U.S./UK forced to implement something like the Victory Plan of 1941

[Politician01]

This plan was fantasy. OTL the Allies were running out of manpower by 1944 - Britain was scraping the barrel and even the US had Problems - how exactly were they going to double or triple their army size?

Indeed, in the summer of 1943 it became apparent that Great Britain had reached the limits of mobilisation; during the rest of the year recruitment from the non-industrial population would not be sufficient to offset the normal wastage from industry. Before long the labour force would decline. In any case, supplies of labour in the last nine months of 1943 would be less than had been expected. The demands of the Services and industry for the last nine months of 1943 added up to 912,000 men and women; the prospective supply was 429,000. once more ruthless cuts would have to be imposed. The Service demands could not possibly be met in full.

As previously forecast, wastage from the country's labour force was bound to exceed new intake. Even without battle casualties, the total occupied population of the United Kingdom would fall by about 150,000 in 1944. The manpower was no longer one of closing a gap between demand and supply by subtracting at the demand end and adding at the supply end. Nothing was left to add. The country was fully mobilised and all that remained was to change the distribution of manpower as the strategy of war demanded.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/U ... on-15.html

In 1944, the United Kingdom was facing severe manpower shortages. By May 1944, it was estimated that the British Army's strength in December 1944 would be 100,000, less than it was at the end of 1943. Although casualties in the Normandy Campaign, the main effort of the British Army in 1944, were actually lower than anticipated, losses from all causes were still higher than could be replaced. Two infantry divisions and a brigade (59th and 50th divisions and 70th Brigade) were disbanded to provide replacements for other British divisions in the 21st Army Group and all men being called up to the Army were trained as infantrymen. Furthermore, 35,000 men from the RAF Regiment and the Royal Artillery were transferred to the infantry and were retrained as rifle infantrymen, where the majority of combat casualties fell.[18][19] In addition, in the Eighth Army fighting in the Italian Campaign of the Mediterranean theatre several units, mainly infantry, were also disbanded to provide replacements, including the 1st Armoured Division and several other smaller units, such as the 168th Brigade, had to be reduced to cadre, and several other units had to be amalgamated. For example, the 2nd and 6th battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers were merged in August 1944. At the same time, most infantry battalions in Italy had to be reduced from four to three rifle companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_A ... _World_War

Not to mention that Allied losses in NA during the years 1942/43 would have been far greater than OTL, making the Manpower shortage even more severe and this plan ASB.

[T. A. Gardner]

Bottom line, Germany still loses.

On the strategic side of things, the Allies still hold the initiative. A collapse of the Soviet Union and some negotiated peace or a stalemate with Germany holding the 'European' parts of Russia, doesn't mean the Soviet Union ceased to exist. That means the Germans would still need a fairly massive occupation army in Russia as well as elsewhere.
Without seapower and access to the oceans for trade, Germany is going to be fully or nearly so, dependent on internal resources. In areas captured, these will be at reduced levels for some time until the Germans can restore and take over production.

Then there's Japan. The US is going to crush Japan. They may decide in this case to do that first and leave Germany in a holding pattern until they're done in the Pacific. That would free up a massive amount of resources, manpower, and equipment for use against Germany. It would also give the Allies unfettered access to the rump Soviet Union which they could then rearm and help for 'round 2' of the war in the East.

If pursuing an ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany is what the Allies want, Germany wins the nuclear bomb prize and the Allies at some point will start nuking their cities and resources. The Allies could opt for peripheral sniping to keep the Germans occupied while they reduce the German economy to ruins. All the while, Germany has ZERO ability to strike something around 90% of the Allied economy because they lack the means to strike intercontinentally, and have no seapower to challenge control of the seas. The U-boat war is an eventual loser. It's a spoiler from the start, not a war winning option on its own. Sure, the Allies might have to dump billions of dollars into winning it but they can and eventually will reduce it to impotence just as they did historically.

Technologically, the Allies will bury the Germans in time. Even in 1944 -45 they were at parity to so far ahead the Germans weren't going to catch up. There was almost no area where the Germans held a true technological advantage that could force the Allies into a massive disruption of their strategic options or force them to the table to negotiate terms. Even the few places where Germany held some advantage weren't sufficient to force the Allies into ending the war. That would remain an Allied option only.

