Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSR? Was Italy as crucial as Germany and Japan? It doesn't seem like they had the same level of weapons and military prowess and resources as the others.
>>64325081france was running an insurgency that was workingbrits were running a defense campaign that was sapping resources from nazisgermans were outgunned on every end and engineering mishaps were frequent
>>64325081>Battle of Britain>North Africa campaign>Malta>Battle of the Atlantic>Bletchley Park>Double Cross system>Playing "unsinkable aircraft carrier right off Allied Europe">Arctic convoysArguing who is the "most crucial" is a game played by idiots and jackasses, since the actual answer so frequently devolves to "it depends". That said, the UK was an integral part of the war effort. Would the Allies have won without the UK? Perhaps, but if so it would have taken longer and been much more bloody.
>>64325116>Arguing who is the "most crucial" is a game played by idiots and jackassesCouldn't have said it better myself/thread
>>64325081yeah
>>64325116also destroying german nuclear program in norway
>>64325081If nothing else Britain was pretty important because it gave the jews a good place to base their planes out of and to launch their invasion of Europe when De-liberation Day rolled around.
>>64325081>Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSR?Yes. Their intelligence and SOF were top notch and contributed greatly to the war. The actual landmass of Britain was also crucial to the American's efforts. If Britain went neutral, Germany probably could have succeeded in defeating Russia. Britain denying German shipping prior to US entry to the war was of incalculable importance.>ItalyWas often worse than useless and got Germany dragged into bullshit to save them more than once.
>>64325081Britain was the Allies. If the US and Soviets had fought the Axis separately, they wouldn't be doing so as part of the Allies
>>64325081Britain was crucial geographically. Otherwise the US wouldn't have had any ports or airbases to stage from.
>>64325116>Arguing who is the "most crucial" is a game played by idiots and jackasssBecause the answer is obvious. The US won WWII.
>>64325540wut
>>64325505>Britain denying German shipping prior to US entry to the war was of incalculable importance.they controlled the suez canal, so germans were cut off to global trade in that direction for as long as the UK controlled egyptand the UK obviously prevented german trade across the atlanticso right off the bat, germany had no one to buy valuable petroleum from other than what could be produced on the continentmost of the worlds natural rubber production was also in the southeast asian region, so if the germans could trade with the japanese, it would have massively alleviated their chronic rubber shortagesbut the blockade meant that germany and the allies were on equal footing in the rubber department
>>64325081No>>64325116> Arguing who is the "most crucial" is a game played by idiots and jackassesRight because it’s a settled question. the USSR was responsible for ~80% of nazis killed and the usa basically soloed japan.
>>64325619Suppose Britain does not join the war, or leaves after France falls. What happens next? Most likely outcome is that the US sits across the Atlantic and does nothing, while the USSR gets invaded alone a few years later.
>UK had a larger airforce and navy than the US up until mid 1943>Broke the back of the luftwaffe 1940-43 before USAAF involved.>Knocked Italy out of North AfricaSure UK could not have launched an invasion of europe, but without them Germany would have beat the Soviets and nazi party stayed in power.
>>64325726So, best possible outcome for humanity?
>>64325725>Nogermany kept over a million men in the west, even before overlord, since the USs industrial power was using the UK as a springboardthe UK also kept the germans from importing petrol, rubber, and other critical war resources the UK intelligence apparatus also had far-reaching consequences that the soviets benefitted from, the soviets were aware of operation citadel almost as soon as the germans were thanks to UK turning german intelligence into another branch of the allied militarythe UK absolutely played an important role in the war, much bigger than what their smaller army would suggesy
>>64325725>USSR was responsible for ~80% of nazis killedAnd ~half of that was with US equipment
>>64325081The Royal Navy was huge back then. So was Bomber Command. The British Army was middling strength but competent by mid War.
>>64325766no it wasn'tUS aid via lend-lease represented less than 5% of the materiel the USSR had, and most of it came after the decisive battles of the war (see: kursk) anyway
>>64325081If there was no Britain, there was no war, period.
>>64325958lol
>>64325761The best outcome for humanity would be if Germany didn't chimp out and cause two European wars wiping out the bravest men of two generations and condemning the continent to perpetual cuckoldry.
