PC: Stalin Suicide = Soviet Screw = Nazi Wank?

Oh, don't misunderstand me: partisan resistance and revolts would never be a massive issue, rather they would be one of many issues that put together would render the East a sore steadily undermining Nazi Germany's economy.
Ah yes, I think that clarifies things a great deal. (I think it covers most of wiking' points too, TBH.)
That's not likely to be a steady undermining, its more like a planned cost, because resistance would be minor and they'd perfect the system over time. As it was the slave rebellions in the US were never even a minor disruption to the economy.
I think we agree that, taken in isolation, this is true; ON's point seems to be that this would be just one element among many contributing to a Nazi Economic Collapse. Since we all agree that resistance is, in itself, a minor issue, why don't we return to the larger picture?
 
The issue isn't the ground combat, its the air battle. The UK produced nearly as many aircraft as Germany, while the US produced more than double. IOTL the primary contribution as their ability to swamp the Luftwaffe with numbers until they collapsed, which is what they would do ITTL.

With a victory in the East - the Germans have several options to counter this:

1. They can relocate a lot of their industry to the East beyond the range of Allied bombers.

2. They can release several hundred thousand workers, scientists ect from the army - giving them a boost in production as well as a faster way to develop the jet fighters and the wasserfall rocket.

3. With no air war in the East - they have enough fuel - so they dont have to cut back pilot training hours - meaning that the pilots will be better - inflicting greater damage

4. With no air war in the East they can throw against the Allies countless thousands of additional aircraft - doubling the damage.

If the Luftwaffe can pull of a Nuremberg during most bombing raids - the Wallies will run out of trained pilots pretty soon.

Bombing alone cannot defeat the Germans - this was clear OTL - and without a war in the East - German troops will have stockpiles of weapons and fuel in abundance - making any Allied invasion impossible. Meanwhile the public in the UK and US will grow tired of the war - especially in the US where people will demand to end the war against Germany in order to concentrate on Japan.

"Why do we need 60 divisions in the UK when we cant invade anyways? Why not ship them to the Pacific to fight the Japanese?"

The real problem is that the Axis had roughly 20% of the planetary military potential. Between the US, the USSR, and the British the Allies had over 60%. If you remove the Soviets, German military potential is still out done by the Allies at over 2-1.

To put it into perspective, the Germans built about 117,000 aircraft during WW2. The United States built 96,000 aircraft in 1944 alone, and nearly 300,000 during the war. The British built another 130,000 or so aircraft.

The Germans are going to get smothered. Then their oil gets hit and they can no longer fly. Yes, they could try to get oil from the Soviet Caspian fields, but the Allies could bomb those from Iran.

As for bombing, after a lot of false starts, it did defeat the Germans. Per the Germans, their economy was weeks away from total collapse before the Allies crossed the Rhine due to bombing. The armies got the credit because they did conquer the territory, but German military production was headed for complete collapse regardless of events on the ground in Feb-Mar 45.
 

Deleted member 1487

The real problem is that the Axis had roughly 20% of the planetary military potential. Between the US, the USSR, and the British the Allies had over 60%. If you remove the Soviets, German military potential is still out done by the Allies at over 2-1.

To put it into perspective, the Germans built about 117,000 aircraft during WW2. The United States built 96,000 aircraft in 1944 alone, and nearly 300,000 during the war. The British built another 130,000 or so aircraft.

The Germans are going to get smothered. Then their oil gets hit and they can no longer fly. Yes, they could try to get oil from the Soviet Caspian fields, but the Allies could bomb those from Iran.

As for bombing, after a lot of false starts, it did defeat the Germans. Per the Germans, their economy was weeks away from total collapse before the Allies crossed the Rhine due to bombing. The armies got the credit because they did conquer the territory, but German military production was headed for complete collapse regardless of events on the ground in Feb-Mar 45.

It comes down to how many losses the Allies are willing to take themselves without the USSR bearing the brunt of the ground combat. They might be willing to accept an armistice if things get too costly and public outcry over losses is too much.
 
It comes down to how many losses the Allies are willing to take themselves without the USSR bearing the brunt of the ground combat. They might be willing to accept an armistice if things get too costly and public outcry over losses is too much.

True, but air losses are unlikely to get that heavy, and and subsequent ground combat will feature a war of movement against a foot mobile opponent with no air force and no fuel. I see no reason for the Allies to invade Europe while German still has fuel resources.
 

Martynn

Banned
The real problem is that the Axis had roughly 20% of the planetary military potential. Between the US, the USSR, and the British the Allies had over 60%. If you remove the Soviets, German military potential is still out done by the Allies at over 2-1.

To put it into perspective, the Germans built about 117,000 aircraft during WW2. The United States built 96,000 aircraft in 1944 alone, and nearly 300,000 during the war. The British built another 130,000 or so aircraft.

Military potential is quite relative. For example in 1942 the Soviets build 24 500 tanks and 25 000 aircraft - the British 8500 tanks and 23 000 aircraft. Thats 33 000 tanks and 48 000 aircraft against the 6000 tanks and 15 500 aircraft built by the Germans. A ratio of 5.5 and 3:1 - yet despite this the Germans were advancing quite well in both Russia and North Africa until the end of the year - and it is questionalbe if the British or Soviets could have stopped them without American aid.

