WI: Matzen and Schoonebeek Oil Fields discovered, 1938-1940

[stevep]

sillygoose

Right can't be sure I have everything as it was a week or so back but try and reply.

Ok, I'll have to reply in shifts because you wrote a lot and I don't have the time/patience to try and do even all of this post in one sitting.

Even with said potential Hitler and the Nazi leadership really didn't want to fight the US. This is quite well documented. They wanted to dominate Europe and have a trade bloc from which they could economically compete with the US, since they would have more than enough to occupy them in their backyard; "Man In The High Castle" is not great alternate history.

Then why did Hitler decide on war with the US? That's one point that undermines your argument.

Also I disagree about the basic idea of fascist Germany as basically operating on the same paths as most other nations. They had taken social darwinism 'ideas' to an extreme and had no more concept of other powers being their equal and having a right to exist than the current empire in China for instance.

During wartime when the situation was fluid war planning did at times exist like that, but in the pre-war period there were war plans based on likely war scenarios, which like the Color War Plans of the US are well documented and did not necessarily stem from Hitler ordering them. Planning was done in OKH independent of Hitler's whims especially pre-1942, OKW is where Hitler had his way since they were his personal staff after he took over War Minister duties for himself. Even though technically head of OKH after 1941 the CoS of that organization generally operated with substantial independence in the realms where they had domain, like the Eastern Front. I'd imagine in peace time Hitler, assuming he was still in charge and healthy, they revert to a more theoretical series of contingency planning.

Of course you do also have to realize that what you describe is also how things worked for the Allies; the politicians in charge set directives based upon their Grand Strategy and had their staffs carry out planning; certainly said staffs have serious input, but then so did they often in Hitler's planning, like at Kursk as one example.

The difference is that in an autocratic state, let alone a totalitarian one its a lot more difficult, let alone dangerous, to try and talk the ruler out of a bloody stupid idea. Germany was damned lucky in 1938 and again in 39/40 and similarly in 1941 that Stalin was as rash and irresponsible as Hitler else the Germans would have faced serious problems even sooner. The allies didn't go for something as mind-blowing stupid as Operation Sledgehammer for instance.

I mean the shipping they hit was even indirectly servicing British war potential; every ship knocked out from east coast US shipping is one that would have to be replaced, so the resources to make it couldn't be used on a ship for Britain or to ship goods to Britain, while the loss of said ship cut resources that could be moved around for US production, which was servicing the British.

I think we're at cross purposes here as what you say is something I totally agree with so I think we were discussion something else.

What do you mean about medium term potential options to threaten the US? Their sabotage mission failed badly:

Operation Pastorius - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wasn't referring to that at all. IIRC I was thinking about things such as attacks on coastal shipping and interests. Possibly also trying to displace US economic interests in Latin America.

Yep:

Anti-British sentiment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anglo-phobia was actually extremely common in the US at the time and only got worse so that by 1944 there were actually anti-British protests on US university campuses! Of course by then Britain was behaving pretty shittily towards any number of countries, not least of which was Greece. Anti-Imperialism was even worrying British newspapers:

BRITISH PAPER PROTESTS; Says Anti-Empire Propaganda in U.S. Aids Japanese (Published 1944)

London Daily Sketch charges US anti-Brit propaganda aids Japanese

www.nytimes.com

There has always been a anti-British element in the US, in part because of the latter's foundation myth and in part because Britain as long as it was the primary naval power was on the only capable of posing a threat to the US itself, at least before the mid-1950s'. That Britain was also the 1st line of defence for the US for most of its history tends to get ignored when stirring up xenophobia. That's one reason why many of the US politicians who were trying to cosy up to Statlin were also talking about the need to break British power despite the fact that had already happened.

Towards the end of WWII just about everybody had a few dirty secrets but I don't think that preserving democracy in Greece was one of them. The US was at least as guilty and in many other areas.

As to the Irish themselves, they kept up contact with the Nazis until they were convinced they would lose as late as 1944, yes even after the accidental bombing of Dublin:

The IRA's links with Nazi Germany | Frank Ryan | Queen's University Belfast

www.qub.ac.uk

Supposedly de Valera even was open to invading Northern Ireland if the Germans invaded Britain.

Irish Republican Army–Abwehr collaboration - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quite possibly but then de Valera was famously an evil little thug who hated anything outside his power. He brought several generations of suffering on the Irish republic which its only finally escaped from in the last couple of decades. I frankly would trust him further than I could throw him.

I think they'd be more than willing to work with US businesses like Ford and IBM if the US didn't touch German patents and industries in North America. If they did then US investments would be nationalized too, so both sides had a 'live and let live' incentive there. Goering didn't nationalize US industries, even during WW2, which is why US properties, like the Ford owned factory wasn't bombed by the US:

These companies (Ford, GM, IBM) even received profits from their German subsidiaries during the war and had contacts with these subsidiaries that were even investigated by the US government for treason during the war.

Interesting admission that the US left important enemy capacity off their target lists and some what horrifying. Of course its doubtful they could have hit those targets reliably if they had tried.

In WW2 the A-bomb isn't an insta-win button, especially if enemy air defense hasn't already been broken. It was able to work so well against Japan due to facing virtually zero air defenses. Of course they only knew that it worked in July 1945, you don't fight out a war for years on the potential that eventually down the road a secret weapon might work, one they couldn't reveal to the US public before it was used in combat. Plus the US public won't continue to fight for years with rationing and privation without hope of victory at reasonable cost, hence the panic the US and UK had that the Soviets might ever make a separate peace deal.

1918 is not 1942 and Nazi Germany's empire is quite a bit more powerful than Imperial Germany's holdings.

No but its a massive boost in allied power. There is a risk of interception of a nuclear delivery but there's also a considerable risk for Germany that it will get through and a few would cause huge damage to the German economy. As I said I hadn't mentioned it earlier because its future was uncertain in ~1943 but it is a factor that would come into play in a longer war.

You could be correct that minor levels of rationing is considered more important to many than securing the countries security but that would be a very myopic viewpoint.

In some ways Germany in 43 is stronger than in 1918 but it also has considerable weaknesses.

How do you think they can actually prevent anything without the USSR?

IIRC we're talking about defending the Caucaus line and preventing the Germans, with very long supply lines reaching around two side of the Black Sea and through hostile country towards a formidable line of mountains. As such the British forces that could be deployed along with increasing numbers of US ones if their not left idle in Britain should be able to do that fairly easily. Coupled with clearing N Africa pretty much as OTL or ideally a bit quicker and Germany has relatively little chance to change the borders.

I think you didn't finish the thought. And yes I know, that's my point: naval construction used up vastly more resources than panzers and panzers were a large line item in German production.

Yes looks like I lost my train of thought somewhere. However I stand by my point that panzers were a small - albeit important - element in the German army. It shouldn't be compared to an entire branch of the military.

Theoretically they could, but given Allied politics and the personalities involved they wouldn't without a major and separate POD. Without the USSR the Allies have no serious way to fight at a cheap cost in terms of lives other than their strategic bombing and they signaled that if the USSR quit that is how they would fight anyway. I highly disagree that the bombing campaign was ineffective prior to 1944, it just wasn't yet properly applied to achieve the full effect it would later on when better intel came with the invasion of France and they could review what the impact of their bombing actually was; without the invasion of France though then it would still be misapplied. And if the Allies turned to tactical bombing and large armies then they give the Germans a massive break on the production end, which means a lot more Allies battle deaths at the sharp end of the spear. Strategic bombing was the cheap way to fight believe it or not; the Germans found that out the hard way when fighting the Soviets.

It wasn't "properly applied" because it didn't have the necessary mass, in part because so much was repeatedly squandered, and because the relevant technology and organisation wasn't there. Both the UK and US startegic bomber plans were driven more by service interests than actual logic and forethought.

Why would the Allies improve their own performance? Their problems were structural too. I disagree with your characterization of HL's arguments, I think you're strawmanning what he's saying. And yes Germany does have resource limits even with a defeated USSR, but there are major gains to be had by knocking out the USSR even as late as 1944 given that something like 45% of the entire war economy was dedicated to fighting them by that point. Germany being maxed out in manpower is somewhat deceptive given that they were still able to generate major replacements as late as March 1945, its just that they couldn't keep up with the major losses of 1944 and expanding Allies armies on top of continuous Soviet pressure. So the USSR out in 1943 saves them millions of men, especially minus the Stalingrad debacle, which then all end up used against the Wallies. Even with the Soviets in the war on the ground until the collapse in March 1945 the Germans were still getting 1:1 or better combat casualty ratios (overall) vs. the Wallies despite every possible disadvantage and there is no way the Wallies would accept millions of casualties necessary to beat the Germans.

A major challenge is a traditional way of making people re-think how their doing things and that's exactly what is being proposed here. With the Soviets [or their successors] being reduced to a 2nd level power the allies have to rethink what their doing. Give up is one option I'll admit but I think its a bloody stupid one. If the allies decide we must fight to win - or even to avoid a disastrous defeat until we can find better ways of winning - then there's a lot they can do and a bloody big incentive to make changes.

Your argued that the Germans would massively boost their own performance and [below] that they actually did so. However you assume that the allies can't do likewise.

On HL we will have to differ. I have repeatably pointed out flaws in his arguments, some of them very obvious and he continues to ignore those flaws.

Plus you're forgetting that the main reason the Germans didn't have more Eastern European manpower available was the general feeling those people's had that Stalin wouldn't lose the war after 1941-42, so desertions, surrenders, and collaboration dried up and partisan war increased (which was also a major factor suppressing further collaboration since the threat of assassination was extremely high, the Soviets not only found collaborators easier to kill since they had less security than the Germans, but targeting them was a higher priority given the threat unpunished collaboration posed to the survival of the Soviet state). If Stalin is basically defeated there would be millions of opportunists who would be interested in saving their own skins by working with Hitler. Even if just 2% of the population (much less than in France) collaborated then the Nazis wouldn't have any problem managing the East with a skeleton crew of German manpower.

I have to disagree given the German attitude to the people in question. Not to mention the stated German intention of killing the majority of those people. Surrenders, desertions and willing collaboration dwindled largely because the people in the occupied territories found out that for once Soviet propaganda had some accuracy to it. I.e. that the Germans were that brutal and murderous. Soviet terror also played a part, especially from Kursk onward when it looked increasingly likely that the Soviets would win but the primary factor was the German attitude to the local population.

That would be incorrect. US reports about the German economy were quite clear about how efficient the German war economy had become from 1939-45. Unfortunately guys like Tooze overplayed the myth of Speer and his 'take down' of that and distorted the historical record in order to sell books with their 'ground breaking' thesis. The reality is that Germany was not at all prepared for a general war in Europe in 1939 and took years to finally get everything sorted. 1942 was the inflection year and Speer was the guy who organized that. Certainly he exaggerated parts of his success, but there was a major improvement in production without additional resources committed from the point he took things over. Funny how just about every history of the Nazi war economy can demonstrate that, but somehow Tooze is the the only correct historian to people online. Bias confirmation is a real issue.

Germany was a lot more prepared than just about anyone else. It made progress in the following years but not as much as other powers that were playing catch up.

With Tooze I have read him recently because I have frequently seen him quoted to argue points that I disagree with. On reading him I find those references have often been a distortion of what he actually said. I also rely on a lot more reading from multiple sources over several decades. I also notice that both HL and your yourself earlier today pick items from his books to argue your case. Therefore I wonder who is actually applying bias confirmation?

Wallied resources, though greater even in a Germany wins in the east scenario, are still bottlenecked due to the need to also fight Japan and ship everything across the Atlantic or from the Empire. Shipping then is the constraint, which limits all else and it is split between the Atlantic and Pacific (mainly). If they cut off the USSR from L-L (or not offer it for whatever reason) then there is more shipping and production resources of course, but then more Allied manpower is needed to fight, which means taking men out of the factories and putting them into combat, which means reduced production and increased need for resources for combat units, including global sustainment infrastructure, which is vastly more expensive and resource intensive than simply building up new divisions. IIRC it took 9 men to equip and sustain 1 man in Europe and then on top of that something like 8 men to sustain 1 man in combat.

Yes I know that and have answered this point before. If we deploy people differently then finding the manpower is possible. Shipping is more of an issue but accepting this and prioritizing it would ease a lot of those problems.

I'm not actually suggested cutting any L-L at all, other than routes that would be cut off by the proposed German advances. As I've pointed out the Russian population and resource base won't disappear totally although at worse case scenario, which is being suggested here its going to be a substantial regional force as well as the German need to garrison the vast empire being created.

Interesting ratios of tooth to tail. Do you think the Germans, with supply lines stretching so long aren't going to have problems as well?

 

[sillygoose]

sillygoose
Right can't be sure I have everything as it was a week or so back but try and reply.

At this rate Steve I'll never be able to respond to your other posts!

Then why did Hitler decide on war with the US? That's one point that undermines your argument.

He thought that once FDR had war powers he would eventually engineer an incident and declare war anyway, so Hitler gambled on being able to get the first shots in by attacking with the Uboats before the US was prepared to defend against them; he was right in that it likely delayed the US ability to intervene for at least 6 months and FDR was planning on continuing to escalate. Basically Hitler felt backed into a corner and that was his best remaining option.

Also I disagree about the basic idea of fascist Germany as basically operating on the same paths as most other nations. They had taken social darwinism 'ideas' to an extreme and had no more concept of other powers being their equal and having a right to exist than the current empire in China for instance.

I don't think I claimed they were, just said that I've not seen any plans for world conquest, just securing their backyard. Meanwhile FDR did have a plan to put every nation on earth into a US dominated financial/political system (Bretton Woods/UN).

The difference is that in an autocratic state, let alone a totalitarian one its a lot more difficult, let alone dangerous, to try and talk the ruler out of a bloody stupid idea. Germany was damned lucky in 1938 and again in 39/40 and similarly in 1941 that Stalin was as rash and irresponsible as Hitler else the Germans would have faced serious problems even sooner. The allies didn't go for something as mind-blowing stupid as Operation Sledgehammer for instance.

Sure, but FDR and Churchill did do some pretty stupid stuff themselves despite advice against it, while Hitler even let himself be talked out of more stupid stuff than he did IOTL, if you can believe that. For instance invading Switzerland and Sweden.

I think we're at cross purposes here as what you say is something I totally agree with so I think we were discussion something else.

It was in reference to me saying that Germany was targeting the shipping supporting Britain in the 2nd Happy Time and was just clarifying that I meant it in the broad sense rather than the narrow 'just focusing on the shipping in the mid atlantic'.

I wasn't referring to that at all. IIRC I was thinking about things such as attacks on coastal shipping and interests. Possibly also trying to displace US economic interests in Latin America.

You mean during the war or after? If anything the US just displaced German economic interests in Latin America as part of the war effort. After all it was the Wallies waging economic war on Germany rather than the other way around other than Uboats.

There has always been a anti-British element in the US, in part because of the latter's foundation myth and in part because Britain as long as it was the primary naval power was on the only capable of posing a threat to the US itself, at least before the mid-1950s'. That Britain was also the 1st line of defence for the US for most of its history tends to get ignored when stirring up xenophobia. That's one reason why many of the US politicians who were trying to cosy up to Statlin were also talking about the need to break British power despite the fact that had already happened.

Don't forget US anti-imperialism, which was extraordinarily strong pre- and post-WW1. It was only after the US officially had an empire to protect from the 1950s on and the European empires collapsed that that sentiment stopped. Plus there was a lot of resentment over Britain's role in dragging the US into WW1 before we get into all the specific Anglo-phobia of say the Irish.
I don't think you're getting US motives; those politicians weren't saying that to Stalin due to fears of the British navy (the US coast guard alone was larger than the British navy by 1944), but rather anti-imperialism and the US trying to subordinate Britain economically and politically to the US. There was a LOT of anti-imperialist sentiment and blame for WW2 even happening throughout the war.

Towards the end of WWII just about everybody had a few dirty secrets but I don't think that preserving democracy in Greece was one of them. The US was at least as guilty and in many other areas.

I don't call what the British did in Greece preserving Greek democracy.

Quite possibly but then de Valera was famously an evil little thug who hated anything outside his power. He brought several generations of suffering on the Irish republic which its only finally escaped from in the last couple of decades. I frankly would trust him further than I could throw him.

I can't imagine why he would given British history in Ireland. Frankly Britain is much more responsible for Irish suffering than their own politicians.

Interesting admission that the US left important enemy capacity off their target lists and some what horrifying. Of course its doubtful they could have hit those targets reliably if they had tried.

They hit all the other ones. Ultimately though it didn't matter once they realized the rail system was the core of the German economy and how to wreck it (thanks to finding the records about the impact US bombing was having on the French rail system when they took Paris), which paralyzed the German economy by January 1945. Interestingly it was just as much the bombing of the rail lines as the oil production facilities that shut off the oil. Since repairs couldn't be made without the rail lines operating the facilities stayed damaged.

No but its a massive boost in allied power. There is a risk of interception of a nuclear delivery but there's also a considerable risk for Germany that it will get through and a few would cause huge damage to the German economy. As I said I hadn't mentioned it earlier because its future was uncertain in ~1943 but it is a factor that would come into play in a longer war.

You could be correct that minor levels of rationing is considered more important to many than securing the countries security but that would be a very myopic viewpoint.

In some ways Germany in 43 is stronger than in 1918 but it also has considerable weaknesses.

People overrate the impact of WW2 a-bombs. They worked so well in Japan due to how much of it was wooden vs. German cities. Plus they hit untouched Japanese cities, while all German cities over 20000 people were already ruined as was their economy by the time the Abomb was operational. It would be a non-factor in the war if the Soviets left by 1943; no on knew when it would be ready, no one knew when the B29 would be ready, and Japan needed to be bombed more than Germany given the cost of an invasion of the home isles.

Again, Europe had very little to do with US security and the average American knew it. Japan was the bigger threat to the US, but they were being dealt with. I'm just saying by 1945 the US was approaching the limit of what the public would tolerate in terms of casualties and rationing and the US government was well aware and was terrified of what would happen if they didn't win soon.

As to Germany in 1943 being stronger than in 1918, yeah it very much was. It was still stronger in 1944 than it was in 1918.
The only weakness relative to 1918 by 1943-44 was more powerful enemies and more of them.

IIRC we're talking about defending the Caucaus line and preventing the Germans, with very long supply lines reaching around two side of the Black Sea and through hostile country towards a formidable line of mountains. As such the British forces that could be deployed along with increasing numbers of US ones if their not left idle in Britain should be able to do that fairly easily. Coupled with clearing N Africa pretty much as OTL or ideally a bit quicker and Germany has relatively little chance to change the borders.

Given that there was even worse logistics on the Iranian side of the Caucasus getting Allied armies into the region was a no-go, nor was it ever intended; just defend Iran, which frankly was impossible for the Axis to threaten, and bomb captured oil fields and the Wallied goals are achieved. Not sure what sort of campaign you think would happen, but that would be the worst region to try and project forces into. Murmansk would have been a better option.

Yes looks like I lost my train of thought somewhere. However I stand by my point that panzers were a small - albeit important - element in the German army. It shouldn't be compared to an entire branch of the military.