>>64325505https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_MissionIf nothing else, the Brits had tons of technological projects and were cutting edge in many fields. What they lacked was A. a larger industrial base and B. being within firing range and no free time to develop things further, so to speak. You know who just spent a better part of the 1930s running various government funded projects to get a continent-wide industrial factory of skilled machinists and manufacturers and white collar professionals? Not that the US did not help the other way either, but the Tizard Mission was basically giving us a shitload of blueprints for things figuratively and literally, that we had the time and resources to work on further. Primarily in primitive electronics and computing. A lot of stuff has been declassified relatively recently on Allied efforts to defeat the fairly impressive anti-air network the Germans set up. B-24s with no bombs but loaded with sensor equipment to detect the radars and remote controlled AA guns on some of the early bombing raids we participated in, and figuring out strips of aluminum (IIRC) for chaff allowing us to overwhelm other radar, even signal jamming/overriding frequencies like modern drone countermeasures was a pretty close joint effort. It really plays out almost like a heist plot with the Allies having to figure out how to bypass each layer of German defense to get inside the vault.
>>64326184https://steveblank.substack.com/p/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-b48Sort of a generalist overview but probably the best narrative approach to what I am talking about specifically wrt german air defenses. You can use google to go from there.
>>64325116Can add “most convenient staging point for an invasion of Europe” to that list
China was important.
>>64325081>alliesonly UK and US were allies. Vatnik union started the war together with the germans. and no, vatnik union was not crucial to the war effort. They absorbed a lot of punishment but in hindsight its painfully obvious bailing them out was a strategic catastrophe with consequences extending to the modern day. Everybody would have been much better off if gone hands off and let Hilter kill Stalin. While UK and US built up additional armies to finish off the germans when they were done. Overstretched and bled out, the war would have gone on a few extra years but ended all of the imperialists that started it. Instead of the half assed version we ended up with
>>64325081Well Battle for Britain did pretty much turn Luftwaffe into a non-entity, so yeah
>>64326251People say Allies instead of using the proper name of The United Nations.
>>64326329>Let's include Nicaragua and fucking South Africa but not FranceWe should have sided with the USSR
>>64326344Maybe you should have signed up before Dec. 26, 1944.
shitaly's contribution would be laughable if they didn't doom whites forever by fucking up barbarossa.
>>64325619Until 1941 the "Allies" were basically just Britain, the Empire, and the European governments in exile. The US, Soviets and even China only joined the Allies agter Barbara's and Pearl Harbor. China, even though it had been fighting Japan since 1937, was not an Allied country until the war in the Pacific broke out and led to the Sino-Japanese War being folded into the Pacific Theater of WW2. Britain was neutral in the war behind Japan and China.The USSR was not an Allied country until June 1941. In fact it could be considered friendly to the Axis due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but not a formal Axis member due to not being a signatory of eirher the Anti-Comintern or Tripartite Pact. It was even considered an Axis co-belligerent (like Finland during the Continuation war) by the Allies during this time 1939-1941.The US of course does not formally join the Allies until after December 1941 despite its undeclared participation in the Battle of the Atlantic and joint planning with the UK-Canada and the UK-Australia-Netherlands (ABDA) before its entry. If Britroaches had dropped out of the war before this point and the US had to fight Germany and Japan alone, it would not have done so as an Allied country even if ot continued to support the Soviets, Canada, Australia, China and the surviving British and European governments in exile, but instead would lead some kind of hemispheric defense alliance of American states with Brazil and Mexico. It might have even been called by the same name as the Allies historically were (the United Nations), but it would not have been the same "Allies" as in our WW2. It would have been a completely different animal, politically, diplomatically and spiritually
>>64325627It's largely forgotten, especially in places like this, because it didn't involve any combat - but a group of British intelligence agents and businessmen also managed to dramatically reduce the amount of iron ore and steel that Scandinavia (particularly Sweden) were able to sell to the Germans by buying it up first. Sweden was still Germanies main source of both resources, and a few other things, but without that behind the scenes string of business deals German industry would have been significantly less fragile/ineffective during the war, potentially dramatically changing the war in the USSR and on the European front.
>>64326344France was an axis cobelligerent. Who were the last men defending Hitlers bunker, even after Hitler had killed himself, and after even the most dedicated and ideologically committed SS men decided that it was a good time to start sprinting west to surrender to the Allies rather than the Soviets?
>>64326329>>64326364The United Nations name was coined by FDR. If the US never joins the Allies, they will never be called the UN
>>64326393Who was the army stealing fuel from France each time they made a successful offensive into Germany?That's right the ameriniggers frothing at the mouth that an army is more efficient than theirs
>>64326465Hadn't heard that one before Pierre, but yeah, probably. How do you think that would detract from the reality that France was an Axis power, even if only a minor one, and should have been treated like it after the war?