So a 2:1 advantage is actually quite favourable for the Germans.


As for bombing, after a lot of false starts, it did defeat the Germans. Per the Germans, their economy was weeks away from total collapse before the Allies crossed the Rhine due to bombing. The armies got the credit because they did conquer the territory, but German military production was headed for complete collapse regardless of events on the ground in Feb-Mar 45.

Perhaps the economy of Western Germany - Eastern Prussia, Silesia, the Czech lands and Austria would have been doing quite well without beeing conquered by the Soviets.

Also with the Soivets gone by late 1941 - the Wallies will loose a lot more aircraft from 1942 onwards - meaning less bombers get through - also since one bomber needs a crew of some 10 people - the Allies would soon find themselves with a lack of pilots.
 

Deleted member 1487

True, but air losses are unlikely to get that heavy, and and subsequent ground combat will feature a war of movement against a foot mobile opponent with no air force and no fuel. I see no reason for the Allies to invade Europe while German still has fuel resources.

Indeed, but without the bleeding sore that is the Eastern Front in 1942 and on and the ability to put over 70% of the Luftwaffe and combat power of the Wehrmacht in the West damage from 1942 on will be a lot higher than IOTL. By the time the Allies are ready to really impart their strength they may have taken prohibitive losses. North Africa might go a different way in 1942 if there is a lot more airpower to put into the region and Malta falls, there is fuel for the Italian navy to be more active, Italy doesn't drop out of the war due to extra defenses/forces in the region, maybe the US gets a bloodier nose in North Africa, etc. Meanwhile there is more fuel, pilots, production resources, material, and skilled German labor to use on aircraft.

With all of that that could probably put the Allied invasion of Europe back to 1945, which means air losses are much worse for the Allies in 1944 than IOTL (same with 1942-43) without the breach in German radar coverage and operational depth.
 
Where are the Wallies going to give supplies from? Who is in charge of the Ural government?

That's an answer for the OP to figure out.

How are they going to be supplied in Japan steps in in the East?
Japan is already committed to war with America. Even if they do move north to take apart, all of that is gonna go away when the US defeats them.

How are they going to deal with the major famine that will result from losing at least half of their LL supply hubs and all but their Central Asian farming (which was totally inadequate to supply the amounts of people evacuated to the Urals IOTL)?
Well the overwhelming bulk of the Soviet civilian populaces food in 1942, 1943, and 1944 came from private gardens. Partisans also established their own private gardens in their hideouts.

Plus the Germans would likely be able to use lots of persistent chemical weapons without detection by the West in major problem areas.
How are the Germans going to avoid detection? There will be plenty of people escaping into Siberia and south into Persia and they'll be more then happy to inform the WAllies that the Germans are using chemical weapons.

Assuming revolts succeed without major external support, which is unlikely as the history of US slave revolts demonstrate (which were only as successful as they were due to poorly armed musket armed militias and heavily outnumbered whites on plantations being the only guards).
And who do you think is going to be more numerous once the German troops leave? Even in the camps, the Kapos were backed up by the presence of German forces (not necessarily on-site, but close enough to act as something of a rapid-reaction force).

Sure, as it would be in the labor system in the East.
Which would further degrade the economic value of the territory over time. Mass murdering your work force isn't very conducive to getting anything worthwhile from them. The Germans ran into this problem with their slave labor IOTL. Running genocide may be all very useful for eliminating resistance, but in terms of extracting economic value from a already devastated territory it's a non-starter.

That's not likely to be a steady undermining, its more like a planned cost, because resistance would be minor and they'd perfect the system over time. As it was the slave rebellions in the US were never even a minor disruption to the economy.
Of course the major difference between the slave system is that the slaves were working in a established economic infrastructure, not something which has been devastated by a destructive invasion, and their rulers were still (in the final analysis) more interested in extracting work from them then killing them all in pursuit of some crazed racial vision (which, incidentally, still left the African slaves with rather something more to lose then our hypothetical Soviet counterparts). Oh, and the entire system ultimately proved to be economically noncompetitive to wage-labor capitalism.

As for bombing, after a lot of false starts, it did defeat the Germans. Per the Germans, their economy was weeks away from total collapse before the Allies crossed the Rhine due to bombing. The armies got the credit because they did conquer the territory, but German military production was headed for complete collapse regardless of events on the ground in Feb-Mar 45.

Except it didn't, although it could have. The point at which strategic bombing pushed the German economy to collapse was in the winter of 1944/45... at which point the Reich was collapsing anyways from the defeats it had suffered in the ground war. Saying that the German economy was "several weeks away from total collapse before the Allies crossed the Rhine" doesn't mean much when the German armed forces had practically already been broken and all the rest was basically a expensive and glorified but bloody mop-up operation.
 
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I think the degree of partisan resistance in an occupied Soviet Union would depend on two things, geographic location and the attitude of the rump USSR. To the first, if we're talking about the Germans getting to the Urals the area they now control is huge. To the first, I can believe that the areas close to the mountains in the Volga region might be partisan hotbeds, but from about Moscow west I don't see all that much partisan activity because those regions are so removed from the insurgents' base of support. To the second, has Germany signed a peace agreement with the rump Soviet state? If it has, surely one of the conditions would be the latter ceasing to aid partisans in German-held territory.
 
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