Would Britain have won WWII without U.S., and USSR

It's more like the US needed the Soviet's help. Something like 8 out of every 10 Germans killed in WWII were either killed by Russians or in Operation Barbarossa.

agreed, no Lend-Lease and the billions of aid in trains, vehicles, supplies, etc. supplied by the U.S., and the German war machine in a 1-front war there = German victory.

No question, especially with a full German army and industrial complexes not depleted by the U.S/British armies/bombers, and Germany able to focus fully on Russia.

@AFBrat77: OP says in this hypothetical scenario they would still be supplying all that stuff... just not actually fighting.

It's a very tricky question since the answer hinges a lot on what would have happened if the Americans weren't present in North Africa or the landing at Sicily. That drove away a lot German troops from the Eastern Front.

*sigh* Seriously? You do know the US had to supply the Soviets with equipment? They could in no way have survived without. But hey....rewrite history to suit yourself. That's the way to go. Damn....education in Canada is no better than in the US.

Okay to clarify, when I say could Britain have won the war, by Britain I mean both the Empire and the Commonwealth nations (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.).

@LJS9502_basic: The OP says the US would be supplying equipment and other aid. You might want to read the OP before you get upset at me.

Yes. I said that in this scenario the US would still be giving Britain supplies. Just not fighting for them.

people always retalliate

Without the US actively fighting, I doubt the Royal Navy would've been able to stop the Imperial Japanese Navy with its powerful carrier strike wings. If Hitler requested the IJN to conduct operations in the Indian Ocean, that would have made life very difficult for the rest of the Commonwealth.

That's a good point. If the IJN was able to control the Indian Ocean, it would be very difficult for Britain to bring Indian troops and supplies into the European front. Part of my scenario for British victory was based on India's large population providing Britain with a large pool of soldiers to use against Germany.

It would also stretch the Royal Navy far thinner and perhaps build up the confidence of the Italian Navy in the Med.

Yeah, maybe.

You presented it as if Russia came running to Britain's aid while America snubbed its nose at them. I put in my damn post that the United States was reluctant to enter the war, we all know this genius and only a fool would deny historical fact. You are the one who was spinning it your way here. Russia did what they did for their own survival and so they could land grab in the aftermath, the Brits just indirectly benefited from it. The U.S. had no threat from the Nazis, and Germany was our main focus even after being attacked by Japan. For you to spin this shit like Russia was the good guy and the U.S. waited for the Brits to get down on their knees is bullshit.

Spin that wheel! Maybe you can convince us that America was really working for the Germans next.

Britain alone... not a chance.

Britain and Russia... very good to excellent chance

Russia alone... good to very good chance

Oh no... Did your little 'murica feelings get hurt now again?

@evildead6789:

The Nazis had developed stealth fighters and by 1946 would have a stealth bomber capable of reaching NY City. Also the would have had the atomic bomb.

He was just responding to your jealous non-American response :)

Soviets without U.S. help including the billions of dollars in U.S. supplies given the Russians, no chance to win.

WITH the U.S. Lend-Lease aid they may be able to stand on their own....maybe. Probably not.

Actually yea, let's not entertain any notion of Germany invading Britain or cutting them off. The European theater would be a standoff, there is absolutely no realistic possibility of Germany mounting a successful seaborne invasion of the British isles. Overlord barely made it through and it was only opposed by a few divisions of reservists and various eastern European troops forced into service. The British could deploy all of their best troops to defend the isles and it's a massively smaller area to defend that the entire coast of France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark, and is much less "invasion-friendly" than even Normandy. They would also almost certainly hold air superiority and naval superiority. Operation Sea Lion would make Stalingrad look like a kindergarden brawl.

In general I'd say that it would mostly come down to how well Britain could hold onto the Mediterranean, which is important since it means that the Axis would have a hard time taking Africa and would also allow the Commonwealth to quickly (well, quicker than around Africa or South America) re-position Indian and Australian units to Europe/Africa and British units to the Pacific.

Strategically, I'd expect that Africa would become the main area of combat. Germany would be able to deploy much more units, while Britain would need to respond. I'd expect the British naval presence in the Mediterranean to skyrocket, and their main objective would be to quickly annihilate the Italian navy. By 1942-43 I'd expect that the British would be able to achieve this and starve out any German units remaining in Africa, providing that the British ground forces could hold Egypt. In any case, I'd expect the British to wrestle control of all the seas around Europe and German and Italians mostly relegated to submarine activity. The main issue here would be if India and Australia could hold off the Japanese with minimal assistance from Britain, while also sending their troops off to Africa. I expect that Australia would have to take the brunt of the manpower cost for the Pacific campaign, while the Royal Navy would hopefully get their shit together and stop loosing ships to stupidly basic mistakes and work on a generally guerilla basis, mostly operating in small destroyer forces and significant submarine activity. Strategically I'd again expect the Commonwealth to mainly focus on just containing the Japanese and stabilizing the situation. By 1945 the war would mostly become a stalemate with the Japanese holding a large portion of the Pacific and Italy and Germany most of mainland Europe.

