Why did Germany lose WW2?

Over the intervening decades it has been discovered that throughout the war the intelligence services of the Western powers (particularly the British) intercepted, broke, and read significant portions of the German military's top-secret message traffic. That cryptographic intelligence, disseminated to Allied commanders under the code name Ultra, played a significant role in the effort to defeat the Germans and achieve an Allied victory.

The Ultra information dissemination process lay outside normal intelligence channels and intelligence officers would not be aware of the existence of Ultra and would therefore not know the duties of the Ultra liaison officers. Those officers, in turn, would forward Ultra intelligence only to the commanders. The system seems to have worked, for the Germans never caught on to how extensively their ciphers had been compromised. Unfortunately, there were drawbacks. Intelligence is used only if it reaches those who understand its significance.

It is, however, difficult to assess Ultra's full impact on the conflict. At times, particularly early in the war, no matter how much Ultra informed the British of German intentions, the Wehrmacht's overwhelming superiority made successful use of the information virtually impossible. In war, so many factors other than good intelligence impinge on operations that it is difficult to single out any one battle or period in which Ultra alone was of decisive import. Yet there was least one instance in which decrypted German codes did play a decisive role.

The intercepts and decrypts in the summers of 1941 and 1942 gave the British government, and Churchill in particular, an accurate picture of Erwin Rommel's tank strength. That information indicated that the British army had considerable superiority in numbers in the North African theater against the Afrika Korps. These quantitative returns could not indicate, however, such factors as the technological superiority of German tanks and particularly the qualitative edge in doctrine and training that the Germans enjoyed. The intercepts, however, explain why Churchill kept consistent pressure on British Eighth Army commanders to attack the Afrika Korps.

We can learn much from the Germans' high level of competence in the tactical and operational fields. Equally, we have much to learn from their failures in other areas. Above all, the German defeat in World War II suggests that to underestimate the capabilities and intelligence of one's enemies is to suffer dangerous and damaging consequences to one's own forces.

This may have held true in the first years of the war where German victories were as much about technical and doctrinal superiority but later in the war particularly around Normandy and the allied break out having your codes read in real time must have been decisive as an example I would point to Operation Luttich.

The idea and thinking behind Luttich was sound and the attack had a great chance of achieving its goals, possibly tipping the balance in Normandy while force ratio was still close however ULTRA had decrypted the plans for Luttich 2 days before it began and the result is referred to as the Falaise Pocket.
 
In war, so many factors other than good intelligence impinge on operations.

Ultra along with a second confirmation on September 6, indicated that at the very time when the British-planned Operation Market-Garden was moving forward, some of Germany's best panzer divisions would be refitting in the town selected as the goal of the British First Airborne Division and the operation's final objective on the Rhine–Arnhem. Putting this message together with intelligence that soon emerged from the Dutch underground in Holland that SS panzer units were refitting in the neighborhood of Arnhem, Allied commanders should have recognized that Operation Market-Garden had little prospect of success. Unfortunately, they did not put these pieces together, and officers at the highest level at Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's headquarters who had access to Ultra also failed to draw the correct conclusions.

A second example comes from a period three months after Operation Market-Garden, in December 1944. An unfortunate result of the rush to publish after the existence of Ultra became known to the public in the early 1970s has been the appearance of a number of legends. One of the most persistent is the belief that Ultra gave no advance warning to Allied commanders in December 1944 that the Germans were about to launch a major thrust through the Ardennes. Admittedly, Hitler's intuition suggested to him that German security had been compromised and led him to undertake a series of unprecedented measures to veil the Ardennes attack. Still, there were overt indications even in the high-level codes about German operational intentions. Ultra, however, pointed to a number of other indicators. These suggested that the Wehrmacht was moving supplies of ammunition and fuel into the region behind the Ardennes. Since the Germans were desperately low on such materiel, the allocations of resources could only portend major operations to come in the Ardennes. The German high command had no reason to expect that the Allies were planning to launch a major offensive in this area, especially since they were so obviously trying to kick in the door to the Reich at so many other points. Unfortunately, the mood in the higher Allied headquarters and in intelligence circles was euphoric–the war was almost over, and the Germans could not possibly launch an offensive.
 
Hypothesis or truth ?

“The war was decided by engines and octane.” – Joseph Stalin
Perhaps Uncle Joe was right.

