@@CesarAugustoRocabadoVillegas I think the Soviets had enough men on the far eastern front to hold off a serious Japanese attack and even if not they had the weather as an advantage to stop the Germans from reaching moscow
@@starflowers1751 yes it would hold off the invasion in the east but wouldnt be able to reinforce any of the fronts. And if the Axis take Leningrad and focus on Moscow. Their demise would be possible.
@@slavcity406 Stop worrying about what other says so much and enjoy a little bit of off-topic writing. People who insist these are not realistic and the people who do alternate history are dumb are worse than wehraboos, and don't get the point of alternate history writing.
Hitler didn’t just let the British leave at Dunkirk, the German Armored divisions outran the rest of the army and thus needed to stop in order to resupply and make sure they aren’t cut off and encircled.
Finally, somebody that actually realizes that they couldn’t have just attacked and destroyed with one killing blow and just decided not to they were not in that good of a situation.
This all operates on the assumption Stalin would kill himself if Moscow fell, why are you so sure on this fact? The USSR still hadn't peaked in enlisted forces and factories behind the Urals were opening constantly, if Moscow was completely doomed, but the USSR still had so much land left, why wouldn't they keep fighting. You also mentioned that Winter Gear would be sent to the front,, but there was a secondary reason, and that was either the troops would have to carry it with them, leading to a larger amount of kit for each soldier, or it would have to be shipped later, both of which would cause either a less mobile and effect Wehrmacht, or the same problem in our timeline, not to mention the other logistical problems asside from clothing.
Im not sure if Stalin ewas even at Moscow in our timeline to begin with, like could someone confirm me that he wasn't communicating from a hidden basement somewhere in the Urals? And even if he indeed was at Moscow, there is a good window of time to flee the city wich i assume he would reasonably do, its not like a Berlin situation, where there was nothing to do except to commit suicide, he could still keep fighting for elsewhere, and even if the city is surrounded, we are talking of a massive area, so he could feasibly and reallistically manage to escape with a small force, like many generals at the Kiev pocket actually did it.
Well if stalin left moscow and the ussr stayed together the axis couldnt have won. This timeline is intended to be a plausible scenerio where the axis won. Stalin killing himself after losing moscow isnt that far fetched since the amount of stress he would be under at that point would be enough to drive anyone insane. Also theres the chance that the germans encircle moscow faster then he could leave.
@@marrvynswillames4975 Well, even though Stalin _did_ prepare to escape to Samara in case of such a disaster, he might've been assassinated by a collaborationist. This sends the scenario down the path it went in the video.
Seems to me that you make winning in Africa sound much easier than it would be: if you look at the attrition suffered by the lone under supplied panzer division of our timeline, it’s hard to imagine sustaining a much larger armoured force.
Yes but he said that mussolini would replace his fascist generlas, with competent ones. This means that Italys only promblem( leadership) would be solved, and since they far outnumber the british an axis victory in africa is very likely
If one assumes a higher involvement in North Africa, one can also assume better logistics. There's no reason you can't improve the logistics infrastructure in North Africa, the Brits built an entire railway to support their troops in the region after all. There would be difficulty with Allied submarines and cruisers attacking convoys, but if Luftwaffe gives a bigger commitment instead of attacking Britain, it could allow for more secure path.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 I'm not sure it's that simple. By the end of the campaign, the Germans were trying desperately to improve the logistics in their part of north africa, but irl they did it mainly with aircraft and convoys. It's really hard to build a railroad through hundreds of miles of trackless desert, and if you are now supporting multiple divisions, it only gets harder. Also, this scenerio totally disregards the fact that the british fleet would most likely have control of the med, as there are no changes made to have the italian navy beat them.
@@coltinchao5932 We have a clear example of what can be done in North Africa in terms of logistics. It's the Commonwealth Armies building huge infrastructure to better facilitate movement of troops and supplies. The main British source of manpower in NA is coming from Britain itself, an island thousands of miles away and you can't even cross through the Med because of Axis subs and aircraft, so go around Africa, some material probably coming from India, also having to cross immense distances to reach El Alamein. If one invests foregoes Battle of Britain, there would be a lot more resources available to improve the situation in North Africa. And the Royal Navy never had full control of the Med, the Regia Marina was still a formidable foe, one of its main deficiencies was lack of naval aviation, but again, no Battle of Britain means much more concentration of airpower over Italian fleets.
@@theironchannel2396 thanks for the reply dude. I will be looking forward for your future videos. The maps and story telling is just awesome in general. Keep up the good work!
@@theironchannel2396 why wouldn't he have moved out to evade capture? Samara was planned to become the new capital for Russia had Moscow been taken, with a bunker even having been built for Stalin. What do you think would have had to have been done by the Germans had this occurred rather than a Stalin suicide?
@@theironchannel2396 I think he would have, kinda like how Hitler did in our timeline, either that or he moves to Yaketerinberg when he realizes Moscow is lost and then would probably move farther and farther into Siberia until there’s nowhere else to go and the Soviet Union turns into fractured states like how it is in TNO
This completely ignores the Germans inferiority in rail transport, compared to the Soviets, whom could deliver 5 times as much tonnage. This appears to take Halder's arguments, that he wasn't an incompetent general, at face value. The Germans failed to take Russia because they wanted to do it in 90 days. This simply die not allow them to properly build up the rail infrastructure, as for example was point out by Isserson, which recommended limiting the rate of advance to 7km a day, whereas the German army was moving at 20 km a day at time. This is a very surface level examination of the issues facing the German army.
A few things: 1. Dunkirk had bad terrain for armour and the Allies still had lots of artillery so many German tanks would be lost. Also, Hitler wanted to teach his generals a lesson by letting them stop their advance. 2. Italy could not have succesfully invaded Southern France because the Alpes were to strengthend by the French. With an earlier Italian entry, there may be a French attack from Tunisia against Lybia. Also, the French garrison in French Somaliland was strong so the Italians would suffer heavy casualties. 3. The Italians in East Africa were not prepared for offensive warfare and lacked fuel to commit such forces into Sudan. 4. The Axis could not supply such a large army in Lybia because the ports lacked the capacity. (Tripolis, Bengazi, Tobruk werent enough). Supplying such a force would only be possible after taking Alexandria as a port. But with Malta captured by the Axis, I can see more Axis supplies reaching Africa 5. The Axis supply lines in Egypt would be stretched to the limit and I doubt they would reach Suez in 1940 or early 1941. 6. Capturing the Middle East does not help much when the British would destroy the oil refineries and pipelines. 7. Leningrad would be possible to capture but the Germans wohld be involved in bloody street fighting and the Red Army would have been supported by the Red navy. 8. The Germans mainly advanced into Kiev and Crimea because Hitler wanted the Ukrainian grain and wanted to eliminate Crimea/Ukraine as a staging ground for air attacks against the Romanian oilfields. 9. The Japanese were ill prepared for cold forrest partisan warfare in the Far East and the Soviets would likley crush them even without numerical advantage. The Japanese would only capture key costoal areas. 10. I dont see the Japanese defeating the West in the Pacific. They didnt had the industrial capacities to fight the West. 11. I think Germany would have at least gainted their colonies in Africa back Nonetheless entertaining.
1: the forces at Dunkirk weren’t fully supplied either, hitler wanted to keep the allies there in hopes that they would negotiate peace 6: the Middle Eastern oil fields were *way* underdeveloped 8: the Russian air was practically non-existent
@@kalekkakmdkekjaakwkmdb8506 Thats not why Dunkirk was "allowed to happen". Poor terrain, like OP said, and also the shortcoming of Blitzkrieg starting to rear its ugly head, that being that crucial flanks were left wide open and the attack was called off so troops could reorganize. That extra time is what allowed dunkirk to happen but meant that counterattacks were less likely to be devastating. Now that we have all the info that we have, we can say that "Hitler let dunkirk happen" but if im not mistaken they didnt realize that those soldiers were as messed up as they ended up being.
@@yungdomino4718 ill change what i said about hitler allowing dunkurk to happen to “ hitler wanted dunkurk to happen” he wanted it plain and simple as stated by many ranking nazi commanders in the Nuremberg trials. He dint want a wanted a peace with britian. Also blitzkreig wasnt used in the battle of france. Mobile infanty does not mean the tactics of blitzkreig used in the german-polish war
Two words. Competent Italy. Germany wasted so much carrying every single front. Had Italy defeated Greece and won the North African campaign Germany would’ve had that little boost in manpower which would’ve given them Moscow and Stalingrad.
Except Italy's problem wasn't because they were entirerly competent but because they're economy and industry weren't ready for war Italy unlike Germany was an Agrarian country not an industrial one and your essentially asking an agrarian country to only go toe to toe with the largest Empire in History with the largest navy and the largest amount of men that they can draw up from thwir colonies to join the fight but to also beat them
Funny joke. Competent Italy won't change anyhow the results at Moscow and Stalingrad. Moreover, even if somehow Germany would have taken Moscow and Stalingrad, it still won't give them victory. There literally were no way for Axis to win the war - the only way was not to fight against USSR, and that would need Germany to be not nazi, so ruining entire concept of WW2 anyway.
Except you are forgetting the fact Russia isn't like the other nations, Moscow and Stalingrad falling wouldn't make enough of a difference to turn the front around.
Could the Panzer divisions have actually reached Dunkirk in time without outrunning their supply chains and expending too many resources? All the tanks in the world couldn't have stopped the allied evacuation without fuel and ammunition.
The reason why the Panzer Division did not reach Dunkirk (Dünkirchen) in time was not the resources, but the sudden stop order from Gerd von Rundstedt when Hitler visited the front. Runestedt thought that if the Panzer Division got too fast, that it could be trapped by French and British divisions. At that time, the Germans did not know that the Allies had already carried out their evacuation. There are also rumors that Hitler himself gave the order to stop to prove the obedience of the Wehrmacht. However, this is quite controversial because it is not believed that Hitler would have rejected a significant victory for such a demonstration. Of course, the Germans could have stopped the evacuation, or at least they could have compromised it in such a way that most of the soldiers would never have escaped. Ammunition was available (German ammunition + captured French, Dutch, Belgian ammunition)
@@-Eisenfaust- I thought another factor in the order to stop was the fact that the soldiers had been pushed for weeks on end and were reaching the end of their wits. You can only force a push so far before your troops collapse, right?
@Marinus Willet and everyone is in this thread, please stop thinking about the entire war when you make your statements about Dunkirk. Put yourself in the year 1940, The allied lines had been broken, the Germans had broken through, they were already victorious when they crossed the Sedan. The war was over, That's why Hitler let them go its true He ordered the panzer divisions to stop, This action is directly connected to the Speech he would give a month Later on the 19th July 1940, A last appeal to Reason, where he pleaded to Brittain to end this nonsense because they was nothing they could do except using a new tactic that was banned in War. Night bombing and yes folks, Brittain started that one first.
@@releasereality64 considering that Hitler's main goal was invading Russia, I'd imagine he probably wanted to eliminate any chance of Britain interfering. Once British troops crossed the Channel, they would be safe. From his perspective it would make sense to prevent them from escaping. I'm sure he would've wiped the British Expeditionary Force out if he could, but his men needed to rest. You can only push the human body so far.
I heavily disagree that “Leningrad would easily fall” aswell as Moscow, you haven’t shown any real argument as to how that would happen, the Soviets in our timeline were nearly outnumbered 2-1 outside Moscow and still counter attacked with a numerical disadvantage.
To add on to that AGC was only saved from destruction by Hitler’s stand fast orders and their defensive supremacy and winter quartering as-well overambitious Soviet assaults.
