do you think the nazis would have won wwii if the usa wasnt involved

would the nazis win wwii if the usa didnt get involved.

  • yes

    Votes: 26 16.8%
  • no

    Votes: 93 60.0%
  • it would be some what of a draw

    Votes: 36 23.2%

  • Total voters
    155
Starve as in a result of the wolf packs/bombing campaigns or starve as in get no American Lend-Lease aid and starve?

If the latter, I agree.

There was no threat of either. The senses in which I spoke were:

1) That Britain's poorest ate better than before the war, throughout.

2) That the tightest rationing was after the war.

There was never any prospect of starvation.
 
Britain will most probably get a white peace the moment they realize no American aid is coming.

Soviet Union without Lend-Lease and a white peace in the west has been discussed here so many times, and it is a known fact Stalin would not win without them. I do remember someone got a rundown of all the materials and money given by Lend Lease to SU. Will someone post them here please, my search function is crappy.

Don't know what will happen to the Nazis, so I picked a draw, with the frontline as the border.
 
The Soviets did, essentially, win WWII without US assistance of any useful kind (except maybe distracting Japan). By the end of 1943, we had sent the Soviets about $2.8 billion in supplies - by the end of the war, we'd sent them $11.3 billion in total. Thus, only 24% of lend-lease shipments to the USSR occurred during the critical period of the war - and arguably less than that amount, if we consider the final turning point to be Kursk.

I will argue that 20% of US lend-lease arrived in the USSR before the war had turned decisively in their favor and victory was inevitable. US lend-lease amounted to 2.5% of Soviet production, as far as I know. With 20% of the lend-lease being sent over the decisive first half of Russia's war, the US contribution to Russia's war effort was 1% of Soviet GDP.

As for campaigns in the West drawing off German manpower and resources, well strategic bombing didn't heat up until midway through '43, and not really until '44. We don't see US/UK forces on the continent till mid '43, in Italy - by this time, the Soviets had won the war and it was all over but the shouting, and lots of dying because the Nazis lacked the sense of ther WWI predecessors.
 
In this poll the japanese didnt atack pearl harbor and did not go to war.

But they are still involved in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). And Japan has already captured French Indochina (22-26 September, 1940). Are the United States of this timeline still cutting oil, iron, and steel exports to Japan by July, 1940? Are there still lingering tensions between the two powers.

1, the nazis wouldnt have there factories being bombed, and would be able to keep the german war machine rolling.

How do you figure? The Royal Air Force (RAF) already bombed Mannheim on 16 December, 1940. The first deliberate "terror raid" by the British, since they were targeting civilian populations and were counting on their reaction against the German government.

Pet the British strategic dogma: "The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death."

By March, 1942, the RAF had already taken the offensive. Their campaign starting with a bombing of Lübeck. In May, 1942, they bombed Cologne. By comparison the United States Air Force didn't start large scale bombings of German targets until 1943. And always on a lesser capacity than the RAF.

Per the estimates of Richard Humble, the RAF dropped the following bombs on German ground.

*1939- 31 tons.
*1940- 13,033 tons.
*1941- 31,504 tons.
*1942- 45,561 tons.
*1943- 157,457 tons.
*1944- 525,518 tons.
*1945- 964,644 tons.

The USAAF dropped the following:

*1942- 1,561 tons.
*1943- 44,265 tons.
*1944- 389,119 tons.
*1945- 188,573 tons.

2, The soviets wouldnt have all the supplies, guns, tanks, ect. That they would have recieved from the usa, thus decreasing their ability to wage war.

Decreasing, not negating. "The Soviet Union had 25,664 or 25,481 armoured fighting vehicles on 1 June 1941, before it entered the war."

3. The british, although they may still be able to keep the nazis from invading, would no be able to take any major offensives to retake the mainland.

Probably true. But they were keeping the Axis forces preoccupied in other campaigns:

*North African Campaign (10 June, 1940-13 May, 1943)
*East African Campaign (10 June, 1940-27 November, 1941).
*Battle of the Mediterranean (10 June, 1940-2 May, 1945).
*Siege of Malta (11 June, 1940-20 November, 1942).
*Balkans Campaign (28 October, 1940-1 June, 1941).
*Syria–Lebanon Campaign (8 June-14 July, 1941).
*Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran (25 August-17 September, 1941). Securing the oil fields for the Allies.