Millions of pages have been written about the tactics and strategies of World War II, but relatively little about how almost every major decision of that conflict was conditioned by the need for one commodity without which no modern army can operate – oil.

Today, with armed forces that are truly and fully mechanized, the nations of the world are more dependent than ever on secure lines of oil supplies to keep their armed forces operating. We would do well to remember that the best tanks and warships money and technology can create are nothing but inviting targets if they can’t move, and oil is still the only substance that can move them.

The primacy of oil was never better demonstrated that during the final battle for Berlin. During that bitter fight, literally thousands of German tanks, planes and guns sat idle in nearby warehouses for lack of fuel and lubricants needs to operate them.

Given all that, it is appropriate Hitler’s body was doused with gasoline and cremated after his suicide. It was the final, ironic paradox - perhaps!
 
1) About Midway :a Japanese victory at Midway would change nothing on the outcome :it still would be the Americans parading at Tokyo
2)More fundamental :I know that ,in the last decennia,a lot of authors are attributing the victories of WWII battles to intelligence /Ultra .
IMHO,this is projecting the 2012 situation on WWII.WWII was a war of attrition,and,lost /Won battles were not decisive;there also is the fact that the intelligence means (especialy Sigint) were almost mediaeval,compared to those of 2012.
Some well known exemples
1) Market Garden :the failure of MG was totally independant from intelligence failures :there were NO elite PzD waiting the airborne units .
2)the Battle of the Atlantic :while both sides were decoding each others codes(the Allies more than the Germans) ,it is impossible to calculate how much allied GRT was saved by Enigma/how much was lost by the BDienst of the KM
3)Fortitude(the allied deception plan for Overlord) :its importance was very minor,because the Germans had not enough mobile units to repel the allies in the critical period
4)Barbarossa :the failure of the FHO to give a true picture of the Soviet strength/mobilisation capacity :if FHO had not failed,the result would still be the same :the Soviets sending (in 1941) 1 million men to the front ,something the Germans only could dream about
5) The failure of the Soviet intellgence to warn (at time) for Barbarossa:if the Soviet leadership had known in june about the imminence of Barbarossa,the result would still be the same,because the Red Army was no good in june 1941:it was a chaos on the Western border
6)NA :if Rommel had advanced to the Nile,there still would be Torch resulting in the end of the AK .And,Overlord would still be happen in june 1944,because,essentially,the date of Overlord was depending
a) on the capacity of the US of having enough operational dvisions
b) on the possibility of transporting these divisions from the US to the UK .
 
The absolute bottom line is that Germany was not geared up to fight a prolonged, drawn out war.
Its military and its ecconomy, and industry was not designed to fight against an enemy that did not roll over belly up in the first weeks.
Blitz Krieg is why they lost the war.
 
lljadw

4)Barbarossa :the failure of the FHO to give a true picture of the Soviet strength/mobilisation capacity :if FHO had not failed,the result would still be the same :the Soviets sending (in 1941) 1 million men to the front ,something the Germans only could dream about
5) The failure of the Soviet intellgence to warn (at time) for Barbarossa:if the Soviet leadership had known in june about the imminence of Barbarossa,the result would still be the same,because the Red Army was no good in june 1941:it was a chaos on the Western border


Stalin was informed of the forth coming attack by the British Ambassador but chose to ignore it. He was worried that by making troop movements on the Borders would give Hitler an excuse to attack
 
"Market-Garden ranks among the most serious intelligence failures of the war"

Source; CIA

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...tions/csi-studies/studies/spring98/Dutch.html

But of course you know better than the CIA and a WWII veteran, Lieutenant Colonel and former intelligence officer.

I think you may have misread what he was saying.


The absolute bottom line is that Germany was not geared up to fight a prolonged, drawn out war.
Its military and its ecconomy, and industry was not designed to fight against an enemy that did not roll over belly up in the first weeks.
Blitz Krieg is why they lost the war.

I disagree Blitzkrieg was the only way they could have won the war, Germany lost the war because it lacked the logistical capability to fuel, feed and equip its forces in the field adequately.

“The war was decided by engines and octane.” – Joseph Stalin
Perhaps Uncle Joe was right.

Millions of pages have been written about the tactics and strategies of World War II, but relatively little about how almost every major decision of that conflict was conditioned by the need for one commodity without which no modern army can operate – oil.

Today, with armed forces that are truly and fully mechanized, the nations of the world are more dependent than ever on secure lines of oil supplies to keep their armed forces operating. We would do well to remember that the best tanks and warships money and technology can create are nothing but inviting targets if they can’t move, and oil is still the only substance that can move them.

