http://www.cnn.com/....parade/index.html?hpt=C1



I don't think that is accurate at all... if Britain had made peace with Germany after the fall of France, I don't think there is any way Russia would have won the war. Without Britain on the bring of falling, the US wouldn't have worked to prop up Russia the way it did, and when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, I expect the US would have devoted all their resources to the Pacific campaign.

Without lend-lease from the US and the strategic bombing campaigns waged by the US Army Air Force and the RAF, even Russia's strength in numbers and vastness wouldn't have stopped Hitler until western Russia and the Caucus oil fields were conquered, and without needing to devote planes and defense to the western front or Africa, Germany could have poured all of it's resources into pushing deeper into Russia, and kept industry from being moved/rebuilt with the Luftwaffe.

I think that there is no question that Russia won the war for the allies and did all the dirty work to make it happen (with the horrific losses to boot), but to think that the war would have turned out the way it did without the western allies is almost unthinkable, IMO.

Any other history buffs around here want to sound off? :p

I think you're right in the statement about Russians doing the dirty work.

But without the US/Britain, no way. Wasnt it something like only 1 out of 3 troops were actually armed for the Russians?

I'm not sure how much MORE successful Germany would have been pushing into Russia during winter, but with no US/British intervention, Hitler could have pushed in during better weather and I doubt then that Russia would have done much against Germany.

no way. had the germans only opened 1 front and it be against the russians stalin woulda got owned

it was a combined effort, pure, simple

without the US, we'd have been invaded here in the UK
without the UK, the US would not have been able to do anything in Europe, the war would have been over in 1942

without the Soviet Union (*cough* not Russia) attracting attention - the US AND everybody else would have been taken out

but what i find most disturbing is that there are some people that belive the movies, that the US won the war single-handed (see U-571) :S

but of ALL - Hitler deserves the greatest praise for losing the war for Germany and Japan by interfering with the general staff doing "their thing", instead wasting resources hitting the USSR and turning occupied europe into a high-class prison camp :/

This is a common myth.

Hitler had 0% chance against Hitler, even if he would have made peace with Churchill after his failed attempts at crossing the Channel.

After the Soviets adopted a scorched earth policy, Hitler's army was devastated.

It would have been more difficult, but the USSR would have came out on top. That is, if the Japanese did not intervene.

it was well known in russia far before the war that the coming aggressions would wipe them from the map, hence the focus of their five year plans so heavily on industrialization to lessen the gap between the production capabilities.

except, it was at the expense of those filthy kulaks, them and their privately owned farmland.

Without the aid from the west, Russia would have starved like they did during the good ol' days of war communism

Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Brittania!

i'm gonna go play some HoI3 now.

Thankx for bringing back my addiction guys:/

The expansionist Japanese and their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere weren't as interested in Soviet territories as they were in the resource rich British and American colonial possessions. With Britain and Japan not fighting against a Nazi Europe, they would be free to throw all resources into the Pacific. The Japanese would fall hard and fast long before they'd get around to their ongoing disputes with the Russians.


Russia versus Germany would be interesting... How would it get to that point? For G v R to be possible you probably have to have them taking Poland, which is when the Brits first declared war... Maybe keep it as a cold war with Germany never attacking France and the Low Countries? Or before that even, stop short of attacking Norway, giving PM Chamberlain a chance to keep his job, maybe?


Ultimately it would come down to Germany's industrial and technological might versus the mass of humanity Mother Russia would be able to throw against her enemies. Big advantage to Germany, as long as they consolidate their power and always play to their strengths. However, one question that could swing things back to the Soviets: How much land is Germany try to hold? Occupying all of European Russia in addition to their continental conquests is a helluva lot to protect. The Soviet's scorched earth campaign wouldn't exactly make things easy for the Germans. Insurgencies would be constantly popping up throughout all their territory (especially if UK, USA, and maybe France are fighting a Cold War with them and supplying the insurgents). Germany has a big advantage when it comes to winning the battles, but it dwindles to a near stalemate when it comes to holding their winnings.

Had all this played out in this manner, German scientists would have beaten the Americans to the Atomic Bomb. America's Normandy would have been the assault of mainland Japan, making the bomb much less necessary.


One thing that makes this discussion somewhat moot though is that Germany still had colonial aspirations. They still would have come in conflict sooner or later with the UK, though it wouldn't be nearly on so grand a scale.

the German's would need to setup proxy govt's ala warsaw pact in the cold war.

