Who Could Have Won WWII?

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Absolutely. Boils my blood when Americans (and others) state the US won the war. They didn't even enter it until December 1941, nearly two years after it commenced, and would have been nearly impossible without the use of Australia as a base.
It is in fact rather insulting to the rest of the world.

Tell it to the Chinese, who had been at war with the Japs since 1937.

As for the US winning the war, well, while the UK probably could have hung on, and probably supported the USSR just enough for it to hang on as well, the reality is that, even as weak as the Germans were (economically speaking), the war would have been much much much longer without the direct involvement of the US ... but the 'allies' would probably have won ... eventually ... think the Napoleonic Wars (1789-1812/15) ... so, 1939-1961 ... or, more likely, the UK would have managed an A Bomb (as they had an actual Atomic program, which the Germans really didn't ... and were on the right track, which the Germans patently weren't) by the late 1940s or early to mid 1950s.

It would have been a much nastier war.

(And, no, it is unlikely that the UK would have been crippled economically any more than she was by the demands of the Napoleonic and earlier World Wars ... historically speaking the Brits have managed to manage the economic side of their wars very well for the last 2-3 centuries at least, including WW1 and WW2)

So, yes, US involvement certainly meant that the war was much shorter, much less nasty (!) and more certain in its outcome, but they were, indeed, an assist rather than the decisive factor.

Of course, I expect US School History Books tell a different story, if they cover WW2 at all. I know Aussie schoolbooks have changed dramatically over my teaching career - when I started teaching in 1977 they covered WW2 in broad worldwide strokes, mentioning Australia peripherally ... when I finished in 2013/4 they covered Australia in New Guinea with peripheral mention of our involvement in Singapore and the Western Desert and even less coverage of the war as a whole.

Phil

[Raellus]

I teach history in an American high school. I make it a point to explain that the U.S.A. did not win WWII on its own, not by a long shot. I show my students how many enemy combatant casualties each of the major allies caused. The Russians destroyed more German divisions and killed/captured more German soldiers than the rest of the Allies combined. I show them how the U.S. could not have participated in the liberation of western Europe without a secure base on Europe's doorstep (i.e. Great Britain). I need to make more of a point of stressing Australia's similar importance in the PTO.

That said, my students also learn that the other Allies could not have won the war without direct U.S. involvement. I show the students production figures from all of the main combatants. I don't need to say much- the numbers tell most of the story. The U.S. out-produced most other combatants combined in ship tonnage (warships and merchant shipping), aircraft, and ammunition. Much of that production went to Great Britain and the U.S.S.R., helping to keep them afloat in their darkest hours. The U.S.A. narrowly beat the Soviets in tank production. The Soviets contributed more manpower than any of the other Allies and they also took far more casualties.

Without USN assistance, the Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Cut off from its global empire by German U-Boats, Great Britain would have been in much worse shape, economically, than it was during the Napoleonic Wars. It's unlikely that they could have carried on the war on their own. The German threat to Egypt wasn't truly eliminated until the U.S. contributed to Allied operations in North Africa. Although it's not impossible, it's highly unlikely that an economically isolated Great Britain could have developed and delivered its own atomic weapons before being forced to sue for peace with the Axis.

Guys, the numbers really don't lie. It was a team effort. As I said before, without any one of the Big Three, and arguably China, the Allies could not have won WWII.

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Without USN assistance, the Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Cut off from its global empire by German U-Boats, Great Britain would have been in much worse shape, economically, than it was during the Napoleonic Wars. It's unlikely that they could have carried on the war on their own. The German threat to Egypt wasn't truly eliminated until the U.S. contributed to Allied operations in North Africa. Although it's not impossible, it's highly unlikely that an economically isolated Great Britain could have developed and delivered its own atomic weapons before being forced to sue for peace with the Axis.

Guys, the numbers really don't lie. It was a team effort. As I said before, without any one of the Big Three, and arguably China, the Allies could not have won WWII.

Could the Germans have won the Battle of the Atlantic?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: They could (and did) do a lot of damage, but even before the US involvement they weren't winning it. In fact, US involvement (and idiots like Adm. King) meant that the Germans actually sank more shipping after the US became involved than before.

The things that put the final nail in the coffin of the U-Boat threat, such as that threat was, was the allocation of about 50 Long Range Bombers to close the Mid-Atlantic gap ... something the UK could have done at any time, if it had been rammed home to them that it was needful. As it was, they figured it out eventually, and did so by themselves.

Could (indeed, would!) the Germans have done more damage if there had been no direct US assistance?

Sure, but they never had the resources to expand their U-Boat fleet enough to keep ahead of their losses and ramp up numbers to the point where, overall, they were winning.

