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Straha wrote:B. Germany has no possible concieveable way to beat Russia, ever. Russia has more men, more resources, a driven ruler, and un-touchable infrastructure in the east. Plus they can use all that extra land to just eat up German troops, wait for the winter, and roll right over them every year until Germany just can't fight any more.
PLus if your scenario from refuted point A. is right Germany would have concentrated on Britain, and not on Russia (for you guys who always want a source see John Keegan's WWII history book) and Barbarossa wouldn't have taken place for quite a few years, allowing for the effects of the Purge to be somewhat reduced and for Russia to fight back effectivley in the early days in case of attack.

Complete victory, no. Not a chance in hell.

However, one can envision certain strategies where they might have been able to negotiate a peace from a postition of strength, and thus consolidate and retain the gains they made in the early part of the war. If the Germans had played their cards right, and exploited the anti-communist sentiment in territories they conquered, especially the Ukraine, instead of treating them like subhumans; if the Germans had not wasted so many valuable resources on the stupidity of the holocaust, tying up huge amounts of railroad and other logistical assets; if the Germans had put their economy on a total war footing prior to 1943; and perhaps if the Germans had committed more resources to North Africa, with the ultimate goal of securing Middle Eastern oil fields; and of course, if Hitler hadn't kept interfering with the running of the war and making huge military blunders, it just might be possible that the Germans could have lasted long enough, and inflicted enough damage to make the Russians willing to negotiate a peace.

How possible this is, I couldn't say. But once Germany started a war with a Soviets, a limited victory of this sort is the only one they would have had any conceivable chance of achieving.

Just to provide some quotes and numbers about America's aid to the USSR, here's Georgi Zhukov:

Marshal Zhukov 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

And another quote:

Marshal Zhukov wrote:First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that
respect the English helped us minimally...We would have been in a
serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' [sic], we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided ourfront transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries

Some numbers:

America provided the following percentages of Russian supplies through the course of the war:
80% of all canned meat.
30% of all sugar.
93% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
59% of all aviation fuel.
53% of all explosives.
74% of all truck transport. (note: the number supplied by the Americans to the Russians exceeds the number built by the Germans)
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.

and a few absolute numbers:
5.5 million combat boots
23 million yards of cloth for uniforms
56,500 field telephones
245,000 wireless radios
1,000 locomotives
250,000 tons of steel rail
520 ships
1,111 20mm naval guns
1.2 million tons of steel (enough to make 40,000 T-34s)
217,000 tons copper
134,000 tons aluminum
48,000 tons lead
42,000 tons zinc
29,000 tons tin
6,500 tons nickel
103,000 tons rubber
4.5 million tons food (including 12,000 tons butter)

Total value (1994 $US): $131 billion

Miscellaneous numbers relating to the war:
75% of all 88mm anti-tank guns were devoted to anti-aircraft duty, rather than destroying T-34s.
55,000 AT guns in total were used as AA cannon.
35% of Germany's armor was never produced due to British/American bombing
31% of Germany's aircraft were not produced for the same reason
40% of Germany's trucks fall into the same category
During Koniev's Berlin offensive, 5 out of every 6 trucks were American
3 of Russia's top 5 aces primarily flew the P-39 Airacobra, of which 4500 were supplied to the USSR

A good way to envision the difference would be to roughly double the size of every German unit on the Eastern Front.

Ummm, the "88" was an anti-aircraft gun that was employed as an anti-tank gun, not the other way around, just so you know.

Carry on.

The Dark wrote:Some numbers:
snip long list of statistics
12% of all armored vehicles.
14% of all combat aircraft.

Percentage figures are misleading because they are distorted by the Russian response to the shipments: they reduced production of these things supplied by lend-lease. If the USA had not done lend-lease, the Russians would still have had trucks and tires etc--they would have just had fewer of them, and less industrial capacity left over for tanks and planes.

and a few absolute numbers:
5.5 million combat boots
23 million yards of cloth for uniforms
56,500 field telephones
245,000 wireless radios
1,000 locomotives
250,000 tons of steel rail
520 ships
1,111 20mm naval guns
1.2 million tons of steel (enough to make 40,000 T-34s)
217,000 tons copper
134,000 tons aluminum
48,000 tons lead
42,000 tons zinc
29,000 tons tin
6,500 tons nickel
103,000 tons rubber
4.5 million tons food (including 12,000 tons butter)

These things were vital, yes, but their removal is not truly crippling to the USSR's war effort. Picking one of these resources which I can get some semblence of accuracy for, the USSR produced probably more than 40 million tons of steel during the war.

