Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

Discussions on alternate history, including events up to 20 years before today. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
Locked
User avatar
Guaporense
Banned
Posts: 1866
Joined: 07 Oct 2009, 03:35
Location: USA

Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#1

Post by Guaporense » 16 Jul 2016, 20:23

Scenario: In 1941 Operation Barbarossa is launched and mostly succeeds, Moscow and the oil fields are taken along with half of the USSR's population. The USSR sues for peace in the second quarter of 1942. They do an peace agreement.

In light of these evens the US and the UK decide to go all crazy and try to invade and liberate Europe anyway, even accepting the massive human losses implied.

Strategic bombing alone is not going to cut it, first because to win a war one has to actually occupy the territory (Germany only surrendered when Berlin was taken, while Japan surrendered because it was starving to death and was in a completely hopeless strategic situation, the atomic bombings didn't significantly affect their decision, only the timing), second because strategic bombing, even in the highly favorable historical conditions of 1942-1945, didn't have much impact on German industrial production (at least not until the 4th quarter of 1944 when industrial production began to collapse but then the war was already lost on the ground and the industrial collapse was as much as function of the cut of inputs from occupied Europe and manpower drain to the Wehrmacht as it was of air raids). Also, without the USSR to worry about and plentiful oil, Germany could easily increase their flak strength and the size of their aerial superiority fleet, increasing allies loss rates from historical levels and preventing massive destruction (for example, if they maintained a 6% loss rate, bombers could only make about 12 sorties on average before being damaged beyond repair or destroyed, and with US's output of ca. 14,000 strategic bombers a year that means about 168,000 sorties a year, which implies in about 336,000 metric tons of bombs, which was the scale of bombing in Europe in 1943. That's not enough to seriously damage the German Grossraum's economy.

What would be required would be the formation of a huge ground army to substitute the Red Army. And the capacity to replace the massive casualties from large scale military confrontations with the Wehrmacht. On paper it looks like the Allies are still ok: the combined populations of US, Canada, UK and Australia were ca. 200 million versus 80 million for Germany, so they would have on paper the manpower advantage in a large scale war of attrition (like in WW1).

However, if one looks more closely it would be more complicated than that. Germany managed to field 280 divisions while suffering millions of casualties partly because they sacrificed a large air force and navy and also because they mobilized for total war to a higher extent than the Allies did while supplementing their domestic labor force with 8 million foreigners. The German Grossraum had the same population as the Western Allies did, about 200 million people, not including territories in the occupied USSR and Yugoslavia.

By the way, without the USSR in the equation the Axis and Allies both controlled a similar scale of economic resources, GDP in millions of 1990 dollars:

Western Allies ---------- 1,269,990
------- USA ---------------- 862,995
------- UK ----------------- 300,539
-------- Canada ------------ 55,167
-------- Australia ---------- 40,749
-------- New Zealand ----- 10,510

Axis --------------------- 1,218,482
----- Germany ----------- 428,750
----- France -------------- 200,840
----- Japan --------------- 166,506
----- Italy ---------------- 130,762
----- Poland --------------- 67,788
----- Netherlands --------- 48,687
----- Belgium ------------- 43,216
----- Czechoslovakia ----- 31,578
----- Hungary ------------- 26,184
----- Denmark ------------ 22,803
----- Romania ------------- 19,375
----- Greece -------------- 18,875
----- Norway -------------- 13,118

Source: 2013 estimates from the Maddison project. Japanese figures are from http://gpih.ucdavis.edu/files/Fukao_Ma_Yuan.pdf, which is further refined from Maddison's estimates.

By the way, total military expenditures of the Axis powers was similar in scale to the Allied powers for the 1940-1944 period: 240 billion for the Western Allies to 210 billion for the Axis powers, in 1939 dollars. The reason why the Allies had such great material superiority in 1944-1945 in the Western front was not due to a difference in aggregate resources but due to a difference in allocation of resources (there was something called "Eastern front", were the majority of the military resources of the Axis countries were allocated in :milwink: ). So just claiming "industrial resource superiority makes Western Allied victory automatic" is not just deterministic but factually incorrect: there was no such superiority if you actually analyze the data (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=212909), I think many historians like to ignore these details because they make Nazi Germany more scary.