By 1946 the Allies will have widened their air power advantage over Germany. The US will be deploying extremely long range and intercontinental bombers (the B-29D and B-36 respectively) meaning no part of the Nazi empire is out of range for an air strike. By 1947 the US would have deployed a superior IRBM that is nuclear armed (project MX 774 for example the "Manhattan" model of that). So, Germany is really going to take a thumping and they can't even begin to return the favor.
Since the Allies by 1946 could also bomb with reasonably good accuracy a city in poor weather or at night, the stress on Germany's economy to produce countermeasures will continue to be high.

Manpower? The British were hurting for quality manpower by 1944. The US hadn't even begun to tap into theirs. Even in 1944, the US was still rejecting about 30% of all draftees, hadn't raised or changed the age requirements, or expanded the draft. The Germans were taking men in by the tens of thousands that the US was rejecting as "unfit" for service. The British Commonwealth was also not fully tapped for manpower, and the Allies had other sources in nations that they had access to, like South American countries, that the Germans didn't.
If you look at the US military, the USN and USMC weren't taking draftees for the most part even in 1944. They had sufficient manpower from volunteer service alone. The Luftwaffe was using teenagers as "helpers" on flak batteries due to lack of manpower.
You can't hold the ETO between D-Day and about January 1945 as the example of how hurt the Allies were for manpower. That's the exception, not the rule.

Then there's the Nazi stupidity going on. The Nazis are likely to continue to depopulate Eastern Europe, use slave labor, use mass executions to deal with resistance groups and partisan warfare. That's going to hurt their economic capacity just as it did historically.

Add in that the Allies have a huge advantage in spying and political intrigue to this while Germany has little idea what the Allies are doing in return. They won't even have a clue where most Allied production is taking place, and no real way to disrupt Allied production by such methods as sabotage or monkey wrenching like the Allies can employ.

Bottom line: Germany still loses.

[Politician01]

Bottom line, Germany still loses.

Not really.

1. Yes the Germans have to keep 50 divisions, and 2000+ tanks and aircraft in the East as an occupation force and in case Stalin tries something from beyond the Urals; however Stalin wont try anything until he will see massive Wallied sucesses - which he wont. The Germans also sustain only a tiny fraction of their OTL casualties, they save a lot of fuel and gain a lot of resources.

2. They can immediately invest 1 Million men into Industry and weapons development and another 1 Million soldiers to reinforce their troops in Europe and the Med. LW presence in the Med and Western Europe triples. Malta falls and most likely Alexandria and Cairo. Even if the Brits can somehow hold these cities, they will have to pump all their resources into the NA theatre and will need YEARS to expell the Germans from there.

3. Meanwhile American and British Bombers and their Crews will be slaughtered, sustaining at least twice the OTL casualties, the German industry sustains much less damage than OTL.

4. An Invasion of Europe will become impossible, by the end of 1944 the Allies will still fight in NA. The American public will demand to concentrate on the true enemy Japan and abandon the sensless war in Europe. Roosevelt in 1944 might lose to a Republican candidate that promises to end the war in Europe, even if he wins he dies in April 45 anyway, giving Truman the opportunity to conduct realpolitics.

5. By 1944 Britain will be running out of Manpower, industrial Deterioration will be even more severe than OTL - even the Britons will start to demand Peace.

6. Technologically, the Germans will bury the Allies in time. Even in 1944 -45 with an Eastern Front and close to defeat, they were at parity to so far ahead the Allies arent going to catch up. By late 1944 the Germans start the mass production of flak shells with Impact fuses (until early 1945 they had only a time fuse), tripling their number of shot down Bombers. Fleets of Me-262 Aircraft with the R4M rockets, will wreak havoc upon Allied Bomber Crews.

7. By 1945 - most likely far earlier - the Allies will have made Peace with Germany.

[T. A. Gardner]

Bottom line, Germany still loses.

Not really.

