The United States should be nearly impossible to conquer

[physics1915]

Sealion should be virtually impossible, as it was historically. Any notion of invading the United States as either Germany or Japan is fanciful at best. About the only possibility for an axis defeat of the United States should be if the United States neglects nuclear research and the axis develop the bomb and increase production enough to use it effectively; skillful use of the bomb may create enough logistical difficulties for the United States to make invasion possible. Even then, the axis fleets should have to dwarf what the allies put together for the Normandy invasion, a multi-year buildup of infrastructure and supplies in the Western Hemisphere should be a prerequesite, and a minimum of 200 fully supplied and supported divisions should be required along with naval and air supremacy.

 

[Kovax]

...a successful invasion isn't going to be all that worried by a load of drunken hicks with guns .

One thing that made the US such a formidable contender, aside from its already overwhelming manufacturing base, was that those "hicks with guns" needed a lot less training to be combat-ready, and were more often than not already as competent with a rifle as many European regular infantrymen. Of course, it still took time and effort to provide them with discipline and tactical training, etc.

Along the same lines, driving a tractor is at least a large step toward being able to drive a tank, whereas many Soviet conscripts would be lucky to have ever seen a tractor or motor vehicle other than a train before being drafted. The typical American farmer was already somewhat familiar with various types of heavy equipment.

 

[Katarian]

One thing that made the US such a formidable contender, aside from its already overwhelming manufacturing base, was that those "hicks with guns" needed a lot less training to be combat-ready, and were more often than not already as competent with a rifle as many European regular infantrymen. Of course, it still took time and effort to provide them with discipline and tactical training, etc.

Along the same lines, driving a tractor is at least a large step toward being able to drive a tank, whereas many Soviet conscripts would be lucky to have ever seen a tractor or motor vehicle other than a train before being drafted. The typical American farmer was already somewhat familiar with various types of heavy equipment.

I'm assuming almost anyone who could actually be a half decent soldier would have joined up with the proper units that have defeated during the invasion. If someone has actually managed to defeat the vast and well equipped conventional forces the US could assemble in case of an invasion how worried would they be by what was left of the civilian population?

 

[Lazy_Boy]

A conventional military invasion is pretty much out of the question. But if axis navies could hold off the US power projection early and a nuke lands on D.C. that wipes out the entire government... Unconditional surrender and a puppet government is not out of the realms of possibility.

 

[Rudawitz]

One thing that made the US such a formidable contender, aside from its already overwhelming manufacturing base, was that those "hicks with guns" needed a lot less training to be combat-ready, and were more often than not already as competent with a rifle as many European regular infantrymen. Of course, it still took time and effort to provide them with discipline and tactical training, etc.

Along the same lines, driving a tractor is at least a large step toward being able to drive a tank, whereas many Soviet conscripts would be lucky to have ever seen a tractor or motor vehicle other than a train before being drafted. The typical American farmer was already somewhat familiar with various types of heavy equipment.

Don't forget that while the SU had about 5,5 million men in active service when they were attacked, they also had about 6,5 million men who had recieved basic military training. Without those reserves Barbarossa would have been even more catastrophic, if not fatal. I don't think that millions of armed peasants would have been able to cut them the same slack.

 

[Denkt]

A conventional military invasion is pretty much out of the question. But if axis navies could hold off the US power projection early and a nuke lands on D.C. that wipes out the entire government... Unconditional surrender and a puppet government is not out of the realms of possibility.

In HOI4 it will be possible to invade

 

[vota dc]

China - Tibet is just a little smaller than USA - Alaska. Canada and Brazil are bigger than that. In multiplayer no player using URSS will conquer USA from another player unless the other player is a retard. In single player and real life Italy couldn't even conquer Greece so.....

 

[Evan05]

In HOI4 it will be possible to invade

It will be possible to invade.

The question is how easy, or more so, how close to impossible will it be to successfully conquer the US.

