WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#271

Post by historygeek2021 » 17 Mar 2021, 23:42

History Learner wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 21:54

I would highly encourage you to re-read the post instead of providing meme answers that suggest you did not so in the first place. Beyond the fact the citation specifically notes a secret mailing list of 8 million American First members had been retained, polling conducted by Gallup found that 40% of Americans supported a peace deal with Germany and the Roosevelt Administration considered this a grave political and strategic threat.

American Popular Opinion and the War Against Germany: The Issue of Negotiated Peace, 1942 by Richard W. Steele:
By mid-February the shallowness of public commitment to the war had become a subject of national public discussion. To those who enthusiastically supported the administration's view of the war-and this included most of the nation's publicists and opinion leaders-America seemed indifferent.7 The consensus was that after the initial shock of Pearl Harbor had worn off, the public had lapsed into complacency. Public officials, reporters, and other "informed observers" described Americans as "smug," "slothful," and "asleep." According to Time, while people did what they were called upon to do, "they showed little excitement about the war."8 Poor morale generated the most intense public discussion early in 1942, but the problem remained a matter of official concern throughout the year.​

For example, in September OWI reported that "few citizens are fully supporting the war effort. Most are content with the same comfortable ruts." The report said that not many Americans were convinced the military situation was critical or doubted eventual victory. Moreover, although most expected the war to last several years, few thought the struggle would entail great sacrifices. This and other analyses of morale noted a popular disposition to concentrate on the advantages accruing to various sectors of the populace and to conclude that others were exploiting the war for selfish advantage.​
Even against the hated Japanese, by 1945 war exhaustion had likewise set in and the JCS was getting very concerned about it. To quote from Michael D. Pearlman's "Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb":
"Leahy admitted however, that there was "little prospect of obtaining unconditional surrender" in 1945, Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, would write that the Navy "in the course of time would have starved the Japanese into submission" (Italics mine). Time, however, was a waning asset, especially to Marshall, who would later say that American "political and economic institutions melted out from under us [the U.S. military]". The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion told the JCS what magazines and newspapers had been printing since late 1944: there was overwhelming public pressure to increase production of consumer goods. I am "afraid of unrest in the country," said Director Fred Vinson. I have never seen "the people in their present frame of mind." Aside from reports about the "national end-of-the-war psychology among [the] citizens" of the United States, the JCS heard from its own military intelligence community. Their best estimate was that total victory through encirclement, blockade, and bombardment might well take "a great many years."5"​
A Germany in control of Europe to the A-A Line or the Urals is one that has the capacity to inflict millions of casualties upon the Anglo-Americans, with its strategic position affording it the ability to last until the late 1940s at the least even if the willpower is there on the part of the Allies to endure that much sacrifice. In such a scenario, I find it highly likely that public support for the war will give out long before Germany is crushed underfoot. Whether or not Churchill or FDR hate Hitler is irrelevant in the face of public opinion, given the former two are, after all, in charge of Democracies. Said public opinion was also not universally behind the war in the way we view today, but was in fact much more fickle and this directly shaped Allied operational planning as a result.
I don't see any specific cite to the 40% opinion poll in your posts. Can you please provide it again?

That, and the rest of your points, are simply statements of subjective anxieties that are normal for political leaders to feel during a war. Wartime leaders worry that their populations will turn against them, that they need to keep winning in order to keep up morale, etc. This doesn't prove that the American public would have abandoned the war just because Germany reached the Urals.

I asked earlier, and no one has answered: When in history has an anti-war movement successfully caused a country to abandon a war? The only examples I can really think of are Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1918, but both were cases of societies experiencing economic collapse and deplorable living standards. The Russian Revolution wasn't even a true anti-war movement. It was a revolution against the Tsar, but Russia kept fighting until Brest-Litovsk. Germany in 1918 was a case of war exhaustion, blockade and imminent catastrophic defeat on the front line. These situations are in no way comparable to a United States in 1943 that is faced with a gigantic German empire in control of continental Europe, that is marauding the seas with U-boats and bombing civilians in Britain, and is developing long-range bombers and (eventually) ballistic missiles capable of killing Americans at home.

