If Hitler had launched a pre-emtive attack on the United States.... (tanks, conquer)
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They never had the ships or aircraft to do that job, and even if they did...the result would have been bad. They had no means, and they also had no motive: Hitler wanted "living room" in Europe, not the US. Smart Germans wanted living room in the US for themselves and their families.
The Germans lacked ships, transport vessels, aircraft carriers, and land bases to execute such an attack. The German Navy by itself was effectively bottled up in the Baltic Sea by the Royal Navy throughout the war. They lacked the naval supremacy required to launch Sea Lion across the English Channel. So there is no chance of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, defeating the Royal Navy and US Navy along the way. Overwhelming air superiority is a necessary prerequisite to any successful seaborne invasion. The Germans had no land bases to launch aircraft from, and lacked aircraft carriers that could transport thousands of Luftwaffe planes across the Atlantic.
Then there's troops and logistics. The Wehrmacht invaded Russia with 5 million troops and ultimately failed. How many millions of troops would they need to transport across the Atlantic for a U.S. invasion? Not to mention their supply lines behind them? The Germans would have needed a monstrous merchant fleet to support such an invasion. And if the invasion bogs down, the troops are stranded on the opposite side of an ocean. If the Germans thought Russia was vast and distant, imagine being stranded overseas with no hope of return?
The only country in the world capable of executing such a feat to this day is America. We are the only country with a large enough Navy, Air Force, and land force to launch huge seaborne invasions. Even China and Russia are constrained to their regions of the world due to this reality.
Germany likely couldn't have invaded England-30 miles across the English Channel from France. How in the hell would they have invaded the US?
There is no 'likely' about it, its actually a fact, Germany was never going to win the second world war, it simply 'overstretched' itself whatever the details it would have simply been a matter of time before the inevitable happened, a country of 50 million or so can not take on the world and expect to come out on top, they bit off far more than they could chew, even with the advantage they had of massive re-armament while other nations were in comparison 'sleeping' in that respect it was just a matter of time before those they waged war against would catch up and surpass them.
The only country in the world capable of executing such a feat to this day is America. We are the only country with a large enough Navy, Air Force, and land force to launch huge seaborne invasions. Even China and Russia are constrained to their regions of the world due to this reality.
We can't even do it. A seaborne invasion of a continental power? Completely beyond our capability. We couldn't even invade Iraq without spending months building up our ground forces in countries that were right next door to them. We can attack anyone we want, and probably inflict massive damage and casualties, but invade or defeat? Not by ourselves we can't.
We can't even do it. A seaborne invasion of a continental power? Completely beyond our capability. We couldn't even invade Iraq without spending months building up our ground forces in countries that were right next door to them. We can attack anyone we want, and probably inflict massive damage and casualties, but invade or defeat? Not by ourselves we can't.
We spent months building up because we had that luxury. In WW2, we also had that luxury. However, in both cases we easily could have invaded earlier, it just wouldn't have been as well executed. We still would have been successful in both cases.
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