>>64325081Britain was useful for breaking enigma codes and being an unsinkable aircraft carrier
>>64325081>1939>Somehow, the British Islands vanishe>In the colonies, the locals are free to do as they please, which proves very confusing so, for the most part, they just bicker>In the rest of the Commonwealth, people are mostly self-governing anyway so they keep doing that but with "fuck Europe" added.>Germany still invade Poland and the UK does nothing since it ain't there>1940>Germany invade Norway, Denmark and the Netherland, Belgium and France. Not having 250.000 British soldiers with them, the French fold even faster there. No retreat to Dunkirk here too so that's another 150.000 french soldiers that end up POW or dead instead of waiting to fight another day.>Not having to besiege Britain means Germany has no reason to declare war to the USA. Not having Britain as a staging area means the USA won't enter the war without a very good reason either.>1941>North Africa folds quickly too : no british and free french forces to invade Libya or to fight for Egypt.>Yougoslavia, Greece and other minor theaters are over even quicker.>The Japs still go for Pearl Harbor. Germany probably doesn't declare war on the USA, though.>Which means Uncle Sam goes all in on the Japs.>Also, unlikely they'll give lend lease to the soviets, at least not that quickly.>Barbarossa goes forward with a lot more tanks, planes and men than initially.>Especially planes>And fuel>Also, for what it's worth, no strategic bombing on Germany>Also, Germany can keep trading with the world.
>>64326393the french SS fought on the longest because they knew they'd be hanged if they surrendered.but hey don't let facts stand in the way of your opinion
>>64326231>Doesnt even get a pity PDF list in Bolt Action 3.0 Nahhh clearly not important at all
>>64325081The war output of the British Empire, including all Dominions, was very close to the US so you're looking at halving the Allies' strength by discounting themFurthermore the US was a very young military and all the way to Normandy was basically taught by the British how to fight. Otherwise the US would have wasted a lot of men and materiel attempting their hasty and inexperienced version of "blitzkrieg", as in the Tunisian and Italian Campaigns
>>64327100Would Germany invade Denmark or Norway if there's no threat to cut off the ore?
>>64325081Two words, Tizard Mission. People talk about Nazi Super Science but realistically the Brits were matching them step for step. Thing was, Britain was at the limit of their resources so they couldn't actually turn that science into tech. The Tizard Mission (Named after Henry Tizard) basically handed off most of the promising science to the USA who used it to make VT fuses and the nuclear bomb. We also got the Jet engine but that wasn't ready before war's end. Something about reliability issues even when you had the proper alloys. On another note, the Battle of Britain really broke the back of the Luftwaffe and Operation Barbarossa was still a disaster for Russian Air power. British spies also did a lot of sneaky things and basically had Nazi intelligence pegged. British naval power also protected Russian Lend-Lease.Add to this that both the USA and USSR were late to the party while Britain was there since the Battle of France and I'd say Britain was the most important nation in the Allies.
>>64327145>The war output of the British Empire, including all Dominions, was very close to the USI mean, we could argue over sources but most of them agree the US outproduced the British Empire by a factor of 2 at least.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Production_overview:_service,_power_and_typeUSA's edge over the British Empire :Tanks and other armoured vehicles : +13%Other land vehicles : +61%Artillery : +13%Airplanes : +67%As for ships, there's just no contest : the USA dominated shipbuilding.
>>64327199Considering how much of a nutjob Hitler was? Yes.
The war in Europe would not have been possible for America in the WW2. At most they'd have fought Japan. Germany would have likely beaten the USSR.
>>64325081Lend lease for raggedy pidors
>>64327413US only began to outnumber the British in warplanes and warships around mid 1943, until then the UK was the senior partner and had spent almost 4 years inflicting severe damage to the Luftwaffe and did the hard work in North Africa. The yanks had a lot of catching up to do, their military was tiny in 1940, but with a bigger Industrial base they would rapidly overtake.
>>64325081the most important ( and stupid ) thing the UK did was not to sign peace with Germany in 1940 if they did Hitler would not have declared war on the US and Germany would have crushed the russians since the US would have completely stayed out of Europe
If we imagine Britain somehow stays neutral or capitulates early, the war looks completely different to how it turned out. For one, the USA could not have undertaken a military campaign against Nazi Germany without Britain.
>>64327413no worries, call it 1/3rd thenstill a massive contributionand from that page it seems the Empire did contribute nearly as many Allied personnel as the Americans(I must admit I had expected the opposite to be the case: that the Empire contributed fewer personnel but more materiel)
>>64325093i fucking hate that every time anyone tries to set media of any kind in the french revolution or the insurgency of france during WW2 they always fuck it up hard. i want some good shit out of both of those periods, there's plenty of cool shit that happened.
>>64326329>Russia>PolandRemind me, how WWII was started
>>64325093>france>an insurgency that was workinganon, I...>>64328914that's because no good shit happened, anonthe French betrayed most of the agents in France, the Maquis were thin on the ground, only one (1) Jew-train bound for Auschwitz was delayed (not really sabotaged, merely delayed) by the passive resistance of one bold Frenchman, and about a third of all inserted Allied agents ended up killed, or tortured and then executedthere were a couple of interesting missions such as Mosquito raids and secret landings by Lysander, but the overall story until 1944, when the French finally sensed victory was possible and decided they found their sense of honour, was pretty fucking bleak>t. I read this shit so you don't have to
>>64328935When Chinese soldiers attacked the Japanese protecting a railroad.