The primacy of oil was never better demonstrated that during the final battle for Berlin. During that bitter fight, literally thousands of German tanks, planes and guns sat idle in nearby warehouses for lack of fuel and lubricants needs to operate them.

Given all that, it is appropriate Hitler’s body was doused with gasoline and cremated after his suicide. It was the final, ironic paradox - perhaps!

Oddly enough this was actually the point I was learning towards at the start of this thread, I had just got through reading a book on the 1941 Russian counter offensive outside Moscow and there were several comments in it by German logistics officers saying that supplying the front was almost an impossibility.

Ultimately they had so little capacity to move goods to the front that it came down to having to choose between sending reinforcements or replacements, winter clothing or food and ammunition, they could send some of everything or a lot of one thing but no matter what they did it was never going to be enough.

Essentially there was no shortage of supplies and winter uniforms at rear staging areas there was just no way to get it to the front in the quantities needed.

So in the end my belief is that the reason Germany lost WW2 was not because of numbers, quality or ability but because it did not have the ability to adequately maintain and supply its forces so there you go Stalin was not far off the mark.
 
I disagree Blitzkrieg was the only way they could have won the war, Germany lost the war because it lacked the logistical capability to fuel, feed and equip its forces in the field adequately.
.

The very essence of Blitzkrieg was the rapid, non stop advance taking advantage of weaknesses in the enemy's defences and punching forward to exploit these weaknesses. These advances naturaly out ran their logistic supply lines.
The Germans relied on capturring enemy fuel and supplies, as they tried to do in Russia, and came unstuck when the Russians blew up and destroyed everything of use to the invaders as they withdrew.
Despite these experiences, they tried the same ploy in the Ardennes, and came unstuck there as well.
So when I said they failed because the principle of Blitzkrieg was flawed, this included the failure of their logistical capability to fuel, feed and equip its forces in the field adequately.
 
The very essence of Blitzkrieg was the rapid, non stop advance taking advantage of weaknesses in the enemy's defences and punching forward to exploit these weaknesses. These advances naturaly out ran their logistic supply lines.
The Germans relied on capturring enemy fuel and supplies, as they tried to do in Russia, and came unstuck when the Russians blew up and destroyed everything of use to the invaders as they withdrew.
Despite these experiences, they tried the same ploy in the Ardennes, and came unstuck there as well.
So when I said they failed because the principle of Blitzkrieg was flawed, this included the failure of their logistical capability to fuel, feed and equip its forces in the field adequately.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, I am not disagreeing with your definition of Blitzkrieg I just don't agree that its implementation was as clear cut as you make it out to be.
 
1) About Midway :a Japanese victory at Midway would change nothing on the outcome :it still would be the Americans parading at Tokyo.

And probably resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen

2)More fundamental :I know that ,in the last decennia,a lot of authors are attributing the victories of WWII battles to intelligence /Ultra .
IMHO,this is projecting the 2012 situation on WWII. WWII was a war of attrition,and,lost /Won battles were not decisive;there also is the fact that the intelligence means (especialy Sigint) were almost mediaeval,compared to those of 2012.

One cannot compare intelligence gathering of 1944 to 2010, that ridiculous.

Some well known exemples
1) Market Garden :the failure of MG was totally independant from intelligence failures :there were NO elite PzD waiting the airborne units .

Senior Officers were warned that there were SS Panzer units i8n the area, the warning was ignored.


2)the Battle of the Atlantic :while both sides were decoding each others codes(the Allies more than the Germans) ,it is impossible to calculate how much allied GRT was saved by Enigma/how much was lost by the BDienst of the KM

Thousands of tons of vital war material was saved because of Bletchley Park reading U Boat commanders orders and routing convoys away from U Boat Wolf Packs.


3)Fortitude(the allied deception plan for Overlord) :its importance was very minor,because the Germans had not enough mobile units to repel the allies in the critical period

Absolute nonsense!

Operation Fortitude was the codename for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named Bodyguard) during the build up to the 1944 Normandy Landings. Fortitude was divided into two sections, North and South, with the aim of misleading the German high command as to the location of the imminent invasion.

