How bad would WAllied casualties be if the Reich defeated the USSR?

[John Dusk]

Adding to the problem is that the WAllies wouldn't be able to even attempt a landing before 1945, probably in April.

Attempt at all or attempt a landing that would actually be successful?

A Heer with over 3x the amount of forces that they had IOTL is a very formidable obstacle. That combined with a still functioning and far more powerful Luftwaffe/anti air defenses leads me to believe that it would be the late 1940s (or early 1950s) before the WAllies could feasibly contemplate a landing in France.

 

[CalBear]

Attempt at all or attempt a landing that would actually be successful?

A Heer with over 3x the amount of forces that they had IOTL is a very formidable obstacle.

Close to impossible. Not impossible, given enough time to prepare the battlefield, but close to it.

 

[sloreck]

In the scenario presented here the Allies would probably have to go for some variant of the peripheral strategy. Using Persia/Iraq for bombing campaign against occupied USSR, of course all of the islands in the Med will get occupied - allied naval superiority will guarantee that. Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia included. The question is where do the allies try the mainland, assuming they do. Balkans don't work for lots of reasons, Italy barely possible, direct to France not happening. Norway - geography sucks

 

[dandan_noodles]

Close to impossible. Not impossible, given enough time to prepare the battlefield, but close to it.

Do you think a counteroffensive aimed at cutting off an advancing Allied force from a beachhead (i.e. Operation Lüttich, but vastly greater in scale) would be more effective than just trying to stop the landing cold on the beaches? Until Germany has a massive, powerful surface fleet (that'll be the day), they can't do damage to the Allied armies unless they're in Continental Europe; if successful, destroying the Allied beachhead would probably set back the liberation of Europe even longer than waiting for the Allies to get themselves 1000% ready the first time.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Do you think a counteroffensive aimed at cutting off an advancing Allied force from a beachhead (i.e. Operation Lüttich, but vastly greater in scale) would be more effective than just trying to stop the landing cold on the beaches? Until Germany has a massive, powerful surface fleet (that'll be the day), they can't do damage to the Allied armies unless they're in Continental Europe; if successful, destroying the Allied beachhead would probably set back the liberation of Europe even longer than waiting for the Allies to get themselves 1000% ready the first time.

For that to be possible you'd need both proper air cover AND a lot more mobile AAA than the Germans had IOTL.

 

[Anti-GrammarNazi]

Germany would be too stretched here. At the same time, I dont think a modern democracy can defeat Germany. They would simply not have the stomach for the casualties and US cant just nuke Europe all around without turning the public opinion against it.

The best case scenario I can see, is that after an economic war, limited ground offensive and a few atomic blasts, a negotiated peace is reached where Germany withdraws from all of Western Europe but keeps the East.

But a march into Berlin? No, absolutely not, only a ruthless tyrant like Stalin can.

And Japan would be a huge factor here, if Japan is defeated first, the allies might be so tired, they might settle for a white peace in Europe.

If it is a "Europe first" strategy, after gaining at a very high cost, a German withdrawal from Western Europe, which is the absolute best they are going to get. The allies say "fuck this" and settle for a negotiated peace with Japan, where they disarm themselves without occupation and keep the emperor as a divine figure.

Now you will have a still extremely powerful Germany very resentful at the west, and a beaten but not dead Imperial Japan sharing the same resenment.

After finally consolidating their Eastern gains and likely forming a strong alliance with Japan, Germany rebuilds itself and eventually become a superpower like OTL Soviet Union.

Cold War against Germany and Fascism.

The Nazi party might or might not survive, I think that the allies MIGHT be able to impose as a condition for the negotiated peace where Germany withdraws from the East, the fall of Nazism. If so, then the generals coup Hitler and stop the most vile programs like the Holocaust.

If not, then its dark, very dark times for Eastern Europe under the thumb of Nazism.

I think Nazism will, eventually fall. Germany will get fed up with the brutality, including racism and genocides.

Germany today is likely still a democratic superpower as it will not face the problems of communism. The brutality of the holocaust and the genocide of the slavic people, I hope, are repudiated, but Nazism as a whole is not discredited. Hitler is seen as a controversial figure, who while regarded as a brutal tyrant and murderer "did what he must" to bring Germany into greatness. Or maybe not and he is regarded like how Stalin is regarded today in Russia as a "great leader'.....