Still, I think that Western Allied victory in Europe was possible, the reasons are the following:

1) First, the Allies could make peace with Japan and let then have East Asia (which means that they would be defeated there but that will allow them to focus on Germany). That's 167 billion dollars out of the Axis block.

2) Italy had a rather big GDP on paper but Italy lacked the will to fight a total war. So that's 131 billion out.

So that leaves us with 920 billion in the German Grossraum & allies (Romania & Hungary) to the Western Allies to deal with.

3) Germany did not fully integrate the Grossraum's economy with herself: Even with additional oil resources there will be an economic decline in occupied countries (thanks to Nazi policies) so Germany will not be able to harness all that economic potential.

I will go into more details on how many soldiers the Western Allies would need.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

User avatar
Guaporense
Banned
Posts: 1866
Joined: 07 Oct 2009, 03:35
Location: USA

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#2

Post by Guaporense » 16 Jul 2016, 23:32

How many troops the Western Allies could raise?

Historically the Western Allies had deployed 79 divisions in the ETO: US had 61, UK, 13 and Canada 5. That was a small fraction of all Allied forces in the ETO, which were 270 Soviet "divisions" (in terms of manpower) and another ca. 15 Allied divisions (French and Polish), totaling 363 divisions of which 22% were from the Anglo-Saxon countries.

While these 363 divisions crushed the Wehrmacht in the last 10 months of the war with a certain ease, a much smaller force wouldn't be able to do that. The Anglo-Saxon countries would need to increase the size of their ground forces greatly to be able to win. How many? Germany without the Eastern front would have a field army of ca. 4.5 million, of which 1 million in Italy, Norway and Balkans, leaving about 3.5 million in the Western front. The Allies would need to field at least ca. 5.5 million troops to attain a degree of numerical superiority to compensate their tactical inferiority, that's 220 divisions or 141 extra divisions from historical levels.

Allied combat losses in 11 months were 810,162 in 44-45, against a poorly supplied force of ca. 65-75 divisions with ca. 900,000 men. Now they would face 4 times the manpower and about 5-6 times the firepower. Which means losses could be around 300,000 men per month or 3.6 million men per year or even more (specially taking into account the decreasing quality of replacement troops). That would require the conscription of an additional ca. 2 million men per year (considering 30% of WIA is not recoverable and that adds up to ca. 55% of permanent casualties).

How they would raise more divisions? How would they conscript more men?

Well, first the Western Allies would make peace with Japan (i.e. accept defeat in Asia and leave Asia to Japan), that would enable the transfer of ca. 15 US divisions (out of 29 divisions outside of the ETO) and (guess) ca. 5 British Empire divisions to ETO. Now, they would need to raise another 120 divisions from their own manpower.

They could do that by cannibalizing their Navy and Airforces and the industries supporting those branches. The combined navies of US and UK had ca. 5 million men in 1943-45, they could cut it down by 2.5 million men without Japan and also cut down the manpower in the shipbuilding industry by one third at the same time (which employed ca. 2 million men in both countries), liberating about 3 million men or ca. 50 divisions (US army division slice was 60,000 men). The airforces of both countries had ca. 3.6 million men in 1944, they could cut it down to ca. 2 million men and reduce the number of aircraft produced from 122,000 to ca. 70,000 while cutting down to zero the production of strategic bombers (which I considered strategically inefficient), which would enable reduction of nearly 50% of the manpower in the aircraft industries and raw material providers (aluminum), etc, liberating about 1.5 million men in the industry and 1.6 million men in the airforces, which are equivalent to 51 divisions. Now we have additional 101 divisions just from cutting down navy and airforce strength.

