You mean the way the Soviets weren't willing to let Germany overrun France?
Stalin was nastily shocked that France crumbled so quickly. He was expecting a long drawn out war which would lead to the Anglo-French, not for Germany to finish off the French in 4 weeks.
How? What is the US going to do, send volunteer units to the Eastern Front?
Send the Soviets food, supplies, raw materials, and so-on. Basically, lend-lease. Probably start out with low-interest loans like they did IOTL.
Whatever the exact figure, the point is that substantial numbers of AFVs had to be located to fronts other than that against the USSR because of the fighting with the Wallies.
Except the figures don't reflect that. The majority of those AFVs not in the East were there for reserves, repair, training, or in transit, not for combat. The only AFVs fighting the WAllies in June 1942 were the few hundred in the North Africa desert.
With peace in the west, the proportion of economic resources devoted to fighting the Soviet Union doubles.
Not until it's too late. More probably the Germans decide to save on the resources since taking over the Soviet Union would just be a few month job. By the time they realize it won't be, it's too late.
Depends if Japan still takes over Indochina.
Is the Pope Catholic? Germany isn't going to stop them or even complain any more then they did IOTL. They weren't interested in overseas colonies.
The momentum towards the embargo had been building well before Indochina. If anything, an invasion of the USSR would be enough to trigger it.
The "premier" arm or not, the air and naval war against the Wallies soaked up huge resources which would have made a difference if they had been used against the Soviet Union. For example, more steel was used for U-Boats than for tanks until 1943.
And even when more steel was being used for tanks, the Germans were unable to match Soviet weapons production.
Let isn't the issue, they lacked the funds without LL to rearm rapidly. In 1941-42 just going on their own funds and resources to ensure they maintain some foreign exchange stocks they'd only be able a level to defend the Home Isles after the Dunkirk losses.
Never mind that they were able to launch major offensives and inflict heavy defeats against the Italians in late-1940.
India would be highly restive and would refuse to reenter the conflict; they were on the verge of revolt after being forced into it in 1939.
You have yet to prove that anything about India's restiveness would have been complicating to the British. The wiki post you made earlier is rather unimpressive: 100,000 people needing to be arrested over the course of 2-years in a region with a population of nearly 320 million? As revolts go, it's pretty pathetic. If the 2.7 million strong Indian Volunteer Army (and hey, there was enough support for the British Empire to raise a 2.7 million man
volunteer army) was enough to suppress that while Britain was fighting a major war in Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific then it will certainly be enough to suppress whatever ITTL revolt occurs when Britain is just preparing to fight a war in Europa and North Africa.
I'm reminded of that time you tried to represent several thousand American draft dodgers as indicating that the US population was dissatisfied with fighting OTLs WW2... except for the fact that the US drafted
millions of men.
The US government being upset at war in Europe certainly started with Poland in 1939, but active violence and lurch toward war with Germany was a function of LL and getting supplies to Britain in 1940-41; without Britain being in the war the US public is going to have little interest in any combat with the Germans.
The fall of France alone was enough for the US public and Congress was panicked enough to begin a massive military rearmament and start offering aid to Britain right there in June of 1940.
No one would trust the British to reenter the conflict any time soon,
Pretty much anyone who understood the history of British involvement on the European continent would be able to trust the British to reenter the conflict some time soon.
while the USSR was not well liked in the US outside the far left after they allied with the Nazis.
And that rapidly underwent a 180 degree shift following June 22nd 1941. By the end of November 1941, the American media and public were applauding the Soviets successful defense of Moscow.
In 1941 the feeling first was that the Soviets would collapse by the end of 1941 and that Stalin and Hitler were both horrible dictators that should kill each other while the US focused on rearming and ensuring its sector of the world was safe. The US public pre-LL wasn't interested in getting involved in Europe and good luck getting Congress to supply the Communists who they feared greatly, enough to keep Jewish refugees out of the country lest they bring Socialist values to the US. Also the impression is going to be without allies the Soviets aren't going to survive, so any free aid will just end up going to the Axis.
None of this is reflected in American actions following Barbarossa: literally the day after the Soviet Union was invaded, the US was already offering all sorts of aid including stuff like near-zero-interest loans. Lend-lease was officially extended to them by October, a full two months before the Pearl Harbour. Thus, the US was both officially and unofficially committing itself to support of the Soviet Union
long before American entry into the war.
Quite frankly, if the US was willing to send massive food aid shipments to the Soviet Union in the early-20s when the red scare was at it's height then their damn well going to be willing to aid the Soviet Union against an unprovoked invasion when their own propaganda arm (and the British one as well) is portraying the USSR as the valiant defenders of freedom against the tyrannical fascist hordes.
And if the Japanese enter the war there is no way to get it to the Soviets reliably anyway.