Likely today's Germany will try to make amendments to the slavic people, possibly automatic citizenship into Germany if they choose, like Puerto Ricans.

Oh and Japan? Well, they likely continue to be dicks and the "bad guy" of today's world.

However if Japan is still defeated, well.... since this boosts the chance of a White Peace, huge butterflies.

Germany would possible even overtake the US as the superior superpower, with the resources of all of Europe. Though today's world would likely be better, as the world would be run by 2 democratic superpowers, rather than 1 and an emerging totalitarian one.

 

[CalBear]

Do you think a counteroffensive aimed at cutting off an advancing Allied force from a beachhead (i.e. Operation Lüttich, but vastly greater in scale) would be more effective than just trying to stop the landing cold on the beaches? Until Germany has a massive, powerful surface fleet (that'll be the day), they can't do damage to the Allied armies unless they're in Continental Europe; if successful, destroying the Allied beachhead would probably set back the liberation of Europe even longer than waiting for the Allies to get themselves 1000% ready the first time.

It would need to be a combination of stiff beach defenses that at least channeled any landings into kill boxes and strong counter attacks. The key question is if the WAllied forces could get air supremacy, not just superiority over the beaches, but supremacy extended back for at least 250-300 miles (400-500 km) so RAF/USAAF ground attack assets can play hell with the transportation systems and wipe out any advancing force well before it engages (i.e. the conditions that prevailed IOTL).

If all the WAllies can manage is superiority (i.e. the Western Desert, early days on Sicily) then they will get chewed up and spit out by Heer forces operating along interior lines of communication, something that will get worse the further they move inland and lose the gun line's support.

 

[Asp]

Germany would be too stretched here. At the same time, I dont think a modern democracy can defeat Germany. They would simply not have the stomach for the casualties and US cant just nuke Europe all around without turning the public opinion against it.

The best case scenario I can see, is that after an economic war, limited ground offensive and a few atomic blasts, a negotiated peace is reached where Germany withdraws from all of Western Europe but keeps the East.

But a march into Berlin? No, absolutely not, only a ruthless tyrant like Stalin can.

And Japan would be a huge factor here, if Japan is defeated first, the allies might be so tired, they might settle for a white peace in Europe.

If it is a "Europe first" strategy, after gaining at a very high cost, a German withdrawal from Western Europe, which is the absolute best they are going to get. The allies say "fuck this" and settle for a negotiated peace with Japan, where they disarm themselves without occupation and keep the emperor as a divine figure.

Now you will have a still extremely powerful Germany very resentful at the west, and a beaten but not dead Imperial Japan sharing the same resenment.

After finally consolidating their Eastern gains and likely forming a strong alliance with Japan, Germany rebuilds itself and eventually become a superpower like OTL Soviet Union.

Cold War against Germany and Fascism.

The Nazi party might or might not survive, I think that the allies MIGHT be able to impose as a condition for the negotiated peace where Germany withdraws from the East, the fall of Nazism. If so, then the generals coup Hitler and stop the most vile programs like the Holocaust.

If not, then its dark, very dark times for Eastern Europe under the thumb of Nazism.

I think Nazism will, eventually fall. Germany will get fed up with the brutality, including racism and genocides.

Germany today is likely still a democratic superpower as it will not face the problems of communism. The brutality of the holocaust and the genocide of the slavic people, I hope, are repudiated, but Nazism as a whole is not discredited. Hitler is seen as a controversial figure, who while regarded as a brutal tyrant and murderer "did what he must" to bring Germany into greatness. Or maybe not and he is regarded like how Stalin is regarded today in Russia as a "great leader'.....

Likely today's Germany will try to make amendments to the slavic people, possibly automatic citizenship into Germany if they choose, like Puerto Ricans.

Oh and Japan? Well, they likely continue to be dicks and the "bad guy" of today's world.

However if Japan is still defeated, well.... since this boosts the chance of a White Peace, huge butterflies.

