Poll: Earliest Possible Defeat of Nazis if Moscow Falls

When can Britain and the US defeat Germany with no Soviet Help?

  • 1944

    Votes: 5 9.1%
  • 1945

    Votes: 7 12.7%
  • 1946

    Votes: 11 20.0%
  • 1947

    Votes: 13 23.6%
  • 1948

    Votes: 3 5.5%
  • 1949

    Votes: 3 5.5%
  • After 1950

    Votes: 13 23.6%

  • Total voters
    55

kernals12

Banned
Unlike some other people on this forum, I don't think it would be game over for the allies in Europe if the Soviet Union were to fall thanks to the wonderful atomic bomb. I do think it's a given that defeating the Nazis will take longer. So would this be a scenario where Japan falls before Germany?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I think sometime in the early 1950s, when the F-86 Sabre and de Havilland Vampire crush the Luftwaffe to the extent that the Anglo-American alliance can wipe out all German population centers in a single strike without fearing that one of the bombers would be shot down.
 
I suspect a Fall of Moscow scenario would just move Stalingrad up a year. End result - the Iron Curtain is considerably farther west than in OTL.
 

trajen777

Banned
All depends .. In this way it would not...
1 Moscow falls . Treaty w Russia .. Oct 41
2. Gb agrees to talk
3 japan holds off on ph seeing that gb might come to the table
4 treaty between gb germany and japan
 
Moscow falls and Stalin killed late fall 1941. If the USSR signs a peace treaty with the Reich (of course neither side will expect it to be permanent but...) that is "enough" for Hitler to put finishing the rump USSR on his future to-do list, the burning issue is what happens with Japan. If they go ahead and do PH, then the US will be in the war with Germany sooner or later depending if Hitler acts like he did OTL and I think he would since now its only a one front situation for Germany. If Japan holds off, IMHO the USA will continue LL to the UK but not declare war on its own and in that case Britain has to come to terms. If it's the same Allies minus the USSR versus Germany and Japan, then I expect the first atomic bombs will go off over Germany.
 
A Germany lacking the slaughter fields of the Eastern Front is a Germany able to focus its resources onto the air war and transfer probably somewhere in the vicinity of 1-2 Million men to other fronts. More than likely Allied resolve will break before they achieve a reliable means of mass atomic offensive, which I don't think would occur until 1948/1949 when sufficient numbers of B-36s become available.
 
Im not convinced Russia will not continue fighting if Moscow falls, its a massive country with a lot of people and industry, it would be much harder and more people would die, but their capable of fighting on and even winning.
 
The POD needed for a Nazi atomic program to succeed by 1942 to crush the Soviets (or 1945 for that matter) is I dunno, next to impossible? A German one, sure—not a Nazi one.

I don't think it would be game over for the allies in Europe if the Soviet Union were to fall thanks to the wonderful atomic bomb.

But given the limits of the OP, obviously Germany would fall before Japan—the sunrise in Berlin is going to be a hell of a show circa the 6th of August, 1945.
 
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So Nazis take Moscow and peace is made.

If America joins the war does that slow down the a-bomb? Even if we say it arrives at the same time where is the front? You still have close to 4 years until it is ready.
 
PH happens, Hitler declares war on the USA so on January 1, 1942 you have the Allies minus the USSR against Germany and Italy, the Pacific War sees the same players. The early part of the Pacific War plays out the same, let's assume that because of the needs of "pacifying" occupied Russia as well as rebuilding the rail system, and other needs of dealing with the new territory the Allies manage to eject Germany/Italy from North Africa but now another invasion in the Med becomes more difficult as now the Germans (and Italians) have more resources for the defenses on Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. No matter what Russia will be a drain on German resources/manpower although there will be a flow of raw materials to the Reich.

The problem with the atomic bomb is going to be delivering it. You need to be able to deliver it with a high confidence that your bomber won't be shot down. Absent the Eastern Front drain on resources the bombing campaign will be heavily impacted. It seems obvious to me that you would need to have the bomb delivered in a night raid, with radar bombing hitting the center of the given German city is readily doable and with an atomic device that sort of accuracy is OK. IMHO if you have the atomic aircraft and some supporting ones break off from another "cover" raid they ought to be ignored and get the job done. However "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." One atomic bomb won't end the war, a demonstrated ability to deliver them at will would.
 

kernals12

Banned
Im not convinced Russia will not continue fighting if Moscow falls, its a massive country with a lot of people and industry, it would be much harder and more people would die, but their capable of fighting on and even winning.
Moscow was the center of the country's industry and railroads. There's no way they could continue on as a coherent force.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Sorry, I forgot to add it in.

Well it's not too late, as you discovered. :)

Moscow was the center of the country's industry and railroads. There's no way they could continue on as a coherent force.

So was Wuhan in China, but lasted on what it had left for 7 years. Granted, China achieved no rollback of the Japanese.

I suspect a Fall of Moscow scenario would just move Stalingrad up a year. End result - the Iron Curtain is considerably farther west than in OTL.