Loss of enthusiasm for the war in 1945 is a different situation: the people wanting to enjoy the fruits of victory. Germany was defeated and Japan was wiped from the Pacific, reduced to hunkering down on its home islands. Of course people are going to be tired of rationing when they can smell the taste of complete victory. Nevertheless, these opinions and murmurings never amounted to anything more than that, and produced no tangible effect on the war effort.

Edit: typo
Last edited by historygeek2021 on 17 Mar 2021, 23:56, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#272

Post by historygeek2021 » 17 Mar 2021, 23:50

Politician01 wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:21

With the USSR absorbing most losses and backed fully by the US - both these things are missing or greatly reduced ATL
How many casualties does Germany suffer against the Soviet Union in this ATL? What is its manpower situation when the Soviet Union surrenders? Where is its army deployed? What is its industry producing?
Oh so more manpower Britain needs to invest away from fighting Germany. Also I though the Indian Army was "the greatest volunteer army in history" that could have defeated Germany all by itself had it been properly utilized by the British - at least many Anglos here claim so. How exactly are the British going to "ruthlessly crush" this army?
Britain easily crushed independence movements in India in the OTL. Britain only let up after the war because it had agreed to do so in the Atlantic Charter in order to get American support.
I love how getting spared the most intense phase of the LARGEST LAND WAR IN HUMAN HISTORY seemingly doesnt lead to increased German production, doesnt lead to increased Wallied casualties, doesnt result in any significant benefits for Germany and no disadvantages for the Wallies.......sigh
Germany will no doubt produce more once the Soviet Union surrenders. The question is, how much, and will it be enough, and will it be able to keep pace with Allied technological advances? As for Allied casualties, you haven't explained how the Allies are likely to change their strategy in response to Soviet defeat. What do the Allies do differently if the Soviet Union shows signs of collapse in 1941 and 1942? They have multiple options. They could focus everything on Japan early in order to secure a lendlease supply route to Vladivostock, thereby keeping the Soviet Union in the war. Or they could strike at German peripheries that were vital to its war effort, as discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=256179

I have now addressed all of your points, twice. Can you please show me the same courtesy and address mine:
historygeek2021 wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 20:19
The Allies would never make peace with Adolf Hitler. Hitler broke every treaty he ever signed. He habitually attacked countries he was at peace with. Waging war was the raison d'être of his regime. Making peace with Hitler would only give him time to consolidate his gains, strengthen his military, and launch a surprise attack on Britain and the United States.

Hitler's offensive style of warfare would inflame Allied public opinion against him. He would continue U-boat attacks, bombing civilians, invading other neutral countries and developing terror weapons (V-1, V-2) that would only increase public outrage in western countries who would demand his removal from power.

When in history has an anti-war movement succeeded in bringing an end to a war? Vietnam continued for years after mass protests. Public opinion is overwhelmingly against American intervention in the Middle East, but our troops have been there for years. In most anti-war movements, the enemy country poses minimal threat, but Germany posed an existential threat and was actively seeking to destroy western countries. It would be the easiest thing in the world for western governments to keep their people afraid of Hitler and to demand that his regime be crushed.

Business interests would also demand that the war continue. War contractors stood to make incredible profits from the continuation of the war. Allied victory would extend American economic hegemony over most of the planet, creating a world of opportunity for American businesses. Germany was competing with the United States in Latin American markets before the war. America would not allow a continent sized Greater Germany to compete with it in global markets.

Wars can last for decades. America was winning the technology race, as others have shown in this thread. American fighters, bombers and missiles would advance beyond Germany's technological abilities. Hitler would have an area to defend stretching from Norway to Morocco to Persia to the Urals. His forces would be spread thin, and the Allies could chip away at his empire little by little. Eventually it is the German people and their conquered subjects, surrounded and blockaded on all sides, isolated from the rest of the world and subsisting on ever stricter rations who would grow tired of the war and demand its end, just as they did in the First World War.


