What if:--Nazi Germany vs. Imperial Japan

The Soviet Union vs Germany and Japan (KIA only):

1. Germany vs Soviet Union (07/1941-12/1944)

1.420.000 German KIA vs 4.700.000 Soviet KIA

2. Soviet Union vs Japan (08/1945)

12.000 Soviet KIA vs 80.000 Japanese KIA

(the soviets traded their soldiers in 3 to 1 for the Germans, for comparison, in Italy and Africa, when the allies didn't have total air superiority, they traded their soldiers for 2.5 KIA for every German KIA).

The Red Army was not bad at all, they lost millions because that was what it takes to defeat the most formidable fighting force of the XX century. Vs the Japs the red army was as good as the American army, maybe better.

 

COMMENT: The US didn't lack military tradition they may just have behind the curve in certain areas. The US may have lacked military tradition as it pertained to Europe but the world doesn't revolve around Europe and certainly the US was well ahead in other areas like North America & the Pacific? One can find things to laugh at about the Prusians & French say in the Franco-Prussian War or the British in the Boer War?

 

Guaporense,I think you are underestimating (and that is an eufemism )the difficulties of transporting 3OO UBoats to Wladivostok,and the problems,when they are arriving,to get them operational :what about the supplies ? What about the 30000 men (and this a minimum )to get them operational ? What about the difficulty for UBoats to operate in unknown water ? Was Wladivostok able to handle 300 UBoats ? Etc .....

 

I'm thinking too that USN subs had trouble penetrating the waters of The Sea of Japan till they got better equipment to detect mines ,mines that can keep subs out of that sea can also keep them in it. Furthermore Japan could still use ports facing towards the Pacific for imports.
I also don't know what type of facilities Vladivostock has for serving such a large force.

 

As Slipdigit says, you're cherry-picking your statistics and presenting numbers which are fundamentally meaningless because you have no consistent basis for comparison.

Here's what "Booklist", the professional book review magazine, has to say in their review of Ellis' "Statistical Survey of World War II";

"The most unsatisfactory features of the book are the bibliography and the absence of source citations. The author fails to provide complete bibliographic data for many titles, including important official German, British, and U.S. publications. The lack of endnotes or footnotes within the various chapters and the absence of annotatations in the bibliography make it impossible to identify primary sources....Here only surnames are supplied in the many organizational charts, making it difficult to identify hundreds of less well known people.....However, the lack of source notations and the problems associated with identifying hundreds of people detract from its usefulness for the nonspecialist."


(Emphasis mine)


Hardly a ringing endorsement of Mr. Ellis' scholarship.


Amazon.com: World War II: A Statistical Survey: The Essential Facts and Figures for All the Combatants (9780816029716): John Ellis: Books




Moreover, the website you reference lists twelve sources of estimates of US WW II combat deaths; five of those sources list that figure at or around 291,000 to 300,000. Seven sources list a figure as high as 400,000, but most of those sources, including the US DoD breaks that number down as approximately 291,000 KIA plus 113,000 to 115,00 "Other" (presumably non-battle) deaths.


"United States of America

• Military:
  • Keegan: 292,000
  • HarperCollins: 292,100
  • Britannica: 292,131 (not incl. 115,187 non-battle)
  • Compton's: 293,986
  • Urlanis: 300,000
  • Info. Please: 291,557 KIA + 113,842 other causes = 405,399
  • DoD: 291,557 KIA + 113,842 other = 405,399
  • Ellis: 405,400
  • Encarta: 292,131 KIA + 115,187 other causes = 407,318
  • Wallechinsky: 292,131 KIA + 115,187 other = 407,318
  • Eckhardt: 408,000
  • Small & Singer: 408,300"

Twentieth Century Atlas - World War Two Casualty Statistics

It appears you are picking and choosing your numbers to achieve deceptive ends such as inflating the number of American battle deaths against German forces. This is tantamount to making the numbers up. Frankly, when someone resorts to this sort of practice, they completely destroy their own creditability and invalidate their own argument. And it doesn't help That when challenged on these numbers, you belatedly insert the comment that the numbers include non-combat deaths. Including non-combat deaths to "prove" how effective the Germans were at killing their enemies is not just an error; it is deliberate deception.