>>64328935you see, back in the year 600 BC, the first Germanic tribes...
>>64328734And Germans will of course respect the treaty, just like they did with every other agreement before that.
>>64328952it could have never happen anyway since Italy was still fighting in north Africa but if it happened somehow, it would have been beyond insane for Germany to break it, they had zero territorial demand over the UK an they knew war with russia was inevitable
>>64328998>if it happened somehowif all the bongs in 1940 had the same amount (lack) of backbone as today's bongs, then yeah, it mightjust before the BOB when Hitler demanded a peace treaty, before Churchill could even respond, the BBC replied "no" - that was the level of popular war support against Hitler, even after Dunkirkanyway... if Britain peaced out, yeah, Hitler would have proceeded to integrate France and Poland, and prepare for war with Russia. IF he detected no major rearmament efforts then he might have aimed for a 42 Barbarossa I think
>>64325116At one point Britian was the only allied power in the war, so if they weren't involved WW2 would have finished with the fall of France and been followed up by the German war in the East a year later.
>>64328734Weirdos fantasizing about women and children getting raped by German convicts because of joos or whatever
>>64325081The location of Britain alone was critical, much less everything they actually did.
>>64326251god, can you just imagine a 20th century without the cold war? How much more money could we have spent on improving the lives of Americans instead of building up this global military alliance to fight global communism. How much better off would eastern Europe have been without decades of Soviet occupation. How much weaker would China (and therefore North Korea) have been without a USSR providing them with technology, logistics, and money.Honestly, it doesn't seem like it could have been done without the allies suffering tens of thousands of more casualties during the eventual liberation of Europe campaign without the USSR.
Britain was the entirety of the Allied Forces for much of 1940 and 1941.>It doesn't seem like they had the same level of weapons and military prowess and resources as the others.Britain's Royal Navy was pivotal, without which the US would never have been able to land in Europe whilst simultaneously fighting Japan.The combined RAF and RCAF bombed the Nazis about half as much as the USAAF did which is no trivial feat. And for much of the war - they would have done all of the bombing until the US arrived.Regarding Lend-Lease, read this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iranhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Corridorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-LeaseThere's zero chance that the Soviets could have handled the invasion of Iran by themselves whilst getting bodied by the Nazis in 1941. The Persian Corridor was the main route used by GB and US to supply the USSR with critical supplies for the war effort. Most of these supplies were American produce, but GB did supply about a fifth of this aid in total.t. Royal Internet Defence Force
>>64330416>How much more money could we have spent on improving the lives of Americans instead of building up this global military alliancewe had plenty of money, and have plenty of money at this moment, to improve the lives of Americans. we just choose not to.
>>64330947>have plenty of money at this momentmoron>>64330416>war is LE BAD>why can't we all just get along>Kumbaya, O Lord, Kumbayano fucking shit, anonevery single dollar that has been spent on war and law enforcement, past present and future, is a complete waste that wouldn't have been if humans were better peoplecount it and weep
>>64330964>moronthe US is human history's largest collection of wealth. but we're not interested in spending an extra wooden nickel on things like rail networks or education. You cannot tell me that we don't have the money; we have more money than anyone else. The US Covid bailout alone was bigger than the entire GDP of South America that same year. We've got no problem dispensing money, but it's only allowed to go to private equity firms.
>>64325116>Would the Allies have won without the UK? There's an alternate history novel where the British government falls to a coup in 1941 and exits the war, and gets occupied by the Germans.Eventually Curtis LeMay uses B-36s to turn Germany into a sheet of radioactive glass in 1947
>>64331040>You cannot tell me that we don't have the money; we have more money than anyone elsein the land of the destitute the beggar with two wooden nickels is king>GDP of South Americameaningless metric, particularly since the GDP of South America is the same as just one (1) major West European country >it's only allowed to go to private equity firmsIN ANY NON-COMMUNIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM, ALL MONEY EVENTUALLY FLOWS TO PRIVATE HANDSfucking idiots!!!!
