axis victories at stalingrad, el alamien, and midway

it is said that these three battles are when the war began to turn against the axis powers (stalingrad for germaany, el alamien for italy, and midway for japan,). but what if the axis powers were not defeated in these battles? how could this happen and how would these victories effect the war? would the axis win the war?
 

Deleted member 1487

That would be very hard to do for El Alamein. With some luck they can sink the US carriers at Midway, not lose theirs, and invade the island. Stalingrad is doable if they focus on taking Stalingrad before moving on the Caucasus.
So if Stalingrad falls with a minimal fight in late July the Germans dig in and hold against Soviet counterattacks, but their flanks are still extended and held by weak allied powers. At Midway the US would largely have to turtle up until 1943 when replacements roll off production lines:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
65 carriers were completed in 1943, 18 in 1942 (most were only escort carriers, but that still adds up). Ultimately it just pushes back final victory a bit, doesn't change economic realities there. Perhaps the defeat forces a political outcry that means Operation Torch doesn't happen in 1942, because the US is forced to make up for that defeat in the Pacific to placate public fears. That's not guaranteed, but its possible.

El Alamein is the toughie, the Axis would need huge luck to pull that one off. Say the storm doesn't delay operations at 1st Alamein and the Axis forces get lucky and find a seam between the defensive boxes and they panic the British in the process:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_El_Alamein#Panzer_Army_Africa_attacks
Rommel has to roll the position before he gets bogged down or the offensive is over. Let's say he does, then he likely rolls on to the next position and gets stopped there, even though its even less ready that Alamein. But say he is able to navigate that he would get to Alexandria and possibly cause the Egyptian army to revolt and attack the Brits, which would be a slaughter at that point due to how disrupted they are and fixated on Rommel, so their backs would be turned. THAT would be a disaster for the Allies and ensure that Egypt falls and the Mediterranean is shut down by August. Operation Torch in that case may not happen as the Allies rush men to the Red Sea and Middle East to avoid an Arab revolt or the Axis moving into the Middle East. The Axis were so stretched out that at that point they couldn't advance further.

It also means the British 8th army is pretty much gone and the Egyptian ports are now belonging to the Axis, while Malta is mostly strategically irrelevant and could well fall thanks to the Axis now only having to worry about supply runs for it from Gibraltar, meaning they could focus air power on the Western Mediterranean once the Egyptian naval base is gone. For all intents and purposes then the Mediterranean is an Axis lake and Cyprus likely falls due to lack of supply and the Middle East coast is likely very vulnerable to Axis landings and Arab revolts. The Jews of Palestine are probably in an absolute panic.

Shipping to do Torch might well be used for other purposes, such as supplying a much larger Middle East army command to counter the Axis, while also supplying an East African force to march up the Nile eventually and reconquer Egypt. That would all take a long time and be very expensive in terms of shipping so count out a 1942 North African landing unless they opt to forego putting more than minimal extra forces into the Middle East/East Africa.

This stuff is probably a nightmare scenario and depending on how the Wallies handle things and what a 'no Stalingrad defeat' means then Stalin might well be open to negotiate. Without Stalingrad and no Torch, then the Luftwaffe saves over 3000 aircraft that were lost in the November 1941-May 1943 period IOTL. That is a HUGE savings on top of the 700k men and their equipment lost in Stalingrad and Tunisia IOTL. Granted only about 400k of that 700k men are German, but that's huge. Not having a Sicily campaign, Italian campaign, or an Italian surrender probably mean that coupled with the savings from Stalingrad and Tunisia about 1 million Germans are saved from death, capture, wounding, or being locked down in the Mediterranean (Greece, replacing Italians in the Balkans, fighting in Tunisia/Sicily/Sardinia/Italy) and eliminating the aerial threat to Ploesti and partisan support in the Balkans/Greece/Crete.
Its hard to imagine, but this may well be the only potential chance to get a negotiated peace to end WW2 before final victory or a nuclear bombing campaign. The combination of defeats would be hard on FDR before the 1942 elections, while the loss of Egypt and resulting losses would definitely topple Churchill in a vote of no confidence. He narrowly survived that after the loss of Tobruk in 1942 IOTL.