As for North Africa - it was a peripheral theater of no real importance. Rommel had no real chance of doing more than he actually managed - it was just a resource sink that made German efforts on the East Front more difficult (the DAK had the truck-borne logistics element of an entire Army Group, like Army Group Center, for example).

The best the Germans had hoped for was that they could delay an inevitable Allied victory (aka British Commonwealth victory) of materiel superiority ... Rommel was a flash in the pan who dazzled Hitler into committing forces that could have been better used elsewhere.

Phil

[Olefin]

Sorry guys but without the US being involved in the war the Allies lose or best case fight the Germans and Italians to a tie in Europe as Japan takes what it wants in Asia and get the resources she needs to go from just dangerous to very very dangerous - especially considering that there is no way the UK alone had the resources to take on the Italian Fleet, the Germans and the Japanese - and the Soviet navy was a joke

As Churchill said the moment he knew they had won the war was when Hitler declared war on the US - up until then it was a fight for national survival - after that he knew it was just a matter of time.

Keep in mind that what stopped Rommel in the end was the fact that the US entering the war allowed the British to be able to commit troops and resources that they couldn't have otherwise.

As for Australia - yes we needed them as a base as we needed the UK as well - but if the US hadn't entered the war Australia and New Zealand would have had no choice but to evacuate everything they had back home to defend themselves against Japan - take the New Zealanders and the 9th division out of the line for the British in 1942 and Rommel ends up in Cairo and Alexandria, let alone the almost 400 US tanks that got there in time that would never have been shipped if we weren't in the war

Yes we didn't win it on our own - but without us being in it I highly doubt you would have ever seen an Allied victory of any sort where Germany, Italy and Japan surrender - the more likely situation would have been a very long and drawn out war ending with both sides becoming too exhausted to fight any longer and mutually deciding to end it

[Legbreaker]

And the Germans were only in Africa because the Italian "brilliance" of Mussolini. Attacking Egypt in 1940 and failing miserably forced the Germans to help out if only to stop their ally from collapsing. Even then the Italians developed a reputation of surrendering en masse whenever faced with stiff opposition. Of course being issued with obsolescent WWI equipment certainly didn't help their cause...

[Raellus]

You assume that the UK, ON ITS OWN, could have inflicted enough casualties on the German U-Boat fleet to stay ahead of U-Boat production AND keep enough of its own merchant tonnage at sea to support its own domestic needs and defend its global empire. I'd like to see credible numbers to back that assertion. You also assume that the UK's military production could have covered its own losses on land, at sea, and in the air, let alone create a materiel advantage versus the Axis. No, it could not. Production figures back that up. If you look at the correlation of forces, simply based on domestic production during 1939-1945, the Germans were beating the British in most key categories. This also takes into account any curtailment of Axis production caused by Allied strategic bombing operations (which included tens of thousands of U.S. made and/or operated aircraft). Add in the other European Axis powers, and the divide widens. Look at the populations of the UK and the Greater German Reich. Once again, Germany had a significant numerical advantage. I don't think any serious professional historian on either side of the Atlantic would stake his/her reputation on the assertion that the UK could have beaten the Axis, or even just the European Axis Powers, without substantial U.S. assistance.

Second, although North Africa was a peripheral theatre, it was as mush a resource sink for the UK as it was for Germany. Furthermore, if the Germans hadn't had to worry about a possible invasion of western Europe, they would have been free to send more troops and tanks to Rommel. They also could have covered their transportation across the Med with fighters. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that, thus reinforced, the Germans could have defeated the Commonwealth forces in North Africa, thus taking control of the Suez Canal and thereby complicating things even further for the UK.

Anyway, if you believe that the UK could have done it alone, then there's probably nothing I can present that will change your mind.

[Olefin]

The UK by herself basically was able to barely keep herself fed while holding the Germans in the Middle East by the skin of their teeth - and only because Hitler was so busy obsessing about the Soviet Union that he never put the forces that could have won the Middle East for Germany into action in Africa - if you take a look at the history of the fighting in the Middle East in 1941 and mid 42 you see just how close it was for the British - if the New Zealand troops hadn't broken out at Mersa Matruh Rommel might have broken thru at First El Alamein

and the only reason the British didn't get their fleet exterminated in the IO by the Japanese was that they got damn lucky and didn't get spotted - otherwise Nagumo would have put three aircraft carriers and 5 battleships on the bottom of the IO instead of just Hermes and two heavy cruisers and you can pretty much kiss the British fleet outside of Home Waters and the Med goodbye

(now this is fun - been years since I last had a good WWII discussion - where is Roel and RN7 when we need them?)

[RN7]

Not wanting to offend anybody's national honour here about WW2 but I think I would be on the side of those who think that America's contribution was the key element in defeating Germany and Japan. Sometimes wish we had some Russian members on this site, or even better some Germans and Japanese to give their views.

