It is during WW2 and the UK has capitulated to the Axis powers. Hitler did not invade Russia, but after the attack on the Pearl Harbor, Germany announces it will attack the US with all its forces. Where would you try to land? Through Canada? Gulf? Alaska, West or East Coast?

OK highly infeasible

So you must mean that Germany has a potent navy by now? Maybe they 'aquired' the Brits fleet?

Good luck to them moving that large of an invasion force across the Atlantic.

Hell, they should go to South America then eventually come up through Central America, taking the canal, then up through Mexico.

Steve

Okay, I'm invading. I'm going to do a combined sea and para landing focussed on DC. The Fallshirmjagers land to the west and north of the city, cutting land lines. Amphibious landings head into Chesapeake Bay and quickly up up the Potomac cutting resupply from that direction. Artillery is posted along the heights in Arlington and begin bombardment. Ground troops have established heavy anti aircraft sites to prevent airborne exits and resupply. (No helos as yet so airfields are a necessity). The government is forced to capitulate. In anticipation of this, I would have built up serious carrier forces to support the ground troops and have developed the Junkers transport to be carrier worthy.

I think that Aj has a good one here... maybe for this one i'd try to set a base in greenland before.
The other solution would be bringing mexico into the Axis and sending troops and equipment there... #:-)

Agreed - if I were to mount such a campaign I'd move through Mexico into the US too.

Gunnie

Steve is right, you'd definitely need a whopping big navy, to transport the army there and protect it from the USN. Really, I wouldn't want to try invading the US at all, it would be a very difficult challenge. If we look at history, the only successful attempt to take Washington (if we assume taking Washington would end the war) was by the Brits in 1814, who came through Lake Champlain. I think Jubal Early fired a few shots at Washington before he decided it was impossible to take and went back to Virginia in your Civil War. He came through the Shenandoah to attack the capital. These were very differnet times, though. I'm not sure what I would do. I think I'd just listen to my advisors

Nic

Hmm.... Why did I "have" to again? Let's not forget that Germany was a pretty small country to be holding all that real estate. An attack on the Western Hemisphere with no allies would have been suicide. Much as it would have been much harder for us to invade across the Atlantic. But not impossible (Morocco).

Now "if" a few Central and South American countries decided to join the Axis powers then that would be a different story. In that case I would attack through Mexico. In about 1950 though, after I had developed superior jets and AFVs. :-)

Jim

Hmmm...I would do it in the form of sabators. The invisible army. Tons of em, slowly and steadily creeping in through Canada and Mexico. With several objectives:
Take out the power plants along the eastern seaboard; New York, Boston, DC.
Nock out the ones in and around Chicago, LA, Portland...
Snipers would focus on the leaders. Maybe take some hostages.
I know it would be a huge undertaking and need to be well orchestrated but, if time were spent (keyword is time) I think that a huge fear would stiffle the citizens and leaders into doing some sort of negotiating.
Wage war from the inside. A massed army would not work against us by the time they could get here.

With most of the US citizens having weapons they would be in for a fight kind of like the Revolutionary War.Think yes or no . With our troops forces here at the time we would of murdered the bums.

Don't mean to be spoil-sport here but, remember, he wasn't that far behind us with the Atom bomb. Now that brings up new possibilities doesn't it? Eeeeeeek.

Tread.

He also had (almost) developed that flying wing, quad jet-propelled transcontinental strategic bomber too! (forget the designator, almost built the kit tho')

Tread, it's a good point. I would say the Germans ceratinly had the potential to make a bomb. I don't think they had the ability; meaning the energy and resources required to build it. It's really fascinating to look at Oak Ridge and the amount of power that was used there to get enriched unranium. No way could Germany, or Japan, or even Great Britian, have been able to do that during the '39 - 45 time period.

Thanks to many 'New Deal' programs started by Roosevelt during the Depression (think The Tennessee Valley Authority ) the military was able to capitalize on this abundance of energy and other resources.

Also, getting the top German scientists into the U.S didn't hurt!

It would have been interesting (well maybe not!) to see what the Germans could have some up with if they had no longer had to worry about Russia or Britian.

I wonder if the Germans would have been able to build something comprable to the B29.

Hey, what was the most costly ($) project for the U.S. during the war?

Steve

would never have happened,no Navy no story. the British Navy would have scattered to the
Commonwealth,and kept up the fight there,as was mentioned look at the differences in
land mass ie Germany and USA,the Mexican border would have been sewn up tighter than
a ducks A?!*so no help there.The two World Wars were eventually won by one thing,
mastery of the seas....so..no Navy no story.
Arthur
Am Alba Mannich

And Arthur knows of what he speaks We had the 2nd Cavalry Division (Horse Mounted), yes the 2nd CAV DIV, stationed out of Ft. Bliss, and many other small stations along the Mexican border. There were also some other assets too. The War Department was seriously concerned about infilitration across the Mexican border, especially spies and saboteurs, and until we started shipping forces overseas, we had considerable assets deployed along the border and both coasts.