Miscellaneous numbers relating to the war:
75% of all 88mm anti-tank guns were devoted to anti-aircraft duty, rather than destroying T-34s.

Eh, if Germany hadn't had to face the American bombing offensive, they would have either funneled the materials and funds into production of more directly combat effective goods (increasing their numbers but not really enough to make a huge difference against the USSR) or perhaps they would have squandered it in their grossly inefficient refusal to totally commit their economy.

55,000 AT guns in total were used as AA cannon.

Does this number include smaller AAA which were of questionable ground combat utility?

35% of Germany's armor was never produced due to British/American bombing
31% of Germany's aircraft were not produced for the same reason
40% of Germany's trucks fall into the same category
During Koniev's Berlin offensive, 5 out of every 6 trucks were American
3 of Russia's top 5 aces primarily flew the P-39 Airacobra, of which 4500 were supplied to the USSR

A good way to envision the difference would be to roughly double the size of every German unit on the Eastern Front.

Not to dispute your figures, but may I ask what your source is?

Perinquus wrote:

Straha wrote:B. Germany has no possible concieveable way to beat Russia, ever. Russia has more men, more resources, a driven ruler, and un-touchable infrastructure in the east. Plus they can use all that extra land to just eat up German troops, wait for the winter, and roll right over them every year until Germany just can't fight any more.
PLus if your scenario from refuted point A. is right Germany would have concentrated on Britain, and not on Russia (for you guys who always want a source see John Keegan's WWII history book) and Barbarossa wouldn't have taken place for quite a few years, allowing for the effects of the Purge to be somewhat reduced and for Russia to fight back effectivley in the early days in case of attack.

Complete victory, no. Not a chance in hell.

However, one can envision certain strategies where they might have been able to negotiate a peace from a postition of strength, and thus consolidate and retain the gains they made in the early part of the war. If the Germans had played their cards right, and exploited the anti-communist sentiment in territories they conquered, especially the Ukraine, instead of treating them like subhumans; if the Germans had not wasted so many valuable resources on the stupidity of the holocaust, tying up huge amounts of railroad and other logistical assets; if the Germans had put their economy on a total war footing prior to 1943; and perhaps if the Germans had committed more resources to North Africa, with the ultimate goal of securing Middle Eastern oil fields; and of course, if Hitler hadn't kept interfering with the running of the war and making huge military blunders, it just might be possible that the Germans could have lasted long enough, and inflicted enough damage to make the Russians willing to negotiate a peace.

Yeah, but then Hitler wouldn't have been Hitler, and WWII wouldn't be WWII, and in fact probably never would have taken place. In order to do that scenario you have to rewrite whole decades of history prior, and that can't be done. The only plausible Short term Hitler Victory scenario is if Stalin had been killed and a triumvirate had taken over and then party politics took place, other then that no victory for USSR.

Darth Yoshi wrote:How far along was the British nuke program? Because I remember that the German nuke program was nearing completion when the US dropped Little Boy and Fatman. If the Germans completed their nuke program, the V2 would have devastated the Allies.

The German program was basically stuck where it was in 1938 when Hahn and Strassmann discovered fission. Besides chasing most of Europe's nuclear scientists away, Hitler dismissed nuclear physics as "Jewish physics" and the German atomic bomb program got virtually zero support from Berlin. It's likely that even without Klaus Fuchs feeding atomic secrets to the Russians, the USSR would have beaten the Nazis to the bomb.

Straha wrote:Yeah, but then Hitler wouldn't have been Hitler, and WWII wouldn't be WWII, and in fact probably never would have taken place. In order to do that scenario you have to rewrite whole decades of history prior, and that can't be done. The only plausible Short term Hitler Victory scenario is if Stalin had been killed and a triumvirate had taken over and then party politics took place, other then that no victory for USSR.

I think you could, concievably, have a right wing military dictatorship rise to power in Germany in the early 1930s that was as aggressive as the Nazis without the Nazis' excesses. Annexing Austria and the Sudetenland could be justified as establishing a pan-Germannic state; invading Poland as recovering land stolen from Germany in the First World War; invading Russia could be sold as an attempt to get Stalin before Stalin got them.

Ok, what if we forget every other country and have a pure Nazi Germany vs USSR deathmatch? Can Germany beat Russia under any circumstances, or were they simply doomed the minute they went against them?

How do we get the americans out of WW2?
Answer: the russians start WW2 in 1939 or 1940. A russia vs
poland war should be pretty easy to start. We would get a
germany , japan , uk vs USSR war. France would be knocked
out by a civil war(french instead of spanish civil war). Less help
for finland means that the russians win the winter war.

