The Allies without the USSR

[SeaMonkey]

Couldn't have said it better....excellent research and conclusions Wachtmeister, although I must play the devil's advocate here and say.. OK.. USA infrastructure creation is probably best in the world, but from Vladivostok(sp?) to the Urals? That's a damn long way.

[Curry]

What an interesting thread

It would be the ultimate cold - Hot war.

Germany in control of Europe. Japan would still fall.

Great Btitan held as a fortress, as well as Egypt.

JJ I do disagree with one thing you said, I dont think the Nazi's would have lightened up on their occupation tactics, I think it would only have gotten worse. For every Palus there was another hard core Nazi and the leadership was hard corps. I also think the Russians would have kept up the partisan war in the urals and even siberia. The USA maybe even taking the pacifica coast of Russia.

So you would have had a Europe under the darkest of nights.

Not good thoughts at all.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Excellent points as usual JJ. Let's discuss this western European air war a little further.

Thank You SeaMonkey and Likewise!

Assuming the eventual capitulation of the USSR....say 42 or 43, did, could the WA (western allies) establish air superiority in the West? If so, as I remember, stationing intercepting squadrons around the jet air fields were most effective at keeping them "at bay". We still have not addressed the effectiveness of the night bombing campaign carried out by the British. If the Americans had been driven to the night by effective German jet intercepts, would it have proven to be any less effective than the daylight operations?

Great points and I never gave that much consideration. Night Fighters were generally either fighter bombers or light bombers as they required so much space and lifting capacity for their radar equipment. I doubt jet fighters would have provided a suitable platform for that purpose. The thing is, night bombing wasn't as accurate as day bombing and often required a daylight run to set the target ablaze so the night bombers could locate the target and add to the damage.

Also, if Germany had defeated the USSR but was still fighting in the west, the logical thing would have been to gradually move war industries east, probably out of effective B-17 range. Naturally the United States also had the B-29 and was designing an even larger super bomber capable of transAtlantic runs which it dropped as the war in Europe shrivelled to the borders of Germany.

The reason I'm addressing the strategic bombing campaign intricately is that I believe this could be the coin that tips the logistical statistics in favor of the WA. Yes? No?

I agree. The Allies would have had to find some way of defeating Germany and, if they couldn't do it right away on land the war would have needed to be conducted through strategic bombing. The flip side is bomber crews took a long time to train and the attrition rate was very heavy. It sounds cold and calculating, but if Germany developed effective enough anti-aircraft radar along with improved AA weapons the losses in bomber crews might have become too great to carry on an extended bomber campaign.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by Retributar:

Comment's to Jersy John's write-up:

Really Good commentary John...i enjoyed it!,...now i just would like to add some additional/other information...

Thanks Retributar and as always I have to say I feel the same way about your posts and all the other guys posting to this one, great stuff all around!

I watched on the 'History Channel'...a show on Japanese Secret Weapons...it stated that the Japanese had up to 20,000 advanced Jets at the ready and or nearly ready, hiding inside caves (Basing & Production Areas) in the mountains on the Japanese Mainland,...they were going to use them to stop the big American Invasion of the Homeland.

I saw that one too and it was very thought provoking. The problems Japan would have had were first, training crews skilled enough to man those missions even for the one and only trip they'd be making. By 1945 they were using up even the least skilled pilots on Kamikazee missions. Many of those pilots were huge on bravery and determination but very, very short of skill. Or perhaps even at the very end many of them instinctively stopped short of the actual suicide move and were instead dispersed with AA fire.

I know they caused more damage to the USN than any other Japanese attack, but am not sure what the figures were and whether or not their sacrifice was truly justified.

Assuming they would have been able to find and train the pilots there was also a question of fuel and even a question of whether or not the aircraft would work in the ways expected. One of the problems with the Kamikazees was they had to use exactly same tactics in every mission. There was no way for the commanders to know what had or hadn't worked as none of the pilots who'd set out on the missions and saw combat actually returned to file a report. The fleet being attack, on the other hand, was able to learn from the experience of each successive attack.

By 1945 American Jet Technology would have been nearly on-par or on-par to German Jet Technology...i posted the jet/jet's in the "Something i hope happens in SC2" topic.

We had a very intersting thread last year that I've got in my post in the SC FAQ thread concerning prop as opposed to jet research. As is mentioned elswhere in this thread as well, the specs of German and British jets operating in 1945 look similar, but British and American pilots who flew both after the war said the German jets handled much better than the UK counter part.

