Could the Western Allies Win Without the USSR?

Actually, looking at the political history of Romania, I believe they would have joined the axis in any case. Following the events that played out that led them to joining the axis, None of these events would have happened any differently whether Germany decided to invade the USSR or not.

King Carol II appointed General Ion Antonescu Prime minister on September 6th 1940 following a disastrous year for the Allies with the fall of Poland, France, the low countries and Romania becoming more isolated then any other pro-British country. With the increasing support for both Germany and Italy within Romania King Carol II had to try and appease them, Appointing Antonescu as prime minister was meant to do that, But 2 days later General/Prime minister Antonescu forced the King to abdicate and placed his young son as the figure head while keeping power for him self. So in all respect the topic about Romania selling oil to one side or another, Or joining or not is a mute point, The wheels had already been set in motion. Romania would sell oil to the Axis, Romania would join the Axis in war against the Allies.

As for the African situation, While i agree that the Axis would be able to secure North Africa, and likely the Middle East I don't think it would make much of a difference in East Africa, By the time the Italians asked for the help and Germany sent it, The situation was already decided, Gideon force was wreaking havoc behind Italian lines with the Ethiopian fighters. On a number of occasions smaller less armed forces actually got larger Italian forces inside there forts to surrender when they were armed enough to last 2 years. And if that wasn't enough, Taking NA while able would be difficult enough, Going through Sudan to reach Ethiopia would be tantamount to a forced death march for the Axis troops. No way a big enough force could go down there in the way they were used to fighting.

They would be better off doing:
1. After securing NA, Possible the Mid East to begin increasing the infrastructure. mainly in the form of rail ways. Easy for the Germans to build.
2. Begin operations to clean up the Suez canal. While not guaranteed that the Allies would have blocked it successfully blocked it it's likely that some transports or older warships would have been scuttled. Though to what extent we can only speculate on, Full blown detonation of the ships armory making it a bent and twisted hulk.. or simply setting off scuttling charges that would have made a neater vessel in the prospects of raising her. Doing so would give clearer passage to the Red Sea and further into the Indian ocean.
3. Turn attention towards Malta and Gibraltar. Knocking out Malta would provide more safety to the shipping while knocking out Gibraltar and possibly taking it (Though i find it unlikely, The German/Italian force would be more likely to retreat after suffering heavy casualties.. More then likely when the British force would be on the verge of collapse) would allow less submarine activity into the Med, And if taken allow the Italians to field limited naval assets into the Atlantic. The british would be hard pressed to stop it as they would be stuck between isolating the Kriegsmarine or the Regina Marina, While either one by it's self could not take on the RN, Both combined could provide the needed force to cripple the supply network that was keeping Britain afloat but that's just a theory.
4. Begin arm's shipments to Axis friendly nations and providing officer training to them. For example Persia (Iran) was as i understand it very German friendly as was a number of Arab nations. While they would be unable to provide any mentionable help at the start, Or for several years, They may be able to build up an Army of several Corps that could help to secure the Mid East and NA assets.

 

With what?

They might indeed be able to although when you make it plural it becomes questionable. The problem comes in keeping them supplied while they are there. It's also not clear to me why the Commonwealth can't keep up as they can ship troops in.

??? That early it's a very questionable. For one thing the Germans lost a lot of transports in Norway, Holland, and Crete. I simply don't see them moving and especially supplying divisions by air at that point in the war.

 

They never needed a massively larger force, Just increased amount of supplies and the ability to get those supplies to the front. The transport aircraft would help alleviate the supply problem. While the British and Commonwealth could ship more troops in, That would take time. With increased troop numbers come an increase in the amount of supplies that have to be delivered. The Allies would be put in the same position as the Axis forces.

Could the larger allied merchant fleet overcome the relatively shorter supply lines of the Axis forces? That would be the question in this case.