One failure of most Axis victory scenarios is that few have actually read what Axis leaders actually aspired to. There are books that detail what vision of victory the Axis had. Written by actual historians and not just pulp writers.
Also from Whatifalthist. Nice video. I've never heard anyone base a Germany Win scenario on Africa but it makes more sense to me than a landing in Fortress Britain.
Wouldn't Japans still decide to attack the United States after they impose an oil embargo? And if not, can they realistically function after losing access to 3/4ths of their international trade and 88% of it's imported oil?
This is a big one, regarding the scenario proposed in the video. Japan was overstretched as it was in China but it had "no way" to stop the invasion in an easy way they could explain or justify what they had done so far. The US getting more and more pissed off at this, I don't know how you prevent the US from embargoing, and given the embargo scenario, don't know how Japan goes into the USSR AND keeps their campaign in SEA and China, unless they could get massive amounts of oil from somewhere else and fast. Also, the US felt aggravated and threatened by Uboats in the Atlantic jeopardizing their merchants and their trade/help deals with the UK Similar to how the US entered WWI only after the Germans announced unrestricted attacks on British convoys in the Atlantic, that often had US cargo, ships and people in them. So I think it would take at least a very strongly isolationist US government to keep the US from entering the war one way or the other, and ofc if the US entered, it was never going to be an axis victory regardless.
They would import their oil from the axis since in the timeline the video describes the oil reserves near Baku would belong to Germany. Also Indonesia would fulfill some of the Japanese oil demands.
The idea of America no longer joining the war is pure fantasy. The nazis have wanted war with the US since the 20s, Japan wants to clear the US out of Asia. There is no world where America is not brought into the war. And every time, without fail, the Axis learns how impossible invading the US is, the US can't be knocked out of the war, then US will invent the nuke and end the war. But the Axis winning WW2 is already pure fantasy so decisions like this that would have never happened are required for an Axis win.
@@thepracticalinvestor2386Yes, but with Germany they were also having manpower shortages as early as 42 or 43. Japan probably still wouldn’t attack the Soviets because, of their Chinese invasion and because of the experience in an undeclared border conflict, which was called the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. This convinced them that, they should never attack the Soviets in any way. The Japanese would probably still attack the United States anyways, because of the Philippines and other Islands. If they didn’t, the United States was bound to join sometime regardless. The Japanese would start to have manpower shortages at sometime too. With the war in China causing lots of casualties, possible war with both the US and Soviets at the same time, if not then either war with either power, would grind them down. Also the Allies would be attacking Japanese merchant shipping, cutting down the resources the Japanese need, and while they did capture the land they needed. Saboteurs would also be striking at the Japanese.
Irl the Germans didn’t sent a “single panzer regiment” to North Africa they sent the “Afrika Corps” equivalent to a German armoured Corps in strength and even with this relatively small force they had horrific supply and logistics issues, if they sent anymore men to Africa this would’ve just been even more noticeable and taken a massive toll of German troops likely leading to the same result in North Africa as it was irl since, as I said earlier, their ability to supply their troops there was terrible. North Africa wasn’t just a front u could throw more men at.
2:54 didn't the armored divisions stopped because the commanders asked? they're exausted and outruned the infantry, they needed suport, reparis and refueling. 10:35 the capital was moved to Samara in 41, Stalin wasn't that dumb. 12:21 the "siberian divisions" thing is a myth, between june and december 1941 only 28 divisions were send from beyond the urals, from which only 9 came from siberia and only 4 fought anywhere near Moscow.
The Italian army in Africa was terribly equipped and was easily defeated by the British (Operation compass). And I'd be very surprised if Stalin killed himself. Perhaps someone else would shoot him and continue in the same vein. All the soviet union had to do was hang in there until winter 1942 and they've won.
1) They had been able to reach the coast because of the same thing happening. 2) Stalin didn't actually move to Samara. However, you're right that he _did_ have contingency plans to move there if things got way too out of hand. But then he could've been assassinated at any point, putting the scenario on the same trajectory. 3) Surely, then, the Soviets would've had to divert the forces that were already in West Russia to defend Siberia?
10:50 That's common mistake everybody makes. It's not the winter that halted the German advance, it was the late autumn. All the rains made the roads muddy, making the "Rasputitsas" an obstacle Germans couldn't handle.
The Germans also did not have enough supplies to support the invasion, they had to do it quickly, but obviously they failed. They also needed way more troops, armor, and planes. People always say the weather, which I get but it was also more than that, for instance, the Soviets had oil that worked in the cold, the Germans didn’t.
Meanwhile all those German rocket scientists would be busy with V1,V2,V3 & V4 while others would be doing A Bomb work. Sooner or latter it all comes together. Now imagine those rockets hitting the East Coast(they were also researching firing from U-Boats) & hitting DC to decapitate US Gov't. Since in this timeline US & Germany not at war Germans pick the moment. Once that happens things would be very bad.
this is the first realistic how "how the axis could've won WW2" i have ever seen most don't really make sense in fact most believable videos i see on this topic usually are about why they couldn't win all though the contents isn't perfect this is some pretty top tier stuff
Came here from whatifalthist, this is honestly pretty reasonable. Basically what I get from this video is that if the germans had hindsight and luck they could have won, which is a completely legitimate argument to make.
I slightly disagree with your analysis on the Japanese front, but either way, the USSR would be screwed. The USSR had a spy in Japan who had close ties with the Nazis in Japan. He managed to leak intel on about Japan and Germany's plans to Russia so Stalin was aware of Operation Barbarossa (which he chose to ignore). Except when it happened, he finally listened to said spy. The spy also said that Japan wouldn't invade the USSR until after Germany has basically beaten them. This gave Stalin the confidence to move the forces in Siberia over to Europe where they would participate in the Eastern Front. In our timeline, the reinforcements were absolutely instrumental in Soviet success. Had they stayed in Asia, it is doubtful Japan could accomplish anything. But the USSR would fall to Germany. If they went to Europe, Germany wouldn't have been so successful and probably have gotten stuck in Russia
That's a valid point but it's difficult for me to keep track of every detail of the war. The timeline will assume he ignore the spy again or the spy gets false intel. But honestly getting Japan to be victorious was the most difficult part of this video.
"In our timeline, the reinforcements were absolutely instrumental in Soviet success." no, only 9 divisions were send from siberia in 41 and only 4 of those even fought near moscow, compared with 100+ divisions raised at the same time, they weren't instrumental
8:49 would Italy still have done it? Italy attacked Greece for strategic reasons (the Italians needed bases against the British, and these bases were to be occupied before the British could use them ) that wouldn't exist in this TL. There were other reasons (border disputes between Italy and Greece, Mussolini's desire for a quick victory in order to improve his reputation, ecc. ), but I don't think they would have been sufficient to cause the invasion soon. 10:22 the Germans diverted to Ucraine because if they hadn't done so their strategic situation would have been much more difficult, with the possibility of a Soviet counteroffensive from there.
I imagine Italy still invades Greece to solidify it's strategic position in the eastern mediterranean, plus they'd want to keep pace with the Germans for reasons of pride and to persuade the balkan nations to respect them as much as Germany. The situation in the ukraine is tenuous and they might launch a counter offensive out of there, but with Stalin's death they don't have the strategic cohesion to actually follow up their gains if they make them. They might just pull back and try to launch a counter offensive at Moscow.
The only way The Axis could have won is if you save the life of a pacifistic woman named Edith Keeler in 1930’s America, by preventing her from being hit by a truck.
I doubt that Stalin would go to Moscow, under high threat of it being captured by the germans, plus, the rasputica would have already came, which meant that soviets would have an advantage, since they cant pull siberian troops from far east anymore i suppose the battle would look like stalingrad, incredibly high level of casualities, slow german progress and maniacal soviet resistance. Moscow would be a frontline city, since its at pretty good defensive position having both rivers and hills, soviet leaders would not give an inch without a fight. Russian army at this point without encirclement of kiev would have about 5 milion man ready to fight, but having siberian reserves not being pulled from the far east, japan could not advance far, i suppose they would have took eastern russian coast, and a part of trans siberian railway, and advance to the baikal lake region at its max, this region is a perfect bottleneck to hold the ground on. Since soviet industry was already far behind urals, soviet union would not lack any military capability to re conquer moscow, and as they are still holding to port in murmanks, the allied convoys would still supply the russians. Japaneese still had problems even in china, they couldn't get annother huge invasion force in russia, and im pretty sure an invasion of russia, would have also meant war with us, as the japaneese would have been looked as imperialistic force, that was necesarry to halt. Rest of that timeline still ends in Allied victory, as operation torch takes its place driving axis to tunisia, thos giving brites time to attack from india and sudan. that leads to loss of africa in maybe mid 43, then italy, then normandy and finally berlin would have fall, just like in our timeline.
And as the japaneese had 4 milion soldiers in china, about a milion in pacific and india, they could not have bigger force in siberia, that would have been literally impossible, Russians would need no more than 500k man to hold the siberia, leaving about 7,5 milion man to western theater, when the germans would have 3,933,000 man in russia, leaving them at having an army almost 2 times smaller than the russians, and with russian self-sufficient war economy, russia would produce airforce and massive ammount of reliable tanks like in our timeline. And the story ends in *katyusha* being played in *Berlin* .
@Tall Jakee yeah, actually when now I think about it, they had to split forces from china too, so the chineese could have just get soviet rifles and fight for themselfes, while 8 milion soviet army with 2 times superiority over the germans would probably crush the reich, i mean, if they wouldn't had any charlamagnes or ghengis khans *:)*
Another thing you underestimate is how weak the japanese where compared to the red army. They lacked the recources needed to invade the russian far east unless they would pull them form China.
An excellent attempt, but problems remain: (tl;dr: *laughs in logistical problems and air superiority*) 1. Italy would struggle to maintain a large German armored force in North Africa given the strength of the Royal Navy. In OTL they were barely able to sustain the modest force there; the capture of Malta would offset much of the added difficulty, but this still makes for a force that will be constantly outrunning its supplies before it can drive out the Mediterranean Fleet by capturing Alexandria, let alone making it to Suez. 2. The UK wouldn't leave Rashid Ali's government in Iraq in a position to sell oil to the Axis. The British could easily surge troops from India into Kuwait to relieve its defenders, then advance north. Remember that Iraq was taken in less than a month in OTL, and the main oil fields are south of Baghdad and thus easier for the British to secure even if the Iraqi military somehow gets much stronger in this timeline. Even in a worst-case scenario, the UK can deny Iraqi oil to the Axis through sabotage and strategic bombing from elsewhere in the Middle East. 3. Considering that the UK and USSR were able to subdue Iran in a week, even as the USSR was rapidly losing troops and land to the Germans, there is no reason the Iranian government would risk such a decisive defeat by overtly supporting the Axis. The Axis would need to send substantial forces, at an enormous logistical cost, to prevent Iran from folding immediately, let alone take Baku - and such a large commitment would weaken the main attack to an unacceptable degree. 4. The prospect of eliminating Stalin by taking Moscow, while interesting, is only apparent through hindsight and thus cannot be considered as a factor in the German strategy. This leaves Hitler's desire to take the natural resources of Ukraine and the Caucasus as a key factor in the execution of Operation Barbarossa. 5. Japan is very unlikely to delay their invasion of the southern resource area because they urgently need the oil to sustain their war effort against China. This does not necessarily preclude participating in the invasion of the USSR, but it will limit Japan's impact. 6. Japan is not likely to seriously consider bypassing the Philippines, as its position between Japan and the southern resource area makes it a huge strategic threat if left in the hands of a potential enemy. Allowing the US to continue building up the Philippines' defenses while sacrificing a viable base to support offensives further south is very unattractive. 7. Even if Japan does not attack the US, there is no guarantee the US will remain neutral past 1941. Before entering the war the US Navy was already escorting British convoys halfway across the Atlantic, and U-Boats had sunk a US civilian cargo ship and torpedoed two destroyers. It is likely these confrontations would have continued to escalate until public outrage made a US declaration of war politically viable, in a manner similar to the US's entry into WWI. 8. Allied strategic bombing, aided by ever-increasing US lend-lease (at the very least), would hamper the German economy's ability to sustain the armies in Eastern Europe beyond 1944 or so. At the extreme, US-UK cooperation on nuclear weapons development (which in OTL began before Pearl Harbor) raises the prospect of a nuclear bombardment of Germany before the end of the 1940s, even accounting for a slower development timeline if the US somehow isn't dragged into the war. Germany could not possibly win once its major cities start coming under nuclear attack. Anyway, thanks for reading this essay of a comment. Hope you enjoyed!