There's no doubt in mind, however, that the U. S. would have thrown enough resources into jet research to close the gap very quickly, especially if they succeeded in capturing a few of the German aircraft along the way. But, in 1944, the Germans were definitely the only Air Force with good and reliable jet fighters. Aside from diminishing resources, the two greatest flaws they had were green pilots (often Hitler Youth) and the fact they were sitting ducks when they slowed down for a landing.

If Germany had won the war in the East I'd imagine a priority would have been the building of prop fighters to serve as the dog fighting workhorse and also to protect the jets returning their airstrips. Essentially the jets needed to be considered bomber destroyers with ME 109 and FW's going against the U. S. & U. K. escort fighters -- which by 1944 were superior to their German propellar counterparts, leading to enough material for an entire new thread on this subject in itself!

You're right-on with the Logistical Problem...about 200 American Divisions!. We all know that in the Movie--"A Bridge Too Far"(Operation Market Garden),...that the Allies did not have the capability to supply fuel to support both Montgomery and Patton at the same time,...never mind 200 American Divisions!.

Thanks, this is an aspect of the war that is way too often overlooked. Of course, when people talk about the Atlantic Wall being a failure they aren't considering the wall in the sense that it kept the major harbors defended long enough for them to be thoroughly gutted by their German garrisons. As 1944 ended the bulk of Anglo/American supplies were still being landed directly upon the Normandy beaches and sent by Red Ball express truck convoys all the way to the Rhine!

Hitler did indeed stick his finger's into the ME-262 Jet programme'...had he not, the U.S. Strategic Bombing effort may have been severly disrupted...there-by extending or losing the war.

Yes. Exactly. If Germany could have controled it's skies throughout 1943 and beyond, not had so much of it's transportation and heavy industry disrupted, it would have made a huge difference in it's ability to conduct the war.

Naturally there would still have been the problem of Hitler doing things like turning AG North into AG Kourland and deliberately leaving it's 44 veteran divisions cut off and stuck in the Baltic States where the Soviets left them on the vine while heading instead to Poland and beyond. After the Fall of France Hitler seems to have been everywhere and in every capacity to ruin any chance his generals might have created.

The miracle at 'Midway' was an "ULTRA-Miracle",...and even so...just luckily at that,...things could have gone far different for the Japanese...just as you say.

I'm amazed at how frequently people take the whole thing for granted, as though the Japanese were simply sailing into an ambush. All things considered, there were many different ways it might have turned out, as you've said, but the only one that would have helped the United States at that point was an unequivocal victory. American aviators have never hesitated to say the sinking of those Japanese carriers was and almost impossible event and an incredible combination of totally unrelated actions that came together perfectly for the USN.

Do you know how rough the weather was in Russia in the old days?(-40F to -44F for many weeks on end...and 4-8ft of snow with blowing icy cold cutting winds was common...especially up north,...i used to live in Canada as a kid...we had severe winters like you have never/rarely seen in the states or maybey even Europe...other than Russia.

I know I spent a winter working nights on the flightline at Loring AFB in far north eastern Maine. Some call it Main, we used to call it the Arctic -- and we all knew it was pretty mild compared with the places you've just mentioned.

I agree, the whole idea of sending large U. S. forces to fight in the Russian interior seems pretty hopeless, especially as the Germans would beyond a doubt have had every mountain pre sighted and fortified as they did so well during the Italian Campaign. We might still be slogging away in the Urals!

Winter's were Winter's back then...not these pussy-cat winters we see now. I doubt very much that American Forces could function very effectively in that climate (Very short summers--6-8 weeks and rain/mud inbetween Real-Winter),...by the time they did...the German's would most likely have had enough time to deal with the massed landing force build-up from the Eastern Coast of Russia. As you say...they would have needed to build all that support infrastructure to get into the heart of Eastern Europe.

You've got me sitting here shiverring with the heat on!

And Lastly...yes, the cruelty of the German's greatly worked against their effectiveness,...had they just simply conquered territory...and enlisted support from discontented populations,...they may have won Russia sooner and at much less cost!.

