Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Ice Player
And I say the Soviet Union would have been defeated were it not for second fronts opened in Noth Africa by the Western Allies, not to mention the defacto second front that was the Allied bombing campaign as well as massive material support for the Soviets from the West. It was that close. If the Battle of Stalingrad goes the other way, the Soviets lose the war. WWII was a group effort that required the participation of the US, due to their massive industrial infrastructure.
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I have to completely disagree with you here, the N African campaign was a side show for Germany, the Afrika Korp was a tiny force given mostly obsolete tanks to fight the equally obsolete 7th armoured, it made no difference either way to the Russian campaign and was withdrawn by '43.
The allied bombing campaign up to 1943 was costing us more than it was the germans, it wasn't until the Mustang arrived that it really started to take up German resources, and bear in mind that under Speer German production actually went up in 44.
Had the battle of Stalingrad 'gone the other way' Germany would have held onto a bombed out city on the western banks of the Volga while the USSR would still have had the capacity to build an arm a million men a year, Stalingrad was never in the balance, Stalin had several armies in reserve to encircle the Germans throughout the battle, in fact the only way the Germans could in any way 'win' the battle would have been to withdraw to the Dniester before being trapped.
Left on their own the USSR would have still beaten Hitler, it might have taken a year or so longer but the end was inevitable.