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Alternate History- What if Hitler had not invaded Russia, would Germany still control Western Europe today?


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17 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

Why? Are you going to stand down that part of the Luftwaffe? The Luftwaffe is going to use fuel whether or not it flies against the East or it flies against the West. In the summer of 1942 only 43% of the Luftwaffe 1E fighter force was in the east. By winter it was just 28% and it continued to fall in 1943. By September 1943, only 30% of ALL Luftwaffe combat aircraft strength was in the east.

Factoring out the Easter Front would still be a reduction of fuel consumption. The whole mobilization and execution of the blitz into the SU would surely have a higher fuel consumption than if those forces remained already German held areas. German fuel production was reduced with ally bombings on synthetic fuel plants. So as a factor associated with the hypothetical of no SU, air defense for those synthetic fuel plants and Romania oil fields would have been better. Damage and destruction of those plants may not have happened at the same time as has actually happened. Also fuel import from Romania ceased when the SU occupied Romania in August 1944.

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On 1/22/2021 at 11:55 AM, RichTO90 said:

Probably so, but how?

 

Uh, no, sorry, but that is yet another misreading about how things actually work. The Italian Navy was fueled with fuel oil and relatively minor amounts of diesel for its submarines and small craft. The fuel the Ostheer expended was primarily motor and aviation gasoline as well as lesser amounts of diesel.

Nor did Germany produce massive amounts of fuel oil. In 1940 it was 728,000 MT and in 1941 it was 811,000, mostly as a byproduct of coal tar distilling, which also supplied the feed-stuff for much of the synthetic fuel plants. Worse, the Germans NEEDED the fuel oil for their own use, primarily for fueling industrial production, electrical, and heating plants.

So, no, not invading Russia is not going to help the fueling of the Regiamarina, Vichy's La Marine, or the Kriegsmarine.

You might find this interesting. http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text.asp?nid=125&lid=1

 

  Your source says the Italian Navy had enough fuel in 1941.

  The fuel produced for Barbarossa was gasoline because that's what was needed for Barbarossa. The oil didn't need to be hydrogenated into gasoline, it only was because Barbarossa was coming. Only a fraction of oil is distilled into gasoline, the remainder of gasoline production comes from cracking. Without Barbarossa German, Russian, Romanian, and perhaps French oil can be distilled in a manner that produces more heavy fuel oil for naval use.

"After distillation, heavy, lower-value distillation fractions can be processed further into lighter, higher-value products such as gasoline. This is where fractions from the distillation units are transformed into streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products. The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat, pressure, catalysts, and sometimes hydrogen to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones."   [U.S. Energy Information Administration]

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16 minutes ago, Detonable said:

"After distillation, heavy, lower-value distillation fractions can be processed further into lighter, higher-value products such as gasoline. This is where fractions from the distillation units are transformed into streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products. The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat, pressure, catalysts, and sometimes hydrogen to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones."   [U.S. Energy Information Administration]

That is now. Looks like during WWII, things were a bit different, and the process was not available worldwide. See here and here.

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6 hours ago, JasonJ said:

P-51 was a great airplane and I had forgotten how close things were in Europe so the long range issue certainly would be gone. But there are still the matter of improved air defenses getting more time with air superiority coming a year or so later. Germany started moving production facilitates under ground. As seen with Iwo Jima, pre-massive naval bombardment and air bombardment can't penetrate underground facilities. The ME-262 would have made a more effective entry with the hypothetical providing a boast modifier to those pilots, production, and air defense to protect them when they are taking off or landing. The wiki had an interesting bit (naturally up to dispute by nature of wiki if anyone here knows more) that even though 1,400 ME-262s were made in the end, there were only about 200 in operation at any one time. In the hypothetical, it should be expected that those would have a greater impact by achieving a higher rate than just 200 in operation which goes irrespective of P-51s being in the skies because US and GB bomber attrition would be greater and losses of ME-262s would be reduced to greater air field defenses against raiding fighter aircraft as P-51s couldn't engage effectively the ME-262s.

