What would be the effects of US neutrality in WW2?

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If Britain continues to follow the OTL path, maybe not. In changed conditions, however, why do the Brits stick to the same solutions?:confused:

Britain lacked the industrial & manpower capacity to achieve victory by city-bombing, & to survive U-boats with OTL A/S. So, what does she do? What can she do instead?

Two simple changes: basing Stirlings in Newfoundland cut losses to U-boats quite dramatically. Switching to mining of rivers & canals, bombing of canals, & bombing of railyards, cuts bomber & crew losses to nearly nothing, & creates chaos in Germany's power grid, weapons production, & weapons/equipment delivery, in a matter of weeks.

Enough change to defeat Germany? IMO, more than enough
In my opinion not a chance, Britains only hope was to hold out against Germany until the US entered the war. Without this there is no point in carrying on wrecking the UK economy and continue the destruction of Britain from the air. You don't really need the Stirlings because the convoys would have stopped by the end of 1940 ... if you can't afford to buy anything you don't need to transport anything apart from the one or two bits of kit and supplies coming over from Canada. South Africa is not as reliable as you think, there were many German sympathisers, and nor would they hand over mysterious supplies of gold. You also mention the Free French but the Free French had no sovereign state as they had been displaced from Vichy France, pretty much the same as the Poles that fought on the Allied side. They did not have their own wealth or production facilities; the equipment they fought with was supplied by either Britain or the US, so there is no help from them either.
 
In Europe, it's a gory knock-down drag-out fight between the Soviets and Germans which devolves into a stalemate. Britain develops the atom bomb sooner or later and nukes the Nazis into submission.

In Asia, I think the Japanese would win if the Americans observed strict neutrality. They were more than capable of brushing aside the British and Dutch to secure the resources required to continue their war in China. IOTL, the Japanese judged it was wiser to accept war with America on Japan's terms, than the *possibility* of war on America's terms. But if America was staying neutral, no aid to China, no oil embargo, etc, Japan could conceivable secure the "southern resource zone" and actually win their war in China. Japan's got everything it needs, America's neutral, and all the other great powers are bled white and bankrupt. Japan would win.

With full US neutrality, Britain goes bankrupt before it gets close to developing an A-Bomb of its own. I agree with the part about the USSR: I don't ease the Germans being able to advance much further east than Moscow and Stalingrad.
 
If Britain continues to follow the OTL path, maybe not. In changed conditions, however, why do the Brits stick to the same solutions?:confused:

Britain lacked the industrial & manpower capacity to achieve victory by city-bombing, & to survive U-boats with OTL A/S. So, what does she do? What can she do instead?

Two simple changes: basing Stirlings in Newfoundland cut losses to U-boats quite dramatically. Switching to mining of rivers & canals, bombing of canals, & bombing of railyards, cuts bomber & crew losses to nearly nothing, & creates chaos in Germany's power grid, weapons production, & weapons/equipment delivery, in a matter of weeks.

Enough change to defeat Germany? IMO, more than enough.

And how does the UK gain the knowledge that this strategy will be effective? I criticise claims that Germany can win the BoB "if only they'd made the right decisions" because I don't think they have the ability to do so, and I'm going to criticise it here too. This is pure hindsightology, IMO.

With Winston as PM, I really doubt it. If it's somebody else, tho, this could just happen. And I think Hitler would go along.

It's certainly easier without Winston. But his OTL strategy was to get the US on board. If that option is absent here, then I don't think it's implausible that he'll change his strategy. OTOH, he may hold out until Barbarossa occurs, at which point the USSR will very likely replace the US in his mind. I do think that the idea of peace in the west would be quite attractive to Hitler though.
 
I have to agree with PHX 1138.