Completely agreed. The worst thing about the Nazis is they were so bad and inhuman. Which meant the best part about fighting them is they were so bad and inhuman! Aside from all the partisans they created, they may acrually have defeated themselves ultimately by devoting all of that rolling stock to the Hallocaust. If so it's the most perfect tribute to the millions who were mindlessly slaughtered -- that the very act of being moved and killed might in itself have been instrumental in defeating Hitler!

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Oh yeah...good points all around, but let's be definitive here. We know the Nazi's history, let's not enter to many variables into a variable we are already trying to clarify. It is presumptuous of us to conclude that the Axis conquered populations would have shown anything but disdain in supporting them against the WA. Remember whatever the case is now, the western democracies did convey the bastion of freedom for the Earth's subjected peoples back in the era of WW2.

As far as the eastern USSR theater of return to Europe, given the logistical considerations and the vastness of terrain to be travelled it doesn't seem to be a viable alternative. On the other hand the Middle Eastern area could supply a defensible base for at least a diversion and a strategic bombing campaign.

Good points. Not much possibilite in the way of land warfare as the only way to go would have been north across Turkey and the Caucasus Mountains, or northeast across the Balkans and more mountains! But as a base for strategic bombers it would have been deadly, putting them within easy striking distance of the Caucasus oil fields and other rewsource areas further north along the lower Volga and Don Rivers / Donetz Basin region on the Sea of Azov.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by Wachtmeister:

JJ:

Jets:

Agree that the Germans could well have pushed the Allied bombers, and their prop driven escorts out of Europe for a time, but I think that within a year or so, advanced bombers would return with competitive jet escorts.

I agree. Given what the United States in the Manhattan Project a jet program would, by comparrison, have been child's play. The problem would have been the total time involved for development, setting up production, training pilots and actually establishing units across the Atlantic.

There are other considerations, though. It took a long time to develop reliable jet bombers that were actually able to hit anything! Prop bombers were still in use in the early fifties. Also, WWII jet fighters had severe range limitations. This would affect the escorts much more than the interceptors.

Given enough time these things would have been worked out, of course, but how much time? While that time would be passing Germany would have been consolodating it's grip on occupied Europe.

Your discussion of WWII jets peaked my curosity, so I looked up some info with resultes as follows:

Me 262 (1944) Max. Speed 870 km/hr Range 1050 km

Armament 4 X 30 mm cannon. Designed as a "bomber buster".

Glouster Meteor Max. speed 795 km.hr Range 2166 km

Armament 4 X 20 mm cannon

P-80 (1945) Shooting Star Max. speed 967 km/hr Range 1328 km Armament 6 X 50 cal MG

These jets have similiar performance, at least on paper. An interesting fact is that the P-80 was launched in 1943 and designed, built and test flown in 143 days! First incidence of the Lockeed "Skunk Works" in action? Orders for 5000 P-80's were cancelled in early 1945. A few P-80's actually flew combat patrols in Italy at the end of the war, but had no contact with the Luftwaffe.

Great observations. Aircraft technologies were eclipsing and for that brief period it can only be said that jets did some things better than props and props did other things better than jets.

Certainly without the sort of sophisticated electronics developed starting in the fifties very fast aircraft would have been of limited use. And the United States had by far the best prop fighter planes from 1944 onwards -- evaluating which specific aircraft types would have dominated over other types is beyond my aircraft knowledge.

Thanks for what you've stated here because it truly does add things that need to be considered beyond the blanket idea of developing jets -- perhaps not the key to WWII air dominance that it at first appears. To me the one undeniable quality they had was the ability to shoot down four engine prop bombers. Their ability to shoot down other fighters, jet or prop, and conduct feasable ground or sea attack missions are areas I'm not as certain of and an area i'd only be speculating in.

Given the fast track ability of the USA to rapidly design and produce advanced air craft and other war machines, I think it is reasonable to assume that competitive F-86 type fighters would have been produced long before 1948, if the war had continued. Its not totally fantastic to envision jet bombers (B-47's, B-52's) in the late '40's instead of the 1950's.

No argument. Also a factor is that after the Second World War the United States deliberately disarmed and through the late forties only maintained the single bomber wing, that famous unit stationed at Roswell NM, equiped with B-29s, that had the ability to deliver atomic bombs. H-bombs were still in the future and the United States was blisfully unaware that the Soviets had successfully produced their own B-29 duplicates. Talk about ignorance being bliss! Korea was the wake-up call, 1950!

Of course the Germans would not have been idle during any bombing respite gained by the Me 262. For example, the Fw TA 183 looks a lot like the MIG 15 for good reason.

