Britain makes peace after Dunkirk impact on Barbarossa

Say the UK makes peace after Dunkirk

What would be the impact on operation Barbarossa

Would the Soviet Union receive land-lease

Would Britain rejoin the war at some point
 
Stalin may be more prepared but the Russians were just so inept they may do even worse... I could see him sending thousands more troops to get encircled.
 
2550 more airplanes that Luftwaffe can add to the blitzkrieg. Troops in the west not needed to occupy France and the low countries since there is Peace there now and those troops can be used in the Ukraine. Rommel and his Africa corps are now in Russia.
 

nbcman

Donor
If the British and French signed an armistice, the Germans wouldn’t get all the plunder from the West that they got IOTL. Plus no millions of POW laborers in the German economy. Even if the blockade is lifted, what do the Germans have to pay for imports? Keeping the UK in the war was an overall benefit to an expansionist Germany.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Sorry to highjack, but with no Crete, what would axis airborne operations be like in the USSR in 41/42
 
If the British and French signed an armistice, the Germans wouldn’t get all the plunder from the West that they got IOTL. Plus no millions of POW laborers in the German economy. Even if the blockade is lifted, what do the Germans have to pay for imports? Keeping the UK in the war was an overall benefit to an expansionist Germany.

War indemnities and credit from Western European factors, most likely. The key here is weather you're merely signing an armistice,as you suggest, or if a longer term more comprehensive peace treaty can get hammered out. Germany is almost certainly going to insist on the later ; inticing London to the table with a carrot of evacuating the low counteries and France and the stick of revealing Vichy-esque terms they'd impose on the Continent if the British aren't involved.

As for balancing factors, Britain at peace likely includes terms that at least somewhat reduce the supplies sent to the USSR, removes the Med. front which funnels the resources of, for example, Italy to the Eastern Front, and removes a diplomatic balancing factors that tilts nation's like Turkey and Sweden to more pro-Axis policies
 
Sorry to highjack, but with no Crete, what would axis airborne operations be like in the USSR in 41/42

I'd favor a lot of smaller company-regiment size operations to assist the motorized forces in seizing specific operational objectives: bridges, railway junctions, fortresses, HQ, airfields, ports. If one insists on a focused operation, then I'd use them in combination with amphibious operations to seize Estonian ports. Thus when the lead elements of Army Group North arrive in August a sea route, ports, airbases, and a forward supply dump are in place to assist in the capture of Leningrad
 

Deleted member 1487

Sorry to highjack, but with no Crete, what would axis airborne operations be like in the USSR in 41/42
In the USAAF monographs written by Luftwaffe officers about the war in Russia said officers said that a division level airborne drop to help close the pockets in Belarus would have been a perfect mission for the FJs. The Minsk and especially the Smolensk pocket badly needed infantry to close and hold closed the pockets from the east as the motorized/panzer divisions lacked sufficient infantry for that role, especially as the campaign went on.

Conversely as Carl said seizing bridges and river bridgeheads would have been a critical mission for the FJ too; given how hard AG-North pushed it's motorized/panzer corps to seized crossings over the Dvina river (and later Luga) plus given the use of the FJ division in 1941-42 around Leningrad it is perfectly reasonable to see regimental or even a full division sized drop to capture a bridgehead over critical river lines in the north or even seize Riga in a coup de main and trap the Soviet 8th Army in Lithuania. The FJ would have been extremely helpful breaching the Luga Line too depending on the logistics of such a drop; conversely given the problems with getting a naval invasion of the Baltic Islands together the FJ would probably be much more easily moved for such an invasion at least a month earlier, which would really help open up the Baltic ports sooner.
 
2550 more airplanes that Luftwaffe can add to the blitzkrieg. Troops in the west not needed to occupy France and the low countries since there is Peace there now and those troops can be used in the Ukraine. Rommel and his Africa corps are now in Russia.

This assumes aircraft production and pilot training are ramped up above replacement levels. That was not the case until late 1941. After each campaign, the Polish, western, and BoB airframe & engine production was run up to levels that replaced previous losses, and made only modest increases in overall strength. When each of the campaigns was started production was actually dropping or effectively ceased. It appears the leaders saw a upper limit of nominally 3000 aircraft they needed or could support and the 1939-1941production goals were aimed only at reaching that level and not expansion of much above 3,000 aircraft in the operating groups. It was not until after the realization in latter1941 that both the Brits and Soviet Union were in the war for the long haul that aircraft production was ramped up with the goal of a larger operational air force.

Aircraft Production.png


Note how clear the drop in production is, across the board once the BoB effectively ceases in October 1940. Once the commitment to Op Barbarossa came production was then increased to provide a replacement reserve for expected losses in the summer/autum of 1941. But, the production is not sufficient to increase the operational strength. Note also the "planned" production from May 1941 is aimed at new models to replace older models. The new aircraft numbers were to be offset by the scrapping of the aging JU87, Do17, He111, & older marks of the Me108 & Ju88. Since the strategic view from the top was the war would wind down in early 1942 continuing high maintenance of aircraft numbers would be unnecessary.
 
