Did America win the war for the Allies in WW2?

Originally posted by Beylerbeyi A-bombs were irrelevant to the outcome of the war. Both Germany and Japan surrendered for different reasons. US defeated Japan but USSR defeated the nazis. USSR would have defeated them with or without US or even UK. What's more, Soviet contribution to the surrender of Japan is far more than the American contribution to the surrender of Germany.   USSR out-produced the nazis by more than 100%. It is, in one word, ridiculous to claim that the US should get the credit for this.

And how about Chinese?

Thanks for the questions. I know it looks like I'm showing partiality to the US and it seems that other forces were insignificant. There is nothing further from the truth. I already acknowledge various "what if" scenarios where Russia would have either slowed or even won the war without the US. However, it was, and is most likely that US involvement did turn the tide. None of the theaters were "insignificant". Let's not think of this hypotheical thread as one which produces inferior armies or nations but, instead, one that produces practical speculation.

Edited by Seko - 21-Oct-2008 at 20:32

In order to get the idea who did more fighting one just needs to look at the statistics.

Originally posted by Sarmat12 In order to get the idea who did more fighting one just needs to look at the statistics. The numbers of Nazists destroyed by the Red Army far exceeds those defeated by the US.   So, all the sophisticated logistical maneuvers doesn't change much in this regard.   Also, the effort and sacrifce that the US put into the war were huge,  but definitely not as huge as those of the USSR.

ok first lets pick a fight with gcle

the two ships that save malta were the uss wasp and the ss ohio (the largest tanker on the seas, manned by brits but made in usa)

anyway without the help of the us navy, usaf and ships made in usa, england was as good as starving, no way to win the battle of the atlantic. imagine the uk surrounded by uboats, malta would have been the least of their problems

without the shermans, stuarts, p40s etc, i don't see how monty would have won at the alamein (dear ol monty lost in excess of 500 tanks in a week)

ok now lets agree on something, we are talking possibilities here. yes, the uk and su may have won on their own but the us contribution may have been critical. the question being how big are these mays?

first question: would the uk been able to build the bomb before germany? gcle seems sure it could. i'm not, remember that germany had heavy water that could help make one or two small bombs. i'd say the jury's out

second issue, could the allies replace the us by other countries. ie buying what they couldn't produce? no, no and no: not enough money, beside you don't turn brazil into an industrial super power in three years

thirdly would the uk be forced to pull out without the us aid to ship food and military stuff on the island. i tend to think it is the case. i'm easily 75% sure

fourth and most important, would su still be able to defeat the nazis? it's likely, but it might well have been more difficult and there is remote but existing possibility for a stalemate china v jap style, too big to fail but too weak to win. here is why:
1 even if three fourth of the nazi troops were  fighting in russia, it does not reflects the importance (or lack thereof) since a large portion of the luftwaffe as also in the west defebding germany and the hundreds of uboats built count also for something. luftwaffe and kriegsmarine were capital-intensive so comparing in terms of men engaged makes little sense but in terms of resources, i wouldn't be surprised if a good 30 to 40% were actually devoted to fight the western allies.
not forgetting the various losses caused by the usaf and raf and the western conquests
the chronology presented supra makes clear that the us aid may not have pulled such a heavy weight from the soviet shoulders as i initially thought. doesn't mean either it was useless.
plus several other arguments stated supra

all that to say that without the us, hitler had a good shot at the uk and a chance to aim for a positive stalemate with russia. doesn't the war would have reached this end for sure, but it is a possibility that can't be discarded

Pretty good speculative hindsight dear Maharbbal.

Originally posted by Chilbudios Originally posted by pikeshot1600 The Red Army had virtually no effect on the Pacific war.  The operations in Manchuria were "carcass picking" over a Japanese Empire that was already toast.  Their effort was to secure as much influence in east Asia as possible, no less than the US wanting to head off the USSR in central Europe. Perhaps not to the same extent, but similarly one would say of US' actions in Europe. I asked earlier in the thread what if no USSR? How would D-Day look like? (if any could exist in such circumstances). I'm not sure if Sarmat is right about those 75%, anyway I'm sure a great deal of Nazi's losses and costs were against USSR. If there was no USSR, who'd have taken those bullets? And how would have Nazi defenses look like against an Allied attack? Imagine more soldiers, more planes, more anti-air defenses, more artilleries, more tanks, more ammunition, better morale, everything. More as in possibly hundreds percents more.   Originally posted by Gundamor Also over 2million Japanese were killed so it wasn't just the nazis in world war 2. If I'm not mistaken, significantly more Axis soldiers died on the Eastern front. Of course, it was another type of war, but nevertheless.

careful sarmat you aremistaking somewhere in your appreciation. What mattered was not the sacrifice (input) but the results (output). The fact that millions of Russians died during the conflict is very relevant on a human and social and morale point of view but of no interest for the outcome of the war.

You can't say that the Soviet contribution was 40 times more important than the American one because they lost about 40 times more people in the conflict.

In the same way as killing 1 Japanese soldier may not be the same as killing one German soldier. Lets admit that the latter is 50% better armed and better trained (ie more expensive) than the former, then 1 Japanese soldier = 0.66 German soldier.On the other hand if logistically it was 100% more difficult to bring a Japanese soldier to the frontline, then 1 Japanese soldier = 1.3 German soldier. So comparing the output in terms of nuber of enemies killed is less obvious a solution than it may seem.

@ Sarmat

sorry just followed your link and ... I respectfully beg to differ karasho.

The Russian GDP (is it a good mesure of Industrial output?) fell by 25% from 1938 to 1942 and had hardly recovered in 1944. On the other hand, the US GDP kept rising at 9.26% annual average).

When it comes to production, well true enough the SU outproduced the US in some key products (tanks, artillery) but the US outproduced the Soviets in all the other fields often by a 1 to 10 factor. It produced a huge effort in some stuff the SU never even dream to produce (22 aircarft carriers). This page makes clear that the industrial output of the US was significantly higher than the Russian one.