World War II
- Thread starter Cenna
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Floating Hippo
Resident Hippo
Europe would be gone but I doubt the Germans and Japan would try to pull off an invasion of the Americas.
Bear
Technically in the Orderless Order
Might take a year or so longer to end the war but pretty sure the Russian would still steamroll through Europe. America would end the war with Japan in a similar manner to what actually happen and there might be a possibility of the atomic bomb being used on Germany.
Still, it'll probably end up with the majority of Europe under Soviet influence and we would have a very interesting Cold War
Still, it'll probably end up with the majority of Europe under Soviet influence and we would have a very interesting Cold War
japan77
High Prince of Growth
By D-day, it was obvious that the allies would win, it was a question of what would fall under who's influence, if you turned it back to 1942, on the other hand, and Stalingrad fall, British lose the first or second battle of El Alamein, and the Americans lose the battle of Guadalcanal(or Midway(1943)), the Axis probably prevail.
Outcome of a failed d-day is probably soviet control over most of Europe. leading to a more complex and interesting cold war, and the English channel would be the version of the Berlin wall.
Rin
Oathkeeper
Actually the Germans were working on an atomic bomb of their own. Those bombs were not actually very practical, but were a huge morale boost.
The Americans threatened to rain atomic bombs all over Japan if they didn't surrender. We now know that was a partial bluff, but they dropped two A-Bombs instead of one to convince the Japanese they had an abundant supply.
Maybe given extra time, the Germans would have entered nuclear terrorist mode and stalemated the war?
The Americans threatened to rain atomic bombs all over Japan if they didn't surrender. We now know that was a partial bluff, but they dropped two A-Bombs instead of one to convince the Japanese they had an abundant supply.
Maybe given extra time, the Germans would have entered nuclear terrorist mode and stalemated the war?
japan77
High Prince of Growth
That's highly unlikely, as even if D-day failed, there would still being an British-American force pushing up from Italy, and most resources would probably be directed there, as the French front would have been abandoned, as the Russians would still be pushing from the East, so Rather than a 3 front war, it would be a 2 front war, which probably results in a later defeat for Germany, So V-J day comes before V-E day.
Patrick MacFarlane
Commander-in-Chief of Russian Armed Forces TKR RP
- More shelling of the English coast.
- Anglo-American forces striking in Afrika but not making the advances they had in our real timeline because that third of German forces would have been redirected to the Med, Middle East, and NAfrika.
- Germans would have pushed for one of two goals annihilation of GB or the conquering of NAfrika.
Both would have been disasters because by the time the objectives were reached, 60% or more of the German fighting power would have been needed on the Eastern Front.
The only way German could have won the war was in 1941. They needed those negotiations with the USSR to go through but ambassador to Germany, Molotov, would not have the Axis' terms. Germany wanted Europe and Afrika, Japan wanted Pacific, Australia, SE Asia, and China, and they wanted to leave the Soviets with Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. There just wan't enough there to persuade Molotov to join the Axis or even expand the Non-aggression pact into a long-term alliance.
Had this agreement been reached then we would have seen a German that could 100% focus on GB and N Afrika. Not to mention that Chamberlain in GB was fighting to get Churchill booted so he could sue for peace with the Reich. Had that not worked, the Germans were lobbying the Irish Fascist parties and hoped to get access to the airports/seaports there once the Fascists seized power. And had the Eastern Front not opened up, the resources would have gone to the Irish Fascists and GB would have ben surrounded on three sides by the Axis.
North Afrika would have been the Anglo-American's only route into the European heartland and once the British Isles were secured and protected by the German navy, guess where 90% of the German and Italian manpower would have been; the Middle East (running out the last of the British and trying to squabble with the USSR over the sand dunes and oil fields) and in N Afrika supporting Rommel.
Spain was already sympathetic to the Axis they just weren't capable of supporting a war economy/investment at the outbreak of the war. But I would bet on Spain officially allying officially with the Axis once they had a firm hold over all of W Europe and the majority of N Afrika.