POD would probably have to be Kansas Governor Alf Landon winning the 1936 Presidential election (which was more possible than it's usually spun OTL) and not having nearly as many key advisors who were Soviet agents keeping us neutral until Hitler invaded Russia and greatly skewing the stories about China and Kai Shek. That'd make the USA credibly neutral into the war while also rebuilding the economy considerably between 1936-1940 instead of leaving it far below the 1920's and decaying. Avoiding the stupidity of FDR's "50,000 airplanes" for defense with a tiny ill-equipped Army or his yachtsman's experience after playing at Undersecretary of the Navy during WWI when the U.S. Navy just fought U-Boats for 2 years, the military would be in very different shape and configuration, albeit still quite small.

1942 Britain starved into submission with too much of it's merchant fleet lost to U-Boats without U.S. replacements and destroyer escorts to Iceland along with not making the sales of food, aviation gasoline (Battle of Britain with really menacing kites?), aircraft engines, ammunition, ship oil, metals, vacuum tubes, shoes, etc.. Signs a peace treaty with the Nazis to preserve it's empire and acknowledge it can't retake Europe, Churchill's government had already fallen. Manufacturing and military training shifts to India, Canada, Australia, Egypt to defend the empire that still includes 25% of the world's population.

Japan is in a quagmire in China with it too big and populous to conquer completely, assume it retains the Pacific Coast mostly and gives up on the interior by 1945-7. Chiang Kai Shek wipes out Mao's Communists as he nearly did several times and remains in control of some of the unoccupied China with the rest split up among the warlords and factions already in control there. It does the same with Vietnam and the Dutch East Indies, control the cities and ports along the coast and only address parts of the interiors where there are active mines, oil fields, etc. Singapore and the Kra Peninsula mean Japan's in effective control of most of the Pacific Coast of Asia and that's very far from both the British Navy and American Navy's supply sources. Britain signs a peace treaty ceding the lost territory to Japan in 1942 as well to retain India and Burma as well as end the threat to Australia and New Guinea, losing Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai as well as investments and assets in China.

Stalin doesn't do nearly as well without the massive U.S. lend lease aid. He doesn't have the trucks, half-tracks, tanks, gasoline, food, tires, etc. to move his slaughtered armies back across Europe or outrun the German armored columns so the war there struggles on. John Mosier makes a surprising point that Stalin probably lost over 20 million soldiers and actually was running out manpower by 1943, and that Stalin's counterattack was only possible with the distraction of both the Allies Sicily-Italian invasions and clearly accumulating resources to invade France. Britain out of the war and without US aid and troops flowing in, Stalin is fighting alone and the battles are ever deeper in Soviet lands. Neither can quit but nor can they sustain the massive early battles as they're running low on men, equipment, fuel, food, and at the ends of their supply chains so sputtering down to a cease fire like the Koreas would in 1953 seems most likely. Russia's lost most of it's western area with most of it's population and industry as well as the Baku oil fields and port access to the Atlantic and Med, and probably a good chunk of mostly undefended Siberia and the port of Vladiovostok to the Japanese so by 1945 the USSR is far smaller, landlocked effectively between two major enemies and trying to build railroad and road connections to British India/Afghanistan/Nepal/Pakistan for trade routes.

The Reich's Lebensraum extermination of most of the population of Western Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, and much of France that the earlier slave labor camps were test models for (see Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction") proceeds and over 70 million civilians die, mostly worked to death through intentional starvation to build the new infrastructure and houses where they once lived. But Goebbel's control of Fortress Europe's media keeps the mass extermination a much debated, little known "story" not worth going to war over like the Jewish Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, Cambodia Killing Fields, Mao's Great Leap Forward, or Stalin's famines/kulak massacres/officer purges of perhaps 30 million in the 1930's. We don't want to know and determine there's nothing to be done as it's over probably as do the British.

