Would Germany and Japan have won if the US did NOT enter WWII?

Great Debates
21

The Allies were facing a lot more than 16 divisions in France, plus more in Italy. That simply can’t be accurate. The Germans had at least fifty divisions in France by D-Day.

And as fashionable as it has been in recent years to put down the impact of the bomibng campaign, Allied bombing had a huge strateigc impact on Germany’s ability to wage war. The devastating impact on the Luftwaffe and the diversion of resources alone - Germany used more than a quarter of its artillery gun and shell production solely to air defense of the Reich, IIRC - was enough to seriously impair Germany’s war effort, even if you were to assume the bombs themselves had no impact. And they had a considerable impact.

Furthermore, the extent of U.S. aid to the Soviets cannot be underestimated; it was HUGE. Soviet soldiers were heavily dependent on U.S. clothing and food. The Red Army moved its supplies on American trucks - more than two thirds of Red Army trucks were U.S. trucks (I’d like to see you run a modern army without trucks.) Aviation fuel? American. Raw materials by the millions of tons were delivered - I could not even begin to list the minerals, chemicals, and other raw supplies that were sent.

More than 22,000 armored vehicles of all types, including main battle tanks, were supplied via Lend-Lease, plus 350,000 trucks, and more than 70,000 jeeps.

Thousands of aircraft were supplied, including at least 1,700 P-39 and P-40 fighters.

EVERYTHING was sent. Calculators and adding machines, typesetting and duplication machines, 13,000 pounds of carbon paper, compasses, radios, engine parts, paint, pencils and pens, cameras and film supplies in incredible quantities, 22 million pounds of smokeless gunpowder and millions and millions of pounds of explosives and explosive components. 40 million pounds of dynamite. Factory equipment by the boatload - nine million machines or all types, rolling and milling machines, wire drawers, wood planers, lathes. Mining and smelting equipment, about $66 million worth in 1945 dollars. One hundred thousand grindstones. Seven million drill bits. More bolts, nails, tacks, and fasteners than you could ever count. Five hundred million pounds of linseed oil, eight million pounds of soybean oil, and 80 million pounds of “Expressed oils.” Binoculars and microscopes. Over nine thousand rail cars. Thousands and thousand of electric generators (super important in bivouac, I can tell you!) 24,000 transformers, 3.7 million flashlight batteries, 2.5 million pounds of soap, Name a part, a machine, or a peice of equipment, and it was sent.

You want naval supplies? Over 120 whole merchant SHIPS were given to the Soviets.

Here is some of the food that was sent: 8 million barrels of wheat, one BILLION “boxes” of sugar (whatever a “box” is) 350,000 pounds of uncooked pasta, half a billion pounds of dried eggs, 3.5 BILLION pounds of canned meat, 600 million pounds of fresh and frozen pork, ham, and bacon, 80 million pounds of cheese, 240 million pounds of fresh, frozen and condensed milk, 800 million pounds of oleo oils of varying types, 217 million pounds of butter, 50 million pounds of oatmeal, 126 million pounds of rice, 8 million pounds of coffee, half a billion pounds of beans, 57 million pounds of something called “wheat seminola,” 75 million pounds of peas, a million pounds of chocolate, 660,000 pounds of fresh onions, 30 million pounds of canned vegetables, half a billion pounds of edible and cooking oils, 40 million pounds of dehydrated vegetables, 7 million pounds of fruit preserves and jams, 40 million pounds of fruits in various states of being, 11 million pounds of sunflower seed oil, 2 million pounds of carrots, and more seeds than you could plant in a jillion years. They used other parts of those animals, too - over 35 million square feet of leather was sent, plus an additional 50 million pounds of leather for soles. And a million pounds of something listed as “reeds, hemps, panilla, poppies, etc.” Hmmmm.

Raw materials? The list of raw materials sent defies listing here; thousands and thousands of different materials went sent, many in enormous quantities. If you can name a raw material, it was sent.

Without U.S. help, the USSR would have been defeated; I’m not the slightest bit doubtful of that. They lost to Germany in 1917 and they damn near lost in 1941-1942, and take all that stuff away from them and they would have lost again.

22

VarlosZ:

After rethinking the Germany vs. Russia deal I only partly agree that Germany couldn’t defeat Russia. I say this because I think Germany absolutely could have whomped Russia.

At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa the Luftwaffe destroyed the Russian airforce (the largest in the world at that time) in two days. IIRC the Russian air commander was sentenced to death for his incompetence. Of course, the blame should really have been laid at Stalin’s feet since he purged most of the generals with any skill during his rise to power. What generals Russia had left really weren’t worthy of the name or the uniform.

The only thing Russia had going for it was tanks (lots and lots of them) and scads of men. However, even though the Russians outnumbered the Germans (20,000 tanks to Germany’s 3,000 or so tanks) the Germans still stomped the Russians achieving something on the order of a 10:1 kill ratio. Despite the Russian’s numerical tank advantage most of those were lousy, out-of-date tanks (not the feared and excellent T-34 tank which was probably only surpassed as the best tank in WWII by the German Tiger).