Here is where I expect the fun would start. Germany would probably be spending almost all of its resources on naval production, as would Britain, so I'd imagine the Atlantic would be a slaughterhouse. Ground combat in the European theater would be minimal, at best I'd expect Britain mounting an Invasion of Norway to retake it. While the British could mount a ground invasion of mainland Europe, it would be suicidal. Even though the beaches would probably be taken and some ground headway achieved, the Germans would have all of their best troops free to counter them and would crush them with no problems. In the Pacific I'd expect the British to move a pretty significant heavy bomber force to hamper oil production in the Dutch East Indies and focus their submarine campaign to wreak havoc on Japanese supply lines, meaning Japan would probably be starved of Oil by 1945. Germany's oil reserves would probably also start running out at this point. The British would be secured as they would have American oil.

So by 1945ish, if Britain didn't manage to achieve any colossal **** up like trying to engage the Japanese navy in a decisive battle, Japan would be starved of oil. Britain would throughout the war focus all of their energy on producing as many ships as possible, as well as securing deals with the USA to produce ships for them. In general I'd expect the Royal Navy to be enormous by 1945, and by this point I'd also expect them to have amassed a large fleet carrier force and developed competent seaborne airframes. The Royal Navy would cease hit and run tactics in the Pacific with small surface vessels and start moving their main capitol ships to engage the oil starved Japanese Navy. If again, they don't mess anything up too badly, they could effectively start recapturing the Pacific in 1945. By 1946-47 Japan would be out of the war, and the Commonwealth could re-position itself to strike at Europe. Here is where the real trouble would start, Germany would have enormous amounts of very well trained, equipped and experienced troops ready in Europe. They wouldn't be the battered remains of a once great army like they were in Overlord. I really cannot say how it would work out, but even if they amass large forces comprised of British, Indian, Australian and Canadian troops, I have doubts that they could successfully combat Germany and Italy on the ground. Mainly the steep casualty counts would crush public morale as it would recall the days of World War 1.

**** no! Not for nothing Germany offered them the most generous, kind peace terms that were ever offered in the History of man kind and they refused only cause they knew the USA was on the way!

I highly doubt Britain would of won against Germany. It would of taken some WMD like a nuclear bomb being invented by Britain to give them a chance. It might of taken a while for it to happen but Germany would eventually conquer Britain. Germany doesn't mind doing what it takes to achieve a goal. But is impossible to know. You never know what someone is going to do when backed into a corner and nothing to lose.

That's assuming the Japanese doesn't draw the line somewhere on what the British can and cannot import from the US. I'd guess the US would be drawn into the war if they tried supplying major warships to the British. It's one thing to supply old WW1 destroyers. But, aircraft carriers or battleships? The latter are bound to get the attention of the Japanese.

Without having to worry about the USN, the IJN could go on a rampage in the Indian Ocean early on and eliminate India/Ceylon as quickly as possible. Historically, after the IJN attacked RN warships during the Battle of Ceylon, they next attempted to invade Port Moresby which resulted in the Battle of Coral Sea followed by the Battle of Midway. In the alternate reality, there's no USN to contend with. More than likely, Port Moresby would have been captured and the IJN carrier forces would be intact. The Japanese would then have their choice of invading India or Australia. I'd bet it would be India because the Japanese could coordinate their attack between the Japanese forces in Burma and the IJN. The capture of India would protect the Japanese western flank and isolate Australia.

Silly question of course England wouldn't have won Had Hitler decided to do his own "D-Day" in Britain he would have been able to conquer it and not just that also get help from Ireland who for the most part fought on the germans side like they did in the 1st world war.

When US entered the war there are several books and memoaries from Churchill who say that Britain was a hair away from being broken and beat and it was only when the american warmachine kicked into gear, with it massive factory layout who could with ease be turned into a war-factories that the war started to look bad for the germans. Not to mention that he then made the mistake of also going against Russia who had the manpower to compete with Germany and also stand to lose a lot of soldiers, if you look at the casualties numbers you can see that the eastern front was the most bloody in the entire war, and russia and germany lost more soldiers there then they did any other place in the war.

I think you need to go back to the history books and begin to read up on just how big an impact the Americans had, Claiming that the russians could have won it on their own is just crazy.

