Three on three war in 1940: Germany, Italy, and Japan vs Britain, France, and Soviet Union

Who wins?

  • Allies easily and almost everytime

    Votes: 11 22.0%
  • Axis easily and almost every time

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Allies every time but not easily

    Votes: 14 28.0%
  • Axis every time but not easily

    Votes: 2 4.0%
  • It can go a variety of different ways but the Allies win most of the time

    Votes: 18 36.0%
  • It can go a variety of different ways but the Axis win most of the time

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • It is about even

    Votes: 2 4.0%

  • Total voters
    50
Hypothetically, Japan decides not to invade China beyond Manchuria, everything in Europe plays out the same except that Poland was partitioned without Western intervention for some reason with the post 39 borders, and a three on three war breaks out in July 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan vs Britain, France, and Russia.

For the purpose of the thread America and China will not get involved (even with just Lend Lease), and smaller nations that are not already parts of Empires or satellite states will not get involved if they are not attacked first.
 

Deleted member 1487

Germany is in trouble without Soviet raw material shipments and a 1 front war. The USSR doesn't have that much to worry about from Japan in 1940 all things considered, while Italy isn't really prepared to go to war. The Soviets aren't in a great place to be launching an invasion especially with Japan fighting them, but any diversion of German resources plus the lack of shipments from the USSR is bad news for them, while Italy jumping in sooner is actually worse, as they aren't really diverting much from France and Britain while needing German supplies of coal and oil. Tough scenario, but I'd say things are even and a replay of the easy German victory over France is tougher to imagine. Japanese help is severely limited against the Franco-British if there is concern about US entry, but even if not losing the colonies is secondary to saving France in 1940.
 

orwelans II

Banned
Wait a minute, if Germany only faces France and the UK on the western front (with Italian backup in the south) doesn't that mean that they can't go through the low countries? They'll have to count on breaking through the Maginot line, no?
Missed the part about the smaller countries. But yeah, even with luck on their side and if they reach Paris somehow, the Germans still won't win. The French probably won't even surrender, knowing that the Soviets are having their way with the Germans in the east.
 
Wait a minute, if Germany only faces France and the UK on the western front (with Italian backup in the south) doesn't that mean that they can't go through the low countries? They'll have to count on breaking through the Maginot line, no?
Missed the part about the smaller countries. But yeah, even with luck on their side and if they reach Paris somehow, the Germans still won't win. The French probably won't even surrender, knowing that the Soviets are having their way with the Germans in the east.
Do you think Germany's opening move will be to try to take out France?
 

orwelans II

Banned
Do you think Germany's opening move will be to try to take out France?
Hmm. It's possible that they'll try to take out the USSR first by applying what they think are the lessons of WW1. Instead of wasting forces on the static western front-destroy the inferior Russian forces using mobile warfare. Keep a merely defensive force on the Rhine. After a while, force a Brest-Litovsk style peace.

IMO this approach would be doomed. Without Romania, Hungary, Finland, Croatia and the foreign SS troops, their numbers for an eastern offensive are much slimmer, even if you include the forces that would have been used in OTL occupations. If they leave France and the UK alone, then these two can focus on Italy. The Japanese attack against the USSR would slow the Red Army's advance in Poland and Germany might hold it's own there, but the longer it goes without knocking one of the Allies out of the war, the stronger they get. Germany, on the other hand, is weaker and weaker for every year it doesn't plunder a few of it's neighbours.

Another reason for Germany to avoid being defensive in the West is that there's no guarantee that France and England won't invade Belgium themselves to quickly capture Germany's industrial western areas and destroy the defensive forces on the Franco-German border.
 
IMO this approach would be doomed. Without Romania, Hungary, Finland, Croatia and the foreign SS troops, their numbers for an eastern offensive are much slimmer, even if you include the forces that would have been used in OTL occupations.

It's worse then that. Without the looting of Western Europe and imports from the USSR, the Germans will lack the logistics to project force beyond the immediate frontier and into the major industrial, agricultural, and manpower. In March of 1940 the Wehrmacht had only ~120,000 trucks, compared to around 450,000 used in Barbarossa. The tragicomic mess the Red Army was in 1940 would probably allow the Germans to push the Soviets back somewhere between the 1939 border and D'niepr, but the Soviets will still fight like the devil unlike the Tsars Army in 1917, and thus they lack the logistical strength to inflict truly crushing losses upon the Red Army and break into the Soviet interior like they managed OTL. This is an enormous boon for the Soviets, we're talking a rough doubling of their warmaking capacity, and will greatly accelerate evolution of the Red Army out of its decrepit state, even before we factor in the potential for Anglo-French aid and diverted German resources to other fronts. This is a inmemse compensation from having to fight the Japanese, whose drag on resources would be relatively minor in comparison.

The Anglo-French and Soviets probably play defensive against the Japanese while they crush the Euroaxis in '41-'42. Then the Soviets turn around and drive the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea.

Another reason for Germany to avoid being defensive in the West is that there's no guarantee that France and England won't invade Belgium

This, on the other hand, I don't see at all. There is zero indications that the Anglo-French were interested in invading through Belgium like the Germans were.
 
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orwelans II

Banned
Without the looting of Western Europe and imports from the USSR, the Germans will lack the logistics to project force beyond the immediate frontier and into the major industrial, agricultural, and manpower.
I did mention that they need to plunder to keep fighting. The only thing that would be easier for the Germans in the east would be fixing those trucks, since they were using different models from like 10 countries IOTL, but that does not make up for the numbers.

This, on the other hand, I don't see at all. At least not in terms of invading via Belgium. There is zero indications that the Anglo-French were interested in invading Belgium.
They expected the Germans to invade it and in OTL, the Germans did so with the addition of the Netherlands. If the Germans stay still in the west and manage to hold their defensive line, then the Allies would consider invading the neutral state to gain advantage for themselves. They did invade Persia and they considered invading Norway, but Hitler beat them to the punch there.

It's interesting how useless Japan is for the Axis in this scenario. Even if it managed to toss everyone around like ragdolls for a year in the Far East, it would simply be a diversion. If it occupied the Soviet Far East, Indochina, a third of the Raj, Malasia+Indonesia once the Germans attack Holland they would still be no threat to the Allied heartlands.

Germany and Italy have to zerg rush France and hope for the best or they're doomed. France and Britain can be on the defensive here and as long as their armies survive and force the Axis to stay fighting in the west, they can count on the Red Army reaching Berlin.
 
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