Assumptions Necessary to Create a Plausible Axis Victory

Except the subsequent asteroid winter would lead to crop failures and fuel shortages in Germany, while halting any eastward advances. Hitler can't invade Russia in the summer of 1942 if there isn't a summer of 1942.
And all the major 'Northern' powers collapse or suffer from rebellions simply due to food shortages (and Germany aimed to settle the east, not Africa), or in the US' case have rationing. The colonies/occupied areas near the equator would do better simply by virtue of latitude and the 'North' having governance issues.
WW2 + Peshawar Lancers would be a grim if interesting scenario
 
If all you get is 100 miles radius destroyed you are not nocking the US out unless it hits New York. Or maybe Washington. You could really damage the US effort if it his Detroit.
But as noted that is beyond the scope here
 

thaddeus

Donor
one (fairly) plausible POD would be properly working German torpedoes https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1599&context=etd that leads to a better performance by the KM during Norway invasion and a blunted Dunkirk evacuation (POD #2 or numbers #2 & #3)

against that backdrop, I wonder if the BoB air campaign even considered necessary? (beyond the Channel warfare) and Japan might be considered an interloper in Indochina, unwilling to fight the British for the prior year?

consider the Nazi regime might revert to trade with China and disentangle themselves from Japan? with more logical reason than simply not delaring war on the US later after Pearl?

My thinking on Dunkirk is this. If there is no evacuation, then there is a least a possibility that in early 1941, the UK decide against sending troops to Greece and this (in combination with better Spring weather) enables Barbarossa to start 6 - 8 weeks earlier. The loss of the additional men in Europe if there is no evacuation may 1. make the British more careful with conserving manpower and 2. more gun shy in terms of putting men on the continent.

no Dunkirk, and more chaotic evacuations form elsewhere in France? seems like the air campaign could have just continued as more of a naval interdiction, potentially saving 100's and 100's of LW aircraft (albeit it works both ways) the German side might also have proceeded with their original plan to assemble a large number of magnetic mines, which could cancel the fumble of one into British hands? (i.e. it takes the British months to solve that problem?)

The big problem with invading the USSR is logistics. As you move further and further east, you have to tote men and materials further and further over land using more and more fuel and vehicles. One way to mitigate this is sea based transport. If Turkey joins the Axis, then they can let Italian navy units into the Black Sea and the Axis can dominate the Black Sea. This creates the opportunity to ship things long distances by water less expensively and faster (and with less potential for partisan interference) than by land. This creates the potential for actually taking the Caucasus region and depriving the USSR of the Baku oil. So the Turkey issue is an important one.

there is a good paper on Axis failures on the Black Sea, even sending more small vessels overland and via the Danube (earlier) would have paid huge dividends https://www.jstor.org/stable/44641609?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
 
The Dunkirk evacuation made zero difference to the Europe situation. Sealion is still impossible, so Germany can't get at Britain. Britain didn't launch any major Europe assaults, so that doesn't change either. You can airlift every man and piece of equipment back to Britain, and it doesn't make a difference. You can have Germany scoop the whole lot up, lock, stock, and barrel, and it doesn't make any difference.

Yugoslavia aids Germany rather than is a drain. This begs the question: What difference does that make to the invasion of Russia? The German limitation was logistics. Having extra troops available makes not a speck of difference, because they can't support them. Germany needs logistics and infantry that can move at something faster than a walk. Having Yugoslav support makes not a jot of difference.
Dunkirk - OTOH you are right - though the UK in the future would need more colonial troops to make up the difference, and doubt if troops going to Greece is likely. OTOH - the psychological impact, and sense of demoralization, would be high. In OTL Churchill had to work hard to keep Halifax and his 'peace feelers' under control - in a 'failed Dunkirk' he might be so lucky. Having said that - doesn't mean they would accept those 'terms' but .....

The Balkans - the difference it could make - is timing, granted - six weeks earlier is not possible or wise because of the weather, but three weeks is quite plausible . Which may also affect availability - when/how many of Kv & T-34 tanks.
 
Dunkirk - OTOH you are right - though the UK in the future would need more colonial troops to make up the difference, and doubt if troops going to Greece is likely. OTOH - the psychological impact, and sense of demoralization, would be high. In OTL Churchill had to work hard to keep Halifax and his 'peace feelers' under control - in a 'failed Dunkirk' he might be so lucky. Having said that - doesn't mean they would accept those 'terms' but .....

