Could the Allies defeat Germany only with air power?

The MIA numbers are below. This information comes from the United States Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO).

WWI
Total POW/MIA 7,323
POWs returned 3,973
Still MIA 3,350

WWII
Total POW/MIA 194,879
POWs returned 116,129
Still MIA 78,750

Korea
Total POW/MIA 12,654
POWs returned 4,439
Still MIA 8,215

Vietnam
Total POW/MIA 2,596
POWs returned 591
Still MIA 2,005

Cold War
Total POW/MIA 124
POWs returned 0
Still MIA 124

Those are very sobering numbers, evanglider. Especially for Korea where prisoners were exposed to Communist indoctrination in a very serious way. Many US POW's, I have been told, simply rolled over in their bunks, gave up, and died.

MM

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Why? Simple, you have to have boots on the ground to win a war. Without the Eastern Front, the Germans could concentrate their air forces over fortress Europe.

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What lead you to belive the Luftwaffe would be invencible, specially with all the aircraft send to the Pacific and Russia (Lend Lease) being use against it?

About the ground forces, yes, already said the tittle of the thread was wrong. The question would be the use of the Anglo-American air power to pave a way for an invasion. Not necessarily from France or France alone.

Jenisch said:

What lead you to belive the Luftwaffe would be invencible, specially with all the aircraft send to the Pacific and Russia (Lend Lease) being use against it?

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Where did I say they were invincible? I just said the allies would not be able to defeat the Germans off of air power alone. It would take a combination of air, ground and sea forces (just like it did historically).

Bear in mind 1941 German and British bombing campaigns were completely different. Britain was attempting to destroy civilian property by area bombardment. Germany was attempting to strangle Britain economically by closing major seaports such as London and Liverpool.

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There wasn't that much difference in 1941. The RAF had other priorities for the first half of the year, chiefly German naval targets. It was only in July (after the Germans had abandoned the Blitz) that area bombing became a priority. As a result about a third of the RAF's tonnage went on area attacks in 1941.

There's no breakdown of the Luftwaffe's attacks by whether civilians or industry were the target, and many raids had both listed as priorities (eg Coventry). But there were certainly area attacks by the Luftwaffe. In London, for example, the boroughs that received the most bombs by area were in the centre of the city and to the north and west, well away from the docklands.

That was 1940. The historical Luftwaffe was more powerful during 1941. It will become more powerful still in this scenerio without the Russian front.

Do-17 will be replaced with Do-217 during 1941. Additional resources to the Luftwaffe allow it to be mass produced as a bomber.
Ju-88 will be available in larger numbers during 1941.
Still plenty of He-111s. It's perfectly capable of dropping mines in English harbors at night.
Me-109F and Fw-190A replace the Me-109E. Both fighter types have drop tanks.
.....These don't make a lot of difference as most bombing was at night by 1941.
The small Luftwaffe night intruder effort will become significantly larger.

By the fall of 1941 major English seaports such as London and Liverpool will be bombed every week. Bomb tonnage delivered will be several times what happened during 1940 and early 1941. We can only speculate whether this would induce Britain to jettison PM Churchill and accept one of the German peace offers.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

How is that?

What with Do 17s, Ju 88s and He 111s, being escorted by 109s with not enough range?

The allies had the heavy bombers and the numbers.

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without the russians to worry about, 100% of German resources would have been used against the WEst. N.Africa for instantance, wouldn't have been loss (or at least played to a stalemate) by the Germans due to badly needed equipment being diverted to the east ( fuel/arms/TANKS, etc.)

davebender said:

We can only speculate whether this would induce Britain to jettison PM Churchill and accept one of the German peace offers.

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Roger that.

I see this as a far more difficult proposition to analyse than people are giving credit. Im not sure an accurate prediction can be made. In the end it wont get down to airpower, it will get down to manpower and conomic management, plus really what Russia does in the finish. The alternatives are endless really.

I have to try and consider how this scenario might work. Firstly, with regard to Japan, they would have to accept a humiliating back down, pull out of China and allow free trade as per US demands. that equals a complete meltdown of the japanese regime, and major retention of big money spinners for the allies......Indonesioan Oil, Malaysian Rubber, just toname a couple. The allies are richer and with far more manpower (for the Brits at least). 35% of US production is immedialtey diverted to the Atlantic, along with the entire US fleet....end of the u-Boat campaign. Brit production does not lose about 27% of its manpower, and 17% of its industrial potential, and right at the critical moment does not lose momentum in the Middle East. it does not need to divert about 9% of its industrial potential to Russia either.

These are all good results from the allied pespective. The allies would probabaly have about 100 US divisions, and 65 CW/Brit Divs comabt ready by the 1st quarter of 1943. Air forces on the allied side are much stronger, Italy almost certainly knocked out of the war, or in bad shape at least.