Further increases in army manpower could be made by use of child labor in manufacturing and services and by mobilization of women into the army (for functions as snipers). As well as food rationing in the US (who consumed ca. 3,100 calories a day) would enable to decrease agricultural production and draft of agricultural manpower as well as service sector workers. Overall the Western Allies were mobilizing 45% of their GNP (UK) and 53-54% (US) in 1943-44, they could increase it further, to ca. 60% at maximum (Germany 43-44 was around that level), which would enable them to increase the size of their armed forces by 20% (UK), 10% (US), which was an additional 2 million men or ca. 33 divisions.

That adds up to a total of 154 additional divisions to the 79 they historically deployed in the Western front, or 233 divisions, enough to attain a certain degree of numerical superiority. :thumbsup:

Main problem is the conscription of 2 million men a year to replace losses. That's about twice the number of new recruits the US could provide (18 year olds) although conscripting 1 million men out of the civilian labor forces of both countries was possible for a few years (UK+US+Canada had total civilian labor force size of ca. 75 million)

Additional army equipment would not be needed and production of ammunition could be increased by shifting the bulk of the production of bombs into ground ammunition without increasing the size of the labor force in the production of ammunition.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz


Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8251
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#3

Post by Michael Kenny » 16 Jul 2016, 23:44

Guaporense wrote:. The Allies would need to field at least ca. 5.5 million troops to attain a degree of numerical superiority to compensate their tactical inferiority,
Start with a false premise and them use same premise to validate your mumbo-jumbo.
Classic!

Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8251
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#4

Post by Michael Kenny » 16 Jul 2016, 23:47

Guaporense wrote:
Allied combat losses in 11 months were 810,162 in 44-45, against a poorly supplied force of ca. 65-75 divisions with ca. 900,000 men..
Note posters favourite trick-leave out the enormous (400,000 in Normandy alone) German losses.

User avatar
T. A. Gardner
Member
Posts: 3546
Joined: 02 Feb 2006, 01:23
Location: Arizona

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#5

Post by T. A. Gardner » 17 Jul 2016, 00:30

Michael Kenny wrote:
Guaporense wrote:
Allied combat losses in 11 months were 810,162 in 44-45, against a poorly supplied force of ca. 65-75 divisions with ca. 900,000 men..
Note posters favourite trick-leave out the enormous (400,000 in Normandy alone) German losses.
Or, that the US never had to lower its draft standards or heavily culled units in non-combat regions of the world for replacements. The Coast Defense / Air defense Corps of the US Army alone could have supplied tens of thousands of replacement troops if necessary. Nor does Guaporense consider that only in the ETO alone, and only for a period of about 6 months do US casualties reach a point where emergency measures (such as disbanding some in-theater AAA units for replacements) are being taken to keep units at strength.
This was the exception, not the rule.

It pales compared to German responses to casualties. Lowering and widening draft standards. Using POW's in some support positions (Hiwis). Reducing TO&E's (such as reducing infantry divisions from 9 to 6 line battalions), or in October 1944 Himmler taking control of the replacement system then rounding up all available manpower and troops on leave, grabbing naval and Luftwaffe personnel to shove men to the front in an attempt to restore some level of capability to Wehrmacht divisions shattered in fighting since June 1944 (to include the destruction of AGC in that. The Russians smashed up the Germans as badly as the US and Britain did in that period).

User avatar
T. A. Gardner
Member
Posts: 3546
Joined: 02 Feb 2006, 01:23
Location: Arizona

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#6

Post by T. A. Gardner » 17 Jul 2016, 00:43

Guaporense wrote:. The Allies would need to field at least ca. 5.5 million troops to attain a degree of numerical superiority to compensate their tactical inferiority,
As noted elsewhere by me, 80 to 85% of the Wehrmacht was leg infantry formations. These were totally ineffective offensively against the Western Allies, and only marginally effective against the Red Army offensively. That leaves the Germans with a mere 15 to 20% of their field forces realistically capable of engaging their opponents offensively.

The reverse is not true for the Western Allies in particular. Any Western allied division was capable of effective offensive action. British / Commonwealth and US infantry divisions regularly conducted successful offensive operations, unlike their German counterparts. The Red Army was more dependent on their tank and mechanized corps for offensive action, but they could and did amass infantry formations in such number that these could be successful on their on offensively too.

