Arden Chatfield
Posts: 6657
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (Ichthyic @ May 27 2007,00:23) | | Quote | | Because this clashed with the typical US belief that 'we saved the universe in WWII', |
ah, I see, in that context, yeah...
though it really IS hard to take the direct military involvement out of the indirect;
the US supplied a huge amount of raw and military aid to britain.
if they hadn't supplied that aid, would Hitler have gone on to invade the UK?
I'd give good odds on that one. |
Probably not. Basically, Germany spent 1940 trying to destroy the RAF in hopes that it would soften up Britain to make an invasion easy. Germany came very close to succeeding, but the Luftwaffe lost so many planes that around late 1940/early 1941, it appears as tho they silently abandoned plans to invade Britain. Keep in mind, Germany only wanted to invade Britain to secure its rear for when they went after Russia, which had always been Hitler's REAL goal. And Hitler didn't want to damage his ability to attack Russia by farting about with Britain, especially if it entailed something as expensive as an invasion across the channel.
Germany probably couldn't have gotten an invasion together for several years, and it looks as tho they never really planned out the military end of it to any serious degree.
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Without really fleshing out ALL the details, if the US had ONLY supplied materials and indirect support, I would tend to agree with Arden that the Russians would have pretty much almost had to take over most of Europe to finally put an end to German ambitions. |
It's pretty clear Russia was set to take over all of Germany's holdings in Europe. But once they captured Germany (and they captured half of it) it would have mostly been easy after that. I doubt seizing France or Denmark would have been a big deal.
| Quote | | and it probably would have taken even LONGER than Arden projects, if I am correct that by the time the Russians got to full steam, the Germans would have taken over England. |
Except that it's my understanding that by the time the US officially entered the war, German plans to invade Britain had basically been shelved.
| Quote | | maybe the Russians might NOT have been able to pull it out entirely; some sort of stalemate might have ensued, with germany owning western scandavia, France, italy (defacto), north africa and the UK, and the Russians consolidating the rest of the territories germany had initially acquired in the late 30's/early 40's. |
I doubt it -- the USSR would definitely have been able to seize all of Germany itself -- it's a straight shot across Poland, after all -- and I have a hard time seeing Germany holding out in their 'colonies', like Norway. Once the Red Army had all of Germany (and the german Army had been pounded by then), what on earth would have kept the USSR out of France?
| Quote | if the US had also decided to entirely drop supply support to avoid antagonizing germany further, Germany might have actually managed to control most of Europe, and whittle a good chunk of Russia away as well.
so while I think the US DID play a pivotal role in the war, I don't think the lack of direct US military involvement would have allowed Germany to bring all of their ambitions to fruition, but it would have been a much longer, even messier war. Without the indirect support... I'd wager Germany would control all of Europe and the UK, to this day, at least. |
I don't quite agree. The Germans' high water mark in Russia was reached in the fall of 1942, before the US had done much to Germany yet. I think the USSR alone would have beaten Germany (as it is, they did 80% of the work). I think England would have been in a weird, marginalized position where they wouldn't have been invaded by anyone, but they would have had to sign some kind of agreement with Stalin after the Red Army got to France. Weird stuff to contemplate.
| Quote | Considering the British Africa campaign (eventually) gained ground and forced back the Africa Korps without the help of the US, it isn't really feasible to say the Red Army would have been on the channel. Closer, yes, but on the border? I don't think so.
Unless you refer to non military involvement by the US, in which case we would have been fucked. |
Yes, that's what I mean. No way could Britain alone have kept Russia out of France. It's hard to say what the Africa campaign could have done to help things, but I can't imagine that Stalin wouldn't have kept right on going all the way to the Bay of Biscay.
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"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus
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