As Raellus has stated American war material production figures were simply staggering, and the US economy was barely affected by the war. It is just impossible to ignore the contribution of the US economy to the Allied victory.

Some points.

Soviet manpower and war production beat the German Army in Europe. Soviet war production matched America in many statistics, although generally not in technology. It has been pointed out that America (and to a lesser extent Britain and Canada) mechanised the Soviet Army through Lend Lease, but the Germans were also far less mechanised than the US and British Army and they devoted the lion share of their land and air forces to fighting the Soviets on the Eastern Front. The concentration of manpower and materials in battles on the Eastern Front were larger than the west after 1940 and until 1945.

Soviet mechanised forces and tactics in China in the late 1930's shocked the Japanese Army so much that Japan never attacked Soviet forces again for the remainder of the Second World War..

The British Empire was vulnerable to disruption by a powerful and determined foe. The British Empire was not industrialised outside of Canada, and contributed manpower and raw materials that were reliant on British shipping to transport it. Also the British-Indian Army raised over 2 million troops in the war but contributed far less than ANZAC, Canadian and South African forces. I don't think the British trusted or rated the Indian Army that highly.

The North African Theatre was only peripheral in material terms compared with the Eastern Front and Western Europe after D-Day. If the Germans had taken Suez then they would have marched into the Middle East with its oil reserves, or the southern Soviet Union with its oil reserves.

British technology greatly contributed to the Allied victory. Britain invented radar and sonar (ASDIC) and remained ahead of the curve in computers and electronics, and they were the only ones even near the Germans in jet engines.

After D-Day statically something like 70% of the Allied divisions in North-West Europe were American, but British armoured divisions were bigger than their American counterparts and the British also had a number of independent armoured brigades that were about half the size of an American armoured divisions but were not counted in the statistics.

The British largely won the Battle of Atlantic despite the later contribution of the US Navy. German tactics and advances in submarine and torpedo technology were consistently countered by British advances in anti-submarine technology.

The Pacific War was won by America, and the fact that it was a sideshow compared to the war in Europe makes it all the more remarkable. Most of America's war effort was directed against Germany and supporting the UK and USSR. Burma, China and New Guinea were important theatres but the war at sea and in the air was won by American military power. After 1941 the Royal Navy disappeared from the Pacific Ocean and no heavy British warships were sent back to the Pacific until 1944.

[Legbreaker]

Macarthur went out of his way to purposely sideline all non-American forces in the Pacific. Any unit which wasn't US Marines or Army, even navy or air force was relegated to containment and clean up duties far behind the front - take Bougainville in 1944-45 for example.

He did that precisely so he could claim America won the war and in particular, HE won it. Always had an eye on self promotion and it would seem (in my opinion at least) was aiming to take a run at US President at some point. Of course his screw up(s) in Korea put paid to that.

[Legbreaker]

Hmm, I think we've completely thread jacked this...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I would dispute that America's contribution to WW2 was the key element in defeating Germany and Japan.
I would argue that the people who really "won" WW2 for us, were the Chinese.

The Chinese held up many thousands of Japanese troops, troops that would have been available to advance Japanese agendas in the Pacific. Troops that would have been free to tie up half the Soviet forces and keep them from being used against Germany.

[LT. Ox]

please start a new and different thread for this rehash and chest pounding.
Several hundred innocent people were murdered by thugs.
Let us remember them and what THAT attack was about and what it might mean perhaps but this is not right.
IMHO
Harry O

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Sorry guys but without the US being involved in the war the Allies lose or best case fight the Germans and Italians to a tie in Europe as Japan takes what it wants in Asia and get the resources she needs to go from just dangerous to very very dangerous

Interesting assumption(s).

The ones that are simply unsupportable on any level you care to name are -

* Japan runs wild in Asia and the US does nothing.

* The Japanese actively ally with the Germans.

Yes, it is, I suppose, possible that the US would not get involved with a European war, but she showed herself willing to push the Japanese to the wire and (from their insane, but consistent, point of view) forced them to attack Pearl Harbour.

The moment that happens, even if the US does a 'Pacific First' or, indeed, a 'Pacific Only', strategy, Japan is doomed and irrelevant.

That single fact makes the possibility of any active Japanese alliance with the German both so unlikely as to be not worth considering, and if they did, it would merely draw the US into the European war ... maybe only as a co-Belligerent rather than as an ally.

The German economy didn't have enough raw materials, and couldn't get them. They simply could. not. get. them. They were either on different continents and couldn't be shipped because the Commonwealth Navies prevented it or they weren't present in the quantities needed in locations the Germans could access ... or they were, possibly, available in significant (but still inadequate) quantities, and ther Germans could, theoretically, have reached those locations but, if they did, there was no way of transporting them from those locations back to where they were actually needed in any quantity.