1. Yes the Germans have to keep 50 divisions, and 2000+ tanks and aircraft in the East as an occupation force and in case Stalin tries something from beyond the Urals; however Stalin wont try anything until he will see massive Wallied sucesses - which he wont. The Germans also sustain only a tiny fraction of their OTL casualties, they save a lot of fuel and gain a lot of resources.

They also have to occupy all of Western Europe and Norway. They also have to retain a large air force. They would still have to deal with the Balkans and Yugoslavia. The Luftwaffe in 1940 couldn't get enough fuel for sustained long-term operations. That was before any economic destruction took place. The ground forces aren't the major user. For example, an Me-109 carries about 110 gallons of fuel. That's about 5 truck fill ups (assumes about 10 to 12 mpg). So, an Me 109 uses in under 30 minutes what five trucks do in a day. As you can see, aircraft are very thirsty things.
Aside from that, the other Luftwaffe problem is getting enough pilots. The Germans were always short of trained pilots and often pulled students and instructors out of flight schools to man aircraft right from 1939, further disrupting flight training. Weather and Allied air operations will still put a crimp in these, compared to Allied programs that are occurring where the weather is almost always mild and so far from the operational front they need never worry about disruption.
Even counting in the eventual use of oil from Russian fields, the Germans will never have enough to compete with what the Allies can produce.

2. They can immediately invest 1 Million men into Industry and weapons development and another 1 Million soldiers to reinforce their troops in Europe and the Med. LW presence in the Med and Western Europe triples. Malta falls and most likely Alexandria and Cairo. Even if the Brits can somehow hold these cities, they will have to pump all their resources into the NA theatre and will need YEARS to expell the Germans from there.

So, you are suggesting they disband something like 30% + of their military and begin retraining those disbanded as workers in the economy. That won't happen over night. The German problem in N. Africa is one of logistics. The Afrika Korps was about as big as it could be and operate where it did. The bottleneck was shipping space and harbors / docks to unload supplies on. The Germans really have little means to increase either of these in the Med. Germany also has next to ZERO naval presence in the Med, and that isn't going to change any time soon.
Malta is very unlikely to fall, simply because the Germans don't have the means to take it. They couldn't even suppress the island except for short periods of time when they concentrated the Luftwaffe for that purpose. But that means denuding other fronts and uses to do so.
As for driving the Germans out of N. Africa, historically once they lost at Alamein and the US landed in Vichy territory a few weeks later it took approximately six (6) months to crush Axis opposition in N. Africa even as the Germans and Italians heavily reinforced their forces now that they were pushed back close to their ports.

3. Meanwhile American and British Bombers and their Crews will be slaughtered, sustaining at least twice the OTL casualties, the German industry sustains much less damage than OTL.

Why? The Luftwaffe couldn't sustain a really serious air offensive against the West. They also can't sustain a sufficient defense that the Allies can't run air operations. Even if the Germans manage to do better than they did historically, the RAF and USAAF will still end up crushing the Luftwaffe. They can run them dry of pilots and out of fuel. Flak offers no alternative and the Germans are at least 6 to 10 years from developing a viable SAM system to replace it. The US alone by 1945 is out technologying the Luftwaffe so badly it hurts.
The West has other options as well. For example, the US flew their copy of the V-1 (aka JB-2 / Loon) just 60 days after the first one hit London. The USAAF at one point was planning to fire 5,000+ a month into Germany. That's about a third to half the entire production of V-1's the Germans made during the war fired in a month. They would have even better cruise missiles soon afterwards. They'd also have a deployable IRBM with much better accuracy than the V-2 by about the end of 1946 that could deliver a nuke to a range of about 600 miles-- at least that was the US planning...
So, unless you can explain in detail how your statement would occur, it won't.

4. An Invasion of Europe will become impossible, by the end of 1944 the Allies will still fight in NA. The American public will demand to concentrate on the true enemy Japan and abandon the sensless war in Europe. Roosevelt in 1944 might lose to a Republican candidate that promises to end the war in Europe, even if he wins he dies in April 45 anyway, giving Truman the opportunity to conduct realpolitics.