Materially it seems silly to say the Allies would negotiate given the material preponderance of resources on their side, but war is also about morale and a series of horrible defeats and no victories as in OTL could well tip the scales to making some of the Allied nations negotiate to end the war, especially if Churchill falls. Stalin would be in a bad way if Stalingrad fell without much of a fight in July, then Operations Mars and Uranus fail, while there is then no Operation Torch in late 1942 due to shipping diversion. FDR could well get a drubbing politically that has unforeseen consequences in the mid-term elections, especially if the Pacific situation enables the Republicans to blame him for over focusing on Europe. That could well keep the Torch landings from happening in 1942 as FDR tries to look like he's doing something about the Japanese.

Certainly going into 1943 things would not be looking good for the Allies and that might undermine morale enough to get a negotiated peace, since this is long before the unconditional surrender option is floated. The anti-Hitler resistance might then get the assurances from the West about Germany getting a negotiated peace if they topple Hitler and overthrow the Nazis, which could well trigger a successful coup.
 
Midway's the most likely and the most ineffectual. The US still has the economic might to grind Japan into dust and a political class committed to victory.

Stalingrad might be the easiest of the remaining two, and helps the Germans a bit more, but again, the Soviet Union has an economic advantage (thanks to Lend Lease) and a political class committed to victory, so they still lose.

At El Alamein, the British have fortified positions, impassable terrain, and Germans at the end of their supply lines. I really don't see how the Germans can win it. Even if they do drive the British from Africa...somehow, that doesn't really net them anything worth having. The Iraqi oil fields are still a LONG way away.

None of these battles change the overall calculus of the war I'm afraid.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
The best thing the Germans can do with Stalingrad is to bypass it. Even if they won, it would be a ruinous victory. They had control of the city by the end of 1942 by the most part, but the offensive steam had been taken out of the 6th Army, and lost the campaign.

Stalingrad is indeed a logistical hub that was worth taking, but not at the dick measuring contest cost that Hitler imposed on his forces.

As for El Alamein, I don't see how this is brought about unless the British go into an utter panic in the aftermath of Gazala and lose upwards of 75,000 men on the retreat because of conflicting orders between Auchinleck and Ritchie, with Auchinleck deciding that defeat would doom his career and therefore deciding to hold off the order to retreat by a few days, leading to the 8th Army being almost destroyed on the field. This would be uncharacteristic of him, and therefore, some kind of hold at all costs order would need to come from Churchill, who was not as bad as Hitler and Stalin on this but had his moments. If the 8th Army is destroyed, the Axis advance on Cairo and Alexandria is not going to be difficult even with their awful logistical situation. Getting across the Suez is another matter entirely; in the event of defeat, the British would simply dig in on the canal using whatever forces from the Indian Army and Middle Eastern theatre possible.

As for Midway, victory or at least strategic stalemate was possible, but to what end? The US could replace the losses much faster than Japan, the Japanese might take Midway Island but would not be able to crack Hawaii, and Kido Butai would be ground down through attrition. From a tactical level, the quality of US pilots was getting better as Japanese pilot quality was declining through attrition, and ship fire control as well as submarine tactics were by the latter half of 1942 almost at elite levels for the US Navy. Japan would be better served far more by decisively winning Coral Sea and taking Port Moresby, delaying the South Pacific Offensive by a substantial amount of time, than avoiding defeat at Midway.
 
Not much would change, maybe delay the war a month or two. These victories would just happen later.
 
Any one would lengthen the war until nukes came online. Winning all three could upend the war in strange ways.

First victory at Midway and all the rest really are a question of how big. Are these slight victories or routes?

First a catastrophe at Midway could really force FDR politically to shelf the Europe first strategy as Americans are going to be panicked big time.

Second victory in North Africa could and likely would cause uprisings across the British Empire certainly in the Middle East, but possibly India as well. Rommel also now has Egypt with the huge port and a large anti-British population to recruit from.

Finally Stalingrad falling, the question is how? Is this due to a much more successful and better planned invasion south and some greater Soviet military incompetence? If so it means better military leadership being allowed on the Eastern front for the Germans which in itself has real butterflies.