There's at least reasoning to back up the Soviets. For one thing, their military industry was largely intact and was moved beyond the reach of Luftwaffe bombers. Plus, the Soviets still had massive forces east, including their crack/elite units (the Siberians).

It's true some Soviet units were supplied with Lend Lease equipment. But, the bulk of Soviet units still used Soviet equipment. They were nowhere as critical to the Soviets as they were to the British. The British simply didn't have any homegrown tanks that could stand up to the German Panzers for much of the war while the Soviets had their T-34 and KV1s to start with.

While the Germans seized a lot of territory during Operation Barbarossa, if you compare it to the size of the USSR, there was still a huge part of the USSR untouched:

Actually no there isn't a lot of data to back up a claim that Russia (Soviet Union) could have managed alone. Not only didn't they have the technology know-how of the Germans, they also didn't have the years of preparation and infrastructure which would have been untouched hadn't it been for the US and British bombing raids and "total destruction" tactics, which also would have allowed for Germany to move their air-superiority which had destroyed the RAF over to fight on the Russian front where the russian air defence was pretty much a joke.

So considering that this isn't 1812 and Hitler was Napoleon , we would have seen a whole different war where Germany could focus air and land units and you can be almost 90% sure that Russia wouldn´t have stood a chance.

Which the russians also knew which is why they already in 1941 at the beginning of the german invasion joined into the Lend-Lease act the US had and considering that USA had a untouched huge war-infrastructure, the know-how, the manpower to build and ship the hardware the russian troops needed. It is just ridiculous to even being to claim that the russians could have done this without any help. So Yes Russia played a huge role and had a huge man-reserve and military but without the food, trucks, tanks, planes, iron, etc. from the US they wouldn't have had a chance.

And lastly a few numbers of what the US gave USSR, besides mechanics, us pilots to train the russians and other essential personal.

Between June 1941 and May 1945 3,000 Hurricanes were delivered to the USSR along with 4,000 other aircraft, 5,000 tanks, 5,000 anti-tank guns and 15 million pairs of boots in total 4 million tonnes of war materials including food and medical supplies were delivered

It's not so crazy, considering that by the time the Russian Army got to Seelow, they outnumbered the German Army 10 to 1....

This is probably a indicator of where Lend-Lease equipment was most effective. Site: http://www.wwiivehicles.com/wwii/production.asp

In 1941 when Operation Barbarossa commenced, the number of "imports" outnumbered the Medium and Heavy tank production numbers. Googling around, the initial USSR tank strength in 1941 was around 23,000 tanks of all types. The USSR industrial production got into full swing in 1942, quadrupling its output from the previous year. Total output of all armored vehicles from 1941-1945 were around 100,000 which dwarfed the 5,000 imported tanks. The Lend-Lease tanks would have helped most back in 1941 while the factories ramped up to war footing. By 1942, the "imports" were needed less. In comparison, the German total production of armored vehicles were around 50,000. Less than half of those were from the Panzer IV and better.

As for aircraft, the aircraft the Soviets used to win the war: the Yak fighter, IL-2, and Pe-2 were all entering service by Operation Barbarossa. Again, there was a short period required for the factories to get into a war footing. That's when Lend-Lease aircraft would have been most useful.

You have to remember Germany made a huge blunder by not having a long-range bomber. Their doctrine of Blitzkrieg required battlefield aircraft types, not strategic bombing. As a result, Soviet industry was unhampered once it relocated "east of the Urals." The Soviets merely required a grace period while the military factories were reassembled.

Then there's the distances involved. The Germans were already hard-pressed getting supplies to the front lines west of Moscow. What more with the rest of the USSR? It would seem silly to think the Soviets would stop fighting simply because Moscow fell. Their hatred of the Nazis would keep them fighting so long as they had the equipment and ammo. The longer the German supply lines became, the more vulnerable they would have been to partisans.

Worst of all, the Germans had Hitler. If the German generals were free to make the right decisions, the Germans might have a chance. With Hitler around, who knows what other idiotic ideas he may put forward?

Japan doesn't have any capacity to "draw the line" anywhere. If the US joins the war Britain wins. Considering that the British placed orders for all kinds of armored vehicles and weapons to the US before they joined the war, I have no doubt that if the US wouldn't join the war, they would have no qualms about just building whatever the British want. FDR did mainly plan for the US to indirectly fight the war as the "Arsenal of Democracy". Britain, if left as the only nation fighting the war, would almost certainly dog it out and be able to take pretty significant casualties, as it would be fighting for its survival, the main issue being that they simply don't have the kind of industrial capacity as the US.