How Russia held out I’ll never know. By the end of 1941 Russia had lost 3 million men and more than half its economic base (I think the US today might fold under stats like that). The Germans had failed to capture Moscow but they did get Kiev, Smolensk and Minsk by this point. Even so, the one thing Russia still had going for it was LOTS of men.

Ironically Germany’s biggest handicap was probably Hitler himself. Had Hitler left prosecution of the war up to his generals Germany might have prevailed (even with US involvement). Fortunately for us Hitler constantly muddled things up and made the HUGE mistake (second only to attacking Russia in the first place) of going after Stalingrad which probably had to be the battle to end all battles in the history of man. Nearly 6 months of fighting for one city which, when ended, saw over 1 million German soldiers dead, wounded or captured (I don’t know how many Russian soldiers bought it or how many civilians died although one day of bombing at the beginning killed over 40,000 civilians). Even with the mistake of going after Stalingrad had Hitler left things up to his Generals they might have won or at the very least salvaged a major part of their forces. (To be fair Stalingrad was a worthy prize as a moral victory [named after Stalin afterall] and especially as it controlled the Caucasus’ and the valuable oil fields there).

Still, this thread isn’t meant to speculate on how Germany would have fared had this decision or that decision been made or not been made. It was to see if Hitler could have won had the US not entered the war.

Given how things played out in Russia I guess I have to reluctantly admit that Germany would have failed there (because they did). My reluctance merely stems from the fact that I think Germany did have the wherewithal to pull it off.

As others have pointed out I would guess a negotiated peace would have been achieved between Russia and Germany even though such a thing wouldn’t likely last long.

London_Calling:
The Battle for the Atlantic did ultimately go to the Allies. They eventually got very good at hunting U-boats and the English Channel was a suicide run for any German boats dumb enough to sail through there (including U-boats). However, had the Walter type U-boats come into service (and worked as advertised) the Battle for the Atlantic would have started all over again. The Walter type was a leap in technology, not just a refinement. As to Britain otherwise practically matching Germany on the tech front the Germans were simply better in the end. To wit the Me262 was a clearly superior plane to the British Meteor.

Cracking Enigma and the work done at Bletchley Park was probably the single best thing that happened to the Allies (second best of you count getting the A-bomb first which really was a showstopper). Our commanders often knew what the Germans were going to do next before the Germans themselves knew it. Still, the Germans were a better fighting force overall largely because they had the better generals.

Yes, the Allies defeated Rommel in North Africa but they should have stomped him. For some reason Montgomery would not use the intelligence from Bletchley Park and finish Rommel decisively (I don’t know if Montgomery didn’t trust the intelligence or was just too stupid to make proper use of it). Instead Rommel seemed to work magic. He was losing but considering that the cards were stacked against him he did an amazing job of keeping his forces together and slowing the Allied advance down. (Did Rommel and Patton ever cross swords directly? That would have been interesting if they didn’t.)

Finally, as to the Germans and the atom bomb they really were a lot further away from getting it than the Allies had thought. IIRC (and I mentioned this earlier) some crucial calculations were screwed up early on in Germany’s development of the bomb which suggested something like 10x (or more…I forget) as much uranium/plutonium would be needed to make the thing work. At the time weapons grade nuclear material was majorly hard stuff to come by (at the end of the Manhattan Project the Allies only had enough for 2 bombs). That much material seemed a nearly insurmountable amount to gather not to mention that I think it would have made the bomb ridiculously large so as to be practically undeployable (at least from aircraft).

The only thing I wonder about this is if the scientists in Germany intentioanlly screwed-up their calculations having major reservations (privately of course) about putting such a thing into Hitler’s hands. I have no evidence one way or another on this…just curious.

23

RickJay:

Right. I said, “before D-Day,” and, now that I think of it, “16” is too high a number.

True, but the OP posited the continuation of lend-lease. I took this to include U.S. aid to Russia, for the sake of argument.

The bombing campaign was a major drain on German resources, but I don’t think that a reduction in said campaign changes the fact that Germany simply could not win a war of attrition against the Soviets (which, as of December 1941, is what they were facing).

Whack:

Only at first. Soviet production and the destruction of obsolete tanks changed this pretty quickly (and, for the record, I think the Panther was a better tank than the Tiger: faster, better armor, better anti-tank gun, more reliable, etc.).

I think Hitler’s big mistake as regards Russia was postponing the start of Barbarossa by about six weeks in order to finish off Yugoslavia and the rest of the Balkans, a decision made almost entirely out of spite. As we’ve seen, he would need that time as winter was setting in.

As for Stalingrad, while it was a certainly a bigger German disaster than it should have been due to Hitler’s obstinance, it was merely a symptom of the disease. By the summer-winter of 1942, just a year into the war, the Germans could not launch massive offensivers with impunity; the Russians could give as well as they got.

