I don’t know that much about Soviet subs of this era, but I don’t think the L or S class had a very sterling record of combat. Do you think they would have been a factor in the blockade of the UK? I wouldn’t think they had the range to really do much.
All of mainland Europe would have been overrun. The UK would be able to fend off most of the air and all of the sea attacks, with the occasional air attack on the mainland to keep them on their toes. The US would have to devote more resources to the Atlantic front to support the UK, and so would have been slowed on the offensive in the Pacific. Eventually, the war is won via American nukes, but not until a lot more people died. And it wouldn’t just be two nukes to end it, like it was against Japan: You’d probably need multiple cities destroyed in both Germany and Russia (and, eventually, Japan), plus more for battlefield use to carve enough of a path for us to even reach those cities.
Germany developing their own bomb is a pipe dream. They were going down entirely the wrong paths, which might (or might not) have been due to deliberate sabotage from Heisenberg, the only great physicist they had. Russia would be in better shape to do it (they eventually did in our timeline, after all), but it’d at the least be slower, and I’d be very surprised if we hadn’t completely squished them by the time they could.
ISTM, assuming the US gets involved with the same level of commitment as was brought about by Pearl Harbor, then it takes a lot longer and costs hugely more in blood and lives, but the US concentrates in the Pacific until the battle of Midway, and relies on the British to hold the Axis back in Europe, and tries to fight a two-front war after that. Just supplying GB instead of the USSR.
I can’t see how developing the Bomb isn’t a major factor. We didn’t really need it to defeat Japan, who was on the ropes in 1945 anyway, but we would have needed it if we were fighting in Europe at the same level as the USSR was. Nuke Berlin first, kill Hitler, wipe out Moscow and kill Stalin, and then see how they feel about fighting.
Regards,
Shodan
The U-boat fleet was defeated by the Spring of 1943 (Battle of the Atlantic). A mixture of things; better convoys, longer distance planes, ASDIC, Enigma codebreaking, Hedge hog anti-submarine mines.
Special mention to the Royal Canadian Navy for convoy duties
tbf, the Soviets hastened the end of the war:
In the video, IIRC the US focused on an Asia first strategy as well, pretty much pushing Japan back from Australia and something similar to the island hopping campaign (though oddly in the video the US doesn’t lose the Philippines for some reason that now escapes me).
As for the atomic bomb, my guess is that it wouldn’t be as much a factor (in the video version of history) because the US wouldn’t be able to make enough of them or utilize them effectively enough (staging from the UK but without total air superiority over continental Europe) to make a big enough difference in the final outcome. I only recall that the atomic bomb was given a lesser role in the video though. However, this thread isn’t really about the video, so I think how much of a factor would depend on where one thinks things would stand by late 1944 or early 1945 when the US could potentially use the ones it had…and how things would progress while the US ramps up production (there was a fairly large gap between the two we used and follow on bombs in the pipeline…IIRC it was 6 months for the next batch of 2 or 3 and then another one or two every other month after that, later on 1-2 a month and so on).
Assuming the UK could hold out and wouldn’t sue for peace if they lost, say, India and their Middle Eastern and North African possessions, and if, say, the US could in fact still be able to provide supplies to the UK as well as other assistance (which I think is possible if the US is focused on a large Atlantic fleet) and if the US and UK could build an air force to effectively challenge the Axis powers for air supremacy then an atomic bomb could be effective against Germany anyway. Not sure about Russia…I don’t believe that any of our bombers could fly from England to Moscow, and certainly we couldn’t threaten the factories or production in the Urals, assuming the Russians moved them there as they did with the Germans (which is perhaps a bad assumption…why would they, when the Germans wouldn’t be attacking them?).
Good point. I’d forgotten about them.
Sorry to sound like a broken record here, but again - if the UK is being strangled by submarine blockade, how do they maintain their resistance?
Agreed. That’s an entirely separate hypothetical.
In our timeline, yes. I’m well aware of the actual outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic. However, if Germany doesn’t invade the USSR, then Dönitz gets his 300 (or more) U-boats by 1942, and that’s the end of the UK, as far as I see it.
It’s a good point, and this would have been long before the US could have put a larger fleet into production. In fact, if Germany really knew it wouldn’t be fighting the Russians and in fact fully allying with them they might have been able to ramp up their fleet production even more. Certainly I could see the Axis powers cutting off the Mediterranean from the UK, taking Gibraltar and the Suez as part of their more intensive campaign in North Africa. This would have further crippled the UK’s abilities not only to feed themselves but support other parts of their empire.
