AHC: Non ASB Axis victory?

Deleted member 1487

cut the Russian armies off from the Caucausus in 1943 (which accounted for 50% of oil for the Soviet war machine)
More than 80% actually.

Even if Nazi Germany defeats the Soviet Union, which is ASB in and itself (And even in the least-ASB scenarios would take until 1943 to achieve)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Clz27nghIg
David Glantz thinks the Soviets were beatable.

, American entry into the war is inevitable due to escalation of Atlantic warfare; a de facto stare of war already existed, and all it would take is one slip up for war to become official. From there's it's a simple matter of the Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive attriting the Luftwaffe into oblivion, destroying the German economy, and clearing the path for a landing in France on 1945 or 46.

That depends on whether the Germans wait to invade the USSR in 1942, focusing on finishing off the Brits in 1940-41. Then its a one-on-one match up without the Brits or US at Germany's back. In 1942 the Soviets are much better prepared, not least of which is because without the Brits in the war Stalin knows Hitler is coming, so Soviet forces are better mobilized some showtime. But so are the Germans and their allies, who would have the ability to import from abroad, while also having access to the production of occupied Europe without the blockade cutting off their resource base. Having not war in Africa means the Italians are much better prepared for a war in the East, while the Germans don't have to worry about building up air defenses in the West, nor diverting/invest in forces to fight the West (Uboats, surface ships, fighters, bombers, the Atlantic Wall, sub pens, FLAK towers, industry to support the above, etc.).
 
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KaiserCorax

Banned
What happens to Britain if the Nazis win?

Also, what would happen if Britain had no involvement in WW2 at all (perhaps through Oswald Mosley coming to power? Or some other reason)
 

Deleted member 1487

What happens to Britain if the Nazis win?
Depends on the circumstances of the victory/loss. If its a situation where the British bow out and ask to negotiate, say through a successful blockade, then the British are likely to get a decent deal, in that they aren't going to give up anything from their colonies or have to pay much if anything in reparations. What they will lose will be any involvement on the continent, having to expel their allied governments in exile, and have to sign a nonaggression pact with Germany and the European Axis that prevents them from trading with Germany's future enemies (overtly that is). They will have their own political consequences, probably leading to the rise of a Labor government early and the wipe out of the Conservatives electorally. What this will mean is somewhat unpredictable, especially if Japan still attacks in December 1941. I doubt Germany would refight Britain in that scenario, as they will be far too interested in invading the USSR than fighting Britain and the US for Japan.


Also, what would happen if Britain had no involvement in WW2 at all (perhaps through Oswald Mosley coming to power? Or some other reason)
That's ASB. Not going to happen in any situation I can think of.
 

KaiserCorax

Banned
Is there any non-ASB way to have a US president who would sympathise with Hitler enough that Japan wouldn't view America as a threat?
 

Deleted member 1487

Is there any non-ASB way to have a US president who would sympathise with Hitler enough that Japan wouldn't view America as a threat?

No.

The Japanese involvement in China hurt US exports, so the US, no matter what the administration, is going to have to do something to stick up for its economic interests.
 
Is there any non-ASB way to have a US president who would sympathise with Hitler enough that Japan wouldn't view America as a threat?

Your best bet is a Japan is our problem, Europe isn't. Someone who wont agree to Europe first (which was already somewhat trampled IRL), or who might even avoid war with Germany in favour of focusing on the Pacific.
 
Is there any non-ASB way to have a US president who would sympathise with Hitler enough that Japan wouldn't view America as a threat?
You'd need to have Japan stop running a war in China.

The reason why they attacked was simple. The US was going to strike if they attacked the Dutch East Indies, and Japan needed the oil from the Dutch East Indies. Therefore, Japan decided to attempt a strike to cripple the Pacific Fleet's ability to wage war.
 
Japan can — and almost did — conquer the Chinese coast and a portion of the hinterland. But as long as western China remains out of their hands, it will be a base of support and supply for guerrillas. So they can't hold on to the coast unless they can conquer all of China… and they can't conquer all of China.
 
1. Don't do the military buildup that makes Germany economically dependent on war loot.
2. Stop at Munich agreement equivalent at the most, don't have a war.
3. Axis "victory".