Good points all around, I might redo the video with updated information like this on the future, but realistically the axis weren't able to win the war, so several things are ignored or fudged to make this work.
@@theironchannel2396 C'mon, don't be that pesimistic, if the stars align perfectly, the axis should be able to win the war... It's not like we are talking of a "How Luxembourg could have defeated the Soviet Union", we are talking about a country that managed to capture nearly half of the population of the Soviet Union, crippling his food suply, and coming short of taking Moscow and Leningrad, surely there must be, at least, one realistic chance of them winning the war that isn't far fetched. We most people aren't that informed, but there was room from improvement in the Axis strategy, and many errors were commited, such those in the planning of operations like Blau, deployment and redeployments of troops and reinforcements that could've been different, investing of resources into ultimately non-profitable projects, or even smaller scale bad battle tactics; sometimes we forget that human error is a thing, and believe that there was some sort of inevitable destiny for Germany being defeated, no matter what they do. Hell, even sheer luck should be considered a thing, let's not forget that long, one-vehicle line of tanks crossing through the Ardennes in a massive gamble, wich didn't even guarantee the fall of france by itself (a quick one at least), that merit goes to some tank commanders disobeying high command orders and marching against the french without waiting for the infantry support, preventing the french of making a proper battle line. It's that little details that sometimes could win a war, not just raw statistics.
@@asasas9146 I think Germany could've won the war, but not the Nazis. In order for these countries and especially Germany to function at their highest capacity they'd need more realistically minded leaders with unbelievably canny foresight. Basically I'd have to take myself and two friends and replace the top leaders of the axis at the time they took power.
@@theironchannel2396 This could definitely solve most problems, indeed. However i believe they could've win even if you replace them right into 1939, althrough the chances would be slimer.
I see that you didn’t get MURICA in here. Gotta say though, I do disagree on the actions of Japan in the fact that Japan and MURICA were on a collision course of war.
They were, but that's avoided by having Germany actually coordinate with Japan as an ally. MURICA would try to antagonize Japan to goad them into war, but Japan would be focused on Russia and China and Congress wouldn't allow war over China's sovereignty alone. Without an attack on MURICAN soil they won't get involved.
I feel that. But I still see that Japan’s needs for oil would outweigh it’s desire to invade Russia. I can rationalize that they could be getting oil from the Middle East since it most recently flipped to Axis support.
Oh yes! I love everything what you have done here man. I loved the video. But I adore the Murican capability of reeeeing into a total and absolute victory
1. No Holocaust (huge waste of resources, especially in logistics) 2. Higher standards for officership in the Italian military 3. Higher standards for general officership/admiralty in the Japanese military (the Army vs. Navy rivalry in Japan was very, very intense and petty) 4. Tell the Japanese about the plan for the Molotov-Ribbontropp pact before it happens 5. Launch Operation Barbarossa in March 6. Have the Japanese invade Siberia 7. No Pearl Harbor
@@enzovernille3800Yeah looking back in hindsight I got a lot wrong here. For starters, Hitler would have needed to pull several hundred million barrels of oil out of his ass.
Sure. An economically weaker isolationist united states that is unable to/refuses to finance/supply the allies definitely increases the chances of the axis winning. Britain was about to go bankrupt in 1941 and 1945 OTL, and the Soviet economy nearly collapsed in 1942 and nearly avoided famine in 1943. Remove american aid and the axis are in a far better position to win the war.
My only complaint is Hitler didn't just let troops evacuate out France while the 300k Brits were evacuating the French troops were covering them from a German advance by no means did Hitler just "let them escape"
this is some great work. Its bloody difficult thinking about how the Axis could have since they have so many flaws but i think this was a brilliant take on a difficult subject.
What do you think is brilliant about it? This scenario requires you to disregard logistics and reason at every turn. Like, for one, Hitler did not let the British army escape at Dunkirk. Logistics hindered his army from fighting them, as well as allied artillery in the area which would've taken out a lot of their tanks. And how the hell can italy just take a quarter of the African continent by itself, using only 300,000 troops? They also needed oil, which they didn't have, and lots of manpower, because there's no way in hell that's gonna work. And we have to assume that the British aren't going to try to rebuild their army after Dunkirk, and raise troops in their colonies. Why the hell wouldn't they? We literally have to assume that the British won't try at all to reinforce their colonies if italy tries to take them, and also prevent the axis from gaining naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, both of which they would and absolutely could do. You essentially have to imagine all of the axis' enemies as massive punching bags for this to make any sense at all.
Seems like your point of divergence is 1940, where in both timelines the Manhattan Project would already be underway in the US as the major impetus was the fear the Nazis would get the bomb first. In the altered timeline even more effort would be put into the Manhattan project due to the apparent Nazi success in Europe. It should be noted that in both timelines there is zero chance Germany develops the A bomb first for number of reasons 1) the Nazis considered quantum mechanics as Jewish science, and Hitler didn't believe it was of any value 2) Nazis had incorrect nuclear characteristics of graphite which forced them to use heavy water from Norway, 3) there was no scientists left in Germany (except maybe Heisenberg) that had the smarts (consider all the scientists in the US including Fermi, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Teller) to tackle the problems ultimately solved by the US. With all that said the alternate world would have the US being the only nuclear power with Germany and Japan unable to build their own bombs for years if ever. That would be interesting as which power would rule the world...
What one also needs to consider is that by 1950 Germany, the USA and Japan would have access to atomic bombs which would make a follow up conflict highly unlikely. Germany and Japan would probably sooner than later disintegrate.
10:00 Not such an easy proposal. Sure, you want to ship winter clothes? You can do that. Which of the vital supplies are you not going to ship in place of those winter clothes? Ammo, food/rations, fuel, spare parts/mechanical? I know it's a huge what if scenario, was super interesting, just a point wanted to throw out there. It's the reason Germans in our real timeline didn't send it. Not that they didn't think they'd need it. They weren't that naïve, wasn't like the troops weren't going to still be there in Winter even if they did win quickly. It was simply they didn't have the logistics and were already straining them to the max and beyond to get the essentials. Winter clothing wasn't seen as essential. Well, until it was too late and it was. Hahah
This is a very good video and we'll thought out. However I think it doesn't adequately go over the material shortage of the Axis and blames most of their shortcomings on leadership. The Italian military could not produce enough munitions or support equipment to cope with their losses. It also undermines the valiant efforts of the British and Russian troops. Lastly the German and Japanese would never work together as they did not intend on it very much. They were allies of circumstance not of want to work together. TLDR: I think this is a wonderfully made video, but it really glosses over motivations, The reasons behind decisions and, how things were really going to work in any feasible alternate history.
the most realistic senario ive seen, its not the most realistic one since the actions and the leaders of the axis and even the logistics and military of the axis is not likely to do some of the actions, also because the axis while possible, miracously not lose or make a mistake in their battles and the logistics are abit unrealistic on the easten front but still possible. btw this was on my recommended, i hope to see more of this
one thing. the US probably wouldn’tve gave independence to the philippines until 1945, since they already had a 10 year transitional period in effect. by doing this, they already had the approval of most of the native population anyway
The taking of the Dunkerque pocket for the Germans is not as easy as this is implicated. The 1st French Army built an amazing defensive perimeter allowing the British to escape. On the issue of Australia would be different in this timeline, Australia would not be invaded, the Japanese did not have the resources to invade Australia.
Hey man, love the video, probably the best alternate scenario I’ve seen. I think you are giving Italy a little too much credit though. Mussolini himself stated to hitler Italy would not be ready for war until at the earliest 1943, so an alternate 1940 where Italian Armies still don’t suffer from poor leadership and training seems unlikely to me. I think the Germans would have to have supplied a much more significant army to the Mediterranean to conquer those territories and hold them. I think a little bit of the invasion of the Soviet Union is brushed over, as well as the feasibility for the Japanese to actually be able to involve themselves in another large scale invasion of Siberia/Mongolia with how much the war in China had stagnated by 1941. It just seems hard to believe Japan could actually administer a territory that large with their resource capabilities as they still desperately needed oil that the US would not be providing. Indonesia would not have supplied enough oil to keep that large of an empire intact. And the idea that China would just crumble is hard to believe as well. I think it is more likely Japan might control the east coast of Asia with a bit larger part of manchukuo/Siberia, but China would just be to large for them to effectively quell, even without British and American support. I think the largest issue is that the three empires would all just be too large to handle. Overall still a great video though!
If German oil and man power increased If Japan ignored Alaskan islands and focused on ship destruction to bait the fleet out at Midway and maybe send their veteran pilots back to be instructors or advisors for production engineers they could of had a better chance at holding the line vs insane US production capacity until both axis powers focused and were running at most efficient production vs USA . The axis already held superior combat knowledge and used feedback from Frontline troops to update equipment or push for efficient weapon concepts the troops needed for XYZ reasons snand it worked well considereding it took 4 years 3 (+) powers to stop the axis from world domination
I'm sure a greater expert on the topic than me could poke a number of holes into this scenario, but this is deffinitely a good one. Also kinda refreshing, considering the almost aggressive insistance of some people recently that an Axis victory would have been impossible under any conceivable circumstances.
Switching the air power that went into the Battle of Britain into a campaign to scour the British from the Mediterranean does seem viable and could possibly have led to the survival of more of the Italian fleet. I think a southern strategy focusing on quickly capturing Ukraine and the Caucasus was Germany's only hope, as that would have given Germany plentiful oil supply and starved the Russians of oil. I don't know if conquering the middle East and an army pushing from Iraq would have helped that plan much. Also in this southern strategy it would have been possible to turn Ukraine into a puppet state that could be mobilize to fight Russia, or at least provide safe haven to German troops.
"Germany and Italy would just win in North Africa" "Germany would supply its soldiers with winter clothes" "Stalin would kill himself" "The Japanese would not bomb Pearl Harbor" (Keeping in mind that the oil embargo was already slowing their war effort) "The Japanese would invade the Soviet Union" "The Americans wouldn't intervene in the Pacific" I respect alternate history RUclips but the amount of assumptions this takes to accept is just counter to reality. It involves ignoring entire ideologies and realities of the situation, not to mention the fact that a lot of leaders during this time made fairly rational decisions, even on the part of the Axis, not counting the Holocaust or racial theory. It seems as though we have to just tie the Allies' hands behind their back and give the Axis 2021 hindsight in order to justify a victory. Potential History does a great video on how it's just not very accurate. It was never a question of if, it was a matter of when the Axis would lose.