Once fighting in Japan ends, the USN and RN will rule the seas entirely. Therefore, the W. Allies can choose when and where they invade, or they can do peripheral raiding if they choose. The US public was behind the defeat of Germany as well as Japan and public polling in the US at the time shows that clearly. It's a false hope that the US will tire of the war and settle for peace with Germany. Truman will nuke Germany. And, that will continue until the country is in ruins. One B-29 raid with a nuke on Ploesti and that pretty much ends oil production there.

5. By 1944 Britain will be running out of Manpower, industrial Deterioration will be even more severe than OTL - even the Britons will start to demand Peace.

That's already been addressed. The US has more manpower than Germany, and the British Commonwealth still has untapped resources. Add in the Free French and then the US starts arming China and moving units to Europe (after Japan is defeated), and the Allies have an essentially bottomless supply of cannon fodder compared to the Germans.

6. Technologically, the Germans will bury the Allies in time. Even in 1944 -45 with an Eastern Front and close to defeat, they were at parity to so far ahead the Allies arent going to catch up. By late 1944 the Germans start the mass production of flak shells with Impact fuses (until early 1945 they had only a time fuse), tripling their number of shot down Bombers. Fleets of Me-262 Aircraft with the R4M rockets, will wreak havoc upon Allied Bomber Crews.

Absolutely and totally false. Name a technology and the Allies were at parity or ahead in it. Your argument that impact fuzes will improve flak is totally erroneous. Aside from that, as the Allies continue to push out bombers that fly higher and faster, the whole proposition of using flak guns to shoot them down becomes nearly worthless. They won't "tripl(e) their number of shot down Bombers." The Me 262 is a self-defeating proposition because of the unreliability of the engines and the amount of fuel required to fly them. Aside from that, the Allies were developing and deploying jets of their own, including bombers-- and not some half-@$$ed lash up like the Ar 234.
The R4M is no panacea. I would refer you to the "Battle of Palmdale." So any wreaking havoc is in your imagination.

[TheMarcksPlan]

3. Meanwhile American and British Bombers and their Crews will be slaughtered, sustaining at least twice the OTL casualties, the German industry sustains much less damage than OTL.

Exactly. Twice the casualties is an understatement. Germany produced ~25,000 single-engine fighters in 1944 and could have produced 100,000 in this ATL. Daylight bombing would be impossible.

Night-time area bombing would become impossible as well. The nachtjager had a 3:1 attrition ratio against the RAF's heavy bombers. That's >10:1 economic attrition ratio considering you're trading cheap Wilde Sau single-engine fighters and less-cheap twin-engine Zame Sau medium bombers for 4-engine bombers.

Only after the LW could not train/replace its pilots and defend its airfields did the attrition ratios move against it.
The simple fact is that conventional strategic bombing in the WW2 ETO had highly unfavorable return on investment until the establishment of aerial supremacy (arguably even then). Defense was cheaper than offense. The only reason the Wallies got away with their strategy was their overwhelming economic advantage, an advantage that would narrow or disappear in this ATL.

Technologically, the Germans will bury the Allies in time.

Have to disagree here. The Allies were far ahead in radar and other critical technologies. But it didn't matter sufficiently to make a conventional strategic bombing campaign a war-winner against a Germany that can focus all its resources on aerial defense.

The American public will demand to concentrate on the true enemy Japan and abandon the sensless war in Europe. Roosevelt in 1944 might lose to a Republican candidate that promises to end the war in Europe, even if he wins he dies in April 45 anyway, giving Truman the opportunity to conduct realpolitics.

IMO only if the Wallies suffer serious losses and/or are forced publicly to suspend the bombing campaign. At that point, the public might see that there's no path to victory.

Serious losses would occur if the Wallies sought battle with the Wehrmacht on land - intervening against a German invasion of Spain, for instance, or trying to deploy large armies to the Middle East after Russia's exit. Perhaps in North Africa if they try to drive on Tunis from Algeria/Morocco.

They can immediately invest 1 Million men into Industry and weapons development

Right. In mid-1944, 60,000 men were taken out of the aircraft industry by the Wehrmacht. Yet Germany was building more planes than ever. With at least a doubling of the aircraft labor force and no serious bombing damage, German plane production should be close to 3 times greater than OTL by mid-44.