However, bringing the captured USSR oil and metal resources into full production would have taken considerable time, so that Germany could still be behind the power curve in a production race with the Allies.

Yes, I completely agree on all points. There's no secret that the early Migs were only slightly improved German jet aircraft. The United States would have done better following the same course because till late in the Korean War the Mig was probably superior to our own jet aircraft. The only saving grace was only a fraction of the Chinese flying them had been born and raised and trained in Russia.

As to utilizing resources, my guess is Germany's plans to turn the former USSR into a vast stretch of farmland was basically self-defeating. Industries needed to be either rebuilt or built within Russia itself! As mentioned in an earlier post this would have had the added benefit of making it extremely difficult for the West to mount any sort of reasonable strategic bomber campaign even for bombers based in the Middle East.

Japan:

Regarding Japan ,I went with what did happen up to the planned invasion of Japan. No doubt the Japanese could have had better "dice rolls" early in the war, and held out for longer, but once the Essex class CVE's started showing in up 1943 along with dozens of CVL's and jeep carriers, loaded with F-6-F Hellcats it would be over for Japan - maybe a year later? As an alternative strategy, we could well have defeated Japan by taking fewer of their fortified island bases, and let more of them die on the vine. Once the IJN is gone the supplies dissappear. The places we really had to take could perhaps have been limited to actual operations in the Solomons, the Marianas, Iwo Jima and maybe Formosa. The Phillipines would probably also have to be included for political reasons, and to liberate the local populaton. After that, strangle the Home Islands and stay out of Kamikaze range, after the industrial infrastructure has been flattened.

True, Japan had essentially no hope of defeat the United States, at least not alone. Japnanese long term planning was a mess. They attempted at one point to establish an alliance of Germany-the USSR-Japan with the idea of not only freeing them to fight the United States but also, presumably, to have the Soviet Union driving through the Middle East and into the Indian Ocean to provide what was truly essential support.

My only opinion about the Pacific War, historically, is it could only be won on the schecule set by American industry for the delivery of capital ships and bombers to the Pacific Theater. Had there not already been an extensive naval building program set in motion by 1940, the conquest of Japan would have needed to wait two or three years before the first wartime cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers became ready for service.

JJ's Brest-Litvosk Aftermath SC mod on steroids!

Agreed. There's only one thing I regret having done with that campaign. I put Montgomery on the map and changed my mind and deleted the unit. Iron Ranger pointed it out to me, that there's no way of building Montgomery. If there weren't so many many unites I'd have gone back and changed it to include that important unit, but it seems to function pretty well even without him. Personally I haven't got the stamina for that particular campaign but am still looking forward to doing an improved version for SC2. Or, if someone else sees fit to do so I'd be overjoyed.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by Wachtmeister:

Edwin P:

I think USA construction expertise would have been able to build as much rail and/or highway infrastructure as needed if the US troops east of or in the Urals is otherwise good strategy.(Not necessesarily so.) Ability to create infrastructure, to support the necessary military logistics is one of the strongest USA war making capabilities.

Of course this whole premise is based upon a much longer war with a long term concentric, rather than "knife thrust to heart" strategy.

The United States actually built a similar wartime progect extending from the United States Northwest, through Canada and then through Alaska to the Bering Straits!

So, such ideas are not completly unreasonable.

The main question, of course, would be what such a project, going from Manchuria, Korea or Vladivostok, would be connecting to all those thousands of miles away.

Certainly it would be no more outlandish by modern standards than the land bridge built by Alexander's Army at the Siege of Tyre was for the Ancient World.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Couldn't have said it better....excellent research and conclusions Wachtmeister, although I must play the devil's advocate here and say.. OK.. USA infrastructure creation is probably best in the world, but from Vladivostok(sp?) to the Urals? That's a damn long way.

See my reply above -- but I happen to agree with the view that it is a very dubious idea and delivering those same troops / aircraft through the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf, using the Middle East as a base of operations, seems much more feasible.

And would have the extra advantage of insuring Allied control of that prized region.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by Curry:

JJ I do disagree with one thing you said, I dont think the Nazi's would have lightened up on their occupation tactics, I think it would only have gotten worse. For every Palus there was another hard core Nazi and the leadership was hard corps. I also think the Russians would have kept up the partisan war in the urals and even siberia. The USA maybe even taking the pacifica coast of Russia.

