What if

[taamvan]

You have said something important here;  that before the USA was even in the war, between the Blitz and Barbarossa, that Germany punched itself out and went down the Napoleon road of bigger bets and bigger losses.

But there are some important things to consider–the material commitment being only one.  You are correct and we all seem to agree that the total bulk of the Lend Lease materiel did not flow until later in the war, but no doubt the amounts sent later in the war were less critical and even more massive considering the increased capacity of the 3 routes to send it.  So the physical and moral and protective support of having another productive ally was felt for several years, which prevented despair.

While Germany faced setbacks in the East, one must consider that their timetable and no-step-back approach was dictated by the necessity of ending or at least advancing the war on one front with aggressive moves before the full weight of the enemy is felt.  This was the motivation for the Hundred Days Offensive in WW1, that they only had limited time before they were overwhelmed, which forced them to attempt to destroy the USSR in a reckless and incomplete fashion before they had to face the Western Allies.

Once that process began, we cannot discount the

1. US contribution on the water, which prevented Axis domination of both Oceans.
2. UK power was insufficient,  as others pointed out an unchecked (or even separate-peace Japan) would have dominated the former UK economy and sphere
3. US Strategic Bombing, while not decisive or even debilitating, required a huge and inconvenient redistribution of assets the Axis did not have (radar belts, night fighters)
   4)  The US ended any hope of Axis domination of the ME by giving the UK (monty) a ton of tanks and troops to fight Rommel in a war of attrition…in some situations the Allies were losing 3;1 and they still overwhelmed the Axis
   5)  The threat of the Western Invasion, while not critical for some years, required a substantial diversion of forces in order to dissuade a 1943 cross.
   6)  The failure of unrestricted submarine warfare and the wunderwaffen to produce some decisive effect were the product of limited, hopeful and defensive thinking that flowed from being attacked from all sides.

I think we can conclude that while 1941-42 the Germans would have had setbacks, huge disasters against Russia, but that the UK was effectively paralyzed and without any concern for being attacked from behind in force, that Germany could have easily recovered from these setbacks and torn Russia apart, if not taken Moscow.  It is a good point that US entry into the war (in both wars) was at first partly symbolic; the psychological and strategic effect of the Axis being forced to act in time with limited resources was profound.  Once Germany was being assaulted in on multiple fronts, in multiple ways, this is when its economy was forced to rationalize and this led to an extreme stretching of resources that could not be sustained (except by Russia or the US, not Germany).  Think just in terms of a limited supply of oil being parsed out.  The USA at that time provided a large proportion of the oil and refined products to the Allies (and the world).

The schwerpunkt/blitz method relies on maximum force applied all at once–any diversion of force at the critical time can cause the strategy to fail.

[Argothair]

As usual, I agree with Taamvan.

I also want to point out that the German campaigns of 1941 were only a “loss” in the context of a War where Russia could count on being backstopped by the Western Allies.

In 1941, the Axis conquered Karelia, Vyborg, the Baltics, Bryansk, Smolensk, Eastern Poland, Belarus, and the entire Ukraine, all while inflicting 5:1 casualties on the Soviets infantry and 10:1 casualties against Soviet tanks and airplanes. They crossed 765 out of the 780 miles to Moscow. We usually call that a win! Would you call Operation Overlord a loss because the Americans didmt reach Berlin in 1944? Operatuon Barbarossa’s only a loss if someone or something can guarantee that the Germans won’t make similar progress in 1942. A reeling, unaided Russia is not that someone or something. As demonstrated by the actual war, Germany had more than enough reserves of oil and manpower to fight through 1942, and without Western aid, the Russian front would have fatally collapsed in 1942.

[Caesar-Seriona]

Alright, only way to solve this. Everyone pick a nation during WWII in Europe and Asia and we’ll get the numbers and equipment back to 1941 and then re-due this war without US help.

[Imperious Leader]

Stalingrad was a German created disaster and Lend Lease trucks were not a factor, and not UK tanks that never appeared anywhere near Stalingrad. They went after it because they already failed the year before to take Moscow and too many Russians were in front of their capital.

Germany only had resources to fight in a localized area. In 1941 they had saved up enough supplies to fight all along the front. They squandered those opportunities in 10941 and would never get them back. in 1943 it was even worse, except they truncated their battleline and made it easier somewhat to perform offensive operations ( again in a local area- Kursk). The wasted chances in 1941 doomed them with or without USA aid.

Also, UK controlled the sea . if you took every British ship vs. every German and Italian ship in some stupid Jutland style battle, the Axis would have lost every ship bar none.

[Caesar-Seriona]

Italy could stand up in a fight against UK on the sea but Germany, no. Germany had the weakest navy between the major Axis forces.

[Imperious Leader]

No they could not. They didn’t have fuel for any operations outside of the Medd and hardly for even the Medd. Thats why you didn’t see any major sortie against the British.

[The Pripet Martian]

I’m reading Paul Kennedy’s excellent “Engineers of Victory” and stumbled upon this nugget whilst sipping my morning coffee:

“…Finally, from mid-1943 onward, all those Russian weapons systems [he’s talking about anti-tank guns and mines] had one further advantage: the mobility brought about by the continual stream of Studebaker trucks and the ubiquitous jeeps. Mutual Cold War chauvinisms later produced a silly debate about how much or how little American Lend-Lease aid actually “helped” the USSR during the war, and it is quite true that the majority of Red Army vehicles (58 percent of its 665,000 trucks by war’s end) was produced in the country itself. Yet it is also true that the American trucks and jeeps were significantly more robust and reliable, that the frontline Soviet commanders insisted on having them, and that they were exclusively used to carry guns and ammunition for combat units, while the Russian trucks were employed to bring up follow-on supplies and carry back the wounded. (A nice symbiosis is observable here: American trucks, brought over in British naval convoys, helped Zhukov’s frontline mobility.) By 1944, ironically, a completely motorized Russian antitank regiment could probably move around faster than a tank regiment itself. No other army managed that.” –Engineers of Victory, p.196

Just thought I’d throw another log on the fire.  :wink:  Oh, and if you haven’t read this book, you really should. Two thumbs up.