Both Fortitude plans involved the creation of fake field armies (based in Edinburgh and the south of England) which threatened Norway (Fortitude North) and Pas de Calais (Fortitude South). The operation was intended to divert Axis attention away from Normandy and, after the invasion on June 6, 1944, to delay reinforcement by convincing the Germans that the landings were purely a diversionary attack.

The operation was one of the most successful military deceptions employed during the war and, arguably, the most important.

Some of the key reasons why this operation was so successful:
The long term view taken by British Intelligence to cultivate these agents as channels of disinformation to the enemy.

The use of Ultra decrypts to read Enigma-coded messages between Abwehr and the German High Command, which quickly told them the effectiveness of the deception tactics. This is one of the early uses of a closed-loop deception system.

R V Jones, the Assistant Director Intelligence (Science) at the British Air Ministry insisted for reasons of tactical deception that for every radar station attacked within the real invasion area, two were to be attacked outside it.
The extensive nature of the German Intelligence machinery, and the rivalry amongst the various elements.


4)Barbarossa :the failure of the FHO to give a true picture of the Soviet strength/mobilisation capacity :if FHO had not failed,the result would still be the same :the Soviets sending (in 1941) 1 million men to the front ,something the Germans only could dream about
5) The failure of the Soviet intellgence to warn (at time) for Barbarossa:if the Soviet leadership had known in june about the imminence of Barbarossa,the result would still be the same,because the Red Army was no good in june 1941:it was a chaos on the Western border

Stalin was warned about the imminent German invasion by the British Ambassador in Moscow, but was ignored. Stalin suspected the warming was a British trick to get Russia involved in the war. It needs to be remembered, Stalin congratulated Hitler when Germans troops arrived in Dunkirk, he also supplied Germany with vital raw material.

6)NA :if Rommel had advanced to the Nile,there still would be Torch resulting in the end of the AK .And,Overlord would still be happen in june 1944,because,essentially,the date of Overlord was depending
a) on the capacity of the US of having enough operational dvisions
b) on the possibility of transporting these divisions from the US to the UK .

IF Rommel had got to the Nile, he would also have access to vital oil fields, vital to the Allies.
 
We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, I am not disagreeing with your definition of Blitzkrieg I just don't agree that its implementation was as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Fair enough!
The nature of such debates is that people can agree to disagree with no hard feelings being involved.
I have a lot of respect for your views and opinions, they don't always match mine, but thats life!:peace:
 
lljadw

4)Barbarossa :the failure of the FHO to give a true picture of the Soviet strength/mobilisation capacity :if FHO had not failed,the result would still be the same :the Soviets sending (in 1941) 1 million men to the front ,something the Germans only could dream about
5) The failure of the Soviet intellgence to warn (at time) for Barbarossa:if the Soviet leadership had known in june about the imminence of Barbarossa,the result would still be the same,because the Red Army was no good in june 1941:it was a chaos on the Western border


Stalin was informed of the forth coming attack by the British Ambassador but chose to ignore it. He was worried that by making troop movements on the Borders would give Hitler an excuse to attack
The informations Stalin received were not reliable :Barbarossa only could start when the mobile German divisions were massed on the border,well,these mobile divisions only were moving to the east AFTER 14 june,and ,than, it was to late for the Soviets to do something .
 
And probably resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen



One cannot compare intelligence gathering of 1944 to 2010, that ridiculous.



Senior Officers were warned that there were SS Panzer units i8n the area, the warning was ignored.




Thousands of tons of vital war material was saved because of Bletchley Park reading U Boat commanders orders and routing convoys away from U Boat Wolf Packs.




Absolute nonsense!

Operation Fortitude was the codename for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named Bodyguard) during the build up to the 1944 Normandy Landings. Fortitude was divided into two sections, North and South, with the aim of misleading the German high command as to the location of the imminent invasion.

Both Fortitude plans involved the creation of fake field armies (based in Edinburgh and the south of England) which threatened Norway (Fortitude North) and Pas de Calais (Fortitude South). The operation was intended to divert Axis attention away from Normandy and, after the invasion on June 6, 1944, to delay reinforcement by convincing the Germans that the landings were purely a diversionary attack.

The operation was one of the most successful military deceptions employed during the war and, arguably, the most important.

Some of the key reasons why this operation was so successful:
The long term view taken by British Intelligence to cultivate these agents as channels of disinformation to the enemy.

The use of Ultra decrypts to read Enigma-coded messages between Abwehr and the German High Command, which quickly told them the effectiveness of the deception tactics. This is one of the early uses of a closed-loop deception system.

