Would the Wallies have made peace if Stalin dropped out of WW2?

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There's also the issue that the WAllies can land in peripheral theaters (e.g. Spain) if they fear the Atlantic Wall is too strong, and start pushing from there, stretching the Germans thinner and thinner.

But the whole point is kinda moot, since their bomber offensive was bound to shut down German transportation infrastructure sooner or later, whilst A-Bomb production was to be around 3-4 per month (dropped off OTL at the end of the war before picking back up, but that was more a lack of will, not capacity). Germany cannot sustain having 3-4 cities per month crippled by nuclear fire for very long.
 
LOL CalBEar argueing PRO WWII-Germany ;)

/And I tend to agree with his reasoning)

BTW while startegic bombing has its values, GErmany produced MORE in 1944 than 1939 despite constantly being bombed.

When not fighting the Russians more resources will be used for the Ludtwaffe and maybe the Kriegsmarine simply because not fighting the Russians mean you don't have to replace your Heer losses.


Jagdgeschwader get transferred from the east to the west,...

Overall the balance of power shifts considerlbly

Go to the second half of 1945 - Germany will have increasing numbers of Type XXI s available - that boat is probably running circles around (and under) Allied shipping

I dion't doubt that in the long run the Wallies will win on their own, but at which losses and when is the question. Are they willing to devote themselves to the task?
 

Wendigo

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The Reich originally panned to have a a defensive network extending inland for 5-7 MILES, with reinforced concrete pill boxes, tank traps, trench lines, minefields (for some odd reason the IJA wasn't really a big fan of mines), pre-registered mortars and artillery, the works, backed up by mobile heavy armored forces.. If Rommel had been able to finish the defenses, it would have been a bloodbath to end all bloodbaths. Just getting a toehold would have been worse than the estimates for all of Operation Downfall.

How long would it take Rommel to finish building the Atlantic Wall and how much resources would the Reich need to use to do so (slave laborers etc)?
 
In 1943 the Allies didn't know about the G-agents and didn't believe such weapons were possible (though the Germans didn't know they didn't know due to the blackout on publication about organo-phosphate research in the journals to protect DDT).

Also, in 1943 Operation Vegetarian was a paper plan; the UK didn't have the capacity to product anthrax spores in sufficient quantity (or anything more than test/research quantities), it was a US plant that eventually produced them in 1945.

Where did I say that the truce had to happen in 1943? I'm assuming the course of events which would follow a Soviet defeat in late 1942 or shortly later would be Germany and the Wallies jockeying for position for a few more years with the British and Americans making the final decision about whether to continue the war or not sometime in 1944 or early 1945.
 
Britain has poison gas of its own, and Operation Vegetarian, and the Americans will be along in a few years with nukes. If Germany goes of gas, it's going to stop existing.

Also, once North Africa is secure (pretty non-negitiable, the infrastructure in Axis North Africa isn't good enough to allow victory), expect an all-out bomber offensive again Baku and Ploesti.

And absolutely none of that would stop Germany from gassing Britain and the Nazi regime would have no incentive not to do so in a situation in which it is already going down to defeat in any case. We know with hindsight that they were reluctant to use their chemical weapons, but the Wallies couldn't know that at the time.
 
Where did I say that the truce had to happen in 1943? I'm assuming the course of events which would follow a Soviet defeat in late 1942 or shortly later would be Germany and the Wallies jockeying for position for a few more years with the British and Americans making the final decision about whether to continue the war or not sometime in 1944 or early 1945.
Still not really relevant. Anthrax wouldn't be available in quantity until mid 1945, and the Allies still wouldn't know about the G-agents until they were used or captured.
 
OTL. In a TL where the Soviets have folded, the Germans can afford to extend the Atlantic Wall to cover the Med approaches.

Using what? I don't recall the Eastern Front, even Hitler's "fortress city" projects, ever taking up that much steel or concrete. Even if the Germans somehow managed to build a series of fortifications similar to those that existed in Normandy the south of France lacked the same sheer cliff faces and tangled bocage country of the former. Once the defensive wall is pierced (like it was on the first day at Normandy) the going would be much faster.

That the WAllies outclassed the Germans in 1944 in maneuver warfare was a direct function of the Germans best maneuver forces having already died against the Soviets. They never managed to outperform the Germans in 1941/42... or the Soviets in 1944/45, for that matter...

