Realistic Allied WW2 victory without either the USSR or the US?

Medved

Banned
Allthough this is an alternate history forum, there seems to prevail a deterministic belief that the Allies win WW2 - even in a scenario where either the US/GB or the USSR are removed from the equation. The explanations offered are fantastic and include: Millions of Indians defeating the Reich for Great Britain, the USSR managing the war by itself despite lack of food and pretty much everything else by 1942,and the WAllies just sitting out the war untill the atom bomb is ready - allthough they have no idea when it will be ready. Of course, they not only never lose, they also never negotiate. So I would like to see realistic scenarios where Germany/the Axis is completely defeated, even with the Allies missing one or even two players.

Scenario 1: On December 13th 1931 Winston Churchill is struck by a car driven by Edward F. Cantasano and dies immediately on the spot. The rest of history goes mostly as OTL until May 1940. Instead of Churchill, Lord Halifax becomes Prime Minister and arranges a negotiated peace with Germany. This means no Western Front, no air war, no war in the Med or North Africa. Germany strikes the USSR in 1941 with full power - and while the Soviets are better prepared than OTL, the Germans have thousands of additional aircraft because they were not destroyed by the British as OTL. The USSR gets no Lend-Lease, the Wallies are not destroying anywhere between half and 3/4 of the Luftwaffe, German industry runs undisturbed. By the end of 1942 the Soviets are running out of food and out of precious metals and minerals (LL delivered 40% of the wartime aluminium supply). How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the Soviets win the war under these circumstances? How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the Soviets dont negotiate under these circumstances?

Scenario 2: On February 15th 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt is killed by shots from Guiseppe Zangara. Vice President Garner takes over and remains president until 1940. Garner is an isolationist and against the expansion of the military. The next President Thomas E. Dewey is an isolationist as well. So there is only very little support for Great Britain. Only nonmilitary products that are paid for in cash are delivered. There are no US convoys protecting British shipping, no LL stuff, no US troops. Everything Britain needs has to come from what the Dominions can give. How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the British win the war under these circumstances? How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the British dont negotiate under these circumstances? Even when/if the Germans invade the USSR in June 1941?

Scenario 3: Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky dont act like complete idiots, Stalins rise to power is prolonged by a few years. As a result the military build up of the USSR starts a few years later than OTL .When the Germans attack in 1941, the USSR has "only" 12 000 tanks and 12 000 aircraft at its disposal (half of what they had OTL). Most of this equippment is destroyed by the end of August 1941, by November the Germans reach the AA line and the USSR surrenders. Even if the Japanese attack PH and even if Hitler declares war on the US - and even with partisan warfare in the East:How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the Wallies win the war under these circumstances? How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that the Wallies dont negotiate under these circumstances? How exactly is it even remotely realistic to assume that they would continue the war, waiting for a weapon they have no idea will work, have no idea when it will be ready and 9999 out of 10 000 people have no idea that this weapon even exists?
 

Medved

Banned
If the U.S. and USSR are out of the conflict, that's an automatic win for the Reich; Great Britain cannot win the war on its own.

Hold your horses mister! I have seen the following claims that were ment 100% serious and considered realistic by some posters:

Britain raises an army of 50 million Indian soldiers and crushes both Germany and Japan - after all India has a population of 350 million people and Indians love dying for the Empire.
Britain will develop nuclear weapons by 1947 with tube alloys and win this way.
The Dominions can supply everything Britain needs, Britain wins conventionally even without LL.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
British could just blockade Germany in continental Europe, that alone will be disastrous for third reich without the resources of USSR
It will not be a unconventional surrender of Germany but there is no way germans would be able invade and occupy any British territories
 

Medved

Banned
British could just blockade Germany in continental Europe, that alone will be disastrous for third reich without the resources of USSR
Germany could just sit an wait. That alone will be disastrous without the resources of USA.
 
In a cost-cutting effort to raise more money for the Maginot line maintenance work on the French road system is cut.
The degradation of the French road system is causing a political backlash, in 1940 an inspection tour is being done of the Ardennes area which has the distinction of having the worst roads in France. The inspection team is there when the German Army crosses the border. Fortunately for friends the survey team had highly mobile 4 wheel drive vehicles.
The survey team is able to warn the French military of size of the German attack and the poor condition of the French roads delays the Germans long enough call reinforcements to arrive.
The blitzkrieg is stopped and the Battle of France grinds into a slow war of attrition.
Germany loses.
 

Deleted member 1487

In a cost-cutting effort to raise more money for the Maginot line maintenance work on the French road system is cut.
The degradation of the French road system is causing a political backlash, in 1940 an inspection tour is being done of the Ardennes area which has the distinction of having the worst roads in France. The inspection team is there when the German Army crosses the border. Fortunately for friends the survey team had highly mobile 4 wheel drive vehicles.
The survey team is able to warn the French military of size of the German attack and the poor condition of the French roads delays the Germans long enough call reinforcements to arrive.
The blitzkrieg is stopped and the Battle of France grinds into a slow war of attrition.
Germany loses.
The French were warned about the German advance by two divisions that actually fought the invasion in the area at the time and it made little difference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France#Central_front
The advance of Army Group A was to be delayed by Belgian motorised infantry and French mechanised cavalry divisions (DLC, Divisions Légères de Cavalerie) advancing into the Ardennes. The main resistance came from the Belgian 1st Chasseurs Ardennais, the 1st Cavalry Division reinforced by engineers and the French 5e Division Légère de Cavalerie (5th DLC).[111]The Belgian troops blocked roads, held up the 1st Panzer Division at Bodange for about eight hours then retired northwards too quickly for the French who had not arrived and their barriers proved ineffective when not defended; German engineers were not disturbed as they dismantled the obstacles. They had insufficient anti-tank capacity to block the surprisingly large number of German tanks they encountered and quickly gave way, withdrawing behind the Meuse. The German advance was hampered by the number of vehicles trying to force their way along the poor road network. Panzergruppe Kleist had more than 41,140 vehicles, which had only four march routes through the Ardennes.[112] French reconnaissance aircrews had reported German armoured convoys by the night of 10/11 May but this was assumed to be secondary to the main attack in Belgium. On the next night, a reconnaissance pilot reported that he had seen long vehicle columns moving without lights and another pilot sent to check reported the same and that many of the vehicles were tanks. Later that day photographic reconnaissance and pilot reports were of tanks and bridging equipment and on 13 May Panzergruppe Kleist caused a traffic jam about 250 km (160 mi) long from the Meuse to the Rhine on one route. While the German columns were sitting targets, the French bomber force attacked the Germans in northern Belgium during the Battle of Maastricht and had failed with heavy losses. In two days, the bomber force had been reduced from 135 to 72.[113]