And, again, the U-Boats never managed to consistently sink enough merchant shipping to overwhelm the Commonwealth and did not have the resources to produce the number of U-Boats and crews to do so in the face of relatively simple and cheap fixes such as the LRB patrols across the mid-Atlantic gap.

I do not say, and never did, that the Commonwealth would have had an easy victory - merely that, as shown by the Napoleonic Wars (and the earlier world wars against the French), a continental power cannot defeat a naval power and, as long as the naval power maintains its blockade and foments rebellion and alliances against said continental power, they will eventually win.

And, gee, economically speaking the Brits always managed to pay down the debt wars that were longer and (relatively) more expensive in terms of GDP than WW2 quite quickly.

Now, you could make a political argument and claim that the Brits couldn't maintain the rage, so to speak, and that they would eventually throw up a Quisling and sue for some sort of peace ... good luck with finding historical examples for that.

Phil

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by RN7

Soviet manpower and war production beat the German Army in Europe. Soviet war production matched America in many statistics, although generally not in technology. I

Interestingly enough, this is the line the old USSR managed to sell the West hook, line and sinker during WW2 and during the following Cold War through to the late 1980s.

If you read more recent economic histories of the Soviet War Effort, especially (of course) by Western economists and historians you will find that it is now widely accepted amongst specialist circles that -

* Lend Lease was the enabler of the Soviet War effort. No ifs, no buts, no ands, no maybes.

* Whole segments of the Soviet War Economy simply produced only a fraction of what the Red Army required, and the bulk was actually provided by the Allies ... and this was in key areas (for example, something like 60% of all explosives produced in the USSR was produced from precursors shipped there from the west ... 100% of Soviet Rolling Stock, Rail and Locomotive requirements during 42-45 were provided by the allies ... most of the telephone wire [and all of the waterproof stuff] for field phones was produced by the allies ... 80% of all Tank Radios were supplied by the Western Allies ... most of the Boots and Uniforms, ditto ... something like half of the field rations ... etc. etc.)

* The manpower that Stalin's incompetence continually wasted was only available because Lend Lease provided all the above ... if it hadn't, assuming that the Soviets could have produced it at all, or in the quantities needed, they would have had to strip men out of the army to do it ... and, indeed, had to do exactly that on at least one occasion (1942?) if not more.

Could the Russians have held on without US Lend Lease? Probably. At much greater cost. Commonwealth LL would probably have been enough to stave off defeat ...

But the few popular histories that actually delve into economic realities are almost all stuck in a pre-1980's time warp and still spout the propaganda that the Sovs sold the West for so long.

Dig deeper and you'll find a different story.

Phil

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by RN7

The British Empire was not industrialised outside of Canada, and contributed manpower and raw materials that were reliant on British shipping to transport it.

Australia had an industrial base as well. Of course, our population in 1939 was, IIRC, around 7 million people.

We had an iron and steel industry and considerable engineering and production plant for a country of our size. We produced Corvettes, Fighter Bombers, Fighters, Tanks almost all of our small arms (Rifles, SMGs, Machineguns etc.) and ammunition.

No, we didn't have the same level of industrialisation as Canada, but that was mostly because of the small population.

The Kiwis, on the other hand, had virtually nothing, and that's still the case ... look at the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Automatic_Rifle

for how hard up they were.

There was also a NZ movie some years ago about a loner in rural NZ during WW2 who refused to hand in his privately owned SMLE when the government confiscated all of them (I don't suppose there could have been more than several hundred all over NZ at the time, certainly not several thousand) because they were so short.

Phil

[RN7]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I would dispute that America's contribution to WW2 was the key element in defeating Germany and Japan.
I would argue that the people who really "won" WW2 for us, were the Chinese.

The Chinese held up many thousands of Japanese troops, troops that would have been available to advance Japanese agendas in the Pacific. Troops that would have been free to tie up half the Soviet forces and keep them from being used against Germany.

I just can't agree with this statement. Germany was by far the most powerful Axis state, and what about the contribution of the Soviets to Allied victory. Also the Soviets didn't have half their army in the Far East for the duration of the war, they only redeployed large forces to Asia after the defeat of Germany.

The Pacific War was a sideshow in WW2 compared with the war in Europe, although it may not have felt that way to those who fought in it. China could barely arm its own army, and it made little headway against Japanese forces who occupied China for the duration of the war. The Japanese Army was also inferior in material, technology and tactics to the German Army, and its largest army in China was simply bulldozed by the Soviets in the last few weeks of the war.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by aspqrz

Interestingly enough, this is the line the old USSR managed to sell the West hook, line and sinker during WW2 and during the following Cold War through to the late 1980s.

On the contrary Western history emphasise the importance of the Anglo-American contribution to defeat of the Axis, and overlooks the importance of the Soviet war effort.