Germany would possible even overtake the US as the superior superpower, with the resources of all of Europe. Though today's world would likely be better, as the world would be run by 2 democratic superpowers, rather than 1 and an emerging totalitarian one.

Calbear addressed this well on page seven. As long as there is a good reason to fight, democracies are generally willing to do what it takes. The U.S. and the democratic Entente countries took utterly mind-numbing casualties in the Civil War and in WWI without public morale collapsing, and that was in wars where the goals and the democracies' moral standing was in much greater question among large parts of the population than in WWII. The Nazis were evil incarnate and, possibly even more importantly, they had broken every treaty that they had ever made with anyone (even with their fellow members of the AXIS, they broke the Pact of Steel with Japan with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). The idea of the allies signing a peace treaty that leaves the Nazis in power is an automatic nonstarter; by this point, everyone on Earth had reached the conclusion that they were flat-out too aggressive to trust.

The same was true of Japan for roughly the same reasons.

That makes the scenarios you propose effectively impossible along with the other reasons (nazism was a pretty much unreformable ideology).

 

[Anti-GrammarNazi]

Calbear addressed this well on page seven. As long as there is a good reason to fight, democracies are generally willing to do what it takes. The U.S. and the democratic Entente countries took utterly mind-numbing casualties in the Civil War and in WWI without public morale collapsing, and that was in wars where the goals and the democracies' moral standing was in much greater question among large parts of the population than in WWII. The Nazis were evil incarnate and, possibly even more importantly, they had broken every treaty that they had ever made with anyone (even with their fellow members of the AXIS, they broke the Pact of Steel with Japan with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). The idea of the allies signing a peace treaty that leaves the Nazis in power is an automatic nonstarter; by this point, everyone on Earth had reached the conclusion that they were flat-out too aggressive to trust.

The same was true of Japan for roughly the same reasons.

That makes the scenarios you propose effectively impossible along with the other reasons (nazism was a pretty much unreformable ideology).

You cant compare the civil war and WW1 mindsets. People are progressively more adverse to life taxing wars.

And even WW1 and civil war did not placed the huge life losses the west would need to pay here.

Do you honestly see the US-UK willing to put as much blood as the Soviet Union did? Because I do not, I definitively do not.

The US didnt even wanted war with Germany in the first place, FDR was lucky Hitler was a retard and declared war.

By the time of the Japan campaign the allies, who faced only 20% of Germany, were tired, they wanted to go home.

There is no way the US and the UK are going to put with Soviet level deaths just to take Berlin, no way.

Again, I could see the fall of Nazism. I can see the west stating they will not deal with Nazis and that as long as Nazis are in power, there is no negotiated peace. Making the generals to coup Hitler and hand over the most extreme Nazis.

But I definitively not see a push into Berlin.

Do remember, unconditional surrender was, in large part, insisted just to make sure Stalin kept fighting and that he helped against Japan. Without the USSR, that incentive is gone.

The allies were prepared, during much of the war, to have a negotiated peace with Germany.

When the UK was at war with Germany, even with Churchill, the goal was not to march into Berlin, it was to make Germany withdraw from France and Poland.

 

[Asp]

You cant compare the civil war and WW1 mindsets. People are progressively more adverse to life taxing wars.

And even WW1 and civil war did not placed the huge life losses the west would need to pay here.

Do you honestly see the US-UK willing to put as much blood as the Soviet Union did? Because I do not, I definitively do not.

The US didnt even wanted war with Germany in the first place, FDR was lucky Hitler was a retard and declared war.

By the time of the Japan campaign the allies, who faced only 20% of Germany, were tired, they wanted to go home.

There is no way the US and the UK are going to put with Soviet level deaths just to take Berlin, no way.

Again, I could see the fall of Nazism. I can see the west stating they will not deal with Nazis and that as long as Nazis are in power, there is no negotiated peace. Making the generals to coup Hitler and hand over the most extreme Nazis.

But I definitively not see a push into Berlin.

Do remember, unconditional surrender was, in large part, insisted just to make sure Stalin kept fighting and that he helped against Japan. Without the USSR, that incentive is gone.

The allies were prepared, during much of the war, to have a negotiated peace with Germany.

When the UK was at war with Germany, even with Churchill, the goal was not to march into Berlin, it was to make Germany withdraw from France and Poland.

