What if WW2 never happened?

[Cloudman1961]

Think of the films we’d never have had!

 

Great Escape, Dambusters, Where Eagles Dare...

 

Casablanca!

[GrimReaper09]

Would the RAF even still exist as separate entity if WW2 had not occurred?

 

1.1 million is a huge force and could not be disbanded after victories like BoB. But if that never happened, would they have just been dissolved back into the British Army and Royal Navy, especially with naval power maintaining it's position as the UK's premier force prior to WW2?

 

 

[PLC1966]

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper09 said:

Would the RAF even still exist as separate entity if WW2 had not occurred?

 

1.1 million is a huge force and could not be disbanded after victories like BoB. But if that never happened, would they have just been dissolved back into the British Army and Royal Navy, especially with naval power maintaining it's position as the UK's premier force prior to WW2?

 

 

No war with a shrinking Empire, Defence budget will have shrunk to a minimum.  Maybe the Army disbanded and their Regiments absorbed into the RM to provide an expeditionary force.  RAF would carry out the mid-war years Policing policy by blowing up the villages type of role. 

 

 

[GrimReaper09]

1 minute ago, PLC1966 said:

No war with a shrinking Empire, Defence budget will have shrunk to a minimum.  Maybe the Army disbanded and their Regiments absorbed into the RM to provide an expeditionary force.  RAF would carry out the mid-war years Policing policy by blowing up the villages type of role. 

 

 

Brave call thinking the army would disband!  But the policing mission makes sense, especially as there's no saying when the Empire would have shrunk as we wouldn't have had the debt of WW2 for a start.

 

Just think of all the units and Sqns that never formed. No 617 or 303 Sqn, no Parachute Regt or SAS, at least in that name. 

[PLC1966]

1 hour ago, Cloudman1961 said:

1 hour ago, GrimReaper09 said:

Brave call thinking the army would disband!  But the policing mission makes sense, especially as there's no saying when the Empire would have shrunk as we wouldn't have had the debt of WW2 for a start.

 

Just think of all the units and Sqns that never formed. No 617 or 303 Sqn, no Parachute Regt or SAS, at least in that name. 

Aargh yes, all those Cap badges to protect 😉

 

[Cloudman1961]

2 hours ago, GrimReaper09 said:

Would the RAF even still exist as separate entity if WW2 had not occurred?

 

1.1 million is a huge force and could not be disbanded after victories like BoB. But if that never happened, would they have just been dissolved back into the British Army and Royal Navy, especially with naval power maintaining it's position as the UK's premier force prior to WW2?

 

 

RAF was established in 1918 wasn’t it?? So I think yes it would. But the whole issue of why Bomber Command was the only British WW2 unit that wasn’T recognised after the war wouldn’t have happened.

 

 

[Cloudman1961]

The tension in the world started in the early 30s - and people think it started with Hitler in 1939. Some suggest that the reality was that the World War started in when the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1933 (I think) and then the Spanish Civil War.

 

Its certainly true that the war accelerated the development of aircraft and military vehicles.

 

Consider 16 major spitfire variants and the evolution of the hurricane through to the Tempest.

 

In 1939 the German panzers were primarily mk3s and some 4s, 6 years later they were building prototype monsters like the Maus.

 

 

[Procopius]

6 hours ago, GrimReaper09 said:

Would the RAF even still exist as separate entity if WW2 had not occurred?

 

1.1 million is a huge force and could not be disbanded after victories like BoB. But if that never happened, would they have just been dissolved back into the British Army and Royal Navy, especially with naval power maintaining it's position as the UK's premier force prior to WW2?

 

 

If not for the approach of World War II, the Royal Navy wouldn't even have the Fleet Air Arm. That was controlled by the RAF during the interwar period until 1939. 

[Giorgio N]

11 hours ago, Cloudman1961 said:

The tension in the world started in the early 30s - and people think it started with Hitler in 1939. Some suggest that the reality was that the World War started in when the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1933 (I think) and then the Spanish Civil War.

 

Its certainly true that the war accelerated the development of aircraft and military vehicles.