People are forgetting Germany before the war was very close to an utopian paradise. Unemployment was non existent single mothers received free housing and education. Corporate interests rate where made illegal they where the first 40 hr work week with overtime pay. Every factory shut down at five. All citizens received state paid vacations. Government to almost anyone with it being forgiven for have several children. Crime was erased and when u walked down the street you heard beautiful music playing. Nobody in history turned an economy around like that. Plus he was time magazines man of the year. I would hate for that to be our daily life. What a horrible situation.
This scenario slightly borders fantasy. 1) Why would Stalin kill himself or allow himself to get captured in Moscow? Given that even Ukraine wasn't fully invaded in your proposed timeline, the USSR is not even close to collapsing. The USSR in OTL also had very heavy rationing 1942-1944 because they didn't have the food from Ukraine, which I feel impacts war support much more than a token capital. 2) Why would Japan invade the USSR? It has little capability to do so with the IJA trapped in China and lack of tanks, artillery, and logistical capability, little incentive to do so after said IJA failures in China and Khalkin Gol, they were facing an embargo + the European powers were tied up in a war, and the SEA colonies looked much more prospective in terms of immediate resources (their fuel stockpiles would run out by mid '42, they were already rationing, and their economy was collapsing from excessive imports and other various factors) than Siberia, so all points to them going South. 3) While I agree with your oil from MENA hypothesis, nothing prevents the Allies from bombing the oilfields or intercepting transports. Oil production in the Middle East also wasn't as bountiful as it is today. 4) The USA was always going to join the war. They were engaging in undeclared submarine warfare with Germany and lend leasing the Allies, China AND the USSR (even before Pearl Harbor). 5) The BEF at Dunkirk doesn't matter that much outside of morale early in the war. A lot of their equipment got destroyed anyway and the majority of D-Day was conducted by American forces.
*Why would Stalin kill himself or allow himself to get captured in Moscow?* He wouldn't , he had a secret passage to a subway to get him out of Moscow. *Given that even Ukraine wasn't fully invaded in your proposed timeline, the USSR is not even close to collapsing.* Slightly complicated, railways looked like this users.tpg.com.au/adslbam9//Railways1941.png , so surrounding Moscow would have reduced the amount of supplies that could reach the Northern front significantly. Something like 30% of shipments were military for the rail system though, and the Soviets had ~ 8 times the rail capacity of the germans, so the most likely scenario is starvation or evacuation for the civilian population. www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2018/3/9/the-influence-of-railways-on-military-operations-in-the-russo-german-war-19411945. Additionally conquering a grain surplus region likely accomplishes a similar thing to cutting off supplies , although it will effect a different area. Also army group north pretty much replicated it by how far they advanced anyway. Think of it as the siege of Leningrad, except they can still evacuate with trains? Kind of over rated. Look basically if someone doesn't mention trains existing, you can probably ignore their conclusions, as that's what's carrying all your stuff bar the last couple hundred km's.
iirc, Iraq had lower oil production than Indonesia, however, Iran was the 4th biggest oil producer, but it didn't took much for the british and soviets to coup the pro axis king and keep a firm control
9:26 you're forgetting that Greece never had its entire army on the border with Italian Albania. Instead, a big chunk was in Thrace, along the fortified Metaxas line, waiting for a Bulgarian attack. Even when the Bulgarians did declare war on Greece, they never made any real gains until after the Germans had seized Yugoslavia and encircled the Greeks by capturing Thessaloniki. In this scenario here, with the Germans not sending an army, the inverse scenario is actually the more likely one. In the Spring of 1940, after the failed Italian spring counter-offensive, the Greeks held the Hill 731. This was a decisive battle and Grèce was days from taking Tirane. But when the Greek leader Metaxas died due to illness, the British didn't listen to him and started sending forces into Greece. Metaxas was certain that this would prompt a German attack before they were ready for it which it did. On April 6th Germany declared war on Greece and soon after it was occupied. But, with the British Mediterranean holdings taken out, England couldn't have supported Greece even if it wanted to, so German participation in the Balkans wouldn't be provoced. Italy would be much more likely to lose the entirety of Albania rather than beat Greece, let alone faster. PS many people are forgetting that Greece was disproportionately strong for a Balkan country at this point. It had an excess population of at least 1.500.000 Greeks from Asia Minor and was better industrialized.
Nomonhan was not lost because of tanks. In fact in armored vehicles the Soviets lost way more than the Japanese. The deciding factor was political support.
I'd think that another factor that would increase the probability of this scenario would be if Edward Halifax & (one of a variety of possible presidential candidates) became the leaders of the UK & US respectively in 1940 instead of Churchill and Roosevelt leading to both countries being more anti-war than in our timeline. Beyond that; this's a highly possible way the Axis could theoretically win WW2 (in the Eastern Hemisphere, making it more so The Great Eastern Hemisphere War, or GEHW).
Halifax had no stomach for war, which is why he decided not to step up for the job in our timeline. When things were looking rough, after say Dunkirk or a little later in my timeline, he'd either sue for peace or be replaced by Churchill anyway.
@@theironchannel2396 ; Okay, I see that but, how would a British Armistice/Surrender under Halifax lead to a Soviet Victory? Without British & later American industry, logistics, & bombing raids, and with the Japanese in the east, the Soviets would be fighting alone in a two front war while the Axis powers would have their industrial heartlands undisturbed. Again, I am just curious to your rather intriguing thoughts on the matter for I genuinely cannot see the specific events that would arrive to that point.
My bad, I should've clarified. If Britain drops out early the hostility Germany has for Russia would have no barrier, so the Soviets would take precautions earlier, making them better prepared for the german invasion. The Germans would still cut deep into Germany and possibly capture Moscow, but realistically Germany lacked the manpower and resources to fight Russia in the long run so eventually they would be ground down. Britain might jump back in the war to support Russia when it's clear they're winning, but realistically Germany wouldn't make it, even if Britain wasn't involved they could fight till 1947 at the latest. Despite my alternate history I don't actually believe the axis could win the war.
Technically the colonies would eventually break off from the overlords, and they would become weaker, but Japan would still be a superpower with the co-prosperity sphere.
why didn't Germany annex the colonization area in France as Nord Pas de Calais to create the gau of Burgundy and thus weaken Francis and recreate the western borders of the Holy Roman Empire as planned?
Nice video, pretty realistic scenario as long as everything goes well, since everyone knows 100% realistically the axi could never win, only this scenario actually works
So basically the axis could have won if we ignore every single logistical and strategic reality about the war. The Germans didn't "allow" the British to escape at Dunkirk, they couldn't get there in time because their armored divisions had outpaced their logistics train so badly that it took several days to bring up reserves, replacement parts and fuel. Despite the propaganda the germans were NOT a fully mechanized force at this point in the war and much of their logistics train was literally horse drawn wagons. The French fought for every inch of land once resistance hardened around Dunkirk and the germans couldn't have broken through even if Hitler had been dumb enough to ignore his generals and order an advance. His tanks lacked fuel and ammunition, his troops lacked food and ammunition and were strung out on amphetamines as part of the lightning war strategy. All the germans would have done at Dunkirk in an actual attack is die. Especially when the royal navy arrived which the germans had no counter to.
Problems with the video that nobody else seems to have noticed yet: You say that though Italy would want Corsica and Tunisia (the latter of which is mispronounced), France wouldn't give those territories. This is a baseless claim. Why, then, did France hand over _half its mainland_ to Germany? Indeed, it was because the Germans already occupied most of that. And there's no reason why Italy wouldn't be capable of occupying Tunisia and Corsica. So I don't really see your logic here. What the hell are the logistical issues of operating out of the Middle East? I don't see the Iranian military _on its own_ being able to advance very far, but that's not the reason that you cited.
This sounds like a hearts of iron 4 multiplayer strategy and I love it
To be fair I don't think the soviet player would have troops leave the far east for the precise reason that japan could always attack
@@starflowers1751 and that would be why the germans captured moscow the Molotov-Ribbentrop-Tojo pact would have been Soviet demise.
@@CesarAugustoRocabadoVillegas
I think the Soviets had enough men on the far eastern front to hold off a serious Japanese attack and even if not they had the weather as an advantage to stop the Germans from reaching moscow
@@starflowers1751 yes it would hold off the invasion in the east but wouldnt be able to reinforce any of the fronts. And if the Axis take Leningrad and focus on Moscow. Their demise would be possible.
He's doing the esports
Italy: *Becomes a competent country*
Axis: C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-COOOOOMBO BREAKER!!!!
?
still kinda crazy how germany and japan alone (their allies like romania and italy didnt do much) went against the entire world and almost won
@@fryhyhpeople like to trash and undermine the axis nowadays but the historical fact is that they were really strong and competent
@@justusP9101Yes and no, but that is basically every country.
As always, claim your "I came from Whatifalthist" Card here.
how much does it cost?
Claimed
@@BuiltSimilarG Nothing my man, absolutely free.
@@SireJaxs scam
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.
So basically, the axis could've won if they weren't the axis.
Good to know
Yeah that's kinda the issue with all these what ifs
Honestly though. Potential History covers it completely
Not really. Just not _our_ axis.
@@slavcity406 Stop worrying about what other says so much and enjoy a little bit of off-topic writing. People who insist these are not realistic and the people who do alternate history are dumb are worse than wehraboos, and don't get the point of alternate history writing.
@@learningthroughpain.7215 Im sorry but that is very ignorant of you to say
Hitler didn’t just let the British leave at Dunkirk, the German Armored divisions outran the rest of the army and thus needed to stop in order to resupply and make sure they aren’t cut off and encircled.
Finally, somebody that actually realizes that they couldn’t have just attacked and destroyed with one killing blow and just decided not to they were not in that good of a situation.
Came here from Whatifalthist. Finally a realistic scenario.
yeah fr. other channels do really unrealistic stuff (besides cody)
@@flamingoxe5984 Monsieur Z is pretty cool too
@@crazmapping yeah but sometimes his senerios get unrealistic
@@flamingoxe5984 I suppose, like the Soviets invading Poland alone.
@@flamingoxe5984 Cody will literally say screw off it’s not possible
im not even from Whatiflist, just came in to my recommendations.
same who the hell is whatiflist
Same
@@BabySonicGT whatifalthist
This all operates on the assumption Stalin would kill himself if Moscow fell, why are you so sure on this fact? The USSR still hadn't peaked in enlisted forces and factories behind the Urals were opening constantly, if Moscow was completely doomed, but the USSR still had so much land left, why wouldn't they keep fighting.
You also mentioned that Winter Gear would be sent to the front,, but there was a secondary reason, and that was either the troops would have to carry it with them, leading to a larger amount of kit for each soldier, or it would have to be shipped later, both of which would cause either a less mobile and effect Wehrmacht, or the same problem in our timeline, not to mention the other logistical problems asside from clothing.
the capital was even already transfered to Samara, Stalin won't just stay if the situation got worse
Im not sure if Stalin ewas even at Moscow in our timeline to begin with, like could someone confirm me that he wasn't communicating from a hidden basement somewhere in the Urals?
And even if he indeed was at Moscow, there is a good window of time to flee the city wich i assume he would reasonably do, its not like a Berlin situation, where there was nothing to do except to commit suicide, he could still keep fighting for elsewhere, and even if the city is surrounded, we are talking of a massive area, so he could feasibly and reallistically manage to escape with a small force, like many generals at the Kiev pocket actually did it.
