Plausibility check: alternate american mobilization

Gauging options and plausibility

In my tl Rommel's Barbarbossa the American's are now at war with the Germans; however Russia isn't involved yet. In this type of scenario do you see the 90 division gamble being scrapped and America opting for a much larger ground army?
 
I don't know how likely it is.

It's possible to have a much larger army, but it has large drawbacks.

America can either be the army of democracy or the arsenal of democracy, but it can't be both.

Seeing as the US needs to build an army from scratch in a short time, this hurts them more then nations with already large and established landarmies like Germany and the USSR.
 

The Vulture

Banned
I doubt America is going to exceed their capacity to produce weapons, after all, there's no immediate threat to America itself. So I think what we did IOTL, unless the situation is drastically, drastically different, is the best course of action.
 
Keep in mind that the US had two enormous pools of manpower, which were largely underutilized - women and blacks. If you integrate the armed forces, and greatly expand the role of women both in industry and non-combat roles, then you wind up with quite a bit of additional manpower. Granted, integrating the armed forces may have been a bit ASB, but then again it happened within 10 years of the war anyway, and even the CSA was drafting blacks by 1863 in the US Civil War. Just a thought.
 

burmafrd

Banned
In late 1940 there were plans for a 250 division army. These were scrapped once Hitler attacked Russia. It was then decided to go with a 100 division army plus about 7 divisions of Marines. This turned out to be just BARELY enough- and due to stupid decisions in the Pentagon during the summer of 44 there were a shortage of replacements in late 44. Some dumbies started to retool back to civilian demands too early, and there was also a shortage of artillery ammuntion due to the same morons late in 44. It was not until early 45 that both problems were taken care of. We could have used another 5 divisions and realistically 10 would have given us a margin of error that would have prevented both the ardennes problem as well as having to send in the airborne divisions for ground operations before they were refitted after Market Garden, where they were also keep in combat much longer due to not having enough divisions to replace them. THe British by the end of 44 were starting to cannibalize units as well. THEY were indeed running out of men.

We could have very easily added 2 million more women to the work force and replaced men there but the decision was made-politically- by the Administration that that would upset the social situation too much. Just as the idea to put more blacks into either the military or the factories was also made for political reasons. Either way there was certainly the capability to have a larger army and still have maintained wartime production. We could have easily added another 50 divisions that way.
 
An additional point is that we built a MUCH larger navy than was required. While I think that in the context of WW2, we made the right decision to build such a force, in an alternate WW2, we could certainly have won in the Pacific with a much smaller force. Again, more manpower.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Yeah we did go too far with the navy- and a lot of the ships planned were canceled in mid 43. Imagine if we had gone ahead and built the Montana class and all of the Iowa class and all of the Essex class plus the cruisers?

BUT when we were planning in 1940 and 1941 we had to take into account that the Royal Navy might be gone or part of it might have been in German hands. Also it was not really known just how pathetic the Italian Navy turned out to be at that time.
 
Yeah we did go too far with the navy- and a lot of the ships planned were canceled in mid 43. Imagine if we had gone ahead and built the Montana class and all of the Iowa class and all of the Essex class plus the cruisers?

BUT when we were planning in 1940 and 1941 we had to take into account that the Royal Navy might be gone or part of it might have been in German hands. Also it was not really known just how pathetic the Italian Navy turned out to be at that time.

If we finished the Iowa's there'd be a USS Illinois worth talking about :p
 
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