WWII - No America, No Lend Lease

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What is the earliest timeframe for Operation Vegeterian? Certainly not before 1942, as I think they did not have enough anthrax stockpiled? Besides, what happens to Tube Alloys without Americans? How long would it take British to come up with the bomb by themselves?

IIRC, even without the embargo, Japan would have trouble buying oil, as they had exhausted their foreign currency reserves. It might take a bit longer, but they would be forced to grab them some oil embargo or not.

If Soviets eventually win, they would be much much more hostile to the West. This timeline might get very very ugly one.
 
What is the earliest timeframe for Operation Vegeterian? Certainly not before 1942, as I think they did not have enough anthrax stockpiled? Besides, what happens to Tube Alloys without Americans? How long would it take British to come up with the bomb by themselves?
If the Tube Alloys research had continued in Canada on the path it started on OTL before the US took over, I'd say a Commonwealth bomb by ... '47? but production rate would likely be one every couple of months rather than a couple every month.
 
Okay, so the requirements for this scenario are either B or C, meaning it won't attack Japan.

One possible POD I've trotted out before: on April 26, 1942, the quarter-mile wide asteroid 69230 Hermes barely missed the Earth. What if it had not missed? Let's randomly tap Dayton Ohio as the impact point: pretty much all of Ohio, Indiana and southern Michigan would have been torched and flattened like Tunguska.

It would not quite cause a global winter; and the United States would remain intact as a society, but would not be capable of Lend-Lease aid or troop involvement in Europe. The Manhattan Project would probably be shelved indefinitely. A much longer, bloodier (and snowier) WWII would have to proceed without us.
 
That has nothing to do with what he said, Blair.
the soviets had critical manpower problems in 1945

if you take away lend lease's mobilization powers on the red army, and compel the russian war economy to produce that food, the trucks, the cloth, the aviation fuel, the tanks, the aircraft, the radios, the water proof telephone wire (a notorious russian shortage item), the locomotives, the half tracks etc etc etc; they will simply not be able to field as large an army, with the replacement capacity they displayed during the war... they would be saddled with limitations more in line with the czar's army's in ww1

i have seen estimates that say without lend lease that the Russians lose at minimum 2 million men from their theoretical mobilization capacity.... 2 million men with the high losses of otl (not accounting for reduced Russian performance due to production shortfalls/food short falls/ and inferior quality of certain Russian produced items (like telephone wire and radios)) brings their manpower issues to a head in mid 44 at the latest and starts handicapping their offensives
 

ccdsah

Donor
If the Tube Alloys research had continued in Canada on the path it started on OTL before the US took over, I'd say a Commonwealth bomb by ... '47? but production rate would likely be one every couple of months rather than a couple every month.

You're dreaming Manhattan Project costs per wiki

The project expenditure through 1 October 1945 was $1.845 billion, equivalent to less than nine days of wartime spending, and was $2.191 billion when the AEC assumed control on 1 January 1947. Total allocation was $2.4 billion. Over 90% of the cost was for building plants and producing the fissionable materials, and less than 10% for development and production of the weapons.[284][285]
A total of four weapons (the Trinity gadget, Little Boy, Fat Man, and an unused bomb) were produced by the end of 1945, making the average cost per bomb around $500 million in 1945 dollars. By comparison, the project's total cost by the end of 1945 was about 90% of the total spent on the production of US small arms (not including ammunition) and 34% of the total spent on US tanks during the same period.[283]

The BRits would be bankrupt by 1947 if not sooner
 
the soviets had critical manpower problems in 1945

if you take away lend lease's mobilization powers on the red army, and compel the russian war economy to produce that food, the trucks, the cloth, the aviation fuel, the tanks, the aircraft, the radios, the water proof telephone wire (a notorious russian shortage item), the locomotives, the half tracks etc etc etc; they will simply not be able to field as large an army, with the replacement capacity they displayed during the war... they would be saddled with limitations more in line with the czar's army's in ww1

i have seen estimates that say without lend lease that the Russians lose at minimum 2 million men from their theoretical mobilization capacity.... 2 million men with the high losses of otl (not accounting for reduced Russian performance due to production shortfalls/food short falls/ and inferior quality of certain Russian produced items (like telephone wire and radios)) brings their manpower issues to a head in mid 44 at the latest and starts handicapping their offensives

Again, Blair, this is entirely missing the actual point. I'm sure if you go back and re-read the posts linked in sequence, you'll see what the actual point being discussed was.
 
The British were on the verge producing anthrax bombs which could seed a medium sized city by 1945, and they didn't receive much American support for the project save for the final assembly line for the bombs. 6 would have been ready by 1945, with more on the way.
 
No Lend Lease... Was not this situation in 1918? America did not support Russia, so Germany defeated Russia, but then America defeated Germany.
 
The posts in this thread focus on a fight to the end between Germany & the USSR, perhaps to a sort of Ragnorak, leaving both sides stripped of men, impoverished, & exhausted in morale. A alternate might be that after defeating multiple German offensives in 1943 Stalin seeks & gets a armistice & perhaps some sort of peace treaty. There are good arguments why this won't last, but it gives both sides the opportunity to cut their losses for a few years and recover.
 
You're dreaming Manhattan Project costs per wiki

The project expenditure through 1 October 1945 was $1.845 billion, equivalent to less than nine days of wartime spending, and was $2.191 billion when the AEC assumed control on 1 January 1947. Total allocation was $2.4 billion. Over 90% of the cost was for building plants and producing the fissionable materials, and less than 10% for development and production of the weapons.[284][285]
A total of four weapons (the Trinity gadget, Little Boy, Fat Man, and an unused bomb) were produced by the end of 1945, making the average cost per bomb around $500 million in 1945 dollars. By comparison, the project's total cost by the end of 1945 was about 90% of the total spent on the production of US small arms (not including ammunition) and 34% of the total spent on US tanks during the same period.[283]

The BRits would be bankrupt by 1947 if not sooner

This is as misleading as anything else I've read. The cost of the US project was badly inflated for several reasons. One was the extreme fast track nature of the project, that incurred a lot of waste costs. i.e: the funds allocated for heavy water production, just in case the graphite moderator did not work out. Or leasing the Red Gate Woods area for a Plutonium production site. That and the engineering planning for using it @ Oak Ridge as a Plutonium production site added to the overhead of the project. There are endless examples of the managers spending funds on multiple solutions before it was clear which would be the better. Fast tracking projects like this is invariably much more costly, but it can accelerate results, cutting time to production up to 50% depending on how much money one cares to burn.

The ultimate example of this in the MANHATTAN Project is that not one but two bomb programs were run simultaneously. In 1942 it was not clear which would be more practical, a Plutonium or a Uranium bomb. Research & production for both were rolled into the same effort. Given a extra 10 - 18 months for more deliberate research and planning a lot of the waste could have been avoided. A single bomb type is likely to have been selected leading to further efficiencies. The idea that the cost of the MANHATTAN Project, which were peculiar to the circumstances, can be applied in a simple minded lump to other alternate A bomb development projects is sloppy thinking.
 
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