How do you figure?

If it's the same Allies minus the USSR versus Germany and Japan, then I expect the first atomic bombs will go off over Germany.

I would think that would be the intention. On the other hand, the Allies could be in a position to deliver them at will onto Japanese cities before German ones.

There's drawbacks of course, like tipping off the world about atomic possibilities when still far from able to deliver a guaranteed coup de grace.

The POD needed for a Nazi atomic program to succeed by 1942 to crush the Soviets (or 1945 for that matter) is I dunno, next to impossible? A German one, sure—not a Nazi one.
But given the limits of the OP, obviously Germany would fall before Japan—the sunrise in Berlin is going to be a hell of a show circa the 6th of August, 1945.

Nobody is talking about a German atomic program, I think.

I don't think so, Japan will be rendered combat ineffective before the Germans and possibly even starve and break down into chaos before the Germans.

Alot depends on how the pace of the Pacific campaigns. On the one hand, German success in Russia and ability to approach from the Caucasus will cause the British in particular to want to beef up defenses in the Middle East region. The WAllies will be concerned with having forces available to not only make progress against, but also to contain any German breakouts from Europe.

That factor could slow the progress of the Japanese war.

On the other hand, with a realistic examination that the prospects of the Germans breaking out of Europe or the Allies breaking *in* to Europe is dismal in the early-middle 1940s, the WAllies may redeploy ground and air forces beyond the bare minimum needed for containment against Japan, where progress is at least possible to make by late 43 and definitely into '44 or '45.

I suspect the WAllies go this route, and throw more at Japan by 1943, they will make progress. The Americans (and Commonwealth), may still incur more losses and take more time invading more Japanese occupied areas than absolutely necessary, but the Japanese will be unable to truly slow the rate of a determined Allied advance onto their occupied turf. Eventually, as "unemployed" Allies armies finish all the island hopping they need to do to put Japan under siege, they may commit ground and air forces to the mainland via India or the Philippines to batter the Japanese where they can be found and outmaneuvered. Does any of this bring about acknowledged Japanese surrender? Probably not without an invasion or WMD, but the siege could be as tight as OTL's by 1945, and Japanese resistance could become incoherent and lack any power projection after the islands start to starve.

By the way, in quick outline form, how did CalBear's AANW/Festung Europa deal with all these questions, especially the timing and impact of A-Bombs and the defeat of Japan?
 
Maximum US aid to the USSR via the same routes as OTL. I think it also depends on when Moscow falls, but for drama and effect I assume the city would fall sometime in early December 1941. Stalin escapes and leads the war from Omsk while his soldiers fight tooth and nail on the outskirts of the city. Overconfident German divisions fail to adequately secure their flanks and an early version of Operation Saturn sees much of the German lead forces themselves encircled. This halts the initiative of the Germans who turn Moscow almost literally into a ruin, pushing ever-farther but to no avail. Hitler orders *everything* to be done but German forces are forces to retreat late in the Spring and are unable to recuperate. There are no effective reserves for large-scale offensives as even the Sixth Army is consumed. Leningrad emerges minths earlier and the Soviet buildup continues to gain steam with D-day meeting very little opposition due to Soviet penetration of the Oder river less than a month later. Berlin falls in October of 1944 with Western forces oddly findings the bridges and rail lines largely intact between coastal Normandy well into Germany. Hitler is captured alive only to die mysteriously before the planned trial, fueling decades of rumors and conspiracy theories.
 

kernals12

Banned
I certainly hope Britain wouldn't sue for peace. If they did, it would've given the green light to exterminate all of Eastern Europe.
 
On the issue of the atomic bomb, I should point out it took until April of 1941 that efforts to develop it as a weapon, instead of as a propulsion system for submarines, truly began. From then on, any number of things can happen to derail the project or prolong it, so to assume that combat deployment will definitely occur by August of '45 shouldn't be taken as a article of faith. Even presuming such does occur, the maximum altitude of an unmodified Flak 88 was essentially the same as the maximum altitude of a B-29; I think that should be clear as to what it means about efforts to achieve mass nuclear attacks.
 

kernals12

Banned
On the issue of the atomic bomb, I should point out it took until April of 1941 that efforts to develop it as a weapon, instead of as a propulsion system for submarines, truly began. From then on, any number of things can happen to derail the project or prolong it, so to assume that combat deployment will definitely occur by August of '45 shouldn't be taken as a article of faith. Even presuming such does occur, the maximum altitude of an unmodified Flak 88 was essentially the same as the maximum altitude of a B-29; I think that should be clear as to what it means about efforts to achieve mass nuclear attacks.
Source?
 
How do you figure?

My thinking is that if the Germans do manage to take Moscow, it will be by the skin of their teeth. Either that winter or the following spring, the Soviet counterattacks will surround the 2nd Panzer Army (or whatever actually makes it into Moscow) and it will be a scenario much like OTL's Stalingrad, but on a larger scale. The war ends earlier, perhaps with the Red Army at the Rhine.
 
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