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Assume the US had a good reason to be antagonistic towards the USSR during the 1930s, e.g., because Stalin supported a communist insurrection against Roosevelt, resulting in terror bombs detonating in Washington, DC. The US government becomes borderline Fascistic-- American Fascists still have to earn their votes-- and signs mutual defense treaties with Fascist governments in Europe.

1939: the USSR invades Poland, a Fascist-- NOT Nazi-- Germany declares war on the USSR, the US declares war on the USSR due to its obligations under the German-American mutual defense treaty. Can such an alliance beat Stalin?

Yup. The Red Army will be badly handcapped compared to OTL by the lack of American aid, and American military might coupled with Lend-Lease for Germany will spell defeat for Russia.

This is going to be very one sided indeed. Not only will the war machine of the US tip the balance by eliminating the west front and supporting the Germans at Leningrad and Stalingrad, they will also eventually obtain nukes.

Game over.

Ha, while you're rewriting history better have Russia ally with Japan instead of Germany so that this is a little less one-sided (i.e. drawn out).

The biggest difference is that Pat Buchanan wouldn't have that scowl on his face all the time.

Lord Zentei wrote:This is going to be very one sided indeed. Not only will the war machine of the US tip the balance by eliminating the west front and supporting the Germans at Leningrad and Stalingrad, they will also eventually obtain nukes.

Game over.

How big an advantage did the US have over the USSR, in terms of human and material resources available, and industrial capacity? Is it really as overwhelming as you say?

Sidewinder wrote:

Lord Zentei wrote:This is going to be very one sided indeed. Not only will the war machine of the US tip the balance by eliminating the west front and supporting the Germans at Leningrad and Stalingrad, they will also eventually obtain nukes.

Game over.

How big an advantage did the US have over the USSR, in terms of human and material resources available, and industrial capacity? Is it really as overwhelming as you say?

No, not really.

But this board is full of americans so that doesn't matter. The t-34 sucked and russian soldiers were shitty too, the sherman was superior to anything the russians could build, the germans didn't worry about it at all, but the sherman. Oh man they were terrified of that!

But it really is a pretty one sided match up, the suggestion of letting russia side with Japan might make it a bit more fair.

You're kidding right? The US had as much, if not more, industrial warmaking potential, during WWII, as the rest of the planet combined.

Starglider wrote:Ha, while you're rewriting history better have Russia ally with Japan instead of Germany so that this is a little less one-sided (i.e. drawn out).

If the US signs a mutual defense agreement with China under Chiang Kai-shek BEFORE 1937, this may convince the Japanese to declare neutrality in a US-German-Chinese smackdown against the Soviets, as well as sparing us the Rape of Nanking.

Resinence wrote:How big an advantage did the US have over the USSR, in terms of human and material resources available, and industrial capacity? Is it really as overwhelming as you say?

No, not really.

But this board is full of americans so that doesn't matter. The t-34 sucked and russian soldiers were shitty too, the sherman was superior to anything the russians could build, the germans didn't worry about it at all, but the sherman. Oh man they were terrified of that!

But it really is a pretty one sided match up, the suggestion of letting russia side with Japan might make it a bit more fair.

The US did have a pretty significant industrial advantage over the USSR at the time of WW2. It really is as significant as all but the most absurd people claim. And as much as the US produced historically, we actually had a lot more room left for war production than anyone else.

Manpower-wise, and especially military manpower-wise, we don't really come close to the USSR. They definitely had the advantage there. But that matters some what less than you'd first think because the Red Army chewed through men pretty badly as it was; in this scenario it stands to be worse. So it will matter, and matter a great deal, but probably not decisively.

As for the Sherman, it was a damn good tank for the job we wanted it for. It was not the best anti-tank tank but most of the fighting was never tank on tank, it was tank supporting infantry. And the plentiful Shermans were a blessing there and did good work. It was also a lot more amiable to shipping, had we tried producing a heavier tank in the same quantities (and we could) then it would have had a major affect on logistics from requiring much heavier landing craft to using more strategic materials in the logistical train. That was a major factor when the US and the Allies often had to ship stuff and land it on a beach rather than railroading it to the front.

I'd add as a last point, the T-34 was a good tank but it won it's spurs against earlier German tanks. Later on it had some of the same difficulties as the Sherman when confronting the late-model panzers.

Sidewinder wrote:

Lord Zentei wrote:This is going to be very one sided indeed. Not only will the war machine of the US tip the balance by eliminating the west front and supporting the Germans at Leningrad and Stalingrad, they will also eventually obtain nukes.

Game over.

How big an advantage did the US have over the USSR, in terms of human and material resources available, and industrial capacity? Is it really as overwhelming as you say?