The Balkans - the difference it could make - is timing, granted - six weeks earlier is not possible or wise because of the weather, but three weeks is quite plausible . Which may also affect availability - when/how many of Kv & T-34 tanks.
A failed Dunkirk 'at worst' nets 200,000 extra British POWs - assuming every single soldier that was evacuated is captured which is unlikely

The British commonwealth put 11,000,000 men into uniform mostly after June 1940

Again Churchill could not have done what he did without the support of the house and I find it unlikely that Halifax had he become PM would have remained so for long if he had pursued peace as again the house would not let him

Neither men were dictators. But Halifax was swimming against the flow - Churchill with it.
 

bguy

Donor
I don't really understand why the idea of UK and US choosing to live with Hitler after 1939 is so crazy.

Halifax tried to remove Churchill as PM in order to negotiate and was clearly the main alternative to him. With complete loss of Dunkirk, the momentum is on his side. Hitler isn't stupid, either. Soviets are his main enemy and cutting a deal to keep the British out for now will be obviously advantageous to that effort. Allowing them to keep the Empire should do it.

The problem with that is the British know perfectly well that Hitler's promises are worthless. There's no point in making a deal with someone that you know won't honor the deal.

At the same time, American public opinion is massively isolationist. The Neutrality Acts are constraining what little Roosevelt can do. If UK is no longer fighting in 1941, then even Pearl Harbour won't lead the Americans to suddenly ally with communists, especially when Hitler won't bother declaring war on them.

American public opinion turned against isolationism in 1940. Gallup polls taken that year show that even as early as March of 1940, there was already a majority (55%) of the American public that wanted the US to loan money to Britain and France if that was necessary to keep them from losing to Germany and thereafter there was consistent majority support for the US giving aid to the Allies. A May 1940 poll showed a majority (51%) wanted the US to extend credit to the Allies, a July 1940 poll showed a majority (53%) felt the US wasn't doing enough to help the Allies, a September 1940 poll showed a majority (52%) felt that helping Britain was more important than keeping the US out of the war, and an October 1940 poll showed 60% wanted the Neutrality Acts repealed so that US ships could directly carry war supplies to Britain.

http://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup 1940.htm

Moscow getting taken in 1941 is also not at all far-fetched. This would destroy Soviet moral. If Japan chooses to wait out Pearl Harbour and go at the Soviets first, then a two-front war across a continent with most major cities lost puts the logistic disadvantage on what will increasingly be a partisan insurgency. There could well be a coup against Stalin, leading to further chaos in the Soviet ranks. Maybe the insurgency keeps on smoldering, but it's not an immediate threat anymore.

How exactly are the Nazis taking Moscow in 1941? IOTL it took all their strength just to get to the outskirts of the city, so how exactly are the Germans, who are at the end of their tether, going to take the most heavily defended city on Earth in the face of an incredibly nasty winter?

And why would Japan attack the Soviets? The resources Japan desperately needs are in the south, and they really didn't enjoy their last experience tangling with the Red Army, so there is no reason for them to go north.

After Germany gets the bomb in 1946 (also not far-fetched), the US poses no risk at all anymore and the Soviet insurgency is finally wiped out through an atomic holocaust.

Wait, what? How is Germany getting the atomic bomb by 1946? The German atomic bomb project was an underfunded joke that never came close to producing a bomb and was pretty much abandoned by 1942 as Hitler was much more interested in developing long range rockets.


Furthermore even if you flat out gave the Germans atomic bombs, they don't have any bombers or rockets capable of carrying such heavy weapons, so how are they going to threaten the United States with their atomics? About the best they could do is load an atomic bomb on a u-boat and have it try to sail across the Atlantic (in the face of the US and Royal Navies), sneak into an American port and suicide bomb itself, but that's not exactly a reliable delivery method, and it still leaves the Nazis with no way to strike at the American interior (where most of the US industry and population is.) Furthermore, if the Germans ever succeed in such an attack, the US will then simply turn every German u-boat base into radioactive slag, which will leave the Germans with no way at all to strike at the US with atomic weapons, while the US atomic arsenal just keeps getting larger and larger.
 
