DDay becomes a fantasy without the USSR tying down 82% of the axis forces on the eastern front.
Consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Pacific War
- Thread starter Juan de Mariana
- Start date
DDay becomes a fantasy without the USSR tying down 82% of the axis forces on the eastern front.
Because the vast majority of resources were taken when fighting the Soviets (80% of Germans forces in the early stages and never went under 60% in the entire war), the only significant loss of the Germans to the WAllies before D-Day was in North Africa in 1943, without having to fight the Soviets a lot of resources are free to be used elsewhere. Imagine if the Germans could use most of their troops against Operation Overlord, there is no way it can work and that's not talking about the fact that a lot more resources could be used on the air and navy preventing any D-day at all.
No, the Lend Lease was not a big price to pay for the US and UK in exchange for a stronger USSR which did most of the fighting trough the entire war, the UK will suffer more since now they're the only ones fighting the Axis in Europe until the submarine problem in the Atlantic is solved.
Because the WAllies were very casualty averse. As horrible as the Nazis were they were not capable of invading the UK or the US, so without the Soviets to the pay the millions in lives to topple the third reich the WAllies people would not have accepted sacrificing millions of their young population to secure a defeat against the Nazis against a country that did not pose a direct existential threat against them. This was why they were willing to give the Soviets everything they asked for in lend lease regardless of future consequences because if the Soviets collapsed during WW2, that frees up 6 million axis soldiers for the western front.
It’s a really interesting phenomenon. Between the years of 1922-1937 and 1946-1991 the Soviet Union collapsing would be seen as one of the most positive things to happen for freedom and prosperity in the world.
The Soviet Union collapsing between the years of 1938-1945 would be seen as probably the most horrific tragedy of the 20th century And everything must be done to ensure that it does not happen.
We’ve had countless lengthy threads about this topic (seven of which are linked here in an old post I made) that I think everyone should read. Assuming the USSR gets defeated I think there’s a 40% chance at least that the WAllies decide the blood price is too much to pay to defeat the Greater Germanic Reich and an uneasy cold war develops like AANW. Peace or no peace I think in this scenario the WAllies would decide to blockade and bomb Japan into submission instead of an actual invasion. Japan gets turned into Dante’s Inferno depending on how soon the leadership see reason.
I agree the WAllies were casualty averse, and D-Day is unfeasible in 1944. However, much depends on the 'how' of the Soviet defeat. The Nazis are still likely to be expending considerable (if fewer) resources in the East.
But... I think saying the Nazis do not pose an existential threat to Britain is a conclusion taken with the benefit of hindsight, and I am not talking about an invasion.
Without D-Day, there is something of a stalemate. A WAllies Bomber Offensive is much more costly. An extended Cold War means the Nazis bed in. At some point, if they realise atomic weapons are feasible, they are going to want them too. Or maybe they go down the biological route. They are, after all, batsh!t crazy.
So, potentially at some point the WAllies do indeed have to take the plunge and invade Europe. Maybe with atomic weapons clearing the path. It will be horrific, but betting the Nazi regime implodes before doing something else horrific and stupid is rather risky.
The "Atlantic Wall" was where the Heer sent formations to reconstitute after getting mauled in the East/West Africa and "static" divisions (with a high percentage of Ostlegionen and Hiwi personnel). The Wall, and France in general, was far less well garrisoned than any of the Eastern Front Army Groups especially in armored formations and in bombers. By mid 1944 the CBO had drawn much of the Luftwaffe single engine strength and night fighter strength back into Germany in an increasingly futile efforts to defend Inner Germany..
Somewhere in the area o 80% of the Heer was deployed on the Eastern Front. If even 350,000 of those troops had been deployed to the Atlantic Wall/Western France the WAllies would have never even attempted to land without literal years of battlefield prep.
So in OTL, part of the reason for the rapid collapse in Manchuria in 1945 was that the Japanese had already been stripping their formations there of manpower and more importantly, mobile equipment, for service in China and the Pacific. So I think we would see a much earlier transfer of assets from NE Asia to the Pacific. But 1944 onwards saw the shipping lanes come under American Submarine attack and the Japanese started losing supply and troop convoys, so it would have to be earlier.