So you would have had a Europe under the darkest of nights.

Not good thoughts at all.

You may well be right. Certainly there was never a shortage of psychopaths either Nazi or otherwise. There can be no doubt that it would have been a true dark age for any population subjected to the Nazi tyranny. As Steven Ambrose said in a documentary, "What we have to be thankful for is that Germany and Russia didn't work together to create a Dark Age that would have lasted, who can say, maybe a thousand years!"

[SeaMonkey]

Looks like its just about all been said about this potential scenario although I would like to add one interesting observation. One of the first alpha AARs from GG's WAW had the Germans take the UK and push the USSR back to the Urals, Japan went out early. Granted the Russians had not surrendered, but the UK had been occupied, and the WA, in the words of the testers, cleaned the Axis clock in 1944. Whether this is a feasible "what if" is up to you to decide, but I believe that this game is heavy into the logistical aspects of WW2 and let's be perfectly candid here, we all know logistics is the premier factor governing wartime strategic operations.

[SeaMonkey]

I might add that once I get my internet connection back on line at home I intend to post the production figures from John Ellis' "Encyclopedia of WW2" for each belligerent, as Kuni suggested earlier. We may get some supplemental information to support some of our conclusions.

[_onepercent]

Originally posted by Edwin P.:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> 1. Defeat Japan as was actually done, but since there is no A-bomb. isolate and starve out the Home Islands. Send those 1,000,000 troops to the Eastern USSR instead of Japan proper. Wipe out the ill equipped and supplied Japanese in Manchuria on the way for practice.

Hmm, Allied Option - Send armies to Russia via the Pacific or to Europe. Now the Germans truely don't know where the allies will strike. Problem: The Siberian Railroad was just 2 tracks. </font>

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by _onepercent:

Sorry for the rant;) All the clever posts were already made

[... since deleted]

Well,

Not so much clever posts... as fairly informed and owing much to knowledge of history.

All of them quite good.

I would only add this (... and it would greatly depend on WHEN the Russians would capitulate):

It would soon become a race... for better and more destructive Technology.

The GErmans and Americans would be roughly even, at the beginning of this race, and likely the USA would pull ahead at some point... more Scientists with more freedom to congregate and theorize.

You would then soon arrive at "mutually assured destruction," as was the eventual situation vis a vis USA and Soviet Union in the early '50s right on through 1990... and actually, today even.

NO DOUBT in my mind that GErmany WOULD acquire atomic bomb secrets from down here in the Desert where I live.

The GErman Bund was of course forced underground, yet not much diminished... and there were and are MANY AMericans of German-American heritage, so... ONE of those surely WOULD have stolen "the big secret" and sent it on along to GErmany (... which didn't lag all that far behind anyway).

The USA could NOT have made enough A-bombs, in time (... given the primitive technology THEN extent) in order to defeat GErmany in the 1940s.

One or two would NOT have caused GErmany to quit.

Therefore, it would indeed be that arms race toward jets, and jet bombers, and long-range ones at that, not to mention the ever and fast improving rocket science.

OK.

Stalemate and forced peace.

But... a fascist regime (... assuming that Hitler was not fast dispatched to some distant Austrian mountain "home"... if not assassinated) can NEVER exist for very long, IMHO, due to inherent and determined inclination of the "common folk" (... anyway, the kind you would find in those Countries where SOME individual freedoms were part of the heritage) to ACTIVELY resist such brutal and backward-seeking sort of government.

So?

Eventual collapse of the 3rd Reich would be inevitable... surely within, oh, ~30-40 years... UNLESS some better-natured Angels might assume control of the GErman State and stabilize it in the "democratic" tradition.

[JerseyJohn]

Dave

I agree. If it had triumphed, tragedy that it would have been, and gained possession of that vast area, the Third Reich would have evolved into something more mature after Hitler's death. T

he old guard would have died within ten years or so and, presumably, those who succeeded them would have understood that the elitist warrior Sparta didn't survive and was done in by it's own slaves -- an affliction that almost ruined Rome as well with the Spartacus rebellion. They'd have needed to alter their methods or lose huge parts of their conquests to successful revolutions.

Shaka

You had an interesting idea about the Iberian Penninsula that we never really discussed. Winston Churchill had similar thoughts but realized the U. K. couldn't have pulled it off against a hostile Spain and Portugal. But -- considering the Pyrennies are a near perfect wall against the rest of Europe, Iberia would have made an ideal staging area for strategic bombing and operations against other Mediteranean objectives. There are numerous pros and cons to this, of course, but it's worth looking into.