American public opinion turned against isolationism in 1940. Gallup polls taken that year show that even as early as March of 1940, there was already a majority (55%) of the American public that wanted the US to loan money to Britain and France if that was necessary to keep them from losing to Germany and thereafter there was consistent majority support for the US giving aid to the Allies. A May 1940 poll showed a majority (51%) wanted the US to extend credit to the Allies, a July 1940 poll showed a majority (53%) felt the US wasn't doing enough to help the Allies, a September 1940 poll showed a majority (52%) felt that helping Britain was more important than keeping the US out of the war, and an October 1940 poll showed 60% wanted the Neutrality Acts repealed so that US ships could directly carry war supplies to Britain.

http://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup 1940.htm
Yes, I don't think it's possible for an isolationist candidate to get elected after the fall of France. If you avoid the fall of France it might be possible, but that rules out an Axis victory.
 

thaddeus

Donor
one (fairly) plausible POD would be properly working German torpedoes https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1599&context=etd that leads to a better performance by the KM during Norway invasion and a blunted Dunkirk evacuation (POD #2 or numbers #2 & #3)

think the Dunkirk evacuation put a lot of wind in the sails of the British, one because the Germans remained a clearly defined land power, and just IMO, that would have remained the case if the Panzer forces had somewhat of a victory yet at least a partial evacuation had been carried out.

had some larger number of RN ships been sunk or damaged during Norway and Dunkirk it adds a greater complexity to the conflict the British face? my pure speculation it might affect the BoB, you might have an "anything you can do, I can do better" competition between KM and LW to sink further ships?
 
And we are off running in the POD relay race. If POD 1 then this hapoens and we get POD 2 then these things happen then these and then POD 3 and POD 4 and then a miricle happens and Bobs Your Uncle.
 

Garrison

Donor
And we are off running in the POD relay race. If POD 1 then this hapoens and we get POD 2 then these things happen then these and then POD 3 and POD 4 and then a miricle happens and Bobs Your Uncle.
Yeah 'Plausible Axis Victory' is practically an oxymoron. you either get a series of PODs steadily reducing whatever plausibility the idea the TL started with. Or 20th century history gets rewritten to such an extent that any talk of an Axis or WWII is meaningless. Or of course you get some far fetched idea that isn't remotely plausible despite endless arguments to the contrary.
 
And we are off running in the POD relay race. If POD 1 then this hapoens and we get POD 2 then these things happen then these and then POD 3 and POD 4 and then a miricle happens and Bobs Your Uncle.
Calculating the Improbability Factor will be tricky. Are they independent? Positively "correlated", in that IF POD1 happens then POD2 becomes more likely and POD3 even more probable. (Less improbable anyway) Or negatively related.

I'd think that whichever way you cut it, the probability will be 1 in 2 to the power of whatever 9 digit telephone number is most relevant to you. (Generally that of the house where you went to a party when ~18 and entirely failed to cop off with the partner of your dreams. Or possibly did find romance/lust for the first time.)

And dunking an Improbability Generator into a strong cup of tea will not be enough to produce an Axis victory.

Edited for typo
 
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kham_coc

Kicked
I have just thought of another possible PoD that's plausible, and unlikely to butterfly the Nazis - An independent Ukraine.
Either as a German ally, or by just removing sufficient industrial and agricultural capacity from the USSR during the 20´s and 30's.
 

Fulton 44

Kicked
no Dunkirk, and more chaotic evacuations form elsewhere in France? seems like the air campaign could have just continued as more of a naval interdiction, potentially saving 100's and 100's of LW aircraft (albeit it works both ways) the German side might also have proceeded with their original plan to assemble a large number of magnetic mines, which could cancel the fumble of one into British hands? (i.e. it takes the British months to solve that problem?)



there is a good paper on Axis failures on the Black Sea, even sending more small vessels overland and via the Danube (earlier) would have paid huge dividends https://www.jstor.org/stable/44641609?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
I will read it. The more I study up on the Eastern Front, the more it becomes clear that logistics played a big role given the over-the-land distances involved and the one possible solution to this is some transportation route using water based systems. I assume that the Japanese faced similar problems in China but they had a river system which was East/West and likely helped alleviate the issue.
The USSR had a considerable Black Sea fleet but it you throw the Turkish navy in on the Axis side and add it to the Romanian navy, you come close to parity. Then, if the Italians can bring a few cruisers, maybe one battleship, and a bunch of destroyers into the Black Sea, this combined with Axis air power could turn the Black Sea into an Axis lake. This in turn makes it easier to move men and material a long way East over water and should enable to conquest of the Caucasus region which in turn deprives the Soviets of the Baku oil. Once the Caucasus is secured, then the freed up forces can establish a front on the Volga. If Moscow has already been taken, the Northeast sector can be gradually closed off and strangled and the Astrakan/Archangel line achieved. None of this results in the total elimination of the USSR, but with a vastly diminished access to resources and manpower, the Axis can leave a smaller force facing East and then deploy more resources in other directions.
 