>>64331071>meaningless metric, particularly since the GDP of South America is the same as just one (1) major West European countryOkay, the covid bailout was 30% larger than the GDP of France. >IN ANY NON-COMMUNIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM, ALL MONEY EVENTUALLY FLOWS TO PRIVATE HANDSlol. your taxes pay for amazon and blackrock subsidies instead of things for the public good, and you've been trained to obediently defend this practice online
>>64331079>t. if we try communism again, this time it'll be different, and maybe I can get someone else to pay for my tendies and my hentai gashapons
sure is /pol/ in here
>>64331086Building railroads is not communism dipshit
>>64331086I don't think you get it, anon. you're still losing that money. we've got an enormous budget deficit. it's just going DIRECTLY into the pockets of corporate stakeholders instead of being used to buy something useful first.
>>64331099>we've got an enormous budget deficit. it's just going DIRECTLY into the pockets of corporate stakeholders instead of being used to buy something useful firstthat's not how this works anon, that's not how this works at allthe primary source of inflation today in most major economies is GOVERNMENT deficit spending, usually to prop up economies by paying government workers(in the wealthy OECD countries, not all countries as some are facing real resource scarcity)but if you think really hard about it, the eventual destination of "printed" money is always private hands, and that makes number go up, ALWAYSI'm not saying this is good, in fact for years I've been saying this is REALLY BAD and we need to have the courage to let things collapse and resetthe problem is that, somewhat counter-intuitively (not really, it's pure classical economics), in order to deflate the market, we have to cut government spendingthat's the part that gets dole bludgers like >>64331091 all worked up, so they rant about railroads and healthcare and public infrastructure, in order to deflect from their unemployment insurance handoutsonce again, think hard about that last point, and consider the path of money creation and why it ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ends up in private hands.
>>64331112>in order to deflate the market, we have to cut government spendingausterity has never worked in modern history
>>64331112I’m not a burger nor unemployed m8.I’m just an europoor nooticing that you burgers are not spending your tax and printed money wisely.Money will always end up in private hands, but the path it takes the get there is what’s important.Paying welfare to walmart workers, in essence subsidising walmarts profits is a retarded waste of money.Taking the same money and building some infrastructure with it would be significantly less retarded, even though it would still end up in some companies balance sheet.
>>64331115Greece is pretty well off, as is Estonia for example.One was forced into austerity, the other did it of their own free will.
>>64331126>I’m just an europoor nooticing that you burgers are not spending your tax and printed money wiselylmaosorry, but European governments are worse at money management, they're further along the shit curve than the US and they haven't deviated course a second because aUsTeRiTy Is BaD>Taking the same money and building some infrastructure with it would be significantly less retarded, even though it would still end up in some companies balance sheet.but that's already what they're doing, anonthe problem is that governments are dogshit at figuring out what to spend money on, mainly because most of them have never worked a commercial day in their life, and the ones making the major decisions tend to buy votes rather than invest in something with a realistic positive NPV in 20 years>>64331115austerity has never been tried in the 21st century(well actually it has, Greece)now, here's where I can say, okay, fine, let's do an AOC, austerity is dead, let's go full Keynesian; if we take out enough debt to build enough railroads, someone (who? not my problem) will eventually invent enough products to send on those railroads that the cost will be worth it. let's print 100 trillion dollars tomorrow. debt is an illusion isn't it?also, trickledown obviously doesn't work, and we need to punish the fat cats who obviously get government gibs directly into their pockets without providing any useful products or services at all. so let's raise taxation to 100% for anyone with a net worth above, say, $14 million. this will transfer $50 trillion dollars to the US Government. surely that will solve everything, amirite? the Government has managed its wealth so very responsibly for the last two decades, right?but you might accuse me of strawmanning.so here's a challenge for all of you: YOU set the numbers.how much do you think taxes should be?how much do you think the government should control the economy?how much should be in private hands?tell me.
>>64327120>Noooooo!>Don't say bad things about the poor little traitors who died in service to the enemy!>That's heckin mean!>>64328914If they made a 'historically accurate' French Resistance movie it would either be small groups of Frenchmen meeting up in secret to get drunk and moan about how their GF's dumped them to get absolutely railed by Hans, or depressingly retarded Communist chuds who were certain that this was exactly the kind of crisis their theory said was needed as the preparation for the revolution. Also nothing bar the drinking/moaning nothing would happen in the film until British intelligence agents arrived and actually got them working.
>>64331136been reading French Resistance biographies, have you?
>>64331131Blanket statements about europoor countries are dumb m8.Just become we have some high profile retards in the EU doesn’t mean all of us are retarded with money.Anyway if your government is shit at spending money, that likely means you have retards running your country.But if retards are running the country, that in turn means that a significant chunk of the voting population is retarded.My guess is that for the US this is caused by the fact that boomers are old (major cognitive decline) and you have a shitton of various browns on top.
>>64325764>germany kept over a million men in the west,so what? the ussr had a bunch of people in the far east>the UK intelligence apparatusyou bring this up as if the USA and USSR didn't have massive spy networks of their own. e.g. operation citadel was also leaked to the ussr by the lucy spy ring.
