If the UK has ended the war with Germany, basically due to worse losses, and France is occupied, why in the world would the go to war with the USSR? To liberate Eastern Poland?? I could see the Luftwaffe using bases in Syria to raid Soviet facilities, assuming they can get overflight permission or at least a blind eye from Turkey.
Does Barbarossa succeed if there are no western allies?
- Thread starter victhemag
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- axis powers barbarossa
Although its a major loss to the UK, it certainly does not drive them out of the war.
Yes, it should be doable by Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Herkules
thaddeus
Donor
my reference was to the original post in this thread, that the UK was out of the war prior to (any) invasion of USSR. NOT operations on Crete or any hypothetical operations on Malta. (which would be moot IF UK was out of the war)
The Uboat campaign was taking a significant amount of German resources, bombers were starting up and North Africa would still be on.
A huge percentage of the resources devoted to fighting Britain in the fall/winter of 1940/41 and subsequently after Barbarossa would be freed up for other uses. ITTL even if Japan attacked PH, which is iffy, IMHO Germany would not declare war against the USA unless the war in Russia had ended, also not likely in one campaign season. Absent Britain in the war, even if there is some assistance to resistance movements in Nazi occupied territory, the German need for troops strength and aircraft and AA units in the west is markedly reduced. Construction of coastal defenses can proceed at a slower pace, and in any case most of this was slave labor.
Before Germany attacks Russia, the UK won't be sending military equipment or anything else there, certainly not on credit and the USA if it sells anything would be cash and carry. OTL even the sale of military equipment to the UK on a cash basis was decried by some people as selling what the US needed for its own buildup. Before Barbarossa selling to the commies, on credit??? Lend-Lease, puhleeze. Once Barbarossa starts in this scenario the only way for goods to get to the USSR in any quantity is via Vladivostok, going to Murmansk or Archangelsk will run in to a German blockade of surface, sub, and aircraft, and for sure US flagged ships won't try. There is very limited Soviet flagged merchant shipping, and as those get sunk replacement is not in the cards. If Italy is playing the Regia Marina can control the very restricted waters approaching the Straits in the Eastern Med, so Soviet flag ships have very little chance of making it. Again, at least US flag ships won't be carrying cargo to the USSR through that blockade - since even OTL the Germans took the Crimea, Soviet Black Sea ports will not be available for very long.
Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets are ten feet tall. Absent Allied LL and other material aid, the Soviets cannot produce a lot of things they needed to turn the tide - both quantity and actual inability to make some stuff. OTOH the Germans have a lot more of everything, and are fighting a one front war with the ability to buy critical items on the world market. OTL the USA and UK bought a lot of critical raw materials at prices above normal market value and in quantities above what they needed even during war to keep them out of Nazi hands. Will a Britain recovering from defeat and a USA still climbing out of depression start throwing money around to do this here, I very much doubt it.
Nothing is sure in battle but now the Soviets still have manpower and space, but other advantages they had (and those were later in the war) are gone.
Before Germany attacks Russia, the UK won't be sending military equipment or anything else there, certainly not on credit and the USA if it sells anything would be cash and carry. OTL even the sale of military equipment to the UK on a cash basis was decried by some people as selling what the US needed for its own buildup. Before Barbarossa selling to the commies, on credit??? Lend-Lease, puhleeze. Once Barbarossa starts in this scenario the only way for goods to get to the USSR in any quantity is via Vladivostok, going to Murmansk or Archangelsk will run in to a German blockade of surface, sub, and aircraft, and for sure US flagged ships won't try. There is very limited Soviet flagged merchant shipping, and as those get sunk replacement is not in the cards. If Italy is playing the Regia Marina can control the very restricted waters approaching the Straits in the Eastern Med, so Soviet flag ships have very little chance of making it. Again, at least US flag ships won't be carrying cargo to the USSR through that blockade - since even OTL the Germans took the Crimea, Soviet Black Sea ports will not be available for very long.
Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets are ten feet tall. Absent Allied LL and other material aid, the Soviets cannot produce a lot of things they needed to turn the tide - both quantity and actual inability to make some stuff. OTOH the Germans have a lot more of everything, and are fighting a one front war with the ability to buy critical items on the world market. OTL the USA and UK bought a lot of critical raw materials at prices above normal market value and in quantities above what they needed even during war to keep them out of Nazi hands. Will a Britain recovering from defeat and a USA still climbing out of depression start throwing money around to do this here, I very much doubt it.
Nothing is sure in battle but now the Soviets still have manpower and space, but other advantages they had (and those were later in the war) are gone.
The interesting thing about a Russian/German conflict with Britain neutral is there is no reason peace can break out at any time. Germany is at peace and can buy whatever on the open market so it doesn't really need anything from Russia other than ideology and straight up aggression.
Germany could just use its military leverage and demand stuff for free without war.
OR They could invade and say about the OTL September 20th line (pre typhoon), we already have the good grain producing areas of the western Ukraine, Estonian shale oil, Nikopol mines, lets make an armistice, repair + build up the acquired infrastructure, and try again in a couple of years (or not).
Without allies the Soviets are more likely to make peace and without enemies in the west the Germans can stop more easily.
Germany could just use its military leverage and demand stuff for free without war.
OR They could invade and say about the OTL September 20th line (pre typhoon), we already have the good grain producing areas of the western Ukraine, Estonian shale oil, Nikopol mines, lets make an armistice, repair + build up the acquired infrastructure, and try again in a couple of years (or not).
Without allies the Soviets are more likely to make peace and without enemies in the west the Germans can stop more easily.
thaddeus
Donor
my understanding they soured quickly on annexing much of France, despite the rhetoric one can imagine much the same in USSR?
in a much stronger initial Barbarossa the Soviet air force would cease to exist and the navy (limited anyway) would be surrendered or scuttled. add control of Baltic and Black Seas, Moscow and the rail junction, and (possibly) the hydroelectric cascade, they have removed the ability of Soviets to wage modern warfare.
Darzin
Banned
I asked something similar in another thread, which is if the Soviet Union could have won without lend lease, and the conclusion was no. The Soviet Union idn't have enough manpower to, feed their population, produce war material, and field soldiers. Without lend lease they can't beat Barbarossa. ITTL the Soviets will be better prepared as the Nazis won't be able to use the same trickery and excuses. But with the extra resources they can through at them, the Soviets are done if the Germans get to where they were in 1942. They won't be able to launch their historical offensives and will start starving without retaking Ukrainian grain, or American food being shipped over. Once the Germans take Baku and they will in timeline that truly breaks the back of Soviet oil production and all the limitations that causes without bombing Germany is going it only increase in production after 1944, the Soviets might fight on the way the Chinese did vs the Japanese but they are not winning it's just a matter of how much they lose.
Why would Hitler wait so long. While Plan Z for the navy would take that long, if not at war with the UK the urgency for the navy is much less. The longer Hitler waits the stronger the USSR gets. Following the fighting with Finland the Red Army was reorganizing and doing rethinking. More modern tanks and aircraft were being planned or built. The longer the Germans wait the better the situation for the Soviets becomes, also integrating part of Poland and the Baltics and building new frontier defenses. In the west Britain can build up, recover from the shock of the defeat and be ready to jump on the Germans when they are totally facing east.
IMHO if not spring 1941, then spring 1942 - but given Britain out by fall, 1940 spring 1941 doable.
IMHO if not spring 1941, then spring 1942 - but given Britain out by fall, 1940 spring 1941 doable.
Agree with this, if you wait until 1944/1945, you have to demobilize everybody, the looting has dried up, Germany has had to figure out how to live within her means. And as Wilking was talking about above might be hard to convince the Germans to go back to war then.
If your going to do it 1941 makes sense, make up for the lack of surprise with better preparations, an extra bridge or two over the Vistula for logistics, some extra good Italian divisions from the get go, (i.e. the Italian Motorized corps (in desert our time line)). Some more SBoat and MAS boats shipped down the Danube to the Black Sea. A naval force to assist with Murmansk.
