Mr Bean wrote:Ok, so we have the British Airforce, it's tank cruiser forces(Crusaders, Valantine's Matildia's, Churchill's) and assuming the french get off their ass we MIGHT see an upgunned Soma and Char-1B. The french infantry is just fine and I do think the Germans could use them to great effect in securing their rear from paritsans.
Char B1's a dead end, since the main gun's hull-mounted. The SOMUA S-35 could do with some upgunning, which wouldn't be too difficult. Hotchkiss H-35 would be a decent scout tank, with better armor and weaponry than the Panzer II. The AMC series tanks would also have been quite useful, with a comparable top speed to the Panzers, heavier guns than other tanks of the same time period (and potential to up-gun), and the 3-man crew that was superior to the typical French 2-man crew.
The Brits would additionally have the Centaurs if they were willing to use them - essentially the Cromwell equipped with a Liberty engine, produced when Meteor engines were insufficient in number. This would give the British a 75mm cannon in a cruiser tank.
Meanwhile the Germans are of course going in there with Tigers, Maruader's Panzer III/IV's. Some of the best tank and tank destroyers of the world.
The Germans have a tank advantage in 1942(Late) with the Tigers up aginst KV1's and T-34's(Both of which stomp the earily British/Frence tanks) but are even matches or lose to the German armor.
Very late. Tiger wasn't produced until August 1942 (and even then less than 1 per day), and transporting them to the front would mean they'd arrive around the beginning of winter. Tiger won't be on campaign until Spring 1943, by which time there will be around 150 of them (early production was roughly 25 per month). Panther wouldn't be available either, since the prototype wasn't finished until September 1942, and the tooling for production lines was problematic. The best German tank available at this point will be the PzKpfw IV with the 75mm L/43 cannon.
The biggest thing is how many divisions of it's British and Frence allies the Germans can chuch at the Russians, combined with the airpower(Make no mistake, the new "allies" will control the air since the Germans squandared most of their planes on the Eastern front bombing Britian). So basicly your looking at what the allies did to Germany in 1944 airforce wise when four nation's airforces were fighting just one countries airforce.
The Western forces would have total air domination. The Soviets wouldn't have the 11,000 fighters supplied by the US and UK. Their fighters in 1942 would be the LaGG-3, MiG-1 and MiG-3, Yak-1, and a handful of La-5. They were the basis for very good fighters, but only the MiG-3 and La-5 are fully developed fighters. The LaGG was underpowered, the MiG-1 only maneuverable at high altitude, and the Yak underpowered, prone to overheating, overweight, geared toward high altitude combat, and with some nasty quality control problems.
Other things to consider, will the Britis keep building super-heavy slow underguned tanks or start building some British Tigers, or hell Panthers like they built American shermans?
The Brits were already transitioning to the cruiser tank. Infantry tanks and TOG series were in case of a reversion to trench warfare. I'd anticipate large numbers of Cromwells.