Allied victory if Russia falls in WW 2

[TDM]

Even if we take the most hopeful scenario for the Germans. Get to Moscow an take it in late 1941 early 1942, USSR for some reason collapses and what ever's left retreat in complete disarray and Hitler gets his AA line. That's not the end of the story there, Germany has to now occupy and manage a ridiculously large area of land. That's going to take resources and men. Especially as past that line you going to have a a chaotic mess to contain with no collaborating government you can elect to do so for you, plus what else is going on east of the AA line. The German ideas for reinforcing the that line are pretty mad just by themselves.


Anyone how thinks the reality of managing a conquered USSR especially once the liquidations start is going to be a bit like France but bigger, is kidding themselves.

 

[History Learner]

Even if we take the most hopeful scenario for the Germans. Get to Moscow an take it in late 1941 early 1942, USSR for some reason collapses and what ever's left retreat in completer disarray and Hitler gets his AA line. That's not the end of the story there, Germany has to now occupy and manage a ridiculously large area of land. That's going to take resources and men. Especially as past that line you going to have a a chaotic mess to contain with no collaborating government you can elect to do so for you, plus what else is going on east of the AA line. The German ideas for reinforcing the that line are pretty mad just by themselves.


Anyone how thinks teh reality of managing a conquered USSR especially once the liquidations start is going to be a bit like France but bigger, is kidding themselves.

500,000 to 1,000,000 men for occupation duty in the East is the general estimate. That still frees 1.5 to 2 Million men for duty elsewhere, in particular all of the "heavy" formations like the Panzer Divisions, with 50% still in the East in 1944.

 

[TDM]

500,000 to 1,000,000 men for occupation duty in the East is the general estimate. That still frees 1.5 to 2 Million men for duty elsewhere, in particular all of the "heavy" formations like the Panzer Divisions, with 50% still in the East in 1944.

500k-1m is far too small I'd like to see the cites on that, is it basically a scaled up France? (if so that will be wrong on several counts). Especially as they'll have the longest hostile border on earth to deal with. I agree you won't need nearly as many tanks, planes, AA etc though,

Ultimately it all comes down to if the Germans can keep their mobilisation (both economic and manpower) up. If they can do this they keep the allies contained in NA/ ME and certainly out of Europe on the OTL timescale. In which case, it going to come down to air power. Germany in this situation will be harder nut to crack from the air, but the US will just out produce Germany and eventually will get nukes and will share that tech withe GB in this case. On top of these a higher proportion of resources will be devoted to allied air power here in general since they won't be doing this and fighting on the ground / preparing d-day

But the same inherent issue that always faces Germany will still be in effect, they don't have enough manpower or resources to maintain a long continuous war against any combination of countries that they'd be fighting such a war against. They're only long term hope is a period of peace and consolidation. And even then the realities of holding down a massive land empire, utilising it's native resources and industry and liquidating large chunks of it's population will be harder for them that they realise.

 

[Saint_007]

Anyone how thinks teh reality of managing a conquered USSR especially once the liquidations start is going to be a bit like France but bigger, is kidding themselves.

Definitely true. France was taken and held relatively peacefully, with only the elimination of Jews and half-Jews, reprisals against assassinations of German officers, and confiscation of assets being a problem before Allied bombing came to town.

Taking and holding Russia is going to run into the massive problem of trying to wipe out half to almost all the population, and the fact it's not only too big to patrol effectively, there's no real way to cut off supplies of weapons and explosives to the partisans. The Reich is going to bleed something fierce on the Ostfront. Even in the novel/movie Fatherland, it was mentioned that the "pacification" of Eastern Europe was going poorly, what with partisans still inflicting harsh attrition on German patrols even 20 years after the war was over.

 

[History Learner]

500k-1m is far too small I'd like to see the cites on that, is it basically a scaled up France? (if so that will be wrong on several counts). Especially as they'll have the longest hostile border on earth to deal with. I agree you won't need nearly as many tanks, planes, AA etc though,

IIRC, Calbear stated planning documents held it would be 500,000 to 1 Million, with the latter more likely in his estimation. If you want a more scholarly source, I'll do some research and get back to you. As for guarding the border, that really would not be a concern; the rump USSR would have no manpower, coal, oil, steel, or even much in the way of factories to sustain itself. The only threats to the Germans would be Anglo-American forces in Persia and partisans/