Of course, the other thing is the US could have focused on destroyer production, and perhaps sold more destroyers to the UK (since we wouldn’t be supplying the Russians with 10’s of thousands of trucks, jeeps, planes, tanks or food). It would depend on the timing of all of this, and when the US would start this alternative timeline version of lend/lease and also when they would join the war. In the video Japan didn’t ever attack the US, and the US declared war on Japan instead but it was later on.
Sure the ultimate outcome was in 1943 but from late 1941 the pendulum swung back and forth as counter measures were met with new U-boat tactics which were met with improving technology and further breakthroughs with Enigma.
Also, if you look at the data it includes an awful lot of easy hits off the eastern seaboard of the US which of course wouldn’t have occured in this scenario.
I’m trying to figure out when this alliance supposedly occurs.
The best way to think of it is not so much an alliance, as just that Barbarossa gets shelved until the UK asks for peace. Which they surely would.
There are no “western allies” in this scenario, there is just the UK. With the USSR as allies, every country in Europe is either neutral or conquered or allied with Germany.
So I guess in this timeline Pearl Harbor happens on schedule? Why not, I guess. And Hitler declares war on America on schedule, because we’re de facto allies of the UK, might as well make it official.
Except while maybe the US can move against Japan, the European theater is completely off the table. There is no European theater. There’s just trying to prevent the UK from starving and surrendering. Which it will within a year.
Except what happens when the UK signs the armistice? How does the supposed alliance with the USSR continue? If the UK signs a peace treaty with Germany, and basically has to hand over most of their colonies, how does the US stay at war with Germany? For what purpose?
In real life, Germany was wrecked by the invasion of the Soviet Union. In this timeline there is no invasion, and so the German army is just sitting around looking for places to invade, and with peace with the UK the war is over, unless they invade East. But this is what our hypothetical says could never happen, Germany and the Russians are permanently allied by gamemaster fiat.
So that just leaves the Pacific War. Without the European theater as a distraction, Japan is getting pounded by the US. Do the Russians DOW the US? Seems unlikely. So the war is just down to the US vs Japan, and there’s no way that works out for Japan, unless somehow the Japanese can get Germany and Russia to stay in the war against the US. But even if Germany and the US are still at war, there’s nothing the Germans can do against the US, and nothing they can do to help the Japanese. In OTL the Allies had near complete domination over the Atlantic, I guess if we have to patrol the Atlantic to keep the German navy on their toes it’s harder to slog through the Pacific. But my scenario has the UK surrendering. A naval stalemate in the Atlantic doesn’t seem much like Hitler’s style.
How about the war in the Pacific and Far East? Japan would be immensely strengthened by supplies from Vladivostok, right? What if the Soviets had helped at Pearl Harbour and Midway?
Well, in the video linked in the OP they posit a real alliance, with the Soviets and Germans/Italians attacking into the Middle East and the Germans/Italians attacking into North Africa. Japan basically expands into China and South East Asia more than they did in our timeline and attacks directly at Australia…but, oddly they don’t attack the US at all (unsure why this would be, since their choice was attack the US or the Soviet Union, and with the Russians as allies that seems like the US would be their main choice).
If you think the UK would just sue for peace then it would be down to what you think the terms would be. Would they be willing to give up North Africa an the ME? All their territories in lower Africa? India? And what would the Japanese be demanding in the Pacific? Then again, what choice would the UK have?
I agree that I think the Japanese would still attack the US. The US might take an Asia first policy, though we’d need to commit a lot more to the battle of the Atlantic I’m thinking. At a minimum we’d need to ensure the supply lines to the home islands would still be open and ensure we bolstered the RN to prevent any sort of invasion. We’d also almost certainly focus our own air power in the UK to assist with the battle for at least local supremacy over the British Isles.
Assuming the US enters the war early enough I don’t see the UK signing an armistice. A main priority of the US would be to ensure that the UK wouldn’t need to do that, which is why I figure we’d have to have strategy that pushes for a larger Atlantic fleet and a lot more air power (and perhaps troops) over the UK. It would be a shift in industrial production…instead of 10’s of thousands of trucks, jeeps, tanks, planes and the rest for Russia it would be destroyers and air craft for the UK, along with things they could use to defend the home islands.
As for Russia, they would be attacking into Iran and Afghanistan as well as, perhaps, northern China to try and crack the Nationalists. Possibly, if their Afghanistan campaign went well (:dubious:) they could coordinate with Japan and maybe some German/Italian forces for an invasion of India (:dubious:).
Germany would be looking at Northern Africa, the Middle East, lower Africa, Greece and probably consolidating their gains in western Europe. I don’t think they would be bored.