The US at this point is fighting a war in the Atlantic desperately searching for a beachhead to exploit but there isn't one. Japan and Russia are looming on the American western borders and Germans are slowly crawling through Afrika, maybe even S Amerika at this point (at least lobbying and gaining sympathizers ).
At this point, the US is the only major Ally still in the fight and they have to meet peace terms, atomic bomb or not. surrounded on all sides by the Axis, we would be screwed. Game over and Axis victory. Of course, there is always the chance of a Soviet-Japanese or Soviet-German war breaking out in the middle but we are counting on all those good war advisers to the Fuhrer and the Kremlin to not have been killed off which then means that saner heads prevail and theres a general Axis victory with only a few hitches along the way in Central Afrika, the Indian Subcontinent, and in Australia.
tl;dr: By D-Day, Axis lose not matter the result. But 1941 non-aggression talks between Axis and USSR could have ensured Axis victory.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
I read it all btw, but anyways a few things to note, a few battles in 1942 could have lead to the soviets and N. Africa falling into German hands(Stalingrad, El Alamein), Guadalcanal or Midway is the turning point in the Pacific. I would agree with the statement that by D-day, the Axis forces are losing, in fact I would argue they lost the war when they lost those 3 or 4 battles, as their lines were stretched so thinly.
Woot
Well-known member
I think victory in the pacific was absolutely inevitable and American economic power during the time period we're talking about shouldn't be underestimated.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
You managed to misinterpret the Japanese war strategy, despite your source stating it directly. The idea was to defeat the US naval capacity in the pacific before the US could mobilize its factories in terms of military production. Basically, win pearl harbor, and then push to the mainland as quickly as possible, if the US lost Guadalcanal as badly as Japan lost Midway, they probably could have gotten the US to surrender or risk having California's major cities blown to bits. As such a US victory in Guadalcanal ended that theater more or less, and Midway ended an possibility of a Japanese victory in that theater.
World War II was decided by 3 battles that went in favor of the allies, as the general Axis plan was to have a very quick war, and stretched their lines to the maximum quickly hoping that the over extension wouldn't backfire. The 3 battles are Stalingrad, which kept the Soviets in the war, Guadalcanal, which ended a possibility of a quick US defeat, and El Alamein, which kept the Suez Canal in British hands, protecting trade, and kept the North African Theater still open.
After that it was just a slug-fest by the Allies to successfully defeat the Axis powers using superior economies. The Allies were built for the long war, the Axis for the short war, and WWII ended up being a long war.
World War II was decided by 3 battles that went in favor of the allies, as the general Axis plan was to have a very quick war, and stretched their lines to the maximum quickly hoping that the over extension wouldn't backfire. The 3 battles are Stalingrad, which kept the Soviets in the war, Guadalcanal, which ended a possibility of a quick US defeat, and El Alamein, which kept the Suez Canal in British hands, protecting trade, and kept the North African Theater still open.
After that it was just a slug-fest by the Allies to successfully defeat the Axis powers using superior economies. The Allies were built for the long war, the Axis for the short war, and WWII ended up being a long war.
Patrick MacFarlane
Commander-in-Chief of Russian Armed Forces TKR RP
I agree here. However, those few battles in 1942 between the USSR and Germany didn't have to happen at all! True, Germany could have won over the soviets if Hitler had gotten his head out of his butt, listened to his generals, and quit trying to micro-manage the Eastern Front. But that isn't the point really.
I read that upwards of 66% of the Reich's war machine was taking on the Soviets. two thirds! why would you commit that much power to a nation so vast you couldn't hope to control it?! had Hitler been victorious in the USSR and toppled Moscow before winter then he still loses. Winter hits, his forces are frozen in Moscow, supply lines are too long and thin to stretch that far East, the vacuum left by the shattered USSR would have given rise to chaos in Eurasia. Suddenly, while entrenched and pinned in Moscow, Stalingrad, and St Petersburg until spring, Hitler now faces the Soviet generals. Each controls their own faction of the forces and now the Reich faces half a dozen independently moving enemies rather than one. He can't hope to root them all out because the expanse of Russia and Central Asia is just too much when the Middle East and N Afrika remain to be secured. It ends up being a death sentence for anyone deployed to the East.