As for "tactical inferiority," the Allies got better compared to the Germans as the level of operations rose. Sure, the Germans were a match, even more than a match for their opponents at the company level. At battalion, the Germans were even, or inferior. By regiment, the Germans were looking at inferiority. At the divisional level, one-on-one against the Western Allies the 3 out of 4 German divisions, give or take, didn't stand a chance in hell of winning on the defense, and had ZERO chance of winning in an offensive operation. Those divisions would be crushed by their Western Allied counterparts.

Take a standard, full strength, Type 44 German infantry division with typical support units. Put it up against a British or US infantry division with typical support units. The German formation is going to get smashed. It doesn't stand a chance.
Just on AFV alone, either Allied division will muster up 100+ tanks and tank destroyers. The Germans would have about 25 at most, possibly as little as 12. The Allied formations would have 3 + times the artillery and far, far better fire control for it than the Germans.
Sure, the German division tactically might pin the Allied front line companies right up until those companies use their radios and telephones to call in artillery, then get tank support, then coordinate with other companies more easily to roll up the German position. In the end, the Germans lose, and lose virtually every time.

User avatar
Cult Icon
Member
Posts: 4472
Joined: 08 Apr 2014, 20:00

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#7

Post by Cult Icon » 17 Jul 2016, 17:02

I personally think that the german panzer divisions and conventional light infantry at their prime (training and doctrine) were the standout performers of the war relative to their resources. This was related to the way they fought, trained and took risks. A US armored division heavy with german Pz commanders and troops would have more combat value. Ditto for say, the equipment and firepower of US infantry division if swapped for a early wave German infantry (Motorized) division.

I don't find the arguments to the contrary convincing and I have read them all. Given the strategic situation, the only useful comparable in the NWE was the Battle of the Bulge, where the strengths and the limitations of their doctrine was shown.

(now I just have to wait for the protests)

User avatar
Cult Icon
Member
Posts: 4472
Joined: 08 Apr 2014, 20:00

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#8

Post by Cult Icon » 18 Jul 2016, 01:47

"On paper it looks like the Allies are still ok: the combined populations of US, Canada, UK and Australia were ca. 200 million versus 80 million for Germany, so they would have on paper the manpower advantage in a large scale war of attrition (like in WW1)."

What you are missing in all your quite involved theories are doctrine, generalship, etc. Eg. how the troops would actually fight. The allies would not fight the same way as the Axis. They would probably favor the type of battle that more emphasizes logistics, strong defense, and frequent, broad advances.

The Germans fought a war of maneuver/infiltration with a gigantic infantry and concentrated Panzer (Pzgruppe) and close air support arm (Luftflotten) with violent and continuous pushes with long lead times in-between.

User avatar
Guaporense
Banned
Posts: 1866
Joined: 07 Oct 2009, 03:35
Location: USA

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#9

Post by Guaporense » 18 Jul 2016, 07:02

Allied casualties in a long land campaign agaist Germany

How many casualties would the Western Allies suffer in a long land campaign? Well, I estimated based on historical data that Western Allies would lose approximately 300,000 men a month, if the war is long and last about 50 months (the Western Front in WW1 lasted 50 months) that's 15 million casualties. How realistic is that?

Well, in WW1, the Western Allies, France, UK and USA, lost 6,160,800, 3,190,235 and 323,018 men against Germany, that's 9,674,053 casualties in the Western front. And also, in WW2, there was also an Eastern front, there Russia suffered 9,150,000 casualties. Source: https://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/ ... h_pop.html

In WW2, the Eastern front, where about 90% of German bloody casualties occurred (i.e. killed or wounded in action), the Soviet Union suffered 29,629,205 casualties. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War ... viet_Union, while Western Allied forces were of higher quality on average than Soviet forces that doesn't mean that their casualties could be expected to be at an order of magnitude smaller. In WW1 the Western Allies lost 9.15 million men and Germany mobilized 11 million soldiers, in WW2 Germany mobilized 17.9 million.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8251
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#10

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Jul 2016, 13:55

Guaporense wrote:[b[/b]

How many casualties would the Western Allies suffer in a long land campaign? Well, I estimated based on historical data that Western Allies would lose approximately 300,000 men a month........... How realistic is that?
Completely unrealistic considering we have data that shows actual losses in the summer of 1944 were 200,000 Allied and 400,000 German.