The English translation of Bekkers 'Angriffeeshohe 3000' - 'Luftwaffe War Diaries' in English. The numbers in the chart are lifted from Luftwaffe records, tho its not clear to me if Bekker drew directly from those or through another authors work. There is a extensive Bibliography, but along the way the citations of source for the numerous charts and other items disappeared. So, its difficult to tell what in the text connects to the sources in the back pages. My copy is a 1994 reprint and my brothers 1968 edition is long gone. Neither do I have a German version to cross check with. Alfred Price makes a similar point in his history of the Luftwaffe, tho I don't recall any slick charts on that specific subject. John Ellis in Brute Force may have made the same observation, but my copy was not returned, so i can't check his text.
 

Deleted member 1487

The English translation of Bekkers 'Angriffeeshohe 3000' - 'Luftwaffe War Diaries' in English. The numbers in the chart are lifted from Luftwaffe records, tho its not clear to me if Bekker drew directly from those or through another authors work. There is a extensive Bibliography, but along the way the citations of source for the numerous charts and other items disappeared. So, its difficult to tell what in the text connects to the sources in the back pages. My copy is a 1994 reprint and my brothers 1968 edition is long gone. Neither do I have a German version to cross check with. Alfred Price makes a similar point in his history of the Luftwaffe, tho I don't recall any slick charts on that specific subject. John Ellis in Brute Force may have made the same observation, but my copy was not returned, so i can't check his text.
Thanks, I'll check my copy of Brute Force, but based on other Luftwaffe books I have in english I can't find anything to back up those figures. I know there were serious production shortfalls caused by issues around the winding down of the Bf110 to phase in the Me210 and then the switch back, which also cost Bf109 production for some reason (about 2000 total aircraft according to Daniel Uziel's book "Arming the Luftwaffe") which happened in 1941-42. Similar issues happened with the He177 phase in around 1941-42 and also with the Ju288 project cancellation, which was a late 1941-42 issues as well.
Other than that IIRC there was the period in late 1940 to 1941 where the Army got the lion's share of the resources to prepare for Barbarossa, but that isn't reflected in lower Luftwaffe production displayed in that chart. From the USSBS:
http://www.allworldwars.com/The Defeat of the German Air Force.html
DefeatGAF22.jpg


Edit:
From the German edition of Angriffshohe 4000. No sources are given at end of the book.
angriff's hohe 4000.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Deleted member 1487

Ok per chart 26 of 'Brute Force' there was a dip in Luftwaffe SE fighter production starting in October 1940, while November and December numbers are missing. January 1941 numbers are slightly lower than October numbers then they increase from February 1941 on and double in March 1941 as compared to February.
Looks like Ellis' info sort of Bekker's chart at least in terms of fighters. Ellis' numbers though show a recovery in February rather than it being the nadir of production. In January 1941 a low of 136 SE fighters were production according to Ellis, with 255 produced in February. So either Ellis or Udet/Bekker's numbers or off by a month. Bekker's interpretation is likely incorrect at least in terms of the reason for the drop, as it probably had to do with the efforts to prep the Army for Barbarossa, much like how Hitler had production shift to munitions between the end of the Polish invasion and the start of the French invasion (per Tooze "Wages of Destruction") due to the huge deficit in stockpiles after the Polish campaign. That impacted production of the Army mostly at that time, while the efforts to prepare the Army for the Barbarossa campaign ate into the resources for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine temporarily, as their boosted resources for the BoB and potentially Sealion invasion were cut back on (reflected in the Bekker chart Luftwaffe increases in mid-1940 before the drop off starting in October after the BoB failed). I expect if we saw a matching chart for Heer production it would show correlated peaks and troughs matching the rise and fall of the Luftwaffe's output.

Edit:
Bekker's production chart (and Ellis' fighter production numbers) also seems to mirror this USSBS Luftwaffe SE figther loss chart in mid 1940-mid 1941:
DefeatGAF01.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I suspect the USSBS figures are averaged & therefore smoothed out. They don't match closely other sources either for 1942-44. Those do show a very low production rate for the overall period 1939-1941, compared to the combat and operational losses. The gross numbers look barely sufficient to replace those losses. Ellis used the USSBS a lot, but then he seemed to have heavily depended on secondary sources across the board.

The text under the charts attributes the data as "...copied from Programe No. 20c of the Luftwaffes Technical Office dated May 19, 1941, ..." "Das Scchaubild, das den Pogrammvorshlag 2oc des Technischen Amtes vom 19, Mai 1941 ..." I did not realize people would miss that one. I had expected a connection to a entry in the Bibliography and was nonplussed by those not being included for any of the chaats or other data . Theres at least a dozen titles there the chart could have been lifted from. I am reminded that Appendix 13 in Bekkers book tracks the production figure given by Ellis in 'Brute Force' for annual delivery of aircraft. Th 10-12 k delivered in 1940-41 look slim compared to losses. Slimmer when only combat types are considered: 7,172 & 8,703 each year.

