No Russians lend lease

Would russia be able to win against germany in ww2 without lend lease from England and U.S?

  • yes

  • no

  • maybe


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BlondieBC

Banned
Murmansk can fall with a simple enough POD.

Could Japan close off Vladivostok in a way that wouldn't trigger a war with the USSR? Doubtful. And if war does break out between Japan and the USSR, the lack of Vladivostok as a Lend-Lease route would be only one a million butterflies introduced into the TL.

I see no realistic way for the Persian Corridor to be closed by the Axis. If I am not mistaken, the Persian Corridor was the largest avenue of Lend-Lease supplies to Russia.



Once you have the POD to close Murmansk and the following butterfly that Japan close Vladivostok, you can get a substantial reduction of Persian supplies by a better German Army Group South performance. If we assume the Russians are weaker around Stalingrad, the Germans hold back the Panzer Army sent south as reserve, you then can hold the Volga. You then have the Persian supply routes under under German air interdiction.


The problem with these types of complicated What-If's is the butterflies. You can take this ATL in a hundred different ways depending on how, why, and when the Germans block Murmansk. You can also make ATL's go the wrong way with butterflies.
 
voted maybe as whilst the USSR would do a bit worse , the extra resources would help the other allies elsewhere. Can see the war going on longer and possibly stalemating for a time in europe. That would however mean eventually fat man or little boy hitting Berlin. But there is a chance the USSR has issues , manpower was all but used up , and Stalin does a deal for time. Again the bomb ends the war but USSR would not "win".
 
Without L-L, the Germans will still need millions of troops for the Eastern Front,

They still won't need quite as many as they did OTL. They also won't need as many replacements in men and material the East, at their casualties will be much lower, which means those replacements can be sent west instead. There seems to be an odd assumption here that Hitler will be happy to act as the West's shield against the Soviet Union while still at war with the Anglo-Americans. He wasn't and didn't act that way at all.

The Germans were fighting harder in the East when the tide started turning against them. Here, that does not change, but Allied air supremacy in the West mitigates any German advantage in the West resulting from a weaker USSR in the East.

And this is a neat case of that mythologizing I was talking about. Air power did not prevent the much weaker German western front of OTL from dragging out the Battle for Normandy for two months, costing the WAllies tens of thousands of casualties, and then further hold ups along the western frontier of German which cost the WAllies even more casualties and time. It ultimately still fell upon the WAllied ground forces to defeat the forces of OKW and that will be the case ITTL. So no, WAllied air power will not prevent the additional German reinforcements too the West from inflicting additional casualties upon the WAllies and slowing their advance. Air power alone can't win ground wars

I think in the absence of pro-soviet propaganda, it would be unremarkable that America and the UK were NOT sending supplies to the, until fairly recently, Nazi Allied Stalinist Soviet Union.

The WAllies would be able to hide the realities of the Soviet contribution and what that means about as well as they could hide the dark side moon.

if the question came up in a setting that was not suppressible with war time censor ship, citing fears of a WWII part b, with a Soviet Union that was just as expansionist as the Nazi prior to the war, (if more sane.)

The memory of most of that was gone even before the Germans invaded the USSR. People viewed the Soviet Union with apathy up until June 22nd. And citing a speculative scenario about what the Soviets might do in the distant future that isn't at all apparent, particularly in 1941-43 when the Soviets are still deep within their own territory, is not going to impress a public who are facing the very real and imminent prospect of their sons, husbands, and fathers having to die.

A later Soviet collapse leads to a Nazi advance and MORE territory to occupy and larger fronts to protect and longer supplies lines.

But does not require as many forces. The Germans simply don't need as many troops without a Red Army to engage in massed conventional fight. The number of German forces deployed in the West will then number in the millions.

I wasn't trying to exaggerate the impact of Air Power, but I was thinking about an interview I saw on a documentary with a German who was transferred from East to West.

And he discussed how, even though they were losing ground on the East that they still had contempt for the Russians.

Sure, the Germans were convinced to the very end that the Soviets were inferior soldiers. But then they also thought that of the WAllied soldiers.
 
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Deleted member 1487

And this is a neat case of that mythologizing I was talking about. Air power did not prevent the much weaker German western front of OTL from dragging out the Battle for Normandy for two months, costing the WAllies tens of thousands of casualties, and then further hold ups along the western frontier of German which cost the WAllies even more casualties and time. It ultimately still fell upon the WAllied ground forces to defeat the forces of OKW and that will be the case ITTL. So no, WAllied air power will not prevent the additional German reinforcements too the West from inflicting additional casualties upon the WAllies and slowing their advance. Air power alone can't win ground wars
Air power is not an instance win button. It takes time to take effect, hence the 100 day bombardment campaign before the ground invasion in Iraq in 1991; despite the extreme superiority of the US and Allies over the Iraqis air power took time to degrade them to the point of making the ground war a matter of hours. Even in 1944 the Germans weren't slouches on the defensive, as the Soviets found out too despite their huge air power and other materials superiority. Once though the Allies developed enough of superiority and ground through the bocage they broke the Germans and they really never recovered until the Allies outran their supply lines. Remember the Soviets depended heavily on a LOT of attack aviation to be able to create a breakthrough and advance quickly too; sometimes it took time to breakthrough. In Normandy the terrain was heavily against the attackers, they needed time to seize and rebuild a devastate port, and they were facing many of the best remaining German troops. It took time to break them down and build up from a cross Channel bridgehead. When you need to supply millions of men across a 50 mile channel and have one port that had been thoroughly wrecked (the Mulberries were destroyed in a storm not long after the invasion), it takes time to be able to build up enough to breakout.