24

Well, it was more that they attacked Pearl Harbor to keep the U.S. from entering the war. <Pauses while the impact of that counter-intuitive statement sinks in and brains explode. Wipes pieces of brain off his shirt sleeve>

Here was the Japanese logic:

  1. The U.S. has, up to this point, taken a hostile attitude toward Japanese conquests, culminating in a ban on the sale of oil to the Empire of Japan

  2. We must find some way to ensure that we will be allowed to purchase oil and that that supply of oil is not threatened.

  3. Although it has to this point remained neutral, the possibility exists that the United States will initiate hostilities against the Empire in response to our actions against British and “Free French” possessions in Asia and the Pacific.

  4. If such hostilities break out, the only danger to the Home Islands from the United States consists of the American bombers in the Phillipines, and the Pacific fleet, at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. Without those assets, the United States would be unable to fight the Empire.

  5. THEREFORE, the best course of action would be a Declaration of War against the United States, followed by an immediate attack on the Phillipines and the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, and the destruction of those assets. With those assets destroyed, we will then be able to propose peace with the United States, because they will have neither the will, nor the ability to fight, and as part of that treaty, we can guarantee the sale of American coal, oil and metals to the Empire at reasonable prices.

25

This of course has been argued back and forth for years.

The first question is: what do you mean by neutral? The US during its ‘neutral’ years was hardly neutral. The US had been fighting the Germans on the high seas for quite some time before Dec. '41. Hitler’s declaration of war was simply recognition of a preexisting state of war. So when you say neutral I will interpret this to mean no ‘lend, lease’, no ‘destroyers for bases’, no Japanese embargo (neither the earlier leaky embargo nor the later tight embargo) but the US certainly still would have gone through with ‘Cash and Carry’. Before I continue let me state that this is almost impossible to imagine, especially with FDR in the White House. Even without FDR the American public considered China to be in its sphere of influence. As long a Japan continued a war with China a confrontation with the US was virtually inevitable.

So lets take a quick look at what would have happened with no US.

Europe
Without the US aid programs Great Britain and the Commonwealth would have run out of cash probably around late '41, maybe sooner. This slows their war industries and allows some nations to slip further into the German camp. Particularly Spain and Portugal both had signed trade agreements with GB. In both agreements GB was guaranteed certain quantities of certain material, including if I remember correctly Bauxite (from which aluminum is extracted). It was understood that if GB did not purchase the materials they would almost certainly go to Germany. Note both nations in trying to remain neutral tried to maintain parity between the two coalitions during the war so a lot was already being shipped to Germany. But despite this GB had more than enough resources for the European Theater commitments even if production slipped a fair bit. They were already out producing Germany in fighters and had overwhelming superiority in naval units. So the Home Islands were safe from anything the Germans would try. Sealion was a fantasy from the beginning, which the Germans wisely dropped. GB would still probably have driven the Italian/German forces from North Africa pretty much as happened historically. An Italian campaign would have bogged down earlier and had it been attempted GB might still be slogging its way up Italy today. However the Axis could not have stopped GB from having its way in the Med. The battle of the Atlantic would have hung in the balance for longer but GB still would have won. By 1941 GB had reduced tonnage lost to about 1% of total shipped. This spiked upwards in '42, but that was largely due to the inexperience and stupidity of American captains. By '43 GB would still have had its air bases in Iceland and the Azores (leased from the Portuguese). With longer-legged fighters coming on-line every year, GB was never itself directly threatened. The Normandy landings and a Western front would be out of the picture. GB alone had no real hope of liberating France. But they would be able to launch a series of smaller actions on the German periphery. I would expect that Norway would be liberated, and actions in Greece and Italy would take place. These are all areas where either the Germans could be cut off by the Royal Navy or where the terrain would limit German actions preventing them from bring their larger forces to bear.