Well if stalin left moscow and the ussr stayed together the axis couldnt have won. This timeline is intended to be a plausible scenerio where the axis won. Stalin killing himself after losing moscow isnt that far fetched since the amount of stress he would be under at that point would be enough to drive anyone insane. Also theres the chance that the germans encircle moscow faster then he could leave.
@@marrvynswillames4975 Well, even though Stalin _did_ prepare to escape to Samara in case of such a disaster, he might've been assassinated by a collaborationist. This sends the scenario down the path it went in the video.
That was hitlers mistake, in taking Moscow the communication and rail, road hub of Russians would be gone.
Seems to me that you make winning in Africa sound much easier than it would be: if you look at the attrition suffered by the lone under supplied panzer division of our timeline, it’s hard to imagine sustaining a much larger armoured force.
Yes but he said that mussolini would replace his fascist generlas, with competent ones. This means that Italys only promblem( leadership) would be solved, and since they far outnumber the british an axis victory in africa is very likely
If one assumes a higher involvement in North Africa, one can also assume better logistics. There's no reason you can't improve the logistics infrastructure in North Africa, the Brits built an entire railway to support their troops in the region after all. There would be difficulty with Allied submarines and cruisers attacking convoys, but if Luftwaffe gives a bigger commitment instead of attacking Britain, it could allow for more secure path.
It would have been mu h easier if the italians occupied Malta, but that seems impossible
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 I'm not sure it's that simple. By the end of the campaign, the Germans were trying desperately to improve the logistics in their part of north africa, but irl they did it mainly with aircraft and convoys. It's really hard to build a railroad through hundreds of miles of trackless desert, and if you are now supporting multiple divisions, it only gets harder. Also, this scenerio totally disregards the fact that the british fleet would most likely have control of the med, as there are no changes made to have the italian navy beat them.
@@coltinchao5932 We have a clear example of what can be done in North Africa in terms of logistics. It's the Commonwealth Armies building huge infrastructure to better facilitate movement of troops and supplies. The main British source of manpower in NA is coming from Britain itself, an island thousands of miles away and you can't even cross through the Med because of Axis subs and aircraft, so go around Africa, some material probably coming from India, also having to cross immense distances to reach El Alamein.
If one invests foregoes Battle of Britain, there would be a lot more resources available to improve the situation in North Africa.
And the Royal Navy never had full control of the Med, the Regia Marina was still a formidable foe, one of its main deficiencies was lack of naval aviation, but again, no Battle of Britain means much more concentration of airpower over Italian fleets.
Really good scenario however I doubt that Stalin would have killed himself.
Possibly, he might not have stayed in Moscow either, but if he does and capture by the Nazi becomes inevitable, suicide seems a likely option.
@@theironchannel2396 thanks for the reply dude. I will be looking forward for your future videos. The maps and story telling is just awesome in general. Keep up the good work!
he would just run if the situation got worse, isn't like his feet were melted
@@theironchannel2396 why wouldn't he have moved out to evade capture? Samara was planned to become the new capital for Russia had Moscow been taken, with a bunker even having been built for Stalin. What do you think would have had to have been done by the Germans had this occurred rather than a Stalin suicide?
@@theironchannel2396 I think he would have, kinda like how Hitler did in our timeline, either that or he moves to Yaketerinberg when he realizes Moscow is lost and then would probably move farther and farther into Siberia until there’s nowhere else to go and the Soviet Union turns into fractured states like how it is in TNO
This completely ignores the Germans inferiority in rail transport, compared to the Soviets, whom could deliver 5 times as much tonnage. This appears to take Halder's arguments, that he wasn't an incompetent general, at face value. The Germans failed to take Russia because they wanted to do it in 90 days. This simply die not allow them to properly build up the rail infrastructure, as for example was point out by Isserson, which recommended limiting the rate of advance to 7km a day, whereas the German army was moving at 20 km a day at time. This is a very surface level examination of the issues facing the German army.
A few things:
1. Dunkirk had bad terrain for armour and the Allies still had lots of artillery so many German tanks would be lost. Also, Hitler wanted to teach his generals a lesson by letting them stop their advance.
2. Italy could not have succesfully invaded Southern France because the Alpes were to strengthend by the French. With an earlier Italian entry, there may be a French attack from Tunisia against Lybia. Also, the French garrison in French Somaliland was strong so the Italians would suffer heavy casualties.
3. The Italians in East Africa were not prepared for offensive warfare and lacked fuel to commit such forces into Sudan.
4. The Axis could not supply such a large army in Lybia because the ports lacked the capacity. (Tripolis, Bengazi, Tobruk werent enough). Supplying such a force would only be possible after taking Alexandria as a port. But with Malta captured by the Axis, I can see more Axis supplies reaching Africa
5. The Axis supply lines in Egypt would be stretched to the limit and I doubt they would reach Suez in 1940 or early 1941.
6. Capturing the Middle East does not help much when the British would destroy the oil refineries and pipelines.
7. Leningrad would be possible to capture but the Germans wohld be involved in bloody street fighting and the Red Army would have been supported by the Red navy.
8. The Germans mainly advanced into Kiev and Crimea because Hitler wanted the Ukrainian grain and wanted to eliminate Crimea/Ukraine as a staging ground for air attacks against the Romanian oilfields.
9. The Japanese were ill prepared for cold forrest partisan warfare in the Far East and the Soviets would likley crush them even without numerical advantage. The Japanese would only capture key costoal areas.
10. I dont see the Japanese defeating the West in the Pacific. They didnt had the industrial capacities to fight the West.
11. I think Germany would have at least gainted their colonies in Africa back
Nonetheless entertaining.
@pyropulse This has literally nothing to do with my comment whatsoever.
@Sean Great points, can you make a video on this topic?
1: the forces at Dunkirk weren’t fully supplied either, hitler wanted to keep the allies there in hopes that they would negotiate peace
6: the Middle Eastern oil fields were *way* underdeveloped
8: the Russian air was practically non-existent
@@kalekkakmdkekjaakwkmdb8506 Thats not why Dunkirk was "allowed to happen". Poor terrain, like OP said, and also the shortcoming of Blitzkrieg starting to rear its ugly head, that being that crucial flanks were left wide open and the attack was called off so troops could reorganize. That extra time is what allowed dunkirk to happen but meant that counterattacks were less likely to be devastating. Now that we have all the info that we have, we can say that "Hitler let dunkirk happen" but if im not mistaken they didnt realize that those soldiers were as messed up as they ended up being.
@@yungdomino4718 ill change what i said about hitler allowing dunkurk to happen to “ hitler wanted dunkurk to happen” he wanted it plain and simple as stated by many ranking nazi commanders in the Nuremberg trials. He dint want a wanted a peace with britian. Also blitzkreig wasnt used in the battle of france. Mobile infanty does not mean the tactics of blitzkreig used in the german-polish war
Here from Whatifalthist
Two words. Competent Italy. Germany wasted so much carrying every single front. Had Italy defeated Greece and won the North African campaign Germany would’ve had that little boost in manpower which would’ve given them Moscow and Stalingrad.
Except Italy's problem wasn't because they were entirerly competent but because they're economy and industry weren't ready for war Italy unlike Germany was an Agrarian country not an industrial one and your essentially asking an agrarian country to only go toe to toe with the largest Empire in History with the largest navy and the largest amount of men that they can draw up from thwir colonies to join the fight but to also beat them
This is a horrible argument and I have no idea why Italy would be to blame when Germany digs their own grave and would never win the war whatsoever
Funny joke. Competent Italy won't change anyhow the results at Moscow and Stalingrad. Moreover, even if somehow Germany would have taken Moscow and Stalingrad, it still won't give them victory. There literally were no way for Axis to win the war - the only way was not to fight against USSR, and that would need Germany to be not nazi, so ruining entire concept of WW2 anyway.
Except you are forgetting the fact Russia isn't like the other nations, Moscow and Stalingrad falling wouldn't make enough of a difference to turn the front around.
Yo
Rememeber what happened to Napoleon
coming here from what if alt hist. good video.
Could the Panzer divisions have actually reached Dunkirk in time without outrunning their supply chains and expending too many resources? All the tanks in the world couldn't have stopped the allied evacuation without fuel and ammunition.
The reason why the Panzer Division did not reach Dunkirk (Dünkirchen) in time was not the resources, but the sudden stop order from Gerd von Rundstedt when Hitler visited the front. Runestedt thought that if the Panzer Division got too fast, that it could be trapped by French and British divisions. At that time, the Germans did not know that the Allies had already carried out their evacuation. There are also rumors that Hitler himself gave the order to stop to prove the obedience of the Wehrmacht. However, this is quite controversial because it is not believed that Hitler would have rejected a significant victory for such a demonstration.
Of course, the Germans could have stopped the evacuation, or at least they could have compromised it in such a way that most of the soldiers would never have escaped. Ammunition was available (German ammunition + captured French, Dutch, Belgian ammunition)
@@-Eisenfaust- I thought another factor in the order to stop was the fact that the soldiers had been pushed for weeks on end and were reaching the end of their wits. You can only force a push so far before your troops collapse, right?
@@-Eisenfaust- everyone thinks about germans in WW2 THEY DIDN'T HAVE MUH RESOURCES
@Marinus Willet and everyone is in this thread, please stop thinking about the entire war when you make your statements about Dunkirk. Put yourself in the year 1940, The allied lines had been broken, the Germans had broken through, they were already victorious when they crossed the Sedan. The war was over, That's why Hitler let them go its true He ordered the panzer divisions to stop, This action is directly connected to the Speech he would give a month Later on the 19th July 1940, A last appeal to Reason, where he pleaded to Brittain to end this nonsense because they was nothing they could do except using a new tactic that was banned in War. Night bombing and yes folks, Brittain started that one first.
@@releasereality64 considering that Hitler's main goal was invading Russia, I'd imagine he probably wanted to eliminate any chance of Britain interfering. Once British troops crossed the Channel, they would be safe. From his perspective it would make sense to prevent them from escaping. I'm sure he would've wiped the British Expeditionary Force out if he could, but his men needed to rest. You can only push the human body so far.
I heavily disagree that “Leningrad would easily fall” aswell as Moscow, you haven’t shown any real argument as to how that would happen, the Soviets in our timeline were nearly outnumbered 2-1 outside Moscow and still counter attacked with a numerical disadvantage.
To add on to that AGC was only saved from destruction by Hitler’s stand fast orders and their defensive supremacy and winter quartering as-well overambitious Soviet assaults.
this vid is basically on the level of wattpad fanfics on how plausible it is as alternate history.
He is a nazi gamer what do you except
in the battle of Moscow the Soviets had more numbers why do you think they had 1 million casualties in Moscow alone?
One failure of most Axis victory scenarios is that few have actually read what Axis leaders actually aspired to. There are books that detail what vision of victory the Axis had. Written by actual historians and not just pulp writers.
Came here from Whatifalthist. Good Friend
Also from Whatifalthist. Nice video. I've never heard anyone base a Germany Win scenario on Africa but it makes more sense to me than a landing in Fortress Britain.
It definitely prevents the axis running out of oil
Wouldn't Japans still decide to attack the United States after they impose an oil embargo? And if not, can they realistically function after losing access to 3/4ths of their international trade and 88% of it's imported oil?
This is a big one, regarding the scenario proposed in the video. Japan was overstretched as it was in China but it had "no way" to stop the invasion in an easy way they could explain or justify what they had done so far. The US getting more and more pissed off at this, I don't know how you prevent the US from embargoing, and given the embargo scenario, don't know how Japan goes into the USSR AND keeps their campaign in SEA and China, unless they could get massive amounts of oil from somewhere else and fast.