I don't necessarily think the Western Allies were that casualty averse. The Americans generally preferred firepower and close air support as the breakthrough element in contested advances over large scale infantry maneuver, but that was because they had this as an option. Commonwealth Armies certainly were not casualty averse. The Free French in 1944 were a bit more casualty averse in that they had a small cadre of forces that they could not afford to lose for the planned wave of mobilization in 1945 after liberation, but this was a small part of the overall Allied effort.
The US Army did not lose a single Division level element in the European theatre of war - the closest was the 106th Division, which saw about half its strength overrun at the start of the Ardennes Offensive, but even that unit didn't require complete reconstitution. This was largely because of how the fortunes of war went for the US in 1944, not because of an averse approach to casualties. When Allied forces were capable of offensive action, they engaged in it and took losses accordingly.
They similarly engaged in the same tactical ineptitude at Monte Cassino and Hurtgen Forest as the Soviets showed as First Jassy-Kishinev, Rzhev, and Narva, so I don't think its necessarily a case of national military cultures or anything like that.
I would argue that the Soviets often were wasteful with manpower - not in the sense of memes about human wave assaults, which are false, but in the way that the echelon style of attack ended up working in terms of how efficiently reserve units were deployed to points of breakthrough, the performance of its corps and army level commanders in ascertaining accurate information and relaying it faithfully up the chain of command (a huge problem), the level of training for infantrymen (a problem that probably could not be avoided early war, but was unacceptably an even bigger problem late war), and at the end of the war, in the mix of tanks, mechanized vehicles, and infantry in their mobile formations - they took extreme tank losses because their formations were too tank heavy and vulnerable to PAKfront in depth tactics, hunter-killer teams, and German defensive armor tactics, and this was not necessary had they had adequate support ratios.
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I disagree. With the Germans somehow successfully defeating the Soviets, the WAllies would be more likely to consider that actually fighting the Germans on the Continent is impractical, at least in the short term.
So for at least the next few years at least the ETO would likely be limited to simply containing the Germans on the Continent by maintaining a naval blockade and securing the sea lanes from u-boat attacks.
The main focus of the war will move to dealing with the one Axis member the Allies could defeat: Japan.
And on that note, Jiang's pre-1937 connections to Nazi Germany didn't help in that regard.
Depending on if Jiang pisses off the Americans even further, there's a very small chance the Americans might decide not to hand Formosa over to them either. Very unlikely, but not impossible, as ultimately outside of the Home Islands (all of which were non-negotiably part of any Japanese nation) whatever islands the Japanese get to keep would be decided by Allied consensus. If Jiang burns all his bridges with the West, I can see an outcome where Formosa goes the way of Okinawa, i.e. American-administrated territory for a few decades, before being turned over to either Japan or China so long as the USA gets to keep stationing troops on the island. Since there's no way the Chinese whether KMT or CCP would allow that, well, Formosa could stay Japanese into the 21st Century.
Again, very unlikely, but not impossible, considering how Truman was prepared to let Mao chase Jiang out of the mainland IOTL. If Mao gets screwed over by the loss of Soviet support, and the KMT secures of Manchuria and its industries first, and destroys its relations with the Americans, I can see Truman (diplomatically) telling Jiang to f*ck off with regard to Formosa.
While these are points worth considering, I believe that these are somewhat overstated.
The strength of the German army on the eastern front at the close of 1941 was in the region of 3.5m men. Assuming Moscow is taken by Christmas 1941, Stalin, (or, more likely his successor), negotiates the surrender with Nazi Germany and a border is drawn roughly halfway between Moscow and Kazan, (roughly half of European Russia), this, along with Poland and the Baltic states, and the pre-war acquisitions, (Czechoslovakia for example), gives an occupation zone of roughly 1,270,000 square miles that needs to be secured in the east.* That's a lot of ground.
