Fun with historical 'what ifs.' It's June 1941. Britain and Germany have been at war for twenty-one months. The USSR is loosely allied with Nazi Germany. The US and Japan are at loggerheads over China and French Indochina. Historically in June 1941 Hitler abandons his loose alliance with Stalin and invades the USSR (six weeks later than optimal due to a sideshow in the Balkans). Six months later the Japanese and the US go to war and Germany joins in. OK. Now 'what-if' time. Let's say that Hitler has a moment of rationality. He decides that taking Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete have delayed Operation Barbarossa for too long in 1941. The sideshow has robbed him of six weeks of primo fighting weather for this year. He also decides to eschew the nightmare faced by Frederick the Great and Kaiser Wilhelm - the two-front war. By leaving Stalin alone (until May 1942) he can concentrate on closing out Britain first. Also let's say that japan and the US make some sort of accommodation on China. Say Japan withdraws from china south of the Yellow River. Chiang never had more than nominal control of northern China. His 'heartland' was always southern China, particularly coastal China. The Japanese (if they are realistic with themselves) know they cannot control all of china but they can control north China with a little creative use of Chinese warlords. So the US and Japan do not go to war. So the British, Germans and Italians (such as they are) go on as they have since 1939. Can the UK/Commonwealth hold out until May 1942 without overt American help? Can Hitler bring Churchill to the peace table in time for Barbarossa 1942? If so, how does he do it?
With lend lease and with the commonwealth, yes uk can hold. The raf hold the sky over england and germany kriegsmarine is a pathetic joke compared to the english fleets. Since the english navy also control the mediteranean, hitler and mussolini have no chance of taking either malta or north africa. Beside since japan is out, the uk can call up more anzac troop to help in the defense of north africa and the persian gulf. Also, having a stable japanese presence in north china would make stalin nervous and he may well decide to act since he already has a big army there with real tank, compared with the light infantry and cavalry used by the japanese. Once the japanese pushed out of the way he would join up with Mao and totally obliterate Chiang pathetic army.
Yes the British empire can holdout and even kick the Germans out of North Africa in 1942 without American help. People need to understand just how huge the British Empire was at this time and how small the Royal Royal Navy was compared to WW1, not enough in terms of capital and escort ships but also transports. The British had the Suez, Oil from Iran and millions of troops in British India. So the British would have won it just takes about 3-4 years to buildup from basically 40% of where you want to be. Even with the Americans and Soviet's in the war it still took another year to turn the war. Britain was never really under any threat from invasion and the convoy system with aircover was starting to hold, with increased production from Canada, imports from the US and Australia I think the British would have blown the Germans away in the end. I think the end would have been the British forcing the Germans to make peace with them giving up France and the low countries, eastern Europe would have stayed under Germany control and the Balkans apart from Greece, this would be as a block against the Soviets in Europe. Italy I am not sure about, it could have been taken by the British and democratic rule put in place or just left alone.
I don't really quibble about Britain being able to deter invasion of their Home islands, or even being able to hold well enough in the Mediterrenean, but at the same time Britain is absolutely unable to close out Hitler, either. If Hitler eschews Barbarossa in 1941 and maybe even 1942, the Germany economy is under less stress than the the British. Hitler could partially demobilize and simply maintain a front against Britain. Britain and the Commonwealth would have to maintain a true wartime footing. At what point does the British or Australian economy pack it in under wartime stress with no end in sight? The soviets were unquestionably tactically superiior to the Japanese, but any operations in maritime Siberia/Manchuria are happening at the end of a logistical line that stretches back 5,000 km to Ekaterinberg. Their successful attack (against a hollowed-out Kwantung Army) in the late summer of 1945 used supplies horded over three years. Even by 1945 the Trans-Siberian railroad was not double-tracked the whole way. further the Trans-Siberian is built to a 2% grade standard. The Union Pacific's ruling grade - Sherman Hill in Wyoming - was only 0.65% in the 1940s. the Soviets were limited to short, slow trains in order to handle the grades. In the 1940s the Trans-Siberian was limited to single track between Irkutsk and Ulan-Ute. There were twenty-nine tunnels required to punch through Kultuk Gorge. This section was not double tracked until the 1960s. Compared to this, the US' problem of supplying a substantial force across 8,000 miles of ocean are child's play given the size of the US merchant marine in the mid-1940s. Given the restrictions on his logistics, Stalin could not initiate hostilities even against a qualitatively inferior foe until the major potential threat at his western border had been resolved.