4. The nazis would have more time and supplies to develope and produce more sophisticated weapons, such as the atomic bomb, jet aircrafts, and missles.

True about the time. Not certain if more supplies were possible. Particularly oils. Germany largely depended on Romanian oil for most of the war ("supplying 75% of Germany's oil imports in 1941") and never really matched the Allies on that resource.

Its best change to increase its supplies is capturing the Baku Oil Fields. But this would depend on Case Blue (28 June-19 November, 1942) being largely successful. Which is a rather big "if". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Blue
 
Last edited:
Alas, found it!

Elisia said:
Here some numbers: From Autumn 1941 to Summer 1945 Lend Lease delivered to the Russians:

14 795 aircraft, 7056 tanks, 1800 self propelled guns, 131 633 Submachines guns, 345 735 Short tons of explosives, 90 cargo vessels, 105 submarine chasers, 197 torpedo boats, 7784 marine engines.

1981 locomotives, 11 155 freight cars, 51 503 jeeps, 375 833 trucks,
35 170 motorcycles, 3 786 000 tyres, machinery + equipment in value exeeding 1 Billion dollar, Construction machinery value exeeding 11 million dollar.

2 800 000 short tons of steel, 802 000 shorst tons of non-ferrous metals, 2 670 000 short tons petrochemicals, 842 000 short tons ordinary chemicals.

106 900 000 yards of cotton cloth, 62 500 000 yards of wool cloth,
49 860 short tons of leather, 15 417 000 pair of army boots and
4 478 000 000 short tons foodstuff.

Additionally Great Britain and Canada delivered some 7869 aircraft, 4699 tanks and 114 000 tons of rubber.

From December 41 to May 42 the Western Allies (US+GB+Canada) delivered to Russia 1441 aircraft and 1678 tanks

From May 42 to November 42 some 2601 aircraft and 2904 tanks were delivered.

From November 42 to July 43 some 4355 aircraft and 2413 tanks were delivered.

From July 43 to January 44 some 4851 aircraft and 1385 tanks were
delivered.

From January 44 to June 44 another 3103 aircraft and 1310 tanks were delivered.

From June 44 to January 45 the Allies supplied 3356 aircraft and 1913 tanks.

From January 45 untill July 45 the last 1914 aircraft and 836 tanks were delivered.

From June 22nd to 1 st January 1944 some 173 000 trucks and 33 000 jeeps were delivered, from 1st January 44 to July 1945 another 190 000 trucks and 19 000 Jeeps.

Source: Mark Harrison Soviet planning in peace and war. 1938-1945.


Without the trucks, the communists will not achieve their OTL gains due to lack of logistics. Their manpower will be strained, because they will have to produce these materiel by themselves - farmers, workers, soldiers. Too many jobs, too little manpower.

Again, they may push the Germans out of Stalingrad and Leningrad, however, they will have much difficulty following up these offenses.
 
This being the case would it be possible if the British realise that a Commonwealth only D-Day is unlikely to be successful in the near to mid-future and and that specifically targeting industry is likewise not working instead transition over to a firebombing cities strategy? I've got no idea of the logisitcs but if they 'Dresden-d' the major German cities would that slow them down somewhat or were they able to recover fast enough to compensate?

The British had some idea the precision bombing campaign targeting German industry was a failure, and for the most part they pragmatically switched over to a firebombing style strategy (heavy and indiscriminate saturation of target cities, but without incendiaries yet).

However, for propaganda purposes, they still staged precision bombing raids (like the infamous ball bearing operation), especially over occupied Europe. That way, they could claim they were minimizing civilian casualties among non-German civilians, when in actuality, the casualties could be just as high as a normal raid against German cities.
 
Well, they are certainly getting nukes first. I am also pretty sure that the commonwealth alone outproduced Germany, at least in many key areas.

