I dare say that if the US hadn't entered the war the Commonwealth Nations wouldn't have been invading Italy or Normandy by themselves. My guess is that the Commonwealth and the Axis would have spent a lot of time fighting backwards and forwards over North Africa with nobody really getting an advantage and fighting in the Western European theatre would have been pretty much restricted to strategic bombing and maritime interdiction. The war on the Eastern Front would have ground on and the outcome of the war would probably have been decided when the will to fight of one of both sides collapsed (as did Germany's in WW1) or by the first side to perfect the atomic bomb. Of course the US might have decided to enter the war later anyway due to the risks posed by a Europe united under Hitler or because of unrestricted submarine warfare, but the odds for the allies would definately have been grimmer.

 

As for Australia, the I Corp would definately have gone to the Middle East  and depending upon whether Japan was seen as a latent threat, we would probably have sent a lot troops there as well.

Talked to a Britain who ginally pulled me around to his thinking on Montgomery, though I still think he was a  seriously flawed general.

 

I see a longer war. Italy still loses in 1943 as 8th Army clears out Tunisia. The Commonwealth can just barely mount Husky,

 

No Torch.

 

Probably stalemate on the Eastern Front as the Germans and Russians bleed each other out. They are TOO strong for each other without a US to tip the balance. 

 

Definitely nuclear war in Europe as "Tube Alloys" bears fruit around 1946 Bombs used on Germany in 1947. Russiansd rolled out of Eastern Europe almost immediately thereafter via nuclear blackmail. Reason?  Australia and Canada become the sites of research not the US. THAT will shake up things globally as those two nations become more important than Britain in the postwar British Empire scheme of things.And of course Churchill was not above clubbing Joe Stalun when he had the stick to do it.   

 

US sitting on the sidelines will cost that nation severely. At some point the US will have to enter the war as in WW I to have any say in the peace. 

China war drags on and on and on.

 

Makes the appearance of the Sentinel tank in quantity a certainty though!

 

Herald

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't rule out the prospect of Germany strangling Britain into submission with unrestricted ASW warfare, before the Brits could get the bomb. I also wouldn't rule out the Germans getting it first and beating both Russia and Britain outright.

I've seen the German work approach. Heisenberg was great on theory, His physics for a two lens implosion type bomb was elegant, better than the brute force approach the Americans used, but his industrial approach was CRAP. No bomb before 1950 if EVER.

This guy, Mark Oliphant did for uranium enrichment industrial processes what Enrico Fermi did for plutonium.

 

The British would have beaten the Germans to the bomb. As for the sub war in the North Atlantic, all things being equal the US contribution was not major (10%?) before 1943. (Kaiser shipbuilding didn't kick in until 1943 for example) That war was mainly won by the British and Canadians, no matter what US propaganda says. Britain would have to tighten her belt a bit.    

 

Herald

 

I'll have to take your word on the nuclear question because I don't know enough about it but I still think the sub war could have gone against Britain, even if it was after 1943 (for instance, what would they have done about the air gap without the advent of ASW B-24's?). You can't rule out the impact of the bigger challenge upon other theatres like North Africa and the Middle East either.  

1. Divert Lancaster production and introduce the Lincoln earlier?

2. Less help from Britain, means more help needed from Australia into Egypt for 8th Army?

3. The big problem is that I see the RAF taking an early war hit in bomber production but not in later war efforts.

 

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Wouldn't that mean Japan going to war with an oil shortage?

 

 

 

Shrug. Depends. An infantry war in China, based off the railroad network is still workable. Its 19th Century, but a lot more doable with the means Japan had, than the naval war she tried to fight.

 

She didn't build a mechanized army because she didn't have the resource base for it, not because she couldn't design the machines. 

 

The Germans really didn't have the means to put an army on wheels either, but that didn't stop them from conquering Europe did it?

 

All those two nations had to do was be just a little more mechanized and a lot better trained than their usually small or weak opponents.

 

They only ran into trouble when they ran into major nation states that had equivalent airpower and superior seapower.

 

Herald