Persia and Murmansk.
Also if the British aren't in the war the 12 month period from 1940-41 that Europe is at peace then would seen Uboat construction ended and those resources and labor used for armor production, which would continue into 1942 and beyond as needed.
More likely the Germans decide to cash those savings since they don't think they
need them beyond 1941.
That's the thing, IOTL they had to cancel the planned upgrades to the rail infrastructure in Poland to pursue industrial/weapons plans that won't be needed here, so they could be carried out and end the Polish bottleneck in the supply chain, plus then free up more resources for rail conversion without a blockade.
Except properly building up infrastructure like that is a process that takes
years. Even as late as 1943, the Germans were facing constrictions in rail supply out East.
The supply lines are the choke chain for any advance, so when they get too far even if that is a shorter distance in then they have to stop.
Given that you clearly don't know what the metaphorical choke chain (what is referred in the military as "") looks like. It doesn't look like a simple "stop" of the advance. It looks like what happened to the Germans late-October/November 1941, when the German attacks slowed to a crawl and practically gained them nothing but more casualties.
But the Soviets are going to get much more mangled in the process,
Because, magically, the Soviets aren't going to realize that with Britain out of the war their next and plan to meet an attack in 1941 instead of 1942 like they did IOTL.
A big part of the success of the December-January offensive was the removal of 2nd Air Fleet to the Mediterranean in November leaving 3 operational aircraft for AG-Center by early December.
Given that the Germans found itself incapable of supporting any more then 3 aircraft, that was probably a good decision.
Once the Luftwaffe got its operational numbers back up in January the Soviet offensive bogged down.
Except they didn't. Luftwaffe operational numbers remained pitiful throughout the winter 1941-42.
Plus given that Leningrad is going to fall
By magic, apparently.
and then with it Murmansk
By more magic.
the Soviet winter counteroffensive is going to be a LOT weaker without those LL weapons
The fact that 25% of Soviet armor during the counter-offensive (the defensive operations was conducted before the lend-lease tanks could reach the front) was British ignores the reality that armor wasn't that important at Moscow. The counter-offensive relied overwhelmingly on Soviet infantry, cavalry, and artillery with armor and aircraft being used sparingly due to their rarity. Even if one factors in that consideration, one finds that the LL still didn't make much of a difference: the Soviets rapidly found themselves relying more on their own tanks because the British tanks, which were as unsuited to the conditions as the German ones, kept breaking down from the cold.
The loss of LL would not have changed anything in the Battle for Moscow, assuming the battle even occurs like OTL.
the KV production facilities lost in Leningrad
Evacuation was ordered June 23rd and part of the planet had already transferred to .
The Japanese already did their job by cutting off the Pacific trade routes. Its not a vital front to the Soviets other than being a critical trade conduit.
And they got nothing for it except several hundred thousand dead (minimum). In return, they'll be facing economic collapse in a year.
What a great trade.
The Japanese wouldn't then have to worry about the ABCD embargo, as Germany would rule the Dutch homeland and they'd be able to ensure the flow of oil from the DEI.
Which, as someone pointed out earlier in the thread to you, turned out to be inadequate.
IOTL the Dutch joined the oil embargo because they were a government in exile, which meant they were dependent on US LL largess, which wouldn't be the case here, so they'd do as they did when they weren't dependent on Washington or London: trade with Japan to avoid pissing them off.
Given that Britain would be interested in reentering the war, that Germany has no capacity to exert military control out into the Pacific, and that Hitler intended to maintain the occupation of the Netherlands for eventual annexation of the Netherlands, the reality is that the Dutch Government would still be a Government-in-Exile and still dependent on the British and US for their security.
Britain doesn't have enough themselves to give anything
Supposition without evidence.
So the US saves a lot of money and gear for their own rearmament and makes money on the Soviets.
Until someone observes that the aiding the Soviets in their fight against Germany means that not as many American boys would have to die. Given that the US actually cared about most of their citizens lives far more then they cared about money and gear, it would have been seen as worth it to ship the excess stuff produced in their rearmament program off to the Soviets. Just like it was IOTL.
No, due to Axis action when not having to face any other opponents. If Vladivostok and Murmansk are out of the picture you can't get foreign trade in.
Vladivostok and Murmansk are only out of the picture by your handwaving and flat-out ignoring of operational factors, strategic considerations, Nazi ideology, Japan's own considerations, and geopolitical causality.
So again, by magic.
Their manpower and production could have been turned to army or air force use if they were not needed in 1940-41 or beyond.
They started doing that as early as 1942, using Kriegsmarine sailors (and Luftwaffe personnel) as infantry replacements. It contributed to the catastrophic decline in quality among infantry personnel.