But against that, the Germans have not lost 750000 men on the russian front by the end of 1942. They would redeuce their attritional losses in aircraft by a whopping 40% or so, so there are no shortages of aircraft in 1941-2. Oil is still the limiting factor....it gets down to what Stalin is considering and how the Germans would avoid war with them.

Stalin viewed his alliance with hitler as long lasting,and was quite prepred to go to war against britain as an axis partner. stalin was an opportunist, and his money was on the germans at the beginning. but his price for frienship was high, too high. In 1940, in various negotiations (that eventually re-confirned for both sides that they had to go to war) the soviets wanted complete control of Eastern Europe, except Poland, but including Rumania, Hungary Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Germany was having none of that, and suggested the russians strike south. The russians saw no future in that. Both sides went away unhappy. there is now pretty clear evidence that the russians wer planning to attack the germans in 1942 or 1943, but the germans of course beat them to it. From the deployments they were making (concentrating 2/3 of their armour in the south for example) it seems clear the Russians were getting ready to monster the Rumanians. Loss of rumanian oil is game over for the Germans, so it all gets back to what the russians would decide....go with the Axis, go for their own interests, or side with the Allies. But at the very least, one would thgink that an uneasy standoff would arise, requiring more and more attention by the germans.

Lets speculate a bit. Say the Germans deploy 120 divs to cover the ewast from Soviet agression. By the spring of 1943, they might have another 100 divs for the west. The west might have 165 Divs to attack them with. If I were the allies, I would not attempt a cross channel attack....I think the best bet might be a reverse "felix", an attack from out of gibraltar....open up a napoleonic wars style campaign in Spain. It stretches the german supply network, it forces them into a new territory where application of air power for them is more difficult, it is not so open country, in parts. Another option along a similar vein might be to pressure the turks to join the allies and join the allies, and then attack up into Rumania using amphibious assualts from the black sea. again, knock out Rumanai, and you neuter the Germans.

Ultimately I see the war as likley to be won by the allies, but the war would be very different and more protracted, for sure. And certainly not guranteed either way

No matter how you look at it, it was a numbers game. When the US entered the war, the production Might of the US coupled with that of GB would eventually overtake Germany and the bombing effect on industry in the Reich would play out as it did. And that would give the Allies the air supremecy it would need to effect a D-Day type operation whereever it would fall.

By the historical end of the Blitz in spring 1941 the RAF night fighter force was just beginning to become really effective.

In January 1941 RAF twin engined night fighters flew 84 sorties, detected aircraft on 44 occasions, which resulted in 2 combats.

By May those figures had risen to 643 sorties, 217 detections, 80 combats.

It wasn't until the spring of 1941 that the RAF really got their airborne radar working properly. From that point on German night bombing would have begun to suffer high casualties.

Bomb tonnage delivered will be several times what happened during 1940 and early 1941.

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How? The Luftwaffe bomber force hardly grew at all.

On the 29 June 1940 the Luftwaffe had 1,380 level bombers on strength.

On the 21 June 1941 that had risen to just 1,511.

Even without attacking Russia, the Luftwaffe would be almost identical in strength to when they attacked Britain the previous summer. The RAF, however, had greatly increased in strength over the same period.

Ratsel said:

England Europe would be crushed eventually.

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I don't think so Mr Ratsel.

You really don't understand the concept of the will to resist.

John

As it was WW2 had been going on for over 2 years before America got involved. When would America get involved with this new scenario, and why would they ?

In late 41 Russia appeared to be losing the war, Japan felt somewhat safe from Russia taking advantage of their shift of focus to the Pacific. With Russia not at war, Japan is less likely to start anything serious with the US.

I don't see America getting fully engaged with the European war without someone directly attacking it. The president can have his own wishes, but without the majority of the people behind him he can only do so much.


I don't think Germany could have beaten Britain to the extent that they could have invaded the isle, but they could have fought them to a armistice.

Not only would the allies not defeat Germany, they would in my opinion get severly bloodied.

This is quite a likely scenario. War with the Soviet Union was not inevtiable, the reasons are somewhat lost but range from German perceptions of a planed Soviet Invasion if not in 41 trhen 42, economic problems due to crop failure in Germany. Nevertheless relationship with the Soviet Union was good. The attack on Finland was not tollerable due to the importance of the nickel there and its baltic access however the invasion of the baltic states was tollerable, barely. I believe the mein kampf lebensraum scenario was not part of the reasons for this war since Germany had regained that territory it lost after WW1.

