Could the Western Allies Win Without the USSR?

It's called the inherit advantage of the defence. Now answer me this how come US units,Middleton's Corps , in the Battle of the Bulge were able to hold up a German army 6 times it's size for as long as they did? Furthermore that corps included one brand new green division along with 2 others that had been beaten up in the Hurtgeen Forrest amongst it's 4 divisions,they were facing 26 divsions of the 7th Army,5th Panzer Army and 6th Panzer Army. Italy??? Well Italy is extremely good defensive country The Eastern Front was much more conductive to offensive/blitzkrieg/armored warfare then the Western Front.. Also the German army didn't stop the Allied armies the 300 mile rule in logistics did. Once you drove around 300 miles in WW2 you basically had to pull up and allow one's logistic's train to catch up. As far as your 25% figure for the German Army in the West well I've seen it posted elsewhere that the % of German tanks in the west was much,much higher then 25%.
As far as your reference are concerned I've seen other people in other forums come to completely different conclusions.

 

One quirk is that Germany provided the Soviets with more of their machine tools than the US. The pre-war detente saw a massive influx of German technology into the USSR 1939-41.

 

Just looked at a map it seems the Allies drove from Normandy to the Siegfried Line (which is what over 400 miles???) in the period from 6/6/1944 to 9/16/1944 . Remember the Allies were conducting an amphib operation ,a very,very difficult type of operation and the bocage country didn't help matters any otherwise the actual dash across France took from late August till mid-September. In other words a dash of 350+ miles in around 4(???) weeks.Notice what type of country the Allies then came up against when they reached the Siegfried Line??

 

Well I was just talking about the time when the US was in the war,I think the US provided the SU 27% of it's machine tools.

 

It seems according to some the Italians saved the German's rear a couple of time in North Africa but boy the Germans are just so good!!!! Read posts # 95 & 100.

Erwin Rommel as a Military Commander - Tanknet.org

 

Simple observation about some points being made by you fine gentlemen....

Regarding Italy verses Russian Fronts. As horendous as these battles were, in many parts of Russia you could watch your dog run away for 3 days with the expansive flat terrain.

In Italy it was a defensive wet dream.... Allies facing one mountain to the valley floor to the next mountain to the next valley floor to the next mountain, so on and so on.... Again both fronts were brutal battles.

I won't even get into the handicap the Allies had in Italy with Clark and Alexander.

Best Regards

 

Your numbers, and your logic, are extremely suspect.

Comparing Japan's chances against the US in WW II, with Britain's chances against Germany is absurd.

The US had at least ten times the resources of Japan and more importantly was far more competent in applying them militarily. Britain was almost equal with Germany in terms of resources and slightly better off industrially. But the huge disparity between British naval resources and German naval resources meant that Germany could never hope to force Britain to surrender

Actually, the US had more industrial capacity than all of Europe combined. Furthermore, the US was far more efficient in mass production of the weapons of war than Germany could ever hope to be. Germany proved singularly inept at employing the industrial capabilities of the nations it occupied in military endeavors, and even wasted much of it's own industrial capacity in militarily useless schemes. The "vengeance" weapons come to mind; the resources wasted on the militarily worthless V-1 and V-2 programs could have been put to far better use.

So your saying that, because historically the US had never won a war against a great power, it never could? This completely ignores changing conditions over time, and is completely illogical. It's not money that wins wars but the intelligent application of resources and mobilization of productive capacity. In that sense, the US had Germany badly beaten from the get go.

 

Bruce,

I don't know about the US not being able to outproduce all of Europe in this time frame well at least any of the top 3 European Powers that is . In ships the US certainly could and if (repeat if) the US wouldn't have had to build so much merchant shipping & landing craft to project power across both the Atlantic & Pacific there output of aircraft & tanks would have been much greater. What I'm saying is have the European Powers have to build a merchant fleet plus amphib capability to project power to the New World and see how many tanks & aircraft they could build then . Oh and also build a large ASW force.

 

The original poster here is making the fatal assumption that the War in Europe, minus the contribution of the Soviet Union, would be fought the same way as it was historically with the Soviet Union as a belligerent. That is simply a very questionable assumption.

Actually, the situation, as posited by the original poster would resemble more the situation which prevailed during the Napoleonic Wars when France, a great land power, challenged Britain, the premier sea power of the time. In modern terms, the question would be, how would Germany bring it's army into play? It might occupy most of Europe, but this, in itself, contributes nothing to the defeat of the Allied coalition. Germany's navy is obviously seriously outclassed by the combined Anglo-American Navy, and would not be a factor; it can't possibly hope to do any more than defend Germany's coasts.

Germany has a powerful air force initially, but it gradually gets worn down by the superiority of the Anglo-American air force backed by the combined productivity of the US and British aviation industries. Eventually, the Anglo-American air force achieves air supremacy and can then bomb targets throughout German-occupied Europe. But given the limited resources of continental Europe, even that might not be necessary to defeat Germany.

Nor would the Normandy landing necessarily be required. The Allies could win simply by containing the Germans in Europe, cutting off any access to the world outside, and using the atomic bombs, when they became available, to convince the Germans that there is no point in further resistance.

So yes, the answer is that, given the proper strategy, the Western Allies could easily defeat Germany without the USSR and without the bloody historical ground campaign.

 

You have any proof for 'Europeans are better in war then Americans ' ????? And what is the meaning of 'better ' ?????

 

Well, if you remove Japan from the equation, and remove the need for Lend-lease to the Soviet Union by making the USSR a neutral, you change the whole strategic dynamic of the war. I can see no way that Germany, even if allied with mighty Italy, has any chance of beating the Anglo-American alliance.