The USSR had a considerable Black Sea fleet but it you throw the Turkish navy in on the Axis side and add it to the Romanian navy, you come close to parity.
1 BC and 6 DD as well as about 8 SS vs 1 BB 2 CL (plus a couple Kirovs eventually) and a smattering of DD's and subs isn't close to parity.
hen, if the Italians can bring a few cruisers, maybe one battleship, and a bunch of destroyers into the Black Sea,
From where? The Royal Navy will definitely contest this, causing a major battle the Italians didn't want and rarely had the fuel for. And even if by some miracle they slip the force through, they are that much weaker in the Mediterranean.
 

Fulton 44

Kicked
1 BC and 6 DD as well as about 8 SS vs 1 BB 2 CL (plus a couple Kirovs eventually) and a smattering of DD's and subs isn't close to parity.

From where? The Royal Navy will definitely contest this, causing a major battle the Italians didn't want and rarely had the fuel for. And even if by some miracle they slip the force through, they are that much weaker in the Mediterranean.
This is true . However, the Italian ships would not have to stay in the Black Sea forever. And a focused use of air power could help throw the balance to the Axis. Of course, you could also have German subs come into the Black Sea.
But you are right. It would involve a shift of resources from the Med - probably at some time in early 1942 - and this would be problematical. Thus, it might require a whole new set of assumptions favorable to the Axis to be plausible.
 

Geon

Donor
With regard to how the Axis could have won I would commend to all interested to view the film series Why we Fight!


Yes, it is wartime propaganda. But it is excellently done. And it did a good job of portraying the very real fears of an Axis victory at a time when it seemed the Axis had the upper hand. Some of the scenes are heart wrenching. In film #3 the image of a child hurt by Nazi bombs lying in a hospital bed hit me like punch in the gut. Be warned. It is not easy watching at times. But it shows the assumptions our great grandparents had regarding a Nazi victory. As I said in an earlier post, we have the blessing of hindsight. We know more than out forbears did on why Germany and Japan were not going to win the war. In many cases our civilian leaders and military leaders of that period did not have that luxury.

Give this a look and I suspect you may be sobered by how close we perceived the Axis came to a victory.
 

Fulton 44

Kicked
With regard to how the Axis could have won I would commend to all interested to view the film series Why we Fight!


Yes, it is wartime propaganda. But it is excellently done. And it did a good job of portraying the very real fears of an Axis victory at a time when it seemed the Axis had the upper hand. Some of the scenes are heart wrenching. In film #3 the image of a child hurt by Nazi bombs lying in a hospital bed hit me like punch in the gut. Be warned. It is not easy watching at times. But it shows the assumptions our great grandparents had regarding a Nazi victory. As I said in an earlier post, we have the blessing of hindsight. We know more than out forbears did on why Germany and Japan were not going to win the war. In many cases our civilian leaders and military leaders of that period did not have that luxury.

Give this a look and I suspect you may be sobered by how close we perceived the Axis came to a victory.
There is no doubt that things looked bleak at various times in 40-42. We even built pillboxes along the Atlantic Coast to fend off an amphibious invasion escorted by the Kriegsmarine. Japan seemed unstoppable. New bad surprises - Tobruk, the Indian Ocean raid, etc. - seemed to pop up around every corner. But deep down, Churchill knew that - once the USA was in with both feet - it was just a matter of time. And Yamamoto shared this insight as did Halder and other German strategists.
It was a case of one side having an enormous advantage in manpower and industrial capacity and the other side having a temporary advantage in military equipment and mobilized forces as well as military experience.
Of course, it was important to mobilize the American public but I get the sense that FDR was pretty confident that we would prevail.
Fairly early on after the US entry into the war, the doctrine of unconditional surrender was adopted by the Allies and this is not a posture one would assume if one were in real doubt about the ultimate outcome.
But from the point of view of the average American citizen, things looked scary. Subs prowled right outside New York harbor. There were rumors of landings on the West Coast. And so, we united, put aside our differences, rolled up our sleeves, and got to work. Some economists describe WW2 as the last large government program which was really successful. Many economists were astonished at the volume of output we achieved (I have heard that Pennsylvania outproduced Germany in WW2) and believed that it pointed the way to how a planned economy could generate so much output that poverty could be forever erased. If WW2 was the UK's "finest hour", it was ours as well.
 