They tried going underground, they actually had comparatively few underground facilities, even by the end of the war, actually functioning. They didnt envisage they were going to lose air superiority, so they started with underground facilities far too late. Compared with the UK, who thought they might lose air superiority early on, and started building underground factories really early (like 1940) which in the event were little or never used.

They did try dispersal, again too late. They supposedly had production facilities in forests which the allies never found, that could build aircraft. But you have the problem with dispersal, you slow down production, at just the time when the Germans needed to ramp it up. This is the big advantage America had, it could build one massive plant because there was no chance in hell of anyone bombing it.

The 262 was a great aircraft. But it was no better than a meteor. They couldnt build the engines to the trustworthyness they needed because they didnt have hte metals. And by the time they arrived, they didnt have the fuel to fly them anyway. And you still had an aircraft that at certain parts of its flight profile was still vulnerable to propeller driven aircraft, as many first gen Jets were.

The only threat that REALLY would worry me, was the SAM threat. They had a couple of promising designs if memory serves, and if they had thrown production into that instead of the V2, we might have had problems. Although again, considering the lead the RAF had in electronic warfare at the time, its questionable if even that could have made a massive difference to Bomber losses, particularly if P51's or Mosquito's were doing the 1940's equivalent of 'Iron Hand' ahead of the bomber stream.

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54 minutes ago, Detonable said:

  Your source says the Italian Navy had enough fuel in 1941.

  The fuel produced for Barbarossa was gasoline because that's what was needed for Barbarossa. The oil didn't need to be hydrogenated into gasoline, it only was because Barbarossa was coming. Only a fraction of oil is distilled into gasoline, the remainder of gasoline production comes from cracking. Without Barbarossa German, Russian, Romanian, and perhaps French oil can be distilled in a manner that produces more heavy fuel oil for naval use.

"After distillation, heavy, lower-value distillation fractions can be processed further into lighter, higher-value products such as gasoline. This is where fractions from the distillation units are transformed into streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products. The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat, pressure, catalysts, and sometimes hydrogen to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones."   [U.S. Energy Information Administration]

Even if we assume that the Italian Navy would now have all the fuel it wanted, so what?  If they go outside Axis air cover, they face the RN Mediterranean Fleet which happens tp be strong enough to fight them and win.

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13 hours ago, Nobu said:

Not as much without a complementary move in support of North Africa via Turkey. Compelling the British to fight on 2 land fronts in the same theater gives Rommel the freedom to tie down superior British forces to the best of his ability, while relieving him of the pressure to force the semi-impregnable Alamein bottleneck unless the opportunity arises (such as the British deciding to fight him in Cyrenaica).

I think a successful North African campaign alone leaves British ground forces intact enough to contain the Axis at Suez. 

Manstein's Turkish campaign gives the Wehrmacht a chance at destruction of both the British position and British ground forces in the Near East.

Strategically, the best the Axis can do in 1941 is to try identify the British Empire's fears, and to make them come true. The escape of the irrepressible Subhas Chandra Bose to Germany in January 1941 may be of greater importance in this setting.

That would depend on Turkey joining the Axis, otherwise a supply line through a hostile Turkey is Yugoslavia^100 when it comes to dealing with insurgents. One has to accept that there is nothing the German can capture that would tilt the strategic balance in their favour. The more worthless territory they capture the more resources and manpower they need, which weakens their position in Europe. They are limited by raw materials, industrial capacity, manpower and fuel so the resources must be used with high efficiency. Capturing another sand dune is not efficient, shooting down 10-15% of the attacking bombers each day is.

Edited by seahawk
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Turkey just isnt going to join the Axis. Not after having the example of what happened last time it joined cause with the Germans. What precisely is it going to get from it? Even if the Germans win, it seems unlikely to me the Germans are going to allow Turkey to gain control of the worlds oil supply.

Yes, the more territory Germany gained, the weaker it became, absolutely completely right. The point is, they had to keep acquiring territory or they ran out of the resources their economy needed. Short of breaking the blockade they were on a treadmill that had only one outcome.