 

[phantomrider]

If real life logistics of invasion from bases 3 to 5,000 miles away of the 1930-40s are correctly simulated in HOI4 then invasion of North America by European and/or Asian powers should be or are impossible. If the political simulations of a 1936 start are even somewhat realistic (potential aggressive conquerors limited to Japan, Italy, Germany and Soviet Union) none of those countries had the industrial capacity to build a navy and merchant marine to even get close to either mounting an invasion of North America and keeping it"supplied" once anyone got on shore even with minimal resistance. Only Japan had the naval knowledge, doctrine and force to be a threat to the USN but it didn't have the industrial resources to come close to a mobilized USA. It is even hard to imagine what bases closer to North America a European or Asia power could seize and maintain that would be close enough to the US to serve a "jumping off" points and air covering points for an invasion.

I guess in multi player you could have everyone behave "unhistorically" (Europe, Soviet Union and Japan) all decide the Yankees were eventually going to elect Donald Trump as supreme potentate and this was a threat to mankind so a preemptive war would be in order and the Canadians as part of the British Empire would provide the bases OR you could hypothesize that Europe could work together to get nukes first and induce the US to surrender rather than be destroyed (without a real invasion).

 

[GeneralPetrov]

It will be possible to invade.

The question is how easy, or more so, how close to impossible will it be to successfully conquer the US.

It should be one of the most difficult things to accomplish in game in my opinion.

 

[scroggin]

I would agree that invading the USA would be very difficult, more so than any other country. They had a very powerful navy in 1936. Given friendly relations with their neighbours their small army didnt make them vulnerable. Their army could always be built up strong enough to defend themselves before any nation could defeat their navy and launch an invasion.

In september 1940 the USA introduced selective service and within 4 years they had gone from having a weaker army than australia to having the third most powerful army in the world. This was done without fully switching from produing consumer goods, while also equiping many other nations. Any serious threat to the USA could have been countered with a far faster military buildup in America.

Of course in HOI we have always been able to persue wacky possibilities like having a fascist canada invade an unprepared USA. And the AI has always been an artificial idiot. But lets not kid ourselves and think that HOI possibilities are real possibilities. After all they had a huge population the largest industrial base and the third largest land mass in the world.

 

[Denkt]

The question is how easy, or more so, how close to impossible will it be to successfully conquer the US.

It is probably not that hard as a major power, I would say it is probably harder to annex a major power as a minor power then it is to annex US as a major power.

US is powerful but the difference between US and Germany is less then for example the difference between Finland and Soviet Union.

 

[Red_warning]

Europe united under fascism or communism would have no problem bringing the war to American soil, the population and industrial capacity would be way larger than that of USA's.

 

[Denkt]

We do not know how much resources we can use from annexed countries.

 

[Tritone]

I remember taking USA as Japan in Darkest Hour. That was my most memorable game. I don't think I had everything set up until the early 60s (I needed lots of nuclear bombers and control of Canada and Mexico). Then I had to nuke everything to hell in the opening salvos. Even then it wasn't a cakewalk, but I managed to slowly push my way into America's heartland. But right before I conquered the Great Satan, my ally Germany declared peace and gave them all their land back. Dammit, Hitler.

 

[quizybuck]

I don't think the Germans would get to the point that they'd even have to worry about fighting the US Army or defending thousands of miles of inland supply lines from partisans. Let's assume that the Germans and Japanese manage to (1) build up a large surface fleet, (2) draw-out and defeat the US surface fleet, and (3) build up enough merchant shipping to transport a supply a sufficient invasion force.

First, the Germans have to get those transports across the Atlantic. Even if the US lost all of its capital ships, it would still have a potent submarine fleet. Those submarines took a terrible toll on the Japanese merchant fleet, and they would have done the same in the Atlantic. The Germans will have to play the Allied role in the Battle of the Atlantic, only they'll have to do so without several key advantages:

• The Allies spent several years (and two wars) honing their convoy and anti-submarine tactics. The Germans wouldn't gain much experience in dealing with submarines until the invasion started.
  
• The Allies built massive numbers of anti-submarine ships and replacement transports. The Germans could too, but at the cost of either delaying the invasion or building a smaller surface fleet.
• The Allies had significant technological innovations for submarine detection. The Germans would start years behind in this field.
• The Allies had a friendly country at both ends of every transport, so patrol ships and aircraft could be based at the US and the UK instead of trying to cover the entire route. For the early stages of the invasion of North America, the Axis would have to stage everything from Europe.