Anything resembling OTL parameters will lead to Nazi Germany being defeated.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Clz27nghIg
David Glantz thinks the Soviets were beatable.

That depends on whether the Germans wait to invade the USSR in 1942, focusing on finishing off the Brits in 1940-41. Then its a one-on-one match up without the Brits or US at Germany's back. In 1942 the Soviets are much better prepared, not least of which is because without the Brits in the war Stalin knows Hitler is coming, so Soviet forces are better mobilized some showtime. But so are the Germans and their allies, who would have the ability to import from abroad, while also having access to the production of occupied Europe without the blockade cutting off their resource base. Having not war in Africa means the Italians are much better prepared for a war in the East, while the Germans don't have to worry about building up air defenses in the West, nor diverting/invest in forces to fight the West (Uboats, surface ships, fighters, bombers, the Atlantic Wall, sub pens, FLAK towers, industry to support the above, etc.).

Glantz believes that there are three decisive moments which can be used to define the war:

1. Moscow, which proved that Hitler could not win on his terms (IE, total conquest of the Soviet Union).

2. Stalingrad, which proved that Germany could not win on any terms.

3. Kursk, which proved that Germany's total defeat was certain; the only question remaining was how long and how costly it would be.

If you look at his book on Barbarossa and two volume Smolensk book he makes it clear that the Barbarossa plan was doomed to defeat from the start; its very premise was flawed, and Germany faced insurmountable manpower and logistics problems. Likewise, his two books currently out on Stalingrad demonstrate the absurdity of Blau; Germany attempted to attack along three strategic axis (Voronezh, Stalingrad, Caucasus) with a single army group, without the logistics to adequately support such enormous advances. While you can certainly draw the conclusion that Soviet victory wasn't inevitable, it's very hard to see how Soviet defeat would happen without extensive PODs which would radically change the entire war.

Defeating Britain is also I believe a challenge that looks easy on paper but is impossible to achieve in reality. While the Luftwaffe was never truly defeated in its air campaign against Britain, it was slowly being worn down to the point where defeat would eventually occur; further, a sustained air campaign was impossible without denying resources to other fronts. You've suggested alternative options in other threads, port bombing being the most interesting. However, your basic premise assumes that Britain will be unable to adequately counter German night bombing against ports merely because it failed to do so IOTL. But a sustained German port bombing campaign, if it developed into a serious threat, would see a concurrent increased British effort to defeat it. Not only that, but the British would engage it through indirect means by building up port facilities elsewhere to reduce the shipping bottlenecks that existed IOTL. American support for Britain would also increase enormously if Britain seemed worse off than IOTL; Roosevelt was by 1940 fully committed to US involvement in the European War, and would not accept the possibility of British defeat.

A total conquest is indeed ASB, but a military victory is not, though it is still improbably, particularly with the UK and US involved in the war.

Not as straight forward or simple as you put it, but certainly a possibility.

A military victory is also very difficult to achieve; the best result Germany could see is a stalemate, which would only last until Britain/America decide to enter the war.

It's about as straightforward as that. The Luftwaffe was decisively defeated in early 1944 and only continued to decline in power. Even without the campaign in the Soviet Union, Anglo-America air power would have destroyed the oil and transportation network of Germany, clearing the way for a ground invasion. It would have been a bloody affair, but Germany would still be defeated.

It's completely feasible. Many anticipated at the time the Soviet Union would last no longer then a few months during the initial invasion. If perhaps the Germans successfully cut the Russian armies off from the Caucausus in 1943 (which accounted for 50% of oil for the Soviet war machine), or lucked out, then the Soviet Union would be torn apart.

Also, the Japanese were alienated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and if the Germans invaded through Poland straight into the Soviet Union while the Japanese invaded through Manchuria, the Axis could have won.

Cutting off the Caucasus was a task the Germans lacked the men and logistics to achieve; Glantz covers this in detail in his two books on Stalingrad. The Japanese invasion from Manchuria is often presented as a possibility, but ignores the enormous problems in Japan building up for such an invasion (Transferring literally hundreds of thousands of men, horses, etc from China), the political consequences (Earlier Anglo-American oil/steel blockade), and discontent in the Japanese government about such a plan.
 