Wachmeister, One_percent, SeaMonkey ...

This is the part of the world we've been discussing in terms of the United States brushing off Japan and moving west to slap Germany.

If Churchill, completely wrong, referred to Italy and the Balkans as the Reich's soft underbelly, I guess this could be called, with equally error, it's even softer back door!

An interesting hypothetical but I really don't see such a trans-asia scheme as being very practical. It would be much easier to either fight it out in the Middle East or come up through East Africa.

[SeaMonkey]

Last night as I was contemplating the progression of this thread the thought DD has proposed of the similarities to the USA/USSR cold war conflict also became apparent to me. But in keeping with the originally proposed hypothesis I tried to keep the atom out of the loop. Keeping the development of atomic weaponry aside, I have to conclude that the economic might of the capitalistic/free market economic model would have eventually brought about the demise of the Fascist Empire just as it did the Soviet Union. But in the "mechanics" of our gaming thoughts there is no, well not as much, fun in that scenario as battling it out...in a game , of course. IRL we all would prefer the economic culmination. That said, if we are to draw upon the natural progression to nuclear weaponry, my leaning is the WA would have been triumphant. Reasoning being, the evolution of the A-bomb to a thermonuclear device would have brought about the destruction of the Axis reign. Surely with the added extra incentive, the Oppenheimer/Teller team would have delivered a working device sooner than the Axis scientists. Agree? Disagree?

[JerseyJohn]

There's no doubt the Germans were hopelessly far behind in their own program and beyond the bomb itself they didn't have a delivery system. No bomber even remotely comparable to the B-29 (or even the B-17). The technoloy for sending an A-bomb off on a rocket didn't yet exist so the V-weapons weren't the answer.

Toward the end, both germany and Japan had ideas about dropping bombs that would spread radiation rather and dropping a true atomic bomb that would erupt in a nice clean inferno!

There's still considerable debate as to whether or not the German nuclear scientists deliberately sabotaged their program. We've already had numberous threads at SC on this specific subject, so I'll stop here on that one.

As Desert Dave so correctly points out, the United States at the time could only have produced a few atomic bombs a year. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki, for example, was made up in large part with nuclear material turned over to the United States by a German U-boat that had been enrout to Japan with the delivery when it received word of Germany's surrender. The two Japanese naval officers who were known to have been onboard had vanished mysteriouslt, said to have committed ritual suicide when they learned the German crew was planning to surrender themselves.

[Lars]

You guys forgot one thing. Since the UK/US had about absolute air superiority over England, they could forgo paying the price of invasion and crank up the chemical warfare machine.

Sure you might lose a bit of London to V weapons with nerve gas, but most of Germany would be under a mustard gas cloud.

No need to grasp for nukes when you've lots of nasty stuff left over from the last war.

[Lars]

Oh, and for you Midway guys, if you're going to suppose the Japs win it, I get to play the US refusing battle chit.

Nimitz was a gambler (but then again, he was peeking at the cards). Outside of that, the smarter move would have been to refuse battle and wait for the rebuilt fleet.

Japan still loses eventually, and they knew it, which is why they attacked Midway in the first place, to try to draw the US out. One of the flaws in their plan is they didn't know what to do if the US didn't show up.

[JerseyJohn]

A while back we had (as usual ) an SC thread that went into that and there were a lot of interesting links that showed the reason chemical weapons weren't used in WWII -- unreliablity!

Of course under perfect conditions they were devastating but only under perfect conditions. I hope someone remembers the thread and links it because it had a lot of interesting information in it.

Good point all the same Lars and who's to say it wouldn't have been an effective weapon, especially if further researched.

During the thirties chemical wargare was a huge fear, especially in Britain, where they fully anticipated it's use and issued untold thousands of gas masks to the civilian population.

[JerseyJohn]

Lars,

Yup, that sounds exactly like the Midway Campaign. My guess it was mainly to grab the island and also the Aleutions (though used as a diversionary move) in order to, at the very least, prevent a second Doolittle type raid on the Home Islands.

Japan was truly in a hopeless situation after the first six or seven months and certainly after 1942, even if they'd won at Midway.