I don't argue they were a powerkeg of an economy waiting for an outlet to explode but I have to ask myself, what if instead of just U-boats in the Atlantic from France, the US had to defend against air raids from Iceland, the Azores, possibly the Carribean and South America. If GB was dealt with swiftly then the Reich would have owned the entire N Atlantic. Once they took North Afrika, they control the Central Atlantic. The German's, we know, had the skeleton plans of an invasion of the New England coasts of the US, and what if the Norwegian rebels hadn't taken out the heavy water plant in Norway from the Germans? We would see a nuclear Germany, no enemy but West across the pond.
The US could challenge the Japanese easily in the Pacific 1v1 but subtract the British and Australians in the Pacific and add the Soviet navy on the side of the Japanese. We are looking at a whole new game especially when the US already wouldn't be able to devote as much of their resources West because the threat of the Reich in the East is a serious problem. In our timeline, Germany was a distant enemy with a few U-boat tentacles reaching across the ocean. that wouldn't be the case if Germany had never taken on the USSR and disposed of GB.
I can't see how the US powerhouse wartime economy overcomes those odds. at the very best, they hold off the Axis at the coasts and the Axis consolidate their winnings and await to crush the American pest another day. The US simply does not win in a world with an allied USSR and Germania.
japan77
High Prince of Growth
The sole problem in your scenario is that Hitler and Stalin absolutely hated each other, and were the head of radically differing ideologies(fascism, communism), that's why even their NAP was a shocker to the world(Source: European History Textbook). While yes, it could have lasted for a few more years, there definitely would have been infighting down the road(sort of like US-Soviet cold war probably).
Patrick MacFarlane
Commander-in-Chief of Russian Armed Forces TKR RP
Yes. and a quick war is what would have happened if the Soviets and Germans had allied. Operation Barbarossa was the largest German investment in the war and it backfired. they needed those troops elsewhere and would have won the war if they had been able to deploy them elsewhere.
And if the Japanese had known the US knew the attack on pearl harbour was coming, then they would have made special plans to also go after the Aircraft Carriers that were out of port. Crush the US pacific fleet and they are just a wartime economy with no full scale way of reaching the Japanese. Then yes, Guadalcanal could have gone the other way and ended the US hopes in the Pacific.
I agree here too but, even though they hated each other, I think it is likely they would have been able to pick the greater enemy for a few years. All they needed was a few years, knock out the Democratic superpowers, then yes, we see a Soviet-German cold war with the democratic US more or less, just sitting on its hands with no serious ally but still powerful enough to threaten whoever attacks first. It's a four-nation stalemate between four nations that want all the others exterminated and/or enslaved. The US surrenders but in the stillness that follows no one will make the jump on any of the others because then they are the weak target for the other two.
Woot
Well-known member
Send a task force three or four thousand miles to the U.S coast, and do what there? Try to bomb LA and fight against any number of land based aircraft that the U.S. cares to bring, and then sail thousands of miles back to Japanese water to resupply and repeat? Or by push to the mainland do you mean tie up vital divisions and unaffordable amounts of supply trying to invade Hawaii or something, sacrificing their real objectives in Asia?
I don't think the U.S. would have been dissuaded from war in any scenario. Consider Britain as an example - they were in far worse circumstances, there was a huge bombing campaign against them and so on, but it only made them more determined. We were the same way, the population and government was fully behind the war from the outset.
It's conceivable that in your alternate history, the Germans might have eventually gotten past the pilot stage and started devoted massive amounts of resources to really producing a bomb, like we did with the Manhattan Project. But historically they were years behind us, heavy water or not.