The Soviets in reality, accounted for more than 80% of the German Casualties in WWII. In 1941 the German army overran the Russians and conquered an area more than twice the size of France. They killed, wounded and captured millions of Russian troops. Even still they fell far short of their goal, and were facing an army far larger than they had assumed the Soviets could raise. They had captured the Ukraine, but they had been unable to cut off the transportation route from Murmansk and Archangel’sk. They were unable to completely cut off Leningrad and they had been stopped short of Moscow. And then with the Japanese declaration of war everywhere else the Soviets were able to transfer a large portion of their Siberian divisions to drive the Germans back in the winter of ‘41/’42. Now these divisions depend somewhat on what the Japanese do. If the Japanese fully commit elsewhere the Soviets can transfer the bulk of their Siberian divisions. In any case these battle-hardened divisions would likely be transferred to Europe and replaced with second tier units but that still would take some men out of the European theater. In ’42 the first tricklings of ‘lend, lease’ started getting to the Soviets. In finished goods (tanks, planes, trucks, guns, etc.) this never accounted for more than a drop in the bucket compared to Soviet production. In raw materials it did provide some important contributions, which allowed the Soviets to concentrate on production rather than developing their mining and extraction in those areas. But even here the Soviets could have fairly easily made up this on their own. In fact the Soviets out produced every country in the war except the US. Of course I don’t have the numbers here but I will provide them tonight if asked. By ’44 they had some of the best tanks, fighters and light bombers of the war. They also had them in vast quantities. They also had developed a good mobile warfare doctrine. In ’42 the Russians were still on the defensive but they were able to trade land for time and were able to prevent any major encirclement. Every mile the Nazis advanced they were a mile further from their supply and manufacturing base and the Soviets were a mile close to theirs. So by the time the battle of Stalingrad was in full force. The Germans had to ship their tanks thousands of miles while the Soviet tanks would roll out of the factory and drive couple of miles to the battle lines. By the summer of ’42 Hitler had advanced as far as he was able. The Soviets had recovered from ’41 magnificently and he was forced to try to take Stalingrad by direct assault rather than encirclement. The German lines were simply stretched too thin to try to do anything else. The loss of the 6th army would have occurred wither the US was in the war or not as would the resulting German confusion and retreat. By ’43 the Moscow defenses were stronger than ever and the Germans were getting exhausted. The battle of Kursk ended any real hope of German expansion in the East. From that point on the Russians were on the advance. This certainly would have been slower and bloodier than historically happened. GB’s bomber command would not have been able to inflict as much damage as the GB/US combined force. But by ’45 Germany would still probably be burning.

Technologically Germany was not as advanced as popular culture has made them out to be. Jet development was not as good as many have stated. Britain had jets, which were only a few months behind the Germans in development. The Germans felt a greater urgency so got theirs online faster. There jets had significant issues however and generally had to have their engines rebuilt with alarming frequency. Had they become common the British would have countered them fairly quickly. As far as the German nuclear program is concerned it likely would have taken them years to develop. When the program director was captured the US couldn’t believe how badly off track the German program was. Estimates at the time were that given their pace it would be the mid to late ‘50s before a German bomb was produced. Some statements were made which many feel indicated that some members of the German team may have been actively sabotaging the program, leading it off down now-productive paths of investigation. Even if they had developed the bomb they had no large bomber or rocket to carry it on. The rockets of course were revolutionary. But Germany was never able to produce enough to make a difference. And the rocket program took a lot of resources (especially fuel) which the Germans needed elsewhere.

So in my opinion Germany still would have lost just as badly. It may have taken a year or two longer but it would have still happened. Europe may have looked very different however. Stalin was simply not interested in the Western nations historically, so I have a hard time believing he would have invaded and forced a government on France, Italy or the low countries. He could have done that with Finland if he had wanted, but was instead content to agree to a non-aggression pact and the territories he wanted in ’39 (just enough to take Leningrad and the Murmansk railroad out of artillery range and a naval base to keep the Gulf of Finland open. Certainly he would still take most of the pre-1914 territories back and he wanted cordon of friendly states Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania. If you read Bitter Glory, Poland and Its Fate, 1918-1939, By Richard M. Watt, he was even originally willing to accept the democratic government of Poland as long as they were willing to ‘play nice’ and by his rules. They were strongly anti-soviet at the time (for good reason) so he eventually just installed a government of his own. And he still had the traditional Russian fixation over the Balkans. But he never made any statement that he had any interest in Western Europe. Germany however would have been divided and pasturalized. Early plans called for Germany to be divided into Austria and three other states and all manufacturing ability would be eliminated. Stalin would have his revenge on Germany. This however would have been applauded by most in France and many in Britain.

Asia
The Asian question is much easier to answer. In no remotely plausible scenario could the Japanese continue their war with China and not end up at war with the US, thus meeting you initial requirement. The Sino-Japanese war would have to end by ’41 at the latest. Certainly the Japanese would have gotten some territorial and trade concessions. This leaves Japan with a strong and aggressive government acutely aware of their deficiencies however. Combined with their belief that the world would be divided by a handful (2-5) of nations within a few decades, a war with China, the US and/or USSR is still virtually inevitable. By the ‘50s they would almost certainly be embroiled in trying to set up puppet governments throughout Asia.

Wow this is quite a bit longer than I intended. But the complexity of the issue demands more than just a four or five line response. For a good in-depth study of this check out The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, By Paul Kennedy.

26

Thanks for the detailed reply Bartman (and everyone else for that matter). I’ve been coming to the conclusion that Germany would have lost anyway given how everything played out. I think Britain would have had a harder time than you suggest but that’s a minor point and doesn’t change the outcome.

This is OT but since I started the thread I guess it’s ok…

The Tiger was considered a heavy tank whereas the Panther was a medium tank. For all around usefulness the Panther was probably the better tank. The Tiger was slow and consumed fuel at an alarming rate. The Tiger I had less armor than the Panther (100mm to 110mm) while the Tiger II had the most armor at 180mm. The Tiger in both versions had a bigger gun however (88mm to the Panther’s 75mm) which had incredible range for its day (something like 1000 yards).

