WW2 What If?

[David Floyd]

Actually the US Congress voted for it, it wasn't just FDR. The China Lobby in the late 1930s in Congress was somewhat akin to the Israel Lobby in Congress today.

[kittenOFchaos]

Wow, FDR made a great decision. If not for that embargo who knows how much more the world would suck.

That is a difficult one to gauge.

No Korean War, no Mao, no Vietnam War, no Pol-Pot maybe and maybe no WW2 in the Pacific - alot of bad. That against knowing how nasty the Japanese occupation was and that a show-down with the USA may simply have had to come later. Though, given Japan was a nation reliant on importing raw materials, it was always going to suck in a full-fledged war. The US submarines took them to the cleaners never mind the airforce.

[kittenOFchaos]

Wow, FDR made a great decision. If not for that embargo who knows how much more the world would suck.

The conspiracy to get all our things made in China started a long time ago

[David Floyd]

No Korean War, no Mao, no Vietnam War, no Pol-Pot maybe and maybe no WW2 in the Pacific - alot of bad. That against knowing how nasty the Japanese occupation was and that a show-down with the USA may simply have had to come later. Though, given Japan was a nation reliant on importing raw materials, it was always going to suck in a full-fledged war. The US submarines took them to the cleaners never mind the airforce.

Again, this is all speculative, but it is irrelevant. There was a 0% chance that given the embargo, Japan wasn't going to lash out against DEI/Malaysia. There is a 0% chance that the US Congress wasn't going to pass sanctions given the Japanese war in China. Further, given that Japan's national survival depended upon securing oil supplies, there is a 0% chance they could have avoided attacking the US along with Britain/Netherlands.

It's the same reason Germany declared war on the US - they felt that they had more to gain than to lose, and from their own point of view, you can hardly fault the decision.

[giblets]

I don't understand why the Germans declared war on the US. What were they hoping to gain?

[David Floyd]

The US was already escorting British convoys halfway across the Atlantic and prosecuting U-Boat contacts and/or radioing U-Boat combats to the Royal Navy. Additionally, millions of tons of Lend Lease were crossing the Atlantic in US hulls to the UK and USSR. Germany declared war because a)they figured that they could sink more tonnage, and b)the US couldn't add much of value from a combat perspective to the war.

This argument was brought down when the US started building more tonnage than it lost, sinking more U-boats than Germany could build, and, you know, providing the bulk of the ground and air forces to invade France.

In other words, it was a gross miscalculation on Germany's part, based upon Hitler's misconceptions moreso than realistic intelligence projections.

[giblets]

How much longer would Italy have been able to last if America hadn't become directly involved?

[David Floyd]

Likely quite a while. The collapse of Mussolini was due to Sicily. Explain to me how the British gin up enough troops to invade Sicily, after clearing North Africa. Without the US in the war, Britain can't lose, but they certainly can't win either.

[David Floyd]

Odds are, absent the US, after the British win in North Africa, which was virtually a foregone conclusion at that point, the British would likely pursue an Aegean campaign - going after Rhodes, Crete, the Dodocanese Islands, etc., as a means to "nibble" around the periphery. Following that, a Norwegian campaign would have been a strong possibility.

But an attack on Sicily, or for that matter mainland Italy? No.

[giblets]

Okay, so what would the German forces in Italy and France have accomplished if they could have been fighting the Soviets instead?

[David Floyd]

Quite a bit, in fact. It's quite likely that absent the United States, Germany could have won the war in the East, or at least stalemated it somewhere in Poland or the western Soviet Union. By 1944 - over 50 divisions in France and the Low Countries, and over 40 in Italy and the Balkans, not to mention tens of thousands of 88mm AA guns defending German cities. Transfer the bulk of that force to the East, and the Red Army is going to have problems.

[giblets]

I'm kind of surprised that Hitler didn't think the US could directly contribute much to the war. I mean, the US has a much larger population and economy than, say, Germany.

[David Floyd]

Well, from Hitler's point of view, the US was already contributing a TON to the war effort via Lend Lease. Hitler's view was that unrestricted submarine warfare could close the Atlantic and render American power irrelevant.

[giblets]

How many German divisions were on the eastern front in 1944?

[David Floyd]

166 in 1/44 trailing down to 135 by 12/44. By contrast there were between 80-95 on the Western/Italian/Balkans fronts during the same period.