Also, the US felt aggravated and threatened by Uboats in the Atlantic jeopardizing their merchants and their trade/help deals with the UK Similar to how the US entered WWI only after the Germans announced unrestricted attacks on British convoys in the Atlantic, that often had US cargo, ships and people in them.
So I think it would take at least a very strongly isolationist US government to keep the US from entering the war one way or the other, and ofc if the US entered, it was never going to be an axis victory regardless.
They would import their oil from the axis since in the timeline the video describes the oil reserves near Baku would belong to Germany. Also Indonesia would fulfill some of the Japanese oil demands.
@@thepracticalinvestor2386 is correct.
The idea of America no longer joining the war is pure fantasy. The nazis have wanted war with the US since the 20s, Japan wants to clear the US out of Asia. There is no world where America is not brought into the war.
And every time, without fail, the Axis learns how impossible invading the US is, the US can't be knocked out of the war, then US will invent the nuke and end the war.
But the Axis winning WW2 is already pure fantasy so decisions like this that would have never happened are required for an Axis win.
@@thepracticalinvestor2386Yes, but with Germany they were also having manpower shortages as early as 42 or 43. Japan probably still wouldn’t attack the Soviets because, of their Chinese invasion and because of the experience in an undeclared border conflict, which was called the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. This convinced them that, they should never attack the Soviets in any way. The Japanese would probably still attack the United States anyways, because of the Philippines and other Islands. If they didn’t, the United States was bound to join sometime regardless. The Japanese would start to have manpower shortages at sometime too. With the war in China causing lots of casualties, possible war with both the US and Soviets at the same time, if not then either war with either power, would grind them down. Also the Allies would be attacking Japanese merchant shipping, cutting down the resources the Japanese need, and while they did capture the land they needed. Saboteurs would also be striking at the Japanese.
Yeah, Whatifalthist sent me so Entertainment me.
Irl the Germans didn’t sent a “single panzer regiment” to North Africa they sent the “Afrika Corps” equivalent to a German armoured Corps in strength and even with this relatively small force they had horrific supply and logistics issues, if they sent anymore men to Africa this would’ve just been even more noticeable and taken a massive toll of German troops likely leading to the same result in North Africa as it was irl since, as I said earlier, their ability to supply their troops there was terrible. North Africa wasn’t just a front u could throw more men at.
What up 👋 just come here from WhatIfAltHist
2:54 didn't the armored divisions stopped because the commanders asked? they're exausted and outruned the infantry, they needed suport, reparis and refueling.
10:35 the capital was moved to Samara in 41, Stalin wasn't that dumb.
12:21 the "siberian divisions" thing is a myth, between june and december 1941 only 28 divisions were send from beyond the urals, from which only 9 came from siberia and only 4 fought anywhere near Moscow.
The Italian army in Africa was terribly equipped and was easily defeated by the British (Operation compass). And I'd be very surprised if Stalin killed himself. Perhaps someone else would shoot him and continue in the same vein. All the soviet union had to do was hang in there until winter 1942 and they've won.
1) They had been able to reach the coast because of the same thing happening.
2) Stalin didn't actually move to Samara. However, you're right that he _did_ have contingency plans to move there if things got way too out of hand. But then he could've been assassinated at any point, putting the scenario on the same trajectory.
3) Surely, then, the Soviets would've had to divert the forces that were already in West Russia to defend Siberia?
The armored divisions stopped because the Luftwaffe, under Göring (Hitler’s appointed successor), wanted to deal the finishing blow
@@deleetiusproductions3497 stalin getting assassinated is extremely unlikely
just take a look at the precautions he took
spoiler alert, they can't
10:50 That's common mistake everybody makes. It's not the winter that halted the German advance, it was the late autumn. All the rains made the roads muddy, making the "Rasputitsas" an obstacle Germans couldn't handle.
The Germans also did not have enough supplies to support the invasion, they had to do it quickly, but obviously they failed. They also needed way more troops, armor, and planes. People always say the weather, which I get but it was also more than that, for instance, the Soviets had oil that worked in the cold, the Germans didn’t.
Came here from Whatifalthist. You got a discord or something
Damn, That's gotta be one of the "best"(realistic) scenarios I've seen so far, great work, you got my sub
0:35* "There is no way the axis could have achieved this"
Title: "How the axis could've won WW2"
He said won to that level where uk and America falls
@@austinschumann8376 The title still contradicts that statement.
"won" is relativ. You don't need a signed unconditional surrender to win a war.
@@mogol109 No, he says how the Nazis could have won world War 2, not how the nazis could have imposed their views on the whole world
Meanwhile all those German rocket scientists would be busy with V1,V2,V3 & V4 while others would be doing A Bomb work. Sooner or latter it all comes together.
Now imagine those rockets hitting the East Coast(they were also researching firing from U-Boats) & hitting DC to decapitate US Gov't.
Since in this timeline US & Germany not at war Germans pick the moment.
Once that happens things would be very bad.
this is the first realistic how "how the axis could've won WW2" i have ever seen most don't really make sense in fact most believable videos i see on this topic usually are about why they couldn't win
all though the contents isn't perfect this is some pretty top tier stuff
Ah..., yes. The Tsardom of Bulgaria looks great.
Came here from whatifalthist, this is honestly pretty reasonable. Basically what I get from this video is that if the germans had hindsight and luck they could have won, which is a completely legitimate argument to make.
First like on this video and first comment on this channel. Nice! Great vids btw. We will follow your career with great interest.
I like how all the changes work and how the parts that happened irl but are skipped here don't seem to have any negative consequences.
This is the first video I've seen from you, but I already love this channel
18th sub! Glad to be early, love this! Came from what if Althing shoutout
I slightly disagree with your analysis on the Japanese front, but either way, the USSR would be screwed.
The USSR had a spy in Japan who had close ties with the Nazis in Japan. He managed to leak intel on about Japan and Germany's plans to Russia so Stalin was aware of Operation Barbarossa (which he chose to ignore). Except when it happened, he finally listened to said spy.
The spy also said that Japan wouldn't invade the USSR until after Germany has basically beaten them. This gave Stalin the confidence to move the forces in Siberia over to Europe where they would participate in the Eastern Front. In our timeline, the reinforcements were absolutely instrumental in Soviet success.
Had they stayed in Asia, it is doubtful Japan could accomplish anything. But the USSR would fall to Germany. If they went to Europe, Germany wouldn't have been so successful and probably have gotten stuck in Russia
That's a valid point but it's difficult for me to keep track of every detail of the war. The timeline will assume he ignore the spy again or the spy gets false intel. But honestly getting Japan to be victorious was the most difficult part of this video.
"In our timeline, the reinforcements were absolutely instrumental in Soviet success."
no, only 9 divisions were send from siberia in 41 and only 4 of those even fought near moscow, compared with 100+ divisions raised at the same time, they weren't instrumental
@@marrvynswillames4975 source pls
ah yes, lelouch being smart as usual. Good to see you are smart as well lelouch.
@@lelouchvibritannia7809ruclips.net/video/r7l0Rq9E8MY/видео.html
8:49 would Italy still have done it? Italy attacked Greece for strategic reasons (the Italians needed bases against the British, and these bases were to be occupied before the British could use them ) that wouldn't exist in this TL. There were other reasons (border disputes between Italy and Greece, Mussolini's desire for a quick victory in order to improve his reputation, ecc. ), but I don't think they would have been sufficient to cause the invasion soon.
10:22 the Germans diverted to Ucraine because if they hadn't done so their strategic situation would have been much more difficult, with the possibility of a Soviet counteroffensive from there.
I imagine Italy still invades Greece to solidify it's strategic position in the eastern mediterranean, plus they'd want to keep pace with the Germans for reasons of pride and to persuade the balkan nations to respect them as much as Germany.
The situation in the ukraine is tenuous and they might launch a counter offensive out of there, but with Stalin's death they don't have the strategic cohesion to actually follow up their gains if they make them. They might just pull back and try to launch a counter offensive at Moscow.
The only way The Axis could have won is if you save the life of a pacifistic woman named Edith Keeler in 1930’s America, by preventing her from being hit by a truck.
I understood that reference
I doubt that Stalin would go to Moscow, under high threat of it being captured by the germans, plus, the rasputica would have already came, which meant that soviets would have an advantage, since they cant pull siberian troops from far east anymore i suppose the battle would look like stalingrad, incredibly high level of casualities, slow german progress and maniacal soviet resistance. Moscow would be a frontline city, since its at pretty good defensive position having both rivers and hills, soviet leaders would not give an inch without a fight. Russian army at this point without encirclement of kiev would have about 5 milion man ready to fight, but having siberian reserves not being pulled from the far east, japan could not advance far, i suppose they would have took eastern russian coast, and a part of trans siberian railway, and advance to the baikal lake region at its max, this region is a perfect bottleneck to hold the ground on. Since soviet industry was already far behind urals, soviet union would not lack any military capability to re conquer moscow, and as they are still holding to port in murmanks, the allied convoys would still supply the russians. Japaneese still had problems even in china, they couldn't get annother huge invasion force in russia, and im pretty sure an invasion of russia, would have also meant war with us, as the japaneese would have been looked as imperialistic force, that was necesarry to halt.
Rest of that timeline still ends in Allied victory, as operation torch takes its place driving axis to tunisia, thos giving brites time to attack from india and sudan. that leads to loss of africa in maybe mid 43, then italy, then normandy and finally berlin would have fall, just like in our timeline.
And as the japaneese had 4 milion soldiers in china, about a milion in pacific and india, they could not have bigger force in siberia, that would have been literally impossible, Russians would need no more than 500k man to hold the siberia, leaving about 7,5 milion man to western theater, when the germans would have 3,933,000 man in russia, leaving them at having an army almost 2 times smaller than the russians, and with russian self-sufficient war economy, russia would produce airforce and massive ammount of reliable tanks like in our timeline. And the story ends in *katyusha* being played in *Berlin* .
@Tall Jakee yeah, actually when now I think about it, they had to split forces from china too, so the chineese could have just get soviet rifles and fight for themselfes, while 8 milion soviet army with 2 times superiority over the germans would probably crush the reich, i mean, if they wouldn't had any charlamagnes or ghengis khans *:)*
Uh, Stalin stayed in Moscow in our own timeline.
@@deleetiusproductions3497 i mean thats 50/50, maybe he would have been evacuated or killex
A highly optimistic scenario but probably one of the most realistic ones i've heard. Good job!
Another thing you underestimate is how weak the japanese where compared to the red army. They lacked the recources needed to invade the russian far east unless they would pull them form China.
An excellent attempt, but problems remain:
(tl;dr: *laughs in logistical problems and air superiority*)
1. Italy would struggle to maintain a large German armored force in North Africa given the strength of the Royal Navy. In OTL they were barely able to sustain the modest force there; the capture of Malta would offset much of the added difficulty, but this still makes for a force that will be constantly outrunning its supplies before it can drive out the Mediterranean Fleet by capturing Alexandria, let alone making it to Suez.
2. The UK wouldn't leave Rashid Ali's government in Iraq in a position to sell oil to the Axis. The British could easily surge troops from India into Kuwait to relieve its defenders, then advance north. Remember that Iraq was taken in less than a month in OTL, and the main oil fields are south of Baghdad and thus easier for the British to secure even if the Iraqi military somehow gets much stronger in this timeline. Even in a worst-case scenario, the UK can deny Iraqi oil to the Axis through sabotage and strategic bombing from elsewhere in the Middle East.