The accompanying text in Beakers narrative talks about Udets decision in the spring of 1940 to cancel all long term projects. Anything not expected to be operational in 1940 was postponed or canceled for production. That seemed to be in response to Goering instruction to conserve materials. The text does not indicate when production for the new models was revived.
 

Deleted member 1487

Well turns out I was wrong about the increase in Heer production. There was a general decline in military armaments production first after July 1940 to October 1940 and then from November 1940 in Feburary 1941 per Tooze:
tooze chart production.jpg


P.423 of "Wages" Goering ordered payments to the USSR for imports under their Commercial Agreement take equal priority to Wehrmacht armaments production. Tooze says: "Astonishingly, rather than interrupting the Soviet deliveries to prioritize the Luftwaffe, Goering in early October 1940 ordered that, at least until 11 May 1941, deliveries to the Soviet Union, and thus to the Red Army, should have equal priority to the demands of the Wehrmacht. Even in the immediate prelude to operation Barbarossa, Germany could not afford to do without Soviet deliveries of oil, grain, and alloy metals". He cites documents from the German military archives, I guess a Goering 4 year plan order. The footnote also states that the Germans made sure to satisfy Soviet demands for payment May 1941, which if the production chart above is to be believed impacted production in May and June 1941.

So rather than it being 'the arrogance of the German leadership' for the decline in production in 1940-41, it was economic necessity to placate the Soviets and ensure continued flow of resources (interrupted in August 1940 by Stalin over payment disputes) to allow the German economy to continue to function in the face of the British blockade the poor harvest throughout occupied Europe of 1940.

This means if the Brits are out as of mid-1940 then the Germans may or may not cut military production as the blockade of Europe would be over and they could buy with cash what they needed abroad and not need to trade with the USSR exclusively, trading in industrial and military equipment for Soviet raw materials and food. Germany might also export and have access to occupied Europe's bank deposits abroad depending on the shape of the post-war peace deals with occupied Europe.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Deleted member 1487

The accompanying text in Beakers narrative talks about Udets decision in the spring of 1940 to cancel all long term projects. Anything not expected to be operational in 1940 was postponed or canceled for production. That seemed to be in response to Goering instruction to conserve materials. The text does not indicate when production for the new models was revived.
Yet in 1941 phase in efforts for the He177, Ju288, and Me210 were made and then cancelled due to the technical failures of those aircraft. I haven't seen any thing in the history of those aircraft that they were cancelled or stopped development in 1940; I think Goering/Udet may have cancelled long term research projects in general, but probably exempted new aircraft models due in 1941-42 as it seems development work on them continued uninterrupted in 1940-42, as they were all supposed to be ready in 1941-42.
 
...So either Ellis or Udet/Bekker's numbers or off by a month.

That might be a difference in the airframe coming off the factory floor, and acceptance by the air force inspectors.

{quote]...Bekker's interpretation is likely incorrect at least in terms of the reason for the drop, as it probably had to do with the efforts to prep the Army for Barbarossa, much like how Hitler had production shift to munitions between the end of the Polish invasion and the start of the French invasion (per Tooze "Wages of Destruction") due to the huge deficit in stockpiles after the Polish campaign. That impacted production of the Army mostly at that time, while the efforts to prepare the Army for the Barbarossa campaign ate into the resources for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine temporarily, as their boosted resources for the BoB and potentially Sealion invasion were cut back on (reflected in the Bekker chart Luftwaffe increases in mid-1940 before the drop off starting in October after the BoB failed). I expect if we saw a matching chart for Heer production it would show correlated peaks and troughs matching the rise and fall of the Luftwaffe's output.[/quote]

I don't see any of this as contradicting Bekkers narrative. It actually ties in. With limits on resources there would be a limit on the operational strength of the air force, or target strength & therefore overproduction above that goal would be necessarily avoided.
 

Deleted member 1487

I don't see any of this as contradicting Bekkers narrative. It actually ties in. With limits on resources there would be a limit on the operational strength of the air force, or target strength & therefore overproduction above that goal would be necessarily avoided.
Per your attachment the author claimed that "The arrogant assumption of the German leaders from time to time that the war was as good as won found eloquent expression in the ups and downs of the aircraft production graph. After each successful campaign it dropped."
The claim isn't that economic limits prevented overproduction as Tooze says, rather he's claiming that it was arrogance of the leaders thinking that the war was nearly won was the cause for the production drop, which fits in to the idea popular until about the 1990s that the German economy was undermobilized early in the war relative to their resources to give civilians more goods, which was likely driven by the lack of documents available to historians until later in the 20th century as they were returned to Germany by the capturing powers and the East German and Soviet archives opened in the 1990s. That and Speer pushing his own myth of being the genius that turned war production around.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top