I forget too what the thrust of that point was, but something about relative spending on resources. And yes of course the navy in general was more expensive than an elite fraction of the army, but there was some reason it came up.

It wasn't "properly applied" because it didn't have the necessary mass, in part because so much was repeatedly squandered, and because the relevant technology and organisation wasn't there. Both the UK and US startegic bomber plans were driven more by service interests than actual logic and forethought.

That's just not true; we know that because when they did hit the right targets they had more mass than they needed. Frankly given the USSBS summary report they didn't need even a fraction of what they built if they focused on the electrical generation facilities, but they did not realize how vulnerable Germany was there until after the war when they examined the records. Arguably they could have hit pay dirt even with some of the lesser targets if they simply repeated their raids, like the dam buster one; Speer said they were close to crippling the Ruhr had they bombed the repair efforts for the dams.

The technology was all there by 1943, it was just wasted on bombing civilians.

And yes you're right about service interests, but there was logic and forethought, just not enough accurate intel and too many egos needing to be stroked. Beyond that don't forget politicians; Churchill and Lindemann wanted city bombing, which is why Bomber Harris even got the job; without Churchill it wouldn't have happened. If you get a chance read the personal diary of Alanbrooke, he was extremely harsh on Churchill's competence on any military matters.

A major challenge is a traditional way of making people re-think how their doing things and that's exactly what is being proposed here. With the Soviets [or their successors] being reduced to a 2nd level power the allies have to rethink what their doing. Give up is one option I'll admit but I think its a bloody stupid one. If the allies decide we must fight to win - or even to avoid a disastrous defeat until we can find better ways of winning - then there's a lot they can do and a bloody big incentive to make changes.

Your argued that the Germans would massively boost their own performance and [below] that they actually did so. However you assume that the allies can't do likewise.

On HL we will have to differ. I have repeatably pointed out flaws in his arguments, some of them very obvious and he continues to ignore those flaws.

War isn't just about cold logic of politicians. It is what the public would tolerate and politicians in democracies have to think about that as well, which is why cutting a deal is the most likely option. Its one thing to fight on when the Soviets are paying the blood price, quite another when it's your kids doing the dying. Against Japan the US public was willing to fight to the bitter end due to the revenge impulse, threat that Japan did pose, and racism, but against Germany there really wasn't any such major fear by the US public.

Certainly the militaries would explore options, but they need to show progress to the public as well, which limits their options; winning the naval war and fighting the strategic air wars are the only tolerable ones, as the risk of a massive defeat in an opposed amphibious invasion would end the willingness to fight on.

As to HL he might well say the same as you, but I agree, let's drop that topic, it's between you and him.

I have to disagree given the German attitude to the people in question. Not to mention the stated German intention of killing the majority of those people. Surrenders, desertions and willing collaboration dwindled largely because the people in the occupied territories found out that for once Soviet propaganda had some accuracy to it. I.e. that the Germans were that brutal and murderous. Soviet terror also played a part, especially from Kursk onward when it looked increasingly likely that the Soviets would win but the primary factor was the German attitude to the local population.

Pre-war plans of the Nazi elite are quite a bit different from what actually ended up happening. The hunger plan was basically scrapped by 1942 when it was realized that Soviet manpower was too valuable to kill off and they were very willing to fight with or in some cases work for Germany. Surrenders continued at a high place until 1943, same with desertions and collaboration. 1943 was the turning point for all of that, specifically Stalingrad marked the change over. Still even then there was still quite a bit of all of the above until the post-Kursk Soviet offensives. After that all of the above collapsed except for existing collaboration or people pressganged into service. So no, it wasn't Soviet propaganda, especially behind German lines, that made the difference with all of the above, it was Soviet military victories. After all even by 1942 Stalin had killed many more Russians than Hitler had.

Pop histories tends to make too much of the impact of Soviet propaganda and German atrocities in the East and not enough of the practical reasons people did or did not collaborate: waiting to see who was winning and then pick sides. Stalin was murderous as fuck and promised to be even more so than Hitler if his forces got their hands on collaborators and that didn't stop people from serving him, in fact it increased service to him out of fear. Certainly the Soviet soldiers who volunteered to fight for Germany in 1941 were quickly disabused of the potential for that option, but since they never had a chance anyway for the purposes of our discussion they wouldn't matter. The civilians were the people that needed to be recruited and they were waiting to see how things played out in the fighting. If Stalin isn't coming back and Hitler is now in charge and oppressing people, sucking up to the powers that be is a traditional response of some of the occupied if the option is there (and it was IOTL).

Germany was a lot more prepared than just about anyone else. It made progress in the following years but not as much as other powers that were playing catch up.

With Tooze I have read him recently because I have frequently seen him quoted to argue points that I disagree with. On reading him I find those references have often been a distortion of what he actually said. I also rely on a lot more reading from multiple sources over several decades. I also notice that both HL and your yourself earlier today pick items from his books to argue your case. Therefore I wonder who is actually applying bias confirmation?

Not really. It was more prepared than the French and British, but that isn't saying much and they were able to surmount part of their issues rapidly thanks to the US sales of equipment, which was a massive boost to their war potential. Germany on the other hand founder for at least 18 months into the war and only really started getting mobilized to the level that Britain was by 1941 in 1942. I'm not saying Tooze is without his uses, but you have to know where he's right and where he's wrong or at least not exactly getting things right; as you said reading multiple sources is the best way to know what is generally on point.

Yes I know that and have answered this point before. If we deploy people differently then finding the manpower is possible. Shipping is more of an issue but accepting this and prioritizing it would ease a lot of those problems.

It's a zero-sum game though, so if you employ them differently what are you losing in doing so?

I'm not actually suggested cutting any L-L at all, other than routes that would be cut off by the proposed German advances. As I've pointed out the Russian population and resource base won't disappear totally although at worse case scenario, which is being suggested here its going to be a substantial regional force as well as the German need to garrison the vast empire being created.

To some extend yes, but the Soviets without recovering certain territories will need to demobilize forces to feed themselves and prevent social collapse. By 1942 IOTL they were over mobilized per Mark Harrison, who is probably the preeminent english language historian on the Soviet economy.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/dfc1994postprint.pdf

In fact, by 1942, the Soviet economy was excessively mobilized, and still on the brink of collapse. Everything that had been done to save the defense industry and expand its output had made matters worse for the economy as a whole. In particular, the celebrated evacuation of defense factories from the zone of German occupation had plunged the interior regions into crisis, since the demands of the new war economy instantly outstripped the workforce, industrial supplies, and residential, service, and transport facilities available in the interior. Throughout 1942 the foundations of war production in the civilian economy remained dangerously unstable. The output of basic industrial materials and power remained limited to one-half or one-third of prewar levels; agriculture and food processing appeared locked into an unstoppable decline, which threatened the basis of human existence throughout the country.

Only in 1943 did serious adjustment begin. After the winter of 1942/43 the military and resource balance ceased to worsen. Victory at Stalingrad marked a strategic turning point in the war.

Garrisoning will be supplemented by local collaborators, like how Germany ran France for much of the war with less than 100,000 people in country. They'd certainly have to do more, like in Poland with something like a 300,000 man minimum security force, just scaled up, but then they had a LOT fewer collaborators in Poland than in the USSR, where over 2 million people collaborated with German forces alone, not counting any of the other Axis powers with forces in the East. In fact those allied armies like the Italians would likely help Germany in occupying Russia.

Interesting ratios of tooth to tail. Do you think the Germans, with supply lines stretching so long aren't going to have problems as well?

Not nearly as much; they were after all basically on home turf in France or Italy. Even with Russian commitments rail transport is quite a bit less than shipping globally and offloading in damaged foreign ports; as France and Italy demonstrated they had to rely on truck shipping from beaches to the front, which is grossly expensive even for the US, which actually did no better and in some ways arguably worse than Germany did during Barbarossa with only truck supply (though that is likely more a function of the hungry and thirsty Wallied divisions/corps/army level elements). Despite insane levels of infrastructure bombing the Germans were still able to successfully defend Italy for years and somehow actually inflicted heavier losses on Allied forces in France even counting their huge number of PoWs. Were it not for the Soviets eating up German reserves/replacements and ammo that summer they might well have stalemated the front.

 

[stevep]

At this rate Steve I'll never be able to respond to your other posts!

Sorry about that. Unfortunately as I get older I find I'm less organised and the memory isn't what it is so like to reply ASAP before I forget too many details. Also possibly being very, very old school so to speak I think of it as polite to reply promptly but will try and keep it short.

One point to clarify please. When your talking below about things such as Japan being seen as a greater threat than Germany are you referring to perceptions among much of the US population at the time as opposed to the actual factual situation? Because from everything I've read and what you among others have said in this discussion Germany was a much greater threat to the US than Japan and the US military as well as civilian leadership realised that.

He thought that once FDR had war powers he would eventually engineer an incident and declare war anyway, so Hitler gambled on being able to get the first shots in by attacking with the Uboats before the US was prepared to defend against them; he was right in that it likely delayed the US ability to intervene for at least 6 months and FDR was planning on continuing to escalate. Basically Hitler felt backed into a corner and that was his best remaining option.

Except that would give the US what your saying FDR wanted, both war with Germany and since Germany was the aggressor a united population in the following conflict. As opposed to a US reluctantly dragged into the European conflict by Washington. It also meant war with the US quickly as opposed to later which would have given Germany more time to complete their desired victory in the east [of Europe obviously ] Also it was in part driven by Donitz's claim that he could knock Britain out of the war and hence remove any base for American operation against the Nazis before the US could respond.

Not sure if the US would have increased its ASW forces in either qualitity or quantity if it had been delayed in its entry into the war by 6-12 months say. There would have been the danger that so much more, in terms of both warships and merchants would have been committed to the Pacific with its huge logistical demands. Plus while British/empire forces would have been boosted the U-boats would also probably have been built up. As such you could have had an even greater slaughter if say Us-German hostilities had been open a year later.

I don't think I claimed they were, just said that I've not seen any plans for world conquest, just securing their backyard. Meanwhile FDR did have a plan to put every nation on earth into a US dominated financial/political system (Bretton Woods/UN).

Yes there are simularities between both Germany at the time and the US in that neither found the idea of any independent state outside their control. However in the US case, at least for major developed powers, it didn't involve military invasion and mass slaughter.

Sure, but FDR and Churchill did do some pretty stupid stuff themselves despite advice against it, while Hitler even let himself be talked out of more stupid stuff than he did IOTL, if you can believe that. For instance invading Switzerland and Sweden.

Fully agree but there was more chance of pointing out to either of the allied commanders that something was stupid/bloody suicidal than there was Hitler or Stalin. PLus my argument is that some of those errors could be corrected on the allied side simply because they have to re-think their plans and intent.

It was in reference to me saying that Germany was targeting the shipping supporting Britain in the 2nd Happy Time and was just clarifying that I meant it in the broad sense rather than the narrow 'just focusing on the shipping in the mid atlantic'.

OK thanks for clarifying.

You mean during the war or after? If anything the US just displaced German economic interests in Latin America as part of the war effort. After all it was the Wallies waging economic war on Germany rather than the other way around other than Uboats.

During the war simply because Germany had no chance to influence the region. However even with plans for economic self-sufficiency its likely that a German occupied Europe after a 43 surrender would still have desired primary products which Latin America can produce while American protectionism, in part because of vested internal interests presents barriers to their exports to the US. True the US can apply economic or even military pressure to impose their will but that's going to make them less than popular in the target states.

Don't forget US anti-imperialism, which was extraordinarily strong pre- and post-WW1. It was only after the US officially had an empire to protect from the 1950s on and the European empires collapsed that that sentiment stopped. Plus there was a lot of resentment over Britain's role in dragging the US into WW1 before we get into all the specific Anglo-phobia of say the Irish.
I don't think you're getting US motives; those politicians weren't saying that to Stalin due to fears of the British navy (the US coast guard alone was larger than the British navy by 1944), but rather anti-imperialism and the US trying to subordinate Britain economically and politically to the US. There was a LOT of anti-imperialist sentiment and blame for WW2 even happening throughout the war.

As stated above there are simularities in the German mindset, both during the Nazis and the earlier imperial period and the US one and also for instance the current regime in China. Anti-imperialism was the excuse but the basic issue was refusing to accept any other power had the right to an independent existence. Unfortunately a very nasty side of US mentality and I fear there are still elements of it left. However its the task of the leadership to realise what is and isn't possible and/or wise and crippling a primary ally against a mutual threat is bloody stupid.

Similarly with the delusion that Britain 'dragged' the US into WWI. It wasn't Britain that was sinking US ships, organising terrorist attacks on US locations or offering US territory to other powers if they aided Germany in a war against the US.

Yes the US was intent on puppitising Britain and largely succeeded in doing that once Britain made the decision to continue the war after the fall of France. Again that doesn't make it a wise thing to do.

I don't call what the British did in Greece preserving Greek democracy.

Well they helped the Greeks prevent a communist coup, albeit that Stalin does seems to have kept his word on the agreement on sphere's of influence in the Balkans. The alternative was a Greece that would have been part of the Warsaw Pact, which would have been good neither for Greek or for the west. Also given US actions in so many areas your on rather thin ice here.

I can't imagine why he would given British history in Ireland. Frankly Britain is much more responsible for Irish suffering than their own politicians.

Not in the 20th century. It was bigoted fanatics like de Valera that insisted on partition because their egos were more important than the interest of the Irish people.

They hit all the other ones. Ultimately though it didn't matter once they realized the rail system was the core of the German economy and how to wreck it (thanks to finding the records about the impact US bombing was having on the French rail system when they took Paris), which paralyzed the German economy by January 1945. Interestingly it was just as much the bombing of the rail lines as the oil production facilities that shut off the oil. Since repairs couldn't be made without the rail lines operating the facilities stayed damaged.

Just to check you aren't referring here to the post war survey of bombing organised by the USAAF - might have been the USAF by that time as can't remember when it gained independence? Only I have come across multiple mentions over the years that that was very unreliable. A case of the confirmation al bias you mentioned earlier as the air-force wanted to blow their own trumpet and emphasis their own importance while many of the Germans they spoke to are supposed to have wanted to coshy up to their new bosses and also give an explanation for their own defeat. Or is it some more recent analysis?

People overrate the impact of WW2 a-bombs. They worked so well in Japan due to how much of it was wooden vs. German cities. Plus they hit untouched Japanese cities, while all German cities over 20000 people were already ruined as was their economy by the time the Abomb was operational. It would be a non-factor in the war if the Soviets left by 1943; no on knew when it would be ready, no one knew when the B29 would be ready, and Japan needed to be bombed more than Germany given the cost of an invasion of the home isles.

Its a non factor if the US gives up. It might be that a deeply isolationist US, especially with the ongoing costs of the Pacific war, might not even continue funding it. If the US decides to continue fighting then its going to have an even higher priority and as your argued yourself its going to be more effective against the markedly less devastated German cities and industrial areas.

Again, Europe had very little to do with US security and the average American knew it. Japan was the bigger threat to the US, but they were being dealt with. I'm just saying by 1945 the US was approaching the limit of what the public would tolerate in terms of casualties and rationing and the US government was well aware and was terrified of what would happen if they didn't win soon.

See my comment at the start as many American may have believed that but they would have been wrong. Especially if Germany gained the imperial mass that's being suggested. Japan never had the economic basis to seriously challenge the US and anyone who knew anything about the relative economic development of both Japan and Europe would know that.

Also 1945 isn't 1942/43. In the former date the US has seen very few military losses other than in the initial Japanese strikes and is deploying very few land forces.

Given that there was even worse logistics on the Iranian side of the Caucasus getting Allied armies into the region was a no-go, nor was it ever intended; just defend Iran, which frankly was impossible for the Axis to threaten, and bomb captured oil fields and the Wallied goals are achieved. Not sure what sort of campaign you think would happen, but that would be the worst region to try and project forces into. Murmansk would have been a better option.

And yet the allies developed the infrastructure to send considerable resources to the region which in TTL could have been used to support the forces proposed for there. Not to mention its not a frozen hell-hole with no secure hinterland, which is what the case for Murmansk. Plus it could supply oil and probably some levels of food and other basic requirements locally.

That's just not true; we know that because when they did hit the right targets they had more mass than they needed. Frankly given the USSBS summary report they didn't need even a fraction of what they built if they focused on the electrical generation facilities, but they did not realize how vulnerable Germany was there until after the war when they examined the records. Arguably they could have hit pay dirt even with some of the lesser targets if they simply repeated their raids, like the dam buster one; Speer said they were close to crippling the Ruhr had they bombed the repair efforts for the dams.

The technology was all there by 1943, it was just wasted on bombing civilians.

The problem was that the technology wasn't there to hit anything but civilians because the night bombers lacked the accuracy. Also without long ranged fighters and the USAAF's acceptance of their need the latter couldn't hit targets in daytime with any reliability. Even Harris only really went for cities after attempts to hit railway marshalling yards proved too inaccurate.

One of the other sites I'm on is doing a day by day of WWII. See WWII day by day. Now there isn't a lot of sources there and a number of dubious statements but a lot of the info is reasonably correct. Recently its been covering the 1st campaign, in April 42, with the Gee navigational systems. Many/most of the bombers are still failing to get close to the target and Britain is losing more men [highly trained ones as well] than the Germans are losing civilians.

Possibly if there had been more accurate strikes, say by Mosquitos in fast day raids then something like the electrical generation system might have been a practical operation. [ Also seen that mention in IIRC Jphn Ellis's Brute Force]. But that would require a totally different approach to what both strategic bombing arms were intending on.

And yes you're right about service interests, but there was logic and forethought, just not enough accurate intel and too many egos needing to be stroked. Beyond that don't forget politicians; Churchill and Lindemann wanted city bombing, which is why Bomber Harris even got the job; without Churchill it wouldn't have happened. If you get a chance read the personal diary of Alanbrooke, he was extremely harsh on Churchill's competence on any military matters.

I quite accept your points here but that's showing that the huge ponderous club that the strategic bomber forces were OTL not suited for the demand and a huge waste of resources. [Especially for Britain from 1940 onward].

War isn't just about cold logic of politicians. It is what the public would tolerate and politicians in democracies have to think about that as well, which is why cutting a deal is the most likely option. Its one thing to fight on when the Soviets are paying the blood price, quite another when it's your kids doing the dying. Against Japan the US public was willing to fight to the bitter end due to the revenge impulse, threat that Japan did pose, and racism, but against Germany there really wasn't any such major fear by the US public.

Certainly the militaries would explore options, but they need to show progress to the public as well, which limits their options; winning the naval war and fighting the strategic air wars are the only tolerable ones, as the risk of a massive defeat in an opposed amphibious invasion would end the willingness to fight on.

Can you clarify your stance on Japan here please? Your talking about fighting to the bitter end whereas earlier you were talking about the fears of the costs of an invasion and I have seen it argued elsewhere that such an invasion - OTL let alone TTL where it's probably going to be less likely to succeed - would probably fail and prompt the US looking for terms.

