Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Just some random points.

The Allies had already landed in this hypothetical scenario. Perhaps the Germans are following Guderian's advice to allow the Allied Armies to advance inland before counter-attacking. This would hopefully replicate for them the huge encirclements achieved in Russia.

Unfortunately this is one of the few times I agree entirely with Rommel the allies needed to be thrown back from the beaches, if they managed to get established ashore then it was all over but the shouting for the Germans.

The Luftwaffe is quite a bit stronger than historically. The Luftwaffe has very little strategic bombing capability to speak of, but it probably has, man for man, the best CAS and Air Superiority capability in the world. It certainly has the most seasoned pilots.

To be perfectly honest I doubt that even had the Luftwaffe had all the resources of 1939-1941 at its disposal they would have been able to match the shear numbers and relatively even quality of the allied airforces.
The RAF by this stage had already been through the Battle of Britain and was probably as experienced as the Luftwaffe pilots and both the RAF and USAF were producing aircraft that were technically as good as the Luftwaffe by 1943-44.

It has been argued that strategic bombing is only truly effective on an already defeated opponent. In this scenario that is far from the case.

This bit is possible however by 1944 the allied bombers are being escorted all the way to Berlin by P51D's which is the equal of any German fighter so in reality the Luftwaffe would have had a serious problem trying to regain any air superiority in western europe.

If entire US Armies are cut off in the field and destroyed, will that affect US public opinion at home to 'bring the boys home'?

I think this scenario would have simply pissed them off more and ended up in Hitler receiving a nuke as soon as it was available.

Likewise, if UK Armies are similarly destroyed, will Churchill be overthrown and say someone like Lord Halifax appointed who would secure a separate peace with Hitler?

1941 - 42 maybe but 1944 not a chance the war had gone on too long and the British had survived too much by then to simply say screw it and give in.

If the Wehrmacht is gradually pushed back to Berlin and eventually loses, the casualties for the Western Armies will probably be much higher than historically.

I have no doubt this would have been the case and personally given this scenario and a successful attempt on Hitlers life I think a negotiated peace may have been possible but once the allies were on the ground and established in France I dont believe the Germans could have won.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

One thing to consider is that, although Germany could not have retaliated with nuclear weapons, they could have with chemical weapons. Germany in 1945 had a 12,000 tonnes Sarin and a 12,000 tonnes Tabun production capacity per year. With this amount of potential chemical agent they could have literally poisoned the British Isles. They also had the delivery systems in place with their V2 and V3 rockets. The Western Allies would be very aware of this as their intelligence was much better than that of Germany's and I think they'd be hesitant to escalate any conflict to a nuclear one for fear of chemical retaliation. There was no effective antidote for nerve weapons available to the Western Allies and any deployment of nerve gas would IMO devastate the UK.

So IMO forget about this conflict turning into a WMD one. Both sides are well aware that they cannot escalate for fear of devastating reprisals.

Germany would have needed much of its forces to garrison a defeated USSR.

They would have needed a very strong airforce to defeat the allies.

I am not sure the US would have used nuclear weapons on the german people. Hitler would have had to have made a strong threat first.

Good points though Dopps.

Maybe a stalemate in Europe.

Germany would always have lost due to sheer weight of numbers of the people against them. There was talk on this thread about the German fighter the Me 262, well the Gloucester Meteor was in action during 1944 and gets very Little credit for it's work. several Squadrons of the the Meteor were station in Belgium in late 1944 at the Americans request to escort their bombers and protect them from the 262. Now the 262 I think was a better design than the Meteor but the Meteor had far better engines and in 1945 was clocking up 600 mph plus. As far as I can tell these jet planes never met in combat so any comparison is just a persons personal view and their knowledge about the planes, and every one seems to know far more about the 262 than the Meteor.
Doppleganger also brought up about chemical warfare, well Britain had perfected the Anthrax bombs back in 1940, these had been tested on a small island just of the Scottish coast they were so successful that this island remained closed to people till the 1990's when the whole surface of the island was cleared put into containers and taken away, even so visiting this place is still restricted. After testing these weapons it was made clear to Hitler that if he went down this path and bombed Britain with any thing than conventional weapons then these bombs would cover Germany and make it impossible for any one to live there for many years in the future.