While I agree that the IJN would have a much easier job in the Pacific, you have to remember that (what most people usually ignore) the Royal Navy had one of the most effective submarine arms of the war, while the IJN was horrifically ineffective in ASW. The Allies managed to basically halve the Japanese merchant fleet in the span of 2 years, sinking 3-4 million tonnes of ships. If the British would focus more on submarine production, they could effectively cripple the Japanese navy since it would have enormous supply difficulties.

And there is no way the Japanese could take either Australia or India. The Japanese ground forces were in no capacity capable of doing that. Australia would be a slaughterhouse since it's ideal tank country while the Japanese army had absolutely worthless armor. Any large conventional engagement the Japanese would fight they would loose. On the islands the fanatical zeal of their infantry and their skill in that terrain made them superior, but in conventional ground warfare they were hopeless, relying on WW1 tactics and equipment.

I agree. The US would enter the war and the Brits would win. But, the whole premise of the thread was the US staying out of active fighting. I just can't see the Japanese sitting still and doing nothing if the US started supplying capital ships to the Brits. Not with their powerful carrier groups. Historically, the Japanese have been preemptive if they had the means. So.... leave out the capital ships. ;) He He.

Without the US taking part in the fighting, the Brits would be fighting a multi-front war. Without the US occupying the Japanese, the latter can conduct more comprehensive operations against the Brits. I agree taking the whole of India or Australia would be a tall order. But, the Japanese can certainly capture ports and coastal areas similar to the Japanese in China. You don't need to capture whole countries, just the important ports and choke points. MacArthur employed the same strategy with his leap-frogging campaigns (vs the island-hopping campaigns by Nimitz) and left large numbers of the enemy to wither in the vine.

While the Japanese armor was inferior, I don't think there was anything wrong with Japanese antitank measures. I'm sure they learned their lesson when they skirmished with Zhukov and the Soviets. In Okinawa, the Japanese inflicted a greater than 40% loss rate on US tanks (mostly Shermans). I think the Japanese would have handled British armor if they invaded India.

As for the Royal Navy submarine arm.... Even with the US taking part in the war, they were hard-pressed as it was and couldn't expand beyond the European Theater. What more if the Brits fought the war alone? The bulk of Allied submarine operations in the Pacific were undertaken by the USN based in Hawaii. Take them out of the equation and the Brits would have a hell of a time even making it to the Indian Ocean, much less the Japanese supply lines in the South China Sea.

Im not sure what your trying to point out here but first of all factories need resources and considering that USSR only had 71.3mt iron ore and 590mt of coal its clear that yes they did have factories but if they didn't have resources to throw into those factories , they are not much use are they, also the USSR air force was as i said a joke, they lost a 1/4 of their entire air force to the germans during the first day and who do you think helped replace those.

Also if you look at the German invasion you will see that a huge number of the US/British tanks which had been supplied was used in the initial battle to drive the germans back after the winter and russia trenches had luck in stopping the german advance. Also if your trying to downplay the Lend-Lease agreement you might want to reread some of the numbers of resources provided by the germans and british.

U.S. lend-lease food supplies were sufficient to supply 6 million Soviet soldiers with one pound of (quality) consumables for each day of the war. Also, U.S. food supplies, such as canned Spam, had a seemingly indefinite shelf-life and could be stored anywhere without spoilage when compared to one of the standard Soviet military staple diets, dried fish (consuming dried fish causes one to drink more - this in turn increases the number of "breaks" one has to take - and that is not a desirable condition if one is close proximity to enemy lines).

Anyways back to the key point here, it is ridiculous to say that the USSR could have beat the germans alone and there is not a shred of evidence to even suggest that.

Germany lost because yes they had Hitler who was a joke as a leader and military strategist, but they also lost because the allies worked together and trying to single out one nation is just stupid

The question is were 71.3 million tons of iron ore enough to replenish its armored forces? Hard to say. But, the Soviets didn't have much of a navy unlike the massive fleets of the Brits and the US. Most of iron and steel can go to production of guns and armor/vehicles. The Urals have substantial deposits of iron ore (and other resources) not far from the steel plants and military factories.

From 1941 to 1945, total Allied deliveries of tanks and aircraft were around ~12,000 tanks (all types) and ~18,000 aircraft compared to Soviet production of ~106,000 armored vehicles (all types) and ~160,000 aircraft during the same time period. Lend-Lease hardware helped during 1941 (which I mentioned). Beyond that, they became much less significant.

Lend-Lease food supplies certainly helped. But, there was never enough of it. Many Soviet civilians still died of starvation.

For me to see Lend-Lease equipment being critical to the Soviets, it would have to be adopted in the scale the British did.

Sure, the question is would the 71 metric tons of iron ore be enough to replenish and make enough steel to make their famous T34´s and their more crude but way more reliable machine guns and other weapons, and the answer from history would be a definitely no, otherwise US steel wouldn´t have shipped 22.000tons of steel over to the russians not to mention what the British shipped.

