How long would it have taken the British Empire and the Soviets to defeat the Nazis alone?

Deleted member 1487

OTOH the USA began spending on deploying personnel and developing infrastructures in British occupied Iceland or in the Dutch colony of Surinam before being in the war.
Both of which were quite different than Iran or the USSR, they were both outposts in the western hemisphere that were used to secure the Atlantic security zone, not move L-L into a belligerent country. Also Iceland invited the US in to get the British out, who had occupied the country illegally. In the Case of Suriname the US was also invited in by the Dutch and they went there to protect the Bauxite mines that the US company Alcoa owned.

Uh, because the USAAF was there to try it? The latter objection reminds me of the notion that the Soviets did not build locomotives during the war, thus they must have been unable to. The Allies, unlike the Axis, did believe in not duplicating efforts. But if there isn't an ally who does X then maybe another ally will be motivated to.
As to B-24s, who says the British don't get that meager number - 12 - as a Lend-lease test? In any case they could entirely well use a Lancaster squadron, if necessary with a reduced bomb load. After all the actual OTL US mission in 1942 was no more than a show of force, no significant damage is necessary to force the Germans to deploy AA defenses to Ploesti.
The Soviets basically couldn't build locomotives because it would mean less tanks. Plus they didn't start getting L-L locomotives until 1944, so must not really have needed them given their shrunken rail mileage and evacuated pool of rolling stock. The British may not have had any heavy bombers to spare to risk against Ploesti, nor a desire to risk it. Lancasters were needed in Britain to bomb Germany, plus had a pretty weak defensive armament/armor layout for daylight operations, which is why they were mostly used at night. Unescorted missions at extreme range was generally not the RAF modus operandi. Plus the RAF strategy was NOT to attack the oil, as Harris was against panacea targets that weren't cities, and it took the USAAF to strong arm the Harris into the oil campaign of 1944. After all the British didn't really have manpower to spare, especially in 1942. Any B24s the Brits were getting were going into Coastal Command anyway.
 
I'd like to discuss a subject that seemingly wasn't tackled much here: People point out that no Pacific War saves manpower and military resources to send to the MTO or ETO.

But what about the economic, resource and possibly industrial mapower benefits? After all East Asian colonies were seemingly a much more profitable area for the UK than African ones.
In particular Malaya was a major producer of food (rice IIRC) and other colonies produced the majority of world rubber.

I don't know if the UK would directly get a net increase in available money to pay for LL and other assets, which could possibly circumvent the problem of funding that was discussed earlier in this thread, but I could see the benefits of having more available and cheaper resources (rubber being very important for some war equipment, and synthesized during the war, or DEI oil).

Moreover the loss of major food producers was quite a significant factor in the famine that hit India during the war, so avoiding it could result in a more stable subcontinent that would require even less security forces for peacekeeping, as well as possibly even more industrial or military manpower from all those Indians that died or were ill because of the famine.

A side aspect of the increase in available resources is that a peaceful Japan is as dependent as it always was on purchasing raw materials abroad (from the USA, the DEI, the British Empire, China etc.). That makes Japan doubly secure (because it's no longer on an imperialist spree and because he needs those trade relations), and makes even more likely the rapid transfer of additional, experienced Soviet divisions from the Far East to the Germangrinder.
 

Deleted member 1487

A side aspect of the increase in available resources is that a peaceful Japan is as dependent as it always was on purchasing raw materials abroad (from the USA, the DEI, the British Empire, China etc.). That makes Japan doubly secure (because it's no longer on an imperialist spree and because he needs those trade relations), and makes even more likely the rapid transfer of additional, experienced Soviet divisions from the Far East to the Germangrinder.
How does that follow? If Japan isn't embargoed and the US isn't a formal ally of the USSR (in fact to that point quite anti-communist) and the Japanese army was already building up to attack the Soviets in 1941 and again in 1942 before the attack on Britain and the US made it impossible if anything a Japan not going to war with the US or UK would focus on the USSR in one way or another. Like blockading Vladivostok and daring the Soviets to attack them.
 
Just like the British can't totally strip the Far East of military strength because of the potential of the Japanese threat, as well as colonial issues, the Soviets can't take that much more from the Far East to send west than they already did. In fact a Japan that may still be playing in China but not fighting the USA and UK is MORE of a potential threat to the USSR Pacific coast as well as Siberia simply because they are not distracted and sending lots of assets elsewhere. If Japan and China have come to some sort of peace treaty, which would certainly grant a lot of concessions to Japan, the threat to the Soviet Far East gets even worse. IMHO you might see more forces going west from the east without a Pacific War/no USA in the European War but not that many given what was transferred OTL.