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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#273

Post by KDF33 » 18 Mar 2021, 00:22

Where in the following assertion:
History Learner wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 21:54
A Germany in control of Europe to the A-A Line or the Urals is one that has the capacity to inflict millions of casualties upon the Anglo-Americans
Is there any evidence to justify this statement:
Michael Kenny wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:09
Only in the mind of someone who thinks the Allies 'cheated' and did not have a 'fair fight' with the Germans.
IMO, the first statement is debatable and would depend on various contingencies. But it contains not a shred of evidence that History Learner thinks the Allies "cheated" by not giving a "fair fight" to Germany.

Did History Learner assert that the Allies cheated and fought unfairly in another thread? What does cheating and fairness even mean in the context of a war? I'm at a loss.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#274

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Mar 2021, 00:55

KDF33 wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 00:22


IMO, the first statement is debatable and would depend on various contingencies. But it contains not a shred of evidence that History Learner thinks the Allies "cheated" by not giving a "fair fight" to Germany.

Did History Learner assert that the Allies cheated and fought unfairly in another thread? What does cheating and fairness even mean in the context of a war? I'm at a loss.
Every one of these 'what can we change to make Germany win WW2' threads are predicated on the belief a German Army only has to get to grips with an Allied Army (on equal terms with 'equa'l being at the whim of the beholder)and it will always, always, always win. To ensure this outcome the rules are rigged so that every German strength comes into play and the Allies are not allowed to change the way they do things. The Allies can not improve or react to new circumstances and in effect Allied soldiers must line up in single file and advance on an M4 42 with unlimited ammunition in a bunker with 12 foot thick walls. The old 'one-on-one' M4 v Tiger tank in a vast open field trope. The tired repeated refrain that any beaten German Army only lost because it 'ran out of whatever/was outnumbered etc.
If an Army runs out of men, cant keep its tanks running . loses all its fuel and totally fails to achieve any of its political aims then it has failed. As we say in the UK The German Army was all fur coat and no knickers and the best runner up in the winning World Wars Olympics..
Cudda/shudda/wudda pipe-dreams are no substitute for cold hard fact and if you can handwavium German advantages then handwavium Allied advantages are equally valid.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#275

Post by KDF33 » 18 Mar 2021, 01:35

Michael Kenny wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 00:55
Every one of these 'what can we change to make Germany win WW2' threads are predicated on the belief a German Army only has to get to grips with an Allied Army (on equal terms with 'equa'l being at the whim of the beholder)and it will always, always, always win.
I acknowledge that there exists a community that extolls the virtues of the Wehrmacht as an inherently superior fighting force. The worst of them likely even wish that the actual outcome of WW2 had been different.

I am unaware that TMP, Politician01 and History Learner fall on that spectrum. I obviously don't know their entire posting history, although I have followed TMP's more closely out of interest. If I am wrong on this, I would obviously welcome a link to a post/thread of theirs where they show their true colors.

I don't think claiming that Germany would have significantly improved its position vis-à-vis the Western Allies in the event of an early-ish defeat of the USSR constitutes proof of bad faith or "Wehrabooism", however. Given my own view that the recent historiography of the Soviet-German war gets the inevitability of German defeat very wrong, I am inclined to explore such counterfactuals.