The soviet had already beatten the japs twice by 1941, and there was already a big army stationned near the border, commanded by Joukov btw, already there. Since hitler, in your scenario, didn't attack the russian, then this army would not have been recalled to liberate Stalingrad. As for germany invading england that wouldn't be possible. The luftwaffe was crushed by that time, being defeated in the battle of britain. And germany didn't have the surface fleet to either carry the troops nor defeat the royal navy. Without both air and sea superiority they were doomed to failure. They didn't have the logistic means to supply an invasion either. It took 3 years for the allied to build up their logistics for D-Day.
Well that is a double edged sword because if the Germans don't go into Soviet Union they don't have the advanced logistics, armoured vehicles and ground bombing capabilities they had later on in the Soviet Union. So the British Empires job would have much easier than that the allies faced on D-day, albeit against greater numbers. The British economy was broke by 1945, so I guess about that same time.
If Hitler does not go into the USSR, his army does not suffer the crushing casualties it historically incurred. "General Winter" in 1941-42 alone probably killed more German soldiers than the British/commonwealth forces killed in the entire war. The sheer scale of the war in the east is mind-boggling even for Americans. German logistics were never any great shake, but the dense road and rail net of northwest Europe would have been robust against British/Commonwealth air attack. For two and half years two (excellent) jagdgeschwader held off the the cream of the RAF. Most of the Luftwaffe followed the Wehrmacht into the USSR. If they weren't in the east, those Luftwaffe fighters would have easily shut the British out of continental skies, much as they did in 1940. German engineering prowess was at a pinnacle in 1938-1945. They would have come up with superior tanks without confronting Stalin. If one is positing the idea Hitler not attacking the USSR until Britain had been punched out, here's a scary thought for the British. What if Kurt Tank had lengthened the fuselage iof the FW-190A by a meter between the engine and pilot, he would have had space for an enormous fuel tank, giving the FW-190 150% great range. That's exactly how Vought made the Corsair the long-range terror of the Pacific. If you look at the FW-190 and Corsair, you see very similar aircraft. the FW-190 was faster and more nimble because it did not have to face the constraints of being a carrier plane (arrestor gear, STOL wing). With that much range, the FW-190 could have exerted air dominance well north of Scapa Flow. The failure of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain is 100% because of the short range of the Bf-109E. The Luftwaffe could more or less control the skies south of London, but couldn't go north of there because the -109s went bingo. In the end, Germany was more populous and had a bigger economy than Britain in the early 1940s. In a match between the big-league industrial powers (given the degree of national motivation on each side) those metrics would have eventually ground Britain down.
The British Empire had over 300 million people, Germany around 60 million. That's like the UK taking on the US today in terms of population. The difference was the population was all over the world and it took years to build enough ships and transports to bring the 4 million plus troops needed to Britain for any invasion of Europe to take place. The longer the war goes on the British close the gap on the Germans. So I have no doubt that the British empire win by 1948. The fact is Germany is the third most powerful country in Europe after Russia and the British Isles, it can't defeat either of them. The British held the Luftwaffe to a draw and the British had a unbombable factory in Canada, Australia and American imports. Plus million more people to be pilots in the empire. By 1945 the British had the Centurion tank, much better than anything germany had even after the Eastern war. A much harder question for me is would the British empire have been able to defeat Japan without American help. This is if Germany hadn't gone to war in 1940. With Japan attack British territories at the same time in 1941.
Actually, let's fix a few misconceptions here. Indochina had nothing to do with WWII. The Vichy French (fully recognized by the United States) still controlled Indochina, under Japanese Administration. So that part has no reason for being in there. And Japan would not have pulled out of the areas of China they controlled. As far as "getting the US involved in the war", Japan actually did not want that at all. There was simply no way to go after the lands controlled by the UK without involving the US, or opening themselves up to a crippling counterattack if we did decide to get involved. In fact, in most cases delaying the attacks would have been a bad move for the Axis powers. For many reasons. The US had just started a major military upgrade in the Pacific. This included the shipment of more manpower and equipment to the Philippines and Hawaii. However, only the first shipment of this had arrived by late 1941. A delay of 6 months to a year would have made the Philippines a truly bloody campaign which may have actually gone the other way. In Europe, Germany was making absolutely no plans for building the equipment that would have been needed to launch an attack across the Channel to England. So they might have delayed attacking the Soviets, but there never was a serious plan for invading England.