Plus while there is the revenge factor as Japan really humiliated both the US and UK at the start of their war the other two factors also apply against Germany. It was a much clearer threat to the US than Japan ever was and racism can mean this is emphasised even more since many in the US will continued to downgrade Japan as opposed to another 'white' developed nation such as Germany

Pre-war plans of the Nazi elite are quite a bit different from what actually ended up happening. The hunger plan was basically scrapped by 1942 when it was realized that Soviet manpower was too valuable to kill off and they were very willing to fight with or in some cases work for Germany. Surrenders continued at a high place until 1943, same with desertions and collaboration. 1943 was the turning point for all of that, specifically Stalingrad marked the change over. Still even then there was still quite a bit of all of the above until the post-Kursk Soviet offensives. After that all of the above collapsed except for existing collaboration or people pressganged into service. So no, it wasn't Soviet propaganda, especially behind German lines, that made the difference with all of the above, it was Soviet military victories. After all even by 1942 Stalin had killed many more Russians than Hitler had.

Pop histories tends to make too much of the impact of Soviet propaganda and German atrocities in the East and not enough of the practical reasons people did or did not collaborate: waiting to see who was winning and then pick sides. Stalin was murderous as fuck and promised to be even more so than Hitler if his forces got their hands on collaborators and that didn't stop people from serving him, in fact it increased service to him out of fear. Certainly the Soviet soldiers who volunteered to fight for Germany in 1941 were quickly disabused of the potential for that option, but since they never had a chance anyway for the purposes of our discussion they wouldn't matter. The civilians were the people that needed to be recruited and they were waiting to see how things played out in the fighting. If Stalin isn't coming back and Hitler is now in charge and oppressing people, sucking up to the powers that be is a traditional response of some of the occupied if the option is there (and it was IOTL).

The hunger plan was scrapped because the vast majority of the people it was meant to kill were outside German control. Even those urban areas in the territory they occupied in Ukraine and Belarus they decided not to starve out because with an ongoing war it would cause too much disruption and unrest. As you have argued and referenced in Hunger and War those areas can't be maintained at anything like the current population level unless the Germans are willing to transfer a lot of food from the southern agricultural region which I think we would both agree they won't. Since German occupation would also mean those territories are going to be cut off from L-L, even if the US stayed in the war, then tens of millions are very likely to die. Even without adding in HL's statement that those invading forces would seek to live off the land themselves, which in the food deficient northern and central regions is going to make matters even worse.

As such while there will be some attempt at collaboration most people won't have a choice as the inevitable result is they will be killed off.

Not really. It was more prepared than the French and British, but that isn't saying much and they were able to surmount part of their issues rapidly thanks to the US sales of equipment, which was a massive boost to their war potential. Germany on the other hand founder for at least 18 months into the war and only really started getting mobilized to the level that Britain was by 1941 in 1942. I'm not saying Tooze is without his uses, but you have to know where he's right and where he's wrong or at least not exactly getting things right; as you said reading multiple sources is the best way to know what is generally on point.

Not really as this lead to the crucial step of the early part of the war, i.e. the fall of France, which totally changed the dynamics. From a position of apparent [and in economic terms probably accurately seen] strength it became a battle for survival for Britain and doing what it could on the periphery. At very high costs US sales helped achieve that and too many mistakes were made even then.

In terms of Tooze while he's making a different argument to the one I grew up with, that only after Stalingrad did Germany really fully mobilize for total war he is putting in a lot of references and links to other sources. As such I'm reluctant to say he's so far off track without counters to those sources as well.

It's a zero-sum game though, so if you employ them differently what are you losing in doing so?

What I've said a number of times.
a) Not wasting a lot of resources having a huge US military building up in Britain and doing nothing for the best part of 2 years.
b) Not going for a double front approach in the Pacific.
c) Curtailing the huge strategic bombing offensives.

If the allies decide to fight on but that their not willing to fight a frontal war with Germany and its allies then as I argued a while back their likely to suffer less losses than OTL while they hold the line and seek ways to undermine German power which doesn't need massive blood-letting by themselves.

To some extend yes, but the Soviets without recovering certain territories will need to demobilize forces to feed themselves and prevent social collapse. By 1942 IOTL they were over mobilized per Mark Harrison, who is probably the preeminent english language historian on the Soviet economy.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/dfc1994postprint.pdf

Interesting read. Was it electronically scanned at some point as there seem a lot of typos there? Love the "market farce" at one point. Got a lot of useful info there and it points out that even under Stalin there was a lot done at lower levels to manage local short-falls.

As I've said I expect both the population and the forces maintained to be markedly smaller than what the Soviets were able to maintain OTL. What my argument is is that they won't totally disappear and will continue to tie down a number of German forces as well as what is needed for simple garrison duties.

Garrisoning will be supplemented by local collaborators, like how Germany ran France for much of the war with less than 100,000 people in country. They'd certainly have to do more, like in Poland with something like a 300,000 man minimum security force, just scaled up, but then they had a LOT fewer collaborators in Poland than in the USSR, where over 2 million people collaborated with German forces alone, not counting any of the other Axis powers with forces in the East. In fact those allied armies like the Italians would likely help Germany in occupying Russia.

Given the massive death toll that we all seem to be expecting and the huge area involved plus the probability of a continued Russia state east of the Volga I can't see local collaborators being numerous enough or seen as reliable. Axis allied armies will help but their not generally as strong, organized and motivated as the German ones were. Also they were generally more successful than the Germans in minimizing partisan action simply because they treated the locals better. With the mass death scenarios being considered this is going to cause both much higher hostility among the locals and probably a lot of concern among some of the occupying forces.

Also if we still assume a Soviet counter attack as OTL in 41 but that it fails its still likely to really hit the Italians and Romanians hard and if the allies do the planned periphery strategy then Mussolini is likely to want his forces back home.

Not nearly as much; they were after all basically on home turf in France or Italy. Even with Russian commitments rail transport is quite a bit less than shipping globally and offloading in damaged foreign ports; as France and Italy demonstrated they had to rely on truck shipping from beaches to the front, which is grossly expensive even for the US, which actually did no better and in some ways arguably worse than Germany did during Barbarossa with only truck supply (though that is likely more a function of the hungry and thirsty Wallied divisions/corps/army level elements). Despite insane levels of infrastructure bombing the Germans were still able to successfully defend Italy for years and somehow actually inflicted heavier losses on Allied forces in France even counting their huge number of PoWs. Were it not for the Soviets eating up German reserves/replacements and ammo that summer they might well have stalemated the front.

What damaged ports? I very much doubt the Germans can bomb the Persian Gulf, which is where the ships would be docking? They can pose a problem to rail links to the front but give the short range of many German a/c, the greater numbers available to the allies, the advantage of being the defender and the logistical strain on the Germans that's likely to be a losing position to the Luftwaffe.

Italy was such a drain in large part because it was an half and half measure. The southern part was occupied rather quickly after Sicily fell - albeit there might be more opposition this time. After that it was trying to continue the campaign with inadequate forces, especially in the terrain. It should have either been shut down and going on the defensive or supplying the amphibious forces so that more flanking attacks can be mounted in sufficient numbers. I would argue in the proposed position for the former.

Given the limited infrastructure and the fact the allies were doing the attacking the high levels of infrastructure attacks were probably counter productive to the allies.

Anyway this has taken a couple of hours so late for lunch.

Steve

 

[History Learner]

You said:

I have pointed out that:
a) Not sending huge numbers of men and air forces to Britain means that large areas of flat lands in the south of the country are not taken up by military camps, training areas, airfields etc. Its not surprising that many of the latter especially were quickly returned to argicultural use after the war. Not all by no means. The MOD site I used to work at started off as an air base for the US in WWII. If you honesty think that all those US facilities were based in the Welsh Mt's or Scots Highlands then there's no point arguing with you. Or do you suggest they did their training in British cities or floated in mid-air. Be serious.

Okay, and as I said said, the onus is on you to prove such would contribute a meaningful increase in food supply. As it were, the only one bringing up the Highlands is you.

b) As I pointed out the proposed areas in N Africa and ME were not massive importers of food so those areas shouldn't have the same demand for extra food supply. Furthermore with plenty of non-agricultural flat lands there is plenty of room for facilities without impacting on local production. I would take a little addition shipping in the initial case but after that any difference is minimal or possibly even beneficial.

Okay, first, that misses the very real issue that those troops are still eating the same amount of food, which the point. Even if you take the position that they could be fed off the land-in the deserts of the Middle East at that-you are missing the fact it takes double the shipping to get them to North Africa or the Middle East because it is a longer transport distance, which ties up more shipping than sending them to the UK.

Again, however, the onus is on you to prove those regions produce a surplus of food and that this could be used to feed U.S. forces. Further, you then have to consider that those regions have no infrastructure; see how much effort had to be put into improving Persia for that Lend Lease corridor. How many trucks, railway supplies and the like have to be diverted from the USSR to enable the Allies to feed and supply their own troops?

c) The 3rd point is somewhat pedantic but the Bengal famine wasn't caused by a lack of shipping from the US. The prime causes were periodical food shortages in the region coupled with the loss of Burma which was a regular supplier of food to the region. With a further factor being that after the Japanese commandeering local boats among other items in the invasion of Malaya the authorities sought to control such boats in the Bengal region. Which worsened it as those boats in previous famines has been used to move food and/or people from area to area.

See here:

The circumstances of World War II made relief difficult: the Viceroys Lord Linlithgow and Viscount Wavell repeatedly appealed to London to allocate shipping to transport food supplies to India, but London focused on war in 1942-1943, had limited shipping capacity because of continual losses to German and Japanese submarines, and could not provide much aid until later. Finally, in response to this crisis, which was at root a problem of production and shortage more than of markets, the British began efforts to increase food production with the “Grow More Food” campaign that led to development policies in independent India and Pakistan.​

For further context:

Linlithgow also repeatedly sent Churchill and the War Cabinet in London insistent demands for immediate and substantial food shipments, accompanied by descriptions of famine conditions from Provincial and regional officials. The War Cabinet initially resisted allocating shipping from war material to food for India but ultimately sent a few shipments in 1943. Sen and other writers criticize the British for these delays and compromises in arranging this shipping, but this decision has to be viewed in the context of the Nazi and Japanese attacks and the Allies’ efforts to resist them. During the first six months of 1943 these attacks lost the Allies and neutrals more than 2.1 million tons of shipping. In the Indian Ocean alone from January 1942 to May 1943, the Axis powers sank 230 British and Allied merchant ships totaling 873,000 tons, in other words, a substantial boat every other day.104 British hesitation to allocate shipping concerned not only potential diversion of shipping from other war-related needs but also the prospect of losing the shipping to attacks without actually helping India at all.​

​

For something more relevant to the issue of continuing Lend Lease, and specifically fatal for your assertion of just sending troops to the Middle East to solve the issue:

Accurate figures are hard to come by but, by any analysis, 1942 was the U-boats’ most successful year. One source says that 1,664 Allied ships were sunk, 1,097 of them in the North Atlantic. Losses to German assets were minimal. Although Liberty ships were sliding down the ways in shipyards around the country at a rate of three per day, it still was not enough. In 1942, the Allies launched 11 million tons of new ships, eight million built in the United States, but had lost 12 million tons to the enemy. In November alone, the Allies lost more than 800,000 tons of shipping, more than half of which was in the North Atlantic.​

​

The Murmansk Run was halted temporarily as shipping was urgently needed to support Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, in November 1942.​

So your assuming that the Germans not only take Stalingrad markedly earlier but than advance all the way down to the mouth of the Volga and fortify the entire length north to Stalingrad in depth in a couple of months? Remembering as well to do this they would largely have to forget driving further south towards the Caucasus and Baku. Especially since their already exposed their flank by not attacking forces in the Rostov region.

Steve, you really need to stop and read what's been posted because you keep repeating things which have already been corrected or putting words in my mouth that were never claimed. Case in point:

No, it's literally the history of the campaign; to be honest, you sound very uninformed on Case Blau. Up until late July, 4th Panzer Army was attached to Army Group B so there is no extra forces on their supply lines but even if there was, we've already established much higher logistical amounts for the Germans going into the campaign. Specifically as it concerns Rostov, again, you need to read up on the campaign because that was already being handled by Army Group A as part of its movement into the Caucasus. The diversion of 4th Panzer Army did nothing but congest the roads, something noted by the German commanders on the scene who did not ask for it nor request it as reinforcements. It was solely an action of Hitler.

My expectations for 1943 are that, with AGS reinforced by II SS Panzer Korps, the Germans will take Astrakhan and finish clearing the Caucasus, including taking Baku. Such completely shuts down the Persian Lend Lease route, a very large portion of the remaining Soviet food production and, finally, 80-90% of their oil sources. That alone is fatal, as it leaves the Red Army incapable of offensive action throughout the year and then come the fall, when the crop blights occur in the Urals, a famine will be the inevitable result. Either the Red Army will be starved, the workers supplying it or mutually; the end result, however, would be the same. Elsewhere on the front, I'd predict AGN would launch operations to finally take Leningrad and AGC might, if the conditions are good, do some minor operations to straighten out its own lines.

End result of this is the gradual collapse and disintegration of the Red Army and USSR as a whole in 1943-1944; I'd suspect the Germans can take the A-A Line by the Fall of 1944

I can see a greater encirclement being needed or possibly more modest counter attack aims with the Germans holding a longer stretch of the lower Volga. However some sort of counter attack is very likely. If more modest or more especially if a Operation Uranus isn't followed by the hugely costly Operation Saturn then Soviet losses could well be markedly less, albeit that German losses will also be reduced.

Attacking fortified river lines backed up by German air superiority and armored forces is a recipe for massive casualties and nothing is being done here to mitigate the 800,000 or so losses from Operation Mars against Army Group Center.

Since we're already allowing your assumptions about the extra oil leading to the rapid fall of Stalingrad and then the Germans holding this region causing a massive crisis in food supply from late 43 then yes the Soviets will be weaker than OTL, quite possibly by a substantial amount. However the argument is whether Russian resistance throughout the Soviet Union ceases to exists or whether as I've been saying there is a substantial basis for continued resistance, albeit on a much lower level.

And I'm saying there isn't, simply due to a lack of manpower, food and war material needed to wage such a threat. Could the Soviets continue to inflict casualties? Yes, but not on any meaningful level to challenge German control of prevent them from transferring forces or engaging in rampant economic exploitation to fund their war effort.

 

[History Learner]

See my comment at the start as many American may have believed that but they would have been wrong. Especially if Germany gained the imperial mass that's being suggested. Japan never had the economic basis to seriously challenge the US and anyone who knew anything about the relative economic development of both Japan and Europe would know that.

Even without it's Empire, by the 1960s Japan had equaled or surpassed the U.S. in ship building, steel output and automobiles. If you want an even more stark comparison, Mark Harrison does it well:

Steel

1942:
USSR: 8,100,000 tons
Japan: 8,000,000 tons

1943:
USSR: 8,500,000 tons
Japan: 8,800,000 tons

1944:
USSR: 10,900,000 tons
Japan: 6,500,000 tons

1945
USSR: 12,300,000 tons
Japan: 800,000 tons

Coal

1942
USSR: 75,500,000 tons
Japan: 61,300,000 tons

1943
USSR: 93,100,000 tons
Japan: 60,500,000 tons

1944
USSR: 121,500,000 tons
Japan: 51,700,000 tons

1945
USSR: 149,300,000 tons
Japan: 11,000,000 tons

Iron Ore

1942
USSR: 9,700,000 tons
Japan: 7,400,000 tons

1943
USSR: 9,300,000 tons
Japan: 6,700,000 tons

1944
USSR: 11,700,000 tons
Japan: 6,000,000 tons

1945
USSR: 15,900,000 tons
Japan: 900,000 tons

Aluminium

1942
USSR: 51,700 tons
Japan: 103,000 tons

1943
USSR: 62,300 tons
Japan: 141,000 tons

1944
USSR: 82,700 tons
Japan: 110,000 tons

1945
USSR: 86,300 tons
Japan: 7,000 tons

Annual GDP growth rates in the 1930s was 5% per year, with manufacturing and mining at over 30% of GDP. In almost every economic category Imperial Japan is able to match the USSR in developmental indicators, but with the advantage of having a much better trained and educated workforce structure as well as overall economic system that prefers quality control in a way the Soviet system lacked. Japanese resource issues would also be solved via exploitation of Manchurian deposits, in particular of oil.

 

[sillygoose]

Sorry about that. Unfortunately as I get older I find I'm less organised and the memory isn't what it is so like to reply ASAP before I forget too many details. Also possibly being very, very old school so to speak I think of it as polite to reply promptly but will try and keep it short.

Gotcha, but we're starting to get into PhD thesis length replies!

One point to clarify please. When your talking below about things such as Japan being seen as a greater threat than Germany are you referring to perceptions among much of the US population at the time as opposed to the actual factual situation? Because from everything I've read and what you among others have said in this discussion Germany was a much greater threat to the US than Japan and the US military as well as civilian leadership realised that.

Both. Germany was of course more powerful economically and in terms of organization, which is what the US military and civilian authorities meant, but heavily constrained in Europe by powerful enemies. Japan was basically much more free to do damage because of it's fleet and lack of enemies in the area, with China only being an issue due to sheer size, but it was winning; still it had plenty of extra resources to take on the British (and French and Dutch) and US and fight them for years in far flung colonies.

Practically speaking the Germans represented very little threat to the US except as an economic counterweight if it could control Europe, which is of course what the US powerbrokers did not want; they after all wanted to dominate the globe economically, which is exactly what they did with the Bretton Woods system, the petrodollar, the controlled demolition of the European colonial systems, and efforts to contain Communism after Stalin refused to play ball with the US system. Arguably it was the US which was the greater threat to the Germans and Japanese by supplying and funding their enemies' wars against the Axis powers long past their ability to do so on their own and of course joining the war and playing the leading role in defeating them and deciding what the post-war order would be after their conquest.

I don't say that with any sympathy for the Axis powers, after all they invaded other countries and started the entire damn war, besides their other crimes against humanity.

Even with that and the good intentions of the US in its actions practically speaking even after the US intervention economically against the Axis in 1940 in Europe and earlier in Asia the Axis really did not pose a proximate threat against the US other than being able to structure their regions' economies in their favor if they won the war and hurting US export dominance, which in turn in the long run would limit the US economy. Axis military action against the US only happened after the US started economically intervening against the Axis powers. Though the Panay incident of 1937 did precede US sanctions, but that AFAIK was not ordered by the IJA or Tokyo and seems to have been Japanese soldiers overstepping their bounds.

Except that would give the US what your saying FDR wanted, both war with Germany and since Germany was the aggressor a united population in the following conflict. As opposed to a US reluctantly dragged into the European conflict by Washington. It also meant war with the US quickly as opposed to later which would have given Germany more time to complete their desired victory in the east [of Europe obviously ] Also it was in part driven by Donitz's claim that he could knock Britain out of the war and hence remove any base for American operation against the Nazis before the US could respond.

