General talk WWII

Totenkopf · **Joined:** Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:22 pm **Posts:** 305

Lincolnlog wrote:

If Canada specifically had sided against the US in a war against Britain, it would destroyed the foundatins of the Monroe Doctrine. This would have changed the destinies of not only the US and Canada, but all of North and South America.

One of the diadvantages the Empire endured throughout World War II was distance. New Zealand and Australia are a long way from the North Atlantic. The US controlled the Panama Canal at that time. That means that UK Commonwealth allies would have had to traverse Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope or the Suez Canal which was controlled by England.

US industrial capability was not focused on war materials at this time. So national production focus would have had to shift. This comes down to US will. Would we have had the stomach to fight? Hard to say, we didn't have the will to fight Hitler until we were attacked by the Japanese.

Both countries had outdated fleets. The British Navy was a little larger, and the US Navy had to cover two oceans. Leaving no presence in the Pacific would have been a mistake. The one thing the US had in spades is manpower. An invasion of the US by Britain or an Ally would have shifted public will.

I believe if this war had occured it would have been a disaster for both Nations. I am not one of those Americans that believes we could have won WWII by ourselves. It was team effort, and this war would have weakened both coutries to the point of possible failure against the Axis Powers.

We cannot forget any member of the ally team. The Soviet Union paid the highest price (unneccessarily, Stalin's pre-war paranoia kept the military leadership and infrastructure weak), but also inflicted the greatest enemy casualties. But they also didn't have to worry about the Pacific until after the war with Germany was over.

This would make for great war gaming, but it's history that I'm happy never occured.

We did beat the Japs by ourselves...or the Marines did

msprange · **Joined:** Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm **Posts:** 12311

Lincolnlog wrote:

But they also didn't have to worry about the Pacific until after the war with Germany was over.

Not entirely true - for quite a while, the Soviet Union kept a large army in the east, fearing attack by Japan.

msprange · **Joined:** Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm **Posts:** 12311

Totenkopf wrote:

We did beat the Japs by ourselves...or the Marines did

Again, not entirely true

Lincolnlog · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:51 pm

Matthew,

Yes they kept an Army in the East. But the Soviets always kept an Army in the East. If not for the Japanese then the Chinese. It is their hardest to secure border. But the fact remains they never had to really fight on that front.

As far as the Marines winning the war in the Pacific single handedly, Wars are won by logistics. If we had not had the forward basing in New Zealand, Australia and some of the other forward unoccupied islands, we would have had a very difficult stategic game on our hands. It would have been "a whole other ball game" so to speak.

The US and the UK would have had a difficult time defeating Hitler without the USSR, and we would have had a difficult time defeating Japan without the UK and the Commonwealth forces. The Pacific theater especially India/Burma/China tied up a great deal of the Japanese forces. The Island campaign would not have gone so smoothly for the US had the Commonwealth not been chewing the Japanese up in the mountains and jungles of Asia.

Many Americans forget, that our industrial base switched to a war footing in 1939, not in 1941. In late 41 and early 42, we were still militarily weak, but getting stronger. Out producing Japan and Germany took time and did not happen overnight after the morning of December 7th.

Draconis · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:06 pm

Perhaps this needs a topic of its own maybe?

I think its drifted slightly off topic..... so, VaS 2.0 then...... :lol:

Subject has been moved.
Mod: Ray

Iron Domokun · **Joined:** Wed Jun 15, 2011 1:58 pm **Posts:** 402

If the Brits and the Yanks *had* gone to war in the 1930s, would they have allied with the Brits against the Axis... or would there have been too much bitterness to make that politically feasible until far too late? Obviously, cooler heads prevailed historically. If you assume the two powers went to war in the first place, you're assuming that politicians on one or both sides are provoking war because they're stupid or crazy*. Under that assumption, it's possible that the war that never happened could have been longer and more destructive than you'd think.

*A reasonable assumption in any era.

Totenkopf · **Joined:** Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:22 pm **Posts:** 305

msprange wrote:

Totenkopf wrote:

We did beat the Japs by ourselves...or the Marines did

Again, not entirely true

Listen, that's what my drill instructors taught us at boot camp, are you calling them liars?

Totenkopf · **Joined:** Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:22 pm **Posts:** 305

Seriously though (or as my black friends say, "Yo, real talk"), I'm glad we never went to blows again with the UK in the 20th century. I don't always like you limeys, but having served briefly alongside you Brits I love that you guys always have our backs and haven't sold us out like the frogs. Same for the Aussies and the any one of the countries that call the United States a friend and treats us like friends (that rules out France). There are obviously people more knowledgible than me when it comes the whole history of the conflicts during the era we're discussing, but I just want to finish up by saying I don't really care for international pissing contests and what ifs. I jumped in mostly for fun and to be obnoxious, but as for what did happen - the evidence is there for everyone to examine. I am inclined to agree with Matt in so far as saying no one single handedly won WWII in any theatre, and to rule out the contributions of any party however small or large, however significant or insignificant is both disrespectful and a crock (so I apologize for my part in that even if it was all in jest).

