes a few idiotic changes by hitler still does not change the fact that the failure of the Moscow offensive originally still keeps an active central front and leningrad was still under seige at this point (as i remember might be wrong)

Along with this the Germans in particular were the only large effective fighting force. They had no cohesion with their allies most of which were relying on brute force, distracted or weak enemies and in the case of Italy paying off a targets generals. This still led to the Italians getting beat by the Greeks to some solid degrees forcing Germany to delay Barbarossa to help their idiotic allies.

Along with this the Germans failed any real co-operation with Japan which could have really made the USSR serve a legitimate lasting defeat and either surrender or go into defensive only while they recovered. However the battle in Mongolia between Japan and the Soviets years earlier and Japan really favoring a and supporting naval conflict following Khaklin Gol really led to Germany lacking an ability to have a two front war with the Soviets fighting on either end against solid japanese and german advances. This likely was never going to happen anyways and even if it did, once the US saw this is still would have probably gotten involved just a bit later.

The Italians in general were an abolute drag to Hitlers war effort. Without drastic earlier changes to Italy (none of which id even assume would be plausible) the Italians are going to lack the motivation to fight the war. The Italians wanted to ride off of German success and gain colonies. Hence they opened up a front to fight the weak greeks and got hurt, they opened up a front on the British in North Africa and got hurt and once again had the Germans riding over the hill to save them. With proper motivation the Italians still had to make up for their total lack of modern equipment. They had equipment yes, but they had re-armed extremely early for war and hence had mass produced weapons that were 5-10 years out of date if not more by the time war actually broke out.

Along with this the logistics and attitude with which hitler invaded various nations, especially the USSR guarenteed he wasnt going to hold onto that territory. He killed just as many Russians/Slavs as he did Jews and Gypsies if not more. He rolled into the USSR and people openly welcomed him until he ordered brutal actions against them which in the long run hurt hitler with attacks on supply lines which were already dangerously thin and hard to keep together.

Germany got about as lucky as it could fighting an originally inept Russian armed forces. But by the time the Russians had begun real counter attacks the Russian war machine had significantly advanced. They brought back Siberian exiled commanders who had initiative, Zhukov famously used russian manpower to buy time with blood as the far east troops started to flood in. The Soviet Deep Battle Doctrine which while a solid doctrine for its time had been essentially wiped out by Stalins purges and in the mid stages of the war the Soviets had rediscovered this doctrine which contributed to their Success.

By 1943 the Germans had stagnated and lost all initiative and were essentially slugging it out with the Soviets in highly costly battles that the USSR had the clear industrial advantage in. Kursk in general is a battle well known for this. in the Summer of 1943 (still before the Brits and US are even on the continent to liberate France) the Germans attempted one last great blizkreig to ease off the preassure and try and focus on allied offensives in Italy. The Germans attacked and launched their great offensive only to have two Russian offensives (in which Stalin wisely finally heeded advice and intelligence) that had been prepared alongside an in depth defense. The Kursk Salient was in no way an acheivable objective to the Germans and the Soviets burned out the German offensive and took strategic initiative for the last half of the war.

Kursk however did not break Germany who still had an opportunity for an organize defense further back even with the huge losses they suffered. However in 1944 Operation Bagration can probably be listed as "the straw the broke the camels back" so to speak. Operation Bagration in 44 was catastrophic to the Germans who essentially no longer had a superior strategic doctrine. They were not in their element (and even when they were they were beat in it at Kursk.) The Casualties for the Germans ended up well into half a million or more (more than Verdun in WW1) and essentially broke Germany. The Germans lost an entire army group and then some, and instead of a small static defensive line were pretty much routed and chased by the Soviets all the way to Germany.

Alot of people give the Nazis/Axis alot more credit than they deserved. The British successfully fought a stalemated global war with various victories to boot against a an alliance in europe with twice their population that pretty much got lucky in France. The Nazis enjoyed stunning luck and success in the USSR but were unable to seize the key objective of moscow which could have helped them immensely. in 42-43 the German military either had stalemates minor victories followed by the loss of a sizeable force in Stalingrad. Germany was dead from the day it attacked the soviets and even if they didnt, your still looking at a nation with double the German population able to field a 5-1 or even 10-1 equipment advantage (which was also coincidentally extremely easy to replace) attacking somewhere in 1943 which was legitimately planned by Stalin. Germany in retrospect with its full strength to bear and a strategic enemy aka Britain at peace with them (which wasnt going to happen since Britain planted her feet and said that this war was to the death) they might be able to hold off the Soviet onslaught but there is absolutely no way for Axis victory with the goals they wanted. Germany was lucky, and for awhile had the advantage in tactics and equipment against enemies that were looking to fight relatively the same as the last war. by 1942 every Axis Gain was made null by the very point that the Allies had successfully come back and won fronts/ scores a significant victory (as is the case with Midway) In fact the Japanese hardly got 6 months of unmolested conquesting before losing pretty much all their fleet carriers at Midway, which were not even replaced in full until the Battle of Leyte gulf, in which the Japanese navy was pretty much made a non threat. By the Time Leyte gulf was an allied victory Japan was starved from all her conquests, bogged down in multiple countries with the allies advancing everywhere as well. this was all thanks to a victory 6 months after pearl harbor in 1942 that let the US begin its massive invasion across the pacific (which by some was deemed impossible) that pretty much forced Japan on a grueling war of attrition with a numerically superior enemy with rapidly building military force, advancing technology and finally the ability to wipe out entire cities in the span of a few seconds.