The one poll run after Pearl Harbor but before Hitler declared war had US public support for declaring war on German at 90%. That would have worn off until FDR was able to engineer another incident in the Atlantic besides the others that had already happened, but shows that war passions were there for the US to join the war when FDR deemed the moment right. After Germany declared war though within a matter of 5 months polling showed that the public wasn't really interested in fighting Hitler. Source is a bunch of papers on US public opinion and the best source I've yet found, the book I already mentioned about the history of US public opinion polls in WW2, which covers everything from the pre-war period to the bitter end.

So it didn't matter who declared war first in the end, the US public wasn't really interested in fighting in Europe once the initial war fever wore off, they just went along with what the government said to some degree, though by 1944 there were increasing labor strikes and general frustration with the war still going on. There should be a lesson there about any public's willingness to follow orders though...

The entry of the US in very late 1941 though allowed the Germans to cripple the shipping fleet, which delayed US entry into the European theater by at least 5 months, so actually it was that early DoW and subsequent Uboat offensive with actually caused a bigger delay than letting the US mobilize in peace for 6 months and then declaring war when they already had men deploying abroad and were ready to go. Effectively Hitler's plan was to cripple Allied shipping long enough to finish off Russia in Case Blue and very nearly pulled it off. That would also explain Hitler's rushing Case Blue to disastrous result.

Did Doenitz claim that? I thought he said he could cripple shipping and give Hitler time to finish off Russia, not win the war outright by that point.

Not sure if the US would have increased its ASW forces in either qualitity or quantity if it had been delayed in its entry into the war by 6-12 months say. There would have been the danger that so much more, in terms of both warships and merchants would have been committed to the Pacific with its huge logistical demands. Plus while British/empire forces would have been boosted the U-boats would also probably have been built up. As such you could have had an even greater slaughter if say Us-German hostilities had been open a year later.

I would. Having a war economy with only one front and free shipping in the Atlantic was a massive boon. They could mobilize in peace for 6 months. The Germany and the Second World War series (volume 6) has an excellent analysis of Allied shipping woes in 1942 as a result of the uboat offensive. If you don't want to deal with that the US Green Book series covering all aspects of the war also is extremely good, though involves more reading; the global shipping/logistics volume is the one you want to check out and they're free and available online in digital copies (which you can zoom in on BTW). If you can find a copy the official history of global shipping volume is also very good, though much less helpful about the US issues related to shipping.

Anyway the loss of shipping created economic problems for the US as well as a ton of political issues with the Brits as Admiral King really screwed things up to assert his will as an independent actor in the US military and in the Allied alliance system.
As it was he stripped the Atlantic entirely to reinforce the Pacific, so regardless the Pacific theater was going to be serviced first thanks to King.

Also given the ranges involved and very long term planning work that came with getting Uboats ready, it was a waste to wait, as by the time any appreciable additions could have been made to the Uboat fleet it would have been FAR too late to matter.
Getting the first shots in on their terms was ultimately the best strategic move the Germans could have made at that point since the impact it had on the Allied war effort and economies was so severe. This was the period of greatest anxiety for Churchill too, at least per his claims.

Again the Germany and the Second World War series (hereafter I'll call it the GSWW for less typing) really covers that campaign very very well and make a very strong case it was the right move strategically given the shitty options on the table.

Yes there are simularities between both Germany at the time and the US in that neither found the idea of any independent state outside their control. However in the US case, at least for major developed powers, it didn't involve military invasion and mass slaughter.

Um...WW2? Slavery? Native Americans? Spanish-American War and Philippines insurrection? According to Tooze with quotes from Hitler's unpublished 2nd book Hitler drew direct inspiration for much of his colonial mass murder fantasies from US history.

Granted most of that wasn't in the 20th century, but the US has a pretty nasty history of mass slaughter and military invasion when it suited us. We just had completed most of ours by the time WW2 started (BTW part of FDR's ancestors made their fortune selling Opium in China during the Opium Wars...); once the bad guys started the war we took advantage of the situation to use our alliances and military to enforce our global order on everyone. Then tried to do that again in Asia with limited success.

The Cold War (and later/earlier) behavior of the US isn't really something to be proud of either...

Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Operation Condor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

United States war crimes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's not to imply 20th century America is any way equivalent to the crimes of the Axis powers in WW2, but earlier centuries was pretty friggin' bad and the WW2 and aftermath/Cold War period is hardly what you'd call good; if not for the Axis powers being so insanely evil the Allied powers would have been considered pretty bad ourselves, even leaving aside the Soviets. Hell even Robert McNamara of Vietnam infamy was involved in the bombing campaign against Japan and said in the documentary 'Fog of War' that had we lost the war he and most of the US leadership would have been hanged as war criminals for what we did to enemy civilians.

Fully agree but there was more chance of pointing out to either of the allied commanders that something was stupid/bloody suicidal than there was Hitler or Stalin. PLus my argument is that some of those errors could be corrected on the allied side simply because they have to re-think their plans and intent.

That's somewhat debatable. If you look at what the US military wanted to do in 1942 but for British insistence on the North African campaign we would have had a failed invasion of France with unimaginable negative consequences. Ultimately you lot had to show us how bad an idea that was at Dieppe to win the argument.

As to the military being able to get its way, look at the Morgenthau Plan and Unconditional Surrender: the US military demanded a public retraction of both given the resulting increased German resistance that resulted in Hurtgen forest and the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle of the war for the US, and FDR told them to shut up and deal with it. Hell he even told Churchill that despite his and his military's repeated requests to change the policy! Ultimately FDR had Morgenthau leverage economic aid to force Churchill's acceptance publicly. So often FDR could be just as much a dictator as Hitler or Stalin.

During the war simply because Germany had no chance to influence the region. However even with plans for economic self-sufficiency its likely that a German occupied Europe after a 43 surrender would still have desired primary products which Latin America can produce while American protectionism, in part because of vested internal interests presents barriers to their exports to the US. True the US can apply economic or even military pressure to impose their will but that's going to make them less than popular in the target states.

Sure, I'd imagine there would be some sort of a trade war, but given US economic dominance and proximity it is unlikely that Germany would be able to do much there given the resource requirements for Hitler's plans in Europe and the struggle to retain European colonies for resources. Likely Africa would have mattered much more. Plus its not like the US was above invading Latin America to get its way, just see the 1920s. Popularity did not matter, results did; see the Cold War when the US basically imposed fascist regimes on countries that had the nerve to vote socialist.

As stated above there are simularities in the German mindset, both during the Nazis and the earlier imperial period and the US one and also for instance the current regime in China. Anti-imperialism was the excuse but the basic issue was refusing to accept any other power had the right to an independent existence. Unfortunately a very nasty side of US mentality and I fear there are still elements of it left. However its the task of the leadership to realise what is and isn't possible and/or wise and crippling a primary ally against a mutual threat is bloody stupid.

Similarly with the delusion that Britain 'dragged' the US into WWI. It wasn't Britain that was sinking US ships, organising terrorist attacks on US locations or offering US territory to other powers if they aided Germany in a war against the US.

Yes the US was intent on puppitising Britain and largely succeeded in doing that once Britain made the decision to continue the war after the fall of France. Again that doesn't make it a wise thing to do.

The US did have ideological reasons to hate colonialism, but still had little problem doing it when it suited us. The US hasn't really changed at all in that regard over the centuries unfortunately, just gotten more sophisticated (until 2003 that is) in imposing it.

Crippling an ally is not something the US government actually cares about, after all nations don't have allies, they have interests. Really the US is not much different from imperial Britain, we're just another version of y'all with flatter accents.
I mean in your case Chamberlain had no problem throwing France and Poland under the bus to court Hitler until he realized too late he screwed up. The US is no better unfortunately.

Britain dragged the US into WW1 through propaganda about German atrocities (a huge part of the disillusionment in the US about the war), not revealing Russia mobilized first until the 1920s, linking our banking system to your war effort, and doing everything it could to influence Wilson to let them get away with violating all sorts of international norms especially around the freedom of the seas. Oh and illegally tapping US diplomatic communications, which is how the Zimmerman Telegram was found out. Arguably Germany wouldn't have been desperate enough to resort to USW had the US not allowed the illegal blockade against the Central Powers. I'm just pointing out why the US public felt the way it did after the war.

Why wasn't it in US interests to economically dominate Britain? It seemed to have worked out very well for us until our ruling class got greedy and mismanaged the global economic order.

Well they helped the Greeks prevent a communist coup, albeit that Stalin does seems to have kept his word on the agreement on sphere's of influence in the Balkans. The alternative was a Greece that would have been part of the Warsaw Pact, which would have been good neither for Greek or for the west. Also given US actions in so many areas your on rather thin ice here.

Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret

When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today

www.theguardian.com

Retrieved from the memory hole: British intervention in Greece in the 1940s

Britain's intervention in Greece during the second world war is a shameful episode in British history. We would do well to remember it.

www.opendemocracy.net

Dekemvriana - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As it was the Greek communists quickly lost any popularity they had anyway, so its highly arguable that it was British assistance in the 'white terror' really did much to break the insurgency.

Hey I'm not claiming the US behaved well at all in Italy (which amounted to outright terrorism) or France against the communists, just saying your country's actions in Greece weren't any better.

Just to check you aren't referring here to the post war survey of bombing organised by the USAAF - might have been the USAF by that time as can't remember when it gained independence? Only I have come across multiple mentions over the years that that was very unreliable. A case of the confirmation al bias you mentioned earlier as the air-force wanted to blow their own trumpet and emphasis their own importance while many of the Germans they spoke to are supposed to have wanted to coshy up to their new bosses and also give an explanation for their own defeat. Or is it some more recent analysis?

USAF came later. Yes I am referring to that. I don't know where you're getting that it was unreliable from, it is a tremendous source of information from German documents and participants in the economy at all levels about what was going on. The only issue with it was that not all the documents were available, so they had to do the best they could with what they had. In terms of conclusions ultimately it is up to the reader whether that was accurate or not, but IMHO based on more modern studies it holds up quite well overall.

If you actually read it they don't really blow their trumpet except where they have the numbers to prove that their effort worked. The report is actually highly critical about the strategy adopted and points out all the areas where they could have improved; after all the report is supposed to be about what they did right and wrong so they could improve strategy and organization for future wars. The summary report is free online if you want to check it out, the European theater one is only about 24 pages IIRC.

Actually the Germans interviewed were quite critical of Allied bombing mistakes and they are cited in the report. Speer has a lot of interesting things to say in that regard. Sucking up is not at all what I'd call what the Germans said in the report, they were pretty honest about what worked and what didn't. Adolf Galland was interviewed as well and IIRC his views on the air war were basically accurate. Remember though the Germans too were still digesting the war, but from the position of defeat, so their incorrect views are probably just as much if not more a product of lack of total info, memory fallability, and myopia of their position rather than intentional reputation sparing.

Its a non factor if the US gives up. It might be that a deeply isolationist US, especially with the ongoing costs of the Pacific war, might not even continue funding it. If the US decides to continue fighting then its going to have an even higher priority and as your argued yourself its going to be more effective against the markedly less devastated German cities and industrial areas.

The A-bomb couldn't have had a higher priority than it did in the war; arguably that high priority led to extreme amounts of waste. I think you misread my comment, I didn't say that it would have been more effective against German cities that were less bombed, if anything it was the relative lack of wooden structures and greater number of concrete and steel buildings that would have blunted the impact of the bomb. As noted in the US report on its effectiveness it was actually quite inefficient relative to more bombers spreading out incendiaries and it was only the wooden nature of Japanese cities (due to earthquake risks) that spread the fire and in the case of Nagasaki the fact that it was in a valley which contained the blast and focused it more in the area. As noted too in the report the few concrete and steel buildings absorbed the blast just fine, as the air burst reduced how much energy was focused on them. You'd need ground bursts to really damage German cities and industry, which given the low kiloton range of the bombs in 1945 would require a lot to shut down even one city. These were not the vastly more powerful Cold War hydrogen and thermonuclear bombs.

See my comment at the start as many American may have believed that but they would have been wrong. Especially if Germany gained the imperial mass that's being suggested. Japan never had the economic basis to seriously challenge the US and anyone who knew anything about the relative economic development of both Japan and Europe would know that.

Also 1945 isn't 1942/43. In the former date the US has seen very few military losses other than in the initial Japanese strikes and is deploying very few land forces.

Huh? Japan was the world's second largest economy by the 1960s without its empire. With its empire and China it would have been even more powerful than a German dominated Europe.

Until late 1943 and the invasion of mainland Italy the US suffered more casualties against Japan than Germany. My grandfather was in Guadalcanal in 1942 when the first offensive US ground campaign began. There was the Philippines before that, including the Bataan Death March that killed number of my grandfather's friends. I'd read up more on the 1942-43 campaigns in the Pacific, there were substantial ground forces deployed and in combat.

And yet the allies developed the infrastructure to send considerable resources to the region which in TTL could have been used to support the forces proposed for there. Not to mention its not a frozen hell-hole with no secure hinterland, which is what the case for Murmansk. Plus it could supply oil and probably some levels of food and other basic requirements locally.

Not in the Caucasus. They developed Iran. Iran then allowed them to move the supplies to the Caspian sea in Northern Iran, not the Caucasus, which then allowed shipping of the supplies to a Soviet port on the Volga (until Stalingrad) and thereafter on the mouth of the Ural river, which allowed the supplies to move into the Ural mountains.

Maybe forces could be deployed in Baku, but that's about it and they'd compete with anything you want to ship to the Soviets. Also the Germans would strongly dispute the frozen hell hole comment based on what they experienced in the Volga.

The problem was that the technology wasn't there to hit anything but civilians because the night bombers lacked the accuracy. Also without long ranged fighters and the USAAF's acceptance of their need the latter couldn't hit targets in daytime with any reliability. Even Harris only really went for cities after attempts to hit railway marshalling yards proved too inaccurate.

Incorrect. By mid-1942 they had the guidance technology to hit individual factory buildings or rail stations. I have several books about the guidance technologies of the bombing campaign and they certainly existed by the time that city bombing was employed; after all it was used to reliably find city centers to bomb, which are not that big of targets given the previous horrific accuracy of BC.

No Harris went for cities, because he wanted to hit cities. Dehousing was a very specific policy he was brought in to implement:

Dehousing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On 30 March 1942 Professor Frederick Lindemann, Baron Cherwell, the British government's chief scientific adviser, sent to the British prime minister Winston Churchill a memorandum which after it had become accepted by the Cabinet became known as the dehousing paper.[a]

The paper argued that from the analysis of the reaction of the British population to the Blitz, the demolition of people's houses was the most effective way to affect their morale, even more effective than killing relatives. Given the known limits of the RAF in locating targets in Germany and providing the planned resources were made available to the RAF, destroying about thirty percent of the housing stock of Germany's fifty-eight largest towns was the most effective use of the aircraft of RAF Bomber Command, because it would break the spirit of the Germans. After a heated debate by the government's military and scientific advisers, the Cabinet chose the strategic bombing campaign over the other options available to them.

One of the other sites I'm on is doing a day by day of WWII. See WWII day by day. Now there isn't a lot of sources there and a number of dubious statements but a lot of the info is reasonably correct. Recently its been covering the 1st campaign, in April 42, with the Gee navigational systems. Many/most of the bombers are still failing to get close to the target and Britain is losing more men [highly trained ones as well] than the Germans are losing civilians.

Possibly if there had been more accurate strikes, say by Mosquitos in fast day raids then something like the electrical generation system might have been a practical operation. [ Also seen that mention in IIRC Jphn Ellis's Brute Force]. But that would require a totally different approach to what both strategic bombing arms were intending on.

Gee was only introduced in April 1942. No shit that the training and experience weren't yet there to be more accurate, especially when only something like 8 of the bombers in the stream could even use it and the rest had to drop on the flames they created...which led to the 'creep back' problem. It took more experience and training, as well as the PPF force to really change that, which came later in 1942. Frankly with mostly Mosquitos instead of heavy bombers they would have been vastly more accurate. Heavy payloads tended to lead to enormous amounts of wasted tonnage if you're going for precision targets, but they're great for smashed up cities. Once again it was a technical choice based on their strategy, not strategy being determined by guidance technology limitations.

But that would require a totally different approach to what both strategic bombing arms were intending on.

Exactly my point! They chose to bomb cities and built their force around that, it wasn't imposed on them by technology after mid-1942.

I quite accept your points here but that's showing that the huge ponderous club that the strategic bomber forces were OTL not suited for the demand and a huge waste of resources. [Especially for Britain from 1940 onward].

The only reason they could be such a club and waste so much as because of politicians choosing to fund that. They had other proposals and opted for empowering the bomber mafia.

Can you clarify your stance on Japan here please? Your talking about fighting to the bitter end whereas earlier you were talking about the fears of the costs of an invasion and I have seen it argued elsewhere that such an invasion - OTL let alone TTL where it's probably going to be less likely to succeed - would probably fail and prompt the US looking for terms.

I said the public was willing to fight it out with Japan on the home isles, the politicians were worried about the blood price an invasion would cost given the serious needs for manpower for occupying mainland Asia and dealing with the IJA and the public reaction, especially when they considered the war oven with Japan conquered and the blood price being high enough.

Not sure how the Japanese could defeat the invasion given the circumstances at that point in the war; the only hope they had was the storm that disrupted the invasion fleet IOTL.

Plus while there is the revenge factor as Japan really humiliated both the US and UK at the start of their war the other two factors also apply against Germany. It was a much clearer threat to the US than Japan ever was and racism can mean this is emphasised even more since many in the US will continued to downgrade Japan as opposed to another 'white' developed nation such as Germany

Except for the US that isn't the case. The Germans only declared war after enormous provocation by the US and in repeated polls the average American didn't consider Germans a serious threat or a foe that needed to be beaten due to revenge. Remember something like 40% of the US had German heritage or was even 1st generation, so racism against them was mainly reserved to specifically aggrieved, but numerically limited demographics like Jews, Czechs, and Poles. The vast majority of US citizens were of ethnic groups, namely Germans, Italians, and Irish (IIRC about 70% or more of the country), who really had no reason to hate Germany and per polling really didn't (or at least the majority didn't they don't break it down by ethnic group).
I think given the racism of the day the 'equals' in Europe aren't such an affront as being attacked by a 'lesser' group from Asia.

The hunger plan was scrapped because the vast majority of the people it was meant to kill were outside German control. Even those urban areas in the territory they occupied in Ukraine and Belarus they decided not to starve out because with an ongoing war it would cause too much disruption and unrest. As you have argued and referenced in Hunger and War those areas can't be maintained at anything like the current population level unless the Germans are willing to transfer a lot of food from the southern agricultural region which I think we would both agree they won't. Since German occupation would also mean those territories are going to be cut off from L-L, even if the US stayed in the war, then tens of millions are very likely to die. Even without adding in HL's statement that those invading forces would seek to live off the land themselves, which in the food deficient northern and central regions is going to make matters even worse.

As such while there will be some attempt at collaboration most people won't have a choice as the inevitable result is they will be killed off.

Even within the areas of control the only major mass killing was of Soviet PoWs. Outside of that controlling the food supply was basically not really possible even with local support. I've seen references to them trying in urban areas in Ukraine, but just didn't have the manpower to make it happen. It was much easier to kidnap people for forced labor in Germany. Despite the unrest that might have caused they did it to millions anyway.