Originally Posted by aspqrz

If you read more recent economic histories of the Soviet War Effort, especially (of course) by Western economists and historians you will find that it is now widely accepted amongst specialist circles that -

* Lend Lease was the enabler of the Soviet War effort. No ifs, no buts, no ands, no maybes.

Yet the United States supplied the Soviet Union with 10,982 million dollars worth of Lend Lease while the British Commonwealth received 31,387 million dollars worth of Lend Lease

Originally Posted by aspqrz

* Whole segments of the Soviet War Economy simply produced only a fraction of what the Red Army required, and the bulk was actually provided by the Allies ... and this was in key areas (for example, something like 60% of all explosives produced in the USSR was produced from precursors shipped there from the west ... 100% of Soviet Rolling Stock, Rail and Locomotive requirements during 42-45 were provided by the allies ... most of the telephone wire [and all of the waterproof stuff] for field phones was produced by the allies ... 80% of all Tank Radios were supplied by the Western Allies ... most of the Boots and Uniforms, ditto ... something like half of the field rations ... etc. etc.)

Yet the Soviets were able to produce 92,595 tanks, 105,251 anti-tank and self-propelled guns, 516,648 artillery and anti-aircraft guns, 403,300 mortars, 1,477,400 machine guns, 197,100 trucks and lorries, 63,087 fighter aircraft, 37,549 ground attack aircraft, 21,116 bomber aircraft, 17,332 transport aircraft, 4,061 training aircraft, 25 destroyers and 52 submarines, and from 1937-1945 produced 9.3% of the world's oil, 10.6% of the world's coal, 14.3% of the world's iron ore, 40.5% of the worlds manganese ore, 15.3% of the world's chrome ore, 24.5% of the world's phosphates, 26.5% of the world's wheat, 22,7% of the world's sugar beet and 15% of the world's meat all by themselves.

Originally Posted by aspqrz

* The manpower that Stalin's incompetence continually wasted was only available because Lend Lease provided all the above ... if it hadn't, assuming that the Soviets could have produced it at all, or in the quantities needed, they would have had to strip men out of the army to do it ... and, indeed, had to do exactly that on at least one occasion (1942?) if not more.

The Soviets unlike the Germans for example (and the Japanese) hadn't got the luxury of employing slave labour to work in its factories and mines, or like the United States who was never physically threatened in WW2 wasn't able to cherry pick its physically most able and healthy manpower for military service.

Originally Posted by aspqrz

*Could the Russians have held on without US Lend Lease? Probably. At much greater cost. Commonwealth LL would probably have been enough to stave off defeat ...

British Lend Lease to the Soviet Union: 7,000 aircraft, 27 warships, 5,218 tanks, 5,000 anti-tank guns, 6,900 vehicles, aircraft engines, radar sets and boots. Useful but a drop in the pan when you consider that the Soviets produced on average 25,000 tanks a year after 1942 (and better armed and armoured than what Britain supplied), 125,000 artillery guns a year on average after 1942, and over 30,000 aircraft a year after 1942.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by aspqrz

Australia had an industrial base as well. Of course, our population in 1939 was, IIRC, around 7 million people.

We had an iron and steel industry and considerable engineering and production plant for a country of our size. We produced Corvettes, Fighter Bombers, Fighters, Tanks almost all of our small arms (Rifles, SMGs, Machineguns etc.) and ammunition.

No, we didn't have the same level of industrialisation as Canada, but that was mostly because of the small population.

The Kiwis, on the other hand, had virtually nothing, and that's still the case ... look at the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Automatic_Rifle

for how hard up they were.

There was also a NZ movie some years ago about a loner in rural NZ during WW2 who refused to hand in his privately owned SMLE when the government confiscated all of them (I don't suppose there could have been more than several hundred all over NZ at the time, certainly not several thousand) because they were so short.

Phil

Australia was essentially an agricultural and mining economy in the Second World War with some small scale engineering and metal processing in its cities in the southeast strip. It still is today to a large extent. Australia did produce war material (Sentinel tanks, scout cars, rifles, training aircraft, 16 escorts) but most if it never left Australia. Practically all of its combat aircraft, warships and tanks and artillery were supplied by Britain and America.

[Raellus]

I'll say it a third time, the Allies would not have defeated the Axis Powers without any one of the Big Three, and possibly China.

The numbers don't lie. Simply looking at war production figures, the Commonwealth did not, and almost certainly could not, out-produce the Axis. GB could not have produced enough to cover it's own losses AND supply the Soviet Union. The Soviet mechanized offensives of 1943-'45 would not have been possible without American-made trucks, tractors, and armored vehicles. Without the USN, GB did not stand any chance at regaining it's empire in Asia. The Coral Sea battle and the Guadalcanal campaign (land and sea) quite possibly saved Australia from a Japanese invasion.

