German vs. Russia - No England.

Sounds much like my calculations.
Without the war in the west and of course further Nazi gains in the East I would see Nazi production levels matching Soviet ones by late 1943/early 1944.

 

Wish I had Jims data. Research on the details of German logistics is rare and the items publsihed leave a lot of questions. Lot easier to look up the thickness of the frontal armor of a Tiger II tank.

 

I agree with that estimate but there is more, if the Germans manage to stay on the Volga the Soviets are on a downwards slope that may be unrecoverable.
I assume a German dictated cease fire that will require the "Vichy British" to make no hostile actions, though it may not affect other Commonwealth countries.
Now the soviets are deprived of most of their population and agricultural base, and with the British Isles "neutralized" the Germans have little to fear in the west until at least 1944 as the technology for a transcontinental air war just didn't exist at the time so we have no bombing campaign and the logistics for a transatlantic invasion would require a much larger build up than Overlord especially if there is no big contribution from a Royal Navy forced to neutrality by the peace treaty.
Without the agricultural base lend lease food is critical, famine is a very real possibility for the Soviets, but the lend lease picture has radically changed, without bases in the British Isles the northern route is really hard, and with the Soviets obviously struggling for survival Japan, if already at war with the US, may be persuaded to close the Vladivostock one or allow a basing of a German flottilla to the same effect as the US cannot escort the ships and the Soviets have no fleet to speak of. So this leaves Iran, to protect that route with the Germans on the other side of the Caspian we are likely to need a major US involvement in the area to "take up the slack" for the missing Commowealth forces. The Germans are also likely to be in control in Irak as a defeated Britain is likely to be forced to pull back even if we assume the invasion predates the British collapse.
I would put the soviets chances of survival at less than 50% in those circumstances, the Germans are probably never going to be strong enough to invade Siberia but faced with military defeats and famine a Soviet collapse similar to the German one of 1918 is a real possibility.

 

The Russians had already completed the re-evacuation of their industries to the east and we know they could contintue to fight. An old NATO S-2 told me that he believed if the Germans won Stalingrad, the Russians would simply scythe south east, demolish the Japanese in N.E. China and take over those sources of grain and cannonfodder.

 

Great observation but what i suspect is that with a "defeated" Britain it would hasten the Chandra Bose's Indian Nationalists as Britain loses all influences in Southern Asia. India would with Germany's help gain independence and ally itself with Germany, thus India would have at least lease a port or two to allow German U-Boat bases that leaves US convoys to Iran vulnerable to submarine attack and how does America contend with having to field a four ocean fleet (South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Indian and Pacific) and then take on the Japanese and Germans.

Oh on an issue. With the capitulation of GREAT BRITAIN, i have spoken to some veterans on this and they assure that at a government level Australia and New Zealand would certainly revoke their declarations of war against Germany once any peace treaty is signed and most likely to protect themselves by asking Germany for protection against any Japanese influence as Hitler would see the two nations as European and not Asian and would not allow Asians to rule over Europeans.

v.R

 

assuming the Germans had the industrial capacity, and they waged a war against Siberian Russia, it would still take years to finally bring down the Soviets. Assuming Moscow has fallen, the next choice for the government to be placed was in Vladivostok, far away from the lines.

Here, if Japan was defeated, again, assuming that the US left Germany alone, the US would be a viable threat to either Russia or Germany, but the US would probably take action against the Germans first. If Japan was still there, then they probably did not enter a war with the US, and would be jumping for an opportunity to strike at their long-time rivals in the north. These two nations and their potential interference could be the actual determinant of who wins this new war.

Especially Japan, which could immediately invade the new "heart" of Russia, basically, everything except Siberia. Chances are that the Japanese could be soundly defeated, but a war so close to the new capital at Vladivostok would bring a lot of resources from the larger war to the west. Not to mention that, with the loss of Leningrad, Murmansk, and Archangel, the Soviets really had nothing left of their old navy, which was never much use anyway. The few forces sin Vladivostok and other Pacific ports would be sitting ducks for the superior Japanese navy.

 

I have serious doubts about Japan's ability to threaten Russia. The Japanese Army was equipped to fight WWI and no match for any mechanized foe. The only reason it took so long to clear them out of the Pacific was because of the difficulties of making amphibious assaults on island fortresses. Without those in open ground, the Japanese would be screwed.

August Storm wiped out the Kwantung Army in eleven days.