They needed oil. There was only two places they could get it, and every step they took towards them made them weaker.

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8 hours ago, Detonable said:

  Your source says the Italian Navy had enough fuel in 1941.

  The fuel produced for Barbarossa was gasoline because that's what was needed for Barbarossa. The oil didn't need to be hydrogenated into gasoline, it only was because Barbarossa was coming. Only a fraction of oil is distilled into gasoline, the remainder of gasoline production comes from cracking. Without Barbarossa German, Russian, Romanian, and perhaps French oil can be distilled in a manner that produces more heavy fuel oil for naval use.

"After distillation, heavy, lower-value distillation fractions can be processed further into lighter, higher-value products such as gasoline. This is where fractions from the distillation units are transformed into streams (intermediate components) that eventually become finished products. The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat, pressure, catalysts, and sometimes hydrogen to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones."   [U.S. Energy Information Administration]

The refinery methods available to the Germans were thermal and pressure cracking. As I explained earlier, Europe, with the exception of one small French refinery, did not invest in catalytic cracking, which was the most advanced and expensive refinery technology of the time.

Instead, Germany elected to go with synthetic production via hydrogenation and the Fischer-Tropsch process, augmented by coal tar distillation (a thermal refining method). Heavy fuel oils (HFO) are a residue of the refining process. From 1940-1944, those methods produced 4,093,000 tons of fuel oil. Of that total, 3,253,000 tons (79.5%) were from coal tar distillation. Only 454,000 (11.1%) were produced as the residue of hydrogenation.

Aviation gasoline was produced by crude refining, hyrdogenation, and benzol, which was a mixture of benzene and toluene. However, only hydrogenation produced the high-octane gasoline required for fighter operations. A total of 5,748,000 tons of aviation gasoline were produced by Germany, 5,540,000 tons of it by hydrogenation (96.4%).

So creating more fuel oil in quantity would necessarily require less production of aviation and motor gasoline. Okay, so sacrifice motor gasoline, right? Except that it was the hydrogenated motor gasoline that was further refined as aviation gasoline. So, basically, using the hydrogenation process to produce more fuel oil is a waste of time and threatens the production of aviation gasoline.

No problem, right, instead you next thought is to use less refined crude from Romanian, German, and Austrian production. Except the highly waxed and sulfurous German and Austrian crude was already essentially only produced for fuel oil. That leaves the Romanian crude...fine it only is the source for small cuts of avgas and about 15% of mogas, so sure. Just leave it unrefined so we have more heavy fractions...uh, no, unrefined crude is not fuel oil, it is unrefined crude and has large volatile fractions in it, which, if used as bunker fuel for ships or fuel for furnaces results in very bad things...the Japanese tried to use unrefined light crude from the Dutch wells in ships, it didn't go very well resulting in damaged ships machinery. The same problem applies to Soviet fuels.

The problems the Germans faced with regards to energy production aren't curable by flipping switches on refinery machinery.

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On 1/16/2021 at 9:54 PM, RETAC21 said:

1. Let's put this another way, in which way can the Germans defeat the CW? a very long war will favor the CW winning it, in the conditions as they were on June 22nd 1941. The only places where the Germans were ahead at that point was in the Atlantic and in North Africa.  In both places the battle was turned around without the US or the Soviets (but with Lend lease, of course)

2. Sure, the Germans will try to turn the situation around, which what they did historically, and it didn't work. What new resources freed by not invading the USSR can be used against the British bomber offensive? the answer is none. They were already building as many flak guns, radar and night fighters as they could - building new factories takes time, if they are not bombed in the process. All technologica advances could be countered with time and resources (radar, windows, etc.) but the Germans lacked the resources and time runs out with the A bomb. Bomber Command suffered more losses after the introduction of windows in numerical terms but not in losses per sortie. By 1944 they were certainly gaining the upper hand through the use of multiple techniques.

3. Jets - the problems were not only the critical material shortages, but also the quality of construction and the inmaturity of the technology. Plus, of course, the short range.