Lincolnlog · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:58 pm

No one took you tooo seriously, Tot! :lol:

rcbecker1 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:45 am

Well either way we are stronger together than apart and that may be more important in the future than it was in the past. As for Russia I set them apart as their war with Germany was totally different than its other allies. Because for Stalin there was more about land grab and control of Europe especaily towards the end. At one point it looked like UK and USA might have a problem holding them back thats one reason so many forces stayed after the end. Also the rush for Berlin.
Remember Stalin was as greedy for power as Hitler. I mean this in no bad way towards the Russian people. Im speaking historicaly not racialy.
Ray

As for VAS 2.0 I look foward to this coming out. There seems to be many improvements.
Ray

Rick · **Posted:** Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:23 pm

The proposal for the Anglo-American war was "Plan Red" - an attack by the USA on Canada and followed by attacks on other British holdings. Teams of American and British officers actually wargamed this several times and came to the conclusion that the USA would have successfully invaded Canada but lost the Atlantic war and most of its fleets. The British would have lost a large part of its fleets and would (just) be able to blockade the American East coast ports while it tried to put a commonwealth force together to retake Canada (not easily). Hitler, despite making overtures to the (fairly widespread) American Nazi party, would not have intervened except to try to broker a truce between the 2 weakened countries (of the 2 he apparently favoured Britain). Winner - Germany. The end result might have been USA going it alone against the Japanese (or conceding them the oil and Pearl Harbour would never have happened - appeasement), whilst we either stayed out of the war in Europe or sided with Germany against Stalins Russia!

Yes, the world would have been very, very different.

And yes, I would love to see a list for the '32-'34 "Plan Red" alternative history war!

Spectrar Ghost · **Joined:** Sat Jun 19, 2010 11:04 pm **Posts:** 62

The Americans and British wargamed it together? For the potential opponents, that shows a very different view of the world. More gentlemanly, perhaps.

Rick · **Posted:** Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:57 pm

Spectrar Ghost wrote:

The Americans and British wargamed it together? For the potential opponents, that shows a very different view of the world. More gentlemanly, perhaps.

Umm, sorry - I failed to explain that properly. My bad. They wargamed it in the 80's or 90's to see what might have happened. At the time, the USA prepared it in secret (even to the point of stockpiling weapons and building airbases near the Canadian border), but managed to give enough away that the British and Canadians were aware of it. The Canadians even drew up contingency plans to try to deal with it, although it seems the British couldn't be bothered to!

There are bits on wikipedia and other sites about War Plan Red http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red and the other colour War Plans.

tneva82 · **Joined:** Mon May 22, 2006 5:08 pm **Posts:** 3180

Lincolnlog wrote:

The US and the UK would have had a difficult time defeating Hitler without the USSR,

More of case of USSR didn't really need much of help from US/UK who launched their invasion mostly to prevent USSR from taking pretty much entire Europe under it's wing...Got to prevent USSR from going all the way to Atlantic and saying "haha German and France are now part of USSR!".

Always amuses me to read those 3 being called as allies when it was more of having common enemy to fight...For NOW.

As it was without US+Britain having logistical issues and USSR being more than a bit worried about the atomic bomb there might have been US+Britain vs USSR all-out war on Europe right after defeating German.

Rick · **Posted:** Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:23 pm

tneva82 wrote:

Lincolnlog wrote:

The US and the UK would have had a difficult time defeating Hitler without the USSR,

More of case of USSR didn't really need much of help from US/UK who launched their invasion mostly to prevent USSR from taking pretty much entire Europe under it's wing...Got to prevent USSR from going all the way to Atlantic and saying "haha German and France are now part of USSR!".

Always amuses me to read those 3 being called as allies when it was more of having common enemy to fight...For NOW.

As it was without US+Britain having logistical issues and USSR being more than a bit worried about the atomic bomb there might have been US+Britain vs USSR all-out war on Europe right after defeating German.

Yes and no. In 1943 the USSR really felt that they had their backs to the wall - a lot of their industrial areas had been overrun and they needed time to move what they'd saved eastwards and rebuild their forces. This is one reason why the US/Britain/Commonwealth invaded Italy - to put pressure on the Germans and force them to divert a lot of their troops away from the USSR, giving the USSR the time they needed. The USSR would probably have survived, but would have lost a great deal more territory and would have had a much tougher time forcing the Germans back. If the USSR hadn't been fighting the Germans quite so hard in 1944, D-Day would have either never taken place, or it would have failed.

'Operation Unthinkable' was the codename given to the plan to invade the USSR in 1946 - Churchill was keen on it, the British general staff felt that the USSR's 3-1 superiority was too great (even allowing for the rebuilt Wehrmacht fighting for the allies), and a lot of the US generals (apart from Patton) weren't keen on the idea. I've no doubt that if we had fought against the USSR in 1946, we would have needed to use nukes against them, but it wouldn't have been quite like Japan - the industries in the USSR are dispersed, with huge areas between - a few nuclear strikes on the USSR wouldn't have had the same political impact.

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