How bad would Allied casualties be if the Reich defeated the USSR?

[TheMarcksPlan]

So the Allies have to invade Italy.

The JCS planned to pivot to the strategic defensive in Europe if Germany defeated SU; they realized that any invasion of Europe would have been suicidal until/unless a massively expanded army was built up and/or the German economy was destroyed by bombing. While I agree with your analysis re the politics of not doing anything in Europe, the politics of donating a large army to German POW camps and graveyards would have been even worse.

Their progress in Italy would be much slower than OTL, forcing them to launch Overlord anyway.

There would have been no progress in Italy. The OTL German forces in Italy were ~300k; sending even a quarter of the Ostheer into Italy makes it the above-mentioned donation of soldiers.

Wallies could perhaps have taken Sicily, however, if they can cut off communications across the Messina Strait. OTL they failed entirely to do so, however, as the strait is only ~2 miles wide and the Germans concentrated enough Flak to make the area a no-go zone for airplanes flying low enough to effectively attack shipping. Perhaps it would be feasible to destroy/suppress the Flak concentrations with high-altitude heavy bombing, but that would have required relocating an enormous portion of the strategic bomber force. Maybe deploy heavy fleet assets to bombard the Strait? That exposes the fleet to the LW, however.

[TheMarcksPlan]

The country was fully mobilised and all that remained was to change the distribution of manpower as the strategy of war demanded

This was pretty much true of the US as well - any increase in army size (necessary to fight the Heer one-on-one) would have come from war production and/or other service arms. From the Combined Production and Resources Board's July 1, 1944 report to Roosevelt:

It is estimated that a 30 percent reduction in U.S. munitions production levels would directly or indirectly release about 4 million workers

http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resou ... fa0081.pdf (page 47 of the pdf)

Working backwards from this estimate, moving 4 million more men into the army would give 60-70 more U.S. divisions at OTL divisional manpower slice (~60k) and would cause a ~30% drop in U.S. munitions production.

Of course these are extremely high-level estimates but they give the shape of the conundrum that would have faced the Wallies if they wanted to invade Europe against an undistracted Heer.

This conundrum was recognized early on by U.S. planners - as I've discussed in a now-locked thread, the Victory Program of 1941 likewise opined that raising an army sufficient to invade Europe after Germany's (then-anticipated) defeat of Russia would have required so much manpower that the production side would have been endangered. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=247189

-------------------------------------

The high-level strategic view is that an attacker typically needs a dramatic strength advantage to succeed.

Once Germany has defeated the SU, incorporated its resources, and revived European economies in part with those resources (most critically food and oil), the Axis/Allies resource balance is essentially even:




Even the defeat of Japan only gives the Wallies something like 30-50% greater economic resources than the European axis and perhaps lower depending on relative mobilization levels.

But of course the Wallies have to spend massively on things the Axis does not, most critically shipping and a surface fleet.

And then there's the basic military inefficiency of Wallied strategy: strategic bombing is far more expensive than strategic aerial defense.

So the Wallies need to adopt the more military efficient land-based strategy, build a giant army, and slug it out against the Heer.

That's going to cost millions of American/British lives of course. And I don't think this was a politically feasible option.

[Takao]

single source

Aside from the blatant misrepresentation here (I've cited How the War was Won and Global Logistics and Strategy), it's amusing to be criticized as "single-sourced" by someone who has provided ZERO sources for his position.

One again, Richard: please provide a single source supporting your position that the US didn't prioritize aircraft production at the expense of land weapons.

Blatant misrepresentation...Yes, TMP, you are guilty of it.

From Global Logistics and Strategy 1943-1945. Pg. 116

Limitations on productive capacity combined with voluntary reductions in military requirements in producing the gap. Often it was difficult too see which came first - reduction because of lesser need or evidence that productive capacity would prove insufficient to fill the original requirement. Over all, the reductions had a broad strategic basis for, contrary to original Victory Program estimates, the USSR continued to tie down the great bulk of the German Army and mass invasion of the European Continent was delayed. In making the reductions, nevertheless, they appeared far more closely related to limitations. On the national economy than to changes in strategic concepts.

Right here it is telling you...Russia is hanging tough & we are not going to Europe - hence the US Army doesn't need all their shiny new toys right now. Besides, we probably can't make them all now, anyway.


