Germany couldn't have won WW2. Like, the amount of alternate history you have to pull off to make it happen makes it an extremely unreasonable claim. I'm not saying this has to be reflected 100% accurately in hoi (because arguably, there would be so much work just realising a winnable strategy and the game would likely have to start before 1936), but I do think its enough to warrant one of the larger challenges of the game.
I'm not sure I myself would say their tech was somehow more superior than their contemporaries. Their Panzers were quite good during and for awhile after the invasion of Poland, but they never managed to get anything with as much ingenuity as the T-34 later in the war. They also weren't the only ones with decent tanks, Skoda in the former Czechoslovakia made very good vehicles as well. I believe the Fockewulf 190 also had crazy over engineered fuel systems that used direct injections, this gave them a bit more of an advantage on different altitudes versus the British Spitfires (which had carbs and could cause freezes in it if the pilot didn't maneuver correctly.) They weren't some unstoppable mechanized force, a large majority of all their support was horse-towed equipment. I think the real genius of the Wehrmacht was their doctrines and cohesiveness as a single party autocratic state,. In regards to doctrines, infantry squads acting as a supporting basis for the MG34 and bounding maneuvers, as well as the infamous blitzkrieg and schwerpunkt ideas of hammering a hole in the enemies lines and filling it with highly mobile exploitation forces. I think the real killer of the Soviets, and Western democracies at the early points of the war was their political systems had left them paralyzed, along with appeasement and political infighting (especially in France, and the Soviet Union) left them unprepared to deal with the Germans.
To clear up my statement, I simply wish that combat was more accurately reflected, weaknesses of the nations should be addressed in other ways.
As I understand it the Pz. III and IV weren't even that amazing compared to the Allied tanks.
Ooh. Thanks for linking the videos, love stuff like this.
The Germany gaining a decisive victory in WW2 against the U.S.? Sure, never would have happened.
But had the U.S. stayed out of the war or didnt supply the soviets with an absurd amount of resources then I'd say Germany probably would have a good chance of winning against the soviets. Soviets almost buckled and straight up surrendered right after the initial push of Operation Barbarossa and I doubt D-day would have gone nearly as well as it did if they came up against complete veteran Divisions from a pacified eastern front.
Germany alone vs soviet may have had just the tiniest chance but it would absolutely devastate their manpower, supplies and more. What would they do if they actually got beyond the arkhangelsk line? I wonder if they had a plan themselves. (after all, they had no other reason than destroying judeo-bolshevism and claiming lebensraum).
Germany's supplies were already so shit that even if the soviets let them WALK to Moscow they still wouldn't make it in one single travel thanks to the fuel shortages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zinPbUZUHDE&t=1
Watch this lecture on the subject.
As for lend-lease, obviously it helped and Stalin himself acknowledged this, but it did not make a big difference in 1941, and by late 1942-43 when Germany was definitely retreating, the biggest amount of supplies the US gave was in form of trucks. And don't get me wrong, this was good and helped the soviet union defeat Germany. But mostly faster.
Make no mistake. SU pulled the biggest load and the largest effort in this war, and to think otherwise would be revisionist.
Except the issue with the Spitfire affected a lot of early Merlin engines, but unlike say the Panther that issue was actually fixed. Besides, it also got a much better engine later into the war which pushed it even further.
Never implied the soviets weren't the biggest participants of the war. But it doesn't change the fact a significant factor for a German defeat was the Allied and specifically the U.S. strategic bombings and things like Operation Torch and later on, and once again, the lend lease. To say that wasn't decisive is stupid. It made up the VAST majority of the Russian logistics system, Russians constantly lost the vast a significant proportion of their armoured force every year, about 2/3rds or more of their production and almost certainly would have faltered had they split their production to making trucks and vehicles instead of focusing on armoured production liek they did.
For example by December 1941 about 40% of the soviet medium and heavy armoured force were lend lease. This among other factors such as food, ammunition and the non-existant soviet economy at the time due to their repositioning of all the major industry deeper into the interior. The German logistics wasn't a major factor if the war was finished quickly, which was expected and very much almost happened.
"We assess the production of explosive materials in the USSR during the period from mid 1941 to mid 1945 as approximately 600.000 tons. No less than 325.800 short tons (295.600 metric tons) of explosive materials were supplied by the US. In addition 22.300 tons of powder were supplied by Great Britain and Canada. This, Western deliveries of explosive materials reached 53% of the total volume of Soviet Production."
-Boris V. Sokolov, Russian Historian, “The Role of Lend-lease in Soviet military efforts”
You can't finish a war quickly if you can't even get fuel to your tanks in the first place. Also you're gonna need to source that 40% of soviet armor in 1941 was lend lease considering they only received 669 tanks from the allies in 1941.