Sure, the Germans were convinced to the very end that the Soviets were inferior soldiers. But then they also thought that of the WAllied soldiers.
Man for man they were. They had a lot more material and manpower and extremely powerful allies. Quantity has a quality all of its own. Operationally of course the Soviets developed a sophisticated system of attack, but it relied on total superiority in manpower and material and could not function without it.
https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Pow...van creveld&qid=1454707380&ref_=sr_1_6&sr=8-6
https://www.amazon.com/Numbers-pred...8&qid=1469294819&sr=8-5&keywords=trevor+dupuy
 

Deleted member 1487

Literally nothing you said here counters my basic point.
How about you restate it succinctly for us to analyze. You're saying that air power is not an insta-win. No one has said that, we just said that air power will win even if your ground forces aren't up to snuff. The side with air dominance never lost in WW2 or since. Just because it didn't result in a rapid decision in the very specific circumstances of Normandy where logistics were kind of a critical factor due to having to ship supplies in, rather than having access to rail, meant that air power alone wasn't going to win, but it did disrupt and destroy the Germans sitting on near optimal defensive terrain that the ground forces could roll over them when they had enough supplies built up for the exploitation phase.

Man for man, the Germans were superior to anyone in the war. But wars are not simply a matter of man for man.
Sure, no one is saying otherwise, there is just a reason that the Germans thought they were superior and tactically they were right. Strategically they were outgunned and doomed as a result.
 
Sure, no one is saying otherwise, there is just a reason that the Germans thought they were superior and tactically they were right. Strategically they were outgunned and doomed as a result.

I do hope you realise that there are serious issues with the data in Numbers, Predictions & War, let alone the whole methodology?
 

Deleted member 1487

I do hope you realise that there are serious issues with the data in Numbers, Predictions & War, let alone the whole methodology?
Sure it is imperfect, but his general points are upheld by van Creveld's study. Out of curiosity what do you think of the Soviet General Staff method of using historical examples to predict future battle requirements and outcomes?
 
How about you restate it succinctly for us to analyze.

It's right there in my post: The cost the WAllies pay in trying to screw over the Soviets will be in the lives of more of their own soldiers. The dominance of WAllied air power will not prevent this any more then it prevented the casualties the WAllies took OTL.

No one has said that, we just said that air power will win even if your ground forces aren't up to snuff.

No it won't. If your air power is overwhelmingly dominant but your ground forces "aren't up to snuff", then the front stays static and nothing moves. That the Western Allies were able to move forward against the Germans comes down to their ground forces "being up to snuff".
 

Deleted member 1487

It's right there in my post: The cost the WAllies pay in trying to screw over the Soviets will be in the lives of more of their own soldiers. The dominance of WAllied air power will not prevent this any more then it prevented the casualties the WAllies took OTL.
Sure. Agreed. Denying LL is a dumb idea for a variety of reasons other than perhaps letting the Soviets collapse/suffer more so that they are gone/weakened post-war. That only works though if you're willing to pay the price then to defeat Hitler without as much Soviet help. Air power will make it a LOT cheaper for the Wallies to do so than what the Soviets paid for victory, but it will certainly be a lot more costly for the Wallies than OTL. But OTL was about as low a price as the US could pay for victory, with perhaps some wiggle room about paying attention to the warning signs of the Battle of the Bulge and planning to counter it.


No it won't. If your air power is overwhelmingly dominant but your ground forces "aren't up to snuff", then the front stays static and nothing moves. That the Western Allies were able to move forward against the Germans comes down to their ground forces "being up to snuff".
By up to snuff I mean worse than your enemies tactically speaking. The Wallies were worse than the Germans tactically speaking (Soviets too) and they won via material and air power. It may take time, but in the end enough firepower will trump tactical skill. The Germans and Japanese learned the hard way that no amount of warrior spirit will win a battle of material. I encourage you to read the Normandy chapter of "Brute Force" to get an idea of how not up to snuff the Wallies were in that campaign, but air power was their big trump card that won them that campaign despite massive disadvantages. By mid-1944 strategic air power was crushing the German economy and had killed the Luftwaffe making things a lot easier for the Soviets and Wallied ground forces. Had the Luftwaffe been able to contest the air on both fronts things would have gone a LOT worse for the Allies.
 
Sure. Agreed. Denying LL is a dumb idea for a variety of reasons other than perhaps letting the Soviets collapse/suffer more so that they are gone/weakened post-war. That only works though if you're willing to pay the price then to defeat Hitler without as much Soviet help.