Split USSR up into the various republics and de-centralise the very nationalist idea of russia and start to really develop the idea of Ukrainian, or belarussian, or whatever.

i'm guessing..

Had Hitler not had to conquer his way up to the north and west of Europe, I suspect he would have moved east to encircle Russia, thereby forcing them to fight on dual fronts. Russia would retain an advantage though, in that their southern front is not one that is friendly to invading armies - which I think could even have cancelled out Hitler's 2 front advantage. Hitler, on the other hand, would have had the advantage of not having to fight sandwiched between 2 attacking armies, which would provide a lot more offensive options.

Overall, no, I don't think the Soviet Union could have done it alone....but I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility.

Sure, they might've been able to. But at what cost?


WHAT...COST?!

Knowing Russian knock-off goods.....about $3.78

Oh. Well, that'd be fine then.

Germany would have suffered rampant alcoholism through the suddenly cheap and plentiful supply of vodka?

from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/...i/Lend-lease#Significance


Much of the aid can be better understood when considering the economic distortions caused by the war. Most belligerent powers cut back severely on production of nonessentials, concentrating on producing weapons. This inevitably produced shortages of related products needed by the military or as part of the military-industrial complex.

The USSR was highly dependent on rail transportation, but during the war practically shut down rail equipment production: only about 92 locomotives were produced. 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railcars were supplied under Lend-Lease. The USSR had a pre-war stock of over 25,000 locomotives and 600,000 railcars. The Lend-Lease stock did not start being shipped until 1944.[citation needed] Likewise, the Soviet air force received 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[7]

Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks. Indeed by 1945 nearly two-thirds of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3/4 ton and Studebaker 2 1/2 ton, were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front.[citation needed]U.S. supplies of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations, and clothing were also critical.

Lend Lease was a critical factor that brought the U.S. into the war, especially on the European front. Hitler cited the Lend-Lease program when he declared war on the U.S. on 11 December 1941.


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Personally I doubt that the soviet union would have won had the Third Reich been at war only with them. The soviet union got a *ton* of aid from the US, but more importantly, as others mentioned, the strategic bombing of Nazi Germany seriously hurt their economy; a germany free from bombing, able to focus entirely on the USSR would have rolled them up much more nicely; plus, had they not been at war in the west, they may have started operation barbarosa on time, and botten to moscow earlier.....

I always thought that Italy's botched campaign in Africa was the reason that barbarossa got delayed.... although, there weren't as many planes for barbarossa, because the RAF shot them down :p

so being stretched across multiple fronts is what definitely did germany in.... and Hitler even wrote in mein kampf that you should never fight a war on 2 fronts.... then he fought a war on 3 fronts :p (russia, africa and britain/western europe)

yea north africa cost them a bit too, but i think the losses due to the battle of britain & the SAC bombing was probably more significant... germany's industrial production was devastated, and their ability to move things through the country was seriously hampered

Barbarossa got delayed because of the defeat of the german luftwaffe over the battle of britain, which limited it's capacity to wage war on the eastern front.

the strategic bombing campaigns of Germany by the western powers did not really influence the starting time of barbarossa, as it didn't really come into full effect until 42-43ish?

I mean britain was on the defensive right up till 41, when barbarossa commenced.

I'm sure north africa and the italian ineptitude didn't help either...

I wish HoI3 runs smoothly on my PC...

You guys are making statements about what MIGHT have happened. Nice exercise but any minor change in ww2 could have had massive consequences. Who freaking knows.

We'll build an alternate universe exporation vehicle and find out ;)

but yea dragonlance, i was referring to battle of britain delaying barbarosa....

and referring to the SAC bombing's later in the war '42->'44 really starting to affect germany's production & ability to wage war

"without the US, we'd have been invaded here in the UK"

not true, Hilter had no intention of invading england , he just wanted them out of the war,

the only way germany could have invaded was if they gained control of the skies, which they never really got. Once the RAF regained full control of their airspace the chance of invasion was over, as Britain still had enough of a navy to deal with the invasion fleet of germany

but US did keep britain in the war as it was way too hard to get most of britains own supplies to england as most of britain riches were in middleeast/asia, including manpower

operation sealion WAS in preliminary planning stages though, as an invasion of Britain was required to knock them out of the war as Churchill became Prime Minister.

but yes once RAf had control of the skies, chance of inavsion was over, as Germany needed control of the skies to try and temper the naval superiority of the british fleet to attempt an invasion.

yah Qz, thought as much, but i've been doing alot of typing and reading today on this forum.. blending together..:p

I'd recommend "Why the Allies Won" by Richard Overy, it was a really interesting book.... basically it points out... well... a *ton* of things...