A lot of the arguments that the Commonwealth could have won the war without direct American involvement smacks of fantasist jingoism. It's one thing to not like America- fair play, there- but it's another to assert that it did not play a crucial role in the Allied victory.

As an aside, I will agree that MacArthur was a total ass-hat. He and Montgomery are two of the most overrated senior generals of the Western allies. Both were egomaniacs and, at best, average field commanders. If they hadn't been such great self-promoters with allies in the press, it's hard to see how either could have risen as high as they need. It's debatable as to who was worse, but if I had to pick one of them for my team, I'd probably go with Monty. I can't think of one redeeming quality of MacArthur. The only good thing he did in his career was supervise the occupation and rebuilding of Japan. Everything else, before and after WWII, is a study in mediocrity.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by aspqrz

(And, no, it is unlikely that the UK would have been crippled economically any more than she was by the demands of the Napoleonic and earlier World Wars ... historically speaking the Brits have managed to manage the economic side of their wars very well for the last 2-3 centuries at least, including WW1 and WW2)

And what of the Luftwaffe bombing campaign or the later V-2 rocket attacks on the UK?

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'll say it a third time, the Allies would not have defeated the Axis Powers without any one of the Big Three, and possibly China.

The numbers don't lie. Simply looking at war production figures, the Commonwealth did not, and almost certainly could not, out-produce the Axis. GB could not have produced enough to cover it's own losses AND supply the Soviet Union. The Soviet mechanized offensives of 1943-'45 would not have been possible without American-made trucks, tractors, and armored vehicles. Without the USN, GB did not stand any chance at regaining it's empire in Asia. The Coral Sea battle and the Guadalcanal campaign (land and sea) quite possibly saved Australia from a Japanese invasion.

A lot of the arguments that the Commonwealth could have won the war without direct American involvement smacks of fantasist jingoism. It's one thing to not like America- fair play, there- but it's another to assert that it did not play a crucial role in the Allied victory.

As an aside, I will agree that MacArthur was a total ass-hat. He and Montgomery are two of the most overrated senior generals of the Western allies. Both were egomaniacs and, at best, average field commanders. If they hadn't been such great self-promoters with allies in the press, it's hard to see how either could have risen as high as they need. It's debatable as to who was worse, but if I had to pick one of them for my team, I'd probably go with Monty. I can't think of one redeeming quality of MacArthur. The only good thing he did in his career was supervise the occupation and rebuilding of Japan. Everything else, before and after WWII, is a study in mediocrity.

Both of them had their total screw-ups for sure

Monty had Arnhem and letting Rommel get away and prolong the war in Africa by at least four months

MacArthur let his air force get caught on the ground in Luzon (but even if he hadnt I doubt it would have changed things much) and managed to totally screw up getting Bataan supplied correctly (that was criminal in my mind - he had almost three weeks to get food, ammo and fuel there and didnt do the job at all - properly supplied they might have held out even longer then they did and hurt the Japanese even more)

As for the Chinese - look at what happened in 44-45 to them - the Japanese are completely getting their heads handed to them in the Central and Southwest Pacific and the Chinese lose a huge chunk of China, including a lot of important US Army Air Force bases, to a Japanese offensive - yes they occupied a lot of Army troops - but frankly they were a bigger hindrance than help

As for the Soviets - keep in mind that without the US going to a war footing as to production the Soviets may not have survived the 1942 German offensive - that it took a total screw up on Hitler's part (i.e. ordering the 6th to directly assault Stalingrad and get chewed up in city fighting along with the wheel south that cost the Germans time to bag what turned out to be only about 40,000 Russians) and a lot of American supplies to give them a fighting chance to stop that offensive

once they got thru 1942 and into 43 they had the ability to turn the game around - but it was US and British help that let them do it

And keep in mind that the Japanese made a huge mistake attacking the US at all - there was very little enthusiasm for going to war over the Dutch East Indies or Malaya - a Japanese attack without hitting the US may very well have seen Roosevelt unable to get a declaration of war thru Congress

remember how anti-war the US was - the draft vote that took place after Hitler invaded Russia passed by one vote

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by RN7

I just can't agree with this statement. Germany was by far the most powerful Axis state, and what about the contribution of the Soviets to Allied victory. Also the Soviets didn't have half their army in the Far East for the duration of the war, they only redeployed large forces to Asia after the defeat of Germany.

The Pacific War was a sideshow in WW2 compared with the war in Europe, although it may not have felt that way to those who fought in it. China could barely arm its own army, and it made little headway against Japanese forces who occupied China for the duration of the war. The Japanese Army was also inferior in material, technology and tactics to the German Army, and its largest army in China was simply bulldozed by the Soviets in the last few weeks of the war.

A sideshow that diverted hundreds of ships, thousands of aircraft and tens of thousands of troops away from the ETO with the Chinese resisting the Japanese for eight years suffering something in the order of 10-20 million casualties. When you decide to kill off that many people, it takes a fair bit of your time and your troops to do it.