Actually looking deeper into the order or battle's for the various fronts, The only force that i can find that was transferred from northern Africa to eastern Africa was the Indian 4th div which was replaced by the Australian 6th div. So there ability to mount an offensive against Ethiopia would still be capable. Even if they wanted to shift there forces in eastern Africa towards Egypt to help reinforce the forces there they wouldn't be able to. They had neither the ships nor the rail way infrastructure through Sudan to do it. They would more likely decide that if the position became untenable to pull back along the coast towards the port of Sudan, That way still attaining the RN support to help cover there retreat. Eventually they would reach a point that they couldn't drive any further and be forced on by foot, However in the same situation the Germans wouldn't be able to reach them out of simple fear of running out of supplies them selves. The German/Italian forces would be held back, With most likely Herman Goering saying that he would be able to destroy them with the 'mighty' Luftwaffe while the RN evacuates them.

 

From what I have read,the Romanian oil production already was decreasing before the war,this was caused by exhaustion of the wells and bad maintenance .
The Romanian oil was transported to Germany by barges sailing on the Danube .
An other point:I have found rough figures for the German production of aviation fuel:
1940:0.96 million of tonnes
1941:1.26
1942:1.5
1943:2
1944:1
And,a question from a layman:was the synthetic oil (produced from coal)crude oil that had to be refined,or,was it already refined .
IMHO,the question is not without importance,because,a lot of people are focussing on the oil production,but are forgetting that the avaibility(and thus usefulness) of the oil was determined/limited by the refinery capacity.
From what I have read,the refinery capacity in Germany,the occupied ountries and the German allies,was very low .

 

But moving people and supplies by plane is incredibly inefficient fuel wise and the axis don't have a whole lot of extra fuel to waste. What's more if they get in range of opposing fighters you are likely to start suffering considerable attrition of your transport aircraft and the Germans never really had a surplus of them.

At least some of the supplies and Commonwealth troops are coming from around the Indian Ocean area. Cargo ships are very efficient fuel wise and the allies have a lot of fuel. If they are forced on to the defenceive say reinforcing the El Alamein line they also have fairly short lines of supply and trains for part of it.

I would be very much surprised if it couldn't.

 

I found this page which about half way down goes into a little detail on 4 different processes:
The Role of Synthetic Fuel In World War II Germany
This one seems to indicate that the synthetic oil plants included the facilities to produce the grades needed (or those that it was designed to do - i.e. not sure how much variability could be programed into the facilitiese)
Synthetic fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page also has some interesting observations:
German Fuel Shortage Of World War 2

 

Italy has enough tankers to make a better job at transporting oil than the balkan railways, AFAIK that was the way it was transported pre-war.

As they historically did airlift the 164 from Crete to NA it's very likely that with an all out effort they could bring more troops to NA than the overstretched British can scrape up.
Keeping them supplied for a mobile campaign would be a problem but the foot infantry is only really needed to fight the static attrition battles at Tobruk and later at the El Alamein bottleneck. The problem for the Commonwealth is that they simply don't have the troops to send, in 1941 the British Army is still partly recovering from the huge equipment losses of the French campaign and many dominion units are still forming. Historically the Germans airdropped a four regiment para division and airlifted 3 mountain regiments under combat assault conditions, it seems reasonable that the same force of planes can airlift a couple of infantry corps worth of troops (minus heavy equipment that will have to go by sea) using regular airfields and I don't see the El Alamein line holding against that force plus the historical DAK with the forces the Commonwealth can scrape up in 1941. The force to be supplied is not much larger than the historical Demyansk pocket, though the distance to the bases is greater the weather (and that matters a lot for WW2 air ops) and the security of the bases is much better than it was in the USSR in the 1941/42 winter.

You are assuming the heavy transport losses at Crete, with no time pressure for an invasion of the USSR the high risk Crete operation is simply not needed, if the Germans reach Alex Crete becomes a POW camp without any need for an assault and if the bulk of the Luftwaffe remains in the Med it can make attempts to keep the garrison on Crete supplied a very costly undertaking for the RN up to the point where the risk of getting cut off forces it to retreat to the Red Sea abandoning the force in Crete to it's fate.

