At some point Hitler was going to have to act against USN defended convoys. Once the Pacific War started I can easily see the U.S. escorting American and neutral flag shipping all the way to the UK (our ally now, at least against the untrustworthy "Japs") or even to Murmansk (the Soviet Far East Front is holding down a big chunk of the IJA, even though they are not formally at war). The USN would also be set loose to prosecute to kill any submarine contact in the Atlantic (again, those IJN boys are tricky, might be one of them there "Jap" subs after all).
Those steps would be easy for FDR to put into play. At that point the Reich can either end the Battle of the Atlantic, with all the dreadful prospects that carried in relation to British manufacturing and receipt of American/Commonwealth materials, or decide that they are going to take the gloves off and go after U.S. flagged and protected vessels in a serious way. If Germany backs down, the U.S. can now do the same thing into the Med, put an Army Group into India (the IJA is right there in Burma, just itchin' to get killed) which by coincidence, would free up 10-12 divisions of the Indian Army for Service in the Med, followed by U.S. troops taking over for our gallant allies against the Japanese in the Middle East, etc. Eventually the U.S. can move enough forces into areas that are plausable that the entire Commonwealth can toss everything in the envelope at the Germans.
So, at some point Hitler HAS to go after the U.S. or he winds up facing off with the entire Commonwealth and the USSR with absolutely no way to interdict their supply lines while his supply situation is strangled just as happened IOTL (and by the exact same vessels in many cases). That is a sure way to lose the war.
Isn't this one of those Done to Death threads?
I did a search and found squat. And I've never seen it before. So, I thought, why not?
Also, if Germany still fails, then what does the post-war world look like?
Most of Europe "joins" the Warsaw Pact.
IDK. If Germany is able to beat up the Red Army enough, they're not going to have the strength to roll them west. A LATE US war entry might lead to a very tough fight for Europe with the Soviet Union simply beaten up to the point where it can't successfully push the Wehrmacht across a wide front and a stalemate breaks out.
A better 1943, with something like Kursk turning into a stunning victory when German forces hit a lightly defended Prokhova and the Soviet Salient is cut off in spite of all efforts to prevent it and a quarter of a million soviet soldiers captured, could be enough to bog down the Soviets for good. A slower Soviet Advance than OTL? The Soviets get bled dry and Germany starts gaining much more ground? I think that if 1943 turns from turning the screws on Germany to Germany getting another year to really deck the Soviets, the Soviets may suffer too many casualties and economic damage to push the Germans across the board.
Or, Hitler could be an ass and throw all gains away, which is also quite possible.
Without Lend Lease or any prospect of a second front Stalin finishes his negotiations with Hitler in early 1943, ceding the Baltic States, Belarus, half the Ukraine and border territories with Finland.
The British either sue for peace immediately or suffer a series of shattering defeats.
The US crushes Japan and eventually has to rebuild the British and Soviet positions while undergoing internal Brown scares against the Nazis within who acted against the national interest...
IDK. If Germany is able to beat up the Red Army enough, they're not going to have the strength to roll them west. A LATE US war entry might lead to a very tough fight for Europe with the Soviet Union simply beaten up to the point where it can't successfully push the Wehrmacht across a wide front and a stalemate breaks out.
A better 1943, with something like Kursk turning into a stunning victory when German forces hit a lightly defended Prokhova and the Soviet Salient is cut off in spite of all efforts to prevent it and a quarter of a million soviet soldiers captured, could be enough to bog down the Soviets for good. A slower Soviet Advance than OTL? The Soviets get bled dry and Germany starts gaining much more ground? I think that if 1943 turns from turning the screws on Germany to Germany getting another year to really deck the Soviets, the Soviets may suffer too many casualties and economic damage to push the Germans across the board.
Or, Hitler could be an ass and throw all gains away, which is also quite possible.
I argue that the Soviets would win in the end, because they can afford to take the losses more than Germany. It might take them ten more years, but they would win in the end by simple attrition of the Reich with such long supply lines. A lot of the Soviet industrial capacity was moved to the Urals and east, and unless you have a Eurobomber, they are still going to be producing a lot more than the Germans, and since the T-34 was of higher quality than any panzer, they will just swamp the Germans in numbers.
I'm not sure that I agree. While the Soviets could probably pay the price in lives, the UK and Soviet Economy combined were close to parity with Germany in 1943. Late US war entry means that it takes another year or year and a half for the US presence in the war to make itself felt--so if FDR joins the war in 1943, US forces aren't going to be ready to invade Germany for at least 18 months.
In OTL as well, Germany was actually able to levy a lot of slavs to fight against the Soviets as well--manpower issues might be a problem if the Germans were stuck fighting for the Oder and the Rhine, but in this situation they're going to have a lot of Ostruppen to call upon--arguably, they are using the Soviet's own manpower against them.
If the US never joins the war, I think it more likely that the Red Army is never able to clear Germany from its territory, and that at least in terms of economics, time favors Germany over the UK and Soviet Union. Of course, Hitler is quite able to make his own forces lose this war--but without that kind of answer, I think the Soviets are either going to be unable to stop the German Summer Soviet Winter Cycle or the whole front will bog down.
Perhaps if the Reich was ran by reasonable men, then you would have a valid point. But it was not. Its Fuhrer had really poor impulse control, and the government in general was ran by ideolouges. They also expended a great deal of their resources on Concentration and Extermination Camps. They had the technical ability to start building jet fighters in 1942, but didn't. And when they finally did, Hilter demanded they be made into bombers. You'd still have the RAF bombing German cities. However, without the USAAF doing precision strikes, the German industry would not be as badly hampered, I'll give you that. As for some people thinking Germany might get The Bomb; I say nonsense. They were nowhere near producing one at war's end. No we'd still build one, if for no other reason than to use on Japan. And after that, Stalin would stop at nothing to steal those secrets. When he did... well, it would not bode well for the Jerries.