Anglo-Ameican+Japanese actions & inactions to avert decisive Soviet victory over Axis

Fenestella

Banned
Scenario I
Factors: No Lend-Lease program for Soviet Union, no Allied ground invasion of Western Europe
Result: stalemate in Eastern Front (Axis on the defensive)

Scenario II
All factors of Scenario I + no Allied strategic bombing of Germany
Result: stalemate in Eastern Front (Soviet Union on the defensive)

Scenario III
All factors of Scenario II + Japanese invasion of Russian Far East
Result: German breakthrough
Due to the strategic depth and survivability of the Soviet state, which city is most likely to be the backup of Samara(Kuybyshev)?
 
Uhh... I can't see how any of the three scenarios are even remotely possible.

I) Barring Stalin actually being a full-scale idiot and attack the WAllies directly (technically, he did with Poland, but the WAllies were too happy to throw them under the GAZ truck when post-war came), the WAllies will send Lend-Lease. Because the more Soviets who are supplied with Lend-Lease, the more Stalin is encouraged to throw them at Hitler, which means the WAllies don't have to bleed as much.

II) What was the point of not bombing Germany, anyway? Granted, bombing the residential areas was pointless since it only emboldened resistance, but hitting the industrial areas crippled German production. That means less weapons for them to throw at the Allies, whether Soviets or WAllies. And they have no way of manipulating the Nazis into tossing them all at the Soviets.

III) With Japan bogged down in China, and after the drubbing they got from the Soviets in Khalkhin Gol in 1939, Japan wouldn't waste men trying to take frozen wastes when the Soviets still have plenty of troops and equipment to guard the Siberia border. The only thing of any value to take would be Vladivostok, but that doesn't exactly help with their oil shortage due to the American embargo (and war).

If you want a Soviet screw, it would be easier to have the Soviets mess up more, perhaps losing Moscow. It won't permanently knock them out of the war, but every setback is more ground to cover to in the race to Berlin. Problem was, the Soviets did mess up a lot during the early stages of Barbarossa, but the Germans just couldn't fight their way out of Russian mud and snow, at the end of their supply lines across miles upon miles of scorched earth, against an increasingly entrenched enemy. This allowed the Soviets to regroup at that crucial moment.
 
Additionally, all of these scenarios result in vastly heavier WAllied casualties, a more prolonged war, and thus are both politically and militarily impossible. Unlike the Axis and Soviets, the Americans and British actually place value on the lives of their servicemen which makes them more casualty averse. You are basically asking the WAllies to deliberately harm the war effort in the name of averting a post-war development that until mid-1944 was largely speculative in the eyes of WAllied leadership. In Anglo-American eyes, thats downright treasonous.
 

Fenestella

Banned
You're missing the point.

Nazi Germany and Soviet Union are the two teams competing.

Lend-Lease materiels = performance enhancing substances
Anglo-American air campaigns + ground invasions = match fixing by sending off three German players
 
Japanese invasion makes essentially no difference; the Japanese run out of oil when the oil embargo hits (since ITTL they aren't invading the DEI at the same time). If there isn't any embargo, that means Japan has been a lot less invasion-happy.

Even if the Japanese somehow avoid the embargo, they are mostly tied up in China, and not especially prepared to fight the Soviets (as OTL's pre-Barbarossa border clashes demonstrate). The excellent IJN is essentially useless in such a war (one reason they opposed it politically). The Soviets can hold the Japanese off with minimal forces, especially since (without Lend-Lease coming through Vladivostok ITTL) there is nothing particularly valuable in Siberia for Japan to threaten (and if the Japanese decide to march their infantry-heavy, poorly-equipped army through Siberia to try to get to anything important, Stalin will politely wish them "Good Luck"). The famous "Siberian divisions" weren't stripped from the border of Manchuria; they came from garrisons further inland.

As for Lend-Lease and the air campaign, neither of those really took off until after the initial German offensive had been stopped. Without them, the Soviets have more difficulty with launching sustained counteroffensives, but that just means they have to advance slower (and awareness of that will mean that they are more cautious with their offensives and take fewer casualties).

The bigger question is whether Germany is still blockaded. That makes a huge difference in terms of resources.
 