 

A lot of the Italian tankers had been lost in june 1940,when Italy declared war on Britain and France .In 1940,Italy had 81 tankers with 432000 GRT,Germany 33 with 262000 GRT (of course,these were useless)
Refinery capacity in december 1940:
Germany :68800 barrels a day,Italy :57300

 

I believe the main process that Germany used for production of synthetic oil used a modification of the Harbor-Bosch process. Interesting IG Farben had invested billions, actually staked the company's future on this process, since in the 1920s, it was believed that oil was running out and a synthetic route would be needed. IG Farben had pioneered the high pressure (and temperature) hydrogenation process (biggest industrial accident of all time occurred when one of these plants exploded).


However just as IG Farben went int commercialisation, the oilfields of Texas were discovered and oil prices collapsed. The Synthetic route was 3 to 4 times more expensive and IG Farben were in trouble. By luck along came Adolph, expense no object, provided Germany could be self reliant in oil. The greater part of the 4 year plan was devoted to synthetic oil production - more than arms production and IG Farben benefited more than any other company. The product was very pure and used mainly (probably exclusively) by the Lufftwaffe.


Fortunately for the Allies, Chemical Plants are a lot easier to destroy that traditional oilfields and so only a fraction of the built capacity was ever available - but it was important for the Luftwaffe.

Whilst IG Farben has disappeared its successor BASF, largest chemical company in the World, continued/s to exploit the expertise built up by German Scientists since the first high pressure hydrogenation plant was successfully commissioned in 1915 (just in time to save Germany in WW1).

 

I apparently wasn't clear enough. My "with what" comment was in regards to the "massive effort" to clear the eastern Med by the Axis powers. I don't see that they have the naval stength to do it. Especially if they have to keep something in the Western Med.

How many planes do they have and what are the operational rates? Do they have the fuel in theater? These questions need answering to determine just what they can move to North Africa.

El Alamein in particular is a serious problem. This is a considerable distance from the nearest railhead and it's not clear to me just how much water there is along the way. That could be one of the biggest logistical headaches for a larger German force.

But aren't there considerable numbers of infantry units scattered around the Indian Ocean region?

Except they lost a good portion of that airlift capability in said air drop (if you are talking Crete or Holland or Norway). If we just look at Ju-52's according to Junkers Ju52 they can seat 18 people (wiki had the same number). If a divison with corp slice has about 18,000 men that means 1,000 sorties per division one way. Even if you corp only has 2 divisions you are looking at 8,000 sorties. If the opearational losses are only 1% that's 80 planes lost.

But you have to get them to El Alamein along with sufficient supplies for them to not only survive but to attack. Historically the Germans were only able to make it there becasuse of captured British supplies and transport but this is already stretched to the edge and you don't want to get those Ju-52's anywhere near allied fighters.

I disagree about the weather in part because we are talking about a desert. Sources of water are scares and small. Water is also heavy and transport uses a fair amount of it so you can rapidly reach a point of not only diminishing returns but where additional numbers are counter productive.

If the Germans don't take Crete quickly they probably won't be able to take it and the Eastern Med becomes a British lake. Alexandria becomes very difficult to take in this case and landing supplies East of Benghazi becomes problematic. Torbruk pretty much leaves the picture as a source of supply.

Or not. Crete is not a short flight for the LW and the timing is such that supply vessels can make their runs into Crete such that they aren't that vulnerable except for a short period while they are unloading. British fighters could make even that rather costly for the LW especially since the latter wouldn't know when supply ships were showing up.

 

I read some were that German had around 2,500 Ju-52's by the time they invaded the USSR, Number seems a little high to me but t hats what i have. know as we all should now, Not all aircraft are ever active at the same time, Some times you will be short on pilots, fuel or simply they will be down for maintenance. Allowing a 60% availability rate from the number of Ju-52's i found to have 'existed' (don't take my word for it, I dealt the number my self) would give them only 1,500 aircraft, With the increased strain within 1, maybe 2 months that would be halved.

