It was one of three critical things:
- Soviet manpower
- Britain staying in after things seemed darkest.
- America, the arsenal of Democracy.
Not that the Dutch and other Allies didn’t do their part, but those were the 3 things that won the war.
Sea lion one, was a political feint aimed at achieving a political solution to remove GB from the war. I dont doubt for a moment that the German General Staff could not come up with a better way of moving troops and supplies to a beachhead in England, that would not be swamped by Destroyers doing high speed runs in the channel.
If the States does not commit to the war as in our time line, both the declared war in 41 and the previous undeclared war in the atlantic, then GB is forced to cede the home islands and evac the monarchy and the fleet to the colonies. The uboat blockade of the islands would remove the need for a real attempt at sea lion.
Declan
England and Russia enter into separate peace treaties, its my opinion that the soviet union implodes and a sorta restoration of the czar and perpetual civil war. Some cards that were never played in WW2 could come into it now, both Spain and Turkey both have substantial militaries and Argentina and Brazil could become new battlegrounds.
Should the US decline to enter WW2, there is no way that either axis power would allow the USA to remain as a threat, you just move up from 1941 to say 1951. A latin/South American threat to the Canal zone ,backed by expeditionary panzers would be a nice option.
Declan
Do you have a cite for this (the rationing part)? I’ve always read that Hitler refused to gear up for total war and kept German industry producing consumer goods longer than he should have, anticipating a quick war.
Of course they needed to ration fuel and certain resources Germany did not produce, but pretty much everybody rationed fuel, didn’t they? I know the US and UK did, and they won.
Belwo are opinions, not facts!
Why do I think the russians would have got a few more countries? Because a lot of these eastern european states were not that well organised and in some cases would have welcomed a stable influence.
The Australians would have kept Japan out of Australia and maybe New Guinea but beyond that our lack of numbers would have forced us to have a Fortress Australia policy. Once the yanks entered into the pacific the sheer extra resources meant that the japanese were stretched a lot thinner.
Nah the americans have doen some great things and I am totally opposed to isolationist thinking. It was a joke, poorly made. But thanks for the GFC by the way!
This is a fun speculative thread. I speculate that is the US had not entered the war dumb luck may still have given the Allies a victory. For example lets say that without the U.S. in the war the Germans don’t have to draft a pig farmer. The farmer stays home and a pig virus meets a cold virus inside him. A month later swine flu devastates Germany and kills more Germans than the Russians could. Or to use a more often cited example. An American decides not to join the army but instead takes a trip to South America. There he disturbs a butterfly. The vortex from the butterfly’s wings causes a bubble of warm air to rise. The rising air turns into a storm which gets blown into the pacific. The storm gathers strength and becomes a hurricane that devastates Japan. And so on.
What I am trying to say is that luck plays a huge part in warfare. I like to think that fortune would not smile upon the Axis very long!