That Soviet army that bulldozed the Japanese forces in China, the one that had benefited from all those years of fighting the Germans, what did they face? The remnants of a nation on the edge of surrender. And as for half the Soviet army, I never said that half the Soviet army was deployed in Asia. What I said was "Troops that would have been free to tie up half the Soviet forces and keep them from being used against Germany.", it was a generalized statement meaning that the Soviets would have had another Front to fight on.

That poor little Chinese army managed to hold the Japanese up to the point where they both faced stalemate but in the process the Japanese invasion of China held up something like 4 million Japanese personnel. Four million.

The war in Asia began two years before the war in Europe but we're all taught that WW2 didn't start until the Germans invaded Poland.
The fact remains that if the Japanese had been able to overrun China and get to the borders of the Soviet Union in sufficient numbers, the Soviets would have had to divert troops away from the ETO.
The Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation helped to prevent that.
The vast majority of what we are taught about the war in the English speaking world is decidedly Euro- and Americano-centric with even historians paying scant attention to much of the war in Asia and specifically the Japanese campaigns against other Asian nations - as if whatever happened between Asians wasn't really important to anyone or anything.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

A sideshow that diverted hundreds of ships, thousands of aircraft and tens of thousands of troops away from the ETO with the Chinese resisting the Japanese for eight years suffering something in the order of 10-20 million casualties. When you decide to kill off that many people, it takes a fair bit of your time and your troops to do it.

You just cannot compare the level of warfare in Asia with that in Europe. In every statistic involving manpower, material and casualties the war in Europe was far bigger excluding the use of aircraft carriers and the use of atomic bombs. Chinese military deaths in WW2 were 3-3.75 million,. This figure is less than German military losses and perhaps one third of Soviet military losses.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

That Soviet army that bulldozed the Japanese forces in China, the one that had benefited from all those years of fighting the Germans, what did they face? The remnants of a nation on the edge of surrender. And as for half the Soviet army, I never said that half the Soviet army was deployed in Asia. What I said was "Troops that would have been free to tie up half the Soviet forces and keep them from being used against Germany.", it was a generalized statement meaning that the Soviets would have had another Front to fight on.

The Soviet Army beat the Japanese Army at Khalkhin Gol in Manchuria in 1939 with far inferior material than what they had in 1945. As a result of this battle the Japanese signed a neutrality pact with the USSR in April 1941 and the Japanese Army lost their influence over war planning to the Japanese Navy who favoured a Pacific War against the Western powers. The Japanese Army in China was and remained the most powerful of Japan's armies for the duration of the war. Chinese forces did not and were not capable of defeating it for the duration of the Second World War. The Soviets returned to Manchuria in 1945 after the Atomic bombing of Japan and they did the same again to the Japanese Army that they did in 1939 but on a much larger scale.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

That poor little Chinese army managed to hold the Japanese up to the point where they both faced stalemate but in the process the Japanese invasion of China held up something like 4 million Japanese personnel. Four million.

The Chinese Army was actually bigger on paper than the Japanese Army so I presume that the four million figure includes the total of Japanese troops who were in China from 1937-45 and not at the one time. The Chinese Army was also chronically short of all war material and weapons, had more in common with a 19th Century army than a 20th Century one, and rarely defeated the Japanese. This is some feat considering the Japanese Army was woefully under-armed and un-mechanised compared with Allied, Soviet and German forces. The fact that the Japanese Army remained intact for so long was probably largely due to the fact that the Chinese were its main opponents outside of Allied island hopping in the Pacific were logistics and terrain restricted the Allies from using modern mechanised warfare against the Japanese. The Soviet did in 1945 and guess what happened.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The war in Asia began two years before the war in Europe but we're all taught that WW2 didn't start until the Germans invaded Poland.
The fact remains that if the Japanese had been able to overrun China and get to the borders of the Soviet Union in sufficient numbers, the Soviets would have had to divert troops away from the ETO.
The Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation helped to prevent that.
The vast majority of what we are taught about the war in the English speaking world is decidedly Euro- and Americano-centric with even historians paying scant attention to much of the war in Asia and specifically the Japanese campaigns against other Asian nations - as if whatever happened between Asians wasn't really important to anyone or anything.

That would be after 1941 for America and the Soviet Union.

Also the Soviets were fighting the Japanese in China/Manchuria from 1935,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet...rder_conflicts

Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviets in 1939 and by and large observed it as they did not want to go to war with the Soviets even after the Germans invaded.

Every country has their own interpretation of history.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Who said anything about comparing the level of warfare in Asia to that in Europe?
It's blatantly obvious that a war in Asia with it's tropical climate, vast tracts of ocean with many scattered small land masses is going to be radically different to a war in the densely urbanized, temperate climate, singular land mass of Europe.

