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Old May 3rd, 2008, 11:28 PM
Carl W Schwamberger Carl W Schwamberger is offline
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Default Re: What If Germany Didnt Declare war on the Soviets

Britians long term strategy for defeating Germany was to combine economic warfare with air bombardment. In the first case Britian seemed to be going bankrupt as fast as Germany. Britan had resourses slipped to it from the US, Germany could loot the nations it occupied, but it was a race to see which collapsed economically first.

With the US in the war the combined Brit US economys can outlast Germany by several years.

In the air the heavy bombing campaign did not have the rapid effect Harris & his supporters hoped for. After the US airforces were added in the effect was still slow. Perhaps too slow. However the strategy was Europe first, so the super bombers like the B29 and the atomic bombs would be used in Europe first.

Britians land strategy was to pick away at the edge of the German controlled territorys, supply the partisans and gurillias in the occupied nations, to invade the continent only after Germany had its cities burned to the ground and economy in collapse.

The US did develop a plan for defeating Germany without the USSR. This plan contemplated providing resources for equipping and sustaining approximatly 200 infantry and armored divsions and doubling the size of the airforces. Not all these ground combat units were to be manned by Americans. The additional units were to be made up of other nations men. The US would have had difficulty keeping up its industrial production had it tied to man more than 130 ground divsions and a similar number of air wings.

With the extra combat units, air bombardment, and atomic bombs Germany could have been eventually defeated smetime in 1946 or 47. Perhaps sooner if morale collapsed and the nazis were shot. The destruction in Western Europe would have been much greater and the casualties of the US and Britian much greater.
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