R V Jones, the Assistant Director Intelligence (Science) at the British Air Ministry insisted for reasons of tactical deception that for every radar station attacked within the real invasion area, two were to be attacked outside it.
The extensive nature of the German Intelligence machinery, and the rivalry amongst the various elements.




Stalin was warned about the imminent German invasion by the British Ambassador in Moscow, but was ignored. Stalin suspected the warming was a British trick to get Russia involved in the war. It needs to be remembered, Stalin congratulated Hitler when Germans troops arrived in Dunkirk, he also supplied Germany with vital raw material.



IF Rommel had got to the Nile, he would also have access to vital oil fields, vital to the Allies.
1) the ME oil fields were not vital,they were insignifiant (4 % of the world production)
2)As I already said ,the British informations were not reliable,and,whatever :there was NOTHING Stalin could do:his army was no good.With or without the British intelligence,the Soviet army on the western border was doomed .
3)About Fortitude :the Germans did not believe that Overlord was a diversionary attack on 7 june,the SSPzD Das Reich was moving from Toulouse to Normandy,on 10 june 2 SSPzD in the East were ordered to go to France.And,with or without Fortitude,Overlord would succeed
4)About MG :it is the same :if the Allies had believed there were some (very small ) Pz units in the region,operation MG still would fail
5) About the Battle of the Atlantic :tthere is NO reliable figure on how much GRT was saved by Enigma ,and,without Enigma,the Allies still would win the Battle of the Atlantic,because(a.o.) they had more and superior ASW.
 
About MG :the so called elite SS PzD had the following strengt
9 SS PzD :3500 men and 5 (!!) Pz and AG
10 SS PzD :6000 men and 20 Pz and AG .
These men did not defeat MG,but,the fact that the Germans were able to gather from every where reinforcements (Kampfgruppe) .
On the Allied side,the failure of MG was not caused because one was not listening to (IMHO unreliable informations from the Dutch resistance) ,but by the facts that mistakes had been made in the planning of Market (the ground operation) and Garden (the airborne operation) .
But,IMHO,the failure was caused by the Germans,and all the post war explanations were only the usual searchings for scape-goats :it was Monty,it was Ike,it was (of course) a traitor,if they had listened to the spy boys,etc
 
1) the ME oil fields were not vital,they were insignifiant (4 % of the world production)

We're not talking about world production, the Middle East oilfields certainly weren't insignificant to Germany.


2)As I already said ,the British informations were not reliable,and,whatever :there was NOTHING Stalin could do:his army was no good.With or without the British intelligence,the Soviet army on the western border was doomed .

Just because you said British information wasn't reliable doesn't mean it wasn't. As it was, British information WAS reliable because the warning Stalin got from the British Ambassador was in fact spot on.

In 1941, Stalin received a stream of information from military intelligence and spies, that Germany is going to invade Russia, as Hitler promised since the 1920s. After discussions, Stalin decided that the information was inconclusive and perhaps deliberate disinformation, and decided that there will be no invasion. As the invasion came nearer, the stream of information indicating invasion intensified, but then Stalin forbid his advisors from further disturbing him with it. Anyone who still suggested that there might be a German invasion, risked execution. Fear was such that when the invasion started, no one dared to awake Stalin and tell him about it, until Zhukov, the deputy supreme commander, told Stalin's bodyguards that he takes responsibility for awakening the dictator and telling him the bad news.


3)About Fortitude :the Germans did not believe that Overlord was a diversionary attack on 7 june,the SSPzD Das Reich was moving from Toulouse to Normandy, on 10 june 2 SSPzD in the East were ordered to go to France. And,with or without Fortitude,Overlord would succeed

How strange that Hitler was convinced that the "real" invasion would be Calais.

When the Allies actually landed at Normandy, Hitler suspected it was a deception and that their real target was northeast of there, in the Pas-de-Calais region. The upshot for the Allies was that 19 nearby German divisions, including six powerful panzer divisions, spent D-Day idle. Their early commitment to Normandy would have made the Allied beaches a living hell, and might even have thrown the invasion back into the sea. Over the succeeding weeks, Hitler became ever more convinced that the Normandy invasion was a ruse, and it was not until the end of July that he finally approved the movement of a single division from Fifteenth Army, which was guarding the coast near Pas-de-Calais. Once again, it was too late. By the time reinforcing divisions arrived, the German line was hanging by a thread.