[Caesar-Seriona]

Yeah, there is a reason why Italy never left the med because they wanted north Africa for themselves. They are basically trying to reunite the Roman Empire. No need to go anywhere else when your enemy is basically in your face.

[ABWorsham4]

@suprise:

Could Russia and Great Britain have defeated Germany without help from the U.S.

I doubt the British 8th Army could win in North Africa in 1943 without U.S Forces attacking from the west. Either a stalemate in Tunisia would have played out or the Axis would have pushed the 8th Army to the Benghazi area.

[Witt]

True Worsham.

[Imperious Leader]

But note the Germans were still retreating even being routed by the 8th long before the Americans landed. The US basically sealed the deal, otherwise the DAK would have been not dislodged from Africa, but still defeated alone by the British

[Karl7]

@suprise:

Could Russia and Great Britain have defeated Germany without help from the U.S.

Ha, one of the most debated questions about WWII history!

But usually it’s pitched as: “Could the USSR have defeated Germany on its own, with the UK in support.”

The spur for such theorizing is based on the fact that the vast majority of the Germany army faced east at all times, only throwing a fraction of it against the UK/US in 44-45, and was still in retreat. Further the Germans were in full, inexorable retreat after Kursk, i.e. the later half of 1943. This suggests that the USSR could have taken it all the way to Berlin regardless of the US/UK involvement

BUT, what if the Germans were able to throw and extra 30 divisions from positions in the West against the Eastern Front?  The UK never would have had the manpower to commence a major sustained landing in Europe.  If the US stayed out, Germany could have plausibly pulled out substantial numbers of its western forces to the east.  Would that have been enough?  Could the German’s have ground down the Soviet Juggernaut to a stalemate and then a settled peace, with the boarders not so different than from 1940?

Hard to say.  Reminds me of a famous quote from the German General Mellenthin, paraphrased here from a book on the Eastern Front:

During their counter-attacks around Zhitomir in November [1943], the Germans took several thousand prisoners-of-war, but most were either young teenagers or older men, some in their fifties. It seemed that Russian manpower was not inexhaustible after all, a revelation that, as Mellenthin observed, ‘strengthened our determination to stick it out’. Indeed, the authorized strength of a Russian rifle division had been reduced twice during 1943, the numbers of replacements were insufficient to sustain existing units, even when newly-liberated villages and towns were combed for young men to fill out Soviet units.

[barney]

The Americans loaded the brits up with over 300 tanks. Doubt they stop Rommel at El Alamein without them. Maybe they do. Even if they stalemate Rommel, it’d be a win, being how Rommel was about out of gas and everything else.

[Argothair]

I still think people aren’t reckoning with the chain reactions. Like, yes, if you pull 300 American tanks from the 8th Army, you probably get a stalemate in Tunisia, assuming everything else is equal. But it’s not equal! The 8th army has to send infantry east to defend India against Japan, instead of receiving reinforcements from India. The 8th army is getting zilch in the way of replacement aircraft because without US aid, the UK needs every fighter it can scramble to defend the sea lane from Canada.

If you pull the 8th army’s tanks and planes and infantry reinforcements, all together, the 8th army get a routed, and rommel rides into Alexandria. Now the Axis have an eastern Med port, and the Allies might have an Arab revolt to put down.

This stuff all tends to spiral out of control.

[Caesar-Seriona]

Hence Lend-Lease is a game changer as I pointed out several times.

[seancb]

This is like asking how many licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop!
The world may never know…
But in this case, our current dimensional plane in which we exist, we will never know.

[suprise attack]

It takes 3 licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop, I remember that commercial

[8thGuards]

@Midnight_Reaper:

Well, I think that one of the major consequences of the US staying out of the war would have been all of Germany being run by Soviets, as opposed to just their chunk in the east.

-Midnight_Reaper

Had operation Overlord failed all of Western Europe would have been in the Soviet sphere. Had Churchill protested Stalin would simply ask him “where is your army”.

Likely that Franco would have been overthrown in Spain by the Red Army.

[Caesar-Seriona]

@8thGuards:

@Midnight_Reaper:

Well, I think that one of the major consequences of the US staying out of the war would have been all of Germany being run by Soviets, as opposed to just their chunk in the east.

-Midnight_Reaper

Had operation Overlord failed all of Western Europe would have been in the Soviet sphere. Had Churchill protested Stalin would simply ask him “where is your army”.

Likely that Franco would have been overthrown in Spain by the Red Army.

This is the most insane argument I have heard, let’s shoot for the moon on this and assume the allies just got destroyed during Overload so all the paratroopers are dead, and all landing parties were pushed back on the beach and surrendered. Explain to me how the Allies who are fighting against the Italians are going to then lose that sphere to USSR and then proceed to explain how USSR is going to capture Berlin and then move west, and after you get that done. Explain how the western allies are not going to do anything now.

[aequitas-et-veritas]

Morelikely that the Reich and Soviet Union would have had a stall at Berlin.
Nuremberg would have been Capitol of the Reich.
So a kinda win win situation.

The Allies didn’t pull off Overlord all by them self, it was an inside job.
We all know that.