Phatguy
Posts: 1348
Joined: 3/1/2006 From: Buffalo,ny Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Twotribes quote:
ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker quote:
ORIGINAL: Southern_land Btritain smashed up by the Luftewaffe in 1940 and strangled by Uboats in 1940-42. All but collapses under starvation rations and lack of resources but no invasion is forthcoming. All 2500 merchant ships lost in the Atlantic must come from British and Allied sources, not US. Commonwealth forces outside of Britain are effectively neutered by lack of resources. German Final victory over the Soviets in 1943 with no lendlease plus the German divisions and Luftewaffe freed up from Western Europe as well as extra German munitions, supplies and resources not consumed combating by the Allied bomber campaign. UK and commonwealth converted to a German client state by 1944. US beats Japan in 44 without Nukes, then goes facist under Lindbergh in 1945 because "all the cool guys at school are facist these days". You assume too much in the Lufftwaffe doing well without American support for Britain. Same outcome as RL. You assume too much from lend lease.While extremely important to the fight, it wasnt a be all end all.Russia would have taken longer to win.Sure there would have been all these German divisions and Lufftwaffe formations available, but supplying them is a different story. There was no way Stalin would have surrendered.This would have been a fight to the finish. The Soviet Union was unable to produce reliable communication wire. We provided every bit of it. With out comm wire, no massed Artillery Divisions. The Soviet Union did not have to make trucks or jeeps we provided them all their vehicles, freeing them to build other items. They did not need to make locomotives for their rail lines, we made them all. We provided THOUSANDS of planes and Tanks while the moved factories tooled up in the Urals. We diverted 80 percent of the German Airforce, we diverted as much as 40 percent of the German army. Our bombing campaign crippled Germany and slowed their production to a crawl at critical points. No US no western front. Britain could not mount a credible threat in the West alone. No western front, no knocking Italy out of the war, No help for Britain in the Atlantic. We gave Britain 50 destroyers. We agreed to patrol half the Atlantic long before we entered the war. The Soviets would not have been much of a threat to Germany with half or less the production of tanks and aircraft, with no massed artillery, with no trucks to move their troops. YEARS is right. If ever. in 1944 germany produced more planes than the previous years combined.Or close to it. Where where they? Not flying due to lack of fuel. Sure you can build them but it does no good if they sit. Have you ever seen the tech specs on the t-34? Very simple to make. They would have built enough of them. Granted a lot of material was sent in thru lend lease but the raw materials were worth a lot more than the planes. Only 20 % of the VVS had western supplied aircraft. YOu are correct about the tanks being a significant portion (about 11% of total Russian built tanks). As far as I recall, the German industry still managed to produce quite a bit with about 27k armored units made in 44 alone. So it wasnt that crippled...Damaged yes, but not crippled. Again, it comes to fuel. The western allies did not significantly impact fuel production with germany producing about 12 million bbl domestically in 1944 with about the samer level coming in from Roumania. Combat got rid of these totals rather quickly. Since Stalin followed a scorched earth policy, the large oil fields in the Caucasus would have been absolutely worthless for over a year from the time the Germans took them in the scenario thats envisioned here. In regards to your last statement. Like I mentioned, only about 20% of the aircraft were western supplied and only about 10% of the tanks were western supplied and even taking into account the raw materials to help make a portion of the others I don't know where you came up with about half. You are correct about the massed artillery divisions and trucks and locomotives, but here too the majority of the Soviet soldiers got around the same way their landser counterparts on the German side did..They walked... It would have been a bit of a different war but the end result would have been the same. EDIT: I had an argument with a Russian about this topic years ago on the net with me actually defending the lend lease program and basically cutting up his Pro-Soviet arguments since he was basing all his theories on Soviet propaganda articles and books. So I am not diminishing what the west did at all. EDIT: Suffice to say, no a single one of us would be here discussing this if Germany and Japan won the war.....so its a good thing the USA got involved for our sakes....
< Message edited by apathetic lurker -- 6/29/2010 1:46:14 AM >
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