However as Thaddeus was talking about above the whole living space annexation concept was proved unworkable pretty quickly (you just can't take Germans out of the cities, move them onto farms in some distant place, and expect them to know what they are doing). If Stalin is willing to give favorable economic deals, maybe make some German favorable minor border adjustments here and there, (Buknovia, Galacian Oil, Courland), Hitler probably won't invade, ever.
Every year of fully engaged war cost them ~ 80-120 billion RM , while the quasi war with the WALLIES cost them 30-50 BRM each year. Since it was the Germans who won those early campaigns/ battles they will evolve there doctrine accordingly. Russia will not- they were still a "Stumbling Colossus".
I would disagree fundamentally with the assertion made in this thead that the Soviets would basically fall over.
First, the air. On the morning of June 22, the Soviets had roughly 8300 combat-ready aircraft, compared to 2600 German aircraft, a ratio of around 3:1. However, this is misleading because of obvious problems with the Soviets’ doctrine. Firstly, these aircraft were attached directly to Soviet field armies and thus suffered from a similar problem to Allied armour a year before. Soviet planners had drawn erroneous conclusions from the Winter War and believed that air forces should be subordinated to the armies they supported, since against Finland Soviet air had been unable to coordinate effectively with ground forces. However, this meant in practice that even worse coordination problems were experienced, since the labyrinthine structure of the air forces prevented their effective deployment. Without a central body effectively directing air operations the Soviet aircraft were unable to bring their full strength against German aircraft when needed. Additionally, Soviet bombers were rendered ineffective due to the inability of the Soviet commanders to provide fighter escorts.
Secondly, the size of the Soviet air forces paradoxically reduced their efficiency, as the Soviet officer corps was simply not sufficient for the number of formations. The Air Force was one of the branches of service hit most heavily by Stalin’s purges, meaning that the size increases effectively rendered it a discordant mass of aircraft.
It’s hard to estimate exactly how this effected the usefulness of a given number of Soviet aircraft versus their German counterparts, but I would argue that, despite the gross ineffectiveness of the Soviet air, it was still a potentially dangerous force. Which brings us to our third point.
I consider the surprise achieved by the Axis invasion to be the decisive factor in Barbarossa, and nowhere is this more true than concerning aircraft. Of those 8300 front line aircraft, 2000 were destroyed in the first day of combat, most of those on the ground, reducing the Soviet numerical superiority in the air to 2.4:1. The key phrase here is on the ground. Soviets did not anticipate the scale or suddenness of the attack; the Soviet leadership effectively denied its very possibility. The Germans dropped thousands of tons of bombs and with the core of their air power gone the Soviet losses increased from there. Tellingly, during the time from June to November, 5,000 Soviet aircraft simply vanished from Soviet records, an eighth of all the Soviet aircraft deployed in the campaign. The Soviets had no plans after much of their their air forces had been wiped out and tactical developments simply escaped them.
All of this goes away if we assume Britain peaces out. Now the Soviet leadership knows that the only next target for Germany is them, so obviously they will begin preparing in some way. OTL they could not bring themselves to believe that Hitker would subject himself to the mistake that had doomed his country in the last war and commit to two fronts, but now they know he has no reason to not attack. So Soviet air forces on the front will be put on alert if anything happens. The Soviets did have warning signs for Barbarossa OTL (you can’t exactly move 3 million men into position without the other side of the border noticing something, after all) but ignored them. If that happens here it will set off alarm bells at every level of Soviet leadership and command.
So now Soviet aircraft will not be in their hangers when the German bonbs fall, completely changing the air war. Soviet air will be subject to the same disabilities they already had, but as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, Okinawa, and Stalingrad demonstrate, tenacity (which was at least something the Soviets were not deficient in) can produce high casualties on the opposing side, which the numerically inferior Germans cannot sustain.
