WI: USA declares war on Germany in 1939

CalBear

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Well, you get a lot of new folks in Congress and different President come 1940.
 
wouldn't it have been easier to sell U.S. public on fighting CommuNazi Axis? if that looked a more durable alliance.

for instance a quick invasion of both Poland and Romania (or parts of Romania as it was split in 1940)

A CommuNaziJap (their term) peril is virtually a given to scare enough people into a war footing simply because the people against fighting Reds also have to fight Fascists, vice versa, and Japan wants the Pacific. Yeah, that's a good POD.

three paranoid regimes might be a crowd? lol

still think the Soviets could have backed a clandestine German u-boat program, to the point they have ??? 300 u-boats and that might prompt (scare) the U.S. into action?
 
This. By the time the Battle of France happens, the US military would still be stuck trying organize it's mobilizing formations. It wouldn't be in any condition to deploy overseas until '41, at the earliest. ....

I've looked at this from several angles. It is possible to bring three or four of the old Regular Army divisions up to speed in six to nine months. The down side is that ties up the cadre needed to mobilize at least three more new divisions, or bring the rest of the RA divisions up to speed within the year, or a smiliar number of National Guard divisions. So a short term gain is a long term loss. For political reasons I suspect the US would field one or two combat ready corps. As in the Great War a number of unready units would be sent to train in Europe, and take on French equipment.

Note the no other armies were well prepared in 1940. The Germans had in the line 20 divisions that had just formed up the previous winter & were armed with Cezch equipment. Those were barely half trained & even less capable than the French Series B divisions. Another dozen or so had been mobilized in the previous autum, had a mix of old and new equipment, and their training was incomplete. Only half the German aarmy had actual campaign or combat experience in Poland. One infantry division was stood down just before 10 May because of a flu epidemic among its horses. Its artillery and supply wagons were imobilized.

The French problems extended to their Series B units, which had mobilized in October, but spent the winter as construction labor & not training. The "Active" & Series A divisions were fairly well trained & performed adequately or well in actual combat.

The Brits fielded three corps of well trained soldiers, but the rest were a mass of half trained or untrained and unevenly equiped units. there were some strong similarities between the British Army of May 1940 & the US Army of November 1941 in terms of ready units.

The readiness of the US Army Ground forces was dragged out by several factors. One was a initial lack of urgency in the 1940 mobilization. Second were the downward revisions in in the size which caused changes (=delays) in the number of ground formations to be mobilized. Third was that twice the Army was reorganized to accomodate the change in division or unit structure. The square divisions mobilized in 1940 were over the next ten months convert to the triangular structure. In early 1942 a second reorg was started, based on the experience of 1940-41 training exercises. this went beyond the division structure & made substantial changes down to company, through the combat support, and to the service/support units. The change from rigid support regiments to flexible support groups occured at this time.

Bottom line there is, based on a September 1939 start, the US can field a combat ready field army by May 1940, but the larger it is the more units are delayed in readiness twelve to twentyfour months out.

Moving the mobilization ahead a few months can allow the National Guard units to reach a ready state. Since those came into Federal service partially trained it took ten to fourteen months to work those up. The variable seems to have been the competency of the division commander during the critical early months. Omar Bradley made his rep by taking over a 'failed' NG division & bringing it to combat readiness in a few months. Typically it took 18 months for the US Army to bring a new division up to speed from initial authorization, through activation, and to ready status. So, if the US mobilization is triggered by the Cezch crisis & the NG divisions come into active service in the spring or early summer of 1939 a half dozen of the eighteen available can be in France & usefull by May 1940.
 
.... It is possible that the political boost to French morale from having the US as an ally is enough to make them decide to continue the fight in exile instead of surrendering, which has all sorts of implications for North Africa and the Pacific even before American forces show up on the scene.

This is the real game changer. France came close to moving the government to Algeria in June 1940. A military evacuation of essential equipment and skilled technicians was already underway.

A second game changer with nearly as great implications is the presence of the USN in the Scandinavian campaign. Initially I'd only looked at this in terms of the OTL campaign, which is a mistake. The reason that campaign occured as it did is because it took the Allies weeks to get a expeditionary force together. OTL the USN had Marine Expeditionary Brigades ready since the 1920s, two had been deployed overseas in the twenties. On mobilization the USN & Army formed a amphibious corps around the Marine brigade and a US Army division. If the Allied leaders act with speed the USN can deliver this corps to Norway days or weeks ahead of the Germans. Depends on just how fast the Allied leaders make their decision.

Beyond that the presence of the US Atlantic Fleet more than doubles the warships and support available for a Scandinavian campaign, even with nothing transfered from the Pacific. The presence of both the Yorktown & Ranger would be huge.

If the German Norway expedition is stuffed at the start there are large implications concerning Sweden, Finland, & other factors down the line.
 
wouldn't it have been easier to sell U.S. public on fighting CommuNazi Axis? if that looked a more durable alliance.

for instance a quick invasion of both Poland and Romania (or parts of Romania as it was split in 1940)

A CommuNaziJap (their term) peril is virtually a given to scare enough people into a war footing simply because the people against fighting Reds also have to fight Fascists, vice versa, and Japan wants the Pacific. Yeah, that's a good POD.

three paranoid regimes might be a crowd? lol

still think the Soviets could have backed a clandestine German u-boat program, to the point they have ??? 300 u-boats and that might prompt (scare) the U.S. into action?

Perhaps another POD would be for the UK and France to declare war on the USSR at the same time as Germany (I believe it was considered), which would create the CommuNazi axis and perhaps drag America into the war.

Perhaps the USSR helps Japan guard its Western flank and subjugate China, allowing Japan to launch a surprise attack on Hawaii and the European colonies in Asia...
 

jahenders

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Let's run with the OP's scenario, and the US starts mobilising and sending troops to France in late 1939. Would this be sufficient to prevent the Fall of France 9 months later?

I would tend to say, "No." Even if the US (somehow) immediately declared war after the invasion of Poland, it would take a while for the US to get moving and, even then, the trickle would be slow. The first US involvement would probably be some ships (operating against U-Boats and such) pretty quickly, followed by some aircraft in France in a couple months (they'd have to work out logistics). The first troops probably wouldn't arrive until February and that'd be a relatively small contingent, probably fairly inexperienced. So, I don't think it's at all likely that the US can prevent the fall of France. They WOULD however, substantially buoy the British (with supplies and some air units) during the Battle of Britain. They'd then be ready to move against Africa or Sicily somewhat sooner than IOTL. Finally (if the US didn't include Japan in their 1939 declaration of war) the Japanese would have to think how to handle things. Their only chance of a big surprise attack would be the Phillipines.
 
Even if the USA intervenes, will the Western Allies be able to defeat the OTL Axis plus the USSR? I'm inclined to doubt it.
 
I had an idea for a timeline where the Business Plot is real but gets foiled, leading to an aggressively anti-fascist United States declaring war on Germany in 1939 but that is the only way I can think the US would join the war against Germany this early.

teg
 
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