Mention was made of the great size of the US. The distance from St. Louis to Atlanta is approximately the same as the distance from Berlin to Moscow - and the Germans couldn't make that!!! (Of course General Sherman did, and then some )

I love this forum I get some use of all that minutiae I have accumulated in the back of my mine #:-) What else can you do while sitting in the Boy's Room, I mean I don't smoke (rim shot)

Intresting question. I just don't know how it could have been done. A direct assult couldn't be big enough to survive. Everyone at that time had a gun, almost everyone, capable of killing someone from 250 yards and would have used them. It would have had to be some type of covert attack. As I learned earlier on this sight we where ahead of them on the atom bomb. Even without their scientist we would have had it first and that also ends the story. I like these type of topic though, keep them coming. Sabot, what would you have done since you brought it up?

Can't be done.

I won't discuss the possibilities if they would be strong enough to cross the Atlantic or able to enter the country at a certain area or even carpet bomb the country with atom bombs.

The key problem is that they just did not have the manpower to OCCUPY the country. Imagine they start at the east side. For argument's sake, let's assume they are able to break defense forces and occupy the whole coast. Then what ? They need to move their troops west to take the rest. They have a thousand mile long frontline, and they need to keep the part behind the front occupied too. Just imagine the sheer amount of soldiers they'd need to occupy - else their front troops would be attacked from the back. They'd have to defend the coastline too, of course. To top the challenge, they need to keep occupying forces in Europe and protect the borders with Russia. That may seem small fries compared to the US, but remember there are more Europeans than Americans. Occupying does not mean occupying territory, it means settling enough forces to keep the population under control.

The ONLY way to win such war, is to completely exterminate the enemy population (or at least the male population). Sadly, this is a procedure that is only too well know and practiced in history. Wide-scale chemical warfare could accomplish that, and leave a clean slate to enter your own people ... but that would rather be science fiction than reality.

my 2 Deutschmarks...

Jan

To achieve the A bomb, the german had a big problem : many of their pre-war best physicians were jews... And guess where they were working a few years later ? On the manhattan project, of course...

To attack the US, the german would've needed far more manpower. But imagine that they hadn't broken the pact with the soviets, and why not even attacked together like they did against Poland ? I know, I'm widening up the what if scenario a tad bit here...

Well, that sounds interesting. Has anyone read "fatherland" by Robert Harris? It´s an amazing thriller about that subject: Germany won the war against russia and the result was - cold war with the US.
Ok, in the novel the US won thanks to ....(not especially by military power). But the most likely in reality would have been a kind of balance of power. Don´t forget, that Hitler never did focuse on the US in any strategical idea he had.

I haven't read the book, Ralf, but I've seen the movie with Rutger Hauer. It is an interesting "What if?"
Sounds like the book is a little different though. The Americans never went to war and the Germans are still fighting Russian guerillas.

Nic

I think the what if scenario of invading the US would have to be preceded by a succesful Operation Sea Lion Scenario and the continued nuetrality of the Soviet Union as well as a succesful Japanese Navy in the Pacific occupying the US Navy.

As has been mentioned by many of you the Royal Navy would cuase havoc with any major troop transports across the Atlantic and the US Navy in the Pacific would put a halt to any possibilty of attack from the west.

There are too many thing that would have had to have been changed for a succesful invasion of North America... I think the vastnesss of Canada and the US would cause many supply problems as well. Compare the size of North America to Western Europe and you will see what I mean...

MSW

As long as the British and Americans managed to hold onto a forward fleet operating base in Iceland, The North Atlantic route would remain effectively cut off. If the Germans and Japanese had gone ahead with their combined operation to cut through the Mediteranean and Persian Gulf, joining forces in the middle, both country's oil problems would have then been taken care of.
Once the inevitable blockships and ships sunk during the fighting had been cleared from the Suez Canal, Japanese troop transports could meet up with Italian and German ships in the Med, stage out of French Morocco to Senegal and then throw an expeditionary force across to the Bulge of Brazil.
Send a Para assault onto the Azores (would Portugual really have had much to say about the matter?) to provide air cover over the Central Atlantic and forward bases for U-boats, S-boats and E-boats and a refueling station for the notoriously short legged German Cruisers and Destroyers, another landing by Raiders on Ascension Island to capture the airfield there to cover the back door. It would have been possible. Take out the Atlantic side locks on the Panama Canal by commandos carried in aboard U-boats to prevent rapid fleet reinforcement from the Pacific, and keep constant recon flights out to keep an eye open for the US Atlantic Fleet approaching as a battle force or units operating seperately as scouts and raiders.
It wouldn't hurt to have a couple cruiser and destroyer divisions assigned from the Japanese Combined Fleet to help with a surface and anti-submarine screening force, and a few escort carriers would definately be useful for CAP and beachhead cover until airfields could be prepared or captured. Bring in, as part of the convoy, cargo ships loaded with crated disassembled fighters, Stukas, Luftwaffe maintenence and support equipment and personel, and then ferrey across bombers from the Azores.
From there, just skip up the coast to Central America, no sense in penetrating into the Amazon Basin---loose more men that way than from enemy contact.
Everything would depend upon getting that initial force across and being able to beat on any American or Allied ships that showed themselves. The Atlantic isn't the sunny blue South Pacific, and the carriers wouldn't have been the masters of the seas that they were there.