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The one think that dooms the axis is nazism. It's too weird and dysfunctional as a political doctrine to make it. To have a credible axis win scenario (taking into account that by changing the starting point you might loose the circumstances that allowed nazi Germany to get so incredibly lucky so many times) we must replace the nazis with rational right wing people, rearrange European politics to form an anticommunist alliance, and then have that alliance win in place of the axis.
To put it in TV terms, Nazi Germany is like the Lannisters in Game of Thrones but with Joffrey really calling all the shots...
 
Japan can — and almost did — conquer the Chinese coast and a portion of the hinterland. But as long as western China remains out of their hands, it will be a base of support and supply for guerrillas. So they can't hold on to the coast unless they can conquer all of China… and they can't conquer all of China.
The IJA could not - could not - conduct anti-guerrilla warfare. If they weren't destroyed in the islands and seas of the Pacific, then they would've been bled dry in the farms, villages, and fields of China.
 
It's completely feasible.

Not really.

Many anticipated at the time the Soviet Union would last no longer then a few months during the initial invasion.
And history proved they were wrong.
If perhaps the Germans successfully cut the Russian armies off from the Caucausus in 1943 (which accounted for 50% of oil for the Soviet war machine)
You mean like they tried to do IOTL and catastrophically failed because they didn't have the resources to pull it off?

or lucked out
The Germans had gotten exceedingly lucky as it was...

Also, the Japanese were alienated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and if the Germans invaded through Poland straight into the Soviet Union while the Japanese invaded through Manchuria, the Axis could have won.
Ah no. What more likely happens is that the Japanese Army, completely lacking the equipment to conduct the mechanized maneuver warfare necessary to take on the Soviet armies in Siberia, gets bogged down and the front there stalemates while the Soviets concentrate on the biggest threat: Germany.
 
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I think any sort of remotely plausible Axis victory depends on the Mediterranean 'swing zone'. Its a relatively small thing for the Axis to accomplish but would have big consequences when Barbarossa and the Japanese offensives kick off.
 
I think any sort of remotely plausible Axis victory depends on the Mediterranean 'swing zone'. Its a relatively small thing for the Axis to accomplish but would have big consequences when Barbarossa and the Japanese offensives kick off.

The logistics infrastructure in Axis-controlled North Africa is insufficient to support the forces needed to win there.
 

Deleted member 1487

Glantz believes that there are three decisive moments which can be used to define the war:

1. Moscow, which proved that Hitler could not win on his terms (IE, total conquest of the Soviet Union).

2. Stalingrad, which proved that Germany could not win on any terms.

3. Kursk, which proved that Germany's total defeat was certain; the only question remaining was how long and how costly it would be.

If you look at his book on Barbarossa and two volume Smolensk book he makes it clear that the Barbarossa plan was doomed to defeat from the start; its very premise was flawed, and Germany faced insurmountable manpower and logistics problems. Likewise, his two books currently out on Stalingrad demonstrate the absurdity of Blau; Germany attempted to attack along three strategic axis (Voronezh, Stalingrad, Caucasus) with a single army group, without the logistics to adequately support such enormous advances. While you can certainly draw the conclusion that Soviet victory wasn't inevitable, it's very hard to see how Soviet defeat would happen without extensive PODs which would radically change the entire war.
Define what you mean by Soviet defeat. Hitler's plan AA line was not feasible, but something along the lines of a Brest-Litovsk is not outside the realm of possibility...provided the West is not involved in the war.



Defeating Britain is also I believe a challenge that looks easy on paper but is impossible to achieve in reality. While the Luftwaffe was never truly defeated in its air campaign against Britain, it was slowly being worn down to the point where defeat would eventually occur; further, a sustained air campaign was impossible without denying resources to other fronts.
The only part of the air war that wore down the LW as the BoB; the Blitz actually saw LW strength increase, because the loss rate was so low until 1942 that strength was climbing, not decreasing, during the night bombing.
The earlier they start the night bombing and the longer it runs, the more Britain has its strength worn down due to lack of resources, making it increasingly hard to pivot away from daylight defense increase to night defenses.