I highly doubt even in peacetime they could make it work either, especially given that people maintained their own local gardens and hidden food supplies and had lots of experienced hiding grain given what happened during the Soviet man-made famines.

Given that colonization was a pipe-dream as it was and even within the Hunger Plan they intended to keep tens of millions of people alive for labor, likely in the event of the collapse of organized Soviet resistance just the sheer need for German manpower in the west assuming continued war and of course German labor at home they would just have to rely too much on eastern Europeans to make their system in the east work to ever really enact their starvation schemes.

Not really as this lead to the crucial step of the early part of the war, i.e. the fall of France, which totally changed the dynamics. From a position of apparent [and in economic terms probably accurately seen] strength it became a battle for survival for Britain and doing what it could on the periphery. At very high costs US sales helped achieve that and too many mistakes were made even then.

In terms of Tooze while he's making a different argument to the one I grew up with, that only after Stalingrad did Germany really fully mobilize for total war he is putting in a lot of references and links to other sources. As such I'm reluctant to say he's so far off track without counters to those sources as well.

The 'lead' didn't exist in 1940. The Germans were outnumbered in all categories of equipment and manpower. It was organizational advantages, surprise, and strategy that won them that campaign, not material or manpower. You're right that that victory did change the dynamic, which was really against Germany and even they planned on 1 million casualties to defeat France before the invasion started. British mistakes though were relatively minor and it was still their war to lose at that point given their strategic geographical advantages and navy.

Tooze isn't wrong about Germany being fully mobilized in terms of resource allocation, the issue is more about industrial mobilization; as a nuance subject the terminology around mobilization could mean different things. Industry wasn't mobilized for output, it was still in an expansion phase in 1939 and was planning on being so until 1942. War production wasn't prepared at all, as they didn't plan on fighting a major war lasting years until 1942 when industrial expansion would completed and production plans for war could be prepared. Plus they were still unsnarling bureaucratic responsibilities, as Goering and several other agencies were still in bitter battles for control and only ended when Hitler appointed Speer to unfuck everything. Speer being a masterful politician figured out a way to make the right people satisfied and break the rest and it was from that that all other success in production increase flowed.

What I've said a number of times.
a) Not wasting a lot of resources having a huge US military building up in Britain and doing nothing for the best part of 2 years.
b) Not going for a double front approach in the Pacific.
c) Curtailing the huge strategic bombing offensives.

If the allies decide to fight on but that their not willing to fight a frontal war with Germany and its allies then as I argued a while back their likely to suffer less losses than OTL while they hold the line and seek ways to undermine German power which doesn't need massive blood-letting by themselves.

If they do that there is no war on! What you're describing is basically de facto peace in Europe.

If they take major combat action off the table there isn't a war on, its a Cold War and one that won't last long given the need for trade for Britain to function.

Interesting read. Was it electronically scanned at some point as there seem a lot of typos there? Love the "market farce" at one point. Got a lot of useful info there and it points out that even under Stalin there was a lot done at lower levels to manage local short-falls.

As I've said I expect both the population and the forces maintained to be markedly smaller than what the Soviets were able to maintain OTL. What my argument is is that they won't totally disappear and will continue to tie down a number of German forces as well as what is needed for simple garrison duties.

You sure that wasn't intentional given the Soviet economy?
If they are that small they won't achieve much or tie down much.

Given the massive death toll that we all seem to be expecting and the huge area involved plus the probability of a continued Russia state east of the Volga I can't see local collaborators being numerous enough or seen as reliable. Axis allied armies will help but their not generally as strong, organized and motivated as the German ones were. Also they were generally more successful than the Germans in minimizing partisan action simply because they treated the locals better. With the mass death scenarios being considered this is going to cause both much higher hostility among the locals and probably a lot of concern among some of the occupying forces.

Also if we still assume a Soviet counter attack as OTL in 41 but that it fails its still likely to really hit the Italians and Romanians hard and if the allies do the planned periphery strategy then Mussolini is likely to want his forces back home.

Given that they were able to hold down Russia for years while locked in an extraordinarily bitter war I'd think with only a minimal threat from the Soviet ground forces they could easily hold down the region and would probably have a lot more collaborators, as generally people prefer to work within a system and enjoy some benefit of civilization to a pre-historic hunter-gather existence.

Again I don't think civilian resentment amounts to much given how little the partisans achieved outside of coordination with the Soviet government and military. Or how little that resentment allowed them to resist the Soviet government as it butchered them for two decades before the Nazis showed up.

Given that the Italians and Romanians actually defeated the Soviets for quite a while until repeated assaults finally wore them down a much weaker USSR in 1942 isn't going to break them.

What damaged ports? I very much doubt the Germans can bomb the Persian Gulf, which is where the ships would be docking? They can pose a problem to rail links to the front but give the short range of many German a/c, the greater numbers available to the allies, the advantage of being the defender and the logistical strain on the Germans that's likely to be a losing position to the Luftwaffe.

Italy was such a drain in large part because it was an half and half measure. The southern part was occupied rather quickly after Sicily fell - albeit there might be more opposition this time. After that it was trying to continue the campaign with inadequate forces, especially in the terrain. It should have either been shut down and going on the defensive or supplying the amphibious forces so that more flanking attacks can be mounted in sufficient numbers. I would argue in the proposed position for the former.

Given the limited infrastructure and the fact the allies were doing the attacking the high levels of infrastructure attacks were probably counter productive to the allies.

Ports in France and Italy were damaged when taken over by the Allies like Cherbourg. Or they were occupied in fortresses that weren't reduced even by the end of the war in some cases. I wasn't talking about Persia, because projecting forces out of there is basically impossible for the Allies.

Agreed about the high levels of infrastructure damage, but then without that the Germans could have used it and made the Allies pay much more or even stop them; in reading about the Normandy campaign a major factor in the German defeat was how little ammo and replacements they could get to the front due to the bombing, but somehow they still managed to achieve casualty parity if not even superiority. Rather shocking given the advantages the Allies had in every category.

Anyway this has taken a couple of hours so late for lunch.

Steve

We might have to reach an accord about reply length!

 

[stevep]

Gotcha, but we're starting to get into PhD thesis length replies!

True so will try and keep it shorter.

Both. Germany was of course more powerful economically and in terms of organization, which is what the US military and civilian authorities meant, but heavily constrained in Europe by powerful enemies. Japan was basically much more free to do damage because of it's fleet and lack of enemies in the area, with China only being an issue due to sheer size, but it was winning; still it had plenty of extra resources to take on the British (and French and Dutch) and US and fight them for years in far flung colonies.

Except that your proposal for a peace which effectively deserts the allies, even if Britain survives as a state with a perpetual war economy to maintain its defences - albeit at a lower level because of economic demands - then Germany is no longer constrained by enemies. Its got the sort of resource base to go head to head with the US, without having to fight for them, whether that competition is economic or military.

Japan at the time had markedly weaker industrial power and the China conflict was a massive drain on its resources. I'm not sure it could actually win that war in the longer term. Even after a successful smash and grab in the south it then struggled to maintain supply links. The Japanese made a huge gamble in the south and it could easily have fallen apart for them very quickly.

Practically speaking the Germans represented very little threat to the US except as an economic counterweight if it could control Europe, which is of course what the US powerbrokers did not want; they after all wanted to dominate the globe economically, which is exactly what they did with the Bretton Woods system, the petrodollar, the controlled demolition of the European colonial systems, and efforts to contain Communism after Stalin refused to play ball with the US system. Arguably it was the US which was the greater threat to the Germans and Japanese by supplying and funding their enemies' wars against the Axis powers long past their ability to do so on their own and of course joining the war and playing the leading role in defeating them and deciding what the post-war order would be after their conquest.

I don't say that with any sympathy for the Axis powers, after all they invaded other countries and started the entire damn war, besides their other crimes against humanity.

Even with that and the good intentions of the US in its actions practically speaking even after the US intervention economically against the Axis in 1940 in Europe and earlier in Asia the Axis really did not pose a proximate threat against the US other than being able to structure their regions' economies in their favor if they won the war and hurting US export dominance, which in turn in the long run would limit the US economy. Axis military action against the US only happened after the US started economically intervening against the Axis powers. Though the Panay incident of 1937 did precede US sanctions, but that AFAIK was not ordered by the IJA or Tokyo and seems to have been Japanese soldiers overstepping their bounds.

Except your talking about OTL where Germany is opposed and then defeated. I'm talking about your suggested peace situation which gives Germany much greater resources.

The one poll run after Pearl Harbor but before Hitler declared war had US public support for declaring war on German at 90%. That would have worn off until FDR was able to engineer another incident in the Atlantic besides the others that had already happened, but shows that war passions were there for the US to join the war when FDR deemed the moment right. After Germany declared war though within a matter of 5 months polling showed that the public wasn't really interested in fighting Hitler. Source is a bunch of papers on US public opinion and the best source I've yet found, the book I already mentioned about the history of US public opinion polls in WW2, which covers everything from the pre-war period to the bitter end.

So it didn't matter who declared war first in the end, the US public wasn't really interested in fighting in Europe once the initial war fever wore off, they just went along with what the government said to some degree, though by 1944 there were increasing labor strikes and general frustration with the war still going on. There should be a lesson there about any public's willingness to follow orders though...

The entry of the US in very late 1941 though allowed the Germans to cripple the shipping fleet, which delayed US entry into the European theater by at least 5 months, so actually it was that early DoW and subsequent Uboat offensive with actually caused a bigger delay than letting the US mobilize in peace for 6 months and then declaring war when they already had men deploying abroad and were ready to go. Effectively Hitler's plan was to cripple Allied shipping long enough to finish off Russia in Case Blue and very nearly pulled it off. That would also explain Hitler's rushing Case Blue to disastrous result.

Yes but if the US had gone gung-ho into the war against Japan would there have been more or less escort vessels in the region west of the neutrality line with say a German dow in June42? As I understand it Hitler was largely feeling pushed to try and knock out the Soviets to get the Baku fields because he had concerns about shortages making future offensives limited.

Did Doenitz claim that? I thought he said he could cripple shipping and give Hitler time to finish off Russia, not win the war outright by that point.

I would. Having a war economy with only one front and free shipping in the Atlantic was a massive boon. They could mobilize in peace for 6 months. The Germany and the Second World War series (volume 6) has an excellent analysis of Allied shipping woes in 1942 as a result of the uboat offensive. If you don't want to deal with that the US Green Book series covering all aspects of the war also is extremely good, though involves more reading; the global shipping/logistics volume is the one you want to check out and they're free and available online in digital copies (which you can zoom in on BTW). If you can find a copy the official history of global shipping volume is also very good, though much less helpful about the US issues related to shipping.

Anyway the loss of shipping created economic problems for the US as well as a ton of political issues with the Brits as Admiral King really screwed things up to assert his will as an independent actor in the US military and in the Allied alliance system.
As it was he stripped the Atlantic entirely to reinforce the Pacific, so regardless the Pacific theater was going to be serviced first thanks to King.

Also given the ranges involved and very long term planning work that came with getting Uboats ready, it was a waste to wait, as by the time any appreciable additions could have been made to the Uboat fleet it would have been FAR too late to matter.
Getting the first shots in on their terms was ultimately the best strategic move the Germans could have made at that point since the impact it had on the Allied war effort and economies was so severe. This was the period of greatest anxiety for Churchill too, at least per his claims.

Again the Germany and the Second World War series (hereafter I'll call it the GSWW for less typing) really covers that campaign very very well and make a very strong case it was the right move strategically given the shitty options on the table.

I could be wrong on that but believe I have read that he hoped to starve Britain out. May be confusing it with WWI aims. Hada brief look at the one book on the U boat war I dug up quickly - Hitler's U-boat war Vol 1:1939-42 by Clay Blair - but it didn't cover that. It does reinforce your point about how desperately short Doenitz was of boats at this point, so there is a definite possibility that if the German navy had had longer to prepare for war against shipping in the neutrality zone they could probably have committed more subs and possibly almost straight after any dow.

Um...WW2? Slavery? Native Americans? Spanish-American War and Philippines insurrection? According to Tooze with quotes from Hitler's unpublished 2nd book Hitler drew direct inspiration for much of his colonial mass murder fantasies from US history.

Granted most of that wasn't in the 20th century, but the US has a pretty nasty history of mass slaughter and military invasion when it suited us. We just had completed most of ours by the time WW2 started (BTW part of FDR's ancestors made their fortune selling Opium in China during the Opium Wars...); once the bad guys started the war we took advantage of the situation to use our alliances and military to enforce our global order on everyone. Then tried to do that again in Asia with limited success.

The Cold War (and later/earlier) behavior of the US isn't really something to be proud of either...

Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Operation Condor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

United States war crimes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's not to imply 20th century America is any way equivalent to the crimes of the Axis powers in WW2, but earlier centuries was pretty friggin' bad and the WW2 and aftermath/Cold War period is hardly what you'd call good; if not for the Axis powers being so insanely evil the Allied powers would have been considered pretty bad ourselves, even leaving aside the Soviets. Hell even Robert McNamara of Vietnam infamy was involved in the bombing campaign against Japan and said in the documentary 'Fog of War' that had we lost the war he and most of the US leadership would have been hanged as war criminals for what we did to enemy civilians.

I was referring to the US in the 20thC, although as you say there have been plenty of nasty affairs by both our powers in that century.

That's somewhat debatable. If you look at what the US military wanted to do in 1942 but for British insistence on the North African campaign we would have had a failed invasion of France with unimaginable negative consequences. Ultimately you lot had to show us how bad an idea that was at Dieppe to win the argument.

Yes but the US was presuaded that it was a bad idea. Unfortunately it did mean that a hell of a lot of forces were sitting fairly idle for up to 2 years - and draining British resources - before the invasion of Normandy finally occurred. In the proposed scenario, with no intent for a massive invasion of NW Europe, its more likely that this wouldn't occur, or at least not at the same level.

As to the military being able to get its way, look at the Morgenthau Plan and Unconditional Surrender: the US military demanded a public retraction of both given the resulting increased German resistance that resulted in Hurtgen forest and the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle of the war for the US, and FDR told them to shut up and deal with it. Hell he even told Churchill that despite his and his military's repeated requests to change the policy! Ultimately FDR had Morgenthau leverage economic aid to force Churchill's acceptance publicly. So often FDR could be just as much a dictator as Hitler or Stalin.

Point taken but given TTL I suspect its unlikely that unconditional surrender would make an appearance. As with the throw our forces at the strongest enemy position approach.

Sure, I'd imagine there would be some sort of a trade war, but given US economic dominance and proximity it is unlikely that Germany would be able to do much there given the resource requirements for Hitler's plans in Europe and the struggle to retain European colonies for resources. Likely Africa would have mattered much more. Plus its not like the US was above invading Latin America to get its way, just see the 1920s. Popularity did not matter, results did; see the Cold War when the US basically imposed fascist regimes on countries that had the nerve to vote socialist.

It did matter to a degree and if the US is invading multiple areas to stop them trading more with the German empire that the US its going to be both a material drain and a social/political one. After all the US is still a democracy which gives restrictions on its scope for action, especially with more advanced communications and as you say the desire to avoid American deaths.

Plus given that German Europe is still more likely to be an importer of food than the US I think the former would have distinct advantages in trading with much of the reason.

The US did have ideological reasons to hate colonialism, but still had little problem doing it when it suited us. The US hasn't really changed at all in that regard over the centuries unfortunately, just gotten more sophisticated (until 2003 that is) in imposing it.

It could be argued that the US was most imperialistic in the period 1783-1900 as that was pretty much what happened with the conquest and settlement of the lands west of the Appalachians.

Crippling an ally is not something the US government actually cares about, after all nations don't have allies, they have interests. Really the US is not much different from imperial Britain, we're just another version of y'all with flatter accents.
I mean in your case Chamberlain had no problem throwing France and Poland under the bus to court Hitler until he realized too late he screwed up. The US is no better unfortunately.

Crippling multiple allies is not a good idea when you might need them. As you mention above Germany isn't an economic challenge as long as its control of Europe and adjacent areas are contested and TTL would remove that limitation on their powers. Giving Germany resources it couldn't obtain by military means is not a good idea.

Also while all powers have their interests I think Britain has a clearer view of its own interests simply because geography means it has had to be a diplomatic power. It makes mistakes at times but it also knows that the interests of others matter, both because you may need those powers and because it gives a clearer understanding of what motivates them.

The US has been protected by geography and history [as well as the UK] for most of its history so its never had a need for diplomacy. Coupled with the myth of American exceptionism - its not the only nation/culture to have such a belief - that's made it distinctly myopic in many cases. I think this is a major driver in your assumptions here.

If your talking about the Munich Agreement then I think the French also supported it as they were unwilling to go to war either and the Poles had nothing to do with it. [Although I think they managed to gain a chunk of the Czech state either then or when the Germans occupied the rest in spring 39]. Yes it would have been better to fight in 1938, although again there are people who disagree but other than the Czechs who lost much of their defences no one suffered in the short term.

Britain dragged the US into WW1 through propaganda about German atrocities (a huge part of the disillusionment in the US about the war), not revealing Russia mobilized first until the 1920s, linking our banking system to your war effort, and doing everything it could to influence Wilson to let them get away with violating all sorts of international norms especially around the freedom of the seas. Oh and illegally tapping US diplomatic communications, which is how the Zimmerman Telegram was found out. Arguably Germany wouldn't have been desperate enough to resort to USW had the US not allowed the illegal blockade against the Central Powers. I'm just pointing out why the US public felt the way it did after the war.

Actually while all the powers had propaganda there's no evidence that morality was a significant factor in the US dow in 1917, just as you assume it wouldn't in this scenario.

That Russia started mobilising before Germany was nothing to do with Britain and everything to do with Russians more limited government structure and the pre-existing Austrian threat to Serbia. If the US was ignorant of that its nothing to do with Britain.

It was the US that sold supplies to Britain. We didn't force them to.

Ditto with maintaining the traditional policy of blockade of an hostile state. There is an argument about limiting imports to neutrals so that they couldn't be sold onto the CP's to circumvent the blockade but then when the US joined the war they pushed to further tighten such restrictions.

Why wasn't it in US interests to economically dominate Britain? It seemed to have worked out very well for us until our ruling class got greedy and mismanaged the global economic order.

Because a weak subject is less use than a powerful ally. Britain tried for over a century for good relations with the US but the latter's insecurity cost both nations a lot. Think how much better the 1940's might have gone if the US hadn't been so determined to cripple British economic and military power after WWI for instance.

Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret

When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today

www.theguardian.com

Retrieved from the memory hole: British intervention in Greece in the 1940s

Britain's intervention in Greece during the second world war is a shameful episode in British history. We would do well to remember it.

www.opendemocracy.net

Dekemvriana - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As it was the Greek communists quickly lost any popularity they had anyway, so its highly arguable that it was British assistance in the 'white terror' really did much to break the insurgency.

Hey I'm not claiming the US behaved well at all in Italy (which amounted to outright terrorism) or France against the communists, just saying your country's actions in Greece weren't any better.

Possibly but my point was that it was deemed necessary to support Greece against a communist take-over.