What it would come down to would be that Germany would be confined to continental Europe with no way to project the power of it's most effective force, the German Army. The US and Britain would, over time, out produce the Luftwaffe, and eventually overwhelm it, achieving air supremacy over Europe. The German Navy was never strong enough to challenge the British Navy, let alone a combined Anglo-American naval force of the size possible if there is no Pacific War. The Western Allies would gradually tighten the noose around Germany by cutting off and defeating in detail the German contingents in the Med, Norway, and possibly the Balkans. Once that is completed, Germany, though still with a lot of military potential, is more or less helpless outside of Europe.

Given that Germany can't control any land mass other than Europe, it's not even necessary to invade; simply wait until the atomic bombs are operational and test them on Berlin.

 

I think you are exagerating (like Guaporense in the opposite sense )
1)You are assuming an automatically entrey of the US in the war
2)If the Normandy landing was not necessary,why did the Allies land in 1944
3)If the SU was eliminated,Germany wold have all the raw materials and food it needed,thus the allied blockade would be useless .
4)Concerning the ABomb:you assume the US would use it against Germany,without considering the risk of German reprisals with poison gas against Britain (and that Germany would be unable to use poison gas is irrelevant,because the allies had no knowledge of the German ability to use poison gas ) .If Japan had the means to attack LA and San Francisco with poison gas, would Truman have used the A Bomb ? The US knew that they were safe from Japanese reprisals when they decided to use the A Bomb .

 

At the time we produced 40% of the world's Aluminum while exporting bauxite. In Vanadium & Molybdenum we were basically the Saudi Arabia's" of the world at the time.In copper we produced half the copper while exporting the ore. In steel well over 50% of the world's output. Phosphates??? Same as per steel. Sulfur(for explosives)??? Same as Phosphates. Zinc??? Well over 50% plus we exported the ore. Nickel??? Well we didn't have large ore supplies but we smelted 67% of the worlds finished metal. Chromium??? Same as Nickel not much ore but we smelted 50-70% of the world'sd supply.

Historical Statistics for Mineral Commodities in the United States, Data Series 2005-140

 

Much has been made of German Tabun & Sarin BUT the US in Terre Haute,Indiana had a bilogical warfare facility larger then all other facilities in the world at the time while the US to the best of my knowledge had the 2nd & 3rd largest facilities also. Sarin was used in a Japanese subway a few years ago and it wasn't very effective at least it seemed that away. Those older nerve gases just didn't seem for the technology of the time very easy to use. The US also had by far the largest chemical warfare industry in the world at that time. Nobody would want to tangle with the US in chemical,biological or nuclear war in the 40's.
Let's remember one thing as per the US army if Japan is out of the war then we'd probably see the army that was planned originally something in the order of 160+ maybe even 200 divisions instead of the historical 90+ ,it was reduced downward by so much because of the want to build a bigger airforce & navy. A European War only means the US doesn't need near as many naval ships with their large crews.
Everybody seems to think that if Hitler didn't invade the SU that there would be no war in the East BUT it seems there is quite clear evidence that if Hitler hadn't attacked Stalin ,Stalin would have attacked Hitler probably in 1942 or 1943 so this whole thread is probably mute.

 

My point,among others,was that the US using an A Bomb against Germany is not self-evident .

 

No Problem LJaD..I see your point.

 

That's a very good point. Come to think of it, if the U.S. had dropped a nuke on Germany, Hitler would not have stopped until he had also acquired nuclear capability, having now seen a "Wunderwaffen" in action. The Germans were quite close already. I believe a U.S. nuclear strike would have provided the necessary impetus for Hitler to move the Uranviren (sp?) up to the top of the priority list.

Hard to say where he would have chosen to use it first but I think revenge against the U.S. would be foremost in his mind.

 

I have a problem with the statements that without the SU Britain and the US would have won easily by dropping a ABomb
1)repeating the previous poster,it is not likely that Hitler would had capitulated after the ABomb
2)would the allies had use the ABomb ?
They did not use poison gas against the German cities,because they were afraid of Germanreprisals (they did not know if the Germans were able or unable to attack Britain with poison gas )
If the US knew that there was a possibility that Japan would retaliate with poison gas against LA or San Francisco,would they use the ABomb ? Would Truman had taken the risk ?

 

I think the opposite would be the outcome. Since they were working on a device themselves, they would more fully understand what it was at the governmental level. Hitler may have wanted to "continue", but cooler heads may have prevailed if an atomic was exploded. Their head-man (Heisenberg) had assurred the Nazis that the allies were years away from having a device, and was thunderstruck when the Hiroshima bomb was exploded.

They were more than five years away from developing one themselves when the war was over. They were using the wrong moderator, and had seriously mis-judged the amount which would be necessary for a critical mass to be made. They were thinking it would take tons of fissionable material not kilograms, and consequently they were only working on a reactor to produce electricity, not an explosive device. They never got their reactor design to function, and that is the first step in untangling the rest of the problem.

The bomb is the "game-changer". If it had been used on Germany, i.e. Germany was still fighting in August, the existance of one would have been more readily accepted in Germany than it was in Japan. The Japanese didn't even send scientists to check out the radioactivity in either city until nearly four days after the Nagasaki bomb had been dropped. The Germans would have recognized immediately that this was a weapon they couldn't duplicate in time, and couldn't defend against.

Just my two cents worth, but the Germans weren't being guided by a "living god"; but by a politician whose word wasn't (in their culture) a religious edict which was directly from the son of their Sun Goddess. The founding Goddess of Japan.