While the timeline of massive LL was basically 1943 onwards, there was still LL in 1941 and it accelerated after PH. As pointed out, the Persian route was basically established and maintained by the USA (and paid for by the USA), which is highly unlikely ITTL. Absent the Persian route, even if the USA is giving the USSR the same amount of LL, it all piles up at depots in the USA because the other routes - Murmansk/Archangelsk and Vladivostok were pretty much maxed out. Even if you assume the same displacement of industry occurs here as OTL, and ignore the fact that every LL truck has to be now replaced by one made in a Soviet factory INSTEAD OF SOMETHING ELSE, some of the LL goods could not be replaced by Soviet industry period. Food, certain raw materials in quantities, aviation gasoline, etc. No trucks, markedly reduced mobility, no radios poorer communications and coordination, no AVGAS marked decrease in performance and operations of air units, etc, etc.

As far as resources go, sure the resources of SEA are now potentially available for sale to the USSR. How do they get to the USSR. The shipping under British control is prioritized to bringing stuff to the UK and transporting goods and personnel in furtherance of British military objectives. Soviet flagged ships are few in number, and those in the Pacific even fewer. British/Allied shipping shortages are going to be worse, no Liberty Ships coming off the ways daily, so moving goods to the USSR means chartering ships somewhere, and for cash. Even though the Pacific is not an active war zone like the Atlantic, they are sailing to a country at war so higher insurance costs and crew costs...

Of course if you have the scenario where the USA is at war with Japan, but not Germany, the flow of LL to the USSR will be small indeed, and might in fact not exist at all...
 
Per wiki the British ordered B-24s in 1940, delivered in 1941, with 2 squadrons deployed to the Middle East in early 1942.

Was that a separate order, or the French purchase the Brits took on completion? I remember France had pre-ordered 125 while the prototype was still under construction.
 
Both of which were quite different than Iran or the USSR, they were both outposts in the western hemisphere that were used to secure the Atlantic security zone, not move L-L into a belligerent country. Also Iceland invited the US in to get the British out, who had occupied the country illegally. In the Case of Suriname the US was also invited in by the Dutch and they went there to protect the Bauxite mines that the US company Alcoa owned.

Heh-heh. Sure, the Icelanders invited the US in. Don't you think the Iranians might be somehow convinced to do the same?
Besides, you should really know better than to claim tha Iceland was not occupied in order to move supplies to a belligerent country. The principal activity of the US Navy, agreed upon with the British admirals in the ABC-1 staff agreement in March 1941, would be to protect allied shipping. The first act of the undeclared USA-Germany war was the USS Niblack's attack on an U-Boot, and where did it take place? Off Iceland. And how did it happen that USN assets, still in peacetime for the USA, escorted convoys to Britain? Well, because they were headed to Iceland - a US base. That is how the subsequent shoot-outs (one involving the USS Greer in September, another the Kearny in October, until the sinking in the same month of the Reuben James) all took place in strict correlation with Iceland.
So think again about that.

Surinam was occupied by the USA for its resources, they even said so explicitly in their diplomatic note.


The Soviets basically couldn't build locomotives because it would mean less tanks. Plus they didn't start getting L-L locomotives until 1944, so must not really have needed them given their shrunken rail mileage and evacuated pool of rolling stock.

Glad to see that. So not doing something does not mean being unable to do something.

The British may not have had any heavy bombers to spare to risk against Ploesti, nor a desire to risk it. Lancasters were needed in Britain to bomb Germany, plus had a pretty weak defensive armament/armor layout for daylight operations, which is why they were mostly used at night. Unescorted missions at extreme range was generally not the RAF modus operandi. Plus the RAF strategy was NOT to attack the oil, as Harris was against panacea targets that weren't cities, and it took the USAAF to strong arm the Harris into the oil campaign of 1944. After all the British didn't really have manpower to spare, especially in 1942. Any B24s the Brits were getting were going into Coastal Command anyway.