>>64331139You can get most of this from looking at the debate between the Brits and Americans about whether to arm the French resistance fighters or not. America pointed out basically the points I made there, and decided that it just wasn't worth the materials or factory space needed to arm them, Britain pointed out that they could get their own intelligence/special forces types to train and run the resistance on the ground - and that was just enough justification for America to produce the FP45 'Liberator' to arm the Frenchies with, AKA the single shittiest firearm ever actually designed and formally adopted anywhere. If you haven't read up on this why do you have an opinion on it?
>>64331144>Blanket statements about europoor countries are dumb m8.oh, it's not a blanket statement, I have the figures(anyone can see them, they're published openly)decades of blind Keynesianism has placed us solidly in Soviet planned-economy territory, and we are headed straight for 1994 Russia>your governmentours, anon, ours>a significant chunk of the voting population is retardedthey are indeed>and you have a shitton of various browns on topthis goes without saying>this is caused by the fact that boomers are old (major cognitive decline) it's caused by the fact that three decades of Keynesianism, Fukuyamaism, and whatever the opposite of Euroskepticism is - pan-Europeanism? - in the West have completely brainwashed the millennial generation, and I mean that in the best possible wayI really mean it when I say go back to neoclassical economic thought, go back to Gen X and boomer conservative concepts, because the pendulum has swung way way waaaay too far
>>64331151it was a compliment, anon, because I thought you had been.>girlfriend is having an affair with dashing successful rival Resistance fighter, jealous boyfriend calls the Gestapo>rival Commie and Republican French Maquis call the Gestapo on each otherliterally happened
>>64331147>so what?thats a tangible contribution of the UK to the allied war effortthats about 20% of the entire german army being diverted away from the eastern front and that was before they actually invaded, doubling up german involvement to more than 2.5M, at the time of the surrender, german forces were roughly 50/50 split between east and west>you bring this up as if the USA and USSR didn't have massive spy networks of their ownbut the UK contribution to overall allied intelligence is noteworthy, more than either the US or the USSRthe soviets moved 20 divisions away from siberia because they were tipped off by the british that the japanese had no plans to attack the USSR, opening up more manpowerto say the british didnt contribute anything is just absurd
>>64331161>literally happenedIt absolutely did, and it's probably the less retarded/disgusting stuff that was going on socially in occupied France during the war. Just look at the horror show that erupted after liberation there, where French women were branded traitors for their relationships with German soldiers and publicly humiliated, beaten, and more than a few of them were murdered. Apologies for not recognising the compliment - it can be easy to forget that those exist here.
>>64325764>germany kept over a million men in the west, even before overlordtry 2.5 million1 million manning the AA belt alone1 million on the Westwall and held in reserve to crush the beach-head0.5 million in Italythe massive resources sucked up by the anti-bomber forces is hard to grasp until you think about what an additional 1 million men and say 20,000 anti-tank guns could have done on the Eastern Frontof course, Soviet propaganda deliberately ignores this element, to this day
>>64331167>French women were branded traitors for their relationships with German soldiers and publicly humiliated, beaten, and more than a few of them were murderedI used to think, serve the bitches rightthen I read about the Maquis inaction, and the insistence to this day that France was "at peace" with the Germansthen I realised that the French were bullying those girls for doing what they had essentially done themselves, politically instead of sexually, and were taking out their frustrations on the girlsas a young French girl, what are you supposed to think? everyone around you says the war is over, this is the new normal, all the village mayors and civic leaders are cooperating with the Germans, fewer than a hundred thousand die-hards have joined the Free French and the Maquis, most of them African colonists. very well then, new normal it is.then comes 1944 and suddenly you're the traitor.>ApologiescheersI could have worded that more emphatically
>>64331136>the French all loved the Germans just look at how they fought at the furher bunker>they fought at the furher because the free French would hang them if they surrendered>your shitjust do the gene pool a favor and go fuck a porcupine
But what about the Frenchmen that slept with the German soldiers?
>>64331175>0.5 million in Italyeven after disarming the italian army, only about 10% of them volunteered to keep fighting for the italian puppet-stateso about 600k italian troops were partial losses, only good for low-skilled labor, and the other half ended up as total losses in allied handsso only a tiny fraction of the 2.5M potential men of the italians were actually still useable past 1943while the italians were always a second banana to the germans, losing 2 million men is still a huge blow to their manpower
>>64331089Pretty much. Just another anti-anglo seethe thread.