[SeaMonkey]

Before I post the production figures for the participating major nations I would like to reiterate the relevancy of this "what if" scenario. Just like JJ's Brest-Litvosk Aftermath and my Sphinx these possibilities truly had a chance of becoming fact.

Now think back, check your references, the time is June 21, 1942. Why 6-21-42, because that was my conception of the Axis high water mark for WW2. Think about it...the day Tobruk fell, the Nazis are rampaging across southern Russia on their second East Front Blitzkrieg, seemingly unstoppable. The Japanese are poised, threating India with invasion and besides all that the Axis powers were about to take control of the Med., Suez Canal, and the Persian oilfields or so it seems. Imagine the shock to Joseph Stalin, could you blame him for soliciting peace negotiations with the Germans. Historically it was not to be, but how close was it? The clock stands at late 1942 and the Allies, Britain and the USA, stand alone facing a long road back in the Pacific and Far East, not to mention the monumental task of mounting a return to the European continent.

[JerseyJohn]

SeaMonkey

Very interesting premise, I see it more clearly now than I did earlier in this discussion.

There might be a way of representing this in comventional SC.

Russia surrenders to the Axis. Germany is given whatever territory you decide it would have recieved as a consession and the remainder of the USSR is painted neutral!

This, of course, means the USSR can never reenter the war.

I don't know if this can actually be done, but I did notice that the editor allows for hexes to be colored neutral so it's worth a try if anyone is interested. I'll probably give it a shot myself later on.

[SeaMonkey]

I don't know JJ, maybe. I've been fine tuning Sphinx in a couple of PBEMs with SC veterans, but if anyone can do it, its you. Main problem is the ratcheting up of the production(MPPs) figures for the US without giving them a lot initially. I have tried to post the statistics twice now and both got erased, but it is absolutely eye-opening the amount of raw materials the US and UK+ commonwealth had at their disposal. Even considering full USSR production for the Axis the imbalance is significant. In short, I do believe it is no pipe-dream the Allies could have come back and perhaps have kicked butt. In any event it would have made for a good contest and that's what this is all about.

[JerseyJohn]

Thanks SeaMonkey, appreciated. When you have a chance, please send me a copy of Sphinx. You told me about your idea a while back but I didn't know you'd actually laid it out, sounds very interesting.

Good point about U. S. A. production. I think there may be a way of simulating this using SC, with the assumption that the USSR has been beaten, etc...

Assign the line Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkov, Donetz Basin (two mines), Rostov and all points west of that to germany. Draw a solid line of neuatral hexes seperating the Axis from everything lying east of that line so nothing can pass through. Color all resources west of that line U. S. Green, and paint each non-production hex around those U. S. assigned mines, oilwells and cities as neutral hexes.

As there is no neutral nation represented for either side to DoW upon, that line ought to be unpassable. The U. S. would only be able to build or operate air units to the assigned Russian region, which should have no effect upon the game except for the freakish chance that a strategic bomber might be operating east of Moscow somewhere -- and if you've got two human players that can be easily covered in a houserule.

The problem is the assigned resources will probably count as 3 points each instead of 5, but they may still come to a large enough total to be significant. At the very least it ought to boost the U. S. mpp total by sixty or so, bringing it to 240 per turn.

Hope that works. I'll try some experiments along those lines and let you know how it turns out; hope you'll do the same and advise me on your own results.

[SeaMonkey]

Anyone doubting the possibility of a WA return to the continent, needs to digest these figures. These are the percentages of total raw material productions for each nation in 1937. Granted these would be amplified in wartime, but they are relative ratios for the potential output basis. Now the one variable in this equation is the USSR, and how much of its possible production facing extinction would be relevant if its population was used as slave labor to extract and manufacture Axis resources. For simplification I will include iron, copper, lead, tin, zinc, and nickel under "Ores" category. For "Food", wheat, rice and meat. The Axis category will include France & its empire, LC & its empire, Italy, Norway, Greece, Sweden, Yugoslavia, the axis minors, and Japan. The WA=USA and UK and commonwealth.

__________Coal___Oil____Ores____Rubber___Food

WA________57.8___62.4___59.2____52.3_____41.9

USSR______9.3____10.6____4.5______i______14.6

Axis______25.3____5.4___17.2____39.7_____34.4

One note: of the Axis 39.7% rubber production, 33% of that came from Dutch East Indies/Guiana.

The "i" means less that 0.1%