By Hayden120 - "Utopia: The 'Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation'". Institut für Zeitgeschichte. München - Berlin. 1999., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18153420
Out of 3.5m men, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that around 1.5m of those would be needed, (minimum), to secure the new 3500km border which now stretches from Mezen in Northern Russia, down through to the Georgian border. This was the sort of area the Greater German Reich proposed to settle.
Around 500,000 would be required to secure the conquered territory, clear the villages, partisans, transport the victims to the concentration camps, or into the slave labour camps, or just murder them. It was expected that should this have gone ahead, estimated deaths would have been around 60m. Carrying this out requires a lot of man power and a lot of time.
We're back now to around 1.5m soldiers being available for the western front. However, I don't believe Germany could have afforded to keep the level of military spending up to have an additional 1.5m men sat around enjoying the French countryside. If I remember correctly there were about 175,000 men on the west wall, most of them being Hiwis, so they'll need replacing. Still leaves around 1.4m, give or take, kicking their heels. However, Nazi ideology being what it is, will want German women back in the homes and having children ASAP, not in the factories wherever possible. In 1939 there were around 2.7m women in factories, some of those can be replaced with slave labour, (cheap), but they would still need supervising, that will swallow a few hundred thousand, between guards, service staff, escorts, managers etc. There will be men discharged, those hitting the upper limits of conscription age for example, those that had been wounded and recovered, those with "interesting" disciplinary records. These men would go into the reserves. You're probably left with a million extra men. Some of those could be sent to North Africa. Additional troops to replace the use of local militias in the Balkans and Greece too, and all of a sudden, that million extra men start to evaporate until they're all gone.
The defeat of Russia also has a few other changes. The arguments by the Wehrmacht that they needed Steel for tanks to use in Russia has evaporated, and so the Kriegsmarine gets that steel for U boats, or better, (from the Allied POV), surface ships. That's a lot of tanks not being built.
On the shipping front: if the Kriegsmarine get more U-boats, with the breaking of the Enigma codes, potentially the capture of more machines, it could mean the second Happy Time last longer, and more allied ships are sunk, however I'm not convinced that it will be much more given that the British and Americans are no longer running convoys to Russia, I suspect those losses are likely to balance out on the allied side, with a similar proportion of the total U-boat fleet lost to OTL.
Thinking of tanks, the types of tank is also impacted. Without having to face the T-34 or the KV1 in any significant numbers, there's a good chance that the Tiger as we know it never exists, and the Panther, if that exists, may not have the sloped armour inspired by the T-34. Without the need for heavier tanks like the Tiger, or the heavier self propelled anti tank guns, I would expect the PzII, PzIII and Pz IV design arc to continue, and the PzV could end up being a version of the Panther but with the flat fronted, hardened steel upper glacis.
Another change: Combat experience. The Wehrmacht won't have nearly as much as they did in OTL unless it comes from the Afrika Korps, or, it will be a different kind of fighting entirely - anti partisan fighting. The OTL lessons of the Eastern Front won't be learned, the veteran units rotating out of Russia for rest and recuperation in France, won't be as hard bitten as OTL. They'll be as effective as OTL against the various resistance groups, but less so against an organised army with artillery.
Also, the Luftwaffe will have far fewer aces, and where older and more obsolete airframes, (the JU-87 or BF109E-F), will survive than OTL. So while they have numbers, they will be lacking some of the quality of OTL. I don't see them having much effect on the European bombing campaigns unless it forces the USAAF to switch to night raids earlier or bring over more P-51s.
Without the inexorable OTL march of the Soviet Union from the east, what effect will that have on the V weapons or the speed at which aircraft like the ME-262 or ME-163 Komet happen?
I suspect this may also butterfly the STG43/44. Without the experience and losses of the eastern front, the need for an intermediate cartridge also goes. or at least it goes into the background. There's a good chance that the Panzerfaust goes the same way.
On the Allied side, America is still in the war, so I would expect the bombing campaign to continue although the targets that were selected purely to assist the Soviets are likely to be left until they assist the Western Allies. Given the additional space, this could see German war industry take a dip as it's moved eastwards, into Poland for example to save it from USAAF and RAF bombing raids.