First. A lot of those 300 million were in India or Africa and really could not be tapped for more than what they were. The British had a big (largely native) army in it and needed every rifle. The raj was losing its grip. No way the Afrikaaners were gonna tolerate the British arming either the Zulus or the Xhosa. The white South Africans contributed about all they could manage - a couple of divisions historically. The British fielded a couple of East and West African divisions into Burma. These askaris did not exactly distinguish themselves against the starving Japanese. Again, it is asking lot to arm a lot of restive colonials to go fight other Europeans. Canada's population in 1940 was about 12 million and Australia about eight million. If Germany does not go into Russia they can "turtle up" on the continent and the British cannot touch them. The situation is much the same as at the end of the war of the Fourth Coalition where England and Napoleon glared at each other across the channel but simply could not touch the other. Napoleon in 1807 and Hitler in 1941 could not get across the Channel. The British could get across the Channel but would have been butchered by an army superior tactically and in numbers. Keep in mind the Wehrmacht did not lose tactical superiority over everyone until early 1945. If they don't lose all those excellent troops in russia, no way the British make a successful cross-Channel invasion, even bolstered by a quarter million Commonwealth troops.
By 1941 Japan had been in China proper for four years and they had not been able to close out either Chiang or Mao. While the IJA was a stronghold of delusional thinking, even they realized they could not occupy all of China the way they wanted to. They simply did not have the manpower. Captured documents indicate there was some discussion in the IJA about withdrawing from China south of the Yellow River (Chiang's stronghold), concentrating forces in northern China and polishing off Mao and imposing proper (in the Japanese view) rule over northern China and consolidating to have another go at Chiang sometime in the future. A withdrawal from part of China may have mollified the isolationist Americans. By getting america down from their position of hostility and consolidating in northern china (killing off the odious ((to Americans) Communist Mao) would have tacitly ratified Japan's gains since 1937. There are many ways Japan could have avoided war with the US, but their pigheadedness in that time frame is rightly legendary.
They had actually been there since 1901 and the Boxer Rebellion. In the aftermath they were given control of part of China as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. And a lot of the Russo-Japanese War was over Chinese ports that Russia controlled which Japan wanted. And the area of "Japanese Control" expanded after WWI, as the region administered by Germany was turned over to Japan. However, in late 1941 the US abandoned it's area of control (moving the 4th Marine Regiment to the Philippines), the UK was mostly concerned with Hong Kong, and the Vichy French had turned administrative control of their region to Japan. If you look, most of WWII in China can be tied to the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, and the rise of Japan as an International Power in that conflict. And in many ways was irrelevant in WWII other then putting the Allies on guard about Japanese intentions in the region.
As for the technological edge or superiority of the german troops, that is mostly a myth. Tank: german tank had a terrible record when it came to reliability. During the polish campaign the failure rate was between 25 to 40% breaking down before getting in battle. And most of the improvement to their armor came out of necessity after the german invaded russia and met the KV and T-34. If they've never invaded russia, they would have kept producing pz3 and 4. Air force: the battle of britain not only cost them a big part of the luftwaffe, it also cost them a bunch of experience air crew which isn't easy to replace. Even with some supped up fw-190, which wasn't all that great a plane, they would still have lost the battle. Britain could fish out their downed pilots or they could parachute down on land. The german couldn't do that, those pilots were lost. Infantry: come on, be realistic, the german infantry had to walk or ride in horse pulled wagon. Same thing for most of their artillery. They lacked truck or troop carrier. The ss units were motorized but the main troops weren't. Navy: hitler didn't believe in it. The pocket battleship were pityfull and had trouble fighting light cruiser with guns half of their caliber. The rest didn't amount to anything beside being used as floating artillery piece. The u-boats had their moment but asdic and hedgehog destroyed them. Canada built so much asw escort that by the end of the war, she had the third biggest navy on the globe... And with england occupying iceland and having negociated an airfield on the portuguese açores island, the U-boat had to deal with costal command bombers also which they had to. And even without invading russia or pearl arbor, the usa would have still bankrolled and supplied the commonwealth at a minimum, it was good business after all. There was american volunteer fighting in europe way before the usa entry in the war.
If you deny the tactical superiority of the Wehrmacht, you must not have read much about the war or talked to old veterans. The British have a saying: "If you haven't fought the Germans, you don't know war." No, Hitler could not invade England, but without America or the Soviet Union in the war, Britain/Commonwealth forces could not bring about an advantageous peace, either. The best the British could hope for would have been a peace of mutual exhaustion. Hitler, in May of 1941 did not have a lot of the problems Kaiser Bill had in 1917. Hitler could have held out against an unassisted Britain indefinitely. Churchill had to feel a lot better about his chances on Jan. 1, 1942 than he did on Jan 1. 1941.