Combine all three and you have a very different war.
 
IIRC, one of the big problems with the Stalingrad assault was overcommitment of forces, which congested the roads long enough for the Soviets to fortify, while Army Group A in the Caucasus was vastly overextended. Maybe have Army level forces roll into Stalingrad and dig in while Army Group South's bulk mops up Soviet forces in the Caucasus. They pull that off, then shift north to reinforce their Stalingrad army. No idea what to do past that; if they win at Stalingrad, they're still going to be massively overextended, but retreating from Stalingrad means they risk being cut off at Rostov if they try to keep the oil fields, the entire point of the campaign.

I also think some people underestimate the butterfly effect when talking about Axis victories; without Soviet victory as Stalingrad, there's no victory at Kursk. Without Soviet victory at Kursk, the Germans are still in the strategic depths of Russia, and still able to strategic offensives, while Russian losses are even more punishing than OTL. The worse one battle goes for a given side, the worse the next goes.
 
I also think some people underestimate the butterfly effect when talking about Axis victories; without Soviet victory as Stalingrad, there's no victory at Kursk.

Sure there is. The Germans managing to hold on at Stalingrad longer and extract more forces does not change the fact that the Red Army would still have qualitatively evolved by 1943 to the point they could handily smash any German strategic offensive before it breaches into their operational or strategic depth.
 
IIRC, one of the big problems with the Stalingrad assault was overcommitment of forces, which congested the roads long enough for the Soviets to fortify, while Army Group A in the Caucasus was vastly overextended. Maybe have Army level forces roll into Stalingrad and dig in while Army Group South's bulk mops up Soviet forces in the Caucasus. They pull that off, then shift north to reinforce their Stalingrad army. No idea what to do past that; if they win at Stalingrad, they're still going to be massively overextended, but retreating from Stalingrad means they risk being cut off at Rostov if they try to keep the oil fields, the entire point of the campaign.

I also think some people underestimate the butterfly effect when talking about Axis victories; without Soviet victory as Stalingrad, there's no victory at Kursk. Without Soviet victory at Kursk, the Germans are still in the strategic depths of Russia, and still able to strategic offensives, while Russian losses are even more punishing than OTL. The worse one battle goes for a given side, the worse the next goes.

People underestimate how much perceived victories can translate into tangible things like uprisings, countries siding with the Axis or helping them more in the case of Turkey and even Axis countries like Finland going in further and perhaps pushing with the Germans for a 1942 attack on more demoralized then OTL Leningrad.
 
People underestimate how much perceived victories can translate into tangible things like uprisings,

Who is going to rise up in a manner that actually matters? Pretty much every Soviet ethnic group that might try to rise up has either already been pre-emptively butchered by Stalin, are behind German lines, or recognize that German victory means their own extinction and thus have every incentive to not rise up.

countries siding with the Axis

By 1942, the Axis have maxed out on the countries willing to side with them. There is no one left willing to trust them.

like Finland going in further and perhaps pushing with the Germans for a 1942 attack on more demoralized then OTL Leningrad.

Finland didn't take Leningrad because, quite simply, they didn't want Leningrad. Events at Stalingrad do not change this.
 
Who is going to rise up in a manner that actually matters? Pretty much every Soviet ethnic group that might try to rise up has either already been pre-emptively butchered by Stalin, are behind German lines, or recognize that German victory means their own extinction and thus have every incentive to not rise up.

The Middle East and even potentially parts of India.

This TL doesn't just deal with the Soviet Union last I checked.
 
The Middle East and even potentially parts of India.

Those regions had uprisings OTL, the British crushed them with minimal trouble and no impact on the frontlines. Having to fall back a few dozen kilometers in Egypt isn't going to prompt another uprising when the 1941 one was smashed so decisively and India was too stuffed with military forces to get beyond "vague irritation" levels with the Japanese posing a threat and all.
 
Sure there is. The Germans managing to hold on at Stalingrad longer and extract more forces does not change the fact that the Red Army would still have qualitatively evolved by 1943 to the point they could handily smash any German strategic offensive before it breaches into their operational or strategic depth.