Further, on the same page, it goes on about how the USAAF was forced to reduce it's 1943 goal, set in November, 1942, of 107,000 aircraft(80,000 being combat aircraft). Gen. Arnold, before the end of 1942, warned his staff not to count on 80,000 aircraft of all types. By mid-year the WPB informed them that maximum expectation would be only 95,000(actual production was 85,898). The 1944 goal was reduced from 150,000 to 120,000.


However, the defeat of Russia will change all of these production requirements.

As to labor, the Americans lived pretty high on the hog throughout the war, compared to Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, etc. So, labor cuts to civilian markets is very doable to free up more labor.

For someone who thinks very outside the box in his what-ifs...You seem quite straight-knackered when it comes to how the opposition will react.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Right here it is telling you...Russia is hanging tough & we are not going to Europe - hence the US Army doesn't need all their shiny new toys right now. Besides, we probably can't make them all now, anyway.

This is exactly supportive of my thesis that aircraft production cut into army supply; it's simply amazing that you don't see this.

The U.S. couldn't have built as large an air force if it had built a larger army. As you say, "we probably can't make them all." QED.

You appear to have confused an argument over whether this was a justified choice (bigger AAF, smaller army) with an argument over whether it was, in fact, the choice that the U.S. made.

Now that you have admitted that "larger air force for smaller army" was, in fact, the choice actually made, perhaps you and Richard can move on to the next issues.

For the purposes of this ATL, those issues are:

(1) whether the choice of "more planes, fewer soldiers" would have worked against Germany given the fall of the SU.

OR

(2) whether the US/UK would/should have made a different choice (more soldiers, fewer planes), whether that strategy would have worked, and at what cost to the Wallies.

Regarding (1) - my answer is no, as discussed throughout this thread.

Regarding (2) - I'd say 5-10 million Wallied casulaties if they throw everything into an invasion of Europe.

--------------------------------------------------

Interested to hear everyone else's thoughts on the shape of a massive Wallies v. European Axis land war and who wins.

I lean towards the Wallies win if they're absolutely committed to this fight. They have a much deeper bench of manpower than Germany for a long, land-based war of attrition.

I have my doubts about the political feasibility of such commitment.

[Takao]

Right here it is telling you...Russia is hanging tough & we are not going to Europe - hence the US Army doesn't need all their shiny new toys right now. Besides, we probably can't make them all now, anyway.

This is exactly supportive of my thesis that aircraft production cut into army supply; it's simply amazing that you don't see this.

The U.S. couldn't have built as large an air force if it had built a larger army. As you say, "we probably can't make them all." QED.

You appear to have confused an argument over whether this was a justified choice (bigger AAF, smaller army) with an argument over whether it was, in fact, the choice that the U.S. made.

Now that you have admitted that "larger air force for smaller army" was, in fact, the choice actually made, perhaps you and Richard can move on to the next issues.

For the purposes of this ATL, those issues are:

(1) whether the choice of "more planes, fewer soldiers" would have worked against Germany given the fall of the SU.

OR

(2) whether the US/UK would/should have made a different choice (more soldiers, fewer planes), whether that strategy would have worked, and at what cost to the Wallies.

Regarding (1) - my answer is no, as discussed throughout this thread.

Regarding (2) - I'd say 5-10 million Wallied casulaties if they throw everything into an invasion of Europe.

--------------------------------------------------

Interested to hear everyone else's thoughts on the shape of a massive Wallies v. European Axis land war and who wins.

I lean towards the Wallies win if they're absolutely committed to this fight. They have a much deeper bench of manpower than Germany for a long, land-based war of attrition.

I have my doubts about the political feasibility of such commitment.

Actually, it is not supportive of your thesis...

Because, as always, you forget things.

You've forgotten that the Soviet Union has fallen.

Thus, the US has 8,000 extra aircraft, 4,000+ extra tanks, and 200,000+ extra motor vehicles- this is just through 1943. plus all the other goodies that were given to them.


However, aircraft hold up would still be training, as training numbers were not meeting production numbers by 1944.

[Richard Anderson]

single source

Aside from the blatant misrepresentation here (I've cited How the War was Won and Global Logistics and Strategy), it's amusing to be criticized as "single-sourced" by someone who has provided ZERO sources for his position.