1. They don't have to. Germany had already achieved all their primary war aims. In football terms, they went up 3-0 in first half and only had to play for tie until other side got bored and went home. Which, for all the bluster about fighting in the beaches, was closer than people generally care to admit.

You said Germany would have to 'ask for terms' but that in itself would be a win for Germany. What kind of 'terms' you think Britain would be able to assert on Germans? Withdraw from Low Countries and Norway and Denmark? I don't think they had any problems with those. France already had a treaty with Germany and short of complete capitulation of German regime, it was not going to change. Poland? Restoration of Polish state was impossibility since half of it was annexed by Soviets.

2. The answer is plenty. Lots of the artillery and anti-tank gun production could be directed to Flak. On top of all the fighters redirected to defence of the Reich, they could manufacture more of them as they did not have to replace the losses suffered by fighter, transport and bomber arm in the Eastern front. I agree Germans would probably continue bombing operations against Britain too, wasteful as they were, but it is absurd to claim that Germans would not have been able to increase their defences one bit.

Yes, building new capacity takes time, but that is what they have, didn't you talk about war going to 1946, 47...

3. True, hence my cautious assessment of how much it could be accelerated. Still, this was an area where Germans were about 6 to 12 months ahead of Britain (not just in terms of jet engines, but also aerodynamics), and short range of the early jets made them much more useful for defence than offense and thus much more useful to Germans at this point.

Another field where Germans were very close to making breakthrough were SAMs. Had Germany directed V-2 effort into building effective SAMs, bomber offensive would have come to halt at least temporarily. Though, offensive minded Nazi leadership was probably not going to make that tradeoff.

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24 minutes ago, R011 said:

So the armies and air forces have more mogas and avgas but the navies little or no more fuel oil?

The hydrogenation synthesis could be adjusted to produce:

Aviation gasoline and other products or;

Motor gasoline and other products or;

Motor gasoline, diesel, and other products.

Other products included, as already mentioned, minor amounts of fuel oils, typically about 3-3.5% of the total production run over a year, lubricating oils, especially specialty aviation-grade oils, typically about 0.3% of a run, liquefied gases, about 11% of a run, and very small amounts of naphtha, asphalt, and paraffin.

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33 minutes ago, Yama said:

2. The answer is plenty. Lots of the artillery and anti-tank gun production could be directed to Flak. On top of all the fighters redirected to defence of the Reich, they could manufacture more of them as they did not have to replace the losses suffered by fighter, transport and bomber arm in the Eastern front. I agree Germans would probably continue bombing operations against Britain too, wasteful as they were, but it is absurd to claim that Germans would not have been able to increase their defences one bit.

Yes, building new capacity takes time, but that is what they have, didn't you talk about war going to 1946, 47...

Quite possibly, but there was a limit to what effect flak could have and those improvements were incremental through the war. More flak guns and ammunition is unlikely to translate as more aircraft shot down until that happens.

With regards to aircraft, on 22 June 1941, 59.2% of on hand and 62.5% of the serviceable strength of the Luftwaffe was deployed in the east. By 8 November 1941 only 52% of total strength was in the east, and only 41% by the end of the year. It hovered between 40 and 43% through early 1943, when it fell to 35% as more aircraft, especially the Jagdwaffe, deployed west to try to stem the tide of British and American air power.

By 22 June, the Luftwaffe lost 6,732 aircraft over 659 days...about 10.2 aircraft per day. In the 199 days to 3 January 1942, they then lost 2,562 in the east (12.9 per day) and 1,062 in the West (5.3 per day). They are likely to "save" those losses in the east, but I would speculate their losses in the west would go up in return, as they continued the bombing campaign against Britain, probably at least to c. 10.2 per day or higher. The "savings" is likely to be negligible.

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3. True, hence my cautious assessment of how much it could be accelerated. Still, this was an area where Germans were about 6 to 12 months ahead of Britain (not just in terms of jet engines, but also aerodynamics), and short range of the early jets made them much more useful for defence than offense and thus much more useful to Germans at this point.