Armies. Like the aircraft above them, Soviet troops will be placed under incompetent commanders following flawed doctrines, but now those commanders will benefit from a good appraisal of the situation. OTL Soviets were given orders showing a total misunderstanding of the invasion. As I mentioned above, Soviets did not anticipate the scale or suddenness of the attack, and they ordered massive counterattacks that resulted in crippling casualties. It’s probable that these will still occur here, but now Soviet divisions will be in position to at least try to carry them out effectively. German invasion forces will have a nasty shock as they plow into something almost approaching an effective counteroffensive. Even so, these attacks are doomed to fail, and the Germans will still occupy large areas of the western Soviet Union. But their gains will not be so rapid, and Soviet victories not so isolated.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Barbarossa would fail totally. Germans simply had too much concentrated attack power that cannot be deflected, especially with the reinforcements from the west. Keep in mind though that German forces in France 1942-1944 were poor-quality and wouldn’t add much to Barbarossa. The Afrika Korps was more elite, but OTL the Germans spared the minimum possible effort in the Med, and their numbers would be small. Although lend-lease obviously won’t be available here, that only began to have an effect from late 1942 onwards, by which time the Soviets had already turned the tide on their own.
There are two more thing I would like the mention. First, peace in the west would mean an extended period in which Germany was not technically at war. This is a false positive to Hitler (who OTL in early 1941 actually suggested that several entire divisions be sent to do agricultural labor) who will probably compromise Germany’s “war” economy, such as it already was. Yes, I’m serious about this. It’s a well established fact that the Nazi leadership had absolutely no idea as to how to run a nation at war (for example German war production peaked in 1944 for reasons that would never had occurred that late in the war had the Nazis had any economic sense at all).
Second, as has already been mentioned in this thread, it’s possible that Hitler originally scheduled Barbarossa for 1943 or 1942, which will give the advantage to the Soviets given the track record of tank development and the damage Hitler will probably manage to do to the Wehrmacht in that time.
First, the air. On the morning of June 22, the Soviets had roughly 8300 combat-ready aircraft, compared to 2600 German aircraft, a ratio of around 3:1. However, this is misleading because of obvious problems with the Soviets’ doctrine. Firstly, these aircraft were attached directly to Soviet field armies and thus suffered from a similar problem to Allied armour a year before. Soviet planners had drawn erroneous conclusions from the Winter War and believed that air forces should be subordinated to the armies they supported, since against Finland Soviet air had been unable to coordinate effectively with ground forces. However, this meant in practice that even worse coordination problems were experienced, since the labyrinthine structure of the air forces prevented their effective deployment. Without a central body effectively directing air operations the Soviet aircraft were unable to bring their full strength against German aircraft when needed. Additionally, Soviet bombers were rendered ineffective due to the inability of the Soviet commanders to provide fighter escorts.
Secondly, the size of the Soviet air forces paradoxically reduced their efficiency, as the Soviet officer corps was simply not sufficient for the number of formations. The Air Force was one of the branches of service hit most heavily by Stalin’s purges, meaning that the size increases effectively rendered it a discordant mass of aircraft.
It’s hard to estimate exactly how this effected the usefulness of a given number of Soviet aircraft versus their German counterparts, but I would argue that, despite the gross ineffectiveness of the Soviet air, it was still a potentially dangerous force. Which brings us to our third point.
I consider the surprise achieved by the Axis invasion to be the decisive factor in Barbarossa, and nowhere is this more true than concerning aircraft. Of those 8300 front line aircraft, 2000 were destroyed in the first day of combat, most of those on the ground, reducing the Soviet numerical superiority in the air to 2.4:1. The key phrase here is on the ground. Soviets did not anticipate the scale or suddenness of the attack; the Soviet leadership effectively denied its very possibility. The Germans dropped thousands of tons of bombs and with the core of their air power gone the Soviet losses increased from there. Tellingly, during the time from June to November, 5,000 Soviet aircraft simply vanished from Soviet records, an eighth of all the Soviet aircraft deployed in the campaign. The Soviets had no plans after much of their their air forces had been wiped out and tactical developments simply escaped them.
All of this goes away if we assume Britain peaces out. Now the Soviet leadership knows that the only next target for Germany is them, so obviously they will begin preparing in some way. OTL they could not bring themselves to believe that Hitker would subject himself to the mistake that had doomed his country in the last war and commit to two fronts, but now they know he has no reason to not attack. So Soviet air forces on the front will be put on alert if anything happens. The Soviets did have warning signs for Barbarossa OTL (you can’t exactly move 3 million men into position without the other side of the border noticing something, after all) but ignored them. If that happens here it will set off alarm bells at every level of Soviet leadership and command.