Unlikely given the combat mission and losses anticipated in the East.
The Germans did not anticipate a severe combat mission and heavy losses in the East, although for some strange reason you seem to think they did.
What ideological views? They wanted to have a captive European market to insulate their economy from external markets, but still weren't against trade for things they needed or made their lives easier. The entire period leading up to the war saw them buying and trading abroad and did so throughout WW2 where they could (Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, even Vichy).
[/QUOTE]Their ideological view was of this little ideology you might know as "Naziism". The Nazi view of economics was ultimately autarkic in nature: first a temporary Autarky based on domestic production emphasization to sustain rearmament so as to build an army that would launch a war of annihilation for the adequate living space needed for
true autarky. This, in turn, was driven by a racist conspiracy theory that the global markets were dominated by the "Judeo-Capitalist" through the Jewish domination of America. And yeah, the Germans were doing some trading before and during the war. What the facile "they
were doing it" ignores though is that they were not
relying upon it nor is there any indication that they wanted to. To
rely on international trade would mean to become vulnerable to the international Jewish conspiracy and their thralls. As a direct result of this, both imports and exports constantly fell throughout the 1933-1945 period. There was a brief boost of imports in 1940, a result of forcing the conquered countries wholesale to sell to Germany at cutthroat prices, but only back to 90% of 1932 levels before this steadily fell again to 50% by June of 1941.
Have Rommel move up into Estonia and clear out the Baltic coastal flank to open it months earlier to shipping instead of relying on 18th army to do so (stymied until August-September in that) uses different roads and supply than the rest of the 4th Panzer Army
Given that there are not enough roads for that, this is impossible from the outset. The result of this is just going to be an even
bigger traffic jams (and the traffic jams of OTL were bad enough) between Rommels Panzer Corp, the supply columns of 4th Panzergruppe, and the troops of 18th Army that takes even longer to unsnarl and leaves the out-of-fuel Panzergruppe lounging around the Luga for even longer. The Soviets have additional time to dig-in, deploy and train additional troops, evacuate more industry, prepare the city for siege, and maybe even launch a few attacks to attrit the static panzer divisions.
With all the extra Ju52 transport and the captured ports in Estonia supply would be open for a much earlier thrust on Leningrad with at least a reinforced Panzer corps.
Except at no point in World War 2 was air resupply enough to sustain an operational-significant advance except in the total absence of enemy resistance and the captured ports were never a significant factor in the supply of Army Group North in '41 or '42, in addition to the problems I covered above.
As to the Soviet preparing more without the British in the war, realistically what more could they really do?
Full mobilization, switch the economy into war production, deploy their strategic echelons in-depth, bring their forces to combat readiness, conduct a maintenance overhaul on their mechanized and air forces so as to ensure all of their vehicles are combat-ready, brief personnel on the situation, begin evacuation of industry from Western Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltics, bring air defenses to full readiness, deploy their troops in defensive positions, start air patrols, interfere with German air reconnaissance flights, put up minefields and obstacles, man fighting positions, distribute ammunition to soldiers, mobilize the relevant reserve vehicles, organize the logistics chains, and probably more then a hundred other things...
All of these were measures which were either not taken IOTL 1941 or in a few cases taken only in a few places by various commanders who disobeyed orders on their own initiative (these locations did better when the war come, although their isolation among the sea of surprise meant they were ultimately swamped).
You've made the facile argument that Stalin would adopt a totally foreign strategy of holding deep and not constantly counterattacking in wargamey tactics that did not match what STAVKA thought was the right way to conduct a defense against Blitzkrieg.
Primarily because STAVKA thought that war would not come until 1942, when they would have the tools and skilled personnel to implement their plans. IOTL they adopted a plan that assumed such and when war came there was no other plan so they attempted to implement it regardless of the fact that it had rendered defunct the moment the war started. If they accept that war is coming in 1941, they would be force to toss out their current plans and doctrine in recognition of the fact that their going to be going to war with the army they have instead of the army they want.
They'd mobilize their 2nd and 3rd strategic echelon, but it get wiped out like IOTL due to lack of weapons.
You only claim that they'd get wiped out and that they would have a more serious (or just as serious) lack of weapons. The second consideration ignores that earlier mobilization would involve organizing the supply chains into coherency and distributing stocks of weapons and ammunition that IOTL were overrun while still sitting in their armories. They would still not be as equipped as the Soviets would like, but they would be better equipped. The first assumption ignores that some of those counter-offensives came damn close to succeeding in their purpose of totally derailing the German advance. The August 30-September 10th El'nia offensive is a case-in-point: while it was ultimately a failure, David Glantz notes in
Barbarossa Derailed that (himself quoting Guderian) it was a "close thing" and had the Soviets incapacitated one or two more infantry division it would have forced the deployment of the SS Das Reich, depriving Guderian of the necessary reserve to salvage 10th Motorized Division's when Eremenko's Bryansk Front struck. This in turn would have destroyed the 10th Motorized, forcing Guderian to make the choice of either abandoning his drive towards Koropets or being cut-off. This basically would have meant no Kiev encirclement, with all that entails.