 

Great post.
I agree fully.

 

The Americans would find it quite impossible getting supplies to the USSR against combined Axis Naval forces.

 

Well the US could stage to Africa and build up a base there to stage from.

I'm not sure this is the case. Convoys could run up the inland passage then along the Alaskan coast and follow the Aleutians to the USSR. It would requite the US to build up defenses a bit more in Alaska but that should be doable.

Not at all sure that the Germans would be in control in Iraq. I'd think it more likely that either the British retain control or at worse abandon it. Moving any signifigant amount of German forces to Iraq is very problematic and if the US has significant forces in Iran then the German forces become something of a target as they have a very long and fragile supply line.

 

That's not at all clear. Certainlly the Murmansk route is problematic but until Dec 7 the Vladivostock route is wide open and if the US takes over in Iran like it did in Iceland that route is also available in 41. 42 is a bit more problematic but by 43 the end of 43 the US would have little problems running supplies to Vladivostock or Iran and the route to Murmansk is becoming viable. Consider also that in this what if why would the Germans put as much effort into subs as they did historically? If Britain is out of the war and the US not officially at war with the Germans subs aren't of all that much use. On the other hand more Tigers probably are especially since the guns are available (ie not needed for AA defence of the Reich).

 

The route to Murmansk would be blocked by the Italian and German Navies with aircover from Norway and Finland.
And by the time America can get ships to Iran it is likely that Iran and maybe Iraq would be Axis/Soviet battle fields.
Iraq and Iran will go Axis.

 

The Germans would put the effort into subs to stop US supplies reaching the Soviets by the Pacific route.
As would the Italians.

 

That depends a great deal on how events go down. They could still be under British control or the Britts could turn them over to either the axis or the US or a commonwealth country. The Axis have a real problem putting any strength in Iraq or Iran. They just don't have the logistics to support them unless Turkey enters the war and even then it's questionable. Maybe if Britain decides to help but I don't see that happening.

 

??? I don't think this works. The German boats weren't well designed for the Pacific and I doubt the Italians were either. Furthermore Japan was critically short on fuel I doubt they are going to be able or willing to support a large sumbarine fleet when their own fleet is fuel starved.

 

Agreed "Iwd", while the Kriegsmarine had a few boats that could reach Japan, they were NOT battle boats. The Italian subs were simply Med. specific submarines with little range beyond Gibralter and the near Atlantic. And they would ALWAYS have to go around the Cape, since the Suez canal can be lost (not likely), but still made impassable to traffic with a few well placed scuttled ships. Check out the years it took to clear the canal after the Egyptian/Israeli wars, it was out of commission for about six years! In PEACE TIME, with nobody harassing the clearing attempts. The western Axis partners could do little if anything to aid the Japanese in closing the north Pacific route. The Japanese couldn't risk attacking either Soviet ships or Soviet flagged ships without risking another (third) embarrassing loss to the Red Army on their borders with the USSR and Mongolia. The Soviets left many divisions on the borders for just such an event, in conjunction with their Mongolian allies.

Japan found that it's fuel supplies from Indochina didn't match expectations, especially in the face of a sustained war. The Dutch had performed an effective sabotage of the oil operations in the NEI, and a Japanese ship containing the machinery to fix the problems had been sunk by the USN.

The end result was that by late 1942, only 214,000 tons of oil per month were arriving at Japanese refineries. But the IJN alone consumed 305,000 tons of oil per month - a deficiency of 91,000 tons a month, while leaving nothing left over for the army, industrial production, or household consumption. The Japanese certainly couldn’t also fuel their "allies" who sent ships/subs to the Pacific.

As the war progressed it could only get worse - the IJN consumed more oil in the Midway campaign alone than it did in an entire year of peacetime operations. (Willmott; The Barrier and the Javelin).

Then once U.S. submarines got their torpedo problems sorted out in 1943, the Pacific absolutely belongs to the USN’s submarine service.
The oil shortages themselves (and related transportation shortages) required the Japanese to significantly curtail even their own training, and instead of continually probing and harassing allied naval activities, they were (after Guadalcanal), stored and husbanded for the decisive "final battle" which never came (unless you count their complete defeat at Leyte).

Source on petroleum:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/guadoil1.htm

The Germans and Italians couldn't get there, the Japanese couldn't afford to interfer, and the rest of the Lend-Lease ports are just as inviolate. Only the North Atlantic Murmansk route (the least used) could be threatened any more than historically.