In a further blunder on Hitler's part, he had ordered the Normandy front held at all cost. This ensured that when his forces inevitably did give way, the surviving skeleton formations would be incapable of conducting mobile operations or making a stand much short of the defensive fortifications along Germany's western prewar borders.

4)About MG :it is the same :if the Allies had believed there were some (very small ) Pz units in the region,operation MG still would fail

Senior British officers were not only warned by Enigma that there were SS Panzer units in the area, but also warned by the Dutch resistance WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!

5) About the Battle of the Atlantic :tthere is NO reliable figure on how much GRT was saved by Enigma ,and,without Enigma,the Allies still would win the Battle of the Atlantic,because(a.o.) they had more and superior ASW.

Ultra intelligence made a very significant contribution in the Battle of the Atlantic. Winston Churchill wrote "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril." The decryption of Enigma signals to the U-boats was much more difficult than those of the Luftwaffe. It was not until June 1941 that Bletchley Park was able to read a significant amount of this traffic currently. Transatlantic convoys were then diverted away from the U-boat "wolfpacks", and U-boat supply vessels sunk. On 1 February 1942, Enigma U-boat traffic became unreadable because of the introduction of a different 4-rotor Enigma machine. This situation persisted until December 1942, although other German naval Enigma messages were still being deciphered, such as those of the U-boat training command at Kiel. From December 1942 to the end of the war, Ultra allowed Allied convoys to evade U-boat patrol lines, and guided Allied anti-submarine forces to the location of U-boats at sea.

By that juncture, Allies had all the elements they needed to wage the Battle of the Atlantic: radar, sonar, improved depth charges, and long-range aircraft. But the decrypts maximized their usefulness and, moreover, transformed the nature of the battle. The Allies not only diverted convoys from wolf packs, but zeroed in on both combat U-boats and the oversized supply U-boats that enabled the combat boats to greatly extend their time at sea. The hunters became the hunted.

By May 1943, U-boat losses were so heavy that Admiral Karl Dönitz withdrew them from the North Atlantic. Although the battle continued at a reduced tempo, the Allies had effectively won. According to military historians Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, "Ultra's contribution to the antisubmarine battle now became the most significant intelligence victory of the war, and the only episode in which intelligence alone had a decisive impact on military operations."

What would have happened if the Allies had never cracked the Triton code? It must be acknowledged that the Kriegsmarine could never have achieved its goal of knocking Britain out of the war. British planners estimated that Britain needed to import between 9.8 and 11.5 million tons of supplies per year. The U-boats never came close to sinking that amount. But the effect would nonetheless have been catastrophic. Unable to divert convoys around known German wolf packs, the Allies would have suffered much heavier losses. They would have had much greater difficulty in finding and destroying German U-boats.

Historian David Kahn is probably on target when he concludes that a failure to crack the code would have delayed the Allied ground offensives by several months—and in the case of the Normandy invasion, pushed it back into 1945. Based on shipping figures, Kahn estimates that the Mediterranean offensives would have been delayed by three months, and that to get sufficient tonnage it would have been necessary to transfer vessels from the Pacific, thereby delaying operations in that theater as well. The increased number of U-boats (because of reduced losses) would also have made Lend-Lease supply to the Soviet Union far more problematic. Barring the atomic bomb, the war might have been extended by as much as two years, until 1947.

You are again talking complete and utter nonsense sunbeam.
 
Let's say that Kahn (whom you are parotting) is talking nonsens .
The UBoats failed in 1940,before Enigma,they failed in 1941,they failed in 1942.They failed in 1943.
 
Let's say that Kahn (whom you are parotting) is talking nonsens .
The UBoats failed in 1940,before Enigma,they failed in 1941,they failed in 1942.They failed in 1943.

1939
Sep (52) Oct (37) Nov (30) Dec (47)
166 ships hit in 1939.

1940
Jan (58) Feb (54) Mar (26) Apr (11) May (17) Jun (67)
Jul (43) Aug (66) Sep (64) Oct (72) Nov (36) Dec (50)
564 ships hit in 1940.

1941
Jan (15) Feb (47) Mar (50) Apr (48) May (66) Jun (65)
Jul (21) Aug (32) Sep (60) Oct (51) Nov (17) Dec (28)
500 ships hit in 1941.

1942
Jan (66) Feb (82) Mar (99) Apr (89) May (146) Jun (145)
Jul (109) Aug (131) Sep (116) Oct (120) Nov (142) Dec (76)
1321 ships hit in 1942.