With earlier mobilization and, hence, the improvements I've noticed above, it's entirely conceivable they might have been able to do just that.
That also supposes Stalin takes the hint and doesn't think he can buy off Hitler for another year.
He might, he might not. What's telling though, is you just assume he doesn't. Probably because it would be inconvenient if you had to contemplate what it would mean if he did.
Of course, it's entirely possible that Stalin recognizes that Hitler is coming for him and bones it up even worse then IOTL, like with a pre-emptive strike.
That would certainly lose the Soviet Union the war. OTL indicates, though, that he was aware of how unprepared the Red Army was for it. Although, "OTL indicates" that he knew is not the same as "OTL shows", so obviously no guarantees there.
There is a full list of things he could do between full preparation as best he could to OTL, none of which is certain.
But none of which is not guaranteed either.
Sure the Soviet people supplemented food by their own production on off hours,
Which
was what saved them from starvation, not lend-lease. They could take the hit in official rations, because most of their food wasn't coming from official rations in the first place.
Relative to 1941-42 1943 saw larger tonnage coming in, but LL provided in 1941-42 was critical to stabilizing the Soviet economy in that period before even bigger stuff could come in.
Except it didn't. As you yourself noted, the Soviet economy was overheating at the end of 1942 despite the fact that LL was coming in. Furthermore, of the things you listed, none were arriving in significant quantity which was something that elicited endless Soviet complaints.
Aircraft and tank production in 1942 was a function of the critical high value items that could not be made in the USSR, namely high capacity machine tools.
The Soviet armaments industry in 1942 was overwhelmingly running off of machine tools (see below) which had been acquired before the war, not via LL. The British and Americans supplied a few more in 1942, but not a significant number in the overall context.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. In terms of stats it certainly looks like they did, but when you did into the details much of Soviet industrial recovery in 1941-42 was a function of LL machine tools and weapons and critical moments that helped defend important areas like Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.
Except Harrison doesn't actually say any of that. In late-1942, the Soviet economy was overheating when according to you the LL of 1941-42 should have been stabilizing it. But stabilization did not start to occur until after the victory at Stalingrad which was
after the arrival. Harrison says that no, significant foreign aid did not start arriving until 1943. Harrison also directly contradicts your assertion that LL was important to the Soviet armaments industrial recovering in 1942, saying that the Soviet adoption of mass production methods and technology occurred over the course of the 1930s in the five-year plans. "Using the techniques of mass production and standardization embedded before the war," he writes, "by 1943 Soviet industry was delivering weapons to the Red Army at 60 percent of the average unit costs of 1940. That these were based on real resource savings is demonstrated in Chart 5, which shows the reduction in hours worked per unit of various items produced. It was because of this that, in the decisive years of the war, Soviet industry was able to produce larger numbers of tanks and aeroplanes in fewer models and longer runs than its German adversary."
In his discussion on the Soviet stabilization of their war industry by 1943 in his work "Resource mobilization for World War II: the U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945" he attributes the stabilization to administrative reforms conducted in the latter-half of 1942, not to lend-lease:
Individual initiative based on rule by decree was not, however, sufficient for a prolonged resource mobilization. This is convincingly demonstrated by the state of the Soviet economy at the end of 1941. Defence plant had been saved and defence output multiplied. But everything else was in an utter shambles. The resulting imbalances soon became a vital threat to continuation of the war effort. Steel, coal, electricity, machinery and transport capacities, workers to staff these industries, housing and food for the workers, all became priorities of equal weight to war production. The resulting complex allocation problem could only be resolved by reassertion of bureaucratic order; “rule by decree” had to give way to law-governed administration. By the end of 1942 this transition had been achieved. Victory at Stalingrad was in sight. Within the crisis-torn economy a working balance had been roughly restored. Within the war cabinet the responsibility for economic priorities formerly divided between leading individuals had been centralized in a new Operations Bureau. From now on the role of political leadership was no longer crucial to Soviet survival, for the system as a whole was now fully mobilized for a war which it could no longer lose.
When he was discussing lend-lease in that paper, he also notes that "throughout the war the Soviets were able to meet their own armament and shell needs, but, later on, American shipments of trucks, tractors, and tinned food provided the Red Army with decisive mobility in its westward pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht." Thus, essentially, he agrees with what I've said before: Lend-Lease to the Soviets in WW2 was more important in facilitating victory then staving off defeat.