Assuming that the US was truly neutral and not doing everything short of war to aid the Brits and Russians, I think it'd go something like this.

Britain would have died on the vine without the eventual US entry into the war. Not because Hitler would have invaded. Indeed, he wouldn't have had to invade if the US had been and stayed truly neutral throughout the war.

Britain was almost bankrupt by the time Lend-Lease rolled around. The Royal Navy was powerful, but without the USN fighting an undeclared war against the Kriegsmarine in the Atlantic prior to the US entry into the war, the UK would have lost merchant shipping at an even faster rate than both the US and UK lost ships during Operation Drumbeat in 1942.

The RN would also have been divided between protecting the Empire in the far east against the Japanese and protecting shipping in the Atlantic.

Any commerce would have strictly been cash and carry due to the Neutrality Acts of the 1930's not being weakened (or violated entirely) by FDR.

When Britain ran out of foreign exchange to pay for raw materials and arms purchases, she'd cease to be a real threat to Hitler, who'd just as soon have left England alone to concentrate on the USSR.

The USSR had plenty of gold (including Spain's gold that was stolen by the Russians during the Civil War), but no merchant fleet to carry it or a Navy to protect what merchant vessels they did have.

As an aside, the US and the UK supplied a huge majority of the high octane Avgas used by the USSR during the war as the Soviets simply didn't have the refining technology at the time to make super high octane fuels for aircraft. Without the high octane fuel to run the engines at altitude, the Red Air Force would have been crippled vs. the Luftwaffe.

Given a truly neutral USA, I think that Churchill would have been replaced as PM in 1943 and Britain would have negotiated a peace treaty with Hitler.

And then the Germans, with the resources of the European continent behind them, would have fought the USSR to a standstill and an eventual negotiated peace unless Hitler developed an atomic bomb.

If Hitler had an a-bomb, then all bets are off.

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:Ok, what if we forget every other country and have a pure Nazi Germany vs USSR deathmatch? Can Germany beat Russia under any circumstances, or were they simply doomed the minute they went against them?

That would depend on when Germany attacked.

1939 Germany?
Not a chance.

1943, with Germany the master of all Europe and with Speer and Goebbels finally mobilizing for total war?
That's more of a contest.

Glocksman wrote: 1943, with Germany the master of all Europe and with Speer and Goebbels finally mobilizing for total war?
That's more of a contest.

Germany is dead meat against the russians if barbarossa starts in 1943.
1941 was by far the best time to attack the russians. Fighting against
a red army that has recovered form the purges is not a good idea.
The russians have lost most of their production cpabilities in 1941 this
will not happen in 1943.

Ok, what if we forget every other country and have a pure Nazi Germany vs USSR deathmatch? Can Germany beat Russia under any circumstances, or were they simply doomed the minute they went against them?

If the Germsn can get a start early in '41, attack with their full strength,and devote more rsources to building their infrastructure across the territory to ship more troops faster?

Russia is dead, in that case. Every advantage is gone. The Germans will be in Moscow, and then the Russian troops will face a winter with no food and no supplies, east of Moscow. They will have to attack into the face of very nasty German defensive positions, and retaking all that ground would take more soldiers than they can find, and their best bases will be taken from them. I say, in this case, Russia ceases to exist.

perhaps worse is what might come thereafter. With the East secure, France will look awfully tempting...

Smiling Bandit wrote:With the East secure, France will look awfully tempting...

By the time this has happened, won't France have marshalled some decent defence? Possibly even invading Germany?

Glocksman wrote:
1943, with Germany the master of all Europe and with Speer and Goebbels finally mobilizing for total war?
That's more of a contest.

No, it’s an incredible disaster for Germany. The USSR was always unbeatable; logistics will not allow it to be defeated. But at least in 1941 the Germans might have held them off from Germany through attrition, maybe if Hitler stayed out of things and the Germans didn’t even try any operation like Blue.

By 1943 Russia would be the one attacking Germany, Stalin was actively planning for an attack in 1943/44 and its vast fleet’s of KV-1’s and T-34’s would have raped the Panzer. In the air things would be little better for Germany.

The Dark wrote: 3 of Russia's top 5 aces primarily flew the P-39 Airacobra, of which 4500 were supplied to the USSR

I would say this more due to the skills of the pilots rather than the merits of the aircraft involved, as always- besides Pokryshkin did transfer to a La-7 (or was it La-5FN, I forget ...)

