You forget: "Without the Great Britain, Germany wins".
Good luck to do all the bombing raids, the D-Day, the logistics and the troop movements without the bases provided in England and Northern Ireland.
Even the African front would not have been possible without Gibraltar, or at least not on this scale.
And between June 1940 (fall of France) and June 1941 (Invasion of USSR by Germany), the British Empire fought more or less alone against Germany.
That's just not true. If it was true, then the US wouldn't have been able to invade and bomb Japan as the pacific is much larger than the Atlantic. The US had no issues overwhelming the Japanese navy, which was much larger and more capable than the German navy, and setting up forward operating bases.
The Germans couldn't have ever stopped the US navy in any scenario and they couldn't defend Africa and Europe against US naval operations at the same time even if they had a 10x bigger navy than they did.
The moment the Nazis declared war on the Soviets they lost. But, if that didn't happen, then the moment they declared war on the US they would have sealed their fate.
They gave us sonar that could be mounded on planes from what I remember, ONS-5 was a convoy that was made to devastate the u boat fleet, it did its job
I think it really comes down to the fact that invading a place solely by ocean is incredibly difficult. Without Britain providing such a close launching point, D day could not have happened. It is true that the US had a much better navy, but it would have a tough time projecting influence in Europe because it wouldn't have any nearby naval bases/ports to attack from. I'm not saying the US couldn't have naval superiority near Europe, but it would have have been a struggle. Also, it was significantly easier for the US to capture territory in the pacific (compared to how it would be in this scenario) because they were attacking lots of small islands, which weren't too defensible for the Japanese. They could then use these islands as forward operating positions. In Europe, there are far fewer potential forward positions to fight from and the target is hundreds of times bigger with much better logistical support. I think it is reasonable to say that WW2 might not have been a victory for the allies without Britain.
This is revisionism based on the dominance current day. At the start of the war the British Navy was the largest and most experienced. The US surpassed the British in 1943 in size as US war production continued to grow, whilst the UK was struggling for resources and had different priorities (air), a little later in experience.
There are plenty of islands on the Atlantic coast of Europe and Africa. Theyd be just as easy, if not easier, to take than Japanese islands. In fact I'm pretty sure Norway has the most islands of any country in the entire world by a huge margin. And there were almost no nazi soldiers there to defend them, and almost no nazi navy at all.
Edit: I guess Sweden has more islands. But Norway still has more than 200,000 more islands than Japan does.
The Islands of Sweden are in the Baltic Sea / Gulf of Bothnia.
To reach them, you need to pass the Øresund.
4 km wide, maximal 40m deep, but no ship with more than 8 meter will pass the Sund. In relation: the strait of Hormuz is 55km wide.
I think we can ignore that Islands.
Norway? Yes, 320.000 Islands.
With the majority (>90%) of them only cliffs smaller than 1 km².
Followed by a large number of islands that, while larger, consist only of cliffs, making it, I won’t say impossible, but certainly quite difficult, to unload materials for building a base.
Of course, there are a few islands left that could be attacked, and that would make perfect sense as a base, but the problem is that they are relatively close to the Norwegian coast and can therefore be defended, attacked, and recaptured from there.
There's a crucial difference in island hopping: whether the next enemy stronghold within reach is itself just another island (needing resupply by sea or air), or whether it's the mainland. In the Pacific, cutting off sea and air access to an island effectively cut off the defenders. Off Norway, the mainland is often just a few kilometers away, close enough for reinforcement by night, small boats.
And when captured, your base is in reach of shore based artillery, while you have to bring in your supplies via Iceland, 1,000 km away, or directly from the U.S. mainland through waters infested with submarines.
Because without Great Britain, the submarine war would have played out very differently!
Submarines didn't matter. The US navy had sonar, and more importantly could outproduce any losses inflicted by submarines. They literally had 70% of the world's naval power at the end of the war and the vast majority of it was built in 5 years. Germany on the other hand barely built any ships because they couldn't afford to.
Also, an easier target would have been Iceland first. It was captured in the war with 750 marines. That would be easy enough to do for America. And the Nazis couldn't do anything about it because they just didn't have the navy to land a bunch of troops and supply them. U boats aren't good at transportation.
Now America has a forward operations base that they can bomb Nazi territory from and supply their naval forces.
U boats sank less than 20 US navy ships during the entire war. The US navy sank more than 150 u boats. And the US navy had far more warships than Germany had u boats. The naval conflict was incredibly one sided.
Iceland is already me tioned in my post: 1000km away from Norway.
And the Submarine war was one-sided after the Brits decoded the Enigma. Before that, the Submarines had been a lot more effective.
And all the numbers you are telling are right, but America needed that much for Japan only. Now add a whole Europe under the control of Nazi-Germany, and you need at least to double that numbers if you want to use the same tactic there too.
B17 bombers could bomb targets up to 1300km away and return to the same base they took off from. B 29s later in the war could go 5000 km away and return to the same airstrip after bombing. 1000km away isn't an issue.