Speaking of counterfactuals, I find them essential to understand history. Indeed, in their absence I don't see how it is possible to explain why things happened. All that's left then is to list events sequentially, with no tool to weight their respective importance and account for the way they interacted with and shaped each other. IMO, this generally leads to a sense of inevitability and in fine shoddy historiography.
Michael Kenny wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 00:55
If an Army runs out of men, cant keep its tanks running . loses all its fuel and totally fails to achieve any of its political aims then it has failed.
Agreed. For me, the interesting discussion revolves around why.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#276

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Mar 2021, 01:48

i think the best way to describe such 'whatifery' is to compare it to printing your own colour photos. It is a hellishly difficult exercise where the slightest change in filter (so slight that they are invisible to the naked eye) results in wildly differing outcomes. A butterfly accidently crushed by the boot of a time-traveller back in pre-historic times really could result in his return to a world where Dinosaurs (i.e chickens) are the dominant intelligent species. Its simply pointless navel-gazing.
I do not share your faith in tmp. His posting history show a blizzard of threads where he is laser-focused on getting a WW2 re-run where his boys win. If it walks like a duck etc.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#277

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 18 Mar 2021, 01:58

HistoryGeek2021 wrote:They have multiple options. They could focus everything on Japan early in order to secure a lendlease supply route to Vladivostock, thereby keeping the Soviet Union in the war.
This isn't a feasible option if the SU is defeated in latter '42 or even early '43.

It requires landing in Korea, somehow maintaining an open shipping lane, which requires basically conquering Japan - at least Hokkaido and the Kuriles.

Somebody please explain the ATL path to that outcome. A USN that barely won the Guadalcanal campaign suddenly leapfrogs from Hawaii to Vladivostok in '42/'43. The problem here is the same as OTL: US resources were indeed crushing in the Pacific but naval programs have long lead times. A Pacific pivot in ATL '42 doesn't suddenly create more carriers and cruisers.

HG21 will probably next assert that a later - but earlier than OTL - conquest of Japan would enable the SU to reenter the war. He claimed so as HG19, IIRC.

This too needs quite a few more steps than I recall anyone providing. Specifically, if the Germans occupy the Central Urals, do they not notice the Americans having reopened Vladivostok and begun supplying the SU? Assuming they're not blind/incompetent, the Germans would immediately preempt any Soviet resurgence by driving from the Central Urals on Novosibirsk, which is as distant from Chelyabinsk as is Moscow from East Prussia. The Germans easily cover that in a single campaign with no more than the 40 or so divisions watching the Eastern Border anyway. South of that advance, German agents would throw the Central Asian republics into open revolt.

So by attempting to revive his anti-German war, Stalin would have brought about his regime's final destruction.

Much more likely is that, if US is defeating Japan, Hitler permits Stalin to take Manchuria and Korea, inaugurating US-Soviet cold or hot war.
HistoryGeek2021 wrote:Or they could strike at German peripheries that were vital to its war effort, as discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=256179
As I pointed out to HG21 in the linked thread, he has no argument that his proposed "peripheral" offensives are logistically feasible.

Unlike that thread, here the "peripheral" offensives are a recipe for immediate Allied disaster.

Portugal, for instance, is nearer the Ruhr than is Kursk. We can call Kursk a "peripheral" battle if HG21 insists; it doesn't change the fact that the German forces at Kursk would annihilate anything the Allies might send to Portugal in the ATL.
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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#278

Post by Michael Kenny » 18 Mar 2021, 02:14

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 01:58
it doesn't change the fact that the German forces at Kursk would annihilate anything the Allies might send to Portugal in the ATL.
The closest comparison would be to the II SS Pz Korps offensive that was designed to 'sweep the Allies into the sea in late June 1944.
EPSOM c 26-6-44  BBB.jpg
This SS tank Army was decisively beaten. Stopped dead in its tracks as it left its start lines. In fact it was so easily beaten that Montgomery (who knew it was coming because of the vastly superior Allied code-breaking arm) did not realise he had stopped it and he was left puzzled when (he believed) the main blow was not delivered.
Is that the type of Allied Army you believe the Germans would 'annihilate'?