User avatar
Sheldrake
Member
Posts: 3726
Joined: 28 Apr 2013, 18:14
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#11

Post by Sheldrake » 18 Jul 2016, 16:02

Assuming there was no war in the pacific, there are a lot more more troops available for the War in Europe.

If the british really had top raise more men they could from the 300m imperial subjects and the dominions:

The British Indian army had 2.5 million men, fifteen infantry two armoured and a parachute division.
The Australia raised three divisions 6,7 and 9th
Canada five
Poland three
About four divisions were raised from Africa, but more could have been.

The allies had no shortage of material, but needed infantry soldiers. The cultural and educational background of British Africa and india was quite adequate to raise and train infantrymen. Some of the finest infantrymen in the world were from the Punjab, North west frontier and Nepal.

The war against German would cover the whole of Europe It could never merely be a cross channel invasion. The Middle east would have been a significant base for operations against the Balkans and southern Europe. It would have taken longer and as forces were raised from liberated areas the balance might turn slowly in the allies favour.

The other alternative would have been for the US and UK to cut their losses and bide their time until the Nazis and Soviets fell out.

Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8251
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#12

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Jul 2016, 17:03

All moot. Why is the 'bomb' not mentioned?

User avatar
stg 44
Member
Posts: 3376
Joined: 03 Dec 2002, 02:42
Location: illinois

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#13

Post by stg 44 » 18 Jul 2016, 18:00

Michael Kenny wrote:
Guaporense wrote:[b[/b]

How many casualties would the Western Allies suffer in a long land campaign? Well, I estimated based on historical data that Western Allies would lose approximately 300,000 men a month........... How realistic is that?
Completely unrealistic considering we have data that shows actual losses in the summer of 1944 were 200,000 Allied and 400,000 German.
That was in the context of the Germans putting the vast majority of their effort into the East historically, with a fraction of their combat strength being in France. Given the crushing material and numerical superiority the Allies inflicted about equal combat casualties on the Germans, while taking a lot of PoWs when the German army collapsed. In terms of ongoing combat without a German collapse and encirclement the the loss ratios will be about even and certainly higher than the Allies experienced historically, because the majority of German casualties that summer during the Normandy campaign and breakout came during the breakout phase and collapse of the German army in France. If the Germans had numerical parity and anywhere close to parity in material the Allies weren't going to break out and would suffer a lot worse in Normandy.

OpanaPointer
Financial supporter
Posts: 5644
Joined: 16 May 2010, 15:12
Location: United States of America

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#14

Post by OpanaPointer » 18 Jul 2016, 18:32

No Pacific war means the entire USN is in the Atlantic. That means the U-boat menace is reduced much quicker.
Come visit our sites:
hyperwarHyperwar
World War II Resources

Bellum se ipsum alet, mostly Doritos.

Michael Kenny
Member
Posts: 8251
Joined: 07 May 2002, 20:40
Location: Teesside

Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#15

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Jul 2016, 18:37

stg 44 wrote: That was in the context of the Germans putting the vast majority of their effort into the East...............
No.
These questions are always put by someone who wants the Germans to win. Therefore every German advantage is kept so as to get the result the posters wants. A war without Russia would result in a far smaller German military.
It is absurd to simply take the raw manpower numbers from the east and ignore that it was mainly horse-drawn. For instance the railways were vital to German movement and thus you could expect an Allied concentration on removing it. More importantly if you want to keep the German high manpower numbers becuase they reflect reality in 1944 then I want to keep the bomb that was a reality in 1945.
Berlin nuked, Hitler dead, you lose.

Locked

Return to “What if”