So no real obstacle. Glad we agree.
The Lancasters were vulnerable in daylight - sure, just like the B-24s, look at their main attack against Ploesti.
The Lancasters were not normally used in daylight - sure, but this wouldn't be a "normal" raid. It would be a demonstrative one. FYI, two dozens of Lancasters bombed Augsburg in full daylight in April 1942 (and yes, they took unsustainable losses - like the B-24s of Tidal Wave). Things went better in another daylight operation against the Schneider works at Le Creusot, that same year. Or over the Caproni factory in Milan, that same year. All Lancaster raids. Another interesting daylight raid took place in August 1944, with a couple hundred bombers of different types, and the target was the Meerbeck synth oil plant.
The Lancasters were needed to bomb Germany - sure, as a rule, yet they also bombed occupied France, Norway, Holland etc. To carry out a demonstrative bombing of Ploesti they'd need to redeploy one squadron, certainly no big deal.
The RAF strategy certainly was not to attack specific industrial targets - but the examples above prove they did as an exception to the rule (and there's plenty of other examples). And they'd try to achieve higher accuracy for those, if possible by daylight raids, even with heavy bombers.
Any B24s would be going in Coastal Command - not in this timeline. The Germans have given up the Battle of the Atlantic. Coastal Command is getting very little at all.
 
to what extent did DOW against the US affect 1942 Case Blue? seems conceivable it affected the insane drive into the Caucasus? (to grab the oil prior to US forces arriving in Europe?)

just a marginally more cautious 1942 they try to consolidate hold on Donets and finish Leningrad?

Well, you may have a point there.
I do think the Germans still want to rush to the oilfields even if the USA are (still - we know they won't jump in, but the Germans can't be sure) at peace. But as a general point, the USA actually being at war or not could presumably have an effect on the German strategic outlook.
 
Was that a separate order, or the French purchase the Brits took on completion? I remember France had pre-ordered 125 while the prototype was still under construction.

wiki

In August 1939, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) ordered 38 examples of the Consolidated B-24A. From this order, 20 aircraft (serial numbers 40-2349 to 40-2368) were released for direct purchase by the RAF where it was given the service name Liberator B.Mk.I (from "Bomber Mark 1").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Liberator_I

It looks as if these were used only for transport and coastal command, with the later purchases being used for bombing.
 
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MatthewB

Banned
Britain will be forced to use Commonwealth forces in Europe, beyond the Canadians & what they deployed in Italy.
That's why you have an empire. Expect Canadians, ANZ, Indian, African and Caribbean units to deploy to Europe or to cover other roles so that troops can be focused on Europe.

What's Japan doing?
 

Deleted member 1487

Heh-heh. Sure, the Icelanders invited the US in. Don't you think the Iranians might be somehow convinced to do the same?
Besides, you should really know better than to claim tha Iceland was not occupied in order to move supplies to a belligerent country. The principal activity of the US Navy, agreed upon with the British admirals in the ABC-1 staff agreement in March 1941, would be to protect allied shipping. The first act of the undeclared USA-Germany war was the USS Niblack's attack on an U-Boot, and where did it take place? Off Iceland. And how did it happen that USN assets, still in peacetime for the USA, escorted convoys to Britain? Well, because they were headed to Iceland - a US base. That is how the subsequent shoot-outs (one involving the USS Greer in September, another the Kearny in October, until the sinking in the same month of the Reuben James) all took place in strict correlation with Iceland.
So think again about that.
Iceland was occupied by the British to prevent the Germans from landing there and to provide a base for spotting aircraft. The US moved in at the limits of the law about the Pan-American security zone. Iceland wanted all that sweet development cash that came in with the Americans.
What does that have in common with sending troops to Iran? In no way could FDR claim it was about American hemispheric security as he could with Iceland. In fact given the naked aggression of the Brits and Soviets in invading Iran it would open up quite a bit more domestic political trouble to involve the US without the US being a belligerent.

Surinam was occupied by the USA for its resources, they even said so explicitly in their diplomatic note.
As I said. And in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine and the laws passed to secure basing all over the Americas to keep anyone else out.

Glad to see that. So not doing something does not mean being unable to do something.
Physically unable? No. They just weren't going to themselves and the US doing it was a nice bonus. You still haven't proved your claim that the RAF would have done it anyway without the US in the war and doing it themselves, just made some weak-ass metaphors that still don't really help your point.
In fact the Area Bombing directive if any thing proves they wouldn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive
The Area Bombing Directive (General Directive No.5 (S.46368/111. D.C.A.S) was a 14 February 1942[1][2][3] amendment to General Directive No.4 (S.46368 D.C.A.S), issued by the British Air Ministry on 5 February 1942, that had informed RAF Bomber Command that it had "Priority over all other commitments",[4] and directed RAF Bomber Command to bomb factories in occupied France. General Directive Number 5 amended Number 4 to make targets in Germany the priority for RAF Bomber Command.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet#Second_World_War
Historian Frederick Taylor argues that, because Harris lacked the necessary security clearance to know about Ultra, he had been given some information gleaned from Enigma, but not informed where it had come from. According to Taylor, this directly affected Harris's attitude concerning the effectiveness of the post-D-Day 1944 directives (orders) to target oil installations, as Harris did not know the Allied High Command was using high-level German sources to assess exactly how much Allied operations were impairing the German war effort. As a consequence Harris tended to see the directives to bomb specific oil and munitions targets as a high level command "panacea" (his word), and a distraction from the real task of making the rubble bounce in every large German city.[54]