Ultimately it all comes down to if the Germans can keep their mobilisation (both economic and manpower) up. If they can do this they keep the allies contained in NA/ ME and certainly out of Europe on the OTL timescale. In which case, it going to come down to air power. Germany in this situation will be harder nut to crack from the air, but the US will just out produce Germany and eventually will get nukes and will share that tech withe GB in this case. On top of these a higher proportion of resources will be devoted to allied air power here in general since they won't be doing this and fighting on the ground / preparing d-day

The earliest any air campaign could be realized is 1947, when F-82s are available in large number given the ability of the Germans to move factories beyond the range of escorted bombers thanks to their new strategic depth. Likewise, as American planners noted, there would be significant other issues to this; for one, the logistical burden of B-29s was immense compared to B-17s and B-24s, reducing the number available and ground options long term. Likewise, this was no panacea either, given we're talking 12-14 hour missions, which would on its own would give the Germans a large tactical advantage.

Beyond that, as cited previously, the conquest of the USSR gives the Germans the resources needed to conduct their "Air War Campaign" production, which would see them outproducing the UK, most likely from 1943-1947. In short, the earliest I would expect an overwhelming strategic bombing campaign to bear fruit/be successful, would be 1949 or 1950 based on OTL. This will be much costlier and, given the timeframe outlined, beyond the political will of the Anglo-American public to accept.

But the same inherent issue that always faces Germany will still be in effect, they don't have enough manpower or resources to maintain a long continuous war against any combination of countries that they'd be fighting such a war against. They're only long term hope is a period of peace and consolidation. And even then the realities of holding down a massive land empire, utilising it's native resources and industry and liquidating large chunks of it's population will be harder for them that they realise.

If the Anglo-Americans are willing to expend millions of casualties over a decade, sure, they could eventually grind down the Reich. I don't, however, see the political will for doing such there, however.

 

[Aber]

As for guarding the border, that really would not be a concern; the rump USSR would have no manpower, coal, oil, steel, or even much in the way of factories to sustain itself.

Where are you assuming the border would be?

 

[Borisbogdanov]

Funny that people like TDM who in the "WW2 Allied victory without USA" claimed: The reduced allies win anyways because the USSR is stronk and the US not that important.
Suddenly claims in the "Allied victory if Russia falls in WW2" that the reduced allies win anyways because the USA is stronk and the USSR not that important. That some nice argumentative acrobatics.

1. Even if the Germans have to leave 1.5 Million out of 3 Million men in the East, thats an additional 1.5 Million men for industry and Westen/Southern Europe right away
2. The Germans dont lose 5 Million men in the East in 43-45 but more like 50 000, they dont lose 20 000 tanks but more like 200, they dont lose 50 000 guns but 500 ect ect
3. Thats an additional 6.5 Million men the Germans can invest into industry, Western/Southern Europe, weapons development, AA professionals ect ect

But the same inherent issue that always faces Germany will still be in effect, they don't have enough manpower or resources to maintain a long continuous war against any combination of countries that they'd be fighting such a war against.

OTL Germany was fighting the combined forces of the US/UK/USSR for 4 years, yet without having to fight the USSR they dont have the manpower or resources to maintain a long continous war... Meanwhile the UK whos industrial workforce/army was shrinking by 1944 - after losing just 40 000 dead/captured in Western Europe in 44/45 and
20 000 in Italy in 43-45 can wage war for a decade no problem. These are once again argumentative acrobatics.

Ultimately it all comes down to if the Germans can keep their mobilisation (both economic and manpower) up. If they can do this they keep the allies contained in NA/ ME and certainly out of Europe on the OTL timescale. In which case, it going to come down to air power.

On top of these a higher proportion of resources will be devoted to allied air power here in general

This applies to the Germans as well:

- Mass production of the R4M starting in early 1945.
- Mass production of the twin fuse in early 1945. This brings down the costs of a downed bomber down to some 15 000 dollars, because only about 400 rounds were needed
- Mass production of all the projects that were delayed/captured in 44/45 OTL, in the ATL summer of 1945.

since they won't be doing this and fighting on the ground / preparing d-day

So the Wallies basically admit that they are to weak/to scared to invade Europe? Bombing is effective in order to reduce industrial output. It is however ineffective to end wars.
If there is no D-Day/no Husky - then US troops will relocate to the Pacific and US attention will shift to the Pacific. It makes no sense to have a Million troops waiting in the UK/NA if you dont plan to use them within the next year. The war in Europe will be seen as pointless and unwinnable. US public will demand to end the war with Japan quickly, the nukes will be used against Japan (without the USSR not 2 but more like 10 - 15 thus exhausting the US 1945 stock). And a Cold War/Containment begins in 1946. If the Wallies wont cut a deal earlier.

