...Russia had fallen?

[Marcus_Sweden]

If the Germans hadn't waited and the invasion went ahead as planned, during the summer, with a victorious outcome, do you think the war could have been won by the axis? or would it have been a huge drain on man power for the german armed forces?

[Sam H.]

It depends on how complete the victory is. If Russia is completely defeated and Stalin is overthrown, if Hitler installs a puppet government, if Gemany's allies can supply troops for garrison duty, if ...

you get the idea ... there are a lot of variables ... but a total victory, Russia's out of the war by the winter of 1941.

Britian is in for a world of hurt. The whole Med. and Middleast could fall to the Axis before the US can grow strong enough to intervene.

[kchuah]

yes.. no problem with Axis would have won the war

[Citadel]

The only variable after a complete conquest of the Soviet Union, including the compliance by whatever means of her people, is the United States and the Manhattan project.

What would have happened is that Britain would have been overwhelmed, Churchill would have fled to his planned fall-back position of Canada and that continent would have been the last bastion of Democracy.

If they had the bomb they could have dictated terms, at a hellish price that would make Hiroshima look cheap (Berlin at a bare min, prob Rome and also Moscow...where the SS hoped to make a new state). No bomb, no hope.......just the inevitable fall to world-wide fascism, with the equally inevitable implosion into democracy in future generations.

[b_c_ries]

I don't think that the Germans could have successfully invaded England even if they had defeated Russia. Especially after the invasion of Crete where the Fallschirmjager took tremendous losses. Unless the Germans were willing to risk large scale air-borne operations they could never establish a beach-head. Once England got their war-economy up to speed, Germany could not gain air superiority or naval superiority. Of course if half the units on the Russian front were stationed in Western and Southern Europe it would be almost impossible for the Allies to stage a successful invasion and a stalemate would develop. England would then encourage dissention within the Reich (they have centuries of experience in keeping Europe divided, and they are able to do it well) the Nazis would attempt to smash resistance alienate the population in captured territory and end up with an un-governable empire.

[oscar]

I don't think that the Germans could have successfully invaded England even if they had defeated Russia. Especially after the invasion of Crete where the Fallschirmjager took tremendous losses. Unless the Germans were willing to risk large scale air-borne operations they could never establish a beach-head. Once England got their war-economy up to speed, Germany could not gain air superiority or naval superiority. Of course if half the units on the Russian front were stationed in Western and Southern Europe it would be almost impossible for the Allies to stage a successful invasion and a stalemate would develop. England would then encourage dissention within the Reich (they have centuries of experience in keeping Europe divided, and they are able to do it well) the Nazis would attempt to smash resistance alienate the population in captured territory and end up with an un-governable empire.

The germans probebly wouldn´t even need to set their foot on britsh soil with no need to build more tanks or canons there would be plenty of steel to build u-boats, ships and gigantic megalomanian bombplanes.

[Korbius]

They could most likely send saboteurs to sabotage many factories or a specific point where the forces would land, and comparing the forces that would land and those defending, the odds of favor would be on axis as long as they had sea and air superiority.

[b_c_ries]

Since the English had better bombers and better high-altitude engines I don't think that the Germans could win an airwar. Advances in sonar would benefit the English and if the War at Sea became a primary focus of conflict increased reconnaisance flights with radar equipped aircraft woud make it increasingly hazardous for U-boats to operate. English Mosquitoes configured into long-range fighters and maritime patrol would dominate the areas out of range of single engined german fighters. If the U-boats became too much of a problem their bases and shipyards would be bombed. The English were able to put Mosquitoes with big bombs over Germany anytime they wanted to and drop these bombs with precision if they chose to and Herman 'Meyer' Goering couldn't stop them. If the war continued into 1945 the English would then have Centurion tanks which would outclass any heavy tank that anybody else had. (several centurions were produced before the end of the war but they came too late to see action). I haven't even gotten into technology being developed in the USA.

[Linlu]

Had russia fallen?

Personally I don't think that is possible... but,

It gives me a headache just to think of how much manpower Germany's going to spend to control guerrillas, underground resistance members and the Russian population after Russia's capitulation. Just look at Yoguslavia, a tiny country compared to Russia and all of Germany's problems with keeping the population in control.

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[Sam H.]

With Russia out of the war and Germany at war with only the British, the whole of the Med. could become an axis lake. The mideast would be open for invasion.

The biggest challenge would be taking and holding as much territory as possible before the US entered the war.

U-Boats would be given a priority. The wild card is the A-Bomb. Germany is way behind the US in this race.

[voorst]

If Russia had fallen no more hopes for Allies...no more men to sacrifice, no more a Germany without fuel: in fact the war was lost for Allies.

Even if Stalin asked a Treat, germans would resolve great part of their logistic deficits....no more hopes for a conventional end for WWII.

We can think about an atomic-end, but Germany could be nearer to the A-bomb with Russia KO before 1944, so quite dangerous for Allies to use theirs.

Next we can consider the enormous quantity of men at disposal of Germany for stopping US\british troops in Italy and France...

Bye
Voorst

[b_c_ries]

If Russia fell, they wouldn't have fell completely they would have continued to fight from behind the Urals. If the English and the Americans didn't have the Russians as allies they would have provided greater material and logistic support to the Chinese and in return gotten them to bear a greater share of the burden of containing the Japanese and freed up Common-wealth and Indian troops to fight the Nazis. The English have always been masters of inciting disorder in enemy territory and of manipulating public opinion they would have used these abilities to the fullest and cause the Nazis to need great ammounts of troops to keep control of occupied territories.

[Sam H.]

One problem with the Chinese is how do you get the supplies to them?

There is no direct sea route and the land and air routes were pretty much running at max. capacity.

Its kind of hard to supply an army that large from the air. And the Burma road wasn't much better.

[b_c_ries]

I think the best option with the Chinese would be to provide sufficient machine tools to enable increased production of small arms, ammunition light artillery and possibly light trucks and allow them to produce their own supplies. They had sufficient natural resources and could be organized. I think that getting supplies to the Chinese would be easier than running convoys past occupied Norway into Murmansk.

[voorst]

they would have provided greater material and logistic support to the Chinese.

Just don't forget that relationship between China and Germany was not in open conflict, instead in Great War, they were politically linked against GB...we can suppose a reaction of chinese against Japan, but it is not automatic against Germany.
Russian partisan defence is a problem only if wrong decision were taken at political level: i mean a good politics in Russia could give good gifts.
Bye

Voorst