 

You know the US had a much larger navy to start the war with ,far more natural resources ,far more industry, far better access to the Pacific ,far more people and a far larger economy then Germany . It still took over 3 1/2 years to subdue Japan and Germany has the ability to do a quick whach job here? Yes we know the US was fighting a two theatre war with Germany first but shouldn't one think that all "far mores" and "far greaters" I mentioned earlier make up for the fact Germany will be putting 100% into this war,i.e. the US's supposed 15% of resources that she applied historically to Japan along with other US advantages had as compared to Germany is probably equal to a 100% German effort against Japan.

 

In 1941 they were pretty bad. The early losses reflect that. Comparing exchange rates for their attack in Manchuria vs American ones in the Pacfic is very misleading. The attack in Namchuria was an armored thrust at an army that had been hollowed out and lacked much in the way of AT assets even before it became a hollow force. The attack came if not as a complete surprise certainly before the Japanese could prepare for it and it was excuted by what may well have been the creme of the Red army at that point with the best logistic support the Soviets ever enjoyed. Furthermore the terreign was well suited for such a thrust as opposed to the islands of the Pacific.

 

I agree, by the time the Soviets invaded Manchuko, the majority of the Kwangtung Army was made up of raw recruits and inexperienced troops because the crack troops were sent to the Pacific to counter the Americans. Also troops were being shipped back to the home islands in massive droves. Not to mention the shortages of fuel for vehicles and aircraft and ammunition to add to the disorganized command staff and decimated combat units, it's not surprising at all that the Soviets prevailed so well.

 

All right.

Well, it you want only battle deaths that would be about 135.000 KIA in western europe from june 1944 to april 1945 (in the case of US). However,there were other allied forces, with make the number go up to 205.000 (assuming that US kia was 2/3 of total). However, we have only good statistics about the german KIA to december 1944. In this period we have allied KIA in the western front to be about 135.000 (90.000 US) while german KIA is 66.000.

My bad them, it was more of a guess. But the 2 to 1 correspondence in KIA is from many battles:

For example in normandy total allied KIA was 41.000 and German was 23.000 (and the allies had total air superiority!).

 

I would think that 15% US = 35% Germany in terms of industry.

Germany had roughly 40-50% of US industrial capacity. Also, Germany had 80 (90 million in 1942) million people, the US had 140 million.

 

Comparing the countries:

Germany (1942 borders)

Pop: 90 million (from 80 million in 1939)
Coal production/consumption: 520 million tons
Steel capacity: 33 million tons (4 quarter of 1942)

Japan (1941)

Pop: 72 million
Coal consumption: 75 million tons
Steel capacity: 6.2 million tons

Japan was a third rate power, a half industrialized country, while Germany was a mature industrial economy like the US. In terms of per capita income, Japan was of the same level of Poland. However, Poland had only 35 million people, half of Japan's population. Germany defeated Poland in 18 days (after that it there was only localized resistance), and Japan was not much stronger than Poland.

 

Of course, they would need time to prepare for war. But, logistics is not a big problem, since these railways could handle 1.6 million Red Army soldiers.

 

!!!! I'm amazed that anyone on these boards would make that statement.

 

In 1937 the US had 41.7% of the world's industrial ouput/capacity ,Germany had 14.4% BUT Germany's at the time was fully flexed ,the US's still had plenty of slack so one could probably the US had far more then 3 times Germany's. If you look at the US's output in WW2 that seems a pretty clear statement. So 15% of the US war effort directed at Japan in WW2 would probably equal 60% of German output if not more.

1. However that's only part of the equation the US had a far larger navy then Germany and was far ahead of Germany in carrier warfare & amphibious landing capability further ahead in overall power projection capability.

2. The US was far more self-sufficent and had better access to world markets then Germany . The US actually has a coastline bordering the Pacific plus bases ,i.e. Dutch Harbor, Hawaii, Guam,Phillipines and the Panama Canal also allows access to US's East Coast ports while German has to find away to project power to the Pacific without having any bases there.