USAF came later. Yes I am referring to that. I don't know where you're getting that it was unreliable from, it is a tremendous source of information from German documents and participants in the economy at all levels about what was going on. The only issue with it was that not all the documents were available, so they had to do the best they could with what they had. In terms of conclusions ultimately it is up to the reader whether that was accurate or not, but IMHO based on more modern studies it holds up quite well overall.

If you actually read it they don't really blow their trumpet except where they have the numbers to prove that their effort worked. The report is actually highly critical about the strategy adopted and points out all the areas where they could have improved; after all the report is supposed to be about what they did right and wrong so they could improve strategy and organization for future wars. The summary report is free online if you want to check it out, the European theater one is only about 24 pages IIRC.

Actually the Germans interviewed were quite critical of Allied bombing mistakes and they are cited in the report. Speer has a lot of interesting things to say in that regard. Sucking up is not at all what I'd call what the Germans said in the report, they were pretty honest about what worked and what didn't. Adolf Galland was interviewed as well and IIRC his views on the air war were basically accurate. Remember though the Germans too were still digesting the war, but from the position of defeat, so their incorrect views are probably just as much if not more a product of lack of total info, memory fallability, and myopia of their position rather than intentional reputation sparing.

I've heard it from various source over the years but possibly its been one of those myths, such as the masses of Siberian units saving Moscow in 1941. Do you have a link to that please as it sounds interesting.

The A-bomb couldn't have had a higher priority than it did in the war; arguably that high priority led to extreme amounts of waste. I think you misread my comment, I didn't say that it would have been more effective against German cities that were less bombed, if anything it was the relative lack of wooden structures and greater number of concrete and steel buildings that would have blunted the impact of the bomb. As noted in the US report on its effectiveness it was actually quite inefficient relative to more bombers spreading out incendiaries and it was only the wooden nature of Japanese cities (due to earthquake risks) that spread the fire and in the case of Nagasaki the fact that it was in a valley which contained the blast and focused it more in the area. As noted too in the report the few concrete and steel buildings absorbed the blast just fine, as the air burst reduced how much energy was focused on them. You'd need ground bursts to really damage German cities and industry, which given the low kiloton range of the bombs in 1945 would require a lot to shut down even one city. These were not the vastly more powerful Cold War hydrogen and thermonuclear bombs.

I think air burst would have done a lot of damage as well, especially against more fragile facilities such as transport links and transformer facilities. Let alone the social shock.

Huh? Japan was the world's second largest economy by the 1960s without its empire. With its empire and China it would have been even more powerful than a German dominated Europe.

Was it No. 2 that early. I thought it was later. However don't forget that was with a markedly different culture and without a huge military burden. I'm doubtful that Japan could have won a lasting war in China, at least without a level of slaughter that would have made the hunger plan look like a holiday camp.

Until late 1943 and the invasion of mainland Italy the US suffered more casualties against Japan than Germany. My grandfather was in Guadalcanal in 1942 when the first offensive US ground campaign began. There was the Philippines before that, including the Bataan Death March that killed number of my grandfather's friends. I'd read up more on the 1942-43 campaigns in the Pacific, there were substantial ground forces deployed and in combat.

That's because Italy was the 1st area that the US army was involved in, in any numbers, in a combat role. How many ground units were actively involved in heavy fighting during 42-early 43?

What I'm suggesting would probably mean more US losses in the early stages simply because they would be in combat but probably not as much as OTL in the longer term simply because there's no mass offensives in NW Europe.

Not in the Caucasus. They developed Iran. Iran then allowed them to move the supplies to the Caspian sea in Northern Iran, not the Caucasus, which then allowed shipping of the supplies to a Soviet port on the Volga (until Stalingrad) and thereafter on the mouth of the Ural river, which allowed the supplies to move into the Ural mountains.

Maybe forces could be deployed in Baku, but that's about it and they'd compete with anything you want to ship to the Soviets. Also the Germans would strongly dispute the frozen hell hole comment based on what they experienced in the Volga.

But Iran borders Azjerbijan and much of the coastal region shared between the two is fairly flat. Plus south of the mountains, while still rugged has transport links. I'm thinking using the mountains as a defensive position to make the region a lot more defensible with the right flank probably on flatter ground. That way you can also make use of former Soviet manpower and local industrial resources.

Incorrect. By mid-1942 they had the guidance technology to hit individual factory buildings or rail stations. I have several books about the guidance technologies of the bombing campaign and they certainly existed by the time that city bombing was employed; after all it was used to reliably find city centers to bomb, which are not that big of targets given the previous horrific accuracy of BC.

No Harris went for cities, because he wanted to hit cities. Dehousing was a very specific policy he was brought in to implement:

Dehousing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gee was only introduced in April 1942. No shit that the training and experience weren't yet there to be more accurate, especially when only something like 8 of the bombers in the stream could even use it and the rest had to drop on the flames they created...which led to the 'creep back' problem. It took more experience and training, as well as the PPF force to really change that, which came later in 1942. Frankly with mostly Mosquitos instead of heavy bombers they would have been vastly more accurate. Heavy payloads tended to lead to enormous amounts of wasted tonnage if you're going for precision targets, but they're great for smashed up cities. Once again it was a technical choice based on their strategy, not strategy being determined by guidance technology limitations.

Exactly my point! They chose to bomb cities and built their force around that, it wasn't imposed on them by technology after mid-1942.

There was a decision to hit cities because those were the primary targets they could [with any reliability] find. The wiki link you mentions agrees with that. There were assumptions made by BC and supporting figures such as Cherwell to give a basis for the dehousing policy, which seems to have both over-estimated the accuracy of the new methods [as Tizzard argued] and also that the impact on civilian moral in Britain was less than they were claiming.

As such I would say that mass bombing was a considerable drain in resources, albeit that latter methods might be more effective.

The only reason they could be such a club and waste so much as because of politicians choosing to fund that. They had other proposals and opted for empowering the bomber mafia.

Which is my point. Although the best opportunities had already been lost a lot of resources could have been saved if we hadn't gone on such a route.

I said the public was willing to fight it out with Japan on the home isles, the politicians were worried about the blood price an invasion would cost given the serious needs for manpower for occupying mainland Asia and dealing with the IJA and the public reaction, especially when they considered the war oven with Japan conquered and the blood price being high enough.

Not sure how the Japanese could defeat the invasion given the circumstances at that point in the war; the only hope they had was the storm that disrupted the invasion fleet IOTL.

See Japan defeats US invasion in 1945 where it was strongly argued by one poster. Link goes to page 2 where he 1st enters the fray. As you will see I was on the other side of the argument and still have doubts about the idea.

Except for the US that isn't the case. The Germans only declared war after enormous provocation by the US and in repeated polls the average American didn't consider Germans a serious threat or a foe that needed to be beaten due to revenge. Remember something like 40% of the US had German heritage or was even 1st generation, so racism against them was mainly reserved to specifically aggrieved, but numerically limited demographics like Jews, Czechs, and Poles. The vast majority of US citizens were of ethnic groups, namely Germans, Italians, and Irish (IIRC about 70% or more of the country), who really had no reason to hate Germany and per polling really didn't (or at least the majority didn't they don't break it down by ethnic group).
I think given the racism of the day the 'equals' in Europe aren't such an affront as being attacked by a 'lesser' group from Asia.

Not sure an affront but more of a threat than the 'inferior' Asians was the point I was referring to. Apart from the much greater resources available to the German empire your talking about and the sense of the Japanese as being inferior the former would be seen as a much greater threat.

Even within the areas of control the only major mass killing was of Soviet PoWs. Outside of that controlling the food supply was basically not really possible even with local support. I've seen references to them trying in urban areas in Ukraine, but just didn't have the manpower to make it happen. It was much easier to kidnap people for forced labor in Germany. Despite the unrest that might have caused they did it to millions anyway.

I highly doubt even in peacetime they could make it work either, especially given that people maintained their own local gardens and hidden food supplies and had lots of experienced hiding grain given what happened during the Soviet man-made famines.

Given that colonization was a pipe-dream as it was and even within the Hunger Plan they intended to keep tens of millions of people alive for labor, likely in the event of the collapse of organized Soviet resistance just the sheer need for German manpower in the west assuming continued war and of course German labor at home they would just have to rely too much on eastern Europeans to make their system in the east work to ever really enact their starvation schemes.

We're your yourself arguing that the vast bulk of the population of the Russian heartland would die or was it HL? I know you were mentioning the Hunger & War book about how bad it would be. If that region is occupied by the Germans in 43 and hence cut off from supplies, the Germans weren't exporting food from the south to the north and as HL has suggested the German invasion forces were seeking to live off the land then there's going to be a hell of a lot of deaths one way or another.

If a lot of those people are able to survive on local food sources and/or L-L then its going to be no walk over the conquer them in the 1st place.

The 'lead' didn't exist in 1940. The Germans were outnumbered in all categories of equipment and manpower. It was organizational advantages, surprise, and strategy that won them that campaign, not material or manpower. You're right that that victory did change the dynamic, which was really against Germany and even they planned on 1 million casualties to defeat France before the invasion started. British mistakes though were relatively minor and it was still their war to lose at that point given their strategic geographical advantages and navy.

That lead was because they and been moblising for war for several years more and they also had a centralised command, as opposed to 4 different nations, only one really with significant power on the ground. give it another year and it might have been significantly different. Or simply some bit of luck or a touch of intelligence from one of the main allied commanders.

Tooze isn't wrong about Germany being fully mobilized in terms of resource allocation, the issue is more about industrial mobilization; as a nuance subject the terminology around mobilization could mean different things. Industry wasn't mobilized for output, it was still in an expansion phase in 1939 and was planning on being so until 1942. War production wasn't prepared at all, as they didn't plan on fighting a major war lasting years until 1942 when industrial expansion would completed and production plans for war could be prepared. Plus they were still unsnarling bureaucratic responsibilities, as Goering and several other agencies were still in bitter battles for control and only ended when Hitler appointed Speer to unfuck everything. Speer being a masterful politician figured out a way to make the right people satisfied and break the rest and it was from that that all other success in production increase flowed.

It was fully moblized in terms of raw materials available, funds and manpower. There were projects to increase capacity which in some cases were still uncompleted when the war ended but TTL is going to relax the restrictions on a lot of those issues. They didn't plan on fighting a major war lasting years because that would have taken several years preparation and also demoblizing a lot of men to avoid the economy going into melt-down. You could argue that both Britain and France were unprepared in similar ways, let alone the US.

Not sure that Speer did a lot to untangle a lot of the struggles for power and influence as that continued through to the end of the conflict. He might have gained enough favour with Hitler to override some of the factions and seems to have been a skilled politician to make at least temporary allies, largely with other party members.

If they do that there is no war on! What you're describing is basically de facto peace in Europe.

If they take major combat action off the table there isn't a war on, its a Cold War and one that won't last long given the need for trade for Britain to function.

No what your suggesting is a cold war situation. If the blockade continues and fighting on the fringes to keep pressure on the Germans then they don't gain the extra resources your suggesting.

Not sure why Britain would suddenly collapse when it didn't OTL. Remember I'm talking about the US deciding that its worthwhile fighting on.

You sure that wasn't intentional given the Soviet economy?
If they are that small they won't achieve much or tie down much.

If by the 1st you mean factories setting up local farms for its workers then that was the intention of the local factory managers but doubt it was authorised at the top levels. If the Soviet system collapses politically and is replaced by say a military government then a lot more could probably be done as such measures is likely to be encouraged.

I'm talking about a rump state from the Urals eastwards that would almost certainly have more population and industry than France in 1940. That's not going to be storming its way to Berlin in the near future but its not going to be a push over either. It would have a much longer front line to defend but the Germans have a hell of a logistic issue getting much beyond the Volga, especially if facing continued unrest and trying to break through against allied forces in the south.

Given that they were able to hold down Russia for years while locked in an extraordinarily bitter war I'd think with only a minimal threat from the Soviet ground forces they could easily hold down the region and would probably have a lot more collaborators, as generally people prefer to work within a system and enjoy some benefit of civilization to a pre-historic hunter-gather existence.

As I say above I'm not talking about them driving back across conquered territory.

Given that the Italians and Romanians actually defeated the Soviets for quite a while until repeated assaults finally wore them down a much weaker USSR in 1942 isn't going to break them.

From what I've heard they were defeated fairly quickly, which considering how relatively poorly they were equipped and their exposed positions isn't too surprising.

Ports in France and Italy were damaged when taken over by the Allies like Cherbourg. Or they were occupied in fortresses that weren't reduced even by the end of the war in some cases. I wasn't talking about Persia, because projecting forces out of there is basically impossible for the Allies.

Which wouldn't apply here as I'm talking about supplies to Iran.

Agreed about the high levels of infrastructure damage, but then without that the Germans could have used it and made the Allies pay much more or even stop them; in reading about the Normandy campaign a major factor in the German defeat was how little ammo and replacements they could get to the front due to the bombing, but somehow they still managed to achieve casualty parity if not even superiority. Rather shocking given the advantages the Allies had in every category.

Again this isn't something I'm talking about here. I'm only assuming taking most of southern Italy if its a practical proposition, which it could well be given the forces available. Then dig in and hold it. The main aim would be to secure a path through the Med to release a lot of shipping, try and draw the Germans into a killing zone and possibly also cause a collapse of Mussolini's regime.

We might have to reach an accord about reply length!

Tried to keep my replies short but if we agree no more that 3 reams a post?

I'm willing to consider a different approach with strategic bombing, although that would need fundamental changes in both nations and I think both you and HL have suggested that Germany would manage to product enough fighters to make the OTL success of the USAAF impossible.

Steve

 

[sillygoose]

True so will try and keep it shorter.

Thanks.

Except that your proposal for a peace which effectively deserts the allies, even if Britain survives as a state with a perpetual war economy to maintain its defences - albeit at a lower level because of economic demands - then Germany is no longer constrained by enemies. Its got the sort of resource base to go head to head with the US, without having to fight for them, whether that competition is economic or military.

Not sure I buy that argument. Hypothetically had the US not got involved in Europe in 1940 and let the war peter out by early 1941 then Hitler wouldn't have been in a position to invade the USSR and Britain would have survived just fine, even if somewhat dependent on good relations with Germany; other than India the empire would be intact. Not only that, but Germany isn't going to be invading the Balkans either. So yeah still constrained.

At this point I'm not 100% what you think 'my' peace deal would be though. The US could maintain a commitment to British security though, even if not directly involved with forces in Europe permanently. Not to mention help build up ex-British colonies as counterweights to the Axis in various regions.

Japan at the time had markedly weaker industrial power and the China conflict was a massive drain on its resources. I'm not sure it could actually win that war in the longer term. Even after a successful smash and grab in the south it then struggled to maintain supply links. The Japanese made a huge gamble in the south and it could easily have fallen apart for them very quickly.

Japan wasn't too far off the USSR economically including it's empire and in certain areas like electronics was well ahead (in some cases even ahead of Germany with the cavity magnetron). China was a drain on standing army peace time resources, but that was sustainable if the US hadn't embargoed Japan. They after all had more than enough residual power to invade European colonies, fight to the border of India, and fight the US for years in the Pacific despite the war in China. Even in 1944 when things were going badly they managed to launch their largest ground offensive of the entire war (since 1937) that nearly defeated China, Ichi-Go.

You can claim they barely made it in their southern invasion, but they pulled it off, conquered multiple major islands, and fought on for years, nearly getting to India in the process.

Except your talking about OTL where Germany is opposed and then defeated. I'm talking about your suggested peace situation which gives Germany much greater resources.

Please remind me what the proposed deal is? We are several thesis deep at this point, so I'm forgetting who's on first.

Yes but if the US had gone gung-ho into the war against Japan would there have been more or less escort vessels in the region west of the neutrality line with say a German dow in June42? As I understand it Hitler was largely feeling pushed to try and knock out the Soviets to get the Baku fields because he had concerns about shortages making future offensives limited.

The US did go gung-ho in 1942 against Japan, so I'm not sure what difference you're expecting here. Remember the first offensive the US took in WW2 was against Japan in 1942:

Solomon Islands campaign - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

GSWW series covers Hitler's 1942 strategy in detail; basically he wanted to oil to fight the air war against the Wallies in 1943 in western Europe when it was thought the US would start their strategic air offensive. He also wanted to advance into the Caucasus to invade Iran, but apparently did not understand logistics and how utterly impossible that was given that Grozny couldn't even be reached. He also felt the Soviets were on their last legs, so advancing to the Volga would collapse them, but that was incidental to the strategy.

I could be wrong on that but believe I have read that he hoped to starve Britain out. May be confusing it with WWI aims. Hada brief look at the one book on the U boat war I dug up quickly - Hitler's U-boat war Vol 1:1939-42 by Clay Blair - but it didn't cover that. It does reinforce your point about how desperately short Doenitz was of boats at this point, so there is a definite possibility that if the German navy had had longer to prepare for war against shipping in the neutrality zone they could probably have committed more subs and possibly almost straight after any dow.

Initially, but by 1942 I think it was more about inflicting as much damage as possible and hoping for the best. Also there wasn't so much a shortage of Uboats as Hitler's orders constraining things. 20 Uboats were held back from Paukenschlag to guard Norway against invasion for example.

I was referring to the US in the 20thC, although as you say there have been plenty of nasty affairs by both our powers in that century.

Indeed. I was just pointing out that the US was as 'nice' as it was in the 20th century because it got its nasty out of the war in the earlier centuries or at least in the very early 20th century (Philippines).

Yes but the US was presuaded that it was a bad idea. Unfortunately it did mean that a hell of a lot of forces were sitting fairly idle for up to 2 years - and draining British resources - before the invasion of Normandy finally occurred. In the proposed scenario, with no intent for a massive invasion of NW Europe, its more likely that this wouldn't occur, or at least not at the same level.

Eventually, but only after a disaster at Dieppe.
Those forces in Britain weren't idle, they were training for a major invasion, like the British 'idle' divisions. Also they were not draining your resources considering your entire war effort depended on L-L by 1942 and the US was supplying not just your forces, but our own. Any 'drain' was more than offset by US largess.
There would be an intent to invade though at some point otherwise the war is pointless and they'd cut a deal.

Point taken but given TTL I suspect its unlikely that unconditional surrender would make an appearance. As with the throw our forces at the strongest enemy position approach.

If the Soviets implode before 1943 you're right. If they cut a deal in 1943 and drop out the policy would be dropped. Thing is without the Soviets the war would be over, as the Wallies could never invade anyway, and once negotiation was on the table and invasion would be too costly the war is basically over.

It did matter to a degree and if the US is invading multiple areas to stop them trading more with the German empire that the US its going to be both a material drain and a social/political one. After all the US is still a democracy which gives restrictions on its scope for action, especially with more advanced communications and as you say the desire to avoid American deaths.

Plus given that German Europe is still more likely to be an importer of food than the US I think the former would have distinct advantages in trading with much of the reason.

Once there is a global war on though, the US tends not to give a shit about international niceties. See the bombing of France for instance. Of course the French also napalmed their own civilians in 1945 to kill some Germans at the bitter end, so it wasn't simply the US.