To win at Kursk, the Soviets had to strip the front, concentrating 40% of their manpower at the shoulders of the salient, and this concentration would not have come as easily if the particular patterns of operations didn't make it obvious where the next strategic offensive would come. Furthermore, the Germans had to take up the summer offensive with massively reduced manpower and materiel; the Romanians and Hungarians were decimated by Operation Uranus on top of the loss of the entire 6th Army. Without a successful Operation Uranus and Little Saturn, the Soviets are cut off from their oil fields in the Caucasus, and their operational art remains unvindicated on the battlefield, and they face larger forces during the summer offensive of 1943.
 
To win at Kursk, the Soviets had to strip the front, concentrating 40% of their manpower at the shoulders of the salient, and this concentration would not have come as easily if the particular patterns of operations didn't make it obvious where the next strategic offensive would come.

For "stripping the front", they sure did not appreciably weaken their defenses elsewhere and were able to maintain strong operational and even strategic reserves all along it. Additionally, the Soviets settled on Kursk not by just guessing that the Germans were going to attack there but by working it out via the comprehensive use of their intelligence assets. Good strategic intelligence is vital for defensive operations and the Soviets in 1943 had that in spades.

Ultimately the Germans didn't lose at Kursk because they lacked surprise (the Germans knew they didn't have that) or numbers (they had proved able to overcome worse odds in the past). The Germans lost at Kursk because the Red Army had developed to the point of effective combined arms warfare.

Furthermore, the Germans had to take up the summer offensive with massively reduced manpower and materiel;
Oh, that was happening in 1942 as well and would happen ITTL as well. Even without losing the entirety 6th Army, the Germans are still going to take hundreds of thousands of irrecoverable losses during the winter of '42-'43. Our Kursk analogue may have slightly more forces behind it, but that matters little when the Soviets so handily defeated what the Germans threw at them IOTL.

the Romanians and Hungarians were decimated by Operation Uranus on top of the loss of the entire 6th Army.
The Romanians and Hungarians are likely to get decimated ITTL anyways and the 6th Army will still suffer severe losses in the Soviet winter counter-offensive.

Without a successful Operation Uranus and Little Saturn, the Soviets are cut off from their oil fields in the Caucasus, and their operational art remains unvindicated on the battlefield, and they face larger forces during the summer offensive of 1943.
Uh... the Soviets were able to get oil up from the Caucausus all throughout the Battle of Stalingrad just fine via shipping across the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan and later on via a rail line constructed along the shore of the Caspian. Furthermore, there is practically no way for the Germans to successfully hold their positions on the Volga and in the Caucasus: the front line is simply too large. At minimum, their going to have to make the choice in the winter of 1942-43 to either withdraw behind the Don (at minimum) or suffer an encirclement. That would also serve as vindication of Soviet operational art.
 
El Alamain is doable if Hitler and Rommel's superiors listened to him and had given his theatre a little more priority. Such as another division, supplies and most importantly, attacking Malta when the island was weak.
 
Germany and Japan started a war against greater industrial powers, when they were ready. Those greater industrial powers were ready to fight back by El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Guadalcanal, rather than Midway. If they weren't ready then, how long until they would be?
 

Ryan

Donor
El Alamain is doable if Hitler and Rommel's superiors listened to him and had given his theatre a little more priority. Such as another division, supplies and most importantly, attacking Malta when the island was weak.

IIRC the ports of Libya were at max capacity otl, so ultimately any extra forces and supplies allocated to Africa will just be sat in a cue waiting.

and the problem with Malta is that when it was at it's weakest Mussolini thought that the British would be surrendering soon so there was no point in an invasion when they'd likely be getting it in the peace treaty.
 
Even when the British continued to fight, they still did nothing. Later when they finally gave some support in the area, such as air and sea, the convoys arrived more intact.
 
At the Second Battle of El Alamein, things were pretty much forgone, but at the First one things were closer. Of course, I'm not sure how much Rommel could actually do even if he had won, the (OTL) First El Alamein, but it would have made the British nervous, and maybe rarked up the Egyptians.
 
Top