So no real obstacle. Glad we agree.
Other than Harris, Churchill, and the entire strategic effort being directed away from oil targets? Sure, no technical obstacle, rather ta resource, strategy, and command one, which is exactly why it wouldn't happen without the US doing it.

The Lancasters were vulnerable in daylight - sure, just like the B-24s, look at their main attack against Ploesti.
The Lancasters were not normally used in daylight - sure, but this wouldn't be a "normal" raid. It would be a demonstrative one. FYI, two dozens of Lancasters bombed Augsburg in full daylight in April 1942 (and yes, they took unsustainable losses - like the B-24s of Tidal Wave). Things went better in another daylight operation against the Schneider works at Le Creusot, that same year. Or over the Caproni factory in Milan, that same year. All Lancaster raids. Another interesting daylight raid took place in August 1944, with a couple hundred bombers of different types, and the target was the Meerbeck synth oil plant.
The Lancasters were needed to bomb Germany - sure, as a rule, yet they also bombed occupied France, Norway, Holland etc. To carry out a demonstrative bombing of Ploesti they'd need to redeploy one squadron, certainly no big deal.
The RAF strategy certainly was not to attack specific industrial targets - but the examples above prove they did as an exception to the rule (and there's plenty of other examples). And they'd try to achieve higher accuracy for those, if possible by daylight raids, even with heavy bombers.
Any B24s would be going in Coastal Command - not in this timeline. The Germans have given up the Battle of the Atlantic. Coastal Command is getting very little at all.
And one totally against the entire direction of RAF bomber command, the only force with the technical resources to pull it off. They weren't interested. So your entire argument hinges on 'well...but...they...uh...could have if they wanted to'. But they didn't. They wanted to bomb cities exclusively, which they did from 1942 on.
Citing 1944 when the US was in the war and pushing for the oil campaign against Harris' wishes. Congrats that you found a handful of daylight Lancaster raids...dare to calculate the ratio of those to night raids? Or how many they made against Romania?

Where does it OP say that the BOTA is over?
 
The oil bombing campaign didn't drive German oil production critically below consumption until the first half of '44, well after any chance of the Germans winning the war had long passed anyways, so while certainly useful I'd not say that it's of war-winning significance. None of the literature I've read, notably Strategy for Defeat, suggests that American strategic bombing forces had a significant impact on the air war until Spring of 1943, so it's rather unclear where this supposition that the lack of such bombing forces in 1942 would have any sort of major impact comes from. The impact of American forces on the air war in regards to diversions in the Mediterranean was more significant in late-'42, but still came after the British had already turned the tide there and sent Rommel scurrying back from El-Alamein for good. And the few medium bomber groups it pulled from the Eastern Front could scarcely have made any sort of impact: after Operation Uranus had gone off, the Soviet victory at Stalingrad was not a close run thing. Certainly the energetic CAS strikes don't seem to have achieved much: one Soviet cavalry division took 300 Stuka sorties while being counter-attacked by German rearguards and was only delayed from reaching it's days objectives by a few hours.

Really, the big impact on lack of American participation in '42 is potential reduction of lend-lease. It isn't until '43 that the lack of American military forces would be felt and even then it's debatable whether it's different enough for the Germans to win or even extract a stalemate.
 
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Ok? They did a one off raid at night on a research facility developing rockets to bomb Britain. How about raids on oil after the Area Bombing directive that weren't prompted by the Americans?

Panacea target ;)

Unless you have overwhelming force, then any single target type will not be critical because of the amount of spare capacity in the system and the availability of alternatives/substitutes and rationing. Also it will require continued attacks on the same targets to offset repairs, with diminishing returns and the ability of the enemy to predict where you will attack next.

In WW2 the situation probably only changed at the start of September 1944 when the Germans lost their defensive depth over France and the Low Countries - arguably capturing Brussels airfield on 4th September was more important than Antwerp.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Why should Britain take the offensive in the air? They can very well carry our peripheral campaigns against the weaker enemy (Italy), win those, and besiege economically Germany from the seas.



