DBWI: What if NONE of the main Axis nations had discovered their main oil fields?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Copaczin

World War II was a war of resources. The most crucial Allied operations, the "Three Tide-Turning Battles" (named so despite being operational level and each containing several fights) centered around the crucial axis oil fields of Matzen, Libya, and Manchuria. At the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention the majority of the Allied bomber force, the Axis war machine was dealt a series of critical blows that are credited with saving the Soviet Union and paving the way for the so-called "Atomic Invasions" of the late 1940s.

But what if none of these Oil fields had actually been discovered before the war started? Let's say that Axis industrial concerns either didn't prospect in the right areas or couldn't drill deep enough in the interbellum to exploit their most crucial resources. Is this a total Axis screw? Germany and Italy can still use Romanian oil to some extent, and Japan can focus on seizing the Dutch East Indies maybe, but that's about it.

How far can the Axis advance in this timeline? How deep into the Soviet Union and the Middle East can German and Italian troops get before they simply run out of fuel? Will North Africa even be a theater of war at all? How will Spain perform in the war if the Axis can't rebuild it quickly after the civil war? Perhaps most importantly, if the Soviets survive the war with a completely-intact nation, will there be a new round of hostilities between them and the western allies?
 
SunKing105

SunKing105

Certainly Japan would not have risked an invasion of the Soviet Union in 1936 and China just a year after to protect both flanks and as part of a "Strike North" strategy, meaning the Soviets might follow through on their proposal to partition Poland with the Germans before Barbarossa. The effects on the Eastern Front are hard to quantify, but Moscow wouldn't have captured and held for 10 days, and more historical and cultural landmarks would survive, and the war might end in mid-1945.
 
Vanguard45

Vanguard45

The Italians might've been known as a greater joke as their navy and air force wouldn't have performed as well and the army would've had even greater issues.
Then again, we might not have had the battle off Malta, the Jutland of the Mediterranean, the last great dreadnought battle.
 

BeardedHoplite

TimTurner said:
What does Japan do if it doesn't "strike north"?
Click to expand...

It likely has to "strike south" to secure the Dutch oil, or face total economic ruin as the US' oil embargo would actually bite without the Manchu oil fields. This would certainly entail grabbing the British, French and American colonies in the area because, at that point why not?

Big thing is the US declares war on Japan earlier, maybe even as early as 1940 if the IJN goes south to take advantage of French disarray.
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Matzen was bombed flat in 1942, a mere two years after the Germans got her going.

Austria would certainly be a lot better off if the field hadn't been discovered. Those well fires didn't go out for a very long time.
 
Vanguard45

Vanguard45

SealTheRealDeal said:
Matzen was bombed flat in 1942, a mere two years after the Germans got her going.

Austria would certainly be a lot better off if the field hadn't been discovered. Those well fires didn't go out for a very long time.
Click to expand...
The last of them didn't go out until 1946 if I recall? And that was because British troops reached the area
 
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top