So when you consider that according to research by a team of Soviet historians, the Soviet Union lost a staggering 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. At the end of November 1941, only 670 Soviet tanks were available to defend Moscow—that is, in the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and Southwestern Fronts. Only 205 of these tanks were heavy or medium types, and most of their strength was concentrated in the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the Southwestern Front two tank brigades (30 tanks). According to Biriukov's service diary, the first 20 British tanks arrived at the Soviet tank training school in Kazan on October 28, 1941, at which point a further 120 tanks were unloaded at the port of Archangel in northern Russia. Courses on the British tanks for Soviet crews started during November as the first tanks, with British assistance, were being assembled from their in-transit states and undergoing testing by Soviet specialists

So Lend-Lease aid alone didn´t save The Soviet union but to consider it assistance irrelevant and claim that they could have done without is again simply not true, Britain and US troops, planes, mechanics, supplies played a big role for Russia and without them how long do you think those 205 tanks would stand up against Germany's untouched and superior military production and resources.

So no US couldn´t have the won alone, Britain couldn't have won the war alone, Soviet couldn't have won alone. They all combined their forces and together they beat the Germans

Yes and No

Yes - Britain would have won the war more or less if it didn't invade Europe like it did on D-day. If Britain invaded Europe, it would have lost it's greatest defence to protect Britain in general if Germany actually carried out it's plans to invade. Invading a country that is connect to your's is totally different when invading one across the sea. Hitler tried to invade Britain and he failed, he even accepted defeat when it came to trying to invade Britain after the Blitz did nothing. After he canceled his plans to continue attacking Britain from the air as it did nothing to make Britain surrender, just make Britain stronger, he turned his eyes to Russia. Some of Hitlers Generals didn't want to attack on two different fronts. i.e Britain and Russia. It's quite possible Britain could have won the war if it did invade Europe when Hitler attacked Russia. Although, Britain would have taken heavy losses and the chances of the war lasting longer than it did is very possible.

Britain most likely would have lost some turf, but also gained some depending on how well the battle's took place. America was backup but it would have helped, let alone prevent serious losses to Britain.

America would have lost the war if it didn't join. America didn't produce a huge army, navy and airforce as much as it did after the attack on pearl harbour. If i remember correctly, production skyrocketed and thus led America in to the mighty military police force it is today. If pearl Harbour wasn't attacked, America most likely wouldn't be a super power with a huge army etc

Britain is home to a lot of brave men and women and i must respect them for putting up a good fight. British spirit has always been very very strong.

No - again, if Britain invaded Europe, it would have most likely lost, it might have gotten far, but if Russia wasn't attacked, the whole german army would be against Britain on Nazi occupied turf. It would have been better for Germany to come to Britain instead of Britain go to Nazi occupied Europe.

Do not forget that Germany was suffering due to Russian whether, so if Hitler planned to attack Russia at a different time, it's possible Russia would have lost. Russian's are born and bread to live in cold whether, German's where not. The whether was another downfall to Hitler invading Russia like the Blitz and acutal military landings where another failure against Britain.

Hitler should have thought about the war more carefully than he did, in the end, he lost it and it was his confusing actions that made Germany fall so quickly

Well no, the US would't enter, but would give the Commonwealth support. I mean be serious here, you are talking about the Commonwealth, which is (mainly) 1 highly developed country (Great Britain) and 3 large countries with very small industrial capacities (Australia, India and Canada) fighting Italy, Germany and Japan. The US would give the Commonwealth what the hell it would want. If the Japanese want this to stop they have to attack the US, which would mean the US would join the war. Without the US the Commonwealth cannot win because it simply cannot match the industrial capacity of 3 highly developed countries.

China had a very bad army. Japan had a superior army to them, but wholly inferior to any of the other "great nations". For example, the main, and realistically only AT gun the Japanese employed during WW2 was the 3,7 cm Type 94. The figures for the gun are a joke, it made the German 3,7 cm Pak 36 look good, and the Germans dubbed the Pak 36 "door-knocker", because it only alerted tank crews to the AT gun. And that was in 1940 and 1941. The high Sherman loss counts were down to the Japanese being able to close the distance and use explosives or traps. In open terrain of any kind the Japanese army would be slaughtered by the British. The Stuart light tank was invulnerable to the Type 94 frontally from most ranges, forget Shermans or any other medium tank. Hell, imagine Matilda's and Churchills, the Germans needed to use their 88mm Flak 36's to knock them out, the Japanese wouldn't be able to do anything against that caliber of armor.