I don't know much about '41, but '42 was an awesome movie! I need to see that one again! [video=youtube;C3i7RJCV3sg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3i7RJCV3sg[/video]
That was not as much genius as it was experience. Most of the Allies had not really done any fighting in decades. Where as the Germans had been involved in several nasty little actions, most notably the Spanish Civil War. And there was a learning curve in order to catch up to them. But by 1943 the Western Allies Marshals and Generals had caught up, and in 1944 passed the Germans in tactical ability. Where as the Soviets came forward as a giant sledgehammer, the US-UK frequently had them chasing their own tails.
I have actually read a lot of and by Guderian. It is not as much "tactical superiority", as the Germans had taken a great leap in a different direction, where as most of the Allies had not. Because of the demands of the treaty that ended the World War, Germany had to find a new doctrine that used the strengths of what they had. They also took advantage of new tactics and equipment, much more then the Allies had by that point. England and France and Belgium all thought WWII would be like WWI Part 2. They did not really understand that the Germans had a new playbook which made theirs obsolete. And while it worked well in the opening years of the war, it was no longer working so well by the midpoint, and was almost completely obsolete by the end. "Tactical Superiority" only lasts as long as the enemy is Tactically Inferior. Or as in the case of the Eastern Front, until the enemy can throw so many forces at you that all the tactics in the world are meaningless. In 1941, the Soviet and Germans were pretty much equal, so tactics made all the different in the world. By 1945, the Soviets outnumbered the Germans by more then 3 to 1, tactics became meaningless.
I think the ratio was that the Germans could kill 3 of the enemy for 2 Germans, so that mean if you have double the forces of Germany you win. Could the British Empire have created miss matches to exploit weakness in the German Atlantic wall, I think yes in Norway and in North Africa. I looked at the numbers and it's about 75 million white people in the Empire and 72 million Germans, not including the Axis or Free Europeans fighting with the British. The British also say we had the best troops in WW2, but the Germans had the best officers.
Actually, I do not think that Britain could have taken on Germany by themselves. And it is a simply matter of logistics. But their best bet would have been Operation Avalanche, the invasion of Italy. Of the Tripartite Pact, Italy was always the weakest link. I do not think that the UK would have had a chance against the Atlantic Wall without the US for logistical support, but invading Italy was possible, but they would have had to have a lot more men then they readily had available at the time (that was a UK-US-Canada operation, and the Germans came damned close to defeating them at the beach).. But how far North they would have gotten without facing stiff German resistance is the guess of anybody.
So the British couldn't have taken Norway? Any continental invasion would have failed the Germans would have knock them back into the sea. The only place I can see is Norway. I don't think the British could have defeat the Germans either, rather what Niall Ferguson talks about with Germany in control of western and central Europe, Britain in control of the sea around Europe, even though he was talking about WW1. The British make peace and wait for the Germans to attack the Soviet Union, the British dispite their naval domination of Europe through out histroy have always been unable to play the key role Europe because of the small armies. The only time this maybe wasn't the case was John Churchill. The British had the problem of not having Patton without the Americans aswell, the British generals just weren't very good.
Norway would have largely been a meaningless victory. It would have gotten them no closer to defeating Germany, and would have once again left them looking at them across a big open area of water.
The original plan of churchill concerning norway, was to use it as a beach head to invade sweden and cut the flow of ressources going to germany. It would also have open a path to help finland against the russian. While i think the first part, sweden, was a good idea i believe the second part of his plan would have been disastrous.
Well, the early Panzers were okay for what they were intended to do, which was break through and encircle infantry and disrupt rear operations, so they were light and fast; obviously they worked very well in the early blitzkreigs. I don't think many of anybody's tanks were reliable that early in the war, in any case, maybe the Marders. As for the T-34, it didn't become a great tank until the re-engineered 1944 models began rolling off the assembly lines, early 1944, with improvements suggested by American tests in early 1943; it took months to force approvals of the improvements through the Soviet bureaucracy. Their advantage was merely numbers. What stopped the German offensives and gave the Soviets breathing room in the center were the truly massive Soviet mine field belts, many miles deep, not Soviet armor.
OK. It's January 1, 1942. For whatever reasons, the Japanese did not bomb Pearl Harbor and Hitler did not invade the USSR. The USA and USSR remain on the sidelines. The Russian winter is NOT killing 750,000 German soldiers. If you are Churchill, how do you go about getting Hitler out of France, the Low Countries, and Norway? Forget Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. I don't think Britain and the Commonwealth can do it.