Not necessarily. Even if the German forces in the West were three times greater than in OTL, Eastern front or not the vast majority of the Wehrmacht had always been horse drawn and totally unable to spearhead an offensive action, much less fight a maneuver battle, against the Allied armies or even the Soviets. On the other hand, every single US and British division was completely motorized. The Germans enjoyed some success in the West when they had the benefit of fixed defensive positions or natural obstacles such as the Westwall to anchor themselves, by which point politics and casualty-aversion took over on the Allied side, but in the open field they were outclassed and with the added benefit of air superiority totally helpless as the breakout from Normandy - the first time the Allies and Germans ever fought such a battle on the Army Group level post-1940 - proved. Under such conditions there is little reason to believe this go-round would be any different, only on a much larger scale.

The Reich originally panned to have a a defensive network extending inland for 5-7 MILES, with reinforced concrete pill boxes, tank traps, trench lines, minefields (for some odd reason the IJA wasn't really a big fan of mines), pre-registered mortars and artillery, the works, backed up by mobile heavy armored forces.. If Rommel had been able to finish the defenses, it would have been a bloodbath to end all bloodbaths. Just getting a toehold would have been worse than the estimates for all of Operation Downfall.

The Japanese defenses on Kyushu were actually much deeper than this - in particular the zone facing west behind Ariake Bay extended for more than 30 km before it ran into Kagoshima Bay. The thinnest fortified regions on the beachfront, those at Miyazaki, were themselves over 5 miles deep.
 

CalBear

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...

The Japanese defenses on Kyushu were actually much deeper than this - in particular the zone facing west behind Ariake Bay extended for more than 30 km before it ran into Kagoshima Bay. The thinnest fortified regions on the beachfront, those at Miyazaki, were themselves over 5 miles deep.

They were. I would, however, note that in this scenario, the defenders would be much better armed, but would also need to fortify a larger area and with a building timelimited time. While there is no real need to build a super dense belt that covers every inch of the European Continent, the defenses would need to run from Huisduinen in Northern Holland to Brest, not in a continuous concrete wall, but in depth, and it is likely that the depth of the defensive belt would deepen as the American landings in the Pacific demonstrated the need for deeper and more interlocked block house systems.

I have noticed some folks are advocating going in via the Med. Extremely difficult in this scenario. Unlike IOTL, the Heer would still have major maneuver elements available to move against any landing. The WAllies would need to take both Sardinia and Corsica, in addition to Sicily and Italy as far north as Rome, if not Piombino. After securing those regions it will then be necessary to move ALL the logistical base that existed on England and move it to the Med. Dragoon was managed on a relatively small scale, with a single corps as the landing force. That size landing would be pocketed and wiped out in the sort of scenario under discussion. It could be done, but it would require effort on a scale of Downfall (even the distances are similar to Olympic's plan), and Olympic was only designed to capture PART of Kyushu. The Kyushu landing was also much "lighter" than what would be needed for a ramped up Dragoon, since the Heer was a tank heavy force, expecially compared to the Japanese Army of 1945 which was fuel starved and had almost no decent tanks.
 

Wendigo

Banned
They were. I would, however, note that in this scenario, the defenders would be much better armed, but would also need to fortify a larger area and with a building timelimited time. While there is no real need to build a super dense belt that covers every inch of the European Continent, the defenses would need to run from Huisduinen in Northern Holland to Brest, not in a continuous concrete wall, but in depth, and it is likely that the depth of the defensive belt would deepen as the American landings in the Pacific demonstrated the need for deeper and more interlocked block house systems.

I have noticed some folks are advocating going in via the Med. Extremely difficult in this scenario. Unlike IOTL, the Heer would still have major maneuver elements available to move against any landing. The WAllies would need to take both Sardinia and Corsica, in addition to Sicily and Italy as far north as Rome, if not Piombino. After securing those regions it will then be necessary to move ALL the logistical base that existed on England and move it to the Med. Dragoon was managed on a relatively small scale, with a single corps as the landing force. That size landing would be pocketed and wiped out in the sort of scenario under discussion. It could be done, but it would require effort on a scale of Downfall (even the distances are similar to Olympic's plan), and Olympic was only designed to capture PART of Kyushu. The Kyushu landing was also much "lighter" than what would be needed for a ramped up Dragoon, since the Heer was a tank heavy force, expecially compared to the Japanese Army of 1945 which was fuel starved and had almost no decent tanks.

How long would it take for Rommel to complete the Wall to the above specifications?
 