 

[History Learner]

Where are you assuming the border would be?

Either the A-A Line or the Urals.

 

[Captain Homicide]

500,000 to 1,000,000 men for occupation duty in the East is the general estimate. That still frees 1.5 to 2 Million men for duty elsewhere, in particular all of the "heavy" formations like the Panzer Divisions, with 50% still in the East in 1944.

People forget that in the event of a victory in the East the Reich would have millions of collaborators (there were 1+ million IOTL when they were losing) from the local population (being a camp guard or security police beats getting worked to death or lying in a mass grave) plus millions of troops from the rest of Europe (Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, France, Denmark, Norway etc) to draw from.

Not only that but IOTL the Reich managed to guard between 375,000 and 400,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto with less than 1000 German troops and around 2,500 Jewish police. The Warsaw Ghetto was a little over a square mile in area. In OTL January 1945 there were around 40,000 guards in the concentration camps keeping watching over 715,000 inmates. I don’t have numbers for how many were required to control the nearly 10 million slave laborers scattered throughout German territory by 1944 but the fact that they kept watch over that many slaves without major issues while still managing to sustain a military with close to 10 million troops goes to show that the Reich was perfectly capable of keeping large numbers of "subhumans" under control.

However many people would be required to occupy the East it wouldn’t be anywhere near as much as was required to battle the Red Army IOTL. CalBear had a great post about the above subject.

There is this rather interesting belief that controlling large numbers of people is difficult. It isn't, not if you literally don't care when they die (they are already condemned, only question is when they physically cease to exist, so it it isn't even a matter if they live or die). It would be difficult for you or I, or any of the members here, but it wasn't for the SS.

This is how the Nazis did it:

10,000 people can be kept inside a walled ghetto by 100 German guards, 25 per shift, backed up by three utterly obsolete Pz-38(t) (larger numbers can be handled by adding a zero all the way around 100K people needs a battalion of 1000 troops backed up by 30 obsolete tanks/armored cars) and couple hundred foreign "volunteers"/Hiwis. The Wall is built by those who are being walled in. You use a group that isn't condemned (yet) to go through and take out ALL the food. You take out work parties, chained together in groups of 50 or so, work them doing heavy demolition by hand (or whatever other task is selected for them) from dawn to dusk. At the end of the day those that are still alive (any sign of resistance results in the entire work gang being killed out of hand, bodies of those who topple over are also dragged to where ever they are being burned/buried by another work crew, which is how the did it in the camps) are fed 300 or so calories of sawdust bread before they are allowed back into the ghetto. Don't work, don't eat. Sick? Too bad, Don't work, don't eat. Get out of line? If you are Polish the Lithuanian/Ukrainian/French/etc. ghetto police beat you to death with clubs (if you are Lithuanian, a Polish/etc.ghetto cop does it). Between the starvation, beatings for the smallest offense (being a brick short of the unreasonable quota, eating a dandelion, whatever), exposure in unheated barracks, the overseers will probably have to refill the ghetto two or three times before it is totally demolished (since that was the Reich's goal, to literally demolish, to the last brick, the Great "Slavic Cities" from Warsaw to Moscow and beyond)

Children under the age of five, who are too young to left a hammer or carry a brick, are fed in some centralized location, 150-200 calories once a day. They are not educated, not even taught their letters. Once they can be useful, say pulling weeds or other farm work, they are sent out to the Settler plantations to do farm work and are picked up at the end of the day (these are the "lucky ones", they may survive to become serfs for the German landholders)

The hard part is keeping people alive so you can continue to use them as slave labor in factories, That requires more effort, including about double the calories, a bit more if they are actually doing something that requires a bit of training, a few more guards and someone who has a modicum of leadership skills (in the East you can have a some SS NCO run things, with maybe a few lower grade officers to maintain discipline, approve duty rosters, and ensure that none of the guard force goes soft).

 

[Aber]

Either the A-A Line or the Urals.

Ekaterinberg, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil are east of the watershed.