The U.S. has had low taxes, productive use of people and capital for 10 years instead of a long Depression and horrifically expensive war in every measure. Baby Boom begins in the late 1930's but that's mostly postponed pregnancies from the Depression privations just as much of it was in OTL. The national television networks just starting in the late 1930's grow much faster without wartime shortages so electronics has advanced for consumer uses instead of direct military technologies like radar, sonar, code-breaking, etc. but Bell Labs, Raytheon, Hewlett Packard etc. still exist in the 1930's and without the distraction of defense work, entertainment technology, automotive electronics (AC Delco), avionics, sensors and controls, computing for accounting uses (IBM, Burroughs, Sperry, RCA, GE, etc.) continue to advance as they have since the 1890's Hollerith machines (which became IBM in 1912). American exports of cars, appliances, consumer electronics, farm equipment, hybrid seeds, gasoline, plastics, food, coal, steel, copper, movies, packaged foods, etc. grow far faster without the U-Boat threat and so much world trade and production disrupted.

Refugees from Europe and Asia provide a brain boost still to the US, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Phillipines, Australia, India, and Canada, both before and after the war. Israel isn't formed from British Palestine, too few Jews escape the Nazis and Stalin, and the Middle East is very different with it's primary customers and powers being the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. The U.S. remains the largest oil producer in the world while Russia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Iraq stagnate with 1920's-30's drilling and refining technology (as Russia still was in the 1990's.) Argentina and South Africa are major trading partners of the Germans while the Belgian Congo, French North Africa, Algeria are now German colonies.

Those are my guesses, interesting question.
 
If Britain continues to follow the OTL path, maybe not. In changed conditions, however, why do the Brits stick to the same solutions?:confused:

Britain lacked the industrial & manpower capacity to achieve victory by city-bombing, & to survive U-boats with OTL A/S. So, what does she do? What can she do instead?

Two simple changes: basing Stirlings in Newfoundland cut losses to U-boats quite dramatically. Switching to mining of rivers & canals, bombing of canals, & bombing of railyards, cuts bomber & crew losses to nearly nothing, & creates chaos in Germany's power grid, weapons production, & weapons/equipment delivery, in a matter of weeks.

Enough change to defeat Germany? IMO, more than enough.

How is Bomber command going to hit point targets like rivers, canals and rail yards when they cannot even hit targets the size of cities until they deployed nav aids like Oboe Gee and H2S. And how would you replace the Stirlings in frontline service when almost 1/2 the Lancaster airframes (3400+) wouldn't have engines since there would be no Packard Merlin engines to install in them.


I find this likely, but it could happen Japan gambles the U.S. will stay out & leaves the P.I. alone. In that event...

...the U.S. will inevitably enter the war against Germany, because the U.S. knew Germany was the greater threat, & Hitler planned to attack the U.S. eventually.
But the OP says the U.S. is staying neutral. If the U.S. puts an effort anywhere near what it did as 'The Arsenal of Democracy' it will be very well prepared before the Germans can figure a way successfully challenge the Monroe Doctrine.

Why do you presume the Free French won't still want the country liberated?:confused::confused:
And who is going to equip the Free French?

There's also Venezuela, & Western Canada...
And where are the tankers to carry the Venezuelan oil to Britain going to come from? and I don't think the Western Canadian oil fields were developed until after the war but I'll admit I don't know. I remember reading years ago some sources describing where the petroleum that 'won the war' came from and the greatest portion of it came from the U.S. and Latin America (something like 75%+) . With The Suez/Mediterranean route to Europe closed to British shipping the distance required to ship mid-east crude to the U.K made it a very poor substitute for anywhere but the African campaign. Same goes fro DEI crude except for use in theater.

I agree, the U.S. had the know-how to produce 100 octane. This is cheap to get, compared to all the other stuff Britain can source elsewhere. (Or she could get it from {patriotic} Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. petro companies...:p)
Depends on whether Tetra-Ethyl lead is declared an embargoed strategic resource

As for gold, a lot of that was because Winston chose to give away radar & other tech with no licence fees. Plus South African gold could cover expenses... Plus Canada (at least) was willing to just give the Mother Country stuff.
I'm basing the cash flow issues on sources that discuss the immediate need for Lend-Lease to reduce the pressure on British finances (especially after Churchill agreed to take over French purchase commitments after the fall of France. What happens if Vichy France disputes that and demands that the original contracts be completed?)

