How Close Was the USA to losing WWII?

Question

how close was the united states of america to losing world war II? i heard that hitler had some weapons that were capable of mass destruction and if given a little more time it would have changed the tide of the war. Is this true? and were the americans creating any new weapons during that time period

Answer 1

~Had Hitler abided by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and not launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany likely would have won the war.

But for sabotage in the war plants, Germany's jet fighters, the Me 262 and the JG7, would have been in full production and on line years earlier, while the British Meteor was still on the drawing board. As it was, the Me 262 flew almost a year ahead ahead of the Meteor and Lockheed didn't have the P-80 (the first US jet fighter) ready until Korea. With large scale production and deployment of the Me 262 as late as spring, 1944, Germany would have owned the skies. With bases at Brussels and Lille, the Swallow could have not only stopped allied bombing of Germany but could have easily escorted bombers to London.

The V-1 and V-2 rockets were light years ahead of allied technology (bear in mind that both the US and Soviet space programs relied significantly on the German scientists and technology developed at Peenemunde).

Had Heisenberg, Esau and company been given appropriate facilities and had the heavy water experiments not been sabotaged, Hitler would have had atomic bombs at Stalingrad. It is almost certain he would have had them at Normandy and it would have been a simple matter to deliver one on the invasion fleet by means of a conventional Ju 88 or He 177, either by free fall drop or possibly on a reconfigured Henschel He 293 or He294, but would have more probably been launched on a Rheinbote missile. The Rheinbote proved effective at Antwerp and, with a little more work, would have had sufficient range and accuracy to target most of England.

The waste of manpower, funds and resources on the camps and the extermination of captured civilians (many of whom could have and should have been assimilated) delayed the rocket program and delayed production of the German SAM missile program. The Hs 117 Schmetterling was on the verge of deployment at the end of the war and the radar guided Wasserfall was at the mass production stage in 1945. The Taifun was in mass production when Berlin fell.

Any one of the foregoing could have turned the tide of the war. All of them in combination would have brought England to her knees. Without England, the US supply line to Europe would have been untenable and the US would have sued for peace. Hitler would have granted satisfactory terms.

The allies were working on their own weapons, obviously. Rumor has it the the US still claims the distinction of being the only nation on earth to have used nuclear weapons. There were others. With a little research, I'm sure you can find what they were.

Answer 2

At the beginning of WWII things were precarious. German U boats easily destroyed ships off our east coast and prowled almost unchallenged. In the Pacific the US fleet had suffered heavy blows at Pearl Harbor and only a few carriers and combat ships protected our west coast. The tide of war did turn, the US Navy won a major victory at the Battle of Midway which stunned the Japanese Navy and the German U boat threat was lessened with convoys and other tatics. Once the American war machine got started there was very little Japan or Germany could do to stop us. Hitler's scientists did experiment with many ideas for weapons of mass destruction, fortunately they didn't come to pass because of lack of resources and Hitlers erratic leadership. The V2 rocket is a prime example, a true ballastic missle which required a huge input of resources but only delivered a one ton warhead. Most allied bombers could deliver at least three times that on each mission at a much smaller cost.

As for new American weapons the Manhattan Project is the best example which lead to the atom bomb.

Answer 3

.Japan==no real danger of losing, but with out the A Bomb, that war could have dragged on for 3 more years, and there would have been another 1/2 million casualties.

Europe" Adolph Hitler lost the war. He was a maniac. but if he would have let the generals have their way, the outcome would be different.

Another blunder, invading Russia. Germany lost a lot of men and supplies, who might have been better used to bolster the defenses in France, The Normandy invasion might have been a disaster, especially had Germany been able to mount a better air coverage.

This is an interesting area, Nothing like being a monday morning general.

Re; Weapons, they had some good ideas,
the jet, could do a lot of damage to our bombers, but they had could only stay in the air a short time---fuel.
We had some great weapons, not in the standard terms. The Liberty ship, got supplies to where needed. Penicillin: infection was held in check for wounds. Enabled a better recovery in many cases,

Answer 4

The US was very close to losing WW2. Early on there was not sufficient escorts for convoys on the Atlantic coast and the German U-boats were sinking ships so fast that the US government was considering suing for peace with Germany. the only thing that prevented this was Hitler deciding to pull the subs back to protect the coast of Norway from a fictitious British invasion. In the Pacific the US Navy was out matched in a lot of ways in by the Japanese Navy. But many of the early battles were close enough to being a draw that the US didn't lose control of the little bit they had. They were consider Tactical defeats, but Strategic victories. They lost more ships, but they didn't retreat. The US first action against the German army was brutal defeat. And if the German high command had not interfered, then possibly the US forces would have been pushed clean out of North Africa.

Answer 5

Hitler had a flying prototype of a low wing jet in 1939, that he didn't see any practical use for. The Americans were still flying biplanes. He had many other phenomenal weapons that he did put into service, but fortunately for us he was completely WHACKED and didn't use them to his best advantage. Had the Abomb not been available, I think the Japanese would have eventually been beaten back, hey were definitely showing signs of being tired of the war.

Answer 6

if Germany or Japan had invaded in 1939-1941 we would have been screwed, but if Hitler had made a nuclear weapon how would he get it to any major cities in America or even England, with allies in complete control of the skies and v-2 missiles being very innacurate, it would have never been plausible. Hitler was making wmd but he was running out of resources and time to quickly to use them and even with the war extended another year I believe it still wouldn't be enough time. And yeah Americans made a new weapon during that time period, it was called a nuclear bomb or something like that.

Answer 7

not very, the industrial might overwhelmed the nazis. The heavy water experiments lacked the national will to succeed. The jets, king tigers, U=boats, V-weapons were a case of too little, too late. And besides, the second world war was decided by the outome of Operation Barbarrosa....

Answer 8

Yes, the nazis were making WMDs and surely would have used them. The Allies really wern't in much danger from them as most of the German industry was destroyed in the last year.

The Allies really wern't in much danger of a WMD attack from the nazis.

Now WMDs WERE used against the Allies by the Japanese.

The Japanese used biological warfare against the Chinese and used the jetstream form Japan to launch baloon bombs to light forest fires in the US. I've also heard they tried the same ballon technology to launch bio warfare on the US.

And they wanted us to apologise for the 2 atomic bombs we used on them.

Even if Hitler used an atomic weapon, His resorces would have been pretty much spent after that.


The US however had almost bottomless resorces to make atomic bombs and the B29 to deliver them.

Atomic Weapon research after the first two bombs improved and
I feel the the gross weapon yields would have dramaticly increased.

Answer 9

the germans invented the first jet aircraft, messerschmidt m232 ( not sure of teh nomenclature there sorry) but he ditn put enuf $ or trained pilots into teh program, they ahd teh V1 and V2 rockets but they failed miserably again becuz of finances, but they were the first rockets of thier types. they worked but they were nto accurate, they also had the rudiments of the atomic bomb like we did but thye wer5e going the wrong way at getting teh fusion to react, tehy beleived ti would take too much energy so they became befuddled with the project (thank goodness!) those are all i can think of right now, alos if hitler had launched operation barbarossa ( the attack of russia) in feb like his generals suggested, insteand of the summer he would probably have taken russia and then he could have focused all his efforts on england and wopuld ahve taken them as well.

Answer 10

if Hitler didn't invade Russia and only had a war on one front. he would have walked over England. then the us would have been all alone. (like now). throw in some long range bombers and its over. Germany didn't have the material to make a atom bomb but they had the scientist to do it. everyone was working on the bomb the US just got it first.