Depends on what food is available and from where. The Germans were able to meet 90% of their food needs shortly after WW2 despite losing their breadbasket regions in the eastern half of the country just by reforming their agriculture. Without a war on, more time to reform, and access to regions like Ukraine, food is unlikely to be a problem. 1940 was really a major disaster for food production given all the crazy events that year beyond the war disruptions, like the flooding of the Danube region and wrecking of food production in that breadbasket area. That isn't a yearly event though.

It could be argued that the US was most imperialistic in the period 1783-1900 as that was pretty much what happened with the conquest and settlement of the lands west of the Appalachians.

Indeed, Manifest Destiny was internal colonization, but then look at the Philippines after 1900, treatment of Cuba, and evolution of neo-colonialism through economics throughout Latin America. I mean 'War Is a Racket' was written after the 1920s based on the various invasions of Latin American countries to enforce corporate interests. The US Marines basically functioned as the private army of US corporations in that period:

War Is a Racket - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps:

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

So yeah. That didn't stop by 1930 BTW.

Crippling multiple allies is not a good idea when you might need them. As you mention above Germany isn't an economic challenge as long as its control of Europe and adjacent areas are contested and TTL would remove that limitation on their powers. Giving Germany resources it couldn't obtain by military means is not a good idea.

Also while all powers have their interests I think Britain has a clearer view of its own interests simply because geography means it has had to be a diplomatic power. It makes mistakes at times but it also knows that the interests of others matter, both because you may need those powers and because it gives a clearer understanding of what motivates them.

The US has been protected by geography and history [as well as the UK] for most of its history so its never had a need for diplomacy. Coupled with the myth of American exceptionism - its not the only nation/culture to have such a belief - that's made it distinctly myopic in many cases. I think this is a major driver in your assumptions here.

If your talking about the Munich Agreement then I think the French also supported it as they were unwilling to go to war either and the Poles had nothing to do with it. [Although I think they managed to gain a chunk of the Czech state either then or when the Germans occupied the rest in spring 39]. Yes it would have been better to fight in 1938, although again there are people who disagree but other than the Czechs who lost much of their defences no one suffered in the short term.

I wouldn't call it crippling given that your country got $36 billion in 1940 dollars, all the expenses paid for millions of US troops that fought for your interests in Europe, and massive economic aid at the end and post-war. If anything we prevented you from being crippled and ensured your foreign policy on the continent was followed...west of the Elbe.

Given that Germany would be locked down for generations colonizing Europe and trying to manage occupied states, it would be constrained by Hitler's demands. After all he did say he was focused on preserving the British Empire and colonizing the east while fighting a forever war with the rump Soviets.

I don't know what you've read about the US, but we've relied on diplomacy since before we were a country. And don't forget we were invaded by you in 1812, had multiple border conflicts over Canada throughout the 1800s, had issues with France, and had to heavily negotiate with Europe during the US Civil War. It is only recently that the US has been more aggressive and less diplomatic. Prior to WW2 the US was doing quite a bit of diplomacy to head off war in Europe and Asia, tried to get negotiations going in 1939-40, and then did a lot of negotiating to work with the Soviets, set up Bretton Woods and the UN, and of course negotiated the post-war order. It is the Cold War that broke US willingness to negotiate, since we won and become the sole Hyperpower, a global Rome. But look where that has taken us.

The French wanted war over the Rhineland and Britain stopped them. The negotiations over Czechoslovakia were a British initiative, France said they would fight only if Britain would; Chamberlain didn't want to then either. Fighting in 1938 would have been the way to go given that the Oster Conspiracy, even if it failed, would have launched a coup and likely disrupted Germany internally quite a bit.

Actually while all the powers had propaganda there's no evidence that morality was a significant factor in the US dow in 1917, just as you assume it wouldn't in this scenario.

That Russia started mobilising before Germany was nothing to do with Britain and everything to do with Russians more limited government structure and the pre-existing Austrian threat to Serbia. If the US was ignorant of that its nothing to do with Britain.

It was the US that sold supplies to Britain. We didn't force them to.

Ditto with maintaining the traditional policy of blockade of an hostile state. There is an argument about limiting imports to neutrals so that they couldn't be sold onto the CP's to circumvent the blockade but then when the US joined the war they pushed to further tighten such restrictions.

The Russian mobilization comment was about how the British government didn't reveal to its public and the international scene that Russia mobilized first, which prompted German mobilization and DoW given that they told Russia that would be their red line for war. That info being suppressed materially altered the British public's willingness to go to war and the Wilson administrations willingness to aid the Entente basically from the beginning.

As to the US selling supplies, the British did a lot of bribery to get the US to accept the blockade/Black List, which as conducted was highly illegal under international law.

Limiting imports via a blacklist is however not part of international law and even though it is good strategy it violated all the agreements made up to that point and was only tolerated due to a deluge of British cash and coercion.

Because a weak subject is less use than a powerful ally. Britain tried for over a century for good relations with the US but the latter's insecurity cost both nations a lot. Think how much better the 1940's might have gone if the US hadn't been so determined to cripple British economic and military power after WWI for instance.

How did we weaken you? We beat your biggest enemy of the 20th century and financed both wars as well as kept your economy from imploding after both.

Again how did we cripple your power after WW1? I think the war did that and after all we wanted to be paid back for all those loans and favorable economic situation you had after wiping out the major threat you had pre-war...which you then helped rebuild and put in a position to start WW2...

Possibly but my point was that it was deemed necessary to support Greece against a communist take-over.

All sorts of things are deemed necessary for all sorts of reasons.

I've heard it from various source over the years but possibly its been one of those myths, such as the masses of Siberian units saving Moscow in 1941. Do you have a link to that please as it sounds interesting.

What? About the interviews with Germans? I don't have a singular link, just various citations and quotes.
Here is a collection of the various reports:

Research Guides: Technical Reports & Standards Collection Guide: Introduction

The Science Section's Technical Reports and Standards Collection holds over 5 million current and historical technical reports and standards on microform, digital media and paper.

www.loc.gov

Here is the summary report with quotes from Speer:

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (European War)

The Long Arm of the US Strategic Bombing Survey | Air & Space Forces Magazine

For six decades, it has colored—some say distorted—opinion about airpower.

www.airforcemag.com

I think air burst would have done a lot of damage as well, especially against more fragile facilities such as transport links and transformer facilities. Let alone the social shock.

Some without a doubt, but it appears that it didn't do much against Japanese buildings made of concrete.
Transport links usually resisted all but a ground burst. Not sure about electrical stuff.

Was it No. 2 that early. I thought it was later. However don't forget that was with a markedly different culture and without a huge military burden. I'm doubtful that Japan could have won a lasting war in China, at least without a level of slaughter that would have made the hunger plan look like a holiday camp.

Nope, officially 1968, but likely was sooner given that the USSR was overstating its economy and probably didn't even realize just how much it was doing so.

The big reason was population growth; Japan went from a smaller population than Germany in 1939 to a larger one by the late 1950s. It nearly doubled from 1940 to 1990. Culture wasn't that different. Yes without a military burden, but no colonies to provide free raw materials and captive markets either.

Japan was winning the war in China, it was US L-L that kept the Chinese going and very nearly that was not enough. Had it not been for US military intervention China was going to collapse.

That's because Italy was the 1st area that the US army was involved in, in any numbers, in a combat role. How many ground units were actively involved in heavy fighting during 42-early 43?

What I'm suggesting would probably mean more US losses in the early stages simply because they would be in combat but probably not as much as OTL in the longer term simply because there's no mass offensives in NW Europe.

Huh? North Africa? There were are at least 200,000 US troops in the Tunisian campaign, probably more considering that leaves out the navy and deeper logistics outside of direct army troops:

Tunisian campaign - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You're not wrong, but even with the fighting in Sicily losses in the Pacific were higher until the fighting on mainland Italy bogged down and casualties jumped.

But Iran borders Azjerbijan and much of the coastal region shared between the two is fairly flat. Plus south of the mountains, while still rugged has transport links. I'm thinking using the mountains as a defensive position to make the region a lot more defensible with the right flank probably on flatter ground. That way you can also make use of former Soviet manpower and local industrial resources.

In the mid-1940s there might have been very minor rail lines, but they were actually insufficient to sustain Soviet forces in Iran, who had to live off the land to nasty consequence for the Iranian under their control. Caucasian manpower and industry is rather minor and not necessarily friendly to ANY outsiders, especially those allied to Stalin. See the Chechen revolt.

There was a decision to hit cities because those were the primary targets they could [with any reliability] find. The wiki link you mentions agrees with that. There were assumptions made by BC and supporting figures such as Cherwell to give a basis for the dehousing policy, which seems to have both over-estimated the accuracy of the new methods [as Tizzard argued] and also that the impact on civilian moral in Britain was less than they were claiming.

As such I would say that mass bombing was a considerable drain in resources, albeit that latter methods might be more effective.

Prior to mid-1942, but after that accuracy dramatically improved. By 1943 going after cities was by far the worse strategy given how much was achieved even with the insufficient American precision bombing.

Which is my point. Although the best opportunities had already been lost a lot of resources could have been saved if we hadn't gone on such a route.

Ok then we agree.

See Japan defeats US invasion in 1945 where it was strongly argued by one poster. Link goes to page 2 where he 1st enters the fray. As you will see I was on the other side of the argument and still have doubts about the idea.

I'll check it out when I get a chance.

Not sure an affront but more of a threat than the 'inferior' Asians was the point I was referring to. Apart from the much greater resources available to the German empire your talking about and the sense of the Japanese as being inferior the former would be seen as a much greater threat.

Only by politicians/military leaders planning on invading Europe. None considered the Germans a bigger threat to mainland USA than Japan given that only the Japanese had a fleet capable of reaching the US. The Uboats were a threat to British supply lines more than anything.

We're your yourself arguing that the vast bulk of the population of the Russian heartland would die or was it HL? I know you were mentioning the Hunger & War book about how bad it would be. If that region is occupied by the Germans in 43 and hence cut off from supplies, the Germans weren't exporting food from the south to the north and as HL has suggested the German invasion forces were seeking to live off the land then there's going to be a hell of a lot of deaths one way or another.

If a lot of those people are able to survive on local food sources and/or L-L then its going to be no walk over the conquer them in the 1st place.

I don't know what you're referring to exactly.
What is the Russian 'heartland'? The starvation in the USSR that was unoccupied by the Germans would be really bad without the 1942/43 victories and roll back of German occupation.

As it was in German occupied USSR there wasn't mass starvation outside of the PoW camps AFAIK. The mass starvation was in the Soviet controlled areas. Well that and the Ghettos and what was done to the Jews, but most of that was in Poland given what the Einsatzgruppen did in 1941-42.

Survival on local food sources was possible given OTL, but resistance was only really done by externally supplied, trained, and equipped partisan groups, not self organized civilians with a grudge. The Soviet guerrilla movement was externally directly for the most part otherwise the cut off soldiers who fled into the forests would have just melted back into the civilian population.

Soviet partisans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The program of the partisan war was outlined in Moscow after the German attack in 1941 against the USSR. Directives issued on July 29, 1941 and in further documents by the Soviet People's Commissaries Council and Communist Party called for the formation of partisan detachments and 'diversionist' groups in the German-occupied territories. Joseph Stalin iterated his commands and directives to the people in his radio speech on 3 July 1941, and appointed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army on 20 July 1941.[4]

The first detachments commanded by Red Army officers and local Communist Party activists were formed in the first days of the war between former allies Germany and the Soviet Union, including the Starasyel'ski detachment of Major Dorodnykh in the Zhabinka district (June 23, 1941)[5] and the Pinsk detachment of Vasily Korzh on June 26, 1941.[6] The first awards of the Hero of the Soviet Union order occurred on August 6, 1941 (detachment commanders Pavlovskiy and Bumazhkov). Some partisan detachments were parachuted into German-occupied territories in the summer of 1941. Urban underground groups were formed as a force complementing the activities of partisan units, operating in rural areas. The network of underground structures developed and received a steady influx of specially chosen party activists. By the end of 1941, more than 2,000 partisan detachments (with more than 90,000 personnel) operated in German-occupied territories.[7][8]

However, the activity of partisan forces was not centrally coordinated and supplied until spring of 1942. In order to coordinate partisan operations the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement under Stavka, headed by Panteleimon Ponomarenko (Chief of Staff) and initially commanded by top Politburo member Kliment Voroshilov, was organized on May 30, 1942. The Staff had its liaison networks in the Military Councils of the Fronts and Armies. The territorial Staffs were subsequently created, dealing with the partisan movement in the respective Soviet Republics and in the occupied provinces of the Russian SFSR.[9]

Without that directing authority the partisan war wouldn't have existed beyond a handful of units.

That lead was because they and been moblising for war for several years more and they also had a centralised command, as opposed to 4 different nations, only one really with significant power on the ground. give it another year and it might have been significantly different. Or simply some bit of luck or a touch of intelligence from one of the main allied commanders.

So had the Allies. Britain had been rearming since 1936 as had France. The Soviets never stopped building up and saved everything they had in terms of military equipment. Germany started from a lower bottom considering they had to rebuild their defense industry from a much lower point. Thing is Germany linked her economic recovery from the Great Depression to its rearmament plan, while Britain and France were trying to sustainably build up their budgets until it was too late and then US industry helped them play catchup.

The issue there though was much more than simply a lack of intelligence on the part of the Allied powers, they had political constraints that Germany did not, as rearmament was popular in Germany and not in the Allied states.

It was fully moblized in terms of raw materials available, funds and manpower. There were projects to increase capacity which in some cases were still uncompleted when the war ended but TTL is going to relax the restrictions on a lot of those issues. They didn't plan on fighting a major war lasting years because that would have taken several years preparation and also demoblizing a lot of men to avoid the economy going into melt-down. You could argue that both Britain and France were unprepared in similar ways, let alone the US.

Not sure that Speer did a lot to untangle a lot of the struggles for power and influence as that continued through to the end of the conflict. He might have gained enough favour with Hitler to override some of the factions and seems to have been a skilled politician to make at least temporary allies, largely with other party members.

Being fully committed to military spending is very different to having industry set up for maximal war output. Germany didn't start getting into that until 1942 and even then they were still building up industries right to the end of the war (1 million tons of synthetic oil producing capacity was under construction in Silesia in 1945 when it was overrun by the Soviets, and a massive synthetic rubber plant too that today is the basis for the Polish rubber industry).

Speer did everything to untangle the bureaucracy, he just relied on marketing to also make himself look even better than things were really going though.

No what your suggesting is a cold war situation. If the blockade continues and fighting on the fringes to keep pressure on the Germans then they don't gain the extra resources your suggesting.

Not sure why Britain would suddenly collapse when it didn't OTL. Remember I'm talking about the US deciding that its worthwhile fighting on.

You can't continue the blockade indefinitely, as they means keeping the war going, which was not economically sustainable.

Did I say Britain would suddenly collapse? I said will to continue the war would.

If by the 1st you mean factories setting up local farms for its workers then that was the intention of the local factory managers but doubt it was authorised at the top levels. If the Soviet system collapses politically and is replaced by say a military government then a lot more could probably be done as such measures is likely to be encouraged.

I'm talking about a rump state from the Urals eastwards that would almost certainly have more population and industry than France in 1940. That's not going to be storming its way to Berlin in the near future but its not going to be a push over either. It would have a much longer front line to defend but the Germans have a hell of a logistic issue getting much beyond the Volga, especially if facing continued unrest and trying to break through against allied forces in the south.

I doubt the Soviet military would do anything the Soviet government didn't already do. Also the rump state certainly would not have more industry given the size of even the expanded Ural production zone. Population yes, but industry no. Agriculture certainly not, which is the main problem for the rump Soviet state. They could hold their Ural mountain zone, but they aren't going to be projecting power west.

As I say above I'm not talking about them driving back across conquered territory.

So what would they do other than hold what they had?

From what I've heard they were defeated fairly quickly, which considering how relatively poorly they were equipped and their exposed positions isn't too surprising.

Not really, they actually fought and held out for a while until overwhelmed. The Italians fought really hard, but just were overwhelmed, same with most of the Romanians.

Which wouldn't apply here as I'm talking about supplies to Iran.

I wasn't so we were just talking about different things. You're clearly overrating what Iranian infrastructure could support though.

Again this isn't something I'm talking about here. I'm only assuming taking most of southern Italy if its a practical proposition, which it could well be given the forces available. Then dig in and hold it. The main aim would be to secure a path through the Med to release a lot of shipping, try and draw the Germans into a killing zone and possibly also cause a collapse of Mussolini's regime.

Without the USSR it probably won't be possible, the Axis might even hold out in North Africa depending on how things play out in 1942-43. Even if they do invade then extra German strength means Sicily is probably just going to be the battle zone.

I'm willing to consider a different approach with strategic bombing, although that would need fundamental changes in both nations and I think both you and HL have suggested that Germany would manage to product enough fighters to make the OTL success of the USAAF impossible.

That is a whole conversation itself.

Tried to keep my replies short but if we agree no more that 3 reams a post?

Much obliged. 3 reams only? No promises.

 

[stevep]

OK splitting this into two for simplicity and excluded some of the points. The main issue is in this post.

Not sure I buy that argument. Hypothetically had the US not got involved in Europe in 1940 and let the war peter out by early 1941 then Hitler wouldn't have been in a position to invade the USSR and Britain would have survived just fine, even if somewhat dependent on good relations with Germany; other than India the empire would be intact. Not only that, but Germany isn't going to be invading the Balkans either. So yeah still constrained.

Actually if the US hadn't gotten involved with L-L once Britain was drained of funds it would have been forced to make peace shortly before Germany launched Barbarossa. I don't see how you think Hitler wouldn't be in a position to invade the USSR when his position has just greatly improved?

At this point I'm not 100% what you think 'my' peace deal would be though. The US could maintain a commitment to British security though, even if not directly involved with forces in Europe permanently. Not to mention help build up ex-British colonies as counterweights to the Axis in various regions.

That is a primary issue as there's a lot of fuzziness about all of this. As I understand it the assumptions are:
a) The oil in Matzen is discovered earlier and is available to Germany once Austria is annexed.

b) This will prompt using it rather than most of the synthetic oil programme, which will free up resources in terms of steel, coal and money although what sections of the military those would follow to is unclear.

c) HL was assuming that instead of splitting AGS into two it would all be thrown at Stalingrad, bypassing Rostov and related areas and taking Stalingrad before the Soviets can reinforce it. Then he seems to be suggesting they will advance down the Volga to the delta and heavily fortify the west bank, then defeat a Soviet counter offensive. However leaving Baku for a possible 43 advance, along with the rest of the Russia core territory. [By that I mean the region east of the Baltics, west of the Urals and north of the Ukraine.]

d) It appeared that both him and you were expecting massed deaths in that region without food from the south and with L-L ending. From what you said about the hunger book this would seem likely when the Germans move to occupy it as that would end L-L to it even if the US fought on, as the disruption of the fighting and the Germans themselves seeking to live off the land. The Germans themselves couldn't feed the population and had no intention to by all accounts.

e) At some point the US decides that the Soviets/Russians can't carry the bulk of the ground war so decide to make peace under just about any terms. It wasn't clear what you were suggesting and I was hoping you would clarify but probably should have asked formally. You mentioned not opposing the Germans, giving up territories [presumably that of your allies], paying reparations and an uncertain future for Britain.