1943
Jan (49) Feb (88) Mar (131) Apr (57) May (49) Jun (27)
Jul (59) Aug (30) Sep (25) Oct (31) Nov (16) Dec (17)
579 ships hit in 1943.

1944
Jan (20) Feb (28) Mar (22) Apr (12) May (17) Jun (22)
Jul (27) Aug (37) Sep (15) Oct (10) Nov (11) Dec (25)
246 ships hit in 1944.

1945
Jan (24) Feb (24) Mar (21) Apr (23) May (6)
98 ships hit in 1945.

I dread to think the losses the Allies would have had if it wasn't for Ultra.

Again you are talking absolute bollocks.
 
About the myth of the 6 powerfull German PzD in France on DDay:
1SSPzD on 6 june :understrenght,undertrained,lacking in equipment :report on 15 may :the division is not combat ready .
Besides on 6 june,the LSSAH wat at Beverlo (near Antwerp),and it was out of the question it could be engaged on 6 june in Normandy (it took a month for the division to be present in Normandy)
2 SSPzd on 20 may,it claimed to be operational wth regard to training,but there was a severe shortage in transport;whatever,being in the South West of France,the division could not be engaged in Normandy at 6 june
12 SSPzD:considered operational for attack,but,missed its Panzerjägers,and the abilities of its leaders were doubtfull:there was an enormous shortage of officers,and,worse,of NCO
116 PzD :not operational(Afaics,it only was committed in august)
21 PzD :its tanks (French conversions) were second rate and outdated
PzLehr:a unit which never fulfilled the hopes put in it,it lacked its armoured artillery in the beginning .On 16 june,its CO(Bayerlein) wrote that lacking any more traiing possibilities,the level gained could not be bettered.
2 PzD :the only which was in good shape.
Source :Feldgrau:viewtopic.php?=45&t= 7858
The 3 SSPzD had a total of 321 tanks,1 and 2 SS had a total of 118 AG .
 
1939
Sep (52) Oct (37) Nov (30) Dec (47)
166 ships hit in 1939.

1940
Jan (58) Feb (54) Mar (26) Apr (11) May (17) Jun (67)
Jul (43) Aug (66) Sep (64) Oct (72) Nov (36) Dec (50)
564 ships hit in 1940.

1941
Jan (15) Feb (47) Mar (50) Apr (48) May (66) Jun (65)
Jul (21) Aug (32) Sep (60) Oct (51) Nov (17) Dec (28)
500 ships hit in 1941.

1942
Jan (66) Feb (82) Mar (99) Apr (89) May (146) Jun (145)
Jul (109) Aug (131) Sep (116) Oct (120) Nov (142) Dec (76)
1321 ships hit in 1942.

1943
Jan (49) Feb (88) Mar (131) Apr (57) May (49) Jun (27)
Jul (59) Aug (30) Sep (25) Oct (31) Nov (16) Dec (17)
579 ships hit in 1943.

1944
Jan (20) Feb (28) Mar (22) Apr (12) May (17) Jun (22)
Jul (27) Aug (37) Sep (15) Oct (10) Nov (11) Dec (25)
246 ships hit in 1944.

1945
Jan (24) Feb (24) Mar (21) Apr (23) May (6)
98 ships hit in 1945.

I dread to think the losses the Allies would have had if it wasn't for Ultra.

Again you are talking absolute bollocks.
I see that again,you are giving irrelevant figures :the number of ships lost in 1940 (or in another year) are irrelevant :the important is
a) how many GRT did Britain have on 1 january 1940,and how much on 1 january 1941 (Britain had more in 1 january 1941),etc,
b) what were the needs of Britain ? =how much GRT did she need
c) was there any moment during the war she was in trouble because of the UBoats? (the answer is :no)
d) the build up of the US Army in Britain did not start after may 1943(when the UBoats definitivelywere defeated),but only 6 months later,because,in may 1943,the US Army was not ready
e)as the UBoats never had the possibility to force Britain to give up,and,as there is no mea to calculate how many GRT was saved by Enigma( if a convoy was not delayed,that does not mean that it would be sunk),the claim by the BP boys about the decisive importance of Enigma,is only propaganda .
Every one was claiming that they won the war :Enigma,the SOE,BC,FC;the Navy,the resistance,and,it only is propaganda .
 
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