>>64325081>Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSRYes? Ignoring that the UK was all alone until USA joined when Japan went retard, the UK broke the Enigma code and that was vital in getting USSR out of the situation. In fact, when Stalingrad was won, Stalin refused to believe the information the British gave him going>Yeah do this and you'll destroy three German armiesAnd they only acted on this when their 'spies' (which were known agents) 'stole' (allowed to take) the exact same information the British gave over freely to USSR (Stalin was a typical Russian - yes I know he was Georgian - in that he didn't trust the Anglo, even though he constantly got given it for free and then had his 'spies' steal the exact same information).Ignoring, additionally, that the only reason Moscow didn't fall was the Bongs gave hundreds of tanks and aircraft to the USSR to hold them off (plus ammo, fuel, trucks, guns, etc) and the Bongs started ANOTHER war just to open up a trade route to USSR, the USSR only managed to push the Germans out because of American and British equipment. Without that, USSR would have probably been pushed back to the Urals.
>>64326465Remember that time in 1944 that De'Gaul, whose entire army was supplied by the US and equipped with us gear, threatened to turn his army and all the French partisans on his British, American, and other nationality allies if they did not feed men into the meat grinder to defend his strategically unimportant "sacred town"? Alsace, iirc.
>>64331345>political leaders are concerned about political thingshe opposed the abandonment of Strasbourg during the Ardenne offensive. the city was being held by French troops under American command.it might have been the military prudent thing to do in order to straighten the lines.but would have been a major blow to French morale and could have toppled his government that was barely able to keep France together between the bombed out infrastructure, lack of food and large communist presence.it would have meant addressing the line to free up a divisions or two. but in turn risking your whole rear going to shit
Yes, given that if Hitler had been a little less merciful he could have potentially used England as a hostage to the Americans
>>64331163> the soviets moved 20 divisions away from siberia because they were tipped off by the britishNo, that was Richard Sorge’s doing. He was a soviet spy in Japan.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sorge>Sorge advised the Red Army on 14 September that Japan would not attack the Soviet Union until:>Moscow had been captured.>The Kwantung Army had become three times the size of Soviet Far Eastern forces.>A civil war had started in Siberia.(Also apparently the ussr cracked Japanese codes too, per the article)
>>64331252I meant 0.5 million Wehrmachtthere were more Axis Italians, about the same number I believe (not sure)
>>64329019>(lack) of backbone as today's bongsThe bongalinglongs have literally been leading the opposition to the appeasement of Russia
>>64331609yeah, just thought it was worth mentioning the manpower cost of losing italy was way bigger than just the number of germans sent to defend it>about the same number I believetotal size of the italian army was about 2.5M in 1943the germans got about 600k in prisoners after disarming the italian army, about 300k were able to hold out in southern italy and met up with the alliesabout 100k ended up on the frontline for either sideand 200k were already relocated to the eastern front prior and around 200k were killed or captured across both frontsthat leaves about 1M italians unaccounted for, but they most likely didnt help the germans in any way
>>64325081>Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSR?Yes>Was Italy as crucial as Germany and Japan?No
With reference to the Soviet Union's contribution, there is no doubt their meat waves were instrumental to Germany's defeat. However, modern Russian propaganda significantly underplays the enabling effect of the allies' aid. Ask any vatnik or one of their useful idiots on /pol/ about the subject and they will tell you with a straight face that the aid had a negligible effect and that the tide had all ready turned when the aid arrived. This is what they are taught. Their own men of the time tell a very different story:>Stalin: "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war ....The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.">Khrushchev: "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war,">Zhukov: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
>>64325958Oh the paper cope. Those things never existed it was Soviet efficiency.
>>64325093>france was running an insurgency that was workingmyth, more troops fought the british in syria and joined the waffen ss then there were members in the french resistance
>>64331688yepeven given the absolute best estimates of Soviet motorisation at the time, at least 40%, most likely more, of the Soviet truck-borne logistics were American and British trucks. and Soviet trucks were smaller so at least half of the Red Army's total truck cargo capacity was Western-builtand something like 90% of Soviet locomotives were American, and you know how utterly dependent Russians are on locomotives for offensives to this very day
>>64325081Seething about Britain just identified you as either a failed western male or an actual brownoid. It is the same thing Warriortard did to get everyone laughed at him.
>>64331730>even given the absolute best estimates of Soviet motorisation at the time, at least 40%, most likely more, of the Soviet truck-borne logistics were American and British truckstotal production was 60% domestic, 30% imported, and 10% lootedthats still a lot, the germans considered themselves terminally dependent on looted vehicles despite also only using 10% despite making up 2/3rds of all soviet truck production, the GAZ-MM was considered near-useless and was officially classified as a reserve vehicle after 1943 despite being their most numerous truck>omething like 90% of Soviet locomotives were American90% of wartime production was lend-lease, but pre-war production was still the bulk of their trains, since they built hundreds of thousands prior to the war compared to tens of thousands delivered
>>64331839>vatniks still seething and shitting themselves whenever someone points out they only “won” WWII because of British and American trucks
>>64325081>Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSR? Was Italy as crucial as Germany and Japan?AS crucial? Maybe not. But still crucial for sure.You forget that bongs and dagos fought each other, if either is missing, that's a whole front that goes uncontested and therefore a shitload of resources getting reallocated somewhere else.