Haven't read the direct source but Tanks-front! Notes of a Soviet General. Smolensk: Rusich. p. 57. was what It was supposedly from, and the other one is a research note in some article about Slavic military studies.
Aside from that it wasn't impossible to rail up supplies. The things that halted the german offensive was the tanks out pacing their truck logistics from a rail bridgehead which they can just... Stop and wait for them to catchup, this has the side effect of letting the enemy rest and re-organize but, as I stated with their supply sitaution, would have done them little good if they simply didnt have the adequate equipment to fight with.
Alexander Hill in his book notes that British lend-lease tanks made up roughly 30-40% of the soviet medium and heavy tank force in the central army (Moscow) area by December 1941. Tank was the least supplied unit and overall only made up 6.5% of the total tank force or so. It was just good to have these tanks at that place at that time. Hill still notes however that it would be "difficult and unconvincing" to say that this saved the soviet union in 1941, noting that they stopped the Axis before moscow with soviet blood and soviet equipment.
Historians unanimously agree that the largest and most effective lend-lease was in the form of trucks given to the soviet union by the US. Not only in massive quantities (more than what germany could produce), but also of better quality, as noted by David Glantz.
Glantz notes that all offensives by the Soviet union between 43-43, without these trucks, would've been halted, and would've prolonged the war process.
Historians overall do not agree on exactly how much lend-lease "saved" the soviet union. Sokolov is the primary propagator for complete soviet loss with lack of lend-lease, but his research is also old and some things are less supported by now. David Glantz being the most recent with "when titans clash", notes that if the Soviet Union had not received any lend-lease, they would have needed 12-18 more months to finish off the wehrmacht.
Yeah I'm aware of the logistic problems the Germans faced, I was more referring to the Panzer groups which had priority when allocated truck based logistics. I'm also not arguing that it was guaranteed a German victory, just that it isn't as hopeless as everyone seems to make it out to be. I haven't actually seen much of anything include in these theories the effects of the bombing campaign or the resource and manpower expenditures in the Italian and Africa fronts had there been no American intervention.
No, it absolutely was hopeless. Their supply train was primitive at best, their economy didn't actually shift into high gear until Speer stepped in way too late, their technological edge wasn't nearly as grand as envisaged and it did not keep pace with its combatants, the internal divisions between the Wehrmacht and the SS caused organisation to suffer, and they decided to make war against a power who they simply could not defeat (the UK), and then went on to try and invade the USSR anyway.
The amount of butterflies needed to make a Nazi victory even viable is ludicrous, let alone probable. It's very safely in the fantastical alternate history section.
The UK was sealed on their island, they couldn't do anything except fight in the Air and Sea's. D-day was a combined operation 3 times as strong as the German forces that was half U.S after years of constant bombing raids that did more to cripple the german economy than a lack of 'war footing'(Also mostly a myth), without them I doubt it would have been viable. But it seems you've bought into that same trap of thinking shallow level stuff. If their logistics were so primitive they would never have gotten as far as they did in France, Poland and in Russia. The technological edge wasn't even mentioned once in the discussion above? What matters here is their skill, tactics and strategies which, at the time, were very strong and paved the way for modern warfare.
I think we are seeing this in a black and white view. Just because their logistics trains weren't fully motorized like the Americans, or later in the war, the Soviets, doesn't mean it's completely inadequate I agree. WWII was still an era of foot infantry that was shifting towards mechanization and motorization. Panzers, while a major component of German strategy, didn't encompass a massive part of their army and even when they didn't make 100% use of them due to lagging supplies it was still a very effective doctrine. Likewise as I mentioned before German infantry were a step ahead with their focus on light infantry weapons supporting their squads/fire teams and made them formidable foes on the tactical level, we see this today still.
I'll plant my foot in the ground and say that Germany placed itself in a very difficult situation antagonizing two massive enemies in the US and the USSR, but I think it was going to end this way regardless with Hitler's racial purity ideas and the Drang Nach Osten. Even if they had won, policing the vast amount of land they conquered would be an insurmountable challenge, and I think they would have had to relinquish a lot of it just to hold on to something. The economy based on borrowing and pillaging was also set to crumble eventually unless Speer pulled off a miracle.
It's very hard to tell what may have happened had certain things gone differently in the war. What if Hitler was more hands off with the command staff? What if the Italians and Germans managed to prevent the scuttling of the French navy in the Mediterranen? What if Germany managed to secure the Baku oilfields? What if the French saw the feint and recognized the invasion through the lowlands with Panzers? What if Stalin hadn't purged his army staff, would they have been able to resist the opening stages of Barbarossa more effectively?