They could airlift in 'maybe' one division in effective time, But no more, That division would still have to wait for all of its equipment to arrive so would be next to useless, They would have zero transport and no artillery support or heavy weapons. Actually now that i think about it, They would be better off using the fleet to rush in as much railway track as possible to lay down, Would take a little time, But once its done the effect would be felt for the better.

As for rushing troops in from across the Indian ocean, They were already spread out, And it would have taken close to a month to get the first convoy.

 

You are basically stating an all out effort by the axis cannot achieve what a a limited one historically did.

The RN retreated to the Red Sea in 1942 when the Axis got to El Alamein because there are no good bases East of Alexandria, so with the canal and Alex in range of the Luftwaffe fighters any damaged ship will have to sail through the whole of the the Med to get to a drydoc, scuttling looks a better option. The RN was simply not willing to risk to it's heavy ships that way. With no heavy ships around the Italians can well move a couple of C or D class battleships to the Pireus, historically they did station a cruiser division there, to practically remove the surface threat while still having sufficient forces at Taranto to discourage H force from "getting too adventurous", closest targets for H Force are far from Gibraltar and any ship that gets damage is not likely to make it back there.

With the Luftwaffe in strenght in Sicily there is no K force, only subs, by spending the daytime on the bottom, have a chance of surviving at Malta, so losses to the convoys are going to be lower than historical.

Did you look at historical RN losses off Crete? You can't keep a 20.000+ men Crete garrison supplied with just HMS Manxmann and her sisters and they are the only ships fast enough to make it without risking daylight attack and even the fast minelayers are vulnerable while in port. With less time pressure the axis may well deploy defensive minefields and attempt an invasion of Crete with assault barges that are much more likely to get through than the historical "caicchi" as they would make the trip in half the time, Crete is not Malta with it's mostly rocky shores, the allies would need a lot more than what they committed there to protect both the airfields and all the vulnerable beaches and anything deployed there is not available to oppose Rommel.

The Panzer spearheads were often air supplied during Barbarossa, the Germans as a rule, not just Rommel, were willing to attack with a lot less supplies than the average western allied commander.

IMO up to 1942 the concentrated Luftwaffe could achieve air superiority anywhere it wanted except over the British isles, the RAF couldn't spare any Spitfires for NA until late 1942 (though they did send some to Malta), while the Germans only committed one fighter group (JG 27) to NA and a second one as part of the Fliegerkorps deployed to Sicily to support the effort against Malta , the rest were mostly in the USSR.

 

No I'm not. I'm asking you what this "all out effort" could consist of.

Retreated to the Red Sea? On the contrary they moved their to launch Ironclad. In this scenario that might not happen or the ships could be recalled sooner.

Historicallly wasn't the Luftwaffe in some strength in Sicily? The Italian airforce was there as well were they not? Early war they were probably better in the antishipping role by the way. There's also a limit to how much can be based in Sicily while this can be built up it takes time and effort.
[qutoe]Did you look at historical RN losses off Crete?[/quote]
Indeed. It's very illuminating. Almost all the losses occured when ships almost out of AA ammo were sent back into action or ships overcrowded with evacuees were hit in transit. There was also no RAF cover at the time.

But of course you won't have to once there are a fair number of RAF fighters there.

??? where? and what do you think these would do?

or not if the British have built up their defences.

How much force can the Germans move at one time? How do they keep it supplied? If the RN can still contest the sea off the invasion beaches the invasion is in trouble. The British don't have to prevent a lodgement to win. As for troops there not opposing Rommel that's true but both sides can only supply a limited number of troops in North Africa.

That's fine when you have air supremacy. If your air superiority is being challenged or non existent on a frequent basis using transports to resupply a spear head is a good way to loose transports and still not supply the spear head. The Germans may indeed have been willing to attack with a lot less supplies and it has been suggested that that is one of the main reasons they lost.

In August of 1940 during the BoB the British were sending fighters to North Africa. If the bulk of the Luftwaffe is in the med then the British can afford to send fighters there and/or they can request the US to send more planes that way.