3. Considering that the UK and USSR were able to subdue Iran in a week, even as the USSR was rapidly losing troops and land to the Germans, there is no reason the Iranian government would risk such a decisive defeat by overtly supporting the Axis. The Axis would need to send substantial forces, at an enormous logistical cost, to prevent Iran from folding immediately, let alone take Baku - and such a large commitment would weaken the main attack to an unacceptable degree.
4. The prospect of eliminating Stalin by taking Moscow, while interesting, is only apparent through hindsight and thus cannot be considered as a factor in the German strategy. This leaves Hitler's desire to take the natural resources of Ukraine and the Caucasus as a key factor in the execution of Operation Barbarossa.
5. Japan is very unlikely to delay their invasion of the southern resource area because they urgently need the oil to sustain their war effort against China. This does not necessarily preclude participating in the invasion of the USSR, but it will limit Japan's impact.
6. Japan is not likely to seriously consider bypassing the Philippines, as its position between Japan and the southern resource area makes it a huge strategic threat if left in the hands of a potential enemy. Allowing the US to continue building up the Philippines' defenses while sacrificing a viable base to support offensives further south is very unattractive.
7. Even if Japan does not attack the US, there is no guarantee the US will remain neutral past 1941. Before entering the war the US Navy was already escorting British convoys halfway across the Atlantic, and U-Boats had sunk a US civilian cargo ship and torpedoed two destroyers. It is likely these confrontations would have continued to escalate until public outrage made a US declaration of war politically viable, in a manner similar to the US's entry into WWI.
8. Allied strategic bombing, aided by ever-increasing US lend-lease (at the very least), would hamper the German economy's ability to sustain the armies in Eastern Europe beyond 1944 or so. At the extreme, US-UK cooperation on nuclear weapons development (which in OTL began before Pearl Harbor) raises the prospect of a nuclear bombardment of Germany before the end of the 1940s, even accounting for a slower development timeline if the US somehow isn't dragged into the war. Germany could not possibly win once its major cities start coming under nuclear attack.
Anyway, thanks for reading this essay of a comment. Hope you enjoyed!
Good points all around, I might redo the video with updated information like this on the future, but realistically the axis weren't able to win the war, so several things are ignored or fudged to make this work.
@@theironchannel2396 C'mon, don't be that pesimistic, if the stars align perfectly, the axis should be able to win the war...
It's not like we are talking of a "How Luxembourg could have defeated the Soviet Union", we are talking about a country that managed to capture nearly half of the population of the Soviet Union, crippling his food suply, and coming short of taking Moscow and Leningrad, surely there must be, at least, one realistic chance of them winning the war that isn't far fetched.
We most people aren't that informed, but there was room from improvement in the Axis strategy, and many errors were commited, such those in the planning of operations like Blau, deployment and redeployments of troops and reinforcements that could've been different, investing of resources into ultimately non-profitable projects, or even smaller scale bad battle tactics; sometimes we forget that human error is a thing, and believe that there was some sort of inevitable destiny for Germany being defeated, no matter what they do.
Hell, even sheer luck should be considered a thing, let's not forget that long, one-vehicle line of tanks crossing through the Ardennes in a massive gamble, wich didn't even guarantee the fall of france by itself (a quick one at least), that merit goes to some tank commanders disobeying high command orders and marching against the french without waiting for the infantry support, preventing the french of making a proper battle line. It's that little details that sometimes could win a war, not just raw statistics.
@@asasas9146 I think Germany could've won the war, but not the Nazis. In order for these countries and especially Germany to function at their highest capacity they'd need more realistically minded leaders with unbelievably canny foresight. Basically I'd have to take myself and two friends and replace the top leaders of the axis at the time they took power.
@@theironchannel2396 This could definitely solve most problems, indeed.
However i believe they could've win even if you replace them right into 1939, althrough the chances would be slimer.
@@asasas9146 fair enough, but that's why we have HoI and A&A lol
Whatifalthist directed here and now you have kept me here to stay.
God damn it mate, you are weakening my entry market startegies XD
I see that you didn’t get MURICA in here. Gotta say though, I do disagree on the actions of Japan in the fact that Japan and MURICA were on a collision course of war.
They were, but that's avoided by having Germany actually coordinate with Japan as an ally. MURICA would try to antagonize Japan to goad them into war, but Japan would be focused on Russia and China and Congress wouldn't allow war over China's sovereignty alone. Without an attack on MURICAN soil they won't get involved.
I feel that. But I still see that Japan’s needs for oil would outweigh it’s desire to invade Russia. I can rationalize that they could be getting oil from the Middle East since it most recently flipped to Axis support.
To be fair I'm taking one of the most one sided wars in history and trying to turn it around, it is a difficult task even with hindsight.
Oh yes! I love everything what you have done here man. I loved the video. But I adore the Murican capability of reeeeing into a total and absolute victory
It's our best quality lol.
1. No Holocaust (huge waste of resources, especially in logistics)
2. Higher standards for officership in the Italian military
3. Higher standards for general officership/admiralty in the Japanese military (the Army vs. Navy rivalry in Japan was very, very intense and petty)
4. Tell the Japanese about the plan for the Molotov-Ribbontropp pact before it happens
5. Launch Operation Barbarossa in March
6. Have the Japanese invade Siberia
7. No Pearl Harbor
So many things wrong
@@enzovernille3800Yeah looking back in hindsight I got a lot wrong here.
For starters, Hitler would have needed to pull several hundred million barrels of oil out of his ass.
If Roosevelt died in 1933 like in High Castle would that fantasy be true in any way?
Sure. An economically weaker isolationist united states that is unable to/refuses to finance/supply the allies definitely increases the chances of the axis winning. Britain was about to go bankrupt in 1941 and 1945 OTL, and the Soviet economy nearly collapsed in 1942 and nearly avoided famine in 1943. Remove american aid and the axis are in a far better position to win the war.
My only complaint is Hitler didn't just let troops evacuate out France while the 300k Brits were evacuating the French troops were covering them from a German advance by no means did Hitler just "let them escape"
this is some great work. Its bloody difficult thinking about how the Axis could have since they have so many flaws but i think this was a brilliant take on a difficult subject.
What do you think is brilliant about it?
This scenario requires you to disregard logistics and reason at every turn.
Like, for one, Hitler did not let the British army escape at Dunkirk. Logistics hindered his army from fighting them, as well as allied artillery in the area which would've taken out a lot of their tanks.
And how the hell can italy just take a quarter of the African continent by itself, using only 300,000 troops?
They also needed oil, which they didn't have, and lots of manpower, because there's no way in hell that's gonna work.
And we have to assume that the British aren't going to try to rebuild their army after Dunkirk, and raise troops in their colonies.
Why the hell wouldn't they? We literally have to assume that the British won't try at all to reinforce their colonies if italy tries to take them, and also prevent the axis from gaining naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, both of which they would and absolutely could do.
You essentially have to imagine all of the axis' enemies as massive punching bags for this to make any sense at all.
Came here from Whatifalthist
Seems like your point of divergence is 1940, where in both timelines the Manhattan Project would already be underway in the US as the major impetus was the fear the Nazis would get the bomb first. In the altered timeline even more effort would be put into the Manhattan project due to the apparent Nazi success in Europe. It should be noted that in both timelines there is zero chance Germany develops the A bomb first for number of reasons 1) the Nazis considered quantum mechanics as Jewish science, and Hitler didn't believe it was of any value 2) Nazis had incorrect nuclear characteristics of graphite which forced them to use heavy water from Norway, 3) there was no scientists left in Germany (except maybe Heisenberg) that had the smarts (consider all the scientists in the US including Fermi, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Teller) to tackle the problems ultimately solved by the US. With all that said the alternate world would have the US being the only nuclear power with Germany and Japan unable to build their own bombs for years if ever. That would be interesting as which power would rule the world...
What one also needs to consider is that by 1950 Germany, the USA and Japan would have access to atomic bombs which would make a follow up conflict highly unlikely. Germany and Japan would probably sooner than later disintegrate.
10:00 Not such an easy proposal. Sure, you want to ship winter clothes? You can do that. Which of the vital supplies are you not going to ship in place of those winter clothes? Ammo, food/rations, fuel, spare parts/mechanical? I know it's a huge what if scenario, was super interesting, just a point wanted to throw out there. It's the reason Germans in our real timeline didn't send it. Not that they didn't think they'd need it. They weren't that naïve, wasn't like the troops weren't going to still be there in Winter even if they did win quickly. It was simply they didn't have the logistics and were already straining them to the max and beyond to get the essentials. Winter clothing wasn't seen as essential. Well, until it was too late and it was. Hahah
That's what happens when you decide to use more trains for killing innocent people instead of shipping supplies.
@@theironchannel2396 Yeah, point. That sure doesn't help. Can't argue with insanity though. It's going to do it's thing.
This is a very good video and we'll thought out. However I think it doesn't adequately go over the material shortage of the Axis and blames most of their shortcomings on leadership. The Italian military could not produce enough munitions or support equipment to cope with their losses. It also undermines the valiant efforts of the British and Russian troops. Lastly the German and Japanese would never work together as they did not intend on it very much. They were allies of circumstance not of want to work together.
TLDR: I think this is a wonderfully made video, but it really glosses over motivations, The reasons behind decisions and, how things were really going to work in any feasible alternate history.
the most realistic senario ive seen, its not the most realistic one since the actions and the leaders of the axis and even the logistics and military of the axis is not likely to do some of the actions, also because the axis while possible, miracously not lose or make a mistake in their battles and the logistics are abit unrealistic on the easten front but still possible. btw this was on my recommended, i hope to see more of this
This dude doesn't really understand what he's doing
A Wehraboo-looking channel that isn't completely insane.
I must say, this far exceeded my expectations. Great work!
one thing. the US probably wouldn’tve gave independence to the philippines until 1945, since they already had a 10 year transitional period in effect. by doing this, they already had the approval of most of the native population anyway
The taking of the Dunkerque pocket for the Germans is not as easy as this is implicated. The 1st French Army built an amazing defensive perimeter allowing the British to escape.
On the issue of Australia would be different in this timeline, Australia would not be invaded, the Japanese did not have the resources to invade Australia.
Hey man, love the video, probably the best alternate scenario I’ve seen. I think you are giving Italy a little too much credit though. Mussolini himself stated to hitler Italy would not be ready for war until at the earliest 1943, so an alternate 1940 where Italian Armies still don’t suffer from poor leadership and training seems unlikely to me. I think the Germans would have to have supplied a much more significant army to the Mediterranean to conquer those territories and hold them. I think a little bit of the invasion of the Soviet Union is brushed over, as well as the feasibility for the Japanese to actually be able to involve themselves in another large scale invasion of Siberia/Mongolia with how much the war in China had stagnated by 1941. It just seems hard to believe Japan could actually administer a territory that large with their resource capabilities as they still desperately needed oil that the US would not be providing. Indonesia would not have supplied enough oil to keep that large of an empire intact. And the idea that China would just crumble is hard to believe as well. I think it is more likely Japan might control the east coast of Asia with a bit larger part of manchukuo/Siberia, but China would just be to large for them to effectively quell, even without British and American support. I think the largest issue is that the three empires would all just be too large to handle. Overall still a great video though!
You're probably right, but I'm trying to make an impossible scenario happen, a few things had to be far fetched to make this work.
@@theironchannel2396 Such as Hitler working with a semitic peoples?
@@chippypills Like he did in our timeline?