Add a change in approach...

That's without considering what Free France is doing...:rolleyes: It seems possible (if a bit unlikely) there's a deal for Free France to buy weapons & gear & "Lend Lease" it to Britain. (That does need Winston not to treat de Gaulle like a lapdog,:rolleyes: which may be ASB.:p)
And where are the Free French going to get the money to buy the weapons? If the U.S. does allow cash and carry the French will need cash. I'm sure the Vichy French will demand that all available French assets belong to them as the surviving government of France. And the U.S. may just impound the assets until the case can be reviewed by some court. Vichy may just go along with that knowing the affect it would have on the Free French (and knowing that they probably didn't have much chance of actually using it)

Why do you presume the Brits take the same Cadillac approach, rather than going with a single-track uranium bomb program?:confused::confused:

As for electric power, Canada's hydro could be upgraded quite a bit, even if a major hydro project wasn't done to support the Bomb. (I'm thinking of Kemano in particular, which was in development before war started; there may be others.)
That cuts the need for Power in maybe 1/2 but that only deletes the need for the TVA or Columbia River projects Both of those had been started years earlier in the Depression so they were available in WWII. You mention a Canadian project that was started in 1948 and operational in 1954 (mainly for Aluminum production and we haven't even discussed where all the Aluminum that Britain is going to need will come from)

A bomber that had to deliver a 12000 pd load from Saipan... The Lanc could already deliver more than that to Berlin. More engine power & higher altitude performance would be useful; add jet pods & pressure cabin?
The specs for the two planes are worlds apart

Lanc: Range 2530 Miles; Payload 14,000 lbs, Service Ceiling 21,000 ft at 63,000 lbs, Top speed 282 mph, cruise 200 mph

B-29: Range 3250 miles; Payload 20,000 lbs, Service Ceiling 31,000 ft, Top speed 357 mph, cruise 220 mph.

And you can't just 'add a presurized cabin' to the Lanc the extra structure would add weight which would decrease speed, altitude, and or payload.

And you think I don't know this why?:rolleyes: It wasn't helping against U-boats much OTL, especially since they mostly operated on the surface.

(now I see if I got the quotes in the right places:)
 
Which they didn't OTL. And if they're carrying war material, U-boats can still sink them.:rolleyes:

If they are carrying war material then are they still technically being "neutral"? And US was certainly pro-Allied neutral in OTL, if they are strictly neutral then what forbids their ships from doing this?

You haven't demonstrated any improvement over OTL.:rolleyes: Indeed, TTL RN is denied U.S.-built corvettes & DEs.

They probably build more Flower-Class corvettes (or equivalent) via Canada and/or other parts of the Empire, if not design something even simpler to produce to the same effect. Escort carriers are also a possibility though they will take longer to build or until someone streamlines the manufacturing process. Also by mid-1941 the British were seeing increased effectiveness with anti-U-boat tactics and convoys *before* the US entered the war.

Which presupposes the ships aren't being slaughtered by U-boats the Brits don't have enough escorts to stop.:rolleyes:

Italian submarines not withstanding, the U-boats have to pass Gibraltar which could be made very perilous. Otherwise they will likely have to base out of Italy, and with Malta in UK hands there are air bases for significant overwatch of the Mediterranean. It is a much more clear body of water than the Atlantic, and I think the Germans will incur notable losses there especially once Sicily (likely) falls to the UK.

Which doesn't change the fundamental statement: the U.S., in a depressed state, still outproduced all the others combined.:rolleyes:

Yet you want the UK to expand significantly while the US sits out the war and say that the US will still somehow dominate?

Britain will be burdened with enormous war debt, plus the need to rebuild & retool. The U.S., untouched, won't.