One again, Richard: please provide a single source supporting your position that the US didn't prioritize aircraft production at the expense of land weapons.

Blatant misrepresentation...Yes, TMP, you are guilty of it.

No kidding. Single-source reporting as in he looks for confirmation of O'Brien, so Googles until he finds a random quote in a single source that he promptly pretends confirms what he claims, which was "Roosevelt ordered a slashing of Army procurement programs in late '42 to enable higher production of aircraft and shipping." The single source he finds then becomes plural "sources".

Mind, you there is also no evidence that is in fact what O'Brien says (TBH I have not read him, nor, given the reviews, do I think I will read him, especially if he says something so blatantly incorrect)...and never mind, yet again, that is not what it says in Global Logistics and Strategy. There was no "order" from "Roosevelt" "slashing" programs and the OP is struggling to find such an order or slashing...it certainly isn't evidenced in the actual procurement figures, which, as I already showed, demonstrates increased spending year over year 1941-1942-1943-1944. The AAF share increased, but the procurement of armor was not "slashed" in 1942...it increased, until reductions began in late 1943. And the reason for that reduction was that the industry actually achieved its goals by 1942...it was a victim of its own success.

Global Logistics and Strategy is actually addressing the consequences of the manpower rebalancing, which was continuous from 1942-1945, and which affected all services. If he has a true interest in that I would recommend Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army 1775-1945. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1955.

Nor do I have a "position" such as the OP so confidentiality espouses for me, but I can certainly support my posts. Data on War Department procurement are from Richard H. Crawford and Lindsley F. Cook, The United States Army in World War II, Statistics, Procurement. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1952. Data on U.S. aircraft industry employment is from Aircraft Industries Association of America, Inc, Aviation Facts and Figures 1945, ed. Rudolf Modley, New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1945. Information on the procurement complications created by differing priorities may be found in Civilian Production Administration, "Test Supplement" to the Official Munitions Production of the United States by Months, July 1, 1940 – August 31 1945, Washington, D.C.: War Production Board, 1947. A very good modern scholarly examination of the subject, albeit short, are the essays found in Alan L. Gropman, ed., Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II, McNair Paper 50, Washington, D.C., INSS NDU, August 1996.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Actually, it is not supportive of your thesis...

Because, as always, you forget things.

You've forgotten that the Soviet Union has fallen.

That's not at all relevant to the discussion of whether the U.S. made the choice "larger AF, smaller army," a point you've now conceded though perhaps without understanding your concession.

I have always thought that you and Richard were arguing from an emotional defense of whether US strategic choices were justified, as opposed to recognizing which choices were actually made.

For others reading along, I hope this makes clear the grounds of the discussion. I doubt that anyone seriously doubts that the U.S. had to make strategic tradeoffs in WW2, and that one of them was to build a larger AF and smaller army.

Thus, the US has 8,000 extra aircraft, 4,000+ extra tanks, and 200,000+ extra motor vehicles- this is just through 1943. plus all the other goodies that were given to them.

The logical form of this response would be, "absent LL aid to SU, the U.S. has sufficient extra resources that it doesn't have to choose between army and air force resources."

To analyze that claim, we'd want to know the value of LL aid to SU. Luckily we do:







LL aid to SU was 4.7% of US armaments procurement by value through June '43.

For the entire war, the $5.4bn delivered to SU consititues 4.95% of total U.S. wartime procurement of $110.89bn.

1942 aid to SU was $990mil or 18% of the total.

So if the SU is knocked out in '42, we can add ~4% to the value of U.S. weapons inventory.

Useful but does not anyone think a 4% delta significantly changes the overall picture?

[David Thompson]

An opinion post (about another poster) from TheMarcksPlan was removed pursuant to the thread warning at viewtopic.php?p=2264199#p2264199.

[TheMarcksPlan]

the procurement of armor was not "slashed" in 1942...it increased, until reductions began in late 1943

I hope everyone else can see the simple error here.

He's measuring the historical trends in actual production, whereas I am talking about historical trends in strategic planning.

Per Richard's logic, any increase in the size of the army would nullify a contention that the air war negatively impacted army strength. If the army and its procurement programs increased by 5 divisions from 1941-45, for example, Richard's argument would be the same. That's just facially wrong.