Although the US submarine force could sink a lot of German shipping, some would get through. Maybe enough would make it to actually try the invasion. This is the next problem. After the fall of the UK, the Axis would have no place to degrade the USAAF. And the longer the Germans waited to build up their navy to invade, the bigger and better trained the USAAF would get. So, when the invasion started, the US could throw thousands of fighters and bombers against the Axis invasion force and its handful of carrier wings. The Germans would suffer appalling losses of troops at sea waiting to be transported ashore.

Maybe some Germans make it ashore. Now they need supplies. So the German troops capture a port, repair the damage done by the fleeing Americans, and wait for the supply ships to make it past the submarines. In the meantime, the USAAF is going to bomb the captured ports and any captured airfields. The Germans couldn't defend Wilhelmshaven from American bombers when it had locally-supplied land-based fighters. Now it will have to defend Savannah with carrier-based fighters supplied from Germany. The Germans would have trouble supplying troops to hold the beachhead, let alone a break-out force.

With all of that said, if the US had been run by the HOI3 AI, it probably would have been pretty easy.

 

[Lifthrasil]

One thing that made the US such a formidable contender, aside from its already overwhelming manufacturing base, was that those "hicks with guns" needed a lot less training to be combat-ready, and were more often than not already as competent with a rifle as many European regular infantrymen. Of course, it still took time and effort to provide them with discipline and tactical training, etc.

I doubt that the USA had THAT bigger an advantage regarding rifle-usage. For example: The biggest part of the soviet population lived on the countryside, many were hunters or owned a gun, they were therefore used to shooting.
Millions of Germans, French, British and other European men had combat experience from WW1 (it was just 20 years earlier. Lots of men served in both wars) while only a couple of US men saw war before WW2.
Basically in all fascist countries, childred received pre-military training. In Germany, the HJ boys were drilled for war from their 8th birthday on (camping trips, war games, pathfinding ect, gun lessons in school ect - "Vormilitärische Ausbildung"). Nearly every German man served for 2 years in military conscription or in the civil Reichsarbeitsdienst, which had also military drills.

So unless you can put up some serious sources proving that US civilians had superior figthing/gun-handling capabilities, I think that many Europeans (esp fascist countries) were at least par to the US.

 

[Kovax]

I'm assuming almost anyone who could actually be a half decent soldier would have joined up with the proper units that have defeated during the invasion. If someone has actually managed to defeat the vast and well equipped conventional forces the US could assemble in case of an invasion how worried would they be by what was left of the civilian population?

The point is that the US can rapidly train new troops, and a lot of people who didn't join up when Europe was threatened would take a sudden interest once the US itself was under attack. There has to be a sizable number of hunters and farmers who have regularly taken up arms against small game, who would be signing up at training camps across the country in the event of an invasion. The available trained armed forces at the moment in question might not be enough to deal with the situation, but adding another umpteen dozen divisions of hastily trained troops on short notice (every much like the Soviets did) could have a significant impact against an already overstretched Wehrmacht. The average new recruit would probably have experience with firearms and heavy equipment, unlike the majority of the Soviet recruits under similar circumstances. They wouldn't be a match for experienced troops, at least until they had some experience of their own, but far better than taking people with no skills off the village streets or from collective farms.

 

[qer]

the argument that the USA had an advantage due to the high number of civilian gun owners is counter by the fact that they didn't have a conscription system during peacetime unless most other countries, which allow this countries to have a trained force in case of war instead of training then once the war started; that being said logistics will kill any invasion attempt. Not only there is an ocean, but also the country itself is massive. I agree that a full occupation of the US should be impossible unless there has been a really big preparation time (and even in this case, the US wouldn't seat idle)

 

[HeroNico]

Impossible?
Germany wins in europe, japan in pacific, argentina and brasil get pulled into axis. Germany invades thru canada on the east coast, japan from alasca and west coast, argentina and brasil from panama/south (with enough lendlease of weapons fron ger.)... now tell me america stronk gets away with that scenario... (extremely unlikely to achieve, but possible)

Just like in games, in RL everything is/was possible at some point! If someone tells you anything different, hes lying to you bro !