The Nazis can't win OTL WW2. What's needed are Notzis with a similar, but not the same, war.
I have just thought of another possible PoD that's plausible, and unlikely to butterfly the Nazis - An independent Ukraine.
Either as a German ally, or by just removing sufficient industrial and agricultural capacity from the USSR during the 20´s and 30's.
This can make a difference. Would Ukraine and the USSR join forces against the Notzis, or would their own differences help the Notzi invasion?
So let's say Ukraine keeps it independence after the Russian civil war, the reds win it anyway, the Notzis rise to power after the 1929 crisis. They manage the war machinery in a more competent and efficient fashion, don't expel or alienate the Jews (which weakens the Manhattan Project and keeps key scientists working for the Notzis. Einstein may not leave Europe nor write any letter to Roosvelt. That doesn't stop the Manhattan Project, but delays it) and has infiltrated the Ukrainian political system. They may still keep a Malthusian view of food production and ultimately be planning for the extermination of the Ukrainian people, but their Quislings in Ukraine don't need to know that.

For bonus points, Italy may have discovered oil in Libya and set up refineries there as well as railroads across the coast and better ports.

Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the invasion of Poland go more or less as in OTL. Maybe France and the UK bomb Baku in response to the USSR invasion of Poland. If so, an Axis victory is a lot more palatable. Even if they don't. Things go more or less like in OTL. The Notzis could have collaborated with Japan and gotten better torpedoes for both submarines and aircraft, or developed themselves. They also have more streamlined production lines. They take a heavier toll on the RN during 1940 and while there is no chance to invade Britain, the UK will be more pressured in the Battle of the Atlantic. Maybe there is no BoB per se, and the Notzis focus more exclusively in the British ports.

By the time they invade the USSR, they have assistance from independent Ukraine. Maybe they manage to increase their sealift capabilities in the Black Sea, and a Luftwaffe better trained and equipped to go after warships can also hurt the Soviet fleet in the Black Sea. The Italians have better logistics in North Africa, and may even use oil refined in Libya for a time (eventually, the UK will bomb the refineries).

If all of this allows the Notzis to take Moscow and deny the oil in Baku to the USSR and the USA hasn't declared war on Germany, then the Notzis can end the war in the East and enter a draw with the UK.
 

kham_coc

Kicked
The Nazis can't win OTL WW2. What's needed are Notzis with a similar, but not the same, war.
There are any number of ways my idea could work. Either, the state as such is pretty german friendly, maybe a few tens of thousands of germans stayed and became ukrainians (and helped it stay independent - For some delightful irony, they are motivated by the promise of a big parcel of land as their discharge bonus, Lebensraum style:) - and or it's some sort of mildly fascist state that is paranoid about the USSR and bickering about the border with the Poles.
Even if we aren't talking outright alliance, certainly amenable to German ideas - Maybe a Poland is divided in three ways in this TL, and then they are de-facto forced to join in against the USSR (or very happy allies, either or) since if Germany loses, the USSR is there, and if Germany wins, well, that won't be nice for them either.
Or, WW2 starts when the 'Noble Hitler defends poor ukraine against the ruthless evil USSR' - (this would be the TL where France and the UK look away and pretend that the Poles weren't invaded to get at the USSR) until it's too late.

The only thing that really matters for WW2 and the Nazis is that the state (definitionally) won't be interested in being a part of the USSR, and consequently robs it of a lot of capital, industry, and resources - So even as a very democratic, very UK/France friendly state it would be very much to Germany's favour. (Dark idea - Maybe the Molotov ribbentrop pact in this TL lets stalin invade Ukraine, would be very naziesque to shove them into the fire and then 'rescue' them).
And of course, it's unlikely to be that - The allies were against secession from Russia, so the Ukrainians will remember that and the most likely regime is going to be very nationalistic, very anti communists - Well we know that that is. If we then add in the unavoidable border issues with Poland, as well as the almost automatic paranoia about the USSR, it's going to be a very German friendly nation. Even Hitler shouldn't be able to alienate them.
 
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