To understand the strategic picture, one can't simply look at the trend of production, as Richard does. Rather, one must understand the high-level strategic choices being made on a timeline years in advance of historical production timelines - decisions that determined these production figures.

[TheMarcksPlan]

"Roosevelt ordered a slashing of Army procurement programs in late '42 to enable higher production of aircraft and shipping."

Mind, you there is also no evidence that is in fact what O'Brien says

That's funny because it seems that the actual text of the book - provided by me elsewhere already - is pretty good evidence of what O'Brien says:

[TheMarcksPlan]

Aside from How the War was Won, O'Brien has also written a very good book on FDR's chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Most-Powe ... B07GD4NNQB

He has numerous other publications as well, ranging from articles to monographs. As he's a Ph.D. historian with a public/academic profile, it would be surprising if his citations to primary materials were dishonest. https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/authors/246217 Academics can lie but there's usually someone else raising a stink about; there's none about O'Brien.

As for O'Brien's basic thesis - air and sea power decided the war and U.S. was right to devote 75% of its resources there - I think he's completely wrong so don't take this as hero worship or something. Still, it is reasonable to rely on the citations provided by an academic historian who can't afford to lie about the content of his sources, and who has never been accused of such dishonesty by his many well-reputed interlocutors.

For example, he came to my attention via a Vox debate/symposium moderated by another WW2 heavyweight who I follow on Twitter, Mark Harrison, who tweeted a link to this: https://voxeu.org/debates/economics-sec ... ty-years-0

As O'Brien has at least the respect for scholarly honesty among the distinguished participants of that debate, we're probably safe assuming he's intellectually honest as well (even if he's completely wrong in his judgments, say I).

[EKB]

The country was fully mobilised and all that remained was to change the distribution of manpower as the strategy of war demanded

This was pretty much true of the US as well

Not the truth at all. Unlike Nazi Germany, the United States did not field armies and navies backfilled with old men, invalids and juveniles. The U.S. had higher medical and academic standards for military service, especially for technical occupations. The RAF and RCAF accepted rejects from the USAAF and U.S. Navy.

By 1944 Germany conscripted nearly all males with a pulse, if not working in some critical war industry. Yet many Americans who wanted to fight were medically rejected or discharged. Some men committed suicide after being denied for service.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Aside from How the War was Won, O'Brien has also written a very good book on FDR's chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Most-Powe ... B07GD4NNQB

O'Brien goes deeper into the high-level strategic discussions determining U.S. war policy in this book, and is perhaps even more explicit about the emphasis on air power - at the explicit cost of army power - that Leahy favored and, O'Brien convincingly argues, actually controlled. Roosevelt was incined to this view of how to fight the war but Leahy really drove home the air-sea strategic emphasis. From the conclusion to the book's Chapter 15 "The Grandest Level of Strategy."

The United States, in the end, fought precisely the war that William Leahy wanted it to fight. It was an air-sea machinery-based war, with a remarkably small land army, all things considered. The army’s eventual strength of 7.7 million at the high point of the war was still much smaller than they had expected to have by the end of 1943 and was more than 2 million men smaller than Marshall wanted it to be in 1942.35 This restriction in army manpower led to what is known as the “90-division gamble.”36 This small-army gamble, in which Marshall had called for 215 divisions at the start of the war—coming on the heels of the decision to focus on aircraft and aircraft-carrier construction—represented the most important strategic decision that the US government would make during World War II. This decision pre-answered most of the American strategic debates that would occur in the coming years. It decided the outcome of more battles and campaigns than the actions of famous battlefield commanders, whom we like to think of as the individuals who determine the outcomes of wars.

William Leahy had produced a tour de force on how to exercise power in Washington.

Earlier in the chapter, O'Brien provides more details on Leahy's internal struggle against Marshall and others who wanted to build a bigger land army:

[Leahy believed that...] The Allies needed to cut off the Germans and the Japanese from their different sources of production, weaken their economic fundamentals, and, if necessary, invade only once the result was beyond question. Leahy had no stomach for massive land battles, which, he believed, would inevitably lead to high and unnecessary casualties. Therefore, he saw no need for the United States to prioritize production for a large army. In his mind, mass armies belonged to the past, and America needed to win an air-sea war based on machinery over human sacrifice.