Another thing is that in the air to air skirmishes of the RAF and RAAF vs the IJN air arm showed that while the Zero had superior maneuverability to the Spitfire, the Commonwealth pilots could match the IJN pilots in close in dog-fighting, meanwhile the Spitfire could (similarly to most Allied fighters) operate at a much higher altitude compared to the Zero. Realistically this meant that the Japanese would have a hard time delivering tactical air-strikes since the Spitfires could "boom and zoom" on the low flying dive bombers with impunity while the Zeros could not match the Spitfire at altitude, also meaning that any kind of heavier bomber formations would be vulnerable.

The Royal Navy submarine arm wasn't developed as the Royal Navy focused production on as many escorts as possible to be able to send convoys out to the Soviet Union. Most of the largest convoy battles took place in the northern passages, and the Royal Navy in general had no need for submarines as it was mainly fighting the Italians. Here we are removing the Soviet Union form the war, so all the escorts on the northern passages are moved over to the convoys supplying the UK, which means the RN can and realistically must scale up submarine production. Another thing is that the British knew the US would handle the Japanese

It would definitely be hard pressed to do all of this, but I'd imagine the British would pull through. You also ignore the fact that the Royal Navy also had larger carrier force than the Japanese. The main problem was that they had very poor naval airframes, but I'd imagine they would quickly crew them up with US designs until Sea-Hurricanes and Seafires would be ready. Another thing is that the Royal Navy Aircraft carriers were armored as hell, the Illustrious class being infamous for the pounding they could take, meanwhile most of the Japanese carriers were rather flimsy, many being sunk by only a few hits.

Of course this is all considering ideal circumstances, the Royal Navy would need to be decisive and strike out against the Italians to secure the Mediterranean and prevent Axis ships from reaching Africa. They would also have to realistically guage the threat of the remaining German surface capitol ships and stop leaving so many of their capitol ships in the home fleet. With the kind of lollygagging they dabbled with at the start of the war, they really wouldn't be able to win the seas.

Yet another question ... that should never be asked.... how the hell is this even up for debate? if you've even taken a basic history class the answer is so obvious.

No it's not. Give your insight too. ;)

without the US, yes. without the USSR, no. The USSR was responsible for the most during that war, they took berlin and defeated the nazis. germanys biggest mistake was betraying their pact with russia.

Anyone that expects that a UK vs Germany situation would end in any other way than stalemate is delusional. Germany had no naval capability, the only major surface naval operation they conducted during World War 2 - the invasion of Norway, ended with most of the German surface fleet destroyed. And that was with all the mistakes the British did. An invasion of the home isles would result in the German navy being wiped off the face of the planet and any landing troops cut off and destroyed. Same way goes for the British invading Europe really, the Luftwaffe would maim the landing flotilla extensively while the ground troops would be encircled and pushed back into the sea.

I don't know...their air raids were doing some damage to the UK.

Short answer, hell no.

They were doing more damage to the Luftwaffe. The RAF achieved a 2 to 1 downed to lost aircraft ratio. And the deal isn't really loosing aircraft, you can replace those. The problem was that the Luftwaffe was loosing great and experienced pilots and couldn't recover them, while the RAF pilots just bailed out and in a few hours could be back in the air. The Allied carpet bombed Germany to hell and back, and it really didn't do as much damage as you might imagine, the Luftwaffe never came close to the kind of damage the Allies inflicted though. Hell, they had no operation heavy bomber throughout the war.

The air raids were considered a failure for Germany. They lost too many pilots and air crafts and it's effect on the UK wasn't that big. Yes it resulted in a lot of deaths but it takes more than just killing a few civilians to win a war.

Sorry. I had to leave yesterday for a World Cup pot luck. ;)

Anyway, the reason why I thought the scenario would be rendered irrelevant if the US started supplying capital ships such as aircraft carriers to the Brits is because the Japanese understood clearly how important the aircraft carrier is. They know it will tip the balance. They won't stand still and let it happen. They'll make a preemptive strike just like Pearl Harbor and risk bringing the US into the war. Of course, once that happens, this scenario ends because we know what the end result will be.

The time period I would be referring to is late 1941 and 1942 the period where historically, the Japanese ran rampant across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The IJN would have had no losses in the Philippines, Wake Island, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal. Their carrier air crews were considered the elite and would have been intact. Wherever they go, they most likely will attain local air superiority, including against the Spitfires in Australia and India. Most of the Spitfire vs Zero encounters you mentioned took place against smaller numbers of land-based aircraft. Against the carrier groups, they'll have a much harder time. The Spitfires may attain some local kills, but, they'll have no effect on the battle as a whole. It'd be similar to the Japanese 343rd Kokutai (comprised of many aces) against the USN in 1945. They managed a good number of kills. Yet, they had no effect on the outcome of the raids.