The US will also not have undergone a massive economic expansion, its workforce will still be largely contained to what it had pre-war, and while its universities may benefit most of the general populace will not. The class divide will probably be worse and internal spending from up-and-coming families will probably not be so great. If the UK industrializes on a massive scale as you suggest they will reap the benefits in ways the US did OTL, and the US would not have something like 51% of the worlds manufacturing capabilities in 1945.

No, there weren't. There were custom-built hot rods. A muscle car is a factory package: large engine, small (relatively:rolleyes:) car. This was a product of Delorean at Pontiac, in response to the Baby Boom. It does not happen without the Boom. At best, you get the likes of the Chrysler 300, & even that, without the War, I'm dubious happens.

Americans have a romance for speed and fast cars. By your definition I'd argue there was probably a muscle car as early as the Oldsmobile Rocket of the late 40s/early 50s, and even without the war there will be faster cars available for hot-rodding or plain out-of-the-box driving.

:rolleyes: I am so sick of the "NASCAR was made up entirely of moonshiners".:rolleyes: Yes, there were racers. Yes, NASCAR had some shinerunners (tuners for stock cars). Would both those things still converge TTL?

NASCAR or an ATL equivalent might form under different circumstances with different drivers. Does it converge the same way as OTL? Not necessarily.

Which didn't become commonplace until the '50s...

I said technological delay, not widespread implementation. TV was already in existence by 1939.

There were yards. They needed expanding. An expansion in St John's or St John, so there was a repair yard for escorts near the departure point (instead of having to sail all the way to Halifax:rolleyes:) would have been a good idea.

I'm also not sure why you think Canada was incapable of building shipyards without Kaiser.:rolleyes:

I never said Canada was incapabale of building shipyards, only that Kaiser might find work in Canada doing what he did in OTL. Other enterprising Americans might well do the same.

And this is presuming Britain doesn't start a Bomb project during the war. Frankly, I doubt that, so a start is going to be even later. If it is, the Sov program will be later, too. And that presumes it survives the death of Stalin--or gets started at around the same time, with the SU doing much worse in the war...:rolleyes:

Britain might not have the resources to run an atom bomb program that fast *and* run a conventional war. Nuclear technology advanced as fast as it did only through massive expenditure of resources, and unless the project were set up in Canada it would also be incredibly vulnerable to German bombing. I think without US involvement the UK will get only so far then focus on rebuilding their country for a while, wonder-weapons are nice but food on the table and jobs are even nicer.

I do not think the UK has the ability to develop the bomb in 1947 under the best of circumstances without significant US intervention. Even without the US involved, the USSR will hammer away at Germany and I think the war ends in late '46-mid-'47. And the USSR got a lot of its headstart from US documents/research, they will not have the bomb even by 1949 (again, late 50s more likely, mid 50s or early 60s would not be surprising).
 
Dank der Amerikanische Neutralität,
Reden die Westliche Welt die Deutsche Sprache und die Östliche Welt die Japanisch Sprache.
Das Tausendjährige Reich regiert von Irland zum Ural Gebirge, wahrend die Japanische Wohlstand Spähre über Asien erblüht.
für die nächste 1000 Jahre...

Text der Propaganda Ministerium zur 10 jährigen gedenken des Arischen Eroberung Krieg 1940-1955


note: if you understand this text use Google Translate
 
Dank der Amerikanische Neutralität,
Reden die Westliche Welt die Deutsche Sprache und die Östliche Welt die Japanisch Sprache.
Das Tausendjährige Reich regiert von Irland zum Ural Gebirge, wahrend die Japanische Wohlstand Spähre über Asien erblüht.
für die nächste 1000 Jahre...

Text der Propaganda Ministerium zur 10 jährigen gedenken des Arischen Eroberung Krieg 1940-1955

I corrected some small mistakes:
Dank der amerikanischen Neutralität spricht die westliche Welt die deutsche Sprache und die östliche Welt die japanische Sprache.
Das tausendjährige Reich regiert von Irland zum Uralgebirge, während die japanische Wohlstandssphäre über Asien erblüht.
Für die nächsten 1000 Jahre...