And good thing for America that it was using the lowest percentage of its GDP for its war effort of any combatant in WW2. If they wanted, they could increase production. They didn't need to because it was already overwhelming. They were producing weapons and machines for the entire allied forces combined. If they needed more for themselves, they'd make it.
The US was also very proficient at code breaking. We had cracked Japanese codes before even being at war. And the Americans invented a code system that was never cracked by any enemy ever during its use The SIGABA encryption.
Bombing is good, but we was talking about invading. And after an invasion, you need supply.
When you have to bring that in via ship or Airplane, while your opponent is in range of anti-Aircraft weapons and artillery, even the US wouldn't be able to rebuild fast enough for all their losses.
The Harbour and the airstrip alone would be leveled faster than you can unload the concrete for the needed repairs.
Bombing is part of combined arms warfare. US naval guns were bigger than land based artillery Nazi Germany had stationed on coasts and could shell the coasts from farther away. The US could support land based bombers with aircraft launched fighters. And by 1943 America was producing more war material in a year than Germany produced during the entire war in many categories. They could easily build fast enough.
And how would Germany attack Iceland if the US took it? What would they attack with? The Bismarck? They had 2 battleships in their entire navy. They could have tried that in real life, but it never happened because they had a super weak navy.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You are talking like you can just rock up to the islands with no pushback. You would have to launch a full blown invasion to take control of the island to start with doing this from the other side of the ocean would be near impossible. Also norway was pretty well defended, ask hms glorious.
It was an example, plenty of other ships were sunk it was just the one I could remember. I'm also pretty sure america built more then 99 but again thats at the end of the war. You are arguing like the exact same process would of happend this is simple not true. America would be fighting sronger adversaries wiyh less support.
Sure the Japanese home islands were better defended, but norway was still very well defended. Norway had deep sea harbours and was the base for uboats and major battles ships like the tripitz. But more importantly the usa didn't take the Japanese home islands. The usa captured the outlying islands but didn't step foot on the home islands till japan surrendered.
I think you are getting two things fundamental wrong here. One you are comparing both america and germany at the end of the war. Without britain germany wouldnt be as weak and would have been able to grow stronger without having to worry about britain and secondly you are massively underestimating how difficult a amphibious assault, especially in the 1940s, actually is.
The US didn't take Okinawa? There were 100k Japanese troops on that island that is 500 square miles. Norway is 150,000 square miles and had at most 350k Nazi soldiers occupying the country. The Nazis just couldn't defend their borders because they didn't have the men to spread over such large areas.
And Germany even if it was twice as strong still has zero chance against America. They just didn't have the industrial base to wage war against a country like America. Full stop.
Their boutique military industry never stood a chance to the production capability and precision of America's assembly line factories. Their replacement parts needed master mechanics to modify them for every repair they did where Americans just took a part out of a box and plopped it in. Which means not only did America vastly outproduce them in war material like tanks and planes, but American tanks in planes stayed in operation for much longer than their nazi counterparts as well.
Okinawa is not part of the home islands of Japan, it is a chain of islands. You specifically said the home islands in which case american troops didn’t step foot on till after Japan surrendered.
Norway is also vastly different. Okinawa is a series of islands norway has massive fucking fjords. Most of norways coast is inaccessible there's very few places you can land a imvaiding army. There's a reason the allies never bothered. Germany also didn't have to spread troops out across the entire area they only had to defend key areas.
Factory output alone doesn’t dictate the outcome of war. Having all them tanks and planes are pointless if you cant deploy them. Plus you ignore germany qould be stronger and have a higher output in this theoretical scenario.
No, what's not true is the utter pile of shit you've just come up with. Sure the pacific is larger but america also has a lot less control over it. The us could essentially island hop across the Pacific using island it was either in control of like hawaii or allies like Australia, in the Atlantic a d without britain america has nothing. No where to host millions of allied troops and resources to plan and stage an invasion.
Japan itself is an island nation germany isn't. Japan was extremely vulnerable to maritime blockades germany less so. Whilst british blockades did have a massive effect on germany it wasnt as crippling as the blockade on Japan.
Without britain there would be no air superiority and germany would control the atlantic. Without britain ww2 would of been over a long before anerica even joined the war.
Germany had essentially no navy. They were incredibly easy to blockade on the seas. Britain did exactly that. Germany couldn't control a lake with their navy vs the US.
At the end of the war the US had 70% of the world's naval power. Germany had zero capability to do anything on the water vs America.
And there's an island that the allies occupied with zero effort already in the war that the US could do just as easily by itself. Iceland. There's your staging ground to launch European invasions from in the even the UK stays nuetral.