The Tiger II was a real monster and arguably the most pwerful tank made in WWII. but it came late in the war and not many were built due to material shortages in Germany and the tank’s high cost.

That said the appearance of the Tiger on the battlefield really scared other tankers. In the Battle of Kursk (Germany’s last real offensive in the east and I think the biggest tank battle of the war) saw Russian tank drivers crashing their tanks into the Tiger since it was the only way they could find to stop one. I don’t think anyone was ever quite that put out by a Panther (which isn’t to say that the Panther wasn’t dangerous and deserving of respect).

27

The Tiger was indeed fearsomely well-armed and armoured (just ask the survivors of the British tank column in Normandy chewed up in minutes by an SS Tiger unit), but was also hideously unreliable, prone to regular breakdown and not as mobile as the PzKpfw IV and V (Panther). That’s how many of them ended up as pillboxes, buried up to the turrets, at the very end of the war - there simply wasn’t the time or resources to maintain them in a working, mobile condition.

28

Great replies in here. I just want to add that my freshman history college teacher shocked us all by saying that the Germans would have lost without the West, and then went into detail about it. His contention was as follows:

The initial battles in North Africa and Italy by the Western allies were a complete sideshow. He said there was no way to successfully invade Germany from Italy. Stalin, he contended, knew this and was putting pressure on the West to attack France, from which a successful invasion of Germany could be launched. By 1943 he was allegedly apoplectic over the West’s dillydallying, but Eisenhower & Co were assiduously working on getting the maximum advantage out of a minimal casualty count.
So, the West didn’t really enter the war on land seriously until D-Day, by which time, as many posters have pointed out, there was no German air force to contend with. Eisenhower therefore got what he wanted, while at the same time of course preventing the Soviets from being able to take over all of Europe.
That’s what he contended, anyway. I’ve never really tried to independently verify if Stalin really was as angry as he said over the West’s failure to attack France before D-Day. Anyone know the story here?

29

For the record *I[/i} don’t think Germany would necessarily have developed the atom bomb. As someone mentioned, it turned out they were farther behind in their effort than we initially feared. I just included that as an example of a “war-altering” technology. And I’m aware the British did have the Meteor, but the Me 262 is considered vastly superior (though they never did meet in combat, so I guess we can’t know for sure).

30

Oops! Sorry 'bout the italics.

31

Whack-a-Mole - It is clear that the Me262 was a superior fighter to anything else out there but there were reasons for that none of which, IMHO, support the view of a German ‘superiority’ in technical ability. Lets take, for example, the British slowness to pick up on Sir Frank Whittle’s original jet engine concept compared with the eagerness with which the German High Command grasped the potential of jet engine technology much earlier.

Amongst the reasons - perhaps the crucial reason - for Germany having a technical advantage in this field was the need Germany had for an engine that used cheaper diesel fuel instead of expensive high-octane aviation gasoline (in order to get higher performance) - a resource issue. That was the motivation in the development phase and the reason why Germany was ahead in that particular field, IMHO. Once development was underway, the Germans saw the awesome potential and, due credit, realised that potential.

As a general point - and one without academic reference as it’s only my view - innovation and technological advances came in two distinct forms during WW2: Offensive and defensive. In the former, the Germans appear outstanding (notably tanks, aircraft and submarines) but they had no competition so, without a reference frame, it’s difficult to judge their achievements.

In defensive technology, Britain did reasonably well (notably sonar, radar, surface convoy protection weaponry and Enigma). Also, the Allies throughout the early stages of the war were engaged in responding - as befits the party in defence. Later, the Allies had the benefit of vastly greater resources and opted to go for production numbers of existing technology rather than, for example, developing a punch-for-punch equal to the Tiger.

Germany had little choice other than to go for the advanced technology because they couldn’t win a numbers game. In that sense, we were fighting a different war and therefore used technology differently.

32

Bear in mind that the average historian lives in an academic ivory tower and doesn’t know shit about the real world. This sort of revisionism about the Second World War has been popular on campus since at least the eighties, when I went to college. One of the most valuable things I learned in college is that a lot of college professors are quacks.

Because of the threat from the Anglo-American alliance, Hitler was forced to keep forces in France that were badly needed on the eastern front. If those divisions had been available for service in Russia, Stalin would have been toast.

Someone here has claimed that the supplies America sent to Russian were somehow insignificant. This is simply not true. Those supplies were crucial, and without them the Russkies would not have been able to defeat Hitler. Just the trucks that Roosevelt gave Stalin made a huge difference all by themselves. At the very best, without the Brits and the Yanks as allies, Russia could never have done more than fight Hitler to a standstill, and even that would have taken a lot of luck. Stalin was every bit as deranged as Hitler, and just as Hitler wasted badly needed resources attempting to exterminate the Jews, Stalin wasted badly needed resources keeping up his political persecutions throughout the entire war. The Gulags were still going full blast all the while that Stalin was desperately trying to beat off Hitler. Entire Russian units that had managed to break out of German encirclements were shipped off to the prison camps on suspicion of collaboration with the krauts. When I think of the massive amounts of material and the numbers of men these two twits wasted killing people who weren’t even the remotest kind of threat to their power, it boggles my mind.