Pablo Sanchez wrote: Percentage figures are misleading because they are distorted by the Russian response to the shipments: they reduced production of these things supplied by lend-lease. If the USA had not done lend-lease, the Russians would still have had trucks and tires etc--they would have just had fewer of them, and less industrial capacity left over for tanks and planes.

Yep, they would have had somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the tanks they actually needed to win the war.

Of course no matter how many less tanks you build this is not going to increase your oil production, food production, clothing production, etc etc.

Large amounts of the material the USA supplied to the Soviets were things that the Soviets could NOT produce in the needed amounts no matter how much local labor they threw at it.

Or to put it all more simply. Your statement means nothing.

Smiling Bandit wrote: If the Germsn can get a start early in '41, attack with their full strength,and devote more rsources to building their infrastructure across the territory to ship more troops faster?

They can't start earlier because the weather condition wont permit an earlier start.
They still have to face logistical problems. The russians must collapse in 1941
if germany wants to win in the east.

Thunderfire wrote:

Smiling Bandit wrote: If the Germsn can get a start early in '41, attack with their full strength,and devote more rsources to building their infrastructure across the territory to ship more troops faster?

They can't start earlier because the weather condition wont permit an earlier start.
They still have to face logistical problems. The russians must collapse in 1941
if germany wants to win in the east.

Actually the opposite is true. The German invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed for a month because Hitler had to bail out the Italians when they got their asses handed to them in the Baltic.

MrAnderson wrote:Actually the opposite is true. The German invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed for a month because Hitler had to bail out the Italians when they got their asses handed to them in the Baltic.

Hmm the Italians never did anything in the Baltic. Perhaps you mean the Balcans?

No, it’s an incredible disaster for Germany. The USSR was always unbeatable; logistics will not allow it to be defeated. But at least in 1941 the Germans might have held them off from Germany through attrition, maybe if Hitler stayed out of things and the Germans didn’t even try any operation like Blue.

From an industrial standpoint, Germany would be stronger in 1943 than in 1939 or 1941. That's why I said it'd be more interesting.

Anyway, It'd depend upon the course of the war.

If we're talking about Germany in it's prewar borders attacking in 1943, of course the Red Army would defeat it eventually. Lack of resources would be Germany's undoing.

If we're talking about Germany, the master of continental Europe, attacking the USSR in a 'crusade against bolshevism' without having to worry about events in the west or in Africa, then the battle becomes much more equal without the diversion of German resources to defend against the bomber attacks or fighting in Africa.

The USSR was always unbeatable; logistics will not allow it to be defeated.

The Germans' lack of logistics combined with the immense distances? Or something else?

Thank you for tactfully tearing my statements apart. They are retracted, but I still belive that Germany would have won.

Anyway, Britain held together because of US support. The US was sending in supplies and material neccesary to keep Britain alive. Without those supplies (food, medicine, clothes), the populace would have forced a surrender.

Glocksman* wrote:As an aside, the US and the UK supplied a huge majority of the high octane Avgas used by the USSR during the war as the Soviets simply didn't have the refining technology at the time to make super high octane fuels for aircraft. Without the high octane fuel to run the engines at altitude, the Red Air Force would have been crippled vs. the Luftwaffe.

How well do you think Russia would have faired without the ability to fly planes? Tanks don't take kindly to having bombs dropped on them. Germany beats Russia because Russia doesn't have the ability to properly supply it's troops with the supplies neccesary to win.

*I'm using this as support for my point.

Glocksman wrote:
The Germans' lack of logistics combined with the immense distances? Or something else?

Its distances plus the limits and design of the Russian transport system, which gets wider as does the nation the further east you go. The Germans did not have accurate maps of said transport system, no one did until the US began photographing the whole country with RB-36's and later satellites.

The ones of their larger railway and road network where correct in places, but showed many fictional lines, showed others in the wrong place and simply didn't show others. Recon aircraft operating before the war filled in much of the picture for the first 500 miles or so but that was i.

Heck the Soviets didn't even publish accurate maps of Moscow for tourists until the later half of the 1980's. But the deception kept going to the end, the BAM line was claimed to be complete in the mid 80's when in fact something like half wasn't finished until 1990.

Even if you threw the fully motorized US Army at it, the troops would still far short.

StormTrooperTR889 wrote:
Anyway, Britain held together because of US support. The US was sending in supplies and material neccesary to keep Britain alive. Without those supplies (food, medicine, clothes), the populace would have forced a surrender.