The open ground you mentioned as suitable for tank warfare in favor of the Brits is also favorable for Japanese air support. The Japanese army would remain under the umbrella of local IJN air superiority. I think the IJN can provide air support until airfields within their perimeter can be captured or constructed. Or, they can even remain full-time for the simple reason there's no USN to worry about on the eastern flank of the Japanese empire. The Japanese can focus their attention wholly on India. They can also incite the locals to mutiny against the colonials. It didn't meet with much success in the Philippines. But, there's a chance it may work in Ceylon or India because of the nationalist movements there.

As for the Royal Navy..... I think they will be hard-pressed to fight both Germany/Italy and the Japanese at the same time. I would think they'd stay away from the Indian Ocean if the Japanese was more active there. India or Ceylon could become an HQ base, making their capture even more important. Over time, I think the Royal Navy will gain strength over the Japanese. I don't think the Brits would risk its carriers in direct battle against their IJN counterparts, at least not for the first two years. I agree the Fulmars and Sea Hurricanes would not be able to stand up to the Japanese. While it's true BrItish carriers were armored to withstand 1000 lb bomb hits, the Japanese had 2000 lb armor-piercing bombs of their own, not to mention their torpedoes which were among the best in the world. The Royal Navy would have to play it smart just like the USN did in 1942, depending on code breakers for info on the IJN. Even then, the US carrier strength in the Pacific got whittled down to just one carrier (two if you counted the damaged USS Enterprise). It's hard to say if the Royal Navy would manage to have a Midway of their own against the Japanese. With their even weaker airframes? Probably not in 1942.

The Japanese being more active in the Indian Ocean also brings up the possibility of more Japanese-German cooperation. What if the Germans did their technology trade much earlier with the Japanese? Radar and sonar tech in particular, would be quite useful as well as more powerful aircraft engines. That's delving into even more what-ifs.

Well that's how it goes, you here we're going to just pretend the Japanese would be smart enough and rather try their luck against only the Commonwealth without the US. So the Commonwealth get's a load of hardware from the US. Without that they really cannot match their losses and would be really forced to abandon the open seas and concentrate on defending the coasts. Though again, I see no way of any of the Axis countries mounting a successful land invasion of any of the major Commonwealth countries.

And here's the deal, they wouldn't. The earl war Zero is slightly more maneuverable than the Spitfire, meanwhile the Spitfire has a huge height advantage. The earl war Spitfire models could effectively operate up to about 21'000 feet (6,5km) meanwhile the Zero's would be useless above 16'000 feet (4,8km). The Spitfire would also gain a maneuverability and general performance advantage aas the Zero's neared it's operating ceiling (about 13'000+ feet). The Zero is also completely unarmored, so even the early Spits 8x7mm MG armament would tear them to shreds, meanwhile the Spitfire would have more survivability to hits. In a defensive situation the Spitfires could wreak havoc on Zero's, and the Spitfires would also get early warning since the Commonwealth possessed advanced radar tech early in the war. The Zeros would have to escort the slow flying dive bombers to their targets at relatively high altitude to minimize AA effectiveness, meanwhile the Spitfires could execute almost ideal boom and zoom attacks from 21'000 feet (about 4'000 feet of height advantage basically means that the booming aircraft is invulnerable to the zoom target since it will acquire so much speed it would be able to pull up and away without the target aircraft having any chance of retaliating).

Another thing is that the Japanese had no really effective means of taking out armor with aircraft. None of their aircraft carried sufficiently large cannon armament and they had no aircraft launched rockets early in the war. Contrary to popular belief, during WW2 only the specialized anti-tank aircraft (Stuka's with the 37mm gun pods, B-25s with the 75mm, Mosquito with the 6 pounder, Henschel Hs 129 with the 7,5cm) actually could reliably take out tanks. Even the 5" HVAR's used on US ground attack missions had limited anti-tank capacity (mostly because they weren't accurate enough). For example, during the Falaise Pocket mop up, where you often hear stories of P-47 pilots annihilating entire armored companies, post battle analysis by research groups found out that there were apparently about 3-4 tanks that showed damage that could come from an aircraft, all of them showing signs of direct impact from a rocket. There is simply nothing machine-gun or light cannon fire can do to a tank, even the roof (which would also have a stupidly oblique angle).

I'm not saying it would be an easy fight for the Commonwealth pilots, but you aren't taking into account the strengths of Commonwealth airplanes, their rather well trained pilots and their general tactical know-how. Any real ground invasion of Australia or India would end in a slaughter, the Japanese simply don't have neither the armor to effectively fight modern maneuver warfare nor the AT capacity to take out Commonwealth armor.