So now Soviet aircraft will not be in their hangers when the German bonbs fall, completely changing the air war. Soviet air will be subject to the same disabilities they already had, but as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, Okinawa, and Stalingrad demonstrate, tenacity (which was at least something the Soviets were not deficient in) can produce high casualties on the opposing side, which the numerically inferior Germans cannot sustain.
Armies. Like the aircraft above them, Soviet troops will be placed under incompetent commanders following flawed doctrines, but now those commanders will benefit from a good appraisal of the situation. OTL Soviets were given orders showing a total misunderstanding of the invasion. As I mentioned above, Soviets did not anticipate the scale or suddenness of the attack, and they ordered massive counterattacks that resulted in crippling casualties. It’s probable that these will still occur here, but now Soviet divisions will be in position to at least try to carry them out effectively. German invasion forces will have a nasty shock as they plow into something almost approaching an effective counteroffensive. Even so, these attacks are doomed to fail, and the Germans will still occupy large areas of the western Soviet Union. But their gains will not be so rapid, and Soviet victories not so isolated.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Barbarossa would fail totally. Germans simply had too much concentrated attack power that cannot be deflected, especially with the reinforcements from the west. Keep in mind though that German forces in France 1942-1944 were poor-quality and wouldn’t add much to Barbarossa. The Afrika Korps was more elite, but OTL the Germans spared the minimum possible effort in the Med, and their numbers would be small. Although lend-lease obviously won’t be available here, that only began to have an effect from late 1942 onwards, by which time the Soviets had already turned the tide on their own.
There are two more thing I would like the mention. First, peace in the west would mean an extended period in which Germany was not technically at war. This is a false positive to Hitler (who OTL in early 1941 actually suggested that several entire divisions be sent to do agricultural labor) who will probably compromise Germany’s “war” economy, such as it already was. Yes, I’m serious about this. It’s a well established fact that the Nazi leadership had absolutely no idea as to how to run a nation at war (for example German war production peaked in 1944 for reasons that would never had occurred that late in the war had the Nazis had any economic sense at all).
Second, as has already been mentioned in this thread, it’s possible that Hitler originally scheduled Barbarossa for 1943 or 1942, which will give the advantage to the Soviets given the track record of tank development and the damage Hitler will probably manage to do to the Wehrmacht in that time.
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Sorry this is wishful thinking at best. Hitler and Stalin would still be following a trade agreement that could get a lot of what the Germans needed for the phased plan. So no reason to scuttle this.
Hitler had little to do with when the world war would start. It was all part of a multiphase rearmament program begun in 1928-32 by the previous regime. That point it was planned as three 5 year phases of expansion starting with the economic resource base/alliance that Schacht et al planned for Eastern Europe , the Baltics and the Balkans. Using the great depression, Schacht was very well placed to negotiate beneficial bilateral trade agreements with all these countries through out the 1930s. The structure of this plan was to establish a WW-I scale army with ~ 80 divisions plus >40 reserve brigades. These would be initially trained and equipped for a defensive two front war upon mobilization in the first phase [1938]. The second phase was to expand this training to conduct defensive war and then counter offensive war to drive the enemies out of German territory [1943]. The final 5 year phase was to plan and prepare to 'conduct pre-emptive war' or 'preventative war' against the threat countries [1949].
The total war economy would be established by stockpiling two years of supplies prior to initiating war. The first target was to accumulate one year of munitions and fuel needed to fight such a war plus the resources needed to build a second years worth of munitions . It was believed a total war economy could be established after that. Nazism complicated all this- spreading doubt through out these eastern countries -drawing out negotiations. So when Hitler confronted Schacht in 1935, he admitted the 1945-49 target might not be realistic and called for extension into the 1950s.