I have noticed some folks are advocating going in via the Med. Extremely difficult in this scenario. Unlike IOTL, the Heer would still have major maneuver elements available to move against any landing. The WAllies would need to take both Sardinia and Corsica, in addition to Sicily and Italy as far north as Rome, if not Piombino. After securing those regions it will then be necessary to move ALL the logistical base that existed on England and move it to the Med. Dragoon was managed on a relatively small scale, with a single corps as the landing force. That size landing would be pocketed and wiped out in the sort of scenario under discussion. It could be done, but it would require effort on a scale of Downfall (even the distances are similar to Olympic's plan), and Olympic was only designed to capture PART of Kyushu. The Kyushu landing was also much "lighter" than what would be needed for a ramped up Dragoon, since the Heer was a tank heavy force, expecially compared to the Japanese Army of 1945 which was fuel starved and had almost no decent tanks.

I agree to an extent: if any coalition of powers was capable of the logistical effort necessary for Dragoon 2.0, it was the US and Britain. Should an effort to invade Normandy be deemed a bloodbath waiting to happen by SIGINT southern France was the only plausible alternative; it would have been hard to put together but ultimately might have wrought more dividends than bleeding out in the hedgerows after grinding through a beefed up Atlantic Wall against a massively reinforced Wehrmacht positioned in such a way that would have maximized the effectiveness of their more static divisions... It would have been World War I all over again. Then again, the full reality of the hedgerows was only ever grasped until AFTER the Allies had already taken the plunge...

Comparing Kyushu to France is also a bit Apples to Oranges because of the mountainous topography of that island, the short frontages that would have resulted, and the operational objective of Olympic, that is, to establish a forward base for the main assault on Honshu. Unlike Overlord, Olympic never intended to take the whole territory and had limited goals from the start.
 
And absolutely none of that would stop Germany from gassing Britain and the Nazi ...... We know with hindsight that they were reluctant to use their chemical weapons, but the Wallies couldn't know that at the time.
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That is because German meteorologists studied PREVAILING WINDS and feared that any NBC weapons dropped on England or France would eventually blow onto German soil.
 
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That is because German meteorologists studied PREVAILING WINDS and feared that any NBC weapons dropped on England or France would eventually blow onto German soil.

Source? Even if this is true, it completely overlooks that (as I said in the part you ignored) the Nazi regime would have no incentive not to try them if they're loosing anyway.
 

CalBear

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Source? Even if this is true, it completely overlooks that (as I said in the part you ignored) the Nazi regime would have no incentive not to try them if they're loosing anyway.
To see the prevailing wind patterns at that latitude all you need to do is watch weather patterns as they cross the Northeast U.S. and Canada. London & Berlin are slightly north of Calgary. Storms come out of the Denmark straight and cross Northern Europe (BTW: this is why the Allies knew that there would be a break in the weather on June 5-8, 1944, they had weather stations on Iceland and Green land, German efforts to set up stations were consistently hunted down and destroyed when they broadcast, as were KM weather ships).
 
To see the prevailing wind patterns at that latitude all you need to do is watch weather patterns as they cross the Northeast U.S. and Canada. London & Berlin are slightly north of Calgary. Storms come out of the Denmark straight and cross Northern Europe (BTW: this is why the Allies knew that there would be a break in the weather on June 5-8, 1944, they had weather stations on Iceland and Green land, German efforts to set up stations were consistently hunted down and destroyed when they broadcast, as were KM weather ships).

Look, I'm not saying that chemical weapons would be a certain way the Wallies would be convinced to accept a ceasefire, and I wasn't trying to say they'd for certain have been devastatingly effective, just that they could make a difference in a situation in which they're giving serious consideration to both available courses of action, which many seem to think is at least possible.
 

Wendigo

Banned
Source? Even if this is true, it completely overlooks that (as I said in the part you ignored) the Nazi regime would have no incentive not to try them if they're loosing anyway.

They were losing in 1944 and 1945 yet Hitler never authorized the use of CW even though they had thousands of tons of nerve gas.

If Himmler was in charge then there's a high chance of CW being used. If Hitler is still alive in the event of a war starting up again with the WAllies (AANW) then there's a high chance they wouldn't be used.
 
And absolutely none of that would stop Germany from gassing Britain and the Nazi regime would have no incentive not to do so in a situation in which it is already going down to defeat in any case. We know with hindsight that they were reluctant to use their chemical weapons, but the Wallies couldn't know that at the time.
The British would have the advantage in aircraft, so the Germans would mostly be limited to rockets. And remember, the Germans didn't use gas in trying to hold back the allies once they got into Germany, a limitation the British didn't put themselves under, they were prepared to use a variety of chemical weapons from the get-go.
 