3. Remember to the Allies CONQUERED Germany,i.e. actually invaded whilst Japan surrendered because of the A-Bombs if not for that it would probably had taken another 6 months to a year.

4. In 1938 Germany had a population of 68 million with per capita income of around $5126.00. The US had about 130 million with per capita income of $6134.00. So the US has about twice the population of Germany along with having a 20% greater per capita income. Again in 1938 the German economy was fuilly flexed whilst the US's was still coming out of the Great Depression.

 

You can't be serious can you? Germany also had the help of the Soviet Union in invading Poland furthermore Germany had a common border with Poland. Now if Poland was in the middle of the Pacific or rather just off the coast of East Asia how long would it take For Germany to defeat them?

 

No. That estimate was made in 1937 based on potential warmaking capability. It takes in account the capacity, not the utilization.

In fact, the odds decreased, after Germany annexed a lot of territory in 1938, 1939 and 1940. By 1940 Germany increased from 14.4% to about 22%, if you consider the increase of 45% of steel making capacity.

Or about 53% of the US capacity.

 

Actually, you're wrong. And the numbers you present in isolation are meaningless; steel production alone, is only one parameter. The US had 41.7 % of the world's war-making POTENTIAL in 1937 and German had 14.4 % of the world's war-making POTENTIAL. Neither the US nor Germany could change the relative POTENTIAL that they enjoyed; they could just develop it.

Neither the US nor Germany had completely mobilized it's economy in 1937. Germany was further along, but her economy had far more constraints, notably in manpower and lack of raw materials, than the US. The US started to rearm in 1938 and never really fully exploited all of it's war-making potential, since it never reached a stauration of it's productive capacity.

It might be interesting to note that Germany was only able to reach it's production peaks by forcing heavy sacrifices on it's civilian population in terms of rationing of food and other consumer products. The USSR achieved production of aircraft at a 2:1 ratio over Germany and a 4:1 ratio in tanks in 1942, but the cost was starvation for millions of Russian citizens. By contrast, the US achieved it's astonishing production levels, while the US civilian standard of living continued to improve. The US was the only major belligerent during WW II in which consumer spending increased.

 

You bring up starvation which is a hidden asset of the US it does have about twice the population of Germany to feed but the US is over 3,000,000 square miles while if I'm not wrong Germany is much smaller then Texas(about 250,000 square miles) and certainly Alaska(about 500,000 square miles). Furthermore it doesn't stop there German algriculture productivity wise absolutely sucked compared to the US's which was far more mechanised,i.e. much less manpower intensive.
The US basically didn't mobolise like other nations did like building new factories & such,they mobolised by converting consumer type industries over to wartime type production . They used automotive type mass production to make tanks & aircraft while Germany used regular a/c manufactores to build planes & crane manufactorers,locomotives and heavy equipment manufactoreers to build tanks.

 

Not sure what your point is.

Germany was less efficient at growing food due to the smaller size of it's farms. It's significant that even having occupied France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, Germany had trouble feeding it's population. In fact, once Germany took over continental Europe, few living there ate adequately. There was food rationing all over the Europe and Asia, but unlike many countries, no one starved, or even went hungry for long, in the US.

I read a book titled "Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story" by Ooka Shohei, in which the author spends several pages remarking on the amount of food made available to Japanese POW"s by their American captors. It was much more food per person than anyone, civilian or military, was receiving in Japan, or had even seen in years. Ooka concludes that any country that can afford to feed it's captives on such a lavish scale couldn't possibly be defeated.

The Us actually did build a lot of new factories beginning in about 1938. Ford's Willow Run factory was a huge new addition to Ford's production capacity. The Manhattan Project also accounted for numerous new factories. But the US did also convert existing consumer goods manufacturing plants to war production wherever possible. Interestingly enough, the US never reached it's peak production capacity and started shutting down war production in late 1944 because it was realized that existing stocks of many armaments would outlast the war.

 

On another thread in this same forum I posted this ,so read post # 73 and the link to the USGS website which shows how dominant the US was in raw material output.
http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/36415-could-western-allies-win-without-urss-3.html