Consider
1 There would be tens of thousands of FLAK barrels pointing skyward with the amunition and professional crews to man them. The FLAK barrels and predictors would be fully maintained and not second line ones.

2 The Germans even sacrificed a promissing microwave radar program for resource reasons in 1942, dispersing many of the technicians and researchers to the army. It's likely a completely new generation of radars opperating at 27cm (Mannheim K) and another by Lorentz would be entering service: they would be much more jam resistant due to their narrower beams.

3 Germany would still be building and urgently researching tanks: but the Tiger I would not be rushed into service and nor would the Panther. They would not be loosing tanks but building and upgrading them at a lower rate. The steel saved would likely end up as u-boats, destroyers, perhaps the completed aircraft carriers graf zeppelin and hindenburg etc.

4 A whole generation of aircraft abandoned due to the stress of fighting the Soviets might be developed: The Me 309 for instance might be worked to the point it was in service to meet the Mustang threat of 1944 and the Ju 252 transport, Jumo 222 and other hyper engines don't get suspended or cancelled. There is a backup to the He 177 etc,

5 There would be no shortage of refractory alloys for the new jet engines.

6 the tendancy to gamble on a short war would not longer exist and long term programs would have been followed.

7 Tactically the Germans are at an advantage in that they can launch attacks against the UK from French bases and station fighters there
fighers previously fighting in the East. There were plans to install wing tanks on the FW 190D-13, this I suspect would have given a 750 mile
range on internal fuel, probably 1250 with twin drop tanks: enough to fly over most of the UK. Certainly this was possible on the FW 190A series though
the outer wing guns are sacrificed.

8 The Germans were just about ready with a reactor in late 1944 in Haigerloch. The B8 could be described as a succesfull subcritical reactor. Without the allied bombing campaign a full blown reactor is likely to have run sometime in 1944.

9 The decision to persue heavy water only research wass made by the HWA with the knowlege that graphite could be a good moderator. It was done puerly for economic reasons.

With the Germans planning for a long term war and more resources available its possible to see a different answer being given to speer in regards to whether a bomb could be ready to influeunce the war. I'm not saying the Germans would beat the allies to a bomb, but it would be a lot closer than the 2 year gap often claimed.

10 the V1 and V2 would be deadly weapons if used in their planed for guided form. Moreover I can see a SAM missile program being full resourced to the same degree the V2 was.

11 Remember there are now millions of German working in making aircraft, radars, FLAK and opperating them.

This is the same way I think, Parsifal. Not necessarly in all your views, but you got the general picture this scenario could have endless possibilities.

It seems Germany would be vulnerable to Soviet attack if it had fully committed in the West/Afrika as suggested.

gjs238 said:

It seems Germany would be vulnerable to Soviet attack if it had fully committed in the West/Afrika as suggested.

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Yeah. Stalin was with it's industry being modernized, the economy was being shift to the war as well. The Soviet power in the border areas would be really something to worry about.

Another thing about Afrika is the Italians simply didn't had good navies to transport many troops to there. I don't know, but seems to me that the amount of aid Britain send to the USSR and the Pacific could have closed the gap of the Eastern Front if send to Africa in this scenario. Not to mention the USN.

Here's an interesting article about the British aid to the USSR in '41, which was much more relevant than most used to think: http://www.historynet.com/did-russi...ase-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans.htm

How about Portugal and Spain? Franco would likely entered in the war? This could have changed the situation in Africa?

How does allowing 80% of the Wehrmacht to concentrate against Britain rather then Russia help Britain?

Actually the British Empire and the US.

Well, it's not everything about numbers alone I guess. Against Stalin and it's massive armed forces which would attack by land, I doubt the Germans would concentrate just 20% of their troops. And Stalin was just the type of men who would put millions of troops in the border areas to make the Germans take troops from the West. More the Germans suffer with the Alllies, better. It's for the same reason he supplied Germany historically. Uncle Joe just didn't expected France and the other Europen countries would be defeated so easily though.

People in the West politics already didn't liked from the USSR from those times. The Allies would also need to considerate a strategy to defeat Germany without letting Stalin take over Europe. But a conflict with Stalin would be VERY likely totally out of question. And here I do not doubt they would try to use Japan and the IJA Anti-Soviet intentions to attack Stalin in the Far East. After Nomonhan, the IJA didn't gave up of fight the Soviet Union, it started the development of better equipment and tactics which by 1943 would probably be advanced enough for the IJA, receving resources without the Pacific War, and perhaps even Western aid, to attack. But for this the West would also need to try convince Chiangto to sign peace with Japan. Even because Stalin would be giving a lot of support to Chiang without a war with Germany.

Germany would build eastern wall fortifications similiar to the west wall fortifications which stopped the September 1939 French invasion in its tracks.