I agree, that's why I said in the first post that the Royal Navy would probably relegate (well, would have to, any toe to toe engagement between the Royal Navy and the IJN in 1941-42 would end very badly for the RN, as was shown with the sinking of the HMS PoW and HMS Repulse) a few destroyer groups and most of their subs to the Pacific theater and retreat most of their heavier surface units. The RN would have to only engage in limited hit and run battles, mostly concentrating on taking out Japanese convoys and generally just annoying them and preventing them from concentrating all of their forces. The main fleet would have to amass itself in the Mediterranean, where HMS Rodney and Nelson, the King George V ships and the Illustrious carriers along with the bulk of the heavy and light Cruisers would form a battle group that would hopefully seal off Africa to the Axis. The Revenge and Queen Elizabeth battleships along with the Battle-cruisers and Ark-Royal and the remaining carriers would form a response group in Scapa Flow that could quickly move out and engage any German surface vessels trying to break out into the Atlantic and also operate as a "fleet in being" to prevent the Germans from attempting any brash naval maneuvers of their own.

When Africa would be secured and the Illustrious carriers would get their complements of decent naval air-frames the Mediterranean force would sail out to Madagascar, take it from Vichy France, and start operating from there as a fleet in being, meaning the IJN would have to constantly have forces ready for them. Time is on the side of the British here since the Japanese have a very limited supply of fuel and hopefully the RAAF is mounting bombing raids on the Dutch East Indies to take out the oil refineries. All of this time the RN would be reinforced by small ships built in the UK and the US, so it's only really growing in strength. At some point the two titans would have to clash and it would probably be a pretty cataclysmic battle, at which point I really can't say who would win. The Japanese would almost certainly outnumber the RN in Aircraft, considering the fairly limited amount of airplanes the RN carriers carried in comparison with other nations. Mainly I would say it would come down to who'd get lucky, the Japanese would have to rely far more on torpedoes than bombs (2000 pound bombs would make dive bombers sitting ducks, slow and very unwieldy) meanwhile they would have to be very careful about letting RN aircraft through, considering how many their carriers seem to have a tendency of just dying the second someone touches them. Experience wise I'd expect both sides to be about matched, the Japanese wouldn't really have that many naval targets to engage, while the RN would hone their craft in the Mediterranean. It would certainly be interesting, and I'd actually expect both sides to throw in all the cards and send in their surface vessels into the battle.

But yeah, there's a lot of what-if's. But generally I'd say that the Japanese really had no chance of winning the war, they simply didn't have the industrial capacity, their fuel reserves were limited, their technology was really only focused on naval aircraft and their tactical and strategic sense was... lacking to say the least. Their unrelenting devotion to striking first and not retreating in time might have been useful at the start of the war when everyone was reeling unprepared, but it later cost them many many battles. Though to a certain degree you could throw the same faults at the Commonwealth, considering their leadership at the start of the war was a bad joke. Though they had a much better capacity to adapt and evolve, so I'd expect the extra stress of having no allies might just make them really think their plans through well before committing to them.

All of what says really relies on the Commonwealth not being as incompetent as they many times were during the early war and being willing to suffer rather enormous casualties for mostly little gain, realistically only fighting a delaying battle.

Yeah. I think the idea behind the Germans attacking British cities was to lower morale among the civilian population and make the British populace want to sue for peace. It backfired though; it made them angry and more committed to victory.

Britain could win a war against two worlds at once.

It could in theory but would never have been allowed.

Let say hypothetically Germany maintain their alliance with Stalin. Stalin sat in Moscow and he hearing reports of Britain defeating germany in the battle of Britain, that Romney was chased out of Africa.

Britain decided that it couldn't allow the Nazis to rule Europe and didn't pursue peaceful negotiation. Then we have period where Britain airforce bomb Germany factories, in 1946 D-Day is launch with a million british empire troops successfully landing on French beeches.

Tough fighting but British empire slowly fights it way through France, slowly towards Berlin.

Stalin, knowing churchill didn't like him at all wouldn't have allowed Britain to reach Soviet borders, 1947 a massive Soviet army launched offensive is launched into Ukraine, Poland and several other easter countries.

A race between the Soviets and British empire towards Berlin would have begun. The Axis power is defeated.

The only difference this time the Americans won't veto Churchill wanting to wanting to attack Russia and remove Stalin from power.

Thus Soviet vs British Empire would almost certainly have happen at some point and could have lasted for years.

I'm ignoring Japanese front in this by I presume that Japan and America didn't go to war and once Japan hit India boarder they would have stopped and went about consolidating their power in China and rest of Asia. The may have been a chance that Japan, if it did manage consolidate it empire would have attack the Soviets and seize territory along the pacific coast.

Hell no!