Man in the High Castle-style US Invasion repelled. What happens next?

[Blue cat]

Even if Germany managed to wrangle the USSR in 1941 and force submission of the British around that time they'd need a decade to build a Navy to speak of and would *absolutely* need the element of surprise.

Based on prior German planning the invasion points might be Sandy Hook NJ and a (Salisbury?) beach on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border with potentially another landing somewhere in the southern US - maybe Wilmington NC or Virginia Beach. Infrastructure farther South at that time will be a problem as will the lack of major highways outside of the Northeast for a mechanized army. Germany had eyed the Hoover Dam before the war and Canaris might use his ties to the AbWehr to try to tip off the Americans via disloyal spies. Assuming he is removed or neutralized, expect massive levels of sabotage. Also expect that by 1947 the US armed forces have not sat entirely idle nor has Canada (which might carry on the fight), they will be taking cues from the Allies elsewhere and likely getting examples of tech from underground movements in Europe. Germany will have late 1st gen/early 2nd gen jets in the skies along with heavy naval firepower but as previously mentioned they need a base of operations nearby (Newfoundland, Cuba, etc.) which will also likely tip off and concern American authorities. Again, unless they bring in lots of nukes and hit several high-level targets at once for shock-and-awe for immediate surrender, I give them four to six months or the invasion fails within eighteen months. At its highwater I would expect most of the coastal northeast to be overrun but no farther west than Pittsburgh nor further south than Richmond if not Baltimore or Philadelphia.

The thing is I am not convinced that early fission nuclear weapons are really an instant "I win button" for either side although I suppose it depends on how many are available and what the delivery systems were.

 

[Blue cat]

Which this thread sort of addresses by asking "what if the Axis actually tried to invade America?" The answer being they failed massively.

Personally I am wondering how military technology would develop here. Since you'd probably have a USA preparing to defend its shores from further attack. While both Germany and Japan would be fighting massive insurgencies.

I'm thinking the US focuses on getting workable Fusion / Thermonuclear weapons and viable delivery systems into service in large numbers in order to devise what they believe will in essence will be an "I win button" to have the ability to simply remove the Axis powers as a threat if needed. Presumably in the mean time after having defeated the first large scale attack there would be some confidence in their ability to do so again if needed prior to large numbers of thermo nuclear weapons and delivery systems being available ?

I'm less sure about what the Axis might focus on in such a hypothetical fictional scenario.

 

[RanulfC]

"It was the invasion we could never have planned for with weapons we could never stop..... German Polka bands and Japanese Anime... the fight was over in days"

Too much?

Randy

 

[Alex1guy]

My recollection is that the film / series (on Amazon ?) featured a nuclear attack on Washington DC (presumably with a fission weapon ?) so I sort of figured fission weapons would have come into play in the scenario outlined by the OP ?

I feel like the USA are on borrowed time until the Nazis can carpet nuke the country. They were already planning to do so in the show to Japan I feel like they'd just start blasting cities until the US caves. The nazis in this universe are somehow even bigger assholes in this universe than otl.

 

[Captain Homicide]

The nazis in this universe are somehow even bigger assholes in this universe than otl.

In the Guns of the Reich TL they launch a wide scale nuclear attack against the US and force President Dewey to sue for peace.

 

[Alex1guy]

In the Guns of the Reich TL they launch a wide scale nuclear attack against the US and force President Dewey to sue for peace.

I think in Man in the High Castle they do that, Washington gets nuked in '45 and the US is forced to capitulate.

I think they are subsequently invaded despite surrendering(?). At this point if the Americans manage to drive Japan and the Reich's conventional forces away , the Reich has a nuclear monopoly and they're just gonna start picking off cities on the East Coast until American relents. I'd imagine they'd absolutely trash the place as they retreat.
That's actually a pretty interesting start point. The Nazis are Japanese are in the sea, but dozens of major cities (assuming the Nazis use nuclear rockets because in these scenarios the Nazis always use rockets) have been flattened, millions presumed dead with the US withdrawing its industry into the heartland.

 

[Monk78]

"It was the invasion we could never have planned for with weapons we could never stop..... German Polka bands and Japanese Anime... the fight was over in days"

Too much?

Randy

I say kraftworks succeeded in invading Britain more successfully than admiral raeder could have ever hoped

 

[Monk78]

series like this man in high castle are so ludicrously unrealistic that it does a lot of disservice to those of us who try to take alternate history seriously

The chances of this happening is far less likely than ancient aliens astronaut theory being true

 

[Alex1guy]

series like this man in high castle are so ludicrously unrealistic that it does a lot of disservice to those of us who try to take alternate history seriously

The chances of this happening is far less likely than ancient aliens astronaut theory being true

That being said, we probably shouldn't take our history fan fics that seriously.

 

[Monk78]

That being said, we probably shouldn't take our history fan fics that seriously.

I mean there is a spectrum , I thought Germans even landing a police battalion on British soil in 1940 was next to impossible but here we are talking about axis having borderline magical ability to transport men and material that would even put the “Red Dawn” communists to shame.

 

[Marklin]

I think in Man in the High Castle they do that, Washington gets nuked in '45 and the US is forced to capitulate.

I think they are subsequently invaded despite surrendering(?). At this point if the Americans manage to drive Japan and the Reich's conventional forces away , the Reich has a nuclear monopoly and they're just gonna start picking off cities on the East Coast until American relents. I'd imagine they'd absolutely trash the place as they retreat.
That's actually a pretty interesting start point. The Nazis are Japanese are in the sea, but dozens of major cities (assuming the Nazis use nuclear rockets because in these scenarios the Nazis always use rockets) have been flattened, millions presumed dead with the US withdrawing its industry into the heartland.