Additionally, all of these scenarios result in vastly heavier WAllied casualties, a more prolonged war, and thus are both politically and militarily impossible. Unlike the Axis and Soviets, the Americans and British actually place value on the lives of their servicemen which makes them more casualty averse. You are basically asking the WAllies to deliberately harm the war effort in the name of averting a post-war development that until mid-1944 was largely speculative in the eyes of WAllied leadership. In Anglo-American eyes, thats downright treasonous.

This would definitely harm the Anglo-America war effort, but I don't see how not throwing troops and aircraft into the conflict results in more deaths. With no invasion of Europe and no strategic bombing, all that is happening is the BoB (with more pilots and fighters on the British side) and the naval conflict. Furthermore, the war in the Pacific probably advances a bit faster with no serious committment to the ETO. Where is the increased death rate coming from?
 
Additionally, all of these scenarios result in vastly heavier WAllied casualties, a more prolonged war, and thus are both politically and militarily impossible. Unlike the Axis and Soviets, the Americans and British actually place value on the lives of their servicemen which makes them more casualty averse. You are basically asking the WAllies to deliberately harm the war effort in the name of averting a post-war development that until mid-1944 was largely speculative in the eyes of WAllied leadership. In Anglo-American eyes, thats downright treasonous.


As the Soviets and the Nazis started the war as ALLIES with the joint invasion of POland, and were on good terms until Barbarossa, I think the idea of the Soviets and the US/UK only being Co-belligerents instead of allies is reasonable and would NOT have seen to been treasonous.


Indeed, as the USSR had vastly different war aims, ie conquest as opposed to survival not to mention vastly gaps in culture, religion, and ideology, they were more like co-belligerents than real allies.
 
This would definitely harm the Anglo-America war effort, but I don't see how not throwing troops and aircraft into the conflict results in more deaths. With no invasion of Europe and no strategic bombing, all that is happening is the BoB (with more pilots and fighters on the British side) and the naval conflict. Furthermore, the war in the Pacific probably advances a bit faster with no serious committment to the ETO. Where is the increased death rate coming from?

The fact that the WAllies are aiming to actually defeat Germany and that means it is necessary to engage them in a massive ground war. If the Soviets don't break the Heer, it falls upon the WAllies to do so... and pay the requisite blood price.

As the Soviets and the Nazis started the war as ALLIES with the joint invasion of POland, and were on good terms until Barbarossa, I think the idea of the Soviets and the US/UK only being Co-belligerents instead of allies is reasonable and would NOT have seen to been treasonous.

Indeed, as the USSR had vastly different war aims, ie conquest as opposed to survival not to mention vastly gaps in culture, religion, and ideology, they were more like co-belligerents than real allies.

Fortunately for many hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of Anglo-American servicemen lives, the US and British military and civilian leadership understood the strategic importance of the simple reality that the Soviets are the ones best positioned to break the Heer for them. Thus, even if the Soviets were viewed as mere cobelligerents would not change the fact that to not aid the Soviet war effort is to, in effect, aid the German's war effort. In other words, it is aiding the enemy. That is treasonous.

All arguments about the Soviets actions pre-war went out the window on June 22nd 1941. The political-military realities of the present ultimately trumped those of the past.
 
The fact that the WAllies are aiming to actually defeat Germany and that means it is necessary to engage them in a massive ground war. If the Soviets don't break the Heer, it falls upon the WAllies to do so... and pay the requisite blood price

So you're assumng the inevitability of actions the OP has specifically excluded from this analysis...
 
So you're assumng the inevitability of actions the OP has specifically excluded from this analysis...

So long as the WAllies are interested in the defeat of Germany, then the OP is wandering around in ASB land. As victory in a land war is the only means of achieving victory against a continental land power, at least by conventional means*. Had Germany been an island country like Japan or Britain then blockade and air bombardment by itself would have been sufficient to force it's capitulation. But against a country which controlled much of a continent, as Germany did, it becomes necessary to defeat it's land army in order to bring it to terms.

The WAllies did not help the Soviets purely out of some kind of sympathy for their plight but because the WAllied leadership did what the Axis powers refused to do: they conducted a rational analysis of the strategic situation and came to the rational conclusion that it was in their every interest to ensure the Soviets are able to pay the blood price required to break the Heer. And vice-versa, in fact (it's why Stalin pressured the WAllies so much on the second front issue) but the Soviets didn't have the luxury of oceans shielding them from the German Army.

*There is, of course, the option of carpet nuking Germany sometime in the 1950s, for which you can see the Anglo-American/Nazi War for more details.
 
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