 

[McPherson]

To piggy back on @Captain Marvel see this:

The map actually illustrates WHY the B-29 is a Germany killer.

a. Just where do the Germans get the RAIL capacity to move those factories?
b. With a lot of Germans doing occupation duties, where is the manpower?
c. What about worker relocation?
d. AND with this mythical factory relocation how are the now screwed up industrial resources supply lines to be handled? REMEMBER! The Germans were being bombed in the real world war and they did NOT relocate critical war factories beyond B-17 and Lancaster range when they had the opportunity, because the supply disruptions to their existent war effort was judged to be too severe. Also note that German Flak and German fighters which had altitude advantage on the British and American bombers of the era, did not stop those bombers at all. The allies were willing to accept 5% losses suffered in conventional bombing per city raid and 25% losses in critical special missions. Atomic bomb missions would be critical missions. Heavy losses of 50% to successfully deliver atomic weapons in the 1970s were accepted as necessary during the Cold War by the USAF with bombers flying against the Russians; bombers without fighter protection at all. WWII? Don't make me laugh.

As noted, the Germans could move their factories beyond the range of escorted bombing missions, which would not become possible on a strategic scale until 1947 with the introduction of the F-82 in large numbers; first flight of that wasn't achieved until October of 1945, so I don't see much acceleration being possible of the same. Likewise, the B-29 is no answer, given that it's maximum altitude is matched by the maximum range of contemporary German AA guns. U.S. leaders were also well aware of this, as Leslie Groves revealed when interviewed on the subject of atomic weapons on Germany:

REPORTER: General Groves, could we go back for a minute. You mentioned in your book [Now it Can Be Told] that just before the Yalta Conference that President Roosevelt said if we had bombs before the European war was over he would like to drop them on Germany. Would you discuss this?​

​

GROVES: At the conference that Secretary Stimson and myself had with President Roosevelt shortly before his departure, I believe it was December 30th or 31st of 1944, President Roosevelt was quite disturbed over the Battle of the Bulge and he asked me at that time whether I could bomb Germany as well as Japan. The plan had always been to bomb Japan because we thought the war in Germany was pretty apt to be over in the first place and in the second place the Japanese building construction was much more easily damaged by a bomb of this character than that in Germany. I urged President Roosevelt that it would be very difficult for various reasons.​

​

The main one was that the Germans had quite strong aerial defense. They made a practice, as every nation does, that when a new plane came into the combat area, that they would run any risk that they could to bring such a plane down so that they could examine it and see what new ideas had come in so that they could make improvements and also would know the characteristics of the plane so that they could prepare a better defense against it. We had no B-29’s in Europe. If we had sent over a small squadron or group as we did against Japan of this type, everyone of them would have been brought down on the first trip to Germany. If they hadn’t been, it would have been through no lack of effort on the part of the Germans.​

​

The alternative would be to bring a large number of B-29’s over to to England and that would have been a major logistical task and the other possibility would have been to have used a British plane which would not have been a bit pleasing to General Arnold and also would have created a great many difficulties for our general operation because then it would be an Allied operation with the United States furnishing the bombs and everything connected with it but using a British plane and a British crew to actually drop the bomb and it would have raised a tremendous number of difficulties.​

​

And difficulties like that — while you say you should be able to handle that — you can but in a project of this character there are so many little things, each one of them key, that you can’t afford to throw any more sand into the wheels that you can help.​

​

The bombing of Germany with atomic bombs was, I would say, never seriously considered to the extent of making definite plans but on this occasion I told the President, Mr. Roosevelt, why it would be very unfortunate from my standpoint, I added that of course if the President — if the war demanded it and the President so desired, we would bomb Germany and I was so certain personally that the war in Europe would be over before we would be ready that you might say I didn’t give it too much consideration.​

Actually as General Groves points out above in his declarations, if you actually look at all of it, NIGHT ATTACKS using atomics and RAF intrusion methods as the USAAF would later use against Japan would have negated the LW defense schemes. British planes, British methods and American bombs, meaning bomber streams at night using Lancasters. If someone counters with B-29 raids in Korea versus Russian jets, that was a predictable axis of attack profile and DAYLIGHT mid-altitude band battlefield Interdiction mission profiles which was so utterly stupid on so many levels that it is still damned as a misuse lesson of that weapon and means in airpower circles.