 

While the RN did pull out of there in force temporarily to launch Operation Ironclad, For the times when they would be based out of Alexandria they would be in range of German bombers assuming the front line as based around the Egyptian/Libyan border. The Junker Ju 88's, Heinkel He 111 and the Dornier Do 17's with cover from Bf 110's would have the range to attack and make it back.

While i believe a force could be supplied by the Allies, it could only be supplied and supported for so long. Sooner or later, The Axis would overwhelm them. Simply Germany and Italy were far more capable at focusing there air power then the Allies. They had to keep adequate cover over Britian, and while they might be able to reduce that cover if Germany started sending there fighters towards the Med who could shift there fighter groups faster? Would take Britain at best 1 month to go around Africa, But very likely longer.

Mine fields would be of benefit 'only' if they secured either Gibraltar or the Suez canal or both. Mining either or both entries while not per say restricting any naval offensive entirely or shipping.. But it would hinder and slow it down.

I have to say, The time it would take to gather the forces needed to assault by sea, Would allow the British/Commonwealth forces time to dig in and secure the Island entirely. The losses would be twice what they suffered historically.. Likely more.

When it comes down to it, If I was commanding the forces in the Med area.. If the Allies wanted to send forces towards Crete rather then to Egypt let them.. Would be better off building up forces in Egypt/Libya to take NA.. Cut off Crete.. Take out there air power.. and just launch bombing missions at your whim. With no chance of supply, no air or sea power they would be of no problem.. More likely would make a lovely little proving ground for new recruits =)

From what i understand, There were no Spitfire equipped squadrons in Egypt until '42 and even then many of the aircraft them selves didn't arrive until Mid to late '42. The air craft they were sending were the hammy downs. As for asking the US to send more planes to Egypt.. Well that's all well and good.. What about pilots? More planes means nothing if you don't have the air crews for them.

 

An "all out effort" consists in some 2000 additional combat planes (what was historically deployed against the USSR) and enough ground units to provide practically limitless replacements (the Germans had over 100 active Divisions).

At the time of El alamein There were no heavy ships left in Alex and the commands had been moved to Red Sea port.s Al was left in the Med was a small squadron that went to Haifa.

Historically no Luftwaffe in Sicily in early 1941, the early war Regia Areonautica was just as untrained for naval attack as the Luftwaffe, the firtst SM 79 torpedo bombers, at firts a single 5 plane squadron appeared in late 1940, only in early 1941 were additional squadrons operational. As the level bombers were ineffective agains moving ships bigger threat was from the one Ju 87 equipped Gruppo but they flew the B version not the longer ranged R that was better suited to naval ops. So the Ju 88s would make a big difference, in 1940 the RN approached the Italian coast on a number of occasions and got away with it, after Crete they never tried again until the fall of NA.

Ammo shortages are irrelevant, they actually could be interpreted to prove the RN couldn't operate close to Crete for long. As to RAF any plane sent to Crete is one less plane in NA, and the reason there were no planes is that those sent to Greece had been wiped out by the LW, faced with a massive LW effort the British simply don't have enough planes.

Defensive minefields can make any attempt to move North of Crete very risky. The Italian navy had extesive mine capability and with the LW overhead the British have practically no minesweeping capability so they coud probably create a protected lane for the assault force.

As I said before any soldier sent to Crete, or to the equally vulnerable Cyprus, is one soldier less to oppose Rommel, and the Commonwealth is short of trained soldiers.

For Crete they can probably land a couple of regiment's worth in one go using available landing assets, that's enough to make a British counterattack with the historical forces likely to fail, before you discount German assault landing abilties think Leros or the WW1 operation Albion.

Do not discount the Red air force the LW in the USSR didn't have it all easy, in an "all out" scenario the Germans will have air superiority if not air supremacy, they have the better fighters are more of them (remember no Spits before 1942). It is still a gamble but one at reasonably good odds.