In this, he was joined by Franklin Roosevelt, probably one reason why the president determined early on that Leahy would be his point man in the military in determining the answers to these questions. It is worth noting that Roosevelt first started taking a hard line against a large army not long after Leahy became his chief of staff.4 Both agreed that the army’s future size needed to be reduced to keep production high.5 Both also believed the war would be won through the control of supply and movement. Yet surprisingly for a man so enamored of sea power, Roosevelt pushed for the production of aircraft over everything else, including ships. Having been captivated by the impact of airpower as the war had developed, he decided that the United States needed to seize air superiority to defeat Germany and Japan, and called for the production of a whopping 131,000 aircraft in 1943, 100,000 of which would be combat planes. It was a remarkable figure, imaginable only if all other construction projects were cut drastically, and it caused an intense political and strategic struggle among the top war planners.

George Marshall, with the army’s needs at the forefront of his mind, had completely different priorities from the president’s. Focused on an army-centric, Germany-first strategy that called for a cross-Channel invasion as early as possible, he wanted a formidable land army with millions of soldiers supported with phalanxes of tanks. If Marshall were to get his way, air and sea production would have to bear the brunt of the cuts everyone knew were coming. At the same time, he would need to keep Hap Arnold and the US Army Air Force on his side; if he called for cuts to aircraft production that were too steep, the mercurial Arnold might rebel. Not to mention that the president himself prized air production over all else. Taking a middle line, the army argued for a balance between aircraft and ground equipment.6 The navy, it seemed, would be left to deal with an ever-dwindling slice of the budget.

The Joint Chiefs first debated the production crisis on October 20. George Marshall and the army’s supply chief, Lt. Gen. Brehon Somervell, attacked Roosevelt’s aircraft-focused plan and called for a united military front to force the president into line.7

...I don't want to exceed fair use restrictions or I'd provide more. Hopefully the import is clear: Marshall and the army opposed Leahy/FDR's focus on air-sea production and Leahy won that fight.

[TheMarcksPlan]

The country was fully mobilised and all that remained was to change the distribution of manpower as the strategy of war demanded

This was pretty much true of the US as well

Not the truth at all. Unlike Nazi Germany, the United States did not field armies and navies backfilled with old men, invalids and juveniles. The U.S. had higher medical and academic standards for military service, especially for technical occupations. The RAF and RCAF accepted rejects from the USAAF and U.S. Navy.

By 1944 Germany conscripted nearly all males with a pulse, if not working in some critical war industry. Yet many Americans who wanted to fight were medically rejected or discharged. Some men committed suicide after being denied for service.

Yeah that's not understanding the point. It's not about who's in or out of the armed forces specifically, it's about the distribution of manpower across the whole war-making machine, which includes the armed forces, war industries, civilian subsistence industries, etc.

That Germany had to move older men from factories to front shows only that Germany was forced to make different choices in its distribution of manpower.

For the U.S., it's true that they could have inducted more physically/mentally fit soldiers than could have Germany, but it's also true that any increase in army manpower would have come at the cost of production.

[EKB]

The country was fully mobilised and all that remained was to change the distribution of manpower as the strategy of war demanded

This was pretty much true of the US as well

Not the truth at all. Unlike Nazi Germany, the United States did not field armies and navies backfilled with old men, invalids and juveniles. The U.S. had higher medical and academic standards for military service, especially for technical occupations. The RAF and RCAF accepted rejects from the USAAF and U.S. Navy.

By 1944 Germany conscripted nearly all males with a pulse, if not working in some critical war industry. Yet many Americans who wanted to fight were medically rejected or discharged. Some men committed suicide after being denied for service.

Yeah that's not understanding the point. It's not about who's in or out of the armed forces specifically, it's about the distribution of manpower across the whole war-making machine, which includes the armed forces, war industries, civilian subsistence industries, etc.

That Germany had to move older men from factories to front shows only that Germany was forced to make different choices in its distribution of manpower.

For the U.S., it's true that they could have inducted more physically/mentally fit soldiers than could have Germany, but it's also true that any increase in army manpower would have come at the cost of production.

Before this goes any further, exactly what is your definition of full mobilization?