If I recall correctly based on the Amazon trivia pages, What we know about the invasion is that the Nazis invaded New England and that the Nazis nuked Washington (don't know which came first), which led to the surrender of the US. However, the majority of the military and various other armed citizens continued to fight, causing the war to go on for another two years and ending in 1947. I think a possible POD here could be that the US government refuses to surrender after the nuking of Washington, leading to more resistance.

 

[TheEmperorYT]

series like this man in high castle are so ludicrously unrealistic that it does a lot of disservice to those of us who try to take alternate history seriously

To be fair, at the time it was written The Man in the High Castle would have been considered "realistic". Philip K. Dick did seven years of research for the novel... the problem is that the book was written in 1962. It got ran over by the unending march of scientific advancements and changing historical consensus. I'm willing to bet that in half a century, a lot of alternate history fiction created in the 2010s that would be considered "realistic" will have their "plausibility" re-examined and "downgraded".

 

[Marklin]

To be fair, at the time it was written The Man in the High Castle would have been considered "realistic". Philip K. Dick did seven years of research for the novel... the problem is that the book was written in 1962. It got ran over by the unending march of scientific advancements and changing historical consensus. I'm willing to bet that in half a century, a lot of alternate history fiction created in the 2010s that would be considered "realistic" will have their "plausibility" re-examined and "downgraded".

Well there's still a lot of that ASB super science though. Of course, one could chalk that up to a variety of factors (misconceptions of how efficient the Reich actually was back in the day, lack of knowledge about the difficulties of space travel, or even Dick deliberately satirising the love affair people in that era had with Science by showing what would happen if the people in that affair were Nazis), but at the end of the day, that world was an illusion in the book.

 

[Alex1guy]

I mean there is a spectrum , I thought Germans even landing a police battalion on British soil in 1940 was next to impossible but here we are talking about axis having borderline magical ability to transport men and material that would even put the “Red Dawn” communists to shame.

Oh yeah do t get me wrong, I just like when something from our favorite genre gets a big budget, even if the premise is ridiculous. Still something very chilling about watching American Nazi youth burning books and beating people in the street for not showing the correct enthusiasm for the statue of liberty being blown up by the Luftwaffe.

 

[CalBear]

Everyone talks about how the invasion as such is impossible. Honestly I see the investment being stopped by the Appalachians and Sierra Nevada respectively. The USA would manage to expel the Japs and Nazs from America but I suppose that the USA would opt for an initial approach of supporting the rebellions either in the United Kingdom (Reichskommisariat Britannia) France, perhaps Spain and Portugal, Norway and North Africa such as Morocco.

I see the USA imposing strong propaganda and restricting the descendants of Germans as they did with the Japs for fear of a fifth column.

At the same time, I see how the USA will view with fury any possible Latin American government that is too pro-German, going so far as to foment revolutions or military interventions. All while preparations are being made to invade Europe and Japan.

The term "Japs" is seen by many people of Japanese descent as a slur. While it is, based on feedback here, something that is not always understood by some non-Americans, it is very much seen as quite offensive by a number of members here.



Now that you have been informed, please refrain from using the term outside of dialogue in a historic context.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

If I recall correctly based on the Amazon trivia pages, What we know about the invasion is that the Nazis invaded New England and that the Nazis nuked Washington (don't know which came first), which led to the surrender of the US. However, the majority of the military and various other armed citizens continued to fight, causing the war to go on for another two years and ending in 1947. I think a possible POD here could be that the US government refuses to surrender after the nuking of Washington, leading to more resistance.

Which strikes you as being more feasible - the US government capitulating after Washington is nuked, or fighting on? Personally I'm more inclined to go with the latter. The only way America capitulates is if their industrial bases are disabled or destroyed.

 

[thaddeus]

the Germans were aware (enough) of the cryolite mine on Greenland and processing plant near Pittsburgh to list them as hypothetical targets, in some victory (in Europe) scenario the bauxite mine(s) in Dutch Surinam might become a target also?

my view the oil infrastructure in the Caribbean and Texas coastline, along with the tankers would be the most vulnerable part of the US.

Sure, my objection didn't have anything to do with why the Germans might want to capture these territories. I was dealing primarily with the possibility that they actually could capture them.

yeah, we are way out there in the realm of what would have been possible under this scenario. given that the Axis has "won" in Europe, my assumption is that they have developed a more effective navy or co-opted some of the other navies?

my understanding the Germans thought they could capture some of the various islands historically but they couldn't resupply and hold them (calling the schemes "island madness") but here they have forced peace or ceasefire on the Allied side so resupply would be possible.

 

[gladiator8085]

The only plausible solution I can think of is for the Germans and/or Japanese to move men and materiel to a sympathetic South American nation, set up air and naval bases there, and launch their invasion of North America from said bases.

One thing is for sure. It will not go well for that South American nation. There won't be any halfway measures like the Bay of Pigs.

 

[gladiator8085]

yeah, we are way out there in the realm of what would have been possible under this scenario. given that the Axis has "won" in Europe, my assumption is that they have developed a more effective navy or co-opted some of the other navies?

my understanding the Germans thought they could capture some of the various islands historically but they couldn't resupply and hold them (calling the schemes "island madness") but here they have forced peace or ceasefire on the Allied side so resupply would be possible.

That premise reminds me of 1945 by Gingrich and Fortschen. In that ATL Germany never declared war on the USA in 1941 so we concentrated on the Japanese. The Germans took the French colonies in the Caribbean and South America and used them to launch an attack on the US to take out the Manhattan project facilities.

 

[Cipher Purinina]

I think this might belong in Alien Space Bats, but I have a feeling that it would be up to @CalBear