Leaving aside all of this, one cannot discount the industrial effects of conquering the USSR would have on Nazi Germany too. To quote from Wages of Destruction, Pages 450-451, by Adam Tooze:

"The floodgates in Luftwaffe planning finally opened in the summer of 1941 with the completion of the army's Barbarossa programme and the long-awaited decision to shift priority to the air war. In June 1941 the Air Ministry proposed a doubling of output to 20,000 aircraft per year over the following three years.72 To implement this expansion, Goering's staff came to an agreement with Fritz Todt to carry out the reallocation of resources from the army to the Luftwaffe in a 'consensual fashion'. Todt himself was to oversee the identification of spare capacity and to ensure continuity of employment for army contractors.73 Days after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe revealed the full urgency and ambition of its new plans. At a meeting with representatives of the OKW, State Secretary Milch announced that, as of 1 May 1941, German intelligence believed that combined British and American output had exceeded that of Germany and Italy. The United States alone was turning out 2,800 high-performance aero-engines per month. On current trends, Anglo-American output would be twice that of the Axis by the end of 1942. 'There is not a minute to lose...', Milch declared.​

​

By the summer of 1942 Germany needed to increase its production of aircraft by 150 percent, to roughly 3,000 planes per month.74 The precise target set by Milch was new, but not the basic thrust of his comments. As we have seen, the expansion in productive capacity had already begun in the autumn of 1940. Milch's new target of 3,000 aircraft per month, however, required a further scaling up. Since earlier in the year Krauch had been envisioning a medium-term increase in the production of air fuel from 1 to 1.5 million tons. Now he raised his target to no less than 3 million tons. Given the cost of the hydrogenation process, it was unrealistic to assume that this could be produced from German coal. Hydrogenation was simply too expensive. Krauch's promise therefore hinged on the assumption that the Wehrmacht would conquer the Caucasus in the next few months and that Germany by 1942 would be importing Russian oil at the rate of at least one million tons per annum.75​

​

Here was the perverse logic of Barbarossa in a nutshell. The conquest of the oilfields of the Caucasus, 2,000 kilometres deep in the Soviet Union, was not treated as the awesome military-industrial undertaking that it was. It was inserted as a precondition into another gargantuan industrial plan designed to allow the Luftwaffe to fight an air war, not against the Soviet Union, but against the looming air fleet of Britain and the United States."​

But... that was fighters and they never achieved it. Plus, after the pilot cadres are killed, what use are all those airframes? Hmm? RTL lessons learned? Atomic bombs on LW bases. No LW. Kill the air force FIRST, the rest follows EASY.

 

[Hammerbolt]

But... that was fighters and they never achieved it. Plus, after the pilot cadres are killed, what use are all those airframes? Hmm? RTL lessons learned? Atomic bombs on LW bases. No LW. Kill the air force FIRST, the rest follows EASY.

With the end of the war in Russia, there would be no shortage of fuel to train pilots, as in OTl 43-45. And hundreds of fighters & ground support equipment and staff would be transfered west.

 

[McPherson]

With the end of the war in Russia, there would be no shortage of fuel to train pilots, as in OTl 43-45. And hundreds of fighters & ground support equipment and staff would be transfered west.

To be incinerated? The LW tried that trick in late 1943. They were promptly annihilated in BIG WEEK. One week. Credit... Jimmy Doolittle.

 

[Hammerbolt]

To be incinerated? The LW tried that trick in late 1943. They were promptly annihilated in BIG WEEK. One week. Credit... Jimmy Doolittle.

If the eastern war ends in 41-42 , this transfer happens long before that. In OTL, by late 43 it was far too late for the LW: the USAAF was flooding the european air with P-47 and P-51, escorting hundreds of bombers. The LW was overstressed covering everything everwhere, and was begining it's fuel-pilots-numbers downward spiral. This doesn't happen in this timeline. Here, a Schweinfurt would meet 2-3 times more fighter opositon, and problably more flak. Casualties wouldn't be bad, they woudl be catastrophic.

 

[McPherson]

If the eastern war ends in 41-42 , this transfer happens long before that. In OTL, by late 43 it was far too late for the LW: the USAAF was flooding the european air with P-47 and P-51, escorting hundreds of bombers. The LW was overstressed covering everything everwhere, and was begining it's fuel-pilots-numbers downward spiral. This doesn't happen in this timeline. Here, a Schweinfurt would meet 2-3 times more fighter opositon, and problably more flak. Casualties wouldn't be bad, they woudl be catastrophic.

Our air farce generals were much better than their air farce generals. Jeschonnek, Milch and Fatso? They will still make their incredibly stupid mistakes that men like Galland and Kahnhuber tell them not to make, because they are part of the German "gentlemen's flying club". Our side may have had their Breretons, Bissells, and Bretts (the 3 USAAF braindead aircrew killer bees) and even Bomber Harris and Leigh Mallory for the RAF, but we had rather cold blooded strategists like Le May, Spatz, Chennault, Doolittle and Kenney. They were smart tough men who learned quickly how it has to be done. Something the LW never did in the air war.