You underestimate the importance of Ukraina for Germanies food supply. Taking Moskva was really not the strategic priority.
Talk about Japan coming out on top. Sheesh.
If German oil and man power increased
If Japan ignored Alaskan islands and focused on ship destruction to bait the fleet out at Midway and maybe send their veteran pilots back to be instructors or advisors for production engineers they could of had a better chance at holding the line vs insane US production capacity until both axis powers focused and were running at most efficient production vs USA .
The axis already held superior combat knowledge and used feedback from Frontline troops to update equipment or push for efficient weapon concepts the troops needed for XYZ reasons snand it worked well considereding it took 4 years 3 (+) powers to stop the axis from world domination
Very Good and Underrated Channel you deserve more subs! keep on going!
I'm sure a greater expert on the topic than me could poke a number of holes into this scenario, but this is deffinitely a good one.
Also kinda refreshing, considering the almost aggressive insistance of some people recently that an Axis victory would have been impossible under any conceivable circumstances.
Switching the air power that went into the Battle of Britain into a campaign to scour the British from the Mediterranean does seem viable and could possibly have led to the survival of more of the Italian fleet. I think a southern strategy focusing on quickly capturing Ukraine and the Caucasus was Germany's only hope, as that would have given Germany plentiful oil supply and starved the Russians of oil. I don't know if conquering the middle East and an army pushing from Iraq would have helped that plan much. Also in this southern strategy it would have been possible to turn Ukraine into a puppet state that could be mobilize to fight Russia, or at least provide safe haven to German troops.
Basically the war without Midway, Stalingrad and El Alamein.
This channel is underrated.
There’s one HUGE factor that’s not brought up here… Nukes. Who would get them first??
"Germany and Italy would just win in North Africa"
"Germany would supply its soldiers with winter clothes"
"Stalin would kill himself"
"The Japanese would not bomb Pearl Harbor" (Keeping in mind that the oil embargo was already slowing their war effort)
"The Japanese would invade the Soviet Union"
"The Americans wouldn't intervene in the Pacific"
I respect alternate history RUclips but the amount of assumptions this takes to accept is just counter to reality. It involves ignoring entire ideologies and realities of the situation, not to mention the fact that a lot of leaders during this time made fairly rational decisions, even on the part of the Axis, not counting the Holocaust or racial theory. It seems as though we have to just tie the Allies' hands behind their back and give the Axis 2021 hindsight in order to justify a victory. Potential History does a great video on how it's just not very accurate. It was never a question of if, it was a matter of when the Axis would lose.
Many people like ignoring the oil and supplies issues that the Germans has
@@sellmyhomesell2859 Or the manpower
Great stuff man!
Great video, keep up the great work
Ferb, guess what we'll be doing today with our time machine!
People are forgetting Germany before the war was very close to an utopian paradise. Unemployment was non existent single mothers received free housing and education. Corporate interests rate where made illegal they where the first 40 hr work week with overtime pay. Every factory shut down at five. All citizens received state paid vacations. Government to almost anyone with it being forgiven for have several children. Crime was erased and when u walked down the street you heard beautiful music playing. Nobody in history turned an economy around like that. Plus he was time magazines man of the year. I would hate for that to be our daily life. What a horrible situation.
Yes because they got rid of the unemployed and hungry literally they sent them to concentration camps for forced labor
you are correct, world need to hear this!
Bs
Where are you from?
New England
No.
This scenario slightly borders fantasy.
1) Why would Stalin kill himself or allow himself to get captured in Moscow? Given that even Ukraine wasn't fully invaded in your proposed timeline, the USSR is not even close to collapsing. The USSR in OTL also had very heavy rationing 1942-1944 because they didn't have the food from Ukraine, which I feel impacts war support much more than a token capital.
2) Why would Japan invade the USSR? It has little capability to do so with the IJA trapped in China and lack of tanks, artillery, and logistical capability, little incentive to do so after said IJA failures in China and Khalkin Gol, they were facing an embargo + the European powers were tied up in a war, and the SEA colonies looked much more prospective in terms of immediate resources (their fuel stockpiles would run out by mid '42, they were already rationing, and their economy was collapsing from excessive imports and other various factors) than Siberia, so all points to them going South.
3) While I agree with your oil from MENA hypothesis, nothing prevents the Allies from bombing the oilfields or intercepting transports. Oil production in the Middle East also wasn't as bountiful as it is today.
4) The USA was always going to join the war. They were engaging in undeclared submarine warfare with Germany and lend leasing the Allies, China AND the USSR (even before Pearl Harbor).
5) The BEF at Dunkirk doesn't matter that much outside of morale early in the war. A lot of their equipment got destroyed anyway and the majority of D-Day was conducted by American forces.
*Why would Stalin kill himself or allow himself to get captured in Moscow?*
He wouldn't , he had a secret passage to a subway to get him out of Moscow.
*Given that even Ukraine wasn't fully invaded in your proposed timeline, the USSR is not even close to collapsing.*
Slightly complicated, railways looked like this users.tpg.com.au/adslbam9//Railways1941.png , so surrounding Moscow would have reduced the amount of supplies that could reach the Northern front significantly. Something like 30% of shipments were military for the rail system though, and the Soviets had ~ 8 times the rail capacity of the germans, so the most likely scenario is starvation or evacuation for the civilian population. www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2018/3/9/the-influence-of-railways-on-military-operations-in-the-russo-german-war-19411945. Additionally conquering a grain surplus region likely accomplishes a similar thing to cutting off supplies , although it will effect a different area. Also army group north pretty much replicated it by how far they advanced anyway. Think of it as the siege of Leningrad, except they can still evacuate with trains? Kind of over rated.
Look basically if someone doesn't mention trains existing, you can probably ignore their conclusions, as that's what's carrying all your stuff bar the last couple hundred km's.
iirc, Iraq had lower oil production than Indonesia, however, Iran was the 4th biggest oil producer, but it didn't took much for the british and soviets to coup the pro axis king and keep a firm control
(they did try to kill the allies at dunkirk) It didn't go well and their armies where tired from the massive encirclement
9:26 you're forgetting that Greece never had its entire army on the border with Italian Albania. Instead, a big chunk was in Thrace, along the fortified Metaxas line, waiting for a Bulgarian attack. Even when the Bulgarians did declare war on Greece, they never made any real gains until after the Germans had seized Yugoslavia and encircled the Greeks by capturing Thessaloniki. In this scenario here, with the Germans not sending an army, the inverse scenario is actually the more likely one. In the Spring of 1940, after the failed Italian spring counter-offensive, the Greeks held the Hill 731. This was a decisive battle and Grèce was days from taking Tirane. But when the Greek leader Metaxas died due to illness, the British didn't listen to him and started sending forces into Greece. Metaxas was certain that this would prompt a German attack before they were ready for it which it did. On April 6th Germany declared war on Greece and soon after it was occupied. But, with the British Mediterranean holdings taken out, England couldn't have supported Greece even if it wanted to, so German participation in the Balkans wouldn't be provoced. Italy would be much more likely to lose the entirety of Albania rather than beat Greece, let alone faster.
PS many people are forgetting that Greece was disproportionately strong for a Balkan country at this point. It had an excess population of at least 1.500.000 Greeks from Asia Minor and was better industrialized.
Nomonhan was not lost because of tanks. In fact in armored vehicles the Soviets lost way more than the Japanese. The deciding factor was political support.
I'd think that another factor that would increase the probability of this scenario would be if Edward Halifax & (one of a variety of possible presidential candidates) became the leaders of the UK & US respectively in 1940 instead of Churchill and Roosevelt leading to both countries being more anti-war than in our timeline.
Beyond that; this's a highly possible way the Axis could theoretically win WW2 (in the Eastern Hemisphere, making it more so The Great Eastern Hemisphere War, or GEHW).
I mostly didn't put Halifax in because I didn't want the british to give up right away, as that could also lead to a Soviet victory.
@@theironchannel2396 ; I am curious to your thought process as to how you drawn to that particular conclusion.
Halifax had no stomach for war, which is why he decided not to step up for the job in our timeline. When things were looking rough, after say Dunkirk or a little later in my timeline, he'd either sue for peace or be replaced by Churchill anyway.
@@theironchannel2396 ; Okay, I see that but, how would a British Armistice/Surrender under Halifax lead to a Soviet Victory? Without British & later American industry, logistics, & bombing raids, and with the Japanese in the east, the Soviets would be fighting alone in a two front war while the Axis powers would have their industrial heartlands undisturbed.
Again, I am just curious to your rather intriguing thoughts on the matter for I genuinely cannot see the specific events that would arrive to that point.
My bad, I should've clarified. If Britain drops out early the hostility Germany has for Russia would have no barrier, so the Soviets would take precautions earlier, making them better prepared for the german invasion. The Germans would still cut deep into Germany and possibly capture Moscow, but realistically Germany lacked the manpower and resources to fight Russia in the long run so eventually they would be ground down. Britain might jump back in the war to support Russia when it's clear they're winning, but realistically Germany wouldn't make it, even if Britain wasn't involved they could fight till 1947 at the latest. Despite my alternate history I don't actually believe the axis could win the war.
Good realistic video. I always wondered why the Axis didn't focus on the middle east oil rich countries
Couldnt help but subscribe
This scenario still has many serious problems but is better than most alt-history about this topic
If they knew how shit the world would be today, the axis would unite and fight alot harder
Awesome channel bro keep the videos coming
"Bruh" - Adolf hitler 1939
which ethnicity was over represented in international communism and still is in finance capitalism and anti-¥te movements?
Technically the colonies would eventually break off from the overlords, and they would become weaker, but Japan would still be a superpower with the co-prosperity sphere.
why didn't Germany annex the colonization area in France as Nord Pas de Calais to create the gau of Burgundy and thus weaken Francis and recreate the western borders of the Holy Roman Empire as planned?
Nice video, pretty realistic scenario as long as everything goes well, since everyone knows 100% realistically the axi could never win, only this scenario actually works
People criticized me as if I was saying they could've won lol. I'm glad so many people appreciate the video, next one will be out soon.
I love your videos
Thank you.
@theironchannel2396 what site do you use to make your maps
The Good Ending
So basically the axis could have won if we ignore every single logistical and strategic reality about the war. The Germans didn't "allow" the British to escape at Dunkirk, they couldn't get there in time because their armored divisions had outpaced their logistics train so badly that it took several days to bring up reserves, replacement parts and fuel. Despite the propaganda the germans were NOT a fully mechanized force at this point in the war and much of their logistics train was literally horse drawn wagons. The French fought for every inch of land once resistance hardened around Dunkirk and the germans couldn't have broken through even if Hitler had been dumb enough to ignore his generals and order an advance. His tanks lacked fuel and ammunition, his troops lacked food and ammunition and were strung out on amphetamines as part of the lightning war strategy. All the germans would have done at Dunkirk in an actual attack is die. Especially when the royal navy arrived which the germans had no counter to.
59th sub!
I'm so glad I found this channel
Problems with the video that nobody else seems to have noticed yet:
You say that though Italy would want Corsica and Tunisia (the latter of which is mispronounced), France wouldn't give those territories. This is a baseless claim. Why, then, did France hand over _half its mainland_ to Germany? Indeed, it was because the Germans already occupied most of that. And there's no reason why Italy wouldn't be capable of occupying Tunisia and Corsica. So I don't really see your logic here.
What the hell are the logistical issues of operating out of the Middle East? I don't see the Iranian military _on its own_ being able to advance very far, but that's not the reason that you cited.
Nice video.