And the WAllies were quite unwilling to pay that price so long as they had that choice. The reasons for this stem from the very basic nature of Anglo-American society which valued their people as people and not as purely sacrificial pawns in political games. So this whole discussion basically boils down to operating with a sort of inverted "Not-Nazis" issue... "Not-Wallies"?

By up to snuff I mean worse than your enemies tactically speaking.

You don't have to be better. You just have to be good enough.
 

Deleted member 1487

And the WAllies were quite unwilling to pay that price so long as they had that choice. The reasons for this stem from the very basic nature of Anglo-American society which valued their people as people and not as purely sacrificial pawns in political games. So this whole discussion basically starts with a sort of inverted "not-Nazis"... "Not-Wallies"?
Sure I am not saying they would in real life. This thread seems like a thought experiment of how the Soviets would be able to function without LL, rather than saying "what POD could result in no LL, all else being equal?". The answer is that without LL the Soviets would be in a LOT of trouble. But realistically that would never happen so long as the US was in the war or even just passed the LL Act.

And
You don't have to be better. You just have to be good enough.
With air dominance that good enough bar is much lower than it otherwise would be.
 
Sure I am not saying they would in real life. This thread seems like a thought experiment of how the Soviets would be able to function without LL, rather than saying "what POD could result in no LL, all else being equal?". The answer is that without LL the Soviets would be in a LOT of trouble. But realistically that would never happen so long as the US was in the war or even just passed the LL Act.

Fair enough.

With air dominance that good enough bar is much lower than it otherwise would be.

True enough. One could probably debate how much lowered the bar is, but the bar would indeed be lowered.
 
Didn't they had problems with suitable ports? So problem very likely stay there. Especially with necessity to put more troops in the field to face larger German force.
OTL there was a big argument between Monty and Patton over whether to grab the ports as quickly as possible, or beat the Germans back as quickly as possible. Here that argument won't happen, because Eisenhower, not being an imbecile, will know that the ports are essential, and so will go after them first.
 
,..
The WAllies would be able to hide the realities of the Soviet contribution and what that means about as well as they could hide the dark side moon.


HIde? Perhaps not.

But the idea that it would be a scandal that we were NOT sending vast supplies to a co-belligerent that had started the War as an Ally of Hitler seems to be based on projecting modern knowledge backwards.

Hell, Murmansk is above the Article Circle. How many people in 1942 knew that it even existed. How many people would think that significant supplies could be sent around the world, though Iran to the Soviet Union?



The memory of most of that was gone even before the Germans invaded the USSR. People viewed the Soviet Union with apathy up until June 22nd. And citing a speculative scenario about what the Soviets might do in the distant future that isn't at all apparent, particularly in 1941-43 when the Soviets are still deep within their own territory, is not going to impress a public who are facing the very real and imminent prospect of their sons, husbands, and fathers having to die.

.


The memory was lost because it was buried by pro-soviet propaganda.

If the government got it's hand on some of those photos of joint soviet Nazi victory parades in central Poland, and used them in propaganda releases, no one would be consider them a natural ally.

No one wants their son to be killed by a shell manufactured in American and then shipped to our "Friend" Joseph Stalin, either.
 
But firstly allies need to lend somewhere, overcome problems with casualties replacements and start pushing Germans back. With that going on Soviets will have more room to operate. Soviets may even increase production of trucks as they started to do in 1944/45. Or be less bolt and more considering to save lives of soldiers.
Even without L-L they still can buy more important material.
This ignores the realities of Russian production during the war. A regime incapable of providing enough boots is going to get more tanks produced quicker?
 
But the idea that it would be a scandal that we were NOT sending vast supplies to a co-belligerent that had started the War as an Ally of Hitler

Nobody ever thought of the Soviets and Germans as allies. Even at the height of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, people were quite cognizant that it wasn't something that was gonna last. And Soviet aid to Germany was far too low key for the public to notice. And then the unprovoked German invasion made them out to be victims.

seems to be based on projecting modern knowledge backwards.

How ironic, given that your entire argument relies on that.

The memory was lost because it was buried by pro-soviet propaganda.

It was lost even before then. The fact that after the Winter War, the USSR didn't do anything to actually impinge upon Western conciousness while the Germans went on to continue launching unprovoked invasions led to Nothing illustrates this better then the fact that, in January 1941(six months before Barbarossa), the US repealed the embargo it had enacted against the USSR over the Winter War with practically no fuss.

No one wants their son to be killed by a shell manufactured in American and then shipped to our "Friend" Joseph Stalin, either.

Given that never happened nor was there any worry of it happening until well after the war had ended, this argument wouldn't be very convincing even if you gave the American Publix future knowledge.
 
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SRBO

Banned
Russians "lose" initially. Gorilla warfare is strong and nazis stard getting more and more bled out by their desire to annex as much as land as possible. Unless Japan relieves them from the east the W. Allies will beat Germany and it will probably result in a bigger rape than the end of WW2 OTL, expect even more German expelments

Heck i wouldn't be surprised if the new border is on the Elbe
 
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