But one of the biggest themes was that the US basically was outproducing everybody else combined by a large margin by '44... they were building a destroyer every day, and a bomber every minute....




But considering the soviets on their own... i don't know, i don't think they would really have had a chance; the eastern front would have started sooner, and possibly gone further & faster....

qzjul, you do bring up some wonderful points, especially the Lend-Lease program's significance - something I was definitely taking for granted.



Would you rather us speculate on Big Ten expansion?

the allies won the war, even serbia helped a lot but still i wonder what would have happened if Hitler didn't decide to attack russia

the very idealogical differences between nazism and Communism and their aggressive nature meant that eventually they would come to blows.

aggressive nature? its always been SOF...government type has nothing to do with it....

Some of the military encampments in eastern Europe are pretty cool - talk about a hellish place to have to conquer.

.

Taking this quote at face value, I do not believe that the cited point of view is accurate. However, if the word "assistance" were changed to "paticipation" then I'm of the opinion that this could be justified.

Obviously, I cannot presume to know the intentions of those who responded to this poll. However, I have no trouble believing that the average person's interpretation of the word "assistance" would likely take the form of direct involvement that would better be described as participation. Lacking a direct quote from the article releasing the survery, or the precise wording of the survey question itself, I choose to base my response here upon this assumption.

In my view, there are three major ways in which the allies helped the Russians:

- Material Support
- Opening of Second Front
- Strategic Bombing

For the sake of my examination, I'm going to simply allow for material support at the historically factualy levels. This is assistance, but not participation and for the sake of my model I will allow for it to continue. Please note that I believe without this assistance, the Russians could not have beaten the Germans.

The Normandy invasion ocurred on June 6th, 1944. However, that is not the only significant event on that day. June 6th was also the day upon which the Russians first reached German pre-war territory. In 1941, the Germans had been within 30 kilometers of Moscow. On this day, in 1944, they had advanced over 1100 kilometers and were now less than 500 from Berlin. Given their momentum, rate of advance, and the growing disparity in the quantity of forces each side was able to field -- it's not difficult to see how the arguement could be made that a Russian victory was inevitable at this point and that the Normandy invasion, while useful, was not necessary to a Russian victoy over Germany.

This brings us to strategic air command, the joint British/American bombing effort against Germany. This is the least easily dismissed aspect of allied assistance from the Russian perspective. However, there are some arguements allowing for its dismissal. First is the fact that it didn't target German fictories or production. In 1942, studies indicated that the targetting of factories and production centers was ineffective. Directive 22 was then issued which essentially ended missions targeting production centers. This was the beginning of the shift to "carpet bombing". There can be no doubt as to the effectiveness of carpet bombing in destroying cities, however, the point at which it truly became effective can be effectively questioned. During the war, SAC dropped approximately 1.7 million tonnes of bombs on Germany. However, of this the vast majority (almost 1.3 million tonnes) were dropped in 1944 and 1945. By this point, many Russians will claim that their victory was inevitable and so SAC efforts were moot. SAC itself issues reports that their efforts into 1942 were ineffective, this leaves only the 200,000 tonnes of bombs of 1943 to truly influence the war from the Russian point of view. While this sum isn't insignificant, there's some credibility to the arguement that this was the period during which the SAC developed the techniques that would be so effective later in the war and so their effectiveness would not have yet been what it would become. Bearing this is mind, I wonder if this sum of weaponry truly effected the final outcome of the war.

Once again, I'm not sure that I believe Russia would have won without the participation of the allies. I strongly doubt that they would have won without the allies' assistance. However, the arguement is there to be made and I find this point of view absolutely justifiable.

EDIT (ADDITION):

Simple to give an example where a similar response would be garnered. Think of how you would expect Americans to respond if asked whether or not they would have won the war against the Japanese without Australian (or Chinese, if you prefer) assistance.