If Canada is any indication, the Commonwealth's industrial capabilities were impressive. See: http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/history/secondwar/fact_sheets/material

*"Canadian industry produced more than 800,000 military transport vehicles, 50,000 tanks, 40,000 field, naval, and anti-aircraft guns, and 1,700,000 small arms."
*"Of the 800,000 military vehicles of all types built in Canada, 168,000 were issued to Canadian Forces. Thirty-eight percent of the total Canadian production went to the British. The remainder of the vehicles went to the other Allies."
*"There were 348, ten thousand-ton, merchant ships built in Canada during the war. Large and relatively slow, but reliable and easily adapted to a variety of cargoes, these ships and those who sailed on them ensured the delivery of much of Canada's war production."
*"Production in the aircraft industry went from extremely low levels before the war to 4,000 military aircraft a year by the end of the war. At its peak, the industry employed 120,000 men and women."
*"Canada assembled a total of 16,000 military aircraft, 10,000 of which were shipped directly to Britain, and the remainder going either to the United States or remaining in Canada for use in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan."
 
Comparing the tons bombed by the RAF and the USAAF on occupied Europe and Germany and claiming that the RAF campaign was better, because they dropped more bombs is misleading.
The USAAF went after real targets: aircraft factoriew, ball bearing plants, synthetic fuel factories, transportation hubs, etc.
The RAF simply flew over a major city and firebombed (or terror bombed) the place.

The RAF approach did hurt the Germans, it killed large numbers of working ivilians and it did force the Germans to devote resources to stop the RAF, protect their citizens and rebuild. However the RAF strikes were very ineffective in actually destroying German production & transportation sites.

Furthermore the daylight raids of the USAAF practically broke the backbone of the Luftwaffe, especially in 1944. More and more fighters were necessary to stop the USAAF, fighters needed elsewhere badly and Ludtwaffe losses against the USAAF bombers were heavy, especially after the P51s appeared.

The RAF was unable to conduct daytime raids, as long as the Luftwaffe was active and the Germans devotes only a little part of their resources into night fighters. Yet RAF losses werr around 10% of the involved bombers at certain times. Had the Germans devoted more resources into night fighters, they would have beaten the RAF.

Without the USA entering the war, I can only see Germany losing at a later point, after extensive fughting with the Red Army. It will take several years and will only happen if Britain stays in the war, which depends on the outcome of the Atlantic war. There will only be a bloody Italy campaign in 1944 and perhaps some Balcans action, but no Overlord. If Britain exits the war around 1943, them the Germans have a realistic chance to get a truce settled with the Soviets.
Remember, no US involvement also means no Land Lease for the Soviets, thus
its questionnable if they can pull off Uranus at its OTL extent.
 
During wwii stalin at first kept alot of divisionin the far east to protect the Soviet Union from a possible Japanese attack. When the Japanese put their full attention to America and the possible Japanese attack was very unlikely, Stalin then moved those troops west to fight the Nazis.

However in this scenerio since America isnt at War with America the Possibility of a Japanese attack is much more likely.

Why? The Battles of Khalkhin Gol (11 May-16 September, 1939) between the Soviets and the Japanese ended in a decisive Soviet victory. While the official Japanese reports on their own casualties spoke of "8,440 killed, 8,766 wounded", it is considered probable that their numbers were inaccurate and aimed to reassure their public. Foreign sources estimate that the Japanese suffered between 45,000 and 60,000 casualties.

Consequently, the Japanese Imperial General Staff avoided conflicts with the Soviet Union for most of World War II, in the apparent belief that they could not win. The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact (13 April, 1941-5 April, 1945) ensured that the two powers stayed out of each other's way.
 
Consequently, the Japanese Imperial General Staff avoided conflicts with the Soviet Union for most of World War II, in the apparent belief that they could not win. The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact (13 April, 1941-5 April, 1945) ensured that the two powers stayed out of each other's way.

There was a belief that they could win (although the Kwantung Army wanted 3 to 1 numerical superiority before another engagement with the Soviets), however they realised that it would not allow them to avoid the embargo, pull troops away from China and probably bring them into conflict with Great Britain and quite possibly the United States to boot.
 
Flubber: I see that the idea of basic courtesy has to be sacrificed in the interests of making as elitist an environment as possible.

"Certain standards" are one thing. But expecting the unreliable search engine to be used as if it answered all questions and bringing up something discussed so often we have a stickied thread for the threads on the subject as a sample topic compared to this is a bit much.

Especially when "certain standards" of behavior by users towards other users are not observed.

Byzantine said:
Well, it would certainly be useful to know whether a country had further reserves to call upon.

This is true, but raw population figures do not give a very useful indication of how much manpower a country could and did mobilize - witness WWI where Germany outmobilized Russia (13.25 million vs. 13 million), for instance.
 
Top