In any case, I'm enjoying the conversation and I hope nobody gets too heated about it.
They were actively fighting in North Africa at the time. They couldn't invade Europe at the time but they weren't "sealed on their island".
Their logistics were shit, it was one of the fatal weak points during the Battle of France, the allies just failed to exploit it in time before the Germans managed to get their shit semi-sorted, also Paris is a much shorter distance to cover than Moscow. Same for Poland, which was also went so quickly in part due to a two front invasion. They also had to deal with much worse road conditions crossing western Russia than say, crossing eastern France. Much of Germany's early successes were due to aggressive and innovative tactics that were able to knockout their enemies quick enough that their logistic failings weren't able to take their toll. There's countless resources detailing how bad German logistics were on the eastern front, if you refuse to believe them is your own problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBAoW0PWNUw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_3R-Rkn_98
Bit too late for me to start watching hour long vids but I'll say that, once again, the German logistic system was fairly capable of keeping up with their schwerpunkt advances much better than most other nations at the time. The whole planning around Barbarossa was kicking in the door and the shack will fall down, a quick victory. Simply put they didn't need to think that far ahaid, and if things failed, they had the rail lines to build up while they hunkered down. And just watching a few mins into that first video it really doesn't make much sense for the Germans to have a mainly motorized supply chain when horse drawn from a rail bridgehead did just fine for the majority of their infantry forces, lack of fuel and all.
That being said my only real argument for a German victory I have would have to be a lack of Lend lease which if you read into anything really paints a daunting picture for the Soviets. As I mentioned earlier, 50% of all explosive materials was supplied by allies, 30% of their Air force was allied lend lease, 2/3rds of their trucks and jeeps, over 90% of the most important part of the whole war, their TRAINS were produced and given with lend-lease materials. Radio's, Radars, clothes, food, tools, machining equipment. All at a vital point when the Soviets were redeploying their industry. So sure you could say the Soviets won with Russian produced equipment, but that equipment was made with Lend-lease materials and the Soviets sure as fuck wouldnt have been able to push back nearly as hard without half their explosives(Mortars account for 60% of infantry casualties, more or less, not to mention artillery and rockets) or any of their logistical backing such as trains and trucks.
From the Glantz source
Lend-Lease trucks were particularly important to the Red Army, which was notoriously deficient in such equipment. By the end of the war, two out of every three Red Army trucks were foreign-built, including 409,000 cargo trucks and 47,000 Willys Jeeps. [Note, Glantz's 2/3 stat is a higher ratio than Ellis indicates, but Ellis still points to 2:1 import/production, and regardless there may be other caveats in play]
And you have to remember that if the Soviets had to produce their own trucks, that was less materials for Trains, artillery, etc.
You're right, I got into the thought that "good enough" is fine, but you're absolutely right, the massive scale, depth and hostility of the Eastern front will settle for nothing less than the best. All the Russians had to do was settle in and wait during the long winters, which was WAY easier than advancing.
I did some more reading, and a lot of the logistics failure was the German's hubris in thinking the war would be over by winter due to their marked success in the low countries and Poland. They had planned to build up railroads to keep supplying their troops as well in Russia, but the harsh winters stopped that dead in it's tracks.
It is really difficult to supply an army. The US, even with their success in the west, suffered logistical issues in the Ardennes. The major offensive was halted in the winter due to not receiving adequate supplies as wanted, and a plan called for the shift of aid from the 3rd to the 1st to mount a counteroffensive. When even the US, the industrial powerhouse of the world had issues doing it, it shows how complicated it can get, and it's really a marvel that such grand feats can even be undertaken.
BIG ASS WALL OF TEXT INCOMING
The fundamental problem with Germany during the Second World War was Germany had an abysmal long term strategic plan to win. There is simply no way that Germany, a manpower strapped nation by 1943, a nation without adequate steel, oil and even grain sometimes could stand up to three highly industrialized great powers all with a more streamlined mode of production and a more realistic set of plans to achieve total victory. Germany's logistics was abysmal. Even in 1940 during the battle of France, the horse powered German supply chain could not support Rommel and the armoured spearhead. Not to mention the German army's extraordinary inefficiency when dealing with matters pertaining to both oil and intelligence all compounded to craft a terrible system of logistics which served the short quick wars Germany foolishly anticipated all over the world.