[TheMarcksPlan]

They also can't sustain a sufficient defense that the Allies can't run air operations. Even if the Germans manage to do better than they did historically, the RAF and USAAF will still end up crushing the Luftwaffe. They can run them dry of pilots and out of fuel.

You're ignoring the basis of this hypothetical.
If the SU is out by the beginning of '43, German fighter, pilot, and fuel production is far greater than OTL.

[TheMarcksPlan]

@HistoryGeek2019

Given your reservations about Stalin allowing occupation of unconquered territory and of disarming to the point where Hitler could "walk into the rest of the SU," I wonder if you think the following modifications to my earlier proposed armistice are reasonable:

This goes back to the terms of the peace agreement with Stalin. While Stalin may have sought a peace in order to avoid starvation, I think he would have chosen starvation over disarmament, because disarmament would have allowed Hitler to walk in and occupy the entire Soviet Union.

The terms of an armistice would be something like this:

• SU limited to 40 divisions 80 divisions
• Limit enforced by carrots and sticks:
  • Occupation of the CENTRAL Urals militarily: SU retains political control but German divisions posted at strategic passes and around the major cities.
  • Inspections of CENTRAL Urals factories to ensure minimal armaments production.
  • German provision to SU of ~5mil tons of oil annually (from '43) to maintain food production, Soviet provision of labor and material in Baku and Kuibyshev to restore production.
  • German-Soviet trade of Soviet industrial goods (e.g. rolling stock, pig iron, aluminium) in exchange for "German" food from occupied SU and German technical goods (e.g. machine tools, which were - ironically - critical to Soviet wartime industry).
• Partial exchange of Soviet PoW's for return of skilled workers to Ukraine and elsewhere.
• Payment of occupation costs, negotiated and traded off against the foregoing items.
• Soviet retention of control over Central Asia, possibly German recognition of its sphere of influence in northern Iran (to cause conflict with Britain/US).

Against an objection that the foregoing armistice terms are too harsh for Stalin to accept, I must emphasize the alternative: collapse of the regime amidst mass starvation, total rebellion in Central Asia, total loss of the Urals and Western Siberia, vulnerability to Japanese attack.

...with such armistice agreed in December '42 instead of September as proposed earlier. And agreed after a German Fall/Winter campaign to take the Central Urals and flank the Southern Urals.

This agreement would put most of the Urals industries under German occupation - Chelyabinsk, Sverdlosk, Zlatoust, and Nizhny Tagil being the headline industrial centers. Magnitogorsk would remain in Soviet hands, as would Tyumen just east of the Urals and to which much industry had been evacuated.

Note that each of these cities would be within a couple weeks' march of an Ostheer with a firm bridgehead across the Urals (Chelyabinsk-Sverdlosk line) and on the Siberian steppe.

A peace agreement under these conditions, when the Ostheer can rapidly take the remaining industrial centers and provoke revolt across Central Asia, is an obvious win-win. It would cost Hitler little to continue the drive East along the Trans-Siberian railroad, as the Soviet state would have little with which to resist in '43. By agreeing a peace, Stalin would be able to keep control over a diminished SU but that's far preferable to continuation of the war and collapse of the state through starvation. Hitler, meanwhile, gains an industrial/economic partner in the SU once more. Stalin would have recognized that maintaining such a deal was in Hitler's rational interest and therefore would not expect a breach of the deal in the medium term. With a 80-division Red Army, he can make too costly an irrational attempt by the Nazis to invade Siberia and can deter Japan from a cheap land grab in the Far East. Germany, meanwhile, can easily hold the Urals line with 40 divisions (half Romanian/Hungarian?) against the 50 or so divisions that Stalin can spare from other duties.

[T. A. Gardner]

They also can't sustain a sufficient defense that the Allies can't run air operations. Even if the Germans manage to do better than they did historically, the RAF and USAAF will still end up crushing the Luftwaffe. They can run them dry of pilots and out of fuel.

You're ignoring the basis of this hypothetical.
If the SU is out by the beginning of '43, German fighter, pilot, and fuel production is far greater than OTL.

