Rachel is pointing out that the Soviets did defeat the Nazis

[MillennialDem]

74. Apologies on the Napoleon thing - like I said I see it written enough that I do

want to bang my head into the wall whenever I see it, and certainly some people do believe they are entirely the same thing. Apparently der Fuhrer himself even believed it, because the reason he ordered the encirclement at Kiev is because his greatest nightmare was to take Moscow but fail to defeat the Russian army in the field, "just like Napoleon".

As for putting down guerillas, yes these do present a problem, but WW2 was a little different. A titanic struggle between fascism and communism, and many in the conquered territories did join their cause. There were even Soviets that did - see the Hiwi. Guerillas have been put down in many cases too, it just tends to take a very long time. See the Baltic Forest Brothers and the Spanish Maquis. That said, the US and UK did have some problems dislodging the Germans, it certainly wasn't a walk in the park... and that's with the Germans dealing with partisans AND the massive Red Army.

As for ship building, yes, it would have taken some time of course. Acknowledged there. But again, the main thing a Navy does is allow troops to be landed. The Germans wouldn't be able to land troops in Britain or the US any time soon, but any Ango-American landing would get slaughtered on the beaches. D-Day was hazardous enough even with the Germans getting their clocks cleaned in the east. I don't think the Western Allies would have had much success against the Atlantic Wall or in Italy without the Soviet Union.

It may be disingenuous to completely exclude India from the equation, but it's also disingenuous to include their entire population. Most of the country wasn't modernized. To think otherwise would be to think that the Indians could have smashed the Soviet Union and the Axis themselves. Yes a lot of Indians served with distinction during the war, but "only" 2.5 million did. While that's a lot, it's kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the 16 million Germans. Would the 2.5 million have been enough to break the camel's back though? Maybe.

As for the air war, I think you're making the Luftwaffe out to be a bit more of a pushover than it actually was. Establishing air superiority and making a dent into German war production was similar to the ground war in the west. It was difficult as is with the majority in the east, it would only be a trillion times tougher with no Eastern Front. The Germans were still putting up quite a resistance in the air until 1944. Plus, the defeat of the Soviets would also have more knock on effects - just like more ship building I think there would be more AA buildup.

As for Moscow leading to the defeat of the Soviets, yes this is of course... questionable as well, but at very least would make it quite difficult for the Soviets to wage war. Hard to supply your troops without the rail network :p

Anyway, overall, I think there is a lot of uncertainty here..... I think saying that the West would have won without the USSR is extremely speculative, though I think they could have. Because of their navies, I think they had a better chance to win the war than the Axis did.....

But I think a far more likely outcome is stalemate/cold war/armistice with the Germans controlling continental Europe, and Britain and the US controlling everything else. Japan being so isolated would still have gotten their clocks cleaned. There might be more fights in North Africa and the Middle East though. The longer the war dragged out the more likely the Germans can get Spain and Portugal into the war as well.