 

Assuming that Britain is in the same position as France ("Vichy Britain"), some of your suppositions are arguably possible.

But Britain was never in a position similar to France, was never "defeated" by Germany, was never in a position where Germany had any reasonable hope of occupying the British heartland, and retained a superior Navy and Air Force. Therefore Germany could never "dictate a cease-fire" to Britain or "neutralize" Britain's political or military influence. Germany needed Britain's neutrality far more than Britain needed Germany's neutrality, thus it would be Britain doing the dictating of terms, not Germany.

If the cease-fire takes place after mid-1940, Japan will be in no position to do anything different than historically, for by mid-1940, Japan had already made the decision to "go South" because Japan needed the oil of the NEI. That decision not only precluded any attack on the Soviet Union, it meant that the Soviet Union had to be kept at least neutral towards Japan. So no closure of Vladivostok is possible. The Lend-lease aid through Vladivostok amounted to just over 50 % of all aid to the Soviets; The Arctic convoys were not indispensable, as enough aid could have been sent through the Persian Gulf and Vladivostok to maintain the Soviet Union. The idea of a German "flotilla" operating in the Pacific is absurd; the Japanese would not have permitted it because it would have meant the Soviet entry into the war against Japan.

Paul Kennedy's book "The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers" put the Allies share of world war-making potential at 65.9% and the Axis powers at 20.4%. Subtracting Britain's share of war-making potential changes the equation to 55.7%/20.4%. That is still overwhelmingly in favor of the Allies and even if Germany could somehow quickly harness the industrial/agricultural potential of it's conquered territories, it is still hopelessly outmatched by it's adversaries.

But the biggest problem Germany has is, no matter what happens, nothing will change the fundamental hostility of Britain, the US, USSR, France, and indeed, the rest of the Western world to Hitler's drive for world domination.

 

As Clay Blair makes abundantly clear in his book, "Hitler's U-boat War", German subs weren't well-designed even for a "guerre de course" in the Atlantic. They were short-legged, prone to battle damage, had poor sensors (i.e. no radar) and had inadequate habitability. Operating in the Pacific would have been impossible without a well-developed network of bases throughout the region. When German U-boats were sent to the Mediterranean, Blair claims they suffered from lack of bases there. Italian bases were not adequate due to lack of spare parts, munitions, and maintenance technicians. The Italian boats were not any better and both would have proven abject failures in the Pacific.

In any case, the Japanese would never allow either German or Italian subs to opearte against the aid flowing to he Soviets from the US, they couldn't afford the risk that the Soviets would declare war or allow the US to operate against Japan from air and naval bases in Siberia.

 

Nobody is arguing that the assumption of this thread is likely, it's not, but if we accept it I can hardly immagine a half defeated Britain "dictating conditions" on Hitler or Hitler allowing it a free hand to attack pro-axis or neutral countries.
Britain invaded Irak in spring 1941 to challenge a mounting German influence there and Britain, and the USSR invaded the up to then neutral Iran in the summer of 1941 as they had refused passage to the military supplies directed to the USSR, it sounds more than reasonable that a "Vichy Britain" is not going to be allowed to do that.

As to the likelyhood of German or Italian forces succesfully blocking Vladivostck please look at a map, the USN cannot operate in the Sea of Japan except with submarines, if the Germans send even an AMC to Japan (as historically happened, Thor and Uckermark blew up in Yokohama harbour) or even worse one of the surviving pocket battleships, and with no interference from the Royal Navy and a still neutral USN it can be done as nobody is going to interfere, the Vladivostock route cannot happen as it historically did.
The route relied on the fact that the Japanese respected the "neutral" soviet flag as the ships were legally Soviet, and Japan and the USSR are not at war.
Any USN warship that tries to sail that close to the Japanese mainland before 1944 is looking for trouble and likely to find it, the mere presence of a German force in the Japan sea is going to stop the convoys as no merchant captain in his right mind is going to attempt the trip knowing he will almost surely be spotted, as he has to cross an enemy island chain, and the only thing that can save him is the Germans not having the fuel to chase him.

 

Here is a great site with maps and such concerning the 5 (yes FIVE) sea routes of Lend-Lease shipments. This ignores the air-routes from both Egypt and Alaska.

See:

Engines of the Red Army in WW2 - Routes Overview

contains amounts shipped and received in each port, by year as well. Enjoy!