How would Germany and Japan do against the West with a Pro Axis but neutral Soviet Union?

PoD

Hitler dies in 1941 and Barbarossa is delayed or canceled. Pearl Harbor still happens and Germany still declares war on the US. After this, Germany decides it can not afford war with Russia and the Soviet Union decides its in their best interest to sell to Germany/Japan (who they recognize as the weaker side) and let the Capitalists and Imperialists bleed each other. The Soviets also allow Germany and Japan to ship each other at least some stuff through the Soviet Union.

How would such a war play out? Can Germany and Japan hold out?
 
Germany isn't losing in that conflict, at least until nukes come into play, and even then, I question whether or not the Germans might have air superiority in Europe (due to not having tens of thousands of pilots and planes in Russia suffering massive attrition losses).

I think the Germans are likely able to smash Allied Landings in Italy (although I believe North Africa would have gone as OTL - the Germans and Italians lacked logistical capabilities to support more troops). Anzio and Salerno were both near run things, for example. The idea of opening up a front in Europe strikes me as impractical without something in Russia taking up over 75% of German manpower. Perhaps a Norwegian Invasion takes place, seeing as reinforcement for the Germans is going to be hard considering the Royal Navy.
 
I question whether or not the Germans might have air superiority in Europe (due to not having tens of thousands of pilots and planes in Russia suffering massive attrition losses).

By this logic they should have won OTL as they did not have tens of thousands of pilots and planes in Russia then either.

The problem for the Germans is they cannot afford to buy or barter for Soviet stuff they need a significant chunk of it at least to be given them. Even just facing Britain they are looking at something of a resource crisis. Now it is likely they can go on longer than they thought but they will increasingly struggle as time goes by. The exploitation of Europe by the Germans proved to yield less resources than they required and certain critical resources had to come from further afield.

That said it probably does lengthen the war but unless the US does stay out of active operations indefinitely it is worth recalling they curtailed the OTL Victory Program for the Army though ultimately manpower was approaching parity with anticipated requirements. People too often focus on the number of divisions deployed forgetting that a lot of German division were weak and immobile by the standards of the Western Allies and that allied divisions consistently enjoyed greater shares of armour, artillery and above all air power.

The fact is strategically with their navies and control of the Panama Canal the Allies can focus on either of the Axis partners in turn if the need to while containing the other. Unless the Soviets choose to weaken themselves for the cause then both Germany and Japan are still going down.
 
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In such a conflict, I see the West going Japan First and containing Germany (i.e. shore up North Africa and blockading Germany). Ironically, if the invasion of Japan is a complete disaster, the Allies still win there but may not have the stomach to continue the fight against Germany, presuming Germany does not make peace...which they might after years of blockade and no Ukraine to steal food from for 2 years.
 

DougM

Donor
Actually their is a chance that the USSR gets less info on the bomb for a couple reasons.
This USSR is not our Allie and is in fact an ally of the Axis as they are supporting them rather noticeably.
This will result in a LOT more active Anti USSR spy activity in that during WW2 the US was not as concerned about the USSR as they were Japan and Germany. In this war that is not the case. So the US will do more to stop USSR spies.
And the big change will be that a lot of folks that were spies for the USSR did it because they support the USSRs believes and viewed the USSR as a good country. This is not going to be as easy of a belief to hold onto as the USSR is now actively supporting our enemies and keep in mind that in WW2 almost everyone viewed Japan and Germany as the enemy. It was not like Vietnam.
So I think most of the USSRs spies will not be spying for them in this timeline.

As for type war itself. In the Pacific you will see little change. The Nukes May happen latter and the US may just starve Japan out. But it is hard to get resources to Japan from Russia and the US Navy will cut that off soon enough.

As for Germany it WILL fall. But that will take longer. Africa and Italy will basically go according to history but D-Day will be different. And may wait a year or so. Possible D-Day starts or ends with a mushroom cloud.
I expect that Germany will be nuked more then once.

Now Russia is a bit more interesting. If they have been TOO active in supporting Germany and Japan they very well may be treated as a defeated enemy and if they try to resist they may very well see WW3 starting the day WW2 ends. With Nukes dropping on Russia.

You have to understand that view of your average American and British citizens. They were fully committed to seeing that war to the bitter end no matter what the cost. And if Russia is to helpful to Germany and Japan they WILL get lumped in with them and treated accordingly.
And at that time the use of Nukes was not controversial so they will be used freely if needed
 
Germany ends up ruling continental Europe with only Britain outside of its sphere.

Japan, depends on how they play their cards.
 
The Soviets would be focused on building their own bomb, I can't see what they'd gain from sharing any info with the Nazis.

They also wouldn't want Germany to have firepower equal to their own.

Propping up the enemy of your enemy during an active conflict is one thing, but you want to be significantly more powerful than the side you're supporting. Otherwise they'll turn in you in the future.
 
Germany isn't losing in that conflict, at least until nukes come into play, and even then, I question whether or not the Germans might have air superiority in Europe (due to not having tens of thousands of pilots and planes in Russia suffering massive attrition losses).

By this logic they should have won OTL as they did not have tens of thousands of pilots and planes in Russia then either.

The Eastern Front's air war accounted for approximately 40% of the Germans 76,875 combat and operational aircraft losses and 70,757 irrecoverable pilot losses (KIA and MIA). That works out to around ~30,750 aircraft and ~28,300 pilots. Suffice to say, the Eastern Front did absorb "tens of thousands" of Germans pilot and planes, if not quite as many "tens of thousands" as were absorbed by the Western air war. 40% is obviously not a majority, but it's still a VERY significant minority and the attrition the Luftwaffe suffered in the East during '41-'43 helped set it up for it's '44 demise almost as much as the attrition in the West during the same period. It's also worth considering that Barbarossa heavily exhausted German fuel reserves: the Luftwaffe in Russia consumed 307 million gallons of fuel between June and December 1942 when, by comparison, their fuel consumption for all 12 months of 1940 had been 309 million gallons. This overall drove the Luftwaffe's total fuel consumption in 1941 up to 456 million gallons, well exceeding the production of 326 million gallons.

Of course, none of the above allows the Luftwaffe to plausibly actually defeat the Anglo-Americans in the air war. The Anglo-American (particularly the American) air forces will simply be too large and powerful. What it does do is allow them to drag out their demise longer, probably by at least an additional year.
 
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