They were losing in 1944 and 1945 yet Hitler never authorized the use of CW even though they had thousands of tons of nerve gas.

If Himmler was in charge then there's a high chance of CW being used. If Hitler is still alive in the event of a war starting up again with the WAllies (AANW) then there's a high chance they wouldn't be used.

The British would have the advantage in aircraft, so the Germans would mostly be limited to rockets. And remember, the Germans didn't use gas in trying to hold back the allies once they got into Germany, a limitation the British didn't put themselves under, they were prepared to use a variety of chemical weapons from the get-go.

Agreed, but that's not the issue. What I'm trying to say is that the Wallies, faced with the situation the OP lays out, won't know about Hitler's reluctance. He wouldn't send a message saying "I won't use CW even if I have nothing to lose." And again, I'm not saying that it would be a certain detterent, just that it would be one element which would tend to influence the situation in the direction of a ceasefire if there are those who are already inclined towards one.
 

Oceano

Banned
WAllies peace out, proceed to clean Japan's clocks, come back in the early fifties with a rain of nukes. War won, Hitler is either dead already or gets killed by his subordinates in short order, Germany surrenders, war over. Anyone that argues can argue with the huge American/British/Canadian/French Resistance army and their friends from all over Latin America and former british colonies.
 

CalBear

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How long would it take for Rommel to complete the Wall to the above specifications?
Once again, it depends. What is the deal with the USSR? Status quo antebellum, including the same shipments of materials? Does the Reich get all of Poland? Does it get increased shipments of materials? Did it gain additional territory? Baltic States? Western Ukraine? Territorial gain provide more forced workers.

The answer to the time it will take is entirely tied up in those questions? If the Reich has access to significant resources out of the USSR, then it can do much more, and much more quickly, than if it is getting somewhere near the pre-war shipment level.

If the resources are available it then becomes a matter of moving forced labor from Poland to supplement the 600,000+ French workers conscripted by the Vichy IOTL. Adding workers obviously increases production as long as supply is available. Concrete isn't difficult to produce in bulk (Portland cement does not use anything that could be seen as rare or subject to shortages due to the WAllied blockade) and often makes use of what is seen as waste from other industrial processes) Steel for reinforcement is one of the easiest things for a plant to manufacture, Soviet shipments could readily include tons of rebar even in a nearly status quo peace deal, Soviet plants were producing a great deal of steel, even without Lend Lease. The biggest limitation would be draft horses.

If you take two million forced laborers (IOTL it approached 1M a couple times, but was usually closer to 350K) and use the frontage I discussed earlier, you are talking around 3,000 laborers per mile. probably 2/3 of them are involved in prep work, rock crushing for aggregate, cutting rebar, felling trees, making forms, otherwise getting the actual materials in ready condition and moved. That leave 1,000 people to do the construction manual labor, 110 people can readily dig a 1,500 meter trench in a week (that is one two meter deep, two meter long and one meter wide hole a day, per person, so I am going WAY low on productivity), 400 can position prefabricated forms and rebar over the same distance in a week, the rest can mix and pour the concrete. (It is hard labor, and these are not going to be the ideal workers, so keep that in mind when you realize who low the overall productivity is). That gets five miles square of concrete lined trenches,space 400 meters apart with lateral communication trenches in around 18 weeks. Adding a series of combination mg positions and shelters from bombing/shelling is another 12 weeks. Heavy pillboxes for machine guns, light AT/anti-boat guns partly dug in so only about two feet of the bunker is visible, with overburden added back over the top, figure 50 laborers for three days or 20 or so a week, 10 for bigger, more elaborate set ups for heavy guns. In a year you have a stretch of fortification from Brest to Northern Holland with trenches, dugouts, and 300-400 bunkers in each five miles square in a year. Of course these are averages, in some areas it will be easier, others much more difficult, and the time frame can be compressed with additional personnel (and horses, don't forget the horses) and sped even further if any significant amount of earth moving equipment is available.

There can be some interdiction of the transport, but that means less effort in the strategic offensive against Germany, and it took a good deal of experimentation by the USAAF to get a really useful tactical application that interdicted transport, and it only really worked once the Luftwaffe was defeated, something that is going to considerably more difficult in this scenario.
 
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