Text des Propaganda-Ministeriums zum 10-jährigen Gedenken des arischen Eroberungskrieges 1940-1955


So would this lead to a similar situation as in the book/movie 'Fatherland'? Genocide unknown to America and a slow advancement of German troops into the still resisting Soviet territory in 1964?
 
I corrected some small mistakes:
...

So would this lead to a similar situation as in the book/movie 'Fatherland'? Genocide unknown to America and a slow advancement of German troops into the still resisting Soviet territory in 1964?

Thx for correction.

i have my doubt if the Third reich survives until 1964

even USA stay neutral and Japan never attack them.
The Third Reich has a small realistic chance to win the WW2
but it will ruin oneself financially on long therm
because the NSDAP leaders were no economist or financiers.

Hitler had Megalomaniacal architecture plans for the Reich
and also the Settlements program for East Europe

some cost assumption goes up to 3000 Billion Euro on those two Projects
 
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South Africa is not as reliable as you think, there were many German sympathisers, and nor would they hand over mysterious supplies of gold. [/quote]
None at all? No assistance to Britain at all?

Moreover, you believe the Brits were incapable of getting credit from any country other than the U.S.?
Ian Hathaway said:
They did not have their own wealth
So where did France's gold go? It wasn't to the Germans. De Gaulle kept Britain or the U.S. from getting any of it...
 
I've been reading Peter Tsouras' "Disaster at Stalingrad", and he makes a pretty good case of just how important US aid was to the USSR. Apparently, one of the most vital things provided was aluminum, with trucks, jeeps, and railroad locomotives/cars not far behind. Even the oft-derided tanks and planes we sent them were useful; while it's noted that they weren't as good as the Russian first line equipment, they were used mostly for protection around the Russian ports and railways, freeing more of the Russian first line equipment for use at the front. So, a neutral 'no lend lease' USA would be a disaster for the Soviets... they might still win the war, but they won't do it as fast...
 
So where did France's gold go? It wasn't to the Germans. De Gaulle kept Britain or the U.S. from getting any of it...
Operation MENACE was approved by the War Cabinet on 27/8/40. It was an expedition to capture and occupy Dakar in the French colony of Senegal. Charles de Gaulle convinced the British Government that he only had to appear with a token force at Dakar, and the populace and armed forces there would rally to him. The British Government also considered occupation of Dakar necessary due to its strategic importance to the North and South Atlantic shipping routes and to forestall its use by Germany. The operation was to be carried out by a joint Free French and British force. One of the little known reasons for Great Britain being interested in Dakar was the existence of 1475 tons of gold bullion [which broke down as 1200 tons French, 200 tons Belgian and 75 tons Polish]. This gold had been sent to Dakar by the French government just before the French capitulation. The British government was desperate to ensure that the Vichy government didn't hand the gold over to Germany.
Is this what you are talking about?

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Resolution.htm
 
I've been reading Peter Tsouras' "Disaster at Stalingrad", and he makes a pretty good case of just how important US aid was to the USSR. Apparently, one of the most vital things provided was aluminum, with trucks, jeeps, and railroad locomotives/cars not far behind. Even the oft-derided tanks and planes we sent them were useful; while it's noted that they weren't as good as the Russian first line equipment, they were used mostly for protection around the Russian ports and railways, freeing more of the Russian first line equipment for use at the front. So, a neutral 'no lend lease' USA would be a disaster for the Soviets... they might still win the war, but they won't do it as fast...

Win as in manage to get the Germans out of Soviet territory with help from bad military decisions from Hitler... well yes that is possible. Win as in conquer Germany without Lend Lease... not going to happen without Lend Lease and with the U.S. not in the war.
 
Ian Hathaway said:
It seems to me it was almost like the bad old days of Elizabethan privateers ... lets go raid a French port and grab the gold me 'earties !!!
Ah, war rated "Arrrrrr".:p
 
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