Hitler baulked at all this planning and time wasting and instead implemented his FOUR YEAR PLAN in 1936 to blitzkrieg across Europe, based on a 'limited war' economy ignoring Groner' most important warning that any 'military action had to assume a reasonable chance of winning the wider European war'. Hitler believed the Europeans would rather hang separately than hang together.
Any lack of preparation was entirely Hitler's fault.
BTW Soviet training was never very effective since it has to train millions instead of the 'hundreds of thousands', as the Germans and French did and each year of wartime development would be similar to 3-7 years peace time. The Red Army of 1949 would only be like the historical army of 1942
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That’s an interesting assertion, that the Germans had some kind of master plan for conquering Europe that predated 1933. What you’re saying is that it was inevitable that Germany would still have started a world war even if Hitler had not come to power, which is questionable.
Additionally, your post outlines how a non-Nazi government would undertake Barbarossa successfully, but that’s not the case here, so you’re going to have to explain exactly why Hitler would do things even you said he decided not to do.
Otherwise a lot of your post is just restating everything I said but drawing a different conclusion from it.
thaddeus
Donor
my view the temptation to make economic gains and border adjustments on battle field would be too great, agree with @sloreck
the Balkans could be divided by force in this scenario providing some cover for German plans. there are myriad outcomes, but likely Romania fared better historically than they would here? (their oil is needed but their troops ... really ... are not)
my speculation on occupation of entirety of USSR based around their successful (largely) exploitation of Vichy regime, once the USSR was eliminated as military threat and reality (population and geography) settled in? a policy of bleeding them of grain and oil might suffice.
They didn't have a master plan for conquering Europe. The genius of the entire effort was Defence Minister Groner's recognition in the late 20s that if Poland could attack Russia and fight for a year or two succeeding in not losing
. The same effort directed at a TOV Weimar Republic would win within a matter of weeks, since the Reichswehr would run out of ammo and have to surrender. This was agreed to be an intolerable situation, so steps were taken right away to envelope all secret rearmament programs under Reichswehr control. The army was ordered to build tanks and expand its division base to 21 mobilized divisions including the 10 active divisions. Lufthansa was designated the defacto air force and ordered to plan for conversion of all civilian planes for military purposes. The navy was directed to build a fleet to best serve the Weimar needs, which became Naval Plan 1928/32, which included an Aircraft carrier plus 16 U-boats...both illegal under TOV..War was coming to Europe with or without Hitler.
They didn't have a master plan for conquering Europe. The genius of the entire effort was Defence Minister Groner's recognition in the late 20s that if Poland could attack Russia and fight for a year or two succeeding in not losing
War was coming to Europe with or without Hitler.
All that is just smart leadership, and really by the 1930s none of that would really scare anybody, especially Britain (which would agree to a London Naval treaty OTL anyway).
Until the war is coming part with or without Hilter part, so in this TL Germany builds a mild military in violation of TOV, but hardly capable of aggression, but big enough for defense against Poland (or able to even help Poland against the USSR) might even get official agreement from France and Britain eventually.
I just can't see anybody but Hitler launching an unprovoked attack on Poland though. The risk/reward calculation is completely out of balance for anyone else.
You remove Hitler and the problem is solved...or at least 1/2 of it is solved.
You could also refer to it as prudent deterrents against the perennial 'two front war problem. Ultimately Schacht warned Hitler that rearmament rate was too fast and would have to be cut back unless something was done. Most see this as open-ended challenge to go to war, to keep rearmament going, however the establishment of a Pan European ANTI Stalinist Alliance was another possible solution.
The military they planned to build was same size as the army that historically started the war with , except it was short 20 mobilized infantry divisions -however it DID HAVE the beginnings of a 'total war economy'.
You could also refer to it as prudent deterrents against the perennial 'two front war problem. Ultimately Schacht warned Hitler that rearmament rate was too fast and would have to be cut back unless something was done. Most see this as open-ended challenge to go to war, to keep rearmament going, however the establishment of a Pan European ANTI Stalinist Alliance was another possible solution.
The military they planned to build was same size as the army that historically started the war with , except it was short 20 mobilized infantry divisions -however it DID HAVE the beginnings of a 'total war economy'.
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