I mean no disrespect to the Soviets who fought like madmen to beat down the Nazis, but I am immensely skeptical that the Russkies could have beaten Hitler all by themselves.

33

(snicker)Stalin beating off Hitler (snicker/)

34

(BLUSH) … talk about yer Freudian slips …

35

Let me rehash some basic aspects of Armored Warfare to put the Tiger in it’s proper place.

Armor (and Armored Warfare) boils down to three basic components: maneuverability, firepower (offense) and armor protection (defense). Change any one of those three, and you have to sacrifice something else, barring significant advances in metalurgy (lighter and/or more effective armor) or power applications (such as dropping a 1,500 h.p. turbine engine into the M-1 Abrams family of vehicles; this actually just displaces the problem onto maintenance and logistic support capacity).

With the Tiger family, mobility was sacrificed for firepower and armor protection, making it more time and material intensive to manufacture. Which, since there were no real advances in metallurgy, increased its size, or battlefield profile. Which, when added to its relative lack of mobility, probably mitigated its superior armor protection and made it a less-than-effective battlefield weapon system; no tank ever made yet has been equally protected all-around. So, once flanked by superior numbers, it’s all over except for the dying.

More suited to trench/positional warfare that maneuver warfare. Does anybody remember the military truism that we train and build to fight the previous war?

The Panther family, on the other hand, was a good blend of the three aspects of Armor. A most effective tank, produced in insufficient numbers to either overwhelm or hold back the Russian advance.

Germany’s real problem is that it never really got its economy or key industries on a wartime footing; probably the influences of Nazi corruption, but that’s not really relevant. They didn’t get on a wartime industrial basis, and that’s quite possibly Germany’s real downfall.

Either that or Germany’s completely fucked logistics system (or lack therof). Maybe both. Compounded Error, and all that.

Consider the Sherman tank. A death trap, with the saving grace that it was fast enough (just) and cheap enough to build in sufficient numbers by an economy and industrial base on a wartime footing.

I doubt that there were many (if any) Shermans that ever came out on the good end of a head-to-head encounter with a Tiger or Panther tank.

But if the Germans killed 4 of ours, there was always a fifth that would work its way around for a flank shot and take out the German tank, generally.

Socio-Political Stability and Strength, Industrial Capacity, Economic Viability and Resilience (economies of scale) and Logistics: the key ingredients to waging strategic warfare.

Germany failed all; only rampant (almost fanatic) nationalism, superior martial skill and innovative tactics allowed them to succeed where they did, and held back failure and collapse longer than it should have.

Game, set and (bloody) match: Allies. Eventually. The Italians get tired of Mussolini and hang his sorry ass (che la basso-vita, felching della capra molle dicked il fucker dei ragazzi e delle ragazze piccoli!), the Russinas were royally pissed, and Stalin would’ve driven on Berlin and Germany at least, before going back to deal with Japan.

Japan, not attacking Pearl Harbor, can effectively block Soviet access to the Pacific, at least while the coal and oil holds out. If they consolidate and hold the Dutch East Indies, it possible, assuming no aggressive moves on Australia, or India. IMHO, the Allies were just strecthed too thin to hold back the Japanese in the Pacific; mainland Asia is another matter entirely.

I see Japan getting her ass booted off of mainland Asia, but being able to hold control of the seas if she’s not profligate with her resources. Without access to the raw materials necessary (unless by trade agreement) to develop a “finished manufactured goods export economy”, they remain a significant military force at the expense of developing their economy into anything other than a military-industrial support complex. So Japan’s real loss was in not taking and holding Siberia, and its abundant natural resources.

And god alone knows how long the Japanese people would put up with a military dictatorship as a government.

36

I think the situation in the Pacific was a knockdown. If the Japanese had avoided bringing the US into the war by only attacking British, Dutch, and French holdings there, and if Roosevelt would not be provoked by these actions, the Aussies would have been toast. Time and time again, British forces were rolled up by the Japanese. As I stated in the thread that spawned this one, Singapore is the perfect example of direct conflict between Japan and the UK. Even with the attack on Pearl bringing the US into the war, things might have been dramatically different had the PacFlt carriers been in port during the attack. Without battleships, we made a needed shift to carrier-based tactics and got very lucky.

In China, the situation was a toss-up. But my position is that once the Japanese secured the Pacific, only an alliance between Chiang and Mao (about as likely as Hitler kissing Stalin’s balls in front of the Brandenburg Gate) could have made beaten the Japanese Army. Even with US support, little headway was made in the China theater because of their constant interference with each other. But who knows, desperate times and all…

The Eastern Front couldn’t have gone to the Russians. Even with US support, they couldn’t have overcome the additional troops freed up with the lack of a real threat of invasion in France and Italy. Britain couldn’t have managed an invasion of Sicily without heavy US support, let alone the Continent. The German High Command never took the African theater seriously. Rommel was always short of troops, equipment, and supplies. Without the US, Britain would still have kept Egypt because the Germans would have just withdrawn and let the Italians try to defend Libya, eventually.