What other front was there in 1940-41? ITTL the LW won't have a reason to get involved in Libya if they start bombing Liverpool in July, because the convoys that allowed the British to launch Op. Compass originated from Liverpool; being bottled up by air deployed naval mines in the Mersey, while port facilities are being degraded by night bombing seriously hampers the British ability to unload/load convoys once France falls, because of the port areas in the West, the only area 'safe' from German naval units and close LW bases, have limited areas to handle the necessary tonnage.

You've suggested alternative options in other threads, port bombing being the most interesting. However, your basic premise assumes that Britain will be unable to adequately counter German night bombing against ports merely because it failed to do so IOTL.
Also because once its enacted it becomes much much harder for the British to import the necessary raw materials and machine tools it needs to make the defenses that are necessary to defend the ports. Also there is the time factor; AI radar cannot be moved up any sooner than it was available IOTL, which means effective units are not available until March-April 1941 and then only in limited numbers. Even the Beaufighter needed time to get operational, otherwise rushing it means accidents and problems, delaying its effective usage. Also getting the necessary machine tools and raw materials for its require getting them into the country, which is disrupted by port bombing. Its kind of hard to start making them without imported aluminum or special purpose machines (of course there are general purpose machine tools, but that requires a lot of training to introduce a totally new type of aircraft and reduces output, pushing back their introduction vis-a-vis OTL). Then there is opportunity cost; what is Britain not producing to make night defenses? With less imports thanks to the mining/bombing of Liverpool and other ports there is much less material incoming than IOTL, so rather than just having OTL's resources to choose between, Britain has to cut across the board AND then make a choice about what gets cut to supply night defense projects.


But a sustained German port bombing campaign, if it developed into a serious threat, would see a concurrent increased British effort to defeat it. Not only that, but the British would engage it through indirect means by building up port facilities elsewhere to reduce the shipping bottlenecks that existed IOTL.
Where are the resources coming from to build up other ports? How long would it take? AFAIK building up ports with modern facilities is a process of years, rather than months. Then there is the issue of building up sufficient rail connections between these other ports and the rest of Britain; one of the major problems of the Western ports as that there were only a few that had the necessary rail connection to support the necessary volume of imports needed (Merseyside, Clydeside, and Bristol/Avonmouth; the later two only accounted for less than 15% of import capacity, meaning if Liverpool goes down, then the others could not pick up the slack). So any build up of other ports requires the build up of rail infrastructure. Not only that, but it requires the right port conditions (tides, natural harbor conditions, distance from LW bases). This would be a process of years, which would at the same time drain resources from the war effort; opportunity cost again. What can Britain spare when its imports are being smashed, limiting the ability of Britain to fight? What doesn't get produced to spend years building up alternate rail and port infrastructure?


American support for Britain would also increase enormously if Britain seemed worse off than IOTL; Roosevelt was by 1940 fully committed to US involvement in the European War, and would not accept the possibility of British defeat.
That is another assumption that doesn't necessarily hold water. IOTL what was US aid prior to May 1941? In September 1940 there were the 50 destroyers, all of which were nearly useless and required between 9-12 months to even get into service. Lend-Lease didn't pass Congress until March 1941 and only after it was apparent that the Germans weren't going to defeat the British via bombing (US Congressmen were very leary of giving Britain anything until it was confirmed the British weren't going to lose and turn it over to the Germans at the peace deal). Actually Lend-Lease didn't start until May 1941 though, which meant that the British were still paying cash for imports, by this time using Belgian loans, as Britain had run out of hard currency in January 1941.

Roosevelt may have been fully committed to keeping Britain in the war, but he couldn't get the votes to do much until March 1941, once the worst of the Blitz had passed. The US public didn't want to get involved in the war in Europe in the majority until some time in 1941. Here if the British looked like they were going to be in for serious trouble right after France falls, then there is opposition in Congress to supporting the British for fear of whatever materials given ending up in German hands. Without the BoB to rally the US public to the cause of Britain, there isn't going to be the same sort of support.