Another field where Germans were very close to making breakthrough were SAMs. Had Germany directed V-2 effort into building effective SAMs, bomber offensive would have come to halt at least temporarily. Though, offensive minded Nazi leadership was probably not going to make that tradeoff.

The Germans never developed an adequate guidance system or proximity fuse for its SAM and weren't even close to developing one. At best, they would have been able to supplement the gun defenses with unguided barrage rockets. Rheintochter was cancelled before development was even completed. Schmetterling barely worked as a rocket and was also cancelled. Wasserfall and Enzian's MCLOS guidance system was essentially unworkable and worse, was already compromised by Allied electronic countermeasures.

Nike took nine years of development, even while building on the German development, and was essentially obsolete when delivered, so was re-engineered as Nike-Ajax with indifferent results.

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4 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

The same problem applies to Soviet fuels.

The problems the Germans faced with regards to energy production aren't curable by flipping switches on refinery machinery.

And second post:

(I Screwed up the quote function) 

The hydrogenation synthesis could be adjusted to produce:

Aviation gasoline and other products or;

Motor gasoline and other products or;

Motor gasoline, diesel, and other products.

Other products included, as already mentioned, minor amounts of fuel oils, typically about 3-3.5% of the total production run over a year, lubricating oils, especially specialty aviation-grade oils, typically about 0.3% of a run, liquefied gases, about 11% of a run, and very small amounts of naphtha, asphalt, and paraffin.

I find it interesting how many individual datapoints you can find and with authority claim their relevance and at the same time choose to ignore the scenario at hand. Note that what you say might be relevant for one method of syntetic fuel as actually used By Germany during the war.

You find no reason to consider what changes this scenario might cause on how Germany optimized her balance of liquid fuels?

Why did you choosen to ignore German import of petroleum products and crude oil from USSR ?

Had occupied Europe no refining capacity of crude oil, that was not cracking ?

Could not USSR supply both crude and  refined products of differnt grades?

And what was the difference between Diesel fuel and Fuel Oil, from a production perspective in the typical European refinery of the forties?

Didn't you mix up  "Residual fuel oil"  and "destilled fuel oil"  when claiming it was  3% of the yield?

I'd put the combined Fuel oil output at closer to 30% of the yield, but admittedly I am not an expert on 1940'ties refinery technology.

 

Kind regards

/John 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, John T said:

I find it interesting how many individual datapoints you can find and with authority claim their relevance and at the same time choose to ignore the scenario at hand. Note that what you say might be relevant for one method of syntetic fuel as actually used By Germany during the war.

Pray tell, where have I ignored the scenario. What other methods of synthetic fuel production am I missing that are relevant?

 

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You find no reason to consider what changes this scenario might cause on how Germany optimized her balance of liquid fuels?

I just addressed how the Germans could balance their liquid fuels. It was dependent on the source and the refining process. However, Fischer-Tropsch could not produce aviation fuels and left essentially zero heavy residues that were useful. Hydrogenation could produce just about anything, but was also the primary source for aviation gasoline, so half the plants were essentially optimized to producing it. German had eschewed the expensive developments in crude oil refining that was catalytic cracking and no one else in Europe invested in it due to its major expense. Coal tar distillation was primarily good for producing HFO and small amounts of gasoline, diesel, and lubricating oils. Alcohol was mainly an additive, while benzol was a byproduct of other chemical production. What am I missing?

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Why did you choosen to ignore German import of petroleum products and crude oil from USSR ?

I did not. It is irrelevant. The Germans imported refined products from Romania. They imported crude and refined products from the Soviet Union. The crude they imported had to be refined. Germany did not invest much in refinery technology and instead opted to attempt autarky through synthetics. So that is where the money was spent. Most of the crude from the USSR was refined in Romania as was the Romania crude or was imported as refined gasoline from the USSR. The refinery technology in the Germany, Romania, and the USSR was dependent on thermal cracking and was limited essentially to 77-84 octane, while most was produced at >70 octane because it was easier. The first Soviet catalytic refinery was imported form the USA as Lend-Lease.