I think you'd mostly get people saying "Hell yes" we would have, while people from those nations would question the truth of that claim.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

they adopted scorched earth policy because they were certain it would still be theirs after the war?
i don't think so. that makes me think they doubted the outcome. at least a little?

should have left china for the japanese. birch might have disagreed, but whatever.

(not in response to fooglmogs post, it just seemed that way)

I agree, I think they did doubt the outcome -- in 1941, which is when Scorched Earth really occurred. But the first major push back against the Germans in December of 1941, and the turning points throughout 1942, happened before Russia received any significant assistance from the allied powers.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Though I agree with Foogs long post, I think he forgot to take into account two more factors.

First is the invasion of Italy in 43 (i think, not sure, cant be bothered to look up). Second is the need for German troops to be stationed in the west in order to respond to the invasion of France.

Both Italy and France tied up a number of troops that could be used in the East. I have no idea what that number is or if it would make a difference but if Normandy is mentioned then these two factors have to be included as well.

True enough. It depends a lot on how you alter history to remove the other allies from the picture.

I think that the war in Africa is a better example of distracted German resources than the invasion of Italy... but the point is taken.

If I had to try to dismiss these contributions, I'd point out that over 90% of German casualties were on the Eastern front, and that between them, the Americans, British, Canadians and French (the major contributors in the West) lost less than 1 million soldiers all told while the Soviet Union's losses range in estimate from 20 to 27 million.

I'm not convinced that this arguement truly holds water, but I'm not trying to prove the view correct; just demonstrate that it's justifiable.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

No idea that Earth was played by history professors.

USA would have entered the war against Germany anyway, sooner or later. It was sooner because of Pearl Harbour but if Japan delayed their attack for a while... actually scratch that; if USSR didn't have Richard Sorge who informed them about Japan's intentions, thus allowing Stalin to quickly move 30 divisions from Siberia to Moscow (the germans were at about 20 km away from Moscow, mind you) in that autumn Stalin was done for.

The fact that it was a coalition, not the Red Army alone, had huge strategic implications.

At least one member has a lot of schooling left before he can be considered anything close to a history professor (assuming he follows through on that pipe-dream), and more importantly, a lot of learning left before he can be considered to have anything approaching a sound grasp of history.

Your point is well taken though, iXenomorph. Great thoughts from great minds... found here? Who'd have thought!

lol....Stalin didn't know about the German advance until someone came and told him they were 20 km outside of Moscow? 30 divisions? Russia losing the tactical advantage in the late Fall?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Lt4bIXyrY

Foog I think the main factor you forgot to consider was that the invasion of russia (operation barbarosa) was delayed *because* of the western front; had it gone ahead *on schedule* then germany probably would have gotten to moscow before winter '41 and.... that would have changed a few things methinks....

Hey! no need to offend us all by only referring to the casualties lost to those 4 countries and excluding the other allies that contributed large portions of military! like Australia, Indian Empire (under british control), New Zealand!

was directed at foog:p

I've always found that version of history highly suspect qz. Barbarosssa certainly was postponed, but the documentation linking it to any of the happenings on the Western front is tenuous at best.

The better documented reason for the five week delay from mid-may to late june in launching Barbarossa is disagreement between Hitler and the German military command regarding the priority of various objectives. Most of the military command wanted a straight thrust to Moscow, while Hitler wanted to seize the Baltics first instead. The delay was to give the opportunity to hash this situation out.

It's possible that without enemies to the West, Germany could have considred attacking in 1940 or even 1939. However, the military disparity between Russia and Germany was at its greatest in 1941. Given their lack of success in 1941, it's difficult to see how attacking in either of the previous years would have been to their advantage.

To summarize, I suggest that the delay in operation Barbarossa in 1941 was a result of internal German disagreement rather than allied efforts on the Western front. The only delay which can be credited to the allies is preventing a German invasion of Russia in 1940. However, since German's advantages over Russia were fewer in 1940 than in 1941, it's difficult to see how this delay can be credited with preventing a German victory.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

You are silly. That's not what I wrote.

Stalin did not know that JAPAN would not attack him from east. Hence he had to station troops there. Once he knew that Japan is going south, he moved his divisions to Moscow and saved the day. We're not talking about 1 troop GS; it's a massive 30 divisions. If Moscow fell Japan would attack USSR and the history would have been totally different.