That would be a problem in the early war but it just delays the inevitable. By 1945 we had a larger navy than the entire rest of the world combined and we weren't even finished ramping up production. You can argue that the U.S. might have been rushed before we had time to switch to a war economy and build up forces, but the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans make that extremely implausible. Don't underestimate the difficultly of stretching supply lines across thousands of miles of ocean, and especially of any kind of amphibious attack. Historically the U.S. did its amphibious invasions from nearby staging areas and with massive advantages on land, sea and air and they were still incredibly difficult. The way you gloss over the Germans "swiftly dealing with" the British is ridiculous enough - a German invasion of Britain some time in the early war is one of the most common alt history debates and usually the consensus is that's unlikely it could have succeeded under any circumstances. It would not be an easy thing for the Germans to ever do, especially after the U.S. entered the war on the British side.
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Rin
Oathkeeper
It's easy to look back now and say it was a bad decision. Axis had greatly underestimated the Allies' willingness to fight, and wanted to get the advantage by striking early and striking fast. The fact that their defeat was inevitable made them assault even more furiously. Otherwise they would have been choked off resources and lost eventually.
The USA started WW1 as a neutral and ended WW2 as a world-dominating superpower. It's easy to forget that they were a lot more timid than the USA we grew up with and I can see why Japan underestimated them. They're like... Brazil or Indonesia today.
The USA started WW1 as a neutral and ended WW2 as a world-dominating superpower. It's easy to forget that they were a lot more timid than the USA we grew up with and I can see why Japan underestimated them. They're like... Brazil or Indonesia today.
Cenna
Well-known member
But that's assuming the soviets joined Hitler you also have to note how much the Nazis and the Commies hated eachother. Another thing is that the Soviets were trying to stop Hitler way before the western Europeans did in fact Poland could have had the immediate back up of the soviets refusing to think Germany would attack and believing France and the UK would help out. The soviets also suggested military action to the allies as soon as Germany began breaking the treaty of Versailles.
Patrick MacFarlane
Commander-in-Chief of Russian Armed Forces TKR RP
A Japanese invasion of the US mainland is ridiculous. It is feasible that they place aircraft and a garrison of warships in Hawaii though and take away the primary pacific fleet. It would have been hard to convince the Emperor of this, being that he too thought little of the US war machine and, like you said, their real objective was Asia, but it could have been done and it would have given the Japanese some time to grow stronger and stall the US advance back into the Pacific.
Facing three world superpowers from all sides, I beg to differ. Going into a war with formidable Allies in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Europe is a lot different than having allies on their last leg. I don't think Congress could have gotten approval for a DoW against three empires when all we had is a couple of crumbling sister nations. The president and the people might be behind it, but not Congress.
I concede
The Japanese proved they could reach Hawaii and Midway early on in the war. I don't mean to say they could have fought an entire war that far east in 1941, but it is possible for them to place a strong force there if anyone had been able to get the Emperor to sway.
I have researched and I still think it is plausible. I wouldn't have been swift by any means, but even in 1941 Hitler was preparing for war with the Soviet Union. If, however precarious, their alliance had been extended or expanded, Hitler would have had more power in France at the time and that makes a large difference. More machine, more men, more aircraft; I think he could have gotten onto the mainland. and With airbases in France and perhaps elsewhere, Hitler's generals could have pulled it off.
The problem with WW2 alternative history is Hitler. As the war progresses he is increasingly distrusting of his generals and advisers. he micromanages the front and does away with anyone who knows better than him. But in a perfect world, or rather, a perfect Reich, Hitler would have been busy playing with some other project and left enough responsibility to his generals. I feel this would have given the Germans a much higher probability for success.
I agree, but this is an alternative history scenario. What if the Soviets had reached a deal. Taking the Axis terms would hve sent them south before west giving them massive oil in the M East and massive manpower in the Subcontinent. they would have had a route to E Afrika and the SEAsia. Appeasement could have made the USSR stronger than the Germans could hope to topple because they would have had more time, more men, and the Germans would have dwindled themselves out in the West.
John Henry Eden
President Of The Enclave
Let's go with an atomic war scenario so my Enclave can grow and take over the world 
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