Historically in 1941 the bulk of the LW was in the USSR but the RAF stayed in Britain. Why would they do different? with dozens of German divisions sitting idle sending too much to NA could be a fatal mistakes, the axis have "interior lines" and can redeploy fast, the British have to go round the Cape.

To go back to the original topic IMO without the French the British lack the manpower to face the German army, the USA can possibly supply the required 100+ divisions but while the are probably not going to suffer the tens of millions of dead the Soviets sacrificed to wear down the Heer the losses are still going to make WW1 look like a scroll in the park and the US public reaction at that scale of losses is anybody's guess.

 

Kind of hard to control the Med with ground units. Or air for that matter. They can contest it during daylight hours if they are in range but they can't control it.

That may be but the battleships and carriers were withdrawn for Ironclad (which ended just before El Alamein started) and there were certainly cruisers in the Med and making runs out of Alexandria in November of 42. By December of 42 the British were basing cruisers in Malta again. While they did remove some forces stores and forces from Alexandria starting in June of 42 they hardly abandoned the place. Also consider that in the scenario we are talking about Force Z probably never sails for the Pacific and Ironclad is likely not initiated adding a fair number of additional ships that the the British can use in the Med to attrit the Axis naval forces and shipping.

This doesn't agree with what I've read. In any case the Italians had a functional aireal torpedo which the Germans did not.

This is a cost benefit decision. There was less need and admittedly the percieved risk was higher but that wasn't just due to aircraft. The Taranto raid gave the RN a free hand for a while. By the time of Crete the Italians had recovered from that and the Italian DDs had put in an impressive if loosing performance at Crete as well.

They are not irrelevant. There is pretty good evidence that several of the British ships would not have been sunk had they had a decent supply of AA ammo. As for not being able to operate "close to Crete for long" indeed they would need periodic resulplly of AA ammo but a rotation could easily be established.

Again it's a matter of priorities. If the RAF has operational airfields in Crete then it's very hard for the axis to operate in the Eastern med. If the British can keep planes operational at Malta they can do the same for Crete. Note that most of those 2,000 planes committed against the Soviets were not fighters either. Emphasis on the Med by the axis can also provoke a similar emphasis by the British and their bombers might be more effective there than trying to hit targets in Europe.

 

As decent an argument as that is, it ignores the Jasper Maskelyn magic that successfully hid the Egyptian med. ports from the Luftwaffe, and also made the Suez a target they couldn't find. Being in "range" and being able to complete the mission are separate things entirely. The Luftwaffe was unable to successfully bomb into Egypt in reality, what makes you think that they could do it in this fantasy?

 

True.. And that may have been off effect for a while.. But is it not also plausible that with greater range of bomber missions both at night and in the day time that they would be able to gather that some of the targets they are attacking are fakes?. A daytime bombing would be able to clearly show both the real Alex and the fake.. Might confuse them for a little while but i believe they had some brains.. The Germans would catch on assuming that daylight bombing missions were used too.

 

Actually if you read Roskill there was some worry when the LW started bombing ships in the Red Sea, we are not talking Lybian border but the El Alamein bottleneck that put Alex well within Me 109 range. And while you can't "control" a sea zone with just planes you can make survival of enemy ships very problematical epecially if they lack a decent repair base.

What destroyer actions off Crete are you talking about? AFAIK there were none, Lupo and Sagittario were torpedo boats not destroyers, Italian destroyer groups attempted more than once to attack British cruisers in daylight (it was part of pre war doctrine) but AFAIK never managed a torpedo hit and the result was usually the loss of the destroyer but none of those encounters were at Crete. The 278 squadriglia was the only torpedo bomber unit until 1941, it originally had 5 SM 79, but lost one on it's first mission (a badly planned attack on Alex) hence it's nickname quattro gatti that translates as "four cats" but is really slang for "very few" . They did manage to knock out HMS Kent and HMS Liverpool and put two fish into HMS Glasgow but it was still just four planes.

BTW the forces for Ironclad came mostly from Force H (Gibraltar) not the Mediterranean fleet (Alex).