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#279

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 18 Mar 2021, 02:44

-----------------------------------------------------
TMP bookmark: land-air production tradeoffs
------------------------------------------------------

Just to add more evidence to the obvious point that ending the war in the East would amplify LW production:
After an order from Hitler to give preference to tank manufacture, Saur, as head
of the armaments ministry technical office, made a drastic raid on aircraft
manufacturing resources (there was as yet no overall direction of Wehrmacht
armament) and hauled technicians and engineers off the production lines at
Junkers and Daimler. GSWW v.7 p.162
Edit to add: This occurred in February 1943, during the emergency Adolf Hitler Panzer Program.
Last edited by TheMarcksPlan on 18 Mar 2021, 03:25, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#280

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 18 Mar 2021, 02:55

-------------------------------------------------------
TMP bookmark: LW training and Eastern Front
-------------------------------------------------------

Also from GSWW v.7p.162:
The high losses of Ju 52 transport planes exacerbated the bottleneck in pilot
training that had already developed in the summer of 1942 because of a
shortage of fuel; they meant not only a loss of aircraft for training in blind and
bad-weather flying, but also of the precious instructors who were to teach the
pilots. However, the head of the Luftwaffe general staff, Hans Jeschonnek, was
so fixated on the war in the east that he swept aside the disastrous training
situation, saying: ‘First we have to beat Russia, then we can get on with
training!
...so Eastern Front emergency demands - which never ended - directly undercut the most valuable LW training resources.

Same page again:
In spring 1943 only
40 per cent of the amount of fuel needed for training fighter pilots, and 20 per
cent of that for bomber pilots, was available.1
As discussed upthread, ~half of LW's avgas-producing Bergius plants were making mogas for the Army, primarily for the Eastern Front of course.

Does anyone know, and/or have a reference for, the extent to which actual LW training hours fell short of '43's already-inadequate scheduled hours per trainee? Given these fuel shortages, I suspect that LW pilots were getting training worse even than what is suggested by the comparative flying hours.
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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#281

Post by daveshoup2MD » 18 Mar 2021, 03:46

KDF33 wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 08:09
daveshoup2MD wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 07:17
Well yeah, but Nazi Germany absent Hitler isn't really Nazi Germany, is it?
Agreed. My point is simply that the outcome of the Soviet-German war during the decisive year of 1942 had less to do with insurmountable Soviet advantages, and more to do with German mistakes.

I would, however, also argue that the relatively strong German position in mid-1942 had more to do with Soviet mistakes in 1941 - early 1942 than with irrepressible German strength at the beginning of Barbarossa.

IMO, the pendulum of initiative swung back and forth in the East from mid-1941 to mid-1943 largely on account of the respective sides' egregious strategic blindness and operational mistakes. Both Hitler and Stalin were impulsive military leaders that mostly reacted to the impressions of the moment while failing to grasp the fundamentals of the war. Contrary to received wisdom, I would argue that Stalin never got the wiser. His war was just easier than Hitler's: to win, he just had to survive long enough for the Anglo-Americans to start making an impact.
daveshoup2MD wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 07:17
It's an equally repeated talking point, but if Germany "had" rational leadership in this period, they wouldn't have gone to war.
I agree. Admittedly, its not clear to me that many major powers had rational leadership in that period. With that being said, obviously Hitler's kind was the most destabilizing and destructive.
I tend to go with historical alternatives, rather than alternative history, so I expect the decision-makers to make decisions along the lines of what they did in reality; Stalin, despite his many faults, figured out he was not a operational-level military commander - he never surrendered his overall authority, but he also knew enough to (eventually) give control of the decisions in the field to those who demonstrated their competency. In that sense, he was a realist - even a pragmatist, at times, as demonstrated in his ability to understand the Allies were the key to the USSR winning the war, as opposed to merely surviving.

Hitler remained convinced of his own brilliance, and appears to have constantly interfered with those who actually knew what they were doing; in that way, he was as much a fantasist as the Japanese leadership was for most of the war.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#282

Post by historygeek2021 » 18 Mar 2021, 03:51

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 01:58

This isn't a feasible option if the SU is defeated in latter '42 or even early '43.