>>64325081>Was Italy as crucialFor Allies lmao
>>64331839>total production was 60% domestic, 30% imported, and 10% lootedWhich years are included? 1942-1945 soviet production seems to be around 200,000 trucks. Not sure about the actual US number sent but it seems to be similar to Soviet production. Did the British send a significant number of trucks?
>>64331198Yeah, exactly. It's one of the reasons that I'm happy to study the period, learn about it, and play around with ideas of how things might have been done differently - but still very glad that I don't have to actually live through it in person. >>64331220The French SS 'Charlemagne' legion were not forcibly conscripted 'slave troops'; they were eager volunteers that the Germans decided were 'Germanic enough' and politically orthodox enough to serve as an SS Auslander Division. They fought, happily and enthusiastically , alongside their brothers in the SS. Large numbers of French troops, and civilian authorities/services/civilians, were happy enough to work with and for the Germans during the war. German troops left their barracks alone to walk, unarmed, through French towns and villages to visit their French girlfriends and take her out for the night. France was either conquered territory or a German cobelligerent. If it was conquered territory none of the above would have happened. As a German cobelligerent (what their legitimate government of the time said they were, read something more in depth than a facebook meme) they had no reason to expect any different treatment from the rest of their SS brothers.You don't have any point to make here, you just seem to be butthurt for no particular reason.
>>64325081>Was Britain actually as crucial to the Allies' war effort as the US and USSR?Without Britain as a land-based "aircraft carrier" and mustering point for invasion forces retaking Europe from the west would have been impossible, and that would not have been available had Britain not broken the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain (before the US joined in) and subsequently been invaded.The arctic convoys kept Russia supplied, so without them the Russians would also have struggled. Again, without Britain as an off-shore harbour, staging arctic convoys would have been next to impossible.
>>64332289you raised a point I didn't think about>Newfoundland to Murmansk convoys>New York to Normandy Overlord>New York to Berlin bombing missions>at least 2000 carrier fighters to even begin whittling down the Luftwaffe fighter force, prior to invasionphysically impossible for the time, I think
>>64325725>Right because it’s a settled question. the USSR was responsible for ~80% of nazis killed and the usa basically soloed japan.Because the Ostfront was just a 1v1 between Germany and the Soviet Union and not Germany and some minor powers against the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the USA.
>>64332323>>64332289(cont)And when you consider the USSR, their equipment was definitely poor compared to the US, or Britain, and certainly the German's. Russia did have the advantage of a huge land mass, where they could manufacture armaments safe from the Germans (unlike all the factories in Britain that were regularly bombed), the Russians also has huge numbers of poorly trained and equipped soldiers, so they could use the "human wave" approach (as they are still doing in Ukraine to this very day). They also had Russia's number 1 ally - winter. Just as Napoleon found out, a small, fast, superbly trained army soon struggles in the depths of a Russian winter. Add to that a massive degree of German over-confidence (and a completely mad CiC), and you end up with the retreat from Moscow in 1941.
The British Empire was the only power I can think of that fought in a war on the side of the other powers whose goal was to abolish it. Quite impressive historically in that sense.
>>64332509To use a quote from the time >"If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the house". >t. Churchill when it was pointed out that they would be helping the USSR in the war.
>>64325725>the USSR was responsible for ~80% of nazis killedVatniks only use the Nazis Killed figure; this is cherrypicking because they know if one included the POW figures (as one should, when calculating casualties inflicted) then the numbers for East and West are roughly equal, because the Allies captured as many Nazis as the Russians killedDon't be a vatnik
>>64332241you confuse being occupied and a pert of the population collaborating with the whole society being in league with the occupying force.you do this because your country hasn't been occupied and you do this to the french because you have a dislike for them.not because it is abnormal, not because it is cowardly or stupid. it is what happens when a population gets occupied.it happened in the rest of Europe, it happened in Asia heck it even happened on the channel islands.but to you it only happened in france because you dislike them. it's just so petty and above all stupid because it forces you to dumb things down to a black and a white when the reality of it is mix of greys
>>64331271>Ignoring that the UK was all alone until USA joined when Japan went retard,US was supplying the UK, sharing tech and intel, training UK pilots, fixing their warships, escorting their merchant ships, occupying neutral countries to help the UK, and building air bases in Britain all before 12/7/1941.
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