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Had occupied Europe no refining capacity of crude oil, that was not cracking ?
 

They all were cracking plants, thermal cracking, none, except one small French refinery was catalytic cracking. High-octane aviation fuels required catalytic cracking and the addition of TEL and various other additives to boost octane levels. Germany, training very hard, managed to boost its synthetic to 94 octane.

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Could not USSR supply both crude and  refined products of differnt grades?

No, its domestic production was typically >70 octane.

Quote

And what was the difference between Diesel fuel and Fuel Oil, from a production perspective in the typical European refinery of the forties?

Fuel oil in the World War II context were HFO, heavy fuel oil, including Bunker A (Number 4 Fuel Oil), Bunker B (Number 5 Fuel Oil), and Bunker C (Number 6 Fuel Oil) in the US Navy classifications. It also included home heating oils classified in the US as Number 3 Fuel Oil. Diesel was classified separately by the Germans and was equivalent to the US Navy Number 1 or 2 Fuel Oil. They all have different viscosity and burning characteristics.

Quote

Didn't you mix up  "Residual fuel oil"  and "destilled fuel oil"  when claiming it was  3% of the yield?

No.

Quote

I'd put the combined Fuel oil output at closer to 30% of the yield, but admittedly I am not an expert on 1940'ties refinery technology.

Since I am drawing the quantities and characteristics directly from the German reports as in the USSBS Oil Division Final Report, I suspect the output I gave is correct.

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A closer look at the bombing campaigns seems to show that bomber rate losses in 1943 were not sustainable so bombing was put to rest. In essence, German air defense had succeded. The second round of major bombing campaign targetted Luftwaffe related facilities like aircraft construction facilties, not fuel stuff. And the bombing style was meant to draw out the German fighters and literally just beat them head on. Doolittle had a bold strategy of having the fighter escorts fly far ahead of the bombers so as to do a sweep against German fighter intercepters in route to the bombers and that seemed to have worked well, particulaly against the German heavy fighters specifically meant for hunting the bombers. That was Operation Argument which was February '44. 

 

So the no SU hypothetical that saves any Luftwaffe aircraft from the Eastern Front would go into the analysis of how it would impact the bombing camapaigns. The 1943 bombing camapaigns may have suffered greater rate loss which might delay the beginning of the second major bombing campaign with operations like Operation Argument in Feb 44' that targeted the Luftwaffe before oil stuff. If the bomber losses were again deemed at unsustainable losses, then major bombing camapaigns on the synthetic oil facilities would come later. The bombing of synthetic oil facilities that started around April '44 seemed to have been a prerequisite for the Normandy invasion. 

 

With that priority ranking, the no-oil-left-for-fighters wouldn't be a key limiting factor for assembling large number of German fighters   for intercepting US and GB bombers at the make or break moment of the first half of '44. It was more about German fighter and pilot numbers and desrupting German fighter production. 

 

 

Edited by JasonJ
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For this you need plenty of fighters with enough range and if Germans keep the USA out of the war, P-51s come as lend and lease articles, the question is how many the UK can afford. You would also miss large parts of the 8th Air Force. In the end it would be mostly night bombing campaign by the RAF with little daylight activity.

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9 minutes ago, seahawk said:

For this you need plenty of fighters with enough range and if Germans keep the USA out of the war, P-51s come as lend and lease articles, the question is how many the UK can afford. You would also miss large parts of the 8th Air Force. In the end it would be mostly night bombing campaign by the RAF with little daylight activity.

It's unlikely they'd keep the US out of the war and too late to stop Lend Lease, which predated BARBAROSSA.  The UK can thus afford all the free Mustangs the US wants to send them and the USAAF will almost certainly be over Germany in force anyway..

Edited by R011
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23 hours ago, seahawk said:

That would depend on Turkey joining the Axis, otherwise a supply line through a hostile Turkey is Yugoslavia^100 when it comes to dealing with insurgents. One has to accept that there is nothing the German can capture that would tilt the strategic balance in their favour. The more worthless territory they capture the more resources and manpower they need, which weakens their position in Europe. They are limited by raw materials, industrial capacity, manpower and fuel so the resources must be used with high efficiency. Capturing another sand dune is not efficient, shooting down 10-15% of the attacking bombers each day is.