On the Russian Front: There were 16 divisions in Italy when the Allies invaded there. There were 55 divisions in France on June 6, 1944. There were more in Germany(?), Italy(~20 by June, 1944), Yugoslavia(10), and the Low Countries(?). Even if just 50 (out of more than 100!) could have been redeployed in Russia, the difference would have been dramatic. Stalingrad would not have withstood and the Caucasus would have fallen, giving Hitler a huge supply of oil that Stalin needed. The T-34 was a great tank, arguably the best in the world during WW2, since it was far cheaper than the Panther and even more mobile with similar armament and equal or better armor. But 10-12 more divisions of Panthers and Tigers would have been too much. The Luftwaffe would not have been chewed up in US daylight bombing raids and would have been able to concentrate on Russia. The Germans might even have grasped the concept of stategic bombing.

As for Britain, Sealion could easily have become more than a study on paper if Britain continued to be a thorn in Hitler’s side. He called off the plans because he underestimated the British will to fight. He figured that with no friends left in Europe, Churchill would be deposed and Britain would sue for peace. 12/7/41 changed that and Hitler knew it but it was too late.

In the North Atlantic, it is true that the US Navy was fighting an undeclared war against German U-Boats, but throughout 1941 and into 1942, the toll on British shipping continued to mount. Without large-scale US involvement across the entire North Atlantic sea route, that trend would not have stopped. Prior to 1942, the US Navy only engaged German subs near the eastern seaboard.

I just don’t see that the facts support anything like a British/Russian victory any time prior to 1950 at best and defeat as early as 1944 at worst.

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sewalk - I’m hesitant to overestimate German troop strengths in the West. A lot of these divisions were recovering from being shredded in Russia, and many others were low-quality, inexperienced and static volksgrenadier units. Many of them were constantly being drained of their best officers and NCOs to feed the war in the East

Tanks were mostly PzKpfw IV models, with Panthers in short supply and Tigers only ever operating in one or two independent battalions. Of the 10 panzer divisions in the West, three were nowhere near Normandy and two were being rebuilt from scratch.

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I misstated my thoughts. These divisions (in western Europe) would not need to have been redeployed to the East because they would have already been there. If the US was not in the war, there never would have been any German divisions in Italy. They would have all been committed to the effort in Russia much earlier.

In a similar vein, the Luftwaffe would not have been deployed in such great numbers in the West. The huge numbers were there to counter the US daylight bombing raids, which obviously would not have been an issue. This would have freed up valuable fighters for use in the East. The British and American air forces proved the value of heavily armed fighters in fighting tanks. The Germans were well aware of this potential, but never had anything approaching enough control of the skies in the West to try it.

With even some of these resources (even just a single Army) available to supplement the 1942 Summer Offensive, Stalingrad might easily have fallen. Had the Germans reached the Volga in strength, Zhukov’s counterattack would have been extraordinarily difficult.

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It seems to me that a large part of the question of whether Germany could have won without US involvement can be answered with an analysis of how Germany would have fared around Stalingrad if they had access to more troops.

  1. Could Germany have taken Stalingrad if they had more troops (a few more…a LOT more?)?

  2. If Germany could have taken the city would the battle still have constituted a mortal wound to the German war machine? I’m speculating here that even had they taken the city losing 1,000,000+ troops so quickly was probably more than Germany could bear and constituted the beginning of the end for them. Of course, had they more troops in the first place they may have taken the city quicker and not suffered such losses…certainly a debatable point.

  3. If Germany had taken Stalingrad how bad would that have been for Russia? Bad certainly but a showstopper? I don’t know…It certainly would have been a major blow to morale not to mention the loss of the much needed oil from the Caucasus (which would now be supplying Germany). On the flip side Russia is HUGE and they still had tons of men to throw at the war. At times Germany was inflicting a 10:1 loss ratio on the Russians (10 Russians dead for every German) yet the Russians seemed able (and willing) to absorb this whereas Germany really couldn’t…at least not for long.