 

Consider 16 major spitfire variants and the evolution of the hurricane through to the Tempest.

 

In 1939 the German panzers were primarily mk3s and some 4s, 6 years later they were building prototype monsters like the Maus.

 

 

 

We may say in a sense that tension started even earlier, like 1918

The number of small and less small conflicts that afflicted for example Eastern Europe and other areas of the world since the end of WW1 are generally very little known in the West but several of them played a part in the events that led to WW2. Sometime I feel that WW1 and WW2 were just the first and second half of the same game..

[Col.]

4 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

...Sometime I feel that WW1 and WW2 were just the first and second half of the same game..

That's a good way to put it Giorgio; a continuation with some players swapping sides.

 

Personally I think a Second World War of some form was unavoidable within this period due to the empire-building program many powerful nations were indulging in. There was always going to be a major clash somewhere eventually.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Col.

[PhoenixII]

14 hours ago, Procopius said:

If not for the approach of World War II, the Royal Navy wouldn't even have the Fleet Air Arm. That was controlled by the RAF during the interwar period until 1939. 

RAF control of the FAA ended in 1934. Coastal Command was a direct result of this, as when someone woke up, it was realised there was nobody guarding the coast and so was born the Cinderella Service.

Paul

Coastal Command SIG.

[PLC1966]

Arguably the Allies not going right through Germany in 1918 as suggested by the Cousins is possibly the reason for WW2.  But I believe that the shooty bit of WW2 certainly started with the Japanese and Chinese in 1931.  But there were a lot of vested interests in the 30's.  Germany certainly were always going to go for Russia, and Russia for Germany.  The US planned for War with the Japanese, and the Japanese were almost certainly playing for time the moment they launched the assault on Pearl Harbour.  The Brits would not have accepted the Germans building an Empire and the French would have been no keener to see it.  The Italians were trying to build an Empire in Africa in a similar way they had witnessed other nations do so around the world and frankly had Hitler got a bloody nose earlier in the war they would have stayed neutral.  

 

All in all, a right biggers muddle waiting to explode.

[Procopius]

5 hours ago, PhoenixII said:

RAF control of the FAA ended in 1934. Coastal Command was a direct result of this, as when someone woke up, it was realised there was nobody guarding the coast and so was born the Cinderella Service.

No, that's wrong, I'm sorry. The Royal Navy didn't receive full administrative control of the Fleet Air Arm from the RAF until 24 May 1939. This process began in 1934 when the Danby Fleet Air Arm Committee was formed under Admiral C F S Danby, a former captain of HMS Furious, which recommended the end of the existing "dual control" system, leading to the full Board of the Admiralty to re-open their quest to gain sole control over the FAA in May of 1935. Geoffrey Till's book Air Power and the Royal Navy 1914-1945, A Historical Survey, goes into some detail about the administrative processes that lead to this. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

17 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Sometime I feel that WW1 and WW2 were just the first and second half of the same game..

110% agree.

 

On 2/14/2019 at 4:56 PM, Cloudman1961 said:

Some suggest that the reality was that the World War started in when the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1933 (I think) and then the Spanish Civil War.

Dont forget the Italian/Ethiopian war in 1935. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War

 

Another vicious inter-war war. 

[Col.]

Hmm, how about this for an alternative; Hitler anexes Austria then takes Poland and Czechosolvakia but rather than then turning his attentions west decides to keep moving east into Russia. Japan seizes the opportunity to revisit Vladivostok and begins moving west. What would the other nations of Western Europe and the US then do?

[Abandoned Project]

For Hitler to not turn west, would that not require Britain to not send help to Poland? 

Interesting idea of the Soviet Union in a two front war.

If Stalin went west first perhaps Germany could have had France and Britain as allies, especially if they were not under Hitler's control.

Edited February 16, 2019 by dadofthree

[JohnT]

On 15/02/2019 at 10:08, Giorgio N said:

 Sometime I feel that WW1 and WW2 were just the first and second half of the same game..

Giorgio you are keeping good company. That’s a view you share with one Mr Ferdinand Foch, or I should say Marshal?  