Nope, see just because the US doesn't declare war doesn't suddenly mean nothing the US produces is available

Glocksman* wrote: How well do you think Russia would have faired without the ability to fly planes? Tanks don't take kindly to having bombs dropped on them. Germany beats Russia because Russia doesn't have the ability to properly supply it's troops with the supplies neccesary to win.

*I'm using this as support for my point.

"Huge majority" is greatly overstating things, and lower octane fuels, of which Russia had rivers, worked just fine for the low levels at which most aircraft flew on the eastern front. Indeed most Soviet planes where designed for less then 100 octane fuel and worked just fine with it.

Glocksman wrote:From an industrial standpoint, Germany would be stronger in 1943 than in 1939 or 1941. That's why I said it'd be more interesting.

Anyway, It'd depend upon the course of the war.

If we're talking about Germany in it's prewar borders attacking in 1943, of course the Red Army would defeat it eventually. Lack of resources would be Germany's undoing.

If we're talking about Germany, the master of continental Europe, attacking the USSR in a 'crusade against bolshevism' without having to worry about events in the west or in Africa, then the battle becomes much more equal without the diversion of German resources to defend against the bomber attacks or fighting in Africa.

My reference for all that follows is Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 1987 Random House. (a good book, if you're into economics and grand diplomacy)

Lack of resources was already Germany's undoing as early as 1938. The thing that is often forgotten about the major Axis powers is that all three were red-lining their economies even before the war started, one of the major reasons for their expansionist drive. Hitler didn't grab everything he could lay hands on just because of Nazi pride, he desperately needed the influx of gold reserves and fresh resources to keep his ideology going. Around the time he took France, Germany's economy stopped being a self-defeating vacuum, but it was by no means the powerhouse you seem to think it would be.

At the same time, the contribution of the new territories in terms of real industrial expansion was negligable, and they actually reduced available German manpower. The Heer of 1941 represents roughly the maximum one-punch strength which could be achieved with Germany's economic base, and the assistence of the rest of the continent would not be Earth-shattering (unless you think the occupied territories are going to for some reason massively beat the contribution they made in actual history).

Also, I don't think you quite understand the projected growth of Soviet military-industrial strength in the 1940-1945 period. In 1938 the USSR had about 18% of total world manufacturing output and was climbing rapidly, it furthermore had the largest untapped resource and manpower base in the industrialized world to expand upon. Meanwhile, Germany's share in '38 was about 13% of world output and further increase was unsustainable--in fact much of it's 1932-1938 increase in strength was due to the absorbtion of key Czech and Austrian industrial zones.

Adding the up the manufacturing share of soon-to-be occupied Europe as of 1938 brings Germany's total to equal or slightly exceed Soviet capacity; but this comparison is misleading. First because the foreign contribution to German industrial strength would not be nearly so efficient; second because the 1938 figures do not include the massive expansion of Soviet strength in the ensuing hypothetical 5 years of peace; third because a greater proportion of Western European industry was civilian as compared to the Soviet manufacturing (which was almost entirely heavy-industry oriented).

The Germans' lack of logistics combined with the immense distances? Or something else?

I think the USSR was beatable in a limited sense for a brief period; from about when German strength peak in late 1939, to when the Red Army would have completed it's recovery and Soviet industrial potential would have become overpowering in middle-late 1942. There's no point at which Hitler could have won the total victory that he hoped for, but he could have forced Stalin to the table and push the USSR's borders back to a comfortable area behind the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Baltics.

...

MrAnderson:
If you care to debate me I would suggest that you actually do so instead of offering weak and baseless criticisms. I would respond to what you have so far contributed by pointing out a few things.
1) Soviet food production was capable of feeding their army and population (as it mostly did), the main problem was that this was primarily wheat and far less convenient for the troops than Spam. Industrial workers and troops would eat a little less well, but it would not be catastrophic on strength (and anyway Russian morale was almost impervious to food-related issues).
2) Heavy vehicle factories (which produced tractors and potentially tanks) could be converted for production of the ugly Soviet trucks. It would be somewhat trying and would reduce their tank production, but it would not be crippling.
3) A very large proportion of wartime Soviet production (Glantz tentatively believes it to be a majority) came from new or speedily adapted factory complexes, as opposed to the traditional (propaganda) legend of it being mostly relocated factories. If the USSR anticipated a shortage of uniforms it would have ordered some of it's expansion to be devoted to making uniforms (and the resources for such things are most definitely there, Soviet Central Asia produced astronomical amounts of cotton)

...

And now I'm mentally fatigued. Time to watch some mind-numbing TV.