No, I'm not. German aircraft production is limited by available materials, the capacity of factories to produce aircraft, and the number of pilots they can train to fly them. By the beginning of 1944, the Luftwaffe was down to about 100 total training hours on new pilots with them having fewer than around 30 flying hours and little or none on operational types. These guys were essentially cannon fodder. The relative handful of experten weren't going to cut it.
Bomber production had all but ended, and only Speer releasing all of Germany's strategic reserves of raw materials really allowed the mass increase in production that occurred in 1944. By 1946, German industry would have run out of virtually everything. But historically, this choice given the situation in 1944 probably wasn't a bad one. It was go big or go home in 1944 for Germany.
Aside from that, the production would still be almost entirely obsolescent types that were already in production.

Fuel production wouldn't be "much greater" either. Soviet fuel sources would still need to be repaired and put back in service and that would take time. Then there's the shipping problem. Shipment by rail from Russia is inefficient and Germany really has no alternative to it.

Given historically that the USAAF in the opening weeks of 1944 (eg., "Big Week" etc.) methodically set out to annihilate the Luftwaffe over Germany, that will still happen with a end of 1943 armistice in the East. The "peace bonus" won't have occurred yet.

Worse, the Germans have no real alternatives on the table to defeating W. Allied air attacks. Flak won't cut it. SAM's aren't in the cards for Germany for years to come. The Germans are so far behind in electronics and electronic warfare it isn't even a contest.

And, the worst of all, is the Germans have ZERO means to go on any sort of strategic offensive by the beginning of 1944 against the W. Allies so they are fighting an entirely defensive war. That means the only hope of winning is to negotiate a peace with the US and Britain on terms favorable to the US and Britain assuming that the two are even willing to discuss such terms.
The longer the war goes, even in this scenario, the worse it gets for Germany.

[Politician01]

For example, an Me-109 carries about 110 gallons of fuel. That's about 5 truck fill ups (assumes about 10 to 12 mpg). So, an Me 109 uses in under 30 minutes what five trucks do in a day. As you can see, aircraft are very thirsty things.
Aside from that, the other Luftwaffe problem is getting enough pilots. The Germans were always short of trained pilots and often pulled students and instructors out of flight schools to man aircraft right from 1939, further disrupting flight training. Weather and Allied air operations will still put a crimp in these, compared to Allied programs that are occurring where the weather is almost always mild and so far from the operational front they need never worry about disruption.

So many unsupported claims just in the first Paragraph - where to begin?

1. Fernuik shared that the P-51's big V-12 can burn up to 120 gallons of 115/145 octane Avgas per hour. However, 60 gallons per hour is more common.

https://www.tested.com/art/makers/55827 ... 1-mustang/

If the P-51 burns 60 to 120 gallon an hour, the 109 sure as hell will not burn the same amount in just 30 minutes.Also during 1943 Germany produced 3300 pilots and lost 2900. Now imagine no Eastern Front.

https://books.google.at/books?id=e0RwCw ... ys&f=false

Also also, the thousands of Panther tanks active OTL but not ATL used up 125 Gallons of fuel in 2-3 hours:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank

Since I dont have all night I am going to debunk just three of your unsupported biased claims:

Once fighting in Japan ends, the USN and RN will rule the seas entirely. Therefore, the W. Allies can choose when and where they invade, or they can do peripheral raiding if they choose. The US public was behind the defeat of Germany as well as Japan and public polling in the US at the time shows that clearly. It's a false hope that the US will tire of the war and settle for peace with Germany.

Prior to the Quebec Conference, 1943, a joint British–American planning team produced a plan ("Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of Japan") which did not call for an invasion of the Japanese home islands until 1947–48.[21][22] The American Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that prolonging the war to such an extent was dangerous for national morale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

That's already been addressed. The US has more manpower than Germany, and the British Commonwealth still has untapped resources. Add in the Free French and then the US starts arming China and moving units to Europe (after Japan is defeated), and the Allies have an essentially bottomless supply of cannon fodder compared to the Germans..

Source please.

Aside from that, as the Allies continue to push out bombers that fly higher and faster, the whole proposition of using flak guns to shoot them down becomes nearly worthless. They won't "tripl(e) their number of shot down Bombers."