Maybe. I think the US would have to do what they could to ensure that the Brits stayed in the fight, which might mean an Atlantic focus. Just because the US wouldn’t be invading Europe doesn’t mean we would ignore that theater…I’m actually thinking we might have to focus more there to the detriment of the Pacific. Of course, it would be a shift in industrial output, so maybe we could build a lot more ships on both oceans, as well as lots of planes and a smaller army…perhaps only enough to bolster the UK home island defenses and one for the Japanese operations in the Pacific.
As for Germany against the US, I think the main battle would be at sea and in the air wrt US verse Germany, and I think depending on when the US gets into the war it might balance fairly well. We also might be able to open another front in the ground war in Africa, perhaps with a goal of keeping the Med open, though not sure we could save Egypt before the Germans/Italians could take all of North Africa. It would be a complete shift in strategic goals for all sides though. Germany would be focused on the Med, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa (perhaps), the Middle East and the Balkans/Greece. Russia would be looking to expand into the south as well. India would be something of an eventual goal for the Axis. The US/UK would be looking to first defend the UK and keep it in the fight and break the German/Russia blockade. And then, my guess, is the real battlefield in this alternative would be Africa and the south Pacific rim region, Australia, south east Asia and maybe the defense of India. It would be a very different war, and my WAG is it would end in basically a stalemate at some point.
In my scenario the USSR is allied to Germany, not so much to Japan. How does helping Japan fight the US help Russia?
What are Stalin’s war aims in this scenario? He’s trying to avoid a disastrous war with Germany. If he’s got a gamemaster-imposed permanent peace treaty with Germany and doesn’t worry about that, he’s invading Poland and Finland, and looking at the Middle East, Central Asia, Manchuria, and India. Getting into a war with the United States is number 99 on his list of priorities.
Mention was made up thread about the Russian subs, so if they had the capability they might have been used as part of the blockade. Personally, I don’t believe the Russian subs of this era had the legs, nor the crews to do this sort of thing, so I seriously doubt Russia would have done so…though they might have used bases in the Baltics and perhaps Finland to harass the UK closer to home I suppose. I agree that I don’t see Russia confronting the US directly, though if they were part of the Axis alliance and if the US had declared war on Japan and Germany we probably would have done the same against Russia…unless, of course, those wily Russian bastards tried to do something similar to Russia’s stance with Japan in the actual history, and go for some sort of neutrality. That said, if Russia did invade northern China I seriously doubt the US would play along, though from a practical perspective I don’t see how the US could confront Russia anywhere substantial.
My WAG: The Cold War persists indefinitely because neither side can ever finish off the other, at least without an all-out nuke exchange that nobody wants.
The Axis controlling all of Europe (and probably, most or all of the Middle East) would be totally dominant in their side of the world. But the North and South Americas can never be finished off two oceans away, and don’t want to give up.
I don’t believe the Soviet subs of the WWII era had the same long-range capacity that American or German submarines had; they wouldn’t have been patrolling off the American coast. But I’m pretty sure that Soviet submarines could have patrolled the British home waters. Sure, they would have taken more casualties doing that but casualties were not on Stalin’s list of the Top 100 he was concerned about.
General Winter wouldn’t be on the Soviet’s side. +1 allies
Soviets wouldn’t have American lend-lease. +1 allies
Germans and Soviets wouldn’t have lost a jillion dudes on the eastern front against each other. -2 allies.
Those extra jillion dudes wouldn’t really have anywhere realistic to invade. Taking India or Afghanistan or Turkey just gives them a lot more space to cover without adding much extra industry. +1 allies.
America had the bomb, and Germany/Russia didn’t. +infinity allies
Where were these Soviet subs in 1941-43?
I think it would hinge on whether the Axis could knock Britain out of the war before the US gets involved.
Faced with Europe entirely under Axis control, nicely divided by best buddies Adolf and Josef, I cannot see the US getting involved in a European war after Pearl Harbor (and alternative-reality Hitler would have to be even dumber than real-life Hitler to drag them in by declaring war on the US).
It is not entirely guaranteed that the combined forces of the USSR and Reich could have knocked Britain out by December 1941. But it seems fairly likely to me. Between Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the battle of the Atlantic it was a very close run thing.
Much like discussions of whether Germany could have beaten the Soviets if things turned out differently, there is a tendency to assume the inevitability of the ultimate outcome (German would NEVER have invaded Britain, the Soviets would NEVER have lost to the Germans). But that ignores how close things got in the early years of war.
In June 1941, there were 65 submarines in the Baltic Sea and another 44 based in the Black Sea. That’s over 100 subs that, in reality, were bottled up geographically that would have been able to be rebased to an open Atlantic coastline if Germany and the USSR were pals.