Germany defeats USSR, secures European continent. Does Franco join Hitler?


I agree that Franco would have a lot less leave to say no to Hitler in this TL, but the idea of the WAllies cleaning up in the Mediterranean strikes me as nuts.

It took the allies until the end of 1942 to even bring the fight to Vichy Africa, and it was pretty much a Charlie Foxtrot. So was the Dieppe Raid a few months earlier. Even in Tarawa in 1943 in the PTO, a lot of mistakes were made. The Allies at this stage had no idea how to conduct amphibious operations (even by the time of Anzio there were still lessons being learnt).

I'lll use Crete as an example. The Germans had 75,000 men on Crete IOTL 1943. That's nearly as many as the number of regular Japanese troops that fought on Okinawa, and the Germans were a far better army (unlike Okinawa, Crete is well within range of land-based air support, and of naval support even if it's just u-boats and the Regia Marina subs and commandos interdicting allied shipping the best they can). The only reasonable assumption that could be made is that the number of Axis troops on Crete would have gone up hugely had they beaten the USSR in the summer of 1942. The WAllies are not getting in there. They couldn't even take back the Dodecanese Islands in late 1943! And if Crete can't be taken, the WAllies have no path to Greece.

Sicily and Sardinia are something similar. Remember that the Italian Army is in far better shape from not losing its soul in Libya and there are more German troops for garrison. That one isn't happening.

Malta and Cyprus I'll give you since those places never fell into Axis hands in the first place. The rest...no. This POD does nothing but strengthen the Axis in the non-Africa Mediterranean.
 

New production isn't being chewed up on the Eastern Front though, so while the Germans will lag behind superior allied industry the gap will narrow a bit. They also have conquered far more resources and industry to produce with.

I don't mean the Spaniards, I mean the Kriegsmarine and to an extent the Regia Marina. They can make great use of Spain.
 
New production isn't being chewed up on the Eastern Front though, so while the Germans will lag behind superior allied industry the gap will narrow a bit. They also have conquered far more resources and industry to produce with.

Let's see how many aircraft the German will save, then, by not covering the Eastern front, assuming that the aircraft were distributed 50/50 between western and eastern (they weren't, historically, as the shift to covering the west more began in early 1942, but for the purposes of this, let's assume 50/50 for the last 6 months of 1942, the earliest when they theoretically could beat the Soviets). Let's also assume that the German fighter losses were approximately 10% monthly, again, on the low end for this period of the war. (we'll assume the high end, constant 20%, as the upper bounds). Now, set the maximum number of German fighters available as the same as were available in Jan 43, which is 1770.

So, 885 fighters assigned to the Eastern front. Over 6 months, that would mean at 10% losses, the Germans would have lost 531 aircraft. Make that 1062 at 20% losses. As such, the savings are large, but it comes out mostly as a wash with the US. After this point in time, the discrepancy merely widens.

If we plot that out at constant 20% losses through the end of 1944, the Germans would save roughly 5310 aircraft, while the US + UK save 13721 aircraft that would have been Lend-Leased through the same period. It comes out mostly as a wash, at best.

That, and Calbear and others have gone over how the Germans can't utilize their conquered territory to produce equipment nearly as efficiently as possible. Slave labor is not near as efficient as regular labor, captured factories must either be relocated or have to be produced in region, etc. The Germans would get far more use out of captured munitions than out of the industries, at least in the short term. (Combine that with the brain drain that would be associated, as many Soviets would flee after the USSR surrenders, along with them needing to run their own industry).

I don't mean the Spaniards, I mean the Kriegsmarine and to an extent the Regia Marina. They can make great use of Spain.

They lose a neutral port where they could have docked in safety, while gaining ports that either provide the same benefits as the Italian and French ports in the Mediterranean while the Atlantic ports don't offer much more than the French ones. The only benefit of Spain is to block the straights, potentially, which means moving massive amounts of German artillery in range of the rock and hope that it falls (though it can be relieved by the sea rather easily).

By 1942, the German losses were already starting to mount at sea, and Hitler ordered the major surface raiders pulled back to prevent a British invasion of Norway. At most, they spent time raiding convoys in the North Sea, slowly being whittled down to the point where

Remember that the Italian Army is in far better shape from not losing its soul in Libya

Did the Italians simply cede Libya and not bother to fight for it after their losses in late 40/early 41? Because that puts the Allies square in control of North Africa in mid 1942, if not earlier.

Italy lost 40,000 as PoWs at Barida and Tobruk, and afterwards at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the British surrounded the Italians and captured the entirety of the 10th Army. There were a total of 130,000 PoWs taken. This is all before the PoD, as this is what prompted the Italians to request German assistance in the first place.

So, at this point, the question is do the Italians double down on their own, possibly withdrawing forces elsewhere, or do they withdraw in their entirety? If the former is taken, their losses are even higher than OTL and North Africa grinds on for roughly the same amount of time. If they choose to withdraw, they save roughly half of their losses compared to OTL, but they give up all of North Africa to the Allies, who will soon be moving into French Africa as well, this time from Tunis.
 
The basic premise is AANW is Hitler refusing to send in the Afrika corp. So basically all of North Africa falls to the Allies no question there. Italian losses are around OTL IIRC. Greece still falls though I don't recall if Crete falls or Not.
 
That not gone work
See the Wehrmacht was... ach to hell with long explanation, see this Video for more

None of that is untrue (and I love that channel by the way), but it doesn't necessarily indicate that Barbarossa succeeding was impossible (it was a very low probability chance, but it was there). The Germans still came within miles of Moscow and dozens of yards of taking the crossing at Stalingrad. Giving them an extra army group to play with might just put them over the top.
 
The basic premise is AANW is Hitler refusing to send in the Afrika corp. So basically all of North Africa falls to the Allies no question there. Italian losses are around OTL IIRC. Greece still falls though I don't recall if Crete falls or Not.

Crete does fall in AANW, and Calbear stated in postscript comments to the best of my recollection that the Italian Army was in much better shape because they didn't get sucked into a long campaign in Africa that became a black whole for their entire army.
 
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