Germany would much rather welcome Turkey as a partner race to be rewarded, I think. A rational Turkish leader would hopefully draw lessons from the aborted British expedition to Greece, and view things similarly.

In any case, dire political threats are worth a try.

WRT there being nothing except worthless territory for the Wehrmacht to capture beyond the edges of Mitteleuropa, that may be true, but that also never stopped it from marching to oblivion/Moscow, either.

19 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Turkey just isnt going to join the Axis. Not after having the example of what happened last time it joined cause with the Germans. What precisely is it going to get from it? Even if the Germans win, it seems unlikely to me the Germans are going to allow Turkey to gain control of the worlds oil supply.

The Turks are going to be difficult. It seems to be something of a habit with them, whether they are fighting poorly equipped Armenian women and children, or the British Empire at Gallipoli.

With no Barbarossa, they will have a chance to fight the 1941 Wehrmacht next. Not because its victory is guaranteed, but because the Turks are in its way, it exists not for peace, and it is running out of options and time. And regardless of whether Turkey and Turks like it or not, it is coming for them.

Turkish military prowess on the order of Yugoslavia's times 100 sounds about right. They are going to need it :D

Edited by Nobu
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17% of US war expenditure went through lend and lease. So I dare say without the US in the war, the UK will probably miss a huge chunk of equipment. And imho Germany fails if they declare war on the US, if the intention for that "What if" is to limit the war to a conflict with the UK.

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35 minutes ago, seahawk said:

17% of US war expenditure went through lend and lease. So I dare say without the US in the war, the UK will probably miss a huge chunk of equipment. And imho Germany fails if they declare war on the US, if the intention for that "What if" is to limit the war to a conflict with the UK.

You realize Lend Lease started in march 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor, right?  And why again would the US not be a belligerent?

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7 minutes ago, R011 said:

You realize Lend Lease started in march 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor, right?  And why again would the US not be a belligerent?

And it wasn't just Lend Lease, Destroyer for bases was agreed in Sept 1940, and before that, the Neutrality Act of 1939 allowed purchases on a Cash and Carry basis that only the UK and France could benefit from and the Pan-American Security zone which eventually meant that the USN would escorts convoys mid-way to the Atlantic. If the US remains neutral, just the above eases the burden of fighting U boats substantially.

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29 minutes ago, R011 said:

You realize Lend Lease started in march 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor, right?  And why again would the US not be a belligerent?

That is the question. I would question why Germany should or would declare war on the US, if their aim is to limit the scope of the war. Which would mean that the US would need to decide to join a European war, that would probably be limited in scope, even after being attacked by Japan.  

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1 hour ago, seahawk said:

17% of US war expenditure went through lend and lease. So I dare say without the US in the war, the UK will probably miss a huge chunk of equipment. And imho Germany fails if they declare war on the US, if the intention for that "What if" is to limit the war to a conflict with the UK.

In actual fact, much of the early equipment we got were French equipment on order, that the French allowed us to procure because the no longer needed it. Which suggests the arsenal of democracy would carry on being the arsenal of democracy, whether or not lend lease existed or not.

In the end it comes down to who has more men, and who has more money to prevail. Germany doesnt tick either of those boxes. The British economy, battered by the first world war though it was, had more than enough money to see the war through, as it saw. The cost is going to be burnt out at the end, but that was going to happen no matter what.

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28 minutes ago, seahawk said:

That is the question. I would question why Germany should or would declare war on the US, if their aim is to limit the scope of the war. Which would mean that the US would need to decide to join a European war, that would probably be limited in scope, even after being attacked by Japan.  

And its the right question, the problem is 'Nazi's will be Nazi's'.

America as they saw it, was a cornerstone of the international Jewish Conspiracy against Germany. Its as unthinkable that they would not fight it, as its unthinkable they wouldnt kill Communists.

 

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