I can't compare them? WWI in particular was a little over twenty years before WWII. How is that not valid?

The U.S. lost almost six percent of its entire population KIA in the Civil War *minimum* and Britain lost about two percent in WWI. Going off of 1945 population figures, equivalent per capita WWII casualties would be about 7-8 million KIA from the U.S. and about a million from the UK. Quite a lot more than in OTL.

I see a lot of assertions here that the West wouldn't be willing to pay the price to beat the Reich with absolutely nothing to back it up and quite a lot to contradict it.

In OTL, I see the WAllies being will to do what it took. They weren't happy about the deaths but they were quite willing in OTL to invade Japan if necessary, which would have been a hideous campaign. They would not have cut and run.

 

[machine3589]

I see a lot of assertions here that the West wouldn't be willing to pay the price to beat the Reich with absolutely nothing to back it up and quite a lot to contradict it.

I like how simply saying "democracies won't give up on the fight because Civil War and WWI" is supposedly "quite a lot" of evidence for anything.

 

[RousseauX]

Germany would be too stretched here. At the same time, I dont think a modern democracy can defeat Germany. They would simply not have the stomach for the casualties and US cant just nuke Europe all around without turning the public opinion against it.

The US can absolutely nuke the parts of Europe within 1939 German borders without turning public opinion against it, and probably outside it too

I know this because the US was fine with firebombing Japanese cities which were about as or more damaging than early nukes and were fine with it.

Public opinion matters a lot more today because the stakes on which American wars are fought are really, really low (even against ISIS).

In total wars, like Herman Goering said, political elites can drag the people along to do whatever, it's as true in democracies as dictatorships, and has being since ancient Athens.

 

[RousseauX]

You cant compare the civil war and WW1 mindsets. People are progressively more adverse to life taxing wars.

This is a misconception: people seem to be more adverse to people dying in wars because wars decreased in stakes over time in the 20th century

Remember back in the 1990s when the US freaked out over like 3 soldiers being captured in Yugoslavia and president Clinton went on TV telling the Serbs to return them or else? And when Clinton pulled out of Somalia over like 30 death?

And then the US accepted 100s of soldiers dieing in Iraq per month 10 years later?

The difference was the stakes in the war in Iraq was higher, so the people will accept more death.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
I know this because the US was fine with firebombing Japanese cities which were about as or more damaging than early nukes and were fine with it.

...

Wern't exactly gentle with German or Italian cities either. The Dutch, Belgians, Cezchs, French suffered badly from Allied air attacks as well.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

The difference was the stakes in the war in Iraq was higher, so the people will accept more death.

Also politics. A Democrat was in power during the 1990s Balkans conflict, a Republican in charge of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus 9/11 happened, which really changed a lot of social perception. Then there is also the issue of desensitization and losses build up.

 

[sloreck]

OTL the USA was willing to run up a huge casualty count invading Japan if that what was needed to defeat Japan if atomic weapons didn't happen. Looking just at the ETO, there would be the cost of taking all the islands in the Med, as well as places like the Lofotens, Svalbard etc. There would be the higher cost of an air campaign, including bombing in Europe and bombing from Iraq/Persia of any reachable targets in occupied Russia such as the oil fields around Baku etc. That is certainly a cost the US/Allies would tolerate. The key question is then re-entering the European mainland, it then boils down to what is doable - even if you are willing to accept Olympic/Coronet level casualties what are the odds it will work? Obviously if you see atomic weapons coming on board you can wait for those, in a no nukes world different story. ITTL, like OTL the Nazis are going to be way behind the allies in developing atomic weapons, even without the distractions of the eastern front.

ITTL there will be no significant blowback if you need to kill 10,000 German civilians in nuke attacks for every allied soldier you save. If turning Germany in to glowing green glass only occupied by cockroaches would be the price of victory, so be it. OTL the "outrage" over using the atomic bombs in Japan came much after the war with the exception of very few, and NONE of the folks who would either be at risk had the war continued (my dad being one of them) nor the families of those at risk said they'd be willing to die or see their loved ones die to spare Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am morally certain those who lost loved ones in the last month of war would have been happy to see the bomb used earlier.