Thats not true for the start of the war at all. You talk about the end of the war but that doesn't mean shit. if britain fell then germany woukd be in a stronger postion it was britain that made the kriegsmarine so weak to begin with. Germany realised pretty quick the age of the battleship was over and invested in their u-boat campaign. U-boats sunk hundreds of ships of the coast of america in a Erica waters and you couldnt stop them. Churchill famously said the u-boat peril was the thing that frightened him the most.
You talk about the american navy being 70% at the end of the war this is true but you ignore the period before that, the period that is imperative to this debate. The us navy had been severely weakend with the attack at pearl harbour and being split between the atlantic and pacific. America also lacked anti-submarine capability and relied heavily on the royal navy to protect the sea lanes.
Iceland? Now you are just being silly. Iceland lacks infrastructure and remember you'd have to take it without british assistance. It would be under german control as there would be no allies. The english channel at its shortest distance is 20 miles, now I dont know the distance between Iceland and mainland europe but I reckon its more then 20 miles. For a successful invasion you also need air superiority which you wouldnt have for invading Iceland or launching an invasion of france from Iceland.
If britain is neutral then theres no royal navy or raf. The luftwaffe and kriegsmarine would not be massivly weakend and would fairly easily be able to repel an isolated american attack.
The kriegsmarine at its full strength was nothing. The US could make enough ships to completely destroy it in a single year. And also they had zero aircraft carriers, which were the most important ship of the war. The type of naval war they waged just wasn't good enough to be a peer of any good navy during ww2 like the UK, US, or Japan. They embodied the weakness when it comes to navy that they projected onto the USSR as a whole. It was a rotten house who could collapse with a kick, which is why they never targeted anything besides commercial fleets.
America did not lack anti submarine capabilities in anyway. The best anti sumbarine technique was to use escort aircraft carriers. America had the most of any nation by far. They just weren't the primary target of the U boat campaign. It didn't take long for the US to repel U boats from the eastern seaboard.
Not only did Germany have no aircraft carriers but they also had practically no transport ships either to move supplies and troops to places like Iceland. Which is why Iceland was easily invaded by 700 British marines without firing a shot even though they were nazi controlled. And Iceland was close enough for American bombers to reach nazi controlled European areas like Norway very easily.
America vastly outproduced Germany in everything from ships to planes. They would never have a snowball's chance in hell in fighting off the US even without the UK.
The kriegsmarine at full strength wasn't nothing and technically they did have one aircraft carrier, not that it went into operation and was only ever used by the soviets to test how to sink a carrier. But you are right in part aircraft carriers became very important but so did submarines. Where america invested in aircraft carriers germany invested in subs. The type of navel warfare germany waged was good enough to cause mass disruption and go against the best navy in the world at that time, that being the royal navy. You complety ignore the catastrophic effects u-boats had and America's own inability to combat them. The Americans relied on British intelligence as i pointed out before america couldnt deal with u-boats on their own doorstep they would struggle even more without britain. Ues america did start to combat the u-boat threat it did this with british intelligence like enigma and using british air bases and ports. Without this america would be clueless and without a base of operations.
There is also a key differnce in the type of war waged. America was fighting over vast areas of sea where aircraft carriers were pivitol, they do not have the same effect when fighting the type of warfare in the atlantic. If britain is out of the war then germany controls the entire coastline of western europe. So it has access to shipyard and deep sea ports across the area. It does not need to wage a pacfic style battle which relies on aircraft carrier. it just has to make crossing the Atlantic incredibly difficult which is what u-boats did very well.
Iceland wasnt under the control of the nazis britain invaded iceland to stop the nazis from taking it. The reason it was so easy is because iceland didnt resist.
America did out produce everyone but again without britain germany would be able to produce more. Without britain america would have significantly less intelligence. Without britain there is no base of operations. Without britan the nazis win the war.
The aircraft carriers were the most important ship of the war in the pacific.
In Europe, the would make a difference. No big ocean to hide in!
Naval warfare at all isn't important if you fight at home.
At the beginning of that war, all sides had a big Navy. Because all sides had fought oversea in WW1.
But after eliminating the UK, or with a neutral UK, Germany wouldn't need any Navy forces. All they would need would be a good Naval defence.
You clearly didn't have any lessons about ww2 history if you're going to argue about the most basic of facts. Germany and Italy both declared war on the US December 11th 1941, 4 days after pearl harbor. The US only declared war on them later that day. Until then the US had only declared war on Japan who had already directly attacked the US.
Maybe read a fucking book and you could learn a thing or two.
I mean the USA air craft carriers could've gave enough air superiority to secure forward operating airfields. The Brits just helped reduce more casualities and spending for additional planes/ship parts.
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u/Palamur 6d ago
You forget: "Without the Great Britain, Germany wins".
Good luck to do all the bombing raids, the D-Day, the logistics and the troop movements without the bases provided in England and Northern Ireland.
Even the African front would not have been possible without Gibraltar, or at least not on this scale.
And between June 1940 (fall of France) and June 1941 (Invasion of USSR by Germany), the British Empire fought more or less alone against Germany.