On 11 May, Gamelin had ordered reserve divisions to begin reinforcing the Meuse sector. Because of the danger the Luftwaffe posed, movement over the rail network was limited to night-time, slowing the reinforcement but the French felt no sense of urgency as they believed the build-up of German divisions would be correspondingly slow
 
The British could probably have beaten the Germans to an atomic bomb. Through protracted conventional bombardment (strategic bombing) and a blockade of European ports Germany's economy would eventually have been undermined to the point where a ground invasion could conceivably been attempted years down the road.

Japan, on the other hand, is more or less untouchable for the UK. Only the United States could have beaten them.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Germany could just sit an wait. That alone will be disastrous without the resources of USA.
Can it afford to ? With RN blocking all trade routes
Remember with USSR intact most Balkan states would be reluctant to support Germany wholeheartedly
 
All of that assumes that with either the US being isolationist France, the UK and the rest of Europe will act exactly the same way as OTL, which is not really how butterflies work.

If the US is out and doesn't even sell weapons then the UK and France will prepare for war on the basis that they are alone and won't buy US equipment. They will ramp up the military industry to even greater levels than OTL.

On both scenarios this also assumes that only Churchill and Roosevelt were in favour of war ( and continuing it). Yet it's obvious to both the UK and the US that Germany is a major threat if it wins in Europe.
Sooner than later, the UK will join the fight again once the USSR is invaded.


In fact, now that I think about it, how is the UK going to react to growing Japanese imperialism without the US forces there (and at the same time, HOW is an isolationist US that still has the Philippines going to accept a full-fledged Japanese invasion of SEA?)
 
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Deleted member 1487

Roads in the Ardennes that have not been maintained for 10 years would slow the Germans down enough so even the French could get a sufficient force to stop the German advance in place.
You can't do that though, because of the need for the infrastructure for civilian use and also is partly in Belgium and Luxembourg. Plus the military budget was something else and by the 1930s the Maginot Line was already built, so finding money for the military out of the road budget wouldn't be something they really need to do (or find a significant amount of money there).
 
How about the war starts early, with either Mussolini opposes the Anschluss or Hitler invading Czechoslovakia in 1938? Hard to see Germany winning either conflict. It wouldn't be a "world war" but then again any war missing the US and USSR won't be a "world war" anyway.
 
If I remember correctly from @Fletch's timeline, Halifax, Halifax becomes Prime Minister and negotiates an initial ceasefire, but consistently organizes coalition and regional conflicts against Germany, Napoleonic Wars style.
 
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You can't do that though, because of the need for the infrastructure for civilian use and also is partly in Belgium and Luxembourg. Plus the military budget was something else and by the 1930s the Maginot Line was already built, so finding money for the military out of the road budget wouldn't be something they really need to do (or find a significant amount of money there).
perhaps Luxembourg was going through a financial crisis and couldn't afford road repair?
 
Depends on how soon the Allies realise that the US isn't coming to play. At that point they battern down the hatches and run a long (20 year) war. The Empire's economy is still better and isn't run in the smell of a stolen oily rag.

Blockading Europe isn't going to be as effective as in WWI because the USSR remains a gaping big hole gleefully trading supplies for German know how. That's the wild card.

If the Allies threaten the USSR it is over. If the Germans get sick of being the USSR's patsy it is over.


Japan I don't care about. With the US being impossible to please the Allies are free to make some uncomfortable decisions. I feel sorry for the Chinese, but what else can they do?
 
Have Pilsudski get a fit of paranoia about Hitler and insist on Poland having an updated warplan to deal with him. This leads to Plan West being much more fleshed out and more realistic, it doesn't come close to saving Poland but it buys them more time, inflicts more casualties on the Germans. The greater losses results in Hitler being more receptive to Halder and Brauchitsch argument that an armored breakthrough while possible against Poland would not work on France. Due to the delay from greater casualties a much more conventional Schlieffen Plan 2.0 goes in in June and does not cause French disintegration. Lines stabilize and greater Allied resources over the next few years gradually wear down the Germans
 

Medved

Banned
@ All - As specified above: This thread ask the question of a realistic "Big Three" victory, with one/two of the Big Three missing, after the victory over France. The answer has to be a REALISTIC Scenario. France prevailing against the German war machine is less than 1 in 100 and therefore not realistic:

The French High Command, already comparatively ponderous and sluggish from its firm espousal of the broad strategy of "methodological warfare", was reeling from the shock of the sudden offensive and was now stung by a sense of defeatism. On the morning of 15 May, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud telephoned the new British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and said "We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France

Aircraft used in the campaign:

Germany: 5638
Allies: 2935

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France
 
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