No Battle of Britain, no first bombing of London, no first bombing of Berlin. It's not as if the British began bombing cities at night all of a sudden.



Having more aircraft doesn't give the Germans more good weather. Regardless of the fact that 1941 was a rainy spring, in any spring of any year April is too early. The German offensive flounders in front of swollen rivers and across soggy countryside.

So the rest does not work. Back to the textbook.

1. Why would Britain take offensive?
Widely regarded as only way to strike back. If they dont then German industry can expand as fast as it wants.

2. As 1

3. Conceded. Ground probably is too soft. Lets say 1 May then 7 weeks before OTL...

Face it the Germans could do it. But that does not make it probable...
 

hammo1j

Donor
AH should develop something like Psychohistory, Hari Seldon developed in the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

This used probability theory combined with psychology to predict likely futures.

As always the problem with the Nazis was that they were Nazis bent on extermination which was not a principle of successful empires...
 
hmm well its quite easy if the UK simply out-builds Germany as it did OTL, now that's harder without any US help, but not impossible at all. There is no eastern war, no major submarine campaign in the Atlantic and no resource, or very little, used against Japan or needed for coastal command. Finally it would be fairly easy to divert some of the vast sums wasted on strategic bombing offensives OTL, to securing air superiority if need be, and target the German factories by the far more successful methods of the SOE and other assymetric warfare operations, as for delivery as stated above there are definitely no shortages of methods and aircraft that could be used. .
AH should develop something like Psychohistory, Hari Seldon developed in the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

This used probability theory combined with psychology to predict likely futures.

As always the problem with the Nazis was that they were Nazis bent on extermination which was not a principle of successful empires...

Really? Many successful empires have been built on the principle of extermination of indigenous populations and repopulating with the conquering peoples. Examples are the Norman Conquest, the Mongol Hordes, the settlement of North America....
 

Deleted member 1487

The oil bombing campaign didn't drive German oil production critically below consumption until the first half of '44, well after any chance of the Germans winning the war had long passed anyways, so while certainly useful I'd not say that it's of war-winning significance. None of the literature I've read, notably Strategy for Defeat, suggests that American strategic bombing forces had a significant impact on the air war until Spring of 1943, so it's rather unclear where this supposition that the lack of such bombing forces in 1942 would have any sort of major impact comes from. The impact of American forces on the air war in regards to diversions in the Mediterranean was more significant in late-'42, but still came after the British had already turned the tide there and sent Rommel scurrying back from El-Alamein for good. And the few medium bomber groups it pulled from the Eastern Front could scarcely have made any sort of impact: after Operation Uranus had gone off, the Soviet victory at Stalingrad was not a close run thing. Certainly the energetic CAS strikes don't seem to have achieved much: one Soviet cavalry division took 300 Stuka sorties while being counter-attacked by German rearguards and was only delayed from reaching it's days objectives by a few hours.

Really, the big impact on lack of American participation in '42 is potential reduction of lend-lease. It isn't until '43 that the lack of American military forces would be felt and even then it's debatable whether it's different enough for the Germans to win or even extract a stalemate.
The entry of the USAAF into the air war, first over Ploesti in June 1942, which created the huge resource sinkhole that was it's air defense system, and over France in August drew in major fighter and other air defense resources. The actual damage of the bombing that happened in Europe 1942 by the USAAF was limited, but the reaction it provoked drew resources away from other more active fronts. That said HALPRO did have an impact on the fighting in North Africa, as US heavy bombers, the heaviest in theater on any side, were vital to strike deep logistics targets hard, like Benghazi and Tobruk, which really screwed the Axis forces in the region in Egypt. The bombing in June, right after the Ploesti raid and reinforced by B17s, without a doubt had an impact on what the Axis could get to the front in Egypt. On to of that they even bombed Axis forces around Alamein prior to Monty's offensive.
https://books.google.com/books?id=w...=onepage&q=b17s bombing benghazi 1942&f=false

As to forces diverted from the East, you're also forgetting the 5th Panzer Army being able to deploy east to aid against the Soviets if the US wasn't in the picture, making Operation Torch impossible.

I would be interested in getting a source on that Soviet cavalry division and the Stuka attacks.

As an aside the British disliked the Ploesti mission in 1942 they refused HALPRO forces the use of bases on Cyprus, which would have shortened the distance considerably and forced them to operate out of the Middle East and fly over Turkey.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26275886?read-now=1&seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents
upload_2019-7-23_17-58-49.jpeg
 
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