German Wiki: Impact fuses tripled Allied Bomber losses:

Bis kurz vor dem Kriegsende hatten die Geschosse nur Zeitzünder. Es kam jedoch oft vor, dass eine Granate ein Flugzeug fast ohne Folgen durchschlug und erst weit dahinter explodierte. Durch die Einführung von zusätzlichen Aufschlagzündern (Doppelzünder, Dualzünder von Junghans), die trotz dringender Anforderung erst 1945 geliefert wurden, konnte deshalb die Abschussrate in etwa verdreifacht werden.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/8,8-cm-FlaK_18/36/37

The gun fired a 27.9 kg (61.5-pound) shell at 880 m/s (2,890 ft/s) to a maximum ceiling of 14,800 m (48,556 ft).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12.8_cm_FlaK_40

B- 29 Service ceeling: 31,850 ft (9,710 m)
B-17 Service ceeling: 35,600 ft (10,850 m)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B- ... g_Fortress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress

As you see, I have used evidence to support my claims. When you try to counter them, I would kindly ask to use evidence as well - not some biased unsupported claims.

Regards

EDIT:

By the beginning of 1944, the Luftwaffe was down to about 100 total training hours on new pilots with them having fewer than around 30 flying hours and little or none on operational types.

This was OTL for Christs Sake. WITHOUT an active Eastern Front the Germans save MILLIONS of Gallons of Aviation fuel and THOUSANDS of pilots shot down in the East.. No reduction in flying hours will occure. No attrition on pilots will take place.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Bomber production had all but ended

The 25k fighters Germany produced in 1944 is only ~62% of its total plane production. This statement is flatly wrong.

By the beginning of 1944, the Luftwaffe was down to about 100 total training hours on new pilots with them having fewer than around 30 flying hours and little or none on operational types.

As already pointed out - but must be emphasized - this is OTL not ATL.

If you can't follow a thread please do not waste our time posting in it.

will still happen with a end of 1943 armistice in the East.

end of '42. If you can't follow a thread please do not waste our time posting in it.

By 1946, German industry would have run out of virtually everything.

OTL not ATL. If you can't follow a thread please do not waste our time posting in it.

Shipment by rail from Russia is inefficient and Germany really has no alternative to it.

What percentage of OTL German freight ton-miles would be needed to move 5mil tons of oil (enough to more than double Wehrmacht consumption) from North Caucasus to Germany? I could give you the figure but, given your refusal to post anything more than shallow bromides in this thread, I am not going to do your research for you.

[Richard Anderson]

Also during 1943 Germany produced 3300 pilots and lost 2900. Now imagine no Eastern Front.

Outstanding. In the same year, the USAAF graduated 17,464 transition pilots (i.e., pilots assigned to operational aircraft) out of 92,544 graduating from primary (i.e., elementary) flight school.

German Wiki: Impact fuses tripled Allied Bomber losses:

Bis kurz vor dem Kriegsende hatten die Geschosse nur Zeitzünder. Es kam jedoch oft vor, dass eine Granate ein Flugzeug fast ohne Folgen durchschlug und erst weit dahinter explodierte. Durch die Einführung von zusätzlichen Aufschlagzündern (Doppelzünder, Dualzünder von Junghans), die trotz dringender Anforderung erst 1945 geliefert wurden, konnte deshalb die Abschussrate in etwa verdreifacht werden.

Indeed, just a few weeks before the end of the war. It was an interesting exercise in probability theory that the Luftwaffe Flak arm resisted for some six years.

The gun fired a 27.9 kg (61.5-pound) shell at 880 m/s (2,890 ft/s) to a maximum ceiling of 14,800 m (48,556 ft).

Maximum ceiling is not effective ceiling. Effective ceiling in AA guns is the "that height at which a directly approaching target at 400 mph can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation". (Hogg, Allied Artillery of World War II, pp. 99-100.) It is determined by the maximum fuze time, capability of the direction systems, the cyclic rate of fire and fuze setting capability, and the elevation and defelction speed of the mounting.

Effective ceiling of the Flak 36 was 7,925 meters.