American Lend-Lease supplied the following (albeit over the course of the entire war, rather than all at once):
80% of all canned meat.
92% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
57% of all aviation fuel.
53% of all explosives.
74% of all truck transport.
88% of all radio equipment.
53% of all copper.
56% of all aluminum.
60% of all automotive fuel.
74% of all vehicle tires.
12% of all armored vehicles.
14% of all combat aircraft.

I'd say that amounts to a fairly significant production advantage. Russia will have a gross shortage of transport, radio equipment, fuel, and food.

Marshal Zhukov believed that without the Lend-Lease supplies, particularly gunpowder and motor transports to haul artillery, the Russian front would have collapsed against the Nazis. Without those supplies, and with the addition of American forces, the situation would be far worse.

G. Zhukov, 1963 wrote:It is now said that the Allies never helped us...However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance.

Lets not just consider how fucked the Russians would be, but everyone else as well. Canada would have to withdraw the vast majority of their troops to back home, and without the Americans as well (or perhaps with them fortified on the beach), D-Day would have never happened, meaning France wound not have been liberated, and leaving the door open for the Germans to take a beachhead in Briton, the majority of the forces that liberated Italy were American, if I'm not mistaken, and is noted above, the American war production was immense.

Braedley wrote:Lets not just consider how fucked the Russians would be, but everyone else as well. Canada would have to withdraw the vast majority of their troops to back home, and without the Americans as well (or perhaps with them fortified on the beach), D-Day would have never happened, meaning France wound not have been liberated, and leaving the door open for the Germans to take a beachhead in Briton, the majority of the forces that liberated Italy were American, if I'm not mistaken, and is noted above, the American war production was immense.

In the scenario outlined in the OP, it was the USSR that invaded Poland, not the Germans.
So if the UK committed itself to defending the Poles, it'd be joining the US/German axis.

Oops

Yeah, disregard that last post.

The war might well be over before American troops hit the ground in significant numbers, although American industrial production will certainly be critical. With the USSR invading Poland, the British will jump in alongside the Germans, and thus France and the Commonwealth with follow. Germany is already heavily mobilized, and France and Britain and Her Empire will be ready for action in relatively short order. Minor European states like Romania, Bulgaria, et al. will probably join in as well, but their contributions will be smaller.

In contrast, the USSR's military in 1939 is in the worst position it could possibly be in, with the purges still going on. Their performance on all fronts is likely to be roughly analogous to that of the Winter War, meaning total shit. The T-34 and KV tanks are not yet in production, meaning the vaunted Red Armor will be limited to BT-7s and T-26s and -28s (ick). The German army will make quickly progress, linking up with Polish forces and reversing any gains that the Soviets have made in short order, before proceeding into Soviet territory.

What month in 1939 the war begins affects how far the Germans will be able to get. In Autumn Russia has a period of heavy rains that will stall all military action, followed by harsh winter, which is then followed by a thaw that once again swamps the whole country. Depending on how long they have to work with, the Germans might get to Minsk and Kiev, or they might penetrate well into Russia proper.

During the a long operational pause between the Autumn rasputitsa and the end of the Spring rasputitsa, British and French troops will join the Germans on the front. Russian forces will take this opportunity to reorganize and reequip, but there's a limit on how much progress they can make, and in this time-line the Russo-Japanese nonaggression pact is non-existent so they still have to keep quite large forces in Mongolia and the Far Eastern provinces. The Germans, British, and French will also have American industrial backing, allowing them to mobilize faster and more effectively. When operations begin again in Spring 1940 they Soviets will likely be outnumbered and certainly be outclassed. The allies will probably knock them out altogether in 1940.

If by some miracle the USSR survives through 1940, then by the time offensive operations can begin again in Spring 1941, American troops in huge numbers will be hitting the front, meaning no possibility of Soviet survival past 1941. The good news is that, with America decisively in the war, fully mobilized, and ready to dispense some fierce beat-down, Hitler will be stymied. The allies will use this position of strength to lock him in the borders he attained after the creation of Slovakia, and he won't have any choice but to acquiesce. The allies will probably try to "de-Stalinize" the USSR, with results I can't begin to estimate.

America will probably also give any Japanese offers of help short shrift, being as the stuff that pissed off the USA in OTL (invasion of China) is still going on, and this new, confrontational US foreign policy will likely extend to Japan as well. America might well follow the Soviet War up with a curbstomping of Japan.

With American capitalism behind the Third Reich and other European countries, the German military would end up a lot more motorized, they would not be cut off from US/UK oil supplies and with vastly superior logistics the invasion of Russia would be much more tenable (although the inherent viciousness of the Nazis could lose them the peace which is why I voted "negotiated victory").

And the big winner is. . .Finland!

The production power of the United States tips the scales pretty quickly...

Then yes, Finland wins.