No WWII, State of Global Militaries 1945

Thought to expand this earlier thread:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=378320

The question can be applied globally to all the major nations.

With a PoD of the NSDAP not taking over the German government & fading into a second tier party. What would the major nations militaries look like circa 1945? Weapons, size, organization, war plans, ect.. ect.. ect.. Absent any war experience, or large scale examples from other peoples wars what trends will there be?

I am assuming here that without a European war Japans aggresion is confined to a China Incident & no Pacific War emerges, at least before 1945.

I'll reserve my thoughts for the moment.
 
Hm, in general 3 rules as far as I can tell:

1) If there's no actual war, the later you do your military build up the better, as you get more bang for your buck using the latest technological advances. The same logic also applies to industrial development apparently (or at least use a war to destroy your outdated industry then have the Marshall Plan build you new ones). Of course if a war actually happens before you do your build up, you're fucked.

Many of the military buildups in the 1930s for example, ended up significantly less useful by the time the war actually came around in the 1940s, and for Japan and Italy it meant they didn't have the industrial base or any more resources to stay modern and up to date.

On the other hand, you have the Soviet Union and France, both caught with their pants down despite starting to produce quite modern and competitive equipment.

2) Developing military technologies is better than trying a massive expansion, and slow and steady expansion is better if you don't want to destroy your economy like Germany. Again, how to get more bang for your buck.

3) With the exception of the Naval Treaties of the era, it seems like almost all nations planned on how to increase the size of their military forces, and few had thoughts of demilitarizing. That could potentially go on for quite a while if there's no war wrecking the economy.
 
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3) With the exception of the Naval Treaties of the era, it seems like almost all nations planned on how to increase the size of their military forces, and few had thoughts of demilitarizing. That could potentially go on for quite a while if there's no war wrecking the economy.

Most had demilitarized as far as prudent in the 1920s, & gone further when the Depression came. How far they would have reversed without Germany rearming & the nazis occupying or invading their neighbors is difficult to judge. Some of the programs established 1936-38 would have occured anyway, some would not have been funded.

Its not clear at all to me if Britain, or Italy would have expanded a broad rearmament program for their ground forces. France had a ongoing developement program from 1920, which if a little slow covered all aspects. There was a lot of testing of different tank & transport designs. The artillery had a ongoing debate on strategy, operations, tactics, fire control, ammunition, and cannon designs. The rising German threat accelerated that after 1936, but it was in place and ongoing already.

Japan had the China incident & tensions with the USSR as a incentive tho their executions was uneven.

At sea it was different & most naval powers were designing and building whatever their national treasury allowed.
 
Thought to expand this earlier thread:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=378320

The question can be applied globally to all the major nations.



I'll reserve my thoughts for the moment.

How long would actual horse cavalry continue to be part of armed forces without experience of WW2 ? How long would horse-drawn supplies/artillery continue ? It was still a big thing, despite motorization, the lack of fuel made army animals still necessary .
 
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Horse drawn artillery was still in common use by major combatants in 1945. Japan, USSR, Germany still had more than half their artillery horse drawn. Ditto for small unit supply transport. in those armies moving the bullets & food from the railhead to the battalion was predominatly by horse wagon. The Brits were on of the very few nations executng plans for a fully motorized army, & that only covered forces in the UK. Some colonial forces were not onthe conversion list.

The US was firmly stuck in the past. There were ongoing plans to motorized/mechanize the Army, but between internal opposition and lack of money those may have been completed sometime after 1990 :rolleyes: One example of this dates from 1922. Budget reductions required the motorized artillery be reduced from eight regiments to two, and those were not full strength. Batteries & battalion HQ were not manned or equipped.

Judging from the programs underway circa 1934 the French may have gained the most after a decade. Their generals favored horse reduction & France had the appropriate industrial base. I'm thinking far more than 50% of the French transport would be motor/mech by 1945.

Horses would have carried on in everyones colonial forces long past 1945.
 
Thought I'd posted this question earlier; Firstpart concerns the restoration of RN cotrol over the Fleet Air Arm. would have have occured absent WWII. Second is aimed at the development of a French and Italian aircraft carriers. France had operated a experimental carrier though the 1930s. Were there any plans to build a combat worthy model after 1940? Were the Italian plans to build a carrier executable? That is might they have been funded absent WWII?
 

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Horse drawn artillery was still in common use by major combatants in 1945. Japan, USSR, Germany still had more than half their artillery horse drawn. Ditto for small unit supply transport. in those armies moving the bullets & food from the railhead to the battalion was predominatly by horse wagon. The Brits were on of the very few nations executng plans for a fully motorized army, & that only covered forces in the UK. Some colonial forces were not onthe conversion list.

The US was firmly stuck in the past. There were ongoing plans to motorized/mechanize the Army, but between internal opposition and lack of money those may have been completed sometime after 1990 :rolleyes: One example of this dates from 1922. Budget reductions required the motorized artillery be reduced from eight regiments to two, and those were not full strength. Batteries & battalion HQ were not manned or equipped.

Judging from the programs underway circa 1934 the French may have gained the most after a decade. Their generals favored horse reduction & France had the appropriate industrial base. I'm thinking far more than 50% of the French transport would be motor/mech by 1945.

Horses would have carried on in everyones colonial forces long past 1945.
I don't think so, that was a function of mass armies and industrial issues for say the Germans and Soviets by 1945. Without war on industrial plans could be completed and I think you'd see a push to get more and more motorization. By 1945 depending on how big say the German army is, they could have a Cold War Bundeswehr Style Reichswehr fully motorized but capped around 500k men. The Soviets post-WW2 managed a fully motorized/mechanized force, so they could make great strides in that direction without the huge expansion of the early 1940s and without the war crippling Soviet industry.
 
I think that there would still be limited naval rearming in Britain/France given Japanese aggression to secure their colonies.
 
Thought I'd posted this question earlier; Firstpart concerns the restoration of RN cotrol over the Fleet Air Arm. would have have occured absent WWII. Second is aimed at the development of a French and Italian aircraft carriers. France had operated a experimental carrier though the 1930s. Were there any plans to build a combat worthy model after 1940? Were the Italian plans to build a carrier executable? That is might they have been funded absent WWII?

France had two modern carriers planned, the Joffre and the Painleve. Joffre was under construction in 1940. The French had a big naval expansion in the works. The 2 carriers and 10-12 modern battleships were part of the plan.
 
Thanks. What are the recommended sources for the French naval plans? The projected size, aircraft types, & other details for the carriers would be interesting. Also, anything on the French submarine fleet?
 
It makes you wonder how long the Mahan doctrine would be still be the golden standard and how long the world would be building battleships as the core of fleets.
 
I'd not atempt to guess at this point.

I wonder what the new battleship classes of 1945 would have looked like?

Its reflex to think of Montanas, another pair of hopped up Yamamoto - Musahi, some super Vanguards. But, those were expensive, limited in numbers that could be built, and perhaps limited in other respects. In the 1930s the US could have stepped up to a Montana class or larger, but instead went with a lighter & faster class. Perhaps for cost & numbers better armored & more efficient cruisers & battle cruisers or lighter BB would be the choice.
 
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