It requires landing in Korea, somehow maintaining an open shipping lane, which requires basically conquering Japan - at least Hokkaido and the Kuriles.

Somebody please explain the ATL path to that outcome. A USN that barely won the Guadalcanal campaign suddenly leapfrogs from Hawaii to Vladivostok in '42/'43. The problem here is the same as OTL: US resources were indeed crushing in the Pacific but naval programs have long lead times. A Pacific pivot in ATL '42 doesn't suddenly create more carriers and cruisers.
With just a little more foresight by American military planners in the 1930s, they would have seen the coming Pacific war and realized that aircraft carriers were more important than battleships and adjusted production accordingly. With just a slight delta over the OTL production spending, American aircraft carrier production would be many times greater than in the OTL. With their pristine foresight, the US Navy would be strong enough to sweep across every Pacific Island in 1942. Faced with an ultimatum, the Japanese would surrender and provide the Americans with access to Manchuria in order to supply the Red Army with tens of thousands of tanks and combat aircraft (this only requires a small delta over the OTL production, you know).
HG21 will probably next assert that a later - but earlier than OTL - conquest of Japan would enable the SU to reenter the war. He claimed so as HG19, IIRC.

This too needs quite a few more steps than I recall anyone providing. Specifically, if the Germans occupy the Central Urals, do they not notice the Americans having reopened Vladivostok and begun supplying the SU? Assuming they're not blind/incompetent, the Germans would immediately preempt any Soviet resurgence by driving from the Central Urals on Novosibirsk, which is as distant from Chelyabinsk as is Moscow from East Prussia. The Germans easily cover that in a single campaign with no more than the 40 or so divisions watching the Eastern Border anyway. South of that advance, German agents would throw the Central Asian republics into open revolt.
Well, since the Germans are able to sweep all the way to Novosibirsk with better foresight and a small delta over OTL production, then surely the Americans would be able to sweep all the way across the Pacific in a 2 year campaign if they had just had a little better foresight and deltas.
Much more likely is that, if US is defeating Japan, Hitler permits Stalin to take Manchuria and Korea, inaugurating US-Soviet cold or hot war.
Yes, of course. It's so obvious. Stalin teaming up with Hitler to take over Korea and Manchuria and go to war with the United States. How were we so blind to this obvious turn of events if Germany's delta over OTL production were just 0.1% higher???
As I pointed out to HG21 in the linked thread, he has no argument that his proposed "peripheral" offensives are logistically feasible.
Yes, clearly the same Allies who were able to supply their forces all over the planet and defeat the Axis in basically every battle, from Morocco to Egypt to Tulagi, while at the same time supplying the Soviet Union with twenty million tons of lendlease, would have had their logistics fall completely apart if Operation Torch had landed in Spain, or if Montgomery had overstretched his supply lines by going to Turkey instead of Tunisia, or if the Royal Navy had tried to cross that vast expanse known as the North Sea.

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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#283

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 18 Mar 2021, 04:13

HistoryGeek2021 wrote:Yes, clearly the same Allies who were able to supply their forces all over the planet and defeat the Axis in basically every battle, from Morocco to Egypt to Tulagi, while at the same time supplying the Soviet Union with twenty million tons of lendlease, would have had their logistics fall completely apart if Operation Torch landed in Morocco, or if Montgomery overstretched his supply lines by going to Turkey instead of Tunisia, or the Royal Navy tried to cross that vast expanse known as the North Sea.
Once again I have to encourage you to actually read the relevant sources. Global Logistics and Strategy is daunting in its length and topic, but you'd spend your time better reading it than writing things like this.

You will learn why the Allies had to cancel a peripheral operation in the Andamans in 1944 due to shipping scarcity, for example.

Yes, you'll be offended and call me rude. There is simply no nice way to say that you need to learn more before opining on these topics.
HistoryGeek2021 wrote:Well, since the Germans are able to sweep all the way to Novosibirsk with better foresight and a small delta over OTL production, then surely the Americans would be able to sweep all the way across the Pacific in a 2 year campaign if they had just had a little better foresight and deltas.
Childish. You can do better.