If you wish to comment on points a)-d) please and give some idea on the last. We would have a clearer basis for this discussion then.

Steve

 

[stevep]

Part 2: - on other issues.

You can claim they barely made it in their southern invasion, but they pulled it off, conquered multiple major islands, and fought on for years, nearly getting to India in the process.

They stretched their logistics especially to the limit and got a number of good breaks. They were helped by serious errors by the allied powers who massively underestimated them but a few changes could have thrown off their entire schedule.

The US did go gung-ho in 1942 against Japan, so I'm not sure what difference you're expecting here. Remember the first offensive the US took in WW2 was against Japan in 1942:

If the US hadn't been at war with Germany their likely to leave even less forces in the Atlantic. Given Germany say 4-6 months to actually prepare for a big submarine campaign against allied shipping on a dow and it could have been even worse.

Eventually, but only after a disaster at Dieppe.
Those forces in Britain weren't idle, they were training for a major invasion, like the British 'idle' divisions. Also they were not draining your resources considering your entire war effort depended on L-L by 1942 and the US was supplying not just your forces, but our own. Any 'drain' was more than offset by US largess.
There would be an intent to invade though at some point otherwise the war is pointless and they'd cut a deal.

The US only accepted it after Dieppe but the British knew Operation Sledgehammer was impractical long before that.

Those forces were idle in that they weren't fighting, which at least some of them could have been if deployed to combat areas.

Actually they were draining allied resources as the British resources they consumed - both directly and by indirect means such as reducing Britain's own production needed to be replaced by additional US supplies to Britain.

Depends on what food is available and from where. The Germans were able to meet 90% of their food needs shortly after WW2 despite losing their breadbasket regions in the eastern half of the country just by reforming their agriculture. Without a war on, more time to reform, and access to regions like Ukraine, food is unlikely to be a problem. 1940 was really a major disaster for food production given all the crazy events that year beyond the war disruptions, like the flooding of the Danube region and wrecking of food production in that breadbasket area. That isn't a yearly event though.

This was something that they seemed idealogically unwilling to do but that a post-war Germany, under allied control and with access to allied resources not only was able to do but was forced to do by the loss of those eastern provinces.

I wouldn't call it crippling given that your country got $36 billion in 1940 dollars, all the expenses paid for millions of US troops that fought for your interests in Europe, and massive economic aid at the end and post-war. If anything we prevented you from being crippled and ensured your foreign policy on the continent was followed...west of the Elbe.

We got loans after we had been drained dry, for fighting a war that was in the interests of both our nations. Britain also waved any expense costs for the stationing of US forces on its territory, which I did read a reference once exceeded what Britain received in total in L-L in WWII.

Also after the war L-L was almost immediately cut off which left the UK who's economy had been centred around it in deep economic problems. There had apparently been an expectation of a transition period during which Britain could readjust from a total war footing. It eventually required a British approach for a loan to meet the needs for this which the British explained in detail but the US only agreed to supply half and demanded economic concessions in terms of access to British markets which further delayed recovery.

Remember that rations in Britain not only continued until the early 1950's but were for the 1st few years even tighter than during the war.

Given that Germany would be locked down for generations colonizing Europe and trying to manage occupied states, it would be constrained by Hitler's demands. After all he did say he was focused on preserving the British Empire and colonizing the east while fighting a forever war with the rump Soviets.

You and HL were assuming that defeating continued resistance in the east would be quickly concluded and after all you suggested that virtually all restraints on the German economy would largely be removed by his gains in the east. Furthermore your been arguing that such resistance would end quickly even without the allies giving up.

If he gains the bulk of the ME region, which is something he was interested in then Germany and Italy, which is likely to get some scraps, will have occupation duties there. However even a gravely weakened post-war Britain managed to dominate this region until 1956 with minor military forces.

Hitler said a lot of things and too many people found they were fools in believing him. Also that was when he had unrealistic hopes of an alliance with Britain which would have made his eastern conquests much easier.

I don't know what you've read about the US, but we've relied on diplomacy since before we were a country. And don't forget we were invaded by you in 1812, had multiple border conflicts over Canada throughout the 1800s, had issues with France, and had to heavily negotiate with Europe during the US Civil War. It is only recently that the US has been more aggressive and less diplomatic. Prior to WW2 the US was doing quite a bit of diplomacy to head off war in Europe and Asia, tried to get negotiations going in 1939-40, and then did a lot of negotiating to work with the Soviets, set up Bretton Woods and the UN, and of course negotiated the post-war order. It is the Cold War that broke US willingness to negotiate, since we won and become the sole Hyperpower, a global Rome. But look where that has taken us.

Don't forget it was the US that started the 1812 conflict and did the initial attacking. That despite Britain being tied down in Europe meant it could protect its people and also launch some counter attacks means nothing. I don't think there were other border conflicts, although there were tensions.

The Monroe Doctrine was an example of a refusal to make diplomatic agreements because it was a decision to reject a joint Anglo-American declaration on protecting the ex-Spanish colonies from attempts by the reactionary powers to restore Spanish rule.

Then there's Wilson's behaviour in WWI.

The French wanted war over the Rhineland and Britain stopped them. The negotiations over Czechoslovakia were a British initiative, France said they would fight only if Britain would; Chamberlain didn't want to then either. Fighting in 1938 would have been the way to go given that the Oster Conspiracy, even if it failed, would have launched a coup and likely disrupted Germany internally quite a bit.

Britain didn't stop them but refused to act themselves. Also I have been informed elsewhere that the key pressure was from the French army, who's commander insisted that to intervene in 1936 would require a full mobolisation which would have economic and political costs that the rather unstable French government decided it wouldn't risk. This does seem to have been inaccurate but then.

Agree the allies should have fought in 38 but unfortunately they didn't. As you said later there wasn't the political will for a possible war in the west at the time.

The Russian mobilization comment was about how the British government didn't reveal to its public and the international scene that Russia mobilized first, which prompted German mobilization and DoW given that they told Russia that would be their red line for war. That info being suppressed materially altered the British public's willingness to go to war and the Wilson administrations willingness to aid the Entente basically from the beginning.

Again was this a British secret? Also given its more backward government and organisation if Russia didn't mobolise in response to the Austrian action, or before Germany started it knew it would be at a huge disadvantage. The only reason that "meant war" was because Germany decided that it would because they had limited themselves to a strike 1st policy that mean their mobisation would mean war!

How did we weaken you? We beat your biggest enemy of the 20th century and financed both wars as well as kept your economy from imploding after both.

Again how did we cripple your power after WW1? I think the war did that and after all we wanted to be paid back for all those loans and favorable economic situation you had after wiping out the major threat you had pre-war...which you then helped rebuild and put in a position to start WW2...

In both wars the US was only willing to intervene after bleeding Britain and its allies dry, often at disadvantageous terms. They then sought to wage war often in only their short term interest regardless of the wider impact. After WWI it also rejected a British suggestion that allied war debts be cancelled. [Which Britain had done after 1815]. Britain was actually the power with more outstanding war loans, albeit that most of those were unlikely to be paid.] This was a primary cause for the latter Great Depression as well as distorting the world economy throughout the intra-war years.

Then there was Wilson's erratic behaviour during 1917-19 which prevented either a more stable peace or any post-war system for mutual defence.

After WWI it was the US that was the driver for the disastrous Washington Naval Treaty.

It was US loans that enabled Germany to start its early rearmament, not British.

The big reason was population growth; Japan went from a smaller population than Germany in 1939 to a larger one by the late 1950s. It nearly doubled from 1940 to 1990. Culture wasn't that different. Yes without a military burden, but no colonies to provide free raw materials and captive markets either.

Although it was also able to get the access to raw materials and markets because the US was now, as the dominant economic power, driving for much freer trade than ever before. Also the Korean war helped it considerably in rebooting much of its economy.

Japan was winning the war in China, it was US L-L that kept the Chinese going and very nearly that was not enough. Had it not been for US military intervention China was going to collapse.

L-L was pretty much cut off after the fall of southern Burma. What did continue after that - via the airlift was in large part directed more toward the USAAF units in China rather than the KMT. Aid did continue from the USSR as well - although not sure on what level after 22-6-41. Either way China continued to suffer heavy losses but kept fighting.

Huh? North Africa? There were are at least 200,000 US troops in the Tunisian campaign, probably more considering that leaves out the navy and deeper logistics outside of direct army troops:

You're not wrong, but even with the fighting in Sicily losses in the Pacific were higher until the fighting on mainland Italy bogged down and casualties jumped.

There were units there but I thought you were referring to major commitments? Mind you that level of forces, alongside Britain ones and with some experience would go a long way to defending a position in the Caucasus region.

In the mid-1940s there might have been very minor rail lines, but they were actually insufficient to sustain Soviet forces in Iran, who had to live off the land to nasty consequence for the Iranian under their control. Caucasian manpower and industry is rather minor and not necessarily friendly to ANY outsiders, especially those allied to Stalin. See the Chechen revolt.

I'll bow to your greater expertise but I was assuming that the resources OTL used for L-L by this route, which would now be cut off could be used to supply forces operating there.

Was there a Chechen revolt in WWII or are you referring to their actions in the 1990s? They are also north of the proposed defensive position I believe.

I'll check it out when I get a chance.

Be interested to see what you think as I was highly dubious but the person involved supplied a lot of stats in support of his case.

Only by politicians/military leaders planning on invading Europe. None considered the Germans a bigger threat to mainland USA than Japan given that only the Japanese had a fleet capable of reaching the US. The U-boats were a threat to British supply lines more than anything.

The Japanese fleet could barely reach Hawaii for brief raids. Other than subs launched from a/c or the balloon bombs they had no real ability to hit the US itself. Nor, unlike the Germans did they have the potential in the near future. The German U-boats were hitting all allied shipping. At the time I think the UK still had a larger merchant marine than the US and many of the latter were in the Pacific so many of the ships sunk were from the US or its allies but the US lost ships as well including a lot of tankers.

I don't know what you're referring to exactly.
What is the Russian 'heartland'? The starvation in the USSR that was unoccupied by the Germans would be really bad without the 1942/43 victories and roll back of German occupation.

As it was in German occupied USSR there wasn't mass starvation outside of the PoW camps AFAIK. The mass starvation was in the Soviet controlled areas. Well that and the Ghettos and what was done to the Jews, but most of that was in Poland given what the Einsatzgruppen did in 1941-42.

Survival on local food sources was possible given OTL, but resistance was only really done by externally supplied, trained, and equipped partisan groups, not self organized civilians with a grudge. The Soviet guerrilla movement was externally directly for the most part otherwise the cut off soldiers who fled into the forests would have just melted back into the civilian population.

As you say there would be mass stravation in the Soviet area without the 42/43 victories which won't be occurring here.

So had the Allies. Britain had been rearming since 1936 as had France. The Soviets never stopped building up and saved everything they had in terms of military equipment. Germany started from a lower bottom considering they had to rebuild their defense industry from a much lower point. Thing is Germany linked her economic recovery from the Great Depression to its rearmament plan, while Britain and France were trying to sustainably build up their budgets until it was too late and then US industry helped them play catchup.

The issue there though was much more than simply a lack of intelligence on the part of the Allied powers, they had political constraints that Germany did not, as rearmament was popular in Germany and not in the Allied states.

The Germans started earlier and with much greater emphasis on the military. As you say there was strong opposition to rearmament in the democracies.

You can't continue the blockade indefinitely, as they means keeping the war going, which was not economically sustainable.

Did I say Britain would suddenly collapse? I said will to continue the war would.

Actually it was perfectly economically sustainable. The allies have access to the bulk of the world's industries and raw materials. Britain after all sustained a blockade on proportionally a much larger area throughout the Napoleonic wars.

You said that US will to continue the war would collapse and without US economic support Britain can't continue.

I doubt the Soviet military would do anything the Soviet government didn't already do. Also the rump state certainly would not have more industry given the size of even the expanded Ural production zone. Population yes, but industry no. Agriculture certainly not, which is the main problem for the rump Soviet state. They could hold their Ural mountain zone, but they aren't going to be projecting power west.

So what would they do other than hold what they had?

Well a regime change does give the possibility [and incentive ] for policy changes. Such as allowing the sort of low level initiative that the Bolsheviks stamped down on so heavily. Stalin managed to organise a famine in one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. So there's definitely possibilities for improvement.

By surviving as a substantial regional power they would tie down additional German/Axis forces and resources.

Without the USSR it probably won't be possible, the Axis might even hold out in North Africa depending on how things play out in 1942-43. Even if they do invade then extra German strength means Sicily is probably just going to be the battle zone.

Very unlikely they would hold out in Tunisia with the historical Torch as that was occurring at the same time as the OTL Stalingrad counter-attacks which while its assumed they fail here are still likely to occur.

That is a whole conversation itself.

Very true.

Much obliged. 3 reams only? No promises.

Well kept this down to about 90 minutes, which is some sort of improvement. Have a gaming session with a mate tonight, among other things so no hurry in replying.

Steve

 

[History Learner]

Actually it was perfectly economically sustainable. The allies have access to the bulk of the world's industries and raw materials. Britain after all sustained a blockade on proportionally a much larger area throughout the Napoleonic wars.

Beyond the fact that Britain was bankrupt in 1941 and was only saved with U.S. assistance? And then even with that assistance was hitting the absolute limit of what it could afford by late 1944? Or the fact that, to maintain such a blockade, would require a very serious decline in British living standards going forward?

 

[Navarro]

He thought that once FDR had war powers he would eventually engineer an incident and declare war anyway, so Hitler gambled on being able to get the first shots in by attacking with the Uboats before the US was prepared to defend against them; he was right in that it likely delayed the US ability to intervene for at least 6 months and FDR was planning on continuing to escalate.

I don't think I claimed they were, just said that I've not seen any plans for world conquest, just securing their backyard.

The evidence is overwhelming that Hitler sought a war to conquer the USA after he defeated the Soviet Union. He literally wrote about it in his second book, began planning a massive naval expansion in mid-'41, and even in '37 began a project to build a bomber capable of reaching America from Europe.

 

[sillygoose]

The evidence is overwhelming that Hitler sought a war to conquer the USA after he defeated the Soviet Union. He literally wrote about it in his second book, began planning a massive naval expansion in mid-'41, and even in '37 began a project to build a bomber capable of reaching America from Europe.

Got some quotes for us? It has been a while since I read any excerpts from that 2nd book, but from what I remember the naval expansion and talk about fighting the US was the assumption that the US would clash with Germany eventually, not that it was a plan to invade and conquer North America.

 

[SpicyJuan]

even in '37 began a project to build a bomber capable of reaching America from Europe

This is not accurate. The first German attempts at a transatlantic bomber comes from RLM specifications from 1940-1941.

 

[History Learner]

One thought that just came to mind: the Anglo-American economic warfare against Francoist Spain was based upon oil, and here the Germans would sufficient stocks to ameliorate Spanish losses should they be successfully enticed into the conflict. Gibraltar falling to Operation Felix in 1941 or so would be pretty decisive, as far as Malta goes and makes Operation Torch be a solely Moroccan affair.

 

[Buba]

Can Germany even send oil to Spain by rail in meaningful quantities?
That's even more wear and tear on the RR network ...

 

[stevep]

One thought that just came to mind: the Anglo-American economic warfare against Francoist Spain was based upon oil, and here the Germans would sufficient stocks to ameliorate Spanish losses should they be successfully enticed into the conflict. Gibraltar falling to Operation Felix in 1941 or so would be pretty decisive, as far as Malta goes and makes Operation Torch be a solely Moroccan affair.

Point 1: - Germany won't have massive surpluses of oil until it:
a) Captures Baku, which as HL suggested in an earlier post with TTL probably wouldn't be until 43 at the earliest, if ever. The other Soviet sources, once repaired can help along the with additional production at Matzen but Germany won't be awash with oil.
b) Repair whatever mess Baku is in from fighting for it and/or allied sabotage on accepting its loss.
c) Then organising the facilities to transport it to the other side of the continent.

Point 2: - As I understand it it Achilles heel of Spain during WWI was less oil than food, which Germany is in even less of a position to supply if Spain were to openly join the Axis. Not to mention small factors like the devastation caused by the civil war and the continued unrest of much of the population about Franco's military take-over. Franco knew that even a 'victorious' war for the Axis would be likely to be very damaging to Spain.

Point 3: - Making Franco aware that if he attacks you he would lose access to imports isn't exactly economic warfare. More stating the bleeding obvious.

 

[SpicyJuan]

Can Germany even send oil to Spain by rail in meaningful quantities?
That's even more wear and tear on the RR network

It seems like a ridiculous proposition to say they could NOT do such a thing

 

[History Learner]

Point 1: - Germany won't have massive surpluses of oil until it:
a) Captures Baku, which as HL suggested in an earlier post with TTL probably wouldn't be until 43 at the earliest, if ever. The other Soviet sources, once repaired can help along the with additional production at Matzen but Germany won't be awash with oil.
b) Repair whatever mess Baku is in from fighting for it and/or allied sabotage on accepting its loss.
c) Then organising the facilities to transport it to the other side of the continent.

If we are taking 1939 synthetic production and then natural production rates achieved by around 1941 is sufficient to provide Germany with its historical fuel situation and still have enough to supply the Spanish.

Point 2: - As I understand it it Achilles heel of Spain during WWI was less oil than food, which Germany is in even less of a position to supply if Spain were to openly join the Axis. Not to mention small factors like the devastation caused by the civil war and the continued unrest of much of the population about Franco's military take-over. Franco knew that even a 'victorious' war for the Axis would be likely to be very damaging to Spain.

Point 3: - Making Franco aware that if he attacks you he would lose access to imports isn't exactly economic warfare. More stating the bleeding obvious.

A Wolfram in Sheep's Clothing: U.S. Economic Warfare in Spain, 1940-1944 and The Allies, Spain, And Oil In World War II

 

[sillygoose]

Point 2: - As I understand it it Achilles heel of Spain during WWI was less oil than food, which Germany is in even less of a position to supply if Spain were to openly join the Axis. Not to mention small factors like the devastation caused by the civil war and the continued unrest of much of the population about Franco's military take-over. Franco knew that even a 'victorious' war for the Axis would be likely to be very damaging to Spain.

To the food point Spain was actually exporting a lot of food to Germany until 1944.

https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/rpt_9806_ng_spain.pdf

In May 1940 Spain signed a three-year agreement with Italy promising it vital supplies of skins, foodstuffs, and minerals in return for manufactured goods.14 As a result, Spanish exports to Germany through Italy and the Balkans more than doubled during the first two years of the War to 43,857 tons in 1941. When the Nazis occupied southern France in November 1942, the Franco-Spanish frontier soon supplanted the Mediterranean as the principal supply route to Germany, and overall Spanish exports to the Axis rose from 970,000 tons in 1941 to 1.28 million tons in 1942.15