Kill the LW. The allied bombing campaign that ruined Germany internally did not start in real earnest until after BIG WEEK; which is the classic sucker play that relied on LW leadership stupidity to actually work.

I know this, because the JAPANESE were paying attention. Their solution to the USAAF ploy was to hide and wait until DOWNFALL. It was their intention to horde their air forces for an all out anti-invasion surge attack for they, the Japanese, expected to be quickly slaughtered in the ensuing air combat. But during that short time they could contest the air, they could at least exact a stiff blood price on the invaders.

That is the way air war worked in those days. Pilots dead=no air power.

PS... one atom bomb on Ploesti. Then hit Baku. Then start with the LW airfields, no pilots, no fields, no oil, no defense at all. It may cost 100 B29s. in decoys and feints to scatter the defense and achieve the outcomes. Result? Look upthread at the cataclysmic costs and implications. Atomic bombs are an absolutely horrific political order of magnitude difference in the war-crimes calculus involved. It is also an almost impossible defense problem because even if only 25% of the missions reach objectives, the damage inflicted and the results are enough to force capitulation by any sane polity. Even Nazis, be damned as they are for prolonging a war beyond any reason after 1943; they will QUIT.

 

[Hammerbolt]

I know this, because the JAPANESE were paying attention. Their solution to the USAAF ploy was to hide and wait until DOWNFALL.

They had no choice. They were out of pilots, aircraft and fuel even before the USAAF starting pounding. Their "air defense" was a joke, and the available fighters were obsolete. By the time they finally get decent models the industry to build them has been destroyed, and there was no fuel or pilots. Hence, the hoarding for massed kamikaze. It' wasn't a choice, but a case of "there's nothing else".

 

[McPherson]

They had no choice. They were out of pilots, aircraft and fuel even before the USAAF starting pounding. Their "air defense" was a joke, and the available fighters were obsolete. By the time they finally get decent models the industry to build them has been destroyed, and there was no fuel or pilots. Hence, the hoarding for massed kamikaze. It' wasn't a choice, but a case of "there's nothing else".

You missed the point. Kamikaze tactics and methods actually WORKED rather well. The Japanese could make those 'cruise missiles' in the thousands, they had enough fuel hoarded, and they could train thousands of pilots as one way guidance systems on ground simulators easily as they did RTL. So... they were not helpless at all and they had considerable choices with what means they had.

 

[Hammerbolt]

You missed the point. Kamikaze tactics and methods actually WORKED rather well. The Japanese could make those 'cruise missiles' in the thousands, they had enough fuel hoarded, and they could train thousands of pilots as one way guidance systems on ground simulators easily as they did RTL. So... they were not helpless at all and they had considerable choices with what means they had.

They worked agaisnt ground targets ; against aircraft? As a en-masse tactic, the germans tried it in 1945. Utter fail.

 

[McPherson]

They worked agaisnt ground targets ; against aircraft? As a en-masse tactic, the germans tried it in 1945. Utter fail.

Ships... And B-29s. There were a lot of air to air rammings. Japanese were simply far more willing, dedicated, and COMPETENT than their LW opposites at the time.

 

[David Floyd]

Well, a couple thoughts. And I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable person here by a long shot, but here is what springs to mind.

1)North Africa is still cleared by the Allies.

2)Japan still loses, roughly on schedule.

3)Sicily is still invaded, but instead of Husky, you see follow up campaigns to invade Corsica, Sardinia, and the Aegean Islands. The Med is an Allied lake.

4)Norway is invaded, and immense pressure is put on Sweden. Sweden may not join the war, but Swedish iron ore shipments cease.

5)Immense pressure is put on Spain. True, the Allies can't realistically invade, but they can certainly blockade and starve Spain. Tungsten shipments to Germany cease. If Germany invades Spain, that's actually good for the Allies.

6)Operation Vegetatarian. I can't see why it wouldn't happen.

7)The atomic bomb. Germany simply won't develop one on a timescale that will matter. German targets will be getting hit. Maybe not Berlin. But Ploesti? The Ruhr? Peenenmunde? Hamburg? Ukraine? B29s will be getting through.

8)Scientific/technological advancement strongly favors Britain and the US.