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LonesomePolecat in regards to lend, lease, I did not intend to downplay it as much as in retrospect I have. I appologize. However I still don’t think that a neutral US would have slowed down Russia that much. Here is why. Total lend lease to the USSR was roughly $11 billion and about 17 billion tons. This accounts for about 1/4 of lend lease, the rest going to the Commonwealth, France and minor allies. Of the $43 billion total, $10 billion was paid off by the lending countries (This does not include sales of goods outside the lend lease program). Of this the USSR paid off the most, nearly 7 billion, in gold, gems, chromium and other misc goods. So the USSR would still have purchased nearly 2/3 of what they recieved in lend lease anyway. In addition until mid '43 lend lease was a trickle. The vast majority of lend lease came after Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk. The Soviets had basically stopped the Germans before the Americans got involved.

sewalk one of the basic problems on the East front is that Germany was already near or at their logistical limits. It does little to no good to send men to a front if you can’t provide food, bullets and fuel to them. Rommel was faced with the same issue in North Africa. He desperately needed more of everything. But by the time he had advanced to El Alamain, he was on the tail end of a very long logistics trail. Dependent on Italian shiping and the Libyan railways, Germany simply could not physically send him anything more than they were. Once he had retreated to Tunisia and his logistics were thereby shortend he recieved a greatly increased quantaties of men and material. On the East Front it is estimated that for every pound of material recieved a pound of fuel was used. Considering the Reich’s desperate condition regarding coal and especially oil, that was a losing proposition. Another problem is you are giving the Americans too much credit too soon. The Americans had not attacked anywhere by the time Stalingrad began. Thus the Soviets defeat the Germans at Stalingrad and the Commonwealth defeats them at El Alamain regardless of American neutrality. American bombers did not start to draw off day fighters in significant quantaties until '43, by which time the Soviets had already achieved roughly 2:1 superiorities in the East. Also remember that the 100 odd divisions you are talking about are in the vast majority of the cases undermanned, undersupplied, and inexperienced. Most of these were either recovering from tours on the front lines or marsheling to be sent there. In addition a lot of these were occupation units in the terratories or volksgrenadier in Germany itself, and thus had a lot of boys and old men unfit for front line service.

Sealion never had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeding. The only reason it was ever considered was that Hitler couldn’t be convinced otherwise. Each branch eventually said they could complete their requirements if the other branches exceded theirs. The basic plan was to float two (non panzer) divisions, minus their artillery, and two weeks supplies over on river barges. Becasue of the basic unseaworthyness of the barges the speed would be roughly 5 MPH. The Luftwaffe was supposed to repel all RAF and RN attacks. And the Kriegsmarine was supposed to be the last ditch defense for the barges against anything the Luftwaffe missed. The barges themselves had no beaching capability and would have to be unloaded in ports. So Paratroops were to be sent ashore to capture the ports undamaged so the Heer could unload. Once ashore the Heer was supposed to capture multiple targets including London, with only the Luftwaffe as artillery support. It was estimated that it would take over two weeks before significant reinforcements could arrive. In all it called for the complete destruction or suppression of the RAF and the RN, and for an army of two divisions minus all their heavy equipment to defeat a fortified army of 10 divisions. It vastly overestimated the Luftwaffe’s ability to destroy the RAF as proved in the Battle of Britain. It vastly overestimated the Luftwaffe’s ability to sink RN ships as proved in at Crete. And as far as I am aware the Heer never sucessfully took on 10 divisions with two divisions sans artillery. Churchill once said that he wished the Germans had tried Sealion as it would have been a great morale booster and a good oportunity to chew up some German troops with only light casualties to the British.

In the Pacific the Japanese could not have done much better even if the US stayed neutral (which I still contend was as unlikely as a Nigerian ocupation of Sweden). Even with a neutral US the Japanese could not have invaded India. They were at the end of their logistics and India was ocupied by a large well supplied force. The region favored the defender and the Japanese were light on the heavy weapons needed to break into India. Even Singapore might have been defended by a more agressive commander. In the end it surrendered not because it felt that it was about to be overwhelmed but instead becasue the comander felt that a defense of the city would result in more civilian casualties than acceptable. The Japanese at Singapore were almost out of supplies and where making plans for a retreat to the counter-attack they felt was coming, when to their surprise the British surrendered. As far as threatening Australia, that is even more of a pipe dream than Sealion. Check out http://www.combinedfleet.com/guadoil1.htm for some stats on what the Japanese had to spend on the battle of Guadalcanal. By the end of the battle Japan was using nearly 1.5 tons of oil per man or barrel put on the Island. This is due to the need to use destroyers for transports because of American air power on Guadalcanal. An extended campaign would take 50% of the IJN’s monthly fuel alotment to land and supply a division with all their associated heavy equipment. Australia could defend Darwin at least as well and probably several times better. Then if they somehow managed that, they get to engage in desert warfare across thousands of miles of wasteland before they started to take anything worthwhile. And the logistics of trying to directly invade Sydney are even worse. It is interesting to note that even with the outragious ideas that were entertained (the ocupation of Hawaii) that the Japanese never even drew up preliminary plans for an Australian invasion. If left alone in China however the Japanese were doing well and could have won that war by '48. The occupation would have been hellish for the occuping troops however. Both Mao and Chiang were becoming masters of gorilla warfare. Imagine a Vietnam or Afganastan in an area the size of chine with a billion people. But as I have said this is all very speculatory as there is no way the US would have stayed out even if the Japanese didn’t attack the Phillipines, which they absolutely had to do to secure the Dutch East Indies.