How long can world war II go on for? What would the repercussions be?

Thread title speaks for itself. There are a few ways to do this. D-day fails, the atom bomb is delayed by a couple of years etc. Needless to say, an extended world war ii is going to leave most of Europe at third world status. Decolonization might be caused just as much by the various "powers" being too weak to hold on to them anymore. A war where Germany is more sucesful on the Eastern front and inflicts more damage during the Battle of Britain, but eventually dies an extremely slow, painful death fighting to the very last cartridge of ammunition could take Europe from being the dominant continent on earth, to a virtual backwater relying largely on US support. Reaching Somalia levels is ASB of course, but I could see a TL like this resulting in countries like Egypt or India having a higher standard of living than France.

How long can world war ii last? '47? '48? Into the 50's even? What do you think?
 
No nuke on japan = a few mores days at least, if this is true japan was close to surendering anyway,.... Or bloody days, weeks as the DOOM grade invasion follows..
 
If the war drags on too long I believe it is likely that one allied power will quit the war, doing a separate peace, followed by a general armistice?
 
No Barborossa proably extends WW2 for a long time, though Hitler still loses.

Interesting consequences in Britain and the US perhaps
 
No Barborossa proably extends WW2 for a long time, though Hitler still loses.

Interesting consequences in Britain and the US perhaps

No Barbarossa presupposes no Hitler and no Nazism.
The whole point of the exercise known as Western European theatre of WW2 was to make sure that Britain and France would not interfere in the conquest of the Lebensraum in the East.
 
I have to recommend CalBear's Anglo American Nazi War


This is darker than For All Time which takes some doing.


Answer is: as long as a stalemate of sorts prevails.

Whilst both of those are good, neither of them are very plausible.

Even in D-Day failed the war would still be over by 1945, even without an Atomic Bomb.

No Barbarossa could extend it much longer, although one would have to presume that Stalin would eventually attack.
 
Assuming Hitler delays Barbarossa by a year you might see WWII last to 1946 in Europe, assuming Japan wins a tactical naval victory at Midway the fighting there might last to 1946/7 and end with Soviet North Japan and US-occupied South Japan.
 
No Barbarossa presupposes no Hitler and no Nazism.
The whole point of the exercise known as Western European theatre of WW2 was to make sure that Britain and France would not interfere in the conquest of the Lebensraum in the East.

No, the whole point of the exercise was that Hitler was sure that they would not defend the Polish military dictatorship after not lifting a finger to save a Czech democracy, then they really went and did defend Poland. Hitler was surprised by that, won against France in six weeks and came to believe he was smarter than his generals. There was no planned war in the West, it was the result of Hitler being too sure that his enemies would do what he wanted them to do that he failed to consider what would happen if they did not in fact do that.
 
Assuming Hitler delays Barbarossa by a year you might see WWII last to 1946 in Europe, assuming Japan wins a tactical naval victory at Midway the fighting there might last to 1946/7 and end with Soviet North Japan and US-occupied South Japan.

If Barbarossa was delayed a year, the war would end sooner.
 
If Barbarossa was delayed a year, the war would end sooner.

Between the Nazis and Soviets, yes. The question is what Hitler does in 1941/2 as he's not the kind of man to whom the word "idle" would apply to very much and it'd have to be something big to keep him *from* launching Barbarossa in 1941.
 
Between the Nazis and Soviets, yes. The question is what Hitler does in 1941/2 as he's not the kind of man to whom the word "idle" would apply to very much and it'd have to be something big to keep him *from* launching Barbarossa in 1941.

Maybe a longer Greek campaign, where the Allies retreat from Albania and create a strong defence line in the mountains? They could probably hold on for a lot longer.
 
Maybe a longer Greek campaign, where the Allies retreat from Albania and create a strong defence line in the mountains? They could probably hold on for a lot longer.

Eh, maybe. A possibility is that the Allies manage to get themselves into an Italian campaign in 1941 and *that* distracts the Germans enough to delay Barbarossa until 1942. The Soviet army, however much its leadership would improve in that interim would have enough problems and time in conquering the Balkans and Central Europe to put the Germans in a fix over a long war.
 
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