The BoB was the Western Front 'Moscow Moment' when it was clear the Germans weren't going to take Britain out of the war quickly. It was Hitler's first major defeat and showed the US that Britain was worth supporting. Without that moment, rather a start to a blockade, then the US public doesn't have the romantic story of US pilots helping the British in their hour of need, nor do they get the story of the evil Germans bombing British civilians in terror raids (Liverpool is a legitimate military target, as was Hamburg when the British started trying to bomb it in 1939). Especially if the import situation gets serious, rather than the US public being willing to support Britain, they instead will look at it as a lost cause and resource drain when the American military needs all of the US's resources to build itself up. IOTL Britain was viewed as a reliable shield to give the US time to build up it military and as a future base against the Germans, but that was only because the British had proven they could survive on their own; here that's not the case, as they wouldn't have a 'shining moment' to show they could beat the LW in a standup fight. Rather the LW would be able to bomb and mine the British lifeline with impunity (especially in 1940), which would result in serious damage to their ability to resist. So they end up looking like a lost cause, rather than a cause worth supporting.
 
The logistics infrastructure in Axis-controlled North Africa is insufficient to support the forces needed to win there.

The forces needed to win there is a very flexible thing. When Italy invaded Egypt in 1940 there wasn't much in Egypt to stop them, the understrength 4th Indian div, the understrength 7th Armoured div and about 200 aircraft. The Axis could support a couple of German divisions and a Luftwaffe force in Libya at this early stage, and these should have been sufficient to defeat the weak British forces.

Later more force was needed to win because the British built up their strength, this is when the logistics with north Africa caused problems.
 
A military victory is also very difficult to achieve; the best result Germany could see is a stalemate, which would only last until Britain/America decide to enter the war.

That depends on what you mean as a stalemate. Certainly, driving all the way to the Pacific isn't going to happen, but driving the USSR to a position from which the war may begin to wind down is.

It's about as straightforward as that. The Luftwaffe was decisively defeated in early 1944 and only continued to decline in power. Even without the campaign in the Soviet Union, Anglo-America air power would have destroyed the oil and transportation network of Germany, clearing the way for a ground invasion. It would have been a bloody affair, but Germany would still be defeated.

Whilst that's true, it's also full of assumption that things go as IRL.



Cutting off the Caucasus was a task the Germans lacked the men and logistics to achieve; Glantz covers this in detail in his two books on Stalingrad. The Japanese invasion from Manchuria is often presented as a possibility, but ignores the enormous problems in Japan building up for such an invasion (Transferring literally hundreds of thousands of men, horses, etc from China), the political consequences (Earlier Anglo-American oil/steel blockade), and discontent in the Japanese government about such a plan.[/QUOTE]
 
Where are the resources coming from to build up other ports? How long would it take? AFAIK building up ports with modern facilities is a process of years, rather than months.
Actually as D-Day proved, it's a matter of days, if you put the resources to the task.
 

Deleted member 1487

Actually as D-Day proved, it's a matter of days, if you put the resources to the task.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour
How long did the technology take to develop? As far as I can tell, it took from 1942-44 (lets, say 18 months) to develop a working unit and that was with the full weight of Lend-Lease behind them with the US in the war.


The Royal Engineers built a complete Mulberry harbour out of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties, and had 10 miles (15 km) of floating roadways to land men and vehicles on the beach.

Its also a question of what the resources were. 600,000 tons of concrete is not a little bit. What does it come from? IOTL in 1944 they had the full weight of the mobilized US economy at peak production to provide the resources, what do they have here? What are the 10 miles of floating roadways built out of? How well does it hold up to bombing? They didn't do that well in poor weather, so how long can they hold up on the British West Coast?

The proposed harbours called for many huge caissons of various sorts to build breakwaters and piers and connecting structures to provide the roadways. The caissons were built at a number of locations, mainly existing ship building facilities or large beaches like Conwy Morfa around the British coast. The works were let out to commercial construction firms including Balfour Beatty, Costain, Nuttall, Henry Boot, Sir Robert McAlpine and Peter Lind & Company, who all still operate today, and Cubitts, Holloway Brothers, Mowlem and Taylor Woodrow, who all have since been absorbed into other businesses that are still operating.[3] On completion they were towed across the English Channel by tugs[4] to the Normandy coast at only 4.3 Knots (8 km/h or 5 mph), built, operated and maintained by the Corps of Royal Engineers, under the guidance of Reginald D. Gwyther, who received a CBE for his efforts.

Also they were pre-built and shipped across, meaning that the 3-4 day assembly was of pre-constructed components. Actually building the components took much more than 3 days.
 
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