For you or others - if the Germans are in the Central Urals in, say, 1944/5 when the Allies liberate Vladivostok, why isn't the German army capable of advancing? Anybody want to make HG21's argument for him? He doesn't appear interested enough to make one, though he's convinced of his rightness nonetheless.
HistoryGeek2021 wrote:With just a little more foresight by American military planners in the 1930s
Do I need to point out that your ability to posit a different ATL has no relevance to whether my ATL is feasible?

I agree that the US should have been better prepared; many feasible ATL's can be described. If you want to make such an ATL I will encourage you to the extent it's interesting and well-informed.

I will not pepper your thread with critiques that blithely assume critical aspects for which I have done no analysis nor presented a shred of evidence.
HistoryGeek2021 wrote:Yes, of course. It's so obvious. Stalin teaming up with Hitler
I didn't say it's obvious; I said it's more likely than your ATL, which lacks any basis in common sense.

Btw - "Stalin teaming up with Hitler????" is something a lot of people regretted laughing off.
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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#284

Post by History Learner » 18 Mar 2021, 04:21

Michael Kenny wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:56
History Learner wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:38


German KIA/MIA on the Eastern Front alone amounted to the equivalent of roughly 50-60 Divisions. Even using 1944 rates, that manpower in the West alone results in one million American casualties.
Eastern Front is eastern Front. At no time did the Western Allies suffer the same rate of casualties They fought a different war and a very successful (in terms of negating any German advantage) war.
It needs repeating: The German Army was the size it was because it was always intended the invasion of Russia would be a short campaign. The intent was to quickly shrink the Army after victory. Victory never arrived and so German was forced to maintain an inflated under-equipped army of old men, cripples and boys on horses in the hope numbers would substitute for quality. They were wrong.
Okay, even taking that at face value with the patently untrue myths contained within it, the OP has specified they have won against the USSR, so what is your point here? As I said, even taking 1944 casualty rates experienced by the Americans fighting the Germans-not Eastern Front level Soviet losses-still results in roughly 1 million or more American casualties simply from the "Saved" KIA/MIA from the Eastern Front.
Michael Kenny wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 23:14
History Learner wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:38
. No one is doubting the Anglo-Americans kept their armies well supplied, but that's a pretty irrelevant point to the central fact that they are, in this ATL outlined, facing far, far more Germans than they historically had to. Likewise, the idea the Germans would universally be broke anytime they faced your Allied supermen kinda falls apart when one considers Kasserine Pass, Italy, the Aegean, Market Garden, etc...
Oh dear, the usual trick of conflating tactical success with strategic success. They never 'broke'. They were beaten. You starting to sound a lot like the Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel announcers. In fact a lot like the one who claimed film of wrecked landing craft washed up on beaches east of the landings were the wreckage from a failed assault.
No, you're just moving goalposts at this point. Your original statement was that the Western Allies never lost against the Germans; this is patently untrue as I pointed out. You can cast aspersions of being a Nazi all you wish to those who disagree with you, but that doesn't make your points any more valid. If you actually wish to debate in good faith, I'm all for it, but it's pretty clear at this point you have no real interest in that.

History Learner
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Re: WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

#285

Post by History Learner » 18 Mar 2021, 04:22

Tom from Cornwall wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:44
History Learner wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 22:36
It doesn't ultimately change the fact Hitler and the NSDAP remained in control until the Reich was physically overrun and destroyed, which suggests their capacity do such in this situation should not be doubted.
Obviously not doubted by you...

Several historians have suggested that one of the key factors that drove continued German resistance in 1945 when the war was obviously lost was the fear of retribution from invading Soviet troops. Not a factor in this historical fantasy, obviously.

Regards

Tom
Two words: Morgenthau Plan

That motivated the Germans just as much against the Anglo-Americans as against the Soviets.

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