This could see the B-29 or similar being brought in earlier. Aircraft with a longer range and the ability to fly at higher altitudes could become a priority. Or potentially, a V2 analogue being developed by the Anglo American arms industries.
The amount of American equipment that was sent to Russia now doesn't go, part of that could end up in Britain instead, although I don't think there was physically enough room for all of it in Britain.
The P-39 Cobra becomes an interesting footnote, nothing more.
FUSAG maybe becomes real.
Things I don't see changing:
Hitler being, well, Hitler and interfering in military matters. This was probably the best advantage the Allies had.
The Western Wall being built as OTL, possibly more slowly than originally, but it will still be built, and probably with more slave labour than "guest" labour.
US Production levels. They won't be dropping, although they may rise slightly.
North African campaign. North Africa is a side show for the Nazis. It has no tangible benefit for Germany to throw more resources into it.
Allied Air Supremacy over France by 1944.
How do I see things progressing?
The Dieppe raid takes place as OTL, the same lessons are learned.
Without the pressure from the Soviets to "do something" in 1943, does the invasion of Italy happen? If it does, are additional German troops sent to defend Italy? Any German troops sent to Italy can't also defend France.
Case Anton - the German occupation of Southern France, this time with more than just 7th Army. Any additional troops sent there can't defend Normandy.
If an invasion of Europe is deemed a possibility, the most likely route, and the one Hitler was convinced was the only real one, will be via Calais, so additional troops, possibly called back to the colours after a year or so demobbed, would likely be sent to Calais instead - not defending Normandy.
While the Germans would have additional tanks, they would still be heavily outnumbered by Shermans of all stripes. The only real limit on the number of tanks the US army could field would be finding crews for them all. plus, more German tanks means more targets for the Anglo American Jabos.
Where additional troops gather, they become a target for aerial bombing.
I think D Day still happens in June 1944. It will still be a success. Any additional soldiers or armour are likely to be sent to Calais first. Given that the German army is still predominantly horse drawn, I don't believe that they will be able to move, (once Hitler finally agrees to release them), fast enough to prevent the allies form landing successfully and establishing themselves. While the Germans will be able to bring greater numbers to bear against the Western Allies, they won't be as effective as OTL, More dead, more injured and more taken as POWs. The Western Allies haven't really lost anything. The majority of their actions haven't been affected by the Russian capitulation.
The casualties would be significant, but given the Americans alone, were prepared to accept over a million casualties to invade Japan, I don't think they would baulk at it to end the war in Europe. As for timings, I think May 1945 to reach Berlin is still feasible under these circumstances. especially with the Western Allies far greater mobility than the Germans. And hopefully, along the way Market Garden is butterflied out of existence.
Just a thought.
*At this point we don't need to consider the roughly 210,000 square miles of occupied western Europe.
The US was not ready to take a million casualties to invade Japan, which is why they didn't IOTL and preferred sending nukes, asking the Soviets to invade Manchuria and watching Japan starve until surrender.
Anyways the Germans might have less troops at the beginning but in the unprobeable case where D-Day still succeeds, they will face the full might of the German war machine, the Germans for years survived while fighting the Soviets and the Western Allies, there is no way that Nazi Germany plays their cards so wrong that it loses at this point.
With extra resources what guarantees you that they still beat the submarines (IOTL beat in 1943)? That they still manage to defeat the Luwtwaffe without extra fronts to care about (to fight resistance groups you need much less air support) and with more resources? What guarantees you that there are the same numbers of troops on the West wall?
With more resources available on the Western Front, there is no way the Germans are collapsing in any similar timeframe of OTL, even in its final days the Reich managed to carry out the Bulge seriously putting in difficulties the US.
And what about the troops that were fighting in Poland, Romania, Hungary etc. ? The Germans are going to re-mobilize if they are in difficulty and any advance on Berlin will be done at the cost of millions of men which were conveniently spent by the USSR IOTL.