B-29 Service ceeling: 31,850 ft (9,710 m)
B-17 Service ceeling: 35,600 ft (10,850 m)

Service ceiling is not effective ceiling. Load, endurance, and speed governed effective ceiling. Effective ceiling for the B-17 was typically 22,000-25,000 feet. Effective ceiling of the B-29 was anticipated as 27,000-34,000 feet, but in practice due to tactical circumstances became much lower. See, Eighth Air Force Eighth Air Force Tactical Development, August 1942 – May 1945 and James E. Bowman The 500th Bomb Group Day By Day for typical early B-29 mission profile over Japan.

As you see, I have used evidence to support my claims. When you try to counter them, I would kindly ask to use evidence as well - not some biased unsupported claims.

No, you used Wiki, which can be a good start, but also a two-edged sword.

[TheMarcksPlan]

German Wiki: Impact fuses tripled Allied Bomber losses:

We've discussed this topic in some more depth that you find might interesting: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=68932&p=2218322&hi ... r#p2218322

IMO an ATL in which Germany uses the doppelzunder contact/proximity fuse is feasible, as the failure to adopt this ATL owes largely to Speer's idiosyncratic decision to nix it on account of concerns about transport logistics that were fairly minor, given the dramatic kill delta per shell.

OTOH I don't think Germany needs better Flak in this ATL. Me-109's were an incredibly efficient means of shooting down 4-engine bombers. They cost ~1/10th of a B-17/24 and had similar advantage in crew burden - especially considering that Germany recovers ~half of the pilots shot down while the Wallies lose basically all heavy bomber crews shot down over Europe.

Until the point where the Wallies were able to dominate German airfields and Germany lacked fuel/space to effectively train aircrews, the aerial attrition rate favored Germany dramatically in economic terms. It was simply that Germany couldn't/didn't devote enough resources to its fighter forces to render that favorable aerial attrition dominant. Absent an Eastern Front in this ATL, Germany has ample resources to ramp up fighter production and pilot training. It is therefore able to maintain - or even improve upon - the favorable aerial attrition ratios that prevailed until latter '44, rendering the Wallied bombing campaign strategic folly.

[Takao]

The 25k fighters Germany produced in 1944 is only ~62% of its total plane production. This statement is flatly wrong.

25k of 35k aircraft is about 71%-72%. As opposed to bomber production of 2.3-2.4k of 35k for 6%-7%.

From 1943 totals, bomber construction was cut by 50%(from 4.8k to 2.4k), whereas fighter production was increased roughly 150%(10k-25k).

Thus, I would say the statement is far closer to truth, than it is being flat wrong.

[Richard Anderson]

The 25k fighters Germany produced in 1944 is only ~62% of its total plane production. This statement is flatly wrong.

25k of 35k aircraft is about 71%-72%. As opposed to bomber production of 2.3-2.4k of 35k for 6%-7%.

From 1943 totals, bomber construction was cut by 50%(from 4.8k to 2.4k), whereas fighter production was increased roughly 150%(10k-25k).

Thus, I would say the statement is far closer to truth, than it is being flat wrong.

It depends on what counts as "total plane production".

Monthly average production:

1943/1944
Fighters - 891/2152
Bombers - 459/283
Recon, Attack, Maritime - 354/527
Transports - 88/43
Liaison & Training - 246/286
Gliders - 37/14

[Takao]

The 25k fighters Germany produced in 1944 is only ~62% of its total plane production. This statement is flatly wrong.

25k of 35k aircraft is about 71%-72%. As opposed to bomber production of 2.3-2.4k of 35k for 6%-7%.

From 1943 totals, bomber construction was cut by 50%(from 4.8k to 2.4k), whereas fighter production was increased roughly 150%(10k-25k).

Thus, I would say the statement is far closer to truth, than it is being flat wrong.

It depends on what counts as "total plane production".

Monthly average production:

1943/1944
Fighters - 891/2152
Bombers - 459/283
Recon, Attack, Maritime - 354/527
Transports - 88/43
Liaison & Training - 246/286
Gliders - 37/14

Still does not shift the percentage much...65% fighters & 8% bombers. Bomber production is still below 10% of total aircraft production.