To relegate the war in the Pacific as nothing but a sideshow to the war in Europe ignores the strategic impact that the PTO had and further to that, it belittles or worse, denies, the strategic impact it had.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Who said anything about comparing the level of warfare in Asia to that in Europe?
It's blatantly obvious that a war in Asia with it's tropical climate, vast tracts of ocean with many scattered small land masses is going to be radically different to a war in the densely urbanized, temperate climate, singular land mass of Europe.

To relegate the war in the Pacific as nothing but a sideshow to the war in Europe ignores the strategic impact that the PTO had and further to that, it belittles or worse, denies, the strategic impact it had.

The war in Asia not the countries were a sideshow to the warfare in Europe were the dominant Axis threat was.

Offline for a week Good luck

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by RN7

The war in Asia not the countries were a sideshow to the warfare in Europe were the dominant Axis threat

Tell that to the millions of people from many, many nations who fought and died there. To imply it was nothing but a "sideshow" is downright insulting!

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by RN7

The war in Asia not the countries were a sideshow to the warfare in Europe were the dominant Axis threat was.

Threat to who? I don't understand this argument. It can only be valid from a very Eurocentric point of view.

Granted, the Japanese didn't ever really pose a serious threat to CONUS, but, without the USN to hold (and then push) them back, the rest of the Pacific world was in serious danger of Japanese conquest and domination. I'm that a vast majority of the billions of people in Asia would strenuously disagree with your "sideshow" assessment.

-

[aspqrz]

And you miss the point entirely.

The USSR was able to produce as much of pretty much anything it actually did produce because they didn't have to produce a lot of the stuff that the Allies provided to them. They could survive Butcher Stalin's squandering of their manpower and still field massive armies because they didn't have to have as many factory workers as they would have required without Lend Lease.

It is widely understood by specialists (and, afaict, never mentioned in non-specialist works) that Soviet Industry was wildly inefficient compared to Western Industry and that the fact that they were supplied by Lend Lease meant they could comb out far more now redundant workers than the Lend Lease supplies actually represented.

The fact that they produced a lot of stuff is ... nice ... but irrelevant.

And a lot of what they produced was, compared to allied stuff, crap ... they had to produce a lot of it because it wore out, broke down, or was unserviceable most of the time.

Allied Tanks, for example, were operational around 80% of the time. Russian Tanks? About 30-40%. So the Russians had to field twice as many tanks as an Allied Force to simply have the same number operational.

Russian tanks wore out faster, too. T-34s typically went into battle with extra Transmissions loaded on their back deck because they were so unreliable and the MTBF of a T-34 was around 100 hours, or 250 klicks, before it required a major rebuild ... and after another 100 hours or 250 klicks it was more often than not uneconomic to repair.

A lot of Russian equipment was like that ... so if they produced a lot of it, that is not an indicator of the actual value of the stuff, or even how much of it was usable or survived the war.

Phil

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by RN7

Australia was essentially an agricultural and mining economy in the Second World War with some small scale engineering and metal processing in its cities in the southeast strip. It still is today to a large extent. Australia did produce war material (Sentinel tanks, scout cars, rifles, training aircraft, 16 escorts) but most if it never left Australia. Practically all of its combat aircraft, warships and tanks and artillery were supplied by Britain and America.

SMGs, Machineguns, Mortars, 25 pdr artillery. Ammunition and Artillery rounds.

Oh, and sixty Bathurst class Corvettes alone were built in Australia. Six Tribal Class Destroyers were built in Australia.

And we built RR Aero engines for a variety of, yes, imported aircraft.

However, we built around 700 Beauforts locally, too, around 400 Beaufighters, 700 odd Wirraway Trainers, 250 Boomerang Fighters etc.

Yes, not much in the greater scheme of things, but much more than most people, even most Australians, realise!

And rather more than you claimed.

Phil

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'll say it a third time ... [snip] ... A lot of the arguments that the Commonwealth could have won the war without direct American involvement smacks of fantasist jingoism.

And I'll say it again, too. There is nothing fantasist about it.

The Germans had no way of defeating the Commonwealth ... no, their U-Boat Campaign didn't ever manage it, either, and it is wishful thinking to believe it could have ... the Commonwealth could not easily have defeated the Germans, either, however, as I noted, on a historical basis, the UK has taken on powers as strong as she is/was and defeated them even if it took decades.

And the UK had an Atomic Weapons program and the werewithal to, slowly, bring it to fruition ... the Germans had none, and even their pathetic nuclear power programs were working the wrong direction.

Would a Commonwealth/Russian victory have been quick? No. Would it have been easy? Hell no! But there is no evidence that the Germans could have won, and the Commonwealth have that historical track record of sticking to it!

YMMV.

Phil