Unfortunately for the German High Command, their short sighted views, jaded by experiences in WW1 along with a long history of the Prussian officer corps priding mobility and swift, risky strikes above else culminated in Germany's only real major strategic victory during WW2: France. France reinforced Germany's notions of their capacity for quick victories. Schwerpunkt and German doctrine was essentially too short sighted to be concerned with equipping supply trains for long periods of time. All of the lessons that should've been taken from WW1 were ignored in favour of Nazi Germany's delusions of their armies' abilities to deliver quick victories against multiple, vast opponents. As @Slendermang rightly said, Germany's hubris coloured and distorted the truth that Germany's supply trains made up of horses and very few, but oil consuming vehicles didn't help.
The Allies co-operated together, consumed oil more efficiently and overall had better logistics equipped for protracted warfare, because most of all, their economies were built for that type of long war that everyone except Germany anticipated. The Soviets particularly mastered logistics, co-coordinating with the air force, the army and the navy to allow the Red Army to deliver enormous and well supplied strikes from 1942 onwards on a regular basis. Germany's economy as well was unsustainable, soaring debt compounded by reckless rearmament and a refusal to mobilize into a war economy till 1943 influenced by WW1 experiences and Nazi delusions. Overall, the thing to take away is that Germany's tactics were too short sighted. People have said that Russia had an easier time of it, but I disagree. Keep in mind the absolutely ENORMOUS task of transporting all of the USSR's vast industrial holdings from the west to the east in a matter of weeks. Yet, they did so. Keep in mind the gargantuan assembly of men, machinery and rifles that were extraordinarily hidden and staggering in efficiency before Operation Bagration. Germany could not, would not and did not have the capacity to both fuel and supply her armies for a long war.
Sources:
Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze (2005)
Hitler's Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich by Ben H. Shepherd (2016)
Bagration 1944: The Destruction of Army Group Centre by Steven Zaloga (1996)
The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of France in 1940 ( 2003)
Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed by Michael K. Jones (2007)
Hearts of Iron has never been advertised as a history simulator, so it's kind of pointless to discuss the impracticality of outcomes that happen inside it. I mean the game also lets you restore the Kaiser and start a Second American Civil War, none of which had any chance of happening in the game's timeframe IRL.
That's because Hearts of Iron 4 caters to the lowest common denominator, if you look at Darkest Hour, or 3, which is even more of a war game than it's predecessors it becomes painfully obvious Paradox has dumbed down the game. As someone else stated its pop history now.
The only thing 4 has on 3 in my eyes is functional multiplayer, no memory leaks, division of industrial capacity to military, civilian and naval, Man the Gun's naval customization and production lines. The first twos are results of Paradox's poor design and work on the game itself.
3 is so laggy in multiplayer. I think that it does delta timing rather than callbacks for any changes which is crazy for a game like that.
@living cornelius Great write-up, and you even included sources. damn bro.
Yeah, I feel like i should reiterate it was my original point. Obviously it should be possible for Germany to win, even with a not hardcore player. I was only advocating for a bump up in difficulty from literally the easiest nation to pick, apart from possibly the US. But I understand also that the difficulty in the game lies more in creating the ahistorical scenarios.
I would be very wary of throwing around the terms "lowest common denominator" and "pop history" when heatedly discussing a subject which is itself arguably the lowest common denominator of all historical subjects and which attracted its initial obsessive interest in our generation thanks to its treatment in pop culture. It strikes me as an especially pretentious thing to say given that the object of interest is a videogame. What, is Hearts of Iron 4 supposed to be peer-reviewed? Of course it's pop history. Academic history isn't just around for people's sense of validation.
I'm not upset about alt-history, it's fun to play. The only thing I'm upset about is how Hearts of Iron has lost depth to try to draw in a bigger crowd. I don't give a shit about the meme kaiser revival stuff if they do the combat actual justice in the game. Remember, I started griping about the combat when this all started. Sure I could go play WiTE, Graviteam Tactics or a bunch of other John Tiller games, but I can't manage my economy and make my very own order of battle in those. HoI fills a very specific niche and I'm sad to see it go the way it has.
All the whole alt history stuff they add in is fine, but the problem I got with it is that it feels they focus way more on it than non fictional history (both in flavor stuff and gameplay wise). Though all the alt history stuff is what most people play this game for so it's not surprising they focus more on it.
Wish I wasn't too much of a brainlet for HoI 3.
I feel ya man, I wish HoI went down those paths in terms of strategic depth, though I do hate microing every aspect of my army I do rather enjoy research and economic management aspect of HoI games. The only problem is you cant simulate history in this case because people know what's going to happen, Germany only won in France because they got the drop on them, the Czechs would have stopped the Germans cold with their forts had they decided to fight, etcetc so they have to fuck a few things to get a somewhat historical timeline going, even if the battles and wars themselves are ahistorical.
how would one go about installing it if one had acquired it
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