 

Of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles he said “This is not a peace. It s an armistice for twenty years”. How accurate was that assessment !

[JohnT]

18 hours ago, PhoenixII said:

RAF control of the FAA ended in 1934. Coastal Command was a direct result of this, as when someone woke up, it was realised there was nobody guarding the coast and so was born the Cinderella Service.

Paul

Coastal Command SIG.

Paul, at the risk of stoking controversy wasn’t guarding the coast the navy’s job 

agree poor Coastal Command was treated as the runts of the litter which for an island country is bonkers. 

[Abandoned Project]

1 hour ago, JohnT said:

Giorgio you are keeping good company. That’s a view you share with one Mr Ferdinand Foch, or I should say Marshal?  

 

Of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles he said “This is not a peace. It s an armistice for twenty years”. How accurate was that assessment !

Armistice - an agreement made by opposing sides in a war to stop fighting for a certain time; a truce.

Not peace, just a pause.

 

[Cloudman1961]

6 hours ago, Col. said:

Hmm, how about this for an alternative; Hitler anexes Austria then takes Poland and Czechosolvakia but rather than then turning his attentions west decides to keep moving east into Russia. Japan seizes the opportunity to revisit Vladivostok and begins moving west. What would the other nations of Western Europe and the US then do?

 

Had Britain not declared war, would the western front ever have happened? And why were we silent after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, but decided to go to war over Poland? Answer - because Hitler made Chamberlain look like an idiot over the Munich crisis. Western Europe was in full appeasement mode. Had Japan invaded Eastern Soviet Union, we would probably have objected but little else. The same applies to further German expansion eastwards. 

 

The US was fully isolationist and didn’t start supporting the Western Allies with things like lend lease until late 1940/1941. They entered the War in the Pacific in response to Pearl Harbour, and the War in Europe because Hitler declared war on the US.

 

It’s highly unlikely that the Allied countries would have done anything to support the Soviet Union had it been attacked by Germany from the west and japan from the east other than express concern. 

 

(In my humble opinion, of course.)

 

 

[PhoenixII]

7 hours ago, JohnT said:

Paul, at the risk of stoking controversy wasn’t guarding the coast the navy’s job 

agree poor Coastal Command was treated as the runts of the litter which for an island country is bonkers. 

Ahh, yes, with a caveat! That being air power.  Which must be  available in greater numbers and is better than the other blokes. The Royal Navy, for want of a better phrase, were and are a 'Blue water' Navy, i.e. deep water. What was needed was something along the lines of the U.S. Riverine force or a 'Brown water' Navy. However you still need Air power to protect it which the RAF manned and run 'FAA' had been doing (?) until control reverted to their Battleships at the Admiralty.

 

Coastal's 'nick name' has been attributed to one of the early commanders of the service, due to receiving everybody else's castoff's. May have been born a runt, but if sheer guts and determination count for anything the command turned out to be a thoroughbred.

You have to remember, as we're an Island Nation, with little or no AEW etc. etc. the lesson has yet to be learned......

[Giorgio N]

On 2/16/2019 at 9:16 AM, Col. said:

Hmm, how about this for an alternative; Hitler anexes Austria then takes Poland and Czechosolvakia but rather than then turning his attentions west decides to keep moving east into Russia. Japan seizes the opportunity to revisit Vladivostok and begins moving west. What would the other nations of Western Europe and the US then do?

 

We know that Germany in 1939 was not ready to attack the Soviet Union yet, reason why this didn't happen. Of course being in whif territory we can suppose that Germany was ready, in this case I doubt that the Western countries would have let lt Hitler do it without consequences.

France for example saw Germany as a threat in those same years, and they would have sure seen the danger of Hitler taking Moscow. Imagine what Germany could have done with the natural resources of the Soviet Union in their hands and with the possibility of having factories well beyond the range of any conceivable enemy bomber...

The French would have likely seen a German attack to the Soviet Union as a good occasion to attack Germany, and I can see how Britain could have easily